Biggest mistakes of Classic Who

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Jan 10, 2023 11:54:20 GMT rushy said:

Compared to all the blunders made in the new series, Classic Doctor Who can sometimes seem like a golden era where nothing went wrong. But it has its own share of faults. What are your least favourite aspects about Classic Who? 

Here's some of mine: 

*Davros - He works wonderfully in Genesis of the Daleks, but all of his appearances after that grate badly on me. All the nuance is lost, and he just seems to be there so the Doctor could have someone to talk to in Dalek stories... which is exactly why Nation brought him back, as he thought that Daleks talking to one another was boring. I do NOT agree with this at all, I thought the intelligent Daleks in the 60s were very interesting and much more menacing than their later "exterminate, exterminate, exterminate" appearances. 

*The Fifth Doctor - Davison will be the first to admit that he was too inexperienced. For a lot of his era, he looks desperate for direction and comes off as being bland and feckless. I love the sarcastic, devil-may-care groove he eventually finds, but it takes two entire seasons to get there. 

*The Sixth Doctor - I think Colin is a lovely man and always had his heart in the right place (and I'm not blaming him for the costume or the writing), but as time goes on, I've liked his cartoonish acting style less and less. Tom was naturally insane and had this bohemian charisma. Colin puts so much energy into blustering and raving. It always feels, for the lack of a better word, performative.

*Anthony Ainley's Master - His appearance, primarily. It draws too many unfavorable comparisons to Roger Delgado. The character also became a caricature for a lot of Ainley's run. 

*Not bringing back the Monk - I feel like there's so many more stories that could've been told with this character, both comedic and dramatic. He's not explicitly evil, which makes him more interesting than most foes the Doctor faces. 

*Not letting Steven leave in The Massacre: It's a far better departure for him than The Savages. Having him immediately return feels like a massive cop-out. 

*Base Under Siege: Although I love Troughton's run, the amount of times this format gets used is a little ridiculous, and the show feels kind of like a shallow comic strip during his run. 

*Dropping the tone of season 7: I still want the UNIT family of course, but they could've kept the grittiness at least partially. 

*Kamelion: Why bother with the robot prop? Just get different actors to play him and use silver makeup. Or don't add him at all. It was such an obviously bad move, especially since they gave Kamelion next to no personality. 

*The continuity in seasons 20-22: It's ridiculously lore-heavy, and I'd argue the main reason why Dr Who's reputation began to deteriorate. The writing just wasn't up to par with the easily accessible Tom Baker years. 

I enjoy Davison. He's actually a very strong actor and his line delivery is often great. He tends to overact when he's in pain (like most Doctors do to be pair), but when he's giving a speech or doing an emotional scene he's very good.

[burrunjor]

Mar 19, 2023 10:44:57 GMT rushy said:

I'm convinced that Satanic Rites of Dracula was a rewritten Pertwee serial.

Probably, as it was by Don Houghton. 

Still the merging of that style with vampire fiction ended up being very original. 

Satanic Rites of Dracula is really a template for the likes of Buffy, Supernatural, Blade, Being Human and Angel. I'm not saying they were all inspired by it. In fact probably only Being Human was, but it was doing things they were decades earlier, and should get the credit at least for being ahead of its time that way, but ironically it gets mocked for all those things! 

Let's see. 

A line of vampire hunters that stretches back through the ages, the latest of whom are a young woman and a crusty old English guy. This movie and its forebear, Dracula AD !972 were the first movies to feature a Van Helsing family, which would not only become a stable of other versions of that character, but again inspire other lineages of vampire hunters, either families or chosen ones like the Slayers and the Winchesters. Similarly these lineages are often represented by a crusty old guy and a young woman, from Quincy Harker and Rachel Van Helsing, to Mary Winchester and her father, to finally Buffy and Giles. 

A vampire, or supernatural creature that in the modern day poses as the head of a company, and uses his connections and wealth and status as a big shot to cover up killings and gain access to victims and has human servants running around with guns? Not at all like Wolfram and Hart, the Mayor, vampire kings like Herrick in Being Human, the vampire nation in Blade etc. D D Denham is the precursor to all of them. He wasn't a vampire who skulked around in an old crypt, or was just a weird nobleman who went after someone he was in love with and was easily hunted. He was fully integrated and protected by the law and had member the elite dancing to his every whim. He also served as a frightening metaphor for how predators can escape justice at the top of the society, not just through their connections, but also because people often don't care about their victims. IE these young women who are viewed as easy slappers asking for it, and who go on the missing persons list quietly with no one giving a shit. 

We see all of these things pop up with the Mayor, with the Wolfram and Hart, even Russell Winters the first villain in Angel, is basically just D D Denham again. 

An ancient vampire that plans to bring about the apocalypse in modern day. Lot's of people rip on the movie for this, saying it's absurd, but it's not. To start with it's made clear that Dracula does not want to live anymore. He wants to kill himself, but fittingly rather than just go quietly into the night, a creature of evil and hate like him wants to go out in one last blaze of glory. 

Second the idea of a vampire or a demon wanting to destroy the world, or bring about armaggeddon is again something we have seen in Buffy, Blade, Supernatural, Angel, Being Human dozens of times. All of those series are praised, yet this one gets singled out as being so ridiculous for that reason? Some of their end of the world scenario's make even less sense. Look at Buffy season 2 finale? Angel's plane makes no sense. That's still a classic story for other reasons, but still his basic plan is far more nonsensical than Dracula's. 

Similarly the idea of a vampire using modern technology to destroy the world, rather than ancient spells is also inspired and something that pops up in all of these modern day, more respected works. It's a scary thought that things that we think are making our lives better are actually making it easier for the monsters to prey on us. Examples of this include the Crocotta in Supernatural, a monster that can imitate people's voices and in the olden days hid in the bushes and lured people out with calls, but in the modern day can use phones to lure people to remote locations, or the vampires in Blade using genetic engineering to remove their weaknesses, or the Master in Buffy using a machine that drains people's blood out in the Wishverse. 

D. D. Denham using chemical war fare to bring about the ending of the world, rather than a dark spell, is again really the forebear to that type of story. 

Similarly Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, was the first to really merge the vampire and kung fu genres together, and it also was one of the first to play around with the idea of all vampire myths being true, and it also was the first to touch on Chinese myths about the Jiang Shi. 

Not long after it was made in Hong Kong there would be an entire sub genre of kung fu vampire films based on the Jiang Shi myths, that would be huge over there. They would feature a character called "Mr Vampire" who was conceived as being an Eastern Van Helsing. He was played by the late great Lam Ching Ying, who was also marketed as Hong Kong's answer to Peter Cushing. One of the Mr Vampire movies was even directly inspired by Legend. It's plot sees Mr Vampire tackle Dracula, and similarly be out of his depth against the western vampire in much the same way as Cushing was against the Chinese vamps. It was even conceived as a loose sequel to Legend, hence why Dracula's body is found in China! 

Following the success of the Mr Vampire movies, western vampire series would start featuring kung fu vampire films too, like Blade, Buffy, etc. 

Yet in spite of all this, Hammer fans ALWAYS trash Satanic Rites as being the weakest, and Legend not far behind and again they trash them for these reasons! "Oh having Dracula want to end the world was silly, kung fu vampires is desperate." Mark Gatiss in particular said that Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is so bad, there is no way you can defend it, and laughed at it for having Kung Fu Vampires. 

Yeah Gatiss, you're right, Kung fu vampires was a total dead end in that genre. 










I can't think of ANY significant vampire films or tv series that went in that direction?

Now again this doesn't mean you have to like those two movies, but at the very least they should get credit for being ahead of their time. Far more so than sequels like Dracula Has Risen From the Grave or Taste the Blood of Dracula. 

Sadly however once again as these movies came out when Hammer was on its last legs, and no longer thought of as cool, then I feel that fans like Gatiss assume they must have been the worst and trash them more severely, and subsequent generations go into them with a bad attitude and much like Lost in Space they don't get the credit they deserve. 

To be fair I also blame Christopher Lee. He always slagged off Satanic Rites. Sadly as seen with True Who, when you do that, you always end up being seen as poorer. Nigel Kneale is hailed as the father of sci fi on tv, despite very little taking from him, because he bummed about himself. Never be self depricating in the entertainment industry. 

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I don't know if anyone noticed this, but in part four of Earthshock Scott's female crew member is ambushed by a cyberman as they're entering the TARDIS. In the next scene she somehow gets into the TARDIS with two other crew member while one of the other crew members who entered the TARDIS in the previous scene is missing. Every scene after that the woman is nowhere to be seen and it's just the three males.

[rushy]

Lee always spoke in favor of the original novel material. He had very little tolerance for Dracula doing things out of Stoker's world, especially in a modern setting. And I don't blame him. I don't see a lot of merit in Satanic Rites as a movie. Yes, it's an unusual film that tries to go for something different, but it's also very dull. The only times it got interesting for me is when Lee or Cushing were onscreen. Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is so much better. It's colourful and well directed. But even it has its flaws (Lee's absence hurts it, the Dracula character is completely wasted and Cushing feels kind of useless in a kung fu setting).

When it comes to the Hammer Dracula series, I recommend the first three films (including Brides), then skip to Dracula 1972 AD for the comedy gold. And then Legend just for the surrealism and the depiction of Chinese vampire mythology. Everything else is disposable-to-bad.

[rushy]

Mar 19, 2023 11:39:03 GMT @kengrubshaw said:

I enjoy Davison. He's actually a very strong actor and his line delivery is often great. He tends to overact when he's in pain (like most Doctors do to be pair), but when he's giving a speech or doing an emotional scene he's very good.

I will say, I appreciate that he's one of the last actors to really bring a new dimension to the character. Later on, it becomes more like remixes and tribute acts to previous actors. Which is fine, but it's just nice that Davison got to be a bit of a pioneer in terms of the Doctor's characterisation. No one had done a young, gentle Doctor up to that point.

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I find it funny that Grade wanted to kill the show, but inadvertently made it better by trying to sabotage it. Without the hiatus and the behind the scenes fallout we probably would never have got Cartmel, Remembrance, Fenric, McCoy or Sophie.