Gavin WintersThat 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. š At least itās 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, hereās a photo from this story that you might like to see. #DoctorWho
Paradise Towers: this is like a strange hybrid of JNTās 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. Itās hard to see past that to the interesting story ideas underneath. #DoctorWho
Richard Briers also seems to think heās 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 theyāve 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)ā¦ or too silly for words! #DoctorWho
And finally, a very controversial #DoctorWho opinionā¦ 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. Sevenās era has fully arrived now. You can imagine Colin in Time And The Raniā¦ possibly in Paradise Towers, but this is the Real McCoy.š #DoctorWho
Does the TARDIS really need to pass through a toll port in space and pay a fee? Couldnāt it just, you knowā¦ dematerialise? š¤·š»āāļø
In fact youād think most regular spaceships could avoid it too. They donāt really dwell on the logic of how theyād 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 weāre 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 lifeās work collecting thousands of jars of honey being destroyed!
Dragonfire: by this point you had the first generation of writers whoād 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 cantinaā¦ Terminator (Aceās nitro)ā¦ Alienā¦ Raiders for Kaneās melting faceā¦
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 suspenseā¦ #DoctorWho
But anywayā¦ Ace! š
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 Iād say back in 1987! š #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: āWhat do you think of the assertion that the semiotic thickness of a performed text varies according to the redundancy of auxiliary performance codes?ā
(Yes, Iām sad enough to have typed that from memory!) #DoctorWho
Mel gets the weirdest departure ever, leaving forā¦ no reason whatsoever. Just as well they diluted Glitz from the psychopath he was meant to be in his first episodes, or sheād be out the nearest airlock.
Oh well, RTD will be along soon with some decent writing Mel! #DoctorWho
The obliviousness of the little girlās mother is completely stupid. She didnāt notice the massacre or wonder where everyone else had gone? And where exactly are they both going to go now that the colony/spaceship has taken off and is flying through space? #DoctorWho
Remembrance Of The Daleks: after all the minor niggles and flaws of recent seasons, itās a relief to again have a story where everything just *works*.
All the set pieces are great. A Dalek going up stairs(!). Ace and the baseball bat. The shuttle landing. Top stuff. š#DoctorWho
This must be one of the most influential #DoctorWho stories ever, not just in how it inspired the whole character of the Doctor in the New Adventures novels, but also extending its reach up to the modern series.
As RTD said, blowing up Skaro was the first act in the Time Warā¦
Even in the excessively fan-pleasing 1980s version of #DoctorWho, this is particularly continuity heavy, but Ben Aaronovitch handles it deftly, weaving in lots of past history of Daleks and Time Lords without anything being too confusing for the casual viewer.
The junkyard in Totterās lane is suddenly bigger on the inside. š³
Honestly, itās *massive* here compared to how it was even in Attack Of The Cybermen. #DoctorWho
The Special Weapons Dalek! What a lad! Someone bring him back in the modern series, please? And I mean properly back, blowing shit up and being an unstoppable bastard, not just lurking in the background. (side-eyes Moffat š) #DoctorWho
Hands up if you paused your VHS recording at this point to try and copy down every detail.
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The Happiness Patrol: like a lot of fans who were young when this was first broadcast, Iāve grown to appreciate it more as Iāve got older. I couldnāt see past the (deliberately) tacky look to get what it was trying to say. #DoctorWho
Though I still think there were too many of what JNT called āoddballā stories in this era. If this was in a longer season, with more stories in the style of Remembrance, it would have been more obvious what they were trying to do with the unique approach of this one. #DoctorWho
Hmm, the Kandymanā¦š¬ Heās a memorable villain, granted, but even after all this time and all the various defences and justifications Iāve read of it, Iām still not okay with the costume. Wish theyād done the original idea of him looking like a scientist in a lab coat. #DoctorWho
As a teen I got that Helen A was a Thatcher parody, even if I didnāt pick up on the deeper themes.
Her final scene with the Doctor is a highlight, and itās a testament to Sheila Hancockās acting that she manages to wring emotion out of the death of the Fifi puppet. #DoctorWho
Silver Nemesis: not the greatest story ever, but I feel itās been very unfairly maligned. A lot of the usually criticised parts, such as JNTās indulgence in giving that āHollywood starā (š¤·š»āāļø) a cameo, are hardly so bad as to ruin things. #DoctorWho
The Doctor in a fez is an amusingly unintentional link to the modern series.
Moffat must have taken inspiration from this in other ways for the 50th and Day Of The Doctor - the different time zones, an ancient Gallifreyan artefact, a Queen Elizabethā¦ #DoctorWho
There is something quite funny about a bunch of neo-Nazis, fully armed and in camouflage gear, trying to start āthe Fourth Reichā while driving round Windsor in a transit vanā¦ š #DoctorWho
Honestly the Cybermen are the weakest part, being pathetically easy to dodge or kill.
The use of gold against them has lazily declined from how it previously needed to be grated into their chest units. Now it just needs a touch and they practically explode. š#DoctorWho
And their lack of interest in āthe secrets of the Time Lordsā is baffling.
Plus the way their defeat is basically a re-run of Remembrance (acknowledged in the dialogue!) doesnāt help. This would probably be improved a lot with a different alien threat. #DoctorWho
Lady Peinforteās hint that the Doctorās not a Time Lordā¦ added to Pertweeās slip of being āthousandsā of years old, plus the Morbius facesā¦ and you see this idea has been bubbling under for decades.
Anyone who thinks Chibnall āretconnedā #DoctorWho history is talking nonsense.
The Greatest Show In The Galaxy: this is another of the so-called āoddballā stories, with a very comic book sensibility to it. A lot of the characters feel like theyāve stepped straight from the pages of a DWM strip. Itās one of those āonly in #DoctorWho ā type stories.
Jan@gavinwinters Greatest Show in the Galaxy is one of my favourite McCoy stories! A bit odd but nicely showcases Seven's "scheming bastard"-qualities :D