Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Paul Arthur about his choice of Terror of the Autons (2/4)

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Talks to Paul Arthur about his choice of Terror of the Autons (2/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blunt pen knife for doing quicker.
• 0:37
  Hello and welcome to a hamster with a blunt pen.
• 0:40
  A blunt pen knife. Put your teeth back in, Paul.
• 0:44
  Here we are. It's episode 2 of Terror of the
• 0:48
  Verb. No, not terror, the Verbo.
• 0:50
  Don't be so stupid. It's Terror of the Autons.
• 0:53
  Good evening, Joe. How are you?
• 0:54
  I didn't set up those altar cues for nothing, you know.
• 0:59
  He's only listening. He's only holding up a big, big
• 1:01
  sign that says Verboids on it. Enormous plastic billboards I've
• 1:05
  got how? Are we doing?
• 1:08
  Oh, my God, I'm having a delirious time.
• 1:11
  I mean, do you see how I've sort of got a pink hue on my face
• 1:15
  right now? Yeah, as if I'm sort of in a
• 1:17
  womb. Yeah, yes, you look very
• 1:19
  flushed. I'm not in a womb.
• 1:21
  It's the opening shot of the perk We title sequence pause on
• 1:25
  the screen is it's fucking electric pink.
• 1:28
  Yeah, yeah, I've got, I've got that paused this one.
• 1:30
  And it looks a bit like from the pause I've got the the face that
• 1:34
  they you see in the daffodils kind of programming in later on
• 1:38
  in the story. That's kind of what I've got,
• 1:40
  like a bit of a man. You suggested if I'll stare at
• 1:42
  this for long enough, it'd be like one of those magic pictures
• 1:45
  where somebody's going to come out at me.
• 1:46
  Yes, he might well grab you by the face.
• 1:49
  That sounds like it's promising more than it's going to deliver
• 1:51
  it. Maybe the iPlayer can't deliver
• 1:54
  that just yet, but. Paul, think about all the things
• 1:57
  that we had to get, you know, achieve or not ours.
• 1:59
  Barry Letts and Robert Holmes in Part 1, right?
• 2:03
  Joe came in, Yates came in, sort of reintroducing the Doctor,
• 2:07
  being been stuck on Earth, a new super villain for him to face
• 2:11
  off, a return of monsters from last year, and setting up the
• 2:15
  story for this particular adventure.
• 2:18
  I mean, that's quite a lot, isn't it?
• 2:20
  It's madness. And like, you know, will anybody
• 2:22
  listen to what what we just recorded, the first one that
• 2:25
  kind of literally flew by. I mean, it's so quick and pacey
• 2:29
  and it's just kind of boom, boom, boom, moving on to the
• 2:31
  next thing you know. Now you've got John jumping in
• 2:35
  and grabbing a bomb. You've got Katie being possessed
• 2:37
  in a in a factory. You got the master turning up
• 2:40
  with his horse box and and harassing circus folk.
• 2:44
  Just loads going on. Can I ask you, though?
• 2:47
  Yeah. If you do ever walk into a room
• 2:49
  somewhere, right, and someone is standing there looking a bit
• 2:51
  strange, like what happens with Joe here, do not just shout out.
• 2:56
  Stop her. It's a bomb.
• 2:58
  All right. Well, I'll only do it if there's
• 3:01
  a river outside the window, conveniently to throw the bomb
• 3:04
  into, which there seems to be outside this unit headquarters
• 3:09
  and it's never seen again, isn't it?
• 3:10
  Great. How the dangers here.
• 3:12
  And it's like, Oh my God, deadly danger, terminal danger.
• 3:16
  Oh, there's a river, you know, or at the end of part three, you
• 3:20
  know, the phone cord of death. And then the Brigadier just
• 3:23
  comes in and unplugs. It isn't that brilliant.
• 3:28
  In terms of false jeopardy this no one can top terror the all
• 3:31
  ones but. It's I mean, it is literally all
• 3:35
  you said before in the first one.
• 3:36
  I do think he is cripping a bit from from the Batman TV series
• 3:40
  here and and that kind of death trap Nate, you know, setting up
• 3:43
  the death trap and and typical homes, he's just kind of
• 3:47
  undercuts it with like this is the most obvious thing.
• 3:49
  It's going to unplug that phone from the wall.
• 3:51
  That's the end of that one. I think we should continue this
• 3:54
  story now with sort of Batman esque exclamations, you know,
• 3:58
  Holy smokes, what's that? I'm going to turn to you now in
• 4:04
  every moment of deadly danger and you are going to invent for
• 4:07
  me the bat space. That is going to solve the
• 4:11
  problem. All right.
• 4:12
  Right. Yeah.
• 4:13
  He always had something, didn't he?
• 4:15
  He did. He did always have a bat, shark
• 4:17
  repellent and bat all all manner of things did.
• 4:21
  He literally jump the shark, Batman.
• 4:23
  No, that was the funds. That was.
• 4:27
  But there was a shark. Yeah, very funny.
• 4:30
  Well, I'm just literally, I'm dying to get not dying.
• 4:33
  Sorry, not the amount of danger that's around.
• 4:36
  I am gagging. Oh, let's go watch episode 2.
• 4:40
  Yes, yes. Don't think you had hidden the
• 4:43
  plastic bag kids. It's not good for you.
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  I mean, Jesus, in the two episodes my fingers been in
• 4:50
  somewhere bad and now I'm being gagged.
• 4:52
  I mean, I never knew we'd get this close.
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  Count us in there, would you? Or shall I?
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  You started this. I did, yeah.
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  Yeah. God, what madness is this?
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  We'll go in in 321-GO I. Mean it's a slightly green hue.
• 5:12
  Sort of hypnotic, isn't it? Incredibly, and it brings that
• 5:17
  trippiness, doesn't it? So I mean, obviously they had
• 5:20
  this previously for Season 7. Now the story matches the kind
• 5:24
  of colour that this promises. Yeah, it was a bit odd, wasn't
• 5:27
  it, to go to all those sort of pipes and girders after seeing
• 5:30
  the lurid colours of the tiles in Seven.
• 5:33
  I mean, I do love 7, don't get me wrong.
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  I think it's as close as Doctor Who probably gets to being
• 5:38
  straight ish drama, yeah. Well, I love 7 as well.
• 5:42
  I do think he gets talked up a hell of a lot and I think, you
• 5:45
  know, people do love it and rightly so.
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  It's a cracking year, but it's not necessarily my personal
• 5:52
  preference. That's what I said, you know,
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  last time I was trying to come onto my other half.
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  I've got to open it. I've got to sorry.
• 6:02
  There's going to be some complaints about that.
• 6:04
  You know, Paul, is it supposed to be the Thames?
• 6:09
  Well, yeah, I mean it's again, it's that's another Avengers E
• 6:13
  connection, isn't it? Because like Avengers, The
• 6:15
  Avengers are set in kind of Avengers land.
• 6:17
  Was this kind of notional idea of kind of southern England?
• 6:21
  So I don't know, maybe it's a bit like that where because I
• 6:24
  mean, the unit headquarters changes all the way through the
• 6:27
  show, doesn't it? So well.
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  Sometimes it's in the country, sometimes it's in an antimatter
• 6:32
  universe. Right.
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  And his office here like this, this office doesn't stay the
• 6:36
  same through this year, let alone the next year or the year
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  after that. It's really weird.
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  I don't know what's going on because it's like a blowfish
• 6:43
  hanging from the ceiling. I don't know if you noticed it.
• 6:45
  Yeah, I'll point it out. When when you see it, I don't
• 6:49
  know. I don't know where there's
• 6:50
  always you. Always.
• 6:51
  Point out, very strange. I remember the goggly eyes from
• 6:54
  the insect eyes from Destiny, the Daleks, and now a blowfish
• 6:57
  hanging from the ceiling. Yeah, I have a theory, you know,
• 6:59
  that those stairs, he's a bit like Austin Powers, John Perry's
• 7:03
  Doctor. And they go out with shag pad
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  upstairs, sort of like pink, with loads of fluffy cushions
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  everywhere and stuff. You know I go Joe, please,
• 7:11
  right? He flicks it, flicks the lights
• 7:14
  and it fixed the switch and the lights turn on the stereo whack.
• 7:16
  Whack whack. Wow.
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  Oh, this in a minute. The bit where she comes out of
• 7:23
  the hypnosis. Now there is a quote and it's on
• 7:27
  the Terror of the Autumns documentary where per we
• 7:30
  literally says she has moments of brilliance and she has
• 7:33
  moments of awfulness. That's the exact word he uses
• 7:36
  always, which I think is a bit mean, but in a bit where she
• 7:41
  goes. What is it, Doctor?
• 7:46
  Tone it down, love. Well, it's it's a hell of a hell
• 7:48
  of a choice. And but what she's doing, what
• 7:50
  she does, so she does what you ought to do in Doctor Who is
• 7:53
  like, you should always take a deaf definitely serious, you
• 7:56
  know, so like she is really earnest in that performance.
• 7:59
  I'm trying to take you seriously right now, but there's an
• 8:02
  enormous black pudding inflated. Yeah, I know.
• 8:05
  I could see you laughing as I was trying to be all serious
• 8:08
  about Katie Manning's performance.
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  And yes, it was a big black object slowly rising into the
• 8:13
  air. You know, he says.
• 8:16
  With the sort of plastic, cold, clammy, sort of a feel, Yeah.
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  Yeah. There's a whole kink about that,
• 8:22
  you know? Well, I mean you.
• 8:24
  Yeah, I can imagine it's not. One eye indulging, but you know,
• 8:28
  actually being smothered as well.
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  This is quite kinky, this thing. Oh, he said.
• 8:33
  It looks like a black pudding. Cornering the market In in in
• 8:37
  furniture for S&M dungeons. What's it called?
• 8:40
  Auto erotic asyxiation or something like that.
• 8:43
  Yeah, I never understood that. I mean, we just have a normal
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  wank. Come on, you have to hang
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  yourself from the door, dear. Did you wear that, you kinky
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  git? All right, Paul, I've spoken.
• 8:54
  Pack it in you lot. Paul, could you just sit down in
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  this chair for me a moment? I would love to, yes.
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  You think that feels like? Oh, cold and clay, it's moving.
• 9:02
  Oh my God, it's got to wait here.
• 9:03
  It's so funny. Oh my God, I will not.
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  Tolerate his insolence, grunting, says the captions
• 9:13
  here, screaming. I mean is.
• 9:15
  That there must be someone's hand in there, right?
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  Coming down over his face. It's filmed backwards, which I
• 9:21
  didn't realize because I kind of like I'd always look at him go
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  always pulling it down on himself, but he kind of doesn't
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  do that. He puts his hand up, but he
• 9:28
  doesn't. So I couldn't work it out for
• 9:30
  years. But but yes, film backwards.
• 9:32
  What's really shocking is that is it's comic in how it's
• 9:36
  presented, right? And then the camera stays on him
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  for about 5 seconds and he doesn't breathe and you're like,
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  and suddenly you're not laughing anymore.
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  And is there anything more Doctor Who than that?
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  You're laughing and then you go, oh shit.
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  You can see his lip and there and then and then Farrell's cold
• 9:54
  reaction as well where he just phones the secretary and asks
• 9:57
  for for the terms of termination.
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  He said all he needs a few inches of plastic.
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  My God. I did.
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  I was trying to think earlier on what, you know, like obviously
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  we get the chair, we get the flowers.
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  What else could you have done? Obviously in in rows we get a
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  bin and and. Pressure glance.
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  Because I was coming on hamster straight away.
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  Your mind goes to things like that, doesn't?
• 10:24
  It Botox in the lips. Oh God, that's terrifying.
• 10:28
  You can have people's heads exploding and all sorts.
• 10:30
  Of oh God, I mean, I, I was thinking of sex toys, but I
• 10:34
  mean. Will you take your mind out of
• 10:36
  the gutter? Please.
• 10:37
  Oh. This is APG 13 environment.
• 10:42
  Sorry ham fam, what can I say? What is going on?
• 10:46
  Oh no, this is where Katie Matting is all a bit.
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  Yeah, she's, she's giving it. She's going like she's really
• 10:52
  thrown herself at it, you know, And it's to say you need to be
• 10:54
  serious about you can't send up Doctor because because of that
• 10:57
  fine line between between stupid and and serious.
• 11:01
  I've always tried to wait for the moment in my life where I
• 11:04
  can hysterically go. I can't remember, but I haven't.
• 11:10
  Yeah, I'm afraid. Oh, here's Dad.
• 11:13
  Here we go. Mr. Farrell, please sit down at
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  this chair. Yeah, and doesn't he say no?
• 11:20
  No, dad, don't do it. He does try to save him.
• 11:24
  Yeah, yeah. He's, he's constantly kind of
• 11:25
  teetering on the edge, isn't he? Yeah, yeah.
• 11:28
  It's just how the Master considers every person to be
• 11:31
  utterly disposable, right? We we've left with no doubt that
• 11:36
  he is a cat. Absolute cat.
• 11:40
  Sorry, I realized we've gone up across there for a second.
• 11:42
  A CAD. You bounder, Yes.
• 11:46
  What? I think you could elevate into
• 11:48
  Bounder, you know? Yeah, he does.
• 11:50
  He definitely crosses into bounded territory, I'd say.
• 11:54
  Now, I mean, I think this probably does happen quite a
• 11:56
  bit, you know, when you take over the family business and
• 12:00
  they sort of step on your toes when you're trying to innovate
• 12:02
  things. Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 12:05
  I mean, I mentioned about the power gamers not showing
• 12:08
  anything about that. But yeah, this is like quite a
• 12:11
  common kind of drama story, isn't it?
• 12:14
  Like the son trying to replace the, trying to take over,
• 12:17
  replace the father. But like the father being still
• 12:20
  being the alpha and still wanting to assert themselves.
• 12:22
  That's really common for our drama.
• 12:24
  You said it before in the last one.
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  We know straight away who Farrell is, you know, and we
• 12:29
  get, we get him Australia and we understand why the master can
• 12:33
  control him. And so like, he's being pulled
• 12:35
  between these two, you know, sort of alpha dudes.
• 12:39
  That's what you talked about in episode 1 where he went to clout
• 12:42
  him there with the yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:44
  Yeah, so that's great because the Master, so still he's like
• 12:48
  just, you know, just domineering like domineers through his kind
• 12:51
  of just his presence. But then when he loses his rag
• 12:54
  and he's just kind of letting loose that animal side to him.
• 12:58
  Really, it's like on these podcasts, you know, if I can't
• 13:00
  subdue people with my charm, I'll just punch him in the face,
• 13:02
  you know? Stays this way.
• 13:05
  No, I don't. Good grief.
• 13:08
  Yes, he's holding up threatening signs.
• 13:09
  Again, listeners. Yeah, sorry about that.
• 13:12
  There was there was a wonderful line there which really does
• 13:15
  lean into what this is about, where it goes by the people I
• 13:18
  represent. They can't get enough of
• 13:21
  plastic. You know, we're really screwing
• 13:24
  it in that we're taking this thing that is around us all the
• 13:27
  time. I mean, it's literally around me
• 13:28
  everywhere here and it could kill you at any minute.
• 13:32
  Yeah, yeah, totally. And he's saying he's talking
• 13:34
  like in a businessy way, you know, like here we're outside
• 13:38
  now and he's Farrell senior's going to his car and he's like
• 13:41
  I'm we're just testing out a new product.
• 13:42
  You know, he's talking of like businessy way about about this
• 13:46
  stuff. Please, Paul, allow me to show
• 13:49
  you one of my new lines. Oh.
• 13:51
  Beautiful cuddly hamster. Well, yes, he's beautiful.
• 13:55
  Would you like it? No, thank you.
• 13:57
  Oh, I insist. Come on now, I'm going to put it
• 14:00
  in your car. Are you feeling a bit hot?
• 14:03
  Quick, turn the heater on. I don't want that thing.
• 14:07
  Do you know what it does? All this does actually is repeat
• 14:09
  what you say in a high pitched voice.
• 14:12
  Oh, really? Yeah, but I realized I didn't
• 14:14
  need to be more camp, so I don't.
• 14:16
  Use it Well, yeah, yeah. Oh man, he looks so smooth.
• 14:20
  Delgado that in that suit. He's a delicious villain, isn't
• 14:24
  he? Yeah.
• 14:25
  You can see why he was cast so often in that kind of villainous
• 14:28
  role. You could just take the word
• 14:30
  villain out of that sentence. He is just delicious.
• 14:34
  Yeah. Do you see, Joe?
• 14:37
  Peek of her way in the door there.
• 14:39
  Yeah, I'm so sorry I tried to kill you, but can I come in?
• 14:44
  You can see the blowfish there just at the very top of the
• 14:46
  screen. Yeah, what are those Spears?
• 14:48
  On the walls, yeah, yeah, there's all this kind of weird
• 14:50
  stuff in there. Have a Barry angle the camera
• 14:52
  up. We want to look up the stairs.
• 14:55
  Oh, he's got a sort of like cross section of the human body
• 14:58
  behind him there. Right.
• 14:59
  It's like he's in some kind of school or something is.
• 15:02
  There like a Louis Kearns chair that I saw Joe sitting in a sort
• 15:06
  of ornate wooden. Chair Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:10
  So this is the lab he's in now, isn't it?
• 15:12
  For at least two seasons? Or is this the lab for the rest
• 15:16
  of the unit run? No, no, it changes quite a lot.
• 15:18
  As I say, like he, he seems to be different all the time.
• 15:22
  Oh my God, the blowfish is right.
• 15:27
  That blowfish inanimate is acting Richard Franklin off the
• 15:30
  screen. It's got enormous big lips,
• 15:36
  doesn't it? Sort of purse like like in.
• 15:38
  Shock. Yeah, well.
• 15:44
  I love throwing these things at you.
• 15:49
  I didn't really throw it back that time, did I?
• 15:52
  Can I come? No, Joe, you do keep trying to
• 15:54
  kill us. Now please stay here.
• 15:57
  Oh, God. This is the flirting scene,
• 15:59
  isn't it? Oh, yeah.
• 16:00
  I'm gonna make you a glass of cocoa.
• 16:02
  You know Paul I. Mean it's literally that
• 16:04
  relationship doomed from this scene isn't it?
• 16:06
  Like as soon as they filmed this is like, we're never doing this
• 16:08
  again. Doesn't he say easy love or
• 16:11
  something like that? Why don't you call me love?
• 16:13
  You patronizing git. I'm not a child, you know.
• 16:18
  Oh, you're acting like one. They should just have a snog
• 16:20
  now. And there you go, there's your
• 16:22
  relationship. But when he goes now, don't try.
• 16:27
  Just do as the Brigadier says. I mean, he couldn't be camper,
• 16:29
  could he? Right now, he really couldn't.
• 16:34
  Oh boy, that Dolly Now did you see the new CGI effects with the
• 16:39
  Dolly? I don't know if I've seen them.
• 16:42
  Really good I. Never turned.
• 16:44
  I never turned them on. So I've already ought to go.
• 16:47
  I'll give that a look, because actually this is one of the few
• 16:50
  bits of the production I don't really like that much.
• 16:54
  I'm joking. I love this Dolly.
• 16:57
  Well, I think, I think the the way that they transition from
• 17:01
  like a still prop to him moving there under the back of the car
• 17:04
  seat. I think I do think that is
• 17:06
  terrific. What I don't like about it, or
• 17:08
  what I don't quite get about it, I think, is the fact that they,
• 17:11
  what they've done is they've gone OK, well, we want to do a
• 17:13
  troll doll, but we can't have it too much like a troll because A,
• 17:16
  we don't want to be sued by the people who made those toys and
• 17:19
  B, we don't want to scare the kiddos too much so, but they've
• 17:22
  gone too far the other way. So it's like.
• 17:25
  I did scare the kiddos though didn't.
• 17:27
  They well, it got complaints, yeah, but it doesn't look like
• 17:31
  to me, it doesn't look like a toy, doesn't look like something
• 17:33
  is mass produced. It looks like a prop, so it
• 17:37
  never and like it never sits quite right with me.
• 17:41
  I did read in the info text watching it again of the weekend
• 17:43
  that it was originally when he froze it in the car.
• 17:47
  It was originally meant to be boxed.
• 17:49
  And I think that would have really helped.
• 17:50
  You know, that would really help sell me on this idea that
• 17:53
  actually this is a toy, you know?
• 17:55
  I just love the absurdity that there's clearly a person inside
• 17:58
  that ridiculous costume. And where did the costume go?
• 18:02
  Oh, who knows? Oh man, I wouldn't want to watch
• 18:07
  this. He's whipping those elephants
• 18:09
  look. Yeah, I've only got very vague
• 18:12
  memories to seeing animals in the zoo as a kid, but.
• 18:15
  We never really did circuses when I was younger.
• 18:19
  I lived, I lived quite close to the coast.
• 18:21
  So like there was a, there was always a like a purpose built
• 18:24
  circus in Great Yarmouth we'd go to and they had lions and stuff.
• 18:29
  Oh, he looks like he belongs in the circus the way he's dressed.
• 18:32
  He's mates with the guy who comes out with the elephants
• 18:34
  here. He's he he knew these guys.
• 18:36
  So yeah, apparently, like this blood coming out of the tent.
• 18:39
  Now he's he's no buddy of Perry's.
• 18:41
  Katie says that he was sort of taken around because they could
• 18:45
  see all the caged animals and he was doing like cute voices for
• 18:48
  all the animals like the like Perry does in his comedy shows.
• 18:51
  And she said, you know, it was sort of, it was sort of working.
• 18:53
  But I mean, that's really her mission, isn't it?
• 18:57
  In life, Katie Manning is the animal cruelty.
• 19:00
  Not to perpetuate it, to stop it.
• 19:03
  Oh God, yeah, she's terrible. Oh.
• 19:05
  My God, did you see that enormous naked black man?
• 19:07
  Oh my God, things are looking up.
• 19:11
  Actually worried you've got some eye candy here.
• 19:13
  And Mrs. Farrell, but look what we can see.
• 19:17
  I don't know if you can just see that there.
• 19:18
  There's a ceiling to this set, Joe.
• 19:21
  Oh my God, we're chalking them up, aren't we?
• 19:23
  Oh no, we're covering all of the ceilings of Doctor Who.
• 19:26
  Fabulous window he's got behind him.
• 19:28
  Oh. That's yeah.
• 19:29
  Isn't that beautiful? Oh.
• 19:31
  She got to say. That look at that toy.
• 19:33
  Oh, it's horrible. Yeah, it is horrible.
• 19:37
  Look, it looks like it looks like one of the worst has got
• 19:40
  little sort of sideburns and stuff.
• 19:42
  What pole? There's something evil about it.
• 19:46
  I do. I do think that this, I mean,
• 19:49
  this episode has got two really iconic scenes.
• 19:54
  One is the chair and one is Farrell senior's death.
• 19:57
  And I do think the way that the dog comes to life is really
• 20:00
  impressive. Actually, those shots where it
• 20:02
  like because it's the the costume he's wearing is the same
• 20:06
  as it looks identical. It matches perfectly.
• 20:08
  So actually, it really does convince when it comes to life.
• 20:12
  It's the music that's. All that's really scordinary,
• 20:18
  yeah. Oh no, the doctor's been
• 20:21
  kidnapped. Fortunately, Joe didn't listen
• 20:23
  and she's followed him and she's going to get him.
• 20:25
  Out. Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:27
  And he's been. He goes.
• 20:29
  How pleasant of you. Oh, how unpleasant of you.
• 20:31
  Or is that the Sea Devils? I can't remember them.
• 20:34
  You've got some oats. His name's none of your
• 20:39
  business. Oh, what an interesting name, he
• 20:41
  goes. You know what, Paul?
• 20:44
  You're an insulting Raffian, aren't you?
• 20:46
  Yes. I am.
• 20:49
  It's nice none of your business. That is a crazy.
• 20:52
  Strange name. See the doctor straight on to
• 20:55
  him straight away. Boy, he has been tied to a
• 20:57
  chair. Absolutely.
• 21:00
  And we've got type of man here. I'm not sure I'd object to who
• 21:04
  much been tied to that chair and manhandled by that man, you
• 21:06
  know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:09
  Do you like the the the first skin there the the strongman
• 21:13
  outfit? Well, yeah, one must have a
• 21:15
  touch of femininity about oneself.
• 21:18
  Yeah, absolutely rough with this move.
• 21:19
  Especially when you work in the circus, you know it's all about
• 21:22
  flamboyancy, isn't it? Oh yeah, British ownership,
• 21:24
  Yeah. Bit panache?
• 21:25
  Absolutely. Now what?
• 21:26
  Happens to Mr. Rossini, Does he vanish after this episode?
• 21:30
  Yeah, I think they pretty much, I mean, yeah, more or less,
• 21:32
  don't they? They don't really come back to
• 21:34
  the circus. I think again from the info text
• 21:37
  that or whether I read it or read it somewhere, maybe the the
• 21:42
  flower distribution was going to be done via the circus, but they
• 21:45
  kind of dropped that, yeah. Because it is odd.
• 21:47
  Like there's two episodes involved in the circus and then
• 21:50
  nothing. Well, is, is that kind of
• 21:53
  Avengers E subplot, isn't it where you go and see you go off
• 21:56
  to see the kind of crazy kooky character side character who's
• 22:00
  kind of only tangentially related to the the plot.
• 22:02
  So it is very much in that kind of Avengers format of it.
• 22:05
  Who are usually my favorite scenes showing The Avengers?
• 22:08
  They get some fabulous character actor in, wouldn't they to do a
• 22:11
  one Cena? Yeah, well, Pert, we did one of
• 22:13
  those, didn't he? He was that he was that the
• 22:15
  eccentric character in one of those things.
• 22:17
  Yeah, I. Was watching a New Avengers the
• 22:19
  other day and it was Warlock from Pyramids and Mars and he
• 22:24
  was wearing basic just his underwear and he was by a
• 22:27
  swimming pool. We got attacked by a flock of
• 22:29
  birds and jumped in the pool. It was great.
• 22:32
  It was really funny. Joe is figuring out something is
• 22:38
  wrong with that horse box, isn't she?
• 22:40
  She is. Yeah.
• 22:41
  Well, she's just seen Professor Phillips from the radio station.
• 22:44
  That's right. Do you know when when Mrs.
• 22:47
  Farrell goes. Well, that doesn't sound like my
• 22:49
  John. You know, my mum used to say
• 22:51
  things like. Oh, thank you, Mama.
• 22:52
  Joe. He's a rare she's a rare woman
• 22:55
  for for a home script. And if she does feel like a, you
• 22:58
  know, a a little full, fully realized person with a little
• 23:02
  CSO kitchen, she. Even gets a little coda right
• 23:04
  like after he's dead we get a scene with her where she's
• 23:07
  really upset and they're trying to come for her and get
• 23:09
  information out of her. Oh man, this whole.
• 23:13
  Here we go. This is so iconic, isn't it?
• 23:19
  Yeah. I mean, I think that's scary.
• 23:21
  It's just weird about the movement.
• 23:23
  It's just it doesn't feel quite real.
• 23:27
  I realise, yeah, it's scary, but it doesn't make me think it's a
• 23:30
  toy. That's, that's my, my problem
• 23:32
  with it is it doesn't, it's not like a toy coming to life.
• 23:35
  It's I don't know what. It is exactly what the Master
• 23:37
  wants you to think, you know, until it's got its hands around
• 23:40
  your neck and it's killing you. Did you see that?
• 23:43
  They even went to the length of having the body on the floor and
• 23:46
  the little troll doll walking away.
• 23:49
  I've done my work, yes. No, you was wrong.
• 23:52
  You know, there's three iconic scenes in this.
• 23:54
  What about the cliffhanger? Oh, exactly.
• 23:56
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Ends on on a brilliantly iconic
• 24:01
  image. And like that scary that
• 24:04
  something is so scary. You know, questions were asked
• 24:06
  in in parliament kind of thing. Yeah, we had to mention that at
• 24:11
  least once. You know, I mean, I think there
• 24:12
  was a couple of things in this where they were basically told
• 24:14
  don't ever do that again. Yeah, yeah.
• 24:17
  Like you've crossed the line. I'm ashamed no one ever said it
• 24:20
  to Stephen Moffett, wasn't it? You know, don't cremate me.
• 24:24
  Don't. Yes, indeed.
• 24:28
  Blowing our wind, Bill. I mean, what was wrong with that
• 24:30
  man? Good.
• 24:30
  Grief, right? Oh well, Tony, watch him.
• 24:36
  He's off now to observe his circus.
• 24:39
  How do they manage to knock out that enormous Bahim off of a
• 24:42
  man? Well, Joe clubs in with a vase.
• 24:45
  He's obviously got a very soft head.
• 24:47
  He's one of those. Straight from the bottle.
• 24:51
  Well, he's he's a tough, rough, tough kind of guy, but he's got
• 24:53
  very weak knocking. Touch me, go help.
• 24:57
  Help. I mean that is great.
• 25:02
  It's him tied up and it's her rescuing him.
• 25:04
  Gorgeous bop on the heads now. There was 1 issue with him.
• 25:11
  Stuff in that paper in the doctor's mouth.
• 25:15
  He wasn't. He wasn't holding it down with
• 25:17
  anything. He could have just spat it out.
• 25:19
  He doesn't. If you notice he does like a
• 25:21
  really good bit of accident. John way he makes it, makes more
• 25:24
  of it than he I don't know how to describe it, but he does
• 25:28
  something where it makes it look like is shoved right in his
• 25:32
  gobbies kind of holds on to as she's pulling it off, pulling
• 25:36
  off, pulling it out even. Sorry, Joe.
• 25:38
  No, no, it's all right. You're in the right place.
• 25:41
  I mean, I think there's a lot of people that would have loved to
• 25:43
  have shoved paper into the 3rd Doctor's mouth, don't you think?
• 25:48
  Yeah, yeah. And jump up his mouth, I
• 25:50
  imagine. Yeah.
• 25:51
  I can't help but notice, you know, that Farrell junior has
• 25:55
  got an electric pink tie. I think that's a subtle little
• 26:00
  nod. Is that is that coded?
• 26:02
  Yeah. I think he's sort of a mimsy
• 26:05
  little gay mummy's boy. That's why he's so emasculated
• 26:08
  by his dad, you know? I knew I couldn't.
• 26:10
  Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 26:13
  Maybe. I mean, yeah, yeah, I'd like,
• 26:18
  I'd see it more as like the the kind of injection of colour that
• 26:23
  the whole production gets, you know, but I can see that.
• 26:27
  No, no, just making it up, you know, like.
• 26:29
  Hey, no, that's cool. Yeah.
• 26:30
  People have been doing that in non fiction Doctor Who books for
• 26:33
  the last 30 years, you know, making up a load of bullshit.
• 26:37
  Oh, look at that Rogue. Where can I get that from?
• 26:39
  It's sort of pink. Now, this is the other thing
• 26:42
  about this script is when the Holmes is done with a character,
• 26:45
  it just murders. They're gone.
• 26:47
  Yeah, one's one was in the lunch box. 1 there just got bombed to
• 26:51
  death with a bit of blood coming off his.
• 26:53
  Hands and like, it's not like he said anything else to do Philip
• 26:55
  Seaver, he's really is a kind of throwaway kind of like hangover
• 27:00
  from the first episode and it's just a reason to bring them to
• 27:03
  the circuit. It's really.
• 27:05
  Poor old Farrell Junior. I mean, what happens to him in
• 27:09
  episode 4 is absolutely horrific.
• 27:11
  Oh man, yeah. Gun down in cold blood.
• 27:13
  Yeah. Oh, he's nicked the Masters
• 27:17
  dematerialization circuit. Indeed, in fact, this whole this
• 27:21
  whole story is a is a bad time for Mrs. Farrell, isn't it?
• 27:23
  Like both her husband and son and long time friend Mr.
• 27:27
  McDermott, they all get killed within a matter of hours.
• 27:30
  I like to think that in the future, you know she's a future
• 27:33
  Doctor Who villainess scathingly angry about the losing all of
• 27:38
  her family. Yeah, yeah.
• 27:40
  Yeah. There's a there's a big finish
• 27:42
  in that, isn't it? I'm not sure that all of the
• 27:44
  circus would attack the poor doctor like that.
• 27:46
  I didn't anyone ask the question Why are we punching this man in
• 27:51
  the face? Well, you know, these Carney
• 27:53
  folks are always a bit dubious, aren't they?
• 27:55
  Well. Fulani Lakhani, the opponent of
• 27:58
  Alone. So many little links between the
• 28:00
  stories that we do. And they're like, it's little.
• 28:03
  Yeah. And here we are, right?
• 28:04
  The cliffhanger. You know, I see a SO car.
• 28:08
  Yeah, now this is all over the 70s CSO cars.
• 28:12
  I can get behind that. You turned up when you did, you
• 28:18
  know. Although The funny thing is they
• 28:20
  look like policemen until they need to look like autumns and
• 28:23
  they look like men wearing masks.
• 28:25
  Oh yes, that is, the shots are just a little bit too long on
• 28:28
  the mask underneath. The underneath the mask isn't.
• 28:31
  It it's a great shot, though. It's really quick, isn't it?
• 28:33
  Yeah. So you're almost you're not
• 28:35
  given quite enough time to right what is going on like.
• 28:39
  Yeah, and he's one of those few ones where I, I had was familiar
• 28:43
  with the book and had read the book beforehand, so I kind of
• 28:45
  knew it was coming. But yeah, I don't.
• 28:47
  You're right. It is super fast.
• 28:48
  And you may be like watching for the first time.
• 28:51
  People at the time would have gone, hey, what the hell?
• 28:53
  What the hell happened there? Oh, the Doctor just said it
• 28:55
  certainly isn't Tarminster. That must be where the Unit
• 28:57
  bases then. Yes.
• 28:59
  What is that fictional? Is that a real place?
• 29:02
  Avengers Land? Who knows?
• 29:03
  Yeah. Who knows?
• 29:05
  Oh my good grief. Right.
• 29:06
  Good. God, I haven't seen a blank face
• 29:11
  like that since the last time I podcast with somebody.
• 29:16
  I mean, and it just didn't stop running, though that episode did
• 29:20
  it like it. There was no moments to sort of
• 29:22
  pause and take a breath. It was go, go, go, go, go.
• 29:25
  Being beaten up, getting into cars, getting out.
• 29:27
  Of course, now we're literally in that quarry for 10 minutes
• 29:30
  during a brilliantly done action.
• 29:32
  Oh my God, yeah. Amazing action scene.
• 29:34
  Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. It is like, it's a breakneck,
• 29:39
  isn't it? And it's set piece after set
• 29:40
  piece. And they are like big old set
• 29:44
  bit, you know, pieces really. And you're right, maybe there
• 29:46
  isn't a huge amount of plot here, but it's all action and
• 29:51
  it's iconic stuff, isn't it? Just iconic?
• 29:54
  Talked in Invasion of the Dinosaurs about watching Doctor
• 29:58
  Who now as a single story. I'm watching it then as an
• 30:02
  individual episode. All I think is a better example
• 30:05
  of 25 minutes of Doctor Who where it's just wolves to the
• 30:09
  wolves is coming at you. Action, excitement, mad twist,
• 30:14
  witty lines, super villains, monsters.
• 30:17
  You know, the Doctor being a total cunt like it's all
• 30:20
  happening. You can see you can see why this
• 30:24
  completely took off from this point.
• 30:26
  And like, you know, it just became super popular.
• 30:30
  It was like a real golden age for the show.
• 30:33
  Yeah, you can absolutely see why it kind of worked.
• 30:36
  It did. I don't know if you heard the
• 30:39
  Simon Guru interview I put out, but he says in that that there's
• 30:43
  actual documents of work that Terrence Dix was doing whilst he
• 30:49
  was script editing Season 7. Yeah.
• 30:52
  So there were scripts that he was writing for another show
• 30:55
  because they genuinely didn't think that they were going to
• 30:58
  get another year. And that was put aside after
• 31:03
  this season was transmitted and they knew they had a hit on his
• 31:06
  hand. And so I think you have to
• 31:08
  acknowledge that this was the linchpin, this was the sliding
• 31:12
  doors moment where Doctor Who went from a show that the BBC
• 31:16
  are just making because they couldn't think of anything else
• 31:18
  to put on to. Oh my God, we're climbing the
• 31:21
  charts. By the time you get to the
• 31:22
  demons, it's 910,000,000 viewers again.
• 31:25
  Right, and and this is a brilliant way of doing it, right
• 31:29
  for for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we talked a lot about
• 31:33
  the master and introducing that big bad having having the big
• 31:37
  bad all the way through it. That's a great hook, right?
• 31:40
  You know, when's the mask going to turn up?
• 31:42
  But I think why you start with Terror of the Autons was the
• 31:45
  high point really, or one of one of the kind of talking points of
• 31:48
  Season 7 was Spearhead. And that particularly the end,
• 31:52
  the end of Spearhead where they're all bursting through
• 31:55
  that. It's like one of those kind of
• 31:56
  cultural moments, you know, sort of pop culture kind of iconic
• 32:00
  things that people kind of latched onto straight away.
• 32:03
  So yeah, you bring them back and you have them open the season.
• 32:07
  Yeah, perfect. There's a reason though, isn't
• 32:09
  it? The spearhead got like, I think
• 32:11
  it was 8 million across the 4 episodes.
• 32:13
  And then the season starts hemorrhaging after that.
• 32:16
  And it's what Terence says about those seven partners is like,
• 32:20
  yeah, we're kind of in one location with the same
• 32:22
  character. And we love it now because it
• 32:24
  means you can have all of that sophisticated characterizations
• 32:27
  and those mad sort of offshoots like the saloon plague and
• 32:31
  things like that. And you know, and it is great,
• 32:34
  great telly, but for the I'm watching this once a week for 25
• 32:39
  minutes, all you're getting is for seven weeks.
• 32:42
  So what, nearly two months? You're within the same story
• 32:45
  with the same characters, basically going through the same
• 32:47
  motions. Yeah, and a lot of bickering
• 32:50
  scientists and like guys with white coats and is.
• 32:54
  I mean, those stories are all brilliant.
• 32:56
  They are all fantastic, but it's quite similar, like the every
• 33:01
  story is fairly similar and the only real kind of stand out, the
• 33:06
  only kind of difference there is Spearhead, which is doing
• 33:10
  something a little bit more different.
• 33:11
  We talked in in Innovation Dinosaurs about that kind of
• 33:17
  that kind of, you know, being in the city, being in kind of like
• 33:22
  amongst people rather than being in some kind of facility or
• 33:24
  something like that. And you get a little bit of that
• 33:27
  at the end of Spearhead where they're kind of on the on Ealing
• 33:30
  High Street, kind of bursting out shop windows.
• 33:33
  So it's that that's a super potent, memorable image.
• 33:38
  And yeah, absolutely. And you can see why RTD wanted
• 33:43
  to know. That's the way you bring back
• 33:44
  the show in 2005. OK, what what do people
• 33:47
  remember? And they remember that.
• 33:50
  They remember this, remember the Autons.
• 33:52
  So This is why they work here as well.
• 33:54
  And that you write that just the idea that plastic can, anything
• 33:57
  plastic can now kill you. It's not just blokes and border
• 34:00
  suits anymore. It's anything plastic that's
• 34:04
  yeah, scary. So.
• 34:05
  Why JNT, who was always looking to the past of Doctor Who,
• 34:10
  didn't think to open a season with an all time story in the
• 34:13
  80s baffles me. Yeah, yeah.
• 34:16
  And you and relatively easy to do something like this I
• 34:20
  suppose. Manufacturing was mad in the
• 34:24
  80s. You could be even more scathing.
• 34:27
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and thing is can look a bit
• 34:30
  plastic and cheap in a way because it's plastic is meant
• 34:35
  meant to be like that. So you know that.
• 34:37
  And that's what this story, as we talked about before, that our
• 34:39
  officiality, that kind of, you know, the kind of synthetic Ness
• 34:44
  that's kind of baked into this story.
• 34:46
  Yeah. You'd think that would be
• 34:47
  perfect for the 80s, wouldn't you?
• 34:49
  Ultimately, I think people spoke with their remotes and people
• 34:53
  started turning off in seven and then they started turning on in
• 34:57
  A and and I think there is a bit of there's a large portion of
• 35:03
  fandom that say, Oh, this is where pert we went off the
• 35:06
  rails, you know, stop being sophisticated and started just
• 35:08
  being sort of fun and and, you know, poetry, family and all of
• 35:13
  that, But Jesus Christ, you wouldn't have the show now if
• 35:15
  they hadn't done this. You wouldn't have the show now.
• 35:18
  It would have stopped maybe after 7.
• 35:21
  And you know, like, I do think they they managed to find a
• 35:24
  great thing to talk about every week in a the Autons are back
• 35:28
  and Oh my God, did you see that scene from episode to episode?
• 35:32
  And then you're doing like James Bond with helicopters and bloody
• 35:35
  nuclear missiles prisons in the second one.
• 35:38
  Did you watch that? Oh my God, you know, that
• 35:41
  master's got a missile. Then you've got that weird
• 35:44
  psychedelia of axos, you know, great steaming asshole coming
• 35:48
  out, suck all the energy out of the Earth.
• 35:52
  And then we're on another planet again, which feels fresh because
• 35:54
  we haven't done it for two seasons.
• 35:56
  And then the demons. I mean, come on, the demons.
• 35:58
  We're doing Satanism for fuck's sake.
• 36:01
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect season.
• 36:04
  Perfect. Knew what they were doing,
• 36:05
  didn't they? Oh, definitely, definitely
• 36:08
  consistently one of the strongest production teams
• 36:11
  because I think even when even when per was still is not
• 36:15
  brilliant, There's a level of quality there isn't there?
• 36:17
  Some things like terrace sticks, Berry, let's stories, a sea low
• 36:22
  quality. It's going to it's going to
• 36:23
  release hit a minimum of a good good time, a good 25 minutes and
• 36:28
  you're going to enjoy yourself. And even if like it's not the
• 36:31
  best thing ever, it's still going to be good.
• 36:33
  You know you don't get that up and down like other areas.
• 36:38
  It's definitely a competition. Even the weakest stories, and
• 36:40
  I'd probably say the mutants and the Thai monster are the two
• 36:43
  weakest sort of back-to-back in terms of like the quality of the
• 36:46
  stories. I mean, one of them, you've got
• 36:48
  a really great social commentary in it and astonishingly good
• 36:52
  location work in it, in those caves and brilliant monsters.
• 36:56
  And then in the other one for Fuck Me, you've got Delgado and
• 36:59
  Ingrid Pittflirt. And I mean, what more do you
• 37:01
  need in Benton and a Nappy? You do nothing more in your life
• 37:06
  than those those gems. There's there's still got stuff
• 37:10
  to recommend them. I mean, this part is always
• 37:13
  going to be a little bit more of a challenge.
• 37:14
  I don't know. I think I said before, I think 4
• 37:17
  passes the natural length for a classic story for me.
• 37:20
  So yeah, there was going to be a little bit challenging, but
• 37:23
  there is plenty to like in those longer stories.
• 37:25
  But there's also plenty to like in this, so should we go and
• 37:28
  watch episode 3 and see what don't I say, Scott?
• 37:31
  Let's go. I will cut it there.