The story season six forgot! But where The War Games is padded by the irrelevancy of adding more zones for the crew to stumble through, here the padding is in the form of the villians being unmasked, explaining away their malfeasence then moving their headquaters. And killing their underlings. Rather than playing a cockroach like Dominator, Ronald Allen is cast as a rocket base commander. While he dosn't resemble a roach...

And if I'm not mistake it even has the musical stings from The Space Pirates!



David Whitaker had quite the strangest writing career on the show. As its inaugural story editor he was responsible for much development up to The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Leaving this post with the two part Hartnells written, he contributed the well thought of historical The Crusade. His career took a strange turn and he became Terry Nation's ghost writer. In this capacity he wrote the TV Century 21 Dalek strips and probably the uncredited text in the annuals. His next comissions were the bizarre Power and Evil of the Daleks. Bizarre in that Power is set on a planet named Vulcan--while never explained this appears to be the theoretical inner-Mercury body! Whitaker's draft for Evil centres around a cave man. Written out in later drafts, Og had to wait until Blakes 7: Animals before getting his star turn. Whitaker's next script was the Bond-like Enemy of the World. His unusual take on science returns again in The Wheel in Space, where he has the Cybermen disguise their attack on the space station by setting off a meteor shower with a supernova! Ambassadors was his final Who script, heavily re-written by Trevor Ray and Malcolm Hulke.

Now you're knocking Whitaker!!!!



This is going too far!!!!!



I've got the Saturday grocery shopping to do, but I'll be back!!!!



"Evil of the Daleks" was excellent..........what the heck are you talking about?



.........and "Ambassadors" was cool. Padding? PADDING?????

It was ultra violent, and sophisticated.

A definitive story for Season 7, and a spearhead for the introduction of the more adult - oriented stories that Pertwee's era had to offer.



I'll be back to defend parts of the Whoniverse that are being attacked by you philistines!

I'm talking about the script he wrote. David Whitaker's scripts as tendered for The Evil of the Daleks  were that the Daleks were going to deafeat humanity by finding the human factor...from a caveman called Og! The synopsis reads like the worst story ever.



And imdb.com says he wrote for Elephant Boy.

OK.



I've watched the telesnap soundtrack video that the club has (thanks to our young new member!!!) of "Evil of the Daleks" and have thoroughly enjoyed it! It's such a shame that this story together with "The Web of Fear" (which is without doubt a classic), "Fury From the Deep" (another classic), and "The Faceless Ones" don't exist. I'd love to see them.



Professor Travers really cracks me up in "The Web of Fear". He really is the stereotype of the mad old professor. Just love the way he goes off at the Jewish collector, and then has a go at the journalist. Actually, he has a go at everyone in that story! Cracked me up

I found it funny that the actual actor (Jack Watling) is much younger than Travers AND he's Deborah Watling's father! As for Deborah Watling, ah! She was so very delectable. I'm sure that Frazer Hines had a very good time working with her........and there was such a strong chemistry between the team of Troughton, Hines and Watling, yet you watch "Fury From the Deep", and their 'parting of the ways' was done so unceremoniously, almost as a non event. Watling played her emotions down (possibly for the first time!), and there is no dialogue when they say 'goodbye'. It was such a non event. Not an appropriate send off for Victoria if you ask me.



Another point, do you notice how 'early' Dr Who (esp. Troughton and Pertwee's years) have racial mutes? This is terribly racist and prejudiced behaviour - yet I bet the National Viewer's and Listener's Association never complained about that!!!!!

There was the mute Kembel in "Evil of the Daleks" - full of muscle and from Turkey (dies saving their lives) - oh, and the mute Toberman (a negro body builder) in "Tomb of the Cybermen" - the very next stroy (and guess what, he dies saving their lives - AND The Doctor encourages it!!!!!). Then in the Pertwee years there's an actor who bears a great semblance to Toberman in "Terror of the Autons", he's mute and Pertwee actually says to him "You're all muscle and no brains" (!!!!!)

..........and then there's those god awful Peladon stories - each of them having a mute with muscles and no brains, and each having a panchant for selfless bravery!

........what were the BBC thinking? The blatant racism is astounding! Would anyone have thought of how young minds were being influenced to consider that coloured people are all muscle, no brains, and willing to give their lives at any time to save others????

.......and now with Islamic 'Jihad' there actually may be a grain of truth in such a stereotype

They both were played by Roy Stewart. In the novelization of Tomb, Toberman has fully transmogrified into a Turkish stereotype, complete with curly mustache and Fez if I recall correctly! Obviously something Gerry Davis was into. 



One complaint I've heard British TV producers in the 1960s and '70s make about racial casting is that they wanted to cast from wider backgrounds, but the actors they had on their books weren't particularly good. Not a complaint thy could make today.



The real casting victory in Tomb was George Pastell as Eric Klieg. The greatest ever Doctor there wasn't. Speaking of stereotyping he was invariably cast as a sinister Egyptian.

Now when we watch BBC shows, it's time to play 'spot the caucasian'



I mean, watch "The Bill" for example, it's riddled with other nationalities.



This cultural plurality on the BBC has been slowly happening without us explicitly noticing.....and slowly, and surely they drew their plans against us!!!!!

Don't forget though that the BBC were the ones who produced 'The Black & White Minstrel Show' in the 70s.  Pretty racist by todays standards I would think.



To be fair, other productions apart from Dr Who had a very 'un-pc' portrayal of minorities in those days.



Look at how gays were portrayed in that time.  The 'Mr Humphries' stereotype isn't seen much these days, thankfully.



Attitudes and opinions change over time,which is a good thing.

One of the best ways of measuring attitudes in society is by viewing how groups are portrayed in popular culture.



Since Josef Goebbels made his feature on why Jews are just the same as vermin (literally - the sick bastard!), pop culture has been refined since it was pioneered by  Goebbels during the Third Reich. (Mass marketing and pop culture's origins are in the Nazi party!)



Now we have an HIV sufferer in South Africa's version of Seseame Street. And there's a lesbian and homosexual in "The Bill"........and that's so frustrating because I think Sally Rogers (who plays lesbian DC Jo Masters) is sexy - I especially like her very full bust line;)



Seriously, pop culture helps to make barriers between people - just watch Nazi propganda films - or evangelical videos about how evil we sci fi fans are (literally, there are evangelists/pentecostalists who believe that science fiction is part of the work of Satan!!!!!).

AND pop culture helps to make minority groups more accepted by society. The big fella in "Little Britain" is becoming a gay icon - so many people think he's funny - and dare  I say it - cute!

Doctor Who helps to make nerds likeable and cool.

Star Wars helps to make religions like Christianity and Buddhism more popular.

And Star Trek is great propoganda for the ideologies of the United Nations.

Completely agree Jimmy.



The reason why a lot of people love sci fi, is because it brings together groups of people who may not have had anything to do with each other in another situation.



I've met a lot of interesting people in sci fi groups, that I wouldn't have any other time.

Societies can be created through admiration of a particular genre. And I love sci fi.



But some go too far - at least the SFSA doesn't have any L Ron Hubbard aspirations, do we????

Hey, guys, we don't, do we????

I think you'd be hard pressed to find any.

T'was a joke, my good man!



If there were any, I'd be loathed to stay a member.

(I have an aversion to cults and other potent illusory ideologies)

Jimmy date=27/04/2006 03:36 : T'was a joke, my good man! If there were any, I'd be loathed to stay a member. (I have an aversion to cults and other potent illusory ideologies)

Are you sure that isn't a typo?

Well, there better not be any L Ron Hubbard lovers here, or Im outta here!!!



I dont want my ear bashed by a Tom Cruise clone thanks!!!

He did write real SF (not that I'm interested in it), and in the '30s to the '50s there was a lot of interest in lost civilizations, which unlike previous pulp fiction actually had people falling for them! Another prophet of fiction was Richard Shaver whose I Remember Lemuria may have been intended as fiction, but started taking himself too seriously...

well I'll still avoid Hubbard followers if I can!



This has nothing to do with that.....but has anyone read the Dune books?



I tried to read the first one once, and I just stopped halfway thru, bored me rigid.



Am I alone in this??

I'm not terribly into Frank Herbert's novels, but he's written some excellant short stories.

Yes, well as I said, I wasn't too impressed by what I read.



I've never seen the film version either, although I heard that was pretty bad.



They did a mini-series of it a few years back as well, but even that was mediorce, according to what I read.

The film was a strange treatment by a strange man. I don't get what they were after. The mini-series we saw, and that was a cut above it.

As soon as I hear/smell/sense anything even vaguely 'cultish', I'm off and running.



I think the SFSA is very safe......but there are these deady ambassadors of deadly death to watch out for