Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to David Gillespie-Pratt about his choice of Underworld (2/4)

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Talks to David Gillespie-Pratt about his choice of Underworld (2/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:22
  None hamster with a blunt.
• 0:34
  Penknife We're doing quicker, quicker.
• 0:39
  Quicker Hello and welcome to Hamster with a Blunt Penknife,
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  the Doctor Who Episode Commentary Podcast.
• 0:45
  I'm Dave Gillespie Pratt and I'm sitting here with Joe Ford and
• 0:49
  we are talking about Part 2 of the Much Under Loved Underworld.
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  You did that beautifully, you know.
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  They just, you know, I didn't stumble through and I didn't
• 1:00
  report my words then. I didn't see anything untoward.
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  So that's always a good. Start.
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  You even added an extra word as well, so the intro.
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  Did you notice? No.
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  You said episode Coventry Podcast.
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  I was like, oh, I might nick that for the future.
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  Well, there we go. You know, I would like to come
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  and then there will be, there will be somebody on Twitter go.
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  I think you'll find it's a part, not an episode.
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  Oh, is this parts or is this episode?
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  This is parts. Oh, OK.
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  I I. Never know.
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  I never know. I I it's one of those things
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  because I back in the day I I ripped all the DVDs and
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  digitized digitized them because this is pre brick box days and I
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  did a lot of travelling. So it's like I want them on my
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  iPad and my iPhone. So I put them all into iTunes.
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  And when it came to labeling them, I was it wasn't just, you
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  know, part one, It would be it would be parts for when there
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  were parts. It was episodes for when there
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  were episodes. But it got to the point where if
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  it was episode one with a number, I'd put the number, but
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  if it was spelt out as the word one, I'd put one.
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  It was that level. Detail geek.
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  Detail and it's like, I don't need.
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  I know I don't need this. I know I don't need to do.
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  I mean, it gets to the point when you're doing something like
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  the Space Pirates, but you have to put the inverted commas on it
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  because that's what it's got on the.
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  Screen. Oh, bless you, David.
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  That's a level of detail and that that's the level.
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  You're in deep, aren't you? I'm in.
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  I've been in deep since the early 90s.
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  I I I got lost in all this detail.
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  But yeah, Underworld was saying in part one.
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  Underworld is 1, where the detail just never sunk in.
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  I think because when I first watched it, because this is when
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  you prepare for these things. It's like, when did I first
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  watch Underworld? And it's like, do I remember, I
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  remember when I didn't watch it because we got cable television
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  sort of 1997 and that was when UK Gold was showing Doctor Who
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  on Sundays as the omnibus. But they were showing it
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  weeknights and they were showing it an episode at a time.
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  And when we got got UK Gold, they showed part four Hand of
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  Fear, so that and hadn't seen Hand of Fear So it was like I've
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  seen part four. I haven't got a clue what's
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  going on. And they showed all those Tom
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  Baker stories up until some Makers episode 40.
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  Boy that's they just stopped through.
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  They just decided to not continue with the repeats.
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  Yeah, Underworld's so bad. Underworld's invasion of time
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  was so bad that we're not going to finish Season 15.
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  So it was and then it was a huge gap because the the Sunday
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  morning omnibuses were up to key to time season.
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  So it was probably about another couple of years before we
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  finally came back and I think Underworld is probably one of
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  the last Tom Baker stories I watched and it might be actually
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  one of the last classic series I saw as well.
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  So it it it came very late in the day.
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  And I say try to there are characters in the second, third
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  and fourth episodes. I can't.
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  Remember any of them? There's someone haven't got me
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  now. He's the young one, isn't he?
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  Who's in Blake 7. Apart from that, I couldn't tell
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  you another character's name in this.
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  No, there's the two seers in three and four.
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  Who? The robots?
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  I'm sorry, I'm just thinking about the reveal of the robots,
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  which is meant to be this big dramatic moment and is not, but.
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  In the book, they're people. Yeah, Which I think Terrence,
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  Terrence probably had a quick look at it and decided, yeah,
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  I'm changing. I'm not having those phallic
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  shaped robots. Less happened people.
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  Yeah, well, I think a sadistic person is more interesting than
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  a sadistic robot. Yes.
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  And I think if they they could have just done with cutting a
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  couple of characters and amalgamating them together and
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  you could have had some really half decent guest villains.
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  But instead you've got some shouty guard captains and some
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  weird robots, neither which made much of an impression.
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  Do you know, there's one thing I think this story lacks in
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  abundance? And it isn't money, because the
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  Graham Williams era often was hit with little money.
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  It's humour. The one thing I love this era 4
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  is how witty it is at times and the sort of the repartee, you
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  know, that sort of rapier wit that goes back and forth between
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  the characters. Think stones of blood, things
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  sit, your death, sharda, even the Armageddon factor.
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  The last time I did that, yeah, the lies in that.
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  That was something out of a sitcom half the time.
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  You know, what is it? Draxus at the end of that,
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  remember? Me to gallop, you know.
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  You know they're having fun right in those characters.
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  There's no humour in this at all really.
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  There's a there's a couple of jokes, but they ain't that
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  funny. There's a couple of bits, but it
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  is, it is a bit humourless. It's a bit dour, I think
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  possibly because the, you know, all the dialogue is very
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  functional, probably because it's we haven't got time to do
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  anything else on, you know, these CSO sets.
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  It's basically every line has to tell the story because we're
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  not. We're not you know we're not
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  padding it out because these episodes under on episode one
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  but episode 2 sorry is about 20 minutes.
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  I don't know. They that's even when it's been
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  padded out with lots of. Yeah, yeah, we should do a count
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  of how many times we see the bloody CCTV.
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  Camera, the camera. And it's the same fucking shot
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  every so it's. The same shot.
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  So normally that's probably where they'd pad it out with a
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  bit of character, a bit of humour, but they probably just
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  didn't have the time to do it. Even like the darkest Doctor Who
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  stories, like, I don't know, Andrew Zani and Genesis, they
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  are peppered with jokes that provide some levity.
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  And I think if you take the humour out of Doctor Who, it
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  does get very stale. You suddenly sort of the the
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  worthiness of it is very apparent.
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  It is very and and I think it needs a bit of wit and it needs
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  a bit of character because it that's what carries you through
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  some of the the weaker moments is oh, the relation between the
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  Doctor and Leila. There isn't much of that.
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  There's just a lot of them walking around some caves
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  talking this. I say there's some nice little
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  bits. There's a couple nice bits in
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  Part 2, but too few and far. Between whereas, you know, skip
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  forward or, sorry, skip back. One story and it's all like, you
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  know, what did you run? What?
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  I don't know, what did you run? Perhaps everyone runs from the
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  taxman and they're working like gangbusters.
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  There's so the the, I mean Robert Holmes and Sun Makers
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  that is just full both great. Gags.
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  Jokes and in jokes and you know, you can tell that somebody who
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  they're all working really hard and they can and that's probably
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  coming through on the script and that's giving them something to
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  work with. I think with this there's just
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  not. If it's not on the page, there's
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  nothing for them to do. Well, shall we head into one of
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  the very shortest episodes of Doctor Who?
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  Should we head into the underworld?
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  And see, many men have said that to me.
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  You know, to set into the visual feast that is episode 2.
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  Who intro this? You did.
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  Oh, I'll count this in then. You can count this in.
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  And I'll go straight into my reading from the target novel,
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  if you don't mind. Is that all right in five?
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  4. 321 It's actually only two lines, but it says more in two
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  lines than they ever managed to achieve on the screen.
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  It's from Chapter 6, which is entitled The Trocks, and Terence
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  says the crash spaceship was jammed into the heart of the
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  planet like a dart hurled into an Ant heap.
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  That's a great visual. That's a brilliant visual and I
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  think he captured it brilliantly there in prose, but we never see
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  it on the screen at all. It's that would have been way
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  beyond even if they had the the the budget that they wanted.
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  But it does set and I think when Terence is writing about you
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  know establishing the society on they never name the planet do
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  they. It's just P7 E he he just sets
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  that up and much more clearly. And now how do we pad out an
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  episode? Let's have a really long
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  reprise. There are reprises in there for
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  two. Minutes in it, yeah.
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  I think not quite hitting Megalos standards for really
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  long reprises because I think that's got ridiculously long
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  ones. You know, they were so desperate
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  for footage in this episode to make it the length it needed to
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  be. They take a scene shot for
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  episode 4 and insert it in this episode twice, and it shows
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  guards walking along the corridor in unison.
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  At one point you see a couple of times here, and then you see it
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  in part 4, but it was only supposed to be in part 4.
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  I thought it was either way around but there you go.
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  Just goes to show the production subtitles always nice and
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  informative. But so when you're thinking
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  about the another reason why I talk about this in terms of you
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  know, this is considered, you know, it's the weakest Tom Baker
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  story it is sometime you know. It's a.
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  Bad Doctor Who's story, but nobody sets out to make a bad
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  bit of of television. It it it's always putting mind
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  something. So for a bit, some contact.
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  My husband works on the railway and obviously the railway gets a
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  kicking from everyone. And he said to me once, like, do
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  people think that we set out to do a bad job?
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  It's like nobody goes into the, you know, into their office
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  thinking, how can I make people miserable today?
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  How can we do a crap job? It's like everybody's trying
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  their best to do the right thing.
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  Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes you can't do the right
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  thing because everything's going wrong.
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  And I think that applies to film and television.
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  When we watch some of these less than successful Doctor Who
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  stories, when you talk about time flights, twins and I'm an
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  Underworld, nobody behind the scenes is sitting there going,
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  should we just phone it in? Should we just make something a
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  bit rubbish? It's like they they are trying
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  to do something. Yeah.
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  Doesn't always work, but I think the good intention is there.
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  I've never heard it said quite like that before, but that is a
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  really great point. And usually when you dig deep,
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  like we have done with our sort of great underworld archaeology,
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  with the book and the subtitles and the documentaries, there are
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  reasons as to why this isn't topping the DWM poll.
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  And I think, you know, there are later eras and I think the fact
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  they did come up in twin dilemma commentary in terms of
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  complacency behind the scenes. And I know we talked about this
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  off Mike, this is not a story which is complacent, No.
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  Oh, here we go. Oh, oh.
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  There's always a dip on cue, and that first shot of that was so
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  successful we get it twice did. You see, they were like, sort of
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  degrading. They were all sort of vanishing,
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  like Star Trek. And vanishing some classic extra
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  acting. I mean, extra acting is is never
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  great anyway. But in the Williams era, I mean
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  those extras in Destiny of the Daleks, there's a bit where
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  they're all laughing their heads off when they're about to be
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  killed. They're.
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  All back to kid, I'm going to keep a I'm going to keep a score
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  of how many times we see that, that that camera on a rail.
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  I will. I forget but it's.
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  It's the same shot though, every time it's the.
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  Same shot one way or another. And this isn't it.
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  I mean, it may well be either from the mythology or something,
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  but like let's have there's that shot you were talking about.
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  I think it's that one, isn't it? Let's have some guest characters
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  who are wearing masks the whole time, because that is one of the
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  reasons why to guard overseers names.
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  Guard #1 and Guard #2. They should be known as.
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  And and that's they and the helmets on the space space
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  suits. Yeah, just they look like a
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  right pair of Dicks, didn't they?
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  They. Do look like a pair of Dick,
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  although it has just occurred to me they are very similar shape.
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  That's the Sears, that's the Sears and I don't think, I
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  don't, I don't know if that's intentional or not, but it is a
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  very similar shape. I do like this idea though,
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  because the the ship has crashed into the planet as it has or you
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  know, as we saw on the screen, it just went in some water or
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  something, you know, a washing up bowl that because they're
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  embedded into the heart of the planet now that outside the main
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  door is just a load of rock, but they've got a blast through as.
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  You said the ideas are, you know, there's so many good
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  ideas, they are now piercing into a a solid core of a planet
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  inside a planet that's forming. There's that shot again, No.
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  No, but like, like we're saying like they didn't have enough
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  material because they didn't have the technical expertise and
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  they didn't have the time to do it.
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  So they are doing whatever they can to make this episode the
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  length. They are making this work.
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  The only trouble is is so when you come away from when it was
• 14:06
  made, it's a piece of work out there to be judged after that.
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  And you know, if you're somebody that's not a Doctor Who fan,
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  then you are just going to see the same scene repeated three
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  times without any of the context as to why it's in there.
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  And here's some it's really good examples of where it's not just
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  them standing on a blue screen, walking up and down.
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  They've tried to do cave mouths and climbing off rocks.
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  They really are. Trying going round corners into
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  tunnels and things. Really trying to make this work,
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  It's there's no complacency here at all.
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  It's dire situation. There's no money left for sets.
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  We either have no story or we have this.
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  So it's like shorter again, isn't it?
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  And especially it's Graham Williams.
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  First year, the the last thing I imagine he would want to do is
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  come up short. And I think it was the same when
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  I think he was offered Invasion of Time to almost not do it
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  because it was so up against it. But he was like, we're going to,
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  we're going to do this, we're going to make it against the
• 15:09
  odds. And this is so experimental.
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  It is, and I I do admire it a lot for that.
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  I always went over Doctor Who Pioneers Special Effects and it
• 15:21
  doesn't quite work. I always have to have a bit of
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  pride that they were pioneering the special effects anyway.
• 15:28
  Because a lot of what they're doing here is the norm now,
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  yeah. But they are choosing, doing an
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  entire studio day against a blue cloth, with acting against
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  almost nothing. You know, I was, I was at a
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  convention a couple of weeks ago locally where they had the, you
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  know, the wall that they use now, the the massive screen and
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  all the cameras. And I I sort of went in there
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  and just to annoy everybody, I chose the Jodie Whitaker's
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  TARDIS and they were zooming around me with cameras to give
• 15:56
  it depth. But it's essentially the same
• 15:58
  techniques they're using here. They've just refined it to such
• 16:01
  a a sort of perfect level that it looks gorgeous.
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  Now it looks. I mean there are times I think
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  possibly because I've watched there's that shot again, I'm
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  going to keep. I'm going to keep us trying to
• 16:12
  keep a score. I think because I'm so used to
• 16:14
  seeing Doctor Who's CSO shots that I still think when I'm
• 16:18
  watching something like such a strange new worlds.
• 16:21
  It's like I can still, I can still tell this is it's an AR
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  war. But because there was a we're
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  sort of we're. Sort of in built now to just go
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  with it, aren't we you've? Just got to go.
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  You get on with it. I think we can suspend our
• 16:32
  disbelief because it it doesn't have to look perfect.
• 16:37
  It's like it's is it telling the story.
• 16:39
  I think this is probably one of those instances and up to where
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  it comes close to not helping tell the story because at times
• 16:48
  it is hard to look at. It's time to guess what's going
• 16:51
  on. I think some of the weakest.
• 16:53
  There it is again. Are in this episode because
• 16:56
  there was that shot earlier on when the the thing I just his
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  father whose name I can't remember, he's leading the, you
• 17:07
  know trying to lead a revolution and they're also sort of
• 17:10
  floating and the guards just sort of glide in.
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  It's like that doesn't work that, yeah.
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  And I think some of the weaker shots are.
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  In a nine comes gliding in a couple of times as well.
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  How? Can I floating all over them?
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  Well, we can fly in that Australian series.
• 17:25
  Why can't he fly now? Now that now there was a nice
• 17:29
  little cute moment, and whether or not that was scripted or not,
• 17:31
  where the Doctor and Lee living told to wait behind and they
• 17:34
  literally wait a few seconds and you just you just nudge each
• 17:38
  other like Yep, we're off and that really works.
• 17:42
  One of the things I really love about the CSO shots is because
• 17:45
  they can keep them in small is that there is a sense of scale
• 17:49
  in the in these caves in a in a way that even in the mutants you
• 17:52
  didn't get. I think the problem that you
• 17:55
  have is there's no close-ups. Half the time there's the odd
• 17:58
  ones here or there, but like this we've got this shot here.
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  OK, that comes with a closer for what I'm talking about.
• 18:03
  But a lot of the time you've got the Doctor and Leela in Longshot
• 18:07
  and that that, although it's given that sense of scale,
• 18:09
  that's the left of the screen and so, but then this is the
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  thing. So I was reading the complete
• 18:15
  history. It's going to get somewhere
• 18:17
  behind the scenes and I think up until this, the sort of average
• 18:21
  for how much you can shoot on a CSO stage was like a minute in
• 18:26
  so much time and they had to shoot almost two episodes worth
• 18:31
  in what day and a bit. A couple of days, yeah.
• 18:33
  Now this this tracking shot. I think that actually, really.
• 18:39
  Works and have you noticed as well how they they've almost
• 18:42
  perfected the Fringe in as well? I know you can see it a little
• 18:44
  bit, but think back to the Green death.
• 18:46
  Think back to Planet the Spiders, where it was so.
• 18:49
  Obvious. This is.
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  Why? Because in getting ready for
• 18:52
  this, because you know, I've thrown myself into this.
• 18:54
  I got the, I got the VHS because it's like I know when the VHS
• 18:58
  has come out, that was before they started toning down CSO
• 19:01
  fringing for like the doing the DVDs.
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  And I want to go well, I want to see it kind of as close to the
• 19:07
  broadcast version because I know they tidy things up.
• 19:12
  It's actually the fringing is not bad.
• 19:15
  It's it's there's very little of it.
• 19:17
  I think it's done very well. It's very clear, though, that
• 19:20
  that rock there, that terribly, unconvincedly looking rock, is
• 19:23
  the only thing in the set. You know, everyone goes around
• 19:26
  that one rock. It's not helps that it keeps
• 19:28
  moving. I don't go near the rock.
• 19:31
  Don't breathe near the rock. It's a very lightweight sort of
• 19:35
  Rock, You know. It it it's a special sort of
• 19:37
  rock that we have in the underworld.
• 19:39
  That's what it is and. It's what happens when a planet
• 19:41
  forms around the spaceship. And where we have probably one
• 19:46
  of the major guest stars, Norman Tipton, which you know for Blake
• 19:52
  7 fans appears in Spacefall and Cygnus Alpha.
• 19:55
  A very nondescript performance of a very nondescript character.
• 20:00
  And in theory, IDAS should be much more interesting kind of
• 20:05
  the young rebel who or the young person stirred it to rebellion
• 20:09
  by the Doctor and Leela. Think of how charming Cordo was
• 20:12
  in the Sun Makers. Yes, there is.
• 20:16
  And it might be because there's just nothing on the script, but
• 20:18
  that's, I don't want to say it's not a great, you know, he's not
• 20:23
  the best actor in the world, but it's like there's he's not
• 20:26
  lifting it. He's he's a very timid.
• 20:29
  I don't think Will Chandler had a lot to do in the script of The
• 20:32
  Awakening, but I thought that was a phenomenal performance.
• 20:36
  He Yes, I I think sometimes recognise and go OK, there's not
• 20:40
  a lot on the page. What can I bring to it?
• 20:42
  And I think but that's not, that's not unique to to Paul
• 20:47
  Norman. I think a lot of the guest cast
• 20:49
  don't know what to bring possibly because the IT wasn't
• 20:55
  just a day on blue screen, it was the first day in the studio
• 20:58
  was in The Cave sets. So there's no chance to build
• 21:02
  that camaraderie or build your characters or kind of do
• 21:06
  anything. It's really long.
• 21:08
  I think it was a couple of very long, very tense and again, if
• 21:13
  you go and watch that behind the scenes stuff, there is a tension
• 21:18
  behind the scenes and you know it doesn't show in Tom's
• 21:21
  performance necessary as the Doctor, but when you see him as
• 21:24
  himself, he's in a right mood and did you see?
• 21:28
  Neil with that knife then trying to kill him.
• 21:31
  Because she'd already said, oh, he's running, like I'm sure
• 21:34
  she's actually identified. He's being chased and
• 21:36
  everything. And then she just she goes with
• 21:40
  a knife in the. Book there's a trade of blood,
• 21:43
  isn't there? That that's in the spaceship
• 21:45
  that that leads them to him. They didn't actually show that
• 21:47
  on the TV, he. Did.
• 21:49
  Now there's a there's a bit there's a shot there where the
• 21:51
  the four minions. Remember, the minions are in
• 21:54
  this story because. Not the minions of minions.
• 21:56
  Minions of minions who have basically just disappeared into
• 21:58
  the caves and just kind of float around.
• 22:01
  I think they've literally floated into the scene because
• 22:03
  there's some, there's like a cave impressions kind of the
• 22:05
  right, the left hand side of the screen and they kind of just
• 22:09
  walk over it and then they've just walked over it again.
• 22:13
  And it's a real shame because I know they were doing all sorts
• 22:17
  of things because they they talk about it in the documentary
• 22:20
  where they were doing mats and they were trying to do, you
• 22:22
  know, layers of shots to try and give some sense of depth and
• 22:26
  perspective. Because again, when I heard
• 22:28
  about this was a story shot of CSOKSI was just expecting them
• 22:33
  to walk in front of, you know, just idly walking in front of a
• 22:37
  blue screen with some caves on it going, no, they really have
• 22:39
  tried to give that sense of depth, give that sense of scale.
• 22:43
  They're lighting it as well. There's some scenes where they
• 22:45
  sort of light it as if they're in caves as well and.
• 22:49
  And so they they really are. It's not perfect, obviously, but
• 22:54
  the the effort is that. Is a that is generous.
• 22:57
  It is not, no. I know I'm very generous man.
• 23:00
  Some of it is not good. Can I ask you about the
• 23:08
  continued dragging down of Time Lord law?
• 23:13
  Because the ideas behind this are that the Time Lords got
• 23:18
  involved with the minions of Mignos, gave them great powers,
• 23:22
  didn't they? And technology.
• 23:24
  And then the minions of Minya said fuck off to the Time Lords,
• 23:27
  we don't need you anymore. We can regenerate now, we can
• 23:30
  travel free time and do all these fabulous things.
• 23:33
  And then the Time Lords, what did they do?
• 23:35
  Did they exact terrible retribution on them, I think.
• 23:38
  That might be in the book. I don't know if that's in the TV
• 23:41
  version because they basically say they booted them out, they
• 23:43
  went to war, destroyed their own planet and this is all that's
• 23:46
  left. I mean, those are big ideas,
• 23:50
  aren't they? And ever since, deadly assassin
• 23:52
  and into invasion of time. And I'd say going all the way
• 23:56
  into sort of trial of a Time Lord.
• 23:58
  It's debunking the idea that the Time Lords are gods, but they're
• 24:02
  in fact very flawed. And this is kind of the first
• 24:06
  time where the idea that Time Lords have been involved and
• 24:09
  everything, it's a bit of back story that's never really been
• 24:12
  actually. I don't think it's ever been
• 24:14
  done before, apart from obviously you said story set on
• 24:16
  Gallifrey. But the idea of no, the Time
• 24:18
  Lords have had an involvement here.
• 24:20
  They've got a history that's all new and that adds an extra layer
• 24:26
  to the story. Whether or not they make the
• 24:29
  most of it or not, I don't know. I just wonder if this hits in
• 24:32
  the wrong season, because if this had been a Romana story
• 24:35
  then that would have meant something.
• 24:37
  They could. They could have.
• 24:39
  Really could have, you know, the the ship is there, the TARDIS is
• 24:42
  there. Could we go?
• 24:43
  And it could be, no, we've got a responsibility because we're
• 24:46
  Time Lords. But I'd like, I'd like the
• 24:49
  Doctor sort of detail all of that actually.
• 24:51
  Do you know what it because he just says it in episode one
• 24:54
  doesn't he? All this sort of back story
• 24:56
  about the Minions and the Time Lords.
• 24:59
  What would have been dramatically more satisfying is
• 25:02
  if that was the mystery of like what's happened to these people.
• 25:05
  How did they get here? And then the big twist at the
• 25:07
  end is the tymals did it also. They interfered, they gave the
• 25:11
  technology, they went to war with them.
• 25:13
  They are why they are in this situation.
• 25:15
  There's no subtlety really in this in terms of it's fairly
• 25:19
  obvious that they're looking for the P7 E they crash into it.
• 25:23
  I think most of the time you can probably deduce, OK, this is
• 25:26
  the, you know, is this the descent of that ship.
• 25:29
  It's kind of. It's built as a little bit of a
• 25:31
  revelation in Part 3, but I think most people probably a bit
• 25:37
  ahead of the. The trouble is, that's the only
• 25:39
  satisfying answer. What other answer could it
• 25:42
  possibly be? Who could they be?
• 25:43
  You know and you know we've got the we've got the scenes.
• 25:48
  Sometimes when when you watch this, you're kind of grateful
• 25:49
  for when they go to scenes kind of extended in the studio
• 25:52
  because it's like, OK, my eyes can, my eyes can bear it.
• 25:55
  But that whole, there's a whole bit where you had the Doctor and
• 25:59
  I asked talking the look of all in one shot.
• 26:03
  And you just get the sense that there's just no time to do
• 26:08
  close-ups, to do any refinement, kind of do anything.
• 26:12
  It's basically shoot and move on, shoot and move on and.
• 26:16
  Here we get interminable scenes of that grill spitting out
• 26:22
  vapour or gas, and we go back to it and we go back to it.
• 26:26
  And then there's a shot of it for about 30 seconds just
• 26:29
  pumping out gas. And that's all we're seeing.
• 26:31
  And I'm like, why am I watching, you know, like a technical video
• 26:35
  on how to expel gas well? There's probably somebody
• 26:38
  sitting in the gallery going, where are we up to 19 minutes,
• 26:40
  Put another 10 seconds in, put another 10 seconds in, Right,
• 26:43
  We've got it to 8 minutes, right, That'll do.
• 26:44
  Look. Here it is.
• 26:46
  Off it. This is the sequence.
• 26:47
  Look, it goes on forever. Just that thing bumping out gas.
• 26:52
  Oh, here's Tom now, waving his scarf about and.
• 26:55
  That, I mean, it's probably probably because the smoke is
• 26:58
  kind of hiding the worst excesses of the CSO caves.
• 27:01
  That's not too bad. That's.
• 27:04
  I think that's the same shot again or part.
• 27:05
  You know, like Tom was gassed in the end of part one of the Sun
• 27:08
  makers. Like we've been here already
• 27:09
  this season. This ain't.
• 27:11
  This ain't drama. And you know, she's she's
• 27:15
  dragging him around and then she, but she's not doing
• 27:19
  anything. I do.
• 27:20
  You know what? This isn't my favorite Lila
• 27:21
  costume either. I prefer the Brown costume.
• 27:24
  There are a couple of moments where it does look like she's
• 27:29
  about to pop out of. It you and I are going to
• 27:34
  appreciate that sort of thing, are we?
• 27:35
  No, that's not really. It's not really for us, is it?
• 27:37
  Although I've got to say, can I ask you a question?
• 27:39
  I know I do this sort of thing on Hamster sometimes, but
• 27:42
  there's a line in a minute and I just need to ask you about it.
• 27:45
  Are you aware that whatever sucks can be blown?
• 27:50
  Yes, I think. I thought you would know that,
• 27:52
  yes. I think, I think there are
• 27:54
  certain things that you know, gentlemen of our generation
• 27:57
  certainly can appreciate but that.
• 27:59
  One, your husband smiles a lot in those pictures.
• 28:01
  You know, I he looks like a very happy man.
• 28:07
  He is a very happy man. But yeah, you have to get the
• 28:11
  idea. Is that a line that was in the
• 28:13
  script or is that somebody, namely Tom, there's there's
• 28:20
  another shot of a grill competing smoke.
• 28:24
  And then always said, you know, don't show the same special
• 28:27
  effects shot more than once. Otherwise people will start to
• 28:29
  figure out how you're doing it. Yeah, and then the thing the
• 28:32
  problem again. No, because they heard they're
• 28:34
  shooting, they're getting a shot done, moving on that you get
• 28:38
  this cliffhanger and you've got the top of the doctor's head.
• 28:42
  He's looking at something and he kind of just bows his head
• 28:46
  grill. Again, it doesn't fall over.
• 28:49
  It just sort of goes down as if he's going to sleep well.
• 28:51
  We can't. We can't have him fall over
• 28:53
  because we haven't got the floor.
• 28:55
  I do think a lot of the sort of the the most stressful studio
• 29:00
  moments are in that episode too. I think things actually improve
• 29:03
  quite a bit from three onwards. There is one bit in Part 4 where
• 29:10
  I think we probably have the best.
• 29:12
  One of my favourite behind the scene moments of Tom Baker.
• 29:16
  Utterly frustrated. I think we talked about it when
• 29:18
  we before we started. Oh, you can see.
• 29:20
  Yeah, say it when it hears. It's brilliant when when it
• 29:22
  comes, when it comes it. It is just an example of Tom
• 29:28
  Baker just not having a good day.
• 29:31
  The advantage of watching studio tapes, it's got the time on it
• 29:34
  and it's always good. As you can tell, they're getting
• 29:36
  close to 10:00 and then you can just tell they just want to get
• 29:41
  the scene done. It's up there with told me in
• 29:46
  the leisure hive behind the scenes going that fucking Drury
• 29:48
  prop or or that bit with K9 that in the outtake where he goes,
• 29:52
  yeah, you never fucking know the answer do you It's it's that
• 29:55
  level of frustration and. And there's a bit, I think it
• 29:58
  was a bit from Part 2 where he does something going out of the
• 30:02
  airlock door and the director cleaned up in the gallery is
• 30:05
  saying because he he had a duck. So he does something strange and
• 30:08
  the director's clean. Can you just get Tom to walk
• 30:09
  through the door like a normal person And Tom was there going,
• 30:13
  I'm, I'm from Gallifrey. I'm not from fucking Ealing.
• 30:19
  I mean, we've got a point. But the.
• 30:21
  Trouble is, you can't contain Tom.
• 30:23
  The second you try and contain Tom, he's going to get even
• 30:25
  worse. And there's a moment and I think
• 30:28
  it's it's it's the production assistant floor manager who's
• 30:31
  clearly relaying and he's he's he's only you can see him on on
• 30:35
  camera and they've had this bit of to do from Tom and he just
• 30:39
  turns to the camera and he kind of goes up.
• 30:41
  You see it's almost like they've had a private chat of get him to
• 30:44
  walk through that door Normally he won't do it.
• 30:46
  I want you to go and tell him. I'm telling you he won't do it
• 30:49
  And that's why I was like yeah he's not doing it.
• 30:51
  He's not playing ball. We.
• 30:52
  Love this behind the scenes drama, don't we it?
• 30:55
  Is better, better than the stuff sometimes.
• 30:58
  The thing is, like, we're Tom. Yeah is.
• 31:00
  And here's the sort of extras that he adds, and let's do the
• 31:03
  extras in air quotes. They go one or two ways.
• 31:06
  It's either genius or fucking lunacy and absolutely cringe
• 31:11
  worthy. And it can go one of those two
• 31:13
  ways. I would rather have an actor
• 31:17
  that that is out of control for the genius moments and I would
• 31:22
  take the cringe moments because I think there's less of them.
• 31:26
  I'd rather that than an actor who's bored.
• 31:28
  Yeah, you talk about Pete Davison.
• 31:32
  Sometimes you can just tell he is not engaging with it.
• 31:36
  He's bored. The writers are bored of him,
• 31:39
  He's bored of it. I think watching season 20 back,
• 31:42
  it's like, yeah, sometimes you're trying, but sometimes you
• 31:47
  really aren't. And then the trouble is, then
• 31:49
  you get someone like Colin in right?
• 31:51
  One who's willing to go for it because he, you know, he loves a
• 31:54
  cliffhanger where he's shouting Perry Bar and he's WordPerfect
• 31:59
  as well. So he doesn't deviate from the
• 32:00
  script. He's WordPerfect, He's willing
• 32:02
  to go for it and then he gets those bloody scripts, you know,
• 32:05
  those terrible scripts. So, for God's sakes, we can't
• 32:08
  win. I think Tom, you you always get
• 32:12
  an approximation of the script as well.
• 32:15
  I think that's that's the thing. I think Tranton did the same
• 32:17
  thing, but you never got the sense when people talk about
• 32:21
  behind the scenes that he was over.
• 32:24
  He was talking over people or making things difficult.
• 32:26
  It was always kind of sympathetic to, you know, it was
• 32:31
  almost like you'll go around the houses, but you'll get to your
• 32:34
  queue. With Tom, you get the impression
• 32:35
  that you made. You may not get to your queue.
• 32:37
  You might not get to your line because you have no idea what
• 32:41
  he's going to do next. I like the stories of the actors
• 32:44
  that stand up to Tom. And there's a bit, there's that
• 32:46
  story of the fellow who plays Vince in horror fan rock and Tom
• 32:49
  Baker walks in and goes, oh, how can you say this fucking stupid
• 32:53
  script? And he just tore the script off
• 32:56
  him and said because I can Tom, all right.
• 32:58
  And then Tom didn't didn't go at him again after that.
• 33:01
  And I think he's that actor that if you, if you stand up to him,
• 33:04
  he'll back off. I think he's one of those people
• 33:07
  who pushes it, what he can get away with.
• 33:09
  If he sniffs weakness, then. He'll come over here.
• 33:12
  And that was what they say about Nightmare of Eden is that he's
• 33:16
  in Alan Bromley. And I mean when you listen to
• 33:20
  some of those stories on particularly there, it's like he
• 33:24
  crossed the line. I think he definitely crossed
• 33:25
  the line Then in terms of being borderline unprofessional, it's
• 33:29
  like the man is there to do a job just because you don't
• 33:32
  respect him, You don't like him. It was like, he is there to do a
• 33:36
  job, let him do his job. But I'm I'm not the star of a
• 33:41
  television show, So what do I know?
• 33:43
  Oh, you know, a great deal, as we've maybe demonstrated in the
• 33:46
  last hour. Well, we should probably go off
• 33:49
  into Episode 3 and see what the great Computer of life.
• 33:54
  Has to walk. We need we need to go for a nice
• 33:56
  little float down the lift. Shaft Oh yeah, go away.