Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Si Hart & Frazer Gregory about our choice of An Unearthly Child (1/4)

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Talks to Si Hart & Frazer Gregory about our choice of An Unearthly Child (1/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None. A hamster with a blunt penknife
• 0:35
  for doing. Quicker, quicker, quicker What?
• 0:41
  Welcome back to a Hamster with a Blunt Penknife, the Doctor Who
• 0:44
  Commentary Podcast. I'm speaking with reverence here
• 0:48
  because we're going back. Back no further than that.
• 0:54
  Bit further. Yep.
• 0:57
  Now, right back to the very beginning, the beginning of
• 1:02
  Doctor Who for an Unearthly Child.
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  Now, obviously there's a tale of youth about this.
• 1:10
  So my tale of youth is I saw this when I was young.
• 1:19
  Astound me. Out of the way now.
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  I was wondering about this because obviously it's a well
• 1:24
  known, established fact that you've been watching Doctor Who
• 1:26
  longer than me and Joe have been alive.
• 1:28
  Yes? So you presumably watched this
• 1:31
  when it went out first time? Shut up race has been I saw an
• 1:37
  actor. For ages, isn't it, I.
• 1:38
  Saw this episode when it went out for the third time.
• 1:42
  And what was the third time? The five faces of Doctor Who.
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  See, I wasn't old enough for that.
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  When did that go in? 8019810 I was one years old
• 1:53
  then. So it would have been November
• 1:55
  1981, and it seemed like the most ancient and impossible
• 2:00
  thing that I was watching. It seemed really, really old.
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  It was 17 or 18 years old at that point.
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  And unthinkable. Yeah.
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  Now, this very week, it is 60 years old.
• 2:15
  And it seems I'm possibly old. We're so old.
• 2:19
  Oh God. Well.
• 2:21
  One of us is so old. Yeah, we're still young.
• 2:27
  Sorry. Yep, You could call me Old Psy.
• 2:32
  We've all got special zoom names today.
• 2:35
  Perhaps we should all introduce ourselves.
• 2:36
  I am Old Mother. Hello.
• 2:39
  I am the mysterious traveller in time known as Psy.
• 2:44
  And I am free, Tsar. And you will not make fire.
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  Make fire come from my fingers the last time he said phrase
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  tsar like that, he was doing an impression of store from the
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  invasion of time it. Was true.
• 3:02
  Well, so here we are. It's the 60th anniversary of
• 3:05
  Doctor Who and. We have convened to talk about
• 3:09
  the very first story of Doctor Who, which is slightly
• 3:12
  controversial at the moment, so let's hope this gets lots of
• 3:16
  annoying traction with a certain Mr. Coburn.
• 3:19
  Oh, I've invited him along. He's coming on on 2/3 and four.
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  He says no. Well, we shouldn't be watching
• 3:27
  it. He's just going to sit in the
• 3:29
  corner and show. Well, I've invited Ian Lavino
• 3:35
  for those episodes as well. It's going to get Larry, folks.
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  So just to start us off, I have a question for you both, because
• 3:44
  today I'm going to do that. I'm going to mess with the
• 3:48
  formula. When did you first see An
• 3:52
  Unearthly Child? Right.
• 3:55
  You go first because I'm trying to.
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  Think you go first because I need to Google it.
• 4:00
  Oh well, mine was definitely the VHS, but I had.
• 4:06
  I had already read the target novel, that fabulous cover of
• 4:10
  the TARDIS in the In the Junkyard.
• 4:14
  I'm not sure I thought too much of that target novel, though.
• 4:16
  Do you know, I'm not sure. I thought much of Black, of old
• 4:20
  Doctor Who. It was that, you know, I was
• 4:22
  that young, but it was all a bit creaky.
• 4:26
  But when the VHS came, I remember being completely blown
• 4:29
  away by the first episode and thinking about how modern it
• 4:34
  felt like in its pacing and how it got to the point and in its
• 4:39
  direction and things. And then I I absolutely remember
• 4:45
  wanting to dismiss every opinion I'd heard about 2-3 and Four,
• 4:49
  because for me, it was the most sort of convincingly scary and
• 4:54
  weird environment I'd ever seen in Doctor Who and how the actors
• 4:59
  responded to it. It felt more sort of emotional
• 5:05
  and visceral and real than I'd ever seen in Doctor Who before
• 5:08
  as well, so I still think they're great.
• 5:11
  Yeah, and I don't think you see that in Doctor Who ever again
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  quite to this extent. And we'll have lots to say about
• 5:18
  this, I'm sure, but we'll just feel while Fraser is Googling
• 5:24
  so. Are you done yet?
• 5:26
  Nearly I've I've got it down to the year in the month.
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  I'm just trying to find the actual day.
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  It don't go. It don't.
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  Google on track one or any of the others you.
• 5:36
  Know I do. We all do.
• 5:38
  It's just edited. So no one tells.
• 5:41
  OK, fair enough. Fair enough.
• 5:43
  Can I say? I've got it, got it, got it.
• 5:45
  Oh, I'll say in a minute. Go on then.
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  It was August the 26th, 1991. It's.
• 5:52
  Very specific. Which is the Lime Grove story?
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  Yes, say on BBC Two. Yes, Granddad's got a good
• 6:02
  memory. You change your bitch.
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  I needn't have bothered that I could have just asked little
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  Wikipedia there and you would have known.
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  What was your reaction to this thing?
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  It was. It was fun.
• 6:18
  It was wonder, it was it was you know it was Lion Grove like Sigh
• 6:23
  says it was the Lion Grove Celebration.
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  So it was like a day of programming on the BBC to.
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  To celebrate Lime Grove Studios. And so they showed a few things.
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  I think they showed like Adam Adamant was it was part of that
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  and one of the things they showed was the the pilot version
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  of Unearthly Child. So I think that was like one of
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  the first bits of Doctor Who that was ever repeated certainly
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  in my lifetime. So I remember watching that and.
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  Just watching these things that I was familiar with unfold.
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  So sort of like the TARDIS coming out, you know, William
• 7:08
  Hartnell coming out, no idea who, you know, Barbara and Susan
• 7:12
  Arses. Watching these characters kind
• 7:14
  of unfold and all these, you know, the big on the inside and
• 7:19
  the outside all happening and then that end bit where the
• 7:25
  TARDIS materializes and you just see that shadow of the
• 7:28
  cliffhanger, the shadow. Across the sand onto the police
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  box and thinking well that could be anything.
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  You know, that's, you know we know it's time and space.
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  You automatically think, well that's just like an alien
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  landscape and it's some sort of you know we had bug eyed monster
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  that's going to come and threaten the crew.
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  So when I got the VHS couple years later to then watch Part 2
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  and they have the reveal from that cliffhanger because there's
• 7:55
  nothing given away on the on the sleeve of that DVD.
• 7:59
  Yeah. VHS you know, to have that
• 8:01
  reveal that actually it's not an alien, it's a caveman was just
• 8:07
  astounded. It was just oh man, right.
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  So we've gone back in time and it's all of a sudden it's a
• 8:15
  whole new ball game in your head and but it's a fascinating one.
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  It's thrilling and you know, I'm quite happy to you know die in
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  the hill that says the the caveman.
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  Episodes of this are, you know, just as good as.
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  The, you know, London-based opener.
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  I've just been saying that you know, while you were Googling
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  there. Yeah, we're all going to be on
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  the same page then. So great.
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  I'm hoping that one of us wasn't going to be, you know, one of
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  those old wingers about two to four.
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  Well, Lavina Corbin are coming in on this.
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  So the Oh that's right. Yeah, you know it's pre empting
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  it a little bit, but what you said there about the
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  cliffhanger, it's so great because you've just been
• 8:55
  introduced to this concept where the show can go anywhere.
• 8:58
  It's a time machine and it's a space machine and then they give
• 9:01
  you the most ambiguous cliffhanger of all time, that
• 9:05
  landscape and just a shadow. So the for once the
• 9:09
  possibilities are endless. Usually we get very literal
• 9:13
  cliffhangers in Doctor Who, don't we?
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  That's why I think it's one of the best ones.
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  I think it's a. Great cliffhanger that's going
• 9:18
  to get the audience back next week.
• 9:20
  Who haven't? Who were the few who were there,
• 9:23
  anyway? Because JFK had just been
• 9:25
  assassinated. So yeah.
• 9:28
  But I don't think we should take away from just how extraordinary
• 9:31
  that first episode is and how kind of different it is from
• 9:36
  anything else in Doctor Who. And how that reaction of Ian and
• 9:40
  Barbara going into the TARDIS for the first time is still
• 9:43
  probably the very best that we ever saw in the series.
• 9:47
  I don't leave a lot for the rest of Doctor Who, if I'm honest.
• 9:49
  But, and he'll probably Tegan, I think Tegan's the next time you
• 9:53
  actually get a companion going into the TARDIS and it is a
• 9:56
  realistic sort of reaction to the madness of what's in.
• 9:59
  There. Joe Grant has a bit of a oh, she
• 10:03
  has a bit of a Paddy, didn't she?
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  Yeah. A moment, doesn't she?
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  Yeah, but Tegan's, like, properly scared.
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  Like, yeah, Ian and Barbara. Yeah, I.
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  Think he Capaldi's is quite good as well.
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  Oh, that was fabulous. Oh my God.
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  What about you then, Sy? What about me?
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  About the first time you saw it? Well, sure.
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  I saw it at the Five Faces of Doctor Who and I was just really
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  excited to see the very first Doctor Who story.
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  So I was two years into watching Doctor Who at this point and to
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  get a chance to see something with.
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  And another Doctor. So technically my my second
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  Doctor is William Hartnell, which is quite, I mean as a six
• 10:50
  year, yeah, I was 6. That was just wow.
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  Because I've seen pictures of him, but I never thought I'd
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  ever get to see him move or say anything or or anything like
• 11:01
  that, you know. And you never never saw old
• 11:04
  Doctor Who stories. So this was just be so unique
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  that William Hartnell is your second Doctor?
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  Well, you know, I think there are probably a lot of people
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  around my age who had exactly the same same experience.
• 11:18
  My first first Doctor was hot, hot hurdle, you know, in The
• 11:21
  Five Doctors. Yeah, the 1st, 1st Doctor I saw.
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  Yeah, I think there's probably the next set of next generation
• 11:28
  of Doctor Who fans who had heard the same first person.
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  That's. Why we are the next generation?
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  So, yeah, so I. And as I said, I think because
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  the prints that they showed were quite that, obviously we were
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  pre restoration days, so you took what you got.
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  So it seemed old and crackly and weird, and I think that just
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  added to the to the whole sort of experience of it that first
• 12:00
  time. It seems spooky.
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  I think listening to something on vinyl isn't it?
• 12:05
  Yeah, exactly. It's just that that's like
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  hisses and puss and crackliness, doesn't it?
• 12:09
  Yeah, but there's something so weird about how they can't
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  communicate with those cave people.
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  I don't think we ever really do that again either, do we?
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  Where? Where?
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  You know it is so different from what they're used to that they
• 12:25
  are completely at odds. Oh, fish is out of water.
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  Yeah, this is, well, this is the first Doctor Who story and there
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  are no rules, no rules whatsoever.
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  This is exciting, isn't it? Anything.
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  And it's sort of cutting free. And then the rules are
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  established by Terry Nation in four weeks time.
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  That's right about how you do a Doctor Who story.
• 12:45
  Really. And that's fabulous as well.
• 12:48
  Well, it is has everyone find out This very week.
• 12:51
  Does that mean Barbara's in pink in this?
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  No. Well, no, because she gets
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  changed. Oh, OK, good.
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  Everyone has to get changed because they get really, really
• 13:03
  dirty. Oh yeah.
• 13:05
  So you really don't really do that very often either, do we?
• 13:07
  Don't. No.
• 13:09
  It's like the end of one of these recordings that we have.
• 13:12
  You know, filthy, sweaty. We've been through the Muds.
• 13:18
  Stop it. We can only hope that Fraser is
• 13:20
  going to get dressed up in skins and fire another bloke in The
• 13:23
  Cave and skulls. I did that once, just as a
• 13:28
  favour for you for your birthday.
• 13:30
  We're not doing it again. Oh, sorry, I filmed it and put
• 13:34
  it on the only fans. I know you did.
• 13:38
  Happy birthday, Doctor Who. That's the only way to do it on
• 13:43
  Hamster, really. So should we watch this thing
• 13:46
  then I. Was just about to say that.
• 13:52
  Everyone's wondering what that only fans account is.
• 13:54
  Now they all want to see it. Quarks are mint, yeah.
• 14:00
  The things you do black walk anyway, right?
• 14:02
  Let's go into episode one. OK, right in 54321.
• 14:12
  Let's go into time and space. It's so exciting.
• 14:16
  I. Feel a bit of a free song.
• 14:18
  I and my. These titles must have blown
• 14:22
  everyone's mind and nothing looked or sounded like this in
• 14:26
  1963. I've watched some dramas from
• 14:29
  around that time and Doctor Who is so different to everything
• 14:34
  else that's going on. It's surprise we pick the
• 14:40
  production values of Doctor Who apart quite a lot.
• 14:45
  But we shouldn't because. It's so much better than than so
• 14:49
  much of the stuff that's going on around it.
• 14:53
  I mean, did you see as well there?
• 14:55
  It was the very first Doctor Oh on the screen.
• 14:58
  It was the reverse. Who?
• 15:01
  I mean this opening of the fella, the policeman going
• 15:03
  through the mist with the music rolling on as well.
• 15:08
  It's great this. Is just instant suspense and
• 15:12
  mystery. And do you not think there's a
• 15:18
  bit of a sort of? Policeman then, is he?
• 15:20
  Because he's just checked that door to see if it's locked and
• 15:23
  it's just swung right open. Do you remember when they did
• 15:26
  that again for Day of the Doctor?
• 15:28
  Yes, that was clever, wasn't it? That was black and white as
• 15:31
  well, wasn't it? At the beginning?
• 15:33
  Yeah. Oh, look at this moldy old
• 15:36
  junkyard. Why are we poking?
• 15:39
  Around the nooks and crevices of this place.
• 15:42
  What exactly police box doing there?
• 15:45
  It's a police. Box.
• 15:46
  Very strange. Why hasn't it changed?
• 15:50
  Freezer? Sigh.
• 15:51
  It's alive. Oh, no, there's the name Anthony
• 15:57
  Coburn. Well, there's a bit of
• 16:01
  controversy over this as to who actually wrote this episode, as
• 16:04
  isn't there depending on who's the other possibility, who you
• 16:08
  listen to. Well, my very good friend and
• 16:13
  confidant Mr. Ian Naveen will tell you that it was someone
• 16:18
  else entirely that wrote this. Well, yeah, I mean, they were,
• 16:23
  Yes. There's CE Bunny Webber.
• 16:26
  Is that's the one, Yes. Is the one.
• 16:28
  Luckily, David Whittaker had a lot of input into this, yeah.
• 16:32
  I love. That I Luke talk about sitting
• 16:35
  the scene. Immediately, you know, and you
• 16:38
  know that girl on the right, I know Tony Haddock did a whole
• 16:40
  episode on her. She looks just like my mum when
• 16:44
  she's a teenager. They all have that sort of look.
• 16:46
  Didn't. They.
• 16:47
  Yeah. Susan Foreman.
• 16:51
  Hey, is she your problem too? I just don't know what to make
• 16:55
  of her. See, let's out to knowledge a
• 16:58
  little time so as not to embarrass me.
• 17:02
  You feel an instant rapport between these two.
• 17:04
  Know that it feels like they have known each other for a long
• 17:07
  time. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:10
  And they're so brilliant. I mean, they're always
• 17:14
  brilliant, aren't they, From the first second to the last.
• 17:18
  And they're the leads of this episode, I think.
• 17:22
  And. The leads of, I think Ian is the
• 17:25
  lead of the show for for the for the majority of the first year.
• 17:29
  Really. Yes, you say that.
• 17:30
  I think it's Jackie Hill's Barbara.
• 17:34
  I think she does a lot of the legwork in in season one.
• 17:37
  I mean, I think he is the hero. Yes, definitely.
• 17:43
  I just, I just even today, even 60 years on this gets across the
• 17:49
  mystery of Susan the junkyard. All of this in a couple of
• 17:54
  scenes so quickly. It's kind of how you would pace
• 17:57
  TV now. It's incredible scene setting,
• 18:00
  isn't it? I mean, we we kind of take it
• 18:03
  for granted, I think a little bit because it it's so
• 18:07
  efficient. That still looks like a
• 18:11
  classroom science classroom when I was in Nipa with those Weird.
• 18:15
  Tags and. The Bunsen burners.
• 18:17
  Yeah. Yeah, it's it's, it's really
• 18:20
  clever how it's like done in flashback as well.
• 18:23
  It's, you know, we introduced the mystery of Susan and use the
• 18:26
  flashbacks to to explain it. You remember in the Daleks where
• 18:32
  the Doctor, he shouts at the doctrine, goes, it's all your
• 18:35
  fault. You had to go and see the city
• 18:37
  and all this. He doesn't say to Barbara in
• 18:39
  this, Well, it was all your fault.
• 18:40
  You had to go and see that junkyard, didn't you?
• 18:43
  Because it. Basically, it is a fault.
• 18:45
  We go into the TARDIS at all well.
• 18:48
  It is, but it's he's he's very complicit in it.
• 18:54
  He's very much like, Yep, we need to stalk this girl.
• 18:57
  Fine. And.
• 18:58
  I'll tell you about something that's going to stun you Ridges
• 19:05
  now. So I was doing this, the Susan
• 19:06
  dance. Now.
• 19:08
  Now I'll say there's something very Avengers and exotic about
• 19:10
  you at the moment. No, no, that's not.
• 19:14
  What I'll be for long I actually think Caroline Ford is extremely
• 19:18
  good in this first story and it's after this that she
• 19:22
  basically the characters just let go and she's the the wailing
• 19:26
  victim. Yeah.
• 19:30
  She's she's weird, but kind of likeable and kooky and.
• 19:36
  Well, this is the character she signed on for, isn't it?
• 19:38
  Or yeah, like the one in the in the pilot where she's doing
• 19:43
  weird things with inkblots and oh, I love that bit.
• 19:48
  It's not in this version in the in the transmitted version, no.
• 19:51
  No, no, that because she does the.
• 19:53
  That's not right. She she puts the hexagon,
• 19:58
  doesn't she? And then she.
• 19:59
  Found some paper. I know she looks around her
• 20:00
  like, oh fuck, I've almost left some terrifying secrets that
• 20:03
  people might find out. Push along the science of the
• 20:06
  time. It's a grandfather's name
• 20:08
  written in High Gallifrian. I like the fog.
• 20:13
  It's mysterious. It's interesting as well because
• 20:16
  if this was coming out now, this the whole web location that
• 20:20
  comes up in a minute about Susan being kidnapped in a box and all
• 20:26
  of this. I just don't know if they play
• 20:28
  this now. Well, no, you.
• 20:29
  I don't think you could do this with two teachers just turning
• 20:32
  up at your house, pursuing, pursuing.
• 20:34
  Our home and all of this, yeah. Yeah, it's very much a different
• 20:38
  time. Yeah, you'd call the social.
• 20:41
  Instead, I'm like, put yourself in the mind of people watching
• 20:45
  this at the time. They're probably thinking
• 20:47
  there's going to be some mundane answer like, oh, she's meeting a
• 20:50
  boy in there or something like that.
• 20:52
  You know, something obvious. What's the joke?
• 20:55
  Isn't it That I to be honest, who?
• 20:57
  Yeah, Doctor Who was never as good once it stopped being a
• 20:59
  school drama. The 1st 10 minutes, Yeah, it's
• 21:05
  all. Down here, if you're watching
• 21:07
  this for the first team, I mean, the clue's in the title, isn't
• 21:09
  it? An unearthly.
• 21:11
  Well, Unearthly Child, you'll be watching this, you think and
• 21:14
  race. There's there's two teachers.
• 21:16
  There's a child these. Is that an Unearthly Child?
• 21:21
  Is something strange going on here?
• 21:22
  Well, she's certainly the weirdest one there.
• 21:25
  I love all these POV shots. That's terrific on there and
• 21:29
  it's it's Boris Hussain being being clever.
• 21:33
  Because he's got to Marshall his resources, because he can't have
• 21:37
  them in the shop, because they're in the car.
• 21:39
  And because you're recording as live, so you focus the camera on
• 21:44
  Caroline Ford and there is an immediacy to it isn't there.
• 21:48
  And because she is so weird and she's staring right out the
• 21:52
  camera at you. Yeah, it makes her seem weirder
• 21:56
  somehow. And look how much he's moving
• 21:59
  the camera. You don't get this sometimes in
• 22:00
  the 80s. No, no, no.
• 22:02
  I think we again, we undervalue Waris Hussein because we only
• 22:06
  have these four episodes. I think if we had Marco Polo as
• 22:09
  well, he would be even more lauded than than the.
• 22:12
  I mean his camera work is so fluid throughout all four
• 22:17
  episodes. He is.
• 22:18
  He's. And you compare this to Richard
• 22:20
  Martin in a couple of weeks time and the yeah, there's no
• 22:24
  comparison and he should be right up there.
• 22:27
  Marco Polo probably looked extraordinary.
• 22:30
  I have a feeling it did, yeah, because he would have cut his
• 22:33
  teeth on this and then he got right.
• 22:35
  Now I know what I can do. Yeah.
• 22:38
  Oh, tell you love what? She says.
• 22:39
  Oh well, you know, you can get those chemicals together and
• 22:41
  then we can go and do something more interesting instead.
• 22:43
  What? Do you need E4?
• 22:48
  What do you make the 5th dimension?
• 22:53
  I was when someone say it. Too many questions, not enough
• 23:01
  answers. Setting up a good mystery, you
• 23:04
  see. Well, a 15 year old girl is
• 23:06
  brilliant at something, excruciatingly bad at others.
• 23:09
  I mean, it's just this is great dialogue as well.
• 23:15
  Is the introduction of Susan one of the best companion
• 23:19
  introductions How this is done? Oh.
• 23:25
  Yes, because you never think of it like that.
• 23:28
  I mean, technically this is an introduction to breed companions
• 23:31
  all at once. Yeah, yeah, I think there's only
• 23:36
  one other time when that is done, and that is the woman who
• 23:39
  fell to Earth. When you've got all four being
• 23:41
  introduced in one in one story, what the hell is that creepy
• 23:47
  mask in there? It's just brilliant set
• 23:51
  dressing. But it really makes it because
• 23:55
  the makes the junkyard look weird and strange and unknowable
• 23:59
  as well, and that you're going into somewhere that doesn't feel
• 24:02
  quite right. Everything about this is not
• 24:04
  quite right from this moment onwards when they go into the
• 24:07
  junkyard. And this is what I meant about
• 24:10
  it being spooky because the music is really creepy and and
• 24:14
  bizarre. This is Norman Kay, who does a a
• 24:17
  few stories through series one, season one, wherever we are.
• 24:21
  I have no idea where we are now. And the music's really odd and
• 24:25
  and brilliant and and strange. It has the brilliant original
• 24:30
  Star Trek style. Yeah, something dramatic
• 24:35
  happens. Did you know you're saying as
• 24:37
  they were going towards the door, we were sort of over
• 24:40
  Barbara's shoulder, almost as if we're like a third person going
• 24:43
  in? Yeah.
• 24:43
  And it makes it feel really immediate.
• 24:45
  It cut into and the camera suddenly going through all the
• 24:49
  ephemera like trying to find them.
• 24:52
  It's really well shot, not this. Yes, going upstairs, having a
• 24:58
  good look around. Oh, what's that?
• 25:00
  He's got no matches. Never mind.
• 25:02
  I'm sure that won't be important.
• 25:09
  Matches. See.
• 25:12
  It's alive. I did this with my my friend
• 25:17
  Dave once my. My Scottish friend Dave, he's
• 25:20
  wonderful. He's a big fan of the TARDIS and
• 25:23
  the consoles and things. And we were at Panopticon at 40,
• 25:26
  so that God, that was 20 years ago and it was.
• 25:29
  And they've got the 80s TARDIS prop in the corner of the the
• 25:34
  the room. And in the night sort of in the
• 25:36
  evening they were playing music in there and it was quite
• 25:39
  pounding music. So I said come, come on Dave,
• 25:41
  come on. I want to do something.
• 25:42
  So I took him up. Put his hand on the TARDIS door
• 25:45
  and because it was vibrating from the music, I just said it's
• 25:48
  alive and it's just like, Oh my God, this.
• 25:51
  Is amazing. Oh, where is?
• 25:54
  It's the governor. What are you doing here?
• 26:00
  What can I say, right? Mark and I watched Brighton Rock
• 26:03
  last week where Hartnell gives an extraordinarily focused
• 26:08
  performance, like really scary performance, and I'd never seen
• 26:12
  him do anything apart from Doctor Who and it really showed
• 26:16
  me how much he is giving to his portrayal as the Doctor.
• 26:20
  Oh yeah, this is not him at all. He is magnificent, isn't he?
• 26:27
  Look at him now. Don't you like that sort of
• 26:30
  sinister angle they go for for the first sort of couple of
• 26:33
  stories? Yes, I'm glad they didn't keep
• 26:36
  it for long, but then this is where you get the the crotchety
• 26:41
  old man thing. And it all comes from this being
• 26:45
  the only story that fans could easily watch because everyone
• 26:48
  who could videoed it so it was readily available.
• 26:52
  And so. Imagine if it was the Romans.
• 26:54
  He's chuckling something like that.
• 26:56
  Or the Web planet, but he's giggling like a loony for.
• 26:58
  So one the time Meddler where he's, you know, space elements
• 27:06
  for cows. So what's the inference here
• 27:09
  that he does own the art? He's sort of going, oh, look at
• 27:13
  this, this, this painting's all dusty and.
• 27:16
  He's got into his life here, so how long have they been here
• 27:19
  for? Oh, quite a few months, I think,
• 27:23
  because she's been established at the school, isn't she?
• 27:26
  Yeah, it's never sort of stated outright how long it is.
• 27:30
  I mean there are, there are various stories set around this
• 27:35
  time, aren't there? And I think so.
• 27:38
  I think they when they did that box set for the 50th anniversary
• 27:42
  with the audio adventures, there's a story set before Kim
• 27:47
  Newman's Telos novella Time and Relative, which is a great book
• 27:51
  that was set before this as well.
• 27:55
  Look at him. He's he's listening to every
• 27:59
  word they are saying. He's.
• 28:01
  Slippery, isn't he? Yeah, he's.
• 28:06
  So slippery here. I like when he goes, oh go on
• 28:09
  then, go and find a policeman. I'll be here waiting to see
• 28:12
  their faces when you come back with your ridiculous story.
• 28:18
  It is very different from the original version as well.
• 28:20
  I actually think I prefer the original pilot for a couple.
• 28:23
  Of reasons. Oh, I prefer this.
• 28:25
  He is gentler in this, isn't he? Then he is.
• 28:28
  I like, I like the mischief that he's got here because he's not.
• 28:31
  Although he's sinister, He's not.
• 28:35
  I don't know. I yeah, I just prefer this, I
• 28:38
  think. Oh my God.
• 28:40
  Oh my word. And.
• 28:46
  That is so well done, the way that we sort of go in with
• 28:51
  Barbara and then we just pan around that way to this insane
• 28:55
  white room. And it's been so dark out in the
• 28:59
  junkyard, and then suddenly you're in the bleak whiteness.
• 29:02
  You get you get Barbara coming towards the camera, and then you
• 29:05
  get Ian good away from the camera.
• 29:07
  Yeah, yeah. And you know what?
• 29:09
  It's so sad when you think about the TARDIS console room in like
• 29:13
  the 70s. It's so small, these hills.
• 29:18
  And you think this was like a stand and set as well.
• 29:21
  So they've got like a, you know, a tiny studio in Lime Grove and
• 29:25
  they've filled out a lot of it with with a stand and says you
• 29:30
  makes you wonder why they didn't do more things like inside the
• 29:32
  spaceship, which were actually. Set in the TARDIS and they did a
• 29:36
  wonderful thing, don't they, in season one where they've got two
• 29:40
  sets next to each other so you can see out the doors to the
• 29:44
  location and. You get that wonderful shot in
• 29:46
  the sensor rights, don't you? Where you walk through the
• 29:49
  through the doors into the spaceship, the only time that's
• 29:53
  done. Yeah, until the new series.
• 29:56
  Wow. Then you get that lovely scene
• 29:59
  in the Space Museum that we talked about Joe where.
• 30:02
  You know, William Muscle is doing the same thing with his
• 30:04
  hands when he walks out of that and it constantly.
• 30:08
  Say popping his first and he's doing the same thing when he
• 30:11
  walks out as as when he walks onto the set.
• 30:15
  It's sort of visual tricks to suggest that you're going in and
• 30:18
  out-of-the-box. Yeah, but that's such a that's
• 30:22
  such a cheap thing they could do because they did so much in a
• 30:25
  studio to have the two studios, the the two locations next to
• 30:29
  each other. So you could go out and they
• 30:31
  could kind of have done that every week if they wanted to.
• 30:33
  Yeah. Mm hmm.
• 30:35
  But it's like we've said before, sometimes they forget how to do
• 30:39
  things and so they don't do them again.
• 30:44
  And so you've got all these, because some people don't come
• 30:46
  back to work on the show again, so that doesn't get passed on.
• 30:50
  It's worth remembering as well at this point we know.
• 30:53
  All we know really is that this is a box which is bigger on the
• 30:58
  inside than the out. So they're sort of stagger the
• 31:00
  surprises, don't they? Yeah.
• 31:03
  Well, I made-up the from the initials Time and relative
• 31:06
  dimension in space. We're lying, bitch.
• 31:09
  Honestly. Well, no one's going to be there
• 31:12
  to say no, you didn't. This is standard kind of frame
• 31:16
  technology. No, no, no.
• 31:17
  Just let me get. This I don't understand.
• 31:19
  Do you? I knew you wouldn't let me get
• 31:22
  this straight. Sign Fraser.
• 31:23
  A thing that looks like a police box standing in a junkyard.
• 31:28
  It can go anywhere in time and space.
• 31:31
  Quite so. But that's ridiculous.
• 31:36
  Joe, you're treating us like children.
• 31:40
  The children of my civilization would have found this.
• 31:43
  Insulting Fraser? I love the Glee in his face and
• 31:48
  oh, and this this is just magical, isn't it?
• 31:51
  The wonders in Yeah, I mean that to be exiles.
• 31:56
  I probably found it. The people that aren't Doctor
• 32:00
  Who fans, they look at me as if I'm mad.
• 32:05
  One day we'll go back, he says. One day, yeah.
• 32:07
  And then that gets echoed in Susan's last last thing, isn't
• 32:14
  it? The one day, one day we'll reach
• 32:17
  Arc of fucking Infinity. Yeah, you will go back.
• 32:19
  One day, that fabulous ceiling thing.
• 32:26
  Yeah, you don't see ceilings very often in classic doctors.
• 32:29
  Oh, you do love ceilings, don't you?
• 32:31
  You do? I love a ceiling and a shaft.
• 32:36
  And it's lovely to see that back in the in the tails of the
• 32:40
  TARDIS as well. Peter Kay over there.
• 32:45
  You don't get ceilings anymore. Anyone remember when you have
• 32:48
  round doors in the TARDIS? Round doors.
• 32:51
  Shut up you and that and that tells us TARDIS.
• 32:56
  TARDIS, all those little attention, their little fluid
• 32:58
  links and things, you know, oh I'm fabulous.
• 33:03
  Oh this is great because where they start banging on the walls
• 33:06
  that this is, this is never done after this where the the
• 33:10
  inferences, they are being kidnapped and that they are
• 33:13
  trapped and this is a terrifying place to be because from this
• 33:17
  point on when they establish the TARDIS, that's then a safe
• 33:20
  place. To be yeah.
• 33:22
  And again, it's not until we get to Tegan going in and she has no
• 33:26
  clue. And she's very scared because of
• 33:28
  this weird place that sort of opened up around us.
• 33:31
  Is that done again? That's just this.
• 33:36
  I mean, it's a quite literally electric at this point, but no.
• 33:40
  Time, but it's just so. This whole scene is just so
• 33:46
  it's. Brilliant, isn't it?
• 33:48
  The tension is rising all the way through this.
• 33:51
  Nobody is neglected either. Everyone's got a voice in this
• 33:54
  scene. And suddenly the Doctor is in
• 33:57
  charge. He's.
• 33:58
  Pleased most with them. Yeah, and every time, Barbara
• 34:03
  tells the doctor office. Great.
• 34:05
  How dare you? And.
• 34:09
  Susan's saying she doesn't want to go, but they've got to go
• 34:14
  because, well, of course they have.
• 34:17
  They they've been discovered. It it it makes you almost want
• 34:21
  to see like a couple of stories with just her and the doctor to
• 34:25
  see what that relationship was like before we in a bar.
• 34:28
  Because everything changes from this point.
• 34:30
  Yeah, yeah, everything is now. The changes in the Doctor are
• 34:34
  going to happen because of this. He set the whole thing in
• 34:37
  motion. Get back from the ship, child.
• 34:40
  No. Grandfather No.
• 34:43
  I'm glad they got rid of knocking everyone unconscious
• 34:46
  whenever the time just be materialized I.
• 34:49
  Don't. Make a bit.
• 34:49
  Going to work for the rest of the series, is it?
• 34:52
  Oh, I wish they used this xylophone every time.
• 34:54
  What about this show In a minute of the City Beautiful.
• 34:59
  We pull away from the city. That's amazing.
• 35:02
  Does does the TARDIS knock them unconscious?
• 35:04
  Or is it when Ian very gently lowers himself to the floor?
• 35:08
  Does very gingerly do that because he was grappling with
• 35:12
  him while he was at the controls.
• 35:14
  You know, but Barbara is knocked unconscious in the.
• 35:16
  Chair, maybe said something about falling over in the
• 35:20
  TARDIS. I mean, it does for Common
• 35:22
  Baker, doesn't it? It does it's.
• 35:25
  True, he takes a lot of spell off his bacon turns and also
• 35:27
  have asked him across and maybe he's it is just, you know,
• 35:29
  buffeting I believe it's called. But doesn't it look magical with
• 35:33
  the title superimposed over their faces?
• 35:36
  I mean, this way you still have no clue.
• 35:38
  Do you have no clue, really, what's happening here?
• 35:40
  It's so weird. The sound of the TARDIS.
• 35:42
  Yeah. Oh my God.
• 35:44
  Just imagine hearing that for the first time.
• 35:47
  I can't remember that. Not being there, that's been
• 35:52
  such a part of my life since 1979.
• 35:55
  And just imagine just hearing that.
• 35:57
  And the full sound here is just magical.
• 36:00
  And then we get our first the first time we hear that fabulous
• 36:04
  windy location sound effects, don't we?
• 36:08
  Which we hear a lot in the way. Upon the era.
• 36:13
  I mean, we didn't even have eras at this point there.
• 36:15
  Was no William. Oh, this was just Doctor.
• 36:18
  Patrick, he just had this one. Yeah, 21 minutes or whatever.
• 36:23
  And it's so worth remembering that this show was on a lifeline
• 36:26
  for some time. It was getting, you know, what
• 36:28
  was it another four weeks and then 12 weeks and then oh.
• 36:33
  I mean that. Oh my God.
• 36:37
  Ave. Of skulls.
• 36:40
  What could it mean? And this strange alien
• 36:42
  landscape. And then the music comes in and
• 36:45
  it doesn't crash in, it just comes in again and.
• 36:50
  Don't you love the story of Sydney Newman taking Verity
• 36:54
  Lambert and Warren Hussein out for that Chinese meal going
• 36:57
  after the first cuts come in? It's no good.
• 37:00
  I'm going to sack both of you. No, actually, you've got a
• 37:02
  second chance. Go and shoot it again.
• 37:05
  I mean, that's unbelievable. They've got to do it twice.
• 37:08
  Yeah. It's I'm glad they did.
• 37:14
  Yeah, I mean, I like the pilot. The pilot's good.
• 37:19
  But you know, obviously there is, you know, edges that are
• 37:21
  smooth and you know when you get to have another good.
• 37:27
  I know there's a few line trip UPS.
• 37:29
  I do think the performances are better in the original pilot.
• 37:31
  I think especially Caroline Ford, especially in that TARDIS
• 37:34
  scene, there's a bit where she just suddenly screams at them.
• 37:37
  Oh, why did you come here? Why?
• 37:39
  And you don't get like some of those bits in the revised
• 37:42
  version. It almost was a little bit over
• 37:45
  rehearsed in the second version, I think.
• 37:48
  I don't know. I just think it's magical and
• 37:52
  I'm not going to hear anything said against it because it's an
• 37:55
  absolutely, it is possibly the greatest episode of Doctor Who,
• 38:00
  isn't it the one of the great single episodes?
• 38:03
  That's how you start the series and you can see in some ways
• 38:07
  Russell taking the beats of that and realising that you've got to
• 38:12
  introduce your characters before you meet the Doctor, because
• 38:17
  you've got to know what the ordinary is to contrast it with
• 38:20
  the extraordinary. I do wonder if because they are
• 38:25
  effectively doing a reset with Shootie Gatwar, we're going to
• 38:28
  get something like this again like reintroducing the character
• 38:31
  all over again for for that wider audience that sort of
• 38:34
  Disney can offer. And you notice how they always
• 38:37
  go back to this. Well, like with Rose, like with
• 38:39
  Spearhead from space, yeah, they always kind of go back to
• 38:42
  reintroduce the character from scratch I.
• 38:46
  Think it's it's going to be a little bit different we shoot
• 38:48
  because by all counties going to be in three specials.
• 38:51
  He's going to be in, you know, Star Beast, or By Blue Yonder or
• 38:55
  The Giggle, or both. Or three, you know, judging from
• 38:58
  like, the trailer. Hard.
• 39:00
  Last year. So how he's going to do that is
• 39:03
  going to be, you know, if he does want to go down that route
• 39:05
  of saying, well you know, we'll have Ruby Tuesday first of all,
• 39:11
  and then we'll introduce her and then then the Doctor once he's
• 39:16
  already. If he's already introduced his
• 39:17
  Doctor before then, then that is going to be a bit Ruby Tuesday.
• 39:22
  Sunday. Whatever.
• 39:24
  He knew that, he knew that. I consider it fortunate.
• 39:28
  You know that the three of us like this incredible programme,
• 39:32
  Doctor Who, and we just so happened to have the single best
• 39:36
  pilot of any TV show ever to start it off.
• 39:41
  I'm not sure that that's matched anywhere else.
• 39:45
  Now, I mean look at look at the cage.
• 39:50
  Star Trek. Oh my God.
• 39:51
  No. Well, technically, it's the man
• 39:54
  trap, isn't it? Again, yeah, the second time
• 39:56
  round and look at all, yeah, you know, they're all kind of OK,
• 40:01
  but they're not this. No.
• 40:05
  I think there's there are. There are pilots that are.
• 40:07
  I think Buffy has a great pilot. I think The X-Files has a great
• 40:10
  pilot. There are shows that have good
• 40:11
  pilots, but there's just something tangibly magical about
• 40:16
  this. I don't see anywhere else.
• 40:20
  It's just the mystery of it. It's you know, yet you set the
• 40:25
  mist, you set the mystery up in the first time.
• 40:27
  You've got like 2 offs, really. You've got the half outside the
• 40:30
  tortoise and you've got half inside the tortoise.
• 40:32
  And for the first half, you are just setting up the mystery of
• 40:35
  Susan and saying, you know, he has this girl, she's, you know,
• 40:39
  really good at some things but really not at others.
• 40:46
  You get her into the TARDIS and you start to kind of explain
• 40:49
  these things. But when you're explaining these
• 40:52
  things, you're kind of asking more questions and you're giving
• 40:55
  answers to. So it's like, oh, when you stop
• 40:57
  and think about yes. So it makes a bit sense because
• 40:59
  she's from the future. And so, you know, she doesn't
• 41:02
  count in pounds and shillings and, you know, she's really good
• 41:05
  at science. The experiments we're doing, our
• 41:07
  child's play and just went back in time.
• 41:08
  So the history is, you know, she knows the history is wrong.
• 41:13
  So she can't. You know, she's she's saying it
• 41:16
  what's right but what's been recorded is different.
• 41:18
  So she's getting it wrong, that sort of thing.
• 41:20
  But then you you, you're still getting these questions of
• 41:22
  what's you know, how is this thing bigger on the inside and
• 41:27
  the outside and it's explained by by Hartman then I don't think
• 41:30
  it gets there's another attempt to explain it until.
• 41:33
  Where about to death? Little bit to death, yeah.
• 41:36
  And even that's just a bit of fun, you know?
• 41:39
  And then even after that, I think it's it's, is it Forest of
• 41:42
  the Night until someone else tries.
• 41:45
  Oh, I can't even remember that. That's when it.
• 41:47
  Says it all. Well, he has.
• 41:50
  He has the line about the Is it fascinating?
• 41:53
  It's something about Coke. It's like, do you know how
• 41:55
  there's like 7 tablespoons of sugar in your Coke, 1 cup Coke?
• 41:59
  It's like, yeah, there you go. Moffett.
• 42:04
  Jesus Christ. But the explanation about You've
• 42:08
  seen a great big building on your television screen.
• 42:12
  It's really fantastic because it's using something that the
• 42:16
  people who are watching at home are watching on the screen and
• 42:20
  so they yeah, they can absolutely relate to that.
• 42:23
  That's a brilliant piece of writing.
• 42:25
  Well, I sort of thinking like, you know, like the the box, the
• 42:29
  the TV box that they're watching on is a gateway to adventures,
• 42:32
  just as TARDIS is a box which is a gateway to adventures.
• 42:36
  Well folks, should we go and have some adventures then?
• 42:39
  But I had Let's go find some aliens.
• 42:42
  Let's go find some. Aliens.
• 42:44
  It looked very like an Ice Warrior to me, That shadow.
• 42:48
  To me, Doctor, whose first greatest enemy, the Ice
• 42:51
  Warriors. Oh, sorry, we don't know the
• 42:53
  name of them yet, do we? Don't.
• 42:55
  Nothing has been decided. Oh, I'll cut it there.
• 43:00
  Oh. God, I had terrible trouble.
• 43:03
  Why? Because.
• 43:05
  I played the wrong episode. Oh my God.
• 43:11
  Right, right. OK, right.
• 43:13
  Try and and the player on this. I should have with Brit box
• 43:17
  because it just works. I did one the other day where
• 43:21
  honest to God I had to watch it on a DVD player.
• 43:24
  The DVD broke a 10 minutes in and what was he watching?
• 43:28
  Oh, scream with a shower car I was doing on dealers and and
• 43:33
  also I was. I was.
• 43:34
  Just taking their cues and making it up.
• 43:36
  The whole thing to. Be honest.
• 43:38
  No one's ever.