1). The house used for the location of UNIT headquarters was used again in the Five Doctors. There's generally no consistency in where and what UNIT HQ looks like over the series though.
2). I wonder what the story would have been like had William Hartnell taken a fuller role in the story rather than being confined to a TV screen.
3). Bob Baker and Dave Martin write the story so expect some science abuse. In this case they mash up black holes, cosmic rays and anti-matter. It all fits together somehow obviously
4). Liberty Hall, Dr Tyler, Liberty Hall!
5). Somewhat lacking in imagination, he walls of Omega's castle are the same texture as a Gel Guard, or possibly Omega used to hunt them and has since used them for wallpaper.
6). I've been to Cromer and it really was that flat and bleak. The Brig is excused.
7). In the novel Omega lives in a giant golden castle. It's made more explicit that his emotions are reflected in the atmosphere/weather, in the TV story it only rolls with thunder once when he's angry.
8). While we're on the novel check out the similarity between the Chris Achilleos art and an early issue of Fantastic Four. I don't have a problem with Omega being like the Galactus of Doctor Who.
9). Again according to the novelisation when the dark side of Omega fights the Doctor it takes place in a roman styled amphitheatre, on the TV it's two guys slow-motion rolling around a dark room. Overall watching the story after reading the book was a slight let down.
10). Fans had to wait decades for an action figure, but he does have a very shiny cloak a pleasing 'remove his head' pose. They think of everything.
I liked the Gel Guard walls! Not only did they look cool but to me it was handy to have a visual clue of how Omega's mind controlled everything there. He invented the Gel Guards so to me it made sense that he would have similar looking stuff around his castle. I do like that action figure!
ReplyDeleteTops parts from this story are the hilarious Gel Guards, the composite shots of the outside of the Omega Citadel (nicely done) and of course Omega's over the top acting. It has always been too bad that Hartnell couldn't have been more involved. I suppose that would have been his only color-Who participation? Cheers for highlighting this awesome story.
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