Full transcript of “A Quick Guide to Classic Who Season 8”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:05 [Music] CES know [Music] myology Treasures of History to be found the leg of all the [Music] only now before we begin I realized too
0:51 late that I should have mentioned this in the last video the black and white herea didn't spell the end of the destroyed episodes many early per stories were also destroyed we have copies of all of them but some of them are less than perfect when you see episodes with washed out color these are black and white copies the Doctor Who Restoration Team invented a new type of restoring where you scan black and white copies of color originals and recreate the original color pretty much this process was invented specially for these episodes so on to season 8 season 8 ran from the second of January to the 19th of June 1971 it's 25 episodes long and they're spread among five stories so the mix is a little better than last season the show was really settled into its new season length almost half as short as what Harel and trouin had to deal with
1:38 ironic that thus far the doctors tended to get fitter as the seasons got shorter anyway Liz Shaw was replaced between Seasons so she doesn't even get a for well scene and her replacement is the second of the four iconic classic Who companions Joe Grant Joe is probably the stupidest companion thus far except for dodo in some weird ways she set the scene for r later on she's thick blonde lasted for a long time and there's evidence that the doctor fell in love with her she's also much better than Rose I'm not a massive fan of her but dipping your head in lie is also better than Rose I'm really sorry about crapping on the new show I'm trying to be fair and neutral but this stuff just seeps out andway this season the regular cast grew to six with the introduction of Captain Yates and of course the
2:24 master the first recurring antagonistic Time Lord he's apparently not at all based on the war chief from the war games even though they're clearly the same character with different names because of the way character ownership was handled it's been suggested that they created their own takeoff of the Warchief rather than pay money to use the character again now I haven't seen any evidence of that but the master is clearly the war chief regardless of what they intended sure in books and stuff they develop the characters more but going from the TV show and the TV show alone they are more similar than many of the doctors are to each other so the master if you're only familiar with the John Sim Master then you have not seen the master you saw a riddler impersonator calling himself the master Roger Delgado is the real deal he's sve
3:11 charming and ruthless there are no [ __ ] drums here anyway on to the first Story Terror of the autons is four episodes long and it's the direct sequel to spearhead from space it's the last time the autons would turn up in the TV show until rose with Christopher eklon the master has arrived on Earth and plans to destroy the World by Awakening the nestin Consciousness creating autons and controlling them and afterwards partying with his plastic Pals who are fun to be with this story introduces lots of lightly redesigned stuff like the new unit uniforms which thankfully look less like space suits this season and a redesigned laboratory for the doctor it also introduced some funky new auton [ __ ] for the kids to get terrified of a
3:58 killer armchair a dog and worst of all plastic flowers that don't even come with any mind controll drugs are a fascist detergent company if that doesn't make any sense do yourself a favor and watch the Adam adant lives it's basically imagine if Verity Lambert had created the per era instead of the Harel now Terror of the autons is a bit like a pilot to per we Mark 2 I said that season 7 was a good jumping on point and I meant it but so is this and I'll get this over with now the master is in every story this season it's just one of those things that happens when you make your recurring villain a main character it's not really a bad thing because Roger Delgado is so good at it it just kind of destroys the mystery of who could that devilish man that looks a bit like Roger Delgado be
4:45 even if I didn't pay much attention I'd lay odds that it wasn't mavic Chen for the Del master plan the second story of the season is the six-part mind of evil now in the majority of stories unit's perview is pretty much protecting the Earth against alien invasions but in this they actually get involved in international Espionage it's weird I know whoever would have thought that a group called The United Nations intelligence task force would actually act like a task force in the area of intelligence involving several Nations who aren't really that United this story is about a machine that's been designed to cure criminality by removing negative impulses of course it can also make your fears come to life and kill you it's the usual your mind makes it real crap in a nice bit of continuity to Inferno the
5:30 doctor's fear is uncontrollable fire and the master is also attempting to Kickstart World War II by hijacking a missile to do this he releases his own private Army of prisoners and controls a high up Chinese Diplomat while the doctor is captured in a prison if you take chunks of this plot and rearrange it a bit you could have the story to The Dark Knight Rises now the doctor has been known to casually name drop figures from history that he knows and this doctor is no exception he mentions he met Sir Walter Raleigh but he also mentions in this that he was a good friend of Chairman Mao which is a bit more problematic I wonder if the 16th doctor will casually name drop that he was friends with Saddam Hussein anyway Story Three is the claw of axos this for parter is one of the L famous stories to be directly referenced to the new
6:17 series you and me all the things we've done axons remember the axons and the D ax ah yes remember the time we teamed up to defeat those things with the obsession with the color yellow the axons are a little bit weird a ship of there's lands and they offer a material called axinite which they say can pretty much do anything unfortunately they're all just parts of one larger axon being and the axite will just suck energy and crap from everything on Earth three stories three attempts to destroy the world the show is on a roll with the Master's help the doctor is finally able to fix his Tardis alas the time Lord's power goes beyond that of Simply breaking the Tardis now obviously the time Lords have programmed the Tardis always to return to
7:04 Earth it seems that I'm some kind of a galactic yo-yo one of the greatest final lines of any story ever I think you'll agree the axon's true form is one of the better looking aliens in this year of the show they look like man thing cross spread with Baron her Conan remember this stuff when you see the evil jelly molds in a few seasons time the fourth story is colony and space a story that began the time Lord's long dark path to utter witlessness which resulted in them forgetting that automated guns exist in the last day they have lost something called the Doomsday weapon and they have forgotten that they have a secret service and the capability to destroy absolutely [ __ ] anything because they figure the only man who can get a back for them is the doctor this is pere's
7:52 first off-world adventure and thus is the beginning of the end of the unit family and The Ensemble feel of the show though it'll be years before it's totally gone much of the distinctive per stuff like easy access to military equipment is gone here it's pretty much a generic sixpar in space with a moral about colonialism still even in the far future and Across the Universe the master manages to be behind everything I do like the name of the story though it's like they've been stuck on Earth for so long they feel the need to have space in the title in case we forgot it exists so from the least generic per we story thus far to the second least generic per story thus far the demons it took them eight seasons but Doctor Who is finally doing Satanism this is the last five parter and one of
8:38 the most beloved stories in the entire per era now stop me if you've heard this before demons are actually horn delens that have influenced human myth and how we see evil and uh yeah this is pretty much the Satan pit before the Satan pit was the Satan pit the master has a gang of cultists and has been summoning AAL the demon that influenced life on Earth in the way that the Satan pit said that the Beast did the master hopes that aelle will either give him control of the Earth or destroy it either one's a victory really also Roger Delgato was excellent taste in [Music]
9:25 music and this is the story where unit infamously took on a small Stone gargoyle played by a guy in a leotard sh for the wings there five rounds [Applause] rabid this is really not a story you want to check out if you can't handle less than Stellar special effects that applies to all classic who really but this in particular if however you like the original wicker man then you might like this it's got a very similar feel now I'm not saying that paganism and Satanism are the same thing but this story in part seems to think that they are season 8 is a lot like season 7 but it's a little bit more accessible the stories are shorter there's a bit more variety and the companion is back to being stupid in short it feels a little
10:12 bit more like Doctor Who than the last season did even if the last season was better than this one overused or not Roger Delgado was simply great as the master and the recurring characters give the show a sense of community that it never really had until this era and it wouldn't have again until 2005 join me next time for season 9 when someone other than the master will be the villain the ice Warriors will return and we'll see another [Music]
10:58 Atlantis
