Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to James H about his choice of Arc of Infinity (3/4)
Transcript
- 0:33Hamster with a blump pen knife for doing.
- 0:35Quicker, quicker, quicker. Welcome back to A Hamster with A
- 0:42Blump in Life, the Doctor Who commentary podcast that
- 0:46discusses every episode of Gallifrey Law.
- 0:49I am here today with the glorious.
- 0:54James. Hello, James.
- 0:55Hello. So I'm going to, I'm going to
- 0:58speak in that terribly eclipsed Barussa voice.
- 1:01Yeah, the the how did Receive Pronunciation get to Gallifrey?
- 1:04They've been listening in on BBC.
- 1:06I believe so, yes. They had some lessons from
- 1:09Maureen Lippmann so far on Gallifrey law.
- 1:15That pesky time traveler who was exiled from Gallifrey has
- 1:18returned and after much debate, has been executed.
- 1:24Yes, and I say that the cliffhanger, as I said,
- 1:29terrified me as a kid. I'm actually really impressed
- 1:33that they didn't go for what my brain now thinks has been a much
- 1:37funnier resolution. For one they going for the
- 1:43resolution. They actually you that kind of
- 1:46crops up in most inventions on virus, basically.
- 1:48Kind of like, I mean what people.
- 1:52What I don't advertise an awful lot about myself is I'm
- 1:54fascinated by the mechanics of magic tricks.
- 1:57I'm cat handed. I cannot do magic to save my
- 1:59life because I love the mechanics of it.
- 2:02And basically what you've got there is the perfect pantomime
- 2:06setup where basically because you've got all this dry ice
- 2:09coming down, it completely obscures the doctor.
- 2:11All you need is a sudden trap door underneath him and
- 2:15basically kind of, yeah, and that's it.
- 2:17The Doctor has vanished. He's been no, he's in the
- 2:19trapdoor and doesn't he, you know?
- 2:20That could have been that get out clause, you know.
- 2:25But yeah it's it's one of those cliffhangers, yeah, as we said
- 2:30because of the build up to it. And actually I was thinking
- 2:34about it in the the short break between recording of the episode
- 2:382 and this episode. It works as well because of the
- 2:43law aspect to it. This is a bloody formal kind of,
- 2:46you know, this is trial and execution, and if the
- 2:50Gallifreyans are doing it, you know, it is serious, you know,
- 2:54So actually kind of, yeah, it slows the episodes one and two
- 2:58down a bit. But it does build up to the
- 3:01atmosphere because you've been through the legal process,
- 3:04you've been through the discussion, you've been through
- 3:08the kind of one person is against the execution, the rest
- 3:11are for it kind of thing. So I think actually we've been
- 3:16very down on the legal stuff, but it does help that scene.
- 3:20I think if you hadn't had the scene, you wouldn't realize the
- 3:23seriousness of the situation. Are you telling me that I've got
- 3:27to sit through two episodes of tedium in order to make the
- 3:31cliffhanger have weight? Isn't that called Hell Bent?
- 3:39It's 45 minutes of tedium. Do you know I was actually about
- 3:4365? Isn't it?
- 3:46Oh, is it? Another riveting excursion on
- 3:49Gallifrey. It's a 6 billion year prison
- 3:51sentence played out in real time anyway.
- 3:54I'm actually recording that one soon.
- 3:55You know, I've got people coming on to tell me why I'm wrong
- 3:57about that as well. No, no, they are.
- 4:00They are wrong. They are wrong.
- 4:03Right, very quickly before we press play.
- 4:05Now, Phil Moffett was looking in this direction, though, because
- 4:08for some baffling reason, he chooses that bizarre Wibbly
- 4:12matrix effect to highlight the Peter Davidson era in What's the
- 4:17episode called? Name of the Doctor?
- 4:18You know when Clara is going around all the Doctor's time
- 4:21stream, don't mention the bloody name of the Doctor.
- 4:25I have so many issues with the whole of the Matt Smith era.
- 4:31We got to cover one of those too many positive readings on that
- 4:35era lately. Well, we're doing the arc next,
- 4:39and I think we've also been beginning to do The Wedding of
- 4:41River Song and believe that one is going to come first.
- 4:45My entirety of feeling that. Much.
- 4:48Oh, I can't wait. So yes, folks, we have two more
- 4:52of my deep dives of kind of justifications.
- 4:54We got the arc coming up, The Wedding of River Song, but
- 4:58before that. Episode three of Arc of Infinity
- 5:02321 this. Bizarre Venetian blind effect on
- 5:12Peter Davison's face. Does it give you sort of
- 5:17nostalgic tingles? Definitely.
- 5:20The really bizarre one though is of course Paradise of Death and
- 5:23Ghost of End Space, which use this music because my brain come
- 5:32see, this is John Perchman music.
- 5:34Yeah, well, it's like those early big finishes that use all
- 5:37the Tom Baker themes. It's so strange, isn't it?
- 5:39Now you think with the downloads they'd go back and put the right
- 5:44music on. I know some people didn't have
- 5:46one thing. I will say that I do like about
- 5:50the 80s title sequences and I'm gonna be a bit down on fandom
- 5:57actually. They're not boring time tunnels.
- 6:02When I when I first became ill and I was kind of bedridden for
- 6:05a while and I was watching a lot of YouTube, I watched so many
- 6:09fan made title sequences and all they were were basically time
- 6:13tunnels with the TARDIS tumbling down them.
- 6:16You know, at least in the 80s we got kind of, you know, galaxies,
- 6:20we got universes, we got starscapes, you know?
- 6:24I love the McCoy one. I know it's a bit primitive, but
- 6:26I love the sort of the scope of it.
- 6:29Fandom needs to get away from time.
- 6:32Tunnels, I think. Kind of.
- 6:33There's too many clones of the David Tennant 1:00.
- 6:37And then, of course, there's the colonoscopy of fear that is the
- 6:40Matt Smith opener. It's grateful I I can see what
- 6:44they're trying to do with this matrix effect.
- 6:47I can see what they're trying to do.
- 6:48I just think it is doesn't work at all.
- 6:52Does it not work because they didn't have the budget and the
- 6:55technology? Possibly, yeah.
- 6:58And again what we you know, so just the change of lighting when
- 7:02he puts the time vector generators.
- 7:04I know, but you know what? Just like the fact of pulling
- 7:06out that little bit of equipment, it's just, it just
- 7:10makes it seem so mundane. Well, no, because if you think
- 7:13about it again in a couple stories time Turlow is going to
- 7:16be hunting around for that little bit of equipment to pull
- 7:18out. You know, again, there's that
- 7:20nice continuity that kind of creeps in.
- 7:23I do like that sort of glass cube technology that he's using
- 7:26there. That one asks me of original
- 7:27Star Trek a bit, yes. I don't understand how on earth
- 7:30it's supposed to work, but. It's beyond our comprehension,
- 7:33James. Yes, right.
- 7:38Yes, the Guardian was. Lovely touch coming back, Colin.
- 7:41Absolutely looking like the kind of the real kind of I'm in
- 7:47charge and something is not right here.
- 7:49He looks like he's been wearing that uniform his entire life,
- 7:52doesn't he? I'm going to again say that this
- 7:56is actually a really nice continuity touch to Castra
- 7:59Valva. What it does look like the
- 8:01masters web, doesn't it exactly. It is got to imprisoned in a
- 8:06matrix projection web, which is basically what Advoc was in.
- 8:10Do you think that's deliberate? I did actually at one point
- 8:13wonder if it was a screen grab from Castro Valve that was in
- 8:16the back. Oh, maybe, maybe.
- 8:18And they are going for weird and I do appreciate that, but it
- 8:22just, it reminds me of I've been watching The Tomorrow People
- 8:25recently because I'm doing that on Hamster Extra.
- 8:28It reminds me of a terrible effect shot from that show, you
- 8:31know, superimposing a few bits on top of each other.
- 8:35The problem is they they've got a three layer, a three layer
- 8:40shot here, which is technologically for the BBC at
- 8:43the time, something of an achievement.
- 8:45You know they struggle with A1 layer shot at times.
- 8:50No, no, no, they were getting filthy in there earlier.
- 8:52It is now dark in it. She just went.
- 8:55It's a service passage. I mean this dialogue, I'd say
- 9:01coming out, I don't think he's acting is actually all that bad.
- 9:06I mean, he's a he's being forced to work on screen with Janet
- 9:11Fielding, you, you know that's going to dampen.
- 9:15Your challenge for anybody. Yeah, I mean, Colin, bless him.
- 9:19Colin in the story, the story. Yet that we're not allowed to
- 9:22mention, you know, even he struggles to survive against
- 9:25Janet Fielding. I know we're not supposed to
- 9:28mention that. I do like their chemistry a
- 9:30little bit though, because I've because she's willing to stand
- 9:33up to him. So they're always trying to best
- 9:35each other a bit. How big singers didn't I mean, I
- 9:38know why they haven't, but how they haven't found a new way to
- 9:41pair those two together that would be electric.
- 9:46I mean how they haven't brought back Gareth Jenkins for a
- 9:49rematch. I know, because we know why.
- 9:52Yeah. I mean, again, one of the
- 9:56criticisms I remember reading, and I don't know if it was kind
- 10:01of a big criticism at the time, is these, you know, they're
- 10:06saying all these clues, they're too vague cuz no one will have
- 10:09remembered who Omega was. You know, Omega was on the
- 10:12screen two years ago. There was the rerun of the Three
- 10:15Doctors, for fuck's sake. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 10:18Do you think they did that in preparation for this?
- 10:21I think it possibly inspired it because I mean again the one
- 10:28that always sticks in my mind, which I didn't find out till
- 10:31many years. You know, you've got Attack of
- 10:34the Cybermen which is really heavy continuity to Tomb of the
- 10:37Cybermen and you think, well no one's going to remember this
- 10:40because it was a lost story. J&T had planned to release
- 10:44attacker Tomb of the Cybermen on LP in the lead up to Attack of
- 10:49the Cybermen. So I think J&T is far savvier on
- 10:54these kind of connections and I think it's the BBC that shafted
- 10:58him on a regular basis. Still at it now because Stephen
- 11:02Moffett, when they knew Weber fear had been found, suddenly
- 11:05was right in the great intelligence into season seven
- 11:08Series 7. Sorry.
- 11:10And it's interesting, you know that all this talk of Rossi
- 11:14Davis doing the Celestial Tool Maker, does that mean that they
- 11:17found that? Who knows?
- 11:20I also really hope it isn't the Celestial Toy Maker.
- 11:23Me too. Not for no reason other than the
- 11:27fact that if it is, and it was leaked like 18 months before the
- 11:30episode was shown, sorry, but that's just bloody fucking
- 11:34useless publicity, you know, right.
- 11:38The zombie acting, Is it bad acting done badly?
- 11:43Or is it zombie acting done incredibly well?
- 11:48I mean, it isn't much acting, is it?
- 11:50He's just sort of standing there dribbling a bit.
- 11:53I do like the way the camera sort of zooms in on him.
- 11:56Yeah. I mean, this is basically kind
- 12:02of again, you know, trying to do the kind of the mystery bit.
- 12:08But again, that's Paul Jericho's job.
- 12:10He is the investigator. He is the Poirot of Gallifrey.
- 12:14Which is why that twist is supposed to hit in The Five
- 12:16Doctors, isn't it, where it's suggested that he's the one
- 12:20behind it all? I mean, again, there are all of
- 12:23these subtle connections, and I think one of the problems that
- 12:26we've got these days is that we watch Doctor Who out of sequence
- 12:29a lot. We dip in and out, you know, so
- 12:33we lose these threads that do occasionally.
- 12:38I mean, he is quite cute actually.
- 12:39He is really cute. You know, and that sort of nice
- 12:43tight white tshirt. Oh, sorry, right.
- 12:47OK, come on. Your defense of the Ergo, this
- 12:50is Hamster Law now. OK, so two things to say to
- 12:53start off with. It's a bloody good step up from
- 12:57Mr. Blobby with the claw and the kind of the weird shambling
- 13:04Jelly like stuff Omega has been living in the antimatic universe
- 13:09for. We don't know how long, you
- 13:12know. And also how the, you know, what
- 13:15technology has he had access to to build this bloody Ergon
- 13:19thing? I mean, we're looking at it and
- 13:22we're seeing kind of, you know, this weird mishmash of things
- 13:26that are awkwardly stuck together.
- 13:29That's because probably it's Omega's equivalent of
- 13:31Frankenstein's monster. He's probably had to actually
- 13:35kind of kind of grab these bits where he can convert them into
- 13:39antimatter, somehow reanimate them, then kind of actually kind
- 13:44of imbue it with some sort of minimal, servile intelligence.
- 13:49That's his brain sticking out the top, for crying out loud.
- 13:53I mean, all the component parts aren't too terrible, but when
- 13:57you stick them all together it just does look like a rubber
- 14:00chicken, and Mrs. Ergon probably loves him to bits.
- 14:04Again, we're seeing this from a very human point of view.
- 14:10No, I'll tell you what, it's what we talked about earlier.
- 14:12We've come to expect. Yeah, just incredibly lifelike,
- 14:16you know, terrifying creatures. I mean, I have a I have a pet
- 14:21beaded dragon downstairs. She's absolutely lovely.
- 14:24She's absolutely terrifying, but there are days when her skin
- 14:29kind of wrinkles up a bit. She looks like the shrivens are
- 14:32walking around, spun man on all fours kind of thing.
- 14:36So we're looking at this creature and it's like, you
- 14:39know, well actually there are some things on this planet which
- 14:43look bloody weird. And also, OK, practicality.
- 14:48It's got an exoskeleton. So therefore it's actually quite
- 14:51well armored. You know, we're used.
- 14:55We're used to seeing kind of, you know, flesh type things.
- 14:59Whereas actually this is an armored servant, you know,
- 15:04again, it's just like we don't know exactly where did where did
- 15:08Omega get his funky gear from? I mean this is again, we're
- 15:14we're we're saying, oh it's a it's a creature, it's a servant.
- 15:18It's like, well, no, it's Frankenstein's leftovers.
- 15:22And he's. I get everything that you're
- 15:24trying to say and you're giving. No, no, you're giving brilliant
- 15:28in story rationales, but the fact is they're trying to
- 15:32present it as a scary monster. It isn't a scary monster.
- 15:37They presented it as an. It came out of the out of the
- 15:40weird spaceship and let's face it, you know, anything coming
- 15:45out of that light would be technically being presented as a
- 15:48scary monster. You know Colin, But if you think
- 15:51about it, Colin Baker, if his cloak was spread out and he had
- 15:54Esmeralda on his head, he would have been a terrifying.
- 15:57Silver OK, back back to Wibbly wobbly land.
- 16:03I mean again. It's the leftover teleport
- 16:06effect from Blake 7. The weird sort of out of
- 16:11proportion Peter Davison and Obiga as well.
- 16:14I find it distracting. But it's supposed to show his
- 16:18dominance over Peter Davison. Yeah, and it's Omega has got
- 16:24this realm. Omega is.
- 16:27And again, I mean, the Matrix is this kind of really bizarre,
- 16:33misunderstood sort of thing. This is the probably the most
- 16:37accurate representation of the matrix that there could be.
- 16:41You know, because actually, it's a mental plane.
- 16:45It's not some surreal fantasy world.
- 16:49It was that in The Deadly Assassin because the Master had
- 16:51taken it over. And it was that in Trial of the
- 16:55Tunnel because the value of the taking it over the Matrix here
- 16:59is not being taken over by a bonkers, batshit crazy villain
- 17:02in black, you know? So this is actually the Matrix.
- 17:07This is what it should be. Oh, and I love.
- 17:10The I was so distracted by Janet Fielding there, because it
- 17:13honestly looks like she's sitting on a washing machine
- 17:15having an orgasm. Yeah, there's a reason for that.
- 17:24I actually had fun in Amsterdam. As I say, we're not, we're not
- 17:27going to talk about the rooms in Amsterdam, but I.
- 17:34Think as well. I think if you are a younger
- 17:38viewer watching this, I'm not even sure the things that are
- 17:42brought up as objections would hold anyway.
- 17:45It's just a monster. You know, it's the Doctor's home
- 17:48planet. It's like you just take it all
- 17:50on face value. I don't think you're much of a
- 17:52critic. Oh my God, she's orgasming
- 17:54again. She's going crazy.
- 17:57And look, Peter Davis is like shying away, going Oh no, he's
- 18:01not his, his groin, his thrusting in and out towards.
- 18:05Without the dialogue and the sound, it is very unusual, isn't
- 18:08it? Yeah, I'm saying, you know, and
- 18:12that. All I though Goodbye.
- 18:14Goodbye, Doctor. I mean, the voice sells it.
- 18:18Yeah, well, frequently, Gabriel Wolf, it does, yeah.
- 18:23And then we go to the. Doctor, we asked the question as
- 18:25to why, during the Doctor's execution, Omega appeared.
- 18:30Oh no, no, it's Omega. But this weird figure appeared
- 18:33because basically kind of they know that there is this bonding
- 18:36that's trying to take place. And so presumably it's, you
- 18:42know, they just saw it as Omega Sport, whoever's last ditch
- 18:45attempt to kind of grab the doctor's body before it was
- 18:48disintegrated. And so they just decided that,
- 18:51oh, it's gone, you know, it didn't work.
- 18:53We saw it briefly. It's into the ether.
- 18:56Yeah, sorry, very undramatic about, by the way.
- 18:59Just opening that door there and come through the fact that Omega
- 19:02virtually has question marks on his collar.
- 19:04Oh, that's great. I will look at him taken.
- 19:11Are they in the cafe? Oh no, no, no no.
- 19:14This is heading is yet to be unveiled, isn't he?
- 19:19I mean, we all know because of the voice and everything and as
- 19:21you say, because he was the friendly one, That necklace,
- 19:24that hairstyle. Does this mean there are jewelry
- 19:27manufacturers on on Gallifrey? Does this mean there's money on
- 19:31Gallifrey? Do people have jobs?
- 19:33Thalia straight from the Gallifrey and Nest Cafe
- 19:36commercials. You know, yeah.
- 19:40It's all flowers. It's every cliche in that book
- 19:42though, isn't it? Like every science fiction
- 19:44cliche in the book, How they look, the sets, how they talk,
- 19:50but it's only the science fiction cliche because it's been
- 19:54done so many times since and kind of you know there there are
- 20:00very few ancient civilizations in in science fiction the like
- 20:06this and actually as we said. Look at the King's coronation.
- 20:10Look at the opening of the Houses of Parliament.
- 20:12Look at how bloody pretentious pricks they are, you know the,
- 20:17you know, Black Rod walks backwards and then knocks on the
- 20:19door with an Ebony rod or something three times before
- 20:22delivering the dominoes, you know?
- 20:25I know some people do, but I don't sit there and watch, you
- 20:29know, Parliament. Debates as entertainment.
- 20:33That's my problem with it. But this is what they're asking
- 20:36me to do. But say The thing is, there are
- 20:38some people who do. They're asking my mother.
- 20:41They probably love Ark of Infinity, don't they?
- 20:44I can't remember what she's. I vague for some reason.
- 20:47I vague remember Ark of Infinity being on Roundabout the same
- 20:50time as Song for Europe. I think she was more interested
- 20:54in a Song for Europe than she was Arkham Infinity.
- 20:56It definitely was because they reused the sets in Snake Dance,
- 20:58don't they? So can I ask you then, do you
- 21:04think it was a savvy move when Russy Davis pushed against all
- 21:07of this? It certainly made Doctor Who
- 21:11sort of populist. I think getting rid of Gallifrey
- 21:15was a very wise idea. Bringing it back and then
- 21:21destroying it again in his last story was dubious.
- 21:28And I have so many questions about the nature of the Time
- 21:34War, about the nature of what actually happened to Gallifrey,
- 21:38for which there are massively contradictory answers throughout
- 21:43all eras of New Who. And I think, I think kind of
- 21:49this whole repetitious destroy, rebuild, destroy, rebuild,
- 21:54destroy, rebuild the the the wilderness years and Phantom has
- 21:58got an obsession with, has really kind of thrown too many
- 22:05inconsistencies into everything. I mean, the big one for me is,
- 22:12you know, I'd always understood it that when the Time War
- 22:16occurred there was this massive rewriting of universal history.
- 22:20Yet in Twice Upon a Time, the 12th Doctor nips back to 10th
- 22:23planet. But if 10th planet took place,
- 22:27then why don't people know what cyber men are, you know?
- 22:33We're back to that same argument again of how you watch things
- 22:35and how I watch things. I watch it as the piece of drama
- 22:38I'm watching now. Whereas I think the norm with
- 22:41the Doctor Who fan, that's how you watch it, which is how does
- 22:44it fit into the puzzle. Yeah.
- 22:46And I think the problem is, I mean we've been going, it's been
- 22:50going 60 years. They I think you know the
- 22:53concept the Big Finish tried the chidnel hinted at of another
- 23:01universe all together would have been the perfect solution.
- 23:08So basically I would have been really happy if the if Jody had
- 23:14ended flux or whatever going to that mythical second universe so
- 23:21that they could say right for the next 10 years there is no
- 23:25continuity to the original series because this is a totally
- 23:29different universe. The big thing is.
- 23:33Tried it of course with the. Kind of boy with the chores and
- 23:37stuff, but I'll save all my comments about that for when we
- 23:40get to the For the Wedding of River Song, because that's going
- 23:44to. Yeah, or maybe You know what?
- 23:47I didn't realize you had so much big Finish experience.
- 23:50I might have to try and nap you on a Finish Big at some point,
- 23:54possibly when we get to the Divergent universe.
- 23:56I'm more than happy to because they kind of, I have very strong
- 24:00feelings about it. And I love hearing your very
- 24:04strong feelings. Oh, by the way, Conrad, if you
- 24:06do, since these, you're a lovely human being.
- 24:10Thank you. Oh, he's gorgeous, isn't he?
- 24:12Oh, he's absolutely gorgeous. You know, he's, but he's also a
- 24:16lovely person. Sorry to change the subject.
- 24:21If you notice, we're doing Agatha Christie now, so the
- 24:23castle lands inviting everyone to and.
- 24:27One of them's going to be the traitor.
- 24:29I wonder what it's going to be again.
- 24:31That's who. This is appealing to me.
- 24:33You got to remember that in the 80s you've got the Joan Hicks
- 24:36and Miss Marples going on. They were huge.
- 24:39They were massive. They were really popular.
- 24:42I know, But even that angle of this is not particularly
- 24:45suspense, because we know the fucking.
- 24:48We know who it is. Yeah.
- 24:49The problem is, I say kind of they can't decide what they want
- 24:54the Gallifrey bits to be. And they they kind of, they get
- 25:00kind of little bits of all kinds of things.
- 25:02The Gala Fray. Bits of this needed a second
- 25:05draft. Yeah, for sure.
- 25:07They could easily be salvaged. This whole sequence as well.
- 25:10Michael Goff is a renowned actor and he phones in this reveal
- 25:16like he lifts up the gun like he could barely be asked to hold up
- 25:20the prop. It's very, very odd.
- 25:24Although I do love Nissa running around with a gun.
- 25:27She's shooting everyone right now, you know.
- 25:31Forget Ace coming back as the the war tournat.
- 25:34Let's have the war, Nissa. I don't know if you remember
- 25:36Johnny Bowen had a going around with that Ion bonder and the key
- 25:39keeper track and shooting everyone in that as well.
- 25:45In fact, I think if anyone was to write that.
- 25:48Nessa going after the master story.
- 25:50Johnny Byrne would have done a good job of it because I think
- 25:53he writes her quite responsibly when he gets the chance, you
- 25:56know he he understands what the character could be.
- 26:00Oh, the doctor seems so naive now.
- 26:02He thinks he's pointing at the president because he thinks the
- 26:04president is so terrible. But isn't that one of the key
- 26:09traits of Peter Davis and doctors, that he's naive, he's
- 26:11trusting, He's kind of he. He believes people, He sees the
- 26:17good in people. Is golf even trying?
- 26:22He's faced with the Peter Davidson Doctor and Sarah
- 26:27Sutton. I would be more scared of Sarah
- 26:30Sutton, who only dropped the gun when golf pointed the doctor
- 26:34pointed the gun at her boyfriend.
- 26:38They've been living together, according to Big Finish, for
- 26:41three or four years by this time.
- 26:47Oh, it's all going on now. And you know what?
- 26:49What we talked about the first two cliffhangers.
- 26:52This is the worst kind of cliffhanger, I think.
- 26:54So it ends on a line. What is it?
- 26:56Only get controls the matrix. What does that even mean?
- 27:00We don't even know what that means.
- 27:03There's no context to the line. The trouble is, we know what it
- 27:07means if we've watched The Deadly Assassin and the Invasion
- 27:11of Time. That for granted, Can you?
- 27:14Yeah, that's the problem. It's a it's a cliffhanger that
- 27:19appeases fandom, Yeah, but again, the cliffhanger is also,
- 27:24it's not just he's got the Matrix that it's Omega, you
- 27:27know? I know Omega isn't the actual
- 27:29cliffhanger. But maybe should have been,
- 27:32should have been, yeah. Or the hidden reveal?
- 27:36Or just something more dramatic than a very obscure line.
- 27:42And it's interesting that the Doctor tries to explain why the
- 27:45cliffhanger is really important, but he's spoken over.
- 27:49Oh, here comes the castle ads, allowing things up a bit.
- 27:52You're under arrest, Mr. President.
- 27:56I think Jericho is great. Yeah.
- 27:58Oh. No, Michael Goss just been shot.
- 28:05Oh, I see. He tried to protect the doctor
- 28:08there. Is that right?
- 28:09Yes, basically he threw himself in front of the doctor.
- 28:13Yeah. And As for the acting, is it
- 28:15Leonard Sachs playing the president?
- 28:20Yeah, but there's that moment of silence.
- 28:24There's that calm, instant of calm before the storm.
- 28:30And they do love these sort of outlines, don't they?
- 28:33You know it'll be the end of me as a Time Lord, and again,
- 28:39doesn't ward and undead take on a whole new resonance when you
- 28:42factor in the Timeless Children? Yeah, because he could have
- 28:47saved all of those people. There could have been millions
- 28:50of those mutants, yeah. In fact, the more you think
- 28:55about the childish children stuff and you apply it to
- 28:57Classic Who, it does add a dimension to a lot of things.
- 29:03Well, that was an absolutely riveting end to Episode 3.
- 29:09I mean, let's face, you know, we've got the fact that kind of
- 29:12Tegan is now being brought more into the action.
- 29:15I I do applaud them keeping Tegan separate until Episode 4,
- 29:19though. Yeah, and then when she turns
- 29:22up, she just does a bit of dashing around, doesn't she?
- 29:26Oh, those secret. I can't wait to talk about that.
- 29:28When, you know the woman does her shopping, which goes all
- 29:30over the floor, every every weird sort of person getting in
- 29:35the way is a very strange sequence, right?
- 29:42It is. I mean, say the green lighting
- 29:44in the TARDIS is just bizarre choice there.
- 29:49There are a lot of kind of Omega decisions that I don't fully
- 29:53understand. I know they couldn't bring him
- 29:56back in the original costume because it would have been too
- 29:58much of A giveaway how he got this.
- 30:03Again, there's this whole back story that kind of is missing
- 30:07about kind of how did Heading get involved?
- 30:12How did Omega actually said, how did Omega build the ergum?
- 30:15How did Omega get that TARDIS that was kind of vaguely
- 30:17functional. Was there another, Was there
- 30:19another UNIT HQ or something that kind of went through a
- 30:22black hole and Omega cobbled together all these bits, You
- 30:26know, the same way that the Doctor did in The Doctor's Wife?
- 30:29You know what you need, don't you?
- 30:30Terrance Dicks. He would have covered it all
- 30:31with a line. Well now you remember in like
- 30:33the deadness hasn't. I know Terrance has got nothing
- 30:35to do with that, but you get that line about Goff met the
- 30:40Master on Terror. It's a very quick line, but it's
- 30:43sort of tells you what you need to know.
- 30:44Fills in enough because you then there.
- 30:46Oh the masters. Hypnosis.
- 30:48The master, Yeah, it fills in, yeah.
- 30:51The. The.
- 30:52Oh, make a back story in The Three Doctors is very
- 30:54economically done. It is just a handful of lines,
- 30:57but it it kind of builds them up as this big mythic character in
- 31:00Time Lord history. So it's, you know, there's
- 31:05there's a lot that could that could improve the Arc of
- 31:08Infinity, but I'm still terribly nostalgic for it.
- 31:12And and I get that. And I don't think anybody can
- 31:15contradict that when somebody watched this as a child and
- 31:18enjoyed it so much. What argument can you possibly
- 31:22make? And I think actually aspects of
- 31:24it still hold up. And I said come, you know, the
- 31:29more I think about Gallifrey, the more I think I'm like yeah,
- 31:33that should have been left in the 80s totally because we've
- 31:36seen too much of the the veneer peeled away and it's become a
- 31:41more realistic place. You know it's gone from three
- 31:45figures on an elevated platform to weird room with circular
- 31:50motifs to dark and gothic to. But again, it's very much it's
- 31:56kind of like Gallifrey represents Earth of the era of
- 32:01the show that. Definitely, yeah, definitely.
- 32:06That cafe existed in the 1980s. If Doctor had been around in the
- 32:1190s, when it was kind of all, you know, the era of virtual
- 32:17reality, Galafay would have existed purely within the Matrix
- 32:21and it would have been terrible basic CGI graphics.
- 32:24And you know, and it's just, yeah.
- 32:27Well, James, we've got Episode 4 to cover.
- 32:30I've got a big question to ask you at the beginning of Episode
- 32:334 of something we haven't covered at all.
- 32:37But it's enormously important to this story and this era.
- 32:43I'll say that as a little taste of what's to come.
- 32:46So are we going to win? End there with with me being
- 32:48taunted for once? Yes.
- 32:51Ohh. God no.