Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Steven B & Jack Coyer about their choice of The Awakening (1/2)

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Talks to Steven B & Jack Coyer about their choice of The Awakening (1/2) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

0:26
Music. The.
1:18
Welcome back to a Hamster with a Blood Pen Knife, not just a
1:21
Doctor Who commentary podcast, but the very best one too.
1:25
Tonight on Hamster we step back in time into the 1980s.
1:28
Join us as we dress in our Sunday best fluoro colour
1:31
T-shirts while listening to The Smiths and Sade on our cassette
1:34
tape Walkman, and as we shake our heads while reading the near
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apocalyptic newspaper headlines of the day.
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Oh wait, no, that's just 2025. I'm Stephen B and tonight I have
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the pleasure and the privilege of joining our host, this
1:47
charming man Joe Ford. Hello.
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And the smooth operator that? You said, well, that's so far
1:53
since Stephen I, I, you, you said many clever things, but I
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already got about three of them. And the smooth operator that is
2:01
now today, forever and always, Jack Coyer.
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Hello, I'm going to leave it. How succinct.
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Yeah, well, I've I've been looking at Stephen's
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dissertation of notes. Yes, Stephen, would you care to
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explain yourself and your mind map?
2:22
My mind map. This is something that I have
2:24
used to well, I used to do in the past for every new to who
2:26
episode. And it seems to have shown up
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the gentleman that in just in terms of its volume and I've
2:31
made a stupid amount of notes, which is actually a condensation
2:33
of a a further series of notes. Why?
2:36
Because we're doing The Awakening, a story that I
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absolutely love and that I am almost on a mission to try and
2:42
convince everybody of its value worth and how underrated I guess
2:48
guess it is and how neglected a piece of 1980s television it is.
2:52
I think it's an absolutely wonderful piece of 50 minutes,
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50 minutes of Doctor Who. And I hope, gentlemen, as we go
3:00
through the next couple of episodes that we arrive, if not
3:03
at exactly the same conclusion and viewers as my own, because I
3:07
don't expect that, then perhaps at a greater appreciation of
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something that I think many Doctor Who fans see as well. 50
3:15
minutes of Doctor Who and then we move on with the rest of the
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the season, that season being season 21, Peter Davidson's
3:21
last. And I think perhaps the season
3:24
where we get to see his doctor at last and go on too soon, I
3:28
think. But it's the awakening.
3:30
That's what we're doing today. So yes, what do we think?
3:33
Initial impressions I'll throw over to Jack initially.
3:38
Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a decent piece of 15 minutes
3:43
Doctor Who. It could have been a wonderful
3:44
piece of 100 minutes, Doctor Who, but they chose not to do
3:48
that for whatever reason. I think it's funny, this is one
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of the most we we started our journey together as a three man
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band with Urban Time Monster, which is although we've got a
4:06
lot of enjoyment out of it, and I think maybe we can even
4:10
struggle to say that we like it is one of the most mocked and
4:16
even reviled pieces of Doctor Who and its entire history.
4:20
Definitely seen as the nadir of its era and era is a fairly
4:26
consistent bat in average fans of all ages.
4:32
Then we did Human nature because I decided to rescue us by
4:36
nominating good something. That is what completely on the
4:43
opposite end, both versions of the text really being held up as
4:48
sort of the pinnacle of their genres, both of RTD One and
4:52
obviously Virgin New Adventures. To the point where even fans of
4:58
a certain vintage who perhaps or less claims towards knew who
5:02
will hold that up as one of the oh wait, that's one of the good
5:06
ones. Human nature with this is almost
5:10
slapped bang in the middle, one of the most neglected or maybe
5:15
even overlooked pieces of Doctor Who by just about everyone.
5:20
It's obviously won the Davidson two-part historicals.
5:25
You know, Black Hawk gets a lot of discussion because it's no
5:29
monsters. It's pure pure historical pure
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pure. Can look at the sort of PG
5:35
Wodehouse stuff and the cricket match and there's moments of
5:39
iconography and so certainly playing multiple parts, there's
5:45
moments of iconography that fans can act onto.
5:49
And the Kim's demons is to sort of nothing.
5:52
It's not really. I mean, it's just, it is what
5:56
again, one of the most reviled and mocked pieces of Doctor Who.
6:00
But these people are discussing it, you know, but it is just
6:04
sort of nothing and then it ends, you know.
6:09
So, and this is sort of, it was the last season 21 Davidson's
6:17
story to be nobilised, apart from obviously Eric Sayworth
6:21
holding back resurrection with the Doric.
6:25
And look what a great job he did holding that fucker back for 35
6:29
years. Eric, I'm sure he did a good
6:31
job. It was the last Davidson story
6:36
released on DVD. And then when it did, it was
6:39
smacked together with the gunfighters for some reason and
6:44
called, you know, Earth story called, you know, the the blokes
6:49
in floppy hats. Do you want to, you know, so
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it's neglected by just about everyone, you know, when it came
6:58
to doing the time Monster and human nature.
7:02
I was surprised for different reasons that both of those
7:06
stories had not been picked on this podcast.
7:09
Obviously, Human Nature for its sort of merits, and Thai Monster
7:15
because there's nothing more fun than gathering with your friends
7:19
and sort of watching clappy Halloween movies, you know, on
7:23
the sofa as a teenager. And that's the sort of similar
7:26
sensation you can get from watching the Thai Monster.
7:29
But I was not surprised that this story had not been
7:33
discussed on this podcast just because no one else is bothered
7:37
to. The BBC couldn't be bothered.
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And, you know, Target couldn't really be bothered and the Hand
7:44
Firm couldn't really be bothered.
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So you know. Slightly because a lot of people
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have come at me to do the awakening.
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Quite a few people have asked to do this, including our Fraser
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and a few others that just adore it.
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So I think the reason it hasn't been touched in this podcast is
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me, because eventually I sort of determined the schedule, however
8:11
erratic that is and maybe I've. Been avoiding.
8:13
What do you think about? Oh, I, I mean, look at Stephen.
8:22
Good grief, he's so pretty. No matter what he says in the
8:24
next 50 minutes, I will at least notch it up two points out of 10
8:29
by the end of this. Call just to think will be done
8:32
in 15 minutes. Yeah, well.
8:33
Before If that's what it takes, Joe, if that's what it takes.
8:36
No, do you know what? I watched it today and I haven't
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seen it for some time and I was quite astonished at what a
8:44
handsome production it was. I'd clean forgot how gorgeous
8:49
the Awakening looks. I am kind of in agreement with
8:53
you Jack. I do think this would be a
8:55
better 4 parter. I think it needs time to breathe
8:59
because much like the cut down cursor Fenrick, it jumps about
9:03
from location to location. There's a whole army of
9:07
characters in this that get about 5 lines each because
9:10
there's no space for them to actually have any fucking
9:13
character. It's so frustrating.
9:15
Which is why I think the target novelization by Eric Pringle is
9:21
the superior version of The Awakening, and I would like to
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go into that a little bit as we talk about.
9:25
This. But things that jumped out at
9:29
me, very witty lines, some really great performances, a
9:33
wonderful musical score, a really unusual looking monster
9:38
as well, and just an unusual idea for a monster.
9:42
So I actually came away from this kind of thinking, wow, that
9:46
was a really confident 2 episodes of mid 80s Doctor Who.
9:50
And I expected to come away and go, oh, right.
9:52
Well, there's a list of things I can complain about in the
9:54
episode. I really enjoyed it.
9:56
Yeah. So I'm going into this head held
9:59
high. That's so good to hear.
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Wonderful. Well then, shall we go into
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this? And perhaps Jack, if you can
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count us in from 5. Excuse me one moment please.
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Please before we go into the episode.
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Sorry to hijack this. Stephen, what are your initial
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thoughts on the Awakening? Initial.
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Initial, yeah, that's that's probably the the trick question
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there I would. Say paganism and ohh no.
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Please please. All in good time, Jack.
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All in good time. No, I think this is an
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incredibly dense and one of those stories that I think has
10:39
more under the hood than than first, first appearances
10:42
suggest. That's all I'll say at this
10:44
point. I'll get into all of that.
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I think, I hope in the in the 50 minutes or so, probably 2 hours
10:50
knowing us ahead of us. But what I do know, I feel as
10:54
though as as short as this episode or story is the level of
11:01
discourse and the depths of discourse that we could get into
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infinite. And I hope to do it some justice
11:06
before we as we head into it. Because it moves at such a lick,
11:11
it's like it is fast. Fortunately, the format of this
11:15
particular podcast is we have three fabulous things at the
11:19
end, which Jack proved in Human Nature and The Family of Blood.
11:23
You can make one last at least 25 minutes, so there's plenty of
11:28
time to talk about the depths. For so long you've completed the
11:33
entire the episode blimp. That's.
11:39
Right. You said no blimp.
11:42
That's exactly right. Send it.
11:45
You're bang for your buck hair. I have some of a blood pen
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knife. OK, sorry, I'll stop
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interrupting now. No, no fair call.
11:56
Let's then head into this. Jack, as I say, could you count
11:59
us in from 5? I've got the star field on
12:02
pause, ready to go. I hope you do too, dear
12:04
listener. Let's go.
12:06
OK, let's go in 54321. I mean, I would suggest just a
12:16
small piece of advice for the listeners out there.
12:18
Should you wake up at 4:00 in the morning and decide to watch
12:22
this story, please check your volume before you press play,
12:25
all right? Because you may wake up the
12:26
household that scream into the into the star field.
12:30
It's very loud. Yeah, that's one of.
12:32
Me. You say 4:00 in the morning, you
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say 4:00 in the morning. That's actually or near enough
12:37
The time that I first saw this, it was on Australian television
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in 1993 and it was the first time I saw Davison ever.
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I would have been just in high school at that point.
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And this was kind of like knew who for me at a very
12:50
impressional age. So yeah, 4:30 in the morning,
12:54
waking up and watching Doctor Who, that's it's not foreign to
12:57
me. I have got a.
12:59
Dead annoying, yeah. Absolutely.
13:02
Joe, I have a question for you immediately and I know you gave
13:07
a sort of a positive response to your last viewing.
13:12
But I've gone on doco who reviews and I have seen what you
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have said and I have been on the season 21 become hamster and you
13:21
voted resurrection of the Daleks to go through but not this.
13:25
So my question to you, Joe Ford is?
13:27
Why do you hate that? No, why do you hate the
13:31
awakening? One has to have a bit of
13:34
controversy on one's blog, you know, and strictly come hamster
13:38
episodes. I I'm sort of turning around on
13:42
it, but I think the book has done a lot of the legwork
13:45
because I just think the book, there's time for the ideas to
13:50
breathe and be considered and to lean into the atmosphere of the
13:54
village and to give motive to the characters and to explain
13:58
the horror of this alien evil and to go into the historical
14:03
like atrocities of the path that it's drawing on.
14:06
It does all of that in the book and there just isn't time in 50
14:09
minutes to give all of that the attention it deserves.
14:13
So I think that's my issue with the TV version.
14:17
I think that's a very fair call. And I did have another question
14:20
for you around the novelisation, although we might save that for
14:23
later. But I feel as though you may
14:26
have hit the nail on the head there in the same way that this
14:29
is a very oddly structured and most two-part are particularly
14:33
Davidson historicals. As you said earlier, Jack, as a,
14:36
as a nice little label for those 3 for those for that trilogy is
14:40
that they suffer from the fact that the end of Act one has to
14:43
come at the end of Part 1 and you have your Act 2 and your Act
14:46
3 in your second episode. Not ideal and not the way that
14:49
you should be sort of structuring.
14:51
Because what you'd sort of get is a very padded or drawn out 25
14:55
minutes of, of, of episode 1 before a huge rush to try and do
14:58
everything in Part 2. I absolutely recognize that.
15:02
But with the novelization, I think what you get is 140 odd
15:06
pages, which is generally about four parts of the classic Doctor
15:10
Who story. So the, the it's a very
15:14
faithful, I think reproduction beat the beat of the story.
15:18
But you have got that space and that room and that that time to
15:21
breathe and go into those those areas of interiority in
15:25
particular that maybe you just don't get on TV.
15:27
The audio, Stephen, is about 6 times the length of the TV
15:34
episodes, which means there's six times the amount of depth
15:38
and substance and nuance in, in that because there's just more
15:41
words to play with. But I, I just, I don't want to
15:45
scrimp over what an entertaining piece of TV is in its own right,
15:49
because I do think it does skip along.
15:51
There is action, there's great guest performances in it.
15:54
There are some very good lines. Davison get some wonderful
15:57
moments. You get great substitute
15:59
companions. Like there's a lot going on
16:00
within the two episodes. I just, it's one of those
16:03
stories, there's something that many Doctor Who stories where I
16:05
think, you know, what we could have done with a bit less of
16:07
that actually, you know, they've sort of eked that out a bit too
16:10
long. This is one of those ones I just
16:11
want to see expand it more and more because the ideas are
16:14
tasty. So let's get into it.
16:19
We we of itching to talk about the opening scene that we talked
16:24
a lot because I think that's a really great introduction to
16:28
this story. Obviously it's going bam bam,
16:30
bam Bam. You know, James here.
16:32
Is it historical? Are we you know what's going on
16:36
with these villages? We haven't got to at all this
16:38
team yet. She's not being attacked.
16:41
They all know each other. We're all in the same village.
16:43
We've actually wore the enactments.
16:45
They're not, you know, in a real war, blah, blah, blah, blah,
16:48
blah. All of that is sort of playing
16:51
on this idea of this doctor historical as genre that has
16:56
kind of been on the decline in the last sort of few years.
17:00
This was submitted to in season 13 and some people was on by
17:04
Robert Holmes. I guess we're looking at the
17:07
first couple of episodes of the Antle of Invasion perhaps, which
17:11
is sort of similar plot beat. Obviously, we can cut down a
17:17
little bit of the fact a bit with just Tom Baker and Sarah.
17:20
We can, you know, sort of dispense with a little bit of
17:24
the running around and have her with me.
17:29
What do we think about this as almost like an inversion of the
17:34
historical setting up those expectations of here's what we
17:39
think it's going to be? Oh, actually it's not, or maybe
17:42
it is. Here's world Chalmsa, here's
17:45
this, here's that. Obviously we have the black
17:49
orchid, which is very going towards a very specific point of
17:53
reference to Kim's demons, which is just sort nothing.
17:57
It's like dress up. What do we think about the
18:03
nature of how this story uses the nature of the doctor
18:06
historical? We obviously have people in
18:10
Roundhead and Cavalier costumes going through a village where
18:14
it's got telephone boxes and telephone wires.
18:18
What do we think about this story, the nature of the
18:22
historical at this time period in the show, and what the
18:26
Awakening in particular does with those points of reference?
18:31
So it's a great question, Jack. And I think one of the things
18:34
that I think works particularly well in the first maybe 5 to 8
18:38
minutes of of Part 1 here of the Awakening is that it plays with
18:42
the audience's expectations of the historical.
18:45
So it's not as simple as the smugglers where they arrive, you
18:49
know, somewhere on the Cornwall coast.
18:51
And the only one who needs convincing is Ben that they've
18:54
gone back in time. When, you know, anyone who's
18:56
been watching the show for the best part of three years now
18:58
understands that the TARDIS goes backwards, forwards inside
19:00
raising time as well as throughout the universe.
19:02
This is different. Instead, what we have is this
19:05
kind of wilful teasing of the audience and playing with the
19:08
tropes of what we understand are historical to be.
19:10
So yes, we have the older world uniforms and the, the horses,
19:14
you know, the, the, the uniformed soldiers riding on
19:18
horseback through the countryside.
19:19
It's beautifully directed and shot.
19:21
Joe mentioned this earlier, but the idea is that, you know, Jane
19:25
Hampton is wearing recognisably modern clothes.
19:29
That's inverted a few minutes later when the TARDIS lands in
19:33
an absolutely beautifully lit and beautifully constructed
19:37
church set. That is.
19:38
One of the best sets. Stephen, that is one of the best
19:41
sets in classic. Here it's.
19:43
Gorgeous it really is and and here it the the inversion of the
19:47
trope is that we've landed in 1984, but Tegan is not convinced
19:53
that she thinks that we've landed at some point in the 17th
19:55
century because we see, you know, the the figure in the
19:59
church now that is a very sophisticated use of.
20:06
The sort of historical tropes and the mixing of those, but
20:09
also the playing of the audience's expectations.
20:12
We know that it's set in 1984. We get that.
20:15
But we're we are admiring perhaps the dramatic irony as
20:19
the audience, as the particularly taken sort of comes
20:23
to realise that she is, you know, in little hot coming 1984
20:26
about to see her grandfather. But there's always some, you
20:29
know, chicanery and asshole with the doctor and and time travel
20:32
involved. I think it's a great way to not
20:34
just re engage with the historical, but also to engage
20:38
with the tropes of time travel in the historical.
20:41
So I think it's, it's, it's beautiful, particularly as I say
20:44
the 1st 5 to 8 minutes. I do wonder, though, if this had
20:47
been a longer story, that they would have tried to pull the war
20:51
over the audience's eyes. Like, there's no attempt to do
20:54
that because you see Jane in like, set that 32nd mark or
20:57
something like that in modern clothes.
20:59
Whereas you could have had fun with a couple of scenes of
21:02
convincing the audience that they're back in time and then
21:05
you see someone modern clothes. The very clever thing, I think
21:10
is it excuse? I think the boring parts of
21:14
history that the kids don't want.
21:16
They don't want to lecture, they want to.
21:18
Know about the the. Wars and the and the violence
21:22
and things like that. So what it does is it takes the
21:25
horrors of the past and injects them into the present.
21:28
And I think that's a really clever way of, you know,
21:32
educating a little bit but making it really exciting as
21:35
well, because I think those historicals were filtered out
21:39
for a reason. Yeah, And even when we had
21:44
something like episode 1 of the War Games, we we feel that it is
21:48
set in 19801918 on the Western Front and then we get the reveal
21:52
at the end. But you have an entire episode
21:55
of that set up, which works well.
21:57
And of course there was reasons for that in terms of 10 weeks of
22:00
television that needed to be filled.
22:02
But I think this is more effective, particularly for not
22:05
just the 1980s audience, but I think for a modern audience,
22:08
we're we're savvy enough to understand what the rules of
22:10
historicals and time travel and time travel historicals are, so
22:14
that it's playing with those, which I think is great.
22:16
Bless BBC Micro, maybe this will be the one that gets the CGI
22:23
treatment on the Blu-ray there. Oh, bless.
22:29
Yeah, it's so interesting. You know, Tegan.
22:30
And once again, we're using Tegan's relations as a way into
22:34
stories. It's quite a popular thing in
22:36
the mid 80s. Even though she does only get
22:39
about 3 lines of him at the end of the story.
22:41
Anyway. It's so interesting that once
22:45
Jane and Will are established, the Doctor goes to Tegan and
22:50
Turlo, right? You 2 go back to the TARDIS.
22:52
I've got 2 far more interesting people to hang out with now and
22:56
I don't need you boring getting in my way.
22:58
You know, it's weird isn't it? I don't think he's wrong Stephen
23:04
either. I don't think he's wrong.
23:06
They are a bit more interested in Jane and Will.
23:10
Certainly in the context of the story, I don't think for
23:14
instance, Will would have made a great companion going forward,
23:16
or Jane for that matter. But in in this context.
23:19
Isn't he? Yeah.
23:21
Yeah, but it would be. So it'd be Katarina really going
23:24
forward, I think. Not Jamie.
23:27
Couldn't, couldn't make him a Jamie video.
23:30
Probably for a bit less, but yeah, it could be.
23:34
You could have maybe it's done a little bit of 1 glimmer the
23:37
story to get taken and Telo in there.
23:40
Obviously in a couple of stories time we have oh, sorry, the next
23:45
story, next one or two. We have a lot of dealings with
23:49
Telos past and the his status is almost like a refugee from his
23:55
planet. Obviously there's some maybe
23:58
the, the, the war Robin Malice, who, you know, exempt the five
24:03
people's negative thoughts could be playing on that.
24:06
And obviously Tegan's status as an Australian, you know, which
24:11
obviously Australia would be, you know, the the the
24:16
descendants of the civil war people that will be enacting
24:20
would later go on to send their, you know, unwanted riffraff over
24:25
to Australia. And could we play on that part
24:31
of I don't know if this seems that maybe you couldn't squeeze
24:35
them into the grander thing of what this story is trying to do.
24:39
But like you said, we're just not thinking about the
24:41
companions as any more than people who we need people to be
24:46
on the television show. So here's some people who are on
24:49
the. TV show exactly, and
24:51
unfortunately, it is exactly for that reason why in this
24:54
instance, for instance, Tegan is is sidelined when what we needed
24:57
to have and probably if you were to, you know, have a sort of RTD
25:00
style plot of a character's entire arc over a season or two
25:04
is we would have got to see the family beforehand.
25:06
You know, this isn't just another random relative.
25:09
Perhaps we saw Andrew Varney on a on a previous occasion.
25:12
Perhaps we went to Little Hodgkin once or twice.
25:15
That's sort of television. If it's him, is old Vanessa's
25:19
dead Vanessa. I know that beyond that, she
25:23
only goes, that's the last time I visit you unexpectedly and
25:26
that's it, that's. All weekend.
25:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, I don't want this to be
25:31
like too much anti Teigen sentiment because I do think
25:33
Chris Frage Bibme does wonderful things with her in front of us,
25:36
but I do wonder if the character's been around so long
25:39
now she's a little spin like it was time to go at this point.
25:43
Well, I would say. Perlo, I think, just has more
25:45
interesting things to say about. Yeah, this is the probably the
25:50
least taken story as inviable because she's basically the main
25:56
character. She's 19, you know, almost every
25:59
story in that year, kinda, you know, if we end with Earth, we
26:05
we don't end with Earth shock with the character dying.
26:08
We end with time flight, which is her decision, the main
26:12
character of season 19's decision to leave the show.
26:16
And it's quite sort of strange, you know, we just had
26:19
enlightenment. She's obviously a part of that
26:21
snake dance, bring them all her back.
26:25
So it's quite strange to that. This is probably the least
26:30
amount of Teagan that we get. I did get quite excited like
26:35
watching this this morning when I thought that she might get
26:38
immolated at the end of the story.
26:39
I was getting quite excited waiting for that thinking Queen
26:42
of the Miley's going to burn. Oh, I.
26:46
Actually feel as though this should have been Tegan's last
26:49
story. She should have stayed behind
26:51
with her grandfather rather than have that miserable ending at
26:53
the end of Resurrection. This was a nice way to write her
26:56
out. What, you think she should have
26:58
got burned, Stephen? I think she should have stayed
27:02
behind with her granddad in the 18 I was.
27:06
Going to say I was quite a character for you.
27:08
What do we think of Jane Hampton then?
27:10
You know, sort of de facto companion for the story.
27:16
You mean it's like another? Target Novelisation is read by
27:19
nearest Hughes. Oh yeah, we're just doing that,
27:23
you know? Yeah.
27:25
Extremely well though she does a grand job.
27:28
It would be like if the novel for the Android Invasion was
27:31
read by Mitch Cliff Courtney. Oh yeah, you could have probably
27:35
been in this. That would have been a lot.
27:38
Although for some reason she sort of makes the doctor a bit
27:40
of a stuffy old professor when she's reading up his bits, you
27:43
know? But yeah, bless her.
27:46
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a character that again, just isn't
27:49
explored much because we've got 58 characters in the stories,
27:53
you know, 12 seconds long. But it's an interesting, you
27:59
know, outsider to the village, someone who likes history.
28:03
And we all like history because we like watching Doctor Who.
28:06
You know, it's a, it's a character we could be seen to.
28:10
There'd be an authority figure in the proceedings and someone
28:13
who we could be seen to empathize with in that regard.
28:16
But unfortunately just spends a lot of the story teeing up the
28:21
Doctor to do exposition because we've only got 2 episodes.
28:25
So we have to go Doctor. What is the malice?
28:27
Well, it's the thing that looks a little bit like the devil or
28:31
one of the Greek Gordons or, you know, the Green Man or
28:36
something. Happened in our James Bock.
28:38
Oh, Doctor, what is this, you know, thing from the station, I
28:44
think. You do her a bit of a disservice
28:46
there because I think she pushes back against him, Jane, quite a
28:49
lot in this. And she's very witty.
28:52
I think she has some really funny lines in it.
28:54
I love the meal. And she goes, Oh my God, the war
28:56
games. The doctor goes, yes, let's go
28:58
and sort. It out now you know.
29:00
I'm like, why don't they write Tegan with that sort of humour?
29:02
That's really, it really works. Every time they pair him up with
29:06
a liver bird, you know it's gold.
29:10
Yeah. But also, I think the reason why
29:12
we have to have her is, again, Tegan's not grounded enough to
29:15
be able to to serve in that, in that spot as the one who she's
29:20
able to recall the the village's history because, you know, she
29:23
grew up there or she or, you know, half a half a life was
29:26
spent there or whatever the case may be because she's divorced
29:28
from all of that. She knows about as much as we do
29:31
about what's going on. And so you need someone from
29:34
within that village to actually make sense of the events that
29:37
are happening in the history of it and through the eyes.
29:40
Right in the first couple of scenes she does do all that
29:42
exposition without the Doctor even turning up.
29:44
She. Absolutely goes.
29:46
That role. Did I just see Amy's crack in
29:50
the wall of that church a second ago?
29:52
Did you see? It it did look like it, yeah.
29:54
Yeah, it's first appearance. Off of Mr. Trick there.
29:58
I love the idea of bringing somebody from the past into this
30:03
story that has truly seen the horrors of where this will end.
30:09
If this plays out the way that Sir George wants it to.
30:13
You know, there's a wonderful bit in episode 2 where there's a
30:15
close up on Will's face where he remembers seeing the May Queen
30:19
burning. It's an unusually thoughtful
30:21
moment of direction phrase so. Yeah.
30:25
And that sort of means into some of the stuff that this has
30:28
probably taken inspiration from something like, I don't know,
30:31
something like maybe saffron and steel would the idea of being
30:35
like a time slip and, you know, things from the past coming into
30:40
the present, the unusualness of different, you know, iconography
30:46
matching up and not to the danger of what does it mean to
30:50
look back in history? What does it mean to have
30:53
history come to you? You know, this is something that
30:57
the era has been dealing with quite a lot because obviously we
31:00
just had season 20 go into the old nostalgia thing, something
31:05
like snake dance kinda, you know, different cultures sort of
31:10
looking back on their past, you know, enlightenment without an
31:15
all the suppers, you know, the artificiality of dressing up in
31:19
costume. And we are going to have stuff
31:25
like Ghostly in the future that's obviously got a lot of
31:30
that on its mind as well. But yeah, it really does bring
31:36
him in. Well, in this story obviously
31:39
gives someone, you know, Davison someone to playoff who's given
31:43
him more than not. Mark and Janet would perhaps,
31:47
but is also a nice metal reminder of the clash of
31:53
cultures in that I think this story is is going for.
31:56
I also think as well though this story, I really felt it watching
32:00
it today. It's almost like Doctor Who
32:02
heroin being injected straight into your veins.
32:04
You know the picturesque English village, you got history in
32:08
there, you got a monster in there, you've got science
32:10
fiction in there, you've got the supernatural in there.
32:12
Everything Doctor Who could possibly do to steal down into
32:16
two episodes. I can see why this is popular.
32:21
I, I think that's also a really lovely segue into a question
32:24
that I had planned for both of you.
32:25
And Joe, you alluded to it earlier, but if Pringle, as he
32:29
maintains, did not see the demons in 1972, I think it would
32:34
have been 71 then how can we account for all the parallels
32:39
between that story and this story?
32:42
Because you're right, all of those elements are there, right?
32:46
Maybe Doctor Who is just drawn to all of that stuff.
32:49
Maybe it's just a natural direction for it to go into.
32:55
Yeah, Jack, what do you think? I mean, yeah, maybe it is
32:58
drawing off a lot of this sort of MO James Nigel, you know,
33:03
there are only so many sci-fi fantasy, dark, you know,
33:07
historical sources that British sources that can be drawn from.
33:13
I think the demons obviously 5 episodes over double, double the
33:19
length. You know, we've got time to
33:23
explore the village so that, you know, when the Master starts to
33:26
commit one in the village, we feel that a lot more because
33:30
we've had time to time to be there and because the Master is
33:35
just a villain that we know. So there's that extra little
33:38
danger there. But I think if you're going to
33:42
draw on folk horror in Doctor Who, from now on, the Damons is
33:48
going to be, it's going to be referenced just as if you draw
33:52
on a lot. The old You know what?
33:55
Because it did it first. Well, because it did it first
33:59
and prominently in a very popular era of the show.
34:03
You know, if you draw on 1960s culture, well, people are going
34:09
to look at the invasion of Earth or war machines and go, well,
34:14
it's a bit like that. You know, if you, if you look at
34:19
if you try and do one that's a bit like Frankenstein, people
34:23
are going to go, oh, this is just like the blame the Morbius.
34:25
You know, it's texts, as we discussed in the human nature
34:30
commentary, texts will draw on each other.
34:34
And particularly in an era that we know we've just had an entire
34:40
year with Doctor Who season 20 that they marked as to throwback
34:45
nostalgia season. Here comes the Master, here
34:48
comes the Brigadier, here comes every old cast member, here
34:53
comes the Shia Williams versus the Sea Devils, here comes this,
34:57
that and the other. So I think if we have been
35:00
invited, you know, John Pertwee, as we've discussed previously,
35:05
Tom Baker is a bit of a recluse at this point.
35:07
So John Pertwee is the Doctor Who, who's going on to him and
35:14
Noel Edmonds show and all these things.
35:16
I just think it's the era of the show that is being drawn from
35:20
the most at this point. I think you're both absolutely
35:25
right. So the show is now 21 years old
35:27
and I think when you exist in the cultural landscape for that
35:31
long, you become a part of it. Now I just want to recount for
35:34
you what I could find to be the five generic conventions of
35:38
English folk hora, which is absolutely what The Demons fits
35:41
into. But what we've just said, it
35:43
actually is a great example of that genre as well.
35:46
So in addition to The Wicked Man and the Stone Tape and Quatamus
35:49
and The Pit and all the rest of it, The Demons is up there as
35:52
one of those Seminole 1960s, Nineteen 70s in particular texts
35:57
around English folk hora. And it does all of these things
36:01
when I say it, it's the demons, but also the awakening.
36:05
So firstly, you need a rural setting somewhere in Marmosa
36:08
chair check. You need for that village to be
36:12
cut off or isolated and or for the members of that community to
36:16
be community, to be insular and or in some way removed from the
36:20
rest of society. And I think we have that in the
36:23
demons in terms of the heat barrier, but also here we have
36:26
the war games and that in effect has put a cordon around the
36:29
village. But also really oddballs has.
36:32
Been isolated from the outside world.
36:35
Yeah, and, and, and Sir George as a character just does not fit
36:38
into the rest of 1984 Britain. He is very much sort of this odd
36:42
ball character who sort of lives on the margins and, you know,
36:45
gets about in, in cosplay. Thirdly, you need superstition
36:49
and or paganism. And that's absolutely here in
36:51
terms of the depiction of the devil, both in the case of the
36:54
demons and the awakening sacrificial rituals.
36:58
And of course, we have our Queen of the May coming up in Part 2,
37:01
which Joe is very much looking forward to.
37:03
And then lastly, an element of the supernatural and the
37:08
inexplicable or the black occult sort of elements, which again we
37:11
get through the psychic energy being harvested.
37:14
And there's, you know, say Sawadian, Sawadian rather
37:17
dialogue that sort of suggests that this is a power source in
37:19
the same way that electricity for the is, you know, for the
37:22
people of Harkhol or wherever the hell it is, Pteroleptols, I
37:25
forget, Rifter is a star system. It's just far too much.
37:29
But obviously it's this idea that psychic energy is a primal
37:34
force that's being tapped into that's more ancient than we
37:36
could recognise or, or understand.
37:39
And so it does all of those five things absolutely brilliantly.
37:43
And it does it again here in the the Awakening as well as the
37:46
demons. But I would argue that the
37:49
demons and now with the Awakening, you kind of get
37:53
Doctor Who very much sort of being almost like an exemplar of
37:57
that English folk horror tradition.
37:59
It doesn't sit as an inheritor of it.
38:01
I think it sits as a as a text that formulates that tradition.
38:08
To oh, the episode ended by the way, we were talking there to I
38:13
mean, there's so much to discuss there, but they, you know, they
38:16
are quick episodes. Another thing as well, I really
38:20
love about Doctor Who and the longevity of Doctor Who.
38:23
And this is totally nicking an idea.
38:25
I from Nathan, possibly who I was talking to just recently
38:29
about the well is that Doctor Who, you know, certain cliches,
38:35
like, you know, the folk horror, like the base under siege.
38:38
It will, it will do these things really, really well.
38:41
And then the new production team will come along or the new
38:44
doctrine will come along and then they'll roll it out again
38:47
and see how that looks with the production team doing it.
38:51
And so whilst this has does have a lot of similarities to the
38:54
demons, you've just built them out.
38:55
They're really, really. Well, and image of the Fendall I
38:58
forgot to mention. As well.
39:00
Is it really a new who? I was trying to think, So what
39:02
the closest sort of folk horrory?
39:05
Tooth and claw comes close to it.
39:09
Well, I mean, 73 yards is something to say.
39:12
Oh, great shot, Jack. Yes, 73 yards.
39:17
But it's interesting, obviously that happens with the Doctor
39:21
subtracted from it in in the new RTD.
39:27
It's probably the closest that the show's got to the more
39:30
fantastical element from from RTD one Moffat and kidnap.
39:37
There's more of a sci-fi part because I guess you we can look
39:43
at FIFA3 pretty big Doctor Who fans who come with their own.
39:48
We want to make more Doctor Who and and there are certain
39:52
cultural touchstones that they'll pick on.
39:57
But yeah, obviously Russell would be, you know, wildly
40:00
Yonder. Salt in the ground, curses and
40:06
things being unleashed into the world.
40:09
Like if that put, you know, opened up.
40:13
Village Under Siege Chippers has definitely you know he loves the
40:17
bit of the demons because he does it in both Hungry Earth and
40:21
Village of the Angels. Village of the Angels, Yes,
40:23
you're right. Yeah.
40:25
Definitely the witch finders obviously is around the witch
40:27
toils, that's called that in there as well.
40:34
What kind of general is one of those sort of texts around the
40:37
genre as well? So yeah, I absolutely.
40:40
And you can even take that sort of small town paranoia mentality
40:44
and put it onto a story like Midnight, for example.
40:48
You know, it's just. Is that but different, you know,
40:52
in a sort of Firefly is where a western in space or you know,
40:57
mould circling around. To what you were saying earlier
41:01
Jack, about how that I don't know if this one is as forgotten
41:08
as was suggested at the start. I think this is a reasonably
41:11
well liked. Certainly when I asked for
41:13
comments on this Stephen, if you recall on the Strictly, the
41:17
comments were all extremely positive and it was only because
41:19
there was 2 plonkers on the panel that didn't like it didn't
41:23
go through. If any one of those people would
41:25
have been there on the call then this would have shown through to
41:28
the final. I think these are reliable
41:34
Doctor Who tropes that people really enjoy because they kind
41:38
of come with inbuilt atmosphere. So every time we do this, it, it
41:43
makes the sort of television that, forgive me, makes Doctor
41:47
Who fans testicles tingle, you know?
41:52
Well, on on that note, I'm sure that we could continue all night
41:55
gents, and that's exactly what we'll do.
41:58
So join us please, dear Ham fam listeners, next time for Part 2
42:02
of what I personally feel is a beautiful, underrated gem of the
42:04
story and that hopefully we've reached towards that conclusion
42:08
in this first part. I've been Stephen.
42:10
I but Joe. And I've been Jacqueline.
42:17
We'll see you next time. Ohh, cut it right there.