Review The Tom Baker Doctor

Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
And a little bit of the Ian Levine version: the production of which was now a complete waste of time.....






Ian Levine, who spent over £40,000 of his own money recreating Shada is incensed he wasn’t even consulted or his own version even used as a base for the new recording. He told Bleeding Cool “After all my many years of help and service to the BBC, and them making obscene amounts of money from missing episodes which I either found, recovered, or saved for them, this is the biggest single obscene insult to my integrity. Knowing that I spent £41,000 on remaking Shada, money I could ill afford, as a labour of love, their callous slap in the face is the greatest insult of all time to a man who only ever tried to care and help. F-CK YOU BBC. F-CK YOU CHARLES NORTON.” Which is pretty clear.

It may also be worth noting that Levine used all manner of original notes and designs when preparing his version of Shada, to create as close a version as originally intended as he could, notes that have not been made available to the current producers, including costumes that weren’t made, and identifying extra actors, including at least one note that indicated that originally Jon Pertwee was planned to have cameoed in this episode. You can see a glimpse of that version of Shada – and other private Doctor Who projects, here.

So don’t expect to see him on Saturday 2nd December at a special screening of Doctor Who: Shada at BFI Southbank, London. Further information will be available from bfi.org.uk from Monday 23rd October. Tickets for BFI members will be available from Tuesday 7th November, and for the public from Tuesday 14th November.
 
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Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
I think Ian Levine was incredibly naive to think that the BBC were ever going to use his SHADA animation of a few years ago.

It is also typical of the BBC to nick his idea and do it themselves, as they did with the Virgin Books format of current Doctor books and past Doctor adventures when the McGann movie came along.
 
johnnybear

johnnybear

Member: Rank 6
Tom Baker the definitive Doctor! The most alien and the one that exuded such confidence in the face of his enemies! His first three series under Hinchcliffe were fantastic especially The Deadly Assassin, Genesis of The Daleks, Pyramids of Mars,Talons of Weng-Chiang, Seeds of Doom, Ark in Space, Revenge of The Cybermen and The Sontaran Experiment! After that the shows started to go down hill especially during The Key To Time series and JNT did try his best to elevate the show back to it's earlier level of greatness back in the seventies with stories like Keeper of Traken and Logopolis but the lightning had already left the bottle by then!
JB
 
johnnybear

johnnybear

Member: Rank 6
Don't think I'd be interested in anything that Moffat has to say about an era of the show he couldn't possibly imitate or even come close to 'writing' for!
JB
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
He basically says he likes CITY OF DEATH, THE ARK IN SPACE ("Baker already in charge of role and focussed and good"), THE TALONS OF WENG CHIANG ("An absurdist comedy. Not meant to be taken seriously, a full on comedy. Hoorah for the funny rat!")


Some people haven't forgotten THAT interview yet though where he said.....

A: Peter Davison is a better actor than all the other ones. That’s the simple reason why it works better. There’s no complicated reason why Peter Davison carried on working and all the others disappeared into a retirement home.
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Now, some old actor like Tom Baker would come to a shuddering halt in the middle of the set and stare at the camera, because he can’t bear the idea that someone else is in the show. But Peter Davison is such a good actor, he manages to panic on the screen for a good two minutes, which has you sitting on the edge of your seat because you’re thinking ‘God, this must be really bad’. He’s got the most awful lines to say, but he’s doing it brilliantly. My memory of Doctor Who is based on bad television that I enjoyed at the time.
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A: How could a good hack think that the BBC could make a giant rat? If he’d come to my house, when I was fourteen, and said ‘Can BBC Special Effects do a giant rat?’, I’d have said no. I’d rather see them do something limited than something crap. What I resented was going to school two days later, and my friends knew I watched this show, and they’d say ‘Did you see the giant rat?’, and I’d have to say I thought there was dramatic integrity elsewhere.
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Fair enough and people do change their views over time, but....

Oh, he just gets on my nerves!

There is a pompous, opinion as fact, quality to all of his interviews that makes me want to watch a Terrance Dicks, Barry Letts or even a JNT interview instead.

I think this goes back to the creatives being opinionated fans. Robert Shearman, Gary Russell, Clayton Hickman and other modern creatives' interviews often grate on me in the same way in how they interpret stories and present their viewpoint almost as gospel.

And I can't see any of them being brutally honest about their own product as Barry Letts was about the Gelguards. "Quite the stupidest monsters we ever did!"

Or JNT: "Okay, so.... I got it wrong, I got it wrong. It didn't work."

No. They are too busy informing us that the entire cast and crew sobbed at their latest beautiful script at a read through. :emoji_alien:
 
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johnnybear

johnnybear

Member: Rank 6
I liked it when DWM interviewed Terry Dicks a few months back and he stated that Moffat is a great writer and has been successful with the series (really?) but that Moffat's writing isn't really what he likes and such! That is like not being unkind but also telling the guy that in his opinion your work for me is crap! :emoji_wink:
JB
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Yes, so diplomatic, showing Terry to be the gent that he is. Always so much more interested in what the old guard has to say about the craft of writing than the current crop.

Check out MOONBASE 3 if you get the chance. Barry and Terry created it in the 1970's and later dismissed it as a failure, but it's really not.

Only six episodes made and all good, but the final episode is wonderful.


https://www.imdforums.com/threads/moonbase-3.2554/



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Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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The opening of the vhs release of THE TOM BAKER YEARS.....

I wish somebody would post more of it.....





He continues... "...preview the material myself. All that I've been told is that the clips are in order of transmission. That there may be more than one clip from a certain story and that we start work right away." He then picks up a rather large remote control and starts up the VCR (?) with the opening credits of "Robot". After watching the clip of "The Doctor" changing from 3rd to 4th (with a gleeful look on his face) Tom talks about all the new friends he'd just made, taking over from Jon Pertwee (although he does not mention Pertwee by name). He laments the untimely death of Ian Marter and praises John Levine as "terribly good as Sgt. Benton". "I feel as if I changed, slightly. I don't look quite as young as I used to do, but I thought that was VERY good! Shall we try another one?"


 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
I wonder what Colin will think about yet another return - of sorts - for Tom's Doctor, and all the attendant fond media attention....

He wasn't happy about Tom as The Curator......




Perhaps an animated version of SLIPBACK, with an old sixth Doctor at the end of it would balance this injustice? :emoji_grin:


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