Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to the lovely David Gillespie-Pratt about his choice of The Unquiet Dead

Transcript

Talks to the lovely David Gillespie-Pratt about his choice of The Unquiet Dead · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back to our Hamster with a Blump and Knife, the Doctor
• 0:03
  Who commentary podcast. David, Hello.
• 0:07
  Hello, how you doing today? It's a Monday evening.
• 0:12
  I'm sitting here watching Doctor Who.
• 0:14
  I think that's a good way of spending the time.
• 0:16
  I think we're winning that life, yes.
• 0:18
  Now look, can I call you by your full name?
• 0:20
  You can if you want. I'm going to try it.
• 0:22
  It's on the screen, on the Zoom call in front of me.
• 0:24
  Ready. David Gillespie Pratt.
• 0:28
  Spot on. You'll be surprised the number
• 0:30
  of people who can't get Gillespie right.
• 0:33
  I've had everything from Gillespie.
• 0:36
  I'm thinking that I'm French to crispy Gillespie.
• 0:43
  I was. I was talking to somebody and
• 0:45
  they were like, and do you want mispronouncing their names?
• 0:48
  And they were like, how can I even get your name wrong?
• 0:50
  It's so straightforward and I believe me that I think some
• 0:53
  people try to get it wrong. You know, I'm having a lot of
• 0:55
  hyphens on this at the moment. I don't know if you can see my
• 0:58
  name on the zoom pool, but I've only got 7 letters in my name.
• 1:00
  All right, So I think you are a greedy bunch.
• 1:03
  I'm assuming that's hyphen because you got married and
• 1:06
  brought two names together. Yes.
• 1:07
  So we got married. So my husband and I got married
• 1:11
  in April and we weren't going to do anything for ages with names.
• 1:15
  And then it's bad because Chris's sister got married and
• 1:19
  she took her wife's name. And we just thought.
• 1:22
  That's quite sweet. That's quite nice that you've
• 1:24
  you've made that public declaration so you have that
• 1:27
  quick conversation Will I take yours or you take my And I
• 1:29
  thought that's hyphenate so that's fine.
• 1:32
  I'm, you know become Gillespie Pratt and decided which way
• 1:35
  round it goes. It's like well, long short seems
• 1:38
  to work better. But the the jury What were you
• 1:40
  before then? Were you?
• 1:41
  I was just David. I was just David Gillespie
• 1:43
  because my husband's name was Chris Pratt, and he has heard.
• 1:49
  He's heard all the jokes, OK, A number of times people would do
• 1:53
  that. Oh, just like that yet?
• 1:55
  Yes, I know. So I think for him it was
• 1:58
  actually a relief. Now that he doesn't have, he's
• 2:01
  not associated with the other Chris Pratt, he'll also be
• 2:05
  delighted. Your husband is far more
• 2:07
  handsome than that, Chris Pratt, So.
• 2:09
  Absolutely. The actor can bugger off as far
• 2:12
  as I'm concerned, but I do want to say as well, thank you.
• 2:16
  So you post lovely pictures of your wedding, you know, on
• 2:18
  social media. It is such an antidote to the
• 2:21
  bullshit arguments and people dropping spoilers and all the
• 2:26
  Doctor Who nonsense that goes on just to see some pictures of
• 2:29
  people being happy. That is so such a refreshing.
• 2:33
  It was nice. It was one of those things and
• 2:35
  the the contrast I I shared this at the time because obviously
• 2:38
  two men getting married and with everything that's going on and
• 2:42
  we deal with. Major straws and councils, all
• 2:46
  these things and we did not have one bad engagement with anyone.
• 2:51
  Everyone was really supportive and encouraging and just happy
• 2:55
  for us. So I think, you know, I'm
• 2:58
  sharing at the time people and it was like should I share this
• 3:01
  And a lot of people said, well it's good to hear that not
• 3:04
  everything for, you know, LGBT plus people is crap.
• 3:09
  But actually there is some nice things going on and.
• 3:13
  It was just really nice to do and and we had a wedding day
• 3:16
  where everything went to plan which doesn't always happen so
• 3:21
  and and our photographer took 600 and something photographs So
• 3:26
  what I've shared is a fraction tip of the iceberg it.
• 3:31
  Is the tip of the iceberg. I mean our photographer was it
• 3:34
  was it was mad as a box of frogs but he was amazing and he just
• 3:38
  kept taking photos for the whole day and.
• 3:41
  Yeah, it was. It was just fantastic.
• 3:45
  Don't stop post, don't stop posting them.
• 3:46
  And don't be apologetic about it either.
• 3:48
  It's just so nice to see two people bloody happy, I'll tell
• 3:50
  you, in this miserable world we find ourselves in.
• 3:53
  These days, I was saying earlier, you know, I wouldn't
• 3:56
  want to be young. Now, where the hell are we going
• 3:58
  to be in 50 years? Yeah.
• 4:01
  The planets roasted. No.
• 4:02
  OK, Sorry. I don't want to go down that
• 4:04
  route where everyone will get very depressed.
• 4:06
  And, you know, I could just sit here and talk about your
• 4:07
  personal life because that is a very interesting thing.
• 4:10
  But we are here to talk about Doctor Who's today.
• 4:12
  Yeah, What episode have you chosen?
• 4:15
  I have chosen the 2005 episode The Unquiet Dead series one,
• 4:21
  episode 3. The first mark Is it Gatus or
• 4:25
  Gatus? It's Gatus I I've heard him say
• 4:29
  Gatus. So that's what I've always gone
• 4:31
  with. He told me off once I I I wrote
• 4:34
  a fabulous review about his Big Finish audio Invaders from Mars
• 4:38
  of Mars From Mars. Yeah, From Mars and and posted a
• 4:42
  a link and added him at it. But I spelt his name wrong in
• 4:47
  the thing in the review. Sorry, not obviously.
• 4:50
  I can't spell his name wrong in Twitter and all I got back was
• 4:53
  it's spelt. I was like oh you grumpy git
• 4:57
  idiot. That's the only interaction
• 5:01
  we've ever had. Well, hopefully, maybe we can
• 5:05
  say some nice things and then he can be all.
• 5:07
  Aren't you all wonderfully lovely about my work?
• 5:11
  Probably is, though David is. I do think this is probably the
• 5:15
  best. There's probably 2 Mark Gaters
• 5:18
  episodes that I think are pretty good and the rest I'm not too
• 5:22
  sure about. I think this is probably the
• 5:24
  best of the bunch. I I I would agree.
• 5:27
  I I actually made a point of right of looking up and writing
• 5:30
  down which ones he did because I was like let's and he did 9 and
• 5:36
  I was and I was looking through the list.
• 5:38
  I'm like, OK, well then I'm going to do something extremely
• 5:42
  cruel to you now is I'm going to list the episodes and I'm going
• 5:45
  to ask you to very quickly give them an out of 10, if you're
• 5:48
  willing to do it. Go for it.
• 5:50
  OK. The idiot's Lantern. 8 oh, OK
• 5:55
  Sleep No more 4 Cold War. 6 The Crimson Aura 7 Empress of Mars.
• 6:11
  Six. I don't really remember it.
• 6:13
  Oh God, that's only five. I'm forgetting the sum.
• 6:15
  Oh, Victory of the Daleks 2. We should have done that one.
• 6:22
  Which ones? I'm off again.
• 6:25
  Idiots. Lantern.
• 6:27
  Which? Oh no, that's another.
• 6:31
  That's a three. That's, I think that one.
• 6:34
  The problem with that one, I think is in the real life, is
• 6:36
  how it's produced. I think the script could work
• 6:39
  better if some of the people guest starring that acted a bit
• 6:45
  better. Oh well, I've just thought of
• 6:46
  the last one night terrors. I can't.
• 6:51
  Remember anything about that? We'll say 0 for that one.
• 6:54
  Then it's that unmemorable. And what about the idiots?
• 6:57
  Not the idiots, Huntington. The I'm quite dead.
• 7:02
  I really like this one because so this is what. 3rd episode of
• 7:07
  the The Comeback and 2005. This was the episode that kept
• 7:13
  me going with Doctor Who I will free met.
• 7:16
  I was a grumpy 20 something. I you know, I was a fan through
• 7:20
  the wilderness years and when it came back and I watched Rose and
• 7:24
  I was like, oh, I'm OK And then the end of the world came and I
• 7:28
  thought, OK, we're going to time and space.
• 7:29
  We're going to the future and then it's all about Rose talking
• 7:33
  to a mum and moping and. I was like, this isn't Doctor
• 7:37
  Who. This isn't what I love.
• 7:40
  And then Unquiet Dead comes along and you go, yes, it's got
• 7:44
  aliens, it's got historical, and it felt a bit more traditional.
• 7:48
  I now look at those first two episodes and I haven't.
• 7:51
  I I can. I get what Russell was doing and
• 7:55
  I look at going, actually, these are really good because they're
• 8:00
  not for me. And they're for everyone else.
• 8:03
  And I think that's sometimes what Doctor Who forgets is that
• 8:07
  the fans are going to watch anyway.
• 8:09
  I do wonder if, post the end of Time, both showrunners that came
• 8:13
  after Rusty Davis forget that it's not just for the fans.
• 8:17
  And so that's why the fans clung on in those two eras.
• 8:22
  But the ratings dwindled and the interest died a bit, and I've
• 8:27
  got a feeling that Russell Davis is going to inject that outside
• 8:31
  of the Doctor Who bubble is going to engage those people
• 8:35
  again. And I think there's things that
• 8:37
  Russell does well outside of the show in terms of publicity, how
• 8:40
  he promotes it. And I think there's some of the
• 8:43
  stuff with this one, which we'll probably come on to that.
• 8:48
  I think this is, this is an important episode as well.
• 8:51
  I think it's not just was the first episode from another
• 8:52
  writer. It starts off the celebrity
• 8:54
  historicals, which becomes a big thing in the in the Revive
• 8:58
  series. But I think it it starts doing a
• 9:03
  lot of the the Story of the week stuff that we are now probably
• 9:06
  really used to. And I think this is a story that
• 9:08
  did a lot of those things. First.
• 9:10
  I think it was savvy not to put this sort of thing out first.
• 9:14
  I think it would have been a too safe an option to put out
• 9:17
  something that probably could slip into a hinge Cliff season
• 9:21
  right at the beginning of the new run.
• 9:23
  So I'm pleased he sort of I I didn't get on too well with
• 9:25
  Rose. I loved end of the world.
• 9:27
  But this was. You're right.
• 9:28
  This is our first sort of oh, OK.
• 9:30
  This is the Doctor Who we're used to we're still doing this
• 9:33
  from time to time. Let's keep going.
• 9:36
  How did you find the two after this then Aliens of London?
• 9:39
  And World War Three. You know, I of that two-part
• 9:43
  aliens of London. I I I struggled with I I think
• 9:48
  the the farting was again, it's not something Doctor Who really
• 9:53
  did, but I remember really enjoying World War Three because
• 9:57
  I actually thought they kind of dropped a lot of the silliness
• 9:59
  in the second-half and played it a little bit straighter and it
• 10:02
  worked a lot better. But I think there's still a lot
• 10:06
  of that could have. The first season weirdness that
• 10:09
  you know you have it written, Rose, you have it where they're
• 10:11
  still finding their feet. They're still not entirely sure
• 10:13
  how to do certain things with the direction of production.
• 10:18
  So those first three episodes 1/4 and five do sometimes betray
• 10:22
  that they're the first ones made and this is part of the second
• 10:27
  block. I seem to remember I'm quite
• 10:28
  dead. I think that this and end of the
• 10:29
  world, we're done in the second block and the direction learned
• 10:32
  already, quickly learned how to be better between Keith Bowick
• 10:38
  and Euroslyn are world apart. Yeah, I I think there's a reason
• 10:44
  for why Keith Bowick never came back.
• 10:46
  And obviously there's whatever happened during some of the
• 10:49
  filming which they don't really talk about.
• 10:52
  But I think Even so, what appeared on screen isn't great.
• 10:56
  It hasn't aged well in places. I think some of this still holds
• 11:00
  quite well. And so from this glorious
• 11:03
  vantage of 2023, looking back at 2005, what's your overall
• 11:09
  opinion of that season? And this doctor, because he this
• 11:13
  is his only year. I think it holds up really well.
• 11:17
  I think it it looks a little dated now.
• 11:22
  It looks very 2000. It kind of should though, right?
• 11:25
  It's, you know, 20 odd years old.
• 11:27
  Now it's. It's very televisual as opposed
• 11:31
  to now. Everything's cinematic, but I
• 11:33
  think it would. I think we we watched through
• 11:36
  some of the the the Modern Series A few months ago and when
• 11:41
  you get past Dalek this season just rattles along and it I mean
• 11:47
  apart from maybe long game, which is probably one of the
• 11:49
  weaker points but still got a lot of good stuff in it.
• 11:52
  It the hit rate of this season is really high and I think it
• 11:57
  ends. So that two parter Bad Wolf from
• 12:01
  Parting of Ways is superb. I I I don't I don't actually
• 12:06
  know whether or not Russell ever topped the excitement.
• 12:09
  That certainly for me, I never got as excited for any of the
• 12:12
  other finales that I did for that one, just like you.
• 12:14
  Just didn't know what was going to happen and Eccleston was
• 12:18
  great and when, you know, he was leaving as soon as he started.
• 12:23
  And at first, you know, took a little, you know, how did I warm
• 12:26
  to him? And then when I found it was
• 12:27
  going, it's like that's a shame because I actually think he's
• 12:29
  doing something different, but doing it quite well.
• 12:32
  And he's a really, as you got an actor and he rises to the part
• 12:37
  in every way. I'm still not sure, you know,
• 12:40
  that they ever beat, beat that finale ever after this in terms
• 12:44
  of, like, the stakes are this high.
• 12:46
  Who the hell is going to get out of this alive after this?
• 12:49
  We sort of knew, OK, we're we're we're going to go into another
• 12:51
  season, so everything's going to be all right.
• 12:53
  You know, at this point it was like, anything's up for grabs,
• 12:57
  it. It.
• 12:58
  And you genuinely didn't know, because I can't remember,
• 13:01
  Torchwood as announced, was like, was Jack going to die?
• 13:03
  You knew that the Doctor was going to regenerate, but what,
• 13:05
  what? What would happen to him?
• 13:06
  It was probably one of the few times where there was a genuine
• 13:09
  sense of you don't know where this is going, sort of free
• 13:12
  sound in the air. Yeah, and there was a general
• 13:15
  excite. I think for a lot of people it
• 13:17
  came back and it was good. I think a lot of people thought
• 13:22
  it would fail. I I think a lot of people have
• 13:25
  forgotten about it as well. I don't think any anybody
• 13:29
  predicted the success. It was because.
• 13:32
  I think because everyone talks about the wilderness years, but
• 13:34
  I think it's always in two halves.
• 13:35
  There's always pre movie, post movie.
• 13:37
  And I think before TV movie, Doctor Who was still a bit of a
• 13:40
  cultural thing. People knew about it.
• 13:41
  We still had the stuff in 93 with Dimensions in Time and the
• 13:44
  documentaries and the repeat seasons.
• 13:47
  But post TV movie between 96 and 2005, you might have got the
• 13:52
  odd, the odd documentary Here there's a theme not, but I don't
• 13:56
  think. I think it slipped from the sort
• 13:57
  of cultural memory. I think it was like a stab,
• 14:01
  wasn't it? The movie?
• 14:01
  And then after that it was like or post a failed movie.
• 14:06
  And and I think people, it just became that thing that started
• 14:09
  wither away a little bit, I think.
• 14:12
  I mean at that time we were getting books, we were getting
• 14:13
  Big Finish was coming up. But that was for the fans.
• 14:16
  I think for the the mainstream, the, the, the regular audience,
• 14:20
  it just wasn't a thing. And I think that's reflected in
• 14:25
  press reports. You know, Paul Daniels was the
• 14:28
  Doctor at one point and all those.
• 14:32
  Pollock stories that used to come out and it's just it was a
• 14:35
  joke. And I I I do think this is one
• 14:37
  of the stories that helped that sort of turn around.
• 14:40
  Not necessarily the story itself, but a lot of the aspects
• 14:43
  connected to it. I think like the Russell Davis
• 14:47
  period for those four years and maybe what's coming.
• 14:50
  We'll see. That's my personal favorite
• 14:53
  period of dogs who ever classic and new.
• 14:55
  I just think it was spectacularly well judged, those
• 14:59
  four, four series, and the thing he did brilliantly was structure
• 15:04
  seasons in just before the last third he would put in a banger
• 15:09
  of A2 parter, so Empty Child, Doctor Dances, Impossible Planet
• 15:13
  and Satan Pier, Human Nature, Family of Blood and Silence in
• 15:18
  the Library Forest of the Dead. And then we'll just do a run of
• 15:20
  episodes towards the finale that gathered momentum and just
• 15:25
  carried you so excitedly towards it.
• 15:28
  I don't think any of the showrunners got that right.
• 15:31
  Yeah, they they, they he he nailed that sort of second-half
• 15:34
  of the season and also knew when to put the sort of important or
• 15:38
  attention grabbing episode The Sea Is You.
• 15:40
  It was structured. He knew that you need certain
• 15:43
  stories in certain places that will get people's attention.
• 15:46
  And do you remember when this came out?
• 15:48
  The Unquire did. Suddenly I was seeing things in
• 15:50
  the paper about, you know, or is this to a doll?
• 15:53
  There's people having their neck snaps.
• 15:55
  There's zombies walking about, threatening the Doctor and Rose,
• 15:58
  you know. Is it too much for the kiddy
• 15:59
  winks? I I wonder whether or not they
• 16:02
  knew what they were doing there, because they've always said that
• 16:05
  sort of publicity helps because it gets attention, because if
• 16:10
  it's a little bit naughty that, you know, they used to say Mary
• 16:15
  Whitehouse complained about the classic series, it already put
• 16:18
  the new figures up and so I can't.
• 16:21
  I was thinking about this today, and it's like, I wonder whether
• 16:24
  or not it was a savvy move, because then you've got your
• 16:27
  premiere, which is a sort of hook.
• 16:29
  Then you've got the kind of the dark neck snapping one, then
• 16:31
  you've got a Dalek coming in. Then you've got the second
• 16:34
  spooky one with Empty Child 2 Parter.
• 16:37
  So it's almost like there are various things knowing that
• 16:39
  these will get attention because there was stuff about Empty
• 16:42
  Child that was in the press about that being too much.
• 16:44
  It's the sequence where Richard Wilson's head.
• 16:47
  Turned and that was apparently edited before transmission and
• 16:51
  that was in the press and was like that's somebody savvy
• 16:54
  making sure that that's been put out there.
• 16:57
  Because automatically people are writing about it, people are
• 16:59
  talking about it. And I think what you got in
• 17:02
  later years with, certainly with Moffett, is he would sit on a
• 17:04
  press junket going, oh, we've got the scariest episode ever
• 17:07
  coming up. Nightmare in Silver.
• 17:10
  The Cybermen have never been scarier.
• 17:14
  Have you seen Nightmare Silver? Wrote about it in the same way.
• 17:17
  There were no, there was no controversy.
• 17:18
  There was controversy with things like Dark Water, but that
• 17:21
  I don't think that was that was different sort of controversy.
• 17:23
  I don't think that was planned. I started those clickbait titles
• 17:27
  as well, didn't he? The Doctor's Daughter and the
• 17:30
  Next Doctor. And then Moffett took it to the
• 17:32
  extreme. We were having The Husbands of
• 17:34
  River Song, The Wedding of River Song.
• 17:36
  You know Name of the Doctor, Day of the Doctor.
• 17:39
  And very rarely delivering on some of those promises.
• 17:42
  Oh, we've got to talk about Moffett one day.
• 17:44
  You and me. You know, I'd love to explore.
• 17:46
  Oh, wait. Oh, sorry.
• 17:47
  I've taken her so far away from the unquiet dead now.
• 17:50
  But this is interesting stuff. Who cares?
• 17:53
  Well, look, shall we skip into the unquiet dead?
• 17:56
  Let's get started, all right. Otherwise you ain't never going
• 17:58
  to bed tonight. All right, 44 minutes of
• 18:03
  delirium. Would you care to count as in?
• 18:06
  OK, 321, off we go, Mr. Sneed. For shame.
• 18:15
  For shame. And I think just this opening
• 18:20
  scene. With you've got the the
• 18:22
  candlelight, you've got the atmosphere, the the Funeral
• 18:25
  Home, the the contrasting atmosphere from end of the world
• 18:31
  and Rose, which we were saying there wasn't a lot of atmosphere
• 18:35
  in some of those or certainly at the time it didn't feel that
• 18:37
  way. And now it's like it's costume
• 18:40
  drama, it's reliable. We know what we're doing, but
• 18:44
  what we have with this, we have the first proper.
• 18:49
  Three title sequence because obviously End of the World has
• 18:52
  that sort of follow on for in a way I sometimes think is Rose
• 18:55
  into the World a little bit of a loose 2 parter because the way
• 19:00
  in character terms, yes. And so here we have a complete
• 19:04
  stand alone for the first time and you've got what this 2-3
• 19:07
  minute prologue and obviously when they announced it was
• 19:11
  coming back and they're all going to mostly single episodes,
• 19:15
  the fans were up in arms because whenever are they not?
• 19:19
  No cliffhangers Or not as many cliffhangers, because that's
• 19:22
  what Doctor Who is about. Next snap.
• 19:25
  There was the next the the controversial in the 1st 90
• 19:28
  seconds, someone's neck has been snapped.
• 19:30
  Neck has been snapped. So what they do and they're not
• 19:36
  the first TV show to do it but they give you the cliffhanger in
• 19:39
  the 1st 5 minutes and and is terrific.
• 19:44
  As well and the way this way and there's.
• 19:47
  I think the only other show that did it as effectively as this
• 19:50
  was Buffy the Vampire Slayer which which had finished by this
• 19:52
  point, but they would do something similar.
• 19:54
  They would say the pre title sequence isn't just a bit of
• 19:58
  scene setting or character. It would do that sometimes, but
• 20:01
  it's like the end of the teaser would always be.
• 20:04
  A cliffhanger. I'm going to make a punt and say
• 20:07
  one other show that did it extremely well was the Monster
• 20:09
  of the Week. Episodes of The X-Files used to
• 20:11
  do it very well as well pre titles they'd have some
• 20:14
  something truly scary happen to kick you into that episode and
• 20:20
  but it's effectively it's the same thing.
• 20:22
  It's the same thing. It pulls you in, it gives you a
• 20:24
  cliffhanger, it gives you that sort of scary moment, and then
• 20:26
  BAM, straight into the episode and Unquiet Dead by Mark Gatiss.
• 20:33
  You've got to go right the the when when the camera swoops
• 20:37
  through the snow towards that old woman and straight down her
• 20:40
  gully as she comes screaming towards the camera.
• 20:42
  I think that was the point where most people going, oh, Doctor
• 20:45
  Who's back, baby. I think that was that was the
• 20:48
  point for me. It's like it's looking
• 20:50
  atmospheric, it's looking spooky.
• 20:53
  It's, let's say there's just something about ghosts in the
• 20:57
  snow at night that works really well.
• 21:00
  And here she comes. Eve Miles, because this has got
• 21:06
  quite a generally quite a small cast.
• 21:09
  And there's Eve Miles who I imagine when they made this,
• 21:14
  they did not think, I don't know anybody had any idea that she
• 21:16
  was going to be such an important and big part of the
• 21:21
  Doctor Who world. You know, this is probably for
• 21:23
  her, just a few weeks work and done and now you know, she's
• 21:28
  been working a big finish. She's been doing convention, you
• 21:31
  know? Who knew that that life changing
• 21:35
  role. I mean, she did tons and she
• 21:37
  obviously tortured, but Broadchurch as well, she's gone
• 21:39
  on to do a ton of work. She's worked.
• 21:42
  I'm almost prepared to think that he was so impressed with
• 21:47
  her performance in this episode because she's The Stand.
• 21:50
  You'd think it would be. Oh, good grief, Simon Callow as
• 21:54
  Charles Dickens. I think she gives a better
• 21:56
  performance than him that the Torchwood gig was like a reward
• 22:01
  for doing. I I think this is her audition.
• 22:03
  I think they looked at this going yeah we've got to bring
• 22:07
  her back and luckily you know this is this is Doctor Who they
• 22:10
  can do whatever they like, you know is it the same character
• 22:14
  are they related? Well that's going to be a
• 22:15
  challenge because she spoilers dies at the end.
• 22:19
  So how And here we are. You know, you've got the the
• 22:22
  doctrine Rose, and they're having fun and I think.
• 22:27
  That's something that is really important for a good Doctor Who
• 22:31
  at times is that the companion, the Doctor are having fun with
• 22:34
  each other because there's nothing worse than the moping or
• 22:37
  being miserable or shouting at each other.
• 22:40
  It's like she wants to be there. He wants her to be there, he
• 22:43
  wants to show off. And you know, he's, he's
• 22:47
  grinning away like an idiot there.
• 22:49
  When she's sort of saying all these things about, you know,
• 22:52
  the thing that Russell Davis did by bringing us or the new
• 22:56
  audience into the show through Rose's eyes.
• 22:59
  And then have her be totally bewitched by travelling in the
• 23:02
  Sardis, going to the future, coming back to the past.
• 23:05
  It was such a brilliant move because all those, that's
• 23:09
  exactly what all those viewers for the first time were doing,
• 23:12
  watching the show, you know? I think that's where the TV
• 23:15
  movie got it wrong, because the TV movie opens with I'm a Time
• 23:19
  Law from Gallifrey. What were they thinking?
• 23:22
  And actually, no, let's do it through Rosa's eyes.
• 23:24
  This is her first trip into the past.
• 23:26
  Let's see experience it like she does.
• 23:30
  She's excited and everything. And of course they're setting up
• 23:32
  the running joke that obviously which I really liked, which is
• 23:35
  he cannot control where they're going, which felt very old
• 23:39
  school. You know, we're going to go to
• 23:43
  whatever time and play. Oh no, we're not there.
• 23:44
  We're in Cardiff, which is the beginning of the running card or
• 23:47
  the running Wales jokes, which only they could get away with
• 23:51
  because if any other. TV show production started
• 23:53
  mocking whales. They would probably get lynched,
• 23:55
  yeah, but you know, a big burly Welsh man in charge of the show,
• 23:59
  I think burly you. Wouldn't mess.
• 24:02
  And that shot of the TARDIS when it materialised with the snow
• 24:06
  sort of billowing around it? That's the sort of visuals I've
• 24:09
  been dreaming of for years, you know, before this came on.
• 24:12
  They don't really do that so much now, I think, because at
• 24:15
  the end it's the same. When it leaves, the snow falls
• 24:17
  away. There's all those just nice
• 24:18
  little touches they bring in. And then we know we've got we've
• 24:22
  got Gwyneth and the Sight and just they're just gradually just
• 24:27
  layering up the story and setting the the the the scene
• 24:33
  and the great man, there he is. Now, don't get me wrong, I'll
• 24:37
  say she's given a better performance through it.
• 24:39
  He's still sublime. He is so sun colour is a really
• 24:46
  important part of the revival because.
• 24:50
  He was one of the big names they touted when it was coming back
• 24:55
  and William trying to get people taking it seriously because
• 24:58
  obviously there's the whole who's having cast as the Doctor
• 25:01
  and all the really stupid suggestions.
• 25:02
  And then when they started coming out with Wright, they've
• 25:05
  announced Chris Eccleston announced Billy who were
• 25:08
  actually getting as the guest stars, and Simon Callow and
• 25:11
  Penelope Walton were the 1st 2 Baker names I think.
• 25:16
  They announced, I think they did Annette Badland at the same
• 25:18
  time. But really Simon Callow was the
• 25:20
  name and it wasn't, you know, silly actor of the week.
• 25:23
  This is respected Dickens scholar, actor, thespiano.
• 25:30
  That's a proper actor. I think it was just the audience
• 25:34
  that were perking up. I think other actors were
• 25:36
  perking up and going, oh, OK, Simon Callow's doing this.
• 25:40
  Maybe I'll give it a go. And I think I'm going to be a
• 25:43
  bit controversial here. Obviously this this was recorded
• 25:47
  after Aliens of London World War Three.
• 25:51
  I think Penelope Wilton here's a a mixed bag perform.
• 25:56
  I think there are times she's great and there are times where
• 25:59
  she's borderline hamming it up. Oh yeah, I I think she then has
• 26:03
  a look at what's going on and then comes back for the
• 26:05
  Christmas invasion and she's. The contrast between those two
• 26:08
  performances, she's playing absolutely straight down the
• 26:13
  line when she comes back. And I think Simon Callow plays
• 26:16
  it, let's say, plays it straight.
• 26:19
  He plays it, he does, He takes it seriously.
• 26:21
  He's got great comedy lines, but he delivers them perfectly.
• 26:24
  He's got good timing. He delivers it well and I think
• 26:27
  we've just talked over the the the city of death style You look
• 26:34
  is it You look beautiful probably.
• 26:35
  Or something similar. I did, considering, didn't he?
• 26:39
  Didn't he do the Sharda thing as well of go down there to the
• 26:41
  left, turn right, turn left. Yeah.
• 26:44
  And you'll start a riot. Barbara.
• 26:46
  Start a riot, Barbarella. And I think this is something
• 26:51
  very similar to what Buffy did as well is the dialogue.
• 26:55
  It it zips along and this and and Chris Eccleston and Billy
• 26:59
  Piper have really good chemistry.
• 27:03
  He makes no secret of the influence that Buffy had on the
• 27:06
  revived Doctor Who. I think in this episode.
• 27:09
  It's really obvious in parts of this episode.
• 27:11
  It's like the arc, base seasons, the character focus, the the
• 27:15
  sort of importance of the emotions of the characters, all
• 27:19
  of that. There's the snappy dialogue,
• 27:21
  like you say. Bringing in their personal
• 27:23
  lives, bring in their emotional lives.
• 27:25
  Which is interesting that they always brand it as being soapy
• 27:28
  when Doctor Who does it. Fucking love soaps.
• 27:30
  You know, David, I love them. I've never seen anybody describe
• 27:33
  things like Buffy or anything like that as being soapy.
• 27:36
  I don't make it as an insult as all.
• 27:38
  It's it's a strange 1. So it's somewhere on this point
• 27:42
  there is a line from Dickens I'm I'm certain is a big finishing
• 27:48
  joke because he talks about phantasmagoria.
• 27:51
  What phantasmagoria is this? And it's like, of course he
• 27:54
  wrote that, didn't he? He wrote that Mark Gaters wrote
• 27:56
  phantasmagoria. And it's like that can't be a
• 27:59
  coincidence that of all the words that he's going to drop
• 28:01
  in, he would drop that in. But when I was getting ready for
• 28:04
  this, I was having a read on I think I have in TARDIS Wiki or
• 28:07
  one of the many sites, and it said that this was a loose
• 28:10
  adaptation of phantasmagoria. And like, I don't buy that very
• 28:17
  loose. I mean, there's a trip to the
• 28:18
  theatre and there's a seance in phantasmagoria, but that's about
• 28:22
  it. Similar bits, but that's about
• 28:23
  it. But what I was thinking because
• 28:25
  obviously we've been saying this is a bit like, you know it's a
• 28:27
  bit closer to classic who and everything.
• 28:30
  But there are times when watching this back and like it's
• 28:34
  also quite close to some of the stuff big Finnish we're doing
• 28:37
  because they were doing the celebrity historicals around
• 28:41
  this time when they started in 99.
• 28:44
  And I think some of the the way the story set up and some of the
• 28:47
  beats that happen, you could imagine in the 5th Doctor, big
• 28:51
  Finnish audio, certainly some of the earlier what is it?
• 28:54
  Evelyn Smyth says you're Charles Darwin.
• 28:59
  And and so there's it's like obviously because Mark Gates has
• 29:04
  wrote for Big Finish and he worked with them and everything.
• 29:06
  So whether or not is there, I think he's just, I've got the
• 29:08
  subtitles on. He's just said phantasmagoria
• 29:11
  and here she got, you know, and the effects still hold up some
• 29:15
  of them. I was watching this with Mark
• 29:17
  Ralph earlier and he said because it's historical, so it's
• 29:22
  lots of pretty locations and sets and things.
• 29:25
  None of it's dated because it's supposed to be set in the past.
• 29:27
  So in terms of production, none of it's dated.
• 29:29
  And then he was watching the effects and going, yeah, this
• 29:32
  still looks really stylish. The I mean the stuff with the
• 29:35
  Gulf and all that look and here's a couple of long shots of
• 29:38
  of Cardiff kind of effect where they've done obviously like 3D
• 29:42
  map or something. There's a couple of those that
• 29:45
  it is one shot. You know when the building
• 29:46
  explodes at the end and you can see the CGI flames in the
• 29:49
  window. That's a bit terrible, but but
• 29:51
  it. Wouldn't be Doctor Who if there
• 29:52
  wasn't a couple of bad effect shots.
• 29:55
  But I mean this whole thing, and you've got obviously extras
• 29:57
  doing extra acting. You know, casually just walking
• 30:01
  out very slowly. It's like Destiny the Daleks all
• 30:05
  over again, isn't it? Well, I don't think they're
• 30:07
  walking that slowly without any agency, but here you've got them
• 30:10
  together and you look like a Navy.
• 30:14
  Yeah, I think, I think again, it's just the the, the, the
• 30:19
  exchange and the dialogue. It just, it just sings with each
• 30:24
  other and it just works. And when when Gates took on
• 30:28
  writing episodes for Doctor Who, I figured we were going to be
• 30:30
  leaning into League of Gentlemen, that sort of
• 30:33
  grotesque comedy, stroke horror. And I think this does it, and I
• 30:37
  think The Crimson Horror does it.
• 30:40
  And then the rest of the time he doesn't do it at all.
• 30:43
  And I'm like, it's so good. Why don't you do it all the
• 30:45
  time? It's.
• 30:46
  Almost as if he's deliberate writing against time.
• 30:48
  It's almost like that's what I deliver normally.
• 30:50
  I want to do something different.
• 30:52
  You get is sleep. No more stuff like that, yeah.
• 30:54
  Like, terrible. I I barely remember sleep no
• 30:57
  more. There's a reason for that, you
• 30:59
  know. I think because it's fairly
• 31:02
  memorable, but I think this for me, in terms of 2005, it just
• 31:08
  got me hooked back in. And as I said, I didn't really
• 31:13
  get on with the 1st 2:00. And then you've got a much
• 31:17
  better guest cast as well, because as much as there were,
• 31:21
  there was guest cast in the first two.
• 31:24
  None of them really made, maybe apart from Yasmin Bannerman, but
• 31:27
  none of them really made huge amount of impact.
• 31:30
  But Simon Callow and Eve Miles here are just showing.
• 31:34
  Yes, you can be in Doctor Who, you can do all this silly stuff.
• 31:37
  But you can. Make it look and sound
• 31:42
  convincing, and then you've got really good comedy as well.
• 31:46
  I remember when this came out, because I was in university at
• 31:48
  the time and I was in a shared house and my friends, they
• 31:52
  didn't get the Doctor Who thing at all.
• 31:54
  And they watched the story. They watched some of the
• 31:57
  episodes of the revival, and one of them texted me saying, I
• 32:00
  didn't mean those were supposed to be funny.
• 32:01
  I was like, well, I don't think it's ever quite this this funny.
• 32:07
  Consistently before. But yeah, they've they've
• 32:10
  brought a lot of humour into it. It takes a bold show, you know,
• 32:14
  to switch between horror and comedy like this episode does.
• 32:19
  In the same scene, in that first scene, you had the fellow having
• 32:22
  his neck snapped and then Mr. Sneed rushing in going oh God,
• 32:26
  it's happened again you. Know and and and there's
• 32:30
  something black humour in this as well and it gets away with it
• 32:35
  and you know and. You've got the was it What What
• 32:38
  the is it? What?
• 32:39
  The Shakespeare line as well. It's really.
• 32:43
  I like all this one he's talking about.
• 32:45
  Oh, what was that American bit and Martin Chuzzlewit all about?
• 32:48
  That was rubbish. That bit.
• 32:50
  He sounds like you and me talking about Doctor Who there.
• 32:53
  And that's that's that's Mark or Russell kind of needling fandom
• 32:59
  and I think the writers certainly I know Moffat was
• 33:03
  guilty of this of. Going out of their way to
• 33:06
  sometimes put stuff in to wind fans up, I think this that's a
• 33:09
  bit more loving. No, maybe not loving, but it it
• 33:13
  it's not, it's not as pointed as Love and Monsters.
• 33:17
  You know where many people will say the absorber off is supposed
• 33:20
  to be a particular member of fan and hierarchy?
• 33:25
  I have heard that. I have heard that said and yeah,
• 33:30
  yeah, let's move on quick, but. Yeah, I I just it's a strong
• 33:37
  idea and it's and yeah and you get a you know Rose in the
• 33:41
  morgue and and there's a dead body.
• 33:45
  It's it's all in a way it could be quite cliched but they are
• 33:50
  pushing the envelope a bit aren't they?
• 33:52
  Because I remember Rusty Davis saying in like behind the scenes
• 33:54
  interviews they weren't sure if they could show deaths.
• 33:56
  They weren't sure how far they could push the horror.
• 33:59
  Well they do it a lot here. There's a sequence like where
• 34:02
  Snead gets his has, his neck snaps, and then he's possessed
• 34:05
  immediately, and then he's a terrifying bloodshot zombie.
• 34:10
  I think there is definite sense of let's just see what we can
• 34:13
  get away with. I think this is, this is what
• 34:15
  you can do in the first season because it's kind of exciting
• 34:18
  though, isn't it? When they're playing about with
• 34:20
  what they can do, you can you never get to do that again.
• 34:23
  I don't think they got as dark when they did do dark.
• 34:28
  I I I don't think it's ever as effective as it is here, because
• 34:31
  I think sometimes they do. You know, dark water and stuff
• 34:34
  like that, which do some really dark themes, but that's slightly
• 34:38
  different. Here you've got zombies coming
• 34:40
  out of coffins and breaking people's necks, and they look
• 34:43
  grotesque. You know how I hate to be
• 34:46
  disparaging of the Steven Moffat era, but like Dark Water is a
• 34:49
  load of scenes of adults talking in dark rooms?
• 34:54
  It's bloody boring. This has got zombies coming out
• 34:57
  of graves and things. It's Gray.
• 34:59
  And just the the because they've they've seeded it very early on
• 35:03
  the the gas lamps as well. There's lots of you see them now
• 35:07
  and again you see them flickering.
• 35:08
  There was a shot there where it's like, is that just
• 35:10
  flickering or is that something else?
• 35:11
  So it's very cleverly this is a big plot point, the gas lamps
• 35:16
  living in it and the resolution is they're turning up the gas
• 35:19
  taps and everything. So there's just lots of little
• 35:22
  touches. Did you notice how they've
• 35:23
  played out the same scene? Now, in the first three
• 35:25
  episodes, you had Rose when the autumns were coming after him,
• 35:28
  trying to bash her way out of that outside that restaurant.
• 35:32
  Then in the end of the world, she's in that room with the sun
• 35:34
  filter going up and she's trying to bash her way out of that room
• 35:37
  and she's just done it here as a zombie's got up and chased her.
• 35:40
  I almost wanted to do like a Perry line and say, oh, not
• 35:42
  again, you know, Jesus. I think if they were doing that
• 35:45
  now it would probably be a little bit more self aware,
• 35:49
  yeah? And I think this can be too self
• 35:52
  aware though. Do you know?
• 35:54
  And I I've never really caught the Doctor's face when the the
• 35:59
  gals are leaving and he's just kind of got that look of what?
• 36:04
  See, there's a lot you never would have had in the classic
• 36:06
  series. You dirty old man.
• 36:07
  I felt your eyes wandering. I think there's stuff in here.
• 36:12
  There's a what you can say now. What would you be able to get
• 36:16
  away with in a an equivalent TV drama now?
• 36:20
  I'm I think they're probably a bit too nervous to put in a joke
• 36:24
  like that because I think it is you know basically this you know
• 36:29
  he's having a perv he's having he's having he's copping a feel
• 36:31
  and it's it's treated as a as a as a joke.
• 36:36
  And so I think even in 2005, there's stuff that now they're
• 36:40
  probably, I go, oh, not quite sure we would get away with
• 36:44
  that. Mark Gatiss has been cancelled
• 36:46
  over Grope humor. Well, if he's going to be
• 36:50
  cancelled, there's certainly stuff later on that I would
• 36:53
  think certain fans have would happily seem cancelled over, but
• 36:57
  we might come to that later. But yeah, and yeah, if you're
• 37:02
  going to die, don't waste my time is shut up, you know,
• 37:07
  Dickens fanboy. But then when it comes serious,
• 37:10
  you know he hasn't got time for it.
• 37:13
  I like the fact that the Doctor is so morally sort of certain of
• 37:18
  himself that he's consistently rude to people.
• 37:23
  You know, like he is with Dickens here, like he is with
• 37:25
  Rose later in the episode. He's like, you know, it's a
• 37:27
  different morality if you can't get behind it.
• 37:30
  And I think in this scene having, you know, watching the
• 37:35
  Season 20 box set, which has just come out, that you have
• 37:38
  scenes of the Doctor doing exposition.
• 37:41
  And in a way that's what we've just had.
• 37:42
  He's been there talking about some things coming across the
• 37:44
  Rift and it's using. And that's such a traditional
• 37:49
  Doctor Who. There's a skill to it, though,
• 37:51
  and I've had this conversation on so many hamsters.
• 37:53
  There is a skill to delivery exposition.
• 37:56
  If you can make it funny, if you can make it witty, and if you
• 37:59
  can make it creative, then you can do it very, very easily.
• 38:03
  Sometimes it's just very dull science fiction dialogue.
• 38:07
  And you need the actors and the direction to sell it and.
• 38:12
  I think Eccleston is really good at some of that exposition and
• 38:15
  also the fact that Rose is she's new to all this, you know.
• 38:18
  So the fact he has to explain things a bit more because
• 38:21
  obviously the longer companions are there, they will get to a
• 38:25
  point going, you don't need to explain this to them.
• 38:26
  They've they've seen this all. So we don't really do this
• 38:31
  again, do we? Not in the steps that Rose did.
• 38:34
  They sort of had their first episode, Clara and Amy and all
• 38:37
  that, and then it's just sort of taken as given.
• 38:40
  Because we've we've introduced them.
• 38:41
  We just get, we just get on with it.
• 38:43
  Well, it's because the audience know, like you said, that we
• 38:45
  know by now. You know, like we don't.
• 38:47
  We don't need to have our hand held so much.
• 38:50
  And I think that's the thing, because as your audience gets
• 38:52
  old, you'll pick up new audience all the time.
• 38:55
  But it's really hard to reset because we obviously you build
• 39:00
  continuity, you build recurring characters, recurring
• 39:02
  storylines, and then every now and again when you get your new
• 39:05
  showrunner, it's a time to. Reset.
• 39:08
  You get that 11th hour, you get that with Wound Who fell to
• 39:10
  Earth and I think Doctor Who needs that.
• 39:15
  It needs to kind of every few years, it needs to kind of wipe
• 39:17
  the slate and start again because that's when you get the
• 39:19
  next the next group of seven-year olds, 8 year olds
• 39:23
  will come in and that will be their point of entry.
• 39:26
  Regardless what I think of the era, I think the 11th hour here
• 39:29
  at exactly the right time. 11th hour of the revived series. 11th
• 39:33
  hour is one of my favourites. I think it is.
• 39:37
  Just everything works in that I think it's a really strong way
• 39:42
  to launch a doctor and this seems interesting, this scene,
• 39:47
  right? Sorry to interrupt this scene
• 39:49
  you just wouldn't do in later years.
• 39:51
  This is like AI think. It's like 3 or 4 minute long
• 39:54
  dialogue scene and during Moffitt's time you just don't
• 39:57
  have scenes longer than about 30 seconds to a minute.
• 40:01
  And I think this is, it's really good because I like dialogue.
• 40:05
  Scenes are great. I think it's building character
• 40:08
  and it's building all of this is building roles because that's
• 40:11
  that's the the, you know, the audience is new.
• 40:14
  Everyone's you've got to build roles up as a character because
• 40:17
  the Doctors got to be a little bit unknowable and a little bit
• 40:19
  distant and here you've got 2005 values versus 1818 whatever.
• 40:26
  And you've got this thing about the talk about boys.
• 40:29
  And well, I don't know about that Miss and the the
• 40:34
  differences in the morality of the different eras and sort of
• 40:39
  suggesting, you know, where Rose comes from.
• 40:43
  She can obviously she can see it and people half naked and all
• 40:48
  that stuff. And you know she's just got a
• 40:50
  slight crush on the butcher's boy and the very different
• 40:54
  people from different times. And I think that helps build
• 40:58
  Rose. And she is very much now shows
• 41:02
  Rose Rose as a product of 2005 because again they talk about
• 41:06
  you know the nice bomb or whatever the.
• 41:09
  Objective. Again, I don't know what you're
• 41:12
  talking about. And it's that sort of dialogue.
• 41:16
  And again, I think it comes from stuff.
• 41:19
  Again, we talk about the impact of something like Buffy the
• 41:21
  Vampire Slayer, where they had these very normal conversations
• 41:26
  that people would have. She's what, 19?
• 41:28
  She let me 19. That's how people talk.
• 41:30
  That's what they would talk about.
• 41:32
  But it shows you just how different.
• 41:34
  Roses from some of the old classic companies as well, in
• 41:37
  that she does slip into these stories and and form immediate
• 41:40
  rapport with people sort of her own age as well.
• 41:43
  And we do that throughout the two seasons that she's in.
• 41:47
  I think the closest you get in the classic series is they tried
• 41:49
  to do that with Ace. Sometimes.
• 41:51
  It works sometimes, but they. Ace and shall you?
• 41:53
  I love it. They gave.
• 41:54
  They always gave Ace a friend, and then they nicely subverted
• 41:58
  that in Curse of Fenrick by giving her two friends, who then
• 42:01
  were horribly me horribly killed and transformed into vampires.
• 42:06
  Another brilliant thing about this scene as well is Russell
• 42:09
  Davis isn't afraid to make Rose flawed.
• 42:13
  So I love it when Gwyneth calls her out and she goes, well, you
• 42:17
  would think that because you think I'm stupid.
• 42:19
  I can see inside your mind and I love you.
• 42:21
  A lot of people don't like Rose because she's jealous and she
• 42:24
  gets and she's petty and she's just like you and me.
• 42:27
  That's what I love about her. I don't think we've ever had an
• 42:30
  Avatar in the series, so like. The audience.
• 42:33
  And we don't like that because we don't like being reminded
• 42:35
  about those sides of our personality.
• 42:38
  And I think certainly because there is season one Rose, the
• 42:41
  season 2 Rose, I think she she is slightly different the second
• 42:45
  season. She and 10th Doctor are
• 42:47
  borderline insufferable at times.
• 42:49
  I think she works so much better with Eccleston and she is
• 42:52
  flawed. You know, she the sort of stuff
• 42:54
  in this story where she is slightly patronizing towards
• 42:58
  Gwyneth, particularly when they're talking about using her
• 43:01
  as the conduit do it through the seance.
• 43:03
  And you know, you're you're clearly based on this
• 43:07
  conversation and you know, the naivety that she appears to
• 43:10
  have. It's like, Oh no, I'm from the
• 43:11
  future, therefore I'm, you know, I'm, I'm doing it for your own
• 43:14
  good. She sees her as this oppressed
• 43:16
  girl. She talks about her lodgings and
• 43:18
  how much she gets paid and pretty much treated like a
• 43:21
  servant, and that's offensive to Rosa's sensibility.
• 43:25
  But actually Gwyneth turns around and goes.
• 43:28
  But I'm not stupid, so there's. Interesting dynamics as well for
• 43:33
  like, for like someone in my position, this is a good life,
• 43:36
  you know, it could be a lot worse.
• 43:38
  I think Rose learns as well, because later on in the season
• 43:40
  in The Empty Child, where she's with is it Florence in The Empty
• 43:44
  Child. And she doesn't patronize her at
• 43:46
  all. And she has that wonderful
• 43:48
  moment where she tells her about the end of the war and how
• 43:50
  things are going to be all right.
• 43:52
  And she. And she treats her as an equal.
• 43:54
  There's definite character, I think more so than in some of
• 43:59
  them, the later ones where Rose definitely goes on a journey.
• 44:03
  And I think that's that's really important.
• 44:05
  You can how she is here to how she is in sort of towards the
• 44:08
  finale where she's got the weight of the world on her
• 44:10
  shoulders. And there's a lot of stuff in
• 44:13
  these episodes, etcetera. And of course now we've got
• 44:15
  seance and saying we've got Victorian ghost stories,
• 44:20
  zombies, you've got to have a seance because nothing is.
• 44:23
  Oh, did we? I think we just had the happy
• 44:25
  medium dad joke. I love those.
• 44:29
  So you know, anything that could have come out of a cracker.
• 44:32
  And you know what? It's a bad joke.
• 44:35
  But it works. It's.
• 44:36
  Just a bad joke. Yeah.
• 44:38
  It's not meant to be funny. We're meant to be laughing at
• 44:41
  him. And I think this is, I think,
• 44:43
  the way this. I forgot who directed this.
• 44:45
  Now you're wrestling this. The seance is really well done
• 44:53
  and I think it's really some of the direction is is really good.
• 44:56
  It's certainly certainly it's studio bound.
• 44:58
  They're using the lighting well. I mean, we if you watch Classic
• 45:01
  Series, we know that lighting isn't always up to strong.
• 45:04
  Points usually the be all and end all of a classic story,
• 45:07
  isn't it? It's like this is going to fail
• 45:09
  or succeed. Depending on the fella that's
• 45:11
  lighting the show, they've either got the lights on or the
• 45:14
  lights off and. But it's also what do you not
• 45:18
  think like? The the the thing that this gets
• 45:21
  really right as well is it is quite scary in places for
• 45:23
  younger kids. I think.
• 45:25
  None of it really gave me pause for four.
• 45:28
  But you know, it's doing sort of horrific things, but in a really
• 45:32
  sort of cosy way with the romantic trappings of the
• 45:35
  setting around it and stuff like that.
• 45:37
  So you feel sort of safe. It's that it's that sort of tea
• 45:40
  time horror for tots that they talked about in the classic
• 45:43
  series. Yeah, I think that there's a few
• 45:47
  things in this about the neck snapping at some of the darker
• 45:50
  elements, but there's there's a cosiness to it.
• 45:52
  There's a safeness to it. But I think as it goes on, it
• 45:58
  will pull the rug from under you because of how it ends, because
• 46:04
  self sacrifice is a bit of a Doctor Who thing.
• 46:06
  It's not a new thing for the models, but I don't know if at
• 46:10
  the time when I first watched it, whether or not they were
• 46:13
  going to go down the path of the nice, you know, character you've
• 46:17
  brought in who Roses built a rapport with.
• 46:20
  Oh, we're going to basically she's going to die, stand,
• 46:23
  there's basically an animated corpse and then get blown up.
• 46:27
  But what you wouldn't have in the classic series is that
• 46:29
  emotional through line and then it wouldn't impact the regulars
• 46:33
  the way it So that sequence at the end when the camera sort of
• 46:35
  pulls back and you've got roast the Doctor and Dickens all sort
• 46:38
  of mourning. You just wouldn't have that in
• 46:41
  the classic series as a as a single the we've been watching
• 46:45
  Arkham Infinity and there's a scene in Arkham Infinity where
• 46:47
  they bless you the Doctor Tegan and this will find the dead
• 46:51
  gardener and they go Oh no, he's dead I.
• 46:54
  Know well he's gone that way. And I know they do.
• 46:59
  They used to do that sort of thing a lot.
• 47:00
  But that's probably I don't think it's ever been as quite as
• 47:03
  dismissive of of of death in that way.
• 47:08
  And I think that's the. Resurrection of the Daleks?
• 47:12
  Fuck. I mean, you turn around.
• 47:13
  There's 10 corpses in every direction.
• 47:16
  Well, I don't. On with the story, but in it was
• 47:19
  a Doctor Magazine article in the 90s and they did a they did the
• 47:22
  body count of Earth Shark and Resurrection of the Dark.
• 47:25
  And I think it was higher than Terminator two.
• 47:28
  Oh my God, they went through. They counted how many people got
• 47:31
  killed in both those stories, and they said both these stories
• 47:34
  have a higher body count than some of the big action films
• 47:36
  that had just come out. And the weird stuff, though, is,
• 47:39
  is you're so immune to it. All those deaths and
• 47:41
  resurrection and sacrifice and all of that, they don't hold a
• 47:44
  candle to what's happening here because we really like Gwyneth,
• 47:48
  which is interesting because obviously that's why Tegan
• 47:49
  leaves, you know? It rings false, though.
• 47:53
  It rings. Why didn't you leave at the end
• 47:55
  of Warriors and the Deep with all those bodies around you?
• 47:58
  Now we're watching them quite dead.
• 48:00
  Oh, sorry. We're we're we're at the debate.
• 48:03
  Sorry, I'm not. That wasn't me taking us back.
• 48:05
  It's. It's Take us Back, Jesus.
• 48:09
  That's the controversy that is now the source of the big
• 48:11
  controversy with this story, which is the anti refugee
• 48:21
  reading of this story, because this is the scene where they're
• 48:24
  talking about basically the Guelph as refugees.
• 48:29
  And I think it's coming in and exploiting our resources IE the
• 48:33
  dead bodies and there is a lot there is and not not unfair
• 48:40
  reading that this has a particular message.
• 48:45
  I'm and I don't know whether or not that was the writers
• 48:48
  intention. I don't think.
• 48:49
  I don't think Mark Gatiss is anti immigration or anti refugee
• 48:54
  or anything like that. I think it this trope of aliens
• 49:00
  coming to earth and pretending to be good but turning out to be
• 49:02
  bad is quite an old sci-fi trope.
• 49:05
  I think they have used some of the language and dialogue of
• 49:09
  things that would have been the news at the time, so it does
• 49:13
  give it that flavour. But the clause of access has
• 49:17
  aliens coming to Earth saying we're refugees.
• 49:20
  I think Terror Zygons sort of does as well, although they're
• 49:24
  already, they're always villainous.
• 49:26
  So it's not a new thing in Doctor Who terms to have that.
• 49:31
  But I think the cultural landscape in 2005 is very
• 49:33
  different. I'm a remainer.
• 49:36
  I am pro immigration. A lot of my friends in this
• 49:40
  country are from other countries and.
• 49:43
  I have no issues at all with how this story plays out and the
• 49:47
  things it's saying about the alien race, the guilf.
• 49:51
  And I do think, and I'm going to say this as delicately as I
• 49:55
  possibly can, I do think that there is a section of the
• 49:58
  audience that is looking too hard to be offended by a piece
• 50:04
  of television. I've heard people saying that
• 50:07
  Partners in Crime is unforgivable because it's, you
• 50:09
  know. Anti fat people and Amy's choice
• 50:14
  is unforgivable because it's anti abortion and kill the moon.
• 50:17
  And it's like I don't think a lot of this was in any of the
• 50:21
  writers or the creator's mind. It's just a parallel that you've
• 50:24
  made with real life. They are just trying to tell a
• 50:27
  story. Enjoy the story.
• 50:30
  I think with a lot of television and films, people read sometimes
• 50:36
  way too. But when, you know, when Doctor
• 50:38
  Who started, they never thought people were going to be sitting
• 50:41
  there writing entire books on Marco Polo.
• 50:46
  They produced seven weeks of television and they moved on to
• 50:49
  the next thing you know, the fact that, you know, they'd be
• 50:52
  the subject of thesis and all that sort of thing.
• 50:55
  Or worse, Toby Haydock's too Much information.
• 50:59
  Which is brilliant, by the way. Oh my God, he's going to do.
• 51:02
  So he's a regular contributor to this thing, you know?
• 51:04
  So he's a fabulous man. Absolutely.
• 51:07
  And there's a part me the the behind the scenes stuff we get
• 51:12
  from the classic series. It's so detailed we don't get I.
• 51:16
  Don't think there's another show?
• 51:17
  No, I don't think there's another show that is sort of
• 51:21
  deconstructed in the way this show is.
• 51:24
  And I think that's the that's the one of the contrast between
• 51:27
  classic and modern is that there is things with the modern show
• 51:32
  behind the scenes that we don't know about yet.
• 51:35
  And I stress yet, because in the fullness of time, things will be
• 51:39
  revealed Somebody. Will do that.
• 51:40
  Tell all story about Caroline Skinner being erased from Doctor
• 51:44
  Who one day And there will be stuff whatever happened in
• 51:48
  series one. We've got a bit more of it now,
• 51:50
  but I, you know, there's still probably more things that we
• 51:54
  haven't been told and it'll come out, You know, these things will
• 51:58
  come. I think this might be the
• 52:00
  biggest objection that people have.
• 52:02
  It's not sorry. The next snapping of Sneed is
• 52:04
  that the the the immigrants want to come in and they're they're
• 52:08
  pretending to be good. And then the second they're
• 52:11
  here, they turn out to be evil, trying to grab, you know,
• 52:15
  everything that they possibly can.
• 52:17
  You can find that reading if you want, but they're just supposed
• 52:20
  to be a race of evil aliens. I think you have to look at the
• 52:25
  variety. You have to look at the politics
• 52:26
  of the writer and go is this. Is he a conservative or is he
• 52:31
  otherwise? I'm not too sure.
• 52:33
  You know, I always thought he was quite liberal.
• 52:36
  Oh. I don't know.
• 52:37
  He was stroking off Winston Churchill in that Victory of the
• 52:40
  Daleks episode. That's true.
• 52:43
  But then I think everybody, I think Churchill's one of those
• 52:46
  figures that sometimes people don't really know that he was a
• 52:49
  bit of a Dick because he didn't. Didn't he win great, the Great
• 52:53
  Britain's thing? It's like he was awful.
• 52:57
  I don't don't listen to my. Episode on on that, because I go
• 53:00
  on a mad rant about turning him into a cuddly uncle.
• 53:04
  And here we go, We've got, and this is where this is something
• 53:07
  with this story, and this is a theme through a lot of Russell's
• 53:12
  stories, is that it's not the Doctor or the companion driving
• 53:16
  the resolution. Especially in series one, it's
• 53:20
  the people they've encountered and it's the difference they've
• 53:22
  made. And so here you've got Dickens
• 53:25
  is the one who realises how to deal with the ghosts.
• 53:29
  It's Gwyneth who makes the ultimate sacrifice in the end.
• 53:32
  In fact, they're trapped in a dungeon.
• 53:34
  It's the tree woman who makes a sacrifice.
• 53:36
  In End of the World, it's Kafka who does the exposing of the
• 53:41
  mighty Jagger fest. In the long game, it's Florence.
• 53:45
  In The Empty Child, the Doctor Dances Eaton Father's Day.
• 53:50
  In fact, it. But I figured that that was,
• 53:54
  that was like a deliberate thing.
• 53:55
  So when you get to part in other ways and he's got that, you
• 53:58
  know, he's got the lever and he has to make the choice and he
• 54:01
  chooses to go. No, But that was all leading up
• 54:04
  to that because there's no one else to take that burden from
• 54:08
  him. There's no one to sort of in a
• 54:11
  way, because he's actually got rid of everyone.
• 54:13
  He's packed her off and he. Yeah.
• 54:16
  And oh, there's a line there which is the the the one of
• 54:20
  those typical sci-fi lines World War insert number here because
• 54:25
  we have got World War 5 because this is what Talons has that
• 54:28
  with World War Six You know it's it's that space age thing that's
• 54:32
  writers sometimes do as a shorthand.
• 54:35
  I think that that dialogue there, where he's going, you
• 54:37
  know, I pushed, I pushed things at the Possum Tea Party and now
• 54:40
  I'm going to die in a dungeon in Cardiff.
• 54:43
  It's a great dialogue and we'll go down fighting, go down
• 54:46
  together and they. Hold each other's hands.
• 54:49
  It's grey. And then I'm so glad I met you.
• 54:52
  Yeah. Oh man.
• 54:55
  And I I Is this a romantic? Is it a romantic relationship or
• 54:59
  was it in a close emotional friendship?
• 55:03
  Because. I think this this this is a
• 55:06
  close emotional friendship. I think it becomes an emotional
• 55:10
  romance in series 2. Yeah, somewhat toxic, one, some
• 55:14
  might say. I think definitely somewhat
• 55:17
  toxic. And and I think in a way Simon
• 55:22
  Callow doesn't in the second-half of the episode is
• 55:26
  less prominent. But then when he turns up in
• 55:29
  these sort of final scenes, you know, he's saving the day.
• 55:33
  How? Great.
• 55:34
  Is that zombie make up? I think it's horrific.
• 55:38
  It is horrific and I think they look genuinely horrible.
• 55:43
  And don't you love the way? The way that when the girl comes
• 55:45
  out their mouth, you just hear the scream as well.
• 55:48
  And I think the the the thing, the sound that kind of, you
• 55:53
  know, it's not just how the visuals, it's how they build up
• 55:54
  the sound to build up the music. I didn't find Morris Gold music
• 55:57
  at this point too intrusive. I don't know much about the
• 56:00
  music in this one, which I think is is a good sign.
• 56:03
  I said to Mark when we were watching this earlier, there's
• 56:05
  hardly any music in these dialogue scenes and that skip
• 56:09
  forward two or three seasons that would be unthinkable.
• 56:13
  And and now we've got, and I think Eve Males does this
• 56:16
  incredibly well. You know she's dead and she's
• 56:19
  got the matches. Do you know what she looks like?
• 56:22
  She looks like a, you know, like a puppet on strings where the
• 56:25
  strings have been cut. And she's just basically she's
• 56:29
  she's already. It's almost like the force of
• 56:30
  the rift is holding her in place.
• 56:32
  And what's? So sad is she was doing an act
• 56:34
  of kindness, wasn't she? Trying to help them through.
• 56:37
  Yeah, and I think. It's got a bite to it, this and
• 56:41
  yeah, there's no pulse. So in fact I forgot to give it.
• 56:47
  He gives her the little kiss and he played.
• 56:53
  I think he's underrated. I think Eccleston is massively
• 56:55
  underrated, not just in the 13 that he does, but compared to
• 57:01
  some of the other modern actors as well.
• 57:04
  He does the humour well, he does the sadness, he does the rage
• 57:08
  and I think we've got the siege. There they are.
• 57:10
  They're not on screen for very long.
• 57:13
  The trouble is, is they're sort of within the window.
• 57:15
  So you can see it's an effect, but never mind, never mind.
• 57:20
  You're right though, I think, and I certainly think in the
• 57:23
  second-half of the season, maybe from sort of Dalek onwards, he's
• 57:26
  just got it. He knows, he knows how to do the
• 57:28
  role. His charisma is sort of like a
• 57:31
  freight train running through the series.
• 57:34
  And he's got the humor right as well.
• 57:36
  He's so funny, like in Boomtown. Do you remember when he goes,
• 57:38
  what is it? She's climbing out the window,
• 57:40
  isn't she? You know, and there's a bit in
• 57:43
  Bad Wolf where he storms in with the gun and he's, they say like
• 57:48
  don't shoot, and he just throws the gun signal as if I was going
• 57:50
  to shoot. He does.
• 57:53
  His timing is great and I think Eccleston is not rated for the
• 57:57
  comedy. And I think as you said in the
• 57:59
  second-half when he's kind of more comfortable with the role,
• 58:04
  he does it well. I think a certain portion of
• 58:07
  fans punish Eccleston for leaving the show when he did and
• 58:11
  and how he did. They're like well we can't be
• 58:13
  arsed with him because he he's he he he's he's almost the
• 58:17
  Lazenby Dr. in a way he does one he's one season and he's done
• 58:21
  and oh but what came next was so much better and overshadowed and
• 58:25
  did over shadow it. Like, you know that bit in
• 58:28
  darling, You know where he goes. Why don't you just die?
• 58:31
  I mean, you just. There's no one for acting like
• 58:34
  that in Doctor Who. I think, I think the trailer for
• 58:37
  the 60th has Tenant doing rage. Yeah, everything.
• 58:42
  So it'll be interesting to see what happens there because they
• 58:44
  don't do that very often and you and you know that's rocketed,
• 58:50
  but we're now at the end of the story and you've got Dickens and
• 58:54
  he's reinvigorate and they go for a quite a down B ending with
• 58:57
  him. Oh, they explained, don't they?
• 59:00
  Yeah, actually, things aren't great.
• 59:01
  He's going to die next year. He's like he's he's he's going
• 59:04
  to die soon. He he's not going to finish his
• 59:06
  story. It's his great unfinished work,
• 59:08
  influenced by what he's seen here.
• 59:12
  I'm always dubious about that sort of thing and I think, and
• 59:16
  this is just towards Quantico, Villa, Villa Deodati, it's also
• 59:20
  towards Big Finish stuff where you get Mary Shelley, Who's this
• 59:23
  big literary figure, and going, Oh yeah, she was just inspired
• 59:26
  by the time to men as opposed to somebody who came up with one of
• 59:30
  the most famous pieces of literature and wrote it
• 59:33
  themselves. So.
• 59:34
  David, I hope you're not casting Shade on Time Lash there.
• 59:40
  No, I wouldn't dare. I wouldn't dare cast oh.
• 59:44
  How Herbert Wales possibly got his brilliant stories from that
• 59:47
  shoddy story. Is beyond me how you can get a
• 59:50
  story from something that has no story.
• 59:54
  He'd be like, I'm not writing science fiction anymore.
• 59:56
  It's very boring. You know, out there in space and
• 59:59
  then and you know, who are you, Doctor.
• 1:00:02
  That's again a classic. And there's your there's your
• 1:00:05
  line for the trailer, which they didn't ever use, which is just a
• 1:00:07
  friend passing through. That's a great, You know, that
• 1:00:09
  reminds me of that reminds me of not a word from the time laws at
• 1:00:12
  the end of Frontiers. There's sort of little bits that
• 1:00:14
  remind me of the classic series so much.
• 1:00:18
  And here's a bit where they do this a lot.
• 1:00:21
  I think they overdo this. My insert name here work.
• 1:00:25
  Does it last? Oh yes, you're amazing and
• 1:00:28
  brilliant and whatever. It's not.
• 1:00:31
  It's good. They do it here because they
• 1:00:33
  talk about it, but they do it with Agatha Christie, and I
• 1:00:34
  think they do it with some of the others as well.
• 1:00:36
  I've heard. I've heard them like people
• 1:00:38
  throw shade on the Rosa Parks ending.
• 1:00:41
  I really like that because that asteroid is out there, isn't it?
• 1:00:44
  So that's. The real thing, Yeah.
• 1:00:47
  And so I think when you do these sort of celebrity historicals,
• 1:00:52
  there's a they always seem to touch on this.
• 1:00:53
  This. Not always, because someone will
• 1:00:55
  probably point out the times they don't because Doctor Who
• 1:00:57
  found you, they can't leave things alone.
• 1:01:01
  But there is a common theme of what's the legacy of our guest
• 1:01:06
  of the week. But, and now we've got the
• 1:01:08
  TARDIS leaving and we've got the reverse of the the snow falling
• 1:01:13
  down. Trouble is right is that they've
• 1:01:16
  chosen Charles Dickens, Shakespeare and Agatha Christie.
• 1:01:20
  And to be honest with you, everyone is still reading all
• 1:01:22
  those books. Yeah, and.
• 1:01:26
  That's the balance. When you're picking your your
• 1:01:29
  celebrity history person, it has to be someone people will will
• 1:01:33
  know. Otherwise, what's the point?
• 1:01:35
  Because I know of Nikola Tesla and I know of Rosa Parks, but I
• 1:01:41
  didn't know a lot, so I felt as if I learnt more watching those
• 1:01:44
  ones. There's more from that, and I
• 1:01:45
  think there's getting the balance right between a namely
• 1:01:47
  that you know but don't know much about.
• 1:01:49
  Or do you put in historical figures where it's only years
• 1:01:53
  later you go that was a real person?
• 1:01:56
  Because I was, I was doing a bit.
• 1:01:57
  I was digging going, how much did the classic series do you
• 1:02:01
  know, proper, famous historical figures.
• 1:02:06
  And it's actually not as much. I mean, there was one in the
• 1:02:09
  first season, wasn't there it? Was Marco Polo.
• 1:02:11
  And then there was the various people in Reign of Terror And
• 1:02:16
  then, oh Nero. Nero, you've got Richard the
• 1:02:20
  Lionheart and then and Myth through the first three seasons.
• 1:02:24
  They're fairly. Common.
• 1:02:26
  Then you get to the goals and then after we sort of chip into
• 1:02:29
  the pseudo historicals after that, isn't it?
• 1:02:31
  So it's less about historical figures and more about a Jolly
• 1:02:34
  Robin history. And there's very few.
• 1:02:36
  Now, when I asked this question on the site formerly known as
• 1:02:39
  Twitter, some people said oh, according to TARDIS, TARDIS Wiki
• 1:02:44
  solicitor Gray from the Highlanders is based on a real
• 1:02:46
  person. But when I went to Wiki this,
• 1:02:50
  there's no citation. It was like citation needed.
• 1:02:52
  So you try and Google it. I'm going.
• 1:02:54
  I can't find anything that backs this up other than TARDIS wiki
• 1:02:58
  Trouble With those wiki pages you know anyone could go in and
• 1:03:00
  edit them. I'm not willing to state my
• 1:03:03
  reputation on the TARDIS wiki, but I think in terms of properly
• 1:03:08
  well established historical figures.
• 1:03:09
  After Doc Holiday and Gunfighters, the next one is
• 1:03:15
  Stevenson in Mark of the Ronnie. Apparently Lord Ravensworth is a
• 1:03:19
  real person as well. I don't think very well.
• 1:03:22
  I think it's just Stevenson. I can't think of one after that.
• 1:03:25
  No, you've got Einstein cameos in all the time of the role.
• 1:03:28
  Yeah, but that's it. I think I'll say and then and
• 1:03:32
  then obviously this is it's, it's picked up here and then run
• 1:03:36
  with it. And they run with it.
• 1:03:37
  I You know what? I did write it down.
• 1:03:39
  Actually, I made a list. Oh, King's demons, maybe,
• 1:03:42
  because technically it's King John, but it's fake.
• 1:03:46
  But yeah, then you got. It's you know I'm quite dead
• 1:03:49
  tooth and claw girl on the fireplace Shakespeare Code
• 1:03:51
  Unicorn on the Wasp victory that it just they use historical
• 1:03:56
  figures either proper guest stars or cameos a lot wedding a
• 1:04:02
  river song because obviously Simon catalogue comes back for
• 1:04:05
  his cameo on the breakfast sofa less it was a.
• 1:04:09
  Poor and that Churchill's in that as well, isn't he?
• 1:04:13
  In fact, I think is is the last time they do it before Chipnall
• 1:04:16
  comes along. Is it Van Golf in?
• 1:04:21
  They do Robin Hood. Robin Hood, Although that's
• 1:04:27
  debatable. But I think that's it.
• 1:04:32
  And then it's Rosa. I think Capaldi, I think the
• 1:04:34
  only one I I only did the most basic of sitting down and what
• 1:04:37
  what I could remember but. With Capaldi, I think there was
• 1:04:41
  only the Robin Hood. I think it was sadly to claw
• 1:04:44
  back from it because it like I do like all those episodes you
• 1:04:47
  just named. It's a chance to go into
• 1:04:49
  history, show off stylish production values, have some fun
• 1:04:52
  and learn a bit. But I think it it if it had gone
• 1:04:56
  on much longer, it would have got very, very dull.
• 1:04:59
  Which is why when those very serious Chibbers historicals
• 1:05:03
  here in Series 11, that just felt like the ultimate
• 1:05:06
  refreshment for me. I'm like, OK, we're harking back
• 1:05:09
  to those sort of David Whittaker historicals from the first
• 1:05:12
  couple of years. Proper things where people will
• 1:05:14
  come away and go, OK, that's how it actually was in history and
• 1:05:18
  they didn't quite go for the pure historical.
• 1:05:21
  I I, I love the pure historicals from the 60s.
• 1:05:24
  But I don't think you, I don't think they would ever do them
• 1:05:26
  again, because I think they always want to put in a monster,
• 1:05:30
  don't they? It's like you need.
• 1:05:32
  I think if you did a pure historical, I think a lot of
• 1:05:35
  people would spend most of that 45 minutes going, Where's the
• 1:05:39
  monster? Because especially when you're
• 1:05:41
  young, you know, we've got 3 nephews, at least one of them
• 1:05:46
  has watched, watched Doctor Who every night.
• 1:05:48
  If there wasn't a monster in it, he'd be like, where is it?
• 1:05:51
  Yeah, it's expected, even like Black Orchid.
• 1:05:54
  And I don't want to get into whole water for saying this
• 1:05:56
  because I'm not suggesting that the disfigured fella is a
• 1:05:59
  monster, but it is a scary looking character that's running
• 1:06:05
  through the story. It's not just like they're just
• 1:06:08
  playing Critty and drinking cocktails for two episodes, you
• 1:06:11
  know? There's something there.
• 1:06:13
  There's a threat. There's a something that's
• 1:06:15
  causing the plot, such as it is to happen.
• 1:06:19
  Good grief. You know, this whole episode,
• 1:06:20
  it's allowed us to go off in 100 different directions, isn't it?
• 1:06:24
  We could do a whole episode on each topic, but what we do have
• 1:06:28
  to do is now find 3 reasons a piece to reckon.
• 1:06:32
  I don't think we're going to have any trouble doing that with
• 1:06:34
  The Unquiet Did. Let's start with you when we're
• 1:06:38
  back and back and forth. OK, I'm going to Simon Callow as
• 1:06:42
  Dickens. I think he's the first big name
• 1:06:45
  guest star in the revival. He pitches his performance
• 1:06:50
  absolutely spot on and I think it gave the series some
• 1:06:55
  credibility. As well, in terms of how the
• 1:06:58
  public saw it, how the profession might have seen it,
• 1:07:01
  you know, this isn't just somebody who's been in a small
• 1:07:07
  time role. This is an established name
• 1:07:10
  who's on TV, film, theatre and so on.
• 1:07:13
  So I think there's a lot of heavy lifting being done by
• 1:07:16
  Callow in this on so many different fronts.
• 1:07:20
  I'm going to say, you know, I get told off for mentioning the
• 1:07:23
  directors too much, but I think the directors have a massive
• 1:07:26
  impact on a Doctor Who story in either direction, quality wise.
• 1:07:30
  And Euroslin manages to capture the sort of cosy atmosphere of a
• 1:07:35
  Christmas time setting and tell a great Horror Story as well
• 1:07:41
  with scary moments and sort of hide behind the sofa.
• 1:07:45
  Sorry. Cliche bits in it too.
• 1:07:48
  And he gives the actors time to really, you know, show their
• 1:07:53
  chops. There's long scenes in this long
• 1:07:55
  dialogue scenes. He's not afraid to put the
• 1:07:57
  camera right in the faces of these actors and show what
• 1:08:01
  they're made of. So I think in sort of every
• 1:08:03
  single way you could judge this directorially, Euroslyn has got
• 1:08:08
  it. And, you know, he just gets
• 1:08:10
  better and better as he goes along.
• 1:08:12
  I mean that. Didn't he do all of Children of
• 1:08:14
  Earth? If you did, I don't know if you
• 1:08:17
  did or we definitely did some and I think he, he, he just
• 1:08:22
  excels. I think there's some some of the
• 1:08:23
  stuff through the direction and this was great.
• 1:08:25
  I think we said that throughout just the the the way the shots
• 1:08:28
  are set up, the way that using the lighting, using the sets,
• 1:08:31
  getting the performances. Yeah, I I couldn't disagree with
• 1:08:33
  and he just knows how to top and toe a scene.
• 1:08:35
  Do you remember the when he goes out, we're going to go down into
• 1:08:38
  the morgue and then the camera just runs along the the dead
• 1:08:42
  body, the foot sticking out of the.
• 1:08:45
  You know, always went to club. Yeah, that's all really well
• 1:08:48
  timed. Keith Boac did not know when to
• 1:08:50
  cut. He had scenes of those Slovene
• 1:08:53
  running around wobbling. Yeah.
• 1:08:55
  Like having the CGI and the puppet versions in the scene
• 1:09:00
  just didn't work. Suddenly they're very fast.
• 1:09:02
  Oh no, now they're a bit cumbersome.
• 1:09:03
  You know what's going on? Sorry, back to you.
• 1:09:07
  Oh, OK, I know I wouldn't say this, but the pre titles I
• 1:09:12
  think. It it sets the tone so you know
• 1:09:15
  it's the first time we have that sort of Horror Story hook and so
• 1:09:21
  many of the stories that came after kind of do things a very
• 1:09:25
  similar way. It's got the you know the it's
• 1:09:28
  form of a cliffhanger and it's neat.
• 1:09:30
  It sets the story up in 3 minutes.
• 1:09:32
  The situation, the location, the atmosphere it's for that season,
• 1:09:38
  certainly it's one of the best pre titles and.
• 1:09:42
  For me, as that grumpy, disillusioned fan in 2005, it
• 1:09:46
  was at the end of that going, OK, I think, Oh yeah, I'll grump
• 1:09:50
  you. Honestly, you're there going.
• 1:09:53
  Yes, it's back. This is how it should be.
• 1:09:58
  My second one is going to be I love the moral dimension to this
• 1:10:01
  episode, and it's something that's completely missing from a
• 1:10:03
  lot of Gates's other scripts. There's an extra layer to this
• 1:10:07
  in the debates about whether to use the corpses as vessels for
• 1:10:13
  the gulf, and it exposes the very different sort of moral
• 1:10:17
  standpoints of Rose and the Doctor and how alien he is that
• 1:10:21
  he's willing to let him do it, and how human she is that she's
• 1:10:23
  not. And that's complex in a way.
• 1:10:27
  The Empress of Mars sleep no more and wrote Robot of Sherwood
• 1:10:32
  on So I don't know what happened along the way.
• 1:10:35
  He just stopped offering to put in any kind of complexity into
• 1:10:39
  his script, but it's here and it's great.
• 1:10:42
  I I think, I agree. I think there's layers to the
• 1:10:45
  story and there's it feels like it's trying to say something as
• 1:10:48
  well. So yeah, I think it's it is
• 1:10:50
  probably his best script. Yeah, I reckon.
• 1:10:53
  Well, what's your third thing then?
• 1:10:55
  Oh, you know, I'm, I'm trying not to pick Eccleston because
• 1:11:00
  obviously that's a bit of an obvious choice and I'm trying
• 1:11:03
  not to pick actors. But I think he's nailing it, I
• 1:11:06
  think. He's got the comedy down.
• 1:11:09
  He's got the seriousness. He's got the sadness that you
• 1:11:12
  see at the end when the year gives that Gwyneth, you know
• 1:11:14
  feel sort of pulse and this sadness as well.
• 1:11:17
  And he's, he's acting his socks off and we've got more so than
• 1:11:24
  maybe some of the other doctors before and after the the range
• 1:11:29
  is amazing. And I look back now and going he
• 1:11:33
  was really we did not. Probably appreciate him enough.
• 1:11:36
  We were lucky, weren't we? We were really lucky.
• 1:11:39
  And again, having the right actor at the right place just
• 1:11:42
  made people sit up and take notice.
• 1:11:45
  Oh, it was such a left field choice.
• 1:11:47
  Everyone was naming all the usual old eccentrics.
• 1:11:50
  Oh, you know it's going to be, I don't know, name somebody who's
• 1:11:53
  who's an obvious. Choice Bill Nye.
• 1:11:55
  We had Alan Davies Basically people with long hair who could
• 1:11:58
  wear a floppy coat. People are still thinking about
• 1:12:02
  like the TV movie, aren't they? And that cravat?
• 1:12:04
  Who can we, who can we Photoshop into Tom Baker's costume for
• 1:12:07
  this particle? Because I think they did that
• 1:12:09
  with Bill Nye and they chose this very edgy, slightly
• 1:12:14
  dangerous actor to play the role.
• 1:12:17
  And would not do our do his RP accent.
• 1:12:19
  He would do it in his native accent.
• 1:12:21
  So when that first teaser came out and you heard him speak for
• 1:12:24
  the first time, it was like, oh, that's not, you know, because I
• 1:12:28
  don't think they announced he was going to be speaking with
• 1:12:30
  his natural accent. So I was just expecting a doctor
• 1:12:34
  sound like what we've always had and then you've got this
• 1:12:37
  Northern Dr. and it works. I think it's different and it's
• 1:12:43
  got charm, it's got wit. He's got, I think it's the
• 1:12:47
  humour. It goes back to that.
• 1:12:48
  He brings a lot of humour to it and Eccleston wasn't known for
• 1:12:50
  his comedy. I think he's got really good
• 1:12:53
  comic timing. What is it?
• 1:12:55
  He's your boyfriend. After Adams just fainted.
• 1:12:58
  You know that timing. You can't teach someone that
• 1:13:01
  time and I don't think. He he's really good at it and I
• 1:13:03
  think because he does a lot of serious parts, I think he's a
• 1:13:05
  very serious person as well. But actually he's got some
• 1:13:10
  really good range. I just don't think people talk
• 1:13:13
  about it enough. We've certainly done that in the
• 1:13:16
  last hour and a bit, and I'm glad we have.
• 1:13:20
  In fact, every single Eccleston story I've done, I've only got 1
• 1:13:22
  left to do now. And that's, Oh no, 2 Rose and
• 1:13:26
  the long game. Every single one.
• 1:13:28
  People have come on and just praised him to the high heavens
• 1:13:31
  because he's just sublime. OK, well, my last one then.
• 1:13:35
  It's not going to be an obvious choice.
• 1:13:37
  It's going to be. I don't even know the fellow's
• 1:13:39
  name, but it's whoever's playing Mr. Snead who I think has the
• 1:13:44
  unfortunate position of being the Comic Relief throughout this
• 1:13:47
  episode. And man oh man, he's
• 1:13:49
  accentuating every line in the welshiest Welsh you've ever
• 1:13:53
  heard. Don't look at me like it's my
• 1:13:55
  fault and all this, but oh man, he's funny as.
• 1:14:00
  He's funny and then when he's dead, he is a horrifically
• 1:14:04
  terrifying corpse. And to do that to the Comic
• 1:14:07
  Relief character, it's unusual. But in the same way they killed
• 1:14:12
  off. The lovely, friendly friend of
• 1:14:17
  the companion as well that killed Grenner.
• 1:14:20
  So it just goes to show it's like a mission statement of just
• 1:14:22
  because you're the light relief or you're the the the innocent.
• 1:14:27
  The character we've introduced does not mean you're safe.
• 1:14:29
  You do not get a free pass. I do under, you know, in the
• 1:14:31
  Rusty Davis era is the best era for those sort of rug pulls.
• 1:14:35
  He sort of gets you safe, feeling like, oh, this is fun,
• 1:14:38
  energetic, witty, you know, there's lots going on, loads of
• 1:14:41
  action. And then he just pulls the rug,
• 1:14:45
  like Gwyneth's death, like sneeze, like Harriet Jones at
• 1:14:49
  the end of a Christmas invasion, you know, and stuff like that,
• 1:14:52
  where you really go, you know, he's he's been, he's been
• 1:14:55
  lulling me into our full sense of security just to make me sit
• 1:14:58
  up. He's willing to make you care
• 1:15:01
  and like these characters and then either kill them off or
• 1:15:04
  make you despise them because what he did with Harriet Jones
• 1:15:08
  was really clever because you like her.
• 1:15:11
  You see sympathy for her certainly throughout Christmas
• 1:15:12
  Invasion. And then at the end you're like,
• 1:15:15
  oh. That's that's the path you've
• 1:15:18
  gone down. And then he doesn't.
• 1:15:19
  And then when he brings her back in the stolen earth, he refuses
• 1:15:24
  to make her wrong. She's right.
• 1:15:25
  The earth's in terrible danger. He's buggered off somewhere.
• 1:15:28
  He's not there to save it. And she goes, I knew this was
• 1:15:30
  going to happen. And that's why I have this
• 1:15:32
  software created. And I was right all along.
• 1:15:35
  And I was like, yeah, go on. You tell him.
• 1:15:37
  Yeah. And it was a nice touch that
• 1:15:39
  even. Where you know when the doctor
• 1:15:42
  finds out that she was dead, there wasn't a huge amount to or
• 1:15:45
  she was around. He's still like oh don't, don't
• 1:15:47
  trust her. He still never forgave her.
• 1:15:49
  And I think that that was quite interesting decision.
• 1:15:53
  It's only very it's very subtle I think in her last episode.
• 1:15:57
  But I I always get the sense of like, even then, he still
• 1:16:01
  hasn't, Still won't forgive her. Tennant could be a total bastard
• 1:16:05
  at times, you know. Sorry, I don't mean Tennant.
• 1:16:07
  I mean the 10th Doctor. Sorry.
• 1:16:09
  David, who I hear is reliably the loveliest actor in the
• 1:16:12
  world. Well, look, that was marvellous.
• 1:16:16
  What a wonderful. I was about to say Hamster
• 1:16:18
  debut, you did a book club. But this is like your first
• 1:16:21
  episode proper going solo. Well, where we going next?
• 1:16:25
  Come on, I'm not having you just on one.
• 1:16:28
  I can't remember what we said now.
• 1:16:30
  No, we wrote it down on a small list, didn't we?
• 1:16:32
  There's a small list. I think it was good.
• 1:16:34
  It might be Smile, I think we mentioned this year.
• 1:16:37
  Well, we got to watch that. Do you like that one?
• 1:16:41
  I remember enjoying it. I only want to do it because
• 1:16:43
  that's where we went. We went to Valencia for our
• 1:16:45
  honeymoon, so it's like, oh OK, inventive photos.
• 1:16:50
  Only if you promise to tell me stories of your holiday with you
• 1:16:54
  and your lovely husband. I'll talk about a holiday
• 1:16:56
  instead. You know, that was the only
• 1:16:58
  reason for you said pick a Capaldi.
• 1:16:59
  I was like, oh, I'll pick the one where I've just been there.
• 1:17:03
  I'm fairly certain that stories of your holiday there are going
• 1:17:06
  to be more exciting than the content of the episode, you
• 1:17:09
  know. But I would love to get you on a
• 1:17:11
  classic as well, to do a longer story.
• 1:17:13
  So we'll have to talk about that as well.
• 1:17:15
  I'll say you, you send me a small list of ones you want to
• 1:17:18
  do because I'm going again. So basically the whole of
• 1:17:20
  classic is there for people to do again.
• 1:17:23
  So you let me know. I will not say no to that.
• 1:17:27
  All I'll say right now is thank you very much.
• 1:17:30
  You've been absolutely wonderful today and it has been a complete
• 1:17:33
  pleasure. Thank you very much.
• 1:18:09
  A hamster with a blump pen knife for doing.
• 1:18:10
  Quicker, quicker, quicker.