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Chase
Registered: 03/25/08
Posts: 505
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 Saturday, May 03 2008 @ 12:29 PM EDT |
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Maybe I'm alone in this but I prefer Tom Baker's later seasons to his first and prefer all of Tom to all of the rest of Doctor Who. Why? It's not as serious as before, it's not as ripoffy as before, and with the cming of the Key to Time and Romana and Douglas Adams, it's just looser and had more ideas in sci fic mixed with some very, very funny lines and dialog bits...well, I like the worst stories here, including CREATURE FROM THE PIT.
Here we have Tom at his foolish height but...the jokes are funny. His delivery is funny, his making fun of everyone is funny. "Ahhh, a gigantic frog," is funny and "...who are these, the undertakers?" We tend to think of these stories as not very good but they are. I love when Adrasta threatens to kill Organnon unless the DOctor has K9 attack Erato. The DOctor walks over to the old man and starts to apologize, "It's been nice knowing you, old man, so sorry about this..." HILAROUS! And sort of scary at the same time. Then later, the whole "YES" routine with Romana and the Doctor is very funny. NIGHTMARE OF EDEN is even better. The ideas crammed into it are right at home with each other, unlike say some mess like GHOSTLIGHT or CURSE OF FENRIC, the narrative makes a sort of sense and...well, Tom is again very funny. As is Lalla. "ROmana who?" "How should I know, I h aven't even caught him yet," and many, many more. Romana's ease dropping on Tryst and the DOctor when the DOctor knew she would, the Doctor defending Della's innocence, the DOctor's dismissal of Tryst at the end...the only really bad part is when the Doctor is attacked by the Mandrels in the projection. That is the only time Tom went way too far for me. But...that's it. He's great in this and also in HORNS OF NIMON. He is truly alien who sees above everyone else but...he makes mistakes...now he's some kind of God who is so macho as Tennant it's sickening.
Anyway I wish Doctor Who could be as funny, as brilliant, as innocent, as thought provoking and as different from everything else and itself as these seasons (16 to 18 and if in a good mood I'll throw in 19) again.
Bt alas, they're missing Douglas Adams and TOm Baker, the two best things to ever happen to Doctor WHo. |
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Idiom
Registered: 04/08/08
Posts: 722
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| Saturday, May 03 2008 @ 01:01 PM EDT |
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For me, nothing matches the Gothic Horror of the first two and a half Tom Baker seasons.
The Arc in Space story arc, the sheer design genius of the Zygons, Morbius, the Mummies, Weng Chiang and the deliciously scary Robots of Death. A child's dark wonderland and as an adult they, for the most part, live up to my memory of them. |
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Chase
Registered: 03/25/08
Posts: 505
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| Saturday, May 03 2008 @ 03:49 PM EDT |
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| I can see that most people would like Ark In Space as do I but...it's really the story of ALIEN/NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST with less scary monsters who look...really crap.Tom's also at his most serious in it and his first batch of episodes. The Zygons...they're okay but you can see that their eyes are...under a mask and they don't actualy do very much. Morbius is okay too and exciting but it's really Frankenstein, isn't it? And Sarah...screaming, falling, whimpering, asking stupid questions... the Mummies are cool too and so is, Weng Chiang...but in TALONS there are plenty of boring slow spots especially with that stage manager character. I never found Doctor Who scary....MILLENNIUM, CRIMINAL MINDS, disaster movies and plague movies...those are scary so I can almost pass on Robots of Death but I do like it. A child's dark wonderland and as an adult they, for the most part, live up to my memory of them. I never found any of them to be that ....well, entertaining as I did the later Tom stories but that is just my opinion. I found most of them, sorta like ANDROID INVASION, straining to be be something they are not, not making much sense, and to be apeing something that was done much better elsewhere. Not that I mind any Tom story (well, I'll give you ANDROID, INVISIBLE ENEMY (the worst Tom Story), and the last 3 eps of UNDERWORLD (the first ep is brilliant). I like all the others but sometimes, they can be...a bit...perhaps I'm just too familiar with them all. Recently been watching Pertwee and Troughton (and found how entertaining they can be) and now on Hartnell (including reconstructions). I love Hartnell and what they did with the show back then, however...THE DALEKS proved to be less painless...but perhaps this is another post. Point is: none of them beat the Tom stories or Tom himself. |
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