|
Tie-breaker for serial you'd most like to find an episode from This poll is closed. |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve |
|
33 | 44.59% |
| The Highlanders |
|
41 | 55.41% |
| Total: | 74 votes | ||
|
Shiftypenguin posted:Didn't Eight spend, like, 600 years living with jelly fish? That's why I'm saying he was in the War body a long time. The Doctor can regularly do a few centuries without any overt appearance of aging.
|
#
¿
Mar 10, 2017 01:51
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 11:31 |
|
|
Trip Report: Doctor Who and The Keys of Marinus There's at least one BF story that follows up to this episode, and I hadn't watched it since I was a kid, going back almost 30 years. The last time I saw it was on a black and white, 13 inch tv on PBS, the best way to consume classic Doctor Who.  So I wanted to refresh my mind and see how it held up and prepare me for the audio.First Episode  A tiny TARDIS lands on a tiny beach in a tiny world.  Cuter than Baby Groot! The model work in this episode is...ambitious. The results...not so much. The gang gets out to check the surroundings, since the Doctor's color television is on the fritz. Ian is still sporting his silk getup from Marco Polo, gently caress that changing clothes poo poo, the man is comfortable and not stuck in stodgy modern London don't you dare judge him!  "One day, if I'M ever in charge of Coal Hill School, I won't make the teachers wear ties!" Walking around they find there's glass all over the beach, and the sea is made of acid. A man in a not very convincing Rubber Monster Suit is skulking around the TARDIS and nearly captures Susan. She spots his footprints and does the smart thing, swanning off on her own to the bigass building on the center of Death Island.  "Hey little girl, wanna buy some Space Drugs?" There's some badass glass boats on the beach, all empty except for one which was cracked and contains an also empty wetsuit--turns out the Rubber Monster Suit is really actually a suit in universe, and the poor schlub wearing it had a cracked sub AND a ripped suit so he got eaten by acid. Equipment checks people!  The Doctor, Ian, and Barbara wander back to the TARDIS and find Susan gone, so they decide to look for her at the building, which appears to be made of badly done matte paintings and plywood that totally looks like stone on black and white tv. Susan gets captured wandering around the building, as does the others, one by slow one.  "Where did everyone go oh well I'll just sit here a bit." Everyone gets captured by an old guy in a robe except Ian, who stops one of the Rubber Suited Men from ganking him with a knife by throwing said Rubber Man down a shaft which looks like tossing a paper doll down a box (which is probably how the special effect was done). In gratitude, the old dude Arbitan lets the rest of the gang out of puppy jail and takes them through a triangle door to his badass control room where he lays down some exposition. Turns out this is a planet called Marinus, and 2000 years ago they invented a computer called "The Conscience of Marinus" This was a "flawless judge and jury" but then they did the even cooler thing and used it to control everyone's minds so they would never do badthought or bad things. Then some rear end in a top hat named Yartek ruined paradise for everyone by creating a biker gang called "The Voord" who wear those badass suits and aren't under control of the Conscience and started running rampant, lying cheating and stealing (oh my!). So for Reasons, they shut down the machine and took the 5 controlling keys and hid them.  "Where are they?" "Well one is right here, in the machine!" "Oh." They also put the machine on Death Island in the Sea of Death with the Beach of Glass and made an impregnable fortress where you enter by leaning up against a wall and it randomly swings open and you fall in, which is how The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, Susan, and a shitload of Voords got in. Arbitan has been doing sick mods to his machine and now thinks he can control the Voords, so he wants to turn it back on. He needs the other 4 keys, and asks the TARDIS crew to help him because everyone else he sent, including his daughter, never came back. They politely decline, despite being weirdly cool with this "benevolent" guy who runs a machine which controlled the minds of his entire planet. Like hearing the exposition dump, if this were a modern episode, the Doctor would have immediately hooked up with the Voords IMO. I'm hoping by the end of the serial they address this, or do so in the sequels on Big Finish because the Voords sound like the good guys here.  So they head back to the TARDIS, but find it's encased in an "invisible force barrier" ie "let's all do that first year acting class exercise where you're trapped in a glass box." Arbitan reveals, via loudspeaker, that he's blocked their access til they help him. They go back, the Doctor bitches a bit, but they agree to go anyway using teleportation bracelets, predating Blake's 7 by a few years. Once gone, Voord #4 walks into the room and knifes Arbitan in the arm which is deadly to a Mariner, apparently. The Doctor, Ian, and Susan arrive a bit after Barbara who couldn't wait to blink out, and find her "travel dial" on the ground with blood on it!   "Hey guys don't worry about me, I'm just going to stand in front of this black area that we have to stand in front of for the teleport effect to work on camera and teleport first. Smell ya later!"
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2017 00:40
|
|
|
Trip Report: The Keys of Marinus Second Episode  Kinky!  Oh, and did I mention this serial was  ? Cause it was. Realizing they are in front of a door and it's Marinus, they defeat it's security by leaning on it and fall in....to a luxurious room filled with the finest potted plants, fainting couches, and plaster statues from the BBC Props Dept! And who is chillaxing in a sexy dress being waited on by two hot blonde chicks? Oh it's BABS!   So even though Aribtan said their teleport bracelets only moved them through space and NOT time, in the 30 seconds it took them to teleport after her, bang on the door, and fall in, Barbara has been able to get into the city, find out all about it, have a dress made from scratch, change clothes, and start in on the wine and being fed grapes.  They are given trays of food by the vapid Stepford Blondes, and a poncy guy in a cape named Altos comes out to tell them they are in the city of Morphoton where every citizen gets whatever they want. Guess not all of Marinus fell into anarchy once the Conscience was shut down. Altos tells them they can have whatever they want, and they all munch away on food and order up dresses and "fully equipped laboratories with every conceivable instrument" in the case of the Doctor (a Time Lord, asking some primitives for a lab? And this is what he desires more than anything?) Ian isn't having any of it, suspecting a trap. Nowadays it would be the wise old Doctor who sees through everything, but he's still young here so you'll forgive that.  "Sleep, and tomorrow you'll learn EVERYTHING about Morphoton. MUAUAHAHAHAHAHA!" Apparently the food was drugged or had an adverse affect on Gallifreyan physiology because the Doctor and Susan are out like a light. Ian and Barbara have a smouldering conversation where I'm convinced they are going to make out at any second. I always wondered if the whole Ian/Barbara thing was just fan shipping in retrospect, but they were telegraphing it pretty hard here. He bitches about this all being too good to be true and she says "I don't know what you want?" HE WANTS YOU BARBARA JUST GET A ROOM ALREADY!!  During the night a creepy statue watches them and a Stepford Blonde comes out and puts devices on their heads. Barbara's falls off and she wakes up to a flashing light and screeching and passes out.  The next day, when they wake up, everyone is lovin' life and livin' large, except Barbara, who realizes that it's all an illusion. They still see the riches, the fine food and drink, while she sees it's all really dirty ruins, the fine silk clothes are rags, and the crystal goblets have been changed hilariously to white coffee mugs. Also when Altos comes in, he's no longer wearing pants. He tries to take Barbara away to their physicians to "get better" and she runs off.  Ian can't see the truth that Altos is wearing no pants. Can't see? Or won't see? Barbara hides and Altos goes into a room to meet with the true rulers of Morphoton, which are BRAINS in JARS with EYES!  Take it all in. This is a thing that happened on Doctor Who. We now found out how Morphoton solved their little loss of the Conscience problem--a device called "The Mesmeron", which they use to control the population. The girl who failed to properly affix the device on Barbara is to be punished, the Doctor, Susan, and Ian are to be prepared for final processing in a few hours, and Barbara is to be found and killed. They are taken to the Doctor's new "lab" which is just an empty room with old wooden tables and a chipped coffee cup which the Doctor believes he can use to fix the TARDIS.  "I WAGER 15 QUATLOOS ON THE NEWCOMER!" Turns out that Barbara chose to hide in a dungeon and is stuck there because the door is locked. Sabetha, the girl who hosed up putting discs on foreheads, is thrown in. Barbara tries to talk to her, but all she will say is "I am to be punished." Two lonely women, in prison, wearing torn rags, and an episode called "The Velvet Web"...I think you can figure out what happens next!  "Ian? Ian who?" Well nothing really, they just chat and it turns out Sabetha is Arbitan's daughter, and she managed to find one of the Keys and put it around her neck before she got Mesmeroned. Then they spend more time in the locked cell, where Barbara tries to get Sabetha to remember Arbitan. That's totally all that happened in there.  What happens in Morphoton stays in Morphoton. Altos comes in and interrupts them, so Sabetha clocks him on the head. Barbara leaves because she doesn't stay the night; that's not how she rolls. She gives a vague promise to come back for Sabetha and locks her in with Altos, which seems kinda rude. She finds Ian and runs into his arms.  "Oh Ian! Thank heaven I found you! I thought they had gotten to you! I never thought of anyone but you the whole time we were apart! Honest! Well, that is to say, I never thought about any man but you the whole time we were apart!" Ian's not having any of it and takes her to the Brains. Barbara takes one look and no-body shames them by immediately calling them "disgusting" which is displaying a lot of cis-body privilege on her part.  They command him to kill her and he all too eagerly does, because he totally knows all about her and Sabetha.  Chatterton gotta choke a bitch when she get outta line! Barbara fights back and breaks a bottle and shanks the brains and their machines, whereupon everyone wakes up and starts rioting and burning the city, because clearly destroying the place where you live is the best solution when your former masters have died.  Turns out Altos was actually cool--he was also one of Arbitan's people and he and Sabetha are going to help with the search. The Doctor decides to split them up to better search for the keys. So he splits them into 3 parties of two to look for the other 3 keys...oh no wait, William Hartnell needs a couple weeks off here. So instead he volunteers himself to go to the "highly civilized and advanced city of Millenials" which I assume is full of Gen Y types, and to keep Susan safe, sends her with the main party to the jungle. Seems the smart thing to do! Susan clearly sees this is stupid and takes off on her own in a huff, transporting to the next episode on her own. "THIS PLOT DEVICE MAKES NO SENSE!!!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2017 16:37
|
|
|
Trip Report: The Keys of Marinus Episode 3  Susan continues to freak out because there's this screaming all around her, because this jungle does what it says on the tin. When the others arrive, they can't hear it. They look around and find a big wall.  "Hi, I'm the BBC Soundstage Jungle! You might recognize me from The Daleks a few weeks ago!" Ian decides to do the exact same thing they did in Episode 1 and walk around the building, but makes the women stay behind. Except Sabetha, because he knows she's a little butch. Susan tells Barbara that the screaming she heard was something evil, and she'd heard it before, but she can't remember where. I only mention this because it's the exact sort of thing the Big Finish would pick up on for continuity porn if it's not followed up in the episode--like it turns out it was something she heard on a pre-Unearthly Child adventure. While Barbara looks at the building, Susan has a lie down on the  Predating Evil Dead by over a decade!. Barbara finds a way through the vines to the edge of the wall, and sees a big crazy statue, which has the Key up on top. It also has human arms which totally won't grab her (they do). The statue spins around into the wall, Ian rushes back too late, and after looking for literally 5 seconds for a way in with Altos, declares "IT'S HOPELESS THERE'S NO WAY IN! I NEED TO GO AWAY AND THINK!"  Altos picks up the key which Barbara dropped, and he just figures "gently caress, let's jet." Of course he doesn't say that, because he's pretty sly so he totally agrees with Ian that getting Barbara back is all that matters. Even Sabetha, in a terrible betrayal of their love from the previous episode is all like "well you know she probably just used her teleport bracelet to go to the next stop, so we should probably go." Ian decides they should again split up, and that Sabetha, Altos, and Susan should go on. "Well if you think that's best Ian, but we'd totally stay if you wanted us to. But yeah, we should go bye!" Before she leaves, Sabetha realizes that the Key they found is a cheap Chinese knockoff, so Ian still has to find the Key anyway.  "Look here...this one says 'Made in Mexico for GMC' and this one says 'Made in China' and it's shorter! It'll never work in a 2003 Chevy Tahoe. I told you the stuff at Rock Auto was knockoffs!" Ian gets intimate with the statue and spins inside. If this is just a regular door, folks on this part of Marinus have some odd ideas about entrances...  What happens in The Screaming Jungle stays in The Screaming Jungle Now he's inside the wall, but not inside the building. There's still vines and potted plants and Prop Dept statues everywhere and he's nearly killed by a statue of a knight with an axe. Yep, there's a knight with chainmail on Marinus. They also have orange juice and truffles too, as we saw in the last episode. Must be parallel cultural evolution. Or 1964 kids tv logic. He finds Barbara and she says the whole place is full of traps. While he's looking for a way to get in, some old dude opens the door and Barbara walks in. Ian gets stuck behind some bars and Barbara has a net fall on her which seems to weigh as much as a bedsheet, but she just falls down and starts freaking out like it's made of neutronium. Then the ceiling which is full of pencils someone threw up there, starts to come down on her.  "SHUT DOWN ALL TRASH COMPACTORS ON THE DETENTION LEVEL! SHUT DOWN ALL TRASH COMPACTORS ON THE DETENTION LEVEL!" The old man, Darius, stops the spikes and gives Barbara a hard time, saying she might be a Voord and not believing she's from Arbitan. He jacks her Travel Dial to see if she's legit and while she's untangling herself from the Net of Doom he gets strangled by a vine. Ian breaks out and saves him, but somehow he's now dying. He reveals that he set up the traps to protect the key, and "only those sent from Arbitan would know how to avoid them." So either he's lying or Arbitan was a dick because he never told the gang, or his daugher and Altos for that matter. He tells Ian a cheat code, "DE302" and dies. "Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk I'm dying. I'm dead." They go into Hootie's "highly advanced scientific laboratory" which looks a lot like old wooden furniture and potted fake plants. Guess technology fell a bit after the Voord started terrorizing things. In fact, outside of Arbitan's tinkertoy Conscience, the whole planet looks pretty shabby so far. They try the cheat code on a safe which was built by the Props Dept and clearly has a clay and paper dial so surprisingly it doesn't work. Ian finds the Info Dump book and discovers that Darius Rucker has been experimenting with accelerating the growth of plants, so pretty much the rape vines and overgrowth of his building is all his fault.  I wonder what Sabetha is doing now? Now it's getting dark, and the screaming is starting and despite reading a diary about Darius accelerating the growth of nature exponentially, seeing a vine attack Susan, and seeing a vine strangle Darius, they just can't believe THE JUNGLE IS ATTACKING US!! until giant thick phallic vines start busting through the building, zombies-in-Thriller style.  Ian and Barbara run around the room all  and Ian realizes DE302 is a chemical formula, in a jar. When Barbara finds it, it's apparently dirt. Ian the Chemistry Teacher doesn't even care that Darius discovered a new chemical forumla, he's just happy the Key is in there. They quickly turn the dials on their bracelets to find themselves in a snowstorm. Ian says they have to move and find shelter but Barbara just says "no, I'd rather sit down and die."  "OK, well if you insist we'll just sit here and die I guess." 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2017 20:29
|
|
|
Trip Report: The Keys of Marinus Episode 4  After having decided to give up and die in the snow, Barbara and Ian are having a lie down, covered in paper mache snow. Barbara begs Ian to sleep with her. "MUST SLEEP...MUST SLEEP NOW!' and Ian just doesn't get it "NO, NO, GET UP, BARBARA!" Dammit man, you're blowing it! Barbara wakes up for a second to see Grizzly Goddamn Adams standing over her and faints dead away, because wouldn't you? He immediately jacks the Key which they had just liberated from THE SCREAMING JUNGLE and also from DE302.  Sadly it appears he's wearing Ben.  Grizzly takes them to his rape cabin, where he wakes up Barbara and immediately begins to put the moves on her, rubbing her hand because of "frostbite" and telling her how most men fear him because he can break the back of a wolf with his bare hands, and I believe he also suggests he's down for a threesome with Ian. Must get lonely up there in the mountains...  "Your hand is slightly frostbitten. Put it in mine. We must help your friend like this too. Rub the hand slowly...like this...this...this." While the mountain man, who it turns out is named Vasor, gets them drinks, Barbara demonstrates his manual stimulation technique on Ian.  Vasor is a trapper, and got them back to his cabin with the help of a "madman" who came down ranting and raving about two girls in a cave. They figure this is Altos who is not adapting well to life outside The Velvet Web. Though to be fair, I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that all Marinus is less a cohesive planetary society and more a bunch of Planets of the Week that Uncle Terry strung together for a story.  Ian makes a string of poor decisions by first deciding to leave Barbara with Vasor to go to The Village to look for Altos and rescue Susan and Sabetha from the cave. Then he gives Vasor his Travel Dial as collateral for a swank fur stole to stay warm. Probably not that Village "There. We're alone." "Oh, he'll be back, I know it." "We'll see. Well, I'll go get us some food. We must fatten you up, eh?"  I wonder what Sabetha is doing now? Ian walks through The Fur Forest (THE FOREST OF FURS might have been a cool alternate episode title) past stock footage of wolves. Ian finds Altos in the snow, who you will remember is still not wearing pants so he's not faring well. Also turns out he's tied up Back in the cabin during an awkward dinner, Vasor remarks to Barbara that she has no need to fear the wolves howling outside, because his door will "keep anything out. Or in." (That is an exact quote by the way!) Barbara snoops and finds the other three's Travel Dials as well as Sabetha's necklace with the Keys. Vasor says he found the girls in a cave and gave them food and flint in exchange for their bling and left them to die or whatevs. Altos found him and asked him to go up the mountain to get the girls, and that's when they found Ian and Babs. Meanwhile, on the mountain, Ian rubs Altos' thighs to save him from frostbite. Because that's how frostbite works.  "This guy I knew, Bear named Vasor, he taught me this technique. Totally necessary to relieve frostbite. Trust me!" Turns out Vasor gave Ian raw meat to attract the wolves. When Altos reveals that it was Vasor who tied him up, Ian throws his purse of meat at the stock footage wolves and they race back to the cabin. Vasor is chasing Barbara around the rape cabin while she chucks furniture at him. Ian and Altos arrive just in time and Vasor's all "aw shucks golly I didn't mean it honest!" Altos wants to kick his rear end, but Ian instead forces him to take them up the mountain. Meanwhile, in Box's ice cave from Logan's Run, Sabetha has already forgotten about Barbara and cuddles with Susan who apparently failed Gallifreyan Woodcraft and can't start a fire. Susan talks her into going outside, even though Sabetha points out they aren't dressed for the weather. Susan knows her superior Time Lord physiology will allow her to survive so she coerces Sabetha into certain doom.  "Or...we could find other ways to keep warm."  "What?" "Um nothing...you're right, let's just go outside and try to get help."Ian and the gang find their way into the Cello Caves and start after Sabetha and Susan, who instead of going out the door just wandered deeper. Vasor doesn't want to go on because there's "DEMONS!" in there. Susan and Sabetha (who I have to say is coming into her own and would probably have made a pretty cool companion) cross a janky rope bridge and find a bunch of anachronistic knights a lot like the one from Darius' pad in THE SCREAMING JUNGLE who are standing there silently.  "Fish, plankton, sea greens and protein from the sea!" Susan and Sabetha run out and right into Ian, Barbara, and Altos who have just crossed the bridge. Vasor, who is pissed off that he got rape-blocked, throws the bridge into the ravine and bails. As they wander in the cave at around 15:29, one of the best things ever happens...they're walking against the cello "ice" walls and somebody's costume rubs against them and there's a big rubbing sound, but hey gently caress it, it's late and we can't do another take so leave it!  Ian starts getting brain freeze and decides that the Key must be somewhere in this mountain and they must search every cave. Because it couldn't be anywhere else, of course! They run into the Grail Knights, who are frozen and don't move (except when they wobble and waver a bit because it's a long shoot). Turns out Ian was right, and the Key is in the center of them, suspended in a block of ice surrounded by pipes that pump hot water when Barbara turns a spigot. The advanced technology of Marinus! "If only my father Arbitan was here to see this advanced technological wonder. Erm, well maybe it's best that he's not actually." Of course, the dead frozen knights come back to life and attack them, but instead of just saying "Yo, the guy that runs the Conscience sent us, we're legit" they run screaming from the cave. These guys could probably help them, and are the guardians from a former age, but nah gently caress 'em let's get out of here! Ian holds them off by knocking down giant blocks of Ian throws the rope bridge back down and one knight falls off Wilhelm Screaming into the abyss while the others run around hilariously on the ledge. "Haha hope you Guardians of the Key who have nobly survived for 500 years in this ice cave protecting this for the Conscience and are working for the same guys we are like being stuck here forever! Don't gently caress with Arbitan's Posse bitches!" Back at Vasor's cabin, he's combed his hair and is playing with the Travel Dials and Keys when the gang bursts in, followed by the White Knights who are trying to kill them instead of protecting m'lady. Vasor tries to hold Susan hostage but is run through with a sword, and the gang *POPS* away with a twist of their dials. Then we cut to a room with some cheap wood and glass museum cases, one of which has another Key. Just what the gently caress has The Doctor been doing these past two episodes that he didn't already have this Key? Oh that's right, he was off at Brighton with Heather Hartnell. Anyway, there's some dude laying on the ground. Ian, who is now somehow alone because I guess these Travel Dials are poo poo for keeping everyone together, walks over to him and is clocked in the head by a Black Gloved Man who takes the Key and puts a mace into Ian's hand so it looks like he killed the other guy.  "Hold my staff, will ya?"
|
|
#
¿
Mar 14, 2017 07:27
|
|
|
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-03-17/doctor-who-fans-this-is-your-chance-to-have-breakfast-with-seven-doctors--past-and-present This is tre cool... quote:As part of Red Nose Day's 'Best Auction Ever', seven Time Lords – past and present – are gathering in one place for the best meal of the day and there are four empty spots up for grabs. They got everybody but T Bakes, who I assume will be up for bidding on a pub trip.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2017 02:37
|
|
|
LOL...I did actually mean everybody who would ever actually show up!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2017 03:47
|
|
|
Love that funky Third Doctor console room, even if it was in just one or two episodes. 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2017 23:08
|
|
|
Trip Report: The Keys of Marinus Episode V:  So Ian has been framed by a Black Gloved Man for a crime he didn't commit. He promplty escapted from a maximum security stockade to the Millenial Underground. Hunted by the government, he survives as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, and no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire THE IAN TEAM.  "I love it when an overly complicated plan comes together!" When we last left Ian he was out cold with his hand wrapped around an Ye Olde Medieval Mace next to a body. When he comes to he's being creepily stared at by Tarron, a catty guy from the Millenial City police dressed up in the finest Nazi/Kaled fascist black uniform. When he asks Ian who he is and what he does, Ian  Tarron, not Tarrant! Meanwhile Babs and the rest have finally shown up and been told they see Ian, but they'd better behave or they'll be sent to toil away at the Glass Factories in the Desert. That beach glass doesn't make itself! Note: Ian is still wearing his fabulous robes from Marco Polo, which is a great nod to continuity you rarely see in 60s tv. These episodes often ran right into each other (a pain in the rear end for Big Finish when trying to shoehorn extra stories in). The Doctor swans in fresh from a couple weeks off and declares himself the man for the job to defend Ian.  "Laws, shmaws, I cut my teeth on Time Lord politics!" In the courtroom, the Millenial City judges come in. Eschewing their traditional native dress of hoodies, ironic t shirts and pajama pants, they are instead dressed in funny hats and robes right out of a 21st Century ECON post atomic holocaust courtroom. As in Encounter At Farpoint, they observe the same guilty until proven innocent laws.  "We call ourselves 'The Q'" The laws of the city of Millenius say that basically anybody can speak for anyone else, so they aren't big on "passing the bar" or that sort of nonsense. The Doctor has had a few hours to brush up on their laws so he's ready to go. He stalls for time and is granted a couple days. The prosecutor comes up and trash talks him but the Doctor is unfazed. Turns out the victim is Eprim, a friend of Altos sent ahead by Arbitan. He'd found the Key, he and The Doctor were going to get it, but loose lips sink ships and Eprim must've blabbed so now somebody killed him and took the key. Assuming Gen Y City is one of the more civilized areas left on Marinus after the fall of The Conscience, I'm not understanding why they just didn't go to the authorities and ask for the Key on behalf of Arbitan. Altos is pretty nonplussed about the death of his friend, and happily agrees to head to the library with Sabetha to look up boring case laws about murders.  "It looks like there might be a loophole! If the murder occurred in a Safe Space for killers, Ian can't be charged! The Doctor, Susan, and Barbara are getting the particulars of the crime at the scene from Tarron. What baffles Tarron is why the Key is no longer there. It's as if it vanished into thin air, because nobody could possibly have come or gone from that room without the guards knowing. In a society where matter transport via teleport bracelets exists. Nope, no way that could happen! Literally nobody brings this up. Susan: "That's fantastic! It couldn't disappear into thin air!" The Doctor concludes that it's obvious: there was a Third Man in the room, and he knows who it is! "Under the Voords we had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced killer plants, frozen ice soldiers, and seas of acid. With The Conscience we had brotherly love, we had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Eprim." The Doctor thinks it was the relief guard at the museum who killed Eprim, clocked Ian, and stole the key. He sends Barbara and Susan to his house to question him further. He's not in, but his wife reveals that the Key was sent there by Arbitan and it's very valuable because there's only "5 in the universe." Guess the Marinans don't get off their planet much because some lame tech isn't so interesting elsewhere. She also says Eprim was "good friends" with her husband, which begs the question--why didn't Eprim get the key and just get out of there months ago, if he was picking it up for Arbitan?  Ayden the guard comes home and is pretty pissed about these women asking questions and "prying into my affiars!" So yeah, Eprim was banging Ayden and that's why he was in no hurry to get back to Death Island. "I've gotten to know Algy quite well since I've been in town. Trust me, you're not his type." Back in the courtroom, the Doctor does some clever lawyering by putting Sabetha on the stand and having her show one of the other microkeys, claiming it was the actual Key from Millenial City and that Ayden gave it to her. He stands up, crying out that she can't have found his key! OOPS! Realizing he done hosed up, he runs out and is captured by...Barbara and Susan. He shouts that he wasn't acting alone, and he'll tell them who else was in on it. The he dies.  "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids!" The Doctor confers with the judges and the prosecutor about where the key is. Barbara, Ian, and Tarron talk about poor Ayden's wife who was clearly distraught finding out her husband was leading a double life with Eprim. Barbara: "It's his wife I felt sorry for." Tarron: "The doctors have given her oblivated drugs and sent her home to rest. She was hysterical!" The tribunal decides gently caress it, Ian was obviously working with Ayden so he's even more guilty! The Doctor tries to stall for more time but is rebuffed. Ian is gonna be put to death. Outside the courtroom Barbara gets a very important message!  "It says 'dick butt'. What could that mean?" The message says there will be another death if she reveals the location of the key. Then she gets a phone call from Susan saying "they" are going to kill her. Cliffhanger!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 20, 2017 01:15
|
|
|
egon_beeblebrox posted:A more or less confirmed leak of episode/movie titles on the new MST3K shows they'll be riffing The Land That Time Forgot featuring Leon Ny Taiy, I mean, Anthony Ainley. I'm stoked. That was one of my favorite movies as a kid. And yeah, he's great in it too. I am very stoked about MST3K in general because I absolutely love that style of humor, but I have a tough time going back to watch old episodes because the references are so dated. I am gonna bingewatch THE gently caress out of the new one. 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2017 01:49
|
|
|
Jerusalem posted:One of the things Big Finish really nailed was their interpretation of the original Cybermen voices. They're fantastic. And one of them is the same guy from Spare Parts!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2017 04:06
|
|
|
Trip Report: The Keys of Marinus Episode 6: The Keys of Marinus   "It sounds almost like the phone...was in somebody's pocket? What could that mean?" Last episode, Barbara got an urgent  "On Marinus, it's always Star O'Clock somewhere!" In a badly acted sequence, Barbara, Sabetha, and Altos, who keeps stumbling over his lines, decide to go bother Kala, the wife of the dead guard. Somehow she's standing at her door and holding it open before they even knock! [ENTER STAGE LEFT--BARBARA, SABETHA, ALTOS] Altos asks the widow if she knows of anyone her husband was "seeing" quite frequently. But since she was in denial that he was having an affair with Eprin, Kala claims to know nothing. "My husband was very...secretive. He never told me who he saw or where he went."  After reducing her to tears they leave, only for her to break out in laughter and go gloating to the closet--where she has Susan tied up and gagged! Turns out she's in league with the bad guys all along, and when the Scooby Gang realizes she slipped up by mentioning that Barbara had talked to Susan on the phone and couldn't have known that, they double back and stop her right before she's about to kill Susan with a Buck Rogers Ray Gun. "I'm innocent! I was framed! I want a random untrained lawyer of my own choosing!" Back at the court, the Doctor is sitting despondently. The prosecutor comes up and gloats, and Tarron basically tells the Doctor "you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here." They court guys put away the mace used to kill Eprin as evidence, and the camera keeps focusing on it. THIS IS IMPORTANT!!! Then Barbara calls and reveals that it was the Kala that killed her own husband, and they've captured her. Despite this, Kala throws Ian under the bus and says he is the one she conspired with so he's still on the hook. But Susan overheard her talking on the phone with a guy who said he's coming for the Key, so the Doctor figures they can set a trap. Turns out, you guessed it, the Key was in the mace.  So they lie in wait and it turns out it was the douchebag prosecutor all along. The big plan was apparently just to sell it on ebay for cash. They get permission to go back to Arbitan, so they leave to the astonishment of Tarron and his deputy Barney Fife, who have never seen Travel Dials before apparantly... "What will you put in the report about how they left?" "Swamp gas!" Back on The Island of Death, Altos and Sabetha have arrived first and gotten captured by the Voords. Their leader, Yartek, is cosplaying in Arbitan's robes for ~~reasons~~. For some reason Yartek, who threw off the shackles of The Conscience, now wants all 5 Keys to turn it back on. He and his gimp suited Voords menace Altos and Sabetha, and then he puts the 4 Keys he took from them in and seductively caresses the machine.  "One moooooore....one moooooore! The Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian come upon a Voord who tries to stab Ian, so the Doctor uses CANE instead of MR. ROCK. It's super-effective! The Voord is out like a bitch, and the Doctor suggests they leave Marinus immediately until Ian points out they should probably find Altos and Sabetha. "Oh yes right. And Arbitan." He gives Ian the Key for ~~reasons~~ and they split up. Ian and Susan go to find Arbitan, and...and...this is a thing that actually happens: Yartek has his Arbitan Cosplay hood up, and somehow convinces Ian and Susan that HE IS ARBITAN, and they can't look closely at him or notice his giant pointed head because he was working on the Conscience and it had a power surge and gave him a horrible disease that only Sabetha can cure. Science Teacher Ian Chesterton finds this reasonable and agrees to throw the key on the ground and go get the Doctor. Oh and he also asks Ian if he thinks Altos is good for his daughter because he doesn't know him...even though Altos worked for him and Arbitan sent him to find the Keys... "Seems legit!" Now lets talk a bit about the Voord. Remember, Arbitan said that Yartek was a man who overcame the Conscience and the Voords were his "followers." But the brief given to Terry Nation and the costume designers were that the Voords were the Next Daleks, so they gave them giant helmets over their leather gimp suits and imply they are "creatures" but really, there's nothing to actually say they aren't just guys in rubber/leather suits.  "We mustn't gnaw on Voord" Turns out Ian wasn't a total idiot, he DID suss out Yartek and instead gave him the fake key from THE SCREAMING JUNGLE. They find the Doctor, who is freeing Sabetha and Altos, and Altos drops that if Yartek puts the cheap Chinese knockoff Key in, the Conscience will blow up. It does.  "Shouldn't...have got this Key...from Harbor Freight! ARRRGHH!" Somehow they can now get into the TARDIS and leave, even though Arbitan is dead. The Doctor takes Sabetha aside to tell her that he's sorry her dad is dead, but you know, maybe it's not actually a great idea to have her people in the thrall of a mind control machine...men dispense justice much better. He learned this after seeing Millennial City's "guilty until proven innocent" justice system that nearly killed Ian. They share goodbyes. Sabetha and Barbara quickly kiss, as though their magic night together was but a dream.  "Touch me in the morning...then just walk away" Before they leave, Altos suggests Ian give the last real Key to the Doctor, no idea if that will be a plot point in the BF audio so I'll just tuck that away. And that's the Keys of Marinus. A little wobbly, a little campy, a little disjointed. Terry wrote this pretty much as a "planet of the week" serial and it shows--the various places they went to on Marinus were very disparate. On the other hand, it is a contrast to the usual mono societies we see on planets other times, in Doctor Who and other scif shows/movies. The Doctor was a lot more "show up and react" rather than try to fix things and crusade than he is now, but it fits in canon as he was younger and still more about exploring the universe than righting wrongs. Overall though a fun watch. Not as great as I remembered as a kid, but I've seen a lot of stories since then. I had fun watching these, and I'll take suggestions for some other classic episodes to watch. I was thinking I could go in order to The Aztecs and then The Sensorites, or perhaps jump to the fun of The Web Planet? I'll leave you with these awesome things I found today: The Brains of Morphoton...IN COLOUR!  And this amazing thing:  He's got a lot of other art too, though sadly only one other comic like this: http://paulhanley.deviantart.com/gallery/
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2017 02:32
|
|
|
I was pleasantly surprised to see that there's quite a few Rifftrax on Amazon Prime. Should give me something to get through the wait for the new MST3K.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2017 00:36
|
|
|
Trip Report: Doctor Who--The Domain of the Voord This was the whole reason I rewatched Keys of Marinus, to be able to listen to this one in context. There's a lot of high points in this audio; first one is William Russell. Now there are some audios where he can't seem to capture the "Young Ian" voice and just sounds like an old man and you have to just sigh and use your imagination. But listening to this one after having just watch Keys, he does a great job sounding young and cracking Voord skulls in fights. And his First Doctor impression is second only to Peter Purves'. Like Frazier, he can switch it up to his current voice enough for the narration to stand out as well. Carole Ann Ford does a good job on her own part as well as a passable Barbara--it's much better when they make the effort instead of just reading it out of respect for the dead actors. There are times you have a tough time telling them apart though. Still, you could really suspend your disbelief and imagine this as a 60s story, and the rest of the cast made it very full and big sounding. One of the biggest questions I had was "what were the Voord?" Were they "creatures" from another world? Were they Marinans in rubber wetsuits with funny helmets? Didn't Arbitan say Yartek was a man, presumably a Marinan, who found a way to buck The Conscience? This audio answers that because the writer himself saw those same issues and found a way to explain them that wasn't overly convoluted and Augment Virusy--it was part of the plot and fleshed out who the Voord were, where they were from, and why they did what they did. The TARDIS lands on the hold of a ship on a flotilla, a Rag Tag Fleet Fleeing the Voord Tyranny. It promptly sinks, trapping them on another ship where they gain the trust of the Hydrans, the humans who live on planet Hydra which only has one continent and a bunch of ocean. It's been taken over by the Voord, who have their little one man subs from Keys, bigger subs, and giant airships. At first it seems to contradict what Arbitan said--these Voord are definitely not Marinans, and Yartek was a Voord, not a Marinan. But then it's revealed that the Voord were indeed aliens, but when they conquer a planet and enslave it's people they offer them a choice--die early as a slave or live for years, maybe centuries as a Voord. You put on the Voord helmet and it fuses itself to your face and brain, you then are even altered at the genetic level. So in that sense, Yartek could have been a Marinan who became a Voord. The Voord are telepathic, so it's possible that by making a deal with them he was able to fight The Conscience.. It's a neat explanation, and the best thing of all is a lot of the connection with Keys is implied--they don't spell it out, but you can speculate that was what happened. But it fixes the contradictions. It also gives the Voord a motivation: they want to Voordize everyone because if everyone is a Voord there will be peace and harmony in the universe--sort of a benevolent Dalek or Cybermen ideal that's not specifically motivated by racial superiority or we muzzzt survivvvve. All in all a neat little story and another worthy Early Adventure. The action goes all over Hydra, from the ships to the cities to rebels in hiding, etc. The gang splits up, thinks each other is dead, etc. Which leads me to an interesting aside--Susan at one point says her Grandfather can't be dead--which in context of a 60s show would sound like Susan in denial, but in modern hindsight we know it's because she'd assume in most cases he'd regenerate. How cool would it be to do an Unbound, or even a series of them, where a Doctor regenerates early? Imagine having the Doctor be killed in some classic story where we thought he was going to die but didn't, and then suddenly Susan, Ian, and Barbara have to deal with Frazier playing Two? Susan would have to explain regeneration to them, but still deal with the feelings of having the only Grandfather she knew changed--a concept familiar to her but it would still surely provoke some emotions. You could do this all over with some caveats--perhaps since Two's regeneration was induced he might not have become Pertwee, but you could have Pertwee dying early and T Bakes running around Earth in exile. You could have Four biting it prematurely and see Davison's Doctor interacting with Leela. Maybe Seven falls off the cliff on IceWorld and becomes McGann? Even better if Big Finish could somehow get the rights to remake specific stories and redo classic episodes with the next Doctor. A crazy idea, but it would be very fun!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2017 16:27
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 11:31 |
|
|
Yeah. the writer of Domain did mention that Cyberman comic, but said he was specifically ignoring that. IMO Spare Parts is the best origin story anyway, and should never be changed.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2017 13:58
|
|
