Saturday 3 September 2011

Top 7... Punk & Nu-Ro Who

Well it seems as good a title as any for a set covering 1977-82, otherwise known as Seasons 15-19, or the Williams and early JN-T years...

It was another chat in which we had difficulty in all agreeing, with only one story in all our top 7s, but unlike the last poll this was because there were more than a dozen stories each of us liked, just not all to quite the same extent. In fact every one of the five seasons under review got at least one entry in the list. With regret, as we all liked them anyway, we rejected Black Orchid and the sublime Androids of Tara, leaving us with :-

1 City of Death (1979, M) - Can anyone join in on this conversation or do you need a certificate? Tom, Lalla, Douglas Adams and Paris. 'Nuff said?

2 Warriors' Gate (1981,T)I don't know what these levers do, but it's pointing in your direction...
The end of the E-Space trilogy, the end of an era, and a story with more quotable lines than possibly any other Who. Influenced by Cocteau - how many Tennant stories can boast that?

Horror of Fang Rock (1977,M) - Gentlemen, I've got news for you: This lighthouse is under attack and by tomorrow morning we might all be dead. Anyone interested? Pure scares, deaths a-plenty and almost a trip back to the Troughton days with the scientific research base replaced by a lighthouse under siege.

4 State of Decay (1980, D) - Do you know, it just occurs to me there are vampire legends on almost every inhabited planet. Vampires in E-Space. As with WG, even Adric wasn't bad in this one...

5 Kinda (1982, T) - It is the Mara who now turn the wheel. It is the Mara who dance to the music of our despair. Our suffering is the Mara's delight. Our madness - the Maras' meat and drink. And now he has returned. The only Davison story to make it - forget the rubber snake and revel in the psychological drama played out largely in Tegan's head, but reflected in the entire world.

6 The Pirate Planet (1978, M) - I’ll never be cruel to an electron in a particle accelerator again! Douglas Adams' debut TV script. Notable for the battle to the death between a robot dog and a robot parrot .

7 Nightmare of Eden (1979, T) - My arms! My legs! My... everything! Ostensibly written by Who stalwart Bob Baker, this has more than a touch of S17 script editor D Adams about it. For my money, the most underrated Tom Baker story of the lot...

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