Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Dave Rennie, Lucy McCaul & Daniel Knight about their choice of The Enemy of the World (6/6)

Transcript

Talks to Dave Rennie, Lucy McCaul & Daniel Knight about their choice of The Enemy of the World (6/6) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blunt pen knife for doing quicker.
• 0:37
  Welcome back to A Hamster with a Blunt Pen Knife, the Doctor Who
• 0:39
  Commentary Podcast. We're here after a few months,
• 0:43
  having watched 2 episodes of The Enemy of the World, and many
• 0:49
  questions remain unanswered. Will Salamander's plan be
• 0:51
  foiled? Will we remember the rest of the
• 0:54
  plot? How much smut is Joe going to
• 0:57
  get out of the the shafts and caverns that feature in this
• 1:00
  episode? To answer the questions, we have
• 1:03
  Dave and Daniel and Joe and off we go.
• 1:08
  Well, you've prepared that, haven't you?
• 1:14
  I don't think I've made one shaft joke yet.
• 1:16
  No, I was a bit surprised actually.
• 1:18
  Now you're going to get a load in this episode.
• 1:20
  Especially with all the going up and down that's been happening.
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  I know right? Shooting up and down at a rate
• 1:26
  of knots. Wow.
• 1:29
  Should we go and watch episode 6?
• 1:31
  Yes. Yeah, somebody countless in
• 1:34
  then. OK in 54321?
• 1:41
  Volcanoes go boom and off we go. Now episode 6 is because I'm
• 1:50
  covering so much of Doctor Who. We're strictly come hamster.
• 1:52
  Because we're doing a season at a time, I am fast coming to the
• 1:55
  conclusion that Doctor Who climaxes are more disappointing
• 2:01
  than not. I very often the ones are great
• 2:06
  and the fours or sixes are a bit limp.
• 2:09
  How do we fare with the enemy of the world, Dave?
• 2:15
  I think the same one wraps up quite nicely actually, but I
• 2:20
  mean there is a lot of like you see the people in the shelter,
• 2:27
  Oh well, we'll get them out eventually.
• 2:29
  Nobody seems to realise that Salamanders just walked away in
• 2:33
  the heads of it. It's hardest, we don't see what
• 2:37
  happens to Bruce, etcetera. But yeah, I'd rather like
• 2:43
  episode success. I think when you said about
• 2:46
  conclusion to Doctor Who though, that's probably true in most of
• 2:49
  fiction. The amount of books I've read
• 2:51
  where the build up is great and then the endings quite limp.
• 2:54
  Even someone like Stephen King usually isn't renowned for not
• 2:57
  having the best endings. The books, it's the most
• 3:00
  difficult thing to do. I mean, a lot of people think
• 3:02
  think, oh, starting a story is hard.
• 3:04
  I think it's wrapping it up in a satisfactory way.
• 3:09
  I always feel like David Renwick had the right approach.
• 3:11
  He started at the end or with a massive gag and then worked his
• 3:15
  way backwards. How do I get through all?
• 3:18
  Yeah. Or start with the beginning and
• 3:20
  the end and then work out how to get from 1:00 to the other.
• 3:23
  It's the saggy middle that trips up many a Doctor Who, so
• 3:26
  especially 6 parts as well. What do you think then, Daniel?
• 3:32
  The only thing that I feel a little bit disappointed by is we
• 3:35
  don't really sort of see what happens to the end to, to Astrid
• 3:38
  really. Or, or they're sort of denied
• 3:44
  sort of like the the final confrontation with Salamander.
• 3:47
  But apart from that, no, I think I, I mean, you couldn't have had
• 3:51
  a big sort of finale, bond style finale for this.
• 3:56
  Obviously because we it's Doctor, we don't have the budget
• 3:59
  for it, but and I think it's how it does end is very clever and
• 4:06
  the Doctor, especially this Doctor things
• 4:09
  uncharacteristically say cruel, but it's possibly as a
• 4:16
  character, I don't know. He seems very cold when he tells
• 4:21
  Salamander that he's going to, you know, Chuck him out the
• 4:24
  TARDIS and he's going to leave him to be, leave him to his
• 4:26
  fate. Basically.
• 4:28
  It's quite it's quite dark ending.
• 4:31
  What do you imagine the people you know, Astrid.
• 4:34
  Now what do you imagine they thought happened to Salamander?
• 4:36
  It just vanished. Yeah, exactly.
• 4:38
  It just went. Underground well.
• 4:41
  Wasn't there's a we'll get to it, but there's a, there's a
• 4:45
  fire, isn't there? And other things are happening,
• 4:47
  so people are being rescued and. It's quite amazing that he
• 4:53
  actually escapes the explosion in the 1st place because the way
• 4:56
  you see it is Ken, it's a giant explosion and he was just there
• 5:01
  beside him and says Oh no. And then suddenly he's able to
• 5:05
  walk away completely squat free apart from having a few cuts in
• 5:08
  his head. Yeah, well, 1960s television,
• 5:12
  yeah, but tea time, Tea time television.
• 5:14
  Yeah, yeah, he shouldn't have survived that explosion.
• 5:18
  Tea time television with a bit of blood I'm seeing.
• 5:20
  Oh yeah, yeah, there's quite a bit of blood in this.
• 5:24
  What do you think then, Lizzie? Do you think this ends well?
• 5:26
  I think so because there's one, there's a, one big reveal left
• 5:29
  to come. And also the pressure, the, the,
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  the, the virtual pressure, the implied pressure is building
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  because Astrid has just discovered what's happening and
• 5:40
  Swan is dying really nastily. And so she's found out what's
• 5:45
  happening and she's promising to get the people up from
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  underneath Salamander. The doctor is in trouble because
• 5:55
  Bendick knows, knows that something fishy is going on.
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  So he's, he's tried to get him to sign a bit of paper and he
• 6:02
  won't sign a bit of paper. And then he says, oh, the door
• 6:04
  to the records from his jam. Can I have your key?
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  Oh, what a fool. I must have left it in there.
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  So he, he, the doctor is scrambling because he's, he's on
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  to it. And basically, so you've got
• 6:15
  underneath Astrid's undermining Salamander's plan.
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  But on the surface, the doctor's in trouble too.
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  And there is the the big the last big reveal to come.
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  Yeah, whoever said it was right about Astrid being basically the
• 6:28
  regular in the story, because she's the one that goes down.
• 6:30
  She's the one that discovers it. Or normally that would be the
• 6:33
  companions. But Sarah?
• 6:34
  An invasion of the dinosaurs. She had a real meaty rule in
• 6:37
  this. But I think it works in this
• 6:40
  because she's already in on what's been happening.
• 6:44
  She's there. She was already there and she
• 6:46
  didn't know about the underground base and obviously
• 6:49
  Kent have been keeping some of the stuff from her, but she
• 6:51
  already knows about Salamander. She knows that the disasters
• 6:55
  have been happening. So you should.
• 6:56
  So it's and also we which which would you send, Jamie or
• 7:01
  Victoria? And then you're leaving the
• 7:03
  other one alone. What is odd as well is that the
• 7:10
  last set piece is in the TARDIS. Like how the hell does
• 7:13
  Salamander know about that? How does he know where it is?
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  There's a lot of unanswered questions.
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  There, he just wanders into it. It comes, it's it's just near
• 7:21
  near where he comes out after the explosion.
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  I think that. Absolutely, the set piece is so
• 7:25
  good. I don't.
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  Care. Where does it?
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  Yeah. How does he get the Doctor's
• 7:30
  costume? Yeah, yeah, who knows who.
• 7:34
  Knows who cares? Who knows, at some point in this
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  story they had to do which doctor is which, right?
• 7:40
  But at some point, yeah. And they do it really well.
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  And the fact that it's Kent that's been trying to convince
• 7:47
  the doctor to go in, and then it's the doctor that Dukes Kent
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  by pretending to be salamander at the end.
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  Yeah, that's fabulous. Tasty, isn't it?
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  Oh, we'll, we'll come to it. It's brilliant.
• 7:59
  That's all. But with with us finding this on
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  the kind of shelter is great. Yeah.
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  The door opens and then they just all appeared at the doors
• 8:08
  at about 10. Just Oh no.
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  Who are you? There's a lot of the extras
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  watched on this is I find myself for for Kettle finding myself
• 8:17
  when I'm watching the stories back focusing on quite a few of
• 8:19
  the extras. And there's somebody in
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  particular coming up where they all come out with the the sticks
• 8:25
  and try and hit her and one or two of them does look like yeah,
• 8:29
  that they've just they just look so interested.
• 8:32
  Let's see a couple on it. I've just yeah, yeah, OK, I've
• 8:38
  got a stick. Yeah.
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  But that's. What he's married doing.
• 8:43
  She's trying to get, she's trying to make them.
• 8:45
  Stop and they won't. There was one woman at the end
• 8:47
  there that was just. The blocking there was very
• 8:52
  awkward. Wasn't.
• 8:54
  It you must be carrying radiation, what and.
• 8:59
  What were they going to do, kill her with the sticks?
• 9:01
  I mean, yes, yeah, it's. Just mad and a Doctor Who is
• 9:06
  mad. It's the equivalent of going up
• 9:09
  in your attic, you know, to find something and there's a whole
• 9:11
  civilization up there thinking, you know, what the hell would
• 9:14
  you say to them? Yeah, that was the other one.
• 9:16
  Then actually just goes, I don't believe her, you know?
• 9:20
  Yeah, but then again, in Invasion of the Dinosaurs you've
• 9:22
  got, we looked into it very carefully.
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  I sold my house. Oh, I love that.
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  You know, he comes back again in robot.
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  He's the fellow from the Scientific Reform Society.
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  You know the. One that's right on the door it
• 9:36
  came it. Also came back to me with the,
• 9:38
  that, that massive cruise ship that people were going to live
• 9:42
  on for months. And then it turned out to be a,
• 9:46
  that they hadn't got the money to, to run it or it was a scam.
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  And I, and, and there was a bit in the paper about some people
• 9:53
  who had unfortunately invested in it.
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  I'm afraid that chap came back to me then as well.
• 9:57
  Like, we looked into it very carefully, OK?
• 10:01
  Yeah, I mean, we've seen this before the the the meter because
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  he says in there. So he seems to know that that's
• 10:09
  the meter, but he's they then completely oblivious.
• 10:12
  I should figure that out in one second seeing the going into it,
• 10:16
  but yeah. But they've been lied to because
• 10:17
  he said that Colin and what's her name, Mary, the other the,
• 10:23
  the, the young woman that they were, they were teenagers.
• 10:25
  They were children when they went down in the bunker.
• 10:28
  So they've trusted that the whole time.
• 10:30
  Yeah, but they've seen the mirror.
• 10:33
  Yeah. But every time somebody steps
• 10:35
  into it, they've come from upstairs.
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  So they think that it's radioactive because it just goes
• 10:40
  up, because it must do, because there's radiation upstairs.
• 10:43
  I think I think they're a bit naive.
• 10:49
  Oh, they are completely naive, aren't they?
• 10:51
  Yeah, I don't know what someone had been popping those bubbles
• 10:54
  on the walls. Did you see a load of?
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  It there was a couple of them, yeah.
• 10:59
  Irresistible, I tell you. What do you think is sort of the
• 11:02
  most outrageous hoax, then? The spaceship in Invasion of the
• 11:06
  Dinosaurs, the nuclear bunker in Enemy of the World or the Willy
• 11:12
  Wonka experience in Edinburgh. Was it?
• 11:19
  Was it Glasgow? Was it Glasgow?
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  Who was the Glasgow? Sorry, I just wanted to bring
• 11:26
  that up. Yeah, I mean, that was terrible,
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  wasn't it? I devoted the pleasure, but they
• 11:30
  became celebrities, the food that were in that.
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  For a week that's all I saw were on social media.
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  That poor woman dressed as an Oompa Loompa.
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  That's it. We must confront the man who
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  started this face to face. Here we go.
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  Now, suddenly, Charles Kent's on the scene.
• 11:48
  Yeah. See and that's a different set
• 11:50
  one, find the evidence. Or is he going in there to do
• 11:53
  something else? Barry Letts has kept a bit of
• 11:55
  money back Daniel for episode 6, you know.
• 11:58
  Just to give it a little bit more.
• 12:00
  And there's a tiny bit of location work, isn't it on the
• 12:03
  beach right at the end as well? Yeah.
• 12:05
  Yeah, yeah. Oh.
• 12:06
  What? And at night as well.
• 12:07
  I can't even remember. Pardon.
• 12:10
  Does Bennett die? No.
• 12:12
  I don't think. So no, I think he's just sort of
• 12:14
  like arrested and. Yeah, yeah, he probably.
• 12:17
  Deserved a good death. What's about you?
• 12:22
  They could have shoved him down that massive shaft that Lucy was
• 12:25
  going on about, couldn't they? Or short, I'm like he did to
• 12:28
  fit, like he's guarded to fear. But maybe that's just a bit
• 12:32
  blood force to me. You remember when that that void
• 12:35
  fell down that hole in. They could have had a shot of
• 12:38
  Bennett going down the shaft. Oh, here we go.
• 12:41
  Yeah, I. Love this.
• 12:43
  Bit Giles Kent, what are you doing here?
• 12:48
  The doors and now. Now the mask has slipped.
• 12:53
  And this is a great performance as well because he has been so
• 12:56
  amiable throughout and. Now the mask.
• 12:59
  Has slipped. It was a slight edge.
• 13:01
  Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah.
• 13:05
  Look at the smile on Trout's face.
• 13:10
  Got friends? We're going to fix you once and
• 13:12
  for all. So what was the plan?
• 13:16
  The plan was to create all the disasters and what they were
• 13:20
  going to share the world the two of.
• 13:21
  Us yes, yes yeah and Kent got got aged out or got greedy or
• 13:26
  something and. Oh, he's pulled out a gun.
• 13:33
  Yes. Again, I was about to say
• 13:35
  there's no regulars in this, but yes.
• 13:41
  An X structure alloy. You totally scratch the surface.
• 13:45
  Was that pretty man again, Dave? It was, yes.
• 13:48
  You realise you're dispensable? I think he's off in 5 minutes.
• 13:55
  Gone off him a drink. We're all watching now.
• 14:01
  Yeah, he's so. Good.
• 14:02
  The great, great. Scene Yeah, they're breaking
• 14:04
  down the door. They're breaking down the door.
• 14:09
  And you need a big confrontational episode, Yes.
• 14:13
  And you need to to find out exactly what he's he's not
• 14:16
  cutting. Yeah, that's what happens.
• 14:17
  Because look, Bennick, Bennick and Bruce are now working
• 14:20
  together. Yeah.
• 14:21
  That's a hell of us, but. I got 1 minutes.
• 14:23
  He's got there. Do you see that?
• 14:24
  Yeah. It's like that bit in The Full
• 14:26
  Monty where they're watching Flashdance.
• 14:28
  And there's a big gun there. You slap that one in there.
• 14:37
  It's entirely accidental. I sure oh of.
• 14:39
  Course it has, yeah. When does Trout this master?
• 14:44
  I thought it was sooner than this.
• 14:46
  Any minute just after after Bruce's.
• 14:48
  I know where this leads to your little bolt.
• 14:51
  Hole and what he needs, he needs him.
• 14:53
  To he needs him to show him the exit and that there's a gun.
• 14:58
  Here we go. Yeah, the hands.
• 15:01
  Varies that as soon as the hands come up like that.
• 15:04
  Playful. They're Clint in the eye.
• 15:06
  Look at that face. Yeah.
• 15:07
  Oh, I'm afraid it is. That's.
• 15:08
  Just good. There's tenantism and family of
• 15:11
  blood to be distressed. There's another surprise that
• 15:14
  Astrid knows now, because they've told her.
• 15:17
  They told her that the man who sent them down there was Giles
• 15:20
  Kent. Giles Kent, Yeah.
• 15:21
  Yeah. And now he just becomes like a
• 15:24
  wanted man, doesn't he? Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:29
  So that's the real salamander. The real Salamander watching,
• 15:31
  Yeah, he's. Like, Oh well, never mind, Mr.
• 15:37
  Kent. Fortunately, there's a way off
• 15:43
  out of this sticky situation for Salamander that just happens to
• 15:46
  be a time and spacecraft on the beach.
• 15:48
  Yes, funny that. That's the shot I always see for
• 15:52
  many, many about him holding the gun up to trap his.
• 15:54
  Head Yeah, yeah. The doctor's saying that he
• 15:56
  never trusted him. Yeah.
• 15:58
  Because. He because he was.
• 16:00
  To murder. Yeah, he was too keen to kill
• 16:02
  people and when people died, he didn't.
• 16:07
  Maybe Salamander knows about the TARDIS because when Jamie and
• 16:10
  Victoria were being interrogated, they told and he's
• 16:15
  seen the report somehow. I don't know.
• 16:18
  He's seen the report of the interrogation which mentions the
• 16:20
  TARDIS, and so that's what did they mention?
• 16:25
  I don't know. I.
• 16:26
  Don't remember but. Retro, you know, retroactively
• 16:29
  sort of sorting something out nearly 60 years after it, after
• 16:33
  it happened, do. You know, it's no wonder Tram
• 16:35
  was exhausted after making. Oh yeah, there's not a scene
• 16:38
  he's not in. No, exactly.
• 16:42
  Oh, and there's the we went there.
• 16:43
  No, he completely slipped his master.
• 16:46
  Please don't arrest me. I demand a fair trial.
• 16:49
  I demand a fair trial. What a nasty little man you,
• 16:53
  which is what everyone's been saying.
• 16:56
  Never mind when you're in prison, you might get a decent
• 16:58
  haircut. I demand a fair haircut, Yeah.
• 17:00
  Yeah, listen, call it as well. Oh, that was a better run there.
• 17:09
  Oh, yeah. Where's the author?
• 17:10
  He's going back to talk to the doctor over the screen.
• 17:14
  Kent is going to try and blow us up.
• 17:17
  That swagger stick does make him look very efficious, doesn't it?
• 17:20
  Yeah, go to term rather nasty in a minute.
• 17:23
  It's doctor with understatement. Yeah, maybe this this is a
• 17:27
  problem. Look, we've got like 6 minutes
• 17:29
  left to go and there's so much. To save up at this point, yeah.
• 17:34
  But it needs to keep all the parts moving so you don't know
• 17:37
  exactly where everyone is because you you, you need to not
• 17:41
  know where everyone is otherwise.
• 17:43
  I must have missed it, but where was Salamander?
• 17:46
  So he was already. He was.
• 17:49
  He was elsewhere in the base because he was watching Kent's
• 17:53
  cover being blown on a screen and then he went round and he
• 17:57
  saw Kent escape and now he's gone to meet him.
• 18:01
  So is he already there when Astrid went in?
• 18:04
  I can't remember. He was, he was somewhere in the
• 18:07
  base because he'd he'd come up through the tunnel, he'd killed
• 18:10
  Swan and had gone back to do whatever it was he was going to
• 18:13
  do. Oh, right.
• 18:14
  Yeah, Yeah, that's it. Thanks.
• 18:16
  Two big villains. So he shoots Ken, doesn't he?
• 18:19
  So that's Ken. I mean again, I mean.
• 18:22
  Just right in the shoulder blade and he keeps going up.
• 18:27
  We see some blood again in a minute When?
• 18:29
  You saw a lot of blood in that's running you.
• 18:31
  Want to get away from and he doesn't shoot him out right,
• 18:33
  does he? No, he, he, he wounds him and
• 18:36
  then sort of starts to chase through the tunnels.
• 18:39
  Talamander obviously forgot that where the switch was because
• 18:41
  he's laughing and saying, yeah, yeah, you know, But then seems
• 18:45
  to the deaf go, all right, he's actually got the switch that is
• 18:48
  going to blow everything up. He seems to forget that that's
• 18:50
  where he's going. That must have been a very light
• 18:53
  rock that he just pushed there or it's on a hinge or something.
• 18:56
  Well, it was a hinge because it was his escape, his escape
• 18:59
  route. Oh, right in the GAR, Yeah.
• 19:04
  Long before and look at this. Lingering shot, people say say
• 19:08
  Wazira's nasty. But that's what you get when you
• 19:11
  get good actors as well. Yes.
• 19:14
  Who could play convincingly like the actor who, like you said the
• 19:17
  actor who played Swan was very convincing.
• 19:19
  He was exclusion, it says in subtitles.
• 19:22
  They scream and they do. Everybody could try ice the sets
• 19:27
  falling about the place. Yeah.
• 19:29
  Oh, you can't. Maybe where the budget lets them
• 19:30
  down just a little bit. You can't beat a bit of set
• 19:33
  falling over. No.
• 19:34
  Yeah, living Jabber Light, nothing sells.
• 19:39
  It's that hand sticking arm you can see on the screen, so
• 19:42
  Charles Kent's arm sort of sticking out of the rubble.
• 19:45
  Because they said, they said, they said that they could see
• 19:47
  Salamander and Giles and that they were dead.
• 19:49
  So Salamander's been stunned by the explosion and Giles has been
• 19:54
  killed because. You see at this point, the whole
• 19:56
  lot underground, they still need to be saved.
• 19:58
  We've got like 3 minutes left to go, yeah.
• 20:02
  So she quickly has to say to the doctor, right, OK, I'm going to
• 20:04
  go down there and get them out. You'll get them out somehow.
• 20:08
  She and what's his name, Douglas, are going to get them
• 20:12
  out. Who the hell did you say?
• 20:14
  Someone just threw that bit of rocker.
• 20:16
  Yeah, it's the ceiling coming down.
• 20:18
  On the styrene. It's Barry Letts.
• 20:23
  I don't know though. Do you know, actually under
• 20:26
  consideration? I think I would have pushed back
• 20:28
  some of these revelations and had a more relaxed ending and
• 20:32
  seen some of these people off, I think.
• 20:35
  Yeah, it's rushed. It is very.
• 20:37
  Rushed. Well, it's rushed when we spent
• 20:38
  most of episode 3, you know, doing the recipe for Kaiser
• 20:41
  pudding. I don't mind.
• 20:45
  Again, what another great scene this is.
• 20:47
  It's very exciting though, there's so much incident.
• 20:50
  But I thought you were never coming.
• 20:52
  Salamander doesn't seem to open his eyes.
• 20:53
  He doesn't have the doctors costumes well.
• 20:55
  It's the, it's the light from the he's, it's the light from
• 20:58
  the Tardises. Yeah.
• 21:00
  That's a nice. Shoot, I think it was in space.
• 21:01
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really unusual.
• 21:04
  He's just been exploded. I think is this the first?
• 21:11
  Yeah, this is the first talk because we're they just landed
• 21:12
  on the beach, Didn't they came? Out.
• 21:14
  Yes, yeah. And then you just saw them get
• 21:16
  you saw Sure. The Doctor.
• 21:22
  Doesn't leave it. He's not acting very surprised.
• 21:23
  He's keeping it. He's surprised very subject.
• 21:26
  Yeah. I'd see a box that's bigger on
• 21:28
  the inside every day. He's.
• 21:29
  Trying, well, he's, he's just trying to keep her, keep her.
• 21:33
  Head in, keep his cover. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:36
  None of it really makes any sense.
• 21:37
  You said we were never to touch. That it's.
• 21:39
  Quite right, Jamie. Yeah, look at this.
• 21:43
  This is technically very competent.
• 21:45
  I see. It's really good.
• 21:48
  Is it on film? Yeah, yeah, it's on film.
• 21:52
  And isn't this like in just two telly snaps?
• 21:55
  Like before we saw this in full. I think it's in two telly snaps
• 21:59
  which is just criminal. Barry Letts says in his
• 22:02
  autobiography he was given the wrong information about how to
• 22:06
  suit shoot two people to split the screen.
• 22:10
  Which is why it's only right at the last minute that you only
• 22:13
  get that last sort of shot between the two of them, I
• 22:16
  think, and that's why it was done on film as well.
• 22:19
  Oh, watch this bit. Look.
• 22:20
  And he's sucked out. It work.
• 22:23
  It really works though doesn't? It Yeah.
• 22:25
  Even I haven't been sucked back dramatically before.
• 22:29
  And there is. What's the brink?
• 22:31
  And look, it looks like he's off to a gay disco.
• 22:33
  I don't know what's going on in the time vortex there, but it
• 22:35
  looks very Titusly. And then we kick into Weber
• 22:40
  fear, don't we? Then all go.
• 22:42
  Yeah, that's the, that's the the beginning of the what's?
• 22:45
  Up next. Am I talking absolutely sure?
• 22:48
  Did Salamander appear in a book or something that that he
• 22:51
  survived? So am I just talking nonsense?
• 22:53
  I don't know. I'm not.
• 22:55
  I don't know either. Although the novelisation of
• 22:59
  this by Ian Marta is very good, is even more brutal than this is
• 23:03
  in parts. That was Ian Marta, wasn't it?
• 23:06
  With his books. Sorry.
• 23:08
  African space, wasn't it? It's just very graphic.
• 23:13
  It contained the first swear word ever to appear in Doctor
• 23:16
  Who. Does anyone know what the word
• 23:17
  is? Damn, no or bloody.
• 23:20
  No. It's a word beginning with B.
• 23:23
  Yeah, it was B There was the B word.
• 23:24
  Yeah. Bastard.
• 23:26
  Wow, I know. How did that get past the
• 23:31
  sensor? But then you know.
• 23:33
  You mentioned JNT there with his red pen.
• 23:35
  No, take it out, take it. Oh, we're not having that.
• 23:38
  Oh. What a fun having this.
• 23:40
  Episode 6. Well, I mean, I've got one last
• 23:43
  question to ask you all, and that is to identify your free
• 23:48
  fabulous things to read. That's right.
• 23:50
  Dave hasn't prepared. He's looking.
• 23:52
  I'll go to you last then, Dave. All right, Lucy, you're good
• 23:56
  with improvisation. What's your first?
• 24:01
  Patrick Troughton, of course, in either role.
• 24:05
  It's funny when you say, Oh no, the doctor's not in this bit.
• 24:07
  No, of course he isn't. But Troughton is, and he's
• 24:10
  playing it to the hilt and he's clearly having a tremendous time
• 24:13
  doing it. But unlike some things that you
• 24:15
  watch where you get the impression that the participants
• 24:18
  are having more fun than spectators, in this he drags, he
• 24:21
  pulls you along with him because Salamander's got a real edge.
• 24:25
  He's a really nasty piece of work, but he's enjoying it
• 24:28
  tremendously. And the difference between the
• 24:32
  Doctor impersonating and the Doctor being the Doctor.
• 24:36
  And just in this last episode where he's flipping backwards
• 24:39
  and forwards between the two of them.
• 24:40
  And at some points you don't know which ones, which, never
• 24:44
  mind the people in the room don't know you don't know which
• 24:46
  ones, which. It's fabulous.
• 24:48
  So yes, Patrick Troughton. Daniel.
• 24:52
  I'm going to say episode 1 because, and it's simply going
• 24:57
  back to when it was recovered back in 2013 and we'd sort of
• 25:00
  written this story off as being very, very dull to be confronted
• 25:05
  with pretty much a first episode all on film, very dynamically
• 25:10
  short, very, very, very action-packed, but also with
• 25:16
  some very good performances and some lovely scenes between with
• 25:19
  Pat, with Trouten and Mary Peach, with the little scene
• 25:22
  where he's clearly flirting with her.
• 25:24
  And then we had the introduction with Giles Kent.
• 25:28
  I just it just completely blew my mind that after seeing, you
• 25:32
  know, episode 3 for so many years, that this story was so
• 25:36
  much better than than anyone had anyone had told us.
• 25:40
  And again, it's it's down to receive and wisdom that this is
• 25:44
  no, this was the this was the weak story of the season when in
• 25:47
  Azteca. I think it's one of the best.
• 25:49
  And that episode 1, you know, it's clearly Barry Letts is
• 25:53
  making his mark as a, as a fairly new director.
• 25:56
  I think at that point, because he'd been an actor, absolutely
• 26:00
  sells it. Yeah, definitely episode 1.
• 26:03
  Dave. The actor who plays Colin?
• 26:06
  No, but. He just, he is great.
• 26:10
  He's entertaining, yes. Is Shakespearean.
• 26:13
  There's 2 Collins I've just realised he's Colin.
• 26:15
  A common name in the future. And in Australia as well.
• 26:21
  Mainly Peaches ushered as we've discussed.
• 26:25
  She's really like the main guest understood this.
• 26:29
  And right from the first woman you see her taking off in
• 26:33
  helicopters and, you know, flirting with Patrick Trout and
• 26:37
  she gets to fight loads of Bennett's men.
• 26:39
  She discovered she has so much to do in this and she carries it
• 26:42
  off. It would have been interesting
• 26:44
  if they had got her to stay longer, but I suspect she was
• 26:47
  quite a big name even then. I think so it probably wouldn't
• 26:51
  have happened. But yeah, she must have got that
• 26:54
  script in fault. Yeah, I've got a big, big role
• 26:57
  in this. And yeah, I mean, did she not do
• 27:00
  the with the Recon the like the reduction tale or something?
• 27:06
  Yes, yeah. Yeah, she's still alive.
• 27:11
  Worth out of her in this story. She was alive when this was
• 27:14
  recovered, wasn't it? She's alive, yeah.
• 27:16
  There was an interview with her. Yeah, they go to her house.
• 27:18
  She's, I think she's still, I think she's still with us.
• 27:21
  I think she's still with us. Yeah, like huge.
• 27:23
  Fondness for this. Oh, Can you imagine if you were
• 27:26
  her and you saw it back? You hadn't seen it?
• 27:28
  Yeah, I. Mean he's lying.
• 27:30
  A helicopter karate chops firing a gun.
• 27:34
  Amazing. My first one is Faria.
• 27:39
  You've got to see her. Because it is.
• 27:45
  It is unusual in classic Who to have as many strong women in a
• 27:49
  story. It's even more unusual to have
• 27:53
  women of colour having strong roles in Doctor Who and whilst
• 27:57
  they do fall down the rabbit hole of killing the character
• 28:01
  who is a person of colour off, they give that moment huge
• 28:05
  pathos. And so I I just think that's
• 28:08
  really impressive for me. That's that's David Whisker
• 28:12
  through and through in the he sort of bucks the trend and does
• 28:18
  his own thing. So yeah, Maria, fabulous.
• 28:20
  Character and her performance is on a par with well, I don't want
• 28:25
  to patronize, of course I don't. But yeah, she, she, she's as
• 28:28
  much a whole character as Astrid is.
• 28:30
  Coleman Monroe makes Faria interesting.
• 28:33
  You want to know about her past. You want to know how she got
• 28:36
  where she is and what what it was that the whole that
• 28:40
  Salamander had over her and why she hates him so much.
• 28:43
  And you never actually find that out.
• 28:45
  But you leave. She leaves us wanting to know
• 28:48
  more about her, which is surely the ideal for most characters.
• 28:52
  Plus, I'll say a line all the time.
• 28:54
  Sometimes we do what we have to do, not what we want to do.
• 28:58
  Although I do put on the accent sometimes as well.
• 29:01
  Back to you, Lucy. OK, well I was going to say her
• 29:05
  so that, sorry. That so was I.
• 29:09
  Which just proves what an impression she makes in the
• 29:11
  role. OK, horrible Milton Johns then,
• 29:19
  because he's he's reliably horrible, except when he's being
• 29:22
  an astronaut. But he's, he's just, he's one.
• 29:26
  Of those people. He's just gullible, but he's one
• 29:28
  of those, one of those actors that when you that he, he's cast
• 29:32
  to do what he does and he does it really, really well.
• 29:35
  And like we've been saying, there's a lot in this which is
• 29:39
  unusually threatening in a slightly more real way than
• 29:48
  usual. Like not a big monster
• 29:52
  threatening to eat somebody or a Cyberman pointing a gun at
• 29:55
  somebody when guns obviously don't want guns pointing at
• 29:59
  people. But he projects real menace.
• 30:03
  And it's realistic menace. It's menace that the audience
• 30:07
  can identify as being genuine. And he's just horrible in the
• 30:12
  part, but he does. It shows how good he is.
• 30:14
  That all the way through you're thinking, Oh no, not you again.
• 30:18
  So many of these sort of henchman characters, they're
• 30:20
  convincing bullies, but he's convincingly sadistic.
• 30:25
  That's quite hard, too. I think we're out sort of
• 30:28
  playing it out. Yeah, Daniel.
• 30:32
  I was going to say, yeah, I was going to say for it, but I'm
• 30:36
  going to go for the the sets. I think some of them have fairly
• 30:41
  basic, but there's a, a scale to them and there's, it's a
• 30:44
  different, just one of the, I noticed when we were watching
• 30:48
  episode 5 and 6, there was a little, there was a corridor,
• 30:51
  which is probably very basic, sort of flats, but actually was
• 30:55
  very well lit and very well sort of photographed.
• 30:58
  So designers, a guy called Christopher Pencil.
• 31:02
  I don't know if he did any other doctor, Doctor Who stories, but
• 31:06
  it gives it a sense of scale that not everywhere looks
• 31:08
  exactly the same. And you don't have, you know, in
• 31:12
  some Doctor Who stories, you have sets that are redressed as
• 31:16
  one set to, to, to, to become another.
• 31:19
  But these are all fairly different.
• 31:22
  And you know, you've got the, the, the big sort of like the
• 31:26
  being the inside of bubble wrap in Salamander's underground
• 31:30
  layer. And the, the, as I said earlier
• 31:31
  about the layer, but the, the main Chamber of that is fairly
• 31:35
  quite high up. And there's only one bit where
• 31:38
  Barry let shoots it from from a low angle and you get to see the
• 31:41
  the height of it. So yeah, I think it's it's.
• 31:44
  He did. Blake 7.
• 31:46
  Oh, did it? Pencil.
• 31:48
  Yeah, just looked him up. Which?
• 31:50
  1. I'm just trying to find out he
• 31:52
  did the bot. He did Borchester Chronicles
• 31:58
  unfortunately. Oh he one episode in 1978.
• 32:02
  I wonder if it will tell me which one.
• 32:05
  That's the first. Project Avalon.
• 32:07
  Oh, an early one, yeah. Which one is that again?
• 32:12
  It's the one with the disease. It's the one in the caves, Yeah.
• 32:15
  It's the one they've partly filmed in Wookie Hole, so yeah.
• 32:20
  Also the memoirs of Sherlock Holmes peak practice.
• 32:23
  A very peculiar practice. Oh, I've just watched by the
• 32:27
  Sword, Divided Sons and lovers. Play BBC Two Playhouse and play
• 32:32
  for Today and and and others. Yeah, so quite.
• 32:35
  Perfect. To anybody, go watch a very
• 32:38
  peculiar practice. It is terrific.
• 32:41
  Dave, back to you. I'll go for David Whitaker's
• 32:45
  script. I think he's one of the most
• 32:48
  underrated writers and Doctor Who.
• 32:49
  I mean, he's we've we briefly talked about his stuff in the
• 32:53
  Heart and all yours but an Ambassador.
• 32:57
  David's a totally different story, obviously.
• 32:58
  But yeah, I mean it. It takes a story which is
• 33:03
  totally different to the rest of the season.
• 33:05
  It travels. You basically travelled the
• 33:07
  whole world, don't you? You go from Australasia to
• 33:09
  Central Europe. Pure fault in this world
• 33:12
  dictator. And it's it's got big scale to
• 33:16
  and yeah, just putting in that support about our secret on
• 33:20
  their own base. It's just what an idea that is.
• 33:26
  Yeah, I think it's, I mean, I've not read the book, but I've,
• 33:29
  I've heard this, you know, it was when he's talked about
• 33:33
  earlier. Yeah, it's a goody.
• 33:35
  I I was stuck at an airport and for hours and hours, and I tore
• 33:39
  through it in a couple of hours sitting in a cafe.
• 33:42
  And it really stresses. That's the nastiness of, you
• 33:48
  know, of this time period. And yeah, it's quite violent in
• 33:51
  places. I was sort of reading it,
• 33:53
  thinking if I was a kid I'd fucking lap this up.
• 33:56
  Yeah, I remember listening to soundtrack and thinking actually
• 34:00
  rather liked it. I mean, a lot of people said,
• 34:01
  oh, it's boring or it's dull or whatever.
• 34:03
  But I do remember listening to soundtrack and thinking it's
• 34:05
  actually got something about it. But when seeing it, of course
• 34:08
  it's like a totally different experience.
• 34:11
  But yeah, I think it's and it's great to see the in the polls
• 34:17
  since it came back, it's just went.
• 34:20
  Right up. Yeah.
• 34:22
  My next one then, is going to be Barry Letts, who I think this is
• 34:26
  obviously his first step into Doctor Who.
• 34:28
  And he can be so often completely off the boil with his
• 34:32
  opinion, right? I think he's a brilliant
• 34:34
  creative. He's so hard on this story, and
• 34:37
  he says he didn't get any of it right.
• 34:39
  And he's a bit embarrassed. And actually, he doesn't mind
• 34:42
  it's missing because he doesn't want people to see it.
• 34:45
  And that's a real shame because I think he does great work here.
• 34:47
  The first episode, like you said, Daniel, which is really
• 34:50
  dynamic, I think he casts impeccably.
• 34:53
  There's not a performance out of place.
• 34:56
  Even those two down in the bunker, you know, they're doing
• 34:58
  what they need to. And I think, I think he gives
• 35:03
  the actors a lot of space in this to, to do what they do
• 35:06
  best. He gives he's good with a close
• 35:08
  up as well. Yeah, he gets all the moments
• 35:11
  right. I think there's a lot of high
• 35:12
  drama in this. There's a lot of pathos and
• 35:16
  there's a lot of action, and he does it all really well.
• 35:18
  So Barry Letts. Yay.
• 35:21
  Unfortunately, we are once more around the wheel.
• 35:23
  Lucy, off you go. I know.
• 35:26
  OK, so this is sort of related to, well, it is related to what
• 35:30
  they've just said and you just said.
• 35:32
  But the extended, I think that splitting the regulars apart in
• 35:36
  this works really well because it gives you a sense of the
• 35:40
  breadth of the story and breadth of geography that it's covering.
• 35:45
  So you've got the Doctor Who's very frustrated and he's stuck
• 35:48
  with Giles Kent, who he suspects more and more as time goes on.
• 35:52
  You've got Astrid, who has become effectively a member of
• 35:56
  the team that the regular team because she's driving the plot.
• 36:01
  You've got Jamie and Victoria. Jamie is very proactive.
• 36:05
  He infiltrates Salamander's lair, for want of a better word,
• 36:10
  more or less by himself. He gets Victoria in.
• 36:13
  She's not quite so proactive because she's a a Victorian
• 36:18
  young lady who's never peeled a potato in her life.
• 36:20
  But she, you know, she goes for it gamely.
• 36:22
  And she So I think, I think just dividing them and having them
• 36:26
  all have their own little store, their own parts of the plot
• 36:30
  really makes you realise how much is happening and over what
• 36:34
  wider scale it's happening. And so bringing it and then
• 36:37
  bringing in the underground base as well in the last few
• 36:40
  episodes, because of course there has to be some kind of
• 36:44
  scientific bobbins explanation for it.
• 36:46
  It's Doctor Who assuming that it's all humans rather than than
• 36:51
  aliens. So yeah, I think I think the
• 36:54
  decision to to give Jamie and Victoria their own part of the
• 37:00
  plot to carry on was really good.
• 37:02
  And they both shine in it. Daniel.
• 37:06
  I'm going to go and I'm breathing a big sigh of relief
• 37:09
  because I was worried that Lucy would go for this one, which is
• 37:12
  Bill Kerr, because as we've said, happiness.
• 37:17
  He's a, it's a very, very good performance.
• 37:19
  And even right at the start, he's quite morally ambiguous.
• 37:24
  He is, you don't know if you do trust him.
• 37:27
  And I can imagine that when it comes to that twist in Episode
• 37:30
  6, probably some of the kids would be going, oh, wow, he is a
• 37:34
  villain. And there'll be some there'll be
• 37:36
  some some grown-ups going. Yeah, I knew it.
• 37:39
  Yep. So so it's a nice pay off.
• 37:41
  They they do seed it that he's he's not, you know, that scene
• 37:46
  in Episode 4 where where he says were you going to kill him?
• 37:49
  Well, what else do you expect us to ask you to do with him?
• 37:52
  And, you know, there's a very strong bit of the Doctor's
• 37:55
  character coming through, which of course, being David Whitaker,
• 37:58
  doesn't surprise us. He says that I'm not, I will not
• 38:01
  be his executioner. And the.
• 38:03
  Doctor's making sure as well by that.
• 38:05
  Point he. He's already knows, and he's
• 38:07
  already started asking questions.
• 38:09
  But when he asks the question, he gets that answer.
• 38:11
  That's it. That's it.
• 38:12
  He's he's very well aware of what what's going on.
• 38:16
  So yeah. And like, like we've said
• 38:19
  before, he's it's completely different to his character in in
• 38:23
  Hancock's half Hour where he's playing the very, very, very
• 38:26
  thick Bill who sort of, you know, the the colonial, you
• 38:31
  know, idiot that that Hank, this foil for Tony Hancock.
• 38:34
  And you know, Bill Kerr went on to, I mean, it was a very big
• 38:37
  name in the 60s, went on to have a huge career as one of those
• 38:40
  actors very much in that Australian cinema.
• 38:44
  He would be sort of the Australian version of Donald
• 38:46
  Sutherland wouldn't be the big star, but in the, you know, in
• 38:49
  the credits you would get and Bill Kerr.
• 38:51
  So you knew he was bit bit sort of, you know, Donald Sutherland
• 38:54
  or Judi Dench, you know, so give that, give the part, give the
• 38:57
  the whatever it is, the film or the the the TV series, just a
• 39:00
  little bit more of a bit of an extra bit of can't think of the
• 39:05
  word now. Just Ludos.
• 39:08
  Ludos, thank you very much. Thank you.
• 39:11
  So, yeah, I I'm going to go for Bill Kerr.
• 39:13
  He. Certainly gives this production
• 39:16
  a bit extra kudos. Very.
• 39:17
  Much he he makes it convincing, he's a convincing character.
• 39:22
  In a in a part that could quite easily be quite histrionic and
• 39:26
  with a lesser actor you would be totally convinced that he's a
• 39:30
  wrong and straight away. But with Bill Kerr's
• 39:32
  performance, there's light and shade and he's got the
• 39:35
  character's got a sense of humor, even if it is quite, you
• 39:37
  know, cynical and sardonic. So you're you're sort of on the
• 39:41
  back foot really as to whether he is or not a goody or a
• 39:44
  baddie. It is really an embarrassment of
• 39:46
  riches this course, isn't it? I'll obviously trout the sort of
• 39:49
  dominating the whole thing, but everyone else has got space to
• 39:53
  do their thing, Dave. Oh, I'm struggling there.
• 39:59
  Even the minor characters in this.
• 40:01
  I mean, going on about that guard again.
• 40:04
  No, it's going to bring him up later, but no, like there's so
• 40:07
  many just so-called smaller parts.
• 40:10
  Like in the first part, you've got the two guys in the the
• 40:15
  what's the word? Hovercraft.
• 40:16
  Hovercraft. That's it.
• 40:17
  Thanks. And they play that believably,
• 40:20
  you know, like it's him, I'm telling you.
• 40:22
  And then of course, in part in episode 3, you've got the the
• 40:26
  our famous kook and you've got the you've got the chef and
• 40:29
  you've got Danish played by George Brava and even the the
• 40:34
  guard in that. And there's another cute guard
• 40:36
  in that episode I remember. And then yeah, OK, the extras
• 40:41
  and the underground are a bit rupee, but OK, that
• 40:48
  Shakespearean do this still add a nice touch to the so it's even
• 40:52
  cast the minor parts very well as what I'm getting at.
• 40:55
  Well, even those two girls we talked about in four, wasn't it
• 40:58
  when Freya died and they had. Yes.
• 41:02
  You know, discussing that as well.
• 41:03
  Well, you sort of kind of touched on my last one there,
• 41:06
  but I'm going to give him a bit more focus.
• 41:08
  Of course, it is the greatest character ever to appear in
• 41:11
  Doctor Who. Griffin, the chef who is kind of
• 41:15
  there to to basically just kill some time in episode 3 and do
• 41:21
  some sort of comic release scenes.
• 41:23
  But actually I think he does show you somebody who's kind of
• 41:26
  a nice bloke stuck in this very unpleasant situation where we
• 41:33
  are under Salamander's thrall and just the lines he gets, you
• 41:37
  know, what's it? What's this Bush up called?
• 41:39
  Kai's are pudding. Oh yeah, that's great.
• 41:42
  Peel those spuds. Yeah, now he goes.
• 41:46
  It's it is kind of remarkable. 1 episode turn where you shouldn't
• 41:53
  remember that character. He's the fucking chef.
• 41:55
  And yeah, if I said to when you're Doctor Who fan, you
• 41:58
  remember Griffin the Shed, and they will all remember him, you
• 42:01
  know. Oh God, what's he saying when
• 42:04
  he's under the table? Why did I ever leave?
• 42:06
  Well, I'm alive. Yeah.
• 42:10
  It's great. Oh dear.
• 42:11
  Well, I think we've ably proven over five months and three hours
• 42:17
  that enemy of the world, it's not the weakest story in Season
• 42:21
  5 and that there is an embarrassment of riches to be
• 42:25
  found there. And it is climbing that pole for
• 42:28
  a reason. Yeah.
• 42:30
  What I would like to ask you all is obviously we've moved away
• 42:33
  from our usual planet of the format for this foursome.
• 42:38
  Where are we heading next? Was that agreed or not?
• 42:43
  Agreed earlier on I think. It was, Yeah.
• 42:45
  Someone say it please. Well somebody mentioned a giant
• 42:49
  pussy. I don't even watching the The
• 42:53
  Goodies episode. Kitten Kong.
• 42:55
  Or perhaps we might be watching Planet of Giants.
• 43:00
  Featuring the most absurd scene ever where they're all screaming
• 43:04
  in that receiver. Can you hear me going to be
• 43:10
  doing Planet of Giants and we're cutting our episodes to count in
• 43:14
  half, but I'm sure we'll be able to knock that out in one
• 43:17
  evening. But I think it's going to be a
• 43:20
  lot of fun. I mean I'm are there any
• 43:23
  detractors or Planet of Giants here?
• 43:25
  I liked it. No, I've always Really.
• 43:28
  Oh. That's too good.
• 43:33
  No, I, I think it's yeah, I think it's, yeah.
• 43:35
  It's good fun. And you've got those four
• 43:37
  regulars who are always good, good value, and the sets are
• 43:41
  fantastic. But I'm glad it's only three
• 43:44
  episodes, not 4. Well, I was going to ask you all
• 43:47
  to just do a little bit of extra homework actually, and watch
• 43:51
  Episode 4 on the DVD just so we can sort of talk about what
• 43:56
  might have been, OK. OK, OK, Isn't it just a cat?
• 44:01
  I can't remember. That much?
• 44:02
  About it but. If one looked like I was asking
• 44:06
  him to do something terrible, then you know I'm only asking
• 44:09
  you to watch it. Ian Levine, Reconstruction.
• 44:12
  All right, thank you so much for your time.
• 44:17
  It's been a hell of a recording. Let's just say until next time.