Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Steven from New to Who about his choice of The Invasion (3/8)

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Talks to Steven from New to Who about his choice of The Invasion (3/8) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  I'm so drunk. Welcome back to cancel a bump in
• 0:42
  the way of the Doctor Who comedy podcast.
• 0:45
  You should have heard. The first time I said that I was
• 0:47
  a right mouth full. I am here today with a genuinely
• 0:52
  glorious human being the wonderful.
• 0:55
  Stephen from Newton? No!
• 0:56
  Don't you say, oh, I heard that Stephen from new to Jose.
• 1:00
  Hello, Stephen, let Stephen we've had two fabulous episodes
• 1:07
  one, animated one that actually moved.
• 1:10
  Mom now heading in to episode 3 of the invasion in invert all
• 1:15
  yours. What the hell is that all about
• 1:17
  this season? The Commerce?
• 1:19
  The inverted commas? Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:21
  I mean, gosh, who knows, is this supposed to make it sound like
• 1:25
  more The Invasion rather than the invasion?
• 1:29
  Well, I was actually going to start on a very boring sort of,
• 1:32
  you know, citation rules when it comes to texts.
• 1:37
  So Doctor, Who is the name of the program and would be
• 1:39
  normally italicized or underlined if your handwriting
• 1:41
  it with if you like the the episodes or a chapter within
• 1:46
  those tags usually in quotation marks.
• 1:49
  So that's probably why. But it still doesn't make sense
• 1:53
  why they would actually put that on.
• 1:55
  On the credits. If you like, when it comes to
• 1:58
  things like other note, the crow Tom's you can't really make that
• 2:01
  sound very dramatic. And you you've got a bloody crew
• 2:04
  clue what it is until the end of episode two.
• 2:07
  That's how you clean a vacation. And I did make a promise at the
• 2:16
  end of the last episode that Packer would receive a bit of
• 2:20
  attention in this episode. So would you like cars in?
• 2:28
  Sure, let's start in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and what away.
• 2:39
  So Doctor, Who henchmen. Okay.
• 2:47
  This is nice of category short I don't know if it is there are
• 2:51
  quite a few you know score be awesome the fellows name from
• 2:55
  the ambassador's of death. He's an amazing henchmen
• 2:57
  freaking yeah he's terrific, he's Sinister.
• 3:02
  Yeah but Packer is in a league of his own because he's both
• 3:07
  he's sadistic and comic and how do you even achieve that?
• 3:13
  I I wonder whether it's not Terrible Miss casting.
• 3:18
  So I don't, I wouldn't change things.
• 3:20
  I really want god. Well, it's the way that it's
• 3:25
  written. Particularly the in modern
• 3:26
  civilization, which again, was my primary text in and way into
• 3:29
  this story. Was that he was, as you say, a
• 3:32
  sadistic and the word used in the novelization by packet is
• 3:36
  bastard. You know, he is head of security
• 3:41
  for American maniacal, you know, Bondi and supervillain.
• 3:45
  He's passed. Apps partly side.
• 3:48
  And I was like, I just had this impression of someone who was,
• 3:52
  you know, an odd job or a Jaws if we wanted sort of extend that
• 3:55
  into a, to a bond metaphor but he really isn't in the way that
• 3:59
  he's played here. I mean there's there's room for
• 4:03
  lightness in the in the story. Like we see that through a lot
• 4:07
  of the characters in the way that they interact and that just
• 4:10
  sort of extend on the villain side as well with Packer it
• 4:13
  makes it a little bit jarring especially just when You know,
• 4:17
  in terms of the way that I came to and I was like, huh?
• 4:19
  That's an interesting performance.
• 4:21
  But I don't think It suffers because it kind of feels like an
• 4:24
  extended rip family, and there's very much as sort of joining of
• 4:31
  Hands Across The Divide between the villains and the heroes here
• 4:33
  like Packers and and fauna, just both such delightful, you know,
• 4:39
  over-the-top characters that we kind of care for them.
• 4:41
  It's I just, I feel like if Packer was played like that in
• 4:47
  an entirely Sinister white one, the character would just be too
• 4:53
  frightening for kids. You wouldn't have this by play
• 4:57
  between him and vorn, which is so funny like I do as it gets
• 5:01
  more hysterical. It's just, I think it's in this
• 5:04
  episode. We're Packers just so
• 5:06
  ridiculously incompetent that Vaughn.
• 5:09
  Finally loses his temper, you know?
• 5:12
  Yeah. We know that that just is
• 5:14
  comedic genius gold in itself, but maybe you're right.
• 5:17
  But you just want you just hit upon them, sort of Center a
• 5:20
  light bulb often. In my mind there is that that
• 5:26
  Counterpoint that balance between the two of them and you
• 5:29
  get it again. Again, we'll talk about account
• 5:32
  field story earlier on in the season 2 where score bees
• 5:39
  unremittingly just again A total bastard is viciously.
• 5:45
  Yeah, yeah. It's capped Freddy who provides
• 5:47
  the the absolute levity to sort of counter balance that and
• 5:51
  maybe you do need that. If you've gone, if you're going
• 5:53
  to have the the top supervillain, maybe you need a
• 5:56
  slightly bumbling in depth and number two, who's in charge of
• 6:00
  your security. But he has this sort of your the
• 6:03
  Milton John's in enemy of the world.
• 6:07
  Yeah, madly Camp. You know, I had a very enjoyable
• 6:11
  child every month, some kind of creepy and a bit sadistic I get
• 6:17
  this from pocket sometimes as well.
• 6:19
  There's just like that he really enjoys being violent and they
• 6:24
  are taking out taking out his ineptitude violently.
• 6:29
  But in the same breath, he's just useless.
• 6:40
  But let's be serious. If this was a Bond film, he
• 6:42
  would have been fed to the Sharks a long long time ago,
• 6:45
  just for, you know, disappointing.
• 6:48
  His master one to one too many times.
• 6:53
  It gives you the opportunity, it gives just like Kevin Stone in
• 6:56
  the opportunity to say that name in so many ways.
• 6:59
  Looks like he redefines how many ways you can say somebody's name
• 7:03
  in this. There is that super cut
• 7:06
  somewhere on YouTube? Perhaps I think they have I
• 7:11
  think they have, you might be worried having a full round for
• 7:15
  that. See if we can find in perhaps a
• 7:16
  provide the link in the show notes because it's just, it's
• 7:19
  just too hilarious. How can you not enjoy?
• 7:22
  A, the arch craziness of of, for and shouting packer in any
• 7:29
  number of ways over again, just joyous.
• 7:33
  There's, there's a what I think is in this episode where he's
• 7:37
  still being super polite and he's like you know and don't try
• 7:40
  and lose them again. There's a good fellow.
• 7:43
  Yeah, it's like I am within an inch of losing my shit but I'm
• 7:46
  going to keep it under control. I need two actors that are
• 8:02
  incomplete and Basco with each other.
• 8:04
  Like they know what they're playing.
• 8:06
  Yeah. So essentially what I'm saying
• 8:09
  is, I don't want to watch Doctor Who I want to watch Packer and
• 8:11
  Vaughn the pack runs on show, all right.
• 8:17
  This is Invasion, just full of, of these kinds of pepper rings.
• 8:21
  And now on screen, we've got Vaughn in the doctor and the
• 8:24
  stand to face off here. Whereas the first one was that
• 8:27
  what Umberto Eco calls the first check between Bond and the super
• 8:31
  villain, which is always a cordial polite meeting.
• 8:34
  Usually, you know, no sarbanes civilized environment, but here
• 8:38
  the starting to talk business, and they know that there are up
• 8:41
  to no good and they're heater to stop their plans and That
• 8:47
  pairing of the tall large shock of white hair.
• 8:52
  Super villain against the small dark, you know, disheveled
• 8:57
  trout. And it's a joyful contrast and a
• 9:02
  beautiful pairing between the two of them like the fine fine
• 9:05
  actors in and of themselves but just the contrast in their
• 9:09
  Styles, where Vaughn is going, you know, or Kevin Stony.
• 9:14
  I should say is going large, large large.
• 9:16
  And And troughton's undercutting it under playing, it sort of
• 9:19
  watching. Well, I've heard the assertion
• 9:23
  that with certain doctors or certain actors when you put a
• 9:29
  very strong actor up against them, it raises a game like that
• 9:33
  that I think Tom Baker works right?
• 9:34
  If you give Tom Baker, yeah to work against his performance,
• 9:38
  just goes to another level. Now you're out and is always on
• 9:42
  his game always. So you don't.
• 9:45
  He doesn't raise his If you put a very strong actor against him,
• 9:50
  that's as good as TV guess. I I agree and isn't that that's
• 9:55
  actually a really good point. The fact that, you know, someone
• 9:57
  like a baker will really sort of up there up to Auntie and some
• 10:02
  of match or even exceed that and again we were talking about it's
• 10:05
  easy to death hopefully to do. I'm sorry I can't believe I got
• 10:10
  that mixed up. I never did get it's John Chow
• 10:14
  Ellison and Tom Baker and then they're both going very large he
• 10:20
  though you're right. Troughton is almost Like an
• 10:23
  enabler, he allows for the other actors to step into the
• 10:27
  Limelight and have their bit and that's just lazy group.
• 10:31
  Ratably generous is Ali and and I've learnt the companions, say
• 10:35
  how generous he was and he would give I think I can give you
• 10:39
  those. I know go give them the lines.
• 10:40
  Like I'm all right I think if you are if you're generous as an
• 10:47
  actor it encourages the other actor to come in and just play
• 10:51
  it for all it's worth. It's worth.
• 10:53
  Yeah, absolutely. And that's ultimately, for the
• 10:56
  benefit of the production and the entire show it doesn't
• 11:00
  necessarily always have to be the Tom Baker show.
• 11:03
  Any other Patrick troughton Show, we were turning earlier on
• 11:08
  about the momentum of the story will just wash the dr.
• 11:11
  Vaughn scenes as the story progresses, they get more
• 11:16
  playful and then somewhere in the second half they start
• 11:20
  getting very dramatic. Then to the point where we're
• 11:23
  like, is this what you want born to be the ruler of a dead world,
• 11:27
  you know, we're there. Yeah.
• 11:31
  And that's, that's the same like play, like this right now.
• 11:35
  We'll play it like that. Now, go for it, you know.
• 11:39
  Yeah. Oh, you know, that is, that's
• 11:42
  that crazy old Professor for robot, refer to the little,
• 11:45
  will, ya David Smith. He's giving a very different
• 11:54
  performance in this side. Yeah, I mean it's still nervous
• 12:00
  scientist to a degree but it's not the bushy head einsteinian
• 12:05
  sort of caricature that he gives him in robot.
• 12:10
  I like the fact that wherever packers positions, yeah Vaughn
• 12:15
  will always just slide in and go back off right next to him ten
• 12:22
  miles away. And always a smug, there's
• 12:31
  always a smirk between them. It's so good and I've, it's
• 12:36
  Instinct. You know, that when somebody's
• 12:38
  always smiling, Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
• 12:44
  But again, it's kind of like one of those crazy villains in The
• 12:48
  Avengers, where they know the kind of winking down the camera.
• 12:51
  Yeah, we know this is silly and ludicrous, but it's also
• 12:54
  terribly fun. And don't you just love the fact
• 12:57
  as well with warm? Yeah, he absolutely thinks.
• 13:00
  He's better than the sight of men.
• 13:01
  If he's been everyone, you know. There's there is nobody Superior
• 13:06
  to him. That's, that's that sort of
• 13:12
  hubristic fatal flaw. I guess that's all of these
• 13:15
  super villains have. Honestly, I've been living with
• 13:18
  it my whole life. So yeah, I understand.
• 13:22
  So do you have a secret base in a volcano that we don't know
• 13:25
  about it? So, you know, I do a lavatory
• 13:30
  head that you pull a lever in the lavatory and it goes down.
• 13:36
  Yeah, well and I supposed to be aches.
• 13:40
  Well, they did. I'm sort of Gosh my radar it's
• 13:49
  so often particularly in sort of a secret government sort of
• 13:55
  basis, they'll be covered. So they don't so that people
• 13:58
  can't see where the pointing I think is the rationale.
• 14:02
  Otherwise, it'd just be an open Dish to the sky.
• 14:04
  They've got the radar telescopes inside them the the joy of the
• 14:12
  budget restrictions there but they Find a creative reason to
• 14:17
  be cheap. Well, they like uniformity.
• 14:20
  So the thing is exactly the same as the set in London.
• 14:23
  Yes. Yeah.
• 14:25
  So good. He's very good at that fighting,
• 14:29
  very creative ways to be cheap but it also, pokes fun, doesn't
• 14:34
  it? I mean, even now in sort of
• 14:36
  corporate life, people talk about standardization and
• 14:38
  efficiency and, you know, eliminating waste all that
• 14:43
  rhetoric still continues to this day.
• 14:44
  Day. And, you know, they put a
• 14:47
  different picture at the window, you know, we believe you?
• 14:51
  Yes, it's Rolling. Hills is no attempt Skyline
• 14:56
  anymore, beautiful matte picture in the background there.
• 15:01
  Okay, I've got a I've got a question for you about the
• 15:04
  length of this story. Is there an ideal link for a
• 15:10
  doctor who story is a episodes too long?
• 15:14
  This this this broadcast Over two months, this story?
• 15:18
  Yeah, yeah. No, I don't think there's an
• 15:22
  ideal length because each story is different.
• 15:25
  And this one is structured differently to most of the.
• 15:29
  So we get a number of seven Partners.
• 15:31
  Next year, that don't always work, or don't always require
• 15:36
  the seven Parts. I feel however, wonderful and
• 15:40
  genius the, the 241 structure of Inferno is for instance, or the
• 15:46
  sort of overlapping narratives and this happened in this
• 15:49
  happened, on this happened, which is a trademark of soap,
• 15:52
  operas that deep sort of brings to something like, ambassadors
• 15:56
  of death. For instance, it's not inherent
• 16:00
  for in the telling of that story is just the way.
• 16:02
  The story is told here, a kind of is I feel you.
• 16:05
  We've got to four parts. The first part is Inspire fi
• 16:09
  story, which culminates the end of part 4 and then 5 to 60 of
• 16:13
  got the good old-fashioned alien invasion.
• 16:16
  So there's a shift in emphasis in fact, different story that's
• 16:19
  being told that works for parts. Probably most familiar to Doctor
• 16:23
  Who fans, but even then we've got hit battery filler.
• 16:27
  I feel so, I don't think know. You can say the full partner is
• 16:30
  the be-all and end-all. In fact we see a lot of the
• 16:33
  McCoy 3 part is actually work wonderfully well because it
• 16:38
  mirrors the three-act structure of story.
• 16:41
  I feel like those McCoy free Partners need a half maybe three
• 16:44
  and a half because sometimes they take out there Explanations
• 16:47
  for what's going on. Yeah, they just the five minutes
• 16:51
  in each one but they recording awful and then they take a lot
• 16:55
  of material out and I'm like, what the hell was that?
• 16:57
  What about? It was very exciting but I don't
• 16:58
  have a clue. Do you know what?
• 17:00
  It feels like to me. This feels like because it's a
• 17:03
  episodes long so it's a whack of length is four hours long.
• 17:07
  This feels like a pilot season to me and, you know, and it's
• 17:13
  kind of almost introduced that way.
• 17:15
  There's the doctors who elements but you don't You know, their
• 17:17
  land in the Tardis but it's very grounded.
• 17:20
  There's a core cast of regulars that we build up over the store
• 17:24
  completely. Like I want to know what,
• 17:26
  Vaughn's going to be up to in the next story.
• 17:28
  Also, it's about Watkins Captain night and all the others.
• 17:33
  Yeah. And again, that's another
• 17:35
  another feature of the eight parts.
• 17:37
  So do we have the time to sort of get to know these characters
• 17:39
  and spend time and they complete and they are the Charming.
• 17:43
  Lovely engaging funny silly. Scary or those things.
• 17:49
  But is is The Narrative of the story that they're trying to
• 17:55
  tell is it drawn-out? Is it stretched to fill a
• 17:59
  episodes? Would it be tighter as six?
• 18:01
  Would you know are there things you could lose like this third
• 18:04
  episode. Yeah, look I mean obviously
• 18:08
  there was a lot of behind-the-scenes scripting
• 18:11
  issues script sort of dropping out all over the place in
• 18:15
  season. Things.
• 18:17
  Which eventually led to the 10 parts required for the war
• 18:20
  games, but you could say the signals the war games.
• 18:23
  Yeah, you probably could take this out or take this bit out,
• 18:28
  or that bit out. And it wouldn't suffer as a
• 18:30
  story. But would you necessarily need
• 18:33
  to? We know, there's a lot of
• 18:36
  there's a lot to be enjoying about the eight parts.
• 18:40
  At least be spend the time in the company of these wonderful
• 18:43
  characters for all games. Does something similar I feel as
• 18:46
  well. Where we get our hackers
• 18:49
  ineptitude there it is. Good idea.
• 18:52
  Look over there, push him. Yeah, can you think of anyone
• 18:58
  else you'd rather ask about in a lift shaft with and Hines and
• 19:01
  drown? Look, if this asking about, in
• 19:05
  the lift to be done, I'm sure those two would be very high on
• 19:08
  the list. Okay, yeah.
• 19:20
  Oh my god. Do you love this?
• 19:21
  He's got that thing. They did in drama back, then
• 19:24
  when the voice at the other end is game.
• 19:30
  What is all about? Unless one of the, one of the
• 19:35
  guards is Donald dark. Potentially it's the it's the
• 19:40
  comb over the semi comb-over that helps to add to just how
• 19:44
  inept and silly and you just you know he still lives with his
• 19:48
  mother right. You know he does she Combs his
• 19:53
  hair in the morning and he's proper like compounded by her as
• 19:58
  well. You know.
• 19:59
  Oh dear get out there. All right the do something
• 20:04
  statistic today. Yes mummy sorry.
• 20:10
  I don't want to think about it. Did you hear that?
• 20:18
  It's like oh, you're a clever, we chappie gorgeous.
• 20:24
  Okay, I can't take Jamie out this season anymore.
• 20:27
  That's just been too much fun with him already in this know,
• 20:30
  exactly. This is what I'm saying.
• 20:31
  Okay, I'm going to do a mafia. I'm going to rewrite the
• 20:34
  timelines and put it back in again.
• 20:37
  Matt Smith is going to appear with Affairs on a mop and
• 20:40
  Jamie's coming back in glad for it.
• 20:45
  That's one location, isn't it? That's a that yeah, that's
• 20:48
  absolutely a healing. Yeah, yeah, you can tell I found
• 20:56
  some people feel it. Yeah, I've never been in love
• 21:00
  shop so I can really tell you, but The same Dimension.
• 21:06
  I mean, I mean, it's not really there to be much hated, I just a
• 21:09
  ladder and me a few chains is Yang down.
• 21:14
  Well I'm sorry you might call this episode padding but an
• 21:19
  entire episode of packages ineptitude of their fruit.
• 21:22
  All right thanks. Well exactly I think he gets so
• 21:26
  hysterical in a minute he's like move.
• 21:29
  It gets really? Yeah and that's delivered for
• 21:35
  laughs and that's fair enough because it is a jolly old show
• 21:39
  and we've got eight episodes of some great characters that we
• 21:42
  can just spend some time with And this bit about crushing them
• 21:47
  with the with the lift. But you pull a bit the contrast
• 21:53
  in a minute. Yeah, about the contrast between
• 21:56
  the claustrophobia in the lift shaft and then the he does these
• 22:00
  wide angles when he goes outside on the roof and he's filming
• 22:04
  From Below off of them walking across, it's just it's really
• 22:08
  still make, it's really impressive.
• 22:12
  Oh, here it goes. His vast start screaming.
• 22:14
  Mr. I look good. Boarded, the background just
• 22:21
  told him. Tony zoning is always yeah mr.
• 22:31
  Humphries, mr. Humphries is Packer.
• 22:40
  You just imagine They can lift up to the top camera stays on
• 22:55
  him and he's got this look on his face like we're going to get
• 22:58
  him now. It's wonderful.
• 23:03
  It is wonderful. Okay I've got another question
• 23:06
  for you that and that is about Derek showing, okay?
• 23:13
  Because obviously dark Sharon wrote this this for, this is a
• 23:16
  kind of his vision for Doctor Who and then he went on to
• 23:20
  produce they have from space and and made that choice to take
• 23:25
  because, you know, Peter Brian was about, but by all accounts,
• 23:28
  Derek showing was in charge. I think Brian was propping up
• 23:32
  the bar whilst Derek Sherman was doing.
• 23:33
  A lot of the work, it sounds that way.
• 23:38
  Do you think he had something she's like like what on Earth
• 23:41
  would a Derrick show in /? We are look like because I think
• 23:45
  it would look very different to what Barry let's do it.
• 23:48
  I agree, I think well he we can only take this as the evidence
• 23:52
  of it which is an Avengers light, kind of episode rather
• 23:58
  than the sort of very Grim Series 7 that we got that
• 24:03
  ultimately was you know soft rebooted with Terror of the
• 24:05
  autons, the beginning of season 8.
• 24:09
  So I think we probably would have got we may well have had
• 24:11
  the seven Partners but I feel like we if you look to to this
• 24:17
  and maybe maybe a little bit of spearhead from space as well
• 24:22
  that kind of hang on he's for losing his shit by the way at
• 24:26
  last isn't it? Great.
• 24:29
  Find him back up. It shot me like that any day.
• 24:36
  Sorry, what'd you say? But yeah, that those, I just
• 24:40
  think we would get that sort of late 60s, spy-fi, The Avengers
• 24:47
  kind of template type of tone, even if the story's lines
• 24:53
  themselves were similar. I don't know what that would
• 24:55
  have looked like for something as a bit Grim in, as as Inferno,
• 24:59
  for instance, and it is interesting because this and
• 25:03
  spare. In space, they do have a fair
• 25:05
  bit of comedy in them, so I don't think it would have, I
• 25:07
  don't think seriously never would have been as cold as it
• 25:11
  turned out to be. Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:13
  And that's always something that struck me that, you know, the
• 25:16
  four parts at the beginning of Series 7 season.
• 25:18
  Seven rubber are lighter in turn.
• 25:22
  The kind of baked. I mean, it could fit into a
• 25:27
  season, 8 onwards, kind of story, but the other three, the
• 25:31
  seven partners are so. Po-faced, and seriousness.
• 25:36
  And I mean, there's nothing wrong with that in and of
• 25:40
  itself, but it was clear that it wasn't going to have you all
• 25:42
  didn't have the legs to sort of last an entire era.
• 25:45
  How good is this the riding Mass underneath?
• 25:48
  Of course. Yeah, that's that's horror
• 25:54
  movie, you know, levels of training there that is precisely
• 26:00
  the sort of cliffhanger, the works, best in black and white.
• 26:03
  With his face just lit up behind and then the riving black like
• 26:07
  are so good. Yeah, see you.
• 26:12
  Then someone told me this was a Cyberman story but I was
• 26:14
  starting to doubt like great for episodes in later.
• 26:20
  Not yet. Yeah.
• 26:23
  I wonder what I wonder when they coming.