Created 30/06/2014, Changed 25/06/2020, 04/04/2020
Old this webpage; http://ww1.andrew-lohmann.me.uk/engineer/dr-who-classic-estb-1963/dr-who---regeneration
Updated
Previous page; Dr Who - The Future
A for Andromeda
There is the story of the TARDIS this is one long story you have to watch every episode in sequence. Dr Who is many stories, made up of different people. There is only some consistency, no one all encompassing truth. Peter Purvis said on Radio 4 that Bill took him (Peter) under his wing, Bill was the only Doctor Who for Peter. But even Doctor Who in 1963 was abbreviated story telling compared to Quatamass in 1953 for example, the last of that type of fully told story was A for Andromeda (BBC 1961) this is one aspect is what is missed from modern TV story telling.
I don't like modern Dr Who for the same reason that I don't like how things have changed post Prime-minster Thatcher. To Quote a Face Book Friend "I have to say, Andrew, that the latest Dr Who episodes often leave me confused. They are "too clever by half" and seem directed at a very limited, elite, cognisant club. Whereas, in the past they have had appeal across all people and age groups".
Popular TV twists history and have no rational basis. When Dr Who started it was based on science, people were struggling with quantum and the machines that could do anything by running a program. TARDIS gave us a fictional representation. The travellers were all empowered and relied on each other to get out of what ever circumstance they were in. William Hartnell could be a horrible old bugger, absolutely human, make dreadful mistakes argue with his companions Ian or Steve. Then reluctantly take Barbara's arm after she had save them all from something. But still not apologise. Real life not fantasy. Wonderful stuff.
Imagine
Policy changed in the BBC and the organisation would make lighter story's Dr Who was intend to be a lighter TV story (Radio 4 item October/November 2015). The programme both maintained high standards of acting and historical and scientific accuracy until the mid 1980's. The policy was not fully enacted until the mid 1980's writers and actors continuing there higher standards in all TV.
"The Web Planet" was a good story but worked on the strength of acting - Like so many though honestly did not work out and was never repeated again but the TV show was broadcast in any case - so real. Patrick Troughton always kept the action going when the stories were thin but held back and made sure the show and his companions shone rather than star himself. WWII together spirit rather than modern selfish individualism was the way of things originally and captured in the show that was returned to by Peter Davison particularly subsequently. But we have moved on from that era things unimaginable but we now live with The Rat Race Cliché run faster and faster and still fall back. Ringing everything out of the planet, a TV series etc. etc etc.
The Symbiotic co-operation of the relationship between the TARDIS and the timelord could also be a metaphor for the post WWII era and the 1960s also but is now displaced by individuals, selfish genes, "greed is good", Climate change can be denied and virtual money fantasy.
It is a sad fact of modern TV that a good story is run and run until everything is rung out of the story. But that is how we treat each other, Animals, the Planet. Doctor Who went quite bad after the 5th Doctor culminating in Colin Baker and Peri being taken off the story. They are not my favourite but they worked hard for the show, if miscast, but they should have been encourage to leave gracefully with a tidy story. This seems to have come to ahead in the story The Trial of a Timelord. The BBC classic write up on this set of story's describes production and writing problems and it sounds like there was a lack of communication. The writer Robert Holmes unfortunate dies, I read that he was the most prolific writer starting in the Patrick Troughton era, and he must have added a lot of continuity. So the story is quite good under the circumstances, even though there is continuity errors such as that Gallifrey is the most technically advanced in the Universe where as in the Tom Baker era there were other beings who were much more advance than Timelords.
The final part of the Trial in the matrix is good. But the whole idea of continually putting the kind Doctor on Trial after trial seems silly when the Master and a number of others run around the universe freely. Then I thought real life is like that whistle blowers are hung drawn and quartered.
Doctor Who, Tom Baker (No. 4) transition to Peter Davison (No.5);
Dr Who - Logopolis
Tom Baker was the best Doctor Who. Having watched many he is proceeded and followed by excellence. If you can find the full length video "Logopolis" enjoy Tegan's introduction to the inside of the TARDIS very unusually she goes exploring rather than display surprise that most every one else do on entering for the first time. His companions were good and the stories very strong.
Peter Davison who follows is very good when you get over the fact he was not Tom and he is not an excellence vet from the TV series "All Creatures Great and Small". Dr. No. 5 is very good in retrospect he brings out the team effort characteristic that was particularly important with the first three Doctors. Some of the the 5th Doctors story's were poor, but this is true of most of the Doctors, but Peter Davison makes them work whereas I think the 6th Doctor has not got the temperament necessary for that type of TV series acting but Colin Baker (6th Dr.) works hard and means well. The Last story of the Forth Doctor "Logopolis" could be a development of the idea from "Edge of Destruction" that the TARDIS as a machine is a virtual creation of itself. Mathematics and programming with a biological mind can similarly permanently save the Universe from entropy (Block Transfer Computation). The watcher in this story repeats the idea from "Space Museum" that the TARDIS can bring travellers from the future as ghosts and protectors to prevent or undo disaster that was fated. In the video I always though at the end of the recursion popping out of the back, like a cupboard, of the TARDIS was not correct there was the door in front that was the interface with the real world.
Princess Nyssa trusts the watcher why? But all though Doctor Who people trust him perhaps in the same way that an animal sense safety in another. I hope you enjoy the video - after this you should have no problem with the accepting that the watcher can lead Nyssa to safety it is a natural unspoken sense that Doctor Who returns to in his many regenerations time after time. http://internationaltimes.it/the-animal-communicator/
This story is the conclusion of the Tom Baker era which the best story's are the later ones that are very Cerebral - they may be stretching modern physics as it is portrayed to the point of questioning. Such criticism of modern physics at the time I think is justified. A Heretics Guide to Modern Physics published in Wireless World in the late 1970's puts some very serious questions in plain engineering language. Logopolis and Castrovalva seem to conclude one aspect of what Dr Who was about. Only use maths as far as you can see. Be very careful beyond that. To restate what I have concluded elsewhere as an electronics engineer who applies maths to real problems. That is an art or a hunch to be honest and not precise.
Conversely What the people in the Masters created place Castrovalve can see is distorted by the world they live in. Possibly a general truth about life. In this case it is necessary for them to try and see further past it.
Would Capitan Kirk really have preferred to command a TARDIS but with the energy weapons added?
Star Trek - Captin Kirk - The first TV series - City on the Edge of forever.
The original Star Trek TV series often visited planets that were a copy of 1960s Earth. The story "City on the edge of forever" is a particularly well written, produced and acted story. This story raises a question about what would have happened if the 1930s pacifist movement that was very big had been even more influential such as in the USA? The American production also seemed to have the time to ensure that the story's and particularly this one did not have any untidy expedient lead in or loose ends by comparison Doctor Who suffered from. The two TV series are not comparable they are different - enjoy both.
So many American's and others all over the world, have worked to save these stories from destruction finding film and posting it on video sharing websites. This has saved what would have been discarded and forgotten. Lessons learnt in the past but also excellence in the past even more so can be easily overlooked and lost otherwise. I wish that the old World About Us series was equally freely available a definitive view of the wider world being shown to ordinary people for the first time, Dian Fossey's Gorillas, Plankton in the sea, Indigenous people living very simply but not a modern way.
But for some averts that might appear discretely in the side bar to pay Google for providing me with this website I am do this for my interest. If there were an income that would contribute towards the modest cost of the domain name that I have registered. There has been no income and that is fine.
All those within and outside of the BBC that allow a small taste of the artistic excellence to be created and shared by so many. The far sited artists who grasp something of what a Universal Turing Machine, Ada (Programming) and computing machines over a few millennia ultimately and theoretically machines like Babbage's Difference Engine and its successor the modern computer.
If there is any problem with copyright you will see some videos disappear as they are linked from the sources I have referenced (they are not copies but they are direct links to originals uploaded). Otherwise I hope you will allow them to remain, perhaps offer me better reference to use. Of cause if you find your work referenced here please ask me to acknowledge you I would like to do that.
In the end king Cnut makes the point well when he shows us that not even a king can command the tides. “All the inhabitants of the world should know that the power of kings is vain and trivial, and that none is worthy the name of king but He whose command the heaven, earth and sea obey by eternal laws”. All the same the TARDIS is wonderful and we should aspire to the possible and practical but not live in fantasy.
This project has been sample checked for bullshit and little was detected using; http://www.blablameter.com/impressum.php