Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to the very cheeky Matt Michael about his choice of Downtime

Transcript

Talks to the very cheeky Matt Michael about his choice of Downtime · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  I'm still with a blump. Pen Knife for doing Quicker,
• 0:35
  quicker, quicker. I'm still with a Blump Pen
• 0:40
  Knife. The Doctor Who Commentary
• 0:42
  podcast. I'm here today with somebody who
• 0:45
  has not appeared in my schedules for some time, but I'm delighted
• 0:50
  that he's come back for this. Primarily because now I can
• 0:54
  finally ask him to take his finger out of my butt, which has
• 0:57
  been in there ever since we did the time in the Rani commentary.
• 1:01
  Mr. Matt. Michael.
• 1:02
  Hello. He's.
• 1:07
  Trying to do a poppin noise but it didn't pop it.
• 1:10
  More slurped, which is probably apt.
• 1:13
  Your finger must stink now. How are you today?
• 1:21
  How are you doing? I'm good.
• 1:23
  How are you not? Too bad, you know, having a long
• 1:26
  day. I've been watching Downtime this
• 1:27
  morning, yeah. So you're full of the joys of
• 1:31
  summer then? I am look at my face and I just
• 1:34
  thought quite a glow. I was in the Pride March the
• 1:36
  other day and I was walking in One Direction for a long time
• 1:39
  and I was like a beetroot the next day.
• 1:42
  So you're not covered in cobwebs and wearing your Tibetan gear,
• 1:46
  basically. Alas, no.
• 1:49
  No, I. Oh God, that first say, Oh no,
• 1:53
  we'll get there, we'll get there.
• 1:55
  I would like to ask you about your pilgrimage, which is coming
• 2:01
  to an end this week or certainly the classic in the new series is
• 2:05
  coming this week. Could you tell anyone who, And I
• 2:09
  know people know about this? Because I thought I'd look at
• 2:11
  your threads a day later and easily so 50 people chip in with
• 2:17
  most episodes. So what's it all about?
• 2:20
  And are you sad? It's coming to an end.
• 2:23
  So I basically started watching every episode of .2 from 1963,
• 2:28
  including the missing ones. I use the telesnap
• 2:31
  reconstructions and I watch one every day, did a little review
• 2:35
  of every single episode. So instead of doing like all of
• 2:39
  the Daleks Master Plan and trying to write it up in one go,
• 2:42
  I did all 12 episodes is 12 individual little entries and
• 2:48
  and I've been doing the new series for the last 18 months
• 2:51
  and coming to an end this week with the power of the Doctor.
• 2:54
  So waving goodbye to Jody and do I feel sad?
• 3:00
  Sort of. It's nice to nice to like finish
• 3:02
  something though, to be honest. You're not sad you struggled
• 3:05
  with the last two doctors. I'm silly, yeah.
• 3:08
  Can I? Ask you, actually, because
• 3:10
  you've done the overview of. Both the classic and the new
• 3:13
  series now. So have you managed to form some
• 3:16
  kind of an opinion about which era really spoke to you and
• 3:21
  which era really didn't? I think what really didn't speak
• 3:27
  to me, probably the early capality stuff, just I just
• 3:31
  found him a little bit abrasive and unlikable.
• 3:34
  Nice Nuggets in there like the Robot Sherwood episode where I
• 3:37
  kind of enjoyed it and the last bit of Matt Smith I struggled
• 3:41
  with as well. So again I I like this sort of
• 3:43
  Crimson Horror episode and I thought the anniversary episode
• 3:46
  was great, but there are a lot in that that I really struggled
• 3:50
  with once it really spoke to me. I think the McCoy stuff always,
• 3:59
  always fills me with joy. I really enjoyed series 16 a lot
• 4:04
  more than I have done previously as well.
• 4:06
  So Season 16, I always kind of like, it's just sort of there,
• 4:11
  isn't it? It's the key to time and then
• 4:13
  actually the proper Ramona turns up in Destiny of the Daleks and
• 4:17
  that's the the one we all the Douglas had him stuff and City
• 4:20
  of Death and what have you. But kind of rewatching season
• 4:24
  16, I thought it's brilliant. I thought the first four stories
• 4:27
  were all just like spot on. I mean even the power of crows,
• 4:31
  not that bad in the scheme of things.
• 4:33
  Even the Armageddon fact is tolerable.
• 4:36
  Isn't the Graham Williams era really good?
• 4:40
  Yeah. Yeah, love it too.
• 4:42
  And of course, you know, you had amazing things to say about Tom
• 4:45
  and Irani as well, which I hardly approve of.
• 4:48
  Yeah, well, who? Who doesn't like being amsalped
• 4:52
  by Urac? We have covered that in depth
• 4:56
  elsewhere. Still in my top. 10 Because it's
• 5:00
  the most filthiest podcast I've ever put out, possibly outside
• 5:03
  of my trousers. Well, yeah.
• 5:07
  Well, hang on, wait till after the commentary arrived.
• 5:13
  We've already talked roughly about.
• 5:15
  What? We're going to talk about today,
• 5:16
  but it's downtime from real time pictures.
• 5:19
  I want to say BBV, but it's not is it?
• 5:21
  Is real time pictures. Yeah from the from the distant
• 5:25
  days of 1995. Cast your mind back Joe to 1995.
• 5:31
  Mel B and Mel C were weren't even a glinting stockade came in
• 5:37
  Waterman's eye or whatever. This was the Battle of the
• 5:40
  bands. It was Blur.
• 5:41
  It was Oasis. The new adventures were at that
• 5:44
  height. Sylvester McCoy was still the
• 5:46
  current Doctor. There was no TV movie.
• 5:51
  Amazing times. And then just those days do.
• 5:54
  You know what? I'm still convinced you're going
• 5:56
  to sound crazy that that period between 89 and 2005 is some of
• 6:03
  the, I don't think, the best. But I think some of the most
• 6:08
  interesting Doctor Who came out that period, and I'm talking
• 6:11
  about the books that audios, the comic strips, the spinoffs like
• 6:14
  this. You know, the fans wouldn't let
• 6:17
  it go, would they? Like, just wouldn't let it go.
• 6:19
  And what happened was it almost created like a tidal wave of new
• 6:23
  stuff. Can you think of any other show
• 6:26
  that's been put on hiatus like this that has generated this
• 6:30
  amount of storytelling? I can't.
• 6:32
  I mean, I guess, I guess arguably like Star Trek between
• 6:36
  the original series in the next Gen. kind of had a lot of
• 6:41
  creative stuff I guess, but now I can't.
• 6:44
  I think. I think the difference is it
• 6:46
  really was like the lunatics running the asylum in Doctor
• 6:49
  Who. It's all of the like people
• 6:50
  who've grown up with it for 26 years and suddenly they were
• 6:54
  running, they were running the show and there was no, the BBC
• 6:57
  didn't care enough to step in and say what they could and
• 7:00
  couldn't do. So it was.
• 7:02
  You've got some really crazy stuff, really creative stuff,
• 7:05
  some really terrible stuff as well.
• 7:07
  But yeah, on the whole, yeah, I agree.
• 7:10
  With these productions is is they are just made on a six
• 7:13
  point so you and you really can feel it when you're watching
• 7:18
  them. You know like I said to you off
• 7:20
  Mike, but they've they haven't asked any permission to go on
• 7:23
  locations and they've just. Run in, They've got 5 minutes,
• 7:26
  right? Just to feel a bit quick.
• 7:28
  The security guards come in. Yeah, like there is a lot of
• 7:31
  that. Going on a lot of echoey sound
• 7:33
  as well, I think you can always like tell.
• 7:36
  You can always tell, a kind of low budget production because
• 7:39
  the sounds never quiet as punchy as you would get on an actual
• 7:43
  TV. Did you ever watch the probe?
• 7:45
  One Devil of Winterborne. Oh yeah.
• 7:48
  Ends on a motorway and Liz Shaw's trying to talk the boy
• 7:52
  down and all you can hear is the fucking cars.
• 7:55
  Because they haven't. Got the the sound equipment to
• 7:57
  drown them out. So she's trying to have a heart
• 8:00
  to heart with this psychotic killer.
• 8:02
  Feel like an ear his cars going what?
• 8:08
  But you do have as well people that.
• 8:10
  A lot of people that went on to work on the new series,
• 8:12
  obviously big budget in their first footsteps as well, like
• 8:16
  Mark Gates and people like that. I think some of the work Mark
• 8:19
  Gates did in the 90s is some of his best stuff in, in terms of
• 8:23
  Doctor Who, yeah, no, I agree. I think on some of his kind of
• 8:29
  new adventures. Really great.
• 8:31
  I love. It.
• 8:32
  Oh, yes, Fabulous, isn't it? Okay.
• 8:35
  Well, if you have to point to a so I'm talking to real Time and
• 8:40
  BBV here that that that sort of corner of the 90s.
• 8:45
  If you have to point at one math like you say, that's a success
• 8:49
  and that's a, you know, dot and I'm sorry, I'm really throwing
• 8:54
  them at you here. Aren't I the only thing that's
• 8:57
  coming at you tonight? So I quite enjoy.
• 9:01
  I quite enjoy being probed by Peter Davison, so I think that I
• 9:08
  can't remember if he's in both Devils and Ghosts of
• 9:10
  Winterboard. Yeah, he is.
• 9:13
  He's kind of creepy. He's creepy school.
• 9:16
  I think you see Reese Smith Bollock.
• 9:19
  You do want to That was a very formative scene, the tracking on
• 9:22
  that video because I played that scene.
• 9:24
  So my mom's like, why is the tracking not working on this?
• 9:27
  It looks like Eroto peeping out. It weren't much to shower about
• 9:34
  race, I'm honest. No, I think that those probes
• 9:39
  kind of really plug into the kind of X file Z Like guys stiff
• 9:43
  the 90s worst ones. Oh, I found they're quite well
• 9:50
  regarded by always found the Stranger a bit hard going a bit
• 9:54
  like a bit sort of abstract. It was sort of going for a bit
• 10:00
  of sapphire and steel, but I just found it a little bit
• 10:03
  calling Baker, Nicola Bryant standing around on the beach and
• 10:06
  things like that. It just didn't really do it.
• 10:09
  My fucking Nicola Bryant and Sophie Aldrid.
• 10:11
  Like, that's That's not my idea of entertainment.
• 10:14
  Well, I don't know. But then you have always had a
• 10:20
  diseased. Mind, haven't you I've ever seen
• 10:24
  still in the Devil Seeds of Arador.
• 10:27
  So I dare to put that. On a friend of mine lent the DVD
• 10:31
  to me. It was that politician who had
• 10:34
  the picture taken with it. You know, Jeremy was his face.
• 10:38
  I I did watch the 1st 10 minutes.
• 10:41
  And how they were attempting to suggest this was a thriving
• 10:44
  space station with four extras on a cardboard set.
• 10:48
  And I was like, how on earth are they going to get 3 hours out of
• 10:52
  this? And it starts off with Seal and
• 10:55
  it sounds like he's in pain. He's sort of going what?
• 11:00
  Quite a good impression here as well and.
• 11:03
  It turns out he's playing. Like 4 off beat and music.
• 11:06
  Like rock music. So he's sort of going, Oh yeah,
• 11:12
  I don't think this is going to be for me.
• 11:13
  Do you know like? Have you seen it?
• 11:18
  I just. I just remember.
• 11:21
  So if you're so if you're compressed, she looks like a
• 11:25
  like a panto elf coming in to remember the oil upsets.
• 11:31
  Sponges down his Privates, I mean.
• 11:34
  She's done some ropey things for money.
• 11:37
  Well, that is the right thing. I hope she washed before she
• 11:43
  did. The power of the Doctor.
• 11:45
  Shaban enjoyed it though. Oh God, Harry had a great time.
• 11:50
  Hello. We are being relentlessly
• 11:52
  mocking here and I'm sure we will be here in this commentary
• 11:56
  because it is a bit shoddy, but I do think what they're
• 12:01
  attempting to do and that is to give us more Doctor Whoesque
• 12:04
  material. We were desperate, remember.
• 12:07
  We were taking anything we would.
• 12:11
  We were like twinks at the first Pride here.
• 12:14
  Wow, went to Pride this weekend. You know, relatively few twinks
• 12:18
  about. Well, I live in Eastbourne
• 12:21
  Endangered Species. I was really scared.
• 12:25
  I. Was going to go down that March
• 12:27
  and be able to tell a, you know, sexual story about every single
• 12:29
  person that was walking in it, but actually none of them showed
• 12:32
  up. Thank God they're all at the
• 12:35
  clinic. No.
• 12:37
  He was offering free chlamydia tests at the party.
• 12:44
  I know. So your?
• 12:45
  Silent speech volumes from fucking BBV to free Chlamydia
• 12:52
  tests in a minute. But which is more entertaining?
• 13:00
  I think we both know the answer to that question.
• 13:06
  Okay. All right.
• 13:06
  I'm going to try and bring us back to down time then.
• 13:09
  Although can I just say, I think personally the best I saw was
• 13:12
  shakedown returned us on Taurums just because.
• 13:15
  I think that's a genuinely solid production.
• 13:19
  A good script from Terence Dix. And it features some of Caroline
• 13:23
  Ford and Sophie Aldridge's worst acting I've ever seen, and it's
• 13:27
  just blissful to watch. Is that the one where Sophie
• 13:30
  Aldridge like the sport little rich girl?
• 13:32
  Yeah. Yeah, and Caroline Ford's the
• 13:34
  Like the Drunk vamp. Yes, you know had like mind game
• 13:41
  and all sorts didn't there. There were loads.
• 13:43
  If there was, there was one about was it like it basically
• 13:51
  is like on porn film? They it was called Zigon.
• 13:54
  Yeah, yeah I want to also the all time spin offs as well, you
• 13:58
  know, But I think they all feature.
• 13:59
  So if you're doing Caroline Ford in one form or another, they
• 14:02
  won't get a lot of work. At the time, you know, they were
• 14:04
  desperate too. They were.
• 14:06
  And thank goodness they were. And they therefore gave us so
• 14:10
  many hours of entertainment. However, two people that are not
• 14:14
  in this fabulous production that we're about to watch.
• 14:17
  Also if you Ordred and. Caroline Ford, they are.
• 14:21
  They're both in the Yetis. I've done the research.
• 14:23
  Oh, well done. I really, I would have loved it
• 14:34
  if that was true. I'd be like, Oh my God, the
• 14:36
  actor from these yetis is terrible.
• 14:41
  Wasn't looking like I've ordinated them.
• 14:46
  They do look like they've been knitted.
• 14:48
  By someone's grandma, they're like.
• 14:52
  Not Ian. Sorry, John.
• 14:53
  Levine wasn't here. Yes.
• 14:54
  He was. He was.
• 14:57
  With a fear he was. I would say he went downhill
• 15:01
  from there. And if if you see about
• 15:04
  convention appearance now, you would definitely say that okay.
• 15:10
  So this is starring Elizabeth Sladem Deborah Watling.
• 15:15
  And Nicholas Courtney, They're sort of our big names here,
• 15:18
  yeah. And written by Mark Platt, yes.
• 15:22
  Are you a Platt fan? Ooh, I am.
• 15:28
  I find him a bit more might some of his stuff I adore and some of
• 15:33
  his stuff I just think of regard this is laboring the point a
• 15:38
  little bit. Oh my God.
• 15:39
  So some of these audios I find a bit hard going, but things like
• 15:42
  I really like. Was it cat's cradle I.
• 15:47
  I'm the complete opposite. That book I find impenetrable.
• 15:50
  I just think it's like, fabulously weird.
• 15:54
  But then, but then he's done some audios that I've listened
• 15:57
  to and I'm like, oh God, I can't get into this.
• 15:59
  He did one where they're all stuck on whether all stuck on a
• 16:04
  I think it's called time refatching.
• 16:05
  Yeah. I don't know what's going on.
• 16:08
  I can't. Although he can hit with his
• 16:10
  audios. But you're right, it's almost
• 16:13
  like 5050. Do you even see X-Files?
• 16:16
  You know how Chris Carter could deliver an absolute blinder or
• 16:20
  could deliver a complete stinker?
• 16:22
  Yeah. That's like Mark Platt.
• 16:24
  You're spot on and if it was a stink it would be completely
• 16:27
  impenetrable and you'd watch it and you'd be non the wiser after
• 16:30
  watching. I have no idea what that was.
• 16:32
  And then you'll put on someone like Dwayne Barry and be like,
• 16:34
  this is the best television I've ever seen.
• 16:38
  But yeah, I I I really enjoyed Ghost Light on my rewatch when I
• 16:41
  was doing the pilgrimage. But.
• 16:44
  Barrow lung barrows. Brilliant, I think.
• 16:48
  I think, yeah. I yes, it it is.
• 16:51
  But it's I I I'm not a huge fan of anything that gets too much
• 16:56
  into trying to solve the mystery of the Doctor.
• 16:58
  Because I kind of think it's like I don't really care that
• 17:03
  much and kind of like I always like struggle with like the
• 17:07
  reintroduce mystery. But then straight away as soon
• 17:10
  as you reintroduce mystery you have to go and answer it.
• 17:14
  That's that's kind of, I think. I think the Carmel Master plan
• 17:17
  is much better for just being vague and undefined than
• 17:21
  actually having an answer. Cuz the problem is, once there's
• 17:24
  an answer, someone wants a new mystery, so you just end up.
• 17:28
  I think how how the mysteries delivered is very important as
• 17:31
  well. Like I do not object to the
• 17:34
  suggestion of the timeless child, but I do object to a 15
• 17:38
  minute PowerPoint presentation telling me all about it.
• 17:42
  I'm not telling me anything about it at all.
• 17:45
  And this is the timeless child when we went to for a weekend in
• 17:48
  Bangor. This is the timeless child at
• 17:50
  Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Although I did have a fabulous
• 17:53
  week, you know with a friend going for all the classic series
• 17:56
  trying to pick pick out who the yeah the other Doctors were that
• 18:00
  we just didn't know where the Doctor cuz they were pretty
• 18:02
  Arnold, definitely the guy in the seats of Doom.
• 18:07
  And definitely go wrong way in Delta and yeah, that that's for
• 18:11
  sure. Yeah, probably.
• 18:15
  Oh, I don't know. Probably one of them in
• 18:18
  Battlefield. Probably like Doris, I would
• 18:20
  say. Definitely not the feller in
• 18:22
  downtime. We're in the jumper.
• 18:25
  No, no, no. One of the yetis maybe?
• 18:29
  Always comes back to the yetis, doesn't it?
• 18:32
  Well, OK, so tell me very quickly before we press play,
• 18:36
  when did you first watch this? And what, dare I ask, was your
• 18:42
  reaction? I I I think I first watched this
• 18:46
  in the late 90s on VHS, which I think I bought from Galaxy 4IN
• 18:53
  Sheffield and it was a VHS which had the same cover as the
• 18:58
  Missing Adventures nobilization pretty much.
• 19:02
  And I think you put your finger on it earlier.
• 19:09
  And also you got my reaction right as well.
• 19:12
  And my reaction I think was I was so I was so staffed as
• 19:19
  Doctor Who's type stuff. I think I quite enjoyed it.
• 19:24
  I do. I do think it scores out above
• 19:27
  some of the other kind of 90s stuff because it's actually got
• 19:32
  the characters and it's actually got Nicholas Courtney playing
• 19:35
  the Brig, it's got Liz Sladen playing Sarah Jane and you've
• 19:41
  got other stuff. I I know you.
• 19:44
  I'm Carl, and John plays a sort of version of Leisure in Probe.
• 19:47
  But there's a lot of stuff where it's the actors playing other
• 19:53
  people like Davidson and Probe or all of it in the Airs.
• 19:56
  And we Jamison as Patricia Haggard.
• 19:59
  Yeah, Yeah. Nice can a bit haggard to.
• 20:04
  Just a name like Haggard. I'm making her a lesbian.
• 20:08
  And make it. And then in the latest one,
• 20:10
  we're fakely sure they're in a relationship together, breaking
• 20:14
  pipes. Yeah, I wonder what you're doing
• 20:16
  with your face then. I was having a stroke.
• 20:22
  Yeah, why is it always gets so naughty with you?
• 20:27
  OK. Well, look, shall we press play
• 20:29
  on this thing? Because we've got a lot of
• 20:30
  questions to get through in the end, you know, people.
• 20:33
  Have been very. Quiet descending there.
• 20:36
  Controversial opinions on this marvelous piece?
• 20:39
  Why don't you count us in 321 play?
• 20:47
  Careful what that finger you right Never know where it's
• 20:52
  going to slip next. Victoria.
• 20:58
  So tell me, what is your opinion of this prelude to the
• 21:01
  adventure? I'm actually, because I've got
• 21:05
  the official one. I'm just watching.
• 21:06
  I should have teed it up. I'm watching the Real Time
• 21:08
  Pictures presentation at the moment, which is beautifully
• 21:14
  90s. Oh, is it not started yet?
• 21:17
  Then it's now It started with a Candelabra.
• 21:22
  OK, I'm going back again. There we go.
• 21:23
  Right. I did think.
• 21:28
  I did think they were. They were going for a bit of
• 21:29
  atmosphere in this first scene. I think they were.
• 21:33
  I think they must have snuck into the London dungeon, but
• 21:37
  they'd rented it for the day for Tom Baker to do the links for
• 21:40
  Sharder, and then at night they just like snuck their second
• 21:44
  unit in to shoot their. Debbie Quick, get in there.
• 21:47
  The idea that this had a second unit barely had a first unit.
• 21:53
  The. The.
• 21:55
  Fabulous book by Dylan Reece. Downtime.
• 21:58
  Says that Debbie Watley insisted that they kept the lights down
• 22:01
  in these scenes because she's supposed to be playing a 19 year
• 22:04
  old here and she's how old. She's about 50.
• 22:10
  She's she's carrying it off perfectly.
• 22:12
  I mean, I think she can't always get the voice right.
• 22:14
  She goes to this sort of squeaky voice that she that she has.
• 22:19
  You can barely hear the the years of cigarette abuse.
• 22:24
  I'm not going to be too mocking when I say this, but talking of
• 22:26
  people that have had a stroke, James Bree is here delivering a
• 22:31
  very interesting performance game.
• 22:33
  Free always sounds like he's desperately constipated.
• 22:37
  He's the same in the war games. It's like I'm talking since
• 22:47
  1969. I've got a theory.
• 22:50
  In the war games they were under running, so that's why he was
• 22:54
  told to stress everybody syllable.
• 22:57
  But what, Lord? That's great.
• 23:02
  That's another couple of minutes, James.
• 23:03
  Keep going. So the idea is that Victoria has
• 23:09
  been enticed here by what, her father's voice yeah, she's she's
• 23:16
  she's gone all the way to Tibet because she thinks she can hear
• 23:19
  her father, presumably leaving the Harrises behind and some
• 23:23
  seaweed and. Well, they are fanish enough.
• 23:28
  I'm surprised they weren't a reference to the Harrises in
• 23:30
  this. I'm surprised they're not in
• 23:31
  there. Yeah, covered in cobwebs or
• 23:34
  something like that. I quite like his sort of punk
• 23:38
  punk hat. It's like.
• 23:43
  Amazing Afro you've ever seen. Oh, this is great.
• 23:50
  She's struggling against him. I'm.
• 23:51
  Not good, I'm going to say. I think Deborah Watling is not a
• 23:59
  very good actress. I don't think she was very good
• 24:01
  in Doctor Who, and I certainly don't think she's very good in
• 24:04
  this. I think W West, I think in the
• 24:07
  60s she she was absolutely beautiful and I say that as a
• 24:13
  very gay person, but you're not. Yeah, I hide it well, but I
• 24:25
  think she was absolutely beautiful and very great at
• 24:29
  doing sort of big eyed vulnerability.
• 24:33
  So she kind of worked in those stories, whether I was massive
• 24:36
  Ice Warriors or massive Yeti, and she's this tiny little cute
• 24:40
  person being menaced. I think she's great in that
• 24:43
  particular role, but her range is not.
• 24:48
  I've always said that I think she's she.
• 24:53
  What do you think? Oh, bless.
• 24:58
  And they've got this tiny bit of cobweb and they're like, go on
• 25:00
  love, give it, give it a bit of welly, yeah.
• 25:05
  Oh, that's quite a fun. When you get a bit of fun, it's
• 25:07
  like when you get a bit of packaging stuck to your fingers
• 25:09
  on a ready meal and you're like trying to put it in a bit.
• 25:13
  You know when you go to a gay club, right?
• 25:16
  And you see some dreadful old man coming at you.
• 25:19
  That's what he looks like. Like you can just see the sort
• 25:23
  of shape in the lights and like, I think I've been to that club,
• 25:27
  when you see a terrifying old man coming towards you and
• 25:29
  you're they're going. Yeah, me too.
• 25:37
  I think I am that daddy now, though.
• 25:42
  Oh, I. Forgot Christopher Barry directs
• 25:44
  this. He does.
• 25:46
  I've dragged him out of retirement.
• 25:48
  Yeah. Tracked him out the canal, I
• 25:51
  think. Do you think this is well
• 25:54
  directed? Here she is, the first
• 25:56
  appearance. Of of Kate Stewart.
• 26:00
  That's right. Kate Lethbridge Stewart.
• 26:04
  The first regeneration of Kate Stewart though Beverly Chrisman.
• 26:08
  Yeah, Who I think is going to be the the lead in a new Bad Wolf
• 26:13
  spin off. So I hear.
• 26:15
  I hope so. You're lying to me again.
• 26:17
  I know you can. I ask is Beverly Cressman your
• 26:22
  preference or Gemma Redgrave? Do you know what?
• 26:30
  I don't particularly have a preference, which is probably
• 26:34
  more damning to Gemma Redgrave than it is Beverly Cressman, but
• 26:40
  I I think she's quite good in this.
• 26:43
  I what? Beverly Cressman.
• 26:44
  Yeah, yeah, I do. There is one bit on this phone
• 26:47
  call where she goes, would you, Would you really?
• 26:50
  Oh, thank you. So.
• 26:50
  And you can tell she's not having a phone conversation with
• 26:53
  somebody. Yeah, she she's a she's she's a
• 26:55
  little bit more animated than the second Kate Stewart, but.
• 27:01
  Yeah and Oh yeah, Goldie Lethbridge Stewart.
• 27:04
  Wobbly camera there. Best friend held yeah, pointing
• 27:08
  the camera at the sun, which is maybe not the best idea, but.
• 27:12
  And this is an issue with this is it is shot on video, isn't
• 27:16
  it? So it automatically looks
• 27:17
  cheaper than it otherwise might have done.
• 27:19
  Because if you go and watch Shakedown, that's got a bit of a
• 27:23
  it's not filmic, but it has that sort of.
• 27:26
  They've turned a filter on, haven't they?
• 27:27
  Yeah, here's a beach. I think this is probably where
• 27:33
  they filmed most of The Stranger.
• 27:35
  Ding, Ding, Ding. What do you think of Courtney's
• 27:41
  range? His range?
• 27:44
  Yeah, within a fairly narrow range.
• 27:51
  I think he's peerless pretty much.
• 27:53
  I think he's brilliant at what he does.
• 28:00
  I've seen him in a few comedy things and obviously in Dalek's
• 28:05
  master plan, I don't. I don't.
• 28:07
  I don't think he is massively versatile.
• 28:11
  But I can't. I don't.
• 28:13
  I think Douglas Canfield knew exactly what he was doing and
• 28:17
  what he was going to get. Where he cast when he cast him.
• 28:20
  Oh, lovely bit of terrible early CGI of the the glass pyramid on
• 28:25
  top of the university. I like this, though.
• 28:28
  I like seeing the early stages of my June.
• 28:30
  Not in Babylon 5. Don't get me start on that.
• 28:34
  You're going to tell me you're a Babylon 5 fan now, aren't you?
• 28:37
  I love. I can't wait for the Blu Rays to
• 28:39
  come out. I'll put up a post on Twitter,
• 28:43
  you know, saying I want to do Babylon 5 for handsome or Blunt
• 28:47
  in five episodes. And you know what?
• 28:50
  900 people answered that thread. I'm like you people.
• 28:54
  Fuck off. I know I asked for you, but I
• 28:55
  didn't realize there was so many of you.
• 28:57
  Well, I was gonna, I was gonna author.
• 28:59
  And I was like, well, no chance because about 800 people in
• 29:02
  front of getting the kids. We'll talk, right?
• 29:08
  Nothing dates worse than technology, does it?
• 29:10
  Look at these computer graphics. The Chillies, yeah.
• 29:13
  And chillies and and they're like cool backwards baseball
• 29:18
  caps. And that is the whole idea of
• 29:20
  that. In it, the chillies and the
• 29:21
  technology is so mid 90s is that I think there's a Linda Laplante
• 29:26
  series called Killer Net in the mid 90s where it's like a
• 29:30
  middle-aged woman who doesn't quite understand, oh there she
• 29:33
  is listed and she doesn't quite understand the Internet, but she
• 29:36
  knows it's a thing and it's therefore able to do practically
• 29:40
  anything that she wants it to do.
• 29:42
  And the audience that watched it probably didn't really know what
• 29:44
  the Internet was either. Was just something that made a
• 29:47
  funny noise on the phone I. Can still remember.
• 29:50
  You know you had the old dial up man, and you don't.
• 29:55
  You know, you'd put on a porn website and you'd literally wait
• 29:57
  for the picture to go line by line screen.
• 30:02
  You know, I was talking. To you wouldn't.
• 30:04
  Know anything about that, man, Would you?
• 30:06
  So it's certainly not. No.
• 30:08
  It's like a striptease, wasn't it?
• 30:10
  Oh my God, this fellow in the jumper.
• 30:13
  It's. Yeah, I said.
• 30:15
  He was the campus man in Doctor Who.
• 30:16
  And then someone tweeted earlier and no, that's you, Joe.
• 30:22
  Me how? But no, he's creating a beam,
• 30:26
  right? That says Joe Ford is a
• 30:28
  meddlesome Hussey with Soul Deed and his staff.
• 30:32
  This scene reminds me of what it must be like in the lifts at the
• 30:35
  BFI when, like the BFI people is taking a guest up to the stage.
• 30:41
  No, when they're standing next to an awkward fan, say the Lord
• 30:46
  Eldrad must live, please. Liz Sladen, can I ask in this
• 30:53
  loud? And she, I think she's she she's
• 30:58
  apparently she did this as a favor to Chris Barry.
• 31:01
  And yeah, she's got her hair. Looks like it's still stuck in
• 31:09
  the 80s and her costume looks like it was the reject for the
• 31:14
  Five Doctors. It's not.
• 31:16
  It's not a great look for Sarah Jane, is there she she looked.
• 31:21
  In fact, she looks a bit like she looks like a bit like she's
• 31:24
  cosplaying Kate Bush with that hair.
• 31:27
  Gosh, she's running up that hill, isn't she?
• 31:29
  She's running over the hill. In fact, in The Five Doctors,
• 31:34
  she's falling down that bloody. It's not much.
• 31:36
  It ain't much of A hill. It's not really ill slight
• 31:39
  inclined. But I'll tell you what, every
• 31:43
  time she's on screen, I'll pay attention.
• 31:45
  Yeah, she's she she she's got the, she's got the fact, The X
• 31:50
  Factor that Deborah Watling, bless her, just doesn't.
• 31:53
  Although I do think Deborah Watling is more convincing in
• 31:56
  her librarian mode, like she is here then she was in the first
• 32:01
  scene and. I do like it.
• 32:02
  There's a scene in a minute that she has between hers.
• 32:04
  She's got a polished ball out. Wow, I'll see some more.
• 32:12
  She has a scene with. Her in a minute where she's
• 32:14
  being very sort of schoolmarmish.
• 32:15
  And then Sarah says something and they actually share a moment
• 32:18
  of humor and that's sort of the mask drops for a second.
• 32:21
  That's quite nice. I'm going to try and find the
• 32:23
  good stuff here, you know, what I do like about it is that Sarah
• 32:28
  Jane is being very journalisty in this as well, which is
• 32:32
  obviously something that they pick up on in The Sarah Jane
• 32:36
  Adventures in. The new school reunion.
• 32:38
  You could absolutely make the lead From Hand of Fear to five
• 32:41
  doctors to downtime school reunion.
• 32:43
  You can. You can.
• 32:44
  I think that's is Blaydon. She she brings the consistency,
• 32:48
  I think she does, and it's such a shame that they were blocked
• 32:52
  from using a clip from this in The Sarah Jane Adventures.
• 32:56
  To canonize it would have been such a silly.
• 32:59
  You know that was because they they talked about that in the
• 33:02
  book as well and apparently they really wanted to do it and the
• 33:06
  people behind downtime said no, like I think it was a right
• 33:09
  thing. Also there was, there was a
• 33:11
  reason, but you know both Liz Slaton and Nicholas Corny,
• 33:17
  there's a whole paragraph where there is sort of it said that
• 33:20
  they were appalled. Because this was made over 11
• 33:23
  days, right when they only got one day off and they were
• 33:26
  shooting till like 1-2 o'clock in the morning.
• 33:28
  Because there's no union rules in these cheaper productions.
• 33:31
  It's basically people out in the field with a camcorder and
• 33:36
  they're used to, you know, the old days where you did the
• 33:38
  lights went out at 10:00 o'clock and you all went home.
• 33:41
  So I don't think I've ever had a great experience doing it.
• 33:45
  No, I But by all accounts, I think, I don't think, but Satan
• 33:51
  had much good stuff to say about it in later years.
• 33:55
  But to her credit, none of that comes across on screen.
• 33:59
  She's really, really good in it and totally she's just totally
• 34:04
  back in the character. You absolutely.
• 34:07
  There's no sense that she's sort of slumming it and not really
• 34:09
  putting the effort in at all. Do you remember that sequence
• 34:13
  between Sarah Jane and Mrs. Wilmwood in Invasion of the
• 34:16
  Bane? Yes.
• 34:17
  And that almost plays out similar.
• 34:19
  It does, Yeah. Yeah, it's spot on.
• 34:20
  You're right. And yeah, you spot on that you
• 34:27
  can absolutely draw a line between the classic series this
• 34:30
  and the new series. Now this always reminds me it's
• 34:36
  not the South Bank Center, but it always it always reminds me
• 34:39
  of the bit where they're running around the future in frontier in
• 34:42
  space. Brutal architecture of the
• 34:48
  future. Oh, there's Jeffrey Beavers,
• 34:51
  yeah. We'll see Tramp's name.
• 34:54
  I can't remember now. Oh God, it's.
• 34:57
  Terrence or something. It's that's annoying me now.
• 35:04
  I'm going to get it right. Horace Harrods I was nearly.
• 35:10
  There I was nearly there. I was so funny.
• 35:18
  I thought, you approaching with these two bikes a fascist hippie
• 35:23
  can't the to be To be fair, the sphere is great.
• 35:29
  It looks it looks much better than the one that's pulled along
• 35:32
  on a wire in the abominable Snowman.
• 35:36
  If you've seen the sort of existing episode, you can kind
• 35:38
  of see it like gently tugging along on a bit of string.
• 35:42
  Most of the practical effects in this work way better than the
• 35:45
  CGI. Yeah, Barry's learned his
• 35:49
  lessons over the years and as you said, CGI is such in his
• 35:53
  infancy. At this point, considering I was
• 35:56
  born over 140 years, they are. Yes, that's that's the lovely
• 36:08
  little moment that they're sharing when they have a little
• 36:12
  bit of a laugh over her being 140 years old.
• 36:15
  Just sounds like she's 140 years old.
• 36:17
  Those glasses don't suit her, but I think I think they're
• 36:20
  going for really frumpy Victoria versus the kind of hippie chick
• 36:26
  from the from the pre credits, from the Top Pre titles.
• 36:31
  Her earrings are amazing. It's the idea then that Victoria
• 36:34
  is in cahoots with the great intelligence because they're
• 36:37
  both sort of lost spirits. Well, maybe, yeah.
• 36:41
  I think it has like that connection with us from Debts
• 36:46
  end, didn't it? Because it's kind of weird
• 36:52
  because Travis clearly isn't her father, but Jack Waterfield is
• 36:57
  her. It's like that really weird
• 36:59
  thing where they they're almost getting confused between the
• 37:03
  actor and the character, so. When this started and she said
• 37:06
  my father, I instantly thought of Professor Travis, yeah, and
• 37:11
  then I for a second, it wasn't until, she said later on.
• 37:14
  Oh, you know, my father died on another planet.
• 37:17
  And I was like, Oh yeah, God, that's Edward Warfield's her
• 37:19
  father, you know. But they made no effort to,
• 37:22
  like, make it sound like every water field.
• 37:26
  It is just like travelers. I I think somewhere along the
• 37:29
  line someone didn't quite get the difference between her
• 37:33
  father and Traverse. Ask you the last time you saw a
• 37:37
  a ball wobbling that alarmingly before this call.
• 37:48
  We never hear much from Goldie again, do we?
• 37:51
  We don't know. He's not in the new series at
• 37:54
  the moment. Maybe he's going to turn up in
• 37:56
  the in the new Bad Wolf spin off.
• 37:59
  Maybe. Maybe Russell cast one of his.
• 38:02
  Yeah, like Russell Tovey has Goldie or something like that.
• 38:05
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 38:10
  Jim Did you think he's named after Craig Hinton?
• 38:13
  I think it's inevitable, isn't? It possibly, yeah.
• 38:16
  Was Hinton still with us at this point?
• 38:18
  Yeah, it was it, wasn't it? Early 2000s.
• 38:21
  He died. He still gifted me the greatest
• 38:25
  novel I've ever read, The Quantum.
• 38:28
  No, The Quantum Archangel. Just what I always wanted in
• 38:34
  life. A sequel to The Time Monster
• 38:36
  Star and the 6th Doctor of Mill you've just described.
• 38:41
  One of the once and future audios, I think.
• 38:45
  It's the same approach. They pull the names out of a
• 38:47
  hat. OK.
• 38:49
  Do you think this is well directed?
• 38:53
  No, no, I don't think. You sort of lost his touch at
• 38:57
  this point, I thought. If I'm brutally honest, I think
• 39:02
  Christopher Barry lost his touch in the early 70s.
• 39:07
  I think there's bits of the demons that shockingly directed.
• 39:12
  They're just a bit half bothered and a bit.
• 39:18
  It's a bit difficult sometimes in the demons to work out quite
• 39:20
  what's meant to be going on. Creature from the pits, not
• 39:24
  particularly well directed. Yeah, I.
• 39:31
  Do you think the brain of Morbius has its moments?
• 39:33
  I think the brain of Morbius has its moments, but I wouldn't if
• 39:40
  I'm picking great things out about the brain of more BS, it
• 39:42
  would be the performances in the script rather than some of the.
• 39:47
  Design I like as well, yeah. And the designers, Yes is
• 39:51
  brilliant. And you know Barry was behind a
• 39:54
  lot of that as well. He got people working on the the
• 39:59
  look and the performances. So you can't kind of just go.
• 40:03
  It's the, it's the sort of actual.
• 40:10
  Cinematography, or whatever you would call it, there's more more
• 40:13
  to the director's role than that.
• 40:15
  But I I don't think this is brilliantly well directed.
• 40:17
  I think it is very quite in the camera.
• 40:20
  There's a lot of like it's doing a lot of slow zooming at the
• 40:24
  moment. There's a lot of slow zooming,
• 40:26
  which is very sort of 90s soap opera.
• 40:30
  I just wouldn't have this. You wouldn't have a sequence
• 40:34
  like that's about 10 seconds zooming out from the Brigadier
• 40:37
  sleeping. It just wouldn't happen now
• 40:39
  would it? Did you?
• 40:40
  Do you ever see Sunset Beach, the American awful like but very
• 40:44
  funny American TV series? And they used to have like
• 40:48
  scenes that just were like slow zooms from 1 character to
• 40:52
  another character to another character.
• 40:54
  Not even any dialogue just slow zooms into them.
• 40:57
  And if you actually worked out like how how much time had
• 41:03
  passed because the way that it was cut, like the same 2
• 41:06
  characters would be having conversations about four
• 41:08
  episodes while three weeks have passed outside.
• 41:14
  I call the zoom the Paul Bernard effects.
• 41:17
  You watch his direction. He never moves the camera, but
• 41:19
  he's always zooming in and in and out.
• 41:22
  Yeah, and yeah, I just don't. I don't think Zoom's massively
• 41:27
  trendy at this point. It's and it's much more about
• 41:31
  cutting I suppose in the days where Barry was learning his
• 41:35
  trade like cutting between lots of video cameras was probably
• 41:42
  not that feasible because you only have three and one of them
• 41:46
  would be pointing at 1. Character will be somewhere else
• 41:49
  on the set, one would be probably on pointing at the next
• 41:52
  set. So zoom's about the only way
• 41:55
  that you could create huge amount of dynamism or movement
• 41:58
  in the camera work. But you know, this is what 95
• 42:03
  did you say? So 95, this is where stuff like
• 42:08
  Buffy and The X-Files and things like that was starting to
• 42:12
  materialize really sort of slick.
• 42:13
  I know they've got massive budgets, so let's let's account
• 42:16
  for that. But then you've even got like
• 42:18
  directors like Graham Harper in the 80s starting to add sort of
• 42:22
  dynamism to this is just very old fashioned early 70s
• 42:27
  direction that very. Yeah, it could be enough for the
• 42:31
  Crossroads, couldn't it? Yeah, that sort of slows in the
• 42:35
  actions. Tries to do.
• 42:37
  It just doesn't have the cuts that would give it the punch it
• 42:40
  needs. And part of the problem with
• 42:44
  this is that this the script is solid.
• 42:48
  I don't think it's a terrible script.
• 42:50
  It's not best script for a long way, but it's not.
• 42:56
  It's not utter rubbish, but this doesn't have it doesn't have the
• 43:04
  pace that it really needs to make it properly successful.
• 43:11
  Well, the trouble with the script is, as Platt says when he
• 43:13
  was interviewed, it was the idea was the great intelligence has
• 43:17
  been sort of banished into this never realm and it's trying to
• 43:21
  come back into corporeal existence.
• 43:24
  Yeah, so that was the idea we really wanted to hang this on.
• 43:27
  And then they told it, right? Well, you've got to include
• 43:29
  Sarah Jane. We want you to include the
• 43:31
  Brigadier. We want you to include Victoria
• 43:33
  Warsfield. They suddenly had this shopping
• 43:34
  list of ingredients to do and he was like, well, I've only got
• 43:37
  like 5 minutes to tell this story about the great
• 43:40
  intelligence now, but I wanted to.
• 43:42
  So I'm wondering if the book expands any of this.
• 43:45
  They don't. I mean the the books, it's 250
• 43:49
  old pages. It adds.
• 43:50
  I think the Doctor appears at one point.
• 43:53
  It is lots of, it's got lots of sorts of here's a letter from
• 44:01
  this person, here's a unit file, and it's got sort of lots of
• 44:10
  expanded sections about the characters, about what they're
• 44:18
  feeling, about the intelligence. But it's substantially it's the
• 44:23
  same. It's just got, it's just a lot
• 44:27
  longer than this and it's. Because I think we're watching
• 44:33
  this, because I actually did watch this about five months
• 44:36
  ago, just I just put it on randomly and at the end I said
• 44:40
  to my rough, I don't know what that was all about.
• 44:43
  I'm not entirely sure what the plot was to that or how it was
• 44:47
  resolved or anything. And what really sort of stood
• 44:49
  out to me was there was some quite nice character bits in
• 44:51
  there. Yeah.
• 44:53
  And I think I don't, I don't think the book, I don't think
• 44:59
  the book's massively easier to follow because it's still got
• 45:03
  all of the characters in. It still tries to and it tries
• 45:06
  to flesh out all of the characters, right.
• 45:08
  It's not just, it doesn't leave the characters with just like a
• 45:12
  couple more lines. And then folks on the great
• 45:15
  intelligence part tries to give Gordy like more back story and
• 45:18
  delve into how like Gordy's feeling about stuff.
• 45:23
  So it's still got loads and loads, stuff like that.
• 45:28
  Was it a virgin book? It is.
• 45:30
  It's a virgin missing adventure. Anyone get syphilis then?
• 45:34
  Or get the head blown off or or end up in cyberspace?
• 45:42
  No more than they sort of do in the episode.
• 45:45
  But it's more about cyberspace taking them over, I guess.
• 45:52
  Yeah, it's got a bit more about Travers and Travers journey.
• 46:00
  Yeah. It's it's not, it's not, it's
• 46:02
  not bad. It's not the best book, but.
• 46:06
  What do you think about this very mid 90s idea of shining a
• 46:10
  light on Lethbridge Stewart's personal life?
• 46:13
  You know his daughter that he's got a bad relationship with, and
• 46:18
  Cadia to his illegitimate love child.
• 46:23
  What the hell was that all about?
• 46:26
  It's yeah, it's like the Brigade.
• 46:29
  I guess the Brigade is one of the few regular characters that
• 46:35
  you glimpsed a bit of life off screen right now.
• 46:38
  Glimpsed he was in bed with someone in.
• 46:41
  Is it the Demons? I don't know.
• 46:42
  Yeah. Oh, and that watch from Planet
• 46:44
  of the Spiders, Yeah. And then you meet Doris.
• 46:47
  So. So there's a bit more, you kind
• 46:52
  of see a bit more about him than you do about like Benton or
• 46:55
  Harry or any of the any of these characters, but not a huge
• 47:00
  amount. I think in the 90s though, it
• 47:02
  was just like trying to seize on any character and give them a
• 47:05
  racy back story like Dodo getting space in.
• 47:09
  School. Yeah.
• 47:10
  And they're getting. Shot while Joe Grant in genocide
• 47:13
  and miserable existence she had. Oh, God, yeah.
• 47:17
  Bless you. Do you know what these chillies
• 47:18
  remind me of in front of their computers?
• 47:21
  It's those kids from School reunion.
• 47:24
  Oh my goodness. Yeah, I wonder if Toby Wit
• 47:27
  House, you know, was a big fan of downtime.
• 47:29
  And he's like, well, last time we saw Sarah Jane, you know, I
• 47:32
  think it's almost certainly like the most watched DVD that Tony
• 47:39
  Whithouse has got. I think I think probably being
• 47:48
  humans probably largely based around downtime.
• 47:52
  We'll we'll get him on and we'll ask him the question the the the
• 47:57
  weird kid, you know, the one who's trying to hack into the
• 47:59
  system there. It's.
• 48:00
  Just like Kenny from School Reunion.
• 48:02
  You know, the kid that nobody likes that ultimately saves the
• 48:06
  day. There's an interesting bit of
• 48:08
  direction that we've just seen, which is like Barry zooming into
• 48:13
  the Brigadier's face in his car mirror to establish that he's
• 48:16
  stuck in traffic. And I just watch it and I think
• 48:22
  it looks like it from Rumpole of the Bay.
• 48:26
  House of Cards Look at this tilted camera.
• 48:38
  What Barn Farmer says in an interview is he's like Barry
• 48:41
  Christopher Barry had been out. He hadn't directed anything for
• 48:43
  about 9 years, you know, and you know he was.
• 48:46
  I think this was too long before his death.
• 48:48
  Was it? Did he make it to?
• 48:51
  He did some of the DVD's, didn't he?
• 48:54
  But not many. Of them?
• 48:55
  Oh, maybe, but but basically they said, you know what?
• 48:57
  He had like one more project in him.
• 49:00
  And he goes, well I'm glad we caught him, you know, as fertile
• 49:03
  best. But maybe that might just be
• 49:05
  some sort of over hyping and marketing there.
• 49:08
  Yeah, but I. You know later on when you've
• 49:12
  got the yesties in Longshot coming across that field Now, if
• 49:17
  Graham Harper was doing that, it had gone right.
• 49:19
  Those costumes are fucking ridiculous.
• 49:21
  We're going to shoot this at night.
• 49:22
  We're going to fill it with dry eyes and we're going to see the
• 49:25
  silhouettes and then that's it. It is very unforgiving when it
• 49:32
  comes when the Yeti actually turn up.
• 49:33
  And I I kind of think it overreaches with the Yeti and
• 49:43
  there was probably, I understand why they're in it.
• 49:48
  I don't think they need it to be in it.
• 49:51
  I think you could do a great intelligent story with the
• 49:56
  Chiles doing whatever they do and not and not need to to have
• 50:03
  the ETI in it or have like 1 appear somewhere like in the
• 50:07
  five doctors. It's just like a guardian and
• 50:09
  then you get around it that way, you shoot it in a tunnel or
• 50:12
  something like that. And I don't know, I I think it
• 50:16
  was a bit of a mistake to make so much.
• 50:18
  Make so much of them and you look in the cover of the coming
• 50:22
  novel, They look like blooming. They look fabulous orangutan
• 50:27
  things with massive claws. Not like they want a barbara's
• 50:31
  cast of cards. It's alive.
• 50:36
  It's true. But I think they've got their
• 50:39
  sort of marketing tools there, aren't they?
• 50:41
  The Yeti is one of those tools that they used to.
• 50:44
  I think they were going to screen this at conventional.
• 50:46
  So I think they did a panopticon or something like that.
• 50:50
  And you know they want people to to buy tickets to come and see
• 50:53
  this. We've got Sarah, Jane and
• 50:55
  Victoria and the Brigadier and the Yeti.
• 50:58
  The trouble is, with all those elements is you've got to
• 50:59
  reintroduce all those things, give them a story, and then
• 51:04
  leave them somewhere satisfying. And I just don't think there's
• 51:06
  time to do that in an hour. No, there isn't.
• 51:08
  And I think it's kind of impossible.
• 51:11
  I know it was never designed to be standalone and just to be
• 51:15
  watched in isolation, but there is no way that anyone who wasn't
• 51:20
  deeply embedded in Doctor Who Fandon could come to this and
• 51:23
  enjoy it. I don't think I think so.
• 51:25
  So much of the things that I like about it are it's nice
• 51:30
  seeing this slave place Sarah Jane in the 90s.
• 51:32
  It's great to see Nick Courtney back.
• 51:34
  It's fun to see Deborah Watling tackles the script.
• 51:42
  You couldn't. There's no way in the world that
• 51:46
  you could ever have broadcast this, for example.
• 51:47
  It's just not good enough to this is.
• 51:49
  Exactly what I was saying to you earlier.
• 51:51
  Look, they're on some St. in London and they're very quickly
• 51:55
  shots. The camera's in someone's like
• 51:58
  hold all, isn't it? John Leeson Every time he tries
• 52:02
  to play anything but canine? I'm not convinced.
• 52:06
  No, it's he's in an episode of Chuckle Vision.
• 52:11
  But he is which. Chuckle vision.
• 52:17
  I did quite like that. Oh no.
• 52:25
  One of them is dead. Isn't one of the Chuckle
• 52:28
  Brothers gone? Yeah, I'm afraid.
• 52:31
  To say that's a sorry axe when you know just one half.
• 52:35
  Yeah, not chuckling now. No, I did like the fact that.
• 52:42
  John Lisa's characters DJ his Jingle has got the Did you
• 52:50
  notice that? No, I didn't notice that.
• 52:53
  Call yourself a geek. I did not notice that.
• 52:57
  And this character is Nick Courtney thought was the Doctor
• 53:03
  at one point. Or he's going to think, is the
• 53:05
  Doctor at one point, just like some weird old tramp.
• 53:11
  He's more like the wrong ways. It's as superfluous as that old
• 53:17
  tramp played by Brian Miller in Deep Breath.
• 53:20
  It's it. It's an odd inclusion.
• 53:24
  If it feels like they wanted to go for, like, could this be?
• 53:32
  Could who? Who's this mysterious old tramp?
• 53:34
  And it's like, well, Jeffrey Beavers, if you've got Tom Baker
• 53:39
  to play it and then it might be an interesting.
• 53:41
  I ask you to do something. It's incredibly geeky.
• 53:48
  You look scared. Can you rank the tramps?
• 53:50
  Please Pigbin Josh, Jeffrey Beavers or Brian Miller.
• 53:56
  Well, Pigbin Josh is obviously the king of tramps.
• 54:06
  Yeah. Ooh ooh it's the husbands, isn't
• 54:13
  it? Do you think all ex female
• 54:16
  companions husbands are tramps? Well, he'll be.
• 54:19
  He'll be Lawrence Fox is going to turn up as a tramp in the
• 54:22
  next. I think it's very unlikely the
• 54:29
  way his career is where. His career is going.
• 54:32
  He might be on the streets. They might be lucky to catch him
• 54:36
  stinking of piss. Oh, he's got that new Nazi party
• 54:42
  now, isn't he? He's on the up, this fellow,
• 54:48
  right? The one in the jumper.
• 54:50
  I've got a feeling he's supposed to be sinister.
• 54:54
  He's not sinister though. Is he it?
• 54:56
  Reminds me of some sort of feckless character that was
• 54:58
  turned up in Miranda Hart's Joke shop.
• 55:03
  He looks, he looks like he looks like he'd be at the Tavern in
• 55:06
  about 1998 telling you his theory about Rasalon and Omega
• 55:14
  being temporaries. He'd be there.
• 55:17
  Richard Marsden will be under the table with the time, that
• 55:20
  script trying to protect himself.
• 55:22
  Oh dear, John Leeson's gone. All the nucleus of the swarms.
• 55:29
  Let's look at the. CGI Electric.
• 55:33
  I quite like the cobwebs. I'm getting desperate now.
• 55:40
  Yeah, he's wandering around now. He's our big gay jumper man,
• 55:46
  nearing through, looking kind of amused and sinister.
• 55:51
  Do you know what? He was.
• 55:53
  He reminds me of the big gay jumper man.
• 55:57
  Go on. I once got catfish, right?
• 55:58
  So I was, well, not technically catfish, but I was contacted by
• 56:01
  this guy, right? And he's like, right, I'm going
• 56:03
  to take you on a date. We're going to go up the South
• 56:05
  Downs with a picnic basket. I'm going to bring champagne and
• 56:08
  strawberries and all of this. And the picture, man.
• 56:11
  It was slim and gorgeous and dark hair.
• 56:14
  Anyway, that picture was taken 10 years ago.
• 56:18
  The fella turned up in his car, looking just like, why has it
• 56:22
  gone that bloody day? You know you ended up going
• 56:26
  down. No, no, we went.
• 56:28
  To the downs. I did not go down all right.
• 56:31
  It turned to a bit of a counseling session for him.
• 56:34
  It was a really interminable afternoon.
• 56:36
  Did you take you up the Devil's Punch Bowl?
• 56:40
  No, we ended up on Devil's Diet. It was the worst date I ever
• 56:48
  had, honestly. And there's been some stinkers,
• 56:54
  so you didn't end up with any downtime after that.
• 56:57
  It's Ian Richardson's lad who are always, I think, Brexit
• 57:02
  tale. I'm always kind of vaguely
• 57:04
  surprised. Hasn't been in the new series.
• 57:07
  I think his performance as Brexit tale is peerless.
• 57:10
  Yeah, he's always in the Gallifrey series, in the Bernie
• 57:14
  series, even though he turned into a mad, melodramatic villain
• 57:17
  in that. He's just terrific and I think
• 57:20
  and he's been off videos. You know, he has the nerve, He's
• 57:23
  interviewed on for the for this book and he goes, I think
• 57:29
  Nicholas Courtney is a very two-dimensional actor, he says.
• 57:34
  But within those two dimensions, he does all right.
• 57:39
  You do know this book's going out to Doctor Who fans, right?
• 57:43
  Which, to be fair, that's pretty much what I just said.
• 57:46
  But more more scathing. But I think he adds a touch of
• 57:52
  as in Miles. Rich's not a touch of class to
• 57:55
  this as well, I think. I think he's really, really
• 58:00
  good. But he looks great as well,
• 58:02
  doesn't he? So, like, he's so handsome.
• 58:05
  I feel like he should have had a really good career because I
• 58:08
  think he's a good actor. But stuck in all these cheapo,
• 58:12
  you know, 5 Pence Productions, I wonder.
• 58:15
  I wonder if he's had a good stage career though.
• 58:18
  Possibly. Possibly.
• 58:19
  You would have thought his dad's name would have opened a few
• 58:22
  doors as well. Here we come, staggering
• 58:26
  through. You can almost smell the piss.
• 58:36
  When I think you can. See it actually, that comb over.
• 58:42
  I've come here to be Father Christmas.
• 58:44
  The funny thing is is. Obviously he's made-up in Web of
• 58:47
  Fear and he they don't have to bother anymore.
• 58:49
  No, I was thinking. It's very convincing.
• 58:52
  Weather Fear travels. The fuck did they stage that
• 58:55
  traffic jam? Pushed Keep on fighting in front
• 59:00
  of the bus. It was like it was like Don and
• 59:04
  Noble in turn left. It's a word.
• 59:07
  He's Mac. Advice for the production.
• 59:11
  Turn left. Keep one father.
• 59:13
  He said 2 words. Tell me, what were they?
• 59:17
  Down time padyati. Oh, I always giggle.
• 59:29
  You know what that bloody joke you told me?
• 59:31
  I know it's true about showing me the cat.
• 59:34
  That's still one of the funniest moments in my entire three years
• 59:38
  of broadcasting. What the hell is going on with
• 59:45
  this? Not on the on the river.
• 59:46
  Is that just people on the river?
• 59:48
  Yeah, I think they've just like canoed past.
• 59:51
  In short, yeah. Barry's like, my God, there's
• 59:56
  two canoeists coming up the river.
• 59:58
  Get the camera out quick. This had a bit of dynamism.
• 1:00:03
  Spice the script up. Yeah, this is a man with this
• 1:00:06
  dog walking in the background there, so.
• 1:00:09
  All of this. All of this sort of deceptional
• 1:00:13
  family stuff, It's so new adventures, isn't it?
• 1:00:16
  It is, it's and it's just not. I can't.
• 1:00:22
  I kind of feel like that's you're spot on him what you said
• 1:00:30
  in that there's just too many characters 1st to get to know
• 1:00:34
  any of them. So I think it might be
• 1:00:36
  interesting to have the Brigadier and his daughter in it
• 1:00:40
  and maybe Victoria Waterfield to give the kind of link back to
• 1:00:45
  the Yeti, but Sarah Jane in it as well is over egging the
• 1:00:48
  pudding. I think you need travels in it
• 1:00:50
  either. Because again, like you sort of
• 1:00:54
  have to know, or I know you said this is purely for a Doctor Who
• 1:00:57
  audience, but you've got to know all this stuff before you even
• 1:01:02
  go into this because none of it's really explained.
• 1:01:04
  It's like, who the fuck is Professor Trafford?
• 1:01:07
  What to do with her father squidging her face?
• 1:01:10
  And back in the day, you know there was only two episodes that
• 1:01:14
  existed. Were there?
• 1:01:14
  Born with Snowmen 2 and Weber Fear One.
• 1:01:16
  Yeah, yeah. So would you, would you do me
• 1:01:24
  the Honors Senate just to try and explain the plot of what
• 1:01:27
  they're trying to achieve and what what's occurring?
• 1:01:30
  Oh God. No, Gordie.
• 1:01:34
  I think what they're trying to do is the great intelligence is
• 1:01:40
  trying to manifest itself. Again, and it's doing it through
• 1:01:47
  the students at Victoria's University.
• 1:01:54
  Well, actually in the the web of fear in this one is actually the
• 1:01:58
  worldwide web because you know finger on the pulse in the 90s
• 1:02:03
  and so the computer courses are controlling all of these chilies
• 1:02:10
  and once they. Once they sort of link up or
• 1:02:16
  whatever they they can create the the locust for the
• 1:02:23
  intelligence to come through into the into the world and
• 1:02:27
  remanifest. And I think, I think that bit's
• 1:02:31
  relatively straightforward, but it's just dressed up in so many
• 1:02:36
  like Sarah James doing like this weird pretending not to know the
• 1:02:41
  Brigadier and then. Does know the Brigadier.
• 1:02:44
  And then there's like the Miles Richardson character.
• 1:02:46
  What's he really got to do with anything?
• 1:02:49
  That's Kate and Gordon who are only in it because I think
• 1:02:56
  they've accidentally got hold of and they go on the little Yeti
• 1:03:00
  things and it's all it's all a bit so much stuff around the
• 1:03:06
  side that you kind of lose sight of what the actual story is and
• 1:03:10
  and for. This kind of thing, you really
• 1:03:13
  need probably something relatively straightforward.
• 1:03:15
  And I think probably where Mark Platt's downfall is is that
• 1:03:24
  because he is quite an intelligent thoughtful writer
• 1:03:28
  he's tried to think about why Sarah Jane might be involved and
• 1:03:32
  why Professor Trevor rather than just go whatever just bugging
• 1:03:35
  them in and we'll just have a simple story with him.
• 1:03:39
  Why breakdown works so well is that it's such a simple idea
• 1:03:44
  you've got the Suntar is taking over the Tiger Moth because they
• 1:03:48
  think the route is on board and it is and and those characters
• 1:03:52
  are all there because they're trying to win a race or they're
• 1:03:55
  about to go on a race and they're just all caught up in
• 1:03:57
  the circumstances they're all sort of sketched adequately and
• 1:04:02
  and it's it's so simple. They find the route, the route,
• 1:04:05
  and then starts impersonating other people.
• 1:04:08
  And then it murders all the Suntorans.
• 1:04:11
  Yeah. Then they murdered a routine.
• 1:04:13
  And then they get wagged and it's it's really clean.
• 1:04:17
  It is, and I think it's that's. Terristics.
• 1:04:20
  Yeah, it's terristics just gets what you need to do to write an
• 1:04:26
  entertaining yarn that you don't need to like watch seven times
• 1:04:31
  to try and comprehend the plot off.
• 1:04:33
  Because the problem is, you wouldn't.
• 1:04:35
  Most people wouldn't watch this very often, so.
• 1:04:41
  It's almost got that slightly Sylvester McCoy era where it's
• 1:04:47
  all been sort of edited together to fit a time slot and they've
• 1:04:50
  cut all of the explanation out so it's all a bit choppy and
• 1:04:55
  doesn't quite hang together. It's so it kind of.
• 1:04:59
  Flows from those 7th Doctor stories.
• 1:05:01
  But yeah, but you know, the other thing the shakedown has
• 1:05:05
  that this doesn't is Kevin Davies, who understands how to
• 1:05:08
  direct a drama. And it's it's claustrophobic.
• 1:05:13
  It's got do you remember the sequence where the Sontara's
• 1:05:16
  attack and the and all the characters are screaming and and
• 1:05:21
  the Sontaras blossom one after another chase them down the
• 1:05:23
  corridors and then he goes cut, cut, cut, cut to all of the
• 1:05:27
  characters that have been knocked unconscious and the
• 1:05:29
  Suntara. Going the Supers now under
• 1:05:32
  Suntara control but but it's it's really well paced and
• 1:05:37
  really shocked in a way that this just isn't.
• 1:05:39
  And the the Suntorrents. It's not the best that they've
• 1:05:42
  ever looked, but they look pretty good in shakedown,
• 1:05:44
  whereas it ain't the worst they've looked on.
• 1:05:48
  You would You would never put this as the best Yeti look,
• 1:05:51
  would you? We're just kind of watching the
• 1:05:55
  boat. We're watching H Two's boat
• 1:05:59
  going down the river and there's just been like a shot of heroin,
• 1:06:02
  which presumably is just one that Christopher Barry spotted
• 1:06:05
  on the side of the river and decided it'd be fun to include
• 1:06:08
  it. And did you know instead, right,
• 1:06:11
  we're supposed to be watching Beverly Chrisman's reaction to
• 1:06:14
  this conversation that the Brigadiers having with someone
• 1:06:17
  and the camera just zooms very slowly over Nicholas Courtney's
• 1:06:20
  head on to Beverly Crestman looking really thoughtful whilst
• 1:06:23
  he's doing all the talking. You just don't shoot like that
• 1:06:27
  anymore. Well, this is what the
• 1:06:28
  intelligence is looking for. It's one of the little Yeti, I
• 1:06:32
  think this is it's locus, isn't it's the little Yeti thing from
• 1:06:35
  the Deaths End Monastery. Well, it's like this is like a
• 1:06:40
  folk horror version of Rosie and Jim, Rosie and Jim, Rosie and.
• 1:06:50
  Jim. Yeah, you got a bit of that.
• 1:06:58
  Oh, breaks a dabbler. I'm not sure.
• 1:07:01
  Now this kid ain't the villain of the piece.
• 1:07:06
  Oh my God, that was Alistair Locke as one of those chilies.
• 1:07:09
  Oh no. Oh dear.
• 1:07:12
  See, now they're pulling all their mates to play, you know.
• 1:07:15
  Oh no, here we go. And why do they yet used to do
• 1:07:19
  this with their hands like reaching out with their hands
• 1:07:22
  like? It and they go for more
• 1:07:27
  functional. I don't get it.
• 1:07:31
  It it's yeah, it's it's just a bad, it's a bad costume,
• 1:07:38
  unflatteringly short, that left nothing to the imagination.
• 1:07:42
  And also, it doesn't. It really needed to, like, kill
• 1:07:47
  Jeffrey Beaver's character there.
• 1:07:49
  He needs to, like, savagely swipe him and get a shot of him.
• 1:07:52
  Like it needed to do something to establish straightaway.
• 1:07:55
  That was dangerous, but it just like picks up a little chest
• 1:07:58
  piece and then lumbers off the sequence in Web of Fear in,
• 1:08:04
  What's his Name? Silverstein's Museum.
• 1:08:06
  He blows out the candles and it is all in the dark, and the Yeti
• 1:08:09
  is. And then his hand comes crashing
• 1:08:11
  down. And imagine if they'd shortlist
• 1:08:15
  on the barge. But it was night.
• 1:08:17
  It was like. Almost like that first scene.
• 1:08:20
  It was really dark. There's just like a little bit
• 1:08:23
  light picking out the Brigadier and and Kate as they were
• 1:08:27
  chatting in there and the sphere comes in and the reason they
• 1:08:31
  couldn't have done that, you know, it's not like they're
• 1:08:33
  stuck, you know they've got a film at a certain part of the
• 1:08:35
  day, probably Christopher Barry's bedtime mind.
• 1:08:39
  He needs to be back in the home by 6:00.
• 1:08:46
  Oh, I did quite. Like him out, Nicholas Courtney,
• 1:08:50
  I have a grandson. I think you are right.
• 1:08:57
  I think when he is within the confines of the Brigadier's
• 1:09:00
  character at UNIT, he is like Tom Baker says.
• 1:09:04
  He's like the Captain Mannering of the show.
• 1:09:07
  You know, he's so serious, he's the most hilarious character in
• 1:09:10
  it. But when they do try to give him
• 1:09:12
  more sort of emotional material, that being more of an undead,
• 1:09:16
  whereas like, you know, it does not Federal always have been.
• 1:09:20
  They suggest that I had a breakdown and you're going, Oh
• 1:09:23
  no, you know, let's stop. Yeah, or going around the Garden
• 1:09:31
  Center at the start of Honestly Matt, this would look great by
• 1:09:36
  one of our Azalea beds. I think the only good thing
• 1:09:41
  about that is it's supposed to be the brick being a bit out of
• 1:09:47
  out of sorts and a little bit domesticity doesn't really suit
• 1:09:52
  him. All his strength is growing
• 1:09:54
  again, so he's now got the little Yeti locust thing, so the
• 1:09:59
  now the great intelligence is able to manifest.
• 1:10:03
  In the world and use its new World Wide Web to pull itself
• 1:10:06
  through. And Jack, what Lin been working?
• 1:10:08
  Was he retired at this point? I think it resurrected him to be
• 1:10:13
  in it. Looks like it literally.
• 1:10:15
  Dug him up. You can just imagine, like Jack
• 1:10:19
  and Debbie on this set. Yeah, looking at each other
• 1:10:22
  going now one of us has worked for years.
• 1:10:25
  You know what we're doing here. How do you act again?
• 1:10:31
  You never knew how to, so don't worry.
• 1:10:37
  Are the Chili's supposed to be like zombies?
• 1:10:42
  What? Those two?
• 1:10:43
  The chilies. They're supposed to be like
• 1:10:47
  mentally controlled, like in, you know, in.
• 1:10:53
  The web affair, you've got like people who are mentally
• 1:10:55
  controlled by the. I think it's meant to be like
• 1:10:57
  that, except it's used the computers to instead of the web
• 1:11:01
  itself to, you know, like I'm thinking of a Rusty Davis era
• 1:11:05
  scene. Yeah, that captures what they're
• 1:11:07
  trying to do here in about 30 seconds.
• 1:11:10
  And that's that bit in rather the sideman when all those
• 1:11:12
  people are going about their business and then it just stop
• 1:11:15
  and the information is downloaded into and it's more
• 1:11:18
  scary and more sort of relevant to today's technology than this
• 1:11:24
  ever feels, you know? But, you know, it was it was
• 1:11:28
  1995, so the Internet was like dial up.
• 1:11:34
  Yeah, it was dial up and it was basically like 6 pages of
• 1:11:37
  Wikipedia and that was basically it.
• 1:11:39
  That's what good days, weren't they?
• 1:11:42
  Yeah, there's no Twitter or X or whatever it's called this week.
• 1:11:46
  There was no blue sky. There was no you are right.
• 1:11:50
  There does seem to be a line blurred here.
• 1:11:53
  I think anyone watching this who didn't know these characters
• 1:11:56
  would think that he's her father.
• 1:11:59
  It's really weird. It's like sounds like he needs
• 1:12:06
  something to do his unfinished business.
• 1:12:10
  Can I ask you, what did you think of the music in this?
• 1:12:13
  Because it's scored by Ian Levine.
• 1:12:16
  Originally it was going to be scored by markers.
• 1:12:19
  And then Levine came in with the last bit of investment, the last
• 1:12:22
  15 grand. And with that, obviously he
• 1:12:26
  wanted to exert creative control, so he kicked off
• 1:12:29
  markers and said, well, I'm going to take care of the music.
• 1:12:32
  So now what's your opinion? It's.
• 1:12:43
  I don't think it is. As obtrusive as it could be,
• 1:12:47
  it's kind of got a slightly authentic, I guess.
• 1:12:51
  What if Canine and company had gone through a series kind of
• 1:12:55
  vibe to it? But do you know why it's not
• 1:12:59
  obtrusive though did? They cut it all.
• 1:13:01
  They cut loads of it, so he thought all of his music was
• 1:13:04
  going in. My bonfather was like, we gotta
• 1:13:06
  lose this. It's so melodramatic.
• 1:13:08
  And then Levine didn't know they had the screening, and he
• 1:13:12
  stormed out in a fit of pique because they dared to take his
• 1:13:15
  music out. Does his restored version have
• 1:13:18
  the full score on it? I'm sure it does, yeah.
• 1:13:22
  Have you ever seen his full version of Dimensions in Time
• 1:13:25
  with extra scenes? Yeah, so it's only about 30
• 1:13:30
  seconds. It's, yeah.
• 1:13:35
  I can't even. I have seen all of them and I
• 1:13:39
  can't remember what, he added. Dimension in time.
• 1:13:41
  I can remember the Sylvester McCoy additions to this with
• 1:13:45
  Sylvester. Like thinking what on earth?
• 1:13:51
  What on earth are you wanting me to do while I'm getting paid for
• 1:13:53
  it? So we'll do it.
• 1:13:54
  But he completely disassociated himself with the products in the
• 1:13:58
  end, didn't he? And I think he kind of said I
• 1:14:00
  was lured in a bit under false presenters of what I I was told
• 1:14:04
  I would be doing. Yeah, yeah, I think.
• 1:14:07
  I think it's all a bit uncomfortable because he's
• 1:14:12
  clearly just rocked up and he's just doing whatever with one
• 1:14:18
  take, like reading stuff off a a CHEAT SHEET and he's even got
• 1:14:24
  his specs on because he's obviously reading his lines.
• 1:14:28
  Then not really putting a massive amount of effort into
• 1:14:31
  it. And I can't blame it, because
• 1:14:32
  there's a weird fucking mask on Papa and Samnavar that makes.
• 1:14:36
  The bloody zombie things. A mummy or something.
• 1:14:39
  Yeah, it's very old. It just so happens that Kate
• 1:14:46
  Lethbridge Stewart is great with technology.
• 1:14:48
  Did you see it there at the computer?
• 1:14:51
  I like the Halloween cobwebs around.
• 1:14:54
  You know what it looks like? The ones we sell in my shop.
• 1:15:00
  OK now so are they Are they trying to stop the computers all
• 1:15:04
  linking up? Yeah, because all of those
• 1:15:10
  people are now plugged into the computers and that, like the the
• 1:15:14
  intelligence is going to use all of the computers, I think to
• 1:15:18
  create some kind of worldwide form for itself.
• 1:15:23
  It really does look school reunion, doesn't it, In that
• 1:15:25
  window. Very school reunion.
• 1:15:27
  You're spot on, except. Very James.
• 1:15:31
  Kind of disappeared from the plot for ages now.
• 1:15:33
  It's very like, it's very like those 90s things where they've
• 1:15:39
  clearly only got someone for a day or two days or whatever, so
• 1:15:44
  they're barely in it. They're in it for like. 10
• 1:15:47
  minutes and then they don't appear again.
• 1:15:49
  So well, essentially so pops on location in the climax, doesn't
• 1:15:53
  she? So hiding behind something.
• 1:15:55
  Yeah, it's it's all a bit and I think that adds to the
• 1:15:59
  choppiness and why the story doesn't quite flow.
• 1:16:02
  I've been quite, I've been quite rough on it.
• 1:16:04
  I mean, the fact that they got it made at all is on 60 grand.
• 1:16:10
  I mean, these people weren't taking home a big paycheck.
• 1:16:17
  Yeah, something else for the CD, isn't it so?
• 1:16:27
  It's very, This is very student film now, all all of the sort of
• 1:16:30
  weird, like grabbing at the Brigadier.
• 1:16:33
  It's very. And you remember earlier when we
• 1:16:35
  were seeing the POV shots of people sort of staring, coming
• 1:16:38
  straight into the camera. That's very student film as
• 1:16:41
  well. In fact, Mark's made some
• 1:16:45
  student feels I've seen, and I think they might be a bit more
• 1:16:48
  polished actually, yeah. It's some what they needed to do
• 1:16:55
  is because you know, all they got to do is turn the computers
• 1:16:58
  off, right. That's why Sarah Jane gets one
• 1:17:00
  of their yetis to smash the equipment.
• 1:17:02
  But what they needed to do is what they do in school reunion.
• 1:17:05
  Just take the plug out, you know?
• 1:17:09
  In the extension cord, so, so now the Yeti.
• 1:17:11
  So you could kind of see if they'd saved the Yeti for this
• 1:17:15
  scene. It's just like struck down
• 1:17:19
  Jeffrey Beavers, like I said it should in its first scene, and
• 1:17:23
  it's a little bit more shadowed, but one that yet it did look
• 1:17:29
  like he was trying to hug the Brigadier, and the Brigadier
• 1:17:32
  looked entirely unconcerned by it.
• 1:17:35
  Yeah, that that just doesn't work.
• 1:17:38
  Look, don't shoot them like it's like the Mandrels do not.
• 1:17:42
  We don't need to see the whole costume.
• 1:17:44
  That's exactly what they remind me of because they've got that
• 1:17:47
  slightly that slightly, obviously a man in a costume
• 1:17:52
  with funny trousers kind of look, and they've got that weird
• 1:17:58
  the head's got like a kind of pouchy thing at the back of
• 1:18:01
  thing and they're just just a bit odd, this, that.
• 1:18:05
  Really reminds me of Robot, this sequence with all these sort of
• 1:18:09
  unit soldiers in the bushes and on the grounds shooting away,
• 1:18:14
  but it's broad daylight and it's so unsympathetic to those
• 1:18:17
  costumes. It's very it's very the final
• 1:18:20
  attacking day of the Daleks, isn't it?
• 1:18:22
  Where there's like three of them, like walking very slowly.
• 1:18:28
  He does try and pump in a bit of dry ice and some cobwebs,
• 1:18:31
  doesn't he? But this is supposed to be the
• 1:18:33
  big set piece. And it's like, what?
• 1:18:38
  Oh, and now they're spraying their web.
• 1:18:40
  I mean, that's sort of cool, but what?
• 1:18:44
  But why save it to this point? Like they need to be scarier
• 1:18:47
  before this. Yeah, and all of all of this is
• 1:18:52
  very now it. Again it all anything with the
• 1:18:57
  students in suddenly looks student film.
• 1:18:59
  I think it's partly because the student they are students.
• 1:19:03
  It's the way that they're all they all stand down in a really
• 1:19:05
  stylized way. It just has no naturalism at all
• 1:19:09
  to Oh dear, that's the plummet. Do you remember Russell T
• 1:19:13
  Davis's Dark season? Yes, all this ending reminds me
• 1:19:17
  a bit of that, you know, around the school with all the.
• 1:19:19
  Yeah, but you don't have Jacqueline Pearce coming out in
• 1:19:23
  that massive behemoth. Wonderful.
• 1:19:25
  Turban. Oh God yeah, that sequence.
• 1:19:28
  I'll be so excited in the 90s. What a shame if she never came
• 1:19:33
  back for the new series with Russell.
• 1:19:36
  Can you imagine her? You could have had her as well.
• 1:19:39
  She could still do it. She was doing it for Big Finish,
• 1:19:41
  wouldn't she? Come on now, she's dead.
• 1:19:50
  Oh dear. And this is like, they've got
• 1:19:55
  quite a lot of extras, but they're just like they're
• 1:19:58
  standing pointlessly in the background.
• 1:20:00
  So it's like what, what was the point of getting, do you think
• 1:20:03
  all of these people gave them like £20 to be in it?
• 1:20:08
  And they all got. I'm wondering if they just put
• 1:20:09
  out a thing to fans saying, do you want to be in this?
• 1:20:12
  Yeah, turn up on the day. See.
• 1:20:14
  Now here's Sarah. Yeah.
• 1:20:18
  Oh, but this has potential. I think Sarah and Kate Lehbridge
• 1:20:21
  Stewart cry and fight in duo. It's quite fun.
• 1:20:25
  There could be a new Haggard and Shaw haggard.
• 1:20:30
  Sure, yeah. Are smoking then?
• 1:20:32
  Teaming up with Lehbridge, Stewart and Smith.
• 1:20:38
  Oh no. Too many shots of the Yetis.
• 1:20:40
  They look like big poos now. Big lumbering poos.
• 1:20:46
  Why is Why is Miles Richardson just like standing there doing
• 1:20:49
  nothing? And if the great Intelligence
• 1:20:56
  has already possessed Professor Travers, and surely he's in this
• 1:21:01
  this realm already, I think. I think I I don't.
• 1:21:05
  It has physical like proper physical form though it it's
• 1:21:09
  relies in controlling travelers and he can always fight back.
• 1:21:14
  It's not like it's properly manifested.
• 1:21:18
  Look at that, kids. Just on the right there.
• 1:21:20
  I hope the camera goes back there in a second.
• 1:21:22
  He's sort of looking off camera. Like what's the director doing
• 1:21:25
  over there? I I I reckon all of these, all
• 1:21:28
  of these students, I reckon they crowdfunded this and they said
• 1:21:33
  like give us £50, we'll give you the hat and the jumper and then
• 1:21:37
  you'll be you'll be a star of the thing you'll be in, in this
• 1:21:43
  thing that we're making with Nick Court.
• 1:21:44
  Do you reckon this bunch paid for the production?
• 1:21:48
  I reckon like 50 grand. The 60 came from them paid to be
• 1:21:51
  in it. No 45 because of the 15 we've
• 1:21:55
  established came from in the. I think like trying to put a
• 1:22:01
  positive spin on this. I think because there are so
• 1:22:05
  many elements there are a lot of talking points There are again
• 1:22:10
  it's like it's but for me the big problem is it should be
• 1:22:15
  camper and funnier and we we should we should be it's got it
• 1:22:23
  has got Deborah Watling been terrible but none of it is as
• 1:22:30
  funny as like there's nothing what the.
• 1:22:39
  Hell, was that Hong Kong? It's in the missing years on the
• 1:22:45
  I was like one of them even turned off.
• 1:22:52
  She's like this and she she's between some shelves and she
• 1:22:54
  sort of goes it was found in. My Mormon church.
• 1:22:58
  You know, it's so bad. Yeah, actually, she can.
• 1:23:05
  She's naturally eccentric, yeah, And none of that really comes
• 1:23:09
  through in this. It's like it's such a shame that
• 1:23:11
  it's so it's trying so hard to be serious rather than leaning
• 1:23:18
  into where you could have a bit of fun with it.
• 1:23:20
  Whereas again, I'm going to keep going back to shakedown.
• 1:23:24
  There you've got Caroline Ford, who like Deborah Walton, is a
• 1:23:27
  terrible actress. But they've put her in this God
• 1:23:30
  awful jumpsuit and she's this awful character and she's there
• 1:23:34
  pieces of fog going, I said you're drunk, darling.
• 1:23:40
  And you can have fun with that. Exactly.
• 1:23:42
  And it's like you've got, you've got Deborah Watling, you've got
• 1:23:47
  this lady, you've got Miles Richardson can come up when he
• 1:23:52
  needs to. You've got Nick Courtney, and
• 1:23:55
  the campus thing is like this guy that's just getting killed
• 1:23:57
  by Yeti, it's like. Did you see that direction there
• 1:24:02
  when he got shot? But the camera is all over the
• 1:24:06
  place. Oh God.
• 1:24:08
  And now the Yeti smashed up the control panel and it's all going
• 1:24:13
  to pop. And that the the triangle of
• 1:24:17
  spheres has fallen on the floor. Someone's just giving it a push.
• 1:24:21
  Oh God, that's his hip bone. He.
• 1:24:24
  Pushes over poor Jack Watlin. Doesn't he say go back to hell,
• 1:24:31
  Mark. You're better than this.
• 1:24:40
  Oh. You know the bit at the end of
• 1:24:42
  The End of Time when the Doctor looks at Mickey and Martha from
• 1:24:44
  above sort of wistfully and then walks off?
• 1:24:47
  That's just like Victoria Warfield in this scene, you
• 1:24:49
  know? She sort of looks over the
• 1:24:52
  parapet and goes. My work is done.
• 1:24:55
  The 10th daughter hits us on tour and let's probe it then and
• 1:24:58
  walks off and she needs a Yeti in the balls.
• 1:25:03
  But it's not very satisfying, is it?
• 1:25:05
  She just goes like, what happened to Victoria.
• 1:25:08
  It's gone home to the Harrises to have her liver and onions.
• 1:25:13
  Is this the first time the Brigadier and Sarah?
• 1:25:15
  Me. Yeah, it's isn't it?
• 1:25:19
  That's a bit of a missed opportunity, and it's nice that
• 1:25:22
  they also walk. Oh dear.
• 1:25:23
  Oh, bless. Them arm in arm.
• 1:25:24
  Yeah, it's very like I know him so well.
• 1:25:29
  I wouldn't look poor. Everyone it all on her own
• 1:25:33
  though. I just want Liz Sladen and
• 1:25:35
  Deborah Whatley to do. I know him so well,
• 1:25:38
  unfortunately. I don't think you're going to
• 1:25:41
  get that wish anymore. Maybe.
• 1:25:47
  I'm sure you'll be. Convincing out there,
• 1:25:52
  apparently, right, because the weather was so appalling.
• 1:25:55
  They have like snow spells. And also, it's just like in the
• 1:25:57
  demons, but the. The sun came out one morning and
• 1:26:02
  they went quick. Let's get to the fucking canal
• 1:26:04
  because that's where this is ending.
• 1:26:06
  We need the sun out. They're entirely weather
• 1:26:10
  dependent. In the early 90s, Sarah Jane and
• 1:26:15
  the Brigadier were together all the time, right?
• 1:26:17
  Because they they'd been in the paradise of Death, they'd been
• 1:26:20
  in the Ghosts of End Space, They'd done this.
• 1:26:24
  But it's funny like in the early 90s how much like the UNIT stuff
• 1:26:30
  was really like a parallel, Like they had a lot of sort of second
• 1:26:36
  wind, I guess in the early 90s with all of them.
• 1:26:41
  And it's all happened again, didn't it?
• 1:26:42
  In the Mofi era, yeah. It sort of fits us back.
• 1:26:46
  And then Chippen was like, now we're not doing that anymore.
• 1:26:51
  Although I did love that woman on the phone.
• 1:26:53
  Hello. Yes.
• 1:26:55
  Alien invasions. Well, when was the last time
• 1:26:57
  that happened? I quite liked it.
• 1:27:01
  Did you like this sort of demon style end where it's like, do
• 1:27:05
  you wanna, I don't know, go for a cup of tea?
• 1:27:07
  Well, I'd rather have a pint. It's very much like fancy a
• 1:27:10
  dance. But The thing is, there are so
• 1:27:12
  many sort of knowing references like that, so I can imagine all
• 1:27:15
  those geeks in that fandom, you know, getting they've been web
• 1:27:20
  splitting everywhere. I mean, that is a general
• 1:27:23
  convention. I'll speak from experience.
• 1:27:27
  I need to find out more about these.
• 1:27:29
  Conventions. Phantom Films, I'll put you in
• 1:27:30
  touch with him, right? Well, that was the end of
• 1:27:35
  downtime and I think we reached a.
• 1:27:40
  Sort of a conclusion about what we think about this a
• 1:27:44
  masterpiece, Payless. The series has never lived up to
• 1:27:48
  this standard since. I mean, they've been trying.
• 1:27:52
  They haven't. Quite reached it.
• 1:27:55
  We've got 2. Things that we have to achieve
• 1:27:57
  now we have to somehow head into the web of Twitter comments and
• 1:28:03
  try and see if we can think of some adequate No, it's not
• 1:28:06
  Twitter anymore, is it? It's X.
• 1:28:09
  Yeah, I'm so sorry. So Are you ready after dark?
• 1:28:13
  To be honest, so. You ready for me to start
• 1:28:15
  throwing questions at you? Yeah, do it.
• 1:28:18
  Let's do it. Let's do it.
• 1:28:21
  Let's do it now. I'm going to start with one of
• 1:28:23
  the do it on my desk. Now the question.
• 1:28:26
  When the cameras off Martin Havel, oh marvelous chap, I just
• 1:28:34
  recorded with him this week asked Have you ever felt
• 1:28:37
  embarrassed when someone caught you watching this?
• 1:28:39
  I wish they caught you watching porn instead.
• 1:28:42
  No one has ever caught me watching downtime.
• 1:28:47
  I only watch it when I'm alone and there's no one going to
• 1:28:52
  catch me. They'll never caught you
• 1:28:55
  watching porn. Oh no, they catch me watching
• 1:28:58
  porn all the time. It's just downtime.
• 1:29:02
  Fraser Gregory When we got off the train yesterday because of
• 1:29:08
  all the porn. What mashup of sixties, 70s and
• 1:29:14
  80s companions and monsters would you like to see?
• 1:29:19
  So I guess he's saying, how could we have made this work?
• 1:29:22
  Oh. God how sorry.
• 1:29:26
  There's there's there's rules as well.
• 1:29:29
  You can have one companion per decade, then one monster from
• 1:29:33
  any. So sixties, 70s and 80s.
• 1:29:40
  So my natural inclination would just be to like, pick my
• 1:29:42
  favorite. It's not like, I don't know,
• 1:29:44
  like Barbara Romana Mel or something like that, but but I
• 1:29:51
  feel like the question's trying to go like, how?
• 1:29:53
  How could you make something better than downtime?
• 1:29:59
  Oh, that's it. That's it.
• 1:29:59
  That's a toughy. It'd have to be, you probably
• 1:30:03
  want people who were on Earth, so you'd want, I don't know,
• 1:30:07
  would you go like Dodo or Holly or Ian, someone like that, who
• 1:30:15
  was on Earth in the 60s and could still be around, So let's
• 1:30:19
  say, I don't know, Ian, Ian, Sarah, can you pick them if
• 1:30:28
  they're dead now or do they have to?
• 1:30:30
  Be Yeah. No.
• 1:30:30
  Go on. Oh, oh, If you can pick them in
• 1:30:33
  they're dead. Let's do Barbara.
• 1:30:34
  Sarah Jane. And which you'd have to probably
• 1:30:38
  go with Ace. Ace, wouldn't you?
• 1:30:42
  I would go with Mel, but she's like in outer space.
• 1:30:45
  In theory, no. And then what would link them
• 1:30:52
  up? What?
• 1:30:54
  Ooh, I don't know, Sarah. Jane's not really got any link
• 1:30:58
  to the Yeti. She's sort of in it, isn't she?
• 1:31:00
  So. An Earth, an Earthbound menace
• 1:31:03
  or a menace that's been on it like the Autumns or something
• 1:31:06
  like that. If you're going to do it in 95,
• 1:31:09
  you could do vote, vote. And because it's like the
• 1:31:11
  Internet, yes, what you should do is Poly because of she was
• 1:31:16
  Doctor Brett's secretary. So you do Poly New Vote and
• 1:31:20
  you'd have Sarah Jane. Like the very first thing she
• 1:31:25
  ever reported on was like the press conference in the war
• 1:31:28
  machines. And she was there.
• 1:31:30
  I could do another shot for a Victoria style shot of her at
• 1:31:33
  the start as a 19 year old rookie journalist reporting on
• 1:31:38
  Wotan. And you would?
• 1:31:40
  Oh, no. Wait, no.
• 1:31:45
  Well, because she's a computer programmer and it would be like
• 1:31:48
  Mel, but before she met the Doctor.
• 1:31:51
  I don't know. It's it's a war between Votan
• 1:31:55
  and the boss, who were both trying to create interwebs,
• 1:31:59
  weren't they? Yes.
• 1:32:01
  Yes. Oh my God.
• 1:32:03
  I mean, it's rice itself. Mel would.
• 1:32:05
  Mel would be able to use her computer programming skills.
• 1:32:08
  She saves the day, save the day. And then they're like, no, the
• 1:32:13
  the sophisticated computer equipment we need is behind this
• 1:32:16
  glass. How will we shatter it?
• 1:32:18
  And she screams. Perfect.
• 1:32:22
  I mean, that already sounds better than this, doesn't it?
• 1:32:24
  Yeah, it does. Really.
• 1:32:25
  Yeah. For.
• 1:32:27
  Sure, Mark, go back in time and make it.
• 1:32:30
  No, let's just do it now. If Christopher Barry hadn't been
• 1:32:36
  available to direct this, which classic series director do you
• 1:32:38
  think should have been at the helm instead?
• 1:32:42
  Hey, Richard, Martin to me. Well, you could go.
• 1:32:46
  So Douglas Camfield was dead by this point, and I think Gerald
• 1:32:52
  Blake directed the Abominable Snowman, didn't he?
• 1:32:54
  But I think he, I'm pretty sure he was dead by that, this point.
• 1:32:58
  So he couldn't have picked either of that.
• 1:33:00
  I don't know, maybe Morris Barry, he was doing a load of
• 1:33:03
  like, stuff out, although probably wouldn't be that good.
• 1:33:07
  You could do Morris Barry, you could, you could go for Graham
• 1:33:10
  Harper because you'd probably get a better way.
• 1:33:13
  You would certainly get something better with Graham
• 1:33:15
  Harper. And he was down to do Dark
• 1:33:16
  Dimension right as well. So he would have been up for a
• 1:33:20
  bit of he would have been up for a bit of fan video, surely?
• 1:33:26
  I'm gonna take a stab and say Kenny McBain, director of the
• 1:33:30
  Horns of Nymon, because I'm sure he learned a lot when he skipped
• 1:33:36
  over and produced Inspector Morse.
• 1:33:39
  No, I'm being facetious, OK? Luke lost on Galafrey, asked.
• 1:33:44
  What's better, downtime or wartime?
• 1:33:48
  I've never seen war time, so I've.
• 1:33:50
  Only seen it this year, and I tell you with some degree of
• 1:33:54
  certainty, downtime is the better production.
• 1:33:57
  We're going for Downtime, Luke. John Bensalia asked Which came
• 1:34:02
  first, Downtime or Demon Headmaster?
• 1:34:06
  I thought about between the two of us.
• 1:34:10
  Which came first? I'm pretty sure the Demon
• 1:34:13
  Headmaster would have as a book would have come first, but the
• 1:34:19
  TV series would have been downtime.
• 1:34:22
  What's the connection between the two?
• 1:34:24
  I guess they're both like. I don't know.
• 1:34:29
  Evil schools, evil hypnotic school things don't know.
• 1:34:34
  You have to come back to us, John, and let us know about that
• 1:34:36
  one? Simon Hart asks.
• 1:34:39
  Originally planned for the 30th anniversary, would this have
• 1:34:42
  been the highlight of 1993? If it had been made, then well
• 1:34:46
  know, because dimensions in time exist.
• 1:34:48
  And what could be better than pickled in time?
• 1:34:51
  I mean, there's nothing, there's nothing in this that is like as
• 1:34:55
  as quotable or as as fun as pickled in time, or it'll
• 1:35:00
  overload clumsily dubbed over. You could tell me to your blue
• 1:35:05
  in the face that dimensions in time is a bit of shit.
• 1:35:07
  I know it is, but it's so fun. Oh, I love it.
• 1:35:11
  No. No, I'm not.
• 1:35:11
  I mean it. It's not.
• 1:35:14
  It's not high up. It's exactly what was needed for
• 1:35:17
  the 30th. People really enjoyed it 13.
• 1:35:20
  Minutes. I made a ton of money for
• 1:35:22
  Children in need. Shut up.
• 1:35:23
  It's dimension in time. I love it.
• 1:35:25
  I'm still scared. You know that the 60th
• 1:35:27
  anniversary specials, which I know I'm going to be great,
• 1:35:30
  might not be as entertaining as not mentioning in time.
• 1:35:35
  I mean, has anything in Western Civilization been since 1993
• 1:35:40
  been entertaining as Dimensions in Time?
• 1:35:43
  I mean, my love for that extended to the fact that me and
• 1:35:46
  my Rob did in fact go to London and refilm it, and it is
• 1:35:49
  available on YouTube. Madam, What you're is it?
• 1:35:55
  I love the arts. Paint if you're going.
• 1:36:00
  You're going to do it like that? No, no, let's go again.
• 1:36:04
  It's great. Doctor Nigel Fletcher.
• 1:36:09
  Oh, I think this is more of a comment.
• 1:36:10
  Oh my goodness. I think I watched this back in
• 1:36:12
  the day on VHS. Had managed to erase the memory
• 1:36:14
  until now. I would have assumed I dreamt it
• 1:36:18
  fair dreamt or had a nightmare. Darren Lit Roundall says when
• 1:36:26
  you're alone and life is making you lonely, you can always watch
• 1:36:32
  their own time. Thank you.
• 1:36:35
  That's what they should have played over that scene of
• 1:36:37
  Victoria looking sad as everyone else went away happily.
• 1:36:41
  Listen to the music of the. Traffic in the city.
• 1:36:46
  Linger on the sidewalk with the fucking ugly chilies downtime.
• 1:36:51
  I'll stop. David GP is the opening sequence
• 1:36:55
  with Victoria, one of the worst pieces of acting in the whole
• 1:36:58
  Doctor Who universe. Cuz it ain't great, but it's not
• 1:37:04
  even She's not even the worst actor in it.
• 1:37:09
  Who is I Really Need the toilet Christopher.
• 1:37:21
  No, I did tell you though, I always get that sinking feeling
• 1:37:25
  when it starts. Actually, no.
• 1:37:29
  The worst actor in it would be McCoy if that original scene was
• 1:37:32
  at the beginning. It's so terrible.
• 1:37:39
  Doctor George Sander for Smith, says this might be an obscure
• 1:37:43
  one, but the rather fun novelization with the Doctor's
• 1:37:46
  appearance, published as an official Doctor Who book, seems
• 1:37:49
  to have been badly bound in its print run.
• 1:37:53
  Meaning, if you dare to read it, the book falls apart.
• 1:37:56
  You were saying earlier. In fact, the pages aren't
• 1:37:59
  falling out. George.
• 1:38:02
  George, Darling. I think what's happened is
• 1:38:06
  someone in the shop, The Water Stones or the John Menzies has
• 1:38:12
  fingered your copy with their grubby little thumbs and their
• 1:38:17
  nasty little fingers. And they've snapped it open to
• 1:38:21
  have a look at the unique photos taken during filming, of which
• 1:38:27
  there are a number in the middle of the book.
• 1:38:29
  And they bent the spine right back to have a look at Kate, the
• 1:38:33
  Brigadier's daughter, played by Beverly Cressman, and a picture
• 1:38:37
  of Victoria. She appears in the Brigadier's
• 1:38:39
  dreams and as a result of them doing that, the book has fallen
• 1:38:47
  to bit. So my dear George, what I can
• 1:38:49
  say to you, my dear sweet man, is be careful about where other
• 1:38:55
  people put their fingers and make sure that you check your
• 1:39:02
  spine before you buy. Speaking of somebody who is well
• 1:39:05
  thumbed, I do feel for that novel of yours, George.
• 1:39:11
  Stephen Flanagan asked. What happened to Gaudy?
• 1:39:14
  Is he working for UNIT now? That would at least increase the
• 1:39:17
  number of lifetimes for Kate's family to 3 from 2.
• 1:39:24
  He is living on a farm in Iowa with his partner Simon.
• 1:39:37
  And he's played by He's played by Russell Tovey.
• 1:39:42
  Oh yeah, we've already determined that The British
• 1:39:45
  Alien asked. Who is the fan?
• 1:39:47
  Actor. Young man with the glasses.
• 1:39:49
  Is he a fan? Oh, it probably was.
• 1:39:51
  Well, who played Hinton? Yeah.
• 1:39:54
  Do you know he's also in whispers of terror I could find
• 1:40:01
  for him. So his name's Mark.
• 1:40:04
  I'm going to have to look it up now.
• 1:40:05
  So I'm running it down. When I was doing my research,
• 1:40:08
  he's called Mark Trotman, and Mark Trotman played Daniel
• 1:40:12
  Hinton in downtime and voiced Miles Napton in the Big finish.
• 1:40:16
  Talk to audio story Whispers of Terror I.
• 1:40:18
  Remember that performance? It was certainly more
• 1:40:21
  accomplished than this, that's for sure.
• 1:40:25
  Michael Storm asked. Sarah refers to UNIT, I guess
• 1:40:29
  files on the events of the Webosphere and the Abominable
• 1:40:33
  Snowmen by their respective production codes.
• 1:40:35
  There's a few queries about this.
• 1:40:38
  Does this imply that UNIT has files on all stories, even those
• 1:40:42
  that in no way could to UNIT? And how exactly?
• 1:40:50
  Well done, 2 words. You managed to answer that one.
• 1:40:53
  No Grand Serpent. It's all explained in flux.
• 1:40:56
  I'm not gonna say anymore, cuz it would spoil it.
• 1:40:59
  I don't know what you thought of that, Tom Newsom asked.
• 1:41:02
  Would you recommend it to somebody who hasn't seen it?
• 1:41:10
  I mean this if I didn't like them.
• 1:41:17
  Well, Johnny Morris this. I like, I like Tom and Johnny,
• 1:41:22
  so I wouldn't recommend it to them.
• 1:41:24
  No, it's like it's one of those, isn't it, where you've got to
• 1:41:30
  take the rough with the smooth. And if you want to, if you want
• 1:41:34
  to know what Doctor Who being a Doctor Who found was like in the
• 1:41:37
  90s. It's all part of the experience.
• 1:41:41
  It's all it's it's got. It's got Nick Courtney.
• 1:41:45
  It's got Deborah Watling. It's got Elizabeth Sladen in her
• 1:41:49
  only on screen appearance. Oh, no, it's not even on screen
• 1:41:54
  appearances, Sarah Jane. She's obviously in the
• 1:41:56
  masterpieces Dimensions in Time, but they should have used a clip
• 1:42:00
  from Dimensions in Time in Sarah Jane Adventures.
• 1:42:03
  Why didn't they do that? Well, they, yeah.
• 1:42:06
  Anyway, do you think it's sort of in quality terms, if not the
• 1:42:10
  new series? Yeah, is like, you know when you
• 1:42:14
  pop on Grinder, someone turns up and you have the most amazing
• 1:42:17
  shack you've ever had in your life.
• 1:42:19
  Downtime. Sort of like a wank job down a
• 1:42:23
  back alley. Yeah, well, you get chlamydia,
• 1:42:27
  but. Then you get the free test at
• 1:42:32
  the right time. Okay time, lad, Danny says.
• 1:42:39
  Guilty pleasure. I only watched it for the first
• 1:42:40
  time the other year and really enjoyed it.
• 1:42:42
  Oh, that's it. Well, thank you for letting us
• 1:42:44
  know that. No.
• 1:42:45
  Good on your time, lad. Danny Andy Frankham Allen.
• 1:42:50
  Didn't he read, write some of those Lethbridge Stewart books?
• 1:42:53
  Now I believe that he's he's either written or edited a
• 1:42:58
  sequel to this but his Candy Jar books.
• 1:43:03
  And I forget what the name is off the top of my head, but.
• 1:43:06
  There is a downtime sequel in the Candy Jar range of novels.
• 1:43:12
  Oh, do you know what he says here?
• 1:43:14
  As someone who wrote the official sequel, I have to be
• 1:43:17
  honest and say that the story is hard to gauge without reading
• 1:43:21
  the novel too. I don't.
• 1:43:23
  It's about his novel or the downtime novel.
• 1:43:26
  I think he means the downtime novel.
• 1:43:28
  So the official sequel novel is Downtime Child of the New World.
• 1:43:34
  In the Lethbridge Stewart range, I I think he's talking about the
• 1:43:40
  the downtime novel. I think it's probably a bit
• 1:43:45
  clearer. But like I said earlier, it's
• 1:43:46
  still got all of the faults of the the, I was about to say TV
• 1:43:53
  version of the video version, because it's still got all of
• 1:43:56
  the characters in. It's still got, it's still
• 1:43:59
  trying to cram in all of the things that are actually.
• 1:44:02
  Bolt on to the proper story, and it's trying to flesh out all of
• 1:44:08
  these characters as well, so it kind of ends up still being
• 1:44:12
  quite a messy read. But I suppose you've got the
• 1:44:17
  time to really delve into the character's mind, so at least.
• 1:44:23
  Yeah, that's true. Not just sort of very quick
• 1:44:25
  dialogue scenes and then back to the action.
• 1:44:28
  And you at least saved all of the slow zooms, so small
• 1:44:35
  notices. And you also get unique photos
• 1:44:40
  taken during filming, including the Brigadier holding a Yeti at
• 1:44:45
  gunpoint, Sarah Jane and Kate hiding from a Yeti Victoria, the
• 1:44:49
  Brigadier and Harrods surrounded by chilies, and the Yeti
• 1:44:52
  standing watch at the New York World University.
• 1:44:57
  Honestly, I'm going to I'm literally on Amazon right now.
• 1:45:00
  Oh no wait, it's £150.00. I won't be doing that. £150.00
• 1:45:07
  and and it apparently falls apart if you like.
• 1:45:10
  Deja Vu says. I still have never seen it, or
• 1:45:14
  even added it to the collection. Yet it always seemed relevant or
• 1:45:18
  notable, mainly for who was in it and the director than
• 1:45:21
  anything more substantial. Yeah, I think maybe that's what
• 1:45:24
  they're going for. They're trying to make it feel
• 1:45:26
  substantial because of who's in it.
• 1:45:28
  Yeah. And and yes, I mean, I think
• 1:45:32
  that's fair comment, but I agree with you.
• 1:45:34
  I think that's exactly what they were going for.
• 1:45:36
  So they kind of it is, but that was their intent and I think
• 1:45:41
  they succeeded. Two people, you know say they
• 1:45:44
  fell asleep when trying to watch this.
• 1:45:49
  It is slow. It is slow and I think it's
• 1:45:56
  worst crime is. It's not camp.
• 1:45:59
  It's not despite despite the cast it's got and despite the
• 1:46:04
  fact that it should be incredibly camp with those
• 1:46:09
  ridiculous Yeti and all the big hair and it it just isn't.
• 1:46:17
  It's not for some reason. It's just a bit.
• 1:46:19
  It's just a bit then the last time you and I talked on this
• 1:46:24
  thing, we did time in the runny, you know, and that was high camp
• 1:46:27
  all the way. But we stop laughing for right
• 1:46:30
  now. Don't get me wrong, we laughed a
• 1:46:31
  bit during this, but that was mostly due to the ineptitude of
• 1:46:34
  the production. It's.
• 1:46:35
  About time in the run. It's just like hilarious.
• 1:46:38
  And some of it's inadvertent, but some of it's like
• 1:46:41
  deliberately funny. Well, OK, that's that's all
• 1:46:48
  comments and questions I now have to ask you after detailing
• 1:46:55
  the list of faults with downtime to select three things that you
• 1:47:00
  would choose to recommend this high quality production to our
• 1:47:06
  audience. I would recommend Elizabeth
• 1:47:09
  Sladen. I would recommend.
• 1:47:15
  I would recommend Nicholas Courtney.
• 1:47:18
  And oddly, I would recommend Billy Creswell as well, because
• 1:47:21
  she doesn't get a massive role in this.
• 1:47:24
  But I think it is the first appearance in the I don't know
• 1:47:32
  what you'd call it like the mythos or if you wanted to be
• 1:47:35
  wanky, but it's like the first appearance of Kate Stewart, and
• 1:47:40
  it's interesting to just see how that role was originally so it
• 1:47:45
  conceived and played. This is what we ultimately get
• 1:47:50
  to see in the new series and just to chip in Mafri would be
• 1:47:57
  I'm going to recommend Ian Levine's score, but should as it
• 1:48:01
  is. I did have that on Marne Padmeam
• 1:48:04
  music going around in my head all day, which means it's.
• 1:48:08
  Creepy as hell, yeah. It is quite effective.
• 1:48:13
  I'm also going to recommend, and this as a intellectual exercise
• 1:48:18
  of watching something made in the 90s being directed by
• 1:48:22
  somebody with the sensibilities of the 70s.
• 1:48:27
  That's quite intriguing to watch.
• 1:48:31
  And my third thing is going to be, oh, this is tough, This is
• 1:48:41
  stuff. Oh, it's going to be the
• 1:48:43
  dreadful performance from that camp, Chubby guy showing you
• 1:48:48
  exactly how you don't do that sort of thing.
• 1:48:52
  As he minces around the university looking at John
• 1:48:54
  Levine covered in cobwebs, and he does sort of feel like he's
• 1:48:57
  just wandered in, doesn't he? And they're like, oh, do you
• 1:48:59
  want to part in this? This is the way he kind of
• 1:49:02
  minces around and pace through windows and then smirks and
• 1:49:05
  minces off to the next one. You think I'd find it more
• 1:49:09
  relatable? It's.
• 1:49:13
  Like he's doing a stock check. I just didn't get on with him.
• 1:49:16
  That was a very accurate impression of me doing the stock
• 1:49:23
  check. Thank you.
• 1:49:27
  Oh gosh, do you know what you are delighted to talk to?
• 1:49:31
  We did mention earlier something that we were going to talk about
• 1:49:34
  next time, but I completely forgot what it is.
• 1:49:36
  We we want to watch Demos Rising, don't we?
• 1:49:39
  Damos Rising. Well.
• 1:49:41
  To downtime not, I hasten to add, by Andy Frankel and this is
• 1:49:45
  the Keith Barn for the video sequel to downtime, not the
• 1:49:49
  normal version. And there is no Mark Platt novel
• 1:49:52
  of facts. It's not written by Mark Platt,
• 1:49:54
  who's he written by. It's written by David J Howe.
• 1:49:58
  No, it's not. It is reference books.
• 1:50:03
  Maybe this is? Beverly Crusher.
• 1:50:07
  Beverly Crusher in Old Port. That would have been a coup.
• 1:50:12
  She's telling me. That this is what she that's
• 1:50:14
  what she was doing. Doing Theories 2 for the next
• 1:50:16
  generation when Dr. Pulaski was old.
• 1:50:21
  You'd have Miss Awful on there, Doctor Crusher.
• 1:50:23
  What's that wrong? You know what?
• 1:50:29
  We've created two shows on this recording now that are better
• 1:50:32
  than the things we're talking about, Miss Hawthorne and Doctor
• 1:50:36
  Beth. But maybe it is Beverly
• 1:50:40
  Craftsman and Miles Richardson talking about the making of
• 1:50:44
  downtime. Maybe that's what it is.
• 1:50:46
  Maybe it is very making of documentary by David Jinha.
• 1:50:50
  I mean, I'm assuming you've seen this, right?
• 1:50:53
  I've never seen this. I don't need for, have I?
• 1:50:57
  And amazing, I've never seen it, even though it's by Cock Media.
• 1:51:03
  I'm surprised you didn't pull it off the shelf by accident, you
• 1:51:06
  know. Wonder if I showed up in my
• 1:51:08
  Amazon recommendations. I'm assuming it's just some like
• 1:51:14
  low budget horror, right? I well, yeah, I mean, right,
• 1:51:20
  it's got it's got a demon creature on the front and H2.
• 1:51:27
  And Miles Richardson is Cavendish again.
• 1:51:31
  So, I mean, what was the point of Cavendish?
• 1:51:34
  Yeah, he didn't do it. I think he's just there to
• 1:51:36
  suggest that something sinister's going on in Unit
• 1:51:38
  isn't. He it's just like, Oh, well, Ian
• 1:51:41
  Richardson's lab wants to be in it.
• 1:51:44
  So let's just write him in and he could.
• 1:51:46
  Resurrection of the Daleks. You know, we just had another
• 1:51:48
  plot. And another one.
• 1:51:50
  Very much like, well, I'll only give you £10,000 if you agree
• 1:51:53
  that X. Did you read that Resurrection
• 1:51:58
  of the Daleks target novel? Yes, dear, Oh dear, Did you
• 1:52:03
  recover? I reviewed it for Doctor Who
• 1:52:09
  Magazine when it came out in hardback a couple of years ago.
• 1:52:14
  And Eric, So what is no longer returning your calls?
• 1:52:19
  I yeah, I was fairly scathing about it.
• 1:52:21
  It's like why use one objective when 36 will do the same job
• 1:52:26
  that whole sequence in the TARDIS in the middle?
• 1:52:30
  Although what what I what did amuse me was how basically he
• 1:52:35
  wrote the Supreme Dalek as JNT and himself as the Deputy
• 1:52:40
  Supreme Dalek. And the Supreme Dalek is
• 1:52:42
  basically a gay prima Donna. He's very highly strong and
• 1:52:46
  makes impossible demands. The Supreme Runner doesn't come
• 1:52:50
  out with things like. Stay tuned and.
• 1:52:52
  The memory. Keys.
• 1:52:58
  I have been persuaded to stay. Who?
• 1:53:03
  Is it? Do you know Supreme Dalek?
• 1:53:05
  My old adventures, the Dalek master plan, were much more
• 1:53:08
  excited than this, that memory change.
• 1:53:12
  Why has the plan failed? That was the fault of the
• 1:53:16
  Supreme Dalek all. The fault of the producer John
• 1:53:25
  Nathan Turner. All right, man, We really needed
• 1:53:29
  that Teller interview with him, didn't we?
• 1:53:32
  Tegan goes off to have like a spinoff series at the end.
• 1:53:37
  Isn't she likes cybernetic or something?
• 1:53:39
  I. Can't remember?
• 1:53:41
  This very odd. I feel like we should be doing a
• 1:53:44
  podcast on that, but no, we shall return after our meteoric
• 1:53:50
  success with downtime to experience.
• 1:53:53
  Will be virgins heading into Damos Rising.
• 1:53:59
  Going to going to going to reopen the devil's, Devil's
• 1:54:08
  Barrow. Yeah, it's the devil's hump in
• 1:54:10
  it. That's hump.
• 1:54:12
  We're going to get our trials out and we're going to.
• 1:54:16
  Go humping. Away the remains of Professor
• 1:54:18
  Horner and get right inside. I just hope we don't see Miss
• 1:54:23
  Hawthorne dogging we're. Going to get right inside us.
• 1:54:27
  I'll copy all.