I think most of Time and the Rani is laughable, especially when the Doctor has just put on his 'new' clothes. The Rani then, slaps the Doctor and says "I'm sorry. But you seemed to be losing control."

Mel screaming at times during her time on DW became more and more irritable. It was over the top. Why JNT had Mel scream so much, is beyond me. What must have been going through his mind?

I also think that DW was skating on thin ice by 1987, when Sylvester came along, after Colin had been sacked. Sylvester having to put on a blonde, curly wig to try and look even remotely like the Sixth Doctor. That was funny to see!

You could see by the time Sylvester arrived in the show, that it was the beginning of the end for 'Classic Who', which is a shame! The stories wern't as good, most of the scripts were awful, and at times, in the cast list, there were 'B' list, or even 'C' list actors. There were a lot of people that the 'fans' hadn't heard of. I'd never heard of Mark Greenstreet before I firdt watched TATR on DVD. I was quite young in 1987, so I don't really remember seeing any DW back then.

I think this scene, is probably the best out of the whole Time and the Rani story. It looks as though it's been carefully thought out, going through the Doctor's past outfits, until he finds something the then 'current' Doctor is happy with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=470qN_j6C9s

I think there are only three really good stories during Sylvester McCoy's time on DW:
Battlefield, Remembrance of the Daleks and The Curse of Fenric.

I have to say, It wouldn't bother me in the slightest, if I never saw the other 7th Doctor stories ever again.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that JNT wanted him to play the role a bit over the top much against his wishes. I will always have a soft spot for Anthony Ainley's Master though. I wrote to Mr Ainley through the BBC Television Centre production office ( as an impressionable young fan) and he wrote back a very sweet handwritten letter which I hold onto dearly.

Its difficult to compare Delgado and Ainley. I haven’t seen all the stories Delgado did but he seems slightly more measured ,to have a thoughtful suave cunning. He seems to be of an equal with the 3rd Doctor. There seemed an acknowledgement of respect from the Doctor I thought when the master is imprisoned ( I think that is the Sea Devils story).

With Anthony Ainley I thought he played well with Tom Baker & Peter Davison’s Doctor ( first season) still an equal intelligence but a bigger ego and more malevolent personality probably due to losing all his regenerations previously. He did seem rather wasted from Kings Demons onwards being side-lined in the Mark of the Rani . It was only the last story Survival where Anthony Ainley was allowed to be more restrained we saw some light and shade again. He was a good actor when given the chance ( I liked his role as Tremas too)

I've always thought that the main problem with the dying days of 20th century Doctor Who was that people stopped taking it seriously.
That didn't particularly apply to the lead actors, but certainly did to many of the supporting actors, and I suspect to many of those involved behind the scenes as well.
The audience were definitely no longer encouraged to take it seriously either, the whole style of the presentation, with a few honourable exceptions, became pure pantomime.
One of my main dreads when the series was revived in 2005 was that it would return looking like that. Thankfully it didn't, and it was very obvious from the start (man-eating burping bins excepted!) that it was being taken seriously by all concerned. That's why we still have it now.

Technology has moved on quite a bit since the late 80s, and we now have better CGI, and better cameras. These days we also have high definition TV channels, which we didn't over 25 years ago. So the whole look of DW these days is much better.

Russell T. Davies explains in more detail, how he managed to revive DW in 2005, bringing the show back to Saturday evenings on BBC1, in this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-W.../dp/184607861X

I have got this book, and have had since it was published in Jan 2010. This is an updated paperback version of Russell's earlier book, "The Writer's Tale", which came out in 2008.

Time and the Rani is one of the worst serials of Doctor Who, but in order to judge it properly you need to understand what was going on with the programme at the time. Given the circumstances it has a lot more leeway than other bad episodes such as Time Flight, or The Twin Dilemma.

Oh, yes! That giant slug creature, Mestor! He looked very pantomime. You could see that it was a person in a suit.

http://stuartreviewsstuff.files.word...13/04/ttd2.jpg

You wouldn't have that nowadays. It would be more CGI based, just like the werewolf in Tooth and Claw.

http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8...sj5o1_1280.jpg

Point taken of course, but I didn't mean how it looked technically, of course that was better over 15 years on, but rather the whole style of the series at that time and the way it was presented.

The look of the show was pretty bad, even by the standards of the time.

Largely, I think it was budget constraints. In the 60s and 70s you could compare the look with other UK shows shot entirely on film and see how bad video plus filmed exteriors looks. By the 80s, you'd have to compare with US TV shows which were still shot entirely on film but transferred to (poor) video for post production.

What makes classic Who good when it's good is the imaginative stories.

I quite agree. It was dreadful stuff. And Ace was even worse; possibly the most embarrassing attempt at a "street" character I've ever seen. It was like watching the vicar's wife jiving at the school prom and thinking she was cool. It was a relief to fans like me of a certain age that the whole sorry saga was put out of our misery in 1989.

Sylvester McCoy's portrayal sullied the brand for me. I actually can't bring myself to watch any of his eps again.

The worst moment of Doctor Who for me is the crap known as "The Idiot's Lantern", an episode so excrutiatingly bad that I flatly refuse to watch it again.

It's really sad that both Anthony Ainley and Roger Delgado are not around anymore. Delgado died in the Summer of 1973, while Ainley died about ten years ago.

Both of them were good in their own way, playing the two incarnations differently, while still keeping the sinister and evilness that the Master had.

"Oh, my dear Doctor, you have been nieve!" I love this line. I think both Roger and Anthony have said that, but I prefer Anthony, when he says it.

I sometimes wonder if Delgado, had he not died, would have been cast in the Deadly Assassin and whether they would have gone down the decaying body route.

Its not as embarrassing as Alexei Sayle in Revelation of the daleks

That was bad but ALL the acting (apart from KOM) inTime and the Rani beats it imo!

Apparently, and I'm quoting wikipedia here, "The Master's story arc was to have ended in The Final Game, which was planned as the final story to feature Pertwee's Third Doctor, but the story was scrapped following Delgado's sudden death."

Read this for more details:

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Final_Game_(TV_story)

We weren't going to be having the Master in Doctor Who ever again, after this, but as Roger died, the production team re-thought the whole thing and introduced Geoffrey Beevers and so on.

Links to a blank page

Link just needs a small tweak:
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Final_Game_(TV_story)

You should watch this. This is even worse! It's embarassing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZy7vEWeTFY

I do like the musical beat though. <He said, cringing>

Aparently, this song got into the charts around 1982, maybe 1983, after it's use in The Young Ones TV series.

All this talk about the Master is really making me miss Delgado and Ainley. They were easily the best incarnations of the Master and they left us too soon.

If there ever had been a chance to have a Multi-Master story, I think saying anyone but Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley would just be wrong.

I suppose Alexei Sayle was meant to be anarchic but it makes me laugh that he doesn't endear himself yelling at the audience. He kills the song a bit.
He seemed a bit more held back in DW which was definitely a good thing

Late to the party here but yes it certainly has the appearance of one of the worst moments. That sort of acting, which would be pretty bad even in a pantomime, would simply never make it onto the screen in the new era.

Credit to the OP I think for the helpful reminder of just how awful McCoy was. I think a selection of these kind of clips ought really to put pay to the McCoy revisionism.

He was a big-ish name in the worlds of comedy at that time, what with The Young Ones and The Comic Strip Presents on Ch4.

I think they cast him to bring a bit of comedy to the show, and to lighten things up a bit. Didn't work, though. As soon as this story was finished, Michael Grade, and the BBC, pulled the plug on the show. 18 Months later, the Doctor was on trial.

It was Alexei's fault, the fat b@&!¥¥!

I love his Stuff series, but he wasn't great in Revelation...pretty bad 'death' acting.

Its unfair to put it on McCoys shoulders entirely! The production team must take the lions share imo.