20-07-2015, 21:10
Horror Channel "The Deadly Assassin" (Tom Baker).
Hated by a lot of fandom at the time for making the Time Lords look too "human" - devious, back-biting, and comical : contradicting the previous image of them as wise old paternalist guardians of the Universe.
Think Dr Who at this point was probably just reaching its 1970s peak in quality/popularity in UK before a gradual spiral down during Tom Baker's latter years once the Mary Whitehouse brigade censors got hold of the BBC and the series had to "comedy up" to compensate.
It's a strange one-off kind of story : no regular companion, only the second time at that point in the Classic Series that the Doctor visits his home planet, the return of The Master albeit in an unrecognisable and degenerated form; and an extensive "dream sequence" in which the Doctor fights a mental battle in a nightmarish Matrix - years and years before Keanu Reeves.
Would have actually made a good feature film for all of those reasons ? - a kind of stand-alone one-off spectacular; if only they'd had the money and there was any kind of film industry in Britain interested in putting money into it at that point in time ?
(US didn't really care at that point either).
Hated by a lot of fandom at the time for making the Time Lords look too "human" - devious, back-biting, and comical : contradicting the previous image of them as wise old paternalist guardians of the Universe.
Think Dr Who at this point was probably just reaching its 1970s peak in quality/popularity in UK before a gradual spiral down during Tom Baker's latter years once the Mary Whitehouse brigade censors got hold of the BBC and the series had to "comedy up" to compensate.
It's a strange one-off kind of story : no regular companion, only the second time at that point in the Classic Series that the Doctor visits his home planet, the return of The Master albeit in an unrecognisable and degenerated form; and an extensive "dream sequence" in which the Doctor fights a mental battle in a nightmarish Matrix - years and years before Keanu Reeves.
Would have actually made a good feature film for all of those reasons ? - a kind of stand-alone one-off spectacular; if only they'd had the money and there was any kind of film industry in Britain interested in putting money into it at that point in time ?
(US didn't really care at that point either).