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Post by matthewsee on Feb 21, 2014 23:46:29 GMT -5
Episode 1:
The opening episode of William Hartnell’s swansong as the First Doctor.
Robert Beatty as the very abrasive General Cutler.
Good mystery that goes on here at the Snowcap base.
Intriguing when the titular arrives when we had a pretty good look at it.
Creepy cliffhanger as the Cybermen appears for the very first time.
In the DVD commentary for this episode moderator Toby Hadoke guesses that John Brandon (American Sergeant and first victim of the Cybermen) was the only person to have appear in both Doctor Who and Dallas.
However according to IMDb, Brandon has never appeared in Dallas. He did however appear in nine episodes of Dynasty. Perhaps Hadoke got Dallas confused with Dynasty.
While I do not know if anyone has appeared in both Doctor Who and Dallas, I do know that someone has appeared in the overall Whoniverse and Dallas and that is Kelvin Yu.
Yu had appeared in Torchwood playing Nicholas Frumkin in the Miracle Day episode Escape to L.A.
In Dallas, Yu was in the 2012 episode Changing of the Guard.
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Post by matthewsee on Mar 31, 2014 3:27:02 GMT -5
The Tenth Planet Episode 2:
These remarks just a few days after the sad passing of this story’s director Derek Martinus. So here to you Mr Martinus.
Ben sure gets some of the action when he kills a Cyberman in the projection room and quite good in him expressing his regret on killing the Cyberman saying he gave him no alternative.
Also quite good when the Snowcap personnel got back control of the base.
Felt some sympathy for the hothead General Cutler upon hearing that his son is in a capsule on a rescue mission to two astronauts who sadly have perished.
Good cliffhanger of the radar showing Cyberships heading to Earth.
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Post by matthewsee on May 7, 2014 23:23:08 GMT -5
Episode 3:
Having written the previous two episodes alone, Kit Pedler is joined here by story editor Gerry Davis.
Davis stepped in here for this and the final episode to accommodate the illness of William Hartnell who in this episode does not appear at all.
What we see of the First Doctor here is not Hartnell but his double Gordon Craig whose face was carefully not seen.
Within the narrative the Doctor suddenly falls ill and spends this episode resting on a bed.
This episode is therefore carry instead by the other characters with Ben, due to him perhaps being the male companion, leading the action and under the circumstances manage to do well with this episode.
Quite devious of General Cutler to get permission from Wigner to take whatever action that is necessary including using the Z-Bomb something that Wigner told him not to do.
Quite a good cliffhanger with the audience guessing whether Ben had disable the Z-Bomb as Ben was too disorientated to remember.
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Post by matthewsee on May 22, 2014 5:48:55 GMT -5
Episode 4:
The final episode of The Tenth Planet is the only episode of the story to be among the missing episodes of Doctor Who and it is presented in The Tenth Planet DVD release as an animated episode mixed with the episode’s existing soundtrack.
The animation is not bad looking if somewhat distorted in the presentation of the characters’ appearance.
After illness forced his absence in the previous episode William Hartnell is back for his final episode which would see the very first regeneration in which he turned into Patrick Troughton.
However since Hartnell was still ill, the Cybermen were ultimately defeated by Ben and the other characters, a feat that was made easier just by letting Mondas disintegrate itself leading the Cybermen to do the same.
Rather than a plausible explanation, the Doctor seems to regenerate all of the sudden and seems somewhat a bit unsatisfying for Hartnell’s exit.
The animated regeneration does reflect well with the surviving clip of this scene.
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Post by matthewsee on Jul 14, 2014 20:34:57 GMT -5
In the special feature on The Tenth Planet DVD, Companion Piece it looked at the role of companions in Doctor Who.
Among those interviewed for this piece was Arthur Darvill (Rory) and it ended with him saying he as Arthur Darvill would take the chance to travel with the Doctor as long as he didn’t die as a result of it.
Companion Piece was made in 2012 and Darvill’s comments was obviously an in-joke to what happened to Rory and for that matter Amy in their swansong The Angels Take Manhattan shown in the same year.
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