Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Si Hart about my choice of The Twin Dilemma (2/4)

Transcript

Talks to Si Hart about my choice of The Twin Dilemma (2/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None a. Hamster with a blunt penknife
• 0:35
  for doing. Quicker, quicker.
• 0:39
  Quicker Do a hamster, A hamster. A hamster with a blunt penknife.
• 0:45
  The Doctor Who Commentary podcast where we are discussing
• 0:48
  The Twin Dilemma, Episode 2. Oh, fend for yourselves.
• 0:55
  I'm off. Well, finally a solo commentary.
• 1:01
  I could just put all my opinions out.
• 1:05
  They'll be the smartest of the two of us, so I think that's
• 1:07
  probably the best, you know not. True.
• 1:09
  And do I confess a love of something to you?
• 1:14
  You've confessed many loves to me, Joe.
• 1:17
  I did. In fact, I confessed my love for
• 1:19
  my lover for you a long time ago.
• 1:25
  Seen me for some time, Simon Hart.
• 1:28
  Highs and lows like Doctor Who, Many highs though, you know it's
• 1:34
  been. A Yes, many, many number of
• 1:36
  phenomenal orgasms. You know, I think I've told you
• 1:38
  about those as well as oh, sorry, I forget we're being
• 1:43
  recorded and now going live. I love Bee Movies.
• 1:50
  I was brought. You've said this before, yeah.
• 1:52
  I was brought up in my childhood on a steady staple, so we
• 1:55
  couldn't really afford a lot. And my mother used to head down
• 1:58
  sort of the, you know, the equivalent of the pound shop.
• 2:00
  I can't remember what it was back then.
• 2:03
  It didn't have a name, but I can't remember.
• 2:04
  And she'd pick up these dreadful movies, The Brain, The nymphoid
• 2:08
  barbarian from Dinosaur Hell and all of this terrible low budget,
• 2:13
  melodramatic, insanely concepts. You know, like dreadful movies
• 2:18
  with awful acting. But I used to really laugh along
• 2:23
  with them and enjoy them and I don't know, I don't know, I'm
• 2:27
  scared. That's my love for classic Who
• 2:30
  may have come out of because you know, both B movies and Classic
• 2:35
  Doctor Who were made with pit Tim for and stick it back
• 2:37
  plastic with heightened performances.
• 2:42
  Yeah, and you know, being a fan of Doctor Who from such a young
• 2:48
  age is that means that you become completely enshrouded in
• 2:54
  in this kind of TV and this formative TV.
• 3:00
  For me, I mean, this was part of my life from from being four
• 3:05
  years old. So you're just part of this
• 3:06
  whole heightened world. And it's I I.
• 3:12
  As I said, I had very few critical faculties until I was
• 3:15
  was sort of 11 really. And noticing differences in in
• 3:22
  things, I I just loved all of Doctor Who, absolutely.
• 3:26
  And there weren't stories I didn't like.
• 3:28
  No, there were. No, no, no.
• 3:31
  There were until until I was until much sort of being a
• 3:36
  teenager, really, when I've sort of evaluated it.
• 3:39
  But as a child it was all brilliant.
• 3:42
  The whole lot. Well, I'm perfectly convinced
• 3:45
  that the Twin dilemma is the ultimate expression of B movie
• 3:51
  in Doctor. Yes, it has an insane idea at
• 3:54
  his heart of this ancient slug that wants to fire off his
• 4:00
  sluggy eggs all over the universe and take over all the
• 4:03
  planets to do that via the means of some insane Star Trek techno
• 4:09
  Babble involving planets. Yes, but it's like, it's so it's
• 4:17
  like AB movie but done Doctor Who style.
• 4:19
  So it's done on this sort of intergalactic scale, and in it
• 4:23
  you've got possibly the most theatrical performances you're
• 4:26
  ever going to see in Dogs, Who Are mad super villain in it as
• 4:31
  well, and some pretty shoddy production values.
• 4:37
  Yep, when I first watched this. You know the the Woolworths
• 4:42
  exclusive. Lucky old Woolworths, Twin
• 4:46
  Dilemma and the Aztecs. So I just belong.
• 4:48
  To How do you choose? I chose the Twin dilemma.
• 4:52
  You know, when I first watched this, I just had so much fun
• 4:56
  with it because I'm programmed to enjoy this stuff.
• 4:59
  Now. I'll get somebody that's brought
• 5:01
  up on the staple diet of modern day television, Star Trek,
• 5:05
  Strange, New World, something like that.
• 5:07
  I think go back and watch this and go for what is this tap?
• 5:11
  But I do think what you're influenced by when you're young,
• 5:17
  it does determine your aptitude for this sort of stuff.
• 5:20
  Oh. Absolutely.
• 5:21
  Watching it now, one, I've got the nostalgia for it because I
• 5:25
  watched it when I was young. But two, I I really like this
• 5:30
  cheesy genre. Yeah, and I think that's
• 5:34
  sometimes enough to get you through, isn't it?
• 5:37
  And again, that's often used as a way of criticizing the show is
• 5:44
  that particularly this story is very B movie and and things like
• 5:49
  that and it's that. That generation of fans in the
• 5:53
  80s who were just ultra critical of everything because they were
• 6:00
  not necessarily the target audience, but they loved the
• 6:02
  show. But it didn't live up to the
• 6:05
  memories that they had of Doctor Who when they were kids.
• 6:09
  And so at this point in Doctor Who history, the poet we years
• 6:13
  is the pinnacle of Doctor Who, because that generation of fans
• 6:18
  are now the ones who are. Leading the the opinions in
• 6:22
  fanzines and things like that and because perk we had been
• 6:26
  this very steadfast Dr. and the stories were all serious and it
• 6:29
  was the army and it was UNIT and it was great looking aliens then
• 6:35
  that was core Doctor Who to them.
• 6:38
  Move forward a couple more years and it's the fans who grew up
• 6:42
  with the Hinchcliffe years that are then charged a long time and
• 6:46
  that. Prevailed for forever and.
• 6:49
  Unfortunately, the fans like me who got to who would have been
• 6:54
  the next lot who came with the Williams era.
• 6:57
  It took a lot longer for our voices to be heard because those
• 7:02
  opinions by then were so ingrained as the gospel truth of
• 7:07
  Doctor Who that trying to sort of argue that Williams era who
• 7:12
  was good or JNT era Doctor Who was brilliant because.
• 7:17
  There's so much of it that is is brilliant.
• 7:19
  You can't wipe out a whole era and just say there's nothing of
• 7:24
  merit in the 80s at all. But there were people who did.
• 7:27
  I had my first boyfriend Dan, he said Doctor Who stopped with the
• 7:32
  horns of nine. One part 4 for him and Doctor
• 7:34
  Who was never Doctor Who. After that when JNT came in, I'm
• 7:38
  guessing he wrote Your more boyfriend for long men.
• 7:41
  Well, you know, but it's just that.
• 7:47
  Yeah, it's just those opinions were so prevalent everywhere.
• 7:52
  And those were the people that younger fans like, like me
• 7:56
  looked up to because I was reading them in DWM and in my
• 7:59
  first fanzines in the late 80s, you know, and so you get all of
• 8:04
  these opinions and they hated this.
• 8:07
  They absolutely moved this story and I don't think it necessarily
• 8:12
  deserves that. It's not the worst Doctor Who
• 8:16
  story ever, and once we get sort of the bulk of the regeneration
• 8:20
  crisis out of the way. Which I think we're we're mostly
• 8:23
  done by the end of this episode. Yeah.
• 8:25
  I think episodes three and four, you've got a sort of two-part.
• 8:30
  It is cheesy, but you've got a ranting villain.
• 8:34
  You've got a strong moral Dr. You've got jokes in there as
• 8:39
  well. You've got fun guest characters,
• 8:41
  you know. That's Snivelly Chamberlain's in
• 8:43
  there, you know, and it is having a lot of fun.
• 8:47
  And you know what? I love Colin Baker's era.
• 8:50
  I can see the floors in it. I don't think it has fun enough,
• 8:55
  you know, parts of time Lash, parts of Revelation and the
• 8:59
  dialect. Most of the time, though, is
• 9:01
  trying to be a bit adult, a bit graphic, a bit nasty.
• 9:05
  Yeah. And whereas this is dilemma,
• 9:07
  episode three and four are just not like that.
• 9:10
  At all are they no camp and glorious.
• 9:13
  No. And I know, I know how much
• 9:16
  Revelation of the Dialects is absolutely loved, but I I admire
• 9:21
  it hugely. But I don't love it.
• 9:24
  Because it's just too grotesque for me, and it was definitely
• 9:28
  too grotesque for me as a child. I was 9 when that was on and it
• 9:33
  was just just horrible. It really, really was.
• 9:37
  Was not designed for a 520 on a Saturday afternoon time slot and
• 9:46
  and it's full of grotesque people doing grotesque things in
• 9:49
  grotesque ways and there is no one.
• 9:53
  Likeable other than the DJ in the guest characters at all.
• 9:57
  And as a child I found that really off putting.
• 10:02
  If I've been a couple of years older, I've probably appreciated
• 10:05
  it more. And I do appreciate it more now.
• 10:08
  But it will never be my favorite of the era, because that opinion
• 10:12
  still clouds love it. I mean, I is.
• 10:14
  Not Yeah, I know as an adult where I could sort of
• 10:18
  appreciate, you know, the the, the dark stuff in in a different
• 10:24
  way. Can I before we go into two, can
• 10:26
  I just have one moment? Can I have a Todd Bilby moment?
• 10:29
  You can because I don't know if you just.
• 10:31
  Gone up to a 5.8 for you. Hello, Tom.
• 10:35
  Oh, it is. No, I think it's about a 7.9 for
• 10:38
  me if I want. Actually, I've probably not far
• 10:41
  off, you know, just up to relate.
• 10:43
  Yeah. OK.
• 10:46
  But you know I I had have an incredibly disappointing father
• 10:54
  and he is every it's you can imagine how racist or sexist.
• 10:59
  He's homophobic. He's a despicable human being.
• 11:04
  And that was my, until I was 11, in which person?
• 11:08
  That was my sort of role model of what men were like, OK?
• 11:13
  And then I can remember, because they almost sort of married him,
• 11:17
  chipping out of my life and Colin Baker's doctor chipping
• 11:20
  into my life, that trial of a title of box set coming out.
• 11:24
  And suddenly I I was sort of obsessed with this doctor, this
• 11:30
  sort of forward sticking up for the things he believed in.
• 11:33
  Not always nice, you know, Flawed.
• 11:37
  Very, very funny. And I remember when I first
• 11:41
  watched The Twin Dilemma and that bit where he walks in right
• 11:44
  at the end and we'll get there and he goes, you know, I'm not
• 11:48
  going to let you have your sluggy eggs all out, and neither
• 11:54
  will I allow you to destroy what was once a perfectly nice
• 11:57
  plaque. I just fucking loved him.
• 11:59
  He was everything my dad wasn't, you know.
• 12:02
  And I I know that's a ridiculous thing to say, but I do think we
• 12:05
  take role models from characters that we enjoyed when we were
• 12:11
  younger. Sometimes if you have a deficit
• 12:14
  of that in your real life, Colin, was that for me?
• 12:18
  I've and I think Tom was that for me, that was what I wanted
• 12:23
  to be in an adult. That's what I wanted an adult to
• 12:26
  be, because he wasn't like. I've said this many times on
• 12:29
  Hamster before, but he wasn't like any adult I knew, and I
• 12:33
  loved him for not acting like an adult.
• 12:36
  And I think I've based my whole adult life on not acting like an
• 12:41
  adult most of the time and just finding the fun in everything
• 12:44
  because of that. He was my earliest role model
• 12:47
  for that and he was very different to my dad, who and I
• 12:51
  think maybe I had. A bad reaction to Pertwee's
• 12:55
  doctor because of my dad was very controlling and very
• 12:59
  outspoken, and you knew exactly where you were with him and you
• 13:03
  had to follow his rules. And I think maybe some Pertwee's
• 13:08
  doctor reflected things in my dad that I didn't like.
• 13:11
  I get on very, very well with my dad these days, which is an
• 13:15
  unexpected delight. Sort of late in life.
• 13:19
  He's mellowed a huge amount, but.
• 13:22
  I I can absolutely see that. And I've spent my adult life
• 13:25
  reacting against my dad in similar ways.
• 13:28
  So I think, I think the point I'll I'm, I'm trying to make, I
• 13:34
  don't know if I'm making it well is Colin Baker's 6th doctor can
• 13:42
  hit. But I think he has to come at
• 13:44
  the right point in your life and the context is key.
• 13:49
  You know, no, no, no, Yeah, I can.
• 13:50
  I can completely see that. And for you, he came at that
• 13:55
  moment that you needed that kind of moral force.
• 13:59
  And the the unexpected joy for me has been it's not that I've
• 14:02
  reunited with my father, that's never going to happen.
• 14:05
  It's that I've met Colin Baker several Times Now, and it's
• 14:08
  turned out to be as glorious in real life as I'd imagine.
• 14:13
  And it gives me kisses and flirts outrageously with me.
• 14:15
  It's a lot of fun with me when he sees me, and it's just
• 14:18
  wonderful. Yeah, Sorry.
• 14:20
  Should we go and watch this big movie?
• 14:22
  I. Think we'd better watch this big
• 14:25
  episode one all over again. Oh yeah.
• 14:29
  I'll count as in then, Yeah. Yes, go on then in.
• 14:32
  I'll do it in my store 54321. Off we go, off we go.
• 14:45
  It was Hugo holding them up with the gun, the commentary.
• 14:51
  It's a standard Doctor Who episode ending on it.
• 14:54
  Lets him say the line, What is it?
• 14:56
  You destroyed my entire command. Now I'm going to kill you.
• 14:59
  And then Colin just goes, What with?
• 15:01
  That that prop, honestly. Well, how do you feel about
• 15:11
  coincidences then, Perry? Hiding the Power Pack in the the
• 15:15
  very part of the wardrobe, but Hugo like.
• 15:20
  I mean, that's just ridiculous, isn't it really?
• 15:27
  But then she's not expecting him to go and want to change his
• 15:30
  clothes or wake up while they're not there.
• 15:32
  So you know it is true. It is true.
• 15:37
  Oh, look at him. He's looking all sort of sooty
• 15:40
  and roughed up, isn't he? Dear, Oh dear.
• 15:45
  You need to distract me from Kevin Allen's sexiness, OK?
• 15:49
  Actually, you've met Kevin McNally recently.
• 15:51
  I have, yes, I met him. Tell us about it.
• 15:53
  Come. On oh God, he was brilliant.
• 15:55
  Absolutely brilliant. And what a raconteur.
• 15:58
  He's an actor with stories and he's happy to tell them.
• 16:02
  And he's one of the few actors of this generation that I have
• 16:05
  ever heard say. Making TV is better now, he
• 16:10
  said. I don't want to do all of that
• 16:12
  rehearsal stuff. I don't think it adds anything.
• 16:15
  I think you can, if you're a good enough actor, you can
• 16:17
  absolutely get your performance working with the director and
• 16:21
  the other actors on the day. And he said I much prefer it
• 16:25
  now, which is no one ever says that everyone talks about all
• 16:29
  the acts and Hilton going up in the lift with Morecambe and Wise
• 16:32
  having your lunch with all the other actors.
• 16:34
  He he appreciates that, obviously, but he much prefers.
• 16:37
  Making TV Now that. And you know, let's just have a
• 16:42
  moment for Eustacious Jericho from The Flash and.
• 16:45
  Fucking Lutely. One of our best things in modern
• 16:48
  Doctor Who. Yeah, and I think he had a
• 16:51
  brilliant story about that where he says I was contracted for one
• 16:53
  episode, he said. And then?
• 16:55
  They really liked me, so they wrote me into the rest, into
• 16:58
  another one, and then I got a script for another one because I
• 17:00
  was just going to carry on. And he said this could just go
• 17:03
  on forever, couldn't it? He said I could just be here.
• 17:05
  What did he have to say about this thing?
• 17:07
  Because I've got some quotes from him from the commentary,
• 17:09
  but what's he got to say now? He he remembers it really,
• 17:13
  really fondly. And he started off by saying,
• 17:16
  look, he said, I know he said you can still say it.
• 17:20
  I was in the worst Doctor Who story ever, he said.
• 17:23
  But I had the. Best time, he said.
• 17:25
  I was a huge fan of Doctor Who. He'd watched from episode one.
• 17:30
  He loved Doctor Who. He's a big sci-fi man.
• 17:32
  He writes sci-fi novels and all sorts, which I didn't know and
• 17:37
  and he just said I was so excited to be in Doctor Who and
• 17:40
  walking out of the TARDIS and all of that, he said.
• 17:42
  I don't care what you think, he said.
• 17:44
  I'm very proud of this. You know what the another What
• 17:49
  if is what if Hugo had stayed on?
• 17:52
  Because I don't. That banter between the 6th
• 17:54
  Doctor and Perry would have been quite so alarming if you'd had a
• 17:58
  man between them saying, oh, a doctor you.
• 18:01
  Siding with Perry? Yeah, I'm.
• 18:04
  Not always necessarily siding with Perry, but that freeway
• 18:08
  thing could have been interesting.
• 18:09
  If Turner had stayed on. That might have been an
• 18:12
  interesting dynamic, but weirdly enough, oh, you ain't going to
• 18:16
  like this. I think McNally shows more
• 18:19
  potential. I think he's a better actor than
• 18:21
  Mark Strickson. Oh, absolutely.
• 18:22
  No, no, no, no. That's beyond dispute.
• 18:25
  He's still acting now. He's getting major roles in
• 18:29
  Abbey, you know, he's been in everything.
• 18:31
  I looked at his IBM. The Caribbean.
• 18:34
  He was in all of those films and the fact that an actor of that
• 18:38
  sort of prestige can still say the twin dilemma are the best
• 18:41
  time, you know, Yeah, I believe he may have bitten Nicola
• 18:46
  Brandt's bottom as well at one point.
• 18:49
  Yes, him and Colin. Let's just say we don't approve
• 18:52
  of this. Yeah, we don't approve of this
• 18:54
  behaviour. No, no, definitely not.
• 18:57
  And it but Colin acknowledges this on the commentary and says
• 19:02
  this was what it was like at the time and you could get away with
• 19:06
  doing these things and he said and you didn't as a man stop to
• 19:11
  think of the effects this might have had.
• 19:14
  On a much younger woman, Yeah. And Nicholas says, very
• 19:18
  cheekily. God, it should have happened
• 19:20
  now. You know, I could have had a
• 19:21
  lawsuit against you, you know, like a bin.
• 19:25
  But again, it's where's where's the duty of care?
• 19:29
  Why was JNT not there calling this out?
• 19:33
  What I I rather think if he is coming on and and you know
• 19:38
  having the costume design of tear off bits of her clothing
• 19:40
  exactly. I don't think that was much of A
• 19:42
  consideration. It no there there was some
• 19:44
  troubling things happening behind the scenes here.
• 19:47
  Yes, exactly. I'm not just creatively, you
• 19:50
  know, like politically as well. Yeah, and it's.
• 19:56
  Again, it's what happened at that time.
• 19:59
  I've spoken to to older women who come and volunteer for me
• 20:03
  and they were saying about the office culture at the time where
• 20:06
  you were just warned that don't be in an enclosed space with
• 20:11
  with this particular person in the office.
• 20:15
  Whereas she said hang on, you're making it my fault if I do this
• 20:22
  rather than the man who is actually doing this and she
• 20:25
  said. She said she's in her 70s now
• 20:28
  and she said I never thought at the time of looking at it from
• 20:32
  the other point of view it was just, well, you.
• 20:35
  Yeah, this isn't your, this is just what he's like.
• 20:37
  No one called the man out for doing this.
• 20:40
  It was the woman's fault for leading him on, or wearing a
• 20:42
  short skirt or being in the stationary cupboard.
• 20:46
  And, you know, I don't know, Bottom pinched.
• 20:48
  Probe too deep because obviously like Jimmy Savile was about at
• 20:51
  this point. There was a lot of we know this
• 20:54
  is going on and we ain't going to rock the boat in the BBC at
• 20:57
  this point, which is very worrying.
• 21:00
  So let's be very pleased that hopefully none of that is
• 21:04
  occurring now. I think there was much of that
• 21:07
  in Doctor Who really was there. Colin and Kevin McNally are
• 21:10
  clearly two of the most amiable blokes you're ever going to meet
• 21:13
  and in no way, you know, sexually perverted or anything
• 21:17
  like that, so. This is just a prank that
• 21:20
  they're pulling. It's a tasteless and I'll fought
• 21:23
  through prank, but if if people as gentle and as lovely as them
• 21:29
  can think, well, you know what, it's a joke, We can get away
• 21:31
  with it. Somebody with less morals, I'll
• 21:36
  leave it there, yeah. And Colin has apologised and
• 21:41
  Kevin McNally apologised because they realised it was out of
• 21:45
  order. So that's.
• 21:48
  I know that doesn't necessarily make the action right, but it
• 21:50
  puts the situation right. And the truth is, is I'm not
• 21:54
  sure what the dynamic is, whether it's sort of father,
• 21:57
  daughter or brother sister. Colin and Nicola are
• 22:01
  extraordinarily close after. Yeah, I always get the feeling
• 22:06
  it's like a brother, sister relationship where there's a bit
• 22:08
  of backwards and forwards between them, but they
• 22:11
  ultimately love each other to bits.
• 22:14
  Can I? Sorry, I'm going to bring us
• 22:15
  back into the story for a second.
• 22:16
  Well, good. Mostly we've been it's just been
• 22:19
  the two of them talking in the TARDIS again.
• 22:20
  So there's no no real plot until now, when we see a bumper bump.
• 22:26
  I have to say, for a story that is derided for its production
• 22:33
  values, the model work is beautiful in this story.
• 22:37
  It's really top quality. Spaceship effects later on,
• 22:40
  Yeah. I wouldn't be out of place in a
• 22:42
  Star Wars movie. I know and I think that shot of
• 22:44
  Titan 3 is that's Red Dwarf style effects, that's what they
• 22:52
  would be doing years later and so the BBC obviously can do this
• 22:58
  stuff when they've got the money and the the inclination to do
• 23:03
  it. During the sequence we've just
• 23:05
  had, you've got Colin deducing a ton of plot points that he
• 23:10
  probably shouldn't know about, but he needs to know about in
• 23:12
  order, basically. Kevin McNally said one line and
• 23:15
  he's deduced the entire plot. Oh, ducking children, right?
• 23:19
  OK, we're going to go and find them against their will and all
• 23:23
  of this. But it said on the thing that
• 23:26
  that the brief for his doctor was he was supposed to be sort
• 23:29
  of Sherlock Holmes esque and be able to deduce a lot.
• 23:33
  And actually that's very well scripted, That scene, I think,
• 23:36
  and he delivers it brilliantly as well.
• 23:38
  One of the great things about Colin as the Doctor is he used
• 23:40
  to be a lawyer so he can get, so he's good at that stuff.
• 23:43
  Now around the most tongue twisted, I mean big finisher,
• 23:47
  taking advantage of that many a time.
• 23:50
  And then he can deliver sort of the exposition, the tecna
• 23:53
  Babble, all the tongue twisters as if he's, you know, reeling
• 23:57
  off a shopping list. So yeah, it's it's.
• 23:59
  Very, very close. Well, I think we've sort of
• 24:01
  pushing away from post regeneration now with the odd
• 24:04
  wobble and we are pushing into the plot.
• 24:08
  Yeah, but the book is interesting because the book
• 24:12
  portrays that as the Doctor thinking he actually is Sherlock
• 24:15
  Holmes and plays into that. The book is like the book is
• 24:19
  fascinatingly flawed and. I think it's really funny.
• 24:24
  I think that might be the best thing to say with wrote.
• 24:27
  You know, I think, yeah, I think it possibly is.
• 24:29
  It's, it's it's very. Very He's no fucking Douglas
• 24:34
  Adams. And he's no, But he's trying to
• 24:37
  think. About Johnny Morris doing
• 24:39
  Douglas. Adams and I'd say Johnny Morris
• 24:41
  is like a hair away. Yeah, Eric's award bouncing
• 24:45
  away. Well, exactly, But it does show
• 24:49
  that Eric Saywood has a sense of humour.
• 24:52
  But you wouldn't necessarily expect?
• 24:56
  Oh, really? It is.
• 24:56
  It is a bit on the edge, isn't it?
• 24:58
  Let's talk about alcohol and sex.
• 25:01
  And that's a yeah. I mean, we get the scene shortly
• 25:04
  that's coming up when the doctor meets Edgeworth stroke asmale,
• 25:07
  who we will talk about I promise when we get there.
• 25:11
  But they talk about drinking the night away and getting really,
• 25:16
  really pissed and falling in the fountains and stuff.
• 25:19
  And the doctor at the start of slip Back is has a hangover from
• 25:23
  drinking too much froxnik. That's right.
• 25:25
  Oh, see, it's very what What the same with thinking.
• 25:32
  I don't think he ever was. That was the problem, I think
• 25:34
  that's it, yeah. Oh, now can we finally take an
• 25:37
  opportunity to talk about Gavin and who is it Gavin and Sum
• 25:42
  Andrew. Gavin and Andrew Conrad as the
• 25:45
  Sylvester twins. Well, what I will say is they've
• 25:51
  got very 1984 hair. I know.
• 25:54
  It's. They're sort of like it's the
• 25:55
  Adric, isn't it? Yeah.
• 25:57
  Everyone at school had that hair.
• 25:59
  I never had that hair because my head doesn't grow like that.
• 26:02
  So I would. Say my mum had put a pudding bow
• 26:04
  on my head and cut around it. Yeah, I very rarely had had hair
• 26:08
  like that, thank goodness. But yeah, they're they're very
• 26:11
  children of 198384. It's an impossible brief, isn't
• 26:21
  it? To get twins who can act and
• 26:25
  both of them can act, and where possible, identical twins.
• 26:29
  I the chances of finding any of that is is really.
• 26:35
  Apparently there was a pair of girls that were really good
• 26:37
  actors. Yeah, but J&T said no.
• 26:40
  He wanted Boys J&T. There were some very troubling
• 26:45
  things going on. Be honest, he talks over the
• 26:47
  time. Do you know what though I'm
• 26:50
  going to say? Because I do think, what were
• 26:53
  they thinking? Because, you know, we've been
• 26:54
  here with Adric, maths, genius, pudding, bowl haircuts and all.
• 26:59
  Why do we think it would be more palatable here?
• 27:02
  I think they're are they supposed to be a bit scary?
• 27:05
  Like the book portrays them as being very sinister?
• 27:09
  I think so. I think particularly the first
• 27:12
  scene and when they're doing the equations, it's supposed to be
• 27:15
  be really odd that they're they're completely in sympathy
• 27:20
  with each other and know what the other one's going to do and
• 27:23
  can counteract it and all of that.
• 27:25
  But because the acting level is slightly lower than it might be,
• 27:30
  I'm just going to be nice because why?
• 27:33
  Why not be? That's what your trial is
• 27:37
  basically, Yeah, there they are. They're not up to it.
• 27:42
  And so they just come across as a.
• 27:44
  Bit lost? Yeah, basically.
• 27:47
  And you can see Maurice Denham is doing everything he can to
• 27:51
  keep get them together and is looking after them and and is
• 27:55
  willing them to get through each scene.
• 27:58
  I won't recently said or that happens to commentary right.
• 28:00
  The thing of the great thing about Doctor Who is is you get
• 28:03
  like fresh talent, the young talent where they can't act at
• 28:07
  all and then these these old school actors that are
• 28:10
  absolutely perfectly. And you bring them together, and
• 28:13
  I don't think there's a better example of it than here.
• 28:16
  Because the weight that he's pulling and he's, yeah, he is
• 28:20
  keeping this together by a thread a lot of the time.
• 28:25
  He's just turned into a cardboard cut out with lights.
• 28:28
  Yes, he's being revitalized. Oh, I could do with that, you
• 28:31
  know. Do you know what?
• 28:36
  Right. You know, do you ever feel like
• 28:39
  when you do these hamster commentaries, you you don't know
• 28:41
  who you are, where you are, but you're a prisoner.
• 28:47
  I'm just checking my no, no, no. Green on my wrists.
• 28:49
  We're fine. Not restrained.
• 28:52
  Oh, now, do you know the bit we just had a minute a minute ago
• 28:54
  when they're in the ducting? Although, may I say again, the
• 28:58
  ducting is enormous, Well, of course.
• 29:03
  They they did that reversal. Where you've got the doctor
• 29:06
  going. Come on, Perry, let's go.
• 29:07
  You know, And she's going, oh, you sure we should.
• 29:10
  And then he, you know, there could be terrible danger.
• 29:12
  And then she goes, oh, he goes, oh, danger, no, let's go.
• 29:14
  And then she's going, Wait, but you think we should?
• 29:17
  I think they play that really well.
• 29:19
  Yeah, they do. The trouble is, is that he's on
• 29:22
  his knees going, oh, spare me, you know, Yeah.
• 29:26
  And then he's hamming it up a bit too much, yeah.
• 29:31
  OK, I'm going to ask you then about the doctor asmale
• 29:34
  relationship, and OK, you find it.
• 29:36
  That's gorgeous. It is and that's it.
• 29:39
  That's what this story need. And this is exactly right, This
• 29:43
  is. And maybe if they played this up
• 29:46
  a bit more that the Doctor being unsure about being the Doctor
• 29:54
  and being himself, to meet one of his oldest friends at this
• 29:58
  point and him, his friend help him through it would be a
• 30:03
  wonderful, could have been a really great thing to hook the
• 30:08
  story around that Doctors meeting one of his oldest
• 30:10
  friends, who's known him on Gallifrey, who's known him in
• 30:13
  multiple regenerations and he can help him through it and we
• 30:16
  get little bits of that, but not not a lot.
• 30:19
  I'm a bit of a cliche of the era, old people from his life
• 30:22
  that we've never met before turning up, but here, and
• 30:26
  because the acting is so good between them, I'm completely
• 30:29
  sold. The way he hugs, he hugs him,
• 30:32
  you know. Did you hear the joke?
• 30:35
  Then? Did you hear the joke?
• 30:36
  He goes, and who's this? And he goes, oh, a pretty one
• 30:41
  about Perry and the Doctor goes, a most devout young person.
• 30:46
  You can stop those ugly ideas you are.
• 30:49
  And there is a lovely moment for Colin in a moment where where as
• 30:55
  as Mel says, I must concede you have to be the doctor.
• 30:58
  And the doctor says, Good, I said.
• 31:00
  For you had me worried, almost had me worried for a moment
• 31:03
  there. There, I know we've already said
• 31:05
  they've made so many I'll judged decisions in this.
• 31:08
  There's some great lines in this, yeah.
• 31:10
  And again, it's Anthony. Stephen was a very, very well
• 31:17
  respected TV writer. He'd written All Creatures,
• 31:21
  creating small and all sorts of things.
• 31:23
  But what Doctor Who hadn't taken into account was he was a good
• 31:30
  adapter of other people's work so he could adapt from a book.
• 31:34
  Brilliantly, because the source material is there.
• 31:37
  But they say that his coming up with an original idea was a real
• 31:43
  struggle for him. So they're asking someone who's
• 31:45
  really respected in TV terms to write a story for a new Doctor.
• 31:49
  Which is, And that's a good move.
• 31:52
  Yeah, absolutely. But you know, getting someone
• 31:56
  who is brand new to Doctor Who to write the first story of a
• 32:00
  new Doctor might not be that's. A bad move.
• 32:05
  That's a bad move. So it's it's again, it's it's
• 32:11
  this problem that the ERA has that it hasn't got the writers
• 32:17
  that in the show needs you haven't got.
• 32:20
  And again, I've said, I've said this before and I'm going to say
• 32:22
  again, you haven't got your Bob Baker's or your David Fishers or
• 32:27
  your Terence Dix's or your Robert Holmes who could just
• 32:30
  write a script that you wouldn't have to worry about.
• 32:34
  And you know you're going to get something that is at the very
• 32:38
  least competent that you're not going to have to do a lot of
• 32:40
  work on, and then have those writers so that you can nurture
• 32:45
  the other talent who needs a bit more help.
• 32:47
  But because JMT is so insecure about people knowing more about
• 32:51
  Doctor Who than him, we're in this constant battle of getting
• 32:55
  new people into the show who can't write Doctor Who.
• 32:59
  But that can be controlled. Oh, absolutely that people.
• 33:03
  That that you can sort of maintain.
• 33:06
  Their theory is that need for control here is yeah, and angry.
• 33:10
  Carmel absolutely was on that because the majority.
• 33:14
  And after Pipp and Jane Baker, everyone is new or returning in
• 33:19
  that era and he works with them so sympathetically.
• 33:26
  And I know they've got a bit more time because they're making
• 33:28
  fewer episodes, but it can be done.
• 33:31
  What's interesting was, can't they all come so long?
• 33:33
  J&T relaxes, yeah, and I think maybe that's the thing.
• 33:37
  Whereas. Basically, he says just write
• 33:39
  it, you know? And he tells Carson he's got an
• 33:41
  opinion, but he's he's not feeling like he has got to be
• 33:45
  overall just in charge of the element of this thing.
• 33:50
  Whereas you hear all these stories around this time of
• 33:54
  scripts coming in and JNT just saying, don't like that.
• 33:57
  Yeah, get rid of it. Or a reason or this is great,
• 34:03
  but put Omega in it. I think we should have them
• 34:07
  after. Shopping list or something and
• 34:09
  so and. I don't think all those
• 34:12
  decisions were I'll judged. I think some of the decisions he
• 34:15
  made, like creatively forced the writers to be creative.
• 34:20
  Yeah, well, absolutely. And it's again not saying that
• 34:23
  there aren't great stories throughout the Seywood era, but
• 34:27
  sometimes the things that that get through that aren't are the
• 34:33
  ones that you wouldn't expect to work so well.
• 34:35
  So your enlightenments or your kinder or something like that
• 34:40
  work in spite of all of this? There are for them.
• 34:44
  I know it's a bit inconsistent, but there are some shockingly
• 34:47
  good big finished lost stories for the 5th Doctor.
• 34:50
  Absolutely, yeah. There are some shockingly bad
• 34:53
  ones as well. The.
• 34:54
  Bad ones are the ones that were greenlit on the House exactly.
• 34:58
  The good ones are the ones that. Were never because of Leviathan,
• 35:02
  point of entry. Point of entry is is fabulous.
• 35:07
  Asantarum. The Elite, The Elite.
• 35:09
  Yeah, you know, so, so all these were so these ideas were all
• 35:13
  here. And I can imagine him just
• 35:14
  reading something like the Elite and going, no, I don't like it.
• 35:16
  Get rid of that one, yeah? And yet you end up with
• 35:20
  something like that. Just rehashes the past and what
• 35:25
  happens? That here is is you get a.
• 35:29
  Eric's Ward hastily rewriting because these scripts don't go.
• 35:33
  McNally makes a joke of it in the commentary.
• 35:35
  He goes. Didn't Anthony Stevens say at
• 35:36
  one point his typewriter blew up?
• 35:41
  So, So what? Desperately, he's trying to
• 35:43
  rewrite this thing so he got something to produce and it's
• 35:47
  actually, I don't know what happens.
• 35:48
  There's a strike or something that delayed the production as
• 35:52
  they've got a little bit longer. Thank God that's what this would
• 35:56
  have looked like. Before that, if it had gone into
• 35:58
  production when it originally had to, yeah, it might be, yeah.
• 36:02
  And you know, I I think a lot of the ideas are are great.
• 36:07
  The idea of working with someone who is a a competent TV writer
• 36:12
  is absolutely the right thing to do.
• 36:14
  But you, Doctor Who is such a strange TV programme that it
• 36:20
  takes a certain kind of person to to write this.
• 36:23
  And so I just think it's a shame that all these great writers who
• 36:27
  would have been there throughout the 80s weren't given a chance
• 36:32
  to to carry on. And I think Doctor Who lost
• 36:35
  something by not having those those senior voices.
• 36:40
  Even Dicks had already been back for the five doctors.
• 36:42
  He should have been a shoo in to write something like this, yeah.
• 36:45
  And it's just like, yeah, he's already written in a doctor
• 36:48
  already. And it was so popular, the Five
• 36:51
  Doctors, you know and Given Andres Arnie.
• 36:55
  Like, you know, they knew. They knew that was good.
• 36:58
  Yeah, So Ward knew it was good. J&T knew it was good.
• 37:02
  Graham Harper knew it was good. I'd have double banked him and
• 37:05
  said right, right, The next one as well, which is what?
• 37:07
  What? Which is what they do eventually
• 37:08
  by trial. Wasn't it that you know that
• 37:10
  you've got got him as the senior writer who you know you're going
• 37:15
  to get something good from? It's too little too late, isn't
• 37:17
  it? Yes, it is.
• 37:18
  And it's the the, like I said in episode one, the it's just the
• 37:24
  production team is so complacent at this point.
• 37:28
  Do you? Think that's quite the the news
• 37:30
  that the show was being put on hiatus hit as badly as it did,
• 37:34
  apparently. So yeah, he took that call and
• 37:36
  couldn't leave his desk, you know, He was so shocked because
• 37:41
  he'd come in and reinvigorated the show and he he massively
• 37:45
  changed the look of it and the IT was Season 18 is is a visual
• 37:51
  feast compared to what what comes later.
• 37:54
  But it's just that you get to the point where in any job where
• 37:59
  you reach all the things you you can do with this this job and
• 38:04
  you need to move on and you need to let someone else come in and
• 38:07
  take it and shape it. He was trying, wasn't he?
• 38:10
  Yeah, Yeah. He a lot of people sort of
• 38:11
  acknowledged the time he should have chipped out was the five
• 38:14
  doctors. Yeah, absolutely.
• 38:16
  Go out and he would be, absolutely. 18/19/20 20 you'd
• 38:23
  have said, but you know, but finishing with the five doctors
• 38:26
  you'd have, he'd have been remembered as one of the
• 38:30
  absolute greatest people involved in Doctor Who.
• 38:32
  Or maybe just do 21 and end on Andrew Zani with him turning
• 38:36
  into Colin, then hand Colin over to the new.
• 38:39
  Exactly. Bit like and Harry, let's to
• 38:41
  Hinchcliffe. Yeah.
• 38:43
  You know and you've started a new Doctor off the new
• 38:46
  production team would come in think do you know what that
• 38:49
  costume worked for that story. But let's say, do you know
• 38:53
  Perry, That was part of my regeneration angst.
• 38:57
  I'm going to just change my clothes here.
• 38:59
  Didn't I? Didn't I look stylish for that
• 39:01
  garish story, right? Let's get let's calm this down.
• 39:06
  Basically what Nicola Bryant says in the commentary.
• 39:08
  She goes your your costume works for this story, Yeah?
• 39:11
  Yeah, because it's always crashing.
• 39:13
  Colourful. State of mind.
• 39:16
  But then did you see him wearing that black suit in the special
• 39:19
  feature? Yeah.
• 39:20
  Oh God he. Looks so dapper.
• 39:23
  You know what happens? Sigh.
• 39:24
  When you do bring in a a writer that they've never had before to
• 39:29
  write the first script of a new Doctor, and where the script
• 39:34
  editor is basically rewriting things, do you know what
• 39:36
  happens? What happens?
• 39:38
  You have a cliffhanger where somehow.
• 39:42
  From a machine that revitalizes people, you can suddenly beam
• 39:47
  about and time travel, beam someone into the TARDIS and then
• 39:53
  you're stuck on the place with a bomb that's about to go off.
• 39:57
  I mean, it don't make no sense at all.
• 40:02
  And and it becomes a time machine, I know.
• 40:05
  It's just like, OK, well, the 6th Doctor is a genius.
• 40:11
  I know. I mean Colin sells it.
• 40:12
  You know, I like it when he goes, what is it?
• 40:14
  It sort of takes you apart and puts you together again.
• 40:17
  A most refreshing process. Like in terms of like at this
• 40:23
  point we we've no idea what the part of the story is.
• 40:27
  We're two episodes in now and and it's barely any idea.
• 40:34
  For the sake of it, isn't it? It's just like a reason for
• 40:36
  Perry to cry. And why is she crying?
• 40:39
  He's trying. He doesn't like this, man.
• 40:43
  It's. Battling, yes.
• 40:46
  Well, on that note, should we go and find some plot in episode 3?
• 40:51
  Let's see if it actually starts. I think when we do, you know, we
• 40:54
  might be deadly surprised possibly.
• 40:57
  OK.