The Official MZ Doctor Who Thread!

[sentaison]

If you liked the Omega character I urge you to watch The Three Doctors which was his first appearance. In fact you should watch it before you get to The Five Doctors because there is some interplay between Troughton and Pertwee which makes more sense if you've seen it.

[Dr Kain]

[Dr Kain]

Warriors of the Deep - An okay season premier. I don't remember thinking this one was all that great the first time I saw it either, but for what it is, it's fine. It's cool seeing the Silurian and the Sea Devils together, although I don't recall them being related to each other at all in their initial appearances (I could be wrong though, as it has been nearly 10 years since I watched the two Pertwee episodes).

My biggest issue with this one is just how uninteresting the characters seem to be. Everyone is like so dead pan serious that it's hard for me to actually take them seriously. There's also the one moment when this scientist lady starts attacking the giant monster with karate moves. o_O No idea what that was about, but it was so god damn stupid. Then you have the Sea Devils who must have gone to Storm Trooper academy because they are standing like 4 feet away from people and the can't hit them for "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!". The worst part though is how abrupt the ending comes about. In fact, I know I mentioned this with The King's Demons, but it feels like the writers had no idea how to end several of Davison's shows because they don't feel like endings at times, but just a commercial break or something that it never returns from.

Well whatever. The rest of Davison's run is now going to be all new material to me since the next episode in the show I have seen is Attack of the Cybermen.

[Dr Kain]

The Awakening - It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was a fairly enjoyable episode that actually had a beginning, middle, and end, so that was nice. Unlike The King's Demons, this once felt like it was written to be a two parter as its pacing was perfectly fine. The demon was a cool idea though I think his execution was so-so. It wasn't bad persay, I just don't see why he was a giant face.

EDIT:

We watched both Frontios, Resurrection of the Daleks, and Planet of Fire today. However, before I give me thoughts on them, I forgot to mention that something confused me with The Five Doctors. During one scene, illusions of Jamie and Zoe show up, which the Doctor quickly dismisses stating what happened to them at the end of War Games. Cool, but HOW?! The Doctor is regenerated just moments after the duo were sent back to their times with their memories erased. How can he know what happened to them and not be regenerated? That makes no sense. I hope someone got fired for that blunder. :-p

Frontios - I quite enjoyed this one though I was expecting Darth Vader to show up to talk to the soldiers given their uniform attire. The Tracotatters made me hungry more than feeling scared of them though. In fact, I suddenly have a hankering for some Tattertots. They were an interesting tot though and it was interesting they were pretty weak beings. I'm not sure how the second in command dude exactly died though. My favorite scene was when the inhabitants were scared of a coat rack.

Resurrection of the Daleks - What is the obsession with bringing Davros back AGAIN?! Is this what I should expect from every Dalek story from this point forward? Them recovering Davros, one of them betraying each other, causing the Doctor to win in the end? Also, how did they manage to make Davros even worse than he was in Destiny? It seems like every iteration looks worse than the previous one. Oh, and his mustache disappeared. Not sure how when the guy hasn't had the chance to save in centuries.

Moving past that annoyance, the story was better than Destiny. I liked the idea of the Daleks having to clone themselves into humans though I don't understand how that even works. Their armor was quite silly though as I just wanted to hear the Spaceballs theme song play out whenever they were on screen. I am curious if the Doctor ever does run into the trio that got away at the end though. That could be interesting, yet, it would probably just be to bring Davros back.

I couldn't help but laugh at Tegan's attempt at escaping. Had that been anyone else, I probably would have believed they could have gotten away. For Tegan however, I started counting down from 10. It did take a bit longer for her to get caught than I anticipated. Not sure why the guys didn't just shoot her as it's not like they needed her alive to clone her as they clearly showed with the commander dude they capped in the head.

Planet of Fire - I liked this one a lot. It's probably my favorite Master story from Davison's season as it was well paced, interesting, and just a good time all around. While I'm not 100% sold on Peri, I do think she is already a notable improvement over Tegan as she was actually competent despite being a tad whiny in some parts. On the other hand, I am not sad to see Turlough go as I just didn't care for him no matter how hard I tried. He wasn't bad or anything, especially when compared to McWhinyBratBoomBoom Adric, it's just that I never really grasped his characterization. Come to think of it, there is one flaw here because Turlough kept telling the Doctor he wanted to go to his home planet during his episodes last season, then here, the Doctor asks him why he is alway avoids wanting to go home. That seems quite contradictory. Oh well, and enjoyable episode nonetheless and one that shows how stupid taking your religion way too seriously is.

Overall, so far this season reminds me of Matt Smith's final season (funny since I initially said way back last month that Davison's Doctor reminded me of Smith's). It's got some great concepts that are poorly implemented. I hope to the gods the last three stories at least send the man out on a bang.

[Dr Kain]

Well we just finished Season 21, which means I have just officially completed an entire run of a specific Doctor with Peter Davison. YAY!!!!

The Caves of Androzani - This was a really good story. Brilliant even. I felt like I was watching an early Tom Baker story with this one as I felt it had a very Phantom of the Opera-esque feel to it. The dialog was snappy, Peri was quite solid despite this being her second outing, and the entire story was interesting. My only complaint realy dives into how predictable some of it played out when dealing with the corporation owner (and his weird winks at the camera as if the character knows he's being watched). Other than that, like I said, it was fantastic. Perhaps even my favorite Davison story.

With that in mind, his run had its up and downs which is kind of disappointing considering Baker didn't have a true bomb until his fourth season while Davison only had three seasons with several mediocre shows sprinkled throughout. My top 10 favorites of his era are probably as follows:

1. The Caves of Androzani
2. Black Orchid
3. Kinda
4. Earthshock
5. The Mawdryn Undead
6. The Five Doctors
7. Snakedance
8. Planet of Fire
9. Castrovalva
10. Frontios

Overall, I enjoyed him a lot despite the bad ones. He was a great Doctor too who kind of got the shaft when it came to his companions.

The Twin Dilemma - Uh... so yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah... this was a thing. It wasn't as bad as The Horns of Nimon, but I would be lying if I said this story was even remotely good. There were some great pieces of dialog, such as Peri's "Oh great, so we can be radiation sickness buddies," but other than that, this story sucked. Colin Baker sucks as the Doctor. He was not at all engaging. In fact, he was quite unlikable as a character. I get that they have to try something different (and it was the end of the 21st season of the show), but the dude was a complete and utter "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!". His trying to strangle Peri was a little much and I thrive on seeing characters die. His fashion sense is atrocious and completely distracts you from what is trying to be said on screen. I never realized how terrible that costume is until now. It's just a mess. Hell, I love Baker's "it's like an explosion occured in a rainbow factory." It's utterly ugly and the person that came up should have been beaten (which I guess would have been JNT). And then you have the smug attitude at the end where he pretty much tells the audience he is the Doctor whether they like it or not. That just seemed forced and out of place.

The worst part about this whole story though is that it was just as boring as Colin's boarish personality. None of the characters were the least bit interesting, the plot stalled several times, they did nothing interesting with the space cop, and I couldn't really figure out who was betraying whom half of the time. It was poorly written too. A major let down of a sequel to Cave. They should have just ended the season on Cave to give this story more time to cook in the kitchen as it's so bad Gordan Ramsey would be having a meltdown were it actually food.

Not a great start to a new era. This is going to be a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooong road to tread down. I pray it gets better.

[Dr Kain]

Attack of the Cybermen - I have mixed feelings on this one. It's certainly far better than The Twin Dilemma, though still not exactly great by any means. The Doctor is still an unhinged "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" and Colin has very little chemistry with Peri's actress. Also, the soundtrack to this episode was incredibly obnoxious. It just did not fit 90% of the time (and the stuff that did fit was just the music from The Five Doctors reused). The plot was all over the place as it didn't seem to know if it wanted to be a heist story, an invasionary tale, or a buddy comedy. The tones were just clashing all over the place and the music did not help matters.

It was cool to see Lytton return though they did very little with him. Suddenly he's working for an alien race we never heard of before who are good guys? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. The man tried to destroy the world by working with the Daleks and I'm supposed to believe he had a change of heart? I don't buy it. Maybe if they had actually done more with him between the two stories sure, but as is, no, just NO! Of course, it doesn't matter as he's dead already, making him the most irrelevant cliff hanger-ish character out there.

There were some aspects of the show I did like, such as its callbacks to The Tenth Planet and The Tomb of the Cybermen. I also did enjoy watching the Doctor go all out murdering them, which was something we started to see a glimpse of in Earthshock as you can tell the man has had enough of their terror. On the other hand, the Cyber Commander was kind of dumb and redundant since there was already the Cyber Leader on Earth. Oh, and the Crytons left a lot to be desired in both design and execution. I thought they were just going to poke Peri to death at one point.

Still, I wasn't bored and that is the important thing. Although, my g/f fell asleep during it, which she hasn't done since we watched Planet of the Spiders.

[Dr Kain]

Vengeance on Varos - The story was so boring that even the Doctor was just sitting in a chair in the Tardis for half of the first part looking bored out of his mind. I've really got nothing on this one. I've seen much worse, but I've also seen better. I also don't care for how they tried to turn the tyrannical governor into some sympathetic goodie good in the end. It just doesn't work for a man that was all about executions without appeals and stuff. Also, I have no idea what was going on with the slug dude, but he needs to go back to whatever fetish porno he came out of. If there are any positives I can say about this story its that Colin felt more like the Doctor and he actually had some good chemistry with Peri.

[Dr Kain]

The Mark of the Rani - This is easily the best episode of the season so far. It was entertaining, Colin was great and the banter between him and Peri was wonderful. What made it even better was the relationship between the Master and Rani. The two of them worked out so well as I loved how they were constantly insulting each other while working together for the "greater good." It also helps that the story was interesting, well paced, and had a lot of great concepts involved with it. Also, I wonder if this is the first time a remote control for a Tardis has ever been seen that will lead into the elements of the new show.

I'm surprised Rani hasn't appeared in the new show yet as she would make a great villain. Give the Master a rest and have Rani appear for a bit. Hell, make her the main villain of the next season.

The Two Doctors - Holy "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!", what the friggin hell happened here? Part One was so damn slow, but it had some funny bits (like Peri saying, "I like games, just not the ones where I die in the end."). Part Two was interesting as seeing Colin's Doctor and Peri interact with Jamie was fun. It was great to see Jamie back. Then Part Three happened and I have no idea what the hell was happening. Troughton was a total waste in this show. He did absolutely nothing at all the entire time and that scene where he was transformed into the food dude was just so god ddamn stupid. Also, the Sontarans looked like they were falling apart, especially the leader dude's armor. Did they just dig out old costumes from Tom's run? They were so worn and looked quite bad. It doesn't help that they were borderline silly in this thing.

There was no reason this story needed to be three parts because nearly half of its run time was spent just meandering around wasting time. It could have easily been cut down to two episodes, which probably would have improved the pacing. Also, why is Troughton's hair gray when he is still with Jamie? It should be black. I did like how the show started out in black and white though.

Lastly, what the heck was up with the restaraunt owner's death scene? At first I thought he was faking his death with how over the top it was. However, he wasn't, he actually was legitimately dying. His death makes Trinity in The Matrix Revolutions look tame. Alternatively, it was interesting to see another actor from Tales from the Crypt.

[Dr Kain]

Timelash - Ugh, where do I begin with this one? It had some good ideas that were poorly implemented. The acting was so freaking atrocious. It wasn't even an over the top kind of bad, it was just a stale monotonous bad. Hell, the emoticon robots from that one Capaldi episode had more emotion than these dudes. It didn't help that there were scenes of the Doctor and Peri that just felt so out of place and did not belong this far into his run as if the chemistry the two actors developed over the season had been melted away.

The worst actor on the show was the dude that played what was supposed to be HG Wells. I'm not sure if they orginally planned for that to be Wells or not, but it sure didn't feel like that was who he was supposed to be in the long run as he was an utter dumbass. I guess I'm supposed to like him because he meant well, hoever, I do not. If you removed his character from the plot nothing would have changed one bit.

The villain was kind of odd, though I guess he would have made more sense if I had seen whatever Pertwee episode he came from first, so that part might be my bad. Alternatively, with the way this show is done, the writing should make the villain compelling whether or not the he/she came from another story. I did like his design. Of course, I kept expecting him to break out singing, "I'm a mother "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!"' T-Rex!"

Overall, this was a very lackluster story that yet again did not need to be as long as it was.

Revelation of the Daleks - Oh joy, Davros is back again... yay. -_- Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd I'm bored. What is up with this season having the Doctor and Peri spend half of the story doing absolutely nothing at all while the show traverses its plot? Except for Mark of the Rani, I can't think of a single story where those two didn't spend nearly the entire first episode just aimlessly wondering around or being stuck in the Tardis for one lame excuse or another. This is why I feel this stories did not need to be two parters. I'm not saying the show needs to have the Doctor in every scene, hell, some of Tom Baker's best episodes tended to take 10 or so minutes before having him show up, but for these episodes, it just felt like they were doing it to stall for time. It's quite ironic that a show about a Timelord has to kill time in order to meet its designated length. This is definitely one aspect that improved with the 2000s series as they didn't force a show to be a certain number of episodes to tell its tale. It was only one episode if it needed to be and two or three if the story required it. There was no, "Well the story needs to be <insert #> episodes long so stretch it out to be that long."

Anyway, there were some interesting ideas such as using the dead to make a new Dalek army, Peri getting upset over accidentally killing a crispy looking dude, the main creepy mortician dude, and the mercenary (I hope we actually see these so called Knights of Oberon at some point as they sound awesome). There was also some pretty cool lighting used. However, most of the story was so damn sluggish. I don't even understand what the point of the DJ was. They never actually explained his purpose, he's just there because they wanted something whacky I guess? At least his scenes were well shot and he did have a good persona. I expected more to come from him though.

Nevertheless, I just can't get past having Davros return yet again as he has truly overstayed his welcome. Then again, this entire show no longer seems to know what it wants to do with the Daleks as they have done everything there is to do with them. I feel like at this point they only keep bringing the Daleks back to entice viewers who have grown bored of the stale narrative to at least watch that story.

In the end, Colin Baker's first season was quite atrocious. It is just as bad as both Tom Baker's sixth season and Jodie Whitaker's first season. Hell, it might even be worse since at least Whitaker had Kerblam!, which was far superior to anything Colin Baker has had so far. Actually, that brings to mind that Colin's personality reminds me a lot of Capaldi's but he has the original Chris Chibnall "writing" his show. If I were to rank this season's episodes (with The Twin Dilemma included), it would probably be this:

1. Mark of the Rani
2 Attack of the Cybermen
3. Revelation of the Daleks
4. Timelash
5. Vegeance on Varos
6. The Twin Dilemma
7. The Two Doctors

Such a "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" show. I pray to the gods that the next season is an actual improvement.

EDIT:

The Mysterious Planet - This was a really good episode. Easily Colin's best so far. I know this may sound weird considering the game came out two years ago and this story was like 30-ish years ago, but it made me think of Horizon Zero Dawn with how they were looking at things like Mo By Dick and the UK Canadian Geese. It was hilarious. I also thought the Doctor was really well done in this one and his banter with Peri felt natural. If I had any complaint it is that sometimes the trial segment interuptions did break the immersion of the episode, though, that also made it unique. Good start to the season so far.

[Dr Kain]

Got the next two stories from Trial of the Timelord done.

Mindwarp - This was a fun one, especially the barbarian king. Oh my god that dude was by far the highlight of the episode. I didn't hate Sil as much as I did in Varos this time either. Not sure how I feel about the supposed death of Peri though as it seems to be quite abrupt. Given that they established in Mysterious Planet that the Matri has been incorrectly showing footage, I doubt she's actually dead. It was most like a fake out. I mean, it has to be since that would have been one of the shittiest way to kill off a companion, even worse than Bill in the last Capaldi season.

The Terror of the Vervoids - This one was excellent! It was what Nightmare on Eden should have been, a good mystery story that wasn't all over the place. The Vervoids themselves look awesomely terrifying, the mystery going on was interesting, and holy "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!", Colin Baker IS the Doctor! It took him like 10 stories to get there, but he finally did it. CONGRATULATIONS!! Not a fan of this Mel lady though. She is way too perky for my taste and the fact that she hasn't had a proper introduction annoys me. Nevertheless, ths story was fanstatic, easily the best of Colin's run, and that was cool having "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" Galore in the story.

Time for me to stop typing here so we can start the final story!

EDIT:

The Ultimate Foe - This one was a mixed bag for me. There was a lot of great scenes, very atmospheric ones, especially in the dark fantasy place, however, they seemed to have forgotten their own continuity. Like how did they not remember The Master playing around with the Matrix back during the events from The Deadly Assassin and then it was altered yet again with "Invasion of Time." How are these Time Lords so inept and knowing their own god damn history?! It's borderline redundant. How many times are we going to have someone say, "It's impossible to mess with the Matrix?" Not just that, but now the Matrix is entered through a doorway instead of hooking yourself up to a computer? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

Moving past that, the Valeyard being the 12th regeneration of the Doctor doesn't make sense because that means that version would have to be second Tennant iteration, which is impossible. I mean, obviously this came first, however, it still doesn't make any sense.

The Master was great in this though as it felt like something he would do and Colin yet again did a great job. It's a shame that this ended up being his finale as he probably could have really taken off with the role in the next season had he been given one. As is, he is easily my least favorite Doctor to date, though, Whitaker could possibly take that crown from him depending on how her next season ends up being.

I called it when I said Peri wasn't dead, however, her becoming a warrior queen does not fit her character at alll. It doesn't help that we didn't actually get a farewell for her, making her the lamest good bye I have seen. Amy and Rori at least got somewhat of a send-off in their "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" ass finales. She didn't get any of that. They could have just had it that the Time Lords sent her back to Earth in her own time or something. That would have been better than this crapshoot.

In the end, like I said, Colin is currently my least favorite Doctor at this point. His second season was a much needed improvement over his first even if it still wasn't perfect. My rankings for the season:

1. Terror of the Vervoids
2. Mindwarp
3. The Mysterious Planet
4. The Ultimate Foe

For his entire run, due to his short nature, I'm only going to give my top 5, which is:

1. Terror of the Vervoids
2. Mark of the Rani
3. Mindwarp
4. The Mysterious Planet
5. The Ultimate Foe

His worst episode is The Two Doctors since it was a total waste of Troughton's talents and one of the most boring episodes of the entire franchise.

I'll be going into McCoy's run with extremely low expectations at this point since I wasn't a fan of the episodes I watched back in 2009.

[Dr Kain]

Well here we go, the start of Sylvestor McCoy's era. Is he is going to be good? Is he going to be bad? I don't know, I just know that at this point, the show was in serious need of a break to let the creative juices ferment once more. lol Well whatever the case, it's time to get done to business.

Time and the Rani - I have mixed feelings on this episode. McCoy is already a vast improvement over the dreary sourpuss that was Colin's Doctor, but this Doctor is silly, really silly. Sometimes way too silly. He's rolling around on the floor, making weird facial expressions that don't fit the mood of the scene, and he is constantly flubbing his lines that I expect to hear from a Sailor Moon character, not the greatest genius the universe has ever seen from the Land of Character Shields Galore.

Speaking of character shields, what the hell Mel?! We first see some poor alien girl get caught in one of Rani's traps and is instantly vaporized by it. Next, we have another alien dude almost get caught in the trap, which the ball explodes instantaneously. Then Mel gets called in one, the ball flies in the air, bounces on the ground, bounces again, lands in some water, floats to the shore, and yet, it hasn't exploded. The alien dude is even able to turn it off. WTF? There's character shields and then there's god damn GOD MODE! Mel should have been dead, deader than any companion that came before. Adric must be rolling in his grave thinking, "OH COME ON!" Oh wait, Adric doesn't have a grave as he became space dust. Seriously though, I know this is Doctor Who, but that was well beyond the suspension of disbelief realms.

On one hand, I thought Rani trying to pose as Mel was pretty funny, on the other, it felt kind of out of character for her. She doesn't seem like the type that would lower herself to that level just to trick the Doctor. She would have found much better ways of manipulating him. Hell, why didn't she have Mel brought to her at the same time she brought the Doctor and just have her paralyzed like she did later in the episode?

The rest of the episode was fine except the second episode took forever to end. I began to ponder if the episodes were 45 minutes in length with how damn slow that one was despite knowing otherwise.

Overall, McCoy has far more personality and energy than Colin, but this episode was not really a great premier. It's most certainly better than The Twin Dilemma, though that's like saying getting hit in the head with a hammer is better than getting hit in the groin. Still, he does show potential to make the character his own.

[Dr Kain]

Paradise Towers - I felt like I was watching Dredd or The Raid at first, but this thing just kept going on and on. It wasn't necessarily bad, it just wasn't very good either. The comedy felt out of place for such a grim dark series story. It also didn't help that it yet again did not need to be 4 episodes long. In fact, this one could have easily been two episodes. Also, clearly Mel does not watch horror movies otherwise she would have known not to blindly enter the apartment of those two ladies. She should have known just by the way the woman was the moment she met her in the hallway that they were going to kill and eat her, but nope, she's way too cheery to think of that. Yet again, her character shields come to the rescue. I'm really starting to hate her more and more each episode. I hope she dies and doesn't get to go home free.

Other than that, I've got nothing on this one. I've seen worse.

[sentaison]

There are better episodes ahead. There are some gems in there, Battlefield is one of my favorite overall episodes, and I like Silver Nemesis and Remembrance of the Daleks. I had totally forgotten about Mel, her time with the Seventh Doctor being totally overshadowed by Ace. You'll like Ace. She's not a screamer who only exists to be rescued. She'll show up in Dragonfire which is the next one after Delta and the Bannermen.

[Dr Kain]

I hope so. I forgot to mention how terrible the chief dude's acting was, especially when he was taken over by the Architect. It's like the dude wasn't even trying to act. It was so bad that it made the dude from The Horns of Nimon look competent. Anyway,

Delta and the Bannerman - WHAT THE FRIG DID I JUST WATCH?! I can't even accurately described what the hell even happened because it was all a bunch of random nonsense as if I was watching the Doctor Who version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." The music did not fit the tone the episode was going for, none of the characters even bothered to react to their situations, and then there was other stuff that happened. We have two Americans who are as lifeless as a rock. A bee owner dude that was even more emotionless and seemed to just go with the flow. An egg that hatches an alien creature that turns into a human baby between scenes. Everyone seems to know who the Bannerman are, even Mel, despite never meeting them before (nor did they ever explain who they were). A love triangle that was pointless. More out of place comedy from the Doctor. And other stuff that I can't fathom to explain. The only positive thing I can say is that unlike the last two episodes and all of Colin's run, this one was done in an "It's so bad it's kind of good" type of scenario.

Dragonfire - While this one may have been the best story of the season, it still left a lot to be desired. It's pretty much the most competent one of the four though. It did have some interesting ideas, but it fell apart during its third part. I have no idea what the deal was with the runaway child. It was felt like it was there for forced comedy and was out of place. Also, what the hell was up with the Doctor? At one point he just decides to climb over the edge of a cliff and starts freaking out because he is going to fall. What the hell did he think was going to happen? He was just going to magically float in the air? He's also screaming at Glitz as if he was falling when it was he himself who put himself in that situation in the first place. God damn he was dumb.

The wannabe Xenomorph was kind of cool and Ace gave somewhat of a Leela vibe to herself. I'm not exactly sure I buy her story about blowing herself onto the ice planet from Earth, but hey, this is Doctor Who, the show where Mel survived a Pool Ball of Death, so sure, why not?

Overall, the first season of McCoy left a lot to be desired. It was most certainly better than Colin Baker's entire run as McCoy had energy and was likable, however, that doesn't make it a great season by any means. I'm not really sure at this point what I should have expected from the 24th season, since at this point, they are going to need to grasp at straws. At least I wasn't bored by the last two episodes, which is the important.

My rankings for this really short season easily go as this:

1. Dragonfire
2. Delta and the Bannerman
3. Paradise Towers
4. Time and the Rani

I know people say his next two seasons are a vast improvement, but again, the next season is the 25th season, so I'm going to remain skeptical as far as the quality of writing is concerned. Just don't bore me and I'll be happy as this show has lasted well past its prime.

[Dr Kain]

Remembrance of the Daleks - This one was actually pretty good. Not great by any means, but competently written, and most of all, not boring. I hate that they yet again brought Davros back. At least he wasn't the main focus of the story this time around. It was kind of weird having them travel to 63 since the Doctor was just in 59 two stories ago, so being around the same time period so soon was odd. I didn't get the whole undertaker/coffin scene bit. I mean, I understand the outcome, I just don't get the scene itself. Did the Doctor drop that coffin off in an earlier episode before Tom Baker's era? And it had a relation to the Omega that was in Arc of Infinity right? There was also that werid random scene where the Doctor was talking to the butler from Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

That aside, it was interesting, the music was quite enjoyable and fit the mood of what was happening on screen, and it didn't repeat itself. I also loved watching Ace beat the crap out of a Dalek with a baseball bat. That was cool and made me think of Leela. She probably would have done the same thing had she encountered them too.

At first I was going to talk about how bad the Emperor Dalek looked, however, it made sense after it was revealed to be Davros in disguise. I'm not really sure why he had to disquise himself though. Still, like I said, compared to what came before it, it was well done. Hopefully the next episode can be better.

[Dr Kain]

Something I just thought about as I was watching both The Happiness Patrol and Silver Nemesis. There is no way the Doctor could have purposely left that coffin for the Daleks to find in Remembrance when he left Earth with Susan and them because he had no idea who the Daleks were until he met them for the first time with the gang he kidnapped.

The Happiness Patrol - Okay, the game makers of We Happy Few clearly ripped off this episode with their game because it was exactly like that. Anyway, this one was fantastic, brilliant even. I don't think I've enjoyed an episode this much since The Caves of Androzani. It was interesting, well thought out, and just flat out fun overall. The Kandy Man was unique and kind of badass. He would make for an excellent level boss where you have to use the environment to defeat him. lol My only complaint is it felt like it should have been a four parter instead of three as it could have used some breathing room. Nevertheless, it was great.

Silver Nemesis - I finished this up about 45 minutes ago and I have no idea what the frigg was going on. The Cybermen certainly went out on a whimper rather than a bang for their final Classic DW story. Hell, I'm not sure I can even call this a Cybermen story for the did little to nothing outside of acting like a bunch of buffoons. All they were missing was some comedic music and "wahwahwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahs" sound effects. I also don't understand the purpose of the crazy lady from the 1600s that seems to know how to time travel with an arrow. Not only was that scene alone nonsensible, but their entire purpose seemed superfluous because they didn't do anything to the story at all. They could have found another way to bring the arrow into the plot without them. Then we have the Neo-Nazis, who had no development whatsoever. They were just there and they were just Neo-Nazis because I guess the show wanted to make it clear to us that they were evil. There was no significance to them being Neo-Nazis at all. Why even bother if you aren't going to do anything interesting with them?

Of course, it doesn't stop there. The silver angel thing... riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. What the heck was that even about? It makes the backstory of the Valeyard look plausible. "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!", Mel's god mode shields from Time and the Rani were more believable than this thing. Oh, and here we are again. You know the show is out of ideas when they start making up stories about people knowing who the Doctor's real name is, teasing the audience, but never actually doing anything with it because the writers don't know what to do with that knowledge. Imagine a show that in its 25th season (and then again in its 32nd) decided to break status quo and do something so drastic that it revolutionized itself? Wouldn't that be something?

As is, Silver Nemesis goes back to fumbling the ball as if it belonged in McCoy's first season.

[Dr Kain]

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy - This was another solid adventure, really solid. Like damn was it good. It was well paced, the characters were interesting, the plot took a lot of twists and turns I didn't see coming, and most of all, it was just flat out entertaining. I don't know if I like this one or The Happiness Patrol the best of the season, as they were both excellent stories. I must admit, after the Ringmaster started to sing his song, I was expecting him to break out with, "In West Philadelphia, born and raised, On the playground is where I spent most of my days. Chillin' out, maxin', relaxin all cool."

Overall, this season was quite solid and the best season since Davison's second. Three of the four stories were highly enjoyable, with two of them being down right outstanding. Thus, I'm not going to leave a ranking this time around since I'm unsure which one I like the best, but I do know Remembrance of the Daleks is in third place with Silver Nemesis being the bomb of the season. Odd how a season of only four stories can have a bomb though. Looking forward to starting the final season tomorrow.

[Dr Kain]

Two more down, two to go.

Battlefield - This was excellent. I loved the fact that they used Morgan Le Fay and stuff, though I am surprised it took them this long. I figured they would have covered something like this back in either Hartnel or Troughton's era. It was also great to see Stewart back as the man is such a delight to see on screen every time. I'm going to guess that this was indeed his final appearance, correct? If there was anything to complain about, it would be the acting on both Mordred and Morgainne was really hammed up and there were a couple scenes that just felt awkward, like when Stewart first meets Morgainne and she tells them they are going to have a ceasefire to honor their dead as if that makes any sense, especially since 2 minutes later she is back to killing people. I do wish the Asian girl stuck around as she had great chemistry with Ace, but as is, she was pretty pointless to the plot. Nevertheless, this may be the best season premier since The Horror of Fang Rock.

Ghost Light - It was good, had a lot of horror elements to it, though the story got a tad convoluted in places. It really should have had an extra episode to develop its plot as I feel like there was a lot of information missing due to it only being 3 episodes in length. I also don't know how I feel about Ace's experience in the house as it came out of nowhere, but it does work for the most part. Like the story's plot, I just wish it had been fleshed out more.

The Curse of Fenric - Another well done, albeit it vexing, story. I loved it, it felt like another story that came out of the Hinchcliff era (in fact, this entire season has felt that way so far), however, I feel like there was just something missing from keeping it being perfect. I kind of fitured the baby was meant to be Ace's mom when she said the girl had the same name as her mom, but I'm not really sure how Fenric becomes a part of Ace from that. Nevertheless, the production values were top notch and the WWII setting really helped set it apart from other stories.

Tomorrow we will finish the season off.

[sentaison]

Battlefield was the Brigadiers last hurrah in Doctor Who, his last appearance in the canon universe was in the Sarah Jane Adventures. A lot of fans were hoping he'd get an appearance in the new series, but sadly that didn't happen. As for all the foreshadowing that was going on with Ace, the writers were building up to a big storyline but the show got canceled before they could pay it off. Apparently it was finished in some of the novels that were written during the period between the old and new series.

[Dr Kain]

Survival - I don't know what it is about this story, but it just doesn't grip me that much. I thought it was because I hadn't seen anything else from McCoy when I first saw it, but now having watched his entire run in order, I'm still not blown away by it. I loved the first part, thought the second part was really good, but then the show kind of loses me during its final chapter and I'm not sure why. I like the concept, I love the Cheetah creature costumes, The Master was interesting to see due to him being portrayed differently from past stories, the look of the Cheetah creature planet, yet, there is something that keeps it from blowing my mind. I'd say it is easily my least favorite of the season, yet I can't exactly tell you why. Perhaps it is also that it doesn't feel like a series finale. Now obviously it would make sense as to why it doesn't feel like an ending, since it was not planned to be, however, since it was, it just feels like a lackluster finale for a show that ran for 26 years. I keep trying to look at it in a different light, especially after watching the various documentaries on the disc, but it's not working that way.

Regardless, despite my minor nitpicks with Survival, I do have to agree with those that say this season was wonderful, as it was. It is probably the best full season since Davison's second, if not his first. My rankings for this season are as follows:

1. Curse of Fenric
2. Battlefield
3. Ghostlight
4. Survival

For McCoy's tenure, I think my top 6 are as follows:

1. The Happiness Patrol
2. The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
3. Curse of Fenric
4. Battlefield
5. Ghostlight
6. Remembrance of the Daleks

My least favorite is a toss up between Time and the Rani and Silver Nemesis.

With that said, wow, what a journey these last two months have been. Getting to watch Seasons 12-26 (sans 18) in order in such a short time span has been a real treat. Even though there were episodes and seasons I absolutely despised, I really enjoyed my time viewing these 14 seasons. Do I think the show needed to go for 26 years? God no. However, unlike other series <coughcoughTheSimpsonscough>, rotating actors who play the Doctor and cast members does help change the status quo, so I am more lenient towards it because it found a way to run long without running it into the ground.

While there is still a plethora of stories from the first 11 seasons I have not watched yet, the 320 episodes I have watched since Dec have really filled my hunger for Doctor Who at this moment. What started out as being, "Oh, I'm just going to watch what I own on DVD/BD and wait for the BD season sets to fill in my gaps," evolved into, "You know what, outside of Baker's final season BD that will be out in just a short time, I'm just going to pay for a month of BritBox and see how far I can get before that month runs out," and now look, I made it all the way through McCoy's run with a few days to spare, and that is great.

My favorite season is without a doubt Tom Baker's third season with Talons of Weng-Chiang becoming my favorite story of the entire series at this point in time. For my least favorite season, it's by far Colin Baker's first season while after much thought, my least favorite episode of the series is The Twin Dilemma. I may not have liked The Horns of Nimon, but at least it had some great ideas and a cool set of monsters in it. The Twin Dilemma is just utter horseshit all of the way through without any redeeming values whatsoever.

Next up, The Movie.

[Dr Kain]

The Movie - Eh, it wasn't bad. It could have been a lot worse. Of course, it could have also been, and should have been, A LOT better. I'm not really sure what they were going for here, Doctor Who on a Bigger Budget? I had no idea the Tardis housed the Sanctum Sanctorum. That was weird, especially the whole giant ass eye thing. You can clearly tell this was an American made production with all of the guns and car chases involved. Not to mention it felt like a 90s made for TV movie. I kind of liked the first half hour or so of the film, but the moment the Doctor regenerated it quickly went downhill. The acting got bad, really bad. Was McGann even trying?

Hell, you could tell that Eric Roberts was interested at the beginning and then the moment he was taken over by The Master, he stopped caring as his acting ability fell off the planet. I can't even tell what they were going for here. He was quite inconsistent between his wannabe Terminator attitude to a campy Adam West Batman villian. Was the director just sleeping during his scenes or did Roberts not give a damn about the director? All I wanted to hear was Roberts shout out, "I'M GETTING PAID FOR THIS NO MATTER WHAT!!" and then have the Doctor and gang wink at the camera.

My favorite scene was probably the cop who drove into the Tardis and then kept on driving after coming out while the Doctor and doctor girl just watched him in bewilderment.

Overall, if this was supposed to kick start a new season, I can see why it was deemed a failure as it failed to really grasp the concept of Doctor Who. Hell, they couldn't even get their own mythology right because now suddenly the Doctor is half human? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. That totally contradicts everything that was being established during McCoy's run.

Well, with that out of the way, it is time to take a break from Doctor Who at the moment. Like I said last night, it's been a blast, but I've got a backlog of things that have been piling up since Doctor Who took over my life for the last two months. I'm also going to rewatch the new series this summer, so that is going to be a blast, especially since most of the episodes from Smith and Calpaldi I only watched when they were airing and had to deal with constant commercial breaks.

[Dr Kain]

So now that we finished what we wanted to of Doctor Who, we've been kind of in this, "Okay, so now what should we watch?" type of mindset. As such, we decided to watch The Underwater Menace and honestly, I didn't think it was all that great. In fact, I was ready to turn the thing off within the first 10 mintues as we just couldn't get into the story due to the first episode being just pictures with the original audio. I don't understand why they didn't bother to animate the missing episodes, but the pictures sometimes didn't even seem to match up with what was heard on screen. Like you hear Polly scream and people are running, but it's just a picture of Polly holding something in a cave on the screen during this entire scene, making it hard to grasp what exactly is going on. It was a mess.

Episodes 2 and 3 were all right, but god damn did they drag on forever. Then we go back to screen shots, and it had the same problem again. Unless they actually go out and animate these episodes later, I have no plans to ever rewatch this story. It seemed like there were some cool ideas in it, and I loved the market bit when they were trying to capture the evil scientist dude, but ultimately, the story fell flat for me. Maybe it was just a lackluster tale to begin with, which is why BBC did not bother animating it. Either way, I was left with a very lukewarm feeling. I don't know if I can watch another story that has pictures for its missing episodes.

[Dr Kain]

The Moonbase - I quite enjoyed this one. Sure, it's nowhere near the best of Troughton's stories and it does kind of rehash the plot from The Tenth Planet, but it was well paced, intriguing, and I liked the portrayal of the Cybermen here. It was also nice to see Polly do something more than just whine or get captured, especially during the scene when she kind of mocked the Doctor on his medical skills. Of course, that didn't stop her from being told to get everyone coffee at one point. lol I loved the scene when the Doctor pretty much literally says, "Here they come, look busy!" Oh my god was that hilarious, especially since I made that joke a moment before he said that.

[Dr Kain]

The Tomb of the Cybermen - This was the first Troughton story I ever watched and I enjoyed it ten years ago, but really loved it now. Like Pyramids of Mars (a decade later), I felt like I was watching a Mummy movie but with robots. What's even funnier about that is one of the villains was in the Hammer Mummy film. Everyone was great, though, I'm not sure I like Victoria. She seems like a low rent Polly just without being asked to make some coffee. Nevertheless, it was great and the Cybermen was pretty badass here.

BTW, I don't know why, but every time I hear these Cybermen talk I want to suddenly listen to Daft Punk's Robot Rock song.

[Dr Kain]

We watched The Ice Warriors today and it was good. Very enjoyable and I got a laugh out of the scene when the Doctor had Victoria cry so he could divulge his plan to her. The commander dude was an A class idiot, though, it makes me think of certain people these days who can't live without their computers. Unfortunately, I felt the costumes for the Ice Warriors were quite silly, but it's cool, they were executed well. I can see why this story is well liked, of course, like most of the stories at the time, it did not need to be 6 episodes long. Nevertheless, I never felt like it truly dragged on in any given moment, but there were some really pointless characters in the long run.