Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Jack Coyer & Steven B about their choice of The Awakening (2/2)

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Talks to Jack Coyer & Steven B about their choice of The Awakening (2/2) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blunt pen knife for doing quicker.
• 0:37
  Welcome back to a hamster with a blunt pen knife.
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  Not just the best Doctor Who commentary podcast but also the
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  best Doctor Who commentary podcast tonight continues its
• 0:45
  examination of one of the very best stories of season 21.
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  It's the awakening I am remain Steven being continuing to
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  ground to my way of thinking is Joe Ford.
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  Hello, hello the very What are the very best you say of season
• 1:01
  21 indeed episode that suggests supper wars.
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  The awakening was robbed and offering also his sagacious,
• 1:12
  sagacious and impartial wisdom on the matter is Jack Hoyer.
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  Hello. It's only one of the best ones
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  you consider that we had to move between November to season 22,
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  so that made it still a little bit easier.
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  Now gents, we were talking off Mike in between episodes about
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  how there was so much more that we wanted to say about 1.
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  Before we dive into Part 2, let's let's take this
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  opportunity. I'll throw first to Jack.
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  Jack, I'm sure that you have a plethora of very, very clever
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  things to say about Part 1. Is there anything in particular
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  that you would like to offer up at this point before we dive
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  into Part 2 please? I mean, Part 1, I like obviously
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  we spoke about the opening theme and it's diversion from a
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  traditional historical format. We've done the location filming.
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  I like it's quite funny to think of not the the story that it
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  kind of bears in mind for most for me with this is obviously
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  the biggest station we've obviously, and that story has a
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  lot more time to breathe, but a lot less story to tell
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  ironically, But that's almost the inverse of this.
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  You know, the this is like the past threatening to to rear its
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  ugly head back in the present. Obviously we can look at the
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  Richard Mace character and how that say word Robert Holmes ish
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  archetype of a sort of pompous blowhard kind of becomes George
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  Hutchinson again, as it's kind of just sort of that same
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  character. Yeah, I, I just wanted to talk
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  about the, the, the nature of we've obviously found ourselves
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  in a group of people doing historical reenactments and I
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  quite liked that and saw the theme of the story of what does
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  it mean for us to reenact? What I guess the literalization
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  of reenacting the Civil War discussion, if you can call the
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  Civil War discussion. But what does it mean to mine
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  our culture and history? What does it mean to go back
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  into the past and then take these signifies and bring them
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  back into the present? Obviously this story seems to
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  suggest, as we'll find in Part 2, the idea of the Malice
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  feeding on psychic energy, and that the passion and fervour
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  that is brought about by this act of historical and cultural
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  remembrance is so powerful and even corrosive or toxic that the
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  Malice is feeding off of this energy.
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  Which is sort of an interesting comment to make for a show
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  that's just spent the last 18 months going.
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  Isn't Doctor Who's culture and past incredibly interesting?
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  You know, it's it's fascinating to see that we've made that leap
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  in this story. And, yeah, that that would be
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  the sort of thing that I'd take from Part 1, obviously, Part 1
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  just being that sort of act one, and then Part 2 being, you know,
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  Act 2 and 3:00 and 4:00 and 5:00 and 6:00 and 7:00 and 8:00, you
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  know, of characters and subplots being piled on top of each
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  other. Yeah.
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  That's just the thing that I wanted to think about more of
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  that idea of Doctor Who doing reenactments in, you know,
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  explicitly. So you know, bringing the art of
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  this to the 4th one in an era where, you know, in the twenty
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  20s, we've just had stories recently like Rogue, for
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  example, or being still song contests that are very open
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  about their cultural influences in the pieces of media that they
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  are. These societies are mining from
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  obviously to the point where we'll invoke terms like cosplay,
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  which obviously probably were not inventive in 1984, but they
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  were, they would have probably used it.
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  So, yeah, that's what I find interesting about this is it
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  it's an exercise in a a show that spends a lot of time, and I
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  mean, particularly even the story before this, indulging in
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  creatures and storylines and locations from years past going,
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  you know, reflecting on and mediating on the coercive impact
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  that the the coergitation and mimicking of culture can have on
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  a society without the desire to press forward and create new art
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  and new culture for ourselves, you know, and in.
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  Particular a militaristic one, right?
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  I think that's something I'll talk about later on, but how
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  central, I guess Britain's colonial and imperial past is on
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  what we see in the Awakening in 1984, but also how that sort of
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  ties back to the English Civil War as well.
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  I'll talk more about that, but sorry I interrupted you.
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  No. No, no, I was just going to say
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  it's of the one more little point.
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  It's interesting that this is an era that very rarely goes to the
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  present. You know, obviously if we think
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  about every incarnation of the every invocation of the present
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  day we've had in the Davidson era, well, you know, the end of
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  Lacopolis goes into the beginning of cast of Alba.
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  So that doesn't really count. Time Flight is product placement
• 7:27
  for Concorde and Heathrow aircraft.
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  That doesn't really count. Arkham Infinity if JMT wanted to
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  kill him with Julie in Amsterdam, that doesn't really
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  count, you know. And then is there even another
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  one before we? Get well Resurrection and Planet
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  of Fire I think. Well, they come.
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  Up. Not before.
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  Yeah, yeah, but not. Before Planet of Fire again, JMT
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  coming on with Julie and Resurrection of Dollars.
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  This is all terrible. So, you know, I don't really
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  care what you have to say. It doesn't say.
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  The only thing it has to say about the present day is should
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  doctors have a new creative team?
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  Because God knows I don't. Want to watch this?
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  It's the only thing that it really has to say about the
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  present day. But yeah, it's so it's
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  interesting to see it engaging with culture at the moment and
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  taking the opportunity to take the side of the present over the
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  past, if something that this year will rarely do,
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  particularly obviously in the next era of the show.
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  You have a companion who's very much rooted in the person.
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  You know, whether we like, whether we love Ace or not,
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  that's a character. I think he's very rooted in the
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  sorts of children who at least that we might find on television
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  drama at that point. Maybe not as real real as you
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  know who who is the most realistic Dr. Companion.
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  Now I've said it, Ian, the. Classic era.
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  I don't know, I mean, many shows, history.
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  It's the most realistic, pleasant day, Rose.
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  Yeah. Yeah, or even those.
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  Yeah, definitely. She's.
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  The only companion that's as realistically selfish as the
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  rest of us. Yeah, yeah.
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  You know what? Excellent points, Jack.
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  Thank you, Joe. What would?
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  You like to, and I think you're going to add a lot of substance
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  to it later. However, I don't think any of it
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  is in the TV story that you watch, or at least there's no
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  time to examine any of those ideas that you just mentioned
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  there. Yeah.
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  They're all, they're all in it. They're.
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  There as like the barest pinprick of an idea.
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  But the purpose we get into talking about the sort of
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  cosplaying the past is, you know?
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  So George, you must stop these war games.
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  You've gone too far. That's it.
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  That's as far as we get in examining that.
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  We don't really talk about the horrors of past in any great
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  detail at all. There's just the suggestion of
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  the violence. And then by the time you get to
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  the second episode, it's just one psychic projection after
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  another to the climax of the story.
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  So, yeah, the idea is there, and I'll go back to the book again,
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  which does examine this stuff in a lot more detail because
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  there's a time to do it. But is that satisfying then
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  dropping the idea and then, yeah, fine, You can go off and
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  do all the research that you want and you can bring in all
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  the, you know, I think sometimes we can over examine bits of
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  television that are, you know, are just there to entertain us.
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  But I don't know. It's the breadth of an idea
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  without the substance that should be there.
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  Well, look, I, I think that's true, Joe.
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  And I also think it's absolutely true that we bring far too much
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  into our readings of ephemeral television shows, archival
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  television shows. But that's the fun of it.
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  That's why we deal with couple eyes.
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  We'd go and do something else. But look, I just wanted to talk
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  about something. About there.
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  That sounded wonderful. I'd love to watch that version
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  of the Awakening. Fast forward, you have to see
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  you have to put your television on to nought .5 speed.
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  But then also, I think all of those themes, as Joe has said,
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  don't necessarily exist within the confines of the text.
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  And I just want to sort of unpack the anatomy because this
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  is something that I, I wanted to talk about for Part 1 and to get
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  a chance to do the anatomy of how those thematic concerns are
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  sort of, you know, packed into a text.
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  And I think it's, it's the fact that the text is all we see, but
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  that's not all there is. And sitting with around the text
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  is the context. And in fact, there's different
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  types of context. There is the production context,
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  which includes, if you like, for want of a better word, authorial
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  intent, but that's not the be all and end all of the meaning.
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  It's really around the production context in which it
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  was set. And this is the early 80s.
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  This is the time when Margaret Thatcher has sent the British
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  Royal Navy to the Falklands, and I want to talk about that a
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  little bit later on as well. And beyond that, an overriding
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  aesthetic of militarism within British culture that has
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  piggybacked, I think, off that sort of imperial past and in
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  some regards subverted it. We have this, you know, through
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  post punk and even the New Romantics and appropriation of
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  the aesthetics of militarism. It comes through in things like,
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  you know, Duran Duran's first album cover, the lyrics of Joe
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  Strummer in the Cash in the Clash rather.
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  And even if, you know, something like the two tribes by Frankie
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  Goes to Hollywood, which effectively a fetishization of
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  that sort of nuclear standoff between the Super blocks and all
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  of this sort of is in the background at the same time,
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  probably a year before the, you know, the summer before this,
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  this story is is filmed, We have the Falklands, which is, I think
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  a super interesting turning point, I guess in, in in British
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  cultural history. And it's at a moment in time
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  where, you know, Thatcher comes in promising the return of, you
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  know, the glorious days of the past, which of course aren't
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  possible. You know, in a post colonial
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  world, Britain cannot possibly ever have the pre eminence that
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  it had Once Upon a time. It's, it's foolish to pretend
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  otherwise, but the facade and the pretence of that is
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  something that you can evoke. And that's absolutely what
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  happens in the Falklands. You know, the Falkland Islands
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  are closer to Antarctica than they are to Buenos Aires.
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  They are have never been developed or sort of in any way
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  exploited. The oil reserves that sit
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  underneath the Falkland Islands, it's probably going to be far
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  too expensive to ever do so anyway.
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  They were never an, you know, there was never an indigenous
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  people that lived there. So it's not like the the British
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  colonised a people. It was that they colonised a, a,
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  you know, piece of land in the middle of the South Atlantic
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  that was a strategically important military,
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  strategically important location.
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  And of course, at the same time, in Argentina, we have a military
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  dictatorship that's also looking for its own, you know, tub
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  thumping victory. So what it does to send a fleet
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  of its own ships across to Falklands to, you know, give the
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  British a bit of a bloody nose and this kind of, you know, flag
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  waving and further on both sides culminating I think it was a 74
• 14:26
  day war. It was not a particularly, you
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  know, fair and even fight. British Harrier jets were pretty
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  decisive in their victories over the very sort of aging and
• 14:36
  decrepit Argentinian fleet, which just sort of beggars the
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  question, why were they there in the 1st place?
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  There's a wonderful quote actually from Tim Vickery, who
• 14:46
  is one of the most pre eminent football journalists and now
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  lives in South America. And he talks about how he can
• 14:51
  never quite understand this. And this is a quote of his from
• 14:56
  a quote of his, sorry, from the the Brazilian Shirt Name
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  podcast, which I think is one of the best football podcasts out
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  there. And he says people talk about
• 15:04
  the oil deposits, that is to say underneath the Falklands.
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  But all of that is negotiable and all of that for 40 years on
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  from here, from then, there are still no oil refineries within
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  1000 miles of the Fort Falklands.
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  What isn't negotiable is sovereignty after the blood has
• 15:19
  been spilled over it. And it always seemed to me that
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  the perfect description of that war comes from the great
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  Argentine rider Jorge Lewis Bordguez, who wrote of the war
• 15:29
  as 2 bald men fighting over a comb.
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  And that sort of futility over the the actual, you know why
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  we're doing this? There is there is absolutely no
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  reason for it other than performative politics.
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  And it's actually the moment that Margaret Thatcher's
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  political career is salvage. Prior to this, she was going to
• 15:48
  lose the next election and on a wave of tub patriotism which
• 15:52
  carried through to things like the 1986 World Cup in the hand
• 15:55
  of God, the Maradona goal, even through more recently to France
• 15:59
  98 and the 2002 World Cup when Beckham scores the penalty
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  against Argentina. There's this sort of underlying
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  malice between the two of them. And I'll talk about this at the
• 16:10
  end of the episode. I think all of it is
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  orchestrated and all of it seems to have some kind of Calgary or
• 16:18
  corollary with the events of the Awakening, but let's talk about
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  that at the end of Part 2. OK, Oh, I love the way you
• 16:28
  think. All right, gentlemen, we now Joe
• 16:35
  to do Starfield at the ready, The Awakening Part 2 in Yeah,
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  Sorry, Joe, if you could. Oh.
• 16:43
  Sorry. Yes, counts in please.
• 16:48
  Everybody dramatic pause in 321 off we.
• 16:57
  Go to the Starfield, Jack, I've got a question for you.
• 17:02
  Yeah. And what we're looking at here
• 17:05
  is a 50 minute story, much like we have a 50 minute story in new
• 17:10
  Who and New New Who. As someone whose native context
• 17:15
  of Doctor Who is you who, how, how do you think this first 50
• 17:22
  minutes of, of television and the storytelling of it relates
• 17:26
  to or perhaps doesn't relate to how we tell stories these days?
• 17:30
  And how far off is the narrative structure of something like the
• 17:34
  Awakening from from a, you know, 2025 version of Doctor Who?
• 17:42
  Well, we have to have an enforced clip handle a minute or
• 17:46
  which we just watched him or see him sticking his hand in the
• 17:50
  wall. You know if that were to happen
• 17:52
  23 minutes and from you who prefer would that distinct
• 17:57
  moment of jeopardy? Probably not, I would say.
• 18:03
  I mean the first thing, obviously the Russell T Davies
• 18:10
  and indeed cinema fan Chris Chibel were combining the roles
• 18:15
  of JMT and Eric Saywood into one.
• 18:18
  We can obviously speak about the difficulties of that, but
• 18:22
  production decisions and writing decisions, you know, debate
• 18:26
  rages online on this very day. If you go on social media
• 18:31
  platform of choice right now, Russell T Davies must go and
• 18:36
  also people must also go even though he's gone already and
• 18:41
  also Steven Moffat must go, then he must come back.
• 18:47
  So then. It's not wrong, you know.
• 18:49
  So that debate is obviously going to roll rage on and both
• 18:53
  of the idea of should one person be handling those two jobs, we
• 18:57
  don't know. We can't say for sure.
• 19:00
  Sometimes it works very well, sometimes it doesn't.
• 19:02
  But the point being that all three of those people are much
• 19:07
  stronger authors of their particular texts than I think
• 19:11
  probably say would this. I would probably say they both,
• 19:18
  all three of them have gone on to have quite decent careers
• 19:23
  after Doctor Who until they can maybe not be said the same in
• 19:26
  quite the same way, but in terms of what would be different about
• 19:32
  it, you would strip out a few of these characters.
• 19:36
  There's too many characters for a full story, let alone
• 19:40
  something that's actually 225 minutes stories, you know?
• 19:44
  You did see the Reality War, right?
• 19:45
  Jack. Too many.
• 19:47
  Characters. This is technically longer than
• 19:51
  most new episodes, you know, And yet there's way too much going
• 19:56
  on. So you'd strip out some of it.
• 19:59
  We'd probably be on location less, and if we were on
• 20:03
  location, we would not be shooting on film.
• 20:05
  So you know, on the visual level you could say it might not be as
• 20:11
  sumptuous and summary, but. Oh, graded, I'm sure.
• 20:15
  Or on the narrative. Have you seen 2005?
• 20:21
  I think it. Was just Vaseline on the lens.
• 20:29
  Colour grading, by which you mean make everything yellow,
• 20:34
  Make everyone look like they have two on this.
• 20:41
  But no, I mean stuff like this. We're watching Perlo right now
• 20:44
  being thrown into a barn with and to Bernie Tegan's
• 20:49
  grandfather, remember? We finally met him.
• 20:51
  The one. We've never met.
• 20:55
  Hey guys, do you, do you remember when you watched Morton
• 20:58
  Undead and you got to be in the Part 1 and you thought who the
• 21:02
  fuck is Morton and why the fuck is the Undead never fucking met
• 21:06
  him yet? Do you remember that?
• 21:09
  Well, here it is again, you know.
• 21:11
  Jack Rusty Davis did shove Belinda in a box with the
• 21:14
  doctor's daughter. You know, like it does.
• 21:16
  Happen in the new series that celebrated Russell T Davies
• 21:20
  episode. Yeah, that one.
• 21:26
  But no. But point being that yeah, in
• 21:29
  terms of what would knew who, what the differences would be.
• 21:34
  I mean, that would be the main difference in its construct.
• 21:38
  And obviously you also sent questions about it, Sir.
• 21:42
  It's narrative and what maybe narratively would change.
• 21:47
  Well, first thing of all, the malice is really give them a lot
• 21:53
  of psychic energy by what these war reenactments.
• 21:57
  Well, you know what the 21st century version of the Doctor is
• 22:01
  A war victim. Last of the Time Lords, the
• 22:04
  Great Big time. War.
• 22:06
  That would be a big. Difference the great big time
• 22:08
  war would be enough to feed the malice and and get them into the
• 22:12
  story rather than let's go and visit Chloe's uncle or wherever.
• 22:19
  Maybe the climax, Jack, would be, you know, you want war, I'll
• 22:22
  give you war. I'll give you all the big.
• 22:24
  Memories, you know? There you go.
• 22:26
  Have all the war you want, you know.
• 22:29
  So that would be definitely involved.
• 22:31
  I think depending on which specific era of the show I would
• 22:35
  try and map this story onto. I'm not sure.
• 22:41
  I mean, that's, but why if you had to put this onto a specific
• 22:46
  version of? Chimpers, of course.
• 22:48
  Too many characters, bad explanations for everything.
• 22:53
  You know, it just sort of. Fizzles the way in the end.
• 22:55
  Outdoor visuals. Usefully looking, yeah, exactly
• 22:58
  you've. Been references to the
• 22:59
  visitation. Yeah, that's yeah.
• 23:08
  It would be more character focus, wouldn't it?
• 23:10
  It would be there. There would be less plot and
• 23:13
  more character, Absolutely. Yeah, you slip it down and go,
• 23:16
  well, here's a bill, and he's too far into the.
• 23:19
  You probably can blame Willow and George touching them.
• 23:24
  You probably can blame them into one character.
• 23:27
  Yeah. You know, others would probably
• 23:29
  be redeemed at the end somehow. Yeah, exactly.
• 23:33
  But the doctor will go and you, George Malone, will have to
• 23:37
  correct. Tegan's grandfather will
• 23:43
  probably sacrifice himself by, you know, jumping on the into
• 23:48
  the malice or something like that.
• 23:50
  Jane would have a young boyfriend and be poor Kitchen as
• 23:58
  well, you know. Yeah, exactly.
• 24:01
  And should be played by I don't know who player.
• 24:06
  Sue Perkins. Yeah, sure.
• 24:09
  Sue Perkins and Mel Gibbs watchers.
• 24:11
  That's the malice. Just Mel Gibbs watch as Will
• 24:16
  Chandler and Sue Perkins as chain I think.
• 24:20
  That's what the climax of it would be, you know?
• 24:22
  You don't want to use war and violence, you know, absorb love
• 24:26
  and it'll be a big sucker in ending, you know, with our great
• 24:30
  marigolds and. Then we'll, we'll turn with them
• 24:33
  back in time and we'd we'd make him like the mayor of his
• 24:37
  village. How are we not talking about
• 24:40
  this very economic 2 passer and instead talking.
• 24:43
  It's almost in it, yeah. Well, we we just had that
• 24:47
  wonderful, you know, by play between the doctor and Jane
• 24:51
  there, you know, the whole thing about, you know, prompting her
• 24:54
  to for the answer of the war games.
• 24:56
  I think is is superbly cute. But this bit here about the
• 25:00
  doctor and again, this is another example of where Davison
• 25:02
  season 21 finds his voice and his presence as the doctor.
• 25:07
  You speak treason fluently. Stop the war games.
• 25:10
  It's such a great line. It's actually the line from the
• 25:14
  Errol Flynn 1938 adventures of Robin Hood film, but it's it
• 25:19
  would probably show us actually how old Eric Pringle was.
• 25:22
  But I just love the fact that you can recycle that line and
• 25:25
  and bring it in Doctor Who. I'd that's probably a telling
• 25:28
  stuff, you know? What Razor says about Davidson
• 25:34
  in 21 is he's decided to give up the part, so now it's no fucks
• 25:39
  given. That's what Fraser calls it,
• 25:41
  performance. And I think there's like a.
• 25:43
  It's a part of that. I'd anger to him this season
• 25:47
  when he's. Yeah, I'm a danger.
• 25:49
  Going up against bureaucracy and evil and the injustice of the
• 25:52
  universe. There's this real anger in him
• 25:54
  that I don't think you you see in 19 and 20.
• 25:57
  Really. Yeah.
• 25:57
  And that's all you've been up to, obviously Amazon where it
• 26:00
  all goes, you know, laser focused on just getting Perry
• 26:04
  and working hell out here, you know, and that's what we're kind
• 26:07
  of, you know, we we often laugh at the idea that classic who
• 26:12
  seasons are actually building anything up rather than, you
• 26:16
  know, the act of building up annual leave so they can all go
• 26:20
  on holidays. The only thing that's usually
• 26:22
  being built up in a classic season.
• 26:24
  But that is something that I think they are thinking about.
• 26:28
  They know Davison's on the way out.
• 26:31
  So let's time you know. Are you trying to?
• 26:34
  Say there's a direct. Parallel between 21 and the We
• 26:37
  know they said the Ward doctor came along because Peter Paul
• 26:39
  Bagan was too nice. The universe was getting very
• 26:41
  nasty, so we needed a War Doctor.
• 26:44
  So the universe of season 21 is getting nasty, so we don't need
• 26:47
  Davidson anymore, we need Colin. You know someone that's going to
• 26:50
  give the universe a fump. Interesting, interesting
• 26:53
  reading. I like that, but I also think
• 26:55
  Jack, it's down to the fact that the actor is 3 years into the
• 26:58
  role and you have a look at how Tom, you know, becomes his
• 27:00
  imperial self from the third year on.
• 27:02
  I think, you know, Pertwee's the same Pertwee season 9 is
• 27:05
  probably like the definitive version of Pertwee in some
• 27:08
  regards, right? We've we've come through season
• 27:10
  7 and and that sort of up and down.
• 27:13
  Jacqueline high performance in eight and 9:00 and 10:00 as
• 27:15
  well. I think it's kind of him on top
• 27:17
  form before it's, you know, he starts to slip away in in in
• 27:21
  season 11, for instance, McCoy. In 26.
• 27:25
  Absolutely nails it in 26. Yeah, I think there's something
• 27:29
  to be said for that the. 4th is the closest e-mail e-mail.
• 27:37
  I I would have been so interesting to see if he'd done
• 27:39
  a fourth. Yeah, no, he was pondering it,
• 27:41
  wasn't he? And unfortunately, the scripts
• 27:44
  in 20 Men, he was like, no, I'm doing another year of this shit,
• 27:48
  you know? Yeah, yeah.
• 27:49
  He'd been probably trying to leave halfway through 22 if he
• 27:53
  met some of those scripts. Imagine if he's signed on and he
• 27:57
  gets from his fucking desk. Line We would have had different
• 27:59
  scripts and different storylines.
• 28:01
  There's no way we could have had Season 22 as it was with
• 28:03
  Davison. They would have had to change.
• 28:05
  Really like horror in the sunshine.
• 28:08
  You know, normally when you do horror it's in the shadows.
• 28:11
  The fact that he has been paraded through the streets in a
• 28:13
  second and taken to this pyre and they're all going to
• 28:16
  celebrate. It's just going to be burnt.
• 28:18
  There's just something horrific about not hiding any of it and
• 28:21
  it'll all just be an out in the open like that.
• 28:24
  Yeah, and Doctor Who holla in the daytime feels very
• 28:27
  different. I mean, normally that's, you
• 28:30
  know, the stones of blood and stuff like that is in the
• 28:32
  evening or, you know, Sedbeck is obviously all shot in the day,
• 28:38
  but they've, you know, done a filter on it and now it's at
• 28:41
  nighttime, you know, but this is to be explicitly in the day is
• 28:45
  quite obviously goes back to the Wicker Man and you know, blood
• 28:50
  on Saints claw and all of that. You know, I'm glad on Satan's
• 28:54
  claw horse star in Doctor Who's Wendy pack do.
• 29:01
  You imagine that Doctor Who fans say upon this village, like, you
• 29:04
  know, I mean, dressed up my Peter Davis, like, Oh my God,
• 29:07
  there's another one out there now.
• 29:08
  Do you think that happens a bit? Like I bet he does.
• 29:14
  Yeah, the player ready, Yeah. We must burn a Doctor Who fan.
• 29:20
  And there's actually a couple. Of villages, isn't it?
• 29:27
  He was the 80s, Jack. Health and safety was, you know,
• 29:29
  very, very different world. But this is Shapwick in Dorset
• 29:32
  and a place called Martin in Hampshire.
• 29:34
  So I don't know which one we're currently seeing here.
• 29:37
  This is great, though, for me because we have with Glenn
• 29:40
  Houston's, you know, very sympathetic, avuncular character
• 29:44
  of of Colonel. Yes, that's exactly right, a
• 29:50
  hand of fear. But I love the fact that, you
• 29:52
  know, he's able to stand up to Sir George.
• 29:54
  And so, you know, not as pretty as Tegan, but infinitely more
• 29:57
  humane. And I think that's great because
• 30:00
  it sort of shows that, you know, the good and right thinking
• 30:03
  people of the world can turn away from that bloodlust and mob
• 30:06
  mentality that they're all caught up in.
• 30:08
  I think that's like a really nice turning point for the
• 30:10
  villagers in this story. They start to sort of snap free
• 30:14
  of the the influence of Sir George.
• 30:17
  And that's something that we lose when this isn't A4 parter.
• 30:20
  I think we need more of the villages because this is 2
• 30:24
  parts. So we don't really get many
• 30:27
  civilians. The only civilians that are in
• 30:30
  this story are Will, who's come from another time, James, who we
• 30:36
  need and the history professor, and Tegan's grandfather, who we
• 30:40
  need because he's Tegan's grandfather.
• 30:43
  So everyone has a specific link to the games happening or not
• 30:48
  happening. Where's really we meet those
• 30:51
  civilian outsiders that we get in the Damons.
• 30:55
  So when the master is sort of the mate, the Magister is going
• 30:59
  through that village and and ripping them all up and
• 31:02
  revealing all their shady feet. Yeah, you.
• 31:04
  Need character. Will she ever come back?
• 31:08
  What is it? About some 2.
• 31:10
  Parts. Come on everyone, into the
• 31:11
  TARDIS. The whole crowd of you.
• 31:13
  Let's go. I mean, do you remember a time
• 31:15
  when it was terrifying, the thought of taking anyone in the
• 31:18
  TARDIS? I, I agree with you and I think
• 31:21
  it does happen once too often, but it does make narrative sense
• 31:24
  in this particular instance where the TARDIS has
• 31:27
  materialised in the Locus, you know, the actual sort of heart
• 31:32
  of, of the, of the Malices, you know, psychic net or whatever
• 31:36
  you want to call it. And so they do need to get out
• 31:38
  of here. And the only way is to pile
• 31:39
  everybody into the TARDIS. I don't mind it in this
• 31:42
  instance. I think what we're seeing
• 31:45
  though, and here we're just starting to get to the crisis
• 31:49
  point and there's about 10 minutes left.
• 31:51
  So Act 3 has less than 10 minutes to to wrap up.
• 31:55
  And again, it's that whole thing about we spend all of Part 1 on
• 31:58
  Act 1, which is all set up. And you know, it's lovely for
• 32:01
  it, but it just doesn't work when you've got Acts 2 and
• 32:05
  three. Yeah, Acts 2 and three just
• 32:06
  jammed into into 25 minutes. It's the same trouble with the.
• 32:09
  You need more of this. We need more of this.
• 32:12
  Every single bloody character that's in the store now, it's
• 32:16
  just all crowd scenes of about 12 people, and everyone gets one
• 32:20
  line. And they're all sort of, because
• 32:22
  they're shooting this with three big chunky cameras, everyone's
• 32:25
  sort of positioned weirdly. So they're all, in short, you're
• 32:29
  right, Jack. They would filter this right
• 32:31
  through. In a new series, there'd be
• 32:32
  about four people. Well, except in the chimney era.
• 32:36
  Yeah, the people are. There'd be more people.
• 32:41
  Also as well, we haven't talked about the realization of the
• 32:44
  malice. I think the face in the wall is
• 32:48
  beautifully done, and I think the idea of the wall
• 32:50
  disintegrating and the face emerging with all the steam,
• 32:54
  that's just so great. And it's a wonderful Target book
• 32:56
  cover as well. And yes.
• 32:59
  Alternatively, the what? The thing hanging on the wall
• 33:01
  when the TARDIS does look like, you know, polystyrene.
• 33:05
  Especially when it starts vomiting about the place.
• 33:08
  The last. We were never going to get 2
• 33:10
  good versions of the malice right?
• 33:12
  But the the the one we need is very atmosphere is the ball.
• 33:17
  Is Antha playing this henchman Willow very generously.
• 33:21
  Besides, to fall on the floor because Stephen's grandfather,
• 33:24
  that poor old man, is too old to hit him over the edge of the
• 33:28
  lock. Besides, you know what, good
• 33:30
  man, I'm just going to fall over to the floor.
• 33:33
  Actually, the book does confirm Jack that he is a black belt
• 33:36
  Andrew Vernie. So all right, read the book.
• 33:41
  And it's getting, it's quite, you know, you say, with these
• 33:44
  very visceral violence. And let's bash their heads in
• 33:47
  with rocks as well. Things vomiting as well, don't
• 33:50
  they? And ooze coming out of our ways
• 33:52
  and things in this season sounds like a bit of that.
• 33:56
  Well, they're going to get chill next year.
• 34:00
  I don't mind it because it's so fantastical.
• 34:02
  The green, the colour of monsters obviously is green.
• 34:05
  The green bile, it's so inhuman and I just think it's great This
• 34:09
  will be here though those. People in that shot.
• 34:13
  In the one shot. Many ways doctors are.
• 34:15
  Perhaps you're all his children. Yeah, and perhaps we're all
• 34:22
  psychic projection. I feel sorry for this man now
• 34:25
  who stompers into the scene and gets beheaded by a psychic
• 34:28
  projection. I mean, that's quite graphic,
• 34:30
  isn't it? Yeah, I don't feel any.
• 34:33
  Way with that these days. It's it's very nicely shot
• 34:38
  though this I think. I mean, they are.
• 34:41
  Very emotions around Davison but.
• 34:44
  Yeah, the malice moving in that shot, you know, you said the
• 34:46
  eyes sort of darting side to side and the face is starting to
• 34:49
  sort of break free of the wall. I think all of that is great.
• 34:53
  The. Iconography you mentioned
• 34:54
  earlier. Painting the icons with the
• 34:57
  eyes. The stuffed head.
• 35:03
  Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. Oh, he's feeding on the
• 35:07
  violence. Did you see the malice there
• 35:08
  with his mouth wide opens, smoke belching out.
• 35:12
  Oh, marvellous. I mean, I can't fault how this
• 35:16
  looks. I really can't.
• 35:17
  I think this looks terrific. Oh, yeah.
• 35:20
  We forgot about Dennis Leo. Here he comes.
• 35:24
  We forgot about the other other things.
• 35:27
  Now there's there's 1500 people to choose from.
• 35:30
  I wonder who's going to take Sir George out?
• 35:32
  One of them will. I'm sure it'd be the hero of
• 35:36
  this story, Turla. I'm sure it'd be him.
• 35:40
  He. Should say at the end, you know,
• 35:42
  I didn't do anything in this, did I?
• 35:44
  You know, my first name is Jimmy Bissell.
• 35:47
  What does that mean? Oh.
• 35:49
  I look like this, though. I like the fact that Wolsey
• 35:51
  tries to talk him down and says I know you're a good man.
• 35:57
  In the novelization, because of course it's Will who pushes him
• 36:00
  into the malice, Will recognizes Sir George as a Hutchison
• 36:05
  because they were, you know, the Hutchinsons were the, you know,
• 36:08
  the aristocratic family back then even as well.
• 36:11
  And there's that kind of, yeah, nice, sort of like linking
• 36:16
  between the present and the past there.
• 36:19
  And so for Will to do it I think is quite apartment.
• 36:21
  This fella playing Willow O'malley's so camp, isn't it?
• 36:24
  You see him get up there and go. My God, they've forgotten me in
• 36:27
  the climax. I must go he is he gets the best
• 36:33
  line of the thing of we must have our Queen of the May.
• 36:36
  He is great, although we did talk about it, didn't we, in our
• 36:43
  strictly. It is very odd how we no
• 36:45
  recriminations. You did try murderers all, but
• 36:48
  it's all right. So, so that's coming up here.
• 36:50
  And I think, again, this is probably just a a casualty of
• 36:53
  the fact that we just don't have the screen time to get into it.
• 36:56
  Or perhaps there are too many characters, as you say.
• 36:58
  But the execution is rushed there.
• 37:01
  You know, there isn't a dramatic exchange which is required to
• 37:03
  get us from, you know, Willow being such a prick to, you know,
• 37:08
  no recriminations not on my part.
• 37:10
  There isn't enough of an introspection to the character.
• 37:14
  Was he simply, you know, whipped into a frenzy and under the
• 37:17
  influence of the malice as Sir George was?
• 37:19
  Or, and perhaps this is where the dramatic sort of tension
• 37:22
  might come in, you know, has he just gone, been swept away, you
• 37:26
  know, swept away by it like the same way that the red top
• 37:28
  tabloid readers would have been swept away by the jingoism and
• 37:32
  the bloodlust for, you know, Argentinian.
• 37:37
  In the book. Violence.
• 37:38
  In the book it's, I think it's quite explicit that it's the
• 37:42
  latter and that and he's much more of a sadist.
• 37:46
  In the book, he's a real, I mean, it's a bit at the end
• 37:49
  where he says no recrimination. I'm like really?
• 37:51
  And you know, but but because there are internal models in his
• 37:55
  that you realize how much he is enjoying being in control of
• 37:58
  people and being able to inflict violence on him.
• 38:01
  And that's the right choice because people are like that.
• 38:04
  People do get swept up and you know, they become football
• 38:07
  hooligans or you know, whatever the case may be based on.
• 38:11
  Yeah, he's the sort. Of thing that that security.
• 38:15
  Is holding as it. Were I feel so sorry for this
• 38:19
  actor playing Andrew Vernie. He just gets nothing to do at
• 38:23
  all, doesn't he? I thought this was going to be a
• 38:27
  recurring role, like the new series.
• 38:29
  You know Teagan's grandfather Every.
• 38:30
  Time we come back to Earth. Yeah, you should have a bit
• 38:33
  finished both. Look at this model work of the
• 38:36
  church going up. It is.
• 38:38
  Gorgeous, so good and cutting with, you know, cutting to the
• 38:43
  malice in between. I just think that's superb.
• 38:46
  Again, the iconography, you used that word earlier, Jack, it's so
• 38:49
  good. Like this is Doctor Who in
• 38:51
  198384 making its own iconography in the story of the
• 38:55
  week. I I think it's really strong for
• 38:58
  that. Although this is absolutely the
• 39:01
  wrong point of the story. The last scene for someone to go
• 39:03
  well was it a man or a beast? Well, as you know, Bob, it was
• 39:07
  what you should have done that in the fucking story.
• 39:12
  Unfortunately, something that's been played in this whole story,
• 39:15
  particularly the Doctor and James is Jonny Spanville in his
• 39:21
  random who missed talking about this story says look 3 words
• 39:26
  here. Dramatic television story show
• 39:29
  don't tell. And this, this is one of the
• 39:33
  most telliest. Well, yeah.
• 39:35
  Probably the most telliest of this.
• 39:38
  Well, I think it shows a lot. Particularly the wrap up.
• 39:41
  It does show a lot as well. I I think the, the tension
• 39:47
  between the characters and the, you know, the separate camps of
• 39:50
  villages, et cetera isn't explored.
• 39:52
  And we kind of get this as, as an add on right at the end, you
• 39:55
  know, Tegan meets her grandfather and has a
• 39:57
  conversation with him with one minute and 41 minute and 45
• 40:02
  seconds to go. You know, no recriminations, not
• 40:05
  on my part is wrapped up, as we say, far too quickly.
• 40:07
  And again, that happens 2 minutes before the end.
• 40:10
  Yeah, that's failing. That's the same as Black Hawk.
• 40:12
  It's just like, well, Lady Clanley, you killed your weird
• 40:16
  disabled sand. Anyway, off you go.
• 40:19
  Yes, thank you for the book, I'll cherish it always.
• 40:21
  So, Willow, you were prepared to engage in a Wicker man's law to
• 40:26
  have won the main cousins? Yeah.
• 40:28
  OK, See you next week A couple of other dreadful films that
• 40:33
  happened in that last scene, that dreadful tea joke the.
• 40:40
  Ending on the BBC crap joke. Absolutely.
• 40:43
  They don't go ha ha ha ha ha. And Davidson gets a lot fat
• 40:47
  jokes at the end of his stories, but he just told us to deliver.
• 40:51
  It's like, well, oh, it's, it's been a grand old adventure on
• 40:56
  old. Doctor.
• 40:56
  Who have met? Into the adventures Do you not
• 40:59
  remember Daleks? I sometimes think those mutated
• 41:02
  misfits will terrorize me till the end of time.
• 41:07
  That's just inadvertently funny. That's not actually a joke.
• 41:11
  The worst thing about this one is because this episode is
• 41:13
  running so quick a Why does this stupid crap end scene take up
• 41:20
  such a large percentage of the story?
• 41:23
  Because this is only a two-part story.
• 41:24
  Because. It's got a lot of work to do,
• 41:26
  that's why and B. Off the final line by going
• 41:30
  straight into this thing at the end.
• 41:32
  You know, they they say, well, I can't remember exactly what the
• 41:36
  line is, but he goes, Oh yes, and I suppose I'll quite adopt.
• 41:41
  You can't even get the whole line out before we he.
• 41:46
  Says personally, you'd rather like him.
• 41:48
  Yes, personally, I think. Because he can barely hear him
• 41:54
  say. It Are you watching an old VHS
• 41:56
  copy that cuts off? No, no, you can hear him.
• 41:59
  It's just the stem cuts in because it's like, right, we
• 42:03
  have to go to the credit. Change these there on the
• 42:05
  bottom. Go, go.
• 42:07
  You can almost imagine Owen Morris on the studio floor going
• 42:12
  and now the credit's here. You know, Peter, you read this a
• 42:17
  lot quicker at the Lead Pro, can you not?
• 42:19
  You know why we do table leads Peter?
• 42:24
  So you don't have to. I know this wasn't a thing back
• 42:28
  then, but it would be in seasons to come.
• 42:31
  Maybe this would work better as a three rather than a four.
• 42:34
  Maybe it's 4 would be. Too.
• 42:35
  No, no, no, no, no, I think. Well, you can't do a three.
• 42:39
  Because you have to have the end of Part 1 around about the 15
• 42:42
  minute mark and you need to get into Act 2 before you go.
• 42:46
  You know, So what would you add Part 2?
• 42:48
  You got that extra time. Now, well, I, I think you can
• 42:52
  bring it a little bit forward, but in, in, in then having that
• 42:55
  time, you really need to, I think, you know, focus on, on
• 42:58
  the human relationships. And I think, again, that's just
• 43:01
  not the syntax and the grammar of of television that might
• 43:04
  doctor you at that at that age. And you can't.
• 43:07
  Do it. Again, what?
• 43:08
  Because we're twice weekly. So you can't have that.
• 43:13
  It can't go Part 1. Then Part 2 is tomorrow.
• 43:17
  Then in six days time we have Part 3 and then the day after
• 43:20
  that we have Part 1 of the new story.
• 43:22
  And then it's like this all so I.
• 43:24
  Never should have taken it off Saturday night.
• 43:29
  So Steve and I am still up to do.
• 43:32
  No, no, no. Well, I just thought, you know,
• 43:34
  trying to sort of bring this to a close.
• 43:37
  We if there's anything else, we, we, we want to say.
• 43:39
  Otherwise, we might just go straight into three reasons why
• 43:43
  we feel like we should watch this.
• 43:45
  I could have done two small edits in that last scene, you
• 43:48
  know, 2 editions, okay. I just would have had Wolsey say
• 43:52
  to Willow, that's it, you're off the cricket team, you know, so
• 43:55
  at least he got some sort of person.
• 43:57
  And I would have had Andrew Vernie get the sort of last joke
• 44:02
  as they're all walking off the tire, the TARDIS, to go and sit
• 44:05
  in a cafe and have tea and just say to Jane Hamden, oh, I never
• 44:08
  could stand Tegan. And there, there you go.
• 44:10
  That's just enough for me just to sort of round it off nicely.
• 44:14
  I, I do like the idea of having an extended scene at the end.
• 44:16
  And again, I think this is the story that Tegan should have
• 44:19
  departed and having that kind of moment where, you know, she
• 44:23
  decides on that. But wouldn't it have been nice
• 44:25
  rather than just sort of disappear into the TARDIS
• 44:27
  straight away for the Doctor and Taylor to have hung around, you
• 44:30
  know, for the course of the summer, helped rebuild the
• 44:32
  village, not just in terms of its infrastructure, but in terms
• 44:35
  again, the, the sort of relationships amongst its
• 44:37
  citizens and perhaps stuck around for a game of cricket or
• 44:40
  two on the, on the village brain.
• 44:42
  It would have been lovely. Stephen at the end of Shadow, a
• 44:44
  bit like that. You know, where they're all
• 44:46
  sitting around in a lovely setting, a Manor house or
• 44:48
  something beautiful like that. There isn't.
• 44:51
  But that's six parts. Yeah, all my fury from the deep,
• 44:54
  you know, do that. And it's not the fault of this.
• 44:57
  It's not the fault of the awakening.
• 44:59
  It's the fault of Doctor Who at the time.
• 45:01
  And that is when you do have, and I think he is a very
• 45:04
  atmospheric director. What's his name?
• 45:06
  Michael Owen Morris. Yes, and he did the pirate
• 45:10
  planet, didn't he? Like ages ago, you didn't do the
• 45:13
  kind of. Problems.
• 45:15
  Oh, I'm sorry, I got that target, but but you do
• 45:18
  something. Else is here.
• 45:21
  They've done the impossible, right?
• 45:23
  They've managed to find a brilliantly evocative location
• 45:25
  in that village. Yeah, they brought in Barry
• 45:28
  Newberry, who's done brilliantly atmospheric sets.
• 45:32
  Yeah. And then here's the thing.
• 45:34
  Here's the problem with this era Doctor Who.
• 45:35
  You've got that flat, bloody TARDIS set that we keep coming
• 45:39
  back to, and all the atmosphere is gone.
• 45:42
  It happens in Marco Dorani as well.
• 45:44
  It happens in all of these stories where you've got these
• 45:48
  wonderful creatives bringing this sort of lush stuff to work
• 45:52
  the second you're back in that console, or man, oh man, it is
• 45:56
  just flat. But what you're suggesting is
• 45:59
  that the console now has shiny buttons on it.
• 46:02
  Oh well, that's not remembering before adopters where we put all
• 46:05
  those shiny buttons. On it.
• 46:06
  Got to show that off. Yeah, turn the lights on.
• 46:09
  But that's not a fault for you, Iconist, that's that's the fault
• 46:12
  of the set that they're using for every single story.
• 46:16
  Yeah. I remember when they turned all
• 46:18
  the lights down in Enlightenment and how atmospheric it all
• 46:21
  looks. So good.
• 46:22
  Well, that doesn't let fleek in front of somebody doing
• 46:25
  something like I don't. Know when you've got all that
• 46:27
  sort of Flint all in the TARDIS console.
• 46:31
  Room. Amazing.
• 46:33
  Anyway, sorry. No, OK.
• 46:36
  So I mean thank you gentlemen, both of you for what has been a
• 46:40
  great discussion. Shall we go into now 3 reasons
• 46:45
  each for why we should watch the Awakening?
• 46:48
  Is that something we want to do at this point?
• 46:49
  Oh, absolutely. You said the awakening might you
• 46:52
  forgot what? Of course.
• 46:56
  It's just my Australian rising inflection at the end of each
• 47:00
  sentence. Let's go Joe first.
• 47:03
  What's your first pick please? I am going to be because you
• 47:08
  guys are really, really, really smart, and I don't think we've
• 47:10
  talked enough about how this story looks.
• 47:13
  So I'm just going to say now, going to an English village is a
• 47:17
  surefire win for a Doctor Who story, and it is just pulled off
• 47:21
  to perfection. The only thing I would have done
• 47:23
  here is I love some nighttime filming.
• 47:26
  I know I said about the sudden drenched horror in this, but,
• 47:31
  you know, look at the demons when it's dark.
• 47:33
  It's it's so atmospheric. But Stephen, as a fan of, you
• 47:38
  know, The Avengers, you have a particular ponchon for the
• 47:41
  English village. How do you think they did this?
• 47:44
  No, this is glorious, absolutely.
• 47:46
  And again, you know, trading on the elements of folk horror,
• 47:49
  trading on the elements of that isolated country village where,
• 47:53
  you know, wrong and evil things are happening, committed by
• 47:56
  wrong and even evil people. You know, that's, that's
• 47:58
  Murdersville, That's, you know, any, any number of Avengers
• 48:03
  episodes that have that as a locale.
• 48:04
  And I think it absolutely nails it.
• 48:06
  It's it's so critical and central, I guess to, as I say,
• 48:10
  that kind of mid 20th century British cult television,
• 48:14
  archival television, it's a staple of it.
• 48:18
  And he literally, there's nowhere that camera don't go in
• 48:20
  that village, you know, long, lovely, luxurious pans across
• 48:24
  gravestones in that churchyard. And he's wandering around the
• 48:27
  streets and he's zooming past the shops and he's on the
• 48:29
  village green. And it's every cliche, every
• 48:32
  visual cliche we want to see. And we lap it up.
• 48:35
  Yes. Fuck Midsummer Murders.
• 48:37
  Watch Doctor Who. Less formulaic at any rate.
• 48:44
  Jack, what? What do you think?
• 48:47
  Well, first of all, I think you'll find that half of the
• 48:49
  fucking cast of Doctor Who had to earn.
• 48:53
  That's all right. And Jonathan Creek, right?
• 48:58
  Yeah. And so, well, I think I'll go
• 49:04
  with I mean, it's quite rare to end a 5th Doctor story and go, I
• 49:11
  think I'll pick the 5th Doctor is one of the highlights.
• 49:14
  Of this, no, that was my first choice too.
• 49:17
  You're quite right. Not particularly because of
• 49:21
  rankings of the characters, many of that sort of thing.
• 49:24
  But I think this is a really one one of the casualties of the
• 49:29
  story. Obviously it's a two-part nature
• 49:32
  and the show don't tell scale gets all dramatically put in One
• 49:37
  Direction. But the benefit of this for
• 49:40
  Peter Davidson is it basically gives him all of the material.
• 49:45
  Basically it's almost a bit of Davison monologue with people
• 49:50
  hanging around him doing stuff occasionally.
• 49:54
  The 5th Doctor's really interesting interpretation of
• 49:58
  character. I read really interesting
• 50:02
  article or series of tweets which I couldn't find for this
• 50:05
  recording, but it basically talked about Davison, the
• 50:09
  character and the costume as being quite a conservative and
• 50:18
  archetypal sort of British explorer colours, you know,
• 50:22
  quite beige and bland. You know, he almost looks more
• 50:25
  like Captain Cook from The Greatest Show and the Galaxy
• 50:29
  then he does the Doctor. And I quite like the first story
• 50:35
  that's very much about Englishness and, you know, the
• 50:40
  horrors of remember be a dangers of watering too much in
• 50:46
  nostalgia and cultural memory that lived at the heart of of
• 50:51
  English society. It's quite interesting to have
• 50:55
  this Doctor Who, you know, it's maybe only Davidson and William
• 51:00
  Hartnell that addressed him very explicitly.
• 51:04
  The English costumes, obviously. Hartman.
• 51:07
  And period English costumes, you know, and Wardian exactly right.
• 51:12
  Particularly if you compare, you know, the sort of international
• 51:16
  peak chic of Tenement Smith with the converse.
• 51:20
  You know, be very deliberately artificial, literally a costume
• 51:25
  that Paul Mcgahn picks up in the TV movie.
• 51:29
  The series of bohemian costumes that Tom Baker cycles through,
• 51:34
  you know, John Pertwee sort of international man of action
• 51:38
  stuff, you know, Joby Whitaker dressing like a demented sort of
• 51:43
  play school presenter. You know, she forget was costing
• 51:49
  very much reflecting she forget was the actor, but in his
• 51:54
  personality and his sense of, you know, fashion and haute
• 51:58
  couture into the into the role there.
• 52:02
  So it's very interesting to see someone who's very explicitly
• 52:08
  dressed from the very dreaming as an English gentleman, albeit
• 52:13
  with the occasional question mark, you know, dotted around.
• 52:18
  You must have a sense of mystery, Jack.
• 52:21
  Exactly. Yeah, sure.
• 52:23
  I mean, that's definitely why I think when I look at those
• 52:26
  characters in the series, it's a very, you know, Davidson's a
• 52:31
  very capable performer and has the ability to rattle through
• 52:36
  technobabble like nobody's business, which is very useful
• 52:40
  in this story about this. You know, this was given to
• 52:43
  Sylvester McCoy. Both episodes were overrun
• 52:46
  because it would take him 20 minutes to get out of each line,
• 52:50
  you know, so the thing would barely be broadcast.
• 52:53
  But you know, Davidson gets through his dialogue and prevent
• 52:59
  an image of the doctor. I think the 5th Doctor is at his
• 53:03
  best one. He's worried all the heightened
• 53:07
  emotions, you know, very, very authoritative when he needs to
• 53:12
  be, you know, and and for someone who's not always who is
• 53:18
  often crowded out in in stories with too many domineering
• 53:24
  personalities around him, it's very refreshing for him to be
• 53:29
  given the chance for a big solo piece with a lot of running
• 53:34
  around and a lot of being smart and heroic are.
• 53:40
  You suggesting he's not crowded out in episode 2 of this?
• 53:46
  Not really to be honest, I meant with a lot of characters, but I
• 53:50
  think he probably still gets the most to do.
• 53:53
  Yeah, and his positions as the leader of the pack, I think,
• 53:56
  yeah, he's still very much the one who's in charge.
• 53:58
  He's one and centre of most of those clown shots.
• 54:01
  You know, it's not like I think Sihar once described on one of
• 54:07
  your, I think more than undead commentary as a Pennant Roberts
• 54:11
  type 8 shot where you get, you know, eight people will line up
• 54:15
  in a bloody low. You know they have been.
• 54:18
  He's right in the middle, isn't he?
• 54:20
  Yeah, he's he is the centre of the Trump back, particularly
• 54:24
  that great shot, the first shot of the poltergeist coming
• 54:29
  towards them and they're all, you know, aching backwards like
• 54:33
  them. A fucking episode of Screw.
• 54:35
  The group. Well, yeah, they're all sort of
• 54:37
  behind him, terrified that he's there to fire, isn't.
• 54:40
  He and that's part of what the doctor is that's William Hartman
• 54:43
  in the war machines. That's, you know, personally in
• 54:47
  in the demons or in. Jodie, which kind?
• 54:51
  Even the Daleks, when she stands in front of the, you know, she
• 54:54
  does that great speech. Yeah, definitely.
• 54:58
  And that's what the character is to a lot of people.
• 55:02
  And I think he nails the bad job.
• 55:06
  If you want a short burst of classic Doctor Who, where the
• 55:09
  Doctor is heroic and smart and flippant and and right and
• 55:14
  righteous, this is a week of one for Davidson.
• 55:18
  He's perfected that sarcasm this year, hasn't he?
• 55:21
  She goes. We must speak to George.
• 55:24
  Yes, I know, he says. I think I explained that to you
• 55:29
  about two minutes. Ago, yes.
• 55:31
  Thank you, Jane. We're on the clock. 25 minute
• 55:35
  episodes, Jane. I'll explain later, Jane.
• 55:38
  All right, do. You know, I, I had 3 written
• 55:44
  down here and you've just taken the first two, both of you
• 55:47
  between the absolutely gorgeous exterior shots and the
• 55:52
  importance of locating Doctor Who within the English
• 55:55
  countryside and the folk horror element that we spoke about
• 55:58
  before and how gorgeous and luxurious it is.
• 56:02
  But even just down to the selection of the scenery and the
• 56:05
  shots, you know, there's that gorgeous sort of Ford through
• 56:08
  which Tegan sort of runs towards the camera.
• 56:10
  There's that sort of beautiful English green and you can kind
• 56:12
  of see the, you know, the burnt scalp of, you know, Peter
• 56:15
  Davidsons balding head from behind, as is, you know,
• 56:19
  surrounded by Sir George Hutchinson's men.
• 56:23
  You know, there's the, you know, the beautiful cemetery scenes.
• 56:25
  As you say, Joe I, I all of that.
• 56:28
  I just could watch that on mute, on repeat and just be utterly
• 56:32
  soothed by it. And I'm a reason, Stephen, we
• 56:35
  want this to be 4 episodes long rather than two.
• 56:37
  Just spend more time in the village.
• 56:39
  Sure, why not? In the same way that, you know,
• 56:42
  I can watch particularly the first half of Android Invasion
• 56:47
  and just be calmed or even something like Silver Nemesis.
• 56:49
  I know it's crap, but my God, it's beautiful to look at.
• 56:52
  It's just. Lovely there recently.
• 56:54
  It's just as beautiful in real life.
• 56:56
  Oh wow, okay, nice, have to go. Absolutely just.
• 57:00
  Thinking that together. And, and Jack, you know, I, I
• 57:06
  genuinely feel that this is a massively underrated Davison
• 57:09
  performance. He's given so much to do.
• 57:11
  He's he's got a heavy, a lot of heavy lifting, but he rises to
• 57:14
  it. And again, that third year of
• 57:17
  being in the Doctor, you know, inhabiting that role, becoming
• 57:21
  the Doctor in many ways. Like, this is that version that
• 57:23
  we see in front of yours in the caves of Androsani, where it is
• 57:28
  the old man in a young body who is so frustrated that people
• 57:32
  aren't taking him seriously because he's young.
• 57:34
  And I just think that's a perfect, you know, exasperated
• 57:38
  tone that Davison delivers. So I don't know if I want to try
• 57:45
  and think of two others or whether I just sort of launched
• 57:48
  into my third one. But I might leave that after
• 57:51
  we've gone through one more cycle.
• 57:52
  But if I were to choose one, I think the the joy that I get
• 57:58
  from not just watching this, but Joe, you referred to this
• 58:01
  earlier, listening to the novelisation, which I just think
• 58:04
  is an is an absolute. It's not a triumph in the same
• 58:08
  way that the doomsday weapon, you know, absolutely retrieves
• 58:13
  and makes something golden of a pretty ordinary story in Colony
• 58:17
  in Space. Or the way that, for instance,
• 58:19
  we get the kind of diversions and interiority in in something
• 58:23
  like Castro Velva, which again, Joe and I you, you we've done.
• 58:28
  I think it's more so about the fact that we're sort of able to
• 58:32
  sit and really inhabit that space and that mood piece and
• 58:38
  the characters, and there isn't anything extraneous to the beats
• 58:42
  of the story, the main plot points of the Awakening.
• 58:46
  But what we get is something really rather lovely, and it's a
• 58:49
  beautiful production as well. So worth listening to.
• 58:52
  Let's cycle back to Joe for your second.
• 58:56
  Well, I'd like to celebrate the first story of our new Doctor
• 59:00
  Who companion, Jane Hampton, who seems to have done a bit of a
• 59:06
  180 on, if I'm honest, because I really went after her strictly,
• 59:10
  but I really enjoyed her today. Let's take it off, shall we?
• 59:14
  Thrust into a dangerous situation on her home turf,
• 59:17
  confronted with strange goings on, given insane explanations by
• 59:22
  this strange weirdo that's come into her life, then coming to
• 59:27
  absolutely believe that everything he says is true, and
• 59:31
  even apologizing for doubting him and and completely involving
• 59:34
  herself in the climax of the story.
• 59:36
  The only thing that's missing here really is her deciding to
• 59:39
  stay in the TARDIS at the end and go off because it's I think
• 59:43
  she's a great character. Well, there was a suggestion
• 59:45
  there that she's just sort of here to prompt the exposition,
• 59:49
  but I actually think that she's got a quite a bit of personality
• 59:52
  as well and as the character that comes from the setting, but
• 59:58
  is pushing against what's happening from the off.
• 1:00:03
  She's somebody that we're behind and absolutely has to meet the
• 1:00:07
  Doctor and be his ally throughout the story.
• 1:00:09
  I think she goes on a nice little journey and it is another
• 1:00:12
  sacrifice at the end that actually we've given so much of
• 1:00:15
  the story to her to that point that again, she's just sort of
• 1:00:19
  tied it up with everybody else. Because frankly, I would have
• 1:00:22
  tossed Teaga and turn her out of the TARDIS and kept Jane and
• 1:00:24
  Will. And I think Polly James is a
• 1:00:28
  bit, she's a bit shrill at times.
• 1:00:31
  Certainly at the at the end of episode 1, that's the most
• 1:00:35
  amount of syllables that the word doctor has ever had in the
• 1:00:38
  history of the human language. She does have a nice rapport
• 1:00:43
  with Davison. That's another thing as well, I
• 1:00:45
  think when Davidson bumps up against a strong female actress.
• 1:00:52
  And it happened with nearest Hughes and it happened with
• 1:00:55
  what's the old lady called in Mary Morris in Kinder.
• 1:00:59
  It happened with. Oh my God.
• 1:01:02
  What's that? Linda Baron.
• 1:01:03
  Yeah. Every time he comes up against
• 1:01:05
  strong women, it brings something great out in him.
• 1:01:08
  But here he's just like his sarcastic best and the back and
• 1:01:12
  forth and the witty lines. I can see potential.
• 1:01:16
  I can see potential in the character and I can see
• 1:01:18
  potential in the relationship. So I'm a little bit sad
• 1:01:21
  actually, that she she just gets put back in the toy box at the
• 1:01:25
  end of the story. But and it's it's another
• 1:01:28
  situation where because so much of the book is told from her
• 1:01:32
  point of view, rushing around after the doctor trying to
• 1:01:34
  figure out all this madness that's going on around her and
• 1:01:38
  what he's saying to her as an explanation, she's really
• 1:01:42
  likable. So yeah, Jane Hampton is my
• 1:01:44
  second choice. Lovely Jack.
• 1:01:50
  I think I'm going to go with what I think my favorite theme
• 1:01:55
  of this is possibly the opening theme.
• 1:01:58
  I think it's got a really strong sense of throwing you
• 1:02:02
  immediately into the states of the adventure.
• 1:02:05
  It shakes up your expectation of how you think this story's going
• 1:02:09
  to start and also what type of historical you think it's going
• 1:02:15
  to be That great clash of this is history.
• 1:02:19
  I was actually not, but we've done envision in the past
• 1:02:25
  before. But I guess more often that
• 1:02:26
  might be a thing that knew who might do that idea of this thing
• 1:02:30
  representing you isn't actually what The thing is going to be.
• 1:02:35
  It's a, you know, it's a reenactment in this case, or
• 1:02:38
  it's a parody or it's a thing from the Year 5.
• 1:02:43
  You know, this is the robot version of violin from the Year
• 1:02:48
  5 million or whatever. You know, it's taking a thing
• 1:02:52
  and going be back to me an extra layer of artificiality to it.
• 1:02:58
  But some but in a story that's all about the dangers of
• 1:03:04
  thinking too much about images of the past and you know that
• 1:03:09
  that danger of looking back in a certain way, sort of it's quite
• 1:03:14
  nice to take view of expectations.
• 1:03:17
  Then looking back, Doctor Who's story sucks you for they've
• 1:03:21
  liked in the past and shaking them up, you know, which is
• 1:03:25
  something that they didn't need to do with the limited time span
• 1:03:30
  they had. That could have been seen as a
• 1:03:32
  bit too extravagant or, you know, we just want to get the
• 1:03:36
  doctor into this environment on Page 1, you know, so that we can
• 1:03:40
  get to page 50 and the story's over.
• 1:03:45
  So yeah, I think it's a really good theme setter and it'll
• 1:03:50
  raise out the themes of the story and shapes shapes for
• 1:03:54
  viewers at a time where there's maybe a lot of audience hand
• 1:03:59
  holding going on it. It shapes the expectations.
• 1:04:04
  You know, visually, Jack, it must have been so refreshing for
• 1:04:07
  the production crew because they get to lean into all, you know,
• 1:04:11
  all those cliches about all the BBC does historical drama.
• 1:04:14
  So, yeah, yeah. And absolutely they do.
• 1:04:16
  But this time, they don't have to worry about, you know, cars
• 1:04:19
  in shots and phone boxes and things like.
• 1:04:21
  That because it's. In the modern day, they get to
• 1:04:24
  do both. Yeah, and it's that in comp
• 1:04:28
  that's why the incongruity, but sort of that cognitive
• 1:04:31
  dissonance of, you know, there's two time periods and those
• 1:04:35
  different images side by side. I think it's part of being
• 1:04:38
  unsettling nature of what do you know, take Frankenstein but puts
• 1:04:44
  name in there or take a galleon ship.
• 1:04:48
  But to be the galleon ship is in space and they're all racing
• 1:04:52
  each other in space. You know, that's that's part of.
• 1:04:56
  An inverse of the time meddler, isn't it?
• 1:04:57
  That was going back into the past and taking things from the
• 1:05:00
  present to it. Now we're in the present and we
• 1:05:03
  brought the past to it. It's.
• 1:05:06
  Yeah, yeah. It's Doctor Who in a nutshell,
• 1:05:09
  really, isn't it? You know, put in the
• 1:05:11
  extraordinary and the ordinary next to each other.
• 1:05:15
  Yeah, absolutely. Now, Steven, it's time for you
• 1:05:18
  to. Yeah, well.
• 1:05:21
  Well, I've, I've sort of looked through my notes and things,
• 1:05:24
  some of the things that I haven't spoken about.
• 1:05:26
  And one of the things that I, I probably neglected to, to really
• 1:05:29
  sort of praise enough was the partnership between the director
• 1:05:33
  and the designer. So it's it's Michael Owen
• 1:05:35
  Morris, as we mentioned, and we did touch on his his work
• 1:05:38
  before, but the partnership with Barry Newberry in bringing to
• 1:05:44
  life this, you know, very sort of BBC staple, I guess of the
• 1:05:47
  past and the English countryside.
• 1:05:50
  But the fantastical elements of that.
• 1:05:53
  And in particular the malice, which I just think is a triumph
• 1:05:57
  of design and execution in the and one thinking in particular,
• 1:06:01
  the malice in the church rather than the malice in the TARDIS.
• 1:06:04
  You're quite right to sort of say that that one's a little bit
• 1:06:06
  pony. The one inside the TARDIS, the
• 1:06:08
  one on the wall has obviously got a lot of money thrown at it
• 1:06:11
  and it looks wonderful. I still think it looks great.
• 1:06:14
  I mean, you could potentially use that in this day and age,
• 1:06:17
  you'd probably do a little bit different, but that same sort of
• 1:06:19
  design, same sort of functionality, the same kind of
• 1:06:22
  lighting, the smoke, etcetera. And the the sense of it being,
• 1:06:28
  you know, hundreds of years old and made out of the stone of the
• 1:06:30
  church I think is really, really wonderful.
• 1:06:33
  Barry Newbury, by the way, a Doctor Who's staple.
• 1:06:35
  He retires immediately after this story, no?
• 1:06:38
  Oh my God. This is his last time.
• 1:06:42
  And I'll tell you what, the demons went down into a crypt
• 1:06:45
  because that's easier to do here.
• 1:06:47
  They designed an entire interior church, and it looks.
• 1:06:51
  So real you would swear that was.
• 1:06:53
  China Church. Gorgeous.
• 1:06:55
  Wowzers. You know what those things,
• 1:06:57
  there's no, there's no guarantee that it would be a designed
• 1:07:00
  triumph. You must recall our discussion
• 1:07:03
  where we said that, you know, one side of this is the Merka
• 1:07:06
  and the other side of this is the Gravis with a nose.
• 1:07:09
  You know the chances were not good, though it was going to be.
• 1:07:16
  Yeah, yeah. Testament to Barry Newbury.
• 1:07:19
  Joe, your third one, please. Well, is it?
• 1:07:23
  Is it a cheat for me to say the book?
• 1:07:26
  No, no, no, no, no. You go for it.
• 1:07:27
  Absolutely. Well, I want to do a couple of
• 1:07:30
  very small readings, if I may, you know, that recapture why the
• 1:07:33
  book is so great. And, and there were troopers and
• 1:07:36
  the bravely fluttering banner and the horses and the gaudy
• 1:07:40
  uniforms, all the colour and activity which had brightened
• 1:07:44
  the day too, before it was crushed and transformed to
• 1:07:47
  screams and blood and ashes. He really captures the the
• 1:07:54
  violence and the horror of what happened in the past and how
• 1:08:00
  that is going to transplant into into the present in a way that
• 1:08:03
  the TV story just can't do because it's still going out to
• 1:08:06
  a family audience. But it is really horrifically
• 1:08:09
  depicted in the book. So I was more aware of what the
• 1:08:12
  stakes were when I read the book.
• 1:08:14
  I was like, Oh, my God, OK, if this plays out how it's supposed
• 1:08:17
  to play out with that final battle, it's going to be ugly.
• 1:08:21
  But also as well. And I do think it is a design
• 1:08:24
  triumph. But in the book, listen to this,
• 1:08:26
  the malice, still it grew. Energy flushed through it like
• 1:08:30
  blood and breath and packed into muscle and sinew.
• 1:08:34
  It drew in more power from the village and still more.
• 1:08:37
  And as it swells, smoke poured from its gaping mouth.
• 1:08:40
  After centuries locked in the womb of the church wall, the
• 1:08:44
  malice was being born at last. You really get the sense that it
• 1:08:49
  is a life form and that it is truly absorbing all of this
• 1:08:55
  horror that that they are creating.
• 1:08:58
  And so I just think on every level, I thought the
• 1:09:00
  explanations were given more depth as well.
• 1:09:03
  There was more time to sit with that scene where the doctors
• 1:09:06
  talking to Jane and we talked. We learned that Andrew Vernie
• 1:09:09
  found the probe told Sir George. So when you get far more
• 1:09:14
  information about all of that, there's insight into T as well.
• 1:09:18
  Where is that? Just simple things like it was a
• 1:09:22
  basic fact of Teague's nature that her emotions sometimes
• 1:09:24
  drove her to take risks. Like just insight into the
• 1:09:27
  characters that really made them all come alive a lot more.
• 1:09:31
  I just think on every level, the fact that that there is time.
• 1:09:37
  That's the one thing I really think is against the TV
• 1:09:40
  awakening is there's just no time.
• 1:09:43
  And so it is and it's television, right?
• 1:09:45
  It wants to be entertaining. So of course it's skipping from
• 1:09:47
  one set piece to another to 1 pretty location to another.
• 1:09:50
  But you know, a book, it's a whole different state of
• 1:09:54
  affairs. And read by nearest Hughes as
• 1:09:57
  well. She brings it to life.
• 1:10:00
  Brilliant. She really knows how to pace it,
• 1:10:02
  you know, because you listen to it when she's doing all the the
• 1:10:05
  sort of character stuff, she's quite calm, but then she really
• 1:10:08
  gets in her flow when the action starts happening, you know?
• 1:10:13
  I think it's wonderful. I think it's probably probably
• 1:10:18
  the best Davison target I've read.
• 1:10:21
  A lot of them are Terrence Dicks and a lot of them are script
• 1:10:25
  page. But.
• 1:10:28
  Yeah, I just thought the book was fantastic and everybody
• 1:10:33
  should just check it out. I mean, I don't say don't watch
• 1:10:35
  the TV show, but it is a fan. David, I I know you have many,
• 1:10:40
  many targets where that is your preferred version of the story
• 1:10:45
  than the TV. And this is one of them,
• 1:10:47
  absolutely. This is a very rare case for me
• 1:10:49
  where the target. Is my.
• 1:10:51
  Preferred version just because I think the whole story is fleshed
• 1:10:55
  out in so much more detail. Yeah, the book.
• 1:10:58
  Brilliant, brilliant. And I, I can't agree more with
• 1:11:01
  that. I have such fond memories of
• 1:11:03
  reading that a year before I actually saw this on television,
• 1:11:07
  so I would have been perhaps the last year of primary school,
• 1:11:10
  utterly enthralled and remains to this day one of my favourite
• 1:11:13
  targets. Absolutely.
• 1:11:15
  Jack, your third and final pick, please.
• 1:11:20
  Yeah. I mean, I guess my third pick
• 1:11:23
  would be obviously, you know, but my favorite of the target
• 1:11:28
  and this story, well, obviously the work of a new writer, Eric
• 1:11:33
  Pringle. Obviously you can tell it's an
• 1:11:36
  Eric Pringle story because the dialogue is crisp, But I I guess
• 1:11:48
  that comes with it the work of, I guess that, you know, we rag
• 1:11:54
  on Eric favoured a little bit. But I guess the ability to still
• 1:11:58
  in the period of the show that's often not back on as indulging
• 1:12:04
  too much in the past and not wanting to forage forward as its
• 1:12:09
  own creative voice. You know, the idea of like Colin
• 1:12:15
  Baker, for example, often being thought of as the 6th the Doctor
• 1:12:20
  rather than the Doctor. The name on this current
• 1:12:23
  television show. Obviously, as we've spoken about
• 1:12:26
  before, season 20 is, you know, gearing up to the five Doctors.
• 1:12:31
  Obviously have a lot of stories around that to about returning
• 1:12:35
  elements and guest cast and all that sort of thing.
• 1:12:39
  So it's quite nice to see we can Commission a new writer who has
• 1:12:45
  still something original to say even in this era that is often
• 1:12:50
  lambasted for not having much to say of its own.
• 1:12:55
  The past in this story is not just historical declaration.
• 1:13:00
  And the present of this story is not just J&T going on with Jolie
• 1:13:06
  or, you know, product placement for an aeroplane.
• 1:13:10
  You know, it's a, it's a very deliberate mash in the past and
• 1:13:16
  present. And the idea of what happens if
• 1:13:21
  we take these, what does it mean to pilfer things from history?
• 1:13:27
  What sorts of people are they that they are so obsessed with
• 1:13:31
  the past? They sort of don't recognise the
• 1:13:34
  danger that's awakening in the present in a cultural moment?
• 1:13:40
  You know, I think there's all really interesting themes that
• 1:13:43
  this story, yes, very briefly, very deftly touches upon because
• 1:13:50
  of JNT or, you know, Michael Grade or whoever in the BBC
• 1:13:57
  decided that we can only have so many episodes this season and
• 1:14:01
  therefore this has to be 2 instead of four.
• 1:14:04
  So it's unwanted fault that this is the way it is, but the way it
• 1:14:09
  is, I think for me anyway, is someone coming to it, you know,
• 1:14:14
  in sort of much more recent years is still something that
• 1:14:20
  has a lot to say to us and suggest that, you know, it's
• 1:14:25
  still worth looking for new voices to have new things to say
• 1:14:31
  within the context of the programme whilst creating an
• 1:14:35
  engaging adventure. You know what in this sort of
• 1:14:41
  it's very popular to be anti Eric these days, isn't it?
• 1:14:46
  And I think with good reasons and creative choices were made
• 1:14:50
  that were very unfortunate. But sort of when you look across
• 1:14:54
  the time that he script edited, he he got some interesting
• 1:15:00
  things out of Peter Brimwade. He brought in Barbara Clegg,
• 1:15:04
  Eric Pringle here. He brought back Robert Holmes
• 1:15:06
  for some great scripts. Philip Martin came in with ideas
• 1:15:10
  like he was willing to try and and nurse new writers and that
• 1:15:15
  didn't always work out. This year, obviously he wrote
• 1:15:18
  time lash again, Clint McCoy, Anthony Stephen, it didn't
• 1:15:21
  always work out and and give brand new writers a voice and
• 1:15:26
  try some old hands as well. So there are issues, OK, but I
• 1:15:32
  think this is a good example of him trying to find new voices
• 1:15:36
  and succeeding. Yeah, he doesn't always get it
• 1:15:39
  wrong, Eric, I'll give him that. That's a backhanded compliment.
• 1:15:46
  That's mean of me. I do recognise no Well said.
• 1:15:49
  Absolutely. For my 3rd and final one, I
• 1:15:52
  think I might try and wrap up I guess the point that I tried to
• 1:15:56
  make earlier around that early 80s British militaristic
• 1:16:02
  aesthetic and mob mentality, which obviously is tied into the
• 1:16:09
  the Falklands Island conflict, but really sort of arises out of
• 1:16:14
  maybe a country that is struggling to find it's identity
• 1:16:17
  after losing an empire. And we'd lost it's empire after
• 1:16:21
  the Second World War, in fact. But there's that sort of slow
• 1:16:23
  sense of decline perhaps around Britain and its image that I
• 1:16:27
  think the country still grapples with today.
• 1:16:29
  You know, there's a lot of the same kind of jingoism and
• 1:16:35
  patriotism and xenophobia that we see attached to the Brexit
• 1:16:40
  agenda and that sort of continues to this day.
• 1:16:43
  So there's always been there. And and maybe maybe my third
• 1:16:48
  choice for the Awakening is that how inadvertently clever, but
• 1:16:53
  clever nonetheless it is that in the way that it sort of taps
• 1:16:58
  into a zeitgeist that was very much of that time and that it's
• 1:17:01
  still recognisable to this day. It's not the glittering fracture
• 1:17:05
  centrepiece of enlightenmental kinder, perhaps snake dance, but
• 1:17:09
  it is underrated. And it is clever in the way that
• 1:17:14
  when again, going back to that anatomy of a text and how it
• 1:17:19
  sits within a context and those contexts multiple in terms of
• 1:17:22
  its production context, the author's context, but the
• 1:17:25
  reader's context as well. This is this is a story that
• 1:17:29
  essentially presents to us George Hutchison as someone who
• 1:17:36
  is the leader of a community who is spoiling for a fight.
• 1:17:42
  And in the malice, a long dormant psychic force that
• 1:17:45
  periodically surfaces such that apparently civilized people fall
• 1:17:49
  prey to an almost uncontrollable irrational urge for bloodlust.
• 1:17:54
  Well, same thing was happening and the same thing was being
• 1:17:58
  represented and presented in not in this case the medium of the
• 1:18:02
  malice, but the medium of particularly Fleet Street red
• 1:18:06
  top tabloids. And it's really fascinating to
• 1:18:10
  see, I guess, the kind of complicit, hand in hand nature
• 1:18:17
  of Sir George and the and malice working together to basically
• 1:18:21
  whip up the good people of little Hodkin, the otherwise
• 1:18:26
  ordinary right thinking people of Britain into nationalistic
• 1:18:31
  jingoism and wish to to bomb the crap out of, you know, some
• 1:18:36
  remote islands in the South Atlantic.
• 1:18:39
  I think that's unintended for the most part.
• 1:18:42
  But that's not really the point or the question.
• 1:18:44
  I think when you look at a text, you have to look at it in terms
• 1:18:47
  of where does it come from? What are its antecedents that
• 1:18:51
  extend beyond any notion of intent that goes into the text,
• 1:18:56
  but how it can be read both at the time and at the time that we
• 1:18:59
  read it as well with the knowledge of the history that
• 1:19:02
  we've inherited, not just from the text, but from from what we
• 1:19:07
  know of. And in this case around around
• 1:19:10
  Britain in a post colonial, post war period that extends from
• 1:19:14
  1945 to this day. I don't think it's immediately
• 1:19:18
  apparent, but it's certainly there for me.
• 1:19:20
  And I just think it's one of those things that every time I
• 1:19:23
  listen to the novelization or read it and certainly watch it,
• 1:19:28
  that kind of early 80s, very kind of aggressive, aggressive
• 1:19:35
  militarism is present in the text and reflects the the era
• 1:19:39
  that that gave us the Falklands. There was a lie missing in the
• 1:19:44
  target, wasn't there? When Sir George Hutchins goes,
• 1:19:47
  you know, remember when we used to civilise the world violently?
• 1:19:51
  Yeah. I really miss those days.
• 1:19:54
  Let's bring them back. Come on.
• 1:19:59
  Wonderful, I. Think for you going to be able
• 1:20:02
  to do it, Stephen, when you started with all of that other
• 1:20:05
  side of the episode, but I'm convinced.
• 1:20:08
  Oh, I hope, I hope anymore for any more at this stage gents.
• 1:20:13
  What did I give this on docker Hoe reviews 4 out of 10.
• 1:20:16
  I think it was pretty low, yeah. You didn't pass it.
• 1:20:20
  It's going to be an 8 now. You've doubled the point.
• 1:20:22
  Congratulations gents. Mission accomplished.
• 1:20:26
  Wonderful. Well, so it goes, ladies and
• 1:20:30
  gentlemen. And there it was gone.
• 1:20:31
  The only thing left to say is good night and good luck.
• 1:20:34
  And as we ask you this time, the gentle hamster listening to
• 1:20:38
  reflect on whether you think the awakening is has argued A
• 1:20:42
  neglected and unintended piece of poetry which reflects the
• 1:20:46
  social and political model of I mean, it was created or is it a
• 1:20:52
  bunch of old tosh? I've been Steven.
• 1:20:56
  I've been Joe. And I've been a bunch about
• 1:21:00
  tosh.