Doctor Who: Classic 24x1: "Time and The Rani" Parts 1-4 | PREMIERE REACTION!!

[@7thHourFilms]

Watch the FULL LENGTH Reaction Here: www.patreon.com/posts/doctor-who-24x1-100804968

[@Tyrconnell]

You've seen Donald Pickering (Beyus) way back in 'The Keys of Marinus' and 'The Faceless Ones', and Wanda Ventham (Benedict Cumberbatch's Mum (tm)) in 'The Faceless Ones' (again) and 'Image of the Fendahl'

[@kemmdog4444]

Sylvester McCoy is an expert on playing the spoons

[@alexthehunted]

We're in the endgame now

[@richardlemin7840]

alex: Nice! ~Dad

[@Finbarzapek]

As a kid, I thought Sylvester McCoy was very silly in this and that the overall quality had plummeted. However, he got much better during his era, to the extent that he’s now one of my fav Doctors overall.

[@stephencoppins9467]

The Doctor was right. He did grow on us. ...So much so, that Sylvester won the Favourite Doctor poll in Doctor Who Magazine’s 1990 reader’s poll - the first time another actor out-polled Tom Baker (though to be fair, the only time, until another Scottish actor took on the role).

[@ftumschk]

45:12 Correct author, wrong play. Mrs Malaprop is a character in Sheridan's _The Rivals,_ which I was lucky enough to study at school. RIP Mr Evans, who was my excellent English teacher at the time.

[@richardlemin7840]

ftumschk: Apologies; It's been 40+ years since I've kept up with Restoration comedies. I saw a production of "The School for Scandal" in the 1960s, and went on for an actor who dropped out in a musical version of "The School For Wives" in the early 80s. ~Dad

[@AmyWarriorPrincess]

Sylvester McCoy's hat was his own.

[@Darren79]

43:30 - I believe McCoy works in the outfit because he has dark hair - it creates a contrast to the brighter colours which Colin Baker's dyed blonde hair didn't.

[@kyrauniversal]

That Billy and Mandy reference is just PERFECT for this episode. Can't have enough goth culture like Voltaire when talking about this cool sci-fi stuff.

[@Jaketherobonrd]

At last! We made it to the Mcoy Era. But Time and the Rani is abit of a rocky start. This and the next story Paradise Towers i got from my local charity shop, and back then I did quite like this story. Today I find a mix bag personally. I do like the Tetraps, a pretty cool monster design and Kate O Mara is great as always, but my problem is not Mcoy’s silliness but The Rani’s plan is just too too convoluted. No matter how many times I watch this story I can never get my head around it. Funny enough my local theatre is showing School for Scandal. Funny time to mention it

[@joshuajoshua2732]

Sylvester McCoy was born in August 1943 he was 44 years old at the time.

[@YouTubeMrP]

As a kid in the UK in the 80s, I grew up with Peter Davison as my Doctor. I drifted away a bit during Colin’s era but I absolutely LOVED Sylvester. He became MY Doctor. His first season isn’t the best but it really, really picks up. One of my favourite eras.

[@Rocket1377]

Same here. My dad tried to get me to watch Doctor Who, but I didn't like Davison, mostly because I knew him from All Creatures Great and Small. My parents loved that show, but I hated it, so that carried over onto DW. I thought Colin Baker was dreadful, so it wasn't until McCoy took over that I really started to get into Doctor Who. I may have seen Davison first, but McCoy is my Doctor.

[@flaggerify]

I looked down on McCoy when he first appeared but appreciate him more now.

[@kemmdog4444]

I believe one of the reasons Bonnie was hired for the role is because of her ability to scream like that.

[@TheMoonRover]

Notice the use of actual CGI for the first time in Doctor Who. Very early by television standards.

[@glenmcculla6843]

Someone else has probably mentioned it, but with regards to Sylvester's weighted down coat pocket: that's where he kept the scripts so he could read them before shooting a scene. I wonder if he had The Hobbit scripts inside his Radagast robes.

[@Rocket1377]

He also used to hang his umbrella on that pocket.

[@josephshaw6998]

No idea if you guys know or not, but Colin Baker was fired and did not want to come back just to film the regeneration so they had to just put Sylv in a wig to make it work.

[@Joey15811]

This season doesn’t deserve the hate it does. To me this is 4 fun stories

[@jch13213]

There is a BIg Finish audio " The Wrong Doctors " that goes into the timey -wimey first meetings of Mel and the Doctor

[@elliottnoad1270]

Over the years theres been multiple takes on how/why the C.Baker Doctor regenerated: 1) Time And The Rani says Turbulence, leading to a bang on the head (with the 2003 Big Finish story Zagreus (& ultimately the 2005 Book, Spiral Scratch) backing this up) 2) The 1992 book, Love And War, said the C.Baker Doctor's regeneration was caused by McCoy deciding it was his go. Another book in the same series as Love And War, from 1995, called Head Games, also says McCoy Doctor killed C.Baker Doctor but to stop them (the Doctor) becoming the Valeyard 3) Spiral Scratch says that the C.Baker Doctor had his life force sucked away and the banging their head on the console in the turbulence, was the straw that broke the camels back 4) The 2008 unofficially produced/fan published Charity book Time's Champion, said that The C.Baker Doctor used his Time Champion perks that he developed during the novel to change time and effectively have The Spiral Scratch ending while trying to cheat Death (the embodiment of death) out of getting a champion of her own + beat the Valeyard. 5) The 2014 book, The Doctor: His Lives And Times, says it was was an elder god/ancient evil from the dawn of time rather than McCoy Doctor but ultimately same difference as number 2. 6) Big Finish later did a boxset focusing on the C.Baker Doctor, called The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure with the last story in the set being his regeneration story, The Brink Of Death (and the other three storys being the villain preparing, while being set across C.Baker Doctor's life).The Brink Of Death went with; C.Baker Doctor sacrificing himself in a wibbly-wobbly-timey-whimey way (sending a younger C.Baker Doctor into the beams of Radiation seen in the cold open, via the TARDIS telepathic circuits) to stop the Valeyard. In 2024 most go with the Big Finish take, like to its credit it's actually got C.Baker doing the dialogue + could make an argument that The Brink Of Death has pieces of Time's Champion, Spiral Scratch & the Love And War but more so, Head Games flashbacks. And is the "full picture" of the thing. The Brink Of Death regeneration scene using (cleverly edited & lipsynced) clips from C.Baker era &= kzbin.info/www/bejne/rXOVioF3lrChkLcfeature=shared

[@stickytapenrust6869]

The McCoy theme might sound slower because each note plays a little longer and there are more “bom-be-bom”s. The backing track sounds faster because of that and the main theme sounds slower because each note plays a little longer.

[@kemmdog4444]

Supposedly the T-Rex died in the Rani’s TARDIS because it grew so large that it broke its neck.

[@keithsolley]

according to the Writers in an edition of Dr Who Magazine, Ikona was so called because he was an 'Iconoclast ',refusing to go along with the Status Quo of his leader Beyus - so called because he 'obeyed ' the Rani

[@Darren79]

Urak came from the fawning Charles Dickens character Uriah Heep from the book "David Copperfield".

[@AmyWarriorPrincess]

I grew up watching the 4th and 5th Doctors, so I love them so much.

[@MuchWhittering]

Welcome to the 7th Doctor's era! Assuming you have no more weeks off, you will finish off Classic Who (on Patreon) on the 10th of June. Almost there after all these years! These last 3 seasons are all two 4-parters, and two 3-parters. And honestly it's nice, some of the 3-parters feel just right in terms of length. I've watched through all of Season 24 in the last week. This is probably the weakest, though none of them are amazing. Behind the scenes, this story was a mess. Obviously they had the problem of BBC execs demanding that John Nathan Turner fire Colin Baker, but also, JNT was supposed to leave. He went on leave in November 1986 to direct a pantomine as he always did. He expected to come back in January and start working on a new show. Instead, the BBC forced him to work on Doctor Who. Which was a problem. Because he had no Doctor, no scripts, and they needed to start shooting in March. So he quickly found a script editor, and set him to work finding some writers, while he went and found a Doctor. It's a miracle the show still got made. Incidentally, the new script editor, Andrew Cartmell, is the only Doctor Who person I've ever met. I wandered too near him at a convention in 2017 and ended up buying a signed copy of his book. Still not read it. Supposedly they did ask Colin Baker to do this story, and he'd regenerate at the end. But given he'd been fired, he wasn't exactly in a cooperative mood. McCoy has a history of physical comedy, so they definitely wanted some of that in his performance. Him playing the spoons was quickly added based on him messing around with them on set. Most of the humour in the script, such as him messing up idioms, was added to try and make 7 seem a bit more humorous. Based on what Pip and Jane said in the making of on the Blu-Ray, I get the impression they weren't all that keen on doing so, and did so begrudgingly. Yes, Mel's a screamer. I live in a terraced house and I'm slightly considered my neighbours may hear it and wonder what the hell is going on in my place.

[@NJH01]

I’d suggest headphones but then you might go deaf

[@iansmith9279]

Wanda Ventham (Faroun) is the mother of Benedict Cumberbatch. Mark Greenstreet (Icona - the hunky Lacotian) is the grandson of Sydney Greenstreet (The Maltese Falcon)

[@raybearoz]

A lot of people give hate to this story, but for all it's shortcomings I still really enjoy it... it's my go to story. For me this was my re-introduction to Doctor Who and the jump in visual style was the most noticeable thing... I will admit that I have the opening line for this episode on a cushion "Leave the Girl... It's the Man I Want!!!"

[@ftumschk]

15:10 The plodding feel to the music is all the more noticeable because the bassline is too prominent in the mix, to the point where the theme takes a back seat to the constantly repeating "ba-da-da-dum da-dum da-diddly" bits. I also find those "da-dum da-diddly" bits rather distracting, and they weren't in any version of the theme we've heard up to now.

[@stephencoppins9467]

The Doctor and the Rani are (technically) the same age, because they were at school/academy together (pretty much the same way most of the kids we go to school with are the same age as us, at some point during the same calendar year). Though the Doctor telling Mel (and the audience) that he is 953 years old, and you focus on the coincidence that he’s the same age as the Rani, and not that from the Ninth Doctor onwards he was 900 years old!

[@tokublwhovian]

Alex: They’re man-bats? Me: Ah, I see what you did there 😏 if anybody didn’t get the reference: Man-Bat is a Batman villain and one of the first monsters fought by the original Kamen Rider.

[@MrLorenzovanmatterho]

Keep powering through guys, McCoy's next 2 season are EPIC!

[@robvanriot]

There is some truly excellent stuff in the Sylvester McCoy era. None of it is in his first season, I'm afraid.

[@kierenevans2521]

Haha, April's Fool 😉 Actually, I don't hate this one unlike many. The plot is messy but the production feels a bit of step up with some nice effects. Pip and Jane Baker originally wrote this for Colin's regeneration story. They also didn't get on with new script editor Andrew Cartmel and resisted his changes. Next story is really the first of his era.

[@soupdragon1971]

Sylvester had a habit of keeping the script in his jacket pocket, he mentions this on at least one of the DVD commentaries. Due to her success as a 'screaming' child star, Bonnie had unfortunately become somewhat typecast at this stage in her career.

[@whobp8]

1) One of the reasons for the decision to fire Colin Baker was how outspoken he had been in interviews about the BBC's treatment of the series during the whole hiatus debacle. Colin had a three year contract, but the BBC decided to interpret it that the year the show was off the air counted and that Twin Dilemma being the finale of Season Twenty-One meant he had worked on the show for three seasons. 2) Originally, the BBC wanted Colin to come back and do the first story of Season Twenty-Four and regenerate at the end of it, but Colin told them that, if he now needed to find new work, he couldn't commit to a couple of episodes so many months in advance. He counter offered to do a whole season and regenerate at the end of it instead, but the BBC ultimately decided to just proceed without him. 3) Because the original plan was to have Colin return for the first story, Time and the Rani was actually written specifically for him and a number of lines had to be changed to make the story more in line with the Seventh Doctor's persona than the Sixth. 4) That being said, the decision to proceed with a Season 24 was made so late in the day, they were sort of figuring out exactly what the Seventh Doctor's person was as they were going along. Convinced that he was going to be fired as well, John Nathan Turner hadn't really bothered to make advance plans for a new season and hadn't even hired a new script editor to replace Eric Saward, who had quit during Trial of a Time Lord. BBC execs did in fact want to get rid of Turner, but found that nobody else was interested in taking over the show with the perception that it was a hairsbreadth away from being cancelled. So Turner was finally told to start work on Season Twenty-Four and he had to hurriedly find a new script editor and a new lead actor. Consequently, while there is some good stuff in this season, the next two seasons had a lot more time and planning go into them and everything gels much more smoothly. 5) Between Mark of the Rani and this, Kate O'Mara had been in America appearing on Dynasty. Happy to be invited back to Doctor Who, she wrote Nathan Turner an amusing letter, where she said, "I can't stand the eternal sunshine...You've got to help me. I want to be in a gravel pit somewhere in the pissing rain, changing in a caravan in front of twenty nosey crew members." 6) Andrew Cartmel is the new script editor and, in contrast to Eric Saward, he's actually really good at characterization. He did not get along with Pip and Jane Baker, who basically ignored everything he suggested as regards to this script, and they were never asked back by him again. As it happens, all of the writers from this point forward will be new to the show, making this the only Seventh Doctor story to be by authors who had written for previous Doctors. The Seventh Doctor's last full story, meanwhile, is the only Seventh Doctor story by an author who will go on to write for any subsequent Doctors (at least so far ). 7) Donald Pickering and Wanda Ventham may seem familiar to Richard because they've been on Doctor Who before. Pickering was in The Keys of Marinus as the Prosecuting Attorney who put Ian on trial for murder, and then was in The Faceless Ones as an alien Chameleon who was posing as airline pilot Captain Blade. Wanda Ventham (who is Benedict Cumberbatch's real life mother) was also in The Faceless Ones as the secretary of the man who ran the airport and was later in Image of the Fendahl as Thea Ransome, the female scientist who turns into the deadly, golden-skinned Fendahl. 8) Loyhargil, the fictitious substance the Rani uses to detonate the asteroid of strange matter, is an anagram of holy grail.

[@sparkingmarnie]

Don't know if you'll see this comment, Alex, but I was just thinking how funny it is that when you reacted to The Giggle you were like Mel? Haven't gotten to her yet. But by the time she shows up in series 14 you'll have probably seen most or maybe all of Mel's episodes. So it'll be more like Mel! Also wanna say people for years have tried to say Time and The Rani and Twin Dilemma are as bad as each other. I never got that because Twin Dilemma is actually bad and this episode is just campy, and in my opinion a lot of fun. I love The Rani pretending to be Mel.

[@Darren79]

The commissioning for season 24 was really late! Producer JNT expected to not be the producer but he was kept with the show (as his boss didn't like him and didn't trust him with any other show) - so he started very late with no script editor and no leading man. He only had Bonnie Langford on contract. JNT went to Pip and Jane Baker as he knew they'd come up with a script fast. That freed young new script editor, Andrew Cartmel, to find new writers for the remaining three stories in the very rushed pre-production.

[@jch13213]

I think the into sped up to 105- 107% would be perfect

[@joshuajoshua2732]

They didn't have a writers room everything was written by a script editor.

[@icantthinkofagoodusername4575]

The way the 7th Doctor is in this story is not like The Doctor he ends up being he is very manipulative . You saw it when you watched Remembrance of The Daleks a few years ago

[@AmyWarriorPrincess]

I still like the 7th doctor because of his edginess

[@ftumschk]

43:26 I guess your eyes have Stockholm Syndrome, Alex. I never thought Colin pulled that outfit off, and its pantomimic look only served to amplify Colin's rather "stagey" style of acting.

[@Darren79]

New young script editor Andrew Cartmel didn't get on well with the seasoned old pros of Pip and Jane Baker. He had little input to the story and mostly left them to it. He feels that his own vision for the show starts with the 2nd story of the season.

[@joshuajoshua2732]

Richard I wouldn't even compare McCoy to Tom Baker or William Hartnell they were great Doctors compared to McCoy he was the worst out of out of the classic era in my opinion.

[@YouTubeMrP]

You are SOOOOO wrong.

[@thomasjohnson8391]

Found a theory the Rani used the chameleon arch to become Jackie from absolutely fabulous.

[@joshuajoshua2732]

You thought this was clever writing 😂 it's atrocious writing as well as atrocious story.

[@hbomb6775]

Ass story