Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Robert Valentine about his choice of The Daemons (4/5)

Transcript

Talks to Robert Valentine about his choice of The Daemons (4/5) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blunt. Pen knife for doing quicker,
• 0:35
  quicker as my will so mote it be Ava come into my voice.
• 0:45
  Oh hamster with a blunt pen knife.
• 0:47
  Ancient and awful. I've forgotten the rest of it
• 0:50
  actually. Hello, Rob.
• 0:53
  Hello, Joe. This is just straight in the
• 0:56
  Doctor Who Occult Commentary podcast.
• 1:00
  Please will you regale us with your own stories of the occult?
• 1:08
  Me or who you talking to? Me.
• 1:10
  Well, you're the only one on this call.
• 1:12
  Sorry. Yeah.
• 1:12
  I thought. I thought the listener's
• 1:14
  listening. They can't.
• 1:15
  They can't talk back. Yeah, it's me.
• 1:18
  OK. Yeah, I know.
• 1:20
  I'm I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the I'm the I'm the I'm the person.
• 1:26
  I'm the I'm the person in the story who is very adamant that
• 1:30
  the supernatural doesn't exist. Oh, so you are a rationalist?
• 1:36
  I'm not a vicar though, so. That joke I was making earlier
• 1:39
  actually is accurate. Yeah, well, I, I, I don't, I
• 1:43
  don't believe in the supernatural, the occults,
• 1:46
  magic. I'm fascinated by it, but not,
• 1:50
  I'm not, I'm not a practitioner. I think.
• 1:53
  I mean, people, you know, do use magical practices for sort of
• 1:59
  internal reasons, but I don't believe that a person's will can
• 2:04
  alter the natural world around them, which is what magic is.
• 2:09
  Because the moment, the moment you can perform magic on the
• 2:14
  test conditions and repeat it, then you're dealing with a
• 2:17
  branch, a new branch of science, which is not what people who
• 2:21
  believe in angels and the rest of it.
• 2:24
  Does it extend to sort of spirits and ghosts and that sort
• 2:27
  of thing? Yeah, yeah.
• 2:29
  Prove it to me and I'll then I'll you know.
• 2:33
  Can I tell you another quick story?
• 2:35
  Just a quick. Yeah.
• 2:36
  So I went to Edinburgh with my mother.
• 2:38
  Now, my mother was a spiritualist, and I used to come
• 2:40
  home regularly and find a spiritualist circle sitting
• 2:43
  there in the dark in my living room, contacting the dead.
• 2:46
  I don't believe a word of it. I mean, I'm a rationalist too.
• 2:49
  I literally do not believe in any of that nonsense.
• 2:52
  We goes to Edinburgh, down into the catacombs on a ghost tour,
• 2:56
  Right? And I'm there mocking her
• 2:59
  relentlessly all day, going oh fuck sake what?
• 3:02
  You know what terrible ham is going to take us around the
• 3:04
  catacombs of Edinburgh? And he was a ham at that.
• 3:08
  You know, bloody soul D Graham crowd and eat your heart out
• 3:12
  dressed up as a bloody vampire, for God's sakes.
• 3:15
  Anyway, we ghost down there. He's telling us a story about an
• 3:18
  angry evil spirits that was down there, that was caught down
• 3:22
  there and murdered a serial killer.
• 3:24
  Yeah, who murdered children and that he was furiously angry.
• 3:28
  I'm sort of rolling my eyes. And then all of a sudden,
• 3:31
  genuinely, A nausea came over me like I've never known before.
• 3:36
  And I genuinely thought I was going to hurl.
• 3:39
  And then I fainted in front of the entire congregation, woke up
• 3:45
  in a cold sweat, and they all thought I was part of the
• 3:48
  fucking act, Rob. They thought I was there as a
• 3:51
  stooge. I said no, I'm just staying with
• 3:53
  my mother. And I was terrified for the rest
• 3:57
  of my life. I still don't believe, but I
• 3:59
  don't know what happened that night.
• 4:02
  Oh well, yeah. Will we ever know?
• 4:05
  I mean, I, I, I am slightly claustrophobic, but it was quite
• 4:08
  a big space so I don't know. Yeah, well, the problem is
• 4:13
  unless you go back and it happens again, you know?
• 4:17
  Rather not. That's quite disturbing.
• 4:20
  Yes, no, I then when it comes to spiritualism, what stuff I'm I'm
• 4:22
  very much with Harry Houdini. It is, you know, I think you
• 4:26
  know my, you know, most of it is charlatan re And if anyone were
• 4:32
  to have anything, I can't think if, if psychic powers were a
• 4:37
  thing when when universities were still getting funding to
• 4:41
  event investigate that kind of stuff, they'd have found
• 4:44
  something back in the 60s or 70s.
• 4:45
  They didn't. If you know, if the Bumble
• 4:48
  Snowman, if the Yeti or Sasquatch were a thing, David
• 4:54
  Attenborough and the BBC film crew would have found them by
• 4:56
  now. I'm yeah, it's, yeah, it's we
• 5:01
  are, I think quite naturally we are seekers in many different
• 5:05
  ways. And people do, yes, I'm an
• 5:07
  atheist and you know, but I think I'm, I'm, I suppose I'm
• 5:11
  sort of a materialist, but you know, I do, I do have a sense of
• 5:14
  the humanness. I, I, but I do think that human
• 5:17
  feeling of awe and that sense of something greater than you.
• 5:21
  I think those, those feelings are innate and human.
• 5:25
  But then we apply things to them which are very all, which are
• 5:29
  culture specific to our own culture.
• 5:31
  You're saying I was just having a funny turn then?
• 5:34
  I think so, yeah. But what, what are you eating
• 5:36
  when you're in Edinburgh? Because you know.
• 5:38
  Some. Some black pudding, actually.
• 5:39
  Maybe some haggis. Yeah, good.
• 5:41
  Point. Well, you Well, I don't blame
• 5:43
  the haggis. So let me love this stuff.
• 5:45
  So do. I awful man.
• 5:47
  I can't get enough of it. Hang on though, If you're such a
• 5:49
  rationalist, yeah. Oh, you and me.
• 5:52
  Well, why do you have such a passion for cryptozoology then?
• 5:56
  Ox is, it's a fascinating subject.
• 5:57
  And also, you mean you've got the you know, do you believe?
• 6:02
  No, I well, no, I, I try not to believe in anything.
• 6:05
  You know, it's like the the late great Ken Campbell said believe
• 6:08
  nothing, suppose and everything, you know.
• 6:11
  So no, I certainly don't. But yeah, with cryptozoology,
• 6:13
  for example, some of it is, you know, you know, animals like the
• 6:18
  see the cat turned out to still be around.
• 6:21
  But but then you've got things like Sasquatch and the Yeti were
• 6:25
  actually which are actually First Nations and Tibetan,
• 6:30
  Nepalese kind of folkloric spiritual things, which then
• 6:36
  kind of, you know, people start to think, no, that they are they
• 6:39
  are biological entities, They're not spiritual.
• 6:43
  Then people fail to find them. And then they say, oh, well,
• 6:45
  clearly the reason we can't find Bigfoot is because it's
• 6:48
  interdimensional. It's like you, you haven't.
• 6:50
  You made it spiritual all over again to explain why you
• 6:53
  couldn't find it. So do you approach all this
• 6:55
  stuff forensically then, rather than as a believer?
• 6:58
  No, I think I do. If anything, you know, I do it
• 7:01
  more from like a folkloric point of view.
• 7:03
  They are stories we tell ourselves and I'm interested in
• 7:07
  myths and legends. The stories we tell ourselves,
• 7:10
  they're not real. They're stories, you know,
• 7:13
  people, you know, it's people have cultural that you know,
• 7:17
  beliefs specific to their own culture.
• 7:22
  However, the culture is just, you know, ways of ways of
• 7:25
  explaining and describing things which are innate to being human.
• 7:30
  You know what? That's why you're such a good
• 7:32
  storyteller, Rob. Should we go and watch a good
• 7:35
  story? Oh yes, let's, let's, let's
• 7:37
  press play. Is it my turn to countdown?
• 7:40
  I think it is, yes. Yeah, I'm, I can't.
• 7:42
  Believe my favorite episode of the story?
• 7:44
  Here we go. OK now before I press play
• 7:47
  because my confidence is a bit shot the demons part 4.
• 7:51
  Right. That's where we're at.
• 7:52
  Yes, we are. There, Yeah, good, right.
• 7:54
  OK. So 54321.
• 7:58
  Daughter of Light, will you kindly release my bonds?
• 8:03
  I love this episode so much. Rob.
• 8:06
  You know, I sometimes go under the name of the great God Qui
• 8:09
  Quai Quad. Oh yeah, good.
• 8:17
  We've read that part of the story and the conversation,
• 8:20
  haven't we? Are you still talking, Joe?
• 8:25
  Yes. OK, here we go.
• 8:28
  Here. We go.
• 8:29
  Look at the picture quality now. It is so clear.
• 8:33
  Yeah, and that's what it should all look like, unfortunately.
• 8:37
  But we have copies of copies of. Copies the beads of sweat on his
• 8:43
  face there. There's always a great sense of
• 8:47
  oh bugger, whenever the master gets what he wants.
• 8:50
  He's a very clever idiot. Why does Joe always feel as if
• 8:55
  her head's going to fall off? She always grabs her head every
• 8:57
  time she's in distress. Well, you know, we've all got
• 9:02
  our little ticks, haven't we, You know?
• 9:05
  One of our ticks isn't that my I'm going to be decapitated at
• 9:08
  any moment. We've got this scientific and
• 9:13
  adverted comments lash up which unit are building for the
• 9:18
  doctor. I love the fact that he he
• 9:20
  grabs. Is it a sconce?
• 9:22
  You know the sort of the big candle holder thing it's like.
• 9:26
  Oh God, Joe's just woken up from an exposition coma.
• 9:30
  The cavern. The cavern.
• 9:31
  I must go to the cavern. Looking like a true swinger.
• 9:35
  It's still, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's still, you
• 9:39
  know, Colton, the 60s kind of don't really end until 72 or so,
• 9:43
  you know, really, it's still that look.
• 9:46
  At those rings on her finger, she she bridges the 60s and the
• 9:49
  70s Joe, I think, quite adeptly. It's a very conveniently placed
• 9:55
  ladder, but I'll forgive it. Why not?
• 9:58
  You know, although, yeah, she does have a terrible time in a
• 10:03
  minute. You watch the book makes a
• 10:06
  point, you know, of drawing a picture of her with all of the
• 10:10
  Ivy and that reaching out for her.
• 10:12
  And you've never seen Joe Grant look more like Goldie Hawn than
• 10:15
  in that drawn picture. Yeah, climbing down that ladder
• 10:18
  looks a bit fine on TV, but I don't like being that high up a
• 10:23
  ladder, you know, as far as that's a stunt as far as I'm
• 10:27
  concerned, yeah. 0.4. Oh yeah, go.
• 10:30
  Ahead, Rob is all the best stuff with Benson and Hawthorne as
• 10:34
  well. Yeah, that.
• 10:35
  You know when she smacks that fella over the head with her
• 10:38
  crystal ball. In reversing the polarity, you
• 10:43
  know it's these are magic words. They sound scientific to people
• 10:46
  who to to people for whom science is just technical
• 10:50
  sounding words, they are incant. These are incantations.
• 10:53
  He just said are fixed with Newton for the power to be off
• 10:58
  now. That's the power station in the
• 10:59
  clause of Axos. Yes, yes, that's the great thing
• 11:05
  about this, this period of who is that sense of, you know, it,
• 11:08
  it, it is a unified world, then habit, no pun intended.
• 11:14
  I do like the dogs lying there. Oh no, that is not a great so
• 11:18
  short, is it? Between us, ours tights.
• 11:23
  Gives you a good what? But yeah, what?
• 11:24
  What's the master looking at? That's fine, yeah.
• 11:28
  He's horned beast. Rob, do you think it was a good
• 11:32
  idea to save the fault? You know the money shot of the
• 11:37
  demon for the last cliffhanger. Well, well, yes, yeah, you'll
• 11:44
  save your monster until the final reel, really, don't you?
• 11:47
  What money shot were you thinking of then?
• 11:49
  Or were you laughing just because you think it's a bad
• 11:51
  shot? No, no, I was laughing because
• 11:53
  you said money shot. OK.
• 11:56
  I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You saw the size of his hoof.
• 12:00
  I do Roger Delgado thinking, oh shit.
• 12:04
  But I've bitten off more than I can chew here, you know?
• 12:06
  I keep. Again.
• 12:07
  Yeah. He did it with the Autons, he
• 12:10
  did it with the Axons. He's going to do it with the
• 12:14
  Daleks. Like come on now, the master
• 12:16
  will you get? That's his charm is his weird
• 12:21
  vulnerability because he, he does not think these things
• 12:25
  through. You know, he's, he's much more
• 12:28
  fallible than he likes to believe he is.
• 12:30
  He's always then then he has to style it out like I, I meant to
• 12:34
  do that kind of thing. It's great because.
• 12:36
  The demons great hairy back. Have you ever known a man like
• 12:40
  that? I, I, I try not to get too close
• 12:43
  to them like that. Joe No.
• 12:44
  Why? I mean, Jesus, I was once
• 12:46
  seduced by someone with a hairy back like that and unfortunately
• 12:50
  it did not work like oh please and he's a big razor by race
• 12:56
  destroys its failures. Yeah, because as the Doctor
• 12:59
  characterized them, they are signed.
• 13:01
  Remember Atlantis? And that throws up lots of
• 13:03
  continuity bobbins, doesn't it? Remember Atlantis from season 4
• 13:07
  and next year? You just say I am the last of
• 13:12
  the demons and Azal. If Azal pronounces it demons,
• 13:17
  that's what it is. That is a terrific line.
• 13:20
  This planet smells to me of failure.
• 13:24
  I mean, that line could be said in any decade, right?
• 13:28
  Well, exactly, yes. Especially right now.
• 13:36
  Oh, go right, that's it. One last manifestation we're
• 13:39
  going to have. Yes.
• 13:42
  Oh, watch this. The master's laughing his head
• 13:45
  off outside the door. Well, he's like, I got away with
• 13:50
  that one. You're right, he is styling it
• 13:54
  out. He literally was terrified. 5
• 13:56
  minutes. Yeah, he, he, he really needs,
• 13:58
  he needs therapy. Really.
• 14:00
  He's he's not Well in many ways, the poor old master.
• 14:04
  I feel sorry for these actors having to throw themselves about
• 14:06
  the set every 5 minutes. Can't be easy, can't be easy.
• 14:11
  That's right. He thinks the doctor's been so
• 14:13
  horrible to poor Sergeant Osgood.
• 14:15
  Oh, he's. Been horrible to everybody.
• 14:18
  Oh no, I know. However, we passed a bit where
• 14:22
  he goes on about bumblebees. Aerodynamically it's impossible
• 14:25
  for them to fly. Well that explains it then.
• 14:28
  Thank you the. Other thing the doctors science
• 14:32
  is so far above our own that it appears to be magic and yet
• 14:37
  anyway, yeah, we've we've we've covered that ground it's just.
• 14:41
  What happens now is that this episode goes full on, sort of
• 14:45
  Wicker Man, doesn't it? Where the Doctor is captured by
• 14:48
  the villagers. That's the end of my goal.
• 14:52
  For anyone kind of saying, well, the Wicked Man isn't made for
• 14:54
  another couple of years, true, But as as I pointed out earlier,
• 14:58
  the book The Ritual which the Wicked Man is based upon was
• 15:02
  written in 1967. So yeah, that stuff, that
• 15:06
  stuff's in the air at this point.
• 15:07
  It's quite amusing until the point where they start lighting
• 15:13
  bloody flaming briars and are about to burn the doctor alive.
• 15:19
  Love this bit where Miss Hawthorne and Benton start
• 15:22
  necking brandies. Where?
• 15:25
  Where might it lead? Benton, you're going to need a
• 15:28
  good aim by the end of the episode.
• 15:30
  Don't drink too much, all right? Do you like all that stuff?
• 15:33
  I just, I think that stuff is absolute magic.
• 15:36
  Which stuff? All the stuff with Weathercock
• 15:39
  and the car and the Doctor tied up, I just love.
• 15:43
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's very much King
• 15:46
  Solomon's mind. Yeah, King Solomon's minds where
• 15:49
  you've got you're about to be sacrificed, the hero's about to
• 15:52
  be sacrificed by the so-called primitive natives.
• 15:56
  And then they use trickery and the natives own belief against
• 16:01
  them. It's kind of, it's kind of it's,
• 16:04
  it's, it's. Yeah.
• 16:05
  The, the, the, these, these villages are primitives.
• 16:09
  Oh, look, this is. That's a really good fall from
• 16:11
  Katie Manning there. But what I love about it is
• 16:15
  you've got Bert there, so they almost hang a Lantern on it as
• 16:18
  well, because it seems to be suggesting that the, the the
• 16:20
  villagers are all a bit stupid. Oh, he's there.
• 16:23
  But yeah, but he's there going. Do you think I'm as stupid as
• 16:26
  this bunch? You know, like literally is
• 16:29
  there in the in the script. I I do like that.
• 16:32
  Yeah, I I like the doctor doing his circuit diagrams on the
• 16:36
  windshield of the bike. That's really good.
• 16:38
  That's really good. Is that a bit bondy?
• 16:41
  I mean, there is a bit of bond in this, isn't there?
• 16:43
  A Bond in this. Yeah, Yeah.
• 16:45
  But, well, Bond never drew circuits on windscreens.
• 16:47
  But yeah, there is a degree. There is a degree.
• 16:50
  That's the point in the in the if you're bringing Bond and Q
• 16:52
  figures into it. Except that Sergeant Osgood is
• 16:56
  not good technically, as far as the Doctors are concerned.
• 16:59
  Is could it have been room for Osgood to come back?
• 17:02
  You know, I mean, Moffat clearly had that thought because.
• 17:05
  And Osgood does come back, but you know.
• 17:09
  See, she is terrified of that wall there so that I literally
• 17:13
  grabbed it. Why did that happen?
• 17:19
  Again, the very fact of. Silence speaks volumes.
• 17:23
  I'm. Just going to say that it's
• 17:27
  wonderful that you can walk the entire location of this story.
• 17:33
  And that's again, it's what what this story has that others don't
• 17:36
  is that you can have that kind of that real sense of
• 17:39
  pilgrimage. You can visit this story.
• 17:42
  It's given us a place to go to and so many people go to it and
• 17:47
  I think that the people say that, don't they?
• 17:49
  Have you done the pilgrimage to all Bourne?
• 17:51
  Yeah, yeah. And, and when, when we were
• 17:54
  talking before about, you know, the, you know, the sense of the
• 17:56
  Newmanness, you know, I think, you know, pilgrimage and
• 17:59
  visiting places of the idea of a sacred.
• 18:04
  I'm very open to, you know, in, in a completely secular way.
• 18:10
  But I think, you know, the whole idea of the sacred of sacred
• 18:13
  places, places of, you know, of significance to the tribe or to
• 18:17
  the culture. That sense predates any religion
• 18:22
  that you might want to put on that feeling that that kind of
• 18:25
  goes back to. Have you ever done it?
• 18:29
  Done What A. Pilgrimage.
• 18:31
  Yeah, went to all Born in May. That's a pilgrimage.
• 18:33
  No, not a Doctor Who pilgrimage. Sacred places.
• 18:37
  Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, you know, on, on because I live near
• 18:41
  sort of Windsor Thatcher. You know, there's been a handful
• 18:44
  of Christmases where I've visited Mr. James's grave in
• 18:48
  Eton. You know, go straight, Mr.
• 18:49
  Ghost. I'd like to do all the stone
• 18:51
  circles, Rob. Oh well, again near near here if
• 18:55
  you want to. If you must stay in Wiltshire,
• 18:57
  visit Avebury, where they film Children of the Stones.
• 18:59
  But to be honest, visiting film locations is a form of
• 19:02
  pilgrimage. You know, because they are, they
• 19:05
  are they are spaces out in the world that have extra layers of
• 19:10
  significance to them. They're.
• 19:12
  Sacred to arts, right? Yeah, but, but, but, but, you
• 19:15
  know, if you go, you know, you go to a statue of the Virgin
• 19:19
  Mary, you know, wherever that's not sacred to me, but sacred to
• 19:22
  millions of people. You know, it's just.
• 19:25
  Talking of Bond, you know, flying through the countryside.
• 19:28
  On his like. As Bert's taking pot.
• 19:31
  Shop for him Yeah, I did actually have a note here give
• 19:37
  this is the story. This is my my note as I wrote
• 19:40
  it. Given that aside from 23 year
• 19:42
  old surf dude types I'm essentially straight, I can
• 19:45
  acknowledge Pertwee is a sexy doctor.
• 19:47
  Could probably took a lot from Pertwee but he couldn't take the
• 19:50
  sexiness. Yes.
• 19:52
  There's a note I made at that point in the story, so there you
• 19:55
  go. I mean, I do love the word
• 19:57
  essentially in there. It does.
• 19:59
  There's hope, OK. Benton and Miss Hawthorne having
• 20:06
  a post shag T. But I reckon, I reckon that's
• 20:09
  what happened. Of course.
• 20:11
  Look at her. She looks very satisfied right
• 20:15
  now. Milk or lemon, Sergeant?
• 20:17
  Or she's still trying to seduce him and he looks, even if
• 20:20
  anything, more more bruised than before, so who knows.
• 20:23
  Come on, by the end where she's going, Sergeant, we must do the
• 20:27
  fertility dance. Well, well, exactly.
• 20:30
  Here we go though Osgood's gadget.
• 20:32
  Does this go anywhere or is it padding it gets?
• 20:35
  No, it is padding. I think it gets the.
• 20:37
  Brigadier into the story, but I would have rather liked the BBC
• 20:41
  Three guys to be floating around here somewhere.
• 20:45
  Or just film, you know something.
• 20:48
  You know, wait, imagine. Right.
• 20:50
  So they they left. Yeah.
• 20:52
  But then they caught sight of the unit troops.
• 20:54
  So they're here hanging around with them filming all of this
• 20:57
  going on. And if if somehow again this
• 21:00
  happens in this is a ghost watch thing, but if somehow the the
• 21:03
  fact they're filming is significant, I don't know.
• 21:05
  Anyway, that's just ghost watch by that point, doesn't.
• 21:08
  This is going to sound like a bit of message, but don't they
• 21:10
  design house interiors like this so Well, yeah.
• 21:17
  Did you see that? There was on 2 layers?
• 21:18
  He came down the stairs, you know.
• 21:20
  Yes, yeah, there's a there's a wonderful indoor outdoor feel to
• 21:25
  this whole story. It marries the location, filming
• 21:29
  to the studio recording brilliantly.
• 21:33
  But it's all sort of mahogany and I don't know, I just can't
• 21:36
  explain it. There's a there's a tangible
• 21:37
  feel to the sets in this that I don't often get in the 72.
• 21:41
  Yeah, tell you what, just an observation, but really, this
• 21:44
  point Dr. Who is it's a paramilitary action sci-fi
• 21:49
  series. Now I always don't object to
• 21:51
  that. Yeah, that's what it is.
• 21:53
  Yeah. That's that's just, I mean,
• 21:55
  that's a really. Occasionally goes to other
• 21:57
  planets or into the future or alternative dimensions.
• 22:00
  Yeah. But essentially this is this is
• 22:03
  the it's a very specific, I mean, it's a really specific
• 22:08
  form of Doctor Who at this at this point in its in its life.
• 22:12
  And I would also say that by this point they have freaking
• 22:17
  aced that subgenre. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:20
  Like it's a well oiled machine now.
• 22:25
  Oh, she goes in a minute. You know they're not wicked.
• 22:28
  Well, most of them anyway. Oh I I still on the subtitles
• 22:35
  Folk music playing. There is something quite
• 22:37
  sinister about Morris dancers, I think.
• 22:40
  I Morris dancers. I hate these guys.
• 22:42
  Going around amazing. There is, yeah, there is, you
• 22:44
  know. This is.
• 22:47
  This is the folk horror now. This is little children being
• 22:51
  pulled indoors. Why is the why The why was the
• 22:54
  little kid pulled indoors? Because the old lady pulling a
• 22:57
  hen knows the village, the all the villages.
• 23:02
  Yeah, all the villages know this is dark.
• 23:07
  Because they're, they're, look at them, they're just normal
• 23:09
  people. Yeah, smile, smile.
• 23:13
  But this is the, the, the Morris dancing is a revived tradition.
• 23:20
  Yes. It's been around since the 15th
• 23:22
  century, or was, but it was 16th century, but it was revived I
• 23:26
  think in 1899. So it's, it's, it's like in the
• 23:29
  Wicker Man, how the, the, the cult on the island is actually a
• 23:34
  Victorian invention. It's a lot of a lot of these
• 23:38
  ancient traditions on actually kind of 19th century revivals of
• 23:41
  all the things. But this, this is pure folk
• 23:44
  horror. Yes, it predates The Wicker Man,
• 23:47
  but not the novel that was based on Randalls Round but by Eleanor
• 23:52
  Scott is all about this stuff. This is This is Icon the Doctor.
• 23:56
  The Doctor being called in by the Mark.
• 23:59
  Darts and so well directed, but it does feel like they're sort
• 24:03
  of chaotic scenes in The Wicker Man, doesn't it?
• 24:05
  The crowd seems when they're all yeah.
• 24:07
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is Robin Hardy.
• 24:10
  And is it Anthony or Peter Schaffer who wrote Wicker Man?
• 24:12
  Anyway, they're all, they're all, they're all drawing from
• 24:15
  the same well. And using the batons to restrain
• 24:19
  him. Yeah.
• 24:22
  And just how they tie them up with the bloody maypal ribbons.
• 24:25
  Yeah, And this is what makes Episode 4 essential, is this is
• 24:28
  the one that becomes from a this is the, this is the folk horror
• 24:31
  episode in a way that the others aren't because the rest is, you
• 24:35
  know, the kind of the black magic coven in the church.
• 24:38
  But this is where it's really clear the entire village is in
• 24:43
  on it. That's scary, Rob.
• 24:47
  Yeah. Oh, another fight for Benton.
• 24:52
  Yeah, but he's. What about Morris dancer?
• 24:55
  What does she say in these situations?
• 24:59
  The outcomes of certainty. Yeah, Benton's getting to do a
• 25:05
  lot of brawling in this one. It's great.
• 25:07
  Oh, and then yeah, crystal, crystal ball in your handbag
• 25:11
  will do that. He's not going to shatter your
• 25:13
  skull. Yes, yes, yeah.
• 25:15
  It's going to kill you. That will.
• 25:16
  That would be that, yeah, big. A big block of quart polished
• 25:20
  quartz. Whatever it is, what's going to?
• 25:22
  Ridicule mean it's. A handbag?
• 25:24
  Yeah. I thought, I thought you were
• 25:27
  talking about the ball. Yeah, no, it's, it's just, no,
• 25:30
  no, the the joke is that it's the, the, it's the, it's not the
• 25:33
  reticule that did it. It's the crystal ball inside it.
• 25:37
  I mean, it's well set up right with Oceans of Witch.
• 25:41
  And all the the village are looking on and smite.
• 25:43
  There's a kid on his bike chewing something in the
• 25:45
  background, watching while the doctor is prepared to be killed
• 25:48
  at gunpoint. Mr. Magister will care for you.
• 25:52
  He will look after you. He's a black witch.
• 25:55
  Oh, I love all of this. A witch to you hear?
• 25:58
  And thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
• 26:02
  So now we're talking about burning witches, right?
• 26:05
  Yeah, although again, I think you'll find we didn't burn
• 26:08
  witches, we hanged witches. You burned heretics, but you
• 26:12
  hanged witches. Yeah.
• 26:15
  Just in just in case you ever find yourself in that situation,
• 26:18
  John the way. He says that's right, my friends
• 26:21
  shall not suffer a witch to live.
• 26:26
  And then all the villagers are fine with this because, well,
• 26:30
  quite frankly, they're not from London, you know?
• 26:34
  Yeah, they're easily swayed. They don't get out much.
• 26:37
  There's only two parts really. Yeah, written by Townies quite
• 26:40
  clearly. Oh, well, that's that CSO shot
• 26:42
  again in the cabin. Yeah, actually.
• 26:43
  It's a different CSO shot, but but it's again, it's the cabin.
• 26:46
  It's not a it's, it's the coven in the cabin.
• 26:49
  The cabin in the cabin. Flagon with the dragon.
• 26:52
  Yeah, all that stuff. Yeah, that's awake.
• 26:56
  You're getting a bit of everything now, aren't you?
• 26:58
  My God they're literally building a pyre.
• 27:01
  They're going to burn him, obviously.
• 27:04
  The villagers seem to have. Oh, here comes the heroine of
• 27:09
  the peace. Miss Hawthorn, Stop.
• 27:11
  Bert put down that torch. They were.
• 27:15
  He was going to do it, for fuck's sake.
• 27:17
  Yeah, he. Gets.
• 27:18
  He gets forgiven really very quickly, you know.
• 27:23
  Oh, and here's the part where the civilized people trick the
• 27:27
  primitive natives using magic. It's just like in Return of the
• 27:32
  Jedi where Luke and C3PO trick the Ewoks.
• 27:38
  It's a. Flaw in your argument there
• 27:40
  though, is in on the is in on the deception.
• 27:45
  Yeah, she is a villager. Yeah, but she's an within the
• 27:49
  village, she is seen as an outsider.
• 27:52
  She is. She's not listened to, she's not
• 27:54
  trusted. She is the woman in the village
• 27:56
  who is a part. It's so great how they improvise
• 27:59
  it. Give him an example of your
• 28:01
  power. Oh my.
• 28:02
  See why he goes. What do you have in mind?
• 28:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, this is this is the doctor
• 28:08
  that is most likeable in this story because he's vulnerable
• 28:10
  and he's depending on the security of his allies.
• 28:15
  He's he's legitimately rescued here.
• 28:20
  I I do think you're right, because he does spend the rest
• 28:23
  of the story just walking in and yeah, yeah, criticizing people
• 28:27
  who. I've tried, yeah.
• 28:28
  He is being, yeah, but he is being the Brown Don Levy
• 28:31
  professor. Quite a mass in this one, most
• 28:33
  definitely. I love this all the subtitles.
• 28:36
  He is a magician. My God the.
• 28:39
  Funny thing is when you actually visit all Born, you realize how
• 28:43
  big the village green isn't and how you know with with the you
• 28:47
  know, but just by virtue of you know different various camp, the
• 28:50
  way you the way you shoot a scene, the sense of space you
• 28:54
  can create where there isn't no space it's.
• 28:56
  Exactly the same in Didcot where they filmed Android Invasion.
• 29:00
  It's tiny and yet Barry let's makes it feel massive by his
• 29:06
  camera angles. But it feels like this entire
• 29:09
  story, I mean, watching it it, it, it really works beautifully.
• 29:14
  But the the action does take place over what can't be much
• 29:17
  bigger than a football field in terms of space.
• 29:19
  This is like a month before the this was set up with Bessie,
• 29:24
  right In episode 1. It's a month later, you're
• 29:27
  getting the pay off. But you you get but there you
• 29:29
  get 2 of them. You get this one.
• 29:31
  Then the one at the end with the master is branded.
• 29:34
  But yeah, but it's it's, it's Bessie doing Brum.
• 29:38
  Remember Brom? I love Brom.
• 29:40
  Honk honk, I love that. Did you see how Benton's gun
• 29:45
  sort of went limp when he couldn't explain just how Bessie
• 29:49
  was moving on its own? Actually my note here was
• 29:52
  science and fibs beat magic. And fibs.
• 29:56
  And fibs, Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 29:58
  Elemental, my dear Benton. Oh.
• 29:59
  Wonderful. Yeah, but Sherlock Holmes
• 30:01
  channeling because again, there is a lot of Holmes in this
• 30:06
  doctor, but also the great here's here's here's one here's
• 30:09
  a story that does it, Joe, here's one for you.
• 30:12
  Science versus magical rationality versus the
• 30:16
  irrational is the Hound of the Baskervilles.
• 30:19
  That's that is the that is the perfect one where science does
• 30:22
  trump magical belief. Ultimately, I.
• 30:27
  Mean there must be more examples than that.
• 30:29
  Surely. Yeah.
• 30:30
  But that's the, that's the, that's the great example.
• 30:32
  I mean, Scooby-doo does it all the time, but really that's what
• 30:34
  it is. That's why I loved them.
• 30:37
  Neil Brand's couple of Christmas ago.
• 30:39
  Neil Brand did an adaptation of the Hand of the Baskervilles
• 30:44
  with a live orchestra and the genius thing in his one was that
• 30:47
  he he adapted the story faithfully.
• 30:50
  But then when Stapleton gets away onto the onto the Moors, he
• 30:53
  is killed by the real supernatural hound of the
• 30:56
  Baskervilles. But anyway as ours appearing.
• 30:59
  Oh my word. Oh, look at this lovely hairy
• 31:02
  tummy. Yeah, My God.
• 31:06
  I mean, I do love the the shot of his face.
• 31:08
  That is quite scary. Yeah, my note here was Joe is
• 31:13
  horrified by the colour separation overlay that was my.
• 31:18
  I thought you were talking about me then.
• 31:19
  Oh. No, no.
• 31:20
  Oh no. No other Joe.
• 31:21
  Other Joe. The female Joe, we both had
• 31:24
  breasts. I I do think if you were
• 31:28
  watching that in black and white as a six year old, that that
• 31:32
  devilish face filling the screen.
• 31:34
  That's a really. Memorable.
• 31:36
  Oh yeah, The the devil has come to Doctor Who.
• 31:38
  Despite whatever the Doctor's protestations are.
• 31:43
  This is essentially the devil isn't Doctor Who.
• 31:45
  You know, He's there. He's there and you can't argue
• 31:48
  with it. Really.
• 31:49
  I didn't. Just an observation here was I'm
• 31:51
  glad this wasn't a four parter because I don't want to leave
• 31:55
  Auburn. I don't want to leave.
• 31:56
  I don't want to leave the world of Devil's End.
• 31:58
  I just don't want to lose anything.
• 32:00
  No, no, no, no, no. I mean, at most I could lose
• 32:03
  some of the stuff with Osgood, but that's 10 minutes.
• 32:06
  It's not an episode's worth. No, this, this is a really
• 32:10
  strong as A5 parter for me. Do you think that's?
• 32:14
  They should have done that more often than the six partners.
• 32:17
  Don't know, don't know. I pretty pretty.
• 32:20
  I pretty do on a case by case basis to feel I was answering
• 32:23
  that Well, but yeah, the only thing is I do, I do miss the BBC
• 32:29
  Three crew when they're gone. But you know, you can't have
• 32:32
  everything. But yeah, it's it's, yeah, it's
• 32:35
  that episode, episode 4 proper. That's folk horror.
• 32:39
  The horror is not the master. The horror isn't even a Zylan
• 32:42
  Bach. The horror is what these normal
• 32:45
  villages will do because of what they believe.
• 32:49
  And I think that's why it is my favorite episode of the demons,
• 32:53
  because for me, people doing terrifying things is much
• 32:59
  scarier than the devil you know and all of that.
• 33:05
  It's people choosing to do the wrong thing and but was
• 33:10
  literally gonna set him on fire in that episode.
• 33:14
  Where's the doctor? We we didn't burn him.
• 33:20
  I'll cut it there.