Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to James Lark about his choice of The Mark of the Rani (1/2)

Transcript

Talks to James Lark about his choice of The Mark of the Rani (1/2) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blump pen knife for doing quicker.
• 0:37
  Welcome back to Hamster with a Blump Pen Knife, the Doctor Who
• 0:40
  Commentary Podcast. I say the it's a Doctor Who
• 0:44
  Commentary podcast, but with guests like I have on tonight,
• 0:49
  it is the infinitely superior commentary podcast.
• 0:53
  Hello, Mr. James Lark. Hi Joe, surely the it's the the
• 0:59
  definite article. I mean, there's nearly 900
• 1:01
  episodes of this thing now. It's well maybe say, the most
• 1:04
  prolific commentary podcast. Joe, you must be so tired,
• 1:11
  barely lifted Toby. Hey man, called out.
• 1:16
  Is this hard enough? I bet you.
• 1:18
  Hang on, have I got praise of Gregory by mistake?
• 1:22
  He hates this story. Do you know?
• 1:24
  Can you imagine why? No, no, no, no, Joe, Nobody.
• 1:30
  That's a really sexy accent. Can you do the rest of the
• 1:33
  commentary in that accent please?
• 1:35
  I I'm going to veer between this accent and just a, a, a a a
• 1:40
  sporadic entrepreneurial vocabulary or pecan see for the
• 1:48
  sake of trying to capture both voices that we get in in in
• 1:51
  today's story. Not that the Prince of Darkness
• 1:54
  here would consider it piquant. This may be some small clues as
• 2:00
  to the story that we are going to be talking about today.
• 2:03
  At your request, I may add. And for once, I'm right.
• 2:08
  I spend most book clubs blaming James for every.
• 2:11
  Book No no, this was my absolutely right.
• 2:13
  Yes, but it's never your fault on the book club, is it?
• 2:16
  It's never my fault, never my fault.
• 2:18
  Actually, next time it is, you know, we're doing the writer's
• 2:20
  tale and you may have opted no, no, no.
• 2:21
  No, no, no, no, no. That was Ian Winston's fault.
• 2:24
  Oh, will you choose always. Always got an alibi?
• 2:27
  Yeah, you slippery snake. Well, we are here today to talk
• 2:32
  about the Mark of the Rani by Pip and Jane Baker.
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  Obviously a story that everyone's beaten down while
• 2:38
  Dawes talk about. James, can I ask you?
• 2:42
  Say that you say that ironically, and that surprises
• 2:47
  me a little. Bit slightly sarcastically.
• 2:49
  Yeah. Well, I don't think people and
• 2:53
  Jane Baker have the best reputation amongst Doctor Who
• 2:55
  fans. Shall I tell you why this was on
• 2:58
  on on my list quite high up? Because when I did my classic
• 3:04
  Doctor Who marathon, the slowest marathon in the history of
• 3:08
  Vanda. How long did it take you?
• 3:10
  Oh. Yeah, the issue was I started it
• 3:13
  with my friend John who used to live down the road and we
• 3:16
  started it just before COVID and so and and he lived down the
• 3:21
  road and and it was sort of every, every weekend we get
• 3:23
  through kind of 8-9 episodes. Sorry to interrupt you.
• 3:25
  Have you ever had a chance to say something in a northern
• 3:28
  accent? John down the road.
• 3:30
  John down. John down.
• 3:32
  Oh, no, because I'm going to go. Because John down.
• 3:35
  Rd. John Down Rd. would he'd come up
• 3:39
  and we'd watch 8-9 episodes. Yeah.
• 3:44
  He's. Gone.
• 3:46
  He's gone now. No, he's not listening anymore.
• 3:48
  You'll be as rude as you like. I'm so sorry.
• 3:52
  Talk about crotons at some point.
• 3:53
  He's very unforgiving. No dominators.
• 3:56
  Oh my God, he's definitely. Oh no.
• 3:57
  Which note? Have I?
• 3:57
  Have I done the wrong? Not crotons.
• 4:01
  Oh no. Oh.
• 4:02
  I expect their threats soon. OK, sorry, no.
• 4:05
  Please continue. Should I said the quarks and I
• 4:07
  went quotants. The marathon was with my friend
• 4:13
  John. He'd he'd come up road and we'd
• 4:16
  get through kind of 89 episodes a weekend.
• 4:18
  And then COVID happened. That was even better.
• 4:20
  Like we couldn't see each other, but we could, we could zoom and
• 4:23
  we we and you know, and so we'd get through several stories a
• 4:28
  week online and then when we were allowed bubbles, even
• 4:33
  better. Like he'd spend the whole whole
• 4:35
  days round watching episodes and then.
• 4:37
  Living the life during COVID. I had a great pandemic.
• 4:41
  Oh, we're still working. You get all right and then we
• 4:45
  all had to go back to work and it was busier than ever.
• 4:47
  And and what has happened subsequently is that John is no
• 4:50
  no longer down the road. He's in freaking Dorking, which
• 4:56
  is kind of down the road if it's a.
• 4:58
  Choice. In a very metaphorical way, my
• 5:02
  apologies. To anyone who lives in Dorking.
• 5:05
  Dorking is, is, is lovely, but it's it's a very, very long way
• 5:08
  from me. So it's any watching that we do
• 5:10
  is going to be a kind of watch party type arrangement.
• 5:13
  But he was starting a new job. He had a social life, damn him.
• 5:18
  So yeah, so around about kind of the Peter Davidson era, we
• 5:23
  slowed down to an absolute crawl and we were managing kind of one
• 5:26
  episode of Fortnite or something like that.
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  So then then it. Became a very because he was
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  busy James, although it wasn't a.
• 5:32
  Quality story. No, because Peter Davidson was
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  his era. He was loving that.
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  That woman. No, we really did just get busy.
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  But I do remember that when we got to Mark of the Rani in
• 5:44
  context, it felt like we'd arrived at a minor classic.
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  And I think the quality that that gave it that feeling was
• 5:55
  very much it's being historical. If you think about if you think
• 5:58
  about when JNT came in, Tom Baker's last season doesn't have
• 6:04
  any historical stories. Pete, the Peter Davidson
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  historicals are very flimsy indeed.
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  You've you've got the King's demons.
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  I guess it's the most kind of concerted effort to show a
• 6:14
  historical setting, and it's got all that jousting and stuff,
• 6:16
  which is great, but it's one episode in a story which I think
• 6:19
  most of us would at best say is rather lightweight.
• 6:24
  I'm not very interested in the historical.
• 6:27
  Even though by the new series it's sort of yeah, feels the
• 6:30
  need to eject a lot of sci-fi as.
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  Well, it's a backdrop, but it's really just a showcase for this
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  fabulous new robot that doesn't work.
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  So when you get when you arrive at the mark of the runner,
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  you're actually thinking. And of course, Graham Williams
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  wasn't very interested in history either.
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  He it's all kind of fantasy and different planets.
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  I did feel like a previous commentary we did was it felt
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  like a historical even though it wasn't.
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  Yeah, but you you couldn't claim that the Android Attara is, is,
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  is a historical or, or is it is in any way based on a, on a real
• 7:02
  historical setting. You know, it's got the trappings
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  of of costume drama, but that's a different thing.
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  What I'm talking about is actually the idea that we're in
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  a time travel series and you can go back to the, the past that is
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  reckoned, you know, the past of stuff that you studied in
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  schools. And, and the marker of the
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  Ronnie is such a, a, a, a, a complete effort to do that, both
• 7:26
  in the writing and in the realisation.
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  And the minute it starts, you're there in that world.
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  And, and certainly kind of after most of Colin Baker's first
• 7:36
  season and all of Peter Davidson's last, you just think,
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  wow, it's been a while since the TARDIS went back in time and we
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  were we were committing to realising a, a period in history
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  this beautifully. And also, and I, I'm, I'm don't
• 7:54
  dislike Colin Baker's first season at all, but there is a
• 7:59
  there, there is a quality to it which is more traditional just
• 8:05
  in the way that Doctors written and in the way the the plot
• 8:08
  unfolds. You're you're not being, you're
• 8:13
  not being confronted with violent imagery.
• 8:16
  You're not being tricked into thinking that it's a heist
• 8:19
  movie. You're just, you're being shown
• 8:20
  good old fashioned Doctor Who in historical setting and in
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  context. It just felt like, oh wow, we're
• 8:25
  in a really exciting place all of a sudden with this Doctor.
• 8:29
  I think Pip and Jay Baker as well are the only writers really
• 8:36
  in season 22 that remember that Colin Baker's 6th Doctor is at
• 8:42
  the heart of this show and is the hero of this show and should
• 8:46
  be at the forefront of the story because he's in absolutely like
• 8:50
  from the third scene, you know? And that's rare in 22.
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  And and he's doing things that we expect the doctor to do.
• 8:58
  He is to use an overused were Doctor ish in it but he's show
• 9:02
  he is showing out a heck of a range as an actor but also as a
• 9:06
  as a character. You're talking about the
• 9:08
  discontinuity guide again? Aren't you?
• 9:10
  A doctor Ish doctor. Is that what it says?
• 9:12
  Is that what? I had actually forgotten that,
• 9:14
  but there. Under the bottom line, our
• 9:15
  favorite bits, but also as well, and correct me if I'm wrong, and
• 9:20
  I've said this many times, but I'm going to repeat myself
• 9:22
  because I think it bears repeating because I did last
• 9:26
  year. I don't know why I was in a bit
• 9:27
  of a self hate period. And I went to Outpost Gallifrey
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  or Gallifrey base, whatever it's called these days.
• 9:33
  And they had a few sort of threads up of like the best and
• 9:35
  worst writers. And you have to choose your top
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  three in both directions and everyone's top bottom 3 Pip and
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  Jane Baker on it. And it made me so incandescent
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  with rage because, OK, they do, right?
• 9:48
  Ripe dialogue. Yeah.
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  But I love it because I, I do not mind a, a bit of verbosity
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  in my dialogue. You know, I'm not a fan of
• 9:58
  Shakespeare, but I imagine if I went to see a Shakespeare play,
• 10:01
  I'd be tickled by some of the dialogue.
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  Also, you'd find it much easier than Pip and Jane Baker to
• 10:07
  understand what they were talking about.
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  Sure. What?
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  The catharsis of spurious morality you mean?
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  A web of mayhem and intrigue, Perhaps I could go on.
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  Would be a more. Go on, just do the whole line.
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  It's a something epithet, isn't it?
• 10:25
  I've gotten the the quote would be a more.
• 10:29
  No, it's an aposite epithet. It's.
• 10:31
  Oh, it's aposite epithet. Fortuitous.
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  Fortuitous would be my aposite. There we go.
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  God, no wonder we couldn't remember that line.
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  But also as well, these are some strengths I think Pip and Jane
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  have. Yeah.
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  You know, I just want to lay them out.
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  I think they remember the kids, and that's really important.
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  And not a lot of stories in season 22 remember the kids.
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  They're quite violent and they're quite brutal.
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  This has violence in it, but I think it's all OK.
• 10:54
  It's sort of excitement and adventure rather than, well, I
• 10:58
  don't know what's going on in vengeance on Var or so, if I'm
• 11:00
  honest. Torture porn, we'll call it.
• 11:03
  Yeah. But they remember to give the
• 11:05
  show heart. They remember to.
• 11:08
  They remember that the side characters are important and we
• 11:11
  should care about them. And they remember the doctors
• 11:15
  having a relationship with his friend, and they like each
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  other. There's a bit spiky in this, but
• 11:20
  they like each other. Yeah.
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  And what the hell, they know how to write a villain as well.
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  Oh goodness, they have the best time right at the time laws in
• 11:30
  this. I mean, I think I the comparison
• 11:33
  I would make is with stock Aiken and Waterman.
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  I think Pip and Jane are the stock Aiken and Waterman of of
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  Doctor Who writers. Well, so stock Aiken and
• 11:44
  Waterman became a kind of a joke and were very heavily criticized
• 11:48
  for churning out top ten hits. And then they have a 100 top ten
• 11:54
  hits eventually. Like they made it look that
• 11:58
  easy. Now that's a stupid criticism
• 12:00
  because no one can churn out top ten hits easily.
• 12:05
  They just made it look easy. And sure, they had a formula.
• 12:10
  That's how they were able to churn them out.
• 12:12
  You know, the, the, the way they were able to to get so many
• 12:16
  songs out, so many catchy songs out so fast is that they had
• 12:19
  tricks that they could draw on. And sure, if you were to listen
• 12:22
  to all 100 of those top ten hits, they would begin to sound
• 12:25
  a bit samey because they're using a similar language.
• 12:28
  Nevertheless, they were really, really bloody good at what they
• 12:32
  were doing. And I think Pip and Jane are a
• 12:33
  bit like that. They know what beats to hit.
• 12:36
  They are kind of hacks. And I don't mean that in a
• 12:39
  negative way. I think Malcolm Hulk had that
• 12:41
  reputation as well, to the extent that his nickname amongst
• 12:45
  other writers was Hack Mulk. And that's not necessarily a bad
• 12:49
  thing, particularly as we get in season 23 when the show is in
• 12:54
  absolute crisis and you need to who, who can you depend on to
• 12:57
  knock out a final installment in a a a very limited amount of
• 13:02
  time with no information about what was meant to go into?
• 13:05
  An impossible task. An impossible task which?
• 13:08
  They absolutely rise to where they came a cropper was when
• 13:13
  Andrew Cardinal took over. Because then you have someone
• 13:15
  with ambition and vision who is really looking for writers who
• 13:19
  are kind of brilliantly creative and, and, and thinkers outside
• 13:24
  the box. And they would.
• 13:26
  What they weren't is thinkers outside the box.
• 13:28
  They were going to turn in a brilliant script, absolutely,
• 13:33
  that fits inside that box perfectly.
• 13:35
  That's who they were and that's why in this season I think they
• 13:38
  were just absolutely in the right place to write for Colin
• 13:40
  Baker's Doctor. It's kind of sad because neither
• 13:43
  Eric's Award or Andrew Cartmel rated them and and sort of felt
• 13:47
  they were sort of Lombard with them.
• 13:49
  But boy, they understand structure as well.
• 13:51
  You know, they go as a structure, a bloody script.
• 13:54
  Yeah, but not a lot of people did in mid 80s.
• 13:56
  Who I I draw your attention to Time Lash.
• 14:01
  Oh, it's yeah. You know, I could, I could, I
• 14:04
  could, I could, I could stick a pin into the map of Eric
• 14:09
  Saywood's time as script editor and just go, well, here, here
• 14:12
  are a handful of things that don't conform to any kind of
• 14:14
  structure and suffer massively as a result.
• 14:17
  But Doctor fans go on well. I'm supposed to say the other
• 14:21
  thing that Pip and Jane absolutely can do is because
• 14:24
  they've worked on film, is that they understand how to work for
• 14:27
  location. Oh God, yeah.
• 14:30
  Gorgeous gift of all this additional location work for
• 14:34
  Mark of Iran, who was handed Pip and Jane got on the phone and
• 14:36
  went, don't you worry, we'll come to Bliss Hill and we'll
• 14:39
  write the scenes there. Colin can learn them overnight
• 14:42
  and we'll fill them the next day.
• 14:44
  And that's what they bloody well did.
• 14:45
  Perfect. And actually, although you say
• 14:48
  the script editors didn't have a lot of time for them and and
• 14:51
  when you see them interview interviewed, you can imagine
• 14:53
  they were probably quite difficult to work with, no?
• 14:56
  Jane Pip seems quite. When I speak of them, when I
• 15:01
  when I speak of them as a as a couple, obviously you're dealing
• 15:05
  with Jane. Yeah, she's great because I
• 15:07
  don't think Pip don't think had any say at all in what I think
• 15:13
  you don't. Hear that story that Cartmel's
• 15:14
  holding his fabulous script, Doctor?
• 15:17
  Yes. Where?
• 15:18
  Where? He phoned him up and Pip picked
• 15:20
  up the phone. It's like, oh, hello, Andrew.
• 15:22
  Yes, what's that a problem with the script?
• 15:24
  And then Andrew said he could hear in the background who's on
• 15:27
  the phone. And then she went, come here,
• 15:29
  give me that. Who's it?
• 15:30
  Andrew Cartmel? We're not changing that script.
• 15:33
  And she just put the phone down. She sounds great.
• 15:37
  You can see that in the interview.
• 15:38
  So yeah, he'll start talking. No, no, no, no, no, it wasn't.
• 15:43
  And who was, I think, oh, is it Richard Marsden described them
• 15:48
  as the Fanny and Johnny Craddock of script writing.
• 15:51
  I mean that they must have been a nightmare.
• 15:55
  Actually, if if, if things if they weren't doing what you
• 15:58
  wanted. But the people who speak highly
• 16:01
  of them and the actors, Colin Baker is a huge fan.
• 16:04
  And that's because because they were engaging with the the work
• 16:09
  in a way that actors absolutely want.
• 16:11
  And I and I bet they were helpful to directors as well.
• 16:16
  Colin said they knew how to give me words, of course.
• 16:18
  Why did they? Well, I'm actually talk about
• 16:22
  giving that doctor the right material.
• 16:25
  Yeah, well, I think he's one of the few.
• 16:27
  I mean, imagine poor John Perk where you say in this dialogue
• 16:30
  he'd ever had no hope. You know they're.
• 16:32
  Trying to there are very, there are very few doctors you can, I
• 16:36
  mean, Hartnell wouldn't have got through a single sentence, would
• 16:39
  he? Colin Baker is lexically gifted,
• 16:42
  isn't he? He is, you know, he can.
• 16:44
  He can pretty much say. He's a proper old school actor
• 16:48
  and and oh. No.
• 16:51
  Sorry, let me just let me just finish that.
• 16:53
  And because Colin Baker is also, and this is a a, a positive, he
• 17:00
  is theatrical. And I'm not saying that he
• 17:02
  doesn't understand how to deliver that kind of performance
• 17:05
  to the camera, because I think he generally does.
• 17:08
  But he he grew up through a theatre tradition in a way that
• 17:13
  is increasingly a rarity amongst television actors.
• 17:16
  And you can see in his performance he can deliver text.
• 17:19
  I mean, it is shake in that sense.
• 17:22
  You would totally trust Colin Baker to deliver full staff
• 17:25
  because he because he can, he understands long sentences.
• 17:30
  That's what you know the his best big Finnish performances
• 17:33
  have understood that and have given him huge pieces of
• 17:38
  dialogue or indeed soliloquy to deliver.
• 17:41
  And he always delivers because he understands how to approach
• 17:45
  that kind of verbose writing. Now, are you being infected by
• 17:50
  Pip and Jane Baker James on this call?
• 17:52
  Because where you just said as an aside or indeed soliloquy
• 17:55
  there, that's the most Pip and Jane thing you've ever said in
• 17:57
  one of these calls. Pip and Jane Jane.
• 18:02
  What? Jane, I haven't actually even
• 18:04
  asked you the question I was going to ask you.
• 18:06
  Because. I mean, we've been singing the
• 18:08
  praises of Fabulous Pip and Jane Baker, and that is, how did you
• 18:13
  find the 6th Doctor? Like, you know, he's a divisive
• 18:16
  fellow, but some people love him passionately.
• 18:19
  Other people say this as well. I've ducked out of the show,
• 18:21
  thank you very much. And I'm not having anything else
• 18:23
  to do with it. I think that a thing that is
• 18:28
  worth remembering is how low Colin Baker's cachet was when we
• 18:35
  were growing up, particularly well at the age when I was
• 18:39
  getting into Doctor Who, to the point where I remember when they
• 18:42
  started the 1992 repeat season that stopped and started and
• 18:48
  went on for ages. But I remember having
• 18:50
  conversation at school with someone and I was very excitedly
• 18:55
  saying, well, they're going to show a story from every doctor.
• 18:59
  And he said, well, surely not Colin Baker.
• 19:02
  That's that is, you know, Colin Baker had been the scapegoat for
• 19:06
  the cancellation, the near cancellation of Doctor Who.
• 19:10
  And I mean, God knows he took it well.
• 19:15
  I mean, I don't, I know, I know he's talked about it.
• 19:17
  And he didn't entirely take it well.
• 19:18
  But the, the generosity of the man to carry on giving those
• 19:21
  interviews and doing the PR and, and indeed and playing the
• 19:26
  Doctor on stage, but a couple of years later.
• 19:29
  So, I mean, he was so generous in the way that he kind of
• 19:33
  understood that it was basically just BBC politics.
• 19:36
  But that was kind of his reputation.
• 19:38
  And I'm not sure that fandom did enough to speak up for him.
• 19:42
  I, I, I remember what was written about him in well, it
• 19:46
  wasn't written about him. It was written about his doctor
• 19:48
  in the doctor yearbook 93, the first of the of the doctor
• 19:53
  yearbooks which had a a a rundown of every doctor and the
• 19:58
  6th doctor was something along the lines of far too.
• 20:04
  It reflected the mid 80s far too well.
• 20:08
  And the word bombastic was throwing, you know, bombastic
• 20:11
  brash, that was. Apologetic description.
• 20:15
  Yeah, absolutely. Just kind of took the narrative
• 20:19
  and that was the description of the, the, the journey that was
• 20:22
  described. And bearing in mind, I had I, I
• 20:27
  had, I mean most of the writing about the the other doctors had
• 20:32
  been done before. So in, for example, Peter
• 20:35
  Haining is a celebration. You obviously only got the 1st 5
• 20:37
  doctors. So I was well versed in what the
• 20:40
  1st 5 doctors were like. So this was the what probably
• 20:42
  the first book that I read that gave me what the 6th Doctor was
• 20:45
  like. And it was mostly kind of
• 20:47
  damning. And it may have said something
• 20:49
  like the actors struggled against the scripts, but but the
• 20:54
  narrative in that yearbook was very much like a real low point
• 20:57
  with the sick Doctor. And then thank goodness we had
• 21:00
  kind of three years with the glorious 7th Doctor before it
• 21:04
  was cancelled for good. And I just, I took that in.
• 21:08
  I, I, I mean, I had, I had absolutely nothing.
• 21:12
  I've not seen any Colin Baker. I loved Sylvester McCoy, so that
• 21:15
  narrative worked for me. I remember seeing Colin Baker on
• 21:19
  television before Roland Rat, in which he gives a pretty scary
• 21:23
  performance and the image of, you know, he, he, I, I think
• 21:27
  probably I don't, and I'm really don't have a problem in the
• 21:30
  costume. And I like the way the costume
• 21:31
  has become kind of iconic now, but I think he probably didn't
• 21:35
  do him any favours in terms of just what you saw as an image
• 21:39
  of, you know, what is Doctor Who like?
• 21:40
  Because if if you wanted to sum up kind of why is Doctor Who
• 21:45
  wonderful, That's that costume isn't is not what you'd.
• 21:49
  I think J&T needed to think what a non Doctor Who fan would think
• 21:54
  when putting on Doctor Who. I don't think you should do that
• 21:57
  very often, but this was one time where you know like that is
• 22:01
  making a statement I can assume. And I'm not sure, I'm not sure
• 22:04
  it did reflect the mid 80s far too much, but I but maybe it
• 22:10
  looks a little bit too children's television because
• 22:12
  because children's television was absolutely.
• 22:14
  If you think of the grotesques that were around in the mid 80s,
• 22:17
  you know, Rod Holland, Emu and, you know, there wasn't a single
• 22:21
  show on television. They weren't painted as stupid
• 22:22
  because. Yeah, exactly.
• 22:24
  But you know, pantomime was. It's the thing that my dad used
• 22:29
  to say killed crackerjack. It became a kind of pantomime
• 22:32
  with these grotesque costumes and gunge that kind of was the
• 22:36
  what I was getting kind of from Doctor Who.
• 22:39
  But if you and that if. You turn on your TV right at the
• 22:41
  wrong point in time Lash, and you see Colin Baker bounding
• 22:45
  across that set, throwing the ball right down that Tinsley
• 22:47
  time Lash. I mean, you know you're never
• 22:50
  going to come back to it. Indeed, Grade may have had a
• 22:52
  point. Or indeed, the mysterious
• 22:53
  planet, which, you know, there are scenes in that that do look
• 22:56
  like a bit of Cracker Jack where they're just getting gunged in
• 22:59
  horrible costumes. So by the time I saw Colin
• 23:03
  Baker, my expectations had been very, very substantially
• 23:06
  lowered. And that first story that I saw
• 23:08
  was Revelation of the Daleks, because that was part of the, I
• 23:13
  say, the 1992 repeat season. I think we were probably in
• 23:16
  about 2008 by the time they got around to Colin Baker.
• 23:19
  But I remember feeling that the Doctor wasn't in it very much
• 23:26
  and it was split into 4 episodes.
• 23:28
  So they were odd episodes, odd chunks and he's barely in the
• 23:30
  first one at all. I'd also remember by the final
• 23:34
  episode, the final quarter, he's in it quite a lot and really,
• 23:38
  really enjoying his performance and enjoying the the tension and
• 23:42
  the repartee between him and Davros and and the the his
• 23:46
  presence. And then the next Colin Baker
• 23:49
  story I watched was the Mark of the Rani, because that was one
• 23:53
  of the first ones to come out VHS.
• 23:54
  And I, I, I, I guess it's that it is a doctor ish doctor, isn't
• 24:01
  it? I mean, of course he he inhabits
• 24:03
  this story absolutely front and center stage and he's really
• 24:11
  appealing in it. That that was the other thing
• 24:13
  I've been, we all knew this, we the the rumour was of this
• 24:17
  unpleasant, he was the unpleasant Dr. the horrible
• 24:21
  doctor. That's, I mean genuinely the
• 24:23
  doctor so horrible that he nearly killed the program.
• 24:26
  So we see the mark of the Rani is completely different to that.
• 24:30
  And mind in this, do you remember where it goes?
• 24:32
  These are living beings, Rani, human beings that I've done you
• 24:35
  no harm. You know that's not a monster.
• 24:41
  And I have, I guess kind of from, from, that's kind of
• 24:50
  difficult beginning, but not of my own fault, but just kind of
• 24:54
  coming to Conor Bacon with the lowest expectations.
• 24:56
  My, I think my admiration for the man has just grown and grown
• 24:59
  and grown partly through having been fortunate enough to meet
• 25:02
  him a couple of times because he's just the loveliest guy in
• 25:05
  the flesh. I mean, I've met him very much
• 25:08
  as a fan queuing for an autograph.
• 25:10
  And nevertheless, he made me feel like the time I spent
• 25:14
  queuing was, was time well spent and that for that kind of 30
• 25:19
  seconds, I was his sole focus of attention.
• 25:24
  I've seen him on stage a couple of times and he's been
• 25:26
  brilliant. And I mean, that's the other
• 25:27
  thing is, you know, talking about his theatrical background.
• 25:30
  He's a really, really fine actor.
• 25:32
  He's he's, he's well. See him in corpse James when he.
• 25:35
  Got skewered to the drinks. Company and then got went into
• 25:39
  the wall and then in Act 2 he came back round again and he was
• 25:42
  still skewered to the wall. Oh man, he was great.
• 25:46
  I saw him in a touring production of Kind Hearts and
• 25:48
  Coronets, and he was playing the Alec Guinness roles, which is,
• 25:54
  if you think about it, that makes total sense.
• 25:56
  Like you're looking for someone who can be all those different
• 26:00
  characters. They were slightly larger than
• 26:01
  life in a way that Alec Guinness's interpretations were
• 26:03
  not. But it's it was a stage
• 26:05
  production. So yeah, big respect for him as
• 26:07
  a performer. And then then of course, the
• 26:10
  work he's done with Big Finish. And I think that he has achieved
• 26:14
  a level of consistency that none of the other doctors have for
• 26:17
  Big Finish. And I think you get the
• 26:19
  impression that people love writing for him.
• 26:21
  And that's because he can do anything.
• 26:24
  And I love the fact they've even gone down the road of telling
• 26:27
  him he's got different versions of this doctor in the same way
• 26:31
  that they have with Nicola Bryan.
• 26:32
  You know, you're playing this doctor.
• 26:34
  This is your early doctor. This is a later doctor.
• 26:36
  This is post male, this pre male.
• 26:38
  Do you know what I mean? I mean, for for a long time, it
• 26:42
  was the the 6th doctor Evelyn, which just seemed like such a an
• 26:47
  inspired idea to put in with an older lady who could hold her
• 26:51
  own. And she was brilliant as well.
• 26:53
  And what a joy. I mean, what what a joy to kind
• 26:57
  of discover through those that he might on some days be your
• 27:00
  favorite doctor. Oh, he is my favorite doctor,
• 27:03
  but on those days he's my favoritest favorite doctor.
• 27:07
  They were just made for each other, weren't they?
• 27:09
  You know, you said about meeting him in person.
• 27:10
  I'll never forget. Because, you know, he hates the
• 27:13
  the favorite thing, doesn't he? Favorite.
• 27:15
  Who's your favorite doctor? Who's your favorite?
• 27:16
  Of course, yeah. I went out to my Doctor Who and
• 27:19
  the Pirates, wonderful Doctor 6. And I said, oh, I said, I know
• 27:24
  you don't like this. It goes, you're my favorite
• 27:28
  doctor. And he jumps his face when it's
• 27:31
  like so serious. I thought, oh, shit.
• 27:34
  And now and then he had this naughty gleam in his eye and he
• 27:37
  sort of did this massive smile when and except when it's me, he
• 27:41
  went give it here. And he's so cheeky.
• 27:45
  Oh, he's lovely. But he was.
• 27:47
  He won one of those polls like 2 years into big finish.
• 27:51
  He was. It was the year of the pirates.
• 27:53
  I remember he. And it was also the year he did
• 27:55
  an astonishing series of interviews.
• 27:58
  Well, it was a single interview, but that must have taken about
• 28:00
  four hours for Doctor Who magazine and IS.
• 28:04
  That the tell one. It was just very.
• 28:06
  It was tell it was brutally honest, but it was also he like
• 28:12
  he's always been so fat. Given the way that other people
• 28:15
  have spoken about him, He's he's never been vindictive.
• 28:20
  He's never been kind of bitter. I it's like even when you get
• 28:23
  the tell all you, what you get is, yeah, that hurt.
• 28:27
  He's he's never really lashed out.
• 28:29
  He's he's never taken the the opportunities that he's been
• 28:32
  given to to kind of throw stones back.
• 28:37
  He's a decent guy. The funniest story he tells in
• 28:40
  his Colin Baker interview CDs he did with Nicholas Briggs and he
• 28:44
  said what have you heard those? I have, yeah.
• 28:46
  That's a brilliant. And he says again, after he was
• 28:50
  fired, he then went out to America to do something.
• 28:54
  And Michael Grade was. With Michael Grade and his wife.
• 28:57
  And they're like, oh, look, it's Colin from Doctor Who.
• 29:00
  Invite him over. Michael Grade's phone.
• 29:01
  No, no, let's not invite him over.
• 29:04
  And he said he had a lovely night with Michael Grade.
• 29:06
  Barnum champagne and the whole night.
• 29:08
  So like, yeah, he was. Michael Gray's wife there.
• 29:10
  When are you doing the next season of?
• 29:12
  Doctor indeed. Well, I'm not.
• 29:16
  Why ever not? Totes Orks.
• 29:19
  Well, look, I think we should watch him in action, you know.
• 29:22
  What do you reckon? Alongside some, I mean, we
• 29:25
  haven't even mentioned Sarah Hellings yet.
• 29:27
  And I must talk about. Oh my.
• 29:28
  Goodness, I mean, and many, many people to talk of in in this
• 29:31
  country. Jonathan Gibbs, James.
• 29:34
  It's a great score. It is a great.
• 29:36
  Score definitely have more to say about that.
• 29:38
  And, you know, given we've just had, you know, like the score
• 29:41
  from Attack of the Cybermen with the Steptoe and Sunrish, it's
• 29:45
  not a guarantee it's going to be a great score.
• 29:47
  Well, would you care to count us in?
• 29:49
  OK, we shall be watching Doctor Who, Mark of the Rani in 321 go.
• 30:00
  Oh boy, I've got the sound on Jesus that's frighten the life
• 30:03
  out of me. That sting?
• 30:04
  I've just got the subtitle that says in capital letters Doctor
• 30:07
  Who theme. Yes, right.
• 30:09
  Well, it is. And it's certainly a Doctor Who
• 30:11
  theme with an exclamation mark. Isn't it definitely in capital
• 30:14
  letters and ought to probably be in rainbow colours?
• 30:16
  Do you like the Peter Howe music?
• 30:18
  I do like it. I I don't love it, but if it
• 30:22
  wasn't my theme, it wasn't the one I grew up with.
• 30:24
  I but it's it's certainly. It does what it needed to do
• 30:28
  when it was written. Am I wrong in saying because I
• 30:30
  feel like it's dated worse than the John Perry Tom Baker one?
• 30:34
  Oh yeah, you know, I just think 80's the second I hear.
• 30:37
  It all of the all of the synth ones have, but I'll give a pass
• 30:41
  to the KEF McCulloch 1 because. It's our first.
• 30:43
  It's our first. It's our first.
• 30:45
  Now where are we? We're in Bliss Hill.
• 30:48
  Fabulous air museum. I haven't, no, but I know lots
• 30:52
  of people that have. So it was a place that my dad,
• 30:55
  we used to live in Cheltenham, which wasn't too far from I'm
• 31:00
  Bridge Gorge and my dad used to keep saying well we'll go there
• 31:02
  one day and we never did and I never have.
• 31:05
  Well, James, should we ever visit a Doctor Who location,
• 31:08
  we'll have a cream tea in Bliss Hill.
• 31:10
  It'll, yeah, it'll need to be a substantial cream tea.
• 31:12
  It's a bit of a schlep. This could be a expensive Sunday
• 31:17
  night ITV period drama, right? That's what I mean about when we
• 31:22
  started watching this in context.
• 31:25
  It's straight away just the quality comes off it and then we
• 31:31
  get the score cuts in, I mean. This, this now the pull back
• 31:34
  from the camera. Yeah, that goes.
• 31:36
  Up and up and it goes up and up and up, yeah.
• 31:38
  And the music. And of course.
• 31:39
  The location the location is brilliantly chosen because it
• 31:43
  it's it's it's gifted to them. It's already looks like this,
• 31:46
  but it genuinely looks like an very expensive piece of
• 31:51
  television costume drama, doesn't it?
• 31:53
  And Jonathan? It genuinely does suggest an end
• 31:56
  of the day sort of amble home. It's got the So Jonathan Gibbs
• 32:01
  says that he was doing something quite unusual in that he was
• 32:05
  writing for real instruments. They were going to be played by
• 32:07
  synths, but that was something that was slightly frowned upon.
• 32:10
  The radio phonic workshop with seen as people who dealt in
• 32:14
  otherworldly sounds because they would live in the same building
• 32:17
  as the BBC Symphony Orchestra. So This is why this store
• 32:20
  sticks, this score sticks out. It's because it's for the first
• 32:23
  time in ages we're having he's he's using sounds that are meant
• 32:27
  to sound a bit like the French horn.
• 32:28
  He's got a bit of a harp going on there.
• 32:30
  Because he did do the score for Vengeance and Virus which was
• 32:32
  the last story, which I think is a a good score.
• 32:35
  It is a good score, but it's very different to this.
• 32:37
  One. It's not as atmospheric as this
• 32:38
  one though, no. No, no.
• 32:40
  You know who is this old Crone honestly running the bathhouse.
• 32:45
  Is she? Is she an extra?
• 32:46
  Maybe she's in the studio as well as.
• 32:48
  She looks like the sort of actress you know that would be
• 32:50
  treated with terrible disrespect until the make up came off later
• 32:54
  on in the day, according to reports.
• 32:58
  These sets are good as well they they match the the exteriors
• 33:01
  pretty well I think. I think they're well lit too.
• 33:03
  I don't think 80s Doctor Who always did sort of outside
• 33:07
  inside particularly well. But what they've done well here
• 33:10
  is they've actually done outside light inside.
• 33:13
  So they you have the impression of light shining in through
• 33:18
  windows. And there's a bit of hazer as
• 33:20
  well. Maybe, probably it's not hazer,
• 33:22
  is it? They filmed this once already
• 33:24
  and there's a bit of smoke still sitting there, making the
• 33:26
  lighting look better. But yeah, a happy accident.
• 33:29
  They're well, and this is quite nice, you know, sort of well,
• 33:32
  this isn't nice. They're just currently it
• 33:34
  appears they're being gassed to death but.
• 33:36
  It always seems to upset me when when smoke would gas people but
• 33:41
  they would fall over before the smoke had actually reached them.
• 33:44
  Now I feel as if I've turned the channel to, I don't know, a
• 33:48
  light end show and there's a lot of colour, sort of me all of a
• 33:51
  sudden. I know a lot of people are
• 33:54
  malfunctioning. I mean, that's maybe not the
• 33:58
  finest. You did, James.
• 33:59
  It was the wrong question after all.
• 34:03
  Perry Perry is wearing something that looks like an actual dress
• 34:07
  in this, and I know some people have been unflattering about her
• 34:11
  costume in this, but you have to bear in mind that in every other
• 34:15
  story of the season, she dresses in a way that nobody in real
• 34:18
  life has ever dressed. No, only in the eyes of John
• 34:22
  Nathan Turner. Only John Nathan Turner in his
• 34:25
  imagination, in his. What he?
• 34:29
  Wore completely He's completely incapable of imagining a a
• 34:34
  normal, normally dressed teenage girl.
• 34:37
  Would imagine I'll never stop telling that story on the Twin
• 34:40
  Dilemma where he goes, well, Nicola, please get into costume.
• 34:43
  And they're like, no, no, she's in her costume because she was
• 34:45
  covered up right and beautiful and he went, no, she's not.
• 34:48
  And he made them tear off bits of the costume.
• 34:51
  Unbelievable, isn't it? But is this a different costume
• 34:54
  on location? Because it seems a lot yellower
• 34:57
  on location than it did in the studio.
• 34:59
  Or she put a jacket on. No, I think, I think it, I think
• 35:04
  you're right. I think it's a, I think it's
• 35:07
  probably a lighting thing. I don't know.
• 35:09
  Or is it a different? It does seem a lot yellower,
• 35:12
  doesn't it? Yeah, hoist up your skirts,
• 35:15
  James. Off we go.
• 35:17
  But yellow doesn't under studio lights, yellow does bleach.
• 35:21
  So I just wonder whether that film footage has been
• 35:23
  beautifully kind of graded and. You know, I've got to say to
• 35:27
  you, James, these chaps here, they seem sort of nice gentle
• 35:30
  folk when they were leaving work.
• 35:32
  Now they seem positively, I mean the things they do to these
• 35:35
  jacket potatoes. Yeah, though actually I've been,
• 35:37
  I've been in. I mean, this was what made games
• 35:40
  at school so traumatic. You'd go into the changing rooms
• 35:42
  and everyone had come out of maths and they were being very
• 35:44
  kind of gentle. By the end of games they'd be
• 35:46
  flicking towels at each other and kicking your potatoes over
• 35:49
  and. Really.
• 35:50
  That was quite fun actually. You know it.
• 35:52
  Wasn't. At the time, it wasn't.
• 35:55
  Oh, this is lovely Perry talking about the botany they do
• 35:57
  remember every now and again, but she's a student of botany.
• 36:00
  She's she's, she's got plenty of initiative in this one and the
• 36:04
  doctor trusts her. I, I think they write really
• 36:06
  well for her as well. There's.
• 36:08
  One moment though, 1 moment where she's spectacularly stupid
• 36:11
  at the wrong point and I will point that out.
• 36:14
  You could say there is precedent for companions to to be
• 36:16
  spectacularly stupid. This is very, this feels very
• 36:19
  traditional as well, doesn't it? The doctrine and companion,
• 36:23
  they're not arriving on the scene to.
• 36:25
  There's no jeopardy, but they're just wandering in and that and
• 36:29
  he's got a gadget. I mean, this could sort of be a
• 36:32
  heart, no historical at this point, couldn't it, you know?
• 36:38
  Scarecrow. We think move just.
• 36:39
  Said this so the scarecrow is one of the things where so where
• 36:43
  I think Pip and Jane don't always make sense is that they
• 36:47
  have they're very kind of image driven that wouldn't it be cool
• 36:50
  if the master was dressed as a scarecrow?
• 36:52
  Sorry, spoilers, that's the master.
• 36:54
  What? But what?
• 36:55
  Why? Why is he dressed as a
• 36:57
  scarecrow? Yeah, I think, yeah.
• 36:59
  I don't know. The only there's, the only
• 37:01
  motive you can give him is that he knows he's in Doctor Who and
• 37:04
  he needs to be in a disguise. But that doesn't make much
• 37:07
  sense, does it? Doesn't make a lot of sense.
• 37:10
  This is a great brandishing that knife.
• 37:11
  Then there's a lot of noise in Season 22.
• 37:16
  The actual smash, if the smashing of stuff, is genuinely
• 37:20
  violent, isn't it? And they are appropriate.
• 37:23
  I know that the hip, the shovel doesn't quite convince that it's
• 37:26
  made contact at any kind of speed, but Even so, that's a
• 37:30
  that's a nasty struggle, isn't it?
• 37:32
  I love Colin now, man of actually dashes in, he calms
• 37:35
  down the horse, he tends to the people that are hurt.
• 37:39
  You know, he's just there and involves stroke.
• 37:41
  Revelation of the Daleks. It takes him, you know, 45
• 37:44
  minutes to climb over a wall. It's all, it's all very, very
• 37:52
  well directed location as well. It's got it's got plenty of
• 37:55
  movement, plenty of drama. Sarah Hellings is really good.
• 37:57
  He said so. Colin says that he loved working
• 38:01
  with Sarah Hellings, that she was a very intuitive director
• 38:04
  and brilliant with actors, and I think you can see it actually.
• 38:07
  Oh totally. The shots are really beautiful
• 38:09
  frames and you can see how well the location has been not only
• 38:14
  chosen but used for for each particular scene.
• 38:17
  Oh, that line there makes me laugh.
• 38:18
  That was in a discontinuity. Go where Perry goes.
• 38:20
  You suspect another motive? I love the fact that the mark of
• 38:27
  the Ronnie is absolutely enormous and nobody could
• 38:30
  possibly miss it. Yeah.
• 38:32
  She needs a bit of foundation. Once I come out of that machine,
• 38:34
  she could just sort of dab them down and then no one would know.
• 38:38
  And the mark of the Ronnie is basically a Hickey, isn't it?
• 38:40
  Yeah. I mean, I've never had one that
• 38:42
  big, but yeah. Is it definitely from the
• 38:45
  machine or do you think the Ronnie it's her way of thanking
• 38:49
  them? Oh, no, you've seen the state of
• 38:52
  some of them. Come on now.
• 38:53
  Luke Ward, maybe. Oh, I need to warn you that
• 38:57
  later on in the in the story, well, you are on a call with me.
• 39:01
  Just remember that, OK? Luke Ward is very pretty.
• 39:04
  Now he is, but he's also packing too.
• 39:06
  Yes, you are. Packing.
• 39:07
  No, I, I, I, I have observed this, I think.
• 39:12
  I think that covers up maybe a not terribly well written
• 39:17
  character, but we can discuss that when we get that very well.
• 39:20
  Ask me a lad. Look, what are the potatoes
• 39:22
  being kicked down the road? That's good continuity, isn't
• 39:24
  it? The potatoes are all Chucky.
• 39:26
  Look at all these people, there's fucking extras
• 39:28
  everywhere. It does.
• 39:29
  Carrying things away, I mean. Were they just, were these sort
• 39:32
  of museum workers? Do you want to be a tourist
• 39:35
  Who's today? Come on.
• 39:37
  It's like one of those dress up shops.
• 39:39
  They must. Have down your cream tea.
• 39:40
  Let's go. They must have a they must have
• 39:44
  an old building full of costumes where you can dress up as a
• 39:46
  peasant or a Victorian. And it's so unusual, like at
• 39:49
  this point in a story to still be on location like.
• 39:52
  That is a reviewer way of filming the Rani in that scene
• 39:57
  as well, just having her in the background as they go past and
• 39:59
  the doctor doesn't even notice her but the camera just lingers
• 40:02
  on her going into the distance. Oh, can I say this is my one of
• 40:05
  my favorite perimobis in the story in a second where she
• 40:07
  charms the fella at the gate to let them in because she's really
• 40:11
  nice and the doctor's being a total prick.
• 40:14
  And then she goes, oh, please forgive him.
• 40:16
  He's a little bit eccentric. And then he looks straight to
• 40:18
  the camera and goes eccentric. Me.
• 40:20
  Preposterous. It's really fun.
• 40:23
  Yeah. No wonder you were seduced by
• 40:26
  him when you watched Martha second story.
• 40:30
  God, they're filthy, aren't they?
• 40:31
  They must be terrible down that mine.
• 40:35
  I'll sort of remember. That this time I'm going to the
• 40:37
  Tobys. I don't.
• 40:38
  What is all this talk of Toby's? What is a Toby?
• 40:41
  It's a Toby jug in it. It's a beer.
• 40:42
  Oh, of course it's a Toby Jug, but so is that a pint is?
• 40:45
  It a toppers will be along when they've emptied their tobys.
• 40:49
  Yeah, that's what they're trying to say.
• 40:50
  Oh my God, it's the master. Now his beard is rather
• 40:54
  different in this one, it usually joins up all the way
• 40:57
  around and they seem to have gone to a different mustachio
• 41:00
  for Anthony Amy's facial. It's literally like it's.
• 41:04
  Very like it's the most. In fact, I believe that beard
• 41:07
  also was being used by Tony Robinson and Maid Marian and her
• 41:10
  Merry Men at the same time. Is that a fact or have you just?
• 41:13
  Made that up, but I really hope that turn turns up in kind of
• 41:19
  what some kind of a reputable volume in a few years time.
• 41:24
  But you know what though? And I know a lot of people
• 41:26
  complain about the Master. I would not be out without the
• 41:29
  Master in this story. Him and the Ronnie, and we'll
• 41:33
  get there. I just think it's glorious.
• 41:35
  It's a love, it's a beautiful dynamic.
• 41:37
  They're great together. She can't be bothered with him
• 41:39
  at all, can she? And it sort of gives him a
• 41:42
  purpose for once. Yeah, but she, she basically
• 41:45
  says about the Doctor and the Master.
• 41:46
  What we think, right? Yeah, a pair of idiots.
• 41:51
  Oh, look at him, Gary. Look at Colin.
• 41:52
  I'm just going to walk straight in.
• 41:55
  I love him. Have you ever sort of entered
• 41:59
  somewhere like this with that much confidence, James?
• 42:02
  Not with a dog barking at me, no.
• 42:03
  Oh. No, he does look a bit.
• 42:05
  I no, because I it's how I try and go into work and I still
• 42:10
  sometimes get stopped at the gate and ask who I am.
• 42:12
  I'm working there 12 years. That confidence can't be faked.
• 42:17
  I try and Colin Bacon my way out and they're like.
• 42:19
  If I was there with you, I'll be going, oh, it's a bit eccentric,
• 42:22
  don't worry. Just let him throw do.
• 42:23
  You think it's a mistake wearing the full costume?
• 42:26
  What in this? No to work.
• 42:29
  Oh, you've got a Colin costume. Wow.
• 42:33
  No, I don't. I know you've got a Sylvester
• 42:34
  McCoy umbrella, so I would believe you.
• 42:37
  Yeah. I do know what people wear that
• 42:39
  Colin costume at all these conventions.
• 42:41
  I know it's become like the pride.
• 42:43
  Flag of Doctor Who costumes. And rightly so, because what?
• 42:46
  What else is it for? Yeah, have you?
• 42:49
  Seen that picture of him where someone drew where Yes, Perry
• 42:52
  goes factor. It's a pride parade.
• 42:54
  I found my people Perry. Look at Perry.
• 42:59
  She's so Chuck. And she does look beautiful,
• 43:01
  doesn't she? Yeah, I mean, she's pretty
• 43:03
  colourful. That's not a a particularly
• 43:06
  tasteful dress that she's wearing either, but.
• 43:08
  It was. Maybe it's just the colour,
• 43:10
  isn't it? Right.
• 43:11
  I think it's the trousers that that don't quite work.
• 43:14
  I don't think the coat is is the problem.
• 43:18
  I mean that skirt makes her look overweight and she most
• 43:21
  definitely. Oh yeah, no, her her skirt is
• 43:23
  not a flattering skirt, but I but I think it's more flattering
• 43:25
  than the kind of. The shot of the master through
• 43:27
  the gate is fab. Great, great.
• 43:31
  I'm just going to keep pointing out amazing camera work in this.
• 43:34
  Well, so and and it's going to get less and less because I
• 43:37
  think the amazing camera work is basically the location stuff and
• 43:40
  I don't think her studio work has quite the same dynamism.
• 43:45
  I think you'll be surprised how much location work there is in
• 43:48
  episode 2 though. Is there quite?
• 43:50
  There's a lot I. Seem to remember it kind of
• 43:52
  getting less and less and or there's quite a lot in that, in
• 43:55
  that well. We do my favorite thing house,
• 43:57
  my favorite Doctor Who thing. And you and I've talked about
• 43:59
  this before, Doctor Who in the woods, and we both love that.
• 44:03
  I do like Doctor in the Woods. This poor dog, he does look.
• 44:08
  He doesn't look as no. On location there was some
• 44:12
  genuine worrying dog action. This dog looks like a dog I
• 44:17
  would go and pet straight away. The doctor's trying to get out
• 44:20
  of the window. Look, I don't know.
• 44:24
  I just feel like he's always improvising his way through the
• 44:26
  story. You.
• 44:26
  Know he's very, he's a very visual performer.
• 44:31
  Again, it's the it's the theatre thing.
• 44:33
  He's used to being in a situation where he's got a very
• 44:36
  small space to work in, so his movements are very precisely
• 44:40
  calculated. What is the collective noun for
• 44:45
  a load of geniuses, James? I don't know.
• 44:51
  Pip and Jane Baker might know. How do I say it?
• 44:54
  An inspiration An. Inspiration.
• 44:55
  I didn't realize you were throwing me a quote, I thought.
• 44:59
  I thought this was. I know all the pick and Jane.
• 45:03
  Factual information like the one I gave you about Tony.
• 45:05
  Tony Robinson's beard. Well, that's why you're here,
• 45:08
  you know? Oh, well, he murders a dog.
• 45:10
  This is how we know. He does murder a dog.
• 45:14
  Not many, not many people do that on British television.
• 45:16
  Weird enough, I didn't really have too much of a problem with
• 45:19
  him destroying half a universe and Ligopolis, but killing this
• 45:22
  dog is just a step too far. And where do you stand on his
• 45:26
  slightly suggestive choice of weapon?
• 45:29
  Why would you ask me that question?
• 45:33
  I'll have you know I have 5 tissue compressor.
• 45:36
  Eliminators in the drawer. OK, different sizes.
• 45:40
  That's right, no. Many of them have 3 settings.
• 45:43
  I don't think they ever marketed them if I'm honest, although I
• 45:46
  wouldn't mind the Doctor's gadget there.
• 45:48
  The Doctor's gadget is very cool.
• 45:49
  No, I like that a lot. Apparently he created himself,
• 45:52
  didn't it? Because he gets across, he goes,
• 45:54
  yeah. Oh, after all the effort it went
• 45:55
  into making that he goes once they throw it down the pit.
• 45:58
  Oh, the Doctor did not Colin Baker.
• 46:01
  Oh well, no, I assume it was the doctor.
• 46:02
  Or not. No, Colin Baker has quite a few
• 46:04
  gadgets in his time, doesn't he? Yeah, well, So what he's got in
• 46:07
  Attack of the Side me. He shoves in the side man's
• 46:09
  chest. His Sonic Lance.
• 46:12
  Oh, because he's not allowed a Sonic screwdriver.
• 46:14
  Because that's. What's paying attention?
• 46:16
  What? Oh, this is the scene Fraser
• 46:19
  really hates. I you come to a lot of our jobs
• 46:22
  do. You think?
• 46:26
  I mean, did did Fraser grow up in a kind of mining community?
• 46:31
  And this is just bringing back some raw memories of those
• 46:34
  Luddite riots. You know, there's many pictures
• 46:38
  I've seen from when he was younger looking a bit sooty,
• 46:40
  yeah. Yeah.
• 46:41
  Yeah, and he loves Hovis Bridge. You know, he's always running up
• 46:44
  hills. Fraser, please come back.
• 46:48
  We do love you. No.
• 46:50
  He stopped. He stopped listening.
• 46:51
  It's fine. We can say what you like.
• 46:53
  He's just trying to save his old skin.
• 46:56
  Skin. I don't think those are
• 46:58
  authentic accents, James. I think they're pretty good.
• 47:03
  But again, this is where this Fraser is an expert and I'm just
• 47:06
  like, I think they, it sounds pretty.
• 47:09
  You have to remember that in the mid 80s we didn't, we didn't
• 47:12
  have regional accents on television at all.
• 47:15
  I remember when Johnny Briggs started on, on children's
• 47:17
  television. Do you remember that?
• 47:19
  No. Johnny Briggs was a the tale of
• 47:21
  a Northern lad. Worth it for the theme tune,
• 47:25
  which is a trump. It starts with a trombone going
• 47:29
  as Johnny Briggs slides down a slide.
• 47:32
  This northern sounding truck is, of course, brass instruments.
• 47:36
  Are very northern. And, and the first shot of this
• 47:41
  kid was him walking through kind of a scuzzy back alleyway into
• 47:45
  his house and his mum was shouting and they were all
• 47:48
  speaking in this incomprehensible dialect.
• 47:50
  Those were the first Northerners I ever saw.
• 47:52
  I'm surprised I won't pick it in the BBC.
• 47:54
  You know where that was going out, all these middle class
• 47:56
  mothers. I put they probably did they
• 47:59
  they do you remember how upset they were when Karen Keaton got
• 48:01
  a role on Blue Peter? Oh really?
• 48:03
  Well, when poor Jackie Lay got a role on Doctor Who.
• 48:07
  Well, they sorted, yeah, they sorted that out pretty quickly,
• 48:10
  didn't they? Did you just hear how the Master
• 48:13
  described the Doctor? This is just the start of 10 for
• 48:16
  the insult that I'm going to get a throw.
• 48:17
  And he goes, you can't miss this.
• 48:19
  You can't miss him. He's mean looking.
• 48:21
  He wears a vocally colored coat and ridiculous trousers, you
• 48:25
  know. So there's a, there's a variant
• 48:29
  on the same falling down a hole effect they use in Kezer and
• 48:33
  Razani and it's just not quite good enough.
• 48:36
  And it's a video effects on a on a film in this in this case.
• 48:39
  Did you know that Colin Baker had an injury from being on this
• 48:44
  chain? Dislocated a knuckle or
• 48:46
  something? At last.
• 48:47
  It's still got it to this date. An effect of that, yeah.
• 48:52
  It's pretty silent. I I.
• 48:54
  I just feel. Like they could have done the
• 48:56
  falling down the pit with a sound effect rather than trying
• 48:58
  to shut. It's too ambitious.
• 48:59
  It doesn't quite come off. And because he's genuinely
• 49:02
  holding on to that chain, that means the people that are
• 49:05
  attacking the chain are just sort of tapping it really gently
• 49:09
  whilst trying to make it look like they're being aggressive
• 49:11
  and comparing sort of gently throwing bits of coal at them.
• 49:15
  Yeah, it's not as dynamic as perhaps it could be.
• 49:20
  Oh, now this fella. So who is this?
• 49:23
  This is is this Gord Grainger or is that?
• 49:25
  No, I think this is Peter Childs.
• 49:29
  No, no, no. No, that's he's Jack Ward.
• 49:32
  Hang on. Lord Raisinsworth, this is Lord
• 49:35
  Ravensworth. Are you on wiki?
• 49:37
  Terence Alexander No, I just remembered that.
• 49:40
  Yeah, I'm on wiki. Apparently, and this is what
• 49:46
  Colin says in the commentary, he goes he was never out of work.
• 49:50
  And the reason he was never out of work is because he never took
• 49:53
  the lead in anything. He was always sort of like the
• 49:57
  secondary character, but he got jobs everywhere for being in
• 50:01
  that role. He's got that face as well.
• 50:03
  I mean, he's, I bet he grew his own side.
• 50:05
  I'm not sure whether he grew his own sideburns for this.
• 50:08
  Really, James? Do I look like a man who would
• 50:10
  wreck machines? It's this way the master's
• 50:13
  facial hair is wrong is there was so much other facial hair,
• 50:16
  they had a limited budget and the master's beard couldn't join
• 50:18
  up to his massage. Bit last state of decay, isn't
• 50:20
  it? You know those beards?
• 50:21
  Yeah. Yeah, too, too many beards.
• 50:24
  Yeah, a poor makeup. Maggie couldn't cope.
• 50:27
  I think, I mean, it's not surprising to hear that Terrence
• 50:30
  Alexander was constantly working because he's giving a really
• 50:33
  class performance here. It's a it's a fully rounded
• 50:36
  character and he's he doesn't actually have that much screen
• 50:40
  time, but and and he's having to kind of establish himself in in
• 50:44
  the way that characters did it. It's yeah.
• 50:46
  It's got a kind of Robin, Robert Holmes, Ian kind of feel feel to
• 50:49
  it in that he's given a few lines to establish a whole
• 50:52
  background and he doesn't read compellingly.
• 50:54
  But I think I think that's that is the work of somebody that has
• 50:59
  done a lot of work in these roles where you're playing a
• 51:02
  guest character and you're having to introduce yourself
• 51:05
  very quickly. Oh, that I don't like that line.
• 51:08
  Was it The violence has been horrendous.
• 51:10
  And then Perry goes murderous would be more apt.
• 51:16
  Oh, bless. But he seems like a just a
• 51:18
  decent fellow, doesn't he? And I like we get this in a few
• 51:22
  lines, but always have an excellent relationship with the
• 51:24
  men. You, you, you get that he's a
• 51:26
  good employer. And I.
• 51:30
  Bring the most women in here, will you?
• 51:32
  What actually, I love that scene in a minute where you get to see
• 51:35
  the impacts on the wives of the people, that the kids.
• 51:38
  That's another thing that 80s two doesn't do a lot.
• 51:41
  I really like as well just the very clear plotting in this
• 51:45
  episode, how the mystery comes together, how the doctor figures
• 51:49
  out that it's happening in the bath house, you know, because of
• 51:52
  the violence which leads him here.
• 51:54
  Then he talks to the people, they went to the bath house, he
• 51:57
  goes there. It all just flows beautifully.
• 52:02
  You get the sense that they never saw any of the characters
• 52:06
  as cannon fodder either. And they want to portray this is
• 52:12
  a genuine community where things are going to have ramifications.
• 52:15
  So the fact that you see the wives, the the fact that the
• 52:18
  there is a father son relationship in here.
• 52:21
  Luke, Luke Ward is the son of someone who's gone berserk.
• 52:25
  You get the sense that he's coming in from a, from a
• 52:27
  situation where he's already in a, you know, a difficult place
• 52:31
  emotionally, but you also. Get that warmth from Stephenson
• 52:35
  and Lord Ravensworth. Yes, he's his ward and his
• 52:37
  mentor respectively. Just lots of nice relationship.
• 52:42
  Oh, here we've got. Another effect shot here that
• 52:43
  doesn't quite work. I know, but I just adore this
• 52:46
  scene so much. I love that they tried it.
• 52:50
  I love that she no, I love that she sorry, ever so slightly
• 52:57
  different now. That's right.
• 52:59
  Oh look, he's trying to be charming as well.
• 53:01
  Anything connected to you, my dear Ronnie, would be
• 53:04
  fascinating. I like, I like that underneath
• 53:06
  her mask, she's very heavily made-up as well.
• 53:08
  Like she gets, she gets up in the morning, she puts on all of
• 53:12
  that makeup and then she puts on the Chrome mask I'm going to
• 53:16
  discard. Myself.
• 53:17
  How dare you? I'm going to discard myself, but
• 53:20
  I must know I have cheekbones underneath it.
• 53:23
  James Kate Amora has had those that blusher tattooed on her
• 53:26
  cheeks. All right?
• 53:27
  She never looked ugly once in her life.
• 53:32
  She goes, I said, you're pathetic.
• 53:33
  Clear off and let me get on with my work.
• 53:36
  I mean, she's just glorious. I mean, I'm not sure what I
• 53:41
  think about the subplot about Myers and Mia Goria and the
• 53:44
  brain fluids, but I do like the fact that she's been setting up
• 53:46
  shop in all of these violent periods of Earth's history to
• 53:50
  get the drug. We're in one scene on it and I
• 53:57
  love how compassionate the doctor is towards him as well.
• 54:01
  He seems generally concerned and the baby's a nice touch, isn't
• 54:04
  it? Yeah, you're right, but we don't
• 54:07
  get to see Colin being that compassionate in 2223 quite a
• 54:11
  lot. But in 22, look at the look he
• 54:14
  gives them. Excuse me, why has the Ronnie
• 54:20
  put Josh in that very short sleeved tunic?
• 54:24
  This is this is another of the Pip and Jane things where I
• 54:27
  think they thought wouldn't it be cool if she fed the maggots
• 54:32
  that were a slightly blue colour?
• 54:34
  Like why, Why maggots? Why?
• 54:36
  Why is that your way of delivering the your mind
• 54:39
  control? Because it's gross and the kids
• 54:41
  would go. Yeah.
• 54:45
  And that is, that's the entire reasoning.
• 54:47
  And that's where I think they are.
• 54:49
  Sometimes they just they write stuff because they think it's
• 54:53
  going to look good on screen and it doesn't quite make sense when
• 54:58
  you think about it. Are you referring to rubber
• 55:01
  trees as well? I'm I'm referring exactly to
• 55:03
  rubber trees in a way. I mean, all of the Ronnie's
• 55:07
  traps are stupid, but but her bubble traps that we see, oh
• 55:12
  boy, you know, in a couple of seasons time at least they move
• 55:15
  really fast and they look really cool.
• 55:16
  So you don't have time to question what why?
• 55:19
  Why not just explode them? What do you think about how she
• 55:22
  utilized the entire set of EastEnders as one massive trap
• 55:26
  for the Doctor? Oh, that's well, I think that's
• 55:29
  terribly well done, actually. Pickled in time, you might say.
• 55:32
  In time like like Ann Widdecombe sporting a Patrick Troughton
• 55:38
  costume. They're like Holmes and Watson
• 55:40
  here. Look at them, sort of.
• 55:41
  They're figuring about it, but they're figuring things out as
• 55:44
  well. Yeah.
• 55:47
  And I love the way they've worked it out, though.
• 55:48
  Yeah, we've got our history, we've got the Luddites, we've
• 55:51
  got a, a plausible backdrop, but it's, it's not the Luddites.
• 55:55
  They're it's more than that. And I ask because I don't, you
• 55:59
  know, I'm not really an expert in history.
• 56:01
  Did this meeting take place of all of these great minds?
• 56:03
  Between Between, between the Ronnie and the Master.
• 56:06
  You know what I mean? It doesn't sound like a real
• 56:10
  thing. No, I'm sure it I'm sure it
• 56:12
  didn't. MY1 complaint about the plot is
• 56:16
  I feel as if the first episode is teasing us that we're going
• 56:20
  to see that meeting in episode 2, and the Doctor's sort of
• 56:24
  going to have to come in and save that meeting from taking
• 56:26
  place. But actually what happens is
• 56:28
  sort of halfway for Episode 2, that's just abandoned, and we go
• 56:32
  far around in the woods with rubber trees.
• 56:35
  I think, yeah, I, I, I know that's interesting because it
• 56:39
  never occurred to me to expect to see the, the, the, the
• 56:43
  celebrity historical figures. But you're absolutely right.
• 56:46
  The second-half takes a a left turn and doesn't quite feel like
• 56:50
  it's telling the same story that's been set up here.
• 56:53
  I think that's I think that's true.
• 56:55
  If you want to see all the celebrities you can, you can
• 56:57
  always Fast forward to time in the Ronnie where you get to see
• 56:59
  them all in the TARDIS. Oh, it's I have Einstein.
• 57:03
  That's for Marcy. It's just glorious, isn't it?
• 57:05
  Do. You think that's, do you think
• 57:06
  that's the celebrities that they, they've all been invited
• 57:11
  to Luddite England from Ozzy and Albert Einstein.
• 57:17
  Lord Ravensworth is very well connected.
• 57:21
  Can I Can I get Einstein? I would pay to add that scene on
• 57:25
  the next DVD version of this. Yeah.
• 57:28
  Oh, do you know what I'd say that Turner's a bit too romantic
• 57:31
  for the Ronnie, wouldn't you? Think that looks like a Turner?
• 57:35
  No, but I think it's a very funny joke.
• 57:37
  Like I mean that trap is the most the.
• 57:41
  Stupidest of all, that's very, very stupid.
• 57:44
  But I love it all the same. And also if if it's there to
• 57:48
  disguise her TARDIS, she could have just built it another foot
• 57:52
  higher. I just like how she sort of
• 57:55
  thought about all these ingenious ways to kill people
• 57:57
  and then realized them in the most ridiculous way possible.
• 58:01
  I wish, I mean, it doesn't what the problem is she's establishes
• 58:05
  the rational one. Like I, I wish they'd lent into
• 58:07
  that a bit more and had the Master doing the ridiculous
• 58:09
  traps for the sake of it and the Rani being just ruthlessly
• 58:13
  logical and, and kind of drawing attention to how stupid the
• 58:17
  traps are. Because at the end of the day,
• 58:19
  the Rani is every bit as silly as the Master.
• 58:22
  Like I know. She does work with the Master in
• 58:24
  the second episode, yeah, but she's still just insulting him
• 58:27
  the whole time. Yeah, yeah, it's worth it for
• 58:30
  the dog. It's.
• 58:30
  A great double act and then you throw in the Doctor as well.
• 58:34
  I think what I'm saying is that she's not as great as she thinks
• 58:37
  she is. How dare you?
• 58:39
  Good grief. As a as a scientist, as a, as a
• 58:42
  villain, sure. Do you know what they repackage
• 58:46
  her for time on the right? I don't know.
• 58:48
  It's a very, she's very understated in this and well, I
• 58:51
  don't think you could say that about her performance in time of
• 58:54
  the role. Do you think?
• 58:54
  I mean, I think Anthony Amy has dialed it down a fair bit as
• 58:58
  well to kind of match her slightly understated villainy.
• 59:02
  He knows that he's the moustache twirling 1.
• 59:07
  He's not in a different universe to her in terms of performance,
• 59:10
  which he hasn't always been the case with him.
• 59:11
  Really slay on his master, right.
• 59:14
  But I think when they do, when they don't have him as the
• 59:16
  villain of peace. Yeah.
• 59:18
  So 5 Doctors where he's in that wonderful position of having to
• 59:21
  go and rescue the doctor. Hilarious and very entertaining.
• 59:25
  This where he's basically the Ronnies companion, glorious to
• 59:29
  watch and especially part 13 of Trial of a Time Lord where he
• 59:34
  turns up on the screen and goes, I've been watching this
• 59:36
  ridiculous affair for the last 12 weeks and I've been enjoying
• 59:40
  myself immensely and it's wonderful.
• 59:43
  It is interesting. Then when he does come back to
• 59:45
  being the villain in the Sylvester McCoy, yes, that's the
• 59:48
  best that he gives he's ever been.
• 59:52
  But the writing is better if you think about his worst
• 59:54
  performances, like what's he supposed to do in time flight?
• 59:58
  What's he supposed to? Do Shiraz.
• 1:00:00
  That's about it. He's been written as a
• 1:00:03
  completely 2 dimensional villain that I think Ailey is a is a
• 1:00:06
  really underrated actor. Actually.
• 1:00:09
  I don't, I'm not saying I think he's a kind of a first rate
• 1:00:14
  actor, but I think you see his potential in Lagopolis.
• 1:00:17
  I I think you do see a kind of slightly understated, genuinely
• 1:00:21
  kind of sinister. Go watch me keep her a truckon.
• 1:00:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course he's playing.
• 1:00:27
  That he's a fully rounded character keeper, a truckon, and
• 1:00:30
  then go and watch him when he's not being asked to dial it up in
• 1:00:33
  the survival. Yeah, but if you give him a
• 1:00:36
  stupid costume and a, you know, a silly accent to do what's what
• 1:00:40
  is he supposed to do with that? They've so obviously Amy
• 1:00:44
  complained that they would always say to him, you know,
• 1:00:46
  Gary Downey will be there going, you know, bring it up, bring it
• 1:00:48
  up. You know, the funniest thing is
• 1:00:50
  when you see the outtakes of Dimension in Time where Gary
• 1:00:53
  Downey steps up to Kate Omara and goes a little less camp and
• 1:00:57
  she looks straight to the camera and she goes camp.
• 1:01:00
  She goes, what show am I working on?
• 1:01:03
  She knows exactly what she's doing.
• 1:01:06
  James, Optical illusion created on a screen.
• 1:01:13
  You don't know what I'm talking about.
• 1:01:14
  Now do. You did what?
• 1:01:15
  Do they use a MB modem? I think the idea is, is that she
• 1:01:20
  can see through the eyes of her. I know, I know.
• 1:01:28
  I can't believe I just explained that to you and you're a Doctor
• 1:01:31
  Who fan. I love I love the bit in the
• 1:01:35
  trial of the Time Lord behind the scenes features where
• 1:01:39
  they're where they're saying we actually spoke to a computer
• 1:01:41
  friend of ours. He was really and when she says
• 1:01:44
  a MB modem, that was a real thing.
• 1:01:46
  Yes, yes. You still didn't understand what
• 1:01:50
  it was though, did you? No, bless them.
• 1:01:53
  Still doesn't make any sense. You mean a mazer, don't you?
• 1:01:56
  Microscopic application and stimulation of radiation.
• 1:02:00
  I did learn something. Say, mind you, you know what God
• 1:02:04
  he does say He loves Kip Pippenjane Dialogue.
• 1:02:07
  Because like, the kids might get so excited that they go and grab
• 1:02:10
  their dictionaries or thesaurus to figure out what on earth does
• 1:02:13
  that word mean. I did do that quite a bit when I
• 1:02:16
  watched these when I was younger because I like, I love learning
• 1:02:19
  words. Yeah, I, I, I absolutely agree
• 1:02:24
  with their mission statement, which is, you know, these words
• 1:02:28
  exist, why should we not use them?
• 1:02:31
  I think they use them slightly indiscriminately.
• 1:02:33
  And that's where it it's odd when it's out of Perry's mouth,
• 1:02:38
  Yes, feels like it should have been a character's choice.
• 1:02:40
  It feels like it should have been the Rani, but in particular
• 1:02:43
  or the, you know, the Doctor, of course.
• 1:02:45
  Well, so obviously they, they sort of do blast style.
• 1:02:48
  I don't know. So you've got the miners talking
• 1:02:50
  in that you know, Douglas will be along when they've emptied
• 1:02:52
  derbies. And then you've got Lord
• 1:02:54
  Raisinsworth who uses very eloquent sentences.
• 1:02:57
  And then the next level is the time laws.
• 1:03:00
  You know the top of the Gentry pile and their language is
• 1:03:03
  operatic. The master's drawn a pretty
• 1:03:07
  decent picture there. He went to the same art school
• 1:03:10
  as Tegan. Oh no, she's a little bit
• 1:03:12
  better. She was paying attention.
• 1:03:15
  He goes. I don't see any point in burying
• 1:03:17
  a box. I better bury him.
• 1:03:23
  I mean, he's being quite devious, isn't he?
• 1:03:25
  Yeah, I suppose. But he's it's all very, it's all
• 1:03:28
  very hushed tones. And because these guys are
• 1:03:31
  bringing in the, you know, the big acting.
• 1:03:35
  What do you think about his sort of blackmail of the Ronnie there
• 1:03:38
  with just that little vial of fluid?
• 1:03:40
  Can ask plausible? I, I think so if, I mean if
• 1:03:43
  that's all she's managed to get and it's implied that she's been
• 1:03:46
  to a lot of places and worked through quite a lot of people.
• 1:03:49
  Just to get that tiny amount just to.
• 1:03:50
  Get that tiny amount. Yeah, I wonder if you just think
• 1:03:52
  a little pipette's worth to make the aliens go to sleep.
• 1:03:55
  No, and maybe she should not have kept it on display and
• 1:03:58
  should have kept in a TARDIS for safekeeping.
• 1:04:00
  But I can't believe he said to her.
• 1:04:02
  You don't get much, do you? I'm honestly mind you these
• 1:04:07
  bitchy comments. Now it goes.
• 1:04:09
  Brain regeneration is what I need.
• 1:04:11
  Yeah, your regeneration is not too attractive either.
• 1:04:14
  That's. Lovely, though improved with
• 1:04:15
  each other, because it then turns the Master and the Ronnie
• 1:04:18
  and the Doctor into this kind of it's this lovely series of
• 1:04:22
  status relationships and they're all trying to get one up on each
• 1:04:25
  other. She's ready for dynasty after
• 1:04:29
  this story I'm telling you. Or was it dynasty or Dallas?
• 1:04:31
  I think it was dynasty. Dynasty, yeah.
• 1:04:34
  Not that I say that with. I say that with confidence.
• 1:04:36
  I've never seen Dynasty. I bet she had amazing hair in it
• 1:04:39
  though. I mean, they all did, I bet.
• 1:04:40
  She did. I bet she did.
• 1:04:42
  There are one of my favorite lines is in this.
• 1:04:45
  Pip and Jane are trying to bring a moralistic angle to the story.
• 1:04:49
  So, you know, do you think they worry about the lesser species
• 1:04:52
  when they sink their teeth into a lamb chop?
• 1:04:55
  What a lion. This is not a particularly
• 1:05:02
  flattering shot of Colin and this happens quite a lot to
• 1:05:05
  Colin. He's and ends up on his back and
• 1:05:07
  because of the shape of TV cameras, they can't get in
• 1:05:10
  overhead. So he he ends up very much kind
• 1:05:14
  of doing chin acting, which it's not his fault and it's not, I
• 1:05:20
  sort of feel like it doesn't display his doctor particularly
• 1:05:23
  flatteringly. I've I've got a theory about
• 1:05:27
  Colin and it's going to sound rude, but I'm going to say it
• 1:05:31
  because you see the publicity pictures of him and Nicola when
• 1:05:35
  they were first announced and he's in a beautiful suit and.
• 1:05:39
  She's in a gorgeous dress, gorgeous dress and they.
• 1:05:41
  Literally look like, I don't know, the next James Bond and a
• 1:05:44
  Bond girl. They look stunningly beautiful
• 1:05:46
  together. And we know tragically Colin
• 1:05:51
  lost a child not long after he took on the role of the doctor.
• 1:05:57
  And that does coincide with him putting on a lot of weight.
• 1:06:01
  And certainly between 22 and 23, I think you can see that, you
• 1:06:05
  know, he has put on a lot of weight.
• 1:06:06
  And I just, I wonder if that is just a consequence, you know,
• 1:06:10
  stressing whatever you want to call it.
• 1:06:14
  Possibly but but. They didn't ever like look at
• 1:06:17
  those pictures. That is exactly.
• 1:06:19
  What he could have been like, I don't I I also don't think that
• 1:06:24
  Colin Baker is is ever an unattractive man in Doctor Who,
• 1:06:28
  but I think, I think that, you know, what they required of him
• 1:06:32
  hair wise wasn't always in his favour.
• 1:06:36
  He says in the trial of a town like commentary, he goes, why
• 1:06:39
  did he says to Chris Clough in terror of the verb voice.
• 1:06:41
  Why didn't you get them to cut my hair?
• 1:06:44
  Look at me. I look ridiculous.
• 1:06:45
  Yeah. And he he kind of does.
• 1:06:50
  But have you ever read a original Terence Dix novel
• 1:06:56
  Description of Colin Baker's Doctor?
• 1:07:00
  No. No, you have because I've read
• 1:07:02
  your review of the 8 doctors so. You.
• 1:07:04
  Oh yes, of course. Yes, of.
• 1:07:06
  I have indeed. Full page just to the
• 1:07:10
  descriptions of I think he's a bit in love with the 6th Dr.
• 1:07:13
  Terror 6. But he gives him most of the
• 1:07:15
  plot as well. He.
• 1:07:15
  Goes it's a full face with beautiful, luscious lips,
• 1:07:21
  staggeringly beautiful curls. I'm not this, I'm not
• 1:07:24
  exaggerating. It literally does this.
• 1:07:27
  And Paul McCoy gets half a page in the entire book, you know?
• 1:07:32
  You know, it's right now it does stick out.
• 1:07:34
  The 6th Doctor is the main character in that.
• 1:07:36
  Yeah. Which, given that it's an Eighth
• 1:07:38
  Doctor novel, is a bit of a shame for Paul Mcgahn, isn't it?
• 1:07:41
  But this is the sort of doctor that terrorists like, right?
• 1:07:44
  You know. Oh yeah, definitely.
• 1:07:46
  There's a lot and there's a lot of the 3rd Doctor in the 6th
• 1:07:50
  Doctor, isn't there? There he is no you some of that
• 1:07:55
  famous. And so should the Ronnie was in
• 1:07:58
  the Trojan Wars. Do you think she was there kind
• 1:08:01
  of? Do you think those characters in
• 1:08:02
  the Myth makers were being kind of taken off and given the mark
• 1:08:08
  of the Rani? I think you didn't know this,
• 1:08:10
  but the Rani was in fact Cassandra and the myth makers in
• 1:08:14
  disguise. You know in a bit what?
• 1:08:16
  She said there we go. How dare.
• 1:08:18
  You. You know the reckon that we need
• 1:08:21
  that we need a fan novel to explain.
• 1:08:25
  You know how she sort of dragged off at the end, Cassandra, They
• 1:08:29
  went round the corner, she beat up all those guards and then ran
• 1:08:32
  to her tires and. Scarpered with a couple of them
• 1:08:35
  taking their liquids. Did she say the American War of
• 1:08:38
  Independence? She did say the American War of
• 1:08:40
  Independence. We can probably, we can probably
• 1:08:42
  get her into the war games as well if we're very kind with our
• 1:08:46
  with our fan novel. Yeah, if we could sort of have
• 1:08:49
  her in a scene with the war chief as well, because I think
• 1:08:51
  that would. Be a great relationship.
• 1:08:52
  A lovely, lovely exchange. I mean, it's basically we're
• 1:08:55
  just doing what Big Finish do now.
• 1:08:56
  Right. Pretty much, yes.
• 1:08:58
  Ronnie, Ronnie Box set. Ronnie War.
• 1:09:01
  This is the most overwritten scene in the whole thing.
• 1:09:04
  I love it. Hardly the prime characteristic.
• 1:09:11
  Oh, he's remembered Planet of Fire though, isn't he?
• 1:09:13
  Oh yes. I've got a score to settle.
• 1:09:15
  With he's remembered it better than I have to be honest.
• 1:09:18
  Yeah, so. We're about to get an extended
• 1:09:22
  music cue and that, and maybe it's a good time to come back to
• 1:09:25
  Jonathan Gibbs because of course we're listening to the second
• 1:09:29
  score written for episode 1 of The Mark of the Rani.
• 1:09:33
  I beg your pardon? It's one of two Doctor Who
• 1:09:36
  stories that you can hear with an alternate score now, unlike
• 1:09:42
  Paradise Towers, where a score was completely finished and then
• 1:09:45
  rejected. The composer of Mark Ronnie was
• 1:09:49
  originally a composer called John Lewis.
• 1:09:52
  Not that one. And John Lewis completed all of
• 1:09:58
  episode 1 and a little bit of episode 2 and then died
• 1:10:02
  tragically. And you can hear on the on the
• 1:10:08
  actually the DVD and the Blu-ray release, you can hear episode
• 1:10:11
  one with a different score. You can also hit a bit of
• 1:10:14
  episode 2 with with the old score.
• 1:10:19
  And John Lewis's family were apparently paid in full for the
• 1:10:21
  for the school, but then Jonathan Gibbs was employed to
• 1:10:25
  to start from scratch. And I don't.
• 1:10:27
  I do wonder if we are slightly again with John Lewis's score,
• 1:10:33
  listening to a rejected score, because there is precedent for
• 1:10:35
  Doctor Who to have more than one composer on a story.
• 1:10:38
  Megalos begins with a score by Not Peter Howell.
• 1:10:46
  Oh, who is it? Patti, Kingsland.
• 1:10:48
  Paddy Kingsland writes episode 1 of Meg Loss.
• 1:10:51
  That's right. And then Peter Howell takes over
• 1:10:53
  in a completely different style. He used a few.
• 1:10:55
  She prefer Paddy Kingston. Paddy Kingston writes a
• 1:10:59
  beautiful episode 1 and Peter Howell takes just a couple of
• 1:11:02
  sound effects but basically so you can do it.
• 1:11:06
  Why don't they use episode 1 of John Lewis's score?
• 1:11:09
  I suspect it was deemed to be not actually particularly good
• 1:11:13
  and whether it was because he was not well and didn't turn in
• 1:11:16
  a very good piece of work, whether it's because he'd never
• 1:11:18
  written for Doctor Who before, it's a much sparser experience.
• 1:11:23
  He doesn't write through in the way that Jonathan Gibbs does so
• 1:11:28
  beautifully. He mostly writes stings and
• 1:11:30
  atmosphere and so the whole thing feels quite disjointed and
• 1:11:33
  his scoring is is very sparse as well.
• 1:11:36
  It's, it's quite often monophonic, which would have
• 1:11:39
  worked in the 1970s. Well, would have been acceptable
• 1:11:43
  in the 1970s. I just, I don't think it is
• 1:11:45
  acceptable in the mid 80s. But what's interesting is how
• 1:11:50
  many similarities there are, not in terms of musical content, but
• 1:11:55
  just in ideas. So the opening is this pastoral
• 1:11:58
  English opening, Bitter Harp, which is, you know, a totally
• 1:12:06
  different piece of music from John Lewis, but has those
• 1:12:08
  qualities or the bit that's about to come up which has got
• 1:12:10
  the kind of rhythm of a railway track, this kind of.
• 1:12:14
  Yeah, that. And it suggests to me that Sarah
• 1:12:21
  Hellings was maybe quite hands on in what she wanted from her
• 1:12:25
  composers and had. Graham Harper was, wasn't it?
• 1:12:28
  We know that, yeah. Absolutely.
• 1:12:30
  It's just a theory. I mean, it may be that Jonathan
• 1:12:32
  Gibbs didn't have very long to write it and and listen to what
• 1:12:34
  had been done, but I think that would be a an unusual thing for
• 1:12:37
  a composer to do. It is the whole fact I was
• 1:12:39
  completely unaware of. I do want to go and listen to
• 1:12:41
  that whole time. It's.
• 1:12:42
  Well worth watching. It's it is if you watch on the
• 1:12:45
  Blu-ray, you can watch the the few cues in episode 2 that John
• 1:12:50
  Lewis wrote. And it is a relief when the
• 1:12:51
  Jonathan Gibbs kind of takes over and you sort of feel like
• 1:12:54
  you're, you're experiencing something much, much fuller and,
• 1:12:58
  and, and it and, and you're in more experienced hands.
• 1:13:00
  But but it's a real curio. Going back to the imagery for a
• 1:13:03
  second one, I just love, you know, when they're at the top of
• 1:13:06
  the hill and all, and it's like that sunlight on a, on a
• 1:13:09
  summer's afternoon sort of dappling over them.
• 1:13:11
  It just looks gorgeous. The TARDIS going down the pit is
• 1:13:15
  a terrific effect. It's a great effect, isn't it?
• 1:13:18
  And then this stunt, I mean, this is absurd, but it's a
• 1:13:21
  great. Stunt.
• 1:13:22
  Yeah. And that is Collin strapped to
• 1:13:24
  the top, being steered by someone.
• 1:13:26
  I mean, I feel like Colin was being quite brave doing his own
• 1:13:31
  stunts here, but the guy who's actually inside the machine
• 1:13:34
  steering it, That's, that's insane, isn't it?
• 1:13:37
  I've got a feeling Eric Sword may have written this bit, you
• 1:13:40
  know? Yeah, strap Colin down.
• 1:13:42
  Yeah, you can just tell that they've got about 3 meters of
• 1:13:45
  track here and they have to keep reusing the same corner.
• 1:13:49
  But I love a whip pan. Zoom and a straight on whip pan.
• 1:13:52
  We get a whip pan and a crash soon and and for once, nothing
• 1:13:55
  to Colin's face. It's a great cliffhanger.
• 1:13:58
  I I think that's the right call to end it on, you know, bit.
• 1:14:04
  And sort of, I mean, you can't really say how's it work as an
• 1:14:07
  establishing episode because it's half the story, because
• 1:14:09
  we're doing a different source of Doctor Who this year.
• 1:14:11
  But it has set its store well. It's introduced all of his
• 1:14:14
  characters. It's painted the setting
• 1:14:17
  beautifully. It's established what sort of a
• 1:14:19
  threat is. I think it's got everything
• 1:14:22
  going for it. I'll, I'll, I will, I'll say it
• 1:14:28
  now. I think Part 2 doesn't deliver
• 1:14:30
  in the way that you expected to from that part.
• 1:14:33
  I think it's a really excellent episode 1.
• 1:14:36
  What I will say about. Top two Doctor Who.
• 1:14:38
  Yeah. What I will say about two is,
• 1:14:40
  yeah, I agree. I think it is a bit of a dance
• 1:14:43
  grip of a climax, but it still has those characters in it.
• 1:14:49
  It still has that fruity dialogue.
• 1:14:51
  Sarah Hellings is still helming this thing.
• 1:14:53
  The music so like as a production it seemed to scene.
• 1:14:57
  It's still great fun to watch. Yeah, and it's, and it feels
• 1:15:00
  disciplined as well in a way that, you know, they splashed a
• 1:15:03
  lot of money on the the two doctors, which is, which has the
• 1:15:09
  look of kind of complete grandfather that has the look of
• 1:15:11
  they went on holiday and made some Doctor Who while they were
• 1:15:14
  there. You know, it's it's by far the
• 1:15:16
  more expensive story, but this is the one that looks like
• 1:15:20
  proper TV drama. Well James, do you fancy heading
• 1:15:24
  on into episode 2 and watching some more proper TV drama?
• 1:15:27
  I do indeed. Let's do it.