8 Responses

• Tin Dog Bloke Says:
  September 9th, 2008 at 10:19

  Another great cast. especially the bit with the geordie bloke… anyway… you’ve all done very well.

  cheers

  Back to Trial of a Time Lord…. Bod help me.

• Nathan B Says:
  September 9th, 2008 at 12:08

  Nice work, guys and gal – though I do have a complaint (which I shall whisper). I never understood what was wrong with Timelash and actually quite like it I admit Paul Darrow’s chewing of the scenery does make me smirk but as a story I thought it was rather good. The fight club ending made me spit coffee down my nose!

• Andy Simpkins Says:
  September 9th, 2008 at 22:29

  Glad you liked the ending of Fight Club for this particular episode, Nathan.This particular fight club had been tossed around for a while until we all decided on the format for it.As you are probably aware, the characters who portray Jeffrey Sinclair and Nick Cutter are renowned for their particularly wooden and all-importantly, glacially slow method of acting and non-emoting on screen.If needs be,send the dry-cleaning bill for your shirt to us at Staggering Stories but just bear in mind that my face went through several shades of various colours whilst emulating the slow-motion fight scene noises.

• Adam J Purcell Says:
  September 10th, 2008 at 21:43

  Thank you both. As for that geordie bloke, he did sound spookily familiar! Thanks again for the MP3 – you’re so much better at this than us! As for Trial of a Time Lord… it just isn’t the same not being preceeded by Roland Rat!

  Mr Simpkins, how can you reply to Mr B without pointing and laughing at the Timelash fetish?

  I must admit, Nathan, I think I am exactly the same about Attack of the Cybermen. Everyone else seems to hate it and generally see nothing but faults. Me, I can’t even really seen any faults with it! Must be that cyber-conditioning (it’s great for the hair, I’m told).

  As for the coffee down the nose – you have Andy to entirely thank for that one. He’d been lobbying for Sinclair vs. Cutter for a while. All his idea and execution! Any dry cleaning bills to him! It was a great idea, I must admit, though…

• Tin Dog Bloke Says:
  September 11th, 2008 at 09:24

  I never liked Attack of the cybermen but only because it had the wrong cybermen in it.

  There is talk of Mondas and Telos but all the cybermen we see are the same BBC 1980’s standard Model and even when I was a Kid I knew this was wrong.

  The Tomb and Tenth Planet cybermen are so different.

  I know that seeing the cloth mask cybs are unlikely in New Who but for something so reliant on the past.. the story just needed to go that extra yard…

  even the Cyons arnt as bad as people say.

  And dont for a MOMENT think that Im better than the staggering crew. I am just a bloke and a 4 quid mic from ebay. And some free software.

  Oh and as for Time Lash? Its well recorded that this was the first story I ever taped off TV.. onto Beta max and during the hiatus I only had that and Daleks to keep me going for 18 months and I STILL love WHO.

• Nathan B Says:
  September 11th, 2008 at 09:32

  Just googled Betamax…

• Tin Dog Bloke Says:
  September 11th, 2008 at 16:03

  Philips 2000!

• Adam J Purcell Says:
  September 12th, 2008 at 08:16

  Philips 2000! Never had one of those but I think I knew one or two people who did. Never really took off as a format here.

  But, yes, good old Betamax! I think the first video recording I did, Betamax again, was The Five Doctors! I must still have that tape somewhere, though no means to play it! I did convert all my old Betamax tapes to VHS a couple of years later (by simply connecting the two recorders together). Can’t play even those anymore now. Never bothered to convert them onto DVD (the picture/audio quality is shocking by today’s standards!)

  I had a major incident when originally recording Attack of the Cybermen onto Betamax. You may remember that Betamax tapes were physically smaller and gave better picture quality. Therefore they also had less recording time than VHS. About ten minutes before the end of the second part the tape ran out! In a panic I let the tape rewind and recorded the end over the beginning of part one! For years I’d only seen the diamond heist stuff once but most of the rest of the story countless times (missing about a minute or so somewhere towards the end while the tape was rewinding!) It was tricky to watch on Betamax but I did what I could to stitch the end segment back onto the end when transferred to VHS!
  A day or two after Attack part 2 screened I ended up writing up the missing first ten or so minutes at school, as a story for an English class. Just so I wouldn’t forget it! I may even still have that somewhere!

  I must admit, though, I never had much of a problem over the cyber design changes. For a long time I thought the Cybermen in Tomb of the Cybermen looked like the Revenge of the Cybermen type, thanks to the misleading Target book cover! David Banks’ excellent Cybermen book had an attempt at explaining it all. Something to do with cybernomads meeting the Telos Cybermen and upgrading them. Who knows how much time has passed, I can take that or any other explanation!

  Rewatching Timelash over and over for 18 months?! It’s a wonder you don’t have constant nightmares about Paul Darrow, tinsel or being trapped in a cave with a Morlox! I know I would!

  Oh, and Free Software (as in freedom, rather than as in beer) is definitely the way to go!

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