Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Paul Arthur about his choice of Terror of the Autons (4/4)

Transcript

Talks to Paul Arthur about his choice of Terror of the Autons (4/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blunt pen knife for doing quicker.
• 0:36
  Hello and welcome to a Hamster with a Blunt Pen Knife.
• 0:40
  You've joined us just in time for episode 4 of Terror of the
• 0:44
  Autons where we will see yellow suited big headed dudes flying
• 0:48
  around getting blown up all over the place.
• 0:51
  And we will see the the demise of the master question mark.
• 0:57
  We will see more John Hope we being a Dick to people and we
• 1:03
  will have a really, really good time.
• 1:04
  My name is Paul Arthur and I'm here with Joe Ford.
• 1:07
  How you doing, Joe? Say, how are you can improvise
• 1:10
  that? Now that was flawless.
• 1:12
  Oh well. Get in there, Get in there.
• 1:14
  Absolutely flawless. I mean, we've also got people
• 1:17
  being asphyxiated by a cling film.
• 1:19
  Oh, I didn't even talk about the spray of death, did I?
• 1:22
  No. Yeah.
• 1:22
  Excuse me, what are you referring to?
• 1:26
  I'm talking about daffodils. There'll be no water sports on
• 1:29
  this coal, alright? Actually, what's this one got?
• 1:33
  No, actually, let's not go there.
• 1:35
  Let's not go there. No.
• 1:38
  He stopped me. Stop me before I go on.
• 1:41
  We. Talked about Doctor Who gossip
• 1:43
  earlier on this evening. So is there any?
• 1:45
  Is there any water sport related Doctor Who gossip?
• 1:51
  Oh, not that I'm aware of. I mean, I can't believe you
• 1:54
  asked that question. I know.
• 1:56
  Who do you imagine that you can get that out?
• 1:58
  No, I've I wouldn't. Who'd you imagine would be most
• 2:01
  into water sports in doctor? I think Caroline Ford, somebody
• 2:04
  like that, you know, what do you think?
• 2:08
  Yeah, OK. I was, I was going to say Bonnie
• 2:12
  Langford, but. Oh, Bonnie, Oh, she seems quite
• 2:15
  pure and I so I reckon Carol's a dirty bitch.
• 2:19
  Right, OK. We can never confirm.
• 2:22
  No, no, that you did ask, all right.
• 2:26
  I did. I did.
• 2:27
  I'm really sorry to both Caroline and Bonnie if they
• 2:31
  happen to hear this So. Carol if you're pure as a driven
• 2:34
  snow and Bonnie if you're a filthy bitch.
• 2:36
  We apologise for Paul before we get cancelled.
• 2:47
  But if it was going to happen, I think it might have happened by
• 2:50
  now. Yeah, you're fine.
• 2:52
  You're fine. Should we go watch episode 4?
• 2:56
  Yeah, absolutely. What a way to go out of the hat.
• 2:58
  Finally ending the hamster run by by watching episode 4 of.
• 3:02
  So when were you? You know, because I mean, it's
• 3:04
  just so much fun to talk to and you always choose great stories.
• 3:09
  I just end up laughing like a lunatic.
• 3:11
  Excellent. Yeah, no, we're we're having a
• 3:14
  good time. I'm sorry.
• 3:15
  It's not stories that I hate, guys.
• 3:17
  And apologies for for enjoying it all, but.
• 3:20
  Promise to spread some hate in the future though, all right?
• 3:23
  Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. Let's do do something that I
• 3:26
  really despise. You did ask me to think of
• 3:28
  something else and to to watch after this and I still haven't
• 3:31
  made my mind up, so we'll have to.
• 3:34
  Oh, Hamster was created, you know, to spread positivity.
• 3:37
  I was determined to find the one person who loves every story,
• 3:40
  right? So that's why different people
• 3:41
  are all the time. I was going to find somebody
• 3:43
  that loves everything and I sort of achieved that.
• 3:45
  Then I got to like Stephen Moffin.
• 3:47
  I realised I couldn't do it. I just couldn't be positive.
• 3:50
  So I thought, well, let's shake it up.
• 3:51
  And now every now and again and I have a few people on and have
• 3:54
  someone positive, someone negative.
• 3:55
  And that was interesting. And then I was like, I watched
• 3:58
  Doctor Widow and the Wardrobe and I was like, oh, we both
• 4:01
  savaged it. And that was quite fun.
• 4:02
  But I think my real love, especially with classic, is to
• 4:06
  extol virtues. You know what the Moffett stuff,
• 4:10
  I mean, although is quite a long time ago now, Still feels quite,
• 4:14
  quite fresh to me really. And I think, I think with the
• 4:18
  the thing with the classics is so much time has passed and we
• 4:21
  are so familiar with those stories, having watched them
• 4:23
  over and over again in the intervening years.
• 4:26
  That kind of history kind of makes everything a little bit
• 4:30
  better, doesn't it? So even those ones that you
• 4:32
  really hated back in the day, like say, if you were a teenager
• 4:35
  in the late 80s and you really hated McCoy, I think a lot of
• 4:38
  those fans have warmed to it over the years.
• 4:41
  A lot of them have mellowed in their opinions.
• 4:43
  Some haven't. And I do know plenty still hold
• 4:46
  on to that opinion that it's it's a shit error and they're
• 4:50
  completely wrong because it's fucking brilliant.
• 4:52
  But but yeah, I think most people, time kind of heals,
• 4:57
  heals a lot of those kind of wounds, doesn't it?
• 4:59
  And makes everything a little bit better.
• 5:01
  Not even until a little secret, you know, I mean you are right
• 5:04
  and I have gone back to a lot of that Moffit stuff and I am
• 5:08
  kinder now because it isn't like now, you know, it isn't Doctor
• 5:11
  Who now. And so I'm enjoying, well
• 5:14
  actually I didn't really like RTD too, but certainly when
• 5:16
  Jodie Whittaker stuff I was really enjoying that.
• 5:18
  So it wasn't so urgent to to hate it, but like classic Doctor
• 5:22
  Who now as a collective. Yeah.
• 5:24
  The whole of it is such comfort television to me now.
• 5:29
  I don't know that I can be objective about it in a way that
• 5:33
  somebody who's not a fan of classic who can be what's like
• 5:37
  if let's think of something what's like the ultimate comfort
• 5:40
  thing, like a blanket. What's what's sort of warm that
• 5:42
  you can wrap around you and don't say piss, all right.
• 5:47
  You know, I was like eating porridge or, you know, hugging
• 5:49
  up with your with your. Well, I suppose with you, it
• 5:52
  might be with your kids or with your loved ones or with a friend
• 5:55
  watching a movie that sort of, yeah, glow inside.
• 5:59
  That's classic who? Yeah, yeah, 100% and all of it
• 6:03
  as well, right. Even the bits you maybe didn't
• 6:07
  warm to first time around or whatever all of it is, is kind
• 6:10
  of that comforting TV now, isn't it?
• 6:13
  I think. I think it's really those people
• 6:16
  who do hang on to hang on to kind of their opinions from 4050
• 6:20
  years ago, perhaps perhaps need to step outside and touch the
• 6:26
  grass a little bit, should we say.
• 6:27
  But. Yeah, don't get me started on
• 6:29
  those people that bring a modern lens to some of this stuff, all
• 6:33
  right? Because we will end up slacking
• 6:36
  people off. Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah,
• 6:39
  yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's a, that's
• 6:42
  a whole different sidebar for another time maybe.
• 6:45
  But I can see why younger people, I can see why people
• 6:50
  would do that. I think, I think there is some
• 6:53
  value in looking at things through through contemporary
• 6:57
  eyes, if you like in terms of like you can see the how things,
• 7:01
  how progressive or not things were, but.
• 7:05
  You can judge it now, but you can't judge it then.
• 7:08
  No, no, you can't apply, you can't apply today's standards to
• 7:11
  something that's like 60 years old though.
• 7:13
  That is, is silly. But at the same time, you can
• 7:16
  look at it through the lens of today.
• 7:18
  I don't know. There's, there's a, there's a
• 7:19
  fine line there. I can see what you're saying.
• 7:21
  I think we should stop enjoying terror of the Autumns then, and
• 7:24
  focus on all the problematic things, the terrible sexism
• 7:27
  that's going on in it. Well, yeah, exactly.
• 7:29
  We didn't touch on. We haven't touched so far on the
• 7:32
  kind of slightly foreign element of Delgado's master.
• 7:36
  You know, he had a reputation for playing all manner of
• 7:39
  foreign villains, from everything from Spaniards to
• 7:43
  Arabs to whatever, because that's the kind of part he could
• 7:46
  play really, really well. He does bring a little bit of
• 7:49
  that to this, I guess, you know, and you could say that, you
• 7:52
  know, maybe it's an argument to say that that's not a brilliant,
• 7:55
  that's a slightly problematic performance.
• 7:57
  I want to do that. Not well, we.
• 7:59
  Haven't done that so far. Yeah, like, like, and I get it.
• 8:03
  I get the academic exercise of it, but I want classic Who to be
• 8:08
  a comfort blanket. I want it to be what Toby Hado
• 8:12
  goes through where I don't know if you listen to his podcast,
• 8:14
  but what he goes through when he turns up to do a recording,
• 8:18
  talking to himself, which is very difficult, saying, God,
• 8:22
  I've had such a bad day. You know, there's been
• 8:25
  rejections here and I've had issues with that.
• 8:27
  And and then he starts talking about Doctor Who when he watches
• 8:31
  an episode and you hear him visibly relax and then he's
• 8:36
  laughing. And then by the end of it, he's
• 8:38
  he's he's having this wonderful shared experience with
• 8:40
  technically nobody, but actually all of us.
• 8:45
  And you and you could just you, you feel the the comfort that
• 8:50
  Doctor Who can bring listening to that podcast.
• 8:52
  Yeah, that's what it is to me. No, yeah, I totally agree.
• 8:56
  And I think like you said to like, you know, knew who do we
• 9:01
  still say knew who? I don't know who's been around
• 9:03
  long enough. Now that, you know, we we've got
• 9:07
  that distance now, we can perhaps start to do that with
• 9:11
  with those I would have stories. I don't think I'm a big fan of
• 9:14
  Moffat, really. I like the early Matt Smith
• 9:18
  stuff, but I'm not a fan of Capaldi's run at all and by the
• 9:23
  end I've really actively annoyed with with his with the the last
• 9:28
  season with Bill. I know everyone likes that one
• 9:31
  season 10 series 10, but I've really had enough of him by
• 9:36
  then. But one to four, I know you have
• 9:38
  some issues with RTD, but like, especially for where I was so
• 9:43
  involved, now that is like, my oh God, it was in the zeitgeist.
• 9:46
  It was so popular. It was so well made.
• 9:49
  It was so confident, you know? Yeah, you're right.
• 9:51
  I see Series 4 is peak, peak new who for me.
• 9:56
  And you're right, that's that. I've got a lot of nostalgia for
• 9:59
  that. I probably need to spend more
• 10:01
  time with that stuff like we've done with the classics over the
• 10:05
  years. I need to.
• 10:06
  I will dip into the new stuff and I'll watch the odd bit here
• 10:09
  and there, but I don't return to that stuff over and over again.
• 10:14
  And I think maybe I need to now. Maybe I need to do that?
• 10:16
  Cast schedule seems to be materializing before my eyes.
• 10:22
  We'll talk. Yeah, yeah.
• 10:24
  I suppose right now though, we should talk about Terror of the
• 10:27
  Autons Part 4. Oh my God.
• 10:29
  Yeah, why are we talking about RTD and model?
• 10:33
  Oh God, please. Ripping off this with Rose, come
• 10:37
  on now. Yes, and and and and only like
• 10:40
  only the fun bits, like about two minutes of Auton stuff and
• 10:43
  40 minutes of fanning around council.
• 10:46
  Estates. Oh God, so gay.
• 10:53
  Well, do you want to count as indoor?
• 10:55
  Shall I? Yeah, let's do it.
• 10:56
  Okay, you ready 321? I actually got annoyed on the
• 11:04
  Terror of the Autumns documentary because Phil
• 11:07
  Collinson is on there, right? I don't know if you watched it
• 11:10
  and he's comparing everything to the new series, but it's all in
• 11:14
  the tone of well, yes, they did that like that then, but now we
• 11:19
  can do this with special effects, and we can do this with
• 11:22
  emotional relationships between the doctor and the companion.
• 11:24
  I was like, shut up. The, the, the DVD range went
• 11:29
  through that kind of period, didn't it, where it seemed to
• 11:31
  be, you seemed to get that quite a lot where it was like,
• 11:34
  because, because RTD was right so high for quite a period of
• 11:37
  time that, yeah, he would pop Phil Collinson would pop up.
• 11:41
  And you're right. And it's kind of annoying
• 11:42
  because when you're watching, you know, an extra about the
• 11:46
  story like this. I want to hear about this story.
• 11:48
  I don't want to hear about what you did in 2005.
• 11:51
  Riding so high now though, are you RTD?
• 11:54
  Yes, yeah, you will. You either die a hero or you
• 11:57
  live long enough to see stuff become the villain, don't you?
• 12:00
  There is an inverse to that though, and that is the behind
• 12:02
  the sofa, which has Sasha Duan and Anjali Mahindra on it.
• 12:06
  Yes. And that is gorgeous.
• 12:08
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 12:09
  Anjali's confused because she thought they had a budget
• 12:12
  increase, but she said then she's seen all of these action
• 12:15
  sequences and going, oh, maybe we lost money in the new series.
• 12:19
  And Sasha to, 1, is in love with Roger Delgado.
• 12:23
  Yeah, he what he he does bang on about it all the time, doesn't
• 12:26
  he's so, yeah, in love with that performance so you can get it.
• 12:30
  And I can see why he he he talks about holding off on on watching
• 12:34
  it before he did the part because he didn't want to be
• 12:36
  like lift too much or. What's so interesting is that's
• 12:39
  between the Timeless Children and Power of the Doctor.
• 12:42
  Yeah. You haven't felt Power of the
• 12:43
  Doctor yet. And he keeps coming.
• 12:45
  He's so still. Yeah.
• 12:47
  He's really like, he's so contained.
• 12:49
  You watch him in Power of the Doctor, you know those bits is
• 12:52
  Rasputin and he's just intense and really still he's learning
• 12:56
  from the best. Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:58
  Yeah. Why wouldn't you be?
• 13:00
  Why wouldn't you take from that? I think he talks in that as well
• 13:02
  about like nicking stuff from doctors that he talks about,
• 13:05
  like holding the lapels and stuff like that.
• 13:08
  He's a brilliant actor. We were lucky to have him, I
• 13:11
  think. So lucky, so like, but I think
• 13:13
  the respect they showed for the material and they do laugh at it
• 13:16
  as well and all sorts of stuff, but it's really warming.
• 13:20
  Yeah. Collins are now Mahindra in.
• 13:24
  He's always trying to put in that Bunsen burner up against
• 13:27
  that daffodil. I wouldn't do that if I was you.
• 13:29
  Well, I mean, the heat's not the problem here.
• 13:31
  I think that was that was a Terran sticks thing because
• 13:35
  changing it from the heat to the radio waves for the flowers.
• 13:39
  So I think he joked about like, well, unless you're going to
• 13:42
  film it in Morocco, then you're not going to get a lot of hot
• 13:46
  weather all the time. So well.
• 13:47
  I imagine every time someone puts their heating on, I mean
• 13:50
  all the family will be dead. Right.
• 13:54
  Or turn the oven on or something.
• 13:56
  Where did you put that flower? Oh, just next to the cooker.
• 14:01
  Did I see Joe Grant going off in a motorbike just a second ago?
• 14:05
  Oh, where'd she go? I think she did she she's on the
• 14:08
  hunt for the for the van that's transporting about all of the
• 14:12
  carnival masked people. She's back here again.
• 14:14
  Oh no, she's back in the lab now.
• 14:15
  The the there was a motorbike at the beginning which is following
• 14:18
  the the autumn bus just kind of spying on them again re
• 14:23
  Avengers. EI think this is one of those
• 14:25
  scenes where where is your line? I think this crosses a line in a
• 14:30
  minute where Joe gets the cling film over her face and it he
• 14:35
  doesn't, he doesn't cut away. He has the doctor spray the sort
• 14:39
  of glue all over her face and she's really panicking and
• 14:43
  anxious and eventually it gets ripped off.
• 14:46
  But it's a good 10 seconds. Right, right.
• 14:48
  And that's, it's a scare, but because it's, you know, when
• 14:53
  you're a kid, when you're a little kid, be told all the
• 14:55
  time, don't put plastic bags over your head.
• 14:59
  And that's literally what that's doing.
• 15:00
  So. So there is that.
• 15:02
  Yeah, that was you're right, probably crossing a line.
• 15:05
  Holmes is. He knows what he's doing.
• 15:08
  He's really naughty, isn't he? He'd like to push it as far as
• 15:11
  he could. What can we get?
• 15:13
  And you know, Knuckles were wrapped here and he came back
• 15:15
  with comedies, didn't he? Kind of monsters.
• 15:18
  And he goes, fine, I'm going to be naughty, but I'll take the
• 15:20
  Mickey out of TV, right? You know you want me to write a
• 15:23
  historical fine, I'll have the psychic be a complete idiot.
• 15:28
  It's only only later when he, when he's got like kind of a
• 15:32
  blood brother in, in Philip, Philip, blah, blah, blah, blah,
• 15:36
  blah. He's got, he's got a comic,
• 15:37
  well, no, blood brother's the wrong term.
• 15:39
  And he's got like a soulmate in in Hinchcliff, somebody who
• 15:43
  agrees with him that, yeah, they can kind of real really bring on
• 15:47
  the scares that that stuff kind of comes back again.
• 15:50
  They really are going for that. A home and Watson relationship
• 15:54
  with the Doctor and the Brigadier are there because he
• 15:56
  just walked in and threw 3 insults.
• 15:59
  I am like my my my, don't you look fierce.
• 16:01
  Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
• 16:04
  I mean, if that was me, I'll be like, you hurt my feelings here,
• 16:07
  all right, like. Come on, Doctor, we're trying
• 16:10
  the best. I think I've gone beyond base a
• 16:13
  male now. What's after that?
• 16:17
  I don't know about the Autons talking.
• 16:20
  That's interesting, isn't it? Yeah, Yeah.
• 16:22
  I mean, I guess I mean, that's one of the reasons why you have
• 16:27
  a character like the Master in the 1st place and what the
• 16:30
  Master brings to it. And perhaps maybe I think I said
• 16:32
  that, you know, the early, early this evening, really, this is a
• 16:35
  master story and not the autumns.
• 16:38
  And it's, it makes the the Master the Super villain where
• 16:42
  and like a Batman villain who's got a gimmick, you know, and the
• 16:45
  gimmick is he's using plastic stuff to kill people.
• 16:48
  And so the old ones are a little bit to the side.
• 16:52
  Yeah. Foot soldiers more than
• 16:54
  anything. Yeah.
• 16:55
  But you do need, you do need characters to be able to talk
• 16:58
  sometimes. So yeah.
• 17:02
  Oh, here we go. We're coming up to that moment
• 17:04
  now the the daffodils looking around.
• 17:07
  Who can I spray all over? Right.
• 17:09
  Yeah, I want points are right for not using the word come yet
• 17:14
  when we're talking about things spraying a lot.
• 17:16
  OK, I realise I've just said it now but.
• 17:22
  You're doing so well. I'm just trying to make you
• 17:24
  laugh because this scene is so horrific.
• 17:27
  Isn't it? And she goes right out to it.
• 17:29
  Oh my God, it seems to be looking for something.
• 17:31
  Yeah. Wait for it.
• 17:33
  Whoa. And actually he sprays it over
• 17:36
  the camera so it asphyxiates us. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:41
  And a math is just kind of locked open in that kind of
• 17:45
  scream of the silent scream of terror.
• 17:47
  Yeah. Oh.
• 17:48
  And that is, I mean, that's a bit of a comic look there when
• 17:51
  he ripped it off. But that is basically what all
• 17:54
  those people that have been asphyxiated are going through,
• 17:55
  right? All those families that have
• 17:57
  taken those things home. Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 18:00
  Can you imagine? Be careful next time, guys, when
• 18:03
  you're taking a phone call, all right?
• 18:04
  The radio waves could kill you. Absolutely.
• 18:07
  Yeah, but poor Auntie Doris got asphyxiated by the flowers.
• 18:11
  Christ, I used my microwave earlier.
• 18:12
  You know I have not seen Mark for a while.
• 18:15
  No, that's probably in your kitchen right now.
• 18:20
  I'll wait. Hang on a minute.
• 18:21
  You've moved to your family, our Ave. between episodes.
• 18:23
  That's fine. I'll move in tomorrow.
• 18:25
  OK, OK. Yeah.
• 18:27
  I've got the whole big finished collection, you know, I'll
• 18:29
  bring. Oh nice.
• 18:29
  Yeah, yeah, my daughter will be pleased.
• 18:32
  I mean, what the fuck? She's just been a 68 and she
• 18:35
  goes, oh, I'll go off and get those spares for you, all right,
• 18:39
  but. Again, it's the story doesn't
• 18:40
  have time to sit and kind of like dwell on there.
• 18:42
  It's just going to go move on to the big action climax.
• 18:47
  Can't help but notice our outside is now inside.
• 18:51
  Yes, yeah. Nice little CSO set there.
• 18:57
  Why wasn't this stuff found on the bodies pole?
• 19:00
  And this is quite a clever little effect, isn't it?
• 19:02
  How it just kind of crumbles away, yeah.
• 19:04
  So that's where the heat gets involved, right?
• 19:06
  Yeah. It just sort of melts away.
• 19:08
  Yeah. It's scary, isn't it?
• 19:11
  Yeah, totally. So it's like the invisible
• 19:14
  death, you know, it gets you and then it just vanishes.
• 19:18
  Yeah, you can see what they're going to call it the spray of
• 19:19
  death, because that is, you know, there's a lot of the beers
• 19:24
  as we talked a lot, there's a lot of big set pieces in this.
• 19:27
  But you know, just that one isn't as trumpeted as like the
• 19:31
  plastic chair or or, you know, the troll doll.
• 19:35
  But it's like, you know, perhaps the most sinister one of all,
• 19:38
  isn't it? I'm talking over.
• 19:40
  I'm sorry. What the scary?
• 19:42
  We're talking over Beacon County here.
• 19:44
  Oh God, look at Pearl where you suck cash.
• 19:47
  Yeah. He's like, Oh yeah, Oh yeah, I
• 19:49
  knew you're upstairs in my, in my sex pad.
• 19:53
  You can point a gall at me, you know?
• 19:55
  But look what I'm wearing, all right?
• 19:56
  I'm cool as a cucumber. Oh, that line.
• 20:01
  Yeah, death is always more. Frightening when it strikes
• 20:05
  invisibly. I mean, this is a proper like
• 20:09
  James Bond super villain. You know, like a confrontation
• 20:12
  scene at the end of. The movie, yeah.
• 20:15
  And interestingly, we saved it all up for this episode.
• 20:20
  What the fuck 450,000 people we planned on killing with these
• 20:25
  things? Yeah, just just to, you know,
• 20:29
  kick start the invasion. Yes, and you will enjoy the
• 20:32
  chaos and destruction with me. Man, he looks so and I, I know
• 20:39
  it's me man. He looks so hot at the moment,
• 20:43
  like he looks ridiculous. I'm not going to deny it.
• 20:46
  I mean, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, he's a balding
• 20:49
  man. For God's sakes, he should.
• 20:50
  He's that. That's a.
• 20:51
  Seraph, mate, Yeah. He's so smooth.
• 20:55
  I'm perfectly man you, you're beautiful, but you haven't got a
• 20:58
  shot and it's. In.
• 21:01
  Katie Manning, are you even there?
• 21:04
  It's the eyes. When Katie Manning says, you
• 21:08
  know, he would look into her eyes and she felt herself going
• 21:11
  under. I mean, I know she talks
• 21:12
  absolute bullshit but you could believe it.
• 21:14
  Yeah, totally. Yeah.
• 21:16
  You can see why he got those jobs as as a villain, because
• 21:20
  he, yeah, absolutely. The He does have that look,
• 21:24
  doesn't he? Or either you give me that role
• 21:28
  on deodorant Mum Dalek, or I shall kill Fraser Gregory.
• 21:34
  You can kill him if you like. You're dead.
• 21:39
  You are dead, Freezer. You had given up that
• 21:43
  remembrance toy for nothing. But scour all the B and Ms. for
• 21:47
  that. That bad boy.
• 21:48
  Oh. Were you AB and M shopper man
• 21:51
  scouters usually get in there first.
• 21:52
  Well, let's see only if I'm popping in.
• 21:54
  If I'll pop in, it's become a bit of a running joke that
• 21:58
  we'll, we'll go in there and I'll have a look and there won't
• 22:00
  be anything and then we'll kind of just have a joke about it.
• 22:02
  But on that occasion he was there, so yeah.
• 22:05
  This is a great example of what I was saying about earlier,
• 22:08
  about how this isn't structured particularly well because
• 22:11
  Farrell was such a vivid character in One and Two.
• 22:15
  And we met his family and his dad was murdered and we found
• 22:19
  out about his daddy issues, and he's the puppet of the master,
• 22:22
  and he had witty lines. And then he's kind of forgotten
• 22:25
  about in episode 3 and then turns up here just to be killed.
• 22:29
  Yeah, but he does, he does get some good stuff here where he's
• 22:31
  kind of like still struggling with possession and then he kind
• 22:35
  of becomes free of that and he relate.
• 22:37
  He's kind of like, oh shit, where the hell am I?
• 22:39
  So he does get some good stuff in this episode.
• 22:41
  But yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.
• 22:43
  He does fade a bit in in episode 3.
• 22:45
  My God, that's my safe word. Eagle, eagle, eagle.
• 22:51
  Disengage. That was a nice bit of direction
• 22:56
  though, where you had reaction shots of all three of them
• 22:59
  thinking, are we about to be bombed by the RAM?
• 23:06
  OK, we're now. We're just waiting for the big
• 23:08
  punch up now at the end. Yeah.
• 23:11
  But it is so great, the editing in that scene.
• 23:14
  It's just one stunt after another and havoc.
• 23:18
  Like if you can give us one trampoline, all right, we can
• 23:21
  fly. Over.
• 23:22
  The camera. What those guys can do with a
• 23:24
  trampoline, This is, this is, this is.
• 23:29
  I'll keep going back to Batman, but this is so Batman where the
• 23:34
  doctors kind of tapping out a message on the brake light and
• 23:39
  it's like it's a bleeding paragraph.
• 23:41
  It's like the longest thing you can possibly imagine rather than
• 23:45
  just kind of keeping it concise. As if anyone would be looking at
• 23:49
  those van lights and go Oh my God, it's Morse code and doesn't
• 23:57
  isn't this where Joe's escapology comes in handy?
• 24:00
  Doesn't she get them out of this?
• 24:01
  She, she's free, yeah. Frees herself, yeah.
• 24:03
  Yeah, she's not just a pretty face.
• 24:05
  You know, she's been actually, she's had a ton of agency in
• 24:08
  this story, although she's tried to sort of slaughter a lot of
• 24:10
  people as well, but. But they've got it doing stuff
• 24:14
  and they've got her being that kind of secret girl agent that,
• 24:18
  you know, that that's what the character was designed to be
• 24:20
  initially, so. That's assuming, right?
• 24:22
  That she this all takes place over one day.
• 24:25
  Yeah. And then she goes home at the
• 24:27
  end of her first day on the job, and her uncle goes to her over
• 24:31
  the pork chops and gravy. How was your day, Joe?
• 24:35
  Well, I was kidnapped. Hypnotized, I was associated
• 24:42
  attacked by a doll, almost bombed.
• 24:46
  Yeah. Oh, a quiet day then.
• 24:49
  Tied up in the bottom of a coach?
• 24:51
  Yeah, that. I mean, that is a hell of a
• 24:53
  first day, isn't it? Normally you just want to, you
• 24:55
  know, learn where the kitchen is and where the toilets are and
• 24:58
  that's, that's about it, isn't it?
• 25:00
  I will always throw in a port Marsh reference where I can.
• 25:03
  There is a heavenly passage in the degree, right where it goes.
• 25:08
  It's all from Joe Grant's point of view.
• 25:10
  And she's best mates with Tara King, right?
• 25:13
  And she goes, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to meet my friend
• 25:14
  Tara. She goes, she's got the life,
• 25:17
  she has glamorous costume. She goes around with the suave
• 25:20
  gentleman. I'm stuck with the Doctor on
• 25:24
  alien, alien fucking quarries. I like the idea of all of these
• 25:29
  characters meeting up, you know, and comparing stories.
• 25:32
  And that's perfect, isn't it? Because she did have a very,
• 25:34
  very famous friend as well, isn't it?
• 25:36
  Katie Manning? So is.
• 25:37
  It Liza. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:40
  So yeah, that's that's genius. I believe she knew Jimi Hendrix
• 25:43
  quite well as well, you know. So.
• 25:46
  So Dylan told me. Yeah.
• 25:48
  I think that might not be a rumour, but I said he's free.
• 25:55
  Oh, that was a nice shot through that puzzle there.
• 25:57
  So I do think the location stuff works really well and the action
• 26:01
  stuff is obviously great. I mean, I think all Barry has to
• 26:05
  do in this story is 1 keep it moving and two, just keep
• 26:10
  throwing great images and I think he does it he.
• 26:12
  Does it? Yeah.
• 26:13
  Make sure you get the stuntman falling from the tower and yeah,
• 26:17
  you quit in. This is second, isn't it, after
• 26:19
  Enemy of the World, which I I also think is really well
• 26:22
  directed, yeah. And again, some great location
• 26:25
  stuff in in Part 1 of that where they're on the beach.
• 26:28
  That's all really good. Is his next one Carnival of
• 26:30
  Monsters? He doesn't do one in nine, does
• 26:35
  he? No, I don't think he.
• 26:39
  Does. I think you're right?
• 26:39
  Yeah. Carnival of Monsters and then
• 26:43
  Planet of Spiders. Yeah, I don't think there's a
• 26:45
  duffer. No, no, they're all good.
• 26:48
  And it's not because you don't think of him as being the
• 26:50
  director because you know, he's he's that producer figure.
• 26:54
  So you don't really think of him as in that kind of role, I don't
• 26:57
  think. But like, unlike the the other
• 26:59
  big name directors, but yeah, no, he he definitely can hold
• 27:01
  his own. Mark Powell Haydock was scathing
• 27:04
  about the direction of this. What we did the Season 8
• 27:07
  strictly come hamster, he said to some parts of this were
• 27:11
  unbrocastable. I'm here to tell you now, Toby,
• 27:14
  if you're listening to this, and I know you do.
• 27:20
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would never disagree
• 27:22
  with Toby Haido because he is, you know, one of the Prince
• 27:28
  amongst men. You know, he's one of those
• 27:30
  phantom voices that I'll always have a lot of time for.
• 27:33
  But yeah, no, he's wrong in this one.
• 27:35
  Paul the radio telescope. We must stop him.
• 27:38
  Oh. Look at that.
• 27:40
  The face of Delgado there. Oh.
• 27:43
  Man, what did he do wrong? That was a great stunt, wasn't
• 27:50
  it? Yeah, terrific.
• 27:52
  Was that a? Person.
• 27:53
  Or was that a dog? That's it was a Roy Scammell if
• 27:55
  he's the guy who does all the big, big jumps, isn't he so.
• 27:59
  Doctor on the phone, they want me to leap off a gas silo again.
• 28:04
  This isn't every statement. The plot kind of falls apart,
• 28:08
  isn't it? Yeah, a little bit.
• 28:11
  And I mean, I guess it's not a brilliant ending the the, the
• 28:15
  master kind of realising the the error of his ways.
• 28:18
  But you know, as an introduction to the master, I think it's
• 28:22
  still, it's still fine to do it here.
• 28:25
  You can't be, can't be pulling this kind of ending, you know,
• 28:28
  six stories down the line. But yeah, I think here it's OK.
• 28:32
  Oh, Are you sure you want to defect to Too Hot for TV?
• 28:36
  Dylan Reece won't be able to tell you from me.
• 28:39
  Change your mind. I'll tell you what, there's
• 28:42
  another Another kind of effect I don't think works terribly well
• 28:46
  is the video effects of the nesting monster.
• 28:49
  The target front cover does. Oh my God, octopus doesn't it?
• 28:53
  Yes. That was the biggest
• 28:55
  disappointment for me, you know, going from the reading the book
• 28:59
  as a kid and getting excited by this story and then finally
• 29:02
  watching it. Yeah, Because that cover is
• 29:05
  something else, isn't? It oh gorgeous that massive
• 29:08
  high. Oh my.
• 29:09
  God, I know exactly where they got the inspiration for the Bane
• 29:12
  from Sarah Jane Adventures, all right.
• 29:14
  Right, right. You know, nothing gets me more
• 29:17
  excited than I'm watching all these soldiers with their guns
• 29:19
  out. Oh my words, you love a good
• 29:23
  action sequence and Doctor Who. And this is saying, like I said
• 29:27
  previously, I think I think I'd like to see more of it.
• 29:31
  And, you know, I know that is Doctor Who.
• 29:34
  And the character, the Doctor is not an action hero.
• 29:37
  He's not not, you know, fist flying superhero, but I would
• 29:41
  like to see a bit more physicality from my doctor, you
• 29:43
  know. But it's batshit.
• 29:45
  I mean, they were firing at gaudy carnival folk.
• 29:49
  For God's sake, it's. Like it's mad, but somehow
• 29:53
  compelling. Oh, totally.
• 29:56
  I don't know why Doctor Who gets the pass because I think a lot
• 29:58
  of other shows, I think maybe it's the confidence with which
• 30:01
  is presented. Yeah, yeah.
• 30:04
  And that's it. You've got to, with something
• 30:06
  like this, you have to play it down the line.
• 30:09
  Probably said you can't send up a send up.
• 30:10
  You know, it's got to be, you got to take take it completely
• 30:13
  seriously, otherwise it falls into farce.
• 30:16
  Like I can tell you a really good example of something that
• 30:19
  tries to be as weird and eccentric and silly as Doctor
• 30:23
  Who. I try to watch Lex ones.
• 30:26
  Did you ever watch that The 90s show?
• 30:29
  No. Yeah.
• 30:31
  I'm familiar with it all. It was so winking at the
• 30:34
  audience all the time, and so purer in its eccentricity.
• 30:39
  I was just like, yeah, this is what Doctor Who gets right.
• 30:42
  It makes it charming and funny and sinister.
• 30:45
  It is a is a real trick because, yeah, then that you I think
• 30:48
  naturally writers are inclined to think, yeah, you can you
• 30:52
  know, it's all nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
• 30:53
  But now it's the opposite of that.
• 30:55
  And like this is brutal. The Masters getting shot here
• 30:58
  and and kind of writhing about that strong.
• 31:01
  That's really strong after, you know, the silly scene of the
• 31:04
  carnival folk fighting. Right, right.
• 31:07
  Yeah. That's up there with.
• 31:08
  That maybe it is the the weird sort of the realistic violence
• 31:13
  contrasted with the absurd violence.
• 31:16
  Yeah, and here we've straight away we're pulling the the
• 31:19
  rubber mask off. So again, we're back to the
• 31:21
  silly. I mean, that's such a horrible
• 31:23
  end for that character. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
• 31:28
  And shove it like shot in the stump.
• 31:30
  Oh my God, what? A journey they went on.
• 31:33
  Comes in the van. I'm going to knock you out.
• 31:35
  Jumper with you, all right. I'm up.
• 31:38
  See you. See, you suckers.
• 31:40
  You know, he's yeah, he's getaway vehicle.
• 31:43
  He's like gaudy coach. He's off down the coast.
• 31:48
  Oh, just wonderful. I mean look, all the all the
• 31:51
  cards are in place now to play the deck this season, aren't
• 31:53
  they? Yes, absolutely.
• 31:56
  Yeah, you got it. And and this this coder as well,
• 31:58
  because I think originally again from the Infotext, the the
• 32:01
  original script was a lot darker this scene.
• 32:05
  So this has been rewritten to be a bit lighter with with the
• 32:08
  doctor saying, oh, I'm looking forward to seeing him again.
• 32:11
  I think originally he was going to say, well, this is going to
• 32:13
  end only one wave, one of us dead, you know, someone's going
• 32:16
  to die. So they had to kind of tone that
• 32:18
  down and, and it's the perfect, perfect ending at.
• 32:22
  Least they don't have like in those ghastly 70s shows, all the
• 32:26
  rest of them falling about with laughter.
• 32:28
  I hate those things. You know, where everyone like
• 32:32
  Blake 7 did it quite a bit. I always enjoy those as well.
• 32:36
  I think that's a sort of comic book kind of trope.
• 32:40
  And, you know, This is why I love this story is all those
• 32:43
  kind of, you know, the all that kind of comic booky stuff.
• 32:48
  I love that. So yeah, I'd be OK with that.
• 32:50
  I don't think Doctor whoever quite goes there does it.
• 32:52
  So perhaps is for the best. I don't think most fans would
• 32:56
  enjoy that as much as I would. Paul I mean, I could genuinely,
• 33:00
  I could give a more critical reading of that story.
• 33:03
  I could. Glad you didn't.
• 33:06
  Pull apart the structure. I could sort of laugh harder or
• 33:12
  look away at some of the more pony effects moments.
• 33:17
  It's just got and that's everything I love about Doctor
• 33:19
  Who there, you know, the, the, the weirdness and the silliness
• 33:24
  and the funniness and the scariness and great villains,
• 33:29
  great monsters, a vivid Dr., a fun companion, charming lines
• 33:37
  like. Yeah, memorable dialogue.
• 33:39
  Yeah. Yeah, it's just.
• 33:41
  Got everything. I mean, I don't know.
• 33:42
  I'm going to choose three if I'm honest.
• 33:44
  Yeah, no, there's so much to choose from here.
• 33:47
  So much so, yeah, I've been trying to think of my my top
• 33:50
  three and and you could pick any number of things for this, I
• 33:53
  think. Well, if you're going to pick
• 33:54
  any number of things, why don't you go first?
• 33:56
  OK, right. Well, let's start with, I will
• 34:00
  start with Katie Manning as, as Joe Grant, because I think she
• 34:05
  probably is my favorite companion.
• 34:08
  I think she's terrific. She's yeah, she's so, so good in
• 34:13
  this. And we we talked earlier in one
• 34:15
  of the other episodes about like, is it is it dumbing down
• 34:18
  bringing her in compared to Liz Shaw?
• 34:20
  And I really don't think it is. I think she, you know, she just
• 34:27
  has a lot of agency. She grows as she goes, so to
• 34:32
  speak, so we kind of grow with her and I've, I just think she's
• 34:36
  terrific. I am going to go really obvious
• 34:39
  for my first pick, and it's going to be Roger Delgado as the
• 34:43
  master. I think it's one of his best
• 34:46
  turns. Like, yeah, he's always great,
• 34:48
  but he's. He had to make an impact here.
• 34:51
  And boy does it, you know, I don't know if I want him to
• 34:55
  hypnotize me, fuck me or kill me, but I want him to do really
• 35:00
  bad things to me. All right, Yeah.
• 35:04
  You don't go out on our podcast. Yeah.
• 35:06
  No, he's amazing. He's amazing.
• 35:09
  And it is one of those moments in Doctor Who where the fusion
• 35:15
  of the perfect character and the perfect actor comes together.
• 35:20
  And not only that, they realise it and they keep giving us more.
• 35:24
  Yeah, Yeah, You know, he is, he is brilliant.
• 35:26
  What I love is those just those little flashes of kind of real
• 35:31
  savagery, and they're only because they're only, they're
• 35:34
  like briefly, because most of the time he is the very still
• 35:37
  very stoic and, and just kind of forceful presence.
• 35:41
  But then very occasionally, like the last bit there where he's on
• 35:44
  that, on the steps going up the tower and you just see him kind
• 35:48
  of chop that guy off and he's just like a big close up with
• 35:51
  his kind of snarling face. Yeah, terrific, really good #2
• 35:58
  the whole idea of anything plastic kills.
• 36:04
  Just just a brilliant conceit I talked a lot about.
• 36:08
  That's why I think this is kind of very comic book.
• 36:10
  He is a real comic book kind of villain thing.
• 36:13
  To have like a theme and to be kind of obsessed with that theme
• 36:16
  and like, and then to kind of just see what you can do with
• 36:20
  that. And the plastic is so, as you
• 36:23
  said, it's so ubiquitous. It's everywhere.
• 36:25
  It could be everything. And like, suddenly all these
• 36:28
  everyday common things could be used to kill yourself.
• 36:32
  Some kind of elaborate trap for you.
• 36:34
  Yeah. Just a brilliant idea.
• 36:38
  I want to then hone in on the man who traumatized a
• 36:44
  generation, and that is our Robert Holmes, who slipped into
• 36:48
  Doctor Who quietly with the Crotons and the Space Pirates,
• 36:53
  some would say yawning juicingly.
• 36:57
  And then as soon as it went to colour and it was this whole new
• 37:00
  era, I realized, no, this stuff could be really scary.
• 37:04
  And I think, I think the set pieces in Spearhead from Space
• 37:10
  are played for real. And so there is there's like a a
• 37:17
  realism that gets under your skin.
• 37:20
  The the bit where Meg Sealy comes home and that disgusting
• 37:24
  Autumn with the gluey face is tearing apart her house and
• 37:29
  terrorizes her into her garden. And she like that's so played
• 37:34
  for real. The it's very, very scary.
• 37:37
  This is, in comparison, like comic book violence.
• 37:41
  But tears are so great. And this is the story that
• 37:47
  traumatized the kids. It's the Dolly that comes alive
• 37:50
  and murders you when you go to bed.
• 37:52
  It's the plastic flower that's so beautiful on your side that
• 37:55
  mummy brought home that you go, oh, look at that.
• 37:58
  And then you get a phone call and it tries to strangle you to
• 38:00
  death. It's.
• 38:02
  It's the telephone wire. You finally got that call from
• 38:05
  your best mate and suddenly you're being strangled to death.
• 38:10
  I mean, it's the, it's the shop window.
• 38:13
  The when the lovely policeman comes to visit you because you
• 38:17
  took that two piece suite from the sweet shop and mummy wants
• 38:20
  to teach you a lesson about stealing.
• 38:23
  And he sits down on your sofa, peels his face off and shoots
• 38:26
  you in the face with his hand. Like it's just one thing after
• 38:30
  another that when the kids go kind of sleep with the light on
• 38:33
  tonight, please. And I know Robert Holmes is
• 38:37
  there, puffing on a pipe, rubbing his hands together,
• 38:40
  going let's scare the little Cubs.
• 38:45
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 38:49
  And my final peak is the, the carnival masks, you know, the,
• 38:53
  the, the classic image of the autumn in this one with the
• 38:57
  yellow coat and the massive head.
• 39:00
  It's so weird. It's so kind of surreal and
• 39:04
  unexpected and not what you just the opposite.
• 39:09
  I mean, really in many ways, Doctor Who kind of suddenly in
• 39:12
  the classic years, it's very quite formulaic in many ways.
• 39:16
  You've got the Doctor and you've got the monsters.
• 39:19
  And as Terence would say, they're always queen.
• 39:21
  And you know, they're, they're, it's obviously a guy in a kind
• 39:26
  of slightly blobby suit. And they're all kind of, you
• 39:30
  know, they're all very different.
• 39:31
  And we, we love them all, but they're all fairly similar.
• 39:34
  Whereas this image of these guys in these big yellow blazes and
• 39:38
  these big bowler hats, straw hats, boaters with the big, just
• 39:44
  that kind of, as you say, that kind of grinning artificial face
• 39:50
  with the big lips is such a weird image.
• 39:55
  Yeah, perfect. One, yeah, Luke will always said
• 39:59
  that when he got the, you know, those like small figures that
• 40:03
  you could buy. The only one he wanted was the
• 40:05
  carnival mask because it was just, it just pops on the
• 40:09
  screen. And on that note.
• 40:12
  Can I finally go to Barry Letts, who?
• 40:15
  And I know it's obvious to her for the right and the director,
• 40:17
  but what have we said throughout this commentary?
• 40:20
  You've mentioned Batman, we both mentioned comic strips, you've
• 40:24
  mentioned The Avengers. What do all of those things have
• 40:27
  in common? Images that pop.
• 40:30
  Yeah, right. Really unforgettable, colourful,
• 40:35
  crazy images. And I just think he just feels
• 40:39
  his story full of them. It's stuff we're still talking
• 40:43
  about today. It's so memorable, it's so
• 40:46
  weird, it's hilarious. It's kind of terrible in many
• 40:50
  ways. Well, that overuse of CSO, like
• 40:54
  we've talked about before it, yeah, it works better here than
• 40:57
  it would ever in any other story because of the nature of the
• 41:00
  story. It's just, yeah, it's it's kind
• 41:03
  of weird to have a CSO kitchen rather than have your act
• 41:07
  actress in a the set that you've already built.
• 41:09
  But yeah, it's it kind of does give it that odd sense of the
• 41:16
  unreal and the artificial. So yeah, he's he's.
• 41:20
  Lurid the colours that come at you.
• 41:22
  Your eyes are bleeding at times. Not until time and the rawny
• 41:26
  will we see such colours coming out the screen.
• 41:29
  But like look at the images. We've talked about Gooji in the
• 41:31
  lunchbox. So that would only be really in
• 41:34
  Doctor Who, maybe The Avengers. But really that's a Doctor Who
• 41:36
  image. The shop window dummy that falls
• 41:39
  down the quarry and gets up again straight away and tries to
• 41:42
  shoot you, you know, stuff like that.
• 41:44
  The weird terrible octopus that comes down at the end, you know,
• 41:50
  and you like you said, the masks, you know, the white, all
• 41:53
  of it. It is just so memorable this and
• 41:56
  I think kudos to Parry lads for not going, oh boy, how are we
• 42:02
  going to do this And instead he goes, come on, we're going to do
• 42:06
  this, but. On the show.
• 42:10
  It's a carnival show, a carnival of monsters.
• 42:14
  Here we go. Oh.
• 42:15
  Paul, what a great choice. What a great choice again.
• 42:19
  Well, you know, I'm going to ask you next.
• 42:21
  Paul, where are we going next? Well, Joe, we've, we've hang
• 42:26
  around the 70s quite a lot and we, we've done, we've done like
• 42:30
  3 Perkies now we've done a Williams 0.
• 42:33
  Tom, why don't we step into the future, step into the 1980s?
• 42:40
  Oh, I scared you. We're going to say underwater
• 42:42
  millions or something like that. OK, go on.
• 42:45
  That would be crazy. Why don't we do the time lash?
• 42:52
  Oh, but now listen, I was in IKEA just the other day, right?
• 42:55
  And there had some fabulous tinsel that you could drape
• 42:58
  about the house. I'll set up this room as the
• 43:02
  time lash for you. That, that would be brilliant.
• 43:04
  Yeah, yeah. Now I just need proof though.
• 43:07
  Before we go in, I need proof that you can ham it up like the
• 43:11
  best of Darrow. So let's have a little line
• 43:13
  reading. But.
• 43:14
  I knew you were going to come in, but we talked about this at
• 43:17
  the beginning of the night and I'm not always the best way of
• 43:19
  dialogue. I'll give you a line.
• 43:20
  I'll say it normally, and then you, you darrow it.
• 43:23
  All right. Admit defeat, Doctor.
• 43:28
  Admit defeat, Doctor. I mean, it needs some work to
• 43:33
  add a little Cam to it, but I mean, yeah, no, I think that's
• 43:36
  very good. Well, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll
• 43:38
  work on this. And yeah, next time we we meet
• 43:42
  at the time lash, then yeah, absolutely.
• 43:44
  I'll bring my best Darrow. Can I ask you one question
• 43:47
  before we go? Yeah.
• 43:49
  Are you sure about this? Now, this is a story that has
• 43:51
  someone in manacles being threatened by an enormous penis.
• 43:57
  It has, you know, spitting vines in it.
• 44:01
  I mean, there's so much ammo for this story.
• 44:07
  It's a sadomasocus delight. Well, we've already had you.
• 44:12
  You've been, you know, held down by big muscular guys in the
• 44:16
  circus this time, so. Don't you blame me.
• 44:21
  You're the one who brought up Carolyn Ford's watersports.
• 44:25
  Never forgotten about. That I only if you're certain.
• 44:31
  All right, I'll try and be on my worst behaviour.
• 44:33
  Oh absolutely, I I look forward to it.
• 44:38
  I'll allow you there.