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Post by Servo on Jul 18, 2024 12:27:55 GMT
I can tell you why I don’t rate it much rapscallion. It was really dull. I first saw it on Channel 17 here, one episode a day, and this was one I did see all the way through.
It doesn't get good at all until "The Adjudicator" shows up. Heh heh heh.
Roger Delgado has one of his most shining moments in the series in part six. He really does.
But you have to sit through 5 whole episodes BEFORE you get to that!
The 2 guest leads-- the leader of the colony (the SAME guy who'd played the main villain in "The Aztecs"!!!) and "Captain Dent" (what a SICK B******!) have always stuck out in my head, to the point that, whenever I see either actor in anything else, I always think of this. ("Captain Dent", I believe, played "Barrymore" in the Barry Letts-Terrence Dicks-Tom Baker "Hound of the Baskervilles".)
This is also the 1st time Jo goes into space. It's nuts how she says she thought it was all a game and the Doctor was making it up. It's no wonder Jo took so long to really grow on me. If you watch all of her stories, the writing on her can be VERY inconsistent. It really does seem some of the writers were writing for some OTHER kind of character. (It's only in recent years I actually started to like her more than Sarah. NEVER saw that coming.)
I always found Morris Perry’s nicotined stained teeth really distracting. At least I think they were nicotined stained.
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Post by Future-Diver on Jul 18, 2024 14:24:19 GMT
Not much love for Monster of Peladon on this thread, I see! The one that's taken me a tad by surprise and that I thought would have a bit more appreciation round these parts is Colony In Space. It didn't make it into my Top 5 Pertwee's due to the amount of classics to choose from in this era, but it definitely wouldn't be anywhere near the bottom. Love that one! Along with The Monster of Peladon, I used to really dislike Colony in Space, but recently, I don't mind it so much. Maybe because it was good to see the Doctor get away from Earth for once, or because I remember enjoying the Target novelisation ( Doctor Who And The Doomsday Weapon) when I was a kid. However, it's just as likely it's because I've recently been watching old episodes of Corrie from the '70s, when Gail Platt (Helen Worth - Mary Ashe in Colony) featured in it quite a lot. That's nostalgia for you.
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Post by WildcatMatt on Jul 18, 2024 19:38:34 GMT
The Three Doctors (Patrick Troughton absolutely STEALS this story!) He not only steals it, he runs away with it. It's really a pity that William Hartnell was in too poor of health that he couldn't have done more, because having all three of them in the control room at once would have been an absolute free-for-all. Out of all the 16mm "location film" from Classic Who, that original spool of Hartnell's parts is what I want back the most. I also wonder whether an early draft of the script survives that has more interaction with the First Doctor.
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Post by WildcatMatt on Jul 18, 2024 19:55:07 GMT
When Pertwee's stories went BACK into syndication in the mid-80s, a third of Pertwee's were missing, as they only put out those they had COMPLETE AND IN COLOR. (For no reason I can figure, that did not include Spearhead.) But, a year later... all the rest went out (with the EXCEPTION of Planet of the Daleks part 3 and Invasion of the Dinosaurs part 1-- wouldn't you know-- the BEST episodes of each of those 2 stories). I didn't see those 2 MISSING individual episodes until a few years ago-- on YOUTUBE. But Spearhead became a top all-time fave the first time I saw it... as did The Time Warrior.
Not having that original '80s run of Pertwee not start with Spearhead seems strange until you think about it. The best guess I have is at the time, Lionheart didn't have access to a copy of Spearhead on PAL video at all and didn't want the effort or expense of transferring the 16mm prints. There wouldn't have been a justification for a 16mm->PAL conversion at that time and 16mm->NTSC seems like something outside the BBC's usual workflow so it probably would have cost extra. By the time the second run came around I think the Spearhead VHS was out there which meant Ents had paid for the video transfer and it was now available to Lionheart. That's my theory, I'd love to know if I'm on the right track or not.
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Post by Servo on Jul 18, 2024 21:52:19 GMT
The one that's taken me a tad by surprise and that I thought would have a bit more appreciation round these parts is Colony In Space. It didn't make it into my Top 5 Pertwee's due to the amount of classics to choose from in this era, but it definitely wouldn't be anywhere near the bottom. Love that one! Along with The Monster of Peladon, I used to really dislike Colony in Space, but recently, I don't mind it so much. Maybe because it was good to see the Doctor get away from Earth for once, or because I remember enjoying the Target novelisation ( Doctor Who And The Doomsday Weapon) when I was a kid. However, it's just as likely it's because I've recently been watching old episodes of Corrie from the '70s, when Gail Platt (Helen Worth - Mary Ashe in Colony) featured in it quite a lot. That's nostalgia for you. A very young Gail Platt menaced by Roy from Eastenders when he had hair! I suppose it has that going for it.
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 19, 2024 1:37:54 GMT
The best guess I have is at the time, Lionheart didn't have access to a copy of Spearhead on PAL video at all and didn't want the effort or expense of transferring the 16mm prints. There wouldn't have been a justification for a 16mm->PAL conversion at that time and 16mm->NTSC seems like something outside the BBC's usual workflow so it probably would have cost extra. WHO would have thought that the "ancient" PAL-NTSC problem would STILL exist, and STILL be a problem TODAY???
THE AVENGERS Seasons 2 & 3 are currently only available on PAL DVD.
Q PLANES (1939) appears to only be available as PAL DVDs.
I have a copy of THE CARPATHIAN CASTLE (1977) from the Czech Republic as a PAL DVD. (Luckily... someone just within the last year put it out on BLU-RAY.)
The two 3-HOUR LONG SHERLOCK HOLMES stories from Italian TV in 1968 are only available as PAL DVDs. (To make it worse... there are NO ENGLISH subtitles! I've contacted Severin Films suggesting they look into it... heh.)
But the single most annoying right this minute has to be... finding out a few weeks ago that the McCLOUD 3rd season opener, "The New Mexican Connection"... was put out on a Region 1 DVD from a PAL copy. WHAT??? Seasons 1 & 2 in the SAME box set were NOT like that. (Seasons 3-7 had never been issued on home video before... and now I'm terrified all 5 seasons may be screwed up like that.) This stuff has to stop!
I think it was 1984, when the Pertwees went back out into syndication, "Spearhead", "Silurians", "Ambassadors", "Mind Of Evil", "Daemons", "Planet of the Daleks" and "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" were ALL missing. (Did I forget any?) The following year, 4 of them went out in B&W, because that's all they had.
The craziest moment had to be, the first time NJN / Channel 23 in Trenton ran "Ambassadors"... the show ended about 5-10 minutes early. FOR NO reason. "Oops!" Later, they apologized. The following week, after "Inferno" was over... they ran the MISSING ending of "Ambassadors". Because I'd had warning of it, I was able to set up the previous videotape...and tack it on at the end, in such a way, that when you played the tape back, you MIGHT NOT EVEN NOTICE the edit! Man, I got really good at that sort of thing back then.
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Post by profh0011 on Jul 19, 2024 1:40:24 GMT
One more crazy bit: I inadvertently got ahold of the 2002 A&E box set for THE AVENGERS Season 2 (part 1). It's region 1. But when I clocked the episodes... they're from PAL copies. WTF?
Region coding means nothing if you get a region-free player. But make sure it's a region-free BLU-RAY player. Region-free DVD players are a waste of time and money.
By comparison... OnesMediaFilms is a "bootleg" outfit that specializes in "complete" movie series box sets, and OOP films & tv series.
One of their items is a box of MADIGAN with Richard Widmark. Now get this. It's copied from a FRENCH box set. (It's in English with, I think, optional French subtitles.) And yet... the guy managed to CONVERT the epsodes to NTSC-- so they run at the correct speed in America. Damn!
He told me he had the equipment to do this... now, I'm considering mailing him some of my PAL DVDs, so he can create NTSC copies for me.
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Post by Future-Diver on Jul 19, 2024 9:39:47 GMT
Along with The Monster of Peladon, I used to really dislike Colony in Space, but recently, I don't mind it so much. Maybe because it was good to see the Doctor get away from Earth for once, or because I remember enjoying the Target novelisation ( Doctor Who And The Doomsday Weapon) when I was a kid. However, it's just as likely it's because I've recently been watching old episodes of Corrie from the '70s, when Gail Platt (Helen Worth - Mary Ashe in Colony) featured in it quite a lot. That's nostalgia for you. A very young Gail Platt menaced by Roy from Eastenders when he had hair! I suppose it has that going for it. This little exchange between Jo Grant and Mary Ashe in Episode 1 is quite amusing: Mary: It was all quite different when we left back in '71. Jo: You left in 1971? Mary: No, 2471. But in Episode 2: Mary: Don't worry, Jim'll fix it.
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Post by Servo on Jul 19, 2024 10:21:49 GMT
A very young Gail Platt menaced by Roy from Eastenders when he had hair! I suppose it has that going for it. This little exchange between Jo Grant and Mary Ashe in Episode 1 is quite amusing: Mary: It was all quite different when we left back in '71. Jo: You left in 1971? Mary: No, 2471. But in Episode 2: Mary: Don't worry, Jim'll fix it. Sadly there’s no youthful Barry or I may rate it slightly higher.
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Post by markhev1966 on Jul 22, 2024 0:53:26 GMT
Top 5 The Mind of Evil Inferno The Daemons Spearhead from Space The Ambassadors of Death
Bottom 5 (I only really dislike the first two) The Claws of Axos The Monster of Peladon Colony on Space The Mutants Frontier on Space
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