Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Dylan Rees about his choice of Dragonfire (3/3)

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Talks to Dylan Rees about his choice of Dragonfire (3/3) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

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Hamster with a blump. Pen Knife For doing Quicker,
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quicker, quicker. Welcome back to A Hamster With a
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Blum Pen Knife, the Doctor Who commentary podcast I did pause
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in because I forgot the name of my own podcast on 2 Glasses of
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red in Yes, you're not victory. Two sides in you've come to
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visit me and I've forced you to drink alcohol, apparently.
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The only Doctor Who commentary podcast to sell its soul to ice
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vampires. I am here with the magnificent.
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Didn't really say hello. Hello.
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It's wonderful to be back here. It's, you know, we've we fired
1:12
through dragon fire in no time. It may have been a couple of
1:14
days to everybody else, but we've been sat here enjoying the
1:17
hell out of this much maligned. I mean, I say much of A line.
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It was voted the best of the season by the DWAS at the time.
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It was. But as I said, all four of those
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stories were bang at the bottom of the, you know, I think it's
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those, those polls, I think reading really, they're too
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obvious. Yeah, it comes out this city of
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death. Really great.
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Fantastic. Cheers.
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Cheers. I really hate that one.
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I don't hate it at all. I just, you know, like it's just
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such an obvious choice to be the number one.
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Isn't it all? Although, and then again it's so
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predictable because it's the only Graham Williams one in the
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top 15 and then all the rest are down the bottom.
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I mean people who aren't rating nightmare on Eden, all the horns
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and I'm and be like go fuck yourself, frankly.
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Two absolute classics. Exactly.
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Dylan, you did promise us all two days ago.
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Yes. Another fascinating fact.
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At the beginning of this I did. So we were talking about how, or
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I was talking about how Dragon Fire had an influence on my
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career. The other influence was when I
2:22
used to go to these Doctor Who conventions.
2:23
They used to have a celebrity meal in the evening and you'd
2:27
pay extra money and you get a Doctor Who celebrity sat at your
2:30
table and you'd be sat there with, say, 10 other Doctor Who
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fans. Please tell me it was Patricia
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Quinn. It wasn't Patricia.
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Quinn But obviously being a 10 year old, I was like, well, I
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hope it's John Pert, wheel Nick Courtney or someone like that.
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And we got Mike Tucker and Alan Marshall of the of the special
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effects team, Alan Rocky Marshall.
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And now for about 10 seconds I was disappointed.
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But for some reason I was sat next to Alan Rocky Marshall and
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he just started talking to me about what it was like to work
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in the special effects department.
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And it was the most fascinating conversation that you could have
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had as a 10 year old. And he just talked about Doctor
3:13
Who, a red dwarf. And we had a wonderful time.
3:17
Well, I had a wonderful time. He was probably just drinking
3:19
the complimentary wine and he did the complimentary food to
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go. When do I not have to speak to a
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10 year old? Did you already have the bug
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then? Had you already?
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I probably did. I probably did.
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But that was definitely one of the.
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I remember saying for about a year afterwards that I wanted to
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work in the visual effects department at the BBC, which I
3:38
don't do because that department doesn't exist, but I don't work
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in visual effects. But it was definitely like that.
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You guys really do this for a job and here we are now and I
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don't work in the effects. You know, what I think is
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wonderful is how Doctor Who stimulates so many different
3:58
things in different people. So for you it was sort of
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television production and you've gone on and explored that and
4:06
built your career around that. For a lot of the writers writing
4:10
for the new series now, a lot of it.
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Sort of. Stimulated them to be creative
4:16
with their writing. Like for me, it got me thinking
4:19
critically, which, you know, isn't my job.
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I'm not paid to do it, but I spend an enormous portion of my
4:25
life now attempting to talk critically about Doctor Who, and
4:30
you do it very well. Wow.
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For a few Dick jokes as well. And I've been I'm all completely
4:34
restrained on this one. I think what's going on?
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Obviously you just need to get me a little bit.
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So most people get more obscene the more drunk they get you the
4:42
other way. Oh no, come very polite.
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I think you'll find most educated people regarding
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mythical convictions. Well, I won't go there again,
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but it is true, isn't it? It does inspire people.
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It does. It's interesting.
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People always say that Star Trek inspired people to become
4:58
scientists and NASA people and things like that.
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And yet Doctor Who, I think it's all about becoming media savvy
5:06
in a way, like whether that's media savvy of working in it or
5:09
understanding the the, you know, being able to critically review
5:13
something to understand in the storytelling process and things
5:15
like that. It's it's it's weird that two
5:18
shows that on the surface people think are very similar inspire
5:21
people to do different things. Is it because?
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Doctor Who has that premise that it can go anywhere and do
5:27
anything, so it touches all those different genres and
5:30
styles and tones. So you look at that as a body of
5:32
work. It's really diverse, whereas
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Star Trek is very much science fiction.
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It's the most sciencey science fiction that is still accessible
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to a mainstream. Audience How do you label Doctor
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Who then? Broadly speaking, science
5:48
fiction. Broadly speaking, fantasy.
5:51
Quite often comedy. And in the new series, quite
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often Soap. Yeah, exactly.
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And I think it mixes. It can be all those things.
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It can be some of those things. It can be none of those things
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but you. Know, I've got one more question
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to ask you before we go to episode three.
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Hit me, And that is as a child. How old would you have been when
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you first saw this VHS? Probably 11 year 10 or 11 years.
6:17
Old OK, so quite young. Were you aware of?
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Production values being an issue or was this a point where all
6:28
Doctor Who was just good Doctor Who?
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I think as I was watching this I think I was aware of production
6:33
values being an issue. But I would still because you
6:36
got to remember that this was only a few years after this.
6:39
I would still hold the Sylvester McCoy stuff up as being quite
6:43
high production values, things like time.
6:45
And me too, I used to think were really high production values,
6:49
but I mean, they've obviously dated, but they felt like what
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was on TV at the time whenever we did get a rare bit of British
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scifi like we're talking Red Dwarf and things like that.
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So yeah, but whereas at the end of the Colin Baker era felt like
7:04
that. But the moment Peter Davidson
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and before that, I was very much aware that it seemed dated you.
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Know, I was perfectly convinced I was never going to see a
7:13
higher production quality than The Curse of Fenrich when I
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first watched it. Yeah, and you know what?
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I'm still looking, you know. I just wish it wasn't on video.
7:23
That video, it really does feel like someone's taken a camcorder
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out shot it. It's such a shame.
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I mean, I think that's why Star Trek repeats and Avengers
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repeats work so well in the 90s. And Doctor, they're all on film.
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We're not at that point of HD remastering.
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So they they look great on TV now.
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You upscale them and they look a bit shoddy, but Doctor Who was
7:45
already trailing behind with this videotape.
7:48
Look like, you know that that spearhead from repeat does OK
7:51
And by the time you're halfway through the site, the soil
7:53
orients. Everybody's going, oh, what?
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What is this? You know that.
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See you're a man who knows about television.
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So I can you're the perfect person to ask this question to.
8:02
You know how sort of weird filter like slapped on the first
8:05
couple of series of the new series.
8:07
Yeah. Was it shot on video and then
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given. So could they do that with this?
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I mean in theory, but I wonder whether it's a very it's still
8:16
it's they the first few series of shots on Digi Beta.
8:19
So it is a tape, but it's a digital form of tape, is my
8:22
understanding of it. So it's.
8:24
Sympathetic for that, Yeah. I don't think you could do it to
8:27
this. And I don't think at this stage
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we need to because no one's going to repeat this anymore.
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Are they all the people, the tape, the companies that are so
8:35
like when the horror channels did it and stuff like that,
8:38
people know what they're going in for.
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It was just that point in the 90s, wasn't it?
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Where it wasn't as repeatable on mainstream television.
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I'll tell you, there's a production that really shows you
8:49
how video can damage, of course, that Neil Gaiman series never
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wear. Oh God, yeah, Which?
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Just looks so cheap. Fantastic series, wonderfully
9:00
acted, wonderfully shot. But yeah, you're right, the
9:02
videotape look just makes it look.
9:05
I mean, yeah, it looks like old school Doctor Who.
9:07
And there's only one aberration in the rum.
9:11
Which really? It's a bit annoying, actually.
9:14
I'm glad it exists, but that's being here from Space, which is
9:17
all shot on film, and it's that one enticing glimpse into how
9:21
Doctor Who could look. It's such a shame, but it just
9:24
wasn't the way the BBC we're going to do things.
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Back then they just didn't have the money.
9:28
And you know, they still don't have the money now to do things
9:30
like that. But thank God for the digital
9:32
revolution. Well, would you care to watch a
9:35
shoddy videotape piece of science fiction from 1987?
9:38
Absolutely. That's going then.
9:40
Am I counting in or? You.
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Yeah, I think I intro this one. So it's your countdown.
9:44
OK. And we will be pressing play in
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54321. Here we go.
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We talked a bit about the music, didn't we?
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In the first one, what do you think of the graphics?
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I mean, again, in 1994 this looked futuristic and
10:04
otherworldly and amazing. I still don't think it looks
10:08
terrible. I mean like.
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I really noisy and I think it looks like now like the TARDIS.
10:14
You can tell the CG. The rocks look a bit funny, but
10:17
the purples and Blues and stuff I still think look really good.
10:20
The winky face, not so much, but.
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No, that's silver paint we're so about.
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But I think the effects and the music marry together really
10:29
well. And this was terrifying to me as
10:32
a kid, that this theme tune was truly terrifying.
10:35
It meant you are gonna get scared shitless.
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I loved the stars exploding at you.
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Yeah. And then the letters flying past
10:43
you. Yeah, honestly, we're used to
10:47
sort of the screaming sound of the theme tune, but the
10:49
explosion is an inspired version, I think.
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They could have just airbrushed out those bits, the tinsel
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couldn't. They use the tinsel unless
10:59
you're doing a Christmas set. It's always a no no in science
11:01
fiction and it shows up in Doc Two in the 80s every now and
11:05
then. They did it in time lash when
11:06
they went down into the time lash in the new CGI version with
11:10
everybody and they sort of blurred it out so it looked like
11:12
an effect. Yeah, and they're getting some
11:16
good. I can't remember at this point
11:18
whether they were leaving the stages standing in between
11:21
shooting or whether they were. I think they were doing set by
11:24
set at this. Point, weren't they?
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Yeah, because it's a big, big set and you know, there will
11:29
have been a game show that was in there two days later, the
11:32
generation game or something like that.
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So I think they kept the game show sets up, you know, and just
11:37
shot Doctor Who in him. I mean, look, you could do the
11:39
Generation game and that's it. Singing trees, nice gardens,
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skits. Kane is talking about
11:47
decapitating the creature. Yes, that's another dark idea.
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It is. But also I think it's been sold
11:53
enough that it's not, you know, it's just.
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Bio mechanoid Yeah, it's a bio mechanoid.
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So it's got some rudimentary intelligence, but it's not.
12:01
It's not alive, but obviously the Doctor being the Doctor,
12:04
it's like it's a marvelous creature.
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We must save it. It's that sort of hunchback.
12:08
Office worker hunchback. That doesn't do it.
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Well, does it in terms of. All this bullshit about McCoy
12:14
suddenly sort of finding his feet in remembers of the Daleks.
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You get that wonderful bit and don't want the bannermen.
12:20
You know where he goes up to. How did I say Gav Rock that Star
12:24
Trek. What's the first time?
12:25
Gav Rock, Gav Rock. You know, you might think that
12:27
Mike is right, you know, and he pulls away the hostages and in
12:31
this he gets that wonderful moment at the end where he takes
12:34
on Kane. Yeah, like he fucking owns it.
12:36
Do you know who I think is to blame for that?
12:39
That popular opinion, or at least in the more recent years
12:42
as Stephen Moffett. Stephen Moffett wrote a thing
12:45
for Doctor Who Magazine about how and in it he said.
12:50
Like, obviously I love season 24 now, but it was that final
12:53
scene, the goodbye to Mel, where there's suddenly a glimmer of
12:56
hope of Doctor Who being excited and new and fresh again and
12:59
becoming something more that it becomes the following season.
13:02
But I think that's, I think that's how a lot of fandom felt,
13:08
and I think that that feeling has been perpetuated over the
13:11
years. Yeah, I agree.
13:15
But it's there. I think he just.
13:16
I think he had it. Yeah.
13:18
I think Tom and the run is definitely finding his feet.
13:20
Yeah. But also you look at early
13:24
Patrick Traton, yeah. And five stories.
13:26
He takes a yeah, he takes a while to bed in.
13:28
And you know William Hartnell. He doesn't find the character of
13:32
the Doctor. I think you can hear nerves in
13:35
Tom Baker in some of those seasons.
13:37
I haven't been back. To 12 stories in a long.
13:40
Time Pert was there straight away.
13:41
Yeah, he just got it. Yeah.
13:43
Oh, I love this woman. Straight out of Alien.
13:46
She's sick of Sigourney Weaver from Alien.
13:48
I never leave her job off done. I know what even is that I never
13:52
leave. Is it space talk?
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What is it? And those guns look cool as
13:55
fuck, but they look so awkward. It reminds me of Rose's Gun in
13:58
the Stolen Earth, you know. She loves our gun, Shows up with
14:02
the bell bottoms and a fucking fish top and a massive gun.
14:06
You said they were doing Alien in this.
14:08
Now this episode is really is trying to do that on a bug hunt.
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We're going. On a bug.
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I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
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And that costume is an alien costume, yeah.
14:22
She may watch out. You know, she's so tall she's
14:24
about to hit the cling film. Here we go.
14:28
Now speak second. Lots of extras, yeah.
14:31
And as you say, doubled up a bit like the arc in space with the
14:36
the things behind and he's ready to slaughter some motherfuckers.
14:41
And I remember in that book, because I do remember reading
14:43
the target novelist. I'm going to confess something
14:46
to you now, but my 1 flirtation with heterosexuality was Sophie
14:51
Aldrid on the cover of Dragon Fire.
14:53
I was fucking obsessed. I've still got drawings home
14:56
where I was trying to replicate the cover of Dragon.
15:00
I thought she was the prettiest thing I've ever seen.
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Have you ever told Sophie Aldrid that?
15:06
I think she believed me. Look at this lovely image in the
15:11
background there. I can't help but think that that
15:13
star map does look like something off a game.
15:15
Show I like the idea though. Yeah, I know.
15:19
It's all about selling the idea. They're trying to Matt in
15:23
crystals in front of them as well.
15:26
They just weren't there, were they in television times?
15:28
They weren't there. Yeah.
15:30
Do you think? We've come to expect everything
15:33
to look so polished now. I think we come to expect things
15:37
to have a certain level of believability.
15:39
I don't know whether we're necessarily there with it, even
15:41
on look at the criticism Marvel and DC have been in for for
15:45
their visual effects recently. Really.
15:47
I mean the Flash film. To quote Daisy, my partner, when
15:51
we went to see The Flash, she said that the CGA CGI look like
15:54
The Polar Express. Wow.
15:57
We see. The thing is, with these CGI
15:58
heavy movies, I'll just look, I'm watching a car soon.
16:00
Yeah. Like when The Force Awakens went
16:03
back to all those practical effects I was, I was like, in
16:06
the cinema, sort of punching the air in triumph.
16:09
And yeah, that's the problem is those, I mean, both physical
16:13
effects and digital effects are very expensive.
16:17
But one of them you can sort of outsource to India to get done
16:21
on the cheap. And when you go to a director
16:23
where you can have more time to do something, you can have more
16:26
time with your actors, more shooting days, bigger stars,
16:29
better actors, or you can have bigger and better special
16:32
effects that are done practically.
16:34
And it's always the CGI that wins out because they get more
16:37
time with their actors. So it's only when I guess you've
16:40
got. Director who insists on
16:42
practical effects or a budget where they have the time and the
16:46
ability to do it. And those Marvel films?
16:48
They don't even get a choice. All the action and special
16:51
effects is done by a completely different unit.
16:53
The directors are bought in to do all the character stuff.
16:56
Really. Yeah.
16:57
Like you think those big battle scenes, they don't gonna say in
16:59
anything apart from a closeup whether you know where they
17:01
deliver their heroic. Line but you I heard I heard
17:04
that about the new series. You know about how because the
17:08
the showrunner and the producers and I have so much.
17:11
Sort of editorial control about what goes in and what comes out
17:15
that the director's signature sort of missing.
17:18
Now, I would absolutely believe that if I didn't watch episodes
17:20
by Graham Harper and Rachel Tullele and I know I can see
17:24
their stamp all over it. It's about operating in that
17:26
environment and who's able to do it.
17:28
But then I'd say Ben Wheatley when he did two episodes of
17:33
Doctor Who, Fantastic director. His films have a unique visual
17:35
player. They're just aren't there in his
17:37
Doctor Who episodes. I'm not even in those shots.
17:40
And into the Dalek. No, no.
17:42
Oh, there. Into the Dalek, into the
17:45
Shmaling. Whereas poor old Chris Cloth was
17:49
given a bit of shoestring, sticky back plastic and 50 pence
17:53
and smashed, it went on to do skins.
17:56
Yeah. So I do think directors get a
17:59
certain amount of ownership, but it's about the, you know, you've
18:02
still got to work within the confines of the vision of the
18:05
creative leads. And on on films.
18:07
Quite often the directors of the creative leads on television
18:10
shows Now it tends to be the writers.
18:12
But I've heard sort of in the 70s and the 80s, because
18:15
obviously we've dealt behind the scenes on a lot of Doctor Who,
18:18
the director. So cast in control, you knew
18:21
someone from the theater that could handle the role you bring
18:24
them in. That's just not the way anymore,
18:26
is it? I mean, if you think about it,
18:28
like, who's going to This is the issue that Tom Baker used to
18:31
have me say. Who knows the show better than
18:33
me? Who knows the show better than
18:35
the current producer and showrunner and goes, So you
18:37
might have an idea as a director, want to cast this
18:39
person. But actually we know, Oh no,
18:40
we've got them cast in something else.
18:42
Although they hate Doctor Who, they don't want to do it.
18:44
So they know that, you know, they're keeping an eye on what's
18:47
fresh and new for the show. You've got to come on and come
18:49
in and pull all the pieces together.
18:52
Both iterations of Doctor Who are successful and work, so both
18:56
approaches work. That's right.
19:00
They're going to send ice back off to back to my bedroom.
19:04
Was she going there? Oh, to get some night trying.
19:06
Yeah, of course. She's been in the TARDIS.
19:08
Shit. I've completely stopped looking
19:10
at the screen, but this is a lovely image of the the monster
19:13
carrying the little girl around. Is that little girl done any
19:16
Phantom films? Events.
19:19
But I expect so. Yeah, she's charging 20 Queer
19:22
for an autograph. I do say to Mark all the time,
19:25
Good night, Teddy. Oh, it turns him on.
19:35
Do you wear that little dress and the funny little mask as?
19:37
Well. Oh, you were there.
19:42
One picture on Facebook I didn't post.
19:46
Wow. Bloody hell.
19:47
The dry ice is going crazy. The image of the little girl
19:52
alone in that empty space is the Gray.
19:56
It's wonderful. And you know what?
19:57
She's showing up some of those Moffett kids, and she.
20:00
I didn't give her too much to do.
20:02
She's just gotta be cute, you know, in a little blue dress.
20:04
Yeah. She's a young Bonnie Langford.
20:07
Now look at how model works coming on, because this looks
20:09
like some of that red Dwarf model work.
20:11
That's great. That spaceship's great.
20:13
I think there's a little wobble when it.
20:15
Yeah, the string sort of. But they were still learning how
20:19
to do effects. And on that Panopticon tapes,
20:21
Mike Tucker talks about how they would have loved to read.
20:23
We have done it, but they were filming the special effects,
20:26
sort of a lot of them within recording breaks.
20:29
So the main drama and they just didn't have the time to, you
20:32
know? The coolest thing of all is when
20:34
that spaceship explodes, all the sparks land on the screen.
20:37
Look. I mean, that's a waiting for it.
20:40
Let's all bounce off the screen look.
20:44
That's a hell of an explosion, because that's shot on film in
20:47
Slomo or The Thing. Do you think you need a Big Bang
20:50
at the end of a Doctor Who story?
20:51
I mean, for big space stories like this, you absolutely do
20:55
like for. Cheesy as hell, did you say
20:56
that? Kind of straight to the camera.
21:02
He's lost his ship. He's lost his crew.
21:03
Oh no, he sold his crew. Oh, Ace is a very underwhelming
21:08
reaction to the TARDIS. Yeah, but it's perfectly within
21:11
character. She says, Hang about, How'd you
21:14
do that then? Almost as bad as Tegan.
21:17
Remember in Black Orchid you are in for a surprise as all those
21:21
policemen game. Yeah, Also, it's rare now Doctor
21:27
Who and indeed McCoy Doctor Who, for them to run back to the
21:30
TARDIS in the middle of the story in the mid 80s.
21:32
It felt like they were doing it all the time in the Davidson
21:35
era. And almost bloody army of people
21:37
he's taking with him. No one asking any questions.
21:40
We'd have one shot in The Awakening and they're all in
21:42
there. Polly was her face.
21:45
Tegan's grandfather, Andrew Walsey.
21:48
The camera just goes past him and they're all sort of going.
21:51
How unusual. You think back to an Unearthly
21:53
child. Barney had a breakdown when they
21:55
walked in and Doctor Who kidnapped them.
21:58
I don't know if you know it's for the last scene.
22:00
Might be the first use of the word Dick in Doctor Who.
22:03
What? Someone said Dick.
22:04
She's a clever Dick. Don't go all clever Dick with
22:06
me. What's going on?
22:08
Interesting. I think I might be Richard
22:10
rather than penis. All right, I say.
22:12
Look, here she is. Look, the camper from the soda
22:14
blood, she is, you know, she's gone up in the world.
22:17
She's very clam, isn't she? In fact, she's looking a bit
22:19
like Cesare of Diplos now, this scene that these guys is
22:24
supposed to be directly out of Aliens, where the two Marines
22:27
are stuck in the tunnel, and it just doesn't work like that on
22:31
this budget. Every single gun in the
22:34
Sylvester McCoy era is a spark gun.
22:37
Battlefields full of them. Silver Nemesis is full of them.
22:40
I think they just wanted those practical effects, didn't they?
22:43
Which I do like, but when we get my proper artillery and cursive
22:47
henrig, that bit where the he was on the roof.
22:50
The bloody holes coming out of their chests and they're loving
22:55
it as well at that point. There you go.
22:58
There's that line. Yeah.
22:59
Never leave a job off done. I just think that these special
23:03
effects people relished the chance to get their hands on
23:06
Doctor Who. Yeah.
23:08
And there was a new generation of special effects people coming
23:10
through who were like, yeah, we want to do these model shots, we
23:12
want to do these explosions, all these like bullets and things
23:16
like that. And it just really like even it
23:18
didn't always work. Like the flopping open of the
23:20
head. They're always trying.
23:22
I've heard the makeup people as well, yeah.
23:24
And even the costume people, you know, it just gives you a chance
23:28
to stretch yourself creatively. Yeah, I know.
23:32
I haven't quite understood that there's one sort of ice stalic
23:36
tight. Hanging from the door because it
23:38
the implications Kane's been in. There and sort of touched it and
23:42
it's turned to. He did know where her bedroom
23:44
was glitzed, didn't they? There a few times before.
23:47
Knocked on there drunk about two in the morning.
23:50
Oh, that's grim. Yeah.
23:53
First it was Dibber, then it was Ace.
23:55
Oh dibber. Oh my God, now you are talking
23:59
in fact. And what was that show called
24:01
again? Son of Glitz.
24:02
Son of a Glitz. Son of a Glitz.
24:04
We'll have the new dibber in there as well.
24:07
And who's going to play him out there?
24:08
We'll find someone hot as hell. I mean, that's got a bit of a
24:12
Jodie Whittaker's artist feel to it that inside of.
24:16
The Yeah, like those rock salt lamps, you know, and it is shot
24:19
like a penis. Just like those TARDIS, you
24:21
know, exactly. For all the fans who were
24:23
missing Doctor Who having a penis, they put one in the
24:25
TARDIS. It's just very unfortunate that
24:29
the first female Doctor. Had about five of them attacking
24:32
her every time she touched the console.
24:35
It was a metaphor for the dwass. Oh, that's that wonderful
24:42
sequence. Now where McCoy confronts Kane,
24:45
Was it? Can I do it?
24:47
Yes, you may. Your people were annihilated,
24:49
Your planet obliterated. You're too late, Kane, for your
24:52
revenge. Time has flown by.
24:57
As I'll do You did fantastic. You've got the job when McCoy
24:59
pops his clocks. Big Finish, You've got a shoe
25:02
into the. Have you heard him lately?
25:03
I'll do a better job than he's doing now, that is.
25:06
True God, what's the future? I've.
25:09
I've not. I've.
25:09
Had a clue what he was saying in that.
25:13
That's a shame, I know. But here he's trying to impress
25:15
still, you know? Yeah, he's a young man.
25:17
Is he in his 40s? Yeah, well, yeah, we must have
25:20
got rich off that Hobbit very, very surely.
25:22
I heard definitely to do Big Finish.
25:24
Does he? I heard a rumor that Sylvester
25:26
McCoy, very cleverly was one of the first people to become a
25:30
millionaire off the convention scene.
25:34
As in because he was in The Hobbit and he was in Doctor Who,
25:38
and as the business of charging big bucks for autographs, which
25:41
is only in the last 10-15 years, he was at the forefront of it.
25:45
I don't know how true this is, but I was told by someone who
25:48
would know this information. We must have got a lot of money
25:51
from, you know, DVD sales and things like that as well.
25:53
I don't think you get that much. And you know, I mean, I'm sure
25:59
he did OK off repeats and DVD sales and things like that, but
26:03
these photos at the conventions and these signatures, but all
26:08
the pension for a lot of people. I know I've got a Mark has got a
26:12
box at home that's worth about £5000 that cost him about 5000.
26:18
Pounds, and it's him put in the same face with every actor
26:20
that's ever been in Doctor Who. You know something happens in
26:24
this scene now where Kane's holding Ace.
26:26
The people say Ace never does, and she does it right here.
26:30
Does she scream? She screams.
26:32
She screams the doctor's name, and it's interesting that she's
26:35
been calling him professor throughout.
26:37
And then in a moment of danger, when she feels really scared,
26:40
she calls him Dr. Little Top up, thank you very much.
26:44
It's just water, folks. Yeah, it's but it's fine.
26:50
I think it's OK for Ace to scream now, Mel screams.
26:54
It's literally written in the scripts, and I think it was
26:56
company policy that she would scream in the tones of the
27:01
closing of the title sequence. I know it happens a lot in
27:03
trial, but apparently it was written into the scripts of this
27:06
as well. Wow.
27:07
I'll tell you what, she's bloody game and she to do that.
27:12
Did you know what she was? What was her name that that
27:15
childhood show she did? Violet Elizabeth Bot Yeah.
27:19
Now I've never seen it. I'll.
27:20
Squeem and I'll squeem. That really damaged our
27:24
reputation in there. It also damaged Ian Lavine and
27:28
John Nathan Turner's relationship.
27:31
You mean Evil Annie? Evil Annie, that was.
27:33
But that was why they ultimately fell out.
27:36
Because. I can't imagine Doctor in
27:38
distress did that many favors their relationship, no.
27:42
Do you know how many times me and Mark listen to that?
27:44
Too many? My favorite beers?
27:47
No, no, no, no. No, it's a it's an interesting
27:53
bit of popular culture. The fact is glorious.
27:59
That exists just like dimensions in time.
28:00
I know those few things. The sort of things that could
28:04
never happen there that it. Would be less of a show without
28:07
them. It's true.
28:08
We look we're just missing the the take off of the spaceship.
28:13
Because the entire planet is a spec.
28:14
It must be a small that's either the world's biggest spaceship or
28:19
a very. It's like a colony ship, isn't
28:21
it? Because they say it's a colony,
28:22
that makes sense, but they turned into an Iceland.
28:26
He had to make money for that army somehow.
28:29
You know, like freezing equipment's expensive.
28:35
But you know, now we're getting the showdown between McCoy and
28:37
the villain, and he owns it, even if ultimately he just talks
28:41
him into topping himself, which is quite sinister in its own
28:44
way. But he's, he doesn't hold back.
28:48
He's vicious with him, you know. Well, you heard the quote
28:52
earlier. I'm not going to do it again,
28:54
don't worry. Oh, we have that.
28:57
Wonderful is it raises the Lost Ark where they did the same
29:00
thing with the wax, yeah. Face melting effect the so it's
29:04
done by they created the sculpt of well they created like the
29:09
skeleton face with sort of red bits on it and it's got like
29:13
pumps where it pulsates and stuff like that.
29:15
And they took a wax cast of his face and then they basically put
29:19
flamethrowers on it and it melts.
29:21
Now you'll notice that he shakes quite erratically when it's
29:24
happening. Like, why is that?
29:27
Because when they were doing it, they were like, oh, rocking
29:29
backwards and forwards, like he's in pain.
29:31
But then when they actually use the 40s, they spread it up, so
29:34
it's literally. Just shaking and they cut it at
29:37
the right point because the full effect is on the DVD, on the
29:42
Blu-ray and it does look a bit comical when you see as always
29:44
well you know that it's a it's a inflatable doll and they in the
29:48
in the seat always. Yeah, that they they.
29:51
Let go. Oh, I think you here go like a
29:54
balloon. Ah, I Now people criticize this
30:00
male car ball character and she just decides to go and it is a
30:04
bit sudden, Yeah, But I think it's a lovely scene.
30:08
It is a lovely scene. It doesn't quite make sense that
30:10
this is what she's why, she's why and when she's chosen to go
30:14
do. You think Rossie Avis is gonna
30:15
do something with this? Oh yeah, he'll mention it in
30:17
some way, shape or form, and give it credence to why she
30:22
needed to go off with glitz. Or maybe she's just a
30:25
opportunist and she's like, this ship hasn't got a copilot.
30:29
I could be flying around the universe in the opening of Giant
30:33
Freezer Center, no? It's a nice try though, yeah,
30:37
but it's a lovely scene. It is nice.
30:39
And I love McCoy. Sort of wistful, you know,
30:43
strange business, yeah. I think this was wasn't this the
30:48
audition piece? Yeah, it was rewritten.
30:51
Yeah. It was sort of based on this
30:52
audition piece. And when you watched Ovesta
30:54
Mccoy's audition, as we are lucky enough to have those
30:57
tapes, you kind of go. That's why they cast him.
30:59
And then it's so weird that immediately he's given scripts
31:02
that don't offer moments like this.
31:05
Who wants Marvelous as you in those audition tapes?
31:07
You get Janet filled in as Margaret Thatcher.
31:10
It's basically the hell, and a character is history, but never
31:13
a better casting. Oh.
31:15
Just bring her back for that. She'd have been great.
31:18
That's nice. In fact, they are very tactile.
31:20
Bonnie Langford and Sylvester McCoy, cuz there's no idea of
31:24
hanky, panky and the TARDIS. You don't think about those two
31:26
ass here, do ya? No, no, not when she's gonna go
31:29
and sit on sit. On Blitz, she's going to go and
31:37
play with the joystick of the controls of the new colony ship
31:41
she's now the queen of. I can't remember how they got
31:44
around it in Life of Crime, which was the first Big Finish
31:46
audio. After this, I can't remember
31:51
that she's still out and she's still in Out of Space.
31:53
She's involved in some high support, but she's left glitz.
31:57
She's left glitz, yeah. And she's a bit, she's a more of
31:59
a jaded character, which is a shame because I like her
32:02
positivity and her energy, like you can have dark things happen
32:05
to them. But I need her to be the same
32:07
male that we know I. Still think one of the best uses
32:10
of male ever was in Steve Lyons as head games?
32:12
I've never read it. So she comes back right towards
32:15
the end of the new adventures. Obviously, at this point, McCoy
32:18
is destroying planets and universities, and she's still
32:21
male, right? And she's like, I don't
32:24
recognize who you are. And in the last scene of the
32:26
book. She says you're not the Doctor.
32:29
I know she absolutely condemns him and I think it was Steve
32:32
Lyons saying we've come too far away from what the doctor should
32:36
be. That's interesting.
32:37
And she's the best character to do it with because she has got.
32:39
That's all that's about her. We missed Ace or Sophie Alger
32:44
doing a big jump for Joy when she said she can go Look at the
32:47
Sylvester Macaulay's face there, though.
32:49
It's, yeah, such a impish, fun version of the Doctor.
32:54
It could have been the little girl going with her.
32:56
Who the hell would we pair up with in remembrance of the
32:59
Daleks? You have this scene now where
33:02
the woman's like, I'll be looking all over for you.
33:03
Yeah, but also going. It's very quiet around here.
33:06
What's happened to everybody? Well, maybe some lines were cut.
33:09
I mean, it's very cute that we end in the little girl laughing,
33:12
but nobody mentions the massacre.
33:14
Nobody mentions the massacre, but I'm sure that's what they I
33:18
mean, that's why Glitz and Mel are so happy to have their hands
33:21
on this place is like, conveniently, everybody's
33:23
disappeared. Well, they're all dead.
33:26
I know where they put out the airlock.
33:28
They blew up. They're all on the ship that got
33:30
blown. Oh, that's right.
33:32
You still got a few people in like cryogenic freezing though,
33:35
right? You could have had a wonderful
33:36
Red Wolf line, couldn't you? Quick, let's get out of it
33:39
before they ask questions. In fact, imagine a Red Wolf show
33:44
with Bonnie Langford and Tony Sylvie.
33:46
I'm there. They put Miranda Heart in a
33:48
comedy science fiction show. Yeah, with Nick Frost in it as
33:53
well. He only ran like two seasons.
33:55
It was appalling. What a Dylan.
34:00
You know what we have to do now? We have talked for three
34:02
episodes about Dragon Fire and now we have to dig deep to find
34:07
our three fabulous reasons as to why we would recommend it to
34:10
people. I will go first with the
34:14
production design. It is not always successful, but
34:18
the sets are fantastic and they're really sort of reaching
34:22
for bigger things than perhaps they can do.
34:25
But they they put their role in. So yeah, the production design.
34:29
I'm gonna say the music of Dominic Glynn.
34:31
I think very often the music covers a multitude of sins in
34:35
Doctor Who, but I think after three Kef McCulloch scores on
34:39
the trots. We've had enough disco for
34:42
season 24 and it's time for a bit of atmosphere and it really
34:46
brings it in this, especially a lot of that music for the
34:48
zombies. Ohh yeah the.
34:52
Amazing. Well done.
34:53
Thank you very much. Very musical.
34:56
My next one is going to be the special effects.
35:00
I know, shout out to my mates in the special effects department,
35:02
but I think even though it doesn't always succeed, the
35:05
melting of the skull, the spaceship stuff, the model of
35:09
the planet, I think they're really trying here and you know,
35:12
the effects going to be much better in the next couple of
35:14
seasons. But this is the sort of start of
35:16
it I think. I was truly impressed by those
35:18
glass shots. Yeah, in this to give it a sense
35:20
of scale. I really sort of experimented
35:23
with that at this point. Okay.
35:25
Then I am going to say hold on to your hat and you're literally
35:30
wearing a hat. The introduction of ace Sophie
35:34
Ordrick, a massive breath of fish.
35:36
Now I'm not saying Mel was unsuccessful, but I think we're
35:40
going in the right direction. We're going away from sort of
35:43
two dimension enthusiasm into 3 dimension.
35:48
Melodrama at times, but doing a lot of experimental things with
35:53
a companion character and a doctor companion dynamic that
35:56
we've never done before. And it all starts here.
35:59
I think she's got an interesting back story.
36:00
She does. He's certainly laid enough seeds
36:02
so in cursor Fenrick he can start sewing them.
36:06
She's so wonder where that metaphor was going.
36:09
No, I think she's great. I don't.
36:12
I don't. I think she's the best actress
36:13
in the world, so if you're good, I think she was a massive breath
36:17
of fresh air and she is fantastic here and continues to
36:22
be fantastic in Big Finish, whether you like it or not.
36:25
You are insane. Davros saturate.
36:29
That's two. That's two.
36:31
So, Speaking of being experimental with companions,
36:34
I'm going to choose. He was experimented with at
36:40
least one, maybe two Doctors companions, but maybe three.
36:43
Who knows? Frobeisher or mission?
36:45
Impractical. Flipper action?
36:49
Sorry, the mission. Impractical was just figuring
36:51
out how to fuck a. Very impractical.
36:56
Exactly. I think Glitz is part of one of
36:59
the last great Robert Holmes characters.
37:01
Not maybe because it's he's one in the last Robert Holmes story,
37:05
but I think that's a legacy of Robert Holmes and I think Tony
37:09
Selby's fantastic in the in the park, bringing this very
37:13
lovable, actually quite a homicidal criminal.
37:17
And I think he's brilliant and I am gutted that there are only
37:21
two live action appearances from him on television and he never
37:25
shows up in audio. It's a real shame.
37:27
But if Mark Donaldson is willing to sell his idea to Russell T
37:31
Davis, son of a glitz. We're there.
37:35
We've got someone who's willing to produce it and someone who's
37:37
willing to critique it right here.
37:40
And my last one is I think as I think the first three stories
37:44
don't score well in this department, but as the McCoy era
37:47
progresses, they get better and better at this and that is
37:50
finding interesting relationships with the guest
37:53
characters. Like just the guest characters
37:56
and the Cain bilage relationship in this is really interesting.
38:01
It's a little bit, there's almost like some weird sexual
38:04
chemistry in there because she usually she was a young girl.
38:08
Sort of. When he lured her in, she hates
38:11
him enough to try and kill him, you know, he ultimately murders
38:14
her for that betrayal because he thinks he's got her trust.
38:17
That's really interesting. So it's sort of high operatic
38:21
drama, this fucking Doctor Who you know, in a kitchen.
38:25
We love this stuff. Yeah.
38:27
I mean it's it's, yeah, I they just get it's just good ideas
38:33
with good characters and showing that the show still got it two
38:37
or three seasons away from the end.
38:39
And I think J&T used to get criticized a lot for, you know,
38:45
his guest casting. But when it works, it works.
38:48
And my God, in this one it works.
38:50
And as you say, the relationships between them all
38:52
are fantastic. I think that sort of forlorn
38:55
look Patricia Quinn gives when the doctor says, you know you
39:00
sold your soul, and then for the look on her face when she says.
39:05
Leave. When he says off you go on the
39:07
spaceship, you know, it's fine. Your debt's paid.
39:11
It's they're really good character beats.
39:13
So yeah, I think we are again heading in the right direction.
39:17
We are. Wow, Dylan needs me to ask you
39:21
the question I always ask you at the end of this.
39:23
Where are you and I heading next?
39:25
Where are we heading next? I believe our next stop is with
39:29
Fraser Gregory. We are going to be heading to
39:33
run score of Colos for a battle. Indeed, for a Star Trek Deep
39:38
Space Nine episode that happens to feature a Doctor Who.
39:43
Which I think nobody likes except you and Fraser.
39:48
I mean, I mean, we'll get into on the podcast.
39:50
I don't love it, but I think there's a lot of interesting
39:53
stuff to talk about in it. So shall we reconvene soon?
39:58
We will reconvene soon, alas remotely next time.
40:01
God damn it. But thank you for allowing me
40:04
into your cave to record this. It's a pleasure.
40:08
Let me go and I'll show you my mail action figure.
40:11
Oh man, let's do it. Are we done?
40:14
Hooray. There we go.
40:16
Wow.