Doctor Who Club of Australia

[SharazJek]

This months poll has got me thinking about these two characters again.

I can't decide whose side to be on.

After listening to JNT's Big Finish memoirs and Sawards many dvd interviews, they both have points both positive and negative.

What are your thoughts on these two highly influential men of '80's Dr Who?

[uhumanite]

Saward didn't seem fitted as a Doctor Who writer or editor- IMO

JNT outstayed his welcome and his involvement was over the top and his taste horrible.

Thats it really(they got the job coz not many wanted to do it)

[Sulp Niar]

"Taste was horrible"

...? Scott, you have a picture of Colin with his coat on in your avatar.

Do we have to take sides? Their fallout in Trial doesn't have any real impact on their stuff beforehand; yes, there were disagreements, but Saward himself has said it was no more than any producer and script editor tend to have - that was just exaggerated later on.

I think Eric Saward was brilliant for Doctor Who. After the dark gothic trappings (brilliant though they were) of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes period, the show needed something light and breezy and imaginative with the Williams era. After they that, we had a brief bit of science before we leapt off into the depressing, oppressive nastiness of Saward's Doctor Who.

Saward's universe is a universe where nothing is sacred. The companions: Adric ends up killing himself, and Turlough tries to kill the Doctor. The Doctor: Davison fails, finally redeems himself, and turns into a barstard to compensate (albeit a very Doctorish one; a verbose, insanely multicoloured, over-the-top one). Monsters: they are either sculpted in new, even more horrific ways (Davros becomes nastier, in the same way that the Daleks became nastier when 'Genesis' came round after a few lacklustre Pertwee efforts), or deliberately shown up to be idiots (the Sontarans - Holmes himself portrayed them as such).

Basically, whether you like the idea of Doctor Who being so nasty and violent is your own call. But I wouldn't call it "crap" because of it; flawed, at times (like all previous eras were), but hardly "crap". It was often consistent, often very clever, and very often interesting.

And it wasn't all dark; I should point out that Davison's Doctor was the nicest of them all - though he had his moments too; killing the Master in 'Planet of Fire' for instance. Ironically, the Master himself came back represented as a joke in his very next story, which shows how Saward, like Doctor Who as a whole, was content to both take the concepts he juggled in a serious and silly way at the same time. Black comedy, for instance, is at a high in this period. Anyway, Colin's Doctor isn't fashionably "dark" either; for all of his brutish violence, uncaring attitude and pomposity, he's also strangely eloquent, and his coat isn't something that a self-confessed dark character would wear. If you want that, look at the Valeyard, or Jack in Torchwood. Or even the Ninth Doctor, or the 'Shalka' Doctor. That's dark. Colin isn't dark, he's nasty and yet - dare I say it - loveable.

'Sides, I'm not convinced he was the meanest. Troughton, the "clown", was prepared to sacrifice Jamie in 'The Power of the Daleks', and his actions in 'The Tomb of the Cybermen' are rather nasty if you step back and look at them. Colin, for all of his bickering and occasional disregard of Peri, was never prepared to sacrifice her life. Ever.

Personally, I think Saward's era is brilliant - and eclectic too. This is the man who took on 'Kinda' - and for those who think it verges on pretentious, keep in mind that it was Saward who made it as coherent as it is, and Christopher Bailey actually thought it was too simplistic! 'The Visitation' is hardly the darkest story known to man either, and that's written by Saward; then there's 'The Mark of the Rani'.

Of course, there was a little something called "Trial of a Time Lord" where nearly everything went pear-shaped. And of course, for both Saward and JNT, this was the low point of their run - the point where none of them really cared anymore, not even Saward himself. The end result isn't that spectacular. But to be honest, the fact that we can even find minor bits of merit in them - the Valeyard, unexplained and ranty as he is, is fascinating. And that's not something you can say of other terrible Doctor Who stories.

I won't go on from there, because this thread's "JNT vs Saward", meaning that I shouldn't rant further about the 80s. But if that's the extent of the period we're talking about, then JNT hardly stayed on for too long. It was Saward that stayed on for too long, and that's only because he obviously believed he'd still be able to salvage Season 23 (before they knew they were allowed to make it). As it stands, he couldn't, and he left.

So JNT's involvement in Saward's era? Well. I guess it comes down to taste, as Scott himself pointed at. Personally I think Colin's coat is deliberately tasteless (I know, Scott, I know your counter-argument and I agree with it; I'm talking about the idea of the coat at heart); but I love it. I also love the celery on Davison's coat. And the question marks? Oh, they're shit. Obviously. But hardly the biggest distraction in the world - I must admit quite freely that it isn't until they're pointed out to me, or I get into another rant about the 80s (er, I seem to do that a lot), that I notice them. The celery's far more noticeable. And as I said... I love it!

The costumes-as-clothes thing is a bit silly, yes. But are we really that petty that this is the only thing that concerns us when watching the show? Or, more importantly, the show that is renowned for bad effects? Bad effects and bad (or rather, used-far-too-often) costumes. That's a minor touch. The costumes of the guest characters are far more important; and I love and dislike these as frequently as I do the costumes in every other era. Hey, that's just how it is. You can't strike gold every time - this is a show that flits around the universe and timelines with impossible speed. It takes most production teams ages to come up with the perfect costume for a single film, so the fact that DW does it so often - and the fact that they actually get it right more often than not - is commendable.

So what about JNT and his involvement in the stories? As has been pointed out - see 'The Leisure Hive' DVD's special features - JNT was clueless on story. But who cares? JNT wasn't the script editor, Saward was (and before you say it - Saward knew how to structure a story. I pointed out beforehand that 'Kinda' is only coherent as a story because Saward was involved. And 'Revelation' isn't poorly structured, it's just different). So criticising JNT for being a bad storyteller is like criticising Barry Letts for chanting too loudly in his Buddhist sessions - neither have anything to do with the stories we're presented with (Letts, for those who don't know, is often linked to his Buddhism, but it's hard to see how the themes of Buddhism impacted on more than maybe two of Pertwee's stories).

I'm at risk of getting ahead of myself here - because I'm not supposed to be talking about the era post-Trial - but JNT's greatest asset was being accomodating. He could rope in guest stars - often brilliantly, too (Beryl Reid may not be a conventional choice in 'Earthshock'... but she's brilliant! What's-her-name's appearance as Kara in 'Revelation' is astoundingly good [and better than her 'City of Death' cameo]!). He knew how visuals could drive stories onwards - something that Kubrick perfected - within the limits of the ever-increasing budget he was working with ('The Leisure Hive's visuals look crap today, but they're brilliant storytelling devices; storytelling in the sense of communicating a world to us). He knew how to rope in brilliant people to work on the series - Peter Davison, who never delivers anything but a faultless performance (not even Troughton managed that!), and Colin Baker, who is controversial and hammy but brilliantly inhabits his character. Best of all, though, JNT could work with numerous script editors' differing views of the Whoniverse; he let Saward do what he wanted, he let Cartmel do what he wanted (oops, getting ahead of myself), he let Bidmead do what he wanted. That's hardly a problem, either; for all that Hinchcliffe talks about getting "power" into his stories, it's obvious that it was Holmes who drove the period, and the same is true of the Williams/Adams relationship (which Williams, bless him, failed to understand more often than JNT failed to understand his script editors' visions), and the same is also true of Verity Lambert and David Whitaker (look at the way he went in and scripted 'The Edge of Destruction', kicking down the doors of character development and shoving his version of how the characters worked in the faces of both the producer and the actors [who actually felt the script didn't suit their own visions of it. No offence to 'em, but who cares?]).

Diversity is key to DW, key to what makes it special, key to what keeps it running, all of these years later, in so many forms. And other than Lambert and... er, whoever was in charge during Season 3... you can't find someone who adopted diversity more than JNT.

[SharazJek]

Really nicely put Sulp!

Moral of the story.....celebrate the differences rather than focus on the negatives.

[Sulp Niar]

Exactly! I rambled on, but you just have the best quote EVER in relation to Doctor Who. I need to use that.

[FredDag]

I love the stories from the 80's, I think it's mostly the music that puts me off these days. Can the be re dubbed?

[Sulp Niar]

That wouldn't happen, but sometimes the mixing is deliberately changed instead; on the 'Ghost Light' DVD, for instance, composer Ayres (I forgot his first name! Argh, sorry, man!) pointed out that he'd toned down and quietened down the music overall. And I think 'Fenric' had a complete revamp.

Beyond that... probably not.

[Skippy]

I loved the 80's as much as the 70's, and 60's.

I don't care about any particular era. They are all good. My only beef with the 80's is some of the music, especially in McCoy's early episodes. When Mark Ayres (their's his first name) took over as composer the music went back to a better standard. I think the music in Davidson's era was ,as whole, good.

I love Colin Baker. He has always been my favourite doctor. People argue that he was the most violent of the doctors. But remember, Pertwee was always doing his Venusia Akido. Just because Colin's Doctor would fire a weapon if he had to, doesn't make him violent. He's not the first Doctor to do it. I belive his coat was deliberate choice as it was an outward display of HIS personality.

JNT vs Saward, they had their ups and their downs. Some people didn't like some of thier stories, some did. It's no differet from previous era's or even todays. Take "Love and Mosters". A lot of people hate it. Some love it. But that's getting into the new series.

It's easy to use hind sight and say that was bad, or they should have done this, shouldn't have doe that etc. I here a lot of complaints about wobbly sets, bad Special Effects, crap acting. But if youi actually watch the enitre era, thier is not much wobbly sets, most of the acting is good (no different then any show) and the special effects were pretty good, cosidering the budget they had. But what made the show good was how it could tell a story. Which it did brilliatly. Some of the best stories come from the JNT/Saward era. I personally love how in Earthshock the Doctor was able to beat the Cyberme yet still fail when it came to Adric. Killing Adric off was a bold move, I know he wasn't the most popular of compaions and he was leaving anyway but none of the Doctor's companions had died since Katirina in "The Dalek's Masterplan", and it's debatable if you consider her as a compaion. By Killing Adric, instead of the usual happy ending, eg compaion falling in love, it showed that the Doctor wasn't infallible and although he might save the day he can't save everyone. The way Tegan left was unusual too. She didn't leave on a happy ending either, it was a emotional and slightly deppersing exit.

Well I've think my two cents has turned into a bit of a ramble.

[Sulp Niar]

Very much agreed; it's a very experimental and brave era in a lot of ways (though I think Hartnell's is still the most experimental and brave of all). It falters, of course, but the ambition is there - and that's always what has made Doctor Who a special show, that it tries, sometimes fails, but keeps on trying. It wouldn't have run for so long if it hadn't, really.

And; thanks, haha. I can't believe I forgot Mark Ayres' name, yeesh. *is ashamed* And yeah, the music under Ayres was brilliant (though I loved Dominic Glynn's score for 'Survival'. And I'll bet I got that name wrong, too).

The whole wobbly sets thing amazes me; it's one of those things non-fans seem to sneer at the show with ("It had wobbly sets"), which is a) a silly criticism and b) actually wrong. The sets didn't actually wobble that often at all, from memory; I can only really think of the door in 'Warriors of the Deep', and that's just a door.

By the way; for those who haven't, I suggest watching the Room 101 thing on Youtube where Michael Grade shows off his dislike of DW (just type "room 101 doctor who"). I only saw it the other day, and - like the JNT bashing that sometimes goes on - I thought maybe fans were giving him a bit too much. Wrong. He's so exceedingly arrogant in the segment, laughing sneerily at what-is-easily-the-worst-moment in the entire show (chosen as if it was representative of the show), and worse still, it was his fault that the budgets weren't big enough in the first place! The moment in question was the infamous Ingrid-Pitt-kicks-a-Myrka bit from 'Warriors of the Deep', the story that - as the extras on the DVD reveal - really did get a hell of a bad time from the BBC during production.

[Skippy]

Persoally I loved Warriors of the Deep. I've always been facinated by the cocept of the Silurians/Sea Devils. I mean the Daleks are my favourite, followed by the Cybermen. But the Silurians have always had an appeal because they weren't alien in the sense of extra terristrial, but were the original sentient species of Earth. I would love for them to be back in the new series. Bloodtide was a good audio, but I won't hold out hope that RTD will bring them back.

I found the story to be good, with a few flaws. But production wise it did suffer. But if you can look past the cheap murker and appreciate the narrative then it should be all right.

And you're right the sets didn't wobble. I have been working my way through the 5th, 6th and 7th Doctor serials over the last few weeks (not much to do on your down time when you're deployed) and the only scene that comes to mind is door you already mentioned.