Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Si Hart about his choice of Time and the Rani - the live show! (1/4)

Transcript

Talks to Si Hart about his choice of Time and the Rani - the live show! (1/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None. Hamster with a blunt.
• 0:34
  Pen knife for doing. Quicker, quicker, quicker.
• 0:40
  Welcome back to a Hamster with a Blunt Pen Knife, the Doctor Who
• 0:43
  Commentary podcast, where we're also live on YouTube.
• 0:48
  We made it just here. In time with our friends.
• 0:52
  Yes, hello everyone. I don't know who's here.
• 0:56
  I think Colin Neal is here, Anthony Calleroy is here, Daniel
• 0:59
  Ruinsley is here and Tom. Newsom.
• 1:02
  Ah, the lovely Tom Newsom and others who shall remain
• 1:05
  anonymous at the moment. I fear Urak might be here as
• 1:08
  well. Urak getting here?
• 1:12
  Well, what are we here for? We're here for time in the
• 1:16
  Ronnie. We're we're on a bit of A roll
• 1:18
  with with 80s post regeneration stories.
• 1:22
  And indeed this one is a regeneration story as well.
• 1:25
  Indeed, 1987's big classic. I voted it top of the DWM season
• 1:32
  survey in 1987. I think I might have been the
• 1:35
  only one who did. I think everybody else voted for
• 1:38
  Dragon Fire. Anyone who's listening, what did
• 1:40
  you vote for in that poll? If you're old enough, that is.
• 1:44
  Yeah, and then I was amazed that it came bottom.
• 1:47
  I absolutely loved this story. Unbelievable.
• 1:50
  Anthony Carroll thinks it's Benedict Cumberbatch's favorite
• 1:53
  story. Between that and the image of
• 1:58
  the Fendal or or the faceless ones.
• 2:02
  It could very possibly. Oh, image of the Fendal.
• 2:04
  She's in all that fabulous gold paint, isn't she?
• 2:07
  Yeah, well, she's painted green this time.
• 2:09
  She's an evil goddess doing that whole sort of weird thing from
• 2:12
  Pan's Labyrinth, you know? Anthony Carroll says he voted
• 2:17
  Delta top that year. That's because he's a man of
• 2:20
  taste, of distinction. So can I ask you the same
• 2:23
  question I asked you about the twin Dilemma?
• 2:26
  Yeah. Recently.
• 2:27
  Why does nobody like this story? Well, I think there is.
• 2:33
  There's a whole lot going on in 1987 with Doctor Who.
• 2:36
  Doctor Who's in a bit of a state at this point.
• 2:39
  We've been through the hiatus, we've come out the other side,
• 2:44
  but the show is still in absolute chaos.
• 2:46
  Colin's been sacked, JNT hasn't been sacked even though he
• 2:51
  desperately wants to be sacked and wants to leave the show.
• 2:55
  We're picking up sort of in the chaos of this, where there's no
• 2:59
  script editor, there's no doctor, there's Bonnie is still
• 3:04
  under contract, but she's the only one.
• 3:06
  And JNT, suddenly, with fewer months than usual, has to throw
• 3:11
  a season together with nothing in the bank.
• 3:14
  So he calls his old friends Pip and Jane, who are great in a
• 3:17
  crisis, who have got us out of the trial somehow at the very
• 3:21
  final minute. And I think fandom is in a bit
• 3:25
  of a a mess at this point. Everyone wants JNT gone.
• 3:29
  No one's a supporter. No one likes Bonnie at this
• 3:32
  point. Everyone thinks, well, I say
• 3:35
  everyone because that's not absolutely true, but there's a
• 3:40
  whole lot sort of going on that is I think clouds the reaction
• 3:47
  to this story. I think what's happened is
• 3:52
  opinion was made-up at the time about this, like the
• 3:56
  gunfighters, like invasion of the dinosaurs, like all those
• 4:00
  stories that the House Damers and Walker books tell us we're
• 4:02
  not supposed to enjoy. What's happened in subsequent
• 4:07
  decades now is that people have found this story, this this much
• 4:12
  reviled, much lamented Doctor Who story and just found it like
• 4:19
  a a light, silly pants mimic colourful adventure that I think
• 4:26
  it's trying to be. I don't think it's trying to,
• 4:28
  you know, move mountains. I think it's, it's trying to be
• 4:31
  a lot of fun to see Sylvester McCoy into Doctor Who.
• 4:35
  And I think the tide is turning. I think there's still enough of
• 4:39
  that old fandom about, you know, going this is, you know, this is
• 4:43
  the most horseshit Doctor Who there ever was.
• 4:46
  But like, I, I know people that consider this one of their
• 4:50
  favourites simply because it is such a, a big ball of sunshine
• 4:55
  to watch. You know, I'm cynical.
• 4:57
  It's not cynical Doctor Who is it?
• 4:59
  We've just had years and years of miserable, cynical, angry,
• 5:04
  violent Doctor Who and all of a sudden we're we're sort of
• 5:09
  aiming at the kids again. Yeah, I think that's a that's a
• 5:12
  big point and I think that's why I liked it so much when I was
• 5:14
  12. After years of Brown corridors
• 5:20
  and men shouting and guns and violence and all of that, which
• 5:26
  lots and lots and lots of people really love in their Doctor Who,
• 5:30
  this just felt like a breath of sunshine and a bit of colour
• 5:32
  coming into the show suddenly. And although it's not not lauded
• 5:38
  for it, I think we've got a huge step up in the special effects.
• 5:43
  Everything goes right in this and we've got a CGI opening
• 5:47
  which is primitive by today's standards, but at the time was
• 5:51
  hugely wonderful and brilliant with that TARDIS.
• 5:55
  Standards today, I I still think that's our sequence.
• 5:58
  That's incredible. Well yeah, and and the pre
• 6:00
  credits sequence of the TARDIS being bombarded by the Rani's
• 6:05
  gay ray because it's the gayest opening to a Doctor Who story
• 6:09
  ever. The majority of the Ham fam have
• 6:12
  been hit by a gay rayer once or twice in their life as well.
• 6:15
  Jesus, I we better deal with some of these comments before
• 6:17
  they disappear off the screen. What's Lee?
• 6:20
  Lee, how do I say this? Lee Mcmenamy Say go on, You do,
• 6:25
  He's saying. Time the Rani twice in a week,
• 6:27
  Joe. Is this the Doctor Who
• 6:30
  equivalent of being waterboarded?
• 6:33
  Ah. Yes, it is.
• 6:35
  How can you not love Pip and Jane?
• 6:37
  Says Gavin Williams. My main memory of wishing it was
• 6:40
  Colin still, and I think there's a lot of that.
• 6:42
  I think everyone is feeling that Colin's got a heart has been
• 6:46
  really hard done by he's. Starting to see his potential in
• 6:50
  trial of the Time Lords and then he's cut out, isn't he?
• 6:53
  Yeah. Luke Sims Jenkins says time and
• 6:55
  the Ronnie as at least better than the Twin Dilemma.
• 6:59
  Having having spent a week discussing the twin dilemma on
• 7:02
  hamster this week, we're I'm sure we'll we'll touch on that
• 7:06
  Mark Cochran. Says I watched this go out in
• 7:08
  1987 as a 14 year old. I found it embarrassing and I
• 7:12
  want part of and I want part of any organised fandom.
• 7:17
  What does that mean? Oh, he wasn't part of any.
• 7:20
  He wasn't part of anything. Oh, I see.
• 7:23
  Yeah, but that's because he. But he likes Steven Moffett.
• 7:25
  He's got no taste at all that. I love you, Mark.
• 7:31
  Oh, he says. I've grown to appreciate it more
• 7:33
  in the. Intervening.
• 7:33
  There we go. Kev's music is dreadful.
• 7:36
  Oh. I think this is Kev's best
• 7:39
  score. Oh.
• 7:45
  Fabulous. It's so 1987.
• 7:48
  It's wonderful. For the first, for the first
• 7:51
  time in a long time, Doctor Who felt quite contemporary, at
• 7:54
  least sort of music wise. I wasn't a huge fan of the I had
• 7:58
  a bit of a thing with with with the changes of the theme after
• 8:02
  Peter Howe, I think. And I remember my my best friend
• 8:06
  Richard from school calling me up, say he'd seen the trailer
• 8:10
  and he'd heard the new theme and he said sounds like he's played
• 8:13
  on the Komen paper. Or does.
• 8:17
  I think the score for this is like Techno isn't it?
• 8:19
  Yeah, it's. Where where it's really doing
• 8:21
  sort of 80s. And it's, yeah, it's using all
• 8:24
  the same symp sounds that all the contemporary bands like the
• 8:28
  Pet Shop Boys and and people were using.
• 8:30
  So you'll hear that symp stab that is used throughout this on
• 8:34
  many Pet Shop Boys singles and things like that.
• 8:36
  So it's all very, very 1987. Colin Neil just said the music
• 8:41
  is good, it's the quality of the synths that just sounds like a
• 8:43
  Korg M1, not the entire radio phone workshop.
• 8:46
  That's absolutely true. Kev McCulloch didn't even own a
• 8:49
  synthesizer. He had to hire one to do all of
• 8:52
  this. Wow.
• 8:53
  And he's been commissioned to do the theme and.
• 8:56
  Do you remember him in his studio in that silver Neves?
• 8:59
  Corners, yes. No, no in that Silver Nevesis
• 9:02
  documentary. Oh yeah.
• 9:03
  Oh yes. In there as well.
• 9:04
  Yeah. But I remember it on corners
• 9:06
  because they did a, a a thing about how the theme was made and
• 9:09
  Sophie Eldred went to to Kev's studio to go and and see this.
• 9:12
  So that was broadcast around the same time as Dragon Fire at the
• 9:16
  end of the season. So that was was quite exciting.
• 9:18
  Yeah, the terrible mullet as far as I.
• 9:20
  Remember. Well, look, silence.
• 9:22
  So much to talk about. Should we jump into episode one?
• 9:25
  We've better had we're. Going to see the rarest of
• 9:27
  things, a pre title. This is yeah, this is Doctor
• 9:30
  Who's third pre credits titles. Oh my God, list them please.
• 9:35
  So first one ever is Castro Alva part one where we've got the
• 9:40
  reprise of the regeneration. Doctor, doctor, doctor.
• 9:44
  Second one is one day I should come back, yes, I should come
• 9:48
  back. The five doctors, this is the
• 9:51
  third. And then and then the 4th is
• 9:54
  obviously the start of Remembrance of the Daleks next
• 9:56
  year. I've always thought it was a bit
• 9:58
  of a shame that Mccoy's final series didn't have a pre credits
• 10:02
  teaser. Although that might have been
• 10:03
  just the Brigadier picking up a tree, so it might not.
• 10:08
  You could have had those soldiers zoom in towards the air
• 10:11
  or. Something, you know, that's
• 10:12
  something you could have done, but at the time this was very
• 10:16
  exciting. Some fella from 2 watch who says
• 10:18
  pre titles always makes it feel more epic.
• 10:21
  Exactly and. The reason they've done this one
• 10:23
  is because they've got a new title sequence with the new
• 10:26
  Doctor's face in it, and they didn't want to introduce that
• 10:28
  before he's actually arrived on screen.
• 10:31
  So so we get this little little preamble before the series
• 10:36
  starts. Everybody out there, we're going
• 10:38
  to go in, in five seconds. Ready.
• 10:41
  We're going to an altogether more far-flung shore as
• 10:45
  Sylvester McCoy stars as Doctor Who. 54321 off we go.
• 10:53
  Oh my goodness, look at that TARDIS.
• 10:56
  Wow. Wow, I love the brothers
• 10:57
  spinning his face. So we're up to a cracking start,
• 11:00
  but look at all these gay rays hitting the TARDIS.
• 11:03
  And there's Colin there on the floor.
• 11:05
  I've never seen so much gay and you wait till the TARDIS comes
• 11:08
  across that. Oh no, that rainbow, Rainbow.
• 11:11
  It's superb. We're doing it for pride, baby.
• 11:17
  Oh, look at that sexy quarry. Oh, it's all looking at the pink
• 11:20
  sky. I know.
• 11:22
  Oh, and here she is. Hello, Kate.
• 11:25
  Let's together. Now leave the girl.
• 11:28
  It's the man I want. Take him to my laboratory.
• 11:34
  Or. Big monster that we're not quite
• 11:36
  seeing. You can tell that's not
• 11:38
  Sylvester. Sorry, that's not Colin Bacon.
• 11:40
  Do you know why it ain't the wig?
• 11:42
  Sylvester McCoy ain't got Colin Baker's big bubble butt, that's
• 11:45
  why. That's not.
• 11:47
  And here's our new Doctor. It's a lovely little
• 11:49
  regeneration and. Bam.
• 11:52
  Listen to the From the Ken Campbell show.
• 11:56
  And so we've got these lovely new titles.
• 11:58
  I love this title sequence. Luke SIM Jenkins says I can't
• 12:02
  believe I'm doing this. You'd better believe it, baby.
• 12:06
  Oh yeah. You're part of the hand fam now
• 12:09
  you do ridiculous things. That's so that TARDIS spinning
• 12:13
  there, it's beautiful. I have a thing about the TARDIS
• 12:15
  spinning in space, I really do. Tom Newsom said this podcast has
• 12:20
  gone from zero to 60 on the gay scale.
• 12:22
  Yeah, it's a Jane Baker. 'S fault tumbling.
• 12:28
  Letters. Look at the tumbling letters.
• 12:30
  Oh wow. Anthony Carroll would like to
• 12:33
  ask, how did she get in the TARDIS?
• 12:36
  She's a Time Lord, she can do anything.
• 12:38
  Look. And make a.
• 12:39
  Genius. Yeah, she's got this tiny little
• 12:41
  thing that she has beamed into the TARDIS in space and time.
• 12:45
  So of course you can get into the TARDIS.
• 12:48
  I believe there was a lot of tumultuous buffeting.
• 12:51
  There was, according to the book.
• 12:55
  Daniel Rosby sends the western wings at the camera in the title
• 12:58
  sequence. What an entrance that's.
• 13:00
  The way to do it? And Mark Cocker asked, is that
• 13:04
  Harpo Marx? I believe it might be.
• 13:08
  Now this is where this story began, wasn't it?
• 13:11
  I know. Wasn't it originally it was
• 13:12
  supposed to be about Solomon King?
• 13:14
  Solomon Oh God, it would have been so boring.
• 13:17
  Sorry Pip and Jane, but really? Hello Jeff, how you doing?
• 13:22
  Hello, Insolence could cost your people dearly, Baeos.
• 13:28
  I'm sure Baeos did not mean to be insolent.
• 13:31
  He would never, he would never do do that.
• 13:35
  Katamara is just fabulous, isn't she?
• 13:38
  I mean, look at this. She can take hold of any Pip and
• 13:41
  Jane dialogue and make it sound like it's written by
• 13:43
  Shakespeare. Absolutely.
• 13:46
  Hey, Chad you. Another fantasy.
• 13:48
  Can we, can we just go through the story please, and list the
• 13:51
  astonishing actors that are in it?
• 13:53
  Donald Pickering. Wanda Vento from the Faceless
• 13:55
  Ones. Cato Green, St.
• 13:58
  Mark Green Street. I mean, it's a great car, sis.
• 14:01
  It is, Mark Cockham thinks. How could this podcast ever be
• 14:07
  zero on the gay scale? Well, absolutely.
• 14:12
  Have you managed to? Procure the means to repair your
• 14:15
  laboratory equipment. Indeed, I, I.
• 14:18
  Have and here we go. OK, once again using the Doctor
• 14:22
  Who theme in the music. I love this little bit of music
• 14:25
  here. Just three questions for you,
• 14:26
  Si. Where am I?
• 14:28
  Who and who are you? I forgot one.
• 14:35
  I forgot one other question. Oh, now what could be behind
• 14:38
  that sinister door there? Well.
• 14:40
  Absolutely. Oh, we're going to wait a few
• 14:42
  episodes to find out what that is?
• 14:45
  Oh no, now. Now I'm not sure I can because
• 14:50
  look, you're right, he does wake up fully formed here, doesn't
• 14:52
  he? Yes, like he is this.
• 14:54
  This is essentially his doctor in season 24 before he gets the
• 14:58
  amnesia. Exactly.
• 15:01
  So, yeah, I mean, he's he's pratfalling a little bit because
• 15:05
  he's suddenly a bit smaller than he was before.
• 15:09
  But yeah, I mean, he recognizes the Rani and he's he's ready to
• 15:12
  go. And I think it was the
• 15:15
  pratfalling and the silliness that really put people off at
• 15:20
  the time. But this is his first story and
• 15:24
  every doctor is not fully formed in their first story.
• 15:27
  I think it probably harms him a little bit that he's still in
• 15:29
  that costume as well. So not only is he even sillier
• 15:33
  than Colin Baker was. Yeah, but now the costume
• 15:36
  doesn't fit either because he's much smaller than Colin, so.
• 15:39
  It feels like it's a clown in a clown's outfit clowning about as
• 15:43
  Doctor Who. That might be why And.
• 15:45
  That's one of Fraser's questions is who wore this costume better?
• 15:50
  Colin Sylvester or John Barrowman.
• 15:56
  What were they thinking? I think Colin, because I think
• 16:00
  Colin sort of carries himself as if he's wearing a three piece
• 16:04
  suit from Carnaby St., you know, like, yes, even though he's not.
• 16:08
  And and Sylvester hasn't got that same presence.
• 16:12
  No. Oh, Gavin Williams just went.
• 16:14
  Colin. Yes, you're right.
• 16:17
  You're absolutely right. Do you know what?
• 16:19
  Sigh. That asteroid is made of strange
• 16:23
  matter. What monstrous experiment are
• 16:26
  you dabbling in that? Well, anal sex, you know, that
• 16:29
  sort of thing. Stay away, whatever you brought
• 16:33
  me here for I'm having no. I'm not see now this is the one
• 16:35
  bit I'm really not sure about is when he's just starts tumbling
• 16:38
  down those stairs. Yeah, it's a, it's a bit of an
• 16:41
  odd decision. And again, it's, I think then
• 16:44
  knowing that Sylvester is a very physical actor and could do all
• 16:48
  of this stuff. So they want to get all of this
• 16:50
  on the screen and use him in a different way because Colin
• 16:53
  would not have done, would not have been falling down those
• 16:55
  steps. He's bringing in all of his
• 16:57
  party tricks, isn't he? At the beginning, yeah.
• 16:59
  Because, yeah, because he hasn't had time to prepare for any of
• 17:02
  this, you know? Oh, Mark Cochran says.
• 17:04
  Kate is superb in this. Her impression of Mao is
• 17:07
  fantastic and I really want to talk about that because I've got
• 17:10
  a lot of things to say about that.
• 17:12
  Look at decoratively falling on the TARDIS floor.
• 17:15
  She's. She's a superstar.
• 17:17
  Sigh. He is.
• 17:21
  Daniel Roald, he says, given McCoy an umbrella in his first
• 17:23
  scene, a sign of things to come. Absolutely.
• 17:26
  And again, this is sort of part of I think he said that he'd,
• 17:32
  he'd been given the umbrella for this story and then for oh, do
• 17:35
  you know what? That would be be great for the
• 17:37
  rest. I'd quite like that as a prop.
• 17:39
  And he does use it as a prop. And look, you see the one that
• 17:42
  he had behind. Me, the astonishing Oh my God,
• 17:46
  look at that enormous Why is that bracelet so massive?
• 17:49
  I know it's it's the same one back from Mark of the Rani so
• 17:52
  they kept some of her props. I mean that she's not the really
• 17:55
  the same character from Marco O'Reilly though, was she?
• 17:57
  She was very naturalistic in that.
• 17:59
  Yeah, she's gone off to America. She's done a couple of seasons
• 18:03
  of Dynasty and come back with this enormous hair and glam
• 18:06
  costume and overdone make up and is loving it.
• 18:10
  Yeah, And this is this is one of the things about Season 24 is
• 18:13
  that I think very rarely gets talked about that JMT is being
• 18:19
  very smart this year and what he's doing.
• 18:22
  He's preparing a series for Saturday evening tea time and
• 18:26
  he's bringing in the biggest stars he can find on TV.
• 18:30
  So he's got Kate O'Mara for the first story.
• 18:33
  Then he's got Richard Breyers next week who's a huge star,
• 18:36
  particularly for ever decreasing circles at this point, which I'm
• 18:39
  watching at the moment. And it's fabulous.
• 18:41
  You should all watch it again. Then he's got just about
• 18:44
  everyone in Delta and abandonment is someone of note.
• 18:47
  And then Edward Peele and what's her face, Patricia Quinn in the
• 18:53
  last score in dragon fire. And so he's got big names for
• 18:57
  Saturday night, Saturday tea time viewing that's going to get
• 19:00
  the viewers in to start their Saturday night off.
• 19:03
  And then he's relegated to to Monday evenings at 735 against
• 19:09
  Corrie. And this is, this is more a
• 19:12
  Saturday night TV show than trial was.
• 19:16
  And it's bright and colourful and fun, ready for that, that
• 19:19
  particular day. And they they shift it round.
• 19:23
  I think it's, it's a bit of a shame.
• 19:25
  I think it would have fitted better on a Saturday night than
• 19:28
  it did on a Monday, but. I'm going to make a slightly
• 19:31
  unfair comparison because I'm going to talk about this and a
• 19:34
  story from a completely different era and a completely
• 19:36
  different time. And we might lose Mark Cochran
• 19:39
  when I say this because it is a Sleep at Moffett story I'm going
• 19:41
  to talk about. But I think time in the Ronnie
• 19:45
  with it's colour, with it's explosions, with it's comedy,
• 19:50
  you know, I think that is far more suited to the Saturday tea
• 19:55
  time sort of young to going into teenage years audience, that
• 20:00
  sort of sense of adventure and fun than something like Dark
• 20:04
  Water, which is, you know, a treatise on death which has
• 20:08
  somebody. Being killed at the beginning,
• 20:10
  that means something to our companions, which has the shock
• 20:14
  news about Don't Cremate Me, which has flashbacks to
• 20:17
  Afghanistan and things like that.
• 20:19
  Like I think that is completely inappropriate for us sat in our
• 20:22
  audience. So people might think I'm mad
• 20:24
  comparing one against the other, but I think this this is more
• 20:29
  suited to the audience that I think Doctor Who attracts.
• 20:34
  Yeah. I I think you're absolutely
• 20:36
  right. I'm I'm.
• 20:38
  I thought, I'm not saying it's a better bit of television.
• 20:40
  No, no, no. It's.
• 20:41
  A better bit of television. I mean, if we'd had someone
• 20:47
  Missy impersonating Clara. Oh.
• 20:50
  My God. And you know, Michelle Gomez
• 20:53
  would have gone. Oh yeah, Wouldn't she just?
• 20:56
  Oh, can I? Can I quickly, I'm going to do a
• 20:58
  small. It's not a rant just to say, oh,
• 21:01
  Anthony Carroll says they're both awful. 2 out of 10
• 21:05
  actually. What do you like Tell us?
• 21:09
  I think that the Ronnie playing male.
• 21:13
  Yeah. This is Doctor Who chipping into
• 21:15
  pure pantomime. Yeah.
• 21:17
  And I do not mean that as an insult.
• 21:19
  Pantomime is an institution in this country.
• 21:22
  People love it. People flock to the theatres in
• 21:26
  the, you know, the coldest part of the year to go and see some
• 21:30
  flamboyance and some musical numbers and colour and
• 21:33
  countless, we love it. We fucking love panto in this
• 21:37
  country. And I think for a large portion
• 21:39
  of the audience, this sort of panto Doctor Who, it has an
• 21:44
  appeal. Now I've seen seen Bonnie and
• 21:48
  Sylvester in panto together. And this is kind of my my point
• 21:53
  about Time and the Rani. This might not be for every part
• 21:57
  of the Doctor Who audience, because maybe they don't like
• 21:59
  that sort of thing they don't like.
• 22:00
  No, I think. But I don't think you can write
• 22:03
  it off and say it's terrible. No, it's not terrible.
• 22:05
  It's just doing something with with a sort of panto feel that
• 22:10
  you don't like. Yeah.
• 22:11
  And I think this is the thing, I think sometimes there's one of
• 22:16
  the criticisms levelled at this is that it's not taking it
• 22:19
  seriously. And how can the doctor be taken
• 22:22
  in by the Rani impersonating male?
• 22:25
  Well, he's unwell. She's just giving him a dose of
• 22:27
  amnesia. So think he's not going to be
• 22:29
  thinking straight anyway. At this point I cannot imagine
• 22:34
  Colin doing this though. This is the the thing and this
• 22:37
  is written for Colin. I can't see him in these scenes.
• 22:42
  It's really weird. I.
• 22:44
  Mean Colin can play comedy, but it's usually sort of verbose
• 22:48
  comedy, isn't it? Rather than slapstick?
• 22:52
  Maybe it would have changed. Oh, hang on.
• 22:54
  Mark Cockham says you guys should watch The Avengers
• 22:56
  episode. Stay tuned.
• 22:57
  Which features K Omar and Roger Dalardo.
• 23:01
  Are they amazingly? There, yeah, she's really good
• 23:03
  in that. Oh, Daniel Rosley.
• 23:05
  Even the new series veers into pantomime sometimes, and I love
• 23:08
  it. Me too, Daniel.
• 23:11
  But I mean. Look at that, it's been dragged
• 23:13
  along. Yep, in those poor white what I
• 23:19
  would have been white and take her to a quarry.
• 23:21
  It's it's a very puzzling decision.
• 23:25
  I'm not going to get too personal, but I'm just going to
• 23:27
  say do not put women in white trousers, OK?
• 23:30
  It's not a good idea. No.
• 23:33
  And then they have to spend all the time mopping up.
• 23:38
  I believe Mark Breach was an extremely handsome man.
• 23:42
  He was, yeah, yeah, he couple of years after this, he gets his
• 23:46
  own. He's the star of a big TV show
• 23:48
  that's sort of the replacement for Howard's Way, which is
• 23:51
  called Trainer All About horses and, and things like that.
• 23:54
  And yeah, he, he, he was very, very handsome in that.
• 23:59
  Well, apparently he was, Bonnie was saying on the commentary I
• 24:01
  was listening to that he was appalled that he had to have
• 24:04
  this sort of leprosy makeup put on every day and cover his face
• 24:08
  in Rice Krispies. Like no one's going to see my
• 24:10
  beautiful face on Doctor. Who?
• 24:11
  You can still see his beautiful face.
• 24:14
  I I think he he's really tremendous.
• 24:17
  I remember my mum saying at the end of the story that it was a
• 24:20
  shame he didn't go with them because he said he would have
• 24:22
  been the best actor in the show. He's really good.
• 24:26
  Yeah, we're, we're following the tradition here.
• 24:28
  It's just called male hideous, just like Seal used to.
• 24:31
  Yes, but Perry Canyon isn't being fetishized.
• 24:35
  Look at that high angle shot of the tat trap looking at them
• 24:38
  from above, that's amazing. Yeah, it's really nicely
• 24:42
  directed by Andrew Morgan, who's is doing his very first Doctor
• 24:45
  Who here. Sigh.
• 24:48
  Look at me mop my brow. I love the angry way she does
• 24:56
  this. It's her first lips, so she does
• 24:59
  it. Regardless of what you think
• 25:01
  about all of this, they play it brilliantly, like this could be
• 25:05
  on the stage this. It's quite farcical and and fun
• 25:09
  at least so I never had a problem with it at all.
• 25:13
  You. Remember the time you played the
• 25:15
  spoons on my tits? This is how rumours start, Joe.
• 25:20
  We've talked about this before there.
• 25:22
  Are some. Things that we don't share.
• 25:24
  Surely that's one of the rudest things anyone's done to a woman
• 25:26
  in Doctor Who. I think so.
• 25:30
  Do I detect a hinge of bad temper Psy.
• 25:33
  Why are you behaving so appetit? Could you think yourself
• 25:35
  superior to me? How could I possibly think that?
• 25:39
  But surely there's a catalyst this?
• 25:43
  Dialogue. The impulse is there from this
• 25:48
  goo. What's it for?
• 25:53
  You take out. I mean, this is a free wall set
• 25:55
  anyway, but it could just be on the stage.
• 25:58
  Yeah, right. And Pier at Christmas, couldn't
• 26:00
  it? And I really liked the set it
• 26:04
  again, I think it's just quite stylish with the sort of
• 26:08
  pyramids and the triangle motif sort of all the way through it.
• 26:11
  And the inverted triangle with the screen seemed quite
• 26:14
  innovative and different at the time.
• 26:18
  I agree. I agree.
• 26:20
  And anybody out there, what do you guys think of Andrew
• 26:22
  Morgan's direction of this now? Did he bomb it or did he make it
• 26:26
  better? It's strange because he's quite
• 26:29
  down on it. Yeah, he said that remembrance
• 26:32
  of the Daleks was his chance to sort of come back and redeem
• 26:35
  himself. Yeah, but I don't think he does
• 26:37
  a bad job here. I wonder if fan opinion had hit
• 26:40
  him at some point about how. Oh yeah.
• 26:42
  I mean, and the fans were so vitriolic about everything in
• 26:45
  the show after this year that that it's entirely possible that
• 26:49
  he he saw all that because it was all very visible.
• 26:52
  I mean, we had Andrew Beach writing to the Daily Mail to say
• 26:55
  Doctor Who's shit, you know, and it's, it's awful.
• 26:59
  Oh, well, there were people coming on points of view.
• 27:00
  I won't name any names, but certain showrunners saying, and
• 27:04
  you've got Jane Baker there going.
• 27:06
  Well, I think you Doctor Who fans are very ungrateful.
• 27:09
  Yeah. And I'll tell you what, Nothing.
• 27:11
  'S changed, no? And there's the the episode of
• 27:14
  open air where where Bonnie and Sylvester are thrown.
• 27:19
  All these awful comments after after the broadcast of episode
• 27:23
  one and it's just horrible. It's not like you sighs a lot
• 27:28
  about like this. I'm sure you've still got the
• 27:31
  same sweet nature. Doctor.
• 27:34
  Really I love all this stuff though.
• 27:39
  Like I am not laughing because I I'm not laughing at this.
• 27:44
  I'm laughing. With it?
• 27:45
  With it, yeah. And like you said with the twin
• 27:49
  Dilemma, like objectively, you could probably say this is this
• 27:52
  is a bad story. Like it is insanely over the top
• 27:56
  and probably exactly what Doctor Who shouldn't have been doing at
• 27:59
  the time. But like, it's pleasurable to
• 28:03
  watch and surely that's the fucking point.
• 28:06
  Yeah, well, that's what that's what I, I always thought I'm, as
• 28:10
  I said, I loved. I was 12 when this went out and
• 28:15
  my critical faculties were kicking in a bit, but we had we
• 28:19
  had a lodger who was living with us while this season was on and
• 28:23
  he'd he'd be eventually I managed to persuade my parents
• 28:26
  that it wasn't worth them watching Corrie on a Monday
• 28:28
  night and Doctor Who I tell me it wasn't on and on and.
• 28:33
  On this episode, Sorry, please. No, no, no, no.
• 28:35
  It was, it was a sort of part four.
• 28:36
  And I just remember him because he was trained to be an actor
• 28:39
  and him saying this is the most kitsch thing I've ever seen and
• 28:44
  stuff with the with Kate O'Mara. And then I had to get him to
• 28:47
  explain what the word kitsch meant because I've not heard
• 28:50
  that word before. So I was still quite young.
• 28:52
  And then you realised you could apply to most of Doctor Who and.
• 28:56
  Yeah, and and suddenly it it's is camp and it is big, but I
• 29:01
  think it needed that contrast after the trial which had been
• 29:05
  so PO faced and and I I love trial and I won't.
• 29:12
  I do too. No, I love try but.
• 29:14
  These does feel like a ray of sunshine coming into Doctor Who
• 29:17
  that hadn't been there for such a long time.
• 29:20
  It's like the ultimate breath of fresh air, isn't it?
• 29:23
  And the fact that it's so simple as well.
• 29:25
  After all, it's like a bit like the woman who fell to Earth
• 29:29
  after the Steven Moffat era. It's like, OK, it is time now.
• 29:33
  Those complexities were great and fascinating and
• 29:35
  experimental. But we've got to do something
• 29:38
  different. Yeah.
• 29:40
  And, and the doctor is right at the heart of this story, which
• 29:45
  we haven't had since November. This was supposed to be Colin's
• 29:49
  last story and I think that's probably why the doctors at the
• 29:52
  heart of this, because he was going to get his heroic end at
• 29:55
  the end. Also, we better deal with some
• 29:57
  of these comments. What does Anthony Carroll have
• 29:59
  to say? Anthony Carol had to say my
• 30:02
  hates at my mates at school were just scornful.
• 30:05
  Well, so were mine, so that's fine.
• 30:07
  Mark Cockrum says you can't Polish it's herd.
• 30:10
  I love that guy. I love him.
• 30:13
  I hated this on 1st transmission, but Oh my goodness
• 30:15
  I love it now, says Zoidi Zoister.
• 30:19
  Zoidi Zoister, you've got my best name here.
• 30:22
  Yeah, Pip and Jane intended the planet to be a lush forest, and
• 30:26
  then they filmed it in the usual Doctor Who quarry.
• 30:28
  Like I think. It's the last story that was set
• 30:31
  in a quarry, says Tom. And the last one was.
• 30:34
  Tackle the Cybermen. The Cybermen.
• 30:36
  So it's been a couple of years. Well, well, even more years
• 30:40
  because of the hiatus, yeah, Anthony Carroll says.
• 30:43
  What were the viewing figures so we.
• 30:45
  Put 1,000,000 for this episode and then it drops a little for
• 30:48
  the the next three. But anyone who's going to use
• 30:51
  numbers to attack this, yeah, it starts with 5.1, it goes down to
• 30:55
  I think 4.1, then climbs and then climbs again.
• 30:59
  But more people came back for 3:00 and 4:00.
• 31:02
  Yeah. Oh, hang on.
• 31:04
  Soy de Soyster says he should rename his account DJ Dave.
• 31:07
  Oh, it's my friend Dave. Oh, hello, Dave.
• 31:13
  Ah, lacks my natural humidity. The bread, brother and a horse.
• 31:18
  I need something Time Lord ish. Look at these duvets dropped up
• 31:24
  in the background I mean. I mean, this is absolutely
• 31:27
  absurd, all this, but what makes this is Kate O'mara's reaction
• 31:30
  to everything she's basically the audience at.
• 31:34
  Home, OH. God.
• 31:37
  What's he come now? Oh, a little portentous, don't
• 31:40
  you think? Sigh.
• 31:42
  Pretentious is the word. Do you know what?
• 31:46
  I swear to God one of the funniest bits in all of those.
• 31:48
  Who is in a minute when she fucking slaps him round the face
• 31:52
  and goes I'm sorry you seem to be losing control.
• 31:57
  That's what Perry should have done in The Twin Dilemma.
• 32:02
  Alex Hardwell this is a much better start than Colin ad also
• 32:07
  Hallo si. Oh, hello, Alex.
• 32:09
  Oh, lovely Alex. Hello.
• 32:11
  Daniel, Rosie, Poor son earlier. The skeleton is a nice grim
• 32:14
  touch, just in case there's any doubt as to whether she died.
• 32:18
  We haven't even talked about the bubble traps.
• 32:20
  We haven't. Well, we've got we we could do
• 32:22
  that with the cliffhanger, can't we?
• 32:23
  So oh nice overlay of Bonnie. Actually that's that's nicely
• 32:27
  done. Isn't it?
• 32:28
  It is. That where she slaps him there
• 32:30
  and he does have a really. Hard slap and he's into the
• 32:33
  mirror. I mean that is literally panto
• 32:36
  that the comedy there was a. Word radiation wave meter.
• 32:44
  Daniel Knight says hello Si and Joe.
• 32:46
  I love this scene and I love it now.
• 32:49
  Good. I'm loving all this love for
• 32:51
  Time in the Rani. Come on, must be a juicy.
• 32:54
  Costume is is good. Absence makes the news grow
• 32:58
  longer. Cretin.
• 33:01
  You often say that to me, you know.
• 33:03
  So what do you think? Of Coy's costume.
• 33:06
  Well, it's a step up, I'll say that.
• 33:08
  And I, we talked about Colin's costume in the 2011.
• 33:11
  I do like it. I like, I like how it's gone
• 33:13
  down in subsequent years. But it was a mistake.
• 33:16
  Yeah, this is a more tailored costume.
• 33:19
  He could blend in a little more. I don't like the jumper, but it
• 33:22
  seems to be the thing that people prize more than anything.
• 33:25
  Yeah, it's it's odd, isn't it, that that seems to have been
• 33:28
  been sort of almost reclaimed because it wasn't liked at the
• 33:31
  time. And Sylvester didn't like it,
• 33:33
  but he was sort of Lombard with it.
• 33:36
  And she's completely evil. Sigh that she must be destroyed.
• 33:39
  Destroyed. Let's not be hasty.
• 33:41
  It's just those little bleeps of his doctor that come out that
• 33:46
  are really, really interesting and good.
• 33:48
  Can we both do it the the way she very evenly looks at the
• 33:51
  scanner ready, turn away and then turn in.
• 33:58
  Oh, I think this is a great cliffhanger.
• 34:00
  Oh yeah, absolutely. And the special effects are
• 34:03
  brilliant. I mean, that bubble looks
• 34:05
  amazing and I had no idea how they'd done it at the time,
• 34:10
  which is always the mark of a good special effect.
• 34:12
  I mean, she goes all the way over the bloody Cliff there.
• 34:14
  Yeah. And then because there's
• 34:16
  physical effects when it bounces off the Cliff, it really helps
• 34:20
  to sell it. You've got Kev McCullough going
• 34:21
  crazy. She's screaming her head off.
• 34:24
  Yeah, and the crashing. The drama.
• 34:29
  Sigh. Absolutely.
• 34:31
  And it's a, you know, she's in peril because we've seen San
• 34:34
  killed by it earlier on. So yeah, it's it's really,
• 34:38
  really good. How will Bonnie get out of this
• 34:41
  one? Well, exactly.
• 34:44
  With by screaming, probably. Daniel Knight says.
• 34:48
  I wrote to DWM to say how much I loved it, but they got my name
• 34:52
  wrong. They called me David, perhaps to
• 34:54
  protect my identity from the more rabid fans who hated this.
• 34:58
  Oh, I'll have to look that up. David Daniel.
• 35:02
  Rosen says Mccoy's slowly turning round, so the Ronnie
• 35:05
  must be the spiritual sequel to that Brigadier double take.
• 35:08
  Oh, well, we could. Yeah.
• 35:10
  We we should get that as a gift ready for for for Lucy.
• 35:14
  And we'll end this episode on Zoidy's Oyster's question.
• 35:19
  Did Bonnie really scream in the same key as the audio sting?
• 35:23
  I believe she did. Yes, although obviously they've
• 35:26
  got rid of the audio sting for this year.
• 35:28
  So she screamed in the same pitch as Dominic Glynn rather
• 35:33
  than Kev, who's sort of got a more whoosh into the end
• 35:36
  credits. So.
• 35:37
  While folks pause your buttons there, I'm going to count us
• 35:41
  into episode two in a second. Everyone get your episodes
• 35:43
  ready. So how did you find episode one?
• 35:46
  Oh, I love it. I think that's a really fun
• 35:48
  episode. Can you understand why that is
• 35:51
  the nadir for a lot of people though?
• 35:53
  Yeah, I can. I can kind of see it because
• 35:58
  it's quite silly and there's a whole, it's quite.
• 36:01
  Silly, did you say? That's an understatement,
• 36:04
  obviously, but there's a whole subset of fandom who want Doctor
• 36:09
  Who to be dreadfully serious and should never be fun and there
• 36:13
  shouldn't be jokes and there shouldn't be clowning around.
• 36:16
  But I'm not one of those fans. I started with Season 17.
• 36:19
  So, you know, this is, this is more my wheelhouse of Doctor Who
• 36:23
  than than Mind Warp, say, although I do love Mind Warp
• 36:27
  these days. But, you know, yeah, I, I can
• 36:32
  understand their criticism. I don't think it's necessarily
• 36:35
  justified. I think part of the problem is
• 36:37
  there's always be types of Doctor Who that aren't for
• 36:40
  everyone. And people naturally want the
• 36:44
  Doctor Who style that they love and they're always going to go
• 36:49
  naturally for those stories, gravitate towards those stories.
• 36:54
  And anything that isn't in their wheelhouse, they're going to
• 36:57
  dismiss. And not necessarily.
• 37:00
  And for a lot of fans, I don't think they would give it a
• 37:02
  chance because they'll see something that they don't like
• 37:05
  and they're not not prepared to re evaluate it from the opinion
• 37:09
  that they formed in 1987.