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Post by timmunton on Jul 23, 2021 16:28:50 GMT
I dont agree with the assumption that the BBC is Right Wing, they certainly have a bizarre way of showing it. Steve, what they do is bizarre if you find their support for both social liberalism and simultaneously right wing pro-ruthless neo-liberalism incongrous. Which to some extent it is. In terms of their pro-neoliberal behaviour I'm not just assuming that they are rightwing, it is what they do every day. And it is only bizarre in that it is such a negation of democracy & ethics & not allowing much meaningful debate. To a large extent this is a structural problem - eg. as Noam Chomsky said to Andrew Marr only people with his sort of viewpoint (Marr) will in general get appointed to those jobs. Even more so re. those in the role of producers in BBC news/current affairs. To think the BBC isn't right wing in the ways mentioned, you'd have to basically think that generally backing the billionaire class who are the main proponents of wrecking the planet & its people in various ways and being extremely biased in fairly blatant (& subtle too) ways against the opposition, when it actually was offering a modest amount of real change, is not right wing. In which case I think you perhaps don't understand what being right wing in its more traditional sense, actually means. The BBC (& other social liberal/economically right wing organisations eg. the Guardian - their cover story of being on the left beyond social liberalism has been thoroughly debunked; read Jonathan Cook & others on this) mainly like Starmer of course, so he gets treated in a generally positive way, because as a right winger himself, in the unlikely event he got elected, he isn't going to enact any significant meaningful change to the status quo. So to be more even handed to Labour now helps present a narrative about democracy, where this is actually mainly illusory. If Corbyn had won he probably wouldn't have enacted meaningful change either (though he would mainly want to unlike Starmer) because the propaganda would have been ratcheted up still further & "his" Labour MPs who are mainly Thatcherite would most times have voted against him with various pitiful excuses.
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Post by John Wall on Jul 23, 2021 17:53:24 GMT
I’m really not sure what Corbychev has to do with Dr Who……
However, I certainly agree that the Hinchcliffe years were a real high 👍
The Pertwee years could be seen as laying the groundwork.
A typical Pertwee season had 3 x 6 parters and 2 x 4 parters. A typical Baker season had 5 x 4 parters and 1 x 6 parter. There are, unfortunately, quite a few Pertwee 6 parters that are really only 4 parters but look at the three Hinchcliffe 6 parters: Genesis, Seeds and Talons. Although Seeds is really a 2 + 4 I’d expect all three to figure highly in any list of fan favourites. This, of course, continues what Letts and Dicks started with Season Eight, more “opening nights”. Think about Season Eleven, Dinosaurs and Spiders are both padded out and would have been much “tighter” as four parters although a bit more money would’ve been required. I expect that both Dinosaurs and Spiders could be edited into very good c. 95 minute “movies” - that’s 4 x 25 minutes less the recaps and credits.
Hinchcliffe also had the benefit of five seasons learning about colour/CSO, etc, Tom at the top of his game - before it became the Tom Baker show - and before inflation started eating into the budgets and a lot of disruption from strikes.
Graham Williams was, I suggest, dealt a poor hand in that he had to tone down some of the aspects that had made the programme successful and got clobbered with inflation and strikes. Nonetheless there are still some good stories that stand up well 40+ years later.
Having watched some of the interviews with people who worked with JNT I think the biggest problem was that he’d come up through the technical not creative side of things. I’d characterise his approach as almost “Dr Who by numbers”. He didn’t really understand the creative process so it’d be:
Old enemy/monster - tick Foreign location - tick Guest stars - tick Violence/action/explosions - tick Assistant(s) not wearing very much - tick
There were some good stories but I think most of the credit should probably go to the likes of Chris Bidmead and Eric Saward.
Peter Davison was a good doctor but Colin Baker’s character was all wrong, far too abrasive and unsympathetic, and Sylvester McCoy was just wrong.
JNT stayed too long.
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Post by garygraham on Jul 23, 2021 19:24:56 GMT
It was a mistake to let fans make it and from the start RTD shifted it into soapy territory. It was too shouty and downmarket, with the Doctor being slapped across the face in the first episode if I remember? It was treated cheaply, almost as a joke sometimes. The Scooby Doo chase was one moment that made me feel I should give up on it. Like Coronation Street, which Granada used to claim was a social drama rather than a soap, it's about grinding the format into the ground until one day there's no value left. In a way I think TV has made a rod for its own back by encouraging audiences to expect everything to be hyper "realistic." Growing up, we went to the theatre and watched studio drama and were able to suspend disbelief. The BBC should have continued with studio drama and could have relaunched Doctor Who that way. People would have watched and it would have been cheap to make. To naysayers who say that audiences won't accept studio drama anymore I point out they still watch soaps that are made that way. Perhaps I shouldn't even comment. I haven't seen Capaldi, Whittaker and maybe not Matt Smith. I don't have live TV or a TV licence, so I don't fund it (and I really don't watch any of it). If the people who fund it enjoy it then I suppose that's fine. I just think TV could be so much better than it is. Doesn't not even having & TV not watching years worth of episodes undermine your argument!? The production style of original series was in some ways a relic in it's last few years, & wouldn't have helped the pitch for a new series. DWM once had a feature about bringing the series back, which correctly predicted it would have to be shot the way is has been since 2005, & mentions only the established soaps by that point were using multiple VT cameras without a film effect. Perhaps, but you get to the stage where you know what it's going to be like. And I've read about it. I don't accept that multi-camera studio drama was necessarily outdated anymore than the theatre is. It was an art form in its own right. We don't expect to go the theatre and see total reality. So why should we expect it on TV? It's regressive. What it led to was the BBC at one point moaning that it could no longer do the drama it once did. Of course it couldn't: shot all over the place, single camera, then weeks of editing and post-production required. TV Centre was an efficient production line.
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Post by John Wall on Jul 23, 2021 21:28:25 GMT
Doesn't not even having & TV not watching years worth of episodes undermine your argument!? The production style of original series was in some ways a relic in it's last few years, & wouldn't have helped the pitch for a new series. DWM once had a feature about bringing the series back, which correctly predicted it would have to be shot the way is has been since 2005, & mentions only the established soaps by that point were using multiple VT cameras without a film effect. Perhaps, but you get to the stage where you know what it's going to be like. And I've read about it. I don't accept that multi-camera studio drama was necessarily outdated anymore than the theatre is. It was an art form in its own right. We don't expect to go the theatre and see total reality. So why should we expect it on TV? It's regressive. What it led to was the BBC at one point moaning that it could no longer do the drama it once did. Of course it couldn't: shot all over the place, single camera, then weeks of editing and post-production required. TV Centre was an efficient production line. It’s worth noting, although it’s not always recognised, that TV’s heritage is theatre - cinema was the new art form. As cinema developed from the late 19th century onwards the techniques to tell a story were developed but, with a few exceptions, it was done with a single camera and spliced together afterwards. When TV arrived in the mid 30s there was no video tape. Things could be prerecorded/edited on film but that was time consuming/expensive. An option would be to treat it like theatre and, effectively, put a single camera in the stalls. That, of course, wouldn’t be satisfactory so multi camera was developed, separate cameras for the different shots mixed in real time. For many decades, even after video tape became available, a lot of TV was like a stage play. My personal view is that the people who made things like Dr Who in the multi camera era were far superior to the directors paid millions for feature films. Whether they were at the BBC or ITV they had a limited time and budget and had to plan every scene to get as much in the can as quickly possible with the actors and many large, heavy, cameras moving around the studio in some sort of ballet. I, personally, have no problems watching - and enjoying - something made in the multi camera era as I’m watching a, not the!, master at work 👍
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Post by Richard Marple on Jul 24, 2021 11:56:45 GMT
I’m really not sure what Corbychev has to do with Dr Who…… However, I certainly agree that the Hinchcliffe years were a real high 👍 The Pertwee years could be seen as laying the groundwork. A typical Pertwee season had 3 x 6 parters and 2 x 4 parters. A typical Baker season had 5 x 4 parters and 1 x 6 parter. There are, unfortunately, quite a few Pertwee 6 parters that are really only 4 parters but look at the three Hinchcliffe 6 parters: Genesis, Seeds and Talons. Although Seeds is really a 2 + 4 I’d expect all three to figure highly in any list of fan favourites. This, of course, continues what Letts and Dicks started with Season Eight, more “opening nights”. Think about Season Eleven, Dinosaurs and Spiders are both padded out and would have been much “tighter” as four parters although a bit more money would’ve been required. I expect that both Dinosaurs and Spiders could be edited into very good c. 95 minute “movies” - that’s 4 x 25 minutes less the recaps and credits. Hinchcliffe also had the benefit of five seasons learning about colour/CSO, etc, Tom at the top of his game - before it became the Tom Baker show - and before inflation started eating into the budgets and a lot of disruption from strikes. Graham Williams was, I suggest, dealt a poor hand in that he had to tone down some of the aspects that had made the programme successful and got clobbered with inflation and strikes. Nonetheless there are still some good stories that stand up well 40+ years later. Having watched some of the interviews with people who worked with JNT I think the biggest problem was that he’d come up through the technical not creative side of things. I’d characterise his approach as almost “Dr Who by numbers”. He didn’t really understand the creative process so it’d be: Old enemy/monster - tick Foreign location - tick Guest stars - tick Violence/action/explosions - tick Assistant(s) not wearing very much - tick There were some good stories but I think most of the credit should probably go to the likes of Chris Bidmead and Eric Saward. Peter Davison was a good doctor but Colin Baker’s character was all wrong, far too abrasive and unsympathetic, and Sylvester McCoy was just wrong. JNT stayed too long. I agree mostly agree, Season 11 was a mixed bag with some padded stories & the "UNIT family" fading away. Hinchcliffe needed Season 12 to get to grips with the show, & the next two seasons were very good. As mentioned above Graham Williams was unlucky with what was going on at the BBC, and some of his radical ideas for the show didn't always pay off. JNT was also unlucky with with strikes and other problems affecting the BBC, such as the 1983 General Election & the 1988 asbestos scare. While JNT maybe stayed too long, Eric Saward ended up having a negative effect on the show, with too many mercenary stories with the Doctor sidelined. By the time Colin Baker had made the 6th doctor likeable the show had been axed, similary the McCoy era took too long to find it's sweet spot. Having Ian Lavine as an advisor was a double edged sword, especially as there were too many references to older stories that casual viewers might not have seen.
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Post by Richard Marple on Jul 24, 2021 11:59:05 GMT
Doesn't not even having & TV not watching years worth of episodes undermine your argument!? The production style of original series was in some ways a relic in it's last few years, & wouldn't have helped the pitch for a new series. DWM once had a feature about bringing the series back, which correctly predicted it would have to be shot the way is has been since 2005, & mentions only the established soaps by that point were using multiple VT cameras without a film effect. Perhaps, but you get to the stage where you know what it's going to be like. And I've read about it. I don't accept that multi-camera studio drama was necessarily outdated anymore than the theatre is. It was an art form in its own right. We don't expect to go the theatre and see total reality. So why should we expect it on TV? It's regressive. What it led to was the BBC at one point moaning that it could no longer do the drama it once did. Of course it couldn't: shot all over the place, single camera, then weeks of editing and post-production required. TV Centre was an efficient production line. I also like multi camera drama shot on TV, but it's been out of fashion for anything but soaps since the mid 1990s. The House oF Elliott was the last drama I can remember using it.
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Post by John Wall on Jul 25, 2021 14:38:58 GMT
I’m really not sure what Corbychev has to do with Dr Who…… However, I certainly agree that the Hinchcliffe years were a real high 👍 The Pertwee years could be seen as laying the groundwork. A typical Pertwee season had 3 x 6 parters and 2 x 4 parters. A typical Baker season had 5 x 4 parters and 1 x 6 parter. There are, unfortunately, quite a few Pertwee 6 parters that are really only 4 parters but look at the three Hinchcliffe 6 parters: Genesis, Seeds and Talons. Although Seeds is really a 2 + 4 I’d expect all three to figure highly in any list of fan favourites. This, of course, continues what Letts and Dicks started with Season Eight, more “opening nights”. Think about Season Eleven, Dinosaurs and Spiders are both padded out and would have been much “tighter” as four parters although a bit more money would’ve been required. I expect that both Dinosaurs and Spiders could be edited into very good c. 95 minute “movies” - that’s 4 x 25 minutes less the recaps and credits. Hinchcliffe also had the benefit of five seasons learning about colour/CSO, etc, Tom at the top of his game - before it became the Tom Baker show - and before inflation started eating into the budgets and a lot of disruption from strikes. Graham Williams was, I suggest, dealt a poor hand in that he had to tone down some of the aspects that had made the programme successful and got clobbered with inflation and strikes. Nonetheless there are still some good stories that stand up well 40+ years later. Having watched some of the interviews with people who worked with JNT I think the biggest problem was that he’d come up through the technical not creative side of things. I’d characterise his approach as almost “Dr Who by numbers”. He didn’t really understand the creative process so it’d be: Old enemy/monster - tick Foreign location - tick Guest stars - tick Violence/action/explosions - tick Assistant(s) not wearing very much - tick There were some good stories but I think most of the credit should probably go to the likes of Chris Bidmead and Eric Saward. Peter Davison was a good doctor but Colin Baker’s character was all wrong, far too abrasive and unsympathetic, and Sylvester McCoy was just wrong. JNT stayed too long. I agree mostly agree, Season 11 was a mixed bag with some padded stories & the "UNIT family" fading away. Hinchcliffe needed Season 12 to get to grips with the show, & the next two seasons were very good. As mentioned above Graham Williams was unlucky with what was going on at the BBC, and some of his radical ideas for the show didn't always pay off. JNT was also unlucky with with strikes and other problems affecting the BBC, such as the 1983 General Election & the 1988 asbestos scare. While JNT maybe stayed too long, Eric Saward ended up having a negative effect on the show, with too many mercenary stories with the Doctor sidelined. By the time Colin Baker had made the 6th doctor likeable the show had been axed, similary the McCoy era took too long to find it's sweet spot. Having Ian Lavine as an advisor was a double edged sword, especially as there were too many references to older stories that casual viewers might not have seen. I don't think I disagree with much of that! To me Season 11 is sometimes overlooked. Time Warrior, Death to the Daleks and Monster of Peladon are great, Monster - although studio bound - is a six parter that doesn’t drag. Dinosaurs and Spiders have some good ideas and themes and Lis Sladen is excellent throughout the season. There were lots of problems with the JNT era - one that hasn’t been mentioned is that fandom was taking off and he spent quite a lot of time on the publicity treadmill. Neither Barry Letts, Philip Hinchcliffe nor Graham Williams did much in the way of media appearances but JNT almost became the “face” of the show although, as I’ve noted above, his background was technical not creative. Barry Letts/Terrance Dicks and then Philip Hinchcliffe/Robert Holmes were, between them, almost what today would be called showrunners, they mapped out the seasons and seemed to spark off each other. The interviews on the DVDs/BluRays with Chris Bidmead, Eric Saward and Barry Letts are quite illuminating, seems JNT wanted to go to New Orleans for Two Doctors - nobody knew why! - and I’m still not sure what Spain added, or what Amsterdam contributed to Arc of Infinity. However, the Mona Lisa - and hence Paris - was an integral part of City of Death. As for the influence of Ian Levene…….
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Post by Richard Marple on Jul 25, 2021 15:47:42 GMT
I really like The Time Warrior but the other stories from season 11 didn't seem to click with me so well.
I had assumed JNT wanted to make a story in the USA to boost interest in the show over there, but the budget for The Two Doctors wouldn't stretch far enough so Saville was chosen instead.
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Post by John Wall on Jul 25, 2021 18:29:16 GMT
I saw Season 11 on first transmission and enjoyed it then. Since it’s been out on DVD I’ve watched it all multiple times and I still enjoy it - we think of Sarah Jane with Tom Baker but she’s excellent with Jon Pertwee, making really meaningful contributions to the stories.
The humanity of Malcolm Hulke and Barry Letts come through in Dinosaurs and Spiders and Death to the Daleks, although borrowing from elsewhere, is - with the exception of the root/snake - a solid, workmanlike story that’s technically well executed. Monster of Peladon is a good script, well delivered - and Lis is again great.
Did I mention how good Lis Sladen was?
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Post by Paul Vanezis on Jul 26, 2021 11:43:02 GMT
Gentlemen,
I've made a few trims to this thread which started to get a bit out of hand. Let me remind everyone here that left or right wing tropes have no place here. When the late Mark Brown started this forum, he told you all to keep it civil.
Keep it civil. If you don't, there won't be any other warnings. If anyone responds with 'cancel culture' you'll be 'doing one'.
Good luck,
Paul
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Post by garygraham on Jul 26, 2021 17:11:07 GMT
I saw Season 11 on first transmission and enjoyed it then. Since it’s been out on DVD I’ve watched it all multiple times and I still enjoy it - we think of Sarah Jane with Tom Baker but she’s excellent with Jon Pertwee, making really meaningful contributions to the stories. The humanity of Malcolm Hulke and Barry Letts come through in Dinosaurs and Spiders and Death to the Daleks, although borrowing from elsewhere, is - with the exception of the root/snake - a solid, workmanlike story that’s technically well executed. Monster of Peladon is a good script, well delivered - and Lis is again great. Did I mention how good Lis Sladen was? I was 8 when Jon Pertwee began in the role and I was frustrated by the Doctor being stuck on earth for much of the time. Now I greatly appreciate many of the stories.
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Post by Richard Marple on Jul 26, 2021 21:00:03 GMT
When I was getting into Dr Who in a big way in the early 1990s I was a bit wary of the Pertwee stories as he was stuck on earth for most of his time as the Doctor.
Luckily the repeats of The Sea Devils & the Daemons convinced me Earth bound adventures could work quite well.
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Post by richardwoods on Jul 27, 2021 11:39:11 GMT
Being a young Troughton fan, I found it difficult to accept Pertwee’s Doctor for a while, it didn’t help that I didn’t enjoy & felt disappointed by Spearhead at the time, however after that I quickly got into it & really enjoyed the Unit era.
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RWels
Member
Posts: 2,861
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Post by RWels on Aug 2, 2021 22:22:25 GMT
Uncle Terrance always said that there were three things needed to make good Who: The script The script The script But how often did that happen? But still, the point stands. The early new who got this right I think. Probably MORE so than old who. What strikes me in the recent years - recent can creep to a full decade before you know it - is that the enormous speed seems a waste at times. You sometimes think, Oh that's an interesting chara - oh never mind, he's dead. The stories come and go at ludicrous speed. Ironically, the article above also mentions the low number of episodes. This has almost always been a difference between US and UK series. It's probably foolish, but I wonder if they couldn't do a high paced version AND an extremely extended version. As the article notes, the competition is vast. In the 20th century, British television compensated for the crappy effects in other ways. It's no use to return to the past, but perhaps Doctor Who should still try to be different and not compete with everything the streaming networks are doing. The last years or so have strangely abandoned the "what the hell is going on" storyline that used to be the backbone of The twilight zone, Star Trek (at least until TNG) and old and new Who. I don't know if it has an official name, but you could call it the "whodunwhat" (instead of whodunit, where you at least know what was done). Even Black Mirror doesn't really do that setup anymore. Personally, I miss it because I'm used to it after seeing it all my life. One other thing that really baffled me, among all the shoddy plot twists, is that the doctor was boasting in series 10 of how many deaths he had caused?? Even before that scene had ended, I was thinking: OK so the doctor is competing with adolf hitler now??? How is this a good thing? (And it scared away the prison guards, too... he didn't even have to say "Boo!".)
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