promethia_tenk (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
promethia_tenk) wrote2018-12-30 08:57 am
promethia_tenk) wrote2018-12-30 08:57 am
Entry tags:
So . . . Six.
Finished all of the Sixth Doctor.
The Good:
I think Colin Baker did a commendable job with what he was handed. He deserved better, and I'm glad to hear Big Finish did right by him. Will almost certainly check out those audios sometime.
Look, I'm not saying I like the outfit, but some Doctor, somewhere, was always going to end up in a technicolor dreamcoat. That is just facts.
The ideas and the ambition. There is a lot to chew on here. Everything I've seen of Classic Who before season 18 has been Just Plain Doctor Who (TM). Everything I've seen after season 18 (which is now all of it) has been twisty, self-relfective, self-interrogating, and meta. Guess which I prefer? *big grin*
The Mark of the Rani, The Two Doctors, and Mindwarp.
The Bad:
Peri. I don't like her. There were aspects of her relationship with the Doctor that I enjoyed, mostly when she made fun of him, but . . . stick around for 'the ugly.'
The violence and fatalism of so much of this was trying to get through. Thank goodness for the binge watch where you can just keep going and know you'll get to the end of it, as opposed to the uncertainty of watching something like this week to week. I think I appreciated it more during the tail end of the Fifth Doctor, whose more reserved, thoughtful nature kept it all from seeing too garish. With Six's more flippant attitude it did frequently feel like it was just descending into ugly spectacle.
There were a lot of dud episodes in here, but I could say the same for Four. Seven whole seasons: I sat through a lot of really middling tv there.
The Ugly:
The treatment of Peri by basically every aspect of the show was just gross. There's no excuse for it, and it drug everything else down. I should not be trying to keep a tally in my head of the episodes where a companion is not sexually harassed. And in any other context, I might have enjoyed the Doctor and Peri's style of banter, but given how constantly threatened she is, how dependent on him, and the implication that her stepfather was abusive to her, it's just not ok.
I'm gonna take a diversion back to the Fifth Doctor for awhile, but I'm looking for suggestions for how to tackle One, Two, and Three. I've dramatically preferred watching whole Doctors' eras straight through (as far as that's possible) as opposed to picking and choosing episodes, but I'm open to doing them in any order.
The Good:
I think Colin Baker did a commendable job with what he was handed. He deserved better, and I'm glad to hear Big Finish did right by him. Will almost certainly check out those audios sometime.
Look, I'm not saying I like the outfit, but some Doctor, somewhere, was always going to end up in a technicolor dreamcoat. That is just facts.
The ideas and the ambition. There is a lot to chew on here. Everything I've seen of Classic Who before season 18 has been Just Plain Doctor Who (TM). Everything I've seen after season 18 (which is now all of it) has been twisty, self-relfective, self-interrogating, and meta. Guess which I prefer? *big grin*
The Mark of the Rani, The Two Doctors, and Mindwarp.
The Bad:
Peri. I don't like her. There were aspects of her relationship with the Doctor that I enjoyed, mostly when she made fun of him, but . . . stick around for 'the ugly.'
The violence and fatalism of so much of this was trying to get through. Thank goodness for the binge watch where you can just keep going and know you'll get to the end of it, as opposed to the uncertainty of watching something like this week to week. I think I appreciated it more during the tail end of the Fifth Doctor, whose more reserved, thoughtful nature kept it all from seeing too garish. With Six's more flippant attitude it did frequently feel like it was just descending into ugly spectacle.
There were a lot of dud episodes in here, but I could say the same for Four. Seven whole seasons: I sat through a lot of really middling tv there.
The Ugly:
The treatment of Peri by basically every aspect of the show was just gross. There's no excuse for it, and it drug everything else down. I should not be trying to keep a tally in my head of the episodes where a companion is not sexually harassed. And in any other context, I might have enjoyed the Doctor and Peri's style of banter, but given how constantly threatened she is, how dependent on him, and the implication that her stepfather was abusive to her, it's just not ok.
I'm gonna take a diversion back to the Fifth Doctor for awhile, but I'm looking for suggestions for how to tackle One, Two, and Three. I've dramatically preferred watching whole Doctors' eras straight through (as far as that's possible) as opposed to picking and choosing episodes, but I'm open to doing them in any order.
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(Which might also explain my reaction to S11? I have all the goodwill in the world towards Thirteen, but there's so very little there. 'Nice' is not a selling point for me.)
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IDK, I like some pretty dark stuff (Hannibal, Dollhouse, BSG. Heck, I liked Miracle Day), but I am very picky about what kinds of dark stuff I want to watch? The stuff I love tends to have a very strong driving concept and/or aesthetic to it, the sort that . . . seduces you into its world. Things that are focused too solely on broken people behaving badly and everything sucks tires me out quickly.
Eh, I'm not hugely put off by what they were trying to do here (other than the Peri thing), I think I even like it in concept. I'm just not convinced that they did a particularly good job of it.
(Which might also explain my reaction to S11? I have all the goodwill in the world towards Thirteen, but there's so very little there. 'Nice' is not a selling point for me.)
Well, I don't think you have to like particularly difficult stuff to think there's nothing going on in season 11, but I guess you're right that they are basically opposites.
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:D
Well, I don't think you have to like particularly difficult stuff to think there's nothing going on in season 11,
My point is more that... I'm good at liking things? All the stuff that tends to put people off doesn't tend to bother me that much. Meh.
but I guess you're right that they are basically opposites.
And there are no smart ideas, nor any ducklings. :(
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Ahh, I getcha.
And there are no smart ideas, nor any ducklings. :(
Ducklings make everything better!
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Urgh, everyone trying to rape Peri, I hate that so much. I blame Eric Saward. "She's pretty, therefore everyone will want to have sexually harrass her!" I do like her and Six though, she gives about as good as she gets
and I a bit ship it, it's like S8 of Nu Who but more rainbow.no subject
This! I sort of ship it too (which took me VERY by surprise, I don't ship Dr/Companion), but like you say there is very much a Twelve/Clara vibe - they're not really good for each other, and they are not really able to show how they feel and they argue a lot, but they DO care very very deeply about each other. I think it's the fact that Six freaks out when Peri is threatened the same way Twelve freaks out over Clara. 'If she dies I WILL END YOU!'
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(I may have to write fic.)
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Everyone always goes on about Five 'dying for one person'. Well, so did Nine, but they never frame it like that, completely disregarding who that person *was*.
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List of people the Doctor has died for (as far as I know):
Peri, Rose, Wilf
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My literal thoughts when he came on were 'oh, look, the show's been taken over by people who know how to write television!' That impression has held up, though I think Six is probably their biggest fail. But, like, at least they failed trying something big, you know?
Have you watched Seven yet, btw?
Yes! I watched him first, and then I went back to Four and watched forward through Six. Somewhere in my brain this made sense.
Urgh, everyone trying to rape Peri, I hate that so much. I blame Eric Saward.
Me too. I feel like she is like the worst version of what people think Classic companions were like? She is a parody.
I do like her and Six though, she gives about as good as she gets and I a bit ship it, it's like S8 of Nu Who but more rainbow.
There were glimmers I liked, but mostly I couldn't shake the feeling that if Six actually cared about her, he'd have sent her back to earth several stories ago. I feel like Clara could actually handle herself in a way that Peri couldn't.
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Absolutely. (This is why I started with Seven. I felt like it'd be closest to TV as I know it. Kinda ease myself in, as it were.) Watching Four, there were a lot of good stories in there, and character moments I liked, and Baker undeniably has a genius for the role, but it was hard to shake the feeling that every single story was the stand-alone from the middle of the season that nobody would ever talk about again.
Thinking about it you might like early One which has definite character development and so on, while Two much as I love him is basically just stories that happen.
Thank you, this is useful consumer advice!
Three has some good stuff but some of his stories are just too long. He has Delgado!Master though. DELGADO!!!!!!
I've seen about a season and a half at the start of Three's run, and I did enjoy it, but you are not lying about the length of some of those serials, dear god. It's like 'I'm actually going to die here, watching people stuck in a cave.'
I'm looking forward to Delgado. The Master in general does precious little for me, but what I've seen of Delgado is undeniably fun.
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In your position I'd probably watch straight one-two-three. Hell, maybe I'll do a watch/rewatch myself. My reasoning is: there's not actually that much of One and Two to watch, with their comparatively shorter runs and their missing serials. So watch them, bemoan the missing episodes, and then finish strong.
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