Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to James Lark about his choice of The Invasion (4/8)

Transcript

Talks to James Lark about his choice of The Invasion (4/8) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blunt. Pen knife are doing quicker.
• 0:36
  Welcome back to the Doctor Who Commentary podcast.
• 0:46
  You're joining me and the lovely Joe Ford belts tightened
• 0:51
  Invasion playing ready to launch into the second of Cosgrove
• 0:55
  Halls animated episodes, and we are very excited about it.
• 1:00
  James, you know I just realized when I was downstairs making a
• 1:03
  cup of coffee, right? Talking about Doctor Who review
• 1:07
  of an evening. It's one of the most delightful
• 1:09
  things I can do in my life. I'm having a really jolly time
• 1:12
  tonight. I think we've, I mean I'm having
• 1:14
  a lovely time as well and, and talking about Doctor Who with
• 1:17
  you is a delight. I think we've chosen well
• 1:19
  though, haven't we? Oh, it's a story that keeps on
• 1:22
  giving. I think this is this is one of
• 1:25
  my absolute favourites and and I'm really excited about part 4
• 1:29
  because unlike Part 1 where I feel like on the VHS it didn't
• 1:35
  feel like we'd lost a lot. It felt like we were just
• 1:40
  hitting the ground running with the story really did feel like
• 1:43
  there was a big chunk, a big important chunk missing.
• 1:47
  And I think that we've been talking about kind of how well
• 1:50
  paced this is and what a good script it is.
• 1:52
  I do feel like episode 3 powers on through and really builds to
• 1:55
  a climax. And with this episode missing,
• 1:59
  we were, we were really cheated of the, the delivery of the kind
• 2:05
  of the, the climax of the 1st half of this story, what it's
• 2:09
  been building towards and, and, and everything writing,
• 2:12
  directing has been pointing towards a, a, a momentous 4th
• 2:16
  episode, which goes then takes the story somewhere different.
• 2:19
  So I, I always felt that it was we were missing something that
• 2:25
  would have enhanced the experience a great deal.
• 2:28
  And of course the the animation shows that absolutely to be the
• 2:32
  case and it still feels kind of fresh to me.
• 2:34
  I mean this is 1 of this is the earliest, the earliest
• 2:37
  animation. So the first one I did, yeah.
• 2:40
  Yeah, so it's it's it goes back a long way.
• 2:42
  But still, even though I've I've watched it plenty of times, it's
• 2:46
  still I, I, I still remember it without this episode.
• 2:50
  And so I still get a a thrill from being able to watch it in
• 2:54
  some form. I want to extract 2 things from
• 2:57
  what you just said there. Number one, it was, I mean, you
• 2:59
  said earlier, which was you could comfortably think that
• 3:03
  part 4 is the end of this story and that the big helicopter
• 3:08
  rescue is the big exciting climax because it is it's, it's,
• 3:12
  it's an extended action sequence.
• 3:14
  They've clearly thrown a lot of money at it.
• 3:16
  I wanted to know the invasion is then going to go on to give you
• 3:19
  like unit battling side men in the streets, side men bursting
• 3:24
  out. I mean, it just is relentless, I
• 3:26
  think, from this point on. Yeah, and you're absolutely
• 3:29
  right. If if you were a shrewd viewer
• 3:32
  and you'd, you'd been looking at kind of the things planted in
• 3:35
  place, it does look like it's building to, to, to the final
• 3:38
  episode because UNIT are suddenly involved it and there
• 3:42
  are hints dropped that there's more going on.
• 3:44
  And probably, I mean, have you remembered that there was a
• 3:48
  thing on the other side of the moon?
• 3:50
  Because I'm, I had slightly forgotten about that.
• 3:53
  I I think I've been. Distracted by Kevin Stoney for.
• 3:56
  Free episodes. Yeah, average viewer might have
• 3:59
  forgotten that and. It was a month ago for them.
• 4:03
  And it wouldn't be a Tokyo SO character for Doctor Who to have
• 4:08
  a strange electronic character in Vaughan's wardrobe.
• 4:12
  And that'd be it. That be the villain.
• 4:15
  So I think the side members have come as a real shock.
• 4:19
  That would come at me with a strange electronic character in
• 4:22
  the wardrobe. All right, I'm not taking the
• 4:24
  bait. The second thing I'd like to
• 4:27
  discuss with what you just said there is how lucky are we to
• 4:31
  have these animations? Like we are incredibly lucky
• 4:36
  that they've done as many as they have, that despite their
• 4:40
  variable quality, they exist for us to watch.
• 4:43
  I just don't think a lot of fandoms get this sort of love
• 4:46
  care lavished on them. I constantly pinch myself and
• 4:52
  think, and you know, how lucky are we to have the care that
• 4:56
  goes into the restoration and the, the, the extra features,
• 5:00
  the, the, the care that has gone into documenting how these
• 5:05
  programs were made and to making sure that we that people have
• 5:09
  been spoken to and and put on record about them.
• 5:12
  Very, very few franchises have that.
• 5:16
  Did you watch that? Sorry, a little bit off topic
• 5:19
  here, but did you watch that? Hey Doke documentary on the
• 5:22
  savages. Have you seen that yet?
• 5:24
  I haven't seen it. Yet it's a story where they've
• 5:26
  got nothing, right? So he starts with nothing.
• 5:29
  It's 99 minutes long or. Something and he gets every
• 5:33
  single person that's still alive that was in it.
• 5:36
  He examines camera scripts, he looks for every bit of
• 5:39
  information he can give you. He pulls in historians and it
• 5:43
  builds a picture of the savages that is so vivid.
• 5:46
  Yeah, And I'd go back and I'd say I think we were also lucky
• 5:53
  in the 90s when we didn't have any doctor on television.
• 5:56
  I think we were lucky that there were people who cared enough,
• 5:59
  for whatever reasons they may have had, to make sure that we
• 6:03
  had things like the early years videos.
• 6:09
  You know, again, that that was really atypical.
• 6:13
  You didn't get stuff like that for any other program.
• 6:16
  The the idea that BBC enterprises were in the 90s when
• 6:19
  Doctor Who was dead, putting out videos in which you could watch
• 6:23
  the the orphan episodes of Trouten and Hartnell stories.
• 6:27
  And yeah, they were kind of basic in some ways.
• 6:30
  But, you know, there was an attempt to kind of find archive
• 6:33
  material and to interview important people.
• 6:35
  You know, it's great. We've had Australian bloke, you
• 6:38
  know, with his sense. Of Australian bloke with his,
• 6:41
  Yeah, but I'm thinking of things like Maurice Barry as well.
• 6:44
  Thank goodness that he was interviewed when he was and that
• 6:46
  we've got those. Well, OK, the last bit of luck,
• 6:48
  I'm going to talk about them before we go in is, and this is
• 6:52
  possibly the greatest stroke of luck we ever had, was that there
• 6:56
  was those insane geeks putting microphones next to their TV and
• 7:02
  taping the sound. Because if they didn't do that,
• 7:06
  yeah, we wouldn't have these animations because there would
• 7:08
  be no noise to them. We just have the targets,
• 7:11
  wouldn't we? Now, we talked before episode 1
• 7:16
  about my misspent youth and the kind of teenager I was, I mean.
• 7:21
  What were you strapping microphones to?
• 7:23
  I don't want to know. I was strapping microphones to
• 7:30
  my television and making tape recordings of Doctor Who, even
• 7:36
  though it was commercially available.
• 7:38
  Were you there with a camera during telly snaps?
• 7:41
  Tell you what if if the curse of if, if for some reason the Curse
• 7:46
  of Fenerick was lost, if somehow every copy got deleted and
• 7:50
  wiped, we'd go to my cassette collection and we we'd have a
• 7:54
  pretty decent episode 4 of Curse of Fenrick.
• 7:59
  Just episode 4. Well, I had to truncate what I
• 8:02
  wanted to get all onto a 90 minute cassette, so I had to do
• 8:04
  a kind of clever truncation of episodes 1-2 and three, but the
• 8:08
  whole of episode 4 was on there. You know, it has been known that
• 8:12
  in some alarming twists of fate, the whole swathes of continuity
• 8:18
  end up down Amy's crack. So there is a.
• 8:20
  Possibility, you know. We may lose cursor fabric at
• 8:23
  some point. So I should keep hold of those
• 8:24
  cassettes really and. I love the fact that you did
• 8:27
  that even when they were out on video.
• 8:30
  You're talking about those crazy geeks who recorded Doctor Who
• 8:33
  when it when there was literally no other way that they were
• 8:36
  going to hear it. Again, there's nothing as crazy
• 8:41
  as or geeky as recording a Doctor Who that is completely
• 8:45
  available in a in a better format.
• 8:48
  Please take it as the highest compliment when I say I knew
• 8:51
  precisely that you were not exempt from that insult that I
• 8:54
  was throwing. But yeah, I mean, do you know
• 8:56
  what I used to do? That's what we're going back
• 8:58
  down this route again. I used to put together 2 VHS
• 9:02
  players, right? With a Skart lead or a couple of
• 9:04
  Skart leads. And I would tape from my pirate
• 9:08
  copies all of my favorite Doctor Who scenes.
• 9:11
  So I had a mixtape, VHS mixtape. I don't know where that's gone.
• 9:15
  I wish I could find it because it had stuff like I can remember
• 9:19
  some of the scenes. It definitely had the bit at the
• 9:22
  end of State of Decay when all the vampires wake up.
• 9:26
  It had the bit in the Silurians where the everyone's dying of
• 9:30
  the so it's all the violent moments really.
• 9:33
  Jack Thorne needs to write a a drama set in the 90s and it and
• 9:38
  it's split between Cheltenham and Crawley and in 1 and in one
• 9:43
  set of scenes that I'm stealing 2 lbs from my father and, and
• 9:47
  listening to Gilbert and Sullivan and taping Doctor Who
• 9:49
  onto a cassette. And in the other, you're
• 9:51
  tightening your belt and and coming out and making your
• 9:55
  Doctor Who mixtape. It would be a glorious drama.
• 9:58
  It's like a really shit version of Queer as Folk in the 90s,
• 10:01
  isn't it? What should we call it?
• 10:07
  Mixtape and. I'm sure that there must be a
• 10:14
  Gildan Sullivan the the very model of a modern mixtape.
• 10:19
  There we go. That'll do.
• 10:20
  That'll do. And you know the BBC would make
• 10:22
  it beautifully. It would be great.
• 10:24
  Yeah. That would be a classy piece of
• 10:26
  drama. In the meantime, should we
• 10:29
  watch? Should we crowdfund that and?
• 10:33
  Invasion. God the more I learned about
• 10:37
  you. Honestly, how's tireless it to
• 10:40
  Kalasin? I can't even remember.
• 10:42
  I think it might be yours. Oh wait.
• 10:44
  But then whenever we. Change.
• 10:46
  I don't know how it's happened, but the first donations already
• 10:48
  come in. Oh, right.
• 10:49
  OK. Oh, we're at £200 already.
• 10:53
  I never knew we had such an audience.
• 10:57
  Take a look at my my Teenage Diaries on YouTube and if that's
• 11:00
  the kind of aesthetic that you like, we can we can probably
• 11:03
  make something. Are you?
• 11:04
  Acting in that as well. Oh yeah.
• 11:07
  James this is how. How many episodes was there?
• 11:11
  13 or 14? I mean, if you act in those
• 11:14
  YouTube videos the way you you read your fabulous short
• 11:17
  stories, you know, I could be lost for a couple of weeks.
• 11:21
  All right, Well, the reviews will be coming in over the next
• 11:24
  week, all right. Now, do you want me to do this
• 11:26
  countdown or is it your because what listeners may not know is
• 11:30
  you tried to introduce this episode when it was my turn.
• 11:33
  So I that's. Why I laughed when he started.
• 11:34
  Yeah, well, and also he got a bit cheekier with the welcome
• 11:37
  back to our notice this time round.
• 11:39
  Well, you'd you'd make you'd put me off kilter with your with
• 11:43
  your impromptu introduction. Why don't you do the countdown?
• 11:47
  But in case I get cheeky with it.
• 11:49
  OK, I shall, I shall, I shall. We will go in not off kilter,
• 11:54
  but looking at Jamie's kill in 5430.
• 11:58
  I'm not ready. 21 Let's go. So with the animations, this is
• 12:05
  your favorite? Yes, yeah, I think, I think it's
• 12:09
  because it's the most stylized. Yes.
• 12:13
  It's not pretending to be something it's not.
• 12:16
  No. And I do think as time has gone
• 12:18
  on and again, please let me put a caveat and I am extremely
• 12:21
  grateful that they are made, I think things have been
• 12:24
  simplified a little bit. I think there's always a
• 12:27
  budgetary. Yeah, and I think because they
• 12:30
  were just doing 2 episodes here so they could kind of go to town
• 12:32
  with it. I mean they did a trailer for
• 12:34
  this one with the sidemen coming out of the polls, didn't they?
• 12:37
  I. Think they were just desperate
• 12:38
  to animate Cybermen, weren't they?
• 12:39
  I, I, I mean, I really like the Ice Warriors animation.
• 12:42
  And again, they only have to do 2 episodes of that and I'd like
• 12:46
  their attempt to faithfully reproduce what would have been
• 12:50
  on TV and and to use the same camera angles and to match the
• 12:54
  footage on either side. The second version of Power of
• 12:58
  the Daleks, the, the, the, how smooth those Daleks looked.
• 13:03
  I was, I'm in that story at that point, I, I saw even of the
• 13:07
  Daleks on the big screen in the BFI.
• 13:09
  Yeah. And that was an incredible
• 13:10
  experience that swooped down into the house at one point.
• 13:14
  It's got some lovely stuff in it and it's lovely to have a a
• 13:17
  version of that that you can watch.
• 13:19
  And I really like the Macrotera as well, where they've made some
• 13:22
  good, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 13:25
  And it's completely different, isn't it?
• 13:27
  But and and yet I really enjoyed it that there's not much of me
• 13:33
  necessarily needs to go back and watch it again.
• 13:37
  I'm just pleased they're there because at some point I will do
• 13:41
  a marathon again and I will watch.
• 13:43
  I haven't done it for years and years and years, but at some
• 13:45
  point I will. And it pleases me that Season 3
• 13:49
  I don't have to skip over anymore.
• 13:50
  I can actually watch most of those stories.
• 13:52
  I grew up listening to the soundtracks and I, and I do I do
• 13:57
  enjoy listening to them as well and imagining what they look
• 14:00
  looked like. The anima, the animations can be
• 14:02
  really helpful. You know, even with the Daleks
• 14:05
  is a revelation in terms of those lengthy visual sequences.
• 14:09
  There is something quite intimate about just listening to
• 14:11
  them though, isn't there? Listening to those soundtracks,
• 14:14
  I listened to The Massacre the other week, and I'm not only
• 14:18
  reminded of what an extraordinary piece of drama
• 14:20
  that is, I I was there was something immediate about just
• 14:25
  having it in my ears. Yeah.
• 14:27
  Yeah, I'm not sure what we'd gain from an animation of the
• 14:30
  massacre either. No, I've got a feeling Paddy
• 14:33
  Russell directed it to the hilt though.
• 14:36
  No, no, it. Was done on film.
• 14:38
  Oh, sorry. We're way away from the invasion
• 14:40
  now. OK, what's occurring over here?
• 14:43
  He's generating some emotion pulses.
• 14:45
  I mean, you always do that in me, what with his cerebral
• 14:49
  mentor. Right now he's talking a gamble,
• 14:53
  Packer a reasonable. He's going for a record with the
• 14:55
  number of mentions of Packer. He's up to 4 already in this one
• 14:58
  scene. He's still talking about them.
• 15:02
  So I guess we are we're getting hints at this point that there's
• 15:06
  something completely inhuman lurking behind this all did.
• 15:10
  You ever get the back story of that of like what happened?
• 15:14
  Did they offer him to be fully converted and he just said just
• 15:18
  a bit of me? That's what he says my body make
• 15:21
  now. I always used to wonder how just
• 15:24
  how much of his body is converted then because he's not
• 15:26
  worried about being shot at. I like I I think I'd be a bit
• 15:31
  touchy about any of my body being converted.
• 15:34
  He clearly wants his head to be his own and his and his brain.
• 15:38
  He wants his emotions still. But he sort of wants to be
• 15:41
  invulnerable at the same. Time many other bits of him.
• 15:44
  I mean, I'm just wondering how far that cyber conversion has
• 15:50
  gone. I mean.
• 15:53
  Does he still have a swagger stick, do you think?
• 15:56
  I mean, if I could make it extremely impressive and
• 15:59
  mechanical, then I would. You know, I absolutely would.
• 16:04
  I thought I might actually take my head off as well.
• 16:06
  You know, I think those sad man Joanne would look at these
• 16:08
  headphones. Sad man Jack handles will suit
• 16:10
  me quite well. Yeah, yeah.
• 16:13
  Is this where Zoe comes back now or is she off this?
• 16:15
  Week. Well, she's she her feather boa
• 16:18
  is is is there. I think she must come back in
• 16:22
  this. I see.
• 16:22
  I don't really know what happens in this episode, except there's
• 16:25
  some exciting stuff for the helicopter.
• 16:27
  Don't you love all the stories of them at the Guinness factory
• 16:31
  and how they adored and there's photographs of them sitting
• 16:34
  around drinking, drinking Guinness and having cigarettes
• 16:38
  and having a whale of attack. By all accounts, they had a few
• 16:41
  too many. And then they had to go and
• 16:43
  shoot again in the afternoon. And it was all the stuff on the
• 16:46
  roof that we saw in the last episode.
• 16:48
  And Trout was like, Oh my word, you know, we're very high here.
• 16:54
  Oh, here we go, your favourites back in it.
• 16:56
  Jimmy, yes, cartoon Jimmy, I remember this looks really good.
• 17:00
  This animation they are trying. I think that even though it is
• 17:04
  stylized, they are in the Reign of Terror animation, the much
• 17:10
  derided Reign of Terror animation with the Quentin
• 17:13
  Tarantino cutting, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.
• 17:16
  And within every scene there's a deliberate choice to push away
• 17:20
  from anything they could have possibly have done at the time.
• 17:23
  I I think here, despite the fact that it's stylised it they've.
• 17:27
  Still gone for long. They've held.
• 17:28
  They've matched the soundtrack really well as well, haven't
• 17:30
  they? They're they're cutting pretty
• 17:33
  much as I think Canfield would have kept.
• 17:36
  I I don't mind them making the changes and things like the
• 17:39
  macro terror, but there's only two episodes missing here so
• 17:42
  they shouldn't do it here because the bulk of the story we
• 17:44
  can still see. Yeah, and, and the, the, the
• 17:47
  brilliance of this animation is that it's it's made the
• 17:51
  animation its own thing. You know that this is lit like
• 17:54
  it. The scenes are not lit in the in
• 17:56
  the live action episodes, but somehow with the pacing and
• 18:04
  yeah, with the use of photo backgrounds as well, they've
• 18:06
  just, they've matched it enough that it doesn't feel like we're
• 18:09
  watching a different thing. I think I'm going to watch a
• 18:13
  couple of the animation documentaries before our
• 18:16
  second-half, right? Because I want to find out why
• 18:18
  they didn't do any more. So which where?
• 18:21
  Where are the documentaries? Which ones have got?
• 18:24
  They've all got little ones. They've got little ones, yeah.
• 18:28
  Yeah, I'll be, I'll be quite interested to know, because then
• 18:31
  it went to Planet, I forget what they're called now, Planet 15,
• 18:35
  Planet 13, something like that. And they did Reign of No Rain,
• 18:40
  Big Finish did Reign of Terror, didn't they?
• 18:42
  Oh, I finished one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:44
  Big Finish did a couple. The Ice Warriors was fairly
• 18:49
  early on. That's quite basic, that one,
• 18:51
  isn't it? I don't think it is actually.
• 18:55
  I think it's, it's really carefully made, but they've
• 18:59
  they've really tried to stick to the camera script.
• 19:02
  So it looked. It maybe feels basic because
• 19:04
  they're not doing anything at all ambitious.
• 19:07
  You notice how Isabelle and Zoe have sort of beautiful anime
• 19:12
  eyes in this episode. I never quite care what that's
• 19:17
  all about, you know? You know where they give them
• 19:19
  all massive eyes in anime? I yeah, I don't Well, yeah,
• 19:26
  although they do in Disney as well, don't they?
• 19:28
  It's. Supposed to make people look
• 19:30
  more visually appealing. The eyes are the window to the
• 19:33
  soul. And so I don't know, I, I, you
• 19:41
  have to exaggerate some features, don't you?
• 19:43
  I think probably eyes are quite small in real life.
• 19:46
  Yeah, mine are. I mean, Zoe's got incredible
• 19:51
  eyelashes in animation as well. But you're right, the anime eyes
• 19:57
  are very very big so. This whole sequence in a minute
• 20:02
  where they're hanging out of the the window with the the ladder
• 20:06
  coming in and and bullets flying.
• 20:09
  That was all. Oh, I just would love to be able
• 20:12
  to see that. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:14
  I just no camphor would have directed the hell out of it
• 20:17
  given what he gives us later. The Brigadier doesn't quite look
• 20:21
  like the Brigadier, does he? Well, here in animation, yeah.
• 20:26
  Saying how? Saying how the others are
• 20:28
  caricatured but, but quite closely.
• 20:31
  They've not quite got Courtney. They've with the animation, they
• 20:34
  still know that, you know the embarrassing production
• 20:36
  mistakes. They've stamped top secret on
• 20:38
  that map. Did you notice?
• 20:40
  Just like they normally do with files and things.
• 20:43
  Oh, they weren't risk any harm coming to their little friends.
• 20:47
  I'll tell you what I also like about this is the commitments
• 20:49
  doing it in black and white. One of the reasons that it works
• 20:53
  is that they've gone it's going to be in black and white to
• 20:55
  match the the surrounding episodes.
• 20:57
  And therefore we're going to light it really well for black
• 20:59
  and white. Because it's always really
• 21:01
  surprised the first time they did a colour one.
• 21:03
  Yeah, it's not that surprising, I guess commercially though.
• 21:08
  Now now, I've always watched the colour one first.
• 21:12
  It's interesting, isn't it? It makes more sense I guess if
• 21:15
  you've got, if you're doing a complete story to you've got the
• 21:18
  freedom to do it in, you know, whatever way you like.
• 21:21
  And why not use colour? It's just Canfield calling in
• 21:24
  the army. He's he's got some contacts,
• 21:26
  hasn't he? He's got some contacts.
• 21:28
  I, I mean, I just, whenever a helicopter comes in to Doctor
• 21:31
  Who, it suddenly feels like a more expensive program, doesn't
• 21:33
  it? I mean, I, I think all of this
• 21:36
  has felt expensive so far, but yes, now we're doing proper sort
• 21:40
  of bond, aren't we? Yeah, yeah.
• 21:42
  It's the same with like the first episode of Enemy in the
• 21:44
  World when there's a hovercraft and a helicopter and.
• 21:47
  It's a great episode, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, these are lovely
• 21:53
  shots from the helicopter's point of view, looking down.
• 21:55
  Oh, Jamie gets to be the hero, of course.
• 22:03
  I think this, Yeah. And, and Cam Field would have
• 22:05
  known how to shoot all this stuff with the ladder as well to
• 22:08
  make it, you know, look dangerous and exciting.
• 22:12
  But you know how they said in seven when they came down to
• 22:15
  Earth, it was to make it a cheaper show?
• 22:18
  Yeah. So they didn't have to build
• 22:20
  spaceships and all this. But then they filled it full of
• 22:23
  action. Surely that wasn't cheap.
• 22:25
  Well, it wasn't, and I think it was.
• 22:31
  I think it was not always intended either, because that's
• 22:34
  the the thing with the Ambassadors of Death expensive
• 22:37
  sequence it was. It was Ferguson coming up with a
• 22:40
  way of making what should have been a very simple sequence more
• 22:43
  exciting. Dicks is a scans isn't it?
• 22:46
  I wrote a very cheap scene. Why is it there are suddenly
• 22:50
  bombs to helicopters? A couple of cheeks.
• 22:54
  But I think so if, if you look at this from a with a, a
• 22:58
  financial perspective, yeah, we've got some very exciting and
• 23:04
  expensive location stuff. And quite a lot of this is on
• 23:09
  film. We've we've, we've been treated
• 23:12
  to a decent slice of location each episode, haven't we?
• 23:16
  But if you're going out and doing a location shoot,
• 23:19
  obviously you capitalise on it. You find great locations and,
• 23:22
  and, and it's not all involving helicopters.
• 23:25
  It's, you know, a railway signing doesn't cost that much
• 23:27
  to to to film in all the stuff is there already so overspread
• 23:34
  over this number of episodes. It it makes good sense and they
• 23:37
  haven't had to build that many sets well.
• 23:39
  I was going to say, remember in episode 3 we had the same set
• 23:42
  that we built earlier, I think because it was the same set from
• 23:45
  London and what do we have? A lift shaft And, and that was
• 23:49
  about it. That was all.
• 23:50
  You know, that was quite a cheap episode.
• 23:52
  And what are they actually? What are they building that is
• 23:54
  not already in the in the BBC storeroom?
• 23:57
  Going forward, the next episode is we head down to the sewers,
• 24:01
  don't we? So that's a new set, but we
• 24:04
  spend a lot of time in that set, you know?
• 24:06
  And they maybe they get plenty of use out of that sewer set.
• 24:09
  Oh that crazy side. Man that was one of my favorite
• 24:12
  scenes when I first watched this.
• 24:15
  Oh my God, they even had Trout and Do the little.
• 24:17
  Skip. Did you think?
• 24:20
  They've lifted that skip from episode 8 I think.
• 24:25
  Of all the episodes to lose it. Must have been so exciting.
• 24:29
  But then imagine if we'd lost like 7 when the Cyberman come
• 24:34
  out and stuff like that. You know, we can't be choosy.
• 24:38
  I still get excited every time. You know, these people that look
• 24:42
  for film cans, find a hole. Have you noticed they've started
• 24:46
  saying on social media, no, there's no Doctor Who?
• 24:50
  There's. No, Doctor Who?
• 24:51
  No. No, before you get excited.
• 24:56
  But we've all We lived through a documentary that was released in
• 25:00
  the early naughties with Ian Levine just yelling at the TV
• 25:04
  saying there will never be any more Doctor Who.
• 25:07
  They found it or they never will.
• 25:09
  They never will. It will never happen.
• 25:12
  It's like he's in the room. There will always be 96 missing
• 25:18
  episodes of Doctor Who. And that's, and you can watch
• 25:22
  that and you can, you can just shout back at him now.
• 25:26
  Yeah, well, you're not allowed to watch Web of Fear in the
• 25:29
  world now, although you know how he can complain about the
• 25:33
  animations when he releases those fucking AIS.
• 25:36
  I mean, I mean, it's taking, you know, it's ludicrous, isn't it?
• 25:42
  Yeah, it's yeah. Have you watched them?
• 25:46
  I've seen enough. I've seen a few bits, but it
• 25:51
  it's a, it's a little bit tragic, isn't it?
• 25:54
  Yeah, if you was watching the AI version of episode 4 of The
• 25:58
  Invasion, the Brigadier will be played by Captain Mannering and
• 26:02
  Vaughan. Vaughan would be Alfie Bass or
• 26:04
  something like. That you know now.
• 26:06
  Now I want to see that. That sounds awesome.
• 26:09
  I've just pulled together. As many sick.
• 26:12
  Home actors as I can think of. I really want to see a version
• 26:16
  of the invasion where Captain Mannering is a Brigadier.
• 26:20
  Who would sucker be? Packer.
• 26:24
  Yeah, Mr. Lucas, there you go. No.
• 26:27
  You'd use footage of George Lazenby or something completely
• 26:30
  inappropriate. Can we get everyone in
• 26:32
  somewhere? Who's Molly Sucker going to be?
• 26:37
  I made it so very bizarre. Did you see that picture of it?
• 26:41
  Was Kevin Stoney as mafic Chen looking shocked with his eyes
• 26:45
  bulging out in that AI that he did?
• 26:47
  I didn't see that one. No, it's hot.
• 26:49
  Oh, I'm going to find the pictures for you, but I promise
• 26:51
  you, you won't sleep tonight. Terrifying yet?
• 26:56
  You know, actually now we've watched 2 episodes of live
• 27:00
  action form. Yeah, well, you're feeling the
• 27:03
  shortcomings of the animated. Version.
• 27:05
  Yeah, I I agree, of course. Because like Trout and he's got
• 27:10
  a very. Oh, he's a bit pervy, isn't he?
• 27:13
  What did he say? Yeah, he just, he, he just
• 27:15
  paused mid sentence and said, oh, good morning.
• 27:20
  Well, yeah, he's only human. Oh, here's this fellow Rutledge.
• 27:24
  Now he doesn't. Last long.
• 27:26
  He doesn't last long, but I'd love, I love.
• 27:28
  As you say, suddenly we're it's international.
• 27:32
  The the scale of the thing keeps getting bigger, doesn't it?
• 27:34
  Each episode. Yeah.
• 27:36
  What? What happens to him?
• 27:38
  Does he die? I can't remember.
• 27:40
  Rutledge. I suppose we'll find out later
• 27:43
  in the store. We'll.
• 27:44
  Find out. We'll find out, Yeah.
• 27:46
  I mean, you know, this is a bit of a cliche Now, later on in the
• 27:49
  perk we're, isn't it, when we head off to some office
• 27:52
  somewhere and say, oh, you've got friends in high places, have
• 27:54
  you? Well, so have I.
• 27:57
  But we don't always see them and and and it there there are not
• 28:04
  many put to your Doctor Who's that that make much of the
• 28:09
  international aspects of UNIT. Or if they do, it's a bit
• 28:14
  hackneyed. It's a bit hackneyed.
• 28:17
  We don't. We sometimes get a phone call,
• 28:19
  but we don't often actually get the sense of a a thing happening
• 28:23
  globally. Whereas one thing that the
• 28:24
  invasion is very good at, without overstretching itself,
• 28:29
  is suggesting that the stuff that's happening is going to
• 28:32
  impact the whole world. Oh yeah, I mean when I say
• 28:36
  Hackney, do you remember that scene in Diana Dialects Peking
• 28:39
  are coming out of the peace talks.
• 28:41
  World War is inevitable. That's that's a little
• 28:45
  different, isn't it? Yeah.
• 28:48
  Still a bit cartoony though, ironically enough.
• 28:53
  Oh, now here we go. Isabel's got the fabulous idea
• 28:55
  now, So use her camera. My camera.
• 28:58
  Yeah. And don't you love it?
• 28:59
  I mean, we're not there, but when the pictures come out and
• 29:01
  it's those terrible blurry, like UFO spotter pictures.
• 29:05
  Yeah. He goes, they look like fakes.
• 29:09
  Oh how charming she goes. Oh there you go.
• 29:15
  Someone made the link. Someone said other side of the
• 29:17
  moon and so we make a link. OK.
• 29:19
  There we go. Well, we kind of we're, we're,
• 29:22
  we're, we're, we're through the kind of climactic the first half
• 29:27
  has, has, has has finished now, hasn't it?
• 29:30
  We're we're leading towards what's actually behind all of
• 29:34
  this. I mean, if you took out that
• 29:36
  first scene in the TARDIS, yeah, and you took out the sort of the
• 29:41
  last five minutes of this episode, it could be, it could
• 29:45
  be international electromanic. I can't say the word story.
• 29:48
  You know what I'm trying to. Say, yeah, exactly that it it it
• 29:51
  absolutely could be a a a something a bit.
• 29:55
  I mean, I suppose Enemy of the World does something that's a
• 29:56
  little bit kind of espionage Y and then goes in a weird
• 29:59
  direction later. Until we go underground, yeah.
• 30:05
  Oh, they did a nice bit of animation there of him looking a
• 30:08
  bit smug. Born.
• 30:13
  Tell you she's perfectly safe. I'm trying to figure out what it
• 30:17
  is about what it is about this animation that is so.
• 30:21
  It's it really knows how to use shadows the the.
• 30:26
  I think, I think they sort of tilt the camera in interesting
• 30:29
  ways with a camera, you know what I mean?
• 30:31
  They draw it in interesting angles.
• 30:33
  They're making great use of. There's clearly something
• 30:36
  digital gone into the lighting. I think they've, they've drawn
• 30:40
  the stuff and then they've they've used the computer to
• 30:42
  light it and you get the little bits of lens flare and you get
• 30:45
  the light coming in at strange angles and it just makes it
• 30:48
  gives it makes everything look a little bit like a film noir,
• 30:52
  just like a really classic. It's got a kind of slightly
• 30:54
  third man feel about it. I think they pace the the
• 30:59
  different shots really well. Yeah.
• 31:01
  They know when to go in on a close up when it's, it's an
• 31:04
  acting moment, unlike somebody like the Reign of Terry, you
• 31:07
  know? And I made a joke of that cut,
• 31:09
  cut, cut sort of Pulp Fiction style direction.
• 31:12
  It's so distracting when you've got like 16 cuts within 5
• 31:17
  seconds. Well, it doesn't, it doesn't
• 31:19
  match the soundtrack when you do that either.
• 31:21
  It's it's clearly the audio from a late 60s bit of television.
• 31:26
  So it's just jarring to see that animated in in a way that's
• 31:31
  trying to do something visually different to that.
• 31:37
  It's wrapping up now. You saw something in the crate,
• 31:39
  the dark side of the moon. What could it possibly be?
• 31:42
  And we still don't know at this point because it's called the.
• 31:44
  Invasion, yeah. Do you think we've do you think,
• 31:48
  do you think children have have started to guess?
• 31:50
  There's a lot of talk about kind of inhuman and.
• 31:53
  And the sidemen are the kind of recurring body, aren't they?
• 31:55
  If they have started to guess, they might be thinking where the
• 31:59
  hell are they? Yes, no, we must have been
• 32:03
  wrong. It's just Vaughn and then oh out
• 32:06
  the cocoon. That's such a weird image,
• 32:10
  isn't? It it is a weird image and I
• 32:12
  like that Vaughan calls it a cocoon, doesn't he?
• 32:17
  Just enough to bring it out of its cocoon.
• 32:21
  It's great. Have you noticed we've quoted
• 32:24
  him less in his episode as well? He's been in it less though.
• 32:28
  But I think it's because I don't know these episodes as well.
• 32:31
  I think there's an element of that, Definitely, definitely.
• 32:33
  You just prepare yourself, everybody, for the second-half
• 32:36
  of this country. Very much loving the canoe so
• 32:38
  that this is this Regents Canal I think where they filmed the
• 32:41
  canoe scenes. And what's lovely is we do go
• 32:44
  back here, don't we, for a quick scene in the next episode when
• 32:47
  they're. Coming, we do actually get to
• 32:48
  see the canal. We do see it, yeah.
• 32:52
  I think Canfield just Canfield just has a very elegant way of
• 32:55
  putting the money on the screen. It's a simple, he didn't have to
• 33:00
  show them rowing there either. He didn't, they didn't have to
• 33:03
  go there by canoe. But it's, it's a, it's a very
• 33:07
  simple way of giving us another angle on London, another way in
• 33:11
  It's. Through so many accounts, yeah,
• 33:14
  You get a good picture of what Canfield was like as a director,
• 33:19
  militaristic. He absolutely knew what he was
• 33:21
  doing. He knew every shot what they
• 33:23
  were going to do that day, and he wouldn't get behind.
• 33:26
  But he was very good with actors as well, and he made sure he
• 33:30
  gave them time and they loved him.
• 33:32
  And there's a wonderful story Liz Slayden tells in the her
• 33:35
  autobiography about he was desperate to get this location
• 33:39
  work done and they all had to come in on the weekend.
• 33:42
  Nobody was working at the weekend.
• 33:44
  And everyone just immediately said, of course we will.
• 33:47
  We'll all bring some lunch and we'll have a great day because
• 33:50
  they loved him. And you can tell and you can
• 33:52
  tell from the performances that he gets out of them.
• 33:57
  If there if there's another story like the invasion, it's
• 34:02
  possibly the seeds of doom. Just the the slightly heightened
• 34:07
  reality and and. It's got a little more edge, I
• 34:11
  think it's got. More edge, yeah, but it's got
• 34:15
  that mix of the surreal and the violin that.
• 34:18
  Light reflecting in his glasses. Is we?
• 34:21
  We know very well that this set does not look as good when it's.
• 34:26
  But that thing of the breathing cocoon?
• 34:30
  It's a weird image, but it's but it yeah, it somehow side men
• 34:34
  work when they're peeling their way out of things.
• 34:38
  I guess there's probably you could write a wanky dissertation
• 34:42
  about how it's all a birth metaphor and.
• 34:45
  I'm fairly certain Elizabeth Sander has probably done that
• 34:48
  somewhere, you know, with her PhDs.
• 34:53
  But I understand why the side men are in their tombs.
• 34:56
  Yeah, they're frozen. That makes sense.
• 34:57
  I understand why these side men are.
• 35:00
  Well, I kind of understand why they're in their cocoons.
• 35:02
  Well, they've been delivered in in cocoons, haven't they?
• 35:05
  But I have no idea. I have no idea why they're
• 35:08
  travelling around in those balls.
• 35:09
  Eggs. Balls.
• 35:10
  It makes no sense. And the balls can go through
• 35:14
  walls. It's very odd in the winning
• 35:17
  space. I think there's a lot of things
• 35:20
  about the winning space that are that are very odd.
• 35:23
  Well, James, we have reached the halfway point.
• 35:27
  It's flown. By it has flown by and.
• 35:30
  Sum up Sum up your thoughts to date of the invasion before we
• 35:34
  head into the invasion. I think it's a it, It's
• 35:40
  gorgeously directed. I think it's really well
• 35:44
  written. I think it's the pacing is so
• 35:46
  impressive. This is, dare I say it, this
• 35:52
  this is handling of an 8 part structure that we will that
• 35:55
  we'll we won't see anything like a successfully applied to seven
• 36:01
  and six part stories in in the years ahead.
• 36:05
  This is someone who really knows how to use 8 episodes and to
• 36:10
  keep them surprising and keep them interesting.
• 36:13
  And the other thing that personally is just how what a
• 36:18
  joy it is to watch all four of those episodes.
• 36:21
  And where I grew up watching just two episodes in the lead up
• 36:25
  to episode 5 and being perfectly content with that, I I feel like
• 36:30
  it's a far richer experience and a far better story when you get
• 36:34
  to watch all of it. I absolutely agree.
• 36:39
  I mean, I'm not going to go down that we're lucky route again.
• 36:41
  We covered that in quite some depth.
• 36:43
  I think very quickly what you said about 6:00 and 7:00 bars,
• 36:47
  the best 7 parters, I think do the Barry let's thing of adding
• 36:54
  a big plot element to keep it going.
• 36:57
  So the alternative university in Inferno, the plague in the
• 37:02
  Silurians. But I do think a lot of the
• 37:07
  seven part of struggle and the six parts, I think the best ones
• 37:11
  work when they do that very cliche thing of a two-part and a
• 37:14
  four. Part and a four part.
• 37:16
  So yeah. Yeah, there's two stories bolted
• 37:18
  together, which is what he's doing here, isn't it?
• 37:21
  It's 24 parts. It is, yeah.
• 37:24
  I think he's. I think he's, he's hidden it
• 37:26
  rather better here though. And perhaps perhaps 6 parts is
• 37:33
  harder than 8 parts because what he's done here is 244 parters
• 37:36
  and he really has allowed the four part structure to, to
• 37:39
  breathe here. I, I think sometimes the
• 37:41
  two-part element is the thing that doesn't land quite right in
• 37:45
  the six parters because they knew how they knew what to do
• 37:49
  with four parts. Doctor Who.
• 37:52
  Doctor Who has not really got a very successful track record
• 37:56
  when it comes to two parters. I think right back to the
• 37:58
  Hartnell 2 parters. They, they feel insubstantial,
• 38:02
  even more so that, you know, when we're into the, the Davison
• 38:05
  era, they feel like kind of with the possible exception of the
• 38:11
  awakening, it just, it's they, they, they feel insubstantial.
• 38:14
  They feel like then they're not properly developing anything
• 38:16
  because there's no point. Even that I think would work
• 38:19
  better as a four. I agree.
• 38:21
  Far more to that story than what I would.
• 38:22
  Happily watch a four part version of the awakening.
• 38:24
  So, yeah, I, I, I feel like even as part of a six part of the
• 38:28
  two-part of can feel either like a dissatisfying conclusion to a
• 38:36
  bigger story, which I think is often the the the problem with
• 38:40
  the kind of the the Tom Baker ones or, or like a, an
• 38:45
  unnecessarily prologue. Well, I think I'm quite sad
• 38:50
  because we are departing the grittier and more atmospheric
• 38:57
  half of this story, but I'm really happy because we're
• 39:01
  heading into the more exciting and epic part of this story
• 39:06
  full. On invasion because isn't it fun
• 39:10
  when the earth gets invaded by an alien?
• 39:13
  And you know, I think the secret where come the second-half is
• 39:17
  actually there's just shit tons of Zoe.
• 39:19
  And I love Zoe. So the Cybermen?
• 39:23
  No, no, no, not. Tobias for no.
• 39:25
  No, no, no, no, no. Can't we keep her on?
• 39:28
  She's much prettier than a computer.
• 39:30
  She is much prettier than the computer and and she wears that
• 39:33
  glitter number as well, doesn't she?
• 39:35
  Well, if you would care to take my hand, James, we shall descend
• 39:38
  to the sewers and take some particularly dismal photographs.
• 39:42
  Oh, I better go get the camera. Hang on.
• 39:45
  And can you grab your swagger stick while you're at it?
• 39:48
  I'm going to cut it right there.