Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Dr Simon Exton about his choice of The Moonbase (3/4)

Transcript

Talks to Dr Simon Exton about his choice of The Moonbase (3/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:37
  Welcome back to a Hamster with a blunt pen Knife where we rejoin
• 0:40
  our base under siege. A Thon with Moon Base episode 3
• 0:44
  where Ken Moss is dreaming of Highland pipes, Simon Exton,
• 0:49
  Simon Exton is experimenting with a cocktail, and Joe Ford is
• 0:57
  squirting at a lot of Butch shiny men.
• 1:00
  If you waited just long enough to say tail then didn't you?
• 1:05
  I've I've even got it written in the script with the hyphen.
• 1:10
  Dramatic pause here and I'm doing What did you say?
• 1:13
  Squirting over who? A lot of Butch, shiny men.
• 1:18
  Oh yeah, did go to a party once. No, no, I'll tell you off
• 1:21
  camera. No one needs to hear about that.
• 1:24
  I suspect you have a number of listeners who do, but.
• 1:27
  I feel like you shouldn't be doing intros for every episode
• 1:29
  of Hamster a Blood Pen Knife which start every single one
• 1:32
  like an episode of Are You Being Served X-rated?
• 1:39
  Yep. You want me to write them?
• 1:40
  I'll write them. Well, look, we're here today to
• 1:45
  this is our third day of the moon base and we're here to
• 1:47
  watch episode 3. This is the episode I'm least
• 1:51
  familiar with. Do you know, I don't know why I
• 1:54
  was watching it early and I was like, I really don't know
• 1:56
  anything about this episode at all.
• 1:58
  And it seems to be the one with the most dramatic incident in it
• 2:01
  as well. Do you know after Power of the
• 2:07
  Daleks Moon Base 3 is would probably be my most wished for
• 2:13
  episode return. Why is that cocktail Polly?
• 2:17
  What all the phones sort of coming out and.
• 2:19
  No, it, it, it's really the the cocktail Polly scene where she's
• 2:23
  working out how to dissolve things.
• 2:26
  It's a, it's all sort of, I was doing my chemistry a level at
• 2:30
  the time and on the strength of that worked for nearly 20 years
• 2:35
  as a professional chemist. And a chunk of the interest in
• 2:42
  chemistry was the fact that at about the same time I read
• 2:46
  Doctor Who and the Cyberman, the, the target novel.
• 2:47
  And it was one of the earliest ones I read.
• 2:52
  And it's I think my favorite target novel.
• 2:56
  And I just love the the cocktail Polly bit.
• 2:59
  It's one of my favourites. So what if you was doing your
• 3:01
  cocktail degree at your cocktail degree?
• 3:03
  Forgive me, I mean, that would be a fund degree, your chemistry
• 3:07
  degree to have chemistry actually being done in a Doctor
• 3:11
  Who story, that must have been absolutely thrilling.
• 3:14
  Chemistry A level it's before I did and I, I, I didn't exactly
• 3:18
  do a chemistry degree. I kind of got a, a sideways one
• 3:25
  because I, I left school and I, I went to work in a factory.
• 3:28
  It was a chemical factory. I was working as a lab tech in
• 3:31
  the analytical department and they used to pay for us to go
• 3:37
  day release to college. So I got a a day release degree
• 3:41
  and it took five years instead of three.
• 3:44
  But you got it done. But I but I got it done.
• 3:47
  And that's where I met Andy Trowbridge from around the
• 3:51
  archives because he he was working in the same lab and.
• 3:54
  Is the chemistry accurate in this?
• 3:58
  Well, solvents will dissolve some plastics, so yeah, it's
• 4:02
  more accurate than scraddling bits of gold across it.
• 4:06
  OK, well let's, I mean, it is one of Holly's best moments in
• 4:13
  her entire run. Should we go and watch it?
• 4:17
  I think we should, OK. OK, well, count us in there.
• 4:19
  Go on. OK.
• 4:21
  On 3321-GO. Do you like these tiles?
• 4:27
  I did ask you about the Hartnell tiles, but we've got the subtle
• 4:30
  differences here in trousers time.
• 4:36
  I mean yes, yes I I I really do. I prefer the post Macrotera
• 4:42
  ones. What?
• 4:43
  With the face. Coming, yes, but that that howl
• 4:47
  around looks amazing. Absolutely.
• 4:54
  And they even get the Cyberman being tangled up in the sheet
• 4:57
  and knocking over the bed a bit. And that silhouette, right?
• 5:00
  It's not a silhouette, but that that close up on the cyber cyber
• 5:04
  face is just amazing. The only I'll tell you what, the
• 5:07
  only massive difference between the animation and the live
• 5:11
  action stuff is that they can be a bit more like the the
• 5:15
  close-ups are more dramatic like.
• 5:17
  It is done in a more modern style, isn't it?
• 5:20
  And it should be, I think. Do you know what I mean?
• 5:25
  Like there's there's moments of direction in the animation that
• 5:28
  you never would have had in the 60s.
• 5:30
  Yeah. And I think they should do that.
• 5:35
  So what do you think about animation styles that are very
• 5:40
  different and that are very different to the telly snaps and
• 5:45
  what would have been the the transmitted?
• 5:47
  Oh, I'm all for it, particularly thinking about Macrotera.
• 5:50
  Underwater menace? Macrotera.
• 5:51
  Yeah. Where they've made massive
• 5:52
  creative liberties to make it more stylish and, for me, more
• 5:57
  enjoyable. Yeah.
• 5:59
  I, I I'm not an Ian Levine that needs everything absolutely how
• 6:03
  it was. If you want to show me a Macra
• 6:06
  picking up Anika Wills in animation, which we know didn't
• 6:09
  happen in the real thing, go for it, because it makes the story
• 6:12
  more exciting. Yeah.
• 6:14
  Absolutely, and nobody is pretending that the the
• 6:17
  animations are a direct are a direct replacement.
• 6:23
  If Moon base 3 turned up tomorrow, I would probably never
• 6:28
  again watch this animation. Would you stop saying moon base
• 6:32
  three please? I'm thinking of the bloody
• 6:34
  Terror Sticks show. Which was pretty good.
• 6:39
  Oh, I didn't get past episode 1. It's slow, but it's very.
• 6:43
  Slow. Maybe I should give it another
• 6:46
  go. Did you notice saying when they
• 6:51
  did the animation of the exterior, they matched the
• 6:54
  model? They didn't put anything extra
• 6:55
  in that bubble. It was still just the Gravitron.
• 6:58
  Yeah. See, now the Sidemen are very
• 7:01
  chatty in this episode, isn't it?
• 7:02
  Is this the one where he's sort of there and his microphone
• 7:04
  going? Clever, clever, clever.
• 7:07
  Yeah. What do you imagine those sort
• 7:14
  of balls with the holes in them are all about on the costumes?
• 7:19
  I imagine the placement, they're supposed to be sort of servos or
• 7:23
  something like that, hydraulics or?
• 7:24
  Something. Which would explain why they're
• 7:27
  linked together by tubes, but it might be that somebody just had
• 7:32
  a massive bag full of those holy ball things.
• 7:37
  Are they? Are the Cybermen like one of
• 7:40
  your favourites? I'm not sure the Cybermen
• 7:49
  specifically are favourites in in the same way as Daleks
• 7:52
  specifically aren't favourites, but they appear in some bloody
• 7:57
  good stories. I mean if you ask me which is a
• 8:02
  more interesting monster the Cybermen or the the mutts are?
• 8:08
  You talking about the mutants now?
• 8:10
  Yeah, OK, go on. Mutants are much more
• 8:13
  interesting conceptually, no doubt about it, but the Cybermen
• 8:17
  have much better realised, well, I.
• 8:19
  Don't know, the mats are pretty well done in those caves, you
• 8:21
  know? I I think that the Mutants is a
• 8:26
  massively underrated story. I really like it.
• 8:29
  A lot of people are telling me that right now, you know?
• 8:32
  It's actually since. I was very mean about it.
• 8:35
  And I mean the other one is the time monster.
• 8:38
  I really like the time monster. We started a Thai Monster
• 8:42
  commentary years back, didn't we?
• 8:43
  We did finished it, the great unfinished hamster commentary.
• 8:48
  In fact, I started one on Colony of Space with somebody else that
• 8:51
  I never finished either. It's the oh Doctor Simon Exton
• 8:55
  is now brandishing. His a dildometer.
• 9:00
  The great master detector from. The TARDIS sniffer outer.
• 9:05
  Was that quite small? Because that was quite large
• 9:07
  there in the camera, quite a small little prop.
• 9:11
  Yeah, it goes with the. I'm not trying to dildometer
• 9:14
  shame you or it. Oh, it's very small, isn't it?
• 9:20
  One of the one of the dodgiest props ever.
• 9:23
  Does make us chuckle though, right?
• 9:28
  I've just realised as well with the with the veiny sort of
• 9:33
  zombies. That's another really fun idea,
• 9:36
  right? This story is just packed full
• 9:37
  of stuff for kids. Yeah, and you know those black
• 9:42
  lines, all you need is an eyeliner and.
• 9:46
  Yeah. Oh, boy.
• 9:49
  What the hell is coming in that door?
• 9:50
  I can't. I know so little about this
• 9:52
  episode. Oh, it's a sideman.
• 9:55
  OK. Yeah.
• 9:57
  Look like that shot there. You have the sideman's face
• 9:59
  right close to the camera, and then the other one coming in
• 10:02
  behind. I'm telling you now, there's no
• 10:03
  way in a million years it was directed like that.
• 10:09
  No, you're probably right, but it looks really good on the
• 10:11
  animation. Thinking about animations that
• 10:15
  are massively different to the transmitted story, what do you
• 10:19
  think of the Celestial Toy maker?
• 10:22
  I really enjoyed it. I don't like the Celestial Toy
• 10:26
  Maker and I that made the story come alive in a way that I had
• 10:32
  never have experienced before. So Mark and I watched that
• 10:34
  together and I figured one of us would hate it.
• 10:36
  We both loved it. I think the Celestial Tour maker
• 10:41
  is one of the dullest stories ever made.
• 10:44
  I think it's absolutely. And you know, when I was a a
• 10:47
  baby fan and reading the celebration and things like
• 10:50
  that, it was hailed as this unimaginable classic.
• 10:54
  And the Gun Fighters is the worst story that was ever, ever
• 10:57
  made. The Gun The Gun Fighters wasn't
• 11:02
  even the worst story that was made that month.
• 11:06
  I'm not really a big fan of cowboy films and and things like
• 11:11
  that so The Gunfighter is never going to appeal to me, but it is
• 11:15
  entertaining. The singing gets irritating
• 11:20
  after a while, but the really wonderful thing it get it.
• 11:25
  It gives Hartnell and Purvis chance to do comedy and they're
• 11:30
  brilliant at it. Inspired isn't.
• 11:32
  It so whenever I watch the Gunfighters, I forget just how
• 11:35
  entertaining it is and I don't think about watching it 'cause I
• 11:38
  don't really like the the setting.
• 11:40
  But within that setting it is brilliant.
• 11:43
  Whereas the Celestial Toy Maker has the potential to just be
• 11:48
  that wasn't. What they wanted was it.
• 11:52
  The original version was really quite dark and twisted and.
• 11:55
  They Oh, the Harold and Margaret thing.
• 11:56
  Yeah, this is going to scare the pants off the kids, so let's
• 11:59
  just make it a the Generation game, you know, and have done
• 12:02
  with it. But like I I certainly don't
• 12:04
  object to them making it like visually wacky like they did.
• 12:10
  I think that was the about the only thing that was interesting
• 12:13
  about it, the the visuals, because the story was every bit
• 12:16
  as short as ever. Yeah, I'm looking forward to
• 12:20
  seeing what they do with the Savages.
• 12:23
  Well, because that's got a good story, that's got an
• 12:25
  interesting. Story that's got a brilliant
• 12:27
  story and because there's so little in the way of visuals,
• 12:32
  OK, you've got telly snaps so you know how some bits of it
• 12:38
  looked. But again, like the macro
• 12:41
  terror, there's there's almost no, almost nothing in the way of
• 12:45
  moving images. So they could really go to town
• 12:48
  on that. I'm looking forward to just the
• 12:52
  reappraisal of it because I think there's a lot of people
• 12:54
  that just don't consider it at all.
• 12:56
  And when that comes out, people that haven't thought about it
• 12:59
  for donkeys will watch it and actually some people will come
• 13:03
  away saying that's a really great.
• 13:04
  So got a great heart knob before us in episode 2 when he realises
• 13:08
  the horror of what's going on. And they the real shame about
• 13:16
  the savages is character of Stephen.
• 13:21
  He is written as such a Dick. He often was.
• 13:26
  Though he was normally supportive of the, particularly
• 13:31
  of the the women in the TARDIS crew.
• 13:33
  And he completely gaslights Dodo And it's just, I'll don't take
• 13:39
  any notice of her, her, she's always lying about things.
• 13:43
  Yeah, it's very odd. Do you know what I saw then in
• 13:46
  that scene a minute ago? There was no doctor at all.
• 13:48
  It was just Polly, Ben and Jamie assessing the situation and
• 13:53
  trying to find solutions. And how much better would it
• 13:58
  would it have been if it had just been Polly and Ben?
• 14:01
  Because Jamie didn't really add anything apart from the holy
• 14:03
  water bit, no. Well, in the in the underwater
• 14:06
  menace and in this Jamie is he's just a psycho.
• 14:10
  He's not needed. It wasn't in those scripts as
• 14:12
  those scripts were devised. He wasn't supposed to be part of
• 14:15
  them. And you can really tell Macro
• 14:16
  Terry, you can tell he's integrated into that story.
• 14:19
  Yeah, and I'm not saying anything with any disrespect to
• 14:23
  Fraser Hines because he's a really good actor.
• 14:25
  He's Trouten impersonation in the on Big Finish is spot on.
• 14:33
  Absolutely brilliant, but I don't think the character of
• 14:36
  Jamie was necessary until Ben and Polly were being written
• 14:40
  out. Yeah, I don't, I don't disagree
• 14:42
  with that. And I, I, I could have done with
• 14:44
  Ben and Polly for like another season, I think happily.
• 14:50
  Over and above Victoria, I, I have to, I have to agree.
• 14:56
  Yes, please. Victoria is a fantastic example
• 14:59
  of a badly written character, brilliantly acted.
• 15:06
  Now you have stunned me into silence.
• 15:08
  You think Deborah Wallace is a good actress?
• 15:12
  Yes. Oh, I think she I think she was
• 15:14
  given almost nothing to do with nothing to do in Doctor Who.
• 15:19
  I think Victoria was a very one-dimensional back to the
• 15:24
  Susan role of just being there to to get captured and and
• 15:29
  collect. But you see her in other stuff
• 15:31
  and she puts in a good performance her.
• 15:33
  In other stuff to be fair, so I can't really comment.
• 15:36
  On even more so you you saw her on I saw her on stage and I
• 15:40
  can't remember what I it was I saw, but she was absolutely the
• 15:44
  highlight. She think it's the right in the
• 15:46
  letter down. For Victoria, no, I think it's
• 15:50
  the character. Only like, I just want her to be
• 15:54
  a bit more. I like her in the Tomb of the
• 15:56
  Sidemen when she picks up the gun and shoots the sideman and
• 15:59
  all of that. You know, she's being a bit
• 16:02
  catty with Captain Hopper and all of that stuff.
• 16:04
  But as the season goes on, they just forget about her, don't
• 16:07
  they? And.
• 16:08
  And it's almost as though they don't know what to do with her.
• 16:13
  Actually, that's Peddler and Jerry Davis again, Isn't it
• 16:16
  right in Tomb of the Cybermen? Oh, here she goes.
• 16:22
  She's making her cocktail now. So, and Victoria's certainly the
• 16:25
  least interesting of the of the trout and companions, yeah.
• 16:32
  I love Zoe, I think Zoe is great.
• 16:37
  Zoe Zoe's relationship with Jamie is interesting because
• 16:47
  Jamie reacts differently to each TARDIS team he's in.
• 16:50
  So with Ben and Polly and they're so tight together, he's
• 16:55
  kind of just left on his own. And as the third wheel with
• 17:00
  Victoria, it's very protective slash relationshipy.
• 17:06
  And with with Zoe, a lot of the time it's Zoe that's in charge
• 17:11
  and he is he's. A little adversarial, wasn't he?
• 17:15
  Certainly to start with, yeah. I quite like that though.
• 17:18
  Yes, yeah, I think Zoe's a great character.
• 17:21
  I think it's very telling that the only time she really lets
• 17:24
  her hair down and relaxes at all is with Isabel.
• 17:29
  Oh I love. I think invention.
• 17:33
  How utterly patronising she can bring to Jamie now.
• 17:35
  Do you think you can manage that, Jamie?
• 17:38
  Oh, why? Then, then, then she talks about
• 17:44
  her Dolly soldier. Oh.
• 17:46
  Yes, that's a lovely story. That's another great sort of man
• 17:51
  story, that. Yeah, and for all I thought Anne
• 17:53
  Travers was a a wonderful character and had she come back
• 17:57
  to the invasion, it would have been a very different, very
• 18:01
  different portrayal. Isabel is wonderful.
• 18:05
  Oh, no, it's very rare for us to have a Dolly bird in Doctor Who,
• 18:09
  isn't it? So it's.
• 18:10
  It's nice that she's there. I like it when she goes.
• 18:15
  Hey, are you stinking rich? I love that lie.
• 18:19
  Sorry, I'm talking all about these girls over the Cyberman
• 18:22
  invasion of the moon base here. Oh, is this the bit where the
• 18:27
  you hear the doctor's thoughts? Yes.
• 18:29
  Where he's literally. Yeah, that's an odd.
• 18:33
  Choice. You do, and it's really, and I
• 18:38
  can't offhand think of another example of where that happens.
• 18:44
  I don't think there is. Oh, apart from, apart from is it
• 18:48
  in the underwater menace when it goes around from person to
• 18:51
  person and where and it is where they're thinking that they've
• 18:54
  arrived? That's in one story.
• 18:57
  But apart from that, no. And there's the.
• 19:00
  Something out? Yeah, there's the Doctor
• 19:03
  vocalizing his thoughts at the beginning of Face of Evil,
• 19:07
  because he's on his own man. It would either be that or Tom
• 19:11
  Baker traipsing through the the set in silence.
• 19:14
  And when was Tom Baker ever going to do anything in silence?
• 19:16
  I've. Just thought of another time
• 19:18
  when we hear the doctors thought processes in a very laborious,
• 19:23
  dreary, tedious episode. Heaven sent.
• 19:27
  Oh boy, he doesn't stop thinking in that episode.
• 19:34
  I've just lost everybody that was listening to this now, but I
• 19:37
  don't care. I mean, it's not, it's not the
• 19:47
  worst episode that's been done. It's not the greatest either.
• 19:52
  And I I haven't, I haven't seen Heaven since since my last big
• 19:57
  rewatch, which is when I was recovering from COVID did.
• 20:02
  It feel like a mad fever dream when you were watching it.
• 20:05
  Pretty much everything did when I was recovering from COVID.
• 20:14
  No, I'd so I'd done 2 recovery watches of of who, most recent
• 20:23
  of which was recovering from COVID.
• 20:26
  And there was a, a lot of time where I'd say we're in the
• 20:32
  middle of lockdown and I was still ill, so I was still
• 20:37
  infectious. So Alan couldn't go into work
• 20:38
  and could work from home. And I used to just about get
• 20:43
  down to the front room and he'd put on a three episode disc of
• 20:50
  the OR a a disk and then come back a few hours later to change
• 20:53
  the disk over and I wouldn't really shift from off of my
• 20:57
  chair. So you start watching it whether
• 21:01
  you wanted wanted to or not. There's probably, there's
• 21:04
  probably a few that I fell asleep through, to be honest.
• 21:10
  Certainly wouldn't have been the moon base.
• 21:12
  So have you put that on? No actually when I had COVID I I
• 21:15
  wouldn't have stayed awake for nothing.
• 21:18
  That's as it was I can ever remember being when I had.
• 21:22
  That yeah, 'cause I, I was in, I was in hospital with COVID cause
• 21:35
  'cause I, I, I got COVID right at the very beginning of the
• 21:38
  pandemic to within a couple of months, 'cause I, I was working
• 21:42
  in a hospital and I was working on the COVID ward and loads of
• 21:45
  us came down with it. And yeah, I ended up in hospital
• 21:50
  myself for a couple of weeks. And you know, I'm not going to
• 21:55
  go too far down this route, but Doctor Who's commentary on COVID
• 22:00
  this Christmas. Oh, I.
• 22:04
  Yeah, No, let's not. Let's not.
• 22:06
  Let's not. Honestly one of the worst
• 22:11
  episodes I've ever seen. I I certainly the by far the
• 22:14
  worst Christmas special I hated. It.
• 22:17
  Yeah, me too, for lots of reasons.
• 22:20
  Nothing at all to do with the moon base though.
• 22:22
  No. I've had, I've totally lost
• 22:25
  track of what's occurring. Oh, here we go, Polly Cocktail,
• 22:29
  I go. Yeah.
• 22:32
  Now I've got to ask you. And actually the one who's, if
• 22:36
  you look, the one who's running forward and engaging with the
• 22:39
  Cyberman is, is Polly. The the two fellows have gone to
• 22:42
  either side and she's the one that's that's jumping in.
• 22:49
  Have you ever convulsed wildly whilst white liquid spurting out
• 22:55
  of you, Simon? Well, what a question.
• 23:05
  I'm not entirely sure I know what you're talking about.
• 23:08
  I think we all know the answer to that question without you
• 23:10
  even giving it. It is.
• 23:13
  It's quite grisly though, isn't it?
• 23:14
  I mean, when you actually see in Tomb of the Sideman, that
• 23:17
  sideman, and it's the same effect with all the gunk coming
• 23:20
  out of him and the sideman sort of going, breathing in a really
• 23:24
  hot. It's strong stuff, I think, yes.
• 23:30
  I like the fact they weren't scared to fry the little buggers
• 23:33
  back then, you know? And the the smoke coming off it
• 23:41
  works really well. Look, it looks like they've
• 23:45
  they've deflated the costumes there.
• 23:46
  Did you see they look like sort of just costumes.
• 23:49
  I wonder if it was like that in in the real thing.
• 23:53
  Well, probably that. That's the way it is in Tomb,
• 23:56
  isn't it? So what's really nice in three,
• 23:59
  then, is that the Cybermen are inside the moon base for the
• 24:02
  entirety of the episode for the most part.
• 24:04
  And, you know, they are absolutely a threat from within.
• 24:08
  We've seen sort of how dangerous they are because people are
• 24:11
  murdered. And then in episode 4, it's a
• 24:13
  whole army of the buggers coming across the moon and trying to
• 24:17
  get in with their oh, don't you love that laser beam they use
• 24:21
  that massive laser. And, and it's quite a nice
• 24:30
  contrast where you've got the, all the, that's not because
• 24:33
  rather than just having static faces in the background, all
• 24:36
  the, the TARDIS team are, they're looking around, they've
• 24:42
  got mobile expressions. Now Benoit's, oh, he's lost his
• 24:49
  neck of cheek, but he's outside in the spaceship.
• 24:52
  Oh bloody hell, when he's being faced with an enormous gun.
• 24:56
  Now why do they have two different guns?
• 24:59
  Because one's just like a little tube.
• 25:02
  We have lots of different guns here on earth.
• 25:05
  Fair enough. As long as he gets the job done.
• 25:09
  I like with the sideman guns how everyone smokes when the beams
• 25:13
  hit them. They do like a physical effect
• 25:16
  as well. So do I.
• 25:22
  That was quite, you know, when Polly was squirting that
• 25:24
  sideman, when you said you sort of let forward there, that was
• 25:27
  really quite dynamic. Yeah, because Ben and Jamie sort
• 25:31
  of duck and cover and Polly comes leaping straight in and
• 25:35
  then when it's down on the ground, she's she's giving it
• 25:38
  more. She.
• 25:41
  Joining in with both fists. Good girl is.
• 25:43
  Ben heading out into the atmosphere now with Polly
• 25:46
  cocktail. Yes, but surely that would just
• 25:48
  go flying off into the atmosphere.
• 25:50
  But he's got it in a bottle that he's just going to Chuck because
• 25:54
  he had he had that conversation. She was going to put more into
• 25:57
  the the spray thing and he said no, give it to me in a bottle.
• 26:02
  Dear the the drawings of those sidemen walking across the moon
• 26:05
  aren't too great. I think they may have been done
• 26:07
  in a hurry. I mean, this is great.
• 26:12
  They're heading out to the moon surface to potentially throw
• 26:16
  water bombs at the Cybermen. What kid wouldn't want to do
• 26:20
  this? Oh man, why do we have two and
• 26:25
  four? I would really love to see this
• 26:26
  episode. Yeah, but 2 has the quote and
• 26:33
  all that medical investigation stuff.
• 26:37
  And, you know, I wouldn't lose seeing that T tray plug the hole
• 26:40
  in the side of the moon base for anything except Episode 4.
• 26:45
  Yeah, I'm I'm told, you know, Simon, that that is actually
• 26:48
  scientifically accurate. That would work.
• 26:52
  Yeah. I've never been in a situation
• 26:56
  to try it out, but that's it, right?
• 27:00
  So they, they think they've dealt with assignment now, don't
• 27:02
  they? Right.
• 27:03
  That's it. Great.
• 27:04
  The threat's over. And that's why this, in this
• 27:08
  cliffhanger, hits in a minute. Because there's a whole army of
• 27:11
  the buggers. And it's just begging for that.
• 27:18
  You know, you remind me very much of a lady called Marie
• 27:21
  Antoinette. See what it is begging for space
• 27:27
  adventure. I love that music.
• 27:31
  It just takes me back to the 60s sidemen stories.
• 27:36
  Where's the the Cyberman theme? Well, it's used in Webber Fear
• 27:40
  as well for the Covent Garden scenes.
• 27:46
  Webber fear for with all of those on audio, nothing because
• 27:52
  it's all action but the episode. I am so glad we it it wasn't
• 27:59
  that one we lost rather than three.
• 28:01
  The the sort of the desperation as the soldiers are wiped out.
• 28:05
  It's palpable, isn't it, in that?
• 28:06
  Episode incredible. Well.
• 28:10
  I actually think it's one of Nicholas Courtney's best
• 28:11
  performances as well. Yes, because you at that point
• 28:15
  you don't know what to make of him from invasion onwards.
• 28:18
  Yeah, he's that stalwart hero that we know.
• 28:21
  Oh, look, they've even they've even drawn the paper plate
• 28:26
  spaceships exactly the same. Bless them.
• 28:31
  Now there's there's probably a bit of artistic license to this
• 28:34
  bit because there's not really any visual record of what it
• 28:36
  would look like and there won't have been that close up.
• 28:41
  The Hell's going on here? Oh, they're all coming out the
• 28:43
  spaceship, yes. Yeah, because this is The
• 28:46
  Walking across the moons sequence, isn't it?
• 28:50
  Again, they were criticising saying what sort of a
• 28:52
  cliffhanger is this? I said it's an army of Cybermen
• 28:55
  walking across the moon. Will you just stop being a grown
• 28:58
  up and enjoy that? And if you're going to criticise
• 29:04
  giant armies of stuff just coming towards you, then that's
• 29:09
  pretty much every single Russell.
• 29:11
  Russell T Davis penultimate episode ending.
• 29:17
  As well I can think of loads of. Them, yeah.
• 29:21
  I mean, the end of Pandorica opens as a massive army.
• 29:24
  Just because it's a menagerie, it's still a huge army.
• 29:27
  Yeah, No, I think it's wonderful.
• 29:31
  In fact, I think that looks gorgeous.
• 29:33
  Look at the sideman with the stars behind him.
• 29:37
  That would make a really nice art print.
• 29:39
  I'd have that on my wall. Yeah, I was just thinking that,
• 29:42
  oh, now I know we're going into the last episode because you
• 29:45
  definitely see these feet and what they've done on the set is
• 29:48
  they've put sort of sand and then left a cushion of air.
• 29:52
  So it goes. You watch when we go into the
• 29:54
  live action stuff, it looks really great.
• 29:58
  Boom sand. That was a great episode.
• 30:02
  And I love Moonbase episode 3. I mean I do love 4 as well I do
• 30:08
  think especially when they'll go flying off into the air on their
• 30:11
  wires. But that shows how much fun the
• 30:15
  episode 1 stuff with the TARDIS crew lurking lurking about would
• 30:18
  have been. And also as well, it just shows
• 30:20
  you how well structured this is. Episode 1 was all sort of
• 30:23
  suspense and set up. Episode 2 was all investigation,
• 30:27
  Episode 3 was at base under siege.
• 30:30
  And then Episode 4's basically all action, isn't it?
• 30:32
  They're all trying to get the monsters at the door, you know?
• 30:37
  Oh, wonderful. So, well, Are you ready to head
• 30:39
  into Episode 4 and find out what how on earth we're going to
• 30:41
  defeat the Sidemen?