Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to James Lark about his choice of The Androids of Tara (1/4)

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Talks to James Lark about his choice of The Androids of Tara (1/4) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blump pen knife for doing quicker.
• 0:37
  Welcome back to our hamster with a blump pen, the Life the Doctor
• 0:40
  Who Commentary podcast. It is a huge delight today for
• 0:45
  two reasons. One is I'm heading to my all
• 0:48
  time favorite season of Doctor Who and that is season 16 of the
• 0:52
  classic series, The Key to Time and my favorite story of that
• 0:56
  season, which is the Androids of Tara.
• 0:59
  But more importantly, I get to enjoy it with one of my most
• 1:02
  favorite people on this podcast, Mr. James Lark.
• 1:06
  Hello, James. Hello Joe, I didn't know this it
• 1:10
  was your favorite season. I adore season 6.
• 1:13
  I should have guessed from the title of your podcast really
• 1:15
  that this that this would be high up there.
• 1:18
  Well, that just came from me desperate for something that was
• 1:21
  stand out and I was like, well, what sort of I thought hand
• 1:25
  fisted bum vendor. That's an interesting insult.
• 1:27
  Maybe that will stand out. Unimaginative plotter.
• 1:30
  He says at one point. No handsome of a blood pen knife
• 1:33
  from one of my favourites. I actually don't think you'll
• 1:37
  think I'm crazy. I have it as a bum note in
• 1:39
  season 16. I'm keen on power of crawl and
• 1:42
  the Armageddon factor as. Well, I don't think you're
• 1:44
  crazy. I so here's a question.
• 1:47
  I I have slightly got the impression that season 16 is a
• 1:51
  bit out of favour with the general kind of consensus at the
• 1:55
  moment. Well, yeah, because obviously
• 1:58
  people are quite vocal about how they've reclaimed season 17.
• 2:03
  It's it's quite an unusual fan now who doesn't kind of
• 2:05
  basically love season 17 for what it is.
• 2:08
  And I think season 15 as well has been kind of reassessed very
• 2:12
  recently, not least because of the the Blu-ray release, but
• 2:15
  also kind of people kind of going no, this is a really
• 2:17
  interesting. It's a, it's a season in
• 2:19
  transition, yes, but actually there's loads of qualities even
• 2:23
  to Underworld, really interesting things going on.
• 2:26
  Even the invasion of time has got lots, lots of interesting
• 2:29
  things to enjoy about it. And I feel like 16 when I was
• 2:32
  doing my marathon, which was the slowest Doctor Who marathon that
• 2:36
  anyone has ever done, I reached season 16 and I was sort of
• 2:39
  enthusing about it. And quite a lot of the responses
• 2:41
  I was getting were were quite kind of lukewarm, as if as if
• 2:47
  this was a place that that they didn't think the show would
• 2:50
  really kind of work terribly well.
• 2:51
  And one friend of mine made a comparison, which I thought was
• 2:56
  really unfair to Teabag and the Pearls of Wisdom.
• 3:00
  Or you remember those ITV series where it was basically kind of a
• 3:03
  quest, a really naff kind of CGI tastic?
• 3:08
  I loved it as a kid though. Yeah, but but as evidence on
• 3:15
  YouTube shows, it's it's not in the same league as Doctor Who
• 3:19
  season 16. And I really think, you know, so
• 3:22
  you're either misremembering tea bag or you're misremembering the
• 3:26
  keys to time season. But I don't.
• 3:27
  But I sort of feel like where Once Upon a time it had this
• 3:32
  this reputation for being, you know, it's an umbrella.
• 3:34
  So it's the only time that Doctor Who did this and and
• 3:37
  people talked in I think slightly harsh tones about the
• 3:40
  key to time. I think it's like people have
• 3:42
  realised that actually the key to time is a bit of a silly idea
• 3:45
  and have a problem with that and playing.
• 3:47
  Hunt the key in all. Absolutely, yeah.
• 3:50
  Absolutely. I can't think of a time when
• 3:52
  Doctor Who is more suited to its its audience.
• 3:55
  I agree. And also it's the and and more
• 3:57
  and I'm going to, I mean, this will have some people throwing
• 4:03
  their radiophonic devices out of the window.
• 4:06
  But I, my opinion is that canine is a bit of a silly thing in
• 4:11
  Doctor Who. I think canine is a kind of
• 4:15
  because of when canine came in and when Graham Williams said,
• 4:18
  yeah, I want that, you know, he was looking at Star Wars.
• 4:21
  I think canine is a sort of R2D2 by proxy.
• 4:24
  I don't think canine actually makes a lot of sense in Doctor
• 4:27
  Who because what is canine? Canine is either a key or a
• 4:31
  weapon, and you know, the doctor has a key if he needs it, and
• 4:37
  the doctor doesn't use weapons, but it's somehow it's OK if it's
• 4:40
  a cute dog shooting out of his nose.
• 4:41
  The only reason that canine works as well as canine does is
• 4:46
  like, I guess two things. 1 is a really clever, simple design.
• 4:51
  But the main thing is John Leeson and Even so I watch
• 4:55
  canine, you know, Can you imagine canine in the, you know,
• 4:59
  the towns of Wenchuiang? You know, it doesn't make really
• 5:03
  make any sense. There's, there's, there are not
• 5:04
  many doctors you can imagine working with canine.
• 5:08
  And yet in this season where the doctor where suddenly it's just
• 5:13
  it's Doctor Who does fairy tales.
• 5:15
  It's the doctor in a land of princesses and castles and evil
• 5:19
  Queens and and pirates and and swords.
• 5:24
  Canine makes complete sense because the doctor is basically
• 5:27
  a wizard and that you know, they changed the look.
• 5:29
  They gave him a white cravat and they double the length of his
• 5:31
  scarf and suddenly he has he looks like this character from
• 5:35
  fantasy. He's even got a a wand which is
• 5:38
  the, you know, the, the, the detector for the key and what
• 5:42
  does. That make canine then.
• 5:44
  It makes him, I guess it makes him the kind of the, the, the
• 5:51
  cute cartoon talking animal from the from any Disney Fantasy or,
• 5:59
  or the the equivalent of kind of the the humble servant.
• 6:02
  No and and the doctor has his own Princess, obviously in
• 6:05
  Romana. I just think K9 makes complete
• 6:08
  sense as part of that team in a way that he never did before and
• 6:12
  never will again. I think also in this season as
• 6:16
  well, Graham Williams has learned a lot of lessons from Oh
• 6:19
  yes. So he's now certainly in the
• 6:22
  first four stories, things go a bit awry.
• 6:24
  In the last two, he's figured out how to spend the money and
• 6:28
  put that that on the screen. So there's lots of fabulous
• 6:30
  imagery. I think even the last two
• 6:32
  achieved that. I mean because the power of
• 6:34
  crawls got great location work. Gorgeous, and the Armageddon
• 6:37
  Factor does pretty well with its sets.
• 6:39
  It's, you know, there's a. Michael Hayes knows how to turn
• 6:42
  the lights down, so there's quite a.
• 6:43
  Bit well, there's that, but also that, you know it, it manages to
• 6:46
  do that kind of war-torn thing quite quite well, I think.
• 6:48
  But I think it's a very. Rebus to Pirate Planet to Stones
• 6:52
  of Blood to Andrews of Tara. That's the greatest four story
• 6:56
  run I think in classic series for me in terms of.
• 6:59
  And they all look great. Whereas design is a bit of an
• 7:02
  issue in in season 15. I mean a bit of an issue.
• 7:05
  Design goes massively to its up in season 15, but also I think
• 7:09
  it does in season 17 as well. I think season 17, for all of
• 7:12
  its many pleasures, looks a. Yeah.
• 7:15
  It looks cheap quite often. I don't think season 16 does.
• 7:18
  I think it's, I think it's a really well balanced mixture of
• 7:22
  excellent location shooting and really quirky, interesting,
• 7:26
  fantastical designs. And every one of those stories
• 7:29
  does something different. It's a it's a season with
• 7:31
  everything. Bringing in David Fisher as
• 7:34
  well, it means the wit is flying.
• 7:36
  There's just one banger line of dialogue after another.
• 7:40
  Yeah, and Tom? Baker is is sort of tamed by the
• 7:43
  the rigorous structure of the story.
• 7:45
  Or, you know, in the in the case of the pirate planet, there's
• 7:48
  not a rigorous structure. Maybe so much, but you know, Tom
• 7:50
  Baker can't fight Douglas Adams's line, so he just goes
• 7:54
  with it. But it just feels like he's a
• 7:55
  much more disciplined. There's more.
• 7:58
  Structures of the pirate planet than you're suggesting now?
• 8:00
  I recently did a commentary on that and I was surprised how
• 8:02
  well that hung together. Oh, I think, I think it hangs
• 8:06
  together conceptually extremely well because I think Douglas
• 8:08
  Adams actually did do structure, but he didn't do conventional
• 8:11
  television structure. I don't think he did 25 minute
• 8:14
  episode episodic structure in the way that maybe was necessary
• 8:19
  under the constraints of time. You know, where where Pirate
• 8:22
  Pirate Planet falls apart. It's not because of the writing,
• 8:24
  it's because the writing is so ambitious and they haven't got
• 8:26
  the time to do it properly. I think Tom Baker's at his
• 8:29
  height this. Absolutely, absolutely, he
• 8:32
  knows. He's he's pretty much the best
• 8:34
  thing on television. He's very well aware of his
• 8:37
  reputation. But because the writing is
• 8:40
  playing to all of his strengths, he just showed this story.
• 8:43
  Andrew Zatara. I mean, he's just a ball of
• 8:46
  sunshine running through this story.
• 8:49
  And it is it's, you know, he starts it off by going fishing.
• 8:51
  And it's like, yes, this is what this story.
• 8:54
  Is boring keep the time stuff anymore.
• 8:58
  It's a delightful wander in a forest with some tower and
• 9:02
  beasts and villains and sword fighting and.
• 9:06
  Love it. It's so lush this story as well,
• 9:08
  isn't it? You can just drink in the
• 9:10
  colours. I mean the costumes alone.
• 9:13
  It's a very colourful, isn't it? Yeah, the costume design is
• 9:16
  great. And again, if you look back to
• 9:18
  season 15 and look at some of the costumes, it's so kind of
• 9:22
  drab in places. Sun makers, good grief.
• 9:24
  Your eyes will start sliding off the screen whereas there's no
• 9:27
  chance of that here. I think Dudley Simpson's on form
• 9:30
  this. Season.
• 9:31
  He's on very good form this season and I think in particular
• 9:34
  this story, I think this is one of his, one of his absolute best
• 9:37
  scores. Have you ever been to Lee's
• 9:39
  Castle? Oh yes.
• 9:42
  Good. Have you ever been with me and
• 9:44
  played Andrew Zatara? No, I went with my other half
• 9:47
  and this is many, many years ago.
• 9:49
  This was very early on in our relationship.
• 9:51
  I think he was maybe tolerating things that he couldn't do
• 9:53
  anymore because Leeds Castle is an amazing place and and I mean,
• 9:59
  it's gorgeous, full stop. But it was also the location for
• 10:02
  Kind Hearts and Coronets. So when I was not being canine
• 10:06
  in the bulrushes, I was also being Alec Guinness in, you
• 10:10
  know, playing several different characters.
• 10:12
  Surely this just made him love you more, right?
• 10:15
  At the time, yes, I think now he'd been, he'd been sort of
• 10:17
  walking the other side of the field to me.
• 10:20
  I'm not with. Him I don't.
• 10:21
  Know that, man? No.
• 10:23
  Well, we'll go and have a play there one day.
• 10:25
  We'll let's go and play in episode 1 of the Andrews guitar
• 10:29
  right now and see just how much David Fisher thinks about this
• 10:32
  key to time concept. Not a lot by the sounds of it.
• 10:37
  Would you count us in? I would, yeah.
• 10:39
  So we're going to go in 321 and press play on your devices.
• 10:49
  Oh, hang on, I didn't dress up. I'm just going to go to the
• 10:51
  wardrobe room. Tara, Tahiti.
• 10:55
  Are you going to put on your tar and clothes which oddly, oddly
• 10:58
  don't appear to match the clothes that anybody else in
• 11:00
  this story wears? That's right, indeed.
• 11:03
  Oh, I do have a fabulous Archie Mandrite hat though.
• 11:05
  You know, made out. Of second Mandrite's hat.
• 11:09
  It's tea, cosy hat. It's wonderful.
• 11:14
  Here we go, David Fisher. What a fight.
• 11:18
  And just perfect for Doctor Who at this particular point.
• 11:22
  He knows exactly what it needs. He knows.
• 11:25
  And really interesting choice. We should talk about the
• 11:30
  prisoner of Zender a little bit because.
• 11:32
  I'm a little bit you need to educate me on that because I I
• 11:36
  don't know too much about. It, well, I'm not, I'm not an
• 11:38
  expert, but it's a it's based on a story called The Prisoner's
• 11:41
  End by Anthony Hope. Who?
• 11:47
  Oh, the lights have gone up. Hang on, hang on.
• 11:51
  Have you put on the Rebus operation?
• 11:54
  I've. Put on the Rebus operation.
• 11:57
  What's going on do? You know the clue should have
• 11:59
  been when the title said the Rebus operation.
• 12:02
  Everybody rewind your video. Rewind, rewind, rewind.
• 12:05
  That never happened. I'll.
• 12:06
  Go back to the. I'm sure I print, I'm sure No,
• 12:08
  because I remember scrolling through starting and going past
• 12:10
  the stones of blood. Anyway, James, would you care to
• 12:15
  count us in to episode 1 of The Androids of Tara?
• 12:18
  That seamless cut or are you going to leave No I'm.
• 12:21
  Staying. Of course it is.
• 12:24
  Tell me when you're ready. Just be, just be aware
• 12:28
  listeners, that this is the fourth story in the Key to Time
• 12:31
  season. Don't go.
• 12:31
  I'm tempting as it is to start with the Rebus operation, which
• 12:35
  obviously I love and which is one of my unofficial Christmas
• 12:40
  episodes. Are tempted to sell in.
• 12:43
  There's no in it. Sydney Harbour for $50 million.
• 12:47
  It came after me with a machine gun.
• 12:48
  Oh, I love it. Anyway, we're going.
• 12:52
  We're going for the fourth story in the in the season.
• 12:55
  And this is no go, James. If you get this wrong again, I
• 12:58
  shall not be so lenient, all right?
• 13:02
  Right, 321 press play on your devices.
• 13:06
  Does it say the Android attire Part 1?
• 13:08
  It's just confusing because they all begin in the same way, don't
• 13:11
  they? With the TARDIS coming out of
• 13:13
  this. Title sequence just two minutes
• 13:16
  ago. That's how quickly these
• 13:18
  episodes go by. Bit of background on the Rebus
• 13:20
  operation. It's no let's talk about the
• 13:22
  Android of Tara. It's based on a book called The
• 13:25
  Prisoners End up by Anthony Hope, which is a late 20th
• 13:31
  century hot boiler really, but sort of in the tradition of The
• 13:37
  Three Musketeers, that kind of that sort of genre and was a big
• 13:43
  hit at the time and was turned into several film versions.
• 13:48
  But I think particularly famously in 1937, a version that
• 13:54
  had Douglas Fairbanks playing the lead role and and ticks all
• 13:59
  the kind of swashbuckling, swashbuckling boxes.
• 14:05
  It's got sword plates that have sword fights.
• 14:07
  Sword plates. Good Lord, Is it all going to be
• 14:09
  like this, James? Bet you're enjoying this
• 14:12
  podcast, everyone. James just had a a breakdown
• 14:16
  during the androids of Tara. It it has sword fights, it has
• 14:20
  daring rescues, it's got daring do and it's got a double, which
• 14:23
  is very kind of of its time that.
• 14:26
  Sounds a lot like the Androids of Tara.
• 14:28
  But do you know what the Androids of Tara basically does?
• 14:32
  Take the main beats of the story.
• 14:33
  There's a lot more in the in the prisoner's end of there's a lot
• 14:36
  more romantic tension because by impersonating the king, the lead
• 14:42
  character ends up romantically entangled with someone who
• 14:45
  thinks he is the king. So there's a kind of, you know,
• 14:47
  it's mistaken identity takes a more kind of intensely personal
• 14:53
  toll it go. It's set over a much longer
• 14:56
  period as well. He ends up impersonating the
• 14:58
  king for quite a long time, but the main set pieces are all
• 15:04
  present and correct. I wonder if Fischer was familiar
• 15:10
  with the book. Maybe, maybe probably was.
• 15:12
  But I think he probably also would have been familiar with
• 15:15
  the film versions. And I think it had been made for
• 15:20
  television by the BBC as well, probably not long before this.
• 15:24
  So there's lots of reasons why it might be.
• 15:28
  I think it was kind of very much in people's blood.
• 15:29
  I mean, I think, you know, obviously now we don't black and
• 15:32
  white films from 1937 on the television as much as we used
• 15:34
  to, but I think it would have been in in heavy circulation.
• 15:37
  Probably there was a colour film made in 1952 as well.
• 15:40
  Should Doctor Who be ripping off its source material quite this
• 15:44
  blatantly? Well, it's been doing that for,
• 15:47
  you know, if you can do Jason and the Argonauts, then it can
• 15:50
  certainly do prisoners Ender. And I think the thing that's
• 15:55
  most joyous about it is that it, it's totally kind of shameless.
• 16:00
  There's no attempt to disguise it.
• 16:02
  It's, you know, even the title tells you what it is.
• 16:06
  But he but he then puts A twist on it because the the original
• 16:09
  story is about a double. In this story, he's got a double
• 16:13
  because he's got Romana resembling Prince Estrella, but
• 16:17
  he's also got the idea that they've got androids.
• 16:20
  So there are many double s. And that's that's Fisher going,
• 16:24
  OK, I'm going to take the original conceit, but the double
• 16:28
  from the original story is going to be an Android.
• 16:31
  That's where the Doctor comes in as a, you know, a technician.
• 16:33
  But we're also going to have another double, which is Romana,
• 16:36
  which is going to put her in peril.
• 16:37
  So there's no need for this romantic subplot because
• 16:39
  actually, you've got Romana is in danger and the Doctor needs
• 16:42
  to rescue her. It doesn't quite go to the sort
• 16:45
  of French fast levels that it could have done.
• 16:48
  Is it with people coming in and out of doors?
• 16:50
  All of these double S of everybody?
• 16:51
  No, but it's not. Something a bit more
• 16:53
  sophisticated. It's more sophisticated than
• 16:55
  that and it's and it's just enough.
• 16:58
  It doesn't over egg the pudding either.
• 17:00
  It never forgets the main kind of narrative thrust, but you've
• 17:05
  just got this added element of, you know, we can have double s
• 17:08
  of people. We can have actually kind of
• 17:10
  three different versions of Mary Tam because one of them is an
• 17:13
  Android as well. That's him going this is this is
• 17:15
  the central conceit of this classic that everyone's going to
• 17:18
  recognise. And now I'm just going to riff
• 17:19
  on that for a bit. But then But then.
• 17:23
  Go on. Go on.
• 17:24
  I was about to say, how resplendent does Mary Tam look
• 17:27
  in purple? I think Mary Tam is brilliant
• 17:31
  and she always looks brilliant, but I think she looks especially
• 17:34
  brilliant in this costume. And they they filmed it in there
• 17:37
  in one of the hottest summers on record.
• 17:39
  You can tell it's got that feel, it's got that holiday feel and
• 17:42
  actually when I went to Leeds Castle it was pretty much this
• 17:44
  weather. Yeah, me too, actually.
• 17:46
  Yeah, it was a beautiful day and I love the doctor's irreverence
• 17:50
  here. Well, I'm not doing that Key to
• 17:52
  Time nonsense, so I'm just going to go fishing.
• 17:54
  Yeah, that's great because we've we've done three stories where
• 17:57
  they've gone out and they've searched for the key to time.
• 18:00
  So David Fisher is going OK. Well, we've done that.
• 18:02
  He's and he's written one of those as well.
• 18:04
  He's. Written.
• 18:05
  He's written the last one, yeah. So what can we do differently?
• 18:08
  Fortunately, we've got Romana there, who is shockingly
• 18:11
  competent and manages to find the segment in about 2 1/2
• 18:14
  minutes just walking across the stream.
• 18:16
  She finds it straight away and then we can get on with having
• 18:18
  fun. That's clever though as well,
• 18:22
  isn't it? It's, you know, the, the, the,
• 18:24
  the thing that in this story, it's not about what is the
• 18:27
  segment, it's about how the heck are we going to get this segment
• 18:30
  away and. The segment does, sort of.
• 18:33
  It is threaded through, but very lightly.
• 18:35
  Very lightly, look at how gorgeous this location stuff
• 18:40
  looks and it matches location footage from from many a kind
• 18:46
  of, you know, that the Hammer Robin Hood films have this kind
• 18:49
  of look. The the idea of a kind of a
• 18:52
  British location and what's going to turn out to be a
• 18:55
  swashbuckler set in in these familiar surroundings that
• 18:58
  people would, you know, the the people watching would probably
• 19:00
  have been to Leeds Castle. In fact, probably much more
• 19:04
  likely have gone to Leeds Castle on holiday than than than the
• 19:07
  current generation because, you know, holidays within the UK
• 19:11
  were much more de rigueur. I spent my entire visit in Leeds
• 19:15
  Castle searching for these Doctor Who locations and re
• 19:18
  enacting them. God knows what the people also
• 19:21
  exploring the grounds were thinking, but oh, it's having
• 19:23
  great fun. Oh.
• 19:24
  They're probably used to it and and and and it's fairly
• 19:27
  unchanged. If you go to Leeds Castle you
• 19:29
  can find all the all the places. Yeah.
• 19:32
  The hunting lodge is still there.
• 19:34
  And I just love all this anyway, just this because I love mid 70s
• 19:39
  location work done on film. It's all sort of soft, isn't it?
• 19:45
  This is, This is good filming, though.
• 19:47
  I, I, I think we should, you know, credit to Michael Hayes.
• 19:53
  He, he's made it look, he's made it look more expensive than it
• 19:57
  is. I I I say that just just as the
• 20:00
  tar and wood beast is about to leave.
• 20:02
  Out on, I mean, he very cleverly does his POV shots a bit looking
• 20:05
  through there at Ramona. And then maybe the whole thing
• 20:09
  should have been shot in POV shots because the only thing
• 20:11
  that lets his production down is the tar and wood beast, right?
• 20:15
  Are we bothered by that? Not really.
• 20:17
  Not in this story. Not not in a story that is is
• 20:20
  light and frothy and fun. No, if that was the centrepiece,
• 20:25
  you know, Andrazani style, like that big monster in that, then
• 20:28
  yeah, it stands out a bit more. I don't know if that statue is
• 20:33
  still there. You know, I didn't find that.
• 20:34
  I did find these ruins. This is quite near the main
• 20:37
  castle. Is that is that a real statue or
• 20:39
  is that ABBC statue? You can.
• 20:41
  Use. I mean tell I.
• 20:42
  Assume that they they didn't turn a real statue into a
• 20:45
  segment of the Gita time. That would have been vandalism,
• 20:48
  wouldn't it? The links Graham Williams went
• 20:50
  for his Doctor Who stories. Yeah, maybe, Maybe.
• 20:53
  Did you watch that documentary recently, James?
• 20:55
  Well, the Graham Williams documentary, yeah, absolutely
• 20:58
  heartbreaking, very sad. Again, it's a kind of the
• 21:08
  feeling that someone maybe didn't realize how much he was
• 21:12
  appreciated because the because the Grahamian intelligent man
• 21:17
  would have been aware that a lot of his era was was perceived as
• 21:21
  a bit crap at the time. You know, he didn't live to see
• 21:24
  it reappraised. Really one of the many sadnesses
• 21:28
  of of of his life. Well I think as well found him
• 21:31
  was coming on at this point wasn't it?
• 21:33
  And making their feelings very aware via fans.
• 21:38
  Yeah. Graham Williams, in an interview
• 21:40
  I saw when he was at a convention, said he would read
• 21:43
  those fan scenes and be like, why am I doing this then?
• 21:46
  Yeah, absolutely. Everything I'm doing.
• 21:48
  But fans, what did fans know? I mean, what do fans know?
• 21:51
  But the, the poll for this year, I think Andrew is a Tara comes,
• 21:55
  comes bottom of the pole because they didn't want, the fans
• 21:58
  didn't fans thought they wanted spaceships and laser pistols.
• 22:02
  Of course, whenever they got spaceships and laser pistols, it
• 22:05
  looked like underworld and, and everyone was very embarrassed.
• 22:09
  But that's what they thought Doctor Who was and, and give
• 22:11
  them a, a, a swashbuckling fantasy story like this.
• 22:15
  And, and, and a lot of them were kind of going well, this is
• 22:18
  embarrassing because it doesn't look like Doctor Who at all.
• 22:21
  That man's in a suit of armour. So I, I, I feel sad that this
• 22:26
  story wasn't appreciated at the time in the way that we can
• 22:30
  appreciate and appreciate it now.
• 22:33
  And I'm not sure. I'm still not sure that it is
• 22:35
  appreciated as much as it should be.
• 22:38
  But like you said, that push into a fantasy and fairy tale,
• 22:41
  it is the ultimate refreshment. I think it's so different from
• 22:44
  anything we've had before. And it and it just suddenly kind
• 22:50
  of fits this doctor and this, I mean, to Mary Tam is brilliant,
• 22:53
  isn't she? She's she's such a a brilliant
• 22:58
  foil for Tom Baker, sort of his equal, but completely different
• 23:01
  him as well. And Peter Jeffrey, just he's got
• 23:06
  a face made for this kind of role, hasn't he?
• 23:08
  He's proper kind of he he could he could have walked out of a
• 23:14
  film with Errol Flynn or Douglas Douglas Fairbanks.
• 23:17
  He's got kind of screen villain written all over him.
• 23:21
  Well, I don't think there's any concessions to the fact that
• 23:23
  he's in a Doctor Who story here, is it?
• 23:25
  He's put in the same effort he put into, I mean, I've seen him
• 23:27
  in Avengers roles and things. Like that.
• 23:29
  Oh yeah, yeah. And he and he, he, I think he
• 23:33
  overplays it slightly more here, but it's a larger than life
• 23:35
  role. You have to, and the, and the
• 23:37
  source material as well. You know, the, the, the villain
• 23:41
  in the Prisoner's ender is, is, is actually fairly in the
• 23:47
  background. They're they're sort of, it's a
• 23:49
  bigger cast of characters because it's got the, the space
• 23:51
  to do that. And and there's a a sort of
• 23:57
  rakish sub villain who does a lot of the kind of
• 24:04
  swashbuckling. The main Duke Michael, the main
• 24:07
  villain is, you know, is is is almost kind of understated
• 24:12
  compared to the the so so I feel like Peter Jeffrey is playing
• 24:15
  more the the rakish younger can't remember what his name is.
• 24:20
  Is it Rudolph Rupert, they all there's the problem is the
• 24:27
  prisoner of Zender. There are a whole load of
• 24:28
  characters and they've all got similar names anyway.
• 24:31
  Duke Michaels rakish second in command is is is where Peter
• 24:35
  Jeffrey is during his main inspiration here.
• 24:38
  Look at Tom Baker here. Look, he's having a little
• 24:40
  snooze. And swords that have electric
• 24:46
  charge in the the hilt is the most kind of Doctor Who way of
• 24:50
  doing this story. And exactly what I mean.
• 24:54
  When I first watched this story I was in my just just about in
• 24:58
  my teens and 2nd to Doctor Who the thing I loved most in the
• 25:02
  world was Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves and you know I I liked
• 25:07
  anything with a bit of swordplay in but well.
• 25:10
  It's very Star Wars as well though, isn't it?
• 25:12
  But it's not very Star Wars because it's because it's not
• 25:15
  taking itself too seriously. It's much closer to the, to the
• 25:17
  swordplay in, in, in swashbucklers of the of the 30s,
• 25:22
  forties, 50s, because those swords are not, you know, the,
• 25:25
  the Star Wars ones. They, I think a lightsaber takes
• 25:28
  itself a little bit too seriously, don't you?
• 25:30
  I mean, I just think. I, I, I don't know, I just feel
• 25:34
  like they, they are, they've realized that those are very
• 25:38
  popular, that. Oh, definitely.
• 25:39
  There's, I mean, Graham Williams has definitely got silos at the
• 25:41
  back of his mind, but he's found a way to do it that doesn't look
• 25:44
  in any, you know, you don't look at that and go, that's Doctor
• 25:46
  Who doing light sabers. They couldn't pull it off
• 25:48
  anyway, so they no. Exactly.
• 25:49
  So get a rapier and it can set fire to the doctor's hat.
• 25:52
  Great, because it's a bit silly, it's a bit fun, but it's also
• 25:55
  it's it's a swashbuckler, but with a futuristic element.
• 25:59
  The music here, James. Said, Oh, Dudley, Dudley
• 26:02
  Simpson, He, I mean, Dudley knows how to do genre and he's
• 26:11
  just gone. OK, so I'm going to do what I
• 26:13
  would do for my kind of my Robin Hood score.
• 26:17
  But Doctor Who lends itself to that, right?
• 26:19
  Just lean into another genre. Oh yeah.
• 26:23
  Musically, yeah. Well, that's one of the reasons
• 26:26
  why I love this season so much. That's I mean that picture of a
• 26:30
  castle Bracht is now you can tell where the turrets are
• 26:34
  painted on. But honestly, when I first saw
• 26:36
  this, you know, through the quality of a, you know, a not
• 26:39
  restored picture, it absolutely totally bought it.
• 26:43
  I took a picture of that castle from that exact spot and then
• 26:47
  added terrible. I'll send it to you.
• 26:51
  It's quite funny. It looked almost like exactly
• 26:53
  the same. And you can you can go through
• 26:55
  here now. Oh, yeah, Isn't that it's just
• 26:59
  next to the shop now? Yeah.
• 27:03
  Does does Declan Mulholland play any other character than kind of
• 27:10
  overweight, slightly hunched, humble servant?
• 27:16
  Well, do you? Remember him in the Sea Devils.
• 27:18
  Same character except he says master or less.
• 27:22
  Doesn't go master. No, he doesn't go master.
• 27:25
  Oh no, he's almost a shame here. Now to cut to the studio after
• 27:28
  all that. Yeah, I do love all that.
• 27:29
  Well, wasn't they sort of front loaded episodes with a lot of
• 27:32
  location, didn't they? That was the the strategy was to
• 27:35
  make the first episode look absolutely glorious.
• 27:38
  And that terrible yellow couch? Did you see that then?
• 27:41
  I don't have a problem with the yellow couch because again,
• 27:43
  it's, you know, this is, this is Doctor Who doing what it does.
• 27:46
  It's a castle interior, but with something a little bit
• 27:48
  futuristic on it. Lots of computer banks and then
• 27:51
  test tubes are weird things as. Well, yeah, great.
• 27:54
  It's. A lovely mix.
• 27:56
  And the. Visually, it's capturing the the
• 27:59
  tone of the piece, isn't it? We are basically doing a period
• 28:02
  drama science fiction style. Yeah.
• 28:04
  And if it wasn't yellow, if it didn't, if it wasn't that
• 28:07
  ostentatious, it wouldn't stand out.
• 28:09
  So it I think it needs to be like that.
• 28:12
  Matam Lamia, it's. Just a great idea as well, this
• 28:15
  kind of tense relationship. Now that this is not drawn
• 28:18
  directly from Anthony Hope's novel, but there's a lot of that
• 28:22
  where kind of women are they're all servants in one way or
• 28:26
  another because they're all bound by duty or they're bound
• 28:28
  by an unspoken love. And there is a, a lady
• 28:35
  Antoinette in the novel who is, who ends up kind of with Duke
• 28:39
  Michael against her will and and she ends up kind of betraying
• 28:43
  him secretly. But, you know, there's there's a
• 28:46
  lot of this kind of is she in love or is, is is it a, you
• 28:49
  know, is she being exploited? And I think this is very
• 28:52
  understated, but it's beautifully written that Lamia,
• 28:55
  you know, has quite the crush but knows that it's not
• 28:59
  returned. I'm obsessed with those curls
• 29:02
  that are stuck to her head. You know what a look.
• 29:06
  I was in makeup. Oh.
• 29:08
  The some house that's still there.
• 29:11
  The some house and that's and that absolutely is in the well.
• 29:15
  This is the hunting lodge, isn't it?
• 29:16
  Yeah, that's that's 100% taken from the the prisoner Zender and
• 29:20
  would have been recognized. I think if that doesn't, the DVD
• 29:24
  compares the BBC production of this to to the BBC Zender and
• 29:28
  you and you see just how close these scenes.
• 29:31
  How do you feel about the low stakes of this story, that it is
• 29:36
  just sort of like a a gentle political story and a love story
• 29:40
  rather than, you know, Doctor Who's usually quite told on
• 29:43
  quite a grand scale? I don't think they are low
• 29:46
  stakes though. There's jeopardy that people in
• 29:49
  danger and and you know, and there's a love story at the
• 29:52
  heart of it. You think because it's a bit of
• 29:55
  a romp then that's why people think that?
• 29:57
  I think people get confused about what low stakes actually
• 30:02
  are. You could say they're smaller
• 30:05
  stakes, you know, in the grand scheme of things when you
• 30:07
  compare to to some of the other stories in this season.
• 30:10
  But there's this mistaken idea that the more of the universe
• 30:14
  you destroy, the more drama you create.
• 30:15
  And, and we've seen enough stories where half the universe
• 30:18
  gets. Destroyed, have you?
• 30:20
  Yeah, exactly. You know, known for its its
• 30:23
  thrilling dramatic tension, even flux.
• 30:29
  I would say, you know it it was going for this ground epic
• 30:31
  scale. And you know, the best episodes
• 30:33
  were the were the ones with quote UN quote smaller stakes.
• 30:37
  I don't think, I don't think there any member of this cast is
• 30:41
  playing these stakes as if they don't count for something.
• 30:45
  I think we're very well aware that should Count Grendel a sin
• 30:49
  to the throne, it's going to be bad news for everybody else.
• 30:52
  Yeah. And that isn't that what I mean,
• 30:55
  isn't that your traditional Doctor Who story that the Doctor
• 30:58
  goes into a place, whatever the place is, whatever, whether the
• 31:01
  stakes are, you know, the whole planet or universal or, or just
• 31:05
  a, a, you know, a city, the Doctor's going to get involved.
• 31:11
  There are plenty of, plenty of stories where the Doctor's
• 31:13
  involvement is, you know, just kind of rescuing the, the, the
• 31:17
  ordinary folk of a small place. I don't think that's very
• 31:20
  subtle, you know, drawing that big pencil line across her neck.
• 31:24
  How's she going? How's she going to get a
• 31:25
  straight job? I'm not sure.
• 31:28
  I mean, I have to say I'm not sure that's the most sensible
• 31:30
  way of dismantling an Android. What?
• 31:34
  Just taking the buzz. Saw to her heads.
• 31:36
  Yeah. I don't think subtlety was in
• 31:39
  David Fisher's mind, though, when he was writing this script.
• 31:42
  I did love that bit there where the doctor went, oh, is it?
• 31:45
  I'm like, no, I'm just going to go.
• 31:46
  And he opens the door and the guards standing there.
• 31:50
  All of that, all of that kind of to and fro with, with those
• 31:53
  characters and the suspicion and the banter and this is, this is
• 31:59
  part of the convention, isn't it, that, that the most
• 32:01
  villainous people are still terribly, terribly polite.
• 32:04
  Well, that is your classic period drama, right?
• 32:07
  Mary Tom's attitude in this is great as well.
• 32:10
  Well, you can keep your head my dear.
• 32:12
  I may have a better use for it. I believe I had that quote sent
• 32:16
  to me at some point this week. Oh, the lines are great.
• 32:21
  As real as you and as deadly as the plague.
• 32:24
  If only she were real, I'd marry her.
• 32:27
  It's very quotable stuff. Very quotable.
• 32:31
  Oh, there is a sort of gentle sort of class commentary in this
• 32:36
  as well, isn't? It Oh yeah, definitely yes.
• 32:39
  I love the idea that fixing androids would be a a peasant
• 32:42
  pastime. It looks just like the Android
• 32:46
  from the Android Invasion. Does it?
• 32:49
  Yeah, that's it. But the the second you put the
• 32:52
  rubber mask on it, it looks just like the axe.
• 32:54
  Just like him. That's a pretty good mask.
• 32:57
  Yeah, that's. Not too bad.
• 32:59
  Yeah, the first thing Tom Baker does, the second he does the job
• 33:04
  is have a drink. Which is true to life, I hear.
• 33:08
  The, the Simon Lack character is very good as well.
• 33:12
  I, I mean, I, I, I, I like the, the young kind of, I like
• 33:17
  Farai's kind of young and headstrong, but I, I do like the
• 33:20
  way that Zardek sort of stands in the background being worldly
• 33:24
  wise. The king to be here tells the
• 33:28
  entire plot of the story. Now, now, look, this is what's
• 33:31
  going to happen. And this if I get here, but
• 33:35
  Count Grendel might be waiting for me.
• 33:37
  And there's just the whole story is laid out in front of you here
• 33:40
  in one one big go. Very useful.
• 33:45
  But it's. It's.
• 33:47
  It's written as dialogue, it's not one person standing and and
• 33:51
  it's well filmed as well. Again, well done.
• 33:53
  Michael Hayes for making this scene kind of in, in, you know,
• 33:57
  of people talking in a room, interesting to look at and
• 34:00
  putting people, different people in the foreground, different
• 34:02
  people in the background. And there's enough people
• 34:04
  talking as well that it has some flow to it.
• 34:08
  And that's lovely. Well, it's been done before.
• 34:11
  I mean, that's, that's much subtler than the end of
• 34:13
  Underworld, where it's like, well, it's just like Jason the
• 34:15
  Argonaut. Did you call him Jason?
• 34:17
  Jason Jackson. Jason Jackson.
• 34:18
  Oh, Golden Fleece. I mean, I'd, I'd much rather
• 34:21
  kind of just a, a subtle kind of, yeah, you might have seen
• 34:25
  this somewhere. At least he didn't look straight
• 34:28
  at the camera. I've been told he does do this
• 34:30
  sort of thing from time to time. That is a big needle.
• 34:35
  Do you think this is Mary Towns strongest story?
• 34:41
  I mean, obviously it's the one where she gets the most to do.
• 34:44
  She gets plenty to do in this one, obviously.
• 34:49
  I mean, she's playing different versions of herself as well, but
• 34:53
  she's she's good in all of them. She's great in Rebus operation.
• 35:00
  I guess. She's less to less to do in
• 35:02
  Stones of Blood, I guess. Yes, you're hanging off that
• 35:05
  Cliff for quite some time. Isn't she chained to the wall?
• 35:08
  She's great in Pirate Planet though when she walks into.
• 35:10
  The bridge. And she's utterly unimpressed by
• 35:13
  all the technology and him, yes, they do this a couple of times
• 35:20
  in this, you know, the CSO of having two people in the same
• 35:23
  shot. But it's very well done.
• 35:25
  Very nicely done. They've, they've, they've worked
• 35:28
  out how to, how to play it now. It's because it's not very
• 35:30
  showy, you know, it's almost a bit Workman.
• 35:33
  But yeah, that's why it works. Oh look, he gets the money on
• 35:37
  his scarf and he pulls it across the table.
• 35:39
  Tom Baker has has owned the art of working the scarf by this
• 35:43
  point, hasn't he? That's why he needs twice as
• 35:45
  much of it. Isn't this the episode where he
• 35:47
  has that line about would you mind not stepping on my scarf?
• 35:50
  My hat's on fire, yes. So all of this, this set piece,
• 35:56
  I mean, obviously the story, the back story is, is different to
• 35:59
  Zander the Princess locked in the castle is a complete
• 36:03
  invention of David Fischer's. But the, the, there's a scene in
• 36:07
  the novel where they all get drunk and then there's the final
• 36:10
  bottle of wine is delivered by Duke Michael and, and, and
• 36:15
  that's what takes out the, the Prince.
• 36:19
  So the set again, he's, he's, he's following the beats.
• 36:21
  He gets his first cliffhanger from, you know, a a significant,
• 36:24
  memorable scene in the novel. And why love is obviously the
• 36:29
  the jeopardy is them all being knocked out.
• 36:32
  But then the camera swings round onto Peter Jeffrey's self
• 36:35
  satisfied face and Q credits. And Dudley Simpson does.
• 36:40
  Tom Baker acts this really, really well.
• 36:42
  Like love him, you know, potent stuff.
• 36:43
  What a great line Dudley Simpson decides rather than kind of a a,
• 36:48
  you know, a big Dudley Simpson esque brassy court, instead he
• 36:53
  just gives a symbol role that gradually crescendos under
• 36:59
  played and it's beaten Jeffrey. Grendel, you fiend.
• 37:06
  Maybe you should have later on. There is a close up of him when
• 37:09
  he sort of laughs and goes. Maybe that would have been a bit
• 37:12
  too much. I think it's, I think it's
• 37:15
  nicely paced, his performance. He doesn't.
• 37:17
  He doesn't peak too soon. Well, and it's a great episode
• 37:21
  one in that it sets the scene well, it shows off the
• 37:25
  countryside, then it sets up the story so we know that what the
• 37:29
  stakes are and then just sort of as we're relaxing, a moment of
• 37:34
  jeopardy. I think it's a great episode 1.
• 37:36
  Really great episode, lots of lovely location put it in that.
• 37:39
  None of it's a really. No, no, no, it's got it
• 37:42
  breathes, but it's but it's pacey as well.
• 37:46
  Wow, aside from my copping coughing fits that nobody could
• 37:50
  hear because I muted myself, that was an absolute delight.
• 37:55
  This Michael Hayes fella, you know they should have him back.
• 37:57
  Maybe we could take him to Paris one day.
• 38:00
  Yeah, it would be interesting to see what he'd do with that.
• 38:03
  I hope he knows how to cross the road safely though.
• 38:05
  Well, we'll find out. You and I, however, will cross
• 38:08
  the road now to episode 2. Are you ready?
• 38:11
  I'm ready. Are we are we heading straight
• 38:13
  onwards? Let's do it.