Doctor Who Discussion


I was wondering when the next animation would be announced. I think TS is one of the most underrated stories from this era, and though the animation still seems rather flat and lacking shadow details like TUM did I’ll pick this set up for the improved telesnap reconstruction and VAM - this is a three-disc set so I assume there’ll be more extras than usual.
 
Digging into the Season 7 collection set this evening with Spearhead from Space and its VAM. The transfer is more or less the same as the old release but with some extra cleanup for part four and it looks very nice as the only classic Who serial to be filmed entirely on 16mm film.
 
Doctor Who and the Silurians is another great story, and showcased the impressive colour recovery process that was implemented to restore this story for the boxset.
 
The Ambassadors of Death was another worthy serial from the season, and the colour recovery here is also impressive, as it’s always looked rough on home media excepting episode 1 where the original PAL Tape still exists.
 
Finishing off Season 7 with Inferno, this is really one of the greats, and the strongest in one of the best seasons in all of Who. I still need to watch some of the new VAM but this has been another great boxset to work through.
 
Decided to watch the new animation for The Savages today and thought it was a solid effort and better overall than the previous Underwater Menace effort (character likenesses are still a mixed bag but Dodo/Jackie Lane looked almost spot on) and the story itself has always been one I was fond of.

With talk of any future animations potentially being commissioned in batches and with the intent to fill the gaps left in the remaining 60s collection boxsets leaves me optimistic for the next ones.
 
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Has anyone else noticed that there is a channel called U & Eden, Freeview 57.
It seems they started showing The 3rd Doctor last night.
Spearhead from Space. Tonight was The Silurians.
 
The Third Doctor is my favourite but I've had no desire to buy the Blu-rays as I believe I would never sit down and put them on.
However, put them on TV every night and suddenly I'll sit and watch.
So far I've watched

Spearhead from Space
The Silurians
The Ambassadors of Death
Inferno

The fighting Doctor.

Unfortunately, The Terror of the Autons has the arrival of The Master and the replacement of Liz Shaw with Jo Grant.
 
Otomo said:
The Third Doctor is my favourite but I've had no desire to buy the Blu-rays as I believe I would never sit down and put them on.
However, put them on TV every night and suddenly I'll sit and watch.
So far I've watched

Spearhead from Space
The Silurians
The Ambassadors of Death
Inferno

The fighting Doctor.

Unfortunately, The Terror of the Autons has the arrival of The Master and the replacement of Liz Shaw with Jo Grant.
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awww I love Roger Delgado as The Master, and you are coming up to one of my fav Pertwee stories The Dæmons
 
zappi said:
awww I love Roger Delgado as The Master, and you are coming up to one of my fav Pertwee stories The Dæmons
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I had no issue with The Master originally but as I've got older, having the same bad guy over multiple and consecutive stories doesn't excite me.

And Jo Grant has already got in trouble twice and tried to kill the Doctor.
Mind you, they can't all be Leela and like a good fight to resolve problems. 😀
 
The channel U&Eden had The Mutants on yesterday.
As it started just as I got in from work, I watched all 6 episodes.
Enjoyed it. The Doctor took down a couple of bad guys with some Venusian Karate.
 
Otomo said:
Thanks for the validation everyone. ⛄

First, I was being cheap but the DVDs have plenty of extras for me to enjoy.

I've no idea how Sylvester McCoy ranks for everybody else but as I've got older he got higher in my rankings.
Still Pertwee at the top but the Blu-ray's would have to be really cheap for me to buy. Too much of the Master.
Thank the Lord for channel U&Eden for allowing me to enjoy him for nothing.

I've got the obvious Tom Baker stories already.
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McCoy is my favourite Doctor! I can understanding sticking to the DVDs as they’re plenty stacked already with extra features and the limited Collection sets aren’t the cheapest.

The standard edition reissues that have gradually been coming out are thankfully cheaper and worth keeping an eye on for discounts.
 
cfx said:
Season 13 is what got me to start really looking at this. I don't have it as I buy the standard editions so lag about two years behind which means so far I've avoided all these sets with the obvious AI. But I've been going back and comparing the earlier blu-rays to the DVDs...well, via youtube so not the most perfect comparison...and I'm starting to feel the DVDs look better even for the earlier sets. I'm not sure if it's some kind of sharpening/edge enhancement, or if just the resolution and better compression of blu-ray further exposes issues with the original SD video, but there's this sort of...outline, for lack of a better word, on one side of objects that I find distracting, and it seems like there's some overuse of DNR as well, though perhaps that's just youtube compression.

As I've got the blu-ray sets up to that point, I really don't want to have to go back and buy all of it on DVD again, but am feeling like that's maybe what I should do.
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Up until Season 15 I can’t say I saw any examples of the DVDs looking better, and the rare instances of having actual film elements like season 19 were especially nice. I can’t blame the recent AI fiasco for putting people off buying though it’s really quite a shame as there’s so much hard work put into these sets from the VAM, new special effects, and audio departments.

cfx said:
Mine too, but I have the impression it isn't well liked in general.

I first saw Sylvester McCoy as his seasons originally aired, and at that time I didn't like him, having seen Tom Baker, Peter Davison, and Colin Baker not that long before, as I saw those in reruns. But seeing him again some years later I like him a lot. I never saw Jon Pertwee until somewhat later and still haven't seen a lot of his. I also haven't seen much of Patrick Troughton. I think I've only seen the very first episode of William Hartnell, and disliked it so much have never had any desire to see any more.
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My first impression of McCoy was Remembrance of the Daleks and I was hooked pretty quickly!

By the time I got into DW the VHS range was more or less complete and the DVDs were gradually coming out so I watched a bit of every classic Doctor - even really enjoying the 60s ones. Troughton is fantastic (a shame so much is missing or only having a middling animation) and I enjoy Hartnell a lot too.
 
I need to do a better comparison, because using Youtube I'm sure is throwing too many other variables into the mix.

I've only seen little bits of the animations via the promos that were done, but the ones I've seen I don't think I could watch an entire one, especially after they started doing the 3D models. I know they don't have much budget for these but they're just awful in my opinion, and I'd rather they just stuck to the still images with audio...wasn't that what they were doing before?
 
They still do photo reconstructions utilising the existing audio, photos and telesnaps, plus the occasional animated effect yes, these are included alongside the animations and any surviving episodes or footage (I.e. censor clips or off-air recordings) from that serial.

Some of the early animations are great like The Moonbase (2/4 episodes animated) and The Invasion (2/8 episodes animated) but I find them a real mixed bag - some are faithful and well-made but quite a few have taken too many creative liberties for me to properly enjoy - I’ll take the photo recons and surviving footage/episodes any day of the week. They’ve only tried one full 3D animation to date (The Celestial Toymaker) and it’s not too bad but I’ve yet to be convinced as to how it would work for one of the missing historical stories for example.
 
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