Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Episode 9: The Expedition

This week, Ganatus takes Barbara on a date through the murky swamps of Skaro.  Originally aired January 18, 1964.  Starring William Hartnell as the Doctor, directed by Christopher Barry.  Audio length: 46 mins 16 secs.

Stream - http://blip.tv/file/4092909
Download - http://blip.tv/file/get/Whonoobs-TheWhoNoobsEpisode9TheExpedition224.mp3

3 comments:

  1. A few comments (!) and one question(?)-

    !) What a charmingly original concept for a podcast! I love it! The vast majority of Who fans either have never watched the Hartnell era or, if they have, didn't come to it until their tastes were based on later eras of the show. I myself was introduced to Doctor Who in the 80s and the first time I watched a Hartnell serial was about 10 years ago. I just watched An Unearthly Child for first time 2 weeks ago! It's great to hear 2 completely fresh views on this era of my favorite show.

    !) Thank you for giving attention to proper pronounciation. For some reason every Canadian I've ever heard (even long-time Who fans) says DAY-lek or DAA-lek instead of DAH-lek. I've never understood this. If you've only ever seen it in print and never heard it pronounced, sure. But we are both watching the same program, right? Anyway, thanks for being conscious of it.

    !) If I were to offer a suggestion, maybe you could let a few more of the style/production "shortcomings" slide. As you have occasionally mentioned, this is a (1)very low budget (2)British (3)television sci-fi series made in (4)the early 60s (5)for a family audience (this means children first, adults second). What may, to a viewer in 2010, appear to be a lack of sophistication or poor execution is likely nothing of the sort. A little context can go a long way.

    ?) How do you plan to handle the missing episodes? Skip them or buy the audios (where available)?

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  2. Yeah, it's weird to know that most people seem to associate Doctor Who with either Tom Baker or the more recent actors. To us, William Hartnell IS the Doctor! And it's currently very difficult to imagine anyone else playing the role, especially someone younger!

    I'm not sure Kevin and I are still consistently pronouncing things correctly, but at least we're aware of it, haha.

    As for the "shortcomings," yes we're certainly aware of the production limitations as you pointed out, but part of the fun of watching old sci-fi TV is laughing at these things. We certainly don't mean to disrespect the show or its fans, because we do genuinely love the show in spite of its downfalls. My adolescence was spent enjoying shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000, as well as Phil Farrands' Nitpicker's Guides to Star Trek, so I'm used to taking a humourously critical approach to my favourite stories and dissecting the minutia of the production. And the thing with Doctor Who is that, for the most part, it IS a very well written and well produced show, so that makes the flubs and anomalies stand out even more.

    Kevin and I have both got the newly released "Lost TV episodes" CDs, plus some of the reconstructions, so we're definitely going to cover the missing episodes as we get to them. Otherwise, the flow of the story would be very confusing!

    Thanks for listening and we hope you continue to do so and continue to enjoy!

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  3. I will point out that this was not an extention of a four part story. This was what they had written and as you have covered it is a longer story.

    I am not insulted by what you are laughing at. There is one very bad special effect in a story years down the line that has me shaking my head. It was very poor and laughable but that is also the charm of this serial.

    I have to admit I feel bad at how you seem to think Ian is. You have, up to this point, noted several bad choices he made that never really registered in my mind. This just goes to show you what a fresh view unhindered by years of the show can do. Please continue this no matter how much those older fans of the show may grumble and make us try to explain away these incidents and perhaps we can have some rather lively debates.

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