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

Transcript

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

• 0:33
  Hamster with a plump pen knife to do it quicker quicker.
• 0:36
  Quicker man the barricades. Everyone we are, we are shall
• 0:41
  taking shelter in the battle of the farm.
• 0:44
  Here we've been left with no resources, no food, and only a
• 0:50
  little tiny DVD player with room for 1/5 inside.
• 0:56
  And that fifth grades family of blood, I am joined here by my
• 1:01
  own family of blood in the sort of way one more family of blood.
• 1:07
  Yeah, more than their family of blood.
• 1:09
  But my name is Jack Clam. I suppose if we're going by the
• 1:17
  themes of a military slaughter that we're about to watch.
• 1:21
  Minutes, 45 minutes. You can call me General
• 1:24
  Disinterest. I'm joined Overwave by my 2
• 1:30
  Earth while colleagues. It's the Thunder from now on
• 1:34
  that Mister Stephen B AKA Captain.
• 1:37
  How are you, Captain? Captain Oh, I think I've been
• 1:42
  over promoted there, Jack. You sure you want to do this,
• 1:44
  General Listener? You've been over promoted
• 1:47
  because we have to have someone to claim a regime.
• 1:50
  So it's time to introduce our third member, the one we all
• 1:57
  have to tolerate in order to be on these recordings because
• 2:03
  we're not going to get Toby Haydock money unless we spend a
• 2:07
  good few years doing this sort of thing.
• 2:10
  It's the man we all know and some of us love.
• 2:17
  It's the guy with innuendo every occasion.
• 2:22
  If you want an innuendo, he'll give you one.
• 2:26
  It's Joe Ford, AKA Private part. Say hello, Private.
• 2:32
  Oh, Jack Goya, marry me. No, well, I, I, I think like
• 2:41
  John Smith, faced with the options of marriage and suicide,
• 2:45
  I think I. I'm in an awkward situation
• 2:51
  here, you know, because I can't honestly disagree with a single
• 2:54
  point you just made. Hello.
• 3:00
  Hello. So human nature, which is we've
• 3:03
  just had, we're now in human nature Part 2, which is not
• 3:06
  called human nature Part 2, the family of blood.
• 3:10
  We've obviously spoken the method one a little bit about
• 3:14
  the adaptation process and I kind of wanted to get a little
• 3:17
  bit more into that just at the start so that we can, you know,
• 3:20
  concentrate a bit more in episode 2 on what makes this so
• 3:24
  great. You know, direction, writing,
• 3:27
  performance, musical school or that sort of thing, which the
• 3:31
  viewers but the listeners aren't out if you're coming here for
• 3:34
  rather than sort of haphazard memories of undergraduate thesis
• 3:39
  from 10 years ago. But so when I was a university
• 3:44
  or a years ago, I did one of the modules in my course was called
• 3:50
  adaptation studies, a field of artistic criticism, literary
• 3:54
  criticism that maybe doesn't receive quite as much attention
• 3:58
  because of the we all love to believe our works of art are
• 4:02
  sort of special bit of individual films and you can
• 4:05
  never touch them or change them or, you know, that sort of seems
• 4:08
  a little bit less worthy. But the problem that we face as
• 4:13
  Doctor Who fans is that we want to Doctor Who a lot.
• 4:16
  And Doctor Who is the perhaps the ultimate postmodern, you
• 4:23
  know, pop culture machine. You know, ever since Terry
• 4:28
  Nation decided to just sort of jot down some what if we took
• 4:33
  the noses and put them in robot shells and put them in an
• 4:37
  episode that damned yeah, you know, 60 odd years ago.
• 4:41
  We've had, you know, and then did it again and again and again
• 4:45
  and again. We've had, you know, costume
• 4:49
  dramas. We've had cat ones that are a
• 4:51
  bit like Carry On. We've had ones that are a bit
• 4:55
  like, you know, Chacon and steel, a bit like, you know, the
• 5:01
  equator mass serials. We've had stuff.
• 5:04
  It's a bit like Frankenstein or the What's the one that's the
• 5:11
  Android guitar of The Prisoner of Sin doesn't.
• 5:14
  Like. We've had yeah, we've had what
• 5:18
  if it was a bit like Sherbet Holmes and the incredibly
• 5:20
  racist? We've had what if it was a bit
• 5:23
  like even then was the loved ones.
• 5:27
  What if it was a bit like, you know, whatever, look up, listen,
• 5:31
  Castor Bell were meant to be. What if it's a bit like, Oh
• 5:34
  dear, you know, we've had what what if, you know, we the the
• 5:42
  creator of the dialect was just basically like, you know, an s s
• 5:46
  officer and we can put him in it.
• 5:50
  Point being that we've had throughout Doctor Who's history,
• 5:54
  these signifies of pop culture that have been sort of mushed
• 5:58
  and recycled and, you know, put out in in this programme and
• 6:03
  they all fit under the same umbrella sort of.
• 6:07
  And eventually we have to come around because we've got no pop
• 6:11
  culture left. We have to sort of cannibalise
• 6:13
  other Doctors Who and it comes back around to make this.
• 6:19
  What would you say for a bit of my mind much viewer human
• 6:23
  nature, but what are some of your guys favorite examples of
• 6:28
  Doctor Who adapting work from other mediums, taking things
• 6:33
  from arts and culture and literature and sort of
• 6:38
  transposing them onto the format of Doctor Who.
• 6:42
  What what are some of your favorite examples of those?
• 6:45
  It's a little, I expect that question.
• 6:47
  Does it have to be on television?
• 6:50
  Oh, no, it doesn't, because obviously Big Finish is
• 6:52
  obviously about you say, Oh, I don't know if you're going to
• 6:54
  name a big finish, but obviously that's a whole nother layer of
• 6:57
  what we we made, you know, big, big stories.
• 7:03
  And you know, obviously some writers are very a lot more, you
• 7:09
  know, liberal with how how they adhere to the source material.
• 7:13
  Some writers were a little bit more conservative with, and I
• 7:17
  don't mean politically or I'm going to refer to, for example,
• 7:20
  Gareth Roberts, who you know, if you want Gareth Roberts to write
• 7:24
  you a season 17 story, he'll do the English way of death.
• 7:28
  If you want him to write a story, a season 24 story, he'll
• 7:33
  give you Bam, bam, boom. He won't give you the five of
• 7:36
  Vulcan, for example, because that's not, you know, the season
• 7:39
  24 that he remembers watching. So yeah.
• 7:44
  No. So I can't.
• 7:45
  Yeah. What?
• 7:45
  What are some examples that you like?
• 7:47
  Doctor Who's taking a different source material and I'm in with
• 7:52
  it. Sorry to be a bit naughty, but I
• 7:54
  wasn't talking about a Big Finish either.
• 7:56
  I was talking about a book my but I think my absolute favorite
• 8:01
  Doctor Who story that takes like a whole medium and does
• 8:08
  something fascinating with it is Steve Lyons The Crooked World,
• 8:11
  which is Doctor Who doing WB cartoons and literally put in
• 8:18
  the Doctor Fitz and Andy into a cartoon world.
• 8:21
  But then making the whole piece this startlingly adult treaties
• 8:26
  on death, morality, individuality and just adding
• 8:32
  huge layers to what could have just been sort of a knocker.
• 8:36
  And now Lux in the next season has got a lot to live up to.
• 8:40
  It's going to be anywhere near as good as the crooked world
• 8:43
  when we're turning the doctor and blender into cartoons.
• 8:46
  But that is literally taking a whole, taking cartoons as a
• 8:50
  whole and examining, examining and eviscerating them by the end
• 8:55
  of it. It's absolutely fascinating.
• 8:58
  But if you want to go to Doctor Who on TV, they're basically the
• 9:02
  entire Hinchcliffe Holmes run. And yeah, Hammer Horror was
• 9:06
  transposed into that run for three seasons very successfully.
• 9:11
  Very odd. Yeah, and Stephen, I assume your
• 9:15
  points of pop culture reference are beyond Warner Brothers
• 9:18
  cartoons, so why don't you? Oh.
• 9:20
  You bastard. Wow, I have.
• 9:25
  AI was brought up on Bugs Bunny cartoons.
• 9:27
  So that's that's a terrible thing to say.
• 9:31
  Look, I'm going to ask you this. I'm going to ask your, I'm going
• 9:35
  to answer your rhetorical question first about what
• 9:37
  Castrovelva and Lucopolis are. Lucopolis is very clearly an
• 9:41
  analogue, I think for effectively alchemy.
• 9:44
  And really we've got this wonderful examination of
• 9:48
  solipsism and MC Escher in Castrovalva.
• 9:52
  So I think it's clear cultural. Well, you said, oh, didn't you
• 9:57
  Jack? You did say we.
• 9:58
  Could reference, but if I were to, if I were to, if I were to
• 10:03
  choose one, I think like Joe, I'd have to go back to the
• 10:06
  integral theorem because I think it's really self consciously
• 10:09
  trying to do so. And the story that I think maybe
• 10:15
  I consider to be the best of classic who on some days at
• 10:18
  least is Genesis of the Daleks and the and the text there is
• 10:21
  history. The text there is the rise of
• 10:24
  fascism in the 20s and 30's, the war, you know, the Second World
• 10:29
  War and the morality and the politics that underpin
• 10:33
  effectively a far right oppressive authoritarian regime
• 10:38
  and libertarian free thinking common man, everyday man or
• 10:43
  every man that is the Doctor. And I think the dialogue between
• 10:47
  Davros and Tom Baker's Doctor, you know, I think in Episode 4,
• 10:52
  Part 4 is perhaps the perfect distillation of the ethos of at
• 10:57
  least the politics of Doctor Who, particularly as a text that
• 11:01
  he sort of informed and developed in the shadow of that,
• 11:05
  that, you know, great scar on history, which is the Second
• 11:09
  World War, which really transforms his, you know,
• 11:11
  society as a whole. But I do want, I do want to go
• 11:19
  back to a point that you made around this very idea of Doctor
• 11:23
  Who retelling stories because effectively it's cannibalizing
• 11:26
  its own mythos or other texts. And I think that's kind of
• 11:34
  something that Doctor Who has to do by virtue of the fact that
• 11:37
  it's no longer just a television show, it's longevity, but also
• 11:42
  it's nature in terms of it being the televisual age ages
• 11:49
  equivalent, I guess, of the the modern myth, which is something
• 11:55
  that Joseph Campbell talks about in terms of the hero's journey,
• 11:58
  I think means that it has to retell its own its own stories.
• 12:03
  And it does so in the same way that, you know, the Greeks did.
• 12:06
  There's multiple tellings and stories of of inversions of the
• 12:10
  Greek myths. I think Doctor Who does the same
• 12:13
  thing here in in human nature, but also things like Sharda, for
• 12:18
  instance, or we mentioned Star Beast earlier.
• 12:22
  This is kind of where we're at where where the show almost
• 12:26
  organically reaches into its own past as well as the the antiques
• 12:31
  antecedents of of other texts and art, etcetera to to recreate
• 12:37
  stories in the way that we see human nature and family of
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  blood. I think I think that's it's
• 12:42
  great strength. Yeah, I think it's very, but I
• 12:50
  mean Gemsis, like you say is an interesting one because we're
• 12:52
  playing on, not only are we playing on historicals, we're
• 12:56
  playing on Doctor Who's own history in the sense of it's
• 13:00
  building off of those historic stories that we've seen before
• 13:04
  and adding to them. And going here are these
• 13:08
  fictional 1 military figures, if you like.
• 13:12
  What's the figures, you know, figures behind the dialect for
• 13:15
  me or as as any old general or in front of the gym, you know,
• 13:21
  base commander or whatever would be, except they are of the
• 13:27
  dialect and and that the creation of that is meant to be
• 13:31
  in the Doctor Who fans mind the same as, you know, a story
• 13:36
  that's behind what how did they say when our fees or whoever has
• 13:40
  come to be with within this universe.
• 13:43
  This this Canon has its own sort of history and its own timeline
• 13:48
  that we can go back and insert bits into.
• 13:54
  So when it comes to this, obviously we talk and we'll
• 13:57
  continue to talk about it, about it's, you know, what it does and
• 14:03
  changes and what it can and can't do.
• 14:07
  Because obviously television and film, I think the reasons why
• 14:10
  they're so powerful is not only obviously how readily available
• 14:17
  they are to the average person, but in any way, you know, books
• 14:22
  are becoming increasingly more expensive and rarest, you know,
• 14:27
  more human Nature by Paul Carmel might not be being printed
• 14:31
  anymore. So, you know, it's just more
• 14:33
  difficult to access that. But also in the sense that it's
• 14:38
  more it is the great artistic medium because it combines all
• 14:42
  the other ones. It combines visuals and music
• 14:46
  and performances of actors and the writing of the script and,
• 14:50
  you know, costumes and, you know, it takes all the other
• 14:54
  artistic mediums and sort of puts them together.
• 14:57
  What would we say get going into this obviously as older fans
• 15:03
  yourself, because obviously some of us were born after Paul
• 15:07
  Cornell's human nature. What would you say when you when
• 15:14
  you heard that this was going to be the human nature?
• 15:19
  Like it wasn't just a coincidence, but it was called
• 15:21
  back that this is what they were going to do.
• 15:24
  Were there any changes that you were hoping were going to be
• 15:27
  made or what changes did you expect them to be made with what
• 15:32
  we've seen at the Russell T Baby series so far?
• 15:36
  What approach did you think that they were going to take?
• 15:40
  Well, the biggest change I was hoping that would happen would
• 15:43
  be that it wouldn't be written by Paul Cornell because I find
• 15:46
  him an incredibly pretentious writer.
• 15:49
  And so pleasingly Rusty Davis did take a Paul Connell script
• 15:53
  and give it a top to so rewrite because I can absolutely feel
• 15:56
  Rusty Davis. No, that that's, that is a rude
• 15:59
  answer, but it's an honest one. I'm, I'm not keen on Paul
• 16:02
  Connell as a writer. And so the the thing I was
• 16:06
  looking forward to most was seeing his ideas on the screen
• 16:10
  as scripted by somebody else. Gosh, I I haven't, I didn't read
• 16:18
  Human Nature until last year. And the reason for that is I
• 16:21
  like to save up something for later on down the track.
• 16:25
  It's the same reason why I have not as yet read The Wheel in
• 16:28
  Space target novelisation, because I just want a target to
• 16:31
  look forward to at some point. Like once you couldn't save till
• 16:35
  the end, Stephen. And you just don't want to.
• 16:44
  But I guess what I actually do rate and like Paul Cornell as a
• 16:49
  writer and I think his influence on Doctor Who has been
• 16:51
  overwhelmingly beneficial and and and really quite charming.
• 16:57
  I think, you know, aside from the context in which it was
• 17:00
  written, which is that sort of post William Gibson cyberpunk
• 17:06
  kind of grim and darkness, which is kind of the backdrop for a
• 17:10
  lot of 90s sci-fi, and that includes the Virgin New
• 17:14
  Adventures. Aside from that, I think in
• 17:18
  Cornell's writing there is more than a glimmer of hope.
• 17:21
  There's more than the willingness to re establish the
• 17:26
  Doctor as a good and moral force while questioning and
• 17:31
  problematizing his role in the universe and in terms of the
• 17:36
  narrative, but also what it means to us as the audience.
• 17:39
  And I think that that was critical to maintain that.
• 17:43
  I think. And I, and I did and I did see
• 17:46
  that in the, you know, my reading of of the the novel as
• 17:50
  well. I think, you know, again, the
• 17:52
  the primary motivating force for Paul Cornell to write human
• 17:56
  nature is the overriding question of what happens when
• 17:58
  you take the doctor out of the Doctor Who's story.
• 18:01
  And by virtue of, you know, the highlighting, the the relief,
• 18:07
  you know, the the absence of that of that character in the
• 18:10
  story. Examining through that relief, I
• 18:14
  guess, what, what that character is in its absence, in its
• 18:18
  absence or their absence. But one thing I think that is a
• 18:22
  huge difference between the Wilderness years books and
• 18:26
  particularly the Virgin New Adventures and the television
• 18:31
  series, which is the right thing to do was that they jettisoned
• 18:36
  the sort of angsty, dark nature of the adult storytelling, too
• 18:41
  broad and too deep for screen and re engage with it as popular
• 18:47
  text and largely a family, you know, television show, which I
• 18:51
  think is super critical, which we probably hadn't had since
• 18:55
  maybe maybe the Hinchcliffe and maybe the the Williams era eras.
• 19:02
  And I think that was super critical.
• 19:03
  It was no longer a show for nerds.
• 19:05
  That was dead and all gone. It was something that could be
• 19:10
  reinterpreted and revitalized and brought to millions and be
• 19:13
  joyful. And I think we get that in the
• 19:18
  television adaptation of Human Nature and Family of Blood, much
• 19:21
  more so than we do even in Paul Cornell's Human Nature, which I
• 19:26
  think is one of the the the great Virgin of Adventures.
• 19:31
  I think all the things you just said there about Paul Cornell's
• 19:35
  writing, they're all laudable aims.
• 19:38
  What he's trying to do, what he's trying to do with the
• 19:40
  Doctor, what he's trying to do with the series, how he's trying
• 19:44
  to unearth as yet unexplored depths to Doctor Who.
• 19:50
  I just don't think he has the subtlety to write that stuff
• 19:57
  well. And I've just recently read Love
• 19:59
  and War, which isn't human nature.
• 20:00
  But you know, they were read. They were written within a
• 20:03
  couple of years of each other. And he was doing all those
• 20:06
  things. You just said that, God, the
• 20:07
  dialogue was so adolescent. It was so angsty, so cringe.
• 20:13
  You need somebody like Rusty Davies, who understands
• 20:17
  television and how people actually talk now, to come in
• 20:23
  and give this a Polish. If this had been written by
• 20:25
  Cornell. I don't think, I just don't
• 20:29
  think we would be as kind to it as we are.
• 20:33
  I I just don't know about that because Paul Cornell is what is
• 20:36
  he 24 when he writes Love and War and it's 199293 again.
• 20:41
  He wrote Scream at a Shower a few years before this.
• 20:46
  Yes, yes he did. Agonizing.
• 20:50
  Yeah, it's not one of my favourites either.
• 20:52
  But I, I think, you know, context and also the point in
• 20:55
  his life and, you know, maturity as a writer has got to be
• 20:57
  considered when you're reading something like Love and War and
• 21:00
  comparing it to what we see on television in human nature.
• 21:03
  I don't think they're entirely valid like for like comparisons,
• 21:07
  even though it's the same author.
• 21:09
  I mean, I question whether this is the same author.
• 21:12
  I don't think Cornell wrote mostly.
• 21:15
  I mean, in, in, in the version of the book I have, which is a
• 21:19
  sort of reprint, but I think it was reprinted to him and more
• 21:22
  that he is. Cornell does say that he there's
• 21:27
  still quite a bit of him in the script and that he doesn't think
• 21:32
  Russell's input was even in the top 10 or top dozen of, of RTV
• 21:38
  rewrites. You know, it's not on the level
• 21:40
  of that's the Dollar two Bottle or perhaps even the Impossible
• 21:44
  Planet. Big, big stories.
• 21:46
  Very much. Interesting.
• 21:47
  I've been in the rise tale. In the rise tale, Russell says.
• 21:51
  Do you know what? I was actually a bit pissed that
• 21:53
  Cornell got all those plaudits because I wrote those scripts.
• 21:57
  And he's not, he's not writing to a general.
• 21:59
  He's writing. To Ben Cook, Yeah.
• 22:03
  Russell T Davies? Yeah, love him, although he's
• 22:07
  one of the most she was a vocal creative forces in Doctor Who's
• 22:13
  history and that can be really useful because for the fans we
• 22:17
  want behind the theme stuff, we want the you know Doctor Who
• 22:21
  confidentials and I mean in series 3 totally Doctor Who as
• 22:26
  well. And you know, Doctor Who
• 22:28
  unleashed We like that by the theme aspect because it helps
• 22:32
  build our sense that this is all one big creative process decades
• 22:37
  long, you know, but to. Go back to the 90s and Cornell
• 22:42
  was one of the most vocal creatives out of Doctor Who.
• 22:46
  He held court at the Fitzroy Tavern every week.
• 22:49
  I think there's a lot of similarities there.
• 22:52
  I mean, the Fitzroy Tavern is not quite the same as making
• 22:55
  sort of a fishery sanction. Well, no, maybe.
• 22:57
  About the entire, you know, but in the sense of, you know, we we
• 23:04
  always want to know why did Andrew Carmel lyrics say words,
• 23:09
  you know, Philip hints, clip terms, whatever.
• 23:11
  Why did they all come to the decisions?
• 23:13
  But they made, you know, and we try and infer that sometimes in
• 23:17
  the sort of post structuralist death of the awful landscape
• 23:22
  that we find ourselves in, you know, we try and go, we'll hear
• 23:26
  what the actual story is about. But it's also quite useful to
• 23:30
  have these creatives be quite direct about here's what I am
• 23:36
  thinking, you know, because we can find things in other works
• 23:42
  that match up. And you know what one of the big
• 23:45
  things that we'll get into later in this episode in particular,
• 23:49
  but she was three years doing obviously in the finale is quite
• 23:56
  her quite divided for the whole Jesus doctor and paused me
• 24:01
  because the finale takes it quite literally and has him
• 24:04
  doing, you know, the crucifix pose and all that.
• 24:08
  I am being as jealous dancing out on the screen.
• 24:11
  But this story obviously has a big part of that.
• 24:15
  And the novel does as well because Paul Cornell is quite
• 24:18
  famous, I believe religious Paul Cornell.
• 24:22
  Am I? It's Anglican, Yes.
• 24:24
  Yeah. Father's Day.
• 24:25
  Let's go into that sort of territory as well.
• 24:30
  But the idea of the doctor, this doctor in particular, the rust
• 24:34
  or doctors or tenant Dr. in particular, as the sort of
• 24:38
  Christ figure. And part of that is the human
• 24:45
  nature, as it were, of the of the character, the whole God and
• 24:50
  man in one in one being element of, you know, Jesus sources
• 24:56
  Superman or or the doctor, you know, And I think that's
• 24:59
  something that this story is prime for for being for being
• 25:04
  picked, because I think that's sort of the driving force of
• 25:07
  Behira. And maybe this story in
• 25:11
  microcosm is that the is the is that extra layer to the
• 25:16
  character that's never really been explored before because the
• 25:21
  show is now in the hands of ardent fans like RTD Moffat,
• 25:27
  Chipnall, Paul Cornell, you know, so it's fans having
• 25:31
  discussions about their favour childhood hobby.
• 25:36
  Speaking of which, would we like to talk about how childhood
• 25:40
  hobby is right now? I think there's another.
• 25:42
  There's another reason, though, why this was chosen to be
• 25:45
  adapted and why it is where it is in the season.
• 25:49
  Russell makes no secret of the fact that you he would lose some
• 25:55
  of the audience halfway through the year.
• 25:58
  The people were all there at the start of the season.
• 26:00
  Doctor Who's back? Hurrah, 89 million viewers
• 26:03
  somewhere in the middle of the season, You lose them.
• 26:05
  So what do you do? You do human nature.
• 26:07
  That's our big, catchy premise of the Doctor turning human.
• 26:12
  People are tuning in for that. You do The Doctor's daughter.
• 26:14
  Wow, that just sounds amazing. The Doctor's having a kid for an
• 26:17
  episode, and for the most part, his instincts were right.
• 26:22
  The the ratings would in a corner at this point.
• 26:25
  But I think, I think the idea of human nature, that's why this
• 26:31
  episode is, that's why this exists.
• 26:35
  I think it is an enticing idea. Yeah, well, on.
• 26:37
  TV. Yeah, like you said, we're not
• 26:39
  only watching one story and commenting on it.
• 26:42
  We're watching episodes 8 and 9 of what is it 13, you know,
• 26:48
  comment. Which is why part of that
• 26:51
  process of the adaptation process is accounting for the
• 26:55
  different types of audiences, a sort of niche fan audience,
• 27:00
  possibly a little bit older, versus the sort of broad
• 27:05
  spectrum of the BBC One sort of family audience.
• 27:09
  And also the context in which this, this version of the story
• 27:13
  is meant to be received, which is, you know, novels are largely
• 27:18
  a becoming and an end. And you know, you, you, you flip
• 27:22
  through the pages and, you know, you're done and you put it down
• 27:25
  and you go on to the next thing. Whereas this is we just have
• 27:29
  episode 742. OK, we have a break in between
• 27:33
  that, but then we go 8-9. And at the end of this, we'll
• 27:37
  get a 12 episode 10. And, you know, we keep keep
• 27:41
  rolling and rolling and rolling, which, you know, if it's just
• 27:46
  important nothing to take note of the way these are being made
• 27:51
  and how we're meant to receive them and whether we've been that
• 27:54
  successful or not. I mean, OK, one last point and
• 27:58
  then we will go in and watch this.
• 28:01
  It's telling that on the commentary, there's a scene in
• 28:04
  this second episode that Russell says that's as far as we could
• 28:08
  go in terms of putting something dramatic and intense on the
• 28:14
  screen. And I don't, I think we maybe we
• 28:16
  all have different moments in our head as to what that moment
• 28:18
  is. I'll, I'll mention it when we
• 28:21
  get there. But yeah, he he basically said,
• 28:23
  you know, in terms of sort of making adult drama and
• 28:27
  delivering it to children, this episode's about as far as I
• 28:32
  could go. And I don't disagree in some
• 28:34
  respects. I think we go further in later
• 28:37
  periods of the show, and that's a mistake.
• 28:39
  But that's for another day. So in that case, I mean, would
• 28:46
  we like to see a bit of the family of blood?
• 28:52
  Yes. They're probably sick of us
• 28:55
  talking. We should probably start.
• 28:57
  Yeah, I'm sick about talking. When When we got.
• 29:02
  There you give us you give us these interesting questions.
• 29:06
  Exactly. Well, I'll give you one more
• 29:08
  interesting question. Would someone like to count as
• 29:11
  you go on? Stephen. 321 and play.
• 29:19
  Not quite as interesting as your other questions.
• 29:22
  No, now when you get now I'm watching the BBC iPlayer.
• 29:28
  Obviously when you get to the halfway point of the novels
• 29:31
  Human Nature, it doesn't give you a little recap in the first,
• 29:37
  does it? Not.
• 29:39
  Was this? Obviously no.
• 29:43
  Here's what happened in chapter 2.
• 29:45
  Whereas obviously this is the. Book's assuming that.
• 29:48
  You're getting a little trailer. The book's assuming that you're
• 29:51
  picking it up in the morning after reading it in the evening
• 29:54
  and not a week later though, isn't it?
• 29:56
  Yeah, this is actually a trailer for with the song because she's
• 30:00
  going to watch all the episodes out of order, so she's not
• 30:02
  actually watching the next year. Nobody mentioned it in Episode
• 30:12
  1, but I'm going to quickly say it now.
• 30:14
  Yeah, you know the little girl who's admittedly not a great
• 30:18
  actress? There's a few moments in this
• 30:20
  episode she's terrible. Oh gosh, give her a break.
• 30:24
  No, there are wonderful child actors.
• 30:27
  Find decent ones but but the red balloon I think is just a touch
• 30:32
  of genius. Yeah.
• 30:34
  That's another great visual sign for.
• 30:37
  Obviously in the book the balloon is, I think, more of an
• 30:40
  autonomous creature or some sort.
• 30:43
  Of entity. Of its own, yeah.
• 30:46
  But whereas in this, I'll tell you what it is from this, it's
• 30:49
  the gas mask from the empty child, the it's the part of the
• 30:54
  physiognomy which the aliens had mistaken for a natural part of
• 30:59
  the physiognomy, just like the death mask.
• 31:01
  So it's stuck to her hand, like the maskings which we've
• 31:06
  obviously seen in John Smith's sketches.
• 31:11
  Brilliant. Even the guns look great, don't
• 31:13
  they? They look like like, I don't
• 31:15
  know, like creatures. A.
• 31:17
  Little bit in her like they're like they're bugs or something.
• 31:20
  Yeah. Yeah, they've been my cybermaps.
• 31:23
  I think they. Do.
• 31:29
  Oh, Martha's so great here, isn't she?
• 31:33
  She. Just grabs the gun.
• 31:34
  She's so. Kick ass now.
• 31:38
  I mean, we'll get into Martha. Obviously we've talked about her
• 31:41
  race a little bit, but obviously this episode will get a little
• 31:44
  bit more into the other big thing about Martha's characters
• 31:48
  is sort of unrequited romance feelings with the Doctor, which
• 31:53
  again, if you gave that script to Donna, I just don't think
• 31:56
  that extra element would be there or or Amy even or MOT, if
• 32:02
  you gave it to those. I mean, those would probably,
• 32:04
  you know, cut Jones floating asleep, but you know, she would.
• 32:14
  I want to see that episode now. That episode will be 5 minutes
• 32:19
  long. It'll be like you're who?
• 32:22
  Rose never lets me down. She's wonderful.
• 32:28
  Although I'll say Martha is more likeable.
• 32:30
  Like she's she's. It's Freeman though, isn't it?
• 32:33
  I think it's everything Freeman brings to the role.
• 32:38
  Yeah, it's an excellent performance, particularly from
• 32:40
  someone who obviously wasn't as well known as Billie Piper or
• 32:43
  Catherine Tate, you know, to be held up as basically restored
• 32:49
  this story in the sense that the Doctor's not there anymore, you
• 32:53
  know, Donna in turn left or all those in.
• 32:56
  Yeah, you know, would probably be expected to hold the screen
• 33:00
  better. This is another interesting
• 33:02
  level this story works on, isn't it?
• 33:04
  Because there because the Doctor's not there to deal with
• 33:08
  the the villains, Martha had to do it.
• 33:10
  So there's a lot of this episode where Martha's trying to do the
• 33:13
  Doctor role. I think Latimer also is meant to
• 33:18
  be a sort of analogue to some degree of the doctor as well,
• 33:21
  right? He he embodies a lot of the, you
• 33:23
  know, forward thinking, empathy, empathetic kind of aspects of
• 33:29
  the doctor. You know, is he actually given
• 33:31
  an insight into what the character is like when he opens
• 33:33
  the watch as well? But it's it's kind of like a a
• 33:36
  Doctor Who's not ready yet or, you know, he's obviously just a
• 33:39
  young kid, but there's kind of these these figures that try to
• 33:46
  fill the whole of the doctor in the narrative, but they can't,
• 33:49
  they never can. They never can.
• 33:50
  Obviously, you know you can't replace the the hero of the show
• 33:53
  with with anything except the heroes.
• 33:57
  It's so interesting watching them try, isn't it, trying to
• 34:00
  fill that void. Yeah, well, at the end, at the
• 34:03
  end of the series, of course, you know, there is an element of
• 34:07
  that where you know the master is effectively, you know, the
• 34:11
  the anti hero of the show for for a lot of those two two
• 34:14
  episodes as well. I think, you know, the doctors
• 34:17
  induced you a Dobby sort of figure in a cage, much like the
• 34:23
  civil and I might talk about that later on as well from the
• 34:28
  ancient Greek myth. But you know, it's, it's, it's
• 34:31
  the master who is the one who's driving the story forward in
• 34:35
  the, in that, in that story. The Glee with which Harry Lloyd
• 34:40
  plays all of his sister of mine. You're such a small little
• 34:44
  thing. Why don't you go in and he's so
• 34:47
  great. Yeah.
• 34:49
  Every line of his is quite visible.
• 34:51
  I won't, but it is. And I would like to mention the
• 34:56
  debt owed to shakedown, Return of the Sontarans for the
• 35:00
  pointing a green light in somebody's face to suggest
• 35:03
  communication between aliens. All right, Sometimes simple
• 35:10
  effects work. Of monsters is green that's.
• 35:13
  What I've heard. So this headmaster character,
• 35:19
  obviously we don't have quite as much in the OR as much as in the
• 35:23
  book anyway, is us all because there's not much screen time for
• 35:28
  this character is probably a bit more simplified just in the
• 35:32
  sense of, yeah, he's an uptight bloke who probably had some bad
• 35:37
  memories of, you know, the boar War.
• 35:39
  But it's it's basically all right.
• 35:41
  And you know, we we I have to sort of have him as come and
• 35:46
  father a bit later on, But that's one element where I'm
• 35:49
  like, if you would make him, if even muck an X like a third
• 35:53
  part, you know, third episode, you might hope for characters
• 35:57
  like that to get a bit more to them.
• 36:00
  I don't know if it's a bit more of a sense of what this this for
• 36:03
  me is maybe. It's, it's more than that.
• 36:05
  There isn't a time in 90 minutes.
• 36:07
  I think it's more than that in the sense that in the novel he
• 36:10
  comes down as a figure, as the authority figure, like genuinely
• 36:13
  the establishment figure against the free thinking nature of the,
• 36:18
  of, of John Smith. You know, as, as you know,
• 36:21
  technically played by Sylvester McCoy, who's who's much more of
• 36:23
  a rebel than than David Tennant, John Smith character is.
• 36:29
  So he doesn't have that need. I guess there isn't that need in
• 36:34
  the story to make him that kind of oppressive establishment
• 36:38
  figure who's coming down and squashing the, the, you know,
• 36:43
  all of those sort of three thinking thoughts that the
• 36:45
  Doctor has. And as a result of that, I think
• 36:50
  he's sort of just meant to be there as the authority figure
• 36:54
  and that's kind of all he needs to do there.
• 36:57
  Is that reference to the Boer War?
• 37:02
  And you know, we have also a further reference to the Boer
• 37:06
  War where where Joan says she lost her husband Oliver at the
• 37:09
  battle of spy on Cop, which by the way is where we get the the
• 37:16
  name Cop in the Anfield at Anfield.
• 37:20
  In terms of the home stadium there, it's because the steep
• 37:23
  nature of the terracing sort of evoking the steep nature of the
• 37:27
  spy on Cop hill with the British lost over a 2 day battle.
• 37:30
  By the way, also Mahatma Gandhi, it was one of the stretcher
• 37:33
  bearers during those during that battle as well.
• 37:36
  So, yeah, a couple of interesting curious there around
• 37:39
  that one. But like, he's, he's there as
• 37:41
  that figure that is meant to prepare the boys for, you know,
• 37:46
  glory in the empire by going off and serving as, you know,
• 37:51
  soldiers. Obviously they'd be commissioned
• 37:54
  officers because of their class somewhere in the, you know,
• 37:57
  African continent or on the Far East or wherever the case may
• 38:00
  be. And that's going to make them an
• 38:01
  end because, you know, that's the the rite of passage, I
• 38:04
  guess, during the days of empire.
• 38:07
  But what the episode shows in the scene that Rossi Davis said
• 38:10
  was the most intense scene is it is just ugly and violent and
• 38:16
  miserable. There's nothing honourable.
• 38:18
  Would they? Thank you, Sir.
• 38:21
  And the intensity that you see now talking about kids again,
• 38:25
  the intensity you see on the kids faces, one of them is
• 38:28
  crying. I mean, it is very close to the
• 38:33
  mark. And it, it doesn't matter that
• 38:34
  it's scarecrows coming in, right?
• 38:36
  We get what they're talking about, what they're trying to
• 38:39
  show us. And we do get a little.
• 38:42
  Yeah. Sorry, Jack.
• 38:45
  No, no, I was just going to say now we're getting to like you
• 38:48
  say when we mentioned Stephen about he's not quite this
• 38:52
  character is not quite the same adversary, but he would be for
• 38:56
  the 7th Doctor. He's also because of again, the
• 38:59
  television process, the use of David Hemmen, not just of the 10
• 39:05
  Doctor. David Hemmen is the hero figure
• 39:10
  in the same way, but so that's not quite bless him, just would
• 39:14
  not cut the same figure if he was on screen.
• 39:19
  And you know, he is, as the book calls him, you know, the funny
• 39:24
  little man. But the the pops and the higher
• 39:27
  ups can sort of think they can push around.
• 39:30
  But to be he's just a bit more, you know, away with the
• 39:35
  theories. If it were just the book can try
• 39:37
  and push him into it. Yeah, it can't really be because
• 39:42
  we know what the 7th Doctor is and we know that the 7th Doctor
• 39:46
  is not that sort of person. But Jim speaks to the difference
• 39:50
  of these cat. Like if you put a different
• 39:52
  Doctor, if you put if it's happened to the Tom Baker Doctor
• 39:55
  or Jump Hurts where you know Bacon's, that would be a very
• 39:59
  different story of that person was turned into a human.
• 40:04
  Yeah, we'll call him or even William Horn, obviously star of
• 40:09
  star of Carry On Sergeant and all these sorts of things.
• 40:12
  If you put him in that sort of role, it would be very difficult
• 40:15
  all together. It's been so long since I've
• 40:17
  read it, What's the 7th Doctor's motive?
• 40:20
  Oh sorry, I'm too. One worst part of this story is
• 40:25
  the obvious not Harry Lloyd double, but they diffused in
• 40:30
  that wipe shot. If he rocked it then was not
• 40:35
  Harry Lloyd at all. It's very strange, but sorry.
• 40:38
  Carry on here. What was the 7th Doctor's motive
• 40:41
  for turning human in human nature?
• 40:43
  Is it because he wants to understand the people that he's
• 40:45
  hurting? I think he wants some.
• 40:47
  Yeah. Beneath because you've lost.
• 40:50
  Yeah, so I've. Seen.
• 40:51
  Exactly. No, he just comes off the back
• 40:53
  of Sanctuary, where Beneath has lost.
• 40:56
  Gee, I forget his last. Name.
• 40:59
  Gee de Carnac, yes, there's love interest and he can't
• 41:02
  understand. Obviously he's not human.
• 41:04
  Love isn't an emotion that he can experience in the same way
• 41:08
  that human humans are able to and do so he wants to, I guess
• 41:14
  relate better to to beneath, but also just to understand that as
• 41:18
  well, almost as a kind of thought experiment.
• 41:22
  So I would say that that's a more interesting premise than.
• 41:25
  Oh, I don't know. He's running away from a load of
• 41:27
  aliens. It lacks the.
• 41:29
  It made feel more selfish, yeah. Yeah, exactly right.
• 41:33
  It it, it is entirely driven by sort of intellectual curiosity
• 41:37
  about emotions, which is kind of like it we, I'm not a Star Trek
• 41:41
  guy, but that's sort of vigilant on spark territory here.
• 41:44
  What's much more interesting I think is that now they caught up
• 41:47
  in an adventure and it's a matter of life and death.
• 41:49
  And the doctor just has to do this as well.
• 41:52
  He's got no other choice. And I think that really sort of
• 41:56
  he doesn't know what he's getting in for getting into
• 41:58
  rather. I think that's a great way to
• 42:01
  achieve it. And I think that's one of the
• 42:02
  critical changes that is made. Yeah, and no one needs to tell
• 42:06
  the 10th Doctor what the love is, because I think we're all
• 42:09
  very aware from, you know, Army of Ghosts and everything, The
• 42:13
  10th Doctor knows exactly what the love.
• 42:16
  Is he could have whoever we wanted.
• 42:18
  He could have had Madame de Pompadour, for goodness sakes.
• 42:21
  Well, indeed. Yeah, well, he had a doctor's
• 42:24
  daughter in there, of course. I will say though, I do because
• 42:27
  I I have huge issues with how the 7th Doctor behaves and the
• 42:32
  things he puts people through in the new adventures.
• 42:34
  So the idea that that he wants to try and understand that as
• 42:38
  well. He's learning.
• 42:39
  At least he's trying to learn. Oh, also there's we've mentioned
• 42:46
  Nottingham, which is where the 10th Doctor is from for some
• 42:49
  reason. And obviously the 7th doctor
• 42:52
  very famously Scottish for which can reference, you know,
• 42:55
  Aberdeen and all that. But also, not only does it
• 42:58
  explain the accent, it also culturally as a Scotsman rather
• 43:04
  than an Englishman, sort of. There's that immediate cultural
• 43:07
  separation there, which, you know, the not just the funny
• 43:11
  little man, the funny little Scottish man, you know, and the
• 43:15
  is an extra layer to it with. I mean, do we think this might
• 43:19
  be better if David Timmons use this Scottish accent or the
• 43:23
  irony adds to it or not? Yeah.
• 43:25
  Yeah, I was going to say. The irony is that they're both
• 43:27
  from Paisley, so they would have very similar accent.
• 43:30
  I I don't think it's a mistake to make the.
• 43:33
  Yeah, everything that has changed change.
• 43:36
  Yeah, but I don't think it's a mistake to make the 10th Doctor
• 43:38
  speak with the sort of estuary accent.
• 43:41
  I think that's kind of, again, Russell plugging into the
• 43:43
  zeitgeist and wanting to make sure that this is as relatable.
• 43:47
  And yeah. Yeah.
• 43:51
  Oh yeah. Not.
• 43:51
  Well, the. Kids.
• 43:52
  Loved him they loved his you know that mock in the accent
• 43:55
  they they. Yeah, but not the doctor.
• 43:57
  Do do we think that this John Smith, could you describe
• 44:00
  Jackson? Do we think that?
• 44:02
  No, I think, I think, I think it's different enough from how
• 44:05
  he normally talks. Although I've certainly heard
• 44:08
  people say that they wished, you know, this is older Doctor Who
• 44:11
  fans now, not children watching it at the time that this, this
• 44:14
  is how they wished David Tennant's Doctor sounded all the
• 44:17
  time. Right, he's also done the
• 44:20
  Scottish shtick last season in. That's right.
• 44:29
  So we've another thing that television can obviously do us.
• 44:33
  We've spoken about the boys before.
• 44:36
  Obviously, Thomas Birdie thanks to have a little baby faced like
• 44:40
  I know Tim here. That really adds to it because
• 44:43
  again, we're showing what we can't see in a novel.
• 44:48
  And as simple as it sounds, when we read the exploits of of
• 44:53
  Timothy, you know, fighting in the song, that just doesn't hit
• 44:57
  in the same way as seeing this little small boy in a military
• 45:03
  uniform running round in a in the battle of the song.
• 45:07
  It's so perfectly cast for this kid, isn't it?
• 45:10
  Yeah, and again, you just don't forget that, you know, if you're
• 45:14
  reading a book, you can read about, oh, Timothy was his
• 45:17
  little boy, that's fine. But that doesn't hit in the same
• 45:21
  way as actually seeing it. He's one of those kids that's
• 45:25
  been touched with the, you know, the fountain of youth.
• 45:27
  He still looks like that now. He has been grown up, bless him.
• 45:33
  One thing I will say, and I think I'm going to get some size
• 45:36
  from both of you when I say this, but we're talking about
• 45:39
  the adapt and this has a book and this has ATV show.
• 45:43
  One thing I'm very pleased about is that.
• 45:46
  Oh, maybe it's again. This is the stunt double so.
• 45:49
  On television, I'm very pleased it was David Tennant playing
• 45:53
  this story and not Sylvester McCoy.
• 45:54
  Sylvester McCoy is a good performer.
• 45:57
  He's not a a great actor and I don't think he could have
• 46:00
  brought this to the screen in the way that David Tennant does.
• 46:06
  I mean, it would be an interesting, it would be a very
• 46:08
  subdued. Obviously it wouldn't be the
• 46:10
  sort of, you know, the 4th in between good and evil.
• 46:14
  You know, it wouldn't be that. It would be a very different.
• 46:16
  There's some bits where he has to emote in the second episode.
• 46:21
  Yeah. I mean, talk about emoting.
• 46:24
  There's a fair amount of emotion on the screen right now.
• 46:27
  Yeah, again, it's that between Cuban.
• 46:31
  And the him coming in. As well as an image, yeah, to be
• 46:36
  a Pilgrim, which obviously says about, you know, we're going to
• 46:40
  go and see the master, which is a little word, but.
• 46:44
  On the him, sorry. Steve.
• 46:47
  No. No, I we probably ought to talk
• 46:56
  about just how harrowing a scene this actually is.
• 46:59
  I think this is this is the scene.
• 47:01
  I think in my mind when you said it, this goes as far as it can,
• 47:06
  that doctor. And again, this this scare close
• 47:08
  almost like this sort of spiritual successor to the
• 47:11
  autumns in that sort of, you know, henchman, but that again,
• 47:16
  you know, the Autons are to be sort of urban shopper society
• 47:21
  what the scare clothes are for the sort of more rural but.
• 47:25
  Also, this is the only way that you can justify kids taking up
• 47:30
  guns and shooting right? You couldn't have aliens because
• 47:33
  aliens would be bleeding and that's you couldn't, you could
• 47:35
  not put that on television. They just made a straw.
• 47:38
  And we even have the point made afterwards by the headmaster of
• 47:41
  the just straw it, it is absolutely necessary and it
• 47:45
  takes it up to that line, but it doesn't cross it.
• 47:47
  I think, though, what's super interesting is that Tennant
• 47:51
  here, the just the expression on his face there as he lowers the
• 47:57
  guns is magnificent. He can't bring himself to shoot
• 48:01
  because the Doctor is still at the core of his character.
• 48:03
  And I think that's it. That's an inspired touch along
• 48:06
  with the use of the hem, by the way, to be a Pilgrim, also known
• 48:11
  as he who would be valiant. There's a line in it that sort
• 48:14
  of stuck out, stuck out to me of I was just, you know, reading up
• 48:17
  because I don't know my Anglican hymns.
• 48:19
  I wasn't raised that way. No foes shall stay his might,
• 48:23
  though he with giants fight. And it invokes through an
• 48:26
  inversion, I guess, that sort of very famous line, which I think
• 48:30
  provides the characters almost modus operandi and the virgin
• 48:34
  new adventures from Nietzsche, which is he who fights with
• 48:37
  monsters. Let let him be wary lest he also
• 48:40
  becomes a monster. And here it's, I think again,
• 48:44
  just sort of a departure away from the doctor as this sort of
• 48:47
  tortured, sometimes a moral figure, which we kind of should
• 48:53
  have put to bed at the end of Curse of Fendrick, to be
• 48:55
  perfectly honest. But the, the, the new adventures
• 48:57
  really sort of took as a, as a way of engaging with the
• 49:01
  character for for far too long. And I think unsuccessfully and
• 49:05
  potentially very harmful to the to the character as well here,
• 49:08
  it's about no, no, no, the doctor won't take up a gun and
• 49:12
  shoot. And even when you've got the
• 49:15
  human John Smith, who's so casually and callously, you
• 49:20
  know, acquiesces to the request to, you know, have Latimer
• 49:24
  beaten, there's something with him that says no, no, we don't
• 49:28
  do this. And I think that's a superb and
• 49:32
  entirely, you know, silently acted way of, of examining the
• 49:38
  character of the Doctor through John Smith.
• 49:40
  I think it's sublime. That's a That's a perfect scene
• 49:43
  in so many ways. It's had another.
• 49:49
  Yeah, no, it's like. What's this like in a series of
• 49:51
  we've, we've talked about a lot of production decisions in this
• 49:55
  the sniffing, the balloon. I think the the weird spasmodic
• 50:01
  walk of those scarecrows was another brilliant choice.
• 50:07
  Yeah, it's another playground Dawn.
• 50:10
  Spin me. You can do, Yeah.
• 50:12
  And it is creepy, but it also does stress that they are
• 50:15
  unearthly, so when they're gunned down in that previous
• 50:19
  scene, it has slightly less impact.
• 50:24
  Yeah, now they've moved the TARDIS here, which is an even
• 50:28
  more remarkable because normally the TARDIS is meant to be 1 of
• 50:32
  impossibly heavy things as a kid.
• 50:36
  It's even a more remarkable achievement now when you
• 50:39
  consider that TARDIS is that you got super wrapped around it.
• 50:44
  2007 I. Wonder what he thinks about all
• 50:49
  this. Probably.
• 50:52
  Haven't we done this before? I'm still this is.
• 50:57
  Just not that time in that in that museum.
• 51:04
  Sitting on the TARDIS in another dimension all together.
• 51:07
  So he's there, but kind of not there.
• 51:09
  Can we just say? It didn't happen.
• 51:12
  It's just good grief. This is derivative of your 7th
• 51:19
  incarnation. I mean, it doesn't that mean
• 51:23
  when Jack was wrapped around it in Utopia, so Tick was there
• 51:26
  going oi, I was there first, you know, like for God.
• 51:29
  'S sakes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 51:36
  So we're going to go into this is, again, another perhaps
• 51:43
  casualty of the television production process.
• 51:46
  Let's go to an abandoned farmhouse where we can all fit
• 51:51
  in a little empty. What?
• 51:54
  What do we think of this first spaceship?
• 51:57
  Oh. It's terrific.
• 51:59
  It's simple, but you know, it's, it's very atmospheric, lots of
• 52:03
  things to touch and yeah, nice to shoot.
• 52:07
  I, I don't, I don't think there's anything wrong with that
• 52:09
  set at all. It's especially great when when
• 52:12
  Teller comes in and he's such a physical performer, he's.
• 52:14
  He's awesome, yeah. I think it also is meant to
• 52:22
  evoke the way that the Tom Baker Dr. blows up the the Zygon
• 52:31
  spaceship. Yeah, but.
• 52:37
  When he starts stops funneling the knobs and all of that.
• 52:40
  Yeah, it makes it explode. And they all run away in the
• 52:44
  same way in Terra Zygos too. It's the same shot.
• 52:49
  But that was just the 500th occasion of Robert Holmes going
• 52:52
  oh shit, we're being the Part 4. All of these scenes, though, in
• 52:59
  this cottage, the culmination of this relationship, him choosing
• 53:04
  to go off, him turning on Martha and saying what the hell, you
• 53:07
  see you? This is this is proper drama.
• 53:12
  Is it? You don't often, you say Doctor
• 53:14
  Who is actual proper drama. And obviously because of in the
• 53:19
  novel, the 7th of Beneath is John Smith's niece.
• 53:24
  So there's that element of warmth and companionship there.
• 53:28
  Obviously they didn't feel that they could do that with Martha,
• 53:32
  because then you'd have to explain how they're related, I
• 53:35
  suppose. But there's that extra element
• 53:39
  of you're my servant, so why should I trust you?
• 53:43
  There's that element of distrust there, which I think makes John
• 53:47
  Smith a lot more an unlikeable character in that respect, in
• 53:52
  the sense of you want him to shake him and go no listen to
• 53:56
  more famous, but it's. Do you do you think the flash
• 54:01
  forward to to them potentially having children, getting
• 54:06
  married, is that too much? Do we need that?
• 54:09
  It's needed, yeah. We'll get to it and we'll get to
• 54:12
  it. But.
• 54:12
  Yeah, I think we do. Because it a it shows that there
• 54:18
  is a possibility of it being a John Smith.
• 54:21
  Because in the novel, John Smith is almost like a separate, well,
• 54:26
  he is literally a separate empty because he separates off from
• 54:29
  the Doctor, doesn't if he leaves the Doctor's body and goes into
• 54:32
  one, the aliens. So there's a separation there.
• 54:36
  Whereas in this story, both literally and abstractly, the
• 54:41
  John Smith persona and the 10th Doctor persona are sort of very
• 54:45
  deliberately all jumbled up in the sense of you don't know
• 54:51
  where one begins and 1 ends. So when one's talking about, oh,
• 54:55
  I love you, Joan, and oh, Martha, you've just been really,
• 54:59
  why can't you just go away and leave it alone?
• 55:01
  You know, you're not. You're maybe meant to be a
• 55:03
  little bit more doubtful about where one begins and the other
• 55:06
  ends. And and that only comes through
• 55:10
  when we see that John Smith has a full life.
• 55:14
  I'm ready to clash swords of you again Stephen when I say this.
• 55:19
  But that's do I Look away, Jack, behave yourself.
• 55:25
  Good grief. This has been PG13 so far.
• 55:28
  But that dialogue we just have there, he's like fire and ice
• 55:31
  and rage. Oh, that's that is that is
• 55:35
  Cornell. That's all, Russell.
• 55:36
  No, that's. All.
• 55:37
  No, that is. Cornell, no, Cornell says in the
• 55:42
  in in my copy. But Cornell says that was all
• 55:45
  Russell funny. Copy of the Russell says that's
• 55:49
  not. No, he doesn't.
• 55:50
  I'll just be in the scene. I think it's I think it's
• 55:54
  wonderful, beautiful. I really do that.
• 55:56
  That's one of the great lines of the the series.
• 55:59
  I think it. Works.
• 56:01
  I'm not trying to disagree, I just think it pushes.
• 56:06
  No, because what it does, it mythologizes the Doctor, right?
• 56:09
  And it needs to be done here because, OK, there's there's a
• 56:12
  number of of of reasons here and I'll try to be as succinct as I
• 56:15
  possibly can. The the character of John Smith
• 56:19
  here chooses consciously and willfully sacrifice his humanity
• 56:25
  to return to effectively godhood, or at least semi
• 56:29
  divinity, not for his own benefit, but for everybody else,
• 56:33
  because he knows obviously the world is going to end.
• 56:35
  And so that that moral choice is heroic on part on behalf of of
• 56:39
  John Smith. And there's that wonderful line
• 56:43
  and it's beautifully delivered, I think, by, by Tennant when he
• 56:45
  says, you know, effectively Martha is outlining who the
• 56:49
  Doctor is and he's the romantic lost Prince.
• 56:51
  And he says, and that's what you want me to become like to him.
• 56:55
  That is a terrible, horrible fate.
• 56:58
  And it's a fate not unlike the one Aristotle describes of the
• 57:01
  homeless, heartless man, effectively the Odysseus.
• 57:04
  And that's who the Doctor is, the eternal traveller, the the
• 57:08
  God, the lonely God that travel without a home.
• 57:11
  I think that mythologizing of the Doctor is necessary and
• 57:15
  apartment in the context of that parallel here is a human and a
• 57:22
  mortal abandoning mortality for godhood.
• 57:27
  And that in the Greek at least is often, you know, punished.
• 57:32
  It's a hubristic act. And his punishment effectively
• 57:36
  is death for John Smith anyway. But it also sort of underscores
• 57:42
  how terrible and lonely that fate is.
• 57:46
  And I think that again, that examination of what it is to be
• 57:52
  the doctor and the burden, I guess that it is that's placed
• 57:55
  on on him is is a really great conceptualizing mythologizing of
• 58:01
  the character that we certainly don't get in classic who.
• 58:03
  And we get here for the first time with Russell and it works
• 58:06
  for me. And so like fire and ice and
• 58:08
  rage and his wonderful that that's a perfect summation of
• 58:12
  the character for me. This is a taste thing, though,
• 58:14
  Yeah. Because I don't want the doctor
• 58:16
  to be a lonely God. I don't want him to be
• 58:18
  mythologized and compared to Greek gods.
• 58:21
  And I want him to be a, you know, the madman in the box.
• 58:24
  I want him to be the the eccentric improviser, the person
• 58:28
  that got past failing his failing all of his exams and
• 58:32
  just just getting by. Yeah, he can be all of those.
• 58:38
  He can be all of them. No, no, he can be all of those
• 58:40
  things. And I you know, I think that's
• 58:42
  one of the great strengths of Doctor Who that you can lean
• 58:44
  into different aspects and interpretations of the character
• 58:46
  at different times and then move on and do something entirely
• 58:49
  different as well. Your vision of what the Doctor
• 58:53
  is and should be and should be challenged and should mutate and
• 58:56
  change over time. The, the, you know, the, the
• 58:59
  madman with the box, you know, that's apartment for I think the
• 59:02
  classic series, you know, in the 1st, you know, certainly 234
• 59:05
  incarnations. That's exactly who we use.
• 59:08
  But you know, we kind of get that re examined and and
• 59:11
  questioned again in something like twice upon a time where he
• 59:14
  does this for so long that he actually becomes, you know,
• 59:18
  entwined and, and meshed in the in the sort of fabric of of the
• 59:22
  universe. And he's no longer just a
• 59:24
  wanderer through time, but something that is absolutely
• 59:27
  intrinsic to the universe. And I think that's, that's an
• 59:30
  interesting take. You don't have to like it.
• 59:33
  I just think it, I just think it's, it's a good.
• 59:36
  Stress the Doctor Who too much. You can be too introspective and
• 59:41
  and then you lose a little bit of what the show is when it
• 59:44
  becomes so obsessed with with the Doctor himself.
• 59:48
  I don't know. It's not important.
• 59:50
  That is just for me to a bit borrowing from continued dramas
• 59:55
  and so poppers and things like that.
• 59:58
  And if we make sure this is, as we said, series 3 and ongoing
• 1:00:02
  series, this isn't a bunch of serials.
• 1:00:05
  They're all put on at the same time of year.
• 1:00:07
  But it was back in the day, you know, 142 informed this, which
• 1:00:14
  informs Blenkammer finale, which goes on and on and on and on,
• 1:00:18
  you know? Sometimes we would get that in
• 1:00:21
  the classic series, wouldn't we? You know, Doctor Who and Missile
• 1:00:24
  William spilled over into the Ambassadors of Death and you
• 1:00:27
  know, season 12 all goes 1:00 to 1:00 to 1:00 to 1:00, you know,
• 1:00:31
  so there are circumstances of it in classic as well.
• 1:00:35
  But I would say it it goes back to I don't know if you the, the
• 1:00:43
  thing I really get when I look at the dream sequence of the
• 1:00:47
  imagine life sequence, the illusion I'd get is we've
• 1:00:51
  obviously spoken about the Christ metaphor.
• 1:00:53
  I don't know if you've watched Martin Scorsese's The last
• 1:00:56
  temptation of Christ. I've not seen him, William Dafoe
• 1:01:00
  as Jesus from the 80s, and that is all about Jesus as he's on
• 1:01:04
  the cross. He's given the chance to come
• 1:01:06
  off the cross by who he thinks is an event, an Angel, but he's
• 1:01:10
  actually by the devil. So he's given the chance to come
• 1:01:14
  off the cross, lose his powers, be with Mary Magdalene and do
• 1:01:19
  the whole living the life thing, which I don't know is in their
• 1:01:23
  mind when they write this. But it's for me, when I watch
• 1:01:26
  that sequence, it does something very similar with here's what
• 1:01:30
  you could have won, you know, here's the life you could have
• 1:01:33
  had. But no, you, you did your duty
• 1:01:37
  and you accepted the duality of the man and the God inside you.
• 1:01:41
  And you, you know, did what you had to do.
• 1:01:42
  Which is very much what RTV version of the Doctor has been
• 1:01:46
  all about. And it's a shame.
• 1:01:48
  We've talked all over the wonderful bit where we get where
• 1:01:52
  we get our doctor back. The way he fits between the two.
• 1:01:57
  Performances. Which again is different from in
• 1:02:01
  the book, where we know that the doctor and John have been
• 1:02:05
  separated. Oh, sorry, no.
• 1:02:07
  Pocono tries to do it through the prose because he refers to
• 1:02:12
  Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith.
• 1:02:13
  Mr. Smith. Then it becomes more neutral
• 1:02:16
  terms like the little man, the small man with the umbrella, you
• 1:02:22
  know, quite mutual to objective descriptions.
• 1:02:25
  And then it becomes the doctor on on paper.
• 1:02:29
  And we see that that change is communicated to us, but through
• 1:02:34
  narrative prose rather than the performance of the actor, which
• 1:02:38
  is obviously, you know, the OK, the different mediums, you know,
• 1:02:43
  the different information needs to be communicated different way
• 1:02:47
  in different artistic mediums. And that's how that's a, a, a
• 1:02:52
  choice that needs to be made rather than it's something that
• 1:02:55
  they've, you know, chosen to do. But it's.
• 1:02:58
  Just dark ending isn't it the way he punishes all of the
• 1:03:01
  family of blood? Now so this is what the Greek
• 1:03:07
  gods do, right? When anyone arrogates unto
• 1:03:10
  themselves the powers of the gods, they are, they are
• 1:03:16
  revenge, they are punished and in in just and you know, fitting
• 1:03:20
  ways when and Bellerophon arrogates upon himself that he
• 1:03:26
  will, you know, ride Pegasus to Olympus and join the gods and be
• 1:03:30
  be amongst them, you know, they strike him down.
• 1:03:33
  They send a gadfly to sting a horse and he and he plummets
• 1:03:35
  into the ocean and dies and drowns.
• 1:03:38
  When you know, Sisyphus steals the the secret of immortality,
• 1:03:43
  they punish him by, you know, rolling the boulder up the hill
• 1:03:46
  and it's a it's that's, that's his immortality.
• 1:03:49
  I think it's great. And you know, if I were to sort
• 1:03:52
  of like try and justify this in terms of, well, that's not very
• 1:03:54
  doctorish, you know, since when, when can, when has the doctor
• 1:03:57
  been able to do these things? Well, the doctor hasn't, but the
• 1:04:00
  Time Lords certainly have. You know, we see the the sort of
• 1:04:03
  all powerful way that they're, you know, depicted, particularly
• 1:04:07
  in something like the war games, right, where they just sort of
• 1:04:09
  come in and they they are God like entities.
• 1:04:12
  Those powers are reserved for them.
• 1:04:14
  And here he is, I think, you know, punishing the, the family
• 1:04:20
  of blood crucially by giving them what they want.
• 1:04:23
  And I think that is so superb. And again, so Greek in, it's in,
• 1:04:27
  it's sort of in, in its tradition.
• 1:04:30
  I, I think it's superb. There's there's no other way of
• 1:04:33
  of resolving this. And again, we've got this great
• 1:04:39
  even the different posture that tementates, the different sort
• 1:04:42
  of standing there with the hands in the pockets and leaning on
• 1:04:45
  the film. And, you know, we've got our
• 1:04:48
  doctor back, but at most cost, at Jones cost of having lost her
• 1:04:53
  beloved character who she's, you know, got to know over these
• 1:04:57
  weeks, just as we have with this doctor, you know, one of us has
• 1:05:02
  to win. And ultimately we know it's us,
• 1:05:05
  which is a difference with the novel where because novels are
• 1:05:08
  very syrianised and very beginning and end.
• 1:05:12
  We don't. Do we know for sure that John
• 1:05:15
  Smith's going to become for Mr. McCoy at the end of Human
• 1:05:19
  Nature, the book? I don't know if we know that for
• 1:05:22
  sure. Whereas we know definitely
• 1:05:25
  tenants coming back. So there's a different tent in
• 1:05:28
  there. There's a vital question she
• 1:05:30
  asked here and it's a sort of question because of the nature
• 1:05:34
  of Doctor Who, we never ask when she says if if you never chose
• 1:05:38
  to come here, you know, would people have died?
• 1:05:41
  And we don't ever ask those. Great.
• 1:05:43
  It's so cutting and he's got no answer.
• 1:05:46
  It's I love that. It's the sort of questions that
• 1:05:48
  were asked. And I'm going into another book
• 1:05:51
  in interference about why is it you can meddle in alien planets,
• 1:05:55
  but you can't meddle in history of of this planet.
• 1:05:59
  And it's just the sort of questions Doctor Who, as ATV
• 1:06:01
  show can't answer, but they put it out there here, and I really
• 1:06:05
  appreciate that. Absolutely.
• 1:06:08
  Yeah. There have been a more
• 1:06:10
  influential line of dialogue in Doctor's history then.
• 1:06:14
  I can't change history, not one line. 1.
• 1:06:17
  Line you know we're still room amazing on that 60 of years
• 1:06:20
  later still. I don't know, a few seasons, a
• 1:06:23
  few seasons later, he's going. Have you ever heard of the great
• 1:06:25
  horse of Troy? You know, Ohk, OK.
• 1:06:29
  Except the great thing that Russell does, I think one of the
• 1:06:32
  great many great things that he does is introduce this idea of
• 1:06:35
  fixed points in time, which is a total Mac Guffin.
• 1:06:37
  That gives us an in universe explanation for why they can't.
• 1:06:41
  The doctor can't, you know, act in those ways.
• 1:06:44
  As you say, Joe, to answer that question from interference, but
• 1:06:47
  also just from, you know, a storytelling perspective
• 1:06:50
  provides the answer that I think Barry let's tries to reach
• 1:06:55
  towards through the Bloomovich limitation effect, which is if
• 1:06:57
  you do this, you don't have a story, you have no narrative
• 1:07:01
  tension. So let's not do that for the
• 1:07:03
  sake of story. As a dramatic device, it's
• 1:07:07
  vital, isn't it? Yeah.
• 1:07:09
  The fact that she asks that question and then he just looks
• 1:07:11
  away and she just goes, you can go.
• 1:07:16
  It's so great and the doctor looks so surly when he walks
• 1:07:21
  off. Look at this location.
• 1:07:25
  It's fucking miserable, isn't it?
• 1:07:27
  It's pissing down on the. Yeah, just around the corner you
• 1:07:31
  can see the clam leaves and Black Hawk.
• 1:07:38
  We're having a ripping time playing Grip It over here.
• 1:07:45
  And I love this sort of dismissive Mike, burying down
• 1:07:49
  the emotions. You know, the time we moved on
• 1:07:52
  time, we called out and did something else.
• 1:07:55
  You know that sort of. And this story does pose all the
• 1:07:59
  questions about, you know, if you were going to fall in love
• 1:08:01
  with somebody, why couldn't it be me?
• 1:08:02
  And we don't really get a conclusion to any of that.
• 1:08:05
  But that's kind of coming in the season, isn't it?
• 1:08:08
  So that's OK. Yeah, yeah, that is a lovely
• 1:08:12
  sort of foreshadowing to the way that the the dynamic between
• 1:08:16
  them is resolved. It's a great ending.
• 1:08:19
  It's a great ending, Stephen. When she goes, you know what?
• 1:08:23
  I'm better than this. See you later.
• 1:08:25
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then we get a really unusual
• 1:08:33
  thing here. We get a coda, don't we?
• 1:08:35
  They go off in the TARDIS and then we cut to scenes of the war
• 1:08:40
  and then and then if did this go out and remembrance that
• 1:08:44
  weekend? It must be June.
• 1:08:46
  Isn't it June somewhere? Yeah, you're right.
• 1:08:56
  Normally we just cut to, but we're actually from this point
• 1:09:01
  on fairly faithful to the book. The book basically has the same
• 1:09:05
  2 bits of the Battle of the Storm and Old Man Tim at the at
• 1:09:11
  the funeral. But obviously, again, we're
• 1:09:13
  going to talk about the changes #1 the costume of obviously
• 1:09:17
  little babyface Thomas Burgess hamster.
• 1:09:20
  But also what the audience can hear if they're watching this
• 1:09:23
  episode is lovely firm and authority of narration from the
• 1:09:32
  voice of 21st century British television, David Hemmen,
• 1:09:37
  deliberately sort of documentary style voice over which of.
• 1:09:43
  And I think that reading, you know, in the book and they're
• 1:09:46
  not Bute, Franz Ferdinand and then Serbia and Austria, I think
• 1:09:51
  that lacked some of the emotional punch of televisions.
• 1:09:56
  You know, friendly Uncle David Tennant giving voice over to
• 1:10:02
  this is the very serious look at these little boys being stuck in
• 1:10:06
  the mud. And I just think that's, again,
• 1:10:09
  it's not a problem with the book because that's something that a
• 1:10:12
  book just can't do by nature of the medium.
• 1:10:15
  But that's something that the television show can't give us.
• 1:10:19
  And he has to he has to in the same way that we saw the future
• 1:10:23
  of Joan and John, right. And because the, the, the
• 1:10:26
  backdrop, it's 1913. We are on the eve of the the
• 1:10:30
  Great War and what is going to happen to these boys and what
• 1:10:32
  are they being prepared for? This is it.
• 1:10:35
  And, you know, for a general audience and, you know, a bunch
• 1:10:38
  of, you know, kids who perhaps haven't got round to World War
• 1:10:41
  One on the the school syllabus just yet.
• 1:10:43
  It's a great way that Doctor Who, you know, continues to do
• 1:10:47
  this and has done for for decades, you know, entertain and
• 1:10:50
  educate at the same time. But here, obviously it's so
• 1:10:54
  critical I think to the telling of this story and that last
• 1:10:58
  shot, you know, the almost resurgence I think in
• 1:11:03
  particularly Britain around Red Poppy and Remembrance Day of the
• 1:11:08
  last 10-15 years. I guess, you know, it sort of
• 1:11:12
  puts that into context for for the younger viewers in
• 1:11:14
  particular, I think, but whilst still being thematically
• 1:11:17
  resonant and warranted within the context of the story itself
• 1:11:21
  as as a coder, as you say, Joe, so.
• 1:11:24
  Unusual to stress the moral like that at the end of the episode.
• 1:11:29
  I can't think of any other world.
• 1:11:31
  Maybe Orphan 55 but I can't think of.
• 1:11:36
  Yeah. Oh, it's fabulous.
• 1:11:38
  But but to stress, you know, the horrors of warfare, the loss and
• 1:11:43
  remembrance, I think it's something that's touched every
• 1:11:47
  family, certainly in Britain that this went out to.
• 1:11:49
  And so it really means something.
• 1:11:53
  But again, I think that's, as we've talked about theme a
• 1:11:55
  little bit previously, that's in my copy of the book, Paul
• 1:12:00
  Cornell lists a number of changes that are made from box
• 1:12:04
  television. And that's all gave me doing my
• 1:12:07
  research, gave me a little bit of a primer of what to look out
• 1:12:11
  for. And one of the things you
• 1:12:13
  mentioned is obviously at the end, they're putting on the
• 1:12:16
  traditional red poppies, whereas obviously in the book they use a
• 1:12:19
  white poppy. And I thought, well, what's the
• 1:12:21
  point of that? Why bother doing that?
• 1:12:24
  And obviously I'm sure part of that is just a make for a
• 1:12:28
  television production, but you can probably pick up a red poppy
• 1:12:32
  for a, a dime a dozen, you know, So it's probably just a lot
• 1:12:35
  easier to go down the charity shop and buy a bunch of red
• 1:12:38
  poppies to put on your actors. But also, I think it speaks to
• 1:12:44
  the 7th Doctor and, and maybe just the fact that it's not,
• 1:12:47
  it's a sort of licensed independent production, the book
• 1:12:51
  you can put on the white poppy as a symbol that these people,
• 1:12:56
  Tim and, and the spirit of the Doctor and John Smith are very
• 1:13:02
  different. They think very differently and
• 1:13:05
  they're very they they're showing that they are.
• 1:13:09
  It might be in the colour of, you know, both surrender, but
• 1:13:13
  also, you know, peace and you know that that way of thinking.
• 1:13:17
  Whereas in the red poppy, David Tennant, BBCS Doctor Who for the
• 1:13:23
  modern day is putting on the red poppy because that is the
• 1:13:29
  British. You know, they should not grow
• 1:13:31
  old if we will. You know, that mentality that
• 1:13:36
  the Doctor is a the British modern hero and is and the
• 1:13:42
  character of the Doctor is engaging with humanity by, you
• 1:13:47
  know, engaging in our cultural rituals and observing our
• 1:13:53
  morals. Because obviously, as you've
• 1:13:55
  said earlier, you know, it's about that tension between the
• 1:14:00
  the man and the tension all Doctor Who fans have.
• 1:14:04
  And we see this with stuff like but can you hear me, where
• 1:14:09
  Doctor and Graham are talking about Graham's cancer and what
• 1:14:12
  should the Doctor's response be in that moment?
• 1:14:16
  The 2, the tension between Doctor Who fans is there's 2
• 1:14:19
  views towards the Doctor view #1 The Doctor is one of us.
• 1:14:25
  He observes our culture. He is partial to our foibles and
• 1:14:32
  our human nature, as it were, and view #2 the Doctor is the
• 1:14:38
  best of us. And those are the two different.
• 1:14:42
  Is the Doctor one of us or is the Doctor the best of us is the
• 1:14:47
  ultimate question that not just this story, but really the whole
• 1:14:51
  franchise has has always been grappling with.
• 1:14:55
  And I think that that tension is reflected in something as simple
• 1:15:00
  as the red poppy, even the white poppy.
• 1:15:02
  And, you know, the Doctor is being shown as one of us, as a
• 1:15:08
  British television staple, versus being seen as the best of
• 1:15:13
  us, the man who never would, as he's in the next series.
• 1:15:19
  So yeah, I think it's really interesting how the different
• 1:15:22
  changes if he's. Supposed to.
• 1:15:24
  Be the Well, it depends who he's.
• 1:15:26
  Made a right hash of it. Isn't he over?
• 1:15:29
  The years. Well, then that's part of the
• 1:15:30
  tension of the show, isn't it? You know, that's if you're
• 1:15:34
  someone who does believe that the doctor should be the best of
• 1:15:37
  us and the man who never would. That gets challenged all the
• 1:15:41
  time. It's something that annoys.
• 1:15:43
  Me, because it's something that's really seeped into
• 1:15:47
  discussion of the show of no, the Doctor shouldn't do that.
• 1:15:50
  The Doctor wouldn't do that. The Doctor's better than that.
• 1:15:53
  As if he hears a cut above. Of course he makes mistakes.
• 1:15:56
  We all do. Yeah.
• 1:15:59
  Yeah, I think. That's the source for the, you
• 1:16:00
  know, the, the drama. And I think, you know, I know
• 1:16:03
  you're not a Moffett fan, but the idea that the Doctor is a
• 1:16:05
  promise, I think is, is a great sort of metaphor for that.
• 1:16:09
  That the Doctor does fall short, that there isn't this sort of
• 1:16:12
  moral imperative all the time, that it can be quite utilitarian
• 1:16:16
  in his in his morality, like for instance, the 7th Doctor that
• 1:16:21
  provides great storytelling friction.
• 1:16:24
  And I, I think we, we need that. Otherwise we just get a very
• 1:16:28
  sort of vanilla Superman like hero.
• 1:16:31
  What do you mean? I'm not a Moffett fan?
• 1:16:33
  I'm now I'm pleased to say, you know, the most astonishing thing
• 1:16:36
  has happened, but Blink has started on the iPlayer and I
• 1:16:40
  mean that's that is one of the most astonishing things about
• 1:16:42
  human nature is potentially the next episode was even better
• 1:16:47
  than this. I mean, Doctor Who was on fire.
• 1:16:50
  What are time to be alive? I know, right?
• 1:16:54
  Unbelievable. What a time.
• 1:16:57
  If it's a real shame that the Doctor Martha dynamic you've
• 1:17:01
  sort of derailed at this point in this series because we've
• 1:17:04
  just had a week without them. And then we've had two weeks
• 1:17:08
  where the Doctor's not been mimic much.
• 1:17:10
  And then we have another week where the Doctor and Martha
• 1:17:13
  aren't mimic much. And then we get to e-mail.
• 1:17:16
  And then we get to Captain Jack's also around.
• 1:17:19
  And then we get to the Masters also around.
• 1:17:21
  And it just sort of feels like they're not the focus of
• 1:17:24
  attention for that. What's great is when she finally
• 1:17:28
  in sound of drums and he's like, don't, don't contact your
• 1:17:31
  people. I'll do our like she goes and
• 1:17:33
  she's totally doing it. She's completely away from him
• 1:17:35
  at that point and she's wonderful.
• 1:17:37
  Well look fellas, we still have to do our three fabulous things
• 1:17:42
  to just explain why people should go and watch Human Nature
• 1:17:47
  and. Family.
• 1:17:47
  In the blood. Immediately, and so I feel as
• 1:17:51
  with no time to prepare whatsoever and because he throws
• 1:17:55
  an awful number of questions at us with no preparation, you
• 1:17:58
  should go. First, yeah, so I'll go with it.
• 1:18:02
  Well, I think I've got to start with Jessica Holmes as as Joan
• 1:18:07
  Redfern obviously from the book as well.
• 1:18:10
  I think Jessica Hymes, obviously our most famous been before this
• 1:18:14
  is probably space, which is obviously a very different
• 1:18:17
  terminally to to this. So I don't know if many he was
• 1:18:23
  indeed might have seen her in that role.
• 1:18:26
  But I think it's a it's a fairly it it, but we've spoken before.
• 1:18:34
  The flaws in a character are really basic fundamental like
• 1:18:39
  films, but to a modern audience would seem a medium alien in a
• 1:18:45
  character. And I think that's a really
• 1:18:48
  difficult balancing act to pull off to.
• 1:18:51
  You have to be both a ROM com a romantic partner that the show
• 1:18:58
  cannot survive with. So yeah, romantic partner that
• 1:19:02
  ultimately has to be booed. And, you know, a very
• 1:19:06
  complicated product of her time and her culture who who we still
• 1:19:12
  have to root for in the end and find and find that we're moved
• 1:19:16
  by. And that devastating final
• 1:19:18
  moment for her where she's just sort of clutching the journal of
• 1:19:23
  impossible things and sort of mourning the one impossible man
• 1:19:28
  who's just sort of run out on her.
• 1:19:30
  And, you know, is that the end of her life for him?
• 1:19:33
  Obviously, we find out in the end of time that things went
• 1:19:38
  well for her. And it's it's it's interesting
• 1:19:42
  that we would turn back to Jessica Heim to come back to the
• 1:19:47
  end of time to show the impact that this story has ultimately
• 1:19:51
  had on the character and the era.
• 1:19:54
  But yeah, I think that performance is so crucial to to
• 1:20:00
  to gain sympathy for a character who cannot survive in the show
• 1:20:06
  and who might not survive cultural mores if she were
• 1:20:10
  played in a different fashion. Brilliant.
• 1:20:15
  I've heard people decry why is Jessica Hynes in the End of Time
• 1:20:20
  Part 2 when we're going around all those companions, but really
• 1:20:23
  we don't really like these RTD endings where people are left on
• 1:20:28
  a very miserable note. It's very nice to learn, in
• 1:20:31
  fact, that Joe went on and had a good life.
• 1:20:33
  I love. Yeah, what do you want, Mickey
• 1:20:35
  being married to Martha or some stupid shit like that?
• 1:20:42
  Stephen, what's your first? Well, I could go with either of
• 1:20:46
  the leads, but I will go with David Tennant's performance,
• 1:20:49
  which as John Smith is so different from 10th Doctor while
• 1:20:54
  still retaining the kernel of the Doctor in key moments.
• 1:20:57
  Like, as I say, the moment where he cannot bring himself to to
• 1:21:01
  shoot the gun. That's not because he's a
• 1:21:02
  coward, but because he's the Doctor.
• 1:21:04
  And that sort of fine line between denoting the differences
• 1:21:08
  between those characters is just superbly done.
• 1:21:11
  He is not just the most popular Doctor I think of the the modern
• 1:21:18
  era, but I, I think he is a genuinely talented actor and
• 1:21:21
  we're very lucky to have him. My first thing is somebody we
• 1:21:27
  didn't talk about too much because there was so much to
• 1:21:30
  talk about. But that's Charles Palmer, the
• 1:21:32
  director who I think is one of the standout directors of series
• 1:21:36
  three. I think he did Shakespeare, Code
• 1:21:41
  and Smith and Jones as well. No one's disagreeing with me.
• 1:21:45
  OK, good. No.
• 1:21:46
  I won't. But it's Jeffrey Palmer's son,
• 1:21:50
  isn't it? Charles Palmer, Doctor Who
• 1:21:53
  pedigree. And he, he has an awful lot to
• 1:21:57
  achieve here. He has to sell those romance
• 1:22:00
  scenes between the doctor and Joan.
• 1:22:03
  He has to meet the intensity of the scenes in Part 2, with the
• 1:22:09
  scarecrows attacking and the boys shooting them down, the
• 1:22:12
  sci-fi scenes on the ship, just all of it.
• 1:22:16
  And I think it's visually stunning.
• 1:22:18
  It's emotionally arresting. I don't think he puts a foot
• 1:22:21
  wrong throughout the entire story.
• 1:22:23
  There's no point where you go. That looks a bit pony.
• 1:22:28
  So yeah, Charles Palmer is my first choice.
• 1:22:32
  Well, my second choice would be the other person who did not
• 1:22:34
  quite mention quite much, Murray Golf, who obviously, you know,
• 1:22:41
  almost 20 years work on the program itself.
• 1:22:46
  There's only so many musical notes in the world and so many
• 1:22:49
  ways in which we can all be rearranged.
• 1:22:51
  So, you know, some of this stuff can sound quite a bit
• 1:22:55
  repetitive. But in this case, I think
• 1:22:59
  establishing a formula and deviating from that formula and
• 1:23:04
  learning when and how to deviate from that formula.
• 1:23:09
  It's something that really works for the story overall, but also
• 1:23:13
  works for my regardless musical contributions.
• 1:23:16
  So we get that heavy genre, you know, pride and perjure PC like
• 1:23:22
  rise to candle fur dish, you know, sort of music from him in
• 1:23:27
  moments where it's needed. You get a little 10 glimpse of,
• 1:23:30
  you know, Martha's theme of she's been going in the TARDIS
• 1:23:34
  again because the world of Doctor Who was coming back into
• 1:23:38
  the show. And I shared a musical time with
• 1:23:42
  you guys to know which was the one that's called All the
• 1:23:47
  Strange Creatures. Is that what it's called?
• 1:23:49
  Which is the sort of series 3, which is the that moment in
• 1:23:57
  Family of Blood where they're running out of the spaceship and
• 1:24:00
  they explode. That is the world adopted coming
• 1:24:03
  back in the sense of the year before this 2006, we had Kasuma
• 1:24:10
  Royale, the first Daniel Craig James Bond film.
• 1:24:14
  And right, that's quite notable for not having a lot of the
• 1:24:19
  famous John Barry save all of that right up until the very end
• 1:24:26
  of the film, because the film is about Daniel Craig Bond sort of
• 1:24:30
  becoming Bond and inheriting the mantle, as it were.
• 1:24:35
  And at the end of that film, the final rhyme of him going, you
• 1:24:38
  know, the name's Bond, James Bond.
• 1:24:40
  And then the kick film and that that moment of we have our
• 1:24:46
  character back, as it were, you know, in this age of a fan, you
• 1:24:52
  know, ownership, you know, we have our character back.
• 1:24:55
  This is, you know, they've become who they were meant to be
• 1:24:59
  and that what kind of happens with the show as well.
• 1:25:02
  That's a great way of the music saying we have the doctor back
• 1:25:06
  and we're in back into action and chasing him.
• 1:25:10
  And I just think it's very useful for, you know, to to
• 1:25:16
  recognise his contributions in an age where a lot of Murray
• 1:25:21
  golf beans slab doctors, you know, the music doing too much
• 1:25:27
  heavy lifting or why does the music have to be so much?
• 1:25:31
  You know, it's like, well, because it's it's television.
• 1:25:33
  It's it's not, you know, why do the actors have to be so much?
• 1:25:37
  Why does the script have to be so much?
• 1:25:40
  You know, you wouldn't say this. Why did the Charles Palmer have
• 1:25:43
  to do all those dark channels? You know, you wouldn't say this
• 1:25:46
  about any other element of the production.
• 1:25:49
  And I just saw that in the post 90s world of sci-fi fantasy
• 1:25:56
  musical scores, you know, big, bold, celebrated, you know,
• 1:26:01
  Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings and Danny Elfman doing, you
• 1:26:05
  know, Batman's and Spiderman's and, you know, and and, you
• 1:26:10
  know, bad lamentes, you know, Twin Peaks music.
• 1:26:13
  You know, no one watches Twin Peaks and goes, oh, that was all
• 1:26:17
  right. But that bloody music, yeah, I
• 1:26:19
  get it. Laura Palmer died and it was sad
• 1:26:22
  or whatever. I get it.
• 1:26:23
  But you have to play all this music all the time.
• 1:26:26
  Mark Snow's music in The X-Files.
• 1:26:28
  It was wallpaper, but everyone loved it.
• 1:26:31
  Exactly. It's just sort of like, why
• 1:26:35
  can't you know, it's just a criticism that we seem to only
• 1:26:39
  reserve for Murray Gold in our in our popular culture for some
• 1:26:43
  reason. And I think it's doing what it
• 1:26:46
  needs to do in that it deviates from traditional Doctor Who in
• 1:26:52
  the moment where Doctor Who, the character and the format on
• 1:26:57
  absent. And then when it needs those
• 1:26:59
  back, we return to the bombast and the and the gloriousness of
• 1:27:04
  it all. So yeah, I think Murray Gold
• 1:27:06
  absolutely understands the assignment here.
• 1:27:09
  And he writes A waltz as well. Yes, I know that's again very
• 1:27:14
  good because it's immediately identifiable, but it's also
• 1:27:18
  different since the environment. Yeah, I'll.
• 1:27:22
  Play it at the end of the episode.
• 1:27:25
  I was also going to say Murray Gold.
• 1:27:27
  And I think the variations on the themes that you've
• 1:27:29
  highlighted, Jack, are absolutely spot on.
• 1:27:31
  And I was going to attack, I think, a very kind of old
• 1:27:35
  school, again, grading to a bell curve.
• 1:27:38
  And that bell curve is effectively Dudley Simpson in
• 1:27:40
  the 70s, you know, and the differences between those.
• 1:27:44
  And you're absolutely right. It's down to the fact that 50
• 1:27:47
  years of televisual literacy has developed in the meantime, and
• 1:27:51
  you can't use that as a critique anymore.
• 1:27:54
  Sorry, that's not the, that's just not a valid reading, I
• 1:27:58
  guess, or a criticism of, of, of Murray Gold's music.
• 1:28:02
  The only thing that I think Murray Gold suffers from is the
• 1:28:05
  fact that it's kind of saturated after, you know, his entire
• 1:28:09
  tenure comes to a close. We're kind of sick of him at the
• 1:28:11
  end of it, which is, I think, unfair, but it's just by virtue
• 1:28:16
  of the fact that he he sticks around for so long.
• 1:28:18
  But because I can't say Murray Gold, I will go with my second
• 1:28:21
  choice or my first choice, which is free, free Mirage man who
• 1:28:24
  does an absolutely incredible, incredible turn as effectively.
• 1:28:30
  You know, the the companion that needs to drive the the story
• 1:28:34
  forward in the absence of the Doctor and in particular the way
• 1:28:38
  in which she has to, I think, deal with and confront on you
• 1:28:43
  for your on the audience's behalf, the race, gender and a
• 1:28:48
  class aspects of of the her perceived character in 1913,
• 1:28:55
  which could have been a train wreck.
• 1:28:58
  You know, it could have been in terms of her own performance,
• 1:29:00
  but also in terms of the writing, something that came
• 1:29:03
  across as perhaps you're judged. But none of those things
• 1:29:08
  happened. She really rises to the
• 1:29:10
  material, and the material is wonderful in and of itself.
• 1:29:13
  I think this is one of Freeman's best turns as as Martha Jones.
• 1:29:21
  I am, I am a man of the countryside.
• 1:29:25
  I live in the countryside. And since Doctor Who has come
• 1:29:29
  back in the new series, we sort of avoided the countryside a
• 1:29:32
  little bit and stuck to London. And it was so refreshing to
• 1:29:37
  watch Doctor Who and Joan Redfern stomping over the hills
• 1:29:41
  just like I do. I think it brings a whole new
• 1:29:44
  aesthetic. It's there in season series 5
• 1:29:47
  when Moffett comes in and we start going to Leadworth and
• 1:29:50
  we're away from the city and we're places that, you know, a
• 1:29:54
  bit more atmosphere. I don't know, I just love the
• 1:29:57
  location work in this and I think it's a really refreshing
• 1:30:00
  change. So being in the countryside is
• 1:30:03
  my second thing. Yeah, I guess for my final one,
• 1:30:10
  I'm going to be a little bit more general.
• 1:30:12
  I'm trying not to Google every, every positive of this story
• 1:30:21
  when I say this, but my final fabulous thing about human
• 1:30:25
  nature is demonstrating the full the merits and the benefits of
• 1:30:36
  television as an artistic medium.
• 1:30:38
  You know, obviously Doctor Who is in, you know, comics and
• 1:30:44
  information books and all sorts of wonderful things.
• 1:30:49
  But for me, Doctor Who belongs on television.
• 1:30:54
  That's not to say, but other great stories aren't in other
• 1:30:57
  mediums because of course now and other mediums have their
• 1:31:01
  strength. But for me, television is the
• 1:31:05
  great maybe because I've been a little bit studying it too much
• 1:31:09
  at university, but it's the great encompasser of all the
• 1:31:13
  other artistic mediums. And I think this story really
• 1:31:17
  shows. But by us being able to map out
• 1:31:20
  those differences between the two versions, what this story
• 1:31:25
  can really do well, it's, you know, the power of the lovely
• 1:31:31
  costume design, the one for performances, the tension being
• 1:31:38
  distributed throughout the scripting.
• 1:31:39
  You know, the use of montage, the use of the flash forwards.
• 1:31:44
  You know, again, the great direction, the great visual
• 1:31:48
  aesthetic, the inputs of the BBC and perhaps how that play plays,
• 1:31:55
  you know, the needs of the broadcaster, the needs of the
• 1:31:58
  schedule, the way that we audiences receive it.
• 1:32:02
  I think the way that we're watching it right now and how US
• 1:32:06
  watching it right now is by definition different to every
• 1:32:09
  other time we've watched it because of the nature of how
• 1:32:13
  we're watching it. And I think it provides a
• 1:32:17
  different unique, individual artistic experience each time.
• 1:32:25
  And I think, you know, it's interesting that the two
• 1:32:30
  different versions, but the thing that marks this out is a
• 1:32:33
  little bit different. Is this one instance where the
• 1:32:37
  remake is as such is can be read as the more in quotes
• 1:32:44
  artistically valid or Canon one because normally you know, it's
• 1:32:51
  people accept, you know, a full and the bridge version of
• 1:32:55
  Shakespeare is Hamlet. But you know, the cleanest
• 1:32:58
  planner one to you know, The Lion King or whatever you know,
• 1:33:04
  or because there is that sense of the authenticity of the text
• 1:33:08
  and all that sort of thing. Here we have what is ostensibly
• 1:33:14
  A remake, but it is a remake made by written by the same
• 1:33:19
  author, starring, you know, the definitive Dr. of possibly the
• 1:33:26
  whole show, but definitely the 21st century version of the
• 1:33:29
  show. You know, the John Smith of the
• 1:33:32
  novel is a hazy memory of a Doctor Who people might remember
• 1:33:40
  because it was on six years ago. Who, you know, not all the VHS
• 1:33:45
  tape throughout yet, but we think we remember a guy who
• 1:33:50
  would pull handkerchiefs out of his sleeve and had the pork pie
• 1:33:54
  hat and the umbrella with a question mark and you've
• 1:33:57
  malapropism. We think we remember that.
• 1:34:00
  But we if it's all hazy summer's afternoon memory as we're
• 1:34:06
  reading this book so that we can go, Oh yes, the doctor now the
• 1:34:09
  doctor's back. Whereas here we have the doctor
• 1:34:13
  and I don't know if any doctor has been more here and now and
• 1:34:19
  then attempts Dr. was of that period being trapped in our
• 1:34:24
  television screens. And you know, as an audience of
• 1:34:27
  an 11 year old boy sitting at home, I can look at it and go,
• 1:34:31
  oh, there's the doctor. He's there.
• 1:34:33
  Come back, doctor. Whereas, you know, in the book
• 1:34:37
  you're reading, you know, Mr. Smith this, Mr. Smith that,
• 1:34:42
  pages and pages and chapters and chapters without the words, the
• 1:34:46
  Doctor on the page, you get that level of separation here for the
• 1:34:52
  nature of television. We have that added tension of
• 1:34:56
  the fact that the doctor is always there, but he's stuck and
• 1:35:02
  we can't get to him. And I think that's an effect
• 1:35:05
  that we can only achieve by watching this on television.
• 1:35:09
  So yeah, I think, you know, in short that my my final positive,
• 1:35:15
  if I can submit it as an MC is the entire medium of television.
• 1:35:23
  So Stephen, what's your next one?
• 1:35:25
  Something about the costumes or something.
• 1:35:28
  I mean, it would be as valid Stephen, don't worry.
• 1:35:31
  Well, coming off that, superb. I hate me.
• 1:35:39
  Superb. I guess eulogy to to the
• 1:35:42
  semiotics of television. I think whoever made the
• 1:35:45
  decision to bring human nature to screen, I think who that
• 1:35:52
  collective decision. I guess as a production team,
• 1:35:55
  that collaboration between author and in this case
• 1:35:59
  producer, between Russell and Paul, to whatever extent we may
• 1:36:04
  never know to produce this masterpiece.
• 1:36:07
  I think it takes a lot of courage to go back to something
• 1:36:10
  that was just a book in the village years, some at that, .10
• 1:36:15
  plus years ago. A history that perhaps was not
• 1:36:18
  just neglected, but perhaps even forgotten, maybe woefully so,
• 1:36:22
  And resurface it in a way that is so vital to the shape of you
• 1:36:29
  who as we know it, Particularly because, and we've talked about
• 1:36:33
  this, that, you know, the last couple of hours or so as a way
• 1:36:38
  to examine the role of the doctor by removing him from the
• 1:36:43
  narrative. And I think that decision is,
• 1:36:46
  yeah, just incredible. And they pulled it off
• 1:36:49
  brilliantly. And we are so lucky to have had
• 1:36:53
  Russell and to have had Paul's script and story come to life on
• 1:36:57
  television for us. I know the fan base that was
• 1:37:02
  there in the 90s when these books were coming out, it was a
• 1:37:06
  bit smaller because Doctor Who wasn't on TV, it wasn't as
• 1:37:10
  relevant. But to take an accepted classic
• 1:37:12
  as well, the human nature was absolutely celebrated when it
• 1:37:17
  came out. And to offer another version,
• 1:37:20
  knowing that that fanbase would be watching this and, you know,
• 1:37:24
  taken to their computers afterwards and giving their
• 1:37:26
  opinion about it, I think that was bold thing to do as well.
• 1:37:30
  You know, those people are vocal.
• 1:37:33
  Well, I suppose I'll end on a gentle note then.
• 1:37:36
  And that is just, I think putting a Doctor Who story on
• 1:37:41
  the screen that asks those questions that you can't really
• 1:37:44
  give answers to is just a really brave thing to do.
• 1:37:50
  So just ask the question. If you hadn't come here, would
• 1:37:53
  anyone have died? You know, is the doctor
• 1:37:55
  responsible for that, all of those people dying?
• 1:37:57
  That's a bold question to ask, to ask the question, can the
• 1:38:01
  doctor settle down, have a relationship, have children, get
• 1:38:05
  married? That's a bold question to us and
• 1:38:08
  another one you can't really answer as well.
• 1:38:12
  And I TV Doctor Who doesn't go there for a reason.
• 1:38:17
  It doesn't want us to think about those things usually
• 1:38:19
  because it's a fun family adventure.
• 1:38:22
  But just once we're breaking all the rules.
• 1:38:25
  And as Russell says, we're going about as far as we can go.
• 1:38:28
  And yeah, I'm really pleased they did.
• 1:38:30
  I don't think we got any satisfactory answers, but it got
• 1:38:34
  us thinking. And that's that's an interesting
• 1:38:37
  place to be. Oh, boys, what a what a story.
• 1:38:40
  Hey, what 1/2 season? I mean, the only way is down
• 1:38:45
  from here for the three of us. What do we before we go, what do
• 1:38:51
  we think as a sort of summary, what obviously we've still got
• 1:38:56
  last of the babies that do on the television.
• 1:38:59
  It's coming up this week. What do we think if if we take
• 1:39:04
  away all the stuff that we have in common, what do we think this
• 1:39:08
  has to say about the last of the babies, the mentor or the B
• 1:39:13
  version of Doctor Who? What what do we think this in
• 1:39:16
  particular has to say about the show at this point?
• 1:39:22
  Is there anything or other than what we discussed?
• 1:39:25
  Or is it just, yeah, what what, why is this what it is now
• 1:39:30
  rather than just give it some of that or give it to Chip or give
• 1:39:33
  it to, you know, if it's say what or whatever, you know what?
• 1:39:36
  What makes this? What does this have to say about
• 1:39:40
  RT DS flavour of there's no sound, I'm not looking.
• 1:39:47
  For I don't think you can produce something like this
• 1:39:50
  until you're a few years in, until you've figured out what
• 1:39:54
  you're doing, until you're confident enough in the show,
• 1:39:57
  until you've built up your own mythology.
• 1:40:00
  I don't think we're getting anything like this in RTD One
• 1:40:03
  now because it's only had one year.
• 1:40:05
  Give it 3 or 4 years, I think we will get something like this.
• 1:40:10
  I don't. I don't know, Stephen.
• 1:40:11
  What do you think? I don't know, Jack may maybe we
• 1:40:15
  have already sort of had to justify this answer in depth in
• 1:40:22
  the in the past couple of hours or so.
• 1:40:24
  But I, I go back to that point that Russell wilfully takes
• 1:40:29
  Doctor Who at starting point as a television show that is and
• 1:40:36
  will always be relevant to a family audience as a starting
• 1:40:39
  point. And I think that's the critical
• 1:40:42
  piece again, the translating of human nature from an esoteric
• 1:40:45
  wilderness year's novel that does something that maybe 4000
• 1:40:48
  people are reading and translates that entirely, but
• 1:40:54
  also fittingly into a mass televisual, you know, a text for
• 1:41:00
  mass televisual audiences is I think the thing that saves
• 1:41:06
  Doctor Who. I think there was a, an
• 1:41:10
  acceptance or an attitude as late as the early 2000s that if
• 1:41:15
  we're going to do Doctor Who, we have to do it adult.
• 1:41:17
  We have to do it in a way that continues to match and mirror
• 1:41:23
  the growth of its ageing audience, which takes it again,
• 1:41:28
  wilfully into a, a cul-de-sac if you like, in the sense that it's
• 1:41:33
  not inclusive, it doesn't look to to renew itself, it doesn't
• 1:41:38
  try to appeal to a broader audience.
• 1:41:41
  So all of which is to say, I think I think what I see here in
• 1:41:46
  human nature is something that is absolutely critical to
• 1:41:48
  Russell's view of Doctor Who as the greatest television show,
• 1:41:55
  the televisual ages, great myth and a text or a show, a
• 1:42:03
  television show that anybody and everybody will love and enjoy.
• 1:42:09
  And that's the right way to handle and treat Doctor Who.
• 1:42:14
  No wonder we all loved him. What a.
• 1:42:18
  Time, as you say, Yeah. It's.
• 1:42:22
  Pretty good. Yeah, it's all right.
• 1:42:24
  Yeah. Well, where are we going next,
• 1:42:27
  fellas? Well, so when we discussed the
• 1:42:31
  Thai monster, I threw up a list of stories.
• 1:42:34
  And days. I might like us.
• 1:42:36
  Yes, both better days. I threw up a list of stories
• 1:42:41
  that I might like us to talk about and I picked 1 and Stephen
• 1:42:46
  picked 1. You, Joe, obviously did not pick
• 1:42:48
  one because you are. Talked about all of.
• 1:42:52
  Them thoughts I never should I pick human nature.
• 1:42:57
  So Speaking of people who will never shut up, I will decide to
• 1:43:02
  shut up. So, Stephen, please tell us the
• 1:43:04
  story that you've picked and what, Yeah, what we're going to
• 1:43:08
  be talking about while we're watching it.
• 1:43:11
  It's going to be somewhere within the quality of human
• 1:43:15
  nature, family of blood to time lash.
• 1:43:18
  All right. So somewhere in the middle of
• 1:43:19
  those two. OK, I think I've got the story
• 1:43:22
  for us. Then we're going back to the
• 1:43:24
  countryside, the English countryside of Thatcher's
• 1:43:26
  Britain in the early 80s. And.
• 1:43:28
  We are examining the socio political influences and
• 1:43:36
  possible readings of the awakening.
• 1:43:40
  Why did you choose this one? I ditched this in our strictly.
• 1:43:44
  I know. And I won't forgive you for it.
• 1:43:46
  I won't change. I will not forgive you, Joe
• 1:43:49
  Ford. No, no, no.
• 1:43:50
  We are doing. As ever, I am prepared to be
• 1:43:53
  educated. Well, if you're prepared for
• 1:43:56
  something. Whether you like it or not.
• 1:44:01
  Should I cut it there? I'll say I'll cut it on your
• 1:44:06
  line, Jack, shall I? Thanks.
• 1:44:11
  If if myself and Stephen had never arrived at this place,
• 1:44:16
  would you have even podcasted?