The McCoy Era was the Greatest!!!

The McCoy Era was the pinnacle of Doctor Who. McCoy was brilliant and Ace was the most nuanced and realistic companion the show had ever seen - if a little shouty. The production values and directing was at an all-time high, despite still having some serious issues. And after Season 24, the stories had more complexity and were more gripping than most of the Hinchcliffe era. Compare Pyramids of Mars and Remembrance of the Daleks or Curse of Fenric. Holmes was a genius, of course, but Andrew Cartmel didn’t rely on half-inching ideas from Victorian literature. And none of that is to say that the Hinchcliffe era was bad, I am simply trying to get across how great the McCoy era was.

I know you're just trying to wind up the more reactionary members here but in all seriousness, it is ONE of the greatest. For me it's up there with Hartnell and Tom as the "big three" eras that are my personal favourite.

iank wrote:I know you're just trying to wind up the more reactionary members here but in all seriousness, it is ONE of the greatest. For me it's up there with Hartnell and Tom as the "big three" eras that are my personal favourite.

You know I do actually really like the McCoy era though, right?

You're an idiot. Everyone knows that the David Tennant era was the REAL pinnacle of Doctor Who. I cry every time the Doctor and Rose make googly eyes at each other on the beach.

Mr. Happy wrote:

iank wrote:I know you're just trying to wind up the more reactionary members here but in all seriousness, it is ONE of the greatest. For me it's up there with Hartnell and Tom as the "big three" eras that are my personal favourite.

You know I do actually really like the McCoy era though, right?

Well, I assumed you weren't crazy, yes.

The McCoy era had some real highs, but also some real lows. Overall though Ace and 7 are among the best duos, and Ace shows that you can focus on the companion and do great sci fi stories with it rather than just focus on dreary soap opera crap.

I'd say McCoy was at his worst when doing angry. Though all the Doctors have set backs. Pertwee my favourite was at his worst when doing pain acting LOL.

I'd say the McCoy era is my fourth favourite era after Tom, Pertwee and Hartnell's era.

burrunjor wrote:
I'd say McCoy was at his worst when doing angry. Though all the Doctors have set backs. Pertwee my favourite was at his worst when doing pain acting LOL.

McCoy baffles me, he can't do angry in BF but he does it very well in his TV era. Not entirely sure why that is.

McCoy gets derided by people who didn't give him a chance. But despite the flaws in s25 and s26 - Battlefield being too drawn out, Silver Nemesis being too short to fit in all its villains - I think the turnaround in McCoy's costume and personality, and stories, worked wonders, unlike the attempt to neuter Colin. McCoy has his limitations as an actor, for sure, but I can't help but feel he 'gets' the role, putting his own character into it after Colin's larger-than-life portrayal and working well with Cartmel after the major teething troubles of s24.

Some of the stories are oddly haunting : the Sauron-like eye and the imagery of the silent clowns in the desert in The Greatest Show In The Galaxy, the savage yet mundane setting of Perivale paralleled with the decline of the Cheetah Planet and the Master's similar slow loss of control, Parsons' vicar fighting his failing faith at the pulpit, the Doctor's ruthless taunting of the Supreme Dalek until it simply gives up living without purpose. Some of the stories, such as Ghost Light and Fenric, withstand repeat viewings and divulge more complexities over time. The special edition of Fenric I own has scrubbed up nicely, and there's unsettling, adult undertones to the likes of that story and the seemingly camp and silly The Happiness Patrol.

Apart from Remembrance, Fenric and Happiness Patrol, it really is the nadir of the classic series.

I appreciate the fact they tried to re-inject a sense of mystery into the Doctor's character and raise the production values a little, but, to me, the whole era is a Bannerman - sorry - Barrowman.

Ghost Light could have been a superb story, but it's just an obfuscated, convoluted mess. Anyone who says it makes sense is either lying to themselves or utterly pretentious.

Pretentious - moi?

To be fair, tho I liked Ghost Light on transmission, it needs an extra episode to make sense.

David Lynch made a whole career out of not making sense. I honestly can't remember how Ghostlight didn't make sense, will have to watch it again now. I reckon it makes more sense than most of Moffat's drivel

Well, certainly more than The Impossible Astronaut.

Boofer wrote:Ghost Light could have been a superb story, but it's just an obfuscated, convoluted mess. Anyone who says it makes sense is either lying to themselves or utterly pretentious.

Ghost Light is ridiculously easy to follow.

The only reason people snigger at those that claim they don't understand it is because they make it sound like some sort of ancient puzzle that takes intense concentration and deciphering for it to make sense.

Why does Control keep hissing Ratkin (at Ace?) I don't think I ever found that one out.

Got to admire its ambition though - the last thing it did was talk down to its audience. And similarly Warriors' Gate seems to be more befuddling every time I watch it, but that actually makes it more intriguing...

CommanderMaxil1983 wrote:

Boofer wrote:Ghost Light could have been a superb story, but it's just an obfuscated, convoluted mess. Anyone who says it makes sense is either lying to themselves or utterly pretentious.

Ghost Light is ridiculously easy to follow.

The only reason people snigger at those that claim they don't understand it is because they make it sound like some sort of ancient puzzle that takes intense concentration and deciphering for it to make sense.

lol I know. I saw it as a kid and didn't find it confusing. Some Doctor Who fans aren't the brightest flowers in the field, are they?

https://io9.gizmodo.com/one-of-doctor-whos-most-underrated-doctors-is-getting-h-1823067047

He's back in comic form!

He was a welcome relief from his ham-fisted predecessor

He certainly was.
Both were dodgy actors (one managing to be both hammy and porky at the same time) but Sylv managed to restore a modicum of Doctorly mystique to the part.

DeadManRising wrote:Everyone knows that the David Tennant era was the REAL pinnacle of Doctor Who.

David Tennant was a donkey felching fuckwit

You know nothing about Doctor Who, Mr. Happy.

David Tennant is a dreamy, handsome man who has more charisma than Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker combined. I cried my little eyes out when ten whimpered "I don't wanna go" before leaving us forever.

DeadManRising wrote:You know nothing about Doctor Who, Mr. Happy.

David Tennant is a dreamy, handsome man who has more charisma than Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker combined. I cried my little eyes out when ten whimpered "I don't wanna go" before leaving us forever.

I actually think that "The End of Time" was the first proper nail in the shows coffin. All the mistakes made before that like emasculating the Doctor and the romantic Doctor bullshit could have been undone, but that was where the rot set in.

I don't want to go destroyed the Doctor as a character as it made it that each Doctor was a different person.

That's fucking bullshit. The whole point of regeneration was that it allowed us to continue the adventures of the same character.

If we had wanted the Doctor to just be a title passed onto different people, then the makers would have killed Hartnell's Doctor off and had another member of his kind take up the title and made it like the Captain's of the Enterprise.

But that's the point they didn't. The Doctor renewed himself, but was still the same guy. Now however thanks to Tennant's bullshit then the Doctors are all different people?

That led to the attitude of well lets do whatever we want as the character including the great castration as hey, there apparently is now nothing to carry on from Doctor to Doctor, so it became a anything goes in the show.

The McCoy era is without question my favourite era of Doctor Who. So many stories in his era are really imaginative and well written. Oh, and I bloody love Keff McCulloch!

It would be in my desert island set with Bill and Tom.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OnThisDay?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OnThisDay</a> 1987: Sylvester McCoy was unveiled as the seventh incarnation of Doctor Who. <a href="https://t.co/4RXMu5AVwp">pic.twitter.com/4RXMu5AVwp</a></p>— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) <a href="https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1101776660930584577?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2019</a></blockquote>
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I'd love to read just one comment section on a Sylvester McCoy related post that doesn't have some bellend accusing him of ruining the show.