Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to his royal guests Greg Miller about his choice of Spearhead from Space (1/4)
Transcript
- 0:40Welcome back with a blunt penknife the Doctor Who
- 0:44commentary podcast. I am extremely excited today to
- 0:49be with actual living royalty in the the you can look away in the
- 0:55form of Greg. Say hello Greg.
- 0:59Hello everybody. Why are why are you Royal
- 1:03secret? Greg tell me.
- 1:06I don't know. Why am I room?
- 1:07Okay, because your mom. Okay, so I'm gonna add a little
- 1:11bit of context around the podcast.
- 1:15Fly for entirety. There is a group meeting that
- 1:21happens. What is it once a month?
- 1:25I want some monkeys and there's a virtual one, and there's an
- 1:29in-person one and I already Parts the month.
- 1:32Thank you, honey. Few months I was invited to the
- 1:35virtual version and you are the king of those meats.
- 1:40Greg, this is why you are royalty.
- 1:42Oh yes. Everyone thinks you're marvelous
- 1:47and so do I. Thank you very much.
- 1:51Greg, have you podcast it before?
- 1:54No, it's a shocking oversight because you clearly have a lot
- 1:58to say but I've been so far what we're talking about today.
- 2:06Today we're talking about spearhead from space.
- 2:09One of the most important doctor you stories because it's the
- 2:12first of the the young Pertwee era.
- 2:17It's changing the formula show no longer are we re following
- 2:21around in time and space in a blue box with staff on Earth,
- 2:27working for a government military organization with us.
- 2:32Fantastic new companion or assistant lose.
- 2:35Sure although of course she is more of an equal to the doctor,
- 2:40then the predecessors other than perhaps Barbara.
- 2:45Please. This is a scientist with sense
- 2:51like 14 degrees from the school yet, even when, when she is
- 2:55introducing its talked to by the Brigadier unit is back unit,
- 2:59previously, paid looked and it was over a year ago.
- 3:04It's been a years break between the invasion and spearhead from
- 3:08space. And so we have a new style
- 3:11Adventure, Alien Invasion that Nothing new.
- 3:15But in the previous Stories, the doctor arrived on the planet and
- 3:20got involved. Now he's there.
- 3:23Usually when they start, So it's how are you different?
- 3:28How old were you when you first saw this?
- 3:31This was broadcast in Australia in 1971 about 18 months,
- 3:36afterwards broadcasting England. I had looked at our I was nine
- 3:42and shortly after it finished at 10:10.
- 3:46And in addition to that in between meeting clean and the
- 3:51finish of the show, my younger sister was born, so she should
- 3:561970, but like Sarah, Jane Smith is from 1980.
- 4:01I think 70 and and how did you find Series 7 at the time as an
- 4:09impressionable nine-year-old. I loved it.
- 4:12I had been watching for a couple of years before.
- 4:16My first story was Tomb of the Cybermen which by the way, all
- 4:20those people who were sitting there thinking all did you see
- 4:23the Abominable Snowman? Yes, I do.
- 4:31To record things in people's brains.
- 4:34I will offer the Abominable Snowmen for other people's
- 4:39enjoying. It's a great store all does that
- 4:40mean, does that mean the space bar is in there as well?
- 4:44I can do not remember the space pirates.
- 4:45There's a few stories, I don't remember.
- 4:47The space part is one of them and it means the world is
- 4:50another. Oh well, you don't need to
- 4:52remember that one anymore. No, it's been found.
- 4:56I don't recall watching few from the deep or the wheel in space.
- 5:01but the Abominable Snowman is there and the ice Warriors and
- 5:07Oh my God, to be watching those like to be watching those at 7
- 5:14years old. But oh yeah, it was, it was
- 5:16fantastic. But I was getting older and
- 5:19while I love the entire 10 episodes of the war games, I
- 5:24love long stories that are properly supported.
- 5:28Not ones that have lots of padding.
- 5:30The end with the doctors people and being forced to To change
- 5:39his faced again week. I didn't know happen because I
- 5:42didn't see any. We have four stories.
- 5:47The whole idea, we're going something with there would be a
- 5:49different doctor and they be new circumstances, and on it was
- 5:55being, of course, broadcasting color, except that ahead and
- 5:58start in Australia, it was black and white when I saw her, it
- 6:02would make it even scarier also. I think so.
- 6:04I think so, and the new format Doctor Who had basically take
- 6:10this woman a few times. The war machines is like a
- 6:15prototype of this with Has contacts on Earth and deals with
- 6:20things from their perspective. Then whether see The Invasion
- 6:24where you was introduced the Brigadier came in on the in the
- 6:30Web of fear and they're now he's back as a regular eye.
- 6:36Think it's a reformatting. Quite a mess, would be probably
- 6:41seen as a template for this, for sure.
- 6:46Absolutely. And another very popular show at
- 6:49the time, was the Avengers. We can amount the female lead,
- 6:53who were not the same as each other.
- 6:55That complement each other and work together very well, which
- 6:58is where I think they're going with dr.
- 7:01Only Shore. Well, on that note, should we
- 7:04skip into episode 1? Certainly.
- 7:08I will count as in then in five four, three, two, one.
- 7:16Let's go. Oh blimey.
- 7:19That's a bit loud. My.
- 7:19Okay, there we go. So that is potentially the most
- 7:27colorful title sequence you're ever going to see.
- 7:31And it was brand-new from the cabin ones, it was.
- 7:34Yeah. So I've always had a lot of back
- 7:37story about the, you know, the season, 11 title sequence, and
- 7:42the harbor went into that. I've never really heard any
- 7:44behind-the-scenes about this one now, and I think they were doing
- 7:49pretty much the same as they had done before with the hell
- 7:52around. But essay called, but I'm not
- 7:57really sure how much about it. This is literally how Rose opens
- 8:01isn't it with Azurill Earth and amazingly.
- 8:06It's the Return of the doctor in a new season.
- 8:08With a new companion, new setup and the new doctor, the same
- 8:12monsters, and the same all day. Do you think, do you think the
- 8:21show would have a very different feel of the whole thing was shot
- 8:25on film? Like this?
- 8:27I'm not one of these people to be feted by film versus video.
- 8:31I had the nose. Of course, I focus on the story,
- 8:34it certainly does look good. Although this lady's we does not
- 8:38look good. Wait, watch.
- 8:41You can do a lot of that in the seventies.
- 8:44Yeah, it's just on crooked. And again, it's special effects
- 8:51of the time. Be much better these days with
- 8:55proper CGI but you know that's its job.
- 8:59I think with this story with this season there's very little
- 9:05like knowing Winks to the audience is all played really
- 9:07straight, isn't it? And it's an ceiling.
- 9:11Oh I can you translate him for me please because I can never
- 9:14understand what he's saying. He doesn't.
- 9:20With them. Thunderballs there's also a
- 9:23layer. Now.
- 9:30It's coming out not just yet later.
- 9:33I'll come back to that later but back to look better now.
- 9:38Probably realize, you know who's the who's the worst Yokel Pig
- 9:41being Josh from years of access? This thing here, there's an old
- 9:49science fiction movie called The Blob, which was Steve McQueen's
- 9:53debut and a meteorite comes down crashing to the ground and some
- 9:57guy comes in and eats away at it.
- 10:01And in that move, either the radial cracks open and a Blog
- 10:07comes crawling yet. And so it's about trying to eat
- 10:09everything in the world. Oh, wow.
- 10:12Is it, is that a b movie or just arrived?
- 10:14Definitely, okay. It sounds like about it.
- 10:19But yeah, it was it was made on the cheek but it's not a bad
- 10:24movie. Had a sequel, got remade.
- 10:29But we're not doing a horror podcast.
- 10:31Well, I mean, there's plenty of there's plenty of horror in
- 10:34this. So what is obviously that Skips
- 10:36from a model short to live action, doesn't it very quickly,
- 10:40very quickly, very smoothly and this lovely needs a Chicago.
- 10:47Liz. Sure I rank about among the best
- 10:50Doctor Who companions. Why is that?
- 10:55I like that women basically. Oh, so and Kerry, John is quite
- 11:05a good actress. She got favorable reviews when
- 11:07she filled in to make the Smith against so Laurence Olivier.
- 11:12Wow. But you came to work in
- 11:15television and you may not know this, she was not a suspect and
- 11:21next season, and she had a very strong view that she hadn't done
- 11:26a good job in the show. Really.
- 11:31Surely there was she's because I know she went to some
- 11:33convention, so surely later in a lot with them.
- 11:44It's all right. I don't hear anyone saying a bad
- 11:46word about leash or she like, like, like Barbara, like Sarah
- 11:52and kind of like Donna. So these are all like, kind of
- 11:53older women. People generally have a really
- 11:56positive consensus. Oh, here we are.
- 12:02Let's call that green palm and 12.
- 12:04Others are about 12 a whatever the actual lines she's lying for
- 12:09her. So she isn't impressed if she
- 12:11about any of this. Thank you Jody embraced.
- 12:13In fact, if you watch her, she's not impressed with the Brigadier
- 12:16especially because he's the one who's Shanghai.
- 12:20And so she'll later on play after the doctor.
- 12:25You'll Play it to General scobie.
- 12:28Well, that's brilliant. Where she says she's not just a
- 12:35pretty face and I guess he was enlisted.
- 13:00Did you hear that II? Listen to her interview of
- 13:04Kerala Punjab and apparently in order to get work in television
- 13:09she had to have very kind of cheeky publicity pictures taken
- 13:15of herself and she sent them out and then immediately she started
- 13:18getting work. That tells you something about
- 13:20what was going wrong with making television at the time?
- 13:24And he's not going into the hospital.
- 13:29This is a real hospital as I'm sure, you know, I love the wood
- 13:34panels but yes. Everybody is trying to convince
- 13:41these. That this is a worthwhile job.
- 13:44I understand that because Courtney and Caroline John
- 13:48became great friends. Eggs.
- 13:53So they do the cover episode. They do the commentary on screen
- 13:56here from space. So, dude, there's much
- 13:58discussion about false eyelashes and forth last sessions, but
- 14:03there's clearly, like, a very gentle chemistry between the two
- 14:06of them. Yeah.
- 14:10He wasn't the new boy, but he would had been brought back in
- 14:13and in a way that he probably hadn't expected and she's the
- 14:17like to get this job. So it's do you think this would
- 14:22have worked in the second series though?
- 14:24Life-giving where parallettes was taking?
- 14:25The show? Not the same way, not the same
- 14:29way because they wanted more traditional companion.
- 14:34A, what's this Tucker? Yeah, they're supposed to Apogee
- 14:39is happening connection and losses.
- 14:41Yes, yes. That's obvious or something.
- 14:43So, that was an amazing companion pressure.
- 14:45Then you've got the job. All right.
- 14:48Yes, I'll have to say this man. GB Munroe.
- 14:53I think his name is Absolutely, like the most boring of the
- 15:02calendar. - Bella remember the fellow from The Invasion.
- 15:10He was really cute. I can't remember his name now.
- 15:12I think his name was Jimmy as well as it may very well be.
- 15:15They're all going to be Jimmy, makes the guide from The
- 15:20Invasion, I'm pissed. He's a Madison and killer, but
- 15:25this guy's pretty unmemorable is Ali.
- 15:28Yeah. Yeah.
- 15:29He's just Beige sort of isn't about his uniform, The netting,
- 15:34beige personality, this scene with the two hearts.
- 15:38Yeah, this plays out exactly the same in the TV movie, but this
- 15:43is the first time it's happened prior to this.
- 15:46There was no hints and dr. Helen alien fizzy fizzy
- 15:52physiology like in The wheel in space.
- 15:59They have dr. Bose thoroughly, examined.
- 16:01And they made their comments. And there's plenty of other
- 16:04people in the future. Have you running around?
- 16:07But no, it seems not. They tried to say in the Doctor
- 16:12Who novels that, you know, kind of start out with one heart and
- 16:16when they were generated the first time they got to, but
- 16:18didn't seem to work the battery. You see this fellow in the
- 16:21background here? Hoovering.
- 16:23I swear I've seen him down a Welsh, mine somewhere.
- 16:26You know you probably have is a very good bit bad player.
- 16:36I'm not sure how well you go in a lead role but he certainly
- 16:41full of full of characters come Rises to the occasion and
- 16:44there's a great job and countering the teeth that
- 16:48category surname. Is it?
- 16:50Tell Friend, Thomas, Is the teeth because you're selling
- 16:55them and you'll see the beginning.
- 16:57Again here we are. Robert Holmes doesn't have a
- 17:02great degree of love for authority and said we think
- 17:06doctors argue with doctors about whether someone's playing a
- 17:10prank or not so quite good and he always pokes fun at
- 17:17bureaucracy as well doesn't do ya like that people read tapers,
- 17:21you know, Yes. And he comes to make the Fatal
- 17:27phone call. Well, not quite angel.
- 17:29I think all the back of like because this looks so different.
- 17:34I just like on the back of the last throughout the season,
- 17:38people ask me like, what is this?
- 17:39You're like. Yeah, yeah, very different pace.
- 17:45You haven't even read the doctor doesn't falling heavily malice
- 17:50and we're about halfway through. And just looking at the way that
- 17:58his mouth always sleepy. So crooked when he's speaking.
- 18:02That's why he's a great character actor.
- 18:05Did you ever read the the Terrance dicks novelization of
- 18:08this the target book? Yes, I did.
- 18:12I read it when it came out. Did I say that it was released
- 18:15with the cave monsters and the reprint of the three?
- 18:19Have, no one's, which I got for Christmas one year.
- 18:22And here it is the glowing orb of guest.
- 18:26Yes. Oh you see where he is right
- 18:32now, this sort of very leafy. English Countryside.
- 18:36This is I love exploring areas. I've got lots of areas like this
- 18:39where I live excellent you don't have any Union Soldiers there be
- 18:45nice. So training on with crimes,
- 18:48doesn't hurt The View. I figured that sounds silly was
- 18:53dead quick. When I first watched it, I
- 18:56thought this guy's in trouble. Yeah, well, if you're being the
- 19:02Bobby being travel or now, some very exciting for detecting
- 19:08unhand me Madam. The trouble is, all right, is I
- 19:13think a lot of people would have thought of the back of Jon
- 19:16pertwee's. Previous like, well, look, that
- 19:18he would have been all about this all comedy and it's not the
- 19:21case at all, was it? No comedic actor.
- 19:27And I know that you've discussed this done people.
- 19:30Other comedic actors being brought in.
- 19:32And of course, they have excellent timing that I could
- 19:35jokes work properly and all I need is a bit of decent
- 19:40emotional acting. And if we fantastic, oh my word.
- 19:45Channing the villain. That man has got the perfect
- 19:50face to be a villain. So Greg print is Hancock.
- 19:55Yes, practice ACO who you'll see you there in the crowd.
- 20:00He's making his first appearance in Doctor.
- 20:02Who first of a number not one of my favorite actors.
- 20:07You always seems very cross about the world, but
- 20:12nevertheless, he does a job in this one.
- 20:15It's a quite a good job in the background.
- 20:17You can also see The queue burden who plays training,
- 20:21terrified in my view, Channing had you been a megalomaniac
- 20:26there. It is could have been one of the
- 20:29greatest opportunity bill and Ever After with mavic chin and
- 20:34the other big in Motors but because he's very staid and
- 20:40restrained. He just remains very menacing.
- 20:44Did you see that tracking shot there?
- 20:48For the hospital. And there was all this activity
- 20:51going on left and right as the camera sort of came back through
- 20:55that Corridor. That's some pretty good
- 20:57direction. Yes.
- 20:58And there's a well-directed story and they were doing it
- 21:03with less control over the environment than usual.
- 21:05So it's fantastic. What was Derek Martin versus
- 21:09previous? What else did he do?
- 21:12I think this is his last last one, but he started back in the
- 21:15house earlier. What did he do?
- 21:17The war machines? Maybe.
- 21:20Yeah. That was Michael Ferguson,
- 21:22wasn't it? Look old.
- 21:24I should have done my research, the Brigadier meeting the new
- 21:28doctor, and being amazing disappointed because it's not
- 21:34who we thought of was. Let's just think he's a bit
- 21:38crazy by the looks. Yeah, but this scene is a bit
- 21:46reminiscent of the previous generation story power of the
- 21:50Daleks with Ben Jackson. Also someone in the year for
- 21:57doesn't believe that this new person is the doctor and require
- 22:01some convincing generous the story.
- 22:04We don't have a poly government but D XD the interesting thing
- 22:10is here is they deal with it in this first episode.
- 22:12So, but then from SO2 is pretty much taken as a given that he
- 22:16is. The doctor was in power.
- 22:18The Daleks, I don't think we're supposed to be that convinced
- 22:21until the arrow and the paradoxes, of course, seven
- 22:24episodes and both Michael craze and Annika Wills have holidays
- 22:29during a high. So, Strange story for the
- 22:34companions driver holiday on, isn't it?
- 22:36The first one of an array, but I'm not sure how well planned
- 22:41ahead have knows the patch was, is for medical reasons.
- 22:45So they may holidays maybe prepaying and things may have
- 22:50been pre-booked. Oh, and he's the famous, I don't
- 22:53like how I look seeing that will get pretty much every generation
- 22:58from now on. So if you if you call / we at
- 23:01knowing is old. You two sure you watch the
- 23:03entire Runner poet. Yeah yeah yeah.
- 23:06And so how I'm assuming? Yeah, there was a point where he
- 23:10was just the only doctor. well, I still remember Patrick
- 23:13troughton, and of course we were reminded with three doctors but
- 23:19yeah, he was five years of Pertwee and five glorious years
- 23:25I have to say, they don't always Looking back on for being sound
- 23:35stories in terms of the politics that they explored they were
- 23:44more inventive than during the travel period.
- 23:47In terms of the types of stories, they did almost as
- 23:51crack with the costumes as the dress definitely and
- 23:57mysteriously. The doctor has a gold chain.
- 23:59I'm not sure that Mysteriously Greg in the shower scene, it was
- 24:04revealed the answer to not to mention, you get to see Jon
- 24:10pertwee's and line it. Well he's probably just come
- 24:14back from his house in Ibiza. So yes he's no beef invention
- 24:18are I do like all this though with that with the press and
- 24:25bustle in the hospital. And he, and another great thing
- 24:28with training in the closet, I mean, the telephone booth, you
- 24:35don't get that in. You go, That's the other that
- 24:39want me to wrap them in lo and behold he's not on the phone at
- 24:41all and standing there looking into the distance.
- 24:49We don't know much about this guy yet I really didn't spend
- 24:54that. They deliberately trying to make
- 24:56his face look a bit artificial because it does.
- 24:59Yes, there were, there was a bit of a bit of Vaseline.
- 25:02On his face to make it slightly shinier.
- 25:05He's saying. Here we go.
- 25:06You have had suvarna rabbit. I'll tell who and he's trying to
- 25:10information about if you can make some more money because
- 25:12he's a bit of a wheeler-dealer, our saying, Terror sticks on the
- 25:16Coventry. It starts doing the impression
- 25:19of him and he's like, you know, I script editing this and I
- 25:22haven't got a clue what he's saying.
- 25:24Ha ha ha. Yes and he's being extremely
- 25:27active there. That does, though, he thinks
- 25:29he's clever. He's not that clever not the way
- 25:33he goes about things. I love his serving relationship
- 25:37with his wife. Oh yes, it's fantastic.
- 25:41But I think we see make this in yesterday's episode yet.
- 25:44Make singing possibly the strongest woman in Doctor Who
- 25:47when faced with danger. She grabs a shotgun.
- 25:51I heard in some low-rent on Cass.
- 25:54Someone's just, let's use the precursor room, Jackie, Tyler.
- 25:59Oh, wow. I think I know which podcast
- 26:02you're talking about. I think you might be doing here.
- 26:05No, the educated person who said that.
- 26:12Oh this place where he's like, shoes shoes.
- 26:16Yes. So, we've had all the coherent
- 26:21dialogue, going to get the doctor in this story.
- 26:23Now, this episode rather shoe the jumper way is fairly like,
- 26:29in retrospect, fairly scathing about this first episode.
- 26:32He's like, you know, there's all these comedy routines with a
- 26:34wheelchair and, and, and he didn't want to lean into that
- 26:38all know. But, again, the wheelchair well,
- 26:42it's a bit of a comedy, the actual second part of that,
- 26:45where he's going down a fairly It's not that steeper slope but
- 26:50he's going to fear case it doesn't become threatening and I
- 26:55believe that they were keen on John's background in.
- 26:59Comedy are two potential source of making the stories bit more
- 27:04interesting. The same way.
- 27:06Zach, you're tracking also use these comedic skills.
- 27:09Do you imagine they live? If sure we had stayed on the
- 27:12Barry Letts hadn't had taken over that they were, he would
- 27:16have been a more comedic doctor. Perhaps, but I think what we
- 27:21actually have here is the most pure form of what they thought
- 27:27doctors would be after the new format because we do have
- 27:31children as the producer David. I had the scripted as a before
- 27:36when Bryant Lefty got shifted up to the producer and this is the
- 27:40only story he produced in that the between area.
- 27:43Now, we have more shiny skin people It was very see the, the
- 27:49blanket before an over the camera.
- 27:51That's such a clever way of showing what's going on.
- 27:53It is a very inventive direction of this.
- 27:56Oh, it is very good. Again, there's not much money.
- 28:03They just stuck with what they've got in the hospital and
- 28:08we get to see this Corridor all the time.
- 28:10So, okay, we certainly have a sense of place.
- 28:12Oh, great, the music and this scene is like dirt.
- 28:17It's really funny. And now I'm gonna say it.
- 28:26As Terrance dicks always, says, you can always tell where you
- 28:29are in the Pertwee era by the level of his bouffant hair cut.
- 28:32Yes, and it is very restrained here.
- 28:39It's off, we go. This is a busy episode yes and
- 28:52it's mostly humans interacting with humans.
- 28:56Yeah the chaining and his henchmen.
- 29:04Don't do much doctors, mostly unconscious and now, he's
- 29:11escaped. But okay, so I whilst this is a
- 29:15very good Cliffhanger. I think the editing here is off.
- 29:19Yeah, because the guy just screaming, you know who told you
- 29:22to fire you should it just feels a bit awkward like it's good as
- 29:26in the doctors been shot for that's effective.
- 29:29I don't know if that's well well done or not.
- 29:33Yeah, so here we are at the end of episode 1.
- 29:40And it was a good episode and Malcolm Thomas.
- 29:43Yeah, that was named Justin. Well, you've got something very
- 29:45interesting to say and I will say it for episode 2, but about
- 29:49episode 2 and episode once, but like on his own terms that is
- 29:58almost like the default. This is what they go back to.
- 30:00This is what they lead into when they are like a bit stuck.
- 30:04They do a bit of this in the TV movie.
- 30:07I think they do a bit of. This is why The Mystery of the
- 30:15doctor which is big in this they do.
- 30:18There's definitely Rose, isn't it?
- 30:19That's definitely the TV movie. Yes.
- 30:23Andros was very good in taking it from one person's
- 30:26perspective, not the doctors. You can absolutely see why they
- 30:30invited terrorist acts and Barry Letts along to that screening of
- 30:33roads like they were like, hey, this is this is all story.
- 30:35What's going on? Daring will be back for episode
- 30:422. Daring will be back for episode
- 30:422.