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Reviews for The Leisure Hive

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What is substance, in TV land, anyway?

By:Luke Robinson, Sydney, Australia
Date:Friday 8 July 2005
Rating:   9

'The Leisure Hive' blows me a way, surprises me every time I rewatch it. I forget how creative it is and how 'expensive' it looks (remembering that it is 1980). It is wonderous to look at, the DVD brings all the colours to life, and the 5.1 sound is fabulous with highly inventive use of what was once mono sounds. All in all it is highly cinematic. OK the narrative progression has some problems but everything else is so fresh that I can personally ignore these quibbles and enjoy the ride (into the stars).



A very interesting intro...

By:Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom
Date:Thursday 10 March 2011
Rating:   9

Its a lie that John Nathan Turner brought about the slow death of the classiuc Doctor Who. He actually injected some vital life back into the series. it is true that for the most part Tom was pretty funny for season 17. But now we have the intelligent, brooding fourth Doctor from his first three seasons, and its a nice return. This actually begins what I consider Tom's finest season as the Doctor. The comedy isnt totally lost, but iuts toned down rather a lot.

I love Lalla Ward here too. Shes given a decent chunk of script to get her teeth into and she goes with it so well. And I love her school girl outfit, which suits her so well indeed!

Pangol is a really brilliant character, a real psycho. And the foamasi look rather impressive. And the cliffhanger to part one is another David Fisher triumph, by giving us something totally unexpected. I love the fact that the Doctor is aged to 1000 here. Tom acts so brilliantly. And the resolution of this story is one of the best climaxes to any Doctor Who.

K9 is rather sidelined, flipping his lid in the sea. Sad. I love K9! I love the fact that the Foamasi hide in restricting skin suits, and its done better here than in that moronic slitheen episode. So, John Nathan Turner made his presence felt, as did all the new production members involved with this season. This is a great start to a highly interesting season. There is more real science in this season I feel.



Leisure at a Retirement Home

By:kevin glover, Cornwall, Canada
Date:Wednesday 10 April 2013
Rating:   4

Thous begins the long and turbulant ride in the JNT era, and the inevitable end of the show, after watching this the end was closer then the beginning .

The Leisure Hive is a story about style over substance and sadly that style is now a tacky early 80s production that looks like an extended David Bowie music video. The story itself is not bad and the acting itself is strong, the guest cast are wonderful to watch but their roles are reduced to reciting technobabble that only the most hardcore nerds would understand, or even care about. Its nice to see the attempt at building alien cultures and given them a believable exsistence, and the Argolians are a wonderful design so much so I would not mind seeing them making a cameo in the new series, the Foamasi on the other hand were better regulated to the shadows and if they came back would probably work as CGI. era of annoying aliens

Direction wise its phenomenal, Lovet Bickford does an impressive job at the helm and its a shame he was never brought back to do the series again, when the likes of Peter Moffat and Ron Jones came back to do seconds. The often derided 90 second Brighton pan is worth it if you like the technicality of it, and the idea of Who taken on new challanges not done before, but other then that its just a dull dull dull story .Listen to the DVD commentery the best bitchfest you'll ever get,

Final Rating C- (Fans and completist)



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