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Post by nucleusofswarm on Aug 30, 2017 13:58:41 GMT
It's easy to look back on it and like it with post-irony kitsch, but let's be frank: the near endless corridors were tedious if you were a first time or young viewer, watching the stories straight and seriously.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2017 14:28:17 GMT
Worst thing about classic Who? It only lasted 26 years!
I can't fault it, any of it. Any issues it had were the same as issues with any ongoing television show being made in the UK at that time - and that usually came under the umbrella of lack of budget. Other perceived faults are, I think, those viewed through the 'sophisticated' eyes of television production in 2017 - slowness in the telling of the early stories, scenes that could have benefitted from another take ... they are what they are and I love them. Some of Tom Baker's excesses might be ironed out nowadays, but would we really be without them? Would we let the disappointing special effects ruin beautifully made stories like Kinda or State of Decay (for example)? No chance! It isn't called the 'classic' series for nothing.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2017 16:08:20 GMT
Some of the stories did drag on forever. I'm halfway through Colony in Space and precious little of note has happened. We've even had the same cliffhanger two episodes running
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2017 18:04:56 GMT
The length of the stories, entire episodes where nothing happens until the last couple minutes.
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Post by valeyard on Aug 30, 2017 18:48:38 GMT
The length of the stories, entire episodes where nothing happens until the last couple minutes. Wow
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Post by Deleted on Aug 30, 2017 18:57:49 GMT
The length of the stories, entire episodes where nothing happens until the last couple minutes. Wow Sorry but it's true, especially in the first eleven years. PH tightened things up a lot and it was better from then on, but a lot of earlier stories had whole episodes that were nothing but filler. They had great stuff as well, but that's not what this thread is about.
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Post by J.A. Prentice on Aug 31, 2017 1:03:31 GMT
In a totally different vein, I've been rewatching Talons of Weng Chiang. It's amazing, one of the best stories in an outstanding era, with wonderful characters in Jago and Litefoot... but I really, really wish Li'Hsen was not played by a white guy in makeup. It's not only racist, it's less convincing than the rat, and it's honestly more of a hurdle to get people to like it than "well, the special effects are a little dodgy." It also would have been nice to give a Chinese actor the chance to portray a conflicted, complicated villain – the only one of the Chinese characters in the episode to have any depth.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2017 3:11:00 GMT
In a totally different vein, I've been rewatching Talons of Weng Chiang. It's amazing, one of the best stories in an outstanding era, with wonderful characters in Jago and Litefoot... but I really, really wish Li'Hsen was not played by a white guy in makeup. It's not only racist, it's less convincing than the rat, and it's honestly more of a hurdle to get people to like it than "well, the special effects are a little dodgy." It also would have been nice to give a Chinese actor the chance to portray a conflicted, complicated villain – the only one of the Chinese characters in the episode to have any depth. I always direct people to " The Warlord" in I, Spy when they say that there's been a long history of uninteresting roles for Chinese actors to play. Now, there's a very interesting story behind why the casting was the way it was in that episode (it involves Jean Marsh), but it's interesting to note that there are alternatives to the stock standard Yellow Peril archetype floating around if you know where to look. Even in the mid-sixties when we hadn't outgrown that yet. Film and television have moved on, Chinese actors are now used for Chinese roles, but these kinds of complex characters are timeless. Yet we don't seem to see more of them. They've up and vanished into the aether and I think that's a real shame. Yellowface aside, John Bennett plays Chang with dignity, poise, and a genuineness. It's not Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. The clipped cod Chinese accent only comes out when he's attempting to mock someone ("I hear we all look alike," he mutters with censure) or for the purposes of theatrical showmanship. His final epitaph in the opium den is a wonderful moment for the actor, it tells us so much about Chang and his remarkable depth of character. A peasant who would have been performing to royalty. You can see all it meant to him in his eyes. And I'm glad for David A. McIntee The Shadow of Weng-Chiang. Rather than revisiting London, takes the story's aftermath and sticks it right into the middle of Shanghai just before the Second World War. The Chinese perspective there is a rare and welcome sight.
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Post by J.A. Prentice on Aug 31, 2017 3:24:17 GMT
In a totally different vein, I've been rewatching Talons of Weng Chiang. It's amazing, one of the best stories in an outstanding era, with wonderful characters in Jago and Litefoot... but I really, really wish Li'Hsen was not played by a white guy in makeup. It's not only racist, it's less convincing than the rat, and it's honestly more of a hurdle to get people to like it than "well, the special effects are a little dodgy." It also would have been nice to give a Chinese actor the chance to portray a conflicted, complicated villain – the only one of the Chinese characters in the episode to have any depth. I always direct people to " The Warlord" in I, Spy when they say that there's been a long history of uninteresting roles for Chinese actors to play. Now, there's a very interesting story behind why the casting was the way it was in that episode (it involves Jean Marsh), but it's interesting to note that there are alternatives to the stock standard Yellow Peril archetype floating around if you know where to look. Even in the mid-sixties when we hadn't outgrown that yet. Film and television have moved on, Chinese actors are now used for Chinese roles, but these kinds of complex characters are timeless. Yet we don't seem to see more of them. They've up and vanished into the aether and I think that's a real shame. Yellowface aside, John Bennett plays the part with dignity, poise, and a genuineness. It's not Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. The clipped cod Chinese accent only comes out when he's attempting to mock someone ("I hear we all look alike," he mutters with censure) or for the purposes of theatrical showmanship. His final epitaph in the opium den is a wonderful moment for the actor, it tells us so much about Chang and his remarkable depth of character. A peasant who would have been performing to royalty. You can see all it meant to him in his eyes. He really does give the part a lot of dignity, which makes it better than it could have been, but I think that it would have still been preferable to have an actor of Chinese descent in the role. It's a testament to the quality of Talons that my only issues with it have nothing to do with the story – just the unconvincing rat and the yellowface. I think that the story plays brilliantly with Chang's "performance" as a stereotype with the accent versus the real, complex man struggling to serve an evil god, but it would have been clearer and SO much more powerful to give that role to an actually Chinese actor.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2017 5:42:57 GMT
I always direct people to " The Warlord" in I, Spy when they say that there's been a long history of uninteresting roles for Chinese actors to play. Now, there's a very interesting story behind why the casting was the way it was in that episode (it involves Jean Marsh), but it's interesting to note that there are alternatives to the stock standard Yellow Peril archetype floating around if you know where to look. Even in the mid-sixties when we hadn't outgrown that yet. Film and television have moved on, Chinese actors are now used for Chinese roles, but these kinds of complex characters are timeless. Yet we don't seem to see more of them. They've up and vanished into the aether and I think that's a real shame. Yellowface aside, John Bennett plays the part with dignity, poise, and a genuineness. It's not Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. The clipped cod Chinese accent only comes out when he's attempting to mock someone ("I hear we all look alike," he mutters with censure) or for the purposes of theatrical showmanship. His final epitaph in the opium den is a wonderful moment for the actor, it tells us so much about Chang and his remarkable depth of character. A peasant who would have been performing to royalty. You can see all it meant to him in his eyes. He really does give the part a lot of dignity, which makes it better than it could have been, but I think that it would have still been preferable to have an actor of Chinese descent in the role. It's a testament to the quality of Talons that my only issues with it have nothing to do with the story – just the unconvincing rat and the yellowface. I think that the story plays brilliantly with Chang's "performance" as a stereotype with the accent versus the real, complex man struggling to serve an evil god, but it would have been clearer and SO much more powerful to give that role to an actually Chinese actor. It's much like The Caves of Androzani. The only thing that really brings it down is the monster in the deeps looking like a man in a costume and it's so much more of an eyesore with Harper's distinctive direction than it would be anywhere else. I wonder who could've filled the shoes of Chang back then? I'd say Khigh Dhiegh, but despite appearances he's actually got a lot of English, Sudanese and Egyptian ancestry.
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ljwilson
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It's tangerine....not orange
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Post by ljwilson on Aug 31, 2017 10:07:38 GMT
I'll put my tin hat on here and say that the main thing wrong with classic Who is that, in general, it was all a bit crap.
The stories were far too long, and the 'classics' out there had clangers that really just don't make sense.
In Horror of Fang Rock (for example) the alien takes the form of the old sea dog fella so it can bump people off. With his two legs he can go up and down those 300 or so lighthouse steps without much bother. But for the final showdown with the Doctor, it shrugs off 'this ridiculous form' and reverts to the green bogey monster....which can get up three steps every hour as it splodges on its deadly ascent.
Right....I still like watching a few of them though!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2017 12:36:16 GMT
I'll put my tin hat on here and say that the main thing wrong with classic Who is that, in general, it was all a bit crap. The stories were far too long, and the 'classics' out there had clangers that really just don't make sense. In Horror of Fang Rock (for example) the alien takes the form of the old sea dog fella so it can bump people off. With his two legs he can go up and down those 300 or so lighthouse steps without much bother. But for the final showdown with the Doctor, it shrugs off 'this ridiculous form' and reverts to the green bogey monster....which can get up three steps every hour as it splodges on its deadly ascent. Right....I still like watching a few of them though! Hah, I never really considered that before. Perhaps the novelisation puts in some explanation. The thing is, more often than not, classic who was entertaining enough for you to ignore the plotholes and just go along for the ride.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2017 12:40:57 GMT
I'll put my tin hat on here and say that the main thing wrong with classic Who is that, in general, it was all a bit crap. The stories were far too long, and the 'classics' out there had clangers that really just don't make sense. In Horror of Fang Rock (for example) the alien takes the form of the old sea dog fella so it can bump people off. With his two legs he can go up and down those 300 or so lighthouse steps without much bother. But for the final showdown with the Doctor, it shrugs off 'this ridiculous form' and reverts to the green bogey monster....which can get up three steps every hour as it splodges on its deadly ascent. Right....I still like watching a few of them though! Hah, I never really considered that before. Perhaps the novelisation puts in some explanation. The thing is, more often than not, classic who was entertaining enough for you to ignore the plotholes and just go along for the ride. I think that's a lot of really good fiction in general. It's never perfect, but you can be having so much fun that the flaws go completely unnoticed. Besides... A show that manages to swing for Julian Glover as Richard the Lionheart and get two theatrical releases for its most popular monster must've been doing something right.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2017 13:59:03 GMT
In Seeds of Doom, Doctor Tom - at his best in this story, in my view - advises Sarah that it isn't a good idea simply to blow the Krynoid up, as it will scatter its spores far and wide and be impossible to contain. A couple of episodes later, how do they dispose of it? That's right - get the military in! Blow the blighter to smithereens in a terrific model shot. But that's a contradiction I seem to remember - please someone correct me if my memory has cheated.
Yet when the results are this good - who cares? There are inconsistences in Nu-Who too.
They happen. It isn't exclusive to Doctor Who by any means. The only thing that bugged me about the show when I watched as achild was the occasionally obvious lack of budget, and that (a) is outside the show's control, and (b) only requires the viewer to look past it. My favourite series - series 18 - looked astonishingly cheap in parts, even then. Even Tom's last hurrah was a mess of CSO and video-recorded model shots that wouldn't convince a cactus. But it is still utterly, utterly wonderful in every other way.
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Post by number13 on Aug 31, 2017 14:23:08 GMT
I always direct people to " The Warlord" in I, Spy when they say that there's been a long history of uninteresting roles for Chinese actors to play. Now, there's a very interesting story behind why the casting was the way it was in that episode (it involves Jean Marsh), but it's interesting to note that there are alternatives to the stock standard Yellow Peril archetype floating around if you know where to look. Even in the mid-sixties when we hadn't outgrown that yet. Film and television have moved on, Chinese actors are now used for Chinese roles, but these kinds of complex characters are timeless. Yet we don't seem to see more of them. They've up and vanished into the aether and I think that's a real shame. Yellowface aside, John Bennett plays the part with dignity, poise, and a genuineness. It's not Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. The clipped cod Chinese accent only comes out when he's attempting to mock someone ("I hear we all look alike," he mutters with censure) or for the purposes of theatrical showmanship. His final epitaph in the opium den is a wonderful moment for the actor, it tells us so much about Chang and his remarkable depth of character. A peasant who would have been performing to royalty. You can see all it meant to him in his eyes. He really does give the part a lot of dignity, which makes it better than it could have been, but I think that it would have still been preferable to have an actor of Chinese descent in the role. It's a testament to the quality of Talons that my only issues with it have nothing to do with the story – just the unconvincing rat and the yellowface. I think that the story plays brilliantly with Chang's "performance" as a stereotype with the accent versus the real, complex man struggling to serve an evil god, but it would have been clearer and SO much more powerful to give that role to an actually Chinese actor. I agree with both posts - John Bennett's makeup does not improve in any way with the passing years and it would obviously have been better all round to have a more appropriate actor playing Li H'sen, but it is still a fine performance of a great character. In 1977 I realised this was no Chinese actor but thought no more of it then. Obviously such casting and makeup would not be used now for that role, but the 70s were not a globalised world, not on 'Doctor Who' money at least, so it is understandable. Budgets were tiny, time was short and the Director had to do all of his or her own casting, quickly and with certainty, meaning that the experience of previous work with an actor or contacts from drama school etc. counted very strongly when quality actors were needed asap. Good actors who understood the considerable demands of the show became regulars and played multiple roles, contributing greatly to the success of classic Who. Li H'sen Chang remains one of the great villains and John Bennett deserves full credit with Robert Holmes for making him so. And only when Li H'Sen dies is the real man revealed. In my view, he's Robert Holmes' finest invention, a multi-layered character and ultimately a tragic figure despite his villainous actions. On the surface is the stage performer who speaks pidgin English to play with the prejudices of his audience; then off-stage he's the urbane gentleman artiste, intelligent and speaking perfect English. The third layer is the ruthless servant of his 'god' - and finally, with that delusion destroyed, the true man is briefly seen: the awed 'son of a peasant' who would no doubt have lived in quiet obscurity, if Greel had not fallen through Time. And Holmes leaves us to speculate on exactly how Greel gave Chang the mental powers he possessed. Perhaps it's just as well we don't know; Greel is not an alien who can perform mind-transfers or the like. He was a human war criminal who performed 'vile experiments' on his victims and has (in Mr. Sin) at least one servant with a re-constructed brain...
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Post by valeyard on Aug 31, 2017 16:18:06 GMT
I'll put my tin hat on here and say that the main thing wrong with classic Who is that, in general, it was all a bit crap. The stories were far too long, and the 'classics' out there had clangers that really just don't make sense. In Horror of Fang Rock (for example) the alien takes the form of the old sea dog fella so it can bump people off. With his two legs he can go up and down those 300 or so lighthouse steps without much bother. But for the final showdown with the Doctor, it shrugs off 'this ridiculous form' and reverts to the green bogey monster....which can get up three steps every hour as it splodges on its deadly ascent. Right....I still like watching a few of them though! Hah, I never really considered that before. Perhaps the novelisation puts in some explanation. The thing is, more often than not, classic who was entertaining enough for you to ignore the plotholes and just go along for the ride. There are no such thing as plotholes!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2017 18:51:27 GMT
Hah, I never really considered that before. Perhaps the novelisation puts in some explanation. The thing is, more often than not, classic who was entertaining enough for you to ignore the plotholes and just go along for the ride. There are no such thing as plotholes! Yes, nothing is inexplicable, just unexplained. True for all incarnations of the show from 1963 until today. And that was what I was trying to get at. It might not have made sense on screen, but maybe it did in the book. Nowadays we don't get novelisations so it's easier to think something is a plothole as we never get the missing detail filled in and have to do it ourselves.
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Post by barnabaslives on Aug 31, 2017 20:23:36 GMT
The worst thing about the OS is Alpha Centauri, in my book. Worse than the rat from Talons and Helen A put together. "I simply cannot wait for the Third Doctor to get the use of the TARDIS back... Oh! Peladon, again? Yes I could have waited..." :-) Almost anything else against the OS probably comes down to an understandable budget deficit (or maybe sometimes an understandable acknowledgement of cultural climate?)
I don't think any OS stories were ever too long although I think a relatively few four-parters were probably somewhat uneventful towards the middle. (OTOH, I personally think that on a roughly equal number of occasion, the NS has probably been eventful to a fault).
Lots of things happen that don't make sense to me if I dwell on them - primarily the Doctor and companions allowing themselves to be taken into captivity for the 1000th time, lol, but you have to make a show out of something. Maybe routinely deconstructing the OS eventually gets a bit like asking what Darwin would have thought about Lister's cat in Red Dwarf, which might be missing the point.
I think that's probably true to this very day with the NS, although with the NS sometimes I think discontinuity (or some other issues) can be more noticeable just because they're much more in the present, and because there's so much admirable effort obviously poured into other aspects of the NS that somehow it's still a little shocking to find plotholes - even if that's probably the about the last thing that should really be a surprise. :-)
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2017 2:11:38 GMT
Worst thing is Colin Baker, probably. In terms of long term things, that is. Or maybe Adric. Or maybe just acting from the main cast in early-mid 80s Who - but that would, in theory, be a disservice to Mark Strickson, Nicola Bryant, the guest cast of Caves Of Androzani, Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, Anthony Ainley, Peter Davison (but only during Season 21) and a plethora of other guest stars. Then again maybe that's just the scripts. I'm more inclined to blame the writing than I am the acting, you can only do what the script tells you to do. You only have to look at the difference between Survival and Time and the Rani or Time-Flight and Snakedance. I'm also not a big phone of pacing in the first few seasons. I think things get a lot better during Season 5. And each story - after Hartnell's left - seem to have their own distinguished feel. That said Power Of The Daleks is rather overrated. so maybe it's the type of stories I'm not a fan of. In a way, I suppose there are some similarities between early-mid 80s Who and the first two thirds of 60s Who. Quite deliberately from memory. Mind you... David Whitaker who script edited those first couple seasons seemed to eschew more towards psychological intrigue. It was just as much about what happened between people as what happened to people. By the time of Pat Troughton's tenure, it's a lot more focussed on the other way around and Season 19 reflects that quite strongly. Back to basics didn't mean a return to Hartnell -- because most of his episodes were missing -- but Troughton instead. Castrovalva, Kinda and Earthshock don't fit in any other tenure, Four to Doomsday could've been from the period that brought us The Ark or The Underwater Menace, The Visitation feels like a bit of a hangover from the Holmes era similar to The Horror of Fang Rock and Time-Flight tries to pull off a Pertwee-style anomaly with diminishing success.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2017 9:15:26 GMT
I'm more inclined to blame the writing than I am the acting, you can only do what the script tells you to do. You only have to look at the difference between Survival and Time and the Rani or Time-Flight and Snakedance. Quite deliberately from memory. Mind you... David Whitaker who script edited those first couple seasons seemed to eschew more towards psychological intrigue. It was just as much about what happened between people as what happened to people. By the time of Pat Troughton's tenure, it's a lot more focussed on the other way around and Season 19 reflects that quite strongly. Back to basics didn't mean a return to Hartnell -- because most of his episodes were missing -- but Troughton instead. Castrovalva, Kinda and Earthshock don't fit in any other tenure, Four to Doomsday could've been from the period that brought us The Ark or The Underwater Menace, The Visitation feels like a bit of a hangover from the Holmes era similar to The Horror of Fang Rock and Time-Flight tries to pull off a Pertwee-style anomaly with diminishing success. Maybe that's it, then. Davison's stories try to be callbacks to other eras and don't do good jobs of it. I think you're wrong with Earthshock, though. I'd say that they were aiming for a 60s-style Cyberman story. But I do like Earthshock and it's less obvious than with the others. And Castrovalva and Kinda maybe just to full of complicated ideas, which are explained in unusual ways and fairly confusing ways that perhaps I don't like them that much for that. Then again I love Ghost Light and that has complicated ideas and explains them in an even more confusing way. As I said, maybe it is the acting. I'm not a fan of the Season 19 TARDIS team at all. Adric's a bit of an idiot and Waterhouse - at least, when he was younger - couldn't act. Then again, the character was written abysmally. I mean, based on Four To Doomsday wherein the Doctor tells him off for going on the side of Monarch in the second half of it, are we even meant to like him? Nyssa's character's bland and I'd say the acting's pretty bland. Tegan's only character trait is that she's sassy - in this series. And Davison delivers an uninteresting Doctor, who never seems to be at all quirky. And Colin Baker's Doctor behaves like a p***k, which some people may like, but I hate. You know what Earthshock reminds me most of? "Breakdown" from Blake's 7. It's a story told in two very distinctive acts, the journey and the destination rather than it being a single continuous whole. There's no mention of the conference or freighter movement at all before the second half of "Part Two" when it's introduced. Castrovalva and Kinda are both fine stories, the only criticisms I would level at them is that the former is a bit too laidback at times and the latter is hit with some unusually poor production values. On the subject of Matthew Waterhouse, I think he could definitely act. Not as well as he can now, but Full Circle and The Keeper of Traken have him both do a fairly good job in the role. He feels less like a spare part there than in other stories and Adric is given a lot to do. His character hit a pretty solid wall come Logopolis though, he became a creator's pet after a fashion and where they put his character in Four to Doomsday made very little sense for what we'd seen of him before. I don't think they quite knew what to do with him, Saward hit upon the idea that he felt out-of-place in The Visitation and the implication I get from Iterations of I years later is that close to Earthshock he's got depression. Ah, Ghost-Light, now there's a story that treats the viewer rather well. Marc Platt assumes that you have knowledge of how a scientific experiment works and can work it out for yourself. Control is the scientific constant, Josiah is the dependent variable and Light is the observer trying to manipulate results of the test. Platt has my personal favourite interpretation of the Fifth Doctor in Loups-Garoux as a young man with an old man's wisdom. Not worldweary, but wary. The Sixth Doctor has a lot more to him than the antagonism. It's like saying Simon Templar is a b*stard. There are some fundamental qualities that are being overlooked that make him quite a lot more honourable than first impressions imply (particularly that first impression). The Sixth Doctor's two years on the show leave him with little wiggle room, but you can see hidden depths scattered throughout his stories, most prominently in Trial of a Time Lord and The Two Doctors.
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