Classic Doctor Who

Thanks for that - with DVD's being at parent house and me living in Netherlands I do tend to foget the story names but nevertheless remember the premise of the stories.

The ones I mentioned show that writing for the show has always been a high priority and in general of a very high quality with many layers within the stories, but the execustion, i.e. cost of production, has often let it down (e.g. the Bertie Bassett monster etc....)

Agree, with "The Tomb Of The Cybermen", the story was great, the acting was very good & the set itself was good for it's time but the Cybermen suits reminded me of something from Scooby Doo, I was expect Troughton to pull of the mask & the bloke inside the costume to say "I would have got away with it if it wasn't for you dam meddling kids", or words to that effect

The only Colin Baker story I would reccomend is Revelation of the Daleks, like I said before. "Ghostlight" is one of the weirdest and most confusing stories I have ever seen! I wouldn't reccomend it until you are used to Doctor Who. Oh, and look out for the 3 Doctors, 10th anniversary special from Jon Pertwee's era.

I didn't think 'Revelation' was that great myself - by this point in the series, Dalek stories became increasingly tedious. It was always a case of waiting for Davros to appear despite him coming to a sticky end from which he could never come back in the previous story.

Meanwhile, the Daleks themselves became increasingly more like mindless robots as opposed to cool, calculating killers, and combined with the increasingly comedic idea of the true masters of the universe being odd litttle machines with limited mobility and flashing lights on the top so you can tell which one is talking, the menacingness which they had in the earlier stories was somewhat diluted.

On top of all of it, production values were quite low even by 80's Who standards and most of the guest parts were very poorly acted.

IMO the best Colin Baker story was 'Mark of The Rani'. The Rani was a far more interesting and less tedious foe (at first anyway), and production values of the episode were approaching that of a decent costume drama at the time (specifically the large amount of location work done), giving the show a decidedly more upmarket look. Colin Baker's doctor was also less annoying than usual. Indeed, the story is almost in the vein of the current series in terms of it's style and delivery.

I watched Revelation today and it was SO boring!And the DJ on the dvd menu really gets on your nerves after a while!

I'll have to take issue with both of you there! Revelation is one of, if not THE best looking Dalek story ever shown. The sets were beautifully made and looked realistic. The plot is one of the most original scripts ever written, and showed a chilling new way of creating Daleks, from human remains. This was to me Davros' best performance, really showed there was no limit to Terry Molloy's versatility, and Graeme Harper's direction really made all of the silly little Dalek props look really chilling.

Classic strory, and I can't believe you found it boring.

I wouldn't say it found it boring, but I still maintain that the story (along with other later Dalek stories) was flawed. It became beyond ridiculous that Davros always met his fate at the end of every Dalek story and always somehow reappeared in the next one.

I also maintain that as an enemy the Daleks were weakened as soon as Davros was introduced in 'Genesis'...because Dalek stories were no longer about Daleks trying to commit attrocities, it was about Davros planning and committing his latest attrocities with the Daleks reduced to mindless drones who carry them out. All of the scheming and independence of thought that the Daleks had was gradually eroded. The Eric Soward-penned stories only took this point further.

You mention the point of 'new Daleks being created with human remains'. In this act, Saward confirmed has lack of understanding of what Terry Nation created the Daleks to be; the whole point of them was that the pepperpot you saw was merely a machine containing a living native creature of Skaro whose wars had mutilated them to need machines to move around and defend/attack in. Making them 'parts of human remains' acting mindlessly in their tin cans with Davros above them as some sort of precursor to The Borg Queen and her drones was exactly what they *weren't* supposed to be and it's what weakened them as enemies.

As created, the Daleks were supposed to be an entire fearsome race in themselves, they weren't supposed to be about how deranged and maniacal Terry Molloy managed to play Davros combined with how many times you fit 'Exterminate!' into one episode.

I'm afraid I still can't agree with you on production values though. True, there may have been lower value sets and worse acting on Who in the past, but I can't acknowledge it as the best that 80's Who had to offer and a lot of the supporting cast was awful (much as I love Ruby in Upstairs Downstairs, I'm afraid I don't see poor old Jenny Tomasin as much of an actress beyond it, and Clive Swift seemed to loose his skills with that ginger wig on too - he certainly wasn't in Richard Bucket form here). And whilst I accept that it's probably the most popular Colin Baker story, I'd argue that it's purely because it's a Dalek story, I can't agree that it shows the 6th Doctor at his best.

what happen to the repeats of the classic epsoide?

I would start again with the 3rd doc: jon petwee and put it on the 5.35pm slot to Fill up the time until a major overhaul happens

As much as I'd like to see that happening, I can't quite see classic DW doing that well for a mainstream audience. However a regular repeat slot on BBC Four would be welcome, and might do rather well.

Something that struck me about Revelation is that (or so it seemed to me) the Doctor doesn't do anything - events are already in motion when he gets there, and as far as I could tell on my last viewing, things would have been much the same if he hadn't been there!

David

Well I chose "Dalek Invasion Of Earth" & "Remeberance of the Daleks" off of Play.com, I near chose the "Revelation of the Daleks" but glad I didn't get that oen just yet. Looking at the cover on play.com, is there a transparent Dalek in the story?

BTW what do people think of the Dalek stories in the current run, I have personally liked them, liked "Dalek" in particular but I do think they should rest them next series, seeing as there is only 1 Dalek left now (supposedly) I would rather they didn't try & kill him off next series

The seethrough Dalek of which you speak is in fact a "shell" so to speak, where the Dalek "grows." We never actually see it change into a full Dalek though.