Warrior’s Gate is really, really good, isn’t it.
I appreciate it more each time.
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Just popping in to say that the doctor having three companions is probably a very bad idea. If it’s more in the Hartnell vein it could be ok I guess but if it’s more Davison it’s going to be painful.
Also, I need to finally watch warrior’s gate someday but I don’t know if I have it in my old stash of lowres avis
Davison was a real lowpoint that people only remember fondly because sixth doctor was even worse
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when i did my full series watch (well, full-ish, i skipped all the reconstructions…) i started by skipping over stories that were generally regarded as shitty, but stopped doing that midway through the T-Bakes era, on the logic that i should just make up my own mind and see what enjoyment i can get. (i think the last story i skipped was underworld)
for the most part this paid off but the Davison and C-Bakes era both, exclusively among classic DW, featured stories that made me actually angry for watching them. Like i got to the end and was just super pissed at the time i had spent on total horseshit.
i think the stories in question were warriors of the deep, timelash and whatever fucking dumb story Omega comes back in, i dont even care to look up the name.
Related Story: after this Whowatch i had moved to CA to live w/ some of my besties. one of them was very Who-obsessed (and all of them were fans thanks to me, sorry world) and wanted to see stories from every Doctor. i showed him a 4th story (i fear something really excellent like city of death or horror of fang rock) and then, thinking it was of comparable quality, revelation of the daleks. It is not of comparable quality!! I thought of it as great when i was watching the 6th Doctor era, because i was a dying man in the Sahara and it was my only source of water.
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ANYWAY i think a modern Who could handle 3 companions. they were figuring shit out in the Hartnell era and they were fucking shit up in the Davison era. Doctor Who + 2 assistants is def my fav config tho .
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also Warrior’s Gate is the absolute tits and i love it, one of my favorite stories. i was so sorely disappointed after Castrovalva when i realized that the Davison era was not going to carry forward basically any of the cool tones or ideas of season 18
i need to (re)watch some Doctor Who, it’s been a long while since i was this actively pumped about this show. (sb who club when)
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QUAD POST isnt it fucked that Jacqueline Hill only came back to play a one-off in fucking Meglos
shouldve got a Barbara (and i guess Ian) reunion imo
if anyone can find footage of her running down some Daleks with a truck from The Dalek Invasion of Earth they will be my hero. Barbara owned
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Especially weird since two years later they actively tried to get William Russell in to play Ian again, for Mawdryn Undead.
You know, I quite like Arc of Infinity. I think that final episode overshadows the resr in my memory, though. That location filming in Amsterdam, where Omega is sort of humanized, and you see the tragedy of his situation. Big Finish did a really good audio set in the middle of this episode, or toward its end or whatever, with a neat if in retrospect obvious twist toward the end. I think I heard this before I saw Arc, which may color my reception of the latter.
When people say they don’t like three companions, really they’re talking about Adric.
It was fine in the Hartnell era. Amy/Rory/River works fine. There’s five years of the UNIT family. Since Who returned, there’s typically been a significant supporting cast, e.g. Jackie, Mickey, Wilf. There’s no reason why a large regular cast shouldn’t work. If anything, it should allow for more complicated stories with more dialogue and character interaction.
I, uh, don’t know where Chibnall is going with this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the cast were spread out a bit, both for variety and for easier shooting schedules. Not everyone will be featured prominently in every episode. Like any ensemble show, really.
I’m getting a strong UNIT vibe from all of this.
Not true! I also don’t like Kamelion or Peri!
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The “generally regarded” thing is a problem, I find, as the dullest stories tend to get the praise for being on-message, and the weirdo stories tend to get sidelined at best, when they’re where all of the neat stuff is happening.
Like The Space Museum; one of the very best Hartnell stories, to my mind, that plays with some for-the-time very progressive ideas and often is rather hilarious. On the DVD, Rob Shearman pitches a half-baked defense of the story, basically saying “it’s not that bad…” Hooey; it’s great. So is The Time Monster, which is supposed to be something like the nadir of the Pertwee era.
As far as reconstructions, I sympathize. There are the narrated audios, though, which I find totally accessible. You really need to listen to The Macra Terror, and the run from The Myth Makers through The Massacre. Some of the best stuff, and the stuff I’d most like to see returned someday.
Kamelion is nothing
Peri deserved better. or rather, Nicola Brown did.
YOU ARE FINISHED, KAMELION.
Yeah, I don’t really see him as a companion. Katarina is more of a companion than Kamelion.
And Peri is just… bleh. I find her one of the most troubling parts of Colin’s era, in so many ways.
The best bits of the 6th Doctor stories are the tiny pieces of Baker and Brown getting to act naturally because their characters weren’t actively shitting on eachother. The best Doctor + companion(s) pairings are all because of the actors having good chemistry, and you can see it w/ Sixie + Peri but most of their dialogue is shit forced antagonism
kamelion appeared more often than katarina!
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This is part of why season 23 goes down way better with me than season 22. The stories are mostly crap, but what else is new. At least they’re less unpleasant crap. Except for Mindwarp.
So did Professor Travers.
I mean, does Kamelion at any point play a companion role? He’s in two (non-consecutive) stories, is basically an antagonist in each, and never seems to have a single positive interaction with the TARDIS crew. In the end he asks the Doctor to kill him, which the Doctor does with little hesitation or particular thought after the fact.
that they couldnt think of fuck all to do with Kamelion is a failure of imagination more than anything.
he’s a cool yet failed prop originally, but his whole concept was “shapeshifter” you can do LITERALLY ANYTHING WITH THAT!!
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Kamelion is cool as hell.
I didn’t like Tegan or Nyssa either. The whole trio was a toxic mix.
But sure, Adric was a misogynist shit-starter and by far the worst.
The thing about Chibnall is that his writing on who and torchwood was really all over the place in terms of both quality and tone. When Moffat took over I had a pretty good idea of what his take on it would be like, and by and large I was right. I have no idea what next season will be like, which is good but also worrying.
Also, after a thorough search I discovered I don’t have a copy of warrior’s gate. On the upside I did find a legit DVD copy of the green death that I had forgotten about though!
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