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locker_monsterThis had sort of been looming for awhile, but now it's confirmed. I could be out of a job come the end of the month. It's not a big surprise. The project I'm on is ending and all the work is being moved up to site. I had hoped I could have lasted a little longer. The company doesn't have much else going on so if they don't find me something doing something else on another project, then I'm out of luck. And I just hate job hunting.
So I've been distracting myself by watching lots of old Doctor Who episodes, specifically serials from the First Doctor's era. I somehow managed to finish off the first season in a week. Well, the majority of it. I had already seen the first serial and "Marco Polo" is completely lost. So probably thirty individual episodes. That's the thing I like best about Classic Who. With the multiple episodes it's so easy to get wrapped up in the story and the next thing you know you're on episode seven of a serial.
I think I've said it before, but I really do think the old episodes hold up really well. The special effects look a little hokey, but what can you do. Everything else - the story, the acting, the sets - they all work. Watching the first season, I'm sort of sad the show drifted away from doing completely historical serials. I think they were phased out during the Second Doctor's era. The closest New Who has come to a historical episode was "The Fires of Pompeii", but there were still aliens involved so it's not like a serial like "The Aztecs" where it was just the circumstances that stood in the way of the Doctor and his companions. Those serials are kind of refreshing. With no alien threat to thwart, the Doctor and everyone has to rely on cunning to get out of the situation. If they mess up history while they're there, then everything is screwed. But I guess in the end, a romp through history isn't as exciting as facing down the Daleks.
Ooh, Daleks. The Daleks were first introduced in the first season. They've changed a lot over the years, in the terms of what they can do, but the basics were there in the beginning. And watching the serial, you get the sense that if the Doctor hadn't ended up exploring the abandoned city in the story then the Daleks wouldn't have become a universal threat. They would have stayed underground on Skaro, unable to leave. It really puts a new spin on the Doctor's history with the Daleks. Gallifrey might still be around if he had done things differently.
And I think I'm totally developing a crush on Ian, one of the Doctor's companions. :-) He's the action man of the group since One wasn't really capable of doing all the physical stuff, not like nowadays. In one season, Ian managed to make fire for a group of cavemen, lead an expedition of Thals through a mountain, was mistakenly charged with murder, became an Aztec warrior, and escaped jail during the French Revolution. And that's just the stuff I can recall off the top of my head. His protectiveness of the group is endearing and sets up a lot of tension between him and the Doctor when the situation gets rough. I also think I'm becoming an Ian/Barbara shipper. It's kind of hard not to. Oh sure, you can shrug off his concern for her as just basic worry, Ian does worry about everyone, but the both of them always seem a little bit more concerned when either of them head off into danger or disappear. They already seemed like good friends before they met the Doctor and travelling around in time and space made them even closer. All the non-canon books say they got married and had a son when they got back to Earth so clearly some people agree. ;-) I'm also slightly convinced Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, had a slight crush on Ian but that could be because Susan likes to cling onto people when she's frighten (which happens a lot). I'm sort of tempted now to write a fic where Ten meets up with Ian and Barbara again. A lot of fanon suggests he did when he and Martha were stuck in 1969 during "Blink".
If I was forced to watch old episodes of shows that have been re-imagined, re-booted, or remade, I wouldn't cringe if those episodes were old Doctor Whos. I tried watching some old Battlestar Galacticas and I barely made it past the third or fourth episode. Some shows can just last forever.
So I've been distracting myself by watching lots of old Doctor Who episodes, specifically serials from the First Doctor's era. I somehow managed to finish off the first season in a week. Well, the majority of it. I had already seen the first serial and "Marco Polo" is completely lost. So probably thirty individual episodes. That's the thing I like best about Classic Who. With the multiple episodes it's so easy to get wrapped up in the story and the next thing you know you're on episode seven of a serial.
I think I've said it before, but I really do think the old episodes hold up really well. The special effects look a little hokey, but what can you do. Everything else - the story, the acting, the sets - they all work. Watching the first season, I'm sort of sad the show drifted away from doing completely historical serials. I think they were phased out during the Second Doctor's era. The closest New Who has come to a historical episode was "The Fires of Pompeii", but there were still aliens involved so it's not like a serial like "The Aztecs" where it was just the circumstances that stood in the way of the Doctor and his companions. Those serials are kind of refreshing. With no alien threat to thwart, the Doctor and everyone has to rely on cunning to get out of the situation. If they mess up history while they're there, then everything is screwed. But I guess in the end, a romp through history isn't as exciting as facing down the Daleks.
Ooh, Daleks. The Daleks were first introduced in the first season. They've changed a lot over the years, in the terms of what they can do, but the basics were there in the beginning. And watching the serial, you get the sense that if the Doctor hadn't ended up exploring the abandoned city in the story then the Daleks wouldn't have become a universal threat. They would have stayed underground on Skaro, unable to leave. It really puts a new spin on the Doctor's history with the Daleks. Gallifrey might still be around if he had done things differently.
And I think I'm totally developing a crush on Ian, one of the Doctor's companions. :-) He's the action man of the group since One wasn't really capable of doing all the physical stuff, not like nowadays. In one season, Ian managed to make fire for a group of cavemen, lead an expedition of Thals through a mountain, was mistakenly charged with murder, became an Aztec warrior, and escaped jail during the French Revolution. And that's just the stuff I can recall off the top of my head. His protectiveness of the group is endearing and sets up a lot of tension between him and the Doctor when the situation gets rough. I also think I'm becoming an Ian/Barbara shipper. It's kind of hard not to. Oh sure, you can shrug off his concern for her as just basic worry, Ian does worry about everyone, but the both of them always seem a little bit more concerned when either of them head off into danger or disappear. They already seemed like good friends before they met the Doctor and travelling around in time and space made them even closer. All the non-canon books say they got married and had a son when they got back to Earth so clearly some people agree. ;-) I'm also slightly convinced Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, had a slight crush on Ian but that could be because Susan likes to cling onto people when she's frighten (which happens a lot). I'm sort of tempted now to write a fic where Ten meets up with Ian and Barbara again. A lot of fanon suggests he did when he and Martha were stuck in 1969 during "Blink".
If I was forced to watch old episodes of shows that have been re-imagined, re-booted, or remade, I wouldn't cringe if those episodes were old Doctor Whos. I tried watching some old Battlestar Galacticas and I barely made it past the third or fourth episode. Some shows can just last forever.
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Date: 2009-08-09 11:39 am (UTC)I think some of the older ones hold up a bit better than ones from the 70s/80s. I mean, 70/80s Who holds up better than a lot of other tv of the era, but with the earlier stuff, the effects were simple and sparse, but at least they weren't at that awkward phase of FX where everybody could do cool and new things, but hadn't yet learned _how_ to do those cool and new things without looking awful and fake.
There's something else I remember from the old days... because of the tight budget and filming schedules, often they only got one take on everything unless there was a serious screw-up. So you get charming moments where the doctor doesn't speak like an actor spouting perfectly formed written lines, but like an actual person who occasionally stumbles over his words, loses his train of thought, etc.
And I of course agree with you on the historicals. I like aliens as much as anybody else, but when you make every threat alien it kind of cheapens them, because there's lots of other things that could threaten them, especially in the past. The Doctor's not much of a fighter, and his sonic screwdriver isn't as much use when there isn't technology around.
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Date: 2009-08-09 11:18 pm (UTC)Oh yes, flubs. I believe fans call William Hartnell's flubs "Billy Goat Fluffs." :-) But the fluffs certainly make One a distinct character. It fits this incarnation of the Doctor; he's getting old and his mind isn't what it used to be.
I just finished watching "The Romans" (bizarre episode; serious and comedic at the same time), and the only thing the Doctor, Vicki, Ian, and Barbara had to worry about were slave traders, assassins, and a plotting Roman emperor. And it worked just fine, though probably because all four of them are split up from each other for the entire serial and you're just waiting for them to reunite again. When you make every threat alien, then the threat, and the outcomes, have to be bigger and bigger each time. If you have to follow history for a story, then you know the outcome, and it's the parts in-between that make everything else interesting.