Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Rod Brown about his choice of The Pirate Planet (3/4)
Transcript
- 0:23None. Hamster with a blunt.
- 0:34Pen knife for doing quicker, quicker, quicker.
- 0:39Welcome back to our hamster with a blunt pen knife, The Doctor
- 0:42Who Commentary podcast. Mr. Rob Brown.
- 0:46Hello. Hello Joe, we are loving the
- 0:49pirate planets at the moment. That's right, I was trying to
- 0:52think of some witty lion from the Pirate Planet to sort of
- 0:54introduce this with Burns. Of madness.
- 0:58Well, I know what I feel like saying on on strictly.
- 1:00Why am I encumbered by incompetence?
- 1:03Yeah, that's. Just the guess.
- 1:08What you're asking Moffett? Episodes.
- 1:10Not at all. Oh, you always say nothing yet.
- 1:16We are here for the Pirate Planet episode 3.
- 1:19Which I think is my favorite. Of the four.
- 1:22Of the four. Oh, I think 4 was my favorite,
- 1:24but I'll I'll get into that. Blistering scenes in this.
- 1:28And episode four, well, I'll tell you what, you know what?
- 1:31I'm going to jump straight in then, and I'm going to ask you
- 1:34to explain yourself, Sir. Well, we're going to get to it,
- 1:38but the scene with the Captain and Tom where Tom really loses
- 1:42his rag, I think it's possibly Tom's best scene in the whole of
- 1:46Doctor Who because he just feels off the leash.
- 1:49It doesn't feel acted. His voice cracks when he does
- 1:53that. What's it for his?
- 1:55It's just he's so full of rage and anger and the two of them
- 2:00play that so unbelievably brilliant.
- 2:03I mean, if that's, you know, has stand on the end of your arm
- 2:06during that scene, I just think that is stupendous.
- 2:10Why? You know, yes, I love thee.
- 2:12You know, there should the scenes in Genesis, but I just
- 2:16think, I think I knocked it out the hat.
- 2:19Tom doesn't lose control very often like that.
- 2:24That line reading of what's you remember what I said to you when
- 2:26we did this strictly on 7A and we did a tackle Mercy.
- 2:30And I said that the doctor's so angry he doesn't know.
- 2:34And this is another example of that, where he's just that the
- 2:38scale of what's going on is so inconceivable.
- 2:41He just loses it, doesn't he and the and the sort of the the
- 2:45death toll of what this must, you know, entail he.
- 2:50Sells that. He really sells that to me.
- 2:52When he's, you know, what could possibly be worth all this?
- 2:55He just sells. I don't think I've ever seen Tom
- 2:58act as well as in that scene. We're in a period now where
- 3:01obviously they cannot show us the scale.
- 3:04Remember when the Flux had that scene, that dreadful CGI scene
- 3:08of those people going, oh, there's a camera, That's the
- 3:11Flux. That's what that's what they're
- 3:13basically talking about here. Absolutely, because.
- 3:16We're all sold through a single brilliant performance.
- 3:19And I, yeah, people say in the 70s, you know, oh, well, it had
- 3:22all had to be done through the acting.
- 3:24Yeah. But look how effective that is.
- 3:26Yeah. Yeah, because we do.
- 3:28We do lose some. So obviously we're going to get
- 3:30to the bit where they want to mine quartz and they're going to
- 3:33mine Earth. We don't get, we don't get a
- 3:35shot of Earth, we don't get anything.
- 3:37Whereas in the modern series you'd have shots of Earth as we
- 3:40did in Run Score. I've call us, but we don't get
- 3:43any of those shotty because they haven't got the money to do
- 3:46that. So you lose that.
- 3:47Yes, they've introduced the threat being against us, but I
- 3:50don't think we ever really feel that because we don't see it.
- 3:53But the pay off for that is that we get great story, great
- 3:57twists, great dialogue, great acting.
- 3:59When when that lands, that joke about.
- 4:04The planet that they need to go to next.
- 4:06Is Earth. I think that's inspired because
- 4:09at that, at this point, we're like, OK, the Earth is not.
- 4:12Going to be involved. We're not in danger.
- 4:13It's fine. And then we don't know.
- 4:15When this is set, this could be now, literally now for us.
- 4:19The planet's about to come along and eat.
- 4:20Us up. And that comes right at the end
- 4:22of the story, yeah. It's great, isn't it?
- 4:24I think it's wonderful. Well, look, let's jump into
- 4:28three. Let's get into.
- 4:29Three, the lights that this has within the the box of delights,
- 4:34otherwise known as my TV count as in.
- 4:38And in 321. Diddly dumb.
- 4:43So is this. Your Is this your favorite title
- 4:45sequence? I think it's probably Mccoy's.
- 4:49Oh no, I my favorite as a Doctor Who fan is the first one.
- 4:54I just think there's, I just like the experimental nature of
- 4:58that first one and there's just that they were just throwing any
- 5:01weird thing out there and seeing what lands.
- 5:04This really hits for me because of those old compilation VH s s
- 5:09that they brought out and that's some of the first shots who I
- 5:12ever saw. So yes it does.
- 5:14But really the 1st I heard was the one in Battlefield.
- 5:17So it was Macaways was the first one I heard.
- 5:22Interesting. Oh, those evil zombies.
- 5:24You don't like the bit where the captain goes?
- 5:26I'm surrounded by competencies and evil zombies.
- 5:31And interfering doctors. Oh, he's so great.
- 5:37Oh, here they go. So the mentee had to gun to
- 5:39imprison the guards behind a psychic wall.
- 5:44OK, that's not too bad. That's not bad.
- 5:46The guns are so poor though. Aren't they the gun firing
- 5:49effect? It's the gun effect, yeah.
- 5:51It's that little BLOB. Whereas, you know, when they did
- 5:53it in Underworld and he actually had the lion and all that, I
- 5:56thought that was quite effective.
- 5:57Yeah, I would agree because. He's watched it this week, so
- 6:01no. Oh well, the action's over now,
- 6:05so he goes. I don't understand.
- 6:09Exciting, isn't it? Says Tom Paul Mueller.
- 6:13She's a bit bored sitting there on the floor.
- 6:18It's not often though you do get a side character like that going
- 6:22off and having their own plot like you said.
- 6:24No, I'm bonding with K9 straight away.
- 6:26I like that. I think it's great.
- 6:27Again, it's doing something. They're doing something with K9.
- 6:29He's not just a plot device, he's got a bit of a storyline of
- 6:32his own. The actress thanks Pellet
- 6:35Roberts for allowing her to go looking for her mother while
- 6:38they're in Wales. Oh, yes, yeah.
- 6:40Apparently she was delighted because she she was estranged
- 6:43from her mother and she found her, didn't she?
- 6:44Yeah, how bizarre is that? It's wonderful.
- 6:47Mark goes to me. Couldn't she have just gone to
- 6:49Wales? Anytime I'm saying they're
- 6:53expensive. From London, all right.
- 6:56It was the 70s for God's sake. I said it's.
- 6:58A fucking anecdote, all right? She just wants.
- 7:00Something to say. On the documentary, let her have
- 7:04her moment. We were in three working weeks.
- 7:07It wasn't money to spend on trains with the mentiards.
- 7:11I try and go around work a bit like that, you know, oh, all the
- 7:15stock hasn't been put out. It hasn't been put out.
- 7:19You need a little parrot on your shoulder.
- 7:21Joe I wasn't accused of being purchased, though.
- 7:23I was accused of being Brian Blessed.
- 7:27I love the way that polyphase sits on the dead body and just
- 7:30swivels its head around like a like an eagle or a bird of prey.
- 7:33It's quite. Sinister.
- 7:34Isn't it? Yeah.
- 7:36Because we don't actually see. And thank God we don't.
- 7:38Because, and it would have fucked it up, we don't actually
- 7:40see the the point of death. So we hear it.
- 7:44We hear and it's happened twice in two and three.
- 7:48We hear the scream. We see the body lying down with
- 7:51polyphase sat on the body and I think it works far better.
- 7:55I do love the bit where canine fights the polar phase out of a.
- 7:57Troll. Oh no no, that lets this episode
- 8:00down. Oh, I.
- 8:01Love it. It's because you know why he's
- 8:03got evil poo, isn't he? He's like, oh shit.
- 8:05And it loads people. It's just so badly directed
- 8:09that. But it's a fantastic idea,
- 8:12absolutely lovely idea. Nowadays, think about think
- 8:15about the Acrylitanes versus canine in School Reunion.
- 8:18It would be like that, wouldn't it?
- 8:19Yeah. I think it's just shot so
- 8:21ineptly. Oh man, this scene Rod, this
- 8:24exposition scene now. Yeah, this is again.
- 8:27This was the scene I thought you were talking about earlier when
- 8:30you said such a clever exposition.
- 8:32Scene. It is now this.
- 8:33Yeah. This is the one, yeah.
- 8:34Yeah, you've got Romana delivering lines.
- 8:36You've got the Doctor delivering lines.
- 8:37You just did once you went vanish, Yeah, Vanish.
- 8:42Everybody's involved. So you've got all these
- 8:44different persons like they're all discovering together, but
- 8:46they've kind of all got points to add, yes.
- 8:50And the plot was about, or the script was originally that the
- 8:52doctor was supposed to get irritated with Romana jumping
- 8:55in. Now, I much prefer the way they
- 8:57play it here because they're they're both of, they're both
- 9:00equals and they're both coming to the same conclusions.
- 9:03They're both delivering that exposition.
- 9:05And I think that's far better. Because you can see the horror
- 9:09as they're realizing. The people on this planet are
- 9:11realizing what's going on it. That's what makes the impact.
- 9:16Absolutely. And we've now cleared up the
- 9:18Mentiads are not the evil force. And I love that idea that
- 9:22they're absorbing the life force of the planet.
- 9:24Again. Such a really clever idea.
- 9:26These poor planets are being squashed and the life force, the
- 9:29Gaia, whatever you want to call it, is, is infecting the and
- 9:33creating the mentiads again. Really big bold ideas, aren't
- 9:37they? What I will say is that Chipnall
- 9:43himself says that he didn't have time to give Ramsgrav Kolos a
- 9:48second or third draft. He had run out of time at the
- 9:50end of the season. So that's his least favorite
- 9:53script as well. But what it does do is it kind
- 9:58of takes his ideas and shows if they're just presented as
- 10:02science fiction. Those ideas are.
- 10:06That if you don't have fun with them and if you don't present it
- 10:09as a as a mystery with suspense, then it is just a a wacky idea.
- 10:17And it was just, yeah, it was just lifeless, wasn't it?
- 10:19I remember when they started talking about planets.
- 10:21Oh gosh, just a pirate planet done badly.
- 10:23I mean, I do like it when she's got the planet in the rucksack
- 10:25on her back. That's quite nice visual.
- 10:30There are a few things I like about that episode, but how it
- 10:33handles these ideas is not one of them.
- 10:35No, which is a shame because you know, now they've got the budget
- 10:41to do these ideas brilliantly and in fact.
- 10:43They do the one. Thing there but they can't do
- 10:47here, which is show all the planets oh absolutely to life,
- 10:51you know. This matters not.
- 10:53A quark. A reference to a quark in there
- 10:55well. Praise will be happy.
- 11:00Oh, just how much business Mr. Fibly does?
- 11:03And the way mince is about it's. Glorious together, the two of
- 11:07them, aren't they? And now we're starting to talk
- 11:09about Queens Sanxia. So we had one reference to, I
- 11:12think in episode one, Balaton made some vague reference to,
- 11:15you know, spitting. You would have missed it.
- 11:17But now suddenly we're starting to introduce the legend of
- 11:20Queens Sanxia. So we get the history of the
- 11:23planet. Now this is again, and I can see
- 11:25why some people maybe don't bond with this.
- 11:28As I was saying right at the beginning, where there are quite
- 11:31a lot of talky exposition scenes.
- 11:33We got a lot of back history delivered via dialogue.
- 11:37It's a great dialogue. I'm not not.
- 11:41That's classic Doctor Who, though.
- 11:42There is action in classic Doctor Who, but there's a shit
- 11:45ton of talk as well. I'm just and I'd rather this
- 11:48than coming up time lash. I'm just trying to find reasons
- 11:51why this doesn't sing to people as much as some of the so-called
- 11:55classics. And I think this is, I think
- 11:57this should be up there in the top, certainly in the top ten of
- 12:00Toms. Oh, for sure.
- 12:02Yeah, easily in my top 50. This.
- 12:05Yeah, easily. Sorry, not Toms.
- 12:08I mean overall. Yes, yeah.
- 12:09Yeah, top 50. Times somewhere in his.
- 12:13Life 43, yeah. Is that how many he's got?
- 12:16OK. 41. I think it's because this is
- 12:19pandemic. I think that's why.
- 12:20I think it's because it's got large performances and you can't
- 12:24take it entirely seriously. And, you know, I love Toby Halo
- 12:28with all my heart. Yeah.
- 12:29But I know as a kid and sometimes as an adult that's
- 12:34sort of very serious. And Razzani, Genesis and the
- 12:36Daleks, that stuff that you can kind of show your mates and not
- 12:40be too embarrassed by. That's the stuff that's sort of
- 12:43held up. Heaven send, you know, very
- 12:46serious, very arty, very worthy. Doctor Who.
- 12:51No fucking fun. This is so fun.
- 12:53Maybe I'm just weird then because I like the series of say
- 12:56Series 9 and I love this as well so.
- 12:59Well, you are weird, yeah. Maybe I'm just weird.
- 13:01Yeah, well, you like it all. He.
- 13:06Had one or two. And even.
- 13:07There you like half of that season.
- 13:09We did, yeah. We haven't done Series 11 yet,
- 13:11no. No.
- 13:16We've got the two of them again, captain of Fibulae.
- 13:18They they did a lot of business, didn't they?
- 13:20Well, it's the the person in charge of the subordinate.
- 13:23It's Iron Gron and Blood Axe. It's Rugger and brotha Dak.
- 13:27Yeah. It's it's always fun.
- 13:30But again, they're they're also filling in the other side of the
- 13:32story that Tom's just been talking about.
- 13:35So how the captain first came to the planet.
- 13:37So he's telling us the other you would not be able to distinguish
- 13:41it from magic. I built it rot after a Blum
- 13:45penknife with my bare hands. This vile, lumbering planet.
- 13:53Because you see with he's telling us now there is more to
- 13:55it now. We don't know at this stage that
- 13:57he's got another plan. So what?
- 14:01He was pulled out of the wreckage, right?
- 14:03So he. Was carved by Zanxia.
- 14:05Zanxia basically turned him into this half what, Cyborg?
- 14:09I guess half robot and then as a result.
- 14:13Then he built. The pirate planet for her.
- 14:16Correct with the planet to one side, which is this kind of
- 14:21secret because that's why he's going to want to use to disrupt
- 14:24the time dams to kill her off. I mean, it's very clever.
- 14:27It's a sort of storytelling that gets me really excited.
- 14:30Yeah. It all ties out.
- 14:32It's very, very clever. It's very neat, and we get it.
- 14:36You know that old cliche of an onion?
- 14:37You peel away a layer. But this really does.
- 14:39It's almost. Better to time.
- 14:41Baffling. To think that Underworld was
- 14:44just four stories ago. There's.
- 14:46No, just. There's no just.
- 14:48Which is as. Dull as science?
- 14:50Fiction can possibly come. But I mean in terms of the.
- 14:53Story Underworld, You know. Rebels, you know.
- 14:56It's going to. Find our ancestors on a mad
- 14:59computer. So this.
- 15:01One story and then a couple of bombs at the end, yeah.
- 15:04But this goes to show you what happens when new creatives come
- 15:08in, isn't it? Anthony Reed stepped in.
- 15:10Now, Douglas Adams, you know, fertile imaginations and.
- 15:14This is his first. I mean, this is his first script
- 15:16for Doctor Who. It feels like he's been doing it
- 15:18for years, doesn't it? He's a very, very accomplished
- 15:21script for first timer. I love the story on the
- 15:24documentary of his brother talking about what the house was
- 15:27like when Douglas was writing. Apparently he's in his room
- 15:30writing the Pirate Planet and it's absolute silence.
- 15:34And then, you know, after an hour or that, suddenly there's
- 15:36this mad bashing on the typewriter and then it all goes
- 15:39wrong. And all you can hear is.
- 15:42And then he starts bashing away at the.
- 15:44Typewriter again, you know. So by all accounts, he was sort
- 15:47of a mad genius, but mad being. What?
- 15:52And genius being the word as well, because it is genius.
- 15:55This is such a clever script. So we've just missed Tom trying
- 16:00to steal an air car for the second time.
- 16:02And of course, cleverly, the guards have woken up to it now
- 16:05and they were ready for him, so he mobilised him.
- 16:08Trivia. Who's incompetent cretins?
- 16:16He's just doing this mad theatrical sighing in the
- 16:19foreground. He's.
- 16:20Brilliant, isn't it? So now we've got the first
- 16:22reference to. We don't know that's quartz yet,
- 16:24but we're starting to throw that little seed in.
- 16:28That's the word though, how this script seeds in things that then
- 16:32pay off later. Yes, it is so, so clever.
- 16:35And again, the nurses in the background, we just missed that
- 16:38one shot where she was sat in in the captain's chair actually
- 16:41hugging her leg. And you think that's odd body
- 16:43language for a nurse. So as you said earlier, bit by
- 16:47bit she's starting to go. But then again, she's in the
- 16:49background here, listening all the time.
- 16:52There's a vital line there where Mr. Fiboli, when I should point
- 16:55out so it is a heavily populated planet.
- 16:58Well minded Mr. Fiboli. And that just goes to show they
- 17:02have got to be stopped. Yes, another planet think of.
- 17:06Those people from the flux towards the planet.
- 17:10We could have been saved the flux.
- 17:13Oh no, come on. This is gorgeous and you know
- 17:16it. Oh, now I love this.
- 17:20Canine's going to get so again, lots of fans of a certain age
- 17:25hated canine, and I probably was of the age that I should have
- 17:29hated canine. I fucking loved canine.
- 17:33Lots of fans of boggy Welsh countryside are going to be
- 17:37happy as well, as Romana now just gets across the landscape
- 17:40for a little while. Oh, here we go.
- 17:43No more Jonah thorns. No more Jane.
- 17:46Yeah. Oh.
- 17:47Genesis Thorn Isn't that an out of work?
- 17:48Actress. She's an actress.
- 17:50Yeah. She was an underworld.
- 17:51She was one of the extras. He's got some sweat on his face
- 17:54as well, of course. And again, Bruce Purchase has
- 17:58toned it right the way down. South Rod, you have discovered
- 18:02the secret of our little podcast, have you?
- 18:08They're just eyeing each other up.
- 18:11I should say about. Strictly, strictly.
- 18:12Come, hamster, I'm gratified that you can.
- 18:14Appreciate it. I've been tied to better by.
- 18:17I've been tied to pillars by better men than you, Joe Ford.
- 18:21I'm going. To take this joke to It's
- 18:22natural I. Appreciate it for you commit
- 18:26opinions and atrocities on a scale that's always
- 18:30inconceivable, and you asked me to appreciate it.
- 18:33Just because you slag off Lugopolis?
- 18:38And leave the mummified remains of the.
- 18:40Cast of Fenrick. On canines flying an airship all
- 18:46on his own. Of course he is.
- 18:49Like this, he's using the Warriors code against him.
- 18:53You should have thought about that before you locked me up.
- 18:58Hounds of hell. You know Tom Baker could wind
- 19:03anybody up. But who?
- 19:03Can they? Oh God, yeah.
- 19:04Couldn't. He just.
- 19:06Look at the scale of the set. You them in the foreground there
- 19:09and they do love these concentric patterns on the floor
- 19:12the. Then the Graham Williams.
- 19:13Era. Yeah, but it just keeps it very
- 19:15fluid, doesn't it? We're not just constantly
- 19:17pointing the camera in One Direction the set when we're
- 19:20back. Mueller was showing a bit of leg
- 19:21there. Did you notice?
- 19:22I did don't look like the the camping set from carry on
- 19:26camping in the middle of winter. It just looks very bad and
- 19:31wintry. Yeah, what are they?
- 19:33Tombstones. Memorials to other worlds?
- 19:36Huge ideas. Come on, why do you love this
- 19:42scene so much? It's just the acting.
- 19:44It is just, it's Tom. I've never seen Tom this angry
- 19:50and he just acts in a slightly different way.
- 19:52Almost feels like he's gone beyond that, if that makes
- 19:56sense. It feels more real to him.
- 19:58I just love his, I think his delivery.
- 20:01The lighting is beautiful. And the lighting is.
- 20:03Beautiful. The lines.
- 20:04The lines are fantastic. The dialogue, just everything
- 20:07about it. They're big, big ideas.
- 20:09They're just everything. About it, They're being asked to
- 20:12sell. Yes.
- 20:14Huge techna Babble as well and yet it just trips off their
- 20:17tongues. Yes.
- 20:20And really look at the set they're in.
- 20:22It's a tiny little confined set, but by Christ, they're selling
- 20:28every inch out of it, aren't they?
- 20:30We could be next to billions of tons of terrible critique and
- 20:34not even be aware. Of it.
- 20:35Oh, I think we're always aware of that.
- 20:39I never shut up, that's why. Concept is simply staggering.
- 20:43Pointless, but staggering. I'm gratified you could
- 20:47appreciate it, Rod. Appreciate, appreciate it, Bitsy
- 20:53stumbles over his words, and not in a Billy Fluff kind of way.
- 20:57I think the drama, because he's so angry of that line.
- 21:00You commit master structure on murder on a scale that's almost
- 21:04inconceivable. That is a tough line to deliver.
- 21:07Devil Storm's doctor, It is not a toy.
- 21:12Yeah, and then that just that hysteria in his voice.
- 21:15And they're both. And look at Bruce Purchase.
- 21:17He's kind of moving towards him as though he wants to hit him.
- 21:20It's just the soap much penta brage between the two of them.
- 21:23And think about this era, you could so easily overplay this,
- 21:28you know? Yes.
- 21:29Yeah. Like, as much as we love the
- 21:31Horns of Nimon, there isn't a moment of drama like that in it,
- 21:34no. I think it's a shame they didn't
- 21:37cut at that point actually, because we go back to a slightly
- 21:40gentler tone. Want Tom doing bizarre shapes
- 21:43with his hands? He can't.
- 21:45Help it can. I wish we'd just cut it at that
- 21:47point. And just so, now we're back in
- 21:50Willy. Wales.
- 21:51That is comfortably one of the best moments in classic Who?
- 21:54Oh. Absolutely, 100%.
- 21:56And it's just so perfectly encapsulates classic Doctor Who
- 22:01in that it is huge ideas captured between two actors.
- 22:05Yes, in a tiny little set. Like and it just stimulates the
- 22:10imagination. I can't.
- 22:13I mean I didn't watch this that young.
- 22:14I was AI was a teenager when I saw this but I imagine like an 8
- 22:17year old watching this. So I was what, 12 watching this?
- 22:24Absolutely nothing. This is great because he goes to
- 22:27get the key and then he goes to stamp him.
- 22:29So it's really sadistic, isn't it?
- 22:31And you can see how how many inches his shoes are raised by
- 22:35to give him height 0. My God, he's going to have his
- 22:37brilliant line than him, you hideous murdering maniac.
- 22:41And again, you've got Kemus and Tom in the front, you've got the
- 22:43pirate captain behind, slightly blurred, but he's listening to
- 22:47what they're saying because Tom thinks he's got the upper hand
- 22:50here because the mentiads can save them.
- 22:52But obviously the captain and I love that with Tom.
- 22:55And the timing, here he goes. Absolutely William Max.
- 22:59Knife five, Yes. And the crystals from Calia
- 23:02fracs. Oh.
- 23:03No, he goes. My dramatic irony is at an all
- 23:05time low. It's so.
- 23:07Funny, I got that. Line wrong then didn't.
- 23:10I was the line. Sorry my my biorhythms must be a
- 23:14small time low so. Great.
- 23:19I used to throw these lines into everyday conversation.
- 23:22I'll bet you nobody had. Any idea what the hell I was
- 23:24talking? About you know, Rod, you're the
- 23:26classic example of an inverse ratio between the size of the
- 23:28mouth and the size of the brain. Thank you, Joe.
- 23:31Oh. Go and throw one at me.
- 23:35Hideous murdering maniac. Oh.
- 23:38Thank you. I wanted to see how it worked,
- 23:43so I dismantled it. There's just so many grails
- 23:46around. Oh, so now we've gone.
- 23:50Qualifies alpha Tron versus K9. Everyone's very static.
- 23:57It is shockingly badly directed. If only the.
- 24:01Best episode of the of the story.
- 24:03It is, and we've gone from that superb scene.
- 24:06I love, love love the idea. I do wonder if.
- 24:13Sort of totally having that huge.
- 24:16Traumatic moment followed up by a sort of a kiddie action
- 24:19sequence with a parrot and a robot dog bite each other.
- 24:23If sort of just opposing those scenes is a bit jarring, that's.
- 24:26Doctor Who, isn't it? Yeah, I guess so.
- 24:28Yeah, because you're trying to appeal to the kids.
- 24:30And the adults, yeah. So I guess it's doing both.
- 24:34Just in quick. Succession it.
- 24:36Just happens. It's a great idea.
- 24:39It just loves crap. Nevermind, it's very funny when
- 24:43the doctor comes in with the parrot and my polyphase have a
- 24:48troll. It's.
- 24:50Very. Funny, I've.
- 24:53Gone Audley Telephone. Is this where we find that or a
- 24:56blown woman in the time dance? Yes, look at that.
- 24:59Now that looks great. Oh, bless her, she looks
- 25:01ghastly. Terrible, didn't she?
- 25:03Yeah, apparently she asked for an extra feed to take out a
- 25:06false teeth. Bless her.
- 25:10And it goes well. We were showing her not quite at
- 25:13her best. So.
- 25:14I'd like to think what her best was.
- 25:17She was a great beauty back in the day.
- 25:20OK, when was the day? I think that's a really
- 25:23effective shot though. Incredibly.
- 25:26Again, they've they've got a good lighting designer on this
- 25:29story. Because she almost looks like a
- 25:32dummy. Capturing the drama and there's
- 25:34a lot of low lighting, you know? There is, there is.
- 25:38And that just means all the shadows on everyone's faces are
- 25:40long. Oh, she just blinked.
- 25:43Oh, does she? Oh.
- 25:44That's good, actually, because you know that she is.
- 25:46Because it could be a dummy. Well, that blink technically
- 25:49took her 5 1/2 years. They should have done, yeah,
- 25:51should be in a very slow blink. And there's the door that was on
- 25:55the outside of the train tunnel. Before, I mean, it's all part of
- 25:59the same place. That's quite clever.
- 26:01Or just reusing. Something that's fact.
- 26:03I just love the idea that, you know, they are eating up entire
- 26:07worlds just to keep that wizard old frag alive.
- 26:12Did I say? Crag.
- 26:18Oh no, she plays again. And now she's.
- 26:20Looking around. Would you go to those levels,
- 26:24Joe, to stay alive? Oh no, not in this world I
- 26:29wouldn't. Know if I can go a little sooner
- 26:31actually, please, someone said to me the other day what
- 26:35wouldn't you choose to be young again?
- 26:37I went no thank you. I.
- 26:40Remember that plus? I remember what an impetuous,
- 26:43bloody youth I was as well. Oh, Cane, I'm bringing in like
- 26:47like a dog that's bringing in a dead bird.
- 26:51So I think season 16 is the gear of canine, you know?
- 26:54Without a doubt. It's the year where we get the
- 26:57joke. Don't stop at all corners.
- 27:00It's the. Year where he gets the scenes
- 27:01with Amelia Rumford. Beautiful.
- 27:04And it's also the year where he gets to do is really have me
- 27:06acting in the Armageddon. Factor he goes into exactly.
- 27:09The Doctor is dead, Master. Oh, I thought you meant where he
- 27:13goes into the the heat tunnel we all think he's going to burn to
- 27:16death. I love that beer, I.
- 27:18Know me too. You mean when he plays the and
- 27:21he plays the Trojan horse? Yeah.
- 27:23Brilliant. Wonderful.
- 27:24They know how to use them at this point.
- 27:26Well, Bob Baker. And they fly into, don't they?
- 27:28They don't. They they're like, we're on to a
- 27:30good thing with these royalties. We'll give him loads of those.
- 27:35So, Doctor, you have survived. That's such a Doctor Who lying.
- 27:42He goes, my colleagues are dead, and so he just turns his thumb
- 27:45down. Well, he doesn't actually say
- 27:46they're dead. He doesn't tell you, just points
- 27:48down and you've gone down to the engine room.
- 27:50It's actually it's quite clever. You absolutely cannot have a
- 27:53pirate story without the Doctor walking the bag.
- 27:56I mean, it's inevitable. I think it's the best
- 28:00cliffhanger of the three. Oh, definitely.
- 28:02It's one of the best cliffhangers of all time, I
- 28:04think. Yeah, and it's silent.
- 28:06There's no dialogue. Actually, that music is very
- 28:09Blake 7. All those horns coming in.
- 28:11Yeah. No, stop rolling your eyes up at
- 28:14Blake Seven. It was very popular, you know.
- 28:16Yeah, I quite like Blake 7, but come on, it's not a patch on
- 28:19this. Well, it doesn't have the humour
- 28:22and the eccentricity. It's sort of like the I find
- 28:27Blake. 'S get like rough score around
- 28:28with colos. Oh, ain't that bad.
- 28:30No, more like sort of the power of control, you know, that level
- 28:34of series. Oh.
- 28:34That's got brilliant humour in that.
- 28:37Well, it's more subtle than this.
- 28:38Oh yeah, anything's more subtle. Benny Hill's more subtle.
- 28:43Than this. Oh, I still love that sequence
- 28:45though. They're leading him to his
- 28:50death. What a great scene.
- 28:52The planks come out. And he literally dances on the
- 28:54edge, doesn't he? He's like.
- 28:56Captain, you don't understand. A plank.
- 29:00The theory is very simple. Walk along it.
- 29:02At the end, you fall off you. Can't be.
- 29:05Serious but. The drop's good too, because
- 29:09very often when people drop off things in Doctor Who, you can
- 29:13actually kind of see them arrive at the bottom or bounce up a
- 29:16little bit. But you don't.
- 29:17He drops and he's gone. And the pay off I think to this.
- 29:20Cliff. Oh yeah.
- 29:22Is gold. It is stupendous.
- 29:25I like the fact he went. You can't be serious.
- 29:28Is he he? Gives a bit of Pivoli.
- 29:31And it gives Chomma shots. Look, I mean, even Mary's doing
- 29:34a bit of business, isn't he on the end of last?
- 29:36Years. And here's our three villains
- 29:38gathered together, cackling maniacally.
- 29:41What better ending for a Doctor Who episode Just.
- 29:44You're right, that is a brilliant episode, but just
- 29:48because the Four was my favorite, just because it pays
- 29:51everything off so satisfactorily.
- 29:52Yeah, yeah, yeah. And still manages to have a Star
- 29:56Trek ending with a load of techno Babble I don't
- 29:58understand. And two explosions.
- 30:01The Mary town goes. That's very clever.
- 30:02I'll go. I'll take your word for it.
- 30:04I didn't. Understand the words.
- 30:06Yeah, but I had it on audio, so I'll listen to it a few 1000
- 30:08times to work out what was going.
- 30:10On well, you can tell me then what he does at the end to fill
- 30:13up that planet. He drops all the planets into
- 30:16the hole, the planets all expand.
- 30:18Zanuck then disappears and all the planets expand, bounce off
- 30:22each other, and go flying across the Galaxy.
- 30:25Oh, he doesn't say it quite like that, though.
- 30:27Does. He No, I'm paraphrasing.
- 30:29And he also says it about five times the speed of that.
- 30:31Yeah. But then that's what allows them
- 30:33to go and chase Califax to go and pick it up.
- 30:36I actually think Tom Baker and David Tennant and Matt Smith to
- 30:40an extent, but definitely David Tennant have the same skill that
- 30:43they can reel off the techno Babble at such a pace that you
- 30:48don't even. Care whether you understand, you
- 30:51just go. It's it's done that with so much
- 30:52conviction. You're like.
- 30:53I believe it. Yeah.
- 30:54All right. I'm on board.
- 30:57And maybe you know. All Doctor Who scripts need an
- 30:59accent like that. Because John would have just
- 31:01rubbed the back of his neck and said, oh, should we reverse the
- 31:04polarity of the neutron flow? Can't we give this line to
- 31:07Katie? No.
- 31:11Well, absolutely delightful. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant,
- 31:14brilliant. Are you ready a conclusion of
- 31:17this epic story? No.
- 31:18Because I don't want to say goodbye to her because I'm
- 31:20enjoying it too much. Well, tough we've got to do.
- 31:22It.