The more I watch Tom Baker the more I'm convinced that a film crew just followed him around in his daily life and edited their work into Doctor Who episodes.
Leela is definitely the companion I didn't like as a kid but now think is awesome as a grown up (and not for THAT reason) - she's always questioning, brave beyond measure and is definitely not stupid - as Mister Litefoot said, a walking Eliza Dolittle. :D
@@brianjlevine Honestly, Leela eased the sting of Sarah Jane’s departure delightfully. Wonderful character who happened to fill out that skimpy outfit clearly designed for my 13 year old libido incredibly well. I was just as sad when she left as Sarah in the end.
I love how the Doctor was just casually carrying around an alarm clock in his coat pocket, just in case, lmao. Makes me wonder what else he has stored away in there.
His pockets are bigger on the inside, remember? He's probably carrying around more odds & ends than your average house has in there. Maybe they even connect to some TARDIS storage area.
"Would you like a jelly baby?" "It's true then, they say the evil one eats babies!" "You mustn't believe all they say. No, these are sweets. They're rather good, go on have one."
The Face of Evil is one of my all time favourite episodes of Doctor Who from the classic series. It was a good story that introduced Louise Jameson as Leela.
Tom Baker was such ahead of his time playing the Doctor. He was funny, sarcastic, and most of all he had the 10th Doctor, David Tennant base his doctor off of him
@Cliven Longsight and they thought an old man in a young man's body was original to new who.(matt smith) But Peter Davison was doing that way back in the 80s. Great Doctor that magical celery man
The Dr. Who companions - hard to choose which one is best, but Leela is right up there in the top half dozen for me. The dynamic she had with the Doctor was very entertaining, especially when she was fighting off baddies while he was indulging in deadpan humour.
Louise Jameson in subsequent years indicated that she liked being Leela, but the writers never let her character develop or arc. She put it succinctly, "how many different ways can you say WHAT IS IT DOCTOR?"
I've only just noticed that although this was shot on a set they have used the cameras that are for on location scenes so as to make it more believable! That's some top notch thinking there.
I think this was shot at Ealing, as was the Planet of Evil exteriors. Ealing is/was a single camera only facility. Hence these sequences were shot on 16mm film.(which easily resolves to about 2K in Digital terms, hence the beautiful "Spearhead from Space" BD) Unfortunately the Tesh/Xoanon interiors were shot back at Television Centre. So you drop down to multi-camera (analogue PAL SD video, 576 x 768.) The most egregious example of this, is "The Warriors of The Deep" which was completely studio based and horribly overlit. One cliffhanger sequence involving a fall into water was shot at Ealing. So you end up with one sequence that looks ok and the rest looks cheap and amateurish. Director's would complain, but JNT wouldn't listen. A handful of viewer complaints about programmes being too dark.
@@defanged9630 | I have said for many years that (Classic) Doctor Who should have been entirely made on film starting on Season 7 when they went to color. Weren't some BBC TV shows produced on film during that era? Why wasn't Doctor Who one of them?
@@MoniqueFromPlymouth Amen, I hear You. It would have been fantastic. It also would have taken someone of great wiil and with strong reserves of energy to prosecute the case. "Spearhead" producer Derrick Sherwin claimed it wasn't that much more expensive, shooting entirely on location and on 16mm. Playing devil's advocate, I would remind You that he and his colleague, Peter Bryant's reign was a chaotic one and he lumbered the incoming Barry Letts with three 7 episode stories. So, while I'd like his claim to stack up. I'm not sure it does. He, Sherwin went on to join Bryant on the all film production, Paul Temple. BBC all film drama productions were relatively rare and usually co-productions with other broadcasters. i.e. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy." I think the show would have to have been reformatted into either the 2-4 telemovies (70-90 mins) per season or the "New Who" 45-50 min format, with a max episode run of 8-10. Some VFX would still have to done on video. Classic Who's use of CSO/Chroma Key was a quite effective money saver. Even with a reduced episode count, VFX would have been a budget nightmare and trying to do it all on film, probably prohibitively expensive. Ah, we can always dream and we will always have "Spearhead."
Hey New Who! Remember when companions weren’t from present day earth? Maybe want to switch things up a bit? In Classic Who we had Scottish Highlanders, Aliens, Shapeshifting robots and Time Ladies and many more. New who lacks so much creativity when it comes to companions.
@@mrjekyllandhyde9941 You mean modern day earth girl, right? The one that is always involved in a will they won't they with the Doctor. I don't care if the Doctor is now female, allowing for Lesbian representation with Yaz, it's still the same old tired trope!
I remember getting really excited when Bill was revealed because her clothes screamed 1980's and there was a big rumor that's the era she was from... but no, another present day lady. The most distinctive we can get now is 'not from London'.
@@mattevans4377 mainly present day earth girl yes but there have been earth boyz too oh how original !!! most peeps don't care if the Doc is now a woman but I happen to think a long running male character for 50 plus years should remain male but that's just my membership card to the minority club
According to the actress who played Leela, Louise Jameson she based the original state of the character, when Leela met the Doctor, on her then six year old niece and a pet dog, or so she said in an interview at the time.
Agreed, although I thought Romana I was pretty marvellous, too, and Harry would be in with a shout if they'd kept him on longer. I'm spoilt for choice really!
My controversial Tom Baker companions ranking 1. Nyssa 2. Romana 2 3 Leela 4. Romana 1 5 Sarah Jane Smith 6 K9 7 Harry 7 Adric (let the disagreements begin Lol)
also in "the invasion of time" when Leela stayed on Galifrey the writers left her ending open as they didn't want her to leave and if she wanted to she could return
When Doctor Who returned 15 years ago I thought Leela perished along with the Time Lords at the end of the Time War. In the 2012 audio production of Doctor Who "The Catalyst" it was revealed Leela survived the destruction of Gallifrey and was captured, tortured and interrogated by a warrior race called the Z'Nai and they demanded information from Leela about Gallifey.
There was a story, Time in the office, it's just set after the 5 doctor's where 5th was asked back to become president while getting away first at first, Leela actually contacted him to go
They've put that one up before - it was in my youtube recommendations because I watched this one. Here's the link - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-geMx6y8ctFk.html
The tune is called "Colonel Bogey March" (1914). Most people, however, recognize it from the movie, _Bridge Over the River Kwai_ (1957). ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Mx96NLBAahk.html
I met him once briefly at a fair somewhere down near Swindon I think ' way back in the 70s ' I was like 7 ' think there were various characters like Daleks ' plus his companion Sarah there with him ' shook hands with me.
Beware of older men offering candy. Unless it's Tom Baker and a bag of Jelly Babies. Louise Jameson adds a bit of wholesome sex appeal. And we all should heed Tom's advice at the end.
Safety Time Machine 1. Automatic door locked. 2. Goes invisible. 3. Moves airplanes over it. 4. Has camera/TV inside so time travellers only watchs history.
I find it amazing as the travels through time and space and using the translation circuit of the TARDIS that everyone speaks with a British accent. Not until the episode at Area 51 did I hear differently.
Anybody else think that Loreline (sometimes ignorant and unsophisticated, but also badass French peasant girl from 12th century who becomes companion to time-traveling Valerian) from the French "Valerian" comic books by Pierre Christin were the inspiration for Leela?
I first saw this episode in 1978! I just realized the name of the tune Tom Baker was whistling. Bridge Over The River Kwai! One of the best prisoner of war movies ever!
Tom Baker was the best Dr Who due to his brilliant acting and facial gestures. As a Time Lord myself I just want to say you do know the Earth is a Time Machine don't you. Even NASA discovered particles travelling backwards in time near the polar regions. NASA are baffled but not to worry NASA just discovered Earth's time field. See Dr Who for more details. Hahaha.
How many episodes did Tom have the hat in? You see it in all of his promotional material but discovering any episodes where it's actually worn is akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
during this scene i`m trying to concentrate on the plot but all i can possibly think about is leelas chest, and leelas legs, and i really hate the front flap on her costume because without it being there we could perhaps see her pants.
sometimes i do have to wonder why the doctor needs companions especially in the early days when they were possibly screaming a bit too much for there own good, first of all they introduce us to susan the doctors gran daughter who first of all at least in the pilot is all mysterious and extremely clever, then by the time that the actual episode goes out and its changed a bit by then although shes still an enigma and clever soon she becomes even more like an earth teenager and most episodes only seems to be there to hurt her ankle or scream while shes supposed to be from gallifrey and above such things, and i can understand why the actress wanted to leave the series, then they give us vicki who although survived on her own in a crashed space ship suddenly becomes a screamer just like susan was, and pollys possibly there just to look pretty, and then we get victoria who asks to many daft questions, is a bit silly and screams for all of us, then zoe comes along and while shes extremely clever its possible that someone at the time was possibly watching the avengers too much, then we get liz shaw who only lasted one series and who although in her own right was a science genius who was mostly there to make the tea and tell the doctor that hes always right, and while sarah jane smith was a reporter she was not above hurting herself or generally being daft, at least with leela we get a companion who is clever and fierce with a dagger but considering what her costume consists off was she wearing it because of the dads watching or possibly for the older teenage boys starting to think about girls, and at least with romana we get someone who finally is as clever as the doctor, and during the 80s it does not really get much better, nyssa walks about the place trying to save the universe and when she finally decides to leave the doctor she does so by for some strange reason removing half her clothes, tegans just there to be a mouth and does not really know when to shut up, peris there mostly just to scream the place down, and possibly because of her ample charms someone dressed her in a bikini when we first meet her, mel seems to have huge capacity in her lungs to scream and scream again, and while ace seemed to be a very good idea at the time, we could possibly spent most episodes wondering just how broken she is this week.
