Review The Mccoy Doctor

Gavin

Gavin

Member: Rank 6
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If the show had to end at that time, this wasn't a bad story to go out on. The acting was good (especially Anthony Ainley who was able to be much less over the top than he was usually required to be and Sophie Aldred was fantastic). Special effects were pretty ordinary unfortunately, although that was standard for the series at that point.
 
Gavin

Gavin

Member: Rank 6
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Awful special effects and a silly story, combined with a pathetic regeneration, but the performances of Kate O'Mara and Sylvester McCoy make it totally worthwhile.
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
I have never been certain whether to applaud this story for it's apparent layered depth....

Or deride it for being pretentious and over-complicated nonsense....

Maybe it's somewhere in the middle?
 
chainsaw_metal1

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
I re-watched this one about a year or so back, and it is a mess. But I love that they really attempted to do something deeper. The Doctor forces Ace to face her greatest fear, which is both admirable and also kind of a dick move. Ace does face her fears, and learns just what it was that made the house "haunted". The story itself needed about two or three more rewrites to make it flow more coherently, but even as flawed as it is, I still love this one. The Gothic feel, the ever growing respect that The Doctor and Ace have for each other, it makes it fun to watch. And the judgmental vicar being turned into an ape man is hilarious.
 
chainsaw_metal1

chainsaw_metal1

Member: Rank 8
Sylvester spent many years in my number two Doctor spot. I loved him in the role, as he had elements of other Doctors, but still came off as his own incarnation. Parallels could certainly be drawn between him and Troughton, only because they both could play the clown when needed. But he had an air of gravitas to him, which was a nod to Pertwee. But then there was a dark side to his Doctor that was never explored before this. He manipulated Ace more than any Doctor had ever done before him, and in the end, it was always for the betterment of Ace as a character. But even she wondered at times about the darkness inside of him. They also added a layer of mystery to the Doctor that hadn't been there in a while. He was always mysterious, but there were layers of depth that the writers added to him that made him more interesting.
 
Gavin

Gavin

Member: Rank 6
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Sylvester tends to end down the bottom end in my list of favourite Doctors. Not because he did a bad job in the role, but simply because the production values of his era were pretty awful and, as an older teen at the time his episodes aired, I tended to look down on them as a bit childish and beneath me. It didn't help that his final series (and far and away his best) was extensively delayed in airing in Australia and wasn't screened until well after the series had been cancelled. I didn't end up watching it until years later because I didn't think there was any point and hadn't thought much of the prior two seasons anyway.
 
Gavin

Gavin

Member: Rank 6
VIP
I think a fair amount was cut from this to get it down to three episodes. The novelisation, which I read before seeing the episode, goes into a lot more depth and is pretty good. When I finally got around to watching the episode, it only made sense because I'd read the novel. The atmosphere was great though and fantastic performances from both Sylvester and Sophie, who by this point had really mastered their characters.
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Yes, an appropriate final story.

And I just remembered that Mona Munro is writing a story from this new season of course....
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
The reaction on 's BBC"Open Air" to the 1987 season.......


From an episode of BBC's Open Air at the end of September 1987 that I found on an old videotape. The quality is not too bad considering its almost a 30 year old tape.
In the studio are Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford and John Nathan Turner talking about Dr Who, and taking viewers phone calls live on air.
Click to expand...

 
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Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
I can imagine JNT exiting the set with Sylvester and Bonnie, then ranting "That f*****g woman!" about Patti Caldwell, the presenter after this was finished. :emoji_alien:

She said the most terrible things so pleasantly to them.
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Another 1987 attack on the show by the BBC itself. With special guest star Ian Levine!

JNT didn't bother turning up for this one, so they used a clip of him from the Open Air piece.


 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
LEVINE: The last eight or nine years have seen a very, very steep decline in the quality of the show and it's become a sort of mockery pantomime version of it's former self.
Click to expand...

Ermm. Did you mention this to JNT while you were the programme's "consultant" during a good few of those years Ian?
 
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