Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Rod Brown about his choice of The Pirate Planet (4/4)

Transcript

Talks to Rod Brown about his choice of The Pirate Planet (4/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None hamster with a blunt penlight
• 0:35
  for doing quicker, quicker, quicker and welcome back to
• 0:41
  Hamster with a blunt penknife, the Doctor Who commentary
• 0:44
  podcast. My name is Rod Brown and I'm
• 0:46
  going to have to keep speaking because Mr. Joe Ford is
• 0:49
  currently eating a licorice all sorts in tribute to the pirate
• 0:53
  planet and he's choking himself to death.
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  So I may be talking on this episode all by myself for 25
• 0:58
  minutes. Joe, are you back with?
• 0:59
  Us It may look like a licorice all sort, but it's in fact a
• 1:02
  Jelly baby. Oh sorry, it was a Jelly baby.
• 1:05
  That mistake has made quite a lot.
• 1:07
  Quite a few times there is a Jelly baby in episode one and
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  then they transmogrify into licorice.
• 1:13
  All sauce. Maybe it's a branding?
• 1:17
  Special transformative pockets that the Doctor has.
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  They were being nice to bassets before the candy man came along.
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  You just know someone out there in a short trips or a companion
• 1:27
  chronicle or. Something.
• 1:29
  Has explained how the Jelly. Babies became licorice all.
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  Sauce. Now appearing from Big Finish, a
• 1:35
  29 part box set. Probably written who was like
• 1:39
  plug in the gaps. Probably written by our mate
• 1:41
  Gary Russell, you know, or Craig Hinton back in the day, those
• 1:44
  sort of people. That's true.
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  That's true. Great service they did to Doctor
• 1:48
  Who, you know. Plug in a blow gas possibly?
• 1:53
  Sorry, Gary, we love you. We do.
• 1:56
  Why are we here today? Well, we have been absolutely
• 1:59
  thoroughly enjoying parts one to three of the pirate planets, so
• 2:02
  I kind of think we ought to finish off with episode 4.
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  What will happen next? We've just seen one of the best
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  cliffhangers of all time, with the Doctor allegedly plummeting
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  to his death off a plank. Slightly batten.
• 2:13
  Curse the black spot, I hasten to add.
• 2:16
  Slightly more believable, more entertaining.
• 2:21
  Definitely more entertaining. But yeah, will he survive?
• 2:24
  Well, I think we can't know the answer to that one.
• 2:28
  But what I love about this is very often, you know, the
• 2:33
  cliffhanger, there's a moment of jeopardy followed up by, you
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  know. No, wait or.
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  Something like that. Only in the Peter Dobson era,
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  which have to wait. Whereas the clip the actual the
• 2:44
  answer to the cliffhanger, here the resolution is what explains
• 2:49
  everything about the nurse and Queens Anxia.
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  It's super clever and it's shot really, really well as well,
• 2:55
  which helps. Well, look, come on, let's not
• 2:58
  delay. Let's go and watch it.
• 3:00
  Let's go for it in 321. In we go Yes, sometimes those
• 3:06
  cliffhanger resolutions are pretty terrible, aren't they?
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  The worst ones are where they slightly change what you saw
• 3:12
  previously so that they can. Mark on the run, are you
• 3:15
  thinking of there? Yeah, that kind of thing.
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  He was never in any danger at all.
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  No, George Stevenson was there all along.
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  Honest. Oh.
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  Dear Well look, we need someone to pop along at that point to
• 3:26
  take the attention away from Luke's bulge.
• 3:31
  Yeah, that's true. That did fill 45 minutes.
• 3:34
  It filled something anyway. Sorry, where are we?
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  Oh yeah, walk. In plank.
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  Yes, cold shower and back to the pirate planet.
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  Dead. You can't be serious.
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  Serious, is he? Mr. Fibberley just lowers his
• 3:51
  head slightly. You know what, Rod?
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  I shall listen to you. When I hear you scream.
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  Oh, it's so good I don't. Know what people say, this is
• 4:04
  over the top. Honestly, for me this is quite
• 4:08
  subdued. I think this is, to me, this is
• 4:11
  kind of absolute quintessential Dr. Do you think it should
• 4:16
  always be a cut up off then? Like in terms of theatricality?
• 4:20
  Not always, no. I think what's so good about
• 4:22
  Doctor is that we do get a blend and there we go.
• 4:25
  Sorry, I didn't want to talk over that bit.
• 4:27
  So well, Tom, you hear Tom's laughing before you say him.
• 4:31
  There's a Really. Clever thing, yeah.
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  Which? Leads into his laughter.
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  And again, that has to be well directed.
• 4:37
  It is. Oh yeah, absolutely.
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  So I think the conclusion we're coming to is he can be a very
• 4:42
  good director, it's just what he's directing.
• 4:45
  Yeah, of actors, but not action. So what's the difference just?
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  Very quickly, what would be a great story for him to direct
• 4:54
  then? Something like Edgy's
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  destruction. You know.
• 4:58
  I wonder what he would have done with something like Ghost Light.
• 5:01
  Yeah, or even Rebos. Which is Or even Rebos.
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  Yeah, yeah, that would have been far better for him.
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  Actually. He has very little kind of
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  action sequences. And now we get the revelation of
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  old nursery. She goes later.
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  You dare to mock me? Yes, slap.
• 5:19
  Oh, that's a good old slap too. She gives us now, she says, a
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  documentary. Tell me to go for it.
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  So I did. Oh, she's a good old actress.
• 5:28
  I love the the sardonic smile. Back to that door again on
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  location. Yeah, and our sweaty mentiads.
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  So that's David Sylvie, isn't it?
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  Prelix, who's done lots and lots of Big Finish?
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  I think he. Was the is he in a Blake 7 as
• 5:42
  well? I think he might.
• 5:43
  Be. I think he might be, yeah.
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  B was the kind of voice of The Eminence when they had The
• 5:48
  Eminence as a recurring villain for Tom's Doctor many moons ago.
• 5:55
  The Eminence. Oh, that Nick Briggs bunch.
• 5:58
  The zombies, Yeah. Never quite landed.
• 6:02
  I wonder why I didn't remember him.
• 6:07
  No, these rocks coming off the Cliff I think are very
• 6:09
  believable. They got a lot of good styrene.
• 6:11
  No, no, no. And there's a lot of them.
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  There is a. Lot of them and they do throw
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  them. On me the sound always works.
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  I think you said on a recent whichever it was probably a
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  recent hamster doctor. Sound effects don't get enough
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  credits. And you're absolutely right,
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  because sound effects sold that, but for once they didn't look
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  like polystyrene at all. The best special effect in this
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  though is that spanner at the end.
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  I love it. Hidget.
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  Bonk between the two heads floating.
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  Yeah. Oh, I love that.
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  So Mueller's gone all badass now, isn't she?
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  She's picked up a gun. She's basically Princess Leia at
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  this point. So they talked to Mary Tam here
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  about maybe using karate or archery to go after the guard,
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  and then they settled on the very boring idea of Oh no, she
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  just picks up a gun. It's a bit of a shame.
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  I. Still think it's a little
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  badass. I've also just.
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  It is a bit badass, but imagine she'd gone in all karate badass.
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  Mind you, if Penance been directing it, we'd have gone
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  into the deep again, won't we? Christ.
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  No actually we stick with the gun.
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  Just realised stick with the gun.
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  So the mentiad's power has been taken away from is is being
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  blocked by the psychic interference machine.
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  And that's been set up in episode three of all the
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  different crystals that they need for the machine psychic
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  interference program or something.
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  I think there's that's been two actually they started
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  referencing it. Now she's getting great Tyrant
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  lines. Now we'll deal with these
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  zombies. She got this and suddenly now
• 7:45
  Mr. Fibula is deferring to her. He's bringing her the paperwork.
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  I've heard people say she doesn't give a good performance,
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  but I think she's great. I.
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  Think she's great. She's very received
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  pronunciation, isn't she? But that was, that was TV of the
• 8:00
  day, that was people of the day. But I think she gives a lovely
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  camp performance. The the bit where they're
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  talking about, you know, the body decaying and her not
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  allowing it to happen. And there's a back and forth
• 8:15
  between her and Tom Baker. Yes, absolutely beautifully.
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  The timing is brilliant. Yes, it is.
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  Well. She goes she, she goes no.
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  Impossible when he goes. Inevitable.
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  Yeah. Because it's based on a false.
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  Premise baffle gap, my dear. I've never heard such baffle
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  gap. Oh, that's a line I should use
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  on you. And I'll use this.
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  You dare to mock me? You should die now for your
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  insolence. I mean, we've got so much
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  material. I know just from the pirate
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  planet. Oh my God.
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  Then one of the guests can say, Rod, you're being used, you
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  know, just to do his dirty work. The captain's almost become a
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  secondary character now, hasn't he?
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  He's just in the background. He's just slowly dying away.
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  It's all now. There we go.
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  The important scene, though, is after it all goes up and he is
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  really sad about Mr. Fibbilli dead.
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  I think that's really movingly played.
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  Yes, and it means that actually all those, all the scenes of
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  blusters and death threats and all of that, he was his friend.
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  Tom's telling her it's never going to work.
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  You're lying. You've got your numbers all
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  wrong. There isn't enough power in the
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  universe. What do you think, Mr. Fibbly?
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  Don't bring me into this, all right?
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  He's keeping his head down. The street, he's fucking mad.
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  OK, so. You control him so poor.
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  I mean, look at him. He's absolutely slumped.
• 9:43
  And so when I went to the BBC Blackpool Doctor Who exhibition
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  and there was a there was a shop dummy in the place of Bruce
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  purchase. The dummy looks a bit like that,
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  all kind of crumpled in the corner.
• 9:56
  They never staged him. Terribly.
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  Well, he did look very sad. But to be able to twist that,
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  they can take him from being such a sort of terrifying
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  gratette to being a very moving sort of tragic figures.
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  Yeah, it's good. It's clever.
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  Really. Really.
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  But again, if we hadn't sown the seeds like in part one when he
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  was talking to polyphase Ovatron and lowering it down, we
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  wouldn't have believed it. So again, it's been seeded
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  really well. Oh come on.
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  Look, she's loving this look. At her eyes and she just she
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  stroked him then did you say? Yeah, she walked past him.
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  You are mine. You will do as I tell you and.
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  I love the bit. Where he suddenly realizes.
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  Now he goes, oh, you don't know what you're doing.
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  You know. Mr. Fiddle is so pleased they've
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  found a planet, Planet terror. It's a heavily populated planet.
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  Do you mean to go on with this madness?
• 10:54
  But all the time he's edging out the back door, he's getting out
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  of this, he opens the door. Billions and billions of people.
• 11:00
  You can't be that insane. Douglas Adams talks in an
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  interview about, you know, when you write comedy, yeah, that
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  it's not written to be overplayed and made pants mimic.
• 11:13
  But also you use it to highlight the drama and that there's so
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  many dramatic lines in this, in this scene that's being played
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  out here. So I've got a question for you.
• 11:23
  Do you think any of the other classic doctors would have been
• 11:25
  able to sell Douglas Adams dialogue as well as Tom does?
• 11:28
  No, no, no, I think, I think, I think Colin could have handled
• 11:34
  the dialogue, but he wouldn't. He doesn't have that sort of
• 11:38
  freewheeling, dangerous nature to him that Tom does, where it
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  almost feels improvised. Colin would have been.
• 11:45
  Precise and he would have got it all out.
• 11:47
  Beautifully. They're an absolute marriage
• 11:49
  made in heaven, aren't they? TomTom Baker and Douglas Adams?
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  I mean, they were. But it's almost like a lightning
• 11:54
  struck. Oh yeah.
• 11:56
  He can't strike again, you know, and I'm not saying you can't.
• 12:00
  There aren't witty scripts after this, but I don't think it's the
• 12:02
  same sort of wit. No, it's a different wit.
• 12:05
  And no, we are not going to say undergraduate wit because I just
• 12:08
  think that's an offensive. Term.
• 12:12
  It's as a as a badge of honour, you know.
• 12:15
  It's a it's a style. Douglas Adams has a very
• 12:18
  idiosyncratic style of his own. Yeah.
• 12:23
  That's why he's such a unique writer.
• 12:25
  Just like a. Madly eccentric writing, but
• 12:28
  thank God, you know, I I think him and Doctor Who was a
• 12:32
  marriage mate in heaven as well. Yes, You know, like there's,
• 12:36
  there's some writers that come in and that that wedding doesn't
• 12:39
  take place. Terence Dudley or Glenn McCoy,
• 12:42
  or do You know what? But you know what?
• 12:44
  Graham Williams has more than his fair share of them because
• 12:46
  we've talked about them a little bit already to do with
• 12:49
  something. But I think David Fisher is.
• 12:51
  David Fisher is a very, very, very clever writer.
• 12:54
  And with Graham Williams, again, that's quite a marriage made in
• 12:58
  heaven. So Williams with, you know,
• 13:00
  David Fisher, Douglas Adams, he's really hitting gold.
• 13:03
  I actually think you may shoot me down for this.
• 13:06
  I think both Stones of Blood and Andrews of Tara seem to seen our
• 13:12
  wittier scripts than Sit Your Death.
• 13:15
  There's such wit in those two stories.
• 13:18
  I'd have a hard time again, going back to what we were
• 13:21
  talking about earlier about your kind of initial experience of
• 13:23
  seeing them. So my initial experience of Tara
• 13:27
  and ever since, even though again, I had it on audio, so you
• 13:30
  know, I've lived and breathed it for far too many years, but my
• 13:34
  father absolutely hated it because it was based on
• 13:39
  whatever. What's it based on?
• 13:43
  What? Andrew Sarah.
• 13:45
  Yeah, Prisoner of Zender. Prisoner of Zender.
• 13:47
  Thank you. I couldn't get couldn't get the
• 13:48
  words out Prisoner of Zender. So that's all I ever heard.
• 13:51
  So I just got weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks non-stop of
• 13:54
  telling me how absolute shit it was because it's just ripping
• 13:57
  off prisoner of Zender. So it's absolute rubbish.
• 14:00
  Anyone who likes it ought to be thrown in a mine and whatever so
• 14:05
  I my initial impression of Tara has still unfortunate to this
• 14:09
  day is still slightly overshadowed by that.
• 14:13
  For me, it's just the sunshine in that.
• 14:15
  I just love it. Yeah, that being on holiday.
• 14:18
  Oh. I remember because, I mean, I
• 14:20
  had no idea what the prisoner of Xander was at 12.
• 14:22
  I remember turning the tape recorder off after episode one
• 14:25
  and expecting everyone to say, well, that was really good and
• 14:28
  that wasn't the reaction. What a.
• 14:29
  Mean thing to do when you love something.
• 14:32
  Oh, how unpleasant. Oh, I haven't even started yet.
• 14:37
  He said a minute ago. It's a strip of metal bent at an
• 14:42
  acute angle, subdivided at the end.
• 14:44
  What were you thinking about a bent fork?
• 14:46
  Why would you think about a Ben fork?
• 14:47
  I don't know. I I was thinking about that when
• 14:50
  I said I was going to ask you about that because again, you
• 14:53
  watching it later bent forks 1978 all the rage because of
• 14:57
  Yuri Galler. So Yuri Galler was doing his act
• 14:59
  bending forks. I mean, it's ridiculous.
• 15:01
  Isn't it it it's? Such this obsession.
• 15:03
  Oh this is this is my one Auntie Wild Blue Yonder.
• 15:08
  How dare Russell compromise this scene?
• 15:12
  No, he told me to clear off out of his tree.
• 15:14
  I'll explain to it later and during dinner.
• 15:17
  And the look and the smile on Tom's face.
• 15:19
  I know I was very disappointed on Wild Blue Yonder.
• 15:22
  When I realized that was Newton, I thought, Oh no, don't, Don't
• 15:24
  ruin that gag. But I told.
• 15:27
  Me, I love. That's one of my friends.
• 15:28
  I love the maverty though. As if it pays off.
• 15:34
  Oh, it's that woman, isn't it? Susan Twist.
• 15:37
  Yeah, he. Keeps turning up in all these
• 15:38
  bizarre places. It's the rowdy no you.
• 15:45
  Know what the rumour is? I'm sure.
• 15:47
  Oh. Go on, who is it?
• 15:49
  She's the TARDIS. Oh, because.
• 15:51
  She's Susan Twist S and she's working for Triad Technologies.
• 15:55
  So S Triad is the Nanogrammatardis.
• 15:58
  Our Doctor Who fans for. God's sake, we love our
• 16:01
  anagrams. Jesus Christ, go and have some
• 16:03
  sex. Go on.
• 16:06
  I don't mean you, I mean the rest of them.
• 16:08
  All right, I'm assuming that wasn't your theory.
• 16:11
  No, it wasn't my theory at all now.
• 16:13
  The time this comes out, you know everything.
• 16:18
  Oh well. Let's mark the occasion.
• 16:20
  So we've come back to the TARDIS now to stop Zanuck materialising
• 16:24
  around Earth, and he's going to try and block it.
• 16:27
  And again, this is the problem. We're trying to do a story this
• 16:29
  clever with the limitations of budget and special effects.
• 16:32
  They can't show that, which is such a shame.
• 16:35
  It's again great, great, great ideas and again set up in part
• 16:39
  one. Or the earth is in danger.
• 16:43
  That's what I love about this. Yeah.
• 16:46
  And she's sitting there looking camp and fabulous, getting
• 16:49
  impatient. And Mr. Fibule is reading out
• 16:51
  the BBC internal telephone number.
• 16:54
  This truly is the era of fabulous villainesses, isn't?
• 16:59
  It absolutely a druster. Oh Cesare of Diploss.
• 17:05
  Yeah. So many.
• 17:07
  Even as Vivian Fey, she's just wonderful as Vivian.
• 17:10
  Fey, she makes a mean sausage sandwich as well, you know.
• 17:14
  I don't think she does much else with sausage.
• 17:17
  No. Oh, we're going to get some more
• 17:18
  mirror on in a second. We are, you could be forgiven
• 17:21
  for thinking. The Ice Warriors.
• 17:22
  Are around, couldn't you? And it goes on a long time, this
• 17:27
  one. Yeah, well, and then the sort of
• 17:30
  the hardest console sort of goes fat, fat do.
• 17:34
  You know what? In the 70s, there's always a
• 17:36
  slight panic because television reception wasn't great back
• 17:40
  then. My Doctor Who did special
• 17:42
  effects like this, there was always a little nag in the back
• 17:44
  of my head thinking, shit, is the picture all right?
• 17:47
  Is this, are we supposed to be seeing?
• 17:51
  Is it supposed to be doing this? It is all right, isn't it?
• 17:54
  I I do like the fact that she, like Mary Town's trying to bring
• 17:59
  the drama in these things. She's going, doctor.
• 18:01
  It's got to explode, you know? And he's talking to Prelix.
• 18:06
  Oh, he says, take the shield. Down she goes, This madness.
• 18:08
  It's the only protection we've got.
• 18:10
  It's. Been nice knowing you, the
• 18:13
  TARDIS explodes. But sort of the.
• 18:16
  You know the Earth's in danger. The TARDIS is in danger.
• 18:19
  The Doctor and Amana could die. Yeah, it's all going.
• 18:22
  On see it oh. Here we go with the spanner.
• 18:27
  But yeah, that mirror on has gone a little bit too crazy now,
• 18:30
  hasn't it? Sort of had a tequila few
• 18:34
  weekend once where. Everything.
• 18:37
  Was a little bit like this, yeah, I woke up.
• 18:40
  You know, I don't really get numbers on enviro all over my
• 18:43
  arm. I did quite well it.
• 18:46
  Wasn't the galactic coordinates of Earth was it by any chance?
• 18:48
  Well, it is. I'll rub them off.
• 18:51
  I don't want to know what you've rubbed off.
• 18:53
  Oh. I love this.
• 18:54
  I love this with the two of them superimposed on the power
• 18:58
  station and then the spanner flying.
• 19:00
  Through the air. So this could have ended
• 19:03
  Britain, couldn't it? So they're in the nuclear power
• 19:06
  station, they're setting off an explosion which, as is typical
• 19:10
  with the BBC Boys, was about 20 times bigger than they told the
• 19:14
  nuclear power station boys it was going to be.
• 19:16
  It could have been the end of. Britain, I mean.
• 19:19
  Before Maggie Thatcher came in and ruined it.
• 19:21
  I'd say I know those are props there.
• 19:23
  But I mean Jesus. Christ, all those all the sort
• 19:26
  of metal tearing out. Oh, it's a fabulous explosion.
• 19:29
  One thing they did was bloody good explosion.
• 19:31
  And I think the bridge set looks great as well, after all, sort
• 19:34
  of filled with dry ice and all the consoles destroyed.
• 19:38
  And we're still not at the end of the story, so we've had an
• 19:41
  explosion mid mid episode and we're back to Queen Zanxia's
• 19:45
  lair. Oh no.
• 19:47
  Wizard old crag, you've. Invented the word crag now.
• 19:56
  She does seem to be looking at them.
• 19:59
  She said that's occasionally plus her.
• 20:00
  It's her age. You.
• 20:02
  Know she's in her 90s? Give it you know she probably
• 20:05
  wonders where she is. OK, so this is where all your
• 20:12
  technobabble comes in now isn't it?
• 20:13
  Yes, not quite yet. We need to.
• 20:16
  Oh, and here's the scene you were talking about earlier.
• 20:18
  So the captain is distraught that his friend Mr. Fibbley is
• 20:21
  dead. Dead.
• 20:23
  And it's just so weird to get so much pathos out of a comic
• 20:27
  relationship like this. Yeah, and it just shows all that
• 20:32
  time equals in my friend after all that time of abusing him.
• 20:36
  And the nurse is stomping around in her heels.
• 20:39
  You shall be avenged. That's some Galaxy Quest.
• 20:44
  Yeah, I'm Graspor's Hammer, a masterpiece of prophetic
• 20:50
  geometry. Rod.
• 20:51
  Absolutely. I love the way that the names of
• 20:54
  the planets are typed to the the side of the display cabinets by
• 21:00
  any good Doctor Who's. Now I think we could have done.
• 21:03
  Without that line there. There's not many lines I'll take
• 21:06
  out of this, but Romano looking straight at the camera and
• 21:08
  going, oh, that bluster was just.
• 21:11
  A fall, yeah, I think we've done that by now.
• 21:12
  Exactly. I think we're, I think we're
• 21:14
  ahead of that by now. Thanks, Douglas.
• 21:17
  That might have been Anthony Reed.
• 21:18
  The shot that one in just to drive the point home.
• 21:20
  Oh dear. Come on K9, power up.
• 21:25
  Block the psychic interference. I like the idea though as well,
• 21:30
  that, you know, in order to have all these sort of shrunken
• 21:32
  planets existing, you know, all because it's the whole world,
• 21:35
  isn't it? Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:37
  It's a super. Everything was left, Yeah.
• 21:39
  And then in perfect balance otherwise if one calculations
• 21:42
  now. Boom, it would create a black
• 21:44
  hole. Which is what we get in a
• 21:46
  minute. Yeah, yeah.
• 21:49
  And all of this was just so that he could break reach the time
• 21:53
  dams and kill Queens Anxia. He hated her that much.
• 21:58
  It's a bit like when you're having A5 SIM or something like
• 22:00
  that, you know it's all going to be in perfect balance otherwise.
• 22:05
  Boom. And are you going to mention
• 22:07
  black holes at this point? Although they are a delicacy.
• 22:14
  Anyway, it's moving swiftly on. Oh, it's still hard, but I can't
• 22:20
  take it. You up this one?
• 22:21
  No, I know. Oh, what's occurring there now?
• 22:25
  Have you still got? You still got the tracer.
• 22:30
  I love how cheap the tracer looks.
• 22:32
  Oh, isn't it just it goes back and forth classes every two
• 22:34
  seconds? I know, but that's part of
• 22:38
  Doctor Who, isn't it? I love it when he goes.
• 22:41
  Who's put a hole in my TARDIS? Never mind, old girl, never
• 22:46
  mind. I'll do something immensely
• 22:49
  clarified. It's the only Tom.
• 22:50
  Only Tom can sell those lines. And she goes.
• 22:53
  Oh, that is quite clever. I do dislike faint breeze.
• 22:57
  It was. Immensely clever, wasn't it?
• 22:58
  Canine. Oh, he goes, here he goes, he
• 23:03
  go. What is it?
• 23:04
  I shall be free of you, you hag. There we go have.
• 23:09
  You ever wanted to say that to anyone?
• 23:11
  Oh, many times. Mostly on Strictly Come hamster.
• 23:15
  To me, yeah, at the end of the. I know, I say.
• 23:22
  Now, Rod, it's your turn. Oh, it's a shame she just gets.
• 23:28
  Yeah. I think that's a slightly
• 23:31
  disappointing ending for Zanxia. So what happens to the old woman
• 23:36
  then? Of course, because the time dams
• 23:37
  are no more, so she won't no. The time dams are still there.
• 23:41
  They blow up the time dams at the end.
• 23:43
  That's the final explosion. And then does she just age to
• 23:46
  death like in a normal way? Yes.
• 23:48
  Or maybe it all catches up with her there.
• 23:49
  Because. All the time she's gone.
• 23:51
  So he just blows them up. Blow them up.
• 23:54
  Nowadays we'd see the effect of her wouldn't we turn into dust
• 23:58
  or something? Oh.
• 23:59
  I came. Yeah, of course.
• 24:06
  Go on, go, Romano. Come on.
• 24:08
  I need to be intensely clever. Oh, he's dead.
• 24:11
  And he just lifts up his arm. Watch.
• 24:13
  I know. Sorry, Captain.
• 24:18
  We're going to need this costume for it's.
• 24:19
  Quite cold at times, isn't he? Tom's doctor, your dad.
• 24:23
  But hey, we need your arm. Him and Colin both had moments
• 24:26
  like that and that sort of darker moments where it's it's
• 24:29
  you sense there's a different morality there.
• 24:33
  I'm actually Eccleston sometimes.
• 24:35
  So yeah, bits and quite dead. Oh no, look at that effect on
• 24:39
  the screen. So here we see the planet.
• 24:41
  So that's showing us the planet. It's hollow.
• 24:43
  One ring to save them all. We're back to your fives again.
• 24:48
  In fact, that does look like a black hole in it.
• 24:54
  But he's going to drop 5 planets into it now.
• 24:56
  Funny, you know, 5. Planets, really that.
• 25:01
  What you call them? Yeah.
• 25:03
  You could easily fit 5 planets at No, I'm going to shut out
• 25:05
  there. No, please, I'm.
• 25:10
  So sorry, sorry. So good.
• 25:12
  We were so good. We were really good.
• 25:14
  Sorry Lucy McCall, if you're listening.
• 25:16
  I do apologise for Joe. Yeah.
• 25:20
  I apologise for Rod Lucy. That's dropping the planets in
• 25:27
  and then there. I know that is a bit, you know,
• 25:31
  it's been so much joy up to now, I can't know.
• 25:35
  We've been laughing all the way through.
• 25:36
  Oh God it's brilliant. Bridge and town, then blow them
• 25:41
  up. It's so great.
• 25:45
  It's like crude, Isn't that role the crude?
• 25:47
  Yes, crude, but immensely satisfying.
• 25:51
  And then at the end, once it blows up, he punches the air
• 25:54
  like, yeah, I know. To.
• 25:56
  Screw them, he's such a fucking anarchist.
• 25:59
  But. The bridge is shot on film.
• 26:01
  Now it looks even better. Who are the I'd say Trouten and
• 26:07
  Baker. Tom Baker are the biggest
• 26:09
  anarchists. That's the original, yeah.
• 26:14
  In the new series, I think it's Tennant and Smith.
• 26:18
  Tennant and Smith. Probably, Probably I.
• 26:25
  Think this is a good place to settle down?
• 26:27
  You know, in the universe. Nice, some good neighbours.
• 26:30
  And quite convenient stars when you get around to ordinary space
• 26:34
  travel. I think they're quite a long way
• 26:35
  from space travel to be fair. I think Mueller and Kimmus are
• 26:40
  going to be thinking about other things than space travel.
• 26:42
  Yeah. Oh, he's going to be stuck being
• 26:46
  one of those zombies for the rest of his life.
• 26:48
  What are they going to do now? I.
• 26:50
  Don't know, but can they put the lights on down in that cave now?
• 26:53
  I think they can come out The Cave now.
• 26:55
  Very old. Old men in that group is boom.
• 26:59
  Joe the Graham Williams here. It does have great end of story
• 27:02
  explosions. Yes, it.
• 27:03
  Does this Halls of Naiman when all the egg boxes go up in slow
• 27:07
  motion? Invisible anime.
• 27:09
  Yeah, fabulous. One and another explode.
• 27:14
  Yeah, their explosions are great.
• 27:15
  And they do it in slow motion. Don't they?
• 27:17
  Of course. Whatever petrol they're using
• 27:19
  is. Wow, explosive that.
• 27:22
  Was that was very satisfying? Should the doctor be saying
• 27:25
  blowing people up is satisfying? Yeah.
• 27:28
  Yeah, it's Tom Baker. Look, Yeah.
• 27:29
  Exactly. God, that was glorious.
• 27:32
  Yes, very, very fabulous. Now we've got the impossible
• 27:37
  task of only finding free fabulous things.
• 27:43
  Are we? Are we blowing our strictly?
• 27:47
  Yeah. OK, let's think of three.
• 27:49
  Right. I'll start.
• 27:49
  With, well, you've got I think. Of three different.
• 27:51
  Ones I'll do three different ones for Strictly, so I will
• 27:54
  start with that scene that we talked about in episode 3 with
• 27:57
  Tom and Bruce Purchase when Tom just loses it.
• 28:01
  I just think that is a spectacular scene of Doctor Who,
• 28:04
  one of the best. So yeah, that scene alone I
• 28:08
  would put it through for, but yeah, it's going to be one of my
• 28:10
  3. I am going to say the plotting
• 28:15
  of this story because I don't think Douglas Adams is given
• 28:18
  enough credit. I think people think he's a very
• 28:20
  sort of indulgent, freewheeling writer.
• 28:23
  But this and City of Death and Sharda as well, to a lesser
• 28:28
  degree, but it does see these ideas.
• 28:31
  And, you know, I think he's a better plotter.
• 28:34
  I think he needs a firm script editor, yes, to say, look,
• 28:37
  there's still a four part Doctor Who story, you know, don't go
• 28:39
  too crazy. But this in particular is really
• 28:43
  robustly plotted. And all of those mysteries that
• 28:46
  hit us in episode one are given not just explanation, but
• 28:51
  satisfactory explanation in a way that it uses ideas that
• 28:56
  excite. So yeah, the plotting.
• 28:59
  My second one, I'm going to pick Graham Williams and you and I
• 29:02
  were messaging last night about the documentary that we've both
• 29:05
  just recently watched on the season 15 Blu-ray set, which I'm
• 29:10
  sure most people will have seen it certainly by the time this
• 29:12
  comes out. Very moving documentary.
• 29:15
  Graham Williams never got the love that he deserved for Doctor
• 29:18
  Who. I think I've talked about
• 29:21
  before. Certainly he did on the season
• 29:23
  17 strictly how fandom hated his work.
• 29:27
  Not I didn't always love this stuff, but I think it's fandom
• 29:31
  is coming round, but I think Graham Williams still does have
• 29:33
  a bet of a bad rap. When you watch stories like
• 29:36
  this, you know he's in control. He's the main man and this is
• 29:39
  what he's turning out. Bloody hell, great, it's gold
• 29:43
  and he's fighting against yes, let's be honest, he is fighting
• 29:46
  against Tom, who's a bit out of control, but he's keeping him in
• 29:49
  check. He's fighting against crippling
• 29:51
  budgets. He's fighting against BBC who
• 29:53
  aren't really that supportive but he's turning out superb.
• 29:57
  Superb. Dr. thought I would put on a
• 29:59
  pedestal so Graham Williams is my second.
• 30:02
  It was a wonderful being in that documentary where he talks about
• 30:06
  is an interview with him, Panopticon or something like
• 30:09
  that where he's saying, you know, the exec said to me, I had
• 30:14
  to push away from from the horror, you know, and go in
• 30:17
  another direction. And he goes and now actually,
• 30:19
  that was no problem for me at all because I didn't like what
• 30:23
  they were doing so much before. And instead he pushes it into
• 30:28
  the realms of that pure imagination, you know, and
• 30:32
  creativity. And, you know, sometimes it goes
• 30:35
  over a Cliff because they are overly ambitious.
• 30:38
  I'd still rather they were overly ambitious than than less
• 30:42
  so. Yeah.
• 30:43
  And and then just sort of fairy tale lands and really exploring
• 30:48
  the universe in really exciting ways.
• 30:50
  So bravo that man. Oh, hey, that's not my thing.
• 30:54
  That's yours. No, that was mine.
• 30:57
  Then my second thing then is going to be, oh, God, Tom, just
• 31:01
  Tom just completely in control at this point.
• 31:06
  It may be too much in control of the TV show, but it just knows
• 31:11
  what he's doing, doesn't it? And you give him dialogue this
• 31:15
  sophisticated, and it just oozes out, You know, I, I just think I
• 31:21
  can't take my eyes off him. And I think in terms of
• 31:23
  charisma, maybe Tennant at some points, but I don't think there
• 31:30
  are many doctors that hit this level of charisma on the screen.
• 31:35
  Yeah. He's undoubtedly the best thing
• 31:37
  about the show at this point. And it is.
• 31:40
  It's impossible not to watch. And that I'm going to do the
• 31:44
  other part of the double act. I'm going to do Mary Tam.
• 31:47
  So she's only in a second story. She's really grasped the metal.
• 31:52
  We talked about it earlier during the the commentary.
• 31:54
  She's bold, she's independent, she's clever, she takes control.
• 32:00
  She's written really well and she plays it really well.
• 32:03
  So I think Mary Tam, Shane, we only had one season of I love
• 32:07
  Lalor as well. It's hard to say which I prefer.
• 32:10
  Can't. Yeah, it's a hard, hard act.
• 32:13
  But Mary was fantastic and here she's well written, which is the
• 32:16
  key to it, and she plays up to it.
• 32:19
  So, Mary, time for me. And obviously the last thing
• 32:23
  that we how none of us have mentioned it until this point is
• 32:27
  beyond me, but Ballaston in episode one.
• 32:30
  No, no, I'm joking. I'm joking.
• 32:31
  Oh. No, he is wonderful, no.
• 32:34
  Douglas Adams, Of course, Douglas Adams, and it's the
• 32:38
  first, I think of several. I'm going to say geniuses
• 32:43
  because I'm going to put Rusty Davis and Stephen Moffitt in the
• 32:46
  same bracket. Doctor Who fans.
• 32:48
  He's a long term Doctor Who fan at this point.
• 32:50
  Douglas Adams finally getting a chance to write for the show.
• 32:53
  He's been trying for ages, sending the pictures in the
• 32:56
  Hinchcliffe era, probably beyond, and everyone going, oh,
• 32:59
  why is this madness? No, Greg Williams and Andy Rico,
• 33:03
  let's give it a go. And you know what?
• 33:07
  My name to Doctor Who is Zuma. I think it's the thing that
• 33:10
  bridges this show to all audiences, kids and adults.
• 33:16
  And I think that's why people love Doctor Who.
• 33:19
  Like universally, where there's a certain select group of people
• 33:22
  like Star Trek and things like that, you know, very serious,
• 33:25
  boring people. Oh no, that's me.
• 33:29
  But. And Douglas Adams writes amazing
• 33:32
  humor, and we've laughed our way through this commentary at the
• 33:35
  witty lines, and I think this exemplifies perfectly how you
• 33:40
  can marry humor, horror and drama together in one package.
• 33:46
  This is why Doctor Who has been adored by so many people for so
• 33:51
  many years, and why it's still being made now, because it is a
• 33:55
  format that allows for all three of those things and more to rub
• 34:00
  shoulders in in just such an entertaining way.
• 34:04
  And accessible. He made it accessible to a
• 34:06
  general audience. Ah, it's just he's he is a
• 34:09
  genius. I've heard some people, you
• 34:12
  know, in latter days trying to suggest that otherwise.
• 34:15
  Nonsense. He is a genius.
• 34:17
  He wrote some of the best Doctor Who stories going and we were
• 34:21
  very lucky to have him. This is where it all began.
• 34:25
  Absolutely. I mean, there's a first script.
• 34:27
  I don't think there are many writers whose first story for
• 34:30
  Doctor Who is as accomplished, clever, intricate,
• 34:34
  satisfactorily resolved, witty, beautiful, charming.
• 34:39
  I could go on and on. But yeah, there are many.
• 34:41
  There are very few first stories that are this good.
• 34:45
  And if you don't want to watch the Pirate Planet after this,
• 34:49
  then we've done some bad work indeed.
• 34:51
  Absolutely. Go and watch it now and forget
• 34:54
  that it doesn't rate that well in the polls.
• 34:56
  It's bloody glorious. Well, Ross, where are we heading
• 35:01
  next? I think we're heading to solos.
• 35:04
  Oh, we're going to have a threesome, aren't we?
• 35:06
  We are having a. Threesome with a woman it's.
• 35:09
  A first. That's a first for me.
• 35:12
  Joe Oh, is it the first Yeah, actually, threesome wise, yeah,
• 35:14
  definitely the wonderful and you know the.
• 35:19
  Fabulous, intelligent, magnificent, charismatic.
• 35:25
  Lovely Joe Shaw, you and. I are going to be doing.
• 35:29
  The mutants. We need all the help we can get.
• 35:35
  Should we just sit back at Joe Letton?
• 35:39
  Sure. We're going to have a grand
• 35:40
  time. I think we will.
• 35:42
  I think we need to, yeah, we need to go and visit solos as
• 35:45
  soon as possible. But given we know we started an
• 35:48
  entire podcast in between our first and 2nd hamster commentary
• 35:52
  and I've heard the. Thing the next time married and
• 35:57
  divorced by the time we get to the next.
• 35:59
  One what I expect we'll have our own prime time slot on BBC One
• 36:02
  by then. Oh, imagine that.
• 36:05
  Imagine the Joe and Rod Chap show.
• 36:07
  Yeah. Who needs The One Show?
• 36:09
  Fuck that off, we need to be there.
• 36:11
  We can have people come on and I can just insult them the whole
• 36:13
  time. Yeah, good idea.
• 36:15
  Insult slash flirt. Flirt.
• 36:17
  That's right. Yes.
• 36:18
  And you can make lots of value being served.
• 36:20
  Esque risque jokes, Yeah. I'd I'll slip a few innuendos in
• 36:25
  and. I'll cut it there.