Story 055
Terror of the Autons
Ah sweet, sweet, Delgado. I enjoyed The Sound of Drums and End of Time version of The Master well enough. However, this one just has so much more class. He comes across as a Moriarty instead of a spoiled sadistic club kid. Autons also worked well in the classic episodes because they were supposed to be made of plastic. So a few unclean edges or blatantly fake facial appliances make perfect sense. Such well executed villains + Pertwee + Brigadier = awesomesauce.
Story 057
The Claws of Axos
Creepy statuesque angelic beings offer man a quick way to attain ultimate power which turns out to be a deadly world-eating poison. This one made me consider getting Amazon Prime to reliably stream classic episodes. The library's copy was covered in oil and scratched to hell. By the time I got it working, I was too tired to watch the special features that make the DVDs so worthwhile. Probably need to rewatch this sans technical glitches to fully appreciate.
Story 072
Death to the Daleks
Interesting to see the Daleks unarmed and outmatched. Didn't lead to character development persay. Just revealed they were the same old arrogant killing machines. Cool serial all told.
Story 129
The Five Doctors
Sometimes, I want to punch Tom Baker. Richard Hurndall did a decent Hartnell impression. However, stepping up his role when Tom bailed served to drive home everything he got wrong. Ainley wasn't bad as The Master but did make me miss Delgado. All in all, the whole thing felt insanely clumsy and made me miss The Three Doctors.
Story 045
The Mind Robber
Not really sure how I feel about this serial. Whenever Jamie and Zoe went missing, Troughton became a whiny little emo bitch. The first couple episodes were kinda crap then the plot took a nice little twist. By the end, it was a joyous romp. Right up until the robots got a "destructa-beam." Then it got cringeworthy.
Story 046
The Invasion
Well done. Troughton is quirky and awesome. Despite having eight parts, there's minimal drag to the story. The animation is remarkably effective for recreation of lost episodes. Hell, even the features were informative and watchable. Plus this may be the first Cyberman story to make me understand why they recur so much. Only had one "heeey it's silver Doc Martens" moment. Otherwise, I was on the edge of my seat hoping Jamie would make it. Nice up-the-kilt-shot obscuring on the ladder too.
Story 044
The Dominators
There are times where the depth of storytelling, characterization, performances, etc. obscure the fact Doctor Who began geared towards children. Then there are things like the Quarks. Holy attempt at a second Dalek Mania, Batman! Thing is Quarks manage to be even less frightening than when Daleks couldn't leave specially charged panels in one location. They're so grade-school arts and crafts in design and their voices are "aww lookit the little mechanized bear" Sci-Fi pap. Plus, Quarks only kill if guys wearing mudflap shirts and sea shell shoulder pads look at the camera and scream "DESTROY" while doing a gleeful little jig. I guess The Doctor helping people who wouldn't help themselves aspect of the story was nice for the character but everything else hurt. Maybe four parts worth of material here, but barely.
No comments:
Post a Comment