Warriors of the Deep

Strawberry Switchblade, you haven't ruined anything for me, as I agree this story is dreadful, I just don't agree with your harsh view of the Fifth Doctor, which I think is unwarranted and unfair,

Well, I stress again that I probably would have a lot more appreciation for the Fifth Doctor if not for this story's existence. He'd never be my favorite Doctor but he would lay claim to some of my favorite Doctor's moments in Earthshock, Enlightenment, Five Doctors and Caves. I'd also have one less reason to see his era as a half-complete irredentist one, or to particularly notice or dwell on the negatives.

The problem with Warriors of the Deep is it doesn't endear the viewer's respect for him, nor just take it for granted. It forces the viewer to either defer to him or dish back the same unforgiving, arrogant moral condemnation the character meets out to humanity here.

but I will admit that you certainly made me think about its moral failings over the years that I hadn't considered before, as they are largely overshadowed by the obvious production, continuity and direction faults that are so obvious on first viewing.

I seem to be the opposite. For me the production values and directing are more leaden than anything. The Myrka isn't even that shocking to me given the pantheon of rubber monsters elsewhere. But basically the leaden production only draws attention to the moral and intellectual bankruptcy. That there's no deeper meaning or potential other avenues to it. It's just so blatant that the recurring question in my mind of "are you for real?" concerning the Doctor's insane position and methodology is repeatedly overstated and never turned on its head.

I think Peter Davison gives a surprisingly strong performance here amid such a calamitous story, as I'm willing to forgive his Doctor for having a bad day at the office(so to speak!) whereas you cannot forgive him.

The problem is I don't think it can be just a bad day at the office. I feel I can only see his inaction here as something he's spitefully premeditated ever since 1970's The Silurians, and that retcons it so that every time since he's saved the planet from invasion he must've been seriously contemplating what he goes through with here. Refusing to save the humans just to spite them. That for me ruins every single Pertwee and Tom Baker story, and I just do not understand how anyone so incompetent and moronic ever had granted the creative authority to do that to the character against the masses of viewers who'd come to look up to this hero and had no desire to see him disgraced anymore than anyone ever watched Thunderbirds to see our heroes twiddle their thumbs on Tracey Island and fail to lift a finger whilst innocents are needlessly killed in a preventable ongoing disaster.

This was the only story he acted in such a bizarre, out-of-character manner, which is why I can overlook it, unlike the Sixth Doctor, who was awful from the get-go, and stayed that way.

The trouble for me is, if you put Colin's Doctor at his very *worst* into the events of Warriors of the Deep, he still wouldn't have let the massacre happen as Davison does. I see more of a future for the show with Colin's Doctor than I do with Warriors' Doctor.

Now I agree that Twin Dilemma does its retroactive damage to the character. When Pertwee in Frontier in Space hears that Jo is being placed in a state prison, and tells the Earth President that they have human rights to uphold that forbid them allowing her to be abused or mistreated.... yes, his violent abuse of Peri in Twin Dilemma has gone and made a hypocrite of him.

But even so, I can at least put it down to momentary mental instability on his part, and something genuinely out of the blue for him. Warriors, not so much.

Paul McGann IS the War Doctor in my fic
http://dalekwars.blogspot.co.uk/

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BS. I couldn't care less if Warriors of the Deep (or any other serial) gets bashed,

I can see that. You've spent more time in this thread whining about me than discussing the story or OP itself, bizarrely even before I joined the thread.

I don't have any special investment in it.

You claimed 'it has merit', which is laughable enough.

I'm just bored to tears with seeing the same rant being repeated so frequently.

There was no rant of mine in this thread at the point you started complaining about me. And it really does make you look like a petulant pissant to start by posting 'Thank God such-and-such isn't here posting that thing that annoys us which he hasn't here but I'm going to bring it up anyway?'

And that's even before you started quoting yourself talking about me as though desperate for claiming a statement of relevance from yourself, as if to say "see, I wasn't just making a big fuss about nothing when I made this post about him which no-one took any notice of".

So you're really in no position whatsoever to lecture me about showing considerate restraint or not making it all about me.

People can't even mention Warriors without you doing your Warriors rant.

Except when they can and you bring up my past rants anyway, it seems.

Even if you already did it recently.

Which as I recall I hadn't. I hadn't even joined the thread when you started bitching about a post I hadn't made yet.

It's like a Pavlovan reaction, or as if you're scared that people might like it if you aren't vigilant enough to put them right.

I will admit it troubles me on various moral levels that the story's insane dog whistle politics can be justified by the average fan who really should know better when it comes to quality thresholds.

In my case it's Genesis. But I make a conscious effort to resist going on and on about it because I don't want to be a crushing bore. Last time I did my Genesis rant was a long time ago, and it was because somebody had specifically asked me to explain why I don't like it.

Yes, yes, I see you're doing an admirable job here of not making it ALL ABOUT YOU.

Burun asked me why I criticised him for doing his Missy rant

And you say I'm like a dog with a bone? It's probably fair to say you won that argument and its not like whatever was bugging you about him is still an ongoing problem now, or indeed has been for what must be almost a year now, and yet here you are still moaning about him.

whereas I didn't criticise you for doing your rant. The reason was, you were nowhere near as bad as him, nowhere near as long winded and nowhere near as frequent.

Indeed at the time of your first posting in this thread I had posted a total of 00000 words on the topic in this particular thread. And infact most of my posts up till then had been on the Red Dwarf thread on the topic of a completely different show entirely.

Is that really too frequent for you?

Paul McGann IS the War Doctor in my fic
http://dalekwars.blogspot.co.uk/

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