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The Leisure Hive is far from my favourite episode. The plot is unnecessarily complicated and contrived. It does have a few redeeming features. Tom Baker as an old, old Doctor in amazing prosthetics does a very good job. And for its time some of the special effects aren’t bad. It is also the first time we saw the maroon version of The Doctor’s outfit, and the new style credits that left behind the era of the time tunnel. But on the whole it isn’t an episode I would watch for choice very often. 7/10
Commentary The commentary for Leisure Hive is by Lalla Ward, Lovett Bickford (director) and Christopher H. Bidmead, scriptwriter, is a bit tedious in places. I am especially bored with people like Lalla Ward dismissing the new Doctor Who for having it ‘easy’ with modern CGI effects. Modern CGI is just as hard to get right as the old CSO and other visual effects. Just because there are powerful computers involved doesn’t make it ‘easier’. It just makes the end results much more twenty-first century. 7/10
Extras A New Beginning is a thirty minute documentary that looks at the
changes incoming 10/10
9/10 Synthesising Starfields is a documentary about the creation of the new theme tune by Peter Howell and Sid Sutton’s new title sequence, with the starfield. Both men talk about their inspirations and the processes that went into their separate contributions to Doctor Who. 10/10
10/10 Blue Peter – Oh, no, not Blue Peter! Breathy, annoying female presenter whose name I can’t remember visits the Longleat exhibition and talks to John Nathan Turner. The Dalek was the least annoying thing in the whole presentation. 4/10
5/10
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producer
John Nathan Turner made, starting with Leisure Hive. In particular
he wanted Doctor Who to appeal to teenagers and young adults rather
than the ‘family’ market, hence the complex plots like
Leisure Hive and the writing out of K9 as well as a more serious slant
to the stories, moving away from the humour of recent stories. He
also got rid of Dudley Simpson as incidental music composer and had
the title credits changed. Turner’s explanations of why he did
these things make a lot of sense. But at the same time, we have to
remember it was his idea to give The Doctor question marks on his
lapels and other silly ideas. It is quite interesting to note that
there are some criticisms in this documentary of Tom Baker’s
dominance of the role as The Doctor. Even Baker himself admits that
he was too full of himself at the time and contributed to tensions
between him and the producers. The honesty of this documentary is
to be commended, though it is painful for a long term Doctor Who fan
to hear about these issues behind the scenes.
From
Avalon to Argolis examines the writing of this story, featuring David
Fisher and Christopher H. Bidmead. They both talk about the problems
of working with John Nathan Turner’s ‘philosophy’.
David Fisher says that it was much less ‘fun’ working
with Turner than with Graham Williams. It does rather turn into a
John Nathan Turner knocking session, which is slightly unfair since
he is dead and cannot fight his own corner. They complain about being
forced to include lots of effects because the episode was a vehicle
for some new effects technology. There is a lot of complaining, and
perhaps not enough positive thoughts about the story
Leisure
Wear focusses on June Hudson, the costume designer for Leisure Hive,
who was also responsible for The Doctor’s new look. She speaks
quite well about her choices, such as the gold/yellow costumes of
the Argolians and Mina’s costume with antique lace on it. The
decision to make the businessmen dark in contrast to the bright Argolians
was deliberate. Lalla’s beach outfit was also a deliberate choice.
Her comment that a costume designer is a writer with visuals is very
succinct.
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