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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2024 13:26:47 GMT
Even making the companions more feminine and "wimpy" could have worked in the hands of a decent script editor who didn't constantly fall back on "make Doctor and companion argue for no reason" scenes And sorry Burrun, Cartmel was crap. Any script editor who removes important narrative information which affects the stories flow and coherence as Cartmel frequently did, is not suitable as script editor, no matter how good the script is that they are butchering. Dragonfire, Happiness Patrol, Silver Nemesis, Ghostlight and Curse of Fenric all suffer from Cartmels idiotic script editing where the narrative is either reduced down to people babbling cryptic nonsense or a cast of characters all soul searching and having mental breakdowns, or are running around without rhyme or reason or any kind of clear motivations for doing so. I have to agree. I really love the vibe of these stories, which was no doubt influenced by Cartmel, but the actual narratives are choppy and often nonsensical. |
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Post by burrunjor on Feb 11, 2024 11:23:37 GMT
Even making the companions more feminine and "wimpy" could have worked in the hands of a decent script editor who didn't constantly fall back on "make Doctor and companion argue for no reason" scenes Tegan channeling the Mara, frequently picking the Doctor up on his morality, showing Lieutenant Scott and his cowardly demoralised troops how to kill cybermen, or Peri bashing the brains out of an aggressive mutant is "wimpy"? Admittedly there wasn't a lot Saward could do with "scweam and scweam again" Elizabeth Violet Bott in the TARDIS in her lolita wear, but then again I doubt ANY script editor could have worked their way around that one. And sorry Burrun, Cartmel was crap. Any script editor who removes important narrative information which affects the stories flow and coherence as Cartmel frequently did, is not suitable as script editor, no matter how good the script is that they are butchering. Dragonfire, Happiness Patrol, Silver Nemesis, Ghostlight and Curse of Fenric all suffer from Cartmels idiotic script editing where the narrative is either reduced down to people babbling cryptic nonsense or a cast of characters all soul searching and having mental breakdowns, or are running around without rhyme or reason or any kind of clear motivations for doing so. Tegan was before JNT's hatred of feminists really took route on the show (also she wasn't Saward's companion to be fair, but Bidmeads.) It may have been JNT's bad relationship with her that inspired his hatred of feminists. I admit I was too hard on Janet Fielding in the past circa 2017 when the insane culture war crap in DW fandom got out of control and she called any critic of Jodie a sad basement dwelling loser. She is a good actress, as seen with her stellar performance as the Mara, but she has been very nasty to JNT and the fans over the years. Whilst I am biased, her and Sophie are kind of like night and day in terms of appreciating what the show did for their lives. Hell even her and Nicola Bryant are like night and day, and Nicola has FAR more reason to be genuinely bitter at DW, given it did waste her acting talents in a lot of stories like Timelash. As you say Janet got to shoot Cybermen, have showdowns with the Master, and play a cool dual role in two stories, one of which she was essentially the main villain, whilst poor Nicola got chained to a wall and had a giant penis with teeth menace her in Timelash, and spent many stories with creeps perving over her from Jek to Jobel. Also her career suffered for a long while because people thought she was just the wimpy damsel. To be honest though everyone in 80s Who's career bar Peter Davison and Bonnie Langford and Sophie herself who were all too well established, suffered because of the way the show was treated by the BBC and the media. (Well Sophie more carved a niche for herself in sci fi and children's tv afterwards rather than being established before hand.) Janet should be bitter at that though, rather than reinforcing the bad treatment the show got. Also on top of that JNT was more of a genuine asshole to Nicola and Sophie too. He bullied Sophie throughout all of season 25 until Greatest Show in the Galaxy in really quite spiteful, mean ways and spat in Nicola's face, but I've never heard any stories like that ironically from Janet herself, yet she still has the harshest view of him? This is what TV Tropes said about Janet, now TV Tropes is hardly the most trustworthy news source, but it does seem to match a lot of her opinions on the commentary's and at events and even on social media. Since leaving Doctor Who, she has often been critical of the show during her time on it, frequently complaining about the way she and her fellow companions were treated. This reached its highpoint with a notorious on-stage outburst at Panopticon 1993 when she told a room full of fans that any show that treated its female characters as badly as Doctor Who did deserved to have been cancelled.
She has also blamed Doctor Who for killing her acting career; having achieved limited success in the years since leaving the show
Again ironically she is helping to reinforce the views of the very people who would have f*cked up her career by making DW a bad stain on your record to tv execs. Meanwhile as for Andrew Cartmel's stories being hard to follow, I'm sorry but I've never got that? I'm not trying to act all smart and anything, but what is there that is hard to follow about Ghostlight? Maybe I've been pushing my head canon into it to fill in gaps, but as far as I can tell from Ghostlight it goes like this. The ship was sent there to catalogue all life, but Light got confused by the process of evolution and eventually went to sleep. The ship remained buried for millions of years, with Chase mansion being built over it, until one member of the crew, Josiah escaped and then went through numerous different forms until he became a human to blend in. He also freed some other specimens on the ship, such as the Neanderthal man, Nimrod to help him take over Chase Mansion to make it his base. He then put into action a plan to assassinate the Queen and take over the Empire, and captured, and brainwashed numerous people to help him do that like the big game hunter and the mother and daughter. The Doctor arrives at the mansion and having no other way to stop Josiah taking over the earth, frees Control, another part of the ship, who in turn wakes up Light, who the Doctor hopes can sort out this mess, but Light goes insane at how much everything has changed and decides to just wipe out humanity. The Doctor tricks him with all the mythological creatures he supposedly missed, which Light can't comprehend because of his lack of imagination, and has a breakdown and dies, whilst Josiah is overpowered by Control who takes the ship out of there. Light however isn't completely dead. His essence swirls around the house, which is abandoned and left to rot after all the deaths for 100 years, until Ace as a teenage tearaway (after her Pakistani friend's car was bombed by Tommy Robinson types of the day,) stumbled upon the house. She could sense Light's dark presence and was so scared, thinking it was a ghost she burned the house down, which ironically is what peaks the Doctors interest to travel to just before it was abandoned to find out what happened? ( PS is it the same friend from Survival that is trapped in the Cheetah planet? I hope so as that would tie in well with Survival. I also loved her, she was gorgeous. Her nose was absolutely spectacular. I so would have made that actress the new companion after Sophie decided to leave, though as a different character, as we'd already had one troubled Perivale girl LOL.) Anyway as far as I can see that's the plot and it was all made perfectly clear to me in the story. There's maybe a few gaps about how did Josiah get all of these people together for his plan like the mother and daughter, but even then since he is an alien with wealth and power it's not so beyond the realms of possibility. Fenric I think is a bit more shaky in terms of its plot than Ghostlight. For instance, it's not made clear if the slime from the earth was created by Fenric, or if Millington himself whipped it together from resources on Fenric's bidding. Also Millington goes from being a fanatic for the British empire to someone who wants the whole world, including Britain to perish a bit too quickly, whilst Ace bonds a bit too quickly to the baby. Her saying I'll always love you after just a few days does feel a bit melodramatic. Also Ace's whole flirting scene is a bit..... odd. Whilst I get the whole wanting to show she's become a woman thing now, why do they have her talk about storms and weird supernatural shit? It makes it look like Ace is possessed by Fenric for a bit, as she seems to know more about what's going on here when she talks to this guy, who also seems to know more about it for a mook than either the Doctor or Millington do, and then it's never mentioned again. Granted a lot of these problems are fixed in the extended cut and overall they don't weigh the story down, but I think Ghostlight is one of these stories where fandom has just kind of piled in on it, accepted a narrative about it and that's that. Like the opposite of Invasion of the Dinosaurs where they've accepted a narrative it's a nuanced classic, that's let down by the Dinosaurs, when it's absolute bollocks all around. |
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Post by RobFilth on Feb 17, 2024 16:46:41 GMT
I'd argue only Ghost Light really suffers from lack of information. The other stories are easy enough to follow. Dragonfire, Happiness Patrol, Silver Nemesis, Ghostlight and Curse of Fenric all have bits in them where the narrative is choppy/doesn't make sense, or flow naturally. In fact it could also be argued that Battlefield is another one considering a lot of the characters in that run around without any rhyme or reason, or start babbling incoherent stupid nonsense too. |
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Post by rushy on Feb 17, 2024 16:58:26 GMT
I'd have to rewatch them, but I don't remember finding any of those hard to follow, except for Ghost Light. Fenric in particular is my favourite McCoy story.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2024 22:22:36 GMT
I'd argue Ghost Light falls completely flat on its face. It goes on like one of those experimental films that thinks it's cleverer than it really is and just ends up being plodding and confusing.
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Post by RobFilth on Feb 22, 2024 10:10:51 GMT
I'd have to rewatch them, but I don't remember finding any of those hard to follow, except for Ghost Light. Fenric in particular is my favourite McCoy story. It's not that they're particularly difficult to follow, it's that the narrative is choppy and appears to have scenes missing so the flow is not cohesive and that the characters appear to talk in a cryptic manner rather than naturally. It's like Cartmels rearranged certain pages of the script in the wrong order. For example, how does the Doctor teleport up the top of the stairs from the dining hall in "Ghostlight" after the dining hall scene? Why does Ace jump head first fully clothed into freezing cold sea water at the end of Fenric? Why does the Doctor dangle for no damn reason on the end of his umbrella in Dragonfire? How do the Doctor and Ace teleport away from security in "Silver Nemesis"?(Yes, I'm aware of the extended edition, but why were those vital scenes cut and the stupid padding rubbish with the skinheads and that stupid yank woman in the car who picks up Lady Peinfort left in?) Why does Peter Bottomly start gabbling nonsense on top of the tunnel to the underwater spaceship in "Battlefield"? When the Brig says, "Better get back to the pub" after an attack by knights, why? What for? What is the motive for doing so? Why does he have an idiotic chummy chat with Morgaine in the cemetery, particularly straight after she's brought down and destroyed his bloody prized precious helicopter? "How goes the day?" It's sheer f*cking nonsense. Why do they all start running around without rhyme and reason on the cheetah planet in "Survival"? How does the fighting on the surface affect the break up of the planet? Things just "happen" for no damn reason. No logic, no motive or rationality, no damn sense. The Doctor of old throughout incarnations 1-6 always solved narrative problems via a logical procedural process of evidence gathering and speculation, via a process of gradual elimination of differing clue/theories to the solution. This character trait goes completely out of the window with Cartmel where the Doctor suddenly inherits stupid previously unexplained superpowers such as a booming voice of command(Battlefield), one touch KO's(Battlefield/Survival), and powers of suggestion without ANY prior hypnosis(Happiness Patrol), and problems are solved via either magic wand waving, parlour tricks or via legendary unseen memory trace information(Curse of Fenric/Silver Nemesis) I don't think any of these inherent problems are those of the scripts being submitted(many of which during Cartmels reign are highly imaginative), but purely down to the completely inept and idiotic way Cartmel script-edited them. I mean what kind of idiot tries to turn Doctor Who into a completely unrelated programme like The Prisoner?(which was highly over rated for the most part anyway) He thinks he's being clever by eliminating pages from a script which give a cohesive naturalistic narrative flow, but he's not. Infact, it ironic that a logic problem appears to immobilise and paralyse Fenric(how though?), because I think the same problem affected Cartmel too seeing as he could never apply any damned sense to his script editing. I think Curse of Fenric was his cryptic biopic about him bloody self! Cartmel was completely unsuitable for the job, at least Saward could manage half cohesive scripts even if he did have obsessions with cynical mercenary characters, high bodycounts and having the Doctor as an outside or secondary character. |
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Post by Cherry Pepsi Maxil on Feb 22, 2024 10:55:36 GMT
I'd have to rewatch them, but I don't remember finding any of those hard to follow, except for Ghost Light. Fenric in particular is my favourite McCoy story. It's not that they're particularly difficult to follow, it's that the narrative is choppy and appears to have scenes missing so the flow is not cohesive and that the characters appear to talk in a cryptic manner rather than naturally. It's like Cartmels rearranged certain pages of the script in the wrong order. For example, how does the Doctor teleport up the top of the stairs from the dining hall in "Ghostlight" after the dining hall scene? Why does Ace jump head first fully clothed into freezing cold sea water at the end of Fenric? Why does the Doctor dangle for no damn reason on the end of his umbrella in Dragonfire? How do the Doctor and Ace teleport away from security in "Silver Nemesis"?(Yes, I'm aware of the extended edition, but why were those vital scenes cut and the stupid padding rubbish with the skinheads and that stupid yank woman in the car who picks up Lady Peinfort left in?) Why does Peter Bottomly start gabbling nonsense on top of the tunnel to the underwater spaceship in "Battlefield"? When the Brig says, "Better get back to the pub" after an attack by knights, why? What for? What is the motive for doing so? Why does he have an idiotic chummy chat with Morgaine in the cemetery, particularly straight after she's brought down and destroyed his bloody prized precious helicopter? "How goes the day?" It's sheer f*cking nonsense. Why do they all start running around without rhyme and reason on the cheetah planet in "Survival"? How does the fighting on the surface affect the break up of the planet? Things just "happen" for no damn reason. No logic, no motive or rationality, no damn sense. The Doctor of old throughout incarnations 1-6 always solved narrative problems via a logical procedural process of evidence gathering and speculation, via a process of gradual elimination of differing clue/theories to the solution. This character trait goes completely out of the window with Cartmel where the Doctor suddenly inherits stupid previously unexplained superpowers such as a booming voice of command(Battlefield), one touch KO's(Battlefield/Survival), and powers of suggestion without ANY prior hypnosis(Happiness Patrol), and problems are solved via either magic wand waving, parlour tricks or via legendary unseen memory trace information(Curse of Fenric/Silver Nemesis) I don't think any of these inherent problems are those of the scripts being submitted(many of which during Cartmels reign are highly imaginative), but purely down to the completely inept and idiotic way Cartmel script-edited them. I mean what kind of idiot tries to turn Doctor Who into a completely unrelated programme like The Prisoner?(which was highly over rated for the most part anyway) He thinks he's being clever by eliminating pages from a script which give a cohesive naturalistic narrative flow, but he's not. Infact, it ironic that a logic problem appears to immobilise and paralyse Fenric(how though?), because I think the same problem affected Cartmel too seeing as he could never apply any damned sense to his script editing. I think Curse of Fenric was his cryptic biopic about him bloody self! Cartmel was completely unsuitable for the job, at least Saward could manage half cohesive scripts even if he did have obsessions with cynical mercenary characters, high bodycounts and having the Doctor as an outside or secondary character. I thought Ace's swim in the water was like a baptism for her. The Doctor also doesn't come from upstairs in Ghost Light to meet Ace at the stairs. He comes out of the room next to the dining hall after he followed Josiah in there. |
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Post by burrunjor on Feb 22, 2024 11:40:29 GMT
I'd have to rewatch them, but I don't remember finding any of those hard to follow, except for Ghost Light. Fenric in particular is my favourite McCoy story. It's not that they're particularly difficult to follow, it's that the narrative is choppy and appears to have scenes missing so the flow is not cohesive and that the characters appear to talk in a cryptic manner rather than naturally. It's like Cartmels rearranged certain pages of the script in the wrong order. For example, how does the Doctor teleport up the top of the stairs from the dining hall in "Ghostlight" after the dining hall scene? Why does Ace jump head first fully clothed into freezing cold sea water at the end of Fenric? Why does the Doctor dangle for no damn reason on the end of his umbrella in Dragonfire? How do the Doctor and Ace teleport away from security in "Silver Nemesis"?(Yes, I'm aware of the extended edition, but why were those vital scenes cut and the stupid padding rubbish with the skinheads and that stupid yank woman in the car who picks up Lady Peinfort left in?) Why does Peter Bottomly start gabbling nonsense on top of the tunnel to the underwater spaceship in "Battlefield"? When the Brig says, "Better get back to the pub" after an attack by knights, why? What for? What is the motive for doing so? Why does he have an idiotic chummy chat with Morgaine in the cemetery, particularly straight after she's brought down and destroyed his bloody prized precious helicopter? "How goes the day?" It's sheer f*cking nonsense. Why do they all start running around without rhyme and reason on the cheetah planet in "Survival"? How does the fighting on the surface affect the break up of the planet? Things just "happen" for no damn reason. No logic, no motive or rationality, no damn sense. The Doctor of old throughout incarnations 1-6 always solved narrative problems via a logical procedural process of evidence gathering and speculation, via a process of gradual elimination of differing clue/theories to the solution. This character trait goes completely out of the window with Cartmel where the Doctor suddenly inherits stupid previously unexplained superpowers such as a booming voice of command(Battlefield), one touch KO's(Battlefield/Survival), and powers of suggestion without ANY prior hypnosis(Happiness Patrol), and problems are solved via either magic wand waving, parlour tricks or via legendary unseen memory trace information(Curse of Fenric/Silver Nemesis) I don't think any of these inherent problems are those of the scripts being submitted(many of which during Cartmels reign are highly imaginative), but purely down to the completely inept and idiotic way Cartmel script-edited them. I mean what kind of idiot tries to turn Doctor Who into a completely unrelated programme like The Prisoner?(which was highly over rated for the most part anyway) He thinks he's being clever by eliminating pages from a script which give a cohesive naturalistic narrative flow, but he's not. Infact, it ironic that a logic problem appears to immobilise and paralyse Fenric(how though?), because I think the same problem affected Cartmel too seeing as he could never apply any damned sense to his script editing. I think Curse of Fenric was his cryptic biopic about him bloody self! Cartmel was completely unsuitable for the job, at least Saward could manage half cohesive scripts even if he did have obsessions with cynical mercenary characters, high bodycounts and having the Doctor as an outside or secondary character. Maxil covered the bit in Ghostlight. Ace jumps into the water because it is meant to be her overcoming her fear of the water and growing up in general. Her being fully clothed is just because she was wanting to do it then, and as it's a family show we're not going to have her strip down. Dragonfire is a famous mistake, but all eras have genuine mistakes. The Brig doesn't have a chummy chat with Morgaine meanwhile? He threatens her with a gun and asks her to hand herself over. She refuses. She is a bit friendly with him, but it is only out of mutual respect as a warrior, and she outright says she'll kill him when she sees him again. How goes the day is just a joke on the Brig's part, like when he says good to see you again to the Master before punching him. The Cheetah planet is linked to the beings who live on it. It's a sentient planet that contains great unknown energy. Eons ago a group of humans arrived there in the hopes of studying it, but they became enslaved by it and turned into savage animal people to prevent them from exploiting its people. However it was a two way street and as they were now linked to planet, their psyche started to drag it down too. The Doctor and the Master meanwhile being Time Lords have stronger minds which affect the planet more drastically and quickly. Granted we are never told how this planet came to exist but that is kind of the point of it, that it's this crazy, borderline supernatural force. The Doctors one touch KO that he uses in just two stories is a reference to Venusian karate. Jon Pertwee used that all the time in exactly the same way. You could argue that it is inconsistent as other Doctors didn't use it, but that's really on Pertwee not McCoy. If anything his era made it look a bit less stupid that no other Doctor would use that incredibly useful form of fighting in a scrap. McCoy also doesn't stop the soldiers from fighting through a magic power in Battlefield, whilst in Happiness Patrol he simply calls the guards bluff, rather than using any magic power of suggestion. I'd argue that McCoy's Doctor was more Holmesian, working out clues in the background like in Survival. Remembrance, Silver Nemesis etc. |
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Post by Cherry Pepsi Maxil on Feb 22, 2024 13:14:13 GMT
Personally, I think the McCoy era is easily the best of the 80s. You can say what you want about it, but you can't say there isn't any variety to the stories. You've got the lovecraftian vibes of Fenric, the overtly camp satire of Happiness Patrol and the mythical lore of Battlefield. I know there's a supernatural theme running through Nemesis-Survival, but the a lot of the stories stand out from one another. Even though people dislike Delta, the story of bounty hunters and princesses in sunny 50s Wales is a lot more creative in my opinon than running through bland cave sets like in Mindwarp.
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