Which Who Stories Have you seen lately?

Indrid Mercury wrote:Well coming after two great season finales beforehand, The Invasion Of Time is certainly a colossal letdown as well as the fact its a sequel to The Deadly Assassin....

Well, I think the problem is that they didn't have a great idea for a sequel in mind. They just had leftover Gallifrey sets from The Deadly Assassin and felt they had to reuse them to save money before the sets got disposed of.

In The Deadly Assassin the set was built to the dictates of the story, in The Invasion of Time, the story was written to the dictates of the set. And that really limited and handicapped the story, and I think why so much of it just seems to be spent milling about on studio.

The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon

Trying to move forward with NuWho after S5 is going to difficult.... I started to get the 'Why the fuck am I watching this?' feeling, very early on,
If I thought the S5 finale was bad, Moffat has achieved full Smoke and Mirrors mode with this shit. I got so bored with this self-colonoscopy that I started making Star Wars threads and doing mundane jobs like emptying the dishwasher. I just can't be bothered with this shit. Moffat's own stories in particular.
It's only the fact that I remember 'The Girl Who Waited' as being a rare good one, that will encourage me to persevere forward... It's just getting to the River Snog as I type.... God this is such rubbish... I'm up to S16 on the classic series, Not my favourite season, but it's looking distinctly appealing right now....

0/10

The Happiness Patrol - mad, silly, weird and clever all at once.

'Happiness Will Prevail'

I watched The Mutants today.

Much more enjoyable than how I remembered it.

Episodes 5&6 plod a little, but there are some decent performances -notably from George Pravda and Paul Whitsun-Jones as the detestable, unhinged Marshal. Cotton, played by Rick James is probably the only weakness on this front, but even his amateurish performance has a kind of endearing, repertory theatre feel to it.

It also has some of the best CSO sequences in 70s Who, being both psychedelic and organic. The scenes of the radiation in the caves have a beautiful analogue warmth to them that you could never achieve with CGI.

It's a reasonably well-told tale of a madman's attempts to cling to power through assassination, manipulation, and genocide - with an anti-authoritarian and anti-colonial message that doesn't require  any signposting or patronising, 3 ¾ wall speeches.

Overall, 7.5/10.

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.


Visually stunning story with an imaginative story, memorable characters and an effectively eerie tone.


The big question: Flowerchild or Mags?

Flowerchild.

The Visitation.

I enjoyed it. The main negatives were:

The Terrileptil costume. I wish they had filmed it more in the shadows.

The Android. The design wasn't essentially bad but the colour scheme they used was bloody awful. It should have been dark grey or silver perhaps. As it is, it looks like JNT told the costume designer / sfx department to base it on one of his Hawaiwan shirts.

Not all but some of the action scenes looked very staged: filmed too slowly to be credible really.

Otherwise I thought it was really good. Good little story with some really nice dialogue between the Doctor and his companions, the Terrileptil and Michael Robbins. The Doctor's irritation with Tegan and Adric worked marvellously I thought.

Michael Melia - later to become a barman or landlord in the Queen Vic - was excellent as the Terrileptil and the confrontations between him and the Doctor worked brilliantly. I also liked Melia's put down of Tegan when, under interrogation, she tried to pretend the Doctor came from Guildford, England: Teri - You are being a very stupid woman; Tegan - Thats not a very original observation. I can't see such a line making the final cut of a Chibnall story.

Re Michael Robbins, i have to admit i was wrong to criticise him in this story the other week. He brings a certain charm to the proceedings and works well with Davison. He is not shite in this. He is actually very good.

There are also some scenes in the house with just Davison and Sutton which work very well - nice dialogue between the two which contrasts well with the constant bickering when Tegan is around. I increasingly wish Tegan had been dropped at the end of Logopolis.

Adric was rubbish.

iank wrote:Remembrance. Still fricking brilliant. That's how you make great Who, Mofftwat.

I would like to fuck this comment and have it's baby comments.

Pepsi Maxil Foley wrote:Flowerchild or Mags?

Both quite lovely in different ways. But Jessica Martin in her tights did it for me when I was a teen and still do.

stengos wrote:The Visitation.
The Terrileptil costume. I wish they had filmed it more in the shadows.

I dunno, I think the animatronic work on the lips was pretty good for the early 80's.

stengos wrote:The Android. The design wasn't essentially bad but the colour scheme they used was bloody awful.

I can understand the idea.
The Terrileptil's were meant to be lovers of war AND art, so it makes sense for their android to be ascetically pleasing.

Unfortunately this idea was realized by the designers as some kind of harlequin covered in bling. Perhaps something more akin to the robots of death might have been better...

The Ribos Operation

Finally moved on to Season 16, and the drop in quality that began towards the end of S15 is all too apparent in The Ribos Operation. Wtf has happened to Robert Holmes? This pish is so dull, you feel that he somehow must've been looking back to The Space Pirates for inspiration.
Tom's mugging at the camera in The Invasion of Time was the start of his decline, and bit by bit. the silliness is starting it's slow drip into decline.
Mary Tamm does her best. Romana I is actually better than I remembered, and not so smug as the incarnation that follows.
The story itself is average at best. Garron, Unstoffe, and Binro are all played with an emphasis on light entertainment that wouldn't be too out of place in a Two Ronnies sketch. To be fair, it's not terrible, but it's pretty uninspiring stuff. If this was a Star Trek episode it would probably be 'Mudd's Women'. 4/10

God, you really are a weirdo with zero taste.

Ribos is superior to almost anything in seasons 12 and 13 by light years.

iank wrote:God, you really are a weirdo with zero taste.

Ribos is superior to almost anything in seasons 12 and 13 by light years.

Sir Ian speaks the truth, Ludders

iank wrote:weirdo

Rich.

iank wrote:Ribos is superior to almost anything in seasons 12 and 13 by light years.

You should be on the stage,

Lord Pertwee's Knob wrote:

Pepsi Maxil Foley wrote:Flowerchild or Mags?

Both quite lovely in different ways. But Jessica Martin in her tights did it for me when I was a teen and still do.

Flowerchild for me. She was just dreamy, like a girl out of a fairytale. Shame they killed her off within the first ten minutes.

iank wrote:God, you really are a weirdo with zero taste.

Ribos is superior to almost anything in seasons 12 and 13 by light years.

Ribos is a delight, how can anybody hate it? So many great performances, Unstoffe, Garron,The Graf, Sholakh, Binro...

And Holmes writing... Scringestone  Mercenaries from SHLANGY!!!


Oh and Mary Tamm in full Goddess mode...

Delicious.

Quite.

Must be WDS (Williams Derangement Syndrome). Almost as devastating a mental illness as TDS.

The Pirate Planet

After watching this, you'd be forgiven for thinking there's no hope for this season now that it's hit full Doug Adams mode.
The panto level is almost at S24's ditchworthy standards thanks to Bruce Purchase's incredibly OTT performance as the Captain. I was just waiting for Tom to mug at the camera again and shout 'OHHHH NO HE DIDN'T', when he took me completely by surprise and managed to inject some actual, genuine gravitas into his 'What's it FOR!' confrontation scene with Dame Captain. Well done Tom for remembering that he's supposed to be an actor.
Other than that, there's nothing much more that can be said in it's favour. The toy dog is taking centre stage by this time.
Fortunately there's an upswing to come if memory serves, but another viewing of this story has done nothing except confirm the decline in quality and tone. 3/10

Stones of Blood

This story definitely has more about it than the first two stories of S16. It feels like it would've been more at home in the previous season, and the first 3 episodes even have a hint of the Hinchcliffe era about them.
Not to say that episode 4 is a drop in quality. In fact, the 'courtroom' scenes with the Megara manage to be quite witty without descending into the pantomime of the previous story.
The guest cast is pretty good. In fact, Professor Rumford's character puts me in mind of Amelia Ducat; whilst Engel and McCardle largely manage to remain of the right side of camp.
All in all, it's not absolutely brilliant, but it's good solid fun, and it manages to have some atmosphere about it. I was expecting to give this story a 6 or 7, and I'm happy that it lived up to expectations. As I'm feeling magnanimous, I'll give it 7.5/10.

Androids of Tara

Hmmmm........ Whilst not as poor as the first two stories of S16, this one comes across as distinctly average after the highlight of Stones of Blood. The plot is a somewhat ordinary runaround which has a rather inconsequential feel to it.
Some of the performances help to lift it a bit; Mary Tamm is clearly having fun in this one, and Peter Jeffery positively revels in his role as Grendel. But all in all, there's not a lot that really stands out about this story, although I wouldn't say it was terrible either; just unremarkable.
I had hoped to get a bit more out of watching this one again, but there's simply not much there to really get your teeth into. Can't really give this any more than 5/10.

Power of Kroll

A pretty basic story that feels like 4 episodes of filler. Like Androids of Tara, there's nothing really wrong with it, as such... it just unremarkably average once again.
Sadly, Philip Madoc's talents are wasted here on an underdeveloped part, and there are no other characters that really sparkle.
Nothing much to say about a nothing much story. Another 5/10.

Boofer wrote:I watched The Mutants today.

Much more enjoyable than how I remembered it.

Episodes 5&6 plod a little, but there are some decent performances -notably from George Pravda and Paul Whitsun-Jones as the detestable, unhinged Marshal. Cotton, played by Rick James is probably the only weakness on this front, but even his amateurish performance has a kind of endearing, repertory theatre feel to it.

Cotton delivers two of the most immortal and memorable lines in the whole story.

"Stubbsie, Stubbsie mon, aw naw Stubbsie!" and "Well, that's greet innit?"

He has one of the strangest regionally variable accents I've ever heard, sort of cross between Jamaican patios and Brummie/Yorkshire.

Ludders wrote:Power of Kroll

A pretty basic story that feels like 4 episodes of filler. Like Androids of Tara, there's nothing really wrong with it, as such... it just unremarkably average once again.
Sadly, Philip Madoc's talents are wasted here on an underdeveloped part, and there are no other characters that really sparkle.
Nothing much to say about a nothing much story. Another 5/10.

Problem with "Power Of Kroll" is there isn't the budget to realise the ambition and Neil McCarthy and Philip Madoc are in the wrong roles.

Androids of Tara is a smidgen better I reckon, in fact I think it's the best one out of a pretty poor season.

Time and the Rani. First time I've seen it in like 27 years. For the first half I was actually pleasently surprised because if you treat it as a comedy, it's actually pretty funny with some good one-liners and O'Mara's spot-on pisstake of Bonnie, complete with withering muttered asides. Sadly this aspect gets dropped after part 2 and the second half is a lot less funny and just turns into a generic runaround. Maybe not the worst story ever made - so many years of New Who has probably immunised me to some of its worst aspects - but still by far the worst McCoy.
Sorry, Maxil.

Rob Filth wrote:

Boofer wrote:I watched The Mutants today.

Much more enjoyable than how I remembered it.

Episodes 5&6 plod a little, but there are some decent performances -notably from George Pravda and Paul Whitsun-Jones as the detestable, unhinged Marshal. Cotton, played by Rick James is probably the only weakness on this front, but even his amateurish performance has a kind of endearing, repertory theatre feel to it.

Cotton delivers two of the most immortal and memorable lines in the whole story.

"Stubbsie, Stubbsie mon, aw naw Stubbsie!" and "Well, that's greet innit?"

He has one of the strangest regionally variable accents I've ever heard, sort of cross between Jamaican patios and Brummie/Yorkshire.

His accent is still better than Kendra's Jamaican accent from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Her's was honestly like Homer Simpson's.

"I am Keeeendra da Vampure Slaya. If ya keeelll me anuther wan will cum to take meee plaze."

Her accent actually topped Angels Irish one in terms of shitness. I often wondered if James Marsters cockney accent was good, or if just seemed it compared to Kendra's and Angels.