I felt like the animation errors in The Underwater Menace were just disappointing to me. I felt something was lost in the animated remakes of Episodes 2 & 3, and I really dislike the new character designs. If you only have one surviving episode, I’m more lenient with changes. That’s why the changes made to The Abominable Snowmen don’t bother me too badly. But when half the material exists, you should probably keep the original designs to an extent.
Excellent review. Been waiting for a video on the 2. The underwater menace will always hold a special feeling as it was the comeback release after what I was also sure would be a lengthy gap. However that went a bit too far on the animation front with changes and pats lines being given to others is really careless. Nonetheless happy to have a very good recon of it, much more enjoyable. Toymaker, I absolutely loved. The changes worked for me and bettered my enjoyment of it. Don't want to see 3d for any other story though as like you've said it probably wouldn't work as well for anything else. Delighted the range is back. Think smugglers is likely to be next although I really want the space pirates, would vastly benefit from visuals. Look forward to the next video, all the best!
Bidmead and Saward's overseen scripts are overflowing with logical inconsistencies, but the one that takes the cake for me is god-tier engineer Omega, who harnessed a black hole and has zero relation to planet Earth, deciding that some old Dutch crypt pipes were the only source of power in the universe to enact his Arc Of Infinity plan. May as well get a bird skeleton and a zombified street kid to do the grunt work, yeah? Also, how is there no scene where Tegan says "Why'd you jerks leave without me?!?" Being a contrarian, I wanted to enjoy the Davison era, but it feels like every idea that JNT had was kinda terrible. Currently binging the whole classic series for the first time, and this is the first time it feels like a slog.
Love your videos btw. Your Tom Baker era video deserved better than a comment section overflowing with indignant old farts repeating the exact same tired take on Talons over and over and over again. Your assessment was balanced, humorous and reasonable. I'll be putting these on to sleep to for years to come.
In case your wondering,the temporary voice actor for K-9 being named David Bradley is a coincidence,while David Bradley’s career had begun at that point,we did not act in Doctor who until many years later,it’s not eh same David Bradley from An Adventure in Space and Time
While I understand the criticism leveled against the Talons of Weng-Chiang,and won’t argue that the decision of yellowface was justified(because it never has been,never will be),I’d still argue that it’s necessary watching,it’s a lot like Horror of Fang Rock being that it’s a fun romp through the past,and it’s absolutely well made,a better made Victorian adventure than anything Steve Moffat gave us
Terror is quite enjoyable but just doesn't impress as much as Spearhead. As mentioned the CSO made many scenes look fake, the Nestene creature at the end was unimpressive. While I always liked Katy Manning as Jo there was just something more grown up and beleivable about Liz Shaw as a near equal to the Doctor. Even Pertwee's performance changed a bit acting more grumpy and rude and the music score varied from downright creepy to whimsical. Terror therefore gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me
This story was brilliant in every possible way. The cliffhangers are all quite good, performances were great all around having the Brigadier being the only thing bridging the 60's era to the new glossy 70's. The Autons themselves were quite chilling and creepy and Pertwee commands every scene he is in. Even Hugh Burden as Channing gave you the creeps and really felt like an alien being from another world. The glossy pale skin of the humanoid versions of the Autons was a nice touch giving their skin a shinny plastic appearance. I give this one a 9.5 out of 10
There’s a reason why some of the later Dalek voices are so bad,that being that until their return in the 2005 revival the voice modulator settings for the daleks were never noted down so that there would always be a little difference in the voices each time,the same problem happened in 1972 with Revival of the Daleks
Fun fact:The second doctor was actual first doctor to like Jelly Babies,he even said the line,”would you like a Jelly Baby?”,first,all the way back in the Three Doctors
Yep, The Two Doctors cemented for me the era was bad and Colin Baker is not a good actor. Explains why he got such little work before and particularly after WHO.
With Peter Davison’s “9 month wait”, there were quite a few repeats of Doctor Who in the middle of 1981, so there wasn’t really a “9-month wait”. Bear in mind Davison’s era was twice per week, so the gap was longer than any other Doctor until that point.
Marco Polo deserves its own animation,the thing has been missing since it’s broadcast in 1964,no one has seen it in 60 years,give it some slack finally
35:55 "The first couple of times, I thought it was pretty good. The third time, I thought it was bloody brilliant! And the fourth time, I... didn't enjoy it very much at all." Jesus! That is some highly detailed recall you've got going on there. I've seen plenty of movies and TV episodes 5 times and more, but I couldn't tell ya how I felt about any of them the third time I saw them vs. the fourth time. I can't tell you how I felt about the movie Alien the 10th time I watched it vs. the 20th time. My guess is it was probably about the same though.
Why do you have to keep spoiling everything ? I wanted to watch all of the classics and after each story, see your review, but you ALWAYS talk about FUTURE STORIES. WHY DO YOU DO THIS ? It's unnecessary. You talked about future doctors at least 30 times in this video or you say stuff like "sadly this character will go away in the next story" whyyyyy. I've had enough, in your first videos it was not too much, but this video you're going too far, that's it I'm done with your videos. You're doing the review of a story and you speak more of OTHER stories during the review what's the point
I actually love Pat Troughton the more I watch him, & now by this time there are only a few of his stories awaiting hopefully eventual animation I think it's time to rewatch the Troughton era now it's as complete as it currently possibly can be.
While I like Romana number one, it's kind of obvious that they intended to enforce feminist propaganda by making the Doctor out to be stupid, which he clearly was not. Feminists can't comprehend the idea of a capable man who just happens to be a goof intentionally. As a result she comes across as smug and condescending. Actually she left abruptly because the actress thought her role wasn't feminist enough.
Earl Cameron became the first black TV astronaut. He lived a very long life dying at age 103. oh yah, Jackie Lane's sudden departure had to do with her contract being expired, and the producers refused to renew her contract. She was allowed to appeared in the final two episodes despite her contract already been expired. Carole Ann Ford, Maureen O'Brien and Jackie Lane all complained about their character development as women from the past (The 60s was the birth of the women liberalism movement).
Planet of Giants was supposed to be the pilot episode. The trim down from 4 to 3 was an agreement by the producers and BBC so they expand an extra episode for the upcoming serial.
Nope. It was because it was deemed unsatisfactory as the start of a new season. The addition of an extra episode was a necessary part of said reduction to ensure the programme would still fill all the broadcast slots assigned to it.
Troughton was the first Doctor i ever saw, back in the early 2000s before the revival. i found his(at the time) "complete" run on VHS alongside a few Hartnell tapes at a library sale. Asked my parents to buy them for me, and ended up watching Tomb Of The Cybermen first. i was a fan from then on, and while i greatly enjoyed Hartnell too, i watched those precious few Troughton tapes over and over after school. He was a childhood hero to me and defined my love of the show from then on. He will always be my favorite, MY Doctor and i will always pine for more of his episodes to come back. I agree with you on wanting to see the Highlanders return especially, i think its some of his finest work.
My thoughts then and now are that JNT was pissed at Davison not renewing. So he rushed a successor. The off season would have given further time to plan and finesse this new incarnation. Avoiding some of the catastrophic missteps.
I always thought that Tom Baker's doctor called the cybermen "Total Machine Creatures" so as to make it easier on his companions and keep the body horror for them to a minimum. Tom Baker was MY doctor. And I thought Pyramid of Mars was the best of season 13. It actually scared the ever-living sh*t out of me as a kid. "Eldrad Must Live" The Talons of Weng-Chiang is a period piece and racism existed in the past. To say, "Oh, we can't talk about that" is to ignore that it happened and to invite it to happen again. In fact, I would postulate that the rabid "anti-racists" have gone so far as to become the very racists they claim to hate so much. But honestly, I don't see how it's all that bad. It portrays the Asians as having taken over the world at one point and invented time travel. Not very GOOD time travel, but still, it WORKED, didn't it? I don't count that as a slam against Asians. If anything, it highlighted the problems of the age, which is GOOD. if we ignore our past and pretend it didn't happen, then change it to fit "modern audiences", then all you are doing is stealing thunder from the current day.
Oh no! A Caucasian actor played the part of someone from China! God forbid that the actor was ACTING! You know, acting was his profession. I really hate this focus on skin color with today’s generation.
This is an excellent series of reviews,, and certainly thoroughly researched, I thought I knew quite a bit about original Who but I've learnt a lot from each one so far
As for The Talons of Weng-Chiang being racist doesn't that depend on your mindset to begin with? You made what some might consider a rather derogatory and borderline racist comment in one of your own videos about the punishment of being sent to Scotland, am I as a Scot to consider that to be "racist" or just a harmless joke? The same argument about racism could be made for many other things depending on how you regard them. For instance, in Puccini's opera Madam Butterfly its portrayal of the Japanese by your judgment would be considered far more racist and repugnant than anything shown in the portrayal of the Chinese in The Talons of Weng-Chiang but to this day is considered a masterpiece. Similarly, the original Pantomime Aladin's portrayal of the Chinese is purely racist in its content yet is beloved and still shown in many theatres without the stigma of being racist as it is a humorous fantasy. One might consider a person to be rather thin-skinned or even a "Snowflake" to be offended by a 47-year-old TV programme and judge it by today's standards. My own views on The Talons of Weng-Chiang are that it is not one of my favourites but not the worst Doctor Who episode either. It is a product of its time and should be looked on as such instead of analysing every word costume actor or action. It's just a TV show made almost 50 years ago with a rather embarrassing man in a cheaply made huge sewer rat costume as its scary monster, it is not some great statement on society.