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Hamster Omnibus! The Caves of Androzani (featuring Mark Dodyk) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blunt pen knife for doing quicker quicker.
• 0:39
  Welcome back to Hamster with a Blunt Pen Knife, the Doctor Who
• 0:43
  Commentary Podcast. Second time podcaster.
• 0:48
  I'm going to get this right. Mark Dodic, after his massive
• 0:55
  success with Mummy on the Orient Express, has decided to tackle a
• 0:59
  somewhat less intimidating story.
• 1:02
  Mark, say hello, I want you to tell.
• 1:04
  Hello, watching today. Hello.
• 1:06
  Well, when you when you said you would like to have me back, I
• 1:10
  thought I would maybe pick a story, one of those sort of
• 1:12
  run-of-the-mill stories that nobody really particularly
• 1:15
  thinks of are rates very highly. I'm sure it's not had much said
• 1:19
  about it before, so I opted for the case of Andresani.
• 1:24
  I can't remember anyone talking about that story at all,
• 1:27
  Whatever, I'm honest. No, it never comes up, does it?
• 1:29
  It's not a fan favorite by any means.
• 1:31
  It shows you down the back of the sofa with the space pirates,
• 1:34
  isn't it? Yeah, probably.
• 1:36
  Yeah, it's just bottom of the list.
• 1:38
  Well, look, OK. How many times do you think
• 1:40
  you've seen case of Andresani? Not as much as some other
• 1:46
  classics, I think because, and I was talking to a friend about
• 1:53
  this the other day, I was saying that there are certain Doctor
• 1:56
  Who stories that are quite rich and quite densely packed that
• 2:00
  you can't overindulge in. It's a bit like a really stodgy
• 2:03
  pudding. You really enjoy it, but you
• 2:06
  couldn't have that every day. So it's one that I come back to
• 2:09
  and I really relish and then I have to set it aside and I don't
• 2:12
  go back to that again, don't pick it for a while.
• 2:14
  And then I come back to it and I go, OK, I remember why I really
• 2:17
  enjoyed this. It's a bit like things like
• 2:19
  ghost light. I love ghost light.
• 2:21
  But again, it's really, there's so much going on and it's such
• 2:25
  a, for me, certainly a very rewarding view, but I couldn't
• 2:30
  watch it all the time. It would kind of spoil it would
• 2:32
  taint it a little bit, I think. Whereas there's other comfort.
• 2:35
  Who's that? I could watch the drop of a hat
• 2:37
  things there, you know, compared to a really stodgy pudding
• 2:40
  there, like custard or yogurt. You'd have them every day.
• 2:43
  I'm absolutely the same as you, like I I don't think I've seen
• 2:47
  this before. Rewatching it for this for 3-4
• 2:53
  years maybe it's been a while and I've got a very it's yours
• 2:59
  is because it's quite desley packed and quite rich.
• 3:01
  Mine is because it's so fucking depressing.
• 3:05
  What? 2.
• 3:07
  Now don't get me wrong, I think this is one of those very rare
• 3:09
  instances of a Doctor Who story that is written, directed and
• 3:13
  acted impeccably. Yes, a piece of drama.
• 3:17
  It's up there. You could tear this out of
• 3:19
  Doctor Who and hold it high, probably on its own merits.
• 3:22
  Bit like City of Death, Miss Bleed, Genesis with our next
• 3:25
  movie. Unlike City of Death though,
• 3:30
  which is a complete joy to watch and I can watch that many times
• 3:33
  as you like because I just laugh my head off when I'm watching
• 3:35
  it. Man oh man, you don't want to
• 3:38
  hang out with these people. They're all horrible in this.
• 3:42
  Absolutely every last one of them.
• 3:43
  I mean, I think it probably makes me like the 5th Doctor so
• 3:47
  much more because he's the only likeable figure throughout.
• 3:51
  And I think it's, it's a lovely juxtaposition, the fact that
• 3:54
  you've got so many filthy, like, horrible people and a really
• 3:57
  nice Doctor Who's just trying his damnedest to save Perry.
• 4:02
  Like the one beacon of light in this isn't he?
• 4:04
  You know, he's basically out out for the cow throughout this.
• 4:08
  He's like nice. They're all they're all
• 4:10
  criminals. They're all like, you know,
• 4:14
  political monsters or military men that would murder at the
• 4:19
  drop of a hat. But there's just nobody nice in
• 4:22
  this and so whilst I absolutely acknowledge this is a classic
• 4:25
  and it's one of the best Doctor Who stories ever made, I don't
• 4:29
  like it very much. Would you say it's overrated
• 4:34
  then? Not at all, and that's some
• 4:37
  weird contradiction and I don't even mind TV that makes me feel
• 4:42
  a little bit uncomfortable. I really love like Sherman's
• 4:45
  output because he has this unerring ability to make me
• 4:49
  laugh and whilst he's doing horrific things, but I really.
• 4:55
  But this isn't really even doing that.
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  It's just a really nasty, nihilistic, sexist, horrible
• 5:02
  place. That's the second the doctor
• 5:05
  sets foot on it. He needs to just get away as
• 5:07
  soon as possible. Yeah.
• 5:09
  Turn back into that TARDIS and go away.
• 5:12
  What's your conda? Like, you know, Rob behind his
• 5:15
  back and he's back with a bang. Yes, and he did this pretty
• 5:20
  much. So this never had to be done
• 5:22
  again. Like he he made, you know, the
• 5:25
  the most horrible Doctor Who story.
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  So and what, instead of like it's going well that we did that
• 5:31
  and that was bold and brave and amazing.
• 5:34
  Well, I'll tell you what, we'll do another season of them next
• 5:36
  year, you know. I think Eric Seaward misjudged
• 5:40
  it completely. He didn't.
• 5:43
  I think JNT gets a lot of blame for things that went wrong in
• 5:47
  the 80s in the production of Doctor Who, but Eric Sayward,
• 5:49
  some of the weakest and some of the nastiest things that ever
• 5:52
  made it to screen were down to Eric Sayward's script editing.
• 5:57
  He saw the results from The Caves of Androsani and rather
• 6:00
  than go what we need is cracking scripts and casting and making
• 6:04
  sure there's all these things, he decided all the nastiness is
• 6:07
  what made it work best. It's just it's a poor reading on
• 6:11
  his part because it's you couldn't, you can't watch that
• 6:15
  for 13 weeks straight. And most of season 22 is quite
• 6:18
  dark and nasty. I enjoy a great proportion of
• 6:21
  it, but that's nearly a whole season of quite grim stories.
• 6:27
  Yeah, very, very, very. In fact, like some of the bits
• 6:30
  in 22, I would serve a land licking the blood off the floor
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  or Davros getting his hand blown off carbine suddenly.
• 6:41
  I mean, I love the melodrama, but there are there are.
• 6:44
  I can remember watching the two doctors on video when I was
• 6:47
  really young and my mum sort of sitting in the background going.
• 6:51
  Oh, this is a. This is a bit much and I was
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  just relishing it and lapping it up and not really seeing what
• 6:57
  she was seeing and then years later going oh wow yeah, this is
• 7:01
  a bit my especially like you say you haven't just seen me licking
• 7:03
  the blood. That's quite it's, it's grim.
• 7:07
  And she's going first to quite as well.
• 7:13
  Because she just goes for it. You and I were saying before we
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  press record about how like over time you're reading on a story
• 7:22
  can change. And I think as a child, I just
• 7:25
  loved all the violence. I loved how adult this fell and,
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  you know, like it was very easy to just kind of absorb yourself
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  in that world and just, Oh my God, isn't this amazing?
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  Like, you know, and Doctor Who's being taken completely
• 7:40
  seriously, you know, there's not one joke insight, but there's
• 7:42
  one or two. Now I sit and watch this as an
• 7:46
  adult. I'm going to say something now
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  that you you may spit at me. I wonder if perhaps at times
• 7:56
  Mary Whitehouse was right, because there are moments in
• 8:00
  this story in particular I think cross a line and it's a lot of
• 8:04
  it's around Perry and how she's treated and lusted after, and
• 8:09
  it's in Nicola Bryant's performance, which is
• 8:12
  staggeringly good. Oh.
• 8:14
  Yes. But so real.
• 8:16
  It's like we are out of fantasyland and this is a this
• 8:19
  is a young girl that is being completely traumatized.
• 8:23
  And I'm like, yes, is this appropriate for kids?
• 8:26
  I don't know. It's yeah, it's quite, it is
• 8:30
  very intense, I would say, and unrelenting.
• 8:35
  Well, that might not be as positive as people were
• 8:38
  expecting us. I'm sure we have.
• 8:43
  Yeah, we'll have nice things to say as it goes along.
• 8:46
  Shall we? Yes, go for it.
• 8:49
  Well, why don't you count us in then to episode 1?
• 8:52
  Okie Dokes. 5432. 1. Boom.
• 8:59
  OK, so hang on. I see.
• 9:01
  I have no idea how old you are. I'm assuming you know about
• 9:05
  20-3, something like that. Oh, you're a dear.
• 9:08
  I'm 34. OK, hang on, how old am I then?
• 9:18
  I. Don't know, You can't be much
• 9:22
  older than me, are you? 41 I am I am a fair bit older
• 9:28
  than you. Well my basically my question
• 9:29
  was when did you first watch this?
• 9:31
  Like what was your first experience?
• 9:33
  It would have been the 1993 repeat.
• 9:37
  OK. Yes, and I can remember bits of
• 9:42
  the story, I think because it's so visually arresting.
• 9:46
  There's so I mean, Graham Harper from the off is doing different
• 9:49
  things with the visual style of Doctor Who here.
• 9:52
  So it really stayed with me and I didn't see it again until it
• 9:56
  came out on DVD, which was 8-9 years later.
• 9:59
  But there was bits that were still replaying in my head
• 10:02
  through the years. And I remember saving up to get
• 10:05
  the DVD with my pocket money and thinking, oh, I can't wait to
• 10:07
  see that bit again. I can't wait to see that bit
• 10:09
  again. This will be good.
• 10:10
  And there's, there's a it's a really impressive story to look
• 10:14
  at. Usually it does hold up, doesn't
• 10:16
  it? Like, and he's using techniques
• 10:19
  there that became the norm kind of now you know, he's he's doing
• 10:23
  dynamic tracking shots. He's it's just very filming.
• 10:29
  I think the whole thing is very filming.
• 10:31
  So unlike, I don't know, the work of Ron Jones and and.
• 10:34
  Peter Moss, it's yeah, it's just a different, different league
• 10:39
  completely that he's working in. And this is his first effort at
• 10:42
  Doctor Who and he's just nailed it from the off.
• 10:47
  He's using handheld cameras. He spent a lot of the, I think
• 10:51
  it was the first studio block. He spent a lot of it doing
• 10:54
  single camera. He was.
• 10:56
  Down on the. Floor as well, wasn't he?
• 10:58
  He refused to direct. From the box and it really cut,
• 11:02
  it obviously really cut into the studio time, but I think the
• 11:05
  energy that came from it really fed in the way people performed
• 11:10
  have. You seen that footage of him on
• 11:12
  the floor? Doctor, do this.
• 11:13
  Doctor, do that. OK, Go.
• 11:15
  He's just full of energy. You can understand why people
• 11:20
  would have fed off that energy because Peter Moffett.
• 11:23
  I've not seen studio footage of him, but I imagine he would have
• 11:26
  been much more sedate and you probably wouldn't be excited by
• 11:33
  his directing style. By all accounts he was a very
• 11:37
  lovely man and he liked a nice gentlemanly studio and everyone
• 11:41
  got out on time. Some things he finished early
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  and not many directors managed that.
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  Doing anything arresting or creative.
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  That's why I just wanted you to know.
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  Did you notice that you said those mountains that are
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  superimposed on the background there?
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  Yeah. When when we went in on the
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  doctor and Perry, they completely vanished.
• 12:00
  Now, I've never noticed that before, but Peter Davidson was
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  pointing that out in a commentary I listened to
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  earlier. Stop pointing things out,
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  though. It doesn't.
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  Have an eye for detail, though. That's something that people
• 12:13
  like Fiona Cumming and other directors that worked with him
• 12:16
  later said was that if he didn't stick with acting, he almost
• 12:20
  certainly would have become a director because he had a knack
• 12:24
  for for spotting plot holes and for for sort of being able to
• 12:28
  point out things and continuity. And I think he wouldn't.
• 12:32
  Be a great director. I think he like he like you sort
• 12:35
  of. He examined scripts and plot
• 12:38
  inconsistencies. He would say, well, this doesn't
• 12:40
  make any sense. Like how can we iron this out?
• 12:43
  And there it's all to be like, just say the lines.
• 12:44
  All right, just do it fine. OK.
• 12:48
  So Perry, yes, much has been said about Perry.
• 12:55
  I thought I'd say for good or for I'll kind of generally for
• 12:57
  ill. And I think it's a little bit
• 12:59
  unearned. Where?
• 13:00
  Where do you forward Perry? I think, like you say, it's that
• 13:05
  that reputation is unearned. I think she works really well
• 13:12
  against Peter Davis because he's because he's a bit of a
• 13:16
  naturalistic performer. She pitched it against him quite
• 13:21
  well and they've got a nice spark between them and they play
• 13:24
  this sort of aloof, getting to know one another relationship.
• 13:30
  But then Colin Baker comes in and his release, his performance
• 13:33
  is so much bolder that she has to lift her performance and
• 13:38
  suddenly she has to be a bit more.
• 13:39
  She suddenly becomes more shrill and shouting and screaming, and
• 13:44
  I don't think that necessarily translates as being unlikable,
• 13:47
  as some people would say, or disagreeable.
• 13:50
  But it's a very different performance.
• 13:52
  She's not the same person we first met.
• 13:55
  You know, what's interesting is if you, I've listened to pretty
• 13:59
  much every single Big Finish story and I've, I've got a
• 14:04
  feeling that the writing in 22 is to blame a lot of the time
• 14:10
  because they're, they're, they're written hysterically and
• 14:12
  they're always catty and they're always arguing.
• 14:14
  And, and you know, they said they were trying to find moments
• 14:17
  of softness, of humor, of ways of toning it down.
• 14:21
  And they're, I think they're now latter day Big Finish.
• 14:24
  They are the strongest 2 regulars that they have because
• 14:27
  they're both pitching it naturalistically as well, just
• 14:30
  like Davison and Brian did here. And they're brilliant together.
• 14:34
  And it's almost a shame that so much of 22 I'm not about 22,
• 14:39
  aren't we? Often, but yeah, it's like
• 14:42
  tangent, but it's fine. It all makes sense within the
• 14:44
  context, I would say, because I think for Eric Seaward took so
• 14:50
  much from this story to form season 22.
• 14:54
  I think something that's quite common with people like
• 14:59
  showrunners and writers on the series is that they almost want
• 15:02
  to try and find a format for it and work towards a certain
• 15:05
  pattern. And Eric Seward had been on the
• 15:08
  series for two years at this point, and 2 1/2 years had
• 15:12
  pretty much failed to find. A.
• 15:14
  Sheep. Or a form for the series.
• 15:16
  And then he went, aha, I know it's going to be gritty and
• 15:18
  horrible and grim and unremitting and all these things
• 15:21
  that I think it can do in small doses, but not in look what?
• 15:26
  Happened. They pulled the plug, they went,
• 15:28
  no, this is too nasty. This is not fun television.
• 15:32
  I think you're right though, about the whole thing, about the
• 15:34
  format. I'd really like that about the
• 15:37
  early 80s though, because I think like pretty much any other
• 15:39
  period, apart from Hartnell's possibly, certainly Troughton's
• 15:44
  Jon Perkways and the three different script editors of Tom
• 15:47
  Baker, there's a tone to it. Isn't it?
• 15:50
  Early 80s when this award comes along and you'll be here from, I
• 15:53
  don't know, Black Orchid to Earth Shock to Time flight, like
• 15:57
  you're all over the bit. And I kind of like it for that,
• 16:01
  that you never know what you're going to get.
• 16:03
  It's a bit unpredictable, but you're right.
• 16:06
  This here, this was so popular. He was like, this is what we're
• 16:11
  going to make from now on, you know?
• 16:13
  And it's a shame because it meant that he ditched sort of
• 16:18
  lyrical scripts and sort of the slightly more magical and mythic
• 16:21
  ones, because I don't think he particularly liked that style
• 16:24
  anyway. But he'd inherited scripts that
• 16:27
  worked to that format, and I think he felt that that fitted
• 16:30
  somewhere in the mix. And then he suddenly went, no, I
• 16:33
  don't need it now. You think there was some?
• 16:35
  Like like kinder, snake dance and Enlightenment some of the
• 16:38
  besties. They're absolutely fantastic,
• 16:42
  but I don't know how much work he put into those scripts.
• 16:47
  There's others that he had more work on which interestingly are
• 16:51
  probably the weaker scripts. I think somebody like Barbara
• 16:54
  Clegg, who was a seasoned writer who'd done she'd done script
• 16:58
  editing and all sorts for the series would have been asked to
• 17:01
  do enlightenment. And I'm sure she managed to just
• 17:04
  rattle something off and make it work.
• 17:05
  It's the same with Bob Holmes. When I was reading and doing a
• 17:09
  bit of research before this, interestingly, Eric Seaward says
• 17:13
  in an interview, the only thing I did was I added this bit about
• 17:16
  the Praxis range of the spectrum and the celery, because Peter
• 17:20
  said before I go, I want that explained.
• 17:21
  So he literally put in one scene.
• 17:24
  But that's very telling, isn't it?
• 17:26
  Although you know what? OK, now we're being a bit anti
• 17:28
  Eric's Ward here. So I'm going to, oh Jesus, I'm
• 17:31
  leaping into season 22 again. Sorry, Season 22 podcast,
• 17:35
  everybody. I think his script for
• 17:38
  Revelation of the Daleks is superb.
• 17:41
  It's I think it's the best thing he ever wrote for Doctor Who.
• 17:45
  And he is absolutely aping Robert Holmes in so many
• 17:49
  different ways. He's basically taking this as a
• 17:51
  template, but he writes kind of this as a black comedy, and it's
• 17:56
  really funny and it's really edgy and it's not at all Doctor
• 18:01
  Who. Like, don't get me wrong, I
• 18:03
  don't think it's Doctor Who, but it's fantastic telly.
• 18:06
  Oh, it's so good. It's one of those stories that I
• 18:10
  can I'll watch quite a few times.
• 18:12
  Sometimes I'll finish it and start it again.
• 18:14
  I just enjoy it so much. It's time to do with Graham
• 18:18
  Harper again as well. Yeah, I think he's he manages to
• 18:21
  sell it. If it had been a Ron Jones job
• 18:24
  or any others of this regular directors, OOFED probably
• 18:30
  wouldn't be regarded as highly, however.
• 18:35
  Well, this shot here, right where where they're both looking
• 18:39
  at the camera was like, Oh my God, at the time he goes, I was
• 18:43
  obsessed with these shots. He goes, I took out the whole
• 18:46
  wall of the set and I was like, right, you lean into it, you
• 18:49
  talk behind them and we'll see the reactions of both actors and
• 18:52
  it'll be absolutely amazing. And then he cuts to him in the
• 18:55
  documentary and he goes and it's so bloody hammy.
• 18:58
  He goes, I hate it so old fashioned.
• 19:00
  What was I? Think.
• 19:03
  It's quite interesting though, because there's other things
• 19:05
  that he learned from this experience, like the a moment
• 19:09
  ago when you have Morgus turn to the camera and do make us aside.
• 19:13
  That was apparently a misunderstanding because they
• 19:16
  eventually did have to spend some time up in the box and
• 19:19
  direct from above. So he passed on the direction,
• 19:25
  turn to camera and don't look down the lens.
• 19:27
  Whatever the instruction was, it wasn't look down the lens and
• 19:29
  see it. But that's what John Normington
• 19:31
  did. And later on, Graham thought,
• 19:34
  this is brilliant. This is so good that he used it
• 19:36
  in other series. Later on, he got some, I think
• 19:39
  the George Sewell or somebody else in the series that worked
• 19:41
  on. He said, I know you're not going
• 19:43
  to like this. And the actor pushed against it
• 19:45
  ever slightly. And he said, but you are going
• 19:48
  to turn to the camera right down the lines and give a little
• 19:50
  smile. And they said, oh, we can't
• 19:52
  caplessly ask that of me. And they did it and they said it
• 19:54
  was the best bit of this episode it.
• 19:56
  Means the audience is part of the story, doesn't it?
• 20:00
  It's absolutely. Well, he does it in Revelation
• 20:02
  as well. It's no one's addressing the
• 20:04
  camera, but everyone's looking up at the security camera.
• 20:07
  The doctor, when he walks into Tranquil Repose for the first
• 20:10
  time, he looks up at the camera, like straight at the camera and
• 20:12
  goes, you know, so everyone's aware that they're kind of being
• 20:16
  observed all the time by Davros. It's a really clever technique.
• 20:19
  Oh yeah, Peter Davidson. OK, it's talked all over a
• 20:26
  sequence where he is butting heads with, what's the guy's
• 20:30
  name, Chelak. The.
• 20:31
  Most inept military man ever to be in Doctor Who.
• 20:37
  He's hopeless and it minds you. He's got that anthem man.
• 20:41
  Davidson is blazing eyed angry. He's brilliant in this.
• 20:45
  Like where the fuck has this? Been for the last three years.
• 20:49
  It's such, it's a shame that he he gives his strongest
• 20:52
  performance in a story where the doctor progressively gets weaker
• 20:56
  and weaker and weaker. It's he really, I think if you
• 21:02
  watch his time in the show, you can see his confidence growing
• 21:06
  as well, though he wasn't confident that he was old enough
• 21:11
  to take on the role. And you can see he's not too
• 21:14
  confident in season 19 and season 20 starts to get into
• 21:17
  this groove a wee bit. But I think the behind the
• 21:19
  scenes chaos and strikes, we're grinding him down a bit, which
• 21:23
  is ultimately why he didn't want to stay longer.
• 21:25
  And then by the end of this, he was upset that he was walking
• 21:29
  away from it at a time where he suddenly went, I know how to do
• 21:31
  this now. So, so frustrating.
• 21:34
  I mean, again, I'll point to Big Finish because I think very,
• 21:37
  very good. Like now he's older and he even
• 21:40
  says like, I wish I'd been able to play it at this age because
• 21:43
  I've got so much more gravitats now.
• 21:46
  I think as soon as 21 starts, that's where he's in his groove
• 21:50
  from. Warriors and the Deep was like,
• 21:54
  he's a massive pantomime but through it with absolute
• 21:57
  dignity. Yeah, absolute dignity.
• 22:00
  And he's sort of, he's quite heroic and he does it with real
• 22:02
  panache. It's a really I like his
• 22:04
  performance in that, but I don't know is it because he's slightly
• 22:08
  D mob happy and he'd given his notice at that point I.
• 22:11
  Think you're right. I think you're absolutely right
• 22:13
  that he's like, I'm out of here now, so I'm just going to do
• 22:15
  this how I like, you know, but then all of a sudden he's like
• 22:18
  he is taking it incredibly. That squeaky voice thing that he
• 22:21
  does has gone and actually do you know what I think his best
• 22:24
  performance is might be a little bit controversial.
• 22:26
  You may not agree with this. It's frontiers, I think.
• 22:30
  Oh, no, I like that. I really do because I think
• 22:33
  throughout his era most of the writers either haven't done
• 22:36
  Doctor Who before or are writing it on a memory of how they think
• 22:39
  the Doctor would be. Whereas you've got Christopher
• 22:45
  Bedmead who's writing the Doctor in a doctorish way, quite
• 22:49
  intentionally. And Robert Holmes here as well
• 22:51
  said he was. He and Terrence Dicks have the
• 22:53
  same belief that the Doctor doesn't really change character
• 22:57
  wise. So you can write a generic
• 22:59
  template, but there are things that Bob Holmes and Christopher
• 23:04
  Bit Me were putting in the scripts that Peter Davidson
• 23:07
  worked with that weren't elsewhere.
• 23:13
  Such a shame because I would have liked it to be more quirky.
• 23:16
  He says in the commentary. Which, you know, it was one of
• 23:19
  the earliest ones I did, so I'm not going to be too mean, but
• 23:22
  boy, did they need a moderator. There was lots of lots of gaps
• 23:25
  when they weren't talking that he spent most of his era like
• 23:29
  running around corridors in a breathless fashion.
• 23:31
  And that ain't wrong. You know, that's basically
• 23:35
  Terminus arc of Infinity time fly.
• 23:38
  You know like it's just running around delivering exposition.
• 23:42
  Great swathes of his era sadly sort of lost to stories that
• 23:48
  don't have much going for them. It's a real shame because I
• 23:52
  think season, you know, if you, if you could do something about
• 23:55
  Time Flight, Arc of Infinity and Terminus and King's Demons, I
• 23:58
  would say you can change those four stories dramatically.
• 24:01
  Top down, rewrite. I think his whole era would sit
• 24:05
  a bit better, but he's got just a really clunky second year.
• 24:09
  All in that in the heart of the era as well, isn't it, you know?
• 24:13
  Quick succession you just get some really dud scripts and
• 24:17
  season 20s. You've got like some, you've got
• 24:20
  all the excitement of him coming along in 19 and that kind of
• 24:23
  team settling in and the the mad like diversity of genres.
• 24:29
  And then? You've got that dreary second
• 24:32
  year. Sorry, Jason Miller, don't come
• 24:33
  at me. He loves that scene.
• 24:36
  Last year is where they're kind of making the universe a bit of
• 24:40
  a ugly place, but he sort of blazes his way through that as
• 24:45
  his, like, moral core, you know? And it really, really works.
• 24:49
  But yeah, it's like beginning and end the middle.
• 24:52
  Yeah, it's a shame because I I really like his era overall, and
• 24:56
  I think there's some of it. I like it, probably because of
• 25:01
  the things that Big Finish have done as well that filled some of
• 25:04
  the gaps. So there's certain things in my
• 25:06
  head can and I went, oh, well, that doesn't really make a whole
• 25:08
  lot of sense. And then somebody at Big Finish
• 25:09
  has written a lovely script that makes sense or reconciles one of
• 25:13
  the dodgy relationships or something that didn't really
• 25:15
  compute before. And then I've gone, Oh yeah,
• 25:17
  that's really good now. And that flows quite nicely into
• 25:19
  Black Orchids. You shouldn't need that extra
• 25:23
  context to make it work, should you?
• 25:24
  You. Should exactly.
• 25:26
  And I think it's that and that's that.
• 25:29
  Do you like anyone in this story?
• 25:30
  Do you think anyone's likable beyond the Doctor and Perry?
• 25:34
  Not really, no. It's there's a pretty nasty
• 25:37
  bunch. I mean, Chillax isn't really
• 25:41
  nasty. I would say compared to
• 25:43
  everybody else he's quite tame. He's just a bit inept.
• 25:46
  But everybody else is out for their own game.
• 25:49
  It gets a nasty end though. I think that's the one of the
• 25:52
  grittliest moments in the whole thing.
• 25:54
  Yeah. I will be screaming along with
• 25:56
  him in that last episode, I hope.
• 25:58
  OK. Look at how well it's lit as
• 26:03
  well. Do you see Davidson's face
• 26:04
  there? It's really like I've always
• 26:06
  said, the sympathetic lighting goes a long way in Doctor Who.
• 26:10
  And given how bright these seasons can be, it's, it's the
• 26:17
  whole visual look of this story is, is really it just, you've
• 26:21
  got twin dilemma straight after this.
• 26:24
  Talk about great direction. Yeah, that's the roof, from the
• 26:27
  sublime to the ridiculous. Sneaky love for the Twin
• 26:29
  Dilemma, but it's only because I love B movies.
• 26:31
  I love really shit things. So exactly an endorsement.
• 26:35
  Did you notice the first time you watched this this bit in a
• 26:39
  second where the like it's like a half a second cut of the
• 26:43
  Android coming in to get take him out the cell.
• 26:46
  Did You Know? It just felt like brush past.
• 26:48
  It's so quickly done. I never noticed it like I swear
• 26:51
  the first couple of times I watched this.
• 26:55
  It's really, it's great. I love it.
• 26:56
  And this, oh, this sequence here when I was doing, when I was
• 27:00
  doing my research, Graham Harper, each episode was
• 27:05
  overrunning dramatically. And he, because he did a lot of
• 27:08
  single camera stuff, he had so much footage to work with.
• 27:12
  This sequence, which in the script really is just a case of,
• 27:16
  you know, very, you know, there's not a lot going on.
• 27:18
  It's just, you know, dials and pushing the buttons.
• 27:20
  He had 3-4 minutes worth of footage and he said that GNT
• 27:27
  didn't have a lot of input into the directing and didn't put his
• 27:31
  input into things too much. But Graham said I don't really
• 27:35
  know what to do, how can I reduce this?
• 27:37
  He said cross feeds, just cut it, cross feed and do that.
• 27:41
  And he made it into this sort of 82nd sequence that it goes.
• 27:45
  It's just really brilliant. Amazing isn't it?
• 27:48
  In fact, Davidson points that out when he goes to phase here.
• 27:51
  So I guess this is so dynamic he doesn't actually tell that
• 27:54
  story. He should have done.
• 27:56
  We would have had 4 minutes of him just wandering around the
• 27:59
  laboratory. Yeah.
• 28:01
  Putting things together. And you just think, I mean, it
• 28:05
  says a lot for JNTI mean it's a real shame that he didn't
• 28:08
  actually direct at any point. Yeah, well.
• 28:14
  Who are you talking about, Graham Harper or John Nathan
• 28:16
  Turner? John Nathan Turner, because he
• 28:18
  did some second unit stuff, like I mean, the Five Doctors, the
• 28:21
  most exciting bit is the Cyber massacre and he did that as
• 28:24
  second unit. I think he like he was
• 28:26
  originally going to direct going to Ballamen, wasn't he?
• 28:28
  There was talk of him doing that and then it just didn't become
• 28:31
  cool. And black orchid as well,
• 28:33
  potentially. I would love to have seen what
• 28:35
  he could have done, You know, because Dimensions in Time is an
• 28:39
  absolute masterpiece. Oh yes, it really, it really
• 28:43
  sells his directing stuff. I remade that once, you know, I
• 28:48
  was, I was the Rani. Oh, I think you'd give Udrani.
• 28:53
  Thank you, I look amazing in colots.
• 28:57
  Not many people can either. As well.
• 28:59
  Do you see that spectrox? What's it called?
• 29:02
  That's just spectrox, isn't it? That's yeah, that's just
• 29:04
  spectrox. Yes, it's.
• 29:06
  Not like, doesn't it? It does it.
• 29:09
  It's a bit. People around drinking that, I
• 29:11
  mean. That's quite.
• 29:13
  That's quite a lot as well. I beg your pardon, Laughing.
• 29:16
  That's quite a small man actually, but only 10
• 29:23
  centilitres, you know, can take off 20 years or something like
• 29:26
  that. Yeah.
• 29:28
  I hear that sort of the other thing as well, so I'm going to
• 29:30
  stop. Stop.
• 29:36
  Have you noticed, though, with these Robert Holmes stories, so
• 29:38
  very often the most precious thing in the Galaxy, isn't it,
• 29:42
  Jeff? Rick Argonite.
• 29:46
  Argonite and then things like perineum.
• 29:47
  It's not necessarily that it's a valuable thing, but it's a it's
• 29:51
  always a vital resource. It's something that people are
• 29:54
  going to fight for or go to the graves for.
• 29:57
  And he was script editing that one, wasn't he?
• 29:59
  He was scripted in Come Death to the Daleks.
• 30:01
  Yes. See Spectrox.
• 30:04
  Yeah. So he likes, he likes doing
• 30:05
  these, you know, important things.
• 30:07
  In this one, though, man, you imagine this was available now
• 30:09
  Spectrox. He's probably guzzling it down
• 30:13
  every day. My mind's going the wrong place.
• 30:24
  You. Know.
• 30:26
  No. OK, there's nothing I can say.
• 30:29
  No, no, don't, don't. Stop.
• 30:33
  I love that line though. The public want their spectrox
• 30:36
  Morgas. Yes.
• 30:39
  Where comes the cliffhanger this is?
• 30:41
  Amazing. This is just so brilliantly.
• 30:45
  That's just so dynamic. Is this the ultimate?
• 30:48
  How on earth did they get out of this cliffhanger?
• 30:52
  Yeah, I would say it's definitely up there.
• 30:55
  You can't. They're they're tied up.
• 30:58
  They've got you see them against those posts.
• 31:01
  There's no it wasn't for that little shot.
• 31:05
  They do seem a bit wooden now as well though.
• 31:07
  Now they're androids. Slightly differently.
• 31:12
  Oh my God, look at that mask, that great reveal of that face.
• 31:18
  Yeah, that's Christopher Gable, isn't it?
• 31:20
  We need to talk about it in episode 2.
• 31:22
  He's. Just they'll update with him.
• 31:26
  Great bit of casting. I love this because even the
• 31:29
  president you think might be a likable character goes, you
• 31:33
  know, this is appalling. And Marcus is like, well, he is
• 31:35
  a public execution and he can go.
• 31:37
  In my day, I would have had him shot in the back.
• 31:40
  My God, even the president's an asshole, you know.
• 31:43
  And he's nasty and he's vain as well.
• 31:45
  When you say you're, would you think I'm a man of 70 or
• 31:47
  whatever he says? And Marcus has to flatter him.
• 31:49
  Oh, no 50, at least. Man, the amount of managers I've
• 31:54
  had where I've had to be doing that, you know, Jesus Christ.
• 31:58
  But it doesn't mean when he gets shoved down that lift shaft
• 32:00
  later on it's it is deserved. Yeah, I would say so.
• 32:04
  I don't know. I think some of the things he's
• 32:05
  letting them get away with Morgan so he knows what Marcus
• 32:08
  is up to and he's letting that happen.
• 32:10
  Oh, here we go. I.
• 32:11
  Love it. Take aim and the fact that the
• 32:17
  the closing shot is the flames coming out of there.
• 32:21
  He is determined to make this as dynamic as possible.
• 32:24
  Isn't. He, yeah, Graham Harper said.
• 32:26
  He didn't, he wanted live rounds.
• 32:28
  He didn't. He didn't want them to use
• 32:30
  lasers because he said it would take you out of it.
• 32:33
  And then if you're using bullets, it feels real and sure
• 32:36
  does. I imagine if it was I was candy
• 32:39
  cane stripes from Earth shock take home fire anywhere near as
• 32:45
  good would it? Undermine it entirely.
• 32:48
  And I think because you've got Roger Limbs Music doing the drum
• 32:50
  roll as well, it feels really. Final.
• 32:54
  Do you think, do you think that sets the scene well like as an
• 32:58
  episode 1? There's a lot of questions.
• 33:04
  You don't know where this is going.
• 33:07
  You don't really like, do we know about Salatin yet?
• 33:11
  We don't, do we? We think Salatin is just the
• 33:13
  person. He's quite bear with me brick
• 33:17
  box behaves. Sharaz Jack is a complete
• 33:20
  mystery at this point. Yes, you've only had the reveal
• 33:24
  you. He's up.
• 33:25
  He's up to no good. But what's he doing exactly, and
• 33:30
  why? Basically the entire first
• 33:32
  episode is the Doctor going from one situation to another that
• 33:37
  gets worse and worse. You know what it reminds me of?
• 33:39
  The War Games episode 1. Yes, you know, we're Trout.
• 33:43
  As. Well, and it ends, Yeah, with
• 33:46
  that, I suppose that's that's the other great.
• 33:48
  How the hell is he going to get out of this?
• 33:50
  Yeah, it's just his face. When when you hear the shot and
• 33:53
  try and go because Triton is such a likable Dr. as well, you
• 34:01
  think oh God if this is his last story that's no way to let him
• 34:04
  go. I mean, imagine, right?
• 34:07
  Imagine this. A children's hero.
• 34:08
  Doctor Who. Yeah.
• 34:11
  Being forced to regenerate by being shot in the chest.
• 34:15
  I mean, who could possibly do that?
• 34:17
  Oh, wait. Gave it a try.
• 34:21
  TV movie. He went and did it.
• 34:24
  Of course. Another very likeable Dr. Yes.
• 34:29
  Oh, not that he gets much screen time.
• 34:31
  No, thank God. Hamster with a blunt pen knife
• 35:10
  for doing quicker. Welcome back to Hamster with a
• 35:16
  Blunt Pen Knife, the Doctor Who Commentary podcast.
• 35:19
  I'm here with Joe. We are shortly going to go into
• 35:23
  episode 2 of The Caves Vandrazani.
• 35:26
  We've covered a lot of ground already, and Episode 2 becomes a
• 35:30
  bit of a deep penetration mission, doesn't it?
• 35:34
  Of which I would know nothing about.
• 35:35
  So it's going to be a new virgin material for me.
• 35:40
  Yes, virgin on the ridiculous. Good, though, wasn't it?
• 35:46
  Wasn't. It good.
• 35:47
  That flew by. There's so much going on.
• 35:49
  It's great. Who who's the least likable
• 35:52
  character, then? Like we said, there's no
• 35:54
  likable. Who's the least likable,
• 35:58
  Nastiest. I think it's got to be Marcus.
• 36:02
  You can tell that he, you know he would they would throw
• 36:04
  anybody in front of a bus or down a lift shaft.
• 36:09
  He's just a bit of a bastard. I've got a theory about Morgus.
• 36:14
  You know, I reckon he still lives with his mother and she's
• 36:18
  a right cow bag. And he goes with absolute hell.
• 36:21
  That's why he goes to work. And he's just vile to everybody,
• 36:25
  shoves people down, lift shafts, takes over the world.
• 36:28
  It'd be a great sitcom in that I imagine, and he's really meek
• 36:34
  and mild and behaves for his mother and it's the only time he
• 36:38
  ever behaves. Oh.
• 36:39
  My God, he'll be like, sorry, wouldn't it but set on
• 36:42
  Andrazani. Yeah, and he'll probably still
• 36:44
  have his aside. He'll turn to camera.
• 36:46
  It'll be a little less like Miranda Hart.
• 36:49
  But you know, I'll kill her. I can kill.
• 36:53
  That woman, one day you'll see. Yes, mother coming.
• 36:57
  Who played the mother? Oh, Morgas's mother.
• 37:01
  Possibly be. I mean, I'm going to say, I
• 37:03
  always say every single time I have to cast something.
• 37:06
  Miriam Margolese. Margolese.
• 37:09
  That'd be a good one. Or Stephanie Cole.
• 37:13
  Oh Stephanie Cole would be amazing as his mad tyrant and
• 37:17
  resigned. Margus No.
• 37:21
  Someone once dropped on this podcast, you know, but David
• 37:26
  Maskell dropped that Stephanie Cole told him that she was in
• 37:29
  talks for the 6th Doctor with JNT.
• 37:33
  I wonder how much I would love that to be true.
• 37:36
  But that's not one that. It's not one that's done the
• 37:40
  rounds, but like, how would she lies to him, you know?
• 37:43
  Who knows? Who knows?
• 37:45
  There's quite, I think JNT, yeah, he wasn't, he wasn't.
• 37:50
  He could. He could be quite discreet when
• 37:52
  he needed to be. He did a long supporting
• 37:54
  controversy, did he? Yeah, absolutely.
• 37:57
  And he maybe just sort of sounded her out for the role and
• 38:00
  decided against it. Or, you know, I think maybe he
• 38:03
  maybe he'd already met her. Then he went to that wedding,
• 38:06
  met Colin Baker, and that was it.
• 38:08
  Oh, Stephanie, forget it. She.
• 38:10
  Would have been amazingly good though as the Doctor like she's
• 38:15
  you ever seen her in waiting for gold?
• 38:17
  Yes. Of that woman is brilliant,
• 38:21
  Doctor. And somebody else that would
• 38:23
  have been good. Barbara Flynn.
• 38:26
  Oh well, we've just seen Barbara Flynn and Doctor, haven't we?
• 38:30
  Really brilliant and Doctor. Imagine her as the 7th Doctor.
• 38:34
  Imagine her not choking down on Chris Chipnall's exposition.
• 38:37
  Oh sorry, that sounds disgusting.
• 38:39
  Oh my goodness. He's got.
• 38:43
  Over dusting and choking this. Evening.
• 38:47
  I don't know where did we start here?
• 38:50
  We start here. We've gone off on a tangent
• 38:53
  again. As if I was who's the nastiest
• 38:56
  person. And you said it was obviously
• 38:58
  Morgus. Yeah.
• 39:00
  I think we've had to revisit this by the end of the story
• 39:02
  though, you know, potentially, yes.
• 39:04
  Because they're they're all pretty nasty, but.
• 39:07
  I'm going to tell you one thing, right?
• 39:09
  Robert Glenister in this of what was the episode was in Nicholas
• 39:13
  Tesla's Night of terror, wasn't he, when he was a lot older and
• 39:16
  a bit plumper and had matured into a fabulous actor?
• 39:22
  He's so sexy as the evil Salatin, I'm telling you.
• 39:25
  Oh. Yes, you get that that look from
• 39:28
  him. That's one thing you can usually
• 39:30
  guarantee on in the JNT story, there's going to be at least one
• 39:32
  good looking bloke in it. Yeah, that's obviously.
• 39:35
  Having a gay producer really helps.
• 39:38
  No, honestly, wonder when we're going to have one of those
• 39:40
  again. Oh, A.
• 39:42
  Bit. Tight.
• 39:46
  It's all good. Should we watch?
• 39:47
  Episode 2 of Kaiser Androsani. Yes, before we go off on a
• 39:50
  further tangent. The heat, All right, OK.
• 39:54
  So I will count as in then in 54321.
• 40:03
  Do you know, it's very telling that the ratings in this story.
• 40:07
  Maintained and went up a little bit and that was really rare for
• 40:12
  latter day Davidson. I think early Davidson did very
• 40:15
  well. The middle season, it was up and
• 40:18
  down all over the place early. The late season was up and down
• 40:21
  and this was the one story where the ratings.
• 40:24
  Yeah. I think it's it's a weird, it's
• 40:27
  odd because obviously the Thursday Friday slot just didn't
• 40:30
  serve it very well for that last season because you do see quite
• 40:33
  a dip. But having heard story, you know
• 40:37
  how Christopher Eccleston said, Oh yeah, everybody would tune in
• 40:40
  for a regeneration? He said that he didn't really
• 40:42
  follow Doctor Who, but he'd watched regenerations.
• 40:45
  He's one of that 1.5 million or whatever that TuneIn for
• 40:48
  episodes three and four to see how it happens.
• 40:51
  Probably I'm. Sure, he wasn't disappointed as
• 40:53
  well. Yeah, it's a good.
• 40:56
  One, here we go, the reenactment of the cliffhanger and the very,
• 41:00
  the very clever. I don't think it's a cheat at
• 41:04
  all either, because we don't know they're around.
• 41:07
  Do we know they're Andrew? I don't think we do know they're
• 41:09
  Andrew. Because I don't think we do.
• 41:11
  We know that they're that Jack. Jack is making duplicates.
• 41:15
  At this point I don't think it's clear.
• 41:18
  I mean, that's what he was doing in Episode 1 with all those
• 41:20
  crossfades, wasn't he was sending them up?
• 41:23
  We don't know. So it advances the plot as well.
• 41:26
  The resolution of the cliffhanger advances the plot.
• 41:29
  That's right. Oh yeah.
• 41:31
  I mean, like Robert Holmes, having had a break from the
• 41:34
  series, comes back and really nails it.
• 41:38
  I think by the time he was finishing up a script editor and
• 41:41
  contributed to Season 16, he was tired.
• 41:44
  He wasn't too well. He needed a bit of a break and
• 41:47
  some breathing space, and then he comes back to Doctor Who and
• 41:50
  all guns blazing. I think he determined to prove
• 41:55
  to JNT and this is how good I am because James he didn't want him
• 41:59
  and Eric is in a documentary. He he literally had to fight
• 42:03
  again and again Holmes back. James he just would not have old
• 42:07
  writers back, no matter how good their track record was.
• 42:10
  And you know what? After the success of this,
• 42:13
  obviously John Nathan Turner is like, right, we'll have him back
• 42:16
  next year. And then I think he wrote the
• 42:18
  two doctors just to be fucking contrary.
• 42:24
  Oh blessed, I quite like the two doctors in a way, but.
• 42:26
  Oh my God, it's one of my. Favourites.
• 42:28
  I love it, but he is being very naughty and that story.
• 42:33
  Yeah, and I think Robert Holmes get let him write what he wants
• 42:38
  to write. Don't impose on him because when
• 42:41
  he was approached to do what would have been the sex doctors,
• 42:45
  he just admitted defeat. He couldn't write that story.
• 42:49
  And then he long he's invited to do the two doctors and he does a
• 42:52
  pretty good job. But it's got to have location
• 42:55
  shoot, it's got to have some Tarrance.
• 42:56
  It's got to have two doctors. It's got to have Jamie.
• 43:00
  It's a lot to impose on any writer.
• 43:02
  And you've got somebody like Robert Holmes who didn't like to
• 43:05
  reuse characters or monsters. And then caves of Andrew Zani,
• 43:13
  Eric said, right, the only thing you've got to do is kill off the
• 43:16
  doctor at the end of this story. And Bob Holmes goes brilliant.
• 43:20
  Well, I've not written for Peter before and I've not done a
• 43:23
  regeneration story. This is it.
• 43:25
  Brilliant. And he was a bit of a fan
• 43:27
  himself. And he nails it.
• 43:28
  He really he's he knew what had gone before.
• 43:31
  And he's given you something that hasn't happened previously,
• 43:33
  but works with the format. Eric towards us that after the
• 43:37
  experience of the five doctors he knew not to kind of hem
• 43:42
  Robert Holmes in creatively. So he just said right, you know,
• 43:46
  and this is a tight script like episode 4 ticks every like
• 43:51
  everything that's been set up is satisfyingly like tied up by the
• 43:56
  end of the story. I've lost a lot of Doctor Who
• 43:59
  and not you can't say that about a lot of Doctor Who.
• 44:01
  You know, it's messy, some of the writing in this show.
• 44:05
  Yeah, there's, there's hardly anything in this that doesn't
• 44:08
  progress the plot. There's, I think that some of
• 44:11
  the the fact that Graham Harper was losing time in the studio
• 44:15
  benefits the story in a lot of ways because they get rid of
• 44:19
  that extraneous TARDIS scene that should have been there at
• 44:21
  the very beginning. And instead you get that voice
• 44:23
  over, which immediately is something different and gives
• 44:26
  you something visually different.
• 44:28
  Instead of having a TARDIS scene with people puddling about the
• 44:31
  console. I like I like a TARDIS control
• 44:34
  room scene. But.
• 44:36
  Do you not find him a bit much in the 80s?
• 44:40
  There's an awful lot of it, but I think this one could just, it
• 44:43
  was extraneous. There's there's no reason why
• 44:46
  they couldn't just get rid of it, but virtually every other
• 44:48
  scene from that point onwards is beneficial.
• 44:52
  This scene now right between stots and we haven't even
• 44:57
  touched on stots and cruel and both brilliantly performed I
• 45:02
  think. Morris Reeves.
• 45:05
  Morris Reeves in The Nightmare Man, and he's.
• 45:09
  So. Different from this, he's so
• 45:11
  charming in that. How good is the Nightmare Man?
• 45:15
  Graham Harper worked on that, so knew him.
• 45:17
  It's the benefit that he knew a lot of actors and he could
• 45:20
  invite them to work on his productions.
• 45:22
  I was true. I was actually properly scared
• 45:25
  by a couple of moments in the nightmare.
• 45:26
  Man, I watched that as an adult. One of them.
• 45:29
  Was really frightened me. Oh yeah, I can't watch that
• 45:32
  third part with the lights off. But that's like, isn't that
• 45:36
  Douglas Canfield? Robert Graham.
• 45:38
  Harper. I mean, come.
• 45:41
  On I mean, Graham Harper was so lucky that he was.
• 45:46
  He worked with Douglas Canfield and befriended him because he
• 45:48
  learned and gained so much from him that he was that he he
• 45:53
  obviously that he wanted to emulate somebody that worked as
• 45:56
  well as him and learn from him and and nails Doctor Who from
• 46:01
  the off. He just comes in and he knows
• 46:03
  how to do it because he's done enough behind the scenes.
• 46:05
  He says as well, he had a chat, Barry, let's says I was
• 46:08
  listening to a comment the other week where he had a chat with
• 46:10
  Graham Harper and Graham Harper said, I really want to be a
• 46:12
  director, but I'm not an asshole and I don't want to be an
• 46:15
  asshole. You know, Barry, let's turn to
• 46:17
  him and says like, be yourself, you know, like be be of sound
• 46:23
  character and that you absolutely can do this.
• 46:25
  And and that's not giving the thumbs up.
• 46:28
  And, and Graham Harper did, like, by all accounts, he's not
• 46:31
  only a fantastic director, fucking gorgeous bloke as well,
• 46:35
  you know. Always talk so highly of him.
• 46:39
  It's, it's, it's, he's such an asset to the series and a real
• 46:42
  sort of ambassador for the show. And the fact that he was, he's,
• 46:46
  we've been invited back to work on the series when it was when
• 46:49
  it came back just speaks volumes.
• 46:52
  Because I'm, I mean, most of the directors by that point probably
• 46:54
  weren't in a position to work on the series again.
• 46:56
  But Graham Harper was and still is directing and he's well into
• 47:00
  his 70s now. I mean.
• 47:03
  Look at the stuff he did in the new series for goodness sake.
• 47:06
  I mean, I think the the momentum and the drama of stuff like
• 47:11
  Stolen Earth, Waters of Mars, Utopia, the last 10 minutes of
• 47:15
  Utopia, like I think when he left the series it was a
• 47:21
  Moffett's era lost something amazing.
• 47:23
  He found some fairly good directors.
• 47:25
  I think Rachel's hello, people like that.
• 47:28
  But Graham Harper's absence is still missing.
• 47:31
  I would love for him to come back and do more.
• 47:32
  Rusty Davis coming back just to see what he can I'm.
• 47:34
  Sure. I'm sure he'll about asking back
• 47:37
  even just for a last hurrah because I'm sure somebody, I saw
• 47:40
  somebody tweet recently saying, oh, he's, he's just completed a
• 47:43
  block of Hollyoaks. So he's still working and he's
• 47:46
  70, I'm 76. He.
• 47:49
  Goes Revelation of Daleks BFI and he sent the most charming
• 47:54
  like telegram to be Reptile. And he was like, I really would
• 47:57
  have loved to have been there to talk about this and blah, blah,
• 47:59
  blah. But yeah, he was working on his
• 48:00
  Yeah, So he's definitely working.
• 48:03
  Lesson. OK.
• 48:05
  So we haven't touched on Sharis Jack.
• 48:07
  Yes. Extraordinary, amazing.
• 48:13
  Just. I don't think on any level like
• 48:20
  the weight, the design of the costume, the character, the
• 48:24
  performance, the insanely over the top dialogue, which I love.
• 48:28
  As you know, I think he's just an extraordinary character,
• 48:32
  like. It's yeah.
• 48:34
  You feel a lot of the characters in this are unsympathetic and
• 48:40
  there's no real, you know, they're just nasty for no good
• 48:43
  reason other than that. Just them.
• 48:46
  Whereas Shadows Jack, he's been wronged, he's been mutilated,
• 48:53
  he's motivated purely by revenge.
• 48:56
  He doesn't. It's you.
• 49:00
  Do you do feel sorry for him to a degree, especially by the end,
• 49:03
  Just once you know his motivation?
• 49:06
  And yeah, he's not entirely likable because he's doing
• 49:08
  terrible things to people. Yes, lets it happen.
• 49:12
  He's unhinged by his experiences.
• 49:16
  I can imagine he was probably a really nice person and then he's
• 49:20
  been so brutally betrayed and destroyed.
• 49:23
  Do you think? You see, I always imagined that
• 49:25
  he was a bit like the president, you know, vain.
• 49:28
  And I don't know if this society has brought up any particularly
• 49:33
  pleasant. We don't ever go to the like the
• 49:36
  main city of Androsani, do we? So we don't really know.
• 49:39
  Oh, no. Well, sorry, that's where Morgan
• 49:41
  is, isn't it? Yes, So you get you get enough
• 49:46
  of a feel for the society that they're living in from what Bob
• 49:49
  Holmes does. There's he's good at world
• 49:52
  building and just putting things into the script, even just
• 49:55
  little things like the way they address each other, Crow and Tro
• 50:01
  instead of Mr. and Misses. There's other writers that
• 50:03
  wouldn't even think to try and make things just a little bit
• 50:05
  more alien or sci-fi. Details about the spectrox that
• 50:09
  the information about the mine that was closed down here and
• 50:13
  one and a labour camp that was opened up there so there's
• 50:16
  people that are now unemployed but working for free without
• 50:20
  showing us anything you. He paints this picture of this
• 50:24
  world that's really vivid and he, he's so good at that, isn't
• 50:27
  he? Oh, so really good at it because
• 50:28
  it's something that other writers that he's maybe did
• 50:31
  script editing for spoke so high level, like Robert Bank.
• 50:35
  Stewart said that he didn't really know how to do sci-fi
• 50:40
  particularly well. So when he was invited to do
• 50:42
  Doctor Who, Doctor Who and he needed to fill a script out, he
• 50:45
  sat with Bob and he just said he sat his typewriter rattled off a
• 50:49
  page and it all made complete sense within the context of the
• 50:53
  story. And it was sci-fi stuff that he
• 50:55
  couldn't produce. But Bob, just.
• 50:58
  Knew with his strengths. Yeah, he absolutely understood
• 51:02
  the format and the the series well enough to be able to make
• 51:05
  it work, whatever the circumstance.
• 51:07
  Stories like the Rebus operation and I think perhaps probably the
• 51:11
  best example of world building that he did when he literally
• 51:15
  depicts that entire world vividly and just in about rooms,
• 51:19
  you know, but because they're talking about continents and
• 51:22
  religion and you know, there's like, you know, you get a
• 51:25
  massive idea of the society. And brilliant titles.
• 51:29
  Again, the graph Vinda key is such a brilliant name for
• 51:33
  character because you get other other writers and it's just
• 51:36
  like. Fucking as well and Jesus.
• 51:40
  Christ. Oh gosh, yeah.
• 51:42
  Oh, him and Shellac. Oh.
• 51:44
  Yeah. Jesus.
• 51:50
  But like, it's something that absolutely was not a massive
• 51:55
  strength of this era. I don't think you get stories
• 51:58
  like Time Lash where it's like, you know, they go like amazing
• 52:02
  leader, the Borat here is the council and you know, they're
• 52:06
  going to attack all 500 of us, our war with the bundles, you
• 52:11
  know, and it's so clunky and you're like, Oh my, you know.
• 52:15
  There's no subtlety about it, it's just that lines there for
• 52:18
  the sheer benefit of furthering the story, whereas Robert Holmes
• 52:22
  does it subtly enough that you just absorb stuff as it comes
• 52:26
  along. This is the work of a man who's
• 52:29
  pissed up every single corner of Doctor Who in it.
• 52:34
  Let's be honest. Oh, here he is.
• 52:36
  Although this is a nice starting.
• 52:38
  He's a terrific double turn though I think.
• 52:41
  I love the fact that every time he's not looking at someone he
• 52:44
  goes all like evil, doesn't he? Does the evil?
• 52:47
  Turn their backs. But then he does snap back into
• 52:53
  being very sort of humane again when became.
• 52:56
  There's one moment is it the bit when he when he next episodes
• 53:00
  where he spot the uses infrared and he turns around and he's
• 53:05
  sussed the situation and Chillax got his face to the camera and
• 53:09
  he he there's a lot going on there for somebody that's
• 53:11
  playing an Android that's an Android that's read the
• 53:14
  situation. Yeah, it's fantastic.
• 53:19
  OK, Nicola, Bryan. Yes.
• 53:23
  I I don't think there are many better performances from a
• 53:28
  companion than her performance in this story.
• 53:31
  And she is playing the victim throughout, don't get me wrong.
• 53:33
  And this is kind of like a default setting and there are a
• 53:36
  lot of incredibly troubling things going on with her
• 53:39
  character here. I think she is treated as an
• 53:43
  object of desire throughout, which is very she's so good.
• 53:49
  Like you could tear her from this and put her in a normal
• 53:52
  drama and it was still work. Oh yeah.
• 53:54
  She's just, she gives such a good performance in this and
• 53:57
  because it was the, I think it would have been the very first
• 53:59
  story that I had seen Perry in and it really lived with me,
• 54:04
  that performance. So I didn't see a lot of the six
• 54:07
  Doctor stories for years. After seeing the repeat of Cave
• 54:10
  Design, Caves of Andrazani and Revelation of the Dialects,
• 54:12
  she's good in that as well. Again, she's being lusted after.
• 54:19
  It's a common theme. Yeah.
• 54:21
  Quite a common theme actually. I mean, she's quite useful,
• 54:24
  don't get me wrong, but I think she has much, much more to
• 54:27
  offer. Yes, She's not just an object of
• 54:30
  desire for for characters, but yeah, because I think, yeah, The
• 54:36
  Two Doctors was the only story that I had on VHS.
• 54:41
  And in that she's pretty good as well.
• 54:42
  She gives a really great performance.
• 54:43
  And I really like having seen her in caves and having a good
• 54:46
  memory of that and seeing The Two Doctors.
• 54:48
  And she's great in that too. She's quite proactive and she's
• 54:51
  a bit hesitant to do things, but she sort of finds the courage to
• 54:55
  go and speak to Chisini in the villa while the doctor sneaks in
• 54:57
  the back and she's. American students.
• 55:04
  Oh, Chisini, what a character. Is great, but that noble history
• 55:09
  lies behind me. She's living for it, She really
• 55:14
  goes for it. We're not short of a camp over
• 55:16
  the top villain in the 80s, are we?
• 55:19
  Oh, gosh, no, yeah, we need, we need more characters like that
• 55:23
  in the new series. One thing worries me about this
• 55:26
  story, and I mentioned this when I talked about this with my
• 55:29
  friend Jack on the my other podcast and I want betrayed is
• 55:32
  that the direction is sometimes complicit in her.
• 55:36
  I'll treatment in this. So there's a sequence where
• 55:41
  Sharon Strick's had the mask pulled off and he's like, you
• 55:45
  know, you're going to look at my face now.
• 55:47
  And then she screams and she like, he goes across the set and
• 55:51
  then like, the camera's on him, but she's in the background.
• 55:55
  And it, it waits for one more second for her to let out like a
• 56:00
  terrified SOB. And I don't think Bowsers, they
• 56:04
  are really, really exposing her trauma.
• 56:07
  Oh gosh, yeah. She's so weak and fragile and I
• 56:12
  don't know what the characterization or the stuff
• 56:15
  going on in Planet Fire was about where where she's having
• 56:18
  the where she's in the bed and she's crying and she's saying,
• 56:22
  no, Howard, don't Howard. Don't come in my room also,
• 56:26
  she's going in. There's obviously from the get
• 56:28
  go, either subconsciously or subconsciously pleased God
• 56:33
  subconsciously an idea that she was going to be this victim from
• 56:36
  the off and that she had had a bit of a nasty back story and
• 56:39
  that perhaps fade in or drove the characterization and the
• 56:42
  writing of the character from that point on and.
• 56:46
  I think this is the story that does it like the most
• 56:51
  explicitly, but also the best as well.
• 56:54
  Like it's the best written of this template of her being a
• 56:58
  victim. Time lashes the worst where
• 57:01
  she's for no other reason than she's just a useless girl and
• 57:05
  she isn't. I'm not saying that, but that's
• 57:07
  how they treats her. They put her in this bloody
• 57:09
  manacle and had this enormous penis shaped monster.
• 57:15
  Roller for half an hour. There's nothing subtle going on
• 57:19
  here, is it? No, it's yes, it's quite
• 57:24
  something. She's she's poorly served.
• 57:26
  That's that's the misfortune of Perry and Nicola Bryant's time
• 57:31
  on the show. Do you mind the fruity dialogue
• 57:33
  in this? Like, you know, congealed in its
• 57:35
  own evil blood you. Know if it's really played to
• 57:40
  the Max and they do that here, it really serves the the the
• 57:45
  story. There's other stories where
• 57:47
  maybe that if if some other element let it down, if the
• 57:50
  performance wasn't so great or the direction wasn't really
• 57:54
  making the most of it, it would stand out.
• 57:56
  But Christopher Gable is absolutely selling it.
• 58:00
  He is a he's using that these or the the ebb and flow of the
• 58:05
  character. You know, he's trying to be calm
• 58:08
  and courteous, but underneath he's boiling with rage.
• 58:11
  And it comes out, I mean, you see him snap.
• 58:15
  I I find men like that terrifying, men that are very,
• 58:22
  very charming. But there's clearly an anger,
• 58:24
  like restrained beneath the service and it pops out every
• 58:29
  now and again. I've known men like this.
• 58:31
  We've been in relationship with them, thank God.
• 58:34
  Oh, no, there was one, but we won't go there.
• 58:36
  It was a very short relationship and it was very short as well.
• 58:40
  Short man's syndrome. Sorry.
• 58:41
  Anyway, so I've maybe that's why he frightens me a little bit as
• 58:46
  well. I do.
• 58:46
  I find that sort of unpredictability of character.
• 58:49
  I like a nice, safe person, you know.
• 58:54
  That there might be, that there might be some redeeming quality
• 58:56
  there, and you're not necessarily getting that reading
• 59:00
  from any of the characters here that they're going to be good.
• 59:04
  What about all these? You can say it on the special
• 59:07
  features, all of these caves, everything's on wheels and
• 59:11
  they're basically rejigging them to look like a, you know, a
• 59:16
  network of caves rather than just, you know, one Boring.
• 59:20
  Yeah, it's quite, it's very neatly done because the by the
• 59:22
  end of the season, their budget was next to nothing.
• 59:26
  So to be able to do that and to have the lights down so low,
• 59:29
  there are times where occasionally you think, oh, I've
• 59:31
  seen that cave all before. But the majority of the time you
• 59:34
  wouldn't think with the way they reconfigure the sets, that
• 59:37
  that's what they've been doing all along.
• 59:38
  If you hadn't been told, he'd be numb the wiser.
• 59:42
  And they does something very clever as well in that they've
• 59:44
  had a couple of those, like cave walls strong enough so people
• 59:50
  can climb them. So it adds a sense of going up
• 59:53
  and down as well. So, you know, a lot of people
• 59:54
  sort of climbing up and oh God, here we go.
• 59:56
  Here's that special effect. Oh, couple of bags of flour
• 1:00:01
  around his neck. Yeah, I never noticed that his
• 1:00:06
  hearts were on the outside of his jacket till someone pointed
• 1:00:08
  it out to me, you know? Yeah, it spoiled the magic a
• 1:00:10
  little bit when somebody said that to me and I went, oh, so
• 1:00:12
  they are true enough. But like the sequences in Time
• 1:00:21
  Lash with an Android and he just walks very robotically, you
• 1:00:26
  know, whereas these that just went boop, boop, boop, you know,
• 1:00:29
  the camera went in very far. The jump cuts and the way, yeah,
• 1:00:34
  I think you've got directors who have very little literal
• 1:00:38
  readings and direct directing technique.
• 1:00:42
  And they say, right, well, you're a robot, act like one.
• 1:00:44
  Or you've got somebody like Graham Harper who's said to
• 1:00:47
  them, well, you're, you know, he's obviously said to these
• 1:00:49
  extras that are playing the androids.
• 1:00:51
  You're finally honed machines and you're there to kill and
• 1:00:55
  they cock their guns and they turn around and they, they're
• 1:00:58
  quite dynamic and scary. You know, they turn corners and
• 1:01:01
  they're there and they're ready with a gun moment's notice.
• 1:01:04
  Well there's like 1. Isn't it murder Salatin in
• 1:01:06
  episode 4? He literally just comes out of
• 1:01:08
  nowhere and starts blasting away.
• 1:01:11
  Whereas Pennant Roberts would have it walk in and go very.
• 1:01:15
  Slowly, I wish to announce my presence.
• 1:01:19
  Hi, I'm going to kill you now. There's these ones.
• 1:01:23
  You don't. You have no warning.
• 1:01:26
  No. OK, so we are now heading
• 1:01:28
  towards the cliffhanger episode. This is Flying Barn telling you.
• 1:01:34
  Featuring the Magma Beast, Yes. The the armadillo with the six
• 1:01:42
  pack. Again with a six pack.
• 1:01:45
  Yeah, it's got a six pack and it's got like veins going on in
• 1:01:49
  the thighs. It's been at the gym.
• 1:01:51
  I've never noticed. I'm going to watch out for it
• 1:01:53
  now. And I it's, it's obviously
• 1:01:55
  overdone the bulking powder because it can hardly, it barely
• 1:01:58
  toddles, but it's beefy. Wow, I see.
• 1:02:02
  Look, I really love this. They've climbed down the the
• 1:02:06
  it's got muscle over it for a start, so it feels old.
• 1:02:09
  They filled the set full of smoke and then they're climbing
• 1:02:12
  down as well. It's just.
• 1:02:15
  And there's only spotlights, so there's only so little light
• 1:02:17
  creeping through it's. From the Android in the mist.
• 1:02:21
  It's just simple techniques. And actually interestingly,
• 1:02:25
  Davison said that when he went back and watched old black and
• 1:02:31
  white Doctor Who, he said, I can't figure out why is it why
• 1:02:34
  is that so much more atmospheric and scary than what we're doing
• 1:02:38
  now? And it's because they they, it
• 1:02:41
  was simple techniques of silhouette and good lighting,
• 1:02:44
  things like this and. Yeah, there's something about
• 1:02:46
  physical effects and an analogue sound as well.
• 1:02:51
  Some of those early radiophonic sound effects can get through.
• 1:02:55
  They cut through you, they get right into your head in a way
• 1:02:58
  that sort of digital effects. Digital sound effects don't
• 1:03:03
  achieve that same. I watched Web Planet the other
• 1:03:07
  day. Absolutely.
• 1:03:08
  The sound effects in that. Yeah, especially that first
• 1:03:12
  episode. That really sells the
• 1:03:13
  atmosphere, doesn't it? All the chirping and the
• 1:03:15
  strangeness and the echo, that's dead simple.
• 1:03:21
  Well, my question about the the Magma Beast, this fabulous
• 1:03:25
  script, yeah, with the six pack that's about to emerge, is it is
• 1:03:31
  it necessary? It's the one bit of the script
• 1:03:34
  that could easily have got rid of it.
• 1:03:36
  Would have saved them studio time, saved them a few Bob, but
• 1:03:40
  they kept it. Look at its thighs.
• 1:03:44
  Excuse me? My fires look a bit like that.
• 1:03:46
  All right, OK. I feel a lot of walking.
• 1:03:49
  Actually a lot of walking too, but they're not like that.
• 1:03:52
  He's got his claws. Like he's a bit camping.
• 1:03:54
  He's got a claws. They're.
• 1:03:55
  Very frilly claws you would seem.
• 1:03:58
  Spaghetti you to death. You know, by all accounts,
• 1:04:02
  Graham Harper said that JNT went, Oh my God, look at that
• 1:04:06
  thing when they were up in the gallery, right?
• 1:04:08
  He goes, oh, what have they done?
• 1:04:10
  Like we look at that monster. And then Graham Harper was like,
• 1:04:12
  and then and then he had to go down at the floor and direct the
• 1:04:14
  bloody thing. And I'll just say I gave him one
• 1:04:17
  instruction. Get the mist going.
• 1:04:21
  That up as high as you can. It was such a sheep that there
• 1:04:24
  was always that need to have the monster in a story.
• 1:04:27
  It's a bit like a ghost light as well.
• 1:04:29
  They're really good, the monsters in that first
• 1:04:31
  cliffhanger. But the right Andrew Cartmel and
• 1:04:35
  Mark Platt both said we didn't have them in the first draft.
• 1:04:39
  They were only put in because JMT said where's the monster I?
• 1:04:42
  Have a monster, Yeah, but then it's like the new series now,
• 1:04:45
  isn't it? They they won't do a historical
• 1:04:48
  without a science fiction element.
• 1:04:50
  Yeah, it would be interesting to have a pure historical but.
• 1:04:53
  Whatever happened to trusting your audience, you know?
• 1:04:57
  Exactly. Have some faith in them.
• 1:04:58
  It's a bit like the there's arguments that they say you
• 1:05:02
  couldn't have a long story that spans weeks and weeks and weeks
• 1:05:06
  at a time and have a long continuing arc.
• 1:05:08
  And. You think, well, that's
• 1:05:10
  intriguing because people can follow a soap and you can have a
• 1:05:13
  plot that might not even be resolved for two or three years
• 1:05:17
  until somebody gets their comeuppance or they've, you
• 1:05:20
  know, they finally fall pregnant or whatever.
• 1:05:23
  But they say, oh, you can't really fund you that in sci-fi.
• 1:05:25
  That was something that they, you know, you know, if Eric
• 1:05:27
  Sabers, another writer, say we would have done it, but it would
• 1:05:29
  nobody would have followed. It would be worth it.
• 1:05:31
  I think all the best soap villains were allowed to brew
• 1:05:35
  for a year or two. Like Rita's husband in Corrie.
• 1:05:39
  Was it Alan Bradley or that Nutter that had GAIL Platt and
• 1:05:45
  her kids taped up in the car and it went over, what's his name?
• 1:05:48
  Richard Hilburn. Oh yes.
• 1:05:50
  Tried to kill Emily Bishop with a with a cushion.
• 1:05:53
  Nobody should be allowed to get away with that.
• 1:05:55
  This is now the Coronation Street podcast.
• 1:05:57
  Sorry. Tangent, tangent again.
• 1:06:01
  Richard Hillman, the only man more evil than Morgus.
• 1:06:04
  Yes, Oh gosh. Maybe they're related.
• 1:06:07
  Maybe. Maybe Margus is a descendant?
• 1:06:10
  Well look, that was a fabulous episode 2.
• 1:06:13
  Do you feel ready to jump into Episode 3?
• 1:06:15
  Yeah, let's go for it. Let's do it.
• 1:06:53
  Hamster with a brump pen knife will do it quicker, quicker,
• 1:06:55
  quicker. Welcome back to our Hamster with
• 1:07:01
  a Blunt and Knife, the Doctor Who Commentary podcast.
• 1:07:05
  Well, do you like a bit of rough you?
• 1:07:11
  Forewarned me that you were going to be a bit rude here.
• 1:07:14
  Well, in what context? What context is this is you know
• 1:07:21
  Morris Reeves character stops in this?
• 1:07:25
  Yes. He's really violent, isn't he?
• 1:07:28
  And he's kind. Of yeah, he's kind of beardy and
• 1:07:30
  all of this. Man.
• 1:07:32
  Oh man, I don't think I've ever turned on more by Doctor Who
• 1:07:35
  that when he's got his knife out or when he's shooting people
• 1:07:37
  dead. And he's got cuffs.
• 1:07:41
  Yeah, well, I say it's about either of us, but.
• 1:07:47
  Yeah, my mind went to cuffs. 1st.
• 1:07:52
  Violence and beards. Well, there we go.
• 1:07:56
  I don't know why I brought that, really.
• 1:07:57
  It's just absolutely. I want it to be filthy from the
• 1:07:59
  off. Get it off Get.
• 1:08:03
  It off. You know, get it out of the
• 1:08:05
  system. Are you ready to skip into
• 1:08:09
  episode 3 of the case manner? Sure AM.
• 1:08:13
  OK, so just to prove that you've been paying attention up until
• 1:08:15
  now. God I haven't done this for
• 1:08:17
  ages. If you could just give us a
• 1:08:19
  rough synopsis of what's occurred to date.
• 1:08:23
  Well, Perry did a somersault into some bat guano, the doctor
• 1:08:29
  touched it, and now they're slowly progressively dying in
• 1:08:32
  the midst of a small war basically over a jizzy looking
• 1:08:39
  chemical that prolongs people's lives.
• 1:08:43
  And now the doctor's been cornered by an armadillo with A6
• 1:08:46
  pack. It's the most succinct reading
• 1:08:50
  and unique reading of the case of Andrews I've ever heard, but
• 1:08:56
  it's not entirely erroneous. I don't think I was too off the
• 1:09:00
  block. Semen liquid.
• 1:09:05
  I'm going to press play if you get to count us into episode 3
• 1:09:09
  all. Right 543. 2. 1.
• 1:09:15
  Oh my, Dillos a go. Yes, I'm a Dillos a go go look.
• 1:09:20
  At this title sequence, Honestly.
• 1:09:21
  Oh. It's one of my faves.
• 1:09:24
  Starish doesn't always. It doesn't.
• 1:09:28
  It's a bit weird they got rid of that for Colin Baker, didn't
• 1:09:30
  they? Yeah, I think it was.
• 1:09:32
  I think it was because Sid Sutton said Peter Davidson had a
• 1:09:34
  boring face. So as he said, with Tom, you
• 1:09:39
  could do the stars forming the curly hair.
• 1:09:43
  It's really. It is a very.
• 1:09:44
  It's a. Plain simple face.
• 1:09:46
  Isn't that what? Yes, there's not a feature to
• 1:09:48
  work with. Actually, didn't they have They
• 1:09:52
  had terrible trouble with the comic strip as well, didn't
• 1:09:54
  they? Because they had to pull in
• 1:09:57
  Peter Davison because he was not happy with his likeness in the
• 1:10:00
  comic strip in the early days. And to this day, artists seem to
• 1:10:04
  struggle with his likeness. And he even now he says things
• 1:10:07
  like, oh, they took hundreds of reference photos.
• 1:10:10
  Why? Why doesn't it work?
• 1:10:13
  The ones that Tom and John look like Tom and John.
• 1:10:17
  Does the Magnum? Feast die here.
• 1:10:19
  No, he's still about, isn't he later on?
• 1:10:21
  Yeah, he's still about later. There was a scene in the last
• 1:10:24
  episode where the Doctor was meant to have a fight with it.
• 1:10:29
  No, I wouldn't mean look at this man now grappling away with.
• 1:10:33
  It exactly. So they.
• 1:10:35
  Yeah, they were because they were running out of studio time.
• 1:10:37
  Eric Seaward and Robert Holmes went to the BBC bar and had been
• 1:10:42
  told specifically you need to cut something.
• 1:10:45
  And they went, well, fight with a monster that can go because
• 1:10:49
  basically the doctor was going to take a bit of equipment that
• 1:10:51
  had been left by the character that was killed by the magma
• 1:10:54
  beast right at the very start, and either sort of fence the
• 1:10:59
  monster or plunge it into its mouth.
• 1:11:00
  And then it would fly off and supposedly fall over a Cliff.
• 1:11:05
  I mean, I think Graham Hart could probably could have pulled
• 1:11:06
  it off, but well, maybe not with that part.
• 1:11:10
  But did you see how dark that was when he was coming towards
• 1:11:12
  the Doctor? Then you could barely outline
• 1:11:15
  like. Oh yeah, you can imagine.
• 1:11:17
  He was saying turn it down a bit more, bit more, turn it down a
• 1:11:20
  bit more. Exactly what Bennett Roberts
• 1:11:22
  should have said in Warriors in the Deep with America.
• 1:11:24
  Oh yes, have. A power cut on sea base 4.
• 1:11:27
  Fairfax yeah, we'll just have the eyes glowing.
• 1:11:29
  That'll. Do.
• 1:11:33
  But I mean, I mentioned the lion before.
• 1:11:35
  The lion in these caves is particularly strong.
• 1:11:39
  Oh, it's really effective. Especially the way it casts the
• 1:11:41
  light on Jack's mask that you can hide in the shadows is
• 1:11:49
  fantastic and people can just appear and disappear.
• 1:11:52
  It's like they say, isn't it? It's what you don't see.
• 1:11:55
  That's the, you know, your imagination rather than what you
• 1:11:59
  do. Yeah, by all accounts,
• 1:12:02
  Christopher Bagel. Christopher Bagel.
• 1:12:04
  Christopher Gable. Sorry.
• 1:12:08
  Christopher Gable read the script that Graham Harper sent
• 1:12:12
  him and said, look, this is something I particularly want to
• 1:12:15
  do, but I want to work with you. And if that isn't an endorsement
• 1:12:21
  of him as a director and just as a person, get somebody that good
• 1:12:26
  to basically has he he done movies and all sorts of even JNT
• 1:12:30
  said, I think he's a bit too big for us.
• 1:12:31
  You know, I don't think we'll get him.
• 1:12:33
  Which is really, it's so interesting because it's it's
• 1:12:37
  not a name that people would really know now, but he was
• 1:12:39
  obviously quite a figure that was well known at the time
• 1:12:43
  because he was well known in ballet circles as well.
• 1:12:46
  And ran and no, I've only seen like a headshot but never I
• 1:12:50
  would like to see. His beauty, he was, yeah,
• 1:12:53
  beautiful man. So to slap him in all this
• 1:12:55
  makeup and that mask. Absolutely, because I think
• 1:13:00
  Graham Harper initially thought of him for Celac.
• 1:13:05
  OK. Yes, my name was.
• 1:13:08
  Shara's Jack. And he would rather, and he said
• 1:13:11
  I'd rather do Shara's Jack. Oh my word, this sequence here.
• 1:13:16
  I think this is one of those moments where the show goes too
• 1:13:20
  far. Yeah, they're crossing along.
• 1:13:22
  Smacks the Doctor in the face and then the androids literally
• 1:13:26
  start tearing his arms out of his sockets.
• 1:13:30
  Davison plays it for real. Well, he actually did get
• 1:13:33
  slapped. Oh wow.
• 1:13:35
  OK. Glass eye, he couldn't, his
• 1:13:39
  depth perception wasn't right, so he just spun around and he
• 1:13:43
  and he does make contact with Davison and I think in an
• 1:13:45
  interview he said that bloody. Hurt.
• 1:13:48
  I think this is the point where Jack's irredeemable now a bit,
• 1:13:52
  because he's basically saying he's going to tear his arms and
• 1:13:54
  legs off, yeah. But it's all because everybody
• 1:13:59
  in the story has misread the situation.
• 1:14:00
  They all think the Doctor is something he's not.
• 1:14:04
  So let's see, let's let's let's take it off Shara's Dick.
• 1:14:07
  Jack thinks he's working. I.
• 1:14:10
  Think he's connected, Think he's a spy for Morgus or the
• 1:14:13
  Conglomerate or Consortium or whatever the term there is on
• 1:14:17
  Andresani Major Margus thinks he's a spy.
• 1:14:24
  Everybody thinks he's up to no good.
• 1:14:26
  And all the doctor really went there for was to get some sand
• 1:14:29
  to make some glass. But well, in particular a rectum
• 1:14:34
  gauge or a rectum. Rectum gauge.
• 1:14:38
  Well. Rectum gauge.
• 1:14:40
  There we go. So it's, it's a completely
• 1:14:43
  hapless circumstance. It's I like the fact that it's
• 1:14:47
  not a story that the the Doctor's regeneration hasn't
• 1:14:51
  been foreshadowed weeks in advance.
• 1:14:53
  There's not been, he will knock four times.
• 1:14:55
  There's not been You're going to meet your doom.
• 1:14:58
  Any question of that. He's just fallen into this
• 1:15:01
  situation and from three minutes into the story, he's actually
• 1:15:04
  dying. Yeah, and it's just an.
• 1:15:08
  Accident. It's.
• 1:15:09
  Just a, yeah, complete accident. Yeah, That's that's, that's a
• 1:15:14
  lovely. Reading the eyes he gave there
• 1:15:17
  when he looked through the wall. Roger Lim.
• 1:15:20
  You know whose music I don't usually write?
• 1:15:23
  It's music and things like Arc of Infinity and Terminus.
• 1:15:25
  It's like, you know, oral wallpaper.
• 1:15:28
  It's and loud wallpaper, whereas his music for this and for
• 1:15:34
  revelation of the darling Graham Harper said.
• 1:15:36
  He's basically sat him down and said this is the phone and the
• 1:15:39
  mood that I want. I don't want your shitty music
• 1:15:41
  that you normally do. Wait, I'm sure we didn't say
• 1:15:44
  like that. That's my reading.
• 1:15:47
  I don't think the directors. Were.
• 1:15:52
  Very artistically inclined. I think that's where Graham
• 1:15:55
  Harper different. He came in and he knew exactly
• 1:15:58
  what he wanted to achieve. And he'd said, I don't
• 1:16:01
  understand music at all, Roger, but I want a rattlesnake sort of
• 1:16:04
  motif for shadows. Jack.
• 1:16:06
  I want this. I want that episode.
• 1:16:09
  You wanted the bell tolling throughout episode 4?
• 1:16:12
  To be a. Foreshadow of the Doctor's
• 1:16:14
  death, Yeah. And then he, because he'd been
• 1:16:17
  happening to listen to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band
• 1:16:20
  around him at the time this was in production, he said.
• 1:16:22
  I figured out how I want to do the regeneration scene.
• 1:16:25
  I want it to be like the A Day in a Life track where it just
• 1:16:28
  builds and builds and builds and builds builds.
• 1:16:30
  And it gave Roger Lim something to work with.
• 1:16:33
  Whereas I think some directors just said, oh, can you put
• 1:16:35
  something under this scene? Can you maybe give that a bit of
• 1:16:38
  a sting? Can you say to Dudley Simpson, I
• 1:16:42
  trust you to do this, Just just do it?
• 1:16:44
  But I think that Simpson kind of knew what he was doing, you
• 1:16:46
  know? He he always seemed to get it
• 1:16:49
  right. And when he was working with a
• 1:16:50
  receptive director, he got it so damn right.
• 1:16:53
  It was brilliant look. At the lighting there, I mean,
• 1:16:57
  that's theatrical lighting, that is.
• 1:16:59
  That's one spotlight right in the middle of the set.
• 1:17:02
  Everything else is in darkness. No dramatic.
• 1:17:06
  Yeah, and it's the only bit where I would say that Robert
• 1:17:09
  Holmes writes specifically for 1/5 for the 5th Doctor.
• 1:17:14
  For the rest of the time he seems to be writing for generic
• 1:17:17
  Doctor. But at that point, the 5th
• 1:17:19
  Doctor says just leave me here to die.
• 1:17:21
  I don't think any of the other doctors would ever have said
• 1:17:24
  that. They might think it in the row
• 1:17:26
  of need or desperation, but they'll play one.
• 1:17:29
  And the 1st Doctor does as well. He's still the hero at the end
• 1:17:32
  of the day. But it's the, it's a, it's an
• 1:17:36
  admission of his weakness and defeat.
• 1:17:40
  And that's, that's something that's fairly unique to the 5th
• 1:17:43
  Doctor, really. And he's clearly like on the
• 1:17:47
  like the verge of death. So the fact that he is so
• 1:17:50
  physical in that last episode to try and save Perry, it really
• 1:17:55
  genuinely for like probably the first time, maybe the War Games
• 1:17:59
  nine. It feels like a race against
• 1:18:01
  time to it. Really does.
• 1:18:03
  You know it. The suspense in the last episode
• 1:18:06
  is continuous. It does not stop.
• 1:18:10
  And Perry is the driving force. She's hardly in it, to be
• 1:18:14
  honest. In episodes 3 and 4, she's
• 1:18:16
  largely unconscious, dipping in and out of consciousness,
• 1:18:21
  really. But the doctor's thinking of her
• 1:18:23
  the whole time. This girl that he hardly knows
• 1:18:26
  hasn't known her more than a couple of days at best, but it's
• 1:18:29
  willing to sacrifice his life to save her.
• 1:18:31
  Which? It really was, doesn't it, that
• 1:18:33
  Davidson's very sort of humane doctor sacrificed himself for
• 1:18:38
  one person. It's not, you know, saving the
• 1:18:41
  universe Lagopolis. It's not facing your fears in
• 1:18:45
  Planet of the Spiders. It's not, you know, a showdown
• 1:18:48
  with the gods in The Walking and obviously the first one.
• 1:18:52
  Yeah, and I really like that. I would like a a future Doctors
• 1:18:56
  regeneration to be something more small scale again and.
• 1:18:59
  Well, you never know. There's one round the corner.
• 1:19:02
  Exactly. It'd be really intriguing.
• 1:19:04
  What about the tumultuous buffeting of time in the Rani
• 1:19:08
  that was? We've all fallen victim of some
• 1:19:10
  tumultuous buffeting in our time, but.
• 1:19:12
  Jesus about 5 * a week. Never bumped me off yet.
• 1:19:18
  Now Or me. Oh, I love this bit here where
• 1:19:22
  he's like something is going on. I don't know what it is.
• 1:19:27
  Although when I was watching it recently and Graham Harper's
• 1:19:30
  direction is good, we've already covered that.
• 1:19:32
  However, the way this is done, is Morgus just really short
• 1:19:36
  sighted? Can he not see the doctor there?
• 1:19:39
  He thinks he's got he's got that man tied up for a bit of fun
• 1:19:42
  after the call. Obviously how he how is, yeah,
• 1:19:47
  maybe just let that dried. Yeah, he's always got somebody
• 1:19:49
  hanging about. There, half tied up behind me
• 1:19:51
  here. Look, that's for when we're
• 1:19:53
  done, you know? Because what they could have
• 1:19:57
  done is have a tighter shot on Maurice Roves and you could have
• 1:20:03
  had maybe the doctor, because he's starting to fall.
• 1:20:05
  I'll jolt. Or lose his balance slightly and
• 1:20:09
  fall into shot so that Morgus would then go, wait, what's he
• 1:20:12
  doing there? Where is he?
• 1:20:14
  He's there in plain sight the whole time and then he goes,
• 1:20:16
  hey, what's he doing there? Doesn't work the same.
• 1:20:19
  Although I would say we're being a little bit nitpicky, but you
• 1:20:22
  know, it's. Perfect.
• 1:20:25
  So maybe. I don't know, maybe something
• 1:20:26
  got lost in translation there. Potentially, yeah, just not
• 1:20:29
  being able to get the right shot, the right framing, because
• 1:20:32
  it's still a really, it's something that has nobody pulled
• 1:20:35
  off before doing this. And you'd have the bit and scene
• 1:20:37
  1 where Marcus walks behind the image, which is so clever.
• 1:20:42
  Right. Isn't it?
• 1:20:42
  It is great, yeah. I mean, they they play about
• 1:20:45
  with that bit in Revelation as well.
• 1:20:46
  Again, that's Graham Harper. Like bucking the trend.
• 1:20:50
  Normally it's like, you know, the TARDIS, the the thing open
• 1:20:53
  up and it's just an image on a screen, you know, and then yawn.
• 1:20:57
  And he just keeps bringing, yeah, just trying to inject
• 1:20:59
  visual interest to everything. Even if you'd given Graham
• 1:21:02
  Harper a really dud script, if he'd done Time Lash, for
• 1:21:04
  example, Time Lash would have been 10 times better.
• 1:21:09
  Still would have had a rubbishy script, but it would have looked
• 1:21:11
  amazing. If Pennant Roberts had done
• 1:21:12
  Revelation in the Dark, so I dread to think what that would
• 1:21:14
  have looked like. Yeah, that would be interesting.
• 1:21:17
  But you hear from the doctor's line that I love it, I am
• 1:21:20
  telling the truth. I keep telling the truth.
• 1:21:22
  Why is it no one believes me? Life lesson.
• 1:21:27
  Such a desperate situation. Davison's best performance in a
• 1:21:31
  second. This the cliffhanger he does.
• 1:21:33
  Oh. That's so good.
• 1:21:36
  Oh, this is great, isn't it A double, double bluff.
• 1:21:39
  We're going to pin the Android off into the into the what
• 1:21:43
  they're called. Oh.
• 1:21:47
  You said the word earlier. Burrows.
• 1:21:51
  No. Not the Burrows.
• 1:21:52
  No. Narrows.
• 1:21:53
  The Narrows thank you off into that.
• 1:21:56
  Apparently he had terrible trouble every time he said that
• 1:21:58
  line penetrating the narrows and things as Glenister and Davidson
• 1:22:04
  work together in swim as they're brothers in that so so they
• 1:22:09
  already had this terrible corpse in thing where they looked each
• 1:22:12
  other in the eye and burst out laughing.
• 1:22:13
  And then he was given a line about penetrating the Narrows
• 1:22:17
  and you look Davidson. Don't even look him in the eye
• 1:22:19
  the whole scene. How could you?
• 1:22:21
  Yeah, That would set most people off.
• 1:22:23
  It's a, it's a quite, it's a, it's a Robert Holmes line.
• 1:22:26
  He did like to get lines in there that could be read other
• 1:22:30
  ways. Yeah.
• 1:22:33
  A single entendre sometimes. Oh, at least yes, at best.
• 1:22:39
  I like, I love this Jake just in the shad.
• 1:22:43
  Isn't he standing on the rock? Yeah, just really, quite
• 1:22:46
  brazenly. Leg cocked up, ready for panto.
• 1:22:50
  Oh yes. Proper villainy and melodrama.
• 1:22:57
  So he wants to exist down in this den of iniquity with just
• 1:23:03
  Perry, Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:23:05
  Well, that's very unpleasant. Yeah, it's not the nicest.
• 1:23:12
  Oh, and now he's and saying this to Morgus to try and this is.
• 1:23:21
  Oh, hang. On this is.
• 1:23:22
  Yeah, because Jack is monitoring the transmissions.
• 1:23:24
  That's right, yeah. Kayla has to transmit that he's
• 1:23:27
  up to do this mission. He sent them off to do this
• 1:23:30
  mission so that Jack doesn't think that they're doing the
• 1:23:34
  they're doing what? That that it is a double bluff,
• 1:23:37
  But he already knows anyway. He's just said to Salatin at all
• 1:23:42
  just to fix. And he knows, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:44
  So like, it's great, isn't it? Because like, we can't really
• 1:23:47
  out think these characters. They're all out thinking each
• 1:23:50
  other. Well, apart from Chelak, of
• 1:23:52
  course, who's been a dunce all along.
• 1:23:54
  Yeah, bless. He's such a.
• 1:23:55
  You know, he gets the moment where he goes, oh, you know,
• 1:23:58
  I've been such a fool. You know, like he should have
• 1:24:00
  just looked straight at the camera and said, yeah, well, I
• 1:24:02
  wasn't a fucking idiot all along.
• 1:24:04
  He was monitoring every transmission.
• 1:24:06
  You know, he was a bit of an idiot.
• 1:24:11
  Oh yes. What is this thing supposed to
• 1:24:13
  be? This laser are.
• 1:24:16
  You sure some sort of drive? Whatever it is, though, it does.
• 1:24:19
  It does. It's like, oh, I do what it is.
• 1:24:22
  It's one of those flycatches, isn't it?
• 1:24:26
  Yes, like that, yeah. Because it sort of sizzles.
• 1:24:31
  Quite like that. The doctor does sort of Sherlock
• 1:24:33
  Holmes, a detective type of things in this and manages to
• 1:24:36
  get himself out of these situations or the bit and the
• 1:24:40
  very beginning when he picks up the dice and he goes, oh, well,
• 1:24:42
  these are still warm. Somebody was obviously here a
• 1:24:44
  minute ago. He's just being that bit more
• 1:24:47
  doctorish because you've got somebody like Robert Holmes who
• 1:24:50
  really knows the series. That's really unpleasant.
• 1:24:53
  She just woke up and he. Chloroform.
• 1:24:58
  That's, that's really not nice like that to me.
• 1:25:03
  That would be my worst night there to wake up, I don't know,
• 1:25:05
  in my bedroom. And there's a room in my house,
• 1:25:08
  but they're not coming out. Dear, dear, I don't think Robert
• 1:25:14
  Holmes thinking about the kiddos you know at home.
• 1:25:17
  No. Well, there was the tale that,
• 1:25:21
  you know, he was always out there to scare the buggers to
• 1:25:23
  death. So that was his attitude.
• 1:25:27
  And I think Doctor Who has a plea.
• 1:25:28
  It should scare, but it shouldn't be.
• 1:25:31
  Traumatized though. Traumatizing is all that, and
• 1:25:35
  you shouldn't have things that you'd imitate in the playground
• 1:25:37
  like they're trying to RIP off the doctor's arms.
• 1:25:39
  Well, I'm sorry, but I don't want kids going to the blank
• 1:25:41
  playground with chloroform. Yeah, just yeah, there's quite
• 1:25:45
  a. My little playmate's fast
• 1:25:47
  asleep, right? I'm going to wake her up.
• 1:25:50
  And then later in the two doctors brandishing knives.
• 1:25:55
  We've been branching knives or scissors since Edge of
• 1:25:58
  Destruction. Yes, Lambert learnt from that
• 1:26:03
  quick. He tore into that bloody chair
• 1:26:06
  like you wouldn't believe. Oh this is great.
• 1:26:10
  When he shoves him down the lift shaft and he says what was it?
• 1:26:14
  Your excellencies concern is my only of whatever he says.
• 1:26:17
  And. Then just plants it right in his
• 1:26:19
  chest. It's a shame the special effects
• 1:26:22
  a bit naff, but it's still a. Great.
• 1:26:23
  Yeah. I think Doctor Pulaski from Star
• 1:26:26
  Trek The Next Generation, you know, before fate.
• 1:26:30
  Not as Doctor Pulaski. She was playing a character in
• 1:26:32
  like a medical drama and she got shaft as well.
• 1:26:35
  Right. Oh, there we go.
• 1:26:38
  I mean, if you're going to go right, you may as well have a
• 1:26:40
  great moment like that minute. This is like the most evil line
• 1:26:46
  he gets where he's like was it have to lift maintenance
• 1:26:50
  engineer shop and. The fact and the fact that he
• 1:26:55
  says to Tim and he says it could have been worse, it could have
• 1:27:00
  been me. We'll have a one minute silence
• 1:27:05
  in his in his honour. Oh no, wait, make it half a
• 1:27:08
  minute. He's.
• 1:27:11
  Up and there was a proper Bob Holmes joke that was taken out
• 1:27:14
  in the edit where they're talking about an overproduction
• 1:27:18
  problem in the mines and the whoever the this person off
• 1:27:25
  camera that's discussed that's killed in the mines.
• 1:27:29
  He asks Tim in or what what can you tell me about him?
• 1:27:32
  Oh, he had five wives and several children.
• 1:27:34
  And he says Oh yes, I see an overproduction problem.
• 1:27:37
  Oh. My God, what is that?
• 1:27:39
  A line that's been exposed from this.
• 1:27:40
  Yeah, that would have been you just think that's that's Bob
• 1:27:43
  Holmes being rude again. Man, he's savage, isn't it?
• 1:27:47
  I love it. Oh yes, some other writers just
• 1:27:50
  wouldn't even dream of putting something that, you know, people
• 1:27:53
  that viewed it as a children's show wouldn't think of lines
• 1:27:56
  like that. I mean, we are supposed to think
• 1:27:58
  of Morgan as utterly irredeemable, aren't we?
• 1:28:01
  But even you know what, right? As awful as he is, yeah, I do
• 1:28:07
  feel sorry for him when it all starts falling apart from him in
• 1:28:09
  the last. I don't know why.
• 1:28:12
  I think Timon is the only person that comes out of it better off.
• 1:28:17
  Everybody else in this story, their lives are destroyed or
• 1:28:19
  they're killed, or both. Even she's fucking corrupt
• 1:28:21
  though, isn't she? Oh yeah, she's been.
• 1:28:25
  From all your offshore accounts, Morgus.
• 1:28:29
  Every penny is hers. Now do.
• 1:28:31
  You know, I've seen some pretty terribly designed androids over
• 1:28:35
  the years. Those are the best I think I've
• 1:28:37
  ever seen. You know they are so simple.
• 1:28:43
  I think it. Was I just, I really, I really
• 1:28:48
  find all of this stuff with Perry very uncomfortable.
• 1:28:51
  In a minute he's like, we could think of the future and he's
• 1:28:54
  touching her hair and she's like gulping.
• 1:28:56
  Her face. And she like.
• 1:28:58
  What, what, what future? She's terrified.
• 1:29:01
  Yeah. It's, it's, it's quite
• 1:29:04
  harrowing. Should Doctor Who be that
• 1:29:08
  harrowing? It's.
• 1:29:11
  As A1. Off.
• 1:29:12
  I think as a one off, yes, it's definitely pushes the boundaries
• 1:29:16
  and the issue is that they try to do things like this again.
• 1:29:20
  Do you think there's a story as explicitly adult as this
• 1:29:24
  anywhere else? I can think of a few that
• 1:29:27
  probably come close. I can think of things as grim,
• 1:29:32
  but maybe not as I think the things like in Dark Water.
• 1:29:38
  Oh yeah, my words, Yeah. That's that's that's something
• 1:29:43
  that felt quite, I think for people that might have had loss
• 1:29:47
  at that time to see that episode and have some have, you know, to
• 1:29:50
  read that reveal. Oh, don't burn me, Please don't
• 1:29:52
  burn me. Oh, listen to my episode on that
• 1:29:54
  one because I I've lost my mother and I went on a mad rant
• 1:29:58
  so yeah. Yeah.
• 1:30:02
  I think that it's, I mean, it's not adult as in it is it's a
• 1:30:06
  fantastical situation. But I think end of the Sound of
• 1:30:10
  Drums, where the topophane descend and start murdering 10%
• 1:30:15
  of the population of the earth. And it's very explicitly seen on
• 1:30:20
  the High Street in people's houses, a woman holding a baby
• 1:30:24
  and then the whole city in flat. I'm thinking that's that is
• 1:30:28
  pretty strong. Yeah.
• 1:30:32
  And there's there's like images as well and things like that.
• 1:30:34
  Like, do you remember in Mind of Evil, when Barnum has it,
• 1:30:40
  there's a sequence which looks very like a man in an electric
• 1:30:43
  chair, and it's very starkly short.
• 1:30:46
  And especially when you watch it in black and white and it feels
• 1:30:49
  very sort of explicitly adult and things like that.
• 1:30:52
  There's so there's moments. Yeah you can sort of you can
• 1:30:55
  understand because there was questions in parliament after
• 1:30:57
  things that happened in terror of the Autons and other Robert
• 1:31:00
  Holmes pushing the boundaries situation.
• 1:31:02
  Then you've got mind a view which is still pretty adult.
• 1:31:05
  Barry let's gets obviously gets quite a ticking off and things
• 1:31:10
  get torn down quite significantly after that.
• 1:31:12
  And he said later on there's things that Philip Hinchcliffe
• 1:31:15
  and Robert Holmes got away with when they were leading the show
• 1:31:18
  that he knew he would have gotten in trouble for.
• 1:31:21
  So it's quite interesting that the attitudes to certain
• 1:31:25
  violence and behaviours change. Well, I think they all like to
• 1:31:28
  call controversy a little, and J&T famously says, well I loved
• 1:31:32
  it when Mrs. Whitehouse watched and disapproved because it
• 1:31:35
  basically put 2,000,000 viewers on the.
• 1:31:38
  Straightforward, because you say that and that sometimes that's
• 1:31:40
  what people want is something a bit risky and a bit, whether
• 1:31:43
  it's being scary or violent, that attracts.
• 1:31:47
  Do you think the audience do? You think that special effect on
• 1:31:50
  the screen we just saw then was Peter Davidson's regeneration
• 1:31:54
  coming after him because it is the same special effect that
• 1:31:56
  they used in the last episode? Or do you think that's just a
• 1:31:58
  special effect of him going towards the planet?
• 1:32:01
  I think it's meant to be intentional.
• 1:32:04
  OK. This is, this is such a really
• 1:32:09
  there's about, there's, there's, it's like dozens and dozens of
• 1:32:11
  shots. It's just cut, cut, cut this
• 1:32:13
  cliffhanger. And the the pace of Davidson's
• 1:32:17
  performance just goes up. And you see this when he does,
• 1:32:20
  when he gets the new series on our budget.
• 1:32:22
  He does this on a grand scale, you know.
• 1:32:24
  Oh. Yeah, Oh, here we go.
• 1:32:28
  The last 10 minutes of the waters of miles is OK, exhausted
• 1:32:32
  like it's it's ramps up and up. He can do that pace.
• 1:32:36
  The line. Say the line.
• 1:32:38
  Oh, go on. I'm not going to.
• 1:32:42
  I'm not going to let you stop me now.
• 1:32:45
  I owe it to my friend because what was it?
• 1:32:48
  I owe a. Boyfriend to try because I got
• 1:32:49
  her into this. So you see, I'm not going to let
• 1:32:52
  you stop me now. It's just great.
• 1:32:54
  It really just given that Adric died, this is the Doctor making
• 1:33:01
  amends. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:33:06
  And Oh my God, sorry. I'm just, I'm absolutely
• 1:33:11
  gobsmacked by how good that was. That's two out of three.
• 1:33:15
  Phenomenal. Technically, we get three out of
• 1:33:19
  four. Yes.
• 1:33:23
  Because some might say the scariest cliffhanger of all
• 1:33:25
  comes when Colin Baker emerges out of Peter Davidson.
• 1:33:29
  Well. I'm going to cut it then
• 1:34:00
  None. Hamster with a blunt pen knife.
• 1:34:13
  They're doing quicker, quicker. Welcome back to Hamster with a
• 1:34:20
  Blunt Pen Knife, the Doctor Who Commentary podcasts.
• 1:34:24
  I'm here with Joe. My name is Mark, in case you've
• 1:34:27
  forgotten, and we've been following the case of Andresan
• 1:34:32
  and Rosani. All right, I put my teeth back
• 1:34:34
  in. We are on the last leg, the 5th
• 1:34:38
  Doctor. He's pretty much on his last leg
• 1:34:40
  as well. Fanty crawls quite a lot.
• 1:34:42
  He's pretty much given up the GOAT at this point.
• 1:34:45
  Covered in mud, blood and Nicola Brah's boobs.
• 1:34:50
  And bat milk. And bat milk.
• 1:34:55
  Among other things. You know, right, The last shot
• 1:34:59
  he did, it was him milking the queen bat.
• 1:35:02
  That was the last I. Did.
• 1:35:04
  JNT tried to rewrite history a little bit and says Oh yeah we
• 1:35:07
  did the regeneration last, but everything I read seems to
• 1:35:09
  suggest that he's last shot was milking a bloody big bat.
• 1:35:13
  Thank God he did that comic release special, otherwise the
• 1:35:15
  thing you know the last thing he would have done as Doctor Who is
• 1:35:17
  having his hands groping some others.
• 1:35:19
  I know a great big. Bat.
• 1:35:26
  OK, I'm gonna. I'm gonna put my cars on the
• 1:35:28
  table. I think there are certain single
• 1:35:31
  episodes of Doctor Who which are practically flawless.
• 1:35:37
  And I think the Invasion episode 6, the one that ends with a
• 1:35:43
  cliffhanger then punching out the sewers is 1.
• 1:35:45
  I think Inferno episode 7, which leads up to the lava rolling
• 1:35:50
  down. I think Genesis of Daleks 1 is
• 1:35:55
  practically flawless and like there's some in Mccoy's time as
• 1:36:00
  well. Cursor Fenrick 4 Absolutely.
• 1:36:04
  First episodes that nail it, I think.
• 1:36:07
  The thing is, people agonize over the first episode, but by
• 1:36:11
  the last script they're usually running out of steam a bit.
• 1:36:15
  Quite often stories fall flat in that last hurdle.
• 1:36:19
  Caves Vandrazani is a is an exception in that it's it's a
• 1:36:22
  story that's built and built and built and built all 2 this
• 1:36:26
  climax do. You think there's any part of
• 1:36:30
  this episode where it's just like where he isn't firing on
• 1:36:33
  all cynders, where where where he has forgotten to tie
• 1:36:36
  something up or where a character doesn't come to a
• 1:36:40
  satisfactory ending? I can't think of anything.
• 1:36:43
  No, no, I can't either. It's Robert Holmes.
• 1:36:48
  Just his plotting is perfection unless he's done a really good
• 1:36:52
  job because he's not always been brilliant at finales, final
• 1:36:56
  episodes. There's stories that certainly
• 1:36:58
  during the Hinchcliffe era, that were let down.
• 1:37:02
  Is justly lauded, yeah, but the climax is to every practically
• 1:37:07
  every story in 14 falls apart. Yeah, almost all of them sort of
• 1:37:11
  Peter out, especially masked my Dragara, but it just doesn't
• 1:37:16
  really it's. Yeah.
• 1:37:18
  I don't know about you, but I wouldn't even say no to a
• 1:37:21
  salami. Salami sandwich.
• 1:37:25
  Filth, I'll tell you honestly. Then he wields his salami.
• 1:37:28
  He. Does it's impressive as well.
• 1:37:31
  It's massive. Randrish is at Sarah Jane Smith.
• 1:37:34
  That's. That's honestly, could you
• 1:37:41
  imagine? Imagine.
• 1:37:42
  This was a few years later. Can you imagine?
• 1:37:43
  Bonnie in this being groped and sexualized because.
• 1:37:51
  That. Happened to her at all, did it?
• 1:37:54
  No, I think she was treated very much as a child and almost she
• 1:38:00
  was a very young companion and treated as such.
• 1:38:03
  Whereas Perry, there's not much of an age difference between her
• 1:38:07
  and Bonnie Langford. Nicola Bryan is this lusted
• 1:38:11
  after figure. And then I think Bonnie, perhaps
• 1:38:14
  because she'd been a child actress, there was maybe this
• 1:38:18
  fear of shattering people's innocence slightly.
• 1:38:21
  And GNT probably wanted to have some differentiation between
• 1:38:24
  Perry and and Mel. So she went right, well, we'll
• 1:38:29
  have lusted after. We'll have somebody who's just
• 1:38:31
  seems very sexless in comparison.
• 1:38:34
  I mean, Sophie, Audrey comes along, it's a bit more mature,
• 1:38:38
  isn't it? Like she's having she's having
• 1:38:40
  like emotional feelings for people and it's reciprocated
• 1:38:43
  most of the time. The the one time when they lean
• 1:38:46
  into her being sexualized. That dreadful sequence in case
• 1:38:51
  case of Fenrick. Yeah, that's a bit that's.
• 1:38:54
  Skin and all that. Oh my God, that's.
• 1:38:57
  Quite an awkward one, that sequence.
• 1:38:59
  Well, I suppose I've I've heard that survival could be seen as
• 1:39:02
  like a metaphor for a sexual awakening.
• 1:39:05
  I kind of like the the beast in you but.
• 1:39:09
  It doesn't feel like it beats you around the head as much as
• 1:39:11
  that sequence in cursive Enrique, which just feels quite
• 1:39:14
  awkward. I just don't think at any point
• 1:39:17
  ACE is exploited wherever most of the time Perry is exploited.
• 1:39:23
  Yeah, yes, absolutely. I know I've laboured that point
• 1:39:27
  a lot throughout this commentary, but it is so obvious
• 1:39:31
  here, you know? And there's been moments where
• 1:39:32
  I've turned away from the screen where I'm just like Arthur most
• 1:39:34
  of the time. I want to watch this, you know.
• 1:39:36
  Yeah, since your teeth don't edge slightly, it's it becomes a
• 1:39:39
  recurring theme for her and most of her run, even right up to
• 1:39:43
  mind warps that people are always after her body and some
• 1:39:48
  want to either mutilate it or inhabit it, or they simply lust
• 1:39:53
  after her. Because she goes out.
• 1:39:55
  She literally. They.
• 1:39:57
  Toss out the contents of her brain and someone literally
• 1:39:59
  utilises her body. Yeah.
• 1:40:02
  And it's it's some send off for for that.
• 1:40:06
  It kind of feels like it was always building up to that, I
• 1:40:08
  guess. No, I.
• 1:40:09
  Think it is. I think for me it's because we
• 1:40:12
  are kind of, if you're a good parent, you're protected from a
• 1:40:17
  lot of nasty stuff that's happening in the world.
• 1:40:20
  So when you kind of see it in an adventure serial like this, it's
• 1:40:23
  all very exciting and you kind of gobble it up.
• 1:40:27
  When you become an adult, you're surrounded by this very cynical
• 1:40:32
  world and the nasty things that occur in it, and suddenly like
• 1:40:37
  this all seems less innocent than it is.
• 1:40:40
  Oh yeah, I think that's why I don't revisit this as much.
• 1:40:44
  It's still a good story and it still holds up very well, but
• 1:40:47
  I'd rather watch Death to the Daleks.
• 1:40:49
  I can watch that. Stuff that that is a bit more
• 1:40:53
  childish or a bit more innocent or just a bit more fun.
• 1:40:56
  I love the Graham Williams era for that reason.
• 1:40:58
  Oh yes. Absolutely brilliant.
• 1:41:00
  Love the green, but it's there's a real lightness of touch with
• 1:41:03
  the Graham Williams era that's it's delightful and I don't
• 1:41:07
  think enough people appreciate it for that.
• 1:41:10
  Well, I'll tell you what. We've talked about reasons why
• 1:41:12
  this is fucking amazing, and we've talked about reasons why
• 1:41:15
  people should avoid this like the plague.
• 1:41:17
  Should we watch I? Think we should?
• 1:41:19
  Yes. What countless in then?
• 1:41:24
  All right. In 54321, let's go.
• 1:41:34
  I know we covered this well, you know this story.
• 1:41:37
  I was really keen into it, worried that we weren't going to
• 1:41:40
  have anything original to say or anything of real interest, but I
• 1:41:44
  think we've been quite, we've covered a lot of ground.
• 1:41:47
  Just sit here in silence now for the next 25 minutes, yeah?
• 1:41:50
  Wow, people will enjoy it. It's fine.
• 1:41:52
  We can just chip in now and again.
• 1:41:55
  Yeah. Do you know what?
• 1:41:56
  I got a message earlier and I said I was doing this today.
• 1:41:59
  Are you talking to that handsome northerner with the sexy accent?
• 1:42:06
  There you go, You get the name for yourself already.
• 1:42:07
  And I went, no, it's not Fraser, it's the other one.
• 1:42:14
  Honestly. Well, let's brush past that
• 1:42:17
  because I don't know what to do. Compliments.
• 1:42:20
  I'm the same, I am the same. Here we go, reprise off the
• 1:42:24
  cliffhanger. I can't have a note.
• 1:42:26
  His salary's turning a little bit blue.
• 1:42:28
  Maybe he maybe it's the gases of the practices range.
• 1:42:31
  He might well be. Gosh, that could be what the
• 1:42:34
  purple on that flame is. Couldn't it be funny if it was
• 1:42:38
  actually the gas coming off that that killed him in the end?
• 1:42:41
  You said at the start of top of the story.
• 1:42:44
  And obviously my categories for you.
• 1:42:47
  Look at that shot through the door over his shoulder.
• 1:42:50
  Come on, I'm going to keep pointing out fantastic bits of
• 1:42:52
  direction. Oh yeah, there's so much going
• 1:42:54
  on. Oh my God, you know the pitting
• 1:42:57
  later on, right? Where Stotts kid murders his
• 1:43:00
  whole crew. He thinks he's you think he's
• 1:43:02
  just going to walk, He turns around.
• 1:43:04
  My God, I've never wondered a character more in Doctor Who
• 1:43:07
  than that moment. What's wrong with me honestly?
• 1:43:13
  Well. You don't have any live
• 1:43:15
  ammunition in your bedroom. Well, ask me a raw Oh, this
• 1:43:24
  action now is so good, isn't it? Oh yeah.
• 1:43:28
  Davison goes. He made me run up and down this
• 1:43:30
  quarry all day. He.
• 1:43:33
  Got grit in his eye. There's all the the shots in the
• 1:43:36
  sand in the next shot or two where the shots are fire away
• 1:43:40
  across the across the ground. And he got grit in his eye.
• 1:43:43
  So they lost time shooting on location from that.
• 1:43:46
  And they also lost time on location because Nicola O'Brien
• 1:43:50
  was on the verge of hypothermia. So she got sent home early.
• 1:43:54
  Yeah, apparently, the doctor said to her.
• 1:43:56
  What you been doing is staying out in the freezing cold with no
• 1:43:59
  clothes on. And she's like, well, yeah.
• 1:44:01
  Basically. That's my job, honestly.
• 1:44:05
  Yeah, Another shot there, which the camera was down low and and
• 1:44:08
  he'd set it up so the bullets would explode out the sand.
• 1:44:12
  That's another great shot. But the best one in a minute is
• 1:44:16
  where Davidson literally comes rolling down this sand dune.
• 1:44:20
  Oh, yeah. There's a slow motion explosion
• 1:44:23
  right next to his head. Oh.
• 1:44:25
  Gosh, they really go for it. I think Graham Harper just knew
• 1:44:30
  how to get the best out of people.
• 1:44:32
  The lighting, the costume design, everything is just
• 1:44:35
  working really effectively. What's funny is, is he says in
• 1:44:38
  the documentary that like, he was kind of a novice and he
• 1:44:44
  wanted it to be as exciting as possible, but like, he just
• 1:44:47
  didn't. He he didn't have the experience
• 1:44:50
  to do it. Well, no, I don't think you can
• 1:44:52
  tell that watching it. But apparently he was on.
• 1:44:54
  He he the reason he came down on the floor was because he just
• 1:44:57
  wanted to improvise all the time.
• 1:44:58
  And let's try this. Let's try that, you know, and
• 1:45:01
  that's probably why this is so visually inventive.
• 1:45:03
  Oh yeah, and excited the cast as well.
• 1:45:05
  I think they wanted to give their all because they were they
• 1:45:09
  were all feeding off one another's excitement and and off
• 1:45:12
  Graham's energy. Apparently the only other person
• 1:45:15
  who directed from the floor was Peter Grimwade, but he was a
• 1:45:18
  complete psychopath so. Yes, I have the stories.
• 1:45:21
  Yeah, people don't talk so fondly about him.
• 1:45:25
  Oh my God, is this the bit where he gets literally blown off the
• 1:45:27
  set? Oh, it's fine.
• 1:45:29
  We've got our belt plates on. That's it, he's got.
• 1:45:33
  Oh yes, because that was great. In the end of the last episode
• 1:45:35
  where he goes, I've changed the belt plate settings to this.
• 1:45:40
  General Chelak, my dear, is in for a big surprise.
• 1:45:44
  Yes. It's like, it's like grand
• 1:45:47
  opera, isn't it? It's, you know, like a tragedy
• 1:45:51
  on a massive scale. Completely melodramatic.
• 1:45:54
  Everybody's outwitting everybody.
• 1:45:56
  Nobody's talking, everybody's fighting and.
• 1:46:01
  They're all nobody understands each other.
• 1:46:03
  It's complete misunderstandings that motivate this whole story.
• 1:46:06
  It's all just driven by hubris and idiocy to be honest, because
• 1:46:12
  they're all just fighting over something that prolongs life.
• 1:46:15
  Do. You know, I, I'm going to say
• 1:46:18
  something pretty controversial now.
• 1:46:22
  I don't think there's much action in the new series that is
• 1:46:28
  as excitingly directed as this. I think they've kind of shield
• 1:46:32
  away from physical action in the new series.
• 1:46:35
  And their sequence is like, do you remember the bit with the
• 1:46:37
  darks and the Simon on the bridge in Doomsday and the
• 1:46:42
  Daleks attacking Gallifrey in Day of the Doctor?
• 1:46:45
  But it's all very special effects heavy.
• 1:46:47
  And I don't really, I'm not really.
• 1:46:48
  I'm not invested in it like I am with this, I think.
• 1:46:52
  It was like we were, I can't remember if we said this off
• 1:46:54
  mic, but we were talking about physical effects and digital
• 1:46:57
  effects, the difference in quality.
• 1:47:01
  If it's a physical effect, it has that reality.
• 1:47:05
  You feel like you're in there a bit more than you would with CGI
• 1:47:09
  or with, you know, like radio phonic sound effects as well.
• 1:47:12
  A really effective sound is so good.
• 1:47:15
  Whereas there's no radio phonic workshop these days.
• 1:47:17
  So the the, the revival, it's relying on stock and for the
• 1:47:24
  artists and it's it doesn't have the same feel to it sometimes.
• 1:47:29
  Just, I don't know, like taking the action from Day of the
• 1:47:32
  Doctor, for example. You've got John Hurt there
• 1:47:34
  standing there with a big gun blowing no more in slow mode.
• 1:47:38
  And you know what it's like, you know, it's pretty cold, but
• 1:47:40
  it's, I don't know. And.
• 1:47:42
  There's a lot of posturing when I think about it, there are
• 1:47:44
  there's a lot of hero poses and stances, but not action.
• 1:47:47
  He's exhausted and bloody and filthy, you know, And that's
• 1:47:52
  just, that's visceral. It's, it's urgent, it's
• 1:47:55
  immediate, you know? Yeah.
• 1:47:59
  And you can feel it. You can really feel it in this
• 1:48:02
  story. There's it's just so.
• 1:48:06
  Affecting about that shower's jet costume had some desired
• 1:48:12
  effects on people. You know all that lever.
• 1:48:15
  What? At least they shot it in
• 1:48:18
  December. It would have been bloody
• 1:48:19
  roasting at any other time of year.
• 1:48:23
  What are? You wearing one glove?
• 1:48:24
  Oh, has he got one disfigured hand?
• 1:48:26
  Yeah. Oh no, we're coming up to that
• 1:48:31
  bit really scared me as a kid where he's like.
• 1:48:34
  Jack No. And then all you see is the mud
• 1:48:37
  go over a rock and if they're not, kill you.
• 1:48:41
  Something pretty horrible has just happened to chill.
• 1:48:43
  Out. Yeah.
• 1:48:44
  It's a scream that sells it. It's absolute desperation when
• 1:48:48
  he's cornered because he's he thinks he's about to have his
• 1:48:51
  moment of victory. He's been so ineffectual, so so
• 1:48:54
  much of the story. And then Chillax got Jack
• 1:48:58
  brilliant. He's going to have his moment of
• 1:48:59
  victory and he's dead 2 seconds later.
• 1:49:03
  And if you want. And there's no that moment more
• 1:49:06
  operatic than the pit where he pulls his mask off and he just
• 1:49:08
  screams. It's great.
• 1:49:12
  I mean you. You.
• 1:49:16
  Couldn't miss that. Say again.
• 1:49:19
  Getting really wrapped up in this time we're.
• 1:49:21
  Getting very excited, very excited.
• 1:49:24
  But Morris Rose says in the documentary that, you know,
• 1:49:28
  violence isn't always the best. Violence isn't always what you
• 1:49:32
  see. It's what's implied.
• 1:49:34
  And then mind us the rest. So I don't need to see Krellpa
• 1:49:40
  being blown away by a load of bullets because I know that
• 1:49:43
  that's horrific. You know, Season 22 gets very
• 1:49:48
  explicit with showing you the violence.
• 1:49:50
  And it's some, I wouldn't say it's as scary seeing Litton's
• 1:49:54
  hands all bloody. I mean, it's nasty, it's
• 1:49:56
  horrible. But it's, you know, it's kind of
• 1:50:00
  video nasty, nasty. Oh, seeing Chillax scream and
• 1:50:05
  then go off camera and then the mug behind doing terrible things
• 1:50:10
  to him, you know? Absolutely.
• 1:50:12
  And I think they're yeah, they're the actors are selling
• 1:50:15
  it so well that you you go with it anyway.
• 1:50:18
  Maurice Roves. He has his swagger when he comes
• 1:50:20
  back in and he just shoots them down and walks off it.
• 1:50:25
  You you learn so much about his character in that moment, that
• 1:50:29
  complete, utter betrayal of these.
• 1:50:31
  His crew just doesn't matter to him.
• 1:50:34
  But not face Haunters. I'm going to go and make my
• 1:50:36
  millions you've. Never watched Battlestar
• 1:50:38
  Galactica? Oh.
• 1:50:40
  OK, so there's maybe I shouldn't tell you.
• 1:50:44
  Well, the basic there's a moment in this fourth season where it's
• 1:50:47
  the last season. So it's like a bump off a load
• 1:50:49
  of the characters in one shock moment.
• 1:50:52
  So it's the entire political core of this of this colony, and
• 1:50:58
  they all literally get murdered in a hail of bullets.
• 1:51:01
  And it's so shocking. You didn't see it come in at
• 1:51:04
  all. Got 2, was doing it 30 years
• 1:51:07
  earlier. I think there's a lot that could
• 1:51:10
  be learned from Doctor Who. There's some of the storytelling
• 1:51:12
  is I think that there is a lot of truth.
• 1:51:15
  When they said when it right in classics, they didn't have the
• 1:51:19
  money, so they had to put more thought into the stories.
• 1:51:22
  Janet Fielding. Says that people shouldn't go to
• 1:51:25
  college and things like this and then universities to learn their
• 1:51:28
  trade. Give them a Doctor Who script,
• 1:51:31
  give them £25 and say design this thing.
• 1:51:34
  That's your education. Oh yeah, because it's it's
• 1:51:38
  miraculous what they often pulled off and managed to
• 1:51:41
  achieve because I mean, John Hurst, who's the designer for
• 1:51:45
  this, he'd also done he also did Besets for Planet of the Daleks.
• 1:51:51
  And again, it's a largely studio based story.
• 1:51:53
  It's the scrag end of the budget for the season.
• 1:51:57
  It manages to pull off something pretty remarkable given that.
• 1:52:01
  Spending any more money on this than you are who I just think
• 1:52:05
  creatively put together. Oh yeah, no, he's happy where
• 1:52:09
  she sees his face and she's crying her eyes out, miserable
• 1:52:14
  Paul Perry. Yeah, she's having a really bad
• 1:52:17
  day. And then what's the what?
• 1:52:20
  Literally what is the worst thing they could possibly do to
• 1:52:22
  her after subjecting her to all this?
• 1:52:25
  Take her back to this place of safety and have the doctor try
• 1:52:29
  and murder. Her.
• 1:52:32
  Yeah, it's quite three of them to go for the characterization
• 1:52:37
  they chose for Twin Dilemma. That's a diplomatic word.
• 1:52:43
  I'd say oh you rainbow covered git, or at least drop me off and
• 1:52:53
  I'll shack up with Brian Blessed.
• 1:52:55
  That'll do. Oh, here she is, Krauts him in.
• 1:53:01
  Oh yes, I like when she gets her legs up on the table.
• 1:53:04
  I deposed you. I am now the chairman of the
• 1:53:10
  Serious. Oh, she's relishing it.
• 1:53:15
  She knows how much he's worth and she's got so much dirt on
• 1:53:18
  him. He's such a ham.
• 1:53:20
  Falsehoods, fabrication, malicious lies.
• 1:53:22
  You can't have any proof. Yeah, so seriously.
• 1:53:28
  Yeah, he's, but we've not really commented on him, his
• 1:53:32
  performance. John Norman is brilliant in
• 1:53:33
  this. It's not a performance I think
• 1:53:35
  you notice because it's good. Yeah, I think, I think it's
• 1:53:40
  what's so great because when you knowing that they wanted to get
• 1:53:44
  some really big stunt casting for this story and the fact that
• 1:53:48
  those plans didn't really happen, it is brilliant.
• 1:53:51
  I think this story would have been overshadowed if it had
• 1:53:53
  David Bowie or Mick Jagger or Roger Daltrey in it because
• 1:53:56
  they're such big names. We would probably be sitting,
• 1:53:58
  well we are sitting talking about them, but this, the focus
• 1:54:01
  would be totally different because you'd be going on with
• 1:54:03
  David Bowie have really done Shadows justice.
• 1:54:06
  I mean, we don't know, do we? Could have been.
• 1:54:10
  Yeah. Like, would it have been better
• 1:54:11
  than this? I doubt it.
• 1:54:13
  I doubt it. Yeah.
• 1:54:14
  Bloody good if it was going to be better than this.
• 1:54:17
  Yeah. And with Normington, you like,
• 1:54:21
  it would have been very easy to take the lines that he's had and
• 1:54:24
  over. Yeah.
• 1:54:24
  Imagine Lewis Fiander from Nightmare of Eden.
• 1:54:29
  Would. Have been all cold accents and
• 1:54:32
  over the top, whereas he just plays it so dispassionately.
• 1:54:36
  The the the horror in the lines comes out even more, you know.
• 1:54:41
  Oh yes. Because he's so Stony faced, he
• 1:54:43
  takes himself completely seriously and it never slips.
• 1:54:49
  You know what's really bad about this bit that turns me on an
• 1:54:51
  awful lot is that he actually goes bye bye and.
• 1:54:54
  Then walks up. Bye.
• 1:54:55
  Lads, because he's got the gun and he goes up bye lads, lifts
• 1:54:59
  it. I think it's because, you know,
• 1:55:03
  it's the bad boy thing. I think that's what it is
• 1:55:05
  because he's he's all bad and he.
• 1:55:08
  That's it. He'd be good for a one night,
• 1:55:11
  but you wouldn't want a relationship with him.
• 1:55:14
  No, God no, he would. The doctor still striving to
• 1:55:21
  save the day. Well, to save Perry.
• 1:55:23
  He's not interested in this petty squabble over Spectrox.
• 1:55:28
  The bit towards the end when he comes in and he scoops Perry up
• 1:55:30
  and he leaves. He's so for the Doctor Who a few
• 1:55:34
  stories before was saying there should have been another way.
• 1:55:37
  He is oblivious to the chaos around him.
• 1:55:40
  He most of it has not even been at his instigation.
• 1:55:44
  Like the school narrative itself, he hasn't driven the
• 1:55:47
  narrative at all. Like his him being there has
• 1:55:51
  been the catalyst for the entire narrative, but his involvement
• 1:55:55
  in the narrative has been minimal.
• 1:55:58
  Nothing, You know, it's so clever.
• 1:56:02
  It's, it's, it's almost like, like the absolute opposite of
• 1:56:06
  what Doctor Who should be. You're making the doctor as
• 1:56:11
  ineffective as he can possibly be.
• 1:56:13
  Which again, is something that Say Word uses in the following
• 1:56:16
  year when you've got Colin Baker absent from.
• 1:56:19
  Large chunks of the story are completely removed from the
• 1:56:22
  situation in the first part of Revelation of the Dialects, for
• 1:56:24
  example. Oh, purple hairy.
• 1:56:27
  Has nasty walls on her leg. That's.
• 1:56:29
  Horrible. It's a very nasty case of
• 1:56:31
  Urticaria He. Does say that, doesn't he?
• 1:56:37
  I do like these things though, where they're suddenly working
• 1:56:39
  together, like they've got something in common.
• 1:56:42
  Now they want to save her. Yeah, it's they're, they're
• 1:56:45
  both, they're the only people that show any compassion
• 1:56:48
  throughout this. Celery soup?
• 1:56:50
  That sounds disgusting. Celery soup's all right.
• 1:56:56
  I've never tried it. Let's not go off on a tangent
• 1:57:00
  about celery soup. When I.
• 1:57:03
  By the way. When I first watched this I
• 1:57:06
  genuinely thought she might die. Like I I know much about the
• 1:57:10
  nuts and bolts of Doctor Who, but I I this was being played
• 1:57:14
  like. Yeah, if you're if as a young
• 1:57:17
  kid, if you don't know narrative structure, if you don't know to
• 1:57:20
  check the following week's Radio Times to see if she's in the
• 1:57:22
  bill, in the billing, we'd feel as real as it could be.
• 1:57:27
  I mean, it's the most, some of the worst situation that any
• 1:57:32
  companion has been put through, to be honest.
• 1:57:35
  She's nearest to death of any of them, Yeah.
• 1:57:39
  What's? What's weird is to make Davison
• 1:57:43
  the most Doctor ish Doctor is not to make him like dominant or
• 1:57:47
  in charge like Hartner or Pertwee, or to make him like,
• 1:57:51
  you know, mischievous and Machiavellian like Trouten or
• 1:57:55
  just, you know, silly like Tom Baker.
• 1:57:58
  It's to make him utterly desperate.
• 1:58:01
  Yeah, he's always that sort of breathless, trying to just get
• 1:58:05
  through a situation and to resolve it.
• 1:58:08
  He's there's always just that willingness to try and fix
• 1:58:12
  things and compassion at that. There's a big driving force for
• 1:58:16
  this doctor, like he's prepared to give up all his lives to save
• 1:58:22
  everybody. Really, this story is Morgas and
• 1:58:26
  Sharis Jack's story, isn't it? They're the they're the major
• 1:58:29
  players in this story. Oh yeah.
• 1:58:31
  That whole war revolves around around their battle.
• 1:58:36
  Jack wants vengeance on Morgas. Morgas wants more money.
• 1:58:39
  Jack's getting in the way of all that.
• 1:58:41
  Oh. So he's been tender with her
• 1:58:45
  now. OK, I still can't quite forgive
• 1:58:49
  him for how upholding he was earlier, but there we go.
• 1:58:51
  Has he come across the magma creature yet?
• 1:58:52
  And when he goes, oh, you're having a terrible day as well.
• 1:58:55
  I think he's about. To oh.
• 1:58:58
  Yes, he is. There we go.
• 1:58:59
  Oh. Look at all the gunk coming off
• 1:59:04
  his teeth. Do if flossing.
• 1:59:12
  Oh, here we go. OK, so this is the big climax
• 1:59:14
  now. The fact that Jack gives away
• 1:59:17
  his position because he turns on the fan to try and cool Perry
• 1:59:21
  down, that seals his feet. I've never thought of that.
• 1:59:25
  I've never got that. Look at that match shot there of
• 1:59:29
  Davidson. Going doing that with next to no
• 1:59:31
  time left I bet. That's really effective.
• 1:59:35
  And you know, earlier on when you saw the mud going past him,
• 1:59:39
  that was still kind of like, and he's just on the side.
• 1:59:42
  Yeah, well. Done as well.
• 1:59:46
  Oh, Sharif, Jake, time is up. He gets one of those amazing
• 1:59:54
  rubber homes, you stinking awful morgus.
• 1:59:57
  Look at me. Rips off that mask.
• 2:00:01
  Oh, here we go, Milky in the bat.
• 2:00:05
  The last thing he did? Oh.
• 2:00:06
  Can actually stick. The bat for once, normally, I
• 2:00:09
  think. I think I've got the contrast.
• 2:00:10
  I've never noticed it so clearly.
• 2:00:12
  And. It's umbrella for a wing.
• 2:00:23
  Oh wow, is this so? We're both gripped now.
• 2:00:25
  We're gripped by the story. This is a rarity for hamster
• 2:00:30
  with a blood pen knife. We are so gripped by the story
• 2:00:32
  we have stopped talking. Yep, there are actually been
• 2:00:35
  moments where we've paused. Oh, here we.
• 2:00:38
  Go. Here we go.
• 2:00:41
  So the murder count here, it's just one murder after another,
• 2:00:45
  isn't it? Oh.
• 2:00:46
  Boom, all bumped off. First of all, and and I
• 2:00:49
  criticize the small era for doing this, but I think this is
• 2:00:52
  one story where this is justified.
• 2:00:56
  Yeah, I think there's enough motivation for everything that
• 2:00:59
  goes on. Look at that horrible eye.
• 2:01:06
  What happened? A mud burst caught his face.
• 2:01:08
  Yeah, because. He's doing.
• 2:01:11
  Yeah, because he lied. He did.
• 2:01:13
  He tampered with the the alarms that would warn him of a mud
• 2:01:16
  burst, so he thought he was. So they were going to refine
• 2:01:21
  spectrox together and. Then Morgan and make their
• 2:01:24
  money. Kill him.
• 2:01:27
  Oh my God, here we go. So Stotts shoots Shara's Jack
• 2:01:31
  and Salatin shoots Stotts. Yep.
• 2:01:36
  And I don't know what happens to Morgas, but it's horrible.
• 2:01:40
  Is he decaf? On that machine.
• 2:01:44
  I think in the script it's described as being some part of
• 2:01:47
  his equipment for like a laser or some sort for making and
• 2:01:50
  producing the androids. It's essentially sort of burnt
• 2:01:54
  his brain out. It's a laser.
• 2:01:56
  I bet salotine hold me. And then?
• 2:01:59
  It's so over the top. I love it, yeah.
• 2:02:02
  And then there's the doctor. He doesn't even register all
• 2:02:06
  this care. He's out there.
• 2:02:08
  Basically he says fuck you guys, I'm off.
• 2:02:11
  There's nothing I can do here anyway.
• 2:02:14
  I've been trying to tell you guys for the last hour and a
• 2:02:16
  half what's been going on. You all deserved your fate.
• 2:02:21
  And. Like literally the the one
• 2:02:24
  triumph they could possibly have in this story is to get out
• 2:02:26
  alive. And.
• 2:02:28
  One of them doesn't even do that.
• 2:02:32
  I think he drops Nicola Bryant here, you know?
• 2:02:34
  Yeah, look, probably. Thumps her head on the TARDIS as
• 2:02:37
  well. You look at the stay of him,
• 2:02:40
  though. I can't think I want the doctors
• 2:02:42
  that messy, you know? I can't imagine Tom Baker would
• 2:02:47
  have allowed the Doctor to be seen to be so desperate.
• 2:02:51
  So it's quite telling, a Peter Davidson that he really invested
• 2:02:54
  in it, was willing to go along with this because you see Tom
• 2:02:56
  Baker in the studio footage of Lagopolis for the regeneration
• 2:03:00
  sequence, and that they say, oh, would you beckon?
• 2:03:05
  And he goes, oh, I don't like the sound of a beckon.
• 2:03:07
  Yeah. He's vicious, isn't he?
• 2:03:08
  He. Doesn't want to be seen as he's
• 2:03:11
  the hero. He doesn't.
• 2:03:12
  That's not heroic enough for him.
• 2:03:13
  Whereas Davison is as fragile as can be.
• 2:03:16
  He won't even let the TARDIS materialise quietly.
• 2:03:20
  There's slow motion explosions going off left, right and
• 2:03:22
  center. And poor Nicola Bryant.
• 2:03:25
  The the file with the bat milk in it had been a prop that had
• 2:03:29
  held him look watered down Dettol in it all day.
• 2:03:33
  And then when they suddenly realized that she had to drink
• 2:03:35
  it, they emptied that out quickly, put some milk in, but
• 2:03:38
  they didn't rinse it. Oh.
• 2:03:40
  No. So she's choking on Dettol.
• 2:03:43
  Along with her hypothermia, she. Was at bad time there look.
• 2:03:47
  Peter Davidson goes on an awful lot here about how he's upstaged
• 2:03:50
  by her breasts, but well, you should act better then.
• 2:03:55
  He. Is he is fantastic here.
• 2:03:59
  Of all the classic series regenerations, it's I.
• 2:04:02
  Think it's certainly the most visually interesting and the
• 2:04:04
  most dramatic as well. In terms of drama, I really like
• 2:04:10
  3 into 4, not the. Transformation, but the.
• 2:04:12
  Scene Yeah, I like this. I remember the first time seeing
• 2:04:16
  it. I did get a bit, sort of.
• 2:04:18
  Teary eyed because I'd I'd seen it out of context, but I'd never
• 2:04:21
  seen it within the. Story and apparently was the.
• 2:04:23
  1st Doctor that I knew quite well from having most of his VHS
• 2:04:27
  as as a kid. That was the last story of his I
• 2:04:30
  ever saw. Was Planet of the Spiders his.
• 2:04:33
  Is the only? One where you actually see the
• 2:04:35
  Doctor die, isn't it? And then there's a.
• 2:04:37
  Before the regeneration, yeah, because they have to prompt it
• 2:04:41
  to happen in the end. Is Telo.
• 2:04:44
  Tegan a bit chameleon. I'm reason Nisa.
• 2:04:49
  You had chicken pox at the. Time.
• 2:04:51
  She was quite poorly serious. He looks quite cute there.
• 2:04:53
  Doesn't he? He's got a little comb over.
• 2:04:58
  He said at the time that he was, he was really annoyed that he
• 2:05:00
  wasn't. Busy, he said.
• 2:05:03
  I would love to be able to see I'm unavailable, but I was out
• 2:05:06
  of work. Graham Harper says that what he
• 2:05:10
  wanted was essentially the. Effect they have in the new
• 2:05:13
  series now for it to be this like build up and build up and
• 2:05:16
  then just a massive like explosion and he says like he
• 2:05:20
  got about 70% of what he wanted but it's quiet there I think for
• 2:05:25
  the money they had it's terrific it's great and I think it sets
• 2:05:30
  the foundation of what's to. Come because when the series.
• 2:05:32
  Does come back. They obviously hark back to
• 2:05:35
  Graham Harper's idea and they go, that's exactly what we
• 2:05:38
  should be doing. Oh my God, this lied.
• 2:05:42
  Three eyes and one breath. It makes you sound a rather.
• 2:05:44
  Eager to school young man Mark. He's not a moment.
• 2:05:50
  Too soon. There are many.
• 2:05:52
  Cruel people, you know that say that's Colin Baker's best.
• 2:05:55
  Performance in Doctor Who. Oh, that's unfair.
• 2:05:59
  I disagree. But you know.
• 2:06:02
  Why is his face all colourful like?
• 2:06:03
  That this is very strange. It's very colourful from.
• 2:06:09
  The off I suppose his his old era.
• 2:06:12
  And and his costume and. Oh shit, really?
• 2:06:18
  OK, well, look. That.
• 2:06:21
  Was. Extraordinarily good.
• 2:06:24
  Oh yes, now. You have the.
• 2:06:26
  Unenviable task to choose. A.
• 2:06:28
  But the three? Reasons as to why you would
• 2:06:32
  recommend this story to people? And I think people have had
• 2:06:35
  recommendations for Kaito Andresani their entire lives.
• 2:06:38
  So we need something unique and purely Mark.
• 2:06:45
  So nothing too challenging there then.
• 2:06:48
  I. Can't say it's necessarily
• 2:06:53
  unique, but Christopher. Gable I don't think he gets.
• 2:06:58
  Quite enough of the attention for what he accomplishes.
• 2:07:02
  In this story. He's really brilliant.
• 2:07:08
  Should we do you? Want to do this?
• 2:07:13
  My. Unique one is.
• 2:07:14
  It's not the twin dilemma. There we go.
• 2:07:16
  No. No, that's not fair.
• 2:07:17
  That's not. I'm only saying that because
• 2:07:19
  Twin Dilemma started on brick box and I can order brick box,
• 2:07:22
  it's just fucking twins or on my screen.
• 2:07:27
  Doing their. Equations or whatever it is
• 2:07:28
  they're. Up to no, no.
• 2:07:29
  OK, so would you have been doing equations in your bedroom at
• 2:07:34
  that age? Oh, now I'll be wanking.
• 2:07:38
  Exactly. They're just there's something.
• 2:07:40
  Fundamentally wrong with those. Twins, this strange triangular.
• 2:07:45
  Oh, they're playing chess, I thought.
• 2:07:47
  How are we doing a twin? Dilemma commentary now.
• 2:07:49
  Good grief. Yeah, we've.
• 2:07:50
  Got yes, I know. That's that's somebody else's
• 2:07:53
  Some brave, poor soul. People are doing that one.
• 2:07:57
  Good luck, Good luck. OK, so I am going to.
• 2:08:02
  Praise the music of Roger Lim. Which I don't think gets enough
• 2:08:05
  attention in the two stories directed by Graham Harper,
• 2:08:09
  because I think he sets the tone for this story brilliantly in a
• 2:08:13
  way that he really doesn't with a lot of his other stories.
• 2:08:17
  Back to you. I'm going to say Eric C.
• 2:08:22
  Word for keeping his. Hands off the script.
• 2:08:26
  Oh, that's a goodie. All right, I'm going to say.
• 2:08:31
  Nicola Bryant, because I think a lot of people praise Peter
• 2:08:34
  Davidson, but I think Nicola Bryant gives one of the best
• 2:08:39
  ever conformances in this with some very, very challenging
• 2:08:44
  material. And I've heard it said before
• 2:08:47
  that she's possibly too good at that, and we've kind of talked
• 2:08:51
  about why, and it should never have been done again.
• 2:08:57
  But within the context of this story, she is breathtaking.
• 2:09:01
  Yes, absolutely. Oh, I need to think of something
• 2:09:06
  else that. Hasn't been said before the go
• 2:09:10
  like man. Say the magma creature or
• 2:09:13
  something. Like that, you know?
• 2:09:14
  Really. Got a six?
• 2:09:15
  Pack. And a keep.
• 2:09:23
  Yeah. Oh, I thought.
• 2:09:24
  Of a third one. Oh. 1st it might inspire you.
• 2:09:30
  Me. It's the the fact that.
• 2:09:33
  For once within the. Eric Saywood era murdering off
• 2:09:37
  the entire guest cast is entirely justified and every
• 2:09:41
  single one is fucking brilliant. Every murder is memorable and
• 2:09:46
  shocking and deserved. That's a good one, absolutely.
• 2:09:52
  I think it's. Yeah, I think.
• 2:09:55
  We've said it already, but yeah, so.
• 2:09:58
  Carefully structured this story. And everything pays off really
• 2:10:01
  well. Well, technically that is the
• 2:10:06
  third thing you just said there, you know.
• 2:10:08
  Well, did I just? Sort of.
• 2:10:11
  Well, let's go with that then. It's like a perfect.
• 2:10:15
  Jigsaw puzzle. Yes.
• 2:10:17
  Absolutely there's. Plenty of other Doctor Who
• 2:10:19
  stories where they've got all the pieces.
• 2:10:21
  And they never. Quite put them together, right?
• 2:10:22
  But in this case I think they did.
• 2:10:25
  Can you think of a script as tight as this elsewhere?
• 2:10:29
  I'm not sure I can. You know.
• 2:10:33
  Remember, it's the Daleks. That's pretty tight.
• 2:10:35
  That's pretty strong, I think. When?
• 2:10:37
  It comes to the. Classic run.
• 2:10:39
  There's not many. That don't have some slip up or
• 2:10:42
  plot hole and caves and remembrance are strong
• 2:10:45
  contenders. I think blink is another really
• 2:10:47
  +1 that's series plotted to the end that one, and I think it
• 2:10:53
  deserves all the praise it gets. Although.
• 2:10:56
  It it. Did move Caves of Andrazani down
• 2:11:00
  the rankings of stories back in 2013 when they last did a poll
• 2:11:05
  in Doctor Magazine, so Caves was one.
• 2:11:09
  It was. In 2009.
• 2:11:11
  In 2013. The day the doctor.
• 2:11:14
  Took it it's first, followed by Blink, followed by genesis of
• 2:11:19
  the dialects caves bumped to 4th place and it had been first was
• 2:11:25
  number one really, but I think. That's probably because it was
• 2:11:29
  still fresh in people. 'S minds.
• 2:11:31
  I think we're all still. Living off their.
• 2:11:32
  Yay anniversary special vibes. Whereas I'd be interested to see
• 2:11:36
  if they voted now where it would come.
• 2:11:38
  You think if it that power came out two years ago, Timeless
• 2:11:41
  Children would have been #1? Well, it might not be #1 but I
• 2:11:45
  think higher up the ranking than it would be.
• 2:11:47
  With retrospect and a bit of time to think about it.
• 2:11:55
  Well, look here now that. Was it?
• 2:11:57
  Terrific. Fun talking about the case
• 2:11:59
  around Rosani. I'm hoping that you're going to
• 2:12:02
  be bold enough to come back and do another one of these.
• 2:12:07
  Maybe I could be persuaded. I'd be.
• 2:12:09
  Surprised and delighted, in fact.
• 2:12:12
  Pick a number between 1:00 and 7:00.
• 2:12:17
  No, wait, I'll show you one. Pick a number.
• 2:12:19
  Between 9 and 13. 9. Oh, OK, Pick a number between 1
• 2:12:29
  and 13 20. I've just done the end of the
• 2:12:35
  world. OK.
• 2:12:39
  Oh, I'm with you now. I'm with you now, right?
• 2:12:40
  OK. Picking up between 9 and 13
• 2:12:42
  again. 10. OK.
• 2:12:48
  Picking up between 1:00 and 3:00 3.
• 2:12:53
  OK, picking up between 1 and 13. Three stop thinking about it.
• 2:13:04
  Then your next episode. Is planet of the.
• 2:13:08
  Ood, oh. I can live with that.
• 2:13:11
  Yes, I love that episode. That's great.
• 2:13:13
  Harbour again. Good one, Yes.
• 2:13:15
  Oh, brilliant. Even better.
• 2:13:17
  With that evil. Woman who you think is going to
• 2:13:20
  be really really. Good, and then she sells.
• 2:13:22
  Out murdered. Oh yes, Oh yes, I've watched
• 2:13:26
  that again recently and it's it still holds up well.
• 2:13:28
  That's a good episode. I think that's, do you know
• 2:13:31
  what? I think that's probably the
• 2:13:32
  closest kind of classic feeling. New series episode that there
• 2:13:37
  is. It really feels like an old
• 2:13:38
  classic series. Doctor Who?
• 2:13:41
  Yeah, it does. There's something about it.
• 2:13:43
  Isn't it from the Saward era as well?
• 2:13:45
  Because it's pretty. Graphic and violent, too.
• 2:13:47
  Oh gosh. The reveal.
• 2:13:48
  At the end that's that's. We've got off doing Twitter.
• 2:13:55
  We're talking. About Planet of the Oods.
• 2:13:58
  How about we just say for now? Until next time.
• 2:14:01
  Yes, until then.