Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Matt Michael about his choice of Silver Nemesis (1/3)

Transcript

Talks to Matt Michael about his choice of Silver Nemesis (1/3) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None. A hamster with a blump pen
• 0:38
  knife. We're doing quicker.
• 0:41
  Welcome back to a Hamster with a blunt pen knife.
• 0:45
  The Doctor Who Commentary podcast.
• 0:49
  I'm I'm just heading around Windsor now with my my lovely
• 0:53
  boyfriend Matt, and we're gliding towards Arundel Castle.
• 0:58
  How are you feeling, Matt? Oh, it's wonderful being with
• 1:01
  you, Joe, as we twirl through the gardens of Arundel Castle,
• 1:05
  avoiding the Queen and her cordies as we have our wonderful
• 1:08
  day together. And I thought we'd just stop off
• 1:12
  at this beautiful, dainty little tea room.
• 1:15
  Oh, what's this 15th century peasants beaming in?
• 1:20
  Oh no. I hope they don't spoil the
• 1:22
  surprise birthday presents. I've got you, Joe, which is to
• 1:25
  have you painted like a 17th century French lady.
• 1:29
  Oh, I'm just going to pairs with my hands just like this.
• 1:33
  Oh, it's such a perfect day with you, Joe.
• 1:35
  Oh, I've never seen this pair until you maybe watch the video
• 1:40
  before we started this or what are they called again?
• 1:43
  The Beckham boyfriends, they make me ashamed to be gay, you
• 1:49
  know? I the man.
• 1:52
  It's my new life goal. I mean, you know, my dad used to
• 1:55
  scream at the TV and go bloody ponces when he saw gays as I was
• 1:59
  growing up and it appalled me. But I can't get where it's
• 2:01
  coming from now. Well, I'll get you twirling
• 2:05
  round London at some point and I think you know our our
• 2:11
  spectacular date around Windsor might have given or maybe
• 2:14
  Arundel might have given us, our listeners a clue to the delights
• 2:19
  that we'll be watching today. Do you think so?
• 2:24
  Yeah, maybe it's the wedding of River Song.
• 2:32
  May. I was just going to say throw a
• 2:33
  few quotes out so people can guess, but I mean, we'll be
• 2:37
  doing lots of that. Will we?
• 2:38
  We ride to Destiny. It was a slow poison, yes.
• 2:47
  There was a jar of fear. Come, Richard.
• 2:51
  I think it's peaceful when I give you the 4th Reich.
• 3:00
  But really, Doctor Who are you Always.
• 3:06
  I'm sorry. Forgive me.
• 3:08
  Why don't you go back to the Tardis?
• 3:10
  You'll be safe there. No chance, Professor.
• 3:13
  Social workers. What are you Social workers?
• 3:20
  OK, well, I want to ask you a question about silver Nemesis
• 3:23
  before we go in and basically laugh our way through it.
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  And that is, you are a critic of some repute.
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  Yeah. I'll just make a lot of noise in
• 3:37
  the podcasting world, but I think objectively, if you looked
• 3:43
  at Silver Nemesis, you'd say it's three episodes, it's got a
• 3:46
  lot of characters, and yet it still manages to throw in about
• 3:49
  500 comedy subplots. It doesn't really get to the
• 3:54
  point at all. It never really gets under the
• 3:56
  skin of any of its characters, You know, It's not really
• 4:01
  particularly good in the conventional sense of scripting
• 4:06
  and direction and characterisation, and anyway,
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  you can do it. Would you agree with this?
• 4:13
  I sort of yes. But I don't.
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  I don't think that's what it's aiming for.
• 4:21
  It's aiming to be the 25th anniversary of Doctor Who
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  special, and it's aiming to give the 1988 audience something.
• 4:31
  It's not quite the five doctors, but it's trying to give them
• 4:33
  something that has they didn't. Think that they might expect to
• 4:37
  see in Doctor Who, especially the Cybermen.
• 4:41
  Oh my God, do you remember that very sort of tenuous link he
• 4:43
  makes? Well, you know, obviously this
• 4:45
  is Kevin Clark talking. Now.
• 4:46
  I included the sidemen because it is the silver anniversary and
• 4:50
  and they are silver, aren't they?
• 4:53
  That's how much thought was going into this.
• 4:57
  That's why I included the Vardans.
• 4:59
  Well, I was actually like, I watched this a couple of days
• 5:02
  ago on my day off and I had a fucking riot with it.
• 5:06
  Like, it's so much fun. Well, you and the British
• 5:10
  public, because this is officially the most popular
• 5:15
  Sylvester McCoy story according to the British public in terms
• 5:18
  of its ratings. Yeah, no, It's had the highest
• 5:21
  audience appreciation figures across the three episodes, and
• 5:25
  it had the highest viewing figures of any Sylvester McCoy
• 5:27
  story. So it's the most popular story
• 5:30
  since, I think, 22. Yeah, yeah.
• 5:38
  So yeah, this is if you if you ask a member of the British
• 5:42
  public what, what Sylvester McCoy, Doctor Who story should
• 5:46
  be picked to represent the best of Sylvester McCoy, I bet you
• 5:50
  they would say Silver Nemesis. Why?
• 5:57
  I think the biggest the best thing about it is it's just fun.
• 6:03
  It doesn't take itself incredibly seriously, even
• 6:09
  though I suspect that the writer probably thought it was more
• 6:13
  serious than it actually is. I think it's got Please don't
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  tell me, the writer. I thought he was writing a drama
• 6:19
  with Mrs. Remington and no skinheads.
• 6:22
  I think the joke. I think the jokes are real.
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  But he he thought he was writing a story about how the Doctor is
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  actually God or something like that.
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  Did that get lost in the script somewhere that no, he doesn't
• 6:32
  admit that, doesn't he? He.
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  Went into JN TS office and went doctor is God JN TS eyes lit up.
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  You know, I could, I could sell this to the papers.
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  Very down. He fanned him back to
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  consciousness and he said you can write it but you can't see
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  it. That's Gentie's answer to
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  everything, because at the same time he was writing poison pen
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  letters to all the actors of Doctor Who that have slept with
• 7:00
  each other on locations. If you don't want your wife to
• 7:04
  know, send John and I a cheque. He said that, didn't he?
• 7:10
  In that Doctor Who Magazine interview, you don't know who
• 7:15
  was sleeping with who on Doctor Who.
• 7:18
  That's the story we really want to hear.
• 7:20
  That that is Doctor Who Babylon has to happen at some point, but
• 7:25
  I just think it's really fun. I think it's really quotable.
• 7:30
  It's a story that it doesn't make sense if you kind of stroke
• 7:35
  your chin and watch it and you want it to make sense.
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  But it makes enough sense, and there's enough stuff happening
• 7:41
  to keep people watching, and there's never more than like a
• 7:45
  minute before something else gets thrown in front of you.
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  The Nemesis looks quite cool. It goes back and forth in time.
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  I think it's quite modern in terms of like how much back and
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  forth in time there is and how much like travel there is inside
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  the story. It's kind of the time now, but
• 8:03
  it didn't happen very much in the past, especially cheap
• 8:06
  because it's all shot on location as well.
• 8:08
  Yeah. Although at times it does feel
• 8:10
  like someone has just taken a camcorder out into a field.
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  Because I think the biggest problem with this is I I don't
• 8:16
  think Chris Clough is a terrible director.
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  But he admits himself at this point.
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  He wanted out and I think he's just basically calling the
• 8:24
  shots. OK, that'll do.
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  Move on. And so I think the direction is
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  a bit plodding and the editing is terrible.
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  Some of the edits into scenes with, like Kevin Mccullough's
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  music just cutting in very jarringly.
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  It's all very odd. I mean they they overshot it,
• 8:44
  didn't they, as well? So.
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  So that's why there is a special edition, because they shot so
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  much more footage now. It's like a common problem in
• 8:52
  like the McCoy stuff is that Andrew Carmel had loads of great
• 8:56
  qualities, but actually making sure that the episodes were 25
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  minutes long was not one of his strengths.
• 9:03
  So you end up with quite a few Sylvester McCoy stories that
• 9:05
  become really, really choppy if you watch the T.
• 9:08
  TV version. Like I can't.
• 9:09
  I can't believe when I watched the TV version of The Curse of
• 9:11
  Fenerick. I can't believe how Choppy is
• 9:14
  compared to the extended version, the T the TV version.
• 9:17
  When I when I watched it last year, I was like, oh God, this
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  is a bit not great. So you really should have been
• 9:26
  looking at those scripts, the structure, and get to the time
• 9:29
  that they had, you know, telling a novel.
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  Yeah, well, look at Curse Fenerick.
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  It was a great novel. Can't make a a very unfair
• 9:38
  comparison with a new series episode with Silver Nemesis
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  because you know I put my tweet out yesterday, right?
• 9:44
  Saying Heaven sent OK. A modern day masterpiece.
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  Yeah, brilliantly directed, you know, superbly written.
• 9:54
  I never want to watch it. I've watched it once and I never
• 9:58
  want to watch it again. I'm never in the mood to come
• 10:00
  home and go right. I want to watch the Doctor going
• 10:03
  through grief for an hour, you know, just to find out who's on
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  boring old Gallifrey. And yet when you said to me
• 10:09
  let's do silver Nemesis, I had a fucking hard on, mate, knowing
• 10:13
  that I was going to watch this. I was so excited.
• 10:16
  I think that's the the other great thing about it is that for
• 10:19
  a while, in the kind of 80s, it felt like Doctor had forgotten
• 10:23
  what it was like to have fun. And I think the season, I think
• 10:27
  the Sylvester McCoy stuff, particularly Season 24, Season
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  25, remembers. Like what it's like for Doctor
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  Who to be fun, family entertainment.
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  Again in a way that I think it it lost a little bit in the
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  previous few years. I just, I just think this one's
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  yeah, massive fun. If I'm if I'm going to put
• 10:46
  Doctor Who comfort food on, it's either going to be the five
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  doctors or silver nemesis. Those for me that that like 2
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  goats. I think I've gotten over myself
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  over the years because I used to really hate this.
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  I wrote a review back on Doctor Who Ray in the sky where I
• 11:01
  absolutely slaughtered it. But that's like you know when
• 11:03
  you're sort of like an older teen and you just hate the world
• 11:06
  and everything and you especially hate Doctor Who at
• 11:09
  that age, you know that doesn't dare to take itself seriously
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  and have a massive massacre and things like that in it.
• 11:15
  And now, as you get older and the world gets darker and you
• 11:19
  become a lot more cynical watching Fiona Walker mincing
• 11:22
  around the field free episodes. It's just heaven.
• 11:27
  It's bliss. Isn't it?
• 11:28
  And it's it's got that it's just I know it's meant to be set in
• 11:31
  November so that's a bit of a problem.
• 11:32
  It looks really summary and apparently it was not the most
• 11:36
  fun to make, but that doesn't come across on screen.
• 11:40
  It's just, no, not at all. And in fact, you can see in that
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  making of because Sylvester McCoy has a bit of a Paddy on
• 11:47
  there, he's going, we don't want more money, we just want more
• 11:51
  time, time to get it in the can, you know, like he's really
• 11:55
  frustrated just talking to this interviewer.
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  So I tried to think what it was like in the rehearsals and all
• 12:00
  of that, because apparently he's quite a mellow fella.
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  Yeah, I think, I think apparently his greatest show had
• 12:06
  had all of the shenanigans being made in a car park.
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  The. So they didn't have a lot of
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  rehearsal and prep time for silver nemesis, so they ended up
• 12:16
  being quite under pressure when it came to make making it.
• 12:19
  I was reading somewhere Andrew Cartmell said that when JNT
• 12:23
  bought Kevin Clarke on set, he jumped on the train back to
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  London to escape the poisonous atmosphere.
• 12:30
  Oh no. Oh, fucking wish Doctor
• 12:35
  Confidential was around back in the day.
• 12:38
  Well, technically it was, wasn't it?
• 12:40
  Yeah, it was. Yeah.
• 12:41
  God bless the Canadians. Well, you know what?
• 12:46
  I think we should dive straight into episode one and see what
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  delights this has to offer us. Obviously, we're opening up in
• 12:53
  Kent. Sorry.
• 12:54
  I mean, South America. They've just happened to have
• 12:57
  found a house with a palm tree outside, haven't they?
• 12:59
  Go Right, that'll do. Yeah, this looks like South
• 13:03
  America bringing a parrot. That parrot escaped, and its
• 13:11
  children are now, like, populated all of London.
• 13:15
  Oh, really? I don't know.
• 13:17
  What do you say anymore? Do you know the amount of
• 13:19
  bullshit you feed me on this? Well, Gordon, count us into
• 13:24
  episode one. OK, 31 Excellent.
• 13:32
  That starscape exploding out here?
• 13:35
  Man, It just promises adventure, doesn't it?
• 13:37
  It does. It promises adventure and
• 13:39
  silver. Sylvester Mccoy's face painted
• 13:42
  silver, perhaps because it's silver.
• 13:44
  The Silver anniversary. The sad The sad thing is,
• 13:49
  unfortunately, that silver face paint was horribly toxic.
• 13:53
  Thomas McCoy passed away. A few, really.
• 13:55
  It was very pretty before he put it on.
• 14:01
  That's what made him regenerate into Paul McGowan.
• 14:05
  Oh God, going rat. Rat There's a lot of lead in
• 14:09
  that paint. There's a lot of lead in Mile as
• 14:13
  well. I all the cows, Anton Different
• 14:17
  didn't have a fucking clue what was No.
• 14:20
  He was just doing it to get Wimbledon tickets.
• 14:22
  Wasn't it just getting chauffeured off?
• 14:26
  You can't chauffeured off location to Wimbledon every day.
• 14:30
  Yes, I would say the lions, my limo.
• 14:31
  I don't know why I'm doing that accent.
• 14:35
  It sounds Russian. Did you hear the story about
• 14:37
  what he said to Sophie Aldridge? Oh no.
• 14:40
  What do you say? She tells us that convention,
• 14:44
  apparently like, so he was shown dragon fire as an example of
• 14:50
  what he was going to be in. So he said, John, I I don't
• 14:53
  understand a word. And then he was introduced to
• 14:55
  the cast of Silver Nemesis and he just wouldn't talk to Sophie
• 14:59
  Aldrin at all. And so she said, oh, hi, I'm
• 15:02
  Sophie Aldrin, I play the companion Ace.
• 15:04
  And he was like, you are ace like that.
• 15:07
  And he went, but Sophie, you are so fat.
• 15:16
  That's a story she tells. Oh, here she is.
• 15:18
  She is very good, my lady. Very good, my lady.
• 15:24
  She's so, so pissed off she missed those pigeons.
• 15:27
  But you love the way this fellow goes.
• 15:29
  It's it's all but it's in fact decaying.
• 15:34
  Just look at the way that she minces down that corridor.
• 15:37
  That such is a flouncing dress. That is.
• 15:40
  No one's ever flounced better than Lady Paine.
• 15:43
  For I'm not sure we've seen a greater villain since Cara from
• 15:47
  Piece of Mariners, you know. Oh, sorry, Carla.
• 15:52
  She is absolutely astonishing. Well, I think he's a great foil
• 15:56
  for her as well we're doing. Brilliant.
• 15:59
  They're like a homsy in double act.
• 16:00
  It's the iron grown blood Act thing, isn't it it?
• 16:02
  Is, yes, absolutely. There's such a good double act,
• 16:06
  and this is built around, like a lot of really good fun.
• 16:09
  Doctor Who is built around a series of double acts.
• 16:12
  So there's the two of them. You've got de Flores and his
• 16:15
  Lieutenant, who's who kind of rolls his eyes at De Flores, and
• 16:20
  you always get the kind of idea that he thinks that his boss is
• 16:22
  a bit bonkers. You've got the Doctor and Ace.
• 16:27
  The cyber leader and the cyber left him, I guess it is.
• 16:32
  Condition of Madness, Leader it is.
• 16:40
  Well, excuse me, We've got some. Do you know what?
• 16:42
  I've got a thing about Nazis, you know, because they're all
• 16:44
  very hot. When Sasha Dewan dressed up as a
• 16:47
  Nazi. And spyful.
• 16:49
  Yeah, I think about him too. I think I've got a problem.
• 16:52
  Fascist dictators, they just do it for me.
• 16:55
  I was. Reading today that they're
• 16:59
  actually shot, you know that the sort of code breaker character
• 17:03
  in Spy Four in the sort of Nazi Paris, they shot the scene where
• 17:07
  she gets executed in a concentration camp.
• 17:12
  They did, apparently that's absolutely true.
• 17:15
  And then someone said, you cannot show that as part of the
• 17:18
  episode. And yet no one said, you know
• 17:20
  that scene where the Doctor exposes that the Master is black
• 17:24
  to the Nazi? Oh, bless.
• 17:29
  He had just like, wound her up with that, pushing her off a lot
• 17:33
  of Nazis in Doctor. I know we have the Nazis
• 17:35
  parallel in the Daleks. No, this is this is the first
• 17:38
  actual Nazis in Doctor Who. And then we get them again.
• 17:41
  I don't. We don't get them in.
• 17:43
  We get, we get Hitler studying Fenrick, don't we?
• 17:46
  I know that there's no actual Nazis in there, but oh, do you
• 17:49
  know, I'm thinking of all the new adventures.
• 17:50
  You know, Exodus just. Oh yeah, there's tons of them.
• 17:53
  I think this is the only time that we get Nazis in old school.
• 17:56
  Doctor Who obviously might. Let's kill Hitler and there's
• 17:59
  been enough. Let's not go over there.
• 18:01
  Let's kill Hitler. There's been enough distance
• 18:03
  from the war now that we can take the piss a little.
• 18:06
  Yes, that's yeah, that fella there, that cute little fella
• 18:10
  doing the computations for Lady Painful.
• 18:14
  He he was on the short list to play the Doctor, wasn't he?
• 18:17
  Yes, but he looks like a puppet here.
• 18:19
  I reckon someone's got their hand up in this, like someone
• 18:25
  from Jim Henson. 'S the story.
• 18:26
  You've got one hand that moves on his head and that's, yeah,
• 18:30
  Jim Henson's under the desk. Oh, look, this is like we just
• 18:36
  did not get in the last couple of doctors, is it?
• 18:39
  It's just hanging around, Sitting around, Listen to music.
• 18:42
  Oh, it's just nice. It's and Courtney part the real
• 18:45
  Courtney Pine as well. I I I love the afternoon, Matt.
• 18:51
  This is my favorite kind of jazz.
• 18:52
  Straight blowing. Actually, I love straight
• 18:54
  blowing. Do you know?
• 18:56
  I like the ace, reads the mirror as well.
• 18:59
  Thank you for not picking me up on that one, but.
• 19:03
  But this this kind of reminds me of like.
• 19:07
  City of Death or something like that.
• 19:09
  Not I'm not suggesting that the script sizzles like City of
• 19:12
  Death, but just the idea of like too, too often hanging out,
• 19:16
  having fun. Like you don't get much sense of
• 19:21
  that with Peter Davidson, that they actually hang out and do
• 19:23
  fun stuff. Most of the time they go and do
• 19:26
  some drawings at the Eye of Orion, but that's about it.
• 19:30
  Oh no, no. To be fair, the Doctor take
• 19:32
  once. Once they got shot at Tegan, he
• 19:33
  takes Turlow Fair. Like a nice little holiday by
• 19:37
  the the sea. But the Nickelback story about
• 19:40
  the Eye of Orion, well, you know, he told me that story for
• 19:43
  about Show Me from Survival Now, when Mara first watched The Five
• 19:48
  Doctors. Yeah, yeah, he was absolutely
• 19:50
  convinced that's where they picked up Turlow, that he was
• 19:53
  just sitting there drawing. And then he just gets swept up
• 19:55
  in the adventure I went. They don't have a conversation
• 19:58
  with him. They don't introduce themselves
• 20:00
  to him. He just goes up to him, looks at
• 20:01
  his drawer and you think that's enough.
• 20:03
  And then he just went in the TARDIS.
• 20:04
  He went, what could I say? I was six years old.
• 20:11
  OK there, so are these are these guys supposed to be Cybermen
• 20:15
  agents? I I see they are because of the
• 20:18
  hose. But it's never the connection is
• 20:19
  not really made. They get killed later, don't
• 20:21
  they? Yeah, but the headsets explode,
• 20:24
  doesn't it? That's clearly not McCoy.
• 20:26
  But when I was younger. Oh my God, you just got a
• 20:30
  whopping great close up on that guy's face.
• 20:31
  It was clearly Norm McCoy. But it is Waldridge, yeah?
• 20:37
  But when? When they dash into the river
• 20:40
  when I was younger, that was just so cool.
• 20:42
  I love that. It's it's like it's what you
• 20:46
  want that it's like, there's no nothing about.
• 20:50
  It's like, right, Jump in the water.
• 20:53
  And like I some on Twitter said, oh, you know, it's clearly not
• 20:57
  November because it's so sunny. That's what I love about a lot
• 21:00
  of these McCoy stories, though. They're it's pretty locations.
• 21:04
  It's sunny. It's not all we've done.
• 21:06
  It sounds like survival is really summary as well.
• 21:10
  Fenrick is weird because obviously the location was like
• 21:13
  they got horrible weather for some reason.
• 21:15
  The curse of Fenrick but like battlefields like looks really
• 21:19
  summary and nice. Survival's really summary and.
• 21:22
  Nice, right? Showing the Galaxy.
• 21:24
  Yeah, well, they're on a desert planet there, Joe.
• 21:26
  That's true, yeah. I've been looking for PLORP ever
• 21:31
  since, but I haven't been able to find any Delta and the
• 21:34
  Batterman's really nice. In summary, Yeah, you think
• 21:39
  Andrew Cartman just wanted to get Sophie Aldridge in a wet
• 21:41
  T-shirt? Very likely they're they're a
• 21:45
  bit pervy about her, weren't they?
• 21:46
  Because I'm sure I read somewhere like they didn't want
• 21:49
  her to shave her pits. They really liked her unshaven
• 21:52
  pits in dragon fire and I think JNT insisted that she shave her
• 21:56
  pits or something. Oh, I've heard that she insisted
• 21:59
  that she didn't. Oh, OK.
• 22:02
  You know, she she does seem that sort of woman, doesn't she?
• 22:05
  Yeah. I I I I think the certain
• 22:09
  demographic of males on the production team were quite keen
• 22:14
  that she didn't shave her pits either.
• 22:16
  Can I ask you a a genuinely serious question about Sophie
• 22:19
  Aldridge? Yeah.
• 22:21
  Because it has been known that I've said very unkind things
• 22:24
  about her unfinished big. Because I just don't think she's
• 22:27
  a particularly good audio actor. I don't think she has the
• 22:33
  naturalism to do it. And I've just listened to the
• 22:35
  Rapture recently, and I know you write that, but she's.
• 22:39
  She's terrible in it. She's hysterical in it, like
• 22:41
  she's pitching everything at 11 when it needs to come down to
• 22:44
  about 5:00. But there's none of that on
• 22:48
  television. Like she, There's a few moments
• 22:50
  where she's hysterical, but she's so naturalistic for the
• 22:53
  most part, I thought. I don't understand why she's so
• 22:58
  realistic on one and and so wooden on another.
• 23:02
  I think audio is quite, quite difficult one to pitch sometime
• 23:06
  because you have to, you have to make the performance bigger, but
• 23:10
  in a very specific, in a very specific way to sort of bring
• 23:14
  out the drama without making it sound hysterical.
• 23:19
  Oh, here they are. Destiny beckons.
• 23:22
  We ride the back of I love, I love, I love that those two
• 23:26
  women who are, like, just sitting there don't even get up.
• 23:28
  They're just like gossiping. I.
• 23:30
  Guess you and me on our date. There it is.
• 23:34
  They're spoiling our twirling bags, if you.
• 23:39
  Ball, you break the aura. Unfortunately, I did actually
• 23:44
  send a WhatsApp message to Matt this week of me screaming out
• 23:48
  though, and I thought to myself, fuck me, if he opens that at
• 23:51
  work, he could be in a lot of trouble.
• 23:56
  Oh, in a cup. Big Tiger's head.
• 23:59
  But no, I I I agree. I think.
• 24:02
  And I also think that she's it's like 15 years later and she's
• 24:07
  still trying to play a teenager and Big Finish.
• 24:11
  I've never quite kept tabs on how old Ace is supposed to be.
• 24:14
  So do you. Remember what?
• 24:16
  They aged her up a bit when she was with Hex and it really
• 24:19
  worked. The dynamic worked and the
• 24:21
  stories were good, but they've kind of forgotten that.
• 24:26
  And then they like, teamed her up with Bonnie and it's like,
• 24:29
  what? How old is this supposed to be?
• 24:30
  Before or after? What's the What's the beef with
• 24:33
  this sort of lost track of where she's supposed to be?
• 24:37
  Teenager equates angst, so they just have a shower a lot and
• 24:40
  that's the weakest part of her performers, I think.
• 24:43
  I think everyone's struggled with Ace after the series ended.
• 24:49
  I think the new adventure struggled with Ace, particularly
• 24:52
  when they brought her back after in deceit after they sort of
• 24:57
  written her out. Oh.
• 24:58
  God, you're not talking about New Ace, are you?
• 25:00
  PVC costume God glass of water for Mr. Ford.
• 25:10
  She's got the fez on. She's got the fez.
• 25:13
  Oh, that gets it from. Decades before Matt Smith got in
• 25:17
  on that. But I love all this stuff as
• 25:20
  well. It's just, again, it's just like
• 25:23
  and this is like loads of exposition, but it's not done in
• 25:27
  like the Doctor and Ace sit and have lots of exposition.
• 25:31
  They're doing stuff. There's comedy going on while
• 25:33
  they're doing the exposition. To be honest though, but most of
• 25:36
  this script is exposition. He spends the entire story
• 25:41
  delivering explanations to Ace as they go from place to place.
• 25:45
  It's very more fatty because that's what most more fat
• 25:47
  scripts are like. I'm surprised.
• 25:49
  I like it as much as I do. Then oh, I love it.
• 25:51
  She smashes the window. What is?
• 25:57
  She's the West Mad cow. No, it's not like a dramatic
• 26:03
  statement. Oh, I love it.
• 26:08
  And you know what? I've I'm totally on board these
• 26:10
  days with McCoy and his off screen shenanigans, setting all
• 26:13
  this stuff up, you know, and all of those previous adventures and
• 26:17
  that Cosmo can't be a master plan thing of, you know, he was
• 26:20
  back in the old days of Gallifrey and all of that.
• 26:24
  He really. Made a concerted effort to bring
• 26:27
  some mystery back to the character and it worked.
• 26:31
  It did. And what I really like about the
• 26:34
  Cartmel Master plan, if you want to call it that, is that it's
• 26:39
  basically about 5 lines across two years of episodes and they
• 26:44
  never do, they never do like a big story that focuses on
• 26:48
  revealing it all. So it's never allowed to become
• 26:53
  like the the focus of the. It's a plot and it stays a
• 26:57
  mystery. And it's like fucking catnip to
• 26:59
  Doctor Who fans, isn't it? It's just an obscure line like,
• 27:03
  oh, Davros, I'm far more than just another Time Lord and
• 27:08
  that's how. Does that mean we're going to
• 27:09
  have to write 500 essays in the 90s just to figure it out?
• 27:14
  I think that's what it should be.
• 27:15
  Because if if you're going to reintroduce Mystery, the last
• 27:18
  thing you want to do is actually answer all of the questions.
• 27:21
  You just want a few mysterious hints like that.
• 27:24
  Like Russell T Davis has has done it, sort of, with The Time
• 27:27
  War, like all the stuff about The Nightmare Child and The
• 27:30
  Scar. It's all just like weird stuff.
• 27:32
  Weird shit that you can't even imagine.
• 27:34
  And then Big Finish second. We saw it in Day of the Doctor
• 27:37
  and it was just Daleks and time laws, you know, fighting Star
• 27:41
  Wars style battles. It's like, whoa, is that it?
• 27:45
  Or or or, you know, an audio where they're all like rookie
• 27:49
  recruits doing like, do you? Know what?
• 27:57
  I listened to that and I gave up.
• 27:59
  After a whole year of Big Finish, I thought, you know,
• 28:03
  enraged you. And yet Russell did it all with,
• 28:06
  you know, the what is it? The army of has beens and never
• 28:08
  were things like that, but they're all coming back this
• 28:12
  year. Oh, thank God, be lovely.
• 28:16
  Oh, I did love this as well. I liked how you remember how he
• 28:19
  put the shroud over the old man so she.
• 28:21
  Yeah, before Ace could take too much of A look.
• 28:23
  Yeah, it's nice. I like how protective he is of
• 28:27
  her without being sort of patronisingly protective of her.
• 28:31
  He's just like recognising that there are certain things that he
• 28:35
  doesn't really want to like expose her to too much.
• 28:39
  Matt. What means young fellow?
• 28:41
  One speaks into his hand. Why so upset, my lady?
• 28:47
  Because fool they will protect the nemesis.
• 28:52
  When she sees the Doctor, she goes, oh, glorious evil.
• 28:56
  It is he without the arrow. It is nothing.
• 29:05
  There are so useless. Richet you.
• 29:07
  Annoyed the time of the rally for the podcast.
• 29:10
  And we've got more game. I mean, Helen, I they are the
• 29:13
  some of the best female villains in this area.
• 29:15
  Yeah, there's more female villains in McCoy than they
• 29:18
  probably are in the whole of the rest of the show put together.
• 29:21
  Williams Williams did quite well, didn't he?
• 29:23
  Female he did. Lady addressed.
• 29:25
  Yes, and. So, Sarah of Dick Ploss.
• 29:28
  Sarah of Dick Ploss. And the nurse sausage
• 29:30
  sandwiches? Handler Queen's Anxia?
• 29:33
  Was there one in series 15? I can't remember.
• 29:36
  Well, I suppose they're ransom if you want, yeah.
• 29:42
  And Madame Lamia, I suppose as well, is a bit villainous, isn't
• 29:45
  she? Oh yes, I love Madame Lamia.
• 29:48
  And in fact, I love, I think, I think it's a female villain I
• 29:50
  don't like, you know, Countess Scalia the oh.
• 29:53
  The Rani and Mark of the Rani as well, although she's a
• 29:56
  completely different character at the time in the Rani Captain
• 29:59
  Rack. Well, this is a good example of
• 30:01
  the terrible direction I was talking about.
• 30:03
  There's just a few pipes that come out of the soil.
• 30:06
  I don't, I've never what are those pipes?
• 30:08
  Are they part of the Nemesis or are they Cyberman things?
• 30:11
  I don't. It's.
• 30:11
  Never explained, No. I kind of assumed it was like a
• 30:15
  Cyberman thing to try and do you know, by the way, that this was
• 30:18
  all all of the place where this was filmed is where the
• 30:21
  Millennium Dome now is. It's all on that Greenwich
• 30:24
  Peninsula bit. It's.
• 30:25
  A great location though, isn't it?
• 30:27
  It is. Oh, this music.
• 30:29
  Now it's pure Kev, the stock footage of Windsor.
• 30:37
  And we're about to see Fiona coming.
• 30:38
  And Nicholas Colby. Oh dear, about your eyes if
• 30:44
  you're ever nervous discussion. Excuse me, You're always
• 30:46
  guaranteed that with this, you know, I'm going to try and say,
• 30:50
  oh, there's Nicholas Courtney. He's got that, yeah.
• 30:53
  That looks like McCoy in the light blue jacket behind him.
• 30:56
  It clearly isn't, but. He's just come out the top of
• 30:59
  this. I do, I do love them going back
• 31:03
  around in the TARDIS in this as well.
• 31:04
  Just pop into different places because it's very City of death
• 31:07
  that as well like and. Like you said, it's very
• 31:09
  Moffett. He's got total control and he's
• 31:11
  zipping here, there and everywhere.
• 31:15
  So we're watching the original version because I unfortunately
• 31:18
  don't have the special edition, unlike Matt.
• 31:22
  But I know there are some wonderful scenes coming up in a
• 31:24
  minute where it's like talking to the armed policemen, you
• 31:28
  know, the Queen's protectors. Yeah, there's some.
• 31:34
  I think there's quite a few extended bits in there.
• 31:37
  Oh, I trade this all the time. That that's if you own the
• 31:39
  place. Oh, we own the place.
• 31:45
  Oh, this is so laboured though, when he was like, why didn't you
• 31:48
  tell me her, her her pulling him off with the umbrella?
• 31:54
  Yeah, the first time she's pulled him off with it.
• 31:58
  Not the last, What did you say? She's just all we need.
• 32:04
  Quick after her. See.
• 32:10
  Like, automatically. This is far more enjoyable than
• 32:13
  downtime ever was, isn't it? It is 100% apparently.
• 32:17
  Apparently JNT asked Prince Edward if he would do.
• 32:21
  Did he say yes? No, apparently, apparently
• 32:25
  because he was working for Andrew Lloyd Webber at that
• 32:27
  time, he wasn't able to commit to do it.
• 32:29
  But Can you imagine? Would anyone have known who
• 32:31
  Prince Edward was if it turned up it?
• 32:34
  Would now they would Prince Andrew Dogs be running away
• 32:41
  from? Why fast, Matt?
• 32:43
  I shall have my revenge on that predictable little man.
• 32:49
  I would. I'm amazed that Big Finish I've
• 32:52
  never done, like, I don't know what they'd call it.
• 32:56
  Nemesis. Not silver, just Nemesis.
• 32:59
  I'm surprised they've never done like the first meeting of Lady
• 33:02
  Paine for and, I don't know, probably Tim Trillor or
• 33:06
  something. Well, no.
• 33:07
  What they could have done was like a box set of all these
• 33:10
  other scene adventures. So the Doctor as Merlin from
• 33:13
  Battlefield, the Doctor playing chess with Fenrick was meeting
• 33:18
  with Lady Paine. For all of this, you know not to
• 33:22
  Playing chess with Fenrick might not be the most exciting audio.
• 33:26
  Knight to Kings Knight 7. Did you not listen to gods and
• 33:29
  monsters when they brought Fenrick back?
• 33:31
  That weren't too interesting either.
• 33:34
  God. Yeah, poor Hex.
• 33:37
  And then they killed him off about four more times in the
• 33:39
  next 3. Audiences see that picture
• 33:41
  online of him naked in the shower of the water or running
• 33:43
  down his bum. I'll be Googling it afterwards.
• 33:48
  It's absolutely gorgeous, you know, I'm trying to convince my
• 33:51
  Rob to put it in the video finished big every time I
• 33:53
  mention him, but he won't do it, so that'll ultimately I wonder
• 33:58
  where you're going with what you're trying to persuade you at
• 33:59
  the. Heart.
• 34:02
  We'll talk I quite I quite like like the Flores in his little,
• 34:09
  like, is it Carl. His little buddy like Carl
• 34:14
  obviously thinks he's utterly blooming nuts, but he's
• 34:18
  presumably getting well paid for this.
• 34:20
  So it's just like, right? Well, I'm going to allow it
• 34:22
  because I'm getting paid, but. When I was younger I could not
• 34:26
  understand how those rocks fell off that that meteor like that.
• 34:30
  I realise now they've just been pulled with a bit of string.
• 34:35
  It was magic to me. Magic of television.
• 34:38
  Go whooshing, it's the TARDIS. At the end of episode one, Lily.
• 34:44
  Oh God, I can't believe it. And loads of plumbing stuff has
• 34:47
  happened. It's absolutely packed with
• 34:49
  stuff. It's not a slow episode, is it?
• 34:52
  I'm afraid we won't harm you. Says to like the heavily armed
• 34:55
  as he waves his Brawley about. We'll see many signs and runs.
• 35:01
  As in the dares to come. Fortunately, I haven't seen it
• 35:04
  since 1638, when it disappeared with along with the good Lady
• 35:07
  Painful Punish. Can you explain something to me
• 35:14
  this bit in a minute where she goes, they saved my life.
• 35:17
  How did they save my life? Is it because they were going to
• 35:24
  shoot her and they they provided A distraction?
• 35:27
  But I think that's a very different thing.
• 35:29
  Yeah, it must be right. More exposition about like the
• 35:34
  statue has to have all three bits of it put together to have
• 35:37
  a critical mass. But we're putting together the
• 35:39
  mystery of it, aren't we? All the details are there.
• 35:42
  So when it happens, we kind of know it all we we do.
• 35:45
  And I think it's not that difficult to grasp, is it either
• 35:49
  you basically you need all three bits and it's done.
• 35:52
  It's like, I don't know. And what?
• 35:55
  And the fun of it, I think the fun of it is obviously bringing
• 35:59
  it all together, but like people have different bits at different
• 36:02
  time and they sort of swap bits out, don't they, with people so.
• 36:07
  Nobody ever has all three bits until he does that wonderful
• 36:10
  bit. We're like checkmate, illegal
• 36:12
  move. That's what dances.
• 36:17
  Possibly the the deer of the Cybermen, but a very fun moment.
• 36:21
  Or the same. Oh, there it is.
• 36:27
  Oh, this is Top KEF music as well, isn't it?
• 36:29
  It's like, I love that, like ship landing.
• 36:37
  That's awesome. Here they come.
• 36:40
  That looks good. And so we had a comment on
• 36:42
  Twitter where someone said he loves them coming out crisscross
• 36:44
  like this. Well, see, it kind of feels like
• 36:46
  an army coming out. It does, Yeah.
• 36:50
  There they are. It's like star.
• 36:52
  Wars gets that line reading. Perfect Cybermen.
• 36:58
  Wow. Absolutely delightful.
• 37:01
  I mean, if you have to pick one your your favorite joy of that
• 37:04
  episode, what would it be? It would have to be Lady
• 37:07
  Painfoot arriving in the. Cafe or my bit was going to be
• 37:11
  Lady Painfoot shoving the chair through the window, going fine
• 37:18
  or basically all the Lady Painfoot bits.
• 37:20
  I love the bit where she he's annoyed with the like, the
• 37:23
  little astrology guy and shoves a bit of paper right in his
• 37:26
  face. Perhaps the fee will speed
• 37:29
  matters. He's witching on about a flying
• 37:32
  machine and she, like, rolls her eyes and shoves a bit of paper
• 37:35
  right in his face. I love him.
• 37:37
  I wish he didn't die. She's like when he's like, Oh
• 37:40
  yes, it's just when, yeah, Japan's got his hands up there.
• 37:46
  And to out episode one, I'm going to do something extremely
• 37:49
  cruel to you now. Oh God.
• 37:51
  Oh, I've heard you like this sort of thing.
• 37:55
  I'm going to ask you to rank the female illnesses.
• 37:59
  Oh, rank rank. Rank the female villainesses of
• 38:02
  the Sylvester McCoy era. You ready?
• 38:04
  The Ronnie LA lady. Painful and more game.
• 38:15
  It's tough, isn't it? It is hard.
• 38:18
  I I would probably go for I'd go I think painful would be top and
• 38:26
  I think probably more game bottom I think I think it's a
• 38:29
  really good I think they're all great but she's would it.
• 38:35
  I think more, I think more game last because I love all the sort
• 38:39
  of handmaidens in here. I love that bit.
• 38:44
  But broadly it's they are not the savages you led us to
• 38:50
  believe or whatever goes. Today, you know, she's not quite
• 38:55
  as camp as the other three and it's a little bit more of a
• 38:59
  serious performance then I'd probably go, oh, it's hard now,
• 39:04
  probably Helen A, but she's just wonderful, not the very top, I
• 39:11
  hope. That final confrontation she has
• 39:16
  with McCoy, I think one of the best scenes of the era where
• 39:19
  there was no punch. What is it?
• 39:21
  He says. Well, there was no compassion
• 39:22
  where there's control. Oh, God, no.
• 39:25
  You, you, you. I'm going to flip because you've
• 39:28
  just convinced me that she's better than the Rani.
• 39:31
  I think probably a lot. I love Kate Amara.
• 39:34
  I love the Rani. Just wonderful camp villainy.
• 39:40
  Oh, and then Helena. And Painful is very hard to very
• 39:43
  hard to pick between them. I I I do think probably Helena
• 39:47
  is a better written character and a more thoughtful
• 39:56
  performance. But I just like Lady Painful,
• 39:59
  especially as she goes nuts as the episodes go on and starts to
• 40:03
  lose her grip on reality. I think it has to be her.
• 40:07
  She's brilliant. Do you know what?
• 40:09
  If you'd have thrown that question to me, I would refuse
• 40:11
  to answer. Because if I had to choose
• 40:13
  between yes, Doctor Cumming and I'm going to do everyone here.
• 40:20
  Hang on, I always thought love was overrated and destiny
• 40:30
  beckons. We ride the back of time and oh,
• 40:35
  what's the best small game lane? Oh, I must get the tab.
• 40:40
  I'm not sure I could have chosen.
• 40:42
  Oh God, I should I should I should throw it back at you now
• 40:45
  and say, well, you've now got to pick between the Rezi's Patricia
• 40:50
  Queen in Dragon Fire, Mrs. Pritchard in Ghost Light, and
• 40:59
  and who else is a female sort of sub villain?
• 41:05
  Oh, and. What's the face, Cara In
• 41:10
  survival, Lisa Powerman. I automatically might have to
• 41:14
  put her first. I'll put Mrs. Pritchard down the
• 41:18
  bottom, even though I think Sylvia Simmons is incredible.
• 41:21
  But Resy's has got to be somewhere near the top, because
• 41:24
  they're all terrible actresses, but they're camp as hell, You
• 41:26
  know? Fire escape.
• 41:29
  He wants to. How you do.
• 41:30
  It's terrible. What was the other one?
• 41:37
  Who else did you choose? And Patricia Quinn, I can never
• 41:43
  remember. Oh, the lashes at the torch.
• 41:46
  Yeah, that's what I sold myself for.
• 41:48
  Kane's mark. I ought to cut my hand off for
• 41:51
  doing it. She's great.
• 41:54
  She's brilliant. I think the conclusion we're
• 41:57
  drawing here is that there was just so many brilliant women in
• 42:01
  this era. Plus it's it's, yeah, it's
• 42:05
  fantastic. I just think there's so many
• 42:09
  brilliant things about this era. It's just so fun, isn't it?
• 42:12
  It's just so damn fun. Well, shall we skip along into
• 42:16
  episode 2 to see one of these amazing women in action?
• 42:20
  Let's see one of these amazing women in action while she
• 42:23
  battles silver giants, Nazis, British police force, and.
• 42:32
  A bad case of llama panic. God, you know what?
• 42:37
  I used to see men doing all those things in a very different
• 42:40
  type of video, but we'll watch Silver Nemesis instead.