Just rewatched “Hide”.
The first about 35 minutes are excellent!
The remaining 10 falls a bit flat for me, doesn’t quite stick the landing. Too rushed by far, and the way the ending cuts off always seems so strange.
It does kind of make me want to revisit An Adventure in Space and Time because of Jessica Raine 
Oh no, it’s the Big Friendly Button one next isn’t it?..
School Reunion - A lot funnier than I remember!
The Girl in the Fireplace - Worse than I remember…
Of the pre-showrunner Moffat ones, I’d say Fireplace is my least favorite. Not bad, just like the others more.
It’s bloody awful! 
The scene itself is often misconstrued, I feel. I think the problem is the quip from the Doctor afterwards - it’s bleak humour, sure, but it feels more like a James Bond quip than something the Doctor should be saying, IMO. It’s that line which leaves a bit of a sour taste.
That’s possible. When I hear someone mention this scene, it’s usually in the context of “the Doctor pushed the guard into the acid bath” = “the sixth Doctor is violent” = “the quip he says proves he’s cold-hearted”. If the quip was removed or changed, I’m not sure if the feedback would be any better, but it certainly doesn’t help.
At the same time, I think that Six’s “ugly side” is mentioned so frequently when it comes to his TV era that I imagine some viewers can unconsciously judge him through a filtered lens. It’s like how the fandom consensus is that he was a total, irredeemable arsehole in “The Twin Dilemma” despite him showing compassion and joy in various ways throughout the serial. But because the fandom beats that point over the head, is it any wonder that newcomers to his TV era go in expecting to dislike him, expecting to think he’s this violent brute who is out to get Peri at every turn and cares about no one but himself? The fandom says “he pushed the guard in [and laughed about it]”, so that’s what people see even if it isn’t necessarily true.
(And that scene is far from the first time Six made a quip about something bleak. I never hear anyone talk about the scene in AotC when he beats up the policeman and appears from the ground grinning with the man’s hat on his head. (But I know for some that’s just one of many reasons why they consider him violent and crude, so this is just me thinking out loud).)
There are many factors that go into the public’s and fandom’s perception of the Sixth Doctor. For me, Big Finish has far surplanted his TV run so I’m able to really see the heart of gold hidden beneath the rude, arrogant exterior. I see what the production was going for: a delibarate character arc from mean, rude and arrogant to the hero we now know and love. I admire them for attempting this. In a perfect world, they would’ve had the writing and time to pull it off with a great script editor to help make it flow[1]. I don’t think that Eric Saward was the best script editor for the Sixth Doctor. I almost wonder what we could’ve had if Cartmel had been given the Sixth Doctor’s arc to hire writers for. Saward didn’t really understand the show and his idea of sci-fi in general seems to have been much more dark, gritty and violent. I think that works for Davison because the niceness of the Fifth Doctor balances out the meanness of his surroundings in a way that the Sixth Doctor on TV doesn’t. I also think that Colin’s era was hurt by the internal politics of the BBC at the time. Michael Grade didn’t like sci-fi and thought the show looked cheap, but wasn’t willing to give the money to not look cheap. He also had his own pet projects that he was focused on. Also, the 1980s were a different time than the 1970s in which the show flourished. There was more competition both home-grown and from the states. More channels meant more choices and the arrival of home video meant you didn’t have to catch it on release, you could watch it later. So, while I still like the Sixth Doctor era on TV, I prefer the Big Finish era[2].
Well, Fear Her was set in the 2012 Olympics, and I lived to see that…
I’ve got about 20 minutes of When to Die left. It really is terrible. I can see what they were going for and the direction isn’t terrible but the problem is the cast. Patsy, the doctor/professor guy who gets shot dead, the major, the politician guy, the ex-girlfriend/wife, the super soldier; are all utterly, utterly atrocious.
I think if this had been made at the same time as the other PROBE stories, with Caroline John and Louise Jameson it would have been passable, if not the best in the series. I doubt these last 20 minutes are going to save it.
Spoiler alert it will not
I think the best part of modern probe is the Liz recast, she’s the least worst actor.
You are absolutely right. For everything that Saward did right (he deserves recognition for Earthshock and Revelation in particular), he never seemed to like writing for the Doctor in any incarnation (preferring his action trope mercenaries and assassins) and, if I recall correctly, was not a fan of Colin Baker’s casting. It’s really not helpful when such a key creative figure isn’t on board with either the character OR the actor cast.
I’ve mentioned before but I did a 13 era rewatch with a friend last year, we both weren’t big fans beforehand, but came out loving it. We actually did everything up to Eve of the Daleks, so its been a while so I’m gonna finish the rewatch myself! I do prefer watching with others though but I’ll give it a shot myself. I could stream if anyones around!
Well, I had it as a 1.5 star before… after rewatch I finally get the hype 4/5 
its also the first time I’ve seen it since it aired.
Sorry, I’m clogging up this thread
I just rewatched Legend of the Sea Devils… Really not as bad as I remembered, nor as bad as people say it is tbh. Sure its not groundbreaking but the softer moments with Yaz and 13 really are great.
Another day, another classic watched. This time: The Robots of Death. I’ve heard good things about this one and it was definitely good, but I don’t know, I didn’t love it. It’s a murder mystery in an enclosed space with creepy robots, cool. The side characters were all bickering at first thus setting the tension between them, cool. Some of the crew are developed further, making several of them more suspicious, cool. D84 exists, cool (and RIP, I liked that little robot 
).
Unfortunately though, I found Dask/Taren Capel to be a rather weak villain. I don’t know, Dask himself didn’t seem to do much and after a while, because he was the only one not seen wandering about (and also not one of the dead crew members), I suspected him to be the killer. But his background and motivation are a bit hastily explained in the discussion between D84 and 4. Also, is it just me or do the talk of the threatening letters come out of nowhere? It seems they are first talked about in that conversation, where did 4 learn about them? Anyway, by the time Taren is fully revealed, he only really gets to reiterate the “machines are better etc.” type talk before he dies, so I just found him bland.
This is the first Leela story I’ve watched. I did like her, though I wish she fought back a bit more. I understand she doesn’t go all out because it’s technology and enemies she aren’t used to and when she does use her knife, it’s ineffective, still though would have been nice if she did more than just bang on that door when she was locked in.
Despite my complaints, it’s still a solid enough “evil robots in a base” story and I did enjoy watching it. Overall though, I’m kind of conflicted. I can’t decide if it’s a 7 or an 8. I did finish it kinda feeling “well it was definitely good but… was that really the story everyone loves so much?” Maybe I missed a few things, maybe I need to rewatch it, but yeah even though I generally just want whole numbers in my rankings, I just have to say 7.5/10 for this one.
They sort of did with 12 what they wanted to do with 6, but were unable to back then due to all of the factors we all know (Saward, Grade, etc.). Big Finish certainly allowed for a more fully fleshed out 6.
I’ve watched “Journey to the centre of the TARDIS” today.
Every time I watch it I hope that it is better than I give it credit for… It has such a good premise but it’s just not that good…
Actually that could be a comment about most of the series 7b episodes 
I’m not a fan of it either. The concept is strong, but I just don’t find it very good. I think the guest characters are just all awful people, and because it’s all reset at the end, no one really learns anything. Even the good moment between 11 and Clara gets essentially undone, aside from flashes of memory in the finale. Sometimes reset buttons can work, but this one just made the whole episode feel like a waste of time.
I did it, I conquered the beast, I finally finished the Dalek’s Master Plan. What an amazing serial, though it might be just a tad too long 