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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2016 8:56:47 GMT
Peter Davison had departed from his role as the fifth incarnation of the Doctor and a new face is soon to fill the colorful recesses of your 1985 television screen -- the immutable Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor with Nicola Bryant portraying the American botanical student Peri Brown who has been held over from the regeneration. Following the reasonable high of the previous season, John Nathan-Turner has departed and you, dear reader, have been put in charge of a bold new era in Doctor Who. How would you have handled the introduction of the Sixth Doctor? What stories would you have attempted? How would you have characterised him and his new companion (who has so far only been seen in two stories)? For those who feel up to it, there's an additional, optional challenge -- you have been left with The Twin Dilemma as your starting point, a serial that has been regarded at best as uneven and at worse diabolical. How will you undo the damage that has been caused by the previous production office's unfortunate misstep? Have fun.  |
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Post by paulmorris7777 on May 29, 2016 23:12:48 GMT
I'm not a fan of The Twin Dilemma.
A better story would have helped Colin Baker, toning down the character would have helped greatly.
Attack, Timelash and Revelation are pretty poor - bad acting, mainly.
The Two Doctors is a huge disappointment. Troughton deserved better.
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Post by relativetime on May 30, 2016 0:51:26 GMT
The Mark of the Rani would see some revisions, I think. I haven't actually watched that story, to be honest, but I think it could do with a few pen-overs.
I would have Timelash, Attack of the Cybermen, and Revelation of the Daleks replaced with The Guardians of Prophecy, Leviathan, and either Marc Platt's "Cat's Cradle," an untitled story Bidmead submitted for the season, or maybe a completed version of Glen McCoy's Conquest of the Daleks, which was rewritten into Timelash. Much as I like Marc Platt and I think he CERTAINLY deserved to enter the Classic Series pool of writers much sooner than he did, I think I'd use Conquest of the Daleks assuming it's good.
I actually really don't mind The Two Doctors. Sure, if the audio adaptation of The First Sontarans is anything to go off of, we could have had a better Sontaran story, but then we'd miss out on one last hurrah with Patrick Troughton! I'm not the biggest fan of Vengeance on Varos, but I think it's fine to remain in the story lineup.
So, I'd probably arrange the stories with Conquest kicking off Season 22 to draw in viewers and fans of the Daleks. Then Vengeance on Varos, followed by a rewritten Mark of the Rani and The Two Doctors. Then Leviathan and finally The Guardians of Prophecy.
Really, the biggest problem I had with Season 22 is that what we missed out on had SO much potential! Colin Baker truly did deserve better!
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Post by paulmorris7777 on May 30, 2016 7:27:44 GMT
The Mark of the Rani would see some revisions, I think. I haven't actually watched that story, to be honest, but I think it could do with a few pen-overs. I would have Timelash, Attack of the Cybermen, and Revelation of the Daleks replaced with The Guardians of Prophecy, Leviathan, and either Marc Platt's "Cat's Cradle," an untitled story Bidmead submitted for the season, or maybe a completed version of Glen McCoy's Conquest of the Daleks, which was rewritten into Timelash. Much as I like Marc Platt and I think he CERTAINLY deserved to enter the Classic Series pool of writers much sooner than he did, I think I'd use Conquest of the Daleks assuming it's good. I actually really don't mind The Two Doctors. Sure, if the audio adaptation of The First Sontarans is anything to go off of, we could have had a better Sontaran story, but then we'd miss out on one last hurrah with Patrick Troughton! I'm not the biggest fan of Vengeance on Varos, but I think it's fine to remain in the story lineup. So, I'd probably arrange the stories with Conquest kicking off Season 22 to draw in viewers and fans of the Daleks. Then Vengeance on Varos, followed by a rewritten Mark of the Rani and The Two Doctors. Then Leviathan and finally The Guardians of Prophecy. Really, the biggest problem I had with Season 22 is that what we missed out on had SO much potential! Colin Baker truly did deserve better! What? You want to rewrite a script, you haven't even seen??? And, half your replacement stories hadn't even been written to replace them. |
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Post by relativetime on May 30, 2016 7:45:39 GMT
The Mark of the Rani would see some revisions, I think. I haven't actually watched that story, to be honest, but I think it could do with a few pen-overs. I would have Timelash, Attack of the Cybermen, and Revelation of the Daleks replaced with The Guardians of Prophecy, Leviathan, and either Marc Platt's "Cat's Cradle," an untitled story Bidmead submitted for the season, or maybe a completed version of Glen McCoy's Conquest of the Daleks, which was rewritten into Timelash. Much as I like Marc Platt and I think he CERTAINLY deserved to enter the Classic Series pool of writers much sooner than he did, I think I'd use Conquest of the Daleks assuming it's good. I actually really don't mind The Two Doctors. Sure, if the audio adaptation of The First Sontarans is anything to go off of, we could have had a better Sontaran story, but then we'd miss out on one last hurrah with Patrick Troughton! I'm not the biggest fan of Vengeance on Varos, but I think it's fine to remain in the story lineup. So, I'd probably arrange the stories with Conquest kicking off Season 22 to draw in viewers and fans of the Daleks. Then Vengeance on Varos, followed by a rewritten Mark of the Rani and The Two Doctors. Then Leviathan and finally The Guardians of Prophecy. Really, the biggest problem I had with Season 22 is that what we missed out on had SO much potential! Colin Baker truly did deserve better! What? You want to rewrite a script, you haven't even seen??? And, half your replacement sfories hadn't even been written to replace them. Good point on Mark of the Rani. I was referring mostly to what would need to be rewritten to fit in with the rest of a different season and with what I personally would like to have seen in Doctor Who had I been in charge. My mistake for not clarifying. On the point of the other scripts, I'm not sure how you mean. I assumed we were working from a hypothetical grounds up approach and therefore would get to approve what scripts are approved for production. Perhaps my language was misleading - I merely meant that in place of those stories, the stories I mentioned are what I would have approved of instead. |
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on May 30, 2016 9:27:15 GMT
Well, for a start I wouldn't have him nearly strangle his companion. My 6th Doctor would be a more fun-loving, caring and affectionate Doctor playing to Colin Baker's strengths. I'd keep the theatricality element though.
Also: instead of The Twin Dilemma, I'd start with a story featuring the return of the Yeti and Great Intelligence. It would be about the issue of identity and how you can trust someone when they change (similar to new series post-regeneration stories like Deep Breath in that sense). The following episodes would just be the Doctor and Peri in the TARDIS having fun.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2016 0:25:29 GMT
I'd have liked to see John Lucarotti do a historical story for this new Doctor. His Target novelisations of Marco Polo The Aztecs done at the time are both excellent, the former being rather interesting for placing the Doctor squarely at the heart of the story in a way we wouldn't see until a quite a while later. I'd like to have seen somewhere exotic like Kyoto, Putrajaya or Samarkand or maybe have them tackle a prominent event like Khartoum or the fall of British India.
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Jun 1, 2016 1:08:43 GMT
I'd have kept Timelash, Revelation, Mark and TwoDocs.
I'd have sent all four back for another trip across the script editor's desk.
I might be inclined to keep Vengeance too, ditch the crippled TARDIS and Sil, really play up the media monsters, add a thinly veiled Darth Rupert reference...
The intro to the Doctor story though.... Blimey.
Start from scratch. Add some line from Peri calling his coat a cry for attention, and a gleeful Doctor saying "EXACTLY! The smartest man in the room should be the centre of attention". Play up the arrogance but keep the good hearted man bit at the forefront (a la Rodney McKay in Stargate).
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Post by elkawho on Jun 1, 2016 2:43:11 GMT
The intro to the Doctor story though.... Blimey. Start from scratch. Add some line from Peri calling his coat a cry for attention, and a gleeful Doctor saying "EXACTLY! The smartest man in the room should be the centre of attention". Play up the arrogance but keep the good hearted man bit at the forefront (a la Rodney McKay in Stargate). Oh, I like that a lot. |
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Jun 1, 2016 11:33:32 GMT
The intro to the Doctor story though.... Blimey. Start from scratch. Add some line from Peri calling his coat a cry for attention, and a gleeful Doctor saying "EXACTLY! The smartest man in the room should be the centre of attention". Play up the arrogance but keep the good hearted man bit at the forefront (a la Rodney McKay in Stargate). I like that. To me that is also how he plays it at times in some of the BF audios |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2016 17:35:29 GMT
Peter Davison had departed from his role as the fifth incarnation of the Doctor and a new face is soon to fill the colorful recesses of your 1985 television screen -- the immutable Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor with Nicola Bryant portraying the American botanical student Peri Brown who has been held over from the regeneration. Following the reasonable high of the previous season, John Nathan-Turner has departed and you, dear reader, have been put in charge of a bold new era in Doctor Who. How would you have handled the introduction of the Sixth Doctor? What stories would you have attempted? How would you have characterised him and his new companion (who has so far only been seen in two stories)? For those who feel up to it, there's an additional, optional challenge -- you have been left with The Twin Dilemma as your starting point, a serial that has been regarded at best as uneven and at worse diabolical. How will you undo the damage that has been caused by the previous production office's unfortunate misstep? Have fun. Episode 1: Revelation Of The Daleks By Eric Saward (2 parts) Why not start off with one of my favorite stories ever. I'd probably cut down certain parts, such as add the Doctor and Peri to the plot a bit quicker. But, I'd say, this'd be a great way to reinvigorate the public with Doctor Who. Episode 2: Vengeance On Varos By Philip Martin (2 Parts) Varos would remain very similar, but I'd give it better production values and get rid of the Doctor's gag after the acid bath scene and make the Doctor and Peri get on better. Episode 3: Leviathan By Brian Finch (2 parts) Yeah, this sounds like a good idea. And would probably work well. Episode 4: Yellow Fever And How To Cure It By Robert Holmes (3 parts) This story would probably be an epic of Doctor Who. The return of the Brigadier, the Master and the Autons! Sounds to good to be true. This should help the series and would probably be heavily publicized. Episode 5: The First Sontarans By Andrew Smith (2 parts) The return of the Sontarans is a good idea, I'd say. I also like this story on Audio quite a bit, so it sounds like a plan. Episode 6: The Children Of Seth By Christopher Bailey (2 parts) Well, I felt like it'd be sad not to bring back such a great writer. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2016 18:37:18 GMT
The intro to the Doctor story though.... Blimey. Start from scratch. Add some line from Peri calling his coat a cry for attention, and a gleeful Doctor saying "EXACTLY! The smartest man in the room should be the centre of attention". Play up the arrogance but keep the good hearted man bit at the forefront (a la Rodney McKay in Stargate). Brilliant line, I'd buy that in an instant. I always thought Peri should be there, not to bring him back to Earth like Evelyn does, but to be the voice of reason when he's blustering. |
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Post by jason on Jun 5, 2016 23:16:17 GMT
Season 22 is kind of 'special' to me because it was the first new Doctor Who that came out after I'd started watching it on PBS and become a fan. It took awhile for it to get here, so I'd read all the story reviews in DWM and suchlike and very highly anticipated seeing it here. (Even 'Timelash'!)
At the time I liked it well enough, but hey it was new Doctor Who and I was a youngster. I do admit that as the years go by, I find it tougher and tougher to rewatch. One reason is the Doctor and Peri's relationship, which was embarrassing even at the time, but really grates the more you watch it. ('You even burned dinner last night!')
So the first thing I would do is soften that up. I thought it was much better in 'Whispers of Terror' as their dialogue comes across much more as banter than bickering.
The stories themselves - in my opinion, it's not that they are so bad. Each one just seems to have a tragic flaw - like there's a good idea there, but if the writer/Saward had just added or taken out that certain element, the execution would have been so so much better.
'Attack of the Cybermen' would have been a great Doctor Who story if...
...it had decided which old Cyberman story it wanted to be a sequel to. It's too much of a mashup. Take out some of the fan service and put those minutes towards plot.
'Vengeance on Varos' would have been a great Doctor Who story if...
...actually it is a pretty great story, the standout of the season, IMO. And way ahead of its time on the reality TV angle! Love the bad guys, all so slimy. Maybe tone down the violence just a little.
'The Mark of the Rani' would have been a great Doctor Who story if...
...they'd left out the Master. Nothing against the character or Anthony Ainley, but this is the story where he least belongs. We could've had a pseudo-historical thriller - the 'Time Meddler' of the 80s, but we got too much 'Time Lord hijinks'. The Rani had a reason to be there and should've had the story to herself.
'The Two Doctors' would have been a great Doctor Who story if...
...it hadn't played the Androgums for laughs. An intriguing first episode (and love the score) is let down by everyone having a bawdy old time in Seville. 'City of Death' got away with it, but it had Douglas Adams involved.
'Timelash' would have been a great Doctor Who story if...
...the script had gone through three or so more drafts. I mean it. There is a story I want to watch there. Terrance Dicks could totally have made this a winner. I think with a tighter plot (we only need one ending, folks) and a better script, the actors might have tried a little harder too.
'Revelation of the Daleks' would have been a great Doctor Who story if...
...um...if it had been a Doctor Who story? Saward seems to have had his mercenaries-vs.-Daleks story all ready, what a shame there's a title character who needs to be shoehorned in there too. (Where was Big Finish when he needed it?) Change the focus and while you're at it, get rid of that stupid DJ.
Hey, it'll never happen, but imagine the Big Finish line - start with the soundtrack and 'fix' a weak TV story on audio! Some of the novelizations kind of went that way, right?
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Post by kalendorf on Sept 24, 2016 3:37:35 GMT
To be honest I'd have done the previous Davison seasons differently far sooner than change Season 22.
I do think Twin Dilemma is rather the fly in the ointment of Colin's era, and with it removed, the era isn't so bad.
I think had the Master not been so prominently recurring throughout Davison's time (i.e. if his appearances had been limited to just Castrovalva and The Five Doctors), viewers might not have gotten sick of him by Mark of the Rani. It also would've meant Season 19 and 20 would've ended a story early, and ended on better stories to boot.
I think Warriors of the Deep did plenty of damage by wrongly establishing the Doctor in the eyes of viewers as a fanatical pacifist who condemned all forms of violence, even when in self-defence, which of course made Season 22 seem like a betrayal because it had the Doctor hypocritically displaying violence against enemies, and that were that story erased, then the Sixth Doctor's actions wouldn't seem such a betrayal or come off as hypocritical.
I think Warriors also indirectly did damage to the Daleks. Because the story ends in bloodbath due to the Doctor's incompetence, just like Resurrection does, it makes the Dalek story seem less special and thus makes them seem a more ordinary enemy than the invincible creatures of apocalypse they once were. The fact that they can potentially massacre the entire guest cast and defeat the Doctor, suddenly seems like no big deal when the Sea Devils did the same thing weeks prior.
So lose Warriors, maybe tone down the Dalek destruction witnessed in Resurrection, and the Dalek's comeback in Revelation perhaps seems like more of an event rather than the show exhausting itself.
There isn't much I'd change about Season 22. I'd probably want to have the Doctor more involved in the plot of Attack of the Cybermen rather than fannying about with the chameleon circuits. Vengeance on Varos could've been fleshed out more and had the Doctor land there sooner with more of a moral mission (and I probably wouldn't have included the acid bath scene, that always left a nasty aftertaste with me). Timelash.... okay I probably would've junked this one. Revelation I would keep as it is.
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