Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Steven B & Jack Coyer about their choice of The Time Monster (2/6)

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Talks to Steven B & Jack Coyer about their choice of The Time Monster (2/6) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blunt pen knife for doing quicker quicker.
• 0:38
  Welcome back to a Hamster with a Blunt Pen Knife, the Doctor Who
• 0:42
  Commentary podcast with Joe, Jack and myself, Steven.
• 0:48
  Say hello, Joe. Hello, Joe.
• 0:52
  Got me back. Nice one.
• 0:53
  Say hello, Jack. Hello, Joe.
• 0:56
  Oh, well done. I don't know what what you're
• 0:59
  going to do for episode 3. I'll.
• 1:01
  Just want to talk. You always heard with me
• 1:06
  somehow. Well, we're back, gentlemen.
• 1:10
  It's Part 2, Episode 2 of The Time Monster.
• 1:13
  We, we haven't given up on this and called it the day after
• 1:16
  episode 1. We've decided to persevere.
• 1:20
  Are we ready to begin? Oh for sure.
• 1:23
  I think it's on the button. Oh, Jack's not ready.
• 1:26
  Second episode of our film. Jack, what is that enormous
• 1:30
  remote control? It's a it's a young people
• 1:33
  playing. I'm sorry, I can't.
• 1:39
  See it through my cataracts. It's it's like an Atole for
• 1:43
  young people. The only issue is every sort of
• 1:49
  10 minutes the controller shuts down.
• 1:52
  So I have to turn the controller on to press play on the thing.
• 1:55
  But I. Hope you realise I'm banking.
• 1:57
  Insults. All right, I'm banking them all
• 1:59
  just to use all other people. Yes, I'm ready.
• 2:04
  Now do. You want a can of Sinjag.
• 2:08
  OK, awesome in 321. Do you know?
• 2:14
  I do have a question for both of you though, which I I probably
• 2:16
  should have asked them so well, it's why do people not like this
• 2:20
  like this? This polled the bottom of the
• 2:24
  John Perkway era in the latest DWM poll, So this is not a love
• 2:29
  story. I.
• 2:31
  Think there's a few things to it #1 any Doctor Who story with the
• 2:35
  where time in it is automatically destined to, you
• 2:38
  know, be in the bottom 20 of the of the poles.
• 2:42
  It's just a a law of physics I think, or something like that.
• 2:45
  Invasion of time. Yeah, there you go.
• 2:48
  Time in the run. Time of the Doctor.
• 2:50
  Jesus, Yeah. But beyond that, no, not beyond
• 2:54
  just the facetious reasons. I, I think fundamentally there
• 2:58
  is a window almost like an Overton window through which
• 3:02
  Doctor Who fans are prepared to accept what is Doctor Who and
• 3:05
  what isn't. And that will shift and change
• 3:07
  to contract and expand over time.
• 3:10
  But when you start going a bit too far out into the margins and
• 3:14
  start making fun of the show through the show, or when you're
• 3:17
  having so much fun that you've not taken the audience with you,
• 3:20
  as you said in that first episode that we did show, there
• 3:24
  will be a number of fans that you lose.
• 3:27
  And I think it's then a matter of personal choice and taste.
• 3:30
  I know that this is garbage, but I enjoy it, and I enjoy it for
• 3:34
  all the reasons that people who think it's garbage think it's
• 3:36
  garbage and don't enjoy it. So what about you and Jack?
• 3:42
  Yeah, no, I agree with you. What what Stephen said.
• 3:44
  I would also add that, you know, when he says people have a very
• 3:48
  specific idea of what Doctor you should be, I think this is an
• 3:53
  era that's presented itself as having a very specific idea of
• 3:58
  what it's Doctor Who should be. And I think if counteracting a
• 4:04
  little bit, it's a little bit, we're starting to veer into the
• 4:08
  sort of more pantomimy aspects. Obviously a lot of the cast and
• 4:13
  crew have been Porto Amy's characters for, you know, a
• 4:17
  couple of years now. So we're starting to have a bit
• 4:19
  more fun with it and take themselves a little bit less
• 4:23
  seriously as most people do when they've sort of got their foot
• 4:28
  in the door. Obviously we all know what, you
• 4:31
  know, for example, Tom Baker does once he gets his nervous
• 4:34
  first year out of the way, you know, And no one would claim
• 4:38
  that everything Tom Baker does once Philippines clip leaves is
• 4:42
  utter rubbish just because he's taken it a bit less seriously
• 4:46
  than he used to. So, but I think the personal
• 4:49
  hero is the era of sort of pretty good highs, but also
• 4:54
  pretty good lows. And so I think it's when
• 4:59
  something like this, which I don't think would be the, I
• 5:03
  think I would probably be pretty confident in saying that almost
• 5:08
  every year of Doctor Who has a story worse than missing it.
• 5:13
  Oh. I think it's something that
• 5:17
  we're, we're going through at the moment with RTV 2 and
• 5:21
  certainly with the space babies episode.
• 5:24
  And the devil's chord is I think there is a, a section of Doctor
• 5:28
  Who fandom that just can't handle it when the show lets its
• 5:31
  hair down. And this is the pert we're
• 5:33
  letting its hair down. You know, there's a sequence, I
• 5:35
  don't know if it's in this episode, the next one, where
• 5:38
  they sit around and gather a load of household items and make
• 5:41
  the most absurd contraption for 5 minutes, which has no impact
• 5:44
  on the plot whatsoever. But it's kind of fun, right?
• 5:49
  Yeah. And I think a lot of it is also
• 5:50
  due to something you touched on just earlier, Jack.
• 5:53
  There's an end of term feeling to this.
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  This is the last story of this of the season.
• 5:58
  And this is a a, an ensemble, a troupe of actors who have been
• 6:01
  together for a while and who have got very comfortable and
• 6:04
  happy with one another, with one another's company and in one
• 6:06
  another's company. I think there's an element of
• 6:09
  that where, you know, they're off on summer holidays at the
• 6:11
  end of this and they've got a script that doesn't take itself
• 6:14
  so seriously, so why should we take it seriously?
• 6:16
  And perhaps they come through in the performances as well.
• 6:19
  Well, the one person that's taken this very seriously is
• 6:22
  John Pertwee, who never once even tips tips an eyebrow at the
• 6:27
  audience. You know, it's like, no, this is
• 6:29
  an absolute serious drama. But I do think there are times
• 6:32
  when this almost tips over into like parody of like season 7
• 6:38
  when the show was very serious. Like that bit at the end where
• 6:41
  bit Benton standing up naked. I mean, if that had turned up in
• 6:45
  the Curse of Fatal Death or something like that, I wouldn't
• 6:47
  be at all surprised. You know, I like it is fun, but
• 6:52
  it's a world away from what we were doing two seasons ago.
• 6:56
  Now this is another sort of of the era which is what I believe
• 7:02
  has been called the exposition coma, which is which we
• 7:08
  obviously the doctor gets one in Inferno.
• 7:11
  We have professor Jones and the queen deaf, you know, so we're
• 7:17
  getting the doctor again, I suppose in planet the spiders as
• 7:21
  is regenerating. So, you know, we're and we're
• 7:25
  starting to hit onto story beats that are more, you know,
• 7:29
  familiar. A semi coma because he at least
• 7:32
  does wake up to shout up the word thronos and then fall back
• 7:36
  into his coma again. Exactly.
• 7:37
  Just like the just like serendipity, you know, here's
• 7:42
  the here's the word that you need to write down.
• 7:45
  So when he wakes up and just stares at the camera goes good
• 7:48
  grief, you know like that. Do you not though?
• 7:52
  Do you not sleep at night sort of tossing and turning, going
• 7:55
  I've got to pay the gas bill or something like that?
• 7:59
  Gas bill. Gas bill, No, I can't say I do.
• 8:06
  Oh my. But OK.
• 8:08
  Do you think this story moves along as quick as it should
• 8:12
  though? Like we've already said, it
• 8:13
  covers a lot and there's sort of mini stories taking place, like
• 8:17
  Part 1 and two, it's all around the institute.
• 8:21
  Three and four, it's kind of more around things coming
• 8:25
  through time. Is it the Master and the Doctor
• 8:27
  having their little game in the TARDIS and things like that?
• 8:30
  And then five and six are Atlantis.
• 8:34
  Do we get to all of those? Is is there ever a point where
• 8:36
  you're like, OK, moving along? This is this is run out of steam
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  now. I, I, I think there's a
• 8:41
  difference there between I guess the sheer pace of things
• 8:47
  happening and you can't say that things aren't happening.
• 8:49
  There's, as I say, endless see, you know, series of scenes of us
• 8:53
  Horry one after another, and you can enjoy them or not, you know,
• 8:57
  depending on your own taste. So I don't I don't think it's
• 9:00
  it's sort of grinds to a halt ever.
• 9:01
  It's not Terminus, for instance, But what isn't is it doesn't
• 9:06
  observe the, you know, the flow and the pacing of a three act
• 9:10
  narrative, which actually gives a good story.
• 9:13
  That sense of of inherent pace. I guess that that sense of
• 9:17
  totality and things coming together and things happening at
• 9:19
  the right time. None of that happens here.
• 9:22
  It doesn't feel like a structured story to me.
• 9:25
  It just feels like it's an, it's an oddly structured story.
• 9:28
  It throws out that three act narrative structure that we're
• 9:31
  all very familiar with. You know that the 42 minute
• 9:34
  episodes of Doctor Who sort of hang upon, you know, the great
• 9:36
  ones execute it perfectly. The poor ones get it wrong with
• 9:40
  this one that they're not even of the telling a three act
• 9:43
  narrative structured story, they're just doing endless
• 9:47
  scenes and it is kind of the 2 + 2 + 2 structure that you
• 9:50
  mentioned earlier, and that's just a weird way of telling the
• 9:53
  story. But within that, and it's
• 9:56
  something that Evil of the Daleks does as well and very few
• 9:59
  Doctor Who stories get to do, it does kind of show the entire
• 10:03
  scope of what Doctor Who can do. Because we have two stories,
• 10:06
  contemporary Earth, then we have a whole story set in the TARDIS.
• 10:09
  So technically in space, you know, time rounding and that.
• 10:12
  And then we have it's not, it's, it's set in the past.
• 10:15
  I'm not sure if it is, but it feels like it is because it's
• 10:18
  being done like BBC Shakespeare. So it feels like the scope of
• 10:21
  Doctor Who is here. So that's where I think the epic
• 10:23
  comes from in this story. It feels ambitious even if the
• 10:29
  ambitious doesn't. The ambition isn't particularly
• 10:31
  well put together. Yeah, I think those two fans
• 10:36
  sometimes, particularly in the modern day, have an instance to,
• 10:40
  you know, oh, I just bought the new Blu-ray box set.
• 10:44
  So I'm going to sit down and watch all, you know, 26 episodes
• 10:47
  or however many is in the season, you know, all at once or
• 10:52
  as quickly as I can. And I think that, you know,
• 10:55
  takes away from the impact of obviously, I'm not suggesting
• 10:59
  that someone wants to retire Monster one episode a week for
• 11:03
  seven weeks in 2024. But if you did like episodes one
• 11:08
  and two on a day, three and four on another day, five and six on
• 11:11
  another day, I think you'd get, you know, you some of those
• 11:17
  problems would start to disappear once you've kind of
• 11:21
  watched the story in more similar to watching it on its
• 11:25
  own terms. As as it was transmitted, mind
• 11:28
  you, like I've said this before and hamster I've watched.
• 11:31
  When I first watched the war games, I'd get up in the
• 11:34
  morning, I'd had a job, I had to go out early and I'd be up at 5
• 11:37
  and I'd watch one episode a day every day.
• 11:40
  And how that bill over a week and 1/2.
• 11:42
  It was so exciting deferring your pleasure.
• 11:45
  Sometimes it just makes it all sweeter.
• 11:48
  I do feel there is something to be said about like, just because
• 11:52
  it's all there on the iPlayer now, you don't have to binge it
• 11:55
  all, you know, in two months. Take your time with it.
• 12:00
  So that became a lecture. I'm so sorry.
• 12:03
  No, to that point, not not sure this is the war games
• 12:06
  necessarily, but I take I take both your points that this
• 12:10
  probably oughtn't be consumed as I have many times all in one go
• 12:13
  and on loop. I do think we've just
• 12:16
  experienced one of the worst lines of dialogue ever to have
• 12:21
  an actor to be asked to say in Doctor Who, and that is quicker
• 12:24
  than a boa constructor can swallow a rabbit, fur and all.
• 12:30
  I don't even understand that sentence.
• 12:33
  Well, if you eat the fur, it'll take longer.
• 12:39
  Talk about things being oddly structured.
• 12:41
  Normally John Pertwee will eat a rabbit and then stick the fur on
• 12:45
  this Buffon. Because someone please say it
• 12:51
  like you know where you are in the John Pertwee era, right?
• 12:54
  Because actually it's sort of mid level Buffon here.
• 12:58
  So we. Absolutely.
• 12:59
  Which makes it even more bizarre with the sort of Season 7 title
• 13:04
  sequence. Please, you know.
• 13:08
  Can I ask a really facetious question And that is because
• 13:11
  this is a one off jacket in this story.
• 13:13
  Like what do you think of Herwie's look and what's your
• 13:16
  favorite colour on him? I.
• 13:19
  Think the burgundy is definitely a great look.
• 13:21
  So whether that's Day of the Daleks, 3 Doctors or here in the
• 13:24
  Time Monster, I think that's the sort of definitive colour.
• 13:27
  I wasn't aware that this was a one off.
• 13:29
  I kind of assumed that maybe it was three Doctors, which he
• 13:33
  will. It's the next story after this.
• 13:36
  But yeah, the stool that is there, there's a sort of
• 13:38
  beautifully cinched at the waist, wide lapelled, you know,
• 13:43
  garishly coloured but beautifully tailored frock
• 13:47
  jacket, the frilly collars and cuffs.
• 13:50
  I guess with various, you know, whether it's the bow ties or
• 13:55
  undone as it is here, always looks good on him.
• 13:59
  The other thing, of course, is that what is this 6 foot 26 foot
• 14:01
  three, you know, pencil thin and has that sort of very
• 14:04
  distinctive shock of white hair and that very aristocratic face.
• 14:08
  It's it's perfect for him and his doctor.
• 14:10
  I just think it's one of these sort of enduring images of of
• 14:13
  Doctor Who, I guess Pertwee's silhouette.
• 14:15
  Wonderful. Yeah, I like the look.
• 14:20
  Obviously it's it's the look that they've come for when I
• 14:24
  obviously got the Blu rays out to watch this.
• 14:26
  It's the luck that they've gone for on the cover.
• 14:29
  So they clearly have a lot of faith in it.
• 14:33
  Yeah, I think darker tones, like you say, Burgundy's purples
• 14:37
  probably work better on the on him.
• 14:40
  I would say I'm not sure what my most, you know, iconic clock
• 14:45
  would be. I love his green one in Monster
• 14:47
  peloton. Oh yeah, yeah, it's a nice
• 14:51
  thinking. Do you know, could I just but
• 14:53
  bollocking around with time to the doctor declaring very
• 14:57
  dramatically it will be a threat to the entire universe like the
• 15:02
  scale was just reached out massively.
• 15:04
  Sorry, Stephen, you were going to say.
• 15:06
  Well, I'm. Just going to go back to to the
• 15:08
  issue of clothes and sartorial choices.
• 15:12
  The, you know, the property doctor sort of his emblematic of
• 15:15
  that 70s look, but I also feel he sort of sits halfway between
• 15:19
  a spectrum that's marked at either ends by John Steed and on
• 15:23
  the other side, Jason King, Peter Wingard's Jason King.
• 15:26
  And he sort of sits somewhere in the middle, but recognizable as
• 15:28
  perhaps both of, you know, one of one or both of those.
• 15:31
  Actually, I don't know if that is just a reflection of what's
• 15:36
  happening at the time and what's culturally sort of the thing.
• 15:40
  But yeah, I I think Pert was also a very much a man of his
• 15:43
  time in Doctor Who as well. As we go from Mcnee to Pertwee
• 15:48
  to Wingard, it gets more ridiculous as it goes, doesn't
• 15:51
  it? Absolutely.
• 15:52
  That's right. You've got it.
• 15:53
  But Pertwee sort of the mid level, I mean, I think he could
• 15:56
  pull off anything. Yeah, I have.
• 15:59
  To say I agree with that woman from more than 30 years in the
• 16:01
  TARDIS, you know I'd follow him in the TARDIS anyway because
• 16:04
  he's just so damn sexy. I'll take your wait for.
• 16:10
  It OK, well now Benton, he gets a hero moment and I think it's
• 16:16
  in this episode, isn't it, where he outfoxes the master.
• 16:21
  What do you guys think of Benson?
• 16:25
  It's just another. So I thought, no, I was just
• 16:28
  going to say he's a sort of comedy stooge.
• 16:31
  I think mostly, you know, John Levine has a sort of comedic
• 16:36
  rubber face that makes him just so amused to have him go, oh,
• 16:40
  you know, this isn't what I signed up for.
• 16:44
  And yeah, every so often he will get nice little moments to, to
• 16:49
  sort of show that he is, you know, so stupid and smart.
• 16:54
  But, you know, he he's obviously the one who comes up with the
• 16:57
  famous Between now and now in the Green Death.
• 17:02
  Again, he's the one who posits that the maggots might be
• 17:07
  mutating because they're eating stuff that's in the soil, you
• 17:11
  know, so, so. Dinosaurs come on usual Venusia,
• 17:14
  Egypt on me. Yeah.
• 17:16
  So I think there is the growing sense that the doctor realises
• 17:21
  that he needs, you know, for one, through a better word, more
• 17:24
  common people around, even ordinary people around him.
• 17:29
  And you don't get more ordinary than Sergeant Benton, who
• 17:33
  doesn't even have a first name. And then when we eventually get
• 17:36
  his first name, it's John, because yeah, it's called John.
• 17:40
  So. Spot on, Jack, he is the
• 17:44
  everyman and out of all of the unit family and the way that
• 17:47
  they've sort of progressed and you know, the characterization
• 17:50
  has unfolded over a number of years.
• 17:51
  He's he's the dad in the living room.
• 17:53
  So identification figure, right? The everyman on the street.
• 17:59
  Now we're suddenly on film again.
• 18:01
  It Oh no, we're not anymore. But we were.
• 18:03
  We just took a quick glimpse at Lancis there for a second.
• 18:08
  I mean, it's a sharp contrast to what we've seen so far.
• 18:13
  The the Atlantis stuff I feel like is very indicative of, you
• 18:18
  know, because we're only show, it's only expected to be viewed
• 18:22
  once a week for you know, six weeks.
• 18:25
  We have to keep reminding the audience, but don't worry, we
• 18:29
  will get to it Atlantis stuff eventually.
• 18:33
  And I just feel that in a more modern era, they probably
• 18:36
  wouldn't need to go, hey, come back in three weeks time
• 18:39
  because, you know, you can see in good pits pits.
• 18:46
  It's like why we bring crosses into the modern day.
• 18:48
  Then just as another reminder, yeah, we will get there.
• 18:51
  Yeah, it's like, hey, look, this guy's wearing a flummy costume,
• 18:54
  and if you come back in a couple of weeks, everyone will be
• 18:57
  wearing flummy costumes. One of Nathan Bottomley's pet
• 19:02
  hates in television, my Co host of Untitled Star Trek Project,
• 19:06
  is that he can't bear the extreme levels of latex they
• 19:11
  slap on people's faces when they try and age them up.
• 19:14
  I mean, Stuart Hyde, but it's not a great look.
• 19:18
  If I look like that when I'm 70, it's but it's, it is sort of
• 19:24
  trying to, it's trying to deal with time and give it some kind
• 19:28
  of emotional consequence, right? Yeah.
• 19:32
  Yeah, I I quite like it. I think if you bear in mind
• 19:36
  we're still in the, you know, 10 inch scream in the corner of the
• 19:39
  living room sort vibe. I think it works very well.
• 19:45
  And yeah, I mean, it's interesting that the most out
• 19:48
  there sci-fi concept in this story is, is Stewart's joke that
• 19:52
  when he hits 65, he'll begin the state pensioner?
• 19:57
  The 1970s? What?
• 20:00
  I find baffling is I've just recently done Omega for
• 20:04
  finishing and Ian Collier gives the most remarkable performance
• 20:09
  in that. I mean, I didn't know he had
• 20:11
  those kind of acting skills. After watching this bullshit,
• 20:14
  I'll tell you. Can I just say also with the
• 20:18
  ageing make up for 40 years of time past, is it any, you know,
• 20:23
  relatively better than what we see in time at the doctor, No.
• 20:27
  That's worse in time with the Doctor.
• 20:29
  That is a ghastly image of him on top of that tower.
• 20:33
  It really is. But it's just sort of the under
• 20:36
  the under the eyes. It's it's quite extreme.
• 20:39
  Yeah, look, I'm, I'm not, I'm, I'm not too fussed by it.
• 20:42
  I think it's tissues and honey. Eventually.
• 20:44
  That's how they got the sort of effect.
• 20:45
  Kitty is 1972. They've got throppins or
• 20:48
  whatever it is that they've got in that day and age.
• 20:51
  It's not exactly, you know, whether it's CGI slash, CSO,
• 20:57
  they can't do any of that sort of trickery.
• 20:59
  It's just got to be practical BBC makeup artistry and I'm OK
• 21:03
  with it. It doesn't look too awful.
• 21:05
  Oh, look, we're doing more scooby-doo now.
• 21:06
  It's the Brigadier on the phone. Oh, Sergeant Benson, my dear
• 21:10
  fellow, come and see me, love. This.
• 21:12
  And I. Love this Nicholas Corn, his
• 21:16
  voice and you know playing album in my.
• 21:18
  Market because I love it. I'm not laughing at it.
• 21:24
  And it's a great moment again, of supporting our expectation
• 21:27
  because when he does this to Benton and Benton's just like,
• 21:29
  oh, yes, I should be there. You're thinking, oh, great.
• 21:33
  Yeah. And and then just immediately we
• 21:37
  get a lot pulled out on the from under us where he's like, well,
• 21:40
  that's obviously not the beer. He, you know, he can't be there.
• 21:44
  He didn't tell me the fuck off, you know?
• 21:53
  He does that on a frequent basis, although I do love the
• 21:55
  constant reversals, you know. No, Sergeant Benson, that was
• 21:58
  the oldest trick at the, you know.
• 22:03
  Yeah, But if you are just going to be arsing around with
• 22:05
  characters, these sort of characters you want to do it
• 22:07
  with. Right.
• 22:08
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 22:10
  I mean, we'll get into it later on, but I think these seasons
• 22:13
  are very particularly structured in a way that no Doctor, whoever
• 22:17
  he has before up to this point where we realise, but these are
• 22:22
  the main characters and we want to see them doing things.
• 22:28
  Well, you know, we don't want to meet random, no Greek extremist
• 22:33
  times #12 you know, we want to see.
• 22:38
  Yeah. John Levine is so excited,
• 22:44
  talking about all of this, this sequence where he has his his
• 22:47
  hero moment as he climbs up the drain pipe and goes through the
• 22:51
  window and he goes and bloody Paul Bernard cut away.
• 22:54
  He does a massive close up so you can't see how brave I'm
• 22:56
  being. I was literally stepping across
• 22:59
  from there to the window. Shall we talk about John Levine?
• 23:08
  I mean, do we need to see mum talked about himself or well,
• 23:12
  that's more, what more can we say?
• 23:15
  But no, I, I just think he suits his fun very well.
• 23:19
  And you know, we, he's, he's better off with the people about
• 23:23
  he, he knows that he is the comedy foil and that people,
• 23:28
  Roger Belcardo or Tom Pertwee or Nicholas Courtney or Tom Baker,
• 23:33
  whoever he's with, they're the man in charge.
• 23:37
  And he's the sort of unfortunate stooge that they that they mess
• 23:41
  around with. I mean, except, you know, that
• 23:44
  that's the role he's made for. I think Sergeant Benton is just
• 23:51
  a wonderful character and he knows his place in the hierarchy
• 23:54
  and you know, John Levine's performance really sort of feeds
• 23:58
  into that. I think there's an element of
• 24:00
  awareness on the actors behalf to sort of make the character
• 24:03
  work so well throughout his entire, you know, run on the on
• 24:07
  the series. But that's so at odds with John
• 24:11
  Levine Mann and what we've heard and seen of him, I guess, and
• 24:15
  it's just unfortunate. Thing is, is since I think John
• 24:18
  Levine's life start and ended when he was in Doctor Who and
• 24:22
  when you watched that documentary, that it's very
• 24:25
  tragic. Actually.
• 24:26
  It is when Toby Haddock goes to stay with him and he's got the
• 24:28
  pressed uniform in his cupboard and all of his DVDs in the show.
• 24:32
  And it literally is a visual symbol that that that was when
• 24:35
  his life ended. Because that's all he wants to
• 24:38
  talk about. You know, Toby's trying to get
• 24:41
  around about his dad and all sorts of more interesting
• 24:44
  things. And he keeps bringing it back to
• 24:46
  Doctor Who. I think sometimes you just have
• 24:49
  to ignore what comes afterwards and just enjoy the character,
• 24:55
  otherwise you're never going to enjoy the character.
• 24:59
  Yeah, but I think there's delicate balance in that because
• 25:01
  obviously in the new Blu-ray box set, the season 15-1, they're
• 25:06
  the great Graham Williams documentary, which obviously
• 25:09
  went into the era of the show, but also his career and tying it
• 25:13
  back into his life. But I think there are going to
• 25:17
  be a subsection of fans who don't.
• 25:21
  Obviously, it's handled very well in the Graham Williams one,
• 25:23
  but there will be a certain subsection of fans who will just
• 25:26
  sit there going, does John Levine have that sort of lot of
• 25:30
  material to play with? Or was he just some guy turned
• 25:35
  up for a couple of years and did a pretty good job, you know, in
• 25:38
  this very specific or I suppose the Graham Williams who was
• 25:42
  making fundamental decisions that altered the course of not
• 25:47
  just Doctor Who, but, you know, every production may touch,
• 25:51
  which is slightly different. I wonder if there was a
• 25:55
  documentary about John Levine. It would be less anecdotes about
• 25:58
  when he was in Doctor Who and more snippets of interviews
• 26:01
  since he's been in Doctor Who and it would be an uncomfortable
• 26:06
  watch. But I do think he's invaluable
• 26:09
  in that trio, the Brigadier, Yates and Benton.
• 26:12
  He's the only character I can buy into.
• 26:14
  He's the. He's me.
• 26:15
  But you said otherwise. It's it's middle and upper class
• 26:19
  people in the military and I don't understand that.
• 26:23
  That's not me. Yeah, it's it's interesting that
• 26:26
  obviously they it's then vital that they take Mike Yates and
• 26:32
  twist that character to sort of make him be a dodgy term code
• 26:37
  and they put the beer. They kind of can't really do
• 26:41
  that because it's too central. So they sort of make him a
• 26:44
  little bit of a comedy but twit. But Benson, I think stays pretty
• 26:50
  similar his whole time in the programme, I think, which is,
• 26:53
  you know. But he's like, the more he goes
• 26:56
  on, he's less a grunt that he is in Season 7.
• 26:59
  He doesn't really get that many moments there.
• 27:01
  And by the time we get to Robot, you know, and Sarah James
• 27:04
  twisting him round her finger and going, well, that's it.
• 27:07
  I'm going to go to think Tank on my own.
• 27:09
  It's like, oh, for God's sake, I'll have to come with you.
• 27:11
  You know, I love all that stuff. I think it's so fun.
• 27:15
  Bloody hell, the episode ended. How did it end?
• 27:18
  The crosses The priest man arrived in Cambridge.
• 27:24
  Don't you feel sorry for that old poor AXA, the big close up
• 27:27
  at the end, terrifying old man coming out of the lights?
• 27:32
  I suppose it's a different sort of cliffhanger, though.
• 27:34
  It's not a Jeopardy cliffhanger, is it?
• 27:36
  It's, it's more a what? What's going on here?
• 27:39
  Earlier in. The episode.
• 27:43
  It's the same for Cliffhangers episode 1.
• 27:45
  Isn't it really the the Master has summoned a being from
• 27:48
  Atlantis. It's all you know.
• 27:51
  Some people could say they're possibly running on the spot at
• 27:54
  this point, but don't you worry, we've got doodle bugs and all
• 27:57
  sorts coming in the next episode.
• 27:59
  Oh yeah, luckily that was the end of that wasn't the Time
• 28:01
  Monster Episode 2, that was the Time Monster Part 1.
• 28:05
  And now we're going into part two of three.
• 28:11
  Do you know what? I'll cut it there.
• 28:12
  That's a great line to end on. None.
• 3:25:40
  Hamster with a plump pen knife for doing quicker, quicker,
• 3:25:43
  quicker, quicker.