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Hamster Book Club - The Discontinuity Guide (featuring James Lark, Jason Thompson & Ian Winterton) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:02
  The Crusade When you men of eloquence have stunned each
• 0:07
  other with your words, we the soldiers will have to face it
• 0:10
  out. An ambitious project.
• 0:14
  Some of the script is in iambic pentameter, which highlights the
• 0:17
  possibilities for historical adventure.
• 0:20
  Imaginative with a fine cast. The appearance of Julian Glover
• 0:24
  was the first flowering of Doctor Who's guest star policy
• 0:28
  and a very adult storyline. Despite a dose of misogyny with
• 0:33
  torture and beatings on screen, the script manages to avoid
• 0:37
  racism, presenting Arabic culture with integrity.
• 0:44
  Welcome back. To the Hamster Book Club.
• 0:47
  My name is Joe Ford and I am utterly delighted to bring
• 0:53
  together, after 5 changes of dates for this recording, the
• 0:57
  dream team of Mr. Jason Thompson.
• 1:00
  Hello, Jason. Hello, Joe.
• 1:02
  Mr. Ian Winston. Hello, Ian.
• 1:05
  Hello. Oh, very serious.
• 1:08
  And last but no means least, Mr. James Lark.
• 1:12
  Hello, James. Hello.
• 1:14
  Well off recording I. Have a fun hello to contrast
• 1:17
  with the ends. Thank you.
• 1:19
  Yeah, light in the mood a bit. I have actually spoken to all of
• 1:23
  you recently on other podcasts, but this is the first time we've
• 1:26
  been together for a couple of months.
• 1:28
  And if nobody enjoyed The Discontinuity Guide by Paul
• 1:33
  Connell, Martin Day and Keith Topping, then they can all blame
• 1:36
  Jason because he chose this book for us to read this time around.
• 1:40
  Explain yourself, Jason. If you didn't enjoy it, there is
• 1:43
  absolutely nothing I can do about it so.
• 1:46
  It's very true. Very true.
• 1:47
  Well, we will get on to that. Although I still have no clue
• 1:51
  how to structure talking about this book, but I've got three
• 1:55
  very opinionated people with me today, so I'm I'm sure I'll just
• 1:58
  throw something at you. You'll you'll have something to
• 2:00
  say. Before we start.
• 2:04
  I very recently, IE 25 minutes ago asked all of you a question
• 2:09
  to ponder as a little ice breaker.
• 2:12
  And that is if you was to recommend a Doctor Who book to a
• 2:16
  non fan to entice them into reading more, what Doctor Who
• 2:21
  book would you choose and why? And I am going to throw this out
• 2:25
  to, I'm going to go in the reverse order, James first.
• 2:29
  Well, I my first response to the question was to challenge the
• 2:32
  premise of the question. Of course.
• 2:35
  That's the kind of day I'm having.
• 2:36
  Well as you know I'm a teacher and I often find and myself in a
• 2:40
  situation where I'm recommending books because children don't
• 2:43
  always like to read. And This is why I have a slight
• 2:46
  problem with the question is that it does very much depend on
• 2:49
  which person, child or adult I am recommending the book to.
• 2:55
  I'm going to be very specific with you then, OK?
• 2:58
  A 12 year old child has come up to you in school and said Sir,
• 3:01
  Sir, I understand you quite like Doctor Who.
• 3:04
  I've never read a Doctor Who book before.
• 3:06
  Which one would you recommend? Oh, a scenario that happens
• 3:09
  almost daily. Is this hypothetical 12 year old
• 3:13
  a, a good reader, a keen reader? Or rather, have they been forced
• 3:17
  by the English teacher to find a book to read?
• 3:19
  And in desperation, they've come to me and, and they're thinking,
• 3:23
  well, let's keep it Doctor Who because I, I like watching
• 3:26
  Doctor Who on television. That's exactly they've been
• 3:28
  watching it on the TV this season.
• 3:29
  Absolutely. I like Jesus Christ.
• 3:32
  I don't know how much, how much more we're going to have to
• 3:33
  knuckle this down. And they are quite a voracious
• 3:37
  reader anyway. But they've just never tried a
• 3:39
  doctor. Vicious reader.
• 3:41
  Oh well. All of the new adventures in
• 3:42
  order, no. A 12 year old.
• 3:47
  And you lose your job. This podcast I recorded about
• 3:51
  transit and then take this book. And have this.
• 3:57
  Bag of colour. Nuts as well.
• 4:00
  I would not. Be. 12 year old because I would
• 4:03
  lose. No.
• 4:06
  So I was thinking back to what were the Doctor Who books that
• 4:08
  got me into reading Doctor Who. I was quite I was a voracious
• 4:14
  reader and I didn't, it didn't take Terrance Dix to make me
• 4:18
  want to read, but I definitely remember the Doctor Who in the
• 4:22
  Auton invasion was one that we had in our school library and I
• 4:26
  read it in about 30 minutes. Absolutely sort of inhaled that
• 4:30
  prose and I think if I was talking to a 12 year old with
• 4:33
  perhaps a slightly youngish reading age and A and a less of
• 4:37
  an enthusiasm for reading, that's where I'd probably start.
• 4:40
  Would be a a good Terence sticks at his best and I think the
• 4:45
  Autonomy Invasion is efficient prose but exciting.
• 4:49
  Great story if it was a if it was a slightly more advanced
• 4:54
  reader. Again, thinking back to when I
• 4:56
  was 12, it was the late targets that really excited me.
• 5:01
  And I remember taking the cursive Fenrick into school when
• 5:04
  we had been tasked to do a project on a book and the
• 5:09
  English teacher going slightly pale and saying Oh well, I had
• 5:11
  really meant a proper book. And being the kind of kid I was,
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  I, I effectively kind of took the part the book apart and and
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  presented her with reasons why she had to let me do a project
• 5:24
  on this book. And and she was quite taken
• 5:27
  aback and let me do the project. The Curse of Henrik is one of
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  the late stage targets where I think John Nathan Turner had
• 5:36
  relaxed his grip on the range and a a a new, fairly young and
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  ambitious set of writers from the Carmel era had come in with
• 5:46
  with ambitions to make it more sounds pretentious, but slightly
• 5:53
  more literary in its approach. And for all that, I think
• 5:58
  remembers of the dialects, which is a book that I could quote off
• 6:02
  by heart when I was that age is probably the one that's
• 6:06
  considered the most kind of influential in terms of what
• 6:09
  followed. I think Fenerick maybe is the
• 6:11
  one that does it best. And it's, it takes kind of this,
• 6:16
  the, the sources of the curse of Fenerick and it plants them into
• 6:19
  the book in a series of documents, letters and diary
• 6:23
  entries. And it fleshes out the back
• 6:25
  story in a way that makes for a much more rounded and more
• 6:29
  satisfying experience than the Curse of Henrik on television,
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  which as we know, feels a bit rushed, a bit, you know, full
• 6:37
  event of, of event, not enough explanations.
• 6:40
  And I think that the Curse of Henrik is, is a very, very
• 6:45
  well-rounded piece of prose. So I think I'd probably go for
• 6:48
  that. Did you get good marks?
• 6:52
  Don't recall. She.
• 6:54
  Sounds like you put in a lot of effort.
• 6:57
  OK. Ian, do you need specifics or
• 6:59
  can you work? No.
• 7:00
  I was just thinking when I got when I got the question a whole
• 7:03
  25 minutes ago, having just rushed in from the pub where I
• 7:07
  was waiting for my Elliot to be my son to be at Cubs.
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  And it made me think, well, Elliot is 8 and he's quite a
• 7:16
  good reader, but his journey to reading has been very 21st
• 7:21
  century in that we bought an Alexa, like everyone bought an
• 7:26
  Alexa. And it just sat there being a
• 7:29
  thing that we switched off because it was annoying.
• 7:30
  But when we put it in his room and it was connected to an
• 7:34
  Audible account, it totally blew his mind.
• 7:38
  And he is an audiobook person. And the audiobook, reading
• 7:42
  audiobooks, listening to audiobooks has made him read.
• 7:45
  And then in amongst that I have I have bought Rob Sherman's
• 7:51
  Dalek read by Nick Briggs, which is brilliant and and Genesis of
• 7:57
  the dialects in an audio book. And he just listens to them all
• 8:02
  the time. And he has the books of them as
• 8:04
  well. So they've kind of made him read
• 8:06
  Doctor Who, but he also the things he will read basically
• 8:11
  David Walliams. He reads David Walliams and
• 8:14
  listens to them and Horrible Histories, but every so often
• 8:17
  he'll listen to Turn Sticks or Robert Sherman in Doctor Who
• 8:23
  form. But I also thought, I don't know
• 8:26
  as much as you guys about Doctor Who in the written in the
• 8:31
  written form, which is one reason I like doing this,
• 8:33
  because I like being made to read things.
• 8:35
  And James, you just made me realise I've just never really
• 8:40
  occurred to me that I grew up reading Target books, Telling
• 8:43
  Sticks taught me to read. And actually when those books
• 8:46
  were coming out, I wasn't even into Doctor Who.
• 8:48
  So Curse of Fenerick and all that era I've I've no idea about
• 8:54
  there might be something to do for a future pod, but they're
• 8:58
  they're equivalent or a Fangroc and the mutants and all these
• 9:03
  and Warriors Gate and all these amazing books that I'd loved as
• 9:06
  a kid. I don't know if they'd make a
• 9:08
  kid read modern kid. I work in schools as well and
• 9:13
  they are very reluctant, such reluctant readers now.
• 9:17
  So I don't. But if there was a kid who liked
• 9:19
  Doctor Who and I said, do you want to read some old Doctor
• 9:21
  Who, then I guess it's Terrance Dix.
• 9:23
  He's, you know, very readable and not hard to read and gets it
• 9:27
  across, puts the images in your head.
• 9:29
  But it also made me think, yeah, I do know more about if somebody
• 9:35
  was like, if you mean if comics are allowed and there's there's
• 9:39
  a set of Doctor Who fans that have never read comics and I
• 9:43
  just go, well, where do we start?
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  But I'd say Voyager because for me, that was that was my Colin
• 9:51
  Baker era. I hated it on television
• 9:53
  sometimes didn't even watch it. But Frobisher and Perry and the
• 9:58
  6th Doctor in the comic, that was my 6th Doctor experience.
• 10:02
  So maybe I'd say Voyager or just a bunch of random turn sticks.
• 10:09
  I do think it's exciting that the the the new target range
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  seems to have aspirations to be that for children of this
• 10:18
  generation, a thing that is going to make them want to read
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  and they are simultaneously very accessible but ambitious in the
• 10:26
  way that they are written. I can't.
• 10:28
  Speak for the the latest ones that have come out that have
• 10:31
  just come out of the Shooting out Wall ones.
• 10:33
  But the three David Tennant specials, the Giga Way in
• 10:35
  particular, which I've done an episode on.
• 10:38
  It was just it had puzzles throughout.
• 10:40
  It had a choose your own adventure style bit in the
• 10:42
  middle. It just made the whole
• 10:44
  experience of reading that book so fun.
• 10:47
  Yeah, I think, I think they're doing their damnedest to get
• 10:50
  kids interested in reading those books.
• 10:52
  Well, it's because because Gary, Gary and Mark Morris, obviously,
• 10:57
  I know them as well. And I, I was lucky enough to get
• 11:00
  to meet James Goss finally at Recent Capital and told him how
• 11:04
  much I love to giggle as a novel.
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  But the others, like Mark Morris was telling me at Gallifrey, he
• 11:09
  was like, whoa, the giggle's amazing.
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  But I was told in old school ways not to deviate too much.
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  And then James gets to do the opposite and just go where he
• 11:21
  wants, which is brilliant to both, both think both, both,
• 11:24
  both approaches are, are valid, aren't they?
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  But but, you know, I prefer my novelisations of anything to be
• 11:32
  a bit more than the JNC approach, which is it's got to
• 11:36
  be a bit like it was on telly. I prefer a bit more stuff that
• 11:39
  not on telly because you're reading it in a different
• 11:41
  medium. And then you get more material,
• 11:45
  you get more value for money if it's not just a straight, here's
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  the script we've put into prose. It's it's a very most basic way
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  of doing a novelisation, isn't it?
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  But Jason? Sorry, yeah.
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  Jason, what's your recommend? What would you?
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  Give to this very intelligent 12 year old that's asking you for a
• 12:04
  Doctor Who book. Well, it would appear that James
• 12:06
  and I are on on the same page really.
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  In fact, he mentioned the one that I was going to suggest,
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  which is Remembrance of the Daleks, because it's, I mean,
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  first of all, because Remembrance of the Daleks is a
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  bloody brilliant story anyway. But secondly, because this is,
• 12:24
  as James says, from the later part of the target range where
• 12:27
  the authors were able to flesh out the stories a bit more.
• 12:31
  Quite often it was the IT was the author of the story that was
• 12:33
  transmitted that got to novelize it.
• 12:36
  So they obviously had all the stuff about the back story and
• 12:39
  the characters in mind anyway, so they could put that into a
• 12:42
  book. And Remembrance of the Dalek
• 12:44
  shows that you can tell a Doctor Who story at the length of a
• 12:48
  movie, basically in the short novelisation form, and still
• 12:51
  pack it full of additional stuff.
• 12:55
  Like a bit about Professor Rachel and Gilmore's back story
• 13:02
  is mentioned. The, the shifting point of
• 13:05
  telling half this book is told from the point of view of the
• 13:07
  Daleks. You know, large chunks of it are
• 13:10
  told from the point of view of the aliens.
• 13:12
  So they're not just, you know, others because we see them from
• 13:17
  a distance and they look alien. We actually get to see inside
• 13:19
  their heads in a way. And also Remembrance in
• 13:25
  particular because it contains little Nuggets that make it very
• 13:28
  clear that there's a bigger story going on.
• 13:32
  So this is kind of, oh, I wonder what that's all about.
• 13:35
  So maybe that will entice people to go and find out a bit more
• 13:37
  about the story and what led up to the events of Remembrance.
• 13:41
  So that's why I picked Remembrance.
• 13:43
  So I've had this copy for decades.
• 13:45
  I bought it in the early 90s. I've read it many times.
• 13:51
  It's just last year. It's got signed by Ben
• 13:54
  Aaronovitch. So you know it's.
• 13:56
  Will you hold down for a second? Let everyone see that cover?
• 13:59
  I mean, why wouldn't you want to read that book?
• 14:01
  Look at it. It is a beautiful cover as well,
• 14:03
  one of Alistair Pearson's. There.
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  So I got mine signed by Ben Aaronovitch a few years ago as
• 14:08
  well, and he was quite scathing about that cover.
• 14:10
  But that cover fired my young imagination.
• 14:14
  That's why I picked it up, because I saw it on the show.
• 14:16
  I didn't. I didn't remember watching
• 14:18
  Remembrance of the Daleks at all.
• 14:21
  I don't recall watching season 25 apart from the Happiness
• 14:24
  Patrol, but I saw this on the shelf and I thought, it's got
• 14:29
  Daleks. It's got.
• 14:31
  I know, I know what Davros is. I've heard that it's a good
• 14:34
  story because by this point I've been getting Doctor Magazine and
• 14:38
  getting a little bit into fandom.
• 14:40
  I thought I'll pick it up and I read it and I absolutely adored
• 14:43
  it. And it's just a brilliant book.
• 14:44
  It's not, you know, if you're going to, if you're going to
• 14:47
  give it to somebody who maybe hasn't read much and isn't a
• 14:49
  voracious reading, you don't want to start with a great big
• 14:53
  chunky thing that you know would hurt if they dropped it on their
• 14:56
  foot. You know, this is, it's short,
• 14:59
  it doesn't take long. It's 160 pages and it's
• 15:01
  absolutely crammed full of stuff and it feels like a lot longer
• 15:04
  than it is a. 160 pages. Is that all that book is?
• 15:08
  Yeah, that's all it is, but it feels much longer.
• 15:11
  Things in it. I've not read it for ages, but I
• 15:13
  do remember what you're saying about the the different
• 15:15
  character perspectives. The fact that you you do get
• 15:19
  those just glimpses of of a a wider life.
• 15:22
  You see Davros in the escape shuttle at the end and the line
• 15:25
  that I still remember is hate would keep him warm.
• 15:29
  Hate would keep him warm. The one I remember from it, and
• 15:32
  obviously I've read it more recently, but one that stuck out
• 15:34
  to me is just a little bit in the in the opening battle that
• 15:40
  totters Lane with the Dalek on screen.
• 15:42
  It's a, you know, Gilmore snappily gives Rachel the
• 15:46
  instructions. Go back, set up a command coast,
• 15:48
  take the girl with you, go now, Rachel.
• 15:51
  And in the book, there's a little bit afterwards.
• 15:53
  I said it was only afterwards she realised that he'd used her
• 15:55
  first name, which kind of added a layer to their relationship,
• 16:00
  which doesn't doesn't necessarily come out on screen.
• 16:03
  But yeah, so I think it's an excellent novelisation.
• 16:06
  And so Aranovic, she's written that, isn't it?
• 16:08
  Yeah, I. Was.
• 16:09
  So it's fascinating like was was that his intention?
• 16:13
  Was that in his head when he was writing there?
• 16:15
  Because you you have the subtext when you're writing a script,
• 16:18
  you have the subtext. Sometimes there and you go, the
• 16:23
  subtext might be different, the actors might do something
• 16:25
  different, but you might have your own subtext in mind when
• 16:28
  you're writing a line. And it's always interesting to
• 16:31
  see is that was that the kind of thing that he was aware of when
• 16:35
  he was writing his script? In my head, some of what's in
• 16:39
  the book is definitely in his mind when he wrote the story and
• 16:41
  came up with the characters, and some of it is reckoning what
• 16:44
  ended up on the screen. Because one of the things, one
• 16:47
  of the big criticisms of Remembrance of the Daleks as
• 16:50
  it's presented is the absolutely shocking marksmanship of the
• 16:53
  Daleks who managed to completely fail to hit two stationary
• 16:59
  Daleks under a bridge, repeatedly shooting the gap
• 17:02
  between them and blasting the wall behind.
• 17:04
  What's the explanation for that? And so in the book, the Daleks
• 17:09
  have electronic countermeasures pod which scramble the systems
• 17:13
  of approaching the style Daleks. So they're firing randomly
• 17:17
  because they can't lock targets. So that's why it's energy bolts
• 17:21
  everywhere. But I very much doubt that was
• 17:22
  in the in the script. I think that was just let's make
• 17:25
  it look cool with lots of energy bolts and explosions going
• 17:27
  everywhere. And so he's kind of retcon back
• 17:29
  in the book. There's also a moment where the
• 17:31
  Daleks are screaming exterminate, but they're
• 17:33
  actually waiting for orders because they're feeding back and
• 17:36
  we've discovered this. What are we actually going to do
• 17:37
  about it? They're more calculating, which
• 17:39
  is whenever Toby Hado complaints about the the number of times
• 17:42
  that Dalek says exterminate at the end of part one, I'm like,
• 17:44
  go back to the novelization, Toby.
• 17:46
  Yeah, they they make it, particularly the the explanation
• 17:50
  in for the cliffhanger of Part 2, which is basically 3 Daleks
• 17:53
  standing around Ace shouting exterminate, not exterminating
• 17:57
  her until conveniently everyone else arrives and they're able to
• 18:00
  disorient them and throw them up.
• 18:01
  So that's because they've not had orders yet.
• 18:03
  That's because Ace has just attacked 1 Dalek with the
• 18:07
  baseball bat with the hand of Omega.
• 18:09
  The Daleks are confused about how the hell she managed to do
• 18:12
  do so much damage, so they intend to intimidate her into
• 18:15
  surrender to find out what's going on.
• 18:18
  According to the book, I'm not convinced that that was part of
• 18:22
  the writing of the actual episode as transmitted, but it
• 18:26
  does make sense when you read it, it makes sense of that
• 18:28
  event. You fellas entice me with these
• 18:31
  target novels, you know? I'm wondering if we if we should
• 18:33
  do. One of these, well, I wonder if
• 18:35
  we should do remember us next, you know.
• 18:38
  We'll. Do a Ronovich Redemption read
• 18:41
  well, Not for James, because equal live transit, but
• 18:44
  obviously the residents were very mean about that book and it
• 18:46
  would be lovely to say nice things about him because he's
• 18:48
  such a great writer. And also to to read the 1st and
• 18:54
  someone who's now a best selling author.
• 18:57
  So I, I, Yeah. This is one of those, you know,
• 19:00
  this is one of those ones where you, you, if you, you could, you
• 19:03
  can either feel really good about it or you can feel utterly
• 19:05
  inadequate when you remember that.
• 19:07
  Ben Aaronovich was 23 when he wrote Remembrance of the Daleks,
• 19:11
  and it was his first television script.
• 19:12
  And it's roundly considered one of the best Doctor Who stories
• 19:15
  ever, and even a fantastic piece of television, full stop.
• 19:19
  And then a year or two later he writes the novelisation, which
• 19:23
  is his first prose. And one of the best now being
• 19:26
  written. One of the best target.
• 19:28
  Novelisation, yeah, but he wrote Transit and that erases
• 19:30
  everything. But he also.
• 19:31
  Wrote the He also wrote the Also People and the Rivers of London
• 19:35
  series, which has been much celebrated on this.
• 19:37
  I think he might be quite a good writer who also wrote Transit.
• 19:41
  Right well, coming next to Hamster Book Club Remembrance of
• 19:44
  the Daleks, starring the four of.
• 19:45
  US. Fantastic, wonderful.
• 19:47
  I'm well up for that. Do you know what?
• 19:49
  It was only after I sent you the question that I started
• 19:51
  pondering it myself and thinking, what the hell would I
• 19:55
  recommend to an intelligent 12 year old?
• 19:57
  Because like, my first thought was Exodus Time Worm Exodus to
• 20:00
  try and get them into the original novels because that's a
• 20:02
  really great punchy read. 7th Doctor and Ace written by
• 20:07
  Terence Dix Adolph. Punchy, I'm afraid.
• 20:10
  I think it rambles a bit. You're not a 12 year old, all
• 20:13
  right. A 12 year old in mind thinks
• 20:17
  it's wonderful. OK, whoa whoa, go with it.
• 20:20
  But then I thought. Trivial day Think think.
• 20:23
  JK Rowling's a good writer, so they'll.
• 20:26
  Be. They'll be just blown away.
• 20:28
  Actually, that's rambling. Rambling.
• 20:29
  JK. But my problem with that was, is
• 20:34
  that then what the next thing you'd go and do is read the rest
• 20:36
  of the Time Worm series. And I'm not sure Revelation and
• 20:39
  Genesis or the subsequent Cat's grade of novels would be
• 20:43
  particularly inspiring for a 12 year old.
• 20:46
  So now it's like kicked across to the BBC range and I thought,
• 20:49
  well, I wouldn't start with the 8 Doctors, that's very confusing
• 20:52
  and vampire science is quite a dull.
• 20:53
  So I thought what were the Body snatchers?
• 20:55
  Because that's that's like a fun romp in Victorian London with
• 20:58
  Zygons and Professor Lightfoot maybe.
• 21:01
  So now I thought no kick away from all the original books
• 21:04
  because they're so inconsistent in tone and quality.
• 21:07
  I think any child's going to give up on them fairly quickly.
• 21:10
  So I I had to circle back to the targets again and I circled back
• 21:13
  to where you started at the very beginning, James, with those
• 21:17
  really great early Terrance sticks ones.
• 21:20
  But I was thinking more Planet of the Daleks, death to the
• 21:23
  Daleks like some some of these pot boilers that hit the screen.
• 21:26
  He just. He's a brilliant, he's a.
• 21:29
  Great, he's a. Brilliant opening chapter.
• 21:32
  Yeah. Oh, death to the dialects, did
• 21:35
  you say? Yeah.
• 21:35
  Yeah, yeah. I read that one over and over,
• 21:38
  but that's one of the few that I owned.
• 21:40
  But he probably like implanted on a Daleks.
• 21:42
  He goes to town with that ice Kano.
• 21:44
  He has the whole bloody thing erupt all over the forest.
• 21:46
  It's a it's a great book for kids.
• 21:49
  Three Doctors is a good one as well.
• 21:52
  He's not one to read and then watch though, because you read.
• 21:55
  It that's the problem, maybe with Death to the Daleks, which
• 21:57
  you'll remember I I don't have the same nostalgic no.
• 22:01
  I do remember, yes. Novel without the soundtrack,
• 22:04
  which is already an improvement. So, so that's sort of where I
• 22:08
  landed. Well, we've got lots of
• 22:09
  interesting choices there and we've got our next book to read.
• 22:13
  So bravo, gentlemen. Thank you very much.
• 22:18
  The Space Pirates. The model work and music almost
• 22:24
  stand comparison with Gerry Anderson's series, but The Space
• 22:28
  Pirates is padded with laboured comedy and some horrible
• 22:32
  American accents. It ends like an episode of
• 22:35
  Scooby-doo, with a bad joke and lots of forced laughter.
• 22:39
  Despite this, it is possible to see the first real emergence of
• 22:43
  Robert Holmes's gift for characterization and engaging
• 22:47
  plot. Let's move on to the book we're
• 22:54
  here to talk about today then, and that is The Discontinuity
• 22:57
  Guide by Paul Connell, Martin Day and Keith Topping.
• 23:02
  And the first question I would like to ask each of you to
• 23:05
  stimulate some conversation is when did you first read this?
• 23:08
  What was your reaction to it then?
• 23:10
  And how's your opinion changed in the subsequent years?
• 23:14
  Picking it up now and let's shake it up and we'll head to
• 23:18
  Jason. Well I first read it when it
• 23:21
  first came out. I was just starting out in my
• 23:28
  fandom journey in the early 90s and when did the, this was like
• 23:31
  94 I think. This one came out and I was
• 23:37
  basically Doctor Who wasn't on telly anymore.
• 23:39
  And there weren't that many stories in VHS in 1994.
• 23:43
  So I was gathering them as much as I could, but I didn't have
• 23:47
  huge amounts of money. So I was sent giving lists to my
• 23:50
  family every birthday and Christmas to say I need these
• 23:53
  ones, I need these ones and you'll get them in Woolworths
• 23:55
  and they cost this much and so on and so forth.
• 23:58
  And I was pulling information from Doctor Who magazine.
• 24:00
  I was getting the factual books, the House Stammers and Walkers
• 24:03
  book, and this one stuck out as doing something a bit more
• 24:09
  interesting than just recounting the story of the production of
• 24:12
  Doctor Who and the fictional narrative of each story on its
• 24:16
  own. And I like the idea of a book
• 24:21
  that tied up where stories referred to each other and where
• 24:25
  they referred out to sort of fictional frameworks, if there
• 24:29
  were any. And I like the idea of a store,
• 24:32
  a book that was quite unashamedly going to say, but
• 24:35
  let's be honest, sometimes the dialogues a bit naff, the sets
• 24:38
  fall apart. It's a, it's a, it's a nice
• 24:41
  piece of television, but it's not, you know, it's not
• 24:44
  Shakespeare and it's not actually, I'm not going to use
• 24:46
  the Shakespeare analogy because Shakespeare, although, you know,
• 24:50
  everyone's like Shakespeare is fantastic.
• 24:53
  He's one of the greatest playwrights ever.
• 24:54
  He was churning stuff out at an enormous rate.
• 24:56
  He was basically just, he was doing what Terence Dix and Barry
• 24:59
  Letts were doing, just churning out entertainment for the masses
• 25:03
  as quick as much as he could so. Give it time, Terence Dix will
• 25:06
  have his day. Exactly so.
• 25:08
  I'm not going to use shakes, but you know, it's not Laurence
• 25:11
  Olivier and you know, the Royal Shakespeare Company and you
• 25:15
  know, multi huge budgets on telly.
• 25:17
  It's ABBC sci-fi TV show that sometimes fell a bit short, but
• 25:23
  they made it very clear that they weren't picking at it to be
• 25:26
  mean or, you know, to say this is actually shit.
• 25:33
  So I picked it up and I read it and I thought it was absolutely
• 25:36
  hilarious. I really enjoyed it.
• 25:39
  It was fascinating to me because I hadn't seen half the stories
• 25:42
  in it and of course I was aware that there were about 100 and I
• 25:46
  think about 110 missing episodes at the time.
• 25:50
  So there was lots of stuff in there that I wasn't going to
• 25:51
  know much about, wasn't going to be familiar with.
• 25:53
  The soundtracks really hadn't been released apart from those
• 25:55
  handful of BBC ones, and it covered the whole, as was then
• 26:02
  the whole history of Doctor Who on television.
• 26:06
  And I found it a really interesting read, both from the
• 26:09
  fictional side of things where they tried to sort of tell this
• 26:14
  story, references this story, and there's a back story here.
• 26:17
  And their little essay box out things that they did were
• 26:20
  interesting exercises in speculation, which I enjoyed.
• 26:25
  And then the way they picked out the the goofs, the dialogue
• 26:29
  triumphs because they, they were quite even handed in their
• 26:32
  approach. They weren't just going.
• 26:33
  This is when the dialogue is shit.
• 26:35
  They were always going. But sometimes it absolutely
• 26:36
  sings. And so, yeah, I found it really,
• 26:40
  really, really fun. And I sort of every time I saw a
• 26:43
  new story come out on video or be shown on television, I grab
• 26:47
  the Discontinuity guide and read for things to look out for and
• 26:50
  everything else. And over the years, I've still
• 26:52
  enjoyed it. My opinion.
• 26:55
  The only thing that's changed in my opinion of it is when I got
• 26:58
  it. Of course, I was a a green fan
• 27:01
  of Doctor Who. I didn't know much about it, and
• 27:04
  I assumed that all the people who were writing stuff and
• 27:06
  publishing stuff must be intimately familiar with every
• 27:09
  detail of it. But of course, as I've gone
• 27:12
  through and got hold of the soundtracks and missing episodes
• 27:15
  have come back, it became abundantly clear that certainly
• 27:18
  for some of the missing episodes, they either hadn't
• 27:21
  seen them, haven't had access to the soundtrack, or had access to
• 27:24
  really bad copies of the soundtrack.
• 27:27
  And so there are references in there, the things that just
• 27:31
  weren't said because I think they're in the target
• 27:33
  novelisations, or maybe they're in a rehearsal script or some
• 27:36
  other piece of paperwork they got their hands on, but they're
• 27:38
  not in the finished episodes. Carnival of Monsters TV
• 27:46
  naturalism crawls into a hole and dies in Robert Holmes's
• 27:50
  witty and knowing wink at his audience.
• 27:53
  Carnival of Monsters is a parody of television and its viewers.
• 27:57
  Phrases such as who's going to pay good credits to see a BLOB
• 28:01
  in a snowstorm? And our purpose is to amuse
• 28:04
  simply to amuse. Nothing serious, nothing
• 28:07
  political are pointers in this direction, as is Vogue's
• 28:11
  assertion that Drashiggs are great favourites with the
• 28:14
  children. Carnival of Monsters retains the
• 28:17
  cheeky power of its initial broadcast.
• 28:26
  And some of the goofs aren't and some of the fluffs even aren't.
• 28:32
  But that's basically I could do. I could do a discontinuity guide
• 28:36
  on the discontinuity guide just because in 30 years I've picked
• 28:39
  up a load more information and and understand nobody has.
• 28:43
  You're right, that place to put out with this episode.
• 28:46
  But what I'd also like to point out is that the authors right at
• 28:50
  the beginning say, you might think this is shit and you might
• 28:53
  disagree with us, and that's absolutely fine.
• 28:55
  We're not here to say this is how it is.
• 29:00
  Which was a refreshing tone from some of the previous ones like A
• 29:05
  Celebration and the House Stammers and Walkers books,
• 29:09
  which were very upfront about saying and this is shit and This
• 29:14
  is why like the Gunfighters is the worst story ever.
• 29:17
  And there was no room for you might disagree with that.
• 29:20
  This was just like, this is it. We've watched it all when it
• 29:22
  came, when it went out, and I can tell you it was crap then.
• 29:25
  And you're not going to see it because it's not been released
• 29:27
  yet. So you can't complain.
• 29:29
  You can't contradict me on that one.
• 29:31
  When you compare it to like the Handbooks, the Howl Stammers and
• 29:34
  Walker handbooks that came out, which are a lot more academic
• 29:39
  and focused in their approach in sort of telling you all the
• 29:42
  behind the scenes about that particular era, it's so much
• 29:45
  more relaxed, isn't it? Oh yeah, it's willing to take
• 29:47
  the piss a little bit. Yeah.
• 29:50
  OK, Ian. Well, when did you first
• 29:52
  discover this book? Please don't tell me it was.
• 29:54
  It was right now. No, no, no.
• 29:57
  It was 1994. As I think I mentioned before,
• 30:01
  Paul Connell went to my uni and graduated just before I went
• 30:07
  there. So he was sort of held up as a
• 30:10
  as a because I was on a creative writing course and he that he'd
• 30:13
  been on. And so he was held up as he just
• 30:16
  getting his first success with virgin new adventures.
• 30:20
  And as I mentioned before, we should probably do this.
• 30:22
  I've actually found my my things that I my oh.
• 30:30
  Wow, you're you're. Rainworld Rejected by Rebecca
• 30:33
  Levine. It's like.
• 30:36
  It's like just a. Synopsis.
• 30:37
  And is that a book I've even found?
• 30:40
  I've even found the Have you even found the letter?
• 30:42
  I've still got it with Rebecca Levine saying no to this my my
• 30:46
  sequel to Talent of Wang Chiang, quite rightly, and another one
• 30:50
  saying yes to my Judge Dread idea, which never happened
• 30:54
  because Fleetway. Excuse me, David A Mckinty wrote
• 30:58
  a sequel to Talents of Wang Chiang called The Shadow of Wang
• 31:01
  Chiang. Well yes, but I'm just saying I
• 31:04
  wrote one called Rainworld for some reason.
• 31:06
  I wonder if he snuck a look at yourself?
• 31:10
  But anyway, I I'm on one of my tangents.
• 31:12
  What was I saying? Yeah.
• 31:14
  So Paul Connell, as I've said before, was always the writer
• 31:19
  that I always bought everything he did just because AI met him
• 31:23
  when he came into our uni. But also he was like somebody
• 31:27
  who'd literally had a very, you know, been on our course.
• 31:31
  He, our lecturers said he was a good writer.
• 31:34
  You like Doctor Who? Maybe you should write Doctor
• 31:36
  Who. And now all these years later, I
• 31:39
  kind of know him and I'm sort of, I'm writing sort of Doctor
• 31:42
  Who Who cuts away, which is all very weird, but but yeah,
• 31:48
  because of Paul Cornell. Anyway, I saw this in the shop.
• 31:50
  So I went, well, I'm going to have to buy that.
• 31:52
  But it was kind of as a as a somebody who wasn't into Doctor
• 31:56
  Who when that at that particular period of life, most of my life
• 32:01
  wasn't about Doctor Who. It wasn't on TV.
• 32:04
  I wasn't very often even buying the magazine.
• 32:08
  I was occasionally buying things with an eye to go in.
• 32:11
  I might want to write a Virgin novelisation.
• 32:14
  And then I bought this and I did read it and it made me dip into
• 32:19
  it. It reminded me of childhood, of
• 32:21
  like I had the 10th anniversary Radio Times thing.
• 32:25
  That was my first introduction to all the stories, and it kind
• 32:29
  of reminded me of that. And then I probably haven't
• 32:33
  because I, my copy went, went the way of all things a long
• 32:38
  time ago. And until Jason gave me this
• 32:42
  copy, which I have in my hands now, which is his copy.
• 32:47
  And I think that must have been in January, at the BFI in
• 32:50
  January. Yeah.
• 32:52
  All I know is I then went to Gallifrey and was in the green
• 32:56
  room with Paul Cornell. I'm glad to sign it for you to
• 32:59
  Jason, but with the shittiest pen ever?
• 33:03
  I shouldn't complain. But with the shittiest pen ever.
• 33:05
  It's coming back. To my Sharpie out.
• 33:09
  I was just getting my Sharpie out, but you'd already grabbed a
• 33:11
  by Rd. A scratchy by Rd.
• 33:13
  But anyway, lovely, Paul. Yeah, so.
• 33:17
  But yeah, but rereading it this time, I, I can't, must be honest
• 33:22
  to say I haven't read it from cover to cover.
• 33:25
  I've dipped into it while on the toilet.
• 33:28
  What's the note? Yeah, that's.
• 33:30
  What you were doing with my book here, that's what I do most of.
• 33:32
  My reading you can keep it it's. All right.
• 33:37
  Yeah, weren't. Supposed to read it.
• 33:39
  Have I been reading this in cover to cover for for no
• 33:42
  reason? Oh, I read it cover to cover.
• 33:44
  I did. Yeah, oh, an intelligent 12.
• 33:48
  Year old has just joined us. Yes, well, Doctor Who.
• 33:51
  Book can we get? Just mentioning this is Elliot.
• 33:54
  She's just. Popped in for people who aren't
• 33:55
  watching Zoom Elliot. So I was just telling them about
• 33:59
  how you listen to lots of stuff on Audible.
• 34:03
  What do you think of Genesis of the dialects, the book?
• 34:10
  You can say you can be honest. He's not looking blank.
• 34:14
  The Book of Genesis. And dialects?
• 34:16
  What do you think of it? What like.
• 34:19
  Oh well, there we go. What this passed out on?
• 34:24
  Everything the book that you've. Read and you said you liked.
• 34:27
  Few weeks ago, Liberation. Liberation.
• 34:31
  Oh, no, no. Oh yeah, Well, that's one.
• 34:32
  He really did like Liberation, the dialects, the comic.
• 34:36
  He loved that. But yeah, he he seems to have
• 34:39
  forgotten that he's read Genesis dialects and listened to it.
• 34:42
  Yeah, so your entire. Argument.
• 34:44
  At the start, this is defunct. Oh.
• 34:47
  It is. It is the androids of.
• 34:51
  Tara Canine, you old sea dog. Wonderful Doctor Who as heroic
• 34:58
  romance with plenty of swashbuckling wit and colour.
• 35:02
  The final duel particularly is Blissful Baker at the height of
• 35:06
  his powers, suggesting that the Doctor's foolishness is a modest
• 35:10
  cover for his real abilities. One of the great things about
• 35:14
  this story is the small stakes. Who will be king of one planet?
• 35:19
  Only one person, Lamia, is killed, and that's an accident,
• 35:24
  allowing Count Grendel, a superb villain, to get a suitably
• 35:27
  sequel Hunting, exit, summary and charming.
• 35:35
  Let me throw the same question. Over to you James, When did you
• 35:38
  first read this book? And now you have read it cover
• 35:42
  to cover again. How did you find it this time?
• 35:45
  I was just checking when it was. Published, and I'm surprised
• 35:48
  that it was as late as 1995 that it came out.
• 35:51
  I thought I was 5. OK.
• 35:54
  I. 1st. Discovered this.
• 35:57
  On the shelves in WH Smith's, where I used to spend more time
• 36:02
  than was probably healthy. And at the time, very little of
• 36:07
  Doctor Who was available. I mean, it was starting to come
• 36:10
  out on VHS more and more rapidly, but.
• 36:14
  To people to to a 15. Year old who didn't get a lot of
• 36:17
  pocket money. You didn't go out and buy.
• 36:20
  The kind of the, the monthly release you, you saved up your
• 36:23
  pennies and you got a really special one every now and then.
• 36:26
  And so I'd seen a handful of Doctor Who stories, and it's
• 36:29
  hard to express in this age where every single episode and
• 36:34
  all the information about them is available on the Internet,
• 36:36
  how exciting the breadth and depth of what was then kind of
• 36:42
  30 years or what 26 years of Doctor Who was in concept.
• 36:49
  And I had I was given Peter Haining's book a celebration.
• 36:55
  And that has a whole section in it.
• 36:57
  Which I've just noticed it's called the Huniverse written.
• 37:02
  By Jeremy. Bentham, which goes through all
• 37:05
  of the stories up to when the book was published, which is The
• 37:07
  King's Demons. And so that was a treasure trove
• 37:11
  of imagining, reading about the stories, reading about what
• 37:13
  might have been. And these, these Bentham is
• 37:16
  quite opinionated about them as far as kind of the, the remit of
• 37:20
  that book goes, which is to give a potted synopsis, a bit of a,
• 37:24
  you know, a production fact and then.
• 37:29
  A sentence on whether. It's any good?
• 37:30
  Or in the case of the gunfighters, why it's the worst
• 37:33
  Doctor Who? Oh please.
• 37:36
  So, but that's all. I had, That was my for most of
• 37:38
  Doctor Who, that was the only thing that I had to refer to.
• 37:43
  And again with, you know, I couldn't afford to buy all the
• 37:45
  handbooks and the stuff like that.
• 37:47
  So my sources of knowledge about what Doctor Who was like were
• 37:52
  limited. And when this book came out,
• 37:54
  because it's written in a slightly more human way and with
• 37:59
  much more of a sense of humour and much more of a sense of what
• 38:03
  this is like as a television program rather than just this is
• 38:05
  what the story is. And this is what the background
• 38:07
  of the story is. And here's whether I like it or
• 38:09
  not, somehow this brought that to life in a way that it had I
• 38:15
  had never imagined before. And there were things,
• 38:18
  descriptions in there that absolutely fired my imagination.
• 38:21
  The the, the bottom line on the on Warrior's Gate, for example,
• 38:25
  a story about which I knew nothing, which a story was
• 38:28
  shrouded in complete mystery. Suddenly I'm reading this review
• 38:32
  that's saying it's one of the most amazing piece of television
• 38:34
  ever made and I'm going how? How do I watch this?
• 38:38
  Where, how, when will I ever watch this?
• 38:40
  Don't they? Don't they summarise?
• 38:42
  It with like a a scenes and images and things.
• 38:44
  Here are the things that are great about.
• 38:45
  Warriors, yeah. And.
• 38:48
  One of them is Kenneth Cope. Which I, you know,
• 38:50
  wholeheartedly agree with. So I and, and, and there is a
• 38:54
  thing where because they're not, because they're writing it for
• 38:56
  the initiated, they are writing for the, for the people who
• 38:58
  know. There's no attempt to give us an
• 39:00
  opposite. There's no attempt to
• 39:01
  contextualise these reviews. So you're reading this stuff in
• 39:04
  Warriors Gate. One of the things that it likes
• 39:06
  is the garden. That's it's 2 words.
• 39:08
  And you can imagine to a 15 year old, I'm being told that the
• 39:12
  garden is great. What does that mean?
• 39:14
  What is this garden? And it's full of things like
• 39:17
  that, full of things where I had no idea what it was talking
• 39:19
  about, but somehow it vividly raised my expectations.
• 39:24
  I didn't buy it for ages. I would go into Deborah Smith's
• 39:28
  last day and stand there with me, grubby 15 year old fans,
• 39:33
  leafing through a book that someone else was going to buy.
• 39:35
  I knew, I knew that they were right about everything because I
• 39:39
  checked what they had to say about remembrance of the
• 39:41
  dialects and it said it was the best Doctor Who story in some
• 39:43
  considerable time. And I was like Rep they are
• 39:45
  correct. From my position of complete, I
• 39:48
  knew that this was a correct judgement because I loved
• 39:51
  remembrance and so I trusted every word and I read so much of
• 39:57
  it in the shop that I think I had a book token and it.
• 40:03
  Was there. It was one of the.
• 40:04
  Things I was sort of holding it, but I was going, but do I buy
• 40:07
  another of these Doctor Who books?
• 40:08
  It would have all been Doctor Who books I was considering, but
• 40:12
  I knew how much I loved the Discontinuity Guide.
• 40:14
  But then I had read most of it already in the shop.
• 40:17
  I really. Justify.
• 40:19
  Spending a precious book token on a book that I'd basically
• 40:22
  read already, but I made I I bought it and I made the right
• 40:24
  decision because that book has been off my shelf probably more
• 40:29
  than any other book I own. Wow.
• 40:32
  Because it's the kind of. Thing where?
• 40:33
  I, I would check what it had to. And by the way, I, I love that
• 40:38
  Jason was excited by a thing that drew parallels between
• 40:41
  different stories and showed the content had no interest in that.
• 40:44
  I was interested in the, the, the dialoguey bits, the goofs
• 40:48
  for comic reasons. And to some extent I was quite
• 40:52
  intrigued by the, the roots, the where the sources of these
• 40:55
  stories. But basically I wanted the bit
• 40:57
  about the bottom line. This was a, this was a window to
• 41:01
  a world which I basically couldn't otherwise experience.
• 41:04
  So every time I did eventually see a Doctor Who story I could I
• 41:07
  could check it against the discontinuity guide.
• 41:11
  And I continue to do. That well into my 20s.
• 41:14
  I haven't picked it up for quite some time though, and I'll be
• 41:19
  totally honest, it's lost some of its, she explain.
• 41:25
  Yourself. I think it's quite.
• 41:27
  Easy to explain. This is a book written by young
• 41:30
  men and read originally by me as an even younger man, as a
• 41:36
  teenager, reading the words of young men who were the kind of
• 41:39
  men I wanted to be because they're intelligent like this is
• 41:42
  absolutely clear. They're very, very well read and
• 41:45
  well versed in all kinds of media.
• 41:48
  The the, the, the lists of, of roots, the, the cinematic,
• 41:54
  televisual, literary, musical sources that they cite show a
• 42:00
  really incredible breadth of knowledge.
• 42:03
  Some of it's a bit tenuous, but our bit tenuous.
• 42:08
  We'll go there. But these are clearly
• 42:11
  intelligent writers. They're funny.
• 42:15
  Kinder The Trees have no mercy. One of the best Doctor Who
• 42:21
  stories ever, astonishingly directed and written as a
• 42:25
  theatrical piece brimming with illusions and parallels.
• 42:28
  It's also got a direct and unsilly performance from Simon
• 42:31
  Rose and a thoughtful 1 from their skews.
• 42:35
  It's not really. An.
• 42:36
  Allegory as unusually for Doctor Who, it's a very original piece
• 42:39
  of genuine science fiction. It's about boxes, the healing
• 42:44
  device that cures colonialism, the tank that the colonists
• 42:47
  wander about in, the pigeon holes where they want to put the
• 42:50
  kinder and male female relationships with the Doctor,
• 42:54
  the only man wise enough to know he's foolish.
• 42:57
  But then what do we know? One of us like the creature from
• 43:00
  the pit. Again.
• 43:05
  The kind of, the sense of humour grates a little bit on me now,
• 43:09
  but as a 15 year old, this was exactly the kind of funny that I
• 43:12
  wanted. And they are.
• 43:16
  There's a streak of arrogance running through it, which is
• 43:18
  absolutely because of when it was written and who they were.
• 43:21
  I mean, I, I think it has, it feels like a product of the
• 43:25
  Fitzroy Tavern. It feels like a product.
• 43:27
  It was it. Was dedicated.
• 43:29
  To the Fitzroy. Seven right from the beginning.
• 43:31
  Well. You know, it feels ever so
• 43:33
  good-natured and a more than a little bit smug, but that's the
• 43:39
  age they were. That's the kind.
• 43:40
  You know, they are writing that book for all that they say, as
• 43:43
  Jason says in the in the in the forward, they it's the forward.
• 43:46
  Terrorist 6 writes a beautiful forward that's so kind of
• 43:48
  unpretentious. And then you get their
• 43:50
  introduction and by way of a contrast, for all that they're
• 43:54
  being, oh, we're not taking this show very seriously.
• 43:56
  We just love it to bit. So it's just, you know, you
• 43:59
  don't have to agree with us. Methinks.
• 44:01
  They do protest a little bit too much.
• 44:04
  And I think they are being more highfalutin than they quite
• 44:08
  acknowledge. They do write at one point.
• 44:10
  We have a reputation for writing controversial books and don't
• 44:13
  intend to stop now. It's that kind of.
• 44:16
  So at the time that was just perfectly pitched for me and my
• 44:20
  my slightly younger eyes were were widened by by all of this.
• 44:24
  And this very grown up, very funny, very witty, very well
• 44:27
  read talk took to me at this age.
• 44:32
  I am a little bit kind of, for God's sake, get over yourselves.
• 44:35
  And also, and also it feels to me a book that for all that it
• 44:40
  says that it's setting out to do one thing, some of it is so kind
• 44:43
  of bloody pernicity. And I do think that even with
• 44:47
  the goofs, some of it, it's not very consistent.
• 44:50
  And as we will I'm sure, go into more depth, some of it.
• 44:52
  Some of them are not goofs, but some of them are.
• 44:55
  Kind of mean spirited. And there's part of me that's
• 44:57
  like, come on, they were making live virtually live episodes.
• 45:01
  Do we we really need to kind of rake over this?
• 45:04
  It's not terribly comical thing that William Hartnell has said.
• 45:07
  It was like, you know, it feels. Like some stories they pick on a
• 45:10
  lot like and. Other stories.
• 45:14
  You know, with as many production errors, they just
• 45:17
  give a couple of lines to and I think that just comes to
• 45:20
  personal preference of the stories and and it's and it's.
• 45:23
  Very clear where the where the preference lies in particular.
• 45:28
  But but it did. But it did.
• 45:30
  It moulded my opinion as Jason said it, it was a very, very
• 45:35
  useful corollary to the idea that The Gunfighters was the
• 45:37
  worst story of all time. So when I eventually came to the
• 45:40
  Gunfighters, I didn't go in with low expectations.
• 45:42
  I went in going, no really prepared to appreciate this on
• 45:45
  its own terms. And there's plenty of it.
• 45:48
  I still agree with. Plenty of it I don't but I but I
• 45:50
  but I do think this book invites you to form opinions and for the
• 45:55
  for that reason alone, I I, I do still love it.
• 45:58
  I just sort of flick through. Immediately, you know, to some
• 46:00
  of the stories you and I have talked about the are, you know,
• 46:03
  not popular. They were on the ban event.
• 46:05
  They loved Andros Vittara, they loved the gunfires, they loved.
• 46:10
  So I was like, OK, doing pretty well.
• 46:12
  One thing that was quite. Refreshing actually for a book
• 46:15
  that was published around that time was that it was largely
• 46:17
  positive about the late 80s and the McCoy era in particular,
• 46:22
  which there was a time we black. Coal around Colin Baker I
• 46:25
  noticed by the time we got into. The the mid 90s it was popular
• 46:29
  in received fan wisdom to say that the McCoy era was the
• 46:32
  Nadira of the show and when it all died.
• 46:34
  Which as we now know is absolute crap but they were quite
• 46:37
  positive about. These are Doctor Who book
• 46:39
  writers. Like, these are new adventure
• 46:41
  writers, for God's sakes. They're not going to slag off
• 46:43
  Sylvester Mccoy's era. So I'm going to swing back to
• 46:45
  you, Ian, because we didn't actually hear what your reaction
• 46:48
  to reading this book was and Oh yeah, why you sat on the loo.
• 46:53
  Yeah. We know when I was on the loo.
• 46:55
  I was going to say I wasn't. Just reading on the loo, but as
• 46:57
  I said to you guys in the thing, because I had to take Elliot,
• 47:01
  who probably everyone just heard unless you unless you're going
• 47:05
  to do a massive edit, Joe, I will do a slight edit there,
• 47:08
  but. Yeah, go a slight edit, but if
• 47:10
  you if. You did hear Elliot's voice
• 47:12
  anyway. Yeah.
• 47:13
  So he was at Cubs. And I have never felt more like
• 47:15
  a Doctor Who found in my 52 years.
• 47:18
  Because to put this places in time and space, the England
• 47:22
  match was just gearing up in the pub.
• 47:25
  So it was usually the pub near the near the where I where
• 47:29
  Elliot is in the Cubs is just a quiet pub with no one in it.
• 47:32
  And I just sit and and read a book while I'm waiting for Cubs.
• 47:38
  And this time it was full of people wearing their England
• 47:42
  shirts and I was sitting reading the Discontinuity Guide and
• 47:45
  making notes. Wow.
• 47:46
  And people were coming. Around like drunken women were
• 47:48
  coming up to me going, going and one of them even went you
• 47:52
  reading the book? I know it shit, but you're
• 47:54
  reading the book and then and then.
• 47:56
  They went is. That Doctor Who and I felt like
• 48:00
  I was a 14 year old. I was dedication to me
• 48:03
  dedication and I went and. I and I and.
• 48:05
  I found myself saying I'm, I'm, I've got to read it for a
• 48:08
  podcast and they, I don't think they fancied me anymore.
• 48:17
  They were going to rip the toes off.
• 48:18
  Before they come. Out.
• 48:20
  They cackled with laughter as I was in his pub.
• 48:24
  Come on, what do you think? Anyway, I find it.
• 48:31
  I loved it at a time. I find it quite dry now and of
• 48:34
  its time. The mark of the Rani.
• 48:43
  A script with a simple. Plot a Doctorish Dr. and whimsy
• 48:47
  rather than sadism quite a novelty in this season.
• 48:51
  The dialogue's overblown, but the concept of the Rani mocking
• 48:55
  the ridiculous Master Doctor rivalry is wonderful.
• 48:58
  The Doctor's inspection of the inside of the Rani's TARDIS is
• 49:01
  one of the few great scenes of this era.
• 49:04
  Both the. Direction and.
• 49:06
  The music are superb, though the interiors look oddly artificial
• 49:10
  altogether rather more impressive than its reputation.
• 49:22
  And I particularly hate the the double entendres bit I.
• 49:31
  Really. Really, I love my double
• 49:34
  entendres, but these guys, they're not double entendres.
• 49:37
  Sometimes it's just someone said the word gay.
• 49:43
  In the in the dialogue. And and it's yeah, so it's so I
• 49:46
  find that I find the Duke entendre is tedious.
• 49:49
  You do realise you're you're talking?
• 49:51
  To the man who built his entire podcast around I know I love
• 49:55
  your Duke. Entendre's go on.
• 49:58
  Your your. Yours, yours a your your Duke
• 50:01
  entendre is a fine and upstanding and tumescence.
• 50:04
  But what about? The rest but yeah, but I but in
• 50:09
  this it it. Really is of its age and it
• 50:11
  really is some some people in their 20s and they're literally
• 50:15
  my generation so they I can remember what it was like.
• 50:19
  They are, but it's weird that I I the black spot for the black
• 50:25
  hole for me in Doctor Who is Colin Baker era and it is for
• 50:30
  them as well. And then Sylvester McCoy is even
• 50:34
  though some older fans were like this is shit.
• 50:36
  This is awful. Generally people of our
• 50:38
  generation, we're like, oh, Doctor Who's kind of getting
• 50:41
  good again. Oh, then then it's fucked off
• 50:43
  and it's disappeared. It's been cancelled.
• 50:45
  So yeah, so they're in that they're in that they were.
• 50:49
  They were almost exactly the same age as me and Colin Baker
• 50:53
  was there. I Doctor Who makes me cringe
• 50:56
  inside out and then started Remembrance of the dialects
• 51:01
  being a. It's good, but also it was good
• 51:04
  after such a long time of awfulness in.
• 51:08
  From our perspective, they. Seem surprised by.
• 51:10
  How they enjoy trial over Time, Lord, don't they?
• 51:13
  They do. They do.
• 51:14
  Much better than its. Reputation, I believe, is how
• 51:16
  they word it. Yeah, but they also have some
• 51:19
  choice. Things to say about other
• 51:20
  stories, the one that sticks in my mind in particular, and
• 51:23
  again, because of received fan wisdom, it put me off watching
• 51:26
  some of these stories until they eventually came on VHS and I was
• 51:29
  collecting everything so I had to see them anyway because oh
• 51:31
  God, I've got to finish the collection.
• 51:33
  I may as well watch it. I particularly remember their
• 51:37
  bottom line about the time. But about the mutants, which is
• 51:40
  Jeffrey, Jeffrey Palmer is the best thing in it, and he's
• 51:42
  before the end of episode one. So.
• 51:46
  I read this thinking that. Every single Peter Davidson
• 51:50
  story was an absolute banger. Can you imagine my
• 51:52
  disappointment when I got around to Doesn't It Glow?
• 51:56
  With a just rational to doomsday.
• 51:59
  Are you kidding me? Anyway.
• 52:02
  Well. I'll very quickly say so.
• 52:05
  It brings me no happiness to say this, but I think I've outgrown
• 52:09
  this book and I'm exactly where James was.
• 52:13
  I got it at the right time and I poured over it and there was so
• 52:17
  much of it I just didn't understand when I first read it.
• 52:20
  And that was mostly the root stuff.
• 52:22
  So I generally skipped over that.
• 52:23
  But that's the stuff that interests me the most now is,
• 52:26
  you know what other piece of work of influence?
• 52:29
  Doctor Who. But it was the first time I've
• 52:31
  read a book which actually told me that I was allowed to not
• 52:35
  think Doctor Who was the most. Before I picked up this book, I
• 52:38
  swear I was convinced that Doctor Who was the greatest
• 52:40
  thing ever. It was utterly flawless.
• 52:43
  And then there was a book that sort of gave me permission to
• 52:46
  laugh at it and to sort of pick it apart a little bit.
• 52:49
  And I think this might have been the star of me writing little
• 52:52
  reviews and exercise books and then writing Doko who reviews
• 52:56
  the website and then doing this podcast.
• 52:57
  And here we are today. So thank you to the three
• 53:00
  writers because you might have set me off on my path.
• 53:03
  And this was my car book. I took it out and wherever we
• 53:06
  went, I would be pouring over this book at walks in the
• 53:09
  countryside, anywhere, Anywhere my mum and dad took me.
• 53:12
  I was reading this bloody book and I was obsessed with it and I
• 53:15
  found it great fun. And like James, I read it and
• 53:19
  reread it for about 10 years, which is why all the middle
• 53:24
  pages are now completely falling out.
• 53:28
  When I read it this time. I just like, OK, well, I'll give
• 53:33
  you an example straight away. Yeah, because this is someone
• 53:35
  signed this off on the Backpage where you're anorak with pride
• 53:40
  and keep the discontinuity guide in its pocket.
• 53:43
  I mean, I was on to a bad move rereading this book, just
• 53:46
  reading that sentence. I was so much ego in this book.
• 53:51
  I don't know, it felt like it felt like the work of smug new
• 53:54
  adventure writers. And that's because it's the work
• 53:57
  of smug new. Adventure Writers, and whilst I
• 54:02
  do. You know that I think there are
• 54:03
  better written reference books now.
• 54:05
  I think that's half the problem as well, is that this all just
• 54:08
  feels a bit light and a bit. Yeah, I.
• 54:13
  Don't know I. Don't know I I read this through
• 54:14
  this time though, and I was sort of looking at the goofs and
• 54:19
  thinking there's too many things that they've missed out here
• 54:22
  that I know inside out and back to front.
• 54:24
  Maybe I've become too knowledgeable about Doctor Who
• 54:26
  for this book to be relevant to me anymore.
• 54:29
  And what What were the series of books that Tapwood and Lawrence
• 54:32
  Miles wrote about time about? Time now that.
• 54:36
  For me now, even though I spent half the time one of their
• 54:38
  tenner pages out with their ridiculous theories about things
• 54:42
  and their, you know, essay length reviews.
• 54:45
  It's so dense with substance and this, if you sneeze, it's going
• 54:49
  to blow away in the wind now. So I think you have to read this
• 54:53
  at the right time, and the right time isn't me age 44 once I've
• 54:57
  devoured the entirety of Doctor Who?
• 55:00
  Does that make sense? It does as I said.
• 55:02
  One of the things that I've noticed rereading it now is that
• 55:05
  clearly they didn't have access to the things that we've got
• 55:08
  access to now. They were they were presenting
• 55:11
  themselves. So they actually say at one
• 55:12
  point we know we've checked and now it's clear that actually you
• 55:15
  haven't checked. So for, you know, examples that
• 55:18
  I can remember still is that Brett Vion in the Daleks Master
• 55:23
  Plan doesn't respond to Katarina's question about
• 55:25
  tablets with Do you think they're lollipops?
• 55:29
  They obviously had a rough copy of the soundtrack to Marco Polo
• 55:33
  because they describe it as a fluff or a goof that Kublai Khan
• 55:36
  refers to backgammon as a game of cards.
• 55:38
  He doesn't. He says a game of chance.
• 55:41
  And. He's deep here.
• 55:43
  Jason, well done. Yeah.
• 55:44
  And. And they do put things that are
• 55:47
  goofs that are not goofs, which have subsequently been repeated
• 55:52
  ad nauseum. The one that sticks in my mind
• 55:54
  that irritates the hell out of me is when they talk about, oh,
• 55:58
  William Hartnell knocks a bit of the war machine off with his
• 56:00
  cloak and Ben Michael Craze tries to put it back and then
• 56:04
  gives up and walks off. And it's like, no, he took his
• 56:07
  cloak off and dropped his key. Which is why they have a key to
• 56:10
  the TARDIS at the end of the series at the end of the show.
• 56:13
  But that's been repeated like Hartnell knocked his knocked bit
• 56:17
  of the prop off, which he clearly doesn't.
• 56:19
  Although what it did make me notice one that Hartnell was an
• 56:23
  absolute trooper because at one point he stands up under the
• 56:25
  machine and bashes his head really hard and carries on quite
• 56:29
  happily. So yeah.
• 56:33
  They've, they've, they've. They've put all this stuff in to
• 56:35
  say, look, we know what we're talking about.
• 56:36
  By the way, actually you, you haven't had the access that you
• 56:40
  claim to have. And it would have been better if
• 56:42
  you'd stuck with the original material and said that or, you
• 56:45
  know, at least acknowledge that because there are missing
• 56:47
  episodes. We've had to work from these
• 56:49
  sources. Do you know?
• 56:51
  What like. James said.
• 56:52
  When this came out, when I first read it, because it was like the
• 56:56
  coolest Doctor Who book there was with rude lines and things
• 56:59
  like that. I believed every single word.
• 57:02
  This was only ripped for me for quite some time.
• 57:07
  The problems with the goofs. Section slightly belie that that
• 57:11
  kind of the. Sense of humor that's running.
• 57:13
  Through it, it actually makes them look rather PO faced in
• 57:16
  places because they're casting judgments.
• 57:18
  They're saying it's a goof. That store has a cottony accent.
• 57:20
  No, that's a decision. They've, you know, you can
• 57:23
  disagree. You can think that Sontaran
• 57:25
  shouldn't be Cockney thugs, but it it works as an
• 57:27
  interpretation. They say it's a goof, that the
• 57:29
  Gravis has a nose. No, that's a design decision.
• 57:33
  It's it's, it's into this one, doctor.
• 57:34
  Who and the? Silurians Goose In the first
• 57:37
  episode, Liz Liz's skirt snags on her belt.
• 57:41
  OK, so she had a a fashion disaster and yeah.
• 57:47
  It is. There's there's some interesting
• 57:49
  goofs the the. Doctor drops a drink into his
• 57:51
  pocket. That's not a goof.
• 57:53
  That's Tom Baker doing something funny.
• 57:55
  Yes. Have you not been watching this
• 57:57
  season? And then the other the.
• 57:59
  One that also sticks in my mind, which I cannot believe with
• 58:02
  three authors 3. Authors checking.
• 58:05
  This material they managed to get this in print and didn't
• 58:08
  think it was absurd. They they make a reference to
• 58:12
  the humans in the sensor rights being part of the in ear
• 58:16
  organization. They do, yeah, because.
• 58:19
  Of that shoulder flash. That they picked up that they, I
• 58:21
  mean, they do identify that Hartnell reads it wrong because
• 58:24
  he says INNER and it says IN EE R, but it's blatantly obvious
• 58:29
  that that's a torn off thing. That said engineer, it's not the
• 58:34
  INIR organization for crying out loud.
• 58:36
  And yet with three authors looking at it, they all went, Oh
• 58:39
  yeah, it must be this INIR organization.
• 58:42
  And when you get to. Caves of Andrew Zani.
• 58:43
  They say if you slow the sequence down, you can see that.
• 58:47
  Well, don't slow the sequence down.
• 58:49
  Yes, Why would you? It's like, you know, frame by
• 58:52
  frame analysis. Well, don't do that.
• 58:55
  But there seemed to be, at that time, there seemed to be a
• 58:58
  fashion for these kind of nitpicky kind of books because
• 59:01
  at the same time you're, what was it, Error Finder?
• 59:04
  Well, that came on. Decade or so later, and there
• 59:08
  was absolutely. I mean, that was worse than the
• 59:10
  discontinuity. There was no humor in that
• 59:12
  whatsoever, and the guy was actually quite snarky with some
• 59:14
  of the errors that other people had pointed out.
• 59:18
  But around the same time, there was also the NIT Picker's Guide
• 59:21
  for Star Trek series coming out, which was written by a guy
• 59:28
  called Phil Farrand and he wrote one for classic Next Generation
• 59:32
  and Next Generation volume to because it carried on after he'd
• 59:35
  written the first book. And Deep Space 9, which goes up
• 59:38
  to like series four, and they cover up all the movies up to
• 59:40
  Generations as well. And.
• 59:43
  That's written in a in a. Similar kind of I love it, but
• 59:46
  you know, let's be honest, there's some silly stuff in here
• 59:48
  like they forget that two episodes ago they used the
• 59:50
  transporter to fix this problem that's popped up again in two
• 59:53
  episodes time and they don't do it.
• 59:54
  And it are you talking about the the new Trek program?
• 59:57
  Guide Because these three writers did a Star Trek book in
• 1:00:01
  this exact style, which I've got downstairs.
• 1:00:04
  It's not that, it's they. Are they are called literally
• 1:00:06
  the Nitpicker's guide for Oh no no, it's like.
• 1:00:09
  So Cordell Day and Topping did one as well, which we've got,
• 1:00:12
  and it's got none of the humor of this at all.
• 1:00:15
  Much like Star Trek, it's extremely poefaced.
• 1:00:21
  Delta and the Bannermen. Confident, slick and hugely
• 1:00:25
  enjoyable from beginning to end, Delta and the Bannermen isn't
• 1:00:29
  grim, gritty or cynical, and is thus tremendously adult.
• 1:00:33
  It roars with new style. This is the first real hint of
• 1:00:37
  Mccoy's doctor dancing awkwardly with Rey, hugging a
• 1:00:41
  Stratocaster, confronting Gavrock and threatening the
• 1:00:45
  Bannermen. Langford is actually great in
• 1:00:48
  this a very human story of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.
• 1:00:52
  Even Ken Dodd's OK, but who told Don Henderson to play it so
• 1:00:56
  straight? But there was also one for.
• 1:01:02
  There was also one that came out for Buffy, there was one that
• 1:01:04
  came out for The X-Files. And so there was a kind of
• 1:01:07
  fashion for books that I've got them all to say to.
• 1:01:10
  Say you know. Yes, we love this stuff, but
• 1:01:12
  sometimes things go wrong and it's fun.
• 1:01:15
  It's not sometimes things go wrong, which is why it's shit.
• 1:01:18
  It's like sometimes things go wrong.
• 1:01:20
  Let's have a bit of a laugh about it, which is.
• 1:01:22
  That's good and well, if there's.
• 1:01:23
  I mean, some of the goofs are fun as as we know, we love
• 1:01:26
  talking about things that go wrong in Doctor Who.
• 1:01:28
  But if you've got to the point where you're checking the
• 1:01:30
  calendars for the days that the war machines is meant to be
• 1:01:33
  there, that you can say the days don't work that do you just it's
• 1:01:36
  like they're they're getting a bit.
• 1:01:37
  Desperate, aren't they, just to put something in?
• 1:01:39
  But although I will say because I've told this story before, I
• 1:01:42
  do have a delirious Saturday once with my friend Hazel where
• 1:01:46
  we were read through the discontinuity guide on the chase
• 1:01:49
  and then we watched all six episodes when we went looking
• 1:01:52
  for every single goof and we had the best time with it.
• 1:01:56
  Action on the chase. Surprised me and it's brevity
• 1:01:59
  because you could write an entire book.
• 1:02:04
  In the chase. And they've really only kind of
• 1:02:06
  done 2/3 of a page. I mean, it's a fair.
• 1:02:10
  Sort of shunk compared to some stories.
• 1:02:11
  Compared to some stories but but I feel.
• 1:02:13
  Like there are some unmind bits of information there, yeah.
• 1:02:18
  But yeah, I think, I think you're right.
• 1:02:19
  I think it's fair to say that it was, yeah, it was of its time
• 1:02:22
  and it was great at a time when access to Doctor Who material
• 1:02:26
  was actually quite limited. So we kind of had to go with
• 1:02:28
  what these guys that we assumed had access to the stuff or had
• 1:02:32
  watched it or, you know, managed to get hold of bootleg
• 1:02:35
  recordings and audio copies and things what they were telling us
• 1:02:40
  to a point. And so I think it's very fair to
• 1:02:42
  say that you, you kind of outgrow it, not only because of
• 1:02:44
  the tone and, and your age and the fact that you're not the
• 1:02:46
  target demographic anymore, but because now everything is there.
• 1:02:51
  I can. Watch every.
• 1:02:52
  Episode of Doctor Who that exists, I can listen to cleaned
• 1:02:55
  up soundtracks or watch animated versions of the missing
• 1:02:58
  episodes. So a lot of this stuff is very
• 1:03:00
  clear that it's like you never would have known that when,
• 1:03:02
  when. They wrote this so Oh no,
• 1:03:04
  absolutely not. So everything's kind of
• 1:03:06
  overtaken it really. Can I take my my biggest?
• 1:03:09
  Objection now is because, and again, like James, the thing I
• 1:03:13
  was obsessed with when I first read it was the bottom line.
• 1:03:15
  I wanted to hear the reviews on every single story.
• 1:03:19
  It's just how like this is sort of packaged as a loving book,
• 1:03:24
  which is sort of light heartedly poking fun at Doctor Who.
• 1:03:28
  I've got three bottom lines. I'm going to read you now quite
• 1:03:31
  sure, but there's just so spiteful about the stories that
• 1:03:33
  they're talking about and I it's sort of belies what you're
• 1:03:37
  trying to do with this book. So the moon base final proof
• 1:03:41
  that ridiculous and tacky docs who didn't begin until the
• 1:03:43
  1970s. The moon base is illogical and
• 1:03:46
  boring, reducing assignment to the role of intergalactic
• 1:03:49
  gangsters, a waste of talent involved.
• 1:03:51
  So when I read that I was like, well, I'm going to watch that.
• 1:03:53
  That's going right to the bottom of the pile.
• 1:03:56
  Next I wrote I. Wrote that I.
• 1:03:57
  Wrote I picked. I picked out that one as well.
• 1:04:00
  Ridiculous and tacky. Who didn't start in the 70s?
• 1:04:04
  The time. Monster, everybody's favorite.
• 1:04:06
  Like watching paint dry whilst being whipped with barbed wire.
• 1:04:10
  Immensely dull and painful at the same time.
• 1:04:12
  I see you laughing, James. It's as if the Unit family were
• 1:04:16
  having such fun that they've forgotten that we'd like to have
• 1:04:18
  some too. Episode 4 is intended to make
• 1:04:20
  the audience go oh that's clever but actually makes them fondly
• 1:04:23
  remember the Space Museum and most egregious of all, the
• 1:04:27
  Android invasion. Stupid, tiresome and very
• 1:04:32
  irritating Kenneth Williams description of episode 2 in his
• 1:04:36
  Diaries. Doctor Who gets more and more
• 1:04:38
  silly. Now I know these are just
• 1:04:40
  opinions, but I was taking these opinions as read at one point
• 1:04:46
  and I don't agree with any of those reviews now.
• 1:04:48
  And I don't know, it just feels like there there's certain parts
• 1:04:52
  of Doctor Who that they love, other parts of Doctor Who that
• 1:04:55
  they really don't. I was quite curious.
• 1:04:59
  Because one of the flaws with this book, to my mind, I mean,
• 1:05:02
  it has many flaws conceptually, but but in terms of being a book
• 1:05:06
  that offers a pithy review of each story, they don't tell us
• 1:05:10
  their methodology. So we don't know what order we
• 1:05:15
  are watching the stories in. Whereas now I think we'd
• 1:05:17
  scrupulously say, well, we watch this in in transmission order or
• 1:05:20
  we didn't. You know for what?
• 1:05:21
  For whatever reason, it's actually context is really
• 1:05:24
  important as everyone who's done a marathon of Doctor Who Knows.
• 1:05:28
  So that is we don't know how they were watching it, whether
• 1:05:31
  they watching it together and comparing notes or whether they
• 1:05:33
  watching it individually, which also very much colours the way
• 1:05:36
  you receive episodes if you're watching it as a group or whose
• 1:05:39
  opinion that. Is or who they can't all have
• 1:05:42
  the same opinion on every story there are some stories that.
• 1:05:45
  Frustratingly, certainly at the time, I found it frustrating.
• 1:05:48
  Don't offer an opinion. The bottom line is devoid of any
• 1:05:51
  kind of judgment. And you start to wonder if
• 1:05:53
  that's because those are the ones where they couldn't agree
• 1:05:56
  on an opinion. And wouldn't it have been better
• 1:05:58
  just to say that and say some of us love this, some of us Didn't
• 1:06:01
  you get a reference at one point to one of us love Creature from
• 1:06:03
  the Pit? Well, which one of you?
• 1:06:06
  And why didn't you say that at the time?
• 1:06:08
  Whereas do you remember with the house time as.
• 1:06:09
  Walkers. It had three reviews.
• 1:06:11
  Each one of them wrote a review for every story, so at least you
• 1:06:14
  had a bit of balance there. I was tickled by.
• 1:06:17
  How many of the opinions I think received?
• 1:06:21
  Fan. Wisdom now would completely take
• 1:06:26
  odds with episodes two and four of the first story are dismissed
• 1:06:30
  as very dull, which I think is is very few people hold that
• 1:06:33
  opinion now. Most people kind of have learned
• 1:06:37
  to kind of see the the cleverness in writing in the
• 1:06:39
  direction, whereas the dialects the whole story is quote
• 1:06:44
  brilliantly directed. Quote.
• 1:06:50
  The The Celestial Toymaker is quote, an unqualified success.
• 1:06:55
  You know, they're they're really.
• 1:06:56
  They really say. They really say.
• 1:06:59
  That. Wow.
• 1:07:01
  Yeah. I think it's interesting that
• 1:07:03
  the the book sets out, you know, it's called the Discontinuity
• 1:07:07
  Guide. It sets out one of its tasks
• 1:07:10
  that it devotes quite significant chunk of its page
• 1:07:13
  count to is supposedly setting out the continuity of the series
• 1:07:18
  where things build on or contradict earlier stories.
• 1:07:22
  Developing a future history for humanity.
• 1:07:25
  They have a whole section on future history.
• 1:07:27
  So which really? Particularly only which only
• 1:07:31
  read any of that as a kid. All those boxes I didn't care
• 1:07:33
  about, I I read those and I. Found them quite interesting.
• 1:07:37
  The boxes in particular I quite enjoyed, and I particularly
• 1:07:40
  enjoyed the one that stuck in my mind, which is the two Dalek
• 1:07:43
  histories. Sorry.
• 1:07:46
  Just to clarify, you found it interesting at the time or you
• 1:07:48
  found it interesting on your last read?
• 1:07:50
  I found it fascinating. At the time, I think it's an
• 1:07:52
  interesting effort now as well. I still like their box out on,
• 1:07:57
  particularly on the two dialect histories idea and it's the kind
• 1:07:59
  of getting in on the idea, but also that kind of undermines
• 1:08:03
  their entire premise because they've said there are two
• 1:08:05
  dialect histories because the doctor's actions caused dialect
• 1:08:08
  history to diverge. So their theory is that the
• 1:08:11
  reason Davros keeps cropping up in every dialect story since
• 1:08:14
  Genesis, and we never saw him in any other story, despite the
• 1:08:18
  fact that in theory they're happening in parallel because
• 1:08:21
  obviously Genesis is right at the start of dialect history.
• 1:08:25
  Their idea is. That in the original Dalek
• 1:08:28
  timeline, Davros was exterminated at the end of
• 1:08:31
  Genesis and the Daleks built up and became an empire.
• 1:08:35
  They, some of them left and became the spacefaring Daleks of
• 1:08:38
  the Dalek invasion of Earth, etcetera.
• 1:08:39
  Some of them stayed on Skyrow and became the ones that we saw
• 1:08:42
  in the first story. And that was Dalek history.
• 1:08:45
  So the Dalek master plan and all that lot, that was Dalek history
• 1:08:49
  one. And then the Time Lord said to
• 1:08:51
  the Doctor, go back and do something.
• 1:08:53
  And although he thinks that he hasn't made any difference, what
• 1:08:56
  he has done is made sure that Davros became sufficiently
• 1:08:59
  paranoid to install the force field or a protective system in
• 1:09:01
  his life support system. So he survived.
• 1:09:05
  And then history diverged because from that point on, the
• 1:09:07
  Daleks kept on trying to get Davros involved and they ended
• 1:09:10
  up splintering into factions. And they say, so they never
• 1:09:13
  became the great universal conquerors that they were
• 1:09:16
  supposedly, you know, the huge Dalek empire of the 60s and 70s
• 1:09:20
  that we we supposedly see. And that caught on my
• 1:09:23
  imagination. And I rather like that idea.
• 1:09:25
  And I think that's basically what's wrong with anyone now
• 1:09:29
  trying to say this story contradicts what happened in
• 1:09:33
  that story. It's like, yeah, you're talking
• 1:09:34
  about a story. Time travel history is being
• 1:09:37
  changed explicitly in some stories.
• 1:09:39
  The entire universe has been rebooted at least once in the
• 1:09:43
  run of Doctor Who since 2005. So the idea that this story
• 1:09:47
  contradicts the mutants, well, so fucking what, you know?
• 1:09:52
  But I think. That.
• 1:09:54
  One of the things that happened rather unfortunately around that
• 1:09:57
  time as well is that somebody else took that idea and ran with
• 1:10:00
  it and did a better job so. What the guys?
• 1:10:03
  Here have done is try to talk about the continuity and the
• 1:10:05
  future history and everything else of how things relate, but
• 1:10:08
  they've kept it very confined to each story so you don't get the
• 1:10:12
  coherent narrative. So by the time you get to, you
• 1:10:15
  know, something about what happens to the humans in the
• 1:10:18
  26th century according to Earth Shock, you've completely
• 1:10:21
  forgotten what they said about the 26th century in frontier, in
• 1:10:24
  space, you know, And so are you thinking of this book?
• 1:10:29
  No, I'm not thinking of that. Book I am that that was.
• 1:10:31
  My that was my equivalent list that I constantly read for the
• 1:10:36
  benefit of the listing. Yeah, you better say what book?
• 1:10:38
  You're talking about. That's the universal data.
• 1:10:40
  Bank, so the universal. Databank by John, the office
• 1:10:44
  here. Yeah, I, that was the book I
• 1:10:47
  just constantly dipped in and out of all the time.
• 1:10:53
  And I the geeky, the geekiness in my head, which is I it's
• 1:10:56
  almost like they were trying to do two different things to
• 1:10:58
  discontinue to go about the stuff you're talking about.
• 1:11:01
  They were trying to do episode by episode.
• 1:11:04
  And then they had the box offs. And actually the box offs might
• 1:11:06
  have been better been expanded as a separate book because which
• 1:11:12
  I think is where you were headed, isn't it, Jason?
• 1:11:14
  But because it's kind of interesting.
• 1:11:16
  But then they don't go the full Hagen and like you say, you've
• 1:11:19
  forgotten about it. So it's kind of a weird, but I
• 1:11:23
  like that stuff, that kind of we're doing geeky stuff and the
• 1:11:26
  join and the dots, the head. Canony stuff.
• 1:11:29
  As we might say in modern parlance, that's kind of For me,
• 1:11:33
  that's half the fun of being a. Fan of this stupid?
• 1:11:37
  Show is making sense of stuff that is impossible to make sense
• 1:11:42
  of because it's not Star Trek. Even Star Trek doesn't make
• 1:11:45
  sense, but Star Trek is one of those shows where generally they
• 1:11:49
  assume you know the continuity and they're not scared to go.
• 1:11:54
  It might have been 40 years ago, but you all know this, don't
• 1:11:56
  you? We're going to have the
• 1:11:56
  progenitors in it again. Don't you remember that?
• 1:11:58
  Nothing line of Terrance? Dixie's where?
• 1:12:00
  He said no, no, no. Continuity is what I can
• 1:12:03
  remember when I write this next. Yeah.
• 1:12:05
  All right. Yeah.
• 1:12:07
  Jason Boyd. Yeah, finish your thoughts.
• 1:12:10
  The Book I. Was.
• 1:12:10
  Thinking of was Lance. Parkins a History of the
• 1:12:12
  universe. Oh God, a bold.
• 1:12:14
  Endeavour. A bold endeavour indeed.
• 1:12:16
  But doesn't go with the whole story by story.
• 1:12:20
  It actually says, OK, here's a timeline, proposed timeline of
• 1:12:23
  the history of the universe, and this is what's referenced in
• 1:12:26
  this story and so on in chronological order of history
• 1:12:31
  rather than by order of the television series, which of
• 1:12:33
  course leaps around all over the place.
• 1:12:36
  I think it does go into sort of divergent timelines
• 1:12:38
  occasionally. It did expand.
• 1:12:40
  There have been many revisions of it that have incorporated the
• 1:12:43
  Virgin New Adventures and all sorts of other things, and it's
• 1:12:45
  become a bigger and bigger book. A bold endeavour indeed.
• 1:12:49
  We're doing it, surely. That's that.
• 1:12:51
  That's enough to drive a man mad to try and incorporate all.
• 1:12:53
  And you who as well? Yeah, well, I don't know how
• 1:12:56
  far. He's gone with it, but was it
• 1:12:58
  the 3rd edition? Now I think something like that.
• 1:13:00
  Has anyone? Actually reading in the.
• 1:13:01
  News different. But the latest episode, The
• 1:13:04
  Suitec ship must have just made him like jump out.
• 1:13:08
  Jump out the window. Oh, and.
• 1:13:10
  Also six being. There six pyramids are fucking
• 1:13:13
  mad. No, he's seeing the pound signs.
• 1:13:15
  In his eyes, yes. Another version of my another.
• 1:13:17
  Version to come. Fabulous, but.
• 1:13:20
  That's you know. The but almost look, the the
• 1:13:22
  Discontinuity Guide is almost two books in one because they're
• 1:13:25
  doing the fictional head canony stuff, as you say, and and and
• 1:13:28
  pointing out the continuity. But they're also doing the TV
• 1:13:32
  critic and looking at the actual stuff that was presented on
• 1:13:35
  screen. And they're almost two separate
• 1:13:37
  books trying to kind of be mashed together into one, which
• 1:13:40
  is a very kind of Doctor Who Y thing in a way, because many
• 1:13:44
  Doctor Who stories take two entirely separate concepts and
• 1:13:47
  genres and go, let's put these together, bang with varying
• 1:13:51
  degrees of success. And I think they see that
• 1:13:54
  conversation in the Fitzroy. Tavern.
• 1:13:55
  Can't you? But God, we'll do fluffs and
• 1:13:57
  goofs and my God, we'll connect the whole of Doctor Who
• 1:13:59
  together. Let's write it now.
• 1:14:01
  Get us a point. Yeah, so.
• 1:14:03
  And I think at the time it was a very successful book, but I
• 1:14:06
  think it's fair to say that time has overtaken it.
• 1:14:09
  People are grown up, very influential, haven't.
• 1:14:12
  They absolutely the first appearance of any mention of
• 1:14:16
  season 6B. This idea that Patrick Charlton
• 1:14:18
  had a, you know, another another era post his enforced
• 1:14:23
  regeneration, which didn't actually happen and and that's
• 1:14:26
  resulted in in works of fiction in they're doing audio dramas
• 1:14:29
  now. Audio dramas, yes.
• 1:14:32
  Well, what? What?
• 1:14:33
  What hasn't a big finished mind? It was, yes, but also I think
• 1:14:38
  there, there. Were some bubbles as well.
• 1:14:41
  And and it's sort of that's the kind of thing that's ingrained
• 1:14:44
  in my conscious now. I mean, I can't watch the two
• 1:14:46
  doctors without thinking. This is the Patrick Charlton
• 1:14:49
  from C6B again though, what? Jason was saying there about
• 1:14:53
  those boxes. I think since this book came
• 1:14:57
  out, there are just so many better examples of works doing
• 1:15:01
  the same thing more intellectually in more detail.
• 1:15:04
  Like you go on to Elizabeth Sandifer's website and she
• 1:15:10
  pulls. All the strings of Doctor Who.
• 1:15:12
  Together in such a an eccentric way that's absolutely roofed it
• 1:15:15
  the about time books. They do the same thing again,
• 1:15:17
  but it's huge essay style of things, you know?
• 1:15:21
  I found those. I found those books for me.
• 1:15:24
  Those books started really well. Yeah, I've got them.
• 1:15:28
  I've got from a bit now, so they've got.
• 1:15:29
  To as they, as they went. On it's like somebody said they
• 1:15:34
  they gave up, they needed a bit of an edit because I've I found
• 1:15:37
  myself in the first couple of books I was reading them covered
• 1:15:39
  a couple of things. These are fascinating.
• 1:15:40
  These are brilliant. These are great.
• 1:15:41
  These are very good. And by the time I got to some of
• 1:15:43
  the later ones, a one of the authors buggered off because he
• 1:15:45
  actually couldn't stand you the better of the two.
• 1:15:47
  That was Laura Miles, but what also.
• 1:15:50
  Happened is that evidently they didn't bother with an editor
• 1:15:53
  because I was reading some of their essays and just nodding
• 1:15:55
  off because they just went on to page after page after page.
• 1:15:59
  And it's like, you could have, you know, revised this down and
• 1:16:02
  cut half the length out of this and made a good point.
• 1:16:05
  Instead of which by the time I've got to the end of the
• 1:16:06
  essay, I've forgotten what the point was at the beginning.
• 1:16:09
  So they got a bit too indulgent, I think, I have to say.
• 1:16:15
  But they were excellent. Books.
• 1:16:17
  The ones that cover the classic series are absolutely superb,
• 1:16:22
  and again, they're really complimentary about the 80s
• 1:16:25
  period that most receive family wisdom up to that point.
• 1:16:27
  We're saying this is the point where Doctor Who basically died
• 1:16:30
  off and it was shit. Jason.
• 1:16:31
  Except Colin. Baker's era.
• 1:16:33
  I'll keep repeating it over and over again.
• 1:16:35
  Even some of that was. Was well received, I think in in
• 1:16:38
  that book. So but now they're bringing out.
• 1:16:41
  Re new editions of those classic Who ones, and they're five times
• 1:16:44
  the length. I think they keep they keep
• 1:16:46
  adding. Stuff to them.
• 1:16:47
  You have something that was really perfect to begin with.
• 1:16:49
  Don't keep. Adding stuff to it, that's.
• 1:16:52
  Not how you make a better version of the book, James.
• 1:16:54
  What was you going to say then? Maybe I just lack.
• 1:16:57
  The the the commitment to be a true Doctor Who fan but for the
• 1:17:02
  idea of wading through essays on on this kind of thing strikes me
• 1:17:07
  as a little bit tedious, and certainly it is for.
• 1:17:11
  When I was for. When I was a teenager, the the
• 1:17:14
  length of these box outs was just right to kind of go, yeah,
• 1:17:17
  definitely. Here's a.
• 1:17:18
  Theory that you can. Consider for your Dalek
• 1:17:20
  histories, or your cyber history, or how are your 3
• 1:17:23
  explanations for Atlantis fit together.
• 1:17:26
  And they do it in a way that's fairly.
• 1:17:29
  Compelling and. Convincing and it and they don't
• 1:17:32
  out say they're welcome. I actually think those box outs
• 1:17:35
  are quite good, but I I do also, I'm inclined to agree with Ian
• 1:17:39
  that this is a dry book Elsewhere and the section on
• 1:17:42
  continuity, which is often the biggest section about any story
• 1:17:45
  where they just list how things fit in with everything else.
• 1:17:51
  It's it's it actually doesn't feel of a part with this book
• 1:17:55
  that elsewhere is witty and tongue in cheek.
• 1:17:58
  It feels like that someone writing down really kind of anal
• 1:18:02
  stuff. I'm not sure it's all there.
• 1:18:04
  As well, you know. No, it's, it's not.
• 1:18:06
  It's not. A book for competists by.
• 1:18:08
  Any stretch if you know you couldn't use this for that.
• 1:18:10
  So it's just a sort of random collection of all this is how we
• 1:18:13
  think this fits in with this and it's but very did you not want
• 1:18:17
  to know? James.
• 1:18:17
  That in City of Death, the Doctor can mirror right.
• 1:18:20
  Carries an Instamatic camera, felt, tip, pen, hammer and
• 1:18:23
  torch. Well, I did and then they're.
• 1:18:27
  Really critical of the idea that he's got a judge's wig in his
• 1:18:29
  pockets. So because that's that
• 1:18:31
  apparently is too far. We can't believe that that's.
• 1:18:34
  Yeah. And why we have but.
• 1:18:36
  That's. Ian, I've gone far too long.
• 1:18:38
  With without hearing your opinion, so can you please, can
• 1:18:42
  you please point us? In the direction of.
• 1:18:43
  Something you you liked about this book this time round, and
• 1:18:46
  something that you didn't. Well.
• 1:18:50
  I did. I did find myself reading the
• 1:18:51
  box office, but also what was actually fascinating and
• 1:18:54
  probably maybe says a lot about me as a young man is I skipped
• 1:18:58
  the roots bit. I don't remember fixing and and
• 1:19:02
  that's actually made me go, Oh yeah, that I've found myself
• 1:19:05
  been really interested in those. They're they're sort of all the
• 1:19:08
  different things that they and you know, some of them obviously
• 1:19:11
  I have kind of probably picked up myself, but others I probably
• 1:19:14
  haven't thought about something. It's like a reading.
• 1:19:16
  List. Did you not find yourself
• 1:19:18
  thinking like? No shit show because the the
• 1:19:20
  canining company roots is just Enid Blyson and Dennis Wheatley
• 1:19:26
  and that's it. Yeah, yes.
• 1:19:28
  Some. Of the yeah, some of them are
• 1:19:29
  like. Yes, now, now I'm now I'm an
• 1:19:31
  older person. I know them anyway.
• 1:19:33
  But others were like, oh, yeah, I hadn't really thought of that.
• 1:19:36
  But but what struck me as well was they're slightly Rick from
• 1:19:40
  the young ones, PC Ness, which is also undercut by the fact
• 1:19:47
  that you know, so they're going. Oh, well, when when Mike Mike
• 1:19:51
  Yates calls Chin Chin Lee a Dolly, but a Dolly.
• 1:19:56
  Oh, that's that's that's definitely something you
• 1:19:58
  shouldn't do. But and I thought I'm going to
• 1:20:01
  flip the challenge of Wayne Chang and Oh, they don't they
• 1:20:05
  don't notice the yellow face whatsoever.
• 1:20:08
  So you're old men. You're all old men.
• 1:20:11
  And I didn't notice the yellow face when I was I'm their
• 1:20:14
  generation. I didn't give it a second
• 1:20:17
  thought. I've so I'm not being or
• 1:20:20
  superior, but I just thought there was that sort of quite
• 1:20:23
  right. On.
• 1:20:24
  PC Ness. It's that was kind of kind of
• 1:20:27
  funny as well, because the things they find, you know?
• 1:20:31
  They they pick up on. The sexism, but then other stuff
• 1:20:34
  they don't pick up on. Everyone thinks they're
• 1:20:35
  brilliant. The latest generation thinks
• 1:20:38
  they're right. They've they've got it and they
• 1:20:41
  are never, ever going to be accused of being any sort of
• 1:20:43
  bigger whatsoever. I think there are there are
• 1:20:46
  trends. Of you know what we're what
• 1:20:48
  we're upset about. Aren't there?
• 1:20:50
  At different times, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:53
  But it's but yes, it's just quite, it's just as a historical
• 1:20:55
  document. But what I really like about it
• 1:20:58
  is I think it's placed in fandom.
• 1:21:01
  If you were to, you know, study Doctor Who fandom as people do,
• 1:21:05
  it's positivity and the fact that.
• 1:21:10
  It's almost like. The generation that came before
• 1:21:13
  if Doctor Who was shit. Then that was the end of the.
• 1:21:17
  World whereas this, like you said, it was kind of like going
• 1:21:21
  well, Doctor Who's shit. It's hilarious.
• 1:21:24
  We grew up watching horns of nine months.
• 1:21:27
  You know, if you think that's if you think Doctor Who's only good
• 1:21:30
  when it's special effects are good, then why?
• 1:21:33
  Why are you a fan of Doctor Who if if you know?
• 1:21:37
  So this was. This was very much the joy of
• 1:21:39
  Doctor Who is sometimes laughing your ass off at it, isn't it?
• 1:21:43
  And I can't believe we like the show because it's.
• 1:21:46
  Brilliant and inventive. And it's cheap and tacky and you
• 1:21:50
  know, and you have a, you have your main monster looks like a
• 1:21:53
  massive prawn or you've got you. Know you've got minotaurs.
• 1:21:59
  In high heels and platform shoes, you know it's stupid.
• 1:22:03
  I'm not sure. Television.
• 1:22:04
  Has ever been better since then, if I'm honestly in.
• 1:22:07
  Well, yeah, it's also. You know.
• 1:22:09
  I think they I said, I think they're, I think they're part of
• 1:22:11
  the continuity, if you like that.
• 1:22:14
  And I said this to Paul when I was in the green room saying,
• 1:22:17
  Oh, we're going to do when I was getting the autograph saying,
• 1:22:18
  Oh, we're doing the podcast at some point.
• 1:22:21
  Didn't know it was going to be that many months down the line.
• 1:22:24
  But just saying. But you know, and I just sort of
• 1:22:27
  said, well, I think it's the positivity.
• 1:22:29
  And I think there's a Direct Line between this and then the
• 1:22:32
  Rob Sherman and Toby Haydock stuff and what Toby Haydock's
• 1:22:36
  doing now, which is to just gleefully like everything.
• 1:22:40
  And it doesn't matter if it's didn't come off at the time.
• 1:22:44
  That's kind of half the fun. And, and I also like the head
• 1:22:48
  cannone. I like, I like the ridiculous
• 1:22:52
  attention to detail and arguing over plots.
• 1:22:55
  And I think people mistake if they ever over here was doing
• 1:22:59
  this or they were able to see our WhatsApp groups or whatever
• 1:23:02
  that we in any way take this seriously.
• 1:23:06
  We kind of our seriousness is almost performative.
• 1:23:10
  You know, we're talking about what about this, the way they've
• 1:23:13
  got dialects splitting off into two parallel worlds and you get
• 1:23:16
  really and you and if you and you can hear the Fitzroy kept
• 1:23:19
  Tavern, can't you? You can hear them drunk, being
• 1:23:23
  in their early 20s, coming up with head canony stuff really
• 1:23:28
  earnestly, but also. Maybe some people are taking.
• 1:23:32
  It too seriously, but maybe other people are.
• 1:23:34
  Their seriousness is also part of that hysteria that's they're
• 1:23:39
  hilarious when you're just, you're just having an argument
• 1:23:42
  for the sake of it. Debating a point about Doctor
• 1:23:45
  Who continuity, which I love doing.
• 1:23:48
  At the same time, it doesn't matter.
• 1:23:50
  It doesn't matter, obviously. It's just fun and it's our way
• 1:23:53
  of enjoying the fandom that we're a part of.
• 1:23:57
  Basically what we do on these. Podcasts.
• 1:23:59
  Well, yeah, James. James and.
• 1:24:01
  Jason, now I know you guys have notes that you've written about
• 1:24:06
  the Discontinuity Guide, and I would like to hear, you know,
• 1:24:11
  the positives and the negatives that you've pulled out of this
• 1:24:13
  book. I'm going to start with Jason.
• 1:24:20
  Well, I mean some of the. The positive, I mean, overall
• 1:24:22
  it's the positive, the general positivity of the book.
• 1:24:25
  I mean, yeah, there are some bits where they are scathing
• 1:24:28
  about some stories and there are some definite problems with it.
• 1:24:31
  But overall, the whole point of this book is to have fun with
• 1:24:34
  Doctor Who. And as you said, it's as you
• 1:24:37
  said, Joe, it's like it's giving you giving us all permission to
• 1:24:39
  actually go, well, we can take the piss out of this without
• 1:24:43
  saying it's actually crap. And that's.
• 1:24:46
  Quite. Refreshing at that point.
• 1:24:50
  And of course at the time Doctor Who was basically finished.
• 1:24:53
  So everything was going to be a retrospective of the entire
• 1:24:55
  history of Doctor Who as far as they knew it.
• 1:24:57
  And so it was good fun. The techno Babble section is is
• 1:25:02
  fun because it's you know, they you know there is a lot of
• 1:25:04
  techno Babble in Doctor Who the double entendre section.
• 1:25:11
  Seems a bit. Divided because obviously Joe,
• 1:25:14
  part of your entire personality is based on that section because
• 1:25:19
  they've pulled out anything that's even vaguely comically
• 1:25:23
  sexual sounding like isn't even as far as you know, oh, isn't
• 1:25:26
  this gay or you don't get much or I can't keep it up, you know,
• 1:25:30
  but also and you know Jason Thompson.
• 1:25:32
  My ponchon for double entendres has nothing to do with this
• 1:25:35
  book. I was false fed.
• 1:25:37
  Are you being served from a young age?
• 1:25:41
  Burn down your throats. To, to, to.
• 1:25:44
  Illustrate what we were talking about.
• 1:25:45
  I mean it's symptomatic of the entire book in that it's trying
• 1:25:47
  to do 2 separate things which is 1 tackle the fiction and one
• 1:25:50
  tackle the the the production in the same book at the same time.
• 1:25:56
  The Dubal Entendre section not only includes all the sexy dubal
• 1:26:00
  entendres and things like that, but it also includes in it
• 1:26:04
  anything that refers to another Doctor Who story title I've.
• 1:26:09
  Always been very keen on. Survival.
• 1:26:11
  And is it the awakening and things like that?
• 1:26:14
  And it's like, well, hang on, that's a whole separate kind of.
• 1:26:17
  There's a good one in the three. Doctors, let's toss, shall we?
• 1:26:20
  Let's toss. Or Underworld's got what's ever
• 1:26:22
  sucked, can be blown, whatever blows can be.
• 1:26:25
  Sucked, yes, So we've got that one.
• 1:26:27
  But yeah. But my I.
• 1:26:30
  Say the negatives now are the bits.
• 1:26:34
  Where it's very. Clear that they didn't have
• 1:26:37
  access to it and even sometimes they they misquote or
• 1:26:41
  misattribute. And again with three authors,
• 1:26:43
  how did this happen? Beryl Reed is ascribed one of
• 1:26:46
  Ringway's fluffs. They say at.
• 1:26:49
  One point that the Doctor misstates the Dalek invasion of
• 1:26:51
  Earth to the 21st century in remembrance when he definitely
• 1:26:54
  said 22nd. You know.
• 1:26:57
  It's things like that. Oh, the the Magarians, that's
• 1:27:00
  the one that got me. The Magarians in the trial of a
• 1:27:03
  Time Lord as well when they described the Magarians as water
• 1:27:06
  on the face is lethal to them. No, it was very clear that what
• 1:27:10
  actually happened was that someone chucked acid on their
• 1:27:12
  faces which melted their masks and allowed oxygen in, which is
• 1:27:15
  what was actually toxic to them. Nothing to do with Jason I.
• 1:27:19
  Knew you'd get one in. Somewhere.
• 1:27:20
  Thank you for being Pernicity. Yeah, it's kind of if you're.
• 1:27:23
  Going to that, that's the thing if you.
• 1:27:27
  A warning to anyone who's ever. Wants to write a nitpickers
• 1:27:29
  guide. There will be someone more
• 1:27:31
  nitpicky than you and they will pick up on your nitpicks.
• 1:27:34
  Can I change that? Warning a bit.
• 1:27:36
  Anyone who's thinking about writing a nitpickers guide, be
• 1:27:38
  warned. Jason Thompson might read it all
• 1:27:40
  right. But I think I think that says a
• 1:27:44
  lot about the era maiden like how much you check everything
• 1:27:49
  now because you'd go and check everything on your on the
• 1:27:53
  Internet. I think they were.
• 1:27:55
  DVDs and. Then they probably didn't.
• 1:27:58
  They were probably doing a lot of this from, well, that's
• 1:28:00
  right, isn't it? And a lot of this is like a
• 1:28:02
  crude well, they were. Sort of years and.
• 1:28:05
  Years of. Random.
• 1:28:06
  They were watching that at. Half speed to see how the
• 1:28:08
  effects were done. I think that what they.
• 1:28:10
  I think one of the things. They were relying on is the
• 1:28:13
  knowledge, the sure and certain knowledge, that in 1995, half
• 1:28:16
  their audience hasn't seen these stories since broadcast, if at
• 1:28:22
  all, and aren't likely to look at them anytime soon.
• 1:28:25
  So they can be a bit LAX in their checking and not worry
• 1:28:31
  that, you know, as soon as we put this out, somebody is going
• 1:28:33
  to go straight to their VHS and shove this episode in and go,
• 1:28:37
  ah, they were wrong. I certainly don't think they.
• 1:28:40
  Foresaw, you know, the the wave of podcasts that would come in
• 1:28:43
  30 years time and that the four of us would get together, read
• 1:28:47
  this book, and then nitpick everything.
• 1:28:49
  Nitpicking the nitpicking. Yeah, yeah, no.
• 1:28:52
  I think in. A In a In a way, they're victim
• 1:28:55
  to the same thing that Terence Dix is mentioned in the
• 1:28:59
  foreword, which is continuity in Doctor Who was what I could
• 1:29:03
  remember. And in a weird way, they're
• 1:29:06
  almost doing their own version of that.
• 1:29:09
  But some of it is legend that they picked up from the previous
• 1:29:12
  generation. Joe Alton wrote in his diary
• 1:29:15
  about fancying Fraser Hines or maybe you didn't and all these
• 1:29:19
  different things. And they're all still there.
• 1:29:22
  They're all still mentioned by younger fans now they're all
• 1:29:25
  picked up. If you know, if you become an up
• 1:29:27
  to fan, you know all these things that every.
• 1:29:31
  Every. You know, every adventure has a
• 1:29:34
  series of things. And it reminds me, I was going
• 1:29:37
  to say earlier, it reminds me because of.
• 1:29:41
  Because of my generation, but when?
• 1:29:42
  1990 was it? Was it 91?
• 1:29:45
  I think it was 91 when the when they had the repeat session
• 1:29:50
  season and they had the Anorak, the speaking Anorak 92.
• 1:29:54
  Two Yeah, 92 I. Knew I knew it wasn't the
• 1:29:57
  anniversary, but because I knew I was in halls of residence.
• 1:30:00
  So yeah, 92 makes sense. And that whole rummy, rummy
• 1:30:04
  anorak and some of that, it seems to be from the same thing
• 1:30:09
  that they, they lean into the idea that Doctor Who was
• 1:30:12
  horrifically sexist just like that programme did.
• 1:30:15
  And that programme had like clips from the web planet to
• 1:30:19
  show, to prove how sexist it was.
• 1:30:21
  And then missed out the really crucial bit, which is where
• 1:30:26
  what's she called the the professor's daughter says, well,
• 1:30:29
  I decided to become AI when I was a little girl.
• 1:30:32
  I was a scientist. So I became a scientist.
• 1:30:37
  So all that, all that sort of thing that that documentary
• 1:30:39
  goes, oh, Doctor Who was just sexist.
• 1:30:41
  Isn't that funny to EE without actually going?
• 1:30:44
  Actually, no. It was also very much knew about
• 1:30:47
  feminism and they've got a little bit of that going on as
• 1:30:49
  well. So that's part of the 90s that I
• 1:30:51
  remember as well. One thing.
• 1:30:54
  One thing. About that that persisted after
• 1:30:57
  this book was was I think I just found my notes on it.
• 1:31:01
  Where do they see the bloke who gets glooped in the happiness
• 1:31:04
  patrol wearing a pink triangle? Because that cropped up for
• 1:31:07
  years and years and years and years to say it was all, you
• 1:31:10
  know, proud T-shirt like. All the cat, the pink is the
• 1:31:14
  base costume and he's wearing a jacket which has a lapel, which
• 1:31:18
  creates a triangle shape. And I guess they had a less
• 1:31:23
  sharp quality print than we have now on DVD.
• 1:31:28
  And yes, the the the collar creates the shape of a triangle,
• 1:31:31
  but it's definitely just the shape of the collar.
• 1:31:33
  It's not a badge. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:31:36
  So did they think it was? A reference to like talk to
• 1:31:39
  Germany, the gay character. And, and I've seen that
• 1:31:43
  absolutely and I've seen Cornell.
• 1:31:44
  Write in License denied an entire piece on homosexuality
• 1:31:50
  and happiness patrol. So that was a a strong reading,
• 1:31:53
  he gave James. Come on, I know you've got some
• 1:31:56
  notes for me. I have.
• 1:31:58
  Well, I want. To go back to a thing that Ian
• 1:32:00
  said, which was the root section, and Ian said it was
• 1:32:03
  like a reading list because I think this is a really important
• 1:32:06
  point to make. I've I've read books and and
• 1:32:09
  watched films because of the discontinuity guide.
• 1:32:11
  OK, yeah, I watched my first ever Avengers episode, the
• 1:32:18
  manicure of Sorry, Sorry Green because it was referenced in The
• 1:32:22
  Seeds of Doom. You know, listen to Kate Bush
• 1:32:25
  because it's referenced in kinder.
• 1:32:27
  I I, I can't undersell the fact that the book actually like
• 1:32:32
  Doctor Who itself made me a a wider red.
• 1:32:35
  And and these are things I may want to have come across anyway,
• 1:32:37
  but but it brought me to them a little bit more quickly.
• 1:32:41
  So for that I remain grateful. Like Jason, I went through and
• 1:32:47
  there's nothing more satisfying in a book that has sections on
• 1:32:50
  goofs to to find the goofs it. Credits Terry.
• 1:32:55
  Walsh as Katie Manning. Stunt Dublin, The Sea Devils.
• 1:32:58
  It was Stuart Fell. Stuart fell, Yeah.
• 1:33:00
  But Beth is not misgrossed. In Revenge of the Cybermen, it's
• 1:33:02
  just partially quoted. That's egregiously of all
• 1:33:06
  there's a. Bit that suggests that that Tom
• 1:33:09
  Baker has a a slightly dribbly nose in the Kiefer truck and
• 1:33:13
  yeah, it's a cobweb A. Cobweb.
• 1:33:16
  It's are you? Sure it does.
• 1:33:17
  It looks. Like a bogey, too, all over the
• 1:33:19
  floor. He's just had his.
• 1:33:20
  Head down and they, hey, he comes up and it's clearly a bit
• 1:33:22
  of hay. Of course it looks like a bogey
• 1:33:24
  because they have planted that idea in your head.
• 1:33:28
  The fames. Oh, that's the other one, Tom.
• 1:33:30
  But you reminded me, Jeff, the other one that get when I when I
• 1:33:33
  watch state of decay, they insist that Tom Baker gets
• 1:33:37
  smacked by the door and is slightly stunned in this.
• 1:33:40
  No, it's a comedy bit where the doctor is hit in the face by the
• 1:33:44
  door and he's it's an acting decision.
• 1:33:46
  It's not so many like there are so.
• 1:33:48
  Many there are so many annoying goofs.
• 1:33:50
  Like why? Why are you saying that's a
• 1:33:52
  goof? Surely the I'm not?
• 1:33:53
  Joking guys, I I think you should write this.
• 1:33:57
  Sure, you should write. It.
• 1:33:59
  It really would. It would the joy of.
• 1:34:01
  These sort of. Books is that you're not going
• 1:34:03
  to agree with it all that you are going to argue I think I.
• 1:34:06
  Think we're in a in. A time now where a lot of this
• 1:34:09
  stuff is done. Forgive me orally.
• 1:34:13
  So you could just show me the duel entendre?
• 1:34:15
  Thank you very much. So you can't just shout at
• 1:34:18
  people and go what are you talking about Joe Ford, you
• 1:34:20
  ridiculous idiot. Whereas unfortunately this is in
• 1:34:23
  book form and I'm wondering if some of these pages that have
• 1:34:25
  fallen out might have actually been me tearing them out of the
• 1:34:28
  book. Because strangely enough, that
• 1:34:30
  Android Invasion review is one of the ones I've lost.
• 1:34:34
  So they weirdly. Don't know how to spell Polari
• 1:34:37
  as well, which is suggests suggests a light editorial
• 1:34:43
  approach. OK.
• 1:34:45
  And listen, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to read out
• 1:34:47
  a couple of goofs that I did think were worth it or maybe
• 1:34:54
  one. Go on, I thought.
• 1:34:56
  This was good. If Alpha Centauri is a hexapod,
• 1:35:00
  what's he or she walking on? Yeah.
• 1:35:05
  OK. I'm trying to find I'm.
• 1:35:10
  Trying to find more examples now.
• 1:35:12
  Also no, no this one. Annoyed me.
• 1:35:14
  They get that the swords are the wrong shape in the Romans.
• 1:35:17
  They don't mention they're sitting around a table.
• 1:35:20
  Listen to this one the. Apparitions in the Awakening are
• 1:35:24
  accompanied by superimposed stars that seem to have been
• 1:35:27
  produced on ABBC Micro. Well, that's probably because
• 1:35:30
  there was. Yeah.
• 1:35:32
  Exactly. I, you know, yeah, come on.
• 1:35:36
  Well, I the other thing I was going to.
• 1:35:37
  Say is I I was surprised by how jarring I found it when I
• 1:35:40
  started reading the section on An Unearthly Child and it
• 1:35:45
  started referring to The Hand of Omega, which I was all about at
• 1:35:48
  the time. I was totally like as a as a 15
• 1:35:51
  year old fan, I wanted to see those lines drawn together.
• 1:35:53
  Now, as a viewer, I view An Unearthly Child free.
• 1:35:58
  From the baggage. Of Remembrance of the Daleks and
• 1:36:00
  I love it when Remembrance of the Daleks incorporates that
• 1:36:02
  stuff, but it happens in that order and it just feels to me
• 1:36:05
  like quite odd and strange to draw in these things.
• 1:36:10
  You know, like suggesting that the sound effect in The edge of
• 1:36:14
  destruction is an early version of the cloister bell.
• 1:36:17
  Well, but the cloister bell is the thing that John Nathan
• 1:36:19
  Turner came out you know it's it's a weird jamming together of
• 1:36:23
  different things. So I found that for all that I
• 1:36:27
  find some of the box outs in particular ingenious, I found it
• 1:36:32
  an approach that again, I think is very much of its time.
• 1:36:35
  That desire to make everything up.
• 1:36:38
  The thing it's not we don't do that anymore, but they were
• 1:36:40
  doing that with the new. Adventures as well, weren't
• 1:36:42
  they? They were sort of plug in all
• 1:36:44
  the gaps with the missing adventures and trying to make it
• 1:36:47
  cohere. Do you know what you can
• 1:36:48
  summarize everything you just said there, James, in two words
• 1:36:52
  that Terrance Dicks used quite a lot in Doctor Who commentaries.
• 1:36:54
  He'd go honestly, fans does. Summarize it quite well.
• 1:37:02
  Yeah. I've I've never.
• 1:37:02
  Read the Land Spark in History of the universe.
• 1:37:05
  But I kind of want to because I do like that.
• 1:37:09
  I did, but I think they I think they did.
• 1:37:12
  I think again, it's going back to the fact that this is several
• 1:37:16
  books. All being different things.
• 1:37:19
  And, and the fact that they go, oh, this is like how the Roma
• 1:37:21
  go, but they're talking about the first thing.
• 1:37:23
  So that kind of takes away from the fact that you're talking
• 1:37:26
  about a nursery child and and it's but, but, but it's almost
• 1:37:33
  like what TARDIS Wiki does now. TARDIS Wiki just goes, you look
• 1:37:37
  at you go, I just want to look up my character.
• 1:37:39
  Fucking hell, they've got. Everything.
• 1:37:43
  From it's never been written about this person.
• 1:37:45
  I just want I just want to find the basic stuff that was on
• 1:37:48
  telly. Oh no, here's and but sometimes.
• 1:37:51
  If you're in the mood for wanting to make everything
• 1:37:53
  Canon, then Tardis Wiki is hilarious, but this was like a
• 1:37:57
  sort of weird version every single time.
• 1:38:00
  Because it is. Because it does it
• 1:38:01
  chronologically. And now I think my mindset is
• 1:38:05
  very much if we're walking working through these stories in
• 1:38:08
  order. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:38:09
  Over the cloist of Ellen Edge destruction.
• 1:38:11
  That makes no sense at all to me.
• 1:38:13
  But it's a it's an artifact from its time.
• 1:38:15
  And I think you're you're spot on it when you say that it's
• 1:38:18
  like kind of overhearing a conversation in the vitro
• 1:38:20
  Tavern. You can totally.
• 1:38:22
  And at its best, I feel like this is the product of three
• 1:38:25
  fertile imaginations coming up with really interesting theories
• 1:38:28
  and knocking them about in a very kind of casual way.
• 1:38:31
  And it has ideas that made an impression at the time and
• 1:38:34
  continue to inform the way I view Dr. Who I love.
• 1:38:38
  So things like the idea, the whole of the search for the key
• 1:38:41
  to time might be a black Guardian trap.
• 1:38:43
  We don't really know that it's the White Guardian in the first
• 1:38:45
  episode of the Rebus operation because he can change his
• 1:38:48
  appearance. Where they've put dimensions in
• 1:38:51
  time. They've rationalised that it
• 1:38:52
  must be a Tom Baker story. I don't, I don't buy their idea
• 1:38:57
  of Sharda fitting in with the Five Doctors and the idea that
• 1:39:00
  the stories are running concurrently.
• 1:39:01
  But it's an idea. It's a, it's a, it's a way of
• 1:39:03
  looking at it. You can hear them hashing.
• 1:39:05
  That out though, of course. It's a Tom Baker story, and
• 1:39:09
  here's why. And slightly.
• 1:39:11
  More kind of. Super textual ideas.
• 1:39:16
  This one I loved at the time and I still love it now.
• 1:39:19
  On Greatest Show in the Galaxy they point out The Wizkid is not
• 1:39:22
  very subtle parody of Ainley retentive obsessive fans.
• 1:39:26
  And then they go on to say it could be said that the whole
• 1:39:28
  story is a metaphor about the production of Doctor Who.
• 1:39:32
  Captain Cook is Star Trek, the Gods are BBC executives, the
• 1:39:36
  chief clown is Michael Grade, Deadbeat is Blake 7, et cetera.
• 1:39:40
  Now, having read that, I could never watch the greatest show in
• 1:39:45
  the Galaxy without going, OK, so who's Peggy Mount and who is and
• 1:39:49
  how is this working with this, you know, and building this
• 1:39:52
  Uber? Analogy.
• 1:39:54
  I can I can say that I'll. Just speak to Stephen Wyatt just
• 1:39:57
  yesterday, and they had none of that in mind at all when he was
• 1:40:00
  about to say exactly that. I've got to say exactly that
• 1:40:04
  he'd. Be right.
• 1:40:05
  Oh, that's it was interesting. Reading.
• 1:40:07
  On my script, so I hashed out. In fact, the one thing you did
• 1:40:10
  say was how how quickly you bashed out those scripts.
• 1:40:13
  I'm surprised they're as good as they are.
• 1:40:16
  As. All great texts do Doctor Who
• 1:40:20
  exists beyond the the the and that kind of thing is inviting
• 1:40:25
  fans to interpret. And I think, you know, I, I, I
• 1:40:28
  have to keep coming back to the positives for the when the time
• 1:40:31
  came, when the time this book came out, and particularly the
• 1:40:35
  time in my life that I first read it, it, it impacted my
• 1:40:41
  receiving of Doctor Who and things well beyond Doctor Who in
• 1:40:45
  the most positive way. Well, I'll.
• 1:40:47
  I'll. Sum up my thoughts on the
• 1:40:49
  Discontinuity guide and then throw it out to you guys.
• 1:40:53
  I think the best thing about this book is the bite sized
• 1:40:56
  chunks. It made it so digestible when I
• 1:40:59
  was younger and it was a great one that you could just put down
• 1:41:02
  and pick up a lot. And I devoured this as a kid and
• 1:41:07
  yeah, I really, really love this.
• 1:41:09
  I'm going to say the downside is I think, and it's the same
• 1:41:14
  reaction I have now to books like the Mark Campbell review
• 1:41:17
  books and things like that, is there's just some really absurd
• 1:41:20
  opinions about the stories that I don't agree with.
• 1:41:22
  But that's always the danger with reading a book like this,
• 1:41:24
  right? So I'll just read out the bottom
• 1:41:27
  line of Fort Doom State and see if anybody agrees with the
• 1:41:31
  consensus in this book. This is unique, a script that
• 1:41:34
  uses big concepts and intellectual interest.
• 1:41:37
  Intellectual interest I dad to move the slight plot along
• 1:41:41
  without alienating new audience with technobabble or pompously
• 1:41:44
  overblown dialogue. Many one liners sweeten the
• 1:41:47
  plot, the pot even, and though the things rather unimportant
• 1:41:52
  and oddly styled, it gets you on its side for its sheer charm and
• 1:41:56
  clarity of ideas. All the regulars are well
• 1:41:59
  characterized and Peter Davidson and Stratford John shine through
• 1:42:04
  and neglected Jim. But a real oddity.
• 1:42:07
  Well, I'm sorry I can't agree with a word of that and I wanted
• 1:42:10
  to toss the book a lot at my wall when I was so I was getting
• 1:42:14
  really angry, but it was basically just because their
• 1:42:16
  opinions contradict mine. So that's that's where I fell
• 1:42:19
  with the discontinuity guide. What about you, Jason?
• 1:42:24
  Yeah, I think. It's, it's an interesting read
• 1:42:28
  now in the context of the series having come back and continued
• 1:42:32
  way beyond the original 26 seasons.
• 1:42:35
  I, you know, I'm sure they had no idea when it was published
• 1:42:39
  that within a year there'd be more Doctor Who on telly that
• 1:42:41
  they'd have to try and stick in if they wanted to do a revised
• 1:42:44
  version. I think yeah, at.
• 1:42:48
  The time it came out, as I said, it was perfectly timed.
• 1:42:51
  It was just what the fandom needed after a raft of very dry,
• 1:42:56
  very academic. Texts on the.
• 1:43:00
  Production of Doctor Who and some reviews of each story that
• 1:43:04
  were kind of scathing in ways that weren't very light hearted.
• 1:43:09
  You get the feeling that some of the guys actually genuinely
• 1:43:11
  hated the stuff they were working on.
• 1:43:14
  And as you said before, this, this is the book that sort of
• 1:43:16
  gave us all permission to go. Yeah.
• 1:43:19
  It is a bit shit at. Times.
• 1:43:20
  But it's still the best fucking thing on television, so let's
• 1:43:25
  have some fun with it. And it informed, as James said,
• 1:43:29
  It informed the way I consumed new old Doctor Who after I'd
• 1:43:33
  read it, because now I was. I'd quite often read the book
• 1:43:36
  before I put the episodes on to see what it thought of the book,
• 1:43:40
  what I should be looking out for.
• 1:43:43
  And it has quietly cemented itself as a cornerstone of
• 1:43:50
  ongoing fandom. As, as we said, it's got the
• 1:43:53
  season 6B, as first mentioned in this book.
• 1:43:57
  The idea of being able to set up, you know, to nitpick it and
• 1:44:01
  pick out the goofs. There's a whole website of
• 1:44:03
  Doctor Who goofs, which irritatingly still includes that
• 1:44:06
  War Machines one that isn't but but that's still going that that
• 1:44:11
  website is still going. It's still but I was so inspired
• 1:44:14
  by this. Jason, that there's a
• 1:44:16
  discontinuity guide online for the audios and the books.
• 1:44:20
  Yeah, exactly. So this is actually a kind of
• 1:44:24
  cornerstone of fandom from the mid 90s onwards.
• 1:44:28
  Whether you've. Actually read it or not, it's
• 1:44:31
  informed an awful lot of what's come after it.
• 1:44:33
  So I think it's a very important book, and it is.
• 1:44:37
  Largely fun. There's a lot in it that you can
• 1:44:40
  go where you're talking shit now, especially now that we
• 1:44:43
  actually have access to all the material and we can check their
• 1:44:47
  work and find it wanting in several places.
• 1:44:51
  But for the time, I think it was an absolutely perfectly timed
• 1:44:54
  book and it was brilliant. And for me as a 15 year old,
• 1:44:57
  when it came out, it was just the best Doctor Who book I'd
• 1:45:00
  ever read. So.
• 1:45:03
  Wonderful. Yeah.
• 1:45:04
  OK, Ian. Yeah, I mean.
• 1:45:08
  Probably not as effusive as Jason, but I think in a way we
• 1:45:13
  forget what it was like before the Internet.
• 1:45:16
  Like having these things to constantly reread.
• 1:45:20
  Same. With my you.
• 1:45:22
  Know same with my 10th anniversary radio time special
• 1:45:26
  that going over and over them and just always just being able
• 1:45:29
  to go right. I'm just going to dip in and
• 1:45:32
  read bits and it even if it is a bit dry even.
• 1:45:36
  It was just that it was a way of randomly accessing Doctor Who
• 1:45:41
  and just almost just keeping it topped up, keeping your fandom
• 1:45:46
  topped up. Even in the time when I was
• 1:45:48
  watching this, it was like my secret shame I didn't talk to
• 1:45:51
  anyone about Doctor Who. So it was.
• 1:45:54
  Just. Things like that.
• 1:45:57
  But I've just I've just opened randomly and it has just got
• 1:45:59
  some wonderful things in it. I've just opened randomly on,
• 1:46:02
  you know, on Kinder and it just says fashion victims.
• 1:46:06
  It just has 2 words hith helmets and it's just funny.
• 1:46:10
  Just and it's only funny if you're a Doctor Who fan.
• 1:46:17
  Like literally this is meaningless for anyone else.
• 1:46:21
  Over to you, James. Well, I think as we've.
• 1:46:23
  All suggested, this is a book that's a very much a product of
• 1:46:26
  its time and a a book that I don't think is going to find its
• 1:46:33
  audience in the way that it did in the mid 90s.
• 1:46:35
  But but for that reason, I think it's quite a really an
• 1:46:38
  interesting little kind of artifact of a particular point
• 1:46:42
  in history. There's a bit in their
• 1:46:44
  introduction where they say sometimes the video disappoints
• 1:46:48
  and it occurred to me that we're reading.
• 1:46:51
  But by the 1st generation who actually had the past nearly all
• 1:46:57
  quite readily available, they were available to those people
• 1:47:01
  on bootlegs that I certainly didn't have.
• 1:47:04
  They were available to them in a way that they weren't to me.
• 1:47:06
  But for all that, it's sort of pre the Internet, pre the
• 1:47:11
  encyclopedic range of information that any child can
• 1:47:15
  get on their mobile phone these days, this is a kind of a first
• 1:47:18
  era where people actually can check stuff and go back to stuff
• 1:47:21
  and rewatch things with the kind of pernickety detail that they
• 1:47:25
  have in here. And, and that kind of explains
• 1:47:27
  where it comes from and, and a great deal of its weaknesses as
• 1:47:30
  well as its strengths. So I sort of feel like as a
• 1:47:32
  historical document, it it has value.
• 1:47:35
  I also think it's worth saying what it isn't, which is a book
• 1:47:39
  that came out a few years afterwards.
• 1:47:42
  Doctor Who, The Television Companion, and show me a more
• 1:47:47
  annoying collection of GTSE level essays.
• 1:47:53
  I'm picking Doctor Who in the kind of detail that only an
• 1:47:56
  English teacher would reward with Marx, and which thinks it's
• 1:47:59
  quite grown up because it uses the word, admittedly pretty much
• 1:48:02
  every other paragraph. You wrote that, James.
• 1:48:05
  So that's. A book by David J Howe and
• 1:48:08
  Stephen James Walken. It came out in the wake of the
• 1:48:11
  TV movie and I was bought it as a Christmas present.
• 1:48:14
  You can see how thick it is. And that's the book that I kind
• 1:48:16
  of thought I wanted, which is a book of reviews.
• 1:48:19
  Actually, once I'd read that, I realised that I was much better
• 1:48:21
  off with The Discontinuity Guide, even where it was vague
• 1:48:25
  and not uncommittal. I'd I'd rather have that than
• 1:48:28
  the kind of exhaustive approach that we get there.
• 1:48:33
  Well, I think I think we've. Covered that as thoroughly or as
• 1:48:36
  thoroughly as you can, given this is a very sort of brief
• 1:48:41
  reference guide. Thank you very much, gentlemen.
• 1:48:45
  Let's quickly move on to our recommends then.
• 1:48:48
  I want to see if everyone's got panic in their faces that
• 1:48:51
  they've actually bought a book to recommend.
• 1:48:52
  Oh no, James is grabbing his. And let's move across to Jason
• 1:49:00
  first. Well, my.
• 1:49:04
  Initial choice for the recommendation was decided some
• 1:49:08
  time ago, was rather undermined by your first question that we
• 1:49:11
  answered at the beginning of this thing, because I was going
• 1:49:14
  to recommend Remembrance of the Daleks.
• 1:49:16
  But we've covered that and we're going to do it again in the next
• 1:49:20
  podcast. So I now have to think of
• 1:49:22
  another one to recommend. And let me recommend when the
• 1:49:26
  cat takes her claws out of my feet.
• 1:49:28
  Could you? If you've given me 10 minutes.
• 1:49:31
  We have children. I thought you were recommending.
• 1:49:35
  A book called When the Cat Gets Its Claws Out of My Feet.
• 1:49:37
  You could. Give me. 10.
• 1:49:40
  Minutes. I mean, she's gorgeous.
• 1:49:42
  I know she's lovely. Everybody loves her.
• 1:49:44
  She keeps sticking her feet, her claws in my feet.
• 1:49:48
  Jason, you're. Going, you're going to pop her.
• 1:49:51
  You were holding suits out. She's because you've given her
• 1:49:55
  no attention. For two hours.
• 1:49:56
  That's why I know. It's terrible.
• 1:50:00
  My Feet, Ronald sequel. I want to read that.
• 1:50:06
  So is that? The fan.
• 1:50:07
  Fiction for For the for the Ace and the Cheetah Woman, The Cara.
• 1:50:14
  Sorry, Jason, I'm so sorry We're we're being very rude all.
• 1:50:17
  I do with Jason. 'S discontinuity guide to the
• 1:50:19
  discontinuity guide and Rainworld I'll.
• 1:50:23
  Write the discontinuity guide, the discontinuity guide.
• 1:50:25
  But what I was going to recommend in a, in a, in a
• 1:50:29
  slight sort of shift really is it's a book called Time Frame.
• 1:50:36
  Oh yes. Which is a book.
• 1:50:38
  That includes a lot of the artwork that found its way onto
• 1:50:42
  target novelizations, video covers all sorts, not publicity
• 1:50:48
  works, all kinds of things. And it's just a big coffee table
• 1:50:52
  book full of artwork and it is absolutely gorgeous.
• 1:50:56
  There's very little text in it. It's.
• 1:50:59
  Mainly about the. Pictures and it was stunning.
• 1:51:03
  I pored over that book because of course, the the pictures are
• 1:51:06
  bigger on the page than they are on the cover of the target
• 1:51:09
  novelisations. It's it's a fantastic book.
• 1:51:13
  So I really, really recommend looking at that one.
• 1:51:16
  And it was great to see some of the artwork that was included in
• 1:51:19
  that book in the museum exhibition that was in Weston
• 1:51:22
  Super Mare a few months ago. It's got full.
• 1:51:25
  Page copies of some of the best New Adventures covers as well,
• 1:51:30
  doesn't it? Yeah.
• 1:51:30
  Which Mark Genesis. You know, all those early great
• 1:51:35
  paintings without, you know, the ridiculous Sylvester McCoy logo
• 1:51:39
  all over it. Just the art.
• 1:51:40
  It's gorgeous. Yeah, it is a gorgeous.
• 1:51:42
  Book. Before you could watch them all,
• 1:51:46
  it had those sidebars called Magic Moments, and it had frames
• 1:51:51
  from television stories. And I used to you'd look at
• 1:51:53
  those and these stills from actual televised Doctor Who that
• 1:51:58
  you hadn't seen. I love the fact that.
• 1:52:00
  In various. Stages of all of our childhoods.
• 1:52:02
  We've all been there, pouring over these books.
• 1:52:06
  It is a childhood. Memory and it's a very bizarre
• 1:52:09
  childhood memory, but I remember reading time frame in our just
• 1:52:15
  constructed but not yet filled brand new garden shed with a
• 1:52:19
  plate of toast like. Why I?
• 1:52:22
  Decided I wanted, I think it was just something new because we
• 1:52:25
  just had the shed built. It hadn't been filled up and I
• 1:52:27
  thought I'm going to sit in that and read a book.
• 1:52:29
  That's what I'm going to do because it's somewhere new.
• 1:52:31
  So yeah, that's a very specific memory I can still.
• 1:52:34
  Smell the grass on that sunny Saturday afternoon with me and
• 1:52:39
  Hazel pouring over the discontinuity guide.
• 1:52:41
  It's such a vivid memory in my head.
• 1:52:43
  I can. Anyway, it's.
• 1:52:45
  Ian, what's your recommend this week?
• 1:52:47
  I'm terrible at this because I'm not as wide.
• 1:52:49
  Widely read in Doctor Who books as you guys.
• 1:52:53
  So. The one I've been, I mean, I
• 1:52:55
  mentioned it already, but I would just say I'd probably
• 1:52:58
  reiterate to anyone, go and read the Giggle because it's it's one
• 1:53:03
  not just for Doctor Who fans. I'd literally almost tell my
• 1:53:08
  wife's reading it and she doesn't really do Doctor Who in
• 1:53:11
  that way. So it's go and read it.
• 1:53:15
  It's one to press on people that don't think they're like Doctor
• 1:53:17
  Who even. But could I see?
• 1:53:19
  It's just very clever. They shouldn't listen.
• 1:53:21
  To the audio as well. As Dan Starkey reads the audio,
• 1:53:25
  the book has all of those sort of visual puzzles that are
• 1:53:28
  entirely emitted from the audio. Yeah, but a lot I was.
• 1:53:32
  Wondering. How it would work?
• 1:53:33
  Yeah, they just, they just. Don't do it at all.
• 1:53:35
  There's, there's, there's. One bit where there's a.
• 1:53:37
  A a maze and it's within. The President's.
• 1:53:42
  Brain as he's trying to figure out the nuclear codes and you
• 1:53:45
  have to sort. It's just wacky as hell, but
• 1:53:47
  wonderful. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:53:49
  It's James. Brilliant.
• 1:53:50
  It's James. James Cost is a genius.
• 1:53:55
  My recommend has already. Been mentioned, I'm going to
• 1:53:58
  recommend running through corridors which.
• 1:54:05
  Genius writer, Robert. Shearman and national treasure
• 1:54:07
  Toby Haydo basically exchange. Messages about.
• 1:54:12
  Every episode of Doctor Who, which they are watching from
• 1:54:15
  from the start in in order and and I feel like it follows on
• 1:54:20
  quite nicely from the discontinuity guide as a kind of
• 1:54:23
  a more recent attempt to do a similar thing, but in more
• 1:54:27
  depth. And I think kind of without the
• 1:54:30
  cynicism and much more of a, a desire to without being, you
• 1:54:34
  know, unrealistic about it and without being dishonest to look
• 1:54:37
  for, for the positives and with a clearer methodology.
• 1:54:41
  So we're definitely doing this in order.
• 1:54:43
  So we we're appreciating coming at each episode of Doctor Who in
• 1:54:47
  the order that they were broadcasting in the way that the
• 1:54:49
  original viewers would have done.
• 1:54:50
  So they're getting insights into that.
• 1:54:52
  And they both have a particular interest in different things.
• 1:54:56
  So Robert Sherman is really interesting when he comes to
• 1:55:00
  analyse writing, as you would imagine from a writer of his
• 1:55:02
  calibre. Toby Haydock's obsession is
• 1:55:04
  people, and he's always got interesting things to say about,
• 1:55:06
  you know, the third extra from the right and what they went on
• 1:55:09
  to do. And I find that just really
• 1:55:11
  endearing and a really interesting way of
• 1:55:13
  reappreciating episodes of Doctor Who that I've already
• 1:55:15
  seen. I partly mention it also just in
• 1:55:18
  case either of them happened to be listening, because they
• 1:55:20
  haven't yet finished off series. They've done the 60s in volume
• 1:55:25
  one and the 70s and volume to we're still waiting for the 80s.
• 1:55:28
  Toby and Roberts, I've got some information on that.
• 1:55:30
  You know, because Robert Schumann did a strictly come
• 1:55:33
  hamster recently and apparently that is in the works at the
• 1:55:37
  moment. But it was written and there was
• 1:55:40
  no time to edit. And Rob Schumann insisted on
• 1:55:44
  rewriting his sections because it was years back that he wrote
• 1:55:48
  it and he was literally up to date.
• 1:55:49
  Yeah. So it's.
• 1:55:50
  Coming, it is coming. I, I, I'm with you of that one.
• 1:55:53
  I've read and reread 60s and the 70s over and there's so much
• 1:55:58
  insight in them, isn't there? Loads.
• 1:56:00
  Loads. Well, I.
• 1:56:02
  Would like to recommend and surprise surprise, an Eighth
• 1:56:06
  Doctor book called The Deadstone Memorial by Trevor Baxendale,
• 1:56:10
  who I think is a very vastly underrated Doctor Who writer.
• 1:56:14
  And he just writes a great horror pot boiler.
• 1:56:17
  And that's exactly what this is. And it came at exactly the right
• 1:56:20
  time because they've just done a run of big multiverse
• 1:56:24
  shattering, huge arc stories that basically all flopped.
• 1:56:29
  And then the universe reset and they but unfortunately, they
• 1:56:32
  still had five books to put out before the Gallifrey Chronicles.
• 1:56:36
  And then TV started and the NSA started.
• 1:56:39
  So they bring in Trevor Backs and doubt and he decides to go
• 1:56:42
  in the completely the other direction and tell that story
• 1:56:44
  that Rusty Davis talks about, about the doctor coming along
• 1:56:48
  and just helping one family. So it's a little boy that's
• 1:56:51
  being possessed exorcist style. And basically the Doctor fits
• 1:56:55
  and tricks move into this house and solve the mystery of what's
• 1:56:59
  happening to this little boy. And in a wonderful scene, Fitz
• 1:57:02
  goes to the Doctor. But you've just saved the entire
• 1:57:05
  universe all these times over. What are we doing here in this
• 1:57:09
  house? And there's a great speech from
• 1:57:11
  the 8th Doctor saying, what makes this one family any less
• 1:57:16
  important than all of those universes out there?
• 1:57:19
  It's a really wonderful book. I remember there's a scene which
• 1:57:21
  really captures that early breathless romantic ape Dr.
• 1:57:26
  where he grabs hold of Hazel, that's the mum's name.
• 1:57:29
  And he says, come on, we're going to go up on the roof.
• 1:57:31
  And he takes her up on the roof and she goes, no, we're going to
• 1:57:34
  catch a death, we'll die, we'll fall.
• 1:57:36
  Off he goes, come on. And he has her up on the roof
• 1:57:38
  waving at the stars and he's telling her what they're all
• 1:57:41
  called. And she thinks he's an absolute
• 1:57:42
  fucking madman. But she's completely falling in
• 1:57:46
  love with him, much in the same way that Grace did and Carolyn
• 1:57:49
  did in Vampire Science. It's a, it's a really great
• 1:57:53
  intimate read. It's a wonderful horror book.
• 1:57:55
  And yeah, Baxendales prose is effortlessly readable.
• 1:57:59
  So I'm I'm hoping to do that on a book club at some point.
• 1:58:03
  Guys, thank you very. Much thank you for reading the
• 1:58:07
  Discontinuity Guy Jason, it was a great choice.
• 1:58:10
  I I believe you may have had some involvement now of our next
• 1:58:14
  choice. If you are all happy to read
• 1:58:17
  Remembrance of the Daleks by Ben Aronovic, take your piece now.
• 1:58:20
  If you're not. Very.
• 1:58:21
  Happy. Yeah, I mean my.
• 1:58:23
  My choice was, I think we said before was going to be Russell T
• 1:58:27
  Davis's Writer's Tale, but actually I really want to read.
• 1:58:32
  I want to be made to read things I wouldn't have read.
• 1:58:35
  So I've read The Writer's Tale over and over again, and it'd be
• 1:58:38
  good to go back to a novel as well.
• 1:58:40
  If you've had a it's continuity guide, there's a dip in, dip in
• 1:58:44
  and out. That might be a nice.
• 1:58:46
  One for the one after because the writers how that would be an
• 1:58:49
  interesting 10. I love it.
• 1:58:50
  I love it and. I and I'm, I think it'd be
• 1:58:53
  really good now we've just had RTD 2, so I definitely still
• 1:58:57
  want to do that. But yeah, I'm very happy to to
• 1:59:00
  do remembrance. And I'll have to go and buy it.
• 1:59:04
  Yeah, you can't have my copy. Of that one in.
• 1:59:07
  Well, at some. Point.
• 1:59:08
  I'll get this. I'll I'll get the discontinuity
• 1:59:11
  back to you. I'm sure there'll be ABFI.
• 1:59:14
  Event or something that we're both Paul Cornell.
• 1:59:16
  Scratchy scribble. Well, I much appreciate you
• 1:59:19
  getting. That for me.
• 1:59:20
  Thank you, Ian. That's oh, that's very good.
• 1:59:23
  Very good of you. Didn't cost me.
• 1:59:24
  Anything. Yeah, he's going to.
• 1:59:27
  Try and sell. It back to you now and that was
• 1:59:29
  worth some of you Jason. Yeah.
• 1:59:32
  Yeah, guys. Thank you very.
• 1:59:34
  Much for your time tonight. It's been a pleasure as ever.
• 1:59:36
  I know this took a long time coming to actually get this
• 1:59:39
  recording in. Thank you very much.
• 1:59:41
  So you probably got until 20. 25 to read Remembrance of the
• 1:59:44
  Daleks.