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Action Jacktion
Jun 3, 2003
The Dæmons lifts some ideas from Quatermass but I wouldn't call it a rip-off. Now, Spearhead from Space, that's a rip-off; they didn't even try to hide it. Torchwood's Children of Earth had similarities to Quatermass IV (aliens wanting to take large numbers of young people for possibly frivolous reasons) but that was more of an homage.

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Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Action Jacktion posted:

Now, Spearhead from Space, that's a rip-off; they didn't even try to hide it.

Also a great episode!

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Doctor Who rips off Quatermass a lot.

And is the better for it :hai:

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!
If you're gonna steal, steal from the best.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Payndz posted:

If you're gonna steal, steal from the best.

Terrance Dicks: Terry, you're the best.
Terry Nation: Thanks :)
Terrance Dicks: Now I need you to write me a new script.
Terry Nation: :ohdear:

Astroman
Apr 8, 2001


Payndz posted:

I just finished my Pertwee run (over the course of about two years) and yes, doooooo iiiiiiiiit. There are inevitably clunkers ('The Time Monster' and 'The Monster of Peladon' spring to mind), but nothing of a 'Twin Dilemma' level, and there are also some genuine greats. There's also the best Master, the Brig, and Pertwee being the most dapper velvet-smoking-jacketed mofo in the universe. Go for it.

If there was an entire season of The Doctor going to weird places in the future and seeing trippy poo poo like in Carnival of Monsters with no high stakes or arcs I would watch it all day.

Sydney Bottocks
Oct 15, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 60 days!

Astroman posted:

If there was an entire season of The Doctor going to weird places in the future and seeing trippy poo poo like in Carnival of Monsters with no high stakes or arcs I would watch it all day.

Seriously, the universe/time itself being in constant peril gets old after a while. One of the best DW stories ever, The Caves of Androzani, had no stakes outside of The Doctor trying to save himself and Peri. The universe wasn't going to end, and nobody was going to travel back in time and rewrite history for their own evil purposes if the Doctor didn't succeed. It was just the Doctor and Peri, accidentally caught up in gun-running, drug smuggling, political machinations, and petty grudges. And it's one of the greatest DW stories ever filmed. Constantly throwing "the universe/time itself could be destroyed" out as a way to try and make the audience really invested in a story is just a lazy writer's crutch, as far as I'm concerned.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

It really has become almost farcical over the years that no matter how small the stakes might be in a given episode there is inevitably a line thrown in about it wiping out all life on Earth or the Universe or something.


Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Feb 21, 2021

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!

Jerusalem posted:

Terrance Dicks: Terry, you're the best.
Terry Nation: Thanks :)
Terrance Dicks: Now I need you to write me a new script.
Terry Nation: :ohdear:
Producer of The Baron: Terry! I'd like you to be the main writer on my series! I'm sure you've got lots of great stories for me.
Terry Nation: Why yes, yes I have. In fact, if you give me ten minutes and some Tippex, you can have the first one.

An Taoiseach
Mar 23, 2008

World's Strongest Love

Payndz posted:

I just finished my Pertwee run (over the course of about two years) and yes, doooooo iiiiiiiiit. There are inevitably clunkers ('The Time Monster' and 'The Monster of Peladon' spring to mind), but nothing of a 'Twin Dilemma' level, and there are also some genuine greats. There's also the best Master, the Brig, and Pertwee being the most dapper velvet-smoking-jacketed mofo in the universe. Go for it.

Honestly, i'll go to bat for The Time Monster, just for the flat out *ridiculousness* of Kronos being like a Terrible Time Chicken and say that Monster of Peladom is Pertwee's only bad story. His first season though is possibly the single best of the entire series, every serial is excellent

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!
If you've got the ability to do so, watching 'Monster of Peladon' (and indeed any six-parter) at 1.5x speed makes it a lot more bearable.

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

Payndz posted:

If you've got the ability to do so, watching 'Monster of Peladon' (and indeed any six-parter)

Genesis? Power? Tsk

Davros1
Jul 19, 2007

You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible



Well, got my PATERNOSTER GANG Vol 4 yesterday. It shipped in October.

Rhyno
Mar 22, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!
Lotta poo poo being tossed at giant penis monster.

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Genesis? Power? Tsk
I should have specified any Pertwee six-parter, d'oh.

Edit: addendum to the 1.5x thing, I tried watching 'Power of the Daleks' at that speed, and it's impossible. Pertwee is totally comprehensible speeded-up, but Troughton... nope. The clown Doctor gets the last laugh again.

Small Strange Bird fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Feb 22, 2021

Barry Foster
Dec 24, 2007

What is going wrong with that one (face is longer than it should be)
love too listen to a Big Finish story which not only indulges in the myth of the clean Wehrmacht but actually has our heroes team up with Nazi POWs against a French resistance member

really cool, that

(This is Scorched Earth, by the way. I'm glad I didn't pay for this shite)

Gameko
Feb 23, 2006

The friend of all children!

Sounds like I can greatly smooth over my viewing of classic who with a britbox subscription. It's possible to find a lot of episodes on weird, off-brand streaming services, but it's almost more trouble than it's worth.

...looks like Red Dwarf is on there too...I never did watch the last series. I felt like the show lost its soul when Chris Barrie left. Wouldn't be bad to catch up on... And oh! Father Brown!

marktheando
Nov 4, 2006

Gameko posted:

Sounds like I can greatly smooth over my viewing of classic who with a britbox subscription. It's possible to find a lot of episodes on weird, off-brand streaming services, but it's almost more trouble than it's worth.

...looks like Red Dwarf is on there too...I never did watch the last series. I felt like the show lost its soul when Chris Barrie left. Wouldn't be bad to catch up on... And oh! Father Brown!

Yeah it's not as easy as it used to be to find everything on dailymotion, and they are often flipped or slowed down to frustrate the copyright bots. My lockdown re-watch was via Britbox. Couldn't tell you what else is on there cos I only watched Doctor Who.

Sydney Bottocks
Oct 15, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 60 days!
Yes Minister is on BritBox IIRC, and it's worth a re-watch just to see how they completely stated the exact reasons why it was necessary for Britain to be a member of the EU, all the way back in the 1980s :v:

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

A rewatch is easy if you own every story on DVD (and now increasingly on Blu-Ray too) :shepspends:

Barry Foster posted:

love too listen to a Big Finish story which not only indulges in the myth of the clean Wehrmacht but actually has our heroes team up with Nazi POWs against a French resistance member

really cool, that

(This is Scorched Earth, by the way. I'm glad I didn't pay for this shite)

Yeah okay I haven't heard that story and now I have zero desire to. gently caress that.

OldMemes
Sep 5, 2011

I have to go now. My planet needs me.
Are there many other Big Finish stories that are ethically dodgy like that? I know everyone mentions that Nekromanteia almost caused Peter Davison to quit, but are there any more 'yikes' level ones?

Homora Gaykemi
Apr 30, 2020

by Fluffdaddy

OldMemes posted:

Are there many other Big Finish stories that are ethically dodgy like that? I know everyone mentions that Nekromanteia almost caused Peter Davison to quit, but are there any more 'yikes' level ones?

Medicinal Purposes is pretty bad for having the Doctor fawn over Burke and Hare

Open Source Idiom
Jan 4, 2013

Homora Gaykemi posted:

Medicinal Purposes is pretty bad for having the Doctor fawn over Burke and Hare

He does, the script doesn't.

Barry Foster
Dec 24, 2007

What is going wrong with that one (face is longer than it should be)
There's also Creed of the Kromon that is blatant fetish stuff, that particular writer has a thing about women being turned into grotesque queen ant style egg sacs, it's really gross and creepy

There are probably a few more but I can't think of em at the moment.

To be clear, the theme of Scorched Earth is basically 'you can't hold onto hate forever, it will consume you', which is all well and good, but not when it comes to loving Nazis, and especially not right now. Like, read the room, you idiots. I don't think the people at BF are secret Nazi sympathisers - they're clearly and obviously cosseted middle class white liberals, and it probably never even occurred to them it was a real bad look - but I'm definitely looking askance at the writer

Davros1
Jul 19, 2007

You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible



Barry Foster posted:

There's also Creed of the Kromon that is blatant fetish stuff, that particular writer has a thing about women being turned into grotesque queen ant style egg sacs, it's really gross and creepy


Flip, like Peri and Charley, also went through a transformation in Antidote to Oblivion.

People accuse Terry Nation on being one note, but holy crap Phillip Martin has him beat.

Also, Flip actress Lisa Greenwood announced she has Covid :(

Barry Foster
Dec 24, 2007

What is going wrong with that one (face is longer than it should be)
Ah no, she seems like a really nice person and she also seems to have a really good rapport with Colin (tbf everyone seems to, because he rules). She's young though, so hopefully she'll be ok.

OldMemes
Sep 5, 2011

I have to go now. My planet needs me.

Barry Foster posted:

(tbf everyone seems to, because he rules).

Except Michael Grade, for some reason.

But yeah, I already really dislike C'rizz as a character, so I'll be avoiding that one. Doctor Who does body horror well, but sexualised body is er, nope.

Gameko
Feb 23, 2006

The friend of all children!

Jerusalem posted:

A rewatch is easy if you own every story on DVD (and now increasingly on Blu-Ray too) :shepspends:


Yeah okay I haven't heard that story and now I have zero desire to. gently caress that.

For classic who on blu-ray, what do they do to pump up the releases? Obviously it's shot on video so the resolution is what it is. Do they do fresh color-grading? Do they use those wild AI algorithms to artificially scale up the res?

Gameko
Feb 23, 2006

The friend of all children!

Barry Foster posted:

There's also Creed of the Kromon that is blatant fetish stuff, that particular writer has a thing about women being turned into grotesque queen ant style egg sacs, it's really gross and creepy

There are probably a few more but I can't think of em at the moment.

To be clear, the theme of Scorched Earth is basically 'you can't hold onto hate forever, it will consume you', which is all well and good, but not when it comes to loving Nazis, and especially not right now. Like, read the room, you idiots. I don't think the people at BF are secret Nazi sympathisers - they're clearly and obviously cosseted middle class white liberals, and it probably never even occurred to them it was a real bad look - but I'm definitely looking askance at the writer

I was going to ask when this was written but...2020? Yeah, it's not the right time for such a storyline, I'm sure. It's always tough to judge historical works through the same lens though. I think classic who does a passable job of portraying women as competent and valued contributors to the story arc (quite often they're the smartest, calmest person in the room next to the Dr.), though they're often put into your standard damsel-in-distress situations.

Compare it to classic Star Trek though and it looks positively enlightened.

Barry Foster
Dec 24, 2007

What is going wrong with that one (face is longer than it should be)
I'm of the opinion that there's never a right time to portray fascists as good guys or even tenuous allies, because fascism is the worst ideology in recorded history. Doctor Who used to get this! It has the Daleks in it!

But yeah, in 2020? Mad.

OldMemes
Sep 5, 2011

I have to go now. My planet needs me.
I've heard people come down harshly on 7 having Dr. Klein as a companion for the same reason - the Doctor trying to rehabilitate a Nazi by showing her the error of her ways and giving her more life experience is a fundamentally flawed concept.

Last night I listened to And You Will Obey Me. I found it a bit flat, mostly because I find the Fifth Doctor a little dull, but it perked up with the Master was around, and it captured that 80s family friendly BBC adventure horror vibe with the flashbacks. Next is a story with the return of the Alexander McQueen Master, who really grew on me over the course of Dark Eyes, so that should be fun.

Open Source Idiom
Jan 4, 2013

OldMemes posted:

Last night I listened to And You Will Obey Me. I found it a bit flat, mostly because I find the Fifth Doctor a little dull, but it perked up with the Master was around, and it captured that 80s family friendly BBC adventure horror vibe with the flashbacks. Next is a story with the return of the Alexander McQueen Master, who really grew on me over the course of Dark Eyes, so that should be fun.

Spoiler: the story you are about to hear sucks.

The one after is pretty good though!

OldMemes
Sep 5, 2011

I have to go now. My planet needs me.

Open Source Idiom posted:

Spoiler: the story you are about to hear sucks.

The one after is pretty good though!

I find it interesting that bar a few universally despised stories, fans differ wildly in their opinion on Doctor Who stories, even more than a lot of other franchises. Aside from a handful, you ask for the consensus on an audio, and you'll get so many different takes. I remember really liking Zagreus, but people seem down on that one, for example, or I really liked Dark Eyes, but some people hate it. It's interesting.

Except C'rizz. No-one likes C'rizz.

I picked up all three for a tenner in last month's Big Finish book club page, so it's not so bad. McQueen vs Baker sounds like it'll be fun, even if the story is bad. I find it a little ironic that Beevers became the default Big Finish Master for years, despite only doing one story on television. Even though they'd have to retcon it away or do some in-story twisting at the end to preserve the reveal of the TV show, it's a shame that there wasn't a War Master and War Doctor team-up audio story.

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?

OldMemes posted:

I've heard people come down harshly on 7 having Dr. Klein as a companion for the same reason - the Doctor trying to rehabilitate a Nazi by showing her the error of her ways and giving her more life experience is a fundamentally flawed concept.

To the writing's credit, the plan doesn't work even slightly and Klein remains a fascist all the way through that trilogy. The Doctor is making a huge mistake out of guilt - guilt for creating her timeline, guilt for destroying it, and guilt for Alternate Eight seducing her - and Klein's rehabilitation only comes in the form of a version of her being written into the "prime" timeline without a fascist upbringing. And even then that has consequences in UNIT: Dominion.

OldMemes
Sep 5, 2011

I have to go now. My planet needs me.
Oh 7, with his crazy plans that sometimes horribly backfire..... There are some good stories out of "the Doctor screws up badly" or "makes a huge moral mistake", but taking Klein as a companion still seems like a bad idea.


UNIT Dominion is on spotify - can you follow that standalone, or are there other UNIT audios you have to listen to?

OldMemes fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Feb 25, 2021

Davros1
Jul 19, 2007

You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible



OldMemes posted:

Oh 7, with his crazy plans that sometimes horribly backfire..... There are some good stories out of "the Doctor screws up badly" or "makes a huge moral mistake", but taking Klein as a companion still seems like a bad idea.


UNIT Dominion is on spotify - can you follow that standalone, or are there other UNIT audios you have to listen to?

It's a standalone.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Yeah I listened to Dominion long before I heard any other Klein stories and she is quick to fill in any blanks you might have.

OldMemes
Sep 5, 2011

I have to go now. My planet needs me.

Open Source Idiom posted:

Spoiler: the story you are about to hear sucks.

The one after is pretty good though!

I enjoyed Vampire of the Mind. Baker and McQueen were fun, it was a solid enough story, and I laughed at the gag of the Master's fake answering machine. Honestly I liked it more than the previous one. Though when I'm listening to a story featuring an 80s Doctor, I can never decide to imagine it with 80s or modern Who production values.

Barry Foster
Dec 24, 2007

What is going wrong with that one (face is longer than it should be)
McQueen is always good value, even in mediocre or bad stories. Honestly I think it'd be cool if he turned up on the series at some point. Neil's dad being on Doctor Who might draw an extra few viewers

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!
Last night's episode was TIME FLIGHT, with previous one being The Celestial Toymaker; it seems that racist Oriental caricatures are in this month

It's rubbish, although the proviso that BA put on using Concorde and Heathrow being that the BA staff should be shown to be really polite all the time (eg editing out use of the word "punters") makes this one of the most truly "how the british see themselves" stories in the entire run

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OldMemes
Sep 5, 2011

I have to go now. My planet needs me.

Barry Foster posted:

McQueen is always good value, even in mediocre or bad stories. Honestly I think it'd be cool if he turned up on the series at some point. Neil's dad being on Doctor Who might draw an extra few viewers

I would imagine that the BBC charter might make it difficult, but it would be fun. If I understand it correctly, there's more limits on cross promotion on TV - so the novel where 12 and Bernice Summerfield meet was OK, but having Lisa Bowerman have a guest spot in an episode as Summerfield might not be.

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