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@TranslatorCircuit    By a ‘small’ episode I mean any that doesn’t have a cast of thousands and where the peril is focussed on the Doctor or a small group, not some universe-ending threat.   Far more credible

What do you mean, “of course Midnight was total crap”?   Where did the ‘of course’ come from?   Your opinion does not constitute a universa…[Read more]

@nerys   (I’m just coming up to a re-watch of this – after I do The Church on Ruby Road).

The Babies reminded me quite strongly of the goblins in Labyrinth, except not so well done and they didn’t have David Bowie to give it some class.   Or maybe evil Muppets.

Oh, hang on, is this the right episode I’m thinking of?   (Quick frantic google for T…[Read more]

@janetteb

I wonder if the BBC are going to continue to produce these condensed / colourised / re-scored versions of classic stories. They’ve done Docs 1, 2 and 3 now, so presumably a Tom Baker story is due next. I wonder which one. They previously did a feature-length version of Genesis, which was transmitted and is also available on Blu-ray I…[Read more]

@whohar Sea Devils was a good story but like all Who at the time, plenty of padding and shades of sexism. It is one of my favourite Pertwee stories. RTD has a good point about the name. It is probably time it was changed though as you say, Homo Aqua is not entirely accurate but it has a nice ring to it.

cheers

Janette

@translatorcircuit

I don’t know if the re-edit of the original episodes into a feature length one will be an improvement.  Some of the older Who stories did suffer from padding, although I can’t recall if that’s the case here. And television in the 1970s tended to be more influenced by theatre (compared to modern shows which tend towards the…[Read more]

@whohar it sounds like just a hatchet job of “The Sea Devils”, which was only six episodes long AND in colour! As for the spinoff, it looks and sounds like it doesn’t even feature the same species as the Sea Devils. They look quite different and are called “homo aqua”, so there’s no point showing this story before it!

@dentarthurdent What’s your definition of a “small episode”? Of course, “Midnight” was total crap, mainly people repeating what someone else was saying. “Vincent and The Doctor” was great, while “Fugitive of The Judoon” was part of the amazing Timeless Child storyline which revitalised Doctor Who.  “The Wire” was also fantastic, while “Dinosaurs…[Read more]

New edit of the 3rd Doctor Sea Devils story:

https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/doctor-who-sea-devils-special-106375.htm

Airing on the same* day as the spinoff

*Same day unless you are in Australia, New Zealand, United States, Canada…..

Now, that was an imaginative intro! The segue from the Maestro tapping the opening notes into the Doctor Who theme music and opening credits, then to the jukebox on the TARDIS, was a good idea, well executed. I could’ve done without so many animated notes, but they were cleverly used to drag and bind Ruby, then the Doctor, and finally…[Read more]

@nerys

I hadn’t realised you didn’t see this first time round. It IS a marmite ep and I struggle to find enormous virtue therein, BUT… thematically and politically it’s sound. The problem is the plot seems undeveloped. There are a couple of nods to later in the series, but the babies in heavily armed buggies remind me of a certain classic W…[Read more]

Well, that was a letdown. It started out with such promise, and then fell completely flat, IMO.

Awful special effects to make the babies seem like they were talking. And, shockingly enough (because babies were involved), I never felt a palpable sense of threat, not even from the Bogeyman … which had an Alien-esque grotesqueness, but didn’t do a…[Read more]

So, the Season 1 DVDs finally arrived via my library, and I just watched “The Church on Ruby Road.” I’m very glad that I’d read the posts here, because I found the song-and-dance segments to be quite jarring. But at least I knew they were coming.

I would not have minded the dance club scene, as that was fairly natural. But to have the goblins…[Read more]

@janetteb

yes. The only solution is to copy from pages

Anyway… love to read the full version.

I liked it. Xmas specials aren’t really Moff’s thing. Not a great rec for 2026…

I have typed out a response twice now and both times neglected to copy before posting and lost the post. Will I never learn.

I was commenting on the strong fantasy element in “church”. Though one could argue that Dr Who is fantasy it is very grounded in a kind of sci fi way. Any fantasy type episodes tend to have a “rational” explanation. RTD…[Read more]

‘Failed’ specials… part 2

The Moffat legacy. The last four, even the very slightly pedestrian Twice, were seriously good. Time of The Doctor, however, has an exposition problem. And it’s the conclusion of the Pandorica/Silence/Trenzalore arc. The Snowmen, as the second introduction of Clara and a mid series special, is also effected by this. T…[Read more]

Ok tis the season to get an earful… backward in time through 2nd tier xmas specials.

Church on Ruby Road; the one with the singing goblins.

Thesis… yeah you can have singing goblins. And a singing Doctor. And companion. It’s alright. A bit odd. But Chib had The Master grooving on down to Rasputin. Moff had Katherine Jenkins. Equally odd.…[Read more]

@dentarthurdent @nerys

Mitchell and Webb: Many favourites. The post apocalyptic game show, Sir Digby Chicken Caesar… most all ‘Get Me Hennimore’… just a bog standard parody of 70’s sitcoms and then one week they utterly subverted it… something to do with the Klan… I can’t remember now. It’s up there with the Shaun The Sheep when Shirley ate the I…[Read more]