Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Rob Valentine about his choice of The Gunfighters (2/4)

Transcript

Talks to Rob Valentine about his choice of The Gunfighters (2/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None. A hamster with a blump.
• 0:34
  Pen knife for doing. Quicker, quicker.
• 0:40
  Quicker so. Fill up your classes and join in
• 0:44
  the smart raw business talent and Oh no, I got it wrong.
• 0:48
  I'll start again, so fill up your glasses and join in the
• 0:55
  smut. Rob is a talent and Joe is a
• 0:58
  slut. We'll be praising Hot no and
• 1:01
  avoiding A rut, but we can't promise much with so much
• 1:06
  Cowboy. But that was my verse, all
• 1:09
  right. I'm so sorry.
• 1:13
  Well, if I would say if I had to guess, if I had to.
• 1:16
  Guess such smart things, and I'll come in with that.
• 1:20
  Welcome back to our Hamster with a Blunt Penknife, the Doctor Who
• 1:24
  commentary podcast. Rob.
• 1:28
  Howdy. Howdy, ma'am.
• 1:30
  Oh, sorry. Howdy, Sir.
• 1:31
  Sorry. Fine, Eric, continue.
• 1:36
  So we left the Doctor, in a moment of extreme peril in.
• 1:41
  A moment of extreme toothache, Yes.
• 1:43
  Almost extreme peril. Moderate peril, Moderate peril.
• 1:48
  Moderate peril? Yes.
• 1:51
  OK, well, you know what? I'm going to just jump straight
• 1:53
  into Episode 2 if you're ready to do it.
• 1:55
  Oh yeah, I was born ready. Okey Dokey gone Cat is it?
• 1:58
  Let's do it. 54321 that was a bit quick for you.
• 2:04
  I caught you mid sip. Oh.
• 2:06
  Here we go. OK, good.
• 2:07
  Thank you. Paul, what do you think about
• 2:10
  these tiles, which I love them? Perfect.
• 2:15
  Terrifying. Mysterious immortal.
• 2:20
  Here's something that something that Toby Hader was about the
• 2:22
  William Harder era is it does weird really well in in a way
• 2:26
  that sort of a lot of later Doctor Who doesn't.
• 2:29
  Yeah, without you sounding too wanky.
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  It's kind of before Doctor Who kind of codified itself.
• 2:35
  It could be. It could be absolutely batshit
• 2:37
  anything the next week and here in here.
• 2:40
  And don't shoot the pianist. And here's a case in point.
• 2:44
  This is the one I think I've noticed somewhere.
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  Oh yeah, Part 2. Don't shoot the pianist Doc
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  Holiday's accent is fine. I wrote no cliffhanger
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  resolution, exclamation mark. Then I wrote.
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  The song is going on too long. So I think.
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  I think this is the one part of the whole thing where I think
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  the song goes on too long. Just coming up.
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  There's a little musical interlude about to come up.
• 3:11
  Yeah, well then she used to jumps up on the bar, doesn't
• 3:13
  she? That was the bit that, yeah,
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  that coming up, gone back to the Last Chance saloon.
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  Why must women metal? Oh yeah, I think the fact we're
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  still singing is this is, this is the one bit.
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  I find it goes on a little bit too long.
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  However, if we'd actually had had a proper cliffhanger and
• 3:35
  this episode had started with like, the Doctor's hat getting
• 3:38
  shot off at the door, yeah, none of this would be happening now
• 3:41
  and we'd be into the drama again.
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  How many? Bloody hell, did Kate get in
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  there before the Doctor? Yeah, except where the hell he
• 3:49
  he was. Outside.
• 3:50
  Maybe there was anaesthetic and he's walking it off.
• 3:52
  He's. Just walking around in.
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  Search. Although on a side note, yeah, I
• 3:59
  I do agree with you actually, I'm not even sure we should hear
• 4:02
  the song within the story. It should just be.
• 4:04
  Great. It should be.
• 4:05
  Yeah it should be. Non diegetic.
• 4:07
  Oh I think, yeah the the flight through entirety always might be
• 4:12
  insane. Ticket if there if there
• 4:13
  anywhere out there. Take a sip.
• 4:15
  Yes. But yeah, yeah, I I agree it
• 4:19
  should be. It should be kind of, yeah, it
• 4:21
  should be non diegetic outside the story, like a Greek chorus.
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  The characters don't necessarily hear it, but it comments on the
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  action and kind of brings all these grubby happenings to a
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  level of the mythological of, you know, the old, the whole
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  idea of the the Wild West. It's bullshit.
• 4:40
  It's, you know. Anyway, carry on.
• 4:42
  I'm going to contradict myself because in the same breath, I
• 4:45
  really love the fact that there is space in a Doctor Who story
• 4:48
  for a busty babe to get up on top of a bar and sing a song.
• 4:51
  So, like, I'm like, well, I just, it's so weird.
• 4:55
  It's so not Doctor Who. But what is?
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  But yeah, but you know, it's it's not later Doctor Who, but
• 5:01
  there. You go, it's not the formulaic
• 5:03
  Doctor Who. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  But what at this point Dr. Who is it's literally, it can be
• 5:09
  anything, go anywhere, do anything.
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  The whole, isn't it. Yeah.
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  And the whole idea of what it is.
• 5:14
  Yeah. So.
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  And here we have the doctor entering.
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  This should have been kind of where the, you know, after a bit
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  of a bit more than mild peril, this should be kind of where it
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  should begin, I think. But I do.
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  I do love the fact that he comes in so amiable and then he
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  realizes it's in the shit. It's just how Hartnell plays it,
• 5:32
  yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Yeah. Oh, he's loving it.
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  Then you've got to remember this is this is like a hair's breath
• 5:43
  away from him to part in the show.
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  Yes. And he wasn't happy at this
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  point, generally, was he? But maybe they I I don't know
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  any facts about this, but maybe they gave.
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  Maybe they wrote the Westerns to sort of locate him a little
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  because there were some blistering rows going on behind
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  the scenes. At the moment in this you
• 6:02
  couldn't guess and oh, here we are and he's just twigged to the
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  Clanton Czar. But if he's just twigged to the
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  Clanton Czar, then how can he not know about Wire Turpent,
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  Dock, Holiday and the Gunfight? The OK Corral?
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  That's a that. I hate to say it.
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  I think that's a bit of a pothole.
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  Oh, he does. Oh, 1000.
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  He's just not mentioning it, which is weird.
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  Yeah, yeah. But I kind of think, you know,
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  if he knows about it and again he knows all these events are
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  heading towards this very dangerous 32nd long gunfight,
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  that's another. We'll come to that Episode 4.
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  But yeah, there should be a bit. And here we have Doc Holiday
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  rather sinisterly listening at an elevated angle, drawing his
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  guns slowly. He's totally kind of coded as
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  the the villain at this point, which is an interesting way to
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  go. I mean, he wasn't, he wasn't a
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  good guy. I mean, the UPS weren't the the
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  good guys that history paints them as, you know, Wyatt Earp
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  was, you know, I mean, he was a an occasional pimp, You know, he
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  was, he'd been on the run from the law.
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  He was, you know, they were in their way, bunch of thugs as
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  well as lawmen. And the rest of it, it's, you
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  know, it's just that, you know, in terms of history, they won.
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  Does Deadwood play all the owl? Oh, Deadwood is, yeah, it's just
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  a Deadwood is a Deadwood is basically the story of a a town,
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  the town of Deadwood and its evolution from a very primitive
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  mining camp through to being a small town.
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  It's outside of the Union and and eventually it becomes part
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  of part of the United States, but it's about how civilizations
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  grow and it stars Ian McShane as the kind of the kind of the
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  warlord who runs the town, really.
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  But do those very sort of famous Western historical carriers, do
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  they, are they? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the
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  the historical, the it's, it's based on history with a degree
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  of artistic licence because again, how can you not.
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  It's unavoidable. But then, you know, but with,
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  with, with fictional characters thrown in where required for the
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  drama. Or we just, we just have got the
• 8:20
  Doctor here, We're having people at gunpoint.
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  And actually the Doctor takes charge of the situation here in
• 8:25
  a very undoctorish way. He pulls a gun and has his his
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  companion take all the other guy's guns away from them and
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  he's yeah. Just that, as an image, The two
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  of them with the guards, him and Kay, yeah.
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  This thing is, and I think what's what can be the possible
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  excuse for us people who think we know what the doctor can and
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  can't do for all this. It's the doctors playing at
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  being a cowboy, but. It's like you said, the overall
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  rules at this point, is it? No, no, it's about the Doctor at
• 8:52
  this point. No, but that's kind of, that's
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  kind of the point. I mean, I mean, he knew, he
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  brained a guy with a rock in his second episode.
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  So I. Think that I was talking
• 9:03
  recently with Simon Fraser about Seas of death where trout and
• 9:06
  effectively creates a lash up and goes around murdering a load
• 9:09
  of people at the end of that story and they they we kind of
• 9:13
  came to the conclusion that that sort of morally upright I won't
• 9:17
  pick up a gun. That all started with Purwee
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  when Terrance Dix came in. Right, yes, yeah, yeah.
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  And the the doctor doesn't care, or the doctor doesn't do this.
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  The doctor doesn't do that. Which is fine, but it's just
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  madding when you have all that kind of moralising and posturing
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  when he hately does. All the time I can beat Tom
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  Baker with a massive gun at the end of the invasion of time.
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  Colin Baker When did he not have a gun on him?
• 9:43
  Yeah, I mean, Day of the Daleks. I mean, he just, you know, the
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  3rd Doctor just casually shoots an Ogron, you know, and all
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  that. But the point is it's they're in
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  a Western, and in a Western that's what you do, I suppose
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  that's kind of, you know, they we're dealing in tropes here.
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  Although it would be fun if he did something like else it'd be
• 10:01
  more Doctor Y. But I just, I just remarked on
• 10:04
  it because it's it's a surprise. It's something I wasn't
• 10:06
  expecting the Doctor to kind of hold an entire room at gunpoint
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  so casually and well. Comedy and Stephen trying to
• 10:13
  break him out of prison and kiss him the gun for the bars and
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  he's like, wow, I need you to get out of this.
• 10:18
  It's why they're going to lynch her.
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  I I actually I made the note around this point because again
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  watching for the first time my note was this is a comedy.
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  It was like. Oh, this?
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  Point. Yeah, yeah.
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  It's like, yeah, it's like this funny stuff has been going on
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  for so long now. Yeah, this is definitely,
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  there's no getting around it. This is this is a comedy do.
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  You know all these comedies? Oh, there's a couple of comedies
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  in season three. They all twisted that last
• 10:45
  episode into a massacre. Yes, yeah.
• 10:49
  Yeah. That's the darkest sort of
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  comedy you're going to find. Well, it works, though to a
• 10:54
  degree. I would say that I didn't make a
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  note here. It's just me tracking expect
• 10:59
  wondering where this was going to go or should.
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  I felt like it should be going. And my note here was
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  dramatically the doctor should pretend at some point to be Doc
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  Holiday deliberately. That's the ironic squeeze of the
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  lemon this bit needs. And I don't think it happens,
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  but I was thinking after being mistaken for Doc Holiday, at
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  some point you need to you need to actually weaponize that.
• 11:23
  But this part kind of this subplot where Doc Holiday and
• 11:29
  Kate take Dodo away, it confuses me a bit.
• 11:35
  I think I it was all by confuse me.
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  I kind of It feels like must give the character something to
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  do somehow, but. Dodo.
• 11:47
  Yeah. Or dog holiday.
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  Both just, you know, just we need another plot thread.
• 11:53
  But. Because we don't need them to do
• 11:57
  that for Johnny Ringo to join the story.
• 11:59
  Because he comes to this town first, doesn't it?
• 12:03
  He goes into the bar, yeah. Afterwards, he goes after Kate
• 12:06
  when he finds out they've left town.
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  Yeah, and I kind of think all this stuff you could be actually
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  having the the the historic build up to the gunfire to the
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  OK Corral, all all the tensions in the town and the politics
• 12:20
  behind it. You could be, you could be using
• 12:23
  this time giving us a bit of a pot of history would be, you
• 12:27
  know, you'd be educating as well as entertaining.
• 12:30
  That's that's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.
• 12:32
  But it's still it's still good. Sydney Newman would approve.
• 12:35
  Yes. No, I think this is great.
• 12:36
  I mean it's great that you're sort of given this a right as I,
• 12:40
  you know, yeah I I. To be honest, I I only do that
• 12:45
  when, yeah, not being, I'm kind of possibly when I'm not being
• 12:51
  given quite enough to entertain me.
• 12:53
  It's like, oh, also, I think I'm just, you know, so at this
• 12:58
  point, again, there's lots of the clans don't get to do much.
• 13:03
  They just, they hang around the saloon being gits a lot.
• 13:07
  Well, I thought the whole point was they were just useless and
• 13:10
  that's why we're bringing Johnny Ringo, because they're just not
• 13:13
  getting it done. Yeah, I do look forward to that
• 13:17
  because it does inject. We'll get to it when he when he
• 13:20
  turns up, but it does inject some proper hair into it.
• 13:24
  Isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
• 13:26
  He has like an intensity to him that nobody else does.
• 13:28
  Yeah, I mean his his accent's also, which which again, I hate
• 13:34
  to say it kills and it kills it all for me, but I'm just as an
• 13:37
  exercise, I'm trying to just ignore it and look and look for
• 13:43
  what it's it's otherwise going for.
• 13:46
  But that character feels like there's a sense of danger about
• 13:48
  him. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:50
  It's in that coming from the Clintons.
• 13:53
  Yes. In in Tombstone he's played by
• 13:57
  Michael Bean who's played he's Kyle Reese in The Terminator and
• 14:01
  he's he's Corporal Hicks and Aliens and he and Doc Holiday
• 14:06
  who is Val Kilmer in his finest role.
• 14:09
  I mean he makes tuberculosis sexy.
• 14:13
  They they are pitted as you know two sides of the same coin they
• 14:16
  both have become. They have a Latin quoting face
• 14:20
  off and you know, they're both portrayed as the fastest and
• 14:24
  deadliest draws and yeah, it's, it's fantastic, but that sounds.
• 14:30
  Terrific. It's a good movie.
• 14:32
  It's a good movie. But this, this Doc Holiday is a
• 14:36
  sinister old man. He's not that.
• 14:41
  He's not. He's not gorgeous young Belle
• 14:43
  Kilmer. In in the historically accurate
• 14:48
  terms was Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp.
• 14:53
  Is it? Is they're the friends, aren't
• 14:55
  they in this? Yes, yeah.
• 14:56
  I think in something like 1878 or so, Doc Holiday had saved
• 15:03
  Wyatt Earp's life. So he kind of felt he owed him
• 15:06
  and he and he came to Tombstone because Wyatt Earp was there.
• 15:11
  It was, it was actually Wyatt Earp's older brother, Virgil,
• 15:15
  who was the sheriff. And I think then Wyatt Earp got
• 15:17
  deputized and then they deputized Doc Holiday as well
• 15:22
  and so he took part in the. Quite like how that friendship
• 15:25
  informs the story, obviously, the whole thing.
• 15:29
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Being treated as Doc Holiday is
• 15:32
  to protect him. And then here the only reason he
• 15:36
  goes out of town is because he threatens him and says you're
• 15:38
  going to be a lot of trouble if you don't, you know, get out,
• 15:41
  come back when once all this is over.
• 15:45
  Yeah, And to us, that kind of divergent from historical
• 15:48
  accuracy is fine. You know, I I think all, all you
• 15:51
  want from something like this. I mean, it's not a history
• 15:53
  lesson. Just give us, give us that.
• 15:55
  Give us the headlines. Really.
• 15:58
  I did. I did.
• 16:00
  In my notes I wrote, the plots bogged down for me, If the story
• 16:03
  was being more faithful to events, the gunfight at the OK
• 16:06
  Corral should be ticking the ticking clock, acting as the
• 16:09
  driving force behind all this. But it's just too casual.
• 16:12
  Even though I hit three heroes have been split up and menaced.
• 16:14
  So I for me, I just kind of think we don't.
• 16:17
  There isn't the sense that events are all heading towards
• 16:22
  this historic. Which is obvious, because I
• 16:26
  don't know how much have you heard the soundtrack to the myth
• 16:28
  Makers? No it.
• 16:30
  Is literally a ticking clock from the first episode that we
• 16:33
  are heading up to. You know, the Trojan horse and
• 16:37
  the fire that is, yeah. And every single act of that
• 16:42
  plot is heading in that direction, you know?
• 16:45
  Yeah, and this is, this is the gunfight at the OK Corral.
• 16:48
  It's, you know, they've been, you know, there were movie.
• 16:50
  There have been so many films made about it.
• 16:53
  It's a hugely famous event, obviously.
• 16:56
  So the fact that the Doctor has heard of the Clantons but not of
• 17:00
  the gunfight at the OK Corral just doesn't track.
• 17:02
  It should. This is one of those stories
• 17:04
  where it should be. I need to get my friends back
• 17:09
  and out of here because. Instead, the Doctor's having so
• 17:14
  much fun. He doesn't seem to care about
• 17:15
  any of that. And you can't be telling me
• 17:17
  that. You know those storybooks he had
• 17:18
  as a little boy, You know, he had the Massacre of Saint
• 17:21
  Bartholomew. He didn't have the gunfire, the
• 17:23
  OK Corral. Yeah, exactly.
• 17:25
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 17:27
  But it's Stephen Chew easily duped here as well.
• 17:29
  Like Oh no. Like, I know he's trying to
• 17:31
  outthink them and get the doctor out before they get to the jail.
• 17:37
  I don't know how it's played. Maybe I I kind of think there's
• 17:41
  a bit of in. Then again, you know, I've
• 17:43
  remember I've only watched this the once.
• 17:45
  You know, if I watched it twice, maybe I'd have.
• 17:48
  But also getting past following the plot, past the fucking
• 17:52
  dreadful accents I find really tricky.
• 17:54
  So maybe like 4, maybe 3 watches I'd need.
• 17:56
  But there's something about the logic, the internal logic of
• 18:00
  Stephen in this I couldn't quite follow.
• 18:02
  And I kind of think of showing the times where he either gives
• 18:07
  up his accent or uses the accent should be based on whatever he's
• 18:13
  planning, scheming, thinks he's up to somehow.
• 18:17
  But the fault that hit, Here's the thing, the fault here could
• 18:19
  be utterly beat with me for not being familiar enough with this
• 18:22
  because I've only watched it. But then again, if I watched it
• 18:25
  on TV on initial broadcast, I'd have only watched it once.
• 18:28
  So you know, but I just kind of think, yeah, I I lose it a
• 18:32
  little bit where Stevens heads at in this.
• 18:36
  I think it's worth remembering as well that, you know, this was
• 18:41
  made at a rate of knots. You know, the scripts were
• 18:45
  knocked out very quickly. They were, they were brought to
• 18:48
  life and I don't think there's as much sort of skill and
• 18:52
  detail. Oh no, please, please trust me,
• 18:55
  I am. I'm very familiar with the need
• 18:57
  to get out competent scripts faster than you'd like and that.
• 19:02
  Yeah, and absolutely. You never go back and go like,
• 19:05
  oh God, if I just had another month if.
• 19:09
  I had, if I had another two days, yes.
• 19:12
  Yeah. I mean, I just, yeah.
• 19:13
  I mean that may or may not happen to me today in fact, but
• 19:20
  but, but that's the way. I've heard it yet.
• 19:21
  All right. That's the way of, but that's
• 19:23
  the way of things. You know, you, you know,
• 19:27
  sometimes such things come out, you're happy with them.
• 19:29
  Sometimes you wish you could just have one more draft.
• 19:32
  Sometimes you kind of think, no, the whole thing needs a massive
• 19:35
  rethink. And I think, I think, and it
• 19:38
  doesn't, and it doesn't mean you're right, you're just going
• 19:40
  to fire and forget and go on to the next thing you know.
• 19:43
  Doctor Who at the time was just a bit of fun ephemera to watch
• 19:48
  on a Saturday night. You know, like we thought things
• 19:51
  happened now. Like, it's a really important
• 19:53
  bit of television. I think actually that's a
• 19:55
  wonderful way of looking at it. It was broadcast and then it no
• 19:57
  longer existed. It was, you know, it came out of
• 20:00
  your it came out of the, the silver glow of your television
• 20:03
  box. Went into through your eyeballs
• 20:06
  into your brain, and then resided in your memory.
• 20:08
  Your memory of it was your VCR, then it no longer existed, and
• 20:13
  it was valued by the people who made it to the point where they
• 20:16
  just chucked it. Yeah.
• 20:18
  And I don't think anyone could have foreseen at the time that
• 20:21
  it would be examined in the depth that it has been in the
• 20:25
  intervening years. No, no, no.
• 20:27
  It's. It's one of the things it wasn't
• 20:28
  pretty. It wasn't designed to be
• 20:30
  examined in that kind of depth. However, that that did not stop
• 20:34
  the human beings who made it from imbuing it with so much
• 20:36
  care, love and attention. And clearly, you know, despite
• 20:42
  changes that can happen, there is a lot of care that's gone
• 20:44
  into this. Yeah, yeah, I got it.
• 20:46
  I love the I love the doctor being locked up in a in a
• 20:51
  sheriff's prison cell. I love him calling him Mr. Work.
• 20:56
  It's such a cheap gag, but I like it anyway.
• 20:58
  Him calling him work it's it's it's kind of an isn't it's an
• 21:01
  Eric Morecambe kind of thing to do isn't it You know in a way.
• 21:04
  But you know I love. I love it.
• 21:05
  I love it because he's got he's got this kind of a pomposity is
• 21:08
  the wrong word he's got he's got a brisk brisk, brisk and brisk
• 21:13
  pomposity tomb in a way that you know that when he when he
• 21:17
  seemingly unwittingly kind of gets people's names right.
• 21:20
  It's so charming. Another great over.
• 21:23
  That's a. Lot of extras.
• 21:27
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 21:29
  It's not quite a town's worth of people that you do now, but it
• 21:33
  is enough to fill a set, you know.
• 21:35
  Well, it's a, you know, it's a it's a mining town that had
• 21:38
  hundreds of bars in it. You know, it's in this, it's
• 21:41
  portrayed as like, you know, a little hamlet essentially.
• 21:44
  But, you know, there were a lot of places to go drinking and
• 21:47
  whoring in in 1880s Tombstone. Really.
• 21:50
  It was huge. Vast, yeah.
• 21:54
  No, not my kind of horing though, is it?
• 21:56
  No, no, it was a, you know, the nasty kind.
• 22:00
  But you know that was, that was that was the Old West.
• 22:03
  That was, you know, you had mine.
• 22:04
  It was a mining town. It's like in Deadwood, it's a
• 22:05
  mining town there. It's gold.
• 22:07
  I think it was still the mines and Tombstone was silver mines
• 22:11
  if I recall. But you know, you had, you had
• 22:14
  workers and there, you know, there were different ways to
• 22:16
  make money off the workers, you know, booze, whores.
• 22:18
  And I'm going to. Ask you a question about the Old
• 22:23
  West now, which is, you know, even I'll study it.
• 22:26
  I can't believe I'll ask you this question.
• 22:27
  But I just can't foresee a society where there's this much
• 22:34
  gun play, like working. Like, was this the norm that
• 22:39
  people just shot people and was this every day or is this
• 22:44
  something that's been? No, it's something.
• 22:46
  It's something you go, you know, you go out of your way.
• 22:48
  It happened like the gunfight, the OK Corral.
• 22:51
  But you know, if it happened every day, you wouldn't remember
• 22:53
  the gunfight the. OK Corral just suggest you know
• 22:55
  everyone's firing guns all the time.
• 22:57
  Everyone's drawing and. Because.
• 22:59
  Because their stories. Because their stories and you
• 23:01
  need, you need those moments of crisis.
• 23:02
  I mean you, like I said, you weren't allowed to carry weapons
• 23:05
  in tune stone. You had to hand them in, you
• 23:08
  know, then pick them up at the A.
• 23:10
  Bit less of an exciting story though, wouldn't it?
• 23:12
  Well, no, because people carry them anyway.
• 23:14
  You know, that was that those are the rules.
• 23:16
  So, you know, but people can. That was the whole point.
• 23:18
  You know the Clantons, you know, they were part of this gang
• 23:21
  called the Cowboys and yeah, so they they carry them anyway.
• 23:25
  They didn't pay attention. You know, it's interesting.
• 23:28
  There are characters in who aren't included in this who were
• 23:32
  kind of faces in Deadwood. Curly Joe, I think who in the in
• 23:36
  in Tombstone. He's played by Powers Booth.
• 23:39
  But yeah, they were, they were rough.
• 23:43
  They were, they were bandits, you know.
• 23:46
  But do you think they were? Admitted for a reason.
• 23:49
  It's. Cast size really.
• 23:52
  You know, it's, you know you don't need that.
• 23:53
  You don't need that many people you know you've got, you've got
• 23:56
  Doc Holiday, you've got Johnny Ringo on, but one you've got
• 23:59
  one. You know, Johnny Ringo is enough
• 24:02
  to kind of embody them all. Suddenly having here, having
• 24:06
  having Stephen in danger of being lynched.
• 24:09
  It's. Brilliant.
• 24:10
  Yeah, yeah. It's what the first cliffhanger
• 24:12
  didn't have, isn't it? Yeah, and I kind of think just
• 24:15
  that that extra bit of danger in the first cliffhanger would have
• 24:18
  been great. But here, this, this really
• 24:20
  works. Beside all the comedy and and
• 24:23
  the and the music, at odds with, you know, jauntily odds with the
• 24:29
  the, the grubby, nasty peril. But is it is it?
• 24:36
  I would say yeah, yeah, yeah. Next up to join the Ringer.
• 24:38
  I would say this cliffhanger's muffled a bit.
• 24:40
  My I have a problem with this cliffhanger is purely we don't
• 24:43
  get to see Stephen. There's not a reaction stock
• 24:46
  shot for Stephen. Yeah, well, it's what you said
• 24:49
  about the first one as well. Just ending on the piano with
• 24:52
  them singing there. We're not really on the doctor.
• 24:54
  Oh yeah. But this, this cliffhanger would
• 24:56
  work if we had, if you could see Stephen's reaction to it,
• 25:00
  because Stephen is the one in direct danger.
• 25:02
  The Doctor is merely worried about Stephen, but Stephen is
• 25:05
  the one with the actual noose around his neck.
• 25:09
  So yeah, but I kind of think, yeah, I kind of think I can
• 25:13
  imagine 88, you know, the older 80s type fan.
• 25:17
  I kind of think if this one, if this had just a little, this one
• 25:21
  had more teeth to it, they might have, they might have liked it a
• 25:24
  bit more. But I just think a bit more
• 25:26
  danger in the opening cliffhanger and just a little
• 25:29
  bit more danger here just by showing Stephen.
• 25:33
  And because we get to see Stephen in the reprise.
• 25:35
  I think they'd been better disposed to the songs, honestly.
• 25:40
  Maybe. Well, you ought to remember
• 25:41
  there were you. If it's the 80s fan you're
• 25:43
  talking about, they're used to watching, You know, the Eriks
• 25:45
  award stories full of violence and.
• 25:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. In there.
• 25:51
  Yeah, but also I just kind of think if if the if the songs had
• 25:54
  been, if the cheerful, jaunty song have been juxtaposed with a
• 25:59
  little more scary threat and violence, the point of the songs
• 26:05
  would have been more pronounced. I think, but I also genuinely
• 26:10
  think there was a bit of an allergic reaction to fun and
• 26:15
  silliness and comedy during that.
• 26:18
  Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
• 26:19
  And so people were looking back at the Graham Williams stuff and
• 26:22
  saying, well, that was embarrassment, and looking back
• 26:24
  at the Romans and the gunfighters and saying, oh, good
• 26:27
  grief, Can you believe they ever did that, You know, was weirdly
• 26:30
  enough, I think all of that stuff is celebrated far more
• 26:32
  now. Well, you know, the pendulum has
• 26:34
  certainly swung the other way. I mean, the Graham Williams era
• 26:37
  is rightly loved and and and stuff that the gunfighters has
• 26:41
  been more than exonerated. I was just kind of leery for
• 26:46
  myself going in, not wanting to kind of be too contrarian to the
• 26:51
  kind of the more positive look of it, too.
• 26:53
  I said, you know, fortunately, like I said, you know, there are
• 26:56
  people who love it, people hate it, and people who are kind of,
• 26:59
  you know, cheerfully indifferent, but, you know, it's
• 27:02
  good. It's it's good stuff, you know,
• 27:05
  I think. I think on the terms of 25
• 27:08
  minutes of like fun television and I don't think there's
• 27:12
  anything wrong with that at all. To.
• 27:16
  Just entertain somebody. This is a this is gold.
• 27:20
  It's an absolute winner. Yeah.
• 27:22
  I'm going to throw a couple more questions.
• 27:24
  Oh yeah. Cool.
• 27:24
  Cool. Oh dear friend?
• 27:27
  Simon Hart asked. Oh.
• 27:28
  Hello, should say. Stories have had a narrative
• 27:32
  song. Should more stories have had a
• 27:37
  narrative song? My kind of quick fire answer
• 27:41
  would be no. But then I'd have to think,
• 27:43
  well, which what? Which would have benefited.
• 27:49
  Well, there's one obvious answer to that, you know, but it's got
• 27:51
  to got to be an opera, and that's the ones of Night on.
• 27:55
  Yeah, that's true. That's true.
• 27:57
  We did say there should be a musical version of Sharda, but
• 27:59
  that's proper. That's proper show tunes.
• 28:02
  It's out there somewhere. Yeah, but I think maybe maybe
• 28:05
  something like the Time Warrior would have benefited from like a
• 28:09
  hey nonny, nonny Will Scarlett kind of guy just sitting in a
• 28:13
  tree or on the back of. Playing it.
• 28:15
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 28:18
  Okey Dokey, Jason Thompson states another one where receive
• 28:22
  fan wisdom of the 80s and 90s, before anyone could easily watch
• 28:26
  it and form their own views treated it so badly.
• 28:29
  It's in the same vein as the myth makers, with comedy
• 28:31
  preceding a really grim ending. Also, it's just a statement
• 28:35
  rather than that. Question.
• 28:38
  Oh yeah, but let's let's interrogate that.
• 28:41
  Well, I agree. I said that to you.
• 28:42
  Didn't like that. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 28:43
  I think, no, I think, I think that.
• 28:44
  I think that's right. I kind of think it just, you
• 28:47
  know, it would have so far what we've watched so far, which
• 28:50
  would benefit from just a little more threat here and there.
• 28:55
  But I love the songs. They should, they belong there.
• 28:59
  But thematically it should be about the myth of the Old West
• 29:03
  versus the reality, because we've got the companions going
• 29:05
  in all ready for the myth and they get their illusions very
• 29:10
  quickly shattered. So that's all good, I think, you
• 29:13
  know, maybe there would might have been ways to push that a
• 29:16
  bit more, but but who knows, you know?
• 29:20
  Dylan Reese asks 3 words this question, Dodo or Susan?
• 29:30
  Why not both? You dirty bitch.
• 29:34
  What's? The question What's the question
• 29:36
  Dodo or Susan? She's 15 years old, you know?
• 29:39
  No, I mean, I I I prefer dodo personally.
• 29:44
  I just. I like her enthusiasm.
• 29:46
  Yeah. It's asking which.
• 29:50
  I I no, I'd say, I'd say Susan has got more potential inherent
• 30:00
  in the fact that she's the daughter's, the doctor's
• 30:02
  granddaughter, the daughter's granddaughter.
• 30:06
  Yeah, untapped. And that's really annoying.
• 30:09
  Yeah, and I'd like to tap that potential saved.
• 30:16
  Yeah, Okay, you're rubbing off on me.
• 30:22
  Yeah, it's. You need a stop, John Ben?
• 30:26
  Stallia asks. Oh, Chris, Everyone's obsessed
• 30:29
  with the song. Would the Ballad of the Last
• 30:31
  Chance Saloon make it to the charts if released as a record
• 30:35
  CD? Download?
• 30:36
  Whatever is they release music on these days.
• 30:39
  You know the answer's no. Why ask the question?
• 30:44
  OK, Chris Hogben ask. Hello, Chris Hogben.
• 30:48
  Oh, it's lovely. Such a job.
• 30:49
  Oh, he was there at the pub that day.
• 30:51
  Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:52
  Yeah. We chat, yeah.
• 30:54
  My question to you both is, who does the better?
• 30:56
  American accent Out of the two? Out of the two of you?
• 31:01
  Oh, out of the two of ours? And who can keep it up the
• 31:04
  longest while you're watching the gunfires?
• 31:06
  What would the accent or? The accent?
• 31:09
  Yeah. Oh right.
• 31:11
  What's happened to you? Oh, blushing.
• 31:18
  I can't really do an American accent.
• 31:20
  Oh. It's one of the I sometimes I
• 31:22
  can but not this evening. I don't think.
• 31:25
  Yeah I was going to I was going to I was going to entertain you
• 31:28
  with my my Val Kilner doc holiday.
• 31:32
  But it's just yeah, I I can. I can already tell it's not
• 31:34
  going to happen somehow, but yeah.
• 31:37
  We'll save that for the bedroom, Rod.
• 31:40
  Who asks. Do you think this would have
• 31:42
  worked for audiences at the time of broadcast?
• 31:44
  Or is the more recent love of this story a result of
• 31:47
  hindsight? And retrospect absolutely is.
• 31:53
  I think didn't they did what? I don't know.
• 31:57
  This had the lowest audience appreciation score of any heart
• 32:01
  or story and they did have letters and things at the time.
• 32:07
  I think this is this is that period where they were
• 32:09
  considering dropping the historicals because interest
• 32:12
  just drops. Yeah, that is that is the
• 32:16
  interest of the viewing public though, right?
• 32:18
  Yes. Yeah, as opposed to what he's
• 32:21
  talking about now because the the general viewing public
• 32:24
  couldn't give to Dingo's kidneys about the gunfighters.
• 32:27
  Now we're talking, we're talking about, we're talking about the.
• 32:31
  It's it's a question that is kind of it's asking about the
• 32:35
  opinion of the general viewing public of the time versus fan
• 32:39
  opinion. Now, nearly 60 years later,
• 32:43
  there's two different audience. They're two different beasts.
• 32:46
  That's the thing I mean. There's still a few knocking
• 32:48
  about that were around then. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 32:51
  Granted. But I yeah, it's.
• 32:53
  I think I suppose the best way to answer is, look, it's just
• 32:58
  it's just good. It's bloody it's bloody good.
• 33:01
  And it it it's, it's been much maligned.
• 33:06
  I think maybe praise for it could become too foursome
• 33:10
  because there are things dramatically wrong with it.
• 33:13
  But they're very there might to me, I think they're minor
• 33:15
  Quibbles I. Think my praise is a bit too
• 33:18
  foursome, but I just have such a rollicking time with it.
• 33:22
  Yeah, yeah. Can't answer much more.
• 33:23
  Than that you know. Here's the thing.
• 33:26
  I have the same problem with this as I have with a film that
• 33:30
  came out the year before this. Carry on, cowboy.
• 33:33
  It's you know it's an it's an English western with British
• 33:37
  actors for the most part playing Cowboys you know.
• 33:43
  But at some point you just got to go oh fine, I surrender.
• 33:48
  You know it either it either cannot work for you and some
• 33:52
  days that could be me. But I'm I'm really doing my
• 33:55
  darndest to try. And I mean, it's a good thing
• 33:59
  we're actually, for the purposes of this commentary, we're
• 34:01
  watching with the sound off, which actually helps sound off
• 34:06
  and subtitles. And actually, yeah, it works.
• 34:08
  You can just look at the visuals then.
• 34:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, me getting over the
• 34:13
  accents and and allowing me to see everything else beyond those
• 34:19
  is my personal big hurdle. But once I've done that, and I'm
• 34:23
  kind of that's the spirit in which I'm engaging with this
• 34:26
  this evening. It's good, It's good.
• 34:29
  It's funny, it's fresh. It's not what you'd think Doctor
• 34:33
  Who would do. But why the hell wouldn't Doctor
• 34:35
  Who do this? Because you can do anything in
• 34:37
  Doctor Who. You know, the whole idea of
• 34:39
  Doctor Who is this and that is these.
• 34:43
  These ideas we've had since our ideas of Doctor Who became more
• 34:48
  rigid and curdled. You're.
• 34:49
  Going to remember in the last story we were playing party
• 34:52
  games with you know Billy Bunter in a surreal nightmare.
• 34:56
  In the next story, we're going to have a PO faced morality play
• 34:59
  in the Planet of the Savages. Yeah, and I think Doctor Who,
• 35:03
  story to story, should be absolutely fucking batshit, you
• 35:05
  know, if as much as possible, you know?
• 35:08
  So yeah, so yeah, it's good. It's very, very good.
• 35:12
  One of the conclusion we're drawing here.
• 35:14
  Well, there are more questions, but I'll save them for episode
• 35:16
  3. Shall we do it?
• 35:19
  Naomi Huggleberry.