Time and perspective (Doctor Who related)

[bookzombie]

I've just finished re-watching the 'E-Space Trilogy' on DVD, three later Tom Baker stories Full Circle, State of Decay and Warriors' Gate. I'd always remembered Full Circle (famous for being the first story written as a result of a fan submission) as having a good idea but being rather dull, State of Decay as a fun romp and Warriors' Gate as being clever and something rather special.

But on rewatching, what did I find?

• State of Decay is just dull. Nothing very much happens; there is about enough material for a 45-minute New Who episode. The only thing I liked about it was the inside ship design was rather sumptuous. Other than that, completely forgettable.
• Warriors' Gate makes even less sense than it did. There is the germ of a clever story in here but spends way too much time with people wandering around white voids with nothing really to do. It's never made clear why the ending is a good thing and Tom Baker looks exhausted throughout the whole thing. There's some nice stuff in the background about slavers becoming slaves but it's burried under something that probably seemed really cool at 3am in the morning after a bottle of wine but really doesn't look good in the harsh light of day. And Romana gets a very abrupt send-off.
• Full Circle. This one seems to have stood the test of time best of the three, much to my surprise! It's still over-long (the four episode standard really doesn't do a lot of these stories any good: three episodes is perfectly adequate for most) but it has a good story to tell and tells it well. I really wasn't expecting to like this at all.

One thing I would say is that while Matthew Waterhouse as Adric is quite often pilloried for his bad acting (not unfairly it has to be said), it seems unfair to just pick on him. Most of the guest actors are poor; there is something about DW in that era that seemed to turn even good actors (e.g. Clifford Rose in Warriors' Gate) into bad actors. Maybe it was the choice of directors?

Comments

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

Warrior's Gate in my mind is most notable for the following line:

"The backlash from the back blast will bounce back and destroy everything!"

...delivered totally straightfaced. I always wondered how many takes were involved.

[rawdon.livejournal.com]

I loved "State of Decay" when I saw it the first few (dozen?) times. It is slow, though. Actually, every story in that whole season is slow. Quite a change from the often-frenetic pacing of stories prior to John Nathan-Turner taking over as producer.

I was surprised how well "Full Circle" held up when I saw it again a few years ago, too.

I've heard that the novelization of "Warrior's Gate" explains a lot of stuff that didn't make it into the episode. I think it was written by the guy who wrote the episode. I don't know whether the director (or editor) chopped down his story, or what.

In general, when good actors become bad actors, I tend to blame the director.

[bookzombie.livejournal.com]

I agree from what I remember the novelisation makes more sense. It is written by the same person who wrote the episode, who is credited as 'John Lydecker' but is actual the horror/fantasy writer Stephen Gallagher.

[ben-jeapes.livejournal.com]

Waterhouse - and Bonnie Langford after him, who is actually a much better actress than given credit for - were both essentially symptoms of the fact that DW was being run by someone who thought his really bad ideas were in fact really good ones. None other than J N effing T.

Which doesn't mean you can't still have innocent sport making fun of them.