I didn't think McCoy was "rubbish." My own humble opinion however flawed and lacking in taste and discernment it might be. I do not think any of the Doctors were rubbish, actually. I am not in denial, just have my own opinion ta very much.

I wonder what people think of Sylvester's Doctor, who have come to the show more recently. There are generations of people exploring C20th DW for the first time because of the shiny new stuff, and I wonder if they come to Sylvester's stories without any of the background noise, so see it with fresh eyes. I'd be interested to know if someone "new" can tell the difference between, say, The Talons of Weng Chiang and The Curse of Fenric, or between The Happiness Patrol and The Horns of Nimon.

Meanwhile: Kandyman detractors: is the Kandyman any worse a creation than the Mandrels or the Nimon or Erato?

The McCoy era has already been through the revisionist mill, and this was just a few years after transmission. A strange group of people proclaimed that stuff like Ghostlight was the best story ever, and that 'Cartmell's Master Plan' was the pinnacle of story and character development for the series - no accounting for taste I suppose.

I think in the grand scheme of things, stories like Greatest Show, Rememberance (even with the rice pudding) and probably Fenric, are pretty good stories in their own right. It's just that the McCoy era seems to be like the early attempts to launch a satellite into space. Sometimes, but only sometimes, it would soar into space, but not get to a very high orbit. Most of the time though, it would die in fire without getting 6 inches off the launch pad

Interesting point.
Thing is, the Kandyman was meant to look like he does, deliberately bizarre and unrealistic, if 'unrealistic' is the right word...
The Mandrels were meant to be scary, in the grand tradition of other scary Who monsters, but due to design ineptitude, lack of funds, and appalling direction they end up being comical and more than a little crap. The Nimon too - the original plan was that their rubbish bull heads were meant to be stylised masks, with something far scarier underneath - but with money being ever tighter this idea was dropped leaving us with the rubbish bull heads atop men in black stockings atop platform shoes. Just stupid and not at all threatening. And Erato...? I simply can't imagine what the designers were on when they came up with it... At no point during pre-production did no-one say, what the hell is that?

So I'd say that the Kandyman was a far better creation than the Nimon etc, because what we see is pretty much what we were intended to see. He's not scary in appearance; freaky, outlandish and weird yes, but not inherently scary. But his manner, and what he does, is repulsive and dark. The Mandrels are however unforgiveable tripe, lazy generic monsters from a mediocre production on autopilot. Conversely, on Happiness Patrol the production team was really trying hard to attempt something totally original. I still don't like Happiness Patrol as a story, or the Kandyman as a character, but that's my problem!

I was supposed to be joking in the previous post- about people not acknowledging it. The intention was to mark a contrast between the sensible bits of the post and the ridiculously partisan bits and to flip back and forwards between them to humorous effect. Clearly, I for one have no future as a scriptwriter. Apologies to anybody I offended.

Ah. Didn't read it that way, but definately wasn't offended! All opinion is interesting to me as a fan which is why I like this place. Said "lacking in taste and discernment" because another poster suggested that of all people who like Toby Whithouse's writing (which I generally do.) Wasn't offended by that either...all part of the cut and thrust of the interweb.

No worries from me either. It just sounded as if that what you were saying was that you thought McCoy was awful and everyone should do think that too. Sometimes the way things are worded can come out different than do but I've spoken to you on here before and you seem a reasonable person, so I wasn't offended either.

Ill still take it over alot of the new who tosh!

The candyman would of made a right evil character if done right.

And there I was just wondering when Clackers would deliver his latest incendiary post......

Well, after reading this thread, I ordered the DVD. God it took me back.
Anyway, I watched it over the weekend.

Just as good as I remember.
The 'Making Of' documentary is very, very good. Really informative.
Well worth watching IMO.

I have just taken great pleasure in giving The Happiness Patrol 10/10 in the DWM poll!

It's nice that Adams gave such a thoughtful response to my post about "crap monsters" ... thanks for that. While I'm here, I'd also like to mention the Nemesis Statue: Mrs Chuff and I watched Silly Nemesis (sorry, "Silver Nemesis") at the weekend, and thought the statue was quite spooky.

Realy ?

Got to second andy1231 there. The best I could possibly give anything from that era was "Well intentioned".

Compare it to something like 'Dalek' or 'The Doctor's Wife' and it starts to get really embarrassing very quickly.

On the subject of monsters though, got to say that the makeup effects generally during the McCoy era were way ahead of the series average. The dragon in Dragonfire was lit like a pantomime, but the monster itself wasn't half bad. The Tetraps, the Great One, the hemovores were all excellent creature designs and were all well executed - even if you compare them to indie cinema efforts of the time. Even Fifi was pretty good.

Agree with 1milescarf: the monster-makers worked their socks off in the McCoy years. Some really remarkable creature design ... not to mention the melting Kane.