Re: From the Archives .....

On 21/04/2024 19:59, Blueshirt wrote:

The True Doctor wrote:
 

On 21/04/2024 01:21, Blueshirt wrote:

The Doctor wrote:

>
I go with 4 Doctors taking on Morbius!

>
You can take from that scene whatever you like... it doesn't
change the way the scene was conceived. There is no Doctor
Who bible so whatever works for you and your enjoyment of
the show is fine. We are all free to make our own
head-canon.

>
What there is are established facts. No regenerations existed
before Hartnell as stated by Hartnell in The Tenth Planet and
the 1st Doctor in The Five Doctors. What transpired in The
Brain of Morbius can only be interpreted one way, the faces
viewers did not recognise were those of Morbius, just as
Terrance Dicks states in the Target novelization.

 At the time, the kiddies didn't know that. Uncle Terrance's "The

At the time the kiddies all figured it out by themselves. When the Doctor was winning his face appeared on the screen. When you didn't recognise his face then it was obviously that of Morbius or his previous incarnations since his mind was clearly stronger.
This of course assumed that everyone watching has seen Robot or the end of Planet of the Spiders which established regeneration and the kiddies parents knew that Hartnell was the first Doctor otherwise most of the kiddies would have only recognised the faces of Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee.

Brain of Morbius" Target novel wasn't published until a year or
two later. So the BBC1 viewers of the day would have seen the
Doctor's faces on the screen go 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1 -> then a few
more faces... so they could easily have interpreted it as they
were the faces of the Doctor. (As intended by Phillip
Hinchcliffe.)

Terrance Dicks wrote the story and that was never his intention nor the intention of the director, since the visual symbolism implies that the person whose face is on the screen is the one who is winning, just like a camera follows the lead runner running a marathon when they near the finish line or a quiz show focuses on the contestant who is currently active or gives the right answer.
Imagine that both Time Lords had never regenerated before, since this was supposed to be a Gallyfreyan children's game. Who's face would have been displayed on the screen? Natural logic dictates that it's the face of the one who is winning. There wasn't even any sign of whinging in the facts shown on screen so clearly they were not in plain because they were losing. They were the faces of the Time Lord who was winning.

 Some children in 1976 wouldn't have been around to see any
William Hartnell episodes as a reference. We all watched Doctor

No, but my mum had watched William Hartnell before and knew he was the first actor to play the Doctor.

Who 'fresh' back then in the 1970's, with no repeat viewings,
videos or internet. A ten year old child in front of the
television in 1976 isn't going to know or care about established
"facts" that you maintain existed.

A 6 year old child in front of the TV is going to figure out from the start that the person whose face is on the screen is the one who is winning. The Doctor lost and died. All the faces after Tom Baker may as well have been those of Morbius to the uninitiated.

 Or care that the producers of a TV show can change things to
suit themselves if they want to, like our friend Mr Chibnall
chose to do with Doctor Ruth!

Stop insulting the intelligence of the audience. Even a 6 year old child knows more about story writing and can write better Doctor Who episodes than Chris Chibnall.
Doctor Who ended in 2017 since the character of the main protagonist stopped being that of the Doctor.
--
The True Doctor https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCngrZwoS0n21IRcXpKO79Lw
"To be woke is to be uninformed which is exactly the opposite of what it stands for." -William Shatner