Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to James Lark about his choice of Mawdryn Undead (2/4)

Transcript

Talks to James Lark about his choice of Mawdryn Undead (2/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:36
  Welcome back to the Morden Undead chat show.
• 0:40
  Later on I'll be talking to Valgard and Segard of the
• 0:43
  Vanier, who run a place called Terminus.
• 0:46
  But before we get on to that, I'm with Mr. Joe Ford.
• 0:49
  Joe, how are you? Hello.
• 0:52
  When are they coming? I'm like, you know, I went on a
• 0:55
  date with Valgard once. You know, he kept trying to slip
• 0:58
  this sort of luminous liquid in my drink.
• 1:02
  You know that's that's funny because I went on a date with
• 1:05
  Bore once and his dog kept walking into the room.
• 1:08
  Massive giant thing. I don't know if you're doing
• 1:12
  Irish, Welsh or. American and and that's probably
• 1:15
  this as well, because no one can get offended.
• 1:17
  But that's true. Yeah, sort of sort of a hybrid
• 1:20
  of oh, hybrid, yeah, that may be.
• 1:24
  I don't know how kind of authentically Irish Terry
• 1:27
  Wogan's accent was by the end of his career.
• 1:29
  It was very gentle sort. Of cultivating Yeah.
• 1:33
  Show accent, Wasn't it chat show accent?
• 1:36
  What was Gloria Hunniford's accent?
• 1:39
  Oh well, she was she Irish, She showed Northern Irish, wasn't
• 1:43
  she? Because Karen Keating was her
• 1:45
  daughter and that was fair. And I remember there were
• 1:48
  letters of complaint from posh people when she became a Blue
• 1:51
  Peter presenter because all the kids would start talking in
• 1:54
  Northern Irish. Really.
• 1:56
  Well, that was the that was the theory.
• 1:58
  How did we get it already? I'm fine.
• 2:03
  We've had this nowadays, should I just talk about any old thing?
• 2:05
  And people, TuneIn, you know, it's like, yeah, it's just a
• 2:08
  hanging with. Mates and listening or is it
• 2:10
  very much background noise at this stage?
• 2:12
  It's just just, it's just sort of on there.
• 2:14
  It's. What are you suggesting?
• 2:17
  Well, I mean, I listen to every word, don't I?
• 2:19
  I should. Certainly hope that you take
• 2:21
  good. I shall be giving you a quiz at
• 2:23
  the end of this. Yeah, possibly.
• 2:26
  Well, I mean, I think with a lot of podcasts, sometimes it is
• 2:30
  company, isn't it? More than like, you know what I
• 2:32
  mean? Do you?
• 2:33
  Like, rarely do I really focus in on all the finer details what
• 2:38
  everybody's talking about in a podcast.
• 2:42
  Yeah, I think that's probably, probably right.
• 2:43
  I think podcasts have have sort of they've replaced talk radio
• 2:47
  for a lot of people, haven't they?
• 2:49
  It's just a load of bloody noise.
• 2:52
  What podcasts? Yeah.
• 2:54
  There's a lot I mean. There's a lot of people.
• 2:56
  Talking there's probably there's probably a, a future point where
• 3:01
  everyone is recording a podcast all of the time and they're
• 3:06
  never listen no one, no one's able to listen to any of them
• 3:08
  because. Do you think everybody will
• 3:10
  record 1000 episodes like me? I think you are the pioneer.
• 3:15
  You're the sign of what's to come.
• 3:17
  What people just going on and on and on.
• 3:21
  Absolutely that. Yeah.
• 3:22
  Well, let's go on and on and on and talk about more defense
• 3:24
  then. Now we're talking about episode
• 3:28
  2 today. Now I may ask you a question.
• 3:31
  Is this the Was it the Time Traveller's Wife or Episode 2 of
• 3:34
  Morden Undead that was the greatest inspiration to Stephen
• 3:37
  Moffett and his period of Doctor Who?
• 3:41
  So I know that you said Day of the Daleks, but that's quite a
• 3:45
  different dual time frame scenario.
• 3:49
  It's so far in the future. It's it's it's almost more like
• 3:56
  kind of when the Doctor gets in the TARDIS and goes to a
• 3:58
  different kind of location in mid story, which happens very
• 4:01
  rarely as well in classic hoop. But in this story, it's being in
• 4:06
  the same location five years apart.
• 4:10
  The potency of that. I can't believe that it took
• 4:13
  them 20 years to do a story that involved seeing the same people
• 4:18
  in the same place, just with this short gap of time.
• 4:21
  It it feels so obvious when you see it, but clearly wasn't.
• 4:25
  What's impressive about it, Steven Moffett, please take me a
• 4:30
  note, is how simply Peter Grimwed gets the idea across by
• 4:36
  having scenes one after another. My Tegan, your Tegan, they're
• 4:39
  the same person, the Brigadiers in both of those things.
• 4:42
  It's so clear. It's a complicated idea, you
• 4:45
  know, to get your head around, but it's so economically
• 4:48
  presented. I think that's really
• 4:50
  impressive. With beautiful clarity and also
• 4:53
  hats off to Peter Moffett. Well, and, and to some extent
• 5:00
  the design I, I guess that that decision to just redress the
• 5:06
  Brigadier's house with some different foliage.
• 5:09
  You know, the flowers that he's planting in in the in the past
• 5:13
  scenes are they're fully grown in the in the present scenes
• 5:16
  that that very subtle thing they've done with his hair as
• 5:19
  well, like. Yeah, it's so convincingly.
• 5:23
  Five years younger, isn't he Which?
• 5:24
  Is that what? And just because he's grey in
• 5:26
  one, He's got dark hair, he looks smarter, he's dressed
• 5:30
  smarter, they've got some more. Effort than I wouldn't
• 5:32
  necessarily expect for this, this, this era of television,
• 5:37
  full stop. But it really convinces I think.
• 5:40
  What's interesting then is after two, we sort, I know we have the
• 5:44
  two brigadiers, but it's not, and we bring them into the
• 5:49
  future, but we don't read that idea that they're dealing with
• 5:52
  in this episode. It's sort of abandoned here,
• 5:54
  isn't it? It.
• 5:55
  Kind of is, yeah. Which is a bit of a shame,
• 5:57
  because it is it is clever. I think this is.
• 5:59
  Probably the my favorite episode of the story for that reason and
• 6:05
  in and there's some interesting stuff going to kick off as well
• 6:08
  with Mordrin. Are you a keen lover of
• 6:11
  spaghetti Bolognese, James? No.
• 6:15
  And I'm not a a particular lover of the of the design of Mordrin,
• 6:21
  full stop, for all kinds of reasons.
• 6:23
  But I am a fan of David Collins. And it's just it just suddenly
• 6:29
  just struck me. We've we've not been introduced
• 6:31
  to the, you know, the titular character in episode 1 at all,
• 6:35
  have we? You know that is all still to
• 6:37
  come. It should be called Turlo and
• 6:41
  the EarthLink dilemma at this point, shouldn't it?
• 6:44
  Yeah. Well, should we go in and watch
• 6:47
  this fabulous episode and see what riches it has to offer?
• 6:52
  I think we should. Hey, well, outside this you
• 6:56
  could. Oh, I should count it in then.
• 6:57
  Well, we'll go in in 54321. Like most false Jeopardy
• 7:08
  cliffhangers, the way out of it is rather disappointing.
• 7:15
  A slight explosion and they both fall back and the rock was.
• 7:18
  It was it. Jason Thompson did it ranked all
• 7:21
  of the Doctor Who cliffhangers. It went for well, it wasn't a
• 7:23
  rank. It went for everyone in order
• 7:26
  and scored. Them and what and and how did
• 7:28
  this one score do you recall I to?
• 7:29
  God, I don't have a clue, do you know?
• 7:31
  I mean, some of my favourites. It was very harsh.
• 7:34
  And again, it's all subjective, isn't it?
• 7:38
  I think, I think in the mid 80s, yeah, it swings one or two ways,
• 7:44
  right? There's no in between.
• 7:45
  They're either really great cliffhangers or they're really
• 7:49
  terrible. At least this cliffhanger, which
• 7:51
  you're right, it's false jeopardy, but at least it is
• 7:53
  thematically consistent. At the start of episode 1, Telo
• 7:56
  is assigned to kill the Doctor. At the end of episode 1, he is
• 8:00
  going to kill the doctor. It it it makes sense.
• 8:04
  That was a real rock, wasn't it? I mean, I just saw that rock go
• 8:07
  bouncing off there down the hill.
• 8:09
  Maybe it wasn't Mark Strickson's acting after.
• 8:12
  All James, are we In Sync here? I just want to make sure.
• 8:15
  Metallic thrumming, Yes. OK, brilliant.
• 8:19
  OK, I'm all in favour of metallic thrumming.
• 8:21
  Is that is the metallic thrumming the TARDIS noise?
• 8:24
  Why? Why the hell are they not?
• 8:26
  Regulating too much for warp where?
• 8:30
  I'm not sure it'd been invented yet, you know.
• 8:32
  Oh no, it was probably in the comics.
• 8:34
  Wasn't. Italy, absolutely in the comics.
• 8:36
  Yeah. I don't think.
• 8:37
  That's the first warp. That's a a good question, and
• 8:41
  I'm sure that one of your listeners will write in with the
• 8:44
  answer. That's right.
• 8:45
  Perhaps the listeners come along.
• 8:47
  It doesn't. Date back to the very early
• 8:50
  comics, the ones for TV action? Or is it a late?
• 8:53
  Is it a Doctor Who magazine invention?
• 8:55
  I reckon it came in, you know, when Doctor Who Weekly came in,
• 8:59
  probably there. But let's say that let's let's
• 9:02
  say that's what happened. AI do your work.
• 9:04
  There we go. Please print that.
• 9:06
  That can be a fact from now on. Can I ask you a really geeky
• 9:09
  question? Yes, yeah.
• 9:11
  So do you prefer the pre or post 5 doctors console room?
• 9:18
  Oh post. You like all those buttons and
• 9:21
  screens? I do, I think it's partly
• 9:28
  context isn't it? You're so used to seeing the pre
• 9:33
  5 doctors console looking so tatty.
• 9:37
  Yeah. And it really, I mean, it's,
• 9:39
  it's just for all that there's much to love about the Graham
• 9:43
  Williams era, the TARDIS scenes never look anything.
• 9:46
  The floors are dirty, like and. That console is visibly falling
• 9:51
  apart. And I think when you get that
• 9:53
  new one in and sure, it's, it's kind of full of BBC micros and
• 9:57
  and stuff that now it's quite old, but it's, it's a proper
• 10:00
  design job in a way that the TARDIS console hasn't been since
• 10:04
  1963. Like when when, when they walk
• 10:07
  into the TARDIS in an Unearthly Child, it's gobsmacking.
• 10:10
  It's a man. Well, he feels huge.
• 10:13
  Doesn't he does. But it's the right, it's the
• 10:15
  right huge. It's not stupid huge like Shooty
• 10:18
  Gatwa huge. It's yeah, it's big enough to,
• 10:22
  but to be believably inside that box.
• 10:25
  I think the opening scene of Tomb of the Cybermen as well,
• 10:27
  you know when they go in, it's on field and it's echoey.
• 10:30
  There's a bit of height from the.
• 10:32
  Yeah, that's great as well. But it's rare, isn't it, to get
• 10:35
  that sense of scale? And certainly you don't get it
• 10:39
  in this on maker era at all. Good.
• 10:42
  Grief. What is that hideously scarred
• 10:45
  man on the floor? Are you there already?
• 10:49
  Are you winning? What are you watching?
• 10:53
  I swear I'm watching. I'm 3 minutes 35 seconds in.
• 10:58
  I have 3 minutes, 57 seconds in now.
• 11:01
  I'll go down. There you go.
• 11:02
  I've gone back 20 seconds. Are you seeing him now?
• 11:06
  So this is my first point about the Maudrin costuming.
• 11:10
  I was always a little bit upset by the crotchiness of.
• 11:16
  It does look like a nappy, doesn't it?
• 11:17
  I. Mean he's not wearing very much
• 11:20
  I'm not bothered by the but like I'm not bothered by the makeup
• 11:22
  the. That makeup is terrific.
• 11:25
  He looks like he's been through something horrific.
• 11:28
  And he leaves marks on the floor as well, which is always a bit
• 11:31
  gross. In fact, I don't know if that's
• 11:33
  too strong. Look at his knees like he's got
• 11:36
  isn't it pussy knees is horrible.
• 11:39
  And yet the thing that I have always found most upsetting,
• 11:44
  he's the nappy. How do you feel about those
• 11:47
  cannibals in Vegas of virus? Well.
• 11:53
  It was just something happened to you when you were in nappies.
• 11:57
  Is that a childhood trauma? This this was not an an
• 12:00
  awakening for me in the way that Telo in Planet Fire was.
• 12:03
  Oh my God, they just dragged him into the TARDIS and some of his
• 12:08
  burn makeup just smeared across. The floor.
• 12:12
  So why do they suddenly think David Collins is the doctor?
• 12:16
  It's mystifying, isn't it? And that's also kind of
• 12:20
  upsetting because they're looking at the what they think
• 12:22
  is the Doctor's nappy. Some there's like, sorry, part
• 12:25
  of my brain just doesn't want Tegan and Nessa looking at the.
• 12:30
  Doctor in a nappy. Doctors, yeah.
• 12:33
  No, I mean is that. Yeah, no.
• 12:37
  It's a peculiar quirk of yours, but yes, I've got to say as
• 12:42
  well. Oh, boy, I can't get nappies out
• 12:45
  of my head. I've got to say that when he
• 12:48
  goes up to the Brigadier, that earlier scene and shakes his
• 12:51
  hand, right. You can give the Master to the
• 12:54
  5th Doctor. You can give the Cybermen to the
• 12:57
  5th Doctor. Yeah, he's well and truly the
• 13:00
  Doctor when the Brigadier, although he says who are you?
• 13:04
  But when he does recognize him, when the Brigadier endorses him,
• 13:08
  I don't know. There's just something about it
• 13:10
  that I'm like, yes, he's arrived.
• 13:12
  Oh, it's it's yeah, absolutely that I love that they get the
• 13:17
  the 4th Doctor's old coat as well, and.
• 13:19
  I mean, there are bedrooms, why are they setting him up on the
• 13:22
  floor? It's a.
• 13:25
  It's a good question, isn't? It it is like you said, don't
• 13:28
  explore the logic too much. Did you get to see these gardens
• 13:31
  when you visited? No, I think this is in and
• 13:34
  around the school. It's very pretty, though.
• 13:37
  Yeah. Honestly, James, the countryside
• 13:39
  around there, we ever go and do a location one in London?
• 13:42
  Because this is in London. Yeah.
• 13:44
  Yeah, yeah. Seriously.
• 13:45
  And honestly, there's not an enormous swamp in the middle.
• 13:49
  It's incredible. Yeah.
• 13:51
  I'll come to London for the day. We'll do the Maldron undead.
• 13:54
  All right. Well, we will.
• 13:56
  We're going to do the invasion. You're going to show me that
• 13:57
  manhole cover? Well, we're going to do both in
• 13:59
  the day, I'm sure. As long as you're hippo this
• 14:02
  time. All right?
• 14:03
  I want a chance to be turtle over the rock.
• 14:06
  Oh, is he living in that Hut? He's living that Hut.
• 14:10
  Look at, look at, look at the foliage.
• 14:14
  What on the outside or the inside?
• 14:16
  Yeah, on the blueberry, you can actually see them dressing it.
• 14:18
  You can see, you can see the before and after.
• 14:20
  You can see the F that they go to.
• 14:21
  What? They cut back the foliage on the
• 14:22
  outside. Watch it when we go back to
• 14:26
  1977. You you have a look at that that
• 14:29
  Hut. Aye aye Sir.
• 14:32
  Or it does look a bit miserable. I mean, I'm convinced that it's
• 14:35
  a living space, but even my house is bigger than this.
• 14:40
  It's not a it's not a major public school.
• 14:42
  You wouldn't put a teacher up like that in Eaton, would you?
• 14:45
  Oh, is this the bit where we go into oh James this?
• 14:51
  Talk for a moment about the, the special Special in Inverted
• 14:54
  Commas edition of this, which has got the fancy special
• 14:58
  effects and they, we cut this flashback, but they don't cut it
• 15:03
  to the music. So this very carefully scored
• 15:07
  and it's a beautiful, uh, queue where Patty Kingsland throws in
• 15:12
  the Doctor Who theme. Every time the Doctor's face
• 15:14
  appears. They cut different images to it.
• 15:16
  So the Doctor Who themes, they're in the soundtrack and
• 15:18
  it's and it's and it's some Yeti waving a gun.
• 15:21
  They've got a tinker of a knife. Why have?
• 15:24
  You. But it's also what if you're
• 15:25
  going to tinker? Can you not understand what's
• 15:27
  working about this to begin with?
• 15:29
  I actually think that is a really good bit of direction and
• 15:32
  we're not there yet. It sort of goes in slowly on the
• 15:35
  Brigadier's face. Lovely, and they match his face
• 15:37
  so well to the the. Sepia tin of all of the clips,
• 15:41
  the well chosen clips, like you said, the music down, down,
• 15:45
  down, down, down. You know, all of that one lump
• 15:49
  or two, Brigadier sort of echoing as it comes out.
• 15:52
  Just a terrific bit of direction.
• 15:54
  My God, what's happened to me? You can.
• 15:57
  Still do it I do I, I do think. It's you, James.
• 16:00
  You beguile me. This is.
• 16:04
  So this is so beautifully written.
• 16:05
  And of course this is superficially, this is kind of
• 16:08
  the sort of fan wank that would eventually kind of torpedo the
• 16:11
  show to some extent. But because it's a conversation
• 16:15
  between 2 old friends, it's got real dramatic heft.
• 16:19
  So you don't sit there thinking, oh, it's a reference to Liz for
• 16:22
  the fans. You you're drawn into it because
• 16:25
  it's too, it's, it's reminiscing.
• 16:27
  It's two people who ought to know each other.
• 16:29
  But I love the whispering Sarah Jane.
• 16:33
  Look at how they match that shot.
• 16:35
  Oh I love. You good old Paddy.
• 16:38
  I can't actually hear. Can you hear the music?
• 16:40
  I can't, but I can't hear it in my.
• 16:42
  Heart down, down, down, down. And it's, it's got that, oh, I
• 16:48
  can't even explain it. It's sort of like blink, blink,
• 16:51
  blink, blink, blink, you know, playing at the same time.
• 16:54
  It's it's he uses the same sound world as the transformation in
• 16:59
  full circle. You know the where where the the
• 17:02
  spiders are emerging from the the thing.
• 17:06
  And when you see the transformation from the the
• 17:09
  slides, he's got that. There's going to be a terrible
• 17:13
  term for that music. I knew a musician.
• 17:17
  Here we go, the music of the 1980.
• 17:22
  The bit where it pumps in when the giant robot turns around,
• 17:25
  it's like. Oh yeah.
• 17:28
  Fabulous. Who needs words?
• 17:29
  We can just. We can just do.
• 17:32
  We can make noises and hope for the best.
• 17:36
  Oh fabulous, although dangerous, right?
• 17:39
  Showing all those clips when Doctor Who was consistently very
• 17:42
  good. Well, yeah, it's certainly at
• 17:48
  the time. Yeah, sorry, I was.
• 17:49
  My head was still in Paddy. Kingsland.
• 17:51
  What? Because the other association
• 17:53
  with with Kingsland is Hitchhiker's Guide to the
• 17:56
  Galaxy, the radio stack of radio series which he scored all of.
• 18:00
  Yeah, I mean that music, man, his music is it just takes me
• 18:04
  back the mid 80s. Oh, a bit mocking now of it.
• 18:09
  They sort of say it's sort of Zelda risk, you know, like those
• 18:12
  sort of early computer games, but.
• 18:15
  I'm not sure if that's fair. It's it's certainly unlike Howl
• 18:22
  It's it's it, it feels much more of its time.
• 18:26
  How? Uses a lot of instruments,
• 18:28
  doesn't he? Or he does.
• 18:31
  He manipulates sounds more so it doesn't just sound like the,
• 18:35
  the, the, the patches, the samples of the, they wouldn't
• 18:39
  have been samples, but they would have been keyboards of the
• 18:41
  time. Whereas Kingston is absolutely
• 18:43
  wedded to this this set of sounds and he does different
• 18:46
  things with them. And I'm pretty sure this is the
• 18:49
  the it's a real guitar in there as well, isn't it?
• 18:54
  In here, Yeah. Oh, I would.
• 18:57
  Yeah. What?
• 18:58
  He's really going for it. Yes.
• 19:00
  Although, of course, how uses a guitar in the two doctors,
• 19:04
  doesn't he? Oh, man, It's great.
• 19:10
  I really like the 80s scores. I have such affection for the
• 19:13
  80s scores. Poor Nisa.
• 19:17
  She don't get nothing to do in this story, does she?
• 19:20
  Doesn't, I mean, yeah, nothing, nothing.
• 19:23
  But there were there were too many companions, right?
• 19:25
  Yeah, well, you're just, you're introducing Turlo as her
• 19:29
  replacement, and he's far more interesting than her, so why
• 19:32
  would you give her the focus? I mean, she had a good slice of
• 19:36
  the pie in snake darts, didn't she?
• 19:38
  And in fact, I do like it when it's just Peter Davison and
• 19:41
  Nyssa. So I was just, I was just
• 19:49
  looking up Paddy Kingsland, David Bowie to see if, to see if
• 19:53
  my insinuation has been. Out there now, James, I'm afraid
• 19:58
  I don't. Know I don't know that it is out
• 20:01
  there. Do you know?
• 20:02
  Oh, I love how these boys wolf whistle.
• 20:04
  What Teagan? Yeah, that that may maybe I made
• 20:09
  that up anyway, look. It's an interesting fake fact,
• 20:14
  you know, it's not a boring one. Where do you where do you stand
• 20:17
  on Roger Lim? I think he it's a horrible noise
• 20:23
  until Graham Harper sits him down and says, I don't want a
• 20:27
  horrible noise. What I want is something
• 20:30
  atmospheric and instrumental. Give me a bit of rattlesnaking,
• 20:34
  but. The transformation is
• 20:36
  extraordinary. You think about kind of, I think
• 20:40
  his his scores are the weakest in those first couple of JNT
• 20:46
  seasons. There's another reason why.
• 20:49
  Yeah, and Terminus. And then suddenly it is kind of
• 20:54
  comparable to Vangelis, I think, you know, the stuff he's doing
• 20:58
  in in Andrazani and Revelation. Oh, yeah, Revelation as well.
• 21:03
  Gosh, the sequence, you know, when Natasha sees her father,
• 21:06
  how it rises and rises. Yeah.
• 21:10
  It's baffling, isn't it? All it took was one person to
• 21:13
  sit him down and say, this is what I want.
• 21:15
  Yeah. Oh, here we go, right.
• 21:17
  We're in two time zones. Teegan's with the Brigadier and
• 21:20
  so is the Doctor. OK, now where it's.
• 21:25
  Hang on, where are you? Because I'm sure yours is
• 21:28
  running too far. I should run a stopwatch.
• 21:30
  See, see, see whether mine's running slow while yours is
• 21:33
  running fast. Oh my.
• 21:33
  Head I don't understand. I'm at 1412 bloody.
• 21:36
  Hell, I'm 1129. How?
• 21:40
  I don't know what's. What are you watching?
• 21:46
  I'm going back. Hang on.
• 21:47
  Where are you at now? Oh my.
• 21:48
  God yours on a different speed. I'm not sure.
• 21:52
  No plus times one I'm on, times one I'm.
• 21:55
  On times 1. I don't know, is your Internet
• 21:59
  slow? That wouldn't make a difference.
• 22:02
  Would it? I don't know.
• 22:04
  Oh, it's funny. OK.
• 22:05
  So I've just reached 12 minutes. I'm 12 minutes in.
• 22:08
  Right there. All of all of your.
• 22:10
  No, yes, I'm so sorry everybody. You know all part of the comedy.
• 22:17
  When did you leave UNIT Brigadier?
• 22:18
  Yeah. Are you at that?
• 22:19
  .7 years ago Could have retired on my Army pension.
• 22:24
  I do like all the stuff about, you know, where's Benton who's
• 22:26
  selling cars? Well.
• 22:30
  It's a. Relief to Mike, Jason, does he?
• 22:32
  Does he? Just the last we see of Benton
• 22:34
  is is Z on a pile, isn't he? In Android Invasion, no.
• 22:38
  No, he is there at the at the centre at the end, the Space
• 22:42
  Centre. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:45
  In a scene with Harry when Sarah's untying him.
• 22:48
  OK, so here we go. We've got, we've got, we've got
• 22:50
  school boys in tight I. Wonder you look so confused when
• 22:53
  I said about the wolf whistling. But yeah, so the the tight
• 22:58
  T-shirts have got nothing on Tegan's Tegan's boob tube.
• 23:02
  I do not object at all. Now that is a very unflattering
• 23:05
  shot of Nicholas Courtney's ball patch.
• 23:07
  Did you say? Yeah, yeah, but he's not a vain
• 23:11
  man, is he? Decorative vegetables, James,
• 23:16
  yay or nay? When, so when COVID happened, I
• 23:23
  had an allotment with Andy, my other half, and, and we just
• 23:27
  spent every evening digging the allotment.
• 23:29
  We planted loads that year because we had nothing else to
• 23:32
  do and all the time in the world to do it.
• 23:34
  And we, there was a point where I just thought, I'm, I'm not
• 23:38
  sure we've got room for any more vegetables.
• 23:41
  We weren't in a big flat and and every day we'd harvest kind of
• 23:44
  more squashes and and fill the kitchen counter with another
• 23:48
  pile of courgettes and and cucumbers and kale.
• 23:53
  Yeah, that was so you can go too far with decorative vegetables.
• 23:57
  Make a sort of a vegetable smoothie or something you don't
• 24:01
  get rid of all of. Them in one go.
• 24:04
  We had a lot of soup, we ate a lot of vegetables.
• 24:08
  If we should call your autobiography that, you know,
• 24:11
  I'm not sure we can handle any more vegetables.
• 24:14
  I'll add it to the list. Ryan.
• 24:18
  So where are you now time wise? Because I'm I'm.
• 24:21
  I'm running my stopwatch and mine.
• 24:24
  'S 1412 Well that. Doesn't make sense.
• 24:28
  You're running. You're running slower than me
• 24:29
  now. Why?
• 24:30
  Where are you at? 1423.
• 24:33
  Oh, I'm nearly at 1420. Yeah, I'm at 1420.
• 24:35
  I'm just a few. Seconds behind you So so far, so
• 24:38
  far so OK, fine are. You sure you're not pausing it
• 24:42
  every now and again? For what?
• 24:49
  Oh, this is the Black Guardian in disguise, isn't it, As the
• 24:52
  Headmaster? This is a lovely moment, isn't
• 24:54
  it? I Yeah.
• 24:57
  I, yeah. You are right, though, about
• 24:59
  Strickson. You're so right about him in
• 25:01
  that, you know, the things he has to do in this, you know,
• 25:04
  having enormous arguments with that IKEA tap, and yet you just
• 25:08
  have to play that stuff for real, don't you?
• 25:09
  Otherwise, you're going to look like all right, Burke.
• 25:12
  There's something he's just got an intensity, but it's but it's
• 25:15
  also quite understated. Can you imagine Abdrich being
• 25:18
  given this? Oh.
• 25:19
  No, God, no. He can walk across the console
• 25:23
  room convincingly. And I suppose we all will assume
• 25:30
  that the headmaster was evil, Really.
• 25:31
  So this is a bit of wishful thing for the kids.
• 25:34
  That's why we've got the Demon Headmaster.
• 25:36
  It's got, it's got a bit of a team and headmaster vibe, hasn't
• 25:39
  it? Yeah, yeah.
• 25:43
  Actually, do you know what I think in the right light, you
• 25:45
  know Mark Strickson is quite pretty.
• 25:48
  Oh, I, I, I know people and they know who they are.
• 25:52
  Who? Who?
• 25:54
  Have impure faults. Definitely impure thoughts about
• 25:58
  that. I hope my raft doesn't.
• 26:01
  Good grief. Well, that would be strange.
• 26:03
  If he looks like him, that's. Although that does remind me.
• 26:08
  Oh no, that's for another time. We're all intrigued now.
• 26:15
  Oh my God. Angus McKay is good, isn't he?
• 26:18
  And you're quite sure? Well, Joe, he was fabulous in
• 26:23
  Deadly Assassin as well, wasn't he?
• 26:26
  9 out of 10, Doctor. Yeah.
• 26:31
  Oh, that's not a real crow, is it?
• 26:36
  Probably. I mean, at the time there
• 26:38
  wouldn't have been such stringent rules about wearing.
• 26:41
  A James, I want you to take this question very seriously, but you
• 26:45
  see, if it is coat makes him look like Joan Collins, look at
• 26:48
  the sleeve. Absolutely, if someone.
• 26:53
  That color isn't is straight out of.
• 26:57
  Look at the sleeves. They're fluffy.
• 27:00
  I think if someone walks into the work room of RuPaul's Drag
• 27:04
  Race dressed like that, I would not even batter an eyelid.
• 27:11
  Paul Ballander, do you know, by all accounts, he was a really
• 27:15
  shy man, Valentine doll. And between takes, he was going.
• 27:19
  Was that all right? Didn't I do it?
• 27:21
  OK. I mean, it's such a wonderful
• 27:24
  voice, isn't it? So kind of craggy?
• 27:29
  I just wish having committed to the crow on the head, which is a
• 27:32
  is a bad idea. I wish they had done a kind of,
• 27:35
  you know, when Mary Poppins talks to her umbrella.
• 27:39
  He should have had a conversation at the the crow.
• 27:42
  Well, that didn't go very well with it.
• 27:45
  Would it be like? Crow.
• 27:47
  Pirate captain and Mr. Fibula, you know I'm surrounded by
• 27:51
  incompetence. That's the other thing he could
• 27:53
  have. The crow could have taken off
• 27:55
  from his head. Imagine it would be on a string
• 27:59
  though, wouldn't it? I don't know if you Mac crow
• 28:03
  have noticed, but the Brigadier has got a leopard print so.
• 28:11
  The Black Guardian is not the only one who's been to Joan.
• 28:13
  Collins Well, he was the narrator in Rocky Horror,
• 28:17
  Nicholas Courtney, wasn't he? Did you spot the foliage?
• 28:23
  Very personal question James Lark What on the outside the.
• 28:28
  Outside. No, they cut it back, Have they?
• 28:32
  Well, no, because it's in the past.
• 28:34
  It hasn't grown yet. So.
• 28:37
  Let me explain. It's a little bit, it's a little
• 28:39
  bit confusing joke. This isn't then that's five
• 28:41
  years earlier. Oh, now it's five years later
• 28:43
  again. Oh.
• 28:44
  I see what you're saying. So that sort of short foliage
• 28:48
  will become large bushes over time, that's what.
• 28:50
  Happens, you see, when you play. OK, I hadn't a lot of them once
• 28:54
  too, you know. You do?
• 28:55
  Yeah, I did. It was university, it was
• 29:00
  supposed to be for the students at this university around the
• 29:02
  corner and none of the buggers used it, so they let it out to
• 29:05
  the public. I had an abundant yield.
• 29:08
  I did loads of spuds man, they were coming out of me ear holes.
• 29:12
  But the problem with potatoes, they take up so much space in
• 29:16
  your allotment. They are an absolute nightmare
• 29:18
  to plot. I mean, it's a it's proper in
• 29:21
  terms of the digging. Potatoes are very labour
• 29:23
  intensive. And then when you, when you,
• 29:26
  when you pick them, pick them when you dig them up, you've,
• 29:31
  you've got something there that probably you've, you've spent
• 29:35
  more kind of labour on it than the cost of a potato justifies.
• 29:41
  And I'm not sure they taste unlike other like fresh
• 29:46
  vegetables. Often you just go, well, it's
• 29:48
  worth it. For the carrots were lovely
• 29:50
  sweet. I'm not sure you'd get that with
• 29:52
  potatoes. Actually, I've got a quite a
• 29:54
  good yield of tomatoes as well. We had one very hot summer.
• 29:58
  Well, but you know that bloody slug, Say all my lettuces.
• 30:03
  The buntings good as well. That's a really nice way of
• 30:07
  signalling where they are, isn't it?
• 30:09
  Well, the jubilee, yeah, Yeah. But also, but also visually, I
• 30:14
  feel like for quite a high concept episode to go out in
• 30:20
  this time slot, it's, it's got, like you said, incredible
• 30:25
  clarity. And part of that is the visual,
• 30:27
  the fact that you've got, you can immediately tell just
• 30:29
  because you've got those union flags in the in the background.
• 30:32
  You know what I think? They could be in 1977 or present
• 30:36
  day racist England. Oh look, he's done the old
• 30:41
  Jennings thing of tying together all the clothes and climbing out
• 30:45
  of the window. Listen, have I got the name
• 30:47
  right, Jennings? You know those series of books?
• 30:49
  Jennings about this isn't there. Yeah, Oh, Mark loves those
• 30:52
  books. He reads I.
• 30:54
  Thought Anthony Buckarage's grandson.
• 30:56
  Is that? Right.
• 30:57
  Yeah, Tell. Him, that breaking musician.
• 31:00
  They're fabulous. They've had very fun adventures.
• 31:03
  You know, that's great as he gets into just.
• 31:06
  Keep in mind we may have missed the foliage.
• 31:08
  They're going to go straight to the obelisk.
• 31:10
  So sorry I wasn't paying it. We're too busy talking about
• 31:13
  marrows and things, you know? Or did you skip that scene?
• 31:18
  That's why you're fasting. Look.
• 31:19
  At this so clear, Tegan is absolutely right.
• 31:22
  I am not in the TARDIS straight after the scene of Tegan talking
• 31:26
  about going so clear. Yeah.
• 31:30
  So we stood there. We stood where Nyssa is now.
• 31:32
  And you can see right down into the valley and and see that
• 31:35
  school in the distance. All, Yeah.
• 31:36
  It's very these scenes are very cleverly interwoven and I have
• 31:42
  to say, I think that for all that he wrote some underwhelming
• 31:48
  material, Peter Grimwaite is really good at this kind of
• 31:50
  clever stuff. Oh, I think so too.
• 31:53
  I think there the there's some sophistication in Planet Afar as
• 31:57
  well, Certainly when he's talking about religion in that.
• 32:01
  Yeah, absolutely. Time Fight has got sophisticated
• 32:04
  ideas in it. They're just not.
• 32:07
  They're just. He has the.
• 32:10
  Plasmatons in it as well though. Maybe calling doing with his
• 32:12
  face when he turns around there. Yeah, well, no, I mean, we're
• 32:16
  going to get that wonderful end of episode shot though, you
• 32:18
  know. Oh God, I can taste that pasta
• 32:21
  sauce from here. Absolutely delicious.
• 32:24
  And it's quite scary makeup, isn't it?
• 32:26
  Like it's looks like kind of bruising it just.
• 32:29
  You wait till Tegan and this has start turning and getting all
• 32:32
  bruised up. Not sure that makeup is
• 32:35
  comparable in terms of quality. I mean, I'm surprised Perry
• 32:39
  didn't end up looking like that given what she goes through at
• 32:41
  the end of next season. Good grief.
• 32:45
  The reason why though none of this works is what you need is a
• 32:49
  Doctor free episode. So them thinking this is the
• 32:53
  Doctor works but because the Doctor's all over this episode.
• 32:56
  But of course it's not so they just look like idiots do.
• 32:59
  You think we would ever think it was the Doctor?
• 33:01
  Why? I think if you if you pulled him
• 33:03
  out of an episode that you'd go, well, where is the Doctor?
• 33:07
  Then you might have a seed of doubt.
• 33:10
  It's such a weird thing that they assume that he's
• 33:13
  regenerating. They would never not show the
• 33:15
  regeneration, would they? In the mid 80s that just isn't.
• 33:18
  Even when Colin Baker didn't come back, they still showed the
• 33:21
  regeneration. So here's here's a what they
• 33:24
  could have done. They could have had him.
• 33:27
  They could have walked into that thing and actually had a
• 33:31
  regeneration and they could have had every time he metamorphi,
• 33:35
  he's faux sized more than. So that was the effect.
• 33:41
  To a regeneration effect and done episode 2 as is this the
• 33:45
  Doctor? Because really, they don't
• 33:47
  really need to sell that idea to them because they're convinced
• 33:49
  they need to sell it to us. And I don't think we're ever
• 33:51
  convinced, you know, that, that it's not spaghetti bolognese.
• 33:55
  It's obviously his exposed brain.
• 33:58
  It pulsates. Yeah, it's it's very.
• 34:01
  Quite gross. Very.
• 34:03
  Very. Yeah, Icky.
• 34:07
  They love pulsating organs, don't they?
• 34:09
  Yeah, so that's interesting. So, So what the Blu-ray team
• 34:14
  should have done, rather than Dick around with a perfectly cut
• 34:17
  sequence, is actually reimagine episode 2 and give us a Doctor
• 34:22
  free episode with a regeneration and make it work.
• 34:25
  Are you listening, Paul Venensis?
• 34:27
  All right, stop sticking around. I'll tell you what I want.
• 34:32
  They really, really want the Season 11.
• 34:34
  Tell me what you want, what you really really want.
• 34:36
  I want an invasion, sorry. You want a what?
• 34:44
  It's the it's the lyric that the Spice Girls wouldn't say.
• 34:47
  I want an invasion of the dinosaurs Where where all of the
• 34:53
  episodes when Sarah's on the fake spaceship has none of the
• 34:58
  scenes back on Earth, Because that because that's immediately
• 35:02
  ruined by the fact that we come back to the present day.
• 35:05
  We know that that time hasn't passed.
• 35:07
  I want all of those sequences in one.
• 35:09
  I want to see it as though she is in in space and weeks have
• 35:15
  elapsed. The trouble is, is, is they want
• 35:18
  to, they want to sell that idea, but her fresh car is still fresh
• 35:23
  on her age. So we're like, well, that hasn't
• 35:26
  scabbed over, is it in the last three months?
• 35:29
  Yeah. But that's, that's how she
• 35:30
  figures it out, isn't it? In the next episode?
• 35:32
  So it's, I think sometimes we need to remember this stuff's
• 35:36
  for kids, right? Not always for adults, yeah.
• 35:39
  But that's a, that's a cliffhanger.
• 35:41
  That's a really strong cliffhanger.
• 35:44
  Not sure how Jason Thompson ranked that one but but that's a
• 35:48
  great cliffhanger where she looks out and she's in space and
• 35:52
  and it's immediately jettisoned by the next scene.
• 35:56
  Jason, get in touch, please, and tell us what what your rankings
• 35:59
  were. I mean, what do you think about
• 36:01
  this cliffhanger? You know, the Expo Mordrin in
• 36:03
  his finery. That's a good one.
• 36:05
  Because it's got the pulsating thing, because there's
• 36:08
  something, I mean, it's, it's partly hangs on a a great
• 36:13
  performance, doesn't it? Because he's playing it in a
• 36:16
  really unnerving way. It's yeah, it's it's disturbed.
• 36:20
  It's not a it's not a scar off jump scare.
• 36:25
  It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a surprise, but it's also uneasy
• 36:30
  and it's a it's a what the fuck happens next?
• 36:34
  Well, I think as well, you're sort of convinced, OK, there's
• 36:37
  our monster, there's Mouldry, and now things are going to get
• 36:40
  really scary. Actually, it goes the other way.
• 36:43
  It just gets more thoughtful and more talky as it goes along.
• 36:46
  But to its credit, I think, and here's a little worm teaser for
• 36:51
  you, although I think you're going to know what I'm talking
• 36:53
  about. One of my all time favorite
• 36:56
  Tegan moments is in episode 4 of this story, The rarest of
• 37:00
  things. Tegan behaves like a human being
• 37:02
  for about 15 seconds and it's just glorious.
• 37:06
  And I'm like, my God, you can do it.
• 37:08
  So why don't you always do that? Well, how do you feel about
• 37:13
  skipping on into episode 3 then and seeing what that we?
• 37:16
  Could do episode 3 and in at the right speed as well.
• 37:20
  Ghastly Italian cuisine on his head was all about.