Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to John Bensahlia about his choice of Pyramids of Mars (4/4)

Transcript

Talks to John Bensahlia about his choice of Pyramids of Mars (4/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blump pen knife for doing.
• 0:35
  Quicker, quicker, quicker. Hello, and welcome back to a
• 0:42
  hamster with a blump pen knife. Your host today is Joey Ford and
• 0:49
  my name is Jon Bensalia. I'm very, very pleased to be
• 0:53
  welcomed back as a special guest and today we are looking at 4th
• 0:57
  and final part of Pyramids of Mars.
• 1:02
  We are now, I believe this is where some people, not all, some
• 1:08
  people say this story comes with a rouse a little bit.
• 1:13
  Well, I would, I would disagree with that, you know, for reasons
• 1:16
  we'll probably go through in in this commentary.
• 1:20
  But yeah, I think in its own way actually stands up just as well
• 1:25
  as the previous three. Well, it reminds me of City of
• 1:28
  the Exelons. Yeah, that's me as well.
• 1:31
  Funny you should say that. As a child, I know I keep saying
• 1:35
  as a child, but it's worth remembering we were young when
• 1:38
  we first saw this. So that's sort of where our
• 1:41
  opinions formed, the sort of stratagems that they go through,
• 1:46
  you know? Yeah, I can understand that.
• 1:49
  Yeah, I like all that. You know, I mean, it's, I was
• 1:52
  watching Indiana Jones, the Last Crusade, the update.
• 1:55
  And they do exactly the same thing when they're going
• 1:57
  through, you know, when Indiana Jones has to avoid getting his
• 2:00
  head chopped off or when he steps, when he has to spell that
• 2:04
  word of God or when he has to go, he goes over that invisible
• 2:09
  bridge, which is kind of like camouflaged as a as a yawning
• 2:12
  chasm. But I thought, well, yeah, if if
• 2:15
  he took those out, I mean, it kind of, you know, it ruined the
• 2:19
  impact a little bit. Do you know what I think?
• 2:22
  I think. As we've become adults, it's
• 2:27
  sort of the adults, the sort of cynical adults that are looking
• 2:30
  at this episode 4 and going, do you know what?
• 2:33
  It's a bit, you know, adventure game, isn't it?
• 2:35
  You know, Whereas you remember in death, Death to the Daleks
• 2:37
  when we did do this before. And you know, I've heard people
• 2:40
  say that, you know, the nadir of Doctor Who is the bit where the
• 2:43
  Daleks have to use their plungers to trace that maze in
• 2:46
  death to the Daleks. Well, as a kid, I was like,
• 2:49
  we'll. Will the camera stay on that
• 2:51
  maze a bit longer? Please?
• 2:52
  I was halfway through, you know? Yeah, exactly.
• 2:55
  I mean, I, you know, I'm I'm pushing 50 and I'm still
• 3:00
  thinking, you know, I can remember watching.
• 3:01
  This just as you know, Sorry. Looking marvelous for it?
• 3:06
  You could be kidding. Excuse me?
• 3:13
  Well, I I would disagree with that.
• 3:15
  I mean, you know, I mean, my wife, she does not look a day
• 3:18
  older than when we first met 20 years ago.
• 3:21
  Nearly. She still looks exactly the
• 3:23
  same. And I'm so jealous of her.
• 3:25
  It's not fair. And I say, you know Alison, how
• 3:27
  on earth do you do it? But anyway, game.
• 3:29
  Time. Time can be a cruel beast, but I
• 3:31
  can only speak for what is presented in front of me and you
• 3:36
  do not look that age, asshole. Please contain well, you know,
• 3:40
  that's very kind of you, but so. Why do you think people come
• 3:46
  back? It's for the compliments, you
• 3:48
  know. Well, yes, yes.
• 3:50
  So yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll send you the fiver in the post later.
• 3:54
  Thank you very much. Yeah, I mean, well, I mean to
• 3:57
  beat that, I'm 48 1/2, so yeah, I.
• 4:01
  Should be 43 next month, you know.
• 4:03
  Oh, he terribly Oh my God. Hello.
• 4:07
  Oh, look older than I am. I thought you were younger than
• 4:12
  that. I thought you were like mid 30s
• 4:15
  or something were. John, you can stay.
• 4:18
  You know what? It could be love, you know?
• 4:21
  Well, yeah, there you go. I said we're both.
• 4:24
  Either that or I didn't put my lens in properly.
• 4:28
  Besides which, I wouldn't be able to watch the new series
• 4:30
  with you, would I? Come on now.
• 4:35
  I'm almost half tempted, you know, to get you to do another
• 4:37
  commentary on a new series episode.
• 4:41
  No, I want. To find one that you really
• 4:42
  love, you do not stand that. I just.
• 4:45
  I think I just stand that you. Absolutely love.
• 4:49
  Oh wow. Let's do let's do it with
• 4:53
  classic. It's got to be a classic human
• 4:55
  frame. Sorry, I think I don't think
• 4:58
  it'd be fair on you and I don't think it'd be fair on the list
• 5:01
  and see if I'd just go, no, don't like that, you know?
• 5:04
  Well, they put up with us on Dr. Widow and the Wardrobe doing
• 5:07
  that. Well, yeah.
• 5:10
  I mean, what did your listeners think of that?
• 5:14
  It scored very well. Well, I did it.
• 5:17
  Oh, well, this, this is the thing about podcasting, right?
• 5:20
  Is, is that those people that agree with us, it's full
• 5:24
  endorsement for them. And they're like, yes, Steven
• 5:26
  Moffett, you know, he should have had a wank before he wrote
• 5:28
  that script. Yeah.
• 5:30
  And then those people that disagree, well, they love it as
• 5:34
  well because they're they're going and then they take to
• 5:37
  social media and tell me where I'm wrong.
• 5:38
  You know, everyone's a winner. Yeah.
• 5:42
  Everyone is a winner, yeah. Because, you know, there's
• 5:45
  nothing you know for Doctor Who. You know how much you sort of
• 5:48
  explored online. But they love being angry about
• 5:52
  things. Yes, I have experienced that
• 5:55
  from time to time. There's one guy, actually.
• 5:58
  Oh, apparently blocks anybody that describes Doctor Who fan as
• 6:02
  a Whovian. It's very extreme.
• 6:06
  Yeah, it's crazy, I thought. A Whovian, you say?
• 6:10
  Well, that's it. We're both blocked now.
• 6:11
  Yeah, yeah, I know. Well, I have.
• 6:14
  I don't know why, but yeah, I found out I used to look.
• 6:16
  So what have I done? You know, ever even interacted
• 6:19
  with this guy? But I think I probably did say.
• 6:21
  I mean, he doesn't like records being called vinyl either, so.
• 6:28
  I'll tell you what my one of my dear friends, Sai Ha, who's done
• 6:33
  plenty of these and the commentaries now.
• 6:35
  He's not a big fan of Pyramids of Mars.
• 6:38
  Now he does love Classic Who. He's a massive fan of Classic
• 6:41
  Who, but he's not the biggest fan of Pyramids of Mars.
• 6:43
  And one of his big sticking points is the the the climax,
• 6:47
  you know, the the signal taking 5 minutes to go.
• 6:50
  And he's like it's just all very it's not particularly Satis,
• 6:53
  it's not the apocalyptic climax he was expecting at the end of
• 6:57
  this story. Just a wee bit of techno Babble
• 6:59
  to sort of see us out. What do you think about that?
• 7:04
  Yeah, I can understand it. You know, I mean it does end on
• 7:08
  quite a simple solution. So I can understand the
• 7:11
  reasoning for that. But I think for me, I think it's
• 7:15
  probably, you know, kind of like that breathless rush.
• 7:18
  And you know if they, you know, if they could do it, you know, I
• 7:21
  mean if they, if they out by a second, you know, so that could
• 7:26
  come and emerge and you know, you know, unleash havoc.
• 7:31
  So but yeah, I can understand Simon's point of view.
• 7:35
  You know, it can be a little bit of a let down suppose in that
• 7:38
  respect. But I don't know, I suppose I'm
• 7:41
  going through, you know, purely for nostalgia.
• 7:43
  You know, like you said before, you know, when I was a kid and
• 7:46
  I, you know, I remember watching this, you know, I would watch
• 7:49
  this video like, you know, sort of four or five times in one day
• 7:52
  if I was off sick, you know, I was that sad it's and yeah.
• 7:59
  I thought the Smokey corpse of Marcus Carmen and then yeah,
• 8:02
  we'll get onto that. That is brutal.
• 8:06
  But then the voice they use for Suitech when he comes up, the
• 8:08
  time and title and then the exploding house, all of that was
• 8:11
  enough for me. Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:14
  Yeah. I mean, I'm.
• 8:15
  I'm easily pleased. I mean.
• 8:16
  Yeah, me too. Stop it with yeah, the the burns
• 8:21
  out of skeleton of Marcus. It's horrible.
• 8:25
  Well, I'll tell you what, if you fancy a little, a little game of
• 8:28
  Around the Funhouse now playing a few games, should we go into
• 8:31
  episode four? I think we should.
• 8:32
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 8:33
  Let's go. Oh yeah, our color's in then,
• 8:35
  Yes. 54321 might be a bit good. That's all right.
• 8:45
  All right. We'll wing it.
• 8:47
  Yeah. Here we go.
• 8:47
  Yeah, yet started. And the only reason I brought up
• 8:50
  sort of the the element of fandom that is a little bit sort
• 8:55
  of down on this, it's, I think it's amazing and you think it's
• 8:59
  amazing, but there are those sort of those voices there as
• 9:04
  well, isn't it? And I think there always is with
• 9:06
  every doctor whose story that's considered, you know, a classic.
• 9:09
  Yeah, classic. They're always looking for
• 9:11
  things to, you know, criticize about it.
• 9:14
  But I think, I think you need that kind of like relief with
• 9:17
  like the games because the opening 5 minutes are like
• 9:20
  really? Oh, it's quite, quite bruising
• 9:26
  because it's torturing the Doctor and it's psychologically
• 9:30
  really quite disturbing. A lot of it's done with some
• 9:37
  really top dialogue. Oh yeah.
• 9:39
  Yeah, top that line. No.
• 9:42
  You will not die yet. Yes, wasn't that the last nine
• 9:46
  of that Who's Doctor Who documentary?
• 9:50
  You should not die yet, but it just cuts to the closing
• 9:53
  credits. Yes, you know stuff.
• 9:56
  Like you know you pick your puny wine and you pick your puny will
• 10:00
  against mine and base yourself, you grolling insect, blah blah
• 10:03
  blah. But this is effectively what the
• 10:05
  Doctor against the Devil, isn't it?
• 10:07
  That's the difference. But it's done so simply, you
• 10:11
  know, It's just two actors in the green spotlight, I mean.
• 10:16
  I don't suppose you know when you're going off down that time
• 10:19
  space tunnel. I don't suppose it took a
• 10:22
  diversion off to a planet with a black hole in its orbit, do you?
• 10:26
  It could be, It could be. Because Gabriel Wolf plays the
• 10:31
  devil in that as well. Yeah, the impossible planet,
• 10:34
  isn't it? Yeah.
• 10:34
  That is a great vocal performance again, isn't it?
• 10:38
  Yeah, I mean The funny thing is because going back to the DVD
• 10:42
  making of, he actually seems quite bemused by it, He's
• 10:46
  wondering why. You know, he's kind of attained
• 10:48
  that sort of status as one of the all time great deals and
• 10:52
  he's just like and he actually quotes the UP or P well against
• 10:55
  mine. He sort of looks really
• 10:57
  embarrassed, saying he comes across as quite, you know, quite
• 11:00
  nervous, really quite shy. Which, but he also says as well,
• 11:04
  like that that that they said to him, you know, do you mind?
• 11:07
  Because you're not really. You're not going to be seen
• 11:09
  because you're going to be in this master, the whole thing.
• 11:11
  Yeah. And he says, words were always
• 11:13
  my life. They were my career.
• 11:15
  Like, do I? He doesn't strike me as a fellow
• 11:18
  with a big ego either. No, no.
• 11:21
  And I think that's all the more appealing for that thing,
• 11:25
  really. But somebody who's just
• 11:26
  constantly bigging themselves up.
• 11:29
  But. In terms of like acting, there's
• 11:34
  some serious acting on the screen going on right now.
• 11:37
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 11:39
  I mean it's it's quite, yeah, it's quite jarring to see the
• 11:43
  doctrine this much kind of physical and emotional pain.
• 11:45
  You know, I mean he's he's not only, you know, I mean so that
• 11:48
  shreds he could shred his nervous system into a million
• 11:51
  fibers. But it's also, you know this bit
• 11:53
  coming up here with this force to his knees and he's really
• 11:56
  going, no. Yeah, yeah, it's quite.
• 12:00
  He he makes the reference explicit as well.
• 12:03
  He says. Whether that name be set.
• 12:04
  Satan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's.
• 12:12
  Bake yourself, you grovelling insects.
• 12:15
  I think I've heard Janet Fielding say that a few times.
• 12:17
  You know, as meet and greets, you know.
• 12:22
  Have you met her? Then I haven't.
• 12:24
  No, no. Hey, it's Joey who's my biggest
• 12:30
  fan. No, I've got, I've done a bit of
• 12:33
  A18 year with her. You know, I'm I'm quite, quite a
• 12:36
  fan of Tegan these days. Oh, right.
• 12:38
  I've had all these people coming on this thing telling me I'm
• 12:41
  wrong. So yeah, I I don't mind you as
• 12:44
  much these days. I think I'm I'm probably mellows
• 12:46
  that thing. Yeah, I just took John.
• 12:50
  It is a fact. I think I just love all of
• 12:52
  classic Doctor Who. I just love it, yeah.
• 12:54
  I mean, so keep in the. Shit, yeah, even, you know,
• 12:58
  stuff like Horns of Nymen, you know, Which which I quite enjoy
• 13:01
  anyway. Are you suggesting the Horns of
• 13:03
  Nymen is shit? No, no, not for I mean only for
• 13:06
  the the copilot. I mean, when he shakes his gel
• 13:10
  to I love her so. Much.
• 13:16
  This is gel. I've brought the tributes.
• 13:23
  Oh, it's terrible. Yeah, but okay, you make no, no,
• 13:29
  no, wait, wait. You're being facetious, but
• 13:30
  you're making that fantastic point.
• 13:31
  I mean, look at the difference between that and this.
• 13:34
  Well, yes, yes. But it's it's, you know, it's
• 13:39
  completely different. Horses for causes.
• 13:41
  Some people want to watch a pantomime.
• 13:43
  Other people want to watch some drama.
• 13:45
  Yeah, it's it's, it's the variety.
• 13:47
  And I think that's one thing I love about classico is the
• 13:50
  variety. You you get so many different
• 13:54
  kinds of story from classico. Whereas I mean, you know, I'm,
• 13:58
  I'm don't want to start criticizing the Monday stuff.
• 14:01
  It can feel a bit formulaic. Yeah, that's how it was like,
• 14:05
  you know, start us off with, you know, Monday Earth, then
• 14:08
  historical, then futuristic, then, you know, and it, you
• 14:12
  know, along along those lines, there's always going to be big
• 14:15
  dramatic finale, that sort of thing.
• 14:17
  And it's just, you know, I think outside the box guys, that's
• 14:20
  just. TV Now and IT though, I think.
• 14:23
  I think people like a formula. Yeah.
• 14:25
  Yeah. I mean, it's yeah.
• 14:27
  It's not exclusive though. And to be fair, this was unusual
• 14:29
  at the time. Like, you know, TV in the 70s
• 14:33
  was pretty formulaic, you know, a sick.
• 14:35
  It was. Yeah.
• 14:36
  Yeah, it was. It was very like, yeah, because
• 14:38
  he'd have this, He would stop with bazzle brush, then this,
• 14:41
  then generation game, then two on ease, then God Duchess of
• 14:49
  Duke Street or something. Or.
• 14:50
  And you can't. You knew what you were getting,
• 14:52
  didn't you? Yeah, you were Doctor Who.
• 14:54
  You had no clue what you were getting.
• 14:55
  You had no clue whatsoever. Do you know we're C Tech?
• 15:00
  It's so impressive because we're never ever gonna have the money
• 15:05
  to see. What he talks about, you know,
• 15:08
  leaving places as dust and darkness.
• 15:11
  So it has to be all in the dialogue and the performance.
• 15:15
  But for us to take in seriously, and we do, Yeah, yeah, I mean,
• 15:20
  you completely buy it. Like I say on the Busy class.
• 15:25
  You'd see a flashback to, you know, suite, and in there, with
• 15:29
  all of his powers, you know and and and.
• 15:32
  But he don't need to do that all the time, you know, I think, you
• 15:35
  know, if if they did do that, it'd look a bit cheesy, excuse
• 15:39
  me and a bit NAV. But I think the fact that he's
• 15:42
  managed to over Pat now not only not only torture Tom Baker's Dr.
• 15:48
  but now he's also like converted him into this kind of eye
• 15:52
  rolling puppet. Like, I mean, it's kind of like
• 15:55
  the Planet of the Spiders bit. When the Great One forces, John
• 15:59
  Berkeley stopped it to March around on the spot.
• 16:02
  It's kind of like that, but on a much, you know, much bigger
• 16:04
  scale, I think. What I loved about that with
• 16:07
  Perry was he was so unflappable. To make him ridiculous was
• 16:12
  really scary because he'd never behaved that way.
• 16:15
  Yeah, Tom Baker's always so sort of a bit chaotic, isn't it?
• 16:21
  So still and scary. So to see him do that, sorry,
• 16:26
  I'm going to have to plug my laptop charger.
• 16:31
  Sorry, I've got this. What I love as well is that Paul
• 16:35
  Elizabeth Sladen is always stuck in the role of thinks the
• 16:40
  Doctor's dead, thinks the Doctor's, you know, Yeah, it can
• 16:44
  get a little bit because, I mean, how many times is that
• 16:49
  now? I know, but they make a joke of
• 16:50
  it, and this one, he goes. You're always thinking that,
• 16:52
  aren't you? Is that the the brain of
• 16:55
  Morbius? That's in this one is that.
• 16:58
  Yeah, yeah, when the mummy strangles him and then she's
• 17:02
  crying in his chest. Oh, right.
• 17:05
  I thought it was probably the Morbius.
• 17:07
  I could be warm. He goes.
• 17:08
  You thought I was dead again, didn't you?
• 17:11
  Yeah, I'm. I'm sure that's a brain of
• 17:13
  Morbius, but I mean, we'll see. I don't think I don't want Tom.
• 17:18
  I guess. Does he get because the mummy
• 17:25
  throttles Tom Baker? Then he goes to the but she
• 17:28
  starts crying. She has a guy in.
• 17:31
  My desk club. No, she's just crying.
• 17:35
  No, she goes. You know, Yeah, she's sobbing
• 17:38
  bitterly into his shirt. And then he says, you're soaking
• 17:41
  my shirt. That's quite funny actually,
• 17:44
  because I thought I knew all of this and clearly I don't.
• 17:47
  Sorry. Maybe I've switched off a bit in
• 17:50
  episode four. I've I've seen it, so I could
• 17:53
  probably decide it worth the word.
• 17:56
  There is a a slight element of maybe the manage run out a
• 18:00
  little bit. Now we've got the sort of the
• 18:01
  one set that we're going in and out of.
• 18:03
  But to Doctor Who's defense, he's been doing that since the
• 18:07
  very beginning. You know, this is what they do.
• 18:11
  And I I think actually the set looks quite good and I really
• 18:14
  like the effects on the walls, that kind of eerie glow, golden
• 18:17
  glow, but it's really lovely, I think that.
• 18:21
  Works too. That sort of paint all over the
• 18:24
  walls? Yeah, it looks like paintballs
• 18:26
  have just gone like crazy. Maybe so that it does a bit of
• 18:30
  paintballing in spare time. I don't know.
• 18:33
  I know which bit I love. It's later on where you go, some
• 18:36
  luck and all the doors go do, do, do, do, do do do.
• 18:43
  The time factor. Come on.
• 18:50
  Oh dear, Oh dear. Poor little kiddie winks
• 18:53
  watching this look. Tom Beck has been.
• 18:54
  I know they must have been absolutely glued behind the
• 18:57
  sofa. I'm sure they because it's it's
• 19:01
  like I've said before, I mean it's, you know, because I've got
• 19:04
  two young daughters, you know, I I wouldn't let them see this at
• 19:10
  this point in time because I think it's probably a little bit
• 19:12
  too near a knuckle, I think. So then maybe that is a slight
• 19:18
  endorsement of Mary Whitehouse there then?
• 19:22
  Well, I I don't know. It's.
• 19:25
  It wasn't too much for me because, you know, I didn't turn
• 19:27
  out too badly, but well, that's true.
• 19:30
  I mean, I I was 5, I'd start watching box 2 and he never
• 19:33
  truly ties me, really, apart from the music.
• 19:35
  I would just run out screaming with hands on my ears.
• 19:39
  I do wonder if, and this is no comment on your children, but I
• 19:42
  do wonder if children are a little more delicate today.
• 19:47
  Yeah, I. Think so.
• 19:48
  Or maybe the the adults on their behalf, the adults are quite
• 19:52
  afraid of, yeah, you know, sort of making upsetting, you know,
• 19:56
  the other kids for whatever reason.
• 19:58
  Travelers, John is There's a big, scary world out there now.
• 20:00
  And he's yeah. As long as you can from that.
• 20:06
  Well, actually, having said that, my eldest daughter can do
• 20:10
  the Krensky dance before he's aged.
• 20:14
  No, not that sweet. She actually does.
• 20:19
  So say, oh, what's Kerensky about that?
• 20:22
  And then she does, and she just responds to that.
• 20:27
  So this bit here, right, So there's a there's a doorbell,
• 20:31
  but he says no, don't press the doorbell.
• 20:33
  It's in the wall, yeah. So is that the puzzle?
• 20:39
  Yes. He's he's gonna make sure that
• 20:40
  he finds the hidden switch that isn't that won't blow you to
• 20:44
  Kingdom Cup. OK, because they had a lot, they
• 20:48
  had a lot of this sequence about on the VHS.
• 20:52
  Yeah, some of these bits I remember seeing.
• 20:55
  Yeah, a lot of this stuff was cut because I remember seeing a
• 20:57
  clip show about a couple of years after I got the video.
• 21:00
  And it's the bit when the doctor's holding the probe
• 21:03
  against the dodging button and this electric stock comes out.
• 21:07
  And I thought, oh, hold on, that's not in the video.
• 21:10
  I've just noticed something for the first time ever looking at
• 21:13
  that. That when that door opened there
• 21:15
  you can see a production assistant.
• 21:17
  Yeah, you can see somebody. I have never.
• 21:19
  Seen that before, I thought you were going to comment on that,
• 21:25
  Yeah. I've never.
• 21:26
  I have never noticed that before.
• 21:28
  Given how many times I've seen it, that's astonishing.
• 21:31
  I think I'll post a bit where they do the Marx Brothers a bit.
• 21:33
  I love that. Oh no, they kept that in the
• 21:37
  VHS. That's them being a bit naughty,
• 21:42
  isn't it? Paddy would never agree to this.
• 21:45
  So let's just do it. Yeah.
• 22:01
  They're in tune with each other now, doesn't it?
• 21:48
  Yeah. They they did the Marx Brothers
• 21:50
  routine. You know, without Paddy Russell
• 21:52
  say so. But I mean it's it's, you know,
• 21:55
  I think, I think it's a delightful bit of, you know,
• 21:57
  whingsy isn't it? I think you need it.
• 21:59
  It just tell you how. Yeah.
• 22:04
  Do you know, By all accounts, Elizabeth Sladen's favorite
• 22:07
  story to record was Planet of Evil.
• 22:09
  That's what she says in the commentary and that's what she
• 22:10
  says in the documentary. Now, I like Planet of Evil, but
• 22:16
  it ain't a patch on this. And I like, I don't think her
• 22:21
  performance is a patch on this. So maybe when Elizabeth Sladen
• 22:24
  weren't too happy on set, they're getting better work out
• 22:27
  of her. Yeah, I I would.
• 22:31
  I would agree. I think this gives her a lot
• 22:32
  better material, I think. I mean, again, it goes, you
• 22:37
  know, with Louise Jameson. She said she didn't really think
• 22:41
  horror Fang what gave her much good material, which I was quite
• 22:44
  surprised by because I think he gives us some great material.
• 22:47
  I think you know, again, she really rises to the challenge
• 22:50
  with that. Recording it from the inside and
• 22:52
  watching it from the outside are two different things.
• 22:55
  Yeah, yeah. What's the puzzle here?
• 22:57
  Then? He's got to find the old puzzle
• 23:00
  out, so it's the top right that I'm looking at.
• 23:03
  He's got to look at the one that's not in line with the
• 23:06
  others. And on the top right from syntax
• 23:09
  screen you can see there's a horizontal block which is
• 23:17
  vertical if that makes if that makes any sense.
• 23:19
  So he's got to find the odd one out.
• 23:21
  Here we go, Marx Brothers. It's really funny.
• 23:26
  You can see Paddy Russell just right at the camera.
• 23:29
  Yeah, I see. You can see steam coming.
• 23:32
  There's some steam there coming out of the reels, which?
• 23:36
  I do love that very bizarre CSO effects they're putting on.
• 23:40
  Yeah, that's that's what I was talking about.
• 23:41
  Yeah, the golden walls, it's pretty gnostic, but it's it's
• 23:45
  such an unusual choice as well because it'll been all so easy.
• 23:48
  Just have like stock. You know, it's background, but
• 23:52
  that's, again, it's showing a bit of creativity and you know,
• 23:56
  innovation. Well, you're not getting a great
• 23:58
  deal of fringing either, So it's kind of showing how much it's
• 24:01
  coming along a bit, Yeah. Tom Baker's hair, that fringes a
• 24:05
  lot, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's still
• 24:09
  ridiculously big. I mean.
• 24:15
  Oh, this whole sequence here where he's saying about the
• 24:18
  stitches on his scar? None of that was in the VHS.
• 24:21
  That wasn't in the VHS, no. In case I'm wrong, yeah, that's
• 24:26
  it. Yeah, I'm right, yeah, because
• 24:30
  they clumsily inserted a bit where Marcus is walking along
• 24:33
  the the corridor. Are they sort of clumsily
• 24:36
  inserted that to bridge the two. So I don't know why they did
• 24:39
  that to be honest. I mean, whether it was love, if
• 24:42
  it I'm or what, I don't know. The Riddle of the Sirens.
• 24:46
  This and John Purtley's logic thing in green depth, if I was
• 24:51
  to tell you. Oh God, what is it?
• 24:54
  The next thing I say is a lie, but the last thing I say is the
• 24:56
  truth. Would you believe this?
• 24:58
  Yeah. When I was a kid, I loved
• 24:59
  Circular Logic like that. Yeah, it just makes my pea sized
• 25:05
  brain very dizzy. I used to.
• 25:07
  When I watched this as a kid, I thought, oh, I got that right,
• 25:10
  Okay. So how does that work then?
• 25:12
  Got all the rich colors around his?
• 25:14
  Yeah, around his mother's CV screen, Yeah, yeah.
• 25:18
  It's beautiful. You not only get a Free TV, you
• 25:21
  get no, you not only get a TV, you get your pad decorated for
• 25:26
  free. But yeah, it's such a.
• 25:30
  It's so simply done, but it looks great.
• 25:34
  And also as well, I designed there with the doors sliding
• 25:36
  across it. It is like those old pyramids,
• 25:39
  isn't it? You know, when you.
• 25:40
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's nothing.
• 25:42
  I don't think there's anything shoddy about it at all.
• 25:46
  I do what I do think. It feels like a different story
• 25:50
  to me. To 1:00 to 3:00.
• 25:51
  One to three, is so much about atmosphere and the woods and all
• 25:55
  of that. I think this this still has
• 25:56
  atmosphere, but it's just a different kind of atmosphere.
• 25:59
  It's kind of more like a race against time.
• 26:04
  And it's Tom and Liz. So yeah.
• 26:07
  Oh my God, look at these ones. I've been down the disco.
• 26:09
  Wearing their gold. Yeah, they they're gold sashes,
• 26:13
  you know, it's like their mummy. Maybe it's maybe it's a mummy
• 26:15
  hen night something. Look, they still snap your neck
• 26:20
  off, though, all right? Yeah, that's true.
• 26:22
  Yeah. Don't.
• 26:23
  Don't go. You know, don't try and dance
• 26:25
  with them at the disco, because I'll just crush you.
• 26:29
  So their program. So one of the mummies will
• 26:33
  always tell a lie, right? This is an old Riddle.
• 26:36
  This isn't it. I think I've seen this in other
• 26:38
  things. Yeah, I can't remember what it
• 26:43
  was, but I remember thinking, Oh my God, you stole this from
• 26:46
  Pyramid to Mars. Because it was along the same
• 26:48
  lines, you know, if the next thing I say blah blah blah blah
• 26:50
  blah. So if I was to ask your fellow
• 26:55
  over there, which switch, what would he choose?
• 26:58
  So if you're telling the truth, that's that's the right one.
• 27:03
  And if he's lying, then he'd be, yeah, trying to deceive it,
• 27:06
  yeah. You can see Robert Holmes is
• 27:09
  like, come on, I've got to pad this out a bit.
• 27:11
  Come on, yes, we got 5 minutes, but then it's better than time
• 27:16
  match Part 2, which is just arguing.
• 27:19
  Oh yeah, just lazy scripting. The music for this bit is quite
• 27:24
  eerie as well when he's about to destroy the eye and there's
• 27:28
  something quite macabre about the way his face turns into the
• 27:31
  Jackal. The Jackal headed.
• 27:35
  I love that red glowing eye of Horus.
• 27:42
  So this is, that's the literal embodiment that he is animated
• 27:45
  by Suto. There he becomes, yeah.
• 27:50
  John, I'm free. Free at last.
• 27:57
  Could have been worse. It could have been John Inman
• 27:59
  saying yeah, yeah, head flashed. How did they do that?
• 28:08
  Oh, here we go. He has a 0.
• 28:12
  God, that's horrible. It's really cool, isn't it?
• 28:16
  And it just goes shows you it's just I'm done with you, you
• 28:19
  know. Yeah, it's it's so brutal as
• 28:22
  well, you know. And it's also kind of like the
• 28:25
  the ambiguity whether he's actually, when he says I'm free
• 28:28
  at last, you know, whether he's speaking as markers or whether
• 28:31
  he's still speaking as the possessed markers.
• 28:34
  So it just gives it a bit of, yeah, classic.
• 28:38
  He was always very good at doing like disintegrating corpses,
• 28:43
  like in the State of Decay, City of Death, Planet of Evil, Ghost
• 28:48
  of Fenrick. Yeah, great example.
• 28:50
  Dragonflyer with cane. Oh, my word.
• 28:54
  That might be the best one ever. Yeah, I love that one.
• 28:57
  The wax. Have you got the Blu-ray of
• 29:00
  that? Of what, 24?
• 29:02
  Yeah, since 24, yeah. Do they include the complete
• 29:06
  melting beer back because it's seen?
• 29:08
  Was it just in Behind the Behind the Scenes?
• 29:10
  And quite annoying for me to say this, but I actually don't
• 29:13
  generally watch the stories. I watch the special, the special
• 29:16
  features. Yeah, I probably should.
• 29:18
  I just wondered if they'd done like an uncut version that
• 29:22
  included deleted bits like that. Nope.
• 29:25
  Waste the hand. Yeah, yes.
• 29:32
  Now Horace, we will see who rules the cosmos.
• 29:37
  Hinchcliffe wasn't too happy with this Jackal head, was he?
• 29:41
  No. Well it's it's not quite as good
• 29:44
  as the the that brief vision that you that Sarah looks at in
• 29:50
  the targets in part one because I think that was still the
• 29:54
  Ealing or something and this is done in the studio.
• 29:57
  But I think part of the problem is the it's quite immobile.
• 30:01
  It's just sort of like nothing. Or shaking its head, you know
• 30:04
  what you know, despite what you know, Gabriel Wolfie says.
• 30:09
  Yes, yes, no, no. Even though Elizabeth Satan has
• 30:13
  active things to say about Paddy Russell, she says about her
• 30:17
  being asked along to Paddy Russell asked Elizabeth Slidden
• 30:19
  to go along to Ealing to see. Oh yeah, to pick a Jackal head
• 30:25
  that Fry know the most, Yeah. The one and she went.
• 30:27
  That's the one where Liz, you know, so you've got, you know,
• 30:31
  Liz Sladen for that. So it's funny how he stops and
• 30:37
  now actually relaxes a little bit because, you know, he's
• 30:40
  actually kind of he knows that he's won the day kind of, you
• 30:44
  know, starts joking about the the great fire of London in the
• 30:47
  minute. I've never noticed his head
• 30:50
  wobbling about, he goes. Maybe it would have been better
• 30:55
  than had it just been. Still, that's the classic no no.
• 31:10
  And it is like sorry. Sorry Joe.
• 31:12
  No what? It is basically like you just
• 31:14
  said no, they they uses, there's a slight pause there when he
• 31:16
  went after Sarah goes, he's dead.
• 31:18
  Sneak, he's dead. It's kind of like they take a
• 31:19
  breather, you know, after all the all the shit that they've
• 31:22
  gone through to actually defeat Suzek.
• 31:25
  It's been a pretty intense time, yeah.
• 31:30
  And it's kind of like they need to cool down after that, you
• 31:32
  know? So the IAS horse was holding
• 31:36
  Sutek for two minutes after it was broken.
• 31:40
  What's a bloody good thing? All those doors opened up then
• 31:42
  will it? Otherwise, yeah, good thing all.
• 31:44
  Those games again, Maybe Horace was one of the good guys.
• 31:49
  Oh, and this is so cute. So the Priory is burned to the
• 31:52
  ground and that's where you yeah, it's it's a nice full
• 31:55
  circle back to the, you know back to the that throwaway line
• 31:58
  in one when when Sarah says that Priory was burned to the ground.
• 32:04
  That is fabulous. That that bit of model with the
• 32:07
  window, that's great. Yeah, I mean, I'd buy it.
• 32:12
  Oh, now here I can see those tubes they use for the fires.
• 32:19
  Oh, can you? Oh, really?
• 32:20
  I can't see. Yeah, it looks to the left by
• 32:23
  the crate. Oh, right.
• 32:28
  Oh. Never mind.
• 32:30
  Do you know, I've never noticed that before And then that, oh,
• 32:33
  there you go. That start start the production,
• 32:34
  man, yeah. Of of the the whole building on
• 32:38
  fire. And I say they do a better job
• 32:40
  than previous attempts at this sort of thing.
• 32:42
  Yeah, that is that is brilliant. I mean it's it's a brilliant
• 32:45
  story overall. It's absolutely bird do.
• 32:48
  You remember when they tried to depict the burning of the great
• 32:52
  fire of Rome? Oh, what in the Rome it?
• 32:55
  Was just sort of a cardboard that they just do the yeah.
• 33:02
  Unbelievable. You know, that story goes into
• 33:04
  the Android invasion, which is again out in the woods for a
• 33:09
  good couple of episodes and feels tonally so different.
• 33:14
  Yeah, I like the Android invasion, but like you say it's
• 33:17
  it's completely different feel, so the gothic horror of that.
• 33:22
  But yeah, I mean brilliant, brilliant story.
• 33:25
  Right, John, I now need to. Yeah, it's been a while.
• 33:28
  But at the end of these stories, I don't know if you recall, but
• 33:31
  we're going to have to think, figure out three reasons each as
• 33:36
  to why we would recommend Pyramids of Mars.
• 33:38
  That's tough because there's about 100 reasons.
• 33:41
  Yeah, there are way too many. Reasons.
• 33:43
  If we back and forth, if you do the thing and I'll follow you,
• 33:48
  okay right, I will go with Rudley Simpson's music, which
• 33:55
  is, which is awesome. I am going to say the chemistry
• 34:00
  between Tom Baker and Elizabeth Sladen, which I was going to say
• 34:06
  that next. I'm not sure if it's been bested
• 34:10
  anywhere else. I think it might be at its peak
• 34:13
  here. Yeah, it is superb.
• 34:16
  I am going to go for Paddy Russell's direction, which is,
• 34:20
  which is amazing. It's it's it's unobtrusive, but
• 34:25
  it is just so stylish and well put together and it really tells
• 34:29
  the story well. I am.
• 34:34
  It's a bit of a personal one to me, but I just love dogs who are
• 34:37
  out in the woods and so I just think the amount of location
• 34:40
  work in this story, really stylish location work, that's
• 34:44
  just a big draw for me. So one more, I think I will say
• 34:48
  the guest cast, because I don't think there is a bad casting
• 34:52
  choice there. Yeah, it it might, it might have
• 34:55
  been interesting to see Christopher Benjamin play Marcus
• 34:58
  Scarman. It probably would have been
• 35:00
  quite amusing to see John Baskin play Doctor Warlock.
• 35:05
  But all of all of the choices I think are are solid and they
• 35:09
  give very good guest performances.
• 35:11
  There's there's not one bad performance of the bunch.
• 35:14
  My last hand is going to be the character of Suitech, because I
• 35:19
  think. Some of those lines could have
• 35:22
  been overplayed, like Gabriel Wolf said.
• 35:24
  And I think we don't actually see him do anything in the
• 35:29
  story, so there's no reason really why he should be the most
• 35:33
  terrifying foe that the doctors faced.
• 35:35
  But through Gabriel Wolf's brilliant performance, I'm
• 35:40
  completely sold, you know, And yeah, I don't think.
• 35:45
  I don't think I can think of a time after this where the
• 35:48
  villain felt this powerful and like, if we don't stop him,
• 35:54
  that's it. Yeah.
• 35:55
  And maybe that scene in episode 2, that padding scene when they
• 35:58
  go to the future, maybe that helps, actually.
• 36:00
  So yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 36:03
  It's it's probably the, you know, the Oldsman omnipotent
• 36:08
  villain, isn't it? You know, he just can't be
• 36:10
  beaten. But like so.
• 36:12
  Ultimately, it's just such a class act on every level of to
• 36:17
  finish, yeah. It is such.
• 36:19
  And yeah, the the amount of times I've seen it and it, I
• 36:22
  don't get bought by it. You know, I don't say, oh God,
• 36:25
  what Pyramids and Mars again, I just don't.
• 36:27
  I'm just enjoying it, you know, I enjoyed it, you know, just
• 36:32
  now. I mean it's it's just a
• 36:33
  brilliant story from start to finish.
• 36:35
  And yeah, I still say that it is in my top five easily.
• 36:41
  Brilliant story from start to finish.
• 36:43
  I think that's a great way to finish and that only leaves me
• 36:47
  to say thank you very much for your time.
• 36:50
  Again, thank you. Thank you for thank you for
• 36:52
  having me. Thank you.
• 36:53
  The least scared I've been watching Pyramids and Mars, and
• 36:55
  that's because I had you here to talk about it with me.
• 37:00
  We'll talk off Mike, about what next epic that you're going to
• 37:03
  face. But thank you very much.
• 37:06
  It's been an absolute pleasure. My pleasure too, Joey.
• 37:09
  Thank you.