Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
As far as I’m concerned, Season 25 – the 25th anniversary season – of the classic ‘Doctor Who’ TV series has two stories that are worth mentioning to celebrate 25 years of the TV show – ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ and ‘Silver Nemesis’. I enjoyed both these exciting and thrilling stories.
In my opinion, ‘Remembrance’ works better as an anniversary story compared to ‘Silver Nemesis’, the actual anniversary story, since it takes place at Coal Hill School in Shoreditch, London in 1963 where it all began for William Hartnell as the First Doctor, and it also features the dastardly Daleks. 🙂
‘Silver Nemesis’ is still fitting to celebrate 25 years though, considering it has Cybermen in it and they’re silver enough for the silver anniversary. 😀 Mind you, there’s a lot going on in the three-part adventure, whereas it’s more tidily structured in ‘Remembrance’, especially as it’s a four-part story.
When it comes to talking about ‘The Happiness Patrol’ and ‘The Greatest Show In The Galaxy’, I don’t consider them highly in Season 25, especially as they have more to do with the Andrew Cartmel vision for the show than to celebrate 25 years of ‘Doctor Who’. I also found them underwhelming. 😐
Whilst there are good concepts going on in both stories, they’re not ‘Doctor Who’ adventures I would want to revisit again and again. ‘The Happiness Patrol’ is rather dull for me, especially with its political messages, whilst ‘The Greatest Show in the Galaxy’ was a challenge for me to get my head around. 😐
Season 25 is half and half for me. Whilst I enjoyed the 25th anniversary side of things with ‘Remembrance’ and ‘Silver Nemesis’, the other two stories let things down for me. At least Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor and Sophie Aldred’s Ace shine throughout in all four stories of Season 25. 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
Bradley's Basement 
Although S26 is particularly better than S25 in my own opinion, I’ll always appreciate how S25 was most pivotal in establishing the 7th Doctor’s place amongst all the regenerations.
Thank you, Tim, for your summary.
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Hi scifimike,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Season 25 of ‘Doctor Who’. I think the Sylvester McCoy/Seventh Doctor era on TV is a mixed bag for me overall, but I always enjoy revisiting stories like ‘Paradise Towers’, ‘Delta and the Bannermen’, ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’, ‘Silver Nemesis’ and ‘Survival’ when I can, as they fit my criteria on how enjoyable ‘Doctor Who’ stories should be. They also contain some very good scenes featuring Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor.
Many thanks,
Tim 🙂
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Striking thing I only just noticed: “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy” is the last ‘Doctor Who’ “future story” of the classic series. Season 26 will include elements of otherworldliness — most prominently in Arthur’s tomb and the Cheetah planet — but the planet Segonax is the final tale of the programme to commit wholeheartedly to an alien world without some concession to Earth.
It’s something of a silent funeral. Like the passing of individual episode titles after “The Gunfighters” or the last farewell to Earthbound-style UNIT tales in “The Seeds of Doom”. This style of story has been with us since Skaro’s Petrified Forest in “The Daleks”. It’s not until “The End of the World” in 2005 that we’ll see its like again on the programme. A moment of silence for a hundred other worlds achieved over twenty-five years.
Behind the scenes, “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy” bookends with the Davison era’s earlier troubles realising Seabase 4 in “Warriors of the Deep” (a, sadly prolific, source for clips during the hiatus). However, here studio troubles had sunk the previous serial, here, the emergency is turned on its head. A man, a plan, a car park, Segonax. Location shooting from stem to stern ensures the Psychic Circus is one of the best-looking productions of the season.
Those eleventh-hour miracles that kept the show alive? The one which only a few years ago seemed to have gone up in smoke? Looks like there’s just a little indefinable magic left. A puff or two at most, but enough to keep ‘Doctor Who’ going for another year…
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Hi Wolfie,
Interesting thoughts about ‘The Greatest Show In The Galaxy’ being the last story in the classic ‘Doctor Who’ TV series to be about an alien planet in the future and feature no Earth elements to it. Thanks for sharing that revelation. I wouldn’t have realised that until now. 😆 Interesting how you’ve compared the production problems of ‘Greatest Show’ to the production problems ‘Warriors of the Deep’ had. I think the way ‘Greatest Show’ was handled in terms a production is very commendable, especially when the production team had to film in a tent for all the studio scenes they were meant to have.
Many thank for your comments.
Best wishes,
Tim 🙂
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