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Post by GC on Jul 12, 2024 14:14:06 GMT
As suggested by Servo.
Give us your top 5 and bottom 5 Colin Baker stories then. And perhaps throw in what you think is the most underrated story of Colin's run.
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Post by rapscallion on Jul 12, 2024 17:53:29 GMT
For this era I'm gonna have to separate The Trial Of A Time Lord and treat them as 4 different stories.
BEST 5 = 1. Terror Of The Vervoids 2. Revelation Of The Daleks 3. The Two Doctors 4. Attack Of The Cybermen 5. Timelash
(Which, given how few 6th Doctor stories there are, means The Mysterious Planet would slot in here....)
BOTTOM 5 = 5. The Mark Of The Rani 4. Vengeance On Varos 3. The Ultimate Foe 2. Mindwarp 1. The Twin Dilemma
It's only because the era is so small that Mark Of The Rani and Vengeance are in my bottom 5 because I think they're both pretty darn good.
I also think that Season 22 is up there among my favourite seasons, although I didn't always think that when I was younger.
Poor old unloved The Twin Dilemma's gotta come bottom of the pile though. I really don't have a problem with it like a lot of people do, but on balance I prefer everything else.
MOST UNDER-RATED - Has to be Timelash. I don't think it deserves the continual beating it gets.
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Post by heccy on Jul 12, 2024 23:52:08 GMT
Top Five
Attack of the Cybermen Vengeance on Varos The Mark of the Rani The Two Doctors Timelash
Bottom Five
All of season 23
Revelation of The Daleks (Just a really nasty story).
It's a bit unfair on Colin, because of his short tenure, to do this to his era.
Special mention. The Twin Dilemma. Utter crap, but not as nasty as Revelation.
I still think it was a mistake to give Colin his first story at the end of Davo's last series.
Would rather they had given Davo an extra story (not Twin) to build his relationship with Peri, before Caves of Androzani.
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Post by Servo on Jul 13, 2024 6:27:46 GMT
Top 5
Vengeance on Varos Revelation of the Daleks The Mysterious Planet Attack of the Cybermen Terror of the Vervoids
Bottom 5
Timelash Mark of the Rani Mindwarp The Two Doctors The Twin Dilemma
Underrated: Not really one as others have pointed out Colin’s tenure was so short it’s not really fair. The bad ones are really bad though.
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Post by Future-Diver on Jul 13, 2024 15:25:14 GMT
Top: The Mysterious Planet Vengeance On Varos Revelation Of The Daleks The Two Doctors Terror Of The Vervoids
Bottom: The Twin Dilemma Timelash Mark Of The Rani Mindwarp The Ultimate Foe
Underrated: Attack Of the Cybermen
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Post by GC on Jul 13, 2024 23:53:16 GMT
Top 5
Revelation of the Daleks Attack of the Cybermen The Two Doctors Terror of the Vervoids The Ultimate Foe
Bottom 5
Timelash Mark of the Rani The Twin Dilemma The Mysterious Planet Mindwarp
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Post by Bowties on Jul 17, 2024 14:58:42 GMT
My top Colin Baker stories. A lot of guilty pleasures here:
The Twin Dilemma,
Vengeance on Varos,
Mark of the Rani,
The Two Doctors
And Terror of the Vervoids.
Special mention to Timelash.
I found Mindwrap difficult to wrap my mind around.
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Post by WildcatMatt on Jul 19, 2024 3:35:10 GMT
As with the other ‘80s Doctors, doing 5 of each means accounting for large portions of their run, so I’m only doing three episodes each for Colin.
Top Three Colin Baker 3. Mindwarp 2. Attack of the Cybermen 1. Revelation of the Daleks
I actually had some trouble deciding what to put in the #3 slot, because so much of Colin’s tenure consists of stories that have a lot of good elements but the bad elements are really bad. Ask me in a month or two and I may switch to Vengeance on Varos or possibly “The Ultimate Foe”. Today though you get Mindwarp. This was the first time I saw Brian Blessed in action and OMG. The larger than life King Yrcanos is a scene stealer, he and Sil play tug of war trying to steal the show and we’re in the middle just watching it spool out. The shock ending is still powerful today. Unfortunately, the Trial framework seriously compromises the end result. What’s real and what’s not? (The Matrix presaged DeepFake by 30 years, people!) If the story could stand on its own I would vote it higher.
Attack has a pretty serious flaw, and that’s the level of fanwank involved. To really appreciate what’s going on, you have to know what happened in Tomb of the Cybermen *and* The Invasion, stories aired (and largely wiped!) before most of this story’s viewers were born. And you need to know what the Chameleon Circuit is. And you need to have seen Resurrection of the Daleks. Oh, and having seen a particular episode of The Sweeney from 1975 would help too. Probably there’s also some obscure episode of The Brothers that might get a callback but I haven’t found it yet.
But if you come prepared, you’re served a hearty dish of continuity casserole. Cybermen that are actually chilling hanging out in the sewers. The revelation of an indigenous race on Telos that the Cybermen nearly stamped out on their way to hibernation. Double agents. Great acting from the guest cast: Maurice Colbourne is even more amazing than in Resurrection and Michael Kilgariff proves after 15 years he still knows how to act in the Cyber Controller suit.
And then there’s Revelation. There’s some received wisdom from DWB (I think) that talks about how much Eric Saward revered Robert Holmes and this story was his very best attempt to match (or maybe even outdo) him. There’s the heavy borrowing from fairly well-known sources. There are the double acts (in fact, you can structure an analysis that virtually everyone is part of a pairing here). The dialog. The mix of somber and macabre that gets its tone right. A plot that pushes the Dalek story forward after being stagnant for so long. And of course you have Graeme Harper behind the camera so it’s a joy to watch.
Bottom Three Colin Baker 3. The Two Doctors 2. Terror of the Vervoids 1. The Twin Dilemma
Guest appearances by Pat Troughton and Fraser Hines. A script by Robert Holmes. A chance to redeem the Sontarans after the ghastly Invasion of Time debacle. And JN-T’s first ever 6-parter (equivalent), on location. On paper this should be better than Caves! What could possibly go wrong? Well, pretty much everything and to be fair it shouldn’t surprise anyone. Given all the problems the production team were having adapting to the flow of the 2x45 minute format, even delivering 6x25 would have been a tall order. Trying to stretch to 3x45 should have been a red flag all by itself. I don’t want to say it’s too long, because I think the problem is mostly in the pacing and scene breakdown. But it’s also in the inconsistent tone.
There’s a lot of discussion about violence in this season; some of it’s justified and some of it isn’t but there’s a callousness about the various things that happen in this story that I find jarring. I think some of it was intended as black humor but due to Peter Moffatt’s direction and/or the acting it never comes across. Some of this may be residue from the multiple rewrites due to the changes in cast and then in location. But this story just suffers.
Terror of the Vervoids is another one that seems like it ought to be good on paper. An ex-Avenger and onetime Bond Girl as a guest star. An Agatha Christie style murder mystery on a spaceship. Even Pip and Jane can’t screw this up, right? Hahahahahaha no. And a story that involves botany, hey, that’s even Peri’s thing! Too bad they killed her last episode… maybe… But we’ll drop the Doctor and new companion in acting like they’ve known each other for some time. Who is she? No time to find out, thanks to the Trial framework and low episode count we can’t faff around with some cleverly worked plot element that would allow a little exposition and bring us into the mix, no, best to just keep the viewer at arm’s length and keep moving. And so we get a sloppy Christie pastiche where we’re bashed in the head with the critical clue to make sure we don’t miss it. The twist comes at the end when it’s the Doctor who’s (pun intended) the real murderer for wiping out the Vervoids. Again, on paper, this kind of ending probably sounded amazing to JN-T. And during production when Chris Clough asked Bonnie if she could scream in the key of the theme sting for the cliffhanger it probably seemed jolly clever to do that.
Oh, and here’s Twin Dilemma. There’s a possibly apocryphal story that JN-T attended a con here in the US right after Caves of Androzani aired saying the next story was even better. Oh, God, we have to do this “well, on paper…” thing again.
On paper, the idea of giving the new Doctor the last story slot is great. Instead of fans spending the offseason being sad about a Doctor leaving, they can get a taste of the new one and be excited for what’s ahead. However, that runs directly against the plan to have the Doctor start out crotchety and then mellow over the next six stories. You now have a baked-in directive to antagonize the audience (at least a little) so you’ve painted yourself into a corner because now they’re going to stew in that all off-season. And all this is before we talk about the story or the production, and having to deal with directly following one of the series’ very best efforts by its very best writer and very best director. And it also means giving your outgoing star short-shrift (although imagine if Peter regenerated at the end of this one instead, that one will break your mind).
Underrated Colin: Mark of the Rani
I loathe Pip and Jane Baker as writers. Maybe they’re nice people and I would have enjoyed sitting down for dinner with them chatting about… something other than Doctor Who. And JN-T wasn’t the only producer who kept a writer (or duo) handy to produce a script that might be of variable quality but would be delivered quickly and need minimal work from the script editor before it could be produced.
But I find Mark of the Rani to be fairly enjoyable, with the Master/Rani/Doctor triad rather entertaining when they get to sniping about each other. It’s like they knew each other in school or something. Oh wait… Anyway, I like how the Rani has her own schtick here. She’s not really out for celestial dominance, she just wants to keep her one pet planet subjugated. In a dark way that’s actually refreshing. And of course her TARDIS is the most badass of them all.
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Post by WildcatMatt on Jul 19, 2024 3:39:04 GMT
MOST UNDER-RATED - Has to be Timelash. I don't think it deserves the continual beating it gets. Well it has a dead horse, after all...
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Post by WildcatMatt on Jul 19, 2024 3:41:41 GMT
My top Colin Baker stories. A lot of guilty pleasures here: The Twin Dilemma, That's a very guilty pleasure indeed. I would be very interested if you'd be kind enough to take a moment and talk it up (also because I don't think anyone else will)!
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Post by Bowties on Jul 19, 2024 12:25:10 GMT
My top Colin Baker stories. A lot of guilty pleasures here: The Twin Dilemma, That's a very guilty pleasure indeed. I would be very interested if you'd be kind enough to take a moment and talk it up (also because I don't think anyone else will)! I know that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I enjoyed Colin’s portrayal of an unstable post-regeneration Doctor and how he didn’t care one bit about what he was wearing. I think that Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant bounced off each other very well, especially when The Doctor was being overly dramatic and decided to exile himself. Yes, the strangling scene went too far but it showed how unstable The Doctor was after his regeneration. But despite the unstable Doctor, his garish outfit and the chaos of the episode, it showed that The Doctor was still there underneath it all.
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Post by Future-Diver on Jul 19, 2024 13:07:36 GMT
That's a very guilty pleasure indeed. I would be very interested if you'd be kind enough to take a moment and talk it up (also because I don't think anyone else will)! I know that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I enjoyed Colin’s portrayal of an unstable post-regeneration Doctor and how he didn’t care one bit about what he was wearing. I think that Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant bounced off each other very well, especially when The Doctor was being overly dramatic and decided to exile himself. Yes, the strangling scene went too far but it showed how unstable The Doctor was after his regeneration. But despite the unstable Doctor, his garish outfit and the chaos of the episode, it showed that The Doctor was still there underneath it all. I can't say I'm much of a fan of The Twin Dilemma but I do like the "unstable post-regeneration Doctor and how he didn’t care one bit about what he was wearing". Colin plays the maniacal Doctor very well, in a grand, almost operatic style. I also like Malcolm Clarke's score for TTD.
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Post by markhev1966 on Jul 22, 2024 1:03:09 GMT
This is a challenge!
Top 5 Revelation of the Daleks Attack of the Cybermen The Two Doctors Vengeance on Varos Mark of the Rani
Bottom 5 Mysterious Planet Mindwarp Terror of the Vervoids The Ultimate Foe The Twin Dilemma - up to that point my least favourite story ever. Then McCoy's debut aired....
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Post by WildcatMatt on Jul 23, 2024 19:15:25 GMT
The Twin Dilemma - up to that point my least favourite story ever. Then McCoy's debut aired.... STREWTH
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