Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Dylan Rees about his choice of The Underwater Menace (animated 4/4)

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Talks to Dylan Rees about his choice of The Underwater Menace (animated 4/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None hamster with a blunt penknife
• 0:35
  for. Doing quicker, quicker, quicker
• 0:39
  now it is. Welcome back to A Hamster with a
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  Blunt Penknife, a Doctor Who commentary podcast.
• 0:45
  So we're here again for the final episode of The Animation
• 0:49
  of the Underwater Menace. Are you feeling fishy, Joe?
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  Always, yes. Especially fishing, being this
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  close to you on the sofa. You know I.
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  Do have a smelly ballad. I did a survey of the the top
• 1:07
  100 people that you slept with and yeah, that was.
• 1:10
  The general consensus? Yeah.
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  Oh damn we. Can go downhill from here.
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  Of course, when The Underwater Menace was originally written,
• 1:18
  it had individual episode titles, and episode four was
• 1:20
  called The Smelly Bell End. This is the sort of factual
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  accuracy you only get from a hands with a blonde penknife.
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  Yes, exactly. This is a pure fax.
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  Take that, Jeremy Bentham. I don't know why.
• 1:34
  You've got him into every. Episode I don't know why Jeremy
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  Bentham's become the the subject of my scorn today.
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  I'm sure he's lovely. You know why?
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  It's because he wants this to look as cheap as the original,
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  that's why. When it looks cheap and loads of
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  other ways. We've already decided that the
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  animation looks about 3 decades old.
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  Oh, I'm going to jump straight him.
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  Jump him. You and I have got a dinner to
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  get to. We.
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  Did we're, we're, we're quite the lads, About 10.
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  OK, so from my man cave here in Eastbourne, Dylan and I are
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  going to embark on episode four of The Underwater Menace.
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  How? Exciting.
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  Oh. Wait, you counts in?
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  Oh wait wait. I've got counts in.
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  We could do it together. I've been dreaming this moment
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  from the. 3. 2. At the same time 321 it.
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  Didn't even fucking start. Nah, I don't think before this
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  animation came out, I don't think I could tell you what
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  happened in episode four of The Underwater Menace.
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  I couldn't tell you now I've seen this.
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  Recently, it was one of those ones that I'd heard the audio.
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  I'd seen the surviving episodes. I've seen the Recon tell us
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  that. But this, the end of this
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  episode, it's like Marco Polo's never stuck in my head.
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  I couldn't tell you what happens in Marco Polo, and I actually
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  only enjoyed Marco Polo for the first time last year.
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  I was like, oh, I get this now. Not when they released that 50
• 3:02
  minute cut down version. Do you remember on the?
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  Didn't they? That should be right on my
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  street. All the bullet points,
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  basically. Yeah.
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  Yeah, That all I ever remember about four is the telesnap of
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  Zarov reaching through the bars. Well, that's a little.
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  Bit isn't there? Yeah, yeah, that's.
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  That's all I remember though. Yeah.
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  So this this is going to be a revelation.
• 3:22
  We did Dragon Fire, you may. Yes.
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  And you had a story per episode of how Dragonfly Dragon Fire has
• 3:31
  influenced your life. Yes, in various and spectacular
• 3:34
  ways. Yes.
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  This is your opportunity to tell us a story about how you know
• 3:39
  the Water Menaces influenced your life and career.
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  I don't really like going underwater and I'm pretty sure
• 3:46
  it was down to this. Fair, fair, fair.
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  It's not. It was due to being dragged
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  under the water by the tide as a small child.
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  Can I ask you a question about your early career?
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  Yes you can. You know, like obviously, I feel
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  like in television you sort of have to take the rough before
• 4:01
  you get the smooth, yes. If that's what you.
• 4:03
  Want to call it and you, you seem to have implied that in the
• 4:05
  past. You know that there were some
• 4:07
  jobs back in the day. Did you ever do anything sort of
• 4:10
  to this level of television production?
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  No, I I worked on some pretty shoddy things.
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  I can think of a Chinese action comedy film that I worked on.
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  Oh. Is it available?
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  Probably. I couldn't tell you what it's
• 4:25
  called, though. I I tell you what I did work on.
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  I worked at QVC, the nation's favorite shopping channel, for
• 4:32
  five years. I've.
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  Mentioned. This and other shopping channels
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  as. Well, Ray, from there on a
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  bannerman with you there. She was there.
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  Beverly Cressman was there just before I joined Paul Lavers.
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  We used to be there as well from Androids of Tara, but the what?
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  While they're not like low points, it was like an
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  interesting time shopping. Television is still done, very
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  much like these old things were shot.
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  So I was a floor manager there and we had big sets with
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  different things and products and demonstrations set up.
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  And under VTS you would cut to another camera and all the
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  cameras would move around the studio.
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  The directors are in the gallery, so it's the nearest I
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  ever got to. They don't shoot drama like that
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  anymore. But I don't think that says much
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  about the underwater menace that it's shot.
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  Like a? Shopping channel but all.
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  Drama was shot like that back then.
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  The pyramids of ours were shot like that.
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  I. Still can't believe that.
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  Oh, sounds really naive. I don't know, but that the
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  director wasn't down there with the actors.
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  The director was up in a booth editing the bloody thing.
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  It was a different form of directing, obviously they come
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  up with. What does the director do now?
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  Is he there, down there in the studios or on location?
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  They're on the they're. Directly behind the monitor.
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  And they're discussing. They used to shoot this by
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  they'd spend all day blocking the scenes and their rehearsal
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  way, block and then record in a few hours on a Friday night or
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  whatever it was. Now you you basically show up
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  for the day with your scenes you're gonna do and you block
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  the scenes out. And this is something that
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  someone like Gareth Roberts will say they don't do blocking on
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  television anymore. They do.
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  That's the first thing you do. You block every scene out.
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  Will you please explain what that means?
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  The movement within the room where people are gonna go, where
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  the camera is gonna go. Mark for the floor you.
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  It's literally as simple as that, yeah.
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  Because that's where the cameras are going to be.
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  Yeah, I mean, they need to get the camera in focus and there's
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  a focus puller there. You.
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  Can sort of tell on early television where they fuck that
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  up. Yeah, exactly.
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  Because the camera's where it should be, but suddenly the
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  actors are out of shot. Or yeah, OK.
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  But so you come in, you do a blocking, a rehearsal of that
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  scene, you shoot that scene, you shoot it from several different
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  angles. Then you move on to the next
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  scene and it's it's not people talk about it as being miles
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  away. It's the same process.
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  It's just done in a slightly different way because you get
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  the coverage all with one or two cameras rather than four or
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  five, because you've got more time.
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  And that allows you to get better versions of those things
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  because you run through it. You might do the same scene from
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  different angles, different takes, a couple of takes on
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  each. You might do the same scene 20
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  times and then you cut around it for the best possible and then
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  would. You just determine the best
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  angles in the edit. Yeah.
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  OK, that's the most dramatically satisfying.
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  We'll use that one. Yeah, that sounds like a
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  laborious process. That's a.
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  Lot of bullshit, really. But.
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  I know, I know. One thing that they did then
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  that they don't do now. Contradict me if I'm wrong and
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  that is having the week's worth of rehearsal for the whole for
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  like 1 you. Rehearse on the spot occasion
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  you will have a. Rehearsal.
• 7:43
  It's a reefer, isn't it You? Always have a read through or
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  99% of the time you have a read through and there will always be
• 7:48
  some rehearsal. Like the director will have a
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  couple of days with the cast, the main cast.
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  But you are rehearsing When you're you, you block and
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  rehearse if that makes sense. You're doing it on the day.
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  What you're not doing is because people have realised the
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  valuable time is in front of the camera, not in a rehearsal room
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  somewhere. Peter Purvis might tell you
• 8:08
  differently, but Peter Purvis hasn't been on television for
• 8:10
  20. Five years.
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  Every single actor from the classic series without fail.
• 8:15
  Yeah, I know of one that says it's better now.
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  Who's that? Kevin McNally, who's never been
• 8:22
  out of work. He's the one person that says
• 8:24
  no, no, it's better now. Yeah, but all the all of those I
• 8:28
  would actually go, well, you have time to develop
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  relationships and build rapport and you get that work on
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  chemistry. You get that time now and you
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  just have to be a better actor as a result.
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  And IA. Quicker.
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  Actor, the classic series, actors who say that half of them
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  haven't been on television. Yeah, it's right.
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  So it's a different way of doing things.
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  I understand if you spent 40 years doing something that one
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  way, like by the time I'm done in this industry, they'll
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  probably do it all completely differently and I'll be like, Oh
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  no, it was better back in 2023. Rehearse record was the way to.
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  Go. Well, okay, one last question on
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  this topic because this is really interesting and frankly,
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  you're the one person I can talk to about this stuff that's in
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  the know. But the other thing that
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  everybody talks about is that whole, you know, BBC Television
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  Centre where those shows working against all in the studios,
• 9:20
  people popping in, blah, blah, blah, that that was, you know,
• 9:22
  really lovely time. That's because.
• 9:25
  They were all raving Alcoholics. But now obviously a lot of stuff
• 9:28
  shot on location, so there's less in the studio.
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  I think is again, and you have a more polished production as a
• 9:38
  result. Yeah.
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  Is that a better approach? Again, there's an intimacy to
• 9:45
  the studio staff, I think. There is, there is an intimacy
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  and you get everything. Sort of looks the same.
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  Yeah, but you're in real world environments.
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  What I would say is, OK, so the actors might miss certain people
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  popping in. The current generation of actors
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  won't know anything about that. And what you've got to remember
• 10:03
  is I've never worked on a a TV show or a film where I haven't
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  known some of the crew from something else.
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  So there's still a community and an environment there and the
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  same people going around and doing things and everybody's got
• 10:13
  mutual friends on Facebook and Instagram and what have you.
• 10:17
  And so there is a new group of people coming in but you'll
• 10:19
  always they'll always be people you know And that's the same for
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  the cast who know and the cast quite often have their favorite
• 10:26
  make up person, their favorite costume person who they'll try
• 10:28
  and bring in if there if there are anyone with any sway.
• 10:31
  So it's the the idea that the the people just show up and
• 10:36
  bugger off is a bit of a like it's it's it's not really true
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  and on good productions like if everybody's getting on having a
• 10:43
  great time everybody's out every night having a but not me, I'll
• 10:46
  go home but I'll go and record a podcast with you but.
• 10:50
  Thank you for finding the time. Let's do that.
• 10:55
  I'm going to say this, and I know you're going to say
• 10:56
  something derogatory about it, but I'm going to say it anyway.
• 10:59
  Like Colin Baker said in an interview fairly recently that I
• 11:03
  heard that, you know, back in the day, because they had the
• 11:06
  week of rehearsal, that, you know, everyone got to know each
• 11:09
  other really, really well. That he'd done a job recently
• 11:11
  where you did just turn up for a couple of days work, the lead
• 11:15
  didn't talk to you, the other actors didn't really talk to
• 11:17
  you. That there was a sort of
• 11:18
  coldness about it. It could be just because he was
• 11:22
  being a prick and not only to talk to him.
• 11:25
  I mean, I doubt Colin Baker was being a prick.
• 11:27
  I've not really experienced that.
• 11:29
  I think most of the cast tend to get on.
• 11:30
  There is a bit of a thing though.
• 11:31
  If you're a lead actor in something that's shooting for 15
• 11:35
  weeks and somebody shows up for two or three days, you're not
• 11:37
  going to have that time to form that relationship, admittedly.
• 11:41
  And also there's a lot on you. You've got to learn a lot of
• 11:43
  lines and you're just concentrating on get them,
• 11:46
  getting them done. The thing I've just done, the
• 11:48
  lead actress is in every scene, and she went home every night
• 11:53
  and sat in her hotel room, or when she was when we're in
• 11:57
  London at home. And she had to learn she was
• 12:00
  just going through her lines. And then at lunchtime she would
• 12:02
  go sit in a trailer and go through her lines for the next
• 12:04
  day, for the next scene. Because there's a lot riding on
• 12:06
  her. So sorry that perhaps she didn't
• 12:08
  have a chance to speak to the guy who played the bus driver in
• 12:10
  episode 7. And I'm sure you did your one
• 12:14
  line really great. And you know, that's amazing.
• 12:17
  I'm sure you've done a fantastic job.
• 12:18
  But have some perspective. Stop just thinking about your
• 12:21
  own story. No.
• 12:22
  But I do. I do think there's a lot of
• 12:24
  nostalgia for how things were, rather than genuine critique
• 12:28
  about how things are. Yeah, exactly.
• 12:30
  Anybody who thinks the underwater menace looks like
• 12:33
  better than the Star beast, he's an idiot.
• 12:39
  You may prefer it personally, but you know now this episode's
• 12:43
  almost finished. It is.
• 12:45
  It is. But we've all received an
• 12:47
  education in current television production.
• 12:50
  That'll be 125 lbs, please. Really.
• 12:52
  I'm. Going to delete the episode now
• 12:56
  quick before I earn the money, No.
• 12:59
  Do you think they could have pulled off what they're trying
• 13:02
  to pull off here? Which is that Lantis sinking?
• 13:06
  I know they do. They have a tank in Ealing.
• 13:08
  I mean they would have, they would have shut the camera
• 13:09
  around and drop some things from the the lighting gantry and that
• 13:12
  they were done. What we just missed then is that
• 13:15
  Ando splitting apart the set flooding and it looked amazing
• 13:18
  and. He But the Telesnads, you can
• 13:20
  see that that face was falling from a great high and that they.
• 13:24
  I think this is where the money went on all of this.
• 13:28
  Do we want to see Episode 4? Do we want to see Episode 4?
• 13:31
  I don't. Want to see anything that's
• 13:32
  missing? But yeah, absolutely you're.
• 13:36
  Going to say trouble is. The trouble is, is I think this
• 13:40
  is doing what the myth makers did in that you have three
• 13:44
  episodes of high jinks and then it goes into something, yeah,
• 13:48
  fairly serious, which is the downfall of a civilization.
• 13:52
  In the animation, they've added sequences of people being
• 13:56
  ushered to safety and things like this.
• 13:58
  Whereas I think the implication in the original is that they you
• 14:01
  know. They all die.
• 14:02
  Oh. Why?
• 14:02
  A lot of people drowned. Yeah, because there are
• 14:05
  sequences on it with the Doctor running away from sort of water
• 14:07
  coming in. Yeah, I think this is there.
• 14:12
  The Myth Makers works better because it's a very serious last
• 14:16
  episode. Suddenly it's a bloody massacre.
• 14:18
  And it's that sort of implication that history hurts.
• 14:23
  This is still a bit silly, so I don't know if it's having the
• 14:26
  impact that it should, but. Also, because it's pulpy sci-fi
• 14:29
  again, so it doesn't doesn't need to.
• 14:31
  It's like that last episode of The Massacre.
• 14:33
  I know, I know, spoilers. It was always heading towards
• 14:35
  the massacre. But can't say you weren't
• 14:39
  warned. But you listen to that thing and
• 14:41
  you go, I wonder what this looked like and how they did it.
• 14:44
  And there's some sort of contention in fandom of whether
• 14:47
  it was actual scene shot. Some other people said it was
• 14:50
  like paintings and things like that and.
• 14:52
  Or in the massacre. Yeah, I bet.
• 14:55
  I bet it wasn't. I know there's a lot of
• 14:58
  screaming you can hear and but you can do a lot with sound.
• 15:03
  Oh, this is very funny. So Professor Zarov has locked
• 15:07
  himself in the room with the enormous red lever that's going
• 15:11
  to plunge down and destroy the world and the dog.
• 15:15
  I would have made that room. I would have made it water
• 15:18
  tighter if I was. At least the octopus survives.
• 15:24
  Yeah, you know the sharks. Do you think the octopus can?
• 15:26
  The octopuses are quite malleable, aren't they?
• 15:28
  I'll get through the gaps. Oh dear.
• 15:31
  See, this is so ridiculous. Because then they when they get
• 15:35
  the door up, they trick him into getting the door up, he goes the
• 15:39
  other side of it, the door comes down.
• 15:41
  So now we can't reach the lever. Oh really?
• 15:44
  It's just absurd. It's like the worst James Bond
• 15:46
  film you've ever. Seen isn't.
• 15:49
  It I've seen some pretty bad Jamie.
• 15:50
  Bond film Did you see Jamie's arse in?
• 15:52
  I missed his. Arse, I spend.
• 15:55
  A lot of time clampering. He's.
• 15:58
  Got a hell of a crack? Now Jamie and probably spend a
• 16:01
  lot of time crawling to safety in this episode and halfway
• 16:05
  Polly just gives up in the all classic.
• 16:08
  Dylan No, we're never going to make it alive.
• 16:12
  It's like, come on, you weren't like this in the Highlanders
• 16:15
  last week. She says that the documentary
• 16:18
  she goes. So I've got this script and I
• 16:20
  was report after having so much agency it's.
• 16:23
  Ben got jaundice at this point. Very yellow.
• 16:26
  He's drunk himself to death. And he was, of course.
• 16:28
  He was in the sun for a bit earlier when he was climbing up
• 16:31
  that mountain. And then he's just been on the
• 16:33
  whiskey and his livers packed in.
• 16:34
  I just. Can't believe his jaw.
• 16:35
  Like, man, it's like a set square, you know?
• 16:37
  That's what they've used to draw it.
• 16:41
  Poor old Michael Craig. He's.
• 16:43
  Like laughing like a lunatic. Now, I still think Zaraf is
• 16:47
  slightly less unhinged than some of those Bond villains.
• 16:50
  You know Blofeld? In Is it Diamonds for Forever?
• 16:55
  Is that the one where you shouldn't drag in the back of a
• 16:58
  cap stroking his pussy? I think it is.
• 17:04
  There's a great line in this where Ben has to try and
• 17:06
  convince the guard. To let the doctor.
• 17:08
  Pass and he goes. Well, look at him.
• 17:10
  He ain't normal, is he? That's a nice line.
• 17:14
  Oh, getting shutty. He's got a gun.
• 17:16
  He's got a gun, but not a fridge.
• 17:18
  Oh no, I can't reach my lever. Do you?
• 17:21
  Think Do you think Zaraf misses it?
• 17:23
  Eating food that isn't plankton as well?
• 17:25
  Because he's from the the world above, so he's had sandwiches
• 17:28
  and steaks. And he's an esteemed scientist
• 17:30
  as well, you know, having sampled, you know, Posh Grub in
• 17:36
  a glitzy affair, I went to recently the the premiere of The
• 17:40
  Church of Ruby Rose. Of course.
• 17:41
  Was it Parton? They served there.
• 17:43
  Certainly was not, no. It was the most delicious blinis
• 17:46
  I've ever had in my life. Oh, in the book, right, in Nigel
• 17:51
  Robinson's book, which is pretty diabolical, right?
• 17:54
  He adds a scene here which is a little problematic.
• 17:58
  She's screaming her head off. Jamie slaps around the face in
• 18:02
  the book, and the the liar says that shut her up.
• 18:06
  Yeah, it's terrible. Great cover though, the book.
• 18:12
  Well, that's the upside down mouth fish person, isn't it?
• 18:15
  Looking a bit sad. Yeah.
• 18:17
  It's a sad fish. In fact, it looks photo.
• 18:20
  It's a photo. It can't be a photo, but no,
• 18:22
  there is a photo and it's obviously copied from that
• 18:24
  photo. That's, I don't know.
• 18:26
  You drew that. He did a very good job.
• 18:28
  I feel like it's Alastair Pearson.
• 18:30
  You're going to find. Out.
• 18:31
  I'm going to find out. I've got, I've got the Internet
• 18:33
  right here. We've managed to Google
• 18:36
  something and insult Jeremy Bedford in every episode.
• 18:40
  Bravo. Odd, even and.
• 18:42
  When's when's Jeremy Bentham coming on this?
• 18:47
  He's not. I'll get Ian Levine on 1st I'll.
• 18:49
  Bet you could you? Could do a commentary on
• 18:52
  dominance at the. Time his version.
• 18:56
  Extended Edition. Version.
• 18:59
  These dishes just a load of shots of the extras hanging
• 19:02
  around in their costumes though, you know?
• 19:05
  Who did the cover? So you keep talking.
• 19:07
  I can't. Only look that that lever was a
• 19:10
  bit closer, he would have made it.
• 19:13
  They're all struck. I don't they didn't have this
• 19:15
  much mounted in the original version, did they?
• 19:17
  Definitely not, no. You know how embarrassing it
• 19:19
  would have been as well if this was the point where Doctor Who
• 19:21
  died in this plot. I mean, was there ever any
• 19:25
  danger of Doctor Who being cancelled after this season?
• 19:29
  I don't think so. I think, I think it was the last
• 19:32
  season, wasn't it? That's when they were like,
• 19:34
  well, the ratings are a little bit down.
• 19:36
  But I wonder whether there's any point where they were like,
• 19:38
  well, this this new guy might work, So you know, evil of the
• 19:41
  dialects might be the last. They must have been keeping an
• 19:44
  eye on him because if it was in I I don't know how well you know
• 19:48
  the numbers, but essentially come the Moon base, we've gone
• 19:52
  from sort of four or 5 million in Hartnell's late time to 8
• 19:56
  million. Oh yeah, and the Moon Base is
• 19:58
  the highest rated trout. I think overall the highest
• 20:01
  episode is episode one of the Crotons, which has got 9 million
• 20:04
  A. Classic.
• 20:05
  And then it goes over a Cliff after that.
• 20:07
  I can't find who did the cover without just sitting here in
• 20:10
  silence for 10 minutes, so. If you could just tweet into us
• 20:14
  and let us know. If it wasn't Alistair Pearson, I
• 20:16
  don't care. Sharp, sharp, Jeremy.
• 20:18
  Certainly Jeremy I face when there wasn't an octopus in the
• 20:23
  original. No, I think you're probably
• 20:25
  right, he said. Bye to his octopus.
• 20:29
  The octopus is going to fall. Away.
• 20:30
  He's trying to get the octopus to pull up.
• 20:32
  I bet that I've got a good laugh in the in the BFI.
• 20:35
  Oh no, no, He's going to the octopus.
• 20:36
  Pull it, pull it. And the octopus went and.
• 20:39
  He's like gutted. I'm about to drag, at least.
• 20:43
  At least this guy survives to go out and get get some tan.
• 20:47
  Yeah, he's. He needs some fucking tender
• 20:50
  stem broccoli, some monster, some orange juice, and a holiday
• 20:53
  in the Bahamas. This is the middle class
• 20:56
  lifestyle that Dylan leaves. All right, do.
• 21:00
  You not eat monster. It's my.
• 21:01
  Favorite tender stem broccoli. Yeah.
• 21:06
  I just usually have florets. Oh, no.
• 21:08
  Tender stem all the way. Do you have a tender stem?
• 21:14
  Frequently, yeah, due to overuse.
• 21:19
  Here we go. Now, straight out the whole into
• 21:21
  the sunlight. Exactly.
• 21:22
  I don't know why none of them thought they could get up, like
• 21:25
  because there was a lift that went down, so all those people.
• 21:27
  Oh, they just climbed up. Didn't they open up the rocks?
• 21:30
  There was the implication that the lift crashed at the in the
• 21:34
  first episode. That's why they all fell to the
• 21:35
  floor. Just so happens that Jamie and
• 21:38
  Polly are right outside the TARDIS here.
• 21:40
  Yeah, so we can all escape. I'll say that in Is it the
• 21:43
  ending of this or the beginning? Where we're here inside their
• 21:45
  heads? It's the beginning.
• 21:46
  Isn't it beginning? Yeah, never been done before
• 21:48
  also. Just like prehistoric monsters
• 21:51
  or something like dinosaurs. Oh, and we're still doing the
• 21:56
  lead insurance to the next story, aren't we?
• 21:58
  So we're about to have the lead in to the Moon base, yeah?
• 22:01
  Oh, he says. He's going to take him to Mars
• 22:03
  or something. Yeah, this is where shit gets
• 22:04
  real. And the Trout and doctors
• 22:06
  really, really about to become the the guy we know.
• 22:09
  So we must have a cop then, because they're not wearing
• 22:11
  these clothes, are they? And in the moon base.
• 22:16
  But do they? Or at the Moon base, do they go
• 22:17
  and get changed? Oh, they wear those, quilted
• 22:22
  those bases, those. Bases that look like they
• 22:25
  wouldn't survive zero gravity. The helmet that Lisa Goddard
• 22:28
  wears in Terminus. Oh well, I'm so pleased they got
• 22:35
  out of that. All right.
• 22:35
  Yeah, I mean, it was touch and go for a minute, wasn't it?
• 22:39
  But honestly, tell me though that when you first watched this
• 22:42
  animation, which obviously is fairly recently because it came
• 22:45
  out recently, you really enjoyed it didn't.
• 22:47
  You. I really enjoyed it.
• 22:48
  I sat down, quite a few of them. I will put on and what say the
• 22:51
  first episode and then I will be like, I'll watch the rest of it
• 22:55
  while I'm working or something like that.
• 22:56
  But I sat down one night and watched this all the way through
• 22:59
  with a bottle of wine and had a riot.
• 23:03
  And I've had a riot today as well, Joe.
• 23:05
  You're me too, honestly actually cuddle up next to you like this.
• 23:10
  Your days watching Doctor Who, because you have confessed to
• 23:13
  several of these. Remember your day leading up to
• 23:16
  the. Doctor.
• 23:17
  Yes, where you watched 14 episodes of season 7
• 23:21
  back-to-back. Oh, and even better, right?
• 23:25
  What was it you watched leading up to the Star Beast?
• 23:27
  I know you had a charcuterie Balls.
• 23:29
  Oh. What did I watch?
• 23:30
  I mean, I watched the Daleks in colour and then I just put on.
• 23:34
  What did I put on? Pension space and time.
• 23:37
  No, it wasn't that. I think I've put on like
• 23:40
  Greatest Show in the Galaxy or something like that.
• 23:42
  I was just needed to fill the time Classic.
• 23:44
  Yeah, a classic. Well, I was.
• 23:46
  About to listen to the sequel to The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
• 23:49
  from Auk the Musical. Yeah, do you know you kept that
• 23:54
  quiet when I pressed play on your Too hot for TV?
• 23:58
  There's Sophie Aldridge's voice coming at me.
• 24:00
  Want. To thank it that.
• 24:01
  Must be very exciting. It was very exciting.
• 24:04
  So look, we've fucked off into time and space, ready to go to
• 24:07
  the the Moon base. We're all over the place.
• 24:09
  Oh, that was Noel Johnson in the original.
• 24:11
  You know who he was. He is Grover in Invasion of the
• 24:17
  Dinosaurs. The The MP sometimes you do you
• 24:20
  ever, do you ever do that when you're watching a Doctor Who?
• 24:23
  Oh. Frequently, Yeah.
• 24:25
  And you're like, what's he from? And it's the the sort of actors
• 24:28
  that only people like us would recognise.
• 24:30
  And Toby, hey, Doug would know their entire life story.
• 24:33
  But do you ever like years later, after all the stories,
• 24:38
  and then suddenly there's a light bulb?
• 24:40
  Yeah. Like is it ZAR or somebody In
• 24:43
  ZAR in An Earthly Child is Greg Sutton.
• 24:47
  From I knew that one. The one I learned just a couple
• 24:50
  of weeks ago was Maggie Harris. Is Jane Blythe in the Sea
• 24:55
  Devils? Oh my God.
• 24:57
  And what was the other one? Iron Gron is the guy Oh from.
• 25:01
  Nightmare Eden, Yeah. Mine blown you didn't know.
• 25:03
  That no, imagine. They look very different.
• 25:05
  They do look very different. Well, look, as the intensely
• 25:09
  long credits of the animation roll by yes, let's think of
• 25:13
  three reasons as to why we would recommend the animation.
• 25:17
  Biscuits were good. The fizzy water was great.
• 25:23
  Yeah. Well, shall I go first?
• 25:24
  Please do. Once.
• 25:26
  Please, do you sound a little bit desperate?
• 25:28
  No, not. You always sound a little bit
• 25:30
  desperate. OK, the first one is I think it
• 25:35
  takes what is a quite a high budget story, but actually makes
• 25:40
  it into a high budget story and gives it a sense of space and
• 25:44
  scale colour, Yeah, yeah, it elevates the production.
• 25:49
  It does elevate the production and then we go strictly.
• 25:52
  No, no. Just you can be broadly
• 25:54
  underwater. Broadly underwater menace, but I
• 25:57
  want to go to the fish people and I want to go both designs.
• 26:00
  I think they're a bold and innovative thing for a
• 26:03
  television show that's got a budget of about £200 to do and I
• 26:07
  think they look great in this animation.
• 26:09
  I think they look great in real life and long may they continue
• 26:12
  to dance. Oh, God damn it.
• 26:14
  What? Actually, I'm going to say it
• 26:16
  anyway. It's going to lead me into my
• 26:18
  second point, which is the dance of the Fish people, one of the
• 26:21
  most avant-garde sequences in the entirety of Doctor Who.
• 26:25
  Yeah, as a man in television, now, you know, this certainly
• 26:28
  would never come to be now. Don't we have a goblin song at
• 26:32
  the Christmas special? Yeah, we do, and I have seen the
• 26:37
  mighty boost as well. I think there may be a version
• 26:39
  of that in there somewhere. But no, it's weird and I do like
• 26:44
  it when Doctor Who goes a bit out there to have an extended 3
• 26:48
  minute sequence of fish people miming at each other on Kirby
• 26:53
  wires. It's bold it.
• 26:55
  Is bold and and one that was often mocked.
• 26:58
  But here we are, 60 odd years later, still talking about it.
• 27:02
  Well, we've got no bet to do though.
• 27:03
  Everywhere that's be honest, I'll say it's all part of the Oh
• 27:06
  my God, I've just realised, look, this has been reduced from
• 27:10
  1399 to £4.03 on Amazon. Do you think that's because no
• 27:15
  one's buying it? Potentially because everyone
• 27:17
  bought the steel book. That's so expensive.
• 27:23
  Sorry, what's your second? Thing I would like to choose the
• 27:25
  color palette of the animation. I know you mentioned the color
• 27:28
  previously, but I think to rather than going sort of dull
• 27:33
  muted tones as they often do. I think using big bright vibrant
• 27:38
  colors, the dark blue, the stone with the popping colors, the
• 27:41
  oranges and the the Reds and the yellows and stuff just makes it
• 27:44
  look really interesting And again, very much like old school
• 27:48
  Star Trek. Do you remember when the trailer
• 27:50
  came out for this? It was a very quick sort of 32nd
• 27:54
  trailer and it was the most colourful thing I'd ever seen
• 28:00
  since I watched Spock's brain frontal stuff.
• 28:03
  And I was like, oh, this is going, they're they're just
• 28:05
  going to town on this. You're not used to seeing
• 28:07
  classic Doctor Who look like this and it's.
• 28:10
  Used to seeing it in black and white.
• 28:12
  And when they colorized the dialects, like, they didn't just
• 28:14
  go for the obvious colours, They weren't big, bright colours,
• 28:17
  didn't they? And I think that's the way to go
• 28:18
  when you're taking a hokey bit of 60s television and trying to
• 28:22
  make it more accessible. Go go big, go bold, go bright.
• 28:27
  Go colourful. My last thing then is going to
• 28:30
  be, I think this is a really fun set of regulars and they've
• 28:34
  given them a really fun story to play about it.
• 28:37
  And I don't think anyone's really at their best in this,
• 28:40
  but they're engaging to watch, you know.
• 28:43
  And we ever really get an intense character study on any
• 28:47
  of these characters. But I I just, you know in
• 28:52
  episode three, they run around a lot and they don't do it.
• 28:55
  And if you these are the sort of characters I would want to do
• 28:57
  that with not just fuck, but run around with them and be tricked
• 29:01
  by Professor Sarov. Yeah.
• 29:05
  I I know. I agree.
• 29:05
  I think they they're, even if they may have hated it, I think
• 29:08
  they're all having a lot of fun as both actors and as
• 29:11
  characters. In the surviving footage, the
• 29:13
  the newly discovered one, not newly now 10 years ago, Whatever
• 29:17
  Episode 2, Trout has given it his all.
• 29:19
  Like he's not. You're right, he's not slumming
• 29:22
  it. Absolutely.
• 29:23
  My third one. I want to pick the high priest
• 29:28
  Yaru. I just think even in 1960 that
• 29:36
  in the 1960s that was a big camp over the top.
• 29:38
  Performance. And God love him, be here in the
• 29:42
  Celestial Toy Maker. You know, you don't see a lot of
• 29:45
  like what we acceptedly call camp.
• 29:48
  Yeah, but sort of came in in the 70s.
• 29:50
  Yeah. You don't see a lot of it in the
• 29:52
  60s, do you? Everyone's sort of playing
• 29:54
  straight or they're just over the top.
• 29:56
  Yeah, I mean, the nearest you probably get is a is in the
• 29:59
  Romans and you get a bit of Hartnell and a bit of Nero being
• 30:01
  sort of. I beg your pardon?
• 30:07
  So yeah, the High Priest gets gets it all just for his.
• 30:11
  We did pull up his credits. I'll bet you anything that
• 30:13
  Avengers episode that he's in I'll bet he's camping because
• 30:16
  he's Billy Bunter is very you know I.
• 30:17
  Wonder if it still exists? You'll be playing against me
• 30:20
  now. It's like a very, very camp.
• 30:22
  If this episode exists, can we do it as a hamster extra?
• 30:26
  Well, for sure. Yes.
• 30:28
  I'd never say no to you for anything.
• 30:30
  There we go. I'm going to see if it exists,
• 30:31
  and if it doesn't, I'm going to call Philip Morris and see if we
• 30:34
  can't find it somewhere. Oh, can I get Morris and?
• 30:37
  Levitan on it together. Imagine.
• 30:39
  Well, look, Dylan, we've got to go and have some dinner now.
• 30:43
  I'm all for a bit of dinner. But yeah, it's been an absolute.
• 30:46
  Pleasure. It's been a hoot to do.
• 30:47
  It rarely talk about the underwater minutes and instead
• 30:52
  we talked about your fabulous career, the biscuits we're
• 30:55
  eating. We've talked about some of The
• 30:59
  Underwater Menace. I think we've got a good 45
• 31:01
  minutes of content of The Underwater Menace over 4
• 31:05
  episodes. When Gary Russell did the sensor
• 31:07
  rights, we got about 10 minutes. Oh yeah.
• 31:09
  And the rest. Was just about his career, but
• 31:12
  thank you very much. Thank you for coming.
• 31:14
  Thank you for having me in your Aladdin's Cave of Doctor Who
• 31:17
  ephemera. You're always welcome in my
• 31:19
  Aladdin's cave.