Doctor Who: Classic or Dud?

There are too many great stories to count, but my favourite episode is probably The Ark In Space, or whatever that scary one with the sleeping people in the space station that got eaten by giant bees.

Also, the whole season that was the "key to time" story arc, I can't remember the name of any individual episodes, but just the fact that the Sonic Screwdriver ended up being the key on which the whole universe hinged was pretty damned cool. Plus, I had, like, a huge crush on Adrik, the original indie maths nerd, when I was a pre-teen. Though of all the companions, I think Romana was the coolest, just cause I wanted to *be* her. She was smarter than the Dr, after all. :-)

Funny, cause all the things that people point to, saying it's a dud- abysmally low production budget, lack of special effects, socks with googley eyes glued on for monsters- were all the things that made it endearing. And the quality of writing was just AMAZING- the minimal budget that they had, they spent on getting the very best in sci fi writers to come up with concepts and stories so engaging that you didn't care that it looked crap.

I could go on at length, but I've already outed myself as a geek enough on this board for one week...

"Doctor Who" was far and away my favorite show growing up. "The Ark In Space" is definitely high on my list, along with "The Robots of Death", "Kinda", "The Caves Of Androzani", the whole Key To Time season, "Inferno", "The Mind Robber"... Oh, I could go on and on. Favorite Doc is Davison, mostly because he managed to pull off underplaying the role and comes across as even more powerful because of it. Hell, I'm so into it that I've got EVERY book published in the New Adventures series from _Timewyrm: Genesys_ in the Virgin series through _Vanishing Point_ in the BBC series. (I do draw the line at conventions, though. Even when I was a kid, I thought the entire concept of a Doctor Who convention filled with adults dressed as these characters to be really disturbing.)

Best companions? Without a doubt, Leela, Romana I, Tegan, Sarah Jane, and Turlough. Especially Leela. (cf: fictional characters I've had a crush on)

Classic: the (original) Master, played by Roger Delgado.

Dud: all the stuff with Unit (ur-notion for the Initiative in Buffy? Only rubbish instead of good, obviously), and Pertwee himself (to me = Troughton nut). But Pertwee's ENEMIES were often grate (=Devils, Sea Devils: one of the Devils was called BOD!!)

Ten-ton dud: Tom "Overract why fucking don't you" Baker. But the Gallifrey/Time Lord business was often amusing.

Three-ton dud: Peter Davidson. BUT the ing on the first season of stories (esp. CASTROVALVA, abut timewarps and paradoxes, name taken from a lithograph by ESCHER = overlooked classic)

Hundred-ton duds: subsequent Doctors /Peter Cushing movies

Castrovalva! Was that the one where they were trapped in the scarily moebius strip city that Adrik (ah, archetype of all indie mathsrock nerds of my heart...) discovered that he had mistakenly created with his mathematical formulae?

Oh, and here's a question: K-9, what think you? Super-cool uber gadget who always saved the day, or annoying cutesy ploy, the Dr. Who equivalent of Ewoks?

Man, I have always wished that I had a sonic screwdriver!

Castrovalva and Adrik: very possibly correct — of course, this era Who is NEVER repeated (cuz supposedly a decline on Pertwee/ Baker), plus my memory is swirling away like asteroids into a time discontinuity anyway, so I don't recall. Part of my mathrock reason for liking Adrik was that the maths was, erm, not utterly entirely bogus. (mathrock = mathmath in my case...)

Jo = my major crush-assistant, I suppose. Can't be: she always screamed and wuz scared. Who was the one who ACTUALLY DIED? Played by Jean Marsh (later of Upstairs Downstairs). Or am I tripping?

GOT IT! My major crush assistant was Zoe!! (This too is a Wow-factor thing...)

Sub-thread Q: lamest Dr Who assistant?

Mark is right - it's your second. Peter Davison in my case. This theory probably falls down if applied to any post-Davison due to transcendental awfulness.

Jean Marsh played Sara Kingdom in "The Dalek Masterplan" and has the distinction of being the only companion to join and die in the same story. (Of course, "The Dalek Masterplan" went on for 16 episodes or something like that...)

"Castrovalva" is definitely the one where the Master uses Adric to generate a trans-dimensional mathematical construct solely to trap a confused and newly-regenerated Doctor.

Patrick Troughton rocked the house as far as I can tell. The only stories of his I've really seen are "The Mind Robber" and "The War Games", though, so I don't have enough evidence to knock Davison outof the top spot. The Yeti were SORELY underused, though.

Frasier Hines, who played Jamie, was also on "Upstairs, Downstairs".

The Doctor had three companions die during the television series; Srar Kingdom, Katarina, and Adric. The books added Liz Shaw and Roslynn Forrester to this list, plus the Brigadier is now living out the rest of his life in an alternate dimension populated by faries. (No, really.)

The misfortune of the Peri character was teaming her with the sixth Doctor. Either forceful, grating personality could have worked, but both together were a SHOCKINGLY bad idea. Interestingly enough, the new fiction line has managed to not only completely salvage Peri and the sixth Doctor, but also the hideously misconceived Melanie Bush, who has gone from being a chirpy nightmare to one of the more capable people the Doctor has travelled with.

Worst companion? Victoria Waterfield, aka the extremely wet Victorian girl whose sole function was to scream, "Help me Jamie!" at every opportunity. They replaced her with Zoe for reason, folks...

No, but that would have been awesome! More sad fannishness:

Sixth Doctor, "Trial of a Timelord". The Doctor gets taken outof time by the Timelords and put on trial for being a general menace to the universe. As it transpires, he was pulled out of time as he was rushing to rescue Peri from having her brain sucked out and replaced with one from a slug-like dictator. Therefore, he wasn't there to save her and she was killed, becoming an evil pod person. The companion who ended up replacing her, Mel, was played by Bonnie Langford.

(At the end of the trial, it's strongly hinted that Peri was actually saved by one of the people fighting the evil slugs and ended up marrying him, which is why I didn't list her amongst the dead.)

And he had a soft spot for Jo. There's a scene in "The Green Death", at some point after she announces her engagement to Dr Jones, where he glances at her as if to say 'if I were ten...fifteen years younger'. Quite touching really.

The VERY FIRST companion was Susan, who was the doctor's DAUGHTER? No? She was interesting, it being 1963 and therefore pre- pop, let alone pre-Kate Millett: cuz she was SUPER-CLEVER, and the earth-boys were baffled and threatened and intrigued by this. But I don't remember her to look at since (a) B/W episodes never repeated; and (b) her character/look is overlaid by things I much later read in ancient second-hand TV comic-books and by the very repeated film with Bernard fucking Cribbins in it). (BC = cool, just not appropriate to this story...)

But I do remember a scene with her in it, which is poorly revisited in the film, when the white bedford van she is in (driven by a dalek-resistance soldier) is strafed by the giant dalek ship. Cuz where I lived and where my dad worked the staff van was a white bedford van, and when I was in it, I often used to check out that there was enough foliage near enough that I could jump out of the van — as Susan had — and roll to cover into it, shd the dalek ship appear and begin strafing.

That is all. (That is enough...)

An episode of Fireball XL5 gave me the all- time nightmares-for-week spooking, though.

My memory of this is hazy, despite being told this story dozens of times in my youth, but by all accounts he was very nice, askign K9 why he wasn't in the tardis, who his friend was and so on. What a nice chap.

Best series Genesis of the Daleks, but only cos a friend did it as a one man show. His interpretation of Davros was jumping around in a frying pan, tom Baker was a pan on the head.

tom Baker was the best imho.

Ace was very annoying though, and janet what's her name from Blue peter

Anyway, Jo (Katy Manning) destroyed and stomped on my pre-adolescent heart by marrying the dull Sgt. Benson in the Pertwee/Unit days. I've never ever recovered, never will and don't want to. A goddess.

Great call on Roger Delgado. A scary mutha in a very English way.

Mark: my school library also always had the Mail. The librarian was a self-described "true blue" Tory, hmmm, what a surprise ...

Taking sides: Peanuts vs The Perishers

Did you all see the mid-90's TV movie with Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook? Any comments?

There's a great Doctor Who book floating out there called _Interference_ where the Doctor runs into an enemy who completely FUBAR's his past timeline. I love that idea and I'm kind of bummed out that the show never really exploited that aspect of time travel (ill-conceived Valeyard aside).

Doctor Who assistants - Search/Destroy
The Man That Ruined Doctor Who
Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly comic strips - Search/Destroy

MIND FITE!!!

Castrovalva is rubbish though!

The VERY FIRST companion was Susan, who was the doctor's DAUGHTER? No? She was interesting, it being 1963 and therefore pre- pop, let alone pre-Kate Millett: cuz she was SUPER-CLEVER, and the earth-boys were baffled and threatened and intrigued by this. But I don't remember her to look at since (a) B/W episodes never repeated

I remember the surviving B/W episodes being shown on UK Gold when UK Gold first started, in the early 90s. I think Susan told everyone that she was the doctor's granddaughter, but this might just have been a ploy to explain why he was her guardian to boring Earth people.

My favourite Doctor Who related thing is probably Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, a Douglas Adams novel put together from late-70s Doctor Who scripts that were never broadcast. (as was the third Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy book)

Exquisite. Simply... exquisite.

Tico - The BRANE OF MORBIUS should only be attempted after a couple of cans of RELAXANT in my opinion cos it is very silly. Also you will be annoyed by the rubbish assistant who falls over a lot. The priestesses are brilliant. But yes I am up for DOCTOR ACTION.

Secret flame! Secret fire!

Yeah it’s one that’s lost something in rewatching - when I first saw it I loved all the creepy/mysterious scenes in the first couple episodes and there seemed to be so much going on under the surface but then when they do start to explain things it’s mostly pretty stupid and nonsensical. Still has some great bits though!

love Silver Nemesis, but that may be due to it being one of the few I had on VHS as a 12 year old, along with Tomb Of The Cybermen and Remembrance

Little plug for my Doctor Who podcast, which relaunches today as an audio show via all the usual channels (Apple, Spotify) and also now in a video version on Youtube. Weekly episodes dropping every Friday from today, kicking off with an in-depth look at Blink.

We've carved out a bit of a niche taking a political/socio-historical view of Doctor Who, but with lots of dumb jokes to stop it getting too dry - hopefully should appeal to some people here!

Cool, will try out!

I am friends with Christel D, would you like me to share it with her?

I am friends with Christel D, would you like me to share it with her?

Thank you Suzy, that would be very kind and much appreciated!

The War Games, colourised, edited to 90 mins with a new score, just in time for Xmas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0u20oUdQZs

In 45 minutes, Boom is being streamed on youtube with Moffat doing a 2020-style tweetalong commentary

90 minutes down from what, probably around 280 originally? That's a pretty major chop.

It recently occurred to me I've seen no less than three Doctors out and about in London, all many years ago...

7 - Having a drink with I'm assuming his grown up kids in the Boston Arms in Tufnell Park

9 - Marching across Hampstead Heath with a pram, very intensely practicing lines

11 - Post-announcement but pre-Eleventh Hour, watching the footie by himself in a Camden pub, no doubt aware it was one of the last times he could do so unbothered

Has anyone else sighted any wild Doctors?

It is not as good but I saw Steven Moffat buying Subway in 2004, before the new series had started. He was in Australia for a screen producer’s conference and I considered going up to him and telling him I was a fan and that I was excited about the new show. But I thought I would give the man his lunchtime privacy.

Not long after he penned a column for Doctor Who magazine where he described a fan coming up to him in the wild and wishing him well with the new show, and how great and wonderful and special that was. Ah well.

I also chatted to a fella in a post production house reception about the difficulty of getting a cab, and realised afterwards that it was Turlough.

Two at my late friend’s very sad and very packed funeral: 5 and 10 (this was before 14 was a glimmer in RTD’s eye). They didn’t come to the wake so I didn’t speak to either of them.

At the Wembley gig for Blur, my curator friend was getting antsy about where the Hell our pal in charge of aftershow wristbands was. Enter 11, who was leaving, knew my friend, and beckoned us over for a successful wristband-switching huddle a few minutes before our wristbands pal finally appeared. He is SO TALL.

Third doctor opened the local supermarket, as Worzel Gummidge...

Used to see McCoy riding a bike around Pinner when I lived there.

Lucky enough to have recorded T Baker many times between 1996 and 2014, when I worked full-time in a post studio.

He liked coming to our place (lucky for us) and used to pitch up early to sessions with snacks for the front of house boys and girls, (v generous and thoughtful chap) he would either hold court in the reception or sit quietly in his Aquascutum raincoat reading plays in French.

Never really experienced his famous truculent side, although he would employ the famous 'I can make whippet shit sound like Shakespeare, squire' quote when he felt that some Clem Fandango ad type was calling his acumen into question.

Our place used to do the DVD commentaries for years, so I saw loads of classic-era people floating about.

Christopher Eccleston, struggling to use the self-checkout at Crouch End Waitrose.

i would help him

<3

Was tempted! Oh, and my toddler picked up the wrong water bottle at a playground once, and it turned out to be 13’s kid’s bottle. She was very nice!

!!

Oh, I have a good Doctor in the wild story!

I was in a semester-long undergraduate creative writing workshop with 11 at UEA in 2002. A writer named Paul Magrs was the senior instructor. Well, I seem to remember that he was a senior-ish instructor, and that a junior-ish instructor ran the day-to-day lessons. Neither of the instructors nor future Doctor 11 liked me, an American, who they felt had elbowed their way into his otherwise very English course. Magrs talked allusively about work he was doing on radio with Iris and the Doctor, who I did not know were fictional characters. I was embarrassed to inquire which Doctor, who I presumed to be another lecturer. I was also saddened for Iris, who I heard lived on a bus.

On my workshop day, I submitted parts of an Updike-inflected story provisionally named 'Below the Bleachers.' The man who became 11 hated this story, because I hadn't included 'a single bleacher in the piece, nor really any other working man.' Paul Magrs and the junior instructor laughed at both of us: 11 for not understanding that 'bleacher' was an American word for sports seating, and me, for having such a lame title. After class, 11 and I agreed about how terrible the teachers were. I don't think we spoke again.

90 minutes down from what, probably around 280 originally? That's a pretty major chop.

― JimD

I'm surprised that they're leaving so much in! I've seen the first episode and the last episode, both of which are great. Whenever I try to watch anything in between, it just seems like pure padding. Try as I might, I'm not able to glean anything of significance from it. I have an easier time trying to watch "Frontier in Space"!

I'll have to check it out upon release to see if I can stay awake through it!

Having attempted to read a Paul Magrs book, I would say he is a terrible twee writer.

I saw Sylvester McCoy in an Italian Straw Hat in the mid 70s. I think I had the poster up for a few years afterwards. It was in a theatre in Stratford East London.

Recently watched and quite enjoyed The Visitation, mostly for the full throated thespian aiding the crew. Gone back to Warriors Gate now (jumped ahead without finishing).

Oh, I have a good Doctor in the wild story!

I was in a semester-long undergraduate creative writing workshop with 11 at UEA in 2002. A writer named Paul Magrs was the senior instructor. Well, I seem to remember that he was a senior-ish instructor, and that a junior-ish instructor ran the day-to-day lessons. Neither of the instructors nor future Doctor 11 liked me, an American, who they felt had elbowed their way into his otherwise very English course. Magrs talked allusively about work he was doing on radio with Iris and the Doctor, who I did not know were fictional characters. I was embarrassed to inquire which Doctor, who I presumed to be another lecturer. I was also saddened for Iris, who I heard lived on a bus.

On my workshop day, I submitted parts of an Updike-inflected story provisionally named 'Below the Bleachers.' The man who became 11 hated this story, because I hadn't included 'a single bleacher in the piece, nor really any other working man.' Paul Magrs and the junior instructor laughed at both of us: 11 for not understanding that 'bleacher' was an American word for sports seating, and me, for having such a lame title. After class, 11 and I agreed about how terrible the teachers were. I don't think we spoke again.

― mildew and sanctimony (soda), Saturday, 30 November 2024 01:17 (twelve hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ha, I went to UEA and studied under Margs too - only actually met him maybe twice. Graduated '01. Had no idea Smith was an alumnus till just now!

My podcast co-host (and friend tbf) once sat opposite Tom Baker on a train journey in Kent about 20 years ago. He struggled to think of anything to say, so waited for his stop and just said "It's been a wonderful journey" as he got off.

I saw a McGann in the Royal Festival Hall cafe once, and I think it was Paul, but it could have been Joe.

I saw David Tennant at an ice cream shop in Larchmont once but the only interesting thing about that story is my last name is Tennent.

And his isn't.

Sorry, I realise now that I posted that looks as though I was picking on your spelling, but I wasn't! I actually meant his real name is David McDonald.

Which is crazy because my real last name is McDoneld

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4b9QoEXHDg

did anyone else watch the colorised rescored 90 minute version of The War Games yet? Thought is was worse than the original in pretty much every way. Lots of old-school Doctor Who has a good deal of 'getting captured-escaping-running about-getting captured again' which feels like it should be possible to truncate, but, in this case at least, the cuts just emphasised how much to-ing and fro-ing there is, the leads get captured/escape/get captured again once every 10 minutes instead of once every 25 minute episode, and it starts to grate.

tbh, despite its length, I don't feel that The War Games does drag the way some earlier stories do, it's very well paced in a way that was thrown off here by the edit. Thought you lost a lot by not spending as much time in the Western Front setting while gradually getting accumulating hints that there is, more going on than is first apparent, it was all too quick here. The slow burning tension between the War Chief, the Security Chief and the War Lord doesn't really get enough space to be effective either. And the futuristic op-art base from where everything is being controlled looks really good and bizarre in black and white but significantly less impressive in colour - it would have been nice if they could have had the historical war scenes in colour but the base sequences in black and white, Wizard of Oz style (reverse Wizard of Oz style? Or maybe not, as the base is the 'real' world and the war zones are the 'fantasy' world).

I thought the establishing shots of the 'outside' of the base were maybe the worst single choice, makes the base seem more like the inside of this dull-looking building instead of this weird psychedelic environment the leads are mysteriously transported to.

Also, given all the 'get captured/escape/get captured' bits they left in, they cut the sequence from the last episode where Jamie and Zoe break the Doctor out of Time-Lord prison, and the Doctor knows what the companions don't, that they have no chance of escape, but he sadly goes along with them anyway as they try to flee, which is one of the best parts of the whole story.

of all the stories to colourise and edit down this seems like the worst possible choice

yet?

I definitely would have much rather seen The Dominators or The Krotons colorised and re-edited despite (or because of) the fact that they are far inferior stories. (The soundtrack to The Krotons is great though, so no re-scoring, please)

The colourisation is technically very impressive and I feel kind of churlish being so critical when people must have put so much time and effort into this, but it's mostly time and effort spent making it worse imo

So I've been in Evil Annie's outer FB group for a while and thought about trying to get into the inner one for access to his AI animation project, basically because of some of the praise from people other than him. I was fairly sure I would at one point, but Annie's constant pleading about how much it had cost him turned me off again. Anyway, now he's released a sort of greatest hits showreel and I'm back on the fence. Bits look very good indeed but some of it just doesn't. On the other hand, even the worst of it is probably better than the official Web of Fear animations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQabMPpdQnk

huh what a surreal viewing experience

I know nothing about this project (although I suppose could have guessed it existed) - but based on that, i am pretty interested in seeing the version that will be around in 10 years (or 5?)

i wonder what the legal/ethical vibes are on using AI to recreate an existing-but-lost performance

It looks like Captain Fathom. Anyway the joy of the old episodes is seeing what was broadcast.

I'm sharing this one because it's the first he's cleared for wide distribution.

I've skimmed a couple of the EPS available in the outer group and wasn't overly bothered but the ones in the inner group have really provoked some high praise in the overspill threads and made me very curious.

All of Hartnell is now complete, and there are 14 Troughton episodes left to do before moving onto ephemera like Dark Dimension.

Obviously your man's personality comes into play and (rightly or wrongly) bitterness over how he is being treated - the use of a fan film in War Games In Colour particularly grates when he has in writing from the BBC that they're turning down working with him specifically because they'll never use fan work in official releases. But this is clearly a work of love for him and given his state of health could most likely be his last contribution so it shows single-mindedness at least.

pardon ignorance but is this !an Lev!n€?

there was something compelling about seeing an uncanny dream version of these episodes that I have expended (too many) hours of speculative dreaming on

in itself felt like a SF experience - like a machine that can visualise dreams (with all the artefacts / inaccuracy and weirdness that you would expect)

I mean I guess that is just AI really but fascinating in this context

Fascinating, but not actually good. I can't imagine watching whole episodes of this.

You're pardoned, yes it is. Xpost

i only made it through four minutes of this video

i saw the ai recon of "the traitors" when that leaked and i mean... i guess evil annie has an excuse for it, kind of a "now or never" thing

has he done "the web of fear" episode 3 lol

honestly i do think it's the worst sort of ai trash... maybe in ten years we'll look back fondly on "early AI jank"... i'm in this space where i'm amazed that anybody thinks this is like.... well, i mean, it's a matter of taste. i really enjoy the charmingly jank flash animations. like a lot of them look terrible but they're more _interestingly_ terrible. though i admit to being entertained when the AI gave vicki stubble in one shot.

my thing is that i _don't_ necessarily need doctor who to be "good". i did a stream for a couple of friends... i love the weird ephemera that circulates online. like, people are taking off-air videotapes of doctor who broadcasts and encoding them and circulating them. now, if you're a sensible person, you are probably saying "why? what on earth is the point?" i'm gonna admit it, a lot of what i love about old doctor who is the nostalgia. i don't necessarily have a lot of great memories from my youth, but watching doctor who... that's one of my fondest memories. it also, honestly, one of the things that the obsessive fandom helps is that it gives me a chance to fact-check my memories somewhat. some portion of my growing up consisted of people telling me that i was imagining things, exaggerating, that things i thought had happened didn't happen. and so i kind of try to sort through my life in terms of what happened when, even though i don't have a lot of reliable sources. one of my most reliable sources, weirdly enough, is old doctor who broadcast ephemera. it genuinely helps that i can pinpoint the exact day i first saw the show.

i do admit to having an ulterior motive. one of my fondest memories of the njn broadcasts of the show is that at 10:00 they'd always interrupt the broadcast to show the live drawing for the New Jersey Lottery, with Dick La Rossa (not sure on the spelling), a guy who looks like he could've been a villain in a Robert Holmes story. this man just oozed used car salesman vibes. dick la rossa was my ralph spoilsport (i forget the name of the guy ralph spoilsport was based on). anyway, i finally found a tape with the lottery drawing intact, and i am absolutely overjoyed for having done so.

anyway i wound up streaming an encode of "silver nemesis" from a videotape of one of NJN's two broadcasts. njn was the channel i grew up watching the show on. i had at least a partial videotape of silver nemesis, i think, though i could be misremembering that. (like most people i got rid of my off-air tv recordings as being somewhat pointless, in case anybody out there is salivating at the thought of a treasures trove of off-air NJN doctor who recordings). anyway this tape is of particularly poor quality, with black vertical lines extending halfway across the screen anytime a particularly bright frequency shows up. there's also significant audio distortion in places. and it just... for this story, it worked perfect. i hadn't seen it in ages and it's very much what some people today would refer to as being about "vibes". which is to say none of it makes the slightest bit of sense whatsoever. frankly, i kind of prefer my audiovisual stimulation to be as nonsensical as possible, so this doesn't bother me. the different parts here... the fantastic doctor/companion relationship mccoy and aldred have. a nazi who looks a _lot_ like mike pence. boot boys in bondage. the actor playing lady peinforte seems to be trying to out kate o'mara kate o'mara, and god, don't i just love her for it.

holy shit that video is fucked up, it's kind of amazing. I imagine in 10 years the output will be so good that it will blow us away, but I kind of like this fucked up weird acid trip version.

Revived this because I am finally getting around to Season 26, the classic last McCoy season. For some reason I have never seen these even though they're regarded as his best season and in fact, one of the best seasons of the show ever, I believe. Marc Platt, Ben Aarronovich, these guys are great writers. When these first aired in the US my local PBS station couldn't afford the rights the first few years, so I just never caught them, and even though they've been on dvd and streaming for ages now I'm just now getting to them. Through Ghost Light now; cheesy effects as always, and really annoying sound mix (too-loud soundtrack was not just a thing on Doctor Who during the Matt Smith years) these are great.

After this I'll either go back and watch a bunch of early things I haven't seen in over 30 years now, or finally pick up where I left off (mid Jodi Whittaker season 1).

fyi that the blu-rays have versions of most of the S25/26 stories with essentially “writers cuts” that flow better or make more sense than the versions that were broadcast

I like the Ace/Professor pairing better than the stories themselves, but it’s a very good season - although I can’t remember Battlefield at all, I don’t think I’ve seen it since 1989! Fenric is the best although iirc it gets a bit silly at the end. Survival is daft too, but I love the time capsule of the northwest London suburbs in the setup - it’s not far from where I grew up. I guess you don’t get New Adventures and nu Who without this season.

I read the novelization of Ghost Light before I saw the story and maybe I would change my mind if I saw it again but at the time I remember thinking “had I not read the book, this would be wholly incomprehensible”

There’s so much going on in the characters’ heads that doesn’t translate to the screen, the entire story is basically a series of arbitrary weird nonsense

oh ghost light is 100% incomprehensible but it's really fun

I'm watching BluRay rips of these; battlefield is a re-edit and so is Fenric