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

Transcript

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

• 0:39
  Hello and welcome back to Hamster with a Blonde pan Knife
• 0:42
  where Joe Ford, Simon Exton and Ken Moss are mooning and
• 0:45
  bouncing around in the Moon Base episode 1.
• 0:50
  Mooning, you say? Good grief, I'm wearing far too
• 0:53
  many clothes for that. You know, Sargon.
• 0:55
  Oh well, the knight is young. Indeed, indeed.
• 0:59
  And you just mentioned Ken. I can't help but notice an
• 1:02
  absence of him here. On this, well, he should have
• 1:04
  been here, but he has stuff to do apparently.
• 1:07
  A. Life.
• 1:09
  Earning money I think is what he's doing, so I think we'll let
• 1:14
  him let him off that. But he's here in spirit is.
• 1:16
  It through illicit means or you know perfectly, you know nice
• 1:20
  what nice means. I I don't ask questions.
• 1:22
  No best. Not life is much easier that
• 1:24
  way. Well, look, you've just talked
• 1:27
  about us bouncing and mooning. What could we possibly be here
• 1:30
  to talk about today? One of the one of my absolute
• 1:35
  high points of happy time. Doctor Who, the Moon base.
• 1:40
  Now can I? Tell you something, right?
• 1:42
  Because you may not have heard this, but I put out a Strictly
• 1:45
  come hamster on Season 4 fairly recently.
• 1:49
  And Rod was there and Toby Haydock was there and Mark
• 1:52
  Donaldson from on the Time Lash. They all hated this.
• 1:57
  And I was the lone voice like, but the lone person holding up
• 2:01
  the flag for the moon base. So I'm truly hoping today after
• 2:06
  you know all that negativity, that you and me are going to
• 2:08
  turn it around for this story today.
• 2:10
  So if this was their low point of the season, what was their
• 2:13
  high point sort? Of Power of the Daleks.
• 2:16
  Well, power of the Daleks is everybody's.
• 2:17
  Daleks. Matt Patrick.
• 2:20
  Good. Yeah, but no one really liked
• 2:23
  this one. And like, you know, they gave
• 2:25
  sort of reasons. I understood.
• 2:28
  But it's Simon. Men on the Moon.
• 2:32
  Come on. Yeah, I mean, to my mind, the
• 2:35
  low point of Season 4 is the Highlanders, and it's not bad,
• 2:38
  it's just a bit dull. I never remember a single thing
• 2:41
  about it, Simon, you know. It's and it's the one where
• 2:45
  Polly is really out of character because she's she's she's nasty
• 2:49
  to, she's mean and nasty to to Kirsty.
• 2:52
  And that's the the only time she's ever written like that.
• 2:56
  And it was enough, you know, because I remember when Mark and
• 2:59
  Sarah on two or two were covering all of Polly's time.
• 3:03
  Yeah. And Sarah was quite on board
• 3:04
  with Polly until she got to the Highlanders and then she just
• 3:07
  took against the character after that.
• 3:09
  I remember that. And on one hand I think that's a
• 3:15
  bit unfair on the basis of just one story.
• 3:17
  On the other hand, I the way she's written in the
• 3:20
  Highlanders, I can absolutely see why.
• 3:22
  And you know, once you go off something it it's difficult to
• 3:25
  go back. But then I think a lot of that.
• 3:27
  So we'll certainly talk about it in here.
• 3:29
  Poly cocktail and all the fun things that are going on.
• 3:31
  Great things for Trouten. From what I understand, Kit
• 3:36
  Peddler and Jerry Davis both love writing for Polly and they
• 3:41
  enjoyed writing her up as well. And that's kind of refreshing,
• 3:44
  isn't it? And they used to have her dinner
• 3:48
  together as well, 'cause I remember her telling a story
• 3:51
  about how she thought Kit Peddler was this absolute genius
• 3:55
  and she'd introduce him to her friends, Jonathan Miller, who
• 3:59
  was very intellectual as well. And apparently he kind of wiped
• 4:03
  the floor with Kit Peddler from an intellectual perspective,
• 4:07
  because I don't know if you've seen interviews with him, but
• 4:09
  Jonathan Miller is incredibly clever.
• 4:12
  I don't know, was incredibly clever.
• 4:14
  I don't know whether he's still alive or not.
• 4:17
  Camera that meal. Though.
• 4:20
  Oh, absolutely. Well, can I ask you why?
• 4:24
  Why is this one of your all time sort of comfort?
• 4:27
  Doctor Who's then? Why is this one?
• 4:30
  Well, season 4 is kind of my my Happy Place television.
• 4:36
  I love 60s Who I love the feel of it, the aesthetic.
• 4:42
  Burnham, Polly and particularly Polly are my favorite ever
• 4:45
  companions. Trouten.
• 4:47
  Trouten is my favorite Doctor. So season 4 just brings all of
• 4:52
  that together and Jamie's kind of sidelined.
• 4:58
  And it's not that I don't like Jamie.
• 5:00
  I think Jamie with Victoria, Jamie with Zoe is absolutely
• 5:04
  brilliant. But I would have loved it if the
• 5:08
  Highlanders had been just before the Faceless Ones and we'd had
• 5:10
  just a run through of Trout and Ben and Polly.
• 5:14
  I think that would have been wonderful.
• 5:16
  You see it in Para the Daleks, don't you?
• 5:18
  How good it could have been if it was just the three of them
• 5:21
  for a bit longer. Or, depressingly, we don't see
• 5:24
  it. Well, yeah, quite.
• 5:26
  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I love him with Hartnell
• 5:28
  as well. I think that's a great
• 5:29
  underrated team. Hartnell, Annika Wills and
• 5:32
  Michael Crais. I think even though he was being
• 5:34
  a bit of a beast with them on screen, I think it's sparkles.
• 5:38
  Yep, absolutely. And again, it's a real shame
• 5:41
  that we can't see the the smugglers because that looks
• 5:44
  wonderful and the power of the power of the Daleks.
• 5:51
  We wouldn't have a show to watch today if Ben and Polly weren't
• 5:55
  played absolutely as compellingly as they were,
• 5:59
  because they were the ones that kept the show going while it was
• 6:01
  the getting used to the new Doctor and.
• 6:05
  They they didn't even change the formula when the show came back
• 6:08
  in 2005 and Eccleston was out. They did exactly the same thing,
• 6:13
  didn't they? A well established companion
• 6:16
  holding our hand through the transition like they I think
• 6:21
  Davis obviously knows Doctor Who back to front looks at that and
• 6:24
  when yeah that really what we need this like we need we need
• 6:27
  to hand hold the audience a little bit and it's exactly what
• 6:30
  happened in power of the Daleks but even more interesting.
• 6:35
  Oh God, we're talking about power of the Daleks.
• 6:36
  Who cares even more interesting is how he's a bit off isn't he
• 6:41
  in power of the Daleks. It's almost like he like
• 6:45
  throughout the story they have to be convinced that he is the
• 6:48
  Doctor, isn't it? And then by the end when he
• 6:50
  defeats the Daleks, OK, yes, only the Doctor would do that.
• 6:53
  Yeah, and it's and kind of throughout the the story and I
• 6:58
  will stop talking about para the Daleks at some point, even
• 7:02
  though it's my favorite ever Doctor Who story.
• 7:07
  Even throughout certainly the the first few episodes, the
• 7:12
  audience isn't sure what to what to make if they're the new
• 7:15
  Doctor and OK, they're going forward.
• 7:18
  It was always the post regeneration confusion.
• 7:21
  But this is the first time anybody had seen it.
• 7:23
  And if if it hadn't been for Michael Crais and Annika Wills
• 7:26
  just doing such a good job of selling the show again, I don't
• 7:31
  think we'd have one. And.
• 7:33
  What's super interesting is you read the behind the scenes of
• 7:37
  the Moonbase and you listen to the documentary, and Annika
• 7:40
  Wills tells the story that Trout had sort of been gooning his way
• 7:44
  through the last three stories and having great fun on set and
• 7:48
  being a bit of an anarchist. And then Morris Barry came in.
• 7:52
  And slapped him down, no. No, no, no, no, we aren't doing
• 7:55
  that. You hit your marks, you say your
• 7:56
  lines, and there is a tangible difference, I think, in Trout
• 8:01
  and in the moon base from the three that go before it.
• 8:04
  He is suddenly taking the role seriously in a way that he
• 8:08
  perhaps hasn't before. Yeah.
• 8:10
  And I mean, everybody says this is this is the point where he
• 8:14
  found found his feet. It's probably this is the point
• 8:17
  where his feet were nailed to the floor.
• 8:20
  Well, we've got 4 episodes to talk about the moon base, so I
• 8:23
  do want to ask you one more question before we go into
• 8:25
  episode one. That's the animated episode 1.
• 8:28
  Everybody, by the way, why the 60s now?
• 8:32
  Do you sort of does your interest lessen as you go into
• 8:35
  colour? What's What is it about the 60s
• 8:38
  that you love? I, I don't really know 'cause
• 8:41
  I'm, I mean, I do like 60's pop culture outside of, of Doctor
• 8:47
  Who. I, I like 60s music.
• 8:49
  I, I grew up around 60s music 'cause it, that was my mum, mum
• 8:53
  and dad's record collection. I could say I was born in the
• 8:59
  60s, but it was very tail end. It has just always massively
• 9:07
  appealed and one of my favorite scenes in any of Doctor Who is
• 9:13
  the Inferno in the War Machines. Oh, the hottest nice spot in
• 9:18
  town you've been. That would be it.
• 9:20
  I'll. Dig your fab gear.
• 9:22
  I would say with about the 60s, if you took out Season 5,
• 9:27
  because Season 5 is quite formulaic.
• 9:29
  Yeah, the rest of the 60s, it's so I think 6 and 4 is as well.
• 9:35
  They're so vastly experimental. It's the show just sort of
• 9:38
  saying we could do anything. We can go anywhere.
• 9:40
  Let's just go anywhere before you sort of go into identifiable
• 9:45
  periods. The unit era, the Gothic horror,
• 9:48
  the sort of the Cam battle spaciness of Graham Williams,
• 9:51
  The whatever happened in the 80s.
• 9:55
  Yeah. I just, it just feels like you
• 9:57
  can go anywhere. And I think that's never better
• 9:59
  exemplified than when, you know, they slap down a script on Anika
• 10:03
  Wills's mat saying we're going to take you to the moon before
• 10:07
  we've even gone to the moon, and there's going to be Cybermen
• 10:10
  there waiting for you. Wonderful.
• 10:13
  Absolutely. Well, look, do you want to count
• 10:17
  us into episode 1 and let's see what treasures are to be found
• 10:21
  in the moon base? Right.
• 10:23
  So I'll countdown from 3, 321 go.
• 10:29
  How do you find the animation? Pretty good.
• 10:38
  It captures the regulars reasonably well.
• 10:43
  It is certainly one of the better ones because there there
• 10:47
  have been some dreadful, dreadful animations.
• 10:51
  Oh. You've seen the Reign of Terror,
• 10:52
  have you? Oh, with Hartnell and his
• 10:56
  millions of teeth and. Cut like a Quentin Tarantino
• 11:00
  movie. Yeah, the worst of the lot, by
• 11:05
  far the worst of the lot is Web of Fear 3.
• 11:07
  It's almost unwatchable. Yeah, You know, those sort of
• 11:10
  those, those balloon men you see outside car repair places, you
• 11:14
  know, sort of going back and forth in the wind.
• 11:16
  That's what they all look like in the web of fear, isn't it?
• 11:18
  It's very old. Yeah, and I, I like the way
• 11:23
  they've got a sort of pop art style in this.
• 11:27
  They do they do a similar they about my favorite animation
• 11:32
  style is probably the Invasion. That was the first one, wasn't?
• 11:38
  It. Yeah, I think that's beautifully
• 11:40
  done. Yeah, well, because I don't
• 11:42
  think they're really going for what was on the telly snap.
• 11:45
  So I think they are doing that more here.
• 11:47
  But, you know, they use sort of shadow really well, don't they,
• 11:50
  in silhouette and things like that.
• 11:52
  I think we're going to see some quite impressive stuff.
• 11:56
  OK Do you think Doctor Who going to the moon is Doctor Who sort
• 12:01
  of getting ahead of the game? Because obviously there's a bit
• 12:03
  of a race at the moment, isn't it, as to whoever can get to the
• 12:05
  moon first? Well.
• 12:09
  I mean you three years before it here, but.
• 12:13
  It's still it's in the air though, isn't it?
• 12:15
  That that. They are so, but at this point
• 12:18
  it was an actual race because at this point, pre 67, it was
• 12:25
  actually looking as though the Russians might get there first.
• 12:30
  Oh, have you seen For All Mankind?
• 12:31
  No. What's that?
• 12:33
  Oh, it's a Netflix I think. Netflix or Amazon Prime?
• 12:38
  No, pretty sure it's Netflix. Recent sci-fi series about what
• 12:47
  happened if the Russians got to the moon first.
• 12:50
  Because the thing that gave the Americans their real edge was
• 12:53
  that the head of the Russian space programme was killed in a
• 12:56
  car crash in 67 and the Americans were able to to leap
• 13:01
  ahead. But with For All Mankind, it's
• 13:04
  the Russians get there first. It becomes a real space race and
• 13:07
  they both set up moon bases and then end up with a a race to
• 13:12
  Mars and then colonising Mars. It is it's absolutely fantastic.
• 13:17
  And we'll check that out. Each season covers about a
• 13:20
  decade. So season 1 is sort.
• 13:22
  Of so, so it's an alternative timeline and you just see it go
• 13:25
  on and on and. On Yeah do.
• 13:27
  You know this is ringing about. I think someone's recommended
• 13:30
  this to me before. It's really good and it's got 1
• 13:34
  scene that lots of people talk about where they just smash the
• 13:37
  beshdel test apart because it's a a scene with a couple of
• 13:45
  astronauts, both of whom are women.
• 13:48
  All three of the mission controllers are women, and the
• 13:54
  American president who is addressing them is a woman.
• 13:58
  Well, I mean, I don't think we're going to see the best old
• 14:00
  test smashed in this story. We're.
• 14:02
  Watching. Well, no, that that's very true.
• 14:04
  We'll see a lot of coffee getting made.
• 14:06
  But now you know what the the set designer goes.
• 14:11
  You know when they did go to the moon?
• 14:13
  Yeah. And the sort of grainy footage
• 14:15
  came back. He goes.
• 14:16
  We didn't do too badly actually when we did these sets.
• 14:21
  And actually they do better than Moonbase 3 does.
• 14:24
  What about 8 years later, after they'd actually been to the
• 14:30
  moon? I mean, don't you love all this
• 14:33
  stuff on Kirby Wise, You know, flying about the kids must have
• 14:36
  loved this. Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:39
  And you can see in Episode 4 where they're repelling the the
• 14:43
  Cybermen just how much fun this must have been.
• 14:47
  I mean, it's telling, it's telling Simon that at the tail
• 14:51
  end of Hartnell's time, so around the Savages, Yeah, the,
• 14:54
  the, the show's getting about four or five million viewers.
• 14:58
  This is the highest rated trout and, and every episode got 8
• 15:02
  million. So I think they've got the, the
• 15:04
  hot new TARDIS crew in that the kids have loved.
• 15:06
  We've got a new Doctor in who's a lot of fun that the kids love.
• 15:09
  And then we go to the moon and then we add Simon sort of mix.
• 15:13
  And no wonder we're over 8,000,000 per episode.
• 15:17
  Yeah. Do you want to know my theory
• 15:22
  about the TARDIS at this point? Please.
• 15:26
  I think the Doctor has been able to control the TARDIS since
• 15:29
  Master plan with the monks directional unit.
• 15:33
  Because at the beginning of this it's all about I'll take you to
• 15:36
  Mars and the only reason they don't get there is because the
• 15:39
  gravitron gets in the way. There are other things, like the
• 15:44
  Doctor offering to return Victoria home at the end of
• 15:50
  Evil, or take Zoe back to the to the wheel in the at the end of
• 15:55
  Wheel in Space or later on in the show's history, how Victoria
• 16:02
  manages to disappear often study graphology for a bit so.
• 16:09
  I mean from story to story, right?
• 16:10
  I mean, generally speaking, he's not trying to get apart from
• 16:14
  this story. He's not really trying to get
• 16:15
  anywhere, is he in in this era? I, I think he was a he's been
• 16:21
  able to control the TARDIS and because he was, because the
• 16:26
  Hartner was desperate not to be alone after Susan and Ian and
• 16:30
  Barbara went, he just didn't tell people that he could
• 16:32
  control the TARDIS. Bless him.
• 16:35
  And then by the time Ben and Polly come come along and
• 16:38
  they've been sold the lie, Troughton can't walk back on it.
• 16:44
  And then Jamie hears about it and he's constantly, oh, you
• 16:50
  know, that he doesn't know how to control the TARDIS, blah blah
• 16:54
  blah. One of the complaints that was
• 17:00
  voiced during that strictly was about how this great, you know,
• 17:04
  base on the moon, it's just there to control the weather.
• 17:09
  And I think somebody said, you know, why is that even
• 17:11
  important? And isn't that a bit boring?
• 17:13
  I mean, have you seen what's going on in the world right now?
• 17:15
  If we could control the weather, yeah, we can make a lot of
• 17:19
  difference. Yep, absolutely.
• 17:22
  And. I think that's the sort of big
• 17:25
  sci-fi idea, that Doctor Who, it just goes like a hand into a
• 17:29
  glove, you know? That's a great idea.
• 17:31
  Yeah, and they will be there to control the weather because it's
• 17:35
  making money for somebody. Is that ever mentioned in this?
• 17:39
  I don't think. Like we learn about the
• 17:42
  political angle of controlling the weather, don't we?
• 17:45
  But they talk about Controller Rinberg talks about how they
• 17:51
  made all these agreements with land owners and farmers and and
• 17:55
  all of this sort of thing. Oh, OK, so it's in the ether.
• 17:58
  Yeah, Now there's a lot of talk about how misogynistic this
• 18:04
  story is because there's no female characters other than
• 18:07
  Polly. But when they turn up, they are
• 18:11
  thought of as the as a relief crew, and nobody bats an eyelid
• 18:17
  that Polly is there. So they must be used to having
• 18:22
  female crew members on the moon. I mean that I I do agree with
• 18:26
  you there, but I do also think there should be some women
• 18:29
  amongst that crew. Yeah, yeah, so do I.
• 18:34
  You know we need a Doctor Ruth Ingram in there somewhere, don't
• 18:36
  we one? Of my favorite ever characters.
• 18:41
  Doesn't Liz Shaw end up on the moon base in the end?
• 18:44
  She does in the books. Yeah.
• 18:46
  Oh yeah. Very miserable book at that.
• 18:51
  Do you know I love the I do love the quilted space suits and the
• 18:55
  massive goldfish bowl helmets. Very 60s.
• 19:02
  And compared to some of the other animations, they're
• 19:06
  actually they're doing a pretty good job with the faces.
• 19:09
  Yeah, there's a bit of, there's sort of fluidity with the face,
• 19:11
  isn't it? Nowadays, I think the budgets
• 19:14
  have been cut a bit. It is just stock reactions.
• 19:18
  And there's one I saw recently, I can't remember which which one
• 19:23
  it is, but Ben is quite angular about the jaw and it looks a
• 19:31
  little bit bow selector. No, actually, I see I've got
• 19:36
  Michael Crazy's image on my screen now, and that absolutely
• 19:39
  looks like Michael Crazy there. Yeah, and.
• 19:45
  I I've got a question for you about base under siege, because
• 19:49
  that that is exactly what this is.
• 19:51
  They've sort of looked at the 10th planet and gone.
• 19:53
  That worked really well. One big set.
• 19:56
  We'll put all the money into that and we'll have the aliens
• 19:59
  come. Suspense, action, Lovely.
• 20:01
  And then this is our second attempt, a bit more stylish, a
• 20:04
  bit more money. Is this a good formula for
• 20:07
  Doctor Who? It's a fantastic formula for
• 20:10
  Doctor Who. I mean there's an argument that
• 20:13
  it gets overused and particularly in Season 5, but
• 20:20
  I've been in fandom a long time and I've talked to people who
• 20:22
  watched season 5 first time around and they said because
• 20:27
  each one was spread over 6 episodes.
• 20:30
  Yeah. You didn't, you didn't sort of
• 20:33
  pick up on the fact that it was and it wasn't the same story,
• 20:38
  but it they were similar settings.
• 20:40
  There's usually one intransigent base commander, isn't there?
• 20:44
  Someone who's rebellious? A group of monsters attacking
• 20:48
  for whatever reason. Yeah, there are like, familiar
• 20:51
  plot beats. I mean, I've got people watching
• 20:54
  the whole of five at the moment. Yeah, for for the strictly of
• 20:57
  that scene. And they're going, oh, God,
• 20:59
  these are so repetitive. But they're not supposed to be
• 21:01
  watched like that one. They're not supposed to be
• 21:03
  watched in succession, and you're not supposed to watch all
• 21:05
  of it. Yeah, and it's like, it's like
• 21:09
  the War Games. The War Games is a brilliant
• 21:10
  story, absolutely brilliant. But if you try and watch all 10
• 21:13
  episodes back-to-back, you will notice all of the repetition.
• 21:18
  If you watch an episode or two at the at a time, it is
• 21:23
  brilliant, absolutely brilliant and.
• 21:25
  Yet weirdly this is a base under siege, but I think you could do
• 21:28
  this in one the moon base. Do do it in one episode or no?
• 21:36
  I mean, no, no, no, no. You could watch it in one go.
• 21:41
  You could watch the. Whole thing.
• 21:42
  Well, it's because it's not 4 part 4 part as you often can,
• 21:46
  no. You can tell this plot in one
• 21:48
  episode. Simon, Jesus Christ, there's
• 21:50
  plenty going on. But yeah, a lot of four part as
• 21:54
  you can just watch right the way through actually some some of
• 21:59
  the latest six part as you can as well.
• 22:04
  Although that a lot of the six particularly per 26 parters were
• 22:08
  really 4 plus twos, weren't they?
• 22:10
  It was sort of 4 episodes and then two episodes somewhere
• 22:13
  else. I actually think, you know, all
• 22:16
  of this suspicion that's greeting the Doctor as he goes
• 22:19
  into the moon base, you know, I don't know who he is, where he's
• 22:22
  come from, and the controller whose name I've already
• 22:25
  forgotten, Robson. RINBERG, OH.
• 22:28
  No, but come up. Hobson.
• 22:31
  Hobson. Jesus Christ, Hobson is, you
• 22:35
  know, being quiet forward with him about, you know, do you
• 22:38
  either figure this out or fuck off, basically, Yeah.
• 22:42
  We lose that a lot in the new series, don't they?
• 22:43
  With the psychic paper and all of that.
• 22:45
  You lose all of that suspicion. And I quite like that in a
• 22:48
  doctor. Yeah.
• 22:48
  And there are certain things in the new series that OK there
• 22:51
  there there is shortcuts to speed the plot along.
• 22:55
  Fair enough. But psychic paper is massively
• 22:58
  overused. The the Sonic screwdriver has
• 23:01
  now basically become a tricorder.
• 23:04
  Yes. It can do anything.
• 23:06
  Tricorder magic plot resolution device.
• 23:10
  That's right. And it can even open a Tinder
• 23:12
  spam if you want it to. Yeah, just anything, absolutely
• 23:14
  anything. But I do like this.
• 23:17
  I like taking your time to get to know the crew.
• 23:20
  I like the the relationships developing throughout the story
• 23:25
  and I know nowadays we tell it all in 45 minutes, but I think
• 23:28
  that's why I prefer a classic coup because it takes its time
• 23:31
  and and it allows itself to indulge in suspense and
• 23:34
  atmosphere and character building.
• 23:35
  And that's that's not to say there aren't modern who stories
• 23:43
  that that don't do a good job at at portraying characters.
• 23:49
  I mean, look at, I don't know, Frank Skinner's character in Oh,
• 23:53
  Mummy, Mummy on the Orient Express.
• 23:55
  Absolutely wonderful. I was going to say Idris and the
• 24:01
  Doctor's Wife, but we're not really supposed to talk about
• 24:03
  the Doctor's wife now. I hear if a Moffett page won't
• 24:06
  rewrite, don't worry about it. That would explain Nightmare and
• 24:11
  Silver. Yeah, apparently it had nothing
• 24:13
  to do with that at all. Now poor old Jamie is stuck in
• 24:19
  bed for about 3 episodes. 02 episodes?
• 24:22
  Isn't it really having been knocked unconscious because of a
• 24:26
  last minute rewrite? Because he was not supposed to
• 24:29
  go with them at the end of The Highlanders?
• 24:33
  Can you feel like, from what I understand, there wasn't tension
• 24:40
  behind the scenes, but I think there was a bit of like, who the
• 24:42
  hell is this Razor Heinz? Like is is there something there
• 24:46
  in these stories? I, I think there's, I mean, I
• 24:53
  think there's plot tension between Ben and Jamie.
• 24:57
  And I mean that that comes up in, in this where OK, it's a
• 25:03
  couple of episodes time, but they, Ben's going to go off and
• 25:10
  fight the, the sidemen with the, the squirty guns and Jamie's
• 25:14
  saying he's fit enough to come along and Ben's saying, no, you
• 25:18
  stay here. And then, then there's the, and
• 25:23
  I'm sure Polly's very impressed and, and Jamie's doing the well.
• 25:27
  Do you want me to prove how, how healthy I am?
• 25:32
  And there's that little bit of tension there, I think.
• 25:34
  There could have been a bit more of that actually, it might have
• 25:37
  been quite interesting to explore that they both liked her
• 25:40
  a bit and. There was a, ah, well, you see,
• 25:43
  I I think they're coming at things from a very different
• 25:48
  direction. Oh go on, what's your theory?
• 25:53
  Well, there's a number of things that in the 60s kind of probably
• 25:58
  weren't written that way, but through modern eyes look quite
• 26:02
  relationshipy. Ian and Barbara are the obvious
• 26:05
  ones. You look at the the lounging
• 26:07
  about Romans in the Romans. Yeah, Jesus.
• 26:11
  Even more obvious is Jamie and Victoria.
• 26:14
  All you need to do is look at that massage chair scene in the
• 26:18
  the Ice Warriors and they the technician wandering along along
• 26:25
  on a mini skirt and Jamie's saying to Victoria, would you
• 26:30
  ever wear wear something like that?
• 26:31
  And we will change the subject. Now with a glint in her eyes as
• 26:36
  if to say, oh, wait until later. Yes, it's a very modern day
• 26:42
  reading, but it's quite fun to do.
• 26:44
  That and then and then and then Jamie is so devastated when
• 26:49
  Victoria leaves. And Troughton, pretty much of
• 26:53
  any leaving companion gives Victoria the the opportunity to
• 26:57
  stay with them. And you can read that as as a
• 27:00
  he's doing that for Jamie because he knows how devastated
• 27:03
  Jamie's going to be. But who else gets the we'll stay
• 27:07
  for we'll stay for the night and you can change your mind.
• 27:09
  Oh, Joe Grant But there there isn't really anybody else.
• 27:15
  Most of the people, it's just sort of, well, Dodo's cocked off
• 27:18
  to the country, I'm away. And so I think that's where
• 27:25
  Jamie is coming from. Now if you in terms of Ben, you
• 27:29
  look at the Inferno nightclub scene where he's there doing
• 27:35
  doing his whole miserable unstuck.
• 27:36
  I'm sure studied this scene a lot.
• 27:39
  Go on. And then Polly comes along, and
• 27:46
  Doctor Who companions are cast because they're good looking.
• 27:52
  In part, they're. Talented as well, but.
• 27:55
  Yeah, yeah, but they wouldn't get through the door if they
• 27:58
  looked like the back end of a bus.
• 28:00
  They're now pretty much to to A1.
• 28:06
  They're talented actors. Some are absolutely outstanding.
• 28:12
  Me, Louise Jameson could act anybody off any stage, and I've
• 28:17
  seen her on stage and she does. Oh, I.
• 28:19
  Have to. Yeah.
• 28:20
  What did you see her in? I saw her in corpse.
• 28:22
  Mousetrap. Wonderful.
• 28:25
  Yeah, she was she was Mrs. Boyle brilliant, brilliant performance
• 28:30
  and the but the the companions tend to be good looking girl
• 28:42
  next door type. I would say the two exceptions
• 28:47
  who are absolutely stunningly model level beautiful.
• 28:52
  Annika Wills, Mary Tam. I was going to say Mary Tam.
• 28:55
  I mean she she is Bollywood actress looks isn't she?
• 28:59
  Mary Tam, as is Annika Wills. So you've got this stunning
• 29:04
  model looking woman coming up to somebody who's supposed to be
• 29:09
  playing a a young working class sailor and basically hitting,
• 29:14
  hitting on him and he's not particularly interested.
• 29:17
  You're not going to tell me you think Ben Jackson is gay, are
• 29:20
  you? Yep, I knew.
• 29:23
  That's where you were going, He. Only starts getting interested
• 29:28
  when she gets into trouble with Laughing Boy and needs
• 29:32
  protecting, and then he's all over it and the ice is broken.
• 29:36
  And then you have that bit later where he's leaping up and down
• 29:39
  on the dance floor with them. They all go back to the bar and
• 29:42
  he's paying exactly the same bit of same amount of attention to
• 29:45
  Dodo, who is a pretty school kid but a school kid as he is to
• 29:50
  Polly, who is. I'm going to make a suggestion
• 29:53
  though right there. You've just accused other people
• 29:55
  of giving a modern reading. Oh, it's a very modern reading.
• 30:00
  Maybe you've just done the same thing there.
• 30:02
  Yeah, well, yeah. It's it's a massively modern
• 30:04
  reading and. Don't get me wrong, I want to
• 30:06
  see it as well, trust me. And I'm sure that Ben and Polly
• 30:11
  were written the way that they were so that they could be seen
• 30:15
  as mates lurking about in space and nothing untoward.
• 30:22
  Actually, do you know what? No, no, no, I think you've
• 30:24
  actually dumped me a favour there because when you take away
• 30:25
  the sort of coupley thing and then you've got the Dolly bird
• 30:28
  and the sort of common gay best friend, that's an even more fun
• 30:32
  mix. Yeah, so it becomes Polly the
• 30:35
  Beard. It does.
• 30:36
  It does. I thought this conversation was
• 30:41
  going today. How wonderful.
• 30:44
  Oh, and Loki, who's just died? Doctor Evans in in real life
• 30:49
  he's skin sales boyfriend. Oh, Alan Rowe's boyfriend.
• 30:56
  Yeah. I didn't know that.
• 30:58
  Or is that Alan Rowe? Or.
• 31:00
  Maybe it is Alan Rowe, I'm not sure.
• 31:04
  His other half was an actor who's in Doctor Who as well.
• 31:07
  Oh, it's Geoffrey Belden, isn't it?
• 31:09
  Alan Rowe and Geoffrey Belden. I swear they were a couple.
• 31:12
  Were they? Yeah, I could be making that up.
• 31:16
  So apologies fat fans, but Doctor Evans has died and
• 31:22
  unfortunately, Simon, there is a deadly plague sweeping the moon
• 31:28
  base. With with makeup that lined all
• 31:33
  over his. That was a nice shadow, isn't
• 31:38
  it? Yeah, yeah.
• 31:40
  Cyber Shadow. Yeah, with make up that doesn't
• 31:43
  actually follow the lines of the nerves under the skin, but that
• 31:45
  is being a little bit geeky. Don't.
• 31:47
  You think it's a nice effect for the time?
• 31:49
  Yeah, it's a very nice effect. I mean, it changes every time
• 31:52
  you look at it. Oh.
• 31:55
  God, I've got the subtitles on and Polly just went I.
• 32:00
  I think that means she just screamed.
• 32:02
  I think you're probably right. But they're doing, I mean,
• 32:05
  what's interesting about this is they've called it the Moon Base,
• 32:09
  and obviously they're doing Cyberman.
• 32:10
  It's very unusual for a Cyberman story to not mention the
• 32:13
  Cybermen, right? Actually, no, it's not really,
• 32:15
  is it? Well for the the 1st 2 didn't
• 32:17
  because 10th planet didn't and then this didn't and earth.
• 32:20
  Shock doesn't. Silver Nemesis doesn't.
• 32:22
  Invasion doesn't. Wheel in space doesn't OK.
• 32:26
  There's my argument out the. Window.
• 32:27
  So there's what, two men? Revenge.
• 32:29
  But they're doing that sort of Terry Nation thing, aren't they?
• 32:31
  Keeping the the monsters off screen in Episode 1 for the
• 32:35
  reveal at the end of the episode, Yeah.
• 32:41
  And actually at this point, the audience wouldn't have known
• 32:44
  what was what was coming in terms of monsters.
• 32:46
  Now you couldn't do that because they'd be all the pre publicity.
• 32:50
  Well, and you know, like the, I don't know if the animation is
• 32:53
  sticking exactly to what was on the screen, but I just saw a
• 32:56
  pair of jug handles silhouetted on that wall.
• 32:58
  So I that might have been a clue for me, you know, and why do the
• 33:01
  sidemen are quite new at this point, aren't they?
• 33:03
  I mean. And it is almost the end of the
• 33:05
  episode. Annika Wills says that she was
• 33:09
  so surprised because the 10th planet went out and within weeks
• 33:13
  of the 10th planet going out, the scripts landed for the moon
• 33:16
  base. So she was like, wow, these were
• 33:18
  a success. Like if we're doing Cyberman
• 33:21
  again this quickly, what do you think about the I mean, I might
• 33:26
  ask this in episode 2. Actually, No, no, I'm going to
• 33:28
  ask it now. What do you reckon to the
• 33:30
  redesign? Then?
• 33:30
  Obviously we've gone away from the sock faces into metal,
• 33:34
  Mickey. I like both, though there pretty
• 33:39
  much isn't a Cyberman design that I don't like apart from the
• 33:44
  turning it into the Borg in Nightmare and Silver.
• 33:47
  Oh, mind you, nobody likes Nightmare and Silver set Michael
• 33:50
  Storm. But nevermind him.
• 33:53
  Oh my God, it's you, the Phantom Paper.
• 33:57
  Oh, look at that. I'm I'm not entirely sure what
• 34:01
  those Electro nipple cover things.
• 34:03
  Jamie's got up because it's not really where you put monitoring
• 34:08
  wires and. They're not monitoring wires.
• 34:11
  You know, Simon, I'm not going to stress you've had us showered
• 34:16
  life sexually. I'm certainly not going to
• 34:18
  suggest that. But you know, they're kinky.
• 34:20
  Bunch on the moon base. Have you not seen Fraser eyes?
• 34:23
  It's very pretty. It's a good cliffhanger, I
• 34:26
  think. That's it is It's an excellent
• 34:28
  cliffhanger. Because mind you, would people
• 34:31
  know that they are the Cybermen given they look so different?
• 34:36
  But it's even if they didn't, it's a good, effective looking
• 34:40
  monster that has obviously been causing a lot of chaos.
• 34:47
  And it's a what is that thing? We'll TuneIn next week and find
• 34:52
  out. And I, I just think word of
• 34:55
  mouth around Doctor Who on the Moon would have gone round in
• 34:59
  the playground enough for and that's why the ratings kept
• 35:02
  climbing throughout this story, I think.
• 35:04
  I think, I think sometimes the premise is big enough to get its
• 35:07
  hooks into the kids and then for more people to just come back,
• 35:11
  like when the Daleks first went out and things like that.
• 35:14
  Yeah, and then came back with Dalek invasion.
• 35:17
  Earth don't. You like that one?
• 35:20
  I love it. Oh good.
• 35:22
  Absolutely love it, I prefer the film.
• 35:26
  Well, don't we all? That's got Philip magic in it,
• 35:28
  after all. And Peter Cushing, who is, he's
• 35:34
  just marvellous in it. Can I go out on episode one with
• 35:38
  a quote from Peter Cushing from that movie?
• 35:40
  Nothing to do with the moon base, but I just want to say it.
• 35:43
  We've not actually said very much about the moon base.
• 35:45
  We've been chatting about everything since.
• 35:46
  We've got three more episodes. Don't we have that?
• 35:48
  People are very kind on this podcast.
• 35:50
  As long as we're saying something interesting, I'm just
• 35:52
  going to go out saying I am Doctor Who.
• 35:54
  This is my niece Louise, this is my grandfather.
• 35:57
  Oh, no, I've forgotten the line. Granddaughter Susan.
• 35:59
  And this is my Time Machine TARDIS, and for some reason I'm
• 36:04
  going to cut the episode there.