Comments | angriest: Season 18

angriest

Season 18

Jan 19, 2011 22:43

BBC Video have finally released "Meglos", oddly one of my favourite Doctor Who stories, and it made me realise that Season 18 is finally complete on DVD. I have an enormous affection for Season 18, because while my first memory of Doctor Who is Romana being hassled by Daleks in "Destiny of the Daleks", Season 18 was the earliest point at which I ( Read more... )

Comments 14

benpayne January 19 2011, 12:53:46 UTC

I think I started watching at a similar time. While my earliest Who memories were of Scaroth and the Creature from the Pit, Season 18 was the first season I remember following the show with active interest. Season 18 marks the first of what I consider "my" era of Who (which is not to say I think it's the best, but I'll always have a certain fondness for it for that reason ( ... )

angriest January 19 2011, 20:11:09 UTC

I adore "Full Circle", as well as "Warriors' Gate", because they're the two stories in the season that actually stand up as proper science fiction.

strangedave January 19 2011, 16:14:39 UTC

I love the late Tom Baker era a lot, and this season is full of Lalla Wards Romana, one of my favourite companions of all time.
Warriors Gate is probably my favourite, but there are some other good stories in this series, and the just the idea of the E-space mini arc was pretty good (have they done that sort of thing, multiple stories with a linking background, elsewhere apart from the Ark in Space?),
I did always think the cactus Doctor in Meglos was stupid, though.

angriest January 19 2011, 20:12:02 UTC

The cactus Doctor is bug-fuck wonderful. What other TV series could make their villain a psychotic shape-shifting evil cactus?

drhoz January 19 2011, 22:39:21 UTC

you do have to wonder how the Zolfa-Thurans built the Screens in the first place, though...

angriest January 19 2011, 22:41:57 UTC

You're assuming all the Zolfa-Thurans were inanimate cactii.

drhoz January 20 2011, 12:53:26 UTC

true

leecetheartist January 20 2011, 00:20:48 UTC

Meglos is one of the episodes that really impressed me.

dalekboy January 20 2011, 09:16:09 UTC

I quite like season 18. Warriors' Gate is one of my 'chicken soup' Doctor Who stories. If I feel flat or down, it's a comfort to watch.

Did you know that the writer had done his novelisation of the story as something a lot closer to his original script, before all the changes, and JNT made him change it to reflect to the broadcast version in the three days before the due date? I'd maim for the original version.

To me the weakest story is State of Decay, but then it's given the whole epic ancient enemy of the Time Lords and all life treatment, and that helps give it some needed oomph.

Oh, and while Leisure Hive does have slightly Star Trekky aliens, it also has great big lizard people who have a double layered skin which is totally lost under the studio lights.

angriest January 20 2011, 09:29:42 UTC

State of Decay completely does not work. It feels half-hearted and rushed (partly because it *was* rushed, and partly because I just don't get the impression Dicks put a huge amount of effort until it), Tom Baker was at death's door while making it, and aesthetically and tonally it simply doesn't fit the rest of the season. It's my least favourite for Season 18.