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Strictly Come Hamster - Season 20 (featuring Frazer Gregory & Dan Hollingsworth) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:34
  Welcome back to Stripicum Hamster.
• 0:37
  My name is Joe Ford. And before we begin this
• 0:42
  episode, I would like to read out a statement that had been
• 0:46
  prepared by Rod and myself, if you will indulge me.
• 0:53
  We, the undersigned, would like to apologise for all the insults
• 0:58
  we have directed towards Fraser Gregory.
• 1:01
  We regret calling him mentally unsound, psychotic, delirious,
• 1:06
  deranged, foolish, brain sick, off his rocker, discombobulated,
• 1:11
  outrageous, contrary and other states of mental instability in
• 1:16
  his efforts to champion the damned of all the truly shit
• 1:19
  Doctor Who stories. Anyway, on to season 20.
• 1:23
  I'll hand you over now to Rod, my Co host.
• 1:26
  Hello, Rod. Hello Joe, How are you doing?
• 1:29
  Oh, marvellous. Well, appraiser, by the way,
• 1:31
  that was all genuine, OK? It was genuine sentiment.
• 1:34
  Thank you gentlemen. I was wondering where that was
• 1:37
  going. I was wondering if you were
• 1:38
  going to like admit to be in time skills this hack hour
• 1:40
  summit but. You are probably the most named
• 1:43
  checked person on this podcast who was yet to appear, so
• 1:47
  welcome. It's just because I'm so in love
• 1:49
  with him that's the trouble. I.
• 1:51
  Know and you don't hide it very well.
• 1:52
  John. I mean, look at him.
• 1:54
  You would be, wouldn't you? Oh, he's blushing now.
• 1:58
  Anyway, yes, we are on season 20 today, the season that promised
• 2:02
  us something from the past in every single story.
• 2:06
  And boy did they deliver. So in Arc of Infinity, they
• 2:10
  bring back some terrible monster designs and some pointless
• 2:13
  running around. In Snake Dance, they bring back
• 2:16
  some really obviously overlit studios pretending to be
• 2:19
  location. In Mondrian Undead they bring
• 2:21
  back bizarre instantal music and loads of space corridors.
• 2:25
  In Terminus, yet more space corridors and guest actors who
• 2:29
  look like they've just wandered in from Top of the Pops next
• 2:31
  door. In Enlightenment, it's the
• 2:33
  return of guest actors who seem to be in different productions
• 2:36
  because some of them are acting in serious sci-fi and some are
• 2:39
  acting in some old camp nonsense.
• 2:42
  King's Demons it is the return of the appalling French accents
• 2:47
  and a plot twist that everyone sees coming.
• 2:49
  And in The Five Doctors, we've got a nostalgia fest that
• 2:52
  signals the beginning of the end.
• 2:54
  Oh no, hang on, that's the future, not the past.
• 2:57
  Anyway, let's get on to it. And to help us work out who's
• 3:01
  going to be wearing the dead seagull on the head or who's
• 3:04
  going to be adorned by a roadkill crow, we're joined by
• 3:07
  two very special guests. One is the most countryman in
• 3:10
  fandom, and the other is a hamster virgin who's taken more
• 3:13
  bubble baths than anyone I know. They're going to help.
• 3:17
  They're going to help us decide who's going to be lifting the
• 3:19
  Accursion glitter ball and who will be forced to live aboard
• 3:22
  this ship in perpetual torment. I can't do the laugh, so let's
• 3:27
  welcome today's guests. I think you already know that
• 3:30
  one of our beautiful guests is Mr. Fraser Gregory.
• 3:33
  Good evening, Fraser. Good evening, Rod, and I'd like
• 3:36
  to thank you for bringing back the halcyon days of Doctor Who
• 3:39
  Bulletin and their scathing views on this era.
• 3:45
  Blast from the past indeed. Absolutely.
• 3:47
  Has happened to the magic of Doctor Who?
• 3:50
  I think we decided previously it ended at 5:45 on the 23rd of
• 3:54
  November 1963. It's been down here ever since.
• 3:58
  Yeah, well, it's lovely to have you, Fraser.
• 4:01
  And we're also joined by Dan Hollingsworth.
• 4:03
  Dan, hello. Hello, calling the capital and
• 4:07
  all that. Hello Dan.
• 4:08
  How are you doing? I'm doing all right.
• 4:09
  Thank you very much. Nice to be here.
• 4:12
  And great to have you here on this auspicious evening for a
• 4:15
  very auspicious season, season 20.
• 4:17
  So before we get into it, let's just have a quick go round,
• 4:20
  everybody. What are you feeling about
• 4:22
  season 20 without getting into specifics, because I'm sure we
• 4:25
  will get into the specifics in plenty this evening.
• 4:29
  Fraser Season 20. Average. 01 word answer.
• 4:37
  Well, you usually ask for three, so I prepared 3.
• 4:39
  But if we're going for one, it's probably average.
• 4:44
  It's a very average season of Doctor Who.
• 4:48
  There's very little to get excited about.
• 4:52
  Yeah, If you look at the following season, season 21,
• 4:57
  you've got things like Caves of Andrazzani and you've got
• 5:01
  Frontios and you've got the Awakening stuff that you can
• 5:03
  really, you know, come out and say, oh, this is fantastic.
• 5:06
  This is like, you know, best look at Davis and his fantastic
• 5:10
  moment and look at the and you've got things like the Twin
• 5:13
  Dilemma and worries of the deep where again, you've got
• 5:17
  something to say. Well, isn't that terrible?
• 5:20
  Look at look at the state of that monster to punt my mouse.
• 5:23
  You know, you've got something to hang your hat on and get
• 5:25
  excited about with this series. I don't feel we'll have it's a
• 5:29
  very consistently consistent series in terms of, you know,
• 5:36
  there's nothing jumping out to say, you know, pick me, pick me,
• 5:39
  pick me even either way. And either a beer, not A to to
• 5:44
  put through, to be honest. So, you know, my 3 words that I
• 5:50
  picked was should be better because there's nothing wrong
• 5:54
  with being average. There's nothing wrong with, you
• 5:55
  know, being yet fine. It's, it's a, it's an episode of
• 5:58
  TV's Doctor Who. We can watch it, we can enjoy
• 6:01
  it. We can, you know, maybe do some
• 6:03
  iron and violence on or whatever.
• 6:05
  But like you said at the start, what this was the 20th, this is
• 6:08
  the 20th anniversary. And we were promised something
• 6:12
  from every year. I mean, we were promised a big,
• 6:16
  a big celebration by GNT. And you know, if it's, if it's
• 6:20
  good enough to slit Mr. Moffat when it comes to Series 7B that
• 6:24
  he didn't do enough for the 50th anniversary year, then I think
• 6:28
  it's probably fair to say, you know, this should have been
• 6:31
  better. Summary Dan, what's your
• 6:35
  relationship with this season? My relationship with it, well,
• 6:38
  it came on when I was nine, so, you know, I was the perfect age
• 6:41
  for it really. First thing I would say is, is
• 6:44
  yeah, it's not the best, it's not the worst.
• 6:45
  It's kind of in the middle in every sense.
• 6:47
  It's not got all the classics, but it's not got too much old
• 6:51
  chart in it either. Really has it a few clunkers.
• 6:54
  But yeah, it's basically a twice weekly soap opera in space,
• 6:57
  isn't it that season? There's a lot to say for that.
• 7:01
  Yeah. And yeah, the other second
• 7:03
  thing, yeah, the returning from the past element kind of got in
• 7:06
  the way a bit at some point. I don't know if they actually
• 7:09
  thought that through or whether that kind of got added on as a
• 7:12
  publicity thing later. I think the story was always
• 7:15
  nobody noticed and someone was about to be released.
• 7:17
  Yeah, it's it's very JNT doing his doing his thing well there.
• 7:21
  And yeah, the other thing, it's pretty much a comfort season,
• 7:26
  isn't it really? You've got a lot of like a lot
• 7:28
  of I'm rambling already here. This is not ideal.
• 7:33
  Yeah, comfort season of Doctor Who.
• 7:34
  You've got the five Doctors anniversary stuff.
• 7:37
  Very fan pleasing, I suppose, as a series.
• 7:39
  But yeah, like Fraser saying 19, you've got a lot of classics,
• 7:42
  you've got a lot of interesting new ideas. 20 is kind of a bit
• 7:45
  more bombastic. So 21 and 20, yeah, a lot of it
• 7:48
  just kind of happens, but I do, I do love it as well.
• 7:53
  I need to make two points of order there with what you've
• 7:56
  just said, Dan. One, obviously the Five Doctors
• 7:58
  doesn't count to season 20 because that's a scandal and.
• 8:00
  Special, yeah, but we're sticking it in.
• 8:02
  We are sticking it in. Tonight, you've got to go
• 8:05
  tonight. Yes, because Rod just likes to
• 8:06
  include shit for no good reason. Oh so.
• 8:09
  You're saying 5 doctors is shit? Sorry.
• 8:12
  Actually, can I make a point to your point about his point that
• 8:16
  is walking home from work today. I was having a conversation
• 8:20
  about this episode tonight saying marvellous, you know,
• 8:22
  back clash of the Titans. Fraser and Rod are coming
• 8:25
  together tonight. It's going to be fucks are going
• 8:27
  to fly and he goes, he goes, I refuse to should come hamster
• 8:31
  ever again. I said why he goes I still will
• 8:33
  never forgive you for putting twin dilemma in that it doesn't
• 8:37
  belong. He went into this mad run down
• 8:39
  the road. I couldn't.
• 8:41
  Believe it, Rod, you've caused some serious issues here in my
• 8:44
  house. I'll tell you.
• 8:45
  What can I say? What can I say?
• 8:47
  I know I still bear the scars. Sorry, I'll leave my point now.
• 8:50
  I'm back to your point, Fraser, about Dan's point.
• 8:52
  Yes, second point of order is that I'm no not going to believe
• 8:56
  anything else Dan says tonight because there's no way he was
• 8:59
  named when this was Ed. Leave the flirting to Joe.
• 9:06
  Fraser, it's over between us, all right?
• 9:10
  At least you, me and you were in the 79 going.
• 9:12
  That's true. That is true.
• 9:14
  Does does that mean you were a child of Williams Dan?
• 9:16
  No, You know, when I was eight, did you say 8, Dan?
• 9:21
  I well, I was my my Doctor Who birth story was frontier in
• 9:24
  space, so you know. Oh, mine was 73.
• 9:27
  The Horns of Nimon and Leisure Hive, because I was born in
• 9:31
  between those two. So did you start watching Doctor
• 9:34
  Who when sort of season 1718? Yeah, I mean, I remember that.
• 9:40
  The first things I remember are probably bits and bobs from now
• 9:43
  because it was just on and people used to watch it.
• 9:45
  In those days, normal people used to watch it.
• 9:49
  I knew we'd be sidetracked by you, Fraser.
• 9:51
  I just I just like carbon dating.
• 9:54
  Yeah. You know.
• 9:55
  Pretty much Destiny, the Daleks, City of Death, but I think they
• 9:59
  were repeated as well so my mind may be slightly wrong.
• 10:02
  So I'm I'm picturing you very much like a Cyhart character.
• 10:05
  Now, yes, pretty, pretty much, yeah.
• 10:07
  I wasn't as. I wasn't as.
• 10:10
  Yeah, he, he kind of got encouraged more than I did in my
• 10:13
  family, you know, But that's kind of nice, yeah.
• 10:16
  Like it's sort of like. This is a good idea of where
• 10:18
  you're going to go tonight. A lovely a lovely person on the
• 10:21
  surface, but a Total Drama loving bitch underneath.
• 10:26
  I'm. Talking of drama loving bitches.
• 10:28
  Oh, hello. Yes, hello.
• 10:30
  I would also first like to say to you, Dan, please do not
• 10:33
  apologise for rambling. That's all I ever do on this
• 10:35
  podcast. So permission to ramble all I
• 10:40
  don't think it's Eric Saywood's fault in season 20.
• 10:43
  I feel as if there is a solid science fiction idea at the
• 10:47
  heart of every single story this year.
• 10:50
  And he is trying to tell thoughtful science fiction
• 10:53
  stories in an adventure format. And I think half the time this
• 10:57
  year shitty directors were brought in that crapped all over
• 11:02
  what he was trying to do. And I think after this is where
• 11:06
  it sort of goes off the rails with the writing.
• 11:08
  But this is his first full year and I think he's trying.
• 11:12
  I've surprised myself going back to this because I'm only kicking
• 11:15
  two out this year, so five are staying in.
• 11:18
  And I certainly didn't feel as if that was the way it was
• 11:20
  going. But I think I'm more lenient
• 11:22
  towards Season 20 than some of the others here.
• 11:26
  Well, I'm also relatively positive about Season 20.
• 11:29
  I'm not going to give you a number.
• 11:30
  I'm sure we will come to that in the fullness of time.
• 11:32
  But yeah, I've, I, I agree. I think what you said, they're,
• 11:34
  they're thoughtful sci-fi stories.
• 11:36
  And I think I was surprised when I, I gave thought to a lot of
• 11:39
  these stories. There was a lot more depth to
• 11:41
  them and a lot more to unpack. So I think there's some good
• 11:44
  conversations to have about these stories.
• 11:47
  So, yeah, I don't think it's a bad year.
• 11:48
  It's certainly not the worst. I'm not quite sure why it gets
• 11:50
  labeled as the worst because I certainly certainly wouldn't put
• 11:53
  it in that camp, but. It's nowhere near as bad as
• 11:56
  Series 9, let's be honest. Yeah, Oh, let's not start that
• 11:59
  one again. Another 4 hour debate.
• 12:02
  Now let's first of all go to the overview comments.
• 12:05
  Dan Fraser, give us your mellifuous reading.
• 12:08
  Lucy McCall says. My favorite Doctor, my second
• 12:11
  favorite TARDIS team. Still one of my favorite
• 12:14
  seasons. Nostalgia.
• 12:16
  Not entirely. I think it was years between
• 12:18
  viewings and I was prepared that I might not still like the era,
• 12:21
  but I'm here for it. Oh.
• 12:23
  Lucy, bless her. I can't argue with her.
• 12:25
  She terrifies me. Right, so that leaves me with
• 12:32
  Paul Quinn, who says the single worst season.
• 12:36
  Beige from beige. Walls with a soundtrack
• 12:39
  searching for the brown note so that excrement will.
• 12:42
  Break up the beige Ness. Wow.
• 12:45
  Least he at least he says what he thinks.
• 12:47
  I love that. I.
• 12:48
  Think he needs another word for beige to be honest.
• 12:52
  That is the best comment on all of this, by the way, John Arnold
• 12:55
  says probably the strongest Davidson year, Dizzying highs
• 12:58
  and the lows not too low. Darren Randalls fails to
• 13:04
  encourage any passion in me. It's so dreary and depressing.
• 13:08
  It's living off Bitmead's essence, pride, say, with
• 13:11
  finding his own miserable vision.
• 13:15
  Simon Hart. Oh, come on.
• 13:17
  Friend of the show says a competent season with a couple
• 13:20
  of very high highs and I think he means Terminus.
• 13:24
  He. Very much does.
• 13:25
  In fact, I've I've got a confession to make about
• 13:28
  Terminus later, but we'll get there in the fullness of time.
• 13:33
  Dan Pin Hi Dan The 5th Doctor's weakest season and possibly the
• 13:38
  worst of the 80s. Which is a shame as my first
• 13:41
  Doctor Who memories come from here.
• 13:43
  A couple of crackers, but the rest are pretty poor.
• 13:47
  David Gibbs says. I'm always bemused by how
• 13:50
  everyone else seems to dislike this, because for me it's
• 13:52
  absolutely peak Doctor Who with such imagination on display.
• 13:56
  I mean, it's reasonable, but peak Doctor Who?
• 14:01
  Wow, exo sauce. We have the fantastic Mark
• 14:05
  Donaldson. Oh.
• 14:06
  Mark. My favorite Davison era.
• 14:09
  It's that sweet spot between the interminable bickering of Season
• 14:12
  19 and the unrelenting bleakness of Season 21.
• 14:16
  There are some clangers in here, but they're always followed up
• 14:19
  by a stone cold classic. Horse Meyer says probably the
• 14:24
  weakest of the Davison seasons. However, there are some really
• 14:27
  excellent stories in here. Davison is great throughout.
• 14:32
  The talent of James Locke says it's not a fashionable view, but
• 14:36
  I think this is Davison's best. Not as big as your season 19, so
• 14:40
  stick that in your pipe and smoke it less brainlessly.
• 14:44
  Going more than 21. Yes, it is sometimes a bit
• 14:47
  lacklustre, but there are interesting, thoughtful ideas
• 14:50
  here, carried by an elegant direction and great atmosphere.
• 14:53
  Oh. I'm not sure about the elegant
• 14:55
  direction, but we'll get to that.
• 14:58
  It's not beige anymore, Jeff Richardson says.
• 15:01
  I have a tough time with this season.
• 15:03
  Not enough Vanessa to do. Her ending is super weak.
• 15:06
  And that shot of her in her knickers?
• 15:08
  It was a different time. I guess.
• 15:10
  Turno shouldn't be a companion. Chameleon is piss poor.
• 15:15
  I only like snake dance, the rest can go in the bin.
• 15:17
  And yes, I know I'm spitting sacrilege by including the Five
• 15:21
  Doctors in this diatribe. Having come to it late, all I
• 15:24
  can see are the flaws. Jeff has his own podcast, you
• 15:28
  know, but I don't think anyone's going to listen to it after that
• 15:30
  comment. There are flaws in the Five
• 15:35
  Doctors. Well.
• 15:36
  Oh. Look at this Chris Gillespie
• 15:38
  Pratt. Is that Chris?
• 15:39
  Go it's the other one, Gillespie Price.
• 15:42
  It is. Oh my God, I can't wait to hear
• 15:44
  this. We've got both of them.
• 15:45
  Excellent, so I have Chris Gillespie Pratt then.
• 15:48
  Very varied for me. A little bit lacking an effort
• 15:51
  in general but some good bits. Arc of Infinity was a waste of
• 15:55
  Amsterdam. Snake Dance was campus fuck.
• 15:58
  Mortarin was crap despite silver turning up Terminus.
• 16:02
  Don't remember. Enlightenment was silly, fun and
• 16:05
  loved. Rack King's Demons was shite.
• 16:08
  My doctors I do love, especially when Sarah rolls down that
• 16:11
  massive hill. Oh.
• 16:12
  God, that's it, David. You're out.
• 16:15
  I'm booking. Up your husband.
• 16:18
  And it's now everyone. Swearing in these comments.
• 16:20
  It's certainly a season that elicits some passion.
• 16:24
  And finally, Charlie Barnes says the ambitious ideas of the
• 16:26
  previous two seasons have been ditched in favour of nostalgia
• 16:29
  baiting. Right.
• 16:32
  I have another comment here which is from Margaret WA 326
• 16:37
  which says nudes in. Bio And I think that's probably
• 16:43
  the. Best comment we've had so far
• 16:45
  this evening. Did you check the bio Fraser?
• 16:48
  No. Right, I've got a comment here
• 16:52
  from Amy Pond it. Says.
• 16:54
  Pussy in bio, I don't know what's going on there.
• 16:59
  There's a. There's a one here from a
• 17:00
  Stephen W Moff which says hi Joe, when are you going to
• 17:05
  return my call? When you when you finally send
• 17:10
  me that cameo, Stephen. All right.
• 17:13
  Moving swiftly on Fraser, pick your story choice and give us
• 17:17
  the 333 reasons, not 75 The three reasons excuse.
• 17:23
  Me. Why have you given?
• 17:24
  Why are you given the full choice of the season to Fraser?
• 17:27
  You know we've got our virgin hamsterer here.
• 17:29
  I don't mind. Yeah, that's fine.
• 17:31
  Absolutely. Go on.
• 17:31
  You go first down. Go for it, Dan.
• 17:33
  Oh, Jesus. Right.
• 17:34
  OK, I'm going to have to champion something because it's
• 17:37
  always going to be positive. I'm going to champion Maudrin
• 17:40
  Undead, directed by Peter Moffett, whose real name is
• 17:44
  Peter Davidson. It's not.
• 17:46
  It's not really. See what you did there?
• 17:50
  Indeed. God.
• 17:51
  Oh dear. Right.
• 17:53
  It's very fan pleasing, which is a good thing.
• 17:56
  Yeah, there's so much to say about that aspect.
• 17:58
  You've got not Ian Chesterton because you've got the Brigadier
• 18:01
  randomly being a school teacher. Apparently they wanted Harry
• 18:05
  Sullivan as well as a second choice and failed on that too.
• 18:07
  So they got there in the end. It's the story that started the
• 18:10
  UNIT dating controversy, which I can't actually say.
• 18:14
  So we don't, we don't know what year it is really anymore.
• 18:16
  That doesn't really matter. I like how the Brigadier's got a
• 18:19
  framed publicity photo of himself from Doctor Who on his
• 18:21
  desk, which, you know, I love that kind of thing he does.
• 18:25
  It's great. It's just like action pose.
• 18:28
  I think it's the same picture that ended up in The Black
• 18:30
  Archive and Day of the Doctor. Isn't it?
• 18:32
  It's got, it's got around, isn't it?
• 18:34
  It's got some sepia flashback clips.
• 18:36
  And as a nine year old, yeah, 9 year old, that was, you know,
• 18:40
  you hadn't seen much Doctor Who at that age on telly, you know,
• 18:43
  with there've been a few repeats, but seeing a little
• 18:45
  clips that exciting. It's got a cameo from Tom
• 18:48
  Baker's season 18 coat, which is always nice to see, and it's got
• 18:53
  the Blindovich limitation effect, where the Brigadiers
• 18:56
  touch touch each other. Not.
• 18:59
  Not in that kind of a way. And there's a terrible discharge
• 19:02
  that happens. Have you got the special
• 19:05
  edition? I've got all the editions.
• 19:10
  I I did actually like how they resolved, resolved the plot by
• 19:12
  going, oh, we'll just get the brigadiers come in and touch
• 19:14
  himself and everything will go bang.
• 19:15
  And you know that sorts it out. I don't think they worded it
• 19:18
  quite like that, but. Yeah, it's JNT.
• 19:20
  They probably did, actually. It was actually a massive
• 19:24
  discharge of energy, exactly synchronising with the moment of
• 19:26
  transfer. It's.
• 19:28
  Very true. Last time I met Fraser, that was
• 19:35
  the excuse I used. I'm carrying on the lowering of
• 19:38
  the tone tradition here. Second, second point.
• 19:40
  It's got a new companion who is an Adric.
• 19:43
  Bless him. I like.
• 19:44
  Oh yeah, Talos. Great.
• 19:46
  You've got some elderly school boys who are aged 24 at the
• 19:49
  time, although the Billy Bunnery one no hippo.
• 19:54
  Yeah, it's. A.
• 19:56
  Bit much he didn't get murdered, though.
• 19:59
  You'd thought that would have been the perfect character to
• 20:00
  get murdered. There's the weird fairground
• 20:02
  music in it when they're driving about.
• 20:05
  There's some weird stuff in this.
• 20:06
  And Terlo's great because he's really shifty and he's got a
• 20:09
  crystal that gets too hot with the car battery or whatever it
• 20:11
  is down his arm. And once you know that, you can
• 20:14
  really kind of laugh at it every time it comes on.
• 20:17
  And there's just loads of smut in it as well.
• 20:20
  So there's like the Black Guardian saying you'll find me
• 20:22
  the most accommodating of partners, which is a bit weird.
• 20:25
  And then Tola makes a good point going well, why can't you
• 20:28
  destroy the Doctor? You're this omnipotent thing
• 20:30
  with a crow on your head. Why?
• 20:32
  It doesn't make sense when you think of it, but as a child it's
• 20:34
  really exciting. And as a child Doctor Who fan,
• 20:37
  it's dead exciting as well. And of course, Tegan's dead
• 20:39
  suspicious because she's a bit of a cow.
• 20:42
  And then, yeah, it's, it's just weird.
• 20:45
  And also he tries to kill the doctor with a very bad rock.
• 20:47
  Rock at the end of episode one, which is always amusing.
• 20:50
  And what else did we say about Turlow?
• 20:52
  He hates his school, but he wears that fucking uniform the
• 20:54
  whole time he's in the show. What's that about?
• 20:57
  Why Third Point of three, the time?
• 21:00
  I hate saying the phrase timey. Why me?
• 21:03
  But there's a lot of timey Why me in it.
• 21:05
  And, you know, it's a show about time travel.
• 21:08
  They kind of take it too far and it gets a bit confusing.
• 21:11
  There's probably too much back and forth, you know, to, to kill
• 21:14
  a bit of time. And the weird thing with
• 21:16
  Mordrin's gang with their degenerative space disease that
• 21:19
  they, they need some time laundry generations for is a bit
• 21:21
  handy really. But you know, you go with it
• 21:23
  because it's quite funny. The Starliner looks really nice,
• 21:26
  Art deco, lots of good corridors.
• 21:29
  And I like the bit where they're all moving along like they're on
• 21:32
  wheels, where they're kind of gliding along like the Daleks
• 21:34
  were meant to. I think there was all.
• 21:36
  Inspired by Underneath and they were just walking like they were
• 21:41
  trained to do that. It's very sort of colony South,
• 21:44
  isn't it? Yeah, without, without the
• 21:46
  Segway, but yeah, I think they had, did they have Segway to
• 21:49
  1980? Three.
• 21:49
  I doubt it, no. They probably just push them
• 21:52
  along or something. Yeah, it looks really lovely.
• 21:56
  I've gone off tangent again. I went to Trent Park where they
• 21:59
  filmed school bit and it was, it was really muddy.
• 22:02
  I was so filthy. I went there and.
• 22:04
  It was absolutely gorgeous when I went it.
• 22:07
  Was a nice day, but yeah, the obelisk was good, but of course
• 22:09
  some of the things are not real, which is disappointing.
• 22:11
  There's no transmatic capsule. The other thing, that's the
• 22:15
  other, the other weird little sculpture thing isn't really
• 22:17
  there. But yeah, that big thing is a
• 22:19
  War Memorial and regular real people kept trying to look at
• 22:21
  it. I was like, do not know, I'm
• 22:23
  here to take a picture. I'm here to pose as look with
• 22:26
  it. Anyway, what else can we say
• 22:28
  about it? Oh, it's in Cock Fosters, which
• 22:30
  it's got the word cock, got the word cock in it, so that's
• 22:32
  useful. Is all of your defences built
• 22:36
  around cock jokes? Well.
• 22:38
  You don't have to do them, you know.
• 22:41
  I'm adapting to the format of your show, basically.
• 22:44
  Yeah, I really love it. It's got lots of time stuff.
• 22:46
  The funny bit where Tegan and this will become old hags and
• 22:51
  then reverse and one of them becomes Lucy Benjamin from
• 22:53
  EastEnders and Detector is, which is quite funny.
• 22:57
  Yeah. And it's quite an interesting
• 22:58
  story when you learn about what they were going to do with Turlo
• 23:01
  to start with. There's a whole different story
• 23:03
  that never happened, which I won't waffle on about now.
• 23:06
  And even Tegan at the end actually thanks the doctor,
• 23:10
  which, you know, that's a nice surprise.
• 23:13
  But yeah, it's not the best story of the season.
• 23:15
  But in East Championing, because they tried to do a lot of things
• 23:17
  and they exceed, they succeeded with most of it.
• 23:20
  Fabulous. Let's go to the comments.
• 23:22
  You call Tegan an old cow? I don't know Hag in that.
• 23:26
  I love Tegan by the way. At the time she was like my
• 23:30
  favorite Doctor companion ever because she was time.
• 23:33
  Well, no, she's my second favorite probably now.
• 23:35
  Anyway, sorry, carry on. I'm off with the comments.
• 23:38
  So Joe Short says the Brigadier is back twice.
• 23:41
  Hurrah. Gareth Bowley says a compelling
• 23:44
  tale about the impact of regeneration on the companions.
• 23:47
  There hasn't had such a sense of jeopardy since.
• 23:51
  Jason Thompson said it's good to see the Brig back and Nick
• 23:53
  Courtney never gets enough credit for the subtle
• 23:56
  differences he brings to his portrayal of the character are
• 23:58
  two different stages in his life.
• 24:00
  I can also ignore the continuity issues of the dates, knowing it
• 24:03
  should have been Ian in the role, but the interminable
• 24:06
  scenes of everyone wandering around mordering ship and the
• 24:08
  low stakes make this feel a bit inconsequential.
• 24:12
  Michael Storm says as interest to the time laws by doing the
• 24:15
  sensible thing of have them not actually appear.
• 24:18
  Oh, never was a true word spoken, Well done Michael, two
• 24:21
  time zones is a great idea that would fit perfectly in a Moffitt
• 24:24
  script. Oh he was doing so well, but
• 24:26
  none of it gels properly. Mordrim himself is well
• 24:30
  performed and his various makeups are truly grotesque.
• 24:33
  However, it's a pity that after all the dramatic build up to the
• 24:35
  climax, he gets his wish because the Brigadier touches himself in
• 24:39
  fact. And James Lark says it doesn't
• 24:43
  amount to much in the end and it's a waste of David Collins.
• 24:46
  But Courtney's touching performance and Mark Striction,
• 24:49
  creating a sense of tension through sheer force of nature,
• 24:52
  make this work for me. Lovely Dave Rennie.
• 24:55
  I adore the soundtrack, even though it's crackers and totally
• 24:58
  unsuitable. More brick is never a bad thing,
• 25:01
  and the plot is easily Grimway's best.
• 25:03
  Turlow is very intriguing here, but that doesn't keep up.
• 25:07
  Darren Lit Randall said the set is really strong, but it doesn't
• 25:09
  have the story to fill parts three and four.
• 25:12
  Striking design work. Great to have Courtney back, but
• 25:14
  he struggles as an emotive actor.
• 25:17
  Kingsland's music is fun. Sadly, Moffett's limp direction
• 25:20
  fails to elevate it. John Benzalia.
• 25:23
  Unusual but very enjoyable. I'm not sure I buy the Brig as a
• 25:26
  teacher, but Nicholas Courtney shows some subtle depths to this
• 25:29
  cynical, world weary and older version.
• 25:32
  Stylish visuals plus the rock score rocks, but Nisser and
• 25:36
  Tegan need to go to Specsavers. James H says be careful what you
• 25:40
  wish for. Surrounded by the fake opulence
• 25:43
  of a cruise liner, Mordren still has nothing as he has no life of
• 25:46
  his own. The Guardians need others to
• 25:48
  keep them or to give them life as well.
• 25:51
  The Brig loses a vital part of life and Turlow craves life.
• 25:55
  Keep it. Lovely Daniel Nye I I want to
• 25:59
  like it more but the direction makes it underwhelming and the
• 26:01
  mutants look silly. Nice to see the break back.
• 26:04
  Mark Strickson gets a good intro as Turlo and Tegan has a lovely
• 26:07
  character moment with the Doctor in part 4.
• 26:10
  Very rare for Saywood. Andy Parkinson says another
• 26:14
  brilliant story. I love the timey wimey stuff.
• 26:16
  David Collins delivers a great performance.
• 26:19
  Turlo's introduction is a bit weak.
• 26:20
  Otherwise I love it. Tom Newsom will always have a
• 26:24
  place in my heart for daring to do a time travel story.
• 26:27
  I'm pulling it off. Plus Paddy Kingston's awesome
• 26:30
  electric guitar. Paul Sly says OK, but a
• 26:36
  memorable yes. It introduces Turlow and we get
• 26:39
  another story with the Brigadier, but other than that
• 26:42
  it's a bit blunt. Joel Lallon.
• 26:44
  It's OK Both writer and director.
• 26:46
  Solidly, solidly second tier. Probably some of their better
• 26:50
  efforts. As he as he moved Jono, is he
• 26:53
  now in Australia? David Lancaster finally says.
• 26:57
  Always wondered how they would have made Ian chested in work in
• 27:00
  the original as a character. He had zero experience of
• 27:02
  regeneration that we know of on screen at least.
• 27:05
  So this would have derailed the narrative somewhat.
• 27:08
  At least with the Brig we avoided that malarkey, right?
• 27:11
  So let's go to Fraser. Gregory Fraser as Dan won you
• 27:15
  over. You feeling the mortar in love?
• 27:18
  No, Dan hasn't won me over. I'm afraid I didn't need winning
• 27:22
  over to start with. This is, you know, Dan, you said
• 27:26
  at the start this this season is like comfort here.
• 27:30
  When I think this story is very comfort, very comfort, who it's,
• 27:36
  you know, it's not particularly doing anything spectacular, but
• 27:41
  at the same time it's not, you know, taxing you with grimness
• 27:47
  or, you know, hard character moments or anything.
• 27:49
  It is just, you know, the doctor arrives, there's a problem.
• 27:53
  He solves that, he goes home. There's so much to love as well
• 27:57
  in it. I think you know what?
• 28:00
  We've mentioned Paddy Kingsland's score and Joe, I
• 28:04
  know you'll sing along with us with.
• 28:13
  My favorite bit is what it goes to.
• 28:21
  Nothing. There's nothing going on at.
• 28:22
  That point so. You know, you've got, you know,
• 28:28
  wonderful little bits of music like that.
• 28:31
  You've got the, the setting sort of the, the, you know, the
• 28:35
  English schoolboy setting, the eating sort of setting with the
• 28:39
  stroll borders and the, the hats and you're not in the, the
• 28:45
  sheets together to climb out the window.
• 28:47
  All that sort of, sort of like Hogwarts, but without the
• 28:51
  transphobia element going on there.
• 28:56
  You know, you've got two brigadiers.
• 28:59
  You haven't just got one Brigadier.
• 29:00
  You've got two brigadiers. The only thing that could make
• 29:04
  that better would be have 3 Briggs.
• 29:05
  But you know, we'll, we'll make do with the two.
• 29:08
  And, you know, Nicholas Courtney is excellent at playing two very
• 29:13
  different versions of that character, you know, the, the
• 29:15
  Brigadier that we know and love, who is very much the, the army
• 29:19
  man, the stiff upper lip and with the Tash on it.
• 29:23
  And you know, you take the Tash off and he's the PTSD Brig, you
• 29:27
  know, the one that has been left without his memory who's, you
• 29:31
  know, now in his little portacabin with his, you know,
• 29:36
  leaks and his allotment or whatever, you know, teaching
• 29:38
  maths. There's there's two distinct
• 29:41
  characters there, Nick Courtney's, you know, brilliant
• 29:43
  at playing them. You've got Turtle coming in.
• 29:47
  You know, Turtle, it's an interesting idea.
• 29:50
  Turtle. Let's have a companion who's,
• 29:51
  you know, not just a Dick because we've already got that.
• 29:57
  Not just unlikable, but is very much working against the doctor.
• 30:03
  You know, it's a fantastic idea there.
• 30:06
  You know, GNT comes up with some.
• 30:08
  We had a wonderful idea. So it's time and you know, some
• 30:11
  work better than others. But I think, you know, the the
• 30:13
  concept of turtle, it might not really work in the execution,
• 30:16
  but the concept of turtle is this this alien who's going to
• 30:20
  come in and he's going to be an enemy.
• 30:21
  The enemy within his bit of a cuckoo is is a fantastic one.
• 30:25
  But I think they know the thing that really, you know, stands
• 30:28
  out most about this episode has got to be, you know, Valentine
• 30:32
  Valentine Dale is the black guardian.
• 30:35
  You know, this is the thing that's coming back really, isn't
• 30:39
  it? You're yes, the Brigadier's
• 30:40
  coming back, but the the idea is, you know, something's coming
• 30:42
  back from the past and it's the black guardian.
• 30:44
  And, you know, we've had a little snapshot of them earlier
• 30:48
  on in the Armageddon factor, literally just like a, you know,
• 30:53
  a negatively transposed image on a screen.
• 30:55
  So we've had, you know what, 90 seconds at best of of of black
• 30:59
  audio at this point. And then he bursts on the screen
• 31:01
  with his big fuck off feather boa and his big fuck off crew on
• 31:06
  his head. And how many shits does he give?
• 31:09
  Not a single one. He's a big bastard of a man with
• 31:12
  a big. Fuck.
• 31:13
  Off bird on his head and no one gives a fuck about it.
• 31:16
  He's just like, yeah, this is it, this is how I dress.
• 31:19
  Come at us, come at us. And he's just there with these,
• 31:23
  you know, you know, 90 year events and hedges a bit.
• 31:27
  You know, he's he's, he's voice like you know.
• 31:29
  Now boy, do it. Now he's he's.
• 31:34
  He's voice like, you know, like whiskey, you know, soaked in
• 31:39
  cigars poured over hot lava. It's just fantastic.
• 31:43
  So, you know, I got this one very early on in my collecting
• 31:49
  phase when I was was collecting VHS and getting into Doctor Who.
• 31:52
  So, you know, there's this nostalgia element as well for
• 31:55
  me. But you know, it is, it's just
• 31:56
  comfort. It's comfortable.
• 31:58
  Doctor Who. Yeah.
• 31:59
  This is the time you weigh me elements.
• 32:01
  You know, you can come out, that's all you want with Peter
• 32:03
  Moffat's direction, but you're never going to win.
• 32:06
  It's absolutely fine. I.
• 32:07
  Tried. Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's
• 32:11
  going through for me. Brilliant, Joe, Yay or nay?
• 32:16
  Well, actually I was a little bit seduced by Fraser, Gregory
• 32:19
  and Sihar, but on this one where we did the commentary on it
• 32:22
  because I came in feeling quite mean about it.
• 32:25
  And then obviously those two went on about it for 2 1/2
• 32:28
  hours, how great it was. So now I rather like it.
• 32:31
  So here's my three reasons. I shall try and be succinct.
• 32:34
  I really, I can't believe I'm going to say this.
• 32:37
  I really like the timey WHYY element of more than I'm dead.
• 32:43
  I shall tell you why I said because it does it sensibly and
• 32:46
  it does it understandably, and it does it with rules and a
• 32:51
  satisfying plot and a satisfying resolution.
• 32:54
  Stephen Moffitt, take fucking note, all right?
• 32:57
  This is how you do it and how you present it to children
• 33:00
  without being smug and intolerably complex.
• 33:04
  No, I really like it. I really, really like it.
• 33:06
  And I especially like the way it it spells that out to you in
• 33:10
  Episode 2, with Tegan in the past and the Doctor in the
• 33:14
  future, figuring it out as it's going on from scene to scene to
• 33:17
  scene. It's really, really cleverly
• 33:19
  done. So I love that.
• 33:21
  I don't always think that Nicholas Courtney is entirely
• 33:25
  comfortable playing some of the scenes he has to play here.
• 33:28
  He's so used to playing the Brigadier as a stalwart
• 33:30
  character and he's has to show somebody now having a sort of a
• 33:34
  mental breakdown. And I don't, I don't.
• 33:38
  I'm not sure that's where his strengths or performance lie,
• 33:41
  but I love that they went there and I love the fact that they
• 33:44
  took the character in that very dark direction because it's
• 33:47
  probably the most interesting thing that's ever been done with
• 33:50
  the Brigadier, if I'm honest. So I do really like that.
• 33:53
  And of course that Paddy Kingsland music.
• 34:03
  I mean, it's just the best composer in the last 10 years of
• 34:07
  Dogs who Paddy Kingsland, who just delivers one banging score
• 34:10
  after another and he goes, do you know what?
• 34:12
  Just this week we're going to a Meatloaf concert and I'm going
• 34:16
  to go crazy on the rock. I mean, the music's wonderful in
• 34:20
  this. And as a as a quick side note, I
• 34:23
  think this has got stunning visuals.
• 34:24
  I'll think it's got above average Peter Moffett direction
• 34:27
  because he's there's a lot of great location work here.
• 34:30
  I think all the regulars are handled really very well at that
• 34:33
  scene with Tegan. It's lovely.
• 34:35
  More of that. We needed more of that.
• 34:38
  I think probably the weakest thing in this story is possibly
• 34:42
  Peter Davidson himself, who is sort of dashing around from
• 34:46
  place to place but really not getting anything tangible to get
• 34:51
  his hands on. But it's going through.
• 34:54
  I think it's really fun watch this.
• 34:56
  Entertaining, thoughtful, and it's doing interesting things.
• 35:00
  The the whole thing about Mordred and his people using the
• 35:03
  terminal technology and gaining immortality and then wanting to
• 35:07
  die. So interesting.
• 35:09
  A story about aliens that want to commit suicide.
• 35:11
  This is what I mean by by He's got these interesting ideas at
• 35:14
  the heart of the stories. Yeah, put it through.
• 35:18
  Brilliant. Well, I'm also putting it
• 35:20
  through. So it's 444.
• 35:23
  It's the thing that really struck me this time, and I've
• 35:25
  never really twigged it before, but it really struck me watching
• 35:28
  it. That's certainly in the latter
• 35:29
  half. It's kind of got the structure
• 35:31
  of a French farce, and we haven't had many French farces
• 35:34
  in Doctor Who before. And here it's played seriously,
• 35:37
  but it's got every single trope of a French farce.
• 35:40
  So you've got characters running in and out of doors, constantly
• 35:43
  missing each other, hiding in the shadows, particularly when
• 35:45
  you've got the two Briggs Turlo hiding in the shadows.
• 35:48
  You've got someone pretending to be someone that they're not.
• 35:51
  So you've got Morden pretending to be the doctor, and he does
• 35:54
  that with Tegan, this on the Brig and then later with the
• 35:56
  1977 Brig. So we've got misunderstandings,
• 35:59
  we've got deceptions, we've got a highly contrived situation
• 36:03
  with the two time zones. So it's doing everything that
• 36:05
  French farce does. And there's, there's a number of
• 36:08
  kind of character tropes with farce and every single one of
• 36:13
  them is in this. So you've got the deceived
• 36:15
  husband in a, in a traditional French farce, who's the person
• 36:19
  who's always gullible and oblivious to what's going on.
• 36:21
  And here that's the Brigadier because you've completely got no
• 36:23
  idea what's going on. Then you've got the what they
• 36:26
  call the the cunning servant role, someone who drives the
• 36:28
  plot forward, and that's both the Black Guardian and Turlow,
• 36:33
  but also Morton as well because he's driving it forward with his
• 36:35
  machinations. Then he got the role of the
• 36:37
  pedantic scholar, and that's absolutely the Doctor.
• 36:40
  And that character's usually someone who kind of doesn't
• 36:42
  understand practical matters, but it's all about
• 36:45
  intellectualism. And Davison is full of her hair
• 36:48
  because there's so much taking a Babble about warp ellipses and
• 36:51
  everything else. So he fulfils that role.
• 36:53
  And then finally you got the role of the fool or the
• 36:55
  simpleton who just doesn't know what's going on.
• 36:58
  And here that's Nyssa, because unfortunately, poor old Nyssa.
• 37:01
  Poor hits or hip? No, it's definitely in this.
• 37:03
  So she just falls for Mordrans deceptions left, right and
• 37:06
  centre. And then what happens at the end
• 37:08
  of every single French farce? The two characters you've been
• 37:11
  trying to keep apart, usually the, you know, the mistress or
• 37:14
  the whoever comes together in the final scene and meet.
• 37:17
  And that's absolutely what we get here.
• 37:19
  So it is such structured like a farce.
• 37:22
  It's quite unusual and I'll really like that about it.
• 37:25
  Second point I've got are the two Peters, Moffett and Grim
• 37:27
  Wade. Joe, like you, I think they
• 37:30
  translate what could have been really convoluted scripts very
• 37:34
  elegantly, very well. There's just a little bit you
• 37:37
  mentioned the cuts backwards and forth and and there's one I just
• 37:40
  thought of him in particular when Nita and T can first find
• 37:44
  Mordrin in the trans mat and they think it's the Doctor, you
• 37:47
  cut straight back to the Doctor saying to the Brigadier, I was
• 37:50
  not in the trans mat. So you're telling everyone at
• 37:52
  home what's going on? And I think they they translate
• 37:56
  again with all those kind of French farce stereotypes.
• 37:59
  It could have got very convoluted and very messy, but I
• 38:02
  think the two grim wades keep it very clean and very
• 38:05
  understandable. And lastly, yeah, it's just a
• 38:07
  very thoughtful story. There's no big ranting villain.
• 38:10
  It's just a group of people who are looking for death.
• 38:13
  And I like this about the 5th Doctor.
• 38:15
  I like this part of the era when we're doing more thoughtful
• 38:18
  stories. It's not all whiz bang wallop.
• 38:20
  We've got a bit of that, but it's more about the thought and
• 38:22
  the pace and the idea at the heart of it.
• 38:24
  So yeah, this is absolutely going through and.
• 38:27
  I will say just before we move on to the next story, I was
• 38:30
  quite perturbed because obviously when we went to the
• 38:32
  location of Morden undead to the obelisk.
• 38:35
  Well, Miles rather is obviously going to be Turlow, right?
• 38:38
  So who's that lead me be fucking Hippo going up the tail going.
• 38:43
  Turlow come back. You know, well, I'm a bit chubby
• 38:46
  than he is. Let's move on.
• 38:49
  Moving swiftly on Razor, Pick your story.
• 38:54
  Well, you know, since you've left as an open goal, I am going
• 38:57
  to be very lazy and I'm going to pick the obvious choice.
• 39:02
  Which is alchemy fit in it. Doctors.
• 39:06
  I thought you were going to be contrary.
• 39:09
  Fraser contrary. Surely not.
• 39:11
  Why am I picking the lazy option?
• 39:13
  Well, one, we've just released our 2 1/2 hour commentary on the
• 39:17
  Five Doctors, so if you really want to know what I feel about
• 39:19
  that, just go and listen to that 2.
• 39:22
  Excuse me, that's one of my reasons.
• 39:25
  You lazy. Fuckers second.
• 39:28
  Secondly, I'm lazy because obviously I have can just direct
• 39:31
  you to my blog, forthedimes.wordpress.com, where
• 39:36
  if you look at #24 there you go. There's The Five Doctors, which
• 39:38
  has got a lovely breakdown of what's so fantastic about this.
• 39:43
  And it's a, it's a eulogy that Tevin sticks more than anything.
• 39:45
  So, you know, by all means just pause now or just skip this bit
• 39:49
  and, and go and go and listen to those and read those because
• 39:52
  they're probably going to make a lot, much more sense.
• 39:53
  But if I do have to pick three reasons then as to why I'm going
• 39:59
  to champion the Five Doctors, because obviously I'm going to
• 40:01
  champion the Five Doctors because it is one of the best.
• 40:04
  You know, stories of Doctor whoever written in and it has no
• 40:07
  place here because it's not part of season 20, but it is here now
• 40:11
  and it is the one that I can get excited about and the one that I
• 40:14
  can say, you know, this is fantastic.
• 40:16
  This is brilliant. This is like I say, it's a
• 40:20
  tennis Dix masterpiece. Tennis Dix is the man who
• 40:23
  delivers the goods when you need the goods delivered.
• 40:26
  When you've got your back against the wall, you've got a
• 40:28
  tight deadline, things are falling apart around you and you
• 40:31
  need someone to come in and write a story.
• 40:33
  And you've got two choices. You can get termination to come
• 40:35
  in or you can get turn sticks to come in.
• 40:37
  Every national come in and hack something out for you involving
• 40:40
  radiation and Tarrant Terrence Sticks will give you a
• 40:43
  masterpiece. You know he's done it here.
• 40:45
  He does it with the Ambassadors of Death, he does it with the
• 40:47
  War Games. 10 Sticks is at his best when there's a lot of
• 40:51
  pressure on him. So he's got a constantly
• 40:52
  changing shopping This year. He's the man that goes to
• 40:54
  Tescos, you know, expected to have to get bacon, eggs,
• 40:58
  sausage, you know, milk. And, you know, it turns out that
• 41:01
  he now needs to get a family more and a welding gear.
• 41:03
  He has to go to ALDI, but ALDI shots.
• 41:05
  So he's now got to go over to Marks and Spencer's.
• 41:07
  But now he's welding gear has disappeared.
• 41:09
  He doesn't need that. He needs some rat poison.
• 41:10
  So he now needs to go to B&Q. It's that type of shopping this
• 41:14
  for Terrence. But Terrence can pull this off.
• 41:16
  Thames can't just pull this off. He does it fantastically well.
• 41:19
  He gives us a script which is full of wit and charm and, you
• 41:26
  know, really good characterization.
• 41:28
  He writes Anthony and his master the best.
• 41:30
  We'll get it until one of Monroe comes along for survival.
• 41:34
  He writes Peter Davison, you know, perfectly well in the
• 41:38
  role. He doesn't do the Eric Seywood
• 41:40
  thing of forgetting that the Doctor is the main character of
• 41:43
  the story. He's actually got five of them
• 41:46
  in there for them once Tom gets stuck, but he manages to juggle
• 41:50
  everything around and he comes up with the ultimate 20th
• 41:54
  anniversary celebration because he chucks everything in that you
• 41:58
  want. He's got old villains, he's got
• 42:01
  old companions, he's got old doctors, but he's looking
• 42:05
  forward as well. So if 10 sticks is the first
• 42:07
  reason to celebrate this, the 2nd is going to be the Raston
• 42:10
  Warrior robot. Because you know, I watched this
• 42:14
  and didn't realize the rust on warrior robot wasn't a thing.
• 42:18
  You know, I went away from this thinking like, so where are the
• 42:21
  other stories with the rust on warrior robot in Oh bless.
• 42:24
  You. Yeah, you know when I.
• 42:26
  Spent the rest of Doctor Who feeling quite disappointed then.
• 42:29
  You know, I was what, 10/11/12 at the time, you know, getting
• 42:32
  Avhs because there's five doctors in it and I want to make
• 42:34
  the most out of me, you know, 15 lbs and our price or whatever.
• 42:38
  So, you know, you buy the one with the most doctors in and you
• 42:40
  go away and you think, well, OK, so what's where's you know, I
• 42:44
  know there's darks. I know the Cybermen, I've heard
• 42:46
  of the Yetis before and K9. So where's this rast on then?
• 42:51
  And, you know, it's just this idea that Terence isn't just
• 42:54
  celebrating the past. He's given us new stuff as well.
• 42:56
  You see, right there you go. He has a new, you know, monster
• 42:59
  for you. And it's a man in the tightest
• 43:01
  suit possible who can do a star jump and disappear and shoot,
• 43:06
  you know, bolts from his wrists. And he can absolutely slaughter
• 43:11
  a line of Cybermen as long as they are lined up one after the
• 43:14
  other and they only die one at a time.
• 43:17
  And it's just like this fantastic, fantastic, you know,
• 43:23
  concept. And I really love, you know, the
• 43:27
  Rasta Mario robot for for that reason.
• 43:30
  Third reason then is going to be Peter Davison, because, you
• 43:36
  know, I didn't really want to jump in and sort of like try and
• 43:38
  scupper your, your celebration of modern undead when you were
• 43:41
  slagging Peter Davison off Joe. You know, I'm not like
• 43:45
  remembering that trial or whatever.
• 43:46
  But I haven't even begun. But you know, the one thing you
• 43:50
  know, obviously we've all, you know, sat down and watched these
• 43:53
  stories beforehand. If you're like me, you've got
• 43:56
  the the Blu-ray and you've just done them in order, watching
• 43:59
  them, watching the special features.
• 44:01
  Oh sorry Fraser, can I just interrupt there a second?
• 44:03
  Which seasoned boxer was 5 doctors in?
• 44:06
  It was in Season 20. Oh, that's, oh, that's
• 44:09
  interesting. Yeah.
• 44:09
  OK, thank you. I just, I just wanted to clarify
• 44:12
  that it was in season 20. Can I get on I've?
• 44:15
  Always. I've always loved the five
• 44:18
  Doctors in Season 20. Always.
• 44:20
  But have have you got the Season 22 box at Rod?
• 44:23
  I have. Thank you, Fraser.
• 44:26
  How? How does twin day lemon?
• 44:27
  We're not Fraser, we're not discussing 22 today, it looks.
• 44:31
  Very awkward in there if I'm honest.
• 44:33
  We're discussing Season 20, yeah.
• 44:35
  Yeah. Thank you.
• 44:37
  Thank you for clarifying anyway. Yeah, please continue.
• 44:41
  Shut up you pair of bitches and get on with it.
• 44:44
  Have they squubbed up the special effects on that one for
• 44:46
  the Blu-ray? Does it look nice?
• 44:49
  You know, does it? Pop up.
• 44:50
  It's very nice, Yes, Let's look. Like let's go in HD.
• 44:54
  Will you get on with wanking off Peter Davidson, please?
• 44:57
  Come on. No.
• 45:02
  Yes. So the thing that struck me when
• 45:04
  I watched this one beginning to end from Ox of Infinity through
• 45:07
  to the King's Demons the whole of Season 20, was Peter Davison
• 45:12
  because he shines throughout the season when there's nothing else
• 45:16
  going on. Peter Davison is giving it
• 45:19
  everything. OK.
• 45:20
  And you know, the reason you don't think he's giving it
• 45:23
  everything is because he's not Tom Baker who's coming in and,
• 45:27
  you know, looking at the script and going, yeah, fuck that, I'm
• 45:29
  going to do something completely different.
• 45:31
  He's not Colin Baker coming in and.
• 45:33
  Going shame. That's that's the script.
• 45:35
  How can I make this 10 times louder?
• 45:40
  You know, he is just coming in and he's doing his business very
• 45:43
  quietly, very subtly, very naturalistically.
• 45:46
  But he's doing it. He's doing it all the time.
• 45:49
  We'll talk about when we're coming to the other stories, but
• 45:52
  every story there was an energy to Peter Davison that just
• 45:57
  struck me. Like I say, going through, you
• 45:59
  can just see what he's doing. You can see what he's bringing
• 46:01
  to this role. You can see he's he's had his
• 46:03
  first season to work out what he wants to do with the character.
• 46:05
  He's got his second season now where he's putting that into
• 46:08
  practice. He'll have his third.
• 46:09
  See he's now where he knows he's leaving and he just goes, fuck
• 46:12
  this. I'm going to do what I want to
• 46:13
  do and, you know, take the gloves off.
• 46:16
  But right at this moment, right in the middle, you get this
• 46:18
  lovely sweet spot where he is just got that breathless energy.
• 46:23
  He's, you know, he's got, you know, sarcasm when he gifts it.
• 46:28
  You know, you can play a sarcastic lane wonderfully.
• 46:30
  And coming back to .1, that's what 10 sticks knows about them.
• 46:34
  So 10 sticks gives them all the best saki lines in this room to
• 46:37
  deliver and he just knocks out the park.
• 46:40
  So all the way through, but particularly in this one where I
• 46:43
  just love everything he's doing for every stance, every look,
• 46:47
  every, you know, eye roll or, you know, head to look at
• 46:51
  Barussa or hands in his pockets. Peter Davidson is, is is the
• 46:55
  man. So yeah, there's three reasons,
• 46:58
  You know, I could go on. Please don't.
• 47:01
  Please don't we? #4 then.
• 47:04
  Moving swiftly. #4 you know, I, I, you know how I, you know, I
• 47:07
  hate to contradict you, Fraser, but I don't know.
• 47:11
  There is one story this year. There is one story this year
• 47:14
  where on the DVD documentary, Peter Davidson himself says he
• 47:21
  gave up in one story and he stopped trying.
• 47:25
  And we'll get to that later. But there is a point, There is a
• 47:27
  point this season where he just went enough.
• 47:30
  He is. That so super sarcastic.
• 47:32
  So, you know, take it with a picture.
• 47:34
  It's a big dog story. I'm not saying a word.
• 47:37
  Good phrase, though you'll have to wait.
• 47:40
  Let's go to the comments, Joe Short said possibly still the
• 47:43
  best anniversary episode ever has everything you need to make
• 47:46
  most fans happy. Best Anthony Ailey performance
• 47:49
  and the Brig gets to punch the master.
• 47:52
  Gary Russell Never short of winding people up.
• 47:55
  Fun, but I don't love it. Simon Hart Oh, I wonder what way
• 47:59
  Sy Hart. 'S going to go he.
• 48:01
  Says, strangely enough, stands high above as the greatest ever
• 48:05
  celebration of Doctor Who. Oh.
• 48:07
  Well, that's the final word then.
• 48:08
  Thank you for joining us on this episode on Strictly Account
• 48:11
  Monster Chris Hogburn Comfort Who?
• 48:13
  It's the passport to the show being mental, messy and great
• 48:17
  fun. Plus that new console is just
• 48:19
  stunning. Daniel Ramsley says is there a
• 48:21
  cosier, more quotable and entertaining story?
• 48:24
  Probably yes. But whatever.
• 48:26
  We can recite it like a favorite song, know it's strengths and
• 48:28
  flaws back to front, and settle into its groove like listening
• 48:31
  to a favorite greatest hits album.
• 48:34
  John Benzalia, easily my favorite anniversary story,
• 48:37
  manages the unenviable task of spinning four and a bit plates
• 48:41
  at once. Lots of popular returning
• 48:43
  monsters of companions and a tale that retains that unique
• 48:46
  Who ethos but which is also a bit spooky.
• 48:49
  Absolute. I'm sick.
• 48:51
  James Larks is the perfect hit of nostalgia and celebration.
• 48:54
  Wonderful location filming, the cyber slaughter and Pietel's
• 48:58
  best score. A series of set pieces.
• 49:00
  Well of course. Or to put it another way, a
• 49:03
  series of punch the air moments that still gets the heart racing
• 49:06
  on 97th viewing. Pure joy from start to finish.
• 49:09
  I can hear James Larks saying every word in the comment.
• 49:13
  Darren lit roundels this packed full of so much that's crap but
• 49:17
  that adds to the charm. Easily one of the most rewatched
• 49:19
  stories from my youth. There's zero depth or quality,
• 49:22
  but it's the show remembering to entertain its audience.
• 49:25
  Jason Thompson says on a similar theme, it's a paper thin plot,
• 49:28
  but that really isn't the point. This is a celebration, and on
• 49:31
  that basis it succeeds. It's fun and gives the fans of
• 49:35
  any part of the prior two decades something to enjoy.
• 49:38
  I'm not blind to its flaws, but seeing it on the big screen at
• 49:41
  the BFI last year was honestly one of the best days ever.
• 49:44
  So no way would I ever been this.
• 49:47
  Michael Storm he's talking about.
• 49:48
  These flaws, what are these flaws?
• 49:51
  We'll get that, Fraser, we'll get that.
• 49:52
  Just opinions. Michael Storm.
• 49:55
  A fun rump that works when it really shouldn't.
• 49:57
  A series of individual vignettes, vaguely.
• 50:00
  Oh God, a series of individual vignettes vaguely linked
• 50:03
  together by a small overarching plot.
• 50:07
  Some of the plot logic is a bit ropey.
• 50:09
  The geography of the Deathstone is a nonsensical, but the set
• 50:12
  pieces are very good, particularly the rest on work.
• 50:15
  Warrior and the 2nd Doctor working out.
• 50:17
  Jamie and Zoe are fake. David Lancaster says a piece of
• 50:20
  nostalgic camp old nonsense, so obviously it gets a pass.
• 50:23
  Feels like a huge warm hug. But why wasn't Chameleon used at
• 50:27
  all? Dicks had the perfect plot
• 50:29
  device to it to explain away Herndal looking nothing like
• 50:32
  Artenal. Not that we needed it or to
• 50:34
  allow for further guest casting, but Nope, nada.
• 50:37
  Feels like a missed opportunity. And again in Warriors the Deep
• 50:41
  and again in The Awakening. And again.
• 50:43
  Yeah, James H the perfect end to the season.
• 50:46
  Bruce, who wants eternal life begets eternal existence.
• 50:49
  The Master tries to get a new life, but the Doctor
• 50:52
  accidentally denies it. Time Lord see lesser lives as a
• 50:55
  game. And the Doctor left Gallery
• 50:57
  Gallifrey to get a life. Keep it.
• 51:00
  Complexicated, Cookie said. A wonderful celebration of the
• 51:03
  show to this point. Colin Hicks.
• 51:05
  I might be biased as it's where I started watching regularly,
• 51:07
  but it's just so much fun. Daniel Knight is glorious.
• 51:11
  Yes, there are crap bits, Susan falling over a bit of grass and
• 51:14
  Eric Saywood Cyberman obsession takes over a bit.
• 51:17
  J&T direction of the Ruston robot scenes is quite impressive
• 51:21
  and the incidental score is fantastic.
• 51:23
  Hendel does okay as Hartnell, but overall it's a magnificent
• 51:26
  celebration of the 1st 20 years. Kevin Watson Hoy a vastly
• 51:30
  overrated I've never been able to see to get past the 5th
• 51:34
  doctor and susan's entirely unemotional response to seeing
• 51:38
  unemotional They look like they want to fuck each other in that
• 51:42
  the way they're looking at each other I.
• 51:43
  Think that's maybe your interpretation.
• 51:46
  Seeing each other again. And finally, Tom Newson says The
• 51:49
  Five Doctors shouldn't work and plays completely to the gallery.
• 51:53
  Is it only loved by fans or does it convert everyone who watched
• 51:56
  it into a fan? Terrance was really clever.
• 51:59
  Whatever you enjoy about Doctor Who, it's probably included.
• 52:04
  So damn. Yay or nay for the five Doctors?
• 52:07
  Oh, how bold are you going to be?
• 52:09
  Oh, God, It's totally yay. It's.
• 52:11
  I've already waffled on about this on another podcast.
• 52:13
  Yeah, positive bombard. Positive irons bombardment.
• 52:18
  Yeah, totally. It's a total celebration of
• 52:20
  Doctor Who. I've watched this more times
• 52:23
  than any other Doctor Who story. The BFI thing was amazing.
• 52:27
  Watching Doctor Who, like in a cinema with people, it's like
• 52:31
  there's a like a laughter track going on when Susan trips over
• 52:33
  the whole audience. Just like when the Master gets
• 52:37
  punched again. It was just so it, it elevated.
• 52:40
  It's a whole other level. Seeing it with all those people.
• 52:43
  It looks amazing. What else can we say about this?
• 52:46
  Yeah, again, I'm being a location borer.
• 52:48
  I've been to multiple locations because you know, if you're
• 52:52
  going to go somewhere in this country you have to look at what
• 52:54
  doctor locations there are. The first Doctors gardens in in
• 52:57
  Wales. Lovely.
• 52:59
  Haven't been down the the Slate mine or whatever it was where
• 53:03
  the rest of Warrior hangs out because that's a bit too, too
• 53:05
  obscure. The Eye of Orion.
• 53:07
  There's loads of rabbit shit in the bottom part of that, it's
• 53:12
  weird. You can climb up some steps just
• 53:14
  out short right upstairs is fine, lower bit covered in shit
• 53:19
  inside. I'm not even honestly.
• 53:23
  It's not rabbit shit, it is those positive ions.
• 53:25
  I was literally. That's what that means yes like
• 53:31
  certain super fans have been there and done dirty protests.
• 53:33
  Disgusting bastards. It's got loads of iconic.
• 53:36
  I hate the word moments this it's just basically like we
• 53:39
  said, a joy you've got the you've redecorated.
• 53:41
  I don't like it bit at Unit HQ, the master having a whale.
• 53:45
  Over time they've let Anthony Ailey just have a laugh and just
• 53:50
  be really sarcastic the whole time and just having a
• 53:53
  marvellous time. Sarah Jane's classic perilous
• 53:55
  ravine scene which is amazing. Ravine.
• 53:58
  You'd go that far, would you? Like even now when I rewatched
• 54:02
  this the other day I had to keep watching it and just laughing
• 54:04
  every single time. Every time I see a slight
• 54:07
  incline now I'll just go. What's annoying is when we went
• 54:12
  to the death zone, we had a puncture at the top of the zest.
• 54:13
  So if you there's no signal for miles at the top of the dev
• 54:16
  zone, there's no phone signal, no nothing.
• 54:20
  Did you say at that point see what I mean?
• 54:23
  A. Trap.
• 54:25
  It did feel like something was bigger was going on.
• 54:27
  There were sheep everywhere, just giving me looks.
• 54:29
  Any thunderbolts? No thunderbolts, No.
• 54:32
  What else is iconic? The pineapple platter, of
• 54:34
  course, with the 1st Doctor. Classic.
• 54:36
  Classic scene putting Herndon and Tegan together as a weird
• 54:40
  double act worked really well. The cyber men with the vomiting
• 54:45
  and the one that holds his arm under and his arm falls off and
• 54:48
  the weird Mr. Blobby sound effect they have when you know
• 54:50
  when they scream it's like Mr. Blobby.
• 54:53
  It's the same. It's the same voice treatment
• 54:56
  thing, if you know what I mean. So Mr. Blobby now fucking freaks
• 55:00
  me out because. Wouldn't you love to see Mr.
• 55:02
  Blobby going over that chest? But yeah, there's just so many
• 55:06
  things in it. The the wax worked on Baker, on
• 55:09
  the publicity shot, just everything.
• 55:12
  It's just fucking brilliant. Basically just everything I
• 55:14
  think. And for the final thing,
• 55:17
  everything off. Everything off Rassilon, The
• 55:20
  Seal of Rassilon, the Key of Rassilon, the Tower of Rassilon,
• 55:22
  the Sash of Rassilon, the Harp of Rassilon, the Ring of
• 55:26
  Rassilon. Is it a ring?
• 55:27
  I beg your pardon? Is it a ring of Rassilon?
• 55:29
  They put the ring on I'm. Sorry, it's got one.
• 55:31
  No, stop it. They put the ring on Barusa.
• 55:35
  Basically, you know, everything and it also, if I'm being a bit
• 55:38
  of a potentious wanker about it, season 20 starts with Gallifrey
• 55:43
  and they basically just decide, oh fuck it, we'll just kill the
• 55:45
  Doctor because he's a bit of a danger because of only go.
• 55:47
  And at the end of season 20 they go, Oh well done, do you want to
• 55:49
  be in charge? Wait, what the fuck?
• 55:52
  Turn around. And then in Troll of Saltner
• 55:55
  they go, well, you didn't hang around, you were deposed.
• 55:57
  Basically Gallifrey. I can see Russell D Davis's
• 55:59
  point about Gallifrey. It is quite tiresome.
• 56:01
  Oh, so boring isn't? It it's so they're so boring and
• 56:04
  they just keep recasting bruther every time and it's like just
• 56:08
  just, you know, there's a lot lack of a lack of consistency,
• 56:10
  but five doctors is the ultimate Doctor Who celebration and it
• 56:14
  has to go in no, no way is it going in the bin of racing one.
• 56:18
  OK. So I'm going to go next, Joe, if
• 56:20
  that's all right. Yes, please, Rod, why don't you
• 56:23
  tell us all how controversial you can truly be?
• 56:26
  I'm booting this one out. Well, of course you are.
• 56:30
  And. Wait, wait.
• 56:31
  But before I say this, do you truly mean this or are you just
• 56:35
  being contrary for? The format.
• 56:38
  Because I don't believe anyone hates the Five Doctors.
• 56:41
  I don't hate the five doctors. I love the five doctors.
• 56:43
  But but, but my point is we're trying to find the best Davidson
• 56:51
  story in this. Well, you are going to.
• 56:53
  Find it in season 20. Why are you taking out the five
• 56:57
  doctors? It this story does not represent
• 57:01
  Peter Davidson. We've we've touched on it
• 57:02
  already. Davidson's era is about, you
• 57:06
  know, when he's at his best, It's thoughtful, complex sci-fi
• 57:09
  ideas. And there are some of those, and
• 57:12
  I think those should be celebrated because there are
• 57:15
  there isn't much in Davidson's era that needs celebrating and
• 57:18
  those need to be celebrated. Therefore, because this is a big
• 57:22
  camp old nostalgia fest that's so atypical of anything else in
• 57:26
  this era, I think it ought to go.
• 57:28
  Otherwise it overshadows everything else and the the the
• 57:32
  gold that is in that era that is more symbolic of that era
• 57:37
  doesn't get doesn't get a look in, so I'm booting.
• 57:39
  It I can see your point actually it's like a separate entity of
• 57:42
  its own right. Yeah, so.
• 57:44
  Hang on, hang on. Don't you?
• 57:47
  I'm on, I'm on the go. On.
• 57:50
  Your reason for kicking this out is it's too good.
• 57:52
  Too good. I didn't say it was too good.
• 57:55
  I never said that. I said it.
• 57:56
  You lot would vote it in. OK.
• 58:00
  All I think is is. I've heard worse reasons for
• 58:02
  kicking something out, mostly from me.
• 58:06
  So I've therefore got to find three reasons to Kick It Out of
• 58:09
  now. So I've got to try keep.
• 58:11
  It interesting. So I have picked thematically
• 58:16
  some of the celebratory Doctor Who episodes to compare and
• 58:19
  contrast. So I'm going to start with Power
• 58:21
  of the Doctor. Yay.
• 58:23
  So power of the Doctor is all about what is the power of the
• 58:26
  Doctor? The power of the Doctor is his
• 58:28
  or her friends. So how are the Doctor's friends
• 58:32
  treated in this story? And I would say piss poor.
• 58:35
  They got a terrible showing in this story.
• 58:38
  So we've got Susan, you know, she's his granddaughter.
• 58:42
  We're going back to Gallifrey. We're exploring the mythos.
• 58:45
  Surely Susan's going to be central to this?
• 58:47
  No. Is she?
• 58:48
  Fuck, She comes along. She has the worst stage fall in
• 58:52
  the whole of Doctor Who. She's watching that little tuft
• 58:55
  of grass as she runs very badly towards her and then falls over
• 58:59
  and twists her ankle. I mean.
• 59:00
  She's got better eyesight than the Doctor though doesn't she?
• 59:03
  When she spots the targets from 2 bases.
• 59:05
  Away. I'm coming to that.
• 59:06
  Yeah, Joe, so terrible. And I agree.
• 59:09
  When she meets Davidson, I don't think there's anything there.
• 59:12
  Davidson just looks. Herndl introduces her.
• 59:15
  This is Susan. He just says, I know.
• 59:16
  Are they? Really.
• 59:18
  And she just looks there, simpering.
• 59:20
  I don't think they want to tear their clothes.
• 59:21
  I don't know what programme you're watching, Joe, but I
• 59:24
  don't see that. Then we come to the Brigadier.
• 59:26
  The Brigadier, yes, he's lovely, but he's just there as a foil
• 59:30
  for Troughton's comedy or as Mr. Exposition, because by God,
• 59:34
  those scenes with Troughton are all exposition.
• 59:37
  Sarah Jane, bloody hell. Sarah Jane at the beginning,
• 59:40
  Canine warns her there's danger the doctors involved, Sarah Jane
• 59:44
  would respond to that. She says Oh no, fuck that, I'm
• 59:47
  going to catch the boss. So she goes off.
• 59:49
  She's completely out of character.
• 59:50
  She rolls down a molehill, she does lots of lip trembling
• 59:54
  standing in the background. She's just so wasted.
• 59:57
  I love Elizabeth Slaydon, she's totally wasted in this.
• 1:00:00
  Tegan's just grumpy. Turla has nothing to do.
• 1:00:04
  The cameos The worst crime in the cameo, apart from Zoe's
• 1:00:07
  bubble wrap dress is that Mike Gates and Liz Shaw are shot in
• 1:00:11
  long shots. They don't get a close up till
• 1:00:14
  just before they go. It's the two doctors.
• 1:00:16
  All I've got is fucking Peter Moffett with his terrible
• 1:00:19
  direction doing the sun times and long shot we don't even see.
• 1:00:22
  We know it's Mike Gates and Liz Shaw because we're Doctor Who
• 1:00:25
  fans. General audience don't stand the
• 1:00:27
  clip. Who's that way back in the
• 1:00:29
  background? Can't see them, so the
• 1:00:31
  companion's massively underserved.
• 1:00:34
  So that's my first reason. Second reason is the two
• 1:00:37
  Doctors. And here I am absolutely going
• 1:00:40
  to condemn Peter Bloody Moffett. Now, we praised him in State of
• 1:00:44
  Decay, his first outing, but this is State of Inertia.
• 1:00:47
  I mean, the best directed scenes in here, the Cyber Massacre,
• 1:00:51
  which is John Nathan Turner, and Sharda scenes, which is Pennant
• 1:00:55
  Roberts. And when you're paling into
• 1:00:57
  insignificance against Pennant Roberts, you really know you're
• 1:01:00
  up the Creek. So let's just think about a few
• 1:01:03
  of Peter Moffat's stunning directions, the chess board
• 1:01:06
  sequence. So we get, you know, description
• 1:01:10
  that you need to use π and good old Anthony Ailey, he gives it
• 1:01:13
  his all, doesn't he skips across.
• 1:01:15
  He suggests there is a method to crossing this board.
• 1:01:19
  Then we get to Richard Herndl, who's been directed by Peter
• 1:01:21
  Moffat, and he just toodles across the board.
• 1:01:24
  He's crossing across to say he doesn't care.
• 1:01:27
  He's very clever, he knows the right squares to step on.
• 1:01:31
  What was the point of all of that description?
• 1:01:33
  It completely invalidates that scene because it's so badly
• 1:01:36
  shot. Sarah falling down the slope.
• 1:01:39
  I mean, the direction is you're all laughing at her.
• 1:01:42
  Quite right. It's.
• 1:01:44
  I really. Love it.
• 1:01:45
  That's why we love it. And it's made even.
• 1:01:48
  Worse, it's not laughing at that Rod, but.
• 1:01:53
  It's made worse by the fact that Poe, he goes to all this
• 1:01:56
  nonsense about getting the rope and winching her up.
• 1:01:58
  He could just put one step down and I'll pick her up.
• 1:02:01
  Oh, bad. Doesn't man to come into that.
• 1:02:03
  And then we have so many instances where people just do
• 1:02:08
  not see what is in front of them.
• 1:02:10
  And that's not the actor's fault.
• 1:02:12
  It's not the script's fault. It's the direction that Moffatt
• 1:02:15
  is not placing the actors where they need to be.
• 1:02:17
  Joe, you already mentioned it. Herndel doesn't see the TARDIS
• 1:02:20
  when it's right in front of him. He's got cataracts.
• 1:02:23
  He's Are you ageist? Out in the Brigadier look at the
• 1:02:28
  Cyberman and say, what's that? It's a fucking Cyberman.
• 1:02:31
  We could see it right in front of your.
• 1:02:32
  Nose. They come all out behind those
• 1:02:34
  rocks and no one spots them for ages.
• 1:02:36
  It's so funny. Through the cyber glory hole.
• 1:02:40
  Yeah. Then you've got Pearly.
• 1:02:42
  Pearly stands in Bessie stood up staring at the tower.
• 1:02:46
  Gives a big speech that says we're after the tower.
• 1:02:49
  Oh, there it is. You've just been staring at it
• 1:02:51
  for 5 minutes. You've not moved, Perk.
• 1:02:55
  We and Sarah on top of the tower, they say how are we going
• 1:02:58
  to get into the tower? There's a fucking great big door
• 1:03:00
  in front of them with a handle on it.
• 1:03:02
  Perk We just answer it and opens it.
• 1:03:04
  There's just so many instances. Davidson and the Master don't
• 1:03:07
  see the Cyberman, the AWE Cyberman walk down towards them,
• 1:03:11
  but even worse, Tegan and Susan are watching from the distance.
• 1:03:15
  What's going on? Hang on, hang.
• 1:03:17
  On it's Tegan and Susan. Remember.
• 1:03:19
  Oh, just the direction is shockingly bad.
• 1:03:23
  And finally, I'm going to compare it to the three doctors
• 1:03:26
  now, the three doctors. No, Rob, No.
• 1:03:29
  Loses in translation because the ideas on the page don't match
• 1:03:32
  what's on screen. And I think that's what we get
• 1:03:35
  here. Terrance Dick's script is
• 1:03:37
  underserved by terrible direction.
• 1:03:40
  And the one scene, not just I just can't get past, Herndel and
• 1:03:44
  Davidson are in the TARDIS talking about the Death Zone.
• 1:03:47
  They're discussing this is a place of evil.
• 1:03:49
  It's really serious. You know, we should be ramping
• 1:03:52
  up some tension here. The camera is focusing on Susan
• 1:03:56
  and Tegan pretending to have a little chat, eating Nibbles sat
• 1:03:59
  in Wicker chairs, and Turlo sat there drinking a green cocktail,
• 1:04:04
  saying what's going on. It's fucking ludicrous, terrible
• 1:04:07
  direction it's going. Oh hang on, I've just received a
• 1:04:12
  new statement. We, the undersigned, would like
• 1:04:14
  to apologise for all the insults we are about to direct towards
• 1:04:18
  Mr. Rod Brown. When?
• 1:04:20
  You're saying that? I don't know where to start with
• 1:04:24
  that I think. You just agree with it all.
• 1:04:26
  No, you don't because it's it's bollocks.
• 1:04:30
  I mean, all I can, all I can assume is somewhere out there
• 1:04:33
  time scales is holding your beer.
• 1:04:34
  Oh, because you know, oh, hottest, hottest Doctor Who take
• 1:04:39
  of the week. No.
• 1:04:43
  It's like coming out for a long time now.
• 1:04:46
  Don't worry, I'll. Be edited out before I get that.
• 1:04:50
  I mean, you've made the point there that, you know Peter
• 1:04:53
  Moffat's direction is terrible, so all the ideas of the script
• 1:04:56
  don't come across on screen because Peter Moffat's direction
• 1:05:00
  is terrible. But then you've went on to say
• 1:05:02
  that The Three Doctors is great because despite the fact that
• 1:05:06
  none of the ideas come onto the screen.
• 1:05:07
  No, no, I said. The three doctors has the same
• 1:05:09
  problem, that the ideas don't get translated.
• 1:05:11
  It's. You know the the Cyberman is
• 1:05:16
  covered in fog basically. That's why you don't see the
• 1:05:20
  Fiberman. We can see it.
• 1:05:21
  We can see. Clearly.
• 1:05:23
  Yes, because you've watched this 9,000,000 times and you're
• 1:05:25
  watching it now on an OLED TV in HD.
• 1:05:29
  Yeah, you're not stored right in there in the fog, because that's
• 1:05:32
  what it's supposed to be, that the Death Zone is supposed to be
• 1:05:35
  shrouded in fog. Now you can't blame Peter Moffat
• 1:05:37
  because there was a bit of wind A.
• 1:05:39
  Bit of sun. And the fog wasn't there, so you
• 1:05:42
  put that fog back in to every single scene that you're
• 1:05:45
  complaining about them not seeing anything.
• 1:05:48
  But. You could only by you could only
• 1:05:50
  judge it by what's there exactly.
• 1:05:52
  And it's not there, not what you wish was there.
• 1:05:56
  If if that was the case, every little two-story will be going
• 1:05:59
  through the the. Suspension of disbelief Where's
• 1:06:03
  your suspension of disbelief? It left about 5 minutes into
• 1:06:06
  the. Episode Oh Dick anyway.
• 1:06:10
  Joe, would you like to champion or condemn?
• 1:06:12
  It's it's one all at the moment. So you have the deciding vote.
• 1:06:15
  It's, it's like one of my great pleasures and of the last year,
• 1:06:18
  frankly, to see which absolute classics you're daring to put in
• 1:06:23
  the bin. Girl in the fireplace.
• 1:06:25
  You know, they are the doctor, the mind robber.
• 1:06:29
  And yet you've still got a place in your heart.
• 1:06:31
  You've got a place in your heart for the sense of rights and
• 1:06:34
  things like that. Yeah, it's, it's it's baffling
• 1:06:37
  and wonderful. And it never fails to tickle me.
• 1:06:40
  I want to tell you a story, right.
• 1:06:42
  Once Upon a time, I went to a sauna, a gay sauna, OK.
• 1:06:47
  And I was there for about 13 hours.
• 1:06:51
  And I think I slept with about 13 men that day.
• 1:06:55
  I had at least three threesomes. And I was going all around the
• 1:07:00
  world with all the different men I was choosing.
• 1:07:02
  It was the most wonderful day and I experienced the most
• 1:07:05
  pleasure I've ever experienced in my entire life, except when I
• 1:07:11
  watched The Five Doctors, which is the only thing that was more
• 1:07:14
  pleasurable than that orgy of sexual delight.
• 1:07:18
  And that's probably about 5 minutes of the Five Doctors, I
• 1:07:20
  think sort of captures that amount of pleasure.
• 1:07:23
  What is wrong with you? This is one of the most
• 1:07:27
  deliriously enjoyable Doctor Who stories ever.
• 1:07:30
  For my first point, I'd like to direct you to my hamster with
• 1:07:33
  blood penknife commentary. 2 1/2 hours of everyone tell you.
• 1:07:37
  For my second point, there's a lovely Doctor Who website out
• 1:07:40
  there called Doctor Who Reviews. None of that.
• 1:07:43
  Basically. I'm not, I'm really not going to
• 1:07:44
  labour the point because Fraser and that have both been superb
• 1:07:48
  in everything that they've said. But there is no, there's not one
• 1:07:51
  second of this that doesn't work.
• 1:07:54
  Even if there is weak direction in there, who cares?
• 1:07:57
  This is an absolute delight of Doctor Who nostalgia of bringing
• 1:08:02
  back the best and the worst. Yes, Susan Caroline Fordes in
• 1:08:06
  there as well. Yes, they should have looked at
• 1:08:08
  the future and brought in Sophie Aldrin as well.
• 1:08:11
  We can add everyone in there watching out doing a cameo Pete
• 1:08:14
  Capaldi style anyway would have. That would have raised it up
• 1:08:18
  about. It's great.
• 1:08:20
  It's great every month. It's got all the doctors you
• 1:08:22
  could possibly have. It's got a fantastic score.
• 1:08:26
  I think the direction is well above par in this one as well,
• 1:08:29
  because he's outside most of the time.
• 1:08:31
  All of those actors are giving charismatic performances.
• 1:08:34
  They've all got fantastically quotable lines from Terrace
• 1:08:37
  Vicks. Oh, it's just deliriously
• 1:08:40
  wonderful. So can I just take it you're
• 1:08:44
  putting it through then? I'm putting it through.
• 1:08:46
  I'm basically calling it the docs who are equivalent of a 13
• 1:08:49
  hour orgy in a sauna it's going through.
• 1:08:53
  And Rod, just to confirm, if we get to round two and you want to
• 1:08:57
  change your mind, all you've got to do is say you were hacked by
• 1:08:59
  an Irishman. OK.
• 1:09:00
  Oh, no, it was, it was AI. It was AI.
• 1:09:03
  It wasn't, it wasn't hacking. Are you sure?
• 1:09:05
  I think that was about 15 excuses back it.
• 1:09:08
  Was I've lost track I thought. I thought it was the AI one.
• 1:09:12
  It was the AI, but then it turned out he was hacked by an
• 1:09:14
  Irishman. I'm not making any assumptions
• 1:09:17
  right? I'm just asking the questions.
• 1:09:22
  Right, let's move on to our next Joe.
• 1:09:25
  Hello. Is there anything else in season
• 1:09:27
  20 that makes you as excited as the Five Doctors?
• 1:09:31
  Yes. Oh, wait.
• 1:09:33
  What's that? I've just been handed a note.
• 1:09:35
  Hang on. Oh, it's got blood all over it.
• 1:09:37
  What's happening here? Cue sinister music.
• 1:09:40
  Joe. Dear Joe, I have Mark held
• 1:09:46
  hostage. Unless you give an extremely
• 1:09:49
  positive reading on Terminus. I will murder.
• 1:09:53
  Him horribly love your best friend Simon Hart.
• 1:09:56
  Oh no well, I'm going to have to do it and I Jesus Christ and he
• 1:10:00
  drives me nuts. But I do love him.
• 1:10:02
  OK, I would like to champion terminus if I may What madness
• 1:10:08
  is this but actually do you know what so I there's three stories
• 1:10:12
  in this season I don't really like this is one of them.
• 1:10:15
  But when I really started thinking about it, the more I
• 1:10:18
  watched, it's a bit of a grower terminus.
• 1:10:21
  The more I watch it, the more I like it.
• 1:10:23
  I hated it back in the day. I reviewed it for doco reviews,
• 1:10:26
  like it went up a bit more. I did it on Hamster with Sy and
• 1:10:28
  Brendan. I liked it a bit more and it's
• 1:10:30
  the one story I watched in preparation for this episode and
• 1:10:35
  I really rather enjoyed it. I think there are production
• 1:10:38
  issues which are probably 80% due to the strikes and the
• 1:10:44
  studio time being cut down. But there are three reasons why
• 1:10:47
  I would like to put it through. One is I love the tone of this
• 1:10:52
  story and the world building that Stephen Gallagher does.
• 1:10:57
  It's sort of that sort of dark, cynical, well building that Eric
• 1:11:01
  Saywood loves, isn't it? You know, it's this this
• 1:11:04
  horrible place where they're processing people through, where
• 1:11:08
  everybody that's working there is hooked on these drugs that
• 1:11:12
  they can only get from the company, this terrible
• 1:11:14
  capitalist empire that's sending it through and keeping them all
• 1:11:18
  as slaves. I mean, it's the most miserable
• 1:11:20
  place in the world. But actually, Stephen Gallagher
• 1:11:22
  knows how to make that sort of thing work.
• 1:11:24
  And I think I think through the characters we see and the power
• 1:11:29
  struggles that we see on Terminus, it plays out in a
• 1:11:31
  really interesting way. So I I just like the world that
• 1:11:35
  they're building and I like the fact they go to the to the
• 1:11:38
  daring length to say that it's a leper ship, which I think is the
• 1:11:43
  very strong word for classic who.
• 1:11:46
  I'm just showing all those, you know, shuffling, diseased.
• 1:11:50
  People. Being herded through into this
• 1:11:53
  miserable place when you go down in the lift is it is literally
• 1:11:56
  like going down into the pits of hell.
• 1:11:58
  You know the fabulous design of the guards.
• 1:12:02
  You know, I forget what it's based on now.
• 1:12:05
  The veneer guards, the. Norse.
• 1:12:06
  Norse. Mythology.
• 1:12:07
  Yeah, sort of skeletal design. I just say all of that's
• 1:12:11
  wonderful. And Mary Ridge is a very
• 1:12:15
  reliable director. She directs some of the very
• 1:12:18
  best Blake 7 episodes. She can do science fiction.
• 1:12:21
  So I don't think she's the problem.
• 1:12:24
  I do think it is, one, a lack of time, one, it's a lack of money.
• 1:12:29
  There we are. My second reason is just one
• 1:12:32
  character, the one ray of light in Terminus, and that's Boar,
• 1:12:37
  who's just an absolute delight. We don't get enough of him, and
• 1:12:41
  he's trying his hardest to find the best way out of this
• 1:12:43
  situation and gets crippled and burned for his trouble and sits
• 1:12:47
  there in a day's mess commenting very funnily on what's going on
• 1:12:51
  in the story. And it's just like, it's a very
• 1:12:53
  witty, very charismatic term in the middle of all this darkness.
• 1:12:58
  And I think that's very commendable.
• 1:13:00
  But the real reason I want to put Terminus through is a lot of
• 1:13:05
  people write off the slower character moments in this story,
• 1:13:09
  but I think they're really good. I think the opening scene
• 1:13:12
  between Tegan and Turlow is a really interesting way to play a
• 1:13:16
  new companion on the tiles. We know he's evil.
• 1:13:18
  We know he's out to kill the Doctor.
• 1:13:20
  Tegan is openly hostile towards him.
• 1:13:23
  He charms her completely in opening scene.
• 1:13:25
  Or he thinks he is. What is it he says to to apply
• 1:13:29
  charm? The way I do is to disagree
• 1:13:31
  agreeably. He's a smooth bastard, isn't he?
• 1:13:34
  So I, I love all of that stuff. And I think that's where the
• 1:13:37
  TARDIS things work this season is when they're doing more
• 1:13:41
  interesting stuff like that. I also really, really love the
• 1:13:45
  the moment, I don't think it's needed at all.
• 1:13:48
  Where Turn Low says to Tegan, could you kill somebody?
• 1:13:53
  And they have a very quick conversation on the stairs and
• 1:13:57
  it feels like it's come out of some prestige ITV drama, not
• 1:14:00
  fucking Terminus, where they're actually tackling like a really
• 1:14:04
  serious issue. I think it's a lovely moment.
• 1:14:06
  And the other character I adore is the end of the story where I
• 1:14:10
  just feel genuine empathy towards Nisa when she's going.
• 1:14:14
  I love Tegan's reluctance to let go of her.
• 1:14:18
  I like the doctors. For once.
• 1:14:20
  I think Davidson underplaying the emotion really works because
• 1:14:23
  he's clearly very moved by the fact that she's choosing to go.
• 1:14:27
  And the little kiss that she gives me really lovely as well.
• 1:14:30
  There are little moments like that peppered throughout the
• 1:14:32
  story that elevates it a lot. It's nobody's favorite Terminus,
• 1:14:38
  and nobody's ever going to say this is an absolute classic of
• 1:14:40
  Doctor Who. I think if you can see around
• 1:14:45
  the production issues, and we can do that with a lot of other
• 1:14:47
  Doctor Who's stories, it's a thoughtful story.
• 1:14:51
  It's got another brilliant science fiction idea at his
• 1:14:53
  heart that this explosion of this station caused.
• 1:14:58
  It's the start. Was it the start of the end of
• 1:15:00
  the universe? It's a start, isn't it?
• 1:15:04
  It's a huge idea. It's a shame.
• 1:15:05
  We've already been there in Castro Valva, and we're going to
• 1:15:07
  go there again and slip back. Ericsson doesn't like to throw
• 1:15:10
  away an idea, does he? But it's another good idea to,
• 1:15:13
  you know, that the bit where the Doctor goes Terminus is at the
• 1:15:17
  exact centre point of the entire universe, you know, And even the
• 1:15:21
  idea of the Calms Gray, right? And now I've seen him in person
• 1:15:25
  at that fabulous museum in Allendale, this enormous
• 1:15:29
  behemoth canine, and actually lit really well for once, it
• 1:15:35
  said. Not a bad design.
• 1:15:36
  It's just a shame it's so exposed.
• 1:15:39
  I think if you'd seen it in silhouette with the glowing red
• 1:15:41
  eyes, it could have worked really well.
• 1:15:43
  I think there's really, really interesting things going on in
• 1:15:46
  this story and that. Yeah, I want to put it through.
• 1:15:49
  I think it's undervalued. It has issues, but it's
• 1:15:53
  undervalued. Fabulous.
• 1:15:54
  Let's go to the comments. David Gillespie Pratt says.
• 1:15:57
  My goodness, it has problems, but this is a story that was
• 1:16:00
  beyond trouble behind the scenes.
• 1:16:03
  Losing time in the studio and the incredible pressures on Mary
• 1:16:06
  Red Ridge means this was a compromise production.
• 1:16:09
  So it's a failure for me. It's not.
• 1:16:12
  There are a number of missteps, like the GARM and the
• 1:16:14
  realisation of the veneer clanking fibreglass, but it's an
• 1:16:17
  ambitious script trying to push what the production team can do.
• 1:16:21
  Oh my God, all these comments positive.
• 1:16:23
  How wonderful. Jason Thompson.
• 1:16:25
  This needs to stay. There's a ton of stuff wrong
• 1:16:28
  with it, not least it doesn't fit into the idea of the Black
• 1:16:30
  Guardian trilogy, but at his heart it's a decent story of the
• 1:16:33
  perils of privatized healthcare. So he's so much smarter saying
• 1:16:36
  this stuff to me. With Terminus being run by a
• 1:16:38
  corporation that considers profit over the patience and the
• 1:16:41
  welfare of its staff, I also like to go on and I find it a
• 1:16:44
  simple request to be released. Emotionally impactful.
• 1:16:47
  Oh my God, Don't you love the bit where he looks up at the
• 1:16:49
  camera like, it's so great, isn't it?
• 1:16:53
  Because it's so simply delivered a creature who is tired and even
• 1:16:57
  the static mass seems expressive when he realizes he's free, that
• 1:17:01
  is that moment, right? Yeah.
• 1:17:02
  Yeah. Lucy McCall says.
• 1:17:04
  I like Terminus. I was very upset at this, at
• 1:17:06
  being I'll when I was a child. Having watched the story again,
• 1:17:08
  I don't see how it's worse than the others.
• 1:17:10
  We all love Terminus. Andy Parkinson.
• 1:17:14
  What can I say? Nick?
• 1:17:16
  Sorry, not Nick. It's quite appropriate actually.
• 1:17:21
  Lisa gets her kit off and the future obviously has space
• 1:17:25
  helmets to accommodate space poems and 80s hair.
• 1:17:30
  How did I not include that point?
• 1:17:34
  Jolo Ellen says the most 80s of 80s who?
• 1:17:36
  New wave space pirates, silly space armour, giant dog The
• 1:17:39
  extras from Billy idols Dancing with myself music video.
• 1:17:42
  I half expect the camera to pan round to a band belting out a
• 1:17:46
  song like in The Young Ones. I freaking love it.
• 1:17:49
  James Log, Bleak as hell, but in the context that works.
• 1:17:53
  Doctor Who going dark and cerebral between 2 jolly run
• 1:17:56
  arounds is a format that still works today, right?
• 1:17:59
  Another story driven by the energy of the cast.
• 1:18:02
  Dominic Guard especially, but also Hooray for Peter Benson.
• 1:18:06
  The name I couldn't remember. Paul Quinn says a good big
• 1:18:09
  sci-fi plot mixed with some Norse mythology.
• 1:18:11
  Some of the sets, despite the lighting problems look great as
• 1:18:15
  ever. Costume design decides to
• 1:18:16
  bollocks things up but the veneers armour has a lovely
• 1:18:19
  organic quality to it. Big ambition.
• 1:18:22
  Oh Smite. Oh there had to be someone.
• 1:18:24
  One of the dullest stories in the whole of who was a slog to
• 1:18:27
  get through. Paul, Tegan and Turlo spend the
• 1:18:30
  whole story trapped under the floor.
• 1:18:32
  Such a shame this was Nisa's final story.
• 1:18:34
  She deserved better. John Bencilius says a very good
• 1:18:37
  first part turns into a bit of a meandering run around another
• 1:18:40
  one in which Davidson gets zilch to do but spout breathless
• 1:18:43
  plots. Exposition.
• 1:18:45
  The gum's voice is unintentionally funny.
• 1:18:47
  The ship sound effects in part one are creepily atmospheric.
• 1:18:50
  That's a really good point, I should have said that in my
• 1:18:52
  argument. Part one is one of the best
• 1:18:54
  atmosphere builders of the era in terms of those long scenes
• 1:18:58
  and those creepy sound effects. Dave Rennie.
• 1:19:02
  Oh dear. Spooky first episode.
• 1:19:05
  But it then falls apart with Nyssa stripping, Adam Adamant
• 1:19:08
  inspired space pirates being pretty useless, and an
• 1:19:11
  unconvincing dog appearing. I think he likes this.
• 1:19:14
  Nice last scene. Vanessa and Kill the Doctor is
• 1:19:18
  an amusing end. Michael Storm said the floors
• 1:19:20
  are mostly down to translation to screen.
• 1:19:22
  Steve Gallagher is a good writer, but Saywood and Ridge
• 1:19:25
  are nowhere near as invested in realizing the story for TV in
• 1:19:28
  the way that Bidmead and Joyce were with Warrior's Gate.
• 1:19:31
  This is perhaps the first time that shows Saywood is not up to
• 1:19:34
  the job as script editor. David Lancaster to jettison all
• 1:19:38
  the bland dialogue Terminus needed.
• 1:19:40
  Lionel Blair as one of the veneer so he and Lisa Goddard
• 1:19:43
  could go head to head and give us a clue.
• 1:19:45
  Mimathon I might have actually returned to the story again if
• 1:19:48
  they'd done that. Martin Matan says has lovely
• 1:19:51
  ideas but gets a bit lost. That said, Nissan and the Gamma
• 1:19:55
  supporting characters on a repurposed Terminus space
• 1:19:57
  hospital in the middle of a space war is the best set up for
• 1:20:01
  a spin off ever. And ultimate comment Daniel
• 1:20:04
  Knight. A good story crippled by drab
• 1:20:06
  direction, design and music. Sarah Sutton in her undies has
• 1:20:09
  its appeal. What is going on with Daniel
• 1:20:11
  Knight at the moment? I don't know this he's
• 1:20:13
  definitely it's middle-aged midlife crisis.
• 1:20:15
  Stinky butter you've. Corrupted him with your.
• 1:20:17
  Podcast, hang on. Not.
• 1:20:19
  Not in that way, we haven't. Is this not the guy who came on
• 1:20:22
  and did his very first comment being talked non-stop about
• 1:20:26
  Billy Piper's Wonder Bro? They did, yeah.
• 1:20:28
  Fairpoint. Fairpoint.
• 1:20:29
  Phraser, we'll never forget. Daniel, we'll never forget.
• 1:20:32
  But it's all rather obvious and demeaning to the character.
• 1:20:35
  Shot and lit properly, the Garm would have looked scary, but as
• 1:20:38
  it is, it's a shaggy dog story. Someone had to say it, didn't
• 1:20:43
  they? And finally, Gareth Bowley says
• 1:20:45
  the beigest of beige stories with an extra order of beige on
• 1:20:49
  the side. A beige flying around the sea.
• 1:20:51
  A lot of beige, right? I'm going to respond to you, Joe
• 1:20:55
  Terminus. I am also going to Champion
• 1:20:57
  Terminus. And being the five Doctors,
• 1:21:01
  Yeah, you madman. So my reasons is you've touched
• 1:21:09
  on some of these already. So part one is definitely one of
• 1:21:12
  my stand out reasons. I think it's does a fantastic
• 1:21:15
  job in developing characters and creating a really distinctive
• 1:21:18
  mood and atmosphere. Joe, you said of the Tekken
• 1:21:21
  Turlo interplay works really, really well.
• 1:21:24
  I think it just feels more naturalistic.
• 1:21:25
  I think the dialogue at this stage when Tegan goes and sees
• 1:21:28
  this and says oh, calls him the brat and that he's weird, it
• 1:21:32
  just feels more normal language than Saywood usually does.
• 1:21:35
  So it feels a little bit more related.
• 1:21:36
  Gallagher. I think he's Gallagher.
• 1:21:38
  Yeah, could well be, Could well be.
• 1:21:40
  You then get to low sabotaging the TARDIS and instability
• 1:21:43
  creeping in. And I think that that feels
• 1:21:44
  really new and dangerous, the fact that the Doctor's home is
• 1:21:47
  being invaded by this, this strange nebulous shape.
• 1:21:52
  The sound effects are absolutely brilliant.
• 1:21:54
  The strange image of the skull seeping through the visuals.
• 1:21:57
  I just think it's really atmospheric.
• 1:21:59
  You've got the Doctor throwing the chair through the door.
• 1:22:01
  Now, I know that got a repeated meme on Harry Hill's TV Burp and
• 1:22:04
  everyone laughed at it, but hey, it works well enough.
• 1:22:08
  So yeah. And then the release of the
• 1:22:10
  plague victims, it's all very, it's quite gritty and and yeah,
• 1:22:14
  it's it's quite, quite atmospheric that first episode.
• 1:22:17
  So that's definitely in for me. The second reason is Terminus
• 1:22:20
  Ink itself. And I wonder if kind of post
• 1:22:23
  pandemic, the main plot of Lazarus Disease will play out a
• 1:22:26
  bit better because the satirical elements that were in the
• 1:22:29
  original script now just more obvious now now that we've gone
• 1:22:32
  through COVID. So here we've got a disease
• 1:22:34
  that's killing untold millions whilst the the company or the
• 1:22:37
  government if you like, are sitting back and showing very
• 1:22:40
  little concern. They don't care whether people
• 1:22:42
  live or die. Pretty much like the roll out of
• 1:22:45
  vaccines to third world countries.
• 1:22:46
  They're not really that bothered by it unless they're making a
• 1:22:49
  profit. And that's very much like the
• 1:22:50
  company's doing. All they worry about is is
• 1:22:53
  where's the money at the end of it?
• 1:22:55
  And the veneer, they're the workforce.
• 1:22:57
  So we're dealing with the sick. And again, you know, the analogy
• 1:23:00
  really works, like the NHS or social care, they're there to
• 1:23:03
  help, they want help, but they're being massively under
• 1:23:05
  resourced and under equipped. They don't even get the
• 1:23:08
  supplies, in this case the Hydra mole, to keep them alive.
• 1:23:11
  And we all remember the PPE scandal when the healthcare
• 1:23:14
  workers didn't get what they needed to keep them safe.
• 1:23:16
  So there's really strong parallels.
• 1:23:18
  Here, maybe the Tories watched Terminus and went ah.
• 1:23:22
  That's that's a good idea. We'll have a bit of that.
• 1:23:25
  There is one good force for for good and that's the Garm.
• 1:23:28
  And he's possibly found a vacation scene, but again, he's
• 1:23:31
  controlled by the company and not supported or listened to.
• 1:23:34
  And I think we've heard in some of the deliberations recently
• 1:23:37
  that's very similar to the scientific advisors who weren't
• 1:23:39
  listened to or supported. So, yeah, clearly, this was
• 1:23:43
  written long before COVID. But do you know what?
• 1:23:45
  Those parallels are so strongly there, and now you watch it.
• 1:23:48
  I'm hoping that will give people a bit of a appraisal and show
• 1:23:51
  how smart Gallagher's script was.
• 1:23:54
  And my third reason is, is Nessa.
• 1:23:56
  I think it works as a really good exit story for Nessa.
• 1:24:00
  I love the fact we finally got a couple of moments of physical
• 1:24:03
  contact between her and the Doctor.
• 1:24:04
  Joe, you mentioned the kiss on the cheek, and she also hugs him
• 1:24:07
  in part one when she's really scared.
• 1:24:09
  It just shows that a little bit. I mean, Jayanti had this weird
• 1:24:12
  obsession with no hanky panky and the TARDIS, so nobody could
• 1:24:16
  touch. But it just shows the emotion
• 1:24:18
  and it just shows the bond between them.
• 1:24:19
  It's completely platonic. No one could read anything
• 1:24:22
  smutty into it. I mean, we certainly on this
• 1:24:24
  podcast, but you know what, it just, it just bonds them
• 1:24:28
  together And I I just think it's, it's such a shame that he
• 1:24:31
  outruled all of. That say on a quick side note,
• 1:24:33
  like yes, we all declare that JNT said no hanky panky and the
• 1:24:37
  TARDIS. But when hanky panky and the
• 1:24:40
  TARDIS leads to scenes of Rory looking up a glass a glass floor
• 1:24:46
  up his of his wife's skirt, you know all the kid he wins to
• 1:24:49
  watch. I think maybe he might have had
• 1:24:51
  a point. That's the second Stephen
• 1:24:53
  Moffitt. I've got Sophie Aldrid in there
• 1:24:58
  as well, right? Oh, you did.
• 1:25:00
  You did. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:25:01
  So you're doing well on. You're done.
• 1:25:05
  Yeah. Just going back to Nissa, has
• 1:25:06
  there ever been a more kind of tragic shot than that shot of
• 1:25:09
  Nissa sat amongst all the kind of leper victims?
• 1:25:13
  And the camera pulls slowly back.
• 1:25:14
  She's totally alone. She's trapped and sat there with
• 1:25:17
  all of them. She's in those Awful Gray, dirty
• 1:25:20
  robes and she's left alone, presumably to die.
• 1:25:23
  That's really quite a tragic look.
• 1:25:26
  And I think it's a really positive choice that she makes
• 1:25:28
  at the end to go off and and help people.
• 1:25:30
  So I think it's a lovely, consistent ending for her
• 1:25:34
  character. So I am putting Terminus
• 1:25:36
  through. Damn.
• 1:25:39
  Yeah. You're nay for Terminus.
• 1:25:41
  Pretty much everything I was going to say has been said.
• 1:25:43
  Originally I was going to condemn it because it's
• 1:25:45
  Terminus, but you know, now I'm thinking, yeah, I might actually
• 1:25:50
  want to put it through after all that.
• 1:25:52
  You're going to have to make up three reasons and on the spot.
• 1:25:55
  Well, my first reason was the confusing plot, which was
• 1:25:59
  putting me off because a lot of stuff happens and it's a bit of
• 1:26:01
  a mess, but it all looks really lovely.
• 1:26:02
  Episode one good lying in the TARDIS, lots of weird shit
• 1:26:05
  happening, throwing the chair into the door.
• 1:26:08
  We've already mentioned that the random what the chances thing of
• 1:26:10
  them landing in the ship that's going to the place you know, but
• 1:26:13
  they that happens in Doctor Who every week.
• 1:26:15
  The my second reason is a good thing, which is strong ideas.
• 1:26:20
  Basically it's all this has all been said in the comments
• 1:26:23
  already, but basically it does seem very 80s Thatcher
• 1:26:27
  privatisation, Tory bastards raking in the space cash and
• 1:26:32
  maybe even an AIDS thing. Maybe because you've got all
• 1:26:34
  these people, they're demonising these people and just shoving
• 1:26:37
  them away into space. Don't really care what's going
• 1:26:40
  to happen as long as they get paid for it.
• 1:26:42
  And I like the veneer because they're basically space Goths,
• 1:26:44
  which is always good. There's a lot of Goths in the
• 1:26:46
  80s. And yeah, so that was that was a
• 1:26:49
  point that I really liked. Then my final point again is
• 1:26:52
  quite good that Nyssa actually gets something to do.
• 1:26:54
  She doesn't get married off to a man she's just met, which is
• 1:26:57
  nice. I like how they show her doing a
• 1:26:59
  bit of science at the start of episode one just to remind us
• 1:27:01
  that she can actually do that. You can't remember that time.
• 1:27:04
  That's what she does for fun. Yeah, she looks normally.
• 1:27:08
  She's pissing up. Polymers.
• 1:27:09
  Having a nap or making that vibrator that she did in OH.
• 1:27:13
  Good point. Yeah, she has.
• 1:27:14
  Have a fun. As well, Yeah.
• 1:27:16
  She is like, yeah, she's a bit a bit a bit sciency.
• 1:27:21
  A. Bit something and obviously
• 1:27:25
  you've got the problems also, like for instance the the
• 1:27:27
  grating issue with Tegan and Turlo being under the grating
• 1:27:30
  most of the time. But that happened to nearly
• 1:27:32
  every one of these stories. There's three companions.
• 1:27:34
  There's never anything for them to do.
• 1:27:36
  If you give Nista a plot, there's no time for the other
• 1:27:38
  two, so they get sidelined. But you know she gets something
• 1:27:42
  to do. She gets take most of her
• 1:27:43
  clothes off, if you like that kind of thing, and she gets to
• 1:27:46
  kiss Doctor on the cheek, which is nice if you like that kind of
• 1:27:49
  thing. But basically, yeah, I, I think,
• 1:27:52
  yeah, I would probably put it in the bin.
• 1:27:54
  But because basically the problem is that they had no time
• 1:27:57
  to do it and they couldn't finish it and they had to go
• 1:27:59
  back to it a few months later. So it's a complete shambles
• 1:28:01
  behind the scenes. So there's some of some of it
• 1:28:03
  where they had no retakes, they had to just do it.
• 1:28:07
  And it will look a bit crap because of that.
• 1:28:09
  They just said it was practically live.
• 1:28:11
  But yeah, go on and do it with no chance of a retake.
• 1:28:14
  The ideas are all very good, it just is a a boring story at
• 1:28:18
  times. I don't know which way you're
• 1:28:20
  going to go with this. So basically I've got to put
• 1:28:22
  something in the bin. So I might put it in the bin
• 1:28:23
  because you've got to put. Something in the bin.
• 1:28:25
  That means in thousand votes or. Casting.
• 1:28:28
  Votes. Sorry.
• 1:28:29
  Well, I'm going to see if I can get you to change your mind.
• 1:28:31
  Dead because I'm going to put this through.
• 1:28:39
  Justice for the gulp everything. You know, everything I was going
• 1:28:44
  to say is pretty much been said already.
• 1:28:47
  You know, the story itself, like you've said, Dan, it is it is a
• 1:28:50
  complex story and it's one that I struggled with.
• 1:28:54
  You know, the plot, you know, of like the there's two plots,
• 1:28:58
  basically. There's the, you know, the
• 1:28:59
  Lazarus disease getting treated and Terminus, and then there's
• 1:29:01
  the whole, you know, Terminus engine.
• 1:29:02
  It's going to go back in time and destroy the world universe
• 1:29:05
  by going back in time and blowing up our faults in time or
• 1:29:08
  whatever, which and that's really difficult to get a hang
• 1:29:11
  of. But for me, that really just
• 1:29:14
  kind of highlights what was said in one of the comments about,
• 1:29:17
  you know, how the strength of Christopher Bidmead as a as a
• 1:29:22
  script that because he he takes an equally complex Gallagher
• 1:29:25
  script and turns it into Warriors Gate with Paul Joyce.
• 1:29:27
  And that's just beautiful. And you know, I don't follow
• 1:29:30
  Warriors Gate, but it doesn't matter.
• 1:29:34
  Whereas with with Terminus, I do get a bit stuck at times.
• 1:29:36
  And I think, well, you know, what's what's actually
• 1:29:38
  happening? What's the threat here?
• 1:29:39
  What am I supposed to be, you know?
• 1:29:41
  I thought this was supposed to be a celebration of Terminus.
• 1:29:44
  Well, yes, because you know, it, it makes me appreciate
• 1:29:48
  Christopher bit me. He's a bit more, you know, I
• 1:29:49
  struggle with the season 18, but you know, I come and watch
• 1:29:52
  Terminus and I I like it a bit more.
• 1:29:53
  So there you go. It helps me understand more,
• 1:29:56
  more Doctor Who appreciate that the the sort of air plot or
• 1:30:01
  whichever plot it is of the the outsourcing of medical care.
• 1:30:06
  I think is, is still very relevant.
• 1:30:08
  And I think it was probably a little bit too soon to be an
• 1:30:12
  AIDS analogy. I think, you know, the the AIDS
• 1:30:16
  pandemic epidemic was kind of ramping up at the time this was
• 1:30:20
  written. But I think it's just a little
• 1:30:21
  bit too soon to to make that connection and say this is this
• 1:30:24
  is what Gallagher's trying to do.
• 1:30:26
  But obviously give it a few years.
• 1:30:27
  It does quite fit bit nicely in there.
• 1:30:30
  And like Rod says, it goes with COVID as well.
• 1:30:33
  It's a bit very, very too soon for that.
• 1:30:36
  Yeah, but you know, it's it's sort of shows.
• 1:30:39
  It's one of those stories that is is bit timeless because it
• 1:30:44
  just shows you and I think one of the things that's really
• 1:30:47
  relevant about it today is if you if you swap the word Lazar
• 1:30:55
  immigrant and if you swap terminus for Rwanda.
• 1:31:01
  Oh, oh, you make me want to go and watch it tomorrow now.
• 1:31:05
  That that's exactly what's happening now.
• 1:31:07
  You know, our government is is basically outsourcing a problem
• 1:31:11
  to in another country for you know and people are getting rich
• 1:31:15
  off it. You know there'll be someone
• 1:31:16
  somewhere in the Rwanda scheme that's going to get get a
• 1:31:19
  percentage of of what's going on there.
• 1:31:22
  So you know it's. Sickening, isn't it?
• 1:31:24
  Yeah. So it really kind of stands up
• 1:31:26
  there. There's a lot of space Tories in
• 1:31:29
  in many ways in this, basically. Yep, a lot of space Tories
• 1:31:33
  making some space kickbacks and. The ultimate space story turns
• 1:31:38
  up in your favorite story, Fraser.
• 1:31:44
  Yes she does. Other reasons I like this, the
• 1:31:49
  veneer themselves. And Daniel touched on your space
• 1:31:52
  Goths, but is it Elrick the the chief?
• 1:31:57
  Oh, the very theatrical one with sort of WAVY hair.
• 1:32:00
  With the widow's peak and he's. Gone from a period drama?
• 1:32:03
  Yeah, but he's properly gone. He's got like the the curtains
• 1:32:07
  and he's got the baggy and he's very vampiric.
• 1:32:09
  He's very gladly appeared, especially in the armor that
• 1:32:12
  sort of like armor that's showing the muscles and the
• 1:32:15
  skeletons. It's very sort of Transylvania
• 1:32:17
  and I know it's sort of a Norse feel, but feels very and he
• 1:32:20
  gives a really good turn and there's a lot of good
• 1:32:22
  performances in here. It's like sort of Dracula from
• 1:32:26
  Eton, though, isn't he? The way he talks, you know.
• 1:32:29
  Yeah, but you know, that's absolutely frank because it's
• 1:32:31
  the BBC and we'll probably we've had, we'll just had BBC
• 1:32:34
  distracted a few, you know, half a decade previous.
• 1:32:37
  So there's absolutely no, no problem with that whatsoever.
• 1:32:41
  But you know, you've mentioned the Garm Joe, we've went and
• 1:32:44
  seen the Garm. You know, anyone that's that
• 1:32:47
  goes to the Onondale Museum of Classic sci-fi.
• 1:32:50
  Then, you know, the law is you have to have a selfie with the
• 1:32:53
  Garm. Everyone's been there.
• 1:32:55
  I mean, Stephen Gallagher himself's been there now and
• 1:32:58
  took his photo with the Garm. You know, like you see, you get
• 1:33:03
  the lighting right. You know, obviously there is
• 1:33:06
  production issues. We've touched on the production
• 1:33:07
  issues and it just goes to show that, you know, I think we all
• 1:33:10
  agree that we can look at some production issues and not let it
• 1:33:14
  take us out of the story and affect it.
• 1:33:17
  Rod. So yeah, it's it's an easy
• 1:33:22
  target terminus. You know, it's an easy one to
• 1:33:24
  kick and say, Oh yeah, you know, it's it's shit because of, you
• 1:33:27
  know, because, you know, Mary Ridges sets were were, you know,
• 1:33:31
  two inches out of out lines had to get them moved.
• 1:33:34
  And what's 2 inches? Well, it makes a big difference
• 1:33:36
  where when you know, your light is going to shine on the wrong
• 1:33:39
  bit, then your camera is going to be pointing 2 inches, you
• 1:33:41
  know, away from someone in a long shot.
• 1:33:43
  That's really going to add up. So there was issues.
• 1:33:46
  We're going to look past those. But I think the biggest reason
• 1:33:49
  and the biggest thing I'm going to say to you, Dan, in an
• 1:33:52
  attempt to change your mind is, you know, and Joe said that this
• 1:33:55
  isn't anyone's favorite story, but it is and it is.
• 1:33:58
  And it is Simon Harts about. This.
• 1:34:03
  We. Joke about this all the time.
• 1:34:04
  About it all the time. He's got a gun to Mark's head
• 1:34:07
  right now. But you know, this, this is
• 1:34:09
  genuinely like one of his favorite stories, so.
• 1:34:11
  I think we have if you. Vote to put it in the bin.
• 1:34:13
  That's that's, you know, a bit of a spit in his face.
• 1:34:16
  Right, OK, don't no more needed. I'm convinced for the for the
• 1:34:21
  kind of side heart and he's and he's happy smiley.
• 1:34:24
  Positive. It's actually quite rare, you
• 1:34:26
  know, in this fall, back when someone's changed use their
• 1:34:28
  mind. How wonderful.
• 1:34:29
  I've been like, to be honest, I, like I said, I did start out
• 1:34:32
  wanting to condemn it, but the more I thought about it in a
• 1:34:35
  clever way now, yeah, you're right.
• 1:34:38
  OK, I agree. Let's say 11 very last final
• 1:34:42
  point about ceremonies is I think that it is easily, I think
• 1:34:47
  it's easily the weakest production of the season, but I
• 1:34:51
  actually also think it is the the most substantial story when
• 1:34:56
  you look beneath that. Totally, it took me ages to
• 1:34:59
  understand it all. And I think if you take the
• 1:35:01
  time, there's a lot of treasures there.
• 1:35:04
  You have to you have to be very kind to the production to get
• 1:35:07
  there. Totally, Yeah.
• 1:35:08
  I mean, I, I got confused about what it was about, so I had to
• 1:35:11
  basically write notes going OK, so this ship has shot its load
• 1:35:15
  in space and created The Big Bang and then gone forward in
• 1:35:18
  time because that's made it time travel and now it's got to do it
• 1:35:21
  all over again, which will destroy everything.
• 1:35:23
  I mean, it's it's silly, but I like it as an idea, as a good
• 1:35:27
  cliffhanger. I've got to direct Stephen
• 1:35:29
  Gallagher to listen to this, you know, because I've got him in my
• 1:35:31
  contact books now. Sorry, sorry Winston, I'm taking
• 1:35:37
  over from you now, playing me, my contact and he thinks
• 1:35:41
  everyone hates this so I want him to.
• 1:35:43
  Listen, oh, it's not hateable. It's just people.
• 1:35:45
  Probably, people probably have a time because you've got the
• 1:35:47
  giant teddy bear thing. You've got some of it looks a
• 1:35:50
  bit cheap and rushed because it was, but that's not a reason to
• 1:35:52
  hate it. Whereas other stories that are
• 1:35:54
  bad are bad because they are fundamentally bad stories.
• 1:35:58
  This isn't a bad story. I think you, you watch this week
• 1:36:01
  on week, you know, if you binge, if you put it all in one go,
• 1:36:04
  then you know, you can't get a bit bogged down.
• 1:36:06
  You can't get lost. Like I said, you watch that
• 1:36:09
  first episode and you stop and you genuinely want to watch the
• 1:36:12
  next one. You genuinely think, you know,
• 1:36:14
  that was very atmospheric. That was very, you know,
• 1:36:18
  interesting. We've got that really good
• 1:36:20
  cliffhanger. You know, you've got 2 little
• 1:36:23
  doing stuff in here. You know, you go in the next
• 1:36:24
  episode and you have that conversation, the stairs and
• 1:36:26
  you're like, well, what's what's happening with Turtle now?
• 1:36:28
  Is he is he with the black Guard, you know, or is he, you
• 1:36:31
  know, he's this is the story where he's the most, you know,
• 1:36:36
  poor actively trying to kill the doctor as it were.
• 1:36:41
  You know, he we know he gets redeemed afterwards.
• 1:36:44
  But you can imagine kind of watching this going out live and
• 1:36:47
  think, well, actually hang on, what is actually happening with
• 1:36:48
  this guy at this point? You know, yeah, you couldn't do
• 1:36:51
  it last week or two weeks ago in in his school.
• 1:36:54
  But can he do it now? I think this is the only point
• 1:36:57
  where he actually thinks can I do this and says it out loud.
• 1:37:02
  You might we see he has that charm about them where we, you
• 1:37:04
  know, we're trying to blend in and but there's also that doubt
• 1:37:08
  in his mind, which comes out in that conversation with Tegan.
• 1:37:10
  It's it's very layered. And if anyone is still, I'm
• 1:37:16
  convinced it has Lisa Goddard in it with a huge punk haircut
• 1:37:20
  managing to make a single syllable word have 90.
• 1:37:23
  Syllables, please. Lovely, right?
• 1:37:29
  Let us move to our second and final lot of overall comments.
• 1:37:33
  So Jason Thompson. Hello, Jason says.
• 1:37:35
  Never sure what I think. So Dulles returned to Gallifrey
• 1:37:39
  ever. A trilogy that doesn't really
• 1:37:41
  work as one and a two-part damp scrub of an ending that
• 1:37:43
  notoriously introduces a state-of-the-art robotic
• 1:37:46
  companion that didn't work. And yes, it had some gems.
• 1:37:50
  The nostalgic element is apartment and the actual
• 1:37:52
  anniversary celebration is glorious fluff and fan true.
• 1:37:56
  Michael Storm, When taken on its basic principles, season 20
• 1:38:01
  sounds like a winner. It's anniversary season, so pay
• 1:38:04
  homage to the show's rich history.
• 1:38:06
  We'll bring back old favourites, culminating in an anniversary
• 1:38:09
  special. Sort of.
• 1:38:12
  We'll introduce new companions, but with A twist.
• 1:38:15
  But somewhere along the way, those ideas went pear shaped.
• 1:38:18
  Why? Probably because while
• 1:38:20
  celebrating the past, there's very little thought of the
• 1:38:22
  series going forward. Tom Newsom.
• 1:38:24
  Hello, Tom says. Superficially, it's got the same
• 1:38:27
  mix of good and bad stories as season 19, but it tries too hard
• 1:38:30
  and falls flat. The TARDIS is a revolving door.
• 1:38:33
  The villains are wasted, not in that way, they've learnt nothing
• 1:38:37
  from the previous season, but there are some highlights that
• 1:38:41
  point. There is a lot of revolving
• 1:38:43
  door. The HR department of the TARDIS
• 1:38:44
  must have been very. Busy there normally.
• 1:38:49
  James. The absolute peak of Doctor Who.
• 1:38:53
  Best stories are Enlightenment in the Five Doctors.
• 1:38:56
  Terminus is probably the weakest story, but I still really enjoy
• 1:38:59
  it. He's normally James.
• 1:39:01
  If he's normally James, who is he occasionally?
• 1:39:06
  Boosa. Maybe I was going to say sorry,
• 1:39:09
  but it said Terminus is the weakest.
• 1:39:10
  I know it couldn't be him. OK, right, Daniel Knight says.
• 1:39:15
  Solid but unremarkable. A shame as a result was Davidson
• 1:39:19
  sticking his three years and rule and out rule.
• 1:39:23
  Had it been more exciting, he might have stayed on for a
• 1:39:25
  fourth year. Mark Boucher, I never got on
• 1:39:30
  board with the season, sadly. I know people who love it and I
• 1:39:33
  want to as well. Oh, it's never worked for me.
• 1:39:37
  Oh, hang on a second. So Anthony Carroll says not a
• 1:39:40
  favorite, but fond memories of watching the Brick come back.
• 1:39:43
  Stories feel dull now. Enlightenment is best, and Five
• 1:39:47
  Doctors is glorious. All done.
• 1:39:51
  The weakest of the three Davison seasons, but plenty to commend
• 1:39:55
  it. Enlightenment is so lovely and
• 1:39:58
  well realized, and Snake Dance is superbly cast.
• 1:40:02
  And finally, Alex says honestly, aside from Snake Dance, you'd
• 1:40:05
  really have to pay me to watch the rest.
• 1:40:07
  Bad, bad season. Ouch, bad season in your bed.
• 1:40:13
  OK, well since we've mentioned it, I am going to pick Snake
• 1:40:17
  Dance as my choice and of course I'm going to champion it.
• 1:40:23
  So I gave him a threatening look.
• 1:40:24
  You did give me a threat. I was about to throw it out and
• 1:40:27
  I saw Joe and thought, Oh my God, I better change.
• 1:40:29
  No, absolutely this is going through.
• 1:40:31
  So my first reason is the imagery in this story, unlike
• 1:40:36
  Kinder, because obviously you know, the two Christopher Bailey
• 1:40:38
  stories, this is an incredibly rich story.
• 1:40:41
  It's full of clever illusions and allegories.
• 1:40:44
  There's so much that kind of represents the biblical
• 1:40:46
  temptation by the snake in the Garden of Eden.
• 1:40:49
  Most obvious one is like when Tegan's being regressed by the
• 1:40:51
  doctrine start, where does she go to?
• 1:40:54
  She gets transported back to a garden where she's safe to tell
• 1:40:57
  lies. So, you know, you're getting
• 1:40:59
  straight to where their temptation in the garden.
• 1:41:02
  But the thing that I found really interesting and looking
• 1:41:04
  about it is for the Mara to be reborn, the great crystal needs
• 1:41:08
  to absorb the evil from people's minds.
• 1:41:11
  And what Christopher Bailey, and I'm absolutely convinced this is
• 1:41:14
  all done on purpose because it's far too much not to be.
• 1:41:17
  He shows us throughout the story that each of the main
• 1:41:21
  protagonists between them all represent each of the seven
• 1:41:24
  deadly sins. Therefore they've got that evil
• 1:41:27
  inside them to bring forth the Mara.
• 1:41:29
  So, you know, just think about it.
• 1:41:31
  So Greed is the first seven deadly sins.
• 1:41:34
  That's really obvious in Ambril. Ambril doesn't.
• 1:41:36
  He's given up his vows to protect the crystal just so he
• 1:41:39
  can collect and get more of the relics.
• 1:41:41
  So he's shoving Greed. There's pride in there.
• 1:41:43
  Lady Tanner repeatedly tells us online how proud she is of him.
• 1:41:48
  And again, because he's using that language, it's not there
• 1:41:51
  accidentally. So she's constantly saying, oh,
• 1:41:53
  I'm so proud of you. Despite the fact he's got no
• 1:41:56
  ambition, no morals, no scruples.
• 1:41:58
  Sloth it that really perfectly describes Lon's kind of lazy,
• 1:42:03
  languorous approach to life. RAF Anger LON really has anger
• 1:42:08
  bubbling under the surface. Look at the way he speaks.
• 1:42:10
  The showman. Look at the way he shouts at his
• 1:42:12
  mother. He's got real pent up anger
• 1:42:14
  there. Gluttony.
• 1:42:15
  No coincidence for the night before the the ceremony they all
• 1:42:20
  have a big feast. Envy.
• 1:42:22
  LON plays on Ambrills Envy for having found the relics and
• 1:42:26
  promises him that he can take the credit for the discovery.
• 1:42:30
  And the last is lust. Now obviously we're going out at
• 1:42:33
  6:45 on a Monday and Tuesday. This is a little overt
• 1:42:36
  sexualized here, although there's a bit of something
• 1:42:38
  between Tegan and LON when they're both possessed and
• 1:42:41
  they're holding arms. Something could be read.
• 1:42:43
  Back when he is summoned to that dark booth, there's only one and
• 1:42:47
  finds her there. There's only one thing on his
• 1:42:49
  mind. Absolutely.
• 1:42:50
  But there's also lust for power. So Tania Tanner suggests or
• 1:42:54
  talks about how, you know, LON is young and he's impatient to
• 1:42:57
  be the federator. So LON wants power.
• 1:43:00
  So there's all these seven deadly sins bubbling up in all
• 1:43:03
  of these people. They are absolutely the right
• 1:43:05
  group of people to bring back the Mara.
• 1:43:08
  So I think that's really cleverly, subtly done
• 1:43:11
  throughout. Second reason is all the world
• 1:43:13
  building. There are so many little touches
• 1:43:15
  in this that kind of make that ceremony in Episode 4 feel as
• 1:43:19
  though it's in a real world setting.
• 1:43:21
  A lot of them aren't even plot points, but they just add to the
• 1:43:24
  atmosphere. So you've got the Punch and Judy
• 1:43:26
  show, which ends with their equivalence of Mr. Punch being
• 1:43:29
  swallowed by the snake. You've got the man dressed as
• 1:43:32
  the attendant demon who you have to pay him otherwise he pours
• 1:43:35
  water over your head. It's a bit like trick or treat.
• 1:43:38
  You've got the snake procession itself, and I'm sure that's a
• 1:43:40
  bit of an in joke to kinder because that snake that they're
• 1:43:43
  walking through the streets as a prop definitely looks like the
• 1:43:46
  one that they used. This this.
• 1:43:48
  I know the costume that LON has to wear gets mocked on all these
• 1:43:51
  TV clips show, but I'm really missing the point.
• 1:43:53
  It's about the ceremony and all that discussion about the
• 1:43:57
  ceremony about having dust and the withered branch being
• 1:43:59
  offered to him as temptation. It's really, really cleverly
• 1:44:03
  thought out. And you know, usually in the
• 1:44:05
  climax to a Doctor Who story, we'll rush in to get to that
• 1:44:08
  final set piece. But here there's so much thought
• 1:44:10
  gone into all of this dialogue, all of the the ceremonial bits
• 1:44:14
  and bobs that go round there. And that one I think is also
• 1:44:17
  really interesting is the final offering is to look into the
• 1:44:21
  heart of the great crystal without having the greed for
• 1:44:23
  knowledge. Now, if that isn't shades of
• 1:44:26
  planets of spiders as well with the Buddhist parallels that were
• 1:44:29
  in there, I don't know what is. And it's kind of, it's a shame
• 1:44:32
  we didn't have a continuity advisor in the production office
• 1:44:35
  at the time. Who?
• 1:44:35
  Could have noticed. That and maybe highlighted it a
• 1:44:38
  little bit, but it's absolutely there.
• 1:44:39
  So we've got the Buddhist parallels here between between
• 1:44:43
  this as well. And I think it's fantastic.
• 1:44:45
  And my last reason is cast this. I was going to say it's the best
• 1:44:49
  cast of the Davidson era, but I will downplay that.
• 1:44:52
  I think it's the second best cast of the Davidson era.
• 1:44:55
  You've got two young leads, Martin Clunson and Jonathan
• 1:44:58
  Morris, both at the different ends of the moral spectrum.
• 1:45:00
  They both totally inhabit their roles.
• 1:45:02
  Colette O'Neill. God, I love Colette O'Neill.
• 1:45:05
  It's the most deliciously quietly camp performance.
• 1:45:12
  Oh, I'm going to be so proud. When she discussed the snake
• 1:45:17
  dance at the beginning, oh, it was so dark and they were so
• 1:45:21
  dirty. It was quite disgusting.
• 1:45:24
  She absolutely loves it. There's a line that she there's
• 1:45:27
  a line that she gives, right? A line reading that I use in
• 1:45:30
  life all the time when I catch people at it and I don't mean it
• 1:45:34
  up to no good. And I just go, what do you think
• 1:45:38
  you're doing? I love that line.
• 1:45:41
  She is brilliant. She gives absolutely,
• 1:45:44
  staggeringly good performance. And then you've got John Carson
• 1:45:47
  on top of that. Brian Miller.
• 1:45:49
  I mean, Christ, what a cast. So love, love, love this story.
• 1:45:52
  Absolutely going through. There's nothing left to talk
• 1:45:56
  about, you get. Sorry, should we go to the
• 1:46:00
  comments? David Lancaster says where Snake
• 1:46:03
  Dance succeeds massively is the wonderful depth of its world
• 1:46:06
  building. By the end of part one, you
• 1:46:07
  can't help but be drawn to the festivities and the subtling
• 1:46:10
  tricks of minuten history, especially when compared to sad
• 1:46:13
  old Ark of Infinity and the Gallifrey and BHS Cafe.
• 1:46:18
  Michael Storm, A rare occasion of a sequel being better than
• 1:46:21
  the original. Here we're presented with an
• 1:46:23
  empire in the early stages of decline, naval gazing at a
• 1:46:27
  romanticized version of the past.
• 1:46:30
  The planet is populated by a ruling class who obsessed with
• 1:46:32
  the appearance of history but who aren't actually interested
• 1:46:35
  in it beyond its decorative value, and a working class who
• 1:46:38
  are culturally appropriating the past to make a quick buck.
• 1:46:42
  He's a smart Japanese. That's very good.
• 1:46:44
  James Larks has a lovely script full of big ideas and great
• 1:46:47
  dialogue, performed with real conviction by an excellent cast.
• 1:46:50
  It succeeds in conveying an entire culture using a few
• 1:46:53
  studio sets in a way that plenty of location heavy stories failed
• 1:46:57
  to do. Mark Donaldson does what all the
• 1:46:59
  best sequels do, building on a core idea, the first story in a
• 1:47:02
  completely new place where Kinder interrogated colonialism
• 1:47:06
  and our relationship with nature.
• 1:47:08
  Snake Dance takes on Have you given me all these tongue
• 1:47:11
  twisters? Snake Dance takes on academia,
• 1:47:14
  myths and stuffy old traditionalists.
• 1:47:17
  John Bensale is a superb sequel, in some ways better than kinder,
• 1:47:21
  skillful writing, world building and characterization, much by
• 1:47:24
  sumptuous direction, acting and inventive design.
• 1:47:27
  Darren Lick roundalls my favorite Davidson story.
• 1:47:30
  It may lack the direction and set pieces of Kinder, but it's
• 1:47:32
  properly satisfying story. No fan of Nyssa but she's
• 1:47:35
  excellent here. We've taken out of the way the
• 1:47:38
  guest cast are perfect. Strong characters.
• 1:47:40
  Rare in same with 0. Jason Thompson says a gem of a
• 1:47:44
  story with an absolute first rate supporting cast.
• 1:47:46
  Martin Clunes is just brilliant, but he's not alone in that.
• 1:47:49
  One of the very small number of stories in which everyone lives
• 1:47:52
  to keep it. John Arnold?
• 1:47:54
  Great, but maybe too cool for an anniversary season and a
• 1:47:57
  celebratory year. It's talking about why
• 1:48:00
  uncritical nostalgia is a bad idea.
• 1:48:03
  I've never thought of that. Kinder's themes, reframed in a
• 1:48:05
  more traditional Whose story? Six Faces of Delusion remains
• 1:48:09
  one of the show's best gags. Andy Parkinson says brilliant.
• 1:48:13
  Love him more than kinder possessed Teagan is scary and
• 1:48:16
  the supporting cast of great. I know Martin Clunes isn't proud
• 1:48:19
  of his performance, but I think he should be.
• 1:48:21
  He plays spoiled brat so well. James HA, vivid reminder that
• 1:48:25
  you can all have riches and still be bored if they mean
• 1:48:28
  nothing. The Mara craves life outside the
• 1:48:30
  void, just as clones brilliantly collect craves life outside the
• 1:48:34
  palace. Shame about the headdress
• 1:48:36
  though, and for that alone, it's for the bin.
• 1:48:40
  James Daniel Nice is a great character piece, well directed
• 1:48:44
  and designed, thoughtful and Janet Fielding's greatest hour.
• 1:48:47
  The guest cast are uniformly excellent.
• 1:48:49
  However, due to crippling now I've given myself a horrible
• 1:48:52
  word due to crippling ophid phobia.
• 1:48:57
  I'll go with that. I can't watch the scene with
• 1:48:59
  Davidson letting the snake bite him, so I'm guessing fear of
• 1:49:01
  snakes. And you just had a fear of
• 1:49:03
  snakes. Yeah, well, you.
• 1:49:04
  Clearly didn't with your orgy. Great story, new effects really
• 1:49:11
  helped to make the conclusion work.
• 1:49:15
  Sorry a lot of snakes. Sorry I was having a head shake
• 1:49:18
  by Fraser put me off Dave Rennie says a delight.
• 1:49:21
  I'm terrifying. Terrific cast look and Davidson
• 1:49:25
  getting annoyed by no one listening to him A.
• 1:49:27
  Head shake for a phrase is like a visual.
• 1:49:29
  Stop it Kinder is the better Morrow story, but I find Snake
• 1:49:34
  Dancer more enjoyable. Watch Lonnie's Mother are
• 1:49:36
  fantastic and I love John Carson as Ambro, but why didn't one of
• 1:49:40
  the production team tell Chris Bailey we just can't do giant
• 1:49:43
  snakes? Oh, I think it works in this
• 1:49:45
  one. And finally, Gary Russell says
• 1:49:47
  utter perfection, not a step wrong.
• 1:49:50
  So, Joe, yay or nay? Oh, me, Yeah.
• 1:49:53
  I wasn't ready. Of course it's a yay.
• 1:49:57
  I think this is the strongest story of the year.
• 1:50:01
  My three reasons. I'm going to be brief because
• 1:50:03
  you were quite detailed and this is the one of the rarest things
• 1:50:07
  for me. It's a story that I don't know
• 1:50:09
  Fraser's opinion on. I really want to hear it.
• 1:50:13
  So I've chosen 3 characters. One is Tamha, who is
• 1:50:17
  authoritative, kind, bewildered and a little bit threatening at
• 1:50:20
  times as well. I think that is a stunning
• 1:50:23
  performance from Colette O'Neill, one of the best of the
• 1:50:25
  era, I think. I utterly believe her as Lon's
• 1:50:28
  mother. You know, I love that little
• 1:50:31
  stifled yawn she gives at the dinner party.
• 1:50:34
  And like you said, the pride she has with him later on and her
• 1:50:37
  absolute bafflement as to what to do with Nyssa when she
• 1:50:39
  catches her rifle in for her drawers.
• 1:50:42
  If your pardon the pardon. I adore Martin Clunes as long as
• 1:50:46
  well. He's a spoilt bully, lacking
• 1:50:48
  manners, bored and out for his own pleasures.
• 1:50:51
  More the sort of character that we do see in Doctor Who, but
• 1:50:54
  play to arrogant perfection by Martin Clunes.
• 1:50:58
  Yeah. No reason to be embarrassed by
• 1:50:59
  this opponent. He's brilliant and I love Ambro.
• 1:51:04
  Ambitious, toady and theatrical, hilariously funny character.
• 1:51:09
  There's a there's a weird scene transition where it starts with
• 1:51:12
  him. I swear he hasn't got the cue to
• 1:51:14
  start acting. He's smiling off camera and all
• 1:51:16
  of a sudden he goes all serious when he's talking to LON.
• 1:51:21
  It's a story full of riches as you said.
• 1:51:24
  The one thing you didn't mention was Fiona Cummings direction,
• 1:51:27
  which I think is her finest. And as James Lark said in the
• 1:51:30
  comments, she manages to conjure up a world through sound
• 1:51:34
  effects, a few market sets and just terrific designers and
• 1:51:38
  lighting. I think on every level this
• 1:51:42
  scores. I think it's possibly the best
• 1:51:44
  script of the era, not only the season of the era.
• 1:51:48
  Every line's a banger. I love it.
• 1:51:50
  Yeah, put it through. That's over to the guests
• 1:51:53
  because I want to hear what they've got to say.
• 1:51:54
  Fraser, come on, don't keep us in suspense anymore, right?
• 1:51:59
  I mean, I can see what is what is it talking about?
• 1:52:03
  I can see the good points in this.
• 1:52:05
  But hopefully isn't a but at the end of that sentence.
• 1:52:07
  I think there's some lovely little moments in here and we're
• 1:52:12
  taught, you know, I said about Peter Davis and his performances
• 1:52:14
  is really top notch in this. He's got that energy about him
• 1:52:17
  when he's not getting believed. And I think that little bit of
• 1:52:21
  business him and Sarah something do at the start of Episode 2
• 1:52:25
  where she opens the TARDIS store, he opens the TARDIS
• 1:52:29
  store. The TARDIS store doesn't open
• 1:52:30
  because he's closed it and he has to go back.
• 1:52:31
  And it is beautiful and it really shows how well the Doctor
• 1:52:36
  and Nyssa could work together. Unfortunately, I am afraid that
• 1:52:42
  the rest of the story is dull as fuck.
• 1:52:47
  Oh, no, Scizer. Well, that is that's.
• 1:52:51
  Don't you dare criticize me for five doctors if you're doing
• 1:52:54
  that. I mean what?
• 1:52:55
  What happens in this story? Note, note happens.
• 1:52:58
  World buildings. Fabulous world building.
• 1:53:01
  Yes, I love the set. I love the, the whole Eurovision
• 1:53:06
  set. It's, it's, it's, it's
• 1:53:08
  excellent. But you know, I'm a, I'm a story
• 1:53:10
  guy. I'm a plot guy.
• 1:53:11
  What's the What's the plot here? It's a plot.
• 1:53:13
  It's an idiot plot. Basically, it's an idiot plot.
• 1:53:16
  I mean, you just stop in episode 3 to hang out in a cell while
• 1:53:20
  the exposition hits. Exactly.
• 1:53:22
  But a lot of doctor stories do that, to be fair.
• 1:53:25
  The plot depends on the stupidity of the characters, so
• 1:53:30
  we start off knowing exactly what's happened.
• 1:53:33
  Tegan's being possessed by the Mara again, and Tegan has took
• 1:53:36
  the TARDIS to Minusa. But that's fine.
• 1:53:40
  We'll just put a Walkman on her and we'll go outside and let her
• 1:53:42
  wander around. That's fine.
• 1:53:45
  Well, they don't. Like her, really.
• 1:53:46
  So they hope. That's fine.
• 1:53:49
  Tegan's wandered off and and scared her sooth Sayer or
• 1:53:54
  fortune teller and and, you know, giving her PTSD, but
• 1:53:58
  that's fine. Oh, we'll just catch up with her
• 1:54:00
  and we'll let her go again. That's fine.
• 1:54:02
  That's fine. It's awesome.
• 1:54:03
  The doctor goes to a cave and spends a whole episode trying to
• 1:54:08
  figure out what The Cave painting is.
• 1:54:11
  Literally a whole episode. He's like, oh, it's going in.
• 1:54:15
  It's like, compare that with the scene in The Twin Dilemma where
• 1:54:19
  Colin Baker finds yeah. Seriously, this is where.
• 1:54:23
  We're at, this is where we're at.
• 1:54:25
  You know, Colin Baker goes in to a cave in the Twin Dilemma and
• 1:54:30
  he's got his little torch and he traces everything.
• 1:54:32
  And he explains beautifully to Perry and to Hugo the back story
• 1:54:36
  of the the gastropods and how they came to take over that
• 1:54:41
  planet whose name I've forgotten at the minute.
• 1:54:44
  Give you that point, Fraser. That is the only way the Twin
• 1:54:48
  Dilemma is in any way superior to.
• 1:54:50
  This well, no, Twin Dilemma doesn't lock the Doctor up in a
• 1:54:54
  in a cell and have our Adrian from Bread come and explain the
• 1:54:57
  plot to him. It locks.
• 1:55:00
  It locks him in a building with a bomb in an entirely
• 1:55:04
  superfluous subplot. Exactly.
• 1:55:07
  Something happened. He wasn't just come and talk to
• 1:55:10
  him. Not one of you you can complain
• 1:55:12
  about Chris Chibnall's exposition if you're champion
• 1:55:14
  this based on that that episode, which is literally just sit in
• 1:55:18
  the cell doctor and our Adrian's going to come and.
• 1:55:21
  Explain the but it is telling. The history he's telling the
• 1:55:24
  history, there's a big difference.
• 1:55:26
  He should have figured that out in episode 2.
• 1:55:29
  But it is a beautiful dialogue, and I don't think you could
• 1:55:32
  accuse 1 Chibnall of writing beautiful dialogue.
• 1:55:35
  It's. Beautifully acted, beautifully
• 1:55:37
  designed it is. Literally stopping the plot.
• 1:55:41
  It is literally we're going to stop.
• 1:55:42
  Yeah, we're going to put the main character in prison.
• 1:55:45
  We'll have Nisa run around for a little bit, but that's a little
• 1:55:47
  bit too exciting as well. So we'll put her into prison as
• 1:55:49
  well. I mean, the, the classic
• 1:55:51
  example, this is a story that stops so they can watch Punch
• 1:55:54
  and Judy. The story stops so the main
• 1:55:57
  characters can watch Punch and Judy, which is really fitting
• 1:55:59
  because that's what Nisa's dressed as this week.
• 1:56:02
  She's dressed as a Punch and Judy shack.
• 1:56:05
  But do you know what the? Costumes.
• 1:56:06
  The costumes are, you know, ridiculous.
• 1:56:10
  You've got a lovely costume. You've got Martin Clunes dressed
• 1:56:14
  in his falconry gear going out and, you know, into the market
• 1:56:18
  and that's a brilliant costume. And then you dress him as some
• 1:56:21
  sort of, you know, when you order your taxa from Wish.
• 1:56:24
  At the end. It's got great knees though,
• 1:56:26
  yeah. But it's, and it's like you say,
• 1:56:28
  what this gets all held up time and time again, is the whipping
• 1:56:32
  boy for Yeah. But they're missing because
• 1:56:35
  they're missing the point. They're not missing the point
• 1:56:38
  though. They're holding up and say, look
• 1:56:39
  at this, this is ridiculous. This is what Doctor Who looks
• 1:56:42
  like. Look at Martin Clunes.
• 1:56:43
  Ha ha, ha, you started his career and Doctor Who looking as
• 1:56:45
  ridiculous as this and he's going to say, oh, yes, you're
• 1:56:48
  missing the context because you haven't watched the whole thing.
• 1:56:51
  But no one's going to watch this.
• 1:56:53
  No one. You wouldn't sit anyone down to
• 1:56:54
  watch this. You wouldn't get a not we and
• 1:56:57
  say, right, this is going to be your first episode of of classic
• 1:57:01
  Doctor Who because it relies too much on what's happened in
• 1:57:04
  Kinder. You need to have watched Kinder
• 1:57:06
  know what the Mara is, because the Mara is the thing coming
• 1:57:09
  back in this episode. You've got to understand the
• 1:57:12
  Mara because it's it's you know, everyone know you know what we
• 1:57:16
  need is a bit of oh, Nessa, you were asleep when this all
• 1:57:18
  happened. So let me just refresh you.
• 1:57:20
  Oh, hang on, you're asking for more exposition.
• 1:57:22
  You just said there was too much exposition.
• 1:57:24
  Make your mind up, yeah? Spread it too much too.
• 1:57:27
  Little. Spread it out.
• 1:57:28
  This is this is like two parts spread out into four, you know,
• 1:57:32
  by the time we get Yeah. And by the time we get stuff
• 1:57:34
  happening, by the time the doctor goes up into his mountain
• 1:57:37
  and finds the snake dancer and gets bitten by a snake, you know
• 1:57:41
  what's happening now? It's it's literally just all in
• 1:57:44
  silence. So you're just literally having
• 1:57:45
  to sit and watch Peter Davison and and some random crusty old
• 1:57:49
  man getting bitten by snakes. And our police make this point.
• 1:57:52
  It's just so, it's just so just bitty and you know it.
• 1:57:57
  It needs smoothing out. This is this is the prime
• 1:57:59
  example of where Eric Haywood has fallen down as the script
• 1:58:02
  editor because he should be in here and he should be saying.
• 1:58:04
  No, he. Should he should be saying?
• 1:58:09
  He should be saying to Christopher Bailey, right?
• 1:58:11
  That's lush. But the Doctor needs to go up
• 1:58:12
  the mountain in part three OK, we need to figure this out in
• 1:58:15
  Part 2. The doctor needs to go up the
• 1:58:17
  mountain part three. Give Nisa something to do Tegan
• 1:58:20
  Tegan has a wonderful part, but then she gets sidelined for LON.
• 1:58:23
  She goes into The Cave with, with Liz Sladen's husband, you
• 1:58:29
  know, God knows what they're up to, but she just disappears
• 1:58:32
  after Part 2. You know, you have wonderful
• 1:58:34
  bits of her. Like you see that bit at the
• 1:58:35
  start where she's getting regressed and she just goes is
• 1:58:39
  really scary, you know, and then it's like, OK, then we'll have
• 1:58:43
  the bits in the mirror where she's been all ambitions,
• 1:58:45
  adoptive and again, really quite scary.
• 1:58:47
  And then just say, Oh yes, stick her in a cave.
• 1:58:49
  Stick her in a cave. We'll come back to at the end.
• 1:58:51
  She's waiting for the ceremony at the end.
• 1:58:54
  Yeah. Exactly.
• 1:58:54
  Wasted. Wasted away in The Cave.
• 1:58:57
  I'm going to make this point if it kills me.
• 1:59:00
  You said this hasn't got enough incident.
• 1:59:02
  You said this doesn't have enough going on.
• 1:59:04
  He tried that in Kinder and they couldn't fucking do it.
• 1:59:07
  And that he literally says, I wrote a story.
• 1:59:11
  I knew they could do so effectively.
• 1:59:13
  What he did was he wrote a period piece in the future with
• 1:59:17
  great character parts for people.
• 1:59:19
  Yeah, low on incident, but high on great lines and substance.
• 1:59:24
  And again, you scripted it out or your producer needs to be
• 1:59:26
  coming in and going. Chris, we need more.
• 1:59:28
  We need something else to happen.
• 1:59:30
  We need this to be two. Parties.
• 1:59:31
  I think it's a singular criticism you're making here,
• 1:59:34
  though I think you are the outlier in this one.
• 1:59:38
  Let's go to Dan. Let's see if Dan can restore
• 1:59:40
  some sanity to proceed. Oh, please take the keys to the
• 1:59:43
  asylum, Dan. Well, it's nice to see the
• 1:59:46
  standard the standard Fraser GOB show at node there.
• 1:59:51
  Champion of the damned, my ass. I love snake dance.
• 1:59:56
  I've made a I've made a not watch snake dance and they loved
• 2:00:00
  it. Go on.
• 2:00:01
  You didn't actually let us finish, though.
• 2:00:04
  Mute, mute. Go on then.
• 2:00:06
  Go on. I am putting this through.
• 2:00:11
  Oh for fuck's sake, I. Am putting this through.
• 2:00:14
  Well played. Fraser, Gregory.
• 2:00:16
  Because it isn't what I think about this.
• 2:00:21
  If I don't like this, that doesn't matter because other
• 2:00:25
  people do. You know, Joe, I know coming
• 2:00:29
  into this and you find well, that you love this story and
• 2:00:31
  that that's important. The fact that I don't isn't, you
• 2:00:35
  know, we can sit here with our, you know, comments and big rants
• 2:00:40
  about, you know, plots go nowhere and brown noises and and
• 2:00:43
  all the rest of it. And we can, you know, slit an
• 2:00:45
  episode, give it a showing. But what does that actually give
• 2:00:48
  us? A.
• 2:00:49
  Fun episode of our podcast to listen to that people enjoy.
• 2:00:54
  But then when we go home, what we forgot note, you know, have I
• 2:00:57
  got something to watch now that I'm going to enjoy?
• 2:00:59
  No. So do I win anything?
• 2:01:01
  No, I don't. Actually, I can.
• 2:01:03
  I can address this absolutely, because Jason Thompson has
• 2:01:06
  commented many times that hearing the two sides to most
• 2:01:10
  stories, the good and the bad, means that everybody listening
• 2:01:14
  to this episode, regardless of which direction you're going in,
• 2:01:17
  has got something to take away from here.
• 2:01:19
  I absolutely think there is a place for a run.
• 2:01:23
  Ultimately though, you know, OK, like I say, it doesn't, it
• 2:01:27
  doesn't mean anything to me if I don't like this.
• 2:01:30
  There is someone that does. This does mean something to,
• 2:01:34
  though quite specific. And that's the person that pops
• 2:01:38
  up in the extras on the Blu-ray and the DVD, interviews Chris
• 2:01:44
  Bailey and says because of this story, I wanted to become a
• 2:01:49
  writer. And that person's Rob Sherman.
• 2:01:54
  Oh, he's really on snake dances. Superb.
• 2:01:56
  So you watch him on those extras and he talks about Chris
• 2:02:00
  Beauty's right? And he says, you know any
• 2:02:03
  pinpoints one line in this one. Line even then.
• 2:02:06
  Even then, and he's, he's sitting with Chris Beauty and
• 2:02:09
  saying, right. So when I heard that, I knew I
• 2:02:13
  wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be able to do that
• 2:02:15
  myself. I want to be able to have that
• 2:02:17
  give other people that reaction. So Rob Pierman watches that and
• 2:02:20
  goes forward and becomes a writer.
• 2:02:23
  So because of Snake Dance, I get Dalek and I get The Chains at
• 2:02:28
  Midnight and I get Jubilee and I get everything else.
• 2:02:30
  Disappointing. Oh no, I'm lying.
• 2:02:35
  So ultimately, it doesn't matter what I think on this because
• 2:02:38
  other people like it. It means more to other people
• 2:02:41
  who love it than it means to me by not enjoying it.
• 2:02:44
  So of course I'm going to put it through.
• 2:02:46
  On those grounds, then you need to put everything through.
• 2:02:49
  Potentially, yeah, potentially. Because what?
• 2:02:52
  Are you doing here then? Every story is someone's first
• 2:02:57
  and every story is someone's favorite.
• 2:02:58
  We've already talked about Terminus and how that size
• 2:03:00
  favorite every story has got someone that it means something
• 2:03:05
  to. So anything I've said, if you,
• 2:03:08
  you know, take that away and go Oh yeah, that guy's right.
• 2:03:10
  I'm never going to watch snake dance again.
• 2:03:12
  Then that's not what I take away from you.
• 2:03:14
  I take away what Rod said, take what Jules said, take away what
• 2:03:18
  Dan's got about to say. Don't listen to, you know, Mr.
• 2:03:21
  Negative Pants here. Go and be another Rob Sherman.
• 2:03:25
  Go and enjoy your Doctor Who SO. You don't like it, but you're
• 2:03:31
  voting it through. He's.
• 2:03:34
  Crazy. This is what it's giving me.
• 2:03:37
  Yeah, I'm going to vote it through.
• 2:03:39
  I heard a phrase today on the fabulous podcast In the Time
• 2:03:43
  Lash, and their entire podcast is centered around the things
• 2:03:47
  you don't like about Doctor Who, whether that's stories or ideas
• 2:03:50
  or characters or whatever, and throwing it in the Time Lash.
• 2:03:53
  Yeah. And by your reasoning, that
• 2:03:55
  podcast shouldn't exist because they're just hating on Doctor
• 2:03:58
  Who, and that's all stuff that other people love.
• 2:04:01
  But actually, they introduced me to the term I love hating, which
• 2:04:04
  is that they get to talk about all this stuff they don't like,
• 2:04:07
  and then in a roundabout sort of way, you explore all the things
• 2:04:11
  you do love by comparison. I think there's absolutely a
• 2:04:15
  place for being negative about things, yeah.
• 2:04:17
  Absolutely. You know, if you don't like
• 2:04:19
  something, you know, don't say you do just for the crack.
• 2:04:21
  You know, I could have come here and I could have said, Oh yeah,
• 2:04:23
  well, I love snake dance. You know, I love that little
• 2:04:25
  scene of the tortoise. That's my first reason.
• 2:04:28
  I love when, you know, Tegan gets scared.
• 2:04:29
  That's my second reason. I love, you know, Martin
• 2:04:32
  Clunes's fault on the outfit. That's my third reason I love
• 2:04:35
  the Eurovision set. That's my fourth reason.
• 2:04:37
  What's going to stop going you? Can't have more than three.
• 2:04:41
  Can shouldn't write this on, you know what I'm like so I I can do
• 2:04:45
  all of those. I could have done all of those,
• 2:04:47
  but I didn't want to because that's not me.
• 2:04:49
  That's not being true to me. But at the same time, you know,
• 2:04:52
  taking a dump on something and saying, yeah, this is going to
• 2:04:54
  go in the bin. But it's also not me because
• 2:04:56
  like you say, I'm I'm not self styled.
• 2:04:59
  You styled me as this Joe Champion of the damned.
• 2:05:01
  So, you know, in order to, you know, play this game that you
• 2:05:06
  want me to play, I have to think of it.
• 2:05:11
  Be honest. Yeah, so I'll be honest, but you
• 2:05:15
  know, am I going to put this in the bin because I don't like it?
• 2:05:19
  No, because other people like it.
• 2:05:20
  You're going to have a hard time in round two when we've got to
• 2:05:22
  vote one out. I'll.
• 2:05:26
  Be voting for the one I like the most.
• 2:05:27
  Right, OK, yeah, I'm championing it because I love snake dance,
• 2:05:32
  love kinder watched it with a not we who loved it.
• 2:05:36
  I chose that as my season 21 to watch with a normal person.
• 2:05:41
  So, you know, yeah, reasons why it keeps taking something to do.
• 2:05:45
  Obviously I, I like, I mean, like we've already said, putting
• 2:05:49
  the weird Spacey Walkman thing on her, leaving her to run about
• 2:05:52
  was quite stupid. But it's fun.
• 2:05:55
  It keeps this has something to do.
• 2:05:56
  I love the scene where she comes out with her lovely new clothes
• 2:05:58
  on. The Doctor just doesn't get it.
• 2:06:01
  And they really sort of laboured the point in a nice way there.
• 2:06:04
  But you've. Got I think Davison's kind of
• 2:06:08
  getting the hang of how he wants to do the doctor.
• 2:06:10
  And it's very, very Davison really, isn't he?
• 2:06:13
  If you know, I mean the sarcastic the kind of not
• 2:06:15
  noticing stuff that works really well Nyssa doing her weird scary
• 2:06:20
  deep voicing that she does that's always fun.
• 2:06:22
  The cliffhanger is episode one with the crystal ball smashing
• 2:06:25
  and that's a brilliant cliffhanger that's proper
• 2:06:29
  fucking scary. So that's good.
• 2:06:32
  And then finally on, on .1, the the snake death at the end of it
• 2:06:36
  where it's pumping out its Milky muck on the, on the Blu-ray,
• 2:06:40
  there's there's all the footage. There's about 5 minutes of
• 2:06:43
  footage of it just being pumped and then you can see the blokes
• 2:06:45
  going. Don't say you're taking your
• 2:06:50
  back to a naughty No, I wasn't a load of.
• 2:06:53
  Sour Skittles, right? No, I'll leave it there.
• 2:06:56
  I'll leave it there. It's not about trouser snakes,
• 2:06:58
  Joe. It's not about trouser snakes.
• 2:07:00
  Second reason. It's a big, big snake they're
• 2:07:03
  proud and about though, isn't it?
• 2:07:04
  Yeah, the second reason it's already been said that it's got
• 2:07:08
  a really good guest cast and characters and it really makes
• 2:07:11
  you appreciate how old Doctor Who as a classic Doctor Who,
• 2:07:14
  they give people stuff to do if modern Doctor.
• 2:07:17
  We've already said this before in lots of podcasts.
• 2:07:19
  They waste a lot of actors with giving them nothing in this.
• 2:07:22
  Everyone has a personality, they have funny little bits, they
• 2:07:25
  have drama, they take the piss, they're serious.
• 2:07:28
  Like not to mention them the Martin Clunes outfit was clearly
• 2:07:32
  a piss taking outfit. He was meant to look ridiculous
• 2:07:34
  because it was a big ridiculous event.
• 2:07:36
  He's going to. I like the bit where he tosses
• 2:07:40
  the snake statuette over. He's a tosser, obviously.
• 2:07:46
  Adrian Boswell. Adrian Boswell from Bread
• 2:07:49
  basically finding it. Brian Miller is quite funny.
• 2:07:52
  I like the little touches of acting like in the whole of
• 2:07:54
  mirrors bit he randomly just stops and blows, blows his nose
• 2:07:57
  randomly in the middle of it, which is just, it's weird.
• 2:08:00
  The Snooty mother of LON again. She's like a sitcom character in
• 2:08:04
  the future. Love that.
• 2:08:05
  And the third thing I've written down, which has kind of been
• 2:08:07
  said crystal power, because there's lots of crystals in
• 2:08:10
  season 20. You've got Terlo's crystal thing
• 2:08:14
  that overheats all the time. You've got the crystal in this
• 2:08:18
  one, which again is a bit of a stupid block point where they
• 2:08:20
  resolve it by just pulling the crystal out of The Cave.
• 2:08:22
  But it's funny, they Telegraph it quite well.
• 2:08:25
  So you know it's going to happen, but it's still good fun.
• 2:08:28
  The better be this blue crystal we've mentioned earlier on.
• 2:08:30
  Blue crystals, obviously quite powerful.
• 2:08:33
  The Time Lash was full of those weird crystals.
• 2:08:35
  Lots of crystals anyway. And also the time scoop.
• 2:08:39
  For Oh yeah, that. Looks like it's made out of.
• 2:08:41
  Crystals. Crystal.
• 2:08:42
  Yeah, other random things. I've several times in the last
• 2:08:47
  few years I've been in restaurants and the waitresses
• 2:08:49
  have had snake tattoos on their arms and it's fucking freaky.
• 2:08:55
  But what did they say? Look at me.
• 2:08:59
  But it didn't mention the dark places of the inside fair.
• 2:09:02
  Enough. That's scary.
• 2:09:04
  But yeah, it's got so many things going for it.
• 2:09:06
  I love Kinder. I loved it when I was a child
• 2:09:09
  and watching it because it's really freaky state dance,
• 2:09:12
  equally as good in different ways.
• 2:09:14
  And yeah, basically Chris Bailey was writing more of a Doctor Who
• 2:09:17
  story because he had such a nightmare with Eric Saywood and
• 2:09:20
  rewriting it and reformatting it into a Doctor Who format.
• 2:09:24
  So this is indeed quite Doctor Who.
• 2:09:25
  He on purpose so it could be done and then he didn't do the
• 2:09:29
  third one in the end because Eric was just too too Ericy to
• 2:09:33
  work. With what a loss?
• 2:09:34
  Well. No, you, you.
• 2:09:35
  You only have to go and listen to Mark Platt's Cradle of the
• 2:09:37
  Snake to realize that that could have been a mistake.
• 2:09:40
  Yeah. I mean, I liked that because I
• 2:09:41
  like all of those things. But yes, yeah, no comment it's
• 2:09:45
  gonna go through because it's date dancing.
• 2:09:46
  It's. Brilliant.
• 2:09:47
  Fabulous. Everything wins.
• 2:09:52
  Big win. No, don't start.
• 2:09:53
  Don't start, Fraser off again. Fraser, I need to come to you
• 2:09:57
  now. Clearly it's gonna be you're
• 2:09:59
  going to champion. Or not Champion put through
• 2:10:02
  anyway. What have we got left?
• 2:10:07
  You've got Arkham Infinity, you've got King's Demons, and
• 2:10:10
  you've got Enlightenment. Oh boy, I know I can predict
• 2:10:17
  this. He ain't going to choose
• 2:10:20
  enlightenment. Chase one of the other two.
• 2:10:23
  Right. So I'll choose enlightenment
• 2:10:27
  because this is one I'm a bit on the fence with, to be honest.
• 2:10:30
  This is the one where I thought, you know, which way am I going
• 2:10:34
  to go on this one? Because, you know, there isn't a
• 2:10:36
  Rob Sherman in the back of this to to save it.
• 2:10:42
  It's it's a thing of beauty. It really is.
• 2:10:46
  It's shot. So.
• 2:10:51
  Perfectly well from, you know, those early scenes in the TARDIS
• 2:10:55
  where the running out of power, so the lights are down and it's
• 2:10:58
  orange and you've got the white guardian.
• 2:11:03
  You know he's not in not the dead man from Del Monte anymore.
• 2:11:07
  He's dressing like the other one and he's flickering in and out
• 2:11:11
  and you've got that element to it.
• 2:11:13
  You know, you go on to the the the sailboat and you know that's
• 2:11:18
  that's a brilliant set and you go up to the top, you know, you
• 2:11:22
  see the model work of all the other ships.
• 2:11:24
  You know, it's just from start to finish, you know, but you get
• 2:11:27
  to like the, it's not enlightenment at the end, is it?
• 2:11:30
  It's the crazy crystal crystals Crystal Palace up in the sky,
• 2:11:34
  which again, just a beautiful bit of model work.
• 2:11:37
  And you know, everything's just so gorgeous to look at in it.
• 2:11:42
  And it's got one of the best scores ever.
• 2:11:47
  It's great music. You know, Martin Clark doesn't
• 2:11:50
  always hit the right note, but he's absolutely perfect in this.
• 2:11:54
  It's so beautiful. There's so many little different
• 2:11:58
  motifs, you know, with little waltzy bits and real ethereal
• 2:12:02
  stuff going on there, which really adds that's another
• 2:12:06
  dimension you've got, you know, Linda Barron obviously coming
• 2:12:13
  up, coming in after two episodes and just stealing the show.
• 2:12:19
  But ultimately it just doesn't connect with us.
• 2:12:22
  And, you know, you can ask us why, but I can't tell you.
• 2:12:26
  I don't know why. For all that it is just
• 2:12:29
  beautiful and it's, you know, really, you know, fantastic
• 2:12:34
  look. I just don't know why this
• 2:12:36
  doesn't connect. When I got the Blu-ray and I
• 2:12:39
  tried watching this over four nights, I fell asleep on every
• 2:12:42
  in every episode. Admittedly, I've been working
• 2:12:44
  and I was tired. But you know, it's like, why am
• 2:12:48
  I not really connecting with this?
• 2:12:51
  So this is, this is one that I'm, I'm really kind of on the
• 2:12:53
  fence with. And I think, you know, I'll pick
• 2:12:55
  this because then obviously it doesn't really matter what I,
• 2:12:58
  you know, vote in or out, you guys will have the cast and
• 2:13:01
  votes. And I can imagine it's probably
• 2:13:02
  going to go through because I believe this is quite popular
• 2:13:04
  with other people, but aren't me.
• 2:13:06
  But if I had to pick, if I had to pick and say yes, you know,
• 2:13:11
  is it, you know, you've got to, you know, one of you guys have
• 2:13:14
  picked this first. And I would have put it through
• 2:13:17
  on the basis of the representation that is apparent
• 2:13:23
  here because you've got the Barbara Clegg, the writer and
• 2:13:28
  Fiona come in directing. So you've got a female writer
• 2:13:32
  and you've got a female director for the first time in the show's
• 2:13:37
  history. And it really shows in what
• 2:13:40
  should probably be the air plot but isn't.
• 2:13:42
  The air plot is really Turlow and his conversion to the light
• 2:13:46
  side and, you know, finally thrown off the shackles of the
• 2:13:50
  the black guardian. And I don't know if that's, you
• 2:13:54
  know, possibly why it doesn't connect with us because, you
• 2:13:59
  know, the plot is a little bit too centered around turtle and,
• 2:14:02
  you know, wrapping up this this trilogy.
• 2:14:04
  And it's not a very strong end to the trilogy, I don't think.
• 2:14:07
  And it focuses too much until if it's stood by itself, you could
• 2:14:10
  make turtle racks cabin boy and it would still work.
• 2:14:15
  You know, you'd still have Turtle trying to escape from
• 2:14:17
  Rack and you know, it would work just as well without it being a
• 2:14:20
  Black Guardian story. But ultimately the sort of the
• 2:14:24
  Bay plot is Mariner and Tegan. And, you know, that's been
• 2:14:29
  talked about a lot in various corners over the years of how,
• 2:14:33
  you know, interesting it is to have Mariner as the Eternal who
• 2:14:38
  doesn't know about love and who, you know, becomes fixated with
• 2:14:41
  Tegan and he becomes, you know, falls in love with her.
• 2:14:45
  And he wants to, you know, go off with that and and so on and
• 2:14:48
  so forth. And, you know, for the longest
• 2:14:50
  time, you would have looked at that through the eyes of Mariner
• 2:14:54
  and thought, oh, yes, isn't that nice, how the alien gets to fall
• 2:14:57
  in love and, and, you know, find, find humanity and whatnot.
• 2:15:01
  But after the last five or so years, you look at it now
• 2:15:06
  through Tegan's eyes and you can see in Janet Fielding's
• 2:15:10
  performance just how unsettled she is by Mariner.
• 2:15:15
  And he's essentially a stalker now.
• 2:15:17
  He's in our mind, won't we ever alone?
• 2:15:23
  And this is four years ago, this is me too, four years ago.
• 2:15:26
  This is Janet Fielding and Fiona Cummin and Barbara Clegg showing
• 2:15:30
  us in 1983 what it's like to be a woman in a male dominated
• 2:15:37
  industry. And I think that's so important
• 2:15:40
  that that's why I would, if I was having the cast and vote,
• 2:15:43
  that's why I would put this through purely because of, you
• 2:15:47
  know, Tegan and Marana and how that just resonates in a way
• 2:15:53
  that it probably wasn't intended to today.
• 2:15:56
  So over to the comments. Jason Thompson never gels for
• 2:15:59
  me. The direction and design don't
• 2:16:01
  mesh, but it's most egregious sin as the Doctor deals with the
• 2:16:04
  villains off screen, somehow going from being held at sore
• 2:16:07
  point to having tossed 2 Eternals overboard so he can
• 2:16:11
  surprise us by joining the Guardians for the Denue mob.
• 2:16:15
  That is a long sentence, Jason. And let's not mention the
• 2:16:18
  wonderful Cyril Luck on being Lombard with a googly eyed dove
• 2:16:21
  on his head. Bring back the suit, hat and
• 2:16:24
  Wicker chair. Michael Storm says damn near to
• 2:16:27
  perfection with the thoughtful intelligence and unusual script,
• 2:16:30
  plenty of striking visuals, one of the best scores of the era,
• 2:16:33
  and some of the best guest casts that series has featured to
• 2:16:35
  date. Lee John also appears.
• 2:16:38
  Flag succeeds at weaving the arc into her own story, making the
• 2:16:42
  two so interwoven that the finale is doubly satisfying.
• 2:16:46
  Oh boy. Paul Quinn.
• 2:16:48
  Yes, the model work is lovely, and Strikers dining room and
• 2:16:51
  bridge are gorgeous sets, but this is as dull as the middle
• 2:16:54
  episode of the Dominators. At least that had the erotic
• 2:16:59
  tension of Raga and Toba. The Titanic looks tempting in
• 2:17:03
  comparison. Darren Lit Randall.
• 2:17:06
  Is this is an unappreciated classic I.
• 2:17:08
  Think. Yeah, yeah, I'm not quite
• 2:17:11
  getting that reading. Let's go.
• 2:17:12
  Let's go with. That on board with.
• 2:17:14
  That let's go with that Darren Lit Randall says a story that I
• 2:17:17
  don't enjoy like I used to. Some decent character work,
• 2:17:20
  especially for Tegan. Davidson gets one good scene
• 2:17:23
  easily. Fiona Cummins best work.
• 2:17:25
  Love the score but the pace is a bit weak and the ending to the
• 2:17:28
  trilogy is contemptuous. Contemptuous.
• 2:17:31
  I'm quite strong. Daniel Noy.
• 2:17:33
  Best of the season, thoughtful and full of character.
• 2:17:36
  Linda Barron and Keith Barron I think Married are great as the
• 2:17:40
  lead. Eternals 1.
• 2:17:41
  Gloriously OTT, the other still and sinister.
• 2:17:44
  The regulars are wonderful too, and the Moody lighting in the
• 2:17:47
  TARDIS is a 100%. Martin Matan says gorgeous and
• 2:17:51
  brilliant. Can there be Lords in such a
• 2:17:53
  small domain? Spectacular writing, neat
• 2:17:56
  direction, beautiful, beautiful performances.
• 2:17:59
  A gem of a thing. James Lark never quite takes
• 2:18:02
  off, but it looks great. No CGI needed here, thank you.
• 2:18:06
  And I love the oddness of Striker and Mariner.
• 2:18:09
  Linda Baron turns up at the right time to kick it into a new
• 2:18:11
  gear. The end would feel
• 2:18:13
  anticlimactic. Except striction.
• 2:18:15
  Strickson persuades you it's not.
• 2:18:19
  John Arnold said up there just for the cliffhanger to part one
• 2:18:22
  alone at Linda Baron, gobbling the scenery on Mark Strips's
• 2:18:25
  glorious hysteria. And it's one of the gems of the
• 2:18:28
  era. Dave Rennie, best of the season,
• 2:18:31
  very well written, solid solid cast, Bar Lee trying to spoil it
• 2:18:35
  and wonderful costumes. The Eternals are cleverly
• 2:18:38
  created species and you have and you even have Linda Baron having
• 2:18:42
  a cliffhanger. Wonderful.
• 2:18:44
  Dan Goodman says. I'm loving Dan's face every time
• 2:18:47
  someone slides Lee John off. He's.
• 2:18:51
  Using, he's using his imagination.
• 2:18:53
  I'm going to get a prop carry on.
• 2:18:55
  Dan Pin says looks gorgeous. Fantastic sets, great model work
• 2:18:58
  and fantastic costumes. The Eternals are a brilliant
• 2:19:01
  creation. What a concept.
• 2:19:03
  Beings who can experience emotions via other lesser races.
• 2:19:06
  Linda Baroner's rack is wonderfully over the top.
• 2:19:09
  A great villain. Glenn Fitzgerald.
• 2:19:12
  Great visually and the story is simple yet flows smoothly.
• 2:19:15
  Love it. A fine example of classic 80s
• 2:19:18
  who are one I will always reach for when I need cheering up.
• 2:19:22
  Jolo Ellen says the best regular season story.
• 2:19:24
  Janet Fielding's best performance and it pulls off the
• 2:19:27
  impossible and makes me like Tegan.
• 2:19:29
  Another triumph for the BBC costume department.
• 2:19:32
  Would happily watch this multiple times.
• 2:19:36
  Dan is waving pictures of Lee John at me.
• 2:19:38
  LP's. I think they.
• 2:19:40
  I think one of them is gatefold. Hang on, I'll have a look.
• 2:19:43
  Joe Llewellen, the best we've. Just done.
• 2:19:45
  We've just done, Joe. Oh God, John Bensalia.
• 2:19:48
  I'm still having Lee John Frost in my face.
• 2:19:50
  A brilliantly assembled tale of claustrophobia.
• 2:19:53
  The added bonus of unintentional hilarity from, Yeah, Valentine
• 2:19:59
  Dial and Lee John. Poor Lee John, you know.
• 2:20:03
  The way he does, they're gaining on us.
• 2:20:05
  You know the. Regulars are on top form, but
• 2:20:09
  Peter Davidson needs to get a haircut.
• 2:20:11
  Andy Parkinson's The Eternals are creepy, but otherwise it's
• 2:20:14
  high camp on the high space seats.
• 2:20:16
  I actually prefer the special edition Oh, which brings it all
• 2:20:19
  together brilliantly. I love the special edition.
• 2:20:22
  Paul SMY favor the season. Brilliant concept. jaw-dropping
• 2:20:26
  cliffhanger to episode one. Music superb.
• 2:20:29
  And finally, David Lancaster said Absolutely glorious.
• 2:20:32
  No notes and Mariner can have a poke around my mind anytime he
• 2:20:37
  likes. Marin.
• 2:20:40
  Is so creepy, what is wrong with him?
• 2:20:43
  So damn, you're obviously have a hugely John fetish so.
• 2:20:49
  I mean, Imagination's records are actually quite good for the
• 2:20:53
  time, but that's a whole other separate issue.
• 2:20:56
  Yeah, Mariner, I made a note of one of these bits of dialogue
• 2:20:58
  which says I am empty. You give me being.
• 2:21:01
  I look into your mind and see life, energy, excitement.
• 2:21:04
  I want them. I want you.
• 2:21:06
  Your thoughts should be my thoughts, your feelings, my
• 2:21:08
  feelings. I mean, that's quite, quite
• 2:21:10
  clingy really, isn't it? Yes, it is.
• 2:21:13
  Right order needed. It has to go through because
• 2:21:16
  it's brilliant. First thing, the Eternals, who
• 2:21:19
  basically have raised a bit more to do titt about in space.
• 2:21:23
  I like the fact that Barbara Clegg based them on these
• 2:21:26
  relatives of hers that always used to have to be entertained.
• 2:21:29
  Like how really posh people do they?
• 2:21:31
  They they always need some entertainment, so they're based
• 2:21:33
  on that. I also like how marrying that
• 2:21:35
  gets obsessed with Tegan of all people.
• 2:21:37
  I assume it's because he's never met a bossy old gobshite from
• 2:21:40
  Australia. Again, I love Tegan again.
• 2:21:43
  Also Linda Baron. She's just eating the scenery.
• 2:21:47
  She's having fun. Lee John.
• 2:21:49
  Yeah, he's not an actor, but it works because they're, they're
• 2:21:54
  weird. They're weird, non humanly
• 2:21:56
  weirdos. You know, why not be like Lee
• 2:21:58
  John? He's literally got like 3 lines.
• 2:22:00
  He doesn't really say anything, he just, and he just really
• 2:22:02
  overplays every one of them marvelously.
• 2:22:04
  Fitting jaw for a rival? Yeah, they they make a a new
• 2:22:09
  photo of Auntie Vanessa, so I love them for that.
• 2:22:11
  They've got a good buffet with celery in it, which is weird.
• 2:22:14
  Don't even love a. Buffet.
• 2:22:17
  I mean, in Black Hawk it's got a good buffet as well.
• 2:22:19
  I've got on. I've got on the backs on another
• 2:22:21
  podcast before. Yeah, I like Linda Baron's big
• 2:22:24
  scary room with the giant eye on the floor and the, you know, and
• 2:22:28
  the red crystal, the whole thing with the with the crystal.
• 2:22:30
  There's another crystal. There's a red crystal that she
• 2:22:31
  gives to Egan for the tiara that lock locks into her thing to
• 2:22:36
  destroy everybody. Anyway, Waffle.
• 2:22:38
  Second thing, visuals. It looks really lovely.
• 2:22:40
  The model ships are lovely. The brilliant lighting when the
• 2:22:44
  TARDIS is damaged still from Terminus at the beginning and
• 2:22:46
  it's all dimly lit and it looks really lovely.
• 2:22:49
  But as you know, no one's allowed to like Doctor properly
• 2:22:51
  because the the unions wouldn't have it.
• 2:22:54
  I also like when the Black guard when the White Guardian turns up
• 2:22:56
  and does is give us a clue thing going.
• 2:22:59
  A book, a film. What is it at the beginning
• 2:23:02
  again? It's a stupid scene, but they
• 2:23:04
  play it seriously, it works well.
• 2:23:05
  I love when the TARDIS moves and they're playing chess and Mark
• 2:23:09
  has to slightly push push the chess board in time with
• 2:23:11
  everybody else. The weird bit with Mariners
• 2:23:15
  hands on the scanner, that's really creepy as well.
• 2:23:19
  We're all going to do this now. That's really, really sinister.
• 2:23:21
  Again, another really good visual.
• 2:23:23
  There's loads of really good visuals.
• 2:23:25
  The stuff they filmed at Ealing on the deck, it looks looks
• 2:23:28
  freaky because it's got more time and it's just got a better
• 2:23:31
  quality to it. Tegan's got a nice costume where
• 2:23:34
  tits almost fall out in one of the takes, but you know, that
• 2:23:37
  recurs a lot in the season. Turner almost gets sucked off on
• 2:23:39
  a cliffhanger, has to be mentioned.
• 2:23:41
  And of course, he actually hurt himself in real life doing that
• 2:23:44
  because it was quite dangerous. And the third thing is the the
• 2:23:48
  resolution of the trilogy. It I think it does work as a
• 2:23:52
  resolution because you're not going to have him kill the
• 2:23:54
  doctor. He's got a contract with the
• 2:23:56
  show. So he's not going to get killed
• 2:23:58
  off just yet. Of course he's going to like
• 2:24:00
  stay with the team. He upsets the Black Guardian.
• 2:24:04
  And yeah, it's it's a weird ending.
• 2:24:06
  And I like how Tegan takes a while to actually like him after
• 2:24:09
  that. It's not like, Oh yeah, let's
• 2:24:10
  just move on. It's not like when it's not like
• 2:24:12
  the death of Adric where they go.
• 2:24:12
  Oh, anyway, right, whatever. So it works.
• 2:24:15
  I think it works really well. He's a good character.
• 2:24:17
  He's arcs a bit of a mess because obviously it was meant
• 2:24:19
  to be some various different other stories originally.
• 2:24:22
  And the fact that they had to film the lot the last session or
• 2:24:25
  so of it several months later, again, because of all the
• 2:24:28
  strikes, you can't really tell except for the hair lengths on
• 2:24:30
  certain bits of it. But yeah, it's got to go through
• 2:24:33
  because it's weird in a good way.
• 2:24:36
  Goodness. Joe.
• 2:24:38
  I mean, you say there it was a lovely point about Tegan, you
• 2:24:41
  know, not not letting him settle in straight away.
• 2:24:45
  But let's be honest, she's horrible to everyone.
• 2:24:46
  So how could you tell? When Chameleon comes into the
• 2:24:50
  target, it's that lovely fake camp robot who anyone would
• 2:24:53
  like, surely, and she just goes out.
• 2:24:55
  You can have my room for all our care.
• 2:24:57
  You know, she's a cow. I love enlightenment so much.
• 2:25:02
  You said about those scenes on the deck.
• 2:25:04
  Yeah, when I watched those when I was younger, that was the most
• 2:25:08
  magical Doctor Who I'd ever seen in my life.
• 2:25:11
  When they go and stand out there and you see all of the stars,
• 2:25:13
  the thought of standing on a on a sailing ship in space, that
• 2:25:17
  was the most magical Doctor Who I'd ever seen.
• 2:25:22
  I love the Eternals. It's a very opaque threat,
• 2:25:26
  sensual and distant, predatory and desperate.
• 2:25:30
  These are not words you could normally point at Doctor Who
• 2:25:32
  villains, and they're all the better for it.
• 2:25:34
  Just the producers. They weren't quite.
• 2:25:37
  Yeah, got a copy of the Time Lash script around, and they're
• 2:25:41
  just having the best time leeching off of humanity's
• 2:25:44
  imagination. Really interesting concept.
• 2:25:47
  And then you cast the roles with those, but those actors and it
• 2:25:51
  comes alive in a really interesting way.
• 2:25:54
  I love fuck me finally. I love Tegan in this story.
• 2:25:59
  And you're absolutely right, Fraser, what you said about, you
• 2:26:03
  know, the, the whole thing about men pushing themselves onto
• 2:26:06
  women and how she plays, how discomforting that is and, and
• 2:26:11
  pushes up against him and then ultimately bests him is just
• 2:26:15
  glorious. And in one of the the most
• 2:26:18
  surprising moments in the run, because I've heard people do the
• 2:26:20
  reading that Tegan was in love with the Doctor and I never see
• 2:26:23
  it. They're not an old married
• 2:26:25
  couple. They just hate each other most
• 2:26:26
  of the time, or they're just squabbling all the time.
• 2:26:29
  The bit where she thinks he's dead and then Mariner very
• 2:26:32
  quietly goes, Sparkle is gone from your mind.
• 2:26:36
  That's like a big hint of how she feels about him.
• 2:26:39
  I think the only other time we see it is at the end of
• 2:26:41
  Resurrection of Dogs when she chooses to go.
• 2:26:44
  It's a wonderful story, particularly she looks gorgeous
• 2:26:46
  in that dress. I don't care about boobies are
• 2:26:49
  almost popping out. She looks fantastic and Janet
• 2:26:52
  Fielding just. She.
• 2:26:53
  Clings onto this stuff when she gets here and plays it to the
• 2:26:56
  hilt. She did it in Kindle, she did it
• 2:26:58
  in Snake Dance. She does it in that moment at
• 2:27:00
  the end of Resurrection of the Daleks when they actually give
• 2:27:02
  her material where she can and not just say you know, Oh my God
• 2:27:07
  look up there questions and expository dialogue when she can
• 2:27:12
  actually act emotional moments. She's brilliant.
• 2:27:16
  No wonder Chib has brought her back and did glorious things
• 2:27:19
  with her. And my third reason for loving
• 2:27:23
  this is, again, another surprise.
• 2:27:25
  Peter Davidson is incredible in this story, but he comes alive
• 2:27:30
  in this. One of my favorite moments he
• 2:27:32
  ever gets is when he's railing against the Eternals in episode
• 2:27:36
  2. Strike out and he goes.
• 2:27:39
  You know, yes, of course, human beings are far so alive,
• 2:27:43
  entertaining. You know, he's right in their
• 2:27:45
  face. He's angry.
• 2:27:46
  I love it when he gets to be properly angry, but he's full of
• 2:27:49
  energy in this as well. He's doing the the corridor
• 2:27:51
  thing. He's running up and down that
• 2:27:53
  ship corridors like you wouldn't believe given this thing energy.
• 2:27:56
  I think he's very dashing as well.
• 2:27:58
  He wants he looks after Tegan. I just think he's wonderful.
• 2:28:02
  I I think he's mesmerizingly good and this is a a glimpse
• 2:28:07
  into what we're going to get in 21 when, like you say, Fraser,
• 2:28:11
  no fucks are given anymore. He's had it in his notice and
• 2:28:14
  he's just got to act everyone else off the screen.
• 2:28:17
  There's a million other reasons. I do think every line of
• 2:28:19
  dialogue is poetic and gorgeous. I think Fiona Cummings direction
• 2:28:24
  is great. The lighting is brilliant.
• 2:28:25
  Malcolm Clark, score. Malcolm Clarke, man, how does he
• 2:28:29
  go from this to Attack of the Cybermen?
• 2:28:33
  I mean, what is going on in the world?
• 2:28:35
  He's a very eclectic composer. Just about everything about this
• 2:28:39
  story sings. I don't even mind Lee Jon.
• 2:28:42
  All he's got to do is hand, you know, handler wheel.
• 2:28:45
  And nobody's really said it, Rod.
• 2:28:48
  And I'm going to say it before you, but before camp villainess
• 2:28:52
  Linda Baron and her cliffhanger to camera now are very few
• 2:28:57
  villains get a cliffhanger to camera like that, was it?
• 2:28:59
  Oh, Doctor, you're such a fool, you know, and they.
• 2:29:04
  Cut a laugh for the reprise. How dare.
• 2:29:06
  They oh. My God it's so far I can only
• 2:29:08
  think of a few. Kane gets one.
• 2:29:10
  I can't think of many villains that get straight to camera
• 2:29:13
  cliffhanger like a panto. Ah, it's glorious.
• 2:29:16
  Of course it's going through. Yeah.
• 2:29:18
  And I'm obviously also putting it through.
• 2:29:20
  I think it's wonderful story. I was going to do a tribute to
• 2:29:23
  Lee John because obviously he was famous for imagination.
• 2:29:26
  And they keep taking talking about winner takes it all, the
• 2:29:28
  ABBA song all the way through this.
• 2:29:30
  So. I've picked some.
• 2:29:31
  Takes. It all so I've picked three 80s
• 2:29:35
  classics hits. That's the reason.
• 2:29:37
  That's whatever you're going to see.
• 2:29:39
  No, you're all right. You're.
• 2:29:40
  You probably will though. No, no, we are all right.
• 2:29:43
  Don't worry. My first one is Never Ending
• 2:29:46
  Story by Limar. Reach the.
• 2:29:48
  Sky I. Told you.
• 2:29:49
  He. Would.
• 2:29:54
  And. That's to represent the Eternals
• 2:29:58
  because they are the never ending story.
• 2:30:01
  I think so far in Doctor Who up to this point, they are by far
• 2:30:04
  and away the most interesting God like race that we've met.
• 2:30:07
  I mean, we met the toy maker, bless him, and that was a huge
• 2:30:10
  let down. We've also had the Guardians, of
• 2:30:12
  course, and they're obviously also in this, but Christ, don't
• 2:30:15
  they come off as cardboard cutouts compared to the Eternals
• 2:30:18
  we get here. You're right, Joe, what you
• 2:30:20
  said, The Eternals here, they've got depth, they've got
• 2:30:22
  character. They're just a fascinating,
• 2:30:25
  fascinating creation. They're not cliched.
• 2:30:27
  And the fact that you've got three so different types of of
• 2:30:32
  individuals here. So you've got that real cold
• 2:30:34
  attachment of Keith Barron, who's so cold and distant.
• 2:30:38
  Then you got that real slimy menace of Christopher Brown as
• 2:30:42
  as Mariner who's so creepy your skin crawls.
• 2:30:45
  And then as you rightly say, the glorious OTT campus of Linda
• 2:30:50
  Baron. I mean, she is just magnificent.
• 2:30:53
  So you've got those three different types and I think
• 2:30:56
  that's intra, you know, Doctor Who.
• 2:30:57
  Very often we have a race of people, particularly God like
• 2:31:00
  creatures, and they're all portrayed pretty identically,
• 2:31:04
  whereas here we've got three very different character types
• 2:31:07
  and that makes them really interesting.
• 2:31:08
  My second song, Go for It Joe is Kiss Him Goodbye by Bananarama.
• 2:31:14
  Oh, I already know the other one.
• 2:31:16
  Oh, thank God for that. You can set me free.
• 2:31:18
  It's because I'm guilty. Guilty.
• 2:31:22
  So I'm doing kiss him goodbye because it's the end of Turlow's
• 2:31:25
  assassination storyline. But it was really interesting to
• 2:31:29
  do the storyline, wasn't it to to bring a, an anti anti hero on
• 2:31:34
  board the TARDIS. Very interesting.
• 2:31:37
  But because it's only over three stories, we've got a very clear
• 2:31:40
  beginning, middle and end. This is clearly towards the end.
• 2:31:43
  It feels like sometime has passed since Terminus because
• 2:31:46
  that ended on kill the Doctor and we don't kind of see that.
• 2:31:50
  I mean, the the black garden doesn't even crop up till like
• 2:31:52
  3/4 of the way through Part 2. And by that point he's had
• 2:31:55
  enough of Turtler and he's he's, that's the point where saying
• 2:31:58
  you will spend the rest of your life on board the ship in
• 2:32:02
  perpetual torment. But then we get obviously the
• 2:32:06
  piece that leads on from that then is Turlo going on board the
• 2:32:09
  deck to allegedly commit suicide.
• 2:32:11
  And whilst that does feel a little bit forced and a little
• 2:32:13
  bit sudden, I think that for the Doctor, and it's quite subtly
• 2:32:17
  done, we don't get a lot of Expeditionary dialogue about it.
• 2:32:20
  But what that does is that's the turning point for the Doctor,
• 2:32:22
  because he realizes from that point on that actually Turlo
• 2:32:26
  wants out of the relationship with the Guardian.
• 2:32:29
  And So what happens then is the Doctor after that is then
• 2:32:32
  willing to let Turlo stay on board rack Ship to try and prove
• 2:32:36
  himself. He says as much to Tegan.
• 2:32:38
  And you compare that and contrast that with the scene in
• 2:32:40
  episode one when he won't leave Turlo on board the TARDIS to
• 2:32:44
  take the message from the White Guardian.
• 2:32:46
  The Doctors realised by that suicide attempt, actually, that
• 2:32:49
  you know, Turlow is, is turning to the right side and is is
• 2:32:53
  willing to to embrace a more positive future.
• 2:32:56
  So I think that works really well.
• 2:32:58
  It's quite subtle. I love though the stuff the.
• 2:33:00
  Suicide attempt is not subtle, however.
• 2:33:02
  That is really not subtle. I will never serve you again.
• 2:33:07
  Maybe maybe a tad on the nose. And what that does allow,
• 2:33:10
  though, he goes on Rack ship and the three and four, The kind of
• 2:33:13
  cat and mouse game between rack and Turlow is absolutely
• 2:33:17
  delicious because she has so got the upper hand.
• 2:33:20
  She's absolutely the cat, playing with him as the mouse,
• 2:33:23
  and he's just kind of just about wriggling free from her every
• 2:33:26
  time. I think they play that
• 2:33:28
  brilliantly. The two of them are so good in
• 2:33:30
  that. And then we get to the Denuma,
• 2:33:31
  and I think that really works. Turlow makes a definitive
• 2:33:34
  choice. He ditches his instinctive
• 2:33:37
  nature for greed and chooses the dog, so I think it's a good
• 2:33:41
  conclusion. Shame he didn't have anything to
• 2:33:43
  do for the rest of the time on board the show.
• 2:33:45
  And my third song is You'll Definitely Want to sing this
• 2:33:49
  one, Sisters are Doing It for Themselves by Aretha Franklin.
• 2:33:53
  How did you not do eternal flame?
• 2:33:56
  Oh, I could have done Eternal, that's a very good point.
• 2:33:58
  Could have had a bit of Bengals, but no, I've got sisters are
• 2:34:00
  doing it for themselves because as as Fraser rightly said, we've
• 2:34:03
  got Barbara Clegg, we've got Fiona Cummins, Barbara Clegg.
• 2:34:07
  Christ, how did she only get to write one script?
• 2:34:09
  I think her second story, The Elite, which Big Finish adapted,
• 2:34:12
  was a fantastic idea. And point of entry which?
• 2:34:17
  I loved as well, yeah. But I love her ideas.
• 2:34:20
  I love the way she morphs the story from kind of quite
• 2:34:23
  serious, fancy and 1:00 and 2:00 to a good old confessed three
• 2:34:26
  and four and Fiona Cummings. Everyone's already said that
• 2:34:29
  she's probably the safest Davidson director that we've
• 2:34:32
  got, but she's always accomplished.
• 2:34:34
  She's always solid. She's great with characters
• 2:34:36
  you've picked out. I was going to mention some of
• 2:34:38
  the moments like the Mariner view screen and Turlo floating
• 2:34:41
  off into space. Great visuals.
• 2:34:43
  So and I think she does it magnificently.
• 2:34:45
  So absolutely it's going through.
• 2:34:47
  So it's a four for. 4 Paddy Russell and Fiona Cumming So
• 2:34:51
  great Why didn't the BBC use more female directors?
• 2:34:55
  I think my, my favorite moment is a Peter Davison moment and
• 2:34:58
  it's the one where he's having his pudding and they all run off
• 2:35:02
  to go upstairs and he just, he's like, everyone runs off.
• 2:35:04
  He's like, oh, I'm going to have me pudding Dabs his mouth,
• 2:35:08
  stands up, goes out in the corridor, sees the way each way
• 2:35:10
  everyone else has run and goes the other way.
• 2:35:13
  That's such a great little bit of business from the the dab to
• 2:35:16
  the turning around. It's that's exactly what I mean
• 2:35:19
  about Peter Davidson. He's he's not in your face.
• 2:35:22
  He's not, you know, Tom Big. I would have made such a big
• 2:35:24
  deal out with that. But Davison just plays it so
• 2:35:27
  calm and naturally and just. Just to show what a good
• 2:35:32
  director Fiona Carmen is, there's a like a four second
• 2:35:35
  scene of Keith Barron just drinking a drink silently and it
• 2:35:42
  has nothing really. It just adds menace and mystery
• 2:35:45
  to them. And that's sort of thing, she
• 2:35:47
  adds. That absolutely just sells the
• 2:35:49
  the mood of the piece. Oh, I'm so pleased.
• 2:35:53
  OK, Dan, you've got two left. You've got Arc and Infinity and
• 2:35:56
  King's Demons. Jesus, the choice.
• 2:36:00
  Go sifting around in the toilet and you might find something.
• 2:36:03
  It's going to have to be Arc of Infinity because I've got more
• 2:36:05
  to say. Go for it.
• 2:36:08
  God, I'm just laughing all the smart from it because.
• 2:36:13
  It's. Ridiculous.
• 2:36:16
  Again, this is weird. At the time when I was nine, I
• 2:36:19
  was like, oh great, Tegan's back.
• 2:36:21
  Because you know, I love Tegan because she was sort of, you
• 2:36:24
  know, as a child you've got this ship and you've got like 3
• 2:36:27
  boffins and a gob, a gobby cow. You're going to, you know, enjoy
• 2:36:31
  the Gobie cow character. So you know, my first point then
• 2:36:35
  to, to love Arc Infinity or not is the Tegan coincidence.
• 2:36:40
  So I was always waiting for the bit where there's a reason why
• 2:36:43
  she's in Amsterdam, because she's in Amsterdam because she's
• 2:36:46
  looking for her cousin who she's going to go and see.
• 2:36:48
  But the fact that that then intersects with the plot.
• 2:36:51
  They there's never a plot reason for that, is there?
• 2:36:53
  It just, it just is. Only kid decides to go to
• 2:36:56
  Amsterdam because because of the.
• 2:37:00
  It's nicer because we want because.
• 2:37:03
  Yeah, but that's kind of not the really the reason, you know,
• 2:37:05
  it's because J&T wants a jolly. Basically, I would like to point
• 2:37:08
  out that sauna I was talking about earlier was in Amsterdam.
• 2:37:11
  OK? There's a reason they're all
• 2:37:12
  there. The Tegan there.
• 2:37:15
  So basically I like how the Doctor and Nissa have been
• 2:37:17
  enjoying peace and quiet and repairing all the TARDIS.
• 2:37:19
  Imagine like all all the stories we never saw.
• 2:37:21
  They're just doing fixing of the TARDIS each week.
• 2:37:25
  Oh, we've got the sound back on the scanner kind of thing.
• 2:37:27
  It's all right. You don't need to imagine you've
• 2:37:28
  got about 760. Nine.
• 2:37:30
  I'm gonna I'll get for that. Again, damn, that's what they're
• 2:37:33
  doing in their spare time. They're just doing that.
• 2:37:36
  And again, so Tegan, I like the story about how Tegan got
• 2:37:39
  mistaken for a prostitute in the red light district between on
• 2:37:41
  the recording because of that costume, the boob tube costume,
• 2:37:45
  as she calls it. Again, I'm talking about Janet
• 2:37:46
  Fielding's breasts a lot, which is a bit worrying.
• 2:37:48
  Well, you. Know, but again, they can't
• 2:37:50
  everyone. Needs a hobby.
• 2:37:51
  They kept giving her these costumes where things would flop
• 2:37:53
  out and they make her cold all the time.
• 2:37:57
  Regarding Teague as well cousin Colin and his special friend
• 2:37:59
  Robin, what's going on there? We all know what's going on.
• 2:38:04
  There I I went into railing in 1993 and nothing like that
• 2:38:07
  happened to me at all. But then I didn't hang out in a
• 2:38:10
  crypt night again. That's.
• 2:38:12
  Where all the actions happening you should.
• 2:38:14
  Again, basically, I love I do love this story because it is
• 2:38:17
  just Cam rubbish, but when you think about it, it's just most
• 2:38:20
  of it's just garbage in that sense.
• 2:38:22
  The final Tegan point is I love to see it at the end where she's
• 2:38:25
  like, oh, oh, come and rejoin the crew and he's like, oh, for
• 2:38:27
  fuck's sake, it's. Great.
• 2:38:28
  His, his face, that face is basically what they have carried
• 2:38:32
  on doing in their relationship. You know in real life, that
• 2:38:35
  little moment is perfect. I've never felt so represented
• 2:38:38
  on the screen as I have at that point.
• 2:38:41
  And then that leads to loads of big finishes that are set
• 2:38:43
  literally immediately after they contradict each other.
• 2:38:45
  Not bad though. Not bad.
• 2:38:46
  They get a lot of stuff done in those next 5 minutes.
• 2:38:50
  The second point I would say is Time Lord assholes and Nafness.
• 2:38:55
  So basically we've got Gallifrey again.
• 2:38:57
  We've already talked about Gallifrey later on in the
• 2:38:59
  season. Same problem again.
• 2:39:01
  There's always someone that's got a little special dark room
• 2:39:03
  with lots of flashy lights that are doing the naughty deeds in
• 2:39:06
  it. It's always someone the Doctor
• 2:39:08
  knows. But the plot it's, it's very
• 2:39:11
  much, this is the season 20. We've got to have a lot of stuff
• 2:39:14
  from the old days, so we've got to have all this in it.
• 2:39:16
  The bio data being stolen is a bit weird.
• 2:39:20
  It's a strange thing to do. But then the show is about the
• 2:39:23
  Doctor, so the Doctor has to get involved.
• 2:39:24
  I like how he sort of wobbles about, falls over a bit and this
• 2:39:27
  it doesn't face. That's quite nice.
• 2:39:29
  It's got Maxillon Gallifrey, which it's a weird performance,
• 2:39:33
  but it's Colin Baker doing a big acting.
• 2:39:35
  That's fine. You've got the chicken helmet
• 2:39:40
  that doesn't fit from a door, but then but then you've also
• 2:39:43
  got the Ergon, which is basically a rubber chicken.
• 2:39:45
  So what's going on with the chicken in It's not Chickens?
• 2:39:47
  It's a theme. It's a.
• 2:39:49
  Chicken theme. And people have written before
• 2:39:52
  that the Argon is kind of maybe based on the Xenomorph from
• 2:39:55
  Alien. Maybe it's it's got it's, if you
• 2:39:58
  look at the skin, it's got the same sections to it.
• 2:40:00
  It's kind of a rubbery chitter version of Xenomorph, you know
• 2:40:03
  what I mean? It is on it.
• 2:40:05
  On five, yeah. It's a budget version of that.
• 2:40:09
  But anyway, yeah, Gallifrey, the chicken hat was too big for most
• 2:40:12
  doors. There's loads of soft
• 2:40:13
  furnishings of Racilon. They are just dreadful people
• 2:40:16
  and they go, Oh well, we'll just kill the Doctor because Zombie
• 2:40:19
  might take him over. Let's just shoot him because,
• 2:40:23
  you know, it's very silly. So yeah, again, I was watching
• 2:40:26
  the Invasion of Time recently and that's the same.
• 2:40:29
  There's just lots of running about and boring people being
• 2:40:31
  hideous. But Damon, Damon in it, random
• 2:40:34
  Time Lord named Damon. Good old Damon is very good
• 2:40:38
  though, so. You know.
• 2:40:39
  Yeah, exactly. And him and Nyssa could have.
• 2:40:41
  If Nyssa was leaving, they would have got married because they
• 2:40:44
  had some seats together. Yeah, that would have been
• 2:40:46
  lovely. He's.
• 2:40:47
  A. Special.
• 2:40:47
  He's a special friend of the doctor, though, so Reed.
• 2:40:49
  Is that what you want? That kind of what, like Colin
• 2:40:52
  and Robin? Yeah, exactly right.
• 2:40:55
  Third, Third Point on that is basically the the whole
• 2:40:57
  nonsensical run around plot. There's loads of slow motion
• 2:41:00
  running in the TARDIS at the beginning with the whole
• 2:41:02
  antimattery thing where they're like antimatter makes us run
• 2:41:07
  slow. Then Amsterdam antimatter pass,
• 2:41:09
  run fast because they have to run about a bit because they've
• 2:41:11
  gone to Amsterdam, they have to do some filming.
• 2:41:13
  So they have to run around the streets and show off what
• 2:41:15
  they've spent the money on. Again, it makes sense, but
• 2:41:17
  again, don't do a story based on where you want to go to film it.
• 2:41:21
  That's not good story writing. It's just, it's just very, very
• 2:41:27
  silly. Really.
• 2:41:27
  Yes. What else can I say about it?
• 2:41:29
  Yeah. Again, there's always, there's
• 2:41:31
  always a traitor in the in the Time Lords, there's only about
• 2:41:34
  five Time Lords in every episode, but there's always one
• 2:41:36
  of them that betrays them all they need, they need a like, you
• 2:41:40
  know, it's. An Olympus traitor of all time
• 2:41:42
  though, the way old sack. Goes up, Michael.
• 2:41:44
  Ross like, what's my career come to?
• 2:41:47
  The High Council is very, very poor at vetting their members.
• 2:41:51
  But yeah, basically even trying to understand what the Arc of
• 2:41:53
  Infinity was, it's like, well, what actually is the Arc of
• 2:41:56
  Infinity? And apparently it's a curious
• 2:41:58
  curve between the dimensions containing quad magnetism that
• 2:42:01
  can shield antimatter. So that's it's like washing
• 2:42:05
  enlightenment all over again. But it's like, don't name your
• 2:42:08
  episode after something that doesn't make any sense, just
• 2:42:10
  call it something else. But yeah, I enjoy the finale
• 2:42:12
  where they run around and they cover the other guy in Rice
• 2:42:15
  Krispies and then they shoot him.
• 2:42:17
  But I think shooting him sends him back to the anti matter
• 2:42:19
  world rather than shooting him dead because it's Doctor Who.
• 2:42:22
  And yeah, it's weird. It's very much story.
• 2:42:26
  I'm not going to put it through because it is basically a bad
• 2:42:28
  pantomime, but I did enjoy the scenes where they go backpacking
• 2:42:32
  and hang out in a pumping house. Alien if the Ergon turned up at
• 2:42:38
  the end. Oh, that.
• 2:42:40
  Would improve at no end. And the weird, the weird bit
• 2:42:43
  where the Ergon shoots, shoots Tegan's cousin, and it's like a
• 2:42:46
  weird effect. And then he becomes like a
• 2:42:48
  really bad actor because he comes, yeah, that was like, it
• 2:42:54
  comes. That was like.
• 2:42:56
  Fiona Cummings, nephew. Was it him?
• 2:42:59
  I don't know. Oh God.
• 2:43:00
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is the. Other ones, worse.
• 2:43:04
  The one who goes OK, very funny. That one's terrible.
• 2:43:07
  Call in this play. But Alice, they're coming.
• 2:43:09
  That's the one. Yeah, don't even go.
• 2:43:12
  Don't even say the word. Coming on a podcast with Jeremy.
• 2:43:14
  We're not going to go there anyway.
• 2:43:16
  Yeah, it's, I mean, I can appreciate, like Fraser said,
• 2:43:19
  you can appreciate these things because it's Doctor Who, but it
• 2:43:23
  is quite crap. So it has to go in the bin.
• 2:43:25
  Something has to go in the bin of rustle on.
• 2:43:27
  Yeah, nothing's gone in so far. That has to go in because it is
• 2:43:32
  trashy. There you go.
• 2:43:33
  Let's go to the comments, Gary Russell says.
• 2:43:36
  Looks a bit mere against the rest, but it's not bad.
• 2:43:40
  Jason Thompson says I'd happily been this for the fact that
• 2:43:43
  Nyssa is written. Sorry but for the fact Nyssa is
• 2:43:46
  written by the guy who created her in the 1st place and Sarah
• 2:43:49
  Sutton grabs the opportunity of being the sole companion with
• 2:43:52
  both hands. Colin Baker is rather arch on
• 2:43:55
  the statement. Just statement there Jason as
• 2:43:58
  Maxill, but when the plot has no further use from him he just
• 2:44:01
  vanishes. Although they do invite him onto
• 2:44:03
  the episode 4 commentary. So don't go home Colin, come on,
• 2:44:06
  you can stay and do that with us.
• 2:44:08
  And the climax is a bunch of Tyndall standing around a table
• 2:44:11
  while the regulars run around Amsterdam.
• 2:44:14
  Michael Storm says fails on just about every level possible.
• 2:44:17
  Omega has become a generic renegade villain.
• 2:44:20
  The dialogue is abysmal. Gallifrey is a drab and dreary
• 2:44:22
  place, essentially a 1980s dull kiss.
• 2:44:25
  Sorry Fraser addressing complaints to Michael Storm.
• 2:44:28
  Davidson sleepwalks through proceedings.
• 2:44:30
  Sarah Sutton struggles with the dialogue.
• 2:44:32
  Even Michael Goff can't save it. The only person giving any
• 2:44:35
  effort is Colin Baker doing his best Paul Darrow impression.
• 2:44:38
  In short, a steaming pile of whippet shit.
• 2:44:42
  Jordan Bensalea. Again, underwriter classic.
• 2:44:45
  Blander than a Taylor Swift box set by Avrov loves Taylor Swift.
• 2:44:50
  How dare he? What does?
• 2:44:52
  Mean. Yeah, the shame is that all the
• 2:44:54
  ingredients are in place for a great opener.
• 2:44:56
  Some of these do work. Sarah Sutton gets more to do.
• 2:44:59
  Davidson is great as Omega. But Ron Jones's pedestrian
• 2:45:03
  helming makes this very ordinary.
• 2:45:05
  Darren Lit, Randall said. I love the novelisation.
• 2:45:07
  It was full of things that excited my young teen self.
• 2:45:10
  I read it frequently. Then the video came out.
• 2:45:13
  The production is dismal all over, a proper dirge of a story.
• 2:45:17
  James Lark Not very good subtitles.
• 2:45:21
  Substitutes, Substitutes. It's like substitutes take their
• 2:45:24
  Babble, and running around for narrative somehow makes
• 2:45:28
  Amsterdam look drab, right? In spite of which, there's
• 2:45:31
  plenty to enjoy. Colin Baker's perpetual sneer,
• 2:45:34
  the TARDIS team taking out an old lady in her shopping, Nyssa
• 2:45:38
  getting Arsie with the Time Lords.
• 2:45:40
  And amidst the silliness, Davison manages to find a moment
• 2:45:43
  of genuine poignancy in Omega's brief exploration of his new
• 2:45:47
  surroundings. James H says a great reminder
• 2:45:49
  about the difference between existing and living.
• 2:45:52
  Omega is a creative void who doesn't remember what it's like
• 2:45:54
  to enjoy things until he's gone too far to save himself.
• 2:45:58
  Badass Nyssa and a tough decision for the Doctor.
• 2:46:01
  Andy Parkinson. It wants to recapture the
• 2:46:03
  brilliance and fun of City of Death, but utterly forgets what
• 2:46:07
  made that story so amazing. It's not terrible, just a bit
• 2:46:10
  meh. Connie Baker steals every scene
• 2:46:12
  he's in. What the fuck were they thinking
• 2:46:14
  with the Ogon though? Daniel Nice.
• 2:46:16
  There's a fun story let down by a monster that's worse than the
• 2:46:18
  Merca and Gallifrey being turned from a place of mystery and
• 2:46:21
  pomposity to mundanity and pomposity.
• 2:46:24
  But it's Sarah Sutton's finest hour.
• 2:46:26
  She's not pushed out of the limelight by Tegan or Rodrick.
• 2:46:30
  But these commentators are so great.
• 2:46:31
  Dave Rennie I like a run around in Amsterdam.
• 2:46:35
  I like a run around in Amsterdam.
• 2:46:36
  But before that, it's pretty dull.
• 2:46:38
  Oh, because Luke has been degraded.
• 2:46:40
  But Zorak, I don't even know who that is.
• 2:46:43
  The Muse delivery is an unsung delight.
• 2:46:46
  Jolie Welling said Maxill was cool.
• 2:46:48
  And look, Tegan's back. At least she's in a different
• 2:46:50
  costume. And finally, the truly insane
• 2:46:54
  Paul Smyer says underrated. Yes, Gallifrey looks sparse and
• 2:46:58
  the chicken creature is one of the worst monsters in all of
• 2:47:00
  who, But the location is great. Plus Nisa goes badass.
• 2:47:06
  Fraser, Ark of Infinity. I mean, I can see exactly what
• 2:47:13
  dance is there. You know, if on the surface it's
• 2:47:17
  just a, a pedestrian run around literally, you know, sort of
• 2:47:23
  Doctor Who. But you know, when you, when you
• 2:47:25
  start to poke at it with a stick, then you do kind of, you
• 2:47:30
  know, see the, the, the, the crap who's out of it.
• 2:47:35
  I've got like 3, three real issues with this.
• 2:47:39
  I mean, the first one has got to be the Ergon as well, purely
• 2:47:44
  because you know, you know me, I don't mind a rubbish special
• 2:47:49
  effect or crap monster or whatever, but I just don't get
• 2:47:52
  what the Ergon's supposed to be. It's just this big sort of
• 2:47:56
  rubber chicken in affairs that waddles out of his door somewhat
• 2:47:59
  and waddles back again. It's like what what's, what's
• 2:48:02
  the Ergon? It's.
• 2:48:03
  An experiment in psychosynthesis.
• 2:48:05
  Fraser. But why?
• 2:48:06
  What does it do? But.
• 2:48:08
  Is he? Is he?
• 2:48:08
  Is he much better or is he much better or worse than the jail
• 2:48:11
  guards though? But the jail guards have got a
• 2:48:13
  purpose. The jail guards don't want
• 2:48:15
  guards closing the title. You know, they do some of the
• 2:48:22
  attack unit. There's that people into, you
• 2:48:24
  know, there's a purpose behind the jail guards.
• 2:48:28
  But with the Ergon, it's just like, what?
• 2:48:29
  What are you doing? Are you like, are you Uma Gaz
• 2:48:31
  Butler? You're like supposed to be the
• 2:48:34
  Penfold of the the group? You know what?
• 2:48:36
  Because obviously you're coming zapped.
• 2:48:38
  You know, the little is it Colin that he zaps?
• 2:48:43
  Yeah, Yeah. And so he wasn't zaps Colin and
• 2:48:46
  brainwashes him to do all The Dirty work.
• 2:48:48
  So as was that the plan all along?
• 2:48:50
  Or that's the concept of the Ergon.
• 2:48:52
  It's just, it's unnecessary, really.
• 2:48:57
  Second thing that really bothers us about this is Eric Saywood,
• 2:49:04
  because he goes on to the the special features and the first
• 2:49:09
  thing he says in the making of documentary as well.
• 2:49:11
  GNT wanted to go to Amsterdam, which meant that essentially
• 2:49:16
  you're going to end up with 20 minutes of running around to
• 2:49:18
  show that you're on screen. And he's right.
• 2:49:22
  And then after said Eric Saywood's right.
• 2:49:23
  So yeah, that. Sticks.
• 2:49:25
  That's how bad it is. He's the fucking.
• 2:49:27
  Script just build a better story around Amsterdam.
• 2:49:31
  It's very hard. To write and to be fair, every
• 2:49:34
  sentence, he starts basically as J&T wanted.
• 2:49:38
  Isn't it? Yeah, it is.
• 2:49:39
  But, you know, on the one hand, yeah, you're right.
• 2:49:42
  You know, he's the script that he should be saying, right?
• 2:49:44
  OK, so in episode one, we'll have this bit of Amsterdam.
• 2:49:46
  Episode 2, we'll have this bit of Amsterdam.
• 2:49:48
  Amsterdam is just a very funny place because what's, you know,
• 2:49:51
  what's the Eiffel Tower of Amsterdam or what's the Louvre
• 2:49:53
  of Amsterdam? You.
• 2:49:54
  Know well there's this lovely sauna, that one on the
• 2:49:57
  backstreet. I don't think really they could
• 2:49:59
  have filmed in there. I'm not sure what the Ergon
• 2:50:01
  would. Be doing in the Ergon coming out
• 2:50:03
  of the steam. Yeah, I'm actually work
• 2:50:07
  actually. So, yeah, the fact that it gets
• 2:50:10
  us to agree with Eric, say with this is a bit of a bit of a
• 2:50:13
  donor. And the most annoying thing
• 2:50:17
  about this is got to be Michael Goff's hands.
• 2:50:22
  That's not what I expected. What's he actually doing?
• 2:50:25
  Is he? Was he?
• 2:50:26
  Let's get busy. It's.
• 2:50:28
  Literally like you've got act with your hands now, Michael.
• 2:50:30
  So he does and he goes like full Shatner with his hands, you
• 2:50:34
  know, so it's it's all just over, you know, over exaggerated
• 2:50:38
  movements and you know, points and you know, it's as if he's
• 2:50:41
  like just just stop it just it's so frustrating.
• 2:50:47
  But you know, again, it's, it's easy to kind of put things with
• 2:50:52
  sticks and, and get the crap to come out.
• 2:50:54
  You've got to think about what are the what are the good things
• 2:50:57
  about this as well? And there's three, you know,
• 2:51:00
  good things I thought about this as well, which is Colin Baker
• 2:51:06
  obviously goes with Maxil, Maxil and Esmeralda, which is the name
• 2:51:14
  that Colin Baker gave to his helmet.
• 2:51:16
  So on on the basis. Of Joe's wondering what name
• 2:51:20
  he's given to his helmet. But that's another that's for
• 2:51:23
  another podcast. No, I'm.
• 2:51:26
  Not going to see it. I'll call it Fraser.
• 2:51:36
  Yeah. So.
• 2:51:38
  You've got, you've got Colin Baker in this.
• 2:51:41
  And Colin Baker gives a performance of a lifetime,
• 2:51:45
  basically. But he doesn't.
• 2:51:46
  He doesn't. He just gives a Colin Baker
• 2:51:48
  performance. And there's that old anecdote,
• 2:51:50
  isn't that, that GNT came up to, you know, sidled up to him in
• 2:51:54
  the rehearsing room one day and said, you know what?
• 2:51:56
  What's what's the name of the show?
• 2:51:59
  And he said, well, Doctor Who said, yeah, yeah, it's not
• 2:52:02
  Maxell, it's Doctor Who. Remember that.
• 2:52:04
  And everyone knows that story. But I think what all often gets
• 2:52:07
  forgetting is what Colin Baker's reply was to that which is not
• 2:52:13
  from Maxell's point of view. It's true.
• 2:52:17
  Yeah. So you can tell me all you want
• 2:52:20
  that GNT Jonathan Turner, producer of Doctor Who, knew
• 2:52:24
  that Peter Davidson was leaving and came across Colin Baker at a
• 2:52:28
  party and went, Ding Dong, that's my new Doctor.
• 2:52:33
  You can tell me that all you want, but I am going to go on
• 2:52:37
  the basis that GNT saw some in Colin Baker in this story that
• 2:52:42
  made him think that guy is my next Doctor.
• 2:52:45
  Yeah, you can't take your eyes off him.
• 2:52:47
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 2:52:49
  You know, so I think that Arkham Infinity gave us the 6th Doctor,
• 2:52:56
  and that's the reason I'm putting it through.
• 2:52:59
  Oh. Fabulous.
• 2:53:00
  Oh, Joe, over to you. Hello.
• 2:53:02
  There are a few things about Arkham Infinity I do really
• 2:53:04
  like. Actually, I, I love Sarah
• 2:53:07
  Sutton's increased role and it just once again reminds me what
• 2:53:11
  a great actress she is. And why the hell didn't they
• 2:53:14
  give us something to do more often?
• 2:53:16
  They don't do it again for the rest of this year.
• 2:53:18
  Oh no, they're doing snake dance as well, don't they?
• 2:53:20
  All this that wonderful being the snake dance.
• 2:53:21
  Do you remember where John John, Jonathan Morris helps her down?
• 2:53:25
  She's like I told you, it wasn't necessary.
• 2:53:28
  She's a right horsey cow. I know she's wonderful in this.
• 2:53:32
  And I love how Johnny Burn always gives her a gum and she
• 2:53:34
  goes around murdering, not murdering, knocking people out
• 2:53:37
  all the time. And I love the bit when she
• 2:53:39
  comes into the the Time Lord courtroom at the end.
• 2:53:42
  She gives the emotional weight to that moment, isn't, doesn't
• 2:53:44
  she? When she's begging with them,
• 2:53:46
  Time Lords of Gallifrey, like she's in, you know, Romeo and
• 2:53:49
  Juliet or something. Please help him.
• 2:53:51
  And then what's she says again? So much for your justice.
• 2:53:55
  She. Walks away, she's great and I
• 2:53:58
  love Peter Davis and turn his own Mega towards the end giving
• 2:54:01
  some real pathos to that character.
• 2:54:04
  I've just talked about the Omega audio on the Finished Big
• 2:54:06
  podcast, and the tragedy of that character in all three stories
• 2:54:10
  he's had is really well captured.
• 2:54:15
  But that's about it, I'm afraid, because this is very dull.
• 2:54:18
  It's full of, this is the reason why Gallifrey should never have
• 2:54:22
  come back in Day of the Doctor. Like you just have to watch Ark
• 2:54:25
  of Infinity to see how storytelling and interest goes
• 2:54:29
  to die. And it's all exemplified in the
• 2:54:32
  Cafe that is on this The streets, I think they're
• 2:54:37
  supposed to be streets of Gallifrey.
• 2:54:39
  I mean how do? We go from these astonishing God
• 2:54:42
  like beings in the war games to that fucking cut price Costa
• 2:54:47
  that we we see and it's just so awful.
• 2:54:49
  It's it's the most boring way you could possibly depict the
• 2:54:54
  Doctor's people. And maybe that's the idea to
• 2:54:56
  give a reason as to why he ran away.
• 2:54:58
  But it don't make a drama. It doesn't make any atmosphere.
• 2:55:02
  There's brilliant actors in this.
• 2:55:04
  You look at the cast as great actors on Gallifrey and.
• 2:55:07
  None of them can say the. Dialogue because it's so
• 2:55:09
  unnaturalistic. It's cod Shakespearean bullshit
• 2:55:13
  they're given to say all the time.
• 2:55:14
  The poor fella playing Barusa, is it Leonard Sachs?
• 2:55:18
  And he's he's trying to say that techno episode 4 and he's
• 2:55:22
  practically having a fucking stroke while doing it.
• 2:55:27
  So yeah, the depiction of Gallifrey than the deer of that
• 2:55:31
  until Hell Hell bent came along. Sorry Thalia, I've just put who
• 2:55:37
  the hell is Thalia? There's a woman on Gallifrey,
• 2:55:40
  isn't there? She's the same as Flavia but
• 2:55:42
  just got a different. Name that woman, though.
• 2:55:44
  And then someone else put in the comments.
• 2:55:46
  Zorac. I don't know who that is.
• 2:55:48
  Was he in this? That's the comet, the comedy ish
• 2:55:50
  one. Yeah, that's the Cardinal.
• 2:55:52
  Yeah, I don't remember who he is either.
• 2:55:55
  So you just don't remember these people at all.
• 2:55:58
  Compare this to snake dance. You don't forget anyone.
• 2:56:01
  I could tell you all their back stories in the Snake dance.
• 2:56:04
  But the reason this must be condemned is because I had the
• 2:56:08
  most thrilling weekend in Amsterdam, all right?
• 2:56:13
  And it was the most vibrant, vital, alive city I've ever been
• 2:56:18
  to in my life. It came alive at midnight.
• 2:56:21
  Everyone was at it, everyone was smoking copious amounts of weed.
• 2:56:25
  And I'm the best time of their life.
• 2:56:27
  And somehow, Ron Jones, managing victim mate, he makes it look
• 2:56:31
  like a soggy puddle in Essex. I mean, it's so boring how it's
• 2:56:35
  short here. It captures none of the of the
• 2:56:40
  vibrancy of Amsterdam at all. Sorry, Fraser.
• 2:56:42
  I mean, in fairness to Ron Jones, if he does film what
• 2:56:46
  Amsterdam is best known for, it ain't going out with quarter.
• 2:56:51
  We have the tortured version then, but sort of tying into
• 2:56:55
  that is what you have technically got like a gay porn
• 2:56:59
  subplot occurring in episode one.
• 2:57:02
  You know, it's all a bit dodgy. I've seen that.
• 2:57:04
  That what the Ergon is, right? Rubber chicken, Yeah.
• 2:57:09
  No, because I've seen a couple of poor movies where fellas end
• 2:57:12
  up down Crips, you know, in dodgy places.
• 2:57:15
  Do they keep their shoes on as well?
• 2:57:17
  No, but they've employed. I'm sorry, I hate to do this and
• 2:57:19
  I know I'm going to be shot down for it.
• 2:57:21
  The two ugliest looking men you've ever seen in your life.
• 2:57:25
  And I know you need to give them jobs and things but.
• 2:57:28
  Oh. God, I don't want to look at
• 2:57:30
  them on my TV when I was supposed to be thinking that's
• 2:57:32
  it. Oh, it's terrible now.
• 2:57:34
  Everything, pretty much everything about this story is
• 2:57:36
  so lacklustre. To start a season of Doctor Who,
• 2:57:40
  on this note, in terms of scripting and in terms of
• 2:57:44
  direction and mostly in terms of performance of what were they
• 2:57:49
  thinking been hit? So it's one apiece.
• 2:57:53
  Oh gosh. So I've got the deciding mode
• 2:57:57
  I'm going to. I'll just pick up on something
• 2:58:01
  Fraser talked about earlier when kind of saying, oh, every story
• 2:58:05
  is somebody's first story. Now, this wasn't my first story
• 2:58:07
  because I was 17 when this went out.
• 2:58:09
  But I think your personal experience is at a time, a story
• 2:58:14
  that you first see a story can kind of really affect the way
• 2:58:17
  that you view that story. So I was 17 when this went out
• 2:58:22
  and sorry to get serious, but I'm just going to be a serious
• 2:58:25
  for a minute. I grew up with an alcoholic
• 2:58:27
  father and when he was drunk, which was it was everyday, he
• 2:58:33
  loved nothing more than kind of arguing and belittling and
• 2:58:36
  bullying people. And obviously I was pretty much
• 2:58:39
  prime target. And when you've got someone like
• 2:58:41
  that, they love to kind of pick on something, pick on a weakness
• 2:58:45
  or pick on an Achilles heel. And obviously my love for Doctor
• 2:58:48
  Who was kind of my Achilles heel.
• 2:58:51
  I mean, thank God he didn't know I was gay at that point, but
• 2:58:53
  because that would have been a different story.
• 2:58:54
  But so it's Doctor Who. So Arkham Affinity went out
• 2:58:58
  during one of his periods of being particularly angry.
• 2:59:01
  And I remember the night episode 3 went out really, really
• 2:59:05
  clearly. So episode 3 went out.
• 2:59:08
  I'd love that as normal. And my father had this real.
• 2:59:12
  What triggered him, I'm so so bloody ridiculous, was the fact
• 2:59:15
  that he thought that it was so obvious that Heading was the
• 2:59:18
  traitor and therefore all Doctor Who was absolutely shared
• 2:59:21
  because how could they do something as rubbish as this
• 2:59:25
  blah blah blah. Anyway, to cut a very Long story
• 2:59:28
  short, he ranted on at me for probably about 5-6 hours, very
• 2:59:35
  very drunk and increasingly drunk until the kind of point I
• 2:59:39
  think I was kind of blubbing on the floor by the end, pretty
• 2:59:42
  broken, and he toddled off to bed.
• 2:59:44
  So this was kind of midnight, 1:00 in the morning.
• 2:59:46
  I had school the next day and I remember that after that all
• 2:59:50
  happened. Sounds horrible.
• 2:59:52
  I'm sorry for sharing this, but hey, I went to the kitchen
• 2:59:56
  drawer and got the kitchen knife out and I sat there for about an
• 2:59:59
  hour thinking, do I use this knife on my father or do I use
• 3:00:03
  this on me? Now that is pretty bleak and I
• 3:00:06
  apologise for telling that story and it probably all sounds a
• 3:00:08
  little bit dramatic, but it's where I was at that time.
• 3:00:12
  And so coming back to Doctor Who and trying to lighten it up
• 3:00:16
  again, for all its flaws, I can't kick out Arc of Infinity
• 3:00:19
  because I spent five to six hours that night.
• 3:00:22
  With a drunk and abusive father defending it.
• 3:00:25
  So I'm not going to throw it out in the middle of this podcast.
• 3:00:29
  So I am going to defend Arc of Infinity.
• 3:00:31
  Ross. Yeah.
• 3:00:33
  One, thank you for sharing that. That's quite a powerful thing to
• 3:00:36
  share. 2 Whatever your defence is now, I've changed my vote and
• 3:00:41
  I'd like to keep it in. Go ahead.
• 3:00:44
  Thank you. OK, so my reasons, this might
• 3:00:47
  not be coherent now, but my first reason is Omega.
• 3:00:51
  I think there's a nice symmetry to start in your 20th series
• 3:00:54
  with the villain that started your 10th series.
• 3:00:57
  And obviously it's been repeated a year earlier in the Five Faces
• 3:01:00
  of Doctor Who. And as we've talked about, and
• 3:01:02
  you've talked about John Hampstead so many times, the
• 3:01:04
  Target books kept the stories alive.
• 3:01:06
  So I think if you knew Doctor, you'd probably have a reasonable
• 3:01:10
  clue of who Omega was. And even if you don't, I think
• 3:01:12
  it's well enough explained within the story who he is.
• 3:01:16
  I like his costume. I think that works really well,
• 3:01:18
  particularly when it's shown in the negative.
• 3:01:20
  Obviously it's redesigned because it keeps the mystery for
• 3:01:23
  the TV viewers. And obviously also the Doctor,
• 3:01:25
  although it's a little bit overdone, I like the fact the
• 3:01:28
  development of the character. So he now wants to physically
• 3:01:32
  bond with someone in our universe.
• 3:01:33
  So he's stolen the bio data to map his body onto the Doctor.
• 3:01:37
  I think that's quite interesting.
• 3:01:38
  It's different, like you said, Joe, I love the fact he's played
• 3:01:42
  as a semi sympathetic character. He's not a ranting villain.
• 3:01:45
  He's more like Mordering in a way.
• 3:01:47
  And we have a lot of these kind of semi sympathetic villains in
• 3:01:49
  this era, which is quite interesting.
• 3:01:52
  And nobody's mentioned, which I'm quite surprised about the
• 3:01:54
  best scene of the stories when he's transformed into Davidson
• 3:01:57
  and he's running through the streets and he stops and he
• 3:01:59
  hears the music and he looks down at the young boy and he's
• 3:02:02
  kind of what's he doing? He's he's taking that moment,
• 3:02:04
  enjoying that moment of small beautiful things that Davidson
• 3:02:07
  talked about in Earth Shock. And he's just happy for the
• 3:02:10
  first time in how many years? I just think that's quite a
• 3:02:13
  thoughtful moment in the middle of a a lot of nonsense running
• 3:02:16
  around in Rice Krispies. But I quite like that the
• 3:02:19
  companions, we've all talked about the companions how how
• 3:02:22
  Nessa works really well. She does work incredibly well
• 3:02:24
  with the the Doctor. We've talked about her
• 3:02:26
  impassioned arguments. The council.
• 3:02:29
  I get annoyed with people keep saying, oh, she turns badass.
• 3:02:31
  Like you said, Joe, she picks up an eye on bondering, keeper of
• 3:02:34
  track and then she's shooting people left, right and centre.
• 3:02:36
  So it's not out what What's different here is that we've
• 3:02:40
  forgotten that side of the character because Tegan is so
• 3:02:42
  overshadowed or unfortunately this has been underwritten.
• 3:02:45
  So now she gets back. Matthew and Rod with her with
• 3:02:48
  that gun in earth shock, oh God, they've taken all the side of
• 3:02:51
  men out. But yeah, I'd really like that
• 3:02:54
  together. I think she works incredibly
• 3:02:55
  well. It's Claire Davidson and Sarah
• 3:02:57
  Sutton Gatton very well. They've got a nice bond, a nice
• 3:02:59
  rapport. Shame we don't see more of it.
• 3:03:02
  And then my third reason you will think I'm mad on this one.
• 3:03:04
  I actually like Roger Limbs music in this.
• 3:03:06
  I think it fits really well. There's some great stuff I
• 3:03:09
  think. There's some you was doing well
• 3:03:10
  until. Then he really goes for it,
• 3:03:14
  doesn't he? Well, you defended Paddy
• 3:03:15
  Kingsland's in Mordren, so yeah. But I like the scenes in the
• 3:03:20
  crypt is quite spooky. And then the dramatic score is
• 3:03:22
  the the, is it the TARDIS door? I guess it's the Omega's TARDIS
• 3:03:26
  door opens and the Orgone comes out.
• 3:03:28
  Very dramatic, very overblown music.
• 3:03:31
  The execution sequence, Part 2's good music.
• 3:03:34
  The final chase sequence. He's really trying to build some
• 3:03:37
  pace and energy when all the regulars are doing, he's running
• 3:03:39
  up and down the same street. That music is constantly
• 3:03:42
  building and building and building.
• 3:03:43
  OK, it's not the Shepherd's boy from Heaven sent, but it is
• 3:03:46
  still trying to build up to a climax.
• 3:03:49
  So I enjoy it and I'm putting it through for that reason.
• 3:03:51
  And clearly now Arc of Infinity is going.
• 3:03:54
  Through has. Anything not gone through?
• 3:03:56
  Nothing has gone through. In this lacklustre season.
• 3:04:01
  Not one. I think that's yeah, we've had
• 3:04:03
  one season that's happened so well, it might not stay that way
• 3:04:06
  because we're going to the King's demons.
• 3:04:08
  Do you want to? Do you want to take?
• 3:04:11
  The door, off you go. I'll take the King's demons
• 3:04:13
  then. Crikey.
• 3:04:14
  OK, Brain shift King's Demons. So obviously I'm chucking this
• 3:04:19
  out. This is the poorest of this
• 3:04:22
  season, and I would say probably the poorest of Davidson's entire
• 3:04:26
  run. For me, first reason is plot, or
• 3:04:29
  lack of plot. I mean, we start with some of
• 3:04:32
  the clunkiest, most exposition phrase.
• 3:04:34
  You were talking about exposition before.
• 3:04:36
  We start with just some of the clunkiest dialogue.
• 3:04:38
  I wrote it down, but your Majesty already has my whole
• 3:04:41
  fortune willingly given, but six months since.
• 3:04:44
  Take my lands, my goods, my shuttles, even the ropes I stand
• 3:04:49
  in. But spare me my surviving son.
• 3:04:51
  I mean, it's torturous, isn't? It does he really say willingly
• 3:04:55
  taken but six months since. That's word for word what he
• 3:04:58
  said. I read and you talked about,
• 3:05:01
  Joe, about COD, COD Shakespearean before.
• 3:05:03
  This is COD Shakespearean. We haven't got him yet.
• 3:05:09
  Then we go to the jousting scene.
• 3:05:10
  Terence Dudley loves a long, protracted sequence.
• 3:05:13
  We have the cricket scene in Black Orchid here we've got the
• 3:05:15
  jousting scene. Then we've got lots of people
• 3:05:18
  running up and down stairs to the dungeons.
• 3:05:20
  Does everybody go in that fucking dungeon?
• 3:05:22
  It's just a merry go round. Everyone runs up the stairs,
• 3:05:24
  puts someone in the dungeon, runs down the stairs, runs up
• 3:05:26
  again. Excuse me, that's happening a
• 3:05:29
  lot in Snake Dance as well. You.
• 3:05:30
  Know don't song snake dance. Then we go to the reveal of the
• 3:05:34
  master and the odd thing with that is as soon as he's
• 3:05:38
  transformed into the master, the beginning of episode 2, he
• 3:05:40
  completely wins the sport of all the courtiers straight away.
• 3:05:43
  And you think, why did you bother with that disguise?
• 3:05:45
  Because he's got more influence and power when he's out of
• 3:05:48
  disguise than when he's in disguise.
• 3:05:51
  Then we get what the plot's about something to do with Magna
• 3:05:54
  Carta. But the master said he wants to
• 3:05:56
  create chaos on different worlds.
• 3:05:58
  So I don't know whether every world has a Magna Carta, which
• 3:06:00
  will be a bit sad. Then we get to the ending.
• 3:06:03
  We've got a bit of a mind battle for Chameleon, which doesn't
• 3:06:05
  work on TV, and the TARDIS team literally run away, and even the
• 3:06:09
  Master is left laughing at the fact that they've just run away.
• 3:06:12
  It's such an anticlimactic ending.
• 3:06:15
  So yeah, plot it's. Not anticlimactic.
• 3:06:18
  There is no, it just stops. Oh the Tardis team is my second
• 3:06:24
  point. Janna Fielding, I think, is a
• 3:06:26
  worst here. She looks totally bored.
• 3:06:28
  I know she's being asked to play bored, but she gives she really,
• 3:06:32
  she plays bored very well because I think she is.
• 3:06:34
  She's got no agency. She's just he or she is just
• 3:06:38
  complaining over and over again. And the fact that Davidson draws
• 3:06:42
  attention to it at the end by saying I'm going to take you
• 3:06:44
  home because you're so fucking miserable, I'm taking you home.
• 3:06:47
  That's not great to tell the audience how bored and miserable
• 3:06:50
  your character is. Turlow's finally free from the
• 3:06:53
  Black Guardian, so great. We can see what his character
• 3:06:56
  is. No, we don't.
• 3:06:57
  We see absolutely nothing. And then on top of that we add
• 3:07:00
  chameleon. I mean, it's a Poundland C3PO.
• 3:07:04
  It just doesn't work, does it? They hadn't thought it through.
• 3:07:08
  So yeah, the Tards team, I will give a bonus small point to
• 3:07:11
  Davison because bless him, he is still giving it gusto.
• 3:07:14
  But he's the only one that is. And my final Third Point is
• 3:07:19
  acting. There is some shit poor acting
• 3:07:21
  on on stage Gerald Flood is doing.
• 3:07:24
  I mean, we moan about Paul Darrow in Time Lash, but my God,
• 3:07:27
  he's doing really bad. Rich the third acting here.
• 3:07:30
  I've got a line from him. I can never reproduce him.
• 3:07:33
  We shall see, my Lord, if your fealty is as slender as your
• 3:07:38
  fortune. What's he doing?
• 3:07:43
  My demons Frank Windsor just plays a TOF and plays it really
• 3:07:47
  badly. And the final Anthony Ainley's
• 3:07:51
  French accent. I thought, I genuinely, and I'm
• 3:07:55
  not lying here, when I first saw her, I thought he was supposed
• 3:07:57
  to be Welsh and it's genuine. I didn't realise he was supposed
• 3:08:01
  to be French. It's the worst accent I've ever
• 3:08:05
  heard, so no. You know my ex was Belgian right
• 3:08:12
  and spoke with a French accent and I had to watch this for A9
• 3:08:15
  won't be praised and he went turn this off I'm sorry.
• 3:08:21
  It's shocking. So King's demons, Christ, that's
• 3:08:24
  in the bin, couldn't go quick enough.
• 3:08:26
  Let's go to the comments. Peter Auld says if there has to
• 3:08:29
  be a Turkey, it's this Chameleon's a great idea, but
• 3:08:32
  it's never utilized properly. The story feels like filler,
• 3:08:36
  even though it's more Turkey Kiev than Turkey Twizzler.
• 3:08:39
  Jason Dobson This is the rescue for the 80s, a two-part story
• 3:08:43
  with no other purpose than to introduce the new companion.
• 3:08:47
  Unfortunately, issues with the robot left it rather adrift.
• 3:08:50
  Two things in its favour of the music, which is rather lovely in
• 3:08:52
  places, and the reveal of the master coming not from him
• 3:08:55
  dropping his disguise, but from his pulling out his signature
• 3:08:58
  weapon, even though he is rather unfortunately designed.
• 3:09:03
  Michael Storm says, a little inconsequential but not bad.
• 3:09:06
  We've got a good part one with an interesting mystery, although
• 3:09:09
  slightly let down by the Masters disguise not being very
• 3:09:11
  convincing and some well drawn out characters.
• 3:09:14
  But would the story work better with the meddling monk as
• 3:09:17
  opposed to the Master? That is a good call. 0 Fraser.
• 3:09:20
  Remember that one for the commentary.
• 3:09:22
  Daniel Knight. The King's Demons is
• 3:09:25
  inconsequential historical fluff.
• 3:09:27
  So Giles looks like a hamster, I beg your pardon?
• 3:09:30
  And probably smell of elderberries.
• 3:09:33
  What's Daniel knight on? Chameleon is a cover plot
• 3:09:36
  device, but the technology just wasn't there.
• 3:09:38
  They should have dumped him in the death Zone.
• 3:09:40
  The direction is good in this though.
• 3:09:43
  I think you haven't seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
• 3:09:47
  A long time ago. Darren Lit Randall says quite a
• 3:09:50
  nice production but it never really comes alive despite a
• 3:09:52
  decent cast. The setting could have provided
• 3:09:55
  a lot of fun, but that's not something this era did.
• 3:09:59
  Even at two episodes it feels like a slog.
• 3:10:01
  A shame as I enjoyed the novelisation.
• 3:10:03
  James Lark Terence Dudley continues to show his special
• 3:10:06
  skill of rising 2 parters with a decent enough episode.
• 3:10:09
  Oh sorry with a decent enough episode one let down by an
• 3:10:12
  absolute car crash of an episode 2.
• 3:10:15
  It has a car beautifully mounted location shoot that it doesn't
• 3:10:19
  remotely deserve. That was a That was a slow burn
• 3:10:23
  sentence. Got there in the end, James H
• 3:10:26
  said. The Muster toys with robotic
• 3:10:27
  life to play with lives of those he sees as beneath him.
• 3:10:31
  Ainley doesn't have a period authentic accent.
• 3:10:34
  And do you live your life for you or for your king?
• 3:10:36
  A castle. Keep.
• 3:10:39
  I think your point in that second sentence was prove Ainley
• 3:10:42
  doesn't have a period authentic accent.
• 3:10:47
  Oh, sorry, yes. I think he's saying it's quite
• 3:10:50
  impressive. Really.
• 3:10:53
  OK. Where am I?
• 3:10:55
  John Bensale? I quite like this one.
• 3:10:57
  Not many do. It's like Eddie Stephen
• 3:10:59
  Moffett's stories, but he likes this one.
• 3:11:01
  I quite like this one. Not many do, but I'm won over by
• 3:11:03
  the stylish medieval designs. As a fun caper introduction to
• 3:11:06
  comedian, it delivers. Dan Pincer sits in my bottom top
• 3:11:10
  ten Doctor Who stories who can be many things but it should
• 3:11:13
  never be boring. Unfortunately The King's Demons
• 3:11:16
  is as boring as shit, so Shields is the Master in disguise.
• 3:11:20
  Wow, never saw that coming. He says sarcastically.
• 3:11:24
  Dave Rooney entertaining for Ainley but absolutely shite.
• 3:11:27
  The doc and everyone else is an idiot.
• 3:11:29
  The Master is embarrassing, turn low shouts a lot and Chameleon
• 3:11:33
  is awful. Gerald Flood is having a ball,
• 3:11:35
  but I love for the wrong reasons and I hate the music crap.
• 3:11:40
  Paul Smyth says, thankfully only two episodes long.
• 3:11:42
  Even then it manages to drag. Weakest Davidson story for me.
• 3:11:46
  Amy's accent of Sergio's is dreadful.
• 3:11:49
  And finally, succinctly, Andy Parkinson.
• 3:11:53
  Sigh. It really is shit, isn't it?
• 3:11:58
  So, Joe, is it shit? Well, I'm not going to go on too
• 3:12:02
  long. One, because I've got to go to
• 3:12:03
  bed at some point tonight, and two, because I really think this
• 3:12:07
  is one of them, the dears of Doctor Who.
• 3:12:09
  Fraser's coming on soon. Tell me why I'm wrong.
• 3:12:13
  I think this has limp history, limp dialogue, a limp master.
• 3:12:18
  His will is weak. And limp chameleon with his limp
• 3:12:23
  wrists. I mean just everything about
• 3:12:25
  this doesn't really work for me. I don't think the history is
• 3:12:27
  very well captured. I don't think the masters plot
• 3:12:32
  makes any sense. I don't think the narrative ever
• 3:12:36
  gets going. So when it stops, it hasn't even
• 3:12:39
  started yet if I'm honest. Sword fights.
• 3:12:42
  Embarrassing. Yeah, the COD theatrical
• 3:12:45
  dialogue is terrible. I think the score was actually
• 3:12:47
  really bad because they should have gone with a proper
• 3:12:50
  instrumental score here and instead they go for an
• 3:12:52
  electronic one. Tegan is as irritating as pubic
• 3:12:56
  life. I do not speak from experience.
• 3:13:00
  Turlo. I don't even know why Turlo's
• 3:13:01
  here. Turlo has nothing in this story.
• 3:13:05
  Yeah. It's just, it's awful.
• 3:13:06
  So I I can't, I can't even muster the enthusiasm to be mean
• 3:13:11
  about it. Let's take it over to the
• 3:13:13
  guests. Fraser, clearly you're going to
• 3:13:16
  advocate it. Absolutely yes, you.
• 3:13:19
  Madman. Well, can you remember when you
• 3:13:21
  did season 17? I give you my thoughts about
• 3:13:26
  Creature from the Pit. Can you remember what I said
• 3:13:28
  about Creature from the Pit? You say it was the best story of
• 3:13:31
  the season. Yep.
• 3:13:34
  Lady dressed was fabulous. Yep.
• 3:13:37
  You didn't think the wolf weeds look like hairy balls?
• 3:13:40
  Nope. No.
• 3:13:43
  Go on, you'll have to enlighten us.
• 3:13:45
  What I said was, if you don't like this, you don't like fun.
• 3:13:51
  Well, you're absolutely right about creature from the pet,
• 3:13:53
  because it's glorious, but this? Is fun.
• 3:13:57
  Are you sure? What is everyone doing in this
• 3:14:00
  story? Having fun.
• 3:14:03
  Everyone is doing what it's Remember when we did Black
• 3:14:06
  Walker and we're talking about hang time?
• 3:14:08
  Yeah. Yeah, this is 2 episodes of
• 3:14:11
  Short Eve basically. Not as far as Black Orchid
• 3:14:14
  though. Playing cricket and going to a
• 3:14:16
  ball and a big buffet. But what do the characters get
• 3:14:18
  to do? Not a lot, Tegan moans about it
• 3:14:22
  and tell. Her exactly.
• 3:14:23
  Tegan loves to moon. I mean, she probably is.
• 3:14:25
  She probably is enjoying herself in her.
• 3:14:27
  Tegan loves to moon, so she gets to moon about the cold for two
• 3:14:30
  episodes. And about robot?
• 3:14:32
  Yeah, 2 loves to be stressed about things, so he gets to get
• 3:14:35
  be stressed about. Things put his hands in his
• 3:14:37
  pockets a lot. Yeah, he loves getting captured,
• 3:14:39
  so he gets captured a lot. The Doctor loves fighting with
• 3:14:43
  the Master, especially with swords, so we'll have a big
• 3:14:46
  sword fight here in the Master. Now you say this is fun, but no
• 3:14:50
  one seems to be having any fun at all.
• 3:14:53
  Absolutely. The Master is having the time of
• 3:14:56
  his life he's on. Yeah, to be fair, absolutely.
• 3:15:00
  You know, this, this is like what we're going to do, right?
• 3:15:02
  I've tried to take over the universe.
• 3:15:04
  That didn't work. I've had to, you know, go back
• 3:15:07
  in time. I've had to be, you know, dress
• 3:15:09
  myself as a, as a sort of racist caricature.
• 3:15:12
  You know, what do I just want to chill now?
• 3:15:13
  So what I'm going to do, I'm just going to fuck with history,
• 3:15:16
  Earth history. That's all I'm going to do.
• 3:15:19
  No, you know. Why?
• 3:15:21
  I'm gonna have a week off. I'm gonna have a week off and
• 3:15:23
  what am I gonna do? Just enjoying myself.
• 3:15:24
  So I'm gonna go back in time and I'm just gonna fuck with things.
• 3:15:27
  But he says it's going to bring chaos to the galaxies.
• 3:15:30
  He. Doesn't even the doctors coming?
• 3:15:33
  Why is he dressed up in French night?
• 3:15:36
  Because he's having. Fun.
• 3:15:38
  He's just clearly he's. Literally just.
• 3:15:40
  Dicking a boat do. You know what phrase?
• 3:15:42
  She's going to Amsterdam all right.
• 3:15:44
  It's much more fun. And that's definitely dicking
• 3:15:46
  about. There is one person that's
• 3:15:48
  having fun on this, and that's Isla Blair, because she's
• 3:15:50
  absolutely pissing herself with laughter when she's trying to do
• 3:15:53
  that death scene. The shoulders are going up and
• 3:15:55
  down. She talks about it on the
• 3:15:57
  commentary. She cannot stop laughing even
• 3:15:59
  though it's somebody's death scene.
• 3:16:00
  I mean. Isla Blair's having fun.
• 3:16:03
  Gerald Flood's having fun, Frank Windsor's having fun.
• 3:16:06
  The cast are enjoying themselves making this the the dialogue,
• 3:16:10
  you know, you can call it COD Shakespearean if you want, but
• 3:16:13
  it is it is very authentic. It's it, you know, you listen to
• 3:16:17
  it and you actually think, well, ah, yeah.
• 3:16:18
  This is how people used to talk back in them days.
• 3:16:21
  So, you know, I don't know if you guys are all kind of
• 3:16:22
  expecting this to be like Robin of Sherwood and all like full of
• 3:16:26
  like, you know, danger and mystery and mystical shit all.
• 3:16:29
  Yes, please. That sounds wonderful.
• 3:16:31
  It's. Yeah, but it's not Robert
• 3:16:33
  Sherwood. It's it's Doctor Who.
• 3:16:34
  It's Doctor Who doing, doing medieval times.
• 3:16:36
  And you know, Rod, you, you criticized the plot, Rod.
• 3:16:39
  I mean, that's, that's like criticizing Ian Levine's
• 3:16:42
  humility. Well, you mean there isn't one?
• 3:16:46
  Or it just doesn't. Exist.
• 3:16:47
  You know exactly something that doesn't exist.
• 3:16:50
  You know. The plot.
• 3:16:51
  We have, hang on, we've got a script editor and a script
• 3:16:54
  writer. The the.
• 3:16:55
  What were they doing? The whole point of this story is
• 3:16:59
  to introduce comedian yet, so there's nothing else.
• 3:17:02
  And how did that and how did that work out?
• 3:17:04
  Well, is that the fault of this episode?
• 3:17:07
  No, to be fair. No.
• 3:17:08
  So when we judge this episode, we look at him, we go, right.
• 3:17:11
  So what was the point of this episode?
• 3:17:13
  It was the introduced comedian, which it does, right.
• 3:17:16
  OK. But it's two episodes.
• 3:17:17
  But we'll fill those two episodes up with just one.
• 3:17:20
  We'll have some horse riding. We'll have some Josten.
• 3:17:24
  We'll have some, you know, sword fighting.
• 3:17:28
  We're going to have, you know, Anthony, Andy just living his
• 3:17:31
  best life as Sergio Estra. Why does none of that translate
• 3:17:36
  to the screen then? It does you, you just, I don't
• 3:17:38
  know what you're watching. So not fun.
• 3:17:40
  I've never heard anyone describe this as fun.
• 3:17:43
  I must don't know why it's hilarious.
• 3:17:46
  Champion of the damn for nothing, you know I mean.
• 3:17:50
  If you go in, if you're going to go watching it expecting, like I
• 3:17:52
  say, Robin the Sherwood, you're going to be disappointed.
• 3:17:55
  If you go in expecting, you know, yeah, Doctor Who's going
• 3:17:59
  to do Magna Carta and Doctor Who's going to take on King John
• 3:18:02
  and all that sort of jazz, you're going to be disappointed.
• 3:18:06
  Because that's what it presents in the first episode.
• 3:18:09
  If you go in thinking I'm just going to watch two episodes of
• 3:18:12
  Doctor Who where everyone's just, you know, having a laugh,
• 3:18:15
  thinking about, if you think about it as a bit of a pantomime
• 3:18:18
  rather than something, you know, like, you know, we're not going
• 3:18:21
  to, we're not looking for Baftas.
• 3:18:22
  Yeah. We're not like trying to, you
• 3:18:24
  know, you know, be be Game of Thrones.
• 3:18:27
  And in order that, you know, we are just going to have a bit of
• 3:18:31
  fun and there's a lot of fun. Hang on, hang on one second.
• 3:18:35
  You've slated Snake Dance because you said there isn't
• 3:18:38
  enough plot. Now you're admitting that's this
• 3:18:40
  has no plot, and yet you're championing it.
• 3:18:44
  Four pots. Pots. 4 pots.
• 3:18:47
  That's that's irrelevant if. There was fun in snake dance.
• 3:18:52
  There was. Lots of fun in snake dance.
• 3:18:54
  Well, it must be in the special edition.
• 3:18:55
  Children half price. Must all be in the Hall of
• 3:19:00
  Mirrors when I'm not looking. But you know it is.
• 3:19:03
  It is. It's you've got this glorious
• 3:19:05
  sword fight between Davison and. Oh, Fraser.
• 3:19:08
  Glorious. It.
• 3:19:09
  Is. It's so stilted.
• 3:19:11
  Oh. It's not.
• 3:19:13
  Paul Davison has clearly only had five seconds rehearsal, that
• 3:19:16
  sort. I've heard the expression
• 3:19:19
  flogging a dead horse. By my God, you're really trying.
• 3:19:22
  Here the the bit where Anthony and he gives him the glove slap
• 3:19:27
  across the face and he just has that beat where he looks him in
• 3:19:31
  the face and just thinks dickhead takes his jacket off,
• 3:19:36
  picks up his sword and goes and beats his ass.
• 3:19:38
  The trouble is though, is to be a Dave Sword like James Bond.
• 3:19:42
  No, it don't really work. Does he's a little bit of
• 3:19:44
  celery? It's not going to be James Bond,
• 3:19:46
  though, is it? It's not going to be.
• 3:19:48
  It's not going to be, you know, like, you know, Serrano de
• 3:19:50
  Bergerac film or. Excuse me, what about David
• 3:19:53
  Tennant in The Christmas Invasion?
• 3:19:57
  It was amazing. No, that was not as good as
• 3:20:00
  this. What he does it for effect, I
• 3:20:06
  swear it. Must.
• 3:20:07
  Do if he had come at us with the Sea Devils, then yeah, we could
• 3:20:10
  have a conversation about that because that's a much better
• 3:20:12
  sword face because that's got I mean that's that's got a
• 3:20:15
  sandwich break and. Everything that is fun?
• 3:20:17
  What about Legend of the Sea Devils?
• 3:20:19
  Jodie Whitaker Not as good. As this one you.
• 3:20:23
  Just lost me. But the whole the whole point is
• 3:20:27
  is you know, it is just people having fun and especially
• 3:20:32
  Anthony and he's having the time of his life.
• 3:20:34
  He's loving playing both the master and Gill Estrom.
• 3:20:39
  So Rod, you were 17 when they said did and he said he thought
• 3:20:43
  he was Welch. But did you think he was the
• 3:20:44
  master? Yes, straight away.
• 3:20:47
  Dan, did you think you watched? Yes, I I worked it out, yeah.
• 3:20:50
  You'd worked it out that it was the master, right?
• 3:20:51
  So I did a bit of checking about this because I thought, you
• 3:20:54
  know, it's very easy for us. To yeah, I saw your power.
• 3:20:58
  I saw that. Yeah.
• 3:21:00
  It's easy enough to slit this and say, Oh yeah, don't be seen
• 3:21:04
  the best. I see that.
• 3:21:05
  I didn't see that coming. And when you are watching on a
• 3:21:08
  40 inch, 50 inch OLED screen in HD, when you have read the
• 3:21:13
  television guides, when you've read the companion books and you
• 3:21:16
  know, it's been talked about after the fact.
• 3:21:18
  But if you were there is a child watching this, you know, would
• 3:21:23
  you have been taken in? So you 2 weren't Well, you know
• 3:21:28
  what you want a child for you 2 weren't.
• 3:21:31
  But out of the people I pulled, 54% were so.
• 3:21:36
  You are they particularly stupid people?
• 3:21:40
  Right. But no, they are children and
• 3:21:42
  they are children watching on what, A 10 inch cathodeway tube
• 3:21:46
  where you've had to tune into BBC One.
• 3:21:48
  It's not digital, it's analogue. We weren't in the 1930s,
• 3:21:53
  Nineteen 80s. I first saw this.
• 3:21:58
  On VHS. It wasn't the fact.
• 3:22:01
  That it was the master. It was a.
• 3:22:03
  Smaller screen, it was not digital.
• 3:22:06
  So like I say, you've had to tune your aerial and you
• 3:22:08
  probably was that back in the days when you had to tune
• 3:22:10
  between BBC One and night TV. It was.
• 3:22:13
  There you go. So you've had to tune into BBC
• 3:22:14
  One. Excuse.
• 3:22:16
  Me I'm. Not sure what difference that
• 3:22:17
  makes. I first saw it on Avhs Fraser,
• 3:22:20
  all right, on a perfect size TV on Avhs.
• 3:22:23
  And it wasn't the fact that like my full process went like this.
• 3:22:27
  Why is that strange person in the stick on beard doing a
• 3:22:29
  terrible Indian accent? And then from there, very
• 3:22:33
  quickly, I was like, oh, it's Anthony Ainley during that
• 3:22:35
  terrible Indian accent. See, you can go in the 46% or
• 3:22:39
  whatever it was, you know, more people.
• 3:22:41
  It was a slight. It was a slight margin.
• 3:22:44
  More people were took in by the master than word.
• 3:22:47
  OK, so let's, you know, let's break that down into a class of
• 3:22:50
  30. Yeah.
• 3:22:52
  So you've got 16 kids in that class.
• 3:22:54
  We've all watched Doctor Who the night before and they've all
• 3:22:57
  thought that Anthony and he was the master.
• 3:23:01
  So no thought that, you know, Anthony and he was a different
• 3:23:05
  character. They had a big surprise at the
• 3:23:07
  end where he pulls out his weapon and goes, you have been
• 3:23:10
  my dear Doctor. It's, it's a classic
• 3:23:12
  cliffhanger. It's, it's brilliant.
• 3:23:13
  It's you have been naive and and you've got the other, you know,
• 3:23:18
  14 kids in the class who we're like, Oh yeah, that's that's the
• 3:23:21
  master. So which of those kids do you
• 3:23:23
  want to be? Do you want to be the kid that's
• 3:23:25
  running around in the playground going, oh, you are so naive, you
• 3:23:30
  know, and buzzing for the next episode to see what happens
• 3:23:33
  next. Or do you want to be the kids in
• 3:23:35
  the playground going, Oh yeah, always we'll be showing our spot
• 3:23:37
  not coming. Which which kids do you want to
• 3:23:39
  be? I want to be the kid that's a
• 3:23:41
  high Washington spy for that's genuinely flawed when Sasha Duan
• 3:23:46
  is revealed to be the master. Wait.
• 3:23:48
  Well, you're going to have to grow up, aren't you?
• 3:23:49
  Because we're talking 1983. I suggest we polled the IQ
• 3:23:54
  points of your 54% in the next poll.
• 3:23:57
  Well, I bet these two voted. I did vote there you.
• 3:24:01
  Did vote as. Well, there you go.
• 3:24:03
  See, he's just called your IQ there, guys.
• 3:24:06
  Oh, I say that's a rod all the time.
• 3:24:07
  That's no. Choice.
• 3:24:09
  It's interesting though, that the AIS of these episodes were
• 3:24:12
  the lowest of the season. But you know, let's just seeing
• 3:24:14
  as we're, we're throwing studs around, yeah.
• 3:24:18
  You can prove anything with fact.
• 3:24:20
  I think the ratings were actually no.
• 3:24:21
  The ratings were quite strong though.
• 3:24:22
  I think one of the episodes got 7 points.
• 3:24:25
  I think that was quite high. I thought this was the lowest
• 3:24:27
  Davidson ratings. Apparently 55.8, maybe 7.2.
• 3:24:32
  Was that going up or down? Going up.
• 3:24:34
  Oh oh. It's a big time, isn't it?
• 3:24:36
  Because, oh, it's the muster. Oh.
• 3:24:38
  That's good. No, it's because the second day
• 3:24:40
  episode's always dead because the first one was up against
• 3:24:43
  her. But how?
• 3:24:44
  Are we doing numbers again? Come on.
• 3:24:47
  That doesn't stand up with scrutiny.
• 3:24:49
  None of your arguments stands up scrutiny it does.
• 3:24:52
  It's. It's not fun.
• 3:24:56
  It is fun. And what was your second point,
• 3:24:58
  Rod? So we've discussed the plot.
• 3:25:00
  What was the we've? Talked about the lack of plot,
• 3:25:02
  we talked about the terrible acting and the and the TARDIS
• 3:25:08
  team who do absolutely bugger all.
• 3:25:10
  Gerald Flood, are you? He will be boiled.
• 3:25:13
  Oh. It's.
• 3:25:14
  Fantastic. You know, yeah.
• 3:25:16
  What did you say? Well, would would moan about
• 3:25:18
  Paul Darrow. Who actually moans about Paul
• 3:25:20
  Darrow? Nobody.
• 3:25:21
  Nobody. Does.
• 3:25:23
  Exactly. No one remembers Gerald floods.
• 3:25:26
  No Of. Course, you know, I mean, he's
• 3:25:27
  no grim crowd and obviously, but no.
• 3:25:29
  No, obviously not. Oh.
• 3:25:30
  No, because grim crowd and genuinely is fun with a capital
• 3:25:34
  F. This is fun.
• 3:25:37
  I think we'll have to go to dance at what we.
• 3:25:39
  Are because it's one a piece. Dan, please.
• 3:25:43
  Please. It's.
• 3:25:43
  Going to side. Here it's got to go, it's got to
• 3:25:48
  go. First one to drop.
• 3:25:50
  This is making me feel old and my willy's weak at this point it
• 3:25:54
  has to go. I can't yes, it's got to go so
• 3:25:59
  chameleon obviously one point The robot only turns up quite
• 3:26:03
  halfway through second episode, which is quite a long time.
• 3:26:06
  I I thought it turned up earlier, but no, it's quite a
• 3:26:08
  long time till it turns up playing that fucking loot the
• 3:26:12
  music in it the the fucking loot, sorry, swearing fuck it,
• 3:26:15
  it's a fucking loot. It's just awful and annoying.
• 3:26:18
  It can't do anything. It's set to play a loot It plays
• 3:26:21
  a loot. Tegan hates it, but then, as you
• 3:26:24
  said, Tegan hates everything, so you know that's fine.
• 3:26:27
  The main, the main take away from this story is don't go and
• 3:26:31
  look at a robot and buy it without knowing that they
• 3:26:35
  actually fucking work. And then write a story about it,
• 3:26:38
  realize it doesn't work, and then write the story anyway and
• 3:26:40
  do the story and then get terribly behind and have a load
• 3:26:42
  of old Chai at the end of it. And what I'd forgotten about is
• 3:26:45
  that they always say, oh, the the software designer died.
• 3:26:49
  They died after this. They were alive at that point.
• 3:26:52
  Not that I'm blaming them, obviously.
• 3:26:54
  But they did not even die after planet fire.
• 3:26:56
  I think it was a while, you know, but the filming of it was
• 3:26:58
  a complete disaster. They, they'd had, the fact that
• 3:27:01
  they got it made in that year with all the terrible things
• 3:27:03
  that happened behind the scenes was quite impressive.
• 3:27:05
  And of course, they put him straight in the cupboard in the
• 3:27:08
  TARDIS and never took him out again until he had to go.
• 3:27:10
  With the absolute creative genius that he can turn into
• 3:27:15
  any. Exactly.
• 3:27:16
  They never took. A producer that likes casting
• 3:27:19
  big name guest stars? Perfect.
• 3:27:21
  Literally have one in every story.
• 3:27:23
  Yes exactly. That's Chameleon.
• 3:27:26
  Indeed, they never did it once I.
• 3:27:27
  Mean or. Do the do the obvious thing of
• 3:27:30
  have Chameleon be the Doctor in a story.
• 3:27:33
  The Doctor Lisa TARDIS on his own.
• 3:27:34
  We have a whole half adventure with him and halfway through it
• 3:27:37
  turns out to be comedian. Great twist.
• 3:27:39
  There's so many things they could have done, of course,
• 3:27:41
  madness and it, but you know, the let down in the stories was
• 3:27:44
  of course the fault of the producer, John Nathan Turner, of
• 3:27:46
  course. But you know, the fact that by
• 3:27:48
  the time they were making it, they always they realized
• 3:27:50
  already that it was a disaster. But what could they do?
• 3:27:53
  They had to make the story. But anyway, terrible idea,
• 3:27:55
  terrible idea execution, terrible boring.
• 3:27:57
  Doctor Who should never be boring.
• 3:27:59
  It's boring. I don't like not like in Doctor
• 3:28:02
  Who. Second thing, the masters, Magna
• 3:28:04
  Carta Palava. Basically, like we've said
• 3:28:06
  earlier on, it would have been perfect to have it as the monk
• 3:28:08
  because it's a very monkey type story.
• 3:28:10
  The masters just titting about because he's bored, which you
• 3:28:14
  know, it's clear it's fun though.
• 3:28:16
  I I enjoy the master having fun. Don't get me wrong, that's fun.
• 3:28:20
  Him getting his what? What is it?
• 3:28:23
  Tissue compression eliminator out?
• 3:28:25
  That's always funny. Having a disguise is always
• 3:28:27
  funny, but it makes no sense whatsoever.
• 3:28:30
  Ainley's having a nice time. We, the audience, are not really
• 3:28:33
  having a nice time because it's not fun.
• 3:28:35
  Well, Fraser is, but no one else but.
• 3:28:37
  Then Fraser, I I did like him having the TARDIS disguised as
• 3:28:40
  the Iron Maiden. That was quite funny because
• 3:28:42
  that is quite amusing. But hip ho.
• 3:28:43
  Oh, I'll, I'll grab a cause chaos by fucking up the Magna
• 3:28:46
  Carta. OK, whatever, whatever, who
• 3:28:50
  cares? And the final thing to let it
• 3:28:52
  down is that it became the season finale that it never was
• 3:28:55
  intended to do because it should have been the darling.
• 3:28:57
  Actually a bit like the horns and iron one, yeah.
• 3:28:59
  Yeah, so you know, but at least Tekken got a nice big coat to
• 3:29:02
  wear this week, even though she still made it was cold because
• 3:29:04
  it was cold. Because.
• 3:29:06
  It looks. Cold it.
• 3:29:07
  Looks like I think we've already said all these points, but I I
• 3:29:10
  like the way that it ends with Tegan moaning one more time and
• 3:29:14
  the doctor saying, all right, you know what?
• 3:29:15
  We'll take you blow plenty well home.
• 3:29:16
  Then at at the end of that season and the start of the
• 3:29:19
  season is her going, Oh, can I come back?
• 3:29:20
  Even though I'm going to moan about everything.
• 3:29:23
  It's a good little bookend moaning Tegan either end of the
• 3:29:26
  season. Yeah, having having so much fun,
• 3:29:29
  Fraser, he said. I'm going to take you home
• 3:29:30
  because you're so fucking miserable.
• 3:29:32
  Indeed, you're going. Home.
• 3:29:33
  Yeah, the. Only thing to do is complain.
• 3:29:35
  And just to confirm, I have checked the poll.
• 3:29:37
  It was a 52 to 48 split. So 52% of people thought this
• 3:29:40
  was fun. And if a 52 to 48% return on a
• 3:29:44
  pool on a referendum tells you one thing, it's that that is a
• 3:29:47
  unanimous decision. It is the will of the people.
• 3:29:50
  This is fun you. Did a poll.
• 3:29:53
  You did a poll to ask if they thought thought this was fun.
• 3:29:56
  Well, it's, it's what I'm extrapolating from, yeah.
• 3:29:59
  That's not a lot of extrapolating going on here.
• 3:30:01
  So if. You're doing.
• 3:30:02
  It just like that bloody Tories. Yeah, that's.
• 3:30:04
  Exactly what you do with the three. 102 to. 40,350. 1000 a
• 3:30:09
  week for the NHS, Yeah. If you would have heard it, all
• 3:30:11
  but some other statistics did the survey in 1983 in Doctor Who
• 3:30:15
  magazine. It came last.
• 3:30:16
  Yep. I guess where it's coming down.
• 3:30:18
  Oh, what? Did it come?
• 3:30:19
  Last Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm voting it through then.
• 3:30:22
  13.5%. That's that is absolutely for
• 3:30:25
  me. Whatever comes last in the DWM
• 3:30:27
  poll is like a badge of honour. There you go, he's changed his
• 3:30:31
  vote. I have.
• 3:30:32
  I have. I have I'm.
• 3:30:34
  Putting it through now, I. Can't hear you.
• 3:30:36
  I've lost signal. It's it's.
• 3:30:38
  Out No. What a shame.
• 3:30:39
  No, I'm sorry I'm those DWM polls are so hideous.
• 3:30:42
  I was going to say that Kinder came last in that year.
• 3:30:44
  So they are idiots. Those polls, you know.
• 3:30:48
  It's out. It's through.
• 3:30:49
  He's changed his vote no. I changed my vote.
• 3:30:51
  So is everything through now? We've we've put everything
• 3:30:53
  through. Apparently so.
• 3:30:54
  Well, unfortunately it had nothing to do with your argument
• 3:30:57
  and everything to do with the DWM poll.
• 3:31:00
  Didn't really hate them that much.
• 3:31:01
  Really screwed up. Sorry, statistics, I'm so sorry.
• 3:31:06
  OK, so we have. So everything's full.
• 3:31:08
  Proof. Look how smuggy it is.
• 3:31:13
  I've taken it out of my my magic pole and I've had to put it
• 3:31:16
  back. In Oh, I'm so sorry, Ron.
• 3:31:19
  Right. OK, so let's go to round two.
• 3:31:21
  It's not easy doing the admin with me, is it?
• 3:31:23
  It's never raced out, right? Let's spin the magic wheel.
• 3:31:28
  We're into round two. Oh wait, Judas suspense music.
• 3:31:31
  Go see. How fast the path to turns?
• 3:31:36
  And we start with. On the bus, go round and round.
• 3:31:39
  Terminus. Terminus plays King's Demons.
• 3:31:45
  Oh. My God, God.
• 3:31:47
  Easy. Absolutely easy.
• 3:31:49
  Terminus. Terminus.
• 3:31:50
  Terminus. Terminus, OH.
• 3:31:53
  That goes for King's demons. It had 2 1/2 seconds in the
• 3:31:57
  second round. What they've got there and
• 3:32:00
  that's the main thing. It had its moment in the sun and
• 3:32:04
  we have Terminus again and this time we have Snake Dance.
• 3:32:10
  Snake dance, obviously. Snake, snake dance, Terminus.
• 3:32:16
  So terminal. I was hoping Terminus would do
• 3:32:18
  well, but can't do well up against snake dance.
• 3:32:20
  Sorry. So Terminus falls.
• 3:32:22
  So enlightenment please. Motoring.
• 3:32:30
  Oh, that's a bit. More interesting?
• 3:32:31
  Oh. Shit.
• 3:32:33
  Enlightenment. Enlightenment, just slightly.
• 3:32:38
  Yeah, it's not as far ahead as I would have thought actually, but
• 3:32:40
  I. Would say enlightenment slightly
• 3:32:41
  better. Fraser Well, I'll see.
• 3:32:47
  Mordering, then. I'm going to go enlightenment.
• 3:32:53
  I do like mordering the hell of a lot, but I prefer
• 3:32:56
  enlightenment. So sorry mordering you are
• 3:32:59
  undead. Operator, the sparkle has gone
• 3:33:02
  from your. Mind we have arc of Infinity.
• 3:33:06
  Green of spaghetti, you know. OK, we got Arc of Infinity
• 3:33:09
  Against Snake Dance, Enlightenment and Five Doctors,
• 3:33:11
  so do I even need to? Do I even need to spin the?
• 3:33:14
  Whale. I will just come on speak.
• 3:33:16
  Completest It's up against the Five Doctors.
• 3:33:19
  I'm going to go Arc of Infinity. Sad man 5 doctors, 5 doctors.
• 3:33:26
  OK, that's a soul voice five by Arkham Infinity.
• 3:33:31
  Off to Amsterdam with you SO. It didn't.
• 3:33:34
  These were the three I knew would be.
• 3:33:36
  Left at the end. It's weird the way the pulse
• 3:33:38
  spins. I mean, come on, we've had space
• 3:33:40
  pirates in the final two before. So we spin the wheel and we have
• 3:33:44
  enlightenment, and enlightenment plays.
• 3:33:48
  Snake dance 5 doctors. 5 doctors.
• 3:33:52
  And five doctors it's. Going to have to be the five
• 3:33:55
  doctors if it's the more the most fun, but it should have a
• 3:33:58
  separate category of its own. Enlightenment force.
• 3:34:01
  So we are left with Snake Dance and Five Doctors.
• 3:34:03
  Joe, can I remind you, first of all, you did say Snake Dance was
• 3:34:06
  the best story of the year. Don't you and sway them I'm.
• 3:34:10
  Just. Saying, I'm just saying that is
• 3:34:12
  what you said. Come.
• 3:34:13
  On can I also? Remind you, Joe, that you said
• 3:34:16
  the five doctors was better than 30 men in the sauna.
• 3:34:19
  Here. Tonight, but snake dance is
• 3:34:21
  better than 100 men in the sauna.
• 3:34:24
  So you go snake dance, Joe. Did I say 30?
• 3:34:28
  13. I thought, that's right.
• 3:34:29
  Yeah. Yeah, even I've got that much
• 3:34:32
  stamina. Sorry.
• 3:34:34
  Fraser's round it up for you. Did he do that with his magic
• 3:34:36
  pole, I wonder? Manipulating the numbers.
• 3:34:40
  I'm going snake dance. So that's two for snake dance.
• 3:34:45
  Fraser. Or five doctors, obviously.
• 3:34:49
  Apparently I should say 5 doctors because it is the most
• 3:34:51
  fun technically. But are you going to?
• 3:34:56
  Now I'm annoyed that we're including it now because I want,
• 3:35:00
  but no, it is the best one. I love it more.
• 3:35:01
  So Five Doctors has to go. Through oh, so we've got a tie.
• 3:35:05
  We need to make a decision. Excuse me, I didn't make a.
• 3:35:08
  Decision. I thought you went for snake
• 3:35:09
  dance. Oh no, I think you made that
• 3:35:12
  decision before I, in fact, was going to go for snake dance.
• 3:35:17
  OK, so we've got a tie so. What the hell do we do?
• 3:35:21
  We should have a tie really because of the different the
• 3:35:24
  reason if the five doctors. I've got a big separate
• 3:35:26
  separateness. Go on.
• 3:35:28
  Then there's a website I know of which has got.
• 3:35:33
  I wonder where we're going with. This stories listed, it's got
• 3:35:36
  like the top 60 and so we could just pick whichever one comes
• 3:35:39
  the highest in that. Was that written by complete
• 3:35:41
  madman? No.
• 3:35:43
  You think the King's Demons is fun by any chance?
• 3:35:46
  Well, clearly it's not mad if he thinks.
• 3:35:48
  That OK, I'll tell you. I think I might know a way of
• 3:35:51
  solving this, although it is a given fabulous extra time for my
• 3:35:55
  suspense music, Dan, because I think it's these two aren't
• 3:36:00
  going to budget for love nor money.
• 3:36:02
  All right, So it's going to come down to you or me budget.
• 3:36:05
  Oh Jesus. If you're not going to budget to
• 3:36:08
  snake dance, I will budget to the five doctors.
• 3:36:10
  But if you have any doubt in your mind to move to Snake Dance
• 3:36:13
  I. Mean The Five Doctors is far
• 3:36:16
  more satisfying because it has everything in it, so it wins
• 3:36:19
  because it's got everything. But I think snake dance is a
• 3:36:22
  better craft. Snake dance is a which?
• 3:36:25
  Yeah, actually, I think Snake Dance has a better cast.
• 3:36:28
  Snake Dance. Yeah, right.
• 3:36:29
  OK, good point. Snake Dance is a better story.
• 3:36:33
  As in it holds together as one piece piece of work far better.
• 3:36:37
  It's got a better cast. And it's more representative of
• 3:36:40
  the Davidson era. And yeah, and basically I feel
• 3:36:43
  like the Five Doctors is my favorite, but it would be kind
• 3:36:45
  of a bit of a copper. What's your favorite they're?
• 3:36:47
  A. Bit of a cop.
• 3:36:48
  Favorite Dan if we're. With these two, if we're doing
• 3:36:52
  it at Season 20 and Davidson and that year, it has to be snake
• 3:36:56
  dance. Yay.
• 3:36:59
  In a whole episode of shifting votes.
• 3:37:03
  That was so difficult though. Snake dance wins.
• 3:37:05
  Can I just? Confirm, then, that Snake Dance
• 3:37:07
  wins because Five Doctors is not part of Season 20.
• 3:37:11
  It's different. It's sick.
• 3:37:13
  Possibly yes. I think it wins because Snake
• 3:37:16
  Dance is fully contained and The Five Doctors is brilliant, but
• 3:37:19
  it's something different. Which is also fully content.
• 3:37:23
  In a brick. Oh it.
• 3:37:24
  Could be that people just prefer it.
• 3:37:26
  Fraser, Yeah. Hang on when you advocating that
• 3:37:30
  you know everybody's right and has their right to their
• 3:37:33
  opinions. Yeah, yeah.
• 3:37:35
  You 2 have given your your to that sit on his super shoulders
• 3:37:40
  like. Dan, are you going back to the
• 3:37:43
  evils of the Five Doctors? I'm staying.
• 3:37:46
  I'm staying with the dark places of the inside and I'm sticking
• 3:37:48
  with memorial. Oh, that's.
• 3:37:51
  Good. Snake Dance wins, and a very
• 3:37:54
  worthy winner at that. Well.
• 3:37:59
  Well, that was an episode and 1/2.
• 3:38:04
  I knew that was gonna be great. Thank you to Dan and Fraser.
• 3:38:08
  Gentlemen, would you like to point people to where they can
• 3:38:11
  find you on social media or promote anything?
• 3:38:14
  Would they even want to? Yeah, well, they.
• 3:38:16
  Might not want after the third Fraser, but Dan I'm.
• 3:38:19
  Sure that one will find you. Where am I?
• 3:38:21
  I am I'm basically a total podcast slag.
• 3:38:24
  I call myself, if they anything, I'm, I'm appearing on lots of
• 3:38:26
  podcasts because I thought it was a good idea this year to do
• 3:38:29
  something challenging. So, so you can find me
• 3:38:32
  occasionally on trap one. And I've been on What's in the
• 3:38:35
  Box and I've going to be on some more trap ones in the future.
• 3:38:41
  And who gives a flux that I've recorded.
• 3:38:44
  There's going to be quite a while, yeah.
• 3:38:45
  And another one in a while after that.
• 3:38:49
  And there's going to be a a kettle and some string that I'm
• 3:38:53
  recording next Thursday. And the door is always open.
• 3:38:56
  On and there's just I, I treat it like a massive project, so it
• 3:38:59
  takes me a lot of work basically, but you've got to do
• 3:39:01
  it properly if you can do it. And I'm on the Internet.
• 3:39:04
  Where am I on the Internet? I'm on the thing that I call
• 3:39:06
  Twitter and on that I am the under score Hollingsworth,
• 3:39:12
  because that is my name and because you know.
• 3:39:17
  Good handle. It just it wouldn't all fix too
• 3:39:19
  fucking long. And on Blue Sky, I am De
• 3:39:22
  Hollingsworth with no under score because it doesn't like
• 3:39:24
  underscores. No one goes here anywhere.
• 3:39:26
  I know, but it's there just in case.
• 3:39:28
  It's mostly herons on there. Oh, that's nice.
• 3:39:31
  And the herons off. Herons and Bubble Bath and
• 3:39:33
  Doctor Who and on Instagram I am another Dan Hollingsworth, which
• 3:39:36
  is all one word because there are fucking hundreds of them for
• 3:39:39
  some reason. And I'll say to you, right, I
• 3:39:40
  used to take one bubble bath a day, right?
• 3:39:43
  Let's just start posting all those pictures on those bubble
• 3:39:45
  baths. I have at least three a day now.
• 3:39:47
  I will. Say every time I see.
• 3:39:49
  You in the bath? I'd be like, oh, that's a good
• 3:39:51
  idea. But it really half the reason is
• 3:39:53
  because it's dead relaxing and it's nice to try different ones,
• 3:39:56
  but also it's because there's so many fucking podcasts.
• 3:39:59
  I have to do one, yeah. Honestly, you do fabulous
• 3:40:01
  marketing for this. Thank you.
• 3:40:03
  And I will always, I will always tweet them if I like them.
• 3:40:05
  So a lot of yours get in because I listen to them and enjoy them.
• 3:40:07
  And then I'll get one in the bath.
• 3:40:10
  But this Harden. But they strictly, they strictly
• 3:40:13
  wants to last me days, you know? Yeah, I'm sure.
• 3:40:15
  We do we. Do tend to last people days
• 3:40:17
  indeed. But yeah, that's where I am.
• 3:40:21
  In the bath, I'm Fraser. Where can people find you?
• 3:40:23
  I. Think Dan's bath is obviously
• 3:40:26
  the fountain of youth I. Thought you.
• 3:40:27
  Could say you could be fun to Dan's.
• 3:40:30
  Bath I might do you know, I could probably I'm going to be
• 3:40:32
  great. I could do with losing a few
• 3:40:34
  years. And yes, you'll find me in the
• 3:40:36
  fun corner of Twitter having fun with fun stories.
• 3:40:43
  All one word. Fraser with his head, he.
• 3:40:45
  Can't let. Laughing go.
• 3:40:46
  We're never going to really end on.
• 3:40:47
  It tell me about. It it is really funny and
• 3:40:50
  instinctive. Yeah, yeah, I've put the police
• 3:40:52
  down there. So, yeah, you're finally there.
• 3:40:57
  That's where I hang out most of the time.
• 3:40:59
  You'll also, much like Dan, find me whoring myself around, as
• 3:41:02
  many podcasters will allow me to.
• 3:41:04
  Come on. And I've got a few trapped ones
• 3:41:06
  coming up. Joe, I know you and I have got
• 3:41:12
  pull that face. That was my orgasm face.
• 3:41:15
  I'm not excited that. Didn't work.
• 3:41:21
  I was about to quote the Happiness Patrol.
• 3:41:22
  You know, two sides, one coin. Happiness must exist side by
• 3:41:28
  side with sadness and all that. And on that note, so our next
• 3:41:36
  episode, Joe, we're going right back to the beginning.
• 3:41:38
  We're going back to 1963. We're doing season one with
• 3:41:43
  William Hartnell's. That should be quite
• 3:41:45
  interesting. We are.
• 3:41:46
  Wow, that is an impressive guest.
• 3:41:52
  We've dug him up, dusted him down.
• 3:41:55
  Expect some casual racism on that episode, although it's very
• 3:41:59
  old because we did record that earlier in the week.
• 3:42:02
  Oh, you give away all the secrets.
• 3:42:04
  Can I just also say, though I don't think you mentioned it,
• 3:42:06
  Fraser's got a fabulous top sixty countdown review blog out
• 3:42:10
  there. Fraser what's it called?
• 3:42:12
  It's skies fullofdiamonds.wordpress.com.
• 3:42:16
  I should have mentioned that one.
• 3:42:17
  We should have went to that one to check.
• 3:42:19
  Full. Of stunning critique, brilliant
• 3:42:22
  writing. Well, I mean, you'd never know
• 3:42:24
  from his opinions on this episode, but it's a wonderful
• 3:42:28
  read. Check it out.
• 3:42:30
  That's it. Well, thanks guys.
• 3:42:32
  Thank you again for joining us. And Joe, it just remains for us
• 3:42:35
  to say. Keep.
• 3:42:38
  Listening. Good night.
• 3:42:40
  Everyone. Good night, Blue fucking
• 3:42:43
  Crystal. The.
• 3:43:57
  O I like the fact that Fraser took down the entire format as
• 3:44:00
  strictly come hamster in one of his arguments.
• 3:44:03
  I knew it was going to be a catastrophe of a new one.