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I've no idea—I'm a physicist
As the rest of my friendlist prepares to watch (or has just finished watching, I'm not sure about broadcast times) the fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who, I am preparing to attend a modern opera about Lizzie Borden. We'll watch "The Day of the Doctor" when we get back. If there isn't enough John Hurt, don't tell me.
We did observe the twenty-fifth anniversary of the program last night:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel showed me "Remembrance of the Daleks" (1988), written by Ben Aaronovitch of more recent Rivers of London fame. I can see why the Starship of Madness cast was willing to go to Long Island for Sylvester McCoy—his Seventh Doctor is a wonderful mix of registers and incongruities, his clown's dress and manners (bits of business with pens and Panama hats, his quirked mouth and that question-mark umbrella) offset by that sharp, precise, irritable voice and the cynical intelligence behind it, dropping hints of being something much more and much more dangerous than a time-jaunting eccentric with a taste for paisley and sleight of hand. Not to mention the willingness to destroy planets and talk the last remaining member of a species into terminal meltdown. I like Ace as well; I'm not sure how I could have been expected not to, seeing as her dystopian future looks a lot like the punk '80's and she never goes anywhere without at least one blunt object and a backpack full of explosives. I have already been warned that their run together is very short; the series went into limbo before any of its mysteries could be more than tantalizingly raised. I really want to read Aaronovitch's own novelizations, though.
Excuse me while I run for a bus.
We did observe the twenty-fifth anniversary of the program last night:
derspatchel showed me "Remembrance of the Daleks" (1988), written by Ben Aaronovitch of more recent Rivers of London fame. I can see why the Starship of Madness cast was willing to go to Long Island for Sylvester McCoy—his Seventh Doctor is a wonderful mix of registers and incongruities, his clown's dress and manners (bits of business with pens and Panama hats, his quirked mouth and that question-mark umbrella) offset by that sharp, precise, irritable voice and the cynical intelligence behind it, dropping hints of being something much more and much more dangerous than a time-jaunting eccentric with a taste for paisley and sleight of hand. Not to mention the willingness to destroy planets and talk the last remaining member of a species into terminal meltdown. I like Ace as well; I'm not sure how I could have been expected not to, seeing as her dystopian future looks a lot like the punk '80's and she never goes anywhere without at least one blunt object and a backpack full of explosives. I have already been warned that their run together is very short; the series went into limbo before any of its mysteries could be more than tantalizingly raised. I really want to read Aaronovitch's own novelizations, though.Excuse me while I run for a bus.
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I am hoping to write it up in the next few days. The short version is that the conceit was fascinating, the acting and the singing were superb, and I thought the music was doing some very interesting things, but everyone I saw it with—myself included—had massive problems with the staging, which was actively working against the libretto in ways that were neither productive nor illuminating and far too often ran straight into WTF. We went out for dessert afterward just to post-mortem it.
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But most of the reason he's so brilliant is, as you say, the hints of how very dangerous he is. I've waxed rhapsodic before about my love of the iceberg theory in storytelling. Peter Davison used his youth and innocent appearance to create a deceptively gentle, still-waters-run-deep Doctor. Colin Baker, suffering from inconsistent writer voices and weird stories, created a Doctor who in hindsight can be best interpreted as a deteriorating personality.
McCoy's genius was that he was able to take those two characterizations and weave them into something consistent: a Doctor whose still waters still ran deep, but, after an unknown amount of time being Colin Baker and after the deliberate pain inflicted by the 'Trial Of A Time Lord' series, had accepted that the waters ran deeper than he'd known and that there were dark scary things living at the bottom. Chilling, and compulsively watchable.
"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream." McCoy's Doctor knew the iceberg was there.
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I had never, ever seen him before. I haven't even seen all of The Hobbit, so not even as Radagast. I am pretty much prepared to watch his entire run as the Doctor if he's that good all the way through. I like characters who aren't all you can see.
Peter Davison used his youth and innocent appearance to create a deceptively gentle, still-waters-run-deep Doctor. Colin Baker, suffering from inconsistent writer voices and weird stories, created a Doctor who in hindsight can be best interpreted as a deteriorating personality.
Again, I haven't seen either of them. I liked Davison very much in the short-lived BBC Campion, adapting the novels by Margery Allingham; Colin Baker I really don't know at all. He sounds like he got a very raw deal.
"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream." McCoy's Doctor knew the iceberg was there.
Prrrt.
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I only know Doctor Who in dribs and drabs from crossover fanfic and the odd episode or partial episode which I've seen over the years,* but in a sense I have to be interested in anything that's become such a phenomenon. I'm glad last night's showing pleased you.
*Starting at five or six with being both fascinated and traumatised by a scene of something that looked like a ritual sacrifice on a stone altar guarded by men in faux-Spanish Renaissance armour. I think it was interrupted, but I've no idea at all. I'm certain my parents never knew I saw it, because they would have turned it off immediately. I have to admit I'm not even certain it was Doctor Who, but I can't think what else it would have been.
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It was absolutely worth going to see. As a work of art, I found it very mixed and so did everyone else I saw it with. I'd like to write it up, but it's not going to happen tonight.
a scene of something that looked like a ritual sacrifice on a stone altar guarded by men in faux-Spanish Renaissance armour.
That could describe any number of supernatural/science fiction programs on the BBC in certain decades, really.
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I'd like to watch as many as exist. I was really impressed. Even if the scripts aren't quite up to their chemistry or their arc chops off abruptly; that one serial was enough.
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Sylvester McCoy could have been the favorite
Definitely the Seven and Ace stories were the highlights for me, especially after the Peter Davidson and Colin Baker eras where many of the companions were either annoying or useless - even when they had potential of being interesting like Tegan or Nyssa, they tended to get shafted by the writers who never wanted to write any continuity in the characters. Then in the Colin Baker era, we had one nutcase Doctor and two companions who were a serious step back - like they belonged in the pre-Sarah Jane Smith time when the companions were mostly around to shriek and get rescued.
I remember that even though I was 12 when I first saw Peri, and she spent a great deal of time acting and dressing like a lifeguard from Baywatch, I got bored with her.
But with Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred there was an actual relationship between the two of them and there was growth. I think they lasted at least 2 seasons together before the indefinite hiatus.
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Ouch. I could tell from the internet that whatever long game they were hoping to play never came to fruition; is it known what they were planning, or is it mostly fan speculation/semi-canon/the hazy graveyard where obsolete backstories go to die at this point?
Then in the Colin Baker era, we had one nutcase Doctor and two companions who were a serious step back - like they belonged in the pre-Sarah Jane Smith time when the companions were mostly around to shriek and get rescued.
I am getting the impression that the Sixth Doctor is not something I want to do to myself.
But with Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred there was an actual relationship between the two of them and there was growth. I think they lasted at least 2 seasons together before the indefinite hiatus.
Well, it's more than Nine and Rose got?
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I was more interested by the fact that the BBC pretty much let everything happen without much interference. It was only when the books became popular sellers that the BBC started taking a much stronger hand in the books with very clear rules concerning what can and cannot happen.
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The other New Adventures novel that's particularly worth a look is Andy Lane's All-Consuming Fire, in which Seven meets Holmes and Watson (and incidentally gets Three kicked out of the Diogenes Club.)
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So noted. It's an evocative name.
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I don't have the sense that anything would be unlikely for the Seventh Doctor, simply because I have no idea what he's capable of, but I do agree he hefts that bat as if he finds it a distasteful last resort. (Talking a Dalek into self-destructing is perfectly natural and he doesn't turn a hair at it, however.) He is methodical and theatrical. In some ways I feel like this is a combination the Eleventh Doctor has been aiming for, the self-declared "mad man with a box" who has so much more buried inside him than the fez and the bowties tip off. If that's so, McCoy got there first and better.
If Rob has them, check out The Curse of Fenric - it's got WWII codebreakers, Norse myth and vampires - and Ghost Light, both superb. Battlefield (the other one by Aaronovitch) is a strange one, worth watching for the collision of UNIT and Morgan Le Fey.
I don't think we have any of these yet (Rob's hard drive does seem to contain something called "The Happiness Patrol," which looks bonkers), but we're going to look. We really, really liked what we saw.
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Of other McCoy-era serials, the ones I remember having strong feelings about at the time were "The Happiness Patrol", which is indeed bonkers, but gloriously so; "The Curse of Fenric" for very nicely tying up the arc elements that do get tied up at all and which I would recommend watching his other stories before; "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" doing clever and affectionate fan-acknowledgement after a rocky start; and "Silver Nemesis" which appears to be generally thought of as "Remembrance of the Daleks" done again less well with Cybermen and a couple of awkward subplots, but which has some of my very favourite individual moments of Seven.
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So noted. Do you recommend earlier serials, or are they too much fool and too little magus?
"The Happiness Patrol", which is indeed bonkers, but gloriously so
Okay; we'll check it out!
"The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" doing clever and affectionate fan-acknowledgement after a rocky start
No one's mentioned that one so far. Is it actually a circus in space?
but which has some of my very favourite individual moments of Seven.
Also noted. Thanks for the recommendations!
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I'm not sure I can be adequately objective here, in that I've not seen McCoy's first season since it was broadcast, and my teenage memories may well be being skewed by the tremendous relief it was at that point for the Doctor not to be Six any more. As best I can recall, the worst they got was amusingly silly, but I honestly can't recall how much if any continuity set-up worth having went into them.
"The Happiness Patrol", which is indeed bonkers, but gloriously so
Okay; we'll check it out!
On reflection I have no idea how well that one will have aged, it was doing some really nice relatively under-the-radar things of getting pointed contemporary political content into what was viewed as either light entertainment or children's TV.
"The Greatest Show in the Galaxy"
Is it actually a circus in space?
Yes, for the usual disused-quarry values of "space".