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Post by nucleusofswarm on Mar 11, 2017 0:01:11 GMT
So we've done plenty of raking with NuWho, but now let's get to the sins of the original series.
And for the sake of interesting discussion, no, you cannot select wobbly sets and rubber costumes. That's far, far too easy and obvious.
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Mar 11, 2017 0:05:41 GMT
What about the wobbly costumes and rubber sets?
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Post by coffeeaddict on Mar 11, 2017 0:05:50 GMT
Perhaps not the worst thing, but Adric was absolutely terrible. Not sure if it was the way the character was written, the acting or a combination, but I can't stand him.
Personally I'd say the worst thing is that so many of the original stories were wiped from the tape library and we'll never get to see them. Thankfully we have the audio recordings and the Target novels.
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Post by theotherjosh on Mar 11, 2017 0:18:09 GMT
The proscribed topics are obviously the elephant in the room, but beyond those...I'd have to say pacing, but even that was a necessary evil due to the episodic format.
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Post by ulyssessarcher on Mar 11, 2017 0:18:59 GMT
Money, and the producers lack of it.
Most stories stand up well, as do most of the special effects, it's just when they were bad, they were really really...........really bad.
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Post by kalendorf on Mar 11, 2017 0:41:51 GMT
Lack or sheer absence of quality control. Particularly when it comes to misuse or overuse of foes that worked well once or twice but became subsequently cheapened in needless return appearances.
In hindsight it would've made much more sense if Davros had always been a one-off villain who got his final comeuppance at the end of Genesis of the Daleks, the Master should probably have gotten his in Castrovalva's final moments. The Silurians and Sea Devils really should only have appeared in the Pertwee era and not been brought back afterwards, since it cheapened the tragedy of their demise to keep *undoing* it. The Cybermen ended up being shown as pretty weak villains in nearly all their 80's stories after Earthshock, which mightn't have been the case had Earthshock or The Five Doctors been their swansong.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Mar 11, 2017 2:01:10 GMT
That Classic Who ended was the worst thing about it.
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Post by mrperson on Mar 11, 2017 2:05:07 GMT
So we've done plenty of raking with NuWho, but now let's get to the sins of the original series. And for the sake of interesting discussion, no, you cannot select wobbly sets and rubber costumes. That's far, far too easy and obvious. The most I can offer is: 1. Some episodes were simply boring. "The Web Planet" for example. 2. Towards the end it simply got bizarre and cheesy at the same time (I'm thinking of stuff like The Happiness Patrol, the weirdo villians in "Delta and the Bannermen", the "Kandyman", and so forth. They did have episodes that were a mix of laughably bad and painfully bad). They basically got altogether too silly by the end. It wasn't as loved by as many, and it didn't get enough attention. Nothing was wrong with the idea, just with the execution. At least, the worst that happened is I thought "this is a rather dumb episode. Now where's my scotch?" EDIT: as opposed to, like Timelord007, wanting to throw my damn TV through the window during an episode like Hell Bent.
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Post by mrperson on Mar 11, 2017 2:51:58 GMT
That Classic Who ended was the worst thing about it. True because we love the show. But, I cannot see it going well unless things were seriously shaken up for 1990.
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Post by relativetime on Mar 11, 2017 3:16:57 GMT
Well... I think most of what went wrong in the later seasons (Colin Baker getting sacked, chief among them) wasn't really the show's fault and had more to do with budgetary concerns as well as the BBC. Besides that, I think the fallout from Adric's death was very poorly handled in Time-Flight, the writing for Mel was subpar, the Time Lords never quite reached the level of threat they reached in The War Games, quite a few episodes could have down with less padding, and maybe someone could have asked themselves whether it was quite a good idea to air stories like The Twin Dilemma or Time of the Rani.
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Post by barnabaslives on Mar 11, 2017 3:53:11 GMT
What about the wobbly costumes and rubber sets? I'm (hopefully) usually understanding enough about budgetary concerns but the unseen dog played by a very obviously human actor (was that in Spearhead from Space or thereabouts?), Alpha Centauri, and last but certainly not least, the horrendously costumed Pantomime Sewer Rat from Talons of Weng-Chiang (thankfully Jago and Litefoot manage to balance out even this quite well) seem to live in considerable infamy in my mind. Also a couple of the sillier Seventh Doctor stories, although I think most of that run were actually rather good.
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Post by constonks on Mar 11, 2017 4:51:29 GMT
Pacing. Even some four episode serials simply crawl along.
Big Finish has managed to get around that consistently so it is possible in the serial format, but admittedly pressures and the realities of TV production at the time were drastically different from those of a small audio drama company in the 21st century.
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Post by paulmorris7777 on Mar 11, 2017 11:32:50 GMT
Apart from the budget restrains. The McCoy years were pretty embarrassing!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2017 11:55:13 GMT
Apart from the budget restrains. The McCoy years were pretty embarrassing! I think that, apart from Ace's occasional descending into 80's cliche, the McCoy years stand up a lot better than some other eras of Doctor Who. In fact, I would say The Seventh Doctor is more embraced and appreciated by 'fans' than he was at the time, when it seemed commonplace to slate the show. McCoy's stories remain fresh and strange and striving to do something new with Who's format - in my view, anyway.
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Post by paulmorris7777 on Mar 11, 2017 13:05:44 GMT
Apart from the budget restrains. The McCoy years were pretty embarrassing! I think that, apart from Ace's occasional descending into 80's cliche, the McCoy years stand up a lot better than some other eras of Doctor Who. In fact, I would say The Seventh Doctor is more embraced and appreciated by 'fans' than he was at the time, when it seemed commonplace to slate the show. McCoy's stories remain fresh and strange and striving to do something new with Who's format - in my view, anyway. Of the ones I have on dvd, Delta and the Bannermen, Silver Nemesis, and Battlefield are extremely poor!
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Post by paulmorris7777 on Mar 11, 2017 13:24:54 GMT
The proscribed topics are obviously the elephant in the room, but beyond those...I'd have to say pacing, but even that was a necessary evil due to the episodic format. Funny how I've never had a problem with the pacing of Classic Who. Some of my favourite stories are 7 episodes long. There is always something going on, whether its a sub plot, or character development. NuWho is even slower - look at The Power of Three!
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Post by paulmorris7777 on Mar 11, 2017 13:40:30 GMT
Lack or sheer absence of quality control. Particularly when it comes to misuse or overuse of foes that worked well once or twice but became subsequently cheapened in needless return appearances. In hindsight it would've made much more sense if Davros had always been a one-off villain who got his final comeuppance at the end of Genesis of the Daleks, the Master should probably have gotten his in Castrovalva's final moments. The Silurians and Sea Devils really should only have appeared in the Pertwee era and not been brought back afterwards, since it cheapened the tragedy of their demise to keep *undoing* it. The Cybermen ended up being shown as pretty weak villains in nearly all their 80's stories after Earthshock, which mightn't have been the case had Earthshock or The Five Doctors been their swansong. Interesting that you pick up on something that is happening in NuWho. Just look at the number of times the Silurians, Cybermen, Davros and Daleks have all returned. Where are you getting the Silurians/Sea Devil returns where they keep undoing it? They only returned in one story!
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Post by fitzoliverj on Mar 11, 2017 14:35:29 GMT
The worst things about old 'Doctor Who' are
1) it's not always as good as you expect. Remember when Elizabeth Sladen died and they put on a repeat as a tribute, and chose her exit story? Which, as it turned out, had two tedious episodes of nothing occasionally enlivened by her character being unusually whiny and petulant?
2) it's always much better than you expect, so you keep the DVDs, whereas the new series DVDs are disappointing and so you happily send them to the charity shop where nobody buys them because they were so recently on TV. Which is why it's 2017 and I still have a fourth Doctor story to watch on VHS.
3) it's always more in demand than you expect, so you can't repeat the episodes or sell them on video because you junked them.
4) the grass is just generally always greener elsewhere. We all got so fed up with the Horror Channel playing the same damn' random selection of stories over and over again.... and then they stopped. We didn't want them to stop.
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Post by kalendorf on Mar 11, 2017 15:59:30 GMT
Lack or sheer absence of quality control. Particularly when it comes to misuse or overuse of foes that worked well once or twice but became subsequently cheapened in needless return appearances. In hindsight it would've made much more sense if Davros had always been a one-off villain who got his final comeuppance at the end of Genesis of the Daleks, the Master should probably have gotten his in Castrovalva's final moments. The Silurians and Sea Devils really should only have appeared in the Pertwee era and not been brought back afterwards, since it cheapened the tragedy of their demise to keep *undoing* it. The Cybermen ended up being shown as pretty weak villains in nearly all their 80's stories after Earthshock, which mightn't have been the case had Earthshock or The Five Doctors been their swansong. Interesting that you pick up on something that is happening in NuWho. Just look at the number of times the Silurians, Cybermen, Davros and Daleks have all returned. Where are you getting the Silurians/Sea Devil returns where they keep undoing it? They only returned in one story! That one story (Warriors of the Deep) was bad and ruinous enough. In general I don't mind the Daleks coming back. As a massive, ruthless, determined galactic empire it makes sense they keep crossing paths with the Doctor, although I will admit New Who has overdone them- at the very least Journey's End ought to have been their last appearance. I've not been keen on the New Who Cyberman stories either.
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Post by paulmorris7777 on Mar 11, 2017 16:06:03 GMT
Interesting that you pick up on something that is happening in NuWho. Just look at the number of times the Silurians, Cybermen, Davros and Daleks have all returned. Where are you getting the Silurians/Sea Devil returns where they keep undoing it? They only returned in one story! That one story (Warriors of the Deep) was bad and ruinous enough. In general I don't mind the Daleks coming back. As a massive, ruthless, determined galactic empire it makes sense they keep crossing paths with the Doctor, although I will admit New Who has overdone them- at the very least Journey's End ought to have been their last appearance. I've not been keen on the New Who Cyberman stories either. Warriors of the Deep may be bad, but were is the constant undoing of the Silurians/Sea Devils you mentioned?
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