Look, what a nice rabbit hole!

[auroracloud]

This morning I finished listening to the latest weekly episode of Radio Free Skaro (a Doctor Who podcast), and in the news segment they mentioned a thing called Box of Delights, which apparently is a children's fantasy series from the 1980s which is something of Big Thing and stars Patrick Troughton as one of the leads. (The reason they mentioned it on the podcast is that the soundtrack is being released.) I felt curious and looked up what this is, and oh dear, it really sounds like something I would love to watch, even if Patrick Troughton looks very different in it than he does in Doctor Who, and why have I never heard of this before anyway?

I looked it up on Zoom.co.uk (I recently found that website when I looked for a way to find Doctor Who things at a reasonable price without buying them from Amazon) and they have it, and then I clicked on the Patrick Troughton tag there... And it kindly gave me all the Patrick Troughton DVDs they have. In addition to much Doctor Who, there's also a bunch of other TV stuff he made over the decades, including a lot of historical adventures, and ooh, look, I could watch him in a Scarlet Pimpernel adaptation! And apparently he's been in some Count of Monte Cristo adaptation as well - hmm, I've managed to steer clear of Monte Cristo adaptations so far as I really like the book, I wonder if that will hold... And look at all these other adventures and historical dramas and such...

... Oh, what was that phrase about rabbit holes... Something about falling down them...

I should probably get recommendations.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

LOL! Go for it. Also, do you know liadt? They are also a Classic Who fan with a definite love of Two, and watches a lot of old British TV and is likely to have watched some of these, as they have watched a lot more of the swashbuckling serials of that kind & may be able to help. (One of them, I know, also has Roger Delgado, but not in the same episode.) (I don't know who's friended who in this storm of activity.)

The Box of Delights is good and much loved! swordznsorcery (my other main fellow Brit TV fan, and ditto v nice and into Classic Who too) sent me the DVDs the other year, and it is a nice one - a traditional pre-Christmas watch in some places.

If you've got a list, I can tell you if I've watched any of them. I've mostly caught him in odd episodes while watching other things, though. But I am here to support anyone falling down the rabbit hole of watching terrible yet awesome things in blurry b&w and beige colour TV. <3

[auroracloud]

Not yet as such, but I've had the feeling I should. Heck, I can barely keep track of who I have friended lately! :-D

Hmm, I clearly just need to get The Box of Delights. I've been feeling lately like I'm failing Christmas this year - I haven't even managed to put up an advent calendar on my wall yet and it's mid-December - so maybe that would help, if it happens to arrive in post before Christmas. And if not, I'm in mood for charming fantasy stories all year long.

The online shop I'm looking at has titles like Space: 1999 (I'm sure it won't feel dated at all), The Sword of Freedom, the Moonrake, (but he's towards the end of the cast list on the descriptions of those), the Count of Monte Cristo I mentioned in my post, and yes, it has Six Wives of Henry VIII that you mentioned in the other comment. Which sounds really interesting anyway. Isn't it what he started doing right after he stopped filming Doctor Who? It also has a 1956 Scarlet Pimpernel series, and I kind of love that story without having the sort of canon adoration I do for Monte Cristo so it would be safer to watch, but I just noticed it's sold out. Ah well, I'll keep an eye out for it.

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, I'm sure his Space: 1999 appearance is just a guest of the week (although I haven't yet seen that myself), so probably others like that are too. (It depends how into this you get. *hides mass of DVDs I have acquired for a guest of the week*)

I don't know about the old 1950s serials like that - Liadt does! - I hear that there's a francis Drake one that is unfortunately rubbish, though, and that, on Pat's CV, the 1980s Knights of God is not good, even though it should have been.

He guests in Adam Adamant Lives!, though, which is a fun one - it was what Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert did next. It was supposed to be kind of like ITV's Avengers, but it wasn't really. (It's about an OTT Edwardian gentleman adventurer who gets frozen by his nemesis in 1902 and defrosted in 1966 and teams up with a young swinging 60s DJ, Georgina Jones, to fight crime. Well, I say teams up, he spends the entire series telling Georgie this is NO PLACE FOR A DELICATE FEMALE and pulling faces on finding that she is right in the middle of everything again. It ought to be terrible but it's just ridiculous and charming and very cheering.)

His Thriller episode is fun, actually. I wouldn't buy the whole set because it is a massively long anthology, and he's mostly in the beginning and ending, but he's a drunken priest who battles Satan who is Diana Dors who wanders around Britain terrorising stray Americans. (The thing about Thriller that is funny is that it was one of the made on film for US networks British TV series, which means they have to have an American in it if they can. This is fine in most series. When your anthology series is a horror one, this means that Americans, fake Americans, and Canadians get murdered in the UK every other week by British character actors.) It's here on YT. (It isn't a scary one, just cheesy. I don't know if anyone even dies in it? Hmm, one person I think. Many DW serials are scarier!)

Um... did I mention babbling about old TV? sorry.

[auroracloud]

The summary for Space: 1999 helpfully contained a lot of info, so I learned that he played the villain in one of the episodes. If I know me, there is a big risk I'll eventually hunt down all sorts of things just for the guest of the week. But maybe I'll try to at least start with something bigger!

It's about an OTT Edwardian gentleman adventurer who gets frozen by his nemesis in 1902 and defrosted in 1966 and teams up with a young swinging 60s DJ, Georgina Jones, to fight crime. Well, I say teams up, he spends the entire series telling Georgie this is NO PLACE FOR A DELICATE FEMALE and pulling faces on finding that she is right in the middle of everything again.

Oh dear, this sounds terribly much like the sort of thing I would find very entertaining.

Unscary horror sounds like something I can watch. I'm terrible at actually scary horror (heck, when I first watched New Who S1, I couldn't proceed from The Empty Child for weeks though I'd loved every moment of it!). But I'm fond of the sort that isn't actually scary even for me. Like Gothic horror.

Don't worry, one of the reasons I actually wrote this post rather than just thinking about writing it was that I figured you at least would have things to say about it!

[thisbluespirit]

If I know me, there is a big risk I'll eventually hunt down all sorts of things just for the guest of the week. But maybe I'll try to at least start with something bigger!

That sounds reasonable! (on both counts, heh. :-D)

Oh dear, this sounds terribly much like the sort of thing I would find very entertaining.

swordznsorcery got me into it! I mean, it depends a lot, because Georgie is no Mrs Peel, just a plucky teenage DJ who sometimes helps and sometimes gets into trouble (but she's always unrepentant and determined to look after Mr Adamant, who is after all a nonagenarian with a tendency to believe in the goodness of women, even though he never meets a single lady who doesn't bash him over the head with something, or betray him, or shoot him). There's also Simms, an ex-music hall artist they pick up, who becomes Adam's manservant. He likes housework, keeping well out of danger, and delivering terrible limericks. So it's 60s and Edwardian and problematic but deliberately ridiculous and adorable and also has quite a bit of heart, so yes. I love it, as you can tell!!

I made a (non-spoilery) vid a while back, if you're okay with watching vids.

But I'm fond of the sort that isn't actually scary even for me. Like Gothic horror.

Gothic is a about my limit, too! I'm a complete horror wimp. The Troughton one is okay - most of the others aren't scary, either, but there were more skeevy 70s sex killers across the anthology than anyone would ever want to encounter! But there were a few supernatural ones which were fun, especially the one with Troughton which is entertaining and cheesy & has a good female lead and a very pretty male cast - it was my favourite (save for the equally cheesy but mundane one that had my particular favourite person in. he was murdering a lot of women, but not for sex, and he would rather have been reading classic lit. He did feel bad about it).

[auroracloud]

Thanks, I'll check out the vid at some point! It does sound very entertaining. And regarding problematic stuff, I do have a fondness for 19th century literature, so I've got a lot of experience of reinterpreting problematic stuff to fit my worldview somehow, heh.

and he would rather have been reading classic lit. He did feel bad about it

That sounds like my kind of murderer! Er, or something like it.

[thisbluespirit]

Actually, just do it! It's like being a brave explorer in TV and you will find some frights, but also some amazing things and following an actor round their IMBD is actually a pretty fun thing to do, especially when not so well, as I can testify. It gives you something new to watch, but with continuity and no obligation to like it and the "but it had [x] in it!" excuse. :-D

ETA: I'M SORRY. I'll stop spamming you now, I promise, but I remembered that I have seen him as a series regular in The Six Wives of Henry VIII and that is pretty good! It moves very slowly (classic/lit old TV is very slow and blocked out, much more so than stuff like DW) but is absolutely very awesome once you adjust. TRoughton is the Duke of Norfolk in it, so he features in several of the episodes (which are like a collection of six plays, one for each wife).

[auroracloud]

*nods* I'm a firm believer in the noble practice of finding new things to watch on the basis of "but it had [x] in it!" It has rarely led me astray before - well okay, it has, but usually in entertaining ways. And one could choose worse than Patrick Troughton for starting that kind of rabbit hole journeying.

And never apologize for spamming me about old TV, especially if there's Patrick Troughton in it. I maybe actually just ordered that along with The Box of Delights. Hey, I like history, and it would maybe make me learn more about the time period! My principal source on it so far has been The Other Boleyn Girl and all the reviews that said what was wrong with it historically, so improving on it should not be too hard :-D

[thisbluespirit]

And never apologize for spamming me about old TV,

Ha, you might soon change your mind, but I'm glad, considering the other comment I just left. I got distracted, though - he also was in the 1965 Sherlock Holmes,/I> for an ep, and that was a good one. (Roger Delgado is in one of the other episodes, briefly, not being evil! It's very strange when Roger Delgado isn't being evil.)

[auroracloud]

Ooh, that sounds fun - I like Sherlock Holmes adaptations, though I haven't actually watched many. I'll make a note to look that up.

I actually didn't see terribly much of Delgado's Master during the Twitch run - I didn't like the Third Doctor, so I didn't end up watching a lot of that era - so I'd probably manage to get my brain around him not being evil. Though he certainly was one of the most memorable people from the stuff I did watch. :-)

[thisbluespirit]

so I'd probably manage to get my brain around him not being evil. Though he certainly was one of the most memorable people from the stuff I did watch.

It's not so much that, as that he's always evil in everything! So finding a good Roger Delgado is a rare TV event! Bless him, because as the Master, you always want to believe him when he pretends to be good, even though that never ends well. THree isn't my favourite era, either, but they used to keep showing some of them when I was a teenager, and Roger Delgado is just marvellous & it was v sad about his death.

[auroracloud]

Some actors just get shoved into certain types of roles, don't they? (It reminds me of a Finnish actor from the 1950s and thereabouts, who was always getting cast in bad guy roles, and he told in an interview about how some girls who met him on the street turned and ran away. I'm sure that's happened to other actors like him...)

Yeah, I get the impression that the Third Doctor era is something that used to be shown a lot when people were young. I'm probably eventually going to give it a proper chance, because I recognize that the Twitch marathon wasn't exactly ideal - the week after I'd just fallen in love with Two era, and was sad it wasn't still Two era, was probably not the best timing considering how extremely different the eras are. I'll probably check out the Liz Shaw episodes at some point, anyway, because I didn't really see any of her, and I'd probably like her. But it would be fun to see more Delgado, since he's so iconic. :-D

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, season 7 with Liz and the Brig is very good! Long serials, but interesting ones, I think. It isn't my favourite, but when I say the BBC used to repeat them - they showed a handful of classic Who serials when I was a teenager in the 90s, 1 for each Doctor, but then they just did about four Pertwee serials and two more Tom Baker ones, and none of the others, and that was very frustrating! So I still have a grudge against Three for that. But we didn't get a lot of him, either. The main way to get Classic Who back then was just Target novelisations until the videos and DVDs became more available, and in the US, it tended to be Tom Baker that the local stations re-ran, not Jon Pertwee.

I think they're often popular with people because it's more grounded on Earth, with the UNIT 'family' of Three, Jo, the Brig, Mike and Benton, plus the Master turning up every other episode, so it's cosier and more formulaic, and there's some quite good character continuity & growth across the seasons & I can get that. I prefer the more experimental eras, though! But there is no denying that the UNIT family is pretty great at times. Roger Delgado always improves things, though!

[auroracloud]

I reckon Liz would be a companion I'd enjoy, and possibly I'd be able to tolerate Pertwee a little better with her. But in the Twitch marathon they ran right after the end of the Two era, of course, and I was still reeling from War Games and just couldn't, for the first few days.

But ugh, only mainly running Pertwee serials! I'd have a grudge against him in that case, too - though I already do simply for the way he played the Doctor (he's just so... patronizing and patriarchal and no fun, everything I don't look for in the Doctor, and I wasn't exactly impressed with Pertwee's acting skills). Yeah, I've heard about how much things revolved around the novelizations for most fans. Thank goodness for modern technology in that regard! I'm quite lucky coming into the fandom now. I don't know if they ever showed the Classic series in Finland. I have seen, in my local library in the 1990s, something that must have been the Finnish translation of "Doctor Who and the Autons". So maybe they did show some parts of the series at some point, but not when I was watching, I think I'd remember...

Heh, sounds like people like the Pertwee era for exactly the reasons I don't! I don't want earth-grounded stories, I want the Doctor to go around in time and space! I'm always complaining about the modern Who spending too much time in the 21st century Earth, too, and why are all the Companions from 21st century England... And I really disliked the UNIT setting. The UNIT are fine in small doses, but I even like the Brig better with any of the other Doctors. I just really dislike military settings, especially the old-timey sort where they're all men, and the script can mostly fit in just one female character who has more than three lines. And I couldn't stand Jo, she's such a bimbo. Having her as the only representative of the female sex in most stories made it worse, it felt like the show was purposefully disparaging my sex. Watching her with Three, after Zoe and all the other 60s companions I really liked, felt like having a used wet dishcloth thrown against my face. Repeatedly. So I wasn't exactly one for the "UNIT family", though of course I probably didn't get the same sense of family about it as someone who watched all the serials. I stopped when I no longer had Troughton to look forward to. :-P

Sorry, rant over. Three has the distinction of being the only Doctor to date that I don't like at all, and Jo the only companion... Some day I'll give that era a new chance, but it's not high on my list of priorities to watch. Hope I'm not offending anyone - I lack the childhood nostalgia many people have for that era, and it coming directly after the Two era in the marathon probably made its chances worse!

[thisbluespirit]

I lack the childhood nostalgia many people have for that era, and it coming directly after the Two era in the marathon probably made its chances worse!

I understand that you dislike it, but I don't think its popularity at this point is really due to childhood nostalgia! As I said, it really wasn't that available to most current DW fans at that age - generally people came in with one wave of New Who or the other and latched onto whichever Classic era they happened to prefer when they tried it. And no matter how unaccountable it seems, some people like Three! I hang around with an awful lot of them!

Jo is not Liz, and that step-down was undeniably sexist, but she's also not a bimbo - and an awful lot of her quirkiness is straight up Katy Manning herself, as you'll see if you catch any interviews or commentaries with her at any point.

Though I'm sure you will be delighted to see that whenever there is a multi-Doctor episode, Two and Three don't get on much, and bicker a lot!

[auroracloud]

No, I didn't mean it's the only reason, but I meant it may factor into it. And I know there are people who genuinely like Three, and they may even have good reasons for it - maybe I just haven't seen those episodes which bring out the good things about him, or for whatever reason X I'm not receptive to interpreting those things in the same way (I've really got a big problem with very patriarchal men of a certain type, so I might well have shut down to whatever else was there). Sorry if that came across as thinking people only like him for childhood nostalgia - I only meant to say I feel like that may be one thing that makes people predisposed to view him differently than I do. I don't know other Classic Who fans in RL, but I listen to a lot of podcasts, and there are several people among the podcasts I listen to who like the Third Doctor. And I do see people writing fics about him so they probably don't do it because they all hate him! Also he probably wouldn't have played the Doctor for so many years if he'd been totally unpopular. I slept crappily last night, so I'm probably wording myself all badly, and I apologize if I say anything bad as a result.

Also among the podcasts many people keep saying Jo is not stupid, but I can't help that every single time I tried to watch the stories with her and Three, she came across as really ditzy to me, in a way that made me really uncomfortable. And I genuinely went into it expecting to like her! I'd heard people praise her, and I wanted to like her. But I tried, and I just couldn't. Maybe there are stories where she's subtly intelligent underneath that flightiness, but I wish it came through enough that I had managed to pick up on it during the episodes I watched when I tried. As it was, it seemed to me that even when the script actually had her do something clever - I don't remember the details, but in The Three Doctors there was a point when she pointed out a solution while the men were busy bickering, and that should have been a good moment - she still came across to me as a ditz, in the way she said it etc. So I guess I just don't like Katy Manning's acting. The fandom seems to think she's nothing short of a goddess, so I may be excessively touchy about it...

I think a part of the problem is that the sort of humour that was going on with her is exactly the sort of humour that doesn't work for me. I was having really strong flashbacks to my childhood in the late 1980s and very early 1990s, and the kind of TV programmes people found funny then, and I'd just be "...but what are they laughing at? That was just annoying and boring!" I actually believed for some years that I somehow didn't have a sense of humour, and I was sad about it, but later it dawned to me that actually I just had a different sense of humour. (1980s Finland was a tad monocultural. It took me a while to be exposed to other sorts of humour that worked on me.) So, uh, anyway, I react a little strongly against that sort of humour because of personal history. Maybe there are other, better moments I didn't see. But I did try, only I didn't feel the show was giving me a reason to keep trying. :-( So I got back when the Fourth Doctor started, and from that on I liked everyone at least to some degree. (Well, I'm reserving judgement on Adric until I see more of him.)

But yes, I did find it utterly delightful in The Three Doctors when Two and Three bickered incessantly. It was very satisfying. :-)

[thisbluespirit]

But yes, I did find it utterly delightful in The Three Doctors when Two and Three bickered incessantly. It was very satisfying

LOL, good! And it's fine when things aren't to someone's taste, obviously, and I can totally get Katy Manning's style being alienating. It is a very particular thing! Jo's not my favourite, but I do have a fair amount of fondness for her, and some people - as you've obviously come across - adore her. Which is also annoying when you don't, but it takes all sorts. :-)

[cornerofmadness]

While I have no recs, I do have friends who'll be interested in that podcast so thanks.

[auroracloud]

I've been thinking of doing posts of podcast recommendation posts, because I've got a bunch, and I was thinking of starting with Doctor Who podcasts. So you may get more to rec for your friends. :-)

[cornerofmadness]

excellent

[rosefox]

And apparently he's been in some Count of Monte Cristo adaptation as well

HWAT

Must look this up posthaste!

[auroracloud]

I haven't yet dared to go to find out which role he played, because I'm afraid if I go to IMDB I'll never find my way out. He wasn't among the first names in the cast list, though, so it's probably not a big role. I'm sort of scared of Monte-Cristo adaptations, because I've only heard of bad ones, so I'm a little wary of trying any, but we'll see what happens in this case... :-)

[liadt]

If you want to look at lots of pics of Patrick Troughton in TV shows try hitting the tag on http://linaaaaaz.tumblr.com/ they became obsessed with him some years ago and watched everything in about three months. I think the links to vids are dead though:/

I found 'Francis Drake' dull, but some people like it. I suspect 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' is more of the same but Troughton is in it more!

[auroracloud]

Woo, thanks for the link, I'll check that out! Even if the links don't work, I can always see if I find the vids in new locations. Or just see what sounds like it's worth buying. :-)

I suspect 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' is more of the same but Troughton is in it more!

That is a point in its favour, at least! One of the things that struck me watching 60s Who was how much the way of making TV drama developed in just a few years - though I enjoyed the Hartnell era a lot, in the early stories I felt they hadn't yet figured out how TV drama should and could be different from theatre, and how to use the medium, so it was quite stilted sometimes. But already a few years later they were doing TV drama much more effectively. So it doesn't really surprise me if at least some of the 1950s drama ends up being boring, because the effect would probably be even greater!

[liadt]

Heh, well TV stays theatrical enough for a while yet, you get many of the actors going on about it on who commentaries. It's interesting how in the early 1980s bbc camera work became so static: a backward step. They made an effort with Age of Kings in 1960, static camera but they tried different shots, frequent close ups (cos it's on a small screen) n live special(oh yes!) effects while being v.v.v theatrical being Shakespeare. There is fun 50s TV like The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (William Russell) and The Buccaneers but they were kids tea time shows with action. Robin Hood isn't as fun which I put down to being too well written! Quatermass is also good can't remember how theatrical it was. A for Andromeda and sequel (1960/1) have a lot of talking even for then which I don't mind but shows it was written by someone who mostly did non fiction.

[spindle_ella]

Ahh, I remember Box of Delights! I remember it being good, but I was small; some other things have not withstood the test of time.