OFF: Re: HW: Question for Dave regarding use of music for Dr. Who

M Holmes fofp at HOLYROOD.ED.AC.UK
Thu Jan 25 06:39:49 EST 2001


Arin Komins writes:

> :Not all the Doctors (they're reanimated after an actor leaves) were very
> :good at the style though. Troughton, Hartnell, Pertwee and Baker were a
> :lot better than some of the later guys. Paul McGann could have pulled it
> :off in the film though, but they trashed that by spending half of it on
> :setup and having the Master as the baddie rather than the Daleks or
> :Cybermen. An update of either of those is badly needed. The Borg are
> :just so much better dressed than the Cybermen and the Shadows are so
> :much more subtle than the Daleks. It's going to be very hard to top
> :Morden as an SF baddie.
>
> Yes, but not having good special effects normally reveals better
> acting.  American SF is really quite good for special effects,
> and rather horrible for anything else.
>
> Dr. Who isn't a good match for B5, as one was ostensibly a children's
> show, and one wasn't.  B7 and B5 are better matched, and I always
> preferred B7.  Then again, I like my heroes with more than one dimension.

I can't go with that 1-D thing.  Babylon 5 was very good in having good
guys that had faults (Delenn started the Minbari-Human war out of
revenge for a human mistake, G'Kar was simply a speciesist bastard until
his slow redemption, Garibaldi was an alcoholic, Vir did good mostly by
mistake, and Lennier crosses the line through jealousy of Sheridan) and
bad guys who were just trying to do their best by their own lights
(Londo wanted what was best for his planet and fell in with Morden who
was simply too clever for him - the rest is Londo's struggle to do some
good in the middle of the galaxywreck that he's causing while trying not
to let his own people suffer the fallout).

OK, the acting was often bad, but the main characters were rarely
plotted as one dimensional. I liked Blake's Seven, but they all acted as
if they were in a xmas pantomime.

FoFP



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