Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Rob Valentine about his choice of The Abominable Snowmen (1/6)

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Talks to Rob Valentine about his choice of The Abominable Snowmen (1/6) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None. Hamster with.
• 0:34
  A blunt pen knife for doing quicker, quicker, quicker.
• 0:40
  Welcome back to our hamster with a blunt pen knife.
• 0:42
  The Doctor Who Commentary Podcast Mr. Rob Valentine Hello.
• 0:49
  Hello Joe. How are you?
• 0:50
  I I I'm roasting in this room right now.
• 0:53
  If I'm honest, I don't know what's getting this house.
• 0:55
  It's an old house normally. I'm bloody freezing and I'm
• 0:57
  really hot today. I could only assume it's because
• 1:00
  you're on the other side of the screen with me right now.
• 1:03
  It's your jumper, I think. Oh, OK.
• 1:06
  Tactfully diverted there. Well done.
• 1:09
  Yeah, I was. I was quite impressed with
• 1:10
  myself, to be honest. Yes, Yeah.
• 1:11
  How are you doing today? Yeah, fine.
• 1:14
  I've been really looking forward to this because chatting to you
• 1:16
  is like one of those little oacs in life waiting kind of forget,
• 1:20
  forget work and the troubles of the day and just talk Doctor Who
• 1:26
  hamster with blunt penknife. We, yes, you know what?
• 1:28
  This is our second trip to the 60s as well, isn't it?
• 1:32
  It is, yes. Second trip to the 60s, first
• 1:34
  time with the 2nd Doctor. But we are going back to the
• 1:38
  past again. We are.
• 1:40
  We are going back to 1935, up into Tibet, high in the
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  Himalayas or the Himalayas. I'm not sure what's the way to
• 1:51
  pronounce it these days. Tibet.
• 1:52
  You're certain about that, are you not Snowdonia in Wales?
• 1:56
  Ah, well, now you mention it. Yeah, that valley does.
• 1:59
  I do think I've spotted that valley down there from Carry On
• 2:02
  Up. The Khyber does look a little
• 2:04
  bit familiar. Yes, so can.
• 2:06
  I ask you a question before we talk about anything.
• 2:08
  Yeah. Why did you suggest this one?
• 2:12
  Why did I suggest this one? This was this is entirely down
• 2:15
  to you this. Oh, is it really?
• 2:17
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was your idea?
• 2:19
  The fact that that's news to me just tells you everything you
• 2:22
  need to know about my memory. How busy you are, yeah.
• 2:25
  I I think it's because I'm a I'm a big cryptozoology nut and I
• 2:31
  like this genre. And when I think of the 2nd
• 2:35
  Doctor, one of the things I think of is the abominable
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  Stoneman. Would you do me a massive favour
• 2:41
  please and explain to a layman what a cryptozoologist is
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  please? Oh.
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  Oh, I lost you there for a second.
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  Hang on. Yes.
• 2:52
  Yeah. Yes, I'm.
• 2:54
  I'm back now. Yes, but my.
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  I can tell you what, I'll ask you that question again.
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  Would you would you do a layman incredible favour please and
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  explain what a cryptozoologist is please?
• 3:04
  OK, well cryptozoology is the study or interest in hidden or
• 3:12
  secret animals. So stuff like the realistic end
• 3:15
  of the spectrum. Stuff like the Cela Cath, which
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  was a fish thought to be dead for millions of years and was
• 3:21
  then found by white people. Because the, you know, because
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  it was a surprise to us, which is which is the which is the
• 3:28
  kind of the colonial thing behind a lot of cryptozoology
• 3:31
  and the far end. The other the wacky end of
• 3:33
  cryptozoology, which is stuff like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness
• 3:37
  Monster, and the Yeti. OK.
• 3:40
  And and I'm sure we'll get into this quite a bit because I think
• 3:44
  you might have done a bit of research on this, but how well
• 3:47
  do they do with exploring the Yeti myth in this?
• 3:52
  Well, they do a really good job of ripping off Nigel Neil.
• 3:57
  Dogs, who often does you. Know, it's a funny thing though,
• 4:01
  It's we. It's the Pertwee era.
• 4:03
  Always gets the blame for that kind of stuff.
• 4:05
  But there's actually you know with stuff like The Invasion and
• 4:08
  this there's a lot of stuff I'd consider Pertwee era kind of
• 4:14
  skulduggery which is which which is going on under.
• 4:18
  Yeah. Under Patrick drown but yeah so
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  yeah so I think I picked this one because give me you know a
• 4:25
  lamma St. up in the in the in the snowy mountains and you know
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  give me you know mythical creatures and I'm in Doctor Who
• 4:34
  haven't really. So that was kind of, yeah, that
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  was kind of my that was my thinking I.
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  Think I thought you were talking entirely and euphemisms there,
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  but I understood what you meant. Don't worry, give me a lavistry
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  out the Himalayas. How dare.
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  You, Sir. What did I say?
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  Yeah. You remember who you're talking
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  to. All right.
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  I've got to say, with The Abominable Snowman, it's a
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  story. It's one of those rare Doctor
• 5:01
  Who stories that I completely forget exists until I experience
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  it, either as Terrorist Dix's novelisation, as the really
• 5:11
  brilliant audio soundtrack they brought out with narration, or
• 5:17
  as The Loose Cannon and now as the animation.
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  And every time I watch it, listen to it, read it, I'm like,
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  that's a really solid that's a great Doctor Who story, and then
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  I forget it exists again. What's that all about?
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  I have no idea. I have no idea.
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  But there's a there is a lot to talk about and I'm the the
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  version that I'm familiar with is not the version we're going
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  to be watching. But it's in my The one I know is
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  the loose cannon there are. Telesnaps for all of this, isn't
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  there, yeah. I'm the wrong person to ask, but
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  I think so, yes. Well, I think that's what they
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  use on the loose cannon, plus steals of the actors and other
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  things and things like that. They're very clever the way they
• 5:58
  assemble those to give you like the flavour of the story.
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  Oh yeah, it's it's really good. It does.
• 6:03
  It does make me. I feel like I've seen it even
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  though. Yeah, but yeah, but this time,
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  this is my first look at the the animated version.
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  But so I'm really looking forward to what they've done
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  with this one. I I listened to the commentaries
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  on one to three earlier today, plus the documentary that's on
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  there. So I know sort of some liberties
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  that have been taken with the animation and not.
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  And that's the last question I'm going to ask you, because it's a
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  thorny subject. And I thought we'd get it out of
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  the way before we even start. Because there's been, you know,
• 6:36
  big push back from certain areas of Doctor Who fandom that are
• 6:40
  appalled that the abominable snowman does not feature, you
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  know, animated versions of white actors with tape behind the eyes
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  and and add special effects and all this.
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  It isn't entirely truthful to what hit the screen in 1960,
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  whatever it was, and it is making it a lot more accessible
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  for those watching today. And I think there's two opinions
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  on that, and I just want to know where you fall.
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  I haven't seen it yet. I will give you my opinion in
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  real time. How about that?
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  OK. But do you think the past should
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  be preserved? Absolutely.
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  Or there is room for, you know, creative oh.
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  It's a Monday. My opinion would be different
• 7:29
  tomorrow and Thursday well. What about right now?
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  Right now. I'm not trying to box you in an
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  awkward corner, I promise. Oh, no, no, I'm just.
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  I'm just trying to muster up the enthusiasm to care either way.
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  Really, I just kind of think. That's a good answer.
• 7:43
  Well yeah, look. Look at the rise of fascism
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  occurring all around us. The world is burning.
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  There is a genocide going on as we speak.
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  At least one place in the world. Who gives 2 tosses?
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  Just enjoy. Enjoy the pretty cartoons moving
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  about. To suggest there are more
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  important things going on in the world than the details of a
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  Doctor Who animation. How dare you, Sir?
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  Wouldn't dream of it. My prejudice, my, my, my basic
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  thought is, well, some people made it.
• 8:13
  They didn't have to. So if you're going to moan, do
• 8:21
  your own version or piss off. And my opinion is anything that
• 8:28
  opens our old Doctor Who to a young audience now is a good
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  thing. Like like like like allowing
• 8:36
  them to experience it and have less of an issue than perhaps
• 8:38
  they otherwise would have. Yeah, but then I haven't seen it
• 8:41
  yet. Could be dreadful, so I'll let
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  you know in a second. OK, well, I'm going to press
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  play then let's let's get away from this subject and play on
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  this. Story Well, it doesn't.
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  There's. Me there's.
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  Pontificating for a position of complete ignorance.
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  So, yes, you're welcome. I.
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  Think that's a good position to take, frankly, count.
• 9:00
  Us here. As long as you're one thing
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  you're testing, you can hear you.
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  You sure you can hear me OK? I can hear you perfectly.
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  Fine, because I I will say before we go in, usually I think
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  my voice quality is better than this, but no word of a lie.
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  I'm using a a particular a particular type of microphone so
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  I can say in all honesty, my Yeti is misbehaving.
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  So it's the I'm using my PCs microphones to speak into today.
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  So good luck everybody. Can I ask you, was that a
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  genuine question about your audio quality, or was it just an
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  excuse to mention the word yes? It was.
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  It was both. I kind of thought it was too
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  nice to leave me alone, Joe. Either way, I'm I'm so
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  impressed. Thank you for bringing a
• 9:42
  semblance of wit to this podcast that is usually absolutely
• 9:46
  devoid of it. Rob, I love you.
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  You know that, right? I know that.
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  Yes, OK, good. I'm just feeling a bit.
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  I'm feeling a bit naughty. We are, aren't we?
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  Yeah, I tell him downstairs. Mind, we'll count as in there.
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  Come on, let's go. OK. 54321.
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  Off we go, Moving pictures. Colour and movement?
• 10:08
  Well, no, no, no colour and movement.
• 10:10
  No, we've gone for the black and white version for this, for a
• 10:13
  bit of authenticity. Yes, yeah, I was.
• 10:17
  Patrick Trout looks a bit sinister coming out of that
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  talk, I think. The Doctor Who should be a
• 10:22
  little bit sinister, shouldn't it?
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  You should always have a little bit of oh, I'm not sure about
• 10:26
  this before, oh, look at that beautiful, this is gorgeous.
• 10:29
  Look at that. Get lives, people.
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  It really, it really feels like the opening of a horror movie,
• 10:35
  doesn't it? Someone on the mountain?
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  Yeah. He's got his rifle, his mate's
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  gone missing and. I I know it didn't look like
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  this on TV. I'm just enjoying this, what it
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  is. Yeah.
• 10:46
  It's just, yeah, go of yourselves.
• 10:47
  This is great. That's that's meant to be.
• 10:50
  That's Jack Watling. It's not Jack Watling, but it's
• 10:54
  Jack Watling in cartoon form. And we'll get there.
• 10:58
  But I don't think Debbie Watling has been better than she is when
• 11:02
  she's with her father on screen. She's so relaxed in this story.
• 11:10
  She she suggested him for the job, didn't she?
• 11:12
  Yeah. Yes.
• 11:14
  It was a time, you know, when that sort of thing could happen
• 11:17
  with alarming regularity. Oh, it could never, could never
• 11:20
  happen now. I wouldn't know.
• 11:23
  I wouldn't know. There's a lot of scenes in the
• 11:25
  TARDIS in this for a trout. The story, I know it's in
• 11:28
  episode one, it's kind of quite homey.
• 11:32
  It's a bit bit domestic. Yeah, it's because this comes
• 11:37
  straight after Tomb of the Cybermen, does it not?
• 11:40
  That's right. Yeah, in.
• 11:42
  Fact we've. Had a great opening with Death
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  on the Mountains, so we've we've set up our monster and the
• 11:48
  promise of of the Yeti. I can't actually remember when
• 11:54
  the Yeti first appear. I'm assuming it's the end of the
• 11:57
  first episode. I'd actually, I did love that,
• 11:59
  That audio transition you get, you know, the Tardis grown, you
• 12:05
  know, look at this. Oh, this is wonderful.
• 12:10
  When he opens up this trunk and he finds something from the
• 12:12
  Crusade, doesn't he? Saracens?
• 12:15
  It's like it's like the Doctor Who program guide.
• 12:17
  Someone's been reading it and pulling out all the details.
• 12:22
  I'm not sure what that's from that bit of equipment.
• 12:27
  No, it's a reference beyond me because I'm a dear listener, if
• 12:31
  you haven't guessed by now. Dreadful fan speaking.
• 12:34
  Dreadful fan. You have seen all of Doctor Who,
• 12:36
  right? No.
• 12:38
  Oh, have you seen half? Yeah, I've seen.
• 12:44
  I've seen more than half. Yes, I know that because you
• 12:46
  hadn't seen the gunfire as when we watched that.
• 12:48
  No, no, no. I had not, no.
• 12:51
  Can I can I get the sort of the the dreary conversation about
• 12:54
  the regulars out of the way straight away and just, Oh yes,
• 12:57
  go for it and just say, well, well, where do the Doctor, the
• 13:00
  2nd Doctor, Jamie and Victoria fall for you?
• 13:04
  I like them. That's a good start.
• 13:06
  Yeah, yeah, well, you know, Jamie's great, Vic, to be
• 13:13
  honest, she's, you know, I like, I think she's great in this one.
• 13:16
  I think she looked and I think I love her outfit in this one.
• 13:18
  Is this the Is this the first outing for the fur coat?
• 13:22
  It is, yes. I've noticed it's a bit less
• 13:24
  bulky in animation. And do you know what that is?
• 13:27
  Gary Russell actually didn't send.
• 13:30
  He was the the fellow in charge of the animation.
• 13:33
  He didn't actually send the missing episode across to any of
• 13:36
  the animators, so the whole thing would be sort of uniform
• 13:39
  from 1:00 to 6:00. So they pretty much did it from
• 13:43
  the script. Oh, OK.
• 13:47
  Gotcha. Yes.
• 13:48
  Yeah. So if there's any differences
• 13:50
  from what I'm assuming you have you seen the episode that
• 13:52
  exists? Yes.
• 13:54
  Oh, yes, I have. Yes.
• 13:54
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 13:55
  Yeah, there's any sort of visual differences between that and the
• 13:58
  animation. A lot of that is because he
• 14:00
  didn't want that one episode to colour the rest of the stories
• 14:03
  for the. Animation.
• 14:04
  Yeah. Do you know what?
• 14:05
  I, I Then again, I'm not the kind of person who needs I can I
• 14:08
  can just Yeah, I yeah, I just don't mind at all.
• 14:12
  So yeah, they're in the hymn layers by way of Oh my goodness.
• 14:16
  Who's this? What is this?
• 14:18
  Oh. Oh, good.
• 14:21
  The Great Hairy Beastie Rob is the Doctor.
• 14:23
  Yeah, So what came first, the doctors fur coat or the design
• 14:30
  of the Yeti? Because that's that is the point
• 14:33
  isn't it? He looks like a Yeti.
• 14:36
  I'm going to tattered a guess. It was the design of the Yetis.
• 14:40
  First, yes, I think so too. And there is.
• 14:43
  He's seen the the Lamissary, of course, because this stuff all
• 14:47
  is from Lost Horizon, the the novel from 1933, you know,
• 14:53
  mysterious lamastery of Shangri-La up in the Himalayas.
• 14:59
  I we can, I can talk in a bit when things get dull.
• 15:01
  I can talk about the kind of history of a lot of this stuff.
• 15:04
  But. Yeah, bring it all, Rob.
• 15:06
  I'm here for it. I'm here.
• 15:07
  I'm here to learn. Episode 456.
• 15:10
  We can talk then. Slows down a bit, although the
• 15:13
  idea of this sort of isolated location like this, I think it's
• 15:18
  the best base under siege occasion of the season I think.
• 15:20
  And that's where it's a basic yeah, it's another based under
• 15:22
  siege and he's found a footprint and his interesting thing I only
• 15:26
  realized only today this this was this came out September to
• 15:32
  November 1967 and Bigfoot, the name Bigfoot was coined in 1958.
• 15:41
  But you know that the Patterson Gimlin film of Bigfoot.
• 15:44
  You know The Walking along through the.
• 15:46
  Clearing. That was filmed in October of
• 15:49
  1967. So during the during the
• 15:52
  original, the original broadcast run of The Abominable Stone Men,
• 15:56
  that's a little the side I found out I.
• 15:58
  Realised it's in the air at this point, yeah, yeah.
• 16:00
  Oh yeah, but but it's yeah, but yeah, but that that doesn't go
• 16:03
  into the influence on this because it's happening at the
• 16:05
  same time. But yeah, but yeah, but it yeah,
• 16:07
  in in the West. Real cryptozoology, in a kind of
• 16:13
  a zoological idea of it. The idea that you know these
• 16:16
  things are out there is still in this in the mid 20th century
• 16:19
  kind of reasonable and plausible.
• 16:23
  Yeah. So that's just that isn't that
• 16:24
  is kind of in the zeitgeist a bit.
• 16:28
  We're still in the Tarsis and in fact it is.
• 16:33
  I found that sort of structurally it is a bit weird.
• 16:35
  How? I mean, I know he has to go off
• 16:37
  and get into trouble and then they come along later, but it's
• 16:40
  not the norm, norm. Every other story of this
• 16:42
  period, they all go off together.
• 16:45
  Yeah the first couple of episodes are but we can talk
• 16:47
  about it as it goes on but it is so it is a little bit inelegant
• 16:54
  isn't the word but he's it's it's different he's he's he's
• 16:56
  going to return the ganter which is you know it's a it's a wholly
• 17:01
  relevant look of this this monastery all in this Yeti very
• 17:07
  cute see I think Victoria looks great in her job as there her
• 17:11
  little her her little kind of Alpine hiking Victorian Alpine
• 17:15
  hiking. Suit.
• 17:17
  You seem to suggest them for a second because you said she was
• 17:20
  good in this story, that perhaps she wasn't utilised as well
• 17:25
  elsewhere. What what do they see here in
• 17:31
  Last Eve of the Daleks I watched not too long ago because I've
• 17:36
  been. I've been I've been filling in
• 17:37
  the gaps of my Doctor Who when I play recently so that, you know,
• 17:41
  just for myself. And that was one of the ones I
• 17:44
  watched And yeah she was good in it.
• 17:46
  But she's just a as far as I'm she's a companion I've done.
• 17:50
  I'm not really. Yeah.
• 17:54
  I find I think she's the, she's the victim more than she's
• 17:58
  driving a story, you know? Yeah, I mean she's she's not the
• 18:03
  If you're going to write a Victorian companion, female
• 18:06
  Victorian companion for the Doctor now, I wouldn't.
• 18:08
  You wouldn't call it Victoria, for one thing.
• 18:10
  I don't think unless you you know.
• 18:13
  The Doctor has discovered the body, so it's all sort of
• 18:16
  stacking up here. Now this story, you know, it's
• 18:21
  it's it's playing, but it is playing by the correct rules.
• 18:25
  I think like when we were watching The Gunfighters, you
• 18:30
  were really looking at from a storyteller's point of view and
• 18:33
  how, if you were writing it, things that you would do
• 18:36
  differently or unsatisfying sort of avenues, they went down.
• 18:39
  I felt like this is a good linear story that doesn't make
• 18:44
  too many missteps. No, I agree.
• 18:46
  But this one, interesting. Yeah, I'm more interested in
• 18:48
  this one and kind of the stuff it's riffing on, to be honest.
• 18:52
  I mean, the big thing is, yeah, The Abominable Snowman starring
• 18:56
  Peter Cushing and written by Nigel Neal, which was based on
• 19:01
  his TV series. He did ATV story called The
• 19:04
  Creature again with Peter Cushing.
• 19:08
  And that was remade by Hammer on the big screen in 1955, January
• 19:12
  1955 and in May 1955. And I listened to this the other
• 19:16
  morning the The Goon Show episode.
• 19:19
  Yes he and at some point I'll re I'll when we kind of you know
• 19:24
  there are points where I'll start yakking about yakking haha
• 19:27
  no pun intended about Yeti law because lots of Yeti hides
• 19:34
  supported ones are actually yakker.
• 19:36
  But I'll you know, I can talk about Neddy Segun's description
• 19:40
  of the Yeti and how it's actually quite telling, but
• 19:44
  yeah. Have you seen that movie, The
• 19:46
  Peter Cushing one? Oh yeah, loads.
• 19:49
  Yes. Yeah, yeah.
• 19:50
  The the TV version, the creature doesn't exist anymore.
• 19:53
  It's lost. But yeah, it's a Hammer film.
• 19:56
  Where did. The film come out. 1955.
• 20:01
  OK, so sort of a lot of the imagery was sort of in the
• 20:06
  public consciousness way before. Oh.
• 20:07
  Yeah, but yeah, but but, but this is, this is kind of, you
• 20:09
  know a lot of it's kind of lines because I can I'll get into a
• 20:16
  bit now because since he's just been close.
• 20:18
  Wandering around, I mean, although can I just have a
• 20:21
  moment to say that whoever rendered those monastery sets
• 20:26
  for the animation, it's not beautiful.
• 20:28
  It's beautiful. The and the actual.
• 20:30
  The statue itself looks like a real prop.
• 20:32
  It doesn't even look like it's been animated the the Buddha.
• 20:36
  Yeah, I've I've seen, I've seen the telesnaps from all this
• 20:39
  stuff, and I think some of the actual footage might exist in
• 20:42
  some of later episodes. If I recall correctly, I may
• 20:45
  have imagined that they do. But this looks, I don't mind
• 20:47
  that this is different. It looks wonderful.
• 20:49
  This is like how I imagine imagine it from like the target
• 20:52
  book and stuff like that. But the big.
• 20:54
  Difference here is it's just a scale.
• 20:56
  So it feels bigger than it does in a line growth studio.
• 21:00
  And you know when we're out in the in the snowy hills, there is
• 21:03
  actual snow on the hills. You know it's little details but
• 21:06
  it works. Sorry, please continue.
• 21:09
  Yeah, no, I must have. I as an aside, I kind of think,
• 21:12
  yeah, a bit more snow in this one would have not gone amiss.
• 21:15
  But they, you know, budgets and all that.
• 21:18
  But yeah, but it's the. Remember, Remember, the fanboys
• 21:20
  were already pissed, all right. Oh, here he is, face to face
• 21:25
  with Travers. Travers is a combination really
• 21:31
  of a few different people because I mean, I suppose the
• 21:35
  main one, the, the famous thing that kind of really kicked it
• 21:38
  off there was the, I mean in the 50s was the 1951 Eric Shipton
• 21:44
  photograph of the Yeti footprint with an ice pick next to it for
• 21:48
  scale, I reckon it was probably a bear print.
• 21:52
  But but Travis is sort of a combination of people like him
• 21:56
  and, you know, Edmund Hillary, you know, sort of mountain, you
• 21:59
  know, famous Mountaineers and people who actually gone on sort
• 22:02
  of Yeti expeditions and stuff like that.
• 22:05
  So Travis is kind of a composite, but he's also the
• 22:08
  1930s kind of fantasy figure. And that's that's real
• 22:12
  expeditions, right? People went for real.
• 22:14
  Expeditions. To to look for yetis, and I'm
• 22:16
  assuming that we've never found. Well, no, I mean, I've, I've got
• 22:20
  my notes here, just so I'm accurate.
• 22:22
  But yeah, so, so first of all, it's the term abominable Snowman
• 22:27
  was coined in 1921 by a journalist called Henry Newman
• 22:33
  because it was an explorer called Charles Berry who led the
• 22:38
  1921 Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition.
• 22:43
  He found footprints which he said were probably belonging to
• 22:47
  a Gray wolf got here but his guide said it was the Wildman of
• 22:51
  the snows. So Newman came up with the name
• 22:54
  as an indirect translation of the Porter's phrase maito kangmi
• 22:57
  which was an inaccurate translation.
• 23:00
  So, so yes, that's where the term bond of Stoneman kind of
• 23:05
  reached the press. I think in by the time the story
• 23:07
  reached India. And I kind of know that, you
• 23:10
  know, once once a term like Abominable Snowman, Spring
• 23:14
  Heeled Jack or flying Saucer reaches the press, suddenly you
• 23:19
  know the genie's out of the bottle and it's a thing.
• 23:20
  The. Creatives are starting to write.
• 23:24
  Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Oh, here, they're finding The
• 23:27
  Cave. I love all this animation stuff,
• 23:29
  you know? We know it's not like it's
• 23:34
  exactly a recreation. It's kind.
• 23:36
  It's, it's a bit of a, it's a fancy based on, like an ideal
• 23:40
  version of what it might have looked like, you know?
• 23:42
  I like that miracle. We can watch it at all.
• 23:44
  I know. I mean, that's the other thing.
• 23:46
  It's, you know, this is this. Is so lucky.
• 23:49
  It's such a gift. Yeah, it's all and and the
• 23:52
  whole. Yeah, this isn't on iPlayer yet.
• 23:55
  I think that it's probably going to wait a while, but everything
• 23:58
  else is on iplay. There's so much is just
• 24:00
  available at the click of a button.
• 24:01
  It's crazy. We're spoiled, Rob.
• 24:04
  Yeah, yeah. But then, Oh yeah, OK then.
• 24:08
  Then after HP Lovecraft, who I quite like in The Whispering
• 24:14
  Darkness 1931, he mentions the Migo.
• 24:17
  And Migo is another term for Abominable Snowman, because in
• 24:20
  like in Tibet and Nepalese culture.
• 24:22
  Really it's it's like it's like an umbrella term for lots of
• 24:25
  different things. So Lost Horizon was 33.
• 24:29
  So that kind of bring brings kind of Shangri-La based on
• 24:33
  Shambhala into the popular Western consciousness.
• 24:37
  Then you've got yeah. So the Eric Shipton photograph
• 24:40
  was 19511953. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing
• 24:45
  Norgay claim Everest and claim a sighting.
• 24:47
  So in 1953, Edmund Hillary claimed to have seen the Yeti,
• 24:54
  and in 1954 the Daily Mail expedition was sent to find the
• 24:57
  Yeti. And in 1933, by the way.
• 24:59
  Yeah, well, yeah, they sponsored one to Loch Ness to try and find
• 25:02
  Nessie in 1933, So the Daily. Mail's big news?
• 25:06
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it's, you know,
• 25:08
  you know, purveyors of nonsense since forever.
• 25:13
  But then in the 50s you've got films The Snow Creature 54
• 25:17
  Monster Snowman 55, Man Beast in 56.
• 25:21
  But importantly, you've got, yeah, Nigel Neil's The
• 25:26
  Abominable Snowman Singular with Doctor Who Peter Cushing And
• 25:31
  you've got yeah, Yeti of The Goon Show Famer from the 8th of
• 25:35
  March 1955. And The Goon Show came after
• 25:41
  Nigel, Neal and Neddy Goon. Neddy C Goon says this about the
• 25:44
  Yeti, and it's worth mentioning in context of the influences on
• 25:47
  this Neddy C goon on. The Yeti said, oh, and they walk
• 25:52
  upright like humans, they have the powers of telepathy and in
• 25:55
  actual fact they are the missing link, the step from animals to
• 25:58
  man in One Direction while in another far far higher
• 26:01
  intelligence and having the ability to possess one's mind.
• 26:04
  So the idea of Yetis having psychic powers, it's something
• 26:08
  that Nigel Neil invented and Spike Milligan had Nedgie Segun
• 26:14
  say. So all this stuff is in the in
• 26:17
  the popular culture about what yetis are.
• 26:19
  And obviously in the Western imagination, Tibet is mystical.
• 26:22
  And anyway. And Tintin.
• 26:25
  Yeah, so Tintin in Tibet in 1958, he had Tintin having a
• 26:30
  dream about his friend Chang being in a plane crash.
• 26:32
  So based on a dream, he goes to Tibet and finds the Bumble
• 26:35
  snowman. So yet.
• 26:37
  So the Yeti and Tibetan monasteries high up in the hill
• 26:41
  in the Himalayas are beings and places of huge psychic power and
• 26:49
  people. Edmund Hillary have seen the
• 26:51
  Yeti, apparently. And so it's all kind of it's in
• 26:56
  pop culture, but it's also in the news and this and so and so
• 27:01
  Doctor Who kind of takes it all hold I.
• 27:02
  Was going to say it was it inevitable then, that given all
• 27:06
  of this was sort of rolling down a hill gathering that Doctor Who
• 27:09
  a show that can take all of these influences and plunk it
• 27:14
  all into one story, that it? Was exactly, exactly, exactly.
• 27:17
  And so it takes the the Nigel Neil Hammer film, which starts
• 27:22
  at the monastery, then becomes an expedition up into the
• 27:24
  mountains. But it takes, it takes the
• 27:26
  monastery and the mountain and The Cave, and it turns it into a
• 27:31
  Patrick Troughton based Under Siege story.
• 27:34
  And so that's it. That's that.
• 27:36
  And that's what we have here. Do you know the one thing I
• 27:39
  didn't watch on the DVD was the Melvin Haseman interview?
• 27:44
  And I wonder if he's referencing any of this stuff.
• 27:47
  Actually, I'll, I'll do it for the second-half.
• 27:48
  All right. Oh, yeah.
• 27:49
  Oh yeah. Please do.
• 27:50
  Please do. But that is, that is what Doctor
• 27:55
  Who, Doctor, I'm not saying Doctor Who is the is the, you
• 27:59
  know, the grand copier of other people's work and ideas.
• 28:04
  But it is. It's The One Show that can
• 28:06
  gather up so much like talons and all the different
• 28:10
  influences. Oh yeah, you know, it can gather
• 28:12
  up all of this stuff and turn it into a great adventure serial.
• 28:15
  I would say in the way it replicate it appropriates,
• 28:18
  replicates and reproduces. I think Doctor Who is a very
• 28:23
  successful virus that's in in in narrative it's a it's a story
• 28:28
  virus that that yeah. Would you either think Doctor
• 28:33
  Who then influences what uses it afterwards or because it's part
• 28:38
  of just a a, you know, a huge series that it will just sort of
• 28:41
  gets lost in there somewhere? Yeah.
• 28:45
  What are what are Doctor Who's children?
• 28:47
  I mean, let's talk about the episode a bit.
• 28:49
  But they're all, yeah. Never mind the episode, this is
• 28:52
  far more interesting, yeah. What?
• 28:54
  Yeah. What are Doctor Who's children?
• 28:56
  You know, it's it's, it's you know.
• 29:00
  I think, I think. Sliders, don't You?
• 29:02
  And Crime Traveller. You know, I think Doctor Who's
• 29:04
  like children are other. It's proving that the time slot
• 29:09
  works and doing alpha adventure serials of a similar nature for
• 29:13
  families. It's that it's the Merlin's,
• 29:16
  it's the Tomorrow People it's possibly you know those those
• 29:21
  other genre TV shows. I certainly the question I was
• 29:25
  asking I don't think there's ever been an example of that
• 29:27
  where they've gone. Well, Doctor Who did Victoria
• 29:29
  and London so well, you know, we're going to go and we'll
• 29:33
  we'll take that and run with it. It's Doctor Who.
• 29:36
  It's a it's a beast that absorbs other other stories and turns
• 29:42
  them into the Doctor Who stories, I think.
• 29:44
  It's kind of the joy of it, isn't it?
• 29:45
  As well and how it always works. There's such different flavours
• 29:50
  each time. Yeah, it always does.
• 29:52
  Like Doctor Who and. Then part part of the joy is
• 29:55
  discovering all those things. Because I was thinking about it.
• 29:58
  I think it might have been Paradise towers that got me
• 30:00
  into, made me first aware of the existence of JG Ballard.
• 30:04
  I think if it wasn't watching you know, at least into his kind
• 30:09
  of you know his glass and Chrome stories because other than that
• 30:14
  would probably would have been would have been watching Empire
• 30:16
  of the Sun but. Shames me to say that Time lash
• 30:21
  is a thing that made me aware of HG Wells.
• 30:24
  That's baffling, isn't it? But I was very young when I.
• 30:27
  First, hey, well, you know, it's, you know what things lead
• 30:30
  to other things. That's the point, you know.
• 30:33
  And that's. And certainly a lot of things
• 30:36
  led to this. Yes, exactly.
• 30:38
  Now, has the Doctor been accused of murder yet?
• 30:40
  Because that's quite a that's quite a regular thing for him as
• 30:43
  the Net King. We should probably count the the
• 30:45
  Season 5 cliches, you know, I'm not sure who's the intransigent
• 30:50
  based commander in this. Is it Chris Hong?
• 30:53
  Well, he's he's, it's an issue. He's not really.
• 30:58
  He's like, he's more like the head of city.
• 30:59
  If you were on a spaceship, he'd be head of security really,
• 31:02
  wouldn't he? Because Chris Young, he's sort
• 31:03
  of the he's the head of the Warrior Monks basically for the
• 31:07
  first two episodes. He and Travers are the kind of
• 31:11
  the annoyingly obtuse authority figures who are not permitting
• 31:16
  the story to progress. They're the barriers.
• 31:19
  But that does stop very quickly, I noticed.
• 31:23
  Whereas, like you watch the rest of the story, the stories of
• 31:25
  this season look at those base commanders.
• 31:27
  And they're doing that until episode 5.
• 31:30
  Yeah, I yeah, I've got to yeah. That's because they're the first
• 31:35
  stage because they're not ultimately in charge.
• 31:37
  Travers is kind of there on suffering and Chris Owens just
• 31:40
  head of he's he's the head of the he's there to protect the
• 31:43
  Monks. But but both of them, you know
• 31:45
  have got both. You know one of one of them is a
• 31:47
  guest and Chris's got a boss. So, and here's our first big
• 31:51
  look at the Yeti. Fabulously like that It's been
• 31:55
  animated, so it's back lit, so it's just this striking
• 31:58
  silhouette coming in The Cave. Yeah.
• 32:00
  And already we've been what we've been told about the Yeti
• 32:03
  so far and pretty Duncan Cliffhanger companion being mess
• 32:07
  menaced by the monster of the of the week that's kind of you know
• 32:11
  that's very that's very trend classic.
• 32:13
  I know from seeing the existing Episode 2, which we're not going
• 32:16
  to see, that that stuff in The Cave is all shot on for.
• 32:21
  It looks gorgeous, so that must have been a fantastic
• 32:24
  cliffhanger. Yes, yeah, the stuff in The Cave
• 32:27
  I love. I think we get to see some
• 32:29
  fairly soon actually. Well, can I ask you then, before
• 32:33
  we out episode one, what is it? Because I don't think I've asked
• 32:37
  you this before. We've done, we've done great
• 32:38
  show, now we've done Sharda, we've done the gunfighters, all
• 32:42
  very different stories. What do you need from an episode
• 32:46
  one of Doctor Who, and has this episode achieved it?
• 32:52
  What do I need from episode one of Doctor Who?
• 32:55
  OK, well first of all there is a kind of sometimes there is a
• 33:00
  kind of a formal dance to Doctor Who in terms of you know, you
• 33:03
  don't need to have the arrival of the TARDIS.
• 33:05
  It can have already arrived but it's you haven't your main and
• 33:08
  your main characters might already be on the scene or they
• 33:10
  might or they might not but it's it's it's been pulled into a
• 33:16
  brand new world which yeah, which our heroes are kind of
• 33:22
  discovering for the first time. But first of all we know this.
• 33:25
  We know we know there's something similar going on
• 33:28
  behind the scenes and it's it's all about the discovery of place
• 33:35
  and characters. But another thing I like you
• 33:37
  know especially with this one is I love I love for better or for
• 33:41
  worse I do love the cut that kind of boy's own you know
• 33:47
  exotic adventure genre which I know is kind of you know it's
• 33:53
  it's a it's a it's a product of you know the you know the
• 33:56
  colonial it's it's pyre really but you know I've got you know
• 34:03
  it's it's it's it's being promised a certain type of story
• 34:07
  and it could that could be that could be a Horror Story it could
• 34:09
  be a sci-fi space opera or it could be an abominable snowman
• 34:15
  type story And to be honest this is actually this is this is an
• 34:21
  incredibly generic idea for a Doctor Who story.
• 34:25
  It's a it's a complete lift from a hammer movie and we always
• 34:29
  blame Tom Baker's era for that but no it's yeah it was done
• 34:33
  here first but it's kind of being it's in with ones like
• 34:37
  this it's kind of being promised something coat comfortably
• 34:40
  familiar but given the Doctor Who treatment so that might that
• 34:45
  with a for a story like The Abominable Snowman that's that
• 34:49
  might be the draw for me. Two things I love about this
• 34:53
  first episode. One is it continues the 60s.
• 34:57
  We don't give a shit that we can't really afford to go around
• 35:00
  the world. We're going to do it anyway,
• 35:02
  yeah. You know, it refuses to conform.
• 35:05
  We're going to go to Aztec temples.
• 35:06
  We're heading off to Paris. You know, they don't care.
• 35:09
  It's in the corner of a studio. They're going to do it anyway.
• 35:11
  And I love that. I love the ambition of it and
• 35:14
  actually I think they do a fair good of realising it here as
• 35:16
  well. And the other thing I love about
• 35:19
  it is I think this feels like like a historical at the moment.
• 35:24
  I don't think there's there's any hint at this point, is
• 35:27
  there, that this is going to be a a a science fiction story.
• 35:31
  What we are science fiction, no, but a kind of a speculative real
• 35:38
  world cryptozoological one. Yes, because the Yeti is
• 35:44
  something that respected people like Edmund Hillary go up
• 35:48
  mountains and actually witness, you know, or claim to have seen,
• 35:53
  you know. So you know the possibility of
• 35:55
  the Yeti being real is still quite tangible at this period in
• 36:00
  time. So it's not it's not beyond the
• 36:02
  bounds of the possible. I mean one thing the Doctor does
• 36:05
  say at the beginning of episode one I think is that you know the
• 36:08
  Yeti is quite a peaceful creature.
• 36:10
  So we we and and that comes from Nigel Neal.
• 36:13
  I mean, Eddie Seagoon echoed echoed it.
• 36:15
  And if if Neddie Seagoon thinks the Yetis are, you know, a
• 36:20
  benign, benign, super advanced creature with psychic powers,
• 36:23
  then who am I to disagree? But all that, all that stuff was
• 36:25
  kind of, you know, what people thought, you know was kind of
• 36:28
  you know, tied up in this, in this sub genre and also kind of
• 36:32
  tied up in what might actually be out there as well.
• 36:36
  What I think then we'll get there in Episode 2 is the
• 36:39
  pivotal moment in the first half of the story is when they open
• 36:43
  up the Yeti and it's a robot. And suddenly Doctor Who really
• 36:48
  invades this story. And I love that fusion of the
• 36:51
  two things that you do, and Doctor Who does that time and
• 36:53
  again doesn't. It offers the science fiction
• 36:55
  explanation. Think Time Lash, think pudding
• 37:00
  Lane in the visitation. You know, taking taking this.
• 37:03
  In this case, it's a myth and just giving it a science fiction
• 37:06
  spin. Is this the earliest example of
• 37:08
  that? It might be.
• 37:12
  It might be. I can't think of any more.
• 37:15
  Well, look, Well, we'll get there in episode 2.
• 37:18
  It's absolutely marvellous. You know what, Have you got more
• 37:20
  facts and figures for me for episode?
• 37:22
  Two probably, probably, yes. Yeah.
• 37:26
  Well, bring it on, baby.