Poor dino
After watching a fair amount of classic Doctor Who, I got to "The Invasion of the Dinosaurs." The dinosaurs (especially the t-rex and the pterodactyl) are ridiculous, basically children's toys, but the story-line is good, and the character development leading up to these episodes has some great pay-offs, and so it quickly became my favorite classic Who story.
Because I'm into reactors, I watched someone's review of it, and the comments were populated by people saying how great the story is and what a shame it is that the dinosaurs are so bad so it gets a bad rap. Someone suggested reading the book so you can envision the dinosaurs as scary as you'd like. Shaking my head at myself, I checked it out of the library. It's surprisingly good actually, written by Malcolm Hulke, the man who wrote the episodes.
Anyway, this is now far longer than any of you are going to read, especially because it's classic Doctor who, and considering that you'll see that it gets longer.
When watching the show, even though the dinosaurs weren't great (they could maybe have gotten away with the brontosaurus, stegosaurus, and triceratops, though, if one forgives the time and the budget), when the brontosaurus popped up in modern London, I felt bad for him because he looked lost and confused and like he wanted to go home. Well, I just got to this in the book:
"The stegosaurus, thirty feet long and weighing two tons, stood bewildered in a narrow Hampstead side street. In the distance it could see the green of Hampstead Heath, and the prospect of so much lush foliage made its salivic juices run. But immediately ahead stood a little group of mammalian midgets colored brown, and they were frightening because they carried sticks that made big bangs. Each time one of the sticks banged, the stegosaurus's nerve center set in its hip reacted to pin pricks of pain. No doubt a tyrannosaurus or a pterodactyl would have enjoyed the little mammals, as a between meal snack, but the stegosaurus longed only to much peacefully on green leaves. It wished the little mammals would all go away. In anguish at being trapped in this uninviting valley, it swished its tail. The fronts of three houses shattered and crumbled with a roar of falling bricks and masonry."
No one should have to be suddenly transported to someplace new and scary and then deal with mammalian midgets with sticks that go bang. Poor guy.
posted by melilotnfosco | 5:41 PM
6 Comments:
I love the language of The Guardian's summation of the episodes. 😄
In the 1974 serial Invasion of the Dinosaurs, Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor runs into a spot of bother with some barmy scientists, who happen to be phasing rubbery-looking dinosaurs (and, er, medieval peasants) in and out of existence smack in the middle of London. In the face of the threat from these doddery, incessantly growling and rather clumsy invaders, martial law has been declared in the city, and the place is mercifully free of politicians, investment bankers and journalists on the make (well, mostly).
That is a wonderful summation! :D
Someday I want to watch old Dr. Who - where are you getting the episodes? Library?
I started out with the library, now I watch them on Britbox.
Some people insist that one watches them all in order, but I can't imagine having to watch all of the First Doctor or all of the Fourth Doctor in sequence. And sadly a lot of the Second Doctor's episodes are missing, so trying to watch all the animated and photo slideshow ones is too much, too. I absolutely love the Second Doctor, but it gets to be a lot (but good job nerds who used their tape recorders in the 60s to catch some of the episodes so decades later the BBC could reconstruct the episodes in that way!). Oh, some of the First Doctor's are missing, too, but I don't care about him as much, so it doesn't cause me too much distress. The Second Doctor is so delightful, though.
Anyway, so I'd say mix it up. Maybe go in each Doctor's order, but maybe something more like 5 of the First Doctor, then 5 of the Second, and so on, and then back to the First for a few, or whatever. Definitely don't watch Invasion of the Dinosaurs before watching a good chunk of the Third Doctor. It wouldn't be as good if you weren't as invested in the characters.
If you can manage all of Classic Who in order, though, more power to you. My niece was going to and she got partway into the First Doctor's second story and quit. 😄
Oh, and I've been watching them completely out of order, just more based on what the library had at the time, which isn't a huge deal, but I think it would've been more interesting for character (and show) development to watch them in the way I mentioned up there.
In case you care ;)
https://i-am-a-hobbit.blogspot.com/2018/10/my-definitive-unless-i-see-more.html
This is still fairly close, though I've seen more of each of them now, and I would put 2 ahead of 11, And actually, if all of his episodes existed, he may even have squeezed above 10, but I feel like I don't get quite a full enough picture of him to make that decision conclusively (because pulling someone ahead of Tennant isn't something one does lightly). And I would debate pulling 3 above 7, but it might be that I like 3's era better, but 7 himself better. Not sure on that one.
Also, to be even more controversial, I think I'd put the Fourth Doctor second to last now. The First Doctor has his flaws, and some of the acting in his era is so bad, but Four, I'm sorry to all of the crazy fans out there, but I find him boring. If I were told to pick one of their episodes to watch, I'd reach for a First Doctor one before a Fourth Doctor one, so I guess yeah, that puts 1 above 4 now.
That summation was well-written. :)
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