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Hamster Book Club - Liberation of the Daleks (featuring Michael Mills) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

0:03
Born again again, and then. All right then, universe, what
0:23
have you got for me today? What's that wooing?
0:29
I used to know these systems on the back of my hand.
0:32
Only it's someone else's hand now.
0:35
My old hand. Do what?
0:39
Dematerialising. But I didn't touch anything.
0:45
Automated protocol. Epsilon Delta rho.
0:48
We're answering a distress signal.
0:50
So that's what the warring was all about.
0:55
Fair enough. That's what I'd do.
0:57
Respond to calls. Born to open.
1:04
What have we got? Wembley Stadium smells like
1:10
Saturday the 30th of July 1966. The World Cup final.
1:16
Who's in distress? The Germans?
1:30
Hamster Book Club, The Doctor Who Novel Review Podcast with
1:35
Joe Ford and Michael Mills. Liberation of the Daleks by Alan
1:49
Barnes. Welcome back to the Hamster Book
1:55
Club. My name is Joe Ford.
1:59
Welcome to Dock Oh Ho Zone, where you can visit every single
2:05
podcast he's ever done in various zones.
2:08
So obviously it's a big fucking place.
2:13
That might be a baffling statement, but it will make
2:14
sense later in this episode. I am here today with the
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glorious Mr. Michael Mills. Hello, Michael.
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Hello Joe. Does that does that make me a a
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a plasmic creature of your imaginings?
2:29
Always. Yes.
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Yes. Is it plasmic?
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I thought it was like plasmonic. I don't know.
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It's a very science fictiony word.
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Michael, what are we here to talk?
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What Doctor Who book are we here to talk about today?
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We're here to talk about a graphic novel.
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Not a not a proper book if you ask your grandmother, but we
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think it is. We're here to talk about the
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Doctor Who Magazine comic book liberation of the Daleks.
2:56
Can I just pick your brains on that comment of not a proper
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book? Do you still feel as if the
3:01
comic strip medium is sort of looked down upon then by a lot
3:04
of people? I think it is by some people, I
3:07
think, I think generally it's still requires some defence in
3:10
the minds of some people. I mean, I remember discussing
3:13
this was at uni, so this was, you know, longer ago than I'd
3:15
like to imagine. But I remember discussing with a
3:17
friend of mine who was doing English Lit and I was just
3:20
singing the praises of Watchmen by Alan Moore, which is, you
3:23
know, one of that select group that everyone kind of like
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Persepolis and Mouse that everyone sort of accepts is
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good. And she listened to everything I
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had to say. And I think and then she went,
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But it's a comic book. I just the dismissiveness of of
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an entire format, which is, you know, I don't want to overload
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the argument here, but sequential art is the oldest
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form of art that humanity has the short of the, the bardic
3:50
tradition. So it's a bizarre one, but I
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think, I think it does come. We know that if you've got, if
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you've got a paperback out on the tube or the bus or what you
4:00
have in Eastbourne, no one's really, no one's really judging
4:04
you. But if you've got a graphic
4:06
novel out, you feel a little bit judged, don't you?
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We have kettle powered trains here in Eastbourne, but if you
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to include like anime as well, which is like enormous isn't it?
4:18
What? Do you mean manga?
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That's what I'd say if you include manga, right?
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Which is huge, yeah. The amount of comics in inverted
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comments sold around the world to date, well, it's an extreme
4:33
amount, right? It's a hugely popular medium.
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It is. It sort of exists in that same
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weird little space as video games, as something that's
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hugely popular and yet the cultural mainstream has never
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quite managed to accept is popular.
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It just doesn't enter the discourse for whatever reason,
4:49
whereas we all have to pretend that the latest production at
4:53
the Don Mall, the National Theatre, is of some national
4:56
importance. It's all these weird hypocrisies
4:58
and these sort of weird lenses. I don't know what causes it.
5:00
It's probably down to what was important when newspapers were
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still the going concern they decided to cover.
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But yeah, I mean, God help you, a Doctor Who graphic novel on
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the tube? Even worse.
5:13
And I have read 1 on the Tube as well.
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Is it a bit like, say, Michael Grade and Jonathan Powell in the
5:20
1980s? You know, jacking off the latest
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prestige drama that's getting 2,000,000 viewers and completely
5:27
dismissing Doctor Who, which is getting, say, 8 to 10 million
5:30
viewers. It's that same sort of thing,
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right? Cultural.
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Snobbery. Yeah, cultural snobbery.
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And an assumption that engaging with certain things makes you
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smarter or less smart just by dint of having engaged with them
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like I was. I've been reading.
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I've been reading when I don't read Doctor Who Time fiction.
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I've been reading the essays of George Orwell recently, and
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there's one of his essays. He talks about working in a
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bookshop, back when book shops still have their own private
6:01
lending libraries. And he talks about the fact that
6:03
it was very easy to sell Dickens and Shakespeare to people, but
6:06
no one would ever take them out of the lending library.
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And that was because people liked to have them on the
6:11
shelves and liked to think they were going to read Dickens and
6:13
Shakespeare, but no one actually ever did read them.
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Oh, you've seen my shelves, have you?
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OK. There's a few there, but there's
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mostly Doctor Who bits. All right, well then let's move
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the lens on to Doctor Who, which is an even more, you know,
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Doctor Who comics has even more niche and specialist interest.
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What's your journey with Doctor Who comics like?
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Do you pick up Doctor Who Magazine or did you back in the
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day and go straight to the comic strip to read the latest
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instalment of the 8th Doctor and Izzy's exciting adventures?
6:44
Well, my journey with Doctor Who comics actually began.
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So Doctor Who comics were the first Doctor Who tie in stuff I
6:51
ever read. But it wasn't.
6:54
It wasn't Doctor Who magazine. It was the Radio Times comic
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strip that came off the back of the TV movie.
7:01
The Gary Russell ones. Yeah, with the 8th doctor,
7:04
Stacey and Saad. Well they they were only like 1
7:07
page ones weren't they? Or were they shorter than that?
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Even shorter than that, they were like newspaper strip style.
7:12
So it was just one, one row of panels.
7:14
So, you know, maybe as little as four panels in the whole.
7:18
Thing. Over over weeks, each one was
7:21
basically the equivalent of the scene in a long thing.
7:24
So just enough for, you know, they're being chased by the
7:27
Cybermen just far enough to get you to, they've locked the
7:30
Cybermen out of the room they're in, but there's a Cybermat in
7:33
here or something like that, you know?
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Was that satisfying in a way that once it was all out, you
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could read the whole lot? And it's like having the
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equivalent of, I don't know, one story and a doctor graphic novel
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now. Well, actually discussed the
7:45
first dreadnought on the excellent podcast Doctor Who.
7:49
Too hot for TVA couple? Years ago of it and.
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I didn't actually. It wasn't the sort of, I wasn't
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yet that applied enough a fan to be cutting them out and pasting
8:01
them into a scrapbook or anything.
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So we didn't actually go back and read them all in one go
8:05
until it turns up on the Internet years later.
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And then when we did them for Too Hot for TV, we both sort of
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agreed it's they're actually really quite empty experiences
8:15
if you read them, because they're meant to be something
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you read for me, like, oh, well, I'll pop back next.
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You can see how that goes. And if you just lay them all
8:21
out, it's a really dissatisfying type of story that just starts
8:24
and ends and starts and stops and starts and stops constantly.
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And actually there's not a huge amount of incident.
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And but was that enough to get his hooks into you for you to
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explore other Doctor Who comics? No, because I sort of paused for
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a while. So that stops.
8:39
And then I didn't really become a more applied Doctor Who van
8:43
for quite a while afterwards. And the next time I picked up
8:46
Doctor Who comics was when I started getting Doctor Who
8:48
Magazine regularly, which was in 2002 thereabouts, when I joined
8:56
in the middle of Children of the Revolution.
9:00
Oh. Great Daleks underwater.
9:03
Underwater friendly Daleks Yes in.
9:05
Colour. In Living Colour, No, that, that
9:10
was a great story. So I was, you know, as anybody
9:12
who's encountered the 8th Doctor comic strips, indeed, I was
9:16
absolutely hooked in and then was following them along, you
9:19
know, through to their conclusion.
9:20
And at some, some point in that they started to republish the
9:24
old ones as well. And so we sort of caught up with
9:26
where we'd, where we'd come from through the collected editions.
9:30
And then I was, you know, I was a regular Doctor Who magazine
9:35
getter all the way through to end of the Cappaldi era.
9:40
I think I eventually gave up on Doctor Who magazine about that
9:43
point. I just didn't have a time in my
9:44
life anyway. It wasn't gripping me enough.
9:46
But along the way I got almost every issue of Doctor Who
9:49
adventures as a as a student. In fact, when we're going to WH,
9:53
going to WH Smith's. Whereas at uni at the time, one
9:56
week and the guy behind the counter going, yeah, you get
10:00
this regularly, don't you? So I never bought it from that
10:03
David Smith again. It's Doctor Who adventures the
10:06
Kiddie 1. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:08
But I got it for the comic strip.
10:10
Of course, when I good those those kiddie comics.
10:13
They were surprisingly good. There was people, people like
10:15
Eddie Robson wrote them, so, you know, there were names you'd
10:18
recognise. This was when I was at my most
10:20
sort of completeness Doctor Who fan.
10:25
Well. That was kind of going to be my
10:26
next question. Yeah.
10:29
Well then, did you complete the set?
10:31
Like all of a suddenly all the graphic novels popped into
10:33
existence and we could buy these in fabulous collections with
10:37
commentaries at the end, which I actually think are invaluable.
10:40
Those commentaries, they really do add a lot of context.
10:43
Have you got all of them? I think most of them, maybe one
10:47
or two of the most recent ones I still need to pick up.
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But yeah, yeah, I think I've got.
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I think I've got them all, Yeah. Including all of the 8th Doctor
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adventures, all of the old, you know, and they were brilliant.
10:58
Now, because we sort of accept that all of this stuff is is
11:01
there and is accessible at any given point.
11:04
But I mean, what I remember when the first of the DWM graphic
11:08
novel collections came out, which I think was the Iron
11:10
Legion in 2003. So the first run of of 4th
11:15
Doctor ones. And you know, you haven't seen
11:18
those for years. There was no way of, unless
11:20
you're going to pay silly money on eBay on call.
11:23
This is the other thing because Doctor Who magazine, the comic
11:25
strips are embedded in the magazine.
11:27
It wasn't even like going out and buying back issues of
11:29
Fantastic Four. You were getting whole magazines
11:31
for whatever it was 6 pages of the comics in the middle.
11:35
If you were going around second hand stores or second hand book
11:39
shops or similar, you know, you didn't know what you'd come
11:41
across. You might get oh brilliant,
11:44
that's got epic. That's got Part 2 of Invasion
11:46
from Gantak in or whatever Invaders from Gantac.
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What or less about, but it sounds amazing.
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Oh, it's one of the early Sylvester McCoy ones, when they
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couldn't really work out a tone. When?
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He's going around with that with that maniac, was it who was
12:02
going around murdering people? During Absalom Dark Dalek
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Killer. Maybe an Absalom dark Dalek
12:09
killer? I know there was an early
12:11
Sylvester McCoy strip where he murdered a load of people at the
12:13
end of the story and then just popped off at the end, and it's
12:17
a really sort of controversial 1.
12:20
There's a number of 7th Doctor strips from around the time the
12:22
series was cancelled, so 8990, where they really do go down the
12:27
the dark Doctor route, even in ways that I think occasionally
12:31
exceeds or certainly on a par with what was in some of the
12:34
Virgin New Adventures. So there's a there's actually
12:37
quite a good one called Ravens, where he, the 7th Doctor, brings
12:46
a bereaved samurai from feudal Japan to present, present day or
12:52
near future the UK to sort of avenge the death of his family
12:56
by killing these youths who are threatening another family.
13:00
And it's quite interesting and tiny wimey, but the Doctor's
13:02
actions within it are quite. I think that's the one I'm
13:05
thinking about You. Yeah.
13:06
Where he's endorsing murder. Yeah, yeah, I liked it.
13:11
With, with the with the graphic novel.
13:13
So I never, ever, I've never read the comic strip as part of
13:16
Doctor Who Magazine, even though I collect Doctor Who Magazine
13:19
for years and years and years. Why would you just ignore it?
13:22
I just ignored it completely. I just never looked it.
13:24
I had no interest in comics. How on earth could steal
13:27
pictures be in any way entertaining?
13:29
I so I didn't even look at it. I would go straight to the
13:32
reviews page. Gallifrey Guardian and I quite
13:35
like the Life and Times of Jackie Jenkins as well.
13:38
Those were sort of my go TOS. Then I got to a boy where I'd
13:42
read all of the Doctor Who books that were out to that point and
13:46
I had no new Doctor Who and I was like, what do I do?
13:50
And then someone went well, by end game, the first ape Dr.
13:55
collection, I was like, oh, comics.
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And so I bought it and I think after I read the first
14:03
installment of End Game, I bought every single graphic
14:08
novel I could find and I consumed them at such a rate of
14:12
knots. So I did basically that run from
14:14
there to the flood. Oh wow, you know, really
14:17
condensed period of time. Michael was fucking hooks and
14:23
all of the things that I thought about still images on the page,
14:28
none of it was true. What you could do with the
14:31
medium. It was extraordinary that the
14:34
way you could paste the stories, the way, I mean, I've talked
14:37
about this before, but the way they would have like, the
14:39
massive cliffhanger image over the page and you knew it was
14:42
coming because it was the 7th page you're reading and it's
14:45
leading up to a big point. The character drama they could
14:48
do with a still image. I was, you know, just just by
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drawing them in a particular way.
14:53
I was absolutely blown away. And then I went back and I read
14:57
some of the earlier stuff, which impressed me less because they
14:59
weren't sort of doing the more emotional dramas they were doing
15:03
later and then sort of kept buying the graphic novels from
15:06
that point on. But yeah, I was completely
15:08
wrong. Oh, A. 100% I mean what you know
15:11
that was an excellent place that was recommended for you to
15:13
start. Any listeners who are not so
15:14
familiar with Doctor Who Magazine comics?
15:17
The 8th Doctor run from the I mean the whole 8th Doctor run
15:21
from End Game in When Was that 97 through to the Flood in 2005
15:27
is one of the strongest runs of Doctor Who in any medium ever.
15:32
Ever, ever in terms of sort of the diversity of the stories and
15:36
the genres they're playing about with.
15:38
In terms of arcs, I mean I don't think there's been stronger arcs
15:42
than the Easy and Destry arcs that they did.
15:47
No, that's fantastic. Easy Easy's whole Ark, who is a
15:50
sort of dissatisfied teenager who sort of comes aboard the
15:55
TARDIS for all the fun adventure.
15:57
And over the very subtly and very slowly over the course of
16:01
about five years, 5-6 years of comics, is sort of confronted
16:05
with her own dissatisfaction with herself, her own her own
16:11
challenges, her own uncertainties about who she is
16:13
and her identity, and ultimately resolves those in a beautifully
16:18
believable way. It does the perfect thing of
16:21
using science fiction ideas to explore recognisable emotional
16:27
States and challenges. And it's, it's utterly
16:30
wonderful. I think what I've mentioned it
16:32
previously on the podcast, but the I don't want to spoil it,
16:35
given that we're encouraging people to go and read it.
16:36
But the resolution of that story actually Russell, first time I
16:41
saw Russell T Davis in Doctor Who magazine was when he'd
16:44
written a letter in praising the resolution of of Izzy's story
16:48
arc. It's it's it's beautiful.
16:50
And then the rest of the stories from there to the end as well
16:52
with the 8th Doctor on his own and then Destry as the companion
16:56
are are are wonderful. And the flood is a bit like the
16:59
dying days which we covered before.
17:00
Now this is some point going. This is how you should do Doctor
17:03
Who in the 21st century and basically reaching all of the
17:06
same conclusions as Ross D Tofis did.
17:08
I just love the fact that they made a decision.
17:10
We're going to draw the Cybermen in a way that no actor could
17:13
possibly be inside the suit, you know, put a one time.
17:18
What was astonishing about that particular arc as well was then,
17:22
like you said, Izzy was having trouble identity issues, you
17:25
know, with who she was. Then she loses her identity.
17:28
I know that's a big spoiler, but I need that to go on.
17:31
And then they bring in, they bring in this apparently
17:35
terrible woman, you know, this sort of gung ho.
17:40
I don't care about the, the responsibilities of time travel.
17:45
I'm just going to do whatever I like and then turn that
17:48
character who doesn't really lose that edge into a really
17:53
tragic character. But the the deafness with the
17:56
characterisation I thought was stunning.
17:59
No, yeah, I mean, Izzy gets a lot of love and quite rightly,
18:03
but Destry's a brilliant character as well because yet as
18:06
you say, she doesn't change. The character doesn't change,
18:09
but our understanding of her changes and why she's like how
18:14
she is. And there's a in Oblivion, which
18:16
is the the culmination of the of the easy arc.
18:19
There is a, there is a beautiful sequence, the way it contrasts
18:25
their upbringings and their respective unhappiness is which,
18:29
but it's so beautifully done because it's not as simple as
18:32
as, oh, we're just alike. But it's sort of paralleling,
18:36
putting a look so you can sort of compare and contrast and see
18:39
how they both ended up being very unhappy and very confused
18:44
about themselves and, and their places.
18:46
And it's, it's absolutely fantastic writing.
18:48
So anyone who says why are you reading a Doctor Who comic book
18:51
on the tube, just just open that up and show them and go because
18:55
it's brilliant. Well, that's a really good
18:56
example of like, I think it's very easy to move somebody with
19:00
a book where you've got time and a lot of words to get in
19:04
people's heads. And it's easy to move people
19:06
with television because you've got music and performance and
19:10
all these different stimuluses. But like writing a cometry, it's
19:14
almost like writing a short story.
19:15
You know, you have to get to the point quick because it's just a
19:19
series of pictures. And the way they do that, the
19:22
way they do that and dragging all this emotion out of me, I
19:26
just think it is a really skilled thing to do.
19:31
It's a particular skill as well because you know, it's just
19:34
pictures, but it is, it's a visual medium and it's an
19:38
understanding of how you can, what you present, how and how
19:42
you present it and how you structure it is a is a really
19:46
different type of skill set to, to even, you know, writing ATV
19:51
script or an audio script or a book.
19:54
You need to understand how are those images going to be going
19:57
to fit? How do they relate to one
19:58
another? You know, if you start to have
20:00
even, you know, little shorthands, like if you start to
20:02
have the panel borders breakdown, so you instead have a
20:04
page where there's sort of overlapping industry.
20:06
Well, that suggests that suggests flashback or
20:09
imagination, you know, all those things that the reader isn't
20:11
consciously picking up on. But in in books like these that
20:14
do them really well, you see that craft.
20:18
About collaboration between the person who's writing the words
20:21
and the person who's drawing the picture.
20:23
There's some examples where that doesn't really work.
20:26
Somebody's it's, it's not a good marriage.
20:29
But more often than not, you've got someone like Scott Gray
20:31
writing and people like, I don't know.
20:35
Roger. Anchorage or Mark and Garrity or
20:38
Adrian Salmon doing the art. Who's doing the art?
20:42
And the one we're talking about, say, Lee Sullivan, you know, and
20:45
it's just pictures that pop with colour and detail.
20:50
Absolutely beautiful. Do you have a favorite period?
20:54
Is that your favorite period? That's my favorite period.
20:56
Yeah, yeah, 100%. But the whole, the whole lot of
20:58
the egg doctor run. I'm, I'm just going to quickly,
21:02
before we move on to Liberation of the Daleks, I'm also going to
21:04
suggest the Magenta price, yes, which comes in the 10th Doctor's
21:09
run. And they do the same thing.
21:12
They have a companion who is morally dubious, should we say,
21:16
because she's introduced in a story where she's doing time
21:21
travel shenanigans effectively, like a time travel holiday shop.
21:25
And she's been very irresponsible.
21:27
And she gets a good year, I think maybe 2.
21:33
It's quite a lot of issues. And they do their own run just
21:36
like the Izzy Destory stuff, with their own continuity which
21:39
is divorced from the TV series completely.
21:42
Yeah, written by Dan Mcdide, I think if that's his name and it
21:47
yeah, it was a year of the run and it was how they approached
21:50
the sort of 2009 year when it was only specials.
21:54
And again, because it's not adherent to the series
21:59
continuity and this is an original comic strip character,
22:03
it means they actually can take you to surprising and some
22:06
shocking places. So that's another great run.
22:09
Collected in the graphic novel The Crimson Hand.
22:14
Another superb climax as well. If there's one thing the comics
22:18
do extremely well, it's a series finale.
22:22
Yes, yeah. And a penultimate episode and
22:25
the one before that. Yeah, you get the idea.
22:27
Well, look, today we are talking about liberation of the Daleks.
22:32
And I suppose my first question to you is, this is another gift
22:40
to DWM from Russell T Davis, isn't it?
22:44
It is the front cover of the collected edition proudly states
22:49
100% official, which is that means.
22:53
Ross 2 Davis gave it the thumbs up.
22:55
Yeah, yeah, this might be mentioned in other media the.
22:59
Bench it. Also says the 14th Doctor's
23:03
adventures start here. Yeah, so this ran in Doctor Who
23:07
Magazine from 20 originally from 2022 to 2023, bridging the gap
23:12
between the power, the end of the power of the Doctor and the
23:16
2023 specials. And it is, as you say, the 14th
23:19
Doctor's first adventure picks up right off the end of Power of
23:22
the Doctor with him walking back across Turtle Door to the TARDIS
23:26
and being whipped off straight away on on his on his brand new
23:29
adventures. And as you say, a gift from
23:30
Russell T Davis to Doctor Who Magazine.
23:33
I think, you know, COVID and what have you, I don't know that
23:36
Doctor Macy's National had the happiest time recently.
23:38
They had to drop the comic strip from a few issues, I think
23:40
during COVID because, yeah, because of because it's
23:44
expensive. And I think, I mean, it wasn't a
23:45
regular reader, but my understanding is because, you
23:48
know, I think this would be an industry wide decline in in
23:51
readership was such that they I, I guess they couldn't afford to
23:54
do it. It's.
23:56
Worth noticing as well, I think the relationship between Doctor
23:59
Who Magazine and the Doctor Who production office during Chris
24:03
Chibner's time was not at its strongest, and I just don't
24:07
think that was a huge priority for Chibnall.
24:10
In a way that Rusty Davies, an avid lover of the magazine, he'd
24:15
always read it and he always considered it an integral part
24:18
of the Doctor Who experience. He deliberately then gave them a
24:24
lot, didn't he? Yeah, yeah.
24:26
And you know, this is a massive statement of intent, right?
24:28
You know that that because he's very you know, there will be
24:31
stories about when he he tried to do something similar with the
24:35
end of the 8th Doctor run. I think he.
24:38
That was huge that that was a massive offer, wasn't it?
24:41
That was a massive offer. Which was he?
24:43
He made the offer to Doctor Who Magazine that they could do the
24:46
regeneration of the 8th Doctor into the Christopher Eccleston
24:50
Doctor within Doctor Who Magazine.
24:54
And this is all detailed in the commentary in the Flood graphic
24:58
novel. So go check it out.
24:59
You should check the Flood anyway.
25:01
But basically it didn't work out in the end because, and absolute
25:05
props to this, to Scott Gray. And I think it would have been
25:08
Clayton Hickman, the Clay editor, who ultimately made the
25:12
decision that as wonderful as that would have been, it would
25:16
have required them to make compromises within the ongoing
25:20
story of the 8th Doctor arc in order to reach that point.
25:23
And so they actually said, you know what, we thank you, but but
25:27
we're going to wait. It's more important for us that
25:29
we resolve this storyline as well as we can.
25:32
And they did. And it's a wonderful landing.
25:33
And, you know, absolute props them.
25:34
So but, you know, so clear this off we've made in the past.
25:37
And here, I guess things were working out better.
25:39
There wasn't that same blocker. And so we have here the first
25:42
official official adventure of the 14th Doctor.
25:47
It's very strange because seeing David Tennant operate in Jodie
25:52
Whittaker's TARDIS and going around with Jodie Whittaker's
25:55
Sonic screwdriver, I did find a little bit jarring to start off
25:59
with. Yeah, it's it's this is actually
26:01
something that it made me think a lot more about what the tying
26:08
comic books for other franchises often do.
26:11
So during the JJ Abrams film era, star, the Star Trek movies
26:17
would always have the comic book prequel that would come out be
26:20
called Countdown or Countdown to Darkness or similar.
26:24
Which would make a real effort to tie the events of the film
26:29
into the sort of established continuity of Star Trek media in
26:34
a way that the film's creatives had quite fairly not really be
26:37
bothered about. And this reminded me of that in
26:41
a really nice way. That's what someone said it.
26:43
Someone said it of Star Trek. I think Star Trek fans call it
26:46
beta cannon. Beta material, apparently.
26:51
It's like, it's like Androsani miner.
26:53
Yeah, like the the the lesser important.
26:56
This is just what I hear coming over the fence, right?
26:59
But but I. Don't even know there was a Star
27:01
Trek comic, sorry. Thank you.
27:02
Oh. Yeah, there's quite a few of
27:03
them. They're not as good.
27:06
And someone said of Star Trek that within Star Trek, often the
27:12
role of of quote, UN quote, Peter content is to sort of
27:15
build the scaffolding around the main stuff and explain stuff and
27:18
what have you. And there's a little bit about
27:20
here. But yeah, that juxtaposition of
27:22
as you say, and that comes back to that.
27:23
The comic strip is a visual medium.
27:25
And so there is there is an immediacy to being able to
27:29
literally show David's Tennant in in Jodie Whittaker's TARDIS.
27:34
And that in itself, I mean, that's the first page.
27:36
I mean, he opens up with him on that rock at the end of Power of
27:40
the Doctor. Yeah.
27:41
So if you want the full David Tennant experience, you can't
27:46
just watch those specials. You've got to read this and do
27:49
that comic release special as well.
27:51
Yeah, exactly. So we follow the 14th Doctor
27:56
back into what we cannot help but think of as the 13th
28:00
Doctor's TARDIS immediately picking up the signal, follows
28:05
it off as is. The Doctors want that.
28:07
We don't really linger much on, and he pretty much says as much
28:10
about what's the line? I used to know these systems
28:15
like the back of my hand, only it's someone else's hand now, my
28:18
alt hand. And then basically, oh, well,
28:21
let's, I'll worry, yeah, I'll worry about that later.
28:23
I'll worry about that when a few million viewers are watching.
28:26
For now, let's just have an invention.
28:27
Do you know what? You've got a story to tell.
28:30
Let's go. Exactly.
28:32
This doesn't linger much on the 14th Doctor.
28:34
I appear to have landed in England in 1966.
28:38
Yes, at the World Cup final when, as I understand it,
28:41
England won won the football sidebar.
28:45
I'm Welsh and I sometimes make jokes about, you know, cultural
28:47
differences. It's mostly affected the one
28:50
moment in my life of cultural distance, not the two.
28:53
Twice had cultural dissonance. As a Welshman living in England,
28:56
one was when I had to pay for my prescription and the other was
29:00
when I discovered that England had only won the World Cup once.
29:05
They're always coming on about it.
29:07
It's. The only moment we've been proud
29:10
in a long, long time. All right, We knew they, they
29:13
nearly got there this year, didn't they?
29:14
But unfortunately, you know, England's pattern emerged.
29:18
It stayed exactly the same as it always is.
29:21
Second best. I have to say though, the only
29:24
moment I've ever had a moment of cultural dissonance with your
29:28
Welshness was in our last episode when you said the word
29:31
werewolf. Werewolf.
29:34
That's right. So I sound Welsh when I say
29:37
werewolf. You do?
29:38
Yeah. The one I'm aware of is I can't
29:40
say the words corridor and tour in the.
29:45
Corridor. You've got trouble on a Doctor
29:47
Rupert Cars, then. Running down corridors.
29:51
Michael, I believe things might not be as they seem.
29:54
No, I just want to mention before we move on, 1966 World
29:57
Cup final, major English cultural moment and yet, let's
30:02
face it, far too expensive to stage on TV.
30:04
So it's been done something like approximately 45 times in Doctor
30:08
Who Thai media at this point. Didn't they do?
30:12
Wasn't the first or one the first or second Chris Ferguson
30:15
strip? That was just that was just
30:18
football though, I think. I don't.
30:19
Think no, no, I think that was, I think it was the love
30:21
invasion. I think you're right.
30:22
I think that was the 1966 World Cup final.
30:24
There's a there's definitely one of those Matt Smith two in one
30:30
kids novels is definitely about. It's definitely about it.
30:35
But it's easy enough for Alan Barnes to write.
30:37
You know, they're kicking the football round in on a football
30:40
pitch at the World Cup, but poor Lee Sullivan has got to draw the
30:43
entire crowd. I mean, there must be about 500
30:47
faces there. Eastern Point.
30:49
There are there are more laddish listeners who can presumably
30:53
tell us the capacity of the old Wembley Stadium, but just just
30:57
shout out to yourself lads. Yeah.
30:58
No, this is. 500 faces. It's still a lot of faces, all
31:02
right, And it's a problem that occurs throughout this comic
31:06
strip where Alan Barnes imagination equals Lee
31:10
Sullivan's amount of work. Oh, absolutely.
31:15
I mean, you must feel a sense of guilt, right, as a, as a writer
31:18
when you write something like that.
31:21
He's been doing this a long time out of Alabaz.
31:23
I think he feels any guilt whatsoever.
31:25
Oh, and Lee Sullivan's been doing this a long time as well.
31:27
So a little a little thing to mention as well.
31:29
This was the Daleks in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip.
31:33
It's the first time they've been in the Doctor Who Magazine comic
31:35
strip in 20 years, so the last. The last time they had been in
31:40
the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip was Children of the
31:42
Revolution in 2002. I didn't realise that.
31:46
Why is that? Is that just because the TV show
31:48
was using them a lot? That's, as I understand it,
31:52
that's why the Virgin Adventures never actually used the Daleks
31:56
was because of just that additional level of both, you
31:58
know, financial and sign off complexity.
32:00
So I don't know. It's possible there was.
32:02
I understand that they were originally due to appear in the
32:05
Clockwise War, which was the Peter Capaldi finale within the
32:12
DWM comic strip, but I think they reduced the length of the
32:16
story and so had to. There's also some room for the
32:18
Daleks in it anymore. Well.
32:20
I will say this as a massive positive for Liberation of the
32:23
Daleks. Had the Daleks not been in
32:25
Doctor Who magazine for 20 years.
32:27
Yeah, they sure made-up for lost time in this strip.
32:32
What Daleks are you in? It's all of the Daleks.
32:34
Every Daleks ever, but we will get there.
32:38
We will get there. And when they last appeared they
32:42
were drawn by Lee Sullivan. And I will say now, so all is
32:45
not as it seems at the 1966 World Cup final because there's
32:48
a Dalek invasion. The Daleks are on the pitch and
32:53
drawn beautifully by Lee Sullivan.
32:54
And you would get him back to do it because I think the Daleks
32:57
can be a bit of a tricky, a bit of a tricky ask for illustrators
33:01
because a, it's very difficult to that show movement with them.
33:05
They just look static. But he knows how to, you know,
33:07
because especially now they can fly, you can give them dynamic
33:10
angles and he knows how to get them whizzing around.
33:14
One of the reasons I understand it that Children of Revolution
33:16
is Daleks underwater is because they realise that if you put a
33:19
Daleks underwater, you can have bubbles behind them to show that
33:22
they're moving. That's so clever.
33:24
Right. Yeah, exactly.
33:26
I mean there there is, and I will talk about this like there
33:30
are full page pictures of Daleks in this strip which I would
33:35
happily put on my wall like. Oh yeah.
33:38
It is incredible, the art and talking of incredible art, that
33:43
that drawing of the Dalek saucer hanging over the football field,
33:49
I mean, that's so dramatic, isn't?
33:51
It we've just with just a tiny little speech bubble from a W
33:54
German footballer going, what's his dust?
33:57
And then just to just to show that they're, you know, they're
34:00
coming out, there's just a little little picture of the
34:02
Daleks with the door going up a little bit.
34:04
It says room. That's how you know it's going
34:07
up. And then all hell breaks loose.
34:11
And as you said, they appear on the final page.
34:14
Turn, turn the page. There are the Daleks because
34:17
when this, when Part 1 was in Doctor Who magazine, they didn't
34:23
announce the Daleks were in it on the spine.
34:24
It just called the story Liberation and it turned the
34:27
final page in. Oh my God, it's the Daleks.
34:30
Oh, that is clever, that liberation people must have gone
34:34
have a boring title. Good grief.
34:37
And yeah, it's a it's a bold move to have the Daleks turn up
34:40
and murder everybody at England's finest moment.
34:44
I mean, if they are a Nazi Germany parallel, is that
34:48
perhaps the most evil thing they could possibly do?
34:50
Take away our one moment of triumph.
34:53
Your one moment of triumph. My 1 moment of triumph.
34:58
Your personal 1 moment of triumph.
35:02
I don't even like football. I've got to say.
35:06
I've got to say, the the pitch of the Daleks on the pitch with
35:09
the burning football, that burning football just was.
35:14
Hats off, Julia Sullivan. I love that detail.
35:17
I mean, it's brilliant, isn't it?
35:18
And but it's it's also, I think you're starting to get a little
35:22
hint of what's going to be going on with this story because the
35:27
Daleks invading London in 1966 and you suddenly go hang on a
35:31
minute. What year did Daleks invasion of
35:35
2150 AD come out? Oh, that was 1966 and you start
35:39
to come on. This is this is going to be a
35:41
little bit ironic. This is going to be a little bit
35:43
meta textual. And if you listeners, if you
35:47
think that's a little bit of a joke, trust me, this is the
35:51
tiniest little wink to the audience compared to where we're
35:54
going with this. Yes, and if you if you think you
35:57
know a hat off to 1966 is the only in joke and continuity
36:03
reference in this book, well, Andy, Frank and Malin, we've got
36:06
you beat in this one. All right, But we will talk
36:09
about that, won't we? Yes.
36:11
So as things move on accelerating through so worth
36:14
mentioning structurally they they're all it's it's 14 parts
36:18
long, I think this, but they're quite each, each issue is
36:21
relatively short, I think. Had they gone shorter the strip
36:24
because I felt like there was like 5 or 6 pages per per.
36:27
Chapter 12345 Yeah, it's just 6 pages.
36:31
I think it used to be 8 and it's it's interesting how much of a
36:35
difference the loss of those 2 pages makes, doesn't it?
36:37
To what feels like the length of of the strip.
36:39
It does feel much more. Bitty's not the right word, but
36:44
you sort of like snap, snap, snap, snap.
36:46
Yeah, I felt as if some of the more sophisticated character
36:49
work had gone, in fact. Or maybe that was just a story
36:52
he's trying to tell. Maybe.
36:54
Maybe. I mean, he pretty much says at
36:57
the start, doesn't he? I decided to write Hang on.
37:02
I decided that the way to write Doctor Who comic strips was to
37:05
show something new on every page.
37:07
And he does not disappoint. Oh, he doesn't know.
37:10
This is like Doctor Who concentrate every, certainly
37:14
each, each issue as we move forwards, each instalment has a
37:19
big new idea in it that wasn't there previously.
37:22
And it is a heck of a roller coaster through through this
37:27
story where you're you, you do not know where this story is
37:29
going next. Joyously, wonderfully, you know,
37:31
I can only imagine what it would have been like following it
37:33
because that's always sometimes with, you know, once a month
37:37
with comic books in general. If I, I very rarely read any
37:40
comic books as individual issues anymore because I just find it
37:44
too bitty. I find it too unsatisfying.
37:45
I want the story. And often you wait, you wait a
37:49
whole month and then you just get another bit of an, you know,
37:51
you get another quarter of a story that doesn't really take
37:54
you to any new locations, just slowly unravels it.
37:56
And you think, I mean, that's fine if it's a big finish audio
37:59
or I'm going to sit and listen to it all in a couple of
38:01
sittings, but not when I've got a month between each one Here.
38:05
I you would have turned to those pages in Dogs Hue magazine each
38:08
week and not knowing what the hell you were going to see.
38:10
There isn't one single chapter of this that is doing the same
38:13
as another chapter. And where this book ends, From
38:17
where this book starts, it's a world apart.
38:20
Oh, 100%. So as we accelerate on through
38:23
the story, all is not as it seems.
38:25
We quickly read the Doctor, The 14th Doctor quickly, over the
38:30
course about four or five months, establishes that this is
38:35
but one world within a Museum of the Daleks, the Dalek Dome boy.
38:43
And that, that is easily my favorite end of chapter only
38:48
because right when the Dalek Dome is revealed, this massive
38:52
play park with all these, you know, the Spyrodon zone and all
38:55
of this, like, I wasn't sure where to look first.
38:59
I was like, what am I supposed to look at the continuity
39:01
references that are everywhere on the signs?
39:04
Am I supposed to look at the fabulous, this huge lift going
39:07
up the middle? You know, I'm taking in all the
39:09
detail. It took me about two or three
39:11
minutes to realise the whole thing's in the shape of a
39:14
fucking Dalek Dome. You're inside?
39:17
Yeah, the top, a glass shaped like inside of a Dalek.
39:21
Yeah. So it's.
39:22
Can I add as well though quickly because you skipped 3 issues
39:25
there as I loved the photographs of the tourists at various
39:34
massacres that the Daleks are doing that are slapped onto the
39:38
artwork. It's another brilliant way of
39:40
getting your attention with the art.
39:42
So you've got the usual panels and then sort of on on a on a
39:46
tilt, you've got these telepics slapped onto them with these
39:50
purple faced aliens sort of going jeez, after Daleks murder
39:55
loads of people around them. And I was thinking, what the
39:59
hell is going on in this story? Like, I was really intrigued.
40:04
Yeah, yeah, it's really good, isn't it?
40:06
And I mean, because it is such a sort of, you know, roller
40:11
coaster, dodge him car, knock yourself back as a forwards type
40:15
story. It does mean occasionally you
40:16
get some ideas that are introduced that aren't really
40:18
developed as the story goes on. In fact, I think it is
40:20
instructions. Yeah.
40:22
I think Alan Barnes does say in his introduction that, yeah,
40:25
presumably he had the arc of the story map tag, but certainly not
40:28
the individual detail. And so he was, that's one of the
40:30
reasons he's so rich with ideas, because he was he was coming up
40:33
with new ideas as he wrote it rather than having to sort of
40:36
come up with all the ideas for the story at the very start and
40:38
then write it in a few weeks. But it does mean certainly it's
40:41
a castle side. And I think in this case, not
40:42
unwisely, it does seem to be in the early stages with this
40:45
tourist family who were there and sort of just as you say,
40:49
flipping around the world getting photos taken of various
40:52
dialect atrocities. It does feel like it's trying to
40:54
say maybe it's lining yourself up to say something about the
40:57
morality of tourism. But I think the story realises
41:02
that's there's no real grip being found with that.
41:04
You know it's not making any purchase as a theme.
41:06
I think that's a common weakness, though, in Alan Barnes
41:09
is writing, especially in his Big Finish writing, is that he
41:12
will throw in, you know, six or seven ideas and five of them are
41:18
underdeveloped, and he'll sort of run with one or two.
41:23
But it feels less egregious in a comic strip just because there's
41:27
so much to take in visually from it, you know, So, so I'm like,
41:31
OK, that's fine, but but the pictures are a quirky idea.
41:34
So is the Daleks carving out a picture of a Dalek in Mount
41:39
Rushmore. So is the Daleks soaring the
41:42
head off the Sphinx in Egypt. And most brilliantly of all, and
41:47
at this point you still don't know this is a theme park at
41:50
this point you still think we're on the earth.
41:52
And just as time Taurus on the earth, at the end of 1 chapter
41:57
or part sorry, the Daleks blow up the earth.
42:01
It literally shatters like a Terry's chocolate orange.
42:07
Yeah, and I think but and then the next chapter opens with them
42:11
flying through an asteroid field and just the Eiffel Towers
42:14
floating past. It's like every idea Alan Barnes
42:19
has ever had is in this. And then you just get the 14th
42:23
Doctor scowling out of the window.
42:26
But it's pretty because I think what he it does it really well,
42:31
because I think by that point, you know, and the doctor knows
42:34
that this can't be real. Like there's something going on
42:37
here, but you're not given any sense of what it is like the
42:40
mystery is is retained for I think, I think a whole chapter
42:45
more. And it's only at the end of the
42:46
following chapter that we get the explanation of, oh, we're in
42:51
the welcome to the Dalek Dome. We're.
42:54
Looking at the picture now and it is gorgeous.
42:58
It's wonderful, isn't it? You get We've got the jungles of
43:01
Spiridon Dome, the Scarlo Civil War Dome, the Death Wheel.
43:06
What's the Zag duel zone? Is Zag something from there the
43:11
old comics? Yeah, TV 21 Zag is from the
43:15
comic strip I think. So it's called the Zaga Duel
43:17
Zone. There's a there's a really good
43:19
one called Duel of the Daleks where another Dalek challenges
43:25
the Golden Emperor Dalek to a duel to become Emperor and Zag
43:29
is what we challenges. It's really good.
43:32
And you know, I started to get Stephen Moffett vibes because
43:35
you know how? Moffett said in the confidential
43:38
for Girl in the Fireplace is, you know, people have short
43:42
spent attention spans now will do anything stop them turning
43:45
over to ITV and Celebrity Wrestling?
43:48
So of course I'm going to put a horse on that spaceship that is
43:51
also connected to, you know, pre revolutionary France and the
43:55
Doctors taken out of the Doctors in the Dalek Sunsa and suddenly
43:59
these two people appear in space suits, kidnap him, take off
44:04
their helmets and it's a pair of bloody gorillas.
44:08
It's brilliant, isn't it? I got real.
44:11
This shows my age, but I got real Sonic.
44:13
The comic vibes from that. Oh, how comes?
44:17
Oh, there was some of the artists on that, the way they
44:20
used to depict, because that was a sort of, that was a world of
44:25
animal creatures. But some of the artists would
44:29
how he would depict them would basically be people with animal
44:31
heads and they would have all these sort of adventures where
44:34
it would turn out that, you know, people were being held in
44:37
zoos and and stuff like that. I.
44:39
Did have a flashback to the lunar strangers for a second as
44:42
well. Do you remember those cows that
44:44
was? Oh yes, yes, yes, no, that's a
44:46
good shout. Oh, it's a gorgeous piece of so
44:50
the Dalek Dome, you should explain it is revealed is a
44:54
tourist attraction run by humanity in the spoilers all
44:58
over the place here run by humanity.
45:01
And I think it's a 24th century and it where you can go into
45:08
these virtual reality sort of mindscapes and witness the Dalic
45:15
atrocities and visits all of these famous events from
45:18
history, but not quite right. So, so we get the Dalek invasion
45:23
of A1966AD or there's a bit where we visit the jungles of
45:28
Spy of Spyrodon, but it's the it's the the gardens of
45:31
Spyrodon. You get the marsh Daleks from
45:33
the old Dalek books in there or my personal favorite.
45:39
And you said there are some panels here that you would like
45:41
to have as a poster on your wall.
45:43
I would like to have page 2 of Part 5, Daleks versus Dragons.
45:49
I wondered if he was doing a part of Dungeons and Dragons
45:52
there. Daleks and Dragons.
45:55
Oh my God, it's an enormous dragon, right?
45:58
And he's setting fire to an Imperial with a huge gout of
46:02
flame that's coming out of his mouth.
46:06
Yeah, yeah, it's the period Daleks trying to invade Albion
46:10
of all these Arthurian Knights. I think someone says of them.
46:13
Oh, here we go. So close you can feel the fire.
46:15
Oh. Please.
46:17
Little joke for James Lark there.
46:21
And then just on the next page, then you get the Dalek Dome from
46:24
the outside, don't you? So you can see in full that is
46:27
in fact an enormous Dalek Dome. Literally.
46:31
Yeah, brilliant. And you get these, you also get,
46:34
you also get the, oh, can I draw your attention to?
46:37
So there's various crowd scenes as well.
46:39
You know, as you said, Lee Sullivan was really earning his
46:42
earning his pocket money on this job because.
46:45
You want me to do what? Now he's saying that the script
46:48
comes in. The Dalek Dome is clearly a very
46:51
popular tourist attraction, full of aliens of all different
46:55
stripes. Oh my.
46:56
God I. Can see.
46:58
Slovene. You can see Slavine on the.
47:01
Are you looking at the last page of of part 4 there?
47:05
Yeah, there's Slavine. You can also see at points some
47:08
Fishman of Candelinger. Yeah, I can see someone with two
47:11
heads. I don't know who that is.
47:14
Can I draw your attention to Page 3 of part 50?
47:17
One head in there now. Yes, I'm there.
47:20
Bottom panel, bottom right, just over the 40 shoulder.
47:25
Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. How did I miss that?
47:32
Are you kidding me right now? I mean, we can only assume that
47:36
this was how he kept himself sane when he had to do all of
47:38
this. That is so funny.
47:40
Why is it the picture above that there with the Dalek information
47:43
point? I'll have more on that later.
47:47
What is that strange creature? Is that one of the fish people
47:49
there? Yeah, the tentacles coming out
47:50
of his head. There's quite a few.
47:52
There's quite a few creatures here.
47:54
We won't name everyone because a we don't want to spoil it and B
47:56
we can't. I think Barnes and Sullivan
47:59
probably got together and thought right, How many kisses
48:02
to those old comics, those old Daleks comics, can we fit in
48:05
this? Yeah, there's quite a few from
48:07
old 1960s annuals and comic strips, and a few different
48:11
monsters from TV 21 as well. There's more than one void in
48:14
here. How did I miss Mr. Spock?
48:17
There's a menopter. Always nice to see in an opera.
48:20
Where's? There an opera.
48:22
That shot of the Dalek Dome from the outside.
48:25
Yeah. Bottom, bottom right.
48:28
You've got a board. They might even be hand in hand.
48:31
You know, that's a lovely thing. I can see the board.
48:35
Oh my God, you always bring up brilliant details that I'd.
48:38
Never spot this chapter right this part.
48:40
Is very much what you said earlier.
48:43
Because of the condensed nature of the condensed lengths of
48:47
these parts, we very quickly get to the source of what's causing
48:52
all of this. It's basically 4 pages of the
48:55
Doctor going, well, something's not right, I'm going
48:57
undergrounds. Oh look, there's an enormous
49:00
Dalek mutant strung up underwater.
49:03
The end of Part 5. Is a genuinely quite upsetting
49:06
image of. It's not nice, isn't it?
49:08
It's not nice. So the the doctor is LED.
49:10
Underground is basically sort of working out what's going on and
49:14
says what my TARDIS landed in was real, a dream made flesh.
49:18
And here's the dreamer. Trouble is, they just woke up
49:22
and it's literally a Dalek being.
49:23
Strung up a bit like the controller in Bad Wolf, being
49:27
pulled in every direction. It's very unpleasant.
49:30
Or if you if you want more gruesome.
49:33
Comparison Anyone who remembers Jason Isaac's end in the film
49:36
Event Horizon. It's that sort of thing we're
49:39
looking at here. Is he torn apart, Michael?
49:42
He is. He's strung up.
49:43
On, I believe, barbed wire. Pleasant, yeah.
49:47
Fun story for anyone who who's interested in Event Horizon.
49:51
Side note, Jason, they Jason Isaacs had to have a full body
49:58
mold made so they could recreate him for that because they made
50:02
it, you know, sort of eviscerated thing.
50:04
And he was looking at this and he was so fascinated by it.
50:06
He asked if he could take it home.
50:08
And he told his wife, he told his wife the story and he said,
50:10
she said they wouldn't let me bring it home.
50:12
And his wife said, what would we have done with it?
50:18
You can have great. Fun.
50:19
Put it in the bed. Night, darling.
50:26
So actually I think. Jason Isles is kinkier than.
50:28
We all thought, you know, if he was off to an alternative
50:31
universe, we'd know what he's up to.
50:35
So yeah, so we find out that this is actually where we
50:41
actually start to get a really story takes a real another left
50:46
turn, not 90°. Because it's not going to go
50:49
around. In circles, although technically
50:52
there are so many left terms in. This we do go around in circles
50:55
a couple of times, like dizzy dizzy Daleks.
50:57
That's my daughter, my daughter would say.
51:00
And you start to realise because the.
51:05
Daleks. You're suddenly realising are
51:08
maybe the victims here, and I don't mean that in sort of, you
51:11
know, Guardian reading, maybe the Daleks or the real victims
51:14
guides, but you know, it's, it's it's a, you know, we've watched
51:17
Dalek, we've seen all this returning to this idea of
51:20
actually we can be pretty monstrous.
51:23
And these are at. Heart living creatures,
51:24
regardless of what you think of it and the title liberation of
51:27
the Daleks. Now I'm a sucker for an of the
51:29
Daleks. I think we all are, but some
51:32
some of them are. I think they can.
51:35
Some of them are desperate. I think I think they broadly
51:38
break down into three different categories, don't they?
51:42
Which is the sounds cool, but whatever.
51:44
So that's the revelation of the Daleks.
51:49
Planet of the Daleks, you know. Yeah, Planet of the Daleks.
51:53
It's a Dalek with some. It's a planet with some Daleks.
51:57
Resurrection of the Daleks. Why?
51:58
Where have they? Been the second one, a big
52:02
finisher. Quite guilty of this is that's
52:04
just a word that you've put before of the Daleks, that
52:07
nobody's put before of the Daleks for energy of the Daleks,
52:10
Renaissance of the Daleks. Poison of the Daleks.
52:15
Time of the Daleks. It's like they went through a
52:20
dictionary and went We've not had that one.
52:22
Before Blood of the Daleks. Oh no, that was quite a good one
52:24
actually. That's all that's good.
52:25
Well, blood of the. Daleks is good because that
52:27
leads me into the the third category, which is the best,
52:30
which is the genuinely evocative title.
52:33
So Blood of the Daleks on TV, Remembrance of the Daleks, it's
52:37
a nothing great title. And I would say Liberation of
52:42
the Daleks falls into that because you go, OK of the Daleks
52:45
and they go, what do you mean liberating the Daleks?
52:49
What are we who, what are we liberating them from?
52:51
And here we begin to get the idea of, oh, shoot, the Daleks
52:55
are the, the Daleks are the victims in this, aren't they?
52:57
There is something we are in a story in which something
53:00
unbelievably bad is being done to the nastiest creatures.
53:03
We know it's, and again, it's just a brilliant every, there's
53:06
only 6 pages, there's 14 parts. But at the end of every single 1
53:11
is a genuine cliffhanger of I need to know where this is next
53:16
and and a genuinely visually. Interesting cliffhanger as well.
53:21
Oh, I'm still staring at this. This poor Dalek that's strung.
53:24
Oh boy. Oh God, what was I going to say
53:28
then? Oh, but if you want, if you want
53:32
sort of a savage commentary on sort of commercialising and
53:37
making a joke of the Daleks, go and listen to Rob Sheamer's
53:42
Jubilee. Because that that is, is savage,
53:46
isn't it? It really attacks that point and
53:49
then some. Whereas this is less.
53:52
It could have been that because they are commercially exploiting
53:55
the reputation of the Daleks, but instead this is more about
54:00
the torture of what's happening with the Daleks underground.
54:06
Yes, I would say this is. More of a piece with Rob
54:09
Shearman's Dalek than it is with Rob Shearman's Jubilee.
54:13
Really. They're.
54:14
Quite similar are here. What about I think.
54:17
What was one of the things that was stripped out of Jubilee as
54:20
well as, you know, the whole parallel universe stuff is as
54:23
you say that that deeper idea of if the Daleks are are a metaphor
54:29
for the. Nazis.
54:31
Then is it? At what point does it become
54:35
distasteful to take fascism? Nazism and.
54:40
Turn that into tea time, Tara for Tots.
54:45
What's the limit? And again, better.
54:46
That Daleks I hate. These guys better that than we
54:51
give you, Dalek. Juice or Dalek aid?
54:53
Well, what's that? Well, it's just lemonade or
54:55
orange juice. We've got a picture of a Dalek
54:57
slapped on it. So yeah, that that's where we're
55:02
going. And then again, you know, and
55:03
then you look across the page, first part of Part 6, again,
55:06
just an entire, this is the Stephen Moffatt thing.
55:08
If Stephen Moffatt said, I think this is around the time of Son,
55:10
it's the library Forest of the Dead, which he said if you're
55:12
doing A2 parter on TV, the the second part has to begin in a
55:18
different place to the end of the first part.
55:20
So if you end Part 1 with the characters running down a
55:23
corridor corridor, you can't start Part 2 with them running
55:28
down that same corridor because as far as the audience is
55:32
concerned, they've been in that corridor for a week.
55:35
So that's why, you know, Forest the Dead opens with Donna in in
55:40
this whole fantasy world. And sure enough, here suddenly
55:42
slap, we're in Part 6, page one, we're into a Starship Troopers.
55:47
It looks enticing, I mean. You've got a Dalek saucer that's
55:51
jammed into the ground sticking up and loads of Daleks that have
55:54
been torn in half. It's the sort of Time War that I
55:57
wanted to see, you know, and Space Marines.
56:01
Dropping out of futuristic helicopters and I'm not I'm not
56:05
a huge one for for, you know, macho military sci-fi.
56:08
I think aliens is a fantastic film, but aliens sort of took
56:13
Starship Troopers and undercut it all.
56:16
I think too many of the films that then try to AB the aliens
56:21
or Paul Verhoeven's self satirising version of Starship
56:25
Troopers sort of miss the satire and just do Starship Troopers
56:27
and it is just neo fascism again.
56:29
But here for one page you get the sort of oh sugar rush hit of
56:33
look at the cool military hardware versus Daleks.
56:36
And then we've buggered off out of that flashback before we've
56:38
got part of it, which is great. But I.
56:41
Would actually say, I do think part 6 is the weakest part of
56:46
the story. It's the bit of the story that
56:48
actually stands still and does a lot of the explanations and
56:53
we're just in and out of a couple of rooms with a big twist
56:56
at the end of the Is it the supreme Dalek?
56:59
The red one? It's the new well we need to
57:02
keep. It we need to keep a track of
57:03
this. This is the Supreme Dalek from
57:05
the new TV series Stolen Earth One.
57:09
The red one stolen. Earth.
57:11
Yeah. So.
57:12
So there is a bit I mean. It's much needed exposition and
57:16
explanation, but after five parts, you know, five months of
57:20
Oh my God, it is just a lot of standing still for one part.
57:24
It's the point at which you know the.
57:26
Engine needs to be allowed to catch up with the car, you know,
57:30
OK, we actually need some and. Give a little bit of.
57:34
Explanation let you know the Daleks that we'd left behind
57:37
while the Doctor arrived. And then they need a chance to
57:38
catch up and everything needs to sort of set.
57:41
And that's, that's fine. And certainly I think reading it
57:44
like this, it's absolutely fine. I can imagine it.
57:47
Maybe it was a little bit less of a novelty if it was a big
57:51
finish or. Audio, it would just feel like
57:53
10 minutes of exposition, you know?
57:55
And I'll be making a lot of complaints.
57:57
But because Lee Sullivan's doing pretty pictures, it kind of
58:01
skips over that, oh, 100 percent, 100%.
58:07
And yeah. So the we discover.
58:08
That the Daleks from one of the mindscapes have managed to
58:14
escape into into reality somehow.
58:19
And can I ask you about that please?
58:21
Because it does. Seem to be that because he went
58:24
into the TARDIS, that's what that's right, That's what
58:28
allowed him to sort of solidify in reality something that the
58:33
TARDIS did to him. Yes, so I think the.
58:37
Supreme Dalek is given a little bit of life for a moment because
58:41
he he managed the TARDIS was real.
58:42
It was in the genescape. He hijacked the TARDIS, brings
58:45
it out and into the Dalek Dome. And what I like about this we
58:50
get when we get in, in part 7, sort of an extended flashback
58:53
explaining how he did that. What I like about this bit is
58:57
essentially the Supreme Dalek becomes the lead character for
59:00
this story. It's about and we get to see a
59:03
Dalek be genuinely clever and sneaky, which we don't see
59:08
enough of because we're told they're plotters, you know,
59:11
we're told that they are conniving and that's, and I like
59:13
that about those. That's the type of Dalek I find
59:16
interesting is that they're these horrible little
59:19
self-serving villainous creatures.
59:21
But here we actually get to see a Dalek, not that it has feet.
59:25
Think on its feet and work out a way to to to survive like those
59:29
Daleks from power of the. Daleks, isn't it?
59:31
Well, they haven't got their guns in fact, and that's another
59:34
story. You know, that's in bracket #3 A
59:36
very clever title with about 5 different meanings.
59:40
And he also as well I. One thing I really loved about
59:43
the supreme Dalek in this is he takes a moral standpoint.
59:47
At one point he asked the Doctor, what right do you have
59:51
to destroy us? And I was like, are we doing
59:54
Genesis of Daleks from the Daleks point of view?
59:58
You see, I was just thinking this.
59:59
Is. This is you know, if Daleks are
1:00:03
a were conceived originally as a satire of the far right, then
1:00:09
this is this is them as a satire of modern modern day right wing
1:00:12
commentators. You know what about to re Oh
1:00:15
well, I'm the baddie, am I? Oh well, what about you?
1:00:17
What about freedom of fault? Come on now.
1:00:20
Yeah. This this.
1:00:22
Is the Dalek who's just asking? Questions We just want to murder
1:00:26
a load of. People, what's wrong with that?
1:00:28
In fact, that's basically the stance the Dalek takes.
1:00:30
Can I just say though, because then the story is running along
1:00:34
2 lines with two simulated characters and that is the
1:00:38
Supreme Dalek and the various apodolics that we meet for the
1:00:41
rest of the story and Georgette who is a fake version of a real
1:00:48
character. That works in the Dalek though
1:00:50
right? And I think all the stuff around
1:00:53
the Supreme Dalek works really really well.
1:00:56
I couldn't really get a handle on fake Georgette, and I feel
1:01:00
like there could have been real emotional investment with that
1:01:03
character and I didn't feel it. Yeah, I think I I agree.
1:01:08
With you, though, I think she's sort of the pseudo companion for
1:01:11
this story, isn't she? And I think the each, there's so
1:01:17
much story. To get through.
1:01:18
And it's moving so quickly and with such excitement, but in
1:01:22
such individually small chunks that I just don't think there's
1:01:25
any point in the story at which the writer or the audience or
1:01:30
the story thinks that Georgette is the most interesting thing to
1:01:33
be speaking about. And in a story that is, that is
1:01:36
admirably trying to give you something new and exciting on
1:01:38
every single page, there's no point at which that thing is
1:01:41
Georgette and. There is a point.
1:01:44
Where she decides to work alongside the Daleks because she
1:01:50
thinks she has a right to exist just as they do and she doesn't
1:01:54
think that there's going to be a good way out of this story for
1:01:57
her. And at that point I was like,
1:01:59
well, you sort of that's it. I, I no longer give a toss about
1:02:02
you. It's like Salani in Planet of
1:02:04
the Googe, you know, when she's given the choice and she goes,
1:02:07
Oh, well, they're over here, you know?
1:02:09
Well, that point you, you can die like, you know, like.
1:02:12
It's the sort of. It's the sort of.
1:02:14
Yeah, and we think about in, for example, dot and Bubble that
1:02:18
that heel turn, that revelation is the entire inflection point
1:02:22
of the story. The fact that someone does this
1:02:25
is like they're going to go, oh shit, we've.
1:02:28
Been watching an entirely different character.
1:02:29
From who we thought this whole time and then and then other
1:02:33
stories just have it happen. I mean, it's not that it's not
1:02:35
emotional, I understand from her point.
1:02:36
So. So the revelation is that the
1:02:38
Daleks managed to escape in this way, but they quickly realise
1:02:42
that they can't exist for very long.
1:02:44
Although they can escape from the trees, they won't last for
1:02:46
very long here because they are things of imagination and that
1:02:49
they will break down. And Georgette realises why that
1:02:51
must be the case for me as well. And if the Daleks getting too
1:02:54
dangerous and they're going to shut down these dreamscapes,
1:02:55
then I'm, I'm going to die and they're all going to die as
1:02:58
well. And I'm, I'm a living thing with
1:03:00
my own mind. So she runs for the only help
1:03:04
that she can think of, which is she zaps herself into the TV 20.
1:03:10
1. Dalek comic strip.
1:03:12
It is the. Thing.
1:03:15
Well, my favorite image of the whole thing, this fabulous pop
1:03:19
art scar, Is that what it looked like in the albums?
1:03:22
This is so the final. The final page.
1:03:26
The final page. Of part.
1:03:28
Where we up to now Part 8 is a whole splash page I believe is
1:03:35
the term of Georgette arriving on Scarrow and it is a pitch
1:03:39
perfect pastiche of the TV 21. It's sort of pastel colours.
1:03:44
There's some bridges, you know, and towers everywhere.
1:03:47
Daleks flying about of all colours, a huge moon in the sky.
1:03:51
Man oh man, someone frame this for me please.
1:03:54
You better believe there are hoverbacks.
1:03:57
There's plenty of those. About.
1:04:00
And so, yeah. So this is where we.
1:04:01
Then get a Georgette has beamed herself into the Zeke Duel Zone,
1:04:08
which is the TV 21 Dalek comic strip.
1:04:11
And it goes it it goes full in on this.
1:04:14
You know, I think in about a couple of pages here, we get so
1:04:17
many deep cuts to the TV 21 Dalek comic strip.
1:04:21
It's there are terracons. There's you know, we see all of
1:04:26
the Dalek city. We we get you know, we get the
1:04:31
golden Emperor himself turning up him him of the big head.
1:04:36
We get the exciting. Villains from the menace of the
1:04:40
Monstroms flying through space. And the first, the first page of
1:04:45
Part 9 is all done in the style, the layout of one of those old
1:04:50
comics I don't want. I didn't want to go back to the
1:04:53
normal ones. It's so gorgeous.
1:04:56
No, it's. Gorgeously.
1:04:58
Done, isn't it? It's it's because it's this
1:05:00
interesting thing that because Doctor Who.
1:05:04
Is a. Has run.
1:05:07
For so long. And has adopted so many
1:05:09
different forms and been aimed at so many different audiences
1:05:12
and told the story in so many different registers at different
1:05:15
times. You you realise that?
1:05:18
What? This story is actually.
1:05:19
Becoming We've had little glimpses of it with that
1:05:22
Starship Troopers bit and with the Daleks versus the Dragons.
1:05:25
Is this is an exercise in juxtaposing Doctor Who against
1:05:29
itself and juxtapose, you know, and the the drama that can come
1:05:32
out of that. Because that's the thing.
1:05:33
This is not an original observation about Doctor Who.
1:05:35
But Doctor Who is at its best when it takes a couple, you
1:05:38
know, two or three or four unlikely ideas that are and
1:05:41
slams them together. And the story is what blasts off
1:05:44
of that. And here the unlikely ideas that
1:05:47
all taking are are the TV 21 Daleks, the Imperial Daleks from
1:05:52
the 80's, the new series Daleks and literally slamming you
1:05:55
against so telling a story most Dalek from big.
1:05:58
Finish is even in there is even in there are.
1:06:01
Many more Easter eggs for people to enjoy now we talked, we
1:06:05
talked about. Continuity in our last episode
1:06:08
and about stories built out of continuity where nothing fresh
1:06:12
and interesting is done with them.
1:06:15
And we were very hard on that book for that reason.
1:06:18
Does this suffer the same fate? I don't think it does.
1:06:22
And. When we talked about a Beast of
1:06:26
Fat Rock, I think I said that, well, we were talking about the
1:06:30
idea that the, if continuity has a role in storytelling, it
1:06:34
should be as fuel. You know what, where can this
1:06:36
get me? What can I do?
1:06:37
What can I do with this? What, what new story can I tell
1:06:39
by by burning up these ideas and, you know, synthesising them
1:06:44
and introducing them and getting what's cast off?
1:06:47
The problem we said Beast of Fang Rock was that ultimately it
1:06:49
had a lot of continuity in it, but it didn't do anything new
1:06:53
that it's there was at the end of the day, there was nothing
1:06:56
new put back in the toy box along with all the toys you've
1:06:58
taken out and it actually. Lessened the impact of its much
1:07:04
better influences. Yeah, it just over explained it
1:07:07
was. Just filling in on that, like,
1:07:10
like you took a very good picture and you just added too
1:07:13
much detailing and you sort of spoiled the overall effect.
1:07:17
At the heart of this and the heart of this, you've got a.
1:07:19
Really original idea that's never been done before, and that
1:07:22
is the big Dalek theme park and the idea that the Daleks that
1:07:26
we've met to that point have all been simulations.
1:07:29
That's never been done before. It's only just occurred to me,
1:07:32
but this. Is Jurassic Park with Daleks
1:07:36
isn't it this story? Welcome.
1:07:43
Do you know what? Do you know what they did?
1:07:44
They only spent so long asking if they could.
1:07:47
They never stopped to ask if they should.
1:07:50
And. What's really interesting?
1:07:53
Is is you feel empathy for the Daleks in this without without
1:08:00
them actually changing at all. It's not like Dalek where you
1:08:04
have that one Dalek character that's humanised.
1:08:06
They're still Daleks, They still want to kill people, but just
1:08:10
from the fact that that they're being tortured and they feel as
1:08:14
if they have a right to exist. That's where that's where
1:08:18
you're. Feeling for them.
1:08:19
Comes from It's kind of clever when the T Rex eats that man.
1:08:22
On the toilet, the audience is thinking, well, fair enough,
1:08:27
what did you expect? I'll probably love that soon.
1:08:32
But yeah, but. On the point of continuity, I
1:08:35
think we said in the Beast of Fang Rock episode it felt if if
1:08:38
continuity is fuel then it felt like it was a plane sat on the
1:08:42
runway running its engines at full blast and not moving an
1:08:46
inch. This and blasts off.
1:08:50
And goes. Careering wildly towards the
1:08:52
moon. I mean, let's be honest, this is
1:08:55
no way to tell A. Story, right?
1:08:57
Like in any other medium, I think this would be
1:09:01
unacceptable. But just in this visual medium
1:09:05
on the page, it just pops. It's got pops like energy to it.
1:09:11
Yeah. No one should use this as a
1:09:12
model. For doing anything but but with
1:09:15
someone with enough ideas, enough experience and the Anna
1:09:18
Barnes and the artistic ability with Daleks of Lee Sullivan, it
1:09:25
it it works really well. What it actually reminds me of
1:09:27
more than anything else is the power of the Doctor, which
1:09:31
similarly has that sort of, this is in every, every easily
1:09:36
ordered football way. This, this story is a mess.
1:09:38
And yet it's so enthusiastic. It's so excited about having all
1:09:42
of these toys to play with and smashing them together and going
1:09:46
and it's infectious. And.
1:09:47
Night has night. Power of the doctor.
1:09:49
It's visually arresting. As well.
1:09:51
Yeah, it's, it's like James Lark said in our Strictly episode
1:09:53
when he was going and it's got this and it's got that and it's
1:09:57
got this. I mean, you could absolutely do
1:09:59
that for this, couldn't you? Oh 100% it is a it's.
1:10:02
A It's a joyous sugar rush of a story at the end, kind of which
1:10:06
you do feel a bit sort of, and you shouldn't really eat that
1:10:08
much sugar. In fact, I think it's such a
1:10:10
sugar rush. At the end and I, I won't talk
1:10:13
about it yet, but the doctors must just sort of go like, all
1:10:16
right, bye. OK.
1:10:21
Fine. We'll skip over the morality of
1:10:23
all of this and punishing any of these people and all of that.
1:10:26
No fun's over Almost. Oh, fantastic.
1:10:32
So can I can I please point something that we have?
1:10:35
Skipped over because I would never forgive myself if I
1:10:37
didn't. And that is probably the
1:10:41
cleverest cliffhanger of this entire thing, which is a
1:10:45
subversion of a cliffhanger in the flood, where the Cybermen
1:10:51
turned rain into this terrible emotional weapon, where when the
1:10:55
rain came down, everyone pleaded to be turned into Cybermen just
1:10:59
to turn their emotions off. Well, Alan Barnes averts that in
1:11:03
this. And that's a wonderful moment
1:11:05
where the Daleks are surrounding.
1:11:07
And, you know, we know they're out of there now and they're
1:11:09
real. And all of the crowd are going
1:11:12
exterminate me, Exterminate me because they still think it's
1:11:16
part of the bloody, you know, the theme park.
1:11:19
They're they're literally asking to be killed.
1:11:22
And I kept thinking that is clever.
1:11:24
And it's very dark as well. I was sort of hoping some of
1:11:27
them would get killed, but it didn't happen.
1:11:29
Yeah. And you know.
1:11:31
You've got, you've got people in there with their people in there
1:11:35
with their. Phones and stuff, so there.
1:11:37
Is an element here of of that satire of people not realising
1:11:42
that thing, that tourism? Does of allowing you?
1:11:44
To engage with the world and other versions of the world, but
1:11:48
in a very Safeway and but suddenly being confronted with
1:11:52
the reality of where you are and what you're doing and you know,
1:11:55
and that's quite Jurassic Park. It's quite Michael cried.
1:11:57
An idea. The equivalent is going to, I
1:12:00
don't know, a. Nazi theme park and going up to
1:12:02
the actors and going shoot me, shoot me.
1:12:04
You know, it's twisted, but I loved it.
1:12:07
I just thought it was. It was very funny and a bit
1:12:09
uncomfortable because I did think there was about to be a
1:12:12
massacre of their own doing. Yeah.
1:12:15
So. Georgette forms this alliance
1:12:19
with the TV Century 21 Daleks and the Golden Emperor, who
1:12:27
faithful listeners will remember.
1:12:28
Faithful readers will recall, is a very cunning Dalek who has all
1:12:32
of his plans. He's got the biggest golden
1:12:35
ball. You've ever seen and three
1:12:37
enormous lights on his Dome? Absolutely.
1:12:40
And he visits. His.
1:12:42
Deep in the most ancient part of the city, the brain machine a
1:12:47
super calculator beyond compare to which the Golden Emperor
1:12:51
Dalek asks. I have ordered you to conduct a
1:12:54
full subatomic analysis of the Dalek city.
1:12:57
Now answer is this reality? I mean, this is great stuff.
1:13:01
This is what you've got. This is really. 60s SF isn't it?
1:13:05
This is. It's just beautiful.
1:13:07
And it is, but it's so exciting, you know, it's using the excuse
1:13:12
of that to engage with the type of sci-fi that you and me, the
1:13:15
kids inside us remember. Like, Oh yes, and and a huge
1:13:21
thumbs. Up once again to Lee Sullivan
1:13:23
for the cliffhanger where he has the enormous golden darling on a
1:13:28
plimp with his huge shadow cast over the TARDIS.
1:13:33
I love that picture. Well, and you know what?
1:13:35
Even more. So in these.
1:13:36
Scenes, things, you know, as you've said, we've got the sort
1:13:38
of pastiche elements of the T of the TV 21 style.
1:13:41
But then he has he has Georgette and the doctor meeting and being
1:13:46
alongside these dialects and managing to make.
1:13:49
Those very different art. Styles work in a way that feels
1:13:52
completely natural. It's a huge mash up, isn't it?
1:13:56
It's a huge and yet done and. Yet done really, really well and
1:14:00
very cleverly. I'm sure, I'm sure people who
1:14:03
are, you know, cleverer artists than us can tell you a lot of
1:14:05
what's going on in here. But it's it's very smart like
1:14:09
like when you go from that first page of those.
1:14:11
Two parts, which is in the style of the old Dalek comics to the
1:14:15
style of the modern day comics. It it doesn't jar.
1:14:19
You know, the juxtaposition isn't dramatic.
1:14:22
Although can I just say it as well on the next page, the Dalek
1:14:26
that we missed out on on the TV is the fabulous 60s Hypno Dalek.
1:14:31
He's got all the He's got an enormous eye stalk with a
1:14:35
psychedelic eye with a. Psychedelic eye on the end.
1:14:38
It's basically the time tunnel. It's got the end of his eye
1:14:42
stalk and it's an important plot point though, isn't it?
1:14:46
It is or it's one of those. Do you remember kids magazines
1:14:49
back in the 90s? You used to have those magic eye
1:14:51
tricks. Oh, I love them.
1:14:52
Once you stared at. Somebody come out?
1:14:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's.
1:14:56
That's the vibe here, yes, the interrogated Dalek.
1:15:00
You know those. We will have listeners who enjoy
1:15:03
a Dalek variance. While you've got a new one for
1:15:05
the spreadsheet now, I also love in this one.
1:15:09
Which can still have some fun whilst the Daleks are slowly
1:15:13
hypnotising all the clientele of the Dalek Dome.
1:15:17
And there's a wonderful couple of panels where the Love Dalek,
1:15:22
that's a red Dalek who's got sort of love hearts all over
1:15:26
him, marries a gay couple in a church a couple of pages.
1:15:31
Which is very funny. I mean, it's the last thing I
1:15:34
ever thought I'd see would be a Dalek marrying 2.
1:15:36
The Dalek Wedding Zone. That's.
1:15:38
Where I'm at and. Yeah, indeed.
1:15:40
And then, oh boy. I know what you say you.
1:15:45
Say it. Go on.
1:15:49
We. Have the So we have the Tourist
1:15:52
Information Dalek, who I think is based on those slightly
1:15:56
rubbish, misproportioned Daleks from the 1960's, the toy ones.
1:16:01
Again, a lovely little testament to Lee Sullivan's ability here
1:16:05
that one of the tricky things about drawing Daleks is if the
1:16:08
proportions are at all off, they immediately look wrong, you
1:16:11
know? That's why that's why the new
1:16:12
Paradigm Daleks didn't really work because the proportions
1:16:14
were and, and but yet he's so capable they're not only does he
1:16:18
do the Daleks well, but you can then have a gag of having some
1:16:21
misproportioned Daleks who are basically mobile tourist
1:16:24
information stations, you know, barking away.
1:16:28
If an earthly called Bobby is missing their mummies, please
1:16:31
collect them from the lost parents .0.
1:16:35
You're tired. Well, I may be.
1:16:38
Because we then. See the chap who is doing the
1:16:40
voice for the tourist Daleks. Possibly the most meta joke in
1:16:44
this. Entire thing.
1:16:45
It's one and only Nicholas Briggs as he is now as well.
1:16:52
He was probably exterminated. Not make not not his first
1:16:55
appearance in the Doctor Who comic strip.
1:16:58
Not at this. I mean, he's changed a bit.
1:17:00
He's changed a bit. Since then, although I will say
1:17:02
this, Yeah. And now look, I, you know, death
1:17:05
threats to people, Doctor Who creators is not something that I
1:17:08
could possibly abide. But this did provide me with a
1:17:12
massive belly laugh, and honestly, I do think that's how
1:17:16
Nicholas Briggs would like to go at the end of a Dalek gum, don't
1:17:21
you think? I mean, they must.
1:17:23
Alan Barnes must have emailed him first to say doing this gag.
1:17:29
Imagine he buys Doctor Who Magazine.
1:17:31
And turn that page. What the hell, Michael?
1:17:34
Are you aware that in order to turn simulacrum into a
1:17:39
solidified reality that you need a quantum powered reality gate
1:17:44
to reconstruct each and every atom that passes through?
1:17:48
Did you know that I did? Because I've read Liberation.
1:17:51
Of the dark. I mean, it's basically just the
1:17:55
load of technobabble, isn't it? And yeah, it's quite.
1:17:58
Good, because it's doing the almost that that story, because
1:18:03
this is, you know, characters recognising their own fictional
1:18:06
reality is basically a part of this.
1:18:08
And whenever you do that story, there's ultimately comes a point
1:18:11
in which the characters realise that and begin to use the nature
1:18:15
of their fictional reality to their advantage.
1:18:17
Or the villains do at least. And that's basically what we get
1:18:21
here is the, you know, the Doctor explains that you that in
1:18:24
order for the Daleks to be able to leave their their simulation
1:18:30
and exist permanently in the outside world without breaking
1:18:33
down, as you say, they will need this techno babbly Macguffin
1:18:37
gateway essentially. And so the the Dalek Emperor
1:18:41
just creates all of the people that he would need in order to
1:18:45
be able to do that within his reality and creates the gateway.
1:18:48
And so you have the TV Century 21 dialects start pouring out
1:18:52
into reality and laying waste to planet Earth.
1:18:55
And do you know how he does it? By inhabiting one of the moons
1:19:01
with a million million huge brained mathematicians created
1:19:06
all the and there's just such a a glorious which just takes me
1:19:10
back to like original Star Trek of all these aliens with
1:19:13
basically like a segmented four way brain above their heads
1:19:18
creating this entire moon. I mean, Lee Sullivan must have
1:19:22
been having the best time at this point.
1:19:25
It is. Just wild and crazy.
1:19:28
But like, why not? It's got, this is proper
1:19:30
maximalist storytelling by this stage, just bigger, bigger,
1:19:34
bigger, bigger. And so the story gets bigger and
1:19:37
bigger and bigger, and the Doctor realises, well, we've got
1:19:41
all of these different simulations, each one of which
1:19:43
is being run off the nightmares of a different Dalek mutant.
1:19:48
And there's eight or nine of these mutants.
1:19:50
And So what can I use to defeat this Dalek army that believes
1:19:55
it's the only one with any right to exist?
1:19:57
Because this is the other thing. The Golden Emperor, in order to
1:20:00
power this gateway, is going to shut down all of the other
1:20:03
simulations and use their power fucking all the plasma out of
1:20:06
the. Spiridon Zone and the Vulcan
1:20:08
Zone and all the others. So the Doctor.
1:20:13
Beams himself over to another simulation to get himself an
1:20:16
ally. Who is turn the page?
1:20:18
Cliffhanger Dr. It's only your boy, It's the Emperor.
1:20:25
It's your boy, the big old pepper.
1:20:26
Pot from Evil of the Daleks. I mean, he looks even more
1:20:29
impressive. Than evil of the Daleks I love
1:20:32
the angle of that because you're seeing this enormous behemoth
1:20:35
emperor Dalek basically from the doctor's point of view there
1:20:39
yeah yeah it's yeah so the the. Doctor is is bottom left of the
1:20:44
panel looking up towards the Emperor Dalek who is it's the
1:20:48
it's the design from evil of the Daleks, but it's the idea of
1:20:52
that Dalek rather than the scale that it was in ATV Studio and
1:20:56
it's glorious. Say writ large, shall we?
1:20:59
It's writ large. And so.
1:21:02
From. There we basically have the
1:21:04
Doctor unleashing a civil war between all of the different
1:21:09
Daleks from all of the different.
1:21:12
So list all the stories where we've.
1:21:14
Had civil wars amongst our but there's quite a few and this is
1:21:18
one of the more fun ones. And so this is really the idea
1:21:20
of literally hitting different areas of history, different
1:21:25
versions of the Dalek, different, different
1:21:27
storytelling types, because even, you know, again, Lee
1:21:29
Sullivan's art when he lands in the the Dalek Civil War zone, I
1:21:33
think it's called, is the evil of the Dalek zone.
1:21:36
You know, he, he then gets this almost, it's still in colour,
1:21:39
but almost char esquero effect of like it's All Blacks and
1:21:43
Blues and whites, which sort of which immediately makes it look
1:21:47
different from any of the other zones we've been in.
1:21:49
You feel like you are in. Yeah, because it was in black
1:21:52
and white. It was done in TV studio with no
1:21:53
CGI or anything like that, unlike these guys who are in a
1:21:56
comic strip over there. You do literally feel like
1:21:58
you're in a different reality, that these are realities that
1:22:01
are colliding here. It feels like it's got a Series
1:22:04
9. Style filter slapped over it.
1:22:07
That's not a blue one. Yeah.
1:22:10
And again in that. Way that he managed to, you
1:22:13
know, make the the 14th Doctor fit alongside those 1960s comic
1:22:18
strips. Suddenly here he's fitting
1:22:19
inside this sort of it's, it's almost like it's the look of it
1:22:25
in that final panel. It's so fantastic.
1:22:27
It's almost like, you know, German Expressionist cinema, you
1:22:31
know, it's almost like Cabinet of Doctor Caligari or something
1:22:33
in there. It's just it's just incredible.
1:22:37
These you really get this idea of different world.
1:22:39
It's not just different designs of Daleks.
1:22:41
It's whole different worlds being thrown each other.
1:22:44
And yet these are all worlds from within Doctor Who because
1:22:46
it is a big and I think this is, you know, I've moaned in the
1:22:49
past this podcast about the fruit machine storytelling of
1:22:53
Big Finish sometimes. Oh, what if, Captain John?
1:22:57
Hart, let's. Ching the monoids.
1:23:00
With. Ching.
1:23:03
Evelyn Smythe, you know. It's just, I think they're just
1:23:06
on bits of paper in a Scrabble. Bag actually, but yeah, yeah,
1:23:09
but they're not really doing. Anything with this this, you
1:23:11
know that it just uses them as characters and doesn't
1:23:14
necessarily do anything particularly interesting other
1:23:16
than the idea of how these people are stood in a room
1:23:18
together. What if?
1:23:21
What if they met? It is it is fuel for creativity,
1:23:25
isn't it? Do you?
1:23:25
Remember what Kate Orman said or what you told me, she said.
1:23:28
You know you what Lance Parkin told us she said.
1:23:31
That's right. Oh dear, that's like.
1:23:33
Fourth hand. Oh well, we'll assume it's true.
1:23:36
What was it again? What was the quote?
1:23:39
What? Continuity should be fuel for
1:23:42
storytelling. Yeah, which it absolutely is
1:23:45
here. Yeah, yeah, it's insane.
1:23:48
ADHD. Storytelling.
1:23:49
But it's storytelling all the same, and I think what I sorry
1:23:53
it. Leads to this.
1:23:54
Wonderful panel. Towards the end of this chapter
1:23:58
we're talking about where the Doctor calls up all of the heads
1:24:01
of the various zones to get, and suddenly every Dalek we may have
1:24:07
missed until this point makes an appearance.
1:24:09
So who have we got here? We've got one of the Paradigm
1:24:12
Daleks. Always nice to see them, isn't
1:24:15
it? Bless them, they don't get much.
1:24:17
What's that one with the sort of spider legs?
1:24:19
Is that a spider Dalek? No, that's the Emperor Dalek.
1:24:22
From the parting of the ways. Oh, of course it is.
1:24:24
There's the glass. Dalek from Big Finish, we've got
1:24:28
a 19. 63 original Dalek. I'm not sure what the one with
1:24:32
the Talek. Mutant visible with.
1:24:34
I think there's a couple of like a even.
1:24:36
Even says oh look, the gang's all here.
1:24:38
A couple more emperors and or talk an imperator, a supreme.
1:24:41
Three more I don't think I've met got a favour to ask.
1:24:45
I wonder if some of those are? From those old comics, we're
1:24:48
just not suitably versed in the knowledge.
1:24:50
Well, I know there's a, there's a, there's a different.
1:24:52
Version of the We get a different version of the big
1:24:55
round headed Dalek at the bottom who is the Dalek from the Death
1:25:00
Wheel zone which is bless them. I love that they put it in
1:25:03
there, didn't make much of it. These are the DWM Daleks.
1:25:05
These are the Daleks from Nemesis of the Daleks in the
1:25:08
early 90s. How are they?
1:25:11
Yeah. Bless their heart.
1:25:12
This is like Dalek Paul. Michael I I do not think there
1:25:17
is a. Fact, there is a fanboy or girl
1:25:18
worth the while who got to this panel and didn't get their
1:25:20
iPhone out. And take a sneaky little pic of
1:25:22
it for future reference. No thanks to you and your.
1:25:26
You know, impressive eye for detail.
1:25:28
I then went back and read this bloody thing again, looking at
1:25:31
all the crowds to see who I could spot what is.
1:25:35
What we carry on though? With this is it's not just I
1:25:39
mean it is Easter eggy fun, right?
1:25:40
And it is. We love Katie Moore and you can
1:25:42
go through there and spot everything and it's Oh my God,
1:25:44
that one and that one and that one.
1:25:45
But they're also. To revisit that point.
1:25:49
About the fruit machine stories, it's not just having these
1:25:51
characters in a room together and talking, it's having
1:25:55
entirely different mediums and storytelling and and the eras of
1:26:04
Doctor Who colliding face to face, like actually taking
1:26:06
everything that comes from the meteor of each one comes with it
1:26:10
And and clause. It's not just I actually quite
1:26:14
like the sky rabbits in which is familiar, but it's not literally
1:26:17
just lining them up, you know, like even down to really clever
1:26:20
subtle little bits here. So in that scene where he's
1:26:22
talking to all the different leader Daleks, they all say
1:26:25
Doctor, Doctor or Doctor, but each one in a different font,
1:26:31
differently punctuated to give you this just that sense of a
1:26:34
different voice and a different delivery from a different time.
1:26:37
You've got the rattly 19631, you've got the booming 2005 one.
1:26:42
You've got the really stylized comic strip one and it's it's
1:26:47
just perfect. You got the big finish one who
1:26:49
can't spell. Yes.
1:26:53
I think that's Doctor. Oh, he had a great voice, I.
1:26:58
Mean it was a great image that stained glass Dalek well and
1:27:01
then this leads us across the page to this you know they could
1:27:05
never do it on the TV I don't think well maybe in CGI now of
1:27:08
the earth surrounded by Dalek saucers literally from every
1:27:12
angle atom bombs going off on the surface and calling back to
1:27:17
my favorite image from earlier in the story all of these
1:27:21
photographs of the Daleks you know wiping out Westminster the
1:27:26
Golden Gate Bridge the the city of the Pharaohs.
1:27:30
They're basically destroying the Earth now.
1:27:33
That's for the climatic. End to the.
1:27:36
Penultimate chapter, wouldn't you say?
1:27:38
Brilliant and a lovely bit. Of, you know, circular, sorry
1:27:41
of, you know, the, the the principal idea of.
1:27:44
So for all that it is, you know, rocking about the place, this
1:27:47
story, it does have a a clear narrative arc.
1:27:50
And here, yeah, you get that inversion of the tourists from
1:27:53
earlier on having their photographs taken in front of
1:27:55
the atrocities. But here it's really happening
1:27:57
and people are dying in huge numbers.
1:28:01
Yeah, it's really. It's it's.
1:28:03
It's really good. And as if Lee Sullivan hadn't.
1:28:07
Done enough, we then get seats of entire Dalek armies, but
1:28:13
Dalek armies from all of these different zones, so they're all
1:28:16
got a different design fighting each other.
1:28:21
Yeah, you've got. You've got what?
1:28:24
What are they? Greco Roman Daleks?
1:28:26
You've got New Series Daleks, you've got Paradigm Daleks,
1:28:29
you've got the DWM Daleks, you've got the Imperial Daleks
1:28:32
from the 80s just descending on each other and it's madness.
1:28:37
I mean, it's glorious madness. It is.
1:28:40
It is and. And then it's all, it's all
1:28:42
leading up to, you know, the Daleks pouring out of this
1:28:46
massive vortex in space as well. Now maybe you can explain to me
1:28:50
how the Doctor saves the day then, because we've only got
1:28:53
about 3 pages left and it all seems to be over.
1:28:58
Yes. Essentially, this is.
1:29:02
This is doubly disappointing because it basically just does
1:29:06
just come down to the Doctor Sonic's The Golden Emperor's
1:29:10
Rocket and sends him flying into the moon full of mathematicians.
1:29:15
So his gateway gets destroyed, which therefore destroys the.
1:29:19
Gateway and then all of the Daleks sort of melt leading to
1:29:22
on the other side. Really terrible joke.
1:29:25
It's raining Daleks. Hallelujah.
1:29:28
And I'll tell you what's particularly.
1:29:30
What's what makes it doubly disappointing, although a day
1:29:32
disappointing he gets away with it because it's all been such
1:29:35
mad, delirious fun and happening in such quick succession.
1:29:38
I don't think you really mind. This is how it ends, I think.
1:29:42
Yeah, I think. And there is something there to
1:29:44
the he probably gets away with using the Sonic in this way
1:29:46
because it's also the irony of well, if you can, if you Golden
1:29:51
Emperor Dalek can create the reality you want and manipulate
1:29:56
it as you want, then I can use your creative reality against
1:29:58
yourself and blow up your mathematicians with your own
1:30:00
rocket that you've built. So that kind of works.
1:30:03
What what is disappointing, though, is the fact that the the
1:30:05
Doctor uses the Sonic screwdriver, which then gets
1:30:08
blasted apart by the Golden Emperor.
1:30:10
So that's Jodie Whittaker's Sonic screwdriver rite a
1:30:14
passage, Yeah. Rite A passage destroyed.
1:30:16
By the Golden Emperor Dalek. Only thing is, the Sonic
1:30:20
screwdriver was destroyed by some other Daleks a few issues
1:30:23
before and I I almost wonder if Alan Barnes had forgotten.
1:30:28
Yes. No, I figured, yeah, I did.
1:30:30
Wonder where he got that. From Because I do remember that
1:30:32
from earlier in the story, yeah, because the Doctor just.
1:30:36
Turns the page and we no, he's got the Sonic screwdriver there
1:30:39
and he gets a line about a lot getting a lot about someone
1:30:43
having whipped him up a replacement, which is just that
1:30:46
nowhere. I don't know if it's.
1:30:48
If it didn't, if this wasn't what happened, my criticism
1:30:52
would be that it reads far too much like Alan Barnes.
1:30:55
Forgot he. Destroyed the Sonic.
1:30:57
Screwdriver earlier in the story, which given the attention
1:31:00
to detail. With the continuity elements in
1:31:02
this, you think you'd keep an eye on something like that?
1:31:06
Yeah, Which it? Just it does just feel a bit
1:31:09
odd. I mean, I do wonder if they
1:31:10
maybe didn't know how I do, I don't know this, but I do wonder
1:31:14
if maybe they weren't entirely certain how many instalments
1:31:17
they'd have. I know Scott Gray said in his
1:31:20
commentary for The Flood that was very much the case because
1:31:22
they didn't know the broadcast date of the 2005 TV series when
1:31:26
they started The Flood. He basically had to make the
1:31:28
story flexible so that it could be extended or ended to fit how
1:31:32
many issues they had. That feels like it's the length
1:31:35
it needed to. Be you cannot tell.
1:31:38
And I wonder, I only wonder this is pure speculation, whether
1:31:42
there's anything similar going on here.
1:31:43
And so he needed to wrap it up within an issue which feels that
1:31:47
way because my biggest. Disappointment with this is OK.
1:31:51
Bangs and whistles over. We've done every Dalek
1:31:53
imaginable. We've had the most wonderful
1:31:56
fun. Now let's get down to the nitty
1:31:58
gritty. And then the epilogue is oh,
1:32:01
well, you know what is it? You're the.
1:32:04
Dalek Studies. Expert Georgette, you've seen
1:32:06
what they're really like. Not the PG version sold to your
1:32:09
day trippers looking for family friendly feels.
1:32:12
Why don't you decide what to do with those Dalek mutants?
1:32:15
I'm off and I'm like, OK. So there's no kind of moral.
1:32:21
There's no. Kind of intelligent discussion.
1:32:23
There's no ramifications for anyone.
1:32:25
There's been murder on a massive scale and he's just off OK
1:32:31
liberation. Of the Daleks ends as it lives
1:32:34
in a mad, joyous rush. Never.
1:32:37
Mind those people that got killed, I'm.
1:32:39
So sorry about that. But this does lead me to what I
1:32:45
think is the biggest weakness of this.
1:32:47
And that is and and also his biggest strength is it so
1:32:51
undisciplined that had it been anything other than a comic
1:32:55
strip where I was looking at the most astonishing imagery, if
1:33:00
this was a book, I would not be lenient on this at all.
1:33:04
I would be going, oh, God. You know, and another thing and
1:33:06
another thing and more Daleks War of the Daleks did this, you
1:33:10
know, Spider Daleks, Strider, Daleks, Civil War on Scaro.
1:33:14
It did all of this. And I was just like, no, no, no.
1:33:17
And then it did it all. It wrapped it all up in a
1:33:19
terribly unsatisfying ending. And yeah.
1:33:22
And I was really irritated, but this is presented in such an
1:33:28
exciting way, in such a visually interesting way that actually I
1:33:32
think it rides over all of those problems.
1:33:35
Yeah. And I think.
1:33:37
You. Know you have to remember that
1:33:38
different different media should be judged in different ways
1:33:43
because they're different. They're not the same.
1:33:46
And the difference between prose and graphic novels is graphic
1:33:51
novels, comic books are a primary visual medium.
1:33:54
So everything comes second to the visuals, right.
1:33:57
And that's the problem with a lot of comic books is they're
1:33:59
just not particularly exciting or interesting to look at.
1:34:02
So the fact that the story is is Sugar Rush is it's it's almost
1:34:07
got the element of improv at times, you know, yes, and
1:34:10
there's a lot of like yes, and this yes.
1:34:11
And oh, what the other Daleks that Oh, yes, and there were
1:34:13
more Daleks. Yes, Oh what the Daleks melted.
1:34:17
It doesn't matter so much. Because that's.
1:34:19
A secondary consideration within this It should look exciting.
1:34:23
It should look big. It should look interesting.
1:34:25
You should the number of they're not.
1:34:29
As we've. Said comic books are not cheap
1:34:31
to. Produce.
1:34:32
And they're not cheap to buy, but I forget how much this was.
1:34:37
It's about 100 pages, 12991299. For 100 pages, right, That's.
1:34:41
Twice what you pay for a for a 350 page prose novel.
1:34:49
Liberation of the Daleks remembers that it's a comic book
1:34:53
and it's number one job is to be visually engaging and to engage
1:35:00
you with the story in that way. And that it does wonderfully,
1:35:04
yes. And I think.
1:35:06
In terms of just a huge celebration of the Daleks, it
1:35:10
succeeds on that level as well because it makes me want to go
1:35:13
and explore all those different things that it is paying homage
1:35:17
to. I think I'm sort of boiling it
1:35:19
down to Lee Sullivan, 10 out of 10.
1:35:24
Alan Barnes, 7 out of 10 Because I know there are comics that can
1:35:29
emotionally engage me more. I know there are comics with
1:35:31
cleverer endings, you know, and through the the fantastic art as
1:35:36
well. So yes, you kind of give it a
1:35:39
pass. Because it is a.
1:35:40
Sugar rush, but this would not be acceptable on a regular
1:35:44
basis. No, no, I would agree.
1:35:47
Wholeheartedly. I'll be interested.
1:35:49
To see what came next. Actually, was it that one?
1:35:51
Where they it was 1960s world? Was it that one?
1:35:58
It was. I think it was one that might.
1:35:59
Have tied into Wild Blue Yonder. I think they did a little one
1:36:05
off comic strip that was the 14 doctrines on a careening around
1:36:13
history prior to landing in Isaac Newton's Appletree.
1:36:16
Oh, that's a nice idea. That's a good idea.
1:36:20
So how what would you summarise then as before we move on to our
1:36:24
next segment, how do you summarise Liberation as the
1:36:27
Daleks biggest strength and biggest weakness?
1:36:31
Biggest strength? Is it's super.
1:36:36
Abundance. Of wild visual ideas of things
1:36:40
to do with the Daleks. 60 years of the Daleks and yet this is
1:36:44
showing There are still so many mad and crazy in fun ways you
1:36:47
can things you can do with them. Do you know what it reminded me
1:36:50
of? Did you ever pick up any issues
1:36:52
of Battles in Time? The trading card game that?
1:36:55
Had a magazine. That came with that I never
1:36:57
picked up like one or two out of curiosity when I saw them.
1:37:01
And they would have double page spreads which would of course
1:37:04
not the Dalek battle files or something like that.
1:37:06
And basically a two page spread depicting some massive dire
1:37:10
armour of a Dalek battle. Occasionally it would be
1:37:13
something like the Civil War from the end of even of the
1:37:15
Daleks and other times it most of the time it would be some
1:37:19
invented just imaginary mad idea of a Dalek battle.
1:37:23
And they were just big mad fun. You'd have a little box out that
1:37:26
claims to be like an exit from a history book on the event.
1:37:29
And this had a very similar feeling.
1:37:31
I can totally imagine them doing a Daleks versus Dragons 1, you
1:37:35
know, And it was just that big childish in the best way,
1:37:39
childish imagination of look at the topics are really exciting.
1:37:43
Look what we can do with them. They're so cool.
1:37:48
Alan Barnes there with a pad going right.
1:37:50
What? What didn't I do in Children of
1:37:52
the Revolution, Right. I want Daleks marrying a gay
1:37:55
couple. I want Daleks, Milton.
1:37:57
I want Daleks versus Dragons, Right.
1:37:58
How can I put all this in one story?
1:38:02
Yeah, fantastic. Biggest weakness is as we've
1:38:04
touched on, I think it is the the plotting.
1:38:07
You know it is it gets away with it and it's almost charming its
1:38:10
way, but it is it's very rickety written, written two months
1:38:15
ahead style writing and plotting I.
1:38:20
I I. Would just say, and this is not
1:38:22
to dismiss Alan Barnes, but the art is just the best thing about
1:38:27
this. You know?
1:38:28
Every page is practically been pulled out from my 8 year old
1:38:33
dreams of seeing Daleks doing fabulous things.
1:38:38
Huge civil wars Dragons. Flying about.
1:38:40
The place a Dalek theme park. If I was eight years old, that
1:38:44
would have tipped with my testicles.
1:38:45
You know, it's it's it's amazing imagery.
1:38:49
And I think the biggest weakness is there isn't an emotional
1:38:52
through line with this. There isn't even an attempt.
1:38:57
Well, no, there is an attempt we're sure share.
1:38:59
But then she gets murdered sort of three parts before the end.
1:39:04
And so the ending is all just not sort of 1960s techno gobbins
1:39:11
before the sort of very tidy conclusion.
1:39:14
Yeah, yeah. Although, you know, you said the
1:39:18
art, we praise the art as if that's almost in opposition to
1:39:21
Anna Barnes. But you know, it does take a
1:39:22
writer who knows what they're doing with a comic script to
1:39:25
create those opportunities for visually stunning stuff.
1:39:30
And I've got to admit that halfway through this.
1:39:32
I was turning the pages thinking, what exciting thing am
1:39:35
I going to say next? Because there's just been so
1:39:38
much at that point. Like the first bit where he
1:39:40
landed in 1966 at the World Cup. I was like, oh, how boring.
1:39:44
This is going to be tedious. And then very quickly by the end
1:39:48
of that first chapter, I was like, oh, this is going to be
1:39:50
amazing. And for the most part, it was a
1:39:53
hell of a ride. It is that.
1:39:57
Well, Michael then. This is your first step into
1:40:02
what I'm calling who ranks, and that is ranking three.
1:40:09
Either top or bottom of whatever we decide to talk about because
1:40:12
we're talking about comics, you and I are going to give our top
1:40:16
three and let's go one at a time each.
1:40:18
Yeah, not back and forth. Our top three Doctor Who comics
1:40:22
or favorite. Our favourites.
1:40:24
And we'll start with you. OK, well I'm going to I.
1:40:28
Want to say an honourable mention for Oblivion, but anyone
1:40:32
who's listened to the first part of this episode, if you haven't
1:40:35
what but also our top, top and bottom 10 episode will know that
1:40:40
I love Oblivion. So honorable mention.
1:40:42
I'm not going to tell you that's great.
1:40:43
Again, it's great. My first one is going to be
1:40:47
Tooth and Claw. OK, it's under.
1:40:51
Discussed, not TV. Episode the 8th Doctor comic
1:40:55
strip under discussed one which is written by Anna Barnes.
1:41:00
I think it's from about 9798, quite early on in the 8th Doctor
1:41:05
range with the 8th Doctor Izzy and Faye, who is the 1930s spy
1:41:14
companion who who joins them a little bit on off a sort of
1:41:18
Captain Jack of her day. She's that sort of, she's sort
1:41:20
of the Captain Jack River Song molds of companion.
1:41:22
She's great. And the whole story is an homage
1:41:26
to Hammer Horror and. Sort of amicus.
1:41:30
Movies of the maybe even 1960s, maybe even 1970s, some of the
1:41:34
later periods. I think in particular the film
1:41:36
Beast Must Die, haven't seen that.
1:41:39
It's great. It's really good fun.
1:41:41
Riffs on things like Barney the Vampire.
1:41:43
It's, I think Adam Barnes around that time had been editor of the
1:41:47
Hammer magazine, Hammer Horror magazine.
1:41:50
So he really knows his stuff. And again, it's just that thing
1:41:53
of, you know, Doctor Who dressing up as a different genre
1:41:56
for a while and having having a real load of fun with it.
1:42:00
And again, has some brilliant visual bits.
1:42:03
There's a, there's a cliffhanger of there being a knock at the
1:42:05
door and they answer it and it's the, it's the 8th Doctor in the
1:42:09
driving rain and he's a vampire. And it's oh, bloody hell.
1:42:13
And it's, it's not disgusting. I think it's testament to the
1:42:16
strength of that whole run that you can have a story as
1:42:18
brilliant as tooth and claw and it never gets mentioned.
1:42:21
I'm just the art for that one. I want to say.
1:42:25
It's Martin Garrity, OH. OK, because I remember a.
1:42:28
Hamahora one where it was Adrian Salmon and he was doing fabulous
1:42:32
castles and electric coming out of the sky and I think you'll
1:42:35
find that is not. Hammer Horror, that it's
1:42:38
Universal Monsters and the Oh well I'm so sorry, I didn't
1:42:42
realise. This was the Universal Monsters
1:42:43
podcast. Well, the story is called.
1:42:46
Universal Monsters. So there was a clue.
1:42:49
Embarrassing. Well, my first.
1:42:53
Choice is going to be the Autonomy Bug, which I think is
1:42:59
written by Scott Gray, and it's definitely drawn by Roger
1:43:04
Landridge. And I just love everything that
1:43:06
man draws. It's a it's a more exaggerated
1:43:10
comic slant on Doctor Who and it fits perfectly for this story,
1:43:16
which starts off as you know, this mad woman scientist is
1:43:22
abusing these gorgeous robots in the most terrible ways.
1:43:27
The Doctor is he arrive and effectively incite a revolution
1:43:31
and that's got some sort of horror influences in the 1st in
1:43:34
the early stages of it, certainly in the imagery.
1:43:37
But it's the second-half of this where is he befriends these
1:43:40
robots, especially that cute little one whose name I've
1:43:43
forgotten. And at the end of it, the
1:43:47
robots, you know, they win out and they've created their own
1:43:50
civilization. And the last page, it's so
1:43:53
touching for what has been a very kind of silly, for the most
1:43:57
part, comic story. It's so moving.
1:44:02
You've got all of these robots that then have developed a
1:44:04
civilization and they're remembering the doctrine.
1:44:08
Izzy, at the end of it, it, it was really unexpected.
1:44:11
I wasn't sure what to expect going into it, and I found
1:44:14
myself being truly moved by it. But.
1:44:16
And and it is an exaggerated story, so I probably should have
1:44:20
been. Yeah.
1:44:22
Roger Language. Is worth getting a shout out as
1:44:24
well because I think he's one of the more he's not like the
1:44:27
artist that comes up when people talk about Doctor Who magazine
1:44:29
artist. Which is weird because actually
1:44:31
for many years he did the the little illustrations at the
1:44:34
start of the review zone. The little comic cartoons
1:44:36
didn't. He loved those because it was
1:44:38
the only. Visual image I ever had of the
1:44:40
books. He did a wonderful one of Paul
1:44:41
McGann playing a flute to a load of tigers for the intelligent
1:44:45
tigers. Yeah, he's great.
1:44:48
He. He did.
1:44:49
I think he also does a lot of work from of Muppets comics
1:44:54
outside this, which you can totally see, but he's another
1:44:56
one that just packs a. Paddle full of detail.
1:44:59
So when he was doing that robot civilization, there was just so
1:45:03
much going on in those pictures. And all of those robots had
1:45:06
really sort of quirky personalities and were all
1:45:08
falling apart in various ways. Oh, it was just glorious.
1:45:12
Yeah. My second one is a comic that
1:45:16
has been mentioned in this episode.
1:45:19
It's my first Doctor Who magazine comic strip.
1:45:22
Children of the Revolution. The last.
1:45:26
Time the. Daleks appeared in DWM before
1:45:28
Liberation of the Daleks. So the Doctor takes Izzy to a
1:45:33
water planet and then on this sort of great submarine and the
1:45:37
the sub, this research submarine travelling underneath the oceans
1:45:40
of this water planet when it is attacked and boarded by Daleks.
1:45:47
And the Daleks storm it and they come, and then they find the
1:45:50
Doctor and they worship him as their saviour.
1:45:53
And it's again. I found one of so many great
1:45:57
cliffhangers in this area of Doctor Who magazine.
1:45:59
And basically the story is that it turns out that these are the
1:46:04
the humanised Daleks, survivors from the evil of the Daleks,
1:46:08
that they weren't wiped out, but then some of them managed to
1:46:11
escape and have been in hiding ever since beneath the ocean
1:46:16
waves on this remote planet where they've built this whole
1:46:19
civilization of peaceful Daleks with most of them with their gun
1:46:23
sticks removed. And it becomes this real, you
1:46:26
know, almost theatrical play of, of suspicion and plots and
1:46:33
counter plots of among the Daleks who are fearful of the
1:46:38
humans that who have arrived on this planet.
1:46:41
And they're worried that they're going to reveal themselves to
1:46:43
them. If they reveal themselves
1:46:44
something, they'll be hated by the by, by the by the humans and
1:46:49
possibly be destroyed by them. And, you know, maybe even the,
1:46:53
all the main Daleks who are still out there will come after
1:46:56
them. And So what do we do about the
1:47:01
with this situation, with this terrible situation where
1:47:03
everything's on the brink? And it's it's brilliantly done.
1:47:06
It looks beautiful. As we mentioned, the idea came
1:47:08
from, you know, Daleks Underwater to be a very
1:47:10
arresting image. And I, I just, it's a really
1:47:17
clever story that again does something really different with
1:47:20
the Daleks, both visually and. Emotionally, for a better word.
1:47:28
I think that's another one that gets a.
1:47:29
Little bit overlooked in the wake of Bigger and certainly in
1:47:34
times of Arc storytelling. And in terms of like stuff like
1:47:38
The Glorious Dead and The Flood, it's all, it's all brilliant
1:47:41
stuff. But I sometimes feel like
1:47:43
Children are a revolution sort of sits by and people sort of
1:47:47
remember it as the one where it first went into colour.
1:47:50
It was. Was it that one?
1:47:51
No, but it wasn't. I don't think it was very long
1:47:54
after they really took advantage of that in.
1:47:56
This one, though, didn't know. Yeah.
1:47:58
Yeah, well. My second one my.
1:48:01
Second and third one are both one strip comics and I think DWM
1:48:06
has a great hit rate of doing single, single episode comic
1:48:12
strips. And I almost had beautiful Freak
1:48:15
because I think that is that's probably.
1:48:17
The best? Character study they ever did,
1:48:21
and I almost did Happy Death Day because that is absolutely
1:48:26
hilarious. But my first choice is oh God, I
1:48:30
forgot what it is. Oh yeah, my first choice is Time
1:48:35
of Your Life by Jonathan Norris, which is a coder.
1:48:40
To. Donna Noble's time on the tardis
1:48:43
and it really goes to show what you can do with a comic strip
1:48:47
beautifully in 8 pages we get I think 7 separate adventures that
1:48:54
the Doctor and Donna have. Meeting The Beatles,
1:48:57
interestingly enough, as children at one point, you know,
1:49:02
and the the style of the art changes compared to depending on
1:49:07
the genre of the story that he telling each time.
1:49:10
And it's just like, for those of you that were annoyed that we
1:49:13
only had a single season of Donna, well, here's another half
1:49:16
season. And it's all in one comic strip.
1:49:19
And then on the last page, the gut punch of the Doctor missing
1:49:24
Donna and Donna's the hologram in the TARDIS.
1:49:26
It's another one of those moments where I was deeply moved
1:49:30
by one of these comic strips. I just think it's brilliant.
1:49:34
Yeah, it's really lovely. In my mind, that is a, I don't
1:49:38
want to say canonical, but that that is a part of because it
1:49:42
came out right after the month after Journey's end as well in
1:49:47
in the issue that sort of wrapped up and gave a lot of
1:49:50
coverage to that story. It really does feel like the a
1:49:56
part of that arc, like that's the coder to that series.
1:49:59
It's a part of it as far as I'm concerned.
1:50:01
Yeah, it's brilliant. What's your last one then?
1:50:04
My. Last one.
1:50:06
Big, grandiose and obvious. But it has to be praised.
1:50:10
The flood. I almost had the.
1:50:12
Flood, but I kind. Of knew you would.
1:50:15
One doesn't want to be obvious but at the same time.
1:50:16
You can't ignore obvious greatness.
1:50:19
So this is the final epic of the 8th Doctor range with the
1:50:25
Cybermen invading present day London and it's just glorious.
1:50:32
It's it's fantastic. It because it hadn't been back
1:50:34
to modern day earth for a while. And I think with Izzy, the whole
1:50:38
easy arc in particular, I think there was a semi deliberate
1:50:41
point made of of staying away from the present day, apart from
1:50:44
a couple of stories, because the idea that she was running away
1:50:46
and we want to go off. And I think also Doctor you
1:50:49
magazine at its at its best, and this is something that plays
1:50:52
into in liberation of Daleks children and children
1:50:55
revolution. Among the stories that here is
1:50:56
that they have a good instinct not to do stuff that could be
1:50:59
done on TV. So we don't get many present day
1:51:02
stories or if we do, they don't tend to be in London.
1:51:05
And yet this felt like at the end of it all, oh, we're back in
1:51:08
the present day. And that actually felt in a good
1:51:11
way, quite jarring and different.
1:51:12
You know that it starts off with a wandering around recognisable
1:51:15
Camden Market. It's a bit like the war machines
1:51:18
at the end of the. Hartner where isn't it?
1:51:20
Yeah, OK. Oh, here we.
1:51:23
Are. And we're catching up with a
1:51:25
couple of different characters from over the run of, of the
1:51:29
series. So there was a, there's a really
1:51:30
nice arc that's run through some of Scott Gray's stuff about MI 6
1:51:35
becoming involved in extraterrestrial threats
1:51:39
because, you know, that's a threat from abroad.
1:51:40
So we should put up intelligence on that.
1:51:42
And so we get a, the brilliant sequence with the Cybermen
1:51:45
attacking Vauxhall Cross and burning their way through the,
1:51:50
the walls. And the, the thing everyone
1:51:52
remembers from the flood is the Cybermen.
1:51:54
It's one of the it's the best look sideman.
1:51:59
Ever. It might be, you know, it's
1:52:01
quite possible. I think you mentioned.
1:52:03
Earlier on, they're meant to be sideman.
1:52:06
They were deliberately designed as sideman, but no actor could
1:52:09
fit inside. So they have medium strength,
1:52:12
right? They're only a. 100% they're
1:52:14
very slender. Very angular, large ball joints
1:52:18
on the hips, which also gives them a really interesting
1:52:20
androgynous look as well. You know, they're almost
1:52:23
feminine. But but but not.
1:52:26
Quite. That either because it's very
1:52:27
articulated sort of almost like cave painting designs, like it's
1:52:30
sort of so yeah, you get this very yeah, wider hips that's
1:52:33
quite feminine but then this this broadening triangular chest
1:52:37
that could be read as either a female chest or or male muscular
1:52:41
one. It's very clever design, that
1:52:44
idea of because they are meant to.
1:52:46
The other very clever idea is that these sidemen are meant to
1:52:49
be sidemen from the far, far, far future, the point at which
1:52:53
they have run out of humans to convert.
1:52:57
And so in order to survive as a species, they have travelled
1:53:00
back in time to convert humans of the modern era so that they
1:53:05
can survive and. The way.
1:53:10
They do it the way. That end of chapter where the
1:53:14
rain comes down and everyone is begging the Cybermen to convert
1:53:19
them. Yeah, it's just so sinister.
1:53:22
It's it's really scary. It's really scary.
1:53:24
So the conceit. Is so the flood The conceit is
1:53:27
that there is a a storm is coming a rains him that the
1:53:30
excitement are manipulating the weather to make it rain all
1:53:34
across London. But embedded in the rain is an
1:53:38
agent that induces mass, panic and fear.
1:53:41
So humanity asks to be converted.
1:53:45
Because they want to. Lose this fear of this anxiety
1:53:48
and it makes the Cybermen scary. And the Cybermen ask a much more
1:53:52
important than you can have the dog whizzing around and blasting
1:53:54
stuff. They don't have to be scary to
1:53:56
be fun. If the Cybermen aren't scary,
1:53:58
then they're not effective. And this really makes them
1:54:02
terrifying. So you think, God, every
1:54:04
emotions can be a burden. You know, who wouldn't want to
1:54:07
get rid of who? You know how many people you
1:54:10
struggle with anxiety, with fear, with depression, and I'm
1:54:14
creating this in this environment in which someone
1:54:17
says to you, I can take all that away from you.
1:54:19
And that being utterly terrifying.
1:54:22
And it's. Yeah, it's, it's a genuine
1:54:25
Doctor Who epic for the ages. I think it's something about
1:54:29
what? The actual the creators of the
1:54:32
magazine thought that strip that when the graphic novel came out,
1:54:36
Clayton Hickman says in the back in the behind the scenes, that
1:54:41
he didn't feel as if they had put enough into the destruction
1:54:46
of the sidemen at the end. So they scraped together some
1:54:50
money from the magazine to put in two extra pages at the end of
1:54:56
that to make that sight, you know, the Cybermen being torn
1:54:59
apart by. Is it lava?
1:55:01
I can't remember now. It's yellow.
1:55:03
It's. Oh, no.
1:55:04
So it. Is so the the beautiful
1:55:06
resolution? Full spoiler here is the so the
1:55:10
Cybermen have captured a part of the vortex in the way their
1:55:14
their time machine works is they've basically captured a
1:55:16
part of the vortex and are manipulating it.
1:55:19
And in the climax, the Doctor, being a Time Lord, basically
1:55:25
merges with the vortex and becomes essentially a God.
1:55:29
There's some really interesting parallels with the end of I
1:55:31
don't know if I was the only person who watched the parting
1:55:33
of the ways for the first time and went this is a bit like the
1:55:35
flood. There's a there's a beautiful
1:55:38
that about dark water. And death in heaven, you know,
1:55:41
with all that rain and Cybermen, and there is a beautiful.
1:55:45
Beautiful depiction of the Paul McGann Dr. he's used.
1:55:50
So he's basically become a God and he destroys the Cyberman
1:55:53
spaceship, basically causes it to melt and he is a beautiful
1:55:57
sequence of panels of him. Essentially you're watching him
1:56:00
ascend to godhood. So this is it.
1:56:03
This is this is where it's all been coming towards.
1:56:06
I'm a Lords of Time and I will merge with the Vortex so I can
1:56:09
see everything and do everything and make everything better.
1:56:12
And then he looks down and realises that Destry is still on
1:56:15
the spaceship and he gives it all up.
1:56:17
In an instance he just leaps out, rescues her and they and
1:56:22
they escape together. And it and the final, the final
1:56:26
frame is utterly beautiful. Go and read it and look at it.
1:56:28
But the way they chose to end it, and especially knowing that
1:56:31
they they turned down the opportunity to do something that
1:56:34
would have got them sales, that would have got them pressed to
1:56:37
do regeneration, to instead do this just perfectly judged
1:56:40
ending, which is still beautiful.
1:56:45
And. Still really touching the better
1:56:48
part of 20 years later in a way that, oh look, there's
1:56:51
Christopher Eccleston wouldn't have been all this time later.
1:56:55
It it's it's, it's wonderful and it's a perfect capstone and a
1:56:58
wonderful encapsulation of of everything that was great about
1:57:02
that run. And I love the last page.
1:57:04
Where he's like, oh Destry, our next adventure is just over that
1:57:08
hill and he's got his arm around her and off they go for another
1:57:11
adventure. And the regeneration will come
1:57:13
later. You don't need to worry about
1:57:16
it. I mean, didn't Sylvester McCoy?
1:57:18
'S run in the comics and with him cradling Ace's dead body.
1:57:21
Is that what got that right? Yeah, Ground Zero.
1:57:25
Miserable. Just like the new.
1:57:26
Adventures. Oh I can't believe I'm going to
1:57:30
choose this as my third one. Especially after you just chose
1:57:33
The Flood. And horror of horrors, it's the
1:57:37
11th Doctor comic strip with Amy Palms of all things.
1:57:41
But I do remember when I first read, because this is Jonathan
1:57:45
Morris's run of the strips, and I've already chosen one of his
1:57:48
Time of Your life. And I do remember reading that
1:57:50
first one. You know, we've got all of the
1:57:52
faces coming out of the TARDIS Supernature is that.
1:57:56
What it's called? And thinking somebody don't feel
1:57:59
quite right, especially after all those great Magenta Prize
1:58:02
10th Doctor ones. And then he followed that up
1:58:04
with. Planet Bollywood.
1:58:11
What's the one thing you just cannot do in a comic strip?
1:58:14
Or in the written word? A fucking musical, right?
1:58:17
No Jonathan Morris challenge accepted.
1:58:20
He sits down and he writes. I love a Bollywood musical.
1:58:25
And though this isn't one of the absolute top 10 best ever Doctor
1:58:28
Who comic strips, bloody hell, it shows the potential of what
1:58:31
they can do. And it's super, super fun.
1:58:35
The Doctor sings a song all about their latest adventure.
1:58:40
Amy Pond sings a song about he doesn't know where he's going.
1:58:44
She sings another song about the ridiculous techno Babble she's
1:58:47
forced to endure for her adventures.
1:58:50
Really funny, really witty, really colourful adventure.
1:58:56
I feel a little bit embarrassed saying that one now but I don't
1:58:59
care because I remember reading it and just loving it and
1:59:02
singing the songs out loud some. Stories you.
1:59:07
Suspect were worked out from the title backwards, don't you?
1:59:12
But I do think. Morris, he has a great track
1:59:16
record of those. So he did the The Lion, the
1:59:19
Witch and the Wardrobe one as well, didn't he?
1:59:22
Another fabulous one. The Professor, The Queen in the
1:59:25
bookshop. Didn't he do the one as well?
1:59:27
Where they? Weren't they couldn't talk?
1:59:29
It was just all empty speech bubbles.
1:59:31
Oh, was that him or was that Dan Mcdowd?
1:59:33
I think that's. Part of the Magenta price arc,
1:59:34
wasn't it? Maybe it was.
1:59:36
That was onomatopoeia, genius. You know, there are way better
1:59:40
scripts than Planet Bollywood, but it's just another sort of
1:59:45
tip of the hat to the sort of things they can do because their
1:59:48
imagination is limitless. Yes, as.
1:59:51
And as are the. Worlds of Doctor Who and on that
1:59:54
note, Joe, where are we going? Next OH.
1:59:58
Well done. Oh yes, I've read it and you
2:00:02
haven't. We are heading into sort of
2:00:06
awesome now we're in September, the nights are drawing in and
2:00:10
the clocks are ticking. No, they did that all year
2:00:12
round. Anyway, we're reading Talking of
2:00:16
Jonathan Morris, and this is way back in the dusty dawn of his
2:00:20
career with Doctor Who and macrophobia.
2:00:26
When's the last time you read that?
2:00:29
Oh. 2002 but it came out serious, so this is like.
2:00:35
Two decades later, 2 decades later, I shall be.
2:00:38
Returning. I hope you liked it.
2:00:41
Spoiler for me, I fucking loved every page, but if you don't
2:00:45
like it, well then that'll be an interesting conversation.
2:00:48
Well, I shall reserve. Judgement until.
2:00:50
The next time, Michael, it's been.
2:00:53
We've been like two kids with an exercise book going through this
2:00:56
comic today. Thank you very much for your
2:00:59
time. It's been a pleasure.
2:01:02
Thank you for having me, Golden. Emperor.