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Talks to Paul Quinn about his choice of Ghost Light (1/3) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

0:22
None Hamster with a Blump pen knife
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for doing quicker, quicker, quicker.
0:40
Welcome back to Hamster with a Blump Penknife, the Doctor Who
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commentary podcast. I am here today, a returning
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visitor from his meteoric success with Resurrection of the
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Daleks, the the most bile written commentary yet done on
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Hamster, Mr. Paul Quinn. How do you feel?
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About that oh, I, I, I It's a badge of pride, Joe.
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It's a badge of pride that I was able to prostitize the sheer
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shitness of resurrection of the dionics.
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Do you know I got, I got message from Toby Hado the day that came
1:13
out. Consider that a badge on it
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because he doesn't often get in touch and say I at that guy's
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great. But I also got a message from Cy
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Hartwright who loves resurrection of Dallas and loves
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Davidson. And he goes, I disagreed with
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everything he said. He goes, he's brilliant.
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What a brilliant podcaster. So you're appealing to the
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masses both ends. Yeah, there you go.
1:34
This one may be less so. This is a bit trickier.
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This is a less populist text. I think that we're going to look
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at the stand this evening. What, you don't think this is a
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popular story? I know populist as opposed to
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populist. OK, OK.
1:47
Well, OK. Well, I better say what we are
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talking about today, and that is the three-part I consider
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Classic from season 26 where the show's getting his act together
1:58
just before the chop comes down. When did you first watch this?
2:02
At the time. At broadcast, but I didn't see
2:06
the second episode. I was rushed to hospital the day
2:08
before it was shown with the appendicitis and I didn't have a
2:12
chance to set the video. And my parents, God love them,
2:14
couldn't work a video. So it was about 10 years until I
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saw the second part. But that's why I don't
2:20
understand people go. I don't understand the story
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because me as a what would I have been 12 year old, not quite
2:26
too over. I saw the first part and the
2:28
third part and pretty much understood the story just for
2:31
those two parts. And then I read the book as
2:33
well. And when it came out a year
2:34
later. I mean, I would go as far as to
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say that you are smarter than the average human being.
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I don't think I'm out of line saying that, but I also think
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the answers are there if you want to go looking.
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Interestingly, on the DVD, Andrew Carmel actually does
2:50
spell out the entire plot, and there was a few pertinent
2:53
details that I've been missing of these years.
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But I mean, I've got, I've got the sense of it.
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I, I, I'm one of those people they refer to who think the the
3:02
ship has been there for a much longer period of time.
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But actually when when you think about it it it can't have been
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because the tunnel to it they they didn't build the tunnel to
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the ship. They built the tunnel to the
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cellar and then the ship landed there.
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I'm not convinced by this argument that light left and
3:18
then and then just I brought the ship back.
3:20
That doesn't seem to quite sit with what you're told because
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the survey isn't complete, but it was notoriously and as he's
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made clear on the commentary and in the the documentary and in
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people who've written about this, this is a script which is
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edited to the bone because it overruns and there's so much in
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there and and it's such a rich script.
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It's the greatest scripts of the 1980s.
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You'd go that far. Oh.
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Absolutely. I I I adore this script.
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You know this will be a love fest.
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People will be getting sick by by the end of this.
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This is my my loving with this script, as opposed to the
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resurrection which is dog shit. They never have so far, You
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know, we've had Lovings. Well, explain yourself why is
4:01
this the best script of the 80s before we even go into any
4:04
detail as we watch it, I. I I I adore McCoy.
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Anyway, McCoy was when I started watching Doctor Who properly, my
4:11
my first Doctor would be Peter Cushing.
4:13
In the In the Dark. Yeah.
4:15
In Dark, in which I absolutely adore.
4:18
I love that film beyond reason. I I it's a Burn of Cribbins is
4:23
awesome in it the Daleks are amazing.
4:26
Andrew Kerr is in there. It's just it's brilliant.
4:29
That film is a it's a brilliant adaptation of what's a good
4:32
script but it gets rid of some of the roping bits like the
4:35
slither. So then I start watching Off you
4:37
properly 24. The time of the run is an
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interesting jumping on point which would tell you that your
4:42
your critical factories aren't great.
4:44
But I I adore this run. I I I absolutely it.
4:48
It's brilliant. And then and this is a script
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that just grows on you. Yeah.
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As a kind of tedious humanities lecturer who spends his life
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with literature. This is the most literate script
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I think since sans of Wen Triang and there's a clear relationship
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between those two texts. But it's better in terms of Wen
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triangle I would suggest. I've got two questions for you
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then before we go in, I know editing is an issue in this era.
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That is why we've got special editions where there's
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effectively like an entire episode.
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I don't think this is that badly, as you know.
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I think there's about 10-15 minutes of admitted scenes, but
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like Kirsten Fenrick could have gone to five I think, and Silver
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Nemesis probably could have gone to 4.
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Do you think that's an issue in the era, like all pertinent plot
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points taken out in favour of like the spectacle?
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No, I think they've got over the UC claim.
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Didn't Jonathan Turner that he would he would take bits out of
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scripts that he thought was holding things up and then the
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scripts are under run and then things have to be added to the
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scripts. And Cartwell I think says that
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Jonathan Turner didn't understand scripts, but by this
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point he does understand them. And obviously I mean, I mean if
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you when you've read the production Diaries since.
6:00
I have, yes. Thank you very much.
6:03
Hartmore does the intro to that and the in script Doctor which
6:06
of course is the text we referred to before And there's a
6:09
kind of Carmel does position himself in a central position
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which he is in but he always very good towards Jonathan
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Turner. I think.
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And I think the argument that after the prices of 85 after and
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you know if you read the production Diaries and I would
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urge all your listeners who if they haven't done you could just
6:30
see how bad things have got in that production team and you get
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a sense then by you get to 2425267025 and 26.
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Jonathan has stuck there. He's not getting the envelopes
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of cash from America. Random's kind of turned on him
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and now he's making a program with someone he can work with.
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I think that's crucial. I think Carmen is a great script
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editor. I think he's he's brilliant on
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those. When he turns up on
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documentaries, he's so generous. He knows this stuff and he
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brings a political edge to it. And what's also interesting in
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this run is you start to see these two headed scenes which
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look like something from contemporary drama.
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These people bring in a theatrical sensibility.
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But he never feels theatrical in a way that people complain that
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Colin Baker often feels theatrical.
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What they mean by that is it feels stagy and that he shouts a
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lot. McCoy doesn't really do that.
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And what what's significant in this program in particular goes
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like, how he turns down some of those tendencies, You know, it
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it looks amazing. Yeah, it's it's beautiful.
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It's the final production that the classic series it's.
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It's the last one, isn't? It it's the last one filmed it
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TV and and boy do they go out on a high because the the point
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they make there in the commentary is BBC weren't really
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doing costume drama at that point.
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They kind of this is before Middlemarch, before Pride and
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Prejudice and that that great return to the genre in in in the
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mid 90s, they kind of turned away from it And so the costume
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design is the second they really go for it and it looks awesome
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and there is a point there that and the pseudo historical, you
8:02
know as opposed to the pure historical as if there's such a
8:04
thing as a pure historical in Doctor Who because there's
8:06
always an anachronistic element in it which is the Doctor and
8:08
the TARDIS and the companions. But once you know in this slide
8:11
makes that weird decision to to drop this pure historical with
8:15
the Highlanders you get the emergence of the Suda historical
8:18
which is the dock to the TARDIS and some other anecdotic element
8:22
which had been introduced really in in the chase but but clearly
8:25
in the in the time meddler. But you don't get that many of
8:28
them. If you stop and think about it
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there aren't that many of them. Time.
8:32
Warrior. Time Warrior.
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Pyramids of Mars. Talis a wing.
8:37
Shang or a Fang? Rock You have to jump forward
8:40
into Davis and revisitation which isn't very good.
8:42
King's Demons, who's been very good and this and what?
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And and you get kind of faux pseudo historicals under Graham
8:49
Williams, so you get androids. What does Mark of the Rally
8:52
fall? Marco Rally Marco What that's an
8:55
interesting where they do come back to it and and that's the
8:58
kind of model that you see new, who picks up on that you go back
9:01
to the historical. Celebrity historical with yeah.
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Yeah, exactly. You have a famous figure there,
9:06
So Stevenson there, Dickinson, Unquiet did Doctrine a single
9:10
companion. That's the model, weirdly
9:11
enough. They've gone back to season 22
9:13
for that model. But when you look at the list of
9:15
the pseudo historicals, there's some big, big episodes there,
9:19
which is why I think we have an idea that it's it's a more
9:23
prominent genre than. Because they're stand out
9:26
stories. They're the ones we remember.
9:27
Yeah. Do you like go back to Carmel
9:30
for a second? I always feel like whenever he
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talks about JNT, he's very aware of his flaws, like he's aware of
9:37
where he's been with Eric Sayward and he's aware that he
9:40
doesn't really want to be there anymore.
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But he's just so happy that he's actually taken a chance on a
9:46
young script editor who is then bringing in completely new
9:50
writers. And he's basically saying, look,
9:52
just do it, you know, I'll budget it.
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I'll bring in some great actors. It's almost like by taking the
9:59
foot of the pedal a little bit, by relinquishing the control a
10:03
little bit. Suddenly, like the creativity of
10:06
the show, it can breathe. You get here what they always
10:11
claim they wanted, which they couldn't get, are writers and
10:15
new writers for the show They have Once you get overtime, the
10:18
Rani and and you like time and the Rani.
10:20
I like time and the Rani, hilarious Pip and Jane Baker
10:23
kind of relics from the past. But they can turn a script in,
10:25
as you've said before, they can turn a script in.
10:28
It goes from A to B to C to D and it does the job.
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I think, you know until Pip and Jane Baker come in, I don't
10:34
think anyone's right for kids really.
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And they remember the kids and then as we go into lots of
10:39
through 24 that is a a complete season that you could put an
10:44
intelligent 6 year old down in front of and and let them watch
10:48
it. I think, I think the run of
10:50
races Wyatt is awesome. Didn't J&T say that is it?
10:55
Is it one of the episodes of of Don't The Bannerman is the worst
10:58
script he's ever read, which is amazing given that he's there
11:01
for time lapse, Because don't Bannerman is a beautiful, it's a
11:04
beautiful story, and it's a it's a it's a mature story about love
11:08
and loss, but it's also a story, children.
11:09
Can watch and Delta is the blueprint for the new series.
11:13
It's shot in Wales. It's got an emotional element to
11:16
it. There's a relationship drama in
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there. They throw some aliens in as
11:20
well. There's a musical number.
11:21
I think Russell Davis was paying attention.
11:23
It's fabulous. I love it to bit.
11:26
I always did. And you know Gavrock really
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gives the McCoy a villain to face off.
11:32
I I like Richard Breyers in Paradise Towers.
11:35
I can see the problems with it. I can also see that in the
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script is different to what turns up on on the screen.
11:42
Kane is 1 where everyone looks to for for the villain in
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Dragonfire. Dragonfight is the weakest of
11:46
those 3. I think it's the the the least
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interesting script when you get into 25, even even something
11:53
like Silver Nemesis, which on one level isn't very good, but
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it's a fun story and it's what lady painful and she is awesome.
12:00
To. Destiny, the problem was it's
12:03
the same plot line as Remembrance of the Daleks, and
12:06
you can't get away with that in a in a season.
12:09
She brings it up at the end. Yeah, she.
12:11
I know. She's very subdued, isn't she
12:14
then? Just like you nailed the Daleks.
12:16
Please don't remind us of that, OK.
12:19
Mix me on the Daleks. Me but look and and my and my
12:23
and my and my record player or whatever.
12:25
He's Duke boss and I'm so old. What is it?
12:27
Gabo Blaster. Like they blew that up as well.
12:30
Don't match. Always fine with like.
12:33
I always think about McCoy as like Doctor Who.
12:36
That would work amazingly as a comic.
12:39
There's like loads of great imagery that would look great as
12:42
comic panels, You know, turn the page and there you've got, I
12:45
don't know, the freezer centre in Ice World or that creature in
12:48
the pool in Paradise Towers. You know, the Navarino's going
12:52
through the the crazy thing before they get on the bus, and
12:55
that's just 24. I actually think in terms of
12:58
comics though, isn't he? He does think of in terms of
13:01
Watchmen and 2000 AD, So it would work like that because
13:04
they're thinking those terms as well.
13:06
Basically enough I feel this one.
13:07
Ghost Light is the exception there, where as a comic this
13:12
would actually look a little dull.
13:14
But as ATV production, as done by the BBC, who are experts at
13:19
this sort of thing, Gosh, it's gorgeous.
13:22
It's it's undercast. The cast is incredible.
13:25
I mean, you're listening to commentary.
13:26
The other potential cast, Michael Caine is mentioned.
13:29
Harry Enfield. Brenda Bland.
13:31
Michael. Caine, Michael.
13:32
Caine. Yeah is light.
13:35
Oh no, please. I'm thinking it would make
13:38
different choices, I think. But it's phenomenal.
13:41
The the the casting is just so assured in this and it looks
13:46
incredible and the regulars are brilliant in it.
13:49
Absolutely. I adore it and and even though I
13:52
did spot an issue with it last night when I was rewatching it,
13:54
but I I love it a bit. Oh, I can't wait to see what
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that is. OK, I've got one last question
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then before we go in. Because we should go in and that
14:01
is, how much is this story stroke this season, responsible
14:06
for the series of books that came after season 26?
14:11
Because I think you can see all the seeds here.
14:14
I I think you can see in the television programme and you can
14:16
see it in the, the books that they produce in the back of the.
14:19
I think Remembrance Curse of Fenrick and Ghost Light as well,
14:24
yeah. I I think in particular Cursive
14:27
Fenrick because it it's it's different sources.
14:31
It's not a straight narrative so it's different it's different
14:34
texts are there so historians account a translation of a
14:37
Norwegian text in the 9th century.
14:40
The way it's structures really interesting.
14:43
Briggs moves this song into into quite an interest not Briggs.
14:49
Platt moves this on into quite an interesting direction.
14:51
Some of this and, and you know, Ben Aronvich has gone on to have
14:55
a successful career as a novice. He can write his issues with
14:58
deadlines and transit goes into some difficult places.
15:02
That transit was kind of a necessary novel, but the
15:04
transition is here in this season and in the books that
15:07
come immediately after that. This season, I think, is really
15:10
pointing the direction for the new adventures.
15:12
I know. You're going to tell me you like
15:13
transit, aren't you? It pains me to say I've got to
15:15
read it over for Christmas because I'm doing it in January
15:18
for the book club. I do quite like transit.
15:20
I mean, I think, I think at the time it's a difficult rate, but
15:24
I think you can see why it's a necessary text, I think and
15:27
certainly you know Aaron, which he's thinking in terms of the
15:32
established chronology of the show and where he can go with
15:35
it. So of course you get left with
15:37
Stewart's descendants and you get this future Earth, which
15:40
kind of has links back to to Malcolm Polk's vision of Earth
15:44
in the era that we've spoken about before.
15:47
So I think this, yeah, I mean, there's the, there's the
15:50
counterfactions of what would season 27 have looked like
15:53
following this, But it sounds very similar to what we got with
15:56
the New Adventures anyway. And of course the other
15:58
counterfactuals is the possibility of a season that was
16:01
produced by Cartmell with Mark Platt, script editor and Ben
16:04
Aronovich's advisor. Enticing, isn't it?
16:08
It's the great. It's the great what?
16:09
What could have been? But the trouble is, is when they
16:11
had the chance to realise that, which was about 20 years later
16:16
when Big Finish did season 27, I don't think it would have been
16:19
because what they're talking about here on documentaries and
16:22
what they produce there as audios, there's a world between
16:26
them. So I think they're sort of
16:28
misremembering what they were going to do.
16:30
It's a shame, because those stories are actually pretty
16:31
dull. I don't.
16:33
I don't think it was as established as they've later
16:37
suggested. I think it was far more nation
16:40
as to wouldn't it be good to do this because the number of
16:43
stories that they're talking about is beyond the number of
16:46
episodes they would have had And you've also, I presume McCoy was
16:50
going to leave at the end of the season.
16:52
After his fourth year, yeah. But so if your order is also
16:55
going to be written out, so you structurally it's quite
16:57
difficult and they're meant to introduce the gangster who's
17:01
meant to be the regular friend of the doctor.
17:04
Oh, rain, yeah. But also you've reestablished
17:07
unit in such a successful way in Battlefield was.
17:09
Again, Battlefield was another story that I loved a bit and
17:12
I'll defend to my dying. That's another great novel as
17:15
well. Mark Platt takes hold of that
17:16
and he gives it layers. I'll tell you what though, I do
17:19
think I I appreciate, I admire the ambition of the new
17:25
adventures, but I think a lot of the time it's the ideas that
17:29
they are forming here taken to an extreme because there's
17:32
nobody keeping them on the leash.
17:34
So they they go to really dark places and you know, the kids
17:37
are completely left behind there.
17:39
I like it here, though. You know where they're stuck
17:42
within the constraints of the television show, so they can
17:45
have the Dark Doctor, the master manipulator.
17:47
How he mistreats Ace. Or it is, I don't know, what was
17:53
he doing? Training out to be a timed lady
17:56
or something. That's what he's meant to me.
17:57
Of course this is an an initiation test for initiative
18:00
test, isn't it? But Sandifer argues that you
18:04
read this as a repeat of what happens in Eve of the Daleks,
18:08
that they're in a Victorian house and the Doctor puts the
18:11
companion to the test for two different reasons.
18:13
And of course, you've then got that idea that actually this
18:16
manipulative, small dark haired Dr. that painful seems to be
18:19
referring to in Silver Nemesis is McCoy.
18:22
But it's also Patrick Trout. It's the version of Trump we
18:24
tend to get. Because of course fandom is
18:26
strange when when, when when Trump comes back in three
18:29
Doctors. That's a very different version
18:31
of the Doctor. If you go back to late season 4
18:35
bits of season six he's a far different character and he's not
18:38
this kind of clownish figure messing around with with Jon
18:40
Perk. We who then comes back persuade
18:43
to come back for for five dots and then then two doctors.
18:46
So there's a centre which says that's that's a.
18:49
Point The idea of Patrick Troutell and Fiona Walker
18:52
locking horns. Yeah.
18:53
Oh, that sounds amazing. There's.
18:56
There's clearly the BI generation much earlier on.
18:58
There's a different version of the 2nd that's popped out, or
19:01
it's the 6th, A or 6B, whatever that version is.
19:05
Or just like Multiverse. But here is here is that type of
19:11
sinister Dr. But it's McCoy. The the McCoy Doctor we see on
19:16
TV is different, I think, to what we see in the new
19:18
adventures and that terrible run thing.
19:20
He moats around the tiles in his.
19:22
Yeah, we talked about that, didn't we?
19:24
End of annoying. And it's not really McCoy.
19:26
McCoy can do morose. He does it, but he can turn like
19:29
that because that's that's the nature of Mccoy's performing.
19:32
He's this kind of mercurial figure because he's got that
19:34
really detailed background of physical comedy.
19:39
And when he was on vision on, you know, the the proto.
19:42
Tony Hart, when he's putting ferries down his trousers with
19:46
Ken Campbell, who's of course the other great lost doctor
19:49
because Ken Campbell's up for this.
19:50
But he's just too weird and too out there for for John.
19:52
Nathan Turner. But McCoy?
19:53
McCoy, he's, he's, he's Leah's fool in Britain's version of
19:57
King Lear. He's he's got this amazing
19:59
background to him and people kind of dismiss him because of
20:01
the way. I did.
20:03
I did. Stories.
20:04
These three things. I've gone on a journey with
20:06
McCoy. I used to really find him a bit
20:09
embarrassing or I used to call him like a dangerous performer
20:11
because he just goes for it. And that means he's either going
20:14
to really work well or sometimes he goes over, you know, a bit in
20:17
survival. Is there screaming?
20:19
Don't move. And you're like, oh, please shut
20:22
now. I just love the eccentricity of
20:25
him. I love how wacky he is.
20:27
And I I like how bold he is as a performer.
20:30
It doesn't always work. I think this is his best
20:32
performance. By a country mile, by a country,
20:35
I mean remembrance and great show in the Galaxy and this.
20:40
You'd put them in the top three for the 80s.
20:41
You'd probably put them in your top three for classic food, and
20:46
they're probably the top three across all of whom certainly
20:49
this and and yeah, yeah, the three of those three or three of
20:53
the greatest stories in .2 of all time.
20:56
Whirlpool. Somehow we've taken a whirlwind
20:59
tour around season 6B, the entirety of Classic Who, The New
21:02
Adventures, and by Regeneration, so we're completely up to date
21:05
as well. Should we go and watch Ghost
21:07
Light episode one? We covered a lot there.
21:12
We're gone. Count as in. 3.
21:18
Oh, I love doing this with you. You're the only one who knows
21:22
this stuff more than I do, you know?
21:24
We. Started. 1st We we learnt
21:27
together, didn't we? You know, long conversations
21:31
there when you used to come round at the end of college or
21:33
when I'd rock over to you. Long video I can.
21:36
Still, remember you reading out synopsis of the programme guide
21:40
and making some of the dreariest Doctor Who stories sound
21:43
incredible? Yeah.
21:45
Yeah, And then you saw Underworld and you went to
21:47
Paul's right Underworld. He's awesome.
21:49
No. Then I read the book, yeah, on
21:51
my recent podcast. And I said Paul was right.
21:54
He's. A great He is a great.
21:57
Yeah, just take away the director, OK, here we go.
22:02
We're going back to 1889. 1883, yes, OK.
22:08
Yes. The only piece of location work
22:09
in the entire thing. Which they filmed when they were
22:12
doing survival. OK, so that is in Paravel.
22:17
No, no. It's where they go to Dorset for
22:19
playing the cheap people. Yes, yes, yes.
22:21
Sylvia Sims. Sylvia Sims chilling, isn't she?
22:26
Brilliant, wonderful music. Marquez, interesting on on the
22:30
commentary, says that he was trying to fill in some of the
22:32
missing plot or some of the missing scenes with the music.
22:35
You're trying to make the music tell part of the story as well.
22:38
It's one of my most listened to soundtracks for Doctor Who I I
22:42
can just listen to. You know that bit where
22:43
reference is going out with the gun?
22:45
Yes. And that crazy sort of tribal
22:47
music is playing. I bloody love that.
22:50
Of the times, Well. Oh, Mrs. Grace.
22:54
Was she supposed to have a bigger part?
22:57
I'm not sure, but of course the the name is meant to make you
22:59
think that she leaves this and goes to the house and turn the
23:02
screw because it's the same name as the house people so she's
23:05
kind of locked into haunted houses and and Victorian
23:11
psychodrama tell. Your master, Paul, that the
23:14
Reverend Ernest Matthews has arrived.
23:18
Dean of Moores House College, Oxford, with his fierce and
23:22
mutton chops. So what is he doing?
23:25
Is he just going around places debunking, All scientific?
23:28
He's been in the novel. He's been invited by Josiah
23:33
Samuel Smith because he's an Oxford Don.
23:37
You're meant to think that he's been a witness to the Oxford
23:40
debates in the 1860s between Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley.
23:44
Aldous Huxley, grandfather, who's Darwin's bulldog and that
23:48
they've gone at it over Darwin's series of evolution which do
23:51
absolutely rock the foundations of Victorian society.
23:55
That you can no longer necessarily believe in a six day
23:58
creation. And and that man has always
24:00
been. And so you're meant to think
24:05
that he's come from that that background in the novel, which
24:09
is expanded on his role, that he's gone after Smith in.
24:12
In print, he's read Smith's theories, and he sees him in
24:15
London. There's a very odd scene where
24:17
he goes to Covent Garden and he sees Gwendolyn in the box and
24:20
there's a shadowy figure behind her because he's kind of, he's
24:22
kind of infatuated with Gwendolyn.
24:24
He calls her his Angel. Oh no.
24:26
He in his monologue, in his interior monologue, he goes for
24:28
us as his Angel. And then of course when she
24:31
approaches him in his last scene, you get the reference to
24:34
the Angel again. Of course it's ironic.
24:35
And you can see in the change in the costume how they're playing
24:39
with this notion of what happens to Gwendolyn or what Gwendolyn's
24:41
revealed to be. I love the fact that this is a
24:46
haunted house story because we just have the scene there where
24:48
she's like, you know, my dears, we won't stay here a moment
24:51
longer and haven't helped anyone who does.
24:53
You know After Dark, which is a fabulous line, but it's it's a
24:56
whole in house story, the lives of which I have never seen
24:59
before or since. Be close on the lock, of course,
25:02
is significant because they're now then they're trapped in the
25:04
house because in in in. In part, this is about Victorian
25:09
treatments of the insane, hence the references to Alice in
25:13
Wonderland. The only time I've seen a a less
25:15
subtle post up on a lock you know is The X-Files episode
25:18
Home, which is exactly the same thing I remember you talking.
25:23
To me about that before, I hate that episode so much, I loathe
25:27
it so much. Let's talk about that for
25:29
hamster extra, yeah. All these stuff has some lovely
25:33
William Morris wallpaper there. So absolutely at the height of
25:37
beautiful shot there, that's a replay, but unconsciously of a
25:40
shot in Bengston Varos, I think. There's so many allusions to
25:44
Ace's childhood, isn't there? Throughout her run school trips,
25:49
you know, blowing up The Art Room.
25:52
We just sketch her in in a way that we don't with so many
25:55
companions. It's a mark of how different
25:58
things are now that this is a, this is a proper companion with
26:00
with a life and have passed and a pass has impacted on and has
26:04
made the person that we have here this kind of damaged figure
26:08
in a way that we learn very little about other companions I.
26:12
Really. Like how they bring in the race
26:15
element, you know, the white kids firebombed it.
26:17
But I think it's very easy to laugh at now.
26:20
Yeah, people watching this now. It's it's part of a whole
26:26
discussion about race that Carmel is introducing it because
26:28
you know, famously he said what would he do with the job he
26:31
wants to bring down the government and and.
26:34
He didn't quite achieve that, but.
26:36
I mean, the government, she she does just outlive the show by a
26:41
year or so, doesn't she? Here we go.
26:44
Read this. Thing.
26:44
Oh, it's Michael Cochran. I've recently done black
26:47
orchids, you know. Black or is is kind of rubbish.
26:54
You've gone silent. I love it.
26:58
The the shock. A lady you're barely dressed, I.
27:02
Mean he's He's essentially playing the same part isn't.
27:05
He always plays the same part. Everything he is, he is the
27:07
poshest man on television. But if you want that type of
27:10
figure. But what's interesting here is
27:12
he's, he's playing the same type, but he's not.
27:15
It's it's a kind of dissection of a notion of a particular
27:18
Victorian figure because this is a program the text which is all
27:25
about evolution but it's set in a period in late Victorian
27:31
England where they're concerned about devolution or the possible
27:34
you can degenerate. And So what happens at the end
27:37
when controlling Josiah swap over is really playing to fears
27:42
in Victorian society. So here is Red First, the kind
27:45
of imperialist figure he's emerging from, like King
27:50
Solomon's minds, Alan Quartermain, that type of H
27:52
writer haggard stuff. And we'll get the reference to
27:55
Conan Doyle as well and and and The Lost World.
27:58
But actually what happens to him is really significant in terms
28:02
of that he gets locked in that room.
28:04
You know, it highlights the asylum motif in this.
28:07
And in the end, he goes off with these other beats and he.
28:10
Shakes off himself, does he? Because I never really liked
28:12
Redfuss anyway. Yeah, he talked about himself
28:14
too much. Yeah, he kind of gives up on the
28:16
on the on the kind of figure that he's created of himself.
28:19
And so what's interesting is how this is a text about male egos,
28:24
Redfur's Ernest Matthews and Josiah Samuel Smith.
28:28
And what's interesting on on that commentary is, which I'd
28:32
missed before, Redfur's misunderstand.
28:35
Josiah misunderstands Victorian society.
28:37
He thinks because he's a Victorian gentleman, he's at the
28:39
top of society and thus he can knock over Queen Victoria.
28:42
He doesn't understand the wider society beyond the house that he
28:46
puts it over at the top of the power structure in the house,
28:48
but he doesn't realize about the power structure beyond the
28:50
house. But because the fact is about
28:52
killing, Queen Victoria is all about these concerns, fears
28:55
about the decline of of the Victorian Society.
28:58
Well, he literally thinks without the invite he can't do
29:01
it. Doesn't.
29:01
He's appalled when that invite goes into the fire.
29:04
It's partly about the the the the script is a a joke about
29:09
that type of polite society. So of course then the the big
29:13
joke is what's in the soups arena at the end, and you read
29:16
those two dinner scenes back-to-back.
29:20
That is one of the best lines in the entire show.
29:24
It's it's so well done. It's so dry.
29:26
Here we go. Chinese.
29:28
Chinese firing piece of throwback to towns when trying,
29:30
which is the other text. You have to read this alongside,
29:32
of course. Here we have our very smart
29:35
Neanderthal Nimrod. Which means Hunter, of course.
29:42
Or silent brutes, not silent. Now because we know that, but at
29:48
the time he wasn't quite clear what they were saying, because
29:49
Notoriously is an issue with the soundtrack in this as well and
29:52
that the the mix isn't quite right.
29:54
And well, you say about the mix, this now is I love the music
29:57
here, but times when you can't hear what he's saying.
30:01
Yeah, the mix is he's like as talks about that.
30:04
There's a problem with the particularly the 2nd episode.
30:06
Look at McCoy and Aldred as a couple here on screen.
30:10
Like they've just got it, haven't they?
30:12
Absolutely adore this pairing and and that's why I have issued
30:16
the new adventures, because they don't seem to get it.
30:18
They do want to come in some abusive.
30:21
Because you take away the one thing that makes them work,
30:22
which is the chemistry between the actors.
30:25
Yeah, I mean, Sophie, she's not the greatest action as well, but
30:27
but what she, what she can do, she does really well is she's
30:30
really good in this. I I have issues with her audio
30:34
performances because I I don't think she gets the balance quite
30:37
right. And I do think McCoy, like I
30:39
said, can go either way. But there's some magic where you
30:42
bring them together and there's there's sparkles.
30:45
When when I saw the first of The Hobbit films, which I quite like
30:49
actually. I know you're not meant to, but
30:50
I, you know, particularly the open scene is epic in a way that
30:52
cinema really is. When when McCoy turned up, I
30:54
could feel tears pricking. That's how exciting the mood I
30:57
was to see him on the big screen in that type of doctorate role.
31:00
Did you watch the Monsters movie?
31:02
Did you feel the same way there? The Monsters movie.
31:05
Yeah, he turned up in that as well.
31:07
I don't. I don't reduce.
31:08
I I hate the cinema. Yeah, she's got, she's got a
31:11
line there, which I use all the time.
31:13
This is like an asylum with the patients in charge.
31:16
I love that line. But again, it's part of what
31:19
it's doing, because what this seems to be using.
31:22
So the references to Alice and the dinner party comes into
31:25
play. There's a really good young
31:28
academic, young German academic called Francesca Cult.
31:31
She spoke for us at an event about four years ago.
31:34
She's up at Leeds now and she does work on Lewis Carroll and
31:39
that in the Victorian period they used to do fake tea parties
31:42
in asylums as a method of treatment.
31:45
So of course the hackers tea party in Alice in Wonderland is
31:49
that. But there's a sense which the
31:50
dinner parties, the events around the dinner, that's a
31:53
version of this here. But the issue is there's no
31:56
doctor until the Doctor Who turns up in this.
32:00
That's what I think is going on in in in this and you know
32:03
Nimrod the because talking about the crisis or an investigation
32:06
into crisis around Victoria masculinity, Nimrod is the
32:09
figure who's died out that they bring out of stasis.
32:12
He's the effective male figure in this.
32:14
But of course because of the power structure he's working for
32:16
Josiah. But actually, this is the figure
32:18
who works for the Doctor. Picture Queen Victoria there.
32:23
I could just listen to you all day, do you know?
32:28
Young lady, because what else is coming into play here?
32:30
Which is why they dress in the dinner jackets.
32:35
It's meant Burlington, Bertie. But actually there's there's
32:38
something deeper to that because this is also the period this
32:40
1880s going into 1890s and then into the 20th century.
32:44
He's the period of the new woman and like the appearance of the
32:48
suffrage movement and and this essentially first wave feminism
32:52
and the concern about what happens if if women obtain these
32:55
kind of liberties massage asked what will happen to them And so
33:00
there are very famous cartoons of women with beards talking
33:06
important things and the men sitting down and that's all come
33:09
into play in this I think. So when they what's interesting
33:12
on the commentary, of course J&T ensures that Katherine
33:16
Schneisinger has Gwendolyn and Sophie have to have their hair
33:19
down so that they still weren't. We can't, so we haven't quite
33:24
got there still. No, no, not quite, but I think
33:27
exactly what. Happened in the war, isn't it?
33:29
Is the same thing again that fear of the women.
33:32
What the hell are the men going to do when they come back?
33:35
I mean, if you look at the First World War, the unions are
33:37
particularly vociferous about stopping the women going into
33:40
the factories because what would they do was admit and the
33:42
policing of women's bodies in the First World War is
33:44
absolutely shocking. So there's there's there's
33:47
accounts of women who lose their pensions because they're
33:50
suspected of being prostitutes, they lose the pension and they
33:52
have to become prostitutes. It becomes kind of.
33:55
And then in 1918 it becomes illegal for women to give men
33:58
VD, even though the massive VD epidemic in the British Army is
34:01
the soldier sleeping with prostitutes in France and
34:03
Belgium in the VD. They blame the women.
34:07
Yeah, Ian Hogg. Ian Ian Hogg is brilliant in
34:10
this. I mean, Ian Hogg is awesome
34:12
anyway, and I think Rock Cliff's Babies is on at this point.
34:15
So he was playing the kind of detective with a young group,
34:18
and then he got to do Rock, Rock Cliff's Follies.
34:21
Did you ever hear his other Doctor Who performance?
34:25
Is a big finish. It's a sad man for Big Finish.
34:28
Yeah, it's a Colin Baker story where his voice is heavily
34:31
treated, but he's phenomenal. He's yeah, for sure.
34:36
He's one of the great mysteries in this, of course.
34:38
Why? Why is that?
34:39
Why is there a bit of light in the box?
34:41
I mean, it's a great scene and it's really playing to that
34:43
horror state, but he doesn't doesn't really quite make sense.
34:46
I've never really understood it. But we haven't had really scary
34:50
imagery like this in Doctor for some time, have we?
34:53
No, I mean they are. They are kind of bringing it
34:56
back. I think all the business around
34:58
the crypt in silver Nemesis is suggesting where it's going to
35:01
go. And then of course the crypt is
35:02
empty. There's a kind of rug pudding
35:04
Mags turn into the werewolf, even though the makeup's not
35:08
quite good enough, but it is bringing that kind of back in.
35:11
Well, when's the last time you feel we had an atmosphere as
35:13
thick as this? You know I don't tangible
35:15
atmosphere like this. They want, they want to do it in
35:19
paralyzed towers. I think it.
35:22
Could have been done in Paradise House, couldn't it?
35:25
I think and. I suppose greatest show, but
35:28
it's so bright that. That that these kind of killing,
35:33
I think some of the scenes are Sophie ordered in the in the
35:35
caravan with bellboy. That's right.
35:38
But then of course, and then there you have this and Castle
35:40
favorite back-to-back. So they're really leaning into
35:43
it. And I know it's a survivor as
35:46
well, I think. It's like remembering what the
35:48
show does well. Or or or a kind of half
35:52
remembering and then producing it for now.
35:53
Because that's really what they've done, isn't it?
35:54
Is people who've stopped watching the show in about 1981
35:57
and they go back to season 14 in particular.
36:00
I think that notion of transformation, of course,
36:02
because that's a key homes in motif.
36:04
You start to see that turning up in in this run of the program as
36:06
well. Yeah, that on the dinner jacket.
36:10
And drag them away in the Thunder, of course, because what
36:12
else do you have in a haunted house story except that?
36:15
And of course it's working on so many levels, this and that.
36:19
That's the intertextuality. You know, it's Dracula, it's
36:22
Jiggle and Hyde, it's The Time Machine, it's Darwin.
36:26
And so it's working on so many different levels.
36:28
And it seems to recall when you were talking about towns of
36:30
Wayne Chiang, you know, you threw in a ton of references of
36:33
things. That hose wasn't leading to
36:34
there. They're all here.
36:36
They're. Again, it's something that who
36:38
does well, borrow the sources, utilize them.
36:42
And and of course it's it's our awareness as an audience of
36:45
those sources that helps to construct this world and that's
36:50
why and you can hear it can't Mel can't really not convinced I
36:53
think by some of the alien worlds are produced in in the
36:55
period that he's working the show but the period pieces so
36:58
the 50s the 60s and this in particular the Second World War
37:02
they really do it well and the they become alien world far more
37:06
effectively than the actual alien worlds we go to by all.
37:09
Accounts a few. The few ideas that we got from
37:12
27 was there was 2 historicals of the four stories there was 2
37:15
historicals. So he absolutely knows what the
37:18
BBC can do. And they say you, you place
37:21
their strengths and they become I about ideas and you don't have
37:23
to spend alone. I mean, the husks obviously are
37:25
here, but J&T insists on the Husk because he thinks you need
37:28
monsters. Do you think the story would
37:29
lose anything if they weren't there?
37:32
I don't. I don't.
37:33
I do remember it really scaring me, yeah, but when I was
37:36
younger. And I think the glove, when it
37:37
comes up on the lift and control climbs up on the lift is that
37:40
it's just that hand. It has those images.
37:42
Do you know the bit that terrified me Was the peeling of
37:45
his face. Yeah.
37:46
That just that he was changing in something.
37:49
In the in the book, they lean into it's like a snake because
37:52
you can see the skin underneath, you can see you can see his new
37:55
face underneath it. This notion of I tell you a show
38:00
that's really similar but really badly, is Threshold in Voyager
38:04
all. Recently discussed, yeah.
38:06
Yeah, that's why it's in my head, because usually it's
38:08
locked away in in the dark in. The silo.
38:11
Yeah, you. Know it's like the mad woman in
38:12
the attic. You never really forget.
38:14
Just side with his phone. What's missing, of course, is in
38:17
the scene that doesn't make it into the final cut is when he's
38:19
looking in the microscope, and the microscope is linked to the
38:21
eyes. That's why the eyes of the
38:22
animals glow. It's because it's a surveillance
38:25
system. I think it's more interesting if
38:26
it's. I don't think that's very clear
38:28
though, is it? It just seems like a just a cool
38:30
effect, I don't think. I think the eyes glowing would
38:33
be an early indication of of the house or the crease come back to
38:36
life because of the power from light ship.
38:39
There was there was a lot of this idea.
38:40
Appreciate as a kid I never understood that the husks were
38:46
oldcast offers. Just like even though it is
38:47
explicitly stated, you never saw the transformation.
38:50
So I never made the link. Right.
38:52
Yeah, Seriously. Deeply sinister smile.
38:55
Oh. This sequence in a second.
38:58
Yeah, the burnt toast. I load bus stations.
39:01
This is one of the best ever Doctor companion scenes.
39:05
It's it's phenomenal. But again, it's the two, it's
39:07
the two of them together. It's the two header.
39:08
It says there's there's theatre here now at this point and
39:11
there's a bravery that they're prepared to do it in Doctor Who.
39:14
When you think about where they've come from, you can see
39:17
it in in Papers Patrol. And when he convinces the the
39:20
snipers to throw away the guns, when he talks Helena down at the
39:23
end of it, he's a lot of these two.
39:25
They're really great. But when he's playing this sort
39:28
of purring, this menacing, that's his strengths, you know?
39:32
That's why I always think Big Finish, forget they give him mad
39:35
technical one, you know, lots of comedy to play and it's just a
39:39
bit agonising when they just let bring him down.
39:43
That's why the weakest moment in this is when you forget the
39:46
survey. Like, and I love to sleep, but
39:50
this is it. This kind of quiet understanding
39:53
and this kind of paternal figure.
39:55
Now because you're meant to, I think.
39:57
See the mirroring Gwendolyn and Josiah, which is a deeply creepy
40:02
sexual relationship. Oh, but I think this is a little
40:06
bit creepy as well. Because he's manipulating it,
40:09
but there's a sense in which he said therapist.
40:11
Again, it's the idea of the Doctor comes in to cure these
40:13
people. And it's it's how he sort of his
40:16
body language as well, he's like, he's coaxing it out of
40:18
her, you know? I mean, McCoy of course,
40:21
remember did have a religious background.
40:23
He was trained to be a priest. So is there something that the
40:25
confessor going on here as well Of course with kind of the
40:27
Jesuit and of course this is a text full of religious Imran
40:32
Matthews obviously. But of course Light originally
40:34
is meant to have wings. He's meant to be a full on
40:36
Angel. Well, but now we can't have Kai
40:38
again. And so then he's meant to be
40:41
some type of evangelical preacher.
40:44
Here we go I. Mean.
40:45
We'll talk about Light when he turns up.
40:48
Out of escape from the cells. Is this the bit where he goes?
40:51
Well, it's a complete absurdity that a lot of my ancestors could
40:54
be traced back to a protoplasmic globule.
40:58
That's the way. To the zoo, this is fabulous
41:03
because is this here for a reason?
41:05
Yeah, because he used the lyrics.
41:06
It's about it's about the zoo and it's about the monkey house.
41:11
The monkey house is nearly full with room enough for you.
41:12
That's where Honest Matthews is going.
41:14
He does the monkey house. He can be turned into a monkey.
41:16
So the again, Marquez says that he found it this, that's
41:21
original, that's a Victorian song.
41:23
He didn't have to write it and it just fit so well and so
41:26
that's why it's there. But it's also because when she's
41:30
described as a musical trollop in the second episode, so she's
41:34
meant to be playing the piano. She's meant to, you know, polite
41:37
ladies in Victorian society don't play songs like that.
41:40
They play nice music and they do a bit of needlework and a bit of
41:44
drawing and a bit of French, and that's not what's happening
41:47
here. Do you see what you said that
41:49
Marquez found this song is Sue the story.
41:51
Everybody is on the same page here.
41:53
In a way they talk to who hasn't been for a long time.
41:56
I. Suspect the script invigorates.
41:59
Yeah. Because it's a script that's
42:01
working on so many different levels, and because everyone can
42:03
place their strengths so there's no huge effects works that can
42:06
go wrong. I do I I'm given to understand
42:08
that some of the actors were a bit baffled by the scripts.
42:11
Yeah, Sharon Deuce appears to be.
42:13
Wonder what her motivation is. So they tell her that she's
42:16
Eliza Doolittle. I I remember like the apparently
42:20
McCoy was like, well, let's call, let's call Mark Platt and
42:23
explain it to us what it's all about, you know.
42:25
But you know, fair do's like they haven't had anything like
42:28
this before. I know, and it would only work
42:30
in this run of the the show the the only other run that's go for
42:36
this kind of highbrow intelligent is wrong because it
42:41
implies other runs are stupid, but it's really kind of making
42:44
it work is season 18 bits of season 18.
42:48
Yeah, there's there's a real unity to that season as well,
42:51
isn't there? And and again, it's it's it Big
42:54
Me brings unity to that. Carmel's bringing unity here,
42:56
and Carmel's working with his Rikers.
42:58
What you don't hear about is falling out with the writers.
43:01
There's a much better relationship with them and
43:03
Carmel has got a team there. They're all young, they can work
43:07
together. They've seen the show, they see
43:09
what he's doing, they've got similar backgrounds.
43:11
And yeah, it might produce a run of scripts that maybe you'd go,
43:15
where's the diversity amongst the Rikers?
43:17
The fact is, you've got the writers who are producing it.
43:19
The only unmoving mountain as far as Carmel is concerned is
43:23
Jane Baker Eraine having none of it.
43:27
I mean if you read script Doctor and again with all the caveats
43:30
there, this is someone who's working with his writers,
43:33
there's still problems with JNT. So the the notorious incidents
43:36
down in Arundel when when Carmel just comes home and then they
43:40
ring him up and they bring him back and the atmosphere is much
43:42
better and him walking away force J&T to admit that
43:46
something's gone wrong there it's it's a much healthier
43:48
atmosphere I think. I mean, I don't think these are
43:50
all perfect scripts in this era. No, no, but.
43:54
No, no. But it's just the energy of
43:57
them, the ideas, the imagination.
43:59
All of that is is is all up on the up again, you know?
44:03
And you've got performances and it's your point that you can
44:05
watch this because it's the 735 on a Wednesday evening and
44:10
there's only about 4 million people watching it.
44:12
That gives you kind of freedom. But you know, people are
44:15
watching it and you know there's a core audience and there's you
44:17
want a new audience and therefore you have to pitch it
44:20
at just the right level. And this is a how.
44:22
Did this poll at the time. Do you know?
44:26
In the DWM. Poll I I can.
44:28
I think cursive Fenrik came. Top and this is This is second
44:31
or third. Battlefield is always at the
44:33
bottom, which I never understood as a child.
44:36
Now I understand it. I will.
44:37
I still wouldn't put it there. I mean I find I know I've said
44:40
before I don't, I don't really get the appeal accursed
44:43
friendly, but I can see why people like it.
44:44
And the 4th episode is is amazing.
44:46
It might be the best single episode of this this season.
44:49
So that's all kind of hugely contradictory there.
44:52
But I wouldn't I wouldn't go that better and that's worse
44:55
than the other. I can see their issues that they
44:57
haven't got the money in Battlefield for what they want
44:59
to do. That's why this is better,
45:00
because they don't have to do as much and so they achieve more,
45:04
yeah, not having to do as much. Playing to their strengths,
45:07
although the joy of Battlefield is it turns me into a child
45:10
again when I watch it, because I absolutely can remember watching
45:13
now on the original. It's brilliant, but it's about
45:15
ideas as well, of course, because you've got a metaphor
45:17
there in Destroy. And it's about love and it's
45:19
about loss and but I think there's an indulgency to
45:22
Battlefield that isn't here. This is a lot tighter, and it's
45:26
not just because it's three episodes long.
45:28
Yeah, I think because they've got, because this is, this is
45:31
proper drama. You know there's no Big Blue
45:34
monster as the turning up at the end.
45:37
You don't have to have the effect of a tower blowing up.
45:41
Sophie Audra doesn't nearly die. The worst thing that happens
45:43
here is she exposes herself by accident.
45:46
You haven't got this massive core of Doctor Who community
45:49
continuity thrown in with UNIT, which comes with Bessie and all
45:52
those other sort of bits and bobs that you throw in there.
45:55
Of course, in a sense that's that's that's going to come down
45:57
the line with this because I was lurking behind this Islam
45:59
Barrow. Well, and I did want to talk to
46:01
you about that, but I might save that for the beginning of
46:04
episode 2.