@@ulrickennedy4920 Hell yes! These were the days when the Cybermen actually felt unstoppable and rivalled the Daleks. So when the Raston Warrior Robot goes to town on them, it's totally badass.
@@ulrickennedy4920 Cyber guns, sure. The previous story was Earthshock, where multiple human energy weapons could just about take one out if they all concentrated their fire. That's pretty hard.
Fun bit of trivia, the early version of the script that had Tom Baker in it had him essentially in the 5th Doctors role, the 5th Doctor in the 1st Doctors role and the 1st Doctor coordinating from the TARDIS psychically making contact with the others. While it would have been wonderful to actually have the 4th Doctor in the story. I do like how it turned out having the 5th Doctor solving the conspiracy, taking the role of main character which he should be considering he was the current Doctor at the time and having the 3 early Doctors fighting through the Death Zone and attacking the tower. With 3 from the top working down, 1 from the front pushing through and 2 from the caves and foundations working his way up. Would have loved to see 4 in 1s role and 1 in the TARDIS shouting at them all for getting it wrong or not being quick enough, although definitely could have done with a better trap than the Pi bored or at least a better way for it to work maybe depending how many people were on the bored made it harder to calculate the safe path or something.
Tom was too temperamental at the time and he had only just left and what's more he'd left cos he didn't like the new management or costume so there was little incentive for him to come back which is why he didnt whereas it had been years for Pertwee and Troughton so they were happier to and ofcourse Hartnell was dead so it was really only two doctors back not including Davison who was still contemporary so didn't count.
Comparing Sarah Jane's entrance in this to School Reunion, I kind of like the lack of slow, dramatic scenes where the music swells and everyone needs to reveal their disappointments and sorrow. It seems to feed more into the ultimate humility the special shows at the end. Plus, they cleverly had Sarah teamed with a, for her, past Doctor, so chewing him out would do no good because to him he hasn't done it yet.
Now imagine if in T5D all the past companions whined about how long the Doctor was away and never followed up, forgetting the TARDIS was not easy to control, etc!
I don't get the joke really, he was showing an old clip of all creatures great and small which was the other program Peter Davison did in the early 80s and was famous for as the vet Tristan but the guy with him wasn't called Hortense, apart from which Hortense is a woman's name.
I'm just glad to know I'm not the only one who sees no discernable pattern in the checkerboard floor scene. I've always just gone, "Maybe I'm missing something? Hurndall at least makes it sound plausible that he knows what he's talking about."
Even as a child, I knew that Pi isn't a mathematical 'formula'. ;) It's a shame, because they just needed to put some nonsense symbols on or around the grid, and made sure Anthony Ainley doesn't saunter the first time he crosses it, and it would have raised fewer questions. It's a great scene aside from that.
That PI business was a detail that I'd always found puzzling, even as someone who isn't mathematically astute. Why bring up something so specific, and then not make any effort to make it look like there is any pattern at all?
Maybe the terrible Zodin was actually "the terrible Krotons" in the script, but Troughton changed it because he couldn't bear to be reminded of that particular adventure.
Hortense would probably be better regarded if the BBC hadn't erased all his episodes, with the only remaining footage being recovered from Hong Kong, Nigeria, Australia and that enormous sinkhole that appeared in Tokyo a couple of years ago.
If it were Jamie and Victoria and 2nd Doctor realized they were illusions because of Victoria referred to the Brigadier as Brigadier instead of Colonel, it would have made that scene makes so much more sense.
And she's still being neglected now, Ian managed to get an appearance in the latest special and still no Susan, 12 had a picture of her on his desk when he was being a teacher at the University he met bill at but that's been about it.
It sort of makes sense since the current Doctor isn't one to talk about their past, but it is pretty harsh to never have even mentioned her in passing. Honestly the picture on his desk was a really nice touch, I thought. Just a little nod that they still think of her, even if she's never mentioned to these random humans that get picked up.
I hope Hortense returns for the 60th anniversary special. RTD seems like the kind of guy to do him justice onscreen. I've already sent sackfuls of letters to every BBC department requesting it, so fingers crossed.
I personally think, in my fan theory that I have been cultivating for many seconds now, that Hortense is actually another secret regeneration of the Doctor and will be returning to the show as our new Doctor instead of Ncuti Gatwa.
@@profblack Ooh, maybe he'll be an incarnation between Jodie and Ncuti. Everyone is theorising we'll get a Tennant regeration between the two, but that would make more sense if Hortense was an incarnation between the two and would line up for the 60th. The Hortense Doctor could be the cause of Tennant returning too.
The pi thing feels like it's hearkening back to the early 1st Doctor era when the show had more educational tidbits. Except it's hollow because it doesn't really teach you anything. Except an approximation of pi, I guess, but it doesn't tell you what pi is for, so that knowledge is meaningless. Anyway, now do Dimensions in Time.
I worked on this show. I'm glad you liked some of it. Have you seen the 'Bugger I've lost them" Dalek out take ? It explains how it kept missing them. Blind as a bat ( with earplugs ).
I remember seeing this as a kid for the first whenever it was in the early 90s on German TV, only ever having seen some Tom Baker on a British channel that we could get thanks to cable and the McCoy seasons later on. My mind was totally blown by all these other Doctors and lore and whatnot that I had been totally unaware of because Doctor Who totally wasn't a thing here. And yep, despite all that the story did work for me and I was invested regardless. Good work you did there, Terrance!
I noticed this is the special edition footage. That DVD has a great commentary on it from Tennant, RTD and Julie Gardener (I think?) and it's fun to see their perspective on an old show, eg. remarking on Patrick Troughton and Nicholas Courtney being allowed to walk into a dark cave holding a naked flame. ;) But the special edition ruins one of my favourite scenes. In the original, after the Master is hit by the rock fragments, the Doctor sees the recall device (that the Master had just showed him), picks it up and as the Cybermen arrive he says, "Sorry, must dash," and presses the button with a charming smile to escape, the suarve badass that he is. In the 'improved' version, they restore cut footage of the Castellan telling the Master he's going to transmat him to safety and the Doctor hears his tinny voice coming through the device, handing him the solution to his predicament on a plate. This was clearly cut in the original and it was all the better for it. Oh and the other thing is that they eliminated a classic Cyberman moment of the Cyber Scout seeing the Doctor and the Master and going, "Ahhhhhh!" Yes, it was dorky as fuck, but I felt sad when I realised they'd dubbed it out. :p
I remember my cousin had it ripped onto a dvd and every time I visited I always asked for to watch it. I think it’s issues with the script is if you think about it, classic Who hardly focused on emotion sometimes and it was written as a replacement because Robert Holmes was supposed to write it but he dropped out because he couldn’t write it because of the demands JNT and Eric Saward gave him. Apparently they also didn’t want the Daleks in it but Terrance Dicks had to argue with them to get that 1 Dalek in it
Honestly, I don't think that The Second Doctor was written to his full potential in this episode. He comes across as a lot more dotty and subdued than the ruthless and cunning trickster he was during his original tenure. Also, I do have a problem during the scene where Sarah falls down a cliff and meets Three. Given there wasn't a lot of fog and the edge was already somewhat defined, it seems like she fell on purpose. Hopefully that can be fixed for the Season 20 Blu Ray set with some extra fog and an animated gust of wind to justify her falling
honestly Hortense's apperance in Big Finish box set "Evil of Scongo" is my favourite companion return, glad the actor came back to record this epic audio adventure featuring Doctor's most threatning villain - Scongo!
Am I the only one annoyed that in both the Five Doctors and the Three Doctors, the first incarnation -- the YOUNGEST and LEAST EXPERIENCED Doctor -- is also the smartest one who figures out the big mystery? That's not a good sign for how the Doctor's brain is aging, at LEAST.
I like to think that because the 1st doctor is less traveled and experienced, he relies more on his knowledge from academic studies, rather than the more practical tactics and strategies his later incarnations picked up on their travels.
Pi had absolutely nothing to do with anything lol- it was just there to make The Doctor sound clever. Richard Hurndall was actually supposed to walk across the floor in a zig-zag but the actor just walked across it and they didn't have time for a reshoot lol
I loved that π thing when I was a kid. Tegan describes it as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, which is fine. But then the Doctor refers to it as a "formula", rattles off the first 8 decimals, stops for some reason, and then just shuffles across. Tegan mentions "sums" and then also wanders across randomly. When the Master skipped across he didn't even stay inside the board. I think it's something to do with hyper-curved spacetime where a circle is able to manifest as a grid of squares in our dimension.
I kind of love that the episode doesn’t even bother to have real emotional resonance. This isn’t Day of the Doctor, they know that all this is just a fun anniversary bash to celebrate twenty years of Who.
Bang on, old fruit! 5Drs was also one of my first, & you dissect it perfectly 👌 *please, please do keep doing Who shizzle. You are a light among many oiks as regards Who on RU-vid 😬✊
If I ever get to write for big finish I'll make a story where the 5th doctor and his companion hortense team up with the 2nd doctor and they fight the terrible zodin. Then we can finally have this piece of canon answered and also get more hortense. I'd be a bit surprised if big finish haven't already done something with zodin.
The epitome of having too much on your plate and not being able to enjoy it all. It’s a good story, but hardly the pinnacle of classic who it was often named for many years. It is nostalgic for me I will admit, as I saw it when I was very small. The three doctors and even the two doctors I think are better
Just want to point out Pi isn't a formula It's a number I think it's also the second half of the board that's dangerous so I always thought it was you go that many across for each number
The original Bob Holmes script that Uncle Terry adapted WAS called the 6 Doctors and had the President un-named until the final reveal which had him as the final incarnation of the Doctor, bitter and twisted by his wasted potential and betraying everyone and everything he ever believed in just to save his own skin. The idea got recycled in the pre-JNT edit version of Trial of a Time Lord and its removal was the reason Doctor Who not only lost one of its best Story Editors but ended up being repeatedly sued by him for fucking up his late friend's awesome downer ending for the show.
I'm just hoping that we finally get a New Who reunion with Susan next year. I was upset we never got Peter Capaldi and Susan, but I can settle for Tennant and Susan
It's a waste of Carol Anne Ford frankly she's aged very well and could have been in it dozens of times since 2005 but she is still yet to be asked a staggering 17 years on now into the revived show, surely it was she who should've taken precedence over sara Jane as the companion to be brought back in 2006 and we've even had Ian pop up now in chibnails last episode but the wait for Susan continues.
@@John-tj9to Well, she did get marooned in the future, which makes her much harder to write into a modern script than any of the companions who remain contemporary. Plus, she's not an analogue to all of the other companions (and hence the viewer) in the same way as Sarah (for example), she actually has a unique family relationship with the Doctor. And finally, because of the nature of her relationship with the Doctor, her presence implies more explanation of lore, which frankly the new series almost always totally shits all over.
Googled the name because I wasn’t sure if it was just a one-off or something Stu made up entirely and there’s an actual character named Hortense in death and the queen
I recall watching this when it was first broadcast and feeling cheated when Tom Baker wasn't actually in the episode. They even used a wax work dummy of Baker with the other Doctors for the publicity shots, making it seem like he was part of the show (other than archive footage). And, as for the chess board scene - never made any sense to me.
They bit off more than they could chew basically, I read about it in one of the dr who behind the scenes books released before the revived series, because the three docs had been a success they wanted to up the ante but Hartnell was dead ofcourse and they boasted they had tom before actually making sure he'd do it so when he promptly said no they had painted themselves into a corner.
@@EditedAF987 If the show is good, then the overrated obnoxious oversaturated villains shouldn’t be so fragilely broken by storm trooper aiming. If a show you love is so easily ruined by Storm Trooper aiming, it was never good to begin with. If the Daleks are good villains (there not), Storm Troper aiming should not ruin them after a history of can’t climb stairs and defeated by their own sewage. If Empire Strikes Back doesn’t hold up over Storm Trooper aiming, good criticism is officially dead.
You'd Think Borusa, as president with full access to the Matrix, would've unearthed any "Timeless Child" crap while researching perpetual regeneration & immortality etc. Also getting a lock on the "First" Doctor would've been an issue.
I'm still pinning my hope on the timeless child being the master simply telling lies which is completely plausible, she only had his word for it and the incident wasn't pursued any further so that can be easily retconned.
@@John-tj9to - Exactly! "Oh, this person I can't trust just showed me a PowerPoint presentation that says I am the first human from the dawn of time, so I guess it must be true!" Who thinks like that?
I'm surprised that you (and many others) seem to prefer Five to Three. Especially given some of the criticism you gave to each. I DO think Five is just one massive clumsy set piece that serves no purpose but to bring back fan favourites, and to have Pertwee get a Cyberman conflict
One thing that always bugs me about the scene with The Master and the First Doctor is what The Doctor didn't recognise the master. It was already well established in the show that The Doctor and The Master grew up together and now The First Doctor talks to him like it's the first time they met. Before you say "Well he changed his face so he wouldn't recognise him" the Third Doctor managed to recognise The Master on sight earlier on. There's no expanded media that helps explain this (that I know of) so it's just left as a scene that gives me a headache.
@@brainfood8971 The Third did notice something was off about The Master when he first saw him. I assuming because The First Doctor hadn't seen The Master for a very long time he couldn't make the connection.
The Master even points it out: “Believe it or not, we were at the academy together.” I guess the implication was that the Ainley Master was so far removed from what the first doctor knew of the Master that he couldn’t recognise him on sight, something that not helped by the extreme brevity of their interaction, and the pi chessboard taking priority.
@@EditedAF987We know from the expanded universe lore that the first Master we meet on-screen in Terror of the Autons was the last incarnation in his line and that the First Doctor never likely met the Roger incarnation of the Master within his own lifetime while the Second Doctor most certainly did in a Virgin Missing Adventure novel. Likely why he didn’t recognise him in TFD while the Third Doctor did despite having a new look.
I disagree Richard dosent feel like William at all. William had an aggression to him Richard don't. And why is his dialogue all age related? "What are all you young people doing in my tardis". Granted this probably more a case that Terence Dicks doesn't get the character than Richards fault
@@paulhammond6978 yeah but his whole chatacterisation in this is "old git" or "grandpa". Where is the edge? Where is the guy who would mock the baddies to their face? The snarkey smarmy wise cracker? Granted Troughton and Pertwee both play it like they are been brought out of retirement. But both feel like their characters. Though I have no idea what Pertwee is wearing.
6:14-6:31 It's tragic that one Dalek failing to kill 2 people in a corridor with 20 shots automatically makes The Five Doctors a 0/10 doesn't hold up to time.
The Five Doctors was written by one of a former God of Dr Who, Terrance Dicks. Sarah-Jane, The Brigadier and Susan got good screen time and a sensible part in the story. The Power of the Doctor was written by someone out who pointed Dr Who was a bit shit in the 80's and went onto write plenty of shitty Dr Who scripts himself, go figure.
Basically Power of the Doctor is the JJ Abrams Trek equivalent to the TOS Movie 1-6 Five Doctors and just like Abrams, using the nostalgia of the classic characters to disguise a story that’s going to be deemed unremarkable, forgettable or pardon my french here; a slightly decent Chibnail Doctor Who script in an era that doesn’t have the excuse 80’s Who have when it comes to the duds when enough time passes. Thinking about it, Power of the Doctor is also the equivalent of 1996 WWF bringing back the Ultimate Warrior because they’re getting desperate to get eyes on them again after the smouldering train wreak of 1995... Or is it them bringing back David Tennant for the 60th Anniversary when ratings are down to the point of cancellation?
6:14-6:31 If a show you love is so easily ruined by Storm Trooper aiming, your either overreacting and over exaggerating it's decline or it was never good to begin with.
