From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sat Jul 26 15:01:09 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA23564; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 15:01:09 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA03256; Sat, 26 Jul 97 15:14:42 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id VAA01823; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 21:09:36 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 21:09:36 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <01BC99D3.7EFB9F60@michaell@execpc.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Michael Lee To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4025 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO Just finished up watching it, so here are a few thoughts.... This is one story where the production values are quite a let down -- the music is one of the worst in the shows history, not at all effective at capturing a mood or feel...painfully bad. [The How-Do-You-Do scene in particular was not very good musically] There's also way too much of an attempt [especially by the Chief Caretaker and his associates] to play it over the top. However, unlike something like "Time Flight", the story -- and especially the concepts behind it -- could have been executed better. The Doctor collecting diverse groups and bringing them together is Ice Hot, and the Kangs work out fairly decently. The cleaners; believe it or not; are quite appropriate -- the clean white plastic *looks* like a cleaner, even before it gained the sadistic edges... I wonder about some of the world -- it seems to me that Paradise Towers is the only thing on the planet [especially since everyone arrived there by ship]. The circumstances of how it was set up strikes me as a little odd -- clearly this was an expensive proposition; what was the motivation behind it all? It's also odd that ALL of the inbetweeners went away -- likewise, assuming that it had been 10 or so years, I doubt they were sending five or six year old boys to fight... [some of the boys became caretakers, I imagine] Mel's acceptable in this; but it strikes me as odd that she'd jump right into the swimming pool even after her previous encounters in the building. She handles herself fairly well through most of the story -- even when Pex gets an opprotunity to save her, she also handles herself in the end at the pool. not one of the better stories, and it's especially let down by the production. Michael Lee michaell@execpc.com http://www.execpc.com/~michaell From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sat Jul 26 22:20:02 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA46029; Sat, 26 Jul 1997 22:20:01 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06339; Sat, 26 Jul 97 22:33:36 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id EAA07359; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 04:32:09 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 04:32:09 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707270322.UAA14795@mailtod-1.alma.webtv.net> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: chrisk@webtv.net (Chris Krisocki) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Mime-Version: 1.0 (WebTV) Status: RO Well, well, well. I can see why I haven't watched this since it was last broadcast in my area. It suffers greatly from a new syndrome which I've just named the Embarrassment Factor: ie, which things would cause you to cringe if you were watching them with a non-fan? There are just so many of them: the slang, the costumes, the cleaners, the acting, etc. To take them in turn: the slang. "No visitors, no flyposts, no ballgames," "ice hot," "all shape ship and ready," uugh! The scenes in the beginning "caretaker number 345 stroke 12 sub-section 3," "you're facing a 327 appendix 4 sub-section death." These things drove me up the wall when I first saw this, and they still do. The costumes: that awful thing worn by the Chief Caretaker. I noticed that it has CC written on the shoulders. Does that mean all his lines were closed-captioned? I wonder if the Deputy Chief had DCC on his. Did Steven Wyatt predict that Philips would have a sales flop with a recording medium of the same name? And what about Mel's outfit? Hideous, utterly hideous. The cleaners: how could these things clean? Plus, they're so large, so how could they get into a waste disposal unit? A shot with one crossbow causes them to explode? Putting a transparent tablecloth over the flashing lights on top makes them blind? Aagh! The acting: loads of embarrasing moments, not least of which is Richard Briars's attempt to imitate Monty Python's Gumby characters. I almost expected him to say, "my brain hurts." There's also a terrible scene in Part One where the Deputy Chief says something like, "there'd be a rule for it in here, wouldn't there, hm?" with such a silly face and delivery straight out of a pantomime. All those extras look so uninvolved. They just stare blankly in all their scenes. What about the Caretaker that looks like Baldric from Black Adder? "Look, Doctor, look, it's the swimming pool." "I can't wait to feel that nice cool water." Do people really talk like this? Just how was Kroagnon able to make all the equipment necessary to transform his mind? Surely those clumsy cleaners couldn't have done it? Another thing: the lifts aren't supposed to work properly, yet whenever someone wants to get somewhere, they seem to have no problems whatsoever. Be sure to watch out for the little panel in the lift which moves ever so slightly when it's first seen. It's a shame that there are so many pantomime elements in this story, because if JN-T, Andrew Cartmel and company had taken some time over the script, it had the potential to be oh so much better. The concept was perhaps the most original the series had seen in a long time, but it's just so damn embarrassing and unrewarding to wade through the dross that was added in production. I for one feel that I could have been doing something better with the 90 minutes it took me to get through the compilation. From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sun Jul 27 00:04:54 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA23472; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:04:54 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA07148; Sun, 27 Jul 97 00:18:28 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id GAA08344; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 06:16:44 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 06:16:44 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <30E8BF44.9EBBD861@flinet.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Irwin To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; I) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO > The costumes: that awful thing worn by the Chief Caretaker. I > noticed > that it has CC written on the shoulders. Does that mean all his lines > were closed-captioned? It probably ment "Chief Caretaker". Why all the Pertwee and McCoy bashing? Pertwee was a badass and McCoy was fun. I hope nobody bashes you, because you couldn't do a better job. irwin From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sun Jul 27 18:52:05 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA20965; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 18:52:05 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14911; Sun, 27 Jul 97 19:05:39 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id BAA20716; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:04:12 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:04:12 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Paul Rhodes To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO Hmmm.... I like it, but it could have been *so* much better. There's some lovely ideas in there, but the script is at least one rewrite short of workable, and the production is patchy. The major problem, I think, is that the background to the story doesn't quite make sense, and what there is of it is mostly held back until episode 3. The first couple of episodes introduce the three factions, with a few captures and escapes, and leave the viewer none the wiser as to what the point of it all is. By the end of episode 3, we know that Kroagnon is the baddie, that he was imprisoned in his own building by the people who comissioned him to build it, and (I think) that he'd deliberately built the machines as killers from the outset. Unless I've missed something, we still don't really know what the Chief Caretaker thought the thing in the basement was, and so why he was feeding it. The timescales seem confused: I presumed from the state of the building and the way the people had adapted to life in Paradise Towers (language, for instance) that they were supposed to have been there for a long time, with the Kangs having arrived as young children. However, Pex's youth and the lack of boy Kangs, assuming young boys would not have gone to war, suggest they haven't been there that long. Plot-wise, then, it's a bit of a mess. The annoying thing is that I think the setup could have made sense; the apparent contradictions could have been avoided. So, what's it all about? The impersonal architecture of tower blocks; the way they're used as a dumping ground for the elderly and the disadvantaged young; the traditional ending where the warring factions of the victims unite against the greater evil that's put them where they are. All this comes through quite well, but ultimately I don't think the story fulfils its promise. On the positive side, the Kangs and the Rezzies are well-drawn, if not exactly hyperrealistic characters, and the caricatured Caretakers are quite fun. The Kang's language is particularly good, and the first scene where the Rezzies appear, hurriedly clearing bones out of Mel's view, is a high point. The cleaning robots are a good idea, but look silly: they're too big and lumbering to be really scary, and their various attachments don't really look very useful for cleaning. They're also about the only clean things in the Towers, for some reason (OK, it's because they have to be white). The production is mostly good but let down by the robots, Briers going a bit too far over the top, and too many "menacing" shots of the robots. It's a lost opportunity, perhaps as a result of falling in Sylvester's first season, when JN-T and crew still seemed rather unsure what sort of programme they wanted to make. I can't help thinking it might have been made a lot better had it come a year or two later, or a couple of years earlier. I do still like it, though. :-) Paul From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sun Jul 27 18:52:31 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA24307; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 18:52:31 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14918; Sun, 27 Jul 97 19:06:05 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id BAA20681; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:03:06 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 01:03:06 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <01BC9ABD.666DCE60@michaell@execpc.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Michael Lee To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4025 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO On Saturday, July 26, 1997 10:31 PM, Chris Krisocki [SMTP:chrisk@webtv.net] wrote: > To take them in turn: the slang. "No visitors, no flyposts, no > ballgames," "ice hot," "all shape ship and ready," uugh! The scenes in > the beginning "caretaker number 345 stroke 12 sub-section 3," "you're > facing a 327 appendix 4 sub-section death." These things > drove me up the wall when I first saw this, and they still do. Most of the slang didn't bother me too much -- sometimes [especially in the "caretaker number 345 stroke 12 sub-section 3" scenes] the delivery failed... I imagine if they were played down, and not up, the production would have been much more effective. I haven't seen the story recently enough to do a comparison, but I wonder how a compare and contrast between "Paradise Towers" and "The Sunmakers" would work... it just hit me right at the moment while I was typing this out, so I haven't thought about it much, but it strikes me as being quite similar in many ways... > The costumes: that awful thing worn by the Chief Caretaker. I noticed > that it has CC written on the shoulders. Does that mean all his lines > were closed-captioned? I wonder if the Deputy Chief had DCC on his. Did > Steven Wyatt predict that Philips would have a sales flop with a > recording medium of the same name? And what about Mel's outfit? Hideous, > utterly hideous. Mel's outfit may have been terrible, but I don't think it was out of line of most companions outfits -- I'd compare it to any number of Sarah's outfits, or the infamous ones from Dodo and Steven's time.... Michael Lee michaell@execpc.com http://www.execpc.com/~michaell From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sun Jul 27 20:12:43 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA24314; Sun, 27 Jul 1997 20:12:43 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA15298; Sun, 27 Jul 97 20:26:05 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id CAA21945; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 02:20:01 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 02:20:01 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707280111.UAA26817@mail.xnet.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List Content-Type: text Status: RO Okay, I'm going to break with the status quo here and say that for the most part, I *don't* find PT painful to watch. I like the story. I like the characters. I like the sets. I like the music. And I don't consider myself to be an indiscriminate DW viewer, either. It's certainly a bit more OTT than other stories, but I can chalk that up to a difference in approach. I could even theorize that PT is most appealing to folks who are "all-purpose" Anglophiles -- since they have an equal appreciation for the sort of Python/panto style used in PT, it's less likely to grate, whereas UK fans probably find the inclusion of these elements more annoying. I liked the slang. I like the Kangs in concept, if not necessarily in execution. And I buy the idea of a society that has existed for ages under a set of rules that have become meaningless and descended into ritualized processes. I think the story's failure is Kroagnon -- he's just not enough of a menace. He isn't well-developed. And he could have been -- the concept of a vengeful, disembodied architect given form after years of imprisonment is interesting. Surely he'd have an almost symbiotic relationship with his creation? Within Paradise Towers he'd be God, able to control anything, anywhere in the building... doors, lifts, heating systems, all of it. It could have been better. But I still like it. george From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 06:38:38 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA23321; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 06:38:38 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA21144; Mon, 28 Jul 97 06:52:12 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id MAA01931; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:49:14 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:49:14 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970728.073815.8534.1.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Sun, 27 Jul 1997 04:32:08 +0100 (BST) chrisk@webtv.net (Chris Krisocki) writes: >Well, well, well. I can see why I haven't watched this since it was >last broadcast in my area. It suffers greatly from a new syndrome >which I've just named the Embarrassment Factor: ie, which things would cause >you to cringe if you were watching them with a non-fan? This is actually a common complaint of this era, so as a test a year or so ago (in preparation for the movie) I introduced WHO to five or six of my friends who had never seen it. The McCoy stories went over far, far better than anything else except City of Death. There was far more of the Embarrassment Factor in the Tom Baker stories, for example, than the McCoy stories. I think sometimes we get too close the series, and can't step back and realistically see how crap so much of it looks to others. I imagine there's also a regional difference; I know of more US fans who appreciate the later years than British fans. Perhaps we're seeing these programs through different lenses? >There are just so many of them: the slang, the costumes, the cleaners, the acting, >etc. To take them in turn: the slang. "No visitors, no flyposts, no >ballgames," "ice hot," "all shape ship and ready," uugh! I thought the slang was one of the highlights of the serial, and one of the few examples in science fiction of an creative attempt at a logical, localized dialect. >The scenes in the beginning "caretaker number 345 stroke 12 sub-section 3," "you're >facing a 327 appendix 4 sub-section death." These things >drove me up the wall when I first saw this, and they still do. Like most of the McCoy era, Paradise Towers is really just a social commentary disguised as a science fiction serial. Sequences such as this are one of the entry points to understanding what the story is really about. I can't help but wonder if this story would have been praised in a Tom Baker season or with the name 'Robert Holmes' in the credits, and if The Sunmakers, as someone pointed out quite a similar story, would have been maligned with McCoy or a non-Holmes name. >The costumes: that awful thing worn by the Chief Caretaker. I >noticed that it has CC written on the shoulders. Does that mean all his lines >were closed-captioned? I wonder if the Deputy Chief had DCC on his. I thought the costumes were also a highpoint in this story. The tribal colors of the Kangs worked (aside from the hair). The caretaker outfits (and Pex's cannibalised version) worked great, in my opinion. Compare them to the costumes from The Armageddon Factor or a hundred other WHO stories that are absolutely dire but escape comment. >And what about Mel's outfit? Hideous, utterly hideous. And of course Sarah's outfit in Genesis of the Daleks is a perfectly valid reason to trash that story... >The cleaners: how could these things clean? Plus, they're so large, >so how could they get into a waste disposal unit? The look of the cleaners is fine; they actually do look like robotic cleaners. The attachments are a bit bizarre, so I echo your sentiments here. As for the waste disposal unit, I don't think a cleaner was in it; rather, I think Kroagnon took his precautions when building the unit. >A shot with one crossbow causes them to explode? Putting a transparent tablecloth >over the flashing lights on top makes them blind? Aagh! Having worked with machinery for years, I can accept in an instant that a crossbow can bugger up the cleaners. I agree with the tablecloth thing, unless they are guided by a non-visual system that the tablecloths interefered with. >The acting: loads of embarrasing moments, not least of which is >Richard Briars's attempt to imitate Monty Python's Gumby characters. I thought the acting was trememdous on all sides. One of the highlights of the McCoy era is the acting. The only moment that's a bit much is Briers in episode four, which is actually a bit realistic if we're expected to believe that Kroagnon is animating a corpse. >There's also a terrible scene in Part One where the Deputy Chief says something >like, "there'd be a rule for it in here, wouldn't there, hm?" with such a silly face >and delivery straight out of a pantomime. I take it you've never worked for middle management? ;-) >All those extras look so uninvolved. They just stare blankly in all their scenes. I suspect this was more or less part of the point. snip >Just how was Kroagnon able to make all the equipment necessary to >transform his mind? Surely those clumsy cleaners couldn't have done >it? I imagine he had built it beforehand (he did have a history of this sort of thing, remember). As for how he had the ability to make such technology - it's bleeding science fiction! >Another thing: the lifts aren't supposed to work properly, yet >whenever someone wants to get somewhere, they seem to have no problems >whatsoever. Er, such as? >Be sure to watch out for the little panel in the lift which >moves ever so slightly when it's first seen. As if the series had never seen this before... >It's a shame that there are so many pantomime elements in this >story, because if JN-T, Andrew Cartmel and company had taken some time over >the script, it had the potential to be oh so much better. I imagine Cartmel didn't have much time to edit the story, which in fairness needed another rewrite (Mel is truly an idiot in this story, stopping for tea and a swim despite everything she's seen). But the panto elements have been inherent in almost all sci-fi from the beginning (how pantomimesque is Star Trek, for example?). I thought the story was a bold move visually, if not completely successful. The direction is remarkable for Doctor Who, easily the best since Androzani. Many of the scenes with the Rezzies (covering the bones, telling Mel she can't leave) are genuinely chilling, an element WHO had been missing since the Hinchcliffe era and which Cartmel would do his damnedest to bring back to the series. The music is abominable, but in fairness it was hastily composed as a replacement for the original score. And for the first time in years (aside from Varos) we had a story which made you think. Not the best the series has ever seen, but by no means deserving of the fan dumping it receives. Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 07:00:44 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA18939; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 07:00:44 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA21342; Mon, 28 Jul 97 07:14:17 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id NAA03345; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:12:48 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:12:48 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707281210.WAA10968@smople.thehub.com.au> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: shane@thehub.com.au (Shane Wright) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: RO > There was far more of >the Embarrassment Factor in the Tom Baker stories, for example, than the >McCoy stories. I think sometimes we get too close the series, and can't >step back and realistically see how crap so much of it looks to others. Oh boy, I'm gonna regret this but.... Isn't that our prerogative as fans? It may be crap, but goddamit, it's our crap. >And of course Sarah's outfit in Genesis of the Daleks is a perfectly >valid reason to trash that story... Crap as Sarah Jane was IMFAUDO, the combat fatigues showed off her cute bottom. On that score, "Genesis" is, in part, redeemed. But you are right - at all other times her spiritless and colourless costume utterely ruined the story. And, on that score, Jo's imaginative and stylish costumes are the cheif reason the Pertwee era was the pinnacle of achievment in all things Who. saw 9-264 The Devil may have all the best tunes, but he has a lousy copyright lawyer. From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 07:25:48 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA40610; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 07:25:47 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA21638; Mon, 28 Jul 97 07:39:15 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id NAA04496; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:34:45 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:34:45 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Paul Rhodes To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO >>The look of the cleaners is fine; they actually do look like robotic >>cleaners. Well, at least they look like a rather shoddy BBC attempt at robotic cleaners, albeit somewhat impractical and badly choreographed. >>>A shot with one crossbow causes them to explode? Putting a transparent >>tablecloth >over the flashing lights on top makes them blind? Aagh! > >>Having worked with machinery for years, I can accept in an instant that a >>crossbow can bugger up the cleaners. I rather assumed they were making some use of the emergency explosives cache, although if so that's not really clear on screen - they're not obviously bulky crossbow bolts, for instance, so perhaps the only explosives were the ones Pex uses later on. >>I agree with the tablecloth thing, >>unless they are guided by a non-visual system that the tablecloths >>interefered with. It would have been better if it had been a thick knitted tablecloth (which the dialogue suggests). > >[snippety snip] >>The direction is remarkable for Doctor Who, easily the best since Androzani. Funny, I though the direction (is that the right word?) let it down. Apart from anything else, the scary moments are let down by going on too long (why does Sylvester hold that claw to his neck and gurn? Why does whatsername just hold that fork to Mel's neck rather than stabbing her with it?). Best since Androzani? Nah... give me Varos or Revelation any day. >Paul From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 09:24:35 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA29943; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:24:34 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA01909; Mon, 28 Jul 97 09:38:08 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id PAA06100; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:30:54 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:30:54 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <41D7F446F943D011A10C00A02441AF7B040B58@wingate> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Michael Lee To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4025 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO On Monday, July 28, 1997 8:29 AM, renton patrick [SMTP:renton@juno.com] wrote: > This is actually a common complaint of this era, so as a test a year or > so ago (in preparation for the movie) I introduced WHO to five or six of > my friends who had never seen it. The McCoy stories went over far, far > better than anything else except City of Death. There was far more of > the Embarrassment Factor in the Tom Baker stories, for example, than the > McCoy stories. I think sometimes we get too close the series, and can't > step back and realistically see how crap so much of it looks to others. I think this depends a lot on the chosen story -- I'd say that "Brain of Morbius" is up there in the Embarrassment factor, with a Plan 9 from Karn Morbius walking around. I think you are definitely right on in the last sentence -- fans will focus on the crap snake in Kinda, and overlook how excellent the rest of the story really is; and then overlook bad fx in "Green Death" or "Morbius" or whatever else, or even worse, go on about how DW needs "crap FX". > I imagine there's also a regional difference; I know of more US fans who > appreciate the later years than British fans. Perhaps we're seeing these > programs through different lenses? I'm not sure how the regional differences play -- I know of many US fans who don't appreciate the McCoy era as well. I've never noticed one country having massively differing views on stories than the other -- the only difference might be that age plays a greater role in the UK than the US. > Like most of the McCoy era, Paradise Towers is really just a social > commentary disguised as a science fiction serial. Sequences such as this > are one of the entry points to understanding what the story is really > about. I can't help but wonder if this story would have been praised in > a Tom Baker season or with the name 'Robert Holmes' in the credits, and > if The Sunmakers, as someone pointed out quite a similar story, would > have been maligned with McCoy or a non-Holmes name. I don't think the story would have been praised; I think the direction is a disaster. However, I think some things would have been overlooked more. "Pirate Planet" and "Sunmakers" both have people as OTT, certainly. [I think the immediate off-ball track that McCoy took with this story, immediately after the crap "Time and the Rani", is one of the reasons why his Doctor is the most controversial.] "Pex" is a hysterical name, of course, for a show-off... What bothers me the most about "Paradise Towers" [and to a lesser extent with "Happiness Patrol"] is that these *could* have been so much better -- the production just fails the story in too many occasions, and they need one or two people playing the story "straight", and one or two more revisions on the story, and we'd have something that would have been so much better than what ended up on the screen. Michael http://www.execpc.com/~michaell From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 10:12:02 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA23323; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:12:02 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA08435; Mon, 28 Jul 97 10:25:36 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id QAA07064; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:24:04 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:24:04 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707281505.IAA23794@mailtod-2.alma.webtv.net> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: chrisk@webtv.net (Chris Krisocki) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Mime-Version: 1.0 (WebTV) Status: RO I can understand how certain stories may be more embarrassing than others to watch in the company of non-fans, yet most of them have some sort of redeeming features, usually in the script department. Paradise Towers gives you so many bad moments in the first few minutes that if I weren't a fan I would have switched off if I came across it channel-hopping. The delivery of the dialog is just so... bad. It's a though everyone's rehearsing. Interestingly, to me at least, McCoy is the only character who comes across as wholly believeable. One scene which I think illustrates my view is when the caretakers stick their fingers under their noses and say "all hail the Great Architect." Richard Briars has such a silly look on his face when he says "kill 'im". The thing with the lifts: "the Kangs play a sort of game, you see. They get into the lifts and press buttons for all the floors." "We could be stuck in here for hours." Why is it that only Mel and Pex have this problem? There are a few lines about lift-shafts not working at all, and the Chief Caretaker's line about "you'll make all those delapidated lift shafts rise." Does this mean that everyone walked down 59 flights of stairs to get to floor 245 for the dynamite? No, they got there rather quickly, which means the lifts miraculously started working again. One other pantomime element which I didn't mention last time is the line about "not that we're ever in any sort of trouble, except from bits of door flying about." My, my, isn't their door repaired quickly? Another Python moment. As for the equipment in the basement, look at it this way: Kroagnon is left as a prisoner. Do you really think for one moment that the people reponsible for incarcerating him are going to include sophisticated equipment in the off chance that he's going to want to paint someone else's face silver and take over their body should they wander down to his prison? Yeah, yeah, all that stuff about allegories, which also aplies to The Happiness Patrol (another story I can't stand), means that I'm apparently missing the forest for the trees. Maybe so, but that still doesn't disguise what I believe was a shoddy production with loads of plot holes, and terrible acting and design. Comparing one element from it (Mel's costume) with something else in a completely different story doesn't seem valid to me. It's all these things, of which Mel's costume is but one, which add up to form my opinion of this story. From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 10:34:51 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA23591; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:34:51 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA11007; Mon, 28 Jul 97 10:48:25 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id QAA07576; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:46:20 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:46:20 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Paul Rhodes To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO >>Richard Briars has such a silly look on his face when he says "kill 'im". That's one of the best bits of the whole story! It's certainly the best cliffhanger. >> The thing with the lifts: "the Kangs play a sort of game, you see. >>They get into the lifts and press buttons for all the floors." "We could >>be stuck in here for hours." That makes no sense anyway. Lifts don't stop at floors in the order they were requested - they keep going in one direction until they've stopped at each floor they have to. Even if the Great Architect had deliberately designed these lifts to be bloody stupid, how would Mel know? Paul From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 11:41:55 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA16747; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:41:54 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17376; Mon, 28 Jul 97 11:55:27 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id RAA09301; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:53:15 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:53:15 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970728.123014.17630.11.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:12:46 +0100 (BST) shane@thehub.com.au (Shane Wright) writes: >>There was far more of the Embarrassment Factor in the Tom Baker stories, for >>example, than the McCoy stories. I think sometimes we get too close the series, >>and can't step back and realistically see how crap so much of it looks to others. >Oh boy, I'm gonna regret this but.... >Isn't that our prerogative as fans? It may be crap, but goddamit, >it's our crap. No, it's not, because we're bloody hypocrites. Kinda is a load of useless rubbish 'cause it's got a huge wobbly snake, but Image of the Fendahl is brilliant despite the same? Uh, sorry, no. It wasn't so much the fx as the stories, which is what genuinely surprised me. The non-fans I showed stories to adored Ace and liked Sylvester's Doctor. The only other Doctor I got a good reaction from was Tom, and then only in City of Death. Genesis of the Daleks, that pinnacle of fanwank (and yes, I love it too)? Boring crap, if the non-fan of today is to be believed. >>And of course Sarah's outfit in Genesis of the Daleks is a perfectly >>valid reason to trash that story... >Crap as Sarah Jane was IMFAUDO, the combat fatigues showed off her >cute bottom. On that score, "Genesis" is, in part, redeemed. But you are >right - at all other times her spiritless and colourless costume utterely >ruined the story. And, on that score, Jo's imaginative and stylish costumes >are the cheif reason the Pertwee era was the pinnacle of achievment in all >things Who. It must be; it's got nothing else going for it! ;-) Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 11:41:59 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA32385; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:41:58 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17391; Mon, 28 Jul 97 11:55:31 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id RAA09253; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:52:47 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:52:47 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970728.123014.17630.10.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 13:34:44 +0100 (BST) Paul Rhodes writes: >>The direction is remarkable for Doctor Who, easily the best since >>Androzani. >Funny, I though the direction (is that the right word?) let it down. >Apart from anything else, the scary moments are let down by going on >too long (why does Sylvester hold that claw to his neck and gurn? Why does >whatsername just hold that fork to Mel's neck rather than stabbing her >with it?). Best since Androzani? Nah... give me Varos or Revelation >any day. I think I meant in terms of camera angles and set ups more than 'who stands where.' I'd forgotten about Revelation, which had superb direction, but Varos, aside from one or two nice touches, is pretty run of the mill... In terms of direction, the film and The Leisure Hive are the gods... Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 11:42:01 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA19854; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:42:01 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17397; Mon, 28 Jul 97 11:55:34 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id RAA09277; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:53:07 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:53:07 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970728.123014.17630.8.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:24:02 +0100 (BST) chrisk@webtv.net (Chris Krisocki) writes: a bit of snipage >Yeah, yeah, all that stuff about allegories, which also aplies to >The Happiness Patrol (another story I can't stand), means that I'm >apparently missing the forest for the trees. Maybe so, but that still >doesn't disguise what I believe was a shoddy production with loads of >plot holes, and terrible acting and design. But what if, as in the case of THP, the "shoddy production" is on purpose? These later stories were very confrontational, in a way perhaps more traditional fans weren't prepared for. The McCoy years grabbed its medium by the pixels and shook it desperately, trying to expand and grow into something new. It didn't always work (as with Paradise Towers). But in my mind, one Paradise Towers is worth a cartload of Genesis of the Dalekses. Or whatever Tom said... Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 11:42:30 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA29885; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:42:29 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17443; Mon, 28 Jul 97 11:56:04 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id RAA09351; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:53:32 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:53:32 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970728.123014.17630.9.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 15:30:52 +0100 (BST) Michael Lee writes: snip >>Like most of the McCoy era, Paradise Towers is really just a social >>commentary disguised as a science fiction serial. Sequences such as >>this are one of the entry points to understanding what the story is >>really about. I can't help but wonder if this story would have been >>praised in a Tom Baker season or with the name 'Robert Holmes' in the credits, >>and if The Sunmakers, as someone pointed out quite a similar story, >>would have been maligned with McCoy or a non-Holmes name. >I don't think the story would have been praised; I think the direction >is a disaster. However, I think some things would have been overlooked >more. I think quite a bit would have been overlooked more. So much of the Tom Baker is unbelievably crap (I love it anyway, before you pounce) and goes by unnoticed, but McCoy seems to be under this fan microscope even now, ten years later. It's the hypocrisy that irritates me. > "Pirate Planet" and "Sunmakers" both have people as OTT, certainly. Exactly. And yet The Pirate Planet isn't generally smashed to pieces. It's at least as 'bad' as Paradise Towers in terms of story elements, production, ambition etc. >[I think the immediate off-ball track that McCoy took with this story, >immediately after the crap "Time and the Rani", is one of the reasons why his Doctor >is the most controversial.] I agree. Sadly I think fans of all kinds are easily programmed, and once WHO fans were 'told' by fandom that they weren't supposed to like McCoy in 1987 he never stood a chance. It's a cousin of Colin Baker, where organized Australian fandom was already against him before they even saw an episode. That's one of the reasons I suggested we watch Paradise Towers, hoping that a few of us could see it for what it is, an overly-ambitious piece of television that isn't the instant total crap we're supposed to believe it is. >What bothers me the most about "Paradise Towers" [and to a lesser >extent with "Happiness Patrol"] is that these *could* have been so much better -- >the production just fails the story in too many occasions, and they need >one or two people playing the story "straight", and one or two more revisions on >the story, and we'd have something that would have been so much better >than what ended up on the screen. In the case of PT I agree completely. Perhaps THP would have been a better choice (though it's far more controversial and I suspect many of us wouldn't be able to approach it very openly), because many of the production 'flaws' are purposeful, the acting stylized for a reason, etc. Of course, THP was begging to be shot in monochrome in Pertmeiron with a massive budget and only the Kandyman and the Doctor's umbrella handle in color, but there you go. Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 12:30:04 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA16839; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:30:03 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA21356; Mon, 28 Jul 97 12:43:36 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id SAA12183; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 18:41:26 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 18:41:26 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707281723.KAA03131@mailtod-1.alma.webtv.net> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: chrisk@webtv.net (Chris Krisocki) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Mime-Version: 1.0 (WebTV) Status: RO Before I first saw Paradise Towers in 1988, I don't think there was ever a story that had me so disgusted by the time it had finished. Even the other stories mentioned, ie The Pirate Planet, Kinda, etc. are still for the most part believeable, and they both have premises that, with a bit of imagination on the part of the viewer, could actually happen. I must've seen The Pirate Planet for the first time when I was about 11 or 12 years old, and the only things that I didn't like about it were the "life force dying" chant and the fact that the spanner disappears after it hits the machinery. I found it witty, enjoyable, and just plain fun to watch. With stories like these, it's usually just the Doctor, and maybe one other character, who acts unbelieveable, not every single supporting character, as in the case of Paradise Towers. Seeing the snake for the first time in Kinda was a bit of a let-down, but that didn't detract from the quality and tension prevalent in the story as a whole. A few weeks ago my older brother had nothing better to do so he watched the whole of The King's Demons, a story that fandom doesn't seem to like all that much, with me, and he liked it. He had no idea who the Master was, and guessed that King John was a shape-shifter (drat you, Deep Space 9!) but he still liked the location filming, the sets inside the castle, the design of Kamelion, and the music. Don't believe everything the =FCberfans tell you :-) From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 12:30:39 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA16858; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 12:30:38 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA21421; Mon, 28 Jul 97 12:44:12 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id SAA12207; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 18:41:34 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 18:41:34 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <41D7F446F943D011A10C00A02441AF7B040B59@wingate> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Michael Lee To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4025 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO On Monday, July 28, 1997 12:09 PM, renton patrick [SMTP:renton@juno.com] wrote: > But what if, as in the case of THP, the "shoddy production" is on > purpose? Can you show some evidence for that statement? I think THP is much more successful than Paradise Towers, but I'm not sure what you mean by it, and why.... > But in my mind, one Paradise Towers is worth a cartload of Genesis of the > Dalekses. Or whatever Tom said... I'd disagree with that -- but hey, makes all types, and I understand what you are saying there... In another post: >I think quite a bit would have been overlooked more. So much of the Tom >Baker is unbelievably crap (I love it anyway, before you pounce) and goes >by unnoticed, but McCoy seems to be under this fan microscope even now, >ten years later. It's the hypocrisy that irritates me. I suspect that the real reason why McCoy is still under the microscope is that he's the last we've got [the TV movie's also been under the microscope, but it's not enough]. Since the McCoy era was the last era of "Original" Who, it is, of course, CLEARLY the era that was responsible for the show going under.... >Exactly. And yet The Pirate Planet isn't generally smashed to pieces. >It's at least as 'bad' as Paradise Towers in terms of story elements, >production, ambition etc. But a) Doctor Who wasn't cancelled after Season 17 and b) The Pirate Planet was written by Doctor Who's most famous graduate [Douglas Adams] >That's one of the reasons I suggested we watch Paradise Towers, hoping >that a few of us could see it for what it is, an overly-ambitious piece >of television that isn't the instant total crap we're supposed to believe >it is. It was certainly a good suggestion -- I recognize both the ambitions [which I think are noble] and that it failed in effectively communicating those ambitions [which I blame primarily on the direction] >In the case of PT I agree completely. Perhaps THP would have been a >better choice (though it's far more controversial and I suspect many of >us wouldn't be able to approach it very openly), because many of the >production 'flaws' are purposeful, the acting stylized for a reason, etc. I'm sure we'll get to THP one of these weeks... Actually, I think "Paradise Towers" was a better choice this early on. It's a good one to look at the start of the McCoy-eras return to risk taking [which took the NAs to finally pay off] and while I think it failed to carry it all off [and I believe that failure eventually was one of the many reasons that damned the series.], it was worth another look. Michael Lee http://www.execpc.com/~michaell From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 16:13:51 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA36237; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:13:50 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17258; Mon, 28 Jul 97 16:27:10 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id WAA15516; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:21:12 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:21:12 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970728.170540.3350.4.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 18:41:24 +0100 (BST) chrisk@webtv.net (Chris Krisocki) writes: >Before I first saw Paradise Towers in 1988, I don't think there was >ever a story that had me so disgusted by the time it had finished. >Eventhe other stories mentioned, ie The Pirate Planet, Kinda, etc. are >still for the most part believeable, and they both have premises that, >with a bit of imagination on the part of the viewer, could actually >happen. I find this assertion stunning, to be frank. The realism in Kinda had nothing to do with the aliens or the snake and everything to do with the portrait of Hindel. But I'll give it to you anyway. The Pirate Planet, on the other hand, is one of the most unrealistic, impossible premises the series ever had. But Paradise Towers wins over both of them in terms of realism, when one considers what the story was really about: the dehumanising aspect of block tenement housing projects, that isolate the young and the elderly. Paradise Towers is very much a political parody (in the same way that Wyatt's other WHO serial would be a parody of the series itself). And for that alone it's far more real than the other two stories. Of course, this might be what some fans have a problem with; the politics of latterday Doctor Who itself. >I must've seen The Pirate Planet for the first time when I was >about 11 or 12 years old, and the only things that I didn't like about it >were the "life force dying" chant and the fact that the spanner >disappears after it hits the machinery. I found it witty, enjoyable, and >just plain fun to watch. With stories like these, it's usually just the >Doctor, and maybe one other character, who acts unbelieveable, not >every single supporting character, as in the case of Paradise Towers. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that every single supporting character in The Pirate Planet does, in fact, act unbelievably, I'd like to address a point you subconsciously raise. You saw TPP when you were twelve. How old were you when you saw Paradise Towers? You were a different viewer then, surely. And what is colored by nostalgia looks considerably less rosy when viewed as an older viewer. I contend that in any practical sense TPP and PT are more or less interchangable in almost every respect bar Doctor. They have similar design flaws, similar tones, similar acting flaws, similar plot and script flaws etc. They are very much cousins. What I suspect is that had you seen PT at twelve and TPP at a later age, your opinions would be more or less reversed, PT made lovely by the undiscerning eye of the twelve year old and TPP torn to shreds by the more adult eye. I think this sort of thing is very much a trait with fandom; hence the continuing popularity of a third Doctor that would seem offensive in a series filmed today etc. Perhaps fandom outgrew the series? I don't entirely buy that line of reasoning, because in fact I think much of fandom is somewhat stunted and the series eventually outgrew *it*, but it's a thought worth wrestling with. Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 16:14:05 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA20888; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:14:04 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA17303; Mon, 28 Jul 97 16:27:34 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id WAA15564; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:21:47 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:21:47 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970728.170540.3350.1.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 18:41:32 +0100 (BST) Michael Lee writes: >> But what if, as in the case of THP, the "shoddy production" is on >> purpose? >Can you show some evidence for that statement? I think THP is much >more successful than Paradise Towers, but I'm not sure what you >mean by it, and why.... I was thinking in terms of the sets, which look crap, apparantly, on purpose. The business with the plastic fun guns and the Patrol's pink uniforms was on purpose as well. Interestingly, one aspect changed from the script was the appearance of the Kandyman, and a good thing, too. Now we have a Kandyman that not only sets WHO towering above any other sci-fi program in terms of visual genius (as though it weren't already there) but serves as the ultimate metaphor in this, the ultimate WHO story-as-metaphor. >>But in my mind, one Paradise Towers is worth a cartload of Genesis >>of the Dalekses. Or whatever Tom said... >I'd disagree with that -- but hey, makes all types, and I understand >what you are saying there... The problem with my statement is that it makes it appear that I don't like Genesis. But I do; I adore it. But to me Doctor Who is all about Delta and the Bannermen, The Leisure Hive, The Celestial Toymaker and The Happiness Patrol rather than the more standard action fare, because these are the stories that only work because they're in Doctor Who. Genesis of the Daleks would work in Star Trek; City of Death wouldn't. Thus, in my mind, one is 'better WHO' than the other. >>I think quite a bit would have been overlooked more. So much of the >>Tom Baker is unbelievably crap (I love it anyway, before you pounce) >>and goes by unnoticed, but McCoy seems to be under this fan >>microscope even now, ten years later. It's the hypocrisy that irritates >>me. >I suspect that the real reason why McCoy is still under the >microscope is that he's the last we've got [the TV movie's also been >under the microscope, but it's not enough]. This is so true. I think if the film had been part of a new series it would be far more favourably looked upon in general (though I admit it's in my top ten). >Since the McCoy era was the last era of "Original" Who, it >is, of course, CLEARLY the era that was responsible for the show >going under.... Heehee. The people who genuinely think this always amuse me. >>Exactly. And yet The Pirate Planet isn't generally smashed to >>pieces. It's at least as 'bad' as Paradise Towers in terms of story >>elements, production, ambition etc. >But a) Doctor Who wasn't cancelled after Season 17 >and b) The Pirate Planet was written by Doctor Who's most famous >graduate [Douglas Adams] This is, of course, entirely my point. The two serials have very few differences in terms of script (both were arguably too funny, too unrealistic and needed a rewrite). Both featured camp costuming and over the top acting. Paradise Towers, unchanged but with the name 'Douglas Adams' in the titles, in season Seventeen would be looked upon much better by fandom today. Coversely, The Pirate Planet, unchanged but for the name 'Stephen Wyatt' in the titles, in season Twenty-Four would be seen as an abomination. It's this hypocrisy that drives me nuts. >>That's one of the reasons I suggested we watch Paradise Towers, >>hoping that a few of us could see it for what it is, an overly-ambitious >>piece of television that isn't the instant total crap we're supposed to >>believe it is. >It was certainly a good suggestion -- I recognize both the ambitions >[which I think are noble] and that it failed in effectively communicating >those ambitions [which I blame primarily on the direction] It's a magnificent failure, in my opinion. I still get a kick out of watching it because I can see an intelligent, witty classic screaming to get out, chained in because of the hectic behind-the-scenes life of the season. If over-ambition is the largest of WHO's problems it's no wonder we're all fans. snip >Actually, I think "Paradise Towers" was a better choice this early on. > It's a good one to look at the start of the McCoy-eras return to risk >taking [which took the NAs to finally pay off] It is interesting to see the vast change in script content between the previously-commissioned Time And The Rani and the initial Cartmel output. It took a while to find his feet but it was fun seeing the metamorphosis. >and while I think it failed >to carry it all off [and I believe that failure eventually was one of the >many reasons that damned the series.], it was worth another look. Before we get back into a 'why WHO was cancelled' slag which I'm not going to participate in, let me pre-empt by saying that I think internal politics and ESPECIALLY scheduling did far more to seal the program's fate than McCoy or his specific era ever did. Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 16:35:06 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA18902; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:35:05 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA19142; Mon, 28 Jul 97 16:48:38 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id WAA15989; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:41:28 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:41:28 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707282130.HAA25410@smople.thehub.com.au> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: shane@thehub.com.au (Shane Wright) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: RO > > >I think I meant in terms of camera angles and set ups more than 'who >stands where.' I'd forgotten about Revelation, which had superb >direction, but Varos, aside from one or two nice touches, is pretty run >of the mill... > >In terms of direction, the film and The Leisure Hive are the gods... > 2. If The direction in the TVM impressed you, I suggest you go post haste to your local video emporium and rent every Ken Russel film you can find. Especially the bad ones. From the evidence at hand, the TVM director has some sort of fixation with them. what happened to 1?, I hear you ask - ha ha you'll never know....... saw The Devil may have all the best tunes, but he has a lousy copyright lawyer. From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 16:49:39 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA63766; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 16:49:39 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA20185; Mon, 28 Jul 97 17:03:10 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id WAA16329; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:59:34 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:59:34 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707282150.HAA26067@smople.thehub.com.au> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: shane@thehub.com.au (Shane Wright) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: RO > >On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 18:41:24 +0100 (BST) chrisk@webtv.net (Chris >Krisocki) writes: > >>Before I first saw Paradise Towers in 1988, I don't think there was >>ever a story that had me so disgusted by the time it had finished. >>Eventhe other stories mentioned, ie The Pirate Planet, Kinda, etc. are >>still for the most part believeable, and they both have premises that, >>with a bit of imagination on the part of the viewer, could actually >>happen. > >I find this assertion stunning, to be frank. The realism in Kinda had >nothing to do with the aliens or the snake and everything to do with the >portrait of Hindel. But I'll give it to you anyway. The Pirate Planet, >on the other hand, is one of the most unrealistic, impossible premises >the series ever had. IYHO. "what's it for?" Is the a stunning and violent statement of the doctor's principals. granted he utterly abandoimed them by the NA's Cat's cradle series ,but still for those of us who want to see the Doctor as a HERO, and consdier him essentially to be that, it is a brilliant and invigorating moment. >But Paradise Towers wins over both of them in terms of realism, when one >considers what the story was really about: the dehumanising aspect of >block tenement housing projects, that isolate the young and the elderly. >Paradise Towers is very much a political parody (in the same way that >Wyatt's other WHO serial would be a parody of the series itself). One, your agruments over politcal agenda in Who was pretty spurious to start with, and two this does rather conflict with your previous assertoion that the show is based on fundamentally ridiculous premises (vis the Magic Bus). If all Who is based on a series fundamental unrealities ("series of fundamental unrealities" - see kids, anyone can talk like Andrew Cartmel - it's easy!!) then you can't really contend anything is more real or less real. Nothing is real. But that's nothing to get hung about. Indeed, "reality" would be an intrusion on the basic structure of the drama. What I suspect is that had you seen PT at twelve and TPP >at a later age, your opinions would be more or less reversed, PT made >lovely by the undiscerning eye of the twelve year old and TPP torn to >shreds by the more adult eye. I think this sort of thing is very much a >trait with fandom; hence the continuing popularity of a third Doctor that >would seem offensive in a series filmed today etc. Perhaps fandom >outgrew the series? I think perhaps you are denying people their volition here - my adult eye doesn't tear TPP to shreads any less than it does PT. It depends on what one wants from Who - TPP delivers for some people what PT (and the series after PT) denied them. Same with the Pertwee stories. I don't think anyone on the list is going to read your post and go "damn, he's right - I've been a fool all my life" and starting mailing you privatley with their relationship problems because of the certainty of your judgement. Besides, TPP has Mary Tamm in it and my adult eye is very much more discerning about her than even my over keen teenage eye was!! (although, sadly, altogether less imaginative) :-( >I don't entirely buy that line of reasoning, because in fact I think much >of fandom is somewhat stunted and the series eventually outgrew *it*, but >it's a thought worth wrestling with. Perhaps gentle sir *you* outgrew the series, or the series outgrew you. For we, who were so much older then, are younger than that now.... saw The Devil may have all the best tunes, but he has a lousy copyright lawyer. From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 17:41:02 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA32420; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:41:01 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA23451; Mon, 28 Jul 97 17:54:35 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id XAA16980; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:52:02 +0100 (BST) Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:52:02 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <41D7F446F943D011A10C00A02441AF7B040B5E@wingate> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Michael Lee To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4025 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO On Monday, July 28, 1997, renton patrick [SMTP:renton@juno.com] wrote: > >But Paradise Towers wins over both of them in terms of realism, when one >considers what the story was really about: the dehumanising aspect of >block tenement housing projects, that isolate the young and the elderly. >Paradise Towers is very much a political parody (in the same way that >Wyatt's other WHO serial would be a parody of the series itself). And >for that alone it's far more real than the other two stories. I think you're definitely misusing realism here -- PT isn't realism and isn't intended to be... it [like THP] are political parodies. I don't have a good answer to this, not being terribly good at political readings, but why are all of the Kangs girls? To make Pex more unique? I've found this one of the weaknesses of the story -- where did all of the *little* boys go? [Some, clearly, became Caretakers -- perhaps all of them] > Genesis of the Daleks would work in Star Trek; City of Death wouldn't. > Thus, in my mind, one is 'better WHO' than the other. Genesis may be turned into a Star Trek story easier than City would -- "Genesis of the Daleks" and "City at the Edge of Forever" have somewhat similar themes, after all. [And "City" used real Nazis!] However, it doesn't mean that another show couldn't do City fo Death -- just that Star Trek couldn't. {and of course, Trek has had its share of comedy episodes; which turn out differently do to the differences between the US and the UK.} > It's a magnificent failure, in my opinion. I still get a kick out of > watching it because I can see an intelligent, witty classic screaming to > get out, chained in because of the hectic behind-the-scenes life of the > season. If over-ambition is the largest of WHO's problems it's no wonder > we're all fans. Oh, you're definitely right -- Paradise Towers isn't one of my favorites, but [as often has been suggested] I've gone into it looking for what makes PT uniquely Doctor Who, both by itself and in the context of the entire series...and it's been great for those purposes...but I think it's worth pointing to both the positive and negative impact of the story. It's probably the most significant "pivot point" of the series after Androzani, and a point where the show does go off in a different direction. > Before we get back into a 'why WHO was cancelled' slag which I'm not > going to participate in, let me pre-empt by saying that I think internal > politics and ESPECIALLY scheduling did far more to seal the program's > fate than McCoy or his specific era ever did. That really wasn't my point -- I think there were a combination of reasons, of which one was the hostility or disinterest some segments of fandom took towards McCoy. My point was that it was risky doing a "difficult" episode so early on in a new Doctor's reign, especially after Colin's rapid departure. For the sake of argument, I'll put the dynamic rankings [http://users.ox.ac. uk/~magd0226/dr/dynamic.html] of the first two stories of each Doctor. And to prove that this isn't a terribly anti-McCoy list, "Rememberance of the Daleks" is #2! [behind "Genesis", and the bottom two stories are "Timelash" and "The Underwater Menace" 18 7.57 202 Castrovalva 21 7.51 191 Spearhead from Space 23 7.40 60 The Power of the Daleks 24 7.38 198 The Ark in Space 28 7.34 174 The Silurians 40 7.08 170 The Daleks 62 6.79 166 The Enemy Within 73 6.69 54 The Highlanders [half of the stories are better than 80] 87 6.41 165 Attack of the Cybermen 100 6.22 189 Robot 111 6.03 186 An Unearthly Child 131 5.64 185 Paradise Towers 150 4.95 186 Time and the Rani 156 4.45 181 The Twin Dilemma What I thought was interesting as the poll audience is concerned [which, of course, is not necessarily representative of the audience at large, obviously "The Daleks" impressed a lot more people in 1963 than it does today, and it's good to be skeptical about Doctor #2's first two story results] -- all of the Doctors except the last two manage a story within their first two that do better than the medium story. [#80] I think as far as a "non-fan" audience goes, they make up their mind about a Doctor very quickly... [I think I want to throw the rankings into a spread sheet and see what other sad pieces of information I can glean from the results...] Michael http://www.execpc.com/~michaell From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 21:13:48 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA138283; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 21:13:47 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06843; Mon, 28 Jul 97 21:26:36 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id DAA19716; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 03:24:14 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 03:24:14 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <01BC9B9C.5BBF5300@michaell@execpc.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Michael Lee To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4025 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO On Monday, July 28, 1997 4:59 PM, Shane Wright [SMTP:shane@thehub.com.au] wrote: > IYHO. "what's it for?" Is the a stunning and violent statement of the > doctor's principals. granted he utterly abandoimed them by the NA's Cat's > cradle series ,but still for those of us who want to see the Doctor as a > HERO, and consdier him essentially to be that, it is a brilliant and > invigorating moment. I agree that the "What's it for?" is a brilliant statement of the Doctor's principals, and one of Tom Baker's finest moments [and therefore the series]. I also deny that those principles were abandoned in the New Adventures [as a whole], and I expect references from more than two books to back up the statement that they were ever abandoned by the Doctor. [Note, that isn't the same thing as saying that there aren't crap NAs... but then, there were poor TV stories as well...] Michael Lee michaell@execpc.com http://www.execpc.com/~michaell From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 23:24:41 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA32602; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:24:40 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10044; Mon, 28 Jul 97 23:38:09 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id FAA22155; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 05:36:52 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 05:36:52 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <58D5C2F7A45@mail.navmat.navy.gov.au>. Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: "Michael Swart" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail/Windows (v1.22) Status: RO > I think quite a bit would have been overlooked more. So much of the Tom > Baker is unbelievably crap (I love it anyway, before you pounce) and goes > by unnoticed, but McCoy seems to be under this fan microscope even now, > ten years later. It's the hypocrisy that irritates me. Hypocrisy is pretending to believe something that you don't actually believe. For example, saying something's 'crap' when you actually love it. A lot of people think the McCoy stories aren't half as good as the worst stories of the Sixties and Seventies, and it's not because they've been 'programmed.' It's just a matter of taste - you can't prove or disprove the quality (or likeability) of an era of the show no matter how many terms you define, or examples you provide. > I agree. Sadly I think fans of all kinds are easily programmed, and once > WHO fans were 'told' by fandom that they weren't supposed to like McCoy > in 1987 he never stood a chance. I was completely out of touch with fandom in 87, as were most viewers of the show. I guess we disliked the McCoy stories without being told. Why do you think fans are easily programmed? Do you think they're fans because they want to be part of something and that they are therefore natural 'followers,' rather than independent thinkers? I don't agree. From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Mon Jul 28 23:43:39 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA104871; Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:43:38 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10181; Mon, 28 Jul 97 23:57:13 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id FAA22539; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 05:55:41 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 05:55:41 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707290442.VAA16908@mailtod-1.alma.webtv.net> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: chrisk@webtv.net (Chris Krisocki) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Mime-Version: 1.0 (WebTV) Status: RO As soon as I typed that last thing about The Pirate Planet about ten years ago, I realized that I must have seen it in 1982 or so the first time, which would make me ten. Sorry about that. It might have been earlier. Anyone here know when WLIW showed it for the first time? Anyway, the only characters that don't seem to be playing it for real, as it were, are the Doctor and the Captain. Pralix, Kimus, Mr. Fibuli, the Nurse, etc. are all played for real and are in no way over-the-top. Even the Captain's shouting and blustering is all part of a front. I stand by my assertion on this one. The idea of a planet materializing around another can be made to appear plausible within the confines of the series, and indeed those scenes where the Doctor realizes that Zanak is hollow I found incredibly chilling on first viewing. One thing that Paradise Towers has going for it, I'll agree, is that the scale of events is far smaller than the series usually presents. Usually it's a whole planet or race or country that the Doctor's trying to protect but in this instance it's an unspecified number of inhabitants of a large building. Rather like The King's Demons, it's rather small potatoes for the Doctor. I seem to recall that this was one of the few things the story was praised for at the time of its first airing. I was 16 when I first saw this. It was on New Jersey Network, and they had a pledge drive, and so many things about the story struck me the wrong way. It just didn't feel *right* somehow. I know, I know, the fans are resistant to change, all new Doctors aren't as good as the last one, etc., I'd heard it all before, but that still didn't change my opinion at the time. A few other friends of mine didn't like it either. Nonetheless, when another station showed it about a year later episodically, I watched it again. This just served to highlight how bad the cliffhangers are. That was the last I'd seen it until two nights ago. If you don't mind, it's been a long day, my car wouldn't start this weekend ($249 please) so please excuse me if I've been a bit brusque. From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 00:02:53 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA31048; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 00:02:52 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10281; Tue, 29 Jul 97 00:16:26 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id GAA22812; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 06:13:49 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 06:13:49 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <58DB79D6647@mail.navmat.navy.gov.au>. Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: "Michael Swart" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail/Windows (v1.22) Status: RO > These later stories were very confrontational, in a way perhaps more > traditional fans weren't prepared for. The McCoy years grabbed its > medium by the pixels and shook it desperately, trying to expand and grow > into something new. It didn't always work (as with Paradise Towers). > But in my mind, one Paradise Towers is worth a cartload of Genesis of the > Dalekses. Because, you assert, it was trying to achieve something greater than what Genesis achieved. But what?! I suspect you're saying that Ghost Light revolutionised the medium. In what way? From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 00:39:44 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA142581; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 00:39:43 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10459; Tue, 29 Jul 97 00:53:18 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id GAA23342; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 06:51:46 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 06:51:46 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <58E8C0B1C06@mail.navmat.navy.gov.au>. Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: "Michael Swart" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail/Windows (v1.22) Status: RO > But Paradise Towers wins over both of them in terms of realism, when one > considers what the story was really about: the dehumanising aspect of > block tenement housing projects, that isolate the young and the elderly. > Paradise Towers is very much a political parody (in the same way that > Wyatt's other WHO serial would be a parody of the series itself). And > for that alone it's far more real than the other two stories. I think you mean social parody. So you think that the writer of Paradise Towers was using a fantasy story to say something to us about our society like Jonathan Swift was with Gulliver's Travels. That the writer was saying block tenement housing projects are a bad thing. Maybe he was. I think he just decided to write a science fiction serial about an apartment block and apartment blocks have old people, gangs, and caretakers. > Of course, this might be what some fans have a problem with; the politics > of latterday Doctor Who itself. Do you mean there are some fans for whom political content is a problem? I think you're saying the McCoy era is a bit too sophisticated for some fans, and that that's why they don't like it. Are you? > I'd like > to address a point you subconsciously raise. You saw TPP when you were > twelve. How old were you when you saw Paradise Towers? You were a > different viewer then, surely. And what is colored by nostalgia looks > considerably less rosy when viewed as an older viewer. Thank you Ed Wood. :-) > I think this sort of thing is very much a > trait with fandom; hence the continuing popularity of a third Doctor that > would seem offensive in a series filmed today etc. Perhaps fandom > outgrew the series? What on earth is offensive about the Third Doctor? How can fandom outgrow the Series? What is fandom, anyway? From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 03:15:26 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA31184; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 03:15:25 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA13945; Tue, 29 Jul 97 03:28:59 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id JAA24587; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 09:27:03 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 09:27:03 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Paul Rhodes To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO >>>Isn't that our prerogative as fans? It may be crap, but goddamit, >>>it's our crap. >>No, it's not, because we're bloody hypocrites. Kinda is a load of >>useless rubbish 'cause it's got a huge wobbly snake, but Image of the >>Fendahl is brilliant despite the same? Uh, sorry, no. Does anyone actually hold that view? Paul From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 03:32:28 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA104724; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 03:32:27 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14015; Tue, 29 Jul 97 03:46:02 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id JAA24895; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 09:44:48 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 09:44:48 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Paul Rhodes To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO >>Exactly. And yet The Pirate Planet isn't generally smashed to pieces. >>It's at least as 'bad' as Paradise Towers in terms of story elements, >>production, ambition etc. But it isn't! The production of TPP is 'better, insofar as its more realistic; the plot makes more sense; and the characters, whilst unbelievable, are played somewhat straighter than the Caretakers or Kroagnon. The story itself is just a silly as Paradise Towers, and it's got a few dodgy special effects, but as an action adventure serial, Pirate Planet is far more accessible. That doesn't make it a better story, of course - all those attributes, particularly effects, are to some extent artefacts of when the stories were made. Paradise Towers is certainly _deeper_ that Pirate Planet, and often wittier. > >>I agree. Sadly I think fans of all kinds are easily programmed, and once >>WHO fans were 'told' by fandom that they weren't supposed to like McCoy >>in 1987 he never stood a chance. Bollocks. Where is this fandom central committee that makes decisions on what we are and aren't supposed to like? I know exactly what put me, and many others, off McCoy's Doctor initially: Time and the Rani. Nobody had to tell me it was crap, yet I still hated it (more because of PipnJane than Sylvester, admittedly). I liked Paradise Towers, at the time and now, but I think the seventh Doctor still suffered from not having a really good story in a conventional, dramatic vein - which is to say, played straight - until (depending on your point of view) the end of his first or beginning of his second season. Since Doctor Who had existed for many years following most of the usual television drama conventions, with the occasinal trip out into the downright wierd, it's hardly surprising that the regular viewers (not just the fans) reacted against the change in style. Paul From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 03:32:34 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA32285; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 03:32:33 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14018; Tue, 29 Jul 97 03:46:08 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id JAA24868; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 09:44:39 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 09:44:39 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <7382@bates.wn.planet.gen.nz> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: abates@wn.planet.gen.nz (Alden Bates) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: WinNET Mail, v3.5 Status: RO renton@juno.com (renton patrick) wrote: >>And what about Mel's outfit? Hideous, utterly hideous. > >And of course Sarah's outfit in Genesis of the Daleks is a perfectly >valid reason to trash that story... Yeah, anyway, if people are really so offended by Mel's costume, I'll be happy to remove it from her... Alden Bates. (What? Gerard isn't the only one allowed to make lewd remarks, is he?) -- abates@wn.planet.gen.nz | alden@bates.wn.planet.gen.nz "That's a daft idea." | http://www.wn.planet.gen.nz/~abates/ If replying to news article, please alter the email address From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 04:06:49 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA104778; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 04:06:48 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14139; Tue, 29 Jul 97 04:20:23 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id KAA25229; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:19:17 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:19:17 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707290918.TAA28757@smople.thehub.com.au> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: shane@thehub.com.au (Shane Wright) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: RO First I wrote - >Isn't that our prerogative as fans? It may be crap, but goddamit, >it's our crap. Then Renton Wrote (try saying that out aloud quickly with a mouth full of potato chips) >>No, it's not, because we're bloody hypocrites. Kinda is a load of >>useless rubbish 'cause it's got a huge wobbly snake, but Image of the >>Fendahl is brilliant despite the same? Uh, sorry, no. Then Paul wrote >Does anyone actually hold that view? Then I wrote Which view Paul, mine or Renton's? Be assured that at least one person holds either of them :-) Now either Paul or renton Writes..... saw The Devil may have all the best tunes, but he has a lousy copyright lawyer. From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 04:24:58 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA20836; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 04:24:57 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14176; Tue, 29 Jul 97 04:38:31 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id KAA25457; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:37:01 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:37:01 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <01BC9BCF.35624720@1Cust70.max8.phoenix.az.ms.uu.net> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Jeffery To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List Status: RO On Monday, July 28, 1997 11:36 PM, Michael Swart[SMTP:SWART@mail.navmat.navy.gov.au] wrote: > A lot of people think the McCoy stories aren't half as good as > the worst stories of the Sixties and Seventies... > I, for one. I've never seen a McCoy story that I was even comfortable sitting through. There is no question that an alien element had entered the show (that would sound rather fitting, in a different context), and that it was now in the hands of people who had no understanding of or interest in what made "Dr. Who" so impressive to so many viewers. > I was completely out of touch with fandom in 87, as were most viewers > of the show. I guess we disliked the McCoy stories without being > told. > Your conclusion is borne out by the current non-existence of the series. There weren't many who needed to be told that the last dregs of "Dr. Who" were drained in 1986, and that what remained was an overly trendy, self-conscious mess on the intellectual level of "Lost In Space". Until I discovered this list, I never heard of fandom in connection with "Dr. Who", but I already knew what I liked. No cause and effect relationship can be established. The demise of the program cannot be explained by any variant of conspiracy theory. Jeffery From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 04:25:09 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA32365; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 04:25:08 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14177; Tue, 29 Jul 97 04:38:36 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id KAA25481; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:37:12 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:37:12 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Paul Rhodes To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO >>Which view Paul, mine or Renton's? The view that "Kinda is rubbish _because_ of the snake, but Image of the Fendahl is brilliant _despite_ the Fendahleen" (which are actually executed very well, IMO, thus rendering the point a bit silly anyway). I'm sure many people like Image of the Fendahl and don't like Kinda, but I'd imagine those people's reasons go beyond the relative merits of the respective rubber tubular things. Paul From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 05:02:03 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA20887; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 05:02:03 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14270; Tue, 29 Jul 97 05:15:15 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id LAA25807; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:11:33 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:11:33 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707290954.TAA29916@smople.thehub.com.au> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: shane@thehub.com.au (Shane Wright) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: RO A little prunage, however.. > Until I discovered this list, I never heard of fandom in connection >with "Dr. Who", but I already knew what I liked. No cause and effect >relationship can be established. The demise of the program cannot be >explained by any variant of conspiracy theory. While your argument is cogent and well put (and I am 99.9% certain I agree with), there are some people who advance the dark theory that it was when "Fandom" (or Uberfandom) started to have too much of an influence on the series that it began to slide. They contend the show began to cater to the whims of the then nascent "Fandom" by introducing continuity dependant stories (particulaly in season 25/26), and the NA/Ma's just opened the floodgates to them. And the TVM was the ultimate witnress to sad fanboy run amok. One may say "well, the show *belongs* to the fans, why not let them dictate direction and content?" and one may equally say "Charles Manson was a Beatles fan - would you have let him produce "Abbey Road?" I for one would have. But Lord knows I have reservations about Andrew Cartmel's NA's!!!! But enough about me - you are right, of course, we don't need Uberfans to tell us what we like or what it all means. In the end, as the Doctor no doubt said to Freud when they met "Ziggy, sometimes a banana ain't nothing but a banana". saw AMOK!!! he cried. The Devil may have all the best tunes, but he has a lousy copyright lawyer. From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 05:36:47 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA32257; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 05:36:47 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14383; Tue, 29 Jul 97 05:50:22 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id LAA26560; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:47:42 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:47:42 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Paul Rhodes To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.994.63 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO >>While your argument is cogent and well put (and I am 99.9% certain I agree >>with), there are some people who advance the dark theory that it was when >>"Fandom" (or Uberfandom) started to have too much of an influence on the >>series that it began to slide. There's a difference between attributing this phenomenon (if one believes in it at all) to "Fandom" - i.e., an attempt to pander to the consensus of fan opinion - and attributing it to "Uberfans", which implies a clique who perhaps believe they represent that consensus. Probably at different times, both have been true; from the beginning, JN-T made a bigger effort to communicate with fans than his predecessors, and the rise of continuity-bound stories in his time may well have been 'pandering to the fans'. Also, for some time around the mid-80s, Ian Levine was reportedly providing story and continuity advice, although the level of his involvement is unclear. The Segal approach, OTOH, appears to have been more a case of pandering to his idea of fandom, so doesn't fit the "Uberfan" model - unless you regard Segal and maybe Jean-Marc Lofficier as "Uberfans" themselves. >>They contend the show began to cater to the whims of the then nascent >>"Fandom" >>by introducing continuity dependant stories (particulaly in season 25/26) Fandom was by no means "nascent" in 1987/88! Paul From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 06:28:26 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA104830; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 06:28:25 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14549; Tue, 29 Jul 97 06:41:59 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id MAA27186; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 12:40:27 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 12:40:27 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707291126.MAA18099@mailhost.dircon.co.uk> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: "David Alexander" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1157 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO > > Until I discovered this list, I never heard of fandom in connection > >with "Dr. Who", but I already knew what I liked. No cause and effect > >relationship can be established. The demise of the program cannot be > >explained by any variant of conspiracy theory. > While your argument is cogent and well put (and I am 99.9% certain I agree > with), there are some people who advance the dark theory that it was when > "Fandom" (or Uberfandom) started to have too much of an influence on the > series that it began to slide. They contend the show began to cater to the > whims of the then nascent "Fandom" by introducing continuity dependant > stories (particulaly in season 25/26), and the NA/Ma's just opened the > floodgates to them. And the TVM was the ultimate witnress to sad fanboy run > amok. I agree, up to a point. In the mid '80s the show began to regurgitate itself, continually producing stories that were, to a greater or lesser degree, "celebrations" of, or nods to its own history. Oddly, I think this was less the case with what I've seen of Season 26. Just how influential "fandom" was on this process is open to debate. As far as the TVM is concerned, you do have a point. As I've said before, if you're going to revive the show the first thing you want to do is minimise the nods to the past. One of the problems with the movie was it was weighted down by the series' history & the urge to explain it to those unfamiliar with it. History, after all, is a nightmare we're trying to escape -:) davida@dircon.co.uk From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 06:28:29 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA20871; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 06:28:28 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14548; Tue, 29 Jul 97 06:41:57 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id MAA27162; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 12:40:18 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 12:40:18 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707291126.MAA18094@mailhost.dircon.co.uk> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: "David Alexander" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1157 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO Jeffery wrote:- > I, for one. I've never seen a McCoy story that I was even comfortable > sitting through. There is no question that an alien element had entered > the show (that would sound rather fitting, in a different context), and > that it was now in the hands of people who had no understanding of or > interest in what made "Dr. Who" so impressive to so many viewers. I had watched DW regularly from "Day of the Daleks" through to the beginning of the McCoy era. Have to admit that after Season 24 I just about gave up ... tho' I seem to recall I watched some, if not all of "Remembrance of the Daleks". I didn't like Sylvester McCoy's Doctor, a Chaplinesque figure sans depth or detail; I loathed Bonnie Langford's Mel (sorry, Alden), & thought the whole show seemed to have lost heart & any sense of direction. It was too self-conscious & knowing, & way too camp. Oddly, however, returning to the series again, after a number of years in the wilderness, I've sort of changed my mind. Seasons 25 & 26 are very acceptable ... well, some of 'em, & "Remembrance" & "Ghostlight" are probably as good as any DW story ever produced. But Season 24 is still a major disaster area. Ironically, only "Paradise Towers" is truly worth anything. > > I was completely out of touch with fandom in 87, as were most viewers > > of the show. I guess we disliked the McCoy stories without being > > told. > There weren't many who needed to be told that the last dregs of > "Dr. Who" were drained in 1986, and that what remained was an overly > trendy, self-conscious mess on the intellectual level of "Lost In Space". > Until I discovered this list, I never heard of fandom in connection > with "Dr. Who", but I already knew what I liked. No cause and effect > relationship can be established. The demise of the program cannot be > explained by any variant of conspiracy theory. Oddly, at the time of the show's suspension, it was never formally cancelled, it was probably going through something of a creative revival. "Ghostlight", "The Curse of Fenric" & "Survival", whatever their flaws, are witty & entertaining stories. Also, they were the first stories in some time not to make the series' own history central to the narrative, even the re-appearance of the Master was well handled. Personally, I believe the McCoy era, especially his last two seasons, are probably under-estimated. Sure, it's a very different DW to the mighty Hinchcliffe era, for example, and there's no doubt that the show could have done with a change of producer, but, on the whole, it remained good, imaginative TV, open to experiment & shot through with a nice line in that peculiarly British strain of fantastic whimsy. davida@dircon.co.uk From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 08:49:44 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA23519; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 08:49:43 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA20505; Tue, 29 Jul 97 09:02:56 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id OAA28624; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 14:59:19 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 14:59:19 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <41D7F446F943D011A10C00A02441AF7B040B5F@wingate> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Michael Lee To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4025 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO On Tuesday, July 29, 1997 8:18 AM, David Alexander [SMTP:davida@dircon.co.uk] wrote: > Personally, I believe the McCoy era, especially his last two seasons, are > probably under-estimated. Actually; I'd be more exteme -- the McCoy era is simultaneously the most over-estimated and under-estimated period in the shows history. With the possible exception of the TV Movie, I've never seen an era that not only completely divides fans...you have some fans that are primarily fans of that era, and fans that believe the last words of the series are "carrot juice". I think part of the problem -- as we've seen even on this list -- is that season 24, by not having a traditional story that appeals to a wide audience, the audience tuned out and never returned. I think "Paradise Towers" and "Delta and the Bannermen" -- worthy stories on their own, especially "Delta", should never been paired, especially after "Time and the Rani". The problem is, with only four stories a year, there isn't the m [this is much like people who dismiss the NAs based on only a half a dozen books before Rebecca Levine took over as editor] Michael Lee http://www.execpc.com/~michaell From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 09:05:41 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA80945; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 09:05:40 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA22822; Tue, 29 Jul 97 09:19:11 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id PAA28839; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 15:16:42 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 15:16:42 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <33DE6834@bismain.bisnet.coventry.gov.uk> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Chris Halliday SBSC To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Status: RO Duncan H wrote: << I would like to put forward the position (and no doubt there'll be howls of anguish from everyone)that is was the Colin Baker - in particular Eric Saward - era which killed the show off. After he left, Season one of McCoy is half a remainder of the seasons before it, and half the future of the show. (It's just got rather more of the worst bits of both halves, unhappily).>> Well (and bravely) put! I heartily agree. The ridiculous pantomime stories and appaling production values drove me away from the show for the majority of Colin's run. I have nothing against Colin's performance as the Doctor (in fact, having struggled through Trial of a Time Lord, I think he is seriously underrated by fandom in general), but the scripts were, bluntly, crap, with all the depth and dramatic tension of an episode of Rent-a-Ghost. There were, as always, exceptions to this (The Two Doctors), but overall the show had plunged into an abyss from which it would have to struggle to escape. My firm belief is that if Sylv had been allowed to continue for another season, the production team would have become comfortable with the new direction necessary to recover the viewers lost during the Saward era. In their last season, the team was already displaying the flashes of brilliance which could have saved the show, but they weren't given the time by bosses who had never understood the show's appeal. Though I enjoy the NA's, I don't think their tone is representative of what the show would have become, and I think it's a shame that Sylv wasn't allowed to develop his version of the Doctor fully. The Other Chris From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 10:26:55 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA80933; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:26:55 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA01947; Tue, 29 Jul 97 10:40:29 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id QAA29899; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:29:20 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:29:20 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <9707291504.AA30934@info1.harper.cc.il.us> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: shill@harper.cc.il.us (Steve Hill) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List In-Reply-To: <33DE6834@bismain.bisnet.coventry.gov.uk> from "Chris Halliday SBSC" at Jul 29, 97 03:16:42 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO All I can say (since I failed to watch Paradise Towers this weekend) is: I dread archiving this discussion. :) -shill -- [][] [][] Steve Hill, Network Communications Specialist, 847-925-6273 [] [] [] Harper College, 1200 W Algonquin Rd, Palatine IL 60067-7398 http://shill.simplenet.com Harper College: [] [] [] shill@harper.cc.il.us www.harper.cc.il.us [][] [][] Do you have an old Beta VCR you want to sell? Email me. From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 10:38:36 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA14141; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:38:35 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA02899; Tue, 29 Jul 97 10:51:42 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id QAA00068; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:46:44 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 16:46:44 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707291539.QAA28892@mailhost.dircon.co.uk> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: "David Alexander" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1157 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO Duncan wrote:- > Quite right - they are different from the show before - there's a, I > hesitate to use the word 'serious', ness in it that's entirely absent > from the regular Colin baker pantomime. I would like to put forward > the position (and no doubt there'll be howls of anguish from everyone) > that is was the Colin Baker - in particular Eric Saward - era which > killed the show off. In Eric's last two seasons the writing, script > editing, and general argumentative nature of TARDIS crew is appauling. Have to disagree with you there, old chap. "The Twin Dilemma" was indeed a bit of a mess, a real pantomime job, but Season 22 was kind of impressive .. three minor masterpieces - "Vengeance on Varos", "The Two Doctors" & "Revelation of the Daleks"; two very good stories - "Attack of the Cybermen" & "The Mark of the Rani"; & one failure - "Timelash", which despite its many flaws is still very watchable ... the interplay between the Doctor & HG Wells particularly so. I liked the edge that season had; very different to the seasons surrounding it. With one or two possible exceptions, this was the toughest DW ever got, certainly the darkest. C. Baker's Doctor was not to everyone's taste, & that coat was, for a variety of reasons, a pretty dumb idea, but I liked his unpredictability, his mood swings, his use of flowery language, & his physicality. If I recall correctly, that particular season was quite well received by the fans at the time, tho' it was overshadowed in its latter stages by the "cancellation crisis". As to "Trial of a Time Lord" ... very mediocre stuff, in all honesty; it just didn't work for me ... nobody, not even Baker, seemed to really have their heart in it, tho' the Valeyard (Michael Jayston) was a great idea, a far more interesting & ambiguous figure than the increasingly melodramatic & theatrical Master. Robert Holmes' episode 13 was good, however, & Mr Popplewick was an altogether splendid creation. Baker, as well all know, got a bum rap from his paymasters at the Beeb, & I think McCoy suffered from the understandable, if misplaced resentment many of us felt at the way he'd been treated. > I know that everyone blamed JNT at the time, but look what he mangered > to do with McCoy's 2nd and 3rd seasons. I think Saward disagreed with the > casting of Bonnie and Colin, but if he did he should have just left, > rather than do what he did, which was to grind the show into the earth > with his distructive vision of the Doctor. I've never had a problem with Saward, who, like Cartmel, at least had a vision of what the programme itself should be about. Many of the problems you describe are probably attributable to the disagreements between producer and script editor which appear to have been a feature of the era, but especially "Trial of a Time Lord". > After he left, Season one of McCoy is half a remainder of the seasons > before it, and half the future of the show. (It's just got rather > more of the worst bits of both halves, unhappily). > > I've hardly seen any anti-Saward comments in this list. Does > anyone else agree (or, more fun for the list - disagree) about him? Afraid I have to disagree with you again . McCoy's first season was very like the preceding one ... poor overall structure, despite one or two good individual episodes or scenes, lack of any sense where the series was actually going, and, what appears to me to be a half-hearted approach to the production. It was nothing like Season 22, however, which, as I've said, was great. As to being pro- or anti-Saward, it's probably better if we don't open that argument again, tho', as you've probably worked out, my sympathies tend to lie with the pro-. I just think JNT was producer for too long, something he himself seems to have felt, judging from his memoirs in DWM, & his futile attempts to go & do something else ... not unnaturally, I think he was all Whoed out by the end. davida@dircon.co.uk From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 11:14:26 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA68480; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:14:25 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06703; Tue, 29 Jul 97 11:28:00 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id RAA00824; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:23:00 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:23:00 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970729.121431.23438.6.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:37:00 +0100 (BST) Jeffery writes: >Your conclusion is borne out by the current non-existence of the >series. There weren't many who needed to be told that the last dregs >of "Dr. Who" were drained in 1986, and that what remained was an overly >trendy, self-conscious mess on the intellectual level of "Lost In >Space". You honestly believe that Ghost Light, THP and Fenric are on the intellectual level of Lost In Space? It might explain a great deal... snip >No cause and effect relationship can be established. For you. A glance at Australia in 1984 demonstrates quite clearly that a cause nad effect relationship *is* at work in fandom, and indeed the world, in various and subtle ways. I'm not saying fandom is comprised of braindead zombies, mind you. >The demise of the program cannot be explained by any variant of conspiracy theory. Can you prove this statement? No. On the contrary, the documented attitude of BBC officials toward the show and the lack of a new series despite high poll positions, merchandise sales and impressive UK film ratings only adds to the 'conspiracy' theory of the cancellation and subsequent refusal to make more. Let's not forget the show was cancelled before, and only grudgingly brought back. Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 11:14:50 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA136592; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:14:49 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06714; Tue, 29 Jul 97 11:28:14 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id RAA00800; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:22:51 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:22:51 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970729.121431.23438.4.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Tue, 29 Jul 1997 06:13:48 +0100 (BST) "Michael Swart" writes: >> These later stories were very confrontational, in a way perhaps more >> traditional fans weren't prepared for. The McCoy years grabbed its >> medium by the pixels and shook it desperately, trying to expand and >> grow into something new. It didn't always work (as with Paradise >> Towers). But in my mind, one Paradise Towers is worth a cartload of Genesis >> of the Dalekses. >Because, you assert, it was trying to achieve something greater than >what Genesis achieved. But what?! I suspect you're saying that >Ghost Light revolutionised the medium. In what way? Ghost Light is a poor choice for this, because I think it's one of the most traditional McCoys there is. I was thinking in terms of The Happiness Patrol, which played consciously with visual style and accepted use of television story structure (ie: apparant story isn't the *real* story being told). I don't think it revolutionised the medium, either. Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 11:16:54 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA45741; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:16:54 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06884; Tue, 29 Jul 97 11:29:51 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id RAA00919; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:24:15 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:24:15 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970729.121431.23438.1.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 23:52:00 +0100 (BST) Michael Lee writes: >I think you're definitely misusing realism here -- PT isn't realism >and isn't intended to be... it [like THP] are political parodies. Yes, I wrote that bit very badly! :-) I meant that perhaps it has more relevance; it deals in metaphor and exaggeration with a real issue, whereas The Pirate Planet is clear fantasy. >I don't have a good answer to this, not being terribly good at >political readings, but why are all of the Kangs girls? To make Pex more >unique? I've found this one of the weaknesses of the story -- where did all of the >*little* boys go? [Some, clearly, became Caretakers -- perhaps all of them] Yes, I've got this problem as well. Rewrite demands, sadly. The Kangs themselves and their slang point to the glamorization of the ghetto via gang culture etc. snip >Oh, you're definitely right -- Paradise Towers isn't one of my >favorites, but [as often has been suggested] I've gone into it looking for what >makes PT uniquely Doctor Who, both by itself and in the context of the entire >series...and it's been great for those purposes...but I think it's >worth pointing to both the positive and negative impact of the story. It's >probably the most significant "pivot point" of the series after Androzani, and >a point where the show does go off in a different direction. I agree. And I agree that I focus too much on the positives of stories such as this. But then I often feel as though I almost have to, because far too many fans only concentrate on the negatives. >>Before we get back into a 'why WHO was cancelled' slag which I'm not >>going to participate in, let me pre-empt by saying that I think >>internal politics and ESPECIALLY scheduling did far more to seal the >>program's fate than McCoy or his specific era ever did. >That really wasn't my point -- I think there were a combination of >reasons, of which one was the hostility or disinterest some segments of fandom >took towards McCoy. My point was that it was risky doing a "difficult" episode >so early on in a new Doctor's reign, especially after Colin's rapid departure. Yes, it was risky. The whole McCoy era was risky in retrospect, though. I think it ultimately benfited the total franchise. Others don't. The Dynamics Rankings thing is good, but not a decent indicator of non-fan opinion, since almost by definition anyone responding to such a poll on the net is a fan. Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 11:17:07 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA82624; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:17:06 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA06968; Tue, 29 Jul 97 11:30:39 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id RAA00969; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:24:33 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:24:33 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970729.121431.23438.0.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Mon, 28 Jul 1997 22:59:32 +0100 (BST) shane@thehub.com.au (Shane Wright) writes: >>>Before I first saw Paradise Towers in 1988, I don't think there was >>>ever a story that had me so disgusted by the time it had finished. >>>Eventhe other stories mentioned, ie The Pirate Planet, Kinda, etc. >>>are still for the most part believeable, and they both have premises >>>that, with a bit of imagination on the part of the viewer, could actually >>>happen. >>I find this assertion stunning, to be frank. The realism in Kinda >>had nothing to do with the aliens or the snake and everything to do with >>the portrait of Hindel. But I'll give it to you anyway. The Pirate >>Planet, on the other hand, is one of the most unrealistic, impossible >>premises the series ever had. >IYHO. "what's it for?" Is the a stunning and violent statement of >the doctor's principals. granted he utterly abandoimed them by the NA's >Cat's cradle series ,but still for those of us who want to see the Doctor as >a HERO, and consdier him essentially to be that, it is a brilliant and >invigorating moment. First of all, I reject the idea that the Doctor somehow stopped being a hero, and if you're going to make statements like the one above you're going to need to start explaining why, with a good selection of examples from a series around sixty books long. And one scene, no matter how good, is not enough to justify a story. >>But Paradise Towers wins over both of them in terms of realism, when >>one considers what the story was really about: the dehumanising aspect of >>block tenement housing projects, that isolate the young and the >>elderly. Paradise Towers is very much a political parody (in the same way that >>Wyatt's other WHO serial would be a parody of the series itself). >One, your agruments over politcal agenda in Who was pretty spurious to >start with, Really? I suppose then it's a coincidence that they happen more or less to match those of the latterday script and novel writers? >and two this does rather conflict with your previous assertoion >that the show is based on fundamentally ridiculous premises (vis the Magic >Bus). If all Who is based on a series fundamental unrealities ("series of >fundamental unrealities" - see kids, anyone can talk like Andrew >Cartmel - it's easy!!) then you can't really contend anything is more real or >less real. Nothing is real. But that's nothing to get hung about. >Indeed, "reality" would be an intrusion on the basic structure of the drama. I agree with this; in fact re-reading my post I see that I used entirely the wrong language. PT isn't a "realistic" story by any means. What I meant is that it contains within a 'real' critique and therefore tells a 'real' story by extension. The Pirate Planet doesn't do this at all. Hence the wild panto of TPP is the sum of that story, while the panto of PT has some basis in reality. Perhaps I'm still not explaining myself very well. >>What I suspect is that had you seen PT at twelve and TPP >>at a later age, your opinions would be more or less reversed, PT made >>lovely by the undiscerning eye of the twelve year old and TPP torn to >>shreds by the more adult eye. I think this sort of thing is very >>much a trait with fandom; hence the continuing popularity of a third Doctor >>that would seem offensive in a series filmed today etc. Perhaps fandom >>outgrew the series? >I think perhaps you are denying people their volition here - my adult >eye doesn't tear TPP to shreads any less than it does PT. It depends on >what one wants from Who - TPP delivers for some people what PT (and the >series after PT) denied them. Same with the Pertwee stories. I don't think >anyone on the list is going to read your post and go "damn, he's right - I've >been a fool all my life" and starting mailing you privatley with their >relationship problems because of the certainty of your judgement. No, I don't think so either. But I think the 'first Doctor' syndrome is very prevalent, and evidential of the existence of this sort of situation. You can see the same thing in conservative politics, where the olden days are always rosy because nostalgia prevents one from fully seeing things for what they were. Hell, I do the same thing when I see Star Wars. I have to consciously pay attention as an adult (because my Star Wars viewing is subtly altered by the fact that in some small way it makes me young again) to see how crap much of it is. Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 11:17:31 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA136651; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:17:30 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA07021; Tue, 29 Jul 97 11:31:04 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id RAA00895; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:24:06 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:24:06 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970729.121431.23438.7.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Tue, 29 Jul 1997 06:51:45 +0100 (BST) "Michael Swart" writes: snip >I think you mean social parody. So you think that the writer of >Paradise Towers was using a fantasy story to say something to us >about our society like Jonathan Swift was with Gulliver's Travels. Yes. And again in RoTD and again in THP and again in Battlefield and again (and far more explicitly) in TCoF and Survival. >That the writer was saying block tenement housing projects are a bad >thing. Maybe he was. I think he just decided to write a science >fiction serial about an apartment block and apartment blocks have old >people, gangs, and caretakers. Um, he explicitly made PT a satire IIRC. >>Of course, this might be what some fans have a problem with; the >>politics of latterday Doctor Who itself. >Do you mean there are some fans for whom political content is a >problem? I know there are some fans for whom political content is a problem. >I think you're saying the McCoy era is a bit too sophisticated for some fans, and that >that's why they don't like it. Are you? Yes, to be blunt. >>I think this sort of thing is very much a >>trait with fandom; hence the continuing popularity of a third Doctor >>that would seem offensive in a series filmed today etc. Perhaps fandom >>outgrew the series? >What on earth is offensive about the Third Doctor? I think his sexist, patronizing arrogance would come over like a lead balloon on modern television. >How can fandom outgrow the Series? If the series remains firmly in the realm of children's drama while the viewership age steadily rises in overall ratio, then the series either needs to change to adjust to the new demographic (perhaps part of what the McCoy era was about) or risk having the viewership outgrow the series. The upcoming update of Lost In Space is probably something to do with this. >What is fandom, anyway? A thread in itself, really. Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Tue Jul 29 11:18:04 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA68586; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:18:03 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA07113; Tue, 29 Jul 97 11:31:38 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id RAA00871; Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:23:57 +0100 (BST) Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 17:23:57 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970729.121431.23438.5.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Tue, 29 Jul 1997 11:11:32 +0100 (BST) shane@thehub.com.au (Shane Wright) babbles again: snip >there are some people who advance the dark theory that it was >when "Fandom" (or Uberfandom) started to have too much of an influence on >the series that it began to slide. They contend the show began to cater >to the whims of the then nascent "Fandom" by introducing continuity dependant >stories (particulaly in season 25/26), This is an utterly ridiculous assertion, of course, since 'continuity dependant' stories have been around since The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I disagree that any McCoy story except Remembrance is continuitydependant, and even that one I'd argue against, as Hartnell was always warbling about non-televised events, so one doesn't necessarily need to see the referenced story. If you mean that one story ran into the next for Ace's development, this really isn't anything different to the Master's imprisonment or Mike Yates or even seasons one, seven or twelve. And there was nothing nascent about fandom in 1987. >and the NA/Ma's just opened the floodgates to them. And the TVM was the ultimate >witnress to sad fanboy run amok. In what way? snip >In the end, as the Doctor no doubt said to Freud when they met "Ziggy, sometimes a >banana ain't nothing but a banana". A bit unrelated, and I agree with your statement, but it's misleading. Because all to often a banana is more than we think it is. Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Wed Jul 30 06:28:37 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA28767; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 06:28:32 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04491; Wed, 30 Jul 97 06:42:06 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id MAA14070; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:38:58 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:38:58 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970730113039.6094.qmail@pool.pipex.net> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: "Chuck Foster" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT In-Reply-To: <41D7F446F943D011A10C00A02441AF7B040B5E@wingate> X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.54) Status: RO On 28 Jul 97 at 23:52, Michael Lee wrote: > I don't have a good answer to this, not being terribly good at political > readings, but why are all of the Kangs girls? To make Pex more unique? I've > found this one of the weaknesses of the story -- where did all of the *little* > boys go? [Some, clearly, became Caretakers -- perhaps all of them] As far as the story went, IIRC, all the men and that went off to war, or something. As for the little boys, as we know girls are more clever than boys, so their gangs probably all got eaten up by the Cleaners ... Interesting point: if the male population did up and leave to go off to war, then if any of the women became pregnant, there weren't that many candidates to point at .... (smile) From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Wed Jul 30 06:46:42 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA82646; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 06:46:41 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA04604; Wed, 30 Jul 97 07:00:16 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id MAA14478; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:57:30 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:57:30 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970730114028.7903.qmail@pool.pipex.net> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: "Chuck Foster" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV: Paradise Towers (unclassified) X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT In-Reply-To: <58D5C2F7A45@mail.navmat.navy.gov.au> X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.54) Status: RO > I agree. Sadly I think fans of all kinds are easily programmed, > and once WHO fans were 'told' by fandom that they weren't supposed > to like McCoy in 1987 he never stood a chance. Rubbish. I am quite capable of deciding the worth of a portrayal myself without having someone else tell me what to expect. I remembered McCoy from Vision On and expected to enjoy his portrayal of the Doctor, regardless of what some self-opinionated fanzine might tell me. Most people will agree that Time and the Rani was not exactly the best story, or Season 24 as a whole. I put this down mainly to the choice of incidental music composer. Keff is good at what he does best, but his style of music does not gel with what makes an atmosphere in Doctor Who - the only story I feel that his music fitted the series is in Remembrance. Paradise Towers was the same, and then we had Delta, I actually cringed when I heard the Dick Barton theme! It wasn't until Dominic took control in Dragonfire once more that things settled down somewhat. However, I still enjoyed McCoy's portrayal. TATR didn't go down too well, but it is well documented that Sylv didn't know where to take the character then, and there was no real direction to follow at that point. Once story later and he is in more control, and suddenly his Doctor breaks free. I always attribute the emergence of the seventh Doctor I enjoy from that moment in episode two when he is held by the two Caretakers and "quotes" the book - "nevertheless, it is in there" (slam). From that moment on, there was no doubt in my mind that Sylv would make a great Doctor, ultimately my second favourite. C. PS. I didn't watch it, these are 9 year old memories :-) From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Wed Jul 30 09:16:01 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA137542; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 09:16:00 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA11047; Wed, 30 Jul 97 09:29:35 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id PAA17465; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 15:22:47 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 15:22:47 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <41D7F446F943D011A10C00A02441AF7B040B66@wingate> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Michael Lee To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet E-mail/MAPI - 8.0.0.4025 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO On Wednesday, July 30, 1997 8:31 AM, Chuck Foster [SMTP:Chuck.Foster@uk.uu.net] wrote: > Interesting point: if the male population did up and leave to go off > to war, then if any of the women became pregnant, there weren't that > many candidates to point at .... (smile) Yes, I had thought of that, actually. The whole idea that the caretakers would "catch us if they can [laughter]" can't be considered as just a childish game of wall-scrawl. I'm not sure how old the Kangs are supposed to be -- obviously they are played by adults -- and Pex is likely the same age. [One of my main difficulties with the story is that I have real problems getting any sort of time line to make sense... The story needed one or two more drafts, at least.] Michael Lee http://www.execpc.com/~michaell From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Wed Jul 30 11:52:25 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA82966; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 11:52:25 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA24006; Wed, 30 Jul 97 12:05:57 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id SAA19949; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 18:02:07 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 18:02:07 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Tim Kendrick To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV:Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Status: RO >The Paradise Towers thread similarly revealed >a number of fans unable to view the >story completely objectively No, that's not it. We DID view it objectively. And we still didn't like it. And then you asked us to give you reasons why we didn't like it. And when we did, you began to say we were being hypercritical. "Time Flight" is generally considered crap by most fans. But I personally love it - it's one of my favorites!!! But that doesn't mean the fans who criticize it are not viewing it objectively. I won't say they are being hypercritical because they find major problems with it that I can overlook. IMHO "Paradise Towers" is crap. Even worse than I remember it being. No one told me to say that - it's my own opinion based on roughly 1 hr 40 minutes of viewing it this past weekend. >(honestly, is every single minute aspect of >PT that bad?). No, not every minute. Just to be fair here are things I liked about it: 1. Pex is totally hot looking! I enjoyed watching him! 2. I thought the first Ressie (Rezzie?) scene was wonderful - both humorous and creepy. 3. I'm glad they mentioned ejecting the TARDIS pool (thus not contradicting "Invasion of Time"). 4. I thought that the actress who played Fire Escape was very good. There were subtleties to her performance that most of you probably didn't notice (I'm an actor, so I look for those things.) 5. Did I mention Pex was ice-hot?!?!?!!! Tim K. From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Wed Jul 30 15:35:30 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA28049; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 15:35:29 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA14971; Wed, 30 Jul 97 15:49:04 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id VAA24245; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 21:46:38 +0100 (BST) Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 21:46:38 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: Worth Godwin To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: RE: GV: Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 4.1 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Status: RO >>> Michael Lee - 7/30/97 10:22 AM >>> >Yes, I had thought of that, actually. The whole idea that the caretakers >would "catch us if they can [laughter]" can't be considered as just a >childish game of wall-scrawl. I'm not sure how old the Kangs are >supposed to be -- obviously they are played by adults -- and Pex is likely >the same age. > >[One of my main difficulties with the story is that I have real problems >getting any sort of time line to make sense... The story needed one or >two more drafts, at least.] Some indefinite time ago -- several years, possibly back in the '80s -- I read that the Kangs were originally intended to be played by girls, not women, which I think would have made a great deal more sense. I'm not sure if Pex would've been a boy as well, if the original design had been followed. In either case, the males who went off to fight could have gone off as young boys, either to train or to actually fight, as in Ender's Game. Worth -=-=- The TARDIS Databanks: http://www.compcenter.com/~worth/drwho/ Personal homepage: http://www.compcenter.com/~worth/ From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Wed Jul 30 22:49:18 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA80922; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 22:49:17 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10622; Wed, 30 Jul 97 23:02:52 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id EAA28502; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 04:59:17 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 04:59:17 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <19970730.221333.13614.3.renton@juno.com> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: renton@juno.com (renton patrick) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV:Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List X-Mailer: Juno 1.38 Status: RO On Wed, 30 Jul 1997 18:02:05 +0100 (BST) Tim Kendrick writes: >>The Paradise Towers thread similarly revealed >>a number of fans unable to view the >>story completely objectively >No, that's not it. >We DID view it objectively. And we >still didn't like it. And then you asked >us to give you reasons why we didn't like >it. And when we did, you began to say we >were being hypercritical. Er, that's because most of the 'reasons' why it was considered crap equally applied to other eras of the program, which aren't considered crap. If that's no hypocrisy I don't know what is. >"Time Flight" is generally considered >crap by most fans. But I personally >love it - it's one of my favorites!!! >But that doesn't mean the fans who >criticize it are not viewing it objectively. >I won't say they are being hypercritical >because they find major problems with it >that I can overlook. Erm, actually I think TimeFlight does fall into the PT trap, but not as forcefully. Episode one for example is quite good and Tegan being left behind similarly nice, but many fans can't see this for the trees, if you know what I mean. >IMHO "Paradise Towers" is crap. Even >worse than I remember it being. No one >told me to say that - it's my own opinion >based on roughly 1 hr 40 minutes of viewing >it this past weekend. I think perhaps people are misunderstanding exactly what fandom influence actually is. Of course no-one told you to dislike it. >>(honestly, is every single minute aspect of >>PT that bad?). >No, not every minute. Just to be fair >here are things I liked about it: *This* is what I was driving at the first time around... :-) Rents From drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Wed Jul 30 23:07:38 1997 Received: from firewall.harper.cc.il.us by info1.harper.cc.il.us (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA126200; Wed, 30 Jul 1997 23:07:37 -0500 Received: from lists.pipex.com (unipalmpipex-www.pipex.net) by harper.cc.il.us (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10824; Wed, 30 Jul 97 23:21:12 CDT Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Received: from ([127.0.0.1]) by lists.pipex.com (UUNET PIPEX simple 1.29) id FAA28723; Thu, 31 Jul 1997 05:18:23 +0100 (BST) Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 05:18:23 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199707310410.VAA06527@mailtod-1.alma.webtv.net> Errors-To: admin-drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Reply-To: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Originator: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Sender: drwho-l@lists.pipex.com Precedence: bulk From: chrisk@webtv.net (Chris Krisocki) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: GV:Paradise Towers X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: The Dr Who Mailing List Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Mime-Version: 1.0 (WebTV) Status: RO One of the reasons why so many people seem to dislike Paradise Towers so much may be the shear number of bad things that are thrown at us in the first few minutes...