Gavin WintersThe flaw of course, is the lack of clarity over what’s happened to the Doctor. Affected by Crozier’s machine? Playing along as a ruse? Faked Matrix evidence? Or a mix of all three? By all accounts Colin wasn’t properly informed which it was, never mind the viewers. #DoctorWho
And just as the Sixth Doctor was calming down too. After a terrible start in Twin Dilemma, gradually becoming less acerbic in season 22, then finally having a decent relationship with Peri, they throw this massive spanner in and make him (apparently) a monster. Sigh. #DoctorWho
Even knowing how they’ll backtrack over it in a few weeks, the ending is still incredible and packs a hell of a punch, plus it gives Nicola Bryant some of the best material she’s had to work with.
Kind of glad they did change it though, and it wasn’t Peri’s final end. #DoctorWho
Terror Of The Vervoids: an awkward debut for Mel, just suddenly there with no proper intro, with a character who’s little more than “fitness fanatic”. And Pip & Jane’s ludicrous dialogue doesn’t help.
On the plus side, they did write this season’s best cliffhangers. #DoctorWho
The dirty towels on the spaceship are *pulverised*, in a massive machine, and ejected into space??
Don’t they have washing machines in the 30th century? #DoctorWho
Very few Sixth Doctor stories don’t feature or mention some “old acquaintance” of the Doctor. Here we get two - the Commodore and the investigator Hallett. The little we see of Hallett doesn’t really fit the Doctor’s description of him as some outrageous maverick. #DoctorWho
The fake Mogarian not using his translator is childishly obvious. Probably only there in fact to make kids feel clever by spotting it.
At least the Valeyard’s repetition of the words “arbitrary course” is slightly subtler and easy to miss. #DoctorWho
Lasky and Mel having a good old natter while the Doctor frustratedly fails to join in and show off his knowledge is very funny. The Sixth Doctor really needed FAR more scenes like that - puncture his pomposity and he’d be much more likeable as a result. #DoctorWho
You have to marvel at how the designers of the Vervoids have somehow managed to make them look like ALL the naughty bits simultaneously… #DoctorWho
“…and that concludes the evidence for the defence, in which I committed genocide against an entire species.”
“You did WHAT!”
“Oh bugger…”
The Ultimate Foe: for a story half-written by #DoctorWho’s most revered writer (Holmes) and half by its most reviled (the Bakers), with the differing styles being clear, this ends up working incredibly well.
And given all that was happening behind the scenes, miraculously well.
The way that the revelation of the Valeyard’s true nature is delivered as a casual aside by the Master means that the first time you hear it you have the same reaction as the Doctor: “Did he say what I think he just said?!?” #DoctorWho
These are the best ever Matrix scenes, with the creepy Victorian setting overdubbed with ghostly music, voices and laughter.
Shame Mel’s still not written very well, and as this was recorded first, Bonnie’s still finding her way and playing it very theatrically. #DoctorWho
(Me watching this in 1986)
“What’s that weird stuff behind him, if he’s in his TARDIS?”
(Me watching this in 2023)
“Oh, he’s got a funky Zoom background.”
Is the trial being broadcast on live TV? Hence the report of Gallifrey “descending into chaos” and the High Council being deposed immediately after their crimes have been exposed.
Maybe Runcible survived The Deadly Assassin after all… #DoctorWho
And that’s it. A sad ending for Colin, who’s run was plagued with problems and setbacks throughout, but struggled on regardless. Never mind Col, Big Finish beckons!
“Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice…” #DoctorWho
Time And The Rani: yikes. Well, on the positive side, it’s a slightly better debut than The Twin Dilemma. But still, the “pantomime” criticisms are not unfounded. Too much clowning, too much pratfalling, too much of Mel bloody screaming while rooted to the spot. 🙄 #DoctorWho
The early-CGI title sequence might seem a bit dated now, but I think it should be commended for trying something a bit different from the standard ‘flying through time vortex/starfield’ format that all the others broadly fall into. #DoctorWho
It’s weird how Sylvester somehow manages to pull off ‘that’ outfit better than Colin did. No easy task! #DoctorWho
That idea they had of getting the Seventh Doctor to jumble up famous phrases as part of his new character starts to get old reeeeeallly fast. 🙄 At least it’s dropped pretty soon. #DoctorWho
There was a real sense at this point of #DoctorWho now being completely out of touch, both with its own fans and the general TV audience. Stuck in a niche of JNT campness.
Thankfully Andrew Cartmel has arrived to start dragging it back down to Earth (literally and figuratively).
For no particular reason, here’s a photo from this story that you might like to see. #DoctorWho
Paradise Towers: this is like a strange hybrid of JNT’s camper vision of #DoctorWho and the influences Cartmel was trying to bring in - e.g. contemporary sci-fi novels and comic books.
And its style has echoes in the modern series. A clear ancestor of episodes like Gridlock.
What lets down so much of this season is the design work. So many props and sets have a cheap, plasticky, artificial look to them that makes everything seem like a CBBC production. It’s hard to see past that to the interesting story ideas underneath. #DoctorWho
Richard Briers also seems to think he’s in a production aimed at very young kids, especially once he becomes zombified in part four.
McCoy on the other hand has improved a lot from the previous story and is now playing the Doctor as he will for the rest of his run. #DoctorWho
I like all the effort that went into working out the Kangs lingo - carrydoors and brainquarters and so on, which all makes perfect sense as well as giving a clear impression of how they’ve grown up in this self-contained world. #DoctorWho
I can never decide if the bit where the Doctor escapes by quoting the rule book at the caretakers is either a genius bit of Doctorishness (especially suited to the Seventh)… or too silly for words! #DoctorWho
And finally, a very controversial #DoctorWho opinion… Blue Kangs are best!
Delta And The Bannermen: probably the best of season 24, a rip-roaring fun little adventure that zips along at a very modern pace. Seven’s era has fully arrived now. You can imagine Colin in Time And The Rani… possibly in Paradise Towers, but this is the Real McCoy.🙂 #DoctorWho
Does the TARDIS really need to pass through a toll port in space and pay a fee? Couldn’t it just, you know… dematerialise? 🤷🏻♂️
In fact you’d think most regular spaceships could avoid it too. They don’t really dwell on the logic of how they’d enforce the rule! #DoctorWho
The love triangle between Ray, Billy and Delta is sketched in very quickly and economically, so you know where you are with all three characters after just a few brief scenes in episode one. #DoctorWho
The bounty hunter guy knowing who the Doctor is is like the last lingering element of the previous era, where absolutely bloody everybody knew of the Time Lords and Gallifrey, making for a very small and cramped universe. #DoctorWho
Killing Murray and all the other Navarinos is the one major mis-step. I know we’re supposed to see Gavrok as a ruthless bastard but it feels tonally wrong compared to the rest of the story. #DoctorWho
Goronwy must be the most chilled out character in all of #DoctorWho, completely unphased by a growing alien baby, and not at all bothered by his house being wrecked or his life’s work collecting thousands of jars of honey being destroyed!
Dragonfire: by this point you had the first generation of writers who’d not only grown up with #DoctorWho, but were also influenced by movies of the 70s/80s.
So we get budget versions of the Star Wars cantina… Terminator (Ace’s nitro)… Alien… Raiders for Kane’s melting face…
The Alien(s) pastiche in particular, with the motion detectors strapped to the guns, is perhaps something to NOT attempt with studio lighting brighter than the sun, killing any potential atmosphere or suspense… #DoctorWho
But anyway… Ace! 😃
I like the relationship between those two, especially when she brings out the nitro-flinging anarchist in Mel. Makes me wish Mel had stayed for a longer crossover period between them.
Not something I ever thought I’d say back in 1987! 😆 #DoctorWho
That cliffhanger of the Doctor climbing over the rail and dangling from the umbrella is even more of an odd choice when you think that, at the same time, Ace and Mel are being threatened by the first appearance of the Dragon. A perfectly good cliffhanger right there! #DoctorWho
I love the philosophical guard: “What do you think of the assertion that the semiotic thickness of a performed text varies according to the redundancy of auxiliary performance codes?”
(Yes, I’m sad enough to have typed that from memory!) #DoctorWho
Mel gets the weirdest departure ever, leaving for… no reason whatsoever. Just as well they diluted Glitz from the psychopath he was meant to be in his first episodes, or she’d be out the nearest airlock.
Oh well, RTD will be along soon with some decent writing Mel! #DoctorWho
Juicy Cake Of Figs@gavinwinters My theory is that she, like Ace, was a Wolf of Fenric, simply because Bonnie LANGFORD is obviously of Viking ancestry. So Fenric manipulated her out of the way.
Some of the Seven/Mel BF audios have her saying "The Doctor doesn't need me anymore."
@datadivajf I’m now trying to picture Bonnie Langford in a Viking helmet, face paint, and charging screaming at the enemy… 😄