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My huge Doctor Who episode marathon.


The Friendly Dalek
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The Masque Of Mandragora- A very bland start to this season. There are some nice looking sets  thanks to the historical setting and the costume design is good for the most part. The story and characters are both boring and the dialogue isn't interesting either. The music is also pretty poor in this story. For a 4 episode story to drag this much it proves that it is boring, and that's the worst thing any film or episode of a tv show can be, boring (I've only just realised how many times I used that word, but it at least shows how I feel about this story). 

Overall- 2/10.

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The Hand Of Fear- Sadly this is another bland and unmemorable story.

Elizabeth Sladen's departure is a brilliant scene, greatly acted by her and Tom. Unfortunately the story leading up to that scene is so dull. The characters are uninteresting, the dialogue is poor and the plot itself isn't memorable. 

Overall- 2/10.

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Sorry I haven’t chipped in for a while but have to disagree about HOF. I love it. I’m biased though. Actually it’s strange how much I love it given how much it scarred me for life as a tiny child. According to my Mum I was inconsolable for about a week after Sarah left but I don’t think it was this story that I had that reaction. I think it was during the next few episodes when I probably got more and more upset realising the Doctor wasn’t going to get her back. I love the interesting twist of having the same “monster” change half way through the story. I like the story and I find the other characters pretty decent actually. Each to their own though 

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42 minutes ago, Ravogd said:

Sorry I haven’t chipped in for a while but have to disagree about HOF. I love it. I’m biased though. Actually it’s strange how much I love it given how much it scarred me for life as a tiny child. According to my Mum I was inconsolable for about a week after Sarah left but I don’t think it was this story that I had that reaction. I think it was during the next few episodes when I probably got more and more upset realising the Doctor wasn’t going to get her back. I love the interesting twist of having the same “monster” change half way through the story. I like the story and I find the other characters pretty decent actually. Each to their own though 

Don't worry about not talking here much. I'm sure you have better things to do with your time. :lol:

It's interesting to read a different opinion regarding a story. It's nice to see people who do like something I don't explaining why they disagree.

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The Deadly Assassin- Now this is more like it. 

Tom Baker excels in this one. It is interesting to see a story without a companion, but it really works. The other characters are very well written and well acted. I love the fact that we get to see how the society on Gallifrey operates, and the corrupt side of the Time Lords is very well represented in this story. 

The Master is great here. I've always liked the decayed look in this story and in The Keeper Of Traken. I find his voice a little strange though, and the lack of expression in the mask is odd, but the dialogue and acting are good enough to compensate for that. 

The Matrix sequences are fantastic, and the cliffhanger to episode 3 is a very good one. 

Overall- 10/10.

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The Face Of Evil- And back to a poor story. 

May as well start with positives. Tom Baker is great. Louise Jameson makes a good first impression as Leela. Elisabeth Sladen was so good it would have been tough for anyone to follow after her, but I think Louise did a good job. The sets look quite good as well in this story.

Unfortunately, the story itself is boring and uninteresting. The characters are bland and the dialogue is poor as well.

Overall- 3/10.

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Deadly assassin is an all time classic but it’s another one I can’t work out why I like so much. I can list a few things about it I don’t like but I keep going back to it again and again. It is an odd relationship I have with it. Face of Evil is one I do find much better than you do. I like the idea of the time passing causing the words to evolve. It is natural and happens quicker than we like to believe (it’s only a matter of time before they change specific to pacific in the dictionary you mark my words :angry:). I like the idea of the religious leader having his power stripped away. I think it’s cleverer than a lot of people give it credit for and Louise is fantastic. I very quickly fell in love and got over Sarah leaving although I remember my Mum not being a fan of the knife violence :lol:

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11 minutes ago, Ravogd said:

Deadly assassin is an all time classic but it’s another one I can’t work out why I like so much. I can list a few things about it I don’t like but I keep going back to it again and again. It is an odd relationship I have with it. Face of Evil is one I do find much better than you do. I like the idea of the time passing causing the words to evolve. It is natural and happens quicker than we like to believe (it’s only a matter of time before they change specific to pacific in the dictionary you mark my words :angry:). I like the idea of the religious leader having his power stripped away. I think it’s cleverer than a lot of people give it credit for and Louise is fantastic. I very quickly fell in love and got over Sarah leaving although I remember my Mum not being a fan of the knife violence :lol:

Fair enough in regards to The Deadly Assassin. I too have some small issues (same with just about every story to be honest) but I don't think they are large enough to take points away for. I appreciated some of those ideas within The Face Of Evil, but I felt that the execution was poor in terms of character, dialogue etc. 

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The Robots Of Death- Another brillaint story. Character and dialogue wise, this is flawless. The acting is very good, and the story itself is well writtten. The Robots look and sound very good for the time, and still hold up now, which is impressive.

My only issue is the lack of mystery. It has the same issue as The Android Invasion, any mystery is made redundant by the title. However, this story still has some great moments of tension. I find that the Capel twist is a bit obvious as well.

Overall- 9/10.

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I remember The Robots of Death well and really enjoyed it-you're inspiring me to revisit these stories!

You'll be too young to remember "Callan" but Russell Hunter was great as "Lonely" in this.

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10 hours ago, Bumper8 said:

I remember The Robots of Death well and really enjoyed it-you're inspiring me to revisit these stories!

You'll be too young to remember "Callan" but Russell Hunter was great as "Lonely" in this.

A great and always overlooked actor Russell Hunter was. The only thing I don’t like about this story is Brian Crouchers performance. It feels like he couldn’t be bothered. One of the best Who stories and the way the Doctor taught Leela about how the TARDIS is bigger on the inside was great as finally tiny little me could understand it. The best Robots ever in science fiction too. I reckon they could be brought back to the new series without any changes and still work tremendously.

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The Talons Of Weng-Chiang- Oh boy. I remember all of the controversy recently regarding the apparent racism in this story. Personally, and this is just my opinion, if you disagree that's fine, I see this as a product of it's time. When this was made everything in this story was acceptable. Saying it is a bad story simply because it does things that would not be acceptable to do on television nowadays just negates all of the great aspects to this story. Due to that, I'm not going to watch this and judge it because of how the times have changed between then and now. I still think it is a great story, and I will explain why. 

Firstly, characters. For the most part, the characters here are very well written and well acted. Tom Baker and Louise Jameson excel (side note, I love Tom's costume in this one), and Jago and Litefoot are also great characters. Magnus Greel is a decent villain, and the make up on him looks great. I remember being frightened of Mr. Sin when I was younger. Although I am no longer frightened of him he is still a little creepy.

The set design is wonderful, it really feels like Victorian London. I love the atmosphere in this one as well, as most of the outside shots are in the dark/fog, which adds to the creepy vibe of the story. The costume design is good as well. The only thing that doesn't look that good is the giant rat, but I don't criticise the effects in these older stories except where it is needed, such as when there are lots of bad effects throughout one story. Therefore I will overlook the poor effects of the rat. 

My main criticism really is that it is too long. It does drag a little. Also, some of the supporting characters aren't that great.

Overall- 9/10.

Overall rating for Season 14- 5/10.

This season is a weird one for me. There are some incredibly good stories in this season, but also some very poor ones. I think that the 5/10 rating shows that there are equally as many good stories in this season as there are bad ones.

Edited by The Friendly Dalek
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Horror Of Fang Rock- This is a fantastic story. The setting of the lighthouse adds to the atmosphere and claustrophobic feeling of the story. 

The characters are all well acted, and the dialogue is brilliant. The story really makes the most of its small cast. Tom Baker and Louise Jameson are great as well. The Rutan is a good monster, and I'd happily welcome a return to the series for them in future. 

The pacing is great and the story itself is interesting and well written.

Overall- 10/10.

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Talons is brilliant. I don’t agree that it drags a bit. I enjoy it immensely and often sit down to watch it on a Sunday afternoon in one sitting. I simply do not understand this modern thing of judging shows from the past by today’s standards. It’s just how things were then. Instead of moaning about it and saying it’s terrible people should hold it up and use it to show that we have actually progressed as a society. I was watching an episode of Starsky and Hutch yesterday in which David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser go undercover on “Voodoo Island” and they actually use black-face at one point. Makes me cringe now but as a kid in the 70’s it was nothing.

jago and Litefoot have their beginnings in this story and it always amazes me that they don’t actually meet until the last episode given all the BF stuff they now have. If Showmasters ever get him back at a show I’d advise meeting Deep Roy (Mr Sin) as his stories are excellent about this adventure.

Fang Rock. Another 10/10 for me. Only story where everyone dies except the Doctor and Leela. I also love the idea of the flash changing Leela’s eye colour which was done so Louise `Jameson no longer needed to wear the brown contact lenses which had constantly bothered her throughout all the filming of the earlier stories. They could have just changed them and not explained it but I thought that was pretty clever.

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The Invisible Enemy- I have a love/hate relationship with this one. There are things I really like and things I really do not like. 

Well, some of the main characters are good. It is nice to see the introduction of K9, and Professor Marius is a good character. Unfortunately the other side characters are not that good.

Some of the visuals look great, but some really don't. The Nucleus is an interesting villain in concept but it looks really daft. The first half is far stronger than the second in my opinion.

Overall- 5/10.

I feel like that is a fair rating for this one. There are aspects I like to this story but there are a similar amount of things that I don't like.

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Image Of The Fendahl- Why does no one ever talk about this story? I think it is a very strong final effort for the type of gothic horror which made up so much of Tom's ealrier years. 

The story is well written and intriguing from the very start. The characters are mostly memorable and the acting is pretty good. The Fendahleen monsters look fantastic.

There is a strong atmosphere and the direction is good. The visuals and set design are also very good for the most part. Unfortunately there is a large amount of padding in episode 3 and a fair bit in episode 4. I also love the cliffhanger to episode 1, very well done.

Overall- 8/10.

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The Sun Makers- A decent story.

The script is good, and this story is actually rather humorous. The regulars are good and the villain is pretty good as well. The other supporting characters aren't that interesting though. 

I find that this is one of those stories that is enjoyable when I watch it, but nothing really stands out to me, so I don't watch this one that often. It's still good, just not one I watch much as I just prefer many others and there isn't really anything in this story that draws me to it and makes we want to watch it.

Overall- 6/10.

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Underworld- Oh dear. 

This was painful to get through. It drags a lot. None of the characters are interesting and the dialogue is dull. The story itself is bland and forgettable. The effects are dreadful here as well, and as they are used so frequently I have to mention them. Not even Tom or Louise can make any of the dialogue bearable. There is nothing redeemable here.

Overall- 1/10.

I love Doctor Who. I really do. But sadly it has provided some of the most atrocious and poorly made pieces of television I have ever witnessed (although it has also provided some of the best so it's good :D). 

Edited by The Friendly Dalek
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Underworld is not quite that bad IMO and it really needs putting into context. Often people making TV shows complain about having “no money”. Well this almost literally had no money. The budget ran out due to the insane rate of inflation at the time. The economy was on its knees and we were in the midst of the 3 day week. This show was made with the lowest budget of any Dr Who story (relatively speaking) by some considerable distance. They couldn’t even afford sets. That’s why the story is entirely CSO. They are using the models the designers made to plan the sets. I think there are some performances worthy of note especially Alan Lake. I think if you keep that in mind while watching it it helps. I always think classic Who needs the context of what was happening when it was made be it real life politics or in the later years, internal politics between the show makers. Also Louise Jameson’s performance was off as this was the peak time of Tom Baker treating her like absolute s**t. He seriously regrets this now and admits his behavior towards her was abominable.

It becomes very bad when watched in one go. It really does need to be split up into episodes and watched preferably with a few days in between them. I’d go 3/10 purely for effort.

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Sometimes I watch an episode but I forgot to write about it until the next day, like this one. :lol:

The Invasion of Time- I like elements of this one. I like the idea of showing The Doctor taking control of Gallery, and I lied that not sets him up as a villain of the story, its a very unique aspect to this one. 

Some of the supporting characters aren't great and the story isn't really that interesting. Most of the dialogue is good but not all of it. It drags a lot sadly. The cliffhanger to episode 4 is great. The Sontarans are ok in this one, but they don't look that good. The TARDIS scenes are strange, and I don't like the the design of the TARDIS interiors.

Leela's departure was also poorly done in my opinion. I didn't feel at any point during the story that there was a blossoming relationship between Leela and Andred. 

Overall- 6/10.

Overall rating for Season 15- 6/10.

This is an interesting season. In my opinion there is a terrible story, and incredibly good one and the rest are decent to great. Tom Baker and Louise Jameson were great.

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And now today's episode. 

The Ribos Operation- Firstly, I really like the premise of this season. The search for The Key To Time is an interesting idea and I think it pays off. 

Mary Tamm is great as Romana, and I'm really sad that she only did one season. The dialogue in this story is fantastic, and it is funnier than I remembered it being. I laughed a lot. 

The set design is good as well, and the catacombs are nicely lit and atmospheric. 

As far as negatives go, I find that some of the supporting cast are unmemorable, but really that's about it. Most of the supporting characters are great.

Overall- 9/10. Hugely underrated.

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I totally agree about Invasion of Time. IMO it is hugely overrated (as a lot of the Tom Baker so called classics are, largely due to it being Tom Baker). It’s enjoyable enough and interesting in that they realised that they could use other locations to show the rest of the TARDIS interior at last (it only took them 15 years), but generally not too exciting. Never been a huge Sontaran fan so that doesn’t help me either. 

Key to Time is a great idea. Largely unpopular at the time having an entire TV series linked like that. Ahead of its time really. I love Ribos Operation. Ian Cuthbertson is superb (Scottish Biss from me again here). 

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