h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm jealous *laugh* We probably won't get that over here *sigh* And Paul McGann's in it on Boxing Day,

Alicia

You can see what I thought of it over on shiny shelf: http://www.shinyshelf.co.uk/article/3/3/781
(end shameless plug)

Excellent review. I'd love to see Stirling in something more. I hope the new Dr Who is good.
Jimmy just bought the DVD of 'The Three Doctors' we watched it last night - lots of humour. On our rating systrem, I gave it a B+, although Jo Grant's woolly blue coat is a bit of a disaster!

Jo's wooly blue coat is a classic! Not to mention the shortness of her skirt - she really never learns to dress for a job likely to involve alien kidnaps, running, climbing and falling over, does she?

Measuring the story on the "dedicated follower of fashion" scale, it's actually quite low:

persons in uniform: many
persons in ratty old tweed and/or velvet: several
persons in long robes (and metaphorical stuffed shirts): several
persons in fashion of the day: 1 (Jo)

The Daemons is far better, as you get to wonder why Benton and Yates go in for sports jackets as casual wear...

Love that sixties fashion (even if it was 1972...)
The important thing is, that Jo was *not* a screamer! Probably the only companion who was, was Susan. (And Mel, possibly, or so I've heard.) It's awful that this new writer is so unfamiliar with Classic Who, that he thinks they were...

Victoria was a screamer. Zoe occassionally screamed (e.g. in The Mind Robber). The first ever sight of a Dalek had Barbara screaming. I'm sure I remember Sarah Jane screaming, but can't recall which story. Mel was the worst, very high pitched. I have a scrap book diary from that time which included notes each week along the lines of "Mel screamed. again".

RTD is very familiar with the series and wrote one of the best of the New Adventures - the trouble is the media desire for cliches. We were trying to work out the other week when, exactly, the phrase "hiding behind the sofa" became one of the cultural cliches about DW - I'm not sure I ever heard it before 1989 (i.e.the year the series ended). It's like the wobbly sets - apart from a hand holding down Sutekh's cushion in Pryamids of Mars the scenery doesn't actually fall down that often. Stuff like "screamers" is something that is associated with the show, even if it isn't really supported by the actuality. So every new writer/producer etc says they are going to have modern female companions who don't scream as a way of saying their new series is not going to be cliche ridden.

Of course, you can then count how long it is from the companion's introduction to their first scream...

Hi, Mags, I take your point... one of the problems is that I am not familiar with his work (we get very little British stuff shown in NZ - it's 70% American, 10% Australian, 20% all else here...) So all I know that's he's done is 'Queer as Folk', and when I saw his remark about screamers, I assumed that he was speaking from ignorance.
I haven't seen Mel. I didn't have TV in the 1980s, and when DW was being shown here in 2000-01, they abruptly stopped halfway through the 4th Doctor. From what Jimmy has read and told me, Mel was *designed* as a screamer, which is just . He blames John Nathan Turner...
I don't remember Barbara as a screamer, but since Jimmy has got the DVDs I've had the chance to see how soppy Susan actually was. (My childhood memories of the 1st Doctor are *very* old...)

RTD is one of the 'high profile' DW fans in the UK, like Paul Cornell (who has written for Casualty*), Steven Moffat (who wrote the Comic Relief story and created Press Gang and Coupling), Mark Gatiss of the League of Gentlemen, Nev Fountain who writes BF audios and Dead Ringers.

There's reviews of Damaged Goods, RTD's DW novel, here:
http://pagefillers.com/dwrg/dama.htm
http://www.gallifreyone.com/review.php?id=na-55

and of what RTD has already brought - and may bring - to the series here:
http://pagefillers.com/dwrg/davies.htm

A rumour on the grapevine (well, in the pub) has it that the BBC was trying to woo RTD, one of ITV's highest profile writers, to come to the BBC instead and he said he would if he could bring back Doctor Who...which would be lovely if I thought it was totally true...


Mel was a mistake as she was a character designed for the actress instead of an actress chosen for the character. Bonnie Langford was a 'name' and instantly recognisable as 'Bonnie Langford', so you never believed she was a computer programmer. Peri and Ace, the companiosn to either side of her, were played by unknowns straight from drama school and worked much better because you saw them as the characters not the actresses. I do think it's symptomatic of the mid-80s era - a point at which end-of-the-pier stars were cast for the name factor (Ken Dodd in Delta and the Bannermen being the classic example).


*good job I reviewed my spelling - I originally typed this as 'Casuality'. A great name for a time-travel series maybe, but not actually real.

links for that top bit:
Casualty: http://www.bbc.co.uk/casualty/
Coupling: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/coupling/
League of Gentlemen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A568154
Dead Ringers: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/deadringers.shtml
(the Dead Ringers DW calls are here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/deadringers/ )

It's such a toughie, as there are so many to choose from. If we split the task Doctor-by-Doctor is is slightly easier. It doesn't help that contributors from some countries haven't had the opportunity to see them all (the surviving ones, that is).

WILLIAM HARTNELL - The Aztecs

PATRICK TROUGHTON - The War Games closely followed by The Evil of the Daleks. Pat actually wanted to re-shoot Evil after the original was destroyed and often mentioned it.

JON PERTWEE - Inferno. Pity about the Primords, they weren't in the original script and Don Houghton was told to write them in. This is the story I've watched more times than any other. The Daemons is a candidate let down by one of the most absurd ever endings (if you were an alien mega-being would YOU go to pieces and blow up on the grounds that Jo Grant is a nice person?)

TOM BAKER - Genesis of the Daleks (well it has to be, doesn't it) for his early period, Talons of Weng-Chiang for the middle and Warriors' Gate for the later.

PETER DAVISON - The Caves of Androzani by a mile. Earthshock is a candidate but too full of plot holes which let down a first class adventure. They become more apparent with successive viewings.

COLIN BAKER - The Two Doctors. Although it has its fair share of plot-holes, nobody could write Doctor Who as well as Robert Holmes. It's lovely to see the second Doctor and Jamie again, and the Androgums were a great addition to the Whoniverse. Revelation of the Daleks is also a candidate.

SYLVESTER McCOY - Revelation of the Daleks. The cliffhanger we'd waited a lifetime for, a great script and special effects that took out windows and brought the emergeny services to Waterloo on terrorist alert! Superb.

And that's all the weather.

Doctor by Doctor... I'd say,
William Hartnell - The Aztecs. Definitely it has depth, and although the effects are cheesy, as are the fight scenes, when I was a child I didn't care, and now, those things add to the charm.
Patrick Troughton - The War Games.
Jon Pertwee. Although he is my favourite Doctor, I am not sure.
Tom Baker - Talons of Wen Chiang.
Peter Davison. The Robert Holmes one featuring Chessene and Shockeye. The Three Doctors, probably.) Awesome!
Colin Baker - Ah, there's a hard one... I don't really like him, and haven't seen much of him...
Sylvestor McCoy - Curse of Fenric. Awesome! Well written, superbly acted and with layers of meaning for everyone.

A method of reviewing stories that Paul Cornell came up with was considering the difference between 'favourite' and 'best. 'Favourite' is the one you love despite its flaws, whereas 'best' is the one you believe represents the highest production values, scripting excellence or direction.

So...

Hartnell - Fave: Daleks' master Plan / Best: Marco Polo (going on audios in both instances)

Troughton - Fave: Power of the Daleks or The War Games / Best: Web of Fear or Fury from the Deep

Pertwee - Fave: Curse of Peladon or Carnival of Monsters / Best: Inferno

Tom Baker - Fave: Seeds of Doom / Best: Genesis or Talons of Weng Chiang (both superb six-parters let down slightly by naff monsters)

Davison - Fave: Five Doctors (what a load of nonsense) / Best: Androzani

Colin Baker: Fave: Trial of a Time Lord (even bigger load of nonsense) / Best: Revelation

McCoy - Fave: Ghost Light / Best: Fenric or Remembrance

Another good category is 'best to show to a non-fan to get them interested', which often eliminates fan favourites like Ghostlight, i.e. 'what the Hell's all this, oh sod it I'm off to watch Changing Rooms'.

Revelation of the Daleks i.e. 'isn't that the bloke from Keeping up Appearances? Why are there two lots of daleks? Who's Davros? Why is he suddenly in that chair?'.

Inferno i.e. 'I though you siad the Brigadier was a good guy? What the Hell are those green werewolves doing?'.

I've had two successes with showing stories to non-fans. One of them had actually requested to see The Deadly Assassin after reading about it in an arts magazine, and he loved it. It's quite self-contained in that although we might assume you need to know about about it in advance, there's really nothing in it that isn't explained, aside from the Doctor's TARDIS being bigger on the inside than the outside.

Another was when I shared a house with an Austrian who had never seen the show but had heard the other housemates talking about it. One day I came home to find she'd watched The Claws of Axos (poor thing!) and had enjoyed the colourful sets and the quite simple themes of the concerns of energy resources that were global during the 1970s. She worked out the relationshps between all the regular characters and said she wanted to see more.

I think the problem as fans is that when we say 'a story to show non-fans', what we really mean is 'a story least likely to embarrass an existing fan'. There are very few stories that don't have something deeply shameful in them - Terror of the Zygons and Seeds of Doom are both superb, but they're let down by the limitations fo presenting something monstrous other than a man in a suit. City of Death has a very unconvincing mask for the main alien, and a few too many arch comments (even though it's one of the most delightful stories a fan can ever see). And Talons of Weng Chiang has a huge fluffy rat.

But a friend of mine overcame this: he showed a story to a non-fan by saying 'think of it as a sci-fi panto'. The viewer then came in with expectations of it being a bit camp, a bit 'for kids' and so was absolutely bowled over by how gritty and violent it can sometimes be, and how every now and again it'll surprise you with something quite high-brow - such as the intellectual discussions in The Aztecs about whether it's right to impose your own values upon another culture, tghe multi-layered metaphors of colonialism and rape in 'Kinda' that admittedly are let down by the sight of the snake at the end, or by the revelation that Dukkha, the scary man in Tegan's dream, is played by Reg Holliss from The Bill. Apparently, this guy found the clowns in Greatest Show in the Galaxy very chilling and was really impressed by the melting of Kane's face in Dragonfire. Within a year he was a self-confessed fan.

One thing that really worries me about this new series is that for the first time in my life, Doctor Who is an on-going series with a target audience that I'm no longer a part of. I'm like one of those dinosaurs I encountered when I first joined fandom who moaned about it being better when William Hartnell was in it. But so long as I can remember two things, I'll be okay. Firstly, somewhere next spring, new fans will be discovering the magic of Doctor Who for the first time, which is great. And secondly, I have 40 years-worth of TV stories and 30 years of my own memories that 13 new episodes can't erase.

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Which is why The Aztecs is one of my favourite stories! That's one of the best things about Dr Who. Jimmy (my son) says that the second Doctor story 'The War Games' is quite simply the best thing ever made for television, and for me, it's certainly up there! Caves of Androzani and Curse of Fenric are other absolute must-sees for depth and non-cheese factor...

"One thing that really worries me about this new series is that for the first time in my life, Doctor Who is an on-going series with a target audience that I'm no longer a part of."

But being written by people who are *exactly like you*. And therefore, people whose tastes probably mesh with yours and, most importantly, who are smart enough to realise that, even when you're writing for an audience that doesn't specifically include you, you don't write stuff that you don't like.

I hope Any chance Russell T Davies could pop along here? Or is he too busy?

Quote: "I think the problem as fans is that when we say 'a story to show non-fans', what we really mean is 'a story least likely to embarrass an existing fan'." That's one of the most intelligent things I've heard in this kind of conversation for a long time!

The 'sci-fi panto' line is also a good one and has brought several people I know into the joy of the programme, wanting to see more. The line helps to excuse really bad let-downs like the snake that brings Kinda down laughably. I remember on original broadcast the finale to a great story leaving my family and I rolling helplessly on the floor. Doctor Who at its best doesn't NEED such monsters - Inferno didn't need them, the script was enough - and those are the stories I tend to go for. Similarly, Roland Rat didn't do much for Talons but at least it's over quickly mid-story rather than being part of the climax.

Less is more (think Hitchcock). In Horror of Fang Rock, Tom realising that he has locked the (unseen) Rutan inside the lighthouse rather than outside is one of the best ever cliffhangers. We know it's in there with them, we know it's a killer and we don't even know where to start looking for it or what to look for. Chilling. More so the pity (especially as they are shapeshifters) that the Rutan was later shown as a blob.

I only know Russell and Mark Gatiss in passing, but I could ask the others...

I should add, by the way, that when I said the target audience is different now, that was just be realising I've aged 15 years since it was last an ongoing series. The show absolutely *should* be made for 16-24s, not 30-year olds like me. I think that's the greatest challenge for our friends in the writing team, avoiding too many indulgences and remembering that we'll watch it any way, but the new audience is out there, waiting to be captivated, in the same way that Star Trek: The Next Generation began to get great when it stopped pandering to the past and started creating its own future. Everything I've heard about the project reassures me that it's not just Russell who's passionate about this. The kind of discussions they're having about the *details* and the big picture make me far too excited.

Well, I totally understand what you're saying. But it should be the hallmark of a great programme that it can appeal to everyone. I'm hardly in the target demographic for Buffy, for example, but I loved it because it was just a fantastic show. And I fully expect Russell to do the same with Doctor Who. After all, I loved Dark Season, and I'd been out of school for something like ten years when that came out.

The great problem is that you can't please everyone. The new series will inevitably bring forth quantities of "he isn't Tom" type complaints. These will come from exactly the demographic you describe. Don't worry, like you I'm also thought of as being far too old for Buffy but then I'm also happily FAR FAR too young for the Sell-crap-from-your-attic shows.

What I'm saying really is that everyone who loves the programme will have a gripe of some sort. Too many of them will give that a higher priority than being glad it's back on TV at all.

I am confident that we will see a series that is rooted in what we most admire about the hero's qualities. We look up to him and we aspire to live by his values. We are disappointed that others on this wretched planet fail even to recognise his ethics. He is not messianistic and is the first to admit his own failings.

Back to "Inferno" in fact...

I hope it is all it can be, Tubist, and I am certainly prepared to give it a go, when we get it in NZ, which could be when it's been going 10 years!