Doctor Who 1963-64 (Completed)

[aggro84]

The bats look really great. 
Actually some of the best I've seen. They are waaay better the the new EotD bat swarms.

Does a bat swarm need a facing triangle painted on its base though? 

[Steve F]

Does a bat swarm need a facing triangle painted on its base though? 

It just seemed .... incomplete without one, somehow!

The Masquerade bat swarms are brilliant models (and, thankfully, weren't dropped when Masq discontinued a lot of their fantasy models).  They can be assembled in lots of different ways, too.

[Mason]

Some amazing updates here, as usual, Steve!
 

It never ceases to amaze me, how much time and effort, never mind the imagination it must take, to put each of these episodes together.

Superb, sir.
Simply superb!

[stone-cold-lead]

Best thread I've seen for a while! 

[CyberAlien312]

I love all your Doctor Who figures, and although I've never actually seen "The Sensorites", I love those figures! Maybe I should watch it... is it a good one?

[Plynkes]

By way of consolation, here's a green tinted picture of some bats, as seen in "State of Decay".

Thanks, Steve. You're a star. So, no Adric, then... Oh well, every cloud has a silver lining, eh? 


(Sorry I only just popped by to thank you, I somehow missed that there were a bunch more posts on this one - I blame BT, my phone was out for a while so internet browsing was a little problematic for a bit.)

[Steve F]

I've never actually seen "The Sensorites" ... Maybe I should watch it... is it a good one?

I wouldn't recommend starting with it.  Even if you're acclimatised to the rhythm of 1960s TV, "The Sensorites" is very, very slow.  If you've not watched the Hartnells, my rule of thumb is that the historicals have stood up to the passage of time much better than the SF ones.  Even "The Daleks" runs out of puff after the first 3 episodes.  But the design work has a period charm, and I admire its ingenuity: at this point, no-one had decided that Doctor Who aliens were automatically "monsters", so they felt free to produce tubby, wispery-bearded old men with giant flat feet.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone.

[CyberAlien312]

Steve F, do you have plans to do figures of each episode of Doctor Who series 6 like you did with series 5? I would love to see such a project!

[Steve F]

Hi, Cyberalien.

Yes, I plan to do series 6.  I love the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe, even if the stories weren't the best ... 

But also the 2011 series, and that sooner.  Probably once I finish 1963-64, unless I get distracted.  In fact, I'm sure there was a conversion that I was working on earlier, but I can't seem to remember what it was.

(I find it easier and less confusing to use the broadcast years rather than the series numbers the BBC uses.  Quite apart from the duplication of numbers, their refusal to count the stories from "The Next Doctor" to "The End of Time" as a series is batty.  I'd love to just keep counting from series 26 [1989], but then I can never decide what to do about the 1996 TV movie - does it make sense to have a series of one?  So years it is.)

[Steve F]

"The Reign of Terror"
A Land of Fear / Guests of Madame Guillotine / A Change of Identity / The Tyrant of France / A Bargain of Necessity / Prisoners of Conciergerie

France, 1794.  In a farmhouse near Paris, the time travellers run across two fugitive aristocrats.



Jean-Pierre, a local farmboy, with Rouvray and D'Argenson.




Pursuing soldiers kill the aristocrats, capture Ian, Barbara and Susan, and leave the Doctor to die in the burning farmhouse.




The Doctor, rescued by Jean-Pierre, makes his way to Paris, delayed by an encounter with an overseer and his road gang of tax dodgers.




In Paris, the jailer locks up the other time travellers.  But his sinister, mysterious and, it has to be said, wooden boss, Citizen Lemaitre, realises that Ian has overheard the last words of a dying English spy, and allows him to escape in order to follow him.




Barbara and Susan are rescued on the way to the guillotine by Jules Renan and his associate Jean.  Also part of the escape group are Jules's sister Danielle and Léon Colbert.  One of them is a traitor.




A tailor provides the Doctor with the uniform of a provincial official, but then betrays him to the authorities.  Meanwhile a feverish Susan consults a physician, whose loyalties are also uncertain.




Despite the tailor's best efforts, the Doctor ingratiates himself with Robespierre.  But Paul Barrass and General Bonaparte are planning a coup.

[CyberAlien312]

Great work once again... I love 'em!

[Steve F]

Thanks, CyberAlien.

[Centaur_Seducer]

I love this thread, Steve!
Great work

[No Such Agency]

As usual

1) you're nuts

2) I envy your painting time

3) amazing!

The Aztecs are gorgeous, I love the vibrant colours and sheer detail.    It's a pity for the audience at the time that this series wasn't shot in colour, ass all those feathers etc. would have looked amazing.  The story sounds like it's the same formula (Bad guy and his henchman oppose good/less-bad guy and his plans, Doctor et al thrown in the middle) as a lot of other DW's but it's a good formula that has produced some good episodes.

As for the French, I sense you are lucky that so many of the stories were historicals.  Those are a nice selection of figures.

[Steve F]

Thanks, chaps.

No Such Agency, I think that "The Aztecs" was one of the more interesting historicals.  It is largely about Barbara's moral dilemma - she believes that if she can persuade the Aztecs to give up human sacrifice, she can improve and preserve their society - but all she ends up doing is destroying the faith of her only friend.  Similarly the Doctor's attempts to wheedle out information lead him into a genuinely affectionate relationship with a woman he must then betray and abandon.  And, ultimately, the baddie - that is to say, the man trying to defend his way of life (and, assuming he is sincere, make sure that his people are not punished by the gods) and who is smart enough to recognise Barbara as a liar and a fake - wins.  That sort of ambiguity wasn't common in 1960s Doctor Who.  "The Reign of Terror", for example, is much more of a romp through the clichés established by A Tale of Two Cities and The Scarlet Pimpernel.