Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Strictly Come Hamster - Season 18 (featuring Lucy McCaul & Jim Allenby)

Transcript

Strictly Come Hamster - Season 18 (featuring Lucy McCaul & Jim Allenby) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:34
  Welcome back to Strictly Cum Hamster.
• 0:37
  I am one of your hosts today, Mr. Joe Ford and I'm going to
• 0:42
  hand you over to my Co host now. The sorry Rod to embarrass you.
• 0:48
  Handsome, charismatic, warm, wonderful, excellent scheduler,
• 0:56
  and all round terrific human being, Mr. Rod Brown.
• 1:00
  Take it away, Rod. In the words of season 18, I am
• 1:03
  nothing but a humble assistant. And then I do a namely cuckold.
• 1:07
  But I can't do one of those. Well, you still aren't getting
• 1:09
  paid, all right? Wow, I try.
• 1:11
  Every time I try, it doesn't work.
• 1:14
  Well, Great to be back, and obviously last time we discussed
• 1:17
  season 11, Jon Perk was final season where we talked about a
• 1:21
  soft reboot. We talked about a slightly
• 1:24
  changed Doctor. We talked about regeneration,
• 1:26
  beard spiders, unconvincing rubber monsters, dodgy CSO, and
• 1:31
  some terrible padding. So tonight, completely changed.
• 1:35
  We're going to talk about a soft reboot, a changed Doctor,
• 1:38
  regeneration beard spiders, rubber monsters, CSO and
• 1:43
  padding. So we are either in a chronic
• 1:46
  hysteresis or we're talking about season 18.
• 1:48
  Oh, well done, Rod. You really did that way.
• 1:53
  The similarities are. As a as a complete side note,
• 1:56
  Can you believe right, someone gave because this has gone out
• 1:59
  now. So I can say this an astonishing
• 2:02
  defence of the monster of peloton, so convincing that all
• 2:07
  of us voted it in. Wow.
• 2:11
  Amazing. Them into silence.
• 2:12
  You're setting the bar high there.
• 2:13
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so guys, I'm expecting
• 2:16
  some magic around some of these stories.
• 2:20
  And as you probably already heard, we have two special guest
• 2:23
  stars with us again today to help us decide which of our
• 2:26
  stories from Season 18 is going to lift the Lucasian glitter
• 2:29
  ball and which we're going to send home to Peas Pottage.
• 2:32
  So let's welcome today's guests. Lucy, would you like to
• 2:36
  introduce yourself? Hello, How do you mean to
• 2:40
  introduce myself? I'm Lucy.
• 2:42
  I've been on some of Joe's podcasts and occasionally popped
• 2:46
  up on Trap One and things, so it's nice to be here.
• 2:49
  Lucy, which ones have we done now?
• 2:52
  Oh goodness, we did calls of Axos.
• 2:54
  Visitation. Visitation.
• 2:57
  School reunion. Underwater menace?
• 3:01
  Oh yes. Oh, Planet of Fire, Planet of
• 3:06
  Evil. And Planet of Evil, yeah.
• 3:08
  Lots of planets. We've got more planets to come
• 3:10
  Go and go and check her out. She's fabulous.
• 3:14
  And Jim, we also joined by Jim. Hello, Hello everybody.
• 3:20
  Yeah, my name is Jim and I've been on a few of Joe's podcasts.
• 3:26
  Also been on some of some of Dave Rennie's podcast as well
• 3:30
  and I have my own podcast as well which is I hope you don't
• 3:34
  mind me plugging called What's in the Box which I started up a
• 3:38
  few months ago and I'm already exhausted so I'm going to be
• 3:42
  having a break for a month I think.
• 3:45
  Well, I was one of your early guests on the German.
• 3:47
  I can attest it's a fabulous podcast.
• 3:49
  Oh, thank you very much. It's lots of fun to record.
• 3:52
  Lots and lots of fun, but takes a lot of prep work.
• 3:56
  Right. OK, so before we get into the
• 3:58
  stories themselves, let's just have 5 minutes talking about the
• 4:01
  season as a whole, what everyone's thoughts on season
• 4:05
  18, just in a snapshot. How do you feel about it, Lucy?
• 4:09
  I like it, mostly. I think it has an odd sort of
• 4:13
  feel to it. For me, it doesn't quite feel
• 4:16
  like a coat. When I watched it, it didn't
• 4:18
  feel sort of like a coherent whole.
• 4:20
  Some of the seasons you can sort of.
• 4:23
  The stories all seem to slot into each other, and this felt a
• 4:27
  bit. I suppose it's moving towards
• 4:29
  what happened with later seasons where you don't really don't
• 4:35
  know what you're going to get the next week.
• 4:36
  And it could be something completely different, and it
• 4:38
  often is. But in this case, having been
• 4:41
  through seasons that had a sort of feel about them, even if the
• 4:46
  stories were different, this one didn't feel quite like that.
• 4:51
  I I love canine. Canine's brilliant.
• 4:55
  And the The Doctor and Ramona very good too.
• 5:00
  I should probably confess now that Adric was my first TV crush
• 5:03
  when I was 8. Oh come.
• 5:06
  On. I was very upset when he got
• 5:08
  blown up. I thought that was terrible.
• 5:12
  Now, not so much, but you know, things move on.
• 5:16
  But yeah, it's but so I I mean, I I I like the episodes that
• 5:21
  he's in. I it just felt a bit sort of as
• 5:26
  if it was pieces rather than a continue.
• 5:29
  I'm not talking about a continuous story out because I
• 5:31
  don't really like those either, but it just there was no kind of
• 5:35
  they didn't seem to be any kind of internal logic to it the way
• 5:38
  it went on. Interesting gem.
• 5:43
  Season 18 for me, there's there's there's large chunks of
• 5:48
  it that feel very familiar to me because I saw them when I was a
• 5:52
  when I was a kid on VHS. And there are other chunks of it
• 5:57
  or the stories that I didn't see until much later when I was
• 6:02
  maybe a teenager. So I never really experienced
• 6:07
  the season as a as a kind of continuous thing.
• 6:09
  It was it was bits of it at different stages and only when
• 6:14
  I've gone back and re watched it in in kind of like a marathon
• 6:21
  I've really experienced it in in probably what the way it was
• 6:25
  intended to be watched. So I think it's I think it's a
• 6:28
  it's a very odd season mainly because it's so different.
• 6:34
  Well it's not different totally but it is quite different from
• 6:36
  what went before it. And it almost feels like it's, I
• 6:41
  mean we'll get into it but it feels like it's somebody's taken
• 6:44
  the show by the scruff of the neck and said right and kind of
• 6:48
  try to sort it out a little bit. It's it does feel like the end
• 6:55
  of an era, but the beginning of a new era at the same time.
• 6:58
  So I kind of wonder if it would have been better starting this
• 7:03
  season with with Peter instead of ending with Tom, if that
• 7:09
  makes any sense. It's it's I think it's the first
• 7:15
  kind of occasion where we've had a kind of a through arc through
• 7:22
  the through the stories which I quite like and it's quite a it's
• 7:25
  quite a a modern way of you know storytelling these days.
• 7:30
  Whereas back then it wasn't wasn't so much you know you had
• 7:32
  the key to time arc and you had a you had a few other you know
• 7:37
  mini arcs throughout the throughout the series.
• 7:40
  But this feel, this feels like it's more of a more of a
• 7:44
  complete kind of storyline running through it.
• 7:48
  And yeah, but it's it's there are UPS and there are downs and
• 7:55
  it's been really interesting re watching it over the last few
• 7:59
  days to kind of trying to get get my own kind of grips on it
• 8:04
  really. And I love the dynamic between
• 8:08
  the 4th Doctor and Adric. I absolutely love it.
• 8:11
  I think it's something so different and I think because
• 8:14
  it's so short lived as well, you know could have done without
• 8:17
  having Nyssa and Tegan turnover as much as I like those
• 8:20
  characters. But I think it was a it was a
• 8:22
  great kind of combination once Romana had gone to have the 4th
• 8:27
  Doctor and and address because it's not really anything that
• 8:30
  we've kind of seen before with the 4th Doctor.
• 8:33
  So yeah, it's a yeah, it's an interesting, it's an interesting
• 8:38
  season, but I'm sure we'll get to the the highs and the lows as
• 8:41
  we go through each story. Absolutely, Joe.
• 8:46
  Well, like, you know when you trade something with a friend
• 8:49
  when you're younger, you know, and you give them something
• 8:52
  really amazing and annoyingly you get something really shit
• 8:56
  back from them. That's what season 18 feels like
• 8:59
  for me. You start off with the 4th
• 9:01
  Doctor, Romana and Canine, and you end with the 5th Doctor at
• 9:05
  the T gallon Nyssa. Now I know, I know.
• 9:08
  Lucy, don't you come at me now. You got so in the.
• 9:14
  Shade already. It's a weird trade off season 18
• 9:19
  because I think JNT comes in and completely revolutionizes how
• 9:24
  the show looks. He pours in money, He makes it
• 9:27
  look more expensive and more stylish.
• 9:29
  The music, I think it's a bit of an upgrade because it's
• 9:33
  different from story to story, but the trade off is you lose
• 9:37
  the humour that I love in the Douglas Adams time and I think
• 9:41
  the character work suffers a little bit as well.
• 9:44
  On the whole it's a weird one. Going back and sort of watching
• 9:50
  this for this, I really thought I loved season 18 and I've come
• 9:54
  away with, without giving away the spoilers, four to recommend
• 9:59
  and three to boot out. And I wouldn't have thought that
• 10:01
  was the case going in. Yeah, Sly Heart's going to
• 10:07
  assassinate me now off and. All of that.
• 10:09
  And I've. Barely begun as well, but I do.
• 10:13
  I do think it is a it does feel like a bold new era for the
• 10:19
  show. I don't know how long that
• 10:21
  feeling lasts. And in terms of like Lucy said
• 10:25
  that it doesn't feel coherent, Jim said it feels sort of Arc
• 10:29
  based. I think this is the only season
• 10:32
  of Classic Who that feels like a new Who season insofar as it
• 10:37
  almost invisibly introduces ideas in its story that all
• 10:42
  cohere in Lagopolis in a in a ish.
• 10:46
  Yeah, as well as the Classic series is ever going to do it.
• 10:51
  And I do think Christopher H bid Me does have a tone and a style
• 10:56
  and the smarts as well to to bring.
• 11:00
  I I would love to have seen another couple of years for a
• 11:03
  bit made actually just to see what he would have done.
• 11:05
  But yeah, it's it's a good year. I don't know if it's a great
• 11:08
  year and I prefer 17. So I'm not sure we're going in
• 11:11
  the right direction. OK, interesting.
• 11:14
  So as we established in the last podcast, I am incredibly old, so
• 11:18
  have very strong memories of watching this first time around.
• 11:22
  Lucy, I saw you nodding then. No.
• 11:25
  No, I'm not. Saying you're incredibly old.
• 11:26
  I'm saying I'm I'm too. I I don't remember watching it
• 11:29
  the first time around. I may have done or I may have
• 11:32
  seen repeats because I have some memories of episodes that I
• 11:35
  thought the 5th Doctor was in. But then when I watched the when
• 11:38
  I watched it back he wasn't so. But the first episode I remember
• 11:42
  watching ever is the last episode of Lugopolis.
• 11:47
  I don't remember anything, but I presumably I watched the rest of
• 11:50
  the story. I've no idea, but I just
• 11:52
  remember the end of it. But I was literally born between
• 11:55
  soldied and Pangol. Me.
• 11:58
  So. This is literally where I came
• 11:59
  into existence, the leisure of. Well unfortunately I was 14 at
• 12:04
  this stage so yeah it was a it was a strange season for me and
• 12:08
  we'll we'll no doubt such a little later on.
• 12:10
  So I won't, I won't throw too much now but it was a bit of a
• 12:13
  culture shock at the time. I must have made going from and
• 12:17
  your your guys experience of of kind of taking and choosing and
• 12:20
  seeing bits is obviously very different to seeing it all going
• 12:23
  through the first time. It was a massive shock to the
• 12:27
  system to go from Homes of nine on episode 4 and then nine
• 12:30
  months later open up with the Leisure Hive part one and we
• 12:34
  will come to that story later on.
• 12:35
  But yeah, it's a shocking difference.
• 12:40
  I agree with what everyone said. I think it's a bit of a cure
• 12:42
  attack of a of a series. Yeah.
• 12:46
  It's going to be interesting to discuss.
• 12:47
  I'm a bit like you, Joe. I thought going into it.
• 12:49
  I was going, I mean I've I've known these stories back to
• 12:51
  front. I was one of those very sad
• 12:53
  people that audio taped it off the TV in the in the day,
• 12:56
  thinking I was the only person in the world that would think of
• 12:58
  doing that. So I listen.
• 13:00
  You've got to remember is if it wasn't for people like you, we
• 13:04
  wouldn't have those soundtracks in those early releases.
• 13:06
  Very true. But I listen to these hundreds.
• 13:09
  I mean, I spent all my university years, people would
• 13:12
  walk past my room and think, what the hell is going on?
• 13:13
  Because all I had constantly was Doctor Who Soundtracker.
• 13:18
  So yeah, I mean, I know these stories back to front, but I'm
• 13:21
  watching it again with a critical view here.
• 13:23
  Yeah, you do see different things.
• 13:25
  So I'm a bit like you, Joe. I've got some that I thought I
• 13:28
  would love, that I didn't love quite as much, which is odd
• 13:31
  after all these years. But yeah, we'll no doubt get
• 13:33
  into that when we get to the series.
• 13:35
  But I do so, like, because I think we've all given a sort of
• 13:37
  mixed reading of the season. I do think there is some
• 13:40
  absolute gold in here. Like there's a couple of stories
• 13:44
  that are absolutely blinding. But the interesting thing is,
• 13:46
  are we going to agree which those stories are?
• 13:48
  Well, let's find out. Shall we jump first of all?
• 13:52
  So we've asked for for comments on the individual stories, but
• 13:54
  we were absolutely inundated with with comments on this
• 13:58
  season overall. So if we go through those first
• 14:01
  before we get into round one, we've got to start with.
• 14:04
  Science it goes to me, It goes to me.
• 14:06
  Can we have some get some comments in for this And then
• 14:08
  when they started rolling in like an avalanche, he's like,
• 14:12
  no, obviously people. Are very passionate about season
• 14:15
  18. Sy Heart.
• 14:17
  You mentioned him earlier, Joe. He loves it.
• 14:21
  He certainly does, he said. It's my favorite season.
• 14:23
  I love them all. But but the special love for the
• 14:25
  Leisure High full Circle and Lacopoulos that will never be
• 14:28
  broken. Oh gosh, I'm going to break him
• 14:30
  later on Then my favorite TARDIS team at the start.
• 14:33
  Beautiful music, glorious visuals.
• 14:35
  It's one of the very best. Richard Marsden Is it is that
• 14:40
  Richard Marsden? It is.
• 14:41
  It is. Oh well, he had life and
• 14:43
  scandalous times of J&T. Well, you know, I think or two
• 14:46
  about season 18 then, wouldn't it?
• 14:48
  Says I drifted away from Doctor Who in 1979.
• 14:51
  It was watching the repeats of Full Circle and Keeper track and
• 14:54
  in particular which brought me back both Lush Productions and
• 14:57
  Tom acting rather than mugging Love the sense of doom in
• 15:00
  Lagopolis and Tegan's Arrival. Mark Dodex had such a good
• 15:04
  season, brimming with interesting ideas, visuals and
• 15:07
  sense music. The flair and confidence of the
• 15:09
  incoming production team, combined with Big Meet's new
• 15:12
  tone of storytelling, led to Magic results, Leisure, Hive,
• 15:15
  Warriors, Gate and Keeper of Track, and a top tier.
• 15:18
  Who for me? That doesn't sound right.
• 15:20
  You know Mark Doddick without a Scott's accent.
• 15:22
  Like I wasn't going to do that. The paradise of Jeff.
• 15:25
  Oh, that's lovely, Jeff Goddard says.
• 15:27
  My first season as a kid full of absolute bangers.
• 15:30
  Jeez, we're going to upset some people with this episode full of
• 15:33
  absolute bangers and a season I think holds up today.
• 15:37
  What a math magical season. Oh Jeff, what a way to fire a
• 15:41
  kids imagination and scared and silly at the same time.
• 15:45
  Ian Winston said I was 8 when this ad, and God help me, it was
• 15:49
  the first time I felt Doctor Who wasn't as good as it used to be.
• 15:52
  It didn't help. I've got it into my head, thanks
• 15:54
  to Destiny, that every series started with The Dalek
• 15:57
  Adventure, but the new titles hated them and every adventure
• 16:01
  scene cheap like it was filmed in the white blue.
• 16:03
  Peter, Studio Warriors Gate especially, he says in Big
• 16:07
  Capsules. As an adult Series 18 is one of
• 16:10
  the series I've come to appraise and appreciate more and more
• 16:13
  each year. Paul Dunn was a lot more
• 16:17
  economic with his words, he says.
• 16:19
  The season that I knew I was a fan.
• 16:22
  Oh, we've got these the wrong way around.
• 16:23
  I've got all the long ones, haven't I?
• 16:24
  Paul Quinn. Paul Quinn said.
• 16:26
  Lots of big ideas, No outs and outs, stinker.
• 16:29
  But it's so bland and lifeless, like watching Tom Baker flapping
• 16:32
  his arms in that Lift Chaffin underworld over and over again.
• 16:37
  And the music in air quotes is utterly repellent.
• 16:40
  My God. Paul.
• 16:41
  I have got a lot to say about the music in the series, and it
• 16:45
  is not to say that it's repellent like the Watcher
• 16:48
  haunting Lugopoulos, the future stalks this season.
• 16:51
  But it's Davidson shaped without bid Me trying to shape a shared
• 16:55
  idea across season. Little wonder fandom on the
• 16:58
  audience grabbed onto Earth, shock like drowning sailors.
• 17:01
  But the life raft was Eric Saywood, and soon there'll be
• 17:04
  blood in the water. He's not dramatic at all.
• 17:07
  Paul is. He, he loves.
• 17:08
  Caught in controversy. That one.
• 17:10
  That's it. Electronic, Dan says.
• 17:13
  One of my very favorite seasons, a very diverse set of stories,
• 17:16
  from gothic to silly to surreal to fairy tale.
• 17:19
  It's very grounded, a breath of fresh air after the Williams
• 17:22
  years, and I love the theme of entropy running through the
• 17:25
  stories. Also love the style and music.
• 17:29
  Gary Russell says Balagopoulos season 18 is pretty damn perfect
• 17:34
  TV. Honourable mentions to Meg
• 17:36
  Lawson full circle because they both demonstrates Tom at his
• 17:39
  best since Svendal. Rudy, intelligent, angry and
• 17:42
  above all JNC made him act rather than perform.
• 17:46
  We'll talk more about that later as well, Darren Lit, Randall
• 17:49
  says. 18 is a season that I have to be in the right mood for.
• 17:53
  It isn't fun or hokey enough for my natural tastes.
• 17:56
  Tom is rather below par, so they're completely in opposite
• 18:00
  directions, and looking at the companions the season ends with,
• 18:04
  I'd have to let go of that cable as well.
• 18:07
  Paul Sims says I really write Season 18.
• 18:10
  It's a refreshing change from the Williams era.
• 18:12
  The music in particular is superb.
• 18:14
  And you are right, Paul, it is superb.
• 18:17
  Ivana Ivana Ivana Trump is it? I hope not.
• 18:23
  Says from. Beyond the grave.
• 18:27
  Absolutely hate leisure Hive and warriors.
• 18:30
  Great. Oh my God.
• 18:31
  I can hear sihar exploding right now.
• 18:34
  Far too sci-fi for me to understand them, but the rest I
• 18:37
  adore. Paul Cress said.
• 18:39
  One of my. Not a science fiction series.
• 18:44
  I mean this, this season sort of tips its toes into science
• 18:47
  fantasy, doesn't it it? It really does.
• 18:49
  No, I'm. I'm being facetious.
• 18:51
  I just. Please be facetious throughout
• 18:54
  this whole episode. Paul Cressor said.
• 18:57
  One of my favourite seasons. The first full season I saw
• 19:00
  after becoming a fan still has a wonderful feeling of nostalgia
• 19:03
  about it. We're nearly there, guys.
• 19:05
  Don't worry, John says. 18 for me is a show running on fumes,
• 19:10
  Tom Baker phoning it in but still too stubborn to walk away.
• 19:13
  JNT made the right call by finally pulling the trigger on
• 19:16
  the replacement. Michael Storm said season 18 is
• 19:19
  a season which like a fine wine, improves with age.
• 19:23
  As a wee 8 or 9 year old I found Lagopoulos an absolute snooze
• 19:26
  fast and later failed to engage with Tralken.
• 19:29
  However, once I started maturing into a cynical old bastard, my
• 19:32
  opinion changed, and now the running theme of entropy and
• 19:35
  decay running throughout the season is excellent,
• 19:38
  foreshadowing Tom's departure. Virtually every story features a
• 19:41
  variation on the changing of the guard.
• 19:44
  Anthony Carroll says the first full season I really remember.
• 19:48
  Love State of Decay and Lagopoulos.
• 19:50
  Sombre mood throughout which is interesting to see Now.
• 19:53
  Worst story is easily Megloss followed by Warrior's Gate,
• 19:58
  which was too complex for me. 8 out of 10 for the season.
• 20:01
  And finally, Dean John Smith said the weakest stories to me
• 20:05
  of the first two. Sorry Psy.
• 20:07
  Now the remaining 5 provide a varied story arc.
• 20:10
  Sad to say, I defected to ITV. Oh, I can't read the rest of
• 20:13
  that. That's that is sacrilege.
• 20:15
  Sad to say I defected to ITV upon original transmission, but
• 20:20
  now regard the season highly. Tom was my first doctor and I
• 20:23
  was sad to see him go right. I'll say that's mixed, but
• 20:28
  mostly positive on the whole. But there is, yeah, it's
• 20:31
  definitely a mixed bag feeling coming out and I'm really
• 20:34
  looking forward to getting into this debate now because I think
• 20:37
  I've just got a sneaky feeling we're going to be loving and
• 20:40
  possibly detesting stories that are quite different from each
• 20:45
  other. So let's get into round one.
• 20:46
  So this is the big knockout stage.
• 20:48
  So each of us is going to be picking at least one story from
• 20:52
  the seven that we're covering today and in good old time
• 20:54
  honoured hamster tradition going to give three reasons, either
• 20:57
  why we should be keeping it in the competition or why we should
• 21:00
  be ditching it. And your job is to control and
• 21:03
  persuade the rest of us to your way of thinking.
• 21:06
  So let's get into it, Lucy. We're going to pick you first.
• 21:09
  The finger of fate is pointing at you.
• 21:11
  Pick your story and tell us the three reasons either why you
• 21:14
  love it or you want it to go. OK, I'm going to choose a state
• 21:20
  of decay. I love it because it is science
• 21:27
  fiction, but it's gothic. So like Joe said, it's dipping
• 21:30
  its toe into fantasy, but not in quite so obviously Hammer Horror
• 21:36
  style as a brain. I love Brandon of Mobius
• 21:38
  completely, but he's very, very sort of hammer slightly hokey
• 21:43
  over the top style and set of case.
• 21:46
  It's not quite so, so much. I like Tom ripping off the Saint
• 21:56
  Crispin's Day speech and finishing it by saying canine is
• 21:59
  a dab hand with a nasal nose laser or something like that.
• 22:03
  The Three Who Rule are fab, I think, although their
• 22:07
  performance is weird and mannered, but then they're
• 22:09
  supposed to be very, very old. And and from the Three Who Rule
• 22:14
  enrich James is just spectacular within this much of chewing the
• 22:20
  scenery, but just enough far away from it to be actually
• 22:23
  genuinely creepy as well as being nuts.
• 22:28
  He's creepy. You know when he starts coming
• 22:30
  onto Adric, that's very strange. He's very he's he's, he's, he's
• 22:34
  just just that far away from being completely ridiculous, but
• 22:38
  just close enough to be really scary as well.
• 22:41
  What you been over the top? You have both been chosen.
• 22:47
  I saw, I watched the extras because I've got the DVD Estate
• 22:50
  of Decay and I watched the extras and one of the actors who
• 22:53
  played one of the villagers, who was also Welsh, said.
• 22:57
  I saw him in rehearsal and I thought, oh, there's no way
• 23:00
  you're getting away with that. And then when he saw him in Cos
• 23:02
  Cube, OK yeah, that that works. He pitched it just right.
• 23:09
  Fine. So an impassioned plea for State
• 23:12
  of Decay. Should we go to the comments on
• 23:14
  State of Decay? Yes, yes.
• 23:16
  Michael Mills says State of Decay is obviously the best
• 23:19
  story of the whole season is, oh, Christopher H Mitt Meets
• 23:22
  best efforts. There's actually some fun in it.
• 23:25
  God, imagine if we had this preferred version with all the
• 23:28
  vampire trappings removed. James Lark, who was on our
• 23:31
  previous episode, says while Warriors Gate is probably the
• 23:34
  best of the season, I'm much more likely to find myself
• 23:37
  watching State of Decay, a gloriously camp melodrama with
• 23:40
  cracking visuals and score, and the last time Doctor Who
• 23:43
  properly evokes horror until 1989.
• 23:48
  Darren Lit, Randall said. I was so disappointed by State
• 23:50
  of Decay. It was the 1st Doctor Who book I
• 23:52
  completed and fast. It never it really came alive to
• 23:55
  me. The TV version has never been
• 23:57
  able to match the one in my head.
• 23:59
  I think it would have worked better in Season 15 with Leela
• 24:01
  and the better director. Paul Quinn, prepare yourselves,
• 24:05
  says at least they try. And they do try and get a bit
• 24:09
  sexy with State of Decay, which is right and proper for a
• 24:12
  vampire story, but then making you Waterhouse rocks up as Adric
• 24:16
  in twat mode opposed to the good version of Adric in Trachan and
• 24:20
  Lagopolis, and the only thing standing proud is the tower.
• 24:25
  Interesting Doctor Who thought said it's the best of the
• 24:28
  season. The stylized movement of
• 24:30
  vampires, which you were just mentioning, Lucy, rare for
• 24:33
  classic Who monsters, is both camp and scary and ancient evil
• 24:37
  awakening that a whole army of Time Lords couldn't really
• 24:39
  defeat. And the Doctor Romanimus face
• 24:42
  this evil alone, outside of their own space, or while trying
• 24:45
  to protect a Moody, potentially duplicitous, duplicitous
• 24:48
  stowaway. The stakes are high, not to
• 24:51
  mention the Earth's technology language shift, and the solution
• 24:54
  is there the whole time. Trope.
• 24:57
  Gary Russell says William Lindsay and Rachel Davis still
• 25:00
  the show with their synchronized movements throughout, and that
• 25:03
  moment when Zago draws the thrown knife out of his chest is
• 25:07
  so gloriously dark. The smile he gives is chilling.
• 25:11
  Great actor Lindsay and died too young.
• 25:14
  Electronic Dan said his favorite story is State of Decay because
• 25:17
  of the Gothic style and atmosphere.
• 25:19
  The story the interactions between the Doctor and Romana,
• 25:22
  as well as the two of them and the three who roll and.
• 25:25
  Finally, Dave Rennie I I can't do a Scott's accent.
• 25:28
  Sorry Dave. My favorite is State of Decay as
• 25:32
  I love the Gothic hammer feel. OK, so Lucy has made a play.
• 25:36
  The rest of us need to decide whether we agree with her.
• 25:39
  Let's go to Jim first. I would have to agree with Lucy.
• 25:44
  It is one of the strongest stories of the season.
• 25:48
  It's one of the only ones that I go back to.
• 25:50
  If I, you know, want to watch a season 18 story.
• 25:53
  I think it's absolutely fantastic.
• 25:56
  I I was excitedly explaining the plot away to my girlfriend the
• 26:01
  other day and she was like just kind of walking by me like yeah,
• 26:04
  yeah yeah. And I was like this is it's so
• 26:07
  clever, the whole thing that I the.
• 26:10
  I love the the back story with the Time Lords and the vampires.
• 26:15
  I I I mean I've not read much expanded media.
• 26:18
  I don't know whether they they kind of go back and have a look
• 26:21
  at any of that. I think, I think I've heard some
• 26:23
  of the some of the new adventures.
• 26:26
  Terribly into that. World I need to.
• 26:30
  I need to I need to have a have a little I need to dig out those
• 26:34
  stories, I think. But no, it's even watching it
• 26:38
  again the other day, it was just it was so compelling just
• 26:41
  listening to the kind of the ancient days of the Time Lords,
• 26:44
  which I think is is far more interesting than the kind of the
• 26:47
  the more modern version of the Time Lords that we get.
• 26:50
  But the yeah, the atmosphere, the the Gothic horror again
• 26:54
  harking back to the inch. Inchcliff Days has got such a
• 26:57
  strong supporting cast. I think Tom's on on fine form in
• 27:03
  this story is he's very he's still got the the, the levels of
• 27:06
  humour. Maybe, you know, he's been
• 27:08
  reigned in a little bit at this point but he's still a big
• 27:11
  presence in the story. I don't even mind Adric.
• 27:15
  I I like the idea of, you know, Adric being this, you know,
• 27:19
  Stowaway who is going to get himself into trouble.
• 27:22
  And you never quite know whether you can trust him or not,
• 27:25
  especially during, you know, season 18.
• 27:28
  I think the effects are great. It's, the music is fantastic.
• 27:33
  Just that the whole it's the sort of story that you could
• 27:36
  watch in isolation. You switch off the lights, sit
• 27:39
  and sit and watch it and kind of just let you let it soak into
• 27:43
  you. I think it's it's and such a
• 27:45
  clever climax to the story as well as I just think, yeah, I've
• 27:50
  loved it. I've loved it since I've first
• 27:51
  seen it. It's amazing.
• 27:54
  Brilliant Joe. I'm just trying to imagine Jim
• 27:58
  explaining the plot of State of Decay to his girlfriend, you
• 28:01
  know? And then this great hand came up
• 28:03
  out of the floor and the spaceship went up in the air,
• 28:06
  turned around. Basically what it was.
• 28:09
  Just like a sky ray lolly and then pierced the heart of the
• 28:13
  vampire. Slightly worried when Jim said
• 28:16
  great special effects because the attorney of the ship and the
• 28:19
  descent. Well, yeah.
• 28:21
  Yeah. It's Doctor Ho.
• 28:23
  But the way they use the effects in to sort of to set the mood in
• 28:29
  the same way as, let's face it, quite a lot of children's drama
• 28:32
  in the 1970s was absolutely flipping terrifying.
• 28:35
  I didn't watch most of it because I was a little too young
• 28:38
  for that. But things like, you know,
• 28:39
  children of the Stones and other things like that.
• 28:42
  Chilling now? Let Let know if you're a child.
• 28:45
  The part where he summons the bats and his face is overlaid
• 28:49
  with the bats flying, That's very recognisable as the sort of
• 28:55
  thing you would have seen in one of those dramas.
• 28:56
  So the way that they use the effects to to set the mood of
• 29:01
  the story, I think, yeah, the big hand is just, yeah.
• 29:05
  I think the model work is is fantastic with the rocket, you
• 29:09
  know, disguised as the as, as the castle.
• 29:12
  I just that that kind of blew me away when I first saw that as a
• 29:15
  kid. Yeah, it's wonderful, Yeah.
• 29:17
  The whole idea of no, it's not their descendants, it's still
• 29:20
  them. And can they remember who they
• 29:23
  are? It turns out that actually they
• 29:26
  can. But you you get the sort of
• 29:28
  discovering it bit by bit in the same way, slightly ahead of the
• 29:32
  cast, which makes it more dramatic because you think, no,
• 29:35
  it's they're vampires are there, but you.
• 29:37
  But you need that because you need them to be.
• 29:40
  You need the the characters, the the heroes to be slightly
• 29:43
  behind. Otherwise it's not so tense.
• 29:45
  But the idea of it's yes, it's them.
• 29:48
  It's the same ones. The castle is the rocket.
• 29:51
  They've always been here and yeah.
• 29:53
  It's almost that perfect marriage of science fiction and
• 29:56
  horror, isn't it? Using both both of their
• 29:59
  strengths. Well, I've got to keep it in one
• 30:01
  because I very rarely find myself argue with Lucy McCall.
• 30:07
  She's the one that tells me off the most, no?
• 30:10
  But also because there's just so many reasons to love this stuff.
• 30:13
  I think it is the most fun, one of two of the most fun stories
• 30:18
  of the year. It's full of great Terrace Dicks
• 30:20
  dialogue. I love the colours in this, that
• 30:24
  autumnal location work, like the rich Reds of the sets, the
• 30:28
  gorgeous costumes. I love the score in this one as
• 30:32
  well, which is doing an all out sort of horror score, but you
• 30:35
  know, sounding like it's come from Zelda and I've never played
• 30:39
  Zelda. Does it sound like that?
• 30:41
  Yes, I don't play it either, but I my brother is is a big fan of
• 30:44
  it, so I've I've heard the music through them.
• 30:48
  And I I there's three other things.
• 30:50
  Rachel Davies, I think is brilliant as Camilla and she's
• 30:53
  really like every show was in the background, a scene sort of
• 30:55
  going, ha, I love. National team.
• 30:57
  It's campus hell. I love it.
• 31:00
  I love her. I love the scene between Tom and
• 31:03
  Lala in the cell. Brilliant.
• 31:06
  Like if a doctor and companion were ever going to have it on.
• 31:09
  It's that moment there, so thank God the door opened when it did
• 31:12
  and it smacks Tommy in the face. Which?
• 31:14
  Is really funny. That's great, but also the the
• 31:18
  horror scene of the lights coming on and that room for the
• 31:21
  corpses like they're doing full on gothic horror.
• 31:25
  Oh, it's fabulous. So yeah, it's it's a keeper for
• 31:28
  me. Fantail.
• 31:29
  Well, it's superfluous what I said, but I was absolutely, 100%
• 31:33
  going to keep it in anyway. Agree with lottery.
• 31:36
  It's such a bold, confident production.
• 31:38
  I really mean since pretty much every Hammer cliche you can see,
• 31:42
  but it still has a sense of freshness.
• 31:44
  I mean, you've got Romana dressed in the white virginal
• 31:47
  dress that she's about to be sacrificed to the bats.
• 31:50
  We've talked about the makeup and the stylized performance,
• 31:52
  the vampires who get more and more vampiric as we go along.
• 31:56
  I mean the cliffhanger to episode 3 when they're doing the
• 31:58
  full hissing and hand movements and I wonderful stuff.
• 32:04
  Yeah, we've got bats. You're right Jim.
• 32:06
  All this kind of Time Lord mythology does get revisited in
• 32:09
  a lot of the expanded media. Um, I think there were a lot of
• 32:12
  problems with the script. I don't think it particularly
• 32:14
  shows, apart from the original title.
• 32:17
  This, when it was a season 15 story, was the Wasting.
• 32:20
  And in episode one we constantly talk about the vampires protect
• 32:24
  the peasants from the Wasting. What is the Wasting?
• 32:26
  It is the Wasting. What's the Wasting?
• 32:28
  It's the Wasting. We protect from the Wasting.
• 32:31
  Oh, come on though. The way, the way he delivers
• 32:34
  that line though, he goes the wasting, is the wasting.
• 32:37
  Wasting. We've mentioned it again, so
• 32:41
  we've had all that set up in episode one and it disappears.
• 32:44
  Having your blood sucked and then they present the corpse and
• 32:46
  say, look, this one wasted, there we go.
• 32:49
  This is what we're protecting you from.
• 32:50
  But they they moved away from that.
• 32:52
  I guess you know you would have added an explanation.
• 32:54
  Yeah, it's definitely missing a bit of that, but generally it's
• 32:57
  amazing. The Doctor and Roman
• 32:58
  relationship. This is that kind of last big
• 33:00
  hurrah, I think, because they don't have much time together in
• 33:03
  Warrior's Gate and it feels almost like Steed and Mrs. Peel
• 33:06
  a bit. They've got that to and fro
• 33:08
  relationship. I love the way the parents sit
• 33:11
  on the throne room or the the pilot's seats in the in the
• 33:15
  spaceship and she's just swinging her leg and smiling.
• 33:18
  They're having a grand old time even though they've been
• 33:20
  threatened left right and centre.
• 33:22
  They're just loving it. You're right Joe.
• 33:24
  The scene in the the cell. I mean he she's told him in the
• 33:27
  first episode you're incredible and he goes all all bashful.
• 33:30
  Well, I suppose I am. And if I thought about it and
• 33:32
  then he obviously returns the compliment, but he calls her
• 33:35
  wonderful, which is interesting, and that, that's smile.
• 33:38
  Between the power of them you can tell they were getting it on
• 33:40
  at this stage. You don't know this in sharp
• 33:43
  contrast at the moment where they realise Adrick stowed away
• 33:47
  aboard the TARDIS and Tom Baker slips out of character for a
• 33:50
  second and goes Adrick. Get so pissed with him
• 33:55
  throughout the series. It's wonderful.
• 33:57
  Yeah, I think they let they. But she's so much.
• 34:00
  She's written so well here, and that's what you want from
• 34:03
  Romana. She's that kind of horns of
• 34:04
  Naiman Romana where she's absolutely in control.
• 34:07
  I love the scene in Part 3 where her and the Doctor decide who's
• 34:10
  going where and he ends up being the one taking the safe route
• 34:13
  going back to the towers. She goes to the inner sanctum
• 34:15
  and she's like, oh, inner sanctum, please.
• 34:18
  And obviously tries to go off AC.
• 34:20
  You know that old cliche about Terrance Dix?
• 34:22
  You know, he's used to say himself all the time.
• 34:25
  Oh, I think the companion should be pearls, Appalling, stratter,
• 34:27
  the railway track, blah, blah, blah.
• 34:29
  You look at his story. Robots got a great role for
• 34:31
  Sarah Jane Horror fan. Rock's got a great role for
• 34:34
  Leela, stated Decay. He's got a great role for
• 34:36
  Romana. He writes women brilliantly.
• 34:38
  He does, because she's not written that.
• 34:40
  And we'll come to other stories where she's not written that
• 34:42
  well. But in this, she's written
• 34:44
  beautifully. I mean, this is what you want
• 34:46
  from Romana. She's an absolute equal and they
• 34:48
  are equals. And the last thing I want to
• 34:50
  recommend it, which we haven't picked on so far, is Peter
• 34:53
  Moffitt. Because my God, that man gets a
• 34:55
  lot of steak, and quite rightly so as he goes on.
• 34:58
  But in this, he's bloody brilliant.
• 35:00
  In this one, the camera is always moving, It's always
• 35:03
  fluid. Look at those early scenes where
• 35:05
  they're where they're picking chosen ones to go off to the the
• 35:09
  to be eaten or effectively or become guards.
• 35:12
  That camera is constantly moving.
• 35:14
  Lucy, you mentioned it with the scene, with the bats being
• 35:16
  superimposed over his face. It's lovely stuff.
• 35:19
  It's dark and Moody. It's atmospheric and if nothing
• 35:21
  else, Peter Moffat thought. Probably not physically, but
• 35:25
  maybe he did. He fought Chris Red H Bedme, who
• 35:28
  wanted to throw everything out with the script and turn it into
• 35:31
  techno bubble gone mad. He got that eggs.
• 35:34
  Or something, wasn't it? He got him, he got he, he was
• 35:37
  effectively signed up as far as I remember.
• 35:39
  He was effectively signed up to direct it and brief me, came
• 35:42
  back and said oh, we're going to do it like this.
• 35:44
  And he said, well really that's not what I signed up for.
• 35:47
  I don't think I I can't direct that.
• 35:49
  That's just not that's not what you asked me to do.
• 35:53
  That's not what I'm going to do And they and the Gothic went
• 35:55
  back in it and it it absolutely is what he's good at and he does
• 35:59
  it really well and he doesn't. It plays to the strength of it
• 36:04
  because it's it's it's vampires with ridiculous make up in rooms
• 36:10
  with velvet hangings and all the rest of it and it's it should
• 36:16
  look stagy because that's what it is so and and yes with the
• 36:20
  bats overlaid and all the performance yeah I think it's
• 36:22
  really good and yes he did. He did.
• 36:24
  He said if you I I can't direct that if you change it.
• 36:27
  So they didn't. If he doesn't always move the
• 36:30
  camera, he's always moving the actors.
• 36:32
  There's some great choreography from the actors here, so it
• 36:35
  always feels like you're right, Rod, like there's movement.
• 36:37
  It's lovely. And he does get and, and rightly
• 36:40
  so. I mean, by the time we get to
• 36:41
  the two doctors, it's almost like a completely different man.
• 36:44
  But here, which is his first story, I think he's he's
• 36:47
  couldn't have done a better job. So All in all, I'm giving it a
• 36:50
  definite through as well, so State of Decay stays in.
• 36:55
  Yay. Jim, we're through to your first
• 36:58
  choice to either pick or to champion or condemn.
• 37:02
  OK, well, I'm going to, I'm going to pick the story that I
• 37:05
  want to champion because I think it's it's quite, it gets a bit
• 37:11
  of bashing this story and well, at least recently I seem to have
• 37:17
  seen it getting a bit of bashing and it's it's Lagopolis because
• 37:23
  there's a lot of reasons behind it and you know it's not, it's
• 37:26
  not the most perfect story. However, it's the first, I think
• 37:31
  it was one of those very early Tom Baker stories that I saw
• 37:34
  when they were coming out on video.
• 37:35
  So it was, you know ironically his last one was one of the the
• 37:39
  first ones that I saw. So there's that which you know
• 37:45
  kind of has always got a hold on me.
• 37:47
  That kind of nostalgia aspect of it.
• 37:50
  I think the the first and last episodes are excellent.
• 37:55
  I think it does sag in the middle once they get to
• 37:59
  Lagopoulos. But I think again I I I like
• 38:04
  stuff that is kind of I like a lot of Earth based stories and
• 38:10
  that first episode on the Barnett bypass with the mystery
• 38:14
  of the Master, you don't know what's going on the the going
• 38:20
  through the Tardises going into the police boxes.
• 38:24
  There's something I like the mystery that's set up there.
• 38:28
  I like Doctor Who that kind of throws, throws a mystery at me.
• 38:32
  And I think the stuff with the Watcher is it's really, there's
• 38:37
  something really disturbing about a mysterious white figure
• 38:42
  just following the Doctor around, watching the Doctor from
• 38:45
  afar. Even Anthony Hayley's master.
• 38:49
  I, you know, I don't think for me, I don't think anybody will
• 38:52
  ever top Roger Delgado's master for me.
• 38:55
  But I really like him in the story.
• 38:58
  I know he has some weaker stories as it as you know, the
• 39:02
  series goes on or as the show goes on throughout the years.
• 39:05
  But I think he's very strong. He's very sinister in this story
• 39:10
  and obviously camping it up like you're like he always does, you
• 39:14
  know that I always laugh at the bit with the, the buttons at the
• 39:18
  end in the Pharos project was just kind of stabbing his finger
• 39:23
  into the buttons. And yeah, so I mean the, I think
• 39:29
  that the The Cloister Room set is fantastic.
• 39:32
  It's, I mean I'm a I'm a, you know, I'm a sucker for TARDIS
• 39:35
  scenes. I love, I love TARDIS scenes.
• 39:37
  I do think that maybe we got too many of them in the 80s.
• 39:40
  But I like this idea of it. It kind of it kind of gives the
• 39:47
  TARDIS this kind of vast quality to it.
• 39:51
  I think, you know you see Tegan getting, you know running around
• 39:55
  in there and how you know how she kind of she can't find a way
• 40:01
  and it just, yeah, it just feels it doesn't feel safe and
• 40:05
  sometimes I like my Doctor Who to to to make me not feel safe
• 40:10
  and this story is definitely, definitely one of those.
• 40:14
  The music again you know that it's got some very it's got very
• 40:18
  memorable score in it. It's Paddock is it Paddock
• 40:22
  England? Yeah.
• 40:23
  It's Paddock England, yeah. And I think it's also, it's
• 40:28
  quite, it's quite varied. I mean, you know, yeah it does.
• 40:30
  It does sag like I said, when it when they go to Lagopolis.
• 40:34
  But I think it's so varied from episode to episode that it it
• 40:37
  never doesn't get boring, I don't think because you never,
• 40:41
  you never really stay in one place too long.
• 40:43
  You know you've got the TARDIS scenes, you've got the roadside
• 40:45
  scenes and you've got Lagopolis, you've got all the business with
• 40:49
  the Watcher and then you've got the end at the Pharos project.
• 40:52
  It always it's it's got a lot of variety in the story and I think
• 40:55
  it's a it's a fantastic ending for the 4th Doctor as well.
• 41:01
  Interesting. OK.
• 41:02
  Should we go to the comments in contrast, Jim, to what you've
• 41:06
  just said, Gary, what Russell has one word for Lagopoulos and
• 41:09
  that word is shite? Don't mince your words, Gary.
• 41:15
  Tell. Us what you?
• 41:17
  Think. Michael Mills says Tegan running
• 41:19
  around the TARDIS is a master class in how people don't
• 41:22
  behave. Why does she think she's on a
• 41:25
  plane? It's got cloisters and the 4th
• 41:28
  Doctor for so long. The Platonic ideal of Doctor Who
• 41:31
  dies facing not monsters but thermodynamics.
• 41:36
  David Gillespie, Pratt said. Great atmosphere with a real
• 41:39
  doom laden tone. Adric works well with the 4th
• 41:42
  Doctor here and the great intro for Tegan.
• 41:44
  The stakes needed to be high for the longest serving Doctor.
• 41:47
  Mark Donaldson says least favorite by country mile The
• 41:51
  Master Destroying half the universe and knocking the Doctor
• 41:54
  off a big Space Telescope should be thrilling, but it's not.
• 41:58
  It's interminably dull and has too many characters distracting
• 42:02
  from the occasion of Tom's exit. Tom Newsom said I never like
• 42:07
  Lakopoulos until I watch the season in order.
• 42:09
  On the Blu-ray set. Suddenly felt less of a
• 42:11
  disappointment and more mysterious and dramatic.
• 42:14
  Gareth Bowley's so dreary and the Why am I getting all the
• 42:17
  negative comments and a story? Not that engaging production
• 42:22
  value feels like it ran out of money at the end of the season.
• 42:25
  Paul Dunn said. So somber and doom laden, but in
• 42:28
  a good way. Chris.
• 42:30
  Doom laden in a good way. Obviously you can.
• 42:32
  Lovely, Chris Hogman says. Do you think Lagopolis would
• 42:35
  have made more sense if it was Adric's last story as well?
• 42:38
  He gave his life using his mathematical excellent skills to
• 42:41
  revive the people and save the universe, while the Doctor
• 42:44
  stopped the Master. What an interesting idea.
• 42:47
  It's a. Good idea, Andy, Parkinson said
• 42:50
  the creep. The Watcher is creepy and the
• 42:52
  4th Doctor falling to his death broke my 10 year old heart.
• 42:55
  And finally, the the oneness of nerds.
• 42:58
  What a great name. Genuinely a masterpiece of a
• 43:01
  story, the stakes worthy of a regeneration episode.
• 43:07
  Wow. OK, so panel we're into.
• 43:09
  I'm going to jump in straight. I'm going to be rude and jump
• 43:11
  straight in because I was going to slaughter this one.
• 43:16
  And. Then Jim jumped in and said, oh,
• 43:19
  I really like this, I'm going to supporter.
• 43:23
  Jim, you can't counter what he's saying, remember?
• 43:26
  That all right, of course. I think there's so much wrong
• 43:30
  with this story I don't even really know where to begin.
• 43:33
  So I think Chris wrote H Bidmead and he did it on 2 occasions.
• 43:38
  It'd be pretty obvious what the other one is.
• 43:40
  I think he could write pretty good two-part stories, but
• 43:44
  unfortunately he's writing a four part story and he doesn't
• 43:47
  do what most Doctor Who writers will do, and that's take the
• 43:50
  basics and add in some extra subplots and maybe add in a bit
• 43:54
  of comedy and add characters. And no, he just takes the two
• 43:57
  he's got, puts it to the end, and then writes 2 completely
• 44:01
  different superfluous episodes for one and two, and he repeats
• 44:04
  that. Obviously the next.
• 44:05
  Ian Kostrovalva, no surprise, but it it just feels so
• 44:10
  different. And I mean, whatever you think,
• 44:12
  we'll come to them. But whatever you think of
• 44:13
  stories like Meg Lawson, the Leisure Hive, there was so much
• 44:17
  back story in those opening episodes.
• 44:19
  There's so much history, so much character, whether you like it
• 44:22
  or not, we will come to them. But you've got none of that in
• 44:25
  the Coppolis. You've just got taken her and
• 44:27
  her aunt doing a bit of comedy shtick, which is a bit
• 44:30
  uncomfortable at times. Got plodding scenes from the
• 44:33
  TARDIS talking about cone inverters and the chameleon
• 44:37
  circuit. There's no plot and we get to
• 44:39
  episode 2 and we've got that. Really embarrassing.
• 44:42
  And as a 14 year old, I did feel the embarrassment on this one,
• 44:45
  the flushing of the TARDIS out as the flushing of the Master's
• 44:49
  tard is out in the River Thames. I actually did cringe a little
• 44:52
  bit at that point though. Please don't do this.
• 44:54
  When they put that, the backs to the TARDIS doors this.
• 44:59
  Is. Just getting to cringe.
• 45:01
  I was a very serious 14 year old, So it was, it was upsetting
• 45:04
  me this part. And then we get the TARDIS being
• 45:06
  shrunk on the GOP list. Why?
• 45:09
  There's absolutely no point to that at all, apart from the fact
• 45:12
  he gives you a climax. But you know, there's 5 minutes
• 45:15
  one side, 10 minutes, the other complete waste of time.
• 45:18
  I think there is a really good story in Three and Four about
• 45:21
  the master hijacking Metropolis, holding the universe to ransom.
• 45:25
  But actually what he's doing is he's accidentally destroyed the
• 45:28
  universe. I think there is a really good
• 45:29
  story there, but it doesn't come out.
• 45:31
  It's all talk. There's all talk and no show.
• 45:34
  The universe is is being threatened and is fading out of
• 45:39
  existence. As we see in that one scene with
• 45:41
  Nessa and Natra as they look at the scene and see a couple of
• 45:44
  bad CSO planets suddenly being erased.
• 45:47
  But that's the only thing we see.
• 45:48
  The rest of it's talking. The plotting is not good.
• 45:52
  Characters don't start my own characters.
• 45:55
  Oh my goodness. OK, so I think this is a real
• 45:58
  misstep. And what I think we should have
• 46:00
  done is it's easy in hindsight, isn't it?
• 46:03
  But what we probably should have done is just stuck with Adric
• 46:06
  and 4th Doctor and let Tegan and Nyssa come on board with Peter
• 46:10
  Davison. Because we spend so much of part
• 46:13
  one with with Tegan story. This is Tom Baker's final story
• 46:17
  after seven years. And all we do is spend time with
• 46:20
  Tegan getting to know it's just it's just the wrong place to
• 46:23
  kind of get that introduction. And then Nyssa turns up because
• 46:25
  she's been taken there by the Watcher.
• 46:27
  How? Why It's the most clunky,
• 46:29
  suddenly reintroduction of a character.
• 46:31
  It makes very little sense. I don't even know where to begin
• 46:38
  with this one. They then just Disentique and
• 46:40
  Anissa just descend into very generic companion modes really
• 46:44
  quickly, and there's no reason for them to do so.
• 46:48
  Deacons holding up in episode 3 to the shrunken TARDIS, the
• 46:51
  mathematical formula to show the Doctor why?
• 46:54
  How'd she know there's a scanner in there?
• 46:56
  Why is she suddenly acting like a companion?
• 46:58
  She knows what the Greek for Lighthouse is, you know?
• 47:00
  Where's all this suddenly come from?
• 47:03
  She's just filling that generic companion robber.
• 47:05
  She doesn't. She hasn't earned it.
• 47:07
  She's only just arrived. She's been kidnapped.
• 47:09
  We don't get any of that. And all the emotional depth that
• 47:13
  could have been mined from her losing around and far more Nisa
• 47:17
  seeing, you know, a man, the most evil man in the universe,
• 47:20
  having taken over her father's body, it just gets wasted.
• 47:23
  There could be a really, really interesting story there, but it
• 47:27
  all just gets dismissed so quickly.
• 47:28
  And then we're back just to running around again.
• 47:31
  And then the master, in terms of characters, the Master is the
• 47:34
  other one I will come to. I think Jayanti and Ian Levine
• 47:38
  was on board here. Obviously, as we know as
• 47:39
  continuity advisor, they kind of forgot that the Master is a Time
• 47:44
  Lord and different incarnation can be different person.
• 47:47
  And we get this quite uncomfortable carbon copy of
• 47:51
  Roger Delgado. Certainly in the look and the
• 47:53
  way it's played, Aimley obviously adds the awful cackle
• 47:58
  and when we get to the CVE is all mine.
• 48:01
  I mean, it's it's back to panto season, isn't it?
• 48:04
  What's wrong with that? Oh, that's the end of the
• 48:08
  Doctor. It's yeah, it just doesn't work
• 48:11
  for me. And then there's so many
• 48:12
  production errors, I don't usually see production errors.
• 48:16
  But when the characters aren't engaging and the plots not
• 48:18
  engaging, you start seeing all the errors, like that awful cut
• 48:22
  out cardboard cut out of Anthony Aimley grinning in the door of
• 48:25
  the Pharaoh's project. Oh no, that's true.
• 48:30
  Well, we kept the TARDIS as a potted plant.
• 48:33
  Second potted plant this season suddenly arrived on the Gopolis
• 48:36
  and no one notices or mentions there.
• 48:38
  We've got cardboard sets, polyester, boulders, action men,
• 48:43
  drunken dolls, terrible model working in Episode 4.
• 48:48
  Can you tell I wasn't? Massively.
• 48:50
  Impressed by this I. Think you should tell us how you
• 48:52
  really. Feel I'm going to stop it now
• 48:54
  and everyone else has to say, but strangely enough for me, I'm
• 48:57
  not going to put this one through.
• 49:00
  Lucy, you have to rebut this or agree with.
• 49:03
  It I'm I'm only going to say that because I'm I'm acting on
• 49:07
  the basis that of of neither not having opinion on whether
• 49:11
  something is good or bad, but whether I like it or not, I
• 49:14
  actually don't care about any of that because I like it.
• 49:19
  Put me in my case. Because I like it.
• 49:23
  You may have gone on for the last 10 minutes, Rob, but I
• 49:26
  don't care about any of that. I I can I I can only say that if
• 49:30
  I like something then I don't mind about the set being a bit
• 49:33
  wobbly. And I don't mind about the
• 49:35
  because I grew up watching Peter Davison and Janet Fielding and
• 49:40
  Sarah Sutton and Matthew Walthouse.
• 49:42
  They were my team. They were when I started
• 49:45
  watching with potentially the last episode of this, although
• 49:48
  presumably I watched the rest of the story as well.
• 49:50
  I don't remember that was what the TARDIS team was like.
• 49:55
  They were my team. So I watching back, I can see
• 49:59
  the differences between the teams, and it may be partly
• 50:02
  nostalgia, but I still relate to the first team that I became
• 50:07
  familiar with. I like the idea.
• 50:10
  I I think it's it's difficult to express.
• 50:14
  It's probably easier to express in writing than it is in
• 50:17
  visuals. The idea of a human computer or
• 50:21
  a humanoid computer. So all the little PE, all the
• 50:24
  people in their rooms, all counting away and everything I
• 50:29
  like. I don't the the idea of the
• 50:30
  Watcher isn't really explored and it doesn't really explained.
• 50:34
  And obviously people like things to be explained and they like
• 50:37
  them to be explored. As we can see to this day on
• 50:39
  Twitter every time somebody brings something else what the
• 50:41
  fuck was that about But and and sometimes perhaps nobody knows
• 50:46
  quite often I suspect nobody knows.
• 50:49
  It's like like with what was it the giggle what on earth is the
• 50:52
  blinks Well it's just a thing they just decided to put it in
• 50:55
  there. There's no back story who cares.
• 50:58
  But it it's yeah, I I like. I like it more than I dislike
• 51:03
  it, definitely. And partly because it finishes
• 51:06
  with the appearance of my Doctor.
• 51:09
  So I can't, I can't dislike that.
• 51:11
  I do like the presence of the Watcher.
• 51:13
  I think that's very effective. And again, this was the first
• 51:16
  regeneration I watched. So for all I knew, they all
• 51:18
  happened like that. And I was interested because I,
• 51:23
  one of the first online sort of meet up events that I went to,
• 51:29
  the actor who played the Watcher was was there at it.
• 51:32
  And he's actually a ballet dancer.
• 51:34
  And I thought about it and I thought that makes perfect sense
• 51:37
  because although it sounds sort of contrary, ballet dancers can
• 51:41
  stand absolutely still. People can stand still, but a
• 51:47
  dancer can stand still, but with this sort of potential coiled
• 51:51
  spring kind of effect. And that that's what makes it so
• 51:55
  sinister. So I also liked when somebody
• 51:57
  said was the mask a bit of a hardship?
• 51:59
  He said, well, you know, I was a dancer.
• 52:01
  He keeps on the costumes he'd had to wear.
• 52:05
  So I I would I I can't necessarily defend Lugopolis
• 52:09
  against criticism, but I like it.
• 52:12
  Fair enough. That's what it's all about.
• 52:14
  I think it's hard to sorry Joe. I think it's hard to when you
• 52:18
  when you've when you watch something as a child, it's hard
• 52:23
  and you enjoy it as a child. It's hard for you to shake that
• 52:26
  enjoyment of watching it as a child.
• 52:29
  I mean, I didn't as a kid. I had no bloody idea what the
• 52:33
  story was all about. No idea at all.
• 52:36
  Watching it again last night, I, you know, had no idea what half
• 52:41
  of half of it was. It was.
• 52:42
  I was sat there like OK wrapping Christmas friends thinking OK,
• 52:46
  OK, right. I need to concentrate on this.
• 52:48
  But in the in the end I just thought I'll just I'll just go
• 52:50
  with it because it's again, it's it's a story that I enjoyed as a
• 52:54
  child so it's hard to shake that enjoyment because it will be
• 53:00
  along with State of Decay. It's probably one of the only
• 53:03
  season 18 stories that I regularly go back to.
• 53:07
  So while I agree to some extent with what with what Rod is
• 53:11
  saying, it's also very, very difficult to I'm not, I won't
• 53:17
  come away from this thinking, Oh my God, Rod's right.
• 53:20
  I hate the story because I just, I just can't.
• 53:23
  It's I can, I can see. I can see past its past, its
• 53:27
  faults. And again, you know, like Lucy
• 53:31
  said, she enjoys it. I I enjoy it.
• 53:33
  I enjoy the majority of that era.
• 53:36
  So it's hard to shake that. I had the same trouble with
• 53:40
  Death to the Daleks. You know, Jim.
• 53:43
  Another one I love. Because I watched it as a kid
• 53:45
  and loved it as a kid, and I can see all of his problems as an
• 53:48
  adult and I still love it, Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's
• 53:52
  anything wrong with that. I don't see that, that sort of,
• 53:54
  you know, watching something in sort of people have said, oh, I
• 53:58
  didn't like it when I was a child, but I like it now.
• 54:00
  Yeah, that's fine. I like it as a child, but I
• 54:02
  still like it now. Yeah, that's also fine.
• 54:04
  It's not saying, you know, oh I was young and I was young and
• 54:07
  had no taste in those days. But now I appreciate much more
• 54:09
  and this is complete rubbish. That why if you enjoy it, you
• 54:13
  enjoy it. Yeah, well, I'm going to buck
• 54:15
  the trend then, because I have regenerated in terms of
• 54:20
  Lugopolis. I used to be rolled and I've
• 54:23
  turned into Jim As a child. I really didn't like this at
• 54:30
  all. I found it very dull and as an
• 54:33
  adult I like it a lot. Whilst I can still see so many
• 54:38
  of its problems, there's a lot of talk.
• 54:42
  There's a lot of standing around doing not a lot, There's a lot
• 54:46
  of artificiality to the sets, there's not a lot of action.
• 54:51
  I'm not really sure what the average child would make of this
• 54:54
  now. I think Janet Fielding thinks
• 54:59
  she's stepped into I know CBBC didn't exist then, but I think
• 55:02
  she settles down. But in her first couple of
• 55:04
  stories that she films The Coppolis and Force of Doomsday,
• 55:07
  she thinks she's in a a young child's program.
• 55:11
  So she's delivering lines like, you know, actually Canissa have
• 55:15
  gone looking for the Master and things like it's just really
• 55:18
  clunky, you know, you disgusting man, all of this, like what is
• 55:22
  she doing? I don't know what she's doing,
• 55:24
  but I love it's the most realistic reaction to stepping
• 55:28
  into the TARDIS since Ian and Barbara and an unearthy child.
• 55:32
  She's shocked, she's she's scared, you know, and you would
• 55:36
  be. We've had so many people walk in
• 55:38
  and go, Oh, well, it's bigger on the inside and out.
• 55:40
  Let's go. You know where she's properly,
• 55:42
  properly scanned. I love Aunt Vanessa.
• 55:44
  You know, your father's farm. It's hardly the Outback, Marty.
• 55:47
  And no one persists. We missed out on Tom Baker and
• 55:50
  Auntie Vanessa going around the universe.
• 55:52
  That was more orious. Amazing, wouldn't it?
• 55:55
  I. Just keep seeing Dame Edna.
• 55:57
  That accent is so strong. Imagine.
• 55:59
  Imagine them on the planet and she's going, come on, Doctor.
• 56:02
  I've got to hail some night errand to come along with
• 56:04
  rescuers. I think all of the ideas around
• 56:09
  Lakopoulos are really, really interesting.
• 56:12
  I do think there's some big problems with the execution.
• 56:15
  That dreadful back cloth that's trying to suggest that the
• 56:18
  corridor's going on. Oh, that's awful.
• 56:21
  They they've tweaked a lot of it with the CGIFX on the Blu-ray
• 56:25
  set and it looks a lot more compelling now.
• 56:29
  And I think there's some serious issues with the realisation of
• 56:33
  the climax of the story as well, of Tom hanging on the thing and
• 56:37
  all of that. But I do think it builds to a
• 56:39
  rousing climax and the music is especially great in Part 4.
• 56:44
  You've got that COD 70s, you know when they're being chased.
• 56:48
  By the guards. It's like Waka waka, waka waka,
• 56:50
  you know, I love all of that. And then the music all around
• 56:54
  the regeneration is just gorgeous and the flashbacks to
• 56:58
  their companions like it's a genuinely emotional
• 57:02
  regeneration. I was like completely on the
• 57:04
  fence with this one. I wasn't sure which direction I
• 57:06
  was going to go, if I'm honest, and I wanted to hear what
• 57:09
  everybody and the viewers had to say.
• 57:11
  But I do think there's more good here than bad, even though it's
• 57:15
  bloody dull at times. I do think they're more good
• 57:18
  than bad, so, oh, I'm going to keep it in I.
• 57:22
  Mean. Surely.
• 57:23
  Surely, if nothing else, the number of memes generated
• 57:26
  through peoples of the universe? Including John SIM?
• 57:31
  Didn't he say that in the new series?
• 57:33
  Possibly. Yeah, but though, just just.
• 57:35
  Just just the mean swan. It might have been Sasha.
• 57:38
  I'm not. Sure.
• 57:39
  Oh, and one more thing. I think that Tom Baker and
• 57:43
  Matthew Warehouse have brilliant chemistry in this story.
• 57:46
  I think it's one of a couple of times where Adric really works
• 57:49
  within a story. And of course this is a story
• 57:52
  about maths is in his element. Tom is really crossing the story
• 57:57
  though. And I mean, he's letting.
• 57:58
  He's letting his true emotions flood through.
• 58:01
  He is. He goes.
• 58:03
  So Angry looks at everyone with such disdain.
• 58:06
  I'm. Going to use this.
• 58:07
  I'm going to use this line some some time and strictly, do you
• 58:10
  want a quick decision or a debate?
• 58:12
  It's great. No, I'll keep it in.
• 58:17
  It's it's, it's good. It ain't great, but it is good.
• 58:20
  There is one story that I cannot repeat on that because although
• 58:24
  there's probably an explicit tag on this podcast, I won't use the
• 58:27
  language. But as Tom Baker is
• 58:30
  regenerating, he did during one of the texts.
• 58:33
  He was so pissed off at that stage.
• 58:35
  When he first opens his eyes, he does say Adric, you're a right
• 58:38
  little, aren't you terrible. He was not happy plus him,
• 58:45
  right. So Lugopoulos stays in.
• 58:47
  Yeah. Joe, your choice.
• 58:51
  Yes, hello. I really feel bad because I'm
• 58:54
  going to prosecute a story and I'm going to prosecute a story
• 58:58
  that is, I think, my best friend's favorite Doctor Who
• 59:02
  story. But I am now about to savage the
• 59:06
  leisure hive, which I do think is attempting to be a bold new
• 59:14
  dawn for Doctor Who. But it's a bold new dawn with a
• 59:19
  dull as fuck first minute as we pan laboriously across a loaded
• 59:25
  deck. Like what were they thinking?
• 59:28
  The only start to a season duller than that is Alistair.
• 59:34
  This would look great by one of our Azalea beds as they walk
• 59:37
  around a garden centre. I mean, you should start with a
• 59:39
  bang, right? Can I jump in a second?
• 59:42
  Josh shouldn't because you're in full flight, but no one's has
• 59:45
  ever said why. But I think to to me, and I
• 59:49
  think it's obvious why you've got that really long scene, and
• 59:51
  that's because I was there at the time.
• 59:53
  We'd had the same music for 17 years.
• 59:55
  We suddenly got brand new music, brand new titles, brand new
• 59:59
  logo. And I think they were betting on
• 1:00:02
  the audience at home saying, what the bloody hell was that?
• 1:00:04
  What's going on Is this Doctor Who we have?
• 1:00:06
  And I think they were banking on people talking for the first
• 1:00:10
  minute of the episode. So they didn't put any sound on
• 1:00:13
  at all. So that kind of general
• 1:00:15
  conversation about. Oh, that looks different.
• 1:00:18
  Well, I'm saying. What the blood deal was that
• 1:00:20
  about all those deck chairs that I was passing and?
• 1:00:23
  Last thing, there was nothing to do with the.
• 1:00:24
  Story. That's what's so annoying about
• 1:00:26
  it. The the setting on Bright and
• 1:00:28
  none of it has got anything to do with the story whatsoever.
• 1:00:31
  So it's a really terrible, misleading opening as well.
• 1:00:37
  I feel like the humour has been ditched.
• 1:00:40
  There's a few jokes in this. Overall, though, it's pretty
• 1:00:44
  dreary and melancholic. And you know it's about the the
• 1:00:48
  aftermath of a nuclear war and a sterile race.
• 1:00:52
  And I know these are interesting, intelligent ideas,
• 1:00:56
  but there ain't no fun to watch, unfortunately.
• 1:00:59
  And then when you throw in oodles of techno Babble as well,
• 1:01:03
  like, you're drowning in it. And this is Bid Me Techno
• 1:01:06
  Babble. It's not Douglas Adams techno
• 1:01:08
  Babble, which sort of trips off the tongue in a really fun way.
• 1:01:11
  No, we're doing real science now.
• 1:01:15
  Star Trek has invaded Doctor Who is like an episode of The Next
• 1:01:18
  Generation where Geordie Laforge, you know, reels off
• 1:01:21
  techno battles for ages. Tom is given a performance in
• 1:01:26
  this. Again, he's really acting
• 1:01:29
  because he has to act old. But Tom on the leash, it just
• 1:01:33
  isn't fun. Like, not like he was in 16 and
• 1:01:36
  17, where he's wild and dangerous and yeah, he might go
• 1:01:40
  over a Cliff and be a bit embarrassing, but he's vital and
• 1:01:44
  alive and you can't keep your eyes off him when he's sort of
• 1:01:47
  moping around his heads, talking technobabble, you know, looking
• 1:01:51
  like a Gandalf the wizard. It's just, it just isn't fun to
• 1:01:57
  watch. There's a sequence at the end of
• 1:02:00
  episode 2, right, which I think is supposed to be dynamic, and
• 1:02:03
  it's Romana and Hardin doing an experiment with crystals to do
• 1:02:12
  that. The D aging process, it goes on
• 1:02:15
  for what feels like the length of a Bible.
• 1:02:17
  And I'm like, oh, why am I watching this boring experiment,
• 1:02:22
  for God's sake? I wish something would happen
• 1:02:25
  and I think love at Bixford's direction is really, really
• 1:02:30
  interesting. But this looks really
• 1:02:32
  artificial. It looks really plasticky.
• 1:02:34
  I don't know what it is. It doesn't feel more expensive
• 1:02:37
  to me than the operatic costumes of June Hudson from The Horns of
• 1:02:42
  Nimon. And those weird triangular sets
• 1:02:46
  feels bigger to me than this sort, these sort of contained
• 1:02:50
  dark plastic, he says. So it feels cheap, It feels
• 1:02:56
  dull. There's good things to this.
• 1:02:59
  Yeah, there is good things to this is an intelligent script.
• 1:03:02
  It's dealing with interesting ideas.
• 1:03:04
  You've got some good performances in there.
• 1:03:06
  And Adrian Corrie, he's given a great subtle performance.
• 1:03:11
  I think David Hague, who goes on to do amazing work elsewhere, is
• 1:03:17
  giving his always Pango. But it's just not fun.
• 1:03:22
  And Doctor Who should be fun, and I think that's a misstep at
• 1:03:28
  the start of the season. So for for crimes against
• 1:03:32
  dreariness, the Leisure Hive is out for me.
• 1:03:36
  Wow. OK, let's go to the comments.
• 1:03:38
  So Gary Russell said the best of the season is the Leisure Hive.
• 1:03:42
  One of my all time top 10 comfort story.
• 1:03:45
  Flawless. Oh, sorry, I'm not.
• 1:03:48
  There I go, Darren, Nick, Randall says.
• 1:03:51
  My favourites are the Leisure Hive and Warrior's Gate.
• 1:03:54
  I don't especially care for the stories, but I really love the
• 1:03:56
  productions. I love the look, feel and sound
• 1:03:59
  of the Leisure Hive. Oh, that's another thing as
• 1:04:02
  well, right? The music?
• 1:04:03
  Yeah, it is different and interesting, but there's so much
• 1:04:08
  of it. Like even marigoldo wallpaper
• 1:04:10
  his stories with as much music as you get in the leisure hive.
• 1:04:14
  And at the end when we're doing all that, No.
• 1:04:19
  Anyway, sorry, back to the comments.
• 1:04:21
  Paul Dunn said the leisure hive blew my mind.
• 1:04:23
  It was so different. Mark Donaldson says My favorite
• 1:04:27
  I'm out of step with everyone. My favorite is the Leisure Hive.
• 1:04:30
  It's mostly completely by accident, but the irradiated
• 1:04:33
  wastelands of our goalies, embracing new technologies
• 1:04:36
  against the wishes of a hot headed leader, feels like the
• 1:04:39
  perfect metaphor for the transition between Williams and
• 1:04:42
  J&T. Andy Parkinson said Best is the
• 1:04:45
  leisure hive. I still remember that new theme
• 1:04:47
  like it was yesterday. James Belt says, Oh, I love the
• 1:04:52
  Leisure Hive, but I experienced a novel before the episode, so
• 1:04:55
  my tween brain thought, recreation, recreation,
• 1:04:59
  revelation, mind blowing. Then, seeing a few years later,
• 1:05:03
  I was thrilled by the revelation that the 4th Doctor was heralded
• 1:05:06
  into the 80s with a new intro. So panel, it's time to decide
• 1:05:12
  whether we agree. Lucy, what are your thoughts on?
• 1:05:15
  Tell me why I'm wrong. I'm not going to.
• 1:05:17
  Tell I'm not telling anybody why they're wrong.
• 1:05:19
  I'm just saying whether I like it or not, Unfortunately, I
• 1:05:21
  think I like most of the stories in this season, which is
• 1:05:24
  possibly not what your design not not what it's designed for.
• 1:05:28
  My my highlight of this story is David Hague.
• 1:05:31
  Without a doubt. He's fabulous from the beginning
• 1:05:35
  and the first time I I watched it, I thought, oh, that's David.
• 1:05:40
  Hey, gosh, he's really young in this.
• 1:05:41
  How old is he? Oh, well, maybe he's perhaps
• 1:05:43
  he's a goody. Is he?
• 1:05:44
  Oh, no. And then he smiled and then you
• 1:05:47
  knew that he was just instantly. And he's he, he plays the sort
• 1:05:52
  of slightly petulant person who actually turned out to be very
• 1:05:58
  dangerous indeed. Really, really well.
• 1:06:01
  And I'd. I'd like the like you say the
• 1:06:03
  the his his mother and her lover I suppose we're meant to think.
• 1:06:09
  And the whole fakeness of the anti aging technology that
• 1:06:15
  doesn't work. The bit that I found slightly
• 1:06:22
  that felt like it didn't quite fit was when the doctor's limbs
• 1:06:25
  come off, because that looked a bit like, well, like you were
• 1:06:32
  saying about and thinking she's in children's television that
• 1:06:35
  looked like, you know, one of those against a black screen
• 1:06:38
  where they used to have puppets against black screen, the itsy
• 1:06:41
  and bitsy, the spiders and things.
• 1:06:43
  It looked, it looked to me a little bit like that.
• 1:06:45
  It just seemed to sort of slightly it because the visual
• 1:06:49
  didn't fit with the the the supposed horror of what was
• 1:06:55
  happening because it looked funny and it's not supposed to
• 1:06:58
  be funny. Yeah, I know.
• 1:07:01
  I I enjoyed it mostly I think, and I did.
• 1:07:04
  I liked the, I think David Hague is fantastic and I think the the
• 1:07:07
  other supporting players are very good as well.
• 1:07:10
  And the sort of shifting loyalties between them is
• 1:07:14
  interesting. And the the fact that one of
• 1:07:16
  them is is actually very dangerous and the other one is
• 1:07:19
  trying to sell something that doesn't exist, which people will
• 1:07:22
  always want because people always want to seem younger than
• 1:07:25
  they are. So yeah, I know I quite enjoyed
• 1:07:29
  it. So it's it's one of those
• 1:07:33
  stories that I have always, every time I watch it, I think,
• 1:07:39
  right, I'm going to try and enjoy it.
• 1:07:42
  Unfortunately doesn't quite hang together for me.
• 1:07:47
  I think there's got some great ideas within the story and
• 1:07:50
  there's a there's there's a lot to like in it, but there's stuff
• 1:07:54
  that it doesn't. It just never captures my
• 1:07:56
  imagination. I do think it does feel like a
• 1:07:59
  bit of a shot in the arm for Doctor Who.
• 1:08:01
  I really like the music throughout the episode.
• 1:08:06
  It feels new. IT feels it feels bold and I
• 1:08:10
  quite enjoy the reining in of Tom actually from from his kind
• 1:08:16
  of his more kind of the humour that he had.
• 1:08:19
  But maybe that's because again I was I'd seen him in probably
• 1:08:23
  Lagopolis or Pyramid to Mars kind of, when he was in a
• 1:08:27
  slightly slightly less, slightly less humorous.
• 1:08:33
  But it feels I never come away from it thinking Oh yeah, that
• 1:08:39
  was great. I it feels very, it's very well
• 1:08:43
  acted. I think Tom and Lala are on fine
• 1:08:46
  form again. David Hague, Adrian Corey,
• 1:08:50
  fantastic performances. But it just feels considering
• 1:08:54
  it's trying to, it's trying to reinvent Doctor Who.
• 1:08:57
  It just feels, it still feels very cheap.
• 1:09:00
  And I know we like Doctor Who and we don't, you know, Doctor
• 1:09:03
  Who is always going to be that will look a little bit cheap,
• 1:09:08
  but it just feels so. The sets are so claustrophobic
• 1:09:12
  and the pharmacy are just awful. How did?
• 1:09:16
  I not mention them. They just, yeah, it just doesn't
• 1:09:23
  again, I mean I've spoken, I've spoken before about kind of
• 1:09:27
  sometimes you have to re tune yourself depending on what
• 1:09:30
  you're watching. So you know, if you're watching
• 1:09:34
  something like the Curse of Fenrik, then you, you know,
• 1:09:36
  you're tuned into something completely different.
• 1:09:39
  So if you're watching say the Horns of Naiman, so I'm I'm
• 1:09:42
  quite able to easily tune myself into different Doctor Who
• 1:09:45
  stories. And I the variety of Doctor Who
• 1:09:48
  is, you know, one of the reasons why it's my all time favorite TV
• 1:09:52
  show. But it's just one of those
• 1:09:55
  stories that just never I come away from it thinking OK yeah, I
• 1:10:01
  won't go back and re watch that for a long time.
• 1:10:03
  I think I probably only watched it maybe about three times in in
• 1:10:06
  my entire life and I and I I feel awful about it as well
• 1:10:09
  because I don't want to upset Styhart either.
• 1:10:14
  But we've got to be honest, right?
• 1:10:16
  We've got to be honest, yeah, there's there's no, you know
• 1:10:19
  there's no two ways about it. It's just it's not, it's not the
• 1:10:22
  it's not the my least favorite story of the season.
• 1:10:24
  But it just feels like it's not. It could have been so much more.
• 1:10:29
  It could have been bigger. It could have been bolder and
• 1:10:32
  it's not, unfortunately. But I do like the line.
• 1:10:36
  The rest the scarf then. I love that line.
• 1:10:39
  You mentioned for Marcy. So I'm going to take you back to
• 1:10:46
  1980. So there's serious little me sat
• 1:10:49
  on the sofa waiting for a new series of Doctor, completely
• 1:10:53
  unknowing what was coming up. I think JNC had done the first
• 1:10:56
  of his self promotions on Blue Peter and promised that Doctor
• 1:10:59
  Who was going to be different, but I had no idea what that
• 1:11:02
  really meant. But not last, Rod.
• 1:11:04
  Oh my God, yes. So there I am, sat down waiting
• 1:11:08
  for my old familiar theme to come in, and the program starts
• 1:11:12
  and it's like, what the hell is going on?
• 1:11:15
  That's the moment I was talking about.
• 1:11:16
  At the beginning. I was just like I was in
• 1:11:18
  absolute shock because I mean this program meant the world to
• 1:11:21
  me and it's a changed. And the logo was different, the
• 1:11:24
  music was different. Tom looked different.
• 1:11:26
  Tom was acting different, he's in a different version of his
• 1:11:29
  costume, more sober, odd question marks, but we can
• 1:11:34
  always bring back the question marks again later on.
• 1:11:36
  A bit odd, but the visuals are different, the editing is
• 1:11:39
  different, the styles different, the lighting, the incidental
• 1:11:43
  music is very different. The pace of storytelling, the
• 1:11:46
  director, everything about this felt like it wasn't Doctor Who.
• 1:11:50
  It was an absolute shift away from what we had, and for that
• 1:11:53
  first 25 minutes I was in total despair.
• 1:11:58
  I was so upset. I was crying as I was watching
• 1:12:01
  it. Like, this is not my Doctor Who,
• 1:12:03
  and I will admit my shame. I The episode finished and I
• 1:12:08
  wrote straight away to points of view, to complain.
• 1:12:11
  I was. That person I would have been on
• 1:12:13
  Twitter in those days was a very serious 14.
• 1:12:16
  Year old. Sorry.
• 1:12:18
  Did you get read out of? You got it.
• 1:12:20
  Ohh. Shame that would not be a lovely
• 1:12:22
  thing, Wouldn't you just? I was so angry.
• 1:12:26
  I can't tell you, but obviously it's Doctor Who, so I had it on
• 1:12:30
  audio. I listened to it during the week
• 1:12:32
  multiple times. I sat down, started episode two.
• 1:12:35
  Oh my God, I loved it by the start, Episode 2, and that was
• 1:12:37
  it. I was fucking fickle and I loved
• 1:12:43
  it and I've loved it ever since and I love it more as the years
• 1:12:47
  go past. It's one of those that even
• 1:12:49
  though I enjoyed it at the time, by that first episode, I've
• 1:12:52
  enjoyed more and more of the years have gone past.
• 1:12:55
  I think it's really again, I got that memory of that shift which
• 1:13:01
  to me at that time was just such a huge shift.
• 1:13:03
  Joe, I know you said, and Jim I think as well, it felt small and
• 1:13:07
  cheap in 1980 for me as a 14 year old.
• 1:13:11
  It didn't. It felt brave and new and
• 1:13:13
  exciting and bold and colourful. It was very colourful,
• 1:13:16
  particularly coming what's later in the season.
• 1:13:19
  It's there's a lot of colour. The yellow is very strong, the
• 1:13:22
  screen the yellow and green. So I think I think there's a
• 1:13:25
  maturity and storytelling here that we don't always get.
• 1:13:27
  So like Lucy, you mentioned the the meaner and hard in
• 1:13:30
  relationship, all that's done really quite subtly just through
• 1:13:34
  a few little lines and it's it's really nicely played.
• 1:13:37
  You think back like what was the last kind of big romance,
• 1:13:40
  Probably Astra and Merrick in the Android Invasion, which is
• 1:13:43
  so this is just so much more mature, just a nuclear war
• 1:13:51
  aspect. In 1980 we were all living under
• 1:13:53
  the threat of nuclear war, so it had it had real potency.
• 1:13:58
  Doctor Who taking you away from your worries, yeah.
• 1:14:01
  Exactly. But reflecting what was out
• 1:14:04
  there. I love the twist of the
• 1:14:06
  recreation. No, it's recreation generator.
• 1:14:09
  I think that's kind of doing a Moffett hiding in plain sight
• 1:14:12
  before you get there. I think that's really clever.
• 1:14:14
  Pete Howell's music. Yes, Joe, it is.
• 1:14:17
  The music is turned up to the Max, but I love it.
• 1:14:20
  I think it's fantastic. It just again, makes it feel so
• 1:14:23
  different. It was so different from what
• 1:14:25
  Dudley was doing, but it just feels brave and fresh and new.
• 1:14:29
  And you've touched on a lot of the other reasons.
• 1:14:31
  The David Hague. Yeah, it's it's fantastic.
• 1:14:34
  I just think there's just so much to love here.
• 1:14:36
  So I am absolutely keeping this one in.
• 1:14:39
  So Yabu sucks, you say? You and I, you and I are keeping
• 1:14:43
  the Leisure Hive in and I'll fight you in round two, right?
• 1:14:50
  We come to my next choice and I am going to pick.
• 1:14:55
  I don't know whether to be contrary or not.
• 1:14:57
  I won't be. I'm going to go for, I'm torn.
• 1:15:02
  I'm going to go for the keeper of track.
• 1:15:03
  And so I love the keeper of track.
• 1:15:09
  It's got really a unique tone and style to it.
• 1:15:13
  Another time this was shown. I know I keep parking back to
• 1:15:15
  the time things were shown, but I think it's kind of important
• 1:15:18
  to to know the context. So that point, the BBC, we're
• 1:15:20
  doing lots and lots of Shakespeare adaptations and you
• 1:15:24
  kind of had in those what you're getting here.
• 1:15:26
  You get a real kind of stage in US.
• 1:15:28
  You get the outdoors represented by a studio set and they just
• 1:15:32
  dim the lighting a little bit, show you the difference between
• 1:15:34
  day, dusk and night. And you get that here, it's very
• 1:15:37
  obvious. It's very stagey.
• 1:15:39
  You get, you know, indoor wind machines, you get robes, you get
• 1:15:43
  beards, you get all kind of cod Shakespearean rich dialogue.
• 1:15:48
  You get whispered aside. There's court intrigue, there's
• 1:15:51
  doomed romance, there's all these political machinations
• 1:15:54
  going on. And it really feels like the
• 1:15:55
  TARDIS has crashed, landed into a into a Shakespeare play.
• 1:16:00
  You even get the Keeper at the beginning, don't you?
• 1:16:01
  Give me the the narration. He's he's the kind of narrator
• 1:16:04
  for you and sets the scene for it.
• 1:16:07
  And sometimes I think we've talked about some of the other
• 1:16:09
  productions, Lacopoulos feels stagey when it's in on its kind
• 1:16:13
  of outdoor set on on the Lacopoulos landscape.
• 1:16:16
  And that does feel stagey. This is stagey too, but it's
• 1:16:18
  done in a different way and because it's got so much
• 1:16:21
  commitment to what it's doing and they say because of
• 1:16:23
  everything else that around it, the design, the language, it's
• 1:16:27
  also consistent in this production.
• 1:16:29
  I think it feels a really committed and consistent piece
• 1:16:32
  of work. I think it works really well for
• 1:16:35
  that. So then when you get the
• 1:16:36
  juxtaposition of the sci-fi coming in, that really works and
• 1:16:40
  kind of throws you. So when the Malka starts moving
• 1:16:43
  at the end of episode one, that's a real kind of what the
• 1:16:46
  fuck moment because you've had this kind of Shakespearean world
• 1:16:49
  up to that. So I think the tone and the
• 1:16:51
  style are really distinctive and work incredibly well.
• 1:16:55
  Then we get The Master and I think what a great idea.
• 1:16:58
  Tom's coming to the end of his seven-year run.
• 1:17:00
  What a great idea about to bring back his arch opponent.
• 1:17:05
  Fantastic. I know JNT was thinking about
• 1:17:07
  bringing back Sarah Jane or Leela to ease the transition.
• 1:17:10
  Not sure that necessarily would have worked, but certainly
• 1:17:13
  bringing back the Big Bad to have the climactic
• 1:17:16
  confrontation, and I've just dealt with that in Legopolis.
• 1:17:18
  But bringing back the Master I think is absolute masterstroke.
• 1:17:21
  And I wonder because obviously Barry Letts was executive
• 1:17:24
  producer at this stage. Barry let's never got to produce
• 1:17:27
  this kind of final story with Delgado because unfortunately
• 1:17:30
  Roger Delgado died by that stage.
• 1:17:32
  So I wonder if Barry let's kind of influence them though we'll
• 1:17:35
  have the master back for the big final climax with Tom because we
• 1:17:38
  couldn't have it with John Purtway and he's great bringing
• 1:17:41
  the master back. I think Geoffrey Beach Beavers
• 1:17:44
  gives an incredibly chilling performances, voices beautiful.
• 1:17:47
  It's very mannered and exaggerated.
• 1:17:51
  I mean the end of episode 2 when he's, you know, Oh no, Cassia,
• 1:17:55
  it is only beginning. Oh, it's just lovely.
• 1:17:58
  So really. Finished.
• 1:17:59
  Call you up immediately your. Allegiance must be a short, a
• 1:18:07
  lovely delivery. It's really over the top, but
• 1:18:09
  he's got a fantastic voice for him, he's.
• 1:18:11
  A very good looking man as well, Jeffrey Beavers.
• 1:18:14
  Not with that makeup, no. But it will be without it.
• 1:18:18
  Absolutely. I just think he's great.
• 1:18:21
  And it's a lovely twist that the malker is actually his TARDIS.
• 1:18:24
  We hold back the revelation The Master to episode three.
• 1:18:27
  Yeah, I think the Master works really well in this.
• 1:18:29
  And of course, shock revelation at the end when he kills off
• 1:18:33
  tree mass and takes his body. Fantastic.
• 1:18:36
  And then lastly, the characters. I think we've got a really
• 1:18:39
  distinctive group of characters. We will come back later in this
• 1:18:42
  podcast to groups of three that run planets, because there's an
• 1:18:47
  awful lot of them In season 18. We've had the three who rule in
• 1:18:50
  State of Decay, and they're also excellent, but in a different
• 1:18:53
  way. They champion over the top and
• 1:18:55
  melodramatic, but they're absolutely right for that story.
• 1:18:59
  Here we've got our kind of political Shakespearean.
• 1:19:04
  They're not a triumphant, because about five of them head
• 1:19:07
  by, of course, the wonderful Sheila Ruskin as Cassia, who is
• 1:19:10
  pretty much as camp as you can get.
• 1:19:13
  But I think she doesn't go over the top.
• 1:19:16
  She doesn't break my belief in that character.
• 1:19:19
  You don't think Sheila Ruskin goes over the top?
• 1:19:22
  She still. Over the top, but I don't think
• 1:19:24
  she breaks the wall. I think I always still believe
• 1:19:26
  in her as camp as she is. Before your eyes.
• 1:19:34
  But I just love her doing it. I mean, do you know who else was
• 1:19:37
  up for that role? Judy.
• 1:19:39
  Or who they thought about Judy Dench.
• 1:19:41
  I thought you could say Judy Garland.
• 1:19:44
  Glenda Jackson, Jana Lumley, Helen Mirren and Diana Rigg.
• 1:19:48
  Where there are other candidates.
• 1:19:49
  Along with Who else could do it? Fiona Walker, of course.
• 1:19:53
  Imagine. Diana rigging that role.
• 1:19:55
  Amazing. But I think Sheila Roskin is
• 1:19:57
  fantastic in that John would not.
• 1:20:00
  You know, he's giving a really again, very managed
• 1:20:03
  Shakespearean performance. I love the bit when he's going
• 1:20:05
  to enter rapport and and Cassio says no, it is not intended,
• 1:20:11
  intended Cassia by whom? You.
• 1:20:16
  Missed your vocation, do you? Know that's because I can hear
• 1:20:20
  it in my head because I've had so many years of listening to
• 1:20:22
  the audio. You've got Robin Solms.
• 1:20:25
  I mean Ludvik is a very wet character, but I think he still
• 1:20:28
  fills in with character. We talked about Death of the
• 1:20:30
  Dialects last time and we've got some very wet characters in
• 1:20:33
  that. But I think Ludvik still, you
• 1:20:36
  still believe in him and like him even though he's very wet.
• 1:20:39
  Anthony Ailey works really well, kind of as a substitute
• 1:20:42
  companion almost to Tom. That would have been nice to
• 1:20:45
  say. And they continue that
• 1:20:46
  relationship when they were getting Look, Opolis and of
• 1:20:49
  course Sarah Sutton. Very endearing, not quite sure
• 1:20:51
  what James he saw in it to think, oh, she's companion
• 1:20:54
  material, but she's a very good actress.
• 1:20:57
  But I'm not sure I saw the kind of glittering gold there.
• 1:21:01
  I mean, he missed Norris Hughes, that should have been a
• 1:21:03
  companion, but he picked Sarah Sutton.
• 1:21:05
  But anyway, the characters are an excellent bunch of this and I
• 1:21:09
  love all of them. So for those reasons I am saying
• 1:21:12
  we must keep the keeper of tracking.
• 1:21:16
  Should we go to the comments, Joe?
• 1:21:18
  Yeah, let's do it. Do.
• 1:21:22
  You want to roll off 1st. Once, yeah, Gareth them up,
• 1:21:25
  Gareth Bowley says. Beautiful sets and costumes.
• 1:21:28
  Feels like Shakespeare. You're absolutely right, Gareth,
• 1:21:31
  Paul Dunn says. So sumptuous and engaging.
• 1:21:35
  David Gillespie, Pratt, Worst is Keeper of track and Sorry Keeper
• 1:21:38
  fans, suffers from being entirely studio bound when
• 1:21:43
  chunks are sit outside. Tom is utterly bored at times,
• 1:21:46
  including one scene in Part 3 where I'm sure he's zoned out.
• 1:21:50
  I know exactly the scene he's talking about.
• 1:21:53
  He's sort of staring off camera whilst everyone else is talking
• 1:21:56
  to him. James Lark, who was on our last
• 1:21:59
  podcast, said the weakest is probably tracking because, well,
• 1:22:02
  it's a bit plodding and not a lot of chemistry between anyone
• 1:22:05
  involved. But if that's your weakest
• 1:22:07
  story, then it speaks the quality of the season as a whole
• 1:22:09
  full of crackers. And finally, Gary Russell says
• 1:22:13
  amazing, clever and beautiful with a unique charm.
• 1:22:18
  Do you know he must have had a terrible trouble this season to
• 1:22:20
  go from that to shy in the next story?
• 1:22:23
  You know, like it was up and down, wouldn't he?
• 1:22:26
  One extreme odds of that, yeah. We'll find out when he's on
• 1:22:30
  this. So panel, are you going to keep
• 1:22:35
  Keeper of Track and Lucy? Yes, I'm going to keep it.
• 1:22:42
  I like it. I like Nisa a lot.
• 1:22:44
  She again is part of my original TARDIS team.
• 1:22:49
  I think she was probably, although I did have a slight
• 1:22:52
  crush on Edrick when I when I first saw him when I was 8 years
• 1:22:54
  old. I think if you'd asked me apart
• 1:22:58
  from that which was the favorite, she would be my
• 1:22:59
  favorite. I think because I was quite a
• 1:23:02
  young, 8 years old, and she was pretty and kind and clever and
• 1:23:08
  she looked like a Princess and she had lovely brown curly hair
• 1:23:11
  and I was none of those things and didn't have that thing.
• 1:23:15
  So you know, yeah, I liked her a lot as a character and I like
• 1:23:18
  her in this. I think she's convincingly.
• 1:23:20
  I think part of the problem with her character is that later on
• 1:23:24
  the script writers seem to forget that she's supposed to be
• 1:23:27
  very young because she and Agric are supposed to be in their
• 1:23:31
  teens, aren't they early to mid teens?
• 1:23:35
  And you kind of get more of a sense of that here where she's
• 1:23:37
  kind of skipping it out a little bit and talking to her father
• 1:23:40
  and her, as we find out, extremely wicked stepmother and
• 1:23:45
  and so she's she's more to me convincingly sort of girlish in
• 1:23:50
  this than she is in the the later ones.
• 1:23:53
  Because when I watched Doctor Who 1st, I didn't realise they
• 1:23:58
  were supposed to be children. I thought they were all adults.
• 1:24:02
  None of that came across to me at all.
• 1:24:05
  But yeah, I like it. I I don't mind the indoor
• 1:24:09
  outdoor, outdoor, indoor thing because it happened a lot on the
• 1:24:13
  telly in those days. And it's it's more of a contrast
• 1:24:19
  when you have like an outdoor section that's on film and then
• 1:24:23
  suddenly you're indoors and the indoors looks different to the
• 1:24:27
  outdoors because the lighting is different and it feels like
• 1:24:29
  you're sort of in a hermetically sealed box rather than it just
• 1:24:34
  everybody's faces look different and it just doesn't look quite
• 1:24:36
  the same. So I don't mind that the garden
• 1:24:39
  is because it feels like a play. So it doesn't matter to me that
• 1:24:42
  the garden is clearly indoors as well as the rest of it or you
• 1:24:46
  can sort of set that aside or I could set that aside.
• 1:24:49
  I think I really like Anthony Andy's character as Tree Mass.
• 1:24:53
  I find the constant anagrammation of the masters
• 1:24:59
  names really annoying. Now I'm an adult, but that's
• 1:25:04
  just because that's the sort of thing that annoys me when I'm
• 1:25:06
  now I'm an adult. But I like, I like him as tree
• 1:25:09
  mass. He's he's so gentle and
• 1:25:12
  inquiring and he's conscience. He's conflict.
• 1:25:16
  He's conflicted with his conscience, though he doesn't
• 1:25:18
  want to. He doesn't want to betray the
• 1:25:21
  society that he can see falling apart around him.
• 1:25:23
  And I like the dynamic between the three, the doctor and two
• 1:25:30
  youngsters. So when he, he says he gets the
• 1:25:32
  plans out and he says, Oh yes, actually, what do you think
• 1:25:34
  about this? It's like he's showing sort of.
• 1:25:39
  Was almost showing respect for his expertise, for his knowledge
• 1:25:42
  and his expertise. Yes, the Milker is great and the
• 1:25:46
  whole thing with Cassia and her eyes and the collar thing and
• 1:25:50
  that it is odd with this whole sort of universe because we we
• 1:25:56
  we move towards the universe being kept in order by people
• 1:26:00
  sitting in little monk cells on the planet.
• 1:26:03
  And we started in this one with the universe being kept under
• 1:26:06
  control by a by a little old man sitting on a chair.
• 1:26:09
  Which is it? It feels it's almost fairy tale,
• 1:26:15
  and it's also got science, science fictiony bits mixed in
• 1:26:19
  with it, but it still feels to me as if that doesn't quite fit
• 1:26:23
  together. The sort of the little old man
• 1:26:25
  on the chair thing still feels a bit strange.
• 1:26:29
  Strange. More strange, but yeah, I like
• 1:26:31
  it. Other than that.
• 1:26:34
  Jim. Yes, it's a story that
• 1:26:38
  unfortunately I didn't get around to.
• 1:26:39
  This is one of the stories I didn't get around to re watching
• 1:26:42
  in preparation for this, but as a as a child I was never keen on
• 1:26:47
  it. But as I've got older, I it's a
• 1:26:50
  story that I enjoy a hell of a lot more now.
• 1:26:53
  I think you see a lot more layers in it as you get older.
• 1:26:58
  I think it's a it's marvelous, marvelously directed.
• 1:27:02
  I think it's got it's populated with some really vivid
• 1:27:06
  characters. I don't think any of them are a
• 1:27:11
  dull. I think they're all quite
• 1:27:13
  interesting characters, track and as a planet, as a society
• 1:27:19
  is. But it's very, very, very
• 1:27:20
  interesting and I was pleased when they revisited track and in
• 1:27:26
  was it the Big Finish story, Prime Evil?
• 1:27:28
  I think it was yeah. I thought that was it's a it's a
• 1:27:31
  world that that definitely deserved to be explored.
• 1:27:40
  Again, Adric, he works really well with the 4th Doctor, I
• 1:27:43
  feel. I think he works far better than
• 1:27:46
  what he ever works with with the 5th Doctor.
• 1:27:51
  He feel it feels like we could have done with some more 4th
• 1:27:55
  Doctor and Adric stories, just the just the two of them.
• 1:27:58
  Nisra I'm a bit indifferent, so I do like Nisa as a character
• 1:28:02
  actually, but I I think I I learned to appreciate more as
• 1:28:10
  with each subsequent appearance. The Master.
• 1:28:15
  Yeah, Jeffrey Beavers is just he's wonderful.
• 1:28:19
  It's been great to hear him come back in in his Big Finish
• 1:28:22
  stories as well. He just kind of hers with
• 1:28:26
  malevolence, doesn't he? And again, the the idea of, as
• 1:28:32
  Lucy said, the the idea of with the Melco is just, it's just
• 1:28:38
  really creepy. I love, I love the idea of it.
• 1:28:41
  Well, this is TARDIS, isn't it? There's just something and
• 1:28:46
  there's some something really disturbing about this kind of
• 1:28:50
  thing that's a statue, but actually it will come come to
• 1:28:54
  life. And again, that kind of ties
• 1:28:56
  into what Lucy was saying about the kind of fairy tale quality
• 1:28:59
  of the story as well. There's there's a lot of,
• 1:29:02
  there's a lot of that kind of element in the story.
• 1:29:06
  So yeah, yeah, it's it's a great, yeah, it's a great story.
• 1:29:10
  I I really enjoy it now much more than than what I did as a
• 1:29:14
  child, definitely. Fabulous Joe.
• 1:29:18
  I think it's really, really bold in the season 18 to tell us a
• 1:29:25
  four part story on a planet and then in the next story to
• 1:29:31
  destroy that planet, so to get as close to that planet of those
• 1:29:35
  people and then and let's just wipe it out.
• 1:29:38
  I think that's a really bold thing to do.
• 1:29:41
  Unfortunately, that misses the mark for a mall for me because I
• 1:29:45
  think this is one of the dullest planets ever to appear in a
• 1:29:48
  Doctor Who story. So it just didn't land for me.
• 1:29:52
  You guys have made some really interesting points about how
• 1:29:54
  this looks. But let's not forget this is
• 1:29:56
  television, This is not the theatre and this does feel like
• 1:30:01
  I'm watching a play. And so as a piece of television,
• 1:30:05
  I think this fails on a lot of levels.
• 1:30:09
  It's our planet made out of about 3:00 rooms and a very
• 1:30:13
  unconvincing outdoor set. Reminds me of Star Fet, The Next
• 1:30:16
  Generation in 1987. You've mentioned the direction,
• 1:30:22
  Jim. I think this is some of the most
• 1:30:24
  flaccid direction ever in a Doctor Who story.
• 1:30:27
  The camera barely moves in this again.
• 1:30:30
  It is like watching a piece of theatre.
• 1:30:33
  And I want to take you back to when I was a child and I was
• 1:30:36
  forced to watch lots and lots of interminable BBC Shakespeare
• 1:30:42
  productions, which was lots of people delivering wishy, washy
• 1:30:47
  dialogue. I think Shakespeare is very dull
• 1:30:50
  and I realise that makes me sound very uncultured, but I I
• 1:30:55
  just don't understand a word that they're saying and I barely
• 1:30:58
  understand the word that they're saying in The Keeper of Troken.
• 1:31:01
  Between the sort of poetic language, again, the excess of
• 1:31:05
  techno Babble. Yeah, I just, I zoned out of
• 1:31:11
  this completely. I think performance wise you've
• 1:31:15
  got a solid cast, but they've all done better work elsewhere.
• 1:31:20
  John would Not was better in Terror Zygons.
• 1:31:24
  Marco van der Burgh was better in the Aztecs.
• 1:31:28
  Anthony only is better in various other master stories
• 1:31:31
  where he's a lot more fun than he is in this.
• 1:31:34
  And Sarah Sutton, who I think is the strongest companion of the
• 1:31:37
  Peter Davison years, I think there's some hidden She's
• 1:31:41
  certainly most talented actor, I think, of the Davidson companion
• 1:31:46
  ensembles. I think she has some great
• 1:31:48
  moments for her run. You and me, Lucy did the
• 1:31:50
  visitation and I think she's very strong in that.
• 1:31:54
  But in the middle of these very sort of subdued Shakespearean
• 1:31:58
  performances, you've got Sheila Ruskin going insanely over the
• 1:32:02
  top. It's another one of those shows
• 1:32:06
  I just couldn't watch with anybody that wasn't a Doctor Who
• 1:32:08
  fan. I will be so embarrassed to
• 1:32:11
  watch this. I like the, I like the milker, I
• 1:32:15
  like the the, the design of it, but it's very clunky when it
• 1:32:20
  starts moving about, Jim, you said it was scary.
• 1:32:23
  It's scary until it starts moving and I.
• 1:32:27
  Like the way it peaks around the door at the.
• 1:32:29
  End of It's very fast and his eyes light up.
• 1:32:33
  Oh, he's going. I think Beavers is great when
• 1:32:38
  he's purring out of the statue and I think he's really
• 1:32:42
  embarrassing where we go into the TARDIS, it's got that sort
• 1:32:45
  of painted on make up face. She's nowhere near as effective
• 1:32:48
  as Peter Pratt and then he's just given your standard villain
• 1:32:52
  performance. Yeah, it just it doesn't engage
• 1:32:56
  me this at all and it really upsets me because I've I've
• 1:32:58
  upset one of my best friends. Now I'm going to be upsetting
• 1:33:02
  Martha off because this is his story or one of his absolute
• 1:33:06
  favorite stories, but it's really dull.
• 1:33:09
  Again, like Leisure Hive is just a really dull experience.
• 1:33:13
  So I know my vote is moot because three of you have said
• 1:33:15
  it's going through, so it's going through.
• 1:33:17
  But I've had my say, Shakespeare is.
• 1:33:20
  Dull your Co host as well. I am of the complete polar
• 1:33:27
  opposite opinion on that, but I'm not going to argue with you.
• 1:33:30
  OK, no, no. Oh well.
• 1:33:32
  I'm sure he's a fine dramatist, but maybe it's just dull because
• 1:33:36
  I can't understand it. I never really had a problem
• 1:33:40
  with understanding it. I don't know why some of the
• 1:33:42
  words obviously I didn't understand, but I always mostly
• 1:33:46
  managed to get the sense of them.
• 1:33:49
  But when obviously I studied it when I was at school and at
• 1:33:52
  university and you learn what each of the individual words
• 1:33:55
  mean and you learn what they mean in context.
• 1:33:57
  But I don't know. I just, I just would happily
• 1:34:00
  have watched BBC Shakespeare so. I just want something to happen
• 1:34:04
  in the keeper of truck and people just run in and out of
• 1:34:07
  rooms, declare things, and then run in and out of rooms again.
• 1:34:11
  You know, there's no spectacle to it.
• 1:34:14
  It's got some pretty sets, but there's there's there's just no
• 1:34:18
  dynamism to it. Doctor Who's not exciting
• 1:34:22
  anymore? Let's move on.
• 1:34:24
  OK. Sorry.
• 1:34:25
  I'm so sorry. So Jim, we are back to you for
• 1:34:29
  your second choice. OK, well, I was.
• 1:34:34
  I was going to go for a story that I that I really like.
• 1:34:40
  However, I'm going to go for a story that I just can't get on
• 1:34:43
  with at all. And again, I will always find
• 1:34:49
  reasons to like a Doctor Who story, but for me, the weakest
• 1:34:53
  of this season is Megalos, unfortunately.
• 1:34:59
  I mean, it's great to see Jacqueline Hill again in Doctor
• 1:35:02
  Who, but I think that's one of the only interesting aspects of
• 1:35:07
  the story. I I I don't think it's it's a
• 1:35:11
  particularly bad story but it never I think.
• 1:35:17
  I think probably only a few years ago was the first time I
• 1:35:19
  I'd ever seen. So I I I had it recorded off UK
• 1:35:23
  gold for many years and it my uncle had missed the 1st 5
• 1:35:27
  minutes off the start of it. And so it wasn't until probably
• 1:35:30
  about 2017 when I got the DVD that I finally saw the 1st 5
• 1:35:34
  minutes of it. But it's yeah it's it feels
• 1:35:40
  almost like it's it's a bit dropped off from season 17 and
• 1:35:44
  that's you know that's not necessarily a bad thing because
• 1:35:47
  season 17 is is a great season. But it just, it doesn't fit with
• 1:35:51
  this season. It it it, you kind of feel like
• 1:35:54
  you've gone for this kind of bold new beginning with the
• 1:35:58
  Leisure Hive and then all of a sudden we're sort of dropped
• 1:36:01
  back into Megalos, which just feels like it could have come
• 1:36:04
  from Season 17. I don't know if it was a
• 1:36:08
  leftover script from season 17. I've no idea.
• 1:36:13
  I haven't delved that deeply into it before, but it just
• 1:36:17
  looks so it looks so cheap. And again, I know we're all used
• 1:36:20
  to cheap Doctor Who and that doesn't mean that it's, you
• 1:36:23
  know, not a good, good story, but it just it just feels very,
• 1:36:32
  very substandard for me. It's, you know, some of the some
• 1:36:37
  of the acting isn't great. I mean there's a there's a
• 1:36:40
  there's a great line that when I re watched it the other the
• 1:36:42
  other day, there's a there's a great line.
• 1:36:45
  I can't remember the character's name now.
• 1:36:49
  Yes. And he says he sees the threats
• 1:36:52
  that join the universe together and mends them when when they
• 1:36:55
  break, which I think is a really, really lovely line.
• 1:36:58
  But he's the actor just delivers it in such a wooden way.
• 1:37:02
  It just feels yeah, it just, I don't know.
• 1:37:07
  I mean there's there's there's some great parts in it.
• 1:37:10
  You know I think Megalos is actually quite a hilarious
• 1:37:13
  villain. But it just doesn't fit for me.
• 1:37:16
  I I struggle when I watch it. I I always struggle to really
• 1:37:22
  enjoy the story. I just kind of, it just feels
• 1:37:25
  like so disposable. I just want to get it, you know
• 1:37:29
  get get it out of the way. The other night when I when I I
• 1:37:33
  think I posted it on Twitter, I was.
• 1:37:35
  There was so much more that I needed to do that night, but I
• 1:37:38
  was sat watching Meg Loss. Did you not Dash know this one's
• 1:37:42
  your girlfriend, Joe? I got that one out of the way so
• 1:37:46
  she didn't have to see it. I find it hard to believe that
• 1:37:50
  there was ever anything more important in your life than
• 1:37:52
  watching Medgar. The, the, the, the saving grace
• 1:37:58
  of it is that the episodes are so short that the story is over
• 1:38:01
  very, very quickly. Yeah, it's not.
• 1:38:06
  And and and again I will. I've said it before, I will
• 1:38:09
  always find something to love in each Doctor Who story.
• 1:38:11
  And I would never, never want any Doctor Who story to not
• 1:38:15
  exist. But this one is very, very low
• 1:38:18
  down in my rankings. Keeper of Trucker doesn't exist
• 1:38:23
  anymore. Erase from the universe it.
• 1:38:26
  Does for the rest of us, Joe, I'll.
• 1:38:28
  Feel for you so. Should we go to the comments on
• 1:38:32
  Megalos Fraser Gregory, The cheeky young scamp just points
• 1:38:36
  us towards his appearance on Toby Haydock's time travels.
• 1:38:40
  Young He'll love you for saying that.
• 1:38:43
  I bet Fraser loves it. He does.
• 1:38:46
  He's got the. T-shirt, hasn't he?
• 1:38:48
  He does I. Forget what I forget what the
• 1:38:52
  tagline is on it, but it's definitely make loss related.
• 1:38:56
  It's a toss up between that and the dominators.
• 1:38:58
  You know, it's a tough one for him, Daniel Ruling says, Putting
• 1:39:03
  in a bit of love for Megloss just because it's fresh in my
• 1:39:05
  mind. All those wild and wacky ideas.
• 1:39:09
  Jacqueline Hill, a talking cactus, which is just plain
• 1:39:12
  surreal. The Doctor romanas.
• 1:39:14
  Chronic hysteresis in the TARDIS both inspired and a great bit of
• 1:39:18
  padding. Daniel Knight said Megloss can't
• 1:39:21
  quite pull off the frankly ridiculous idea of a centiate.
• 1:39:24
  Actors don't know what he means, despite Tom Baker's eerie
• 1:39:27
  performance. Herald of Creation says Megloss
• 1:39:31
  just feels like it's a leftover from Season 17.
• 1:39:35
  And Paul Dunn echoes up by saying Megloss is a throwback to
• 1:39:38
  Season 17. Everybody's saying this like
• 1:39:40
  it's a bad thing. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:39:43
  Victor Agrida, Junior says. I remember Megloss freaking me
• 1:39:47
  out as a kid. Stookie Babi says Controversial
• 1:39:52
  opinion, but I enjoy Megloss. It's stupid, but camp and
• 1:39:55
  entertaining. Ian Banks says megloss is still
• 1:39:59
  a lot of fun, but the central conceit of the villain being a
• 1:40:01
  cactus is hard to swallow. You don't want to swallow a
• 1:40:05
  cactus, Jesus. And Jane Belt said I think
• 1:40:10
  Megloss would have to be my favorite of the season for the
• 1:40:13
  sheer weirdness. I think the young Lee was trying
• 1:40:16
  to take it seriously, but it's glorious.
• 1:40:20
  OK, so where do the panel sit on Megloss?
• 1:40:24
  Can I jump in please on megloss? For it.
• 1:40:26
  Thank you very much. Finally a story I can say
• 1:40:30
  fabulous things about. Yes, I mean it is a leftover
• 1:40:35
  from six and 17. I don't know if it is
• 1:40:37
  officially, but I. Think it is?
• 1:40:39
  No, I think. It was richly held gas tax and
• 1:40:43
  madly over the top, You know, cult leaders and an enormous
• 1:40:47
  plant being the villain. Oh my God, it's so fun this.
• 1:40:52
  It's so much fun to watch. It's got a huge dose of humour
• 1:40:57
  to it and I think humour is absolutely vital as an in to
• 1:41:01
  Doctor Who for kids, you know. And I want to watch Nuclear
• 1:41:05
  Fallout in the leisure hive and the dreary old politics of the
• 1:41:09
  keeper of track. And no, they want to watch Tom
• 1:41:12
  Baker now. Prickly mass place, you know,
• 1:41:14
  going around menacing people in the shadows.
• 1:41:17
  Great fun, Gregor and the gas tax.
• 1:41:22
  I mean two that they are some of the most pantomime villains you
• 1:41:26
  are ever going to see in Doctor Who.
• 1:41:28
  I just so happened to have a pawn shop for pantomime villains
• 1:41:31
  and I think, well, what's the fella's name?
• 1:41:32
  Who plays Gregor? Bill Fraser.
• 1:41:36
  Man oh man, His eyebrow lifts and his reaction shots, they are
• 1:41:41
  hilarious. He's so funny.
• 1:41:43
  And then you've got brought attackers like the the.
• 1:41:46
  It's like Iron Grown. And what's the fella's name?
• 1:41:50
  Thank you. It's exactly the same rate.
• 1:41:52
  He's looking at him like, you know, he's a great brain and the
• 1:41:55
  best tactician in the universe. So, so funny.
• 1:42:00
  I think this is actually quite well directed.
• 1:42:03
  Although, Jim, I think you're right again.
• 1:42:06
  It does feel cheap in places because we're trying to realize
• 1:42:08
  an entire planet in about three sets.
• 1:42:11
  It's a common problem for this season.
• 1:42:13
  It's because a lot of the stories don't utilize.
• 1:42:16
  Some of them use location work and some of them avoid it all
• 1:42:18
  together. It's a really odd choice.
• 1:42:21
  But I do love the bold innovation of using that scene
• 1:42:24
  sync technology, which allows to have the the shots of the
• 1:42:28
  screens coming up out and the cameras sort of moving around
• 1:42:32
  that it doesn't always work. But I always admire when Doctor
• 1:42:36
  Who's using technology, you know, sort of fresh technology,
• 1:42:39
  an interesting way. Jacqueline Hill, Come on.
• 1:42:43
  It descended from the heavens. She's having a great time in
• 1:42:48
  this, isn't she? The only tough note about Jackie
• 1:42:51
  Hill is now she's summarily dispatched in Episode 3.
• 1:42:55
  She should have made it through somehow, but I think this is
• 1:43:00
  sort of a knowing wink at religion and Jackie Hill plays
• 1:43:04
  that really, really well. Tom Baker giving out what I
• 1:43:09
  think is probably his best performance of the season
• 1:43:12
  because he gets to be fun as the Doctor and he gets to be
• 1:43:14
  menacing as Megalos and just OK, yeah, it's a cactus, and that's
• 1:43:21
  ridiculous. And how on earth did a sentient
• 1:43:24
  cactus come to be like Mr. and Mrs. Cactus met on a desert
• 1:43:29
  landscape and Megalos came into his?
• 1:43:32
  Who knows? But the second you're doing the
• 1:43:34
  sort of doppelganger stuff and you're giving Tom a chance to be
• 1:43:38
  sinister, all of that stuff works like gangbusters.
• 1:43:41
  All that stuff in the middle there where you're not sure
• 1:43:44
  who's who and he's nabbing off with the dodecahedron.
• 1:43:47
  It's like Hartner when Dallas master plan isn't it with the
• 1:43:50
  uranium core, whatever it's called.
• 1:43:52
  It's all great fun stuff. And I just one moment, please
• 1:43:57
  for the all time campus moment in doctor whoever where the gas
• 1:44:02
  tax are. They're not quite sure who
• 1:44:04
  they're talking to in this white room in episode one.
• 1:44:08
  And then there's this great width pan.
• 1:44:10
  Around. Onto that rubber cactus.
• 1:44:13
  Funny. It's so funny.
• 1:44:15
  I'm laughing just talking about it.
• 1:44:17
  I just. I really, really enjoy this.
• 1:44:20
  And a note for the chronic hysteresis, which is padding to
• 1:44:24
  keep them out of the story. But again, it's really, really
• 1:44:28
  fun. Great lines.
• 1:44:29
  Tom and Lala having great fun doing the scene over and over
• 1:44:33
  again and being more with the Doctor, forgetting his lines is
• 1:44:36
  gold. I don't know.
• 1:44:38
  I just, I just think, and it's short, so this skips by.
• 1:44:42
  It looks pretty good. It's funny, it's scary and it's
• 1:44:47
  silly. Yeah.
• 1:44:48
  So I think this is possibly the funniest story of the season.
• 1:44:53
  Lucy, I have a confession to make.
• 1:44:56
  I haven't watched Megalos, and it occurred to me that I haven't
• 1:44:59
  watched it. I've listened to podcasts on it,
• 1:45:01
  I've read about it, I've seen pictures of it, but I haven't
• 1:45:03
  actually watched it, so I don't really have the right to have an
• 1:45:07
  opinion on it. And I realized that I just
• 1:45:10
  sounded really, really pretentious talking about
• 1:45:12
  Shakespeare. So what the hell, I like the
• 1:45:14
  idea of sentient cactus. Have any of you read any of
• 1:45:18
  China Meavel's books, The Scar or Perdido Street Station or the
• 1:45:25
  Iron Council? OK, so in those books?
• 1:45:28
  Watching Megalos loose. They're they're very, very not
• 1:45:32
  much like Megalos at all. Very, very.
• 1:45:35
  There is humor in them, but they are very serious and very I just
• 1:45:39
  wanted to have a bath after reading some of them.
• 1:45:42
  Oh wow. Can you send me a copy, please?
• 1:45:44
  They're. Very.
• 1:45:45
  They are. They are excellent novels, but
• 1:45:48
  in one of them there are humanoid cactus.
• 1:45:52
  So the idea of a cactus be they're human shaped cactuses
• 1:45:56
  with with spikes. So that's not you know, and also
• 1:46:00
  remember I grew up watching the adventure game in which there
• 1:46:03
  was a talking aspedestra who was somebody's uncle, someone or
• 1:46:09
  other who didn't like to meet the human contestants.
• 1:46:11
  So he disguised himself as an Aspedestra and every now and
• 1:46:14
  again he would wobble and make noises.
• 1:46:16
  So this premise is not so out there for you, no?
• 1:46:18
  No, not at all, no. But I suppose in a way the sort
• 1:46:23
  of the hangover from the previous in comes might come
• 1:46:26
  partly from the idea of the religious group not understand
• 1:46:30
  worship technology and not understanding it.
• 1:46:33
  Because you've had that with crawl and you've had it in other
• 1:46:39
  cases as well. And in this case it's not.
• 1:46:44
  I don't think it's it's not necessarily offensive, but it's
• 1:46:47
  it's more uncomfortable when you've got a group on a planet
• 1:46:51
  and it's their planet and they don't understand the technology
• 1:46:54
  and then somebody comes in from outside and starts abusing it on
• 1:46:57
  this planet. It's the two groups that are
• 1:46:59
  both from the planet. So you've got the scientists and
• 1:47:01
  you've got the the, the religious people.
• 1:47:04
  But it is starting to I I think reading about it I was thinking
• 1:47:08
  well yeah, but that's that's happened before they've had
• 1:47:11
  they've done the sort of the, the mystical object that turns
• 1:47:15
  out to be a super weapon that's that's already happened.
• 1:47:19
  Oh, it's it's mired in cliches this.
• 1:47:21
  Yeah, Yeah. But yeah, talking cactus,
• 1:47:24
  absolutely fine. Fantastic.
• 1:47:27
  I am 100% for Magloss. Oh yes, I'm.
• 1:47:31
  Perfectly happy with Magloss. I think we've probably covered a
• 1:47:33
  lot of the reasons why. I think the image of the
• 1:47:38
  earthling trying to escape the body of Tom Baker when he's
• 1:47:42
  dressed as a cactus is really quite disturbing and
• 1:47:45
  quieterring. It's almost heading towards the
• 1:47:47
  by regeneration effect that we've just had with shooting and
• 1:47:50
  David Tennant with the two bodies coming out.
• 1:47:52
  Was the earthly did his underpants.
• 1:47:55
  We don't see you. I don't think I can see you,
• 1:47:57
  Earthling. I don't think I.
• 1:47:57
  Really, we're very free. Shooty is, yeah.
• 1:48:01
  I'm perfectly happy with shooty staying in his underpants, thank
• 1:48:03
  you very much. Yeah.
• 1:48:07
  Yeah, he's. Wearing a kilt.
• 1:48:08
  He's wearing a kilt in the next one, isn't he?
• 1:48:10
  So and. If we talk too much about this
• 1:48:12
  Lucy, I'm going to go and need a bath, so.
• 1:48:16
  No, I meant. I meant I needed a bath in the
• 1:48:18
  sense that there's a lot of grim.
• 1:48:22
  Oh no, I got that. Don't you worry.
• 1:48:24
  Yeah. Oh, I got that.
• 1:48:25
  I'm just. But they're fantastic books and
• 1:48:27
  I highly recommend them. Yeah.
• 1:48:30
  So I think that image of the Earthling breaking apart is
• 1:48:32
  really quite disturbing in a story that you've Riley said,
• 1:48:36
  Joe is just a hell of a lot of fun, but I think it gets that
• 1:48:39
  scary and fun together, which works really, really well.
• 1:48:43
  I think episode one, it's Planet Zog as as RTD would call it.
• 1:48:48
  And in episode one you get to, you get to go to Tigala, you get
• 1:48:53
  to go to Zolfa Thora, you meet the Gaz techs, you meet the
• 1:48:56
  sevens, you meet the dions, you meet Sasta.
• 1:48:58
  But actually, do you know what? Watching it again, I'm thinking
• 1:49:01
  with this critical head and what it's really very, quite
• 1:49:04
  elegantly put together as a hell of a lot in episode one.
• 1:49:07
  Isn't it? It.
• 1:49:09
  Is it's the only time he directs.
• 1:49:11
  It is, but the writing is quite sharp.
• 1:49:13
  Yes, the characters are fairly broad, but it's really
• 1:49:16
  interesting. They're very clearly delineated.
• 1:49:19
  You know what's going on. Even though it's packing out of
• 1:49:21
  lot into one episode, I think it's quite skillfully done.
• 1:49:24
  It's directed well. It's the writing gets a bad rap.
• 1:49:27
  I think it's pretty good. Like I said, Gregor and Brodak
• 1:49:30
  are a fabulous Holmesian double act.
• 1:49:33
  I think Karis, one of the stavants on Ty Gala, she's
• 1:49:40
  really undervalued as well. I think it's partly because the
• 1:49:42
  actress is really good and she gives a really strong
• 1:49:44
  performance, so she's a good, strong character.
• 1:49:46
  Lexa, yeah. Again, I'm not going to go into
• 1:49:49
  my acting from before, but Jacqueline Hill is fantastic.
• 1:49:52
  Lexa really grounds that character.
• 1:49:54
  She could have been seen as a bit of a kind of cliche
• 1:49:56
  religious leader, but I think track in Hell plays it with such
• 1:49:59
  gravitas that you believe in her.
• 1:50:01
  The death scene. Don't even get me started.
• 1:50:03
  What a waste of time. But yeah, I've got written down
• 1:50:07
  as well. It's just a hell of a lot of
• 1:50:09
  fun. You got the bell plants
• 1:50:10
  attacking the gas tax. It's so silly, Romana taking
• 1:50:13
  them round around. Please, I put that in your
• 1:50:15
  defence. Please it's.
• 1:50:18
  Fun, isn't it? It's.
• 1:50:19
  Great Savage Roses. It's very good though Bid me can
• 1:50:24
  be very PO faced and I think this brings a bit of levity to
• 1:50:27
  the season. God is so refreshing, isn't it?
• 1:50:30
  Yeah. And even even the, I mean the
• 1:50:32
  the Gas Tack outfits, particularly Rotterduck and
• 1:50:35
  Grugger, they remind me quite a bit of that operatic look from
• 1:50:38
  homes of nine, one that you were talking about.
• 1:50:39
  They've got that kind of feel to it.
• 1:50:41
  So I think it's, it's quite broad in that sense, but it's
• 1:50:44
  got quite a bit to say. I really like it.
• 1:50:46
  So yeah, it's sticking for me, and it's probably, I think on
• 1:50:49
  the previous podcast we talked about our most used quote from
• 1:50:53
  Doctor Who, and probably mine has always been First things
• 1:50:57
  first, but not necessarily in that order, and no one ever gets
• 1:51:00
  it looks at me as though I'm mad, but it tickles me.
• 1:51:03
  So yeah, Megalos is definitely staying in.
• 1:51:05
  Do you? Know what it is.
• 1:51:06
  It is. It's a last gasp this in the
• 1:51:08
  state of decay, or a last gasp of this type of very comedic
• 1:51:12
  story before that's abandoned entirely in the next era.
• 1:51:18
  And there's huge strengths to the next era, but you just don't
• 1:51:21
  get the sort of of camp outrageous companies, not really
• 1:51:25
  until Mccaway comes along in time in the rally.
• 1:51:28
  Yeah. And then by God, we turn the
• 1:51:29
  camp up to 10. Oh.
• 1:51:31
  Yes, baby, fabulous. Oh my God, everything's gone
• 1:51:34
  through so. Everything has gone through.
• 1:51:36
  So sorry, Jim. We have overturned your decision
• 1:51:38
  and Meglos is staying in. You're right, It's the first
• 1:51:41
  time this has ever happened. Lucy, we're back to you for your
• 1:51:46
  choice. We're left with Full Circle and
• 1:51:48
  Warrior's Gate. Which are you going to choose?
• 1:51:50
  I'm going to choose a full circle because I think it's, I
• 1:51:56
  think it's good. I like it.
• 1:51:58
  I like the planet setting. The trouble with planets is that
• 1:52:02
  sometimes you get like in I think I mentioned this to Joe
• 1:52:08
  before, it's sort of small planet syndrome.
• 1:52:10
  So you get the idea that there's only one civilization that
• 1:52:13
  exists on this tiny planet and in order to speak to somebody
• 1:52:17
  from another civilization, they don't go to another continent,
• 1:52:19
  they have to go to another planet.
• 1:52:21
  So it's like, oh, we're going to visit the repair person, he's on
• 1:52:23
  this planet and then we're going to go and visit this person and
• 1:52:24
  they're on that planet and they're on this.
• 1:52:26
  So with with some of the the planets that they visit, you
• 1:52:33
  sort of get the impression that they're it's like visiting a
• 1:52:36
  different town rather than a an actual space.
• 1:52:40
  But I think we've for some reason, and it could be because
• 1:52:43
  of the location work and the sort of different environments
• 1:52:46
  you see with with full circle you really get the sense of them
• 1:52:49
  being on a world rather than a tiny planet somewhere, although
• 1:52:54
  it is quite small. I like the excuse me I like the
• 1:52:58
  the the twist that they've always been there and that they
• 1:53:02
  they actually, the reason they can't launch is because they
• 1:53:05
  just don't know how to because they weren't the ones that
• 1:53:07
  landed the ship in the 1st place and that they're constantly and
• 1:53:14
  the that the people in charge or rather the person in charge
• 1:53:17
  knows that because it it could have been that they that it just
• 1:53:22
  kept happening and kept happening and kept happening and
• 1:53:24
  there wasn't any memory of it. But actually somebody knows and
• 1:53:28
  they don't give it away until right the last moment.
• 1:53:32
  I am not a fan of spiders in any way so I find those spiders
• 1:53:36
  quite creepy. Foot strangely I didn't find the
• 1:53:39
  Planet of the Spiders spiders so disturbing.
• 1:53:41
  I don't know why. Perhaps practical.
• 1:53:43
  They have those funny little voices and sort of go, but I but
• 1:53:47
  these spiders, because they're in the dark and they jump at
• 1:53:50
  you, felt quite creepy. And the idea of Ramona being
• 1:53:54
  possessed by something that could turn her into something
• 1:54:00
  else. And yeah, the the, the, the
• 1:54:05
  children who aren't really children is a perennial problem
• 1:54:09
  with 1980s drama because they're always going to cast older and
• 1:54:15
  some of the actors can carry it off and some of them can't.
• 1:54:19
  Don't mean necessarily in this, I mean just in general.
• 1:54:21
  So it's like when you, I don't know if you've seen the The
• 1:54:26
  BLOB, the Steve McQueen 1. It's like, my God, they don't
• 1:54:30
  look a day over 40 and they're supposed to be 15.
• 1:54:33
  It's like grease isn't. It the original it.
• 1:54:35
  Really is, yeah. Because I mean, I assume I
• 1:54:37
  again, Grease is a film that I've never seen all the way
• 1:54:40
  through. I've seen bits of it and I
• 1:54:42
  assumed when I was because it was very popular in the 80s and
• 1:54:46
  the soundtrack got played at parties and so and so I saw
• 1:54:50
  pictures of it. I assumed they were adults, and
• 1:54:53
  then I find out years later they're supposed to be a high
• 1:54:55
  school. I think Stockard Channing is
• 1:54:57
  supposed to be 16. She looks about 55, didn't she?
• 1:55:01
  Olivia Newton John was was worried that she would appear
• 1:55:04
  too old. Actually she looks she's the one
• 1:55:08
  who looks like the rest of them that look.
• 1:55:10
  So it it kind of I'm I'm sounding like I'm sort of doing
• 1:55:13
  it down now. But I think that is kind of my
• 1:55:16
  sticking point is that the the children, I'm not sure how young
• 1:55:20
  they're supposed to be because they aren't children.
• 1:55:24
  They're they're clearly adults, all of them.
• 1:55:27
  They are quite convincing in a sort of frustrated teen sort of
• 1:55:32
  way in that they want to do something and they don't know
• 1:55:34
  what they're going to do and actually they're really quite
• 1:55:36
  spoiled and they don't realise that they are.
• 1:55:39
  But what they're doing is pointless.
• 1:55:42
  The Marsh people coming out of the Marsh is, is creepy.
• 1:55:45
  I love the Marsh People's make up, I think is really good and
• 1:55:48
  really effective and this sort of, because they've got that
• 1:55:52
  kind of humanoid look about them, that obviously makes it
• 1:55:55
  easier to be menacing because you're dragging less latex
• 1:55:59
  around with you. So yeah, I I like it, and you
• 1:56:04
  end up with Adric stowing away in the TARDIS, which moves on to
• 1:56:08
  him becoming a companion. But I do like as well that
• 1:56:12
  there's a relatively happy ending, because they get, you
• 1:56:16
  don't know. You don't know what's going to
• 1:56:18
  happen to the star liner. It might explode or crash into
• 1:56:21
  the next planet or whatever, but at least they do get to leave
• 1:56:25
  the. Green Brass and gentleman.
• 1:56:28
  And and well, and the Doctor makes the decision He he's
• 1:56:31
  forced. He's almost forced into it.
• 1:56:33
  But it's not like Hertwee's Doctor is very decisive, isn't
• 1:56:39
  he? This is the right thing to do.
• 1:56:40
  This is the wrong thing to do. I'm going to do what I see is
• 1:56:43
  the right thing. This will happen.
• 1:56:46
  It feels in some ways in other places where this doctor is sort
• 1:56:49
  of not quite. So he's a bit more ambivalent
• 1:56:53
  about it and that you think that if if push came to shove, he
• 1:56:57
  possibly would have just let them keep going.
• 1:57:02
  But actually in the end they do get, they do get to leave and
• 1:57:06
  the supporting class is very good.
• 1:57:08
  George Baker is fab in everything that he's in.
• 1:57:11
  I mean if you, if you want somebody who will lend gravity
• 1:57:14
  and conviction to a a supporting role, then just get him.
• 1:57:20
  He's you just had to get him. He's he's brilliant.
• 1:57:23
  So yes, I like it. Fabulous thanks Lucy.
• 1:57:26
  Let's go to the comments, Very few comments on this one.
• 1:57:28
  Bizarrely, James H said my favorite of the season is full
• 1:57:32
  circle. Partly for the nostalgia, partly
• 1:57:34
  for the music, partly for the skin type W wet costumes, but
• 1:57:37
  mostly because it's a relaxing watch.
• 1:57:41
  And finally, Paul Cresson says great story, monsters, location,
• 1:57:46
  filming and music. OK.
• 1:57:50
  So panel, are we going to agree with Luce?
• 1:57:52
  Let's go to Joe first. Oh, me?
• 1:57:54
  Oh, good grief. Oh, you're going to go to gym?
• 1:57:57
  OK, I can't disagree with a word that Lucy has said.
• 1:58:01
  Lucy, you're so compelling to listen to.
• 1:58:03
  Honestly, this is so refreshing. The the planet landscape in
• 1:58:08
  this, the all of that beautiful location work in Black Park.
• 1:58:12
  But all those sort of physical effects that he adds to as well,
• 1:58:14
  The the webbing, the lighting which looks a bit more exotic,
• 1:58:18
  the mist in the water, all of that is one of the most
• 1:58:22
  convincingly realized alien planets ever.
• 1:58:25
  And all of that location work in the first episode is stunning.
• 1:58:30
  When I was watching it this week, the sequence where Dreyf
• 1:58:33
  is pulled under the swamp, so scary, I couldn't have watched
• 1:58:37
  that as a kid. That would have terrified me.
• 1:58:40
  His hand going under the mist. I think actually gets a really
• 1:58:45
  good first story in this as well.
• 1:58:49
  Immediately, the second he starts saying, you know, I want
• 1:58:50
  more than my dull life with maths on the star lining up
• 1:58:53
  right. There he is.
• 1:58:55
  That's our new companion. You know he's done life with
• 1:58:58
  maths on Logopolis. Instead, and also he's picked on
• 1:59:00
  by his older brother. As well, isn't he and.
• 1:59:02
  He's he's obviously a bit of a nerd and he thinks he's had a
• 1:59:06
  discussion conversation with somebody on Twitter a couple of
• 1:59:09
  years ago about how he's a sort of example of a child who is has
• 1:59:17
  a very strong talent, for one thing, mathematics.
• 1:59:20
  And so he feels, because of the sort of personality he is that
• 1:59:25
  that gives him sort of that his overall intellect is, is and
• 1:59:30
  experience and everything is higher than it actually is.
• 1:59:32
  So he knows a lot about maths, he doesn't know a lot about
• 1:59:35
  everything else, but he thinks he does.
• 1:59:37
  And, like, you really feel like he wants to join the gang,
• 1:59:39
  doesn't he? There's sort of.
• 1:59:40
  Yeah, he does. And he's.
• 1:59:41
  Never going because they're just that because.
• 1:59:43
  And there's. I mean, I don't know about you,
• 1:59:45
  but I was never a member of the gang because I always said the
• 1:59:49
  wrong thing and I didn't understand the jokes.
• 1:59:51
  And they would ask me a question and I would give the wrong
• 1:59:53
  answer and they'd all be chuckling and I wouldn't
• 1:59:55
  understand why. So I think there's a lot of,
• 1:59:58
  quite a lot of identification going on there.
• 2:00:00
  Excuse. Me, Lucy McCall, You're a member
• 2:00:02
  of this gang, all right? And I was, but except that I was
• 2:00:05
  rubbish at maths, so. But also as well, like in that
• 2:00:09
  first episode, he watches the decide to get killed.
• 2:00:12
  I think he's got a great rapport with Tom Baker in this as well.
• 2:00:15
  They're really fun together. He witnesses losing his brother
• 2:00:18
  and that's a really touching moment.
• 2:00:20
  They lean into that awful Dodger stuff with him stealing the
• 2:00:23
  thing. So as as characterized, he's
• 2:00:26
  really good. And I think Matthew Warehouse is
• 2:00:28
  OK. He's never amazing, but he is
• 2:00:31
  perfectly acceptable in this Angry Tom, not an Alibi deciders
• 2:00:38
  that scene. It's Tom Baker suddenly burst to
• 2:00:41
  life in season 18 and he's really engaged with that.
• 2:00:45
  It's a fantastic scene and evil Lal Awards going around with all
• 2:00:49
  the things on her face and being all sinister.
• 2:00:52
  That's all fabulous as well. It's a smart story that
• 2:00:55
  evolution stuff is is really interesting but like but I
• 2:01:00
  complained innkeeper, Track and others that it was just going in
• 2:01:02
  and out of rooms and it was a bit boring.
• 2:01:04
  This has a really lush production.
• 2:01:07
  It's full of exciting incident. It has the monsters tearing into
• 2:01:11
  the ship at the end. So we're just remembers to be a
• 2:01:13
  really sort of dynamic Doctor Who story as well.
• 2:01:18
  And I love the jump cut of the spider coming out the the melon
• 2:01:23
  and landed on her face. That's a really terrific Peter
• 2:01:26
  Grimm. Race direction is pretty, dare I
• 2:01:30
  say, avant-garde. Like all four of the stories he
• 2:01:33
  directs are really, it's really interestingly done and he does
• 2:01:37
  different things each time. Kinder, Earthshot, Lagopoulos,
• 2:01:40
  and this. This might be his strongest
• 2:01:42
  though as well. And just all that fun around the
• 2:01:45
  Deciders at the end going, oh, you know, you must agree it does
• 2:01:49
  require some thoughts. You know, even when they know
• 2:01:52
  what they've got to fucking do, they still don't want to do it.
• 2:01:54
  Because they've never. Because they.
• 2:01:56
  Because that's all they've ever done is to not do something.
• 2:02:01
  That's all. All that, that, all that, all
• 2:02:03
  that the deciders have done is to never make a decision.
• 2:02:07
  Weirdly enough, I think this does fall short of being an
• 2:02:10
  absolute classic. I'm not sure.
• 2:02:12
  I can't really put my finger on why, but this is sort of like
• 2:02:16
  absolute top tier mid range. It doesn't really put a foot
• 2:02:20
  wrong. It's monsters are great.
• 2:02:22
  It's cliffhangers are great. It skips along.
• 2:02:25
  The characterization is good, The direction is good.
• 2:02:28
  I think in terms of season 18, this is the all rounder, this
• 2:02:32
  one. So staying in, Jim.
• 2:02:38
  Yeah, I don't think I can add much more to to to the praise
• 2:02:43
  that that Joe and and Lucy have have heaped onto it.
• 2:02:47
  It's a strong, uncomplicated story with a great it's it's got
• 2:02:51
  a great twist in it. It's the the marsh men are the
• 2:02:55
  very effective aliens. You know they don't look
• 2:03:00
  ridiculous. Again the atmosphere in the
• 2:03:03
  first episode it's he's he's super creepy.
• 2:03:08
  I think it maybe loses its way slightly in the middle but it
• 2:03:12
  soon it soon picks up again. All the support and characters
• 2:03:15
  are amazing. Well not amazing but fantastic.
• 2:03:19
  I wouldn't say any of them are amazing they're amazing.
• 2:03:25
  I I I would have actually liked to have seen Vash carry on with
• 2:03:31
  the with the with the Doctor and Romana.
• 2:03:33
  I think that would have been an interesting dynamic if we'd kind
• 2:03:38
  of had that kind of a slightly, slightly more grey.
• 2:03:46
  Yeah, kind of, you know, is it not so.
• 2:03:49
  So I mean, Addy, Addy Addrics, not really kind of a kind of a
• 2:03:54
  Goody 2 Shoes character is he? Because he's a bit
• 2:03:56
  untrustworthy. As the season goes on you never
• 2:03:59
  quite know what he what he's up to.
• 2:04:01
  But I think, I think to have a a bit more of a confrontational
• 2:04:05
  companion would have been would have been interesting really.
• 2:04:09
  Hot as well, Jim. It wouldn't have hurt having
• 2:04:12
  Richard Williston, and he's a better actor than Matthew
• 2:04:14
  Waterhouse as well. Yes, I think.
• 2:04:16
  I think so. I think he's a better actor.
• 2:04:18
  Yeah, she's a. Lot more Chast.
• 2:04:24
  Don't you shake your red at me. No, please.
• 2:04:30
  Do the spiders again. Yeah they are really creepy.
• 2:04:35
  I'm I'm not good with spiders. Watching it the other night I
• 2:04:39
  you know I was physically jumping when with the with the
• 2:04:42
  spiders appeared. Yeah.
• 2:04:45
  I don't know why it's it it tends to get forgotten about
• 2:04:48
  full circle. It's not a it doesn't stand out.
• 2:04:52
  I often wonder if it had been, if it had been one of those
• 2:04:55
  stories that was released years ago, like one of the early video
• 2:04:59
  releases. I wonder if it had been, if it
• 2:05:01
  would have been kind of talked about a little more because you
• 2:05:06
  know, I didn't see it for for for many, many years until the
• 2:05:09
  the they came out in the E Space box set on the VHSS.
• 2:05:14
  So yeah, it's. I don't know.
• 2:05:16
  I don't quite know. I can't, I I can't put my finger
• 2:05:18
  on it either of why it gets forgotten, But it is a really,
• 2:05:22
  really solid story. And yeah, I would, I would have
• 2:05:27
  to say it'd be it'd be up there as one of my favourites of the
• 2:05:29
  season. OK.
• 2:05:31
  So everything's going. Through none of these are
• 2:05:33
  getting rejected, are they don't.
• 2:05:36
  Worry a little bit. Don't worry it will be like
• 2:05:38
  merciless in round. Two, I'm a little bit ambivalent
• 2:05:43
  about Full Circle. I don't dislike it just a bit.
• 2:05:48
  It just doesn't quite fire for me for a number of reasons.
• 2:05:52
  I think there's some great moments and then you've you've
• 2:05:54
  pretty much between you. You've named all the great
• 2:05:57
  moments, Tom Beancross, Marshman, raising from the
• 2:06:00
  swamp, the twists. Yeah, there's lots of really
• 2:06:03
  good stuff in there, but it kind of feels like they don't feel
• 2:06:08
  necessarily organic to the plot. They almost feel like twists,
• 2:06:12
  looking for a plot to hang it on and it just doesn't quite flow
• 2:06:16
  for me. Somehow.
• 2:06:17
  I don't know what's missing, but just the something just missing.
• 2:06:21
  I think part of it might be that I find the characters generally
• 2:06:25
  and this is in contradictions of most the rest of you.
• 2:06:27
  So I apologize. I just find the characters a
• 2:06:29
  little bit bland in comparison to what else we've had.
• 2:06:32
  When I think of the kind of larger than life three rule, I
• 2:06:35
  think of all the people on track and in the console just a little
• 2:06:40
  bit bland. Here the the three elders just a
• 2:06:43
  little bit dull. Logan.
• 2:06:45
  James Bree. I know it.
• 2:06:47
  Doesn't go. Over the top.
• 2:06:49
  But even even Logan George Baker's character, his
• 2:06:53
  characteristic is that he's got a daughter, they're not really
• 2:06:56
  very well drawn characters and I think I like it when there's a
• 2:06:59
  good solid plot. We've got, you know, pretty good
• 2:07:01
  play, but then real characters to liven it up and they're
• 2:07:05
  generally, it's quite hard. I would say if I put you all on
• 2:07:08
  the spot and said name some of the characters from Full Circle
• 2:07:12
  apart from the regulars, you'd probably have a bit of a
• 2:07:15
  struggle. Do you want me to do it?
• 2:07:17
  No, Joe, I know, I know you can do.
• 2:07:19
  It Tylos Keira. Yeah.
• 2:07:22
  Ash, Patrick. That's just the kids.
• 2:07:26
  The deciders. Yeah, knee threads.
• 2:07:29
  Logan. And the other one.
• 2:07:30
  And the other one. And there we go.
• 2:07:33
  And there's my point just made. I don't.
• 2:07:36
  I think Roman is a little bit weakly portrayed here.
• 2:07:39
  At the beginning, when she's told she's returning to
• 2:07:41
  Galifree, she just gets a little bit sulking, lies on her bed and
• 2:07:44
  has a bit of a teenage drop. That's not what I want from
• 2:07:47
  Romana. I want Romana to be strong and
• 2:07:49
  powerful, like she's in in State of Decay that follows.
• 2:07:53
  She's just a little bit whiny here and I don't like that with
• 2:07:57
  Romana. Romana is a good, strong,
• 2:07:58
  independent character. I think she loses a little bit
• 2:08:01
  of that here. The beginning bit.
• 2:08:03
  Yes, we've got Planet of the Gaze a little bit at the
• 2:08:06
  beginning with all those costumes, which are obviously
• 2:08:09
  that's why Joe recommended this story that quite.
• 2:08:13
  Revealed the way to know where to put his camera when they're
• 2:08:15
  all in that wall, I believe. It's quite surprising when you
• 2:08:17
  see that again. Yeah, yeah, just the Marshman
• 2:08:25
  times look quite good when the first shot on them is their legs
• 2:08:28
  coming out the swamp and you've got a rip in the costume.
• 2:08:30
  Unless the first thing the camera lands on puts me off a
• 2:08:33
  little bit. I think the pig grunting noises
• 2:08:35
  that they use are fabulous. And really, if we didn't have
• 2:08:38
  that noise as the background, I think the sound design here is
• 2:08:41
  really, really effective. If we didn't have that, I think
• 2:08:44
  they would definitely be losing about.
• 2:08:45
  I think I'm really imbues them with a unusual and alien
• 2:08:49
  character. But yeah, generally just it's
• 2:08:53
  just missing something and I can't.
• 2:08:54
  I don't dislike it, but it's just not top tier for me.
• 2:08:58
  But it's going through anyway. Could it be that there's that
• 2:09:01
  there's too many characters in it?
• 2:09:04
  Possibly rather than being a kind of smaller supporting cast
• 2:09:08
  and maybe more defined characters.
• 2:09:12
  Someone maybe needs a bit more time to breathe, so we get to
• 2:09:14
  know them a little bit more. Yeah, they're a bit ciphers
• 2:09:18
  rather than characters. There's.
• 2:09:20
  Not really an antagonist either. There's no vivid in this because
• 2:09:24
  even the marshmen, they're just obeying instincts.
• 2:09:26
  So I guess Dexter. Could be in a way, because he's
• 2:09:29
  the one that, you know, operates on the Marsh child.
• 2:09:32
  And I mean that's another nice twist actually.
• 2:09:34
  There's a, there's a child alien that.
• 2:09:36
  I mean that's quite unusual. It's not something we've seen
• 2:09:38
  before. And the, you know, intended
• 2:09:40
  autopsy scene, as you rightly said is very strong.
• 2:09:42
  So Dexter is probably the closest, but you're right.
• 2:09:45
  He's not an out and out felon, but he's.
• 2:09:47
  Probably a bit where he gets murdered horribly.
• 2:09:50
  I love that bit. You're just a bit sick, Joe, But
• 2:09:54
  anyway, it's going through. So we're on to our final one,
• 2:09:58
  Joe. It's between you and I.
• 2:10:00
  Do you feel passionate about Warriors Gate?
• 2:10:02
  Oh, do I feel passionate about Warriors Gate?
• 2:10:05
  Yes, easily the strongest story of the season.
• 2:10:11
  I think there's just nothing else.
• 2:10:13
  White light Warriors Gate. Is it the story where the
• 2:10:17
  conclusion is the solution to the problem?
• 2:10:19
  Is Tom Baker doing nothing, which is the most unthinkable
• 2:10:24
  thing you can ask Tom Baker's doctor to do?
• 2:10:27
  Oh, it's a great I said the word avant-garde about Peter
• 2:10:31
  Greenway's direction. But this, which seems to have
• 2:10:33
  been cobbled together between Paul Joyce, Graham Harper,
• 2:10:38
  possibly JNT, like loads of people have had input into this.
• 2:10:43
  And the imagery is spectacular in this is it's unforgettable.
• 2:10:48
  I love the opening swishing through this like that sort of
• 2:10:51
  really slow in contrast to the leisure hive.
• 2:10:55
  It actually leads up and has a point that we are going up
• 2:10:59
  through this empty ship past the slaves, which is a plot point up
• 2:11:03
  to the crew, you know, So it's there for a reason.
• 2:11:06
  And there are slowly going through the time wins, the coin
• 2:11:09
  flipping in the air and pausing that brilliant Cliff.
• 2:11:13
  I go to episode 2 all seen through the point of view of the
• 2:11:16
  Feral slowly coming up to menace Romana, the black and white
• 2:11:21
  dreamscape photography in episode 3.
• 2:11:24
  The the brilliant transitions of the time wins in the set where
• 2:11:28
  you go from this, you know, sort of gorgeous banquet set to it's
• 2:11:32
  strewn with cobwebs and the model work at the climax as
• 2:11:36
  well, which is a cut above your usual model work in Doctor Who.
• 2:11:40
  Like this looks unforgettably weird and unsettling, and it's
• 2:11:45
  just unforgettable. I love the plot of this as well.
• 2:11:50
  It's sort of a treatise on slavery and how slaves can
• 2:11:55
  become the slavers, and the way that's told in several time
• 2:11:59
  zones through some terribly obscure dialogue like this is
• 2:12:03
  definitely a story you need to watch a few times to get all the
• 2:12:06
  pertinent points. It expects you to be smart to
• 2:12:09
  watch it. And a lot of the stories this
• 2:12:11
  season do, actually. And I'll say that even about the
• 2:12:14
  ones I've sort of slacked off terribly, Leisure Wife keeps on.
• 2:12:18
  They all expect you to be an intelligent child.
• 2:12:22
  But this one more more than most of the others.
• 2:12:25
  I think it's the most obscure sort of plotting you get until
• 2:12:29
  Ghost Lie in terms of having to watch it again and again.
• 2:12:35
  I think Lala will get some really strong last story.
• 2:12:39
  People might find me on this. But like she, I loved when the
• 2:12:44
  bit outside the TARDIS where she's running rings around the
• 2:12:48
  crew of the what's the ship called?
• 2:12:49
  The privateer. Yeah, that's marvelous.
• 2:12:52
  And I love her ending as well. I I love that it's foreshadowed
• 2:12:55
  in a scene between her and Adric where she's considering going
• 2:12:59
  and we know she doesn't want to go back to Gallifrey because we
• 2:13:02
  covered that in her was How did you describe it?
• 2:13:05
  Sulky teenage moment. Thank you in full circle.
• 2:13:09
  And I love the fact that it isn't a long, protracted,
• 2:13:13
  maudlin ending. You remember Clara Oswald's
• 2:13:16
  agonisingly long speech in face the Raven?
• 2:13:18
  And then again in hell. Ben.
• 2:13:20
  No. She's like, I'm, I'm staying.
• 2:13:22
  I'm going to be my own Romana. And he's like, Oh my God, what a
• 2:13:25
  time to choose. Well, have canine.
• 2:13:27
  See you later. And then he gets that marvellous
• 2:13:29
  bit at the end and he goes, fine.
• 2:13:31
  She'll be superb. Oh, it's wonderful.
• 2:13:34
  It's perfect for their characters.
• 2:13:35
  I think if we'd have gone down the sort of protracted Murray
• 2:13:40
  Gold route it would have been. It would.
• 2:13:42
  It would have felt a little disingenuous.
• 2:13:47
  Yeah, Warriors Gate is a top 10 of all time Doctor Who story for
• 2:13:53
  me. I think it's got a label.
• 2:13:55
  I think it's really smart. I think it's baffling.
• 2:14:00
  I think it's got great comedy characters in it.
• 2:14:02
  I mean, I've given 50 reasons here rather than three, but
• 2:14:06
  there's no other Doctor Who story like this.
• 2:14:08
  And we can only sidestep like this every now and again,
• 2:14:13
  because literally, it's just walking around a white void Like
• 2:14:17
  I've been whinging about other stories having no incident.
• 2:14:20
  And this is just walking around in circles as the room, the one
• 2:14:25
  room we're in, effectively gets smaller, but in somehow that
• 2:14:29
  that is utterly beguiling to watch.
• 2:14:32
  So yeah, despite all those production issues, the result is
• 2:14:38
  incredible. Let's go to the comments.
• 2:14:41
  So first one from Johnny Morris, who was on our podcast 2
• 2:14:44
  podcasts ago, says Warriors gated the best because it's an
• 2:14:48
  amazing concept and has some great trippy moments.
• 2:14:51
  Doctor Who at It's most imaginative.
• 2:14:53
  Some fella called Fraser Gregory says he's one of the most
• 2:14:56
  beautifully realized stories in 60 years, with a plot that is
• 2:15:00
  hard to pin down but rewards the effort and a truly exceptional
• 2:15:04
  score by Peter Howe. Gary Russell says in an era of
• 2:15:07
  steffire and steel, Doctor Who finally uses time and time
• 2:15:10
  travel properly and demands generatively as the bad guy.
• 2:15:14
  Herald of Creation says Warrior's Gate is absolutely
• 2:15:17
  fantastic, with some beautiful imagery and directorial touches.
• 2:15:21
  James H is a voice of discontent and comparison, says My least
• 2:15:26
  favorite, though still good, is Warrior's Gate.
• 2:15:28
  Too frustrating and a truly bizarre philosophy from Romana.
• 2:15:32
  He loves being the outlier, don't he?
• 2:15:34
  I see Melvin, Rob says, My least favorite as although it looks
• 2:15:39
  good on screen, I found the other stories easier to follow.
• 2:15:42
  That's a fair criticism, I think.
• 2:15:44
  Michael Storm said My favorite is undoubtedly Warriors Gate,
• 2:15:47
  which perfectly encapsulates the more serious approach to the
• 2:15:49
  show. The direction really works on
• 2:15:51
  this one. Victor agreed, a junior says.
• 2:15:55
  I just saw Warriors Gate and that was an outstanding tale.
• 2:15:59
  I love all of the humans landed so long ago, stories and who.
• 2:16:02
  But I also read the follow up book with vampires and Romana
• 2:16:05
  and it was 100%. LSJ said.
• 2:16:09
  Never got to see Warriors Gate until I got older.
• 2:16:11
  Such an imaginative story. Stookie Babi says you can keep
• 2:16:17
  the eBay the E Space trilogy, especially Warriors Gate, which
• 2:16:20
  is too pretentious for his budget.
• 2:16:22
  Oh, great. And Paul Sims says such a
• 2:16:25
  surreal story but deserves repeated viewing.
• 2:16:28
  The music is again superb. Dave Rennie says my least
• 2:16:32
  favorite is Warriors gate, as I just don't get it.
• 2:16:35
  Dave, if you haven't covered that yet, I'll come on and tell
• 2:16:37
  you why you're wrong, all right? Darren Lit, Randall said.
• 2:16:41
  I don't really know what Warriors Gate is about, but
• 2:16:43
  again, it's all about the field. And finally, Paul, Quinn says.
• 2:16:48
  I suppose the lions are quite nice.
• 2:16:50
  Oh no, Paul, you break my heart. They make me think of Aslan and
• 2:16:53
  Lion boss. And the black and white stuff is
• 2:16:56
  good and the time jumps in the dining room are well done.
• 2:16:59
  But ultimately it's about the doctor doing nothing, which is a
• 2:17:02
  bad basis for a story. That was part of our defence.
• 2:17:06
  It was right. So panel, I'm going to go first
• 2:17:10
  this time and I'm going to 100% agree with Joe.
• 2:17:15
  I think this is a fantastic story.
• 2:17:17
  Yes, I hear the Cloister bell of caution that it maybe is a
• 2:17:22
  little bit impenetrable. And again from my own
• 2:17:24
  experiences being victimized and bullied for like in Doctor Who,
• 2:17:29
  I finally convinced a small group of people to watch Doctor
• 2:17:33
  Who because stated OK, I've been so great.
• 2:17:36
  What episode did they say? Episode one of Warrior's Gate.
• 2:17:40
  You can imagine. My life after that was fairly
• 2:17:43
  unbearable. It's the rule.
• 2:17:44
  You know the rule. You convince people to Watch
• 2:17:46
  Dogs 2. The next one is always we're not
• 2:17:49
  a dog, but it's it's always one that's going to embarrass you.
• 2:17:52
  Well, I went to school and said, Oh my God, wasn't that amazing?
• 2:17:55
  And they, yeah, their response was slightly less faithful, we
• 2:17:59
  say. But yeah, I think it's, it's
• 2:18:01
  fantastic, it's, it's really interesting.
• 2:18:03
  This follows State of Decay. State of Decay, which we also
• 2:18:06
  all love, has a very traditional kind of slaves uprising and and
• 2:18:10
  beating the masters. This has got kind of tells the
• 2:18:13
  same story in a way, but with far more nuanced and texture and
• 2:18:17
  background as just so much more intelligent.
• 2:18:20
  I think it's, I think it's lovely, it's, it's poetic, it's
• 2:18:24
  beautifully shot, it's so visually alluring.
• 2:18:27
  It's absolutely lovely. I agree with you.
• 2:18:29
  It's a great exit for Romana. Yeah, I think it's fantastic.
• 2:18:34
  The ideas and concepts, it's just they're just new ideas
• 2:18:36
  buzzing around in this, aren't they?
• 2:18:38
  You need a Farrell to navigate through time and space.
• 2:18:40
  What an unusual, wonderful concept to come up with.
• 2:18:43
  You know the crew of the privacy actually assume.
• 2:18:46
  Therefore, Romana must be time sensitive because she's guiding
• 2:18:49
  her ship through the void. That's really clever, The time
• 2:18:52
  winds and the Farrells riding them.
• 2:18:54
  You got jumps between different times and places between the
• 2:18:57
  mirrors, and they got the black and white photograph.
• 2:18:59
  This is what I want from E Space.
• 2:19:01
  When they go to a new universe, you want this weirdness and the
• 2:19:04
  surrealness. And so far we've had lots of
• 2:19:07
  location filming in Buckinghamshire.
• 2:19:09
  Suddenly now we've got something truly weird and fantastic.
• 2:19:13
  You probably couldn't have done this for three stories, but I
• 2:19:16
  think for this one story, it's, it's beautiful.
• 2:19:20
  And my final would be, you know, just recognizing both John
• 2:19:24
  Leeson and Lala Ward, because I think they were both absolutely
• 2:19:27
  fantastic in the show. They both gave so much.
• 2:19:31
  So glad John Leeson came back. For the last series.
• 2:19:34
  David Bradley did a sterling job as a setting, but it's lovely to
• 2:19:37
  have proper K9 back again. Even though he gets abused
• 2:19:40
  terribly in season 18, he gets. To say that the the thing that
• 2:19:45
  one of the one of the few things that I don't like about full
• 2:19:48
  circle is poor K9. Gets his head knocked off.
• 2:19:52
  The hair and the hair, he gets treated pretty badly.
• 2:19:54
  There are some production issues.
• 2:19:56
  I mean, at one point Adra takes his his antennae off and then
• 2:19:59
  it's back on him in the next scene.
• 2:20:01
  Then it's off again. Then it's on again.
• 2:20:03
  There are lots of times that you see the production slipping.
• 2:20:07
  There's a really bad shot in Episode 3 on the ship where you
• 2:20:10
  see the boom come. Nobody's notes that, and I've
• 2:20:13
  never known anyone put this on Twitter, but look again by the
• 2:20:15
  MZ machine. You see the boom completely and
• 2:20:19
  then go back again. So there are issues with the
• 2:20:21
  production, but I don't care because I just think this is
• 2:20:25
  absolutely magical in every sense and would absolutely want
• 2:20:30
  to put this through. Jim, yeah, I mean again there's
• 2:20:35
  not much that I can I can add to to that.
• 2:20:39
  It's a it's a story that it definitely warrants repeat
• 2:20:44
  viewings I think because it's it is, it is fairly complicated
• 2:20:47
  story, but the more you watch it the more you can unravel it and
• 2:20:52
  and understand it. It's it's innovative.
• 2:20:55
  It's original. I love the idea of the
• 2:20:58
  Farrell's, you know it's such a such an interesting idea at the
• 2:21:05
  crew of the ship as well feel very, very down to Earth and
• 2:21:08
  they feel like real people. I think they they don't, they
• 2:21:11
  don't seem like a bunch of, you know, space, space people.
• 2:21:16
  They seem like everyday people that you would meet who just
• 2:21:20
  happened to be travelling in a spaceship.
• 2:21:24
  I do have to wonder if the the story was probably maybe a
• 2:21:26
  little bit too complex for for your kind of your your general
• 2:21:30
  audience at the time but as a as a as a fan of Doctor Who it's
• 2:21:34
  it's it's wonderful. I like that I just kind of
• 2:21:40
  repeating what Rod said about exploring a different universe
• 2:21:44
  and and something you know be being something different and it
• 2:21:48
  kind of reminds me a little bit of the the 8th Doctor story
• 2:21:53
  shirt so that's something different exploring before they
• 2:21:58
  go into the divergent universe which you know I've got my own
• 2:22:04
  opinions on the actual divergent universe story I thought but it
• 2:22:08
  but that like shirts this like shirt so feels like it's trying
• 2:22:13
  something different and I don't think Doctor Who does it enough.
• 2:22:19
  I think it's you know we we've had it before with something
• 2:22:24
  like the mind robber. I think Doctor Who does need to
• 2:22:28
  step outside its comfort zone sometimes and try something try
• 2:22:33
  something different. We got it just recently in the
• 2:22:37
  In the Second Tenant special, which I've forgotten the name of
• 2:22:42
  Wild. Blue Yonder.
• 2:22:44
  Wild blue Yonder. That was it, yeah.
• 2:22:46
  Yeah. Doctor Who needs to step outside
• 2:22:48
  of its comfort zone sometimes and I think this this does it
• 2:22:51
  absolutely brilliantly And yeah, definitely up there as as one of
• 2:22:55
  my favourites of the season. Fabulous Lucy.
• 2:22:59
  This is I don't there aren't any stories.
• 2:23:02
  I mean, I haven't watched Megalos, so I don't know.
• 2:23:04
  There aren't any stories in this season that I actively dislike.
• 2:23:07
  But this is probably one that I like the least.
• 2:23:12
  I It's hard to say exactly why that is.
• 2:23:17
  The idea of the ship warping reality is genuinely frightening
• 2:23:22
  because they're in a limited space and it's going to implode.
• 2:23:25
  And that's the characters on the ship are, as you said, engaging
• 2:23:30
  the ridiculously over promoted middle manager who just wants to
• 2:23:35
  get something done. Which, of course, is the worst
• 2:23:38
  possible thing you can do, because the whole thing you have
• 2:23:40
  to do is to not do anything. Is is is a good.
• 2:23:45
  He's almost like he is a villain, but he's also more of a
• 2:23:47
  villain than he realizes he is, because what he's doing in order
• 2:23:52
  to try and get something done is making it worse rather than
• 2:23:57
  better. The idea of sort of torturing
• 2:24:02
  barrels to get them to steer through the universe is is one
• 2:24:05
  thing, and the idea that a people who are oppressors then
• 2:24:09
  become oppressed by somebody else is is another worthy point.
• 2:24:14
  It's probably the only episode of Doctor Who that's directly
• 2:24:20
  and visibly inspired by Jean Cocteau.
• 2:24:24
  Just is La Belle Elibet and the black and white going through
• 2:24:28
  the mirrors and that kind of thing.
• 2:24:31
  Yeah, I just find it a bit cold. I think really the ending with
• 2:24:38
  Romana going going off to help with Farrell's is, is is really
• 2:24:41
  good. And after all, we know what kind
• 2:24:44
  of goodbyes the Doctor this Doctor has, he doesn't do big
• 2:24:49
  goodbyes he hasn't done with his other best friends, so he's not
• 2:24:53
  going to do with her. This misquote of Shakespeare
• 2:24:55
  really annoys me. His other ones don't, but this
• 2:24:57
  one really does. So yeah, that just stop it.
• 2:25:05
  But it's. Nice to.
• 2:25:06
  It's nice to see that K9 gets to go off and with Romana and have
• 2:25:09
  more adventures. I was a little frustrated that
• 2:25:14
  all the ferals looked the same and they all seem to be male as
• 2:25:19
  well. Is there?
• 2:25:20
  Is it ever explained why they're all male?
• 2:25:22
  There is one. There is one woman to lead him.
• 2:25:24
  Into the banqueting hall isn't? That right?
• 2:25:27
  A young female takes his hand and leads him into Banqueting
• 2:25:30
  Hall. I missed I.
• 2:25:31
  It's been a while since I watched it, so I didn't remember
• 2:25:34
  that. But yeah, no, it's I'm not
• 2:25:35
  saying that it's bad or that I hate it, but it's just of if I
• 2:25:40
  was to make a list, not including Megalus, which I
• 2:25:43
  haven't watched, this one would probably be at the bottom of it.
• 2:25:47
  Which is very interesting. Lucy and Segways beautifully
• 2:25:50
  into round two. I can't believe we've already
• 2:25:51
  been a couple of hours and we haven't got rid of a single
• 2:25:54
  story. This is the first for Strictly.
• 2:25:57
  Round one is always 2 1/2 hours, have you noticed?
• 2:26:01
  And round two is about 10 minutes.
• 2:26:03
  At most, yeah. Although it might be a bit more
• 2:26:05
  tricky this time because we got all the stories.
• 2:26:08
  So what we do in round two is I've got a random generator,
• 2:26:11
  I'm. I'm just going to spin it, pick
• 2:26:13
  two stories based on what we've talked about today.
• 2:26:16
  We've just got to say which is the best slash our favorite
• 2:26:20
  because we've got to have a winner and at the moment we've
• 2:26:22
  got 7 winners. So let's spin the wheel of
• 2:26:29
  misfortune. And the first story is full
• 2:26:33
  circle and Full Circle is going to be playing off against Keeper
• 2:26:40
  of Tracking. Full circle.
• 2:26:46
  Keeper of tracking. Full circle for me I'm.
• 2:26:51
  Going to say it's close, but I'm going to say full circle.
• 2:26:54
  Oh. Keeper of Tracking, Then it's
• 2:26:57
  the first to fall loose. I thought you said you like
• 2:27:01
  Shakespeare. You've let me down.
• 2:27:04
  She's got a big one. Right, so Keeper tracking is the
• 2:27:10
  first to fall on second round. We've got the Leisure Hive
• 2:27:15
  facing off against Warrior's Gate, the Leisure Hive and
• 2:27:24
  Warrior's Gate. Warriors gate is astonishing.
• 2:27:28
  That Leather Hive is very dull. So Warriors Gate.
• 2:27:32
  Warriors gate for me as well, Lucy.
• 2:27:35
  Leisure Hive. I love both of them, but I'm
• 2:27:39
  going Warriors Gate. I think it's bolder and yeah,
• 2:27:44
  Warriors Gate. So Leisure Hive goes out in 6th
• 2:27:47
  place, right? Let me just take the you.
• 2:27:49
  Realize the the assassins are being hired right as we speak by
• 2:27:55
  all of us. Appear on this podcast Now is.
• 2:27:59
  It he wanted 18 as well, you know.
• 2:28:01
  I know he did. He's going to divorce himself
• 2:28:03
  from us from now on, right? So we've got five stories
• 2:28:07
  remaining. So we're spinning again and the
• 2:28:10
  wheel is landing on, oh goodness, Warriors Gate again.
• 2:28:13
  And this time, Warriors Gate is taking on Lugopolis.
• 2:28:21
  Or, given my rant, it's definitely Warriors Gate.
• 2:28:23
  Yeah, Warriors gate for me as well.
• 2:28:31
  I think Warriors Gate is a better story than Lugopolis.
• 2:28:35
  As much as I love Lugopolis, it's going to have to be
• 2:28:36
  Warriors Gate. Lucy.
• 2:28:40
  I'm going to say Lugopolis just because I like it more, but it
• 2:28:43
  doesn't matter, does it? Unfortunately, on this time, no
• 2:28:46
  war. Lucopolis is out of the running,
• 2:28:49
  Crikey. We said round two was very,
• 2:28:51
  very. Love it.
• 2:28:51
  It's just like after all that studied conversation, then it's
• 2:28:55
  just like a gun. Doesn't got reaction.
• 2:28:57
  Yeah. OK, so we have got Warriors Gate
• 2:29:01
  again. What's going on?
• 2:29:03
  Warriors Gate is getting picked every time, and this time it's
• 2:29:06
  up against State of Decay. This is a biggie.
• 2:29:11
  This is a biggie based on what we've been talking about.
• 2:29:15
  I mean, I'm going to cartoon. Warriors Gate was a top ten
• 2:29:18
  forever for me. So Warriors Gate.
• 2:29:22
  It's got to be State of Decay. Just simply because I enjoy it.
• 2:29:27
  It's. It's.
• 2:29:28
  Yeah. No State of Decay, State of
• 2:29:30
  Decay. Loosely State of Decay.
• 2:29:34
  Oh, I'm going with Warriors Gate, so we're going to have to
• 2:29:37
  park that one and see what comes up next.
• 2:29:40
  We did this last time and ended up with those two in the final,
• 2:29:44
  so this time we have got State of Decay again, but this time it
• 2:29:48
  is playing off against Megalos. State of Decay for me.
• 2:29:55
  Lucy. I'm going to say State of Decay,
• 2:29:57
  but then I should probably abstain because I haven't
• 2:29:59
  actually seen Med Loss. But, but given what what we've
• 2:30:04
  talked about, I think I would probably pick State of Decay
• 2:30:06
  over several other stories, so it is one of my favourites.
• 2:30:11
  They're both fun, really, for the two funniest stories of the
• 2:30:14
  year, but State of Decay has got a better production overall.
• 2:30:17
  So State of Decay. Completely agree.
• 2:30:19
  I think State of Decay has got far more going for it, although
• 2:30:21
  I do enjoy mag loss, so mag loss goes out.
• 2:30:24
  Oh, sorry, Fraser. So, well, we've offended Cyan
• 2:30:28
  Fraser now. So we're down to the final three
• 2:30:30
  now, and this time we have Full circle and Full Circle is taking
• 2:30:38
  on State of Decay. Full circle I'm going, I'm going
• 2:30:46
  State of Decay because there's just something missing for me.
• 2:30:50
  A little bit in full Circle, so State of Decay.
• 2:30:54
  State of Decay for me as well. Lucy.
• 2:30:58
  This is a harder one, but As for one that I would go back and
• 2:31:03
  rewatch, I would say State of Decay because Full Circle is I I
• 2:31:09
  really like it and it's a really good story, but it does also
• 2:31:13
  feel like a step on to something.
• 2:31:14
  It's a step that you've taken to it and then you take another
• 2:31:17
  step after it. Do you see what I mean?
• 2:31:19
  Whereas State of Decay, although you've got like Adric the
• 2:31:22
  Stowaway and all the rest of it, it's self-contained and so it
• 2:31:25
  feels like something and and I really enjoy it feels like
• 2:31:28
  something I would go back to again.
• 2:31:31
  I would probably watch Full Circle if I was on a journey
• 2:31:34
  through, but I wouldn't necessarily go back to it again
• 2:31:37
  by itself. Simply for the homoerotic
• 2:31:41
  subtext between Adric and Orkon and the lesbian subtext between
• 2:31:45
  Camilla and Romana, State of Decay.
• 2:31:49
  You've put me off it, Joe. Now the thought of Orkon and
• 2:31:51
  Adric just feels. He literally whispers in his
• 2:31:54
  ear. Come.
• 2:31:56
  It's disgusting, but. It's just a little bit wrong
• 2:32:04
  state of. Decay.
• 2:32:06
  Oh no, no, you're you're reading of.
• 2:32:09
  It, sorry. So we are left with the big
• 2:32:12
  battle of the top two, State of Decay and Warriors Gate.
• 2:32:16
  We've been around once before, so let's do it again, Joe.
• 2:32:30
  The guiling or entertaining. The guiling or entertaining,
• 2:32:34
  what would I put on at the end of a bad day?
• 2:32:39
  I would put on State of Decay, so I'm going to go with State of
• 2:32:44
  Decay. I'm going to.
• 2:32:50
  They're both great, aren't they? But I think I'm going to stick
• 2:32:54
  with Warriors Gate because it's a more rewarding experience time
• 2:32:59
  after time. Although I love State of Decay
• 2:33:01
  as well. I'd have to go with State of
• 2:33:05
  Decay. To echo what Joe said, if it's
• 2:33:09
  if I've had a bad day and I just want to escape, I'll put on
• 2:33:13
  State of Decay rather than Warriors gate.
• 2:33:16
  Because you know, you might. Sometimes you just don't want to
• 2:33:20
  engage your brain, sometimes, do you?
• 2:33:23
  You'd. Rather have vampires over
• 2:33:26
  ancient Chinese philosophy. Yes, I think so.
• 2:33:31
  We're Doctor Who fans, you know. You've got the custom, don't I
• 2:33:36
  would. I would say state of decay
• 2:33:38
  because I'd prefer it so. Well, that's then our winner for
• 2:33:42
  season 18, State of Decay is our winner.
• 2:33:45
  Warriors Gate becomes a very worthy, I think a very worthy
• 2:33:49
  set in place we sat Round two was dealt with very quickly.
• 2:33:54
  We've honed our thoughts and views in part one and Part 2.
• 2:33:58
  I didn't expect all 7 to go through, but we've got a very
• 2:34:01
  well clear ish win it in State of Decay.
• 2:34:03
  But yeah, kudos to Warriors Gate 2.
• 2:34:07
  Though you love the fact that of all the sort of talent that's in
• 2:34:10
  the season 18, right wise and direction wise, Terrance Sticks
• 2:34:15
  won the day and Peter Moffett won the day in the direction
• 2:34:19
  stakes that was. They were both playing to their
• 2:34:23
  strengths, yeah. Terrence got to Terrence.
• 2:34:26
  Dicks got to write a tight, what a tight, ish story with really
• 2:34:31
  engaging, wacky characters in it.
• 2:34:34
  That gave people the chance to do their best, to chew the
• 2:34:37
  scenery to pieces. It had moments of absolute charm
• 2:34:41
  between the Doctor and Romana. Canine was in it agreed.
• 2:34:46
  Got to be a bit of a twerp, but that's fine.
• 2:34:49
  And yeah, so it it's and Piece of Morphett is obviously is very
• 2:34:54
  obviously comfortable with directing this kind of drama
• 2:35:00
  which has moments of staging this.
• 2:35:02
  But it doesn't matter because it plays into the characters as
• 2:35:05
  well because they are performing.
• 2:35:07
  They're not who they were however many 100 years ago it
• 2:35:11
  was. But they're they're they're
• 2:35:12
  doing a performance. So yeah, I think it's it's that
• 2:35:15
  both of them are. It's an example of both of them
• 2:35:18
  doing what they do well, well. It does make me wonder, you
• 2:35:21
  know, if Bid Me's instincts are perhaps not best suited because
• 2:35:27
  obviously he wanted to change this a lot, didn't he?
• 2:35:29
  And Terence Dix fought that and he said no, I'm changing it
• 2:35:32
  anyway. And then Peter Moffat's
• 2:35:34
  instincts were this isn't any good anymore.
• 2:35:37
  Let's go back to how it was. Otherwise I'm not doing it.
• 2:35:40
  So. Yeah, I think it's it's the if
• 2:35:43
  you have a vision for various people at various times and and
• 2:35:47
  now and in the past have a have an idea of what they think the
• 2:35:52
  show is and what it should be and that's fine if you're
• 2:35:55
  running it. I can't remember who it was.
• 2:35:56
  Was it? Gary said, somebody said about
• 2:35:59
  Doctor Who being like, you know the sand pit and you get to play
• 2:36:02
  in the sand pit and build your sand castles and then you leave
• 2:36:04
  the sandpit and the next person comes in and they get to build
• 2:36:07
  their sand castles as well. And it's all you know, it all
• 2:36:10
  change all the time. And if you have a very strong
• 2:36:13
  idea that you want it to be serious about, like somebody
• 2:36:19
  said about Eric Seward, having serious people having
• 2:36:23
  conversations in corridors with guns and things.
• 2:36:26
  If if your idea is that it's going to be allegedly, whether
• 2:36:31
  realistically or not, very science based and very sort of
• 2:36:34
  technological and very kind of yeah, satellite dishes and all
• 2:36:39
  sorts of things like that, then doing an episode where there are
• 2:36:45
  where there's science, but it's hidden and the science is the
• 2:36:48
  twist really. And there are vampires and oh
• 2:36:51
  God, vampires, why would you want them?
• 2:36:53
  But it it it's just it it just works the way it does.
• 2:36:58
  And I think it's it's interesting and perhaps useful,
• 2:37:02
  like you said, about Warriors Gate, with Doctor Who stepping
• 2:37:04
  outside its comfort zone. Although of course, when it does
• 2:37:07
  that, lots of people go, oh God, that was tedious.
• 2:37:09
  Why did they do that? I didn't want it to.
• 2:37:11
  Be like that. Don't ever do that again.
• 2:37:12
  That was dreadful and they call it the Wild Blue Yonder and
• 2:37:16
  things like that, which I've seen a few times on Twitter, but
• 2:37:21
  it it's, I don't think it hurts for people who know what they're
• 2:37:26
  doing to have a chance to do what they do well in Doctor Who
• 2:37:31
  and then for it and then it can snap back into your
• 2:37:36
  technological space travelling thing.
• 2:37:44
  But yeah, I think it, I think perhaps Doctor Who has works
• 2:37:48
  better at that than some other series do, thinking possibly of
• 2:37:51
  Star Trek. You know, every now and again
• 2:37:53
  they have an episode that's really wacky.
• 2:37:56
  Self consciously wacky. And sometimes it pays off into
• 2:38:00
  like the Western one. Sometimes that paid off in the
• 2:38:03
  original series, but it doesn't always.
• 2:38:05
  But I think because of Doctor Who being sort of on that age
• 2:38:09
  where it could slip into there being vampires, as long as
• 2:38:13
  there's a reasonable scientific explanation for them being
• 2:38:17
  vampires, that's fine. I'm just going around in
• 2:38:20
  circles. Here, It's great.
• 2:38:22
  It's fantastic. Well, thank you all.
• 2:38:25
  We have a clear winner for season 18, which is fantastic.
• 2:38:28
  We're going to be back in two weeks time when we're doing a
• 2:38:31
  very different season. We're coming more up to date.
• 2:38:33
  We're doing Series 12 with Jodie Whittaker.
• 2:38:36
  Yes, that should be quite contentious as a season.
• 2:38:40
  Tireless children. Imagine that.
• 2:38:43
  Conversation. Hallelujah, Lucy.
• 2:38:49
  Jim, would you like to tell people where they can find you,
• 2:38:52
  Lucy? I would don't.
• 2:38:54
  It doesn't mean your address, all right.
• 2:38:56
  I was going to say on the sofa, It's like when you watch the
• 2:39:00
  news and they say now the news from where you are.
• 2:39:04
  I'm on the sofa, so I am on the remnants of Twitter, as at Lucy
• 2:39:12
  McCall, and also on Blue Sky and Instagram in various versions of
• 2:39:18
  my name. I appear occasionally on
• 2:39:22
  podcasts like this one and The Hamster Verse, and have been on
• 2:39:27
  track one now and again. And also with Dave.
• 2:39:29
  I'm doing a couple of kettles and pieces of string.
• 2:39:32
  I also write peculiar fan fiction, which is on what's it
• 2:39:40
  called, A Teaspoon in open mindorhoofick.com.
• 2:39:44
  So if you're up for the childhood adventures of Kate
• 2:39:47
  Stewart or other various things from around the universe, then
• 2:39:52
  do give those a look if you'd like to.
• 2:39:55
  Possibly. See if there's anyone I trust to
• 2:39:57
  make Kate Stewart interesting issue.
• 2:39:59
  All right. And I mean, that's the highest
• 2:40:02
  compliment. Jim.
• 2:40:06
  Yeah, you can find me on Twitter.
• 2:40:08
  I'm at Fractured Boy. So it's AF, FRAKTURED Boy.
• 2:40:17
  I'm also on Blue Sky, but I can't for the life of me
• 2:40:20
  remember what my Blue Sky handle is, so it's waste of time, but I
• 2:40:23
  am on there as Fractured Boy, whatever it is.
• 2:40:27
  I'm also. I also have my own podcast
• 2:40:30
  called What's in the Box which invites people on to discuss
• 2:40:34
  their favorite or recommended things from the world of Doctor
• 2:40:37
  Who can be anything you want to talk about.
• 2:40:42
  I'm due to be recording again soon so I'll be getting in touch
• 2:40:46
  with people with regards to with regards to that.
• 2:40:50
  And again, yeah, I've I've been on a few episodes of of Hamster,
• 2:40:55
  I've been on a few episodes of of Dave Rennie's Kettle and A
• 2:40:59
  Piece of String as well. So yeah, that's where you can
• 2:41:01
  find me. Fantastic.
• 2:41:03
  Well, all it reminds is for us to thank Lucy and Jim for their
• 2:41:06
  sterling efforts on season 18. Much appreciated.
• 2:41:10
  And Joe, it's left to us to say. Well, can I say one thing please
• 2:41:15
  before we out? You've ruined.
• 2:41:16
  I know everyone A. Great moment.
• 2:41:18
  Everybody wants to go to bed and all that, but this is just a
• 2:41:21
  personal thank you to both Lucy and Jim that have been massive
• 2:41:25
  supporters of this podcast for a long, long time now.
• 2:41:28
  I think you guys are both amazing and thank you very much
• 2:41:31
  and I know you're both going to sit there looking very humble
• 2:41:34
  now, but I'm going to say anyway, thank you.
• 2:41:37
  Thank you very much, Joe. Thank you to everyone and good
• 2:41:42
  night and team. Listening.
• 2:41:47
  We get better at that. Good night.
• 2:42:05
  The. The.