Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Mark Donaldson about his choice of Survival (2/3)

Transcript

Talks to Mark Donaldson about his choice of Survival (2/3) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None. Hamster with a blunt.
• 0:34
  Pen knife for doing quicker quicker.
• 0:39
  Quicker Welcome back to Hamster with a blunt penknife, a Doctor
• 0:42
  Who commentary podcast. We are well one episode in to
• 0:48
  survival, we've found ourselves on a cheating planet.
• 0:54
  I'm Matt Donaldson, and I'm here with your host to afford.
• 0:59
  Yes, hello. So far we've not got into any
• 1:02
  sort of violent struggles. But there's still.
• 1:04
  Time, you know there is before we talk about survival, Can I
• 1:09
  ask you a question please, about your own podcast?
• 1:12
  I meant to ask you in episode one, but you know, episode 2.
• 1:14
  Why not? OK, well, because.
• 1:17
  You recently sort of gone off in a new direction with on the time
• 1:21
  lash to in the Time lash, a fabulous room 101 S format where
• 1:26
  people attempt to convince you to put all the dreadful things
• 1:30
  of Doctor Who. You know, down the the Spangly
• 1:33
  Tinsley Time lash. Well, where did that all come
• 1:35
  from? Well, we kind of ran out of new
• 1:41
  Doctor Who and I was quite reluctant to just go, all right,
• 1:49
  well, we'll just start doing the specials and pairing those up
• 1:54
  because I just don't think I didn't doing Jodie Whitaker that
• 1:58
  era, even though it was only a few years difference, I think
• 2:02
  going back to it with a benefit hindsight made a much better
• 2:06
  podcast then I was just kind of going, you know, we didn't
• 2:11
  really like this at the time. Those episodes were some of our
• 2:14
  favourites, you know. Well, I think there's some of
• 2:17
  mine as well, because I think we actually like it was that thing
• 2:22
  where like you're not kind of going into kind of fan wisdom
• 2:26
  and things like that. You're actually kind of going,
• 2:27
  oh, wait a minute, this is actually good Once it's removed
• 2:30
  from the most because, you know, every Doctor Who episode on its
• 2:33
  first broadcast is the most important hour of television
• 2:37
  because it could be the thing that gets it cancelled, even
• 2:39
  though that is not at all how television.
• 2:41
  Works the best thing ever. Or else.
• 2:46
  So that was part of it. And yeah, and so we were going
• 2:51
  to do a diff, we were going to maybe change up the format.
• 2:56
  And then it just kind of came to me like while I was washing the
• 3:01
  dishes or something. I was like in the in the time
• 3:03
  flash. That's the thing.
• 3:05
  And I've just become a bit, I think because I do, I do a lot
• 3:09
  of writing for entertainment websites where I write a lot of
• 3:14
  clickbait stuff and come across a lot of clickbait stuff that is
• 3:18
  poorly written. And I won't name any names, but
• 3:24
  that kind of stuff and that kind of parroting of, of opinions
• 3:29
  that people see online and that that kind of like, you see, it's
• 3:34
  not just Doctor Who. You see it everywhere now, like
• 3:37
  an episode of of ATV show go out and like the Sun or the Daily
• 3:41
  Mirror or, you know, whatever. It'll be like fans complain
• 3:45
  about this thing in an episode of EastEnders and it's like two
• 3:48
  people who you know, and it's just like you can like you can
• 3:53
  like social media, you can find any narrative you want to
• 3:58
  support your thing. So I, I just got a kind of a bit
• 4:02
  tired of Doctor Who fans, not the ones, not us, not like
• 4:06
  people I like, I'm kind of just, it felt like a good time to kind
• 4:11
  of just shake things up and question sort of received wisdom
• 4:16
  And can I look look at where we are at the moment?
• 4:18
  Because I, I know there's loads of people who are excited about
• 4:22
  Shooty Gatwa. I'm excited about Shooty Gatwa.
• 4:25
  I'm less excited about just kind of Doctor Who doing 2005 again.
• 4:33
  See, I love 2005, so I should be all right.
• 4:36
  I do as well. I loved it at the time, but I
• 4:38
  think I'm just, I'm really brushing up, rushing against the
• 4:43
  idea that Doctor Who should be this one format.
• 4:46
  I remember you've seen one episode of his era.
• 4:48
  So far, so no, I know. But Russell coming back, when
• 4:54
  Russell was announced, there was this kind of like, oh, he's, you
• 4:57
  know. Saviour.
• 5:01
  He's the great one. As if you know he's coming back
• 5:06
  to save Doctor Who. And it ties into this narrative
• 5:08
  which is just complete bollocks. The Doctor Who's been shit since
• 5:13
  David Tennant left. And, and at that, I find I, I, I
• 5:20
  don't like that attitude. So that's kind of why I was
• 5:24
  like, do you know what? Let's, let's sort of BBQ some
• 5:27
  sacred cows. Oh.
• 5:29
  Boy, did we. What surprised me was so I chose
• 5:33
  some deliberately provocative subjects to talk about, which I
• 5:38
  do generally have issues with, and I hope I presented some
• 5:41
  reasonable arguments, but it's just going to come on, say these
• 5:47
  outrageous things and we were going to have a laugh.
• 5:49
  What happened was they became talking points for really
• 5:53
  intelligent conversation. And actually I came away with
• 5:56
  far more than I expected to at the end.
• 5:59
  And I listened back off and I went.
• 6:01
  That was a bloody good episode of podcast.
• 6:02
  You know it's a good format. It works.
• 6:06
  I think that was it as well, because I think I'd said to Ben
• 6:10
  beforehand, I was like I said, I don't think like it'd be nice to
• 6:15
  mix things up and like maybe we find some kind of format where
• 6:20
  we, because I think as long as we're doing like as long as
• 6:23
  we're doing the idea of chatting about Doctor Who with your
• 6:26
  friends in the pub, I think it's still on the time lapse.
• 6:30
  Like that's kind of like that's our kind of thing.
• 6:34
  So it's like we just need to kind of come up with some way to
• 6:37
  kind of do round tables and that was it.
• 6:39
  I was like in the time Lash because we get people to pick
• 6:43
  four or five things and then it just becomes a kind of
• 6:46
  discussion about those topics, which can sometimes beer into
• 6:51
  weird state of the nation territory.
• 6:53
  Oh. They're my favorite bits,
• 6:55
  especially when you have a rant. Jesus.
• 6:58
  There's only three episodes out there of this particular format
• 7:00
  as we speak. Maybe not by the time this comes
• 7:03
  out, but as we speak. Go and check it out, it's
• 7:06
  fabulous. Two of the best podcasters ever,
• 7:09
  right? Let's stop being so fucking
• 7:10
  indulgent now and talk about survival, yes?
• 7:13
  Wait, I started this, didn't I? You.
• 7:15
  Did. Sorry, but I encouraged it.
• 7:18
  Well, look. I'll tell you what, let's press
• 7:20
  play on episode 2, because actually I think this is my
• 7:23
  favorite episode of the three. All the stuff on the Cheetah
• 7:26
  planet are pretty much. Really.
• 7:30
  Good, well you started us off. I suppose I should count as in
• 7:33
  girlfriend in 54321. OK, here we go.
• 7:43
  Here we. Something you said earlier
• 7:45
  struck a chord with me, and that is the weird relationship
• 7:49
  between Patterson and the doctor.
• 7:50
  It's very funny, isn't it? It's really good.
• 7:54
  It's it, there's, it's, it's, it's kind of like Brigadier when
• 8:01
  the 3rd Doctor vibes, but kind of, but an actual idiot, like
• 8:05
  the Brigadier has always kind of called me.
• 8:07
  He's not an idiot, but this guy's a fucking idiot, you know?
• 8:11
  And I've got to protect him. Yes.
• 8:14
  You know, but I, you know, doesn't he even say at one point
• 8:16
  when Patterson's droning on about the SAS survivable, he
• 8:20
  just goes, oh, do shut up. Yeah, he does.
• 8:24
  I love the disdain that McCoy has the character, It's great.
• 8:29
  Do you know what? There's a scene in Survival
• 8:32
  where McCoy gives a look. Yeah, I think it's the scariest
• 8:36
  doctors ever looked. I'll point it out when it's on
• 8:38
  the. Screen OK.
• 8:40
  I think he can do that, that quiet menace, so.
• 8:44
  Absolutely he can. I just wish they could.
• 8:46
  I think Mccoy's a Mccoy's a good actor.
• 8:49
  Where? But it's about knowing where to
• 8:52
  pitch the performance. Like some of his best
• 8:54
  performances are in Scottish sitcoms.
• 8:57
  So his episode of Rab seen Esbit and his episode of Still Game
• 9:01
  are heartbreaking. Oh, I've never seen it because
• 9:03
  of his. It's because of his performance.
• 9:05
  Is he in what, one episode of each?
• 9:07
  Is it in one episode of each? Yeah.
• 9:09
  Oh I used to love Still Game. I want to check that one out.
• 9:11
  Yeah, Series 3, it's called out. The the pay off to the Doctor
• 9:21
  Patterson relationship is a very dark joke.
• 9:25
  Do you remember what it is? He finds his body and he goes.
• 9:30
  Oh so much for the SAS survival course.
• 9:33
  Oh. Yes, yeah.
• 9:35
  Dark play with Pussycats. I mean, that's not that
• 9:47
  believable a corpse, is it that? Well, again, probably as far as
• 9:52
  I could go though. Yeah, true.
• 9:55
  Well, coming in, I'm going to, I want to ask you about Aces
• 9:57
  friends now, OK, one at a time and see what your thoughts are.
• 10:01
  So we'll start with, we'll start with Schrigler.
• 10:05
  OK, she's good. She's I think what I think
• 10:09
  what's interesting about this is that the female characters are
• 10:13
  the ones that have their head screwed on properly.
• 10:17
  Like the like, like we're in a difficult situation just to kind
• 10:20
  of work for it. Whereas Midge is constantly
• 10:22
  trying to score points or be the be the top dog and kind of punch
• 10:28
  down. So he kind of sees I've
• 10:30
  forgotten the other guy. What's the other guy's name?
• 10:32
  No, that's not Stevie, Derek. Derek, that's it.
• 10:37
  Like he sees him as a kind of weak link.
• 10:39
  So he he sort of picks on him and sort of needles him because
• 10:42
  he's just that kind of guy. And the book goes further into
• 10:46
  like he's he's a bullet. He's just a really nasty.
• 10:50
  Piece They talk about scenes back in the youth club where he
• 10:53
  picked up Ace and smashed their head through a window.
• 10:57
  And stuff like. That you know he's.
• 11:00
  Properly bored because he is without ketchup.
• 11:03
  Yeah, yeah. My issue is Will Parton's
• 11:05
  delivery. Half the time I feel like it is.
• 11:09
  It's an interesting performance choice.
• 11:11
  Do you know what I love about Sreela is Sreela's really dirty.
• 11:16
  Did you notice, like, her tops really dirty, Her hair's messy?
• 11:19
  Well. That's not really Doctor Who.
• 11:23
  No, no, not in the John Nathan Turner.
• 11:25
  Everybody's got a costume and it's all very put together.
• 11:28
  And yeah. I mean, obviously ain't he looks
• 11:30
  it's not in this, but he would. Oh yeah.
• 11:32
  This is the best he's ever looked like like in terms of
• 11:36
  costuming. It's just how it's amazing how
• 11:40
  menacing he can be, just sort of in the shadows, you know?
• 11:44
  Yeah. And Oh yeah, this.
• 11:49
  I love this. Now he's sort of in control.
• 11:52
  And then all the cheaters slowly start coming towards him and
• 11:55
  he's like, all right, I'll find some food for you.
• 11:57
  Like you realise he's not in control here.
• 12:00
  Not at all like he's the food source.
• 12:02
  That's kind of gone. Oh no, hang on, if you eat me,
• 12:06
  you're not going to get any other foods.
• 12:08
  Did you know a Meech growing up? I did.
• 12:10
  I knew a bully boy. Yeah, but Leader?
• 12:14
  I couldn't name them not not for legal reasons, just because I
• 12:17
  can't really remember them. But yeah, definitely, you know,
• 12:19
  if you, you have few midges in my time.
• 12:22
  I just enjoyed hurting people, like physically hurting people.
• 12:25
  I mean, I've recorded a knife crime was the thing when I was a
• 12:27
  kid. Knife fights outside school.
• 12:30
  It was very violent. Look at that shot there with the
• 12:33
  volcano. I.
• 12:37
  Think I'm a Oh yeah, I'm a couple of seconds behind, I
• 12:39
  think yes. I mean, that's I can see why now
• 12:42
  looking at it from like a modern perspective.
• 12:44
  Oh yeah looks a bit cheap, but it's like, you know where we
• 12:47
  talks about town called mercy, you know feeling like like, you
• 12:52
  know, being a western kind of this does that first you know
• 12:55
  that that kind of open desert two guys on horseback this kind
• 13:00
  of beautiful kind of sort of backdrop.
• 13:04
  I think guitar as well. Ah, the.
• 13:06
  Music's fabulous. I think A Town Called Mercy is
• 13:08
  stylish, but this is more visually interesting because
• 13:12
  they're putting in belching volcanoes and things, you know,
• 13:15
  But but because it's part of the story, the more you fight, the
• 13:19
  more violent the planet gets. It's far.
• 13:22
  It's a far more interesting. Setting I love this this actual
• 13:25
  cat just. Yes.
• 13:27
  Having a lovely time in a quarry.
• 13:30
  Oh no, the milkman. He's got very 1980 nines hair
• 13:34
  that moment. I wonder if he comes from the
• 13:40
  same family as the milkman in the solar nerve.
• 13:44
  I remember watching The Stolen Earth for the very first time on
• 13:47
  that. I see what you've done there,
• 13:48
  Russell. I see exactly what you've done
• 13:50
  there. Oh, hang on, is this the bit
• 13:53
  where Sylvester Mccoy's hanging upside down now?
• 13:55
  What are they roasting there? Oh, I treated it's gone now but.
• 13:59
  Probably one of the is it? One of the kittlings, yeah.
• 14:02
  Probably no animals were harmed in the making of this program.
• 14:08
  Oh, that is the worst trap ever. The trees just went boing.
• 14:14
  Oh, but it does give me a chance to do a bit of business.
• 14:17
  Yes. How many times serious have I
• 14:19
  told you about playing with fire?
• 14:23
  Yeah, look at this. And he sort of plays with his
• 14:27
  fur. Yeah, which kind of hints at
• 14:30
  kind of, oh, he's going to becoming more like them.
• 14:38
  So you look at that, did you see that shot there, that long shot?
• 14:41
  I don't know if we're at the same point.
• 14:42
  Oh yeah. Well, yeah, I know.
• 14:44
  I think I'm, I keep trying to get it up to the thing, but
• 14:46
  yeah, where they're kind of into the, they're kind of Roma keed
• 14:50
  into the shop. I think there's enough effort
• 14:52
  there to sell it. Yeah, and all this as well.
• 14:58
  They're kind of this sort of smoke machine behind them, this
• 15:02
  sort of pink thing and all the dust and sand and it does feel
• 15:07
  like. Oppressive.
• 15:09
  Doctor Who hasn't felt like this for a very long time, you know.
• 15:13
  Yeah, when was the last time they did this and made this much
• 15:16
  effort? Maybe like Thora's beta in Mind
• 15:18
  Warp? Yeah.
• 15:20
  To do something truly sort of alien.
• 15:23
  I suppose you could say Lacursa if you were feeling generous.
• 15:27
  Yes, but you know, Tinsley rocks and that.
• 15:31
  Oh, I love this slide. Do you know any nice people?
• 15:34
  You know ordinary people. That's such a good not Pericle.
• 15:41
  Isn't that us? It's weird how suddenly I can
• 15:45
  buy Sophie now they're right in her as a young adult.
• 15:52
  And she tones the like and she tones the performance down.
• 15:55
  And I think the by touring the performance and, and the
• 15:58
  chemistry she has with Sylvester, bits like that where
• 16:01
  don't you know any nice people? The gag really works because it
• 16:05
  just feels like two friends chatting about, like somebody's
• 16:09
  terrible taste in in men essentially.
• 16:12
  The trouble with this season is, is it's filmed out of order.
• 16:16
  So as her performances develop, and I think they do, I think our
• 16:20
  best performance of the year is Ghost Light, which was filmed
• 16:22
  last, but it comes second. So you get Battlefield where
• 16:26
  she's basically a kid, then she does this very mature
• 16:29
  performance in Ghost Light. Then you've got Curse Fenrik
• 16:32
  where it's all sort of angst ridden and hysterical and then
• 16:35
  you get this where it's very mature again.
• 16:38
  Yeah, but then I suppose ever. Was it thus?
• 16:42
  We all have the occasional hysterical day.
• 16:45
  Yes. Oh, look.
• 16:47
  McCoy picks up the skull and. I like this bit as well.
• 16:49
  Like just there's there's essentially a fun bring species.
• 16:55
  Now this, this is the sequence I was sort of telling you about
• 16:58
  that I don't actually like too much in the book.
• 17:01
  Them going through this gully and the cheetahs sort of clawing
• 17:05
  at them suddenly. Yeah, it's all written in a very
• 17:08
  tense way. And then the end of the chapter,
• 17:13
  it's like, and then the milkman appear just when they thought
• 17:15
  they. And it works here.
• 17:18
  It's all done for comedy. It's very strange.
• 17:20
  Yeah, it's all because there's no tension at all, because
• 17:22
  they're all just kind of lying around sort of eating, eating
• 17:26
  meat, kind of just lazing in the sun, and they don't really
• 17:29
  notice them. And then McCoy does shout a lot.
• 17:33
  He does shout a lot, sure. Did you see the outtakes for
• 17:37
  this bit, though? It's going.
• 17:42
  I told you that fucking stays still.
• 17:47
  Oh yeah. Now you said earlier your words,
• 17:51
  not mine, is that he's very good When, when they're they, they
• 17:55
  write to his. Strengths.
• 17:56
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is not that bits.
• 18:00
  Of it, bits of it, I think, well, we're not at that bit yet,
• 18:06
  but obviously the bitterly trips up the the cheater person that's
• 18:12
  various Sylvester McCoy, that kind of cloning.
• 18:15
  Oh, when he raises the hat. Yeah, that's, that's great.
• 18:23
  I think the most important thing though, is I'm absolutely sold
• 18:25
  that they're on another planet. I I really feel like they're on
• 18:28
  this desert planet when actually is, you know, the same old
• 18:33
  quarry we've been filming in for the last 30 years.
• 18:39
  Yeah, because it must be the same.
• 18:40
  Is it the same place to film Greatest Show?
• 18:42
  I think it is, actually. Yeah, it is.
• 18:44
  It's got that big pole there, isn't it?
• 18:48
  It looked just as good there as well.
• 18:49
  I suppose Patterson is actually doing something there.
• 18:52
  Oh, here we go. Well, it started flinging a
• 18:54
  rock. Stay still Hacked Off.
• 19:00
  All right? We're about to come to the
• 19:02
  sequences where Ace finds Cara by the water, so come on, tell
• 19:10
  me what's going on. Well, so I, well, I was lucky
• 19:14
  enough to meet Rona Monroe last week.
• 19:18
  So I went to see James the 5th, which is the latest in her James
• 19:23
  play cycle, which is up about each of the six Kings of Scott.
• 19:27
  And she was doing a live podcast about sort of biting the play.
• 19:32
  And a friend of mine who worked at the theatre, I sort of said,
• 19:35
  how do you kind of want to speak to Warren Monroe?
• 19:37
  But she looks pretty busy. I'll go and she's like, I'll
• 19:40
  introduce you like, it's fine. So I was, I chatted to her and I
• 19:43
  just said, you know, like, like love the plays.
• 19:46
  I think it's really great what you're doing for like history in
• 19:49
  Scotland, stuff like that. So, but also, I just want to say
• 19:52
  really, really love your Doctor Who script.
• 19:55
  And she was saying that writing survival, she really had to
• 19:59
  suck, like sort of smuggle in the queer subtext.
• 20:03
  And obviously. As we talked about in episode
• 20:06
  one, the fingering gag, you know, she really had to go
• 20:10
  because Nathan Turner's even pulling out that joke.
• 20:15
  But I think so. I think I, I think that sort of
• 20:18
  in terms of the lesbian subtext in this, I don't think it's ace
• 20:22
  wants to, you know, have sex with Cara.
• 20:25
  It's more about that sort of giving into your instincts and
• 20:32
  kind of because obviously the whole thing is about repression.
• 20:36
  It's about what you keep inside. And actually for race to leave
• 20:41
  the planet, she has to sort of succumb to that for them all to
• 20:45
  be free. So I think that I that I think
• 20:48
  is the, is the sort of lesbian subtext.
• 20:50
  It's not, you know, a kind of a rough, I'm not, I suppose there
• 20:54
  is an Eroticism to it, but I think that's the that's kind of
• 20:57
  what it what it's saying. You know, do you think she plays
• 21:01
  the scene where Lisa Bauman, the scene, you know, after she's
• 21:05
  stabbed, she plays that Sophie. Audrey plays that scene very
• 21:09
  tenderly. She's touching.
• 21:10
  Oh yeah. Yeah, OK.
• 21:11
  I could see how someone could read this into it, but my
• 21:13
  reading of it was, yeah, that it's discovering your sexuality
• 21:19
  is like an awakening. It's something awakening.
• 21:22
  It's like a realisation and and you sort of embracing that.
• 21:26
  And that's what she's going through here.
• 21:28
  She's. Yeah, things are changing
• 21:30
  inside. Yes.
• 21:33
  Is it puberty? I don't know.
• 21:36
  This is, I mean, it's violent puberty.
• 21:38
  Is violent. It is.
• 21:40
  This is one of my favorite sort of Doctor and Master
• 21:44
  confrontations because it is just like just two two kind of
• 21:49
  gods, like really good sort of side just chatting about the
• 21:52
  state of the planet, the plan and then it bit.
• 21:55
  It will obviously we we cut away again, but it builds her I think
• 21:58
  one of my favourite Sylvester McCoy bits, but we'll come back
• 22:01
  to it. In the in the book, right, she
• 22:04
  paints this wonderful picture. She hasn't the master saying
• 22:06
  about how this used to be a planet of gleaming cities, a
• 22:11
  proper space city, and it's completely just degenerated into
• 22:15
  this wilderness because the planet sort of taken over
• 22:18
  everybody and everyone killed each other, and the place just
• 22:21
  fell to ruins. Yeah.
• 22:23
  And that's why you see those ruins there.
• 22:26
  And that is the whole theme of the thing, isn't it?
• 22:28
  It's, it's, it is about how ultimately you, you know, the
• 22:34
  more you chip, the, the more, the more violence.
• 22:36
  The more violence, the more you kind of chip away at your
• 22:38
  humanity, the more of an animal you kind of become.
• 22:42
  I just love the idea of a planet that reacts to your emotions and
• 22:46
  your instincts, you know? How would you say it?
• 22:50
  If we fight, we'll destroy this planet.
• 22:53
  We'll destroy ourselves. Yeah.
• 22:57
  That there's there's no hint that they like each other at
• 23:01
  all. Here's.
• 23:01
  No, there's not. But it's it's his admission.
• 23:06
  I love the way he goes. It even got me a Time Lord.
• 23:09
  I just love that line. Yeah, and I do like the idea
• 23:12
  that that the Masters trap the Doctor there because he knows
• 23:15
  the Doctor will find a way out and then he can just piggyback
• 23:18
  on the on the whole thing. And then, of course, he realizes
• 23:22
  he can use Midge. Yes.
• 23:24
  So he encourages that sort of devolution into a wild creature.
• 23:30
  And that's brilliant as well. I think Barton's great in that
• 23:33
  scene, actually, where he puts the the rope around his neck and
• 23:36
  he's just like, savage. He's just falling out the air,
• 23:38
  isn't he? Some part of me, you know, some
• 23:42
  part of me finds it appealing. That's like, I love that sort of
• 23:45
  disgusted Luke the the Doctor has when the Master starts like
• 23:49
  howling and he just kind of just like excuses himself.
• 23:54
  Oh, I'm out of here. It's so good.
• 23:56
  You have a moment with your pussy.
• 23:58
  I'm gone. I do love those cheetahs, Sort
• 24:03
  of lazily. And because it feels like dusk,
• 24:06
  you know, it feels like the sun's sort of going down.
• 24:09
  Yeah. And there's a, there is a sense
• 24:10
  of like, they're an alien species and it, it, you know,
• 24:14
  with their own kind of environment.
• 24:17
  I do feel as if Roland Monroe was slightly dissatisfied with
• 24:22
  the how this was portrayed on screen, like and it said in the
• 24:27
  documentary and when she wrote the book, she did have a chance
• 24:30
  to give it all another go over. So that scene there where Midge
• 24:33
  comes along with the tooth in his hand, in the book, he's got
• 24:37
  blood dripping down all of his arms.
• 24:40
  Yeah. So it's just like a there's
• 24:43
  savagery in the book, there's a lot of bloods and gore and
• 24:46
  nastiness, which you're never going to see on the.
• 24:50
  Screen no, you're never going to get that well, you you would
• 24:53
  have done in the in the Sayward era, but but.
• 24:56
  It sort of pushes, it pushes the the wildness and the survival
• 25:00
  theme, you know, a lot more. And I suppose this sort of
• 25:07
  drinking the water out of our hands is a bit, you know, as
• 25:10
  well, you could argue is kind of all subtexts.
• 25:14
  Licking her out, isn't she? It's called moon water in the
• 25:19
  book and it has healing properties.
• 25:24
  Oh, this is a bit I was telling you about.
• 25:28
  Oh no, it's gone past already. I'm so disappointed.
• 25:31
  Oh well. Oh, the bit that you.
• 25:34
  Oh, no, no, no, no, no. It's in episode 3.
• 25:36
  Basically. It's the bit where she's about
• 25:38
  to go. She goes to come and eat, and
• 25:41
  Sophie Aldridge goes to eat the carcass with her, and McCoy
• 25:45
  comes along and pulls her away. And the look he gives her when
• 25:48
  he walks away, it's like I'm the person that destroyed fucking
• 25:52
  Scarah, right? Don't mess with me as he walks
• 25:56
  away. It's piercing.
• 26:00
  Oh, I never knew I could be so nice about Sylvester McCoy and
• 26:02
  Sophie Aldridge. I'm I'm a new man.
• 26:10
  And this kind of, again, that kind of, I guess Sherlock
• 26:13
  Holmes, Doctor Watson thing that you sometimes get with the best
• 26:17
  doctoring companion parents is that it's kind of him sort of
• 26:21
  manipulating Ace into realizing the solution, even though he
• 26:28
  kind of, I don't know, they just some of the dialogue is like,
• 26:31
  Oh, well, you know, they they need a they need an animal whose
• 26:36
  prey is, you know, Earth. So maybe we could.
• 26:42
  I saw a really interesting reading on Twitter, and I don't
• 26:45
  say that very often today of somebody talking about the scene
• 26:49
  in the Happiness Patrol. You know, when Ace gets a bit
• 26:51
  angry, she goes, I want to make a really, really unhappy.
• 26:54
  And he goes, don't worry, don't worry, Ace, we will.
• 26:57
  And the inference is that he's going to channel her anger into
• 27:01
  his plans to bring down. And then someone commented on
• 27:04
  that and said that's why the end of survival episode 2 I find
• 27:08
  really chilling because effectively he is using her
• 27:13
  instincts and her anger to get them all home to.
• 27:16
  Get home. Yeah, but that's the but like
• 27:18
  ultimately that like I think what we always kind of forget
• 27:21
  when people like, oh, you know, the the the Doctor companion,
• 27:26
  this Doctor companion relates like.
• 27:27
  Drama. He's a bloody Time Lord.
• 27:30
  He's thousands of years old. He's got a different morality.
• 27:33
  Like, you know, he's trying to save as many people as possible
• 27:37
  if that means his friend has to kind of go through some shit
• 27:40
  and. Like I said recently about, I
• 27:43
  mean, it's more interesting as well.
• 27:45
  It's more interesting to talk about and to watch, you know,
• 27:47
  just want nice people on the screen doing nice things of.
• 27:50
  Course not. Good grief, we'll be watching
• 27:52
  the Chris Chipnall era. Sorry, can I say that out loud?
• 27:56
  What's happened to me tonight? Oh, that line.
• 28:00
  There she goes. I'm starving, professor.
• 28:02
  Yeah. Oh yeah, this is a bit comical.
• 28:08
  Oh yeah, yeah. They're not putting their back
• 28:13
  into really, are they? It's just kind of.
• 28:16
  Well, that fight, no. Yes, it's just like Julian all
• 28:19
  the way is kind of like rocking him back and forth rather than
• 28:22
  trying to. What do you know what, let's
• 28:26
  let's pull back from the cover for a second and just think
• 28:29
  about the ideas and then playing about with here and what I said
• 28:33
  right at the start about how unique this is.
• 28:36
  And, and Doctor Who just has never worked with layers like
• 28:39
  this before, You know, layers of, of, of the the planet that
• 28:44
  awakens you, you know, giving into your instincts, all of this
• 28:49
  stuff. Doctor Who doesn't work like
• 28:51
  that in the classic series. No, it's, it's Doctor lands on
• 28:55
  planet. I mean, you know, like this of
• 28:58
  this story is the cheetah people hunting people on Earth for
• 29:05
  food. The Doctor goes to the cheetah
• 29:07
  planet, stops them, the end. But that's not a very
• 29:13
  interesting story. You know.
• 29:16
  What you get instead is you get a story about this sort of very
• 29:20
  nature of violence and instinct. And yeah, and it's just so much
• 29:27
  more interesting. And then you just got all this
• 29:29
  other stuff about young men and kind of what young men are kind
• 29:33
  of taught about what it means to be a man.
• 29:37
  You know, It's, it's so, it's, it's so layered in a way that I
• 29:43
  think even more than Doctor Who would struggle to, to kind of
• 29:46
  do. Do you think, though, they were
• 29:48
  doing this stuff because Andrew Carl had their nuts to push the
• 29:52
  show in this direction? Yes.
• 29:54
  But do you think it also had a factor of nobody was really
• 29:58
  paying attention anymore and they just thought, well then,
• 30:01
  well, let's just go for it? Yeah, I think that's it.
• 30:05
  It's they know nobody's really watching, nobody really cares.
• 30:10
  So you there is that kind of creative freedom.
• 30:13
  And because JNT by this point is kind of like, you know, put
• 30:17
  mastering. But he's taken a kind of step
• 30:19
  back. He trusts his script editor.
• 30:22
  But you know what one of the biggest delights for me of doing
• 30:26
  hamster has been because I used to always round this era.
• 30:29
  I was so mean about this. I go I look at my old Doc O
• 30:32
  reviews and I'm such a bastard about it.
• 30:34
  And it's talking to the kids that watched it at a time that
• 30:39
  are adults now. So they're sort of 30-40
• 30:41
  somethings. It's like Fraser Gregory, you,
• 30:44
  James Lark, Nathan Bottomley that just fucking love this.
• 30:50
  At the time, it just it bewildered them.
• 30:54
  Like this planet is bewitching Ace right now.
• 30:57
  They just fell head over heels with the tone of it, the style
• 31:01
  of it, the the regulars, all of it.
• 31:04
  So I don't think it wasn't reaching anybody.
• 31:07
  No, I I mean, you know, there was, I can't remember the
• 31:09
  ratings were like at the time, but I mean, it wasn't for this
• 31:12
  one. I mean, compared to the right.
• 31:13
  No, it's this. This one, yeah, yeah, this, this
• 31:17
  got 5 million, I think for each episode, right?
• 31:20
  Which, you know, in, in contemporary times, that's what
• 31:25
  your soap operas get now that is what your Coronation Street
• 31:27
  gets, you know, 5 million a night or whatever.
• 31:31
  It's just it's interesting how kind of things things change and
• 31:34
  how we kind of approach ratings and what counts as a sort of big
• 31:38
  hit. But I get the impression that
• 31:42
  you are that person I'm describing there, that you did
• 31:47
  love this era as a kid. Yeah, I was slightly too young
• 31:50
  to have watched it go out, so I kind of picked it all up on sort
• 31:55
  of video, like UK gold repeats. But yeah, like, like I said at
• 31:58
  the start, like I, there was something about this era that I
• 32:02
  think really resonated with me. And I think it was because it
• 32:04
  was like a lot of the kids TV that I've been watching kind of
• 32:10
  before I found Doctor. And because they I was like, I
• 32:15
  wouldn't say I was massively in science fiction, but like I
• 32:17
  watched Star Trek Next Generation every week when my
• 32:20
  dad's on BBC Two. And then when Doctor kind of
• 32:26
  came, well, didn't come back. But when the repeats started in
• 32:29
  92, that was like my mum and dad were like, Oh yeah, you should
• 32:32
  watch this. Like it's like this TV show we
• 32:34
  used to love as a kid. 89 that it that would have been TNG
• 32:40
  series two. I can imagine watching Up the
• 32:42
  long ladder and then watching survival.
• 32:46
  Well, yeah, I mean you you wouldn't because I don't think
• 32:48
  it comes did TNG didn't come to the UKI think until.
• 32:52
  Then. Yeah, but yeah, so I mean, but
• 32:56
  with Survival, I bought that on video and that was the first
• 32:58
  time I watched it. And yeah, it, it really did blow
• 33:02
  me away. And I was like, this is kind of
• 33:04
  my claim to Doctor Who and it still is, but I don't know,
• 33:11
  there's something about, because everybody talks about how this
• 33:15
  kind of prefigures RTDS Dr. And, and it does, it does, of course
• 33:20
  it does, accidentally or otherwise.
• 33:24
  I don't know. There's something about this
• 33:26
  that I that resonates with me more than than RTD stuff.
• 33:31
  I feel sometimes with RTD stuff there's a lot of artifice like
• 33:36
  in terms of like the portrayal of kind of the everyday, it all
• 33:41
  feels a little bit sitcomy and fake to me sometimes.
• 33:45
  Whereas this and I don't know why because arguably it's way
• 33:48
  more, you know, artificial some of the some of the sort of young
• 33:53
  lads and the the gangs and stuff in this.
• 33:55
  But yeah, I don't know, it feels realer to me.
• 33:58
  I think you said it in the first episode.
• 34:01
  It's so mundane this the streets of Perivale, that horrid
• 34:06
  concrete block of flats we go to in the next episode, which just
• 34:09
  looks like the most miserable place you could possibly live.
• 34:12
  It's not like Jackie Tarda's flat which is populated full of
• 34:15
  colourful people saying wisdom lines is to the Martians and all
• 34:19
  of this, you know? Although I will be honest,
• 34:23
  whilst I said I saw my childhood here in those scenes of sort of
• 34:28
  the empty streets of Perivale, I did grow up.
• 34:31
  My house was basically Jackie Tyler's flat with all those
• 34:34
  people coming in and out all the time and lots of very terrifying
• 34:39
  and powerful women that lived in in the estate coming in my house
• 34:43
  all the time and clipping my ear and things like that.
• 34:46
  So I'm sort of caught between the two.
• 34:50
  Yeah, I, I, I mean, I do what? The anomaly is Mark.
• 34:54
  It's ATV movie which comes in the middle.
• 34:57
  Yeah. And I think that that I think
• 34:59
  the reason I like the TV movie so much was that and I still
• 35:03
  think, I think the TV movie, in terms of redoing, well,
• 35:11
  relaunching Doctor Who in the 1990s, it it perfectly fits that
• 35:16
  tone. Oh yeah, for sure.
• 35:18
  Like as a as an hour and a half of television, It's it, it sits
• 35:23
  very comfortably alongside. You've got a bit of The X-Files,
• 35:25
  a bit of, ER, you know what? Would you want?
• 35:30
  I think they're all shot in the same places in Vancouver, you
• 35:32
  know? I think they are, yeah.
• 35:35
  So it does a really good job of that.
• 35:37
  So I think, yeah, watching that was like, and it felt like that
• 35:40
  was what felt like my dog too. Because for the two or three
• 35:43
  years beforehand, I'd just been watching essentially the like
• 35:48
  poetry and Tom Baker repeats on BBC Two.
• 35:51
  It's like Pyramid of Mars, the Green Death planet, the Daleks,
• 35:54
  all that kind of stuff, which I really loved.
• 35:57
  But that was like my dad's doctor.
• 35:59
  That wasn't that wasn't like for me.
• 36:01
  Whereas the. Shop and a kid you know.
• 36:04
  Then and then, you know, it didn't go anywhere.
• 36:07
  There was only one episode. So then you had to kind of beg
• 36:10
  your parents to buy the bloody BBC books every three months.
• 36:15
  Well, I've got a I've got a big question I want to ask you, but
• 36:18
  I'm going to save it for the beginning of episode one.
• 36:20
  I want to tie this into the new series, but I'm going to leave
• 36:24
  that little enticement there and to the audience that I'm going
• 36:26
  to have to wait a whole day to hear that question.
• 36:32
  Got it there.