Doctor Who Club of Australia

[g,uest]

[g,uest]

[Greg]

[g,uest]

[Greg]

There you go. I've never paid much attention to who did the (US-only) commentary for The Five Doctors, as it had Terrance Dicks, which is generally a guarantee of not-terribly-interesting rambling about pretty much anything but the story being told - guaranteed to feature Uncle Terry saying, 'I've always said that...' a least once!

[Theta Sigma]

Recently finished the first episode of Castrovalva on DVD.

In the DVD notes for the episode it said that the Head of Security (played by Dallas Cavell) was originally going to be a woman played by the star of a BBC police series but she was not available. The notes does not mention the name of the actress nor the show but I am guessing that the actress is Stephanie Turner and the show Juliet Bravo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliet_Bravo

Interestingly the Doctor Who Unbound Big Finish audio Deadline written by Rob Shearman, claimed that in a world in which Doctor Who the TV series never existed, people who are Doctor Who fans in our world, became Juliet Bravo fans in that alternative world.

In the commentary for the episode, when the subject of spoilers came up, writer Christopher H Bidmead said to his fellow commentators that they shouldn't worry about spoilers on the assumption that the viewer would already have seen the whole story before listening to the commentary.

Not meaning to slight Bidmead but the way I view the classic episodes on DVD is to watch an episode, then listen to the commentary on the episode, then I watch the next episode, then listen to the commentary on that episode and so on.

It is as Uncle Terrance said for the commentary for The Green Death, that an entire serial was not meant to be seen all in one viewing as there were gaps in time between broadcasts of the individual episodes.

What I am saying about DVD viewing of the classic series is that there are people who have a gap in time between viewing episodes rather than see the whole story all in one go.

[Sulp Niar]

Wow - you're the only person I've ever heard of who watches them in that way. Especially since, to be honest, I find some of the commentaries dreary as hell, turning what may already be a hard story to get excited about into a yawn-fest. Still, each to their own, but I'm still frankly boggling.

That said, I see what you mean in a way. When I became a proper fan in 2005 (whatever that means; taking notice of it instead of idly watching it from time to time, I guess), I was rather annoyed that every time I went to have a goosey at what was coming up in the Classic Series run on ABC, I got half of the episodes spoiled. Unavoidable, and probably unfair of me to criticise, but slightly irritating all the same.

(In fact, I remember reading, in the leadup to Colin's run, that the next two Doctors and their eras were horribly bad. I braced myself - then wondered what all the fuss was about...!)

[Theta Sigma]

Update on my reading of the Castrovalva DVD notes:
In the part 2 notes it says that Peter Davison and John Nathan-Turner had disagreements on how Davison should play the Doctor. One idea that Davison came up with but vetoed by Nathan-Turner was for the Doctor to fix any problems with everyday objects he happened to have in his pockets. This makes the Doctor sounds like MacGyver some three years before that show came on.

Also it mentioned that director Fiona Cumming had directed two episodes of Blake's 7 [Rumours of Death & Sarchophagus] and it described it as being Doctor Who's science fiction "rival". Although the word "rival" was in inverted commas, I definitely do not think of Blake's 7 as being a rival but more of an ally. Another thing is that Blake's 7 like Doctor Who was shown on the BBC. Had Blake's 7 been shown on ITV, then I could accept it being described as Doctor Who's "rival".

Of the two Blake's 7 episodes that Cumming directed it was Sarchophagus which got her the commission for Castrovalva. The notes says that she was so impressed with Sarchophagus that she sent Nathan-Turner the tape of the episode hoping that he will get its writer Tanith Lee to write for Doctor Who. He didn't, opting to have Cumming to direct on Doctor Who instead.

Tanith Lee is a science fiction/fantasy/horror novelist and I had suggested twice in the past that she should write for Doctor Who. The first was some years ago that she should write a Big Finish audio at a time before anyone knew that Doctor Who would return on television.

The second time was for her to write on the current television series.

As for as I am aware opportunites to write for Who has not yet arrived on Ms Lee's door. Hopefully this will happen in future whether it be for Doctor Who itself or a spin-off in whatever form whether it be for television, audio or book.

[g,uest]

[SharazJek]

The Beneath The Sea DVD release has got to be one of the most exciting for me personally, with The Silurians being my favourite 3rd Dr epic.

I'm also a sucker for a really dramatic trailer too, and recently the classic series releases have made the forthcoming old classic episodes look as exciting as the new series. (The trailer for Planet of Evil is amazing!)

This was not the case when I played the trailer for Beneath The Sea on Destiny of the Daleks. They really let the side down with that trailer. I wonder what happened? It can't ALL be the Myka's fault!

[g,uest]

[Greg]

Some of those covers are ugly - with a capital UGH!

A well-designed cover requires skill and a decent sense of aesthetics, not just pasting in random pictures and (even worse) floating heads. Access to Photoshop is not enough!

Take this one:


It looks like the Doctor, Liz and two Silurians are standing around in a cave (or is it the same Silurian looking over his own shoulder?). Not exactly dynamic.

The Doctor is positioned so that the figure is in front of the closer Silurian - but he's in a smaller scale. Liz is also in a smaller scale and is also in front of the other Silurian.

The idea seems to be 'This story features the Doctor, Liz Shaw and the Silurians, and a lot of it happens underground - so I'll put all those things on the cover.'

I don't claim to have any skills in designing covers, but I know what I don't like - and what doesn't work!

[g,uest]

Greg,
it was made by a guy off Youtube, who's Account is now Suspended,
His Channel was called TheHappinessPatrol

'That might say it all, For those of you who are disgusted by that Episode

[Theta Sigma]

Finished reading the DVD notes for Robot Part 2:
The notes says that Barry Letts had been producer at the start of the Pertwee era. That is not entirely correct as he took over from the second Pertwee story The Silurians. In fact the DVD notes does state, later in the episode, that was the serial that Letts began his tenure as Producer.
The notes also quotes from Robert Holmes in an interview with DWM in which he said that Uncle Terrance had told him about the tradition of the departing script editor writing the first story of the next season. Given what is stated about this so-called tradition, the notes then mention that David Whitaker, Dennis Spooner, Gerry Davis and Derrick Sherwin had written the next story after they had left the post of script editor. It would seem there is a confusion between the departing script editor writing the next season opener and departing script editor writing the next story.

This is because of those four script editors only Gerry Davis wrote the first story of the next season after he left the script editor's job. While David Whitaker and Dennis Spooner did write the next story after leaving the script editor's job neither of their stories began a new season. As to Derrick Sherwin he left as Script Editor to become Producer overseeing Pat Troughton's formal swansong the season 6 closer The War Games, a story which he did not write. The error with Derrick Sherwin may be due to confusion over his capacity in the show as he continued as Producer for just one more serial the season 7 opener the Pertwee debut Spearhead from Space. Sherwin did not write Spearhead from Space but the story which sees the Doctor becoming UNIT's scientific adviser was a set-up that was made by Sherwin when he introduced UNIT in The Invasion in the previous season.

[dave]

Y'know, TS, posts like this hardly fit the 'Upcoming DVD releases' title. They might go better in their own thread.

Just a suggestion...

[dave]

Getting back to being on topic, it seems we're getting a re-release of The Five Doctors this year, in March in the UK.

Followed by Black Orchid, which will be followed by Invasion of Time.

The latter two according to this link:

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Classified.nsf/0/7C7FF0652B4FFBFA802573C90035B3AE?OpenDocument

[uhumanite]

Colin Baker has recently finished commentries for all of The Trial of a Time lord.

Expect it to be out by the end of 2008.

He has also recorded for Attack of the Cybermen which should be out sooner.

[dave]

AFAIK there's been a commentary recorded for Image of the Fendahl for a few years now. No sign of it getting released any time soon. So, even though a commentary may have been recently recorded, that doesn't necessarily mean that these stories will be released soon.

I saw a post by one of the Restoration Team the other day saying they're currently working on The War Games. It's by Steve Roberts, and it's about half way down this page:

http://missingepisodes.proboards20.com/index.cgi?board=who&action=display&thread=1198787337

[Greg]

The Brain of Morbius is undergoing classification by the British film classification board - and they've found that it 'contains scary scenes'.

Here.

[dave]

And after Morbius, we're getting Invisible Enemy and K-9 & Company.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/website/Classified.nsf/0/8D1600E2DB476113802573E800503924?OpenDocument