CLASSIC Doctor Who Essential- Now in COLOUR :)

[Antilles]

Righto, finally weve left the black & whites behind (although well still see a few stories in Pertwees time either still partially in B&W or Colourized.

 

The 'Spearhead from Space' introduced an exiled Doctor on Earth and thankfully, due to him having met Colonel Lethbridge Stewart (now Brigadier) in previous stories (The Web Of Fear & Invasion) he becomes scientific advisor to UNIT, United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Well,....oh heres the BBC plot to make it easier. See ya in 2 secs....

 

The TARDIS arrives on Earth in the middle of a meteorite shower and the Doctor is found by UNIT troops and taken to a nearby hospital. The Brigadier is faced with having to cope not only with the mysterious meteorites but also with Ransome, an ex-employee of a local plastics factory, who claims he has seen a walking mannequin.

 

The meteorites turn out to be hollow globes containing the Nestene consciousness, a disembodied alien intelligence with an affinity for plastic. A Nestene agent, Channing, has infiltrated the plastics factory and is using energy from the globes to animate Autons - mannequin-like figures and realistic replicas of senior establishment figures - with the aim of colonising the Earth.

 

Aided by newly-recruited UNIT scientist Dr Elizabeth Shaw, the Doctor thwarts this scheme by repelling the Nestene consciousness into space and thereby neutralising the Autons and the monstrous tentacled form that it has been creating for itself in a tank within the factory. Channing, revealed to be no more than a sophisticated Auton, is likewise deactivated.

 

If this story seems familiar to any new fans youll notice that Christopher Eccleston's Doctor's pilot show 'Rose' is officially a 26 year story arc (still doubt if their finally defeated). If you listen carefully in this story and Rose, youll notice the sound effect and special effect of the Autons gun-hand is a direct port to keep the classic fans happy I guess hehe! Loved the link between the two. I suppose this must have been one of Russel T. Davies' favourite childhood stories, I know its one of mine...even though I was only 2, I still have very vivid memories of it. With me being the youngest of 9 kids I had no choice but to watch with my older siblings. There was no multi satellite/cable channels in UK back then, just 3 and Dr Who was top of the shows. Thank goodness.

 

Some of my favourite pieces of this story is when the Doc is in hospital and the Brigadier doesnt recognise him yet the Doctor does, then of course theres the whole alien thing with 'not human blood' and 'self induced comas'.

 

The relationshipbetween Pertwee and Courtney (Dr & Brigadier) works very well I feel, even though Hartnell would probably have never gone along with the idea with him being anti-establishment and all, but I guess if he was in Pertwees situation he may have used his circumstances to his advantage. Perhaps thats really what the current Dr was doing as he really had noone or nowhere else to go.

 

The plastics factory was kinda creepy, especially for a kid at the time, their faces, all shiny and non-emotional still worry me today, very well put together that!

 

You may also notice the story is somewhat 'hot', people sweating in a heatwave etc, this wasnt intentional, my eldest brother informed me in later life that 1969 (during filming of Spearhead I guess) Britain suffered a massive heatwave. I do remember the heatwave in 1976 though, totally enjoyed that summer. Cant stand heat myself these days, Id rather it be temperate.

 

SO, there we have the ending of the first colour story, though how many consumers in 1970 Britain actually HAD colour TV Im not sure, all I know is WE DIDNT until 1981. I relied on friends houses who had colour sets. Got any feelings, thoughts or memories of this story or period feel free to share em. Im sure I can think up more as we discuss it coz were moving into my 'most watched' territory.

 

See ya soon! PS Sometimes the books (below) had different titles to the TV story, dont be confused, but handy to know if youre looking for old Dr Who books!

[underscore]

I have always had a big soft spot for Pertwee's first season. It was solid sci fi all the way, with great thought provoking story lines, some great characterisation, and a bold new direction for who after the triumphs of Troughton. I think that his relationship with Liz shaw was one of the more interesting ones.

 

In this first Pertwee season we see none of the somewhat camp and pantomime-ish antics that in my opinion would spoil some of his other, later stories.

 

Also this first season is very much on the tails of 60s British sci fi which was a truly great period and has all of the sumptuous flavour of that decades great sci fi achievements. Theres even a touch of Quatermass in there.

All in all a very great season :)

[drken]

All of Perwee's episodes were originally in color. The ones you still see in B & W are because the original source tape was lost. Some of these have since been recovered, or were only parial color footage has been been recovered the color has been restored. I don't think that is the same as "colorizing" since I think of that as something you do to old black and white film that was never supposed to be in color. I think that a only story that a compleate color version does not exist for is the Ambasiodors of Death. The Mind of Evil I think was restored from some partial color footage they found. The VHS has the whole B&W version and some surviving color footage presented seperatly at the end, but later a full color version was released and I don't know what the story is about that.

 

That being said, and I'm probably gettting ahead, The Deamons and The Mind of Evil are acctually better in B&W.

 

Spearhead in Space was a wonderful story. I think it was to pay hommage to this for the first episode of the new series to be about Autons.

[Antilles]

I understand where youre coming from and I appreciate your knowledge. However, even though we know now that some footage has been returned from lost, back in the early 90s when, for example they released The Daemons on VHS (and I think The Silurians) you may notice a paint brush icon on the side of the cassette box, this was due to them 'colourizing' them as stated in DWM and numerous magazine articles as well as the VHS box itself, but I think colour material has been returned since though. We dont really see colourizing much nowadays in Dr Who classics but it did happen. And youre right about Daemons & Mind Of Evil, I do prefer them in black n white, as too the Ambassadors of Death, the scene with CSO doesnt look so bad in B&W! :)

[drken]

Oh, I wasn't aware that the VHS releases were colourized. I didn't buy many of them because I taped most of them off of TV, and when the DVD's came out I just started collecting them because they were much better.

[Potato]

I enjoy this story because Liz right out of the gate tells the Brig she has no interest in helping him. It isn't until he produces a puzzle in her area of expertise that she actually agrees to help, albiet skeptically. I love the Doctor's apraisal of his new face and the Brig's reaction when the Doctor tries to sneak off. Most of what I really enjoy is the superflous stuff; the stuff not relating to the Autons or the invasion.

[drken]

I thought Liz was a really good character. There has never been a Doctor Who compainion who could hold her own since. I wish she had lasted more than one season.

[Antilles]

Liz never did get to travel in the TARDIS did she, I wonder if that puts up the question as to whether she would be eligibale for a true companion (but we all know she was right). besides the TARDIS was kinda buggered completely during her time, although she was involved in that little anomaly incident in Inferno, so she did travel in a way.

Ack, 3.30am, Im babbling again, need sleep, night all!

[Potato]

Liz did travel in the TARDIS in the novel Wages of Sin. But this isn't a novel discussion so nevermind. I really like the way Liz just taunts the Brig for at least the first half of the story. She's great.

[Antilles]

Yeah she had some balls that girl. I bet they had fun playing their evil counterparts in 'Inferno'. Id love to get a part as a baddie if I was on TV, probably easier to just have fun and probably a good way to relieve stress. Theres bad in all of us hehe!

 

Sunday tomorrow, ill be doing the next show The Silurians! I might start doing 2 or 3 together as were not far off Season 2, and this was originally meant to be a time filler between seasons, but ah never mind Id still carry on regardless.

[borac]

you may notice a paint brush icon on the side of the cassette box' date=' this was due to them 'colourizing' them as stated in DWM and numerous magazine articles [/quote']

 

Actually in these cases it wasn't true 'colourizing', what they did do was use low quality, vhs recordings from NTSC broadcasts and intermerged them with a high-quality B&W master print they recovered from Africa. You can even see in Daemons a section where the tape got chewed and they did do a little clean up (the colour becomes much more stable). The BBC is pretty much unwilling to colour episodes if they cant find a tape in colour to use.

[Antilles]

Ok Im going to have to pull the big guns out on this one and go to the BBC themselves. Follow this link and scroll down to the Pertwee years and the BBC say themselves that they 'colourized' the VT of the Daemons etc (before what we have now restored that is). The Paint brush icon was to let viewers know that they were colourised. I remember seeing them myself and it was clearly paintboxed as Id seen similair colourizations on the old Laurel & Hardy tapes. Thank goodness we have restored footage these days tho.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/treasurehunt/missing/drwho.shtml

[borac]

i actually own these on vhs (much worn out now) and they are NOT paintboxed it even says in the boxes how they were recoloured using (betamax) tapes provided by fans who recorded them from affiliate broadcasts in the 80/90's (the idiots wiped their master copies thinking the beeb still had thier copy) they are even left in black and white in some places where the tapes change and a few seconds are missing and apologises for this explaining what happend. The colourised symbol was used purely to warn consumers that the colour was below what the bbc class as broadcast quality. They use the word colourised simply because its true they added colour to a black and white original however the way it was done is not the usual way. heck i even remember tomorrows world making a big song and dance about the beebs amazing new tech...

[Antilles]

Well then, the BBC are at fault there, I was led to believe they were colourized...as in painstakingly restored to colour with this new tech they had. At least my version now is much much better than what they were on VHS :D

[underscore]

~The BBC actually flushed the colour copies for most of the Pertwee stuff, I think they retained the black and white for over seas sales to countries that didnt yet transmit in colour. Off air recordings for most of them existed, I think it was Canada or America, and they used the colour signal from these as a reference to combine with the black and white pictures to create a new version closer to the original.

Some of the colour episodes were dug up from here or there, and no reference colour copy has been oficially found for the complete mind of evil, episode 1 of the invasion of the dinosaurs and episode 3 of the planet of the daleks, which was by far the best dalek story from pertwee imo.

 

However it is widely believed that a colour copy of the mind of evil is held ian private hands. I have a few minutes of one episode of mind of evil in colour somewhere. This was missing from the archives, when I got it I offered it to the BBC, but they werent interested at all :( it has since gone back to them though I believe.

 

The colour refence copy of the ambassadors of death was not good enough to create a new restored version however.

[Antilles]

Ok its been 3 months since I done Classic Essentials, would you like to keep them going 1 at a time or do a few stories in each post? I think 3 at a time might work without seeming too busy!

[Megalith]

first time i'd noticed this thread and my fav doc too :) i did wonder why the beads of sweat where on the autons RS and now i know :) i always kinda thought that it added a kinda menacing and half-life feel to them serendipity indeed :) i'd be for perhaps 3 at a time tho i dont know how that would work? would it be 3 seperate threads running concurrently or 1 thread about three episodes?

 

Good to get back to the Classics tho now the latest who series has finished, and very good timing as far as i'm concerened as i am just finishing watching troughton again ;)