Not-so-magic moments

[Jason Thompson]

With the 'Magic Moments' thread drawing successfully to the end (until the next series, anyway), I thought I'd court controversy by instigating its counterpart.

Now, as much as we love the show, we have to admit that even the best stories have moments that just don't quite work. Every Talons of Weng Chiang has its big fluffy rat. With the diversity of opinion present on this forum I have little doubt that we can cover the whole series.

So, which moments just didn't work for you? Which lines were delivered so poorly you thought you were watching a school play? Which effects made you involuntarily giggle? Which moments made you acutely aware that someone else was watching this show you rave about with you? Where did the set show through? It can be anything at all. Let's hear all your moments you wish hadn't happened.

So, to kick off:

An Unearthly Child

After the superb first episode and a marvellous scene at the start of part 2 of Ian and Barbara discovering they have travelled and dealing with that, the Doctor goes missing and Susan suddenly turns from an aloof, exotic teenager into a hysterical little girl who can't help falling over even when there's nothing to trip over.

[Andrew Curnow]

Now, as much as we love the show, we have to admit that even the best stories have moments that just don't quite work

Absolutely - indeed, that's all part of the fun!!

The Daleks - back in the 80s, Jeremy Bentham's excellent The Early Years included a picture of Raymond Cusick holding a lifesize cardboard cut-out of a Dalek. The text made some reference to them being used to make the Dalek numbers appear greater than they really were, in the first Dalek story. I naturally assumed that this was done subtly and cleverly, using camera angles, and careful positioning, to ensure the audience never realised.

Years later, when I got the video and watched it, come episode 5 (I think) and suddenly the three real Daleks are gliding around a room decorated with very, very obvious cardboard cut-outs. I've watched it many times since then, but alas even my disbelief can't be suspended THAT far!!

[Jon Masters]

The Edge of Destruction - when Susan tries to copy what she's seen on Changing Rooms by restyling a seat with just a pair of scissors. Any am dram society would be appalled at such 'drama'.

[Andrew Curnow]

when Susan tries to copy what she's seen on Changing Rooms

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Come on, somebody do Marco Polo then

[Andrew Curnow]

Maybe the not-so-magic moment was when they chucked all seven episodes away!

[Jason Thompson]

Marco Polo is a good pice of work, with some great performances and apparently good sets and costumes. For me the 'not-so-magic' part comes when Tegana rather stupidly changes his mind. He has a vial of poison that he intends to use on the water supply to kill everyone partway across the Gobi desert. Instead he decides to cut their gourds open and spill the water, which leaves them a faint chance of surviving long enough to find more water. OK, if condensation hadn't formed inside the TARDIS he'd likely have succeeded, but he had a foolproof system in place and tossed it out in favour of some other method.

[Andrew Curnow]

The Keys of Marinus, eh. What could possibly be wrong with that... I'll go with one of the obvious targets, which is that a rubber-suited creature with an aerial on his head is never going to look like an old man, what was Yartek thinking?!

[shada pavlova]

Well, it fooled me for a few minutes.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

With the 'Magic Moments' thread drawing successfully to the end (until the next series, anyway), I thought I'd court controversy by instigating its counterpart.

You missed a golden opportunity to call this thread "Tragic Moments"!

[Stuart Wallis]

I suppose this thread had to happen...

Much as I love The Aztecs, even i can find something wrong with it: namely the Perfect Victim turning up with his wooden acting and his Australian accent - considering that practically everyone else is speaking in BBC English, even Walter Randall's sounds more convincing under the circumstances.

[Jason Thompson]

There is, let's face it, a lot wrong with The Sensorites. The obviously small sets leading to the comical scene where the Sensorites steal the TARDIS lock while standing mere feet from everyone, Barbara and Susan walking past a cupboard with 'WATER' written on it in big letters while looking for water, the Sensorites standing on each other's feet, and so on. Sadly for this thread, many of these things fall into the 'so bad it's good' category. The really excruciating part for me comes just after Ian collapses, and the Doctor, Susan and the First Elder take ages to realise the blatantly obvious: that he was the only one to drink any water, and collapsed soon afterwards.

[Andrew Curnow]

The Reign of Terror... It's probably another case of something not living up to its hype, but the weak link in this one (for me) is the fact that the comic jailor (according to DWM in the old days) is just not funny. It's a bit like being told about the funny bits in Shakespeare, they just aren't. The comic jailor in TROTerror is actually just a bit rubbish, even seedy. So although I actually like the story, I don't like the jailor.

There, that's season 1 done!

[Stuart Wallis]

Eventually!

I agree about the jailer; he's actually coming onto Barbara in a very heavy-handed way (I was thinking about this recently in fact) and we're expected to laugh at it, and with Nero trying to get his way with her in The Romans in a few stories' time; and yet the trapper trying the same thing three stories previously was treated with the utmost seriousness! At least the Carry Ons ploughed the same furrough.

Back to the plot...

Planet Of Giants

Well it's not the greatest of Who stories. I was going to comment on Forrester's acting, then considered the pace being slow even after the removal of an entire episode. (I'd still like to know out of interest what was removed, even then.) I finally decided on the fudged get-out clause at the start of the last episode - where did the plug come from? eh?

[Andrew Curnow]

Where did the plug come from, eh... That's a good question, I'll have to sink about it!

Anyway, I'm going to leap in and bitch about Dalek Invasion of Earth. Most of it is superb, the opening episode is particularlys taut & exciting. But part 2 has the odd scene in the cell, with the Doctor & co escape - while a Dalek is clearly visible on the other side of the glass wall behind them. It's not just something made more obvious by DVD restoration, it was blatantly clear on the murky video of 1990, and it just irritates me. I have to assume it's not intentional, and it's just such a shame that a story which is generally so successful in being so ambitious, has such a big booboo in it.

[shada pavlova]

In The Rescue, I think the cave that the TARDIS lands in looks rather crap. When the light on the top flashes, it clearly illuminates the bland flats that the set is constructed of.

[Stuart Wallis]

I'm not fond of The Romans in any case; the Doctor, Barbara and Vicki are involved in a comedy story (which I don't find funny in any case), which sits uncomfortably with Ian having the worst time imaginable.

[Jason Thompson]

Which brings us to The Web Planet

There are almost too many to mention here, aren't there? Almost a whole thread could be devoted to what's wrong with this one. The Zarbi running into the camera, the ridiculous Optera, the Animus is utter crap, the ending is totally lacking in tension, and episode 1 is so dull Hartnell forgets half his lines.

But what of The Crusade? A classic historical with some all round great performances and dialogue. What could possibly be wrong with it?

[Dino]

The Crusade

Barbara can be kept quiet by just wrapping a cloth around the lower half of her face without tightening it... that's the best I could come up with for it which leads us onto...
How topical! The Space Museum!

[Stuart Wallis]

What's the first episode about?

[Andrew Curnow]

Which brings us to The Chase - narrowing that down to one no-so-magic moment isn't easy, but today I'll plump for the close-ups of the identical duplicate Doctor in part 5, where it's patently clear that the duplicate doesn't look anything like the Doctor. Frankly they could have put a long wig on Verity Lambert and it would have looked more like Billy!!

[Stuart Wallis]

We might even get this thread started by Christmas.

The Time Meddler

The rape seems an odd thing to do on a programme meant for a family audience. Indeed, Edith recovered so quickly from it, I just thought she'd been mugged til it was pointed out to me what had happened.

On a lighter note, the Swedish accents... Oh dear! If Benny and Bjorn were dead, they'd be turning in their graves!

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Galaxy Four/4

Despite the Chumblies being rubbish, I'm afraid I'm going to have to be all shallow and go with the fact that they didn't seem to find even one particularly attractive actress to play what were meant to be a party of incredibly beautiful women. They don't seem to have any problem these days. Were women just not as good looking back then?

[Stuart Wallis]

They probably couldn't afford Ursula Andress.

It's incredibly frustrating that I can't see anything wrong with Mission To The Unknown, except for the fact that I can't see it, along with everyone else of course. Although there is that publicity photo with the bizarre tall black alien which seems to vanish by Daleks' Masterplan - the one that's been described as looking like a Christmas tree.

[Jason Thompson]

For Mission to the Unknown we do have the awful bit of Dalek dialogue: 'Destroy and exterminate'. Not sure how you'd do one without the other....

The Myth Makers is also a difficult one, what with none of it being in the archives but the soundtrack. From what I can tell the dialogue is generally superb.