1960s Doctor Who in Colour

Never noticed this thread last year but better late than never.

I watched the Daleks in colour last year, some of it looked decent, most of it the colours, especially the skin tones were all over the shop from pale n interesting, strictly tango, right up to Chernobyl red!

I found it weirdly distracting and what didn't help was that the story was condensed from 7 episodes at around 175 minutes to about 75 minutes!

Sixties tv was very differently paced to today's rapid intercutting frenzied edits , it could be glacial slow but you'd get to see characters developing over the length of a story, regulars as well as guest stars.

The editing done here seemed cack handed. The thing is Doctor Who particularly in the 70s had a long tradition of Xmas omnibus repeats, usually stories from the current Doctor. Often the original director would be invited to supervise the omnibus by removing the padding but keeping the essence of the story. The Daleks seemed to have been butchered, with very poor pacing. Anyway I watched this last year then wiped it from my mind.

Just noticed on YouTube that that they're going to colourise another black and white story this Xmas. It's the War Games from 1969, Patrick Troughton's last story as the Second Doctor. It also explained his origins and introduced his people, the Time Lords. Apologies if anyone has been spoiled by this, but you have had 55 years to watch it!!!

It was a ten part epic with lots of action in different time periods and a fair bit of padding, escaping only to get caught again. I recall there was originally going to be 2 stories, this and one called the Prison in Space, which got cancelled so they just made this a double length one.

Incidentally the scripts for the Prison in Space were rewritten and done as the Worm that Turned on the Two Ronnies!

Anyway the War Games featured Edward Bradshaw (Harold Meeker from Rentaghost!), Philip Madoc, James Bree and Vernon Dobtcheff amongst others. It was directed by David Maloney, one of the best Doctor Who directors, who produced Blake's 7 and Day of the Triffids.

The War Games is regarded by Who fans as especially important as a regeneration story and for the amount of mythos it added to the series. Big Spoiler ############################



At the end the Doctor is caught by the Time Lords and put on trial. He is made to regenerate and is exiled to Earth. Crucially the way the regeneration happens is he is projected onto a massive screen and his face is made to spin, as we fade to credits. So we never see Patrick Troughton regenerate into Jon Pertwee, it happens off screen. In the real world, there was considerable uncertainty as to whether Doctor Who would actually return for it's 7th season in 1970, hence the deliberate open ending.


Anyway it's now a central plank of RTDs rough riding over of the series established history that not only will this story be colourised, hacked to pieces in edit, but the big man will take it upon himself to include a regeneration scene that never happened.

When the series came back in 1970, we just saw Pertwee stumble from the TARDIS, in the second doctor's clothes, effectively introducing a new actor, in colour!

The War Games ' running time is about 240 minutes, we'll be getting 90 minutes in this version. The bit I've seen it looks like all the old mistakes of the Daleks are going to be repeated, with everyone getting a nice bloody permatan!!

The only similar situation I can compare this to is Laurel and Hardy I know some of their films were colourised, don't think it was done as devisively as this. Time will tell, it usually does!
 
Aba452 said:
Never noticed this thread last year but better late than never.

I watched the Daleks in colour last year, some of it looked decent, most of it the colours, especially the skin tones were all over the shop from pale n interesting, strictly tango, right up to Chernobyl red!

I found it weirdly distracting and what didn't help was that the story was condensed from 7 episodes at around 175 minutes to about 75 minutes!

Sixties tv was very differently paced to today's rapid intercutting frenzied edits , it could be glacial slow but you'd get to see characters developing over the length of a story, regulars as well as guest stars.

The editing done here seemed cack handed. The thing is Doctor Who particularly in the 70s had a long tradition of Xmas omnibus repeats, usually stories from the current Doctor. Often the original director would be invited to supervise the omnibus by removing the padding but keeping the essence of the story. The Daleks seemed to have been butchered, with very poor pacing. Anyway I watched this last year then wiped it from my mind.

Just noticed on YouTube that that they're going to colourise another black and white story this Xmas. It's the War Games from 1969, Patrick Troughton's last story as the Second Doctor. It also explained his origins and introduced his people, the Time Lords. Apologies if anyone has been spoiled by this, but you have had 55 years to watch it!!!

It was a ten part epic with lots of action in different time periods and a fair bit of padding, escaping only to get caught again. I recall there was originally going to be 2 stories, this and one called the Prison in Space, which got cancelled so they just made this a double length one.

Incidentally the scripts for the Prison in Space were rewritten and done as the Worm that Turned on the Two Ronnies!

Anyway the War Games featured Edward Bradshaw (Harold Meeker from Rentaghost!), Philip Madoc, James Bree and Vernon Dobtcheff amongst others. It was directed by David Maloney, one of the best Doctor Who directors, who produced Blake's 7 and Day of the Triffids.

The War Games is regarded by Who fans as especially important as a regeneration story and for the amount of mythos it added to the series. Big Spoiler ############################



At the end the Doctor is caught by the Time Lords and put on trial. He is made to regenerate and is exiled to Earth. Crucially the way the regeneration happens is he is projected onto a massive screen and his face is made to spin, as we fade to credits. So we never see Patrick Troughton regenerate into Jon Pertwee, it happens off screen. In the real world, there was considerable uncertainty as to whether Doctor Who would actually return for it's 7th season in 1970, hence the deliberate open ending.


Anyway it's now a central plank of RTDs rough riding over of the series established history that not only will this story be colourised, hacked to pieces in edit, but the big man will take it upon himself to include a regeneration scene that never happened.

When the series came back in 1970, we just saw Pertwee stumble from the TARDIS, in the second doctor's clothes, effectively introducing a new actor, in colour!

The War Games ' running time is about 240 minutes, we'll be getting 90 minutes in this version. The bit I've seen it looks like all the old mistakes of the Daleks are going to be repeated, with everyone getting a nice bloody permatan!!

The only similar situation I can compare this to is Laurel and Hardy I know some of their films were colourised, don't think it was done as devisively as this. Time will tell, it usually does!
Click to expand...
When all's said n done ...what did you really think of it?!?

:)
 
Think i started watching in around 1974, as Pertwee morphed into Tom Baker n that then to-be iconic lengthy scarf of his.

We only had Black n White at the time, so only remember it as such.
 
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