Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / The Paradise of Death by Barry Letts (featuring Gareth Bowley, David Gillespie-Pratt & Dan Pinn)

Transcript

The Paradise of Death by Barry Letts (featuring Gareth Bowley, David Gillespie-Pratt & Dan Pinn) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:00
  As Billy Greber swallowed a couple of aspirin for his
• 0:02
  breakfast in lieu of his customary fry up, he noticed
• 0:06
  that his hand was trembling. OK, he thought, so he was
• 0:11
  scared, and it was all so unfair.
• 0:15
  He'd always tried to keep his nose clean.
• 0:17
  Well, more or less. What was the point of making a
• 0:21
  pile of dosh if you were looking over your shoulder all the time
• 0:24
  for the fuzz or worse? And As for duffing up the
• 0:28
  opposition or having a rock with every geezer who tried it on,
• 0:32
  well, leave it out. Look at Tell, who'd ended up
• 0:35
  splattered all over a car park in Bethnal Green for becoming
• 0:38
  the old soldier with that tear away from Brum, or Tell's
• 0:42
  brother for that matter, going slowly crazy in Parkhurst.
• 0:46
  And now, just when he was on the verge of making a couple of
• 0:49
  solves for himself out of the share of space world, he
• 0:52
  reckoned on half a million, give or take the odd grand, he got
• 0:56
  himself mixed up with a pair of maniacs.
• 0:59
  Who? His stomach turned again as the
• 1:02
  image of the previous night rose up before his mind's eye.
• 1:06
  He groaned. What the hell was he going to
• 1:09
  do? The old Bill weren't stupid,
• 1:12
  they'd soon make the connection. And then what?
• 1:14
  Billy Greber? Finito.
• 1:18
  One thing was for sure, he was going to have it out with that
• 1:23
  brain damage cretin Frith. He swallowed the remainder of
• 1:28
  his teeth to settle his still heaving stomach and set off for
• 1:32
  Space World. The trouble was, he'd left it at
• 1:36
  a bit late. The deep sleep he'd fallen into
• 1:39
  once his exhaustion caught up with him about 5:00 had lasted
• 1:42
  well into the morning, and by the time he arrived it was
• 1:46
  getting on for 11:15. As he hurried through the
• 1:50
  spacious avenues to the comparative piece of the
• 1:53
  administrative block, he could see that Space World was coming
• 1:56
  to life. No longer the deserted building
• 1:59
  site of yesterday, it swarmed with smartly uniformed space
• 2:03
  stewards as the staff were designated a bunch of metallic
• 2:07
  robot guide. Out of work actors glad to earn
• 2:10
  an anonymous pittance were being rehearsed in their duties by an
• 2:14
  authoritative gentleman with a handlebar mustache and a space
• 2:18
  pilot's uniform, the sound of a technician's voice booming
• 2:24
  through the public address system and snatches of Space Age
• 2:28
  music heated with strange roars and shrinks apparently emanating
• 2:32
  from hidden monsters. The interview with Frith did not
• 2:37
  start well, sweating with nerves as much as from his rush from
• 2:41
  the car park. Why did those toffee noise kits
• 2:44
  always make him feel he was back at school?
• 2:47
  He struggled in vain to dent the facade of well upholstered
• 2:50
  confidence which the chairman presented to the world.
• 2:54
  In any case, said Frith, you're too late. 2 gentlemen from.
• 3:00
  He glanced at a note on his vast mahogany desk unit.
• 3:06
  Some sort of Special Branch, I suppose, are even now plodding
• 3:10
  their way towards us. He took a small handful of pink
• 3:14
  catoos and popped a few between the moist lips.
• 3:18
  Billy Greber could feel his guts tying themselves in knots.
• 3:22
  We've got to tell them the truth, he said.
• 3:24
  The truth. Well, not the truth as such.
• 3:27
  I suppose we'll have to say it was an accident or something.
• 3:30
  He was certainly getting a reaction now.
• 3:33
  We shall do nothing of the kind. Frith's Florida lips had
• 3:37
  tightened to a hard line. Greber was quick to seize his
• 3:42
  advantage. Now you listen to me, Mr. Frith.
• 3:45
  Oh, you'd be better advised to listen to me.
• 3:48
  Frith spoke with a vicious sharpness.
• 3:51
  In less than a moment, however, he had regained the customary
• 3:54
  urbanity. He gave Greber A charming smile.
• 3:58
  I shall be ever in your debt for your excellent job your people
• 4:01
  have done on this site, he said of that dinky little pavilion
• 4:05
  for the love worms. Sheer delight and I promise that
• 4:10
  you will see a more than worthwhile return on your
• 4:13
  investment. But you're playing with the big
• 4:16
  boys now. But that's all very fine.
• 4:19
  But Frith went relentlessly on. You saw last night how my
• 4:23
  esteemed colleague Mr. Tragan gets his kicks.
• 4:28
  Greber shuddered. Tragan's enjoyment was somehow
• 4:31
  the worst part of it. If I should drop the least
• 4:36
  little smidgen of a hint, and I do assure you that it would hurt
• 4:40
  me more than it would hurt, well, no, perhaps not.
• 4:44
  But then, a business is business.
• 4:49
  I have my shareholders to think of.
• 4:51
  He chewed a few more of the scented sweets.
• 4:54
  The sickly smell caught the back of Greba's throat.
• 4:57
  He swallowed. You wouldn't dare, he said.
• 5:01
  Frith's face lit up. Oh, we're playing dare now, are
• 5:04
  we? He said gleefully.
• 5:07
  What fun. Go on then, try me.
• 5:12
  The buzzer sounded on his desk and he leaned forward.
• 5:14
  Yes, Tracy, the gentleman from uni to hear Mr. Frith.
• 5:18
  Send them in, my dear. He looked up at Greber and
• 5:22
  twinkled at him mischievously. Now's your chance, he said,
• 5:29
  determined not to lose contact with her source.
• 5:33
  Sarah had bummed a lift from the Doctor in his little old
• 5:36
  fashioned car, which he called Bessie.
• 5:39
  He seemed more friendly now that there was something real to
• 5:42
  think about. It was clear, however, that the
• 5:45
  Brigadier would not be pleased if she tried to muscle in on the
• 5:49
  investigation itself. All the same, she could feel the
• 5:53
  rising excitement, the restless energy which told her that she
• 5:57
  was on to a good story. As she waited in the phone box
• 6:01
  opposite the door into which they had vanished, she found
• 6:03
  herself grinning cheerfully at a man standing waiting to make a
• 6:06
  call. Another journalist, presumably.
• 6:09
  He pointed at the phone and tapped his watch.
• 6:11
  She shrugged and turned her back on him as her editor came back
• 6:14
  on. Yes, I'm here, who have I got?
• 6:17
  Well, that's the theme. There isn't a photographer in
• 6:20
  the place. We're all on assignment.
• 6:23
  What? Clarinda, don't do this to me.
• 6:25
  I must have one. How is it, Sarah Jane, dear,
• 6:28
  that it's always must with you? The man outside, wrapped on the
• 6:32
  glass, You laying eggs in there? She desperately waved him away.
• 6:36
  Whatever he wanted, it could never be as important as her
• 6:39
  story. You've simply got to find
• 6:41
  someone. I mean, if you can't supply the
• 6:43
  backup, what's the point of employing the finest
• 6:45
  investigative journalist in the business?
• 6:48
  Pause for hollow laughter like Clarinda.
• 6:51
  Look, I'm in the driving seat on this one.
• 6:53
  I'll be able to find out if those monsters of theirs are
• 6:55
  real. I mean, if they've been killing
• 6:57
  people. Oh, be your age.
• 7:00
  Well, the unit lot seem to think it's possible anyway.
• 7:02
  If they're not real, I can get an exclusive on how the wretched
• 7:05
  things have worked. You could run a metropolitan
• 7:08
  reveals all on it, but let's face it.
• 7:10
  Either way to be a bit naff without any picks.
• 7:12
  Come on. The phone started to beep at
• 7:15
  her. To put in more coins and have
• 7:17
  run out of money, she added in something of a squeak.
• 7:21
  Clarinda side. OK, you win.
• 7:23
  I'll do my best, but I can't. Her voice was cut off.
• 7:26
  About time too, said the waiting reporter.
• 7:29
  As he opened the door. Sarah looked at him.
• 7:32
  Why didn't I go for shovelling horse manure like my dear Papa
• 7:34
  wanted? She said having been in
• 7:38
  intelligence for many years, the Brigadier was quite accustomed
• 7:41
  to police type questioning and the many different ways those
• 7:45
  questions sought to deflect the questioner.
• 7:48
  The man Greber for instance, he thought with his one syllable
• 7:52
  answers he didn't give the impression of a man who would
• 7:55
  easily secured. And yet.
• 7:57
  And As for the fellow Frith, well, he was too helpful by
• 8:01
  half. He should have been more
• 8:04
  exasperated that they'd turned up at such an awkward time, with
• 8:07
  the press views starting at any moment.
• 8:10
  Yet he'd welcomed them in, offered them a drink, which
• 8:13
  they'd refused, insisted on sending for his fellow Tragan a
• 8:17
  nasty piece of work if ever he'd seen one, and had fallen over
• 8:21
  himself to answer everything that either he or the doctor
• 8:23
  could think to ask. You say that you and Mr. Tragan
• 8:29
  arrived shortly after 11:00, Are you're quite sure of that?
• 8:33
  Before Frith could answer, Tragan interrupted in a
• 8:36
  hectoring voice obviously intended to intimidate.
• 8:39
  This is ridiculous, he said, badgering a man in Mr. Frith's
• 8:42
  position. In this way.
• 8:44
  We can vouch for each other, and that's an end to it.
• 8:47
  The doctor imposed A gentle inquiry.
• 8:50
  Were you once a policeman, Mr. Tragan?
• 8:52
  What of it? He answered belligerently.
• 8:55
  Now I thought as much, continued the Doctor.
• 8:57
  Similar characteristics the world over, 1 might almost say
• 9:01
  universally. The Brigadier cocked an eye at
• 9:04
  the Doctor. Was there a particular emphasis
• 9:07
  on universe? At any rate, it seemed to have
• 9:10
  silenced Tragon, for the moment, at least.
• 9:13
  Frith came in smoothly. And Mr. Tragon is now Vice
• 9:17
  Chairman of the Corporation. He is the head of the
• 9:19
  Entertainments Division. Quite a career change, said the
• 9:24
  Doctor. Fascinating, Tragan turned from
• 9:27
  him and his face as inscrutable as ever.
• 9:30
  His manner to the Brigadier hardly altered.
• 9:33
  Now listen to me Brigadier, whatever your name is, we've
• 9:36
  told you all we know and that's nothing at all right?
• 9:39
  Cheeky blighter, thought the Brigadier.
• 9:41
  A just routine, he said in the time honored phrase.
• 9:44
  And my name, as I have told you, is Lethbridge Stuart.
• 9:48
  Well, get to the point man, Snapped Tragan.
• 9:51
  With pleasure. The point, Mr. Freeth, is that
• 9:54
  according to the police, the Brigadier said, glancing at his
• 9:57
  notes. Your man was at the gate house
• 9:59
  having his supper and therefore awake from 10:45 on, and Mr.
• 10:03
  Kitson's car was the last one to come through the gates.
• 10:06
  Now how would you account for that?
• 10:09
  Oh God, all the heads swung round.
• 10:12
  What is it Mr. Greber? Asked the Doctor.
• 10:15
  Nothing, nothing, blurted Greber.
• 10:17
  The Brigadier nodded to himself. The chap was scared, no doubt
• 10:19
  about that. Freeth heaved a rich sigh.
• 10:23
  Brigadier, the company I have the privilege of serving is a
• 10:27
  very large one. In fact, I think I could say
• 10:31
  without fear of contradiction that it is the largest
• 10:34
  multinational in existence. So what are you saying, Sir?
• 10:40
  It would be a pity, as I'm sure you would agree, if such a
• 10:44
  company were to begrudge its chairman the use of a teensy,
• 10:48
  weensy little corporate chopper. The helicopter, said the Doctor.
• 10:53
  The Brigadier looked at him. Now what?
• 10:56
  He sounded as if he was practically an admission of
• 10:58
  guilt, but the Doctor hadn't finished.
• 11:00
  Now. I see, he added, as if this had
• 11:03
  answered every question that could possibly be asked.
• 11:05
  And what exactly do you see, Doctor Tragan said grimly.
• 11:09
  Quite a lot, Mr. Tragan. You'd be surprised.
• 11:13
  So should I, thought the Brigadier.
• 11:16
  Well, Mr. Frith, he continued aloud.
• 11:19
  I think that covers everything for the moment.
• 11:21
  Thank you for your help. Don't hesitate to contact me at
• 11:25
  any time, said Frith. The Doctor eyed him beadily.
• 11:33
  We shan't. In fact, I think I can promise
• 11:35
  you that we shall meet again quite soon.
• 11:38
  No, please, he added to Tragan, who had not moved.
• 11:41
  We can see ourselves out. As soon as the door closed,
• 11:45
  Grabber burst into speech. They're on to us.
• 11:47
  That doctor guy, he knows. He knows.
• 11:49
  If I tell you quiet his Tragan, they'll hear you.
• 11:53
  Tragan. Freeth's disarming air of
• 11:55
  helplessness, innocence had quite vanished.
• 11:58
  What is it? I want to know who that doctor
• 12:01
  is, where he comes from, what his qualifications are, what was
• 12:05
  the maiden name of his maternal grandmother, the lot.
• 12:09
  And I want it a year last Tuesday, Right, Tragon?
• 12:17
  I've told you 17 times, the board shut the Experience
• 12:20
  Reality Project down. Health and safety, liability.
• 12:23
  Something about people coming out speaking fluent ancient
• 12:27
  Martian and trying to sacrifice the tea.
• 12:29
  Lady Frith, my dear fellow, the board of Philistines.
• 12:33
  They lack vision. They never felt the wind on the
• 12:35
  cliffs of Gallus 9 while being serenaded by a flock of amorous
• 12:38
  pterodactyls, have they? No, neither have I, because last
• 12:43
  time we fired this thing up, you accidentally sent the cleaning
• 12:46
  lady to 18th century Versailles on Earth.
• 12:50
  She came back demanding Krokenbush.
• 12:52
  Each are still haven't recovered a minor calibration error.
• 12:56
  Besides, Mrs. Higgins looked fabulous in a powdered wig gave
• 12:59
  her confidence. I've ironed out the kink's look.
• 13:02
  New safety protocol A postic note with don't press red button
• 13:07
  under the board written in Philip tip.
• 13:10
  That is not a protocol trigger. It's a cry for help. 1 little
• 13:16
  trip. Think of it as team building.
• 13:18
  You've always seen we never do anything together.
• 13:21
  I say that about the Christmas party, not about hurling our
• 13:23
  synapses into a machine that once made you believe you were a
• 13:26
  sentiment. Aubergine for six hours.
• 13:29
  Tomato, technically, and I maintain that was the most
• 13:32
  spiritually fulfilling afternoon of my life.
• 13:34
  I now understand photosynthesis on a profound level.
• 13:40
  Destination. Did you program this tie?
• 13:44
  I thought we would benefit for some highbrow discussion,
• 13:47
  looking at deep literature and contemplation of existence.
• 13:51
  Do the locals there communicate purely through interpretive
• 13:54
  dance and light bondage? Well, I'm sure we'll be
• 14:00
  entertained. Very well.
• 14:02
  I could do with some excitement and enlightenment.
• 14:06
  Let's see what you've got. Well, this is a super time
• 14:13
  listeners, isn't it? Welcome to the Hamster Book
• 14:16
  Club. My name is Jeremy Fitz Oliver
• 14:19
  and it's super to be here today we're going to be covering the
• 14:24
  Paradise Dead by Barry Let's Oh, and joining me on a space trip
• 14:28
  to the wizowed world of Space world for a wee sniper and some
• 14:32
  munchies, Aunt David, Gillespie Pratt and Bill and Joe Ford.
• 14:36
  What ho chaps. Diddle diddle dumpling.
• 14:41
  Is it Wizzo? Wicked.
• 14:43
  Oh that was so great Gareth. I've never seen someone have an
• 14:47
  entire dual log with themselves. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
• 14:51
  I'm sorry, but but but Gareth has just walked out.
• 14:55
  He's let me here today and so I'm good.
• 14:58
  I'm good with you through all these things.
• 15:01
  I asked for a photographer, you know.
• 15:04
  But I've I've got some some skills with the camera.
• 15:08
  Oh really? I bet you do.
• 15:11
  It's got a long lens. Gareth, how long can you keep it
• 15:18
  up? That can you on a podcast.
• 15:24
  Oh my goodness me. Oh dear.
• 15:27
  Oh, crumbs. Well, I mean, I think you may
• 15:37
  have taught Fraser Gregory for intros there.
• 15:39
  Well done. They haven't topped anyone.
• 15:41
  You can't ask me to do things like that.
• 15:46
  There's no way Jeremy Fitz Oliver is a top, all right?
• 15:49
  There's no he's a sub if ever there was 1.
• 15:53
  No, no, no, no. He's definitely more of a side.
• 15:55
  He's definitely strikes me as a side.
• 15:57
  He's adventurous. OK, Dad looks very baffled about
• 16:01
  what we're talking about. It's safer that way.
• 16:04
  It's much. Safer.
• 16:05
  He's never been into the mucky business of Grinder, you know,
• 16:08
  like. No, oddly enough, I haven't.
• 16:12
  Even Barry let's if reading this book's anything to go by.
• 16:15
  Good grief. Well, as you chaps have all
• 16:19
  arrived come and talk about this wizard book, I think we're going
• 16:22
  to start with a very, very open and broad question, bit like my
• 16:25
  mind. So let's start with the fact
• 16:27
  that we've got experience reality as part of the paradise
• 16:30
  of death as part of its story. And that's like a game, you
• 16:34
  know, like a jolly old game. So what is your favorite
• 16:37
  computer or video games? I believe the kids are calling
• 16:39
  them these days. Let's go, Dan, let's start with
• 16:43
  you. Yeah.
• 16:47
  I mean, my computer gaming goes, goes, goes right back to like 8
• 16:54
  bit graphics. So it's sort of like it was
• 16:57
  quite, quite hard to choose, but I think 1 that really sticks in
• 17:00
  my mind was command and conquer red alert on the on, on the the
• 17:09
  first PlayStation. I, I, I, I mean, it's, it's,
• 17:15
  it's strange because I like, I am, I'm not ruthless and I'm not
• 17:20
  a dictator and I'm not all of that sort of thing.
• 17:22
  But it was just good to be in shy.
• 17:27
  And, you know, I, I spent many hours playing that with, with my
• 17:33
  friend George where it was, it's weird because like, I obviously
• 17:39
  see my son playing games nowadays and basically
• 17:43
  connectivity is so easy. Whereas like to, to play this as
• 17:48
  a two player, we had to have two televisions, 2 Playstations, 2
• 17:53
  versions of the game, and then a cable plugged into both of them,
• 17:58
  both of those to connect it all up.
• 18:01
  But yeah, it was it was a super game because you could build,
• 18:04
  you know, your your fortresses, your base, and then obviously go
• 18:07
  out and and with your army to to conquer other other places,
• 18:13
  other lands. Yes, that that was my favorite
• 18:16
  computer game. Do.
• 18:17
  You remember those things, Dan? Land parties where everyone
• 18:20
  would bring their computers. I mean, I never went to one
• 18:23
  because I didn't play computer games.
• 18:24
  But all my mates got together, they'd all take their computers,
• 18:27
  put them in a big ring. I mean, nowadays you plug into
• 18:31
  the Internet and off you go. And and and, and for for viewers
• 18:36
  or, or listeners, Eva who we're talking televisions that were
• 18:42
  heavy because they were the big chunky things with the, with the
• 18:47
  the screens that were like, I don't know, solid.
• 18:53
  Big. Glass, you know, sort of thing.
• 18:54
  So yeah, yeah, yeah, it was, it was, it wasn't a very sort of
• 19:00
  yeah. When, when you think of what,
• 19:01
  what, what people are able to do now.
• 19:03
  Should there be anyone under the age of 20 listening?
• 19:06
  Oh yeah, doubt it. But if there is, you know, the
• 19:10
  Internet wasn't quite as a whisper like it is these days.
• 19:14
  No, you just have to plug in two things.
• 19:16
  And everyone, come on, do the noise.
• 19:20
  I mean, it would make the most horrific noise for about 30
• 19:22
  seconds, wouldn't it? I want to hear Jeremy Fitz
• 19:26
  Oliver do the Internet. I want Jeremy.
• 19:31
  No, no, back in my days we only had a Sinclair Spectrum, which
• 19:34
  when you put it on it, we'd go, oh look, several dogs have just
• 19:40
  run past the window. Now look, Gareth, I'm going to
• 19:45
  say this to you right now, all right?
• 19:47
  Even though I'm fairly certain you can keep it up for an hour
• 19:50
  and a half if you don't want to do that, please, you are free of
• 19:54
  your bombs, OK? Hang on a minute.
• 19:57
  I think he's just walked back in.
• 19:59
  Do you want me to go? Yeah.
• 20:00
  If you don't mind leaving. Are you sure you could?
• 20:02
  No. No.
• 20:02
  Go. OK.
• 20:05
  Goodbye, Jeremy. Goodbye.
• 20:08
  It's been fun. You're right everyone, sorry
• 20:11
  about that. I didn't realize the time.
• 20:12
  Before by two else of you, we quite like your replacement.
• 20:15
  Actually, we were thinking about keeping him.
• 20:18
  Oh. Sorry, Gareth.
• 20:20
  Merry Christmas. Do the Incredible Hulk music.
• 20:29
  I figured you had amazing acting prowess, but now I'm absolutely
• 20:34
  certain of it. I have my moments.
• 20:41
  That was So Joe, as you're talking at the moment, how's
• 20:44
  video games for you? I believe that's the question
• 20:46
  Jeremy left us on. Yes, it is.
• 20:48
  I've got a really disappointing answer, I'm afraid, because I
• 20:51
  have not and I never will do play computer games ever.
• 20:55
  Somehow it entirely skipped me by when I was younger, I didn't
• 20:59
  have a console, I didn't have APC until I was old enough to
• 21:02
  look at porn. So that's all I needed it for.
• 21:05
  And so, yeah, do you know what? And I realised a couple of years
• 21:09
  ago, I realised why I didn't want to play computer games.
• 21:13
  It's the same reason I don't want to play board games and I
• 21:15
  don't want to do role-playing games.
• 21:17
  And that is I don't enjoy participating in a story.
• 21:22
  I just, I'm so lazy. I can't be arsed to be at those
• 21:26
  controls participating in a game.
• 21:28
  I and, and I don't want to do it in a role-playing game, you
• 21:31
  know, pretending I'm a dwarf or a crab claw Camellius or
• 21:35
  whatever, rolling dice across the table.
• 21:37
  So I just can't be bothered. I like a story, a book, an
• 21:40
  audio, a television show, a film to be there handed to me just to
• 21:47
  listen to. So, so participation in computer
• 21:50
  games has no interest in me whatsoever.
• 21:53
  However, I am of course lying because there is one game that I
• 21:58
  have played and I am utterly addicted to.
• 22:00
  I don't know if I, I mean, it is a game, but it's, it's Mario
• 22:04
  Kart on the Wii and that's the only game I've ever really
• 22:09
  played. And I fucking hate Wario's
• 22:14
  Goldmine and Rainbow Rd. because I always fall off the edge and
• 22:19
  I, I tend to sort of drive backwards half the time and
• 22:21
  everyone just sort of laughs at me.
• 22:23
  But it's so funny, you know, choosing the characters and
• 22:25
  going around. So yeah, I'll say Mario Kart.
• 22:27
  But yeah, unfortunately this space world and it's fab,
• 22:32
  fabulous, ER, would do no good for me whatsoever.
• 22:37
  Yeah, but somebody doesn't play video games.
• 22:38
  Mario Kart is a is a good choice.
• 22:41
  OK. Yeah.
• 22:43
  So, David, what have you got for us in the pixel world?
• 22:46
  I'm having flashbacks to a friend of mine when he was a
• 22:50
  Mario Kart also managed to drive backwards and also then they
• 22:54
  destroyed my mum's television at the same time because he had
• 22:57
  absolutely no dexterity. It was quite it was sort of
• 23:00
  things that you did back when you were young.
• 23:02
  I play I'm, I play games. I play games a lot but I'm not a
• 23:06
  gamer because I feel like I'm relatively normal but I've
• 23:10
  played. We will be the judge of that,
• 23:13
  all right. If I like, I care.
• 23:19
  So I've, I've had PCs going back God knows how many years.
• 23:23
  And so there's always been games in the house one way or another.
• 23:26
  And I played Command and Conquer, Red Alerts, usually
• 23:30
  playing as the Soviets rather than the Allies because of the
• 23:32
  Soviets. You got to play the bad guys.
• 23:33
  And that was actually kind of fun.
• 23:35
  You had the Tesla coils, wasn't it?
• 23:37
  They were. Dead.
• 23:38
  And you had and you had that woman who would just go in and
• 23:40
  blow up buildings and stuff like that.
• 23:44
  So yeah, I've played games sort of on and off, but when you look
• 23:46
  at sort of like some of the games you have and I was like, I
• 23:48
  haven't got time. I've played a lot of Assassin's
• 23:51
  Creed during lockdown and stuff like that because you need
• 23:54
  something to do. But, and I've had, I've had all,
• 23:57
  almost all the versions of Nintendo.
• 23:59
  Generally when a Mario game comes out, I will buy it.
• 24:01
  I've bought an entire console just because there's a Mario
• 24:04
  game that I want to play. Which character do you like to
• 24:06
  play? Usually at the Mario, Luigi, You
• 24:10
  want me to say Princess Peach? That's what I mean.
• 24:13
  Well Peach is pretty cool, I like the the ghost man and I
• 24:17
  also like Bowser. There's a lot of gay men who
• 24:22
  like Bowser, but that's another. Story.
• 24:25
  He's got a dungeon, that's why. But I think if you're talking
• 24:29
  favorite game and one that I wish I could go back and play
• 24:33
  again, it was Star Trek The Next Generation, a final Unity made
• 24:37
  in the mid 90s, which was PC point and click game with the
• 24:40
  voice of the original cast. It was this probably quite
• 24:45
  primitive. No, it was quite primitive.
• 24:47
  It's a point click. Yeah.
• 24:49
  If you clicked on characters on the bridge, they would say some
• 24:51
  of their stock lines, like, I'm sorry, I can't help you right
• 24:54
  now. And because you're trying to
• 24:56
  solve lots of puzzles and they were bloody hard.
• 24:59
  But me and my friend Chris, we would go around, I would go
• 25:03
  around to his house because he had APC that was quite fancy.
• 25:06
  And we were trying to get through this game.
• 25:08
  We would play it together. It was great fun.
• 25:10
  And it was one of those ones. I wish that somebody would do an
• 25:14
  app version because it would work really well as a point
• 25:16
  click game on a tablet or something.
• 25:18
  But I just had so much time, so much fun playing it.
• 25:21
  So yeah, I'm, I'm going to be on brand and say it's a Star Trek
• 25:24
  game. David, did you ever play Star
• 25:25
  Trek Armada? Yes, my ex-husband was obsessed
• 25:30
  with that. He'd watched the Dominion War
• 25:31
  episodes of Star Trek and and amassed huge armies.
• 25:35
  These little dots on the screen across the Alpha Quadrant.
• 25:39
  It's somewhere over there. I can still hear the music,
• 25:42
  actually. Yeah.
• 25:42
  I was like, why am I getting no attention?
• 25:44
  Oh, and actually, since he doesn't care, can we just have a
• 25:47
  quick show of hands between Gareth, Dan and myself as to
• 25:51
  whether David is normal or not? Is David normal?
• 25:54
  Let's show a show of hands for yes, then I've got.
• 26:01
  A. As long as Jeremy Fitz Oliver
• 26:05
  thinks that I'm normal, that has made my week.
• 26:07
  Four out of three of us said you're normal.
• 26:09
  Well done. See, I mean, to be fair, I do
• 26:13
  feel like I'm having a drug trip coming onto this tonight, but
• 26:15
  that's kind of in the. Book.
• 26:17
  Baby, that's from the that's just from this book.
• 26:20
  It's honey, honey, honey. So I, I'm a casual gamer.
• 26:31
  My my brother's the big IT guy and he used to do lamb parties.
• 26:36
  He was just seeing him bring his friends around to mum and dad's
• 26:38
  house when they were away and line all the things up in the in
• 26:41
  the thing. But the the only stuff I ever
• 26:44
  had I had was a Master system myself until I started work and
• 26:47
  then decided to go down the route to PlayStation.
• 26:50
  And but I've only been really choice in the games that I've
• 26:53
  played. So like Kingdom Hearts took me
• 26:55
  the best part of three years to play because I was only playing
• 26:57
  intermittently, not like every day, every weekend.
• 27:01
  It's like once every three weeks on the Lego games by Traveller
• 27:06
  Tales I absolutely adore and I use them for my sons in terms of
• 27:09
  problem solving. But this is about me, and the
• 27:14
  game that I'm going to be chosen is Batman Arkham City.
• 27:20
  Good choice. Batman Arkham Asylum was a great
• 27:23
  game, but I felt it was a bit limited.
• 27:26
  Just being based in that asylum city opened the whole story up.
• 27:31
  And the reason why I know I like that game is it's only one of
• 27:33
  about five games I've ever completed without getting bored.
• 27:37
  And I did everything on that game.
• 27:40
  All the Riddler trophies that had to be found, I found all of
• 27:45
  them and it was totes worth it. I will say I'm impressed because
• 27:49
  I I'm a completionist when I'm I'm a casual game when I'm
• 27:53
  playing these things. You got you listed trophies.
• 27:55
  I'm like, I need to get as many as possible and then I get bored
• 27:58
  and I don't bother. There was a handful of done it.
• 28:00
  There was one particular one that I can remember.
• 28:02
  I spent the best past six months, every so often coming
• 28:04
  back to again, trying it again. I was literally like swinging
• 28:07
  off a Cliff to get it on this edge.
• 28:09
  Could not get to it yet to get the right angle to come off and
• 28:12
  get to it. But I did it and I, yeah, it
• 28:15
  was, it was immense. But again, you know, coming back
• 28:17
  to Joe's point, I like a story game.
• 28:20
  It has to have a story for me to get into.
• 28:23
  Otherwise I struggle with it a little bit.
• 28:27
  Yeah, I'm going to tell you something, Gareth, and and I
• 28:29
  want to restrain yourself. I know some of the books you
• 28:32
  read. I know you read a lot of
• 28:33
  Christie books. So over the last few years
• 28:36
  there's a company that's been releasing adaptations of
• 28:38
  Christie Games. Yes.
• 28:39
  And I am currently halfway through Death on the Nile and
• 28:44
  they've added an entirely new subplot that has absolutely
• 28:48
  nothing to do with Poirot all the all the book so far.
• 28:52
  It's an entire thing about English detective lady in the
• 28:56
  70s as. We said they've updated it,
• 28:58
  haven't they? Slightly.
• 29:00
  And yes, it's quite painful. You kind of like if I'm playing
• 29:06
  an Agatha Christie Poirot game, I want I want to play that bit.
• 29:10
  When they did it with merger on the Orient Express and they
• 29:12
  added a subplot, at least it was connected to the the case.
• 29:18
  It's the if anyone's read the book, it's about the murder of
• 29:22
  the young girl. So the secondary story is about
• 29:24
  the that investigation. So at least it worked.
• 29:27
  But I like those games because they're story based and they're
• 29:30
  quite immersive. I, I, I do want to get those.
• 29:33
  I haven't haven't found them yet at a price I want to buy them
• 29:35
  at, but I think I'm probably going to start from the ABC
• 29:38
  Murders, which was the first one they did.
• 29:40
  I would skip. That you've only got to watch
• 29:42
  the ITV adaptations. I mean they were adding new
• 29:45
  subplots left right and centre, you know.
• 29:48
  I can't watch the ITV adaptations.
• 29:50
  I am literally 6 I think 6 books off finishing the original
• 29:53
  Christie Ron for the first time. Now to bring, you know, tying
• 29:58
  the same, we're talking about audio performances and some of
• 30:00
  those games do have some of the worst voice acting I have heard
• 30:06
  in my life. Great.
• 30:07
  What was the paradise of death? I find that hard to believe.
• 30:10
  Oh no, no, no. They're making Paradise of Death
• 30:12
  Oscar worthy. Oh well.
• 30:15
  Also Gareth, did you just say totes amaze?
• 30:20
  You are so down with the kids. I did indeed.
• 30:27
  So before we get into the audio version, because we are going to
• 30:30
  cover both the audio and the novel, I thought we'd keep it on
• 30:34
  brand as we're with the book club, starting with the novel up
• 30:36
  first and then we'll come to the audio later on.
• 30:40
  So as, as, as we're all nicely warmed up from our experienced
• 30:44
  reality sessions, let's start with the very, very nice opener
• 30:49
  of what do we think about the book in general?
• 30:53
  And let's start with David. How about you?
• 30:56
  Well, I can now finally say with some confidence that I have read
• 31:01
  the novelisation of the Paradise of Death.
• 31:04
  Good. We're talking about it, which I
• 31:07
  didn't clock until I opened it about 20 minutes ago, going oh,
• 31:11
  it is number 156 in the target Doctor Who library.
• 31:14
  So it is officially a target novel.
• 31:17
  It's not a good target novel, but it does follow some of the
• 31:20
  conventions of target novelisations in taking a
• 31:24
  script, but in a few, he said. She said in the old bit of
• 31:28
  description. Printing it and selling it for
• 31:33
  499. Bargain.
• 31:35
  They're £15 nowadays. The Doctor Who books.
• 31:39
  And I'm not entirely sure what I made of it, because welcome to
• 31:44
  the radio player. I've got a massive soft spot for
• 31:45
  the radio play and all the way through, because pretty much all
• 31:48
  the dialogue is there. You are just hearing the
• 31:51
  performances. It doesn't really lift you out
• 31:54
  of it. And at times, Barry Lex is not
• 31:58
  covering himself with glory as an excellent writer of prose.
• 32:03
  Excuse me? So I think Joe just choked
• 32:06
  there, but I kind of enjoyed it, even though objectively I
• 32:14
  shouldn't. But I still quite have liked it.
• 32:19
  I'm weird. That's at least one yay so far
• 32:22
  for the Realms of Paradise. How about you, Dan?
• 32:25
  How do you feel about it? Yeah, I, I think I echo what,
• 32:33
  what David has just said. Really.
• 32:36
  I, I, I think probably like for all four of us.
• 32:40
  I, I first came to this via the audio and I would have been, I
• 32:47
  don't know, early teens when that happened.
• 32:50
  So I've got a real, real sense of nostalgia for this.
• 32:53
  And, and, and it was like, because it was like our first
• 32:56
  proper Doctor Who for such a such a long time, wasn't it?
• 33:02
  But the book is, is if, if you were being subjective about the
• 33:08
  book, it's terrible, but it's an enjoyable read.
• 33:18
  It's it's weird, isn't it? Because because I think like
• 33:20
  there are a few similarities with this and, and what we had
• 33:25
  with the, the, the Nicholas Briggs book, wasn't it the, the,
• 33:32
  the Dalek generation in, in a way that it's not, it's not well
• 33:37
  written. It's, it's, it's there's a lot
• 33:39
  of problems with it, but but this has got one thing going for
• 33:45
  it. It is incredible fun.
• 33:48
  And, and I think when you are, when you have listened to the
• 33:51
  audio and then you read the book, a lot of the heavy lifting
• 33:56
  is done by the performances that you have got in your mind's eye.
• 34:00
  And, and because, because you, you read, you read Frief, you
• 34:05
  read Tragen and you can hear the actors voices in, in your head.
• 34:10
  And I think that really does help this book a lot and doesn't
• 34:15
  elevate it from not being terrible, if that makes, makes
• 34:21
  makes sense. But but yeah, it, it was, you
• 34:26
  know, I whizzed through it quite quickly, which is I think is
• 34:29
  always a good sign with me. And, and yeah, it, it, it was,
• 34:35
  it was funny, but probably for the wrong reasons.
• 34:39
  It was, it was just, yeah, it was, it was like a quite a camp
• 34:42
  romp, which I suppose the, the audio is as well.
• 34:46
  Yeah, it, it, it, it's, yeah, I think subjectively it's
• 34:50
  terrible. But but it's a fun read.
• 34:53
  Yeah. So it's a it's a it's a real,
• 34:57
  which feels like a contradiction in terms.
• 34:59
  But but, but but but yeah, that's the way it was.
• 35:04
  Are you saying that basically what Big Finish need to do is an
• 35:07
  adaptation of the Dalek generation?
• 35:09
  And that's and that's the way we know.
• 35:12
  No, no, because, because we've read the book first.
• 35:16
  Yeah, if, if, if we had, if we, if we had heard it as an audio
• 35:20
  first with great performances from Matt Smith and.
• 35:24
  I won't sleep tonight now knowing that's coming up in the
• 35:27
  schedules. I mean, didn't Nicholas Briggs
• 35:29
  do a reading of it? I listened to the Reading to do
• 35:33
  That podcast. Yes, I remember you did.
• 35:35
  The only way it could be any. Worse, and that was a
• 35:39
  contributing factor to that being because anyway, that's a
• 35:43
  tangent because I don't want to use, you know, slappable as a
• 35:47
  description, although there's a few slappable moments in this.
• 35:51
  Book. So that's two years so far.
• 35:56
  How was paradise for you, Joe? I would have 100,000 copies of
• 36:03
  The Paradise of Death printed out tomorrow and sent to every
• 36:07
  university around the world and told tell all the students of
• 36:12
  English literature to read it and then say this is absolutely
• 36:17
  how you don't write a book. OK?
• 36:20
  Every single way. In terms of plotting,
• 36:22
  characterisation, dialogue, use of cliches, descriptive prose,
• 36:28
  absolutely. On every single possible level.
• 36:32
  This is dismal. God, I loved it.
• 36:36
  Every page. I mean, I laughed my way through
• 36:39
  the whole book. I mean, listen to this.
• 36:41
  I'll just give you one sentence, all right?
• 36:43
  This is an example of the the ineptitude that you will be
• 36:48
  cackling along to reading this book.
• 36:50
  OK. Oh, for heaven's sakes, for
• 36:52
  Sarah. Not now.
• 36:55
  She was not only writing cliches, she was a walking,
• 36:58
  talking cliche herself. And how superficial could you
• 37:01
  get thinking about a bum dash, no matter how elegant it's
• 37:06
  shaped dash, when the owner is in mortal danger?
• 37:10
  I mean, that is a sentence so badly written on every level.
• 37:16
  Barry, I've read, I've read the demons recently, right?
• 37:20
  And now that did have a lot of the ticks that he's got in this
• 37:24
  book. The judicious use of fucking
• 37:27
  brackets in every blood. He can't have one character
• 37:32
  thinking. So they think thoughts within
• 37:34
  thoughts all the time. It's like Barry Les is all
• 37:36
  making his up as he goes along and and the what what's it
• 37:40
  called? Is it ellipses?
• 37:41
  When you do dot, dot dot, you know, to suggest suspense, He
• 37:45
  loves an ellipses as well. And he was doing that in the
• 37:49
  demons. But it was so on the whole, it
• 37:52
  was so much better written than it.
• 37:54
  I don't know what happened to the poor man between then and
• 37:57
  now, but his writing ability, he's just gone out of a window.
• 38:02
  And when it's this script is the starting point, you're in a lot
• 38:07
  of trouble. So, yeah, it's kind of truly
• 38:10
  terrible, in no way representative of the era that
• 38:13
  it's going for. And boy, there's and we will get
• 38:16
  there So much old man trying to be hip in this that I thought of
• 38:22
  as much as I was laughing, I was cringing as well.
• 38:26
  But as an example of how not to do it, utterly joyful, I did
• 38:33
  enjoy it. I really enjoyed it.
• 38:35
  Like it has a sense of adventure and it does have a sense of
• 38:38
  humour. The humor is terrible, but it
• 38:40
  does have a sense of humour. Like I I was, I was just sitting
• 38:45
  there laughing for the whole book.
• 38:47
  And how can that be a bad read? It it.
• 38:51
  It provoked pleasurable feelings inside me.
• 38:55
  There we go. Well, rather than busy how you
• 39:01
  are, I am also going to join in very much the yay column for the
• 39:08
  book, but with a slightly disgruntled look of but I'm not
• 39:11
  sure why. I know I said I wouldn't cover
• 39:14
  the audio and we will cover the audio properly later, but I've
• 39:18
  got nostalgia feels for the audio.
• 39:20
  And yeah, the the actors resonate throughout the page, so
• 39:26
  they do some of the heavy lifting of the characters.
• 39:29
  But I, I agree with everything every everyone's just said
• 39:31
  because that even even down to the lift and shift of the
• 39:34
  script, because you've even got Jeremy telling you about action
• 39:39
  that's going off on the page rather than it being given in a
• 39:43
  different way over, which is just how he does it in audio
• 39:45
  because you can't see what's going on.
• 39:48
  And that's just very, very weird in that.
• 39:51
  And I think it happens later on, doesn't it, when he's hooked up
• 39:55
  to the ER thing and watching the doctor?
• 39:57
  It's in dialogue instead of being descriptive.
• 39:59
  Yeah, which? Is.
• 40:01
  A really odd choice for a book which make does make you say
• 40:04
  this. Is he just done Terence one O 1
• 40:05
  and gone. Oh OK, lines line, line line bit
• 40:09
  of description, line line line description, line description.
• 40:12
  But yeah, I, I enjoy it. I, I'm, I'm really, really
• 40:16
  enjoyed it. I, I'm like, I can't he, he, he
• 40:19
  beggars belief as to why it, it is like that.
• 40:24
  And I and I, and I'm not sure I have an answer.
• 40:26
  I'm like, I think it's the pure escapism of it.
• 40:30
  It feels like Flash Gordon. It really feels like Flash
• 40:32
  Gordon in the back end of it when we're all going with the
• 40:35
  sky people of all things. Brian Blessing non copyright
• 40:39
  derivative. Thank you.
• 40:41
  You know it's Onya's alive. Sorry, sorry, I was telling.
• 40:49
  On my brief, Hawkman, you know, it's it.
• 40:52
  I just, yeah, it just feels. But it's enjoyable.
• 40:57
  It's enjoyable and there's no other word for it.
• 41:00
  Do you think you have to work extremely hard to write a book
• 41:03
  as inept at this? I think Barry worked really hard
• 41:07
  on this. Something, something went wrong
• 41:10
  with Battery Letts in the 90s. Because thinking of these two
• 41:13
  plays, the two novelisations, these Blake 7 scripts and some
• 41:18
  of his later Doctor Who novels, he seems to have like been hit
• 41:22
  on the head with a winch and forgotten how to write.
• 41:25
  Because this is somebody who was quite creative and quite good.
• 41:28
  All was deterrence. Was Terence really the brains
• 41:32
  behind everything? Or was it Robert Sloman?
• 41:34
  I'm sure he came with a few ideas.
• 41:36
  You've got to wonder though, with this though, have they just
• 41:38
  thrown everything at the wall? Because by this point, Doctor
• 41:40
  Who's been off the screen for four years, other than the
• 41:43
  limited repeats they've had on, and they've thought, well, let's
• 41:45
  just dazzle it. This could be the last hurrah
• 41:48
  we're ever going to get of Doctor Who, boy.
• 41:51
  Then let's just throw everything in there.
• 41:54
  You know, that's power of the Doctor, not this, all right?
• 42:00
  So yeah, so it's it's 4 yays but slightly confused yays.
• 42:04
  So who knows as we as we as we explore more of this, we might
• 42:07
  get more into that. So.
• 42:10
  I I I was reading, I'll tell David I was reading adventurous
• 42:13
  of Henrietta St. alongside the paradise of death.
• 42:16
  OK, and they're like the most diametrically opposed Dr. Brooks
• 42:20
  you could possibly get. 1 is basically a a script page
• 42:26
  dismally written, and the other one is a dense, very
• 42:30
  sophisticated historical document with barely any
• 42:32
  dialogue in it at all. May I suggest gentlemen, next
• 42:35
  time just read the two back-to-back.
• 42:37
  They complement each other beautifully while you're reading
• 42:39
  them. It's it's the trout and the
• 42:42
  route, isn't it? That it.
• 42:43
  Is. I wouldn't call paradise of
• 42:47
  death radical. Someone has to.
• 42:51
  I'd say he's radicalised season 11 somewhat.
• 42:54
  Can we not say anything like an American surfer accent radical?
• 43:00
  Oh, Gareth, you are so damned with the kids.
• 43:02
  Honestly, you're damned with the kids as Barry Let'sis in this
• 43:04
  book. Does he go at one point?
• 43:09
  ER, it's a bit similar to VR that I was like, Oh my God bless
• 43:17
  him. So as we're talking about Barry,
• 43:21
  let's at the moment, let's make a start with him.
• 43:25
  So do we think that Barry's Lech?
• 43:28
  Barry Ledge? I hope he doesn't.
• 43:30
  No, no, it's very. Important.
• 43:33
  Yeah, Yeah. All becomes.
• 43:35
  It takes. Where's that?
• 43:36
  Where's the law? Do we think?
• 43:39
  Barry, let's touch it. Oh.
• 43:43
  What, Barry? Let's.
• 43:51
  Do you think Barry lets us work shines through the wilderness
• 43:55
  era? Do we see this as a triumph for
• 43:58
  him or a nostalgia grab? No, I.
• 44:03
  Don't. Let's start with you, I.
• 44:04
  Think he's? Wobbling there.
• 44:05
  I think he genuinely wants to write a fun Doctor Who story in
• 44:10
  what he remembers the style of his own era to be.
• 44:15
  I think he wants to write a story which absolutely uses the
• 44:20
  audio medium to it's full capacity, which is why he's got
• 44:25
  those different landscapes in it.
• 44:26
  We go to alien planets. I mean there's loads of chances
• 44:30
  for the director to show off with his script and I think this
• 44:36
  is basically Planet of the Spiders.
• 44:38
  This story, it's an episode one set on Earth, and then somewhere
• 44:44
  in episode 2, or I think it's the end of episode 2, isn't it?
• 44:47
  Or the start of episode 3, we end, I'll end up on an alien
• 44:49
  planet where we basically spend the rest of the story with a
• 44:53
  bunch of really boring, stereotypical, cliched sort of
• 44:59
  peasants and alien, you know, alien characters before the
• 45:04
  whole thing sort of comes to a dreadful anticlimax.
• 45:06
  It really reminded me of Planet of the Spiders.
• 45:10
  I think he was trying. I just, I think he's out of
• 45:13
  touch and that's the problem. He's out of touch with what's
• 45:16
  happening in the 90s, certainly with Doctor Who books.
• 45:19
  He feels like a weird choice. If if you, you, I, I, I, I, I
• 45:24
  get. Probably why, You know, you've
• 45:26
  got Pertway. You've got the Brigadier, you've
• 45:30
  got Sarah Jane. So it's that the, the fag end
• 45:33
  really of, of the 3rd Doctor, 3rd Doctor.
• 45:37
  I see David laughing in the bottom corner there.
• 45:40
  I I. Know anything about the fag end?
• 45:42
  Don't you, David? Mike Yates.
• 45:50
  You've got the. Tail end then of of the 3rd
• 45:52
  Doctor's time. So I guess it makes sense to
• 45:56
  bring someone back from that era.
• 45:59
  But the obvious choice would be Terence Dick surely, and not I.
• 46:03
  I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have gone Barry
• 46:07
  Letts, but. Fairly soon Dan Terence will be
• 46:10
  Ryan Warmonger. I don't know, we're in a much
• 46:12
  better position with Darren Sticks and the eight doctors.
• 46:17
  Yeah, but, but, but he did have, he did have triumphs.
• 46:20
  You know, I, I like Shakedown. I I I I like, I mean, in fact, I
• 46:24
  think I like all of his virgin the adventure books that he he's
• 46:28
  he's done. In Exeter soon.
• 46:31
  You know, I've not read it for years.
• 46:33
  Yeah, it'd be interesting to to revisit.
• 46:35
  But, but, but, and I think this, it's really weird how much he's
• 46:39
  forgotten the characters as well, because a lot of the time
• 46:43
  these are characters that he was part of the creation of.
• 46:48
  And certainly Sarah Jane and, and the Brigadier, a lot of the
• 46:56
  time you think that's not the Sarah Jane or the Brigadier.
• 47:00
  I recognise they, they, they, you know, they, they wouldn't
• 47:03
  think that. They wouldn't say that.
• 47:06
  So yes, it's, I, yeah, I don't know.
• 47:09
  But I think, yeah, I, I don't know where, what what went wrong
• 47:15
  with him? But but something's gone wrong
• 47:17
  at some point. His Doctor is, I think, spot on
• 47:22
  by the the arrogance and, you know, all the references to
• 47:26
  weird alien planets and the Venusia and this and that and
• 47:30
  and all of that stuff. Yeah, you're right, Sarah and
• 47:33
  the Brigadier. I mean, Sarah Jane wouldn't fall
• 47:36
  in love with some political reactionary in a heartbeat.
• 47:40
  Which, where the fuck's Clarinda come from?
• 47:43
  We've never heard from her before.
• 47:45
  I mean, that's the thing. Because like at times you're
• 47:47
  kind of thinking, oh, this feels like Joe Grant rather than
• 47:52
  rather than Sarah Jane, you know, sort of thing that, you
• 47:55
  know, obviously the love interest and and and and that
• 47:58
  sort of thing. And, and being a bit, I suppose,
• 48:01
  I don't know, scatty for want of a better word at times where it
• 48:05
  whereas, you know, you Sarah Jane always comes across as
• 48:08
  being quite switched on. And and yeah, but but there are
• 48:13
  times in here where it's like, yeah, that feels like Joe Grapp.
• 48:16
  But then even with the Brigadier, there's bits where
• 48:19
  he's like calling Sarah Rd. thing and stuff like that.
• 48:23
  And, and you kind of like think, oh, that feels like Harry
• 48:25
  Sullivan, you know, and yeah, it's just weird how he's kind
• 48:29
  of, he's kind of mixed characters and, and they, they
• 48:34
  kind of don't feel like the the originals, as it were.
• 48:37
  Weirdest thing that he does is reading the book through having
• 48:42
  listened to the radio play so many times.
• 48:44
  You can hear the actors giving those lines.
• 48:45
  So sometimes when we've read these books, you say, you know,
• 48:48
  you couldn't imagine McCoy or someone delivering these lines.
• 48:51
  I have that with the Brigadier as he's written going this isn't
• 48:55
  right, he doesn't sound right and everything, but I can still
• 48:58
  get caught me doing it because I've listened to the radio
• 49:00
  player where he's doing it. But if they that didn't exist,
• 49:04
  this would be like this is not him.
• 49:05
  This is not his character. He wouldn't say these things.
• 49:09
  You listen to the writ, listen back to it.
• 49:11
  You kind of. Nick Courtney is doing a lot of
• 49:14
  heavy lifting. All of them, like I read this
• 49:16
  and I, I just wasn't getting Sarah and I wasn't getting the
• 49:20
  Brigadier at all. And then I heard the play and
• 49:22
  it's the same lines and I was getting the Brigadier and I was
• 49:26
  getting Sarah. They they've just performed some
• 49:29
  form of magic that made it authentic.
• 49:33
  Yeah. What about you then, Gareth?
• 49:39
  Yeah, I'm, I'm not sure about it because I think, I think on the
• 49:43
  one hand you've got, you'd expect something from Barry, you
• 49:46
  know, with, with all the work that he's done, you'd expect
• 49:49
  something that was spot on. But I do wonder if because of
• 49:53
  the way this was commissioned, if it kind of went under the
• 49:56
  microscope a bit just because this was, correct me if I'm
• 50:00
  wrong, but it wasn't this born out of a series of Superman
• 50:03
  plays that Per we had been appearing in and he'd known the
• 50:07
  director and the director said, oh, Doctor Who.
• 50:09
  And he went, oh, I've got someone who can write that.
• 50:11
  Here's Barry. So Barry was kind of brought
• 50:14
  into it. And it does feel like you very
• 50:19
  rarely think, and I don't know about you chaps, but I very
• 50:22
  think this feels like the 1970's, the story it's.
• 50:26
  Not clear. It's like the noise.
• 50:28
  Day, other than Sarah's inclusion and Sarah's job, which
• 50:31
  is the only thing that kind of anchors it a little bit.
• 50:36
  It feels like it would feel like, like a like a 70 year old
• 50:40
  writing something set in 2025. Now, though, you know, it does
• 50:43
  feel like it's set in the period it's being written, but by an
• 50:47
  old fossil. Yeah, and and that does come
• 50:50
  through. It does come through, sadly.
• 50:52
  It's almost like A and it's weird, isn't it?
• 50:54
  Because bearing in mind how vocally he was about the TV
• 50:56
  movie and it's like I. Mean it's worth remembering he
• 51:01
  did give us the Time Monster and the Metabolius 3 segments of
• 51:05
  Planet of the Spiders. Like his record is not unstained
• 51:09
  on TV. And, and to be fair, you know,
• 51:13
  to him, maybe he just didn't think people would be interested
• 51:16
  in it. Maybe this was a idea of
• 51:19
  throwing something out there just to get people interested in
• 51:21
  it. I think I said, I think I said
• 51:23
  in the chat, didn't I, That it's, it's almost like a pilot,
• 51:27
  you know what you're hoping for for rows like heights, but not
• 51:31
  quite making it. No, but if they started with the
• 51:34
  ghosts of end space then I'm sure it would have just soared.
• 51:43
  I prefer the ghost of End Space to this, but maybe I'm the only
• 51:46
  person who does. But again, I think that kind of
• 51:48
  backs up Barry kind of forgetting who who these
• 51:53
  characters are because with with that, you know, like there's no
• 51:56
  way the brigadiers got like a a Uncle Mario who's Italian.
• 52:02
  He's me and Mario, that one of the way through.
• 52:05
  Who's playing the game on cart again?
• 52:08
  I mean, I mean, this is a lot safer than the ghosts of end
• 52:11
  space. I think, you know, the the the
• 52:13
  the ER and the space world and then just go into another planet
• 52:18
  and being rebels. Like that's a bit timely.
• 52:21
  Why me ghosts of end space? It is going into the Brigadiers
• 52:24
  history. We go across to another part of
• 52:27
  the world. You know, it is it's attempting
• 52:30
  to be a bit more. Oh no, I won't say substantial
• 52:34
  Boulder, maybe. Well, this is an interesting
• 52:37
  question, isn't it? Because do we think this story
• 52:39
  actually fits in the era that it's supposed to represent, or
• 52:42
  does it not really matter in the grand scheme of things?
• 52:46
  Don't say that the Cannon police will come after me.
• 52:49
  It doesn't even fit in the gap in the series that it's supposed
• 52:52
  to be in. He does a big finish before big
• 52:55
  finish was a thing. You know, Crow barring something
• 52:58
  in where it doesn't fit. That's that's an interesting
• 53:00
  thing because I used to meticulously and I'm going to
• 53:03
  own up to this. I used to meticulous every time
• 53:06
  I read a Doctor Who book way back when.
• 53:07
  I had a file, a fax old leave a arch folder and I put a page in
• 53:11
  every time I read a book and I would put it between the stories
• 53:14
  that I could physically read. So I knew where paradise of
• 53:16
  death went. I knew where death comes to time
• 53:18
  went in my continuity. It was all in there.
• 53:21
  I don't do that. I haven't done that for 920
• 53:24
  years now. And that's what I mean.
• 53:26
  Does it really matter anymore? Are we just now used to stories
• 53:31
  with the Doctor that aren't anchored into the show's
• 53:34
  continuity anymore? Well, I've got a follow on
• 53:37
  question. What's a Philo fax?
• 53:43
  What what? What is this thing?
• 53:44
  I've never heard of it. I was just hearing that story
• 53:47
  and wonder if Gareth had any friends at all when he was
• 53:49
  younger. Sorry Gareth, I've been so mean
• 53:51
  today. I I had.
• 53:54
  I had. Plenty of friends.
• 53:55
  I bet you did. I'm sure you did.
• 53:58
  I had a ring. I had a ring by oneself.
• 54:03
  He arranged all of his dollies in a circle.
• 54:06
  But I mean, I, I didn't have AI, didn't have a file of fax or a
• 54:10
  folder, but, but I, I used to do that with, with the, with, with
• 54:14
  the books. So like with the missing
• 54:16
  adventures, I used to put them in, you know, I'd have all my
• 54:20
  targets out kind of thing and and the missing adventures, I
• 54:23
  would slot them into the gaps that they were they supposed.
• 54:27
  To. You know, targets out pure
• 54:29
  filth. Yeah, but where, whereas whereas
• 54:34
  now I, I, you know, they're all in, in chronological order of
• 54:38
  each range of books. There was no way I I would mix
• 54:42
  them up now. I'd say you've got less creative
• 54:45
  over time then Dan, you know. Well, no, no, I think, I think
• 54:48
  like, I think like Gareth says, Canon continuity.
• 54:53
  I think it just means less and less as time goes on, I think.
• 54:58
  Is it a good story? That's kind of what matters.
• 55:01
  Yeah, there's a point where you've got to let some of this
• 55:03
  stuff go because even since like 2 doctors where it's like that
• 55:07
  doesn't make sense. That doesn't tie in with
• 55:08
  anything. And the attempts to head cannon
• 55:13
  and explain and season 6 B and everything and just like, oh,
• 55:17
  just accept that the writer fucked up and it's just a Side
• 55:21
  Story and just don't worry about it.
• 55:25
  But every now and again you do see fans who get really tied up
• 55:30
  with, they cannot comprehend that human nature happened
• 55:35
  twice. So it's like, well, what's the
• 55:36
  explanation that it's happened twice?
• 55:37
  We need an or just accept one's a book and one's ATV episode.
• 55:41
  That's why I've Wrath you're talking about there.
• 55:44
  You know, I mean, he's mad. He's listening to all the Susan
• 55:48
  audios right now, OK Targets, Big Finish and everything.
• 55:51
  It's right in notes of all of the continuity in order.
• 55:55
  Wait. Then he wants to do a podcast
• 55:59
  where he's telling me the entire order.
• 56:01
  This is what I've got to live with.
• 56:02
  Suddenly my family facts. Doesn't seem you've got to have
• 56:04
  a hobby. No, you've got to have a hobby.
• 56:07
  Come on, you have a wank then. Are you saying your other half's
• 56:12
  hobby is listening to as much Caroline Ford as possible?
• 56:16
  No, his hobby is just dramatically shoving things into
• 56:20
  tight gaps. It's really annoying.
• 56:23
  Is he getting withdrawal from the end of the reality war?
• 56:30
  I think all the bars is a good story.
• 56:32
  Like I didn't care that 10 nil aliens couldn't exist.
• 56:34
  I've really enjoyed the book. I don't really care that Aramim
• 56:38
  can't really exist between Planet of Fire and the Caves of
• 56:41
  Androsani, but I love that run of audios.
• 56:44
  We've all read the 8th Doctor the 8th Doctors, haven't we?
• 56:47
  There's whatever you want. Hang out, yes.
• 56:50
  Well, I mean that that that messes with country.
• 56:55
  Yeah, it's. And how would you do that
• 56:58
  current? Fans, can I annoy today, right?
• 57:02
  Well, don't forget the very first Doctor Who book, which we
• 57:04
  have done of course in a previous podcast, reinvents the
• 57:08
  start of Doctor Who. And so does colony in space,
• 57:12
  isn't it Doomsday weapon? Weapon.
• 57:13
  Yeah, no. So often we've answered your
• 57:16
  question then Gareth and. I think it was AI think it was a
• 57:19
  very good conversation. We didn't go a bit round the
• 57:22
  houses, sorry. Buy the cannon.
• 57:26
  So. I like the fact you turned to
• 57:28
  your dollies there and went wait my minions.
• 57:33
  So so. Speaking of Minions, the Paracon
• 57:41
  Corporation. Do we think they were truly a
• 57:44
  match for the Doctor or just another suit wearing villain
• 57:47
  with delusions of grandeur? Let's start with David for this
• 57:52
  one. Well, can't talk about the
• 57:56
  Paracon Corporation without talking about the chairman and
• 58:00
  the vice chairman. And Chairman Friess is certainly
• 58:05
  a character that Barry clearly enjoys writing about.
• 58:10
  And he's very subtle. You know, Barry's a very subtle
• 58:14
  writer. Frith is maybe a little bit on
• 58:19
  the overweight side. He doesn't mention it.
• 58:22
  He doesn't mention it much. Just on every other page of this
• 58:27
  book. If he's not eating, he's he's
• 58:31
  corpulent and returned. And it is.
• 58:33
  Supposed to be Terrance. He hasn't got an impediment.
• 58:40
  Oh, that yeah, fair. But Can you imagine him
• 58:43
  pronouncing Freeth's name every? No, he's Freeth, isn't he?
• 58:46
  Wife Wagon Sarah don't Smith No. We're going to hell, aren't we?
• 58:56
  Yeah. Oh, what the hell?
• 58:59
  Yeah. So you've got this character who
• 59:01
  is always eating. He's always dribbling.
• 59:04
  He's meant to be this. He's.
• 59:06
  I suppose what Barry is trying to go for is this is the
• 59:09
  ultimate in the worst of capitalism.
• 59:13
  He's obsessed with his corporation.
• 59:17
  He's overweight. He doesn't care about who he
• 59:20
  destroys. He will do and say anything.
• 59:22
  Sorry, I'm probably going a bit political there because Doctor
• 59:25
  Who doesn't go political. Imagine something like that
• 59:28
  happened in the real world. But is he a match for the
• 59:34
  Doctor? Only because Barry's written it
• 59:38
  that way. But it doesn't feel like, Oh my
• 59:41
  God, the Doctor's up against this amazing villain.
• 59:44
  He's just up against a really shit businessman.
• 59:48
  He's like aroused by evil, isn't he?
• 59:51
  Every time he does something evil, especially in the audio,
• 59:54
  not only is he eating something and getting extremely turned on
• 59:58
  by it, but he's like, oh, you naughty little boy, you know,
• 1:00:03
  what are we going to do with you?
• 1:00:05
  I've never known someone enjoy being evil more than Chairman
• 1:00:08
  Frief. There is no subtlety to faith,
• 1:00:12
  there's no layers to him. There's only maybe 1 moment more
• 1:00:17
  in the audio than the book where he's with his father near the
• 1:00:19
  end. His father, the president,
• 1:00:22
  president, president because he, Barry doesn't give him a name
• 1:00:27
  where you kind of think for a second maybe he's kind of
• 1:00:30
  dropping the evil for a second. He's like, no, he's not.
• 1:00:32
  He really isn't he. Is sickest president of all time
• 1:00:36
  and us saying something given the affairs right now?
• 1:00:40
  The thing with, you know, novelisations is they're meant
• 1:00:43
  to add depth to the characters and to the, the the storylines
• 1:00:47
  and everything. This book takes these characters
• 1:00:50
  and makes them shallower and actually takes depth away from
• 1:00:54
  them because once you lose those performances, which give them a
• 1:00:57
  little bit of life, you just end up with something that's even
• 1:01:00
  less than one-dimensional. So yeah, Frith didn't quite leap
• 1:01:07
  off the page. He sort of rolled off of it.
• 1:01:09
  I mean, I'd rather read about Chairman Frith than Tragen.
• 1:01:14
  He gets aroused by hurting women, which is just Barry.
• 1:01:20
  Stop doing this, all right? Like, stop having weird sexual,
• 1:01:25
  violent references in your Doctor Who books.
• 1:01:28
  There is a reference and I, I've said this before, I think I said
• 1:01:31
  this before we started recording.
• 1:01:32
  It's something that I didn't pick up on in the audio.
• 1:01:34
  I just thought it was Harold Innocence performance.
• 1:01:37
  So in the audio when Sarah Jane is captured, he says that she
• 1:01:43
  should be left in tacta. And you know, he's always
• 1:01:47
  rolling his voice and doing. And then in the book it actually
• 1:01:50
  says in tacta kind of in the Latin.
• 1:01:53
  And my first thought is the term, if I remember correctly,
• 1:01:57
  people refer to Virgo in tacta, which is for ladies who have
• 1:02:01
  never had sex before. And it's sometimes refer.
• 1:02:04
  And then you're kind of going, what is that?
• 1:02:07
  Is it refer to that? Is he basically suggesting to
• 1:02:10
  Traigen don't interfere with? And then because he's got so
• 1:02:17
  many other unfortunate references in his prose and his
• 1:02:20
  characters, I could believe that that's kind of what?
• 1:02:23
  He calls Sarah Jane a kasami in the ghost of N space, so you
• 1:02:27
  could be right there. So.
• 1:02:29
  It's quite unfortunate because that's bringing in an arm to
• 1:02:33
  sexual violence into this and that's slightly uncomfortable.
• 1:02:37
  So at least with Frise, he's just disgusting, but Tragan is.
• 1:02:45
  I mean, it's explicit, David. Is it explicit Because he says
• 1:02:49
  I'm very good at thinking up little games.
• 1:02:51
  What's it going to take for you to beg me to stop?
• 1:02:54
  What's it going to take for you to kiss me?
• 1:02:56
  And so they the link between sex and violence against her will is
• 1:03:03
  very explicit. It's not it, it mean the the
• 1:03:06
  words are all there in the audio, but because it's Peter
• 1:03:08
  Miles doing it and Harold Innocent doing it, it doesn't
• 1:03:13
  quite land in the same way. When you take them away and
• 1:03:15
  you've got it in prose, it comes.
• 1:03:19
  You say those suggestions of things like sexual violence and
• 1:03:23
  everything are much more apparent.
• 1:03:25
  So yeah, it it there are points. It is uncomfortable.
• 1:03:30
  Sorry. I've made it.
• 1:03:31
  I've made it quite serious there for a second.
• 1:03:32
  Well, no, because I just don't think he's got the capacity to
• 1:03:35
  explore that in any kind of an intelligent way.
• 1:03:39
  So I think it's there either to titillate or to provide suspense
• 1:03:44
  and in either direction there, that's a bit uncomfortable.
• 1:03:47
  I think he's titillating because there's not so much in this, but
• 1:03:50
  certainly in the end space novelisation.
• 1:03:54
  Well, it's not even just titillation at times.
• 1:03:55
  It's just tits. Maggie's tits, mostly.
• 1:03:59
  Maggie likes watching Jeremy Fitz Oliver being tortured.
• 1:04:02
  She's getting off on it in that book.
• 1:04:04
  Very strange. Oh, lorks indeed.
• 1:04:08
  Oh, Jeremy. Get your lorks off.
• 1:04:10
  Oh please, someone had to bring Jeremy up.
• 1:04:13
  Beg your pardon? Oh.
• 1:04:15
  Anyway, Joe Lyricon Corporation, how do you feel about them?
• 1:04:22
  Big, big corporation equals evil.
• 1:04:26
  You know, they've the doctor very explicitly says what is it?
• 1:04:31
  They've taken all this stuff out of the ground and they put
• 1:04:34
  nothing back, which is basically, you know, what
• 1:04:36
  corporations do. Yeah, not subtle, but it does
• 1:04:41
  the job. It's a it's a big evil thing to
• 1:04:43
  conquer by the end of the story. And they're fun enough
• 1:04:48
  characters. I think Tragan and Frith, it's
• 1:04:50
  actually been poor Frith's been kept on a leash by his daddy and
• 1:04:55
  Tragan's been kept on a a leash by Frief.
• 1:04:57
  So no one's getting their own way.
• 1:04:59
  It's like that Dominator and the Dominators, what's his name,
• 1:05:01
  Rago or Toba. Every time he wants to hurt
• 1:05:03
  somebody, it's like, no, stop. Oh, for God's sakes, you know,
• 1:05:08
  poor old Frief. He just wants to, you know,
• 1:05:09
  sexually molest Sarah and Frief won't let him do it.
• 1:05:13
  It's just so for no, they're fun.
• 1:05:14
  They're fun. They're more fun in the in the
• 1:05:17
  audio because they're well acted.
• 1:05:19
  But yeah, if they did the job, they were OK.
• 1:05:23
  Are you suggesting that this book has a slight political
• 1:05:26
  undertone, suggesting that corporations and big business
• 1:05:29
  are really evil capitalists and it's back because does that not
• 1:05:32
  make it? A bit woke.
• 1:05:36
  I mean, Barry Letts has been woke ever since the Green Death,
• 1:05:39
  hasn't he? I don't think he's woke, judging
• 1:05:43
  by his descriptions of what the Brigadier sees in the, ER,
• 1:05:46
  machine. Those are not my legs, Daniel.
• 1:05:54
  So what about you, Dan? Do you subscribe to the Paracon
• 1:05:56
  Corporation? Yeah, I mean, that's that's the
• 1:06:01
  thing. It's, it's not very subtle, is
• 1:06:03
  it? The the, the message that that's
• 1:06:05
  coming through from from this side of the book is that, you
• 1:06:10
  know, big corporations, big businesses are, are evil and
• 1:06:15
  they're just out to make profit and and they don't care who they
• 1:06:21
  have to noble to to get that profit.
• 1:06:24
  You know, so it isn't, it isn't, yeah, like I say, isn't
• 1:06:29
  particularly subtle, you know, because I mean, like obviously
• 1:06:37
  people recently have kind of had a go at kind of like certainly
• 1:06:41
  the Chibenoway era for being very political and very kind of
• 1:06:44
  like, you know, in your face with the, with the, with the
• 1:06:47
  message and all this sort of stuff.
• 1:06:49
  But but it's, it's, it's not hidden here.
• 1:06:51
  Is it really? It's it's it's it's it's.
• 1:06:54
  There at the forefront, Really. It's it's waving A placard
• 1:06:59
  going, you see in the message. Lights you kind of I.
• 1:07:03
  Mean at the start of the book, Paracon Corporation is clearly
• 1:07:06
  evil and then just to be really subtle, they get they do more
• 1:07:10
  and more progressively evil things to the point that by the
• 1:07:13
  end of the book it's like not only are they guilty of murder
• 1:07:16
  and they've got genocide, we've got bodies being turned into
• 1:07:21
  fertilizer. It's like.
• 1:07:23
  Do we? Need to how many more layers of
• 1:07:26
  evil? Is is the butcher toad a
• 1:07:28
  dangered species that they've entrapped somehow?
• 1:07:31
  Could be animal rights things. And is it true that the the
• 1:07:34
  president doesn't actually know the terrible things that are
• 1:07:37
  going on? It's just this kindly old man
• 1:07:39
  who thinks you get something for nothing.
• 1:07:43
  The wall has been pulled. Pulled.
• 1:07:44
  Over his eyes. Which is really funny because
• 1:07:46
  doesn't he say he was a salesman?
• 1:07:49
  He's not. A very good.
• 1:07:50
  Probably the greatest flim flam artist has been flim flammed
• 1:07:52
  himself. He's calling everyone now we're
• 1:07:55
  talking about wool and everything.
• 1:07:56
  There's just something. It's a complete tangent but I
• 1:07:59
  have just noticed on Dan shelf there is a Paradise Towers
• 1:08:02
  cleaner. They're appears to be wearing a
• 1:08:05
  woolly hat. Oh, he's just wearing.
• 1:08:09
  He's wearing a woolly hat. I just saw some woolly hats.
• 1:08:13
  It's the winter. It gets cold.
• 1:08:14
  Yeah, yeah. I saw that.
• 1:08:16
  I think that is absolutely brilliant.
• 1:08:17
  Actually, it it kind of suits it.
• 1:08:21
  It would be even funnier if the woolly hat was on that Davro's
• 1:08:23
  shelf above it over the mum roll on deodorant.
• 1:08:30
  You can cut that bit. It has to.
• 1:08:33
  Stay to stay between these are awesome.
• 1:08:37
  Yeah, I think we've covered most of what I was going to say
• 1:08:40
  anyway, which is around Frith's fat.
• 1:08:42
  Although I've got to disagree. He does have layers.
• 1:08:44
  It's just Cellulite and, and the fact that, yeah, they they are
• 1:08:50
  the poor sill. And I almost feel that you could
• 1:08:54
  have a horrible episode dedicated to the intricacies of
• 1:08:57
  the Paracon corporation that that could have been a bit more
• 1:09:02
  close knit around them as a unit.
• 1:09:04
  Because beyond the that we've mentioned, there's very little
• 1:09:07
  else we know about their structure or how they're based
• 1:09:10
  and what they've done. And we kind of then go off onto
• 1:09:13
  this back the journey into the rest of the world out there in
• 1:09:16
  Paracon. And we don't really learn about
• 1:09:19
  the corporation through them. We get Kaido and his folk that
• 1:09:22
  kind of do us and we get the jungle and.
• 1:09:25
  Yeah, and. They.
• 1:09:27
  Could have been like a homesy and double act, couldn't they?
• 1:09:29
  They could have been really wissy.
• 1:09:30
  But you basically just got a free for going, oh, you are a
• 1:09:34
  naughty boy, you know, and Tragan going, oh, please let me
• 1:09:37
  murder some. And that's basically the one
• 1:09:39
  joke that they've got between them.
• 1:09:41
  Isn't it rather vicious how how Tragan's dispatched rather
• 1:09:46
  graphic in the the writing itself?
• 1:09:50
  But they you said that they're they're just there just to say
• 1:09:53
  corporations are bad. This is what could happen If you
• 1:09:56
  use up your resources and don't watch what your folk are telling
• 1:09:59
  you. You're going to be in a similar
• 1:10:01
  position as these guys. I think I I have marked Tragan's
• 1:10:06
  demise. I think in terms of prose, this
• 1:10:09
  is one of my favourites. It's not my favorite passage.
• 1:10:11
  My favorite passage, I will say for later.
• 1:10:14
  And surely his face must burst. And so it did.
• 1:10:21
  Not with a bang, not with an explosion which splattered the
• 1:10:24
  walls, but with a juicy burp, A whoopee cushion, Raspberry
• 1:10:28
  despairing fart which slapped his purple lifeblood onto the
• 1:10:33
  bare stone floor, still stained with the blood of so many of his
• 1:10:37
  victims. A.
• 1:10:38
  Whoopee cushion like burp explosion.
• 1:10:41
  I mean, what the hell, Barry? You got the word.
• 1:10:47
  Is that the first, Is this the first fart in Doctor Who?
• 1:10:52
  I mean, he couldn't, he couldn't turn around to criticise World
• 1:10:55
  War Three and Aliens of London for the fart gags because he's
• 1:10:59
  he's been writing it in 1995. His descriptive prose throughout
• 1:11:03
  this was just terrible. A bit where Jeremy goes into the
• 1:11:07
  TARDIS and where the scenes from Jeremy's point of view and he
• 1:11:10
  goes. He literally says in prose, not
• 1:11:12
  in dialogue, Oh, the thingy over there which is attached to the
• 1:11:15
  thingy and the thingy is going up and down in the middle.
• 1:11:18
  And I was like, what, you crying like this?
• 1:11:24
  I think we, you know, that's obviously pros.
• 1:11:26
  You don't hear it in Jeremy's voice, but Jeremy is in the
• 1:11:29
  room. And maybe at some point we need
• 1:11:32
  to have that particular passage from Jeremy.
• 1:11:36
  Later. Don't mention Jeremy's passage,
• 1:11:39
  but as we're talking about Jeremy, how do we feel about
• 1:11:42
  him? The most in the room.
• 1:11:45
  Anymore so we can. Talk about in all of Doctor Who.
• 1:11:48
  Unfairly, I think. I mean it's Comic Relief.
• 1:11:52
  Bit of a plot device or the human embodiment of third wheel.
• 1:11:55
  Do you guys buy the he's supposed to be annoying?
• 1:11:58
  Like is that a thing we do? I think that sort of character
• 1:12:03
  was probably annoying if you're from the 1940s.
• 1:12:07
  I think now it just looks like historical from our point of
• 1:12:10
  view now. It's that thing that writers do,
• 1:12:15
  which is, yes, the the character's deliberately
• 1:12:17
  annoying, but then I think they're meant to be endearing or
• 1:12:22
  lovable. No, they're just annoying.
• 1:12:24
  That's what happens when you write annoying characters.
• 1:12:27
  It, it just doesn't work. You know, throughout all the,
• 1:12:31
  the, the series, films, books I read, when you have a character
• 1:12:35
  that is deliberately written as annoying, they're just annoying.
• 1:12:39
  It never works. He's also really thick.
• 1:12:44
  Like, unbelievably thick. He has lines like Jeremy could
• 1:12:49
  almost imagine. He could smell fried bacon.
• 1:12:51
  He could feel the saliva gathering in his mouth.
• 1:12:54
  Oh, it was true. Then Your mouth really did
• 1:12:57
  water. I mean, what?
• 1:13:00
  What are we doing? He's so stupid.
• 1:13:03
  At least in the ghost of End Space, Yeah, he gets to be
• 1:13:06
  brave. He holds a weapon and he and,
• 1:13:09
  and he gets to be like action man in the climax.
• 1:13:13
  He gets to protect Sandra Dickinson's character and he
• 1:13:16
  gets tortured horribly in a, in a sequence in in the ghost event
• 1:13:19
  space. So they try and make him have a
• 1:13:22
  bit of agency and make him capable in this.
• 1:13:26
  He's just, he's just tagging along in every scene.
• 1:13:29
  He's the one that's stepping in everything.
• 1:13:31
  He's the one that's always hungry or thirsty or losing his
• 1:13:35
  shoe. Or he's the Susan of this book.
• 1:13:41
  There's your tagline for him, the Susan of the book.
• 1:13:45
  Don't know who that's an insult to?
• 1:13:47
  Waltz. I can't, I can't leave my head
• 1:13:51
  around that because he's annoying.
• 1:13:52
  She's annoying, but who's worse? Oh, hello, Big Finish, I've got
• 1:13:57
  a story idea for you. No.
• 1:13:59
  Please 4 box sets. Jezza and Sue.
• 1:14:07
  But like, he's like the anti Harry Sullivan, Harry Sullivan,
• 1:14:10
  it's the same idea, sort of outdated character with just
• 1:14:15
  sort of old ideas about women and and and historically
• 1:14:21
  inaccurate sort of dialogue. But Harry's so funny and he's so
• 1:14:25
  capable and enjoyable, whereas Jeremy isn't.
• 1:14:31
  It's, I don't know of any Jeremy's real back story, do we?
• 1:14:34
  There's there's probably an absolutely fascinating tale to
• 1:14:36
  say how we got into that position or even knows Clarinda
• 1:14:40
  or got in there. Clarinda.
• 1:14:42
  Well, he, well, he, it's isn't when he, when he meets the
• 1:14:45
  Brigadier, isn't it? Because didn't the Brigadier go
• 1:14:48
  to go to the same school as Jeremy and Jeremy's?
• 1:14:52
  His uncle or his? Grandfather.
• 1:14:56
  Yeah, so, so I mean, it's not a very good, great advert for like
• 1:15:00
  the public school system. Is it really kind of thing if
• 1:15:02
  it's pumping up people like Jeremy.
• 1:15:05
  But but yeah, I think that's, I think that's the thing.
• 1:15:08
  Because like, obviously, like, I get what you're saying about
• 1:15:14
  he's kind of like the Harry Sullivan of this TARDIS team.
• 1:15:18
  But like, how like, you know, yeah, Harry can trip over things
• 1:15:23
  and, and, and put his foot in it as he does with the, the giant
• 1:15:27
  clown and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:15:29
  But you never feel that he's an idiot, despite what the Doctor
• 1:15:33
  actually says. You know, he is capable.
• 1:15:36
  He is the action hero sort of thing.
• 1:15:38
  Whereas I think with with Jeremy, he's just, he's just the
• 1:15:41
  posh twit, isn't he? He's, he's, he's, he's the posh
• 1:15:45
  idiot that you know, no one really likes those kind of
• 1:15:48
  people. You know, I think Sarah Jane for
• 1:15:51
  her feels slightly slighted that her time was spent with people
• 1:15:54
  like Jeremy and then she got to meet Brendan later on in K9 and
• 1:15:57
  company. She does get saddled with some.
• 1:16:01
  Yeah. And then all of those capets in
• 1:16:04
  the Sarah Jane adventure, she's like, what did I do to deserve
• 1:16:06
  all? And actually, I love those kids
• 1:16:08
  as. We said they're great, the Sarah
• 1:16:09
  Jane. I always feel like you need to
• 1:16:12
  take a character on their own terms, right?
• 1:16:14
  If you're right in this sort of upper class FOP into a book,
• 1:16:18
  yeah. Don't you as the author
• 1:16:21
  patronize that character? You know, like, like just try
• 1:16:25
  and get into their head and and explain who they are and let the
• 1:16:29
  let the reader decide. But when you introduce a
• 1:16:32
  character with. I've got a message from Clarinda
• 1:16:35
  about that. She said she told you to she do
• 1:16:39
  her best, so she sent me and you're not to laugh.
• 1:16:41
  Well, that tells you everything that Barry let's thinks about
• 1:16:43
  that character, which is he's a complete idiot.
• 1:16:46
  Well, I mean, that's the thing, you know, he, he doesn't get a
• 1:16:49
  fair, a fair start at all, does he?
• 1:16:52
  Because, you know, do we hate him because he is annoying or do
• 1:16:58
  we hate him because it seems like all of the other characters
• 1:17:01
  around around him hate him and find him annoying and, and, you
• 1:17:06
  know, irritating and all this sort of stuff.
• 1:17:08
  It's sort of like, you know, you've been hit over the head
• 1:17:10
  with it, that, you know, this is a character that you're meant to
• 1:17:13
  love, to hate, you know, so. Dolan smiles, includes Jeremy in
• 1:17:19
  interference and in just a couple of moments, Sarah's sort
• 1:17:24
  of dealing with him throughout that.
• 1:17:26
  And it's an older Jeremy and just so much better designed in
• 1:17:30
  two scenes than he is here. And then Gary Russell writes him
• 1:17:34
  into Instruments of Darkness, which is a past doctor
• 1:17:37
  adventure. And spoiler everybody, he turns
• 1:17:39
  out to be the villain of that. He's lost his memory and and and
• 1:17:42
  by the end of the book he gets his memory back and he's a fully
• 1:17:45
  rounded character. So it can be done with Jeremy.
• 1:17:48
  I just think you as the writer, if you're patronising that
• 1:17:53
  character from the off, I don't know that they've got a hope in
• 1:17:55
  hell to be appealing to the audience.
• 1:17:58
  He raises a good question though, doesn't he?
• 1:18:00
  Does he? He obviously will never know
• 1:18:02
  because Barry's not here anymore.
• 1:18:04
  But is he? Does he think he's being
• 1:18:06
  patronised? You know, from Barry's point of
• 1:18:08
  view? Does he think he's being
• 1:18:09
  hilarious? I think Barry thinks he's being
• 1:18:12
  hilarious. This, this is a funny character.
• 1:18:15
  You will laugh. That just the Benny Hill.
• 1:18:20
  Diddle diddle dumpling stuff. He can't think that's funny, but
• 1:18:24
  that's probably Dan's laughing. But not not.
• 1:18:30
  Not because that's meant to be a joke.
• 1:18:32
  That's what's funny about him. You know my son John, Doesn't he
• 1:18:37
  say you? Know the nursery rhyme?
• 1:18:44
  What is it? I mean, listen to this, pretend
• 1:18:47
  to be dim witted, says Sarah a, said Jeremy on second thought
• 1:18:51
  was just say, as sweet as you are, everybody's treating him
• 1:18:54
  like this. He hasn't got a fucking hope.
• 1:18:58
  Cross with him losing his shoe outside, isn't he at one point?
• 1:19:02
  I think Sarah's kind of sweet on him.
• 1:19:05
  Well. Have you seen the man who plays
• 1:19:07
  him? He's really handsome.
• 1:19:09
  It's unbelievable that voice comes out of that face,
• 1:19:12
  honestly. Well, you know what it reminds
• 1:19:14
  me of? There was a Big Finish trilogy
• 1:19:17
  with Klein and and basically on the cup when the cover up came
• 1:19:23
  out and you were like. Oh, he looks so hot.
• 1:19:26
  And it was Jeremy Fitz Oliver, wasn't it?
• 1:19:28
  Wasn't he? Sounded just like him.
• 1:19:30
  And it was like, hang on, this character, when you saw in the
• 1:19:32
  artwork and everything, you thought, oh, he's going to be
• 1:19:34
  this young. And then it's like, oh, it's
• 1:19:35
  Jeremy. Have you ever been so
• 1:19:38
  disappointed listening to an audio?
• 1:19:40
  It's not going to believe it. The look of the actor on the
• 1:19:42
  cover versus how he sounded. And it is the cover of the
• 1:19:45
  character's name all of a sudden, but it was basically a
• 1:19:50
  repeat of Jeremy. So, so whoever wrote that said,
• 1:19:54
  you know what, you know what we should do?
• 1:19:57
  We should bring back the beloved Jeremy Fitz Oliver, unless that
• 1:20:01
  was a something they originally wanted to do but couldn't get
• 1:20:03
  the rights because Barry let's said no.
• 1:20:07
  Because it is a unit. They are from unit, aren't they?
• 1:20:09
  They're in the. Barry, you've had the rights to
• 1:20:11
  the characters in 93 for. This I think maybe it's just an
• 1:20:15
  excuse not to use. It why we don't hate Klein that
• 1:20:18
  I know she was a Nazi, but a saddler with Jeremy Fitz Oliver
• 1:20:21
  that's a bit much. I know she rewrote the whole of
• 1:20:25
  history to make it, you know, Nazi Britain, but please.
• 1:20:28
  Imagine if it wasn't Clara Oswald travelling through the
• 1:20:31
  Doctor's past. But Jeremy fits Oliver.
• 1:20:35
  Oh no, please. Oh my God.
• 1:20:39
  Anyone out there want to put some videos together with Jeremy
• 1:20:42
  Fitz? Oliver rescuing the Doctor.
• 1:20:44
  Can you imagine how different Heaven Sent would have been if
• 1:20:49
  the doctor was mourning the loss of Jeremy instead?
• 1:20:55
  I'd understand it more. What?
• 1:20:57
  What do you mean? I've only got.
• 1:20:59
  I'm not even alive. I've got so much to do.
• 1:21:02
  I've got a library book to return that's left on Earth.
• 1:21:03
  You can't possibly read it. What you mean?
• 1:21:06
  Come with me now. We need to get out of here.
• 1:21:08
  That Bally crow is going to come at me in slow motion.
• 1:21:12
  Oh, locks. Locks.
• 1:21:14
  Let me jump. Out of the way, Jeremy.
• 1:21:15
  No, no, stay there. We're fine.
• 1:21:17
  You just. Leave it there.
• 1:21:19
  I somehow knew we were going to descend into a load of Jeremy
• 1:21:22
  Fitz Oliver impressions here. I mean, what of what are you
• 1:21:25
  saying? I'm going to travel around time
• 1:21:28
  and space with a lesbian in an American diner?
• 1:21:32
  What a what a future. That would be worth watching,
• 1:21:36
  actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:39
  It might make Season 9 tolerable.
• 1:21:41
  You know, Series 9. Oh, boy.
• 1:21:45
  Yeah. He's not popular, though, is he?
• 1:21:47
  Let's, let's be frank, like, like, we can sort of tolerate
• 1:21:50
  him for the sake of this ridiculous book, but you know,
• 1:21:56
  he's as irritating as pubic lice, really.
• 1:22:03
  We don't. Next companion on the Tardis.
• 1:22:05
  Don't give him ideas because he wants to call one companion
• 1:22:08
  Petrol. I've had this great idea for her
• 1:22:14
  companion puppy Glass. Amazing.
• 1:22:18
  Marvelous. I bet petrol, water and I bet
• 1:22:20
  that was special. I bet so.
• 1:22:23
  Petrol don't get near that fire. Never saw that coming.
• 1:22:31
  He's a twat though. Let's be honest, Jeremy is a
• 1:22:34
  twat. I think it's quite succinct.
• 1:22:38
  Yeah, yeah. Anyway, sums it up very nicely.
• 1:22:42
  Touched a little bit on Sarah Jane, but just to give her a
• 1:22:45
  due, because we've given a lot of thought on Jeremy, do we
• 1:22:51
  think that Sarah's investigative skills come through in this
• 1:22:54
  story well? Is Sarah Jane Smith in this book
• 1:22:58
  because there's somebody who's calling herself?
• 1:23:00
  She's on the cover and a very, very fetching cover it is, I've
• 1:23:03
  got to say. She looks like she's got a
• 1:23:06
  problem with one of her eyes. I was really worried when one of
• 1:23:09
  her first lines was this. You ready?
• 1:23:11
  Sarah Jane Smith was fed up. Or was she disgruntled?
• 1:23:16
  Question mark? No, not that.
• 1:23:17
  But not particularly gruntled either.
• 1:23:20
  I was like, oh boy. My favorite bit of those early
• 1:23:23
  bits where we actually get a little bit of stuff that's not
• 1:23:25
  in the play where we, you know, she's in her flat and everything
• 1:23:28
  and she she's like, oh, she needs to get in touch with the
• 1:23:32
  doctor. So she just casually rings UNIT
• 1:23:35
  and it's like the the top secret security organization with its
• 1:23:40
  sign outside with the brigadier's name on.
• 1:23:42
  She just looked at what looked at with the phone book.
• 1:23:45
  You. UNIT, there we go Direct Line
• 1:23:48
  and there's bits later on where you know, her investigative
• 1:23:50
  journalist skills are just asking for the number of the
• 1:23:53
  doctor's car and I know. She's a writer, OK?
• 1:23:56
  And I know Barry Letts is a writer but the amount of times
• 1:24:00
  Sarah Jane Smith thinks a cliche and then goes oh not another
• 1:24:04
  cliche and like Barry one, don't point out that you're using
• 1:24:08
  cliches 2 Stop using cliches like she does it all the way
• 1:24:15
  through the book. The problem is that he's he's
• 1:24:19
  not writing her as a journalist. She just goes around saying I'm
• 1:24:23
  a journalist and that's it. She doesn't do a huge amount of
• 1:24:30
  journalist thing. She just goes around telling
• 1:24:32
  everybody thinking I'm a journalist, I'm going to write a
• 1:24:34
  story. Instead of actually writing
• 1:24:36
  something about being a journalist as part of her
• 1:24:38
  character and part of what she does in the story, she just says
• 1:24:41
  it. And you remember at the Ghost
• 1:24:42
  Offence base, she wants to write a romantic novel.
• 1:24:45
  That's why she's over in Italy, you know, to get inspiration to
• 1:24:48
  write. Who is this Sarah Jane Smith?
• 1:24:51
  Oh boy, 2 kill two birds with one stone, that's what.
• 1:24:56
  And then in brackets, cliche exclamation mark.
• 1:24:59
  Stop doing that Sarah. She was quite annoying in this
• 1:25:03
  as well. Is this a point that we we
• 1:25:06
  mentioned the cheese and pickle sandwich?
• 1:25:10
  Pickle sandwich the same way again.
• 1:25:12
  I waited till I was taking a drink at that point to mention.
• 1:25:15
  Probably one of the best. I did see the slight pause,
• 1:25:17
  yeah. The the the the one of the best
• 1:25:20
  pieces of writing in this whole book.
• 1:25:22
  I don't have the passage to hand, but I'm going to guess
• 1:25:24
  that somebody else does. 173. Go on Gareth, read it to us.
• 1:25:29
  Now we will go to 173 of our text.
• 1:25:33
  You will read from the passage of Let's.
• 1:25:37
  What a wonderful teacher you would make.
• 1:25:43
  Where are we here? Oh, have I got it wrong?
• 1:25:49
  Worldo versus cheese and pick. Ah, here we are.
• 1:25:53
  Was she in love? She'd been in love before, but
• 1:25:56
  this was somehow different. She just liked thinking about
• 1:26:01
  him the way you couldn't stop thinking of a cheese and pickle
• 1:26:07
  sandwich when you hadn't eaten for yonks and was stuck on a
• 1:26:13
  story. Cheese and pickle.
• 1:26:19
  I mean, actually when he came into a choice between a hot
• 1:26:22
  bloke and a cheese and pickle sandwich.
• 1:26:24
  Oh my God. What?
• 1:26:25
  She was a sandwich. You know, on the right day.
• 1:26:27
  Oh, I can't. Say Henry, Lex was married,
• 1:26:28
  wasn't he? Yes.
• 1:26:30
  That does. Wonder what?
• 1:26:31
  Sandwich. He thought his wife was Spam.
• 1:26:36
  There was no. He goes, he does go on.
• 1:26:40
  There was no question of it. She preferred men with small
• 1:26:44
  bums. Oh yeah, Oh my God, she's
• 1:26:47
  obsessed with his bum the way we didn't say.
• 1:26:50
  And that is followed by Joe, your favorite line of the book.
• 1:26:54
  Oh for heaven. Oh for heaven's sake.
• 1:26:56
  Now she was not only writing cliches, she was a walking,
• 1:26:59
  talking cliche herself. And how superficial could you
• 1:27:02
  get thinking about a bomb? Well, I'm very superficial then.
• 1:27:09
  The chapter ends with the sound of Jeremy throwing up.
• 1:27:13
  Yes, echoing me. Dan, what about you?
• 1:27:19
  What do you think about Sarah in this?
• 1:27:20
  Well, I think that's it's passages like that that kind of
• 1:27:24
  make me feel that this is Joe Grant, not or some weird Joe
• 1:27:28
  Grant, Sarah Jane kind of hybrid because because that just
• 1:27:33
  doesn't feel like feel like Sarah Jane.
• 1:27:35
  And then we've got like there's a passage in I think it's like
• 1:27:39
  it's really early on in the book.
• 1:27:41
  I think it's Page 3 where she again, I think it, I think the
• 1:27:47
  the problem with with Sarah in this book is not necessarily
• 1:27:51
  what she says, but it's her internal monologue.
• 1:27:55
  That doesn't sound like Sarah Jane because she's here thinking
• 1:27:59
  to herself, she goes, did she want a man?
• 1:28:03
  Well, since you are Sarah, dear, No, not at the moment.
• 1:28:08
  Overgrown school boys, the lot of them especially.
• 1:28:12
  But Sarah wouldn't even let his name come into her head.
• 1:28:16
  Mr. 0, Mr. Zilch, Mr. Do you forgive me if I throw up?
• 1:28:23
  It it does not. Has he met a woman ever?
• 1:28:27
  Barry Letts. It's a shame, isn't it, Because
• 1:28:31
  you think when when we start the whole space world and she's
• 1:28:34
  going into space world and starts looking around at you
• 1:28:36
  think, oh, this could be good because we're actually setting
• 1:28:39
  her up for something. And then once space world's
• 1:28:42
  concept is jettisoned, everything.
• 1:28:47
  Yeah. It has no relevance on the rest
• 1:28:50
  of the story. Does anyone know if it's still
• 1:28:52
  there now? Is on your running that it's
• 1:28:54
  just there? Was just this this park
• 1:28:57
  somewhere that still exists? Gareth, it's not real, you know,
• 1:29:00
  it's just a book. Well.
• 1:29:02
  It's real. It's I like the fact that at the
• 1:29:05
  end of the story, it's like on your turns around, well, I'm
• 1:29:07
  the, I'm the, I'm the chairman now.
• 1:29:09
  It's like what you just elected yourself.
• 1:29:14
  Hostile takeover. That's what it was.
• 1:29:17
  You know what's worse? Is he right?
• 1:29:19
  Sarah is stupid as well and that that I don't like at all.
• 1:29:22
  I don't mind Jeremy being written as stupid and he's a
• 1:29:25
  cum, but I Sarah, I don't like being written as stupid because
• 1:29:28
  she's really competent and especially in season 11, she was
• 1:29:32
  great. Do you remember her plowing
• 1:29:34
  through into invasion of the dinosaurs, investigating
• 1:29:37
  everybody? You know, why don't you take off
• 1:29:38
  that ridiculous gear and home to your butcher's shop in the Time
• 1:29:42
  Warriors? Just marvellous.
• 1:29:44
  And here she's so stupid that she thinks, one, that the
• 1:29:47
  doctor's going to give an interview and spill all of his
• 1:29:50
  secrets and allow it to be published in a newspaper, and
• 1:29:53
  two. If.
• 1:29:54
  It's Clarinda, she thinks Clarinda's going to take that
• 1:29:57
  story seriously. And publishing.
• 1:30:01
  Without any pics. And then she gets this line.
• 1:30:04
  Are you ready for this time, Ram?
• 1:30:07
  Says the Doctor. Oh, don't tell me the TARDIS was
• 1:30:09
  attacked by a Randy sheep with a clock for her face.
• 1:30:12
  I was like, oh God. I mean, I did laugh when
• 1:30:16
  Elizabeth Slayden said it because she can make any lines
• 1:30:19
  sing. But on the page, man, that line
• 1:30:21
  just sinks. This is, again, is is it?
• 1:30:26
  Let's thinking no one's going to what, listen to this.
• 1:30:30
  So I'm just going to throw in everything that amuses me.
• 1:30:33
  Oh, I think he thinks it's good, yeah.
• 1:30:38
  There there feels like there's a self delusion behind this.
• 1:30:42
  Well, Speaking of delusions and escapism, how do we feel about
• 1:30:47
  the virtual reality experiences that come over in this book?
• 1:30:51
  We kind of touched on it and mentioned it in passing a little
• 1:30:54
  bit in the opening question. How do we think ER plays into
• 1:30:58
  this and sedating the masses? Well the the Brigadier gets a
• 1:31:05
  bit of an experience of reality very early on where he goes to
• 1:31:09
  that beach with some tanned female figures in bikinis and as
• 1:31:17
  I say, casting his mind back to the Wilder days of his youth
• 1:31:20
  when he had acquired a number of very fruitful chat up
• 1:31:24
  techniques. Before he could open his mouth,
• 1:31:28
  he suddenly became aware of his legs as he stretched them out in
• 1:31:31
  front of him. And then it goes on.
• 1:31:34
  But yeah, there's a, there's a sense of horny break going on
• 1:31:37
  and. And Josh?
• 1:31:39
  Inventon 5 rounds rapid. I mean, that's the thing,
• 1:31:43
  Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart does not seem like a ladies man.
• 1:31:46
  He does not seem like someone that has got an arsenal of chat
• 1:31:51
  up lines where he he charms, he charms the ladies.
• 1:31:57
  He charms Doris. Yeah.
• 1:32:02
  Doris chose him. She chose him.
• 1:32:05
  She's the one with all the money and the power in that
• 1:32:07
  relationship. Yeah, it's, it's it's weird,
• 1:32:14
  isn't it? But but it also adds to the the
• 1:32:17
  Barry, Barry Letts is a pervert kind of don't it?
• 1:32:21
  I mean, because, because, because it's, you know, we we
• 1:32:24
  we've got like a character that's big into say to masochism
• 1:32:27
  pretty much, isn't it? You know, intrigue and you
• 1:32:30
  you've got like all of these kind of like things like that.
• 1:32:34
  Where where because doesn't he doesn't he isn't there a line in
• 1:32:39
  that bit where he goes, there isn't anything better than a
• 1:32:42
  than the female form in a bikini or something?
• 1:32:44
  And then he goes and some of them were even in bikinis.
• 1:32:47
  So it's so he's implying that they were topless as well, I
• 1:32:50
  suppose words to that effect anyhow.
• 1:32:53
  And then, you know, there's also, there's also a bit, isn't
• 1:32:56
  there, where the, when the, the the journalists are being taken
• 1:33:01
  on this tour and, and there's like a what is described as a a
• 1:33:07
  big breasted, blonde haired, slightly dim journalist kind of
• 1:33:14
  thing where it's greber, isn't it?
• 1:33:17
  No, no, it isn't Greber. Who is it?
• 1:33:21
  Yeah, I think it is Greber. I can't remember who, who it
• 1:33:27
  was, but anyhow, whoever, whoever's kind of taken him on
• 1:33:29
  the tour, he's staring at her boobs, you know, sort of thing.
• 1:33:33
  And it's, it's like, well, as, as David pointed out, this is a
• 1:33:39
  target book at the end of the day.
• 1:33:40
  It's it's tacked there on the end of the range.
• 1:33:44
  And yet it, it, it some of it comes across as as sort of like
• 1:33:48
  the, the, the juvenile grown up adultness of, of the new
• 1:33:52
  adventures in many ways. But anyhow, that but, but it I,
• 1:33:57
  I just, it just doesn't feel like the Brigadier, you know,
• 1:34:00
  that that sort of, you know, him going, going on about his, his
• 1:34:07
  youth with fruitful chats. It's just like, really.
• 1:34:12
  The bizarre thing about the painted toenails and then the
• 1:34:16
  joke around that and Sarah's like, oh, Brigadier painted
• 1:34:19
  toenails. I was like, oh place God.
• 1:34:22
  I mean, in the middle of the book, the ER becomes important,
• 1:34:27
  doesn't it? Because you realise that that
• 1:34:30
  not only can you kill people, you can experience killing
• 1:34:36
  people with it. And that leads to the sort of
• 1:34:39
  hunting part of the second-half of the story and all that stuff
• 1:34:42
  in the arena. But like, as far as I'm aware,
• 1:34:47
  Jeremy Fitz Oliver puts on the headset and is having an orgy or
• 1:34:52
  something. And he's like, oh, Lords, oh,
• 1:34:55
  no, don't touch me there, please.
• 1:34:58
  And only rips it off in time. The headset that is in order to
• 1:35:03
  save himself from that so you can also experience all of your
• 1:35:06
  sexual fantasies as well. Barry, let's Jesus have a wank,
• 1:35:10
  will you? Come on now.
• 1:35:12
  It felt like a bit like, you know, I mentioned still earlier
• 1:35:14
  with the corporation because in vengeance on virus doesn't
• 1:35:17
  doesn't he start trying to talk about peddling those 18
• 1:35:21
  certificate video nasties? And we know that there's stuff
• 1:35:24
  in the higher channels that you don't go near for the experience
• 1:35:28
  reality stuff. But it it it it's interesting
• 1:35:31
  having having something that you know, in 93 what what games
• 1:35:36
  consoles were we on in 93? Can anyone remember I suppose?
• 1:35:40
  It'd be the mega. Drive Mega Drive, Mega Drive,
• 1:35:42
  Super Nintendo, Super Nintendo around that time, which actually
• 1:35:46
  the. Lawnmower man and stuff like
• 1:35:48
  that. Haven't we at this point?
• 1:35:49
  So like, you know, this sort of virtual reality was the thing.
• 1:35:53
  Well, yeah, but the late 80s, early 90s, you're really getting
• 1:35:56
  computer games into people's home.
• 1:35:59
  And so it's interesting that he's tapping into that at the
• 1:36:02
  moment. Yeah, most people have probably
• 1:36:05
  got some form of games console now in their homes, the
• 1:36:07
  equivalent to having a television around.
• 1:36:10
  And I don't want to suggest for a minute that some of us might
• 1:36:13
  want to go on that to forget what's going on around us.
• 1:36:17
  But it's there actually are Oh no, not called ER.
• 1:36:20
  Yeah, Playstation's not a version, haven't they?
• 1:36:22
  Yeah, yeah. Which I think some people, I
• 1:36:25
  think that's why people play computer games, you know?
• 1:36:28
  It's much that having watched my brother lock himself in a room
• 1:36:31
  for days on end playing a game when when he was a teenager in
• 1:36:34
  the 90s, it's. Better to live in a fantasy than
• 1:36:36
  this bullshit we're living right now.
• 1:36:38
  When we can read stuff like this?
• 1:36:43
  Indeed. It's quite interesting though
• 1:36:45
  that that he, he's taken that leap because, because it's sort
• 1:36:49
  of like we are at this point, it's the infancy of, of like you
• 1:36:55
  say, people having computers and consoles in, in their, their
• 1:37:00
  home. VR at this point was kind of, it
• 1:37:05
  was kind of, it was a very science fiction concept.
• 1:37:08
  But obviously we're, we're now living in that age where it's a
• 1:37:10
  thing. But but it's, it's, it's, it's
• 1:37:14
  interesting that Barry took that kind of leap of like things that
• 1:37:19
  were kind of set up in a in a kind of innocent way that are
• 1:37:24
  then taken and kind of perverted and made less innocent.
• 1:37:28
  You know, that that that is about, you know, people getting
• 1:37:32
  their rocks off a bit, isn't it, you know, sort of thing and, and
• 1:37:35
  all that sort of business. It's it's interesting that he
• 1:37:39
  he's, he's kind of saw that, you know, the Internet was a tool,
• 1:37:45
  but basically now it's kind of a thing where people just download
• 1:37:47
  porn and stuff like that off of it.
• 1:37:49
  Isn't it you? Speak for yourself, all right?
• 1:37:52
  But, you know, it's, it's quite kind of kind of in a way that's
• 1:37:57
  quite insightful that, that basically whatever is created
• 1:38:01
  for good use always kind of gets gets turned on its head and, and
• 1:38:06
  kind of perverted and used in a in a bad way, isn't it?
• 1:38:09
  You know, but. But it's like, again, the story
• 1:38:13
  isn't going down that route to explore that because then we
• 1:38:17
  just head out into the forests and and doing the winds hunting
• 1:38:22
  and flying on the back of bats with cats for faces and things
• 1:38:26
  like it's a plot. Convenience, doesn't it?
• 1:38:28
  Towards the end to sort of experience elements of the plot
• 1:38:31
  that the main characters don't happen to be in the vicinity of
• 1:38:34
  at the time. Other than what figuring out
• 1:38:37
  where Ruddley is, that's about the only thing that it really
• 1:38:41
  lends itself to. And it's such a shame because
• 1:38:43
  it's set up quite solidly in that first episode of the
• 1:38:47
  possibility of this being a wrong and, you know, very
• 1:38:50
  similar to a junkie getting hooked up on your soap operas
• 1:38:52
  every night. You know, arguably that's still
• 1:38:56
  there now, but you know the the, but it just doesn't seem to get
• 1:39:01
  anywhere. The momentum's gone.
• 1:39:03
  Kept. Thinking we were going to swing
• 1:39:05
  back round to Space World at the end and that was going to be
• 1:39:08
  relevant and it just had nothing to do with anything.
• 1:39:12
  It was an entire episode of set up that had no relation to the
• 1:39:16
  plot beyond the ER stuff. Well, it, it was, it feels like
• 1:39:20
  it was just a device to kind of bring the Doctor and UNIT into
• 1:39:26
  the story. And, and, and basically, you
• 1:39:29
  know, because we, we obviously we've talked, spoken about the,
• 1:39:33
  the, the corporation frief and Tragan.
• 1:39:36
  You know, they're not even good businessmen because basically if
• 1:39:42
  you think about it, they brought suspicion on themselves because
• 1:39:47
  like you've got, you've got that bit at the beginning.
• 1:39:49
  Where is, is it Nobby and Bill, isn't it?
• 1:39:52
  I think that the two drunk Nobby Yobos.
• 1:39:57
  Here. We go.
• 1:39:58
  Here we go. The most convincing teenagers
• 1:40:04
  ever heard in any drama in my life.
• 1:40:09
  You know, they get get killed and then what was it?
• 1:40:12
  Is it? Frief says.
• 1:40:13
  Oh, yeah, don't let them both be eaten.
• 1:40:17
  A mangled corpse could be good for yeah, good for publicity.
• 1:40:23
  How? How is that good publicity that
• 1:40:25
  they've found, you know? To be honest, look at social
• 1:40:29
  media. Now, though, was let's on to
• 1:40:31
  summit. Maybe because he was.
• 1:40:33
  He was on some start. Clicking on it, click late in
• 1:40:36
  its earliest form. But I mean, you know, like that
• 1:40:42
  if they had just eat, you know, let the beasts eat, eat those
• 1:40:45
  two corpses, would the Doc do in the Brigadier have actually
• 1:40:49
  ended up, you know, it's just mad in it, you know.
• 1:40:53
  I mean, it could have just been, oh, Space World's opening,
• 1:40:55
  Sarah's going, why don't we tag along?
• 1:40:57
  Like, yeah, yeah. Although I've got to say, those,
• 1:41:00
  those opening episodes, just like Planet of the Spiders, the
• 1:41:03
  stuff on Earth I just thought was the most enjoyable of all.
• 1:41:06
  Investigating Space World, going around, trying the helmets on,
• 1:41:10
  especially on the audio, you know, all of that stuff.
• 1:41:12
  The Doctor going up to that vertiginous high and falling to
• 1:41:15
  his death. You know, I, I loved all that
• 1:41:19
  stuff. It's when we go to the planet.
• 1:41:21
  And even then those middle sections, they're, they're OK
• 1:41:24
  because you've got some villainous characters and an
• 1:41:26
  idiotic president. Or it was the last two episodes
• 1:41:29
  of the audio where I was like, fuck, this has gone over a
• 1:41:32
  Cliff. Like, oh, there's boring stuff
• 1:41:34
  out in the woods. Because I said before, this is a
• 1:41:38
  quite a shallow book. It doesn't add a huge amount.
• 1:41:40
  We get Sarah James flat and we get the inner monologue.
• 1:41:43
  That's what you want to call it, but it doesn't add a huge
• 1:41:46
  amount, but it does. I don't take that back.
• 1:41:49
  It does. It gives us some of on your on
• 1:41:53
  your farging her back story. We get this bit and I I probably
• 1:41:59
  skipped over most of that because I've never been so not
• 1:42:02
  invested in a character and their back story ever it.
• 1:42:05
  Goes on forever. I don't care for this character.
• 1:42:09
  It's like you. What the story needed was for
• 1:42:11
  him to pick either Sarah Jane or Jeremy or one and be that sure
• 1:42:16
  through character. That's the character we're going
• 1:42:18
  to follow through this story. This is the character who's
• 1:42:20
  going to develop and go on a journey.
• 1:42:21
  And if he just focused on that and in the hands of a better
• 1:42:25
  writer, Sarah having the hots, having a geowizard Chris crush
• 1:42:29
  on Waldo would have worked. It could have done in the right
• 1:42:33
  hands. Isn't that the Isn't that the
• 1:42:36
  American name for Wally? Yes, yeah.
• 1:42:40
  Does someone say Where's Waldo? At one point?
• 1:42:43
  She probably does. She's she's probably thinking
• 1:42:45
  about his arse. Yeah, where's?
• 1:42:47
  Where's more? Cheese and pickle.
• 1:42:52
  That's the first time I've heard it called that before.
• 1:42:55
  I've got a question though. When you're reading this and
• 1:42:58
  even when you're listening to the audio drama, what's the
• 1:43:01
  Brigadier wearing? Because for me, I don't see him
• 1:43:07
  in his military outfit. A bikini I'll see him in.
• 1:43:12
  I think never varnished. That's just how you see him,
• 1:43:16
  anyway. It's true, It's true.
• 1:43:18
  He's a pretty man. I it's funny because I see him
• 1:43:21
  because isn't it the cover for the ghost of En Space?
• 1:43:26
  Isn't the Brigadier on that? And he's in regimental blazer
• 1:43:31
  and TIE, Yeah. It's the same photo shoot, isn't
• 1:43:34
  it? For Paradise of Death, they just
• 1:43:35
  use two different photos on the covers of the cassette tapes,
• 1:43:37
  didn't they? Yeah.
• 1:43:39
  And I kind of see him dressed like that.
• 1:43:41
  So he's kind of like smart casuals or or whatever.
• 1:43:45
  Which again, feels odd because you never really got the
• 1:43:47
  Brigadier in series other than about the Green Death really.
• 1:43:51
  Yeah, and, and when they go to the girly show in Planted the
• 1:43:54
  Spider. So maybe Barry watched Planet of
• 1:43:56
  the Spiders and he's like, that's how he's dressed.
• 1:43:59
  And that kind of, can I say something massively positive
• 1:44:02
  about this book, 'cause obviously we've ripped it to
• 1:44:04
  shreds. They're own, They're own a
• 1:44:06
  passage left. Should we feel?
• 1:44:08
  We started up by saying how much we all liked it.
• 1:44:10
  Yeah, yeah, I. Mean is your positive thing that
• 1:44:12
  it ends. I mean, it ends very abruptly.
• 1:44:15
  But no, it's the doctor. I just thought the doctor was
• 1:44:18
  great in this, though. You know, he's how he's appalled
• 1:44:22
  that he's being interviewed at the start when he's heroic.
• 1:44:25
  Like I said, going up on the scaffolding and plumbing.
• 1:44:28
  The bit where he wakes up on the bloody slab and they'll think
• 1:44:31
  he's dead naked. Oh boy, boy.
• 1:44:36
  Taking them to the wrong planet. I mean, dealing with Jeremy, all
• 1:44:40
  of it is just so funny throughout the entire book,
• 1:44:43
  especially in the audio when Perkway, you know, moron, if you
• 1:44:47
  don't know the width of your car, get off the road.
• 1:44:50
  You know all this. Stuff somebody needs to do.
• 1:44:53
  The Perkway's exclamation when he realises he's being
• 1:44:56
  interviewed. Because that is one of my
• 1:44:59
  favourite moments. It's an interview, interview.
• 1:45:03
  You've been saying to me, interviewing me.
• 1:45:07
  I just love the fact in the audio.
• 1:45:11
  He wants to be there and he's how he is loving it and it comes
• 1:45:17
  across all the way through. He makes it work.
• 1:45:20
  I mean, imagine how good Doctor Who can be when you've got a
• 1:45:23
  lead actor who wants to be there and enjoys.
• 1:45:29
  You could see, Pert, we really want a simple case of bone
• 1:45:32
  relaxation. Do you see?
• 1:45:33
  That's how we survive the fall. You know, I sometimes think I
• 1:45:37
  stay on this planet just for the tea.
• 1:45:39
  You know, he gets all of this stuff is just so funny.
• 1:45:42
  But you also get that great moment with the 3rd Doctor.
• 1:45:45
  You know who's who's hobnobbed with the hobnobs and the higher
• 1:45:49
  ups and he the way the way the the the sort of introduction
• 1:45:52
  with free that he has over the the table.
• 1:45:55
  I thought you'd realise they've got Martian socks on.
• 1:45:58
  I'm just hoping that that's what they think as well.
• 1:46:00
  You know, it's it's it's wonderful.
• 1:46:02
  So it's per we, per we placed at his best.
• 1:46:06
  Oh, what about this? The president?
• 1:46:08
  President goes, I can't tell you the pleasure it gives me to
• 1:46:11
  welcome representatives from the United Nations of Earth.
• 1:46:15
  Too many other places we visit are far from united.
• 1:46:17
  And then the doctor goes, I think the word expresses A pious
• 1:46:21
  hope rather than a reality. President, he's great like he
• 1:46:26
  let's. His doctor is spot on, I think.
• 1:46:29
  And and John Perry is spot on in the audio.
• 1:46:32
  There's a great moment after or Waldo dies and Sarah is very
• 1:46:37
  upset and she says but and the doctor actually says you were
• 1:46:42
  right and I was wrong, which for the Pertri doctors like bloody
• 1:46:45
  hell, you know, he doesn't often admit he was wrong like that.
• 1:46:48
  And I thought it comes across quite nicely in the book.
• 1:46:51
  And Pertri plays it really well on audio as well.
• 1:46:55
  He it's a genuine, sincere moment where he's like, I was
• 1:46:58
  wrong, but a. Bit recessed When I lost my
• 1:47:01
  teacher I felt as if my father had died and that it just goes
• 1:47:05
  unquestioned that line. I was like, wow, that's deep,
• 1:47:12
  but. How do we square that with a
• 1:47:13
  timeless Child? It's in it.
• 1:47:14
  It doesn't work. The cannon's just shot to
• 1:47:17
  pieces. We've all we've determined.
• 1:47:19
  Is it a good story? That's all that matters, you
• 1:47:21
  know. We've kind of, we've kind of
• 1:47:24
  skirted into the audio realm. So let's bring it in, shall we?
• 1:47:29
  And give it some loving or a kick in if we if we think that's
• 1:47:32
  appropriate. So do we think it holds up for
• 1:47:35
  the 2 1/2 hours that it is over 5 episodes delivering the pedals
• 1:47:39
  of Paracon and the surreptitiousness of Space
• 1:47:43
  World? Oh oh.
• 1:47:52
  I, I, I love it. It's flawed.
• 1:47:55
  It is really flawed on many. I mean, all the things we've
• 1:48:00
  talked about the book are pretty much there.
• 1:48:02
  Jeremy is ridiculously annoying. Sarah Jane isn't written like
• 1:48:06
  Sarah Jane. The Brigadier Nicholas Courtney
• 1:48:09
  is saddled with dialogue that the character would never have
• 1:48:12
  said or thought or behaved like or anything.
• 1:48:17
  And yet I, I, we're Doctor Who fans.
• 1:48:20
  We're Doctor Who fans of a certain age.
• 1:48:21
  And I think we we like our nostalgia, and I have.
• 1:48:26
  A. Huge nostalgia for the the book,
• 1:48:28
  the cassettes which I had used to go on holiday, used to listen
• 1:48:32
  to the parallel dialects, Paradise of death, evil, the
• 1:48:35
  dialects on repeat. You know, I think I've listened
• 1:48:38
  to this on audio so many times. I know it almost verbatim.
• 1:48:43
  And like some of those things, yes, objectively it's terrible,
• 1:48:49
  but it's just, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
• 1:48:52
  And, you know, the, the the regulars, despite being saddled
• 1:48:55
  with some appalling dialogue, are just always listening.
• 1:48:59
  It's not just Pertwee who's giving it his all.
• 1:49:01
  I think all three of them are. I think Liz Sladen and Nick
• 1:49:04
  Courtney are doing their absolute best to make this work.
• 1:49:08
  I think the two main guest stars, despite everything,
• 1:49:12
  Harold Innocent and Peter Miles, bloody hell, they're they're
• 1:49:17
  going for it. And Morris Denham as well, he's
• 1:49:20
  great. I mean, he, he sounds like he's
• 1:49:23
  slightly pissed, but I think he's meant to.
• 1:49:27
  Yeah, the performances lift it. I love those actors.
• 1:49:31
  I love all of those actors. All of them.
• 1:49:34
  I think even the guy playing Jeremy's given it a bit of
• 1:49:37
  welly. So you could hand them the worst
• 1:49:40
  script ever written and Barry tried, and I would still really,
• 1:49:45
  really enjoy it. I don't know if I can be
• 1:49:49
  objective about it. I'm right.
• 1:49:51
  Like when I listened to it back in the day, it was just the best
• 1:49:55
  thing ever to have new Doctor Who.
• 1:49:57
  And so yeah, for this is one of those times.
• 1:50:00
  I mean, I really hate people that come on this thing and say,
• 1:50:04
  oh, you know, it's, it's great because I loved it when I was
• 1:50:07
  12, but it's great because I loved it when I was 12.
• 1:50:11
  You know, I was like I. Was about to say I've just said
• 1:50:14
  that. Yeah, well, I wasn't pointing at
• 1:50:16
  you directly. And that's basically, sigh,
• 1:50:18
  Hall's MO on this thing, you know, But no, no, it's it's kind
• 1:50:24
  of terrible, but it's really fun.
• 1:50:27
  They really smooth out those lines.
• 1:50:29
  It moves. It's got a great soundscape,
• 1:50:32
  Pete, how score is great in it. Like, I think it's, it's a
• 1:50:35
  really good production. It's got the wrong theme tune.
• 1:50:41
  It might. Is it a good story?
• 1:50:44
  No, Sorry, Dad. Go on, Dan, what about you?
• 1:50:50
  Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's sort of, I mean, I, I don't
• 1:50:54
  know about you guys. Did did any of you listen to it
• 1:50:57
  on broadcast on the radio? Because I, I, I didn't, I I got
• 1:51:00
  it for as a as a cassette tape for Christmas.
• 1:51:04
  Must have been 93 I guess. When was it?
• 1:51:07
  Paradise that had a repeat of one of its episodes.
• 1:51:09
  They put the wrong episode out. Yeah, yeah, they, they pulled
• 1:51:13
  them up. Didn't.
• 1:51:13
  They I'm very confused. I did as well because I was.
• 1:51:16
  Pressing the car when you used to press play and record on your
• 1:51:19
  thing and I was recording off the radio, yeah.
• 1:51:23
  But but I, I, I mean like, like David, I that, that I, I, you
• 1:51:27
  know, I've still, I've still got the cassette.
• 1:51:29
  But but I mean, it's probably, I've probably worn it out
• 1:51:33
  because I've listened to it so much.
• 1:51:35
  And, you know, those, those, those audios of like, I think I
• 1:51:40
  had the macro terror and the evil of Daleks.
• 1:51:42
  I think kind of and you know, I think, you know, we were just so
• 1:51:47
  hungry for for something new, weren't we?
• 1:51:51
  And you know, this, this really ticked a lot of the boxes.
• 1:51:57
  You know it, you know, you've got, I think like, like you guys
• 1:52:00
  say the I guess what you would call the regulars, the the free,
• 1:52:05
  the three main, you know, characters, they're all the
• 1:52:10
  actors are on form. They're just they're just just
• 1:52:14
  enjoying it and loving it and and really raise their game.
• 1:52:17
  You've got I mean, it's a that's a pretty strong cast as well.
• 1:52:21
  When you think Harold Anderson, Peter Miles, Morris Denham, and
• 1:52:25
  and then even the, the more sort of, you know, the actors and
• 1:52:29
  that you perhaps haven't heard of they're, they're, they're
• 1:52:31
  very sound. There's, there's not a bad,
• 1:52:34
  there's not a bad performance in there.
• 1:52:36
  There may be bad lines that they're having to say, but but
• 1:52:39
  the, the, the performances are there.
• 1:52:41
  And, and I think it is, it is, it's hard to be subjective about
• 1:52:44
  it because because of that nostalgia.
• 1:52:48
  But I can still listen to this now and I still love it.
• 1:52:53
  I still enjoy it. I think, like David said, it's
• 1:52:56
  flawed that there's there's so many flaws in it, but because
• 1:53:01
  it's so enjoyable, it's one of those those fun, enjoyable romp
• 1:53:04
  type adventures, isn't it? You know, and I think classic
• 1:53:09
  Doctor Who's littered with those sort of stories that they don't
• 1:53:14
  bear up to close scrutiny, but they're just so fun.
• 1:53:17
  And and I think this is a classic example of that.
• 1:53:20
  But but obviously in the audio kind of medium.
• 1:53:23
  And I kind of feel like we were robbed a little bit because
• 1:53:27
  obviously you we only got one more after this.
• 1:53:30
  And then, you know, poor John Pertwee passed away.
• 1:53:34
  But I think, you know, if, if you know, imagine like, you
• 1:53:37
  know, if he'd he'd gone on for another 10 years, how many more
• 1:53:40
  of these? And, and I think, I think they'd
• 1:53:43
  finish. Big fit.
• 1:53:44
  Yeah, in the chat. Big Finish.
• 1:53:46
  He would have been all over that.
• 1:53:48
  Shit. Oh, no, no, no.
• 1:53:49
  Yeah, yeah. I'm talking about my
• 1:53:51
  regeneration, that it's one of their biggest regrets that they
• 1:53:53
  never got to him in time. Yeah.
• 1:53:57
  I mean, I just have this horrible vision that had he been
• 1:54:00
  around in 98 and they would do, Oh no it isn't.
• 1:54:04
  They might have got him. They might got him to play
• 1:54:06
  Wolsey the Cat and not Nick. And although part of me would
• 1:54:11
  want to hear that, I think Nicholas Courtney gives the best
• 1:54:15
  ever. Performance in Ratchet John,
• 1:54:17
  though, you know what Ben is the king with balls get bigger every
• 1:54:20
  year. It'd be great.
• 1:54:23
  But like in the stories like Phantasmagoria and the Marian
• 1:54:27
  Conspiracy and stuff like that, God, he would have just flown in
• 1:54:30
  stories like that. Yeah, what a shame.
• 1:54:35
  And also because it's, it does play to Pertwee's strength,
• 1:54:37
  because a lot of like his, his earlier work was, you know, like
• 1:54:42
  the Navy Lark and what it was radio, wasn't it?
• 1:54:44
  You know, and, and I, I can remember my dad talking about
• 1:54:49
  that. He he, he went to, he had a
• 1:54:52
  sister that lived in Worthing and he went, he went up there to
• 1:54:57
  visit her and Perth Whitley did like a one man show on the, the
• 1:55:02
  theatre. I get, I don't know whether it's
• 1:55:04
  on the pier or whatever. I I haven't got foggiest.
• 1:55:08
  But and he said he was just the voices and all that, you know,
• 1:55:14
  this, this was his medium really, wasn't it?
• 1:55:16
  You know, and, and I think it comes across and you know.
• 1:55:21
  He's loving it in the paradise. He's just love it and, and kudos
• 1:55:26
  to the director as well, because I think he really imbues it with
• 1:55:29
  energy and pace. It just doesn't let up.
• 1:55:32
  It just runs from 1 scene to another.
• 1:55:35
  I, I don't know if you can get bored even.
• 1:55:37
  Like I know I was complaining about the boring forest scenes
• 1:55:40
  at the end, but there's loads of action and he's still doing
• 1:55:43
  really interesting things with all the soundscapes and
• 1:55:46
  everything. So yeah, as a production, I
• 1:55:48
  think it's pretty solid. Ship all that away, you get
• 1:55:53
  slightly dull final third of the book and and and the ending is
• 1:55:58
  better on audio because it does feel like Barry's got to page
• 1:56:01
  240. He's got 250 page word count and
• 1:56:05
  he's just like. He just slams the brakes on,
• 1:56:08
  doesn't he? That's it, finished.
• 1:56:11
  Oh, I could murder a cup of tea. The end.
• 1:56:14
  It's like we don't need the scenes where the president's
• 1:56:16
  told the truth with Onion, we'll just cut all that he.
• 1:56:18
  Was just thirsty himself when he got to the end of it.
• 1:56:21
  Imagine if Terrors had written this target.
• 1:56:23
  Oh, Barry, Right. I'm going to add a whole bit of
• 1:56:26
  the end, tying all this up. The paradise of death was over.
• 1:56:31
  The End. There we go.
• 1:56:33
  Yeah, I'm not going to add much more, I think, to what you gents
• 1:56:35
  have already said. I also had nostalgia fields for
• 1:56:38
  this. I think I've mentioned it before
• 1:56:41
  when when I threw this one out here because I can still
• 1:56:45
  remember getting I think he stopped Drew Magazine 208 when
• 1:56:48
  they announced it and reading it at my grandmother's and this is
• 1:56:51
  93. I just become a fan properly in
• 1:56:54
  92. So this for me was the first
• 1:56:57
  original Doctor Who ever to come across and I can be remember
• 1:57:02
  getting still get. I can still feel the excitement
• 1:57:05
  in me and I think I was saying to before we started.
• 1:57:10
  I was listening late last night to episodes 1-2 and three, and
• 1:57:17
  obviously I'm, I'm listening to them for this.
• 1:57:21
  But I got so caught up in the adaption that was there in front
• 1:57:25
  of me and listening to those wonderful voices and the sound
• 1:57:27
  effects and I've got quite a good ability for recall.
• 1:57:31
  So I'm, I'm remembering where I was when I listened to it and I
• 1:57:34
  was like, Oh my God, hang on. I'm supposed to be listening to
• 1:57:36
  this for a reason. And I've managed to sit through
• 1:57:39
  for an hour and completely miss everything and just just just
• 1:57:42
  absorb it all. And I, I found it rather
• 1:57:46
  cleansing. Is this the best way I can
• 1:57:49
  describe it? You know, literally like someone
• 1:57:51
  just put a Metabelius crystal to me for it.
• 1:57:53
  And I can't explain it more than that.
• 1:57:58
  I really can't. I mean, I can remember.
• 1:58:01
  I think I caught the. Tail end of one of the Superman
• 1:58:03
  episodes when they were on the radio at the time and I remember
• 1:58:08
  they're thinking all right, because I think there was a
• 1:58:10
  couple of Batman ones. They didn't a Spider Man 1 round
• 1:58:12
  about that time on the radio as well, but they paled in
• 1:58:17
  comparison to the paradise of death.
• 1:58:19
  And yes, I know the continuity is a bit looping.
• 1:58:21
  Yes, I know it doesn't quite fit in with everything else.
• 1:58:25
  But in 1993, John Pertwee, Dr. and I, I'm like David, I feel we
• 1:58:31
  were robbed because ghost men space was held over for an
• 1:58:34
  additional year. I believe they should have gone
• 1:58:37
  out the following year. They didn't put it out.
• 1:58:38
  They put it out a year later and by that point, time moves on.
• 1:58:43
  He's just great, isn't he? Like he's great.
• 1:58:46
  Even on his last legs at the end of his life, he's had that a
• 1:58:50
  screwed where he just gets to be not in any way the doctor he was
• 1:58:54
  on TV and he's just having the best time.
• 1:58:57
  All just a bit of fun. Yes, he loved because some of
• 1:59:01
  those convention clips on the Blu rays where he loves the idea
• 1:59:05
  that he is the current incarnation Dr. He loves it and.
• 1:59:10
  If you had any misunderstanding about that fact when he turns up
• 1:59:13
  at crinkly bottom going well, well, well, I've never gone back
• 1:59:17
  this far in time before. He is Nick.
• 1:59:22
  I thought they were talking about his waist.
• 1:59:26
  I'm in it, you know, by marvelous companions.
• 1:59:29
  He and all the other doctors. I, I, I think from, from like, I
• 1:59:35
  don't know, 89 to, you know, the TV movie coming out.
• 1:59:39
  He was the, the early 90s doctor, though, wasn't it?
• 1:59:42
  Because it was always Pertway. Like you say, Noah's house
• 1:59:46
  party. It was Pertway.
• 1:59:49
  I mean, we've got that, that interview where the, the where
• 1:59:52
  the got that competition fuck up on there.
• 1:59:55
  Oh, that. Anus the Daleks was television.
• 2:00:03
  That's wrong. There's one more that's even
• 2:00:07
  better than that over in the name of the programme.
• 2:00:10
  Crank up your granny. Yes, and of.
• 2:00:15
  Course, it's literally an old woman who goes off on this
• 2:00:18
  massive hoist and it was in. It was a Saturday night BBC One
• 2:00:24
  game show, like one of the sort of big primetime massive sets.
• 2:00:28
  It was two families competing and the grands from each family
• 2:00:31
  were hoisted in a cage and if they lost a challenge or
• 2:00:35
  something the granny got hoisted higher and the crowd all had to
• 2:00:38
  chant hoist up your crank up your granny.
• 2:00:41
  I'll tell you what Dad, I'll send you the link is.
• 2:00:45
  The makers of the Hamster Book Club would like to apologise for
• 2:00:50
  the fact that reading The Paradise of Death may affected
• 2:00:53
  them slightly. Crank up your granny.
• 2:00:57
  And every week they had a celebrity score or something.
• 2:01:00
  And John of course turns up in costume.
• 2:01:02
  I think he material, he materialises it because that's
• 2:01:04
  what you do when you're a Doctor Who actor appearing in
• 2:01:06
  television in the 90s. You can't just appear, you have
• 2:01:09
  to materialise. But he obviously owns the
• 2:01:11
  costume. There was such nostalgia for his
• 2:01:14
  doctor in the 90s, wasn't there like in the early 90s and, and
• 2:01:18
  sort of how back when Doctor Who was really popular.
• 2:01:21
  Now it's been cancelled. So we look back to when it was,
• 2:01:24
  it was at its high and you had a serious doctor, you know, and it
• 2:01:28
  was a show that I mean, it didn't at the time once that
• 2:01:31
  took itself seriously. So I can understand why they
• 2:01:35
  went for Barry and John for this.
• 2:01:38
  Absolutely. I mean, everybody, I know,
• 2:01:41
  everyone listen to this. We were desperate for this
• 2:01:44
  stuff. But that's the other thing,
• 2:01:46
  though, isn't it? Although we have plotzed about
• 2:01:48
  it this evening, there were a lot of people who were overly
• 2:01:51
  critical about it. Yeah, and.
• 2:01:54
  Including me. I always, I always felt a little
• 2:01:57
  bit disheartened about that because I never so I could see
• 2:02:00
  it's flaws, but it was, it was perfectly serviceable for what
• 2:02:06
  it was. I think fans are just miserable
• 2:02:10
  sometimes. It's like, here's a fun romp,
• 2:02:14
  just go off and enjoy it and just take it for what it No, no,
• 2:02:16
  no, no. It I suppose we're fans.
• 2:02:20
  We are. Yeah.
• 2:02:20
  The the theme you tune was wrong.
• 2:02:22
  They've got the continuity wrong in the 1st 5 minutes.
• 2:02:26
  If you put that out to a fan base that's hungry for new
• 2:02:29
  Doctor Who and you're making a couple of what some people would
• 2:02:33
  see as fundamental errors, you have lost them at that point.
• 2:02:37
  It's interesting, isn't it, because Big Finish then end up
• 2:02:39
  using the 70s theme on all the 80s doctors and when they use
• 2:02:42
  that. The irony.
• 2:02:44
  These are these are the two stories where we got John back
• 2:02:47
  again. And you know, like Lucas, James
• 2:02:50
  Jenkins thought I was mad when I said about how much I enjoyed
• 2:02:53
  the Ghost of N Space, both as a book and as a an audio.
• 2:02:57
  But I got to listen to John for, you know, 10-11 more episodes,
• 2:03:02
  however many it is just having the best time, man, you can't
• 2:03:05
  tell me that isn't heaven. I mean it's.
• 2:03:11
  Fun. Why can't Doctor Who just be
• 2:03:13
  silly fun? I mean, I'm going to repeat my
• 2:03:17
  point of a Doctor Who wants to be there in a fun and engaging
• 2:03:20
  story that is a romp that doesn't take itself too
• 2:03:23
  seriously. Have we got any further comments
• 2:03:28
  about the paradise of death in either novel or audio form?
• 2:03:32
  Yeah, it's absolute tripe, but delirious tripe, tripe.
• 2:03:37
  You want to get your face in and go.
• 2:03:40
  Yeah. Your headset off, Joe.
• 2:03:46
  I think I have gone mad now. Yeah, I, I, I mean, other than
• 2:03:52
  the, the motorboating bit, I, I do kind of, I do kind of agree
• 2:03:57
  with, with, with Joe, I recommend that you read this or,
• 2:04:04
  or listen to the audio because it's fun.
• 2:04:09
  You know, just just don't scrutinize it too much.
• 2:04:13
  Don't, don't look into it too deeply.
• 2:04:15
  Just go. Just let it take you on the
• 2:04:17
  journey. Let let it take you for that
• 2:04:19
  ride. But you're saying don't do what
• 2:04:21
  we've done for the last two hours.
• 2:04:25
  Don't listen to us, just go and listen to it.
• 2:04:29
  Yeah, yeah. They put put that bit at the at
• 2:04:31
  the beginning and then people can just skip if they want to.
• 2:04:35
  Hopefully they won't hear that trite bit, yeah?
• 2:04:39
  It's one way of knowing that they've got to the end.
• 2:04:41
  That's true, yeah. I sometimes when I was reading
• 2:04:47
  the book and obviously some knowing Barry Letts, Barry Letts
• 2:04:50
  as a, you know, his voice. So sometimes when you're reading
• 2:04:52
  the prose, there are times when you kind of get, you know,
• 2:04:56
  imagining Barry Letts saying some of these prose,
• 2:05:00
  Unfortunately, then you're saddled with your very well
• 2:05:02
  spoken baronets, you know, and it was also unfair.
• 2:05:08
  He always tried to keep his nose clean where more or less what
• 2:05:11
  was the point of making a pile of dosh if you were looking over
• 2:05:14
  your shoulder all the time for the fuzz or worse?
• 2:05:18
  And it's like, you know, you can just like this is Barry Letts,
• 2:05:20
  the man who's so erudite when he's he's being interviewed.
• 2:05:22
  He came across this really quite an intelligent, thoughtful
• 2:05:25
  person. And then I'm reading this prose
• 2:05:28
  and it's like, is this the same man?
• 2:05:31
  Or is he just basically grabbed somebody off the street giving
• 2:05:34
  them a tenner saying just write me a?
• 2:05:35
  Book that that that has just reminded me of something because
• 2:05:41
  I, I, I was I've read this and it and it, I think it is very,
• 2:05:46
  it's very middle class, isn't it?
• 2:05:52
  Yeah. And we've got 3 characters in it
• 2:05:57
  that are middle class and not middle are working class.
• 2:06:02
  And, and it, it kind of made me think, does Barry Letts, not
• 2:06:07
  only is he a bit of a pervert on, on the quiet, but also I
• 2:06:12
  think he, I'm not sure that he likes the working classes over
• 2:06:15
  because you've got these three characters in it.
• 2:06:18
  So it's Bill and Nobby, these two drunks that roll out of a
• 2:06:22
  pub. They are walking cliches.
• 2:06:25
  It's sort of like where's your little Green Man and all this
• 2:06:28
  sort of thing, England, England and all that sort of stuff.
• 2:06:31
  And they obviously meet their demise.
• 2:06:33
  And then the next one is Greber with, you know, he's an ex
• 2:06:36
  brickie who's somehow I I don't know what he does in this
• 2:06:40
  corporation, but but he's obviously it's illusion.
• 2:06:43
  Marketing, I think he's. Worked his way up from being a
• 2:06:48
  brickie, you know, kind of thing.
• 2:06:49
  And, and, and even Jeremy goes, oh, he's a bit of a OIK and all
• 2:06:53
  this and, and obviously he meets his demise as well.
• 2:06:57
  And it, and it kind of got me. It was just so, I don't know,
• 2:07:00
  it's just one of those weird random thoughts that popped into
• 2:07:03
  my head. There's three more Dan, you've
• 2:07:05
  forgotten Rance, Medan and Ungar, the peasants that he
• 2:07:09
  calls peasants. Yeah.
• 2:07:13
  Because he's got Frith being a bit classist later when he's
• 2:07:16
  talking about Onyefargin saying an upper middle or at least a
• 2:07:20
  little something like that is class comes out a few times, but
• 2:07:23
  it's. Onyefargin.
• 2:07:25
  Doesn't that sound like a rude euphemism?
• 2:07:29
  Yeah. The more we keep saying it, the
• 2:07:31
  worse it does. It does sound like some sort of
• 2:07:34
  sex act, doesn't it? How's your onyefarginine going?
• 2:07:38
  Follow up with Katie Anglesey. I spent all night doing a Jeremy
• 2:07:46
  Fitz Oliver. There are so many things to say.
• 2:07:52
  I don't know which way to go in and retort, but I think before
• 2:07:57
  we all go off and paint our toenails, we're going to go for
• 2:08:02
  our top three now. Oh yes, I forgot what it is.
• 2:08:07
  So the top three is obviously the Paradise of Death book.
• 2:08:11
  We Are a Book Club was born out of an audio and you know,
• 2:08:16
  topical at the moment because we've just had the chimes of
• 2:08:19
  midnight and Jubilee audios developed as books.
• 2:08:24
  What other three audios would we like to see as books?
• 2:08:30
  So everyone's looking away from the camera now, dear listener.
• 2:08:33
  So this could be interesting. Buckle up.
• 2:08:37
  Let's start with Dan. Okie, Dokie, do you want me to
• 2:08:43
  do all three or or Yeah. Go on.
• 2:08:46
  OK, the first one I'm going to go for and I, I've chatted with
• 2:08:53
  with Dylan about this on on his podcast and it's Robophobia,
• 2:08:58
  which is a, a solo 7th Doctor audio.
• 2:09:03
  It's sort of like a sequel to to Robots of Death.
• 2:09:10
  So it's got it's got killer robots or, or has it wandering
• 2:09:14
  around and what have you. I quite I I mean, I, I get what
• 2:09:19
  Joe says about the Sophie Eldridge thing and an ace kind
• 2:09:23
  of thing. Not quite translating onto audio
• 2:09:25
  in the way that you know. So I rather like these these 7th
• 2:09:30
  doctor solo adventures. There's a, there's a handful of
• 2:09:34
  them and I, and I think it it at, at this point, it feels like
• 2:09:38
  Sylvester isn't kind of just reading straight from the
• 2:09:42
  script. It actually feels thought out
• 2:09:44
  and, and well, well acted. The only drawback is, are are
• 2:09:49
  we, are we making the writer of the story?
• 2:09:54
  You know the audience. You know what that means?
• 2:09:57
  It means this is going to be written by Nicholas.
• 2:09:58
  Bridge, which is a little bit. Concerning so could we have Rob
• 2:10:04
  Sherman or? No, it's got to be written by
• 2:10:07
  the by the ricer. OK, well I might scribble that
• 2:10:10
  one out, but but yeah, Robophobia.
• 2:10:12
  It's a story I really enjoy. Hopefully Nicholas Briggs could
• 2:10:16
  do a good job of doing doing it as a novel.
• 2:10:20
  You've heard of the other The other, the title that Robophobia
• 2:10:23
  went under. No.
• 2:10:25
  The last time Nicholas Biggs tried, oh Oh dear, everything
• 2:10:32
  he's written said. But that's a good script.
• 2:10:34
  Yeah, it's very, very good. Then I'm going to I, I really
• 2:10:41
  this, this I think would be really good because it's a
• 2:10:44
  Jonathan Morris script. I think of all of the the people
• 2:10:49
  that I think him and Paul Mars are probably kind of like the
• 2:10:53
  the ones that are really doing good, good stuff with, with,
• 2:10:56
  with that sort of the the Doctor Who range as it is now kind of
• 2:11:02
  and it's the space race. So so it's it's one of the the
• 2:11:06
  1963 range to that came out with the the 50th anniversary.
• 2:11:12
  So it's a 6th doctor and Perry, obviously, you know, Colin's
• 2:11:17
  well into his renaissance at this point, you know, and it and
• 2:11:20
  it's, it's quite that interesting story of, of aliens
• 2:11:23
  have found Leica grafted on bits from, from cosmonauts and
• 2:11:31
  astronauts that they've they've kind of kidnapped and, and it
• 2:11:34
  and it's kind of it's a really good story.
• 2:11:36
  It's quite dark as well, isn't it, where the animals are
• 2:11:39
  wanting to kind of take over and what have you and and harvest
• 2:11:43
  more lyrics and stuff off of humans.
• 2:11:49
  So I think I think that would be really good.
• 2:11:50
  And obviously, you know, Jonathan Morris, what an author,
• 2:11:53
  you know, I think he'd do a really good job.
• 2:11:55
  And then I'm going really, really classic with this.
• 2:11:59
  This this is really early into the main range of Big Finish and
• 2:12:03
  I'm and I think this is one that perhaps probably does come under
• 2:12:08
  a bit of stick, but it's one that I really, really enjoy.
• 2:12:11
  I think it's one of the first big finishes I had on cassette
• 2:12:15
  and that is the Spectre of Lanyon Moore by Nicholas Pegg.
• 2:12:19
  So, so again, it's, it's that wonderful team of the 6th Doctor
• 2:12:23
  and Evelyn Smythe, but you've also got the Brigadier as well.
• 2:12:27
  So it's, it's the 6th Doctor and the Brigadier and, and, and I
• 2:12:31
  think I think it could be a really good, a really good
• 2:12:33
  novel. So those are my 3.
• 2:12:37
  Corking choices there, Dan. Thank you.
• 2:12:39
  David, how about you? What's your three?
• 2:12:41
  Well. I approach this slightly
• 2:12:44
  differently because the one thing I sometimes wonder with
• 2:12:48
  they do these new novelisations is they take the classics.
• 2:12:52
  They take takes the stories that already work and work really
• 2:12:55
  well and build on them. Wouldn't this be a really
• 2:12:58
  interesting opportunity to take the utter shit and actually give
• 2:13:04
  it to a writer and go? Can you make this work?
• 2:13:07
  I would love from Target Books to announce we're going to do a
• 2:13:11
  new novelisation of Underworld, we're going to do a new
• 2:13:13
  novelisation of Time Flight. We're going to actually make
• 2:13:16
  these stories work and we're going to bring the character
• 2:13:18
  make bring them to life. So I was kind of thinking, what
• 2:13:21
  is the worst of Big Finish? What kind of lower the low?
• 2:13:25
  So I googled just before we came on and literally searched what
• 2:13:30
  are the worst big finishes? And I ended up on this review
• 2:13:32
  site called Docoho Reviews, which actually was one of the
• 2:13:37
  one of the first one of the top search results you.
• 2:13:41
  Don't want to listen to that? Come, good God.
• 2:13:43
  And it's an Oscars, particularly on the worst of the worst from
• 2:13:47
  the 1st 90 and and yeah, you know, do we want a novelization
• 2:13:52
  of Land of the Dead? Oh, no.
• 2:13:57
  Or maybe you know something like Sword of Orion.
• 2:14:00
  Maybe you know. No, David, please.
• 2:14:04
  And then? Spare me.
• 2:14:05
  You know, could somebody take Necromantea?
• 2:14:09
  Oh. God.
• 2:14:11
  And make it work. But I think I'm doing this just
• 2:14:14
  to get reaction now from Joe because I also and I and I said
• 2:14:17
  it in the chat and I wish I hadn't because maybe as like a
• 2:14:20
  novella series to do wants and future.
• 2:14:23
  Oh Christ Almighty. And get an author to kind of tie
• 2:14:28
  that all together and then follow up, you know, we've got
• 2:14:30
  like collections of big finishers.
• 2:14:32
  But the moment, you know, these are broad suggestions, it's not
• 2:14:34
  a top three, it's top, God knows whatever.
• 2:14:36
  But I would love someone to sit down, take the last day and turn
• 2:14:42
  that into a. Crack.
• 2:14:44
  You are a pervert, David Glaspie Pratt, all right.
• 2:14:49
  Because you know you can, you can, you know you can take
• 2:14:52
  chimes of Midnight Jubilee, you've got, you know that's not
• 2:14:55
  a challenge for a writer. Take something really bloody
• 2:14:59
  awful and make it work. I have heard some obscene
• 2:15:04
  suggestions on this podcast in the last 1000 episodes, but you
• 2:15:08
  Sir have outdone yourself today. Oh, I've won.
• 2:15:16
  And then, Joe, do you top that? I think I would like to
• 2:15:22
  challenge an author because I went for one which is the one I
• 2:15:28
  think would be the hardest to turn into a book.
• 2:15:31
  But if anyone can do it, it's Rob Shearman.
• 2:15:33
  And so I want him to novelize Skirt.
• 2:15:36
  So because it's set in a white void with two characters and try
• 2:15:41
  and make that work for 280 odd pages, boy, you could do it.
• 2:15:46
  I think you could do it. It would be a brilliant
• 2:15:48
  character book. Also think I'd like to go for
• 2:15:52
  something quite dense and epic. So let's throw in a Death in the
• 2:15:59
  Family by Stephen Hall, which is just one of the best scripts
• 2:16:04
  they ever brought out. It has so many layers to it and
• 2:16:07
  ways in which you could expand it as a book.
• 2:16:12
  And the last one. I just the greatest.
• 2:16:17
  It's the greatest, isn't it? This should novelise the grace.
• 2:16:20
  You stop being so perverted over in that corner there.
• 2:16:23
  All right. OK.
• 2:16:24
  Do you want to come back on one of these?
• 2:16:27
  What is wrong with you? You're sick.
• 2:16:31
  No, I I want more Jacqueline Rayner.
• 2:16:33
  I just love Jacqueline Rayner, and I love her as a novelist as
• 2:16:36
  well. And so do I go for the marrying
• 2:16:39
  conspiracy, or do I go for Doctor Who and the Pirates?
• 2:16:42
  And I'm going to go for Doctor Who and the Pirates.
• 2:16:47
  Let's see what she can do with that musical episode on the
• 2:16:49
  page. But it would be witty and warm
• 2:16:53
  and funny and imaginative and heartbreaking in the way the
• 2:16:57
  best of Jacqueline Rayner is. So yeah, that's my free.
• 2:17:01
  Well, I've probably got more route one with some of these.
• 2:17:04
  So in reverse order at #3 I've got storm warning just because I
• 2:17:09
  want more than one Paul McGann target book.
• 2:17:13
  There needs to be more than one. And why not start as you mean to
• 2:17:17
  go on and see if you get people interested in sales and then
• 2:17:19
  maybe do the other maybe skip sort of Orion my do you mean?
• 2:17:24
  Do you mean you went in hell? Joe.
• 2:17:28
  Joe's going to ban me. To be honest, other than other
• 2:17:32
  than storm warning they they are.
• 2:17:34
  That's not a great season of, is it?
• 2:17:37
  You know, because it's. I love one of great Venice.
• 2:17:39
  Tons of Venice is nice, yeah. I didn't like it.
• 2:17:42
  I still would write an amazing version of Stones of Venice I
• 2:17:45
  think on the page. My second choice is Project
• 2:17:50
  Lazarus, just because I'd be very interested to see how they
• 2:17:55
  play out the revelation on that between the two doctors that's
• 2:17:59
  in there and how that story is told.
• 2:18:02
  I just think that just just for a moment, just from the
• 2:18:04
  mechanics of how they would do that in prose, I think could be
• 2:18:07
  really interesting. Breaks your heart that story,
• 2:18:10
  doesn't it? Even crying at the end when
• 2:18:13
  Cassie dies. Oh boy.
• 2:18:15
  And. My number one choice is Death
• 2:18:19
  comes to Time because I think that could be a thick wodge of a
• 2:18:25
  book and that would actually be really good to get into.
• 2:18:31
  And just for completeness I will say in my continuity Death Come
• 2:18:34
  to Time did exist. The 7th Doctor did die, but he
• 2:18:38
  didn't really die because in my head it was the only way Ace
• 2:18:42
  would ever leave him is if she thought he was dead.
• 2:18:45
  Well, so he staged his own deaf. Yes, because he knew she would
• 2:18:48
  never leave him any other way. It's the only way to get rid of
• 2:18:52
  her. Yeah, but then never mind having
• 2:18:55
  an argument. So yeah, so death comes out of
• 2:18:56
  time, wouldn't it? That would be.
• 2:18:58
  It'd be, it'd be fascinating because you've got so many
• 2:19:00
  characters, there's some so much story to tell that it tries to
• 2:19:03
  pack into those episodes. And I know some people don't
• 2:19:07
  like it, but I, I think it's a stand alone piece in itself.
• 2:19:10
  Again, very similar to the paradigm.
• 2:19:11
  You can just get lost and absorbed in that world you're
• 2:19:13
  listening to. And I think as a book it could
• 2:19:16
  be a corking read. It wouldn't be as thick as the
• 2:19:19
  last day as that sadomasochist in the corner there just
• 2:19:23
  suggested, but it would be pretty thick.
• 2:19:25
  Yeah. Epic.
• 2:19:27
  Doctor Who's Lord of the Rings? End of the 7th.
• 2:19:35
  Well, gentlemen, that brings us to the end.
• 2:19:41
  I'm really scared though. I think sometimes Big Finish
• 2:19:43
  listens to these things. They're going to take all of
• 2:19:46
  David's suggestions seriously, and the schedules are going to
• 2:19:49
  be rife with necromentia. So are.
• 2:19:52
  We going to get a Jeser and Sue series.
• 2:19:54
  Oh Jeser and Sue, Jeser and Sue, what they going to do?
• 2:19:58
  Jeser and Sue. Oh, boys are boys.
• 2:20:02
  Oh look, Susan, what are we going to do today?
• 2:20:05
  Can can we get a mug with Sarah Jane and Jeremy on it?
• 2:20:12
  I'll. Do my best.
• 2:20:15
  Oh, give us your best Jeremy Fitz Oliver, please.
• 2:20:19
  Oh chaps, I can't even remember what we're doing next.
• 2:20:25
  I don't think we settled on it. I think there's talk of doing
• 2:20:28
  one of those. I know everyone's got it.
• 2:20:31
  That's a that's a problem. I'm sure we can find a copy.
• 2:20:36
  We we also talked about was it the Paul Mars and Steve Cole?
• 2:20:41
  Was it? Well, one night, yeah.
• 2:20:44
  Does everybody have that? Yeah, I've got it.
• 2:20:48
  I can get it. Oh, I mean, I've covered it on
• 2:20:51
  track one, but we only covered a couple of stories, so just go
• 2:20:54
  into that is some. Oh, it's fucking amazing.
• 2:20:56
  It's such a great book. Number six, I'm a pile.
• 2:20:59
  And about halfway through or. Should we do that?
• 2:21:01
  And then maybe some people might find the Rani Choose Your Own
• 2:21:05
  Adventure book in their stockings this year.
• 2:21:07
  You never know. When we do that, are we actually
• 2:21:10
  going to do the choose your own adventure as part of the?
• 2:21:14
  That raises an interesting question, doesn't it?
• 2:21:16
  Now, which version of this do we all read?
• 2:21:19
  What choices do we make? Oh, no, I mean, I mean
• 2:21:23
  literally, we do it on the call. But we read the book.
• 2:21:27
  We choose our own adventure. Yeah, and then we get to
• 2:21:32
  experience it live. My God, you have faced the MB
• 2:21:36
  modem of death. Imagine.
• 2:21:40
  Hang on, are you now suggesting we do we do it live?
• 2:21:44
  Yes. No, I mean.
• 2:21:48
  Actually live? Oh my God, terrifying.
• 2:21:51
  What if we have a think about that?
• 2:21:54
  But imagine we all go down different paths.
• 2:21:55
  We all have a very strange adventure.
• 2:21:59
  Reach what? What happens if we get killed?
• 2:22:01
  Quite. Early on.
• 2:22:03
  Oh well, unfortunately you're out then, I'm afraid.
• 2:22:06
  Or we all just as it comes to a decision point.
• 2:22:08
  I've never, I've done one of these in years.
• 2:22:09
  I don't know how these work, but you get to a decision point.
• 2:22:11
  We each take it in turn, we collectively.
• 2:22:17
  We all take the next part of the story.
• 2:22:19
  Yes. It's a.
• 2:22:21
  It's a. Yes, Oh my God.
• 2:22:24
  Who's going to get a? Pressure of us letting the side
• 2:22:28
  down. You just know there's just going
• 2:22:30
  to be something amazing in the diseased minds of Pip and Jane
• 2:22:33
  Baker in that book. If this becomes a format, do we
• 2:22:36
  have to hunt out the Capaldi ones as well then?
• 2:22:39
  Well, if it works, yeah. If we're there for five hours
• 2:22:42
  wondering our bat life choices, then no, OK.
• 2:22:46
  If we're worrying about our life choices, I'm going back to page
• 2:22:48
  2. People are being very indulgent
• 2:22:52
  with us now doing our admin on the call, but 1001 nights in
• 2:22:56
  Thomas space next and then choose your own adventure with
• 2:23:00
  Pip and Jane Baker. Wonderful.
• 2:23:03
  Madness. How?
• 2:23:04
  Do we? How do we end this in a paradise
• 2:23:06
  of death sort of way? Cup of tea.
• 2:23:11
  Get along.