I was reading an article about Star Trek and how dysfunctional its production was. Apparently, after Paramount bought it, they wanted to kill it immediately after they finished the second season, but a letter writing campaign forced the studio to commit to a third season (if only this had worked for Firefly.) The studio still hated Star Trek; they massively underfunded it, moved it to a graveyard schedule slot, and everyone knew the show was going to be cancelled after the season ended. So the writers stopped trying. The scripts got so bad that the writers were submitting them under pseudonyms because they didn’t want to be tied to them, as their quality was so low it would have damaged their careers.
Some of the more recent Dr Who scripts were that level of bad. If/when I ever pick it up again, I’m just gonna read the plot summaries and if I missed anything I’ll ask @papy’s kids.
That’s how we got such ‘winner’ episodes as The Omega Glory (penned by Roddenbury himself) in Season 2, and Spock’s Brain (written by former Story Editor Gene L. Cöon) & Turnabout Intruder in Season 3 (the first- and last-broadcast episodes of that season), among other poor efforts.
David Gerrold, who wrote the screenplay for fan-favorite The Trouble With Tribbles, has penned some fascinating info on this subject.
Love, love, love Broadchurch. Complex, brooding, multi-layered, with a brilliant cast. David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker, yes, but let’s not forget Olivia Colman, Arthur Darvill (Rory from Doctor Who), David Bradley, Charlotte Rampling, James D’Arcy and many other fine British actors. I will admit to having a crush on D’Arcy that goes back to his role in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
We’re on Season 1, up to episode 12, and omg this is awful.
Whozzit and I agree that if we started watching Doctor Who in Season 1, we never would’ve made it past the third episode. The toilet plungers on the Daleks were the best part, which doesn’t say much.
We’re still slogging through the earliest episodes, Season 2. Determined to watch all of them just to say that we watched them, but more often than not it’s a chore.
Understood. I haven’t seen most of the early episodes. But, I have seen the 1965 film, “Doctor Who and the Daleks” which aired on TCM a couple of years ago.
The dalek episodes are the absolute worst. One-dimensional villains with grating voices. Unless you’re a 10-year-old boy, how many times can you be hear “exterminate” and delight in salt shakers with toilet plunger appendages? Any time I see an episode written by Terry Nation, I cringe. Always stupid annoying noises and a plot worthy of a slow-learner third-grade child.
I certainly can’t disagree, although I’ve still watched them (but frankly, now when I feel like binging, I start with Pertwee).
I’d really like to know the 2nd doctor better, but there are so few surviving episodes that it’s impossible to watch.
BTW, part of the reason for season 1 being so bad is that it was, despite the Daleks, intended as a semi-educational show, with historical accuracy on the Earth-bound time travels; the Aztec series actually gets a little philosophical and through provoking. But I do prefer the later, less serious, episodes.
We’re mostly through the episodes with the second Doctor, definitely an improvement over Season 1.
Whenever the Daleks come on, I immediately put my fingers in my ears. The entire first season was rife with too many unneeded and annoying noises.
With the exception of Barbara, the female companions inhabited the entire emotional range between whiny, fearful, petulant, and histrionic — another reason those early episodes are so difficult to watch.
Yes, the foley department had WAY too much fun with the first few seasons; the daleks were bad, but so are the Silurians that Doctor #3 encounters (I’d argue that’s even worse than any of the Daleks).
Frankly, while I rather like the story behind the Daleks, IMO they are rather dumb. Way too limited in both movement and weaponry to be a formidable opponent, at least until the new series, where they suddenly got rather magical powers of levitation, etc. I think the Cybermen are more believable (if that term even applies to Dr Who!) than the Daleks, but I think I’m in the minority.
But you may note that, even in the first season, there were times where the Doctor was about to do something stupid, and it was the FEMALE companion to prevented disaster. I always found the people claiming the series to be sexist because the doctor was always a male to be missing the fact that it was often the companion who saved the day (although granted, with some companions, it was usually purely by accident <<Jo Grant, cough cough>>
