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CobiWann posted:I did just see a teenager with green bubble wrap on one hand. You have no idea how relieved this makes me for the entire future of the world.
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Mar 27, 2015 20:25
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After The War posted:You really want Joseph Lidster to write that for you? How do you do? poo poo! I'm really dyin'. How do you do? Say it while you're sighin'. How do you do? With everybody cryin': Terrible, sure as you're dead. Terrible, sure as you're dead. The license extending to 2020 is great, but it also looks like the Eighth Doctor is getting another line and that they're going to keep working with Tom.  quote:‘We’re already underway, planning Doctor Who stories into 2017 and 2018,’ reveals line producer David Richardson. ‘There will be more adventures from the Fifth, Six and Seventh Doctors in the monthly range, more stories for the Fourth Doctor and his companions in The Fourth Doctor Adventures, and a new era for the Eighth Doctor, Liv Chenka and their new friend Helen Sinclair in Doctor Who: Doom Coalition. Plus we will continue to explore the contrasting worlds of our different and very popular spin-off series.’
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Mar 27, 2015 20:25
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The_Doctor posted:I can only imagine an American Who convention as being fezzes, bowties, converse hi-tops and TARDIS dresses as far as the eye can see. And DoctorWhat as the sole Classic Who holdout, constantly having to explain who he is. I'm hoping to see a few more old-timers there. Maryland Public Television showed the original series for a little over 20 years, and was the last holdout in the US even as the BBC kept restricting what episodes they were able to show. At least we'll have each other, Cobi!
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Mar 27, 2015 20:26
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CobiWann posted:Just me for now, wife and kiddo coming tonight. Just give the kid an airhorn and tell her to blow it whenever a pony comes close.
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Mar 27, 2015 20:29
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After The War posted:I'm hoping to see a few more old-timers there. Maryland Public Television showed the original series for a little over 20 years, and was the last holdout in the US even as the BBC kept restricting what episodes they were able to show. Hah! I remember just moving to DC, some friends were visiting from out of town, and we were drunk off our rear end when one of then came across Arc of Infinity on Maryland Public TV! Me and her were the only ones who made it to the end and it took a lot more booze...
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Mar 27, 2015 20:35
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Who remembers the Doctor Who Programme Guide? Well, they're making the New Who Programme Guide, featuring everything (and I do mean everything, including prequels and mini-episodes) from the Eighth Doctor to the debut of the Twelfth Doctor.
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Mar 27, 2015 20:42
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PowerBuilder3 posted:I read the wiki about it. I still don't understand this: You do that, and you violate Article #7 of Gallifreyan law! And article #7 permits no exceptions! (But, even if you do, just this one time for the Daleks, there's also the Kaleds to worry about.)
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Mar 27, 2015 22:29
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Not to mention the Thals!
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Mar 27, 2015 22:56
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Jerusalem posted:Not to mention the Thals! I want to see the part of the Time War where the Time Lords tried to stop the Kaleds and the Thals won the war and became as bad as the Daleks, a bunch of blond, blue eyed jack booted thugs conquering the universe.  You know that happened a few hundred times at least. CaptainYesterday posted:Who remembers the Doctor Who Programme Guide? Well, they're making the New Who Programme Guide, featuring everything (and I do mean everything, including prequels and mini-episodes) from the Eighth Doctor to the debut of the Twelfth Doctor. This was such a classic. In the age of the internet, it's a bit redundant, but in the 80s to a new fan that and Doctor Who Illustrated A - Z were invaluable.
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Mar 28, 2015 03:42
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I AM EATING DAVROS' LEFTOVER PEANUTS, LOOK UPON MY WORKS YE MIGHTY AND WEEP.
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Mar 28, 2015 05:00
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Yes, Maera Soir and After the War got to sit with Sylvester McCoy and Terry Malloy for drinks, while I set in a panel about "what do you consider canon" and tried very hard not to strangle someone who said School Reunion was the worst episode of the revival.
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Mar 28, 2015 13:09
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Topics that came up with an increasingly inebriated Sylvester McCoy: prohibition, paper liquor store bags, the death penalty, right-to-try laws, Werner von Braun, Nazi medical experiments, Operation Paperclip, the role of race and religion in politics, gentrification and DC voting rights. Topics that did NOT come up: Doctor Who
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Mar 28, 2015 13:55
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After The War posted:Topics that came up with an increasingly inebriated Sylvester McCoy: prohibition, paper liquor store bags, the death penalty, right-to-try laws, Werner von Braun, Nazi medical experiments, Operation Paperclip, the role of race and religion in politics, gentrification and DC voting rights. I'm jealous as hell, that must've been brilliant.
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Mar 28, 2015 14:21
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Well, the hair cut didn't last long: http://www.bigfinish.com/img/news/doomcoalitionhighres_image_large.jpg Guess he's been too busy with The Master and the Daleks to get it cut.
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Mar 28, 2015 14:25
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Forktoss posted:I'm jealous as hell, that must've been brilliant. It was amazing. 
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Mar 28, 2015 14:34
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Davros1 posted:Well, the hair cut didn't last long: I wonder if Mark Bonnar is playing a conniving arsehole.
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Mar 28, 2015 15:10
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Davros1 posted:Well, the hair cut didn't last long: I can't figure out if The Doom Coalition is the unproduced sequel to The Airzone Solution, a lost Chick Tract, or a second-rate Marvel crossover from the 1990s.
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Mar 28, 2015 15:10
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Maybe it's like a Suicide Squad set in the Whoniverse. The Master! A Dalek! Sharez Jek! Mavic Chen! The Rani!
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Mar 28, 2015 15:17
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Rochallor posted:I can't figure out if The Doom Coalition is the unproduced sequel to The Airzone Solution, a lost Chick Tract, or a second-rate Marvel crossover from the 1990s. It's spelt The AirZone Solution? 
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Mar 28, 2015 15:39
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The_Doctor posted:Maybe it's like a Suicide Squad set in the Whoniverse. The Master! A Dalek! Sharez Jek! Mavic Chen! The Rani! Throw in Salamander and I'd buy it! And I just realized - I've never seen anyone cosplay as the TV movie Master. CobiWann fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Mar 28, 2015 |
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Mar 28, 2015 15:40
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CobiWann posted:Throw in Salamander and I'd buy it! http://www.cosplay.com/photo/2987220/
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Mar 28, 2015 16:40
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The_Doctor posted:The Master! A Dalek! Sharez Jek! Mavic Chen! The Rani! Inside me, the wish-master?
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Mar 28, 2015 17:23
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Oh hey, the thread regenerated! I hate the new thread already, the old thread was one of the best threads we've had PowerBuilder3 posted:I read the wiki about it. I still don't understand this: But they don't have the right 
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Mar 28, 2015 17:36
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I have to say, the kiddo was SO nervous to meet Sylvester McCoy. But he put her totally at ease by asking her how to spell her name, then his name, pulling the photo back after he signed it, and pretending she had a strong grip by hitting his wrist against the table when they shook hands. He's a great class act. The kiddo also sat in with me when the showed the 1996 TV movie. She loved Grace, but asked me if Eric Roberts showed up in the audios, because he was NOT her Master. So now I get to introduce her to Alex MacQueen...
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Mar 28, 2015 23:14
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It sounds like McCoy's got a good rapport with adults and children. Congrats, After the War and Cobiwann. I hope you both (not to mention Cobi's family) had a great time!
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Mar 29, 2015 00:40
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CobiWann posted:while I set in a panel about "what do you consider canon" and tried very hard not to strangle someone who said School Reunion was the worst episode of the revival. I hope that someone did a Who themed version of Shatner's infamous Saturday Night Live sketch and then stormed out of the room at that panel.
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Mar 29, 2015 03:25
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CobiWann posted:Yes, Maera Soir and After the War got to sit with Sylvester McCoy and Terry Malloy for drinks, while I set in a panel about "what do you consider canon" and tried very hard not to strangle someone who said School Reunion was the worst episode of the revival. Please tell me somebody trolled them by bringing up Looms. How was the Big Finish presence and conversation there? Is it becoming a part of mainstream fandom or is it still really fringe stuff that's barely talked about?
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Mar 29, 2015 05:05
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Big Finish came up a LOT. Not only at panels with the actors, but there were a few panels about introducing people to the audios, and Terry Molloy and Nev Fountain had panels about acting and writing for Big Finish. And there was some spirited bar conversation as well between a few of us. Also, IDW's Matt Smith just told me to go gently caress myself!
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Mar 29, 2015 05:10
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There was a dedicated Big Finish panel at NYCC 2013. It is a Thing.
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Mar 29, 2015 05:16
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DoctorWhat posted:There was a dedicated Big Finish panel at NYCC 2013. It is a Thing. Now you're just bragging!
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Mar 29, 2015 05:20
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10 years ago, Doctor Who was revived into a monster hit of a show, becoming an international sensation and correcting the terrible yet inevitable mistake the BBC made in December of 1989 when they simply ceased producing any new episodes of the show. The classic series would have ended with a whimper if producer John Nathan-Turner hadn't figured out what was happening and gotten 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy in for a hurried last-second voice-over that at least let the show "end" with some sense of dignity and hope for the future. But RTD's successful 2005-era revival was not the first attempt to get the show regularly back on television, nine years earlier than that saw the release of The Enemy Within, a television-movie that it was hoped would kick-start a new series of the show co-produced by the BBC, the Fox Network, 20th Century Fox and Universal Studios. At the time for Who fans (or at least myself) it was the first grasp of some potential good news (don't even talk about Dimensions in Time  ), the chance to see Doctor Who back on television again like a kind and loving God had always intended it to be. The TV movie failed in that regard though, and this was both a good and a bad thing. Bad because it meant no more new Who for 9 years, but also very good because a lot of what this new show intended to do would have been pretty loving terrible, at least in my opinion, giving the dreaded potential LOOMS storyline a run for its money. As it was, the one singular televised example we have of Philip Segal's vision gives a contradictory view of a show trying to both look to the future as well as embrace its past, a problem that RTD was able to more successfully navigate in 2005. Perhaps the most important thing to come out of the movie, though, was Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor, an inspired bit of casting that proved successful enough that despite the movie never going forward into a television series, and despite some of the awful ideas introduced (half-human being perhaps the worst) as new aspects of the Doctor's character, McGann himself was thoroughly embraced by fans of the show and continued to be considered THE current Doctor until 2005. This 8th Doctor appeared in any number of novels and comics, but McGann himself also continued to portray the part through Big Finish's audio line, a BBC licensed product that further lent him credibility and "official" status in fans' eyes.  The movie opens with narration from McGann, setting the scene and immediately tying itself to the original series, something nice for fans but perhaps another example of why it was difficult for new viewers to get into. His old foe and fellow Time Lord the Master has finally reached the end of his lives, exterminated by the (unseen) Daleks for some unspeakable crime - perhaps for NOT being a Dalek, the most unspeakable crime there is, or maybe they were pissed off he apparently pumped helium into their casings so they're so adorably squeaky as they declare,"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" and blast him into ash. For inexplicable reasons, the Daleks and the Time Lords have come to an agreement that the Doctor will be allowed to transport the Master's remains to Gallifrey, and this allows for a somewhat surprising and very welcome return for Sylvester McCoy as the 7th Doctor, who gets a good 15-20 minutes of screentime and a chance to say a proper goodbye for the character. For classic fans AND for McCoy himself, this is perhaps one of the great strengths of the TV Movie, a righting of a wrong from 1989 as the actor gets a chance to hand over the reigns to a new actor, a chance to say goodbye to the role. That isn't without it's own problems though, the actual main star of the show does not appear until well over 20 minutes into the running time, and though the 7th Doctor doesn't do much in the way of dialogue, he's still the guy who is introduced to the show as THE Doctor, leaving McGann having to work from behind to establish himself in the role. For new viewers curious about the show, it would have been slightly unsettling, though I imagine that based on the ratings for the show, most of the people who DID watch it were fans of the classic show anyway. As one of those, it was a pleasure for me to get to see McCoy back in the role, especially as he got to divorce himself from the stupid question marks on his costume and take on the look of a lovely, slightly doddery but otherwise dignified looking country aristocrat.  The 7th Doctor's death is often remembered as him stepping out into a hail of gunfire, with split opinions on whether that was an appropriate way for him to go or not. If that WAS the way he died, I'd say it was appropriate to see the grand chessmaster taken off the board by a random act of chaos... but that's NOT how he dies. The Doctor steps out of the TARDIS after it malfunctions and crash lands and is shot by a trio of Asian gangsters, but the bullets only wound him, it's the "treatment" he receives at the hospital later that does him in, and for me that is even more appropriate. Because the 7th Doctor - the guy who can talk anybody into anything, the guy who always proves the insufferably self-assured wrong - dies protesting ineffectually, ignored by so-called "experts" who dismiss his frantic warnings, holding him down and pumping him full of a gas toxic to him, essentially stabbing him through one of his hearts with what for them is the most advanced medical technology but for him is pathetically primitive. There is a strange kind of beauty to that, that in their well-meaning but ignorant attempts to help him, in their arrogant belief in their own superiority, they kill the Doctor, and for once all his words fail him. For a character like the 7th Doctor, sometimes considered arrogant himself, always so calculating and long-planning, to run into a chaotic situation like this seemed to me oddly appropriate. So Sylvester McCoy's time as the 7th Doctor finally ends, given an on-screen finality it had been lacking, giving him a chance to say goodbye to the fans, to the role, and to hand it over to an accomplished and well-regarded actor, to be there at the handover for the rebirth of a series that ended under his "watch". That the TV Movie did not succeed in reviving the show is irrelevant in that regard, because it afforded McCoy an opportunity he deserved, and his brief appearance was a welcome one.   Once McGann comes into the show, it doesn't take him long to stamp his personality on the role, to give us our first look at the 8th Doctor - a hopeless romantic who desperately wanted to believe that things could be better, who saw the best in people and had a strong moral core... but was also easily distracted, almost childlike in some ways. Suffering from partial amnesia (the first of many, many times!) due to the anesthesia-delayed regeneration, he spots one of the Doctors (Grace) who "treated" him and for want of a better term kidnaps her, though in his head it's all very reasonable and sensible - he can't remember what is happening but she's involved somehow, and since she is a "Doctor" that means of course she'll help him, right? He approaches the world with all the wonder of a child, literally seeing it through new eyes - gone is the calculating and long-term planning of the 7th Doctor, replaced by the charming, well-intentioned and somewhat bumbling 8th Doctor. He simultaneously dazzles and infuriates Grace, he's a medical marvel to her but while at times he seems brilliant and enthralling, at other times he seems dangerously unbalanced and a potential threat. But for all his bumbling and silliness (his "these shoes fit perfectly!" moment is wonderful) the moments where he puts that all aside and demonstrates his calm authority truly stand out, such as when he steps through the window of Grace's home to demonstrate the breakdown of the molecular bonds of the earth. The casting of the "new" Doctor was a hugely important thing, the success of the story hinges entirely on it and though the TV movie didn't rate well enough to warrant being picked up, nearly everybody agreed that the fault wasn't in the casting, McGann IS the Doctor, with barely an hour of screen time he captured the essence of the character spectacularly well.  The trouble is that the story he, McCoy, and Ashbrook inhabit is not a particularly good one. Though the more controversial aspects of the planned storyline for any ongoing series are mostly contained or suppressed, enough creeps through to leave fans scratching their heads - the Doctor kisses his companion, the first romantic moment between the Doctor and a human companion seen in the show to that point. The Doctor is half-human, with a brief joke on his behalf suggesting that it was his mother who was the human (this would be confirmed if the show had gone ahead, along with a lot of nonsense about the Doctor and Master being half-brothers and their father being the enigmatic Time Lord Ulysses). The whole premise of the story relies on far too much pre-existing knowledge of the show and it's history, and the attempts to present it to a new audience are confusing: the Master has used up all his regenerations, he's decided to open the TARDIS' power source - the Eye of Harmony - in order to steal the Doctor's remaining lives, but leaving it open will cause the destruction of the earth, something he doesn't care about at all. In the Master's efforts, he possesses the body of a paramedic played by Eric Roberts, who was by all accounts not particularly enthusiastic about the role, and takes on a companion of his own, the young Chang Lee, who was saved by the 7th Doctor's unexpected arrival. The Master and Chang Lee hunt down the Doctor and Grace, who in turn are in search of a component to replace one burned out in his TARDIS, which just so happens to have just been invented and is set to be unveiled to mark in the new millennium. Once all four come together in the TARDIS, the Doctor and the Master compete for Chang's soul like the angel and demon on his shoulder, a bizarre section of the story that makes little sense since the Master shouldn't and wouldn't care one way or the other what Chang thought of him or his actions once he had the Doctor in his power - if Chang refused to open the Eye, it's not like the Master couldn't force him, as he happily does with Grace afterwards anyway. Grace's frantic rewiring of the TARDIS also makes little sense, as despite her clear intelligence (including some musing on the dimensionally transcendent nature of the TARDIS) there is no way she has any idea what the hell she is actually doing, though I suppose you could always try to handwave that as the TARDIS giving her psychic nudges in the right direction. More problematic than the rather confusing story though is the sense that this is a movie more interested in visual flourish than a tightly woven narrative. Events often happen with no clear cause and effect, characters disappear from the storyline, major events have no further bearing on the later story, camera transitions happen just because the director seemed to think they'd look cool (like the cut from the Time Vortex to the fish-eye with the camera shifting out the window and down to the street). Chang's backstory with the Asian gangsters goes completely unexplored, his murdered friends literally disappear from the story without a second thought in the next scene, with Chang accompanying the Doctor in the ambulance with no apparent police presence having occurred for the two dead bodies lying in the trash. When the Doctor regenerates and breaks out of the morgue, there is a rather clumsy parallel made with the awakening of Frankenstein's monster in the old classic film for no other apparent reason than that it seemed like a fun thing to do. The Doctor stomps out into a bizarre flooded corridor of the hotel, beds smashed on their sides, mirrors lines up on the walls madly, the shattered remnants of one artfully laid out on the floor so the Doctor can drop to his knees and bellow WHO AM I!?!?! to the thundering sky.... but why the hell is the corridor flooded? Who put those mirrors there? Why is there apparently an abandoned corridor with open and smashed windows letting in the elements? I put it to you that they're there because they looked cool, and that's basically the entire reasoning for why they're there. Later in the story, the Doctor sets off an alarm (mostly because it seems like the thing to do, he admits) and he and Grace clamber down the side of a building by a firehose. As they lower down, a cleaner is seen vacuuming the floor of the just now abandoned building.... why? It's New Year's Eve on the Millennium, the party was still going on seconds earlier and is only empty now because the building is being evacuated, so why is there suddenly a cleaner out there? Again, probably because it seemed like it would be funny to have something mundane happening in the foreground while action was taking place unknown behind them.  In the end, the TV Movie failed in its goal - it was meant to kick off a new series and though fans were disappointed it didn't happen at the time, in the end it was probably for the best. Giving Sylvester McCoy an appropriate and rather heartwarming chance to bring closure to his role on the show, and giving Paul McGann a chance to stamp his identity/personality onto the role were where it had its greatest success. Featuring an unenthusiastic Eric Roberts as the antagonist, and two very enthusiastic companion characters played by Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso, they're ill-served by the story they're given, which is a weird mixture of appeals to fans of the classic show and attempts to pave their own road and create their own mythology. More style than substance, this is mostly remembered in a positive light because of McGann, and in a negative light because of the half-human/companion kissing stuff. For me, the introduction of Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor was enough to make it a success, with McCoy's goodbye a welcome bonus.... I'm just glad that 9 years after it first aired, I can say now that it was a good thing that it failed to revive a show I'd been desperate to see return since 1989, because if it HAD succeeded, we'd never have gotten RTD's revival, we'd never have gotten Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith or Peter Capaldi. And who wants to live in THAT world?  
Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Mar 29, 2015 |
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Mar 29, 2015 05:30
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To be fair, while you could go in a number of better directions for the Master than "Ainley, but more hammy and cinematic," Eric Roberts was perhaps the best American actor to play that. It was not a role that demanded nuance. His major failure was being the right Master for the wrong version of Doctor Who.
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Mar 29, 2015 06:24
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Having just watched this today after nearly 20 years, you hit it all spot on. And even though Eight's costume is Wild Bill, you can't help but notice the Shelley/Frankenstein motifs in his regeneration and post-regen amnesia, with the sheets and the Lightning.
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Mar 29, 2015 06:30
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The truly brilliant thing about the Wild Bill Hickock costume is that, when putting it on, the Doctor examines, then discards the gunbelt. In Night of the Doctor, he takes Cass's gun belt and puts it on.
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Mar 29, 2015 06:31
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You also forgot the worst line of the entire movie: THE ASIAN CHILD
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Mar 29, 2015 12:12
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Also, I prefer just calling it The TV Movie or Grace:1999.
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Mar 29, 2015 12:46
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The_Doctor posted:Also, I prefer just calling it The TV Movie or Grace:1999. Man, the title sequence for Grace:1999 would be great. THIS EPISODE <repeated smash cuts to Eric Roberts chewing scenery>
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Mar 29, 2015 12:50
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Fil5000 posted:Man, the title sequence for Grace:1999 would be great. Roberts - "I was camp?!? No, MCGANN was camp!" I am bummed - Roberts is a pretty decent actor, especially since he cleaned up his life and stopped doing drugs. He just didn't fit in this movie in this role, but he could of...
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Mar 29, 2015 13:04
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Fil5000 posted:Man, the title sequence for Grace:1999 would be great. For those who have missed this fantastic slice of 70s Space Disco: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4-A__lZrEA The side links of which lead me to the complete Sapphire & Steel episodes, which I didnt know existed on Youtube. I'm watching the first episode/assignment, and it's really interesting stuff, and it's gripping in that Who-esque 70s way. I'm a little put off that the first assignment is apparently 2 hours 15 minutes long, but hey, I guess that's like a 6 parter Who story. It reminds me a lot of Hide, and things like The Stone Tapes, but I keep expecting the Doctor to show up, and he doesn't. I'm guessing someone's proposed the 'Sapphire & Steel are Time Lords/CIA/etc' theory in the past? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqah0bXh19E
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Mar 29, 2015 13:32
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So, why did the Doctor (it was in his TARDIS, after all!) just happen to have that Time Lord bondage gear lying around? I recall reading that Fox passed on turning this into a series in favour of renewing Sliders for a third season.
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Mar 29, 2015 13:34
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