Whoops. Afraid I'm not old enough to remember the first doctor, but I should have twigged McCoy as a Scot.

Quick question: can anyone confirm the name of the rhubarb crumble monster that lived underneath a lighthouse? Might have been Ruton or similar.

Rutan. Horror Of Fang Rock, 1978.



More like apple crumble, I'd say. Perhaps the females are rhubarb flavoured.

There was also a throwaway comment in one of the earlier episodes that he'd "been a father once", which I'm assuming was for those who weren't familiar with the classic series.

The Horse wrote:

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imp wrote:

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For Christmas we got some of the old Tom Baker/Peter Davison series on DVD, and the kids can't believe how crap they used to be. Unfortunately, there's not a lot I can say in their defence. Anyone remember the tedium of the Horror of Fang Rock?

My own journey back into the Who archives has stalled after one story: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, which came highly recommended by my Whomosexual friends but turned out to be slow, clunky, poorly staged, inconsequential and racist.

Slow? Yeah, for a lot of people that was the beauty of the classic series. Six parters were always slower, but when you have to introduce new characters and keep a storyline going over 4-6 weeks, you have to make sure the viewers keep up.

Clunky? If that's a reference to the giant rat, you were warned. One of the worst effects in the whole series.

Poorly staged/inconsequential I don't agree with.

Racist. Guilty as charged, although having only been three when it was made, I can't say whether it was of it's time or not (also, don't forget that the story itself is based in Victorian London, so it has to portray that era accurately) . There is a deliberate nod to Fu Manchu in the story (lots of classic Who is influenced by previous writing), but also I'm struggling to think of many Chinese actors from the mid to late 1970s. The only actor I can think of is Robert Lee, and he would have been busy with Mind Your Language.

That said, one of the great things about Classic Who is the diversity of stories, give something completely different a try, like The Caves Of Androzani, Genesis Of The Daleks, or if you want to see Voyage Of The Damned done properly, try The Robots Of Death.

I suppose it's inevitable that when you're running a spin-off series like The Sarah Jane Adventures, the temptation to re-use one or two of its cast-off scripts will be too great to resist.

Back in the 80s there was a brief mode in the Dr Who fanzines to make "write your own Eric Saward story" and "write your own Terrance Dicks novelisation" dice games using the particularly overused elements of each writer's output.

I think that must have been the result of a high spirited evening of "write your own Russell T Davies story" japes in the Doctor Who production office.

Lazy, phoned-in rubbish.

I thought it was better than a lot of RTD episodes. It almost all made sense, for a start.

Oh dear.

Dr Who query: why, given that he's immortal and can travel throughout eternity, does the Doctor always choose his companions from roughly contemporary Earth?

Oh, and clearly Rose is the final Cylon.

Good fun, I thought. Tate seemed to be nicely toned-down.

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Dr Who query: why, given that he's immortal and can travel throughout eternity, does the Doctor always choose his companions from roughly contemporary Earth?

No. But the alien ones have invariably been shit. It's mainly to do with the companion being a relatable voice for the viewer, I guess.

Lalla is in the "exception that proves the rule" position here.

"It's mainly to do with the companion being a relatable voice for the viewer, I guess."

Well of course, but I was wondering if there's any narrative justification for it. It's not like the Doctor cares about that.

"Maybe it's silly of me, but humans are quite my favourite species" to quote TomDoc.

There was a time when his companions were more of a mixed bag - Pat Troughton's three main companions were all human but one was a Jacobite rebel, another a Victorian asucepot and the third an online paedo's dream from the 24th century.

One of Hartnell's companions was a Trojan handmaiden and another was a space orphan from space year 6 million or something.

edit - Peter Purves also spent as year playing a space pilot from space year 8000 at the same time. Terry Nation had a lot to do with scripts back then. - end edit

Since then where earthling companions are concerned it has predominantly been kids from the here and now (or in the case of Ace some hopeless middle-aged, middle class twat's idea of what "the here and now" meant to 1988 yoof). The reason for that is that the vast majority of stories took place in "the here and now". For instance, between 1970 and 1977 the companions could pretty much only have come from the there and then because of the policy decision made in 1970 to set everything on contemporary earth. Once that straitjacket was loosened 6 of the next 7 companions were not from Earth. Since then, of course, every companion has been a contemporary earthling. Can't see that changing, though, given RTD's assertion that the series has to always be about humans in peril. I can kind of see his point where that's concerned. Nobody ever gave a shit about the struggle between Moroks and the Xerons in The Space Museum, after all.

Chantho might have made a reasonable companion but it would have been (a) a bit dull after a while, probably, and (b) the logistics of having a regular actor needing that amount of prosthetic work before every single day's shooting would have made it impossible.

Mind you, if they want a change from the here and now humans they could always have gone for Scooti Manista from The Impossible Planet. As I said at the time, that girl had incredible dramatic potential.

I'm fairly sure there's never been a justification for it on screen. It would be a bit like the Doctor explaining why every baddie he met in the 70s came over like some bloke who'd been chucked out of the RSC for being too pissed.

Well, except for the stuff (quote included) I gave right before you, obv.