Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to the delightful Paul Arthur about his choice of Destiny of the Daleks

Transcript

Talks to the delightful Paul Arthur about his choice of Destiny of the Daleks · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blunt pen knife for doing quicker.
• 0:36
  Hello and welcome to Hamster with a Blunt Pen Knife.
• 0:39
  My name is Paul and I am here with your podcast leader, Joe
• 0:44
  Ford. Leader, My God, you make me
• 0:46
  sound like a Nazi. Well, you are that, you know,
• 0:50
  like the creator of the Daleks. You are.
• 0:54
  Yeah, absolutely. Keeping it on topic, you are got
• 0:57
  your little twinkly hand out covered in cobwebs.
• 1:00
  I've got a Dalek right behind me, actually.
• 1:02
  Exactly. Just like Davros at all times.
• 1:05
  That's right. Yeah.
• 1:06
  Flanked at all times with the Daleks is Joe Ford.
• 1:11
  Hello, Joe, How are you? If I see an eccentric man coming
• 1:14
  towards me with an enormous red and yellow bomb, all right, I
• 1:18
  shall order this Dalek to shoot you immediately, OK?
• 1:22
  Slightly wobbly Dalek on on, you know, just kind of on its feet.
• 1:26
  I mean, that sounds like I'm saying a load of euphemisms.
• 1:29
  There is genuinely A Dalek behind me.
• 1:31
  There is and look. Oh, I didn't, I didn't show you
• 1:33
  this earlier. Look, I've got I've got this.
• 1:35
  My wife made it for me. Obviously it's a very visual
• 1:37
  medium, the podcast. But this is a crocheted amazing.
• 1:41
  Yeah, it's cool, isn't it? Yeah.
• 1:42
  So I got like, OK, for the for the sake of everybody that isn't
• 1:46
  me that can't see it, maybe if you could just give a couple of
• 1:49
  lines description of what you're holding.
• 1:51
  This is a it's a crocheted Dalek, and it's probably about.
• 1:55
  I'd know 7 inches long I guess. Who knows?
• 2:01
  I'm not very good with that kind of management.
• 2:02
  We're not talking. Euphemisms, right?
• 2:05
  He's quite, he's quite chunky boy.
• 2:06
  He's quite big. And he's in the kind of Genesis
• 2:09
  Destiny livery, So the kind of gun metal, grey and the black.
• 2:13
  So yeah, yeah. This was a gift from my wife a
• 2:16
  couple years ago. I mean, he's so chunky.
• 2:19
  That darling he's got big old bum you.
• 2:21
  Have to use two hands actually to hold him.
• 2:25
  I can't get both hands. Aggressively endowed that Dalek
• 2:28
  is. I mean, I must have taken some
• 2:31
  work to do that, you know. Yeah, yeah, she, yeah, it's
• 2:34
  quite a lot. And she was doing it on a lunch
• 2:36
  break at work because she couldn't do it in the house
• 2:38
  because I'm never out, so I'm always here.
• 2:41
  So yeah. Can I dare to sort of approach
• 2:44
  the question of your wife? Yeah, It's a bit awkward,
• 2:47
  really. You know, when we sort of spent
• 2:49
  the last two recordings flirting outrageously, we were trashing,
• 2:52
  wrangling and all of that. But now, how much does she
• 2:55
  support your love of Doctor Who? I always love asking this
• 2:58
  question to people who are married.
• 2:59
  Like is, is it something you have to tuck away in a room
• 3:02
  somewhere or is it sort of embraced housewide?
• 3:06
  Well, I think we talked a little bit about the fact that I've
• 3:10
  never been a big buyer of like merchandise and stuff like that.
• 3:13
  So this there's plenty of of stuff around the house, but but
• 3:18
  it's not, it's not. I haven't got a room for it.
• 3:20
  Like you've got your room there. It's kind of just started around
• 3:24
  there is in our living room on the on the bookshelf in the
• 3:26
  living room. There'll be a couple of Tardises
• 3:29
  and maybe a Cyberman on there. I want to got some.
• 3:33
  I've got some wobbly Daleks for my secret Sansa at work.
• 3:35
  So they're, they're out there on the bookshelf.
• 3:39
  Wobbly Daleks. They kind of like, I haven't
• 3:42
  seen them before. It's like they kind of got a
• 3:44
  little base of the bottom and so they jiggle.
• 3:47
  It's it's hard to describe. Jiggly Dalek.
• 3:50
  Jiggly Daleks Yeah, yeah. Merry Christmas.
• 3:52
  Yeah. I hadn't seen this before, but
• 3:54
  so there's not a huge amount of stuff, but it is kind of scared
• 3:57
  about. She doesn't mind it, but she
• 4:00
  kind of. She won't sit and watch it with
• 4:02
  me. I was trying ask her to, but
• 4:05
  she, she's likes to make out that she's seen more of it than
• 4:08
  I think she has. And that's kind of like a
• 4:10
  running joke with us where I'll go, oh come on, just watch one
• 4:13
  with me. And she's like, now I've seen
• 4:14
  enough. And then she'll try and list
• 4:16
  episode titles that she can think of to go, Oh yeah, I've
• 4:19
  seen Trial of the Time Lord is one that she always reaches for.
• 4:22
  Because I think I might have had it on UK gold back in the day
• 4:26
  when we first got together on a Sunday morning and she came,
• 4:29
  came in from the bedroom and I was watching that.
• 4:31
  So that's when she kind of has stuck in her head.
• 4:33
  It's like evidence that she's watched Doctor Who are.
• 4:37
  You doing this on purpose today? All right, Why A7 inch crocheted
• 4:42
  Dalek, wobbly Daleks and now coming in from the bar, I mean,
• 4:48
  are you doing? Walking.
• 4:49
  Come on, John. OK, I'm.
• 4:51
  Sorry. The kids downstairs?
• 4:53
  Unbelievable. Your mother's downstairs.
• 4:55
  My mum is in the house. I'm so sorry.
• 4:58
  I'm so sorry because you know you're heterosexual and innocent
• 5:01
  is why I do it more. Well, yeah.
• 5:07
  So, OK, so she she does indulge you to a bit.
• 5:10
  Then usually I find that it's generally in the start of the
• 5:13
  relationship, you know, where they indulge it more, where
• 5:16
  they're trying to get their claws in.
• 5:17
  She's going to go like, OK, I'm going to sort of indulge just a
• 5:20
  little bit and watch a little bit and show some interest.
• 5:22
  And then once they've got their, once you're paying bills
• 5:24
  together, it's like, no, I don't need any more of that.
• 5:26
  Thank you very much. That can be your passion.
• 5:28
  Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, she's got stuff
• 5:30
  that she's into. So we, we kind of like, you
• 5:33
  know, I think it's a fairly healthy relationship where she's
• 5:35
  got her own stuff that she kind of goes to like the crochet and
• 5:39
  stuff. Like she has a lot of that kind
• 5:41
  of stuff. And she watches a lot of shows
• 5:42
  that I'm not going to watch. And oh, she's, she's really into
• 5:47
  NCIS, don't even know what. That stands for yeah, the the
• 5:50
  like the American procedurals. Yeah, yeah, yeah, some sort of
• 5:53
  yeah, forensic crime thing, I think.
• 5:55
  And there's like about 20 seasons of it or something daft
• 5:57
  like that. And so yeah, she's, she'll just
• 6:00
  kind of like stick an episode of that on with her headphones and
• 6:03
  listen and watch that, don't you?
• 6:05
  Turn your nose up at NCIS all right when you're sitting here
• 6:08
  today watching Disco Robots with me.
• 6:11
  I'm not probably getting to if I watched it, but I'm not going to
• 6:14
  sit down and watch 20 there's. So much telly.
• 6:18
  There's just no time for all this telly.
• 6:20
  There's just so much out there now, isn't it?
• 6:23
  Unbelievable. Yeah, it's way too much and like
• 6:25
  with with us, it's like there's shows that will definitely
• 6:29
  appeal to both of us and we'll kind of watch those together.
• 6:32
  But you know, it is is a case of like this stuff I probably would
• 6:36
  watch, but I'm I know she's not going to get into it.
• 6:38
  So I'll either not bother at all or all kind of find make time
• 6:42
  for myself to do it. I'll sort of awkwardly sort of
• 6:45
  getting us around to basically saying, I mean, you could show
• 6:47
  her Destiny of the Daleks, which we're going to watch today, and
• 6:52
  show precisely how you should never apply makeup in the form
• 6:56
  of David Gooderson, Davros. Oh yeah.
• 7:01
  Man oh man, I mean I've seen some, I've seen some pretty
• 7:04
  dodgy looking drag Queens in my time, but no one has in this
• 7:10
  without bloody clothes. Or lips.
• 7:13
  No one would be hanging around for that, that bingo session,
• 7:15
  would they? There will be straight out
• 7:17
  there. Yeah.
• 7:20
  It's not a great mask. As no, no, and I'm sure we will
• 7:25
  talk about that great cliffhanger though, yes.
• 7:30
  Now I believe Destiny of the Daleks, this was your pick and
• 7:34
  it was was a nostalgic pick. OK, so we're going down the side
• 7:37
  heart route now of something I loved when I was younger.
• 7:41
  Yeah, discuss. Well, I mean, we that was the
• 7:44
  case last time. So Carnival was one I'd seen as
• 7:47
  a kid on the Five Faces and loved it.
• 7:50
  And that one we talked about it on in the in the episodes where
• 7:53
  it's one where you can watch it as a kid and enjoy as a kid,
• 7:56
  enjoy the monsters, enjoy the fun of it, and then come back to
• 7:59
  it as an adult and find loads of stuff in there.
• 8:03
  And to be honest, Destiny's always been like that for me as
• 8:05
  well. It has always been one that I've
• 8:07
  always enjoyed still, and I will defend it because I know a lot
• 8:11
  of people don't rate it particularly highly.
• 8:14
  A. Lot of people put this one right
• 8:15
  at the bottom of their, you know, have you seen Evolution of
• 8:19
  the Daleks, The Chase? Like what's wrong with you
• 8:23
  people? Yeah, I've been deaf to the
• 8:26
  Daleks is 1, I think is. Well, I know.
• 8:28
  Yeah, I'm sorry, but I've definitely.
• 8:30
  To the Daleks come. On Yeah, I know.
• 8:32
  Yeah, I've. Never looked at Hoover
• 8:33
  attachment in the same way again.
• 8:36
  Every story's got his champions and I always kind of consider
• 8:39
  myself a sort of champion of destiny.
• 8:42
  It's always been one that I still enjoy, but I have to say,
• 8:45
  looking at it this time and having to be a little bit, just
• 8:49
  kind of look at it a little bit deeper, I guess, it's definitely
• 8:54
  got its issues. It's got a load of great stuff
• 8:58
  in there as well. There's plenty of, plenty of
• 9:00
  stuff for me to just kind of go yeah, yeah, fantastic.
• 9:03
  So there's plenty of that, but there's also some stuff I'm less
• 9:06
  keen on. I watched.
• 9:09
  So I've kind of got in the opposite direction to you in
• 9:12
  that when I first watched this, I thought it was a dog when it
• 9:16
  was really slow. Well, I watched it young when
• 9:18
  that VHS came out and I thought it was really slow and I was
• 9:23
  sort of more into the 80s stuff that was sort of all set pieces
• 9:27
  and crazy Kef McCulloch music and camp characters and all of
• 9:31
  that. And this is more atmosphere and
• 9:35
  less excitement. It's quite filmy, isn't it?
• 9:39
  So like, you got that kind of, yeah, you know, you haven't got
• 9:42
  that kind of high, high drama of the 80s, you know, that kind of
• 9:47
  the colour, you know, colour. I keep saying colour on these
• 9:49
  things, but you know, at the 80s.
• 9:51
  Sort of comic strip pipes, you know, match our base colours,
• 9:55
  right. Sort of Daleks, all that stuff.
• 9:57
  Resurrection of the Daleks, you know, that sort of stuff.
• 10:00
  Yeah. But actually, I think it's for
• 10:01
  me, it's aged like a fine wine in that I I think it's flawed
• 10:06
  and I think it's probably an episode too long.
• 10:08
  There's a lot of to in and throwing in it, so the pace is
• 10:12
  glacial at times. But I think there's interesting
• 10:14
  ideas and I think there's some great direction in there.
• 10:17
  Tom's doing really is both off and on the leash in really
• 10:22
  interesting ways. I think the Daleks have shot
• 10:25
  brilliantly. The Macvellan's are a fun idea.
• 10:28
  So it's one where all the elements, it sort of doesn't
• 10:31
  come together as a classic, but I think most of the elements
• 10:34
  that are in there are really good.
• 10:37
  And unusually for the Williams era, it's sort of like the
• 10:41
  humour and the character is down and the style is up.
• 10:48
  And it's normally I expect the other way around for the
• 10:50
  Williams era, I expect a lot of personality and, and, and a lot
• 10:54
  of colour. This is this is sort of Moody.
• 10:57
  But I think the humour is there, but like I think what Tom does
• 11:01
  is he's a bit more sombre than you'd expect him to be.
• 11:05
  So he's not he's not the kind of Looney Tunes crazy.
• 11:09
  Even the Sonic screwdriver can't Get Me Out of this one type
• 11:12
  Doctor. It's not quite that performance.
• 11:14
  It's much more muted. So actually the the lines I
• 11:18
  think are funnier because they'd sort of he's playing it, he's
• 11:21
  playing it down. And like there's that interview
• 11:23
  with Douglas Adams, which was on the making of Hitchhikers.
• 11:27
  And I think it's used a lot on the on the Doctor Who Blu rays
• 11:29
  and stuff where he said that the second that the actors think,
• 11:34
  oh, that lines funny, they're they're kind of the inclination
• 11:39
  is to kind of hammer it up and just be like over the top.
• 11:41
  And and he's doing the exact opposite of that in this.
• 11:45
  He's like really underplaying it and it works.
• 11:49
  He does like play the fool a couple of times and then he just
• 11:53
  drops it and becomes like deadly serious.
• 11:56
  So it's almost like he's putting people off their guard by being
• 12:00
  what's that line in City of Death?
• 12:01
  And nobody could be as stupid as he seems, right.
• 12:04
  So so you suddenly think he's really inoffensive.
• 12:06
  And there's one bit where he's being sort of really Sarky with
• 12:09
  Davros, and then he suddenly just storms up to him and goes,
• 12:12
  the Daleks left you for dead, Davros or something.
• 12:14
  Like, absolutely. So I was like, fucking hell, you
• 12:18
  know, yeah, I think it's a lot more, a lot better judge than
• 12:22
  people suggest it is in 17. Well, OK, so how are we watching
• 12:28
  this, this time? Are we watching this critically,
• 12:31
  or are we watching this nostalgically?
• 12:34
  I think for this first one probably nostalgically I think
• 12:38
  as you say. I think it may be has an episode
• 12:41
  too many by 4. I think David Goodison is that
• 12:45
  is absolutely worse. So the the early stuff in this,
• 12:52
  I think it's fantastic. So Part 1, this is going to be a
• 12:54
  nice one. He manages to give the word
• 12:56
  weaponry about 800 syllables. It's a gift.
• 13:01
  Well, should we come in and watch and see what this, I mean,
• 13:05
  the viewing figures were high, all right.
• 13:07
  For this one, We're, we're like 1315 million people.
• 13:11
  I know there was a strike, but they didn't have, they have to
• 13:15
  watch it. They could have read a book.
• 13:17
  They they could have done, couldn't they could have gone to
• 13:19
  the pub or something, but. They, I mean Graham Williams
• 13:21
  must have thought what a gift. There's an ITV strike and I've
• 13:24
  got a Dalek story out. Well, look, you should I count
• 13:30
  as in. I think you start.
• 13:31
  Often you OK? Well then we will go into
• 13:35
  Destiny of the Daleks. I mean, we don't even know it's
• 13:37
  Scaro start off with, do we? Right.
• 13:40
  No, that's the exciting thing as a kid, that's we're going back
• 13:43
  to the kids stuff that's, you know, like this is my first
• 13:46
  Dalek story. So like, it's all oh, wow.
• 13:49
  Yeah. So all of that's cool.
• 13:51
  This is the first time for me for all of that stuff.
• 13:53
  Well, let's go and that means therapy.
• 13:56
  Explore your childhood now with destiny.
• 13:59
  The Daleks Episode one in 321 Off we go off we.
• 14:07
  Go, I need ATV license to watch. Oh hang on, here we go.
• 14:11
  Oh no. Oh God, do I need to.
• 14:12
  Go. I'm like, no, it's only like a
• 14:14
  second page. The bloody iPlayer come up with
• 14:17
  a little pop up saying I need a need a license to watch.
• 14:19
  I'm going to be like the the seeker in the Rebus operation is
• 14:23
  I'll know just about what's going to happen a few seconds
• 14:25
  before Episode 1. We'll sync up somewhere in
• 14:29
  Episode 2. All right, Terry Nation.
• 14:32
  Now that's an exciting name, right?
• 14:34
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 14:36
  I mean, yeah, I didn't realize. Again, looking at this
• 14:38
  critically and looking at it with a bit more kind of a bit
• 14:44
  deeper, I'd never quite tweak just how this kind of leans into
• 14:47
  the normal Terry Nation tropes and stuff there's.
• 14:50
  Loads. There isn't.
• 14:52
  There, Yeah. Look, you see it so obviously in
• 14:54
  other stories, but like, I'd never retweet just how much this
• 14:57
  one does. It is.
• 14:58
  And it's the last time that that we get those those Terry Nation,
• 15:01
  the, you know, the familiar stuff, the radiation pills at
• 15:05
  the beginning of this one, you know, or.
• 15:07
  Drilling. He loves to drill.
• 15:09
  Yeah, Oh yeah, yeah. Mining for something.
• 15:11
  Oh mate, always mining for something.
• 15:13
  But the whole Episode 1 sort of exploring the planet, yeah.
• 15:17
  Yeah, and the mysterious stranger who turns out to be OK,
• 15:20
  but actually doesn't say anything to let anyone know he's
• 15:23
  alright. He's just kind of.
• 15:23
  Stacked Taron is. He's a Tyson, but.
• 15:26
  You know he almost very similar. Oh my God, it's Princess Astro.
• 15:30
  What's she doing here? Yeah, yeah.
• 15:32
  How do you feel about? How do you feel about this bit?
• 15:36
  I I like, I think I'm going to say this a lot.
• 15:38
  I probably should hate it because the idea of trying on
• 15:42
  bodies like you try on costumes like a total diva, it shouldn't
• 15:47
  really work at all. And it is all played like a bad
• 15:50
  sitcom. You know, Tom's No thank you.
• 15:52
  Not today, in all of this. I mean, Ramana is just so sassy.
• 15:58
  I love the idea that she goes, oh, I might try this one, you
• 16:00
  know? I mean, what's this?
• 16:03
  It's bloody Zelda from Robots of Death.
• 16:05
  Oh, you are. A little bit ahead of me.
• 16:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's a funny 1, isn't it?
• 16:13
  It's, I've never, never worried about this joke at all.
• 16:17
  I've always been quite happy with with with it as a joke
• 16:20
  because you're right, it fits the character beautifully and
• 16:23
  it's just a bit of fun. Oh.
• 16:26
  Look at this lady here now, has she come on your screen yet with
• 16:29
  the massive teeth? Yes, yes.
• 16:31
  But I'm good because I paused. I was hoping we'd see something
• 16:36
  now. Tom Baker would not own the
• 16:38
  screen if that woman was about, because there's only one thing
• 16:40
  we've been looking at. She was in it.
• 16:44
  So you don't mind then? Like obviously we watch Carnival
• 16:47
  of Monsters and that's a comedy. So you don't mind some comedy
• 16:51
  and Doctor Who? I definitely don't mind some
• 16:53
  comedy in who, and I think this is a good joke.
• 16:56
  What what actually kind of bothers me a little bit more
• 16:58
  about it and looking at it now, it's something that happens a
• 17:02
  lot with social media discourse and stuff, is how people are not
• 17:09
  able to accept people, actors in different roles.
• 17:12
  So that, so this is probably the reason I don't like it so much
• 17:16
  now is that they had to make a point of it being Princess
• 17:21
  Astro. You know, at other times in the
• 17:25
  classic years, it would have just been the same actor playing
• 17:27
  a, playing a different role. And yeah, I find that annoying
• 17:32
  that people struggle to. To you think this is talking to
• 17:36
  the fans as you giving them helping story reason?
• 17:39
  As to why, yeah, I think generated and it's funny because
• 17:41
  I think of that as very much a JNT 80s thing like that kind of
• 17:45
  leaning into fan stuff too much. But and you don't think of
• 17:48
  someone like Adam's doing that. But actually I think he is doing
• 17:53
  it quite a bit. And like you've got Sharder in
• 17:55
  this season as well or would have had and that's got gallery
• 17:58
  stuff in it as well. So he's kind of leaning into the
• 18:01
  fanish stuff a little bit hard, I think there.
• 18:04
  Oh, Adams is a fan, isn't it you?
• 18:06
  Know. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 18:07
  Yeah, worst thing you could ever do, you know, is put a fan in
• 18:09
  charge of Doctor Who. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:11
  I mean the. Last 20 years, Jesus.
• 18:13
  Christ, Yeah, no, you're right. We should not be let anywhere
• 18:17
  near anything like this. But I mean, I'm not sure how
• 18:21
  those other ladies would have worked out.
• 18:23
  That's all sort of Roman lady with her head almost touching
• 18:26
  the ceiling. That would have been quite
• 18:27
  interesting. Yeah, my, my, my, my go to would
• 18:31
  have been the the more voluminous lady, she was saying.
• 18:34
  Really. That would have been my pick of
• 18:36
  the three, but I think I think you'd like.
• 18:39
  To have seen her climbing over those rocks, would you?
• 18:45
  But I think I think that I love this pink costume though for for
• 18:48
  Lala, I think she looks fantastic in that it's.
• 18:50
  All the sort of feminine parody of.
• 18:52
  Yes, yeah, really, really good. Look at K9.
• 18:55
  Look I love his in size. Do you see the little ball cock
• 18:58
  going up and down inside? How does a computer contract
• 19:05
  laryngitis, Paul? This is a good question.
• 19:10
  I don't readily have an answer, I guess.
• 19:13
  I mean, I guess you could say it kind of covers the fact that the
• 19:17
  voice is going to change, but yeah.
• 19:21
  Again, an in story reason, just do it.
• 19:24
  Just yeah, that's isn't that isn't.
• 19:27
  I think that is Adam's putting in stuff like that, but he's
• 19:30
  doing it as a joke because that's what he knows he's he's
• 19:33
  doing it as both of the. Regeneration and the Lara.
• 19:36
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's that smooths it over
• 19:39
  because if it was J&T's time, it was I'm tedious.
• 19:41
  Well the bio data extracts have been mingled and so that's why I
• 19:45
  got this face. Yeah, 100%, But that's what fans
• 19:49
  seem to want to enjoy because fans hate that regeneration
• 19:52
  scene and and. Certain fans, I've got to have
• 19:56
  every T cross and every idea, don't they?
• 19:58
  Yeah. I've recently listened to, yeah,
• 20:01
  Gallifrey Series 2, the Big Finish sets, right?
• 20:04
  And Gary Russell there explaining that this wasn't the
• 20:07
  reason why. Ramana.
• 20:09
  Regenerated from Mary Tam into Lala Ward.
• 20:12
  Something to do with some evil president from the dawn of time
• 20:15
  that Brax's hell put inside Mary Tam's Romana.
• 20:18
  And so when she was exposed to the Black Guardian in the
• 20:21
  Armageddon Factor, she forced regenerated into Lala Wars in
• 20:25
  order to get rid of the evil. I mean, I was just like, well,
• 20:29
  Gary, what are you doing? Like calm down, baby.
• 20:33
  Yeah, you don't. Just a different actress get.
• 20:36
  Over yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't need you don't need it
• 20:38
  at all. Yeah, I'm, I'm not that fan.
• 20:43
  I'm never going to be 1 to to criticize the story for, you
• 20:47
  know, for that kind of thing. Adams wants to tell it or Nation
• 20:50
  wants to tell the story in a particular way.
• 20:52
  Then there's no point putting continuity in that in that way,
• 20:57
  you know, just just tell the story you want to tell.
• 20:59
  I'm going to suggest something now that made people spit their
• 21:03
  drinks out listening to this. I think this is a really well
• 21:07
  directed story. It is incredibly well directed.
• 21:10
  I think it's fantastic. Yeah, a lot the stuff on films,
• 21:16
  amazing shots like this where the.
• 21:17
  He's very confident without film camera, isn't it?
• 21:20
  Yeah, but well, apparently the on the on the DVD commentary
• 21:26
  talking about how heavy that steady Cam was.
• 21:29
  And this is quite new technology then and they could only use it
• 21:32
  for short periods of time. So the the fact they got so much
• 21:34
  of in it, so many panning shots and you know, just kind of the
• 21:38
  camera just kind of moving at all times there's.
• 21:41
  Bits later on where they're on the sand and Tom's running down
• 21:43
  ridges and stuff and the camera is going with him.
• 21:46
  Like in the tracking shot, some of it's gorgeous.
• 21:48
  I mean, just that, just that shot there with that, that
• 21:51
  wonderful rocky backdrop, loads of props in front of the camera
• 21:55
  then walking across it just looks fabulous.
• 21:59
  He loves, you're right, he loves having that camera low as well.
• 22:02
  So he every shot is sort of menacing or looming.
• 22:07
  Right, right. And that's a great way of
• 22:08
  shooting the Daleks when we get to get to those guys as well,
• 22:11
  because, you know, they just look so much bigger and they're
• 22:13
  more imposing when they're on top of you.
• 22:15
  I think maybe that may have been forced on him because those
• 22:18
  Daleks were so tasty. You thought, well, if I shoot
• 22:21
  up, I haven't got to shoot their bases.
• 22:24
  That is a definite weak, Yeah. That is a definite weakness for
• 22:26
  this serial is they do look a bit bit ropey.
• 22:29
  But then Scott Rowan and the Dalek base, everything looks
• 22:33
  kind of ropey. And it's the part of the kind of
• 22:36
  the, yeah, the aesthetic almost, if you like, of this, of the
• 22:39
  story. Well, I think this is giving us
• 22:41
  what was promised at the end of the Armageddon Factor, because
• 22:44
  we've had a whole season where the doctor's on missions, right?
• 22:47
  So we're setting up every story with the Tracer, right?
• 22:50
  This is where we're going. We know where we're going.
• 22:52
  We're looking for the key to time, blah, blah, blah.
• 22:54
  At the end of the Armageddon Factor, it's like, right,
• 22:55
  destroy the tracer, fit the randomizer, let's go and have an
• 22:59
  adventure. And we don't know where we're
• 23:00
  going. So this is the first time we've
• 23:02
  landed on a planet and we have no clue where we are and we're
• 23:06
  together. A mystery just like good old
• 23:08
  fashioned classic Doctor Who. Yeah, that very much so The the,
• 23:11
  the, the going back to the 60s where you don't know what's
• 23:14
  going on. You you're spending an episode
• 23:16
  walking around, exploring the place, finding out what is
• 23:18
  happening and. It's like a 60s one isn't?
• 23:21
  It very much so. And this is the first time now
• 23:23
  we've got the the slaves here. This is the first time that
• 23:27
  we've seen anybody else in this serial apart from the Romana
• 23:30
  variations. And there's not been one beat of
• 23:34
  music. I think the first bit of music
• 23:36
  kicks in in about 17 minutes in or something like.
• 23:39
  That it's like a little sting when the movellens turn up, I
• 23:41
  think, isn't it? I think that's it's.
• 23:43
  Quiet, like, yeah. And that adds to the atmosphere
• 23:45
  as well. The sound, it's the sound of
• 23:47
  this was that that kind of the soundscape of it is incredible.
• 23:51
  Yeah, it really. This was going to be, they
• 23:54
  wanted this filmed at night. Yeah, I think I've read that
• 23:59
  that they wanted to film it at night and make it all this stuff
• 24:01
  about zombies and things like that.
• 24:03
  It was supposed to be sort of even more of a horrific
• 24:06
  atmosphere than what they can, because unfortunately we're in
• 24:09
  bright sunshine here. So yeah, it's doomy, but it's
• 24:12
  not scary. Yeah, that kind of zombie, that
• 24:16
  that zombie subplot almost all like the theme of of kind of
• 24:20
  undeadness. Yeah, he's kind of a little bit
• 24:23
  under baked, isn't it? Doesn't really quite quite go
• 24:25
  anywhere. I think it's meant to kind of
• 24:27
  lead you to the fact that the Mavellan's aren't people, but
• 24:31
  yeah, it's a little bit under baked.
• 24:34
  I mean, I think, you know, the twist of the Mavellan's are a
• 24:36
  bunch of robots. I mean, it's hardly a great
• 24:39
  surprise, is it? Look at them.
• 24:40
  They're not. They all look the fucking same,
• 24:43
  for God's sakes. But Tom, look at his face.
• 24:46
  He's so, so grave. Right.
• 24:49
  Yeah. But I just think I I with
• 24:54
  certain doctors and companions, yeah, I just think when they're
• 24:58
  in profile in a shore, it just sums up the show view and Tom
• 25:02
  and Lala together in any shore. I'm just like, that's great,
• 25:06
  Doctor Who. I don't care what they're doing.
• 25:09
  I think, yeah, I mean. Great, don't they?
• 25:11
  They are the team from my child, you know, the first team I
• 25:13
  remember really, I do kind of have vague memories of Mary
• 25:17
  Tampa, only kind of snatches and keep your minding out the gut of
• 25:22
  their joke. So now only only little little
• 25:25
  brief clips of of Mary Tam. But yeah, so from Lala Ward,
• 25:30
  she's really my first companion. And you're right, I think that
• 25:34
  these two at this point in time are a fantastic pair.
• 25:37
  What the hell was that? Great bottle, bottle cap
• 25:40
  falling. Out the sky yeah again is the
• 25:43
  Terry Nation tropes you got like the in you know, Daleks invasion
• 25:47
  earth, the ship landing. Death to the Daleks.
• 25:50
  Yeah, yeah. Planet of the Daleks.
• 25:51
  Yeah, there's there's spaceships landing on a white planets.
• 25:54
  It's the cool one. He's like, what if the spaceship
• 25:57
  landed and buried itself? That's a cool idea.
• 26:00
  That's the kind of idea I can get behind as a kid.
• 26:02
  I just, yeah, fantastic. And I love this model strongly
• 26:05
  coming down. I'm watching the original
• 26:07
  effects here right I just one of those ones where I don't
• 26:10
  actually think the when they enhance the effects.
• 26:12
  I think some of the extermination blasts aren't that
• 26:14
  bad, but like you can't really improve on a decent bit of model
• 26:19
  work and this is great. Yeah, no, it's fantastic.
• 26:21
  I don't think it's quite up there.
• 26:23
  I mean, obviously C of Death is the gold standard for this year,
• 26:27
  but it's not quite as good as that.
• 26:28
  But it really is still still fantastic stuff.
• 26:31
  Isn't it funny that the era that is lamented for its terrible
• 26:36
  special effects has some of the best model work?
• 26:38
  We Invisible Enemy Invasion of Time City of Death This.
• 26:44
  Yeah, yeah. I think it's purely with the
• 26:47
  Williams zero. It's probably just that
• 26:48
  inconsistency so you can have absolute brilliance next to
• 26:53
  complete complete shit. Whereas something like the
• 26:56
  Hinchcliffe era is more consistent across all all of the
• 27:00
  departments. Excuse me, do you not remember
• 27:02
  that Marestron Hoover going through space?
• 27:06
  Well, there we. Go there as well.
• 27:11
  Yeah, I'm a, I'm a Williams boy. I've, I'd far, far prefer it as
• 27:15
  a, as a period of food to the Hinchcliffe era.
• 27:17
  And I wanted to say, and I said I am going to be a bit critical
• 27:21
  of Destiny when we're doing these, but I wanted to say one
• 27:26
  of the things I wanted to come on here and say is like, I think
• 27:28
  Destiny's better than Genesis. That's going to be my the big,
• 27:32
  big point I wanted to make looking back on it and trying to
• 27:36
  try to be critical about it. I don't know if I can actually
• 27:38
  stand by that claim. I mean, I'm not sure in terms of
• 27:42
  writing. I think occasionally in terms of
• 27:44
  execution, yeah, I, I, there are moments in this I think that
• 27:49
  look better than Genesis of the Daleks.
• 27:51
  And I think that's well directed as well.
• 27:53
  I mean, that shot there, you had Tom, he went running down that
• 27:57
  sandy ravine, all shot from above.
• 28:00
  And then there was sort of a tracking shot as all those
• 28:02
  explosions. Were running along the the bank,
• 28:04
  Yeah, amazing. You've got this city in ruins
• 28:07
  and it's all sort of blowing up, and now they're down in the
• 28:10
  underground. I mean, it's great.
• 28:11
  This is sort of really great doomy stuff.
• 28:13
  Yeah. And I think this is a the
• 28:15
  transition now into the studio, I think works really well and I
• 28:18
  think sells it. Yeah, sells it.
• 28:21
  It's the same same place. It's the lighting, I think.
• 28:24
  I think if you've got it, because if they overlight those
• 28:27
  sets then you clearly go from exterior to ABBC Studio, but
• 28:31
  look how good the lighting is here.
• 28:33
  Yeah, yeah. And the other.
• 28:35
  That's very often you can actually see, sorry, you very
• 28:37
  often see there are lights actually within the set.
• 28:41
  So they're doing a very filmic thing of lighting within the set
• 28:44
  rather than from above. Yeah, there's some there's some
• 28:47
  weird stuff in in the the corridors.
• 28:50
  Yeah. You got like kind of on a film,
• 28:52
  like sort of just kind of set up and you like we'll see you look,
• 28:55
  I think the beginning of the next episode and there's.
• 28:58
  Some meta going on there, Paul in the film studio.
• 29:01
  But there's also some super, we talked about supermarkets before
• 29:04
  and, and, and, and your job and my experience in the past.
• 29:07
  There's kind of the supermarket trolley things, you know what I
• 29:10
  mean? Already put.
• 29:11
  Like there's a roller, isn't there?
• 29:13
  That's. Yeah, something of the way we.
• 29:14
  Have a load of rubble in it. Yeah.
• 29:18
  I was like, my God, am I at work?
• 29:20
  Right going on. But look, you see that that you
• 29:23
  see that set there that is being shot from the side from the
• 29:25
  right. The the lighting is just so oh,
• 29:28
  I love this. He's pinned down by that great
• 29:30
  bit of rubble and then starts reading his book, doesn't it?
• 29:35
  That shots that really is sets up really well because they
• 29:38
  could easily be a cheap bit of polystyrene on top of him and
• 29:41
  look really, really cramp. And I think in other stories it
• 29:44
  would have been, but I think that's executed really, really
• 29:47
  well. And again, the keeping the
• 29:48
  camera really low there and you can see the ceilings in the set.
• 29:51
  We got ceilings. Oh my God, It's like ceiling
• 29:54
  porn, this story there. I mean, you honestly watch
• 29:58
  Classic Who? From an Unearthly child to
• 30:01
  survival. Yeah, it's so rare that somebody
• 30:04
  shoots up and and you see a ceiling occasionally people
• 30:07
  shoot up into the gallery like in Warriors Gate and I think
• 30:11
  Barry let's does it in Carnival of Monsters, we say.
• 30:13
  But it's so rare for you to actually feel like you're in a
• 30:17
  contained space. Yeah, 100%.
• 30:21
  Yeah, I think this is a great first episode.
• 30:23
  I think if it had been badly executed, yeah, you'd you'd,
• 30:28
  you'd see the the tropes more, but because it's so well filmed.
• 30:33
  Yeah, yeah. No, yeah.
• 30:35
  But I think that's probably it and maybe I'll just having that
• 30:38
  childhood connection to it, but also the fact that it is pretty
• 30:41
  stylish and and kind of atmospheric.
• 30:46
  It disguises the fact for me at least, that it is the same old
• 30:49
  Terry Nation story. But yeah, I had not clocked any
• 30:52
  of it at all. This is what you lose now.
• 30:56
  I think you lose the Part 1 now in new because they just have 45
• 31:02
  minutes and they have to get to the story quick.
• 31:04
  Yeah. So you basically do the part one
• 31:06
  in the 2 minute pre title sequence.
• 31:08
  Yeah, yeah. And so I think that's why this
• 31:10
  feels old fashioned now, because TV just isn't like this.
• 31:13
  You don't want to round a quarry for half an hour anymore on
• 31:17
  tour. And it wasn't really like this
• 31:19
  at this point. I mean, you don't get an awful
• 31:22
  lot of of this later, after the 60s really.
• 31:26
  I love it though, I love just exploring a new setting.
• 31:30
  I mean, did the, you just get that atmosphere, don't you?
• 31:33
  And and only hear another Terry Nation trope, the the TARDIS
• 31:36
  being blocked off. So we can't go back.
• 31:38
  And they've got to, they've got to go on.
• 31:41
  If you and me were Doctor Who companions, right going around
• 31:43
  the TARDIS, let's say we were travelling around with Jodie
• 31:46
  Whitt, that could be fun, right? You mean that?
• 31:48
  Would be a lot of fun. I'd love to be a fan.
• 31:49
  Yeah, OK, so if we landed somewhere and suddenly, like,
• 31:53
  the plot started like a new Who episode.
• 31:55
  Yeah. Within two minutes.
• 31:56
  I'll say quick. Paul, Jodie back in the TARDIS.
• 31:59
  No, Right. I'm.
• 32:00
  I'm not getting out this TARDIS until we can have at least half
• 32:03
  an hour wandering around a quarry.
• 32:04
  All right, Right. Right.
• 32:06
  Before we get. You never know, you might meet,
• 32:08
  you might meet Tyson or any number of characters.
• 32:12
  Ulan Kafulitz. I think I know that name.
• 32:15
  Yes, yeah, I've, I've might have read one or two of his
• 32:19
  blockbusters. Are you a Douglas Adams fan,
• 32:21
  Paul? Yeah, I mean, I mean what?
• 32:24
  This is 79, isn't it? So the Hitchhiker's TV show
• 32:27
  started the year after this and because I was inserting anything
• 32:31
  kind of Spacey, obviously I was going to watch that.
• 32:33
  I was highly miffed when we went on holiday on.
• 32:36
  I missed the 2nd episode so yeah, but yeah so.
• 32:42
  That's so a fan of science fiction.
• 32:44
  How ungrateful. You've been taken away on
• 32:45
  holiday for a week. I've got to miss half an hour's
• 32:49
  worth of television, all right? This is like pre pre VHS and
• 32:52
  stuff. So like this is we went to
• 32:54
  Butlins and they had two rooms. There's an ITV room and ABBC one
• 32:58
  room and if you wanted to watch TV you had to go in one of these
• 33:01
  rooms. 2 rooms, Yeah, yeah. And what wing of the mansion was
• 33:06
  that? No, I mean not in, not in the
• 33:09
  like in the on the complex. So like you have to go into
• 33:12
  what? You meant in your house.
• 33:14
  No, no, no, I mean the. We only have one TV look.
• 33:19
  More ceilings, my God. But now always enjoyed Adams.
• 33:23
  You know, we after that got into my teenage years and then
• 33:26
  reading the books and stuff and then finding the radio show,
• 33:29
  which is the best way of experiencing hitchhikers.
• 33:33
  I absolutely loved that pig that Peter Davidson played in the
• 33:36
  restaurant. Of the dish of the day, yeah.
• 33:38
  Yeah, I think you should have a bit of my rump, you know, it's
• 33:41
  quite. Quite juicy.
• 33:42
  It's very good in that. Did you?
• 33:44
  Did you fancy trillion? Yeah.
• 33:48
  Every hot blooded young man What is.
• 33:51
  It's the squeaky voice. I think it sounds kind of weird,
• 33:54
  but Sandra Dickinson's voice did it for me.
• 33:57
  Paul, can I ask you are the Daleks experimenting with time
• 34:01
  travel? Are they?
• 34:03
  Well, I can't understand why I just saw Ramana fall down that
• 34:07
  hole three times like she was going for a time loop.
• 34:10
  Did you see? Yeah, well, maybe it's a kind of
• 34:14
  Carnival of Monsters thing. She's just kind of.
• 34:16
  Maybe she's in a mini scope. Who knows?
• 34:18
  I actually think it's a great choice directorially to show it
• 34:22
  from three angles, but actually show her falling down hit three
• 34:25
  times. Yeah, yeah.
• 34:26
  Well, it feels like it really does feel like she's falling
• 34:30
  down quite a large shaft rather than just moving to another set.
• 34:34
  You know, it's by the the reality of this saying really
• 34:40
  it's one of the the strong of the strengths of it for me is
• 34:42
  the fact that it feels really well realized.
• 34:45
  I mean, now I feel like I am in ABBC Studio, we're on the
• 34:48
  Mavellan ship and everything is either pastel pink or clinical
• 34:54
  whites. But that's in contrast to the
• 34:56
  kind of grimy, dingy, covered in crap, you know, Scar Row sort of
• 35:01
  corridors. So yeah, this is all pristine
• 35:04
  do. You see, like with with so this
• 35:07
  is all being lit from above now, that very sort of white
• 35:10
  lighting. It does feel like we're in a
• 35:12
  studio now that doesn't it rather like like those, those
• 35:15
  sets in the city really did feel like they could have been out on
• 35:18
  location. Yeah, yeah.
• 35:20
  No, absolutely. Could it?
• 35:21
  Yeah, you're right. You're right, definitely.
• 35:23
  Is that transition? You know, it's what the
• 35:24
  Mavellan's have got on their arms.
• 35:26
  They sort of close. Yeah, yeah.
• 35:29
  Oh my. God, the Mavellan's when did
• 35:31
  they turn up? Yeah.
• 35:33
  We, I think we must have missed that.
• 35:34
  We were talking over that bit, yeah.
• 35:37
  Well come on, please tell me why that Mavellan on the left there
• 35:41
  is the hottest woman in all of Doctor Who.
• 35:44
  What she's standing in she. She's beautiful for a robot.
• 35:48
  I mean, good grief. Indeed, indeed I may.
• 35:51
  I may have watched Carry On Emmanuel once or twice.
• 35:54
  Possibly. Is she in that?
• 35:56
  What's the lady's name? Oh God, yeah, that was the noise
• 36:04
  I made when I met her. That would come in very hard.
• 36:06
  Do you know if you was having an off with her shouting out her
• 36:08
  name like that? Look.
• 36:12
  At this lighting with Ramana down here, it's sort of like
• 36:16
  this green lighting and shadows. Yeah.
• 36:18
  It's great. This this cliffhanger is
• 36:23
  definitely still my favorite cliffhanger of all time.
• 36:26
  This left such an impression. That wobbling wall is really
• 36:29
  creepy. It's weird.
• 36:30
  It's like it's breathing. Yeah.
• 36:33
  I mean, now as an adult, you can see the kind of wrinkles and
• 36:35
  the, you know, it's not quite perfect.
• 36:37
  But as a kid, this just seemed so magic, that kind of wobbly
• 36:41
  black wall where you can see her face reflected in it.
• 36:44
  Yeah. Think like an adult, Paul.
• 36:46
  Think like a child. Right.
• 36:47
  You got to keep. You got to keep that, keep that.
• 36:50
  Keep a spark alive, yeah? Absolutely.
• 36:54
  And so of course, the only Terry Nation trope we haven't done in
• 36:57
  this Part 1 is the Daleks bursting out of something.
• 37:01
  Right, they've got to turn up at the Interpol 1, even though it's
• 37:03
  called. Decreasing out now.
• 37:04
  Fortunately, the director cuts away because one of those Daleks
• 37:09
  took off the wall with him. Will someone get this fucking
• 37:16
  wall off me? I love this Cliff banger so
• 37:19
  much. Yeah, no.
• 37:21
  And I think Lala Ward plays fear extremely well.
• 37:26
  She doesn't get to do it much, actually.
• 37:27
  Well, this is yeah, this is interesting because you write is
• 37:31
  later on. It's absolutely not what her
• 37:33
  character does. So it kind of almost a little
• 37:36
  bit weird. And I was wondering like when I
• 37:38
  was thinking about this, the story, whether that's almost
• 37:42
  like post regeneration kind of, you know, like that kind of funk
• 37:46
  that you see the doctors kind of have wondered if it's something
• 37:49
  like that because it feels actually in this next episode,
• 37:53
  we're going into Part 2. It feels like it's quite not not
• 37:55
  quite Romana too, if you know what I.
• 37:57
  Mean are we still writing for Mary Tam at this point?
• 38:00
  Or is maybe Terry Nation writing for Barbara?
• 38:03
  You know it's. Or generic female companion.
• 38:08
  Yeah, not Barbara specifically. I was just thinking of that
• 38:10
  first cliffhanger of In the Daleks, but but yeah, just
• 38:13
  thinking generic damsel in distress.
• 38:16
  I think it's that. But there's a wonderful, I don't
• 38:19
  know if you've ever heard the 6th Doctor audio, the apocalypse
• 38:23
  element. Have you ever heard that?
• 38:25
  I don't think I have. It's a very early big finish and
• 38:28
  set on Gallifrey. The Daleks invade Gallifrey long
• 38:31
  before the Daleks invaded Gallifrey in the new series.
• 38:35
  And it has a whole sequence where Romana, who is president
• 38:40
  at this point and kidnapped by the Daleks, is kept in a cell
• 38:43
  and she delivers this really long monologue Lal award about
• 38:47
  how scary the Daleks are. And it's almost like Steve Cole
• 38:51
  has watched this second episode in a minute and seen how well
• 38:56
  she plays the fear of the Because I think, you know,
• 38:59
  they're fucking ridiculous. You have to sell that the Daleks
• 39:02
  are scary and and the director does some of it and the actors
• 39:06
  do the rest. And I think Lala was really up
• 39:09
  to it. I like, I like the fact that
• 39:11
  she's scared of them. Yeah.
• 39:13
  No, she, yeah, absolutely. She, she pretty much is
• 39:16
  petrified in that scene in the beginning of of the next
• 39:18
  episode. Yeah, yeah.
• 39:19
  Somehow we managed to skip completely over discussing our
• 39:22
  feelings on the Mavellans, but don't you worry, we've got
• 39:24
  plenty of time. Oh, we've got time for that.
• 39:26
  Yeah, yeah, they're, they're not as much in time.
• 39:28
  So no, no, no. No, they, they, they do plenty
• 39:30
  in episode 2. Yeah.
• 39:32
  Wow. Are you ready to see precisely
• 39:37
  the drama that can occur when Lala Ward has her hands gripped
• 39:41
  on 2 enormous balls? I knew where you going with
• 39:45
  that. Do you know what I just got on
• 39:49
  you laughing?