Andrew Hodson

@TobyHadoke @huw_dennis I'm completely aware that you know everything I know and didn't imagine otherwise. More directionlessly infodumped on something no one asked me to explain, as is my irritating tendency. I'm annoyed at me too. Sorry for being a twat.

@TobyHadoke @huw_dennis I'm sorry to have contributed to this recurring annoyance. I also just want to share information I find interesting. But it's a fine line to sounding like a condescending prick and I have barged right over it, not for the first time.

With all this Eastenders anniversary talk I suppose I should share my favourite fact about the show: Dead Reg Cox, the body found in the very first scene of Eastenders, was played by Johnny Clayton who was the spiky faced Delegate in Doctor Who’s Mission to the Unknown.

@TobyHadoke @huw_dennis In the end it was *almost* consistent. The idea that it's impossible to understand is overblown. If you pair each Mission one with the most similar looking DMP one, all the names stay the same except that Trantis and Celation swap places.

@TobyHadoke @huw_dennis So making Mission didn't organically teach people the name/costume associations; there'd been a five week gap, recasting and redesigns of varying severity, and viewers had no clue what the original pairings were. Zero motivation to put effort into consistency with Mission.

@tarkinlego @frombwtocolor That's pretty much all that you could honestly call 'pop music'. There's hundreds of pre existing tracks used in classic Who, but nearly all are library music or classical music.

@tarkinlego @frombwtocolor Revelation of the Daleks and Delta and the Bannerman both have lots of pop songs - mostly covers, but a few were the original. When they play an old record on screen it's usually genuine pop music from that era (eg Black Orchid)

Was there any reason as to how Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" turned up in "Spearhead From Space? Did someone just leave the radio on while they were filming? Did it accidentally get caught in the audio mix somehow?

@Fahrenfew @josh_snares K

At no point have I said that 'people didn't know better in the past'. I will say that when it came to 'Doctor Who', people didn't expect anything better in the 1970s. ITV's 'Space 1999' was very popular around that time, and showed audiences how good a British TV show's visual effects could be with the right budget, but audiences were more forgiving of the lower production standards from 'Dear Old Auntie Beeb'. 'Doctor Who' was aimed at a family audience, collectively gathered around a TV set at teatime. It was, for a majority of the 9.5 million households that watched it, disposable entertainment to be enjoyed once, and then pretty much forgotten about 'til next week. The show had fans, and even devotees like myself, but 'Doctor Who' fandom wasn't really a thing; Marvel UK's Doctor Who weekly was selling 140,000 issues a week on average (almost exclusively to children), The DWAS had roughly 1000 members, and fanzine creators expected to sell a hundred copies of their publication at best. We didn't have the internet, and many homes didn't even have a telephone, so fandom wasn't the sprawling international echo chamber that it is today. But by all means, base your second-hand views on comments made by others in the 1990s, at least twelve years after the fact (most often by fans critically watching VHS bootlegs off Austrilia's ABC channel) if that's all you have. And, of course, throw insults accusing me of 'condescendingly explaining a POV that never existed' or using 'a hoary old cliche' if you feel that's the most appropriate way to take my personal experiences, thoughts and opinions into consideration. And no one bitched about 'Underworld' when it was broadcast on BBC1 in 1978.

I cannot believe this was once broadcast on BBC1, Jesus Christ! 💀

@frombwtocolor The bits that show dolls being made in close up are stock footage from a 1963 Pathe film. It probably didn't come with clean audio, and that might have led to the choice to have a 'radio' playing

@frombwtocolor Electric Banana in The Green Death also

@frombwtocolor It's on purpose. There are a few other examples of contemporary pop songs for just a few seconds around this time. The Piglets in The Sea Devils, King Crimson in The Mind of Evil. There was also one in Colony in Space but the whole scene got cut for time

@2hrTV @frombwtocolor True, but in a different episode. Colony in Space 2, when the Dr watches propoganda videos. One of them was to have 'Tank' as its soundtrack. But they cut this scene for time, and Tank never made it to screen

@frombwtocolor If I remember correctly, it was nearly Tank by Emerson, Lake and Palmer youtu.be/9c9KvU6cE6E?si…

@Fahrenfew @josh_snares Every other person involved in Underworld has been consistently negative about it since the earliest interviews. The fan reviews available to me admittedly start later than I'd thought. Earliest I've got is 1990 where 'it looked like crap' is presented as an accepted premise.

@Fahrenfew @josh_snares Then your choice to frame it as a hoary old cliche of 'people didn't know better in the past' was very strange. Looking at old interviews, It is true that Williams took a more balanced/positive view, though he does still acknowledge it as having failed.

@abradleystocks @josh_snares It's because this didn't happen out of artistic desire; it happened due to budget catastrophe. They couldn't afford sets so it was this or abandon a story that was well into production

@josh_snares You really would think, if we're going to do a mostly green screened production you'd take the opportunity to do something a bit more visually interesting and alien that you normally couldn't achieve with sets... instead, its some brown caves 🫥

@Fahrenfew @josh_snares Books and magazines published very early in the 80s refer to this story's established reputation as a failed experiment that looked like crap. You are condescendingly explaining a POV that never existed.

@Fahrenfew @josh_snares This story was made at the exact time Doctor Who made its all time greatest sales. They were explicitly aware that it was going to sold to ~100 US stations who'd each air it several times. Australia also started its decade of non stop repeats about now.

@David_Kitchen_ @Prof_Quiteamess @theDWshow youtube.com/watch?v=ROkdh0…

🎄JOY TO THE WORLD🎄 Our hot take on the new #DoctorWho Christmas Special is now live! Stream it from our website: thedwshow.net/2024/12/26/hot… or open your podcatcher of choice and we'll be there! What did YOU think of the episode, dear listener?

@Prof_Quiteamess @David_Kitchen_ @theDWshow I'm in if we canonise Gia Kelly's Mum being a Play School presenter. (Louise Pago has a cameo doing this in Australian fantasy series Spellbinder).

@CleverPrime @David_Kitchen_ @theDWshow I'll abruptly start strongly supporting any methodology that makes Gia Kelly count.

@Prof_Quiteamess @David_Kitchen_ @theDWshow Behold, a companion!

@David_Kitchen_ @theDWshow I'm more out-of-Universe in my definitions... if there's a press release, they count!