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DW: The Web Planet (One, Ian, Barbara, Vicki) / Inferno (Three, Liz)
The Web Planet
There are some Doctor Who episodes where you feel like the writer's actual audience was children. A wee bit dumbed down (although nothing like other shows dumbing stuff down) and a bit campier. (The Runaway Bride felt a lot like this to me - written mainly for kids.) This was The Web Planet.
Vicki was new - at first I thought she was Susan. I suppose I'll eventually get her backstory, but she does scream less than Susan.
Oh, the cheesetastic costumes! :D
The ant creatures. (Nice legs.)
The flying creatures.
Creature: You mind, buddy?
Doctor: Just trying to figure out if you're a fly or a bee.
The pillbug creatures. Pillbugs like slacks.
Ian: Come on! Roll up! For me? I wanna flick you across the room.
And finally, the...Swiffer Dust Mop creatures?
Inferno
Boy, what a difference 5 years make! Compare this episode to The Web Planet? There's hardly a comparison. This episode is *definitely* going into my top Classic episodes.
- The more I see of Three, the more I love him. Which surprises me a bit since he's the least loonytoons of all the Doctors. No, Three is sensible. He's rather like listening to the BBC World Service where everything they say sounds sensible. If Three walked into the room and instructed me to reverse the polarity of my computer, I'd do it just because it'd be so very sensible.
- First time seeing Liz and I really liked her. And she is also sensible. Also, she's really the first Companion I've seen who's actually seems to be an *assistant.* Oh, others help the Doctor, but she's an Assistant. I suddenly feel the urge to watch more Three and Liz episodes. Their combined sensibleness will most likely defeat dinosaurs.
- I was expecting a cheesy AU, and was pleasantly surprised. Oh, there was cheesiness to be sure, but the whole AU part of it was actually pretty good. And even some snifty character stuff of people standing in the face of death.
- Greg/Petra 4 EVA!!!!!!!! My total favorite guest characters in Classic Who! WOO! (New Who - the characters in The Impossible Planet.) But...they were three dimensional! And interesting! (Just like the people in TIP.)
- "Dimensional paradox" for bringing people to another universe, eh? Tell that to Rose, Jackie and Mickey. Although, the Doctor seemed like he *just* realized that parallel worlds existed in Inferno and so maybe was making a guess? That'd be a pretty big guess and doom a handful of people that could have been saved. Including a second Greg/Petra - really, you can't have too many Greg/Petras around.
- The Doctor was wearing a CAPE. Like, a cape! Cape. Okay, maybe Three is a wee bit loonytoons.
- Not sure why the TARDIS console was out of the TARDIS. I'm *guessing* it has to do with the Time Lords clipping his wings and the Doctor trying to find a way around that. "I feel lost without my TARDIS." *pats Doctor*
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I love the cape. *swish*
He's trying to make the TARDIS work again (after, yes, the Time Lords clipping his wings), although why that requires removing the whole central console from the rest of the ship is beyond me.
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Yes yes!
Not to worry, he's still nuts; it's just less obvious.
Well...the cape. I mean, that's a bit of a tip-off. ;)
I love the cape. *swish*
I totally cracked up. At first you can't see the cape since he's driving, and then he gets out of the car and...CAPE. :D
See, I would *love* Rose to be able to see these past incarnations, if only to mock the hell out of him.
Rose: All right. What was up with the cape?
Doctor: Like it? It was *swishy!*
Rose: *facepalm*
Doctor: What?
He's trying to make the TARDIS work again (after, yes, the Time Lords clipping his wings), although why that requires removing the whole central console from the rest of the ship is beyond me.
Who knows. :D Three seems in a constant state of needing to fix/tinker - even more than Nine.
OH! Totally forgot about the Amazing Garage Door Opener! That everyone was in awe of. *G*
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It's her actual job. Not, perhaps, her official job description; she's supposed to be a scientific advisor, just like the Doctor. But he sort of commandeered her as an assistant. :-)
Inferno is the only one I've seen (or at least recall having seen) with her. I love her, but also get why they were having trouble with the whole "She's not asking enough questions, and it sounds lame when she does" thing.
You'd think they'd remember from Zoe & Jamie that you can get away with having an advanced companion who knows a lot of this stuff if there's another one at the same time who doesn't.
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*snickers*
Inferno is the only one I've seen (or at least recall having seen) with her. I love her, but also get why they were having trouble with the whole "She's not asking enough questions, and it sounds lame when she does" thing.
Oh, is that why they gave her the boot? And why she was only in 4 episodes? And here she seemed to me a good match for Three. Side note - I find it interesting that they changed Doctors *and* companions with the start of Three. Seems like there's always been overlap of one or the other for every other change. Hmm.
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I agree she was a good match for Three, and I love watching their interaction. But I do get that, particularly in 1960whatever, when these concepts weren't as current in popular culture as they are for us, they really felt they needed someone to ask the Dumb Questions.
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That rather sucks. But at least she got to go out on a good ep, I guess.
I agree she was a good match for Three, and I love watching their interaction. But I do get that, particularly in 1960whatever, when these concepts weren't as current in popular culture as they are for us, they really felt they needed someone to ask the Dumb Questions.
Or probably, a woman to ask dumb questions. Bleh.
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Anyway, I can *totally* see Five becoming who he was because of his Companions at the time. Not sure if they had any sort of intent with that when they got Peter Davison to do it, or if it's me just creating some sort of connection when that wasn't really there.
But anyway, now that I'm getting more used to different incarnations, I'm now sort of seeing Five in his Fiveness as this "big brother" to this brood of kiddies on the TARDIS (okay, Tegan was like 20, but still). Especially seeing this big brother thing with Adric. Adric seems to bring out the petty childishness in Five in only the way a little brother can. Mwah.
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Ha! That is so very, very true. The "Hey, Doctor, aren't you supposed to be the grownup here?" thing is expected from Nyssa and her perpetual mediatorness, but I think even Tegan ended up doing it a time or two!
Not sure if they had any sort of intent with that when they got Peter Davison to do it, or if it's me just creating some sort of connection when that wasn't really there.
That actually makes really good sense. They filmed "Castrovalva" third or fourth, to give him a chance to establish who he was going to be before making him be scrambled pieces of it.
Plus, with the whole downplaying of PD's heartthrob status from All Creatures Great and Small, and the "no touching girls!" nonsense from The Beeb On High, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the "big brother" thing was quite conscious and deliberate.
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HA!
That actually makes really good sense. They filmed "Castrovalva" third or fourth, to give him a chance to establish who he was going to be before making him be scrambled pieces of it.
I remember you saying that. That was pretty smart of them.
Plus, with the whole downplaying of PD's heartthrob status from All Creatures Great and Small, and the "no touching girls!" nonsense from The Beeb On High, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the "big brother" thing was quite conscious and deliberate.
Oh man, my *mom* watched that! And loved that! She probably even had a PD crush. :D Didn't really realize he was Mr. Heartthrob and so there probably is a good chance of "he *must* be big brother or father type!" Heh. Although from Earthshock I'm getting way more a big brother thing than any kind of father figure.
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When we first saw TIP/TSP, we were all reminded of Inferno right away. The good character development, with folks one can care about, the messing about with things one shouldn't, and the Doctor getting involved anyhow, even though it's not his bailiwick. There's even a sort of parallel between missing TARDIS and non-working TARDIS.
Dr. Liz Shaw was the best assistant ever. Very competent, and still wore miniskirts well, and seemed very concerned about the Doctor as a person. I do wish that she had had more eppies. Instead we got silly Jo Grant. I did like Jo, but I liked Liz much better.
Later on, I found out that many of the people who worked on The Avengers, one of my fave TV shows ever, moved over to DW when Jon Pertwee became the Doctor. Barry Letts is a case in point. So that explains some of why I love Three's era so much. :)
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Oh, nice parallels! I'd only been thinking about the guest characters, but those are great points as well.
Dr. Liz Shaw was the best assistant ever. Very competent, and still wore miniskirts well, and seemed very concerned about the Doctor as a person.
Yes! I loved that! Loved when the Doctor was unconscious, she was like, "*I'll* take care of him." And it wasn't just a sentimental statement - she really could.
I do wish that she had had more eppies.
Me too. I was sad when I discovered there were only 4 eps. Kinda like how I was bummed in finding out the Rani only had 2 eps. She should have been in WAY more. *Best* DW villian ever, in my opinion.
Later on, I found out that many of the people who worked on The Avengers, one of my fave TV shows ever, moved over to DW when Jon Pertwee became the Doctor. Barry Letts is a case in point. So that explains some of why I love Three's era so much. :)
Interesting. Well, Inferno really sold me on Three. Can't wait to see more!
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If you want loonytunes Three, you need to watch the beginning of Spearhead in Space, if you haven't already. *grins*
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