Favorite Episode - 6th Doctor

[librarylover]

If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only have one episode starring Colin Baker, which one would you choose, and why?

[clocketpatch]

Stuck on an island with only one episode of Colin Baker for company? Is this not a fate worse than death?

No offense to CB, but those were some dodgey dodgey episodes. Er... maybe Mark of the Rani, just for the lulz. DO audio episodes count? A combination of Evelyn and not having to look at The Coat makes everything better...

[Stripes]

May 21, 2009 23:27:03 GMT clocketpatch said:

Stuck on an island with only one episode of Colin Baker for company? Is this not a fate worse than death?

No offense to CB, but those were some dodgey dodgey episodes. Er... maybe Mark of the Rani, just for the lulz. DO audio episodes count? A combination of Evelyn and not having to look at The Coat makes everything better...

I should listen to more audios, when i 'watch tv' i tend to listen while doing other things.

[magnusgreel]

Two Doctors. It's longer, you get Two too, you get Servalan, Sontarans, Seville, scheming Time Lords...

[lynda]

Um...wow, Six really didn't have all that great of stories, did he? I'd pick Mark of the Rani because of the Rani/Mater/Doctor dynamic. If I could pick an audio, though, I'd pick one of them instead. Jubilee springs to mind, and that really scary vampire one I forget the name of, the one that has Hex's mum.

...and I realize i've probably given out more spoilers than is prudent, so I'll be going now.

[jjpor]

Revelation of the Daleks - my favourite Six by some margin. Everyone's a comedian (literally, in the case of some of the supporting cast), even Davros, astonishingly: "That would create what I believe is called 'consumer resistance'..." Black, black, morbid comedy that I seem to remember gave the well-meaning watchdog groups fits at the time (look at things like Vengeance on Varos and the Two Doctors, mining the same sort of slightly sick humour), just as the horror-themed Holmes-Hinchcliffe stories had back in the 70s. I love it; I even love Peri and Six bickering in that one.

And Two Doctors also has a special place in my heart, partly for the Patrick-Troughton-related reasons given in the other thread, but mainly for the bit where Shockeye eats the rat; that made a big impression on me, watching as a wee'un. ;D

[magnusgreel]

Did it influence your diet?

My favorite part of Revelation is the first few seconds (I think), where a great sense of import and tension is created simply by showing the Tardis materialize much more quickly than usual, and in an unusual environment, someplace cold and snowy. I love moments that grab you without your knowing why...

[lostspook]

Do people seriously not even have a favourite Six episode? I mean, I can see why, but I love DW from start to finish, even some of the bits in the middle that people don't want to own to.

My favourite Six (discounting audios) is Vengeance on Varos, which I watched rather a lot for an A-Level project (oh, yes, I got a DW video for my work back then, and wrote an essay on it) and then made 13 other people watch and fill out questionaires. (This was priceless and if you could disprove theories with less than 1000 respondants to a survey, my 13 would so disprove the hyperdermic needle audience theory, even if it's already been done).

And I still like it - Sil, the Governor, (brushes quickly over the cliched rebels and terrible acting on the part of Areta, and the two men in nappies), did I mention Sil?, and Etta and Arak providing a Greek chorus. And it's one of the few DWs where it tackled a topical issue at the time and now seems almost prophetic about reality TV.

And the cliffhanger-cliffhanger, too.

Otherwise, I would probably go for Revelation like everyone else. I have to say, that aside from possibly Mindwarp (and that only because it needs sorting out), I very much enjoy watching them, even if I might want to put them down the bottom of a Best Ever DW stories list.

I mean, who can't have fun watching Timelash? The enemy is a sock-puppet, there's tinsel, and Paul Darrow has decided that the script is so bad only sabotage will see him through. And then, unexpectedly, there's a really decent monster. (Actually, I was given Timelash for my birthday by a uni friend, who told me she had been going to buy me the TV Movie, but someone told her it was rubbish, so she'd bought me this instead. I managed NOT to collapse with laughter back then, as she'd have been offended.)

I also enjoy Mark of the Rani, for historicism, even if some bits are questionable, the guy playing George Stephenson should have been in it more - he's great - and it has Doctor-Rani-Master bickering as well as the Doctor letting Peri threaten to shoot the Master. I mean, there's the tree, but it's unfair to shoot DW for these things. (And Peri's response to "What do you do in there [the TARDIS]?" - "Argue, mainly.")

And then I have a soft spot for Terror of the Vervoids, just, because... I don't know.

(For audios, The One Doctor and DW and the Pirates and Jubilee, but I haven't heard a duff Six audio yet. Not that I've heard them all, I should add, to be fair.)

[lostspook]

May 22, 2009 2:32:46 GMT magnusgreel said:

Two Doctors. It's longer, you get Two too, you get Servalan, Sontarans, Seville, scheming Time Lords...

Magnus, does this mean you watch Blake's 7?

(I am at this moment only half an episode away from completely my first ever watch of the entire series. And in need of slight counselling currently. Probably serious counselling by the end of this evening).

[magnusgreel]

My avatar on Facebook until recently was Avon at the end of "Gold", cackling insanely after just having made Servalan rich and almost getting killed. After your viewing, do you perhaps feel as pressured and desperate as Avon, after season four? It's infectious...

I'm not handling my current Six marathon well. The bad stories were 10x easier to take when I thought it was quirky late-night fringe SF for adults, as we in the US experienced it. Context is everything. We watched at night, and no one uttered the words "children's program".... so I could take JNT's eccentric production style. Now I'm re-seeing through the horrible lens of the charming tea-time children's show DW, now that I know so many people involved saw it that way, and all the "quirks" are explained: at least some of these stories were literally being made for children. What looks eccentric in an adult late-night SF show just looks like goofiness for kids now.

What's especially weird is that the Colin era got more violent and more childish simulataneously. I'm having a hard time coming to grips with what the UK regards as children's programming.

Anyway, I had to cut my marathon short, it was all too threatening to the 30-year veteran DW fan that I am. I am not a fan of children's shows, or was I?

Anyway, Mysterious Planet was actually one of the better ones. Holmes did need better jokes for the Dr to use when goofing with the underground dwellers.

[lostspook]

Aug 31, 2009 7:09:28 GMT magnusgreel said:

My avatar on Facebook until recently was Avon at the end of "Gold", cackling insanely after just having made Servalan rich and almost getting killed. After your viewing, do you perhaps feel as pressured and desperate as Avon, after season four? It's infectious...

I'm not handling my current Six marathon well. The bad stories were 10x easier to take when I thought it was quirky late-night fringe SF for adults, as we in the US experienced it. Context is everything. We watched at night, and no one uttered the words "children's program"....

Hah, no I was worse before watching the end of Blake's 7 than after (although what Avon tries to do in Orbit to Vila was the very horriblest thing, I thought). I love the idea of your Avon avvi! It's no wonder Servalan decided to let him live after all.

And, while it's kind of not true to say DW isn't a children's programme, I should add, that it's never been part of the children's dept of the BBC, or broadcast as part of children's programming, so don't get too freaked out by it. It has always been made by the drama department, but it's seen as a Family Drama, therefore there will be children of all ages watching.

That doesn't explain away Six, but hopefully will leave you a little less worried about it. Of course, the UK has produced some wonderfully unlikely Children's shows, but DW is actually not one of them.

I don't think the first CB season even was on at teatime, although I know Trial moved back to the Saturday teatime slot. I'd have to check, but I think 45 min earlier season would have been mid-week, early evening as with the Fifth Doctor's episodes - and therefore, hitting teenagers more than children. I could have the broadcasting info wrong, though.

Does that help a bit?


Also, my panel of 13 felt that Varos was not particularly violent at all. (Mind you, this was in about 1994/5, not 1985).

And DW has been resurrected as a family show now - followed swiftly by Robin Hood, which has killed just about all of its main characters! So, you see, there's a major difference between a Children's show and a Family show.

I don't know if any of that makes sense, but I'm trying.

[magnusgreel]

Thanks very much for trying lostvv, but it doesn't help. I have no interest in DW the children's program. When I bring this up, people shift discussion from "children's show" to "family show". First, I'm just saying "children's show". I'm not saying it's for everyone in the family, I'm saying that the DW I don't like is made for children. Second, thinking of it as a "family show" wouldn't help, since the DW I love isn't. Good science fiction isn't "family entertainment", nor are the other shows I find valuable. I don't want it made light or cozy. I don't want (at least minimal) science or logical plots avoided in favor of magic and walking scarecrows and face-sucking TVs, or talking animals.

I did try factoring in the fact that season 21 was shown at night. This was when the childish aspects became worse, though (Timelash especially).

I want a magical (NOT literally magical at ALL, but in spirit... 'magical' in his contrast with the grim surroundings) Tom Baker figure walking into totally adult, grave, complex, deadly SF situations and turning them upside down, proving that an oblique attitude and a Bohemian sort of spirit can triumph where straight-ahead, earnest, practicality fails. Inserting a Tom into an adult situation means something. It tells us we can free ourselves up AND succeed too. A charming children's-show Tom is just more light-hearted diverting kids' entertainment.

I have a lot of less-than-half-formed thoughts on all this. I need to start a thread. Anyway, the best of 70s DW still challenges me now, as it did when I was 20. We may be forgetting an age/audience group: teenagers to young adults, with college students in the middle, maybe 15-25, or 15-30. Very much adults or nearly so, but with imagination intact. In the 70s, challenging programming was often specifically made for that group, and they hoped for older viewers, but those older viewers were often sticks in the mud, frankly. Hinchcliffe said he was making Who for teenagers, not small children any longer. That bleeds into the college yesrs... and his DW was huge amongst college students. Imaginative, increasingly well-read adults.

I want a sometimes bleak, sometimes glorious, sometimes darkly comical Robert Holmes-ish vast dangerous adult SF universe, where this Bohemian genius walks in and shows what a combination of reason, knowledge, imagination, and spirit can accomplish. Hanging onto that spirit in the adult world is THE principle of DW for me.

DW with Six and many others over-enunciating, with kids-show sets and props, and pacing etc (not that I'd be conscious of every factor that screams out "childrens' show to me, since I'm just a viewer)... That DW is not for me. Seeing more and more of DW in retrospect as a children's show undermines the enormous DW SF world that had built up in my head over decades.

Well, Holmes' ideal version of Mysterious Planet wouldn't have been a kids'story, I'm sure.

[lostspook]

Aug 31, 2009 23:22:44 GMT magnusgreel said:

Thanks very much for trying lostvv, but it doesn't help. I have no interest in DW the children's program. When I bring this up, people shift discussion from "children's show" to "family show".

Firstly, while I'm a Pollyanna sort who finds things to enjoy in unlikely places, I don't dispute your right to not like / loathe with a fiery passion / whatever Colin Baker / JNT / the 80s...

Seriously, those of us who bring up this 'Family Show' thing - it's not just a sliding out and semantics. Maybe it's different over there (?) but it really does make all the difference here.

The best way I can think of to explain it (but not the tinsel; there's no explanation for that - you either turn off - a la you , or just go along for the ride and laugh - a la me) is it's like this:

You have pre-school programming (broadcast midday-ish) = Uc classification.

Children's programming, made by children's dept and broadcast in children's TV slots (4-5.30is; and mornings on the weekend; these days on their own channels) = U (and some in the 5.00 bracket being more teen, therefore PG).

Then you have shows that are meant to have a broad appeal, like Doctor Who, broadcast after a significant gap from the main children's programming, but pre-watershed = 12a (Blake's 7 was also pre-watershed and had a wide teen following, so you'll note, despite definitely supposed to be adult, very little blood seen, swearing, graphic violence or sex).

Then post-watershed (9pm) adult shows, at which point there can be blood, violence, swearing and sex. If wanted.

Besides, while I cannot excuse the tinsel and sock puppet among many other things, no producer was more aware of the student / fan following than JNT. The 'lightening' for S24 was done at the request of the Powers That Be, under threat of cancellation.

Most DW producers, when you read their interviews, seem to keep coming back to their target audience being (as a family show, the most difficult members to keep) the intelligent 14 year old or 12 year old. The only one I can think of who ever deliberately pulled DW back after feeling it had gone too adult was Barry Letts, feeling that S7 was indeed too adult and less family-friendly.

I don't know whether any of that helps. Maybe you do need your thread to expound your theory and everyone else can join in?

Poor Colin, this is his fave story thread! Do you ever listen to the audios? I love Evelyn and their stories together have been aboslutely great. Mind you, I know they're not easy to get at overseas...


PS. Have just realised - those are the British Film classifications - that might mean even more nothing to you! Sorry, showing an incurably British-centric view of the world. Whoops...

[magnusgreel]

One problem.... all this is bothering me at a time when the eye/head pressure and sleep deprivation are in a seemingly endless self-maintaining loop, so if I knew what was good for me, I'd save all this for later. Comprehension is low and I may be contradicting myself in some areas. I can use all such information that I can get, though, lostspook, thanks.

A couple thoughts... DW has sometimes had a lot of violence, sometimes more than most prime time programs. Blake's Seven has never been referred to as a children's program to my knowledge, and I was going to bring that up. I'm just throwing those factors in, not trying to make any points now. I'm in a phase where just by trying with a sick head to resolve this or that issue, I give offense and don't know or understand until I'm better. I hope that didn't happen here.

[clocketpatch]

Poor Six and his hi-jacked thread. To chip in my bit for your philosophizing Magnus, I think Who is just Who. It's not done by the children's department, but, if you look at the original production notes the show was designed for older children to teenagers (and it was supposed to be educational too, what's up with that?)

Each of the characters from the original TARDIS crew was supposed to appeal to a certain demographic. As time when on, those traits were compressed into two main characters versus four (what I mean is, the Ian character is now mostly redundant because the Doctor is the action man.)

Anyways, I'm tired, rambling. It doesn't make sense. I love this show for its lunacy. Because, even if I disagree with it, what other show in the world could spin-off the Sarah-Jane Adventures & Torchwood and have them running concurrently? It boggles the mind.


But back to Six, poor neglected Six. I too love Vengeance on Varos, or think I do - I only saw it the once. It's sort of a precursor to Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways with the whole reality TV thing and the subdued populous voting on whether the contestants live or die.

[lostspook]

Sept 2, 2009 4:31:07 GMT magnusgreel said:

One problem.... all this is bothering me at a time when the eye/head pressure and sleep deprivation are in a seemingly endless self-maintaining loop, so if I knew what was good for me, I'd save all this for later. Comprehension is low and I may be contradicting myself in some areas. I can use all such information that I can get, though, lostspook, thanks.

A couple thoughts... DW has sometimes had a lot of violence, sometimes more than most prime time programs. Blake's Seven has never been referred to as a children's program to my knowledge, and I was going to bring that up.

Well, I hope some of it made sense (and, don't worry, I said B7 was definite;ly for adults. Although there were times when children and Blue Peter didn't seem to think so... But then it's fantasy sci-fi, so who would take that seriously? *sigh* *shakes head*)

And, quite, the finer nuances of behind-the-scenes DW is not worth a second thought when real life is being Awful. Meh. (that's another made-up word).

DW has just always had this weird falling between every category ever invented status. But that's part of why I love it. ;-)

Don't worry - about the only thing, aside from personal abuse that would give offence would be wilful Seventh Doctor/ Sylvester bashing which upsets me.

[lostspook]

Sept 2, 2009 5:26:58 GMT clocketpatch said:

Anyways, I'm tired, rambling. It doesn't make sense. I love this show for its lunacy. Because, even if I disagree with it, what other show in the world could spin-off the Sarah-Jane Adventures & Torchwood and have them running concurrently? It boggles the mind.


But back to Six, poor neglected Six. I too love Vengeance on Varos, or think I do - I only saw it the once. It's sort of a precursor to Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways with the whole reality TV thing and the subdued populous voting on whether the contestants live or die.

Hah - don't we all? ;D

Vengeance on Varos has it's faults, but it's also a very good script and (Areta aside) a pretty good guest cast. Especially Sil who is probably the best original villain of the 80s. He's so despicable, slimy and awfully greedy and yet childlike and one of those villains you'd be upset if he got killed. (Peri wouldn't, but then she nearly got turned into a bird.)

(Also, if you believe DWM< when they did their Big Poll earlier this year, they had a reply sent in from Nabil Shaban, awarding high points to V on V. But I suspect this may have been a reader with a sense of humour. On the other hand... )

[Abbyromana]

That's a toughie

I'm tempted to say "Attack of the Cybermen" due to the complexity of the story, the change to see the Doctor wrong about a villian, see said villian save the Doctor, see the TARDIS in different forms, and the return of the Cybermen.

But recently, I've fallen in love with Revelation of the Dalek story. Despite the DJ, it's a very indepth and heartpumping story. I also have enjoyed The Two Doctors. CB and PT are brilliant in it! ;D Watching it for the first time last week inspired me to start watching and listening to Two's episodes, as many as I can find.

[jjpor]

To touch on some of the above issues in my own frivolous way, I was just thinking about the first time I saw most of these Six stories, namely at my granddad's house on a Saturday afternoon after grandstand (I know at least some of them were screened then, to answer lostspook's query above...whether they all were, I could not say, but at least some of them were).

Anyway, I think I was one of those kids Mary Whitehouse was worried about, because the things that stick in my head are things like the rat getting eaten in Two Doctors, and the leg getting shot off in Revelation of the Daleks, and Peri turning into the bird. Anyway, having already mentioned the rat-eating thing in one of my posts above, a couple of more relevant points:

Vengeance on Varos absolutely scared the proverbial out of me as a nipper. Sil in particular terrified me. I think he's great now; a highly amusing villain you love to hate, but at the time...the thing he did with his tongue in particular, I think. I "remember" (ie, I think I remember, but some of my memories are, I discover in later life, a bit suspect ;D) Nabil Shaban appearing in costume and in character as Sil on Blue Peter (long, long running smugly middle-class kid's magazine-type programme, for non-UKians), and I didn't find him any less frightening in that setting.

Mind you, I also "remember" Colin Baker appearing on Blue Peter when he got appointed Doctor; I seem to recall him and the presenter discussing the significance of the cat badge on the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and a competition where lucky viewers could win one of the gastropod egg/coccoon things from Twin Dilemma, autographed by Colin his own self.

You know, they say pointlessly reminiscing about 20 + year old stuff like this is a sign of advancing age, and they may well be right. Some of this stuff is probably on Youtube somewhere if I could be bothered searching for it.

Anyway, more relevantly:

Isn't Patrick Troughton great playing cannibal!Two in Two Doctors? Although the poor restaurant manager getting knifed like that and Six's subsequent fairly brutal killing of Shockeye (followed by a Bond-like quip that he's evidently so pleased by that he saves it up until he's reunited with Peri) don't sit easily with me. That sort of thing seems un-Who-like for some reason. To highlight my hypocrisy when it comes to this sort of thing, I find poor old Group Marshal Stike getting blown to smithereens (apart from his leg!) and said leg getting carried around and stuff kind of hilarious.

[magnusgreel]

I certainly would never have shown some of those things on a program I thought was for children. Some I just wouldn't have wanted at all, such as the restaurant death scene with its light, semi-humorous tone. I can't think of others right now. Some of those scenes I like, but then for me DW is that dark, obscure, fringe late-night SF show. The Sontaran's lost leg I didn't mind, but starting to do a close-up on it on the chair after the characters have left seemed like manipulative 80s-style reveling in gore for its own sake to me.

Anyway, off on a deserted island I'll say Two Doctors. I like the stories that move around, as oppoised to Tardis arrives, problem solved, Tardis leaves, the end. I like the politics, the analogy to big nations not wanting small nations to join the nuclear club, and the hypocrisy the smaller nations accuse the bigger ones of, in the Time Lords' message to Dastari.

I liked Colin more and more in this marathon, up until I hit the worst stories and then started including Colin's overacting into my list of childrens'-show elements.

Lostspook-- Your remarks earlier aren't overlooked or wasted-- I'll just have to come back to them later. Thanks.