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Post by nucleusofswarm on Jul 15, 2017 0:29:44 GMT
Being in what can be politely termed as low regard by many in fandom, which of these two 80s misfires is the bigger turkey (or pony-Myrka, in this instance)?
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Post by glynnlondon on Jul 15, 2017 0:35:43 GMT
Twin Dilemma by a mile. A pisspoor way to begin a new doctor.
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Post by omega on Jul 15, 2017 0:48:36 GMT
Twin Dilemma. Warriors of the Deep's shortcomings were because of production issues while Twin Dilemma's script and characterisation were highly lacking.
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shutupbanks
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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 Jul 15, 2017 1:03:48 GMT
Definitely Twin Dilemma: Warriors has at least a reasonable story hampered by bad production while Dilemma is just poorly made.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2017 1:22:26 GMT
One is a victim of bad production values, the other of a poor story.
The Twin Dilemma isn't irredeemable in a vacuum but aired back-to-back with The Caves of Androzani it stood absolutely no chance. Twin suffers from its plot not getting started until "Part Three" and focussing on the wrong planets (Earth and Titan III, respectively) for too long. If you splice all four parts together, it can all be said and done in the length of a Blake's 7 episode. The Doctor and Peri meet Azmael fifteen minutes in, the safehouse explodes at the twenty-five mark, we're at Jaconda by twenty-seven and Mestor is defeated in fifty minutes. It actually comes across as one of the better stories of that run since all the continuity is switched off.
Warriors of the Deep, on the other hand, is usually the script I cite when thinking about alternate regeneration stories. What hurts it more than anything else were the haphazard production values and I suspect had it been remounted -- say, as Season 22's opener (in lieu of Attack of the Cybermen) -- it would have fared a lot better. The new time slots might have actually worked in the original pre-edited script's favour since some episodes came in at almost twice the length they needed to be. Rewritten with just Peri and a few post-regenerative quirks, it could've been their three-parter for the year.
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Post by mark687 on Jul 15, 2017 10:48:02 GMT
Warriors by a mile everyone's just so bored!
Regards
mark687
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Post by omega on Jul 15, 2017 10:57:28 GMT
Warriors by a mile everyone's just so bored! Regards mark687 At least the plot makes sense. Twin Dilemma is about a giant slug kidnapping supposedly intelligent twins for some reason involving unborn slugs and a sun. I'll take Silurians and Sea-Devils invading a station fighting in a Cold War over that any day. The opening for Warriors, the TARDIS caught entering a forbidden zone in space and forced to make an abrupt relocation helps to sell the atmosphere of the Cold War climate.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2017 11:21:12 GMT
I prefer Warriors, but it's a tough choice! After telling friends at school to watch, because 'the Sea Devils are in it, and they're great', I looked at the first few moments of this and hoped they had ignored me. Yet although some of the acting is bad, the sets are overlit, and the monster costumes are pretty shocking (Samarui Sea Devils???) and didn't always fit, the story is a real guilty pleasure for me. There's much to love - the sets are actually really good and solid looking, the TARDIS team are great, and Ian McCulloch is in it! The story, too, is a good one, if a little over ambitious.
So to The Twin Dilemma. Before the first episode aired, a clip was shown on children's show Blue Peter, featuring Mestor on his throne, surrounded by bird people. Instantly, the alarm bells were ringing - and that was before they showed the performance of the twins! Good on them for trying something new, but Colin's Doctor never really recovered from trying to kill his companion (just let your mind dwell on that a moment - a big lad squeezing his hands around young Peri's neck) and the costume, which could have been a success in the way Tom's scarf was, was just too over-the-top. To such an extent, that Colin needed to overact just to be noticed. Add to that, Jacondan bird people that would have looked at home in a 1930s Flash Gordon series, some very cheaply realised locations (a handful of branches sticking out of a quarry representing a war torn planet) and gaudy set designs, and one of the least effective/mobile/convincing monster costumes in the show's history ... and really, it is not an auspicious start.
I dislike negativity, believe it or not, but Twin Dilemma is very bad, both technically and story-wise. At least Warriors could have been good if a few thousand quid was thrown at it.
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Post by mark687 on Jul 15, 2017 12:06:09 GMT
Warriors by a mile everyone's just so bored! Regards mark687 At least the plot makes sense. Twin Dilemma is about a giant slug kidnapping supposedly intelligent twins for some reason involving unborn slugs and a sun. I'll take Silurians and Sea-Devils invading a station fighting in a Cold War over that any day. The opening for Warriors, the TARDIS caught entering a forbidden zone in space and forced to make an abrupt relocation helps to sell the atmosphere of the Cold War climate. But at least Colin's trying, Peter takes one at the Pantomime Mykra and in his head he's obviously gone "Check Please" and there's no sense of threat, there's some clumsy greed and paranoia but that's it.
Regards
mark687
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Post by omega on Jul 15, 2017 12:16:02 GMT
At least the plot makes sense. Twin Dilemma is about a giant slug kidnapping supposedly intelligent twins for some reason involving unborn slugs and a sun. I'll take Silurians and Sea-Devils invading a station fighting in a Cold War over that any day. The opening for Warriors, the TARDIS caught entering a forbidden zone in space and forced to make an abrupt relocation helps to sell the atmosphere of the Cold War climate. But at least Colin's trying, Peter takes one at the Pantomime Mykra and in his head he's obviously gone "Check Please" and there's no sense of threat, there's some clumsy greed and paranoia but that's it.
Regards
mark687
Trying to be the mot unlikeable Doctor since Tom Baker was putting one over on the Vardans? The production side is clearly the weak link for Warriors, but Twin Dilemma showed the end of season shoestring budget. I don't see Mestor on any Best Bad Guy lists. And the less said about Hugo Lang's outfit the better.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2017 12:19:38 GMT
At least the plot makes sense. Twin Dilemma is about a giant slug kidnapping supposedly intelligent twins for some reason involving unborn slugs and a sun. I'll take Silurians and Sea-Devils invading a station fighting in a Cold War over that any day. The opening for Warriors, the TARDIS caught entering a forbidden zone in space and forced to make an abrupt relocation helps to sell the atmosphere of the Cold War climate. But at least Colin's trying, Peter takes one at the Pantomime Mykra and in his head he's obviously gone "Check Please" and there's no sense of threat, there's some clumsy greed and paranoia but that's it.
Regards
mark687
Whilst I agree with you about Colin and think he is by far the best thing about Twin Dilemma, I also think that Peter D is the best thing about Warriors. I think his performance is great here, he is very 'Doctor-y' and absolutely the hero. He seems to me to be putting in an extra effort to make up for the production's short-comings - of which there are many.
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Post by mark687 on Jul 15, 2017 12:30:15 GMT
But at least Colin's trying, Peter takes one at the Pantomime Mykra and in his head he's obviously gone "Check Please" and there's no sense of threat, there's some clumsy greed and paranoia but that's it.
Regards
mark687
Trying to be the mot unlikeable Doctor since Tom Baker was putting one over on the Vardans? The production side is clearly the weak link for Warriors, but Twin Dilemma showed the end of season shoestring budget. I don't see Mestor on any Best Bad Guy lists. And the less said about Hugo Lang's outfit the better. I've never thought Twin Dilemma was a bad debut EP. IMO the Mood swings were good the timings and reactions to them were poor (he tries to kill her, she scolds him on the virtues of compassion, then breaks down when she thinks he's blown up, then come story's end all is forgiven "whether you like it or not" .
Regards
mark687
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2017 12:36:15 GMT
I'd rather watch Twin Dilemma any day over the deathly dull Warriors of the Deep, personally.
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Post by number13 on Jul 15, 2017 14:26:32 GMT
What a dilemma! 'The Twin Dilemma' has so many things wrong with it that it's hard to know where to start, but let's skip the (ahem!) troubled regeneration opening and be charitable by ignoring one or two actors and one or two costumes - and oddly enough, I quite like it! The planet-shifting plot is much better than it once seemed - I've read science news articles that planets can shift their orbits, maybe did even in our own solar system in the distant past. So the giant slugs of Jaconda got it right first? Who knew?! The bird-people makeup is really good and Sluggor mostly needed more money (the whole thing needed more money really, a snazzy uniform for Mr Star Cop would have been good.) So some of it looks naff-ish, not everyone can act and it was obviously short of budget. But Maurice Denham is totally wonderful as always, I think it's entertaining and could have been a good story if done right. 'Warriors of the Deep' was one of my favourite Fifth Doctor stories, when I was young and foolish. Now, I think it's a mixture of tedium, out-of-place incidents and preaching about the 'superiority' of the Silurians over us nasty warmongering humans. The preaching is especially irritating because the story undermines its own idea of a totally peaceful ancient civilisation. If Silurians were all so culturally committed to peace, why did they ever build “battle cruisers”, why are the Sea Devils in hibernation as ready-to-go “warriors” and why did they develop the Myrka? When they were the unchallenged rulers of the Earth long before humanity, who could they possibly have been preparing to fight – except each other? There is no way the Doctor would ever set a nuclear reactor on overload as a diversion just so they can get back to the TARDIS – not with a base full of people. He seems far less concerned with their safety than he would later be with the Silurians’. Then the Doctor appears to have drowned - it is a great stunt sequence. But Turlough gives the Doctor up for dead instantly and pulls Tegan away – this would have made sense if Turlough was still working for the Black Guardian, but he wasn’t. The Sea Devils used to be able to run, this lot waddle as if through treacle because they have nowhere to go and two episodes to get there, but the Myrka was a great idea and could have been impressive - with modern CGI. For both stories, there should have been another budget and they could both have been successful. As it is, I prefer 'The Twin Dilemma' because for me the one unforgivable sin that 'Doctor Who' can commit is to be boring.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2017 17:44:23 GMT
At least The Twin Dilemma has the decency to be entertaining.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2017 19:19:22 GMT
For me, both were very poor episodes of Doctor Who. But where Warriors of the Deep is bad, The Twin Dilemma is bloody awful.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2017 22:59:19 GMT
I actually really rated Warriors Of The Deep and thought The Twin Dilemma was average.
Am I the only one?
Honestly, I think that a majority of Peter's first two series are worse. Stuff like Time-Flight and Terminus are utter drivel.
Then again looking at the bottom ten: I love Fear Her, enjoyed Time And The Rani, enjoyed Timelash, hated Underworld, hated The Space Pirates, enjoyed The Dominators, thought Rings Of Akhaten was just below par and enjoyed The Space Museum.
There's probably the same amount in the Top 100 that I dislike as in the Top 50, really.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Jul 15, 2017 23:28:35 GMT
One is a victim of bad production values, the other of a poor story. I'd put it more squarely at 50-50: neither was ready to go and needed a considerable rethink on multiple levels.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2017 0:01:25 GMT
One is a victim of bad production values, the other of a poor story. I'd put it more squarely at 50-50: neither was ready to go and needed a considerable rethink on multiple levels. That's a bit vague, how do you mean?
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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 Jul 16, 2017 1:45:59 GMT
I actually really rated Warriors Of The Deep and thought The Twin Dilemma was average. Am I the only one? Honestly, I think that a majority of Peter's first two series are worse. Stuff like Time-Flight and Terminus are utter drivel. Then again looking at the bottom ten: I love Fear Her, enjoyed Time And The Rani, enjoyed Timelash, hated Underworld, hated The Space Pirates, enjoyed The Dominators, thought Rings Of Akhaten was just below par and enjoyed The Space Museum. There's probably the same amount in the Top 100 that I dislike as in the Top 50, really. God Herself could say that Blink was Her favourite episode and there'd be a section of fandom calling Her a "Tennant fangirl." (I have a soft spot for Underworld and I really enjoyed Fear Her, mostly because of the scene where 10 lands the TARDIS and has to turn it 90 degrees so he can open the door)
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