Moderator's Note: This is Mike's original Pertwee summary:
Doctor Who finally succumbs to the action hero virus, and we get a Pow!Bang!Zowie! Time Lord. Thankfully, Pertwee's comedic background allowed him to deliver the technobabble with panache, and he looked great in his velvet jacket.
I'm not bothered so much by the action-hero aspect of Pertwee, as by him as an establishment figure. The irreverent rebel Doctor, part of a secret military organisation? Being bossed around by civil servants? Being the Brigadier's inferior? Ugg. (Though I realise this wasn't really the Doctor's fault, and I do love Pertwee and his frilly shirts.)
I think the 3rd Doctor didn't have much choice. He was stuck on 20th Century Earth, and did feel some friendship for the stuffy old Brig. He did always try to shake up the old fellow, as well as the establishment, but seeing as he was (quite literally) an illegal alien, there was only so much he could do.
Well, remember when he met the MP in "Invasion of the Dinosaurs"? First words out of his mouth were how happy he was to meet someone doing something about the environment. I realize the MP was the bad guy, but he was definitely anti-establishment.
I got the impression that the scriptwriters were trying a bit too hard to maintain the Doctor's anti-establishment credentials, by having a series of ghastly civil servants for him to have rows with, by having the Brigadier always insisting on blowing things up (and usually failing), and - gosh, how revolutionary - by his refusal to have dinner with the Queen!
I was also shocked by Pertwee's repeated returns to UNIT after he'd regained his freedom. There was obviously something about top-secret military organisations that he found irresistable.
Call me sentimental, but I think it's because his friends were there. The Doctor might have bickered with the Brig, but they were still great friends nevertheless.
Of course, once he regenerated, the number of visits to UNIT dropped off quickly.
Wait a minute, let's think about this. After the Doctor was un-exiled in "The Three Doctors", Pertwee only made 4 trips back to UNIT: The Green Death, The Time Warrior, Invasion of the Dinosaurs, and Planet of the Spiders. He was returning Jo in TGD, he was investigating temporaral anomolies in TTW, and he was returning Sarah Jane in IOFTD. Only in POTS was he hanging about UNIT for no good reason.
The 4th Doctor had only 4 UNIT stories as well: Robot, Terror of the Zygons, Android Invasion, and Seeds of Doom. The TARDIS brought him back for Robot, he came back on request of the Brig for TOTZ, he came back with the Kraal in Android Invasion, and he was only slightly involved with UNIT in SOD.
All the other post-4th Doctor UNIT visits were accidental, except perhaps for "Battlefield." Oh, and the 2nd Doctor's visit in "The Five Doctors", but that was just a social call.
The Doctor had old friends all over the place - Troy, Terminus, Croydon, the Space Wheel, the Amazon, E-Space...you name it. How many of those did he bother popping back to see, over the years? Did he say hello to Leela on his many trips home to Gallifrey? (Well...according to Lungbarrow he did at least leave her notes apologising for not seeing her.) Did he even drop in on his dear old friends Ian and Barbara whilst he was stuck on Earth all those years? Not if Face of the Enemy is anything to go by.
I'll agree with you over Green Death and Zygons, but in the Time Warrior the Doctor seemed to be living quite happily on Earth - there was no indication that he'd just returned to deal with the temporal anomolies. I also don't accept that Dinosaurs was just a matter of returning Sarah - unlike certain other companions I could mention, she wasn't demanding to go home, and she quite happily went off with him at the end. In the Android Invasion they were intending to visit UNIT: having accidentally dropped them on the wrong planet, the TARDIS departed on her original co-ordinates and landed at the Space Centre full of UNIT personnel. And the Seeds of Doom had quite a lot of UNIT stuff in it - it's just that the Brigadier was in Geneva.
About Planet of the Spiders - isn't it interesting that the TARDIS brought him to UNIT HQ for his Pertwee/Baker regeneration? If she's so clever, why not Gallifrey, where the Doctor could get decent medical attention? Because he thought of UNIT as home - 'the TARDIS brought me home' if memory serves correctly.
You are correct; that's exactly what Pertwee said before keeling over.
I guess I'm remembering the novelization of "The Time Warrior." The author described the Doctor as irritable and going on short jaunts in preparation for a permanent departure. It also mentions that the Brig kept trying to find why to keep the Doctor around (as he did in "Robot").
I'm not sure exactly why the Doctor brought Sarah Jane back in "Invasion of the Dinosaur." My copy is the version missing episode 1. I sort of remember the novelization saying that the Doctor was returning SJ, but I'm not sure.
I thought the TARDIS landing at the beginning of The Android Invasion was an accident, and the Doctor was surprised to find himself on (faux) Earth.
I guess I'm going to have to do some research.
And just for my two bobs' worth: weren't the Doctor and Sarah Jane trying to get back to UNIT HQ at the start of Pyramids Of Mars but just ended up in the wrong year, 1911?
Also correct. However, you could consider that it was part of the trip interrupted again in "The Android Invasion." In "Pyriamids", they got the date wrong, in "Invasion", they got the location wrong.
Does anyone on this board remember WHO IS THE DOCTOR? I'm referring to Jon Pertwee's song from 1972. If you want to hear a mono real audio version of this song (possibly the version that I'd posted to one of these newsgroups 2 years ago), please visit http://www.britannia.org/drwho/iamthedr.shtml. However, If you want to hear a 56kbit, 22050Hz stereo MP3 version, which I'd submitted to someone else's FTP site last year, please copy and paste on this link: ftp://nitro9.earth.uni.edu/pub/doctor/sounds/mp3/WHO_IS_THE_DOCTOR.MP3.
I'd originally posted my version of this song because both Mr. Pertwee and Mr. Grainer are dead, and the song is out of print. Therefore, this song seems to be "fair use." Although I'd like to copy and post some more rare songs, I won't without the permission of the artists if they're still alive. This song is copyrighted by [Earl Music Ltd.] for almost another half a century, according to what I'd read. It was originally released on a Purple Record [PUR 111]. My recording is from the 1980's BBC reissue [BBC 453]. Andrew S Harris, please download my version of the song [961 KB], and use Cool Edit to convert my mp3 version of the song to Real audio. You may get the program and a RealMedia G2 plugin from http://www.syntrillium.com/cooledit/index.html. Then, please visit http://support.syntrillium.com/mpeg.htm to download the mp3 filter. This song may also be played with the RealPlayer G2, Winamp, and the Windows Media Player.
I think Pertwee's Who Is The Doctor is also used over the closing credits of More Than 30 Years In The TARDIS.
New to this site, hello all.
In regards to the TARDIS returning the Doctor to UNIT HQ rather than Gallifrey for medical attention for the Pertwee/Baker regeneration, there are two possible reasons for this:
1 The Doctor had just left Earth and the TARDIS made a return trip as being the simplest destination, maybe there there is a button for Return trips.
2 or more interestingly in the TARDIS's favour, she knew that the Doctor spent most of his time staying away from Gallifrey and picked a suitable place where he could good-enough medical care without having to worry about getting his Type 40 confiscated.
1. If the Doctor pressed the return trip button (assuming such a thing existed), the TARDIS wouldn't have been lost in the Vortex before bringing him to Earth (lost for TEN YEARS, if we can believe Love and War).
2. I doubt the TARDIS would be thinking that clearly. She's a bit thick, judging by Edge of Destruction. In any case, she's telepathically linked to the Doctor, and as he's in such a bad shape, she would be too.
Even when sentencing the Second Doctor to death plus exile, Gallifrey didn't deprive him of his precious Type 40. And by Planet of Spiders, he'd been given official permission to roam the universe again.
And finally, I wouldn't regard Harry Sullivan as providing good enough medical care for a sick dog, let alone a Time Lord.
Wasn't he given official permission to roam the Universe again at the end of The Three Doctors?
Well, it's been awhile since I did that post.
Anyhoo,
1. Little confused about the Love and War reference. Is it one of those novels? From the televised episode it looked apparent he went straight back to Earth. I would hope the Tardis wouldn't be fooling around in Vortex during a regeneration.
2. I am not sure you can equate the Tardis intelligence to that of a timelord or a human. Too much anthropormorphicism (whew, that is a twenty dollar word). However, I agree that with the telepathic link she may not have been as good a shape as she normally is. Good point.
True the timelords gave him back his Tardis and eventually let him use it, but, later on in the Deadly Assasin it is confiscated and he is treated as a criminal right off the bat, before even knowing who he is. Come to think of it, whenever the timelords weren't forgetting who the Doctor is, they were treating him, at best, as a suspicious person.
As far as Harry goes, I personally didn't like him, but I don't believe he was required to show but the bare minimum of medical skills in the show. For all we know he could have been an excellent neurosurgeon (more likely a GP, considering UNIT's budget). I know some excellent physicians who were complete jerks or were devoid of personality. I would rather have one of them treating my sick dog than some likable guy who hasn't a clue where the uvula is (in the throat, by the way).
Is Jon Pertwee any relation to Bill Pertwee, who I know best as having been on the BBC radio show Round the Horne?
Luiner:
1. When the Doctor staggered out of the TARDIS at the end of PotS, he said something about being lost in the Vortex, but the TARDIS brought him home. Paul Cornell, out of sheer sadism, claimed in the New Adventure Love and War that he was lying in the TARDIS dying of radiation for TEN YEARS.
2. We have it on the best authority that HARRY SULLIVAN IS AN IMBECILE! However, I get your point.
I agree that the Time Lords treated the Doctor pretty badly in Deadly Assassin (and Arc of Infinity, and Trial of a Time Lord...) but at the end of PotS the Doctor, and the TARDIS, had no reason to doubt their welcome home - they had been fully pardoned and had saved Gallifrey from destruction. I seem to remember the Doctor being a little surprised, and miffed, at his less-than-ecstatic welcome in Deadly Assassin.
Jon Pertwee and Bill Pertwee are cousins.
The beginning of this post can be found in Your first time in the Ask the Matrix section.
This incarnation of the Doctor managed to successfully combine the best qualities of the two previous incarnations, while softening the worst. He was interested in people but used greater discretion in dealing with them.
A middle-aged man, he was a commanding figure with curly, silver hair, luxuriant sideburns, and a firm jutting jaw. He was flamboyant in dress and personality, wearing a Victorian-style velvet smoking jacket and a flowing black cape. Warm and outgoing, he was also serenely confident and capable. Though fond of heroic gestures, his affection and regard for his Companions was obvious.
He was an expert engineer, able to completely disassemble the TARDIS and reassemble it again, making it into a precision machine that functioned perfectly- this despite the fact that the Time Lords, as part of his punishment, had taken away a vital part of the TARDIS and also his memory of how to fix it.He rarely used the TARDIS, however, preferring instead to travel around in either an antique yellow roadster named Bessie or in the Whomobile (The Whomobile? How about the Whocopter, or the Whowing, or the Whoboat? G.L.), a vehicle of his own design.
One of the major factors in the Doctor's personality at this point was his bitterness toward the Time Lords because of the forced regeneration, a bitterness that is passed on to future incarnations. He also became disenchanted with certain humans, particularly after the destruction of the Silurians by UNIT.
Most of this incarnation's one hundred and twenty-five years was based on Earth during its twentieth century. He accepted a position as a science advisor to the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT) and, over a period of years, helped defeat a number of enemies.The Master returned as well, making at least eight separate attempts to either kill the Doctor or destroy the Earth. Though the Doctor was able to prevent these (Naturally. G.L.), he was never able to capture his wiley nemesis.
The Inner Council eventually pardoned the Doctor, but only after he had defeated an attempt to destroy the universe made by Omega, the Time Lord pioneer. Having been trapped in an antimatter universe, Omega began using a black hole to begin draining Gallifrey's energy in a desperate effort to return to his own universe. When it became clear to him that he could never escape, Omega decided to drain the entire universe of energy.
Using its last power reserves, the Inner Council broke its cardinal rule and brought all three of the Doctor's incarnations together to defeat Omega- which the Doctors accomplished by using the Second Doctor's recorder. By tricking Omega into touching this positive-matter artifact, they triggered an explosion that turned Omega into a supernova.
Though he had been pardoned, the Doctor could never bring himself to forgive the Inner Council for what it had done to him. He continued to assist humans and was mortally wounded in a rebellion of human slaves against a race of giant spiders on the planet Metebelis 3. Dying, the Doctor returned to Earth where a Time Lord who had been incarnated as a Tibetan monk was able to accelerate his regeneration.
STR 10 (IV), END 10 (IV), DEX 10 (IV), CHA 15 (V), MNT 21 (VI), ITN 21 (VI)
Race: Gallifreyan
Sex: Male
Height: Tall
Build: Average
Looks: Striking
Apparent Age: Middle-aged Adult
Has anyone heard if the story of Pertwee, upon seeing the new TARDIS console in Terror of the Autons, said "There are no switches and dials for me to fiddle with!" and then promptly smashed one side with a hammer? Supposedly, it was fixed with switches and dials added.
New Pertwee tribute site at: http://jonpertwee.cjb.net/
I can remember hearing about Pertwee's death, I was in the book store and saw his autobiography.
It was then I found out he died about 2-3 years before I saw that book. Needless to say I was quite saddened (and shocked) about the whole thing, I never saw his obit in the paper nor did I hear it on the radio. R.I.P. John
Interestingly, just days before Pertwee's death I was in a video store with my flatmate of the time and we couldn't decide what other video we should get in our pile of weeklies. He said grab a Doctor Who but try to get a Tome Baker. There weren't any, so he told me to get a Pertwee.
It was Carnival of Monsters - and just a day or so later I heard on the radio news that Pertwee had died. It made all the news bulletins here in Australia.
It was up to Doctor Who Magazine to inform me that Patrick Troughton had passed away, and then years later, Jon's passing. What they say about 'your Doctor' being the one you first watched/grew up with was true for me. Pertwee was the first for me, and I was extremely saddened. I could have even met him at a convention back in '85, but I didn't want to be a third wheel, since my friend wanted to go alone with his girlfriend. Needless to say I hold a certain amount of animosity towards that little git for cheating me out of seeing Jon.
Chris:
About the Terror of the Autons story. I read an interview with Pertwee where he said what a brilliant piece of work they did with the revamped console. Then something came up in the script which required the Dr to use a dial or level that was'nt there so one had to hastily added. The workman assigned to do this was so clumsy that he cracked the brand new console. Pertwee was so enraged that he actually thumped him!
I wonder if Pertwee was being diplomatic and sidestepping the fact it may have actually been him that was the cause of the panel on the new console?
That must've damaged the workman's psyche - to be hit by the Doctor. You can imagine him going home to his wife and kids. They all cluster around him and ask him with some degree of pride how his day at the BBC went, working on little Johnny's favourite TV show. "Headcase hit me!" he cries, destroying little Johnny's perceptions immediately.
Surely there must've been some dial or knob he could've used instead? Isn't the console littered with them? Wouldn't it have been easier to pick another upturned painted yoghurt pot instead? Pertwee was a nutter, and one wonders if an outtake exists of the show of Time Lord brutality for possible inclusion on the 'Terror of the Autons' DVD...
When I'd submitted Mr. Pertwee's old song, it wasn't officially available on any CD's. Now, it's on WHO'S DOCTOR WHO, a CD that's currently in my whish list, rather than my home.
If anyone wants to review either of his songs, please check music/movie music/DOCTOR WHO music.
According to "The Five Doctors" DVD, Jon Pertwee continued to make public appearances & promote Dr. Who until he died.
And so he should. Who's a life sentence for the fans, why should it be any different for a real live Doctor? (Or, indeed, a dead Doctor, judging by Zagreus.)
The reason I mentioned it was that Tom Baker refuses to have anything more to do with "Dr. Who"
That's not exactly true, John. While T. Baker did pass up an appearance in "The Five Doctors", he did provide the linking narration for the video release of "Shada." He's also done audio commentary for several DVD releases, and has made some public appearances (he's been at a couple of Doctor Who postage stamp release parties). The only thing he doesn't do is conventions.
He also appeared in Dimensions in Time, did a New Zealand superannuation ad dressed as the Doctor, is often interviewed by the press in relation to Doctor Who, did linking narration for some of the early audio Who stories on tape and wrote his autobiography which covered certain aspects of Who. He also did conventions previously and various signings and so on... he is getting on a bit, about 70 now, so no wonder he might be cutting down on things a bit.
Still, I wish he could be bothered to do the occasional audio...
He has been approached but I think the main concern is that he wants to play it as Tom, not the Doctor. I mean, he thinks it would be "quite nice if the Doctor spoke to badgers!"
Well, if he wants to speak to badgers he must be permitted to do so! In Zagreus, for example, Tom Baker wandering around chatting to badgers would not in any way have upped the insanity level.
I spent a couple nights in London a few years ago and caught him hosting a sci-fi marathon in full Doctor garb.
There's a better board for this conversation, surely.
Behold regeneration! The mystery of the Time Lords! (As Curse of the Fatal Death put it. Well, something like that.) Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker are, to all intents and purposes, the same person. So this is, in no way, the wrong board to have this discussion. Though one can hardly deny that the Tom Baker section might be _slightly_ more appropriate...
A cab driver once mistook Tom Baker for Jon Pertwee, however... kept saying "You were always the most elegant, Mr Pertwee" to him and thereafter Tom Baker always referred to Jon Pertwee as "His Elegance".
Tom actually has decided he risks damaging '74-'81 - so no audios
I think actually seeing some of the scripts might have had something to do with it...
*Bitterly* obviously we were both wrong. He doesn't care about damaging our happy memories, and he doesn't care if the scripts are rubbish either...
Why is this discussion in the Jon Pertwee board?
It regenerated.
So why is Pertwee the least popular Doctor - discussion-wise, I mean? Even McGann has more posts! Matt has THREE TIMES more posts - already! I guess being unDoctorishly establishment-minded just doesn't make for interesting conversations.
Looking on the bright side, I suppose it COULD be the result of Pertwee managing to avoid committing the hideous moral crimes that have led to much discussion of his other selves.
The worst thing HE ever did was hang around in male-only clubs and mention that he was rather looking forward to the Master's next visit...
today is the 15th anniversary of Pertwee's death.
You're joking.
FIFTEEN YEARS since the telemovie!!!
The telemovie killed him? It wasn't that bad!
He was probably having a wonderful dream and then sudddenly he was at the Pearly Gates meeting St. Peter.
WELL. Elisabeth Sladen's autobiography is surprisingly frank about Jon Pertwee. Him calling her 'Katy' and then bursting into tears as he realised his mistake. His 'Oh, I think the moon's in the wrong position for someone today, isn't it?' every time she disagreed with him. Him slapping her across the face when she mentioned something he'd told her when he was drunk. Him grabbing her by the neck and physically steering her to wherever he wanted her to be. It's amazing that her affection as well as her exasperation shows through so clearly.
And her account of his resignation from Who is heartbreaking. The BBC giving him a 'big flat "no"' about a payrise without a moment's consideration or even pretence of negotiation...him resigning in a huff...his bitter regrets...I had to keep reminding myself that this was all tragically necessary to get our Tom...
John Devon Roland de Perthuis de Laillevault
See, that there is an apt name for Pertwee. It has an air of pretension, an air of entitlement about so many middle names, particularly ones as upperclass as "Roland". The first name became "Jon" in a desperation to appear eccentric, his second name was "Devon" because that was the approximate size of his ego, and de Perthuis de Laillevault is actually French for "man who performs with phone".
It's astonishing how many Doctors don't have their original names. (Is 'Matt' short for Matthew, btw?) Though with a name like THAT you can hardly blame him for changing it.
Is 'Matt' short for Matthew, btw?)
Matthew Robert Smith (thanks, Wikipedia)
'I knew I should have destroyed that thing, but somehow it would have felt like murder' - the Doctor, on the Nestene control unit. A startling glimpse into the humanity (for want of a better word) of a Third Doctor who I always think of as pretty cold-blooded. Fairly or unfairly, his reaction to the Brig gunning a human down in front of him ('Do you think for once you could arrive before the nick of time?') tends to make me forget his softer side. (Of course, in THIS case his softness-on-evil-invading-aliens nearly destroyed the human race, but what the hell.)
DWM on The Three Doctors: 'A suggested cameo by Wendy Padbury's Zoe was vetoed by Pertwee, who wanted the serial's focus to be kept on "his" era of the programme' - who the hell does he think he IS! Combined with other actors mentioning how Pertwee always had to be at the centre of every shot, and would MOVE them from wherever the Director had put them to achieve this...it's amazing that it's TOM who's thought of as the egotistical Doctor.
Moderator's Note: moved from 'Pertwee's Doctor: The Establishment or the Ultimate Anti-Establishment Hero?' thread in Ask the Matrix.
The Happiness Patrol DVD has one of the best DVD extras: When Worlds Collide, an examination of Who and politics, from the new series all the back to to Troughton (Hartnell just wanted to run away). It addresses, among many other concerns, this very question. Was the Third Doctor bourgeois or proletariat? There's evidence both ways but the commentators generally agreed that he was the ultimate anti-establishment hero.
I know Emily feels the opposite. Anyone else?
•••• right I do. As I was just saying to old Tubby Rowlands and Tse-Tung in our Club...
Of course, we never actually *see* him sitting in those clubs. (Though sites of him eating cheese and drinking wine in his frilly clothes do make it easy to imagine.)
On the other hand, we do see him sparking revolutions on Solos, teaming with farmers over the corporation, combating the anti-ecological practices of another corporation, siding with silky-haired miners fighting for their rights, and flashing peace signs in prison.
Of course, we never actually *see* him sitting in those clubs. (Though sites of him eating cheese and drinking wine in his frilly clothes do make it easy to imagine.)
EXACTLY. Can you imagine Docs 1, 2 and 4-11 inclusive in a Gentleman's Club? No! Can you imagine 3? EASILY!
On the other hand, we do see him sparking revolutions on Solos
The hell he did! That revoluation on Solos was started long before HE turned up. In fact, all the Doc managed to do was act as messenger-boy for the Gallifreyan ESTABLISHMENT.
teaming with farmers over the corporation
The farmers had the legal right to that planet. The corporation didn't. The Doctor was just supporting the rule of law, as laid down by the ESTABLISHMENT.
combating the anti-ecological practices of another corporation
Only because it was about to destroy the planet with giant maggots/enslave the planet with a giant computer/whatever. He was just trying to maintain the ESTABLISHMENT's status quo. I don't recall Pertwee saying ANYTHING in those six episodes (or indeed his entire tenure) as upsetting to the ESTABLISHMENT as Tom snarling 'It's about time you realised that dependency on a mineral slime just doesn't make sense' (or words to that effect) in Zygons.
siding with silky-haired miners fighting for their rights
I thought he was just trying to calm the situation down before the miners upset the ESTABLISHMENT!
and flashing peace signs in prison.
Ooh, when did he do that?
Yes, I can imagine Doc 1 in a gentlemen's club. Don't we see him in some-such in War Machines?
Flashing the peace sign was in the lunar prison in Frontier in Space.
Now why does it have to be one or the other? If you overthrow the Establishment & replace them, the replacements become the NEW Establishment.
All Anti-Establishment really means is "We hate the guys currently in charge and wish we were in charge instead!"
Can you imagine Docs 1, 2 and 4-11 inclusive in a Gentleman's Club?
*snicker* I'm not sure about in England, but I have heard the term Gentlemen's Club being used in the US to refer to Strip Clubs. ;-)
I think that's done just to add an ironic air of faux respectability.
Being anti-establishment means you generally dislike whoever's in charge, even when they change. You're against the fact that some imperfect person or system is running things.
You're against the fact that some imperfect person or system is running things.
How could it ever be otherwise?
Oh Lord, it's Paul Cornell's review of 'Terror of the Autons' all over again!
Yes, I can imagine Doc 1 in a gentlemen's club.
And after I wrote that it occurred to me that Davison might get away with it. No doubt they talk about cricket all the time. But neither of 'em FITS in a Gentleman's Club the way Pertwee would. It's probably not even Pertwee's FAULT - his trial judges chose his new body and they were the ultimate in establishment figures.
Flashing the peace sign was in the lunar prison in Frontier in Space.
I was just coming to that conclusion, by process of deduction (well, there wouldn't be much point in flashing peace signs from a DALEK prison). But I just don't remember it happeneing, and you konw what? My memory is INCREDIBLY bad for things I just don't accept in the first place. Sure, I know exactly why he'd've done it - to gain the Peace Movement's trust so they'd get him rather than one of their own out of jail - but it wouldn't have come naturally to him.
I have heard the term Gentlemen's Club being used in the US to refer to Strip Clubs. ;-)
Just the opposite here - the kind of Club where ANY woman is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. (Though Pertwee did go to Strip Clubs as well, or at least ones involving athletic belly dancers or something, in Planet of the Spiders.)
Oh Lord, it's Paul Cornell's review of 'Terror of the Autons' all over again!
Alright - what did he say about Terror of the Autons?
"Alright - what did he say about Terror of the Autons?"
He argued that it identified the third Doctor as a member of the bourgeoisie, and fandom reacted as if he'd just accused Pertwee of stabbing babies.
Btw, it's probably a musical hall or working men's club rather than a strip club in 'Planet of the Spiders'. I'm not sure that the patrons of a strip club would put up with the lousy comedian or Professor Clegg between gyrations.
it's probably a musical hall or working men's club rather than a strip club in 'Planet of the Spiders'. I'm not sure that the patrons of a strip club would put up with the lousy comedian or Professor Clegg between gyrations.
They would if strip clubs were virtually impossible to get licences for in those Good Old Days so they had to PRETEND it was a working men's club...
Wouldn't the Doctor caring about the Establishment, one way the another, be a lot like us caring about the hierarchy of a chimp tribe?
Ah, but the Doc's TOTALLY gone native. There's nothing he loves more than grovelling to the Chief Chimp, whether it's Queen Victoria or the Draconian Emperor. (OK, OK, so he betrayed n'abandoned Liz 1 and scarpered rather than have dinner with Liz 2 so he's not ENTIRELY consistent...but can you imagine PERTWEE doing such things?)
There's a charming story of Pertwee giving a prize to someone at a convention and getting so close to the poor woman that she was able to tell that he absolutely stunk of after-shave. By the way, isn't after-shave just perfume for boys?
Of course it is.
But there's nothing wrong with Pertwee being a dandy, just like his alter ego. If HARTNELL or ECCY stank of after-shave, THAT would be weird.
'Even Jon Pertwee and actor/writer Reed de Rouen submitted a seven-part storyline, Doctor Who and the Spare-Part People (aka The Brain Drain, The Labyrinth) in 1970, but this was never seriously considered' - WHAT! Since WHEN! How come EVERYONE IN THE UNIVERSE has heard of Tom's Doctor Who and the Scratchmen, but NO ONE (well, ME anyway) has heard of THIS?
Oh, and also in that edition of DWM: 'Letts decided that in The Time Monster and Planet of the Spiders, a central theme would be that the Doctor himself was a flawed hero, driven by his own negative thirst for knowledge' - I don't remember that in The Time Monster? Come to that, I don't particularly remember it from Spiders either - it was more of a STEALING IS WRONG (Even From Uninhabited Planets For Some Reason) message.
"How come EVERYONE IN THE UNIVERSE has heard of Tom's Doctor Who and the Scratchmen, but NO ONE (well, ME anyway) has heard of THIS?"
Because Tom spent ages trying to publicise and raise funds for Scratchman as a film, while Pertwee seems not to have done any more than submit this to the TV production team. He did talk about it in interviews a lot, but clearly not any interviews that you've read...
Reed de Rouen, incidentally, wrote episodes of 'The Avengers' and a science fiction novel called 'Split Image' (1955), but you'll know him best for playing Pa Clanton in 'The Gunfighters'.
By the time I knew who Jon Pertwee was, I was in my late teens and he had recently died. I've been sad ever since that I could never meet him, because everything I ever learned of him said he was a truly wonderful, kind soul.
I think, if I could have had someone like that in my life when I was in junior high, high school, even college, I probably would have made far fewer mistakes out of a desire for attention from what turned out to be all the wrong men. I needed someone who was bright, gentle, encouraging, not a pushover, and (the crucial part) would never have tried to get s-xual with me.
Everyone needs the Doctor in their life. Luckily we've still got five years of Pertwee DVDs which the BBC just about managed to restrain themselves from destroying, which is surely more important than having the actual ACTOR around.
'The Doctor can work with UNIT precisely because he's still rejecting a bigger universal authority. The presence of the Time Lords allows him to remain a rebel, a class traitor and a drop-out.' - O'Mahony in DWM. Hadn't thought of it like that. In my defence, it's HARD to think of it like that when he's hanging around Gentleman's Clubs...
TARDIS Eruditorum Volume 3:
At last, SOMEONE'S giving poor Pertwee the attention he deserves (if he's not careful his posts on Nitcentral will slip behind McGANN's and HURT's, for crying out loud). It's a shame it's someone who doesn't actually LIKE him, but what the hell. Discuss:
'For the bulk of the first six years, the Doctor was presented as, essentially, an idealized human - something to which humanity could aspire. But [The War Games] changed that, giving him a distinct, non-human identity as a Time Lord. Now he's throwing around knowledge of alien worlds we've never seen and he's manifestly and completely Other. He's gone from being humanity projecting itself forward to being, essentially, a prophet from outer space.'
'Apparently one of the original plans for Pertwee was that he was going to be a relaxed, suave sort who played flamenco guitar. But eventually the idea was hit upon that playing the Doctor as Jon Pertwee might work. (Pertwee, by all accounts, found this to be a tremendous acting challenge.)'
'Perhaps the biggest problem is that with three creative visions [for Terror of the Autons], the leading man...doesn't seem to share any of them...the story doesn't have the coherence to push him, which means he gets to simply strut about at the center of the production, a sort of unceasing stretch of egotism in the middle of all the interesting bits...['I saw your boss in the club the other day'] is clearly intended as a bit of Troughtonesque bluster and fakery...But Pertwee just delivers the line like he means it.'
'This is not a show about a man with a magic box who can go anywhere and meet anyone, and does. It's a show about a smug man with a big nose who saves the world from bad guys and is sometimes kind of a bully. It's a very, very good show about a smug man with a big nose. But it has minimal ambition beyond competence.'
In Power of the Daleks, 'the Daleks' recognition of the Doctor is one of the absolute key scenes of the whole story and the thing that cements Troughton as the Doctor...[In Day of the Daleks], however, the Daleks are unable to recognise the Doctor without considerable effort - so much so that...they nearly kill the Doctor trying...The Doctor is in some sense unrecognizable in this form...Remember that...the Time Lords...altered his knowledge of time travel...A madman without a box is just a madman. A Time Lord without knowledge of time is just someone calling themselves Lord. The Doctor's punishment was, in one sense, the stripping away of who he is.'
'There are two completely distinct modes of thought operating in the Pertwee era at any given time: Glam Pertwee, a style base on the interplay and juxtaposition of images and Action Pertwee, a style based on telling tense techno-political thrillers.'
'Pertwee is exciting and charming, but he never inhabits the story itself like Troughton does. Troughton controls the entire story with nothing so much as mad anarchy. Pertwee tries to anchor the entire story with the power of his charm and watches helplessly as bits of it always float away.'
'The central conceit of Pertwee's Doctor...is that he's playing a patrician action hero and getting it slightly wrong.'
He's gone from being humanity projecting itself forward to being, essentially, a prophet from outer space.
A fair criticism, but imagine if it had been Hartnel or Troughton who had been exiled to Earth. I think similar personae would develop.
['I saw your boss in the club the other day'] is clearly intended as a bit of Troughtonesque bluster and fakery...But Pertwee just delivers the line like he means it.'
Good point actually. All the Pertwee-as-establishment lines would come across very differently if voiced by Troughton.
I don't know. I like Pertwee, but I think of him as a madman with a box whose box is taken away from him and so he's just mad.
I don't think the writers ever had a consistent characterisation for his Doctor, which is to say that the characterisation of one writer conflicted with another's. That's why we get the 'was he the establishment or against it' debate. And of course sometimes he's not so mad and seems practically content in his exile, or sometimes his 'I hate being stranded here' lines are just throwaway lines like Moffat tying up plotlines he never knew how to resolve.
A Time Lord without knowledge of time is just someone calling themselves Lord.
Come to think of it, did Pertwee ever refer to himself as a Time Lord? Off the top of my head, I can only recall him referring to them in a very third-person, not-me way, and that's fair game for developing a criticism of his Doctor. As soon as his background was revealed, he pretty much rejected it himself. Doctors 4 and 10 (among others) were very much Time Lords; Pertwee was less of a Time Lord than his predecessors, partly because of gaps we've filled in after the fact, and partly because of a few lines like Troughton saying 'our fellow Time Lords' twice in the 10th anniversary. Pertwee's Doctor may actually be a Time Lord, Cho-je refers to him as one unambiguously, but he never really accepts himself as one. The Doctor may be an Other to us, but the Time Lords are Others to him.
Eruditorum - ['I saw your boss in the club the other day'] is clearly intended as a bit of Troughtonesque bluster and fakery...But Pertwee just delivers the line like he means it.'
Which could also mean he's just become a better liar in his third incarnation then he was in his second.
Kevin - And of course sometimes he's not so mad and seems practically content in his exile
Well, you can't be mad all the time. He can be frustrated that he's not allowed to leave Earth some of the time while enjoying what Earth has to offer other times. I suppose to a degree the Doctor's attitude is "Earth's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there."
As soon as his background was revealed, he pretty much rejected it himself.
Eh, more like a teenager throwing a temper tantrum and pretending he's not related to his parents. And can you blame him they took away the keys to the car he'd been joyriding? ;-)
What the smeg is a "TARDIS Eruditorum"?
One of the best websites on on Who. The author places every story in their context of the times it was produced (he starts off practically every article with a glance at what songs were top of the charts and what news was making the headlines). He is now slowly producing the articles in an extended form in books. The ebook versions are cheap but I'm a sadist so I'm getting the print version (although don't buy the first volume as there were a LOT of spelling errors which he is correcting and then reissuing as the second edition).
Main website is here
And of course sometimes he's not so mad and seems practically content in his exile, or sometimes his 'I hate being stranded here' lines are just throwaway lines like Moffat tying up plotlines he never knew how to resolve.
It could be worse. As we learnt to our cost in Eight Doctors, where Pertwee's suddenly so desperate to escape Earth he's threatening to SHOOT his Eighth self.
Which could also mean he's just become a better liar in his third incarnation then he was in his second.
I'm now wracking my brains to think of a time when Pertwee had to lie through his teeth. But I keep thinking of Tennant doing really bad drunk acting (Fireplace), Davison doing pretty good 'Tegan's a rubbish android' lying (Frontios - quite possibly because he genuinely thought of her as a rubbish android), Troughton doing a superb job of impersonating Salamander (Enemy of the World), Hartnell fooling everyone with his 'missing mercury' story (The Daleks), Eccy doing a moderately-convincing 'I'm not letting that Idiot aboard my TARDIS' (World War Three), Matt lying extremely effectively even in a truth field (Time of the Doctor), Tom rattling off lies that he's not even TRYING to make believable, just for the fun of it (City of Death, Nightmare of Eden)...but I STILL can't think of any Pertwee tall tales...
...Ah wait! PELADON! He was pretending to be the Chairman Delegate From Earth. Trouble is, I can only remember JO rising to the occasion ('The pilot was most inefficient'). But I suppose he MUST have been VAGUELY convincing or even THAT bunch of imbecilic losers would have rumbled him sooner.
And can you blame him they took away the keys to the car he'd been joyriding? ;-)
AND MURDERED HIM.
What the smeg is a "TARDIS Eruditorum"?
A series of rather insane reference books.
Ah, thanks everyone.
Thanks Rodney--I just spent a good chunk of New Year's/New Year's Eve reading Doctor Who essays....
I just spent a good chunk of New Year's/New Year's Eve reading Doctor Who essays
Sounds like you had fun, Jessica.
Yup.
Jessica, are you in Britain or North America? Just curious.
I'm in Canada.
Tim, so you're in USA Junior?
No, I'm in CANADA!
Don't be making fun of my country.
*flutters eyelashes"
Who? Me?
I thought Canada was England Jr.?
More fitting, since we stayed loyal to Britain, unlike George Washington and his band of traitors
Hey! I thought you Canadians were supposed to be POLITE....
One person's hero is another person's traitor.
Yeah, but aren't you supposed to say, "Sorry, eh?" or something like that?
Look, if THE DOCTOR was pushing crates at the Boston Tea Party, George Washington and his band of traitors were obviously COMPLETELY IN THE RIGHT. Native-American-slaughtering slave-owners that they were.
Tim McCree: I'm from Canada, eh? And they say I'm slow, eh?
(Joke stolen from The Simpsons)
The Founding Fathers felt it was time to cut the puppet... errr... apron strings and England got pissy about it and fired the first shot. ;-)
Just to let you know, Judi, that I don't watch the Simpsons. So any references from that show are gonna go right over my head.
Suddenly Emily doesn't feel quite so alone....
'One of the reasons why we chose Jon was because he was so off-the-wall. He also had this tremendous skill as a prestidigitator, a sleight-of-hand man...He's been...a member of the Magic Circle...So we thought, "This is good," because there was nothing really for the Doctor to make use of apart from the Sonic Screwdriver. So this "sleight-of-hand" business all became part of the idea for Jon's Doctor.' - Trevor Ray in DWM. Of all the BLOODY STUPID reasons to choose a Doctor...
Oh yes, and: 'Of course, when Jon joined, he immediately said, "I've been doing Light Ent [-ertainment] all my life. Nobody's ever taken me seriously as an actor, and this is a chance for me to be taken seriously" and refused to do any of it!'
Who without Pertwee? Perish the thought.
It's an ODD thought, but, fond though I am of the Third Doctor, it's not exactly a blasphemous unthinkable thought. He's not one of The Irreplaceable Ones. In fact, IF ONLY they'd TOLD Troughton they'd be slashing the number of episodes (and writing better stuff than The Dominators), maybe he'd've stayed and we could have had a really adorable Troughton UNIT Years instead...
Then we would have got a new Doctor mid-run - Troughton's 1979 heart attack was very nearly fatal and he might have had a fatal one had he stayed on Who
Hmm, that's a point.
Would it be WRONG to suggest I'm OK with this scenario?
The guy was obviously DESTINED to die in his costume, after all...
You guys probably already know this, but Sean Pertwee, Jon's son, is playing butler Alfred Pennyworth (Bruce Wayne's butler) on the new series, 'Gotham'.
And he doesn't play it like Michael Caine or Alan Napier, but rather in a gruff, but caring way.
The resemblance between him and his father is quite obvious, too.
His VOICE presumably doesn't much resemble his father's, or they'd've wheeled him in for a Third-Doctor-imitation in a few Big Finishes, the way they did one of Troughton's sons.
Somewhat different, perhaps a little gravely. I suppose if he tried to imitate his Dad he could do it, but Sean's is a little different from Jon's.
Didn't Big Finish say they would never do immitators?
Shame really, because the guy who did the First Doctor's voice in the Planet of Giants episode 4 reconstruction was excellent.
BTW, who did the First Doc's voice in Time of the Doctor? Same guy?
Steve - Sean Pertwee, Jon's son, is playing butler Alfred Pennyworth (Bruce Wayne's butler) on the new series, 'Gotham'.
Well if he doesn't start acting more like a father figure this Bruce kid will probably grow up to be some kind of crazy vigilante.
Smart Alec, do you have a brother called Dumbass?
DWM: '"You know, Jon Pertwee wasn't at all critical of the scripts." Tom sounds incredulous. "He used to say to Bob Holmes, 'Just make sure, Bob, that I have my moments of charm.' Bob would snort or look out of the window as he told me that story. Bob was fabulously sardonic. The idea that some pathetic actor wants his moments of charm! I said, "I just want to have funny lines, Bob."'
Pertwee has been pushing up flowers for 19 years today
Look what I found! Look what I found!
https://youtu.be/ufVkKeiQeNg
Would have been awsome if the Doctor had visited Moon Base Alpha.
Although, the Moon was not blasted out of its orbit on 13 september 1999 in the Whoniverse, so I guess its a moot point.
Still would have been awsome though.
The Moon WHAT!
Oh, like any Who Fan is in a position to complain...
Actually, I think using the theme for UFO would be more fitting for Pertwee. His Doctor & UNIT were based on Earth protecting it from invading aliens, just like Straker & SHADO.
And both shows have a dating problem as well.
Maybe the moon was blasted out of orbit in 1999 in the Whoniverse but a small chicken came along and laid a replacement before anyone noticed?
Tch - should be space chicken!
No, no, there's just something wrong, even I can tell...
...Magnificent nose, though.
I agree the 'uncanny' and 'exactly' are a bit exaggerated, but it's pretty close.
A tad...feminine though.
And having that obsessed orphan boy as a companion...
;-)
Still, Sean is much closer in appearance with his own father than Hurndall was to Hartnell, so if he wants to be a part of 'The Thirteen Doctors, I give a resounding, "YES, PLEASE!"
What can I say? The Third Doctor is 'my' Doctor.
John Devon Roland Pertwee would have been Ninety-SIX today.
July 7, 1919 sure seems like a looong time ago!
Now that I think of it, seeing Sean Pertwee dressed as the Third Doctor just makes me even more annoyed at the alleged Fiftieth Anniversary special.
WE COULD HAVE HAD THE THIRD DOCTOR INCLUDED IN IT!!!!!!!! BOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
Another reason to give the 50th low marks from me.
There. I said it.
Rant over.
Space Helmet for a Cow:
'After suffering a serious head injury in a bomb attack, Pertwee was posted to Naval Intelligence, where he took orders from Ian Fleming and refreshments from able seaman, tea boy and future Prime Minister Jim Callaghan.' - BLIMEY.
There are 73 'Hai!'s in the Pertwee stories. For the record.
Jon Pertwee 'teamed up with American actor and writer Reed de Rouen to submit a seven-part story called Doctor Who and the Spare-Part People.' - why do they do this, WHY. The synopsis of Scratchman was one of the worst things I've read in my life and the Louise Jameson-penned audio was one of the worst things I've listened to in my life.
Of the planned but unmade-due-to-tragic-death-of-Delgado final Master story: 'The story would have revealed the Doctor and the Master to be two parts of the same person (the Id and the Ego – and it was something about the nature of this particular Doctor that the crazed, megalomaniacal supervillain wouldn't have been the Ego' - ouch.
Wouldn't most people expect the "crazed, megalomaniacal supervillain" to be the id anyway?
But obviously they felt the idea was worthwhile enough to recycle it ten years later...
Wouldn't most people expect the "crazed, megalomaniacal supervillain" to be the id anyway?
No, most people (well, me anyway) would think that would be EGO and not have the foggiest what an id is.
But obviously they felt the idea was worthwhile enough to recycle it ten years later...
Ah! Planet of Evil?
'The Trial of a Time Lord'. You've obviously blanked it.
DWM interview with director Paddy Russell:
'Jon was so much more interested in what he was going to wear than what he was going to say' - ouch. 'John Bennett [General Finch] said to me it was the only time he'd played opposite somebody who never looked at him once over the six episodes. Pertwee's lines were written all over the set!' - to be fair, he HAD decided to leave by this point...(And compared to what she says about TOM, Pertwee gets off quite lightly.)
---
'After suffering a serious head injury in a bomb attack, Pertwee was posted to Naval Intelligence, where he took orders from Ian Fleming and refreshments from able seaman, tea boy and future Prime Minister Jim Callaghan.' - BLIMEY.
---
His previous posting before his stint in Naval Intelligence? HMS Hood, and, IIRC, he left her to go to officer training the day before she set sail to intercept the Bismarck.
I was actually looking at that a couple of weeks ago - his service with Naval Intelligence only came out in 2013. And if you start looking through the histories of people in entertainment from around that time, you find a fair few people did some pretty surprising things, in addition to those who served in front line units.
For instance, just sticking to Doctors, Patrick Troughton was on coastal patrol boats, and William Hartnell was in the Tank Corps at the start of the war, but was invalided out on mental health grounds after suffering a claustrophobia attack.
"His previous posting before his stint in Naval Intelligence? HMS Hood, and, IIRC, he left her to go to officer training the day before she set sail to intercept the Bismarck."
And just in case somebody doesn't know the rest of that encounter, the Hood sank with 1418 men aboard. Only three survived.
The Third Doctor gets less short-tempered once the TARDIS is semi-working, and he's not entirely trapped.
Planet of the Spiders:
'I've always said that next to Mrs Samuel Peyps, you make the best coffee in the world' - cos, of course, it's not enough for a woman to degrade herself just taking her husband's SURNAME, she's got to have her ENTIRE identity obliterated beneath his. Thanks, Doc!
'Some of the finest hours of my life were spent with that old man' - leaving aside the question of exactly WHAT Young Hartnell n'Hermit were up to together when not staring at daisies (after all, Missy's mention of her 'boyfriend' pretty much confirms that Little Thete and Koschai were in a gay relationship)...Six claimed AZMAEL was his greatest ever teacher so the daisy-obsessed loony can only have ever been second-best.
'My greed for knowledge - for information' - yeah, you're just SO EVIL, Doctor! Imagine wanting to...DISCOVER THINGS! Top yourself IMMEDIATELY!
saw this - "The argument (from many Seventh Doctor fans) is or was that the Third Doctor’s era was totally right wing and fascist and terrible. I personally think Three’s fascism is exaggerated, but it is an era where the Doctor spends most of his time working with the military, and that’s kind of awkward, even recognising the fact that the Doctor has become much more of a pacifist since the (non)destruction of Gallifrey.
(But it’s not as awkward as that episode where Three claims to be good buddies with Mao Tse-tung. That was in 1971, before conditions under Mao were widely known in the west. Suffice to say there’s been a lot of backpeddling and retconning in tie-in media since then.)"
I wouldn't say there's been a lot of backpeddling and retconning. I'd say there was one rather pathetic claim in one novel that the Doc met Mao on the Great March, 'before he was evil' or somesuch nonsense.
I've been overdoing it on classic Who lately and the Pertwee 6 parters are starting to show their padding to me. "Colony in Space"? Great. But do the colonists have to capture the miners so the miners can turn the tables on the colonists so the colonists can turn the tables on the miners so the miners can turn the table on the colonists so many times? Or the ones like "Ambassadors of Death," where it is clear to the Doctor almost immediately that the senior general is crooked, but the Brigadier just keeps cheerfully telling him everything they're about to do.
I've been overdoing it on classic Who lately
There's no such thing as overdoing it on Classic Who!
and the Pertwee 6 parters are starting to show their padding to me.
Ah. OK. There TOTALLY is such a thing as overdoing it on Classic Who.
"Colony in Space"? Great.
REALLY?
it's not enough for a woman to degrade herself just taking her husband's SURNAME, she's got to have her ENTIRE identity obliterated beneath his
That is how the title "Mrs" is meant to work - a woman legally becomes Mrs Husbands Firstname Husbands Lastname. It's only since the nineteen seventies that that fell into disuse outside of wedding invitations.
I know! But there's no need for THE DOCTOR to go along with that vomit-inducing convention! You'd think Sarah would have beaten better sense into him by now...
20 years ago today. RIP Jon Pertwee.
More likely he'll be spinning in his grave over Big Finish recasting him...
It was completely unexpected and terribly sad, just days before the TVM's video release and transmission in the UK.
He really had taken on the mantle of the Doctor again in the early 90s, thanks to repeats, radio serials and tv appearances.
Twenty years on and I happen to be re-watching The Sea Devils nightly on dvd this week, which is great fun. He's still much-missed and irreplaceable.
Whereas I (very strongly and utterly illogically) felt that the return of Who required a blood sacrifice and I wasn't gonna cavil about Who it was. (In hindsight, OF COURSE the telemovie wasn't worth Pertwee's life but eleven years of glorious New Who means I can finally AFFORD this perspective.) I was quite convinced that Tom was a goner when New Who returned and am unspeakably grateful to be utterly wrong - we just got off with a few dead Prime Ministers and Popes and things instead.
This article seems oddly appropriate...
*Winces* When I think you're disrespecting the dead...you must be REALLY disrespecting the dead...
I thought they were just making fun of a poorly worded announcement myself.
Actors don't star in comics, their likeness is used in comics.
Also death in comics is pretty much a revolving door.
"I thought you were dead?"
"I got better."
'Living large as an aristocratic metro-sexual before the concept of metro-sexual even existed. He wore velvet and lace, and he spent as much time flirting with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart as he did saving the Earth from wonderfully bad special effects' - Queers Dig Time Lords. Is that TRUE?! Was the Pertwee era basically one great big flirt-fest (given that the Master eventually admits that 'Traps are my flirting')?
Sometimes people are so wanting to read things into something they see something that's not even there.
That example is nowhere close to reality.
But the Brig WAS the first thing Pertwee saw in that body, which would mean he imprinted himself on the Doc (Power of Three). And Pertwee DID keep hanging around UNIT HQ all the time AFTER the TARDIS was working again AND after Jo had left. He even dragged the Brigadier off to seedy nightclubs, for heaven's sake...
...Yeah, OK, so I'm not exactly convinced either, but I'll be keeping a much sharper eye on Doc/Brig interactions in the future.
Well, Troughton didn't didn't seem to imprint on Ben & Polly and he didn't seem to care when they left. The Brig was there when the Doctor became Tom and he left him, Em, he left him. ;-) Imprinting on Amy seems more of a quirk of 11's regeneration than anything else.
As for staying around Earth, well, for the first time he didn't have to hide from the Time Lords anymore like his first two lives, so maybe he just got used to thinking of it as home?
Well, Troughton didn't didn't seem to imprint on Ben & Polly
Well, at least we were spared the Doctor donning Merchant Marine uniforms and Polly asking why her bras were drying on a rack outside the Doctor's bedroom (that last one would have to wait until the sixth doctor and Peri).
Well, Troughton didn't didn't seem to imprint on Ben & Polly and he didn't seem to care when they left.
True, but one's first regeneration is always different. Don't forget it was aided and abetted by Sexy, so maybe he became fixated by HER instead. For all we know, Troughton spent the whole of Season Four stroking the console in that we-want-to-be-alone manner that Rose and Sarah were giggling about.
The Brig was there when the Doctor became Tom and he left him, Em, he left him. ;-)
Didn't the Pertwee-Baker regeneration involve him incredibly boringly regenerating with his eyes shut? Which would mean the first person he saw was Harry, which would certainly explain his otherwise inexplicable decision to kidnap the guy.
Imprinting on Amy seems more of a quirk of 11's regeneration than anything else.
I disagree, just look at Ten's total Rose-obsession.
Come to that, just look at NINE'S total Rose-obsession. Judging by That Mirror Scene, Ms Tyler might actually have been the first person he'd communicated with since he acquired those marvellous ears.
As for staying around Earth, well, for the first time he didn't have to hide from the Time Lords anymore like his first two lives, so maybe he just got used to thinking of it as home?
Except that he was desperate to go careering round the cosmos again, it was Jo's whinging that drove him back 'home'. Once she'd run off to have sex with a younger version of himself, what possible reason did Pertwee have to (as Tom dismissively described it) 'run around after the Brigadier' if, well, he didn't just LOVE running around after the Brigadier?
Come to that, just look at NINE'S total Rose-obsession. Judging by That Mirror Scene, Ms Tyler might actually have been the first person he'd communicated with since he acquired those marvellous ears.
I don't think so. She meets people who track the Doctor's interventions through Earth's history, they show her pictures of the ninth Doctor in places he visited without her.
Ah, but those could easily have occurred, say, in the hours/weeks/whatever after Rose turned him down and before it dawned on the Doc that he might not have mentioned that it also travels in time...
Ok, that could have happened, but wouldn't he just have forgotten about her? I mean, the man has the attention span of a two year old.
I think if the Third Doctor imprinted on anyone it was Jo. Look at how devastated he was when she left in Green Death.
Also he had his cars Bessie and the Whomobile to think about. No room for them in the TARDIS, or rather no doors wide enough to get them in and out easily. The fourth Doctor just didn't seem to have three's love for cars though, so off he went.
wouldn't he just have forgotten about her? I mean, the man has the attention span of a two year old.
Unless of course *drumroll* Eccy had imprinted on Rose as the first person he'd encountered in this regeneration!
I think if the Third Doctor imprinted on anyone it was Jo. Look at how devastated he was when she left in Green Death.
THAT was good old-fashioned love and not imprinting.
Also he had his cars Bessie and the Whomobile to think about. No room for them in the TARDIS, or rather no doors wide enough to get them in and out easily. The fourth Doctor just didn't seem to have three's love for cars though, so off he went.
BRILLIANT.
(Though honestly, if Bessie was the TRUE love of Pertwee's life, he really should have spent a few years tinkering with Sexy's door-dimensions so he could let her in. Eight-in-the-novels had some Volkswagen Beetle thing he was always driving in and out of the TARDIS.)
Also he had his cars Bessie and the Whomobile to think about. No room for them in the TARDIS, or rather no doors wide enough to get them in and out easily.
Well he got the console out and back in easily enough.
We don't know how easy it was - it could've taken YEARS. Plus it turned the poor console that stupid green colour...
TARDIS Eruditorum Volume 3:
'For the bulk of the first six years, the Doctor was presented as, essentially, an idealized human - something to which humanity could aspire. But [The War Games] changed that, giving him a distinct, non-human identity as a Time Lord. Now he's throwing around knowledge of alien worlds we've never seen and he's manifestly and completely Other. He's gone from being humanity projecting itself forward to being, essentially, a prophet from outer space.'
I think this might just have got it spectacularly wrong. Tom Baker's casual 'Jon Pertwee, who was fantastically stylish and accomplished, was not an alien, was he? He was an Edwardian gentleman' had me realising that OF COURSE this is what's wrong with the Third Doctor, THIS is why I don't love him the way I should.
According to The Worzel Book (well, to be strictly accurate, according to DWM's review of The Worzel Book), Worzel Gummidge 'was the actor's favourite part and, when he died in 1996, a mini Worzel was placed on his coffin, as per his instruction' - TRAITOR!
Don't worry, he's going to combine his two greatest characters, Doctor Who and Worzel Gummidge, and call it, Doctor Gummidge.
Emily in the Monster Of Peladon thread:
Ettis beats the Doctor in single combat! The PERTWEE Doctor!
No doubt that happened because, during the fight, the Doctor was mysteriously replaced by an imposter wearing a bad wig. It was this imposter that got his a** handed to him.
Who was this guy and what did he do to the real Doctor!?
(yeah, I'm being sarcastic, but there are several times during that fight that the face of the stunt man (Terry Walsh, I believe) was clearly visible)
It's only right that an event as universe-shaking as a Doctor's Imminent Regeneration should leave ripples forward and backwards in time...
Jon Pertwee was the first Doctor I saw when I first tuned in. I cannot remember which episode though.
When does Venus get terraformed, so that a colony can be established there, so that the Doctor can go there to learn something called the "Venusian nerve grip"?
That will take a number of centuries in the best of circumstances.
It's only after Earth becomes an uninhabitable wasteland that we sod off to its 'twin planet' (!) Venus, according to Jago & Litefoot: Voyage to Venus. Which also claims it was TROUGHTON who nipped off there for a couple of weeks Venusian-Akido-ing.
Why does it have to be a colony and not native Venusians?
And I always kind of hoped it was just a different Venus anyway.
Why does it have to be a colony and not native Venusians?
Well, it was native Venusians in the Venusian Lullaby Missing Adventure, and colonists in the J&L audio.
And I always kind of hoped it was just a different Venus anyway.
Why?
Because there are no native Venusians. The idea of Venus being inhabited was debunked decades ago, when it was discovered that the planet simply cannot support life.
Not to mention that 'our' Mars is uninhabited, but in the series it's the home of the Ice Warriors.
I forget what New Adventures novel it is, but I remember one where the Seventh Doctor and his companions discovered that Earth authorities had been lying all the time, and that Mars had a breathable atmosphere all this time. (Perhaps to not cause a panic over the existence of the Ice Warriors).
The idea of Venus being inhabited was debunked decades ago, when it was discovered that the planet simply cannot support life.
Not NOW, but Sexy can travel in time, y'know.
There's a distinct possibility that Venus was habitable before runaway Global Warming boiled its oceans away and that THE SAME THING COULD HAPPEN TO US:
Oh Gods We Are So Screwed
I remember one where the Seventh Doctor and his companions discovered that Earth authorities had been lying all the time, and that Mars had a breathable atmosphere all this time.
That sounds like The Dying Days to me, but that was the NAs' one-and-only Eighth Doctor novel.
Tim's answer. Right.
No, definitely a Seventh Doctor New Adventure. I think Seven was knealing, without his hat, in front of an Ice Warrior with a sword.
Ah, that must be Legacy.
Dunno why Earth wouldn't have noticed that the planet next-door (and fellow Federation member) was breathable by the year 3984, but I'll be sure to look out for this when I can't put the Legacy reread off any longer.
The idea of Venus being inhabited was debunked decades ago, when it was discovered that the planet simply cannot support life.
Once again we assume every living thing in the universe are oxygen breathers like ourselves. Humans may not be able to live there (or ever) but why are we discounting any OTHER form of alien life that has the capacity to survive in that atmosphere and environment?
Rodney is right. Aliens are not going to look like Racquel Welsh or Daryl Hannah.
but why are we discounting any OTHER form of alien life that has the capacity to survive in that atmosphere and environment?
Because the surface temperature is 470 C, which precludes any form of organic chemistry. There's also no liquid on that surface, save for the occasional white hot lava flow. Outside of science fiction, there's really no plausible way for anything we would call life to exist there.
That being said, there COULD be lifeforms living in the clouds, where there IS available water in the form of sulphuric acid, where the temperature is quite mild and where there is plenty of sunlight to drive photosynthesis. There are weird features in those clouds, swirls and streaks visible only in ultraviolet, as well as coexisting gasses that astronomers are having a devil of a time explaining with the sort of chemistry that could exist up there. Vast microbial colonies living in those clouds are a real contender to explain those unusual features.
Which again puts a HUMAN slant on this. How do we know that there aren't creatures who are formed differently to our own cellular makeup? The problem with this is that our knowledge of what can constitute life is limited to knowledge of our own planet.
This seemed the best place to post this, the Third Doctor in an anime style adventure. Don’t worry it’s perfectly tame. It is also pretty amazing, getting to see everyone cut loose with maximum firepower and other effects and stunts that could never be done on the tv show.
The choice to use voice clips from the show makes it great
https://youtu.be/kt3qZYUPi2Y
Pertwee was Liberace without a piano.
I'seen this clip before--but it's still a great teaser. I wish I could see the whole story.
On the other hand you do have an unusually large group of the Doctors enemies here--you might need more Doctors to overcome them.
Also(I hate to say this), but our unnamed Japanese security agent should be wearing more clothes (boy--did it hurt to say that).
Would you believe that "I've seen" is what I meant to say.
Oh SMEG!!!!
Jerome K. Jerome's novel Three Men on the Bummel (from the year 1900): in the first chapter there is a character named Mr. Pertwee.
The Pertwee era is odd because, for much of it, he isn't travelling in the tardis. McCoy fans also claim Three is a fascist for being involved with the military.
McCoy fans haven't got a leg to stand on given how overjoyed the Doc was to be reunited with all his military chums in Battlefield.
...which is rather at odds with the snide comments he peppered throughout his Dalek story. Military action is acceptable to him when there's a nostalgia factor involved.
And he was outraged that Lethbridge-Stewart blew up the Silurian underground base without warning.
Three didn't find UNIT, they found him. He'd have a better chance getting the TARDIS to work again with government/military help, than renting a flat in Sheffield and popping down to Radio Shack for spare parts!
This coming July 7th will be the centennial of the birth of Jon Pertwee.
I wonder if the fans of the Third Doctor intend to honour the occasion.
*seance*
DW Fan: Jon, can you hear us?
Jon: I cross the void behind the mind...
Just reverse the polarity of natural decay... ;-)
Jon was cremated, Alec. You'd need a Dustbuster, i think ;)
Even the Doctor knows it’s time to talk sometimes.
https://youtu.be/Z1QbXcHJorI
Oh dear.
I think that was trying to be FUNNY?
So it would seem.
If you read his autobiography, he discussed his wartime service in great detail. Had it not been for fate smiling on him he would have never survived the war to be the third Doctor. Just to mention, Pat Troughton served during WWII as well. He too was a Naval officer.
That's true. Jon Pertwee came very close to being assigned to the Hood, just before it's fatal encounter with the Bismarck.
Tim, he was actually serving on HMS Hood, but got transferred off for officer training - IIRC, he left the day before she sailed to face the Bismarck.
Wow, that was a close one!
The Bismarck: [on Pertwee] "Missed it by that much!"
Imagine, if that transfer had been cancelled or delayed...
I cut and pasted a small segment about the Hood's demise from Wikipedia, but it's not here. What happened?
I certainly didn't delete it.
Try again, Steve.
Pertwee's grandson is Alfred. I'm sorry, but "Fred Pertwee" sounds like a trade union official.
That's funny, Jon's son was also Alfred for the past 5 years. ;-)
"After his first season as the current Doctor Who, the actor Jon Pertwee went for a well-deserved holiday in Morocco. As he was driving along in his car, a Moroccan policeman stopped him. The anxious actor immediately showed his driving licence, but the policeman waved it aside, peered closely at Jon Pertwee to be sure he had made no mistake, then grinned broadly and said in French : ‘Ah. it is the Doc-tor Who, is it not?’"
Today marks the centennial of the birth of Jon Pertwee.
it's hard to imagine Jon Pertwee as 100. Not that "we" ever knew him when he was young but he wasn't like the Dad's Army cast or Ballard Berkeley (the Major from Fawlty Towers) who were always "old".
And next year will be the centennial of the birth of Patrick Troughton.
"Careless" Jon Pertwee robbed in Sydney; valet charged Pic: The Truth 1952 https://twitter.com/OzKitsch/status/1149993262607769601
Why did they find it necessary to emphasise that the valet was "good-looking"? Is there an implication here of the love that dare not speak its name (or at least dared not in those days) between any of the parties? And what was the "eye-catching brunette" all about? An attempt to defuse the earlier implication?
I guess Pertwee does look a bit like Danny Kaye, although my first thought at looking at that picture was "He had to grow into that nose, didn't he." ;-)
Why did they find it necessary to emphasise that the valet was "good-looking"?
Padding.
Is there an implication here of the love that dare not speak its name (or at least dared not in those days) between any of the parties?
Not unless they were implying an orgy between the two men and the valet, and that would seem a stretch.
And what was the "eye-catching brunette" all about?
Padding.
Newspapers usually sell the ad space first and what's left over is called "the news hole", so when an editor says "Give me x-number of words on this article!" Sometimes the writer has to pad it out.
quote:Every time the Doctor has regenerated he speaks English with a British accent. His wardrobe is usually cultured Edwardian in appearance. He likes cricket. Most of his earth bound companions have been English or Scottish. When he was exiled to earth he lived in Britain. He has spent more time on the British Isles than he has anywhere else on earth.
I think it's fair to say that this Galifrayan is an Anglophile. He has a long and impressive track record of repelling invaders who dare to attack Britain.
I think it's also fair to say that the man who married Queen Elizabeth I, was knighted by Queen Victoria and is a good chum of Winston Churchill will be a Brexit supporter to his boots.
He likes cricket
Four and Five like cricket. One doesn't even know what cricket is ('Yes, it's definitely some sporting occasion' after materialising in the Oval). Seven organised a cricket match in a novel where it may or may not count. Eleven likes football. None of the rest of 'em (and if you're talking about the Doc in general I'd appreciate a lot less of the 'he' nonsense) seem to give a toss about ANY sport.
I think it's also fair to say that the man who married Queen Elizabeth I, was knighted by Queen Victoria and is a good chum of Winston Churchill will be a Brexit supporter to his boots.
What absolute rubbish. Sure the Doc's British but you know what ELSE she is? A citizen of the universe and a gentleman to boot.
Oh, and Churchill called for a United States of Europe, by the way. Queen Victoria was a staunch believer in Britain not standing alone (given how much of the globe she seemed happy to take over). And I don't see what a marriage-under-duress to Liz One has got to do with anyone's views on federalism.
None of the rest of 'em (and if you're talking about the Doc in general I'd appreciate a lot less of the 'he' nonsense) seem to give a toss about ANY sport.
For all my apathy to sports of any kind, I think we need to add in fencing and archery.
Ooh, that's true, I don't really think of them as sports cos they're USEFUL, at least if you're having to cope with baddies all the time...
Also, how good IS the Doctor at archery if he CHEATS?
The Pertwee Doctor liked martial arts.
Jon Pertwee in a corporate ad from 1981. The last line is a doozy.
'Eleven pounds fifty for a fridge or a freezer or £28.75 for a washing machine or dishwasher' - whatever happened to Pertwee having no use for that money stuff (Spearhead from Space)?
*Gets to last line*
I...I...I...I mean, I saw the WARNING and everything, I just didn't...
...Does not compute...
God, Tom would have KILLED himself before issuing a line like that when being the Doctor.
I genuinely thought it would be something along the lines of "Perfect for when the missus in the kitchen" or something MILDLY sexist but that bowled me over.
To be honest, I know context, times etc. but even then SURELY someone might have said no to that ridiculous line- even in 1981??? Why would Pertwee sully his own AND the good Doctor's name by uttering it???
God, Tom would have KILLED himself before issuing a line like that when being the Doctor.
You'd be hard pressed to think of ANY of the previous Doctors (or the current one) saying that...
Ugh...
At first I wondered how they got the BBC's permission to use the Doctor, but then realized that this wouldn't be aired publicly, just to retailers, I assume, so they probably didn't bother getting rights.
The talk of profits reminded me of a similar corporate spot I saw featuring one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles talking about "units sold". Very strange to see pop culture characters talking like bean counters.
Despite being identified as the Doctor and wearing an outfit similar to the third Doctor's wardrobe he acts more like a magician, making things appear magically.
The last line... *snicker* Well, that was a "Wait, what?" moment. Like those special cartoons meant to only be seen by soldiers that featured Mr. Magoo and Porky Pig cursing. Maybe this was an early appearance of the Valeyard? ;-)
Rodney, I can easily imagine Troughton saying it.
Sorry I can't. I know Natalie likes to shove the fact he had multiple wives down our throats at every opportunity, but I seriously would struggle to see him saying that line in front of a TV camera whilst in costume as the Doctor.
Might he have said it in real life? Possibly but not under the same circumstances that Pertwee was in.
I couldn't've imagined Pertwee saying until a minute ago.
I think Emily's response is pretty much everyone's. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement.
Saddened, actually.
I almost feel like getting rid of my Pertwee DVD's...
a comment on You Tube thinks Pertwee is feeling disgusted having to say that line. Anyone shown Katy Manning etc. this to get their thoughts?
Pertwee was an actor and comedian who was being paid to read lines.
No doubt he said things as bad as or worse through his career.
He probably cared more that the check would clear than what people 40 years later would think.
Have none of you ever watched or heard actor blooper reels? Sometimes actors say some pretty raunchy things in character on those things to get a laugh from someone.
All this wailing about a line an actor was saying in a performance that was intended to be shown to a small group of retailers, not the general public... Yeesh... *shakes head*
Have none of you ever watched or heard actor blooper reels? Sometimes actors say some pretty raunchy things in character on those things to get a laugh from someone.
Yes! And watching TomDoc snarl 'You never know the ••••••• answer when it's important, do you' to K9 is the perfect example of how to do something that's UNTHINKABLE for the Doctor whilst still being...utterly the Doctor. Only post-watershed.
As opposed to, say, telling some random woman to whip out her ••••.
All this wailing about a line an actor was saying in a performance that was intended to be shown to a small group of retailers, not the general public... Yeesh... *shakes head*
Really? Watching THE DOCTOR prepared to say such a thing in exchange for money doesn't give you as sickening a 'peak patriarchy' feeling as when you're watching a Donald Trump presidency swear in Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court Judge?
Trust me KAM I'm not one for virtue signalling. I'm more saddened than offended.
Whether he said it in jest as an ad-lib or not is not the point. The fact is he said it, in character, and quite seriously.
Tom snapping at K9 is Tom reacting to a fluffed take- not as the Doctor. This is very different.
Watching THE DOCTOR prepared to say such a thing in exchange for money
Ah, yes, I forgot you're one of those people who has trouble separating the actor from the character.
Well, why don't we chalk it up to a glitch in the TARDIS translation matrix? Covers a multitude of nits, that does.
“a comment on You Tube thinks Pertwee is feeling disgusted having to say that line. Anyone shown Katy Manning etc. this to get their thoughts?”
Well Katy did grant that very same request earlier from different people and that is how I came to like her and I was a schoolboy at the time I found this out but nevertheless I still have very great affection for her.
Pertwee clearly didn't think this through.
Was the Third Doctor bourgeois or proletariat? There's evidence both ways but the commentators generally agreed that he was the ultimate anti-establishment hero.
For what it's worth, Who is Who?: The Philosophy of Doctor Who agrees:
'With the second Doctor's trial at the conclusion of "The War Games" (1969) and his forcible regeneration, his relationship to his fellow Time Lords...transforms into an adversarial one. Now the Doctor must play the role of anti-authoritarian agent. He is set against both his own people and the martial excesses of UNIT...Thus the programme's central character is recast as a renegade or pariah.'
Nice try, but one Ambassadors grumble about the genocided Silurians does not a rebel make.
The Third Doctor did not like civil servants (Liver playing you up again?)
Stahlman was a scientist and advocate of alternative energy, not a Sir Humphrey Appleby.
the whole "show us your ••••!" is so shocking... because it's fundamentally a Law of the Universe that Pertwee has nothing but underpants and a trademark. He is an asexual Ken Doll.
?????????
Just walk away slowly, Tim....
Ah, Emily, I see you nuked some stuff here. And this is one time I don't have to ask why you did it.
(tries to keep straight face) Jon was a real star. Cliche i know but they just don't make em like him anymore. (fails to keep straight face)
It's 24 years ago today since the death of Jon Pertwee. R.I.P Jon.
Inferno –
The Doctor: “What did you expect? Some kind of space rocket with Batman at the controls?”
If I was working for the DCEU I would take that suggestion seriously.
The Third Doctor loves his Sugar Smacks:
https://tinyurl.com/ybswboly
That painting looks more like Benton in a blonde wig. ;-)
I agree.
Jon Pertwee reads Worzel Gummidge by Barbara Euphan Todd:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdMRzyY8GIA&fbclid=IwAR0vDyP334PTn2yTXLTFMIKBfwu0uC32KDTS-o6LBiXOFVSfQMGh-lpAquU
Fans of the Classic Doctors:
quote:THIS is what he looks like when the Time Lords interfere in his regeneration. I think his self-image is that of a short man. Whenever he tried to control his regeneration (Baker to Davison, McGann to Hurt) he came out shorter. After his encounter with Time Lord device “the Moment” Hurt sprang up to Eccleston size. After gaining a new set of regenerations, Smith inched up to Capaldi.
The Time Lords see him as a tall commanding presence but he sees himself as a little guy.
Yeah, that's a gross generalisation from far too little evidence. Hurt DID try to control his regeneration. For all the good that did him. ('I hope the ears are a bit less conspicuous this time' - HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!)
There is strong evidence that the Third Doctor was inspired by this show:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Adamant_Lives!
To further the connection, one of the people who developed this was was Sydney Newman, and Verity Lambert was the Producer.
And, like early Who, many episodes of this show were trashed by the Bonehead Broadcasting Corporation.
And, finally, Big Finish is doing Audios of this show.
All these connections
And, like early Who, many episodes of this show were trashed by the Bonehead Broadcasting Corporation.
Look on the bright side - when they were burning THAT THING at least they weren't burning Who...
Georgina from Adam Adamant Lives definitely felt like an early version of Jo Grant.
Oh come on, Emily, it's not that bad a show.
And Matthew is right, they are a proto Third Doctor and Jo Grant.
As I said, Big Finish are doing audios of this show. Both original actors are still alive.
Happy 102nd birthday Jon Pertwee!
If 3 was 9:
https://imgur.com/a/85b3Y0Z
That's really WRONG.
Now they just need to put 9's head on 3's frilly outfit. ;-)
Nothing traumatic about that as we've seen nine's head on six's outfit.
Yeah, but I adjusted to that extraordinarily fast - Eccy is still Eccy even in That Coat! Strange but undeniably TRUE. Whereas Pertwee-in-leather-jacket just looks, well, like some sort of HUMAN or something.
That was the complaint about Eccleston before he hit our screens. Episode 1 completely silenced those gripes.
Facebook went down several hours ago and when it came back up I found this picture:
https://imgur.com/a/1YxNaUT
From the page Everything Doctor Who.