Review The Davison Doctor

Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Wonderful drama and a great send off for Peter Davison.

The Doctor doomed from the moment the story starts and having to make a sacrifice for one friend.

I love that the Doctor spends the whole adventure trying to simply extricate himself and Peri from a situation where nobody else is a nice person - and where nobody else will let them simply leave.

And I always think it more satisfying, dramatically, to see the Doctor - our dependable hero - broken by the evils he has encountered - and dying on the floor, rather than taking out Dalek fleets with his over the top regenerative powers.

If only the forthcoming Capaldi changeover had one iota of Robert Holmes' Androzani writing skill applied to it - on a modern day budget - and I will be satisfied.

Unfortunately, I doubt that it will.
 
chainsaw_metal1

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
I think it was a necessary step to cast someone like him in the role. Tom and stayed on for so long, and you saw how he had become less enthusiastic in the role (mostly because the Beeb wouldn't let him do the show his way), and you needed someone to bring a new energy to the series. Peter is a wonderful actor, and I thought he was great in the role of The Doctor. Sure, he had some sketchy stories thrown at him, and the production value was lacking, but he never showed any lack of enthusiasm for the role.
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Peter Davison never seems to have much time for the writings of Terrance Dudley, but I think he is being a little unfair.

If nothing else this story shows a quirky imagination at work, with mysteries being set up throughout the beginning and a unique atmostphere throughout.

Okay, Adric's dialogue and motivation is dumb, the dance and gladiator sequences drag the whole thing down and bore after less than 15 seconds and Davison is trying to find his character while having a dialogue heavy adventure and wearing a silly helmet.

But the set design is great and I will forgive it all it's faults, for at least displaying the aforementioned imaginative quality throughout.

A flawed adventure then, but not a complete disaster by any means. Perhaps best seen as a story of great promise that never paid off.

But at least it had great promise.
 
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Gavin

Gavin

Member: Rank 6
VIP
One of the few real "sequels" in Classic Who (the other one that comes to mind is Monster of Peladon). Does anyone know why Nyssa was absent from this one? I know she collapsed and stayed in the TARDIS with a mind-thingy on her head, but what was the real world reason for her absence? Was Sarah Sutton unavailable for some reason?
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Just found this.......


http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Kinda_(TV_story)


Kinda was the first occasion since the show had started filming in colour that a companion was absent from the narrative for an entire episode. Generally, this happened in the monochromatic era because an actor needed to take a holiday from the nearly year-long production schedule that was then the norm. In this instance, however, Nyssa's absence was more akin to Jamie's in The Moonbase: the scripts had simply been completed by the writer before the new companion had been cast. Thus, just as Jamie McCrimmon was "ill" for large parts of The Moonbase, Nyssa fainted in episode 1 of Kinda and re-emerged after a restorative TARDIS nap in episode 4.
Click to expand...
 
Gavin

Gavin

Member: Rank 6
VIP
Given that they'd managed to script and film two (and a half) prior stories with Nyssa as a companion you'd have thought that even if the scripts were completed they'd have had time to do some rewrites and include her.

I wonder if she got paid despite not being included. I assume she'd have been contracted for a full season.
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
I hope so. Poor Nyssa got stuck in the Tardis during Visitation and Earthshock quite a bit too.

I think it's possible that jobbing of that era tended to favour writing Tegan, confrontational dialogue being easier to write, rather than to even bother exploring the tragic Nyssa who lost everything that mattered to her and ended up - probably doomed - on a Lazar ship.

What a missed opportunity.
 
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