Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Paul Arthur about his choice of Carnival of Monsters (1/4)

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Talks to Paul Arthur about his choice of Carnival of Monsters (1/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blunt pen knife for doing quicker.
• 0:36
  Welcome back to a Hamster with a Blunt pen knife, the Doctor Who
• 0:41
  Commentary podcast. How many times have I said that
• 0:44
  now? Well, at least 1000.
• 0:46
  Hello, Paul. Hello, Joe, How are you?
• 0:48
  I'm. Very well, thank you.
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  Is that a thrashing in your pocket or are you just pleased
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  to see me? Yeah, well, I mean, that would
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  be telling. It's quite a roar, let's put it
• 1:01
  that way. Is it gnashing?
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  It Oh yes, yeah, tongue is flash failing around.
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  Like in Carnival of Oncers, they tend to pop out everywhere,
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  don't they? They do.
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  They will, they will. They will pop out of every hole
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  they can find. I'm pleased to say to you,
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  though, that in fact, is a thrashing in my pocket, all
• 1:22
  right? And every time they turn up on
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  the screen now, no one else can know, but I've actually got the
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  thrashing pop up on my hand. He is going to contribute every
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  now and again, all right. Yeah, well, yeah, I'm happy to
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  share the the podcast spotlight on this occasion with, oh, what
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  a what a lovely face he's got. Convincing, isn't he?
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  It's not bad, is it? That's all right that you have
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  fun with that thing. Quite a good conversation after
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  a YouTube series. What do you think?
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  What's that? Mr. Trashing.
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  This is terrible podcast about it's all visual.
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  How are you, Paul? Yeah, very well.
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  Thanks. Very well.
• 1:59
  Glad to be back and thanks for everyone and listen to my first
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  podcast and. Quite a few people it turns out,
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  you know, now I hear we've been sort of talking off mic a little
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  bit that, you know, you've been busy having a life, a family, a
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  job, you know, all those sort of things.
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  You've been. Force feeding yourself Carnival
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  of Monsters for the last few weeks.
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  Very much so. I mean, it's always one that I
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  will go back to a lot anyway is it's a fun, it's a comfort whose
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  story for me. It's just one that I'll go back
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  to a lot. It's I first saw as a kid on the
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  Five Faces of Doctor Who repeats in 1981.
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  So I was 8 years old at the time.
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  And it's one of those ones where, you know, when you're a
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  kid and you watch something and you enjoy it and you go back to
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  it as an adult and you you're not sure how it's going to be.
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  But it's one of those few occasions where when I joined
• 2:52
  Doctor Who fandom in the 90s and I was watching this stuff again
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  that I'd seen as a kid, I was like, yeah, this is actually is
• 3:01
  as good as I remember for the things I liked at that time.
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  But also, he's got something to enjoy as an adult as well.
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  It's definitely working on levels, isn't it?
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  Yeah, Not only is it full of great favourites for the
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  children, but they're also commenting that they're great
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  favourites for the children. Well, exactly, it's it's Doctor
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  Who, isn't it? It's, you know, as on the 30
• 3:23
  years and the tallest thing, Colin Baker says Doctor Who.
• 3:25
  Now is it Tom or Colin? I can't remember.
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  One of them says Doctor Who works on different levels within
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  the family. So like kids will enjoy the
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  monsters. And as an 8 year old, I love the
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  jurassics, the you know when the the adults will hopefully find
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  something a bit deeper in there as well.
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  And Carnival definitely has that.
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  I didn't notice any of the commentary on sort of television
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  and politics when I was a nipper when I watched this.
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  But now, God Almighty, I mean, I'm going to shock you now.
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  This is probably probably my favorite John Perry story.
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  I just think it is a divine script, mostly very well
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  executed and it's per wee and Manning at their finest in this.
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  I I would I put this top ten like a classic.
• 4:15
  Who it is up there. It is really up there.
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  I definitely in my top ten. I mean, I don't.
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  I'm not a huge one for writing lists, but any given day, if I
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  was, if you, if you were to ask me to name 10, I would
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  definitely put it in there. Yeah, absolutely top tier.
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  Pertwee. Kind of weird for the five faces
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  of repeats where you can't. You'd think you'd want something
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  that was emblematic of the era and family and exactly all that
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  stuff. But actually as 4 episodes of a
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  science fiction show I definitely you can beat it.
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  It's, I mean, it's funny, it's a great adventure.
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  I mean, it's got loads of scenes on a boat, for God's sakes.
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  We actually go out on the high seas.
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  You're not one for making lists, did you say?
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  Well, well, not one to stick into lists, I'd I'd say.
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  I mean, yeah, I think we talked before about my Instagram stuff.
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  And so like, it's part of that. I will we'll sort of every so
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  often do lists. I know like Fraser did his big
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  60 things for the 60th and I did a similar thing over there as
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  well, which is not necessarily old stories, but like 60 Doctor
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  Who things. I think Carnival was in it.
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  But if I was to write that list today wouldn't necessarily be
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  the same list. It would be whatever came them
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  head. With mostly my ways to ask you,
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  you know, well, you can list your top three favorite Doctor
• 5:35
  Who podcasts, and they'll be really angry when I'm not on the
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  list. For #1.
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  Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you are #1 as well,
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  maybe Dylan Reese's. I do love to.
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  I mean, I love the wilderness years.
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  Two of the TVI love because it's, it's stuff that I don't
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  know necessarily that well, the, the expanded stuff.
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  I joined the Doctor Who found him in the in the 90s and at
• 6:03
  that time I was kind of filling in a lot of the blanks.
• 6:05
  You know, I, I knew like the basic shape of Doctor Who.
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  I'd kind of grown up reading Doctor Who weekly.
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  I had the celebration book and so I kind of knew roughly what
• 6:15
  it was, but there was a hell of a lot I didn't know.
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  And also then in the early 90s you got a lot of new research
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  stuff. So I was kind of like feeding on
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  that and kind of learning the, the law of Doctor Who.
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  I would borrow new adventures from mates or I would borrow
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  like downtime or, you know, all of that kind of stuff.
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  But I never, I didn't, they didn't get any more money.
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  I'm afraid I. I.
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  Had a life. I'm just, I had a life.
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  You're a man with a life and a Doctor Who fan.
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  Or how do you do it? Hey, what can I say?
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  I don't know. It's because you're popular,
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  pretty, you know, things like that.
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  Well, yes, I'm a good job this is a podcast because I've pretty
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  got a face for radio, I think. Oh nons, did you say you was 8
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  when this went out? Yes, yeah.
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  So. When the five faces went out.
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  That's right. Yeah, I.
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  Was going to say there's no way you was 8 in 17. 70 Well, no, I
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  was. I was born in 73.
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  So I came out. I was, I came out.
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  I was born rather six months after this game.
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  I want to put your dad was born in the 80s, you know.
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  Oh well, thank you very much. But you know what they say, fat
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  doesn't crack, so. I know, right?
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  It's a multitude of sins. I've just, I'm nurturing a food
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  baby, you know, for that exact reason.
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  OK, So what should we go in? Should we go watch up someone?
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  We've got a long road ahead of us, you know?
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  Indeed. Started off doing a single
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  episode. Now you're doing 4.
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  Right. OK.
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  Yeah, absolutely. Well, how about you count us in
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  and we'll head straight down the Perkway time tunnel to into
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  Minor. OK then Joe, if you are ready,
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  let's go with episode one in 321.
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  Off we go, talk about day glow. Oh, I love this.
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  I love the the colour of the, you know, the the colour
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  Halorand I've just think, yeah, I think I mean, again, not one
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  for this, but I actually think this might be among my favorite
• 8:15
  intros. Fat and McCoy think possibly.
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  I'm going to make you eat those words about list by the end of
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  this and maybe list things throughout.
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  You know. Top three robber home stories
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  go. Well, I can give you 3 as to say
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  it may not be the same 3 tomorrow.
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  That's all. Oh I remember right, watching
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  the VHS of this for the first time when it came out and
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  watching these these first scenes on into minor through my
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  fingers going Oh my God this looks so bad.
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  It can't all be like this. It's very Marmite, isn't it?
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  I, I've got a friend. When I went to university, it
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  was the end of the 90s and actually I've been a, been part
• 8:53
  of fandom through the 90s, but when I was a uni, I didn't know
• 8:56
  anybody there who was into it. And so I kind of didn't talk
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  about it at all until the, the, the very end of my course.
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  I'd realised that one of the guys I've been really friendly
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  with had actually been buying all of the VHS.
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  He never came out drinking with us because he's spending all his
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  money. He had no life.
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  He had no life. Yeah.
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  So finally find this at the very end of my time and suddenly the
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  next thing he tells me is he hates Carnival of Monsters and
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  so that was instantly the end of that friendship.
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  People are turned off by the. I understand dumping people.
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  For those sorts of reasons. Yeah, I mean phrase has been
• 9:34
  hanging on by a hairs breadth. Okay, some of his opinions.
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  I was going to say sorry, I was going to say we've got, we've
• 9:42
  had to complain with the conveyor belt and we've got a
• 9:45
  conveyor belt here as well. So Oh my God, where are we going
• 9:48
  next again? What did we say?
• 9:50
  We did say destiny. Conveyor belt on that.
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  There's not, no. Oh, well, there's that sort of
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  shoot that things go down. Oh, they're supposed to say
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  yeah, I. Guess so, including Romana.
• 10:00
  Yeah, indeed. Yeah, yeah.
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  In fact, in fact, don't they slide down something like that
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  in Kablam? Yes, and, and very much.
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  There we go. We've got a little trilogy going
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  on. That's perfect.
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  We're down the dark passages, that's our sort.
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  Of linking. That's where we where we can be
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  found. I do wonder, though, if the
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  artificiality is actually part of the point here.
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  Like, I have to be sort of old enough to recognise that the
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  functionaries are supposed to be all the same, right?
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  They're not. You're not really supposed to
• 10:29
  distinguish between them. No, no, absolutely it is.
• 10:33
  It's a very minimal set, isn't it?
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  And that functionary mask, I mean, functional is the word for
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  it really, isn't it? In in an era where they've they
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  are so good at creating masks for for monsters during the put
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  you to put that during the Peru era to get that one.
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  They're so weird. It's unsettling a little.
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  Bit I'll tell you what else is weird.
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  I mean I fucking love all them so much.
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  Terrance Terrance lodgers teeth just freaked me out and without
• 11:00
  makeup. Oh, here we go.
• 11:04
  I believe this might be the Indian Ocean.
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  Or the midway? Yes, one of the two.
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  Was it a midway? OK.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe so. And the boat was basically if
• 11:14
  you turn the camera even slightly, you'd see see the the
• 11:18
  kind of dogs or the whereas moored up so.
• 11:21
  Only instance of a Doctor's companion coming out of the
• 11:24
  TARDIS and the first thing she says is poo.
• 11:27
  Could well be. There's a list there to be had,
• 11:29
  isn't there? Yeah, yeah.
• 11:31
  Paul, I love Sherner and Vorg so much as well.
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  My note at this point just says Cheryl Hall foer.
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  Why didn't? We dress up as Sherner for this.
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  Yeah, I will have. You've got to.
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  Be fabulous in one of those leotards of all those little
• 11:47
  baubles bouncing off them. Yeah, she's, yeah, she's
• 11:51
  amazing, I think. Morgan.
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  Yeah. Leslie Dwyer, brilliant as well.
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  Brilliant comedy turn. I said the words power to the
• 11:58
  people to you. Would that make any sense when
• 12:00
  it comes? To from Citizen Smith.
• 12:04
  I know you want to say Kane. Right, I did I.
• 12:08
  Did. Oh, here we go.
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  Step up, step up. See the monster show Carnival of
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  Monsters. Looking, looking into this and
• 12:16
  reading around it for this, I didn't actually realise that the
• 12:20
  the intention of the script was that it would be more of a kind
• 12:23
  of fairground tent around the mini scope.
• 12:27
  So people like you are he wasn't welcoming you in more and I
• 12:32
  guess they they decided they couldn't work or or whatever.
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  But yeah, it's. It wouldn't make more sense of
• 12:40
  the lines though. Yeah, exactly.
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  Yeah, yeah, exactly. And and his spiel there where
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  you know, he's inviting them in to see what was going on.
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  Did you see that line then? No good can come from
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  fraternising with these inferior races.
• 12:54
  All right, Boris, All right, Nigel.
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  I mean, these people are still around, Paul.
• 13:01
  Yeah. And it is, I mean, and they are
• 13:03
  great faced and they are paranoid and they're all of this
• 13:07
  balding, balding, kind of boring guys, aren't they?
• 13:10
  Is this planet of the Tories? I think it will be.
• 13:15
  Oh no, you're not a Tory, are you?
• 13:16
  No, no. I should never, ever ask
• 13:18
  anyone's politics. I'm amazed.
• 13:21
  I'm amazed that anyone would be and still in stock too.
• 13:24
  But I guess you see what you want in it.
• 13:26
  I guess so. Unbelievably, I saw a Tory the
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  other day. Yeah, as part of a marketing
• 13:30
  campaign wearing a Sylvester McCoy.
• 13:33
  Always the young, Yeah. Oh my God.
• 13:35
  I mean the most anti for a period of the shower.
• 13:38
  Right, Yeah, yeah. But then without wanting to,
• 13:44
  without wanting to kind of mock anyone who's religious, I've, I
• 13:47
  had a friend who was a Christian and a Doctor Who fan and that
• 13:51
  always struck me as being a bit weird because certainly during
• 13:53
  the classic years, although they're not taking on
• 13:55
  Christianity, a lot of the messages actually, it's usually
• 13:59
  some kind of reason behind what that belief system.
• 14:01
  So whether that's an alien or a computer or whatever.
• 14:05
  So it always struck me as weird that he was able to kind of keep
• 14:08
  those two things separate in his head, but you know.
• 14:10
  My Beth was a white witch, you know, she's just going out of
• 14:13
  the garden and waved the element spell and she was a Doctor Who
• 14:16
  fan and I said how could you? Possibly magic.
• 14:20
  It's the old demons argument, isn't it?
• 14:22
  Science. Magic.
• 14:23
  Science was Hawthorne, you know. Yeah.
• 14:25
  Oh, no. Chickens.
• 14:27
  Yeah, Katie Manning's chicken impression.
• 14:29
  Yeah. What do you try clucking Paul?
• 14:34
  What could have been asked wasted?
• 14:39
  Wasted, man. Get Katie money off the screen,
• 14:42
  Get Paul Arthur on there now. I don't know all of these games,
• 14:46
  though. With her now.
• 14:48
  Absolutely sure. Yeah, they're on this.
• 14:50
  It's a great joke, isn't it? It is, it is.
• 14:53
  So it's kind of weird that put we the 3rd Doctor is so adamant
• 14:58
  that he has to be I'll met beaters 3.
• 15:02
  You know, he can't possibly be wrong.
• 15:05
  And I was when I was looking at this again, I was like, is that
• 15:08
  a bit odd that he's just being that pick headed?
• 15:09
  Obviously it's obviously this is earth and you know roughly where
• 15:13
  you are almost straight away. But I kind of feel that at this
• 15:18
  point, you know, that he's Four Seasons in.
• 15:22
  This is the doctor. By this point, they've really
• 15:25
  distilled these characters down to like their kind of core, you
• 15:30
  know, so it becomes not not a parody as such, but it's
• 15:32
  actually just like the ultimate version of the the Doctor.
• 15:35
  And like people often joke about the Brigadier in the in the
• 15:40
  three Doctors not not being able to kind of comprehend that they
• 15:43
  might have moved UNIT HQ. And again, I think that's just
• 15:47
  kind of like the ultimate Brig. You know, at that point in the
• 15:49
  show's history, they're kind of distilled the characters to the
• 15:51
  point where this is who they are.
• 15:54
  Are you? Suggesting that the the 3rd
• 15:56
  Doctor is to still down as a pompous prick then.
• 15:59
  Me yeah, there is a lot of that, isn't it?
• 16:01
  He is. He's like he's the know all git
• 16:04
  but the but he's kind of proven right.
• 16:08
  He's actually again in in the script that doesn't come through
• 16:13
  in the actual broadcast show, it does actually talk about how
• 16:17
  into minor is in the same Galaxy as metabolism 3.
• 16:20
  So he's kind of kind of right after all.
• 16:24
  So he is a pompous prick, but he's a, he's a correct pompous
• 16:26
  prick. And that is the Third Doctor,
• 16:28
  you know. I mean, I love it as well.
• 16:30
  With all the evidence to the contrary is facing him.
• 16:33
  And then when there's one slight indication that he's right, he's
• 16:36
  like, see, I told you, my raft's a bit like that, you know?
• 16:43
  Oh my God. I mean, Matt, there isn't 1
• 16:45
  character I don't love in this. Now here we've got Andrews and
• 16:48
  Claire and Major Daly. Yeah.
• 16:50
  What a trio. Amazing.
• 16:52
  Yeah. And daily straight away with the
• 16:55
  casual racism. And so he's mirror mirroring.
• 16:57
  They're all mirroring each other, mirroring into miners and
• 17:00
  their relationship with the functionaries.
• 17:03
  So yeah. Paul, I thought I'd take a
• 17:05
  little turn around the deck. Would you care to join me?
• 17:07
  It's a mile this evening. Yeah, so full turn, full turns
• 17:11
  around the deck is a mile. Yeah, I do like that Freddie
• 17:13
  Steer fellow. Oh, I've just watched the Ian
• 17:16
  Marter documentary on the Blu-ray set.
• 17:20
  Yeah. And he strikes me as a very
• 17:23
  complex, very talented man. Yes, whoever that bloke was who
• 17:29
  had the relationship with him. You're a lucky bloke all right,
• 17:32
  whoever you are. I haven't seen it yet, so I
• 17:34
  didn't know. I didn't know any.
• 17:36
  No, that's OK. And.
• 17:37
  We laugh. You don't find out much about
• 17:40
  it, if I'm honest. OK.
• 17:41
  Yeah, it's but bio recounts. Just.
• 17:44
  Far too intelligent to be acting in Doctor Who in a side
• 17:48
  character's role, you know. But I mean, Can you imagine him
• 17:52
  being Yeats? I think he's he's great in this
• 17:55
  and very different to Harry. He's like really forceful.
• 17:57
  He's got, he's got a real kind of physical macho presence in
• 18:01
  this story that I don't think he has later.
• 18:03
  So yeah, he's obviously clearly a great actor, but I still can't
• 18:06
  picture him as Yeats, I don't think.
• 18:08
  No. Well, I mean, they'll have to
• 18:10
  change the writing, wouldn't they?
• 18:11
  And they do. I think they sort of change the
• 18:13
  writing as they get the actors in and they figure out what they
• 18:16
  can do, yeah. I think it's that thing I was
• 18:18
  saying about like, yeah, finding the the kind of the ultimate
• 18:21
  version of that character. And I think they probably do
• 18:23
  that with Yates as well. Certainly, yeah.
• 18:25
  I've made all of their stuff of the Doctor and Joe tiptoeing
• 18:27
  about whilst major dailies asleep.
• 18:29
  It's like a bloody pantomime. It's sort of caring.
• 18:35
  And he's like a real bassoon. Eve of music I've seen as a
• 18:37
  bassoon. I don't know anything about
• 18:39
  music, but it's like the instruments, like a library,
• 18:41
  plodding kind of music as he's dropping off.
• 18:43
  It's really, really nice. Yeah, I love it.
• 18:47
  And this is it's a great scene set of this, I think because it
• 18:51
  doesn't tell you really how the not at all does it in episode 1
• 18:55
  how the 2 are connected it. Only really hints at it a little
• 19:00
  bit. I'm trying to think where he
• 19:04
  might do that. Is it?
• 19:04
  The cliffhanger where the hand comes.
• 19:06
  Well, I mean, that's the only point.
• 19:08
  And even then, that's so out with the blue, that cliffhanger.
• 19:11
  That's so if you're not really following on, if you don't know
• 19:13
  the story, you're like, what the hell.
• 19:16
  Like, so I could imagine a lot of people not putting two and
• 19:19
  two together and realizing that's Leslie Dwyer's hand going
• 19:22
  in there. I would say that that the TARDIS
• 19:24
  being picked up would be my oh hang on a minute, the place you
• 19:27
  saw us. Well, we talked about it's all
• 19:31
  before about the jurassics. I'm not sure that this this
• 19:34
  dinosaur is very successful, but I.
• 19:37
  I mean, I think you could sort of tell someone's hand up his
• 19:40
  ass, can't you? But I like the fact is kind of
• 19:43
  wet. You can tell it's coming out of
• 19:44
  the over the sea. You know they're trying.
• 19:47
  They're trying. I say, Paul, what a monstrous
• 19:50
  beast. I'd love to have that on the
• 19:52
  club wall. Watch.
• 19:53
  Yeah. I mean, in a way, Daily is a bit
• 19:59
  of a monstrous character because he is seem to be very racist in
• 20:03
  this. He's, yeah, patronizing to the
• 20:04
  Indian crew, Yeah. And, and Andrew is Andrews as
• 20:08
  well. He talks about a lot, you know,
• 20:11
  Johnny Chinaman and stuff like that.
• 20:13
  So they're all kind of very condescending and but again, the
• 20:16
  indominions are doing the same with the functionaries.
• 20:18
  As you say, I wouldn't have them on the plantation.
• 20:20
  Of the Madrasis daily says that yeah yeah yeah but he recognises
• 20:25
  the doctor straight away is what is Sabi calls him, which is
• 20:30
  means master funnily enough I think.
• 20:32
  Oh, does it? Yeah, yeah.
• 20:35
  But but that's him recognising him as a Englishman, as somebody
• 20:39
  of a certain state is. So therefore he's got to be OK.
• 20:42
  He's not. Like instant reaction is we've
• 20:44
  got a four for crib or sure, yeah, you know.
• 20:47
  Yeah. You tell him uncle.
• 20:53
  Joke doctor gets so annoyed his reaction there.
• 20:57
  Every time, sort of when they're in hot water like that.
• 20:59
  I love it. I mean, do you remember in
• 21:00
  Peloton where she steps forward and she goes, you know, kindly
• 21:04
  address me to our royal host. And the look on Pearly's face,
• 21:08
  He's he is pompous. But they do puncture it in I.
• 21:14
  Think, I think, yeah, I think it only works because because you
• 21:17
  have that going on, there's already somebody there to kind
• 21:20
  of let the window of his sails a little bit.
• 21:23
  And yeah, that happens a few times in this story, like
• 21:26
  whether he's the the tribunals talking about this destroyer lab
• 21:32
  killing him in in with the the gun.
• 21:35
  And he's like, don't call me, you know, Connie, stop referring
• 21:37
  to me as a creature. So there's always somebody there
• 21:40
  to kind of puncture him a little bit.
• 21:42
  Yeah. It's away from me, Paul.
• 21:44
  It may contain hideous diseases. Oh boy, oh boy.
• 21:49
  We've got some fun to come. I mean we just went back there
• 21:52
  to Inter Minor just for like about 5 lines about the, you
• 21:56
  know, give them a hygiene chamber and they'll store fossil
• 21:59
  fuels. It does cut back and forth a
• 22:03
  lot, doesn't it? Certainly in this first episode.
• 22:05
  It really is kind of back and forth and and I should say you
• 22:07
  don't have a lot of clue as to what's going.
• 22:09
  On look at how good the lighting is here as well.
• 22:11
  I think you said classic Doctor Who lives or dies on its
• 22:15
  lighting. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:16
  And but here you've got good. Sets and good lighting.
• 22:19
  Yeah, it does a really good job of representing that interior of
• 22:22
  that ship. I think that looks excellent.
• 22:24
  Yeah, I think he's really good. You can't see it get into this
• 22:31
  cabin. Oh, have you heard a bit about
• 22:33
  Katie Manning? Was supposed to have a very
• 22:36
  innocent line but when they filmed it, it came across as
• 22:40
  really dirty about her and the doctor being in the cabin.
• 22:43
  And Oh no, we'll. Think of something to do,
• 22:46
  Doctor. Bet you.
• 22:51
  No, I'm not going to spread any rumours about John Perry and
• 22:54
  Katie Manning, but I'll just say I've talked to people, all
• 22:56
  right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:59
  Probably heard the stories. So we don't know we're in a loop
• 23:06
  yet, do we? But we do by the episode.
• 23:08
  They haven't got to the first leap yet, so when they come out
• 23:11
  of the cabin they'll go back and it's it's the same scene again.
• 23:14
  But you've got a mystery of the S S Bernice now.
• 23:16
  Yeah, we do. And per we straight away, he's
• 23:19
  into a moment of charm mode here.
• 23:22
  He's leaning forwards and you know his explanation as to
• 23:26
  what's going on. Rubbing his chin.
• 23:28
  Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
• 23:29
  Yeah, yeah. And it's one of those great sort
• 23:32
  of Terry Nation part ones where there's a ton of mysteries and
• 23:35
  he's putting it all together like it should be dark.
• 23:38
  The ship went missing. So he he does kind of know
• 23:42
  something's up at the very beginning here, but actually
• 23:44
  it's not until like episode 3 that he puts it all together and
• 23:46
  he realises there's the mini scope.
• 23:48
  So it really does keep that mystery going the whole time.
• 23:51
  The law, I mean, the ship, the people, the chickens.
• 23:54
  Chickens. You're not telling me Major
• 23:56
  dailies from a love of planet. Are you there's?
• 23:59
  No, Joe, shut up. They are like they're chemistry.
• 24:03
  But at this point, I think they've always, they've always
• 24:06
  had good chemistry, but it's just been like, like you said,
• 24:09
  perfected, honed. They love each other, don't
• 24:12
  they? They're two of them.
• 24:14
  Undeniably, yeah, absolutely. One of my favourite pairings, I
• 24:17
  think. Yeah, Kate and Katie's really
• 24:21
  good in this story. I think later on she's she's
• 24:23
  quite sarky, like in here in Part 1, she's like, what?
• 24:26
  Why can't you see you're on Earth, Doctor like that?
• 24:29
  So yeah, I think this is a great story for her.
• 24:31
  All that stuff where they're crawling around the inner, just
• 24:34
  a bit of. Sky, Yeah.
• 24:35
  Oh, I see. We've got to go sideways.
• 24:37
  No, not literally, Joe. She says don't, don't stop now.
• 24:43
  I'm not, I'm only half cooked and stuff like that.
• 24:45
  Like brilliant lines. We are seeing as well, I think,
• 24:49
  a a clear path towards the Green death where she's getting more
• 24:53
  agency. Yeah, in Frontier, in space.
• 24:55
  She has that wonderful moment in the cell where she gets to
• 24:57
  improvise all that mad. Comedy around.
• 24:59
  Being an agent in unit, I think there's a confidence to her this
• 25:04
  year. Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:06
  She's. Coming out of his shadow a
• 25:08
  little bit. Yeah, very much so.
• 25:10
  And I think definitely in this story, she she again later on,
• 25:13
  she's by herself and into minor and she's kind of stick and no,
• 25:15
  sorry on on the ship and she's sticking out for herself.
• 25:18
  But what I love here, though, coming up in a second is
• 25:22
  something really simple that just appealed to me as an 8 year
• 25:24
  old. Skeleton keys is so right.
• 25:27
  That's straight away. I'm like, Oh my God, Actually,
• 25:30
  it's the kind of thing I've read in the in comic or something.
• 25:33
  And then here she has she's she's got them for real.
• 25:35
  That just appealed them to me as an 8 year old.
• 25:38
  Oh, this appealed to me as a kid.
• 25:40
  We are entertainers. We put on a show.
• 25:46
  Oh my God. And then they do it again in
• 25:48
  episode 2. Don't they?
• 25:49
  Yeah, yeah, Leslie does his little shuffle as well.
• 25:53
  Why do we see this scene again in episode 2?
• 25:56
  There is a lot of jigging around 2 episodes two and four were
• 26:00
  heavily overwritten and so some stuff gets moved around with
• 26:05
  some stuff from two goes into one and some stuff from four
• 26:07
  goes into the. Same scene isn't.
• 26:09
  It, yeah, yeah. And it does you kind of, if
• 26:12
  you're watching it repeatedly like I have the last few weeks,
• 26:15
  you do get the impression that actually a lot of those scenes
• 26:18
  are treading water a lot because it's a lot of the same stuff.
• 26:20
  As you say, it's a lot of oh, you've got to, I'm going to
• 26:24
  deport you or I'm going to destroy the machine or I'm going
• 26:26
  to, it's all of that stuff over and over.
• 26:28
  Oh, I've got a reading on it though if it is a mistake I can
• 26:32
  put an in story reason and that is that somewhere it's a mini
• 26:38
  scope within a mini scope and somewhere the interminin scenes
• 26:41
  are being played on a mini scope over and over again.
• 26:45
  Well, we are the we are the ones watching them on the mini scope
• 26:47
  because we're watching them on TV.
• 26:49
  So I. Mean that's comet definitely is
• 26:51
  in there, isn't it? Yeah, right.
• 26:52
  I mean, it's the. Greatest watching all the
• 26:54
  favourites again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:57
  We're watching ATV show and so we're watching them kind of go
• 26:59
  through the motions. And so you are kind of watching
• 27:01
  the interminins go through the through the motions as well as
• 27:04
  the humans. Yeah.
• 27:07
  And I, and I guess you could, you could say it's treading
• 27:09
  water a little bit. But actually they're so that
• 27:11
  these scenes are so good. I love these.
• 27:13
  Treading water with colourful characters that are Yeah, we
• 27:16
  see, who cares? Right, exactly.
• 27:18
  I'd I'd I'd happily. And every time they cut back and
• 27:21
  like, oh, great, I'm with these guys again.
• 27:23
  And then it goes back to the Bernice and I'm like, oh great,
• 27:24
  all these characters again. Yeah, Paul wasn't the great job
• 27:28
  that Valerian wrestler, Yeah, that we met at the station.
• 27:32
  I don't know if you noticed, that's a cassette tape that that
• 27:36
  Vogue has handed to play track, so I only noticed that this time
• 27:40
  around. It's the condensed genesis of
• 27:43
  the Daleks, I think. Yeah.
• 27:47
  Oh boy. I mean, when the politicians,
• 27:50
  the interminers all come to get their free heads, Yeah, it's so
• 27:54
  well timed. Isn't that so clever?
• 27:57
  Because what amusement is purposeless?
• 28:00
  I can't remember all the lines now.
• 28:02
  There's one bit where they're doing a vote, isn't it?
• 28:03
  I I propose it's supported. No, Opposed.
• 28:06
  Supported. Oh, here we go.
• 28:10
  It's our racism. Mona loop again.
• 28:12
  About the madrassa. Yeah, about the madrassa.
• 28:14
  Yeah, I like the fact that you see slightly different angles.
• 28:17
  So you see Andrew's chatting up clear here a little bit, like
• 28:22
  there you go. He gives giving her the wink and
• 28:24
  say OK, let's ditch the old man and go for a little walk.
• 28:27
  So it is the same scenes, but it's reshot from a different
• 28:30
  angle. A different angle.
• 28:31
  Yeah. Yeah, that's really clever.
• 28:32
  Yeah. I think Barry Letts is a
• 28:35
  underrated director. I don't think he's the most
• 28:38
  dynamic of directors. Yeah, even though he can't do
• 28:41
  action. But I think he's a thoughtful
• 28:44
  director and. He.
• 28:46
  Focuses in on the things that are really important in classic
• 28:49
  Who. Because it's Doctor Who is never
• 28:51
  going to be a massively polished piece, right?
• 28:52
  There is just not enough money for them to do what they want to
• 28:55
  do. But he cast really well and he
• 28:58
  gives the actors space in front of their camera to do their
• 29:00
  stuff. Yeah, 100%.
• 29:02
  I think he makes Pervy look amazing in a lot of this.
• 29:06
  There's some some brilliant stuff.
• 29:07
  Will Will touch upon when we get to it, where I think he looks
• 29:11
  fantastic. So yeah, I'm for directing him
• 29:13
  in terror of the Autons, where Pertwee is Primo prick in that
• 29:16
  one. What is it?
• 29:18
  Wrong Sort is in the club this time of year, Tubby, I said.
• 29:22
  Yeah, right, right. Oh my God, that's so
• 29:26
  patronising. In a minute, Joe.
• 29:29
  That's Holmes. Holmes loves writing about posh
• 29:31
  guys and that's what we got here as well.
• 29:33
  So although we see their attitudes to the lower classes,
• 29:38
  like the Indian sailors and the functionaries, we don't actually
• 29:41
  spend any time with those characters.
• 29:43
  So you don't actually get to know any of them.
• 29:44
  But yeah, so Holmes is really, he's really interested in that
• 29:48
  kind of up across, I guess. And he does play with that quite
• 29:51
  a bit, actually. Yeah.
• 29:52
  I mean, I think when he brings together Jago and Lightfoot,
• 29:55
  you've obviously you're breaking the class barrier there.
• 29:57
  Yeah, that's true. Lots of really fun things as
• 30:01
  well. I think the visual language of
• 30:03
  the episode, obviously we saw like the Arsenal was there in
• 30:06
  the first scene. The scope comes out of that
• 30:09
  conveyor belt and then they're saying they're putting on a show
• 30:12
  and then we're here with something being played over and
• 30:15
  over again. I think there's enough visually
• 30:18
  to join the dots, but because it's kind of an audacious
• 30:21
  concept, I don't think I ever got there until it was.
• 30:25
  No, I don't remember as a kid realising, but here in this
• 30:29
  scene, Pope, he's talking about boys with a bucket of sea
• 30:33
  creatures and stuff like that. So that's kind of putting you
• 30:36
  that way as well. But it's, it is, it's really
• 30:39
  subtle and it, it doesn't quite lead you there.
• 30:42
  Did it blow your mind? Because when I was like, Oh my
• 30:44
  God, miniaturised environments, actual real miniaturised
• 30:48
  environments inside a machine that you can just fiddle about
• 30:51
  with and make aggressive and in my as a kid I just hadn't read
• 30:56
  any or seen anything quite like that.
• 30:58
  No, I think the the bit that stands out stood out for me at
• 31:01
  the time was later on in the in the later episode where you see
• 31:05
  Vogue's eye looking down on them as a real image.
• 31:08
  Yeah, when that tool comes down, don't.
• 31:10
  And they're literally, that's a good actor that's very well
• 31:14
  realised that moment. Yeah, I think so.
• 31:17
  I mean, Barry let's loves a lot of CSO of course, but I think
• 31:20
  actually in this this kind of story, that's how you're going
• 31:23
  to tell this kind of story, isn't it through CSO?
• 31:25
  And again, it it's about the language of TV and television.
• 31:28
  So, so of course it's using that the techniques of TVI.
• 31:31
  Say what? A monstrous beast.
• 31:34
  Oh, oh, you're right, my dear. You feel like I might get a shot
• 31:39
  at it next time, but the last thing you expect is for this
• 31:44
  hand to come out of nowhere. Right.
• 31:47
  The Tardis. Yeah, very much out.
• 31:52
  No way. Can you understand then how
• 31:54
  people that like Ambassadors of Death, you know, or Mind of Evil
• 31:59
  might find Carnival of Monsters a bit of a quirky pill to
• 32:03
  swallow? Yeah, but I mean, Doctor Who's a
• 32:08
  broad church, so there's room for quirky, I think.
• 32:12
  And I mean, yeah, I guess you don't have to like all of you, I
• 32:17
  suppose, do you? So.
• 32:19
  Yeah, why would you choose not to like this?
• 32:22
  I mean, I don't, yeah. I don't really understand why
• 32:24
  you wouldn't. And I don't really understand
• 32:26
  why anybody's turned off by the visuals because, yeah, it's the
• 32:32
  visuals are what I enjoyed as a kid.
• 32:34
  I love the flashy gaudiness of Morgan Cherner and and the
• 32:38
  monsters and all of that just respond to the colour and the
• 32:41
  the light of it. Of I think all the location work
• 32:44
  in this story is top dollar, especially when you head out
• 32:46
  into the marshes. Yeah.
• 32:48
  Oh my God, yeah, that's amazing, doesn't it, We?
• 32:50
  Don't often get on a real boat. Yeah, right now, running around
• 32:53
  on a real boat, you know, being chased by people with guns.
• 32:57
  It's very much a very different kind of like sort of set of
• 33:00
  locations, isn't it? So 100%, yeah.
• 33:03
  Well, so I suppose we started this episode talking about
• 33:06
  lists, so I suppose we should end it talking about lists.
• 33:09
  Blindly. Things that you don't like.
• 33:11
  So I'm going to ask you now. I want to do this at the end of
• 33:13
  every episode, just for kicks. What is your top three Third
• 33:19
  Doctor stories? Oh, OK.
• 33:23
  Just off the top of my head, the two from five Faces.
• 33:28
  So this and the three doctors got a huge amount of affection
• 33:32
  back to Yeah, yeah. The thing, the thing with the
• 33:37
  purple era, I think I had an instant kind of nostalgia for
• 33:42
  that period of the 70s. I I was kind of alive for a lot
• 33:45
  of it or some of it, but only a baby.
• 33:48
  But when I was starting to get in stock to I was reading Doctor
• 33:52
  Who weekly and then I was talking to my mum about like,
• 33:54
  look, do you remember? Do you remember the web planet
• 33:57
  or whatever, right? You know, the little fact files
• 33:59
  used to have and and she's like, no, I don't really remember any
• 34:02
  of that stuff. But what I do remember is
• 34:04
  Pertwee and I really enjoyed the the 3rd Doctor, right?
• 34:07
  And so because she'd enjoyed it, that made me want to really
• 34:11
  enjoy it. So when this opportunity to come
• 34:13
  and come along and and watch Carnival and watch 3 doctors
• 34:17
  with the five faces, it's what those are the bits I really
• 34:20
  wanted to see. And so, so those two in
• 34:23
  particular, I would definitely put mine in my top 33 doctors
• 34:28
  gives you a bit of unit action as well, right, which you need
• 34:33
  third place. I would, I really, I really
• 34:37
  enjoy like something like Terror of the Autons as a kind of third
• 34:42
  place because it gives you, again, it's giving you
• 34:44
  everything you want from the era and it gives you a bit of
• 34:47
  colour. I do enjoy the Season 7 stories.
• 34:51
  I know a lot of people in really enjoy those.
• 34:53
  I would I would always enjoy them.
• 34:55
  I think they're great. But what I'd like from the era
• 34:58
  is plenty of colour and a bit of camp and just kind of action
• 35:04
  adventure, you know it. Was a charisma as well.
• 35:07
  When you've got Nick Courtney and Roger Delgado, John
• 35:10
  Brightly, Katie Manning. I mean, good grief that it's not
• 35:14
  just colour beaming off the screen.
• 35:16
  Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
• 35:18
  And you've got Robert Holmes, his writing.
• 35:20
  You've got a a brilliant monster in the Altons.
• 35:24
  I love the massive carnival mask.
• 35:26
  And never another early memory was getting the the top Trump's
• 35:30
  game, Jod of Star top Trump's game.
• 35:32
  Have you ever seen that? Right?
• 35:34
  The little drawings I got on holiday as a kid and like
• 35:38
  flicking through that, that was where I was introduced to a lot
• 35:40
  of monsters. And that Auton card I thought
• 35:42
  was so weird. I was like I, I was desperate
• 35:46
  towards that for many years and I didn't actually see, I don't
• 35:49
  think until until the 90s and it was still black and white at the
• 35:52
  time. But even they're not just really
• 35:53
  enjoyed it. You know, Paul, I've never done
• 35:56
  Terror of the Autumns even once on this thing.
• 35:58
  You know, we may have to talk about that in the future.
• 36:01
  OK, Yeah. I love it.
• 36:03
  It's like eating a ton of Skittles and then.
• 36:06
  You know it's. Busiest with excitement?
• 36:09
  Well, I wrote the home scripts. Bucket of charm, personality,
• 36:13
  colour. I mean, that sounds like
• 36:14
  carnivore monsters to me. Very much so, yeah, absolutely.
• 36:17
  Watch episode 2. Let's do it.