Fixing Trial of a Time Lord

How would you do it?

By hitting the big Delete button.

The Blu ray SE showed that Vervoids worked just fine as a standalone, so I'd keep it like that (albeit better made) and ditch the rest.

Am I allowed to say I don't find it all that awful?

I certainly prefer it to a lot of McCoy's first two seasons.

Boofer wrote:Am I allowed to say I don't find it all that awful?

I certainly prefer it to a lot of McCoy's first two seasons.

To be honest, I think apart from Mindwarp (which really did not need to go as nasty as it did) it all probably only needed a few tweaks to be made really good.

Tanmann wrote:

Boofer wrote:Am I allowed to say I don't find it all that awful?

I certainly prefer it to a lot of McCoy's first two seasons.

To be honest, I think apart from Mindwarp (which really did not need to go as nasty as it did) it all probably only needed a few tweaks to be made really good.

The problem with Mindwarp was making everybody think Peri died a horrible death for weeks on end. It's a scheduling issue more than anything. You could have re-written it so it became the penultimate story. In fact this might have made more sense, as this was the Doctor represented at his most criminal. Prosecution lawyers often use this climactic order to present the most damning evidence to the jury as an effective tactic.

Had her death been just a week before The Ultimate Foe and, say, had said story used the Master to expose Ycranos and Peri together as part of the Valyard's ruse to frame the Doctor early in the first episode, it might just have been tolerable.

Keep 22's darker, bleaker tone.
Keep using film instead of ditching it in favor of the video quality
Just ditch the Trial altogether and give us the Missing Season plan

Boofer wrote:

Tanmann wrote:

Boofer wrote:Am I allowed to say I don't find it all that awful?

I certainly prefer it to a lot of McCoy's first two seasons.

To be honest, I think apart from Mindwarp (which really did not need to go as nasty as it did) it all probably only needed a few tweaks to be made really good.

The problem with Mindwarp was making everybody think Peri died a horrible death for weeks on end. It's a scheduling issue more than anything. You could have re-written it so it became the penultimate story. In fact this might have made more sense, as this was the Doctor represented at his most criminal. Prosecution lawyers often use this climactic order to present the most damning evidence to the jury as an effective tactic.

Had her death been just a week before The Ultimate Foe and, say, had said story used the Master to expose Ycranos and Peri together as part of the Valyard's ruse to frame the Doctor early in the first episode, it might just have been tolerable.

I'd agree there.

I suppose they had it in mind to raise the stakes by the second prosecution entry so that the Doctor has to present a good countercase and to put weight on the Vervoids segment. But then again, the problem is there doesn't seem any going back from what happened in Mindwarp, so Vervoids was never going to feel like it addressed or redressed the previous incriminations enough. And it feels very strange that the program operates as though it was expected to.

So yes, the final disgrace followed by The Ultimate Foe's exoneration from the jaws of defeat would've made the better sense.

Indrid Mercury wrote:Just ditch the Trial altogether and give us the Missing Season plan

I'd agree, but....

You know the SJWs would never let Mission to Magnus be forgiven, don't you?

Lose the court scenes. Or at least reduce the frequency.
Change the casting . Especially Joan Simms, Blessed
Lose mindwarp or at least rework so sil and Kiv are not in it.
Instruct the cast not to ham their performance up so much. One of the reasons I like Vervoids the most is because the performances were more understated and satisfying.
Fire Langford and hire the stewardess in Vervoids as the companion instead. She was the better actress by far.
Ditch all the incidental music in the show and either call Simpson back or go without.
The whole feel was that of a gaudy, chintzy pantomime aimed at kids. When broadcast it was embarrassing to watch and such a disappointment /let down after what I regarded as JNTs first very sucessfull 5 years. The show never recovered in my view.

Tanmann wrote:

Indrid Mercury wrote:Just ditch the Trial altogether and give us the Missing Season plan

I'd agree, but....

You know the SJWs would never let Mission to Magnus be forgiven, don't you?

Wow, I'll lose sleep over that(!)

I've actually thought a lot about this. First, I like Mysterious Planet and Vervoids and would keep them just as they are. Next, I would toss Mindwarp into the nearest exploding sun never to be seen again. Third, I would extend Ultimate Foe from a two parter into a four parter.

The problem with Ultimate Foe wasn't anything actually in it, it was what wasn't in it: I thought the scenes in the matrix in particular were excellent, it just ended abruptly without really wrapping up the story.

As far as I can tell, some Time Lords screwed up, and sent Earth out of its orbit and into another star system. They then tried to cover this up and renamed the Earth Ravolox and made like it was another planet all along. The whole point of the trial is to keep the Doctor from finding out, or kill him before he goes and exposes them. They somehow conjured up the Valeyard (a possible version of the 13th or 14th Doctor) to help them with this.

But we never see these Time Lords and hear exactly what did happen involving Ravolox and why, and we never figured out exactly what happened to them and Valeyard. The 3rd and 4th part of Ultimate Foe would entirely take place on Gallifrey, and would involve the Doctor and Glitz aided by the Master looking for and confronting these unnamed Time Lords, and would show us what happens to the Valeyard and where he came from in the first place. (I think it would work either way: the Valeyard meets his end, ceases to have ever existed, or he escapes to be seen in a later story.)

Mel gets sent back to her own time to a future version of the 6th Doctor at the beginning of the hypothetical 3rd episode of Ultimate Foe, and we learn that these unnamed renegade Time Lords are actually holding Peri on Gallifrey. Glitz more-or-less serves as companion for my two made up episodes, but is sent back to his own time at the end of episode 4. (I always wanted to see more of Glitz.) After the Doctor sorts out events on Gallifrey, he goes off with Peri and then we get to see the lost season 23 in its entirety.

But it is followed by a story in which Peri leaves and the Doctor meets Mel properly, leading into Time and the Rani. Maybe this story would be where the Valeyard returns (but if it was I would make it his last, and have him bite it at the end). The 6th Doctor could then regenerate in my made up story - in his final confrontation with the Valeyard? Either way, Colin's Doctor now gets a total of 3 seasons instead of two, and we get to see all those cool lost stories.

Another option is just to fix the regeneration scene in Time and The Rani. All they need to do to fix it, is have the Rani explain at the beginning of episode 1 how inducing the regeneration and the post regeneration amnesia is all part of her plan - so the Doctor confuses her with Mel. Then when the Rani's beam hits the Tardis, we see some weird lights (that were caused by some regeneration-inducing device of the Rani's) around the Doctor before he regenerates. Other than the goofy regeneration scene I like Time and The Rani - so the rest of the story stands as it is.

Tanmann wrote:

Indrid Mercury wrote:Just ditch the Trial altogether and give us the Missing Season plan

I'd agree, but....

You know the SJWs would never let Mission to Magnus be forgiven, don't you?

I'm so glad they didn't make that one. It would have been worse than Mindwarp!

The only way to fix it would be to junk it in it's entirety and make the originally planned Season 23 without any neutering of violence, location work shot on film and keeping the 45 minute episodic adult approach of the previous season.

Moved back to a mid-day evening slot(perhaps Blakes 7 old time slot), instead of on after Roland fucking Rat would've helped too and absolutely NO Bonnie Langford.

I actually kind of like Mindwarp. As a kid, I was really frightened of that story. I remember I had to have my mum sit with me to watch it. Anyway, I actually really like all of TOATL.

Genkimonk wrote:I actually kind of like Mindwarp. As a kid, I was really frightened of that story. I remember I had to have my mum sit with me to watch it. Anyway, I actually really like all of TOATL.

Same here. It's actually one of my favourite Classic Seasons. Is there problems, absolutely, but it's one of the most entertaining Seasons for me and it does give me my favourite villain in the form of the Valeyard.

stengos wrote:Lose the court scenes. Or at least reduce the frequency.
Change the casting . Especially Joan Simms, Blessed
Lose mindwarp or at least rework so sil and Kiv are not in it.
Instruct the cast not to ham their performance up so much. One of the reasons  I like Vervoids the most is because the performances were more understated and satisfying.
Fire Langford and hire the stewardess in Vervoids as the companion instead. She was the better actress by far.
Ditch all the incidental music in the show and either call Simpson back or go without.
The whole feel was that of a gaudy, chintzy pantomime aimed at kids. When broadcast it was embarrassing to watch and such a disappointment /let down after what I regarded as JNTs first very sucessfull 5 years. The show never recovered in my view.

I disagree with you about ditching the incidental music. The incidental music was probably one of the best things about Trial of a Timelord. Dominic Glynn and Richard Hartley’s music was sublime and brilliant even though Richard Hartley’s re-recorded score for Mindwarp on the Blu-ray release isn’t as good as his original.

I tried fixing a bit of episode thirteen, nothing too drastic, just the idea the Valeyard is a "distillation of all that is evil" and made him out to be a future Doctor outright.

Not mad about Mindwarp, but generally speaking, I've always liked TOATL - I simply don't understand the negativity it receives.  In particular, I'm very fond of The Mysterious Planet - Glitz, Dibber, Joan Simms, the courtroom scenes and all.  The only things I'd fix about Trial is the same as I'd fix about the whole Colin Baker era  - that hideous costume. And maybe Peri's annoyingly whiny American accent.