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Hamster Omnibus! Genesis of the Daleks 1-6 (featuring Si Hart & Frazer Gregory) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a plump pen knife for doing quicker, quicker,
• 0:35
  quicker. I stepped from the TARDIS onto a
• 0:42
  bleak planet. All around the ground was
• 0:46
  ravaged, No visitation, banks of chilling fogs swirling through
• 0:51
  the air. Why had I been brought here?
• 0:56
  Was it to do another episode of a hamster with a blunt pen
• 1:00
  knife? Is that it?
• 1:03
  But what about Fraser and Joe? Doctor, Doctor.
• 1:12
  Oh, there you are, Joe. Say this isn't the beacon.
• 1:17
  No, there's been a slight change of plan.
• 1:19
  This is Hamster. We can't quote the whole like an
• 1:22
  audio book, I'm saying now. Well, I could, but I won't.
• 1:26
  What? How old girl?
• 1:27
  Oh. There he is.
• 1:31
  It's very strange because Fraser's dressed up like Tom
• 1:33
  Baker, looking absolutely stunning, but he's doing a Harry
• 1:37
  that little impression. You never know what to expect.
• 1:41
  So hello everyone. Welcome back to a hamster with a
• 1:43
  blunt pen knife, The Doctor Who Commentary Not Commentaries
• 1:46
  Podcast, Pete Lambert As you may have guessed from the intro,
• 1:52
  tonight we're talking about one of the most evil and corrupt
• 1:56
  races. Oh no, that's the wrong story.
• 2:02
  We're going back in time to avert the creation of the
• 2:07
  Daleks. My God, you must do it, Sai.
• 2:11
  You must complete your mission for the Time Lords.
• 2:14
  Sir. Guys.
• 2:16
  Yes. Do we have the right?
• 2:19
  Well, who else could do it? Well.
• 2:23
  So to start us off, I I've got a question for you both.
• 2:29
  And this is something I was pondering on the way on my drive
• 2:31
  home tonight and I was thinking, why is it always Genesis of the
• 2:36
  Daleks? Why is Genesis of the Daleks the
• 2:39
  best selling novelization? Why is did it get a cassette and
• 2:44
  record release? Why is it the most repeated
• 2:47
  story on the BBC of Doctor Who? Why?
• 2:53
  What is it about this story? Why is it always this one that
• 2:56
  everyone comes back to? Fucking brilliant.
• 3:00
  That's why it's it's exceptionally good television.
• 3:03
  I think it's one of the few Doctor Who stories that you
• 3:07
  could kind of rip out of Doctor Who and hold up as a genuinely
• 3:11
  fantastic piece of television. It's six episodes long.
• 3:14
  It doesn't like our state's welcome.
• 3:17
  Fantastic characters, A brilliant villain, a great
• 3:20
  script, a moral dilemma, outstanding production values, a
• 3:23
  terrific score. Shall I go on?
• 3:27
  Yes. What do you think, Fraser?
• 3:32
  I'll just, I'll just put it a bit more simply.
• 3:33
  It's the best episode of Doctor Who that's ever been made.
• 3:37
  This is your all time favorite. No, no, it's not my favorite.
• 3:41
  It's not my favorite. But it's the best.
• 3:44
  My favorite is the Happiness Patrol.
• 3:46
  But I can't, you know, sit and say the Happiness Patrol is, you
• 3:49
  know, the the best of the best. You know, it's certainly the one
• 3:52
  that speaks to me. It makes me the happiest, you
• 3:58
  know, and it is my my favorite one that I really enjoy
• 4:00
  watching. But if I look and I say, which
• 4:03
  is the best, you know, which has got all those elements you've
• 4:06
  mentioned, the best script, the best score, the best
• 4:08
  performances, the best characters, the best rating, the
• 4:10
  best of everything. That all comes together in one
• 4:13
  big glorious six part package. It's Genesis of the Daleks.
• 4:19
  Well, thank you very much. And that's the end this episode
• 4:21
  of Hamster. Talking with you both and we've
• 4:24
  discussed all the merits of this story.
• 4:26
  Goodbye, Fraser. I was really scared you were
• 4:30
  going to say the Dominators was your favorite Doctor Who story
• 4:33
  then. I was well.
• 4:34
  Your favorite doesn't have to be the best, that's the thing.
• 4:37
  No, that's the. Difference.
• 4:39
  Between the two, it just so happens that my favorite is the
• 4:41
  best, but there we go. What's your favorite?
• 4:44
  City of Death. Well, you should listen to what
• 4:47
  Gary Russell's got to say about that in.
• 4:48
  There. Oh, Gary Russell has always been
• 4:50
  contrary about that one. He goes on for 5 minutes about
• 4:54
  why he hates it. He does.
• 4:57
  You need to cover your yes for that.
• 4:59
  But I'm glad he gets the about creature from the pit right
• 5:01
  eventually. But because.
• 5:03
  I've got something. I've got something absolutely
• 5:05
  staggering to tell both of you. OK.
• 5:08
  Before we go into this, because it may affect people's enjoyment
• 5:11
  of of this commentary, this is a story where we're all three of
• 5:16
  us in complete agreement on how good it is.
• 5:20
  What are we going to argue? About.
• 5:22
  Oh, there'll be something. Booger.
• 5:26
  Phrasers here. They'll be summing fucking.
• 5:29
  Control. Well, that's all right.
• 5:30
  You'll you'll be able to argue with me about what I think is
• 5:33
  the second best piece of Dudley Simpson music in the whole of
• 5:36
  Doctor Who. And you've been guessing before
• 5:39
  we started recording and none of your guess.
• 5:41
  And you won't guess which bit it is.
• 5:44
  No, I can't think I. Can't.
• 5:47
  No, no, no. It's in this story.
• 5:54
  I like that's not city of death. That's seeds of death.
• 6:04
  Oh. Sorry.
• 6:07
  Put it on the brain. Well, let, I mean we are going
• 6:11
  to go in a second, but are we basically in agreement that this
• 6:14
  is an? Absolute.
• 6:15
  I love it. Absolutely love it.
• 6:17
  I loved it since I bought the cassette on my 6th birthday.
• 6:23
  Oh, I thought we. Were tale of you coming?
• 6:26
  And the very last thing I'd like to say before we go in is that
• 6:31
  one of the very first messages that bounce back and forth
• 6:34
  between me and Fraser was me. No, Fraser suggesting that we do
• 6:40
  Genesis of the Daleks, Me going, Oh yeah, amazing, let's do it.
• 6:44
  And then Fraser basically whimping out and going, I'll do
• 6:48
  it, I can't do it justice. Well, let me tell you something,
• 6:50
  Mr. Gregory, you've come a long, bloody way in a year and you're
• 6:55
  going to be amazing on. This, but I would, I would still
• 6:57
  stand by that. I think if it wasn't me and you
• 7:00
  inside together, then I would very much feel I can't do this
• 7:04
  justice because this is this is that good a story?
• 7:07
  There are some. Stories that are just too good
• 7:11
  to discuss without help. Yeah.
• 7:15
  Well, and I just think as well, this is a story that's been
• 7:17
  talked about so much like kind of what is there new to say
• 7:20
  about it? Well, there's only one way to
• 7:23
  find out. Subtle hint.
• 7:28
  Yeah, let's go. Yeah, well, who's going to count
• 7:33
  us in? Well, should I count us in then?
• 7:35
  Oh, let's Should we do it together?
• 7:36
  OK, can we can we do this all together?
• 7:40
  So let's start the 54321 in 54321. 554.
• 7:47
  Three 2/1. Go.
• 7:55
  Oh shit, I've got the sound up. I'm sorry you're watching this
• 8:00
  on Brit Box. What are you watching on Say?
• 8:04
  Doctor Who The Collection Season 12, Disc 4.
• 8:09
  That's what I'm watching as well.
• 8:11
  I haven't got a Blu-ray player upstairs.
• 8:13
  It's so sad because it's so crisp, but never mind, never
• 8:17
  mind. It does.
• 8:18
  It does look very good on the Blu-ray it.
• 8:20
  Really. Does I?
• 8:21
  Always think like all their film work looks just exceptionally
• 8:25
  good on Blu-ray. So the first thing to mention
• 8:29
  obviously is you know, you read out from the the target
• 8:32
  novelization there of the Doctor stepping out of the TARDIS.
• 8:35
  Well I didn't I read out from the the audio version.
• 8:40
  Right, but obviously he doesn't step out from the TARDIS.
• 8:45
  He. He's transmark beams
• 8:48
  interrupted. By the Time Lords.
• 8:51
  Yes. You almost feel like, you know,
• 8:54
  they figured we're still in the John Pearl era when he was going
• 8:56
  off on missions to the Time Lords.
• 8:59
  Yeah, well, there's still a bit of that going on, isn't it?
• 9:01
  I mean, I think with the with the album version they could
• 9:05
  take liberties with what was going on, and if you want to
• 9:09
  feature the TARDIS at the start then that's fine, there's no
• 9:12
  reason why not. It's it's not as if you know,
• 9:16
  people are going to remember. Well, someone is.
• 9:18
  I'm going to go and actually, yes, from planet Earth.
• 9:22
  I don't know everything, can I just say.
• 9:24
  In the sense it's just gone past that.
• 9:26
  That opening is one of the most shocking, one of the most
• 9:29
  adults. Brutal, isn't it?
• 9:31
  Any Doctor Who's story, like there's a massacre in the first
• 9:34
  sort of one minute and with the gas mask and everything like
• 9:37
  that and the fog, it's really nightmarish.
• 9:40
  I I don't know if that's entirely suitable for young
• 9:43
  kids, you know. It's it's the slow motion as
• 9:45
  well, isn't it? You know, it's not just them
• 9:47
  getting gunned down, it's them getting going down in in slow
• 9:50
  motion and it really sets the stall out for what we are going
• 9:53
  to be getting in the next six weeks.
• 9:55
  You know, this is going to this is grown up television.
• 9:57
  This is, you know, it's, it's a mile away from something I
• 10:01
  planet the spiders, you know. Was.
• 10:04
  Yeah, this is this is David Maloney back in the war games
• 10:08
  mode, isn't it? Like this is very like part one
• 10:11
  of the war games, which is very doomy and and brutal but not
• 10:16
  quite as violent as this. There's a piece of direction in
• 10:20
  a second that he steals from his own direction in the war
• 10:23
  creeping barrage when the bombs are going off, and in the war
• 10:26
  games there's a close up on Zoe with her hands over her ears and
• 10:28
  this time it's Sarah and it's equally as effective both times.
• 10:33
  Wasn't this supposed to be set in some beautiful perfumed
• 10:37
  garden? This sequence?
• 10:38
  That's right, yes. Yes.
• 10:40
  And then was it David Maloney said no, that doesn't work.
• 10:43
  It needs to be fog and. Bleak.
• 10:48
  Yeah. And I think that that was
• 10:50
  definitely the right decision, definitely.
• 10:53
  Yeah, we've. Got John Franklin Robbins here
• 10:55
  who is one of two stars for you Joe in this episode who have
• 11:00
  made appearances in Star Trek. You're joking.
• 11:04
  I'm not. Well, this is 1 front titled
• 11:06
  Star Trek Project. What's he been in there?
• 11:07
  So he was in that one in series 7 of Star Trek The Next
• 11:12
  Generation where Wesley comes back.
• 11:16
  Oh, journey's end. Yeah, he's.
• 11:18
  He's one of the villagers. Oh, in that one.
• 11:24
  Who's the 2nd actor in this? Is it guy?
• 11:26
  Signer. It's Guy Signer, Yeah.
• 11:28
  What episode was he in? He's in an episode of
• 11:30
  Enterprise, but I can only tell you it's an episode of
• 11:33
  Enterprise. I don't know anything about
• 11:34
  Enterprise. How about against him?
• 11:36
  I think he was a Nazi in that, you know.
• 11:41
  Now here is a continuity gaffe that no one ever picks up.
• 11:45
  That was Sarah Jane saying this isn't the Beacon.
• 11:48
  But they haven't been to NERVA Beacon yet.
• 11:51
  They've been to the Ark. And this is someone in the
• 11:55
  production team not paying attention.
• 11:58
  They've filmed, they've filmed Revenge of the Cybermen before
• 12:02
  this, but they haven't actually been to NERVA Beacon yet.
• 12:06
  So there you go, there's something.
• 12:12
  I think it's in true Google podcasting style.
• 12:14
  I'm going to leave you guys to it for 2 minutes because my dog
• 12:16
  needs to go out. OK.
• 12:19
  I think you know what I noticed immediately, and I know
• 12:22
  Hinchcliffe said to David Maloney, I don't know if he
• 12:26
  watched Planet of the Daleks because that was Maloney's
• 12:29
  previous story to this, wasn't it?
• 12:32
  But he basically said I want this puncture, I want this
• 12:34
  pacea, and there is a massive difference to his direction of
• 12:40
  Planet of the Daleks and this. Yeah, because this is the first
• 12:42
  time he's back since Planet of the Daleks.
• 12:44
  So David Maloney hasn't been back on the show since since
• 12:48
  then, so. All right, this is.
• 12:51
  It feels like such a step up from what he was doing there.
• 12:55
  And I mean, I don't know whether it's because he's out on
• 12:57
  location and he always does really good stuff in Bechworth
• 13:01
  Quarry, which is his favorite quarry for Blake 7, where they
• 13:04
  are now. How?
• 13:05
  Many times using Blake Seven, I dread to think.
• 13:08
  Yeah, lots of time so. But he he really he's, he's
• 13:15
  exceptionally good in this story.
• 13:17
  David Maloney, he keeps it all together.
• 13:19
  They do that that very wise choice, don't they?
• 13:22
  A lot of the location work is in the first episode.
• 13:25
  So yes, it's a kind of has an immediacy about it and it sucks.
• 13:29
  You straighten. And actually, this is a really
• 13:31
  interesting one because the scale of the story gets smaller
• 13:36
  and more claustrophobic the more the story goes along.
• 13:39
  Yeah, which is unusual because Doctor Who usually starts small
• 13:42
  and claustrophobic and then. It's bigger.
• 13:44
  Pans back out, but this, Yeah, they don't go back outside.
• 13:48
  In episode six, I think we're just down in the bunker, aren't
• 13:50
  we? Yeah.
• 13:51
  Or or Oh, I'm just outside as well with the rebels.
• 13:55
  It's all studio. This whole sequence site with
• 13:58
  the landmine. It's it's, it's padding, isn't
• 14:03
  it really technically, but it's so full of Jeopardy and because
• 14:08
  the three regulars are playing it absolutely real.
• 14:15
  And I think I. Think they're being really
• 14:17
  careful. It's it's superb.
• 14:20
  Is this adhering to all like the Terry Nation part one cliches?
• 14:24
  We've got the Doctor and companions kind of exploring a
• 14:27
  desolate landscape. Yep, they're separated from the
• 14:30
  TARDIS without without any any or two.
• 14:36
  The Dalek is revealed at the end of the episode.
• 14:38
  Yep, they're split up shortly. Yeah, yeah, and always.
• 14:46
  It's Sarah on her own, isn't it? And this is like, like the start
• 14:50
  of the dead planet. They're exploring the planet.
• 14:53
  Yeah, it's just the main cast. But I think it just feels like
• 14:57
  it's got more muscle, doesn't it, than the average Terry
• 14:59
  Nation one? If you recall Planet of the
• 15:04
  Daleks, it features Joe just wandering around the forest for
• 15:08
  25 minutes. And I love it, don't get me
• 15:10
  wrong. But he is a good forest.
• 15:14
  Yeah, yeah. But this has this has just got
• 15:15
  some serious Jeff. Look at Tom Baker there.
• 15:17
  He's acting his socks off without doing very much, but he
• 15:23
  is. He's trying to show the doctor
• 15:26
  is stoic, but he's scared. And we don't see his doctors
• 15:29
  scared like this very often. I think this is, this is Tom at
• 15:33
  his best because he's he's really trying in this series,
• 15:36
  isn't he? Because, you know, obviously
• 15:37
  he's relatively unknown coming into this role.
• 15:41
  You know, one of the biggest rules there isn't TV at the
• 15:44
  time. And he's really putting the
• 15:46
  effort in. And, you know, the couple of
• 15:48
  series time we'll see him, you know, getting that sort of ego
• 15:51
  going and well, I am the doctor now.
• 15:53
  When And then you know, it takes, as you guys have
• 15:56
  mentioned, you know many times in the past, it takes like
• 15:59
  season 18 where you know someone actually comes and pushes him
• 16:02
  again to get him back to this level of sort of intensity.
• 16:07
  What's brilliant is, and I remember Stephen Moffatt
• 16:11
  pointing this out in in a big article in Doctor Who magazine
• 16:14
  about season 12 is. What's brilliant is Tom doesn't
• 16:18
  know he's a success. Yeah.
• 16:21
  So he's not got that and so he's doing everything he can and he's
• 16:25
  showing everything he can do in this season.
• 16:28
  What do you know? I'm going to make a contrary
• 16:30
  statement now, and one of you will come at me for this.
• 16:33
  I think there's three stories in season 12 where I can see Tom
• 16:37
  Baker's nerves, and I don't think he's entirely found
• 16:40
  himself. That's Robot, some TAR and
• 16:42
  Experiment, Revenge of the Side Men.
• 16:44
  I think all three of those stories, he's kind of finding
• 16:46
  his feet. The scripts for Arc in Space and
• 16:48
  Genesis of Dykes are so strong and strong for his doctor.
• 16:52
  Like it would have taken a pretty poor actor to have got
• 16:55
  those wrong. And he is brilliant in this,
• 16:57
  don't get me wrong. And I think this is Did this
• 17:00
  come before or after Revenge? This is this is after revenge.
• 17:04
  So they were slightly out of all because they were using the the
• 17:07
  nervous sets back-to-back. So I think this is probably
• 17:10
  where he absolutely solidifies. We were talking about the
• 17:14
  Macrattera the other day, weren't we saw it.
• 17:15
  We were. Stories for and I think Tom
• 17:18
  Baker's in that same sort. Of story #4.
• 17:22
  Yeah, maybe you need to, you know, sort of play around a
• 17:25
  little bit. Well, actually, no, it's story
• 17:27
  #5 isn't it? On both counts?
• 17:30
  So, yeah. But yeah, I mean, in Robot
• 17:34
  particularly, he's he's playing it in exactly the opposite way
• 17:39
  to John Pertwee in every scene. So it's always that feels like,
• 17:43
  well, we're in a comfortable situation.
• 17:46
  This is what we know what John Pert we would do.
• 17:48
  So we're going to invert this and Tom Baker will do something
• 17:51
  brilliant like sitting in the Jeep with his legs over the the
• 17:56
  over the roof and things like that, things that John Pert we
• 17:58
  would never have done. But by here he's he's his
• 18:03
  doctor. Yeah, you were going to say
• 18:07
  something then. Yeah, I think he's great in some
• 18:09
  town experiment. I particularly like him in those
• 18:12
  action scenes where he's only shot from like a long angle,
• 18:15
  long distance. I.
• 18:16
  Think he's my last Terry Walsh, you know?
• 18:23
  But he is. Don't get me wrong, he's
• 18:24
  incredible in this, and it's probably one of the best ever
• 18:30
  Doctor performances we're going to see, like in the entirety of
• 18:33
  the classic series. Yes, but what another really
• 18:38
  adult moment there of them stumbling into the trench and
• 18:43
  the door opening and files being gunned down with gas masks on
• 18:46
  again. And we've never answered your
• 18:48
  question. Did with your.
• 18:49
  Bodies. It's a question.
• 18:51
  Yeah, you're the question. Last thing is this too grown up
• 18:54
  for Doctor Who? Ah, yeah, go on.
• 18:57
  Go on then. Will you answer it?
• 19:01
  I dodged it the first time so you answer it.
• 19:04
  I think as an adult, as an adult, I am noticing there are
• 19:08
  moments in the classic series run that I would be reluctant to
• 19:12
  put a four or five year old child in front of.
• 19:15
  Now, Kate, Evan, Rosani, some parts of this deadly assassin,
• 19:20
  maybe there are a few moments where they crossed the line.
• 19:23
  Now they are. I think it's great telly, but is
• 19:26
  it too adult? Yeah, At times, yes.
• 19:29
  I was, I was what? I was seven when I first saw
• 19:32
  this. So they repeated this in the
• 19:34
  summer of 1982 as part of the Doctor Who and the Monster
• 19:38
  season. So they cut it into 250 minute
• 19:41
  episodes, which is travesty. It it was an appalling set of
• 19:46
  cuts. It was not not well done.
• 19:48
  But I loved it. I absolutely loved it.
• 19:53
  And you weren't frightened watching it?
• 19:55
  No, no, not that I remember, but maybe it was because it was it.
• 20:02
  I do remember it being a fairly weird experience because I'd
• 20:07
  listened to the cassette, which I've got for my 6th birthday the
• 20:10
  summer before, and that was the day that I bought my first
• 20:14
  Target books as well. So it's sort of really edged in
• 20:16
  my memory. And I bought the cassette.
• 20:18
  So I think I'd imagined what the story looked like in my head and
• 20:23
  then watched it, and I can remember it being a bit odd
• 20:29
  actually seeing this. I think there's probably lots of
• 20:34
  fans who were like that, who first came to it from the audio
• 20:36
  version and then had to imagine what it looked like from that.
• 20:41
  I'm wondering if this is one of those few stories that wouldn't
• 20:44
  disappoint when you actually saw it on the screen, just because
• 20:47
  of how well made it is. That's it, I think, you know,
• 20:52
  the plot is fantastic, the script is fantastic, but the
• 20:55
  performances really bring to life we've got.
• 21:00
  Dice liner. General Krueber with his little,
• 21:04
  you know, here and he's, he's doing a really.
• 21:07
  Good. Performance as the fanatical
• 21:13
  military leaders and he's like he's got that sort of we'll.
• 21:17
  Bite the thighs from the place in this planet.
• 21:19
  You know, what sort of thing about that is, like, He's
• 21:21
  supposed to be a young, inexperienced, racist general.
• 21:26
  Yeah. And like, you could probably
• 21:28
  point that line and go, oh, that's like what?
• 21:30
  That's such over the top delivery.
• 21:32
  But actually, he's like a petulant kid who's been put in
• 21:35
  charge of the Army, you know? And that really works.
• 21:38
  You can, you could say, oh, it's over the top accident, or you
• 21:40
  could say it's world building. It's you know, it puts you, lets
• 21:45
  you know what the mindset of the coal EDD military leaders is.
• 21:48
  So he's the general. It's the same ranting that a
• 21:52
  Dalek would do. Yeah, yeah.
• 21:54
  And they'd play that trick several times because Davros
• 21:57
  gets a lot of moments doesn't where he rants like a Dalek and
• 22:00
  it's really clever. Yeah, of course, Mutos, the
• 22:05
  disgust in his voice, talking about Mutos about like other.
• 22:09
  It is. It's just, it's building that,
• 22:12
  that parallel between these people and you know what they're
• 22:15
  going to end up as, isn't it? But you know what?
• 22:17
  I've got a question for a pair of you.
• 22:19
  Again, it's going back to how adult this is because it's
• 22:22
  something that's just occurred to me.
• 22:24
  Do you think perhaps some stories like this become more
• 22:29
  disturbing as an adult when you realize what it's parallel and
• 22:35
  what you know? This is about the Second World
• 22:38
  War, isn't it? The atrocities and the mind for.
• 22:40
  And yet as a child, you're not really aware of all of that.
• 22:43
  You're just seeing an exciting story, but as an adult, you can
• 22:46
  kind of take in all the source material and.
• 22:49
  And it seems a bit more nightmarish for it, yeah.
• 22:53
  The layers of this is is fantastic.
• 22:57
  And This is why people always say, oh, well, Robert Holmes
• 23:01
  must have had a hand in this because Terry Nation doesn't
• 23:04
  write like this. But actually, Terry Nation does
• 23:07
  write like this when he's allowed to, when he's passionate
• 23:11
  about the stories that he wants to tell.
• 23:14
  So when it's not just a normal Dalek story, something has
• 23:18
  triggered his imagination. So at the same oh, this is a
• 23:21
  great bit of music, but it's not the best one.
• 23:24
  Are you? Kidding Nation wrote the first
• 23:26
  episodes of Survivors and Blake 7:00 but they are which is fuck
• 23:30
  I'm. Telling you exactly.
• 23:32
  And that's why I think, I'm sure Robert Holmes had had a hand in
• 23:38
  this, because he's a script editor.
• 23:40
  He would have done. But I think this is more Terry
• 23:43
  Nation than Terry Nation is generally given credit for
• 23:46
  because it's the same kind of writing as that first episode of
• 23:51
  Survivors and that first episode of Blake 7.
• 23:54
  And it's the world building that he is good at and the character
• 23:57
  stuff that he is good at when he gets a chance.
• 24:00
  Where you can feel Holmes his influence is how polished the
• 24:03
  dialogue is. Yes.
• 24:05
  Because that's how some. Of this dialogue you would not
• 24:08
  find in your average Terry Nation, no.
• 24:10
  And that's the mark of a good script editor, where he comes
• 24:13
  and just polishes it up at the end.
• 24:15
  Yeah, there's a there's a scene coming up in episode 2 which
• 24:18
  well, point out when we get there, which is pure 100% Bob
• 24:22
  Holmes. But I think, you know, Terry
• 24:26
  Nation is, is certainly much maligned and much unappreciated.
• 24:33
  I feel, you know, we've all played the Terry Nation episode
• 24:37
  one drinking game with, with regards to Doctor Who.
• 24:41
  But is Terry Nation a hack? Let me ask.
• 24:45
  You this, but that's not an insult.
• 24:48
  It's not that's, that's not the interesting question.
• 24:51
  The interesting question is, does it matter?
• 24:53
  No. No.
• 24:55
  And I think only matters that he doesn't deliver the goods.
• 24:58
  Right. We talked about this when we
• 24:59
  were doing the Mac Terry, didn't we?
• 25:00
  That there was absolutely a space for like, subversive
• 25:03
  writing, and there was absolutely a space for like,
• 25:06
  sort of damn dare adventure serial Terry Nation is so good,
• 25:10
  you know? Mario, me and you discussed it
• 25:12
  in Ambassadors when we're talking about Terrence Dicks
• 25:15
  being a hack as well and seeing, you know, you need people who
• 25:19
  can't churn out a good script and can do it very quickly and,
• 25:24
  you know, very efficiently and whatnot.
• 25:25
  And totally. Nation could do that.
• 25:27
  Really. Absolutely.
• 25:29
  Look at Blake seven. You know the first series of
• 25:31
  Blake 7 where he writes every story?
• 25:33
  Well, he he. Struggled, all right, that's not
• 25:36
  he didn't, because when you get to the end of season one of
• 25:38
  Blake seven, he did it. He did it, and there's a lot of
• 25:42
  variety in there. And thankfully, Chris Boucher's
• 25:45
  there to Polish the dialogue up and give it a scrub and make,
• 25:48
  you know, the characters a little bit more interesting, a
• 25:50
  little bit more engage in, which is exactly what Bob Holmes is
• 25:53
  doing here. But the point is, you know,
• 25:56
  Terry Nation can do this, Terry Nation can.
• 25:59
  Terrence Dicks can just sit and knock out the script without any
• 26:02
  cares in the world. But the fantastic thing about
• 26:05
  this story is this is what happens when not so much You
• 26:08
  give Terry Nation the freedom to do something different, but you
• 26:11
  insist on it. When you say to him, that's not
• 26:15
  good enough, Terry, you know, you're, you're just resting on
• 26:18
  your laws a little bit now come back and give me something
• 26:20
  really good. Then he goes.
• 26:21
  Away, and he comes back. Isn't it?
• 26:23
  That's that. Story isn't it where that Barry
• 26:26
  Let's and Terrence Dicks both tell of?
• 26:28
  It's a great story, but Terry, but you sold it to us twice
• 26:31
  before. But you know what, the fusion
• 26:34
  here is really interesting because you've got barriers and
• 26:37
  terrorist Dicks that set this up.
• 26:39
  And I think Barry, let's handed the idea of Genesis of the
• 26:42
  Daleks termination. Go, go, you know, go and write
• 26:44
  that. And I think they had a hand
• 26:47
  initially with the scripts being written, but this absolutely is
• 26:52
  not what would have been put on screen if this was let's and
• 26:55
  Dicks. No horror elements will be
• 26:58
  brought. Right down.
• 27:00
  Yeah, You've got a new script editor and a new producer have
• 27:04
  come in who've been Lombard by the previous production team
• 27:08
  with stories about old monsters that they don't want to do.
• 27:11
  But somehow they get this script, which works in their
• 27:20
  their vision of Doctor Who, and they're able to do bring
• 27:24
  something into it. An injection of grittiness
• 27:28
  almost. I think that absolutely works
• 27:32
  for the story. And that's what Hinchgliffe
• 27:34
  brings to this, isn't it? Yes, like I said to you earlier,
• 27:36
  he said he wants it pace here than.
• 27:39
  Make it and make it real and. Yeah.
• 27:42
  And then you've got obviously Terry Nation's sort of sense,
• 27:45
  sort of fatalism and bleakness and sense of adventure because
• 27:49
  you've got the clams and all that going on in this as well.
• 27:52
  And then you've got Robert Holmes's like Polish with the
• 27:56
  dialogue. So I think what you've got there
• 27:58
  is the best contributors of Doctor Who, including Terry
• 28:01
  Nation, all coming together. And that's why this is as good
• 28:04
  as it is. And.
• 28:05
  Then you've got David Maloney coming in and casting it
• 28:09
  beautifully. Here we've got Peter Miles, who
• 28:14
  in the previous season, as we've discussed, Joe because we've
• 28:17
  discussed most Doctor Who now was Professor Whittaker in
• 28:20
  Invasion of the Dinosaurs, who with the best will in the world,
• 28:23
  was a rather camp and rather feminine character.
• 28:27
  Thankless role, wouldn't it? But here, look at him.
• 28:30
  He's absolutely chilling. Honestly, I wouldn't.
• 28:35
  And this scene, this scene is just horrible.
• 28:38
  Yeah. You must keep the Khalid race
• 28:41
  pure. Imperfects are rejected.
• 28:46
  The scene that we kind of talked over, which has got that bit of
• 28:49
  music, like the night of March in it, you know, again, like
• 28:51
  David Maloney is just framing them in, you know, close up.
• 28:56
  He's been lit from below, which is just given shadow and menace.
• 29:01
  It's not just, it's not just Hinchcliffe and Nation and poems
• 29:05
  coming together on this. It's.
• 29:06
  Everybody, yeah, everyone's putting their A game.
• 29:10
  You know. Costumes designers to the set
• 29:12
  designers. Exactly the costumes designer.
• 29:15
  Elizabeth Maiden. Look at Nader.
• 29:17
  Look at Nader's Iron cross around his neck.
• 29:20
  Yeah, you know. Glasses as well.
• 29:23
  It's all that attention. The salute as well that you got.
• 29:26
  Everything is just, you know, everyone's on the same page here
• 29:30
  and everyone is making the exact same story that they want to
• 29:35
  make, which is, you know, this Nazi parallel between the
• 29:39
  Colleds and the Daleks and, you know, absolutely sullenness that
• 29:43
  these guys are awful. Do you not feel like everyone's
• 29:47
  on the same page? Like for once, it's like they've
• 29:49
  had one of those new series tone meetings and everyone well.
• 29:53
  The thing didn't they used to have those meetings, you know,
• 29:55
  the, you know, the director would get round with the script
• 29:57
  editor and the, the writer and everyone would sit down and,
• 30:01
  and, and have a chat about. I don't think these like tour
• 30:03
  meetings are quite as new as, as we make out.
• 30:07
  Just don't think they call them that.
• 30:08
  And there's probably a lot more beer involved.
• 30:09
  Well, I don't know what happened in Paradise Towers then, because
• 30:12
  I'll tell you, well, that's totally all over the place.
• 30:15
  It's. Probably a case of, you know,
• 30:17
  Cartmel coming in and, you know, being very wet behind the ears
• 30:19
  and very green and, you know, needs to learn to stamp his
• 30:24
  authority a little bit. And what?
• 30:27
  Where is? This is just.
• 30:28
  And here we go. Here we go.
• 30:31
  Here's. The best Doctor Who cliffhanger.
• 30:33
  I mean this is. Look, look at Sarah J's scared
• 30:37
  face, at Davros. I mean look, wow.
• 30:40
  I mean, just the idea. Half man, half Dalek.
• 30:45
  And just how he shot. Look at the lighting in this
• 30:48
  scene. Yeah.
• 30:48
  It's dark. He's coming.
• 30:50
  From the chair. Yeah, only lighting on him is
• 30:53
  coming from the chair and from his his eyepiece in his head.
• 30:57
  Oh my God, there's music here. When his hand I would make a
• 31:02
  stamp. Pan of the Dalek there.
• 31:04
  Wow, now that is a great Dalek reveal.
• 31:11
  Sorry, I'm transfixed. I'm actually.
• 31:13
  I know. Bloody now?
• 31:15
  And and. How he purrs this dialogue the.
• 31:18
  Weaponry is. Perfect.
• 31:21
  Yeah. Oh my God, it's so good.
• 31:23
  It listen goosebumps, doesn't it?
• 31:25
  Yeah. And then you get the call back
• 31:27
  to that in The Stolen Earth and Journey's End, which is just
• 31:33
  beautiful because she was there right at the beginning of all of
• 31:36
  this. And I think everybody involved
• 31:38
  knows how important this story is, the genesis of the Daleks.
• 31:44
  And so there is an effort to make very iconic moments.
• 31:48
  So I don't think Doctor Who always succeeds at that.
• 31:51
  But that cliffhanger is, it's absolutely iconic, isn't it?
• 31:55
  It's. It's what was said.
• 31:57
  It's everything. It's the set, it's the costume,
• 32:00
  it's the direction, it's the script and it's the
• 32:02
  performances. It's the Leighton.
• 32:05
  It's every single element of this sort of working in such
• 32:09
  perfect harmony to give us something that is just.
• 32:13
  We've talked, we've talked about this long enough now, this show,
• 32:16
  to know that all those elements you just listed there, Fraser,
• 32:21
  generally speaking, in the classic series, something goes
• 32:24
  wrong, one thing goes wrong, and every now and again it all just
• 32:30
  sings. None
• 33:07
  hamster with a blump pen knife for doing quicker quicker.
• 33:13
  Welcome back to Hamster with a Blump pen Knife, the Doctor Who
• 33:16
  Commentary podcast. Simon Hart has got a beer in his
• 33:21
  hands. Fraser Gregory has got a
• 33:24
  Guinness in his hands. I've got a cup of coffee in my
• 33:27
  hands and we're more than ready to embark on episode 2 of
• 33:32
  Genesis of the Daleks. However, gentlemen, before we go
• 33:36
  in, I have a question for you both.
• 33:39
  No, not a question of those both.
• 33:42
  Both of you, yes. And it's about David Maloney,
• 33:47
  who as I, I kind of think there's like kind of tears with
• 33:50
  directors. There's there's the A listers,
• 33:54
  there's the B listers, and there's definitely the C
• 33:56
  listers. So as we hit the 80s, although
• 33:59
  we've talked about it a bit, but anyway, I basically want to know
• 34:02
  where you think he falls and do you think this is his best
• 34:08
  directed story? And we're going to start with
• 34:11
  Fraser. Right direction isn't always my
• 34:16
  wheelhouse. It's not something that I
• 34:19
  haven't paid much attention to until I've, like, started
• 34:22
  talking to you guys. And what?
• 34:23
  So remind me what else David Maloney has directed.
• 34:25
  He did The Mind Robber, The Protons, The War Games, Planet
• 34:29
  of the Daleks, Genesis of the Daleks, Planet of Evil, Deadly
• 34:33
  Assassin, and tell us the one trying.
• 34:38
  There's probably four stories in there that are considered
• 34:41
  absolute conquering classics. Yes, Planet of Evil, obviously.
• 34:48
  I mean, he tackled the Walker and the Walker kind of
• 34:51
  disappointment. Yeah.
• 34:53
  I mean, no, those are all that. There's not.
• 34:56
  There's not a duffer in there, is there?
• 34:59
  Not even the Crotons. No other with crotons is.
• 35:01
  Crotons is interesting, like interestingly directed if
• 35:05
  nothing else. It's interesting throughout, to
• 35:08
  be honest. It's the Crotons, obviously.
• 35:09
  The main robot is genius. You can see the DNA between this
• 35:17
  and Deadly Assassin currently with, you know, the gas masks
• 35:21
  and the gravel and the slow motion.
• 35:24
  So you can definitely see this as the same guy that's done, you
• 35:27
  know, Deadly Assassin. So I'll probably see on on the
• 35:31
  basis of, you know, those stories.
• 35:35
  It's probably going to be here, isn't it?
• 35:37
  Yeah, I, I, I think he's an A Lister.
• 35:39
  Absolutely. He, yeah, he's top tier.
• 35:43
  He's there with Douglas Canfield, I think, as the kings
• 35:46
  of classic Doctor Who. I can't think of anyone who
• 35:51
  quite comes close. And David Maloney gets difficult
• 35:55
  productions as well. So you've got things like Deadly
• 35:59
  Assassin where you've got a story where there's no
• 36:03
  companion, so he's taking it on. You've got a very surreal, all
• 36:06
  the location footage in one episode just about stuff.
• 36:13
  He makes that stupid long fight seem tense and I'm not a big fan
• 36:20
  of The Deadly Assassin but it is well directed and then he
• 36:25
  encourages the camp through episode 4 so that's fine.
• 36:28
  Not many people would say that, but I think episode four of The
• 36:31
  Deadly Assassin is one of the funniest.
• 36:33
  Doctor Who would. Wrestle OnStar.
• 36:35
  Oh boy. Oh yeah, kept the same.
• 36:42
  But is amazing honestly. But you watch the Mind Robber
• 36:47
  and the War games and this and although I dread to say it,
• 36:53
  there are moments of Planet of Evil that are really quite well
• 36:56
  directed planet. Of evil is very well directed, I
• 36:59
  think I just. Don't like it?
• 37:01
  Yeah, it was a bit dreary, isn't it?
• 37:04
  But it's very well realized and lit and designed.
• 37:09
  And I think that's what he brings.
• 37:11
  He brings control on the studio floor and he's on top of this.
• 37:15
  I mean, Planet of the Daleks was a huge whooping Gray thing story
• 37:19
  to do. So that's a six part story that
• 37:22
  is mostly in the studio. So you've got about 5 minutes of
• 37:25
  film footage in the middle of the story and that's it.
• 37:30
  So he's got a hell of a lot to do in the studio, but he does it
• 37:34
  like. People criticize Planet of the
• 37:35
  Daleks for what it is, but I think given what he's asked to
• 37:41
  do, which is essentially an action movie in a cramped BBC
• 37:44
  studio, what he pulls off in that is terrific.
• 37:49
  Imagine if it had been Richard Martin.
• 37:51
  I'd rather. That's all I will say.
• 37:54
  It's interesting Planet of the Daleks because you know, that's,
• 37:58
  you know, what Barry Lettington Stick said about termination is
• 38:02
  you've sold us the script already for Planet the Daleks
• 38:04
  and Death of the Daleks, but they're all different stories at
• 38:08
  the heart of it. You know, it's, it's another
• 38:12
  thing about termination is he's, he's not even that predictable.
• 38:18
  You know, all of these Dalek stories do something different.
• 38:21
  I mean, obviously we have the beginnings of the Daleks here.
• 38:25
  If you go from the Daleks itself, the first one into Dalek
• 38:30
  invasion of Earth, you've got again, it's a completely
• 38:33
  different set up. You know, these creatures can
• 38:36
  now mobilize and conquer with our planets now and going into
• 38:40
  the Chase, which is just. Madcap.
• 38:43
  But you know, Yeah. What's?
• 38:45
  Going on with that, a completely master plan.
• 38:48
  You know, which is surprisingly grim.
• 38:50
  Again, McDonald's master plan is.
• 38:53
  Yeah. The Dalek invasion of Earth as
• 38:55
  well is. Yeah, is very grimly and
• 38:57
  definitely the Daleks. Actually first episode is is
• 39:02
  surprisingly dark in places. But again, it's, it's a new
• 39:06
  idea, isn't it? It's take the Daleks firepower.
• 39:09
  We take that run off the Daleks. I don't think they actually do
• 39:12
  anything with it, but it's put the.
• 39:14
  Ideas there, you know, and the ideas there and Planet of the
• 39:16
  Daleks is, you know, well, what if we have invisible Daleks and
• 39:19
  planets full of Daleks and you know.
• 39:21
  After this it was like, well what are you going to do next?
• 39:23
  And he does Android Invasion, which again has a stunning first
• 39:26
  episode. He's great at openings.
• 39:28
  Yeah, he really does know how to set a scene, doesn't he?
• 39:32
  He's just, he's, he's a much better, a much more talented
• 39:37
  rate than I think a lot of fandom given credit for, a lot
• 39:41
  more imaginative and diverse, you know, in terms of his
• 39:45
  storytelling than he actually gets credit for.
• 39:47
  I just think he, I think his biggest weakness, and this is
• 39:50
  what a lot of people can focus on, is I think he gets a bit
• 39:53
  bored before the end of the stories and he just hashes out
• 39:56
  the last episode and. He wants to be on to the next.
• 39:59
  Next thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:01
  But again, if people are letting him do this, then, you know,
• 40:05
  compare this story with Destiny of the Daleks where which is
• 40:08
  just the bare bones of the story that is produced.
• 40:11
  You know, if if you know Douglas Adams, we're going to went back
• 40:14
  to them and said no Terry, give us more try again.
• 40:19
  I. Disagree with you then, because
• 40:21
  I really like the last episode of Destiny and the Daleks.
• 40:23
  I think that's that great action sequence outside the Mavellan
• 40:25
  ship. I think it has the really
• 40:27
  interesting idea of the logical impasse, which they managed to
• 40:30
  project the children in a very smart and but simple way.
• 40:35
  And Tom Baker's completely fucking insane by the end of
• 40:40
  that story. And the scariest thing on the
• 40:42
  screen. But yeah, I get what you're
• 40:45
  saying. He can't run out of statement
• 40:47
  for sure. I think the problem is quite
• 40:50
  often Terry Nation rides on the coattails of his, his own or
• 40:57
  what's the word, his own legend almost that he's been told.
• 41:03
  He's a great writer. So he sort of rides the
• 41:06
  coattails of that and just coasts through things.
• 41:09
  So a lot of his, his work in the 60s for the ITC shows is really
• 41:15
  interesting because there is the story and it's a brilliant story
• 41:19
  and I love it of one night in the States where they show they
• 41:23
  because they've imported all the, all the ITC shows and they
• 41:27
  showed 2 Terry Nation written episodes of different shows that
• 41:33
  were the same story on the same night back-to-back.
• 41:37
  I think it was the St. in the Baron, the Baron.
• 41:40
  And so there is that kind of hackery about him where no one
• 41:45
  will notice if I sell you this story again, because I've I've
• 41:48
  kind of done this and and that was the night he got found out.
• 41:54
  Well, there are ideas that occur like he does like a good play,
• 41:57
  doesn't he? He doesn't he Yeah, and he loves
• 42:00
  a countdown. And we'll get be guessing a
• 42:02
  countdown next episode. This is full of his cliches.
• 42:06
  I just think it's all just. But it's but it's all just with
• 42:09
  that extra bit of gusto. Yeah, and the difference here
• 42:13
  is, is like, you know, Dallas Master Man is the ultimate
• 42:16
  example of Terry Nation getting bored halfway through because he
• 42:19
  chips out come episode 7 and doesn't come back.
• 42:21
  Let's turn his spoon and finish it off.
• 42:23
  I'm off to your state. I love to the states.
• 42:25
  See ya. Whereas I think because this is
• 42:30
  such an important story, this has to end on something pretty
• 42:35
  spectacular. Ah boy, does it.
• 42:38
  We're not there yet. We're doing episode 2 and we
• 42:42
  should. Probably go into.
• 42:43
  It let's do episode. Two then.
• 42:46
  OK, go on now. How many counters?
• 42:48
  In Oh wait, we all set. Yeah.
• 42:52
  Set. OK in 54321 play do.
• 42:59
  You know guys, I'm perfectly convinced that I could just
• 43:02
  literally natter on about Doctor Who Review 2 forever.
• 43:05
  We've never run out of things to.
• 43:07
  Say. What stories to talk about?
• 43:11
  That was 10 minutes long. We hadn't even gone into the
• 43:13
  story. What story we were doing again?
• 43:16
  Oh, something number one doctor story ever.
• 43:18
  I believe it's not anymore, is it?
• 43:20
  It was. The Dominators.
• 43:23
  Shall we? Shut up, Fraser.
• 43:27
  Yeah, you all want to say Genesis.
• 43:28
  The quarks don't deny it. Why don't they reprise the
• 43:31
  cliffhanger? I think they've just got too
• 43:33
  much to do. A what there's They're out of
• 43:36
  time. Yeah, I'm, I'm guessing so.
• 43:39
  There's is this one or the other one that overrun.
• 43:43
  I think it was check episode 3 that overrun.
• 43:45
  The cliffhanger was supposed to be part of episode What happens
• 43:48
  in episode 4, but they didn't want to cut anything.
• 43:51
  Surprisingly often in Doctor Who.
• 43:53
  Yeah. I, I want to briefly, because
• 43:57
  the Daleks are in this, I want to briefly talk about the Daleks
• 44:00
  because phrasing, you know, or you listen to too much who you
• 44:06
  know how Sarah really dislikes the Daleks.
• 44:10
  Well, they did Genesis to the Daleks and she absolutely loved
• 44:13
  them in this. And she said it's because for
• 44:15
  once they felt as if they were being played for real.
• 44:17
  They were being taken seriously and they were like a genuinely
• 44:20
  dynamic threat. What I think is they do in this
• 44:24
  story that it's really different, is he not only shoots
• 44:28
  him, they're lit amazingly well in this and they're often lit in
• 44:32
  shadows with like lights bouncing off the casings.
• 44:36
  They look like they've painted them black so they look like
• 44:39
  tanks. They look like, you know, people
• 44:43
  that have been made into weapons.
• 44:45
  I just think they look incredible.
• 44:46
  I. Think another thing is that we
• 44:50
  don't actually get to see proper fully realized Daleks until the
• 44:56
  very end of the very last episode.
• 44:59
  We get the threat of the Daleks. We get, we know, you know, 50
• 45:06
  years down the line, you know, off or even, you know, 10 years
• 45:09
  as this would be down the line. We know what Daleks are and what
• 45:12
  Daleks can do. We have the Doctor desperately
• 45:15
  trying to explain everyone else around him what the Daleks are
• 45:18
  and what they can do and what they will become, but we don't
• 45:21
  actually ever see that until the end.
• 45:23
  So we just get the threat of the Daleks without, you know, it's
• 45:27
  almost as if we haven't given them the opportunity to be
• 45:29
  rubbish and be defeated. We are just building them up and
• 45:32
  building them up. They're used so sparingly, so
• 45:35
  when you, when they come on the screen, you're yes, it's a
• 45:39
  Dalek. There's a bit of Dalek action,
• 45:41
  there's a bit of Daleks exterminating people, but.
• 45:43
  Even then, I think the imagery is so memorable, so well done.
• 45:47
  Like, you know Daleks can't be shot.
• 45:49
  Your destiny of the Daleks, wobbly on the on the landscape
• 45:51
  and all of this. It could have been agonizing.
• 45:54
  Yeah, we're about to get to that scene where Dapros introduces
• 45:59
  the Dalek for the first time, and that's brilliant because we
• 46:05
  know what the Dalek can do, but it's not doing it.
• 46:07
  But it is shot so brilliantly and it's the moment where the
• 46:11
  gun where it's switched on to Auton to be autonomous and the
• 46:17
  first thing that happens is the gun stick lifts and.
• 46:20
  It goes towards the doctors. Brilliant.
• 46:22
  Yeah, and it's just wow. OK, Yeah, we know what's coming.
• 46:27
  Like, I think in sort of the 80s when they kept bringing back old
• 46:30
  monsters, there was like a tendency to rely on playing on
• 46:35
  the audience's expectations. But this was sort of one of the
• 46:38
  first times this was really done well, wasn't it?
• 46:41
  Of like, we know what the dialects are about, but they
• 46:45
  don't. And throughout this story,
• 46:47
  they're always trying to get them shut down, aren't they?
• 46:49
  Through various means, They're trying.
• 46:50
  And we know that ain't going to happen.
• 46:52
  We know that whatever you do. Yeah, we know the doctor was
• 46:54
  going to lose. Yeah.
• 46:57
  Well, do we know that though? Well, I think that's why the
• 47:00
  sequence where he's got the wires is so good, because it's
• 47:04
  essentially the same sequence that plays out in part in other
• 47:06
  ways, isn't it? It's like, I can end all this,
• 47:10
  but you don't know at that point.
• 47:11
  The plot pivots. You don't know which way that's
• 47:14
  going to go. We know because we are not
• 47:17
  watching this live that the Daleks come back again and again
• 47:21
  and again again, again. But, you know, did would
• 47:23
  audiences at that time have realized that, you know, the
• 47:26
  Daleks were already bumped off once?
• 47:28
  Weren't the end of evil of the Daleks that was.
• 47:31
  Well, it's bumped off at the end of the Daleks.
• 47:33
  Yeah, You know, the Daleks were were done with the 70s and, you
• 47:38
  know, we didn't see them again for good.
• 47:40
  Was it four years after that? You know, so what's to say that,
• 47:45
  you know, if you're watching this in 1970?
• 47:49
  5. That you're not sitting and
• 47:51
  thinking, oh, well, actually, this could, you know, this could
• 47:54
  be it. This could be, you know, the
• 47:56
  Doctor wins at the end and, you know, destroys the Daleks or
• 48:00
  changes them into forces for good or whatever.
• 48:02
  And then we crack on. And when I very, very quickly
• 48:07
  just go back to their realization, again, when I think
• 48:09
  about this story, I think about shots like that bit where we're
• 48:12
  shooting up and you've got the Dalek with the lights and the
• 48:15
  battlefield behind it. Yeah, with the purple and the
• 48:17
  blue. Or the astonishing sequences of
• 48:20
  them coming down the corridors in Episode 6 with Dudley
• 48:24
  Simpson's music game. And again, like, you see the
• 48:29
  shadows thrown across the wall before you see them, you know,
• 48:32
  And there's a real expense to them coming, coming at you.
• 48:35
  And you know they're going to murder all those scientists, you
• 48:37
  know? Can I just say I'm speaking part
• 48:40
  for for Pat Gorman here. Always a joy.
• 48:44
  Love Pat Gorman spotting. Well, you know.
• 48:47
  Because I think we should celebrate the the guest
• 48:49
  performers in this not and not just the ones that are often
• 48:51
  celebrated, but I think Stephen is it Stephen Yardley.
• 48:54
  Yeah, he's really great. He is in what is a very
• 48:58
  thankless role. He's very likeable, isn't he?
• 49:00
  He's very charming. And this guy playing Ronson is
• 49:03
  amazing because he's really over the top, but he's over the top
• 49:08
  in exactly the right way. He gets the best death scene
• 49:12
  ever. Now.
• 49:15
  I don't know if you've ever noticed, but he has a, he has a
• 49:18
  particular vocal tick and he says you see all the time.
• 49:26
  I don't. If you listen to his dialogue,
• 49:28
  particularly in the big scene that he has where he's doing the
• 49:30
  explanation later on in the story, he's always saying you
• 49:34
  see before he says anything. I think Doctor Who's full of
• 49:38
  marvellous theatrical actors like this man.
• 49:43
  This scene between him and Tom Big, Tom Big has just absolutely
• 49:47
  magical. Yeah.
• 49:48
  He's got that twinkle in his eye, hasn't he?
• 49:50
  Because he's talking to to Ronson and just the the script
• 49:55
  in here as well, because you know the bit where where Wilson
• 49:59
  is and the zoom on his face where he realizes that they are
• 50:03
  aliens. Tom Green.
• 50:05
  And but it's it just works because it works throughout.
• 50:08
  Because Davros has said there is no such thing as aliens.
• 50:12
  Davos has said an established fact that in the seven galaxies
• 50:16
  there's no other intelligent life.
• 50:18
  There is no such thing as aliens.
• 50:21
  What happens is Ronson sitting here with an alien in front of
• 50:24
  him, and then Davos wheels in wheels the Daleks.
• 50:28
  In that bit we've talked about, the Dalek no realizes that the
• 50:31
  Doctor and Harry are aliens and goes to destroy them.
• 50:35
  And Davos's world just changes because Davros choose Ronson out
• 50:41
  for stopping them from killing aliens.
• 50:44
  And it's almost as if white aliens are real now.
• 50:47
  It's just that fantastic, that's what but.
• 50:50
  Isn't it right you say it's? The whole thing of dictators
• 50:55
  bending, you know, the reality to build to bending facts to
• 51:00
  their reality, you know, to their worldview.
• 51:02
  See. And well, actually, I've said
• 51:04
  that in the past, but now aliens are real and you are the bad guy
• 51:06
  for not killing the aliens. It's like, hang on, what?
• 51:09
  It's all good. I love the fact that you're, I
• 51:11
  think you're right. His perception does change, but
• 51:13
  he's a scientist as well, and he's hungry for the knowledge of
• 51:18
  what's out there and what happens in the future.
• 51:21
  And those scenes are just electric.
• 51:23
  More than. So this scene also is absolutely
• 51:27
  electric. More than Angus, he's a dictator
• 51:30
  is The thing is because, you know, he yes, he might have that
• 51:34
  scientific curiosity of Oh well, actually, aliens are real.
• 51:36
  I am wrong, but you won't admit he's wrong and he's overriding
• 51:41
  thought is to destroy them, not it's Ronson that wants to, you
• 51:47
  know, experiment on them and investigate them further.
• 51:49
  It's not Davos. Davos wants to destroy first and
• 51:51
  foremost. He is a ruthless dictator before
• 51:55
  a fantastic scientist. Sorry, I'm totally talking on
• 51:58
  the top of you guys there. No, no.
• 51:59
  No, no, no. Specialty, don't worry.
• 52:01
  Interesting stuff, and this is the thing with this story that
• 52:06
  there is so much to talk. About.
• 52:08
  Yeah, I don't, I think like, we'll talk about Michael Wisher
• 52:12
  a lot. I'm sure this didn't have to
• 52:17
  work. This could have been agonisingly
• 52:19
  terrible. I've seen plenty of classic
• 52:21
  Doctor Who where the central villain has just misjudged that,
• 52:25
  you know, the tone of the piece, you know?
• 52:28
  So you and I did Nightmare of Eden, and you got interest in
• 52:30
  that and you know it. It does jar whereas Michael Wish
• 52:34
  is so committed to this. Role well, it's what we said.
• 52:39
  Everyone is so committed. That look from Tom as the gun is
• 52:42
  fitted just tells you everything in a look.
• 52:47
  I would I think this is one of my favorite scenes in in all of
• 52:50
  Doctor Who. I think this is this is
• 52:52
  magnificent. The way his hand sort of shakes
• 52:57
  press the button is so well thought through.
• 52:59
  I would go to say that Michael Wisher gives I want to say the
• 53:05
  performance of the classic series in this.
• 53:10
  It would be easy to argue that, I think.
• 53:12
  Well, we all know that's actually Graham Crowden,
• 53:14
  followed by Oh well, Darrell looked.
• 53:18
  By Arthur Cops do you? Ever.
• 53:21
  Think, what is it He says. Paul, do you ever think that
• 53:24
  style of acting will come back into fashion?
• 53:27
  In my opinion, it never went away.
• 53:31
  He has dove Ross now absolutely losing his shit and kicking off.
• 53:34
  Really. And he's absolutely terrified
• 53:39
  because he's done something that he shouldn't have done.
• 53:41
  And he knows and. What he says you will be
• 53:45
  punished for this. It's absolutely a Dalek voice,
• 53:48
  isn't? It absolutely, yeah.
• 53:50
  And it helps because Wishes played Daleks before this.
• 53:52
  He was a Dalek in Deaf to the Dalek.
• 53:53
  Yeah. But the thing about wish I would
• 53:56
  go back to talking about his hand is the poise.
• 53:59
  You know, he is ramrod straight in that chair and his arm is,
• 54:04
  you know, so when he's moving at a shape, but you've got that
• 54:06
  90°, it's off. He's not resting on anything.
• 54:09
  He's just hauling it out there in front of them.
• 54:11
  I mean, you try doing that, you know, in City Hall it is.
• 54:14
  Literally his, his face and his hands are the only parts of his
• 54:20
  body that you see move. Yeah.
• 54:22
  And as brilliant as Julian Bleach is and Terry Malloy is,
• 54:27
  they're two physical. Yeah.
• 54:30
  They're big. Well, I think Michael Wish is
• 54:32
  doing a lot with his voice, isn't he?
• 54:34
  Yes, like. It's all voice.
• 54:35
  I mean like you said that the face is completely hidden, it
• 54:39
  barely moves the hand. But like, I wonder if we've been
• 54:42
  spoiled by sort of grotesque images in Doctor Who because his
• 54:48
  mask, it is just horrific, isn't it?
• 54:52
  And the fact that he used to be a normal person.
• 54:54
  So what the fuck happened for him to have that Scarface and to
• 54:57
  have that thing in the back of his head which is holding his
• 55:00
  skull together? May I just say Stephen Moffat?
• 55:06
  You can fuck off if you think Davros has got eyes underneath
• 55:10
  nose. Burnt out eyelids?
• 55:13
  Really. And Rusty Davis, you can fuck
• 55:16
  off. If you're going to tell us how
• 55:17
  Davros got, you know we don't want to know.
• 55:20
  It's better in our imaginations. I think Stephen Moffat you can
• 55:24
  fuck. Oh, no phrase has just frozen.
• 55:30
  Oh, it's just frozen. What's happened?
• 55:40
  It's really interesting these scenes because you've got the
• 55:43
  fall captain who we've seen in part one now captured by the
• 55:47
  fall. I'm sorry, the Khalid captain
• 55:49
  captured by the falls and he's still absolutely defiant and
• 55:53
  absolutely on it and he's not going to be defeated and he's
• 55:56
  still giving the the Khalid rhetoric, I think.
• 56:00
  What you also get is is you know this is the thoughts now the
• 56:04
  thoughts have come and captured Sarah in the.
• 56:08
  It's. It feels very much like a
• 56:10
  graveyard, but it's not as it's just like it's.
• 56:12
  Just a a. Yeah, section of Wasteland
• 56:15
  Church for some reason, but you know the Thors have come and
• 56:17
  done exactly what the car had to do.
• 56:19
  Muto all exactly. The same.
• 56:22
  Yeah, these are supposed to be the good guys.
• 56:25
  These are the ones that we should be rooting for.
• 56:27
  And then there are no good guys. That's that's the really
• 56:30
  interesting thing. Even the goodish guys that we
• 56:34
  meet like Garmin and and Ronson, yeah, are not good guys because
• 56:40
  they've been part of this project and they've been pushed
• 56:43
  and pushed and pushed and they've got this far and now
• 56:46
  their consciences are clicking in.
• 56:48
  But they but they have been happy to go along with this and
• 56:53
  be with Davros all the up to this point.
• 56:56
  And the most likeable character is Severin.
• 56:59
  Yeah, he's the only person who we see.
• 57:02
  I'm better yet behave sort of honourably throughout.
• 57:06
  Yeah, he's the one. That's like, why does it all?
• 57:08
  Why do we always have to kill? Why do we have to destroy
• 57:10
  something that's not like us? And he's supposed to be the
• 57:13
  mutated, yeah. I forgot on these scenes with
• 57:16
  the with the rocket and the the gantry.
• 57:19
  My God, this is so well shot in a minute, isn't it?
• 57:22
  Yeah. Well, this the bit I said I was
• 57:25
  going to point out, which was pure 100% Robert Holmes.
• 57:28
  I'll go on. Which would let me just had it
• 57:30
  where your man, the colored man sitting there talking about the
• 57:34
  dystronic explosives and you know, there's no shielding.
• 57:39
  They want to wait. So we are going to be exposed
• 57:41
  and we will die of dystronic toxemia.
• 57:44
  Oh. Yeah.
• 57:48
  You know, I thought when you said that there's clear Robert
• 57:50
  Holmes, I thought you were talking about the lime where he
• 57:52
  says no T Harry, that's pure Robert Holmes as.
• 57:56
  Well, but that that whole scene, it's not just obviously the
• 57:59
  language, you know, the use of the word toxemia, but it's it's
• 58:04
  Bob Holmes doing what he does and just world building by
• 58:07
  giving you, you know, background information and just putting it
• 58:11
  out there as normal, as normal is.
• 58:13
  You know, it's Dystronic, you know, explosives, you know, what
• 58:16
  are those? No one knows, but you don't
• 58:18
  care. It's just a offhand.
• 58:20
  You know the radiation is going to kill you.
• 58:22
  Exactly. You don't need to know what it
• 58:23
  is. You know it's bad, you know it's
• 58:25
  a powerful explosive. You know exposure, it's going to
• 58:27
  kill you. You know that the thaws don't
• 58:29
  care about your dying. It's just with just a few words,
• 58:33
  he builds background and depth in Aslias.
• 58:37
  And that's the genius of the man, isn't it?
• 58:39
  Don't think we should like we have lauded Terry Nation, right?
• 58:42
  I don't think we should under appreciate what Robert Holmes
• 58:47
  has brought to this because all of the dial or pretty much all
• 58:50
  of the dialogue in this is quotable and memorable.
• 58:52
  And that ain't Terry Nation. He writes quite functional
• 58:56
  dialogue. Normally you go and watch.
• 58:58
  Planet Earth and then it doesn't write crazy dialogue.
• 59:01
  No, whereas, you know, there's there's extended dialogue scenes
• 59:04
  later on between Davros and the Doctor where the IT is pin sharp
• 59:09
  that dialogue and that just ain't Terry Nation.
• 59:13
  It's I mean. It was it was a Chris Boucher
• 59:15
  that said, you know, there wasn't a line of Avon that you
• 59:19
  know, he didn't write, you know, and again, it goes back what you
• 59:23
  said and last step, this would say that's the job of a script
• 59:26
  edit. That's what makes a good script
• 59:27
  editor is. Yeah, it's like we've just had a
• 59:30
  little call back in this scene where Harry says where the
• 59:34
  doctor says they're they're like a scientific community and Harry
• 59:38
  says, oh, they're like a sort of think tank.
• 59:40
  So just that little call back to a few weeks back for the
• 59:43
  audience, and that sketches it in and that sketches Harry in.
• 59:48
  There was an exchange earlier. We keep going back to the bits
• 59:51
  that happened earlier because we told, you know, for all these
• 59:54
  bits. But there's an exchange earlier
• 59:55
  where it goes, what I say it's an accepted scientific fact that
• 59:59
  in the seven galaxies, Scaro is the only one to have intelligent
• 1:00:02
  life. And then the Doctor's response
• 1:00:03
  is, well, it's an accepted scientific fact that there are
• 1:00:06
  more than 7 galaxies. And that's Robert Holmes, isn't
• 1:00:09
  it? Like you're Robert Holmes.
• 1:00:13
  It's great. And you know, in episode one, I
• 1:00:14
  forgot to say one a really like smart idea, which I don't think
• 1:00:18
  goes anywhere, but it's a lovely touch is the the mixture of old
• 1:00:23
  and new weapons. That's a really lovely touch.
• 1:00:27
  Let's go rock music. Let's go back to the dialogue
• 1:00:31
  though. You know, you've got Ronson,
• 1:00:33
  they're springing the doctor and Harry from the cell and that is
• 1:00:37
  that functional termination dialogue.
• 1:00:39
  But sorry, who did you see a players Ronson say?
• 1:00:42
  James Garbett, He is delivering it with such intensity and
• 1:00:49
  conviction and desperation almost that it's really just
• 1:00:53
  lifts it again, you know, it's I think the best dialogue in the
• 1:00:58
  world. But if you're not going to have
• 1:00:59
  someone that's going to, you know, deliver it the way it
• 1:01:01
  needs to be. Aside from Michael Wishes
• 1:01:05
  performance, how the actors respond to Davros, it gives him
• 1:01:12
  like a sense of gravitas and like, Ronson's clearly terrified
• 1:01:16
  of him, isn't he? Yeah, that scene, as I pointed
• 1:01:20
  out, where he's defied Davros and he's just standing to
• 1:01:24
  attention, but you can see him sort of shaking and his body
• 1:01:28
  like he's, he's like, yeah, frozen to the spot because he
• 1:01:32
  can't. It's almost like he can't
• 1:01:34
  believe that he's done what he's done.
• 1:01:36
  I think he's convinced he's going to die in that moment.
• 1:01:38
  Yeah, but they save it for later.
• 1:01:42
  Boys at a great moment. Oh, dear.
• 1:01:49
  Now we have barely touched upon Elizabeth Sladen and Ian Marta.
• 1:01:54
  OK, first of all, can I just say that if there's one piece of
• 1:01:58
  Doctor Who clothing I would like to wear, I'd like to have my own
• 1:02:03
  version of. Is it Liz Shaw's hat?
• 1:02:06
  No, I love Sarah Jane's jumper in this story.
• 1:02:09
  I think that is just wonderful. I would love someone to knit me
• 1:02:12
  one of those. Right, anyone out there Lucy?
• 1:02:16
  Lucy McCall, that's good with wall you've.
• 1:02:22
  Got I don't know, I really love. That jumper, I don't know why,
• 1:02:25
  but I really I I think that those mountains on it, it's
• 1:02:29
  gorgeous I. Thought you were going to.
• 1:02:30
  Have the Brigadier where Lucy got your knitting needles out.
• 1:02:34
  So. Anyway, I thought.
• 1:02:35
  We just got straight together, man.
• 1:02:36
  Martyr. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
• 1:02:38
  Well, I think. Because it's a weird.
• 1:02:41
  One for Harry. This because he's with the
• 1:02:42
  Doctor a lot. But he doesn't.
• 1:02:45
  Do a lot, does he? They're, they're paid together
• 1:02:49
  for a lot of this story. I don't think I it's an
• 1:02:54
  interesting one because neither of the companions gets masses to
• 1:03:00
  do, but what they do get to do is really good.
• 1:03:05
  I I think Sarah gets because she's off on her own doing her
• 1:03:08
  own thing and she's going for like, Jesus Christ.
• 1:03:11
  The bit where she's on top of the rocket is unforgettably
• 1:03:15
  adult, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, Sarah gets to be
• 1:03:20
  our second pair of eyes. So, you know, we got the Doctor
• 1:03:24
  and Harry, you know, is one POV set in the card at Dome.
• 1:03:32
  Sarah then becomes our second pair of eyes so we can see
• 1:03:35
  what's going on in, you know, the thought.
• 1:03:38
  So we get sort of severing as Sarah's companion, as it were,
• 1:03:41
  because Sarah does get a lot to do.
• 1:03:43
  You know, Sarah gets to organize the breakout or the temporary
• 1:03:46
  breakout. Yeah.
• 1:03:48
  Climb up. She's about to figure.
• 1:03:49
  Yeah, but as we know, Harry was brought in because they thought
• 1:03:55
  a much older actor was going to be playing the Doctor than Tom
• 1:03:58
  Baker. That's the thought.
• 1:03:59
  We need a young strapping man to come in and do young, strapping
• 1:04:02
  manly things. Stop it.
• 1:04:06
  What they never expected was it was for Tom Baker and he just
• 1:04:09
  completely fall in love with each other and what they do,
• 1:04:13
  they love working together and all three of them, and it just
• 1:04:16
  beams off the screen. It does, but it's it does have
• 1:04:19
  that unfortunate side effect of making Harry a little bit
• 1:04:22
  redundant when he is paired with the doctor.
• 1:04:24
  So you know if. Yeah, but I'm kind of glad he's
• 1:04:27
  paired with the Doctor and it's not Sarah and the Doctor
• 1:04:30
  together. Well, yeah, exactly, because
• 1:04:33
  then you'd have Harry doing all of this, whereas it's much more
• 1:04:35
  effective. It's much more exciting for for
• 1:04:38
  Liz Sladen to get to do this. Because if you, you wouldn't
• 1:04:40
  want the female character be the spare part.
• 1:04:43
  Because no, as we know, you know, Hinchcliffe era is not a
• 1:04:47
  good one if you are a female character, is it?
• 1:04:50
  That, you know, you know how Hinchcliffe said that he wanted
• 1:04:53
  it pacier and he wanted it more exciting?
• 1:04:55
  Yeah. Would you remember that sequence
• 1:04:57
  in Planet of the Diets where they're going up the ventilation
• 1:04:59
  shaft in the hot air balloon? And you know, it's a bit
• 1:05:01
  ponderous and it takes a little while to get going.
• 1:05:04
  Well, when she's going up the gantry in this, it's cut, cut,
• 1:05:08
  cut is on film. It it looks like it's come out
• 1:05:11
  of a feature film. It's terrific and.
• 1:05:13
  You've got the alarm going off in the background, and you've
• 1:05:16
  got the bullets and you've got the sign.
• 1:05:18
  In. Yeah, people screaming as they
• 1:05:21
  fall and the sound of the body's fudding to the floor.
• 1:05:25
  And just the. Camera.
• 1:05:26
  The camera is not stopped. It doesn't stop moving, it keeps
• 1:05:29
  following them up. Yes.
• 1:05:31
  And yeah. So like this you've got
• 1:05:33
  confusing shots where it's you just see her legs moving or
• 1:05:36
  whatever, but it gives it a sense of dynamism.
• 1:05:40
  And fuck, she's probably going up the same bit over and over
• 1:05:42
  again. I'm sure she is, but I just
• 1:05:44
  think it's great. And the cliffhanger.
• 1:05:46
  I remember when I first watched this cliffhanger, I was
• 1:05:48
  desperate to see the next part. That's the alarm.
• 1:05:54
  Let. Me after us in a minute.
• 1:05:56
  Come on, do. You know, I had that LP.
• 1:06:00
  Sorry. And so parts of this story are
• 1:06:03
  so ingrained in my head, you know, Oh, here we go.
• 1:06:08
  Yeah. Let them shooting up.
• 1:06:09
  And you just think, well, how the hell are they going to get
• 1:06:11
  out of this? Yeah.
• 1:06:12
  But they're going. And what's interesting is, is
• 1:06:15
  the suspense doesn't end after the cliffhanger.
• 1:06:19
  No it. Carries.
• 1:06:20
  On It's that Terry Nation thing of like, constantly wanting to
• 1:06:23
  turn the page, you know? And she's terrified and she's
• 1:06:28
  tired and she's suffering from. Oh, this bit, I think it's
• 1:06:35
  horrific where the person helping her up gets shot and
• 1:06:37
  forced to death and. It's the carded man, isn't it?
• 1:06:40
  It's the man from the first episode.
• 1:06:43
  And did you see that? He landed on the floor?
• 1:06:45
  His face was in total shock. It was.
• 1:06:46
  Horrible. Oh, it's horrible.
• 1:06:49
  Come on, you must. Yeah.
• 1:06:51
  I can't move, she does fear. So well, yeah.
• 1:06:56
  She's a bit like Nicola O'Brien. She's too good at it.
• 1:06:58
  It's it's very real Rose. It's one of David Maloney's
• 1:07:02
  freeze frame cliffhangers, so oh.
• 1:07:06
  My God, on Britbox it says. To be fair, they got it right,
• 1:07:13
  right? Yeah, another amazing episode,
• 1:07:19
  isn't it? I mean, I think we're going to
• 1:07:21
  say that every single time, aren't we?
• 1:07:23
  Do you know, there was only one point there where I was like, oh
• 1:07:26
  God, where he went, oh, we're going to go up the ventilation
• 1:07:29
  shaft to get out of here. And I thought, oh, we're back in
• 1:07:32
  Terry Nation territory now. And then we did.
• 1:07:33
  We saw some weird crocodile going across the screen.
• 1:07:35
  We. Did, which is the top of an Ice
• 1:07:37
  Warrior I. Was going to see it like an ice
• 1:07:38
  warrior to me. Yeah, and it was nice.
• 1:07:42
  Is there even a poor cliffhanger in this?
• 1:07:44
  I don't think there is. Is there?
• 1:07:48
  The electrocution one's a bit weird.
• 1:07:51
  Oh, I like that just. Because of his performance, he
• 1:07:53
  looks like his agony well. It is a weird one because like I
• 1:07:57
  said, that wasn't supposed to be the cliffhanger.
• 1:07:59
  The cliffhanger was supposed to be something Davos says, you
• 1:08:03
  know a little bit because the episode overran and they didn't
• 1:08:06
  want to cut anything from this episode from episode 3 and the
• 1:08:10
  end of just chucking a cliffhanger in.
• 1:08:14
  Well, fellas. Probably another Terry Nation
• 1:08:16
  cliches and just took a cliffhanger in anywhere you
• 1:08:18
  want. And yeah, look, it's a floor.
• 1:08:20
  Who's? Shall we see how Sarah Jane
• 1:08:23
  possibly gets out of this one in episode 3?
• 1:08:26
  She's doomed, isn't she? She's falling.
• 1:08:27
  She's dead. I really liked her as well.
• 1:08:31
  Oh well. We've always got Harry.
• 1:09:10
  Hamster with a plump pen knife to do it quicker, quicker,
• 1:09:12
  quicker, quicker. Welcome back to A Hamster with a
• 1:09:18
  Blood Pen Knife, the Doctor Who commentary podcast that is
• 1:09:21
  falling to its certain death. Unless that happens to be a
• 1:09:24
  conveniently placed ledge underneath us.
• 1:09:28
  What are the chances of that? Very unlikely if you ask me.
• 1:09:36
  Good evening everyone. Welcome back to Genesis of the
• 1:09:38
  Daleks. This is part three, joined by
• 1:09:43
  the oh, effervescent Mr. Drew Ford.
• 1:09:46
  Say hello, Joe. Hello, Joe.
• 1:09:49
  And the stately Simon Hot say hi, Sai.
• 1:09:52
  Hi, Sai. Stately.
• 1:09:55
  Have you seen him in bed? Oh, sorry.
• 1:09:59
  People will talk. People already are what you're
• 1:10:02
  talking about. That's the one bit of smut we're
• 1:10:06
  allowed in for an AJ Doctor Who story, so.
• 1:10:11
  Oh, stop it now we go right, gentlemen.
• 1:10:16
  How are we enjoying the story so far?
• 1:10:17
  It's all right. It's all right.
• 1:10:20
  It's. Nothing special, is it?
• 1:10:24
  It's no planet of evil, is it? So is it?
• 1:10:30
  The best starlit. Story.
• 1:10:31
  It's the. Best story, full stop.
• 1:10:34
  Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Oh.
• 1:10:38
  No, I was thinking about this earlier on because there's lots
• 1:10:42
  of really best Dalek stories, aren't there?
• 1:10:44
  So this is the best Dalek story about their creation.
• 1:10:53
  What's your favorite then? My favorite is an always will be
• 1:10:56
  Power of the Daleks. I think that's just an
• 1:10:58
  exceptional script. I'm thinking of Remembrance,
• 1:11:05
  which is just wonderful, isn't it?
• 1:11:08
  But that's the best story that's about the Daleks, so.
• 1:11:15
  No, I can see where you are both coming from.
• 1:11:18
  I think we discussed this a little bit when we did talk
• 1:11:20
  about Remembrance. Joe.
• 1:11:21
  I think, you know, power is a phenomenal good story for
• 1:11:27
  because it has another job to do.
• 1:11:29
  The more important job is rather than tell us about the Daleks is
• 1:11:31
  to introduce us to a new Doctor. And so it's a very clever way of
• 1:11:35
  doing that is to, you know, put your new Doctor up against an
• 1:11:38
  old full of one that you know very well inside and out, and
• 1:11:41
  then subvert that inside out and say, actually, they're not the
• 1:11:45
  all powerful or conquering, you know, tanks that they have been
• 1:11:50
  in the past. They are now on the back foot
• 1:11:54
  and they are being very sneaky and very subversive and very
• 1:11:56
  underhanded about it. So that's really good in that
• 1:11:59
  respect. Remembrance again is just a
• 1:12:03
  fantastic sort of soft reboot of of the show at that point.
• 1:12:09
  It's sword new series, that story in terms of the
• 1:12:13
  storytelling and the direction, the action and the
• 1:12:17
  characterization that goes on in there that it is again, a really
• 1:12:22
  fantastic story. But you know, where Genesis
• 1:12:25
  stands out for me is something that we've already discussed is
• 1:12:28
  the fact that, you know, the not really about the Daleks.
• 1:12:30
  It's a Dalek story, but the Daleks are sort of the the
• 1:12:35
  Phantom menace, as it were. You know, the other the shadowy
• 1:12:39
  figures, the other room and threat that this thing that's
• 1:12:44
  kind of stalking towards us that we know what it's going to be
• 1:12:47
  and that just makes it all the more powerful.
• 1:12:50
  And also the thing that stands this story up is the script in
• 1:12:55
  as well. You know, we haven't come to
• 1:12:57
  those, you know, fantastic moments that everyone remembers
• 1:13:00
  this story for, but they are in there.
• 1:13:02
  You know, the do I have the right?
• 1:13:06
  You know, would you crush the capsule?
• 1:13:09
  All of these, you know, fantastic scenes with that are
• 1:13:12
  still to come. Or what gives it a nudge above
• 1:13:17
  remembrance for me. I applaud you for getting both
• 1:13:20
  Remembrance of the Daleks and The Phantom Menace in the same
• 1:13:23
  sentence. Well done, Fraser.
• 1:13:25
  A first, I believe. Wow, how do we follow that?
• 1:13:31
  We can't. Episode 3 of Genesis the Daleks.
• 1:13:36
  Well. Who's going to count us in?
• 1:13:39
  Oh, go on, I'll do it. OK, OK, in 54321 go now I can
• 1:13:49
  reveal that this episode features my favorite bits of
• 1:13:54
  Dudley Simpson Music City of Death Yes, and I will be be be
• 1:13:59
  pointing that out very shortly. Fuck.
• 1:14:02
  Off. You're not going to tell us.
• 1:14:03
  Now, no, no, no, because we're not there yet.
• 1:14:06
  I'm I'm watching it without the music playing.
• 1:14:09
  Oh well, you'll never can you? Give me like a one minute
• 1:14:11
  warning so I can turn it up. I will.
• 1:14:12
  Thank you. Oh my God, I think.
• 1:14:19
  We haven't discussed yet. What's that?
• 1:14:21
  Which is traditional for us to discuss in in hamster with a
• 1:14:24
  ball and pen knife is the opening credits.
• 1:14:27
  That's. Because we've discussed those
• 1:14:28
  opening credits when we did The Armageddon Factor and The
• 1:14:31
  Invasion of Time. And the Aztecs and Makotera and
• 1:14:36
  the ambassadors of death. And you know, it's old hat now,
• 1:14:40
  Fraser, honestly. Well, there's me stuck in the
• 1:14:44
  past. Can I say something ridiculously
• 1:14:50
  indulgent? Yes.
• 1:14:51
  OK, well I was listening to the pair of you talk just a minute
• 1:14:54
  ago at the beginning of that episode about your favorite
• 1:14:56
  Dalek stories, and I had one overriding fault in my head.
• 1:15:00
  Stop it. No, I really love you guys.
• 1:15:06
  I really loved it. Honestly Jesus, this is my happy
• 1:15:10
  place. Although seeing Sarah Jane
• 1:15:12
  tortured like this is not my happy place.
• 1:15:15
  I'd. Just like to give you a one
• 1:15:17
  minute warning. Oh.
• 1:15:19
  My God, really? Yes, really.
• 1:15:22
  Oh wow. OK, so I'm going to turn it up
• 1:15:23
  just so I can hear. Hang on.
• 1:15:27
  OK. Here we go.
• 1:15:28
  Because it is I, I just love I've, I think it's just a
• 1:15:33
  phenomenal piece of music that is.
• 1:15:35
  It a bit where they. They're finally at the top.
• 1:15:37
  Yeah. Oh, it's so good.
• 1:15:40
  It's Dudley doing everything that Dudley does, but just
• 1:15:43
  brilliantly. Can you talk us through it
• 1:15:45
  please? I can.
• 1:15:49
  So here we go. Here we go guys.
• 1:15:51
  It is coming in now as they climb up.
• 1:15:55
  Here we go. And it's just got that rising
• 1:15:58
  bit. It's really dramatic.
• 1:16:01
  So here we go. I just love this.
• 1:16:04
  Sorry. And what he's doing here, he's
• 1:16:08
  using the heartbeat bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb.
• 1:16:12
  And it's it's really increasing the tension all the time.
• 1:16:17
  And Liz Sladen is acting her socks off.
• 1:16:19
  I think this is one of her best scenes ever.
• 1:16:22
  She is terrified up here and he's his music is showing sort
• 1:16:27
  of the height and the fall as well with the way he plays it.
• 1:16:33
  Owen, is she going to jump? He goes.
• 1:16:36
  Like yeah, as she jumps. Here we go.
• 1:16:49
  And then you get your moment of triumph as she's she's done it,
• 1:16:52
  she's got over, and they're going to get out and the music's
• 1:16:56
  rising and they're going to get out and you can feel it.
• 1:16:59
  And Dudley is dragging you along with this.
• 1:17:04
  And then? Rising.
• 1:17:09
  And it stops. That is just beautiful.
• 1:17:14
  I think that is just incidental music and Doctor Who at its best
• 1:17:18
  because he is adding to the tension of the scene.
• 1:17:22
  But it's also really, it's also really hummable.
• 1:17:26
  As somebody who really understands how to score drama
• 1:17:30
  and and to kind of elevate what's already very well
• 1:17:35
  executed. And this is nasty.
• 1:17:39
  This is General Von Cleveland from a lower low dangling Sarah
• 1:17:43
  Jane off the top of the rocket. It's.
• 1:17:46
  That's. Horrible.
• 1:17:48
  That's what it is. It's all.
• 1:17:50
  It's sadistic, isn't it? Yeah, and a Doctor Who doesn't
• 1:17:53
  do sadism very often. No, but it's her performance.
• 1:17:58
  She it's literally slayed and selling that it's her.
• 1:18:02
  She is terrified and she is tired.
• 1:18:07
  And there is something to the argument that I've heard on FTE
• 1:18:10
  quite a lot that what Sarah Jane goes through in the Hinchcliffe
• 1:18:14
  years, it's. Horrible.
• 1:18:16
  It's appalling, you know, and that's a great example.
• 1:18:21
  Oh, here we go. We're going to see some clams in
• 1:18:23
  a minute. Nip nip now.
• 1:18:26
  Thing I do want to say about that scene, apart from the music
• 1:18:30
  that really sets it out as as the stars, yes, in the
• 1:18:34
  background. At.
• 1:18:35
  The top, it's really dark and you can see stars.
• 1:18:38
  That really is just, again, that little bit of effort to to sell
• 1:18:42
  that this is, you know, the top of a Dome and it's outside.
• 1:18:46
  And also, like, there's a POV shot looking down the ladder, so
• 1:18:51
  it gives it a sense of scale. And I think that's something
• 1:18:53
  this story does really well is give it a sense of scale.
• 1:18:57
  Oh God, here we go. Is this a weakness?
• 1:19:00
  Is Tom Baker having to act like he's beating a polystyrene clam
• 1:19:06
  over the head with a polystyrene rock?
• 1:19:09
  The weakness of this. Story potentially he's selling
• 1:19:14
  this. He is doing good work there to
• 1:19:18
  sell that. He's in pain.
• 1:19:20
  So this is going on the way he yelps.
• 1:19:24
  Oh no, I can see the rocks wobbling.
• 1:19:26
  Oh dear, that's the first production.
• 1:19:27
  Era. Do you know what was really nice
• 1:19:31
  though, is when they first go into this, there's all the
• 1:19:33
  dripping you can hear off, like the sound effects are doing a
• 1:19:35
  bit of the work, aren't they? Yeah, did.
• 1:19:39
  The clans are definitely a Terry Nation edition I think.
• 1:19:43
  It's at the Mark One travel machine, so that's an old joke
• 1:19:50
  that's not mine. Why does it always mean that
• 1:19:53
  puts a foot in it? It's great it.
• 1:19:55
  Does, because that's a nice call back to the arcade space where
• 1:19:59
  he does the same. Yeah, and yet, weirdly enough, I
• 1:20:03
  think there's a naturalism to his performance in this, whereas
• 1:20:06
  in the arcade space he's played up quite a lot.
• 1:20:08
  Isn't he like comedy? He's brought the character down
• 1:20:12
  for this story again because I think because everyone knows it
• 1:20:17
  required, that's the level of acting that is required for this
• 1:20:20
  story did. You see his hands there?
• 1:20:22
  They were absolutely covered in soil.
• 1:20:23
  It was filthy, kind of. It's a nice dirty story, this
• 1:20:29
  isn't it? And I think as well, the
• 1:20:32
  starkness of the quarry and all of that outside really
• 1:20:35
  highlights well with the like the pristine designs down in the
• 1:20:39
  bunker. Yes, because you couldn't get
• 1:20:43
  away with those white clothes if you were on the surface.
• 1:20:48
  Being a lot of. Trouble.
• 1:20:49
  This is what Why? They're the elites.
• 1:20:51
  They're dressed in whites. They're dressed.
• 1:20:54
  What's the? Scar version of Daz.
• 1:21:02
  Daz Ross. Daz Ross.
• 1:21:07
  Of. Course he branded it after his
• 1:21:11
  own name of. Course he did.
• 1:21:15
  But even the scientists have got like those sort of Nazi S
• 1:21:18
  collars, haven't they? Yeah, it's a design whole.
• 1:21:23
  It's you feel it's a culture. Yeah.
• 1:21:28
  And I do like the sort of the clinical, the sterile nature of
• 1:21:31
  their costumes. And the clinical nature of the
• 1:21:34
  design. There's nothing.
• 1:21:36
  There's nothing beautiful in this world.
• 1:21:40
  Everything is stark. There's no artwork.
• 1:21:42
  There's nothing. It's silver, it's grey in the
• 1:21:49
  walls and things as well, which no one ever notices, but it's
• 1:21:52
  just that tiny detail that helps.
• 1:21:55
  You know, I noticed it in episode one of this story.
• 1:21:58
  It's the first time I've ever noticed it and I've seen this
• 1:22:00
  story many times. You know, that's the joy of
• 1:22:04
  watching these over and over though, isn't it?
• 1:22:05
  You do some lots of like this fellas quite good as well.
• 1:22:08
  Isn't he the one with the moustache?
• 1:22:10
  Yeah, their leader, Councillor Moggrin.
• 1:22:18
  Yeah, you're lucky that I had to talk over the incidental music,
• 1:22:21
  otherwise I'd have done with bullets whistling around them.
• 1:22:23
  Sarah and Severine climbed higher and higher.
• 1:22:29
  OK, so let's just recap. So sorry, when did you first
• 1:22:33
  come across this story? I.
• 1:22:35
  Now I have. I suspect I had the Target book
• 1:22:39
  read to me fairly early on, before I heard the cassette.
• 1:22:43
  I knew the story before then because I can remember picking
• 1:22:47
  out the hardback with the Chris Achilleos cover because it was
• 1:22:51
  just brilliant. And because I've seen Destiny.
• 1:22:54
  I wanted another story with Davros.
• 1:22:56
  So it was, yeah, it was one of those stories that was always
• 1:23:00
  there. Then on my 6th birthday in 1981,
• 1:23:03
  the 7th of July 1981, I went and spent my birthday money on
• 1:23:08
  buying the Genesis of the Daleks tape and my first Target books.
• 1:23:13
  So then I saw it in 1982 when it was repeated, and then I saw it
• 1:23:20
  again when Super Channel repeated it in 1989, which was
• 1:23:25
  on our cable TV in Bracknell. And then the week after they'd
• 1:23:30
  shown episode one and two, Bracknell cable decided they
• 1:23:33
  were not going to have Super Channel anymore.
• 1:23:36
  And so I only got episodes one and two on video.
• 1:23:41
  So and then obviously I bought the BBC video when it came out.
• 1:23:46
  And then the D and then the Blu-ray and the virtual reality
• 1:23:50
  helmet when that eventually. Comes out.
• 1:23:52
  Exactly So what about you, Joe? For me, it was the the cut down
• 1:23:58
  the tape. That's the first time I heard
• 1:24:00
  this and and I just sound like the most exciting thing ever
• 1:24:07
  because I used the music. It was actually the soundtrack
• 1:24:09
  of the. Yeah, yeah, it really.
• 1:24:11
  Was I've got certain musical. Steam.
• 1:24:14
  You know, that bit where the camera pans up into the door
• 1:24:18
  when he goes over to the other side and there's that kind of
• 1:24:21
  like, yeah, that music's just jammed.
• 1:24:25
  So. So that was the first one.
• 1:24:26
  I mean, when I first saw it, it felt really long.
• 1:24:30
  Because the tape. It takes an hour but.
• 1:24:34
  I was really struck at how how dramatic it was, and it's just a
• 1:24:38
  story that has gained momentum for me.
• 1:24:41
  Every time I've watched it, I think I've enjoyed it more.
• 1:24:45
  And yet, weirdly enough, like Kate and Rosani, it's a story I
• 1:24:49
  don't go back to very often because I'm usually in the mood
• 1:24:53
  for classic series to cheer me up.
• 1:24:55
  And this is fucking miserable. There's some you know, it's
• 1:24:58
  brutal and fatalistic and everyone dies you.
• 1:25:02
  Know. And, you know, life can be
• 1:25:04
  depressing enough as it is. I don't, I don't want to switch
• 1:25:07
  on the news and then watch Genesis of the Daleks, you know,
• 1:25:10
  fact and fiction. So how about you, Fraser?
• 1:25:13
  So for me this would have been the 1992 repeat on the BBC, you
• 1:25:18
  know, when the BBC were repeating a series story from
• 1:25:21
  every Doctor. And I remember this clearly
• 1:25:25
  because I was recording them off the telly to watch and I think
• 1:25:30
  we were on holiday for part one. So I think I set the timer for
• 1:25:35
  it would have been was it was it the green death that that showed
• 1:25:42
  from the perk we previously? No, it was the sea devils, Sea
• 1:25:45
  Devils and the demon. The sea devils and the demons.
• 1:25:48
  So the demons thought I was the one preceding this?
• 1:25:50
  Yeah. So this.
• 1:25:51
  Was on January 1993. I think I'd set the timer on a
• 1:25:56
  two week holiday before leaving and I could tape that, but I
• 1:25:59
  couldn't set the timer for the next week or whatever reason.
• 1:26:02
  So I actually missed episode one.
• 1:26:05
  So yeah, come in in episode 2, you know, and fell in love with
• 1:26:09
  with the story from that. And it was probably a good seven
• 1:26:13
  years before I found someone who had cable who would let me come
• 1:26:16
  round and watch this 8:30 in the morning episode.
• 1:26:20
  One of the genesis of the dollar.
• 1:26:23
  Was it 1 a week on BBC Two? One a week.
• 1:26:25
  Yeah, so so. Friday night.
• 1:26:27
  Watching this with these fabulous cliffhangers and then
• 1:26:30
  having to wait a week to find out what happened.
• 1:26:32
  Next. Absolutely.
• 1:26:33
  How old would you have been then?
• 1:26:34
  I would have been 12. Oh my God, you must have been.
• 1:26:38
  Absolutely perfect age for this one, yeah.
• 1:26:41
  Yeah, I mean, because, I mean, you know, again, talking about,
• 1:26:46
  you know, is this suitable for kids?
• 1:26:47
  It's it's kids are going to love this.
• 1:26:51
  You know, kids are going to love, you know, saying people
• 1:26:55
  getting shot. And because that's what kids
• 1:26:57
  like. Kids like action.
• 1:26:58
  You know, it's it's, you know, when we said it works
• 1:27:02
  differently, Is it when you're an adult?
• 1:27:04
  Because you do pick up on those things.
• 1:27:06
  You know, as a kid, you're just going to go no bodies in it in a
• 1:27:09
  trench. Probably no Boo.
• 1:27:10
  That's cool. Oh, look at them.
• 1:27:11
  They're all getting shot. But whereas when you were
• 1:27:14
  growing up, you think, oh God, yeah.
• 1:27:17
  I wonder if kids would have a patience for the for episode 5,
• 1:27:20
  which is basically an extended dialogue scene.
• 1:27:23
  I think they would because it's Davros and there's something
• 1:27:25
  about Davros that kids love. Well, he's good because.
• 1:27:29
  I did. I absolutely.
• 1:27:32
  He was terrifying. But there was something.
• 1:27:35
  It was fascinating as well. And you love how Charming is
• 1:27:39
  here. It was like an investigation,
• 1:27:41
  yes. Well, of course I.
• 1:27:42
  Turn it. On and when he goes, when he
• 1:27:44
  goes to talk to the files later in this episode and he's doing
• 1:27:49
  the deception and he's absolutely and completely
• 1:27:53
  believable. That's when I re, when I was
• 1:27:56
  watching this, I think that's when I was like, wow, this is
• 1:27:59
  really different. It's and he's talking.
• 1:28:01
  To the other side and he's going to murder his entire people just
• 1:28:05
  to keep these experiments going like that, that that elevates
• 1:28:09
  him, doesn't it? I mean, that's megalomania that
• 1:28:13
  that seriously is. I love that neither is the only
• 1:28:18
  person who can challenge him, but even he knows when to back
• 1:28:23
  off. And the the delivery of the
• 1:28:25
  library goes the whole of the Khalid race.
• 1:28:28
  You would go that far. It's like he's he's thinking, Oh
• 1:28:31
  my God, what's going on? You can see it in his eyes.
• 1:28:35
  He's shocked. He's gone too far.
• 1:28:37
  Then. But then he snaps back to being
• 1:28:41
  neither, and he's there with Davros because he knows that's
• 1:28:44
  his survival. Well, this is it.
• 1:28:46
  Neither doesn't challenge Davros.
• 1:28:48
  Neither is completely on board. Neither is, you know, Davros's
• 1:28:54
  man through and through. You know, there isn't a line
• 1:28:57
  that Davros can cross for neither.
• 1:28:59
  He's just shown that, you know, that was neither's sort of like
• 1:29:04
  had a party gate moment, you know, am I going to, you know,
• 1:29:07
  stand with this man or not? You'd go that far?
• 1:29:09
  Yeah, Yeah. He's telling me that they play
• 1:29:11
  on that later on, don't they? Where there's the sequence where
• 1:29:14
  he pretends to defect and betrayed Avros and you know, the
• 1:29:19
  deliverer of that line. Thank you.
• 1:29:21
  That's what I wanted to know. So and clip.
• 1:29:25
  What? About that shot of and this
• 1:29:27
  didn't need to I don't I bet it's not in the script.
• 1:29:30
  So it's a Maloney choice where Davros is murdering everybody in
• 1:29:35
  episode 6 and there's this huge zoom in on Nyda's faces and he's
• 1:29:39
  smiling and. It's the only time he smiles in
• 1:29:42
  the whole story, I think. So.
• 1:29:45
  So what do you think then is the relationship between Davros and
• 1:29:48
  Nader? I tried to think.
• 1:29:50
  I reckon they were fucking at some point.
• 1:29:53
  Man and henchman, that's it. I think, I think Joe could be.
• 1:29:59
  I think. I think maybe, maybe.
• 1:30:01
  Something more. I wonder if Dave Ross was once a
• 1:30:03
  very beautiful man. You know, before whatever
• 1:30:06
  happened. Well, it was Rory Jennings,
• 1:30:08
  wasn't he off of the Idiot's Lantern?
• 1:30:11
  Oh. He's very pretty, isn't he?
• 1:30:12
  Yeah. What's Dave Ross doing here in
• 1:30:15
  the Varsity? But he's so convincing in this
• 1:30:23
  scene, isn't it? Yeah.
• 1:30:24
  You know, I'm no longer convinced by words such as
• 1:30:26
  patriotism and nationalism. Yeah, it's, it's it's that
• 1:30:31
  sneaky element of the Daleks, isn't it?
• 1:30:34
  But he knows the weakness of the fouls and particularly the foul
• 1:30:38
  leader that will do anything after 1000 years to win the war.
• 1:30:43
  And he's playing on that weakness and he's the vanity of
• 1:30:48
  this man, and he plays on that and he's giving him everything
• 1:30:53
  he wants. I mean, you know what this is,
• 1:30:55
  this is like, this is sort of TV we'd get now.
• 1:30:57
  This is like Game of Thrones where they would, you know, wipe
• 1:31:00
  out whole bunches of people. I mean this.
• 1:31:02
  Is yeah, this is politics. This is serious.
• 1:31:06
  And normally wouldn't it wouldn't it wouldn't normally
• 1:31:10
  kind of take the consequences this far, would it?
• 1:31:13
  Like in the Darling, you know, when we were never going to see,
• 1:31:18
  you know, we see the Daleks stop because they turn the
• 1:31:20
  electricity off, basically. Yeah.
• 1:31:23
  Whereas this just feels like it's got real stakes, you know?
• 1:31:28
  Yes. What if the fouls have turned
• 1:31:29
  around and said no, we don't believe you, What would happen
• 1:31:32
  then? But he knows that they're just,
• 1:31:36
  they're as desperate as the Khalid people to win.
• 1:31:40
  Can I say something that might not put me in a particularly
• 1:31:42
  good light though? Because like, you know, it's
• 1:31:44
  such a sneaky bugger here going off and then, you know, saying
• 1:31:48
  shell, shell the Dome, kill them all.
• 1:31:50
  And then he goes back and he's like, right, send out the Daleks
• 1:31:53
  and kill all of it. And I'm like, that's.
• 1:31:55
  Exactly what he's. So fucking cool, right?
• 1:31:58
  Obviously you've got like coolest Google and of all time.
• 1:32:03
  He's so smooth, isn't he? That a bit later on, right where
• 1:32:06
  he's sitting there in absolute silence, just tapping his finger
• 1:32:10
  on his wheelchair. That's cool.
• 1:32:13
  That's it's, it's just a point, isn't it?
• 1:32:15
  He's just. Knows what's happened and he
• 1:32:17
  just needs that time. You can just hear the rattle of
• 1:32:20
  gunfire, can't you, as they're coming through, you know?
• 1:32:22
  Oh, he's such a good character. Like, can you see why after this
• 1:32:31
  it was like, yeah, we've got to have Davros.
• 1:32:34
  Yeah. Is that a good thing or not?
• 1:32:38
  No, I think, I think he outstays as welcome.
• 1:32:40
  I think they have to find excuses to write him in.
• 1:32:44
  I think probably Revelation of the Daleks is the only time
• 1:32:48
  where he's decently characterized after this.
• 1:32:53
  But I can see why on the back of this, this is such a success,
• 1:32:57
  why they said, yeah, let's let's have him back.
• 1:33:01
  Because again, it's that scene isn't it, of the Doctor and
• 1:33:05
  Davros talking one-on-one that does it that elevates it that
• 1:33:10
  the Doctor is like the Doctor and the Master.
• 1:33:14
  It's it's the equal and opposite and Davros becomes the equal and
• 1:33:20
  opposite. But he's the creator of the
• 1:33:23
  Doctors arch enemies which makes it even worse.
• 1:33:27
  And it is a bit. Of a shame admiration on both
• 1:33:31
  sides that you get, particularly as builds later on.
• 1:33:34
  Like I've said at the end of Destiny and the Dice, I think
• 1:33:36
  Tom Baker's pretty scary, but he's not really taking that
• 1:33:42
  relationship seriously at all. Not like he is here.
• 1:33:46
  But I think in Resurrection, when you get that wonderful
• 1:33:49
  scene where Peter Davidson silently is holding the gun and
• 1:33:52
  like, swallowing deep and like, can I do this?
• 1:33:55
  It's a great scene. Yeah.
• 1:33:57
  And then that's elevated again with Davros's characterization
• 1:34:02
  in Revelation of the Dialects. Of that, that whole sequence
• 1:34:06
  between, let's say, Doctor and Davros, that is one line after
• 1:34:10
  another. Then Big Finish capitalize on
• 1:34:12
  that and do Davros, which is the ultimate Davros story.
• 1:34:17
  And that should be. Fraser and I said in
• 1:34:19
  Remembrance, like Davros comes along at the end and it's a let
• 1:34:23
  unimaginable. But I love that scene.
• 1:34:25
  That's. What that's so, but that's.
• 1:34:29
  I think I am quite capable of handling the technology.
• 1:34:34
  That's the doctor doing the Davos what Davos is doing.
• 1:34:37
  The thoughts. Yeah, he's known.
• 1:34:38
  Exactly. He's.
• 1:34:39
  Giving him what he wants. You know exactly how to I hope
• 1:34:43
  to play on like a fiddle to get what he wants out of it.
• 1:34:46
  So. And I'm gonna.
• 1:34:47
  You know what, I'm gonna praise Julian Bleach a bit because I
• 1:34:50
  think the sequence where the Doctor in Davos talking journeys
• 1:34:54
  end, where he says about how many people have you killed,
• 1:34:56
  that's really powerful. And I know, so we're not a big,
• 1:35:01
  we don't love The Magician's Apprentice and the Witch is
• 1:35:04
  familiar. But I think the games that the
• 1:35:07
  Doctor and Davros play in that second episode.
• 1:35:12
  But it's all an act. Isn't it?
• 1:35:14
  He's an evil bugger. Really.
• 1:35:15
  Yeah. And there's that moment where
• 1:35:18
  you think, oh, maybe, maybe he's on the level here.
• 1:35:22
  And maybe. And then he turns around and you
• 1:35:25
  love it because he's. I think the like the conclusion
• 1:35:32
  there is like even if Davros isn't necessary you can usually
• 1:35:36
  get a decent Doctor Davros scene out of every story.
• 1:35:40
  Exactly and. That's what you want.
• 1:35:44
  Oh, it ended. I had looked at the screen.
• 1:35:47
  For a while, you've got an execution going on.
• 1:35:50
  Oh. Dear, oh, dear, Oh dear.
• 1:35:52
  Oh, no, wait, you know what? This is a good Cliff thing.
• 1:35:54
  I didn't know because. He's.
• 1:35:57
  Trapped now, he can't say Sarah and Harry.
• 1:36:00
  Oh yeah, who have just been shot.
• 1:36:03
  Or shelled. No, no.
• 1:36:04
  Well, first of all, at the moment we don't know that
• 1:36:06
  they're going to well, we don't know that they're going to get
• 1:36:08
  back in time and be shelled or whatever.
• 1:36:10
  We don't know what happens to them.
• 1:36:12
  Lost we've seen is they've crawled underneath the corridor
• 1:36:16
  ducting the floor and then the file soldiers have just fired
• 1:36:20
  into it at point blank range. So they're dead and.
• 1:36:23
  We wait a little bit until the next episode.
• 1:36:25
  Don't, don't. See them for a long time.
• 1:36:28
  Yeah, that's unusual. 10 minutes, I think something like
• 1:36:31
  that, so. We're getting in the next
• 1:36:33
  episodes and the reprise, the doctor wakes up, the countdown,
• 1:36:37
  the rocket launchers, the rooms countdown and he says I sent
• 1:36:41
  Harry and. Sarah.
• 1:36:43
  In there, in there. And that should be a
• 1:36:45
  cliffhanger. That should be.
• 1:36:46
  That was the cliffhanger on the album version, yeah.
• 1:36:51
  Was that supposed to be the cliffhanger here then?
• 1:36:53
  Fraser, I. Think no.
• 1:36:55
  Supposed to be Davros. Davros, Yeah, Proclaiming the
• 1:37:01
  new race that will rise from the ashes.
• 1:37:03
  The Dalek. Oh, that would have been a great
• 1:37:06
  cliffhanger. So there's three good
• 1:37:09
  cliffhangers we don't shouldn't get.
• 1:37:12
  So was there a bit of that and it happened a bit at this period
• 1:37:15
  then of episodes over, under or over running and having?
• 1:37:19
  Switching things around. Shove things about a bit.
• 1:37:22
  Because again, the cliffhanger to episode 5 is made-up on the
• 1:37:26
  spot. Because the episodes are under
• 1:37:30
  running so the it's the bit of false jeopardy with Tom Baker
• 1:37:34
  with the card mutant wasn't supposed to be the cliffhanger.
• 1:37:37
  The cliffhanger was supposed to be have I the right but the
• 1:37:41
  timings were out. How interesting.
• 1:37:45
  My God. I mean, I think that would have
• 1:37:46
  been a great cliffhanger as well.
• 1:37:47
  Yeah, wouldn't it? That would have been one of the
• 1:37:49
  most important cliffhangers in Doctor Who.
• 1:37:52
  Although I certainly think that the mutant one is one of the
• 1:37:54
  more graphic cliffhangers that we have.
• 1:37:56
  Yeah. Top Baker, as we will.
• 1:37:58
  We'll get to plays it incredibly, incredibly real.
• 1:38:03
  Well boys, we've done 3 episodes of Genesis of the Daleks, but
• 1:38:09
  we're not going to do the rest tonight, are we?
• 1:38:11
  No. So let's hope that the entire
• 1:38:16
  the what's occurring on Skyro does not happen on planet Earth
• 1:38:19
  between now and when we reconvene.
• 1:38:22
  Fingers crossed. Hamster with a blunt pen knife
• 1:39:01
  for doing quicker quicker. Quicker today, the hamster pod
• 1:39:08
  is ended, consumed in the fires of war.
• 1:39:13
  But from its ashes will rise a new part, the supreme field, the
• 1:39:18
  ultimate podcast in the universe.
• 1:39:21
  The Scishow. You are insane, Simon.
• 1:39:27
  Oh, sorry, was I? I was supposed to be introducing
• 1:39:30
  a podcast, wasn't I? I'm so sorry.
• 1:39:32
  Welcome back to our Hamster with a Blood Pen Knife, the Doctor
• 1:39:35
  Who Commentary podcast. I mean, you're on so many bloody
• 1:39:40
  podcasts, these things, I'm not surprised you're getting
• 1:39:42
  delusions of grandeur. As if I would.
• 1:39:49
  Come on, this is yours. Well, yes, it is.
• 1:39:52
  So we're here for part four of Genesis of the Daleks.
• 1:39:55
  We've had a little pause in between just a few hours.
• 1:39:59
  A few weeks. Yeah.
• 1:40:02
  So we're also, we're all desperately trying to remember
• 1:40:07
  what we've said before, so if there's any repeats, that's our
• 1:40:10
  fault. I'm so sorry.
• 1:40:12
  I've heard it, so I'll just say no.
• 1:40:13
  You said that already, all right.
• 1:40:15
  We'll just say that's a phraser every time he says something.
• 1:40:21
  Contentious bugger. Every time we're telling, every
• 1:40:25
  time we don't agree with, we'll say that to.
• 1:40:29
  Him. Has anyone mentioned that Davos
• 1:40:30
  is a dictator? Yes.
• 1:40:32
  I don't think so. Oh.
• 1:40:33
  No, it's sure he's not a scientist first.
• 1:40:36
  I don't think he is, but I'll face some way of slaying that
• 1:40:39
  one in Dublin. Stop it so sliding it in
• 1:40:45
  honestly. Sorry, God.
• 1:40:47
  I think when we left the doctor he was being electrocuted.
• 1:40:51
  That's right. We challenged it as well.
• 1:40:52
  We were so busy having a conversation that we missed the
• 1:40:55
  cliffhanger. We were like, oh, it's it's
• 1:40:57
  ended. Yeah.
• 1:40:58
  Well, that's because it's the wrong cliffhanger, isn't it?
• 1:41:01
  We talked about that. We didn't talk about that.
• 1:41:03
  I did. Yeah, well, we named three
• 1:41:09
  potential cliffhangers, Davros ranting about Daleks, the one
• 1:41:14
  that we got, and. I sent Harry and Sarah in there
• 1:41:19
  which was the one from the I always call it the tape version
• 1:41:23
  because that was what I had, but the the underrated audio.
• 1:41:28
  But I think if you're like a smart member of the audience,
• 1:41:31
  you know, the, the, the danger in the cliffhanger isn't the
• 1:41:34
  Doctor being electrocuted, which is well played and well done.
• 1:41:37
  It's the Doctor can't go and save Sarah and Harry, whom I
• 1:41:42
  already didn't shot. Exactly.
• 1:41:44
  He's, yeah, he's been electrocuted.
• 1:41:46
  So he's, he's not going to be in time to say stop the rocket now,
• 1:41:50
  is he? So he's trying to jeopardise it
• 1:41:53
  at the point of the rocket. I think that's what I'm trying
• 1:41:57
  to say, yeah. And yeah.
• 1:42:00
  And then something's happened to him and it's all going to go
• 1:42:03
  wrong on. A complete side note, Tom Baker
• 1:42:05
  does pain exceedingly well, doesn't he?
• 1:42:09
  OK, yes, he plays. He plays big.
• 1:42:11
  Like, do you remember the bit in Pyramids and Mars where he walks
• 1:42:14
  into the tube and the green light hits him and he's writhing
• 1:42:16
  about on the flight? He does all of that.
• 1:42:18
  Really. Really.
• 1:42:19
  Well, and the Scott when he touches the skull in image of
• 1:42:23
  the Fender. This is the point where he's
• 1:42:27
  still playing it for real, you know?
• 1:42:30
  Well, he's only five stories in. Hasn't that a lot?
• 1:42:34
  Hasn't that a lot to to sort of tasting over the edge yet so.
• 1:42:40
  This is the point where he doesn't know if he's going to be
• 1:42:42
  a success. That's right, yes.
• 1:42:45
  This is it isn't. I think we did talk about this,
• 1:42:47
  didn't we? That he's he's, you know,
• 1:42:49
  playing it because he he wants the job.
• 1:42:52
  You know, he's not he hasn't got that sort of like I am the
• 1:42:54
  doctor. I am, you know, the star of the
• 1:42:56
  show You can't do without me sort of vibe going on.
• 1:42:58
  He is, you know, walked off a building site into a television
• 1:43:01
  studio and he has given it everything he can to make a
• 1:43:05
  success and, and keep this keep this as a regular rule, regular
• 1:43:08
  employment because. He can't believe his luck.
• 1:43:10
  I bet at this point he's landed one of the biggest parts in
• 1:43:14
  television. He's basically pretty much an
• 1:43:18
  unknown. I mean, he'd done done a few
• 1:43:20
  films. He'd been Rasputin, which was
• 1:43:22
  his big role. He's just got a Sinbad film
• 1:43:24
  which Barry and Terence went to see at the cinema.
• 1:43:27
  But he's a bit part actor in other things.
• 1:43:30
  He's not ever been a leading man.
• 1:43:32
  And then suddenly he's propelled into this huge Saturday night
• 1:43:38
  role, doesn't quite know what he's let himself in for, but
• 1:43:42
  suddenly realizes he's got the role of his lifetime.
• 1:43:46
  There's a wonderful picture of him, isn't there, with the fag
• 1:43:49
  hanging out of his mouth on the building site with all the other
• 1:43:52
  labourers. And that's basically the life he
• 1:43:54
  was living before he was handing, you know, and it's,
• 1:43:58
  it's a respectable enough job, but it isn't what he wants to be
• 1:44:01
  doing. No, he wants to be Doctor Who.
• 1:44:05
  He is Doctor Who. But he didn't know.
• 1:44:08
  Should we watch him being Doctor Who and.
• 1:44:09
  Fabulous. I suppose we'd better have,
• 1:44:11
  hasn't we? Should we see him doing a really
• 1:44:13
  good demonstration of pain? Let's do it.
• 1:44:16
  Go on there. Go on there.
• 1:44:17
  Right then I'll count us in in 54321 go.
• 1:44:26
  See, I would know nothing about painting.
• 1:44:28
  So I, you know, like, no, I'm not even going to go there.
• 1:44:33
  I can see Fraser already. Give me eyes.
• 1:44:36
  See the Brigadier gifts, I mean. Picture the Brigadier in your
• 1:44:39
  Manger. That'll do it.
• 1:44:41
  Oh. Well, if I get one of those a
• 1:44:43
  day, you know, and I'm winning at life.
• 1:44:47
  OK, I've got a question for both of you, going straight to
• 1:44:49
  Episode 4 of Genesis of the Daleks, because four is,
• 1:44:53
  generally speaking, in the Tom Baker era, where we are chipping
• 1:44:56
  out of the story. It's the climax.
• 1:44:59
  Generally speaking, five times out of six that is the case.
• 1:45:04
  Is this story justifiably 6 parts long?
• 1:45:10
  I don't think there's many that are.
• 1:45:12
  Is this one of them? Yeah, I think so.
• 1:45:15
  I'm although there are many versions of this story and you
• 1:45:23
  can find 2 in the current Blu-ray sets.
• 1:45:25
  You can see the original and our cut down repeat version,
• 1:45:29
  although there's lots you can cut out to sort of get it down
• 1:45:35
  to the bare bones. I mean, the the audio version
• 1:45:37
  got it down to an hour and you didn't miss anything really.
• 1:45:42
  But you miss the detail and those quiet scenes and some of
• 1:45:47
  those sort of subplots that you might not see otherwise.
• 1:45:51
  So you lose what you have to lose something.
• 1:45:57
  So I think this one really justifies a six part length.
• 1:46:01
  But you, Fraser? Yeah, I think in terms of the
• 1:46:06
  story itself, the story is very much done by the end of this
• 1:46:09
  episode, I think, you know, in fact, it's probably done by the
• 1:46:12
  end of the scene. You could, you know, but yeah,
• 1:46:16
  you put them back with you put the Doctor back with Harry and
• 1:46:19
  Sarah and you give them the timing.
• 1:46:21
  The ghosts will enough. You don't really miss anything
• 1:46:24
  else in terms of story from probably the middle of episode 4
• 1:46:29
  to the end. But you have a trade off then.
• 1:46:32
  So if you cut, if you cut this down to four parts, you do not
• 1:46:35
  get probably the the best things about the story, which are
• 1:46:38
  coming up in a sort 5 and episode 6.
• 1:46:43
  So again, it's that trade off. It's what do you lose?
• 1:46:46
  I've said this a few Times Now. If you're going to cut
• 1:46:49
  something, if you're going to say a six part, I was too long,
• 1:46:51
  tell me what you're going to cut.
• 1:46:53
  In this one nothing. I mean, I think what happens in
• 1:46:57
  this story, I said it earlier in this commentary, is the, the
• 1:47:01
  scale of the story starts big and gets smaller, smaller and
• 1:47:04
  smaller. And the sort of the momentum of
• 1:47:07
  the story is it getting more claustrophobic until we're just
• 1:47:11
  in one room with a handful of characters.
• 1:47:14
  And that's the fate of this planet and the garlics, you
• 1:47:18
  know, and that's absolutely. And it, it shouldn't be as
• 1:47:21
  gripping as it is, but it's absolutely gripping come episode
• 1:47:23
  6. But I.
• 1:47:26
  Just this scene, this scene is brilliant.
• 1:47:28
  This is Davros taking control because he's seizing it now and
• 1:47:32
  we get the first great Dalek extermination.
• 1:47:36
  In history, can someone please say this line please the.
• 1:47:39
  Vengeance begin with the death of the arch traitor, the Fast 5.
• 1:47:49
  Exterminate, exterminate. He's death.
• 1:47:54
  I'll tell you what, this is the first that's.
• 1:47:57
  How you do it? Of many very I recognize all the
• 1:48:03
  cast of Resurrection for the Daleks.
• 1:48:05
  Watch this. And that's how you do it.
• 1:48:09
  Look at the other scientists though, they are totally selling
• 1:48:11
  this as well. They are because they're.
• 1:48:13
  Terrified. You know, they've got their arms
• 1:48:15
  in front of their eyes to shield themselves from the darks.
• 1:48:18
  They are selling this. But what I love is just the way
• 1:48:20
  that the scene starts with the door sliding open and the first
• 1:48:23
  thing you see of the Dalek is it's shadow on the wall and.
• 1:48:28
  Then they do that quite a few times as well.
• 1:48:32
  You know the the the oncoming evil.
• 1:48:38
  And then, and this is where Dave Ross moves to dictator.
• 1:48:42
  From. Scientists.
• 1:48:44
  Oh. Detention in the ranks?
• 1:48:47
  I. Think you'll find Simon?
• 1:48:49
  This is where Dave Ross moves from dictator to megalomaniac.
• 1:48:53
  Oh, OK. Yeah.
• 1:48:55
  That's fine, I'll take that. This is where you know, and he's
• 1:48:58
  probably, you know, five steps down that road anyway because
• 1:49:02
  what's he done? He's wiped out his entire race
• 1:49:05
  of people purely because someone was going to tell him to stop an
• 1:49:07
  experiment. I mean.
• 1:49:09
  Like throwing your toys out the pram in it.
• 1:49:11
  Just to be. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:49:14
  And I just want to come back to Tom Baker, though, because look
• 1:49:18
  at them now, just, you know, we've taught them selling pain.
• 1:49:21
  Just look at them selling absolute.
• 1:49:23
  Disconnected his friend's head. Yeah.
• 1:49:26
  You know, and he's just, his face is just so drawn and a
• 1:49:32
  blank and. That's a great line as well.
• 1:49:35
  As he said, 22 dear friends of mine, I sent them into that
• 1:49:38
  Holocaust. That's a marvellous line.
• 1:49:42
  Oh, this character here, Bethan. Yeah.
• 1:49:45
  I mean, it's not the most thankful role I've ever seen in
• 1:49:48
  Doctor Who, but she sells it brilliantly.
• 1:49:50
  She. Does.
• 1:49:52
  So basically her role in this is obviously she's like the head of
• 1:49:55
  the rebellion. And at the end she's the one
• 1:49:57
  person that's constantly going, we're going to blow them up.
• 1:50:00
  We're going to no, no, just wait a minute.
• 1:50:01
  We're going to blow them up. No, just two more minutes.
• 1:50:04
  You know. It keeps like that for quite a
• 1:50:06
  while. She's really good.
• 1:50:09
  Harriet Philbin is really nice in this role.
• 1:50:12
  Have I? Seen her else?
• 1:50:13
  Oh she, she is late seven episode, isn't she?
• 1:50:15
  Is in redemption, Yes, with. Cassia Cassia from keeper track.
• 1:50:19
  And that's it. They play those two robots Well,
• 1:50:22
  they're not robots, are they? But then, well, they're kind of
• 1:50:24
  yeah. They're very robotic.
• 1:50:28
  This is brilliant in the minute as well.
• 1:50:29
  They're all walking the I was about to say the streets, but
• 1:50:32
  it's technically that go. They just.
• 1:50:36
  Walk into a Dalek and you're all.
• 1:50:38
  And a Dalek's come and massacre them all.
• 1:50:40
  Do you know what one thing I noticed just then?
• 1:50:42
  And I think if we take a good look, I said to you before, like
• 1:50:45
  the dialects can be a bit clunky directed.
• 1:50:47
  Actually, they can move a bit clunky as well.
• 1:50:50
  When you watch some of those William Hartnell stories, you
• 1:50:52
  know that the operators, you can see them juggling about a bit.
• 1:50:55
  There's something very smooth about it all in this.
• 1:50:58
  You know, they, they genuinely feel like, you know, machines of
• 1:51:03
  death, gliding. Towards you.
• 1:51:06
  Yeah, it's grumpy. And we've got Garmin now coming
• 1:51:10
  to the fore. Ronson's, you know, met his end.
• 1:51:15
  So we now need another person on the inside there.
• 1:51:20
  Yes, because we've seen it. We've.
• 1:51:21
  We've seen him in episode one but he hasn't done very much,
• 1:51:24
  but he comes to the fore now. Where have I seen him before?
• 1:51:28
  He's in the twin dilemma, Joe. Oh.
• 1:51:31
  It's Professor Sylvest. Isn't he?
• 1:51:35
  Made my bones rot for forgetting that.
• 1:51:38
  Oh. Honestly.
• 1:51:39
  Oh, here they go. Massacre.
• 1:51:45
  Is it the 1st? Time we see.
• 1:51:47
  The no it's. Not the first time we see the
• 1:51:49
  negative effect. It's the first time you see a
• 1:51:50
  ray coming out the Dalek. Yeah, this story is the first
• 1:51:53
  one with a ray. Yeah.
• 1:51:54
  I mean, look at all these bodies litter in the streets.
• 1:51:59
  Honestly. They really genuinely feel very
• 1:52:02
  deadly in this. Yeah, well, you've got to sell
• 1:52:05
  the menace, haven't you? You've got to this is their
• 1:52:08
  their creation story. You've got to show them as a
• 1:52:10
  force and show what they were capable of right from the start.
• 1:52:15
  Yeah, and they've been held back and held back and held back.
• 1:52:18
  You know, it's more than about Dave Ross and the creation.
• 1:52:21
  And now we've seen them. What happens when you let them
• 1:52:24
  loose? But we're not fully let loose.
• 1:52:26
  They are still like controlled. Do we genuinely believe that?
• 1:52:32
  Do we genuinely believe that Sarah and Harry are dead?
• 1:52:35
  Oh no. Well, I don't think so.
• 1:52:37
  But here we are. I mean, we're nearly 10 minutes
• 1:52:38
  into this episode and we haven't seen them, so they're holding
• 1:52:41
  that back. Well, the drama is that he
• 1:52:43
  believes that they're dead, isn't it?
• 1:52:45
  So is he exactly seeing his reaction to it?
• 1:52:49
  The audience have no idea, so unless they've read the Radio
• 1:52:52
  Times this week, I guess what? Do you think of that effect
• 1:52:56
  there of the Dome? I think that's really nicely
• 1:52:59
  done. It's very simple, but it's just
• 1:53:03
  quite effective. It's like a balloon going.
• 1:53:06
  Down. It kind of sells that, that, you
• 1:53:10
  know, the car leads have been wiped out, doesn't it?
• 1:53:13
  Yes. Can I ask you guys a question
• 1:53:16
  about the Daleks? Go.
• 1:53:18
  On then. Well how does this is pre the
• 1:53:22
  Daleks isn't it? Yes.
• 1:53:24
  Like way before what happens there.
• 1:53:27
  But what we see in the Daleks is a petrified jungle, whereas
• 1:53:33
  that's not what we're seeing here.
• 1:53:35
  We're seeing a quarry. And so like, like, obviously,
• 1:53:40
  like the Daleks came first, so they could have segwayed
• 1:53:44
  effortlessly into it. But they don't really do that,
• 1:53:47
  do they? And the back story that we hear
• 1:53:49
  in the Daleks about the dolls and all of that, that's not
• 1:53:53
  really this, is it? No, no.
• 1:53:56
  But you know, the the Daleks or AKA the Daleks, as I believe
• 1:54:00
  it's called now is set, you know, we're in the future from
• 1:54:04
  this story. So this is the beginning.
• 1:54:06
  You know, the thaws that are left at the end of episode 6
• 1:54:10
  like Bettan and Severin and and all the rest of them.
• 1:54:14
  Then, you know, presumably go on to repopulate the planet a
• 1:54:18
  little bit and get those nutty trousers with the cut out bits
• 1:54:21
  in them and whatnot. While the Daleks are buried
• 1:54:24
  underneath their bunk, are developing their city until it
• 1:54:27
  eventually comes together in that story.
• 1:54:30
  Are you? Interesting to me that Dioni is
• 1:54:34
  a prequel. No hang on Ancestor.
• 1:54:36
  No, hang on. Descendant.
• 1:54:39
  Thank you very much. He's a descendant of Betan, and
• 1:54:42
  Ganatus is a descendant of Severing.
• 1:54:45
  Yeah, well, you'd never know. Could bake a bit.
• 1:54:47
  Oh, here they are. Oh, basically feel better when
• 1:54:50
  Sarah and Harry turn up. Marvelous.
• 1:54:53
  Is that that jumper you love, Sai?
• 1:54:55
  I love. That Do we see any more massive
• 1:55:00
  clams in this episode? We do, we do.
• 1:55:04
  Sarah has to be so that she can be put in peril for a bit.
• 1:55:09
  Doesn't she just sort sort of scream and sort of jump back?
• 1:55:12
  Yes. Everyone has to avoid the giant
• 1:55:14
  clams. I have to tell you guys I'm in
• 1:55:16
  fact allergic to crustaceans, so if I saw a giant clam coming for
• 1:55:20
  me. You're being in trouble.
• 1:55:22
  I'll be in a lot of trouble, I'm telling you.
• 1:55:23
  I see. Oh, OK, Hang on a minute.
• 1:55:27
  Who's What's this fella's name? This is Carville.
• 1:55:31
  Carville is now plotting with Noida.
• 1:55:35
  Is that right? Oh, no, we've.
• 1:55:36
  Oh. No, he's plotting with Garmin,
• 1:55:37
  Yes. And we we see, we will see him
• 1:55:39
  again in Doctor Who in Lagopolis.
• 1:55:43
  Oh, must we? Yes, we must.
• 1:55:46
  Police. Yeah, he's the police officer.
• 1:55:49
  Not the one who says. Sir, if you want a formal
• 1:55:52
  arrest. That's the one.
• 1:55:54
  Wow. He's very different in that.
• 1:55:57
  But I do love this. I do love how intimate this is
• 1:56:00
  getting, how this is now all about characterization.
• 1:56:03
  It's all about kind of being trapped in this very
• 1:56:06
  uncomfortable situation in the bus.
• 1:56:08
  And. Because there's no one left
• 1:56:10
  alive. Yeah, no.
• 1:56:13
  And almost too late. They're all developing a bit of
• 1:56:16
  a conscience. I'm wondering if maybe they
• 1:56:19
  might have gone a little, let Davros go a little bit too far
• 1:56:22
  with this, and perhaps they ought to think about doing
• 1:56:26
  something about this now, now that there's only only six men
• 1:56:30
  left in the whole of the card. And one woman.
• 1:56:35
  Oh my word, I don't. Think there's a woman there at
• 1:56:38
  all? Oh, there's one on the surface,
• 1:56:41
  don't worry. She's a thal.
• 1:56:44
  You can't breed the thal. We must keep Do we believe that
• 1:56:54
  neither has defected then? I think I, I always think that's
• 1:56:59
  a really smart bit of playing from Peter Miles because he
• 1:57:03
  turns on the charm and the warmth in those scenes.
• 1:57:06
  He starts smiling, doesn't he? Yeah, and we never see him
• 1:57:09
  smile. See, my question was going to be
• 1:57:13
  is Garmin the most gullible character in the entire history
• 1:57:17
  of Doctor Who? Pretty much yes, because he gets
• 1:57:20
  taken in every time he believes he believes Neider, he believes
• 1:57:24
  Davros when he puts his ultimatum to him, and he still
• 1:57:28
  ends up exterminated by the end of it.
• 1:57:30
  I do love that though, the sort of the hubris of him thinking
• 1:57:33
  he's taken down Davros because he's got more scientists on his
• 1:57:37
  side and living in the darkness coming and just killed a lot of
• 1:57:40
  them. It's.
• 1:57:42
  It's it's it's not so much hubris, it's more naivety of
• 1:57:44
  thinking, well, I've beaten Davros when you know the
• 1:57:48
  Foster's was went to such extremes to.
• 1:57:51
  Yeah. So you just go, all right.
• 1:57:53
  To maintain, yeah, to maintain power.
• 1:57:57
  And it's a bit like, again, neither.
• 1:57:59
  I just the more I watch this, the more fascinating than I am
• 1:58:03
  by neither. Why is that?
• 1:58:05
  Is it his? Wig.
• 1:58:06
  No, it's just what? What?
• 1:58:08
  What does neither get out of this?
• 1:58:10
  You know, Neither is. Oh, he's scared.
• 1:58:12
  I think he's scared. No, but neither is Davos is, you
• 1:58:19
  know, second, second hand man. We second man.
• 1:58:22
  What am I trying to say? Neither is Davros's.
• 1:58:26
  Right hand man. Right hand man.
• 1:58:27
  That's it. That's the word I'm looking for.
• 1:58:29
  Literally because Davros. He's.
• 1:58:32
  Left hand man, then. But you know, neither does
• 1:58:35
  everything for Davos that Davos can't do.
• 1:58:37
  Neither is Davos is confident neither.
• 1:58:40
  We'll have that scene, you know, before where I said that.
• 1:58:45
  Let us ask, what is the relationship between Davos and
• 1:58:47
  neither? But what does you know?
• 1:58:51
  We know what Davos is getting out of this.
• 1:58:52
  Davos is, you know, putting himself into these creatures.
• 1:58:56
  He is seeing himself perpetuated in the Daleks and, you know,
• 1:59:01
  conquering the universe and and all this.
• 1:59:02
  But what's night are getting out of it well.
• 1:59:04
  We never really discover his motivation, do we?
• 1:59:06
  But I think that scene where they're all killed and he's got
• 1:59:11
  like a psychotic gleam in his eyes, it's not fear, it's
• 1:59:15
  enjoyment. So I think maybe he's just an
• 1:59:18
  incredible fucking sadist. Possibility I I I.
• 1:59:24
  If he was kind of going around killing, you know, like
• 1:59:26
  torturing people all the time, then yeah, fair enough.
• 1:59:28
  But what were you seeing? Sorry.
• 1:59:31
  I wonder, and this might be me reading too much into this that
• 1:59:34
  isn't actually there, but I wonder if they're going for
• 1:59:41
  Dapros being the Doctor's evil counterpart and equal, then
• 1:59:46
  maybe neither is. Is Dapros his best friend?
• 1:59:50
  Maybe he's his best friend from before his accident and he's
• 1:59:54
  just sort of stuck around with his friends and he will do.
• 1:59:57
  Anything like Millerton and Judson in Curse of Henry?
• 2:00:00
  Yeah, maybe. And and maybe like the Doctor
• 2:00:04
  and Sarah, who would Sarah would do anything for the Doctor, and
• 2:00:07
  neither would do anything for Dapros.
• 2:00:09
  I'm just thinking this on the hoof here, you know?
• 2:00:11
  What? What's interesting there though,
• 2:00:13
  is like my reading is that he's scared.
• 2:00:15
  You're reading, Fraser, that he's his right hand man, so
• 2:00:18
  you're reading that he's his. Friendship.
• 2:00:20
  It could be any one of those three.
• 2:00:22
  It's. Because it's not interesting.
• 2:00:24
  No, it's, I mean that that's what is so fascinating about it.
• 2:00:27
  It's because it's like, you know, I just, I just can't get
• 2:00:30
  my, I can't get a handle on them.
• 2:00:32
  But that's. Interesting, isn't it?
• 2:00:33
  Like there's not quite enough information there.
• 2:00:36
  Yeah, but it's. Slippery like that?
• 2:00:38
  It's but it's. It's not that there's not enough
• 2:00:40
  information in a like A1 dimensional way, if that makes
• 2:00:43
  sense. It's not as if he's like just
• 2:00:44
  written to the point where he's like, well, I just don't
• 2:00:46
  understand this motivation. He's written so well and so deep
• 2:00:50
  that there is, there is something there, there must.
• 2:00:52
  Be an ambiguity. There must be.
• 2:00:55
  Some reason why you know neither would be willing to sit by and
• 2:00:59
  watch the whole of the card race get wiped out for Davos.
• 2:01:02
  Why? Well, maybe it's like Nadine
• 2:01:04
  Doris and Boris Johnson. The quick essence of evil.
• 2:01:13
  Oh God, which one? 'S where she just looks at him.
• 2:01:16
  I just love you. But.
• 2:01:18
  There's clearly a relationship here.
• 2:01:20
  And in like quieter moments, there's a wonderful moment later
• 2:01:23
  where Nyla comes in and he's really panicked and Davros just
• 2:01:26
  goes calm yourself, Nader, you know?
• 2:01:29
  And so I don't know, they're clearly, clearly there is more
• 2:01:32
  to them than just henchman and dictator.
• 2:01:37
  I've just talked all over this scene with with neither and
• 2:01:40
  Garmin like we do he's so it's just the way he he changes his
• 2:01:47
  voice from the the warm, friendly, ingratiated voice to
• 2:01:52
  the really clipped neither tones at the end and.
• 2:01:56
  You see that line there? That line is chilling.
• 2:01:59
  A little bit of brain surgery to get rid of these stupid emotions
• 2:02:03
  that we can still use. Which is what he's doing with
• 2:02:07
  the Daleks, isn't it? Yeah.
• 2:02:10
  And who are? Our enemies.
• 2:02:14
  Honestly, you make a fantastic dictator.
• 2:02:20
  That's a new position. Ian Levine.
• 2:02:21
  You know, you could be the new Ian Levine of Doctor Who fan.
• 2:02:28
  Excuse me, Have you noticed how dark these things are?
• 2:02:33
  I think they don't turn. The lights down, haven't they?
• 2:02:35
  That's got a point. When they turn the lights down,
• 2:02:37
  they show us automatically more atmospheric.
• 2:02:40
  Oh look, we're in a bloody ventilation shaft.
• 2:02:44
  Terry Nation's back. Oh, we missed the big the big
• 2:02:49
  Terry Nation Big red button. We haven't had the big red
• 2:02:52
  button yet. No, we had the big red thong
• 2:02:54
  button. Oh, we did, yes.
• 2:02:56
  We'll countdown so I can press the button and launch the
• 2:02:58
  rocket, which has also got a nice handy destruct button next
• 2:03:01
  to it as well. Isn't it called self destruct in
• 2:03:05
  massive? Yeah, Total destruct is the one
• 2:03:08
  that process got. Total destruct is even bigger
• 2:03:12
  than self destruct, you know, and the sad explosion you can
• 2:03:15
  have, that's the same sort of thinking that created, you know,
• 2:03:19
  space medicine and all that nonsense in the system.
• 2:03:21
  Isn't it? You know.
• 2:03:23
  Yeah. People say, oh, Terry Nation
• 2:03:24
  didn't write this. Well, of course he did.
• 2:03:27
  All the clues are there. Watch this bit of direction as
• 2:03:30
  the camera just glides towards Tom Baker as he gives one big
• 2:03:34
  long monologue. Like, man, oh man, he can like,
• 2:03:37
  deliver big scenes in this, can't he?
• 2:03:41
  Yeah, Baker and Maloney are a good mix.
• 2:03:45
  I think this is one of the directors Tom really respects.
• 2:03:52
  I liked, you know, like a lot of people say, and I know you've
• 2:03:56
  argued this against this site that later on Tom Baker's sort
• 2:03:59
  of performing, not acting, but this is some serious acting in
• 2:04:05
  the in the last 10. Episodes.
• 2:04:09
  And it's acting to the point where he stopped the production
• 2:04:14
  and said no, this part of the script is wrong like.
• 2:04:18
  Think about this. Yeah, yeah, as a thinking, a
• 2:04:22
  thinking actor, you know, not somebody who's just responding
• 2:04:25
  to a script. Yes.
• 2:04:27
  And I think this sort of really sets the pattern for what they
• 2:04:32
  do with the rest of the Hinchcliffe years.
• 2:04:34
  And I think they're watching Tom against one big villain who's
• 2:04:40
  well cast and well written and realising what they can suddenly
• 2:04:46
  what they can do. And so you get your Sue tech,
• 2:04:50
  you get your Harrison chaff. Follow that pattern, don't they
• 2:04:52
  again? And this is really where we get
• 2:04:56
  to all the way sort of up to horror Fang Rock.
• 2:05:00
  You've got a central big villain for the Doctor to have a face
• 2:05:04
  off against. And the story always has the
• 2:05:07
  moment of conversation between the Doctor and the villain, sort
• 2:05:12
  of from here on in, really. Although I'd say that continues
• 2:05:16
  incident Williams there maybe not always the villain, but they
• 2:05:18
  they know if you bring in like a really fantastic character actor
• 2:05:21
  to put that, then magic occurs, you know, But like you've got
• 2:05:26
  Peter Jeffrey, you've got yeah. Bruce Purchase.
• 2:05:29
  Scarlioni and. Yeah, exactly.
• 2:05:32
  You know. So just to pick up on that point
• 2:05:35
  then, because obviously, you know, we've got a story which is
• 2:05:38
  got, you know, Bob Holmes all the way through it, double acts.
• 2:05:43
  We've got bodies, we've got grim adult themes, we've got people
• 2:05:47
  getting machine gun down. And we've got a really strong
• 2:05:52
  character who's the main villain, you know, a bit of a
• 2:05:56
  disfigurement going on there. And it does, like you said, cast
• 2:06:00
  a shadow over the next series. It's very influential.
• 2:06:04
  But then at the end of the story, Peter Davidson
• 2:06:06
  regenerates column bake and it doesn't quite work.
• 2:06:13
  What you did there? My question is then, what does
• 2:06:18
  season 13 and 14 get right that season 22 gets wrong?
• 2:06:25
  Oh. And I've watched some some of
• 2:06:27
  time today and there's a fair bit of disfigurement in that,
• 2:06:30
  you know? Yeah.
• 2:06:31
  Yeah, I think what they get right is the Doctor and
• 2:06:37
  companion relationship. Oh, I think that.
• 2:06:41
  Has some warmth, I think. Yeah.
• 2:06:45
  It's not based on arguments, it's based on mutual liking
• 2:06:49
  generally. And Leela is violent, but she,
• 2:06:53
  her and the Doctor are friends. Yeah, I think it's how the
• 2:06:59
  doctor treats the villains as well.
• 2:07:02
  Because he is quite kind of respectful of that.
• 2:07:07
  Like he's certainly not there going, you know, nobody loves
• 2:07:09
  you, you disfigured, horrible, ugly man off you go down a time
• 2:07:14
  port and like, you know, it's it's very offensive and
• 2:07:19
  pantomime me and over the top in time.
• 2:07:21
  Whereas, yeah, the same between the doctor and Davros in this.
• 2:07:25
  There is like a mutual respect there, despite the fact that
• 2:07:27
  they're on opposing sides. Yeah, because the Doctor and
• 2:07:33
  Davros in Revelation is very different to the Doctor and
• 2:07:36
  Davros in this story. Yeah.
• 2:07:40
  Although that is but it is a great confrontation between
• 2:07:43
  Colin and and Malloy, but it's very different to here.
• 2:07:47
  But then the Doctor and Davros in Destiny is very different to
• 2:07:53
  how it is here, as we we said earlier.
• 2:07:57
  Yeah, I think for me, one of the things is, is obviously you
• 2:08:01
  have, which I've spoke to just about loads of Times Now, is the
• 2:08:06
  the relationship between the producer and the script editor
• 2:08:08
  is, you know, they're both on the same page.
• 2:08:12
  Yes. You know, they are working
• 2:08:14
  together making the sure that they want to make.
• 2:08:16
  It's not, you know, one man trying to produce, you know, the
• 2:08:21
  scripts under the man, you know, you know, one's doing like
• 2:08:24
  entertainment, one's doing pretty drama sort of thing.
• 2:08:28
  I think I think the quality of the rating is better as well.
• 2:08:34
  It's certainly more consistent, Yeah.
• 2:08:37
  That's because we've got a strong script editor looking
• 2:08:40
  over it and making it consistent, as Russell and
• 2:08:44
  Stephen and Chris will do later on.
• 2:08:48
  Yeah. I don't know if I absolutely
• 2:08:51
  agree with that point about the writing, because I think there
• 2:08:53
  is some good writing in 22. I think Vengeance and Virus is a
• 2:08:56
  fantastic premise and they do really interesting things with
• 2:08:59
  it. I think Revelation of the
• 2:09:01
  Dialects is very witty and very imaginative and kind of
• 2:09:06
  fabulously ghoulish. And I think The Two Doctors has
• 2:09:09
  a good strong message and really strong dialogue throughout, I
• 2:09:13
  don't think. And I think there's some shit
• 2:09:15
  writing in 12 as well. I think some parts of Revenge of
• 2:09:20
  the Side Men is appalling, you know, on pretty much every
• 2:09:23
  conceivable level. But if we're highlighting like
• 2:09:26
  this story, then yeah, this is streets ahead of anything.
• 2:09:30
  Anything in season 22, Anything in the 80s, probably.
• 2:09:33
  But I mean, you're coming to season 13 and you've got Zygons,
• 2:09:36
  you've got Morbius, you've got Seeds of you go into 14, you've
• 2:09:47
  got Deadly Assassin, you've got Ring Cheyenne, you've got Robots
• 2:09:52
  of Death. You know, these are all bangers.
• 2:09:56
  You know, there isn't that level of excellence in season 22
• 2:10:00
  either. And I think I haven't watched
• 2:10:04
  the interview with Michael Grade yet.
• 2:10:06
  I know you guys have, but what I suspect is there's not the
• 2:10:10
  oversight of the show at that point that the probably was at
• 2:10:16
  this point, I think. There was some complacency on
• 2:10:22
  the part of the production team in Season 22, and I've just read
• 2:10:27
  the JNT Diaries, which was fascinating.
• 2:10:31
  But the amount of time he's spending not producing Doctor
• 2:10:35
  Who and going off, flying off to the States on a Friday afternoon
• 2:10:40
  or a Thursday afternoon, coming back on a Sunday evening, going
• 2:10:44
  straight into work on a Monday, you can't be at your best.
• 2:10:48
  It's a very telling moment in the Frontier in Space commentary
• 2:10:50
  where Clayton Hickman asked Barry Letts and Terrance also
• 2:10:54
  did you ever go down to the studio whilst you know they were
• 2:10:56
  recording and Terrance Sticks goes?
• 2:10:57
  I'm astonished that you are asking me this question.
• 2:11:01
  Like we were there from the beginning of the day to the end
• 2:11:04
  end of the day and if anything went wrong, we were there to
• 2:11:06
  solve it. Well, that wasn't the case with
• 2:11:08
  J&T and no. And you, yeah, you got someone
• 2:11:12
  who's taking your star out of rehearsals to go and do a.
• 2:11:16
  Pass at home, yeah. You've got someone taking your
• 2:11:20
  star out of rehearsals to go to a conventional.
• 2:11:24
  You've got someone taking your star out of everything to go and
• 2:11:30
  do some promotion. Do you know there's a there's a
• 2:11:34
  an extra on the Two Doctors disk where you've got Collie, sorry,
• 2:11:38
  Fraser Hynes and Nicola Bryan filming?
• 2:11:40
  They stopped the filming of the Two Doctors so they can film an
• 2:11:44
  apology to a convention audience as to why they won't be there at
• 2:11:49
  the convention And then the filming starts up again.
• 2:11:51
  I'm like what the? Fuck are you doing?
• 2:11:52
  This for in the middle of a shoe, you know?
• 2:11:55
  What? But ultimately, you know who is
• 2:11:57
  letting until you get away with it.
• 2:12:00
  Well, they weren't exactly and Grace says in that is so
• 2:12:04
  interesting. He says basically you guys go
• 2:12:06
  and watch what was being produced in that period.
• 2:12:09
  He said that just wasn't good. Tilly.
• 2:12:11
  Well, I watched Time Lash no, and that isn't great Telly.
• 2:12:14
  You know he's not wrong, no. And you think JNT came in and
• 2:12:20
  gave the show such a visual boost?
• 2:12:24
  And then because of the problems he'd had with the two directors
• 2:12:29
  who couldn't, who gave the the the series style and made it
• 2:12:36
  different and made it stand out in his first year, they both
• 2:12:39
  either went over budget and time or just couldn't hack the
• 2:12:43
  schedule. So he then plays it safe by
• 2:12:48
  giving directors who he knows will get it in the can.
• 2:12:51
  Because that's the only way you can make TV like this.
• 2:12:56
  And so obviously everything starts to fall down and then he
• 2:12:59
  starts to fall out with the people who do do, who are the
• 2:13:04
  standout ones. Who you're Peter Grim Raid.
• 2:13:06
  Yeah, adversely, Philip Hinchcliffe found directors that
• 2:13:12
  could deliver fantastic results and said, right, we need to.
• 2:13:14
  Try it on. Time, seduce them to come back
• 2:13:17
  as many times as possible. So he got Meloni in four or five
• 2:13:20
  times. He got Douglas Canfield as much
• 2:13:22
  as he could, you know? Exactly, and I but he brings
• 2:13:29
  back Lenny Main, but he does all right, but he gets it in the can
• 2:13:33
  in in time. But then Doctor Who loses all
• 2:13:36
  these star people to Blake 7 because they're so good at
• 2:13:40
  making this kind of TV that Blake 7 gets them.
• 2:13:43
  So you lose David Maloney, you lose Chris Boucher from behind
• 2:13:46
  the from the writing staff or the directors.
• 2:13:50
  And so David Maloney takes Roger Murray Leach with him, who's
• 2:13:54
  done the star star turn on the set design.
• 2:13:58
  And so you're losing all this talent from from the show that
• 2:14:02
  created all this talent. And the irony is, is the
• 2:14:06
  complacency that JNT complaints about in the latter day Williams
• 2:14:09
  era is what eventually hits his own, you know.
• 2:14:13
  I think, you know, the the show's built around, you know,
• 2:14:18
  that sort of conveyor belt of talent, you know, you know,
• 2:14:20
  people come in, you know, learn a trade, you know, shopping the
• 2:14:24
  teeth, maybes on Doctor Who. I mean, look at Michael
• 2:14:27
  Ferguson, who directed, you know, three excellent stories,
• 2:14:34
  plus the war machines and then went off to do EastEnders,
• 2:14:38
  produced EastEnders, The Bill. Yeah, give us the Mitchells and,
• 2:14:42
  you know, who killed Eddie Wile and all that sort of stuff.
• 2:14:45
  You know, and you know, this is what will happen.
• 2:14:47
  You know, people will come in, you know, produce for a couple
• 2:14:50
  of years, move on. You know, that for me has always
• 2:14:53
  been one of the things that, you know, is a bit of a catch 22 for
• 2:14:57
  GNT is that he should have probably left, you know, after a
• 2:15:03
  couple of years for the sake of his own career more than
• 2:15:06
  anything, you know? Gone after 21.
• 2:15:09
  Yeah, yeah, you can. I mean Can you imagine like GNT
• 2:15:13
  doing something like knows house party?
• 2:15:15
  He would have. Been he would have been
• 2:15:18
  absolutely flying with that, but he didn't and he stayed with
• 2:15:20
  Doctor Who. You know, the catch 22 is
• 2:15:22
  obviously but wouldn't have had Colin Baker, one of our
• 2:15:24
  Sylvester McCoy and agriculture and all the wonderful things
• 2:15:27
  that came after that. But you know, for the sake of.
• 2:15:29
  We'd have had something else. Would have had something else
• 2:15:31
  exactly, but for the sake of of GNT, you think that would have
• 2:15:36
  been, you know, ideal saved. Him, yeah.
• 2:15:40
  Potentially, yeah. You read that book and the the
• 2:15:43
  latter half of that book where his career just goes off a
• 2:15:46
  Cliff. It's absolutely heartbreaking.
• 2:15:48
  And he was pitching left, right and centre.
• 2:15:50
  He had so much talent and he was so ahead of his time.
• 2:15:54
  But I think that cancellation of Doctor Who, that just marked his
• 2:15:57
  career at that point, like this ain't good enough.
• 2:16:00
  And so everyone thought he weren't good enough.
• 2:16:01
  So anything he was trying to bring together, they were just
• 2:16:05
  like. No, exactly.
• 2:16:06
  And I think the biggest complacency is coming back for
• 2:16:12
  season 23, which they don't know what they're doing and they
• 2:16:18
  haven't. They've fixed on this, this
• 2:16:22
  theme, but they don't know. They've got longer time than
• 2:16:27
  ever before to plan it, and it still falls apart at the end.
• 2:16:31
  And they're not trying anything new.
• 2:16:34
  They're not pushing any boundaries.
• 2:16:36
  They're pushing the boundaries with one great big model effect
• 2:16:38
  shot to get the season off with a bang, but that's it.
• 2:16:44
  And otherwise, it's business as usual, only it's on videotape
• 2:16:49
  rather than film. Fancy Fraser.
• 2:16:51
  He always asks these questions his way away from the story that
• 2:16:55
  was. Genesis of the Dog Genesis.
• 2:16:57
  Of the dogs then, So we've had the cliffhanger, which is Davros
• 2:16:59
  ranting about the doctor's going to tell him everything about
• 2:17:04
  what's happened in future time. And I do need to point this out
• 2:17:07
  because this is the point where I give my son night pets.
• 2:17:10
  Because it was. I remember you telling us this.
• 2:17:13
  I think he was about 5 or 6, and he'd come in from school one day
• 2:17:19
  and I'd, you know, put Genesis on.
• 2:17:21
  So I was watching this and he'd come in, literally walk through
• 2:17:24
  the door just as Davos starts ranting.
• 2:17:26
  You will tell me. You will tell me you.
• 2:17:29
  And you know what's that? It's Davos had a bit chat about
• 2:17:33
  it and you had a few sleepless nights for the next the next few
• 2:17:37
  nights. And he was asking us loads of
• 2:17:39
  questions about Davos, which was, you know, like what's
• 2:17:42
  happened to Davos's head? Daddy, what's that thing on the
• 2:17:44
  back of Davos's head? Old is Davos what you know, and
• 2:17:47
  it obviously just stopped, you know, a few seconds just really,
• 2:17:51
  you know, blotched into his his subconscious and it had a
• 2:17:54
  massive effect on even now. I was watching magician's
• 2:17:58
  apprentice a few year or two back and he was it's really
• 2:18:04
  good. Magician's apprentice is really
• 2:18:06
  good, which is familiar is not, but magician's he was.
• 2:18:09
  A self flagellating state at the time.
• 2:18:12
  What I've done is I've watched all the season 8 and so on and I
• 2:18:14
  said I should watch series 9. Never listen to people on
• 2:18:18
  Twitter. Look where it gets.
• 2:18:19
  You. I know.
• 2:18:20
  But he loves he was. Googling Davos again and he
• 2:18:24
  loves. I walked in one day and found
• 2:18:27
  him. He'd, you know, got onto the
• 2:18:30
  brick box on our telly in the room and he'd had the rice
• 2:18:33
  pudding speech from remembrance playing.
• 2:18:34
  So he's a big Davos fan as my Luca blessing.
• 2:18:40
  You know, you know what's great about this cliffhanger as well?
• 2:18:42
  It's like a it's a double edged one again, because not only is
• 2:18:45
  it a moment of peril for Sarah and Harry, but it's like the
• 2:18:48
  implications for the future and everything we've already seen if
• 2:18:53
  the doctor spills his guts, and yet we know he's going to spill
• 2:18:56
  his guts because he's not going to let his friends die.
• 2:18:59
  It's really great. It's a really ranting.
• 2:19:01
  Tension up because you've got Davros ranting, you've got Harry
• 2:19:05
  and Sarah. So don't, don't tell him, don't
• 2:19:08
  tell. And I've listened to the tape I.
• 2:19:12
  Have to be more breathy than that.
• 2:19:13
  Yes it does, but it's moving up and there's no music over that
• 2:19:20
  scene. It's just Davros ranting and the
• 2:19:22
  machine, the sound effect of the machine rising.
• 2:19:27
  He is he's. Screaming like a fucking garlic.
• 2:19:29
  Exactly he is. Can I, before we head out,
• 2:19:33
  because we probably should at some point, I just want to say
• 2:19:36
  right, you made a marvellous illusion earlier that Davros and
• 2:19:40
  neither are like Nadine, Doris and.
• 2:19:45
  Boris Johnson. But actually, I think Davros
• 2:19:48
  reminds me of someone else, you know, with his his mad
• 2:19:51
  xenophobic rants. I think Davros is pretty Patel.
• 2:19:56
  Oh God yes, only Davros is nicer.
• 2:20:01
  And prettier. Hamster with a blump pen knife
• 2:20:42
  for doing quicker. Welcome back to our Hamster with
• 2:20:48
  Blump Pen Knife, the Doctor Who Commentaries podcast.
• 2:20:53
  Sigh, I have a question for you. Go on.
• 2:20:58
  If you had created an opinion on your podcast, something witty
• 2:21:02
  and intelligent that convinced on contact, an opinion that
• 2:21:06
  would destroy all other points of views, would you allow it's
• 2:21:11
  use? It is an interesting conjecture.
• 2:21:14
  But would you do it the? Only thing in fandom.
• 2:21:19
  A microscopic a microscopic opinion reigning supreme.
• 2:21:24
  What a fascinating idea. But would you do it?
• 2:21:29
  Yes. Yes.
• 2:21:32
  To hold in my hand a podcast that contains such power to know
• 2:21:38
  that right and wrong opinion on such a scale was my choice.
• 2:21:43
  To know that the tiny pressure of my voice, enough to reach the
• 2:21:48
  microphone would change everything?
• 2:21:52
  Yes, I would do it. That power would set.
• 2:21:57
  Me up above the gods and through this.
• 2:22:00
  Hamster, I shall have that power.
• 2:22:04
  Stop it. Honestly, these librarians, you
• 2:22:08
  let them out the bookcases for 5 minutes.
• 2:22:11
  Never mind. Some corrective surgery on his
• 2:22:13
  brain will remove these impulses.
• 2:22:15
  But still, let us make use of his tales of youth.
• 2:22:19
  Now where were we? No.
• 2:22:21
  Yes, Davos is a dictator first and a scientist 2nd.
• 2:22:26
  Oh no he isn't. I could barely keep that
• 2:22:31
  together. He's a megalomaniac.
• 2:22:33
  Though. So you're acting is amazing.
• 2:22:37
  You think that's acting? Who says he was acting?
• 2:22:41
  You guess what? It's always the ones you least
• 2:22:46
  expect. OK, first I think this is your
• 2:22:49
  intro technically, so off you go.
• 2:22:52
  Welcome back everybody. Thank you for joining us for
• 2:22:55
  episode five of the greatest Doctor Who story ever made,
• 2:22:59
  Genesis of the Dots. After opinions are available.
• 2:23:03
  Do you reckon this is the. Not according to you.
• 2:23:08
  Or you you said this is the best story ever.
• 2:23:13
  He's he's got the capsule. Is this OK in terms of dialogue
• 2:23:18
  and interchanges? Is this the best scripted single
• 2:23:22
  episode of Doctor Who? I think it might be the greatest
• 2:23:30
  conversation between the Doctor and Davros, and it's pretty much
• 2:23:35
  the 1st and. This is the.
• 2:23:39
  This is what the series is always aiming for from this
• 2:23:43
  point onwards, with the Doctor and Davros together, that you
• 2:23:46
  want this, this interchange between two huge intellects.
• 2:23:52
  And I think the story that does it best after this is Davros,
• 2:23:59
  the Big Finish. Adventure which?
• 2:24:01
  Is is magnificent, and when you've got Colin and Terry
• 2:24:06
  Malloy against each other. And it's superbly written.
• 2:24:10
  It's brilliant. So, yeah, and I think that is
• 2:24:14
  the closest doctor, whoever comes to recapturing the magic.
• 2:24:20
  That my other question is how much of that interchange do you
• 2:24:24
  imagine was written by Terry Nation?
• 2:24:29
  I think I think it's very close to Terry Nation.
• 2:24:31
  I think if you. Think.
• 2:24:33
  What? He's Yeah, No, no, no,
• 2:24:35
  absolutely. Because at the same time as this
• 2:24:40
  Terry Nation is just has just written and on TV the first
• 2:24:46
  series of survivors, which is very much concerned with the
• 2:24:51
  same kind of idea of I know it's basically a Terry Nation plague
• 2:24:56
  story. But his writing in in that has
• 2:25:00
  echoes of what he's doing here. And I, I think this is, I think
• 2:25:05
  that exchange between the doctor and Dapros about the virus is,
• 2:25:10
  is puritary nation. I think he is, he is on it.
• 2:25:14
  I think we never give him enough credit for what he's doing.
• 2:25:18
  I, I, I think Robert Holmes probably gave it a pulse over,
• 2:25:21
  but I think the basic concept comes from from, from Terry
• 2:25:26
  Nation. There's not another piece of
• 2:25:28
  Terry Nation script that is as crafted, as intelligent as that
• 2:25:32
  exchange. Not that I can recall, not at
• 2:25:36
  the top of my head. Yeah, I think this is what
• 2:25:38
  happens when you push them, when you say, you know, give it
• 2:25:42
  another go, give it another. Live up to your your legend,
• 2:25:46
  Terry. Come on.
• 2:25:47
  So if this is what he's capable of when he's really trying, has
• 2:25:50
  he just been hacking away for the last?
• 2:25:53
  Good, because because he's a yeah.
• 2:25:55
  He he himself would say he was ATV writing hack and he would
• 2:26:00
  take the easy way out if he could.
• 2:26:02
  He would rewrite the same plot if he could get away with it.
• 2:26:05
  If someone's going to pay him to do the same thing and he's he's,
• 2:26:09
  he's done that without anyone finding out, then he's going to
• 2:26:12
  do that, isn't he? But here he's got two different
• 2:26:16
  production teams pushing him to do something something
• 2:26:20
  different. And I think he's just really
• 2:26:22
  inspired by creating Davros and telling the story of how the
• 2:26:28
  Daleks developed for the first time.
• 2:26:30
  I think this is really sort of made him think and he's come up
• 2:26:34
  with these great concepts. I mean, Terry Nation has come up
• 2:26:37
  with Davros. He's come up with Davros.
• 2:26:42
  I don't think Robert Holmes, his hand is in there in a massive
• 2:26:45
  way. I I don't want to disagree with
• 2:26:47
  you because I want to believe that Terry Nation is capable of
• 2:26:50
  right as I mean this good. I don't know if I'm convinced.
• 2:26:56
  Well, should we go and have a listen to it?
• 2:26:59
  OK, let's do it. And he's going to count us in.
• 2:27:03
  Oh my God. What's Fraser's turn?
• 2:27:05
  So in part 54321 play. About time we had some
• 2:27:13
  disagreement on this thing. We've been agreeing with each
• 2:27:15
  other for the last five fucking episodes.
• 2:27:17
  I know people have come to expect this much, you know, a
• 2:27:20
  bit of contention. Well, perhaps we'll just have to
• 2:27:24
  throw it out to the listeners and ask them what they think.
• 2:27:27
  Is this Robert Holmes or is this Terry Nation?
• 2:27:30
  And how much is coming from where?
• 2:27:34
  Because I, you know, like, oh, mind you, Robert Holmes took a
• 2:27:37
  pass on the Android invasion and that's.
• 2:27:39
  It look at that the. Scenes between the Doctor and
• 2:27:43
  Sticker on are hardly. It's not the same really, is it?
• 2:27:48
  Would you imagine those devices do?
• 2:27:50
  Is it? Is it kind of they?
• 2:27:51
  Created every torment and agony ever known.
• 2:27:54
  Oh my God. So it's like listening to
• 2:27:56
  speeches by Priti Patel. I asked you two.
• 2:28:04
  What would that be? What would be like your worst
• 2:28:06
  torment? Now come on, let's get deep for
• 2:28:09
  a second. OK, being tickled under my
• 2:28:11
  armpits. Oh God.
• 2:28:15
  Absolutely tormented. That's awful.
• 2:28:19
  That's my weak spot for heights. What?
• 2:28:22
  About you, Fraser. Oh, I don't know.
• 2:28:25
  That's a good question, isn't it?
• 2:28:34
  I'm tempted to say something very deliberate about Priti
• 2:28:36
  Patel, but. I think for me it would be, I
• 2:28:42
  don't know, actualizing that inner self sabotaging voice, you
• 2:28:46
  know? Oh God, that would be, that
• 2:28:48
  would be awful. Sorry.
• 2:28:50
  We're getting very deep now. Coming a therapy session.
• 2:28:52
  Yeah, so this bit with the tapes, I remember watching this
• 2:28:55
  and thinking, is this actual stories?
• 2:28:59
  Well, no. Well yes, because it starts off
• 2:29:01
  with almost the Dalek invasion of Earth a bit.
• 2:29:05
  Although the times and everything else.
• 2:29:09
  Well I want to see the story where a piece of raw rockets
• 2:29:11
  comes from the planet hyper raw. I'm surprised.
• 2:29:14
  Big Finish. I made that one.
• 2:29:16
  No. Yeah.
• 2:29:16
  Well, exactly. Well, we've saved three times.
• 2:29:18
  I was. Going to see it.
• 2:29:18
  No one said it three times at the at.
• 2:29:20
  The PFI the other day when those.
• 2:29:24
  Well, but then reveals the. Script third Peter cushion
• 2:29:26
  script and then the very next day Big Finish and brought up
• 2:29:29
  social media going should we make it?
• 2:29:32
  Honestly, they're there and ready to go.
• 2:29:37
  And. This I asked you a question
• 2:29:38
  earlier in the commentary about an extended dialogue scene and
• 2:29:43
  and children having the patience to watch it.
• 2:29:47
  Because this isn't really what we've come to expect from Doctor
• 2:29:50
  Who, is it? No, and it's it's different from
• 2:29:54
  the Pertwee era. Oh, way different, yeah.
• 2:29:59
  So. But they do, and I think.
• 2:30:04
  It's. Because of dafros, I think that
• 2:30:06
  it works. What, because he's so like,
• 2:30:10
  frightening? So nightmare.
• 2:30:11
  Yeah, I think so, and I want to see how the doctor reacts to
• 2:30:14
  him. We're.
• 2:30:17
  Going to know this doctor as well, aren't we?
• 2:30:18
  So. Yeah, exactly so.
• 2:30:21
  And I think this is the story that early on defines him.
• 2:30:28
  I'm trying to think of like scenes elsewhere that would.
• 2:30:32
  Well. It's the indomitable,
• 2:30:34
  indomitable scene, isn't it? That is the the first one that
• 2:30:37
  really cements Tom Baker's doctor.
• 2:30:40
  But he's talking to himself. Yeah, and then and then I'd say
• 2:30:44
  it's this one. And then it's the, you know, the
• 2:30:47
  do I have the right? I think those are the his three
• 2:30:49
  big powerhouse moments. Yeah, from.
• 2:30:51
  This, yeah. But I was trying to think, is
• 2:30:54
  there like a doctor villain confrontation?
• 2:30:57
  That's as, yeah. I'm not sure there has been to
• 2:31:02
  this point in the show. I don't even think like in like
• 2:31:06
  periods and Mars. I know the scenes between the
• 2:31:07
  Doctor and Sutek are very popular but.
• 2:31:12
  Sutek is so much more powerful than the Doctor that they're not
• 2:31:17
  talking as equals. And this is what makes Davros
• 2:31:21
  and and defines the Doctor because it's that moment where
• 2:31:26
  Davros turns the charm on almost and says let us talk not as
• 2:31:30
  prisoner and captor, but of men, of men of science.
• 2:31:34
  And so they're talking like they're on an equal level.
• 2:31:38
  And that defines Davros instantly as the Doctors arch
• 2:31:44
  enemy in the way the Master is. I thought of Davros being
• 2:31:48
  charming, honestly. Yeah, well, it's true, but the
• 2:31:52
  doctor is is there and he's willing to debate with him.
• 2:31:55
  Do. You think it's interesting that
• 2:31:57
  they don't ever really focus on Davros disability?
• 2:32:06
  But I think that's a really good thing.
• 2:32:07
  I think that is that's it. Just is.
• 2:32:11
  I can't think of a of a way in the 70s that that would be done
• 2:32:15
  with any great subtlety. And and even by the time of
• 2:32:21
  Peter Capaldi, it's not done with any great subtlety or any
• 2:32:25
  kind of. That is awful.
• 2:32:27
  You're talking about that thing where he comes in in the
• 2:32:29
  wheelchair. One of the most awful,
• 2:32:31
  misjudged, appalling scenes. And it's done.
• 2:32:35
  It's like a comedy. Scene as well isn't.
• 2:32:37
  It and it's that's yeah, it's not good.
• 2:32:39
  I can't imagine. And to be fair, when he comes
• 2:32:42
  back in Destiny, the Daleks, the Doctor's shoving him around like
• 2:32:45
  he's, you know, pushing around a dodge him in it.
• 2:32:47
  And it's with comedy, music and things like that.
• 2:32:50
  It's it's a bit misjudged there as well.
• 2:32:54
  Whereas I don't know, I just think, yeah, just leaving.
• 2:32:59
  We don't find out why he's in the wheelchair.
• 2:33:02
  No. No.
• 2:33:04
  And it isn't really holding him back because.
• 2:33:08
  That's true. What?
• 2:33:11
  Night I put him in the wheelchair.
• 2:33:14
  Well, that's the Judson and. Millington thing, isn't it?
• 2:33:19
  Yeah, maybe. Maybe that's why he's at his
• 2:33:22
  side. Yeah, maybe he's responsible.
• 2:33:26
  I mean, what the fuck could cause a face like that?
• 2:33:30
  Sorry, I don't mean to be rude. But, but let's see, here we are
• 2:33:37
  in one of the the great Doctor Who sings, aren't we?
• 2:33:40
  It is. And actually it's.
• 2:33:43
  You think the Doctor is managing to persuade Davros in some way?
• 2:33:47
  Do you think there is that the there is the chance that the
• 2:33:51
  Doctor could talk him round? No, I don't think there's any
• 2:33:55
  chance that, you know, Dave Ross can be talked about at any
• 2:33:58
  point. I think he's trying though.
• 2:34:01
  I think he's trying to find a way to to communicate the idea
• 2:34:05
  that the dialects will be this terrible force if you unleash
• 2:34:08
  them. I don't, I don't think he is at
• 2:34:10
  this point. I think he's now at the point of
• 2:34:11
  just trying to, you know, probe a bit about Dave Ross.
• 2:34:18
  You know, he's just he's more curious as to Davos has answered
• 2:34:21
  to this question rather than using this question as a as a
• 2:34:25
  tool to convince Dave Ross not to develop the Daleks.
• 2:34:28
  I think he's just more really. Would you be, you know, how how
• 2:34:33
  are you, Dave Ross? Yeah, That's a scenario for you.
• 2:34:35
  One with us. So the only way he can he can
• 2:34:38
  win is to turn Dave Ross off. And again, because there's no
• 2:34:42
  motive prescribed, we don't we we.
• 2:34:44
  You could read 5 readings into that him asking Davros that
• 2:34:48
  question and what's interesting is we can then debate it for the
• 2:34:51
  next however many years. 4047 years, yeah.
• 2:34:56
  Do you see this bit here, the way he plays it, where the life
• 2:34:59
  support thing gets turned off and he starts sort of drooping
• 2:35:02
  like a flower, right, Isn't it? He well acted and.
• 2:35:06
  Again, we've got another great bit of Dudley Simpson music that
• 2:35:10
  is is working this scene. So the fall.
• 2:35:17
  Like all of this could have been really misjudged.
• 2:35:20
  All of it. This performance, his mask.
• 2:35:23
  They could have got the design wrong.
• 2:35:25
  They could have they could have got Rodney Bennett in with the
• 2:35:33
  best will in the world is not David Maloney, you know, and all
• 2:35:38
  of these things. It's just alchemy sometimes,
• 2:35:42
  that the right people are in the right place or the right story.
• 2:35:46
  But I don't think there's, there's a single actor in this
• 2:35:49
  that isn't convinced that this isn't really happening.
• 2:35:52
  You know, like within their performance, you know.
• 2:35:56
  From the extras up, even the extras are are being directed
• 2:36:00
  beautifully. Oh, here we go, the dissidents.
• 2:36:06
  There's a movement growing, don't you worry, he'll sort it
• 2:36:11
  out. There's a fabulous scene in, I'm
• 2:36:12
  not sure if it's in Episode 6 or in Episode 5, where you can hear
• 2:36:16
  a rattle of gunfire. So it's the distance.
• 2:36:18
  They've got arms at this point and he's just there tapping his
• 2:36:22
  chair in the silence, like waiting to make his move.
• 2:36:26
  In the dark. In Doctor Who, do not get quiet
• 2:36:29
  moments in the dark like that. You know, they're trying to make
• 2:36:33
  him as impactful as possible, Fraser.
• 2:36:40
  Joe. Is Davos your favorite Doctor
• 2:36:43
  Who villain? Oh, that's a good question.
• 2:36:46
  Probably not, because I do think he gets overused after this.
• 2:36:50
  I think, you know, I love him in this.
• 2:36:52
  I think he's fantastic in this. But then when you get towards,
• 2:36:56
  you know, Remembrance of the Daleks, where he's popping out
• 2:36:58
  his bread bin, he's kind of like.
• 2:37:02
  It's a roll on Mum, isn't it? But it's kind of like, you know,
• 2:37:07
  it gets to that point where or hang on, this man here, he has
• 2:37:11
  got the best death. Doesn't he in a very strange?
• 2:37:15
  Thing, yeah, grabs. Every.
• 2:37:16
  Single heart, you know, he is he is earning his extra money.
• 2:37:20
  That isn't he. No, no, I do think that Ross
• 2:37:23
  gets overused. So I think someone like Sharaz
• 2:37:28
  Jack is a really good that and because they are the come in the
• 2:37:33
  goal, they do the bit and you know, we don't have that
• 2:37:37
  opportunity to then have a poor story with him in whereas we do
• 2:37:42
  unfortunately, with Davos. He doesn't quite have the
• 2:37:46
  presence of Saudi, does he? Well, who does?
• 2:37:52
  Although in time lash and that's it.
• 2:37:55
  In the Behind the Stovas, they were all really sad when he died
• 2:37:59
  because he was the most entertaining thing in it.
• 2:38:03
  Did you see the Daleks there a second ago?
• 2:38:04
  It was all smoky. They were kind of in silhouette.
• 2:38:07
  I just. Look so intimidating.
• 2:38:11
  I missed the bit in episode 4 where they're in the in front of
• 2:38:14
  the sandbags and the dollar glides across above.
• 2:38:17
  The top of your head with the great big purple background.
• 2:38:21
  It's gorgeous. Explosions and fire in the
• 2:38:24
  background and. I'm going to ask you guys a bit
• 2:38:28
  of an unfair question, and I'm not even sure if you can answer
• 2:38:31
  it because you're so entrenched in this thing.
• 2:38:33
  I don't mean Genesis of the Daleks, I mean Doctor Who that
• 2:38:37
  I'm not sure any one of us can give a reasonable answer to this
• 2:38:40
  question. But are we so indoctrinated by
• 2:38:45
  Doctor Who and the sort of iconic nature of the Daleks that
• 2:38:50
  we essentially a non fan would look at them and think they're
• 2:38:53
  absolutely fucking absurd? The the plunger, the egg whisk,
• 2:38:58
  you know, like we see a Dalek and we get shivers, you know,
• 2:39:02
  and, and excited and. But.
• 2:39:05
  Have we completely lost? Like they're actually a bit
• 2:39:08
  silly looking. I don't, I, I think they're just
• 2:39:13
  so wound up in our culture that everyone just pops out of the
• 2:39:19
  womb knowing what a Dalek is now that it's just, so it's just
• 2:39:24
  there. Everyone knows.
• 2:39:27
  You could show it to, to anyone in the UK and they would know it
• 2:39:31
  was a Dalek and they know they're a force for evil.
• 2:39:35
  They're it's almost like everyone knows the back story
• 2:39:39
  and they're taken in by it the same way that we were as
• 2:39:43
  children. And I think that has that's
• 2:39:45
  carried on from the 60s. I think that's down to the
• 2:39:48
  perfect voice design, stories that grip the imagination of a
• 2:39:57
  generation, who then passed it on to the next generation and
• 2:39:59
  the next generation and they became almost like the ultimate
• 2:40:03
  British bogeyman. I mean, the one on the back of
• 2:40:06
  the bus weren't there for the Platinum Jubilee, yeah.
• 2:40:09
  There was a whole, yeah, a whole fleet of Daleks out.
• 2:40:12
  Oh, action scene. Action scene.
• 2:40:14
  So is there like a kind of alchemy then, that we've been
• 2:40:16
  told for so long that the Daleks are on screen, get behind the
• 2:40:19
  sofa, that everybody is? You just do it because.
• 2:40:25
  It happened in 2005, yeah. When when Dalek came on,
• 2:40:31
  suddenly the next generation who'd hadn't grown up with this
• 2:40:37
  silly show in the Sixties, 70s and 80s and in repeats in the
• 2:40:41
  90s, suddenly they were as charmed by the Daleks as all of
• 2:40:47
  we were. So there's something about it
• 2:40:49
  that just works. Oh, I think they were scared.
• 2:40:51
  I think there was a visceral reaction to that Dalek in this
• 2:40:55
  one in the first story. And I think the the very smart
• 2:40:58
  thing, Rusty Davies, not only was the redesign, which was
• 2:41:01
  inspired, but also by making that one single Dalek, the most
• 2:41:07
  powerful Dalek we have ever seen, massacres a whole ton of
• 2:41:11
  people in that story. I'm.
• 2:41:14
  Convinced Fraser? No, because that leads to
• 2:41:17
  problems later down down the name.
• 2:41:19
  Well, it does, because that one Dalek that is, you know.
• 2:41:22
  Leads to Magician's Apprentice and the witch is familiar.
• 2:41:25
  It doesn't. It leads to part of the ways
• 2:41:29
  where you have a billion dollars, million dollars or
• 2:41:32
  whatever who are all as indestructible as that Dalek.
• 2:41:37
  So how do you then defeat? How many?
• 2:41:41
  Is it like 10,000 or 1,000,000? Whatever, Daleks.
• 2:41:44
  You have ridiculous things like it's. 1/4 of a million Daleks.
• 2:41:47
  To suck a million, Yeah. Or.
• 2:41:49
  Sewers coming up, you know you have ridiculous things happening
• 2:41:52
  because they're all power. And sometimes you just want a
• 2:41:54
  little Dalek task force who are easily defeated.
• 2:41:58
  But it's a fun story. Oh, Fraser, our our first Doctor
• 2:42:02
  Who stories were Dalek stories. Yeah.
• 2:42:04
  So different Dalek stories. But.
• 2:42:08
  But obviously there was something when we were small
• 2:42:13
  that we were just there, entranced by the Dalek straight
• 2:42:17
  on. Absolutely.
• 2:42:18
  And I mean, you know my, you know we.
• 2:42:20
  Were scared, we were scared. Yeah, we're scared of Daleks
• 2:42:23
  coming upstairs. But you know, these Daleks were
• 2:42:26
  were scary, but they were not sort of indestructible.
• 2:42:28
  No, they could be destroyed by an anti tank rocket.
• 2:42:31
  In the eye piece or a baseball bat that's been stellar
• 2:42:34
  manipulated or you know that that sort of thing.
• 2:42:38
  So that is the big floor for the the new series for me and it.
• 2:42:43
  Does lead to? More sort of things in like,
• 2:42:47
  which is familiar, which is Steven Moffat being a bit bored
• 2:42:50
  of the Daleks and thinking I need to make up some new stuff
• 2:42:53
  about them to keep them interesting.
• 2:42:55
  Whereas Chris Chipnall really does it really nails it, because
• 2:42:59
  Chris boils. Down to the fact that they're
• 2:43:02
  just killing machines. 1st. Principles, yeah, gives US1
• 2:43:05
  Dalek, which is, you know, defeated by a microwave in the
• 2:43:08
  end, but is. You know it's original.
• 2:43:13
  Yeah, but is, is a threatening force, can take, you know, claim
• 2:43:18
  on people's bucks and take them over like spiders and and that
• 2:43:22
  sort of stuff, which is really scary, really terrifying.
• 2:43:24
  But ultimately, like I said, can be defeated by a microwave.
• 2:43:27
  So that's that's getting it right for me.
• 2:43:29
  That's doing something interesting with a Dalek story,
• 2:43:32
  not by throwing 1/4 of $1,000,000 on the screen or, you
• 2:43:35
  know, throwing daft ideas like Daleks don't have any word for
• 2:43:40
  mercy or whatever silly thing he's coming up with.
• 2:43:43
  It's about just bringing them back to the basics, which is
• 2:43:47
  what the story is doing, Bringing them back to that
• 2:43:48
  basic. Exactly, you know.
• 2:43:50
  Where do they come to Rusty Davis in Darts of Manhattan and
• 2:43:55
  Evolution of the Daleks? There's only three dialects in
• 2:43:57
  that. It's true.
• 2:43:59
  Three or four Daleks, I think. One of them wears a suit though.
• 2:44:05
  And Speaking of suits, we've just had a scene where they work
• 2:44:09
  out they've got a continuity problem with the next story
• 2:44:12
  where someone has designed Sarah Jane a new constitute.
• 2:44:15
  So so she has to find it in the locker and look at it in delight
• 2:44:20
  and say, oh, I could wear that. That's probably my size.
• 2:44:22
  There are no other women in the bunker, but these are these
• 2:44:25
  cubes will fit me. It's the sort of thing where
• 2:44:27
  Terrace takes guys. Well, we'll fix it with a line,
• 2:44:30
  you know. Or the Doctor could just hand
• 2:44:32
  her a costume for the next story.
• 2:44:35
  I mean, that explains that, but where does the doctor get his
• 2:44:38
  coat? From.
• 2:44:39
  Well, I yes, well, this is a big problem that his coat and his
• 2:44:42
  hats reappear and then he loses it by the time he goes.
• 2:44:47
  Yeah. It's a mystery.
• 2:44:50
  Don't you love here that Garman is flattering Davros and saying,
• 2:44:54
  you know, oh, you've done many great achievements over the
• 2:44:58
  years. And then Davros just cuts him
• 2:44:59
  down and says you didn't bring me at a flatmate.
• 2:45:01
  What are your demands? Davros is so good.
• 2:45:04
  So to the point. And where we were talking last
• 2:45:09
  last episode about almost Garmin's naivety, he wants a
• 2:45:14
  bloodless revolution. We've had that line there.
• 2:45:18
  He doesn't want any killing. But this is a world that is
• 2:45:22
  based on killing because it's the only way you can get it.
• 2:45:27
  He he is massively naive in this world.
• 2:45:33
  Massively. But he's a good man trying to
• 2:45:36
  do. But he.
• 2:45:39
  Played by the rules of this world and so he dies.
• 2:45:42
  Can you see what you. Say we're going to have a
• 2:45:44
  democratically elected new leader.
• 2:45:47
  Oh, he. Is not crazy.
• 2:45:48
  Yeah, right. From which six people in the
• 2:45:51
  bunk is he going to? Be.
• 2:45:52
  Well, see, we've missed, we've missed bits of dialogue where
• 2:45:55
  what was the other man called? Was it Cavill?
• 2:45:58
  Carville, yeah. Carville, you know, comes up and
• 2:46:00
  he says they're coming over our side and droves.
• 2:46:02
  We've got 80% on the side of yours.
• 2:46:04
  That's that's your Bob Holmes for you, where he's coming in
• 2:46:06
  and putting a bit of world. Building.
• 2:46:08
  Yeah and say well actually we are just seeing 1 Dome.
• 2:46:12
  We're seeing one. Room you know we're just we're
• 2:46:15
  seeing that this one Dome is this entire race blah blah blah,
• 2:46:18
  but actually in this bunker, let's just flesh it out a bit
• 2:46:21
  and let's you know we'll have we'll do the things like the
• 2:46:25
  gunfire in the background, which suggests there's more people
• 2:46:28
  than just the six actual named the cast members that we've got
• 2:46:33
  here. I like the little details they
• 2:46:34
  give though. There's a there's a sequence in
• 2:46:36
  the next episode where he says about the thing that keeps his
• 2:46:38
  heart going, and we'll turn that heart against.
• 2:46:42
  Me. Oh, oh, it's the.
• 2:46:43
  Dagger. That could have been an
• 2:46:46
  agonising line if it was delivered.
• 2:46:48
  Yeah, it's great. Night as a robot.
• 2:46:53
  He's not actually smell. That's what I wanted to know.
• 2:46:57
  Oh no, please, let's not go there again.
• 2:46:59
  Defeat him with love. Where's night as Dora Bella, do
• 2:47:05
  you know for an improvised cliffhanger in a minute, I think
• 2:47:07
  this is. Dave Ross.
• 2:47:09
  Bella, they just gave Tom Baker a piece of plastic.
• 2:47:14
  Just do it. It was it was one of my favorite
• 2:47:17
  bits on on the audio version. I used to to listen to that bit
• 2:47:21
  and then rewind it because it was so dramatic and the music is
• 2:47:24
  so brilliant and Sarah is and Sarah and Harry are making noise
• 2:47:30
  in the background. And Tom's going ha ha.
• 2:47:33
  Ha, as a child hearing a an adult panicked, scared people
• 2:47:38
  with any. Because that case.
• 2:47:39
  Hanger really frightened me as a kid.
• 2:47:43
  Yeah. Oh, it's terrifying.
• 2:47:45
  Oh, this neither goes through. Now you're going to accede to
• 2:47:48
  their demands. They they have one.
• 2:47:50
  Nothing. He's just waiting to make his
• 2:47:55
  move. Democracy.
• 2:47:58
  And do you think this works for sort of playing it out over two
• 2:48:02
  episodes, like? Yeah, I think it you're ramping
• 2:48:05
  up the tension because again, we, we know where this is going.
• 2:48:10
  The audience knows where this is going, this is going with the
• 2:48:13
  Daleks are going to come into ascendancy, but you don't know
• 2:48:17
  how. Will the Doctor talk Davros
• 2:48:19
  around? Will Davros be defeated by the
• 2:48:22
  last members of his own race? Will Bethan blow it up?
• 2:48:27
  I think like the the like you say, the climax has a foregone
• 2:48:31
  conclusion. So it should be very
• 2:48:33
  disappointing episode 6 because we should just.
• 2:48:36
  But actually the big twist, which we'll obviously talk about
• 2:48:38
  in episode 6 where they turn on him is such a great movie.
• 2:48:44
  That's the climax there, isn't it?
• 2:48:48
  So basically the story is Davros.
• 2:48:49
  It isn't the story of the. Dark I think it is and again if
• 2:48:55
  it had just been this story and then Davros was killed by his
• 2:48:59
  own race and his own race went on that would that's absolutely
• 2:49:05
  perfect and I'm sure it was actually designed that way
• 2:49:10
  these. Horrible bubbling vats.
• 2:49:13
  Wonderful, isn't it? Miscous liquids?
• 2:49:16
  I think it's described on on the cassette, I said oozed across
• 2:49:21
  the floor towards me. It's dimensions changing
• 2:49:24
  constantly. Goes to show how much things
• 2:49:26
  have changed because back in the day in the 60s they wouldn't
• 2:49:30
  show the music. No, and and still in the 70s,
• 2:49:32
  you wouldn't see what was inside the Dalek.
• 2:49:34
  It wasn't until the Five Doctors, and that was because it
• 2:49:37
  was a special moment. Yeah, here we go.
• 2:49:41
  Dudley Simpson's music is rising.
• 2:49:44
  It looks like the camera's right in there as well, isn't it?
• 2:49:49
  He is giving it everything with that tiny piece of foam and
• 2:49:53
  plastic. It's wonderful he sells it.
• 2:49:56
  Compare that if that had been Pertwee.
• 2:49:59
  Oh God, it would have been all. Like the end of Spearhead from.
• 2:50:03
  Spare or when that telephone wire goes around him.
• 2:50:09
  Yeah, it'd be good. And so we gurning, Yeah.
• 2:50:12
  We've even Trouten would have had a bit of a gun on that,
• 2:50:14
  wouldn't he? I've got a question for you
• 2:50:19
  before we out this because I remember you when the three of
• 2:50:22
  us watched the Armageddon Factor, as I reliably informs us
• 2:50:26
  was one year ago today. But I remember sort of as we got
• 2:50:35
  to episode five of the Armageddon Factor, as much as
• 2:50:38
  you were enjoying like the commentary and we were laughing
• 2:50:41
  about the ridiculous parts of it, you were kind of like, oh,
• 2:50:44
  this has run out of saying it's become a different story.
• 2:50:46
  It's not where it started. Like you had some complaints but
• 2:50:50
  you don't feel that way at all about this?
• 2:50:52
  One, I think like I said, the the the plot, essentially the
• 2:50:56
  story is is done at this point. We're just waiting for the
• 2:50:59
  doctor to find the timing, but we're just enjoying now what's
• 2:51:03
  happening with the college with Dave Ross, you know, doing what
• 2:51:10
  he's doing the the machinations behind, you know, keeping power
• 2:51:14
  and losing power and, and just finding out how devious he is,
• 2:51:18
  is very much the Dave Ross show now very much, you know, what's
• 2:51:23
  Dave Ross going to do next? What's how is it going to be?
• 2:51:26
  Incident now rather than plot, isn't it?
• 2:51:28
  We're kind of we're coming to this bit where we're going to
• 2:51:32
  say, you know, well, how does it end?
• 2:51:33
  Because, you know, is he going to destroy the Daleks?
• 2:51:36
  Are the Daleks going to be no more in Doctor Who?
• 2:51:40
  Is he going to change the development or whatever?
• 2:51:42
  And we as you know, fans who watch this after the broadcast
• 2:51:46
  know that that doesn't happen. But you know, again, you can
• 2:51:49
  imagine someone sitting in in the broadcast thinking, oh,
• 2:51:54
  well, what, you know, how is this how we're going to get out
• 2:51:57
  of this? So that's where that's the
• 2:51:58
  journey we could kind of coming towards, but it's a really good
• 2:52:02
  journey to get to because we have these fantastic scenes.
• 2:52:05
  We have, you know, the doctor not not even squaring off with
• 2:52:09
  Davos, sitting down and having a chat with Davos, just.
• 2:52:12
  Yeah, we said. Getting a know more about about
• 2:52:15
  his enemy, as it were. And we have, you know, Garmin,
• 2:52:19
  who is, you know, come from episode one, who is now the the
• 2:52:23
  chief driving force behind the rebellion and, you know, quite
• 2:52:27
  principal character. We know we're seeing what's
• 2:52:29
  happening with him. We've got falls in the
• 2:52:32
  background about would do some fall things, but they're, you
• 2:52:36
  know, not really as significant as what's going on in the
• 2:52:39
  bunker. It's just, it's fascinating is
• 2:52:41
  what it is. So as this is a question for
• 2:52:44
  both of them as the scope of the story gets smaller and homes in
• 2:52:51
  on Davros, is Michael Wisher then the MVP of this story?
• 2:52:57
  Oh yes. Yes, along with Peter Miles.
• 2:53:06
  Because, you know, if you just had Davros, it would not nearly
• 2:53:12
  be as effective as having Davos. And neither is having that
• 2:53:16
  question that I keep coming back to.
• 2:53:17
  What's neither getting out of this, you know.
• 2:53:21
  Never going to have an answer to that question, you know No.
• 2:53:23
  I'm going to have an answer. I'm going to have 7 answers.
• 2:53:27
  You know what I mean? Which one is most likely?
• 2:53:29
  Exactly. But what I'm going to have is,
• 2:53:32
  you know, that classic thing with the Bob Holmes double act,
• 2:53:38
  Davros and Nader. It's very interesting because it
• 2:53:43
  works really well, but they don't really ever do it again.
• 2:53:47
  No. Has allies or people that he's
• 2:53:52
  manipulating like Tasim, Bika or I love those things that he
• 2:53:58
  takes over in Resurrection of the Daleks.
• 2:54:01
  But he hasn't got a friend because it's his friend.
• 2:54:07
  It's his best buds forever. Is he though?
• 2:54:10
  Is he though? Because, you know, neither get
• 2:54:13
  zapped 5 You know, we're not even 5 minutes later Dave Ross
• 2:54:16
  gets up but then wakes up in Destiny and he's just like
• 2:54:20
  later. No, never heard of him, you
• 2:54:23
  know. How soon they forget.
• 2:54:24
  Exactly. So, you know, what is is, you
• 2:54:29
  know, looking at that relationship on the other side,
• 2:54:31
  then what you know is Dave Ross just using Neider as a tool, you
• 2:54:36
  know, is he just another Tassembiker that actually
• 2:54:39
  happens to to be a bit close and stick around?
• 2:54:42
  I don't think so, because they do have exchanges and they do
• 2:54:49
  have not necessarily frank conversations between the two of
• 2:54:55
  them, but they have exchanges where neither can voice almost a
• 2:55:00
  dissenting voice almost, not quite, and they can talk about
• 2:55:06
  it. So I think there is a kind of
• 2:55:07
  respect, I think Davros has a respect for neither and what he
• 2:55:11
  does because he's part of this world.
• 2:55:15
  And he absolutely can. Trust.
• 2:55:16
  Doesn't he that Noida is going to do?
• 2:55:19
  What he says he will do, Yeah, he is.
• 2:55:22
  Yeah, he has to trust neither because, you know, if you take
• 2:55:26
  neither away from Davos, then, you know, as it's, you know,
• 2:55:29
  pointed out in the next episode, you know, you can't even reach a
• 2:55:32
  safe to put something in without, you know, he is.
• 2:55:36
  You have to have someone that you can trust completely to be
• 2:55:39
  able to do things like that. Do you?
• 2:55:41
  Know what? I've never thought about it in
• 2:55:42
  this much before. It might be the no but.
• 2:55:45
  It's the great, great. Relationship.
• 2:55:47
  Who questions that no one has ever really thought about.
• 2:55:51
  We're we're the we're pioneering here.
• 2:55:56
  You say that everyone else is just sitting the tool and oh
• 2:55:58
  man, shut up about neither. Well, don't you roll your eyes
• 2:56:02
  on me. But I still reckon they were
• 2:56:03
  fucking back in the day, all right?
• 2:56:05
  But they had an actual relationship all right.
• 2:56:46
  A hamster with a blunt pen knife for doing quicker welcome.
• 2:56:52
  Back to our hamster with a blunt pen knife.
• 2:56:54
  The Doctor Who Commentary Podcast.
• 2:56:58
  What are you waiting for PSI? Just touch these two strands
• 2:57:01
  together and the podcast is released.
• 2:57:05
  Have I that bright? To release the hamster, you
• 2:57:08
  can't doubt it. Well, I do.
• 2:57:10
  You see, some things could be better without the hamster.
• 2:57:13
  Many future worlds will become allies just because of their
• 2:57:16
  fear of the smarts. It isn't like that.
• 2:57:19
  Well, the final responsibility is mine.
• 2:57:22
  A mine alone. You see, if someone who knew the
• 2:57:25
  future pointed out to Geordie to you and told you that that
• 2:57:28
  Geordie would say the most utterly ridiculous things,
• 2:57:32
  things that would irritate millions of lives, could you
• 2:57:36
  then release that idiot? Look, we're talking about The
• 2:57:39
  Hamster, the most entertaining and welcoming podcast ever
• 2:57:43
  invented. You must release it.
• 2:57:45
  You must complete your mission for the ham fam.
• 2:57:49
  Do I have the right? Simply touch one against the
• 2:57:53
  other and that's it. The hamster is out.
• 2:57:56
  Hundreds of millions of people, thousands of generations, could
• 2:58:00
  live without smuts and in laughter and learn to love the
• 2:58:03
  words. Stop it.
• 2:58:06
  Then why wait? If it was season B of maximum
• 2:58:09
  power you were eventually releasing, you wouldn't even
• 2:58:12
  hesitate. But if I release a whole six
• 2:58:16
  part commentary then I'd become like them.
• 2:58:19
  I'd be more prolific than Joe think.
• 2:58:22
  For the suffering they'll be if you don't do it.
• 2:58:27
  There you are, Sir. It's over.
• 2:58:29
  Joe has agreed of our terms. He's demanded a Twitter pool,
• 2:58:33
  but it's a formality he's agreed to.
• 2:58:35
  No more smut, No more brigadiers.
• 2:58:39
  Oh, and then you can do Terminus.
• 2:58:41
  Oh bugger that. Get down, everybody.
• 2:58:51
  Oh my God, I never knew we were such good actors.
• 2:58:55
  Neither did anyone else. Well, if you don't.
• 2:58:58
  You should all be going and listening to the Planet Scar
• 2:59:01
  audios where Simon Hart has starring roles and several of
• 2:59:04
  them, as well as writing, producing, script editing
• 2:59:06
  generally being fantastic all the way through.
• 2:59:09
  Yeah, you say that, Pat. Wait till Brendan turns up.
• 2:59:14
  The script in there was by Mr. Fraser Gregory, by the way, you
• 2:59:17
  absolute genius. So, gentlemen, that is the big
• 2:59:23
  question. Are you a genius?
• 2:59:26
  Do we have the right? To what?
• 2:59:33
  Right for our right to party. Do we have the right to finish
• 2:59:40
  this commentary? I think we do.
• 2:59:42
  Well, I think we probably ought to.
• 2:59:45
  We've got this far. I want to fucking go to bed
• 2:59:47
  tonight. All right, well, look, will
• 2:59:50
  someone count us in? I know I'm getting straight to
• 2:59:54
  the point this time. Well, we've got a lot of, we've
• 2:59:57
  got a lot. Stay at the end.
• 2:59:58
  We do so in 54321. Let's go.
• 3:00:07
  It's the. Wrong story.
• 3:00:12
  It's it's This isn't. It I think it actually goes.
• 3:00:24
  I am perfectly convinced that some of Dudley Simpson's most
• 3:00:27
  fabulously bombastic music is in this episode.
• 3:00:32
  Well, it's, it is one of his very best scores.
• 3:00:36
  As I said right at the beginning, he is keeping this
• 3:00:40
  story going and he is, I think this is one of the most perfect
• 3:00:46
  Doctor Who incidental music scores there is.
• 3:00:50
  He is just on again, it's that alchemy of everything coming
• 3:00:55
  together from the music. So you've got this, this music
• 3:00:58
  here which is really selling this music as much as Tom is,
• 3:01:03
  and it's adding to the drama of this, this scene here.
• 3:01:06
  So there's, it feels jeopardy and it's it's really brilliant.
• 3:01:13
  The music, when the dialects are coming down the corridor at the
• 3:01:15
  end, like to kill the song. It's like unrelenting.
• 3:01:19
  And it's like rising. And rising and rising, you know,
• 3:01:23
  it's like horror movie music. It's.
• 3:01:27
  So what are you going to say? I've got a.
• 3:01:29
  Question for you 2 then. OK.
• 3:01:32
  This scene now the Doctor question his morality about
• 3:01:36
  destroying the Daleks and Sao Jane trying to talk them into
• 3:01:39
  it. Is this better than the Doctor
• 3:01:45
  and Davros discussing the virus in The Veil, or is that the
• 3:01:50
  better scene of the two? I think this is this one.
• 3:01:56
  I think I don't know if it's because it's it's the Doctor's
• 3:02:03
  choice. It's because that and that's the
• 3:02:05
  this is the crux of the story. The Doctor Davros exchange isn't
• 3:02:11
  this is the Doctor's decision that he's got to make.
• 3:02:14
  And I think that's what makes this scene.
• 3:02:16
  And I think Elizabeth Sladen is you see, Ian Masters does
• 3:02:20
  nothing here. It's the Doctor and Sarah.
• 3:02:24
  And I think this defines. The the beach, doesn't she?
• 3:02:29
  She is terrific here. And just the two of them.
• 3:02:33
  And then you can see again, I think that maybe it's what
• 3:02:36
  influences and they think, oh, hang on, we've got something
• 3:02:39
  here. This is what this is what Barry
• 3:02:43
  Letts wanted. He said to like he cast
• 3:02:46
  Elizabeth Slayton, he cast Tom Baker.
• 3:02:48
  And basically he's the one that is responsible for this story
• 3:02:51
  being written as well when he said go back and write again.
• 3:02:54
  And I think this just goes to show how savvy he was with
• 3:02:58
  casting his regulars because they are brilliant here.
• 3:03:01
  You know, we don't. It's very, very rare at this
• 3:03:04
  point in the series to be this introspective of the Doctor and
• 3:03:09
  to question what's going on in his head and his role in the
• 3:03:13
  story. Normally he's the hero and and
• 3:03:16
  he just goes for it, you know? It's different to Pertwee, where
• 3:03:19
  Pertwee would have been so resolute, I think, and so sure
• 3:03:24
  of himself that he wouldn't have stopped to have that
• 3:03:28
  conversation. Do.
• 3:03:30
  You remember Planet of the Planet of the Spiders, sorry,
• 3:03:32
  where in the very last episode and it's he's talking about his
• 3:03:37
  greed for knowledge and all of that.
• 3:03:39
  And that felt so refreshing because there hadn't really been
• 3:03:42
  any great exploration of Pertwee's character had there
• 3:03:45
  throughout that run. And this is more of the same,
• 3:03:49
  but this is just better scripted.
• 3:03:52
  I'll say better acted as well. I think, you know, account with
• 3:03:58
  going back to episode 4, you know, you have that
• 3:04:01
  introspective moment of the Doctor.
• 3:04:02
  I've sent Harry into them and having Sarah into that Holocaust
• 3:04:06
  and just being crushed by that. That's another example of us
• 3:04:09
  being really, you know, introspective of the Doctor.
• 3:04:12
  You know, I think if that a bit pertly again, you know, going
• 3:04:17
  back to the predecessor, you know, that would have been a
• 3:04:20
  very sort of like, how do you think I feel I sent them into
• 3:04:23
  that. It had been played very
• 3:04:24
  differently, wouldn't it? But I think you know this.
• 3:04:29
  That scene works purely because of Tom Baker.
• 3:04:33
  He looks agonized by that decision and just holding those
• 3:04:36
  wires, he's still in front of his he's.
• 3:04:39
  Agonized by how to play the scene as well, You know, behind
• 3:04:43
  the scenes, you know, he was really chewed up about how he
• 3:04:46
  was going to play that and should I play it this way, that
• 3:04:50
  way. And, you know, he really chewed
• 3:04:53
  himself up. And that a lot of that comes
• 3:04:55
  across the screen direction as well, has got to play a part
• 3:04:58
  because it is just two wires in Tom Baker's face.
• 3:05:01
  But that's. The thing, it's such a complex,
• 3:05:04
  a complex thing he's talking about.
• 3:05:06
  It's such a simple and I often think dramas that is best when
• 3:05:10
  you boil it down really simply like that.
• 3:05:13
  Yeah. Like kids can understand how I
• 3:05:15
  can say it. Spells it out for the kids.
• 3:05:18
  Touch one wire against the other and the dialects are finished.
• 3:05:21
  But also like in the new series, they made a conscious choice to,
• 3:05:25
  from the start, to examine the Doctor's role in these
• 3:05:29
  adventures. But this just wasn't done in the
• 3:05:31
  classic series. Not no, that's.
• 3:05:33
  Why this stands out, isn't it? I think it stands out as well
• 3:05:37
  because, you know, we we can forget how dark Tom Baker's
• 3:05:43
  doctor was and we've had a scene where he's turned off Davos's
• 3:05:46
  life support. You know, season 13 comes on
• 3:05:51
  long where he's knocking people out there freight and centre of
• 3:05:54
  season 14 comes along where he turns into Rambo for an episode
• 3:05:57
  of of deadly assassin who he's got a special with Hinchcliff.
• 3:06:01
  You know, he's got a very sort of.
• 3:06:05
  Where? Where he just rolls over the
• 3:06:07
  dead body and goes well, I tell him he shouldn't have been upset
• 3:06:09
  by his brother, you know? Like.
• 3:06:12
  It's as dark as Capote in the Dalek.
• 3:06:15
  Absolutely so. What you know, what's also
• 3:06:23
  interesting about the whole speech is I'd never considered
• 3:06:26
  until that point that some things could be better with the
• 3:06:30
  Daleks, and that's such an interesting idea.
• 3:06:33
  That's where I was going. It's, you know, because this is
• 3:06:36
  a rare moment actually of seeing the 4th Doctors morality played
• 3:06:40
  out. So specifically you'll look at
• 3:06:43
  if you flash photo Nightmare of Eden, where we'll have trust,
• 3:06:47
  trust. Christ, Christ.
• 3:06:50
  Being taken away, you know, and the doctor is just, you know,
• 3:06:55
  looking off camera, come away, you know, condemning him with
• 3:07:00
  with words like that. You know, there's a sense of it
• 3:07:02
  there, but we don't really get much more of a sense of his
• 3:07:05
  morality other than this scene here.
• 3:07:10
  No, other than sometimes telling Leela off for using her knife.
• 3:07:13
  Yeah, no, don't tell people. What, So the script originally
• 3:07:17
  was just going to have him what? Just touch them together and
• 3:07:19
  say, well, that's done. What?
• 3:07:21
  What? What?
• 3:07:22
  No. No, I don't think he would ever
• 3:07:23
  have done it. No, I think again that is that.
• 3:07:27
  But it was a quick. Moment of yeah.
• 3:07:29
  It was just like, oh, you know, I can't do this.
• 3:07:34
  Rather than an actual discussion, you know, and the
• 3:07:36
  consideration of what was at stake.
• 3:07:40
  Although like, is it a bit of a cop out that then someone comes
• 3:07:43
  in and goes, well, you know, we've defeated Davros.
• 3:07:46
  Well, of course. It's Doctor Who, isn't it?
• 3:07:48
  I mean, it's always, and again, it's another sort of chance
• 3:07:56
  where again, they think they're going to get the better of
• 3:07:59
  Davros and stop this without having to make the big decision
• 3:08:04
  that but events are conspiring against the doctor to bring him
• 3:08:09
  back to this decision. And he does have to go back and
• 3:08:12
  destroy the incubation room, and he does do it.
• 3:08:15
  He goes back, doesn't he, with every intention of doing it.
• 3:08:18
  And then the Dalek. The Dalek goes over the wire.
• 3:08:20
  So the Dalek effectively does what he would do so but.
• 3:08:24
  Then I don't understand and that doesn't wipe them out though,
• 3:08:26
  does it? No.
• 3:08:28
  Well. No.
• 3:08:30
  So is that is that a problem? It's.
• 3:08:35
  And then essentially, you know, we come in at the story and we
• 3:08:39
  think that the we're given a very simple mission statement at
• 3:08:43
  the start and episode one it's, you know, stop the Daleks go
• 3:08:47
  back in time, either stop them developing, find a weakness, or,
• 3:08:52
  you know, change the development so that they are not less.
• 3:08:56
  Aggressive creatures yet? Not like pure evil sort of
• 3:09:00
  thing. OK, so we know that coming out
• 3:09:03
  of this story, either the Doctor succeeds and, you know, the
• 3:09:08
  most, you know, fundamentally popular race and the whole of
• 3:09:13
  Doctor Who ceases to be and we don't have Daleks anymore, or
• 3:09:17
  the status quo is going to be maintained at the end of Episode
• 3:09:21
  6. And what?
• 3:09:21
  He does. He delays it, doesn't he?
• 3:09:23
  Rather than. So we get to episode, we get to
• 3:09:27
  the end. So what we're going to do?
• 3:09:30
  Because if we maintain the status quo, the Doctor hasn't
• 3:09:32
  won, but the Doctor needs to win because the Doctor is the hero.
• 3:09:36
  It's Doctor Who he needs to win at the end of every story.
• 3:09:39
  So how do we, you know, balance that knowing that we can have
• 3:09:44
  Daleks in the future who are evil, but still having the
• 3:09:47
  Doctor win. So we come up with a bit of a
• 3:09:49
  compromise. Yeah, it's a fair.
• 3:09:51
  Compromise and I think there's some, you know, sections of
• 3:09:55
  fandom we've looked a lot into this and said, well,
• 3:09:58
  essentially, you know, the Doctor does a bit more than just
• 3:10:02
  any than like 1000 years. If you compare the Daleks before
• 3:10:07
  the story who are capable of taking over planet Earth and
• 3:10:11
  almost drilling out its core. Who are, you know, the mass and
• 3:10:17
  you know, 10,000 miniature Daleks in an ice planet in
• 3:10:21
  spirit and that sort of thing to what were then presented with in
• 3:10:26
  terms of, you know, Daleks who can't beat the Mebellons because
• 3:10:30
  the fight will stand still and the Davos and beat off a lot
• 3:10:33
  more and then start fighting each other.
• 3:10:35
  There's like Dalek civil wars and that sort of jazz.
• 3:10:39
  There's a school of thought of the doctors actually succeeded a
• 3:10:42
  lot more than just setting them back.
• 3:10:45
  He's actually, you know, affected them by whatever he's
• 3:10:48
  done, sort of like butterfly effects always, and made them a
• 3:10:51
  lot more rubbish than they were beforehand.
• 3:10:58
  And it's interesting, isn't it? Because if this was the new
• 3:11:01
  series, that would form the basis of a long story arc about
• 3:11:05
  how the Doctor had and they would go and investigate how
• 3:11:08
  that happens. But here, because Philip
• 3:11:11
  Hinchcliffe isn't has done a Dalek story, he's not interested
• 3:11:15
  in doing another one. Him and Bob Holmes are not
• 3:11:17
  interested in the Daleks by the time.
• 3:11:21
  It is a story arc that comes from this.
• 3:11:23
  It isn't the. Dalek, yeah, it's almost, yeah.
• 3:11:27
  It becomes Davros's story arc because he's so popular.
• 3:11:31
  They've got to bring him back. But they don't investigate what
• 3:11:35
  happens to the Dalek timeline. And I think if you were doing
• 3:11:38
  that in 2022, I just had to look what year it was.
• 3:11:42
  I'm so sorry. I was very into my argument
• 3:11:45
  there that would that would form season's worth of stories
• 3:11:49
  because it would have such an effect, it would affect have
• 3:11:53
  ripples out through the whole Doctor Who timeline.
• 3:11:55
  It would change. So much.
• 3:11:57
  To be fair, that's. Fascinating to see.
• 3:12:00
  Is it it's it's a fact that Rusty Davis says that this,
• 3:12:03
  that's. The start of the.
• 3:12:04
  Time there, yeah. So this does essentially kick
• 3:12:08
  start an arc that has how far reaching consequences.
• 3:12:11
  Yes. Really interesting.
• 3:12:16
  So we're in a safe in Davros's laboratory, which is too high
• 3:12:20
  for Davros to reach. Yes.
• 3:12:22
  And I've got another question for you too, guys, because I
• 3:12:25
  want to come back to the how about?
• 3:12:27
  This sorry. Oh yeah, daughter gun.
• 3:12:32
  But coming back to Harry Sullivan, I know we've discussed
• 3:12:35
  a little bit about Harry and his contribution of a story.
• 3:12:38
  I like Harry. I love Harry.
• 3:12:40
  Great. Yeah, me too.
• 3:12:42
  You know, it's, it's sad that they thought after this that,
• 3:12:46
  well, actually I would. Think there was so much more
• 3:12:48
  they could have done with the three of them.
• 3:12:50
  I think it would have been. Really good for the show.
• 3:12:52
  You need to just be the action man, Did he?
• 3:12:55
  Yeah, that was the idea. And I think it's.
• 3:12:57
  Lots in this story he's not just Comic Relief either.
• 3:13:01
  He's he has proper interest in conversations with the doctor.
• 3:13:04
  They're paid off a lot, He. Does.
• 3:13:09
  So a question really is, Ian Marta, would you say that Ian
• 3:13:12
  Marta's greatest contribution to Doctor Who was the character of
• 3:13:15
  Harry Sullivan, or is it the work that he did with the target
• 3:13:18
  range? Oh.
• 3:13:23
  I. I've part of taking books.
• 3:13:27
  Yeah, I think he was a terrific writer and I think his books
• 3:13:30
  really captured the imagination of of a generation because he we
• 3:13:35
  always knew if you were picking up one of his books, it was
• 3:13:38
  going to be gruesome and wonderful.
• 3:13:40
  He wasn't afraid. He put a.
• 3:13:41
  Swear word in it. He wasn't afraid to deviate from
• 3:13:46
  what was on screen, so Terrence Dicks said he really wanted to
• 3:13:49
  put on paper what you saw on screen.
• 3:13:51
  So it's very faithful. Whereas Ian, Martha was happy to
• 3:13:54
  like, listen, Hayden says that he phoned her up one day and
• 3:13:57
  said, ah, we can't have seen it where you aren't really doing
• 3:13:59
  much. Shall I write you up a bit?
• 3:14:01
  And she goes, yeah, go for it, you know.
• 3:14:04
  But he also, his prose, I think is probably the best prose pre
• 3:14:10
  the McCoy novels that we got. He really went for like.
• 3:14:14
  And Malcolm Hulk, probably in sort of complexity levels.
• 3:14:20
  So just like in terms of like setting a scene, he, he really
• 3:14:23
  went for like the five senses and put you in a scene in a
• 3:14:26
  really effective way. Can I have seen him novelise
• 3:14:29
  this? Can I swear for a second?
• 3:14:32
  Yes. Because Oh my God, how fucking
• 3:14:35
  great are these fucking Daleks in episode 6 of Genesis and the
• 3:14:39
  Daleks here. We go, we're going to get some
• 3:14:42
  great exterminations now. And I don't think we've even
• 3:14:46
  seen them at their best when they're lit, coming down those
• 3:14:48
  corridors and a mirror, they just look extraordinary.
• 3:14:52
  Oh, go, Garmin. That gleaming Nyda's eye.
• 3:14:55
  Yeah, that's the only other time he almost smiles.
• 3:15:01
  Do you know what? Oh my God, Fraser, I've got a
• 3:15:02
  reading on NYDA. Yeah.
• 3:15:04
  Well, so, Davros said to car Carville.
• 3:15:09
  Yeah. Yeah, like, oh, you know, I kept
• 3:15:11
  your heart going. You're going to turn your heart
• 3:15:13
  against me. Carville nearly got away then,
• 3:15:15
  but neither grabbed hold of him and threw him back to get him
• 3:15:18
  back. No one else is going to have
• 3:15:20
  that roses affection for me. You're going to die.
• 3:15:26
  Just go back to Ian Marta. He's like very like Elizabeth
• 3:15:30
  Slayden in some ways in that if he's not got anything to do in
• 3:15:34
  the scene, he's still doing something in the background.
• 3:15:38
  He is listening, he's watching them, he is paying attention to
• 3:15:42
  what's going on, and that elevates what he's doing.
• 3:15:47
  He could just be the spare part, but he's not.
• 3:15:49
  He's still engaged with what's happening around him, and his
• 3:15:54
  reactions sell as much as as what Elizabeth Sladen and Tom
• 3:15:58
  Baker are talking about what? You've got with the three of
• 3:16:01
  them is you've got 3 characters that work beautifully when
• 3:16:04
  they're together. The chemistry is incredible.
• 3:16:07
  But like you, Sarah and NIST with all the gantry scenes,
• 3:16:11
  Harry in Santana experiment where he's wondering about
• 3:16:13
  trying to solve things and the like.
• 3:16:15
  They can all absolutely hold the screen on their own as well.
• 3:16:18
  Yes, and they can be paid off in different ways.
• 3:16:21
  So the the Doctor and Harry, the Doctor and Sarah, Sarah and
• 3:16:25
  Harry all work. Oh.
• 3:16:27
  Sarah in. Combination.
• 3:16:29
  That's the best of remembering, isn't it?
• 3:16:31
  Yeah, when they're in down on vogue.
• 3:16:34
  You stop going on about the gold, Harry, while we just sit
• 3:16:37
  here glittering. They're great.
• 3:16:42
  Oh, here we go. So the bombs going to go off and
• 3:16:44
  they're all going to be hold in down there.
• 3:16:47
  And we get about four versions of this scene where she helped
• 3:16:51
  off from plunging down The detonator.
• 3:16:55
  Oh, yeah. Here he is.
• 3:16:56
  That you're dressed up again. Look.
• 3:16:57
  Yeah, and that was that. That coat and hat was left in in
• 3:17:02
  the Carlid city. It didn't even come down to the
• 3:17:05
  bunker. I think it was quite dirty as
• 3:17:07
  well. You know, they've had it washed
• 3:17:08
  for him. You know, there's a laundrette
• 3:17:11
  on Scaro. Of course, everyone.
• 3:17:15
  He hasn't done anything really, has he, in the last couple of
• 3:17:17
  episodes. No.
• 3:17:21
  But then the focus has all been Davros.
• 3:17:26
  So so now Davros, like he he thinks that, you know, he's in
• 3:17:31
  command of his own tiny it's six people or whatever it is little
• 3:17:34
  Empire and that he's. It's six now because he's killed
• 3:17:37
  all the rest of them. Yes, so the bit and he's just.
• 3:17:41
  Going to go on. The best ever sting in the tails
• 3:17:44
  comes up now, and it's superb. It's almost.
• 3:17:48
  Like. Such a foregone conclusion
• 3:17:50
  because the one thing about the Daleks is, is they're, you know,
• 3:17:52
  dislike. It's for the other.
• 3:17:56
  And exactly, he's programmed in to them the one thing that is
• 3:18:04
  going to lead to his downfall. And it's beautiful.
• 3:18:07
  It's going to justice. The best line is when he goes.
• 3:18:13
  I have no understanding of that word.
• 3:18:16
  It is not in my vocabulary bank. Should have said mercy like a
• 3:18:22
  Capaldi taught him. Should have said mercy.
• 3:18:27
  Like such a wonderful, wonderful scene.
• 3:18:30
  Oh, here we go. You guys are going to have to
• 3:18:32
  talk. I'm going to want to watch this.
• 3:18:34
  And OK, I'm going to give some props to the other actor in this
• 3:18:39
  scene that we haven't really mentioned.
• 3:18:41
  It's Roy Skelton who does brilliant voices in this story,
• 3:18:48
  and he's my favorite Dalek actor.
• 3:18:50
  I know he becomes a bit more zippy later on.
• 3:18:52
  It's not much zippy that's. Really unfair to be honest.
• 3:18:55
  I'm I'm not sure that's absolutely right.
• 3:18:57
  I think he's he's absolutely superb.
• 3:18:59
  He's so good here. He does the big Dalek rant at
• 3:19:02
  the end of the story, which is is great.
• 3:19:05
  He knows exactly how to pitch this.
• 3:19:08
  Do you know, I think you can, you can see the difference in
• 3:19:11
  Maloney's direction from planet Earth Daleks to this just in the
• 3:19:14
  two runs the Daleks have at the end, because in planet Earth
• 3:19:17
  Daleks, he just sort of goes, we will never be defeated.
• 3:19:21
  We will be back. And in this, it's like, wait,
• 3:19:24
  we'll go on, wait, wait. Do you?
• 3:19:28
  We just had Niners death there. Do you like the fact that
• 3:19:31
  everyone else gets a really big over the top italic death and
• 3:19:35
  neither doesn't scream? That's a character thing.
• 3:19:41
  I think Peter Miles makes the most of it.
• 3:19:44
  But what I like about it, it's just it's such an
• 3:19:46
  inconsequential death. Yes, You know, it's.
• 3:19:49
  Yeah. Whereas.
• 3:19:50
  Garmin's death and Ronson's death have played huge They're
• 3:19:53
  turning points. It's just like neither turn that
• 3:19:56
  off and he's zapped. You know, there's not it's it's
• 3:19:58
  like Tasha, yah. But, you know, I think it has to
• 3:20:01
  happen because Dave Ross always had to be the last.
• 3:20:04
  Match. It has to happen.
• 3:20:05
  But you know, what you would expect is sort of like Neda
• 3:20:09
  threw himself in front of Dave Ross.
• 3:20:11
  That's what you mean, like a grandstanding moment.
• 3:20:14
  Yeah, that's what you kind of expect, but it's just such a
• 3:20:17
  casual. Great.
• 3:20:18
  Villain Downfall. Yeah, it's, it's just not
• 3:20:21
  telegraphed at all. It's just go press that button
• 3:20:23
  and then ZAP and you and he makes it like I said that the
• 3:20:28
  slide down the the pillar his tongue out is is class.
• 3:20:36
  But I think you know what, like given that he's gone to such
• 3:20:38
  extremes to have the Daleks created in this, the fact then
• 3:20:43
  that he makes a decision to try and press that button in like
• 3:20:46
  desperation at the end, That's the most interesting moment in
• 3:20:50
  this whole story, that he's like, oh shit, no, I have gone
• 3:20:54
  too far. Or is it just no, this is the
• 3:20:58
  only way I'm going to survive? It's the only way I'm going to
• 3:21:00
  survive, but I think it's more like, well, you're little shit,
• 3:21:03
  come on then, I'll. Show you?
• 3:21:04
  Yeah, sure you are. Who's the daddy exactly, isn't
• 3:21:08
  it? Yes, my authority.
• 3:21:11
  It's just so great that the Daleks are just taking control
• 3:21:15
  and this is what you've been waiting.
• 3:21:16
  It's like power of the Daleks, isn't it?
• 3:21:18
  The audience has been waiting for this because they know it's
• 3:21:21
  coming. You know, it's just inside.
• 3:21:23
  It makes you wait. This is Doctor Who's Blake.
• 3:21:26
  This is as as bold and as dark and as cynical as Blake.
• 3:21:34
  We obey no one. We are the.
• 3:21:38
  Which is exactly what he's been telling them they are all the
• 3:21:41
  way through. That's what he's designed them
• 3:21:43
  to be in, programme, to be in and finally.
• 3:21:46
  Fascinating is you don't see Davros exterminated, you just
• 3:21:50
  see the screen go white. You don't see.
• 3:21:53
  Well, he's not, is he? No.
• 3:21:55
  And it's his disability that because literally he had enough
• 3:21:59
  time to press that button. Button.
• 3:22:00
  Yeah, if he could just pull his, push his arm down.
• 3:22:02
  Really. Hard.
• 3:22:03
  He couldn't get there. Yeah.
• 3:22:04
  He couldn't get there in time. And a great big close up of a
• 3:22:07
  Dalek. I mean, what more do you want?
• 3:22:11
  I thought you. Never.
• 3:22:13
  OK, well, I've got a question for you on the back of that.
• 3:22:15
  I've been sitting on this one. I'm waiting for this moment
• 3:22:19
  because that is the most spectacular end that Davros ever
• 3:22:26
  could have had. Yeah, so should Davros have been
• 3:22:30
  a one shot character? Yes, it's really difficult.
• 3:22:34
  Isn't it? Because OK, well, once again,
• 3:22:36
  once. It is really difficult.
• 3:22:39
  You know I. Yeah.
• 3:22:43
  Yeah, he would have been a great one shot character, but he
• 3:22:47
  wouldn't have. I don't know if he'd have become
• 3:22:51
  the the great Doctor Who villain if he hadn't come back.
• 3:22:58
  Will we all just be without thinking?
• 3:22:59
  Oh yeah, I don't know. But there's so many great some
• 3:23:03
  of those moments. There's so many great downright
• 3:23:06
  moments, but there's never going to be a moment as good as that.
• 3:23:08
  No. No, I think.
• 3:23:11
  His story is told there, really, and it's just then extended
• 3:23:16
  artificially. What is he in life?
• 3:23:18
  He's just, he's just a villain making more Daleks.
• 3:23:21
  They're trying to take over the universe and it's essentially a
• 3:23:24
  rewrite of the character. I mean, for me, there's there's
• 3:23:28
  a law of diminishing returns that sets in from this point on.
• 3:23:32
  I mean, for all that Terry Minoy and Julian Bleach and David
• 3:23:35
  Goodison are fantastic as Davros, they are not as good as
• 3:23:39
  Michael Wisher. The character has not written as
• 3:23:41
  well as he is in this story. You know he's.
• 3:23:46
  He. Goes full blown megalomaniac in
• 3:23:51
  in Destiny of the Daleks. It's, you know, if we put
• 3:23:53
  Destiny of the Daleks on right now, you would be jawed with the
• 3:23:58
  the cover that has presented. It was essentially supposed to
• 3:24:01
  be exactly the same. It was literally just been
• 3:24:04
  exterminated, but has just frozen himself in time.
• 3:24:07
  And then, you know, it's very jarring.
• 3:24:10
  It's not as jarring as I thought it would happen when you watch
• 3:24:12
  this, but it is, you know, different.
• 3:24:16
  And what also happens is then that you now have every Dalek
• 3:24:19
  story is a more of a Davros story than a Dalek 1.
• 3:24:22
  And that was. Always the the criticism through
• 3:24:26
  the through the late 70s and 80s.
• 3:24:29
  So you might you might think, well, 11 Davros story.
• 3:24:32
  OK. I think obviously the new series
• 3:24:34
  has done a lot better than just having those, you know, keeping
• 3:24:37
  Davos for a few special moments. But even then, as soon as you
• 3:24:41
  get Davos, it's not a Dalek story anymore.
• 3:24:44
  It's a Davros story. The Daleks just become window
• 3:24:47
  dressing. You know, we have other monsters
• 3:24:52
  which are like that. You know, the Yeti is the tool
• 3:24:55
  of the Great Intelligence. But those stories are told a lot
• 3:24:59
  better and we have the Yetis used a lot more effectively than
• 3:25:02
  what we do Daleks when there's Davros involved.
• 3:25:07
  So for me, if we just how Dave Ross is this one shot villain,
• 3:25:12
  you know, well, that's that's how the Daleks were created and
• 3:25:15
  that's what happened in the end. They turned on their creator and
• 3:25:18
  you know, he schadenfreude or whatever, but I'm not quite the
• 3:25:25
  word I'm looking for, but close enough.
• 3:25:27
  Then that would have been perfect.
• 3:25:29
  And then we could have told more Dalek stories without Dave Ross.
• 3:25:33
  I think he probably would be, you know, he wouldn't be better.
• 3:25:36
  You know he would be considered the ultimate Doctor Who villain.
• 3:25:41
  The interesting thing is, I think, is that whenever Davros
• 3:25:47
  comes back, maybe not so much in Destiny, but in Resurrection and
• 3:25:53
  in, say, The Stolen Earth and Journey's End, that Davros is
• 3:25:57
  the only villain that can really get under the Doctor's skin and
• 3:26:02
  can really get a really visceral reaction out of the Doctor.
• 3:26:07
  So much so that Peter Davison's Doctor goes to kill him because
• 3:26:12
  he's so. I mean, that's in the hands of
• 3:26:15
  Eric's award, all right? Yeah, exactly.
• 3:26:17
  But it's it's a huge moment for that doctor.
• 3:26:20
  And then you get the same in Journey's End, don't you?
• 3:26:23
  Where Davros is the only person who could say you've turned your
• 3:26:27
  companions into an army. Look what you've done.
• 3:26:31
  You're no different to me and it's those character moments
• 3:26:35
  that Davros brings. I get the temptation.
• 3:26:38
  I really great. Because Dalek Darla could be so
• 3:26:41
  incredibly banal that you've suddenly got a mouthpiece that
• 3:26:45
  is potentially very interesting. I just think the they kind of
• 3:26:52
  they go down the direction of making him sort of a ranting
• 3:26:55
  villain half the time and that's not interesting.
• 3:27:00
  You say that, but he's so superb in remembrance of the time
• 3:27:04
  because I'm not all of that. I think that again, that's the
• 3:27:08
  trade off then, isn't it? Because if if we don't have
• 3:27:11
  Davos coming back or we use him with sparingly, then we don't
• 3:27:15
  don't have rice pudding and we don't have.
• 3:27:19
  Don't have interesting stuff in Revelation?
• 3:27:22
  Yeah, where he's charming. Oh my God, I believe that's what
• 3:27:26
  they call consumer resistance. Exactly.
• 3:27:30
  So yeah, it's, it's a really difficult one, isn't it?
• 3:27:34
  You know, Yeah. Bullet Boys, we've got a a hard
• 3:27:39
  task ahead on the back of six episodes only.
• 3:27:42
  Three. Well, I think we should do 9.
• 3:27:47
  I'm going. To do it in the order that we're
• 3:27:50
  in. Sigh.
• 3:27:51
  Me, Fraser. All right, so no pressure, but
• 3:27:55
  you're first. OK, I am going to go for the
• 3:28:00
  ending. We had didn't discuss the actual
• 3:28:02
  ending, but I think the Doctor's little speech is as important as
• 3:28:08
  that process end and the and the Doctor coming out of this with
• 3:28:12
  optimism after being in such an awful, horrible world where
• 3:28:19
  there isn't any optimism is something good.
• 3:28:25
  I am going to say the direction of David Maloney, which is a bit
• 3:28:29
  obvious, but like what an unenviable task he had.
• 3:28:35
  And he was given like the brief to make it more muscular than
• 3:28:41
  before. And he just fulfills that
• 3:28:44
  brilliantly. Like this, this is unforgettable
• 3:28:46
  television. This isn't just unforgettable
• 3:28:48
  Doctor Who. This is fantastic television.
• 3:28:51
  So David Maloney is my choice. In a move that will surprise
• 3:28:56
  absolutely no one, I'm going to say neither.
• 3:29:00
  Bloody obsessed man, honestly. I am honestly, it's like I said,
• 3:29:04
  it's it's yeah, the character of neither.
• 3:29:07
  Just you know, what he does, where he comes from, where he's
• 3:29:11
  heads at, you know, everything just fascinated about him.
• 3:29:14
  But obviously, you know, the performance of Peter Miles as
• 3:29:16
  well is just superb of just, you know, that clip delivery, you
• 3:29:21
  know, like you've said, the the fact that he very barely smiles
• 3:29:25
  unless people are dying or he's conning someone.
• 3:29:27
  And, you know, he's just such a vicious, capable villain who,
• 3:29:35
  you know, if that was just him, we might talk about him a lot
• 3:29:38
  more than Davros. But, you know, he works this
• 3:29:42
  beautiful relationship with Davos gets overshadowed a little
• 3:29:44
  bit and but he is there just pulling strings and, you know,
• 3:29:49
  being everything that you need him to be.
• 3:29:52
  And it's played beautifully. You, I think about henchman, you
• 3:29:56
  know, you were all over Reagan in Ambassadors of Death as well.
• 3:30:01
  You like a morally ambiguous henchman?
• 3:30:03
  Oh, as long as this moon. That night I was in quite so
• 3:30:06
  busy but. Not really.
• 3:30:08
  No. Can't imagine him on a dinner
• 3:30:10
  date. Dudley Simpson.
• 3:30:13
  Dudley Simpson is he's at his peak here, I think, and there
• 3:30:20
  are other scores that he will do that are hummable and beautiful,
• 3:30:25
  but I'm not sure he ever quite betters what he does here.
• 3:30:30
  This is perfect, absolutely perfect incidental music for
• 3:30:35
  Doctor Who. It's thrilling.
• 3:30:37
  It keeps the tension up, it ramps up the action, it ramps up
• 3:30:42
  scenes that might be lesser so. Even the scene with the clams
• 3:30:46
  and Harry getting his foot in it has really dramatic music.
• 3:30:50
  He is at the peak of his powers and it's phenomenal and it's
• 3:30:54
  criminal that it doesn't exist. I'd love to listen to it in its
• 3:31:00
  entirety. And yes, there we go.
• 3:31:04
  Dudley Simpson deserves, yeah, deserves more love than he ever
• 3:31:08
  gets. All I will say to that is what I
• 3:31:11
  say whenever we discussed Dudley Simpson on podcast, which is
• 3:31:14
  good to Jess Djokovic on YouTube.
• 3:31:17
  As he hasn't done. He has described constraint that
• 3:31:21
  transcribed quite a bit of of Genesis of the Dalek.
• 3:31:25
  Yeah, he. Did the whole Dalek theme.
• 3:31:27
  There's whole minutes and minutes of all the Dalek action
• 3:31:31
  scenes, so the bits that Joe was saying.
• 3:31:33
  Well, the stuff I love. Is as relentless as the as the
• 3:31:39
  action on the screen. So there's there's a little bit
• 3:31:41
  in there for for my man nature as well.
• 3:31:43
  There is, he gets his own. Yeah, I'm going to say the
• 3:31:54
  Daleks themselves, which are used very sparingly and are more
• 3:31:59
  effective for it. This story had to get the Daleks
• 3:32:03
  right because it's a very important story.
• 3:32:06
  It's the genesis of the Daleks and I, I I just think they're
• 3:32:10
  shot incredibly well. They're written incredibly well.
• 3:32:14
  And like come the last episode, they're out in force and it's
• 3:32:18
  what you want and you've been waiting a long time for it.
• 3:32:20
  I just think, I just think they're very, they're genuinely
• 3:32:23
  scary in this in a way that I don't usually find the dogs
• 3:32:27
  scary. And Terry Nation hacking away at
• 3:32:37
  life. Actually, Terry, that's not
• 3:32:40
  really good enough. Can you do something different
• 3:32:42
  for us? OK, yeah, we'll go boom.
• 3:32:45
  Genesis of the Daleks. You know, it's, it's, it's a
• 3:32:49
  really good example of how good a writer he can be when you want
• 3:32:53
  him to be. You know, the, the story, the
• 3:32:56
  creation of Davros, the, the whole back story of the Thaws
• 3:33:02
  and the Collids. And you know what happens and
• 3:33:04
  how Davos portrays them. And you know, the tragedy isn't
• 3:33:07
  it. And it's just a a fantastic
• 3:33:10
  story, really well told and really well written.
• 3:33:13
  And like I say, he doesn't get enough credit for what he can't
• 3:33:16
  actually do or he has done, you know, even when he is hacking
• 3:33:19
  it, you know, when he appreciate that he's a very good hack.
• 3:33:24
  You know, again, I'll say look at Blake seven.
• 3:33:27
  You know what, the entire series by himself hacked it out, but
• 3:33:32
  did it really, really well with a lot of style, with a lot of
• 3:33:34
  variety in here. He just absolutely proves, you
• 3:33:38
  know when, when he's on his game, when you push him, when
• 3:33:42
  you want him to be. He's a fantastic writer.
• 3:33:46
  Well, I it's obvious really, isn't it?
• 3:33:48
  It's Davros, you know, because it's not just Michael Wisher,
• 3:33:55
  it's everything. It's the design choice is
• 3:33:58
  perfect. They've got the base of the
• 3:34:01
  Dalek with a wizened old man at the top.
• 3:34:05
  The mask by John Friedlander is just absolutely incredible piece
• 3:34:10
  of design. It's just so perfect.
• 3:34:13
  It's the fact that kids can draw half a Dalek with a man stuck in
• 3:34:18
  the top into to whatever degree is the fact that he's only got 1
• 3:34:23
  arm. And Michael Wisher plays it
• 3:34:25
  brilliantly. And Michael Wisher create Steph
• 3:34:27
  Ross and he makes him still and he makes him quiet at the right
• 3:34:32
  times. But he can also do the ranting.
• 3:34:35
  And it's the switch between the two.
• 3:34:37
  And every scene with Dapros is electrifying, because you want
• 3:34:41
  to see what he's going to do next, and you want to see him
• 3:34:45
  sat there tapping his fingers. Because you know, even though
• 3:34:48
  you can't read the face in the mask, you know that there's
• 3:34:53
  something ticking inside him the whole time, and that he's
• 3:34:57
  scheming, and he's cleverer than everyone else on this whole
• 3:35:01
  world other than the Doctor. And he's finally met someone who
• 3:35:04
  can match him. And it's fascinating.
• 3:35:07
  He's we, as you've heard, we have spent sort of five episodes
• 3:35:13
  of this talking about Daf Ross because it all comes back to
• 3:35:17
  that character. It's a phenomenal creation.
• 3:35:20
  It's one of the best things in Doctor Who to ever come out of
• 3:35:24
  Doctor Who. And it's come out of Doctor
• 3:35:26
  Who's arch enemies again. It's just.
• 3:35:30
  Yeah, yeah. I could go on for hours as I
• 3:35:33
  have already, because it it's just magic and everything coming
• 3:35:37
  together at the right time, all the right decisions to be made
• 3:35:41
  and it works so. There you go.
• 3:35:44
  Come. On Beat that.
• 3:35:48
  I'll try and beat it. My mind slightly contradicts
• 3:35:52
  phrases, unfortunately, and that's Robert Holmes.
• 3:35:54
  And I'm perfectly convinced that 7080% of the dialogue of this
• 3:36:00
  story has been rewritten, polished, and sharpened up by
• 3:36:04
  Robert Holmes. The last two stories that Terry
• 3:36:06
  Nation churned out were Planet of the Daleks and Death to the
• 3:36:10
  Daleks, and they write one bit of quotable dialogue in either
• 3:36:13
  of those stories. And now you're telling.
• 3:36:15
  Me Holmes worked on Death to the Daleks.
• 3:36:17
  Well, he's letting him get away with it there and now he's and
• 3:36:22
  now he's literally banging out like poetic, smart, effortlessly
• 3:36:27
  memorable diet. I just don't buy it.
• 3:36:29
  I think there's a lot of Terry Nation in this, don't get me
• 3:36:32
  wrong, but I think Robert Holmes is like the master Craftsman of
• 3:36:36
  Doctor Who dialogue. And this is some of the best
• 3:36:39
  dialogue in Doctor Whoever and I don't think that's come from
• 3:36:42
  Terry Nation. So I think Robert Holmes has
• 3:36:44
  given this a top to toe Polish. I'm not saying rewrite, but
• 3:36:48
  Polish and the dialogue throughout is exceptionally
• 3:36:54
  good. The only thing I can see that
• 3:36:57
  is, you know, somewhere in this podcast there are 10,000 Daleks,
• 3:37:05
  right? So what I'm going to pick is
• 3:37:08
  Harry Sullivan and Sarah Jane Smith for this.
• 3:37:11
  You know, the two companions, I think, you know, we've discussed
• 3:37:14
  the dynamic and how they work in, you know, the first few
• 3:37:18
  episodes and I don't think we've really probably thought enough
• 3:37:23
  about listed and and how magnificent she is and
• 3:37:26
  everything actually does. But especially this Ian Marta
• 3:37:29
  again, doesn't really get much to do as Harry, but what he does
• 3:37:34
  is is exceptionally good as well.
• 3:37:37
  I just love these two as the companions.
• 3:37:41
  I love Sarah Point and, you know, being the doctor sort of
• 3:37:48
  conscience, as it were. You look at that scene at the
• 3:37:50
  start of episode 6 where, you know, do I have the right and
• 3:37:53
  she's the one that's saying, well, yes, you know, blood the
• 3:37:55
  bloody down. You know, she's pushing him and
• 3:37:59
  pushing him, pushing him. Harry's there is sort of
• 3:38:01
  dependable wand, you know, the extra pair of hands, as it were,
• 3:38:06
  but they're just there's just something about them that just
• 3:38:09
  works. You know, I miss Harry when he's
• 3:38:12
  not there, love, you know, the Doctor and Sarah Jane, but I
• 3:38:15
  miss Harry when he's not around to even just been doing the
• 3:38:19
  comedy stuff of which probably might not have been comedy at
• 3:38:22
  the time, but it's certainly dated now with the old girl and
• 3:38:26
  step up a lip and and that sort of stuff.
• 3:38:30
  Yeah, I just, I just love this TARDIS team together.
• 3:38:35
  Wow boys, we embarked on a hell of a story there.
• 3:38:39
  I hope we've done it justice. I think we've done it justice.
• 3:38:44
  Where the hell are we team at into next?
• 3:38:47
  Cardiff. Nova Beacon or possibly?
• 3:38:52
  Scaro again. Possibly.
• 3:38:57
  So I'm going to put a poll out to Twitter naming the Season of
• 3:39:03
  Death, Boomtown, and now The Magician's Apprentice, and
• 3:39:07
  we'll. Do something else in time.
• 3:39:09
  And we'll probably do none of them at all, but I'm going to
• 3:39:12
  put it out there. Thank you very much for, you
• 3:39:16
  know, taking on this all conquering classic.
• 3:39:19
  I couldn't have done it without the two of you.
• 3:39:22
  I know I couldn't have done it without the two of you either.
• 3:39:24
  No, I could. Well, I could have done it, but.
• 3:39:26
  It could have done. This.
• 3:39:29
  You laughed before I I paid you all both for compliments.
• 3:39:33
  Typical. Oh, go on then.
• 3:39:36
  Oh. I said I could have done it
• 3:39:38
  without you, but it wouldn't have been as good.
• 3:39:39
  Lovely, I'm. Sure it would have been.