1/11/12
This is the result of another random thought I had today. It’s
the start of November, the anniversary month of my favourite show, and my aim
to watch every episode of Who that still
exists has been steadily speeding up, especially over the past couple of months.
(I started season 1 back in November 2010, during what was at first meant to be
the usual re-watch of just the first episode on the actual anniversary date, but,
due to having recently received a bunch of soundtracks of missing episodes and
realising I had most of the dvds of the rest of the stories of the first couple
of years, eventually it became an aim to watch every ep, in order, and best
experience the show the way it was meant to be watched. Anyway, long story
short, over nearly two years, I watched the first 4 seasons. The past 2 months,
I’ve watched the next 4 after that.)
Because of this, and my awareness that I am quite possibly
the biggest Doctor Who fan I know of (personally, anyway – practically half the
writers of new Who at least aimed to get into that job because they were such huge fans of the whole show in the first
place), I’ve decided to start writing a daily diary to put any and all Who
related opinions and thoughts on a daily basis. I’ve decided to do this
because, I’ve gotta admit, I do enjoy writing, but sometimes, it’s hard to
focus on one project or idea for an extended length of time. However, writing a
couple of paragraphs about Doctor Who on a daily basis and then posting a week’s
worth of those thoughts should be a piece of piss, hopefully. Who knows, maybe
over time, I’ll include more than Who, including thoughts on other tv shows,
films, hell, maybe even real life, like how it interferes with my all important
Who watching, or how I need to plan about what conventions I’d need to go to
and what Doctor I should dress up as for such occasions.
So, first day – earlier, I finished watching season 8 of the
original series and Pertwee’s second year in the role of the third Doctor. Now
this had been a pretty fun season, as it not only introduced arch-nemesis the
Master (yep, that’s right – it took 8 years for one of the biggest villains of
the show to be created), but it had a neat little arc of the Doctor and his
friends at UNIT spending the whole season trying to stop his numerous deadly
schemes. Ok, so there’s more than a little clichéd element to such an idea, but
it has to be said, it mostly works because of just how damn awesome Roger
Delgado is as the Master. Charming, sophisticated, and deliciously evil, he
makes insanity and psychoticness look so
damn cool! It gets even better when he and Pertwee talk face to face – they get
into it so easily, you can tell they must’ve really enjoyed working together. Back in the early 70s, when the writers could only set their stories on Earth, due to the Doctor being
stranded there by his own race the Time Lords (and budget costs), it makes even more sense that they’d
try to make each season as interesting as possible by using every possible idea to liven things up.
So, the last story I watched: The Daemons. Thoughts? It’s a brilliant
example of what, in my opinion, Doctor Who does best: take a classic horror
movie idea, make it just a little
more family friendly, add a dash of scifi into it, but most important of all,
make a rollicking good story out of it. Beginning quietly enough with a very
atmospheric first ep, including a mysterious tomb that must never be opened (spoiler: it is), and Roger Delgado looking more
awesome both as a vicar and as the leader of a satanic cult, leading to one of
my favourite scenes of his where there’s no real dialogue as such, just the
Earth shaking and the Master just laughing at it all, looking completely and
epically insane, the story then
becomes a lot bigger (quite literally, when the Daemon finally appears),
involving magic vs science, a village cut off and being controlled by evil, and
of course, explosions, fights, and awesome dialogue. It also provides a
satisfying resolution to the whole Doctor v Master arc that the season gave us –
after much fighting and chasing, the Master is finally captured by UNIT and sent to prison. So all’s
well that ends well, right?
(Spoiler: he gets away next season and continues to be an
evil bastard throughout the rest of the series.)
Well, after all that, I think it might be time that I actually
did a bit of studying. Oh, one more thing: new Eighth Doctor story Dark Eyes is
released next month. Considering it continues off the story that has Paul
McGann giving one of his greatest performances ever (and I’ve seen Withnail & I, countless times, I might add)
and left the Eighth Doctor a hollow shell of what he once was, this release is,
by far, the most anticipated release of the year for me. I honestly can’t wait.
And what do you know? First day, and it’s already a little
longer than a couple of paragraphs. Hmm, why don’t we post this anyway, shall
we?
No comments:
Post a Comment