Dale Smith
@dalesmithonline.com
840 followers 940 following 4.1K posts
Writer of things mostly about #DoctorWho and infrequent conversationalist. Also works with #Drupal / #PHP https://www.dalesmithonline.com I don't have access to DMs.
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dalesmithonline.com
Today is the official publication day of my @blackarchive.co.uk on #DoctorWho The Devil's Chord from @obversebooks.co.uk. Want to know why Ruby kept making it snow, or why there are no Beatles' on the iPlayer version of The Chase? Get yourself a copy at obversebooks.co.uk/product/78-t... now. NOW!
78. The Devil’s Chord – Obverse Books
obversebooks.co.uk
dalesmithonline.com
OK, well just thank you then: I'll check them out :)
dalesmithonline.com
As I Doctor Who fan, I would never watch something with less than perfect picture (and sound) quality for entertainment. Thank you and goodbye, sir.
dalesmithonline.com
I haven't: I know it exists from the interviews, but didn't go searching. I'm intrigued now.
Reposted by Dale Smith
dalesmithonline.com
I loved Wallis Island. 10/10 would watch again.
Reposted by Dale Smith
fubsyshabaroon.bsky.social
Share a cartoon from the past that kids today probably never heard of.
Everyone’s favourite cartoon character Alexei Sayle in Steamboat Fatty (1939).
Reposted by Dale Smith
rincewind.run
it is more important to read books you actually enjoy reading than books that are Literature
rachelfeder.bsky.social
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
Reposted by Dale Smith
translunartl.bsky.social
Translunar Travelers Lounge closes to submissions end of day tomorrow, 15th October at midnight Eastern Time (US) (UTC-4:00). If you want to submit speculative fiction to us, make sure it's before then! Please read the guidelines. translunartravelerslounge.com/submissions/
Submissions
Broadly defined, the type of fiction we are looking for is “fun”. [Go to Submissions]
translunartravelerslounge.com
dalesmithonline.com
Episode 2 really dipped for me: 1 was fantastic (if hampered by the Key to Time stuff in the TARDIS) and then it felt very padded. I don't mind the juxtaposition of the two stories, but the courtroom felt like treading water until the literal deus ex machina recognised the villain.
dalesmithonline.com
No, "no horror" is a misnomer: the actual decree was vague and nebulous but basically "don't do it like they did". And Stones was a story that really wanted to be done like "they" did it.
Reposted by Dale Smith
gswrites.bsky.social
... and one reason they got Fisher back so soon was because they needed someone to step in after Ted Lewis (of Jack's Return Home/Get Carter fame, no less!) didn't work out. Ironically Lewis's story was called the Doppelgängers, though no summary I can find has ever explained quite why!
Reposted by Dale Smith
gswrites.bsky.social
Disagree with you hugely about your verdict but I'm not going to cancel you for it! 😂 Stones is an all time fave for me. Couple of fun facts, tho: it's an evolution of an idea called The Stones of Time that Fisher first pitched in the Hartnell era with a spaceship buried under the Wessex Downs. 1/2
dalesmithonline.com
I don't mind a tonal shift, but courtroom drama is a bit static for Who, especially when what we're getting to the bottom of is a fact the audience already know and the judges are just being obtuse about discovering for themselves. Yes, more druids, less lawyers.
Reposted by Dale Smith
andreworton.bsky.social
The death of multi-camera TV: a thread. I know most of you will know the technical parts of this (and may have read it in the other place) but bear with me. 1/ 🧵
A shot from the studio rehearsal of Doctor Who: The Daleks' Master Plan episode 'Volcano', showing several actors ont he TARDIS set, with various video cameras around the scene.
dalesmithonline.com
Yes, I did like the crow: he seemed very well behaved for the kind of little bugger that could easily derail a whole week of filming. On the evidence of the rest of it, Martha and De Vries would've been fine if they hadn't stood still when the Ogri arrived.
dalesmithonline.com
I can see why the production team brought Fisher back - although their haste does seem a little unseemly: the script is strong and I suspect fulfilling its brief. I'm sure when the source material is Zenda, I'll be less disappointed with him. But I wanted this to be something else. It nearly was.
dalesmithonline.com
I know it's bad form to review something badly for not being what you wanted it to be, but there's a version of Stones I can see hidden in there that I would have loved, and half of a my disappointment is that it's been deliberately side-stepped. And then underfunded.
dalesmithonline.com
But it does have its moments. The women are uniformly fantastic, and its a rare Who that passes the Bechdel test with such flair. Romana's cliffhanger is silly, but I love the air of "Oh FFS: this again?" she brings to it. Susan Engel is a great is very telegraphed villain.
dalesmithonline.com
On top of that, you get Leeson making some very odd choices with K9's voice to show he's been damaged, and Tom is just on the cusp of realising he doesn't have to acrtuaklly work because it's not like the BBc will hire a new producer to sack him or anything.
dalesmithonline.com
The whole thing feels a bit cheap and shoddy, and the whole thing would've benefited from more location work. The hyperspace ship's model doesn't convince. It's also a bit empty, with a tiny cast but no real sense of claustrophobia so you're left seeing the budget being saved for Kroll.
dalesmithonline.com
I can see the joke of the Ogri. They're the natural end point of all those lumbering monsters you can trot away from, a self-satire. But it's not that good a joke, and at the end of the day they're just cheap slabs of polystyrene getting wheeled around by stage hands.
dalesmithonline.com
This one may get me cancelled. Watched #DoctorWho Stones of Blood and ... no, sorry, it's not a classic. I can see one in there. The living stones, the blood sacrifice, the Cailleach: Hinchcliffe and Holmes would've had a field day with this, but its been neutered by the BBC's "no horror" decree.
dalesmithonline.com
Rare case of Betteridge's law being wrong.
strangerscast.bsky.social
Every now and again something almost as delightful and moving and funny as Local Hero comes along, but it's usually no match for the real thing. Could The Ballad of Wallis Island actually be as delightful and moving and funny as Local Hero?

strangersinspace.libsyn.com/film-club-li...