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Doctors Revisited -- Sixth Doctor special, plus Vengeance on Varos
Finally got the chance to watch the Doctors Revisited special for the Sixth Doctor. It was fine -- nothing great, but nothing bad, either. Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, and Bonnie Langford were all interviewed, plus Steven Moffat and other people. For the first time, David Tennant wasn't interviewed; I wonder if that's because he was too busy at the time of shooting, or because he didn't have much to say about the Sixth Doctor? (I suspect the former.)
Their chosen episode for Six was Vengeance on Varos, and I realized I'd never seen it! So I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. Also, it was again introduced by Steven Moffat, and I am starting to suspect that he is the one choosing which episodes to show. Regardless if it's him or not, the choices have been uniformly good, even if they haven't always been the ones I would personally choose. I was pleasantly surprised by V on V -- it was really an excellent episode, and Colin was in great form as the Doctor. I found myself really appreciating his physicality, and I loved one point in particular where he seemed to be purposefully imitating Peter Davison.
I'd heard talk of the bit with the guards and the acid bath, and I agree with the rest of fandom that it is OOC behavior for the Doctor, especially as those guards were not presented as being anything other than normal people stuck with a slightly distasteful job that was harmful to no one. But other than that, it was well written, and Moffat in his introduction talked about the irony of watching a violent show about people enjoying watching violence. Of course, I would argue that the key difference is watching fiction vs. watching reality -- we know that no one was really thrown into an acid bath! But it was still an interesting conceit.
Only one more "regular" special left -- I wonder which episode they're going to show for Seven? And I wonder what sort of retrospective they'll do for Eight? Do they have the rights to broadcast the TVM? Will they bother to cover him at all?
Their chosen episode for Six was Vengeance on Varos, and I realized I'd never seen it! So I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. Also, it was again introduced by Steven Moffat, and I am starting to suspect that he is the one choosing which episodes to show. Regardless if it's him or not, the choices have been uniformly good, even if they haven't always been the ones I would personally choose. I was pleasantly surprised by V on V -- it was really an excellent episode, and Colin was in great form as the Doctor. I found myself really appreciating his physicality, and I loved one point in particular where he seemed to be purposefully imitating Peter Davison.
I'd heard talk of the bit with the guards and the acid bath, and I agree with the rest of fandom that it is OOC behavior for the Doctor, especially as those guards were not presented as being anything other than normal people stuck with a slightly distasteful job that was harmful to no one. But other than that, it was well written, and Moffat in his introduction talked about the irony of watching a violent show about people enjoying watching violence. Of course, I would argue that the key difference is watching fiction vs. watching reality -- we know that no one was really thrown into an acid bath! But it was still an interesting conceit.
Only one more "regular" special left -- I wonder which episode they're going to show for Seven? And I wonder what sort of retrospective they'll do for Eight? Do they have the rights to broadcast the TVM? Will they bother to cover him at all?
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I love the "chorus" device of Etta and Arak and the ending in particular and the self-awareness of - the meta-cliffhanger is great. ("And cut it - now.") And I really appreciate Martin Jarvis and Nabil Shaban as the Governor and Sil (for still being watchable after the nth viewing) - and Forbes Collins, too. Actually, apart from the terrible rebels, it's a strong cast. And it started out criticising video nasties and has wound up being eerily prescient about reality TV, and, while I do have some issues with some of it, I like it a lot. It's by far my favourite Six story. (I may even have written fic about it. :lol:)
I'm very glad you enjoyed it, too! ♥
ETA: They've announced the Seven story, so I know the answer to that one already. (It's what I would have expected. ;-p)
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Hmm, my personal favorite is Battlefield, but I don't think they'd choose that one. And I don't think they'd go for Happiness Patrol. ; )
Is it Curse of Fenric?
I did very much enjoy Vengeance on Varos, and not least because it's the first retrospective episode they've shown that I hadn't already seen! The only issue I had with it was they showed it as one long episode, without the cliffhangers -- in fact, I found myself trying to guess where the cliffhangers went (I should check wikipedia to see if I was right!) So "cut it . . . now" was a cliffhanger? Well, of course it was! And I'm kind of sad that I missed experiencing it as a cliffhanger, because that is indeed very meta, and more than a little brilliant.
ETA: a brief internet search has revealed that this was broadcast as two 45-minute-long episodes, so that was the only cliffhanger. Which explains why it was the only one I was sure of, and why I had trouble guessing "the other" ones!
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It's not necessarily my favourite, but it's the one I think is best for newbies to Seven and I thought they would go for that one. ;-) If, of course, I didn't just dream it... (I could tell you, but I know you like guessing/not being spoiled!)
Yes, all of that season was broadcast in 45 min eps. (And so, for reasons, I forget, was Resurrection of the Daleks in the previous season.) Then they decided it didn't work as a format for DW and reverted to 25 mins for Trial and onto the end of the Classic series. (I know that kind of fact off by heart. All those years as a teenager reading DWM every month and absorbing programme guides religiously had an effect, I think. :lol:)
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I knew about the 45-minute-episode experiment thing, but I'm not up on which episodes were broadcast in that format. Anyway, it was more of an "aha, that explains it!" reaction than surprise.
It's not really a spoiler to learn which episode it's going ot be -- I'll definitely hear before it's broadcast, because BBCA does start advertising it. But it is fun to guess until I find out. One for Seven newbies, hm? I'm coming up blank. Of course, it doesn't help that I haven't seen about half of his episodes. Ooh, I hope they broadcast one I haven't seen! Dragonfire would be great; Ive been wanting to see that for awhile. But I still keep coming back to either Curse of Fenric or Ghost Light, because those are considered such classics by the fans. Although I didn't like Curse of Fenric, and, um, I'm actually not sure if I've seen Ghost Light or not. If they broadcast it, I'll be able to find out.
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:-)
I know a lot of people say otherwise, but I don't think Curse of Fenric is a good intro to Seven - I love it, of course (and Ghostlight, which most fans seem to hate - I'm v surprised you got the opposite impression, unless that was just from me and JJ or something) - but Ghostlight, Fenric, and Survival are the conclusion of Ace's story arc, so it's much more satisfactory to watch them in order - to watch all of Ace's story in order, really. Anyway, the story they have chosen is the Really Obvious one you haven't mentioned yet (and the story I would use as the best intro to anyone who hadn't tried Seven, or hadn't tried the Classic series, especially if they weren't used to old TV. It's one of my three that rarely seem to fail with non-fans, the other two being The Five Doctors and Robots of Death). I don't know if you've seen it. I'd guess you must have done, but I don't know. ;-)
And I know it's not a spoiler, but I'm amused now. *is being evil* Given that Seven only has a limited amount of stories anyway, I'm sure you'll get it. (And then find out that Tumblr lied to me, or something and I'm wrong. If it even was Tumblr...)
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A lot of people on
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And now I come to think of it, though, I'm not at all sure whether it was the BBCA announcement or the BFI one (the British Film Institute have been doing a screening of one story per Doctor each month, with special guests). :lol:
But even if it was that, BBCA seem to be going for four-parters, so that leaves you with Battlefield, Fenric and Remembrance, doesn't it? They're unlikely to go for S24, because much as I enjoy some of it, it just isn't as good, or as representative. And I can't think which one was the four-parter for that season, either.
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The weird thing is, I saw that as one of my first Seventh Doctor episodes (if not the first), and I recall having a hard time figuring out what was going on. And that's despite a familiarity with Classic Who. But you've had luck showing it to newbies? Well, I do have a general problem with following Seventh Doctor stories, so it could be just me.
BBCA also gave us a teaser with Sylvester McCoy, so he got interviewed, hurrah! Looking forward to seeing the special! Plus I'll have to re-watch Remembrance to see if I "get" it any better now.
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Yep. I wouldn't do Curse, because I think it does need some knowledge of Ace's story to properly appreciate what's going on, but remembrance seems to work nicely. :-)
It's quite funny that you're getting these repeats and we're just not. The BFI is doing screenings, but obviously that's not the same thing, and only a small number of people can go to those.
I'm glad I wasn't wrong after all that. :lol: