Doctor Who IV - Everything Whovian - Would you like a jelly baby?

[Somecrazyaussie]

I thought what hurt colin baker’s first season was how dark and brutal it was.

Yes and No. The upswing in violence was a contributing factor. Just not THE contributing factor. The show had started to fall into a niche at the time. Stories were becoming more continuity heavy. It was something that became a barrier to the average audience member (ones who are not diehard fans) from tuning in on a regular basis (a factor that has been repeated with the recent series of Nu Who.)

Another factor was the cheapness of the programme. The BBC was tight with money at the time and were in the midst of launching EastEnders. The supposed cheap look could have been fixed by investing more money into the show. An invest that would of paid off in merchandising sales through Worldwide.

But yes, the onscreen violence was pushing certain limits (Lyttons hands getting crushed by Cybermen, the Doctor gunning down Cybermen, the Doctor knocking people into an acid bath etc)

[Matt]

It also didn't help that Michael Grade, then head of the BBC, hated the show - plus he and Colin Baker had a complicated relationship (MG was dating Colin's ex-wife or something along those lines).

[jbmasta]

Then during the Seventh Doctor era it was put up against the ratings juggernaut that was Coronation Street. Add in the show being less known, no surprise the New Adventures went more mature and for hardcore fans.

[jbmasta]

The cast of An Adventure in Space and Time have done two new stories in Big Finish's First Doctor Volume 1, released after Twice Upon a Time first aired.

[ChrisIII]

There were a few special effects improvements in the last few seasons-some of the minature work was pretty decent (Trial of a Time Lord's opening, some of the shots of the Dalek ship in "Rememberance", Iceworld etc.) and the 'paintbox' (Which allowed them to add different colors to the sky and alien planets or moons-used in Mindwarp, Greatest Show and Survival ) sort of gave the impression of alien worlds if not perfectly....and McCoy's intro was pretty revolutionary at the time.They even had one of the FX guys from the McCoy era (Mike Tucker) work on the new series effects as well. However I think the 100% videotape look did sort of give it a cheap look, and certainly many of the sets were very poor-the console room is kind of dinged up in it's sole appearence in season 25 ("Greatest show in the galaxy") and it was pretty much non-existent in "Battlefield" (hence the darkened lighting).

[Somecrazyaussie]

Then during the Seventh Doctor era it was put up against the ratings juggernaut that was Coronation Street. Add in the show being less known, no surprise the New Adventures went more mature and for hardcore fans.

Yeah, that was just setting it up for failure. All so they could go, "see! Nobody is watching!! This is why it needs to be cancelled!!!"

[The Darknight Detective]

And yet was never as sexist as he was when written by Moffat.

That's the problem with these type of episodes, because everyone knows things were so radically different then (even though, as someone who was around for half of the '60s, it wasn't as radical as presented and certainly not uniformly so).

[Somecrazyaussie]

There were a few special effects improvements in the last few seasons-some of the minature work was pretty decent (Trial of a Time Lord's opening, some of the shots of the Dalek ship in "Rememberance", Iceworld etc.) and the 'paintbox' (Which allowed them to add different colors to the sky and alien planets or moons-used in Mindwarp, Greatest Show and Survival ) sort of gave the impression of alien worlds if not perfectly....and McCoy's intro was pretty revolutionary at the time.They even had one of the FX guys from the McCoy era (Mike Tucker) work on the new series effects as well. However I think the 100% videotape look did sort of give it a cheap look, and certainly many of the sets were very poor-the console room is kind of dinged up in it's sole appearence in season 25 ("Greatest show in the galaxy") and it was pretty much non-existent in "Battlefield" (hence the darkened lighting).

I think they blew most of the production money on that opening sequence for Trial lol. Nevertheless, for a BBC show at the time, it was pretty darn impressive. But there certainly was some spectacular FX being done in McCoy's era.

[TheInvisibleMan]

Who always struggled with money, as there were times the BBC considered it the red headed stepchild

I was watching some old Tom Baker episodes, something about a Pharoahs Curse and Egypt and the inside of this "tomb" looked like a 9th graders "Egypt Project", it was also a very small set, but Sarah Jane was still fine as hell...RIP

[Jokerz79]

During the McCoy era they avoid a few space storyline ideas and swapped then for historical pieces simply because they knew they could get good historical costumes from BBC Drama and do nice location shoots over the bad Sci-Fi costumes and space ship sets they'd be able to scrounge up.

[Somecrazyaussie]

A news report is doing the rounds about how Peter Capaldi took the time to personally write a handwritten letter to a distressed 9 year old fan. Apparently he was anxious about the upcoming regeneration and upset that Peter was leaving.

Here is the link: https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/12...ritten-letter/

Such a great ambassador for the show.

[Bossace]

A news report is doing the rounds about how Peter Capaldi took the time to personally write a handwritten letter to a distressed 9 year old fan. Apparently he was anxious about the upcoming regeneration and upset that Peter was leaving.

Here is the link: https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/12...ritten-letter/

Such a great ambassador for the show.

I always hear great stories of Peter writing letters or making videos or making phone calls to fans especially kids which makes him so incredible, he not only took on the role but fully embraced the fandom. What a great guy.

[Punisher007]

Well from what I've heard he was already a big fan of the show himself even before he actually got cast. So perhaps it's not so surprising.

[The Darknight Detective]

Well from what I've heard he was already a big fan of the show himself even before he actually got cast. So perhaps it's not so surprising.

Agreed. There's a letter he wrote to a fan magazine as a kid on the passing of Roger Delgado somewhere online, so he's a real fan himself and knows how it feels on that side of the fence.

[ChrisIII]

Who always struggled with money, as there were times the BBC considered it the red headed stepchild

I was watching some old Tom Baker episodes, something about a Pharoahs Curse and Egypt and the inside of this "tomb" looked like a 9th graders "Egypt Project", it was also a very small set, but Sarah Jane was still fine as hell...RIP

Sounds like Pyramid of Mars. Some of the mansion sets in that were OK-as well as the main sarcophogas/"lodestone"/portal, but the one holding the robot mummy looked kind of goofy.

Despite the technical issues it's got some nice location footage (Mike Jagger's estate I think), and there's sort of a sense of urgency and dread in the story, with Tom a lot less flippant than usual, as he knows what's at stake and also is having a bit of a mid-life crisis.