CSO - Did It Ruin The Story?

[Saber]

The CSO/Green Screen was used quite heavily throughout this story and while it worked better in some respects than it had in other stories, at times it looked really naff and unconvincing and I think is one of the reasons why this story is often poorly regarded among fandom. Do you think it ruined or hindered the story at all, or do you find it easy to overlook given the SFX constraints of the time and the lack of budget they had while making the story?

[Scott]

Hmm, I'm not sure. It wasn't so bad in the opening episode, which was definately a lot stronger than the later three (though thats more writing than the CSO), but I think that the story was made worse in the later episodes by the fact that so much time was spent running around the caves so not only did they get boring to look at in terms of seeing the same thing over and over, but also annoying because it all looked so obviously fake. The stuff in the shaft with the bad music and badly acted freefalling in front of the dodgy green background was the absolute worst of the lot. It didn't ruin the story as such, but it definately played a part in what makes it so bad.

[TheDoctorDonna]

I don't think it ruined the story but I do think that it made it harder to focus on everything else going on, especially early on. You get more used to it as the story goes on but I think it's the excessive use of it that makes it worse. If it was used sparingly it wouldn't have been so bad, but they used it quite a lot for one story.

[Nyki]

I wouldn't say it ruined the story, but it certainly didn't help.

[Roranicus]

My personal opinion is that it didn't ruin the story, but they did use too much of it. Way too much of it. They may have been low on budgets but they had enough money to create a few sets and I think those sets could have been used more or even redressed to look like other areas, to take the focus off the CSO

[Exterminate]

I think they overdid it for sure, but I don't think that it ruined the story as such. It was better than a lot of the other times they had used it and when it worked it didn't look too bad, but there were times when it got a bit distracting, like when people were walking through cave walls.

[Tardis-Console]

It stood out a bit at first, and was used perhaps a bit too much, but it definately didn't ruin the story. I stopped noticing it after a while

[Oh-Wise-One]

I don't think it ruined the story, but it definately contributed to how bad it was. The script did the rest.

[Kovarians-Eye-Patch]

Surely it would have made more sense to split the budget from the following story and then share the CSO out rather than have so much in just the one story. I don't think it ruined Underworld, but I think it definately worsened the serial

[Vampyros Adric]

As I said in the other thread - the decision to rely so heavily on a fairly clumsy piece of tech was a poor production decision. They should have either re-written or re-worked it so it the CSO was less obtrusive. Or perhaps used Matte paintings and creative scenery instead. The CSO detracted from the story telling substantially.

That said, in 1977 a large number of houses still had black and white TVs and the colour TVs of the time were fairly dodgy so perhaps I'm being a little harsh.