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Post by clocketpatch on Jul 27, 2009 1:55:48 GMT
Bahaha, the commentary! This was totally worth buying just for the commentary. Highlights: Peter Davison's obsession with his hair length. Every scene he's calling it out: short! long! long! short! So funny. And then him admitting that he likes scaring children. And that his favourite episodes were the ones where he was being hurt because then he could go out drinking the night before and come on set all red-eyed and mussed and it would just add to the characterization, wouldn't it? And then "were we wearing earplugs for this?" "You know, I don't think we were, we should have been. Oh right, this part, I got hurt during that take, and that take, and then he slapped me and it left a mark. I swear, it's like someone was trying to kill me." Him and Peri gleefully pointing out every single blooper (the bounce-back Peri blooper was pretty funny) and they started making fun of Resurrection of the Daleks, and how bad it was, and how it had a higher body count than Terminator. I looked that up on Wiki (I was bored okay), which says: "The serial has been widely reported to contain a higher body count than The Terminator. Seven people are killed within the first minute of episode one. Estimates have placed the actual bodycount in the range of 60-76, roughly the combined bodycount of the first five Friday the 13th films." Granted, Caves must come close to that. It kills off every single male character, including the Doctor. Speaking of which, the regen scene. The commentary *gigglefits* Davison "There I am, acting my heart out, and all anyone is looking at is Nicole's boooozummms" and "This is a fate worse than death; first I'm haunted by my ex-companions, then the Master comes and laughs at me, and then, wait for it, wait for it, as if that wasn't bad enough, can you think of anything worse? Wait for it, wait for it... I turn into Colin Baker!" "...I've known he was after my job ever since he shot me that time" *gigglefits* That was highly amusing.
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Post by Stripes on Jul 27, 2009 2:22:22 GMT
You must upload the commentry for DW Live.
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Post by clocketpatch on Jul 27, 2009 2:54:56 GMT
I'm not sure how to rip DVDs, let alone commentary, but I will try.
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Post by merrythemad on Jul 27, 2009 18:30:40 GMT
oh goodness, your commentary on the commentary has made me *want*
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Post by jjpor on Jul 27, 2009 20:52:39 GMT
Heh - Davison gives good commentary, it is a fact. I now want to listen to this one too - it sounds highly amusing. Did they by any chance spend quite a lot of time mocking the Magma Beast - just about the only thing in 80s Who less threatening than the Myrka in Warriors of the Deep? Love the Colin Baker remark too - funny because it's true!
Still, it's a cracking story, is Caves - with a really creepy sort of subtext that no doubt helped contribute to my current state of stability and normality - that and Watership Down.
Yeah, I had heard that more people get killed in Resurrection than in the Terminator - and in more horrible ways! And unfortunately even early-80s Arnie was a better actor than half the supporting cast...
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Post by clocketpatch on Jul 27, 2009 21:22:55 GMT
Indeed they did have a go at the magma monster (though, in all fairness Peter Davision out and out said that the Myrka was was worse... though, come to think of it, he mentioned the magma beast int he Warrior's of the Deep commentary too, so maybe they're tied for fail?)
Still pretty funny.
And yay for Watership Down: great movie, great book, fantastic theme song -
just the thing for giving young children a seriously distorted vision of the world. And rabbits.
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Post by merrythemad on Jul 27, 2009 21:37:06 GMT
I too was traumatised by Watership Down, poor me, I thought it would be like The Poseidon Adventure, boy howdy! was i ever wrong...
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Post by clocketpatch on Jul 27, 2009 21:43:30 GMT
I went into it thinking ship would be involved too...
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Post by jjpor on Jul 28, 2009 13:05:46 GMT
"Dogs aren't dangerous!"
Sorry, just having a flashback there...
I don't think there's much to choose between the Myrka and the magma thing; and the thing is they both feel shoehorned into the stories; there's no real need for either of them other than maybe some obscure BBC rule about needing to include a lame/cheap monster so many times per series... ;D
Now the big, green, disturbingly Freudian, bin bag creature in Creature from the Pit on the other hand...
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Post by aquabluejay on Mar 11, 2011 1:58:43 GMT
God, I cannot wait to watch this.... And now I have to track down the version with commentary! XD
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Post by primsong on Oct 23, 2012 2:52:30 GMT
After reading this thread now I want to hear the commentary too - I remember when I found "Black Orchid" at the local library here and got to hear the commentary I found Peter to be quite a hoot.
We just watched this one last night as a part of our ongoing quest to watch all the ones we either haven't seen or (more usually) haven't seen in their entirety. I think we have a cheap rubber dinosaur among my kids old toys that looks like that magma monster, definitely something that was scarier in the writer's mind than on screen, I must say. Likewise for the "bat" portion - obviously meant to be longer/scarier but edited to shreds. Not that I really want to see what a cheap budget "milking a bat" would look like in detail... Ew.
Shades of Phantom of the Opera going on here too, the Mysterious Man in the Mask being obsessed with the Beautiful Girl and all that. I half expected them to burst into song from time to time. High body count, some nicely unlikeable baddies and good guys that you can't help but sympathize with in spite of knowing they are probable Red Shirts.
Sorry, still despise Peri. Gaaaaack. And yes, Five's death with all the rotating little heads and such, dear me, what a nightmare. We chalked it up to hallucinations, poor chap.
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Post by magnusgreel on Oct 23, 2012 4:32:57 GMT
Well, I don't think they expected that any viewers would think little companion heads were really floating around Five's.
I wish more stories had a more adult tone like this one, but the reverence for this story in particular still baffles me. Maybe I still need to perceive what Holmes was using a Phantom of the Opera character (Jek) to try to say.
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Post by jjpor on Oct 23, 2012 18:40:41 GMT
I think maybe it looked better to fans in hindsight because of the severe drop-off in quality that came immediately afterwards with Twin Dilemma and Attack of the Cybermen. And, perhaps coincidentally, the Five/Six switchover marked some sort of watershed in the life of the show when Who started on the long slide (in favour, not necessarily quality) that would end in cancellation in 1989. Although the seeds had been sown, imho, a while earlier than that. Still, I do think Androzani's a high-quality story and sort of Holmes's swansong in that his last couple of stories during the Six era were flawed in one way or another. This is a throwback, imho, to his classic stories of the 70s. And maybe the Phantom of the Opera imagery was just that - riffing off old horror movies etc in the same sort of way he'd done in his heyday with Four? Yes, Magnus - the serious, violent, adult tone is something to be remarked upon. This is a story set in a very grim world (or worlds) populated with believeable, not particularly nice characters, where politics and business and war are all extensions of each other, and all dirty. Just like the world we live in daily, in other words. I do like Morgus's Shakespearean soliloquoys to camera - very Richard III, even if they're not remotely naturalistic (and to bring it back to what I was saying about The Happiness Patrol a while back, Morgus and his heartless big-business ways, references to imprisoning the unemployed etc, are a big fat satirical jab at some of the things a lot of people felt were going wrong in Britain, and the world, in the 80s). And Sharaz Jek is a great creation - his relationship with Peri, or at least the relationship he imagines he has with Peri, is at once pathetic and deeply disturbing. And Five goes out like a hero. Ten, take note.
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Post by magnusgreel on Oct 23, 2012 20:57:49 GMT
And maybe the Phantom of the Opera imagery was just that - riffing off old horror movies etc in the same sort of way he'd done in his heyday with Four? I thought someone might say this. Well, yes it is, jjpor, but why? The old horror figures were used for something in those 70s stories, even if it might be hard to articulate exactly what. The Frankenstein monster in Morbius was just a starting point. In an otherwise "realistic"-seeming story, though, making one of the Androzani characters into a cliche Phantom of the Opera seems to me to be distracting, unnecessary, and shoehorned-in. I react to the cliche and the fact that they conform so closely to it, rather than to anything affecting about the individual character. I'm the only one who thinks this though, so I suppose I'm missing a lot here.
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Post by primsong on Oct 23, 2012 23:09:07 GMT
I do like Morgus' Shakespearean soliloquys to camera - very Richard III, even if they're not remotely naturalistic... Yes! It was so odd to have him suddenly breaking that proverbial fourth wall and talking to "us" that way. The extended self-commentary while they were standing by for his reply/decision was the longest such wall-breakage I've seen in a while, so much that I expected it to turn out he was really talking to some other surprise character who was there in the office with him. I strangely liked the secretary taking over - it was somewhat predictable (I figured she was at the very least going to turn him in, settling for complete usurption was a good second choice). She was also the only developed character except for Peri that survived, near as I can tell. I guess being female increases your chances of making it out of the show alive in this case. And yes, Fivey went out as a hero - which is almost annoying - why is it we so often see some of the Very Best Acting right before they leave? I remember having that complaint about Turlough too, he was really good in his last ep.
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Post by jjpor on Oct 24, 2012 18:22:12 GMT
No, I don't think you're missing anything, Magnus. It's a completely valid reaction to the character. I suppose it could be said that, quite apart from any connection to the Phantom or other stories, the somewhat "larger-than-life", indeed camp, aspect of Jek is out of keeping with the otherwise rather gritty setting. Having said that, I take it in the same spirit as Morgus's soliloquising - it probably shouldn't work, but both characters have enough psychological plausibility and grounding, for me, to get away with it and add colour to the story. There's a real air of the tragic and the unpleasant around Jek that belies his on the face of it ridiculous appearance and mannerisms. Not everybody may agree with that. As for any deeper meaning to using the idea of the Phantom - probably not, but it's an image and a set-up that people are going to "get" without much in the way of explanation, and that's sometimes useful in telling a story. Like everybody "gets" Solon is Frankenstein without the point needing explaining explicitly - it creates a sort of shorthand, perhaps, for the type of character he is and the scenario he exists in. Perhaps. Just theorising on the hoof, there. Here's a thought - the very obvious similarities between the plot of this story and the novel Dune by Frank Herbert (with magma beasts standing in for sandworms?!). Only here, the mystical, psychedelic desert messiah with his invincible army of devoted jihadis is recast as a lovesick madman in a cave with only robots to talk to. That strikes me as very Holmesian, right there... Prim - regarding actors saving their best till last on Doctor Who - it's very often the way. I mean, Davison was no slouch acting-wise throughout his tenure, imho. I just wish he'd had more stories like this and fewer stories like, say, Resurrection of the Daleks. Morgus had it coming, really, although there's no evidence to suggest that his erstwhile PA will be any more ethical or less ruthless (well, certainly not going on the way she stitched her boss up). Still, she won and survived, and in a story like this one that's the best you can hope for. I think that's the thing about film and television - there's no reason why they have to be naturalistic compared to theatre, but they so often are (well, unless you're talking about things like musicals etc) that when they do go against type it always comes as a surprise. I think I'd like Who, old and new, to have been a bit more experimental like that from time to time, because when it works it works very well, imo.
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Post by aquabluejay on Oct 25, 2012 2:01:12 GMT
Still dying to find a way to get my hands on the commentary...
I've got to say again, that I blame Perri completely for poor Fivey's death. I'd go so far as to say she deserves Six, and we all know that's saying something.
Prim: Characters in Five's era doing their best bit just before we loose them does indeed appear to be a thing. I'd add Adric to the list there, although I vaguely remember Tegan just being a bit hysterical... Though frankly, she did finally stop bullying the Doctor.
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Post by primsong on Oct 25, 2012 15:44:09 GMT
Oh, I completely agree - Adric was very, er.... Adricky for most of his last round (slumping stupidly in captivity, etc.) but towards the end suddenly shows some intensity and grounding in ethical, selfless behaviour that had been well hidden previously. Just as we begin to think he might have some kind of redeeming quality and a hope of maturing to be a better person... At least Five was already likeable and intense and interesting *before* he bowed out, instead of just being a flash of brilliance before going Ka-boom.
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Post by jjpor on Oct 25, 2012 19:11:03 GMT
Shocking admission, I know, but I don't really rate Earthshock as highly as a lot of fans. Adric's demise mildly amused me, if anything. ;D
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Post by magnusgreel on Oct 26, 2012 4:00:09 GMT
Shocking admission, I know, but I don't really rate Earthshock as highly as a lot of fans. Adric's demise mildly amused me, if anything. ;D So... part 5 was your favorite, then?
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