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Moving on, I'd be interested to see what people who have only seen the new series think on seeing an example of the old series for the first time?
That'd be me, then. Let's see...
I'd never seen a second of Doctor Who before Eccleston. This is mainly because I'm (a.) American, and (b.) the old series was on the way out when I was very young.
But as luck would have it, I ended up being a geek anyway, so of course I'd *heard* about this fabled Doctor Who, a crazy British sci-fi series that, from my estimation, was like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, only British, in space, and with lots of scarves.
However, the new series hit Sci-Fi, and I knew that a few writer pals of mine had been influenced by the old show, so I checked it out. And it was silly and very B-movie-ish. Yet there were a few odd moments of brilliance, so I kept watching. This led to me researching the old series and the mythos, and continuing to watch the show on Sci-Fi. Like I said, I'm a geek; I don't watch a show, I immerse myself in it. Then someone happened to post a link to where I could download and view the Tennant episode New Earth. And then, well, I slowly became hooked with the new show and have proclaimed it to be "the new Buffy."
But, you know, the old show left me curious. So I've been watching some old stories that a couple hardcore fans on another website deemed to be some of the best. I'm not sure if you folks will like my thoughts, and I see that this post is becoming gigantic, but alas:
Does anyone else like Pyramids of Mars?
I'll tell you what. Everyone seems to love this story. I did not enjoy it. I didn't find it scary or interesting at all, and too much of it was just too silly for me. Chickenwire robot mummies and their uniboobs of doom? Sorry.
I blame the format, though, and I'll tell you why. The four-part format is far too aimless and drawn out. I vastly prefer the 45-minute done-in-ones to the 25-minutes-a-chapter foursomes. The pacing is just abysmal, where we end up with nothing happening for three episodes, and then all the good stuff occurs in the fourth part. I liked part four of Pyramids, becuase Sutekh was cool... why couldn't they have gotten around to that earlier, instead of plodding about doing nothing? Sarah Jane was boring (although I loved her in School Reunion).
Like I said, it could be because I'm American and these shows were before my time.
Same thing happened with City of Death, the first old Who ep I saw. Co-written by my favorite ever author Douglas Adams, you said? Awesome! But there's little plot. The dialogue is great, there's some good moments, but half the first episode is focused on the Doctor and Romana wandering around doing nothing. Okay, they needed to have all these shots because they wanted the trip to Paris to be worth the money, but it goes nowhere. The plot's a little out there. But surprisingly, what I thought was mediocre at first turned out to be one of the best I've seen.
I also liked Robots of Death. It managed to carry a sense of excitement throughout all four parts and the robots were actually creepy with their Greek-tragedy-mask-like faces. Leela was a neat idea for a companion. But still, it dragged. Two or three parts would've been sufficient.
Tom Baker plays the character too quiet, too... understated. Eccleston and Tennant had led me to believe The Doctor was an over-the-top science hero on the verge of madness. Maybe it's a fault of the new show, but frankly, I prefer the exaggerated version of the Doctor. He's a time-traveller from another planet, he should be big and weird.
I only saw a few seconds of Peter Davison, but he seemed alright. Then I watched Sylvester McCoy's "Curse of Fenris," which also dragged but had a neat fourth part, what I sensed was a culmination of a bunch of plots and a view of the Doctor as a manipulative bastard. But some of the characters had no point in existing (the vicar especially) and the vampire girls were silly and sucked at acting. And the sea beasts/vampires/whatever the hell they were were odd. I still don't get what they had to do with vikings, Norse mythology, or whoever this Fenric guy was.
The only other one I've see (I think) was the very first episode, An Unearthly Child. It was great, even though the Doctor only shows up halfway through it. Okay, so I don't understand how or why he has a granddaughter named Susan, of all things, but the pacing was well-done, the acting was pretty good, and Hartnell played the Doctor as a complete git, which I loved. (And they must've used the same Tardis set for yeeears!) I imagine it was the start of an arc, but it worked perfectly fine as a done-in-one.
Fairly soon I'll be sitting down to watch the Android Invasion. We'll see how that goes.
And thanks to the post above, I'm very interested in seeing some Pertwee episodes now. They sound fun.
The old show hasn't sold me yet, but I'm going to sick through it. |
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