Four Sixth Doctor stories

[nwhyte]

Well, much to be said about yesterday's episode - though I won't say it here, except that I agree with those who believe that surely we will be getting a cop-out of some kind at the start of next week's 65-minute climax, no doubt involving the hand

Comments

[parrot_knight]

I've long thought that all the stories in this season were commissioned by Nathan-Turner and Saward when drunk on the nostalgiafest of the twentieth anniversary, or more specifically fandom's reaction to it. Hence the Zodin reference in Attack and the pointless non-continuity.

[wwhyte]

Yes. These stories are all awful. It's as if they had no theory about what Doctor Who was *for*. The strange thing is that Revelation of the Daleks is, relatively speaking, so good -- it's interesting and true to itself and by and large made with genuine care. How could the people who made that make the rest of the season? Of course, they're also the people who decided to follow Earthshock with Timeflight and The Caves of Androzani with The Twin Dilemma.

[swisstone]

I have before pointed out, in response to attacks on Michael Grade for his anti-Who stance, that Grade had a point - by and large, mid-eighties Doctor Who was shit. Grade did to Who exactly what he did to Blackadder - told the creators not to assume they had a right to a new series, but to go away and do a rethink, as what they were producing wasn't up to standard. Blackadder came back with Blackadder II, top quality stuff, and a massive improvement on the first series. Who came back with 'Trial of a Time Lord'. Draw your own conclusions.

[wwhyte]

I have to note in fairness that the production team didn't know how many episodes they had, when it was going to go on, etc., till three months before the start of production. So in practice the season was as rushed as all the seasons before it, which made it hard to really focus on making it as good as possible. But you're right that they certainly didn't rise to the challenge Grade set them.

[blue_condition]

> Timelash comes very close to The Twin Dilemma as being the worst Who story ever

Come now, there's Timeflight to take into account too!

[nwhyte]

The absolute, no questions asked list of the worst stories for each Doctor is as follows:

The Sensorites
The Underwater Menace
The Mutants
Underworld
Time Flight
The Twin Dilemma
Battlefield
[unfair as only one TV story - if audios count, then Minuet in Hell]
Slitheen two-parter
Dalek two-parter from Season 3

Now, really, how can any of the others compare with the staggering awfulness of The Twin Dilemma????

[blue_condition]

I think my list would be

The Web Planet - a brave try to do something really different. It might be interesting to CGI it to the original soundtrack...
The Underwater Menace
The Mutants - about the only Pertwee story where I really couldn't tell you the plot because it was so dull!
The Horns of Nimon
Timeflight
The whole of Season 23 - inexcusable and ultimately incomprehensible. Time paradoxes that bad would destroy the modern Whoniverse.
Delta and the Bannermen
n/a - I'm only counting canon ;)
The Long Game
Love and Monsters!!!!!!!! (which rivals Timeflight for sheer awfulness)

[nwhyte]

OK, I challenge you to judgement by the assembled wisdom of fandom!

[blue_condition]

> I've said before that very few Cybermen stories actually make sense

Broadly agreed, Revenge being possibly the epitome of this - I defy anyone to explain the plot of it in a way that makes the Cybermen's scheme make sense.

Tomb is probably the best ever Cybermen story, but that works mostly on the basis of being extremely tense, well-directed and having plausible human characters.

The 10/Cybermen stuff was fun but without any real sense of how if at all the Lumic Cybermen relate to the Mondas lot. Trouble is, it kind of means it'd be hard to adapt Spare Parts now. Unless someone decides that the Cyberman form is ubiquitous across the universe - cf. loveandgarbage's comments about 20x10x10 containers ;)