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Recovered Stories - Do they live up to the hype?
Westy2
Posts: 14,525 Forum Member
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Dunno if there is a thread already for this, but I'll press on anyway.
Bought Web Of Fear today, bearing in mind it was portrayed over the years as one of the 'bee knees' stories.
I enjoyed it & it lived up to it's reputation.
Was there any recovered Who that didn't live up to it's reputation?
(Would like to see 'Enemy Of The World' too, but I never saw it in the shops by me. Besides WOF in the shop today, The Moonbase was out too!)
Bought Web Of Fear today, bearing in mind it was portrayed over the years as one of the 'bee knees' stories.
I enjoyed it & it lived up to it's reputation.
Was there any recovered Who that didn't live up to it's reputation?
(Would like to see 'Enemy Of The World' too, but I never saw it in the shops by me. Besides WOF in the shop today, The Moonbase was out too!)
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Those of us fans with long memories will remember the huge excitement surrounding the return of Tomb Of The Cybermen 20+ years ago. Everyone 'knew' that Tomb was the bees' knees, the dogs' whatsits and generally Lord God King of the Missing Stories. It was simply the best black and white story, atmospheric beyond belief, mahoosive Tombs, loadsa Cybs, just awesomeness cubed. Everyone knew that.
Then we saw it.
Now I'm not knocking Tomb at all. I love it. It's really not bad at all. It's a perfectly acceptable 60s Who story, there's some clunky moments, some dodgy effects, but no worse than usual, plus there are some cracking character moments, some cool shots of the Cybs waking up (although dodgily reversed when they go back to sleep again) and it's all fine.
It's just not the Ultimate Classic that we'd all imagined it was going to be. Not Tomb's fault at all - it was entirely our fault as our expectations were Way Too High.
I can see a similar thing happening with Marco Polo now - without any proof whatsoever that's it's even been found some people are labelling it a great lost classic and it's been touted as this epic of the early days. It's a cracking story for sure, but if we ever get to see it again, it'll probably look a bit small, studio bound and somewhat clunky and a lot of people will be slightly deflated by it, solely because it won't be as Epic and Amazing as they want it to be.
Probably true. When I imagine this story in my head listening to it on audio (as I did in its entirety on one very pleasant train journey) it really is an epic, colourful odyssey. It's doubtful that what they were able to come up with in Lime Grove Studios in the early 60s will really match my imagination of the story.
Nowadays, there are recons and soundtrack CDs, which help to give a flavour of what the missing stories are like.
I am a big fan of the soundtrack CDs, and had high hopes for Enemy of the World. I was right: it's really good. 7/10 for me to Enemy of the World. The soudntrack CD was already pointing me in this direction, and emphasised that the one episode that previously existed really is not reflective of the whole story.
Web CD is glorious, and the one existign episode was pretty good ... and the DVD is magnificent. 9/10, maybe?
Galaxy Four's recovered episode is great. Maaga's speech-to-camera. the Chumblies. All good stuff. I've long thought the soundtrack CD is rather good. A bit cliche and a bit gee-whiz, but fun and enjoyable. The newly recovered episode underlined that very nicely, and Maaga's Big Scene must be among the great "baddie" moments of all time.
there's no way that stuff like that would be remembered and translated down the years by the fans who saw it firt time round.
As for Marco Polo ... I have listened to the CD several times and am full of expectation that the DVD will be just as good. Intelligent, thoughtful, surprising, epic and expansive. Very memorable characters and settings. Excellent.
I've said it before and I'll say it again ... the soundtrack CDs are worth their weight in gold. They really do help bring the reputation of a story into proper perspective. The Highlanders? Boring. The Abominable Snowmen? Overlong. The Massacre? Gripping. Fury from the Deep? Scary.
And I can't wait to see some of these on DVD in order to check out whether I am right.
To me it's very much like going to see a movie you've heard a lot about & is basically over-hyped, where you eventually see it and feel let down a bit.
I'd like to turn this around the other way, and I'm wondering if there's some missing or partially missing stories that might actually turn out better than most current opinions of the story? Like Enemy of the World where I think the general consensus is the newly discovered 5 remaining episodes actually improves the perception of the quality of the story.
If I had to have a go here, my pick would be: "The Faceless Ones". Followed by "The Myth makers" as stories which might rate higher if ever completely found.
Do you know something we don't Chuff?!!!!
Anyway, I have yet to be disappointed by any of the recovered episodes. Galaxy Four's missing episode was a major improvement on the audio which came across as a bit dull but as I hadn't seen the episodes in telesnap form it was all the better as the sets weren't how I envisaged them in my mind.
The Underwater Menace Episode is also very good and as this is one of the weaker Troughton stories I'd say this story really needs to be seen as much as possible to make it enjoyable.
The Tomb Of The Cybermen, hadn't seen/heard it in any form before I watched it. I knew of it's reputation and I'd say it matched that perfectly.
The recent discoveries, both stories lived upto the hype. The Enemy Of the World I'm more grateful for as it allows us to see Troughton in all his acting glory as Salamander and The Web Of Fear was every bit as good as I imagined.
Enjoying it so far.
The Mythmakers is one of my favourite serials but I actually would be happy for it to remain lost. I think it works so brilliantly in audio that I can't help but think I wouldn't be as taken with the full version. You can listen to it and it's almost like it was actually written as an audio play.
Fury is a great one too. It's actually one of the few times I think they tried to really build a Doctor Who story around suspense and tension, rather than an obvious, badly realized on screen threat. Another I can think of that did something similar was the early episodes of the Silurians, where they held off showing them for a long time to build suspense... and then the ridiculous looking and sounding men come along in rubber suits. Imagine if they could have sustained that build-up. That is what Fury tried to do. They even had cliffhangers that were nothing more than ominous dialogue: "they're waiting... down there... in the dark." Awesome stuff. That sort of stuff draws me into the tension of the storyline much more than some manufactured 'peril' that you know will play out within the first 30 seconds of the next episode.
That is strangely suited to audio too, because it means we never have to see the no doubt silly looking seaweed entity. There are some really creepy scenes from it I'd love to see though, like the scene with Robson and Maggie walking out into the sea and the penultimate cliffhanger with Robson standing amidst the foam.
So, although I love both of those stories, neither are near the top of my list.
Having listened to The Myth Makers on audio only previously, I watched the story with telesnaps and I have to say it was very much an improvement. It came across as very wordy on audio(as is the case with The Massacre) but in both cases, putting a face to a name and seeing a bit of what the story was like helped make it a far better experience than simply listening to it.
As for Fury, as I said in a thread last week, not sure if seeing this story in full would improve it much for me. It just doesn't work for me as a story and is my least favourite out of Season 5.
Marco Polo I have seen with telesnaps, and what they managed to pull off in the confines of Lime Grove looked amazing in the stills.
I was very disappointed with the last DWM "stories of all time" poll a few years back: the Savages scored very, very low. At the time, the CD had been deleted (I had to scour long and hard to find a copy) and nobody could have see it in the UK since 1966, so i was startled that people vited it so low. On what basis?! I think it's because there are no monsters, and because Dodo is in it (and it is currently fashionable to criticise Dodo).
The story is actually very intelligent and thoughtful. The location work should be worth watching (the photos I have seen are decent), and it's a very strong story for Dodo. All of these aspects make it worth bringing to the fore a bit more. As it is, it is forgotten because of the bigger stories that surround it (War Machines, Gunfighters), and people vote it down based on its low profile.
I know that but with The Myth Makers there was enough visual references there in the Reconstruction I have to make it a decent story.
Totally agree, The Savages is right up there in my Top 5 Hartnell stories. A very underrated story and the incidental music is just superb. I'm not a Dodo Fan but this for me was her best story and she really got carried along with the emotional impact of the story and what was happening to The savages. Sometimes you wonder if she should have stayed with Steven considering what happened to her next story.....
I've seen the reconstructions of Marco Polo and I would love to see the story returned just to see what it has. Being studio bound probably helps the story to be atmospheric, especially with Susan and Barbara in the caves. The show was still experimenting then, so must be taken into account.
The Tomb Of The Cybermen - gets a 10 out of 10 from me. Definitely worth the hype.