Doctor Who

[Garwoofoo]

Waaaah, look at this thread, all the way down on page 2

Anyway, last night I watched Robots of Death with the commentary. Bit dry, but enjoyable. One of the best Who stories ever, and some pretty amazing SFX for the time.

Robots of Death was the first "old" Who I watched last year after getting hooked on the new series, and it nearly put me off the whole thing for life. Maybe it was just me but I couldn't follow it - too many identical characters getting bumped off all over the place, and I thought Tom Baker was just annoying. Everyone recommends it, but I really can't see why. I think it looks terrible too.

[Bad Ambassador]

Robots of Death was the first "old" Who I watched last year after getting hooked on the new series, and it nearly put me off the whole thing for life. Maybe it was just me but I couldn't follow it - too many identical characters getting bumped off all over the place, and I thought Tom Baker was just annoying. Everyone recommends it, but I really can't see why. I think it looks terrible too.

I suppose everyone's different... but it's a masterpiece!

[Davros sock drawer]

Robots of Death was the first "old" Who I watched last year after getting hooked on the new series, and it nearly put me off the whole thing for life. Maybe it was just me but I couldn't follow it - too many identical characters getting bumped off all over the place, and I thought Tom Baker was just annoying. Everyone recommends it, but I really can't see why. I think it looks terrible too.

That's crazy talk.

It's beautifully designed, the effete people running the sandminer have all these horrible fashions, so that's what the Robots of the time look like too. Far more original and effective than a bring old minimalist design.

And the model/CSO work is really good for its day, especially the bit where The Doctor and Leela are looking out at the sandstorm coming in. You have to remember, none of that stuff would have been done in post production, it would have been done live in the studio.

And the plot is classic murder mystery stuff, thoroughly gripping all the way through.

If you didn't like that, what old Who do you like?

[Garwoofoo]

If you didn't like that, what old Who do you like?

As I said, the main problem was that I found it impossible to follow. Too many characters and nothing to differentiate between any of them. And from what I remember there was at least one truly laughable cliffhanger where Tom must have realised it was getting near the end of the episode and inexplicably gets himself trapped in a dangerous room for no reason. Start of the next episode, he gets rescued and carries on like nothing happened.

It WAS my first "old" Who (since childhood and vague memories of Davison's Doctor) and in retrospect I'd have been better off picking something simpler. I'm still working my way around people's recommendations but I've thoroughly enjoyed Caves of Androzani, The War Games, The Curse of Fenric, The Five Doctors, Tomb of the Cybermen, the original Daleks story and even the TV Movie. Plus I'm hooked on Big Finish audios, which I actually find easier to enjoy than the TV series - you get the old Doctors and the old format without having to adjust to the cheap production values.

Haven't dared go back to any Tom Baker yet though, I thought he was a bit of a tosser. Any recommendations?

[Bad Ambassador]

And from what I remember there was at least one truly laughable cliffhanger where Tom must have realised it was getting near the end of the episode and inexplicably gets himself trapped in a dangerous room for no reason. Start of the next episode, he gets rescued and carries on like nothing happened.

He goes into that room because there's a dead body in there! Then the door shuts and he gets trapped!

[Davros sock drawer]

Yes, that cliffhanger is pretty sound. He goes into the hopper to investigate the dead body, and he gets rescued because one of the robots picks up a high level of impurity in the ore, and comes to investigate.

It's a pretty simple story to follow IMO. As a murder mystery it's certainly no more complicated than an average episode of Poirrot or Miss Marple.

Garwoofoo, you have messed up!

[Mogster]

I finished watching my way through The Hand of Fear yesterday, which turned out to be a curiously mixed story. The first two episodes were very good, but things started getting a little bit silly in the last two. In response to a potential meltdown of a power plant, the man in charge arranges for a tactical nuclear strike on his own station (whuh?), which everyone hopes to survive by... hiding behind a truck less than a mile away.

Then of course we see Eldrad's true form in the last episdoe, who seems to have stepped straight out of a pantomime. Still, it remained enjoyable all the way through, with both Tom Baker and Liz Sladen being great as usual. The ending is really quite lovely too, setting things up quite nicely for School Reunion.

On a related note, someone's uploaded the entirety of K9 and Company to Youtube. Live the dream!

[Davros sock drawer]

Yes, Hand of Fear gets very tedious towards the end, although of course the final scene redeems it somewhat.

I still think Horror of Fang Rock is pretty unbeatable.

[Bad Ambassador]

It's a pretty simple story to follow IMO. As a murder mystery it's certainly no more complicated than an average episode of Poirrot or Miss Marple.

Yep - there's nothing hard to follow about 'Robots of Death' at all! It's incredibly straightforward, and all the better for it. Robots are having their brains altered so that they go around killing the humans. Fantastic!

Agreed about 'Hand of Fear' - the last episode is one of the most tedious in the show's history. It's a cheapo shambles, only saved by the beautiful last scene.

[So. Angry.]

So. Page 3 of the Sun today.

Footballer's Wives' Zoe Lucker as The Rani?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006350567,,00.html

Has that been mentioned already?

[Davros sock drawer]

I think the Master might be a slightly better choice of character to bring back. In fact, I'd rather see Adric's re-animated corpse than the bloody Rani.

[Boyatsea]

So. Page 3 of the Sun today.

Nah.

[Boyatsea]

The BARB this week released the official audience data for the week ending 9 July, with the climax of Series Two, Doomsday, outperforming just about everything on UK television that wasn't the World Cup. With the football in a category of its own (average audiences up to 14 million viewers, though that doesn't do justice to some of the peak figures and audience shares achieved), only a single episode of "Coronation Street" managed to outrate Doomsday's 8.22 million. That figure, which includes timeshifted viewings, puts "Doctor Who" in fifth place for the week on BBC One (after four World Cup broadcasts), and eighth for the week across UK television, beating all the remaining episodes of "Coronation Street" and every single edition of "EastEnders". Television audiences were down across the board, apart from the football, with nothing but sport, the two soaps and the Dalek-Cybermen war managing more than 5 million viewers, and the ratings have continued to collapse during the warm weather in the couple of weeks since then (notably for "EastEnders" which last week hit a record low below fourmillion viewers). "Doctor Who" is one of a tiny number of programmes to have its audience hold up in the face of soaring temperatures.

Doctor Who finishes its second series with an average audience of 7.71 million viewers, and an average for the Tenth Doctor (including "The Christmas Invasion") of 7.87 million viewers. The average for Series One was 7.95 million, although that started earlier in the year and so suffered less from the large dips in audiences that occur each summer. A direct comparison between the ten episodes in 2005 and the ten episodes in 2006 that were broadcast at the same time of year gives averages of 7.56 million viewers for Series One and 7.68 million viewers for Series Two. "Doomsday," therefore, ended the series with just 400,000 fewer viewers than had watched "New Earth" back in April, contrasting with a drop for "EastEnders" over the thirteen weeks of 2.44 million -- and the final episode "Doomsday" also saw a significant rise in viewers compared to the departure of the Ninth Doctor in June 2005, which was seen by 6.91 million.

The BARB chart for BBC Three has "Doctor Who" or "Doctor Who Confidential" taking four places in the week's top ten. In ninth position is the Wednesday evening repeat of "The Impossible Planet" (385,000), part of that week's complete rerun of Series Two. In third place is the Friday evening repeat of "Army of Ghosts" (574,000) that brought those repeats to a close. At number two is the Sunday evening showing of "Doomsday" (703,000). In first position is that Saturday's "Doctor Who Confidential" - as Outpost Gallifrey previously reported, the unofficial overnights showed audiences peaking at over a million, one of a tiny number of programmes to achieve that for BBC Three. The final BARB figures show an average audience 1,012,000, that figure making "Doctor Who Confidential" number two in the whole Multichannel chart (behind E4's Lost on 1,039,000), a higher rating than the terrestrial channels could achieve for seven of BBC Two's Top 30 and ten of Five's Top 30.

[Bad Ambassador]

Nah.

The Beeb has officially denied it but I don't think there's anything wrong with the concept of the Rani - it's just that she appeared in the show at a time when it was deeply crap in terms of both production and writing. Pip and Jane Baker deserve to have their hands sliced off for the awful dialogue they had everyone spouting in the episodes they penned.

Has no-one mentioned the rumoured 'Sarah Jane Investigates' spin-off destined for CBBC? The Beeb's in-house magazine reported it, apparently.

[Boyatsea]

The Beeb has officially denied it but I don't think there's anything wrong with the concept of the Rani - it's just that she appeared in the show at a time when it was deeply crap in terms of both production and writing. Pip and Jane Baker deserve to have their hands sliced off for the awful dialogue they had everyone spouting in the episodes they penned.

Has no-one mentioned the rumoured 'Sarah Jane Investigates' spin-off destined for CBBC? The Beeb's in-house magazine reported it, apparently.

Yeah. Spotted that. I love Sladen - bring it on.

As for the Rani - nothing wrong with bringing the Rani back, I just don't want Zoe Tucker anywhere near the part.

[Bad Ambassador]

I've never really seen her in anything so can't comment on her acting skillz.

[Boyatsea]

I've never really seen her in anything so can't comment on her acting skillz.

We don't want her. Trust me.

I'd have Jordan over her.

Bring back...

[Bad Ambassador]

Russell's said he regrets killing off Yvonne, because she was so fantastic. Maybe they'll find a way to bring her back - I hope so. She's well up for it too.

[Boyatsea]

Indeed. She's the best non-regular character (there must be a better way of saying that, though I'm buggered if I can think of it right now) there's been in Doc Who since it came back, I think.

My personal favourite, anyway. She played it so well.

[Old Dear's Menu]

So has everyone heard about the extensive Torchwoord reshoots?

Turns out they fucked up the lighting – surprise, surprise -- and the new HD cameras couldn't cope with the low light levels.

Apparently, many scenes need reshooting and the whole chuff up might set the release day back by quite some time.

Bugger.

I was also disappointed to hear that the show might loose some of its darker atmosphere due to the cameras not being able to handle the gloomier lighting setups they had in place.

That's all we need... More white fucking rooms.

[JPickford (retired mod)]

I hate dark stuff. Depressing.

This is very odd though. Doesn't modern equipment give you instant playback? How can you mess up and only find out later?

[Commander Jameson]

I thought one of the advantages of HD cameras was that you did not need to light stuff as much (see Michael Mann's recent output).

[Boyatsea]

I hate dark stuff. Depressing.

This is very odd though. Doesn't modern equipment give you instant playback? How can you mess up and only find out later?

Yes - this sounds a bit dodgy to me.

[Old Dear's Menu]

Nope, it's all true...

"Doctor Who" spin-off series "Torchwood" that was due to premier in winter has run into technical problems which has apparently forced the BBC to re-shoot much of the series.

According to a source for the Sci-Fi Pulse website, "What was originally going to be a dark and brooding series has suddenly gone all bright and glossy". Why? Seems the flashy Panasonic HD cameras are having problems working in low light. He adds "A lot of tape has been junked. Scenes re-shot in full lighting".

The series follows a group of renegade criminal investigators in modern-day Cardiff who make use of alien technology that has fallen to Earth. Production was originally scheduled to run from May to October, with airing to begin around October/November. No word on what delays will ensue due to these problems.

It seems like an incredible oversight to me.

HD cameras are "easier" to work with in theory, but you still need to light the scene if you don’t want it to look shit (see Michael Mann's recent output).

More importantly, you have to light the scene differently when shooting HD. Many cinematographers are stubborn fuckers who just don't want to embrace change, hence mistakes like this occurring.

The worst thing is, many FX shots have been scrapped due to continuity problems, which can only delay the show further...

Not good.

[Boyatsea]

I'll only believe it when Outpost Gallifrey tells me. It still doesn't make sense to me - virtually all of the BBC's output is now recorded in HD for future releases, etc. Even EastEnders, I've read. So why these problems now?

[Garwoofoo]

I'll only believe it when Outpost Gallifrey tells me.

General consensus over there is that it's nonsense, and probably made up from a few misinterpreted forum posts lifted straight from OG itself (an increasingly common practice when it comes to Who news these days).

Basically they get daily rushes of what's been filmed. There's no way such a problem could have been allowed to go on for so long without being rectified.

[Boyatsea]

I'm with Garwoofoo.

That's not easy to say at twelve past midnight.

[Bad Ambassador]

Basically they get daily rushes of what's been filmed.

Exactly - I find it difficult to believe that any problem wasn't noticed to the extent where they needed to do 'extensive' reshoots. And if it is true, then the production team must be a bit dim. Which they obviously aren't.

People can post *anything* on OG these days and it's circulated around the net as BREAKING NEWS! Even the papers seem to be picking up on general speculation from there and reporting it.

[Boyatsea]

Where did you read all this, Old Dears?

[Bad Ambassador]

Here's a post from OG:

...as I said on my original post "some stuff" had to be re-shot- which is completely different from

Sci-Fi Pulse's "much of the series". Anyway, they are only halfway through shooting!

So someone on OG mentioned that 'some stuff' from Torchwood needed to be reshot, and some website called 'Sci-Fi Pulse' has reported it as 'much of the series' needing to be reshot.

There were apparently issues with their original HD cameras - but some people say they've switched to a different brand, and some say they've abandoned HD altogether. Who knows? You decide!