Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to John Bensalhia about his choice of Pyramids of Mars (1/4)

Transcript

Talks to John Bensalhia about his choice of Pyramids of Mars (1/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back to our Hamster with a Blump and Knife, the Doctor
• 0:04
  Who commentary Podcast. Hello, Hello.
• 0:10
  Well, who are you? Well, my name is John Bensalia.
• 0:14
  I am a Doctor Who fan, I guess. And I've I've written this as if
• 0:21
  no one's ever heard your voice before.
• 0:22
  You've been here on City of Deaf, Weber, Fit and The Doctor,
• 0:25
  The Widow and the Wardrobe. And it was, it was a little bit
• 0:28
  of a, I think it's a two year gap, isn't it?
• 0:30
  I think the last one I did. So maybe people don't know my
• 0:34
  voice. I don't, I don't know.
• 0:35
  So for newcomers, that's me. Do you know what?
• 0:38
  It was so long ago that if this was pre zoom, right.
• 0:42
  So before I recorded on the zoom.
• 0:44
  This is back when I was recording on Anchor and everyone
• 0:47
  sounded like they was in their toilets.
• 0:48
  It's all sort of a bit echoing and a bit.
• 0:50
  I can't correct the audio now, but this it's the first time
• 0:54
  people are going to get hear your voice unfiltered.
• 0:57
  Oh God, that's that's not a pleasant thought because you
• 1:02
  remember those fabulous impressions that we were doing
• 1:04
  in. Yes, yes, oh boy.
• 1:06
  We were doing fellow from Nightmare of Eden Trist.
• 1:10
  Trist there was caster look, caster and Spandrel.
• 1:15
  The master was was ending among that lot as well I think.
• 1:19
  Oh, yes. Yeah, I think it's like
• 1:21
  circuitry, you know, Extra iconic.
• 1:25
  Sure. That's he.
• 1:29
  He leaves that gap, doesn't he? Between the the circuit and the
• 1:32
  dream. He's so cute.
• 1:35
  He's so cute. And you take average.
• 1:40
  He features in an absolute Tom Baker classic, which leads me to
• 1:46
  the story we're talking about today.
• 1:48
  Another. Class all time classic.
• 1:52
  Today we are looking at the first of the.
• 1:55
  Video that I the first ever adopted video that I bought.
• 1:59
  Well, no, actually it wasn't bought.
• 2:00
  It was actually birthday prison for me, which is Pyramids and
• 2:05
  Mars was just that fabulous, sort of unedited, with all the
• 2:10
  cliffhangers taken out. Pyramids and Mars.
• 2:12
  Yes, yes. It was the only bus VHS way.
• 2:16
  Yeah, I got it for my 30th birthday way back in 1987, and
• 2:21
  it was kind of like a couple. It was a few days after.
• 2:24
  Time in the runny part one. And I just thought, Oh my God,
• 2:28
  this is just so much better than time in the runny part one,
• 2:32
  because I wasn't impressed with it.
• 2:34
  But you know, now I don't mind time in the runny so much.
• 2:37
  I've mellowed with age a bit. But yeah, at the time I just
• 2:41
  thought, Oh my God, this is amazing.
• 2:43
  It's absolutely, you know. Untouched, you know?
• 2:47
  But what's weird about the VHS, right, is they didn't just prune
• 2:51
  out the cliffhangers. There are bits of location work
• 2:55
  that are pruned out. Yeah, yeah, there's a bit.
• 2:58
  When I was watching a bit of this earlier, there's a bit
• 3:00
  where he says I'll feel better if I bring my rifle, Lawrence
• 3:04
  Scarman, and say yes, Lauren goes bring it.
• 3:07
  And that's that was never in the VHS, because I the VHS is lodged
• 3:12
  in my brain. It's lodged, you know, I could
• 3:14
  recite it with words. I've seen it so many times.
• 3:17
  I am a complete sad case. But yeah, I know instantly, you
• 3:24
  know, because it's kind of, you know, when I see the unendited
• 3:28
  version, it's kind of like coming to a little bit of new,
• 3:31
  you know, there's various, you know, the various bits that cut
• 3:34
  out from the VHS. It's kind of like, you know,
• 3:36
  it's a little bit new, I suppose.
• 3:40
  I find it a bit strange, like they released on the Blu rays,
• 3:43
  right? They released trial of a Time
• 3:46
  Lord. With all the scenes that they
• 3:48
  caught, they just hit back in. There's a lot, there's a fair
• 3:52
  amount in Mysterious Planet and tearing the verbals and stories
• 3:55
  like that. They edited out like entire
• 3:57
  scenes. But because as a child you're so
• 4:02
  used to the flow of when you first watched this, I watch it
• 4:06
  now and I'm like, this is this ain't flowing.
• 4:09
  This is way in what's going. On I know, I know.
• 4:12
  You get so used to it. And I think, Oh my God, you
• 4:14
  know, Oh my God, that's a new scene there that doesn't, you
• 4:16
  know, it kind of. Yeah, like you say, it
• 4:18
  interrupts the flow completely. That's kind of how I feel about
• 4:22
  Pyramids malls with the cliffhangers shoved back in.
• 4:25
  But it's. Yeah.
• 4:26
  Because they're slightly, they are slightly different to the
• 4:30
  reprises and you know that there's, you know, only a shadow
• 4:34
  like me can tell the you know difference because like on.
• 4:38
  Part one, that means scream is slightly different to the
• 4:40
  reprise. Part three, when the doctor's
• 4:46
  thrown back against the wall, he does an extra, like, shake of
• 4:49
  the head, which you don't get in the reprise.
• 4:52
  You don't know mean scream, but that's how I want to go out.
• 4:55
  You know, like, I mean, it looks like it bloody hurts, all right.
• 5:07
  It does, yeah. Oh, God.
• 5:09
  I mean, you got so many bloodcurdling screens in this
• 5:11
  one. I mean, you know, this is, this
• 5:14
  is the ultimate bloodcurdling screen Doctor Who.
• 5:18
  I mean, it's the ultimate bloodcurdling Doctor Who.
• 5:19
  Really. Full stop.
• 5:21
  I've had a few hot massages in my time, but I've never had
• 5:24
  smoking hands coming at me. Jesus.
• 5:28
  Christ. Yeah, I think we could probably
• 5:30
  do that. Marcus Scarman's Massage parlor
• 5:32
  of doom. I really do.
• 5:35
  I don't think you'd catch on so much.
• 5:37
  There'd be some people out there, you know, sick enough to
• 5:39
  go in there, Yeah. There probably are, yeah.
• 5:41
  Yeah, OK, I've got two big questions for you.
• 5:44
  Then before we go into, my first question is, why is this such a
• 5:51
  winner for you? Obviously we'll go into a lot of
• 5:53
  devs, but sort of just to kick us off what what is it about
• 5:57
  this story that I think you said off mic after case of Androzani?
• 6:02
  It is my second favorite of all time.
• 6:04
  That's a big statement. So quantify.
• 6:08
  Well, it's just, it's perfect in every way.
• 6:10
  I think it's probably because it's my kind of personal
• 6:14
  preference that, you know, straight ahead, excuse me,
• 6:17
  straight ahead. Storytelling, which this does
• 6:21
  and also it is just, you know, it's really dark bleak and
• 6:25
  that's exactly how I like the Doctor Who to be scary as hell
• 6:30
  and and this pulls no punches and it's just everything about
• 6:34
  it works. You know you've got the you've
• 6:35
  got a Doctor companion team at Haifa powers brilliant cast.
• 6:40
  It's brilliantly made, brilliantly written.
• 6:42
  The incidental music is fabulous.
• 6:44
  It's just everything comes together.
• 6:46
  I think okay. So my second question then is I
• 6:52
  have heard rumblings on other podcasts and things like this,
• 6:56
  and I don't. None of it's people being
• 6:58
  contrary of just a little bit of a dent in this one's reputation.
• 7:06
  People saying, you know, it's all a bit masculine, there's no
• 7:10
  women involved. And I know, I know, yeah, you
• 7:13
  are a bit of a distasteful look on your face.
• 7:15
  And I'm not, I'm not going to say that it's it's that, but
• 7:20
  that is perhaps a little formulaic that the guest cast
• 7:23
  aren't all that interesting compared to some other stories
• 7:28
  like do you think any of that holds water?
• 7:32
  That's a good question. I think the I think the litmus
• 7:36
  test with characters is whether you whether you believe that
• 7:41
  they actually have a life outside of the outside of this
• 7:44
  adventure. And actually do buy into that
• 7:49
  because, you know, these little snippets of dialogue here and
• 7:52
  there which kind of give you a little bit of a, you know, a
• 7:55
  back story. Even Ernie Clements, who gets
• 7:57
  probably about a couple of words to say throughout.
• 8:00
  You know, he, you know, stuff like, you know, he goes fishing
• 8:03
  with Jell at night. You know, he's even the way he's
• 8:06
  trying to get revenge to the death of Doctor Warlock, you
• 8:09
  know, that shows obviously he was a good friend of his.
• 8:12
  So I I buy that they have lives outside this story.
• 8:18
  Yeah, obviously, I suppose. Yeah, it it is, you know, that
• 8:23
  the only woman in this is Sarah Jane.
• 8:25
  But I think I read somewhere that Robert Holmes didn't like
• 8:28
  killing off female characters. He felt uncomfortable with that.
• 8:33
  So maybe he just thought, you know.
• 8:35
  Right. I've got to get, you know, half
• 8:38
  a dozen blokes and just bump them off, you know?
• 8:41
  I think the nearest sort of comparison in terms of bringing
• 8:45
  in a series of guest characters and then bumping them off
• 8:48
  horribly is sort of robots of death and horror Fang rock.
• 8:54
  Yeah, against some favorites. You know those about two top ten
• 8:58
  stories. I don't, I don't know what this
• 8:59
  says about my state. I'm, you know, I'm saying that
• 9:04
  you're a mass murderer, perhaps. Yeah, I keep quiet about that.
• 9:08
  Yeah, there's a wanted poster on the On the.
• 9:12
  All outside. But you know, people that come
• 9:14
  on this, you know, and they get most excited when the murders
• 9:18
  are happening on the screen. That's what we want though.
• 9:21
  And it is a bit of death. Yeah, yeah.
• 9:23
  But like in those two stories, in Robots of Death and like they
• 9:26
  they throw in a couple of women that they too Zilda.
• 9:29
  Yeah. Tucson, Zilda and Lena, of
• 9:31
  course. Yeah, Adelaide is amazing in
• 9:33
  horror. Fang Rock.
• 9:35
  Adelaide. Yeah, yeah, I mean, she's just
• 9:38
  there. It's a story.
• 9:39
  But. But actually, I mean, having
• 9:40
  said that, I mean she gets bumped off and that was script
• 9:43
  edited by Robert Holmes. So I don't know, maybe he
• 9:46
  changed his mind a couple of years down the line as, I don't
• 9:49
  know, I got one big reason why this is such a winner for me.
• 9:53
  Or one. It was one of those stories I
• 9:55
  was never embarrassed to put on when I was younger.
• 9:58
  And if my mum walked in, she'd go, oh, we're watching this 10,
• 10:01
  OK? I watched a little bit of this,
• 10:02
  you know, with that weird thing when we were kids.
• 10:05
  I don't know if you had it where you wanted other people to
• 10:08
  accept Doctor Who for some reason.
• 10:14
  Although the few times my mom said this is pretty good.
• 10:16
  Stones of blood, periods of Mars, like the greatest triumphs
• 10:20
  of my life. But the other as well is.
• 10:22
  I think this is just incredibly well executed and.
• 10:27
  It's very brilliantly done. I mean, I I can't put it even
• 10:30
  even dog head works. I think just about, well,
• 10:34
  there's there's so many classic Doctor Who stories where like a
• 10:39
  lot works, but something in the production doesn't.
• 10:43
  So like, I don't know, Carrie Blyton's doing the music this
• 10:45
  week. Yeah.
• 10:46
  Yeah, you got, you know, giant rats and scarrisons and all of
• 10:49
  that. You know it too brightly or or
• 10:51
  something. Something has gone wrong and
• 10:53
  this is one of those ones where Paddy Russell was like, no, this
• 10:56
  is going to be the best Doctor Who's ever bloody looked.
• 11:00
  And it just looks amazing. It does.
• 11:02
  And I think it holds up as well. I think until maybe until Part
• 11:05
  4, we're going off into space. That's usually where Doctor Who
• 11:09
  falls down a bit, isn't it? When it goes off into the space,
• 11:12
  when it's doing history and it's that sort of famous saying
• 11:16
  about. Yeah, period drama.
• 11:18
  Yeah, period drama. Boy, it can pull it off.
• 11:21
  Yeah, it does. What do you think?
• 11:23
  We should go and watch the thing.
• 11:24
  I think we should, yes. Well, then I'll tell you what.
• 11:27
  I'm going to let you count us in.
• 11:30
  Okay, here we go. Right here we go.
• 11:32
  I hope this works. 54321 please work please.
• 11:41
  Has it worked? Yes, it's working.
• 11:45
  John. Egyptology and Mars.
• 11:49
  Yes, unusual combination, but it.
• 11:52
  It it does work. And I think one of the reasons
• 11:55
  to like it is it's kind of preempting Indiana Jones a bit.
• 11:59
  It is, yeah. Yeah, in fact this sort of
• 12:01
  taking, you know, this sort of classic mythology and kind of
• 12:04
  putting a, you know, sort of a scifi or fantasy spin on it,
• 12:09
  what we were talking about the VHS this, this is one of the
• 12:12
  bits that was actually excised out because it's on the VHS
• 12:17
  actually opens up with a there. But you get a slower fade in on
• 12:23
  the unedited version that is so economic, right?
• 12:27
  They've got a little bit of stock footage, but they've also
• 12:30
  got a quarry where they've got a bit of a backdrop and then
• 12:34
  you're straight into the tomb, so you're sitting.
• 12:36
  Straight into the tomb, Yeah. I mean, they didn't have to go
• 12:38
  all the way to Egypt, so, you know, to film that and I.
• 12:45
  Wouldn't Bernad Archer doing a brilliant job, don't you think?
• 12:51
  He's brilliant in both of his stories.
• 12:54
  Yeah, Power of Daleks. Yeah, completely different
• 12:56
  characters. Yeah.
• 12:57
  I mean, there's something in that.
• 12:58
  I mean, his features are kind of like tailor made for what
• 13:02
  happens later in the story. He's kind of, you know, these
• 13:05
  sort of gaunt, you know, sort of quite, you know, sort of
• 13:08
  striking only features. And yeah, I mean the contrast
• 13:13
  between, you know, this very kind of excited.
• 13:17
  Archaeologist that he plays in, then The Walking cadaver that he
• 13:20
  becomes, I mean is you couldn't get a bigger contrast really.
• 13:24
  And he just got that sort of faith, though, because he always
• 13:26
  does seem to play the villain. He always.
• 13:28
  Seems to play the baddie, doesn't he?
• 13:29
  Yeah, although, no, he was. He was in the, wasn't he in
• 13:33
  Emmerdale years ago. Oh, was he?
• 13:35
  Well, as a nice guy. Yeah, yeah, I think he was.
• 13:40
  I'm, I'm not an Emmerdale fan, but anyway.
• 13:43
  Just before we go back is Vic Tabby, who was at who was all in
• 13:46
  Raiders of the Lost Ark. Oh, it was at Akmad.
• 13:51
  Yeah, Akmed. Yeah, your Lantern, man.
• 13:53
  Quickly, quickly. Yes, yeah, Akmed your Lantern,
• 13:56
  man. Quickly, quickly.
• 13:59
  I I just can't believe because I read them an article about who
• 14:02
  was shortlisted for the parts of the Pyramids of Mars actors and
• 14:08
  Christopher Benjamin was actually slaved in the frame to
• 14:11
  play Marcus Scarman. Which would have been quite
• 14:13
  interesting. He might have been quite a
• 14:16
  comical zombie, might he? He he would have done.
• 14:19
  I can't picture it to be honest, though.
• 14:21
  Here we go. I mean, he plays it straight in
• 14:25
  Inferno. Inferno, but he's still a bit of
• 14:28
  a bumbling kind of comedy character.
• 14:30
  And what I like going back to this is you don't know what
• 14:33
  happens for the rest of the episode.
• 14:35
  You know, it's kind of like a completely cold opening.
• 14:38
  And then it just goes back to we don't see it until episode 2.
• 14:43
  Yeah, Part 2. Yeah, the mysterious spaceman
• 14:46
  turns into. Yeah.
• 14:49
  Oh, here we go. Brilliant, this pair.
• 14:51
  John, Tom and Liz. I mean, it's just heaven, isn't
• 14:55
  it? You don't get better than this,
• 14:57
  do you? I mean, they're, you know,
• 14:59
  they're made for each other, really.
• 15:00
  And Tom, I mean, it's just, you know, I mean, there's there's a
• 15:03
  reason why he's my favorite doctor.
• 15:05
  And I think you know this. This story, I think, just
• 15:07
  showcases what he can do. And of course, Elizabeth Sladen
• 15:11
  is just absolutely brilliant. John, do you like this top?
• 15:18
  Yes, I found it back there in the wardrobe.
• 15:24
  I kind of had a feeling that was coming.
• 15:26
  Yeah. Well, but famously Tom Baker and
• 15:32
  Patty Russell didn't get all eyes and eye, did they?
• 15:35
  And it tends to bring out Grumpy Tom, which tends to.
• 15:39
  Like in horror? Fang Rock.
• 15:40
  Yeah. The most compelling Tom though,
• 15:42
  isn't it for some reason? It is, yeah.
• 15:44
  I mean I can understand what I mean.
• 15:46
  She cuz on the special features and the commentary, she does
• 15:50
  come across as a bit school momish.
• 15:52
  Yeah, she saw if she comes across as somebody you wouldn't
• 15:55
  want to cross. But The thing is right is I've
• 15:59
  we've been talking recently about Full Circle and Peter
• 16:02
  Grimraid, and there's a couple of these directors that, you
• 16:05
  know, didn't make friends with the actors in the shows.
• 16:09
  But boy, they could put it on the screen and I think that's
• 16:12
  what's important. That's the main thing, you know.
• 16:15
  It doesn't matter whether, you know, they go to socializing
• 16:17
  with them down pub or whatever. I mean, their job is actually
• 16:19
  to, you know, make a good, you know, bring a Doctor Who story
• 16:24
  to life. And that's what Paddy Russell
• 16:26
  does here. I mean, she does both on this
• 16:28
  and no, actually I tell her like Invasion of Dinosaurs is another
• 16:32
  really well directed one. Oh, it's brilliant.
• 16:34
  And, and I'm assuming the massacre.
• 16:38
  The massacre sounds incredible. So.
• 16:40
  Yeah, it sounds good. I mean, I can't tell, but I
• 16:43
  guess on the basis of this, I guess it is, I mean a bit of
• 16:48
  documentation where where the massacre was actually being
• 16:52
  shown to contemporary directors at the time saying this is how
• 16:57
  good we want you to make television.
• 17:00
  So I think it must be, must be great.
• 17:05
  Oh, so that's right. We're kind of saying goodbye to
• 17:07
  UNIT here, aren't we? We're they.
• 17:09
  They're sort of. I'm sick to death of being UNIT
• 17:12
  scientific advice. They're still on the edges, you
• 17:15
  know. I mean, you get a couple of
• 17:17
  token appearances and Android Invasion, you get Benson and
• 17:22
  yeah, Harry's back of any in Seeds of Doom.
• 17:25
  It's it's just Peristed and Henderson.
• 17:30
  That's it, Yeah. They blow up a house and that's
• 17:32
  basically their last Huraru. That's that's basically their
• 17:35
  last, their last job. But yeah, they are being phased
• 17:38
  out, you know, I think Hitch, Cliff and Holmes are the very
• 17:41
  clear vision of where they wanted to go.
• 17:43
  And it's it's a complete contrast to the jumper we use.
• 17:48
  Here we go. What's the name of this fellow
• 17:50
  playing the Butler? Michael Bilson, Man am man.
• 17:54
  Hey, do you remember him in to the Manner born?
• 17:57
  Yes, yes, he was in that and waiting for God as well.
• 18:00
  I embatled the sex pest I think. I think well, but that's the joy
• 18:08
  of 70s Doctor Who I think is that is they bring in these
• 18:11
  class actors. They are all great.
• 18:14
  I mean, there is not one bad performance in this in this
• 18:17
  episode. I mean, Peter may up there
• 18:20
  playing Ibrahim. I mean, I mean he could, you
• 18:22
  know, he could have sent it up, he could have, you know, just
• 18:25
  phoned it in or whatever. But you really, really believe
• 18:29
  in it. I mean, it's a really good
• 18:30
  performance. I think what you said earlier is
• 18:34
  really, really true, is like, I think the quality of a guest
• 18:40
  character is, do you believe that they had a life before the
• 18:43
  story and that, well, yeah, no one in this story has a life
• 18:46
  after it, unfortunately. But you believe that he's
• 18:52
  friends with Marcus. Thank you.
• 18:54
  You believe that Lawrence is Marcus's brother?
• 18:58
  You do, yeah. But if they all, you know, it's
• 19:00
  just little incidental details, throwaway details like you know
• 19:04
  sort of just back there when. Namin, who's going on about how
• 19:09
  he brought all his stuff back from Cairo and all of that and
• 19:11
  you. But you know, you believe it and
• 19:13
  it's kind of like a dialogue, kind of feels in the details for
• 19:16
  you without having to, you know, very obviously spoon feed it to
• 19:19
  you. I think that was one of Homes's
• 19:22
  massive strengths, Big strength. I think he understood that
• 19:26
  Doctor Who's budget was miniscule and so he had a way
• 19:30
  with dialogue of sort of making it feel like more is happening.
• 19:35
  It is on a bigger. Step it's it's a very rare
• 19:39
  talent, you know, to get right. But he he just got it right,
• 19:42
  completely, all of the story. Because this was like a page one
• 19:46
  rewrite, wasn't it? Because it was originally done
• 19:49
  by a guy called Louis Greifer. For whatever reason it didn't
• 19:53
  work. I think it was set in a museum
• 19:55
  or something, and I think, I think for whatever reason it
• 19:58
  wasn't feasible. So he did a rewrite from A-Z and
• 20:04
  it's great. But one of the interesting
• 20:06
  things is previously his scripts were more kind of like comical.
• 20:12
  But this is, you know, 100% proof.
• 20:14
  You know drama and you know, you know the gothic horror vision
• 20:19
  that he was aiming. For well, that's that's, you
• 20:21
  know, another talent as well isn't it?
• 20:23
  Turning your hand to comedy so well and then turning your hand
• 20:26
  to drama this well, yeah. And I think the the good thing
• 20:31
  about Royal Holmes in this era. I've been reading his biography.
• 20:35
  Recently, and there's you know what I've had it a bit dull
• 20:39
  actually. But the bit in the middle, well,
• 20:41
  all the bits sort of before Doctor Who and asked Doctor Who,
• 20:43
  I was like, oh OK, well, but the bit in the middle had all the
• 20:46
  documentation of like letters that he wrote to like Louis
• 20:49
  Griefer and Jerry Davis for Revenge of the Sign.
• 20:54
  When they had to do rewrites and things like this, they had the
• 20:56
  actual documentation, man. Robert Holmes could be savage,
• 20:59
  you know. I believe it.
• 21:01
  Yeah. Jerry Davis.
• 21:03
  He wrote to Jerry Davis and he put Doctor Who's.
• 21:05
  Moved on a bit since you were in charge.
• 21:07
  Yeah. Oh God, yeah.
• 21:08
  I mean, it's Revenge of the Cyber Man is just the complete
• 21:14
  throwback to the 60s and it just seems so out of place.
• 21:18
  Kind of fun for what it is, you know?
• 21:20
  I can watch it. You look like you just bit into
• 21:26
  a sour apple. Yeah, yeah.
• 21:28
  Oh, here we go. First to be bumped off here.
• 21:31
  Poor old Collins, because he came back and be evidently
• 21:35
  assassin, didn't he? Because he played a Time Lord.
• 21:38
  Oh, that's right. Yeah, I think.
• 21:40
  I think it built was in lots of things, wasn't he?
• 21:43
  Yeah, I think he was in the BREB sort of spinoff Grace in favor
• 21:47
  or something like that. I don't.
• 21:48
  Know it was a Oh dear. The wheels came off I think when
• 21:52
  that spinoff was was brought. That was rubbish, yeah.
• 21:56
  Do you think, OK, I'm going to ask you a question now and I
• 22:00
  don't ask too many of these, but I will when it's relevant.
• 22:03
  Is the portrayal of Namin a bit problematic?
• 22:10
  Well, yeah, I suppose, you know, Obviously you won't be able to
• 22:16
  get away with that today, but. See, I don't think that it is.
• 22:21
  I don't think that it is. I mean you know I was going to
• 22:24
  say it's like that and the talents when try and what you
• 22:26
  have to remember is that you know these these were made this
• 22:31
  was this, this is 47 years old and he can't charge modern day
• 22:35
  standards by something that was made you know nearly 50 years
• 22:39
  ago. You know you have, you have all
• 22:42
  sorts of things. Talons Wing Cheyenne.
• 22:44
  I think the Chinese are patronized a bit.
• 22:46
  You got lines like this little man and his other little men.
• 22:49
  Well, yeah, to be fair, yeah. But again, it it.
• 22:51
  Is. I mean, ever is is patronized.
• 22:53
  I think he holds his own. And then when he can't, he pulls
• 22:56
  out a gun and they're all terrified of him anyway.
• 22:58
  Yeah, I mean it's it's certainly not patronizing, right.
• 23:13
  Yeah, That's the point of surprise at the end, yeah.
• 23:01
  So Peter Mayock plays him so well, you know, I mean like
• 23:06
  there. I mean you really, you really do
• 23:07
  believe in him as the villain. I actually, when I first saw no
• 23:10
  when I first read the book, I thought he's going to be the
• 23:12
  main bad. I think it's a it's a very good
• 23:20
  performance as well. I think it's an excellent.
• 23:23
  Performance all the sort of, you know, The Curse of The Mummy and
• 23:25
  all these sort of Hammer horror films, They've all got a
• 23:29
  character like this in it. If he wasn't, it would feel, it
• 23:31
  would feel very remiss, I think. Yeah, yeah.
• 23:35
  I think if it was, you know, kind of like hand up or a cold
• 23:38
  performance, it wouldn't work. But you really, But you believe
• 23:40
  in it. And again, he comes back in the
• 23:42
  deadly assassin as well. So I don't know what it is about
• 23:45
  getting bumped off in pyramids. Mars.
• 23:48
  He's the guard in part three. So, Liz.
• 23:51
  I didn't know that he hasn't got the beard in that so.
• 23:57
  I think those mummy designs are bloody genius.
• 24:02
  They are. They are awesome, aren't they?
• 24:05
  It's the. Blank face, the blank.
• 24:07
  I was going to say that, yeah. The blank face, it just give.
• 24:10
  You've got nothing to respond to.
• 24:12
  Nothing to react to. It is, yeah.
• 24:15
  But also as well, I think I I I could never figure out why they
• 24:19
  scare me so much as a kid. And I know now as an adult, what
• 24:23
  it was that really got me was that they weren't fast, but
• 24:27
  yeah, coming. But they will still catch up
• 24:30
  with you. You know, the human could just
• 24:31
  suddenly, you know, really, you know, slow down, get tired.
• 24:36
  But you know, they are like unstoppable killing machines.
• 24:40
  Yeah. And you know the the idea of
• 24:43
  that, that you will tire, but they won't.
• 24:46
  They won't. Yeah.
• 24:47
  And there's something, there's something really quite ominous
• 24:49
  about that. And and again, like you said,
• 24:52
  like that blank vision of, yeah, it's like the Autumns, isn't it?
• 24:56
  They don't give, they don't give anything.
• 24:58
  And you know the robots in The Robots of Death, you know they
• 25:01
  just, you know, one blank face, isn't it?
• 25:04
  I've got to get this over and done with though, because I I
• 25:07
  have it created a little bit of a hashtag around the mummies.
• 25:11
  And it's hashtag mummy tits, because they do have very
• 25:15
  impressive breastplates, and there is a moment where Ernie
• 25:19
  Clemens is in fact crushed by two pairs of tits.
• 25:24
  I think that's a great death because it's simultaneously
• 25:27
  absurd. And very scary.
• 25:30
  It is, Yeah. I mean it's it's you know, I
• 25:32
  mean it is great when you look at it like.
• 25:34
  That it is. I do believe.
• 25:35
  You know, John, many men want to go that way.
• 25:38
  Yes. Well, yeah, there you go.
• 25:41
  Certainly think worse ways. How much location work is there?
• 25:46
  Well, this was cut out from the VHS, wasn't it?
• 25:49
  But like, I mean in the story in general, it's great.
• 25:54
  It wouldn't work as well if it was night time.
• 25:56
  I actually think there's something quiet, eerie about,
• 25:59
  you know, the contrast between a bright summer's day and the the
• 26:03
  horror that's being unleashed here.
• 26:06
  Well, and as well, if it was nighttime, there's plenty of
• 26:09
  places to hide in the dark. Whereas here you're exposed.
• 26:13
  Yeah, completely exposed. You know there's no way to run,
• 26:15
  you know? I have heard that argument
• 26:19
  people make that this should have been shot at night.
• 26:21
  I I agree with you. I don't buy that too.
• 26:25
  Yeah, because in the going back to the VHS, sorry, because that
• 26:29
  bit there, when Namin picks up the hat, that's not in the VHS,
• 26:34
  I mean. So I was wondering why and Earth
• 26:37
  is there like a zooming sort of Warlock's bowler hat.
• 26:41
  You never go back to that, but they just cut it.
• 26:45
  When I was a kid. You know that massive lock
• 26:47
  that's above Sarah? I always used to be like, Oh my
• 26:50
  God, that log's going to fall down and crush her.
• 26:53
  Is this right over here? These are things you think about
• 26:56
  when you're a kid, you know? OK, you mentioned the music
• 27:00
  earlier and you've got the Rattles, rattle music here,
• 27:03
  haven't you? Yeah, yeah, the Miracas, Yeah.
• 27:06
  Fabulous this is. There's so many great Dudley
• 27:11
  Simpson schools, but I think this is probably among his best.
• 27:16
  There's something, just one thing that's just working
• 27:18
  brilliantly in hingeless time, isn't it?
• 27:20
  We've done this in some music. Yeah, they're so in tune.
• 27:23
  And the great thing is, is the balance.
• 27:25
  You know, it's not kind of in your face.
• 27:27
  It's there to, you know, just guide you along, guide the
• 27:30
  action along, rather than being, you know, completely bombastic
• 27:33
  and over the top. Well, except when.
• 27:36
  When it isn't. When he's playing the all gun,
• 27:37
  it's like, well, yeah, it's yeah, exactly.
• 27:39
  But that's part of the story. That's, yeah.
• 27:41
  It's purposeful, exactly. Yeah.
• 27:43
  Yeah. Yeah, so you're right.
• 27:47
  And I mean, at the moment is the villain of this he's, he's the
• 27:52
  bad guy. Yeah.
• 27:53
  And you've completely forgotten about, you know, the opening.
• 27:56
  Little do we know he's just a stooge and he's he's just a
• 27:59
  stooge, isn't he? Yeah, he's he's just a useless,
• 28:02
  you know, porn who just gets in the way, really.
• 28:06
  But it's just I I feel with Paddy Russell every shot has
• 28:10
  been considered. You know, and the thing that Tom
• 28:16
  Baker, I'm sorry, Elizabeth Sladen says in her
• 28:19
  autobiography, is that she didn't like recording this one
• 28:23
  because Paddy Kingsland would, Yeah.
• 28:26
  Saying that they'd go over and over and over and over and over
• 28:28
  again. But this is the result.
• 28:32
  Yeah. I mean, you get a fabulous
• 28:33
  result. I mean, it's it's just
• 28:34
  wonderful. Yeah.
• 28:35
  I mean, she on the commentary, Elizabeth Sladen says.
• 28:40
  I think she went on the back. Bernard Art should saying, ohh,
• 28:43
  I'm being kept in after school today.
• 28:45
  So it kind of felt like a little bit of a yeah, she she comes
• 28:50
  across as quite a school momage. But on the documentary, all the
• 28:54
  actors are there. So the fellow who plays Warlock?
• 28:56
  Yeah, Peter Cop. Yeah, it's amazing, you know, if
• 28:58
  they're all in their late 80s and they're.
• 29:00
  Still, talk about badly passed, yeah.
• 29:03
  We'll talk about her on that. And they say, yeah, she's
• 29:04
  authoritative. She knew what she wanted.
• 29:07
  You know, she wouldn't pass it on.
• 29:09
  She says that she stuck closely to the text and didn't really
• 29:12
  like to improvise. But yeah, I mean, yeah, Peter
• 29:15
  Copley, you know, he, he adds, was to say about.
• 29:19
  Clearly they all know, though. The result of that was that they
• 29:23
  were all involved in a classic Doctor Who story.
• 29:25
  In a classic, yeah. And the results?
• 29:28
  The results speak for themselves.
• 29:30
  The results do speak for themselves.
• 29:32
  Yeah, sorry. I was just going to say because
• 29:35
  another Doctor Who acted was in the frame to play Warlock, but
• 29:38
  it wouldn't have worked anywhere near because I think it was the
• 29:41
  guy that plays Russini in Terra V Autumns, John Bascu, and it
• 29:47
  wouldn't, it wouldn't works as well, would it, you know?
• 29:50
  It'd come in at the second time, and that's to be my oldest
• 29:53
  friend. Now get off by a bitch while
• 29:55
  you're still safe. It'd come into the meeting and
• 29:58
  went, Who's the heck are you? Oh, look how charming Sarah is
• 30:08
  with Lawrence. Michael Sheen.
• 30:11
  Yeah, yeah. Oh, she's just brilliant, Yeah.
• 30:14
  And beautiful, may I say. Yeah.
• 30:19
  That is utterly preposterous. Miss Smith.
• 30:22
  He's, he's just great because when I saw it on video, I I just
• 30:26
  knew it was Mr. Bronson from Graham Chill.
• 30:28
  You know, he was an absolute monster.
• 30:31
  So you know, to see him play this kind of very shy, timid
• 30:35
  man, he's, I mean he just shows the, you know, the versatility
• 30:40
  of what he could do. Excellent act.
• 30:42
  Always, always brilliant value. You know, we're we're so lucky
• 30:46
  the Doctor Who lasted so long because there are a number of
• 30:49
  actors that took up a number of roles in Doctor Who that really
• 30:53
  highlight their versatility. And I think Michael Sheard,
• 30:56
  like, you know, think of him in as Merrick in.
• 31:00
  Yeah, in castle Valve. Yeah.
• 31:02
  He plays quite a down to earth doctor in the mind of evil.
• 31:07
  He's he's approaching Bronson in Invisible Enemy because he gets
• 31:11
  the kind of ransom rave of it. And definitely in remembrance of
• 31:14
  the darks and rememberance of the darks, Yeah, yeah.
• 31:17
  Is he in the Ark? Yeah, he's in the Ark.
• 31:20
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, astonishing.
• 31:23
  But I think this is probably his most successful role this this
• 31:27
  is his best one, I think, yeah. Oh, look at that bit of
• 31:32
  equipment. The Marconi escape.
• 31:34
  So. And what's funny about it is,
• 31:37
  you know the the doctor was just basically spent the last couple
• 31:39
  of minutes just slagging him off and now he just persuades him to
• 31:43
  demonstrate the Marconi scope. We've just, you know, one, you
• 31:47
  know, one. You know one Green?
• 31:50
  That was so clever as well. Just like she knows this is
• 31:53
  never going to be like a particular dynamic sequence, so
• 31:55
  she just zooms in on the bulb and then waits for it to blow.
• 31:59
  Yeah. So it feels very dramatic.
• 32:02
  Look, the Doctor says. He goes.
• 32:04
  Oh yeah, it's just. Basically the same principle of
• 32:06
  what you got there, but only less cumbersome.
• 32:09
  It's a bit of, yeah, I mean, it looks like a, you know, a mobile
• 32:13
  phone for the 80s actually. I mean, you can.
• 32:16
  See the Del Boy with that pop line?
• 32:19
  The Statalite is out of position, yes.
• 32:25
  And the sets in this as well. Brilliant, I mean.
• 32:30
  Look at the detail. Look at all the details.
• 32:32
  It's Christine Roscoe who, yeah, she did State of Decay as well,
• 32:39
  so she's. Terrific story, yeah.
• 32:42
  And the hand of Fear as well, but maybe not quite as
• 32:44
  successful. That 10.
• 32:47
  Here we go. It's playing.
• 32:48
  I do do like to be beside the seaside.
• 32:50
  She says on the documentary. Right, those pipes coming out of
• 32:53
  the piano, That's just a cardboard, don't they?
• 32:57
  It's a cardboard painter. I mean it looks.
• 32:59
  Like a fucking order. It's incredible.
• 33:02
  I mean the detail on that on that you know that set is is
• 33:05
  just amazing. She does this wonderful spiel
• 33:07
  about the talent and the creativity at the BBC for things
• 33:11
  like that where they would just they had you know tuples to work
• 33:14
  with and they would find really creative ways of of making it
• 33:18
  stylish. Yeah, I I think it's it's all
• 33:20
  the more impressive for that. I I think it's wonderful.
• 33:24
  And of course Tom now is really kind of he, he knows what the
• 33:27
  threat is and he he's just like, oh shit.
• 33:31
  Yeah. Do you prefer Tom when he's less
• 33:35
  flippant and a bit more serious? I think we did think.
• 33:39
  You're there, remember? Yeah, I think the contrast, but
• 33:43
  it's kind of funny in that because he brings, he still
• 33:45
  brings a lot of gravitas to that, you know, like when he
• 33:47
  confronts the cow, you know he still, he can still be quite
• 33:51
  serious when he wants to. And by contrast he does get a
• 33:55
  couple of silly moments in this like when yeah they cut that
• 34:00
  from the VHS didn't they oh go that music.
• 34:04
  Yeah he he, you know like when he goes on the back Marions when
• 34:07
  you know she lost her head. So you know what I like about
• 34:10
  Tom Stocks is that he can go from mood to mood and you know
• 34:13
  like 1 scene, you know he can be serious one minute, flip it the
• 34:17
  next and you know he actually you actually buy that he's an
• 34:21
  alien. Oh, for sure, yeah.
• 34:24
  And especially in offline in Seeds of Doom as well, when he's
• 34:29
  yeah, yeah, no one can do anger like, at all.
• 34:32
  You know, you know who gets the best jokes in this though?
• 34:35
  Sarah. My favorite line in OR one of
• 34:37
  them is perhaps he's sneezed. Yeah, so much.
• 34:40
  Oh, that's. Just another one, didn't you?
• 34:44
  What was it? Oh, it must have been a terrible
• 34:46
  accident. No, it must have been a last.
• 34:47
  Yeah. Don't provoke me.
• 34:49
  Yeah. Oh dear, we go.
• 34:52
  That's kind. Of her role.
• 34:54
  Her role as well is to bring a bit of lightness and it Oh yeah,
• 34:56
  I mean she kind of brings out the the lighter sign of Doctor,
• 35:00
  you know the kind of, you know the yin and the Yang.
• 35:01
  And that, in fact, that is why they had tailor made for each
• 35:05
  other and poor old Namie needs about to get the the massage of
• 35:09
  doom, isn't he? This terrified Rusty Davis so
• 35:12
  much that when he wrote Queer as Folk all those years later, he
• 35:18
  has this entire sequence play out in the first episode of
• 35:21
  Queer as Folk, Right. OK, shame he didn't ever write
• 35:25
  as anything as terrifying as this in Doctor Who, though.
• 35:28
  He wrote. Midnight.
• 35:29
  What are you talking about? That terrifies me.
• 35:31
  Midnight well, yeah. Yeah.
• 35:34
  There's nothing scarier than people.
• 35:37
  Yeah, well, yeah, that, that is, that is fair enough.
• 35:39
  But this is absolutely this, this must have said all the kids
• 35:44
  just running behind the sofa. Well, and it immediately then
• 35:50
  the power shifts, doesn't it? And suddenly to me it's
• 35:52
  terrifies. And you suddenly wondered what
• 35:55
  the Hell's going on? Yeah.
• 35:57
  You can't really guess the story at this point, can you?
• 35:59
  It's completely unknowable that screaming is.
• 36:03
  I just. I think it's the smoke coming
• 36:05
  out of their fingers, yeah, the sound effects and everything,
• 36:07
  yeah. And what a great line.
• 36:10
  Go and do the part in line. But
• 36:24
  yeah, I mean what Cliff? I mean, it's an unusual one
• 36:27
  because it's not like The Doctor of A Companion in Peril.
• 36:30
  It's it's an incidental character getting bumped up in a
• 36:34
  really gruesome fashion and pushing the story in a a
• 36:38
  completely new direction. But you know I another thing
• 36:41
  that really scared me as a child, cuz I don't think the
• 36:43
  monsters ever really scared me. A couple did.
• 36:46
  I found the Autumns quite scary, but.
• 36:49
  It wasn't really the monsters that scared me.
• 36:50
  What scared me was when adults or authority figures, being as a
• 36:56
  child, being humans, absolutely terrified.
• 36:59
  When they were terrified, yes. And that's why this story scored
• 37:02
  so high in the fair. Yeah, because.
• 37:05
  There's a scene in Inky's episode 3.
• 37:08
  When Warlock is killed and he knows it's going to die, he's
• 37:11
  thrown down on the sofa and he's screaming.
• 37:13
  And I remember it's so scary. Oh my word.
• 37:24
  Well, look, I feel like we barely scratched the surface.
• 37:26
  Fortunately, I know, yeah. We've still got three episodes
• 37:28
  to go. I know we do.
• 37:31
  Well, I'll tell you what. I'm going to go and put a brew
• 37:33
  on. I'll bring this episode to an
• 37:34
  end. Will, will you do me a favor and
• 37:37
  hold my hand? I'm a little bit scared to go
• 37:39
  into Episode 2. Well, yeah, I mean, it's, I
• 37:43
  mean, it's fake, but you know.