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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Jan 9, 2016 22:40:42 GMT
Those instances are both post-Time War, and both at particular points in the Doctor's life. Prisoner of Peladon is set between the Green Death and the Time Warrior. What's in character for the Tenth Doctor is not necessarily so for the Third Doctor. That's because there's no solo-3rd Doctor stories. Also: the 4th Doctor in The Deadly Assassin shoots a poison dart at the Master because there was no companion to stop him. Firstly, he's in the Matrix at the time. pedantically, he shoots it at Goth, not the Master. Secondly, he was in a fight for survival. thirdly, the dart wounded, not killed.
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on Jan 9, 2016 23:12:17 GMT
That's because there's no solo-3rd Doctor stories. Also: the 4th Doctor in The Deadly Assassin shoots a poison dart at the Master because there was no companion to stop him. Firstly, he's in the Matrix at the time. pedantically, he shoots it at Goth, not the Master. Secondly, he was in a fight for survival. thirdly, the dart wounded, not killed. 'Wounded' doesn't make it good.
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Jan 10, 2016 2:08:18 GMT
He's being hunted and fighting for his survival. He uses an explosive and a poison dart to cripple his enemy - yes that is EXACTLY the action of a man who needs people "to stop him".
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on Jan 10, 2016 10:04:52 GMT
He's being hunted and fighting for his survival. He uses an explosive and a poison dart to cripple his enemy - yes that is EXACTLY the action of a man who needs people "to stop him". The Doctor with a companion would use words, not poison darts IMO.
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Jan 10, 2016 11:25:07 GMT
The Doctor does what the Doctor does, he makes the best of a bad situation, he ISNT a monster that needs some pet human to keep him on a leash. "Never cowardly, never cruel, a peaceful man in a violent cosmos". Nothing in there about "a budding psychopath who is magically stopped from psychopathy by the presence of a human".
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Post by ulyssessarcher on Jan 10, 2016 12:32:13 GMT
Dale Earnhardt, Richard Petty in his prime or David Pearson. oh wait, I think I'm in the wrong forum. Though i'll stick with my answers. The 3, the 43 or the 21. I never thought I'd see the day when Nascar was mentioned in a Doctor Who forum! The question in the Nascar forum was, what if any car numbers should be retired, my answer was 'the third doctor was the only one that could handle a race car. So, only Bessie should be retired.'
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 15:38:49 GMT
He's being hunted and fighting for his survival. He uses an explosive and a poison dart to cripple his enemy - yes that is EXACTLY the action of a man who needs people "to stop him". The Doctor with a companion would use words, not poison darts IMO. Yet as has been quoted elsewhere in the thread, Sarah stood by and watched this same Doctor pipe poison gas into Solon's laboratory. the point is that there was no moral gulf between the Doctor and his companion in the seventies. Hinchcliffe had a much less moral TARDIS crew than Letts or Williams, but none of them showed the companion as a restraining force on the Doctor. with Leela the influence was explicitly the other way around.
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on Jan 10, 2016 18:05:33 GMT
The Doctor with a companion would use words, not poison darts IMO. Yet as has been quoted elsewhere in the thread, Sarah stood by and watched this same Doctor pipe poison gas into Solon's laboratory. the point is that there was no moral gulf between the Doctor and his companion in the seventies. Hinchcliffe had a much less moral TARDIS crew than Letts or Williams, but none of them showed the companion as a restraining force on the Doctor. with Leela the influence was explicitly the other way around. Only because writing wasn't a major focus during the 70s and therefore wasn't as strong as it is now. If Classic Who had the writers of New Who, the 4th Doctor and companions would almost certainly have had more depth and emotional impact.
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Post by elkawho on Jan 10, 2016 18:35:17 GMT
Yet as has been quoted elsewhere in the thread, Sarah stood by and watched this same Doctor pipe poison gas into Solon's laboratory. the point is that there was no moral gulf between the Doctor and his companion in the seventies. Hinchcliffe had a much less moral TARDIS crew than Letts or Williams, but none of them showed the companion as a restraining force on the Doctor. with Leela the influence was explicitly the other way around. Only because writing wasn't a major focus during the 70s and therefore wasn't as strong as it is now. If Classic Who had the writers of New Who, the 4th Doctor and companions would almost certainly have had more depth and emotional impact. I'm sorry, but if you believe this then we are watching 2 very different things. I love the modern series and will defend most of it against the attacks by the "classic or nothing" fans, but I have to completely disagree with your statement. Writing was most definitely a focus. I would place Ark In Space, Genesis Of The Daleks, Talons Of Wang Chiang, Pyramids of Mars, City Of Death, etc right up there with the best of the modern series. In fact some could argue that the writing had an even greater focus since they had more time to tell a story and could spend a lot more time on plot and character development.
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on Jan 10, 2016 18:44:56 GMT
Only because writing wasn't a major focus during the 70s and therefore wasn't as strong as it is now. If Classic Who had the writers of New Who, the 4th Doctor and companions would almost certainly have had more depth and emotional impact. I'm sorry, but if you believe this then we are watching 2 very different things. I love the modern series and will defend most of it against the attacks by the "classic or nothing" fans, but I have to completely disagree with your statement. Writing was most definitely a focus. I would place Ark In Space, Genesis Of The Daleks, Talons Of Wang Chiang, Pyramids of Mars, City Of Death, etc right up there with the best of the modern series. In fact some could argue that the writing had an even greater focus since they had more time to tell a story and could spend a lot more time on plot and character development. Whilst the classic series was brilliant, in reply I would say the focus in the classic series was more on the plot than the quality of the dialogue or character development. If you don't see a significant difference in the quality of the writing between classic and new, I find that hugely surprising because to me the new series is much better written. That's not meant as an 'attack' on the classic series but it's just the new series' strength and the classic series' weakness IMO and everything has strengths and weaknesses. Not accusing you of this but I think too many people tend to pretend the classic series was perfect but in reality whilst there were many classic stories it wasn't. One thing I would say however is the classic series is more creative than the new.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 18:47:02 GMT
Yet as has been quoted elsewhere in the thread, Sarah stood by and watched this same Doctor pipe poison gas into Solon's laboratory. the point is that there was no moral gulf between the Doctor and his companion in the seventies. Hinchcliffe had a much less moral TARDIS crew than Letts or Williams, but none of them showed the companion as a restraining force on the Doctor. with Leela the influence was explicitly the other way around. Only because writing wasn't a major focus during the 70s and therefore wasn't as strong as it is now. If Classic Who had the writers of New Who, the 4th Doctor and companions would almost certainly have had more depth and emotional impact. As much as I love the writings of Bob Holmes and his many wonderful contributions to the mythos, I thought that once they got to Chris Boucher they really started to examine (and possibly re-evaluate) the Doctor's impact on the universe. There's this really serious undercurrent throughout those stories of the Doctor being genuinely tempted by the possibility of limitless power and becoming one of the many dictators he fights against, so much so that The Invasion of Time feels almost like a natural progression of it. The writing was definitely the focus back then, just that it didn't drive the plot so much as add a bit of colour to it. Funny thing is that unlike the Tenth Doctor, I think that the Fourth Doctor in his element would be unstoppable regardless of whether or not he had a companion. It's his own self-control and deeply moral character that keeps him in check. That being said, they're both two very different incarnations though. The Tenth Doctor is at his core self-destructive, whereas his predecessor has a sense of self-worth which is almost bulletproof. Where Ten would have mourned his mistakes, Four immediately sets out to repair the damage he caused in The Face of Evil without so much as a single hint of wretchedness. It speaks to how important certain events in the Doctors' many lives are and how it shapes not only their own behaviour, but the behaviour of those around them. The Fourth Doctor seems to be riding the high from his returned freedom in the cosmos following The Three Doctors, while six lives later the Time War has had such a grotesque impact that its shadow is cast over two regenerations. This is just my opinion, but I think Ten's introspective nature invites his companions to criticise and evaluate him, while Four's personality on the other hand doesn't. One doesn't have the same kind of conviction the other has, hence the difference of opinions and why a rather atypically self-examining Fourth Doctor in The Pyramids of Mars gets caught out by Sarah on the death of Scarman: SARAH: "Sometimes you don't seem--" DOCTOR: "Human? Typical Osiran simplicity." SARAH: "A man has just been murdered!" DOCTOR: "Four men, Sarah. Five, if you include Professor Scarman himself, and they're merely the first of millions unless Sutekh is stopped. Know thine enemy. Admirable advice." SARAH: "Yes." (It's the kind of conversation that says, "There's more at stake here than your morality. Through one death, I will be able to halt millions and I am prepared to live with the guilt of that one act of murder after we've sorted this out. Right here, right now, you and me are irrelevant. Everyone else is what matters.")
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 18:55:15 GMT
Yet as has been quoted elsewhere in the thread, Sarah stood by and watched this same Doctor pipe poison gas into Solon's laboratory. the point is that there was no moral gulf between the Doctor and his companion in the seventies. Hinchcliffe had a much less moral TARDIS crew than Letts or Williams, but none of them showed the companion as a restraining force on the Doctor. with Leela the influence was explicitly the other way around. Only because writing wasn't a major focus during the 70s and therefore wasn't as strong as it is now. If Classic Who had the writers of New Who, the 4th Doctor and companions would almost certainly have had more depth and emotional impact. Irrelevant, even if true, which I would dispute. You can't try to use Deadly Assassin as evidence the Doctor has always needed the companion as a restraining force and then completely dismiss the entire Leela relationship where a passifist Doctor constantly restrained a violent companion. If the Leela example is invalid purely because it comes from an era of poor writing then so is your example of Deadly Assassin. Do we have any examples at all in classic who where the companion restrained the Doctor from excessively violent behaviour? Or where the Doctor acted in a violent manner which was directly attributed onscreen to the lack of a companion?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 19:00:38 GMT
Do we have any examples at all in classic who where the companion restrained the Doctor from excessively violent behaviour? Or where the Doctor acted in a violent manner which was directly attributed onscreen to the lack of a companion? Well, I guess An Unearthly Child where Ian stops Hartnell killing Za but that is so ridiculously early that no-one really had an idea what the show really was never mind what it would become.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 19:01:39 GMT
I'm sorry, but if you believe this then we are watching 2 very different things. I love the modern series and will defend most of it against the attacks by the "classic or nothing" fans, but I have to completely disagree with your statement. Writing was most definitely a focus. I would place Ark In Space, Genesis Of The Daleks, Talons Of Wang Chiang, Pyramids of Mars, City Of Death, etc right up there with the best of the modern series. In fact some could argue that the writing had an even greater focus since they had more time to tell a story and could spend a lot more time on plot and character development. Whilst the classic series was brilliant, in reply I would say the focus in the classic series was more on the plot than the quality of the dialogue or character development. If you don't see a significant difference in the quality of the writing between classic and new, I find that hugely surprising because to me the new series is much better written. That's not meant as an 'attack' on the classic series but it's just the new series' strength and the classic series' weakness IMO and everything has strengths and weaknesses. Not accusing you of this but I think too many people tend to pretend the classic series was perfect but in reality whilst there were many classic stories it wasn't. One thing I would say however is the classic series is more creative than the new. I take each story as they come and think it's far too simplistic to try to talk in era's. Classic who in particular went through so many creative teams that it's unrealistic to try and treat it as a single entity. I would agree that season 6 is light on character development, but we're still listening to the adventures of Jago and Litefoot today, so season 14 (?) clearly had more going for it in the character stakes (even though Robert Holmes was involved in both).
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on Jan 10, 2016 19:22:39 GMT
Whilst the classic series was brilliant, in reply I would say the focus in the classic series was more on the plot than the quality of the dialogue or character development. If you don't see a significant difference in the quality of the writing between classic and new, I find that hugely surprising because to me the new series is much better written. That's not meant as an 'attack' on the classic series but it's just the new series' strength and the classic series' weakness IMO and everything has strengths and weaknesses. Not accusing you of this but I think too many people tend to pretend the classic series was perfect but in reality whilst there were many classic stories it wasn't. One thing I would say however is the classic series is more creative than the new. I take each story as they come and think it's far too simplistic to try to talk in era's. Classic who in particular went through so many creative teams that it's unrealistic to try and treat it as a single entity. I would agree that season 6 is light on character development, but we're still listening to the adventures of Jago and Litefoot today, so season 14 (?) clearly had more going for it in the character stakes (even though Robert Holmes was involved in both). The thing is, if you took the most iconic companions from both classic and new - Sarah Jane and Rose Tyler - and tried to list everything you know about them, I think you'd find a lot more things to say about Rose than Sarah Jane. Don't get me wrong, Sarah Jane is a great companion and the best of the classic series (bar K9 IMO) but an example of good character development she is not. Any signs of developing her character came later in School Reunion and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 19:31:51 GMT
I take each story as they come and think it's far too simplistic to try to talk in era's. Classic who in particular went through so many creative teams that it's unrealistic to try and treat it as a single entity. I would agree that season 6 is light on character development, but we're still listening to the adventures of Jago and Litefoot today, so season 14 (?) clearly had more going for it in the character stakes (even though Robert Holmes was involved in both). The thing is, if you took the most iconic companions from both classic and new - Sarah Jane and Rose Tyler - and tried to list everything you know about them, I think you'd find a lot more things to say about Rose than Sarah Jane. Don't get me wrong, Sarah Jane is a great companion and the best of the classic series (bar K9 IMO) but an example of good character development she is not. Any signs of developing her character came later in School Reunion and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Sarah Jane is an excellent example of an actress maturing into her role rather than any intended development on the part of the writers, you can see the difference between when she started out and when she left. This may sound a bit churlish (and it's definitely not meant to be), but I think all character development for the regulars went out the window when David Whitaker left the programme waaaaay back in the 1960s. The show never really got anything like The Edge of Destruction where the characters' maturing was overt until... Oh, good grief. Until Vizlor Turlough's rapid character spurt (in both the Black Guardian trilogy and Planet of Fire) years later in 1983/4. He's probably one of the few classic television companions to overtly change as a result of his travels with the Doctor.
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on Jan 10, 2016 19:54:31 GMT
The thing is, if you took the most iconic companions from both classic and new - Sarah Jane and Rose Tyler - and tried to list everything you know about them, I think you'd find a lot more things to say about Rose than Sarah Jane. Don't get me wrong, Sarah Jane is a great companion and the best of the classic series (bar K9 IMO) but an example of good character development she is not. Any signs of developing her character came later in School Reunion and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Sarah Jane is an excellent example of an actress maturing into her role rather than any intended development on the part of the writers, you can see the difference between when she started out and when she left. This may sound a bit churlish (and it's definitely not meant to be), but I think all character development for the regulars went out the window when David Whitaker left the programme waaaaay back in the 1960s. The show never really got anything like The Edge of Destruction where the characters' maturing was overt until... Oh, good grief. Until Vizlor Turlough's rapid character spurt (in both the Black Guardian trilogy and Planet of Fire) years later in 1983/4. He's probably one of the few classic television companions to overtly change as a result of his travels with the Doctor. Thanks for proving my point for me. Even Ian, Barbara and Turlough don't have the character development of Donna, Amy and Rory (to name a few new series examples).
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 20:11:09 GMT
Sarah Jane is an excellent example of an actress maturing into her role rather than any intended development on the part of the writers, you can see the difference between when she started out and when she left. This may sound a bit churlish (and it's definitely not meant to be), but I think all character development for the regulars went out the window when David Whitaker left the programme waaaaay back in the 1960s. The show never really got anything like The Edge of Destruction where the characters' maturing was overt until... Oh, good grief. Until Vizlor Turlough's rapid character spurt (in both the Black Guardian trilogy and Planet of Fire) years later in 1983/4. He's probably one of the few classic television companions to overtly change as a result of his travels with the Doctor. Thanks for proving my point for me. Even Ian, Barbara and Turlough don't have the character development of Donna, Amy and Rory (to name a few new series examples). No worries and all very true, but -- and I want to be very clear on this front to everyone who's reading -- character development is not and does not have to be a prerequisite of a good character. It's fantastic for shaking up the status quo and offering something new we haven't seen before (whether it be a new side we haven't seen before, a sense of disillusionment or even just our beloved characters taking stock of their own decisions), but if their core characterisation is faulty then you're in very serious trouble. Ian, Barbara and Turlough while given the opportunity to develop, didn't really need it because they had very interesting characterisations already (normal people stranded in an exciting and dangerous universe and the duplicitous, cowardly and morally grey companion). The same is true of Jamie McCrimmon, Elizabeth Shaw, Jo Grant, Romana, the Brigadier, K9, Ace and countless others. Character development is usually used either as a fix-up tool for oversights that came too late in the game to be corrected on the drawing board (see John Dorney's implication that poor Adric is suffering from depression in Iterations of I or Peri coming to recognise why she wants to travel with the Sixth Doctor in Burning Heart) to an opportunity that's worth exploring because of how the character has been set-up already (see dear Barbara's attempts to intervene in the history of the Aztecs or Evelyn's disillusionment with the Doctor's morbid lifestyle).
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2016 21:00:40 GMT
I take each story as they come and think it's far too simplistic to try to talk in era's. Classic who in particular went through so many creative teams that it's unrealistic to try and treat it as a single entity. I would agree that season 6 is light on character development, but we're still listening to the adventures of Jago and Litefoot today, so season 14 (?) clearly had more going for it in the character stakes (even though Robert Holmes was involved in both). The thing is, if you took the most iconic companions from both classic and new - Sarah Jane and Rose Tyler - and tried to list everything you know about them, I think you'd find a lot more things to say about Rose than Sarah Jane. Don't get me wrong, Sarah Jane is a great companion and the best of the classic series (bar K9 IMO) but an example of good character development she is not. Any signs of developing her character came later in School Reunion and The Sarah Jane Adventures. A character can have zero character development without that meaning the series is badly written. Good writing and character development are different things, the latter is merely one potential element of the former. What you are pointing out is the difference between a script edited series and a show-runner led one. RTD and Moffat, to varying degrees of success, have crafted seasons of the show to tell large stories, and fitted people's scripts in to tell small stories along the way, and so we see progression from one story to another. In the classic series, a script editor would produce a series bible to guide script writers and then select half a dozen scripts to put together and make a series, resulting in very little progression as the later stories use the same bible to define characters as the early ones did. It's not a sign of poor writing, just a different way of making television.
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Jan 10, 2016 21:28:51 GMT
I guess one of the questions would be when BF would introduce a new companion for 4? We know seasons 5 & 6 feature Romana II and series 7 sees the return of Leela. We are talking 2019 before a potential new companion would be introduced in the range.
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