Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Jason Thompson about his choice of The Daleks’ Masterplan (1/12)

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Talks to Jason Thompson about his choice of The Daleks’ Masterplan (1/12) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

0:40
Welcome back to a hamster with a blunt penknife the Doctor Who
0:43
commentary podcast. I am here with the wonderful Joe
0:48
Ford who has agreed to come on to my podcast very generously.
0:52
Oh no way, it's the other way around.
0:55
I'd love to come on to your podcast.
0:57
This is started. Oh, don't you promised me?
1:02
A tripods podcast last time. You know, I did and I thought
1:06
about it and at the moment I haven't got the time or the
1:10
energy to set one up, but I would maybe next year, it could
1:13
well happen. You never know.
1:15
Don't even, it's just because you can't bear to be doing
1:17
commentaries over. All those scenes of them.
1:19
Doing winemaking in the vineyard.
1:25
I rather liked that episode. Anyway, we're not here to talk
1:28
about the tripods, although we seem to do that quite a bit last
1:32
time. Anyway, yeah.
1:33
Yeah. Why don't you tell us what we
1:35
are here to talk about? Well, thank you very much and
1:38
you know, thank you for the compliment unfortunately.
1:40
I'm terrible at receiving them are much better at giving them
1:43
out receiving confidence. Yes, we all know that, we all
1:46
establish that one. Now, I can I can start by saying
1:50
the wonderful, the charismatic, the intelligent handsome, Jason
1:54
Thompson. If you through our me, I'll be
1:56
off. Alright, we're here today to
2:00
begin the Nightmare and that is not the nightmare of Eden and
2:05
that is not nightmare of silver or in silver in silver.
2:09
Yeah, they're installed. We have a nightmares.
2:14
Not that I can think of there's the 80 show nightmare, you know.
2:19
Remember that. Yeah, I remember that very
2:23
vividly. That was a favorite staple of my
2:25
childhood. Television consumption was
2:27
Nightmare Jason sidestep to the riot, sorry?
2:30
Okay. Now we're hitting, we hit
2:33
forward, walk forward. I'm sure he can find it
2:47
somewhere. Online nightmare spelled with a
2:50
K and Britt Box series. Free some pretty pocket.
2:53
Yeah, I'm have ulis after Peter Allen.
2:56
Having a special effects. I was in Babylon 5.
2:59
Sorry. I do you like that?
3:01
Anyway, we're here to do. Nightmare Begins episode 1 of
3:06
The Dive Master Plan. Indeed, we are.
3:09
So without further ado, Let's go into it so queued up and ready.
3:14
So 5 4, 3 2 1. Go I want.
3:24
Here we go. So we're going up from the very
3:28
dramatic ending of the mythmakers We are, we are indeed
3:35
that's a bit louder than the previous one.
3:41
And I'm really, really alright? Desperate to say about those
3:44
titles, again. I say it every single time.
3:46
When that dog, oh ho comes up on the tiles.
3:48
I'm not going to do it but you know, you know you know.
3:51
Yeah I'm going to start actually by correcting an error that I
3:55
made on previous podcasts when we were talking about those
3:58
titles and that original theme, I said that Delia Derbyshire who
4:02
changed the theme back in 1963. Didn't get any credit on the
4:06
series for a very long time. And I said that I think it was
4:10
Russell T Davies who first arranged for Delia Derbyshire
4:13
have a credit and it was pointed out to me on Twitter on the day
4:18
that podcast went out that actually it was Steven Moffat
4:23
and Steven Moffat episode. We've got the first credit for
4:26
Delia Derbyshire and that was The Day of the Doctor.
4:30
We use the original opening theme.
4:34
So she got a credit the first credit she ever received on
4:37
episode of Doctor Who Three years after it was first heard,
4:40
wow, what I oversee that shocking, isn't it?
4:45
It is right. That's the way.
4:46
The BBC worked at the time. You've got the composer credit,
4:51
but the realization was to BBC Radio 4 Link Workshop.
4:53
They didn't name specific individuals at that time.
4:55
So what a piece of music lesson, I want to talk to you about
5:01
William Hartnell because he was not happy at this point in the
5:08
show. Is he very to land, but has
5:10
ducked out the new producers, kind of they're getting on at
5:13
all. They is so bad.
5:15
That there's a code word that if hartnell's having a like a
5:19
Paddy, then someone has to come down onto the set to try and
5:23
sort him out. He's no, I think he's on record
5:27
as saying he thought like a lot of evil was seeping into the
5:30
series, I know the death counter things like that you know,
5:33
because these are pretty dark stories.
5:37
There's no real indication in this performance.
5:39
So, is there of his dissatisfaction?
5:42
No, William Hartnell was a consummate professional in terms
5:47
of what he delivered on the floor.
5:49
Some people say he wasn't so professional in the way he
5:52
treated other people. But, you know, we don't want to
5:54
go into that too much because that's anecdotal evidence of a
5:59
long time ago, but what we actually get on screen is
6:01
fantastic. And people do rather unfairly
6:05
point out his fluffs and he does make a fair few in this story.
6:07
It's got to be said, but considering the term, the way he
6:12
was working the recording and rehearsing schedule.
6:16
And yeah, this point he wasn't happy because not only a Verity
6:20
Lambert gone. Maureen O'Brien, who he got on
6:23
with very well. Have been unceremoniously
6:24
written out. So yeah, he was he wasn't
6:30
Terribly Happy with how things were going but I mean that from
6:34
watching it this early stages as well but he was sick, wasn't it?
6:37
You know he really sick at this point and so I don't but I I
6:44
make the excuse for William Hartnell that his line for
6:48
Laughs absolutely could be a part of his character.
6:52
You know there's sort of occasionally very incisive and
6:56
occasionally very daughtery. Old, man, because sometimes he's
7:00
written to be adultery old man. You know, mad eccentric.
7:07
Yeah, I would. I would agree with that and I
7:10
think it's an interesting, it's interesting in some respects
7:16
that we pick up on fluffs and line, cock-ups and misspoken
7:20
words and things, especially because they've happened with
7:23
some degree of regularity in 60s and 70s television.
7:26
And as if this is somehow a bad thing.
7:29
And then you think how many times have you gone through a
7:31
day when you haven't made a mistake as you're talking to
7:35
somebody and slipped up on the words that you're saying,
7:37
Saying, you know, it's it's quite a natural thing.
7:39
To get your sentence is wrong every so often or say the wrong
7:42
thing. So but we expect performers to
7:46
get it right every time perfectly But I think like any
7:51
kind of line fluff is made up for just by honestly, the
7:58
personality brings for the role and like his best moments.
8:03
Yeah. I think it's in the second
8:04
episode where he's just like he goes up.
8:07
Brett Vine and it's like you shut up.
8:09
Sorry. Right face.
8:13
It's fucking hilarious. You know?
8:16
He's brilliant. I don't think we can
8:19
underestimate. How good he was but I think
8:21
people do underwrite how good he was and he very often languishes
8:26
somewhere at the bottom of polls, you know, in favor of
8:30
some of the newer guys but he's the governor Roy, he's the one
8:34
that started elf. He's the one that started it
8:37
off. He's the without him it wouldn't
8:40
have got where it has got today you know it wouldn't it just
8:43
wouldn't and he's brilliant. He's absolutely brilliant.
8:47
He creates a wonderful character.
8:49
To who everyone says. Oh, he's the crotchety old man.
8:53
And which series are you watching when you saved the
8:56
crotchety old man? Look at some of the scenes, he
8:58
has with his companions. With Susan, with Vicki and
9:01
Barbara and everything. He's, he's very compassionate,
9:04
very caring. It's really interesting is that
9:07
when interpretations of the first doctor, start bowling out
9:12
in the five, doctors and twice. Upon a time they leaned into
9:16
that crotchety old man cliche quite a bit.
9:19
Handle, you know, it's got a sternness to him so does David
9:25
Bradley. Whereas I don't know heart that
9:27
was pretty Whimsical. I think at times absolutely he
9:31
was yeah, there's base to seen in the in the Crusade episode 3,
9:38
anywhere. seven, he just He says, all those that I was just
9:44
worried and that can be very, very dangerous indeed, you know,
9:47
any books on the nose and he, you know, they it's that's not a
9:52
crotchety old man. That's a really caring.
9:54
Uncle kind of character, you know.
9:55
It's but the crotchety old man, is the one that everyone
9:59
remembers and partly. I think that's probably because
10:02
one of the most often repeated episodes of hartnell's is the
10:05
first one. Yeah.
10:07
Well, he was a crotchety old get, but they totally overlooked
10:11
all the character development that he went through.
10:13
In the first season with the Hanna-Barbera and that's just
10:16
all. So as we travel and came next
10:19
and trowel was so irreverent a times and so comic that you know
10:24
like they do feel like there's a contrast, doesn't it between the
10:27
two? Oh that's that contrast.
10:30
Yeah, I think that was one of the best decisions they made
10:34
creatively was to make a contrast when they got someone
10:36
else to replace Hartnell, not just recap recast the same
10:40
character his personality Little bit, I always quote, is that
10:44
being the web planet, where is that was it, we nearly have the
10:47
remnants of us. Coal Hill school teacher there,
10:49
such a wretched old ragged old tie.
10:51
It is so fun, but he gets the tone of this.
10:57
Absolutely. And in episode 2, where we can
11:00
actually see him acting like he promotes the seriousness of this
11:07
story. Adeptly.
11:11
Absolutely. That is absolutely.
11:13
And as he told my screen, at the only one, I think we just have
11:16
to Veer off William Hartnell from it and say, Nicholas
11:19
Courtney. Okay, the don't stop a meeting
11:23
me. Why is he hot in this story?
11:30
You can you can say people are hot for Joe.
11:32
That's fine. That's fine.
11:33
And Nicholas. Courtney is a very handsome man.
11:35
I have to agree but I really want to Shag it as well.
11:38
There you go. Sorry.
11:42
Razor. If you're listening to this, I
11:43
expect you to put a stop, it comment and I think we're
11:46
probably going to get Lucy's Brigadier reaction are God, I
11:50
live for that, you know, I consider are willing at live
11:54
every time. She tweets that to me is very
11:59
different from the Brigadier. This, I wasn't it.
12:02
Is quite different from the Brigadier.
12:03
Yes. But you can see elements of the
12:05
Brigadier in it, and you can see why I can feel brought in back.
12:07
When, when the Brigadier was returned to the series later on,
12:13
when Lethbridge Stewart, was was cast.
12:16
He's always really honest. I find kourtney's.
12:19
Like, I always think Courtney's, very good actor.
12:21
Don't get me wrong. I find Courtney's best.
12:23
Performances are like, what? Like what?
12:27
He's really like acting acting is this The web of fear it's
12:33
more inundated and its parts of Battlefield so it's not his sort
12:39
of bulk of his rum you know like his big bulk of his Runway was a
12:42
little bit relaxing was there's lots of regular work the writing
12:45
was relaxing along with the actors getting on with each
12:48
other but I really feel like he's putting a ton of effort
12:51
into this. Yeah it is.
12:53
And we're now into clip and at the first clip of a master plan
12:58
that survives which I love this first appearance of a Dalek
13:03
Shock from the light shot from below and that musical sting
13:07
that goes with the appearance as well.
13:10
I mean, that would have been that would have been a fantastic
13:13
way to introduce the dollar. If we haven't known, they were
13:16
coming already because I think they had already said, the
13:19
Daleks are going to be in this one.
13:20
And we obviously saw mission to the unknown.
13:23
I want to, I want to make a comparison and you might think
13:26
I'm being unfair and tell me about I am the chase featured
13:31
sequences of Daleks in a jungle in the latter episode menacing
13:39
people. Yeah.
13:40
And that's exactly what we just had their the difference in the
13:44
scenes, in the chase, to the scenes in this. there's a world
13:50
apart between the two of them and it, you know, people that
13:53
say I've had people say Richard mind you know it's now time it
13:58
didn't have money Lala bollocks. I think it's the skill of the
14:02
director and just can't fellas. Got it, you know?
14:06
I think you're right. I think Richard Martin's
14:08
direction is one of the Richard Martin's Direction on location
14:13
is absolutely gorgeous. He does some fantastic work on
14:17
location when he's got space. When he's got, you know, great
14:22
Open Spaces to play with and lots of natural light and
14:26
natural landscapes and constructions, and things like
14:30
that. But when he's confined to a
14:31
studio, some of his direction is shocking.
14:34
I mean, You know, I've said it I think I said it or how are the
14:38
Daleks and it wasn't Richard Martin, that did it, but he made
14:42
the Cardinal mistake of having cardboard photo blow-up doll.
14:46
It's in the background to swell the ranks and then he shot them
14:49
from different angles so that you could see, they were flat.
14:52
Yeah. I mean that's a really basic
14:55
thing, you know, you either have them in there and shoot them
14:58
from the front, will you take them away so that you've got,
15:01
your not revealing that their cardboard.
15:02
So you know, that's and the direction that we see This story
15:07
is confined to a tiny Studio but just absolutely superb.
15:12
But like look what Canfield's already done like his Direction
15:17
in the Crusade I think is a carb of anything else in season to
15:23
remember the bit where Saladin is introduced and he's a
15:27
listening to a conversation behind the curtain and the
15:29
camera sort of pans in and there's music playing and it's
15:34
all just done without dialogue. In the time meddler where he
15:38
manages to convince that a studio is like a by the seaside.
15:43
I was utterly convinced that was on vacation the first time I
15:45
watch that. Yeah, it was it was really well
15:49
done. And then here, I think, I think
15:53
he manages to, to make the jungle setting feel, you know,
15:58
alive and dangerous. I just wish we could have seen
16:04
more manners. So many different locations in
16:06
this. I wish we could have seen more
16:09
but that little sequence with with Kirk Gantry on his own
16:15
nervous. In a clearing.
16:18
I mean that the suspense on that sequence is is brilliant.
16:22
It's, I'm glad, it's one of the ones that survives the sequence
16:25
with the flamethrowers. You know, the Daleks in the
16:28
jungle on fire and things like that.
16:31
Yeah. Okay.
16:32
We haven't got much time with her.
16:34
So we do have to address the Katarina problems.
16:37
Katarina problem? Yes.
16:41
We need a new companion because we've written Maureen O'Brien
16:43
out. Let's have a handmaiden from
16:44
Troy. Oh wait, she doesn't know
16:46
anything that's killer off and replace it with somebody else.
16:49
It's a bizarre aberration, isn't it?
16:53
Like I mean, I mean, in the way in a way it's done so brutally
16:58
and so swiftly, I think it's effective.
17:02
I think it's brilliant and when we get to episode 4, I'll have a
17:05
lot more to say on that subject. But I think that, I think it was
17:11
a mistake by the, by the production crew not not to bring
17:16
her in, as you know, a Trojan handmade new didn't know
17:21
anything. I think the mistake was that
17:25
they didn't think much about what they could do with her
17:27
because the idea of bringing a historical character from, you
17:31
know, pre-industrial times into the Tardis worked fantastically
17:35
with Jamie. Yeah.
17:37
But look at what they do with Jamie though.
17:39
Like, they have Jamie asking a lot of questions for about three
17:42
or four stories and then everything is ice everything in
17:45
this dried after that like there's barely any like, he's
17:47
not being educated anymore, he's just like, oh, okay, this is the
17:50
spaceship. Oh, okay, there's a like And I
17:52
think that's the way you've got, do it, otherwise it could just
17:55
get very tedious that if, in every story, every modern piece
17:58
of technology is being explained to him.
18:01
Could they have done, huh? I think I don't think they gave
18:05
her the chance. You know, she's she acts it.
18:10
Well, she thinks she's a good actress.
18:13
Oh yeah, I think so but I think they gave him much of a chance.
18:17
I think they fell into the. I think they fell into a common
18:19
trap but fiction sometimes does which assumes that people from
18:25
the past are Ignorant primitive Savages, who can't cope with
18:32
modern ideas, but they're pretty intelligent.
18:35
If you put a, if I took somebody from Troy into this time, period
18:39
and explain things to them to a degree, at least, you know, not,
18:43
you wouldn't, you wouldn't be able to explain how a computer
18:45
works to somebody from Troy, but let's face it.
18:48
Most people can't explain how a computer works to somebody from
18:51
now. I can't, you know, I mean, you
18:56
know, what I think is probably the best example of the The
19:00
historical companion and she's not even a historical companion,
19:03
but it is couched in. It's Lila.
19:06
It's if they're going to the companion, this kind of ignorant
19:09
but asks all the smart questions.
19:14
Yeah yeah I just don't think they had I don't think they put
19:20
enough thought into writing Dicky out and replacing her with
19:25
Katarina because they didn't create much of a character from
19:28
kasserine, what you tell me. Because you've got that book
19:32
there with a lot of facts in it. Is it apocryphal that there was
19:39
talk of Maureen O'Brien exiting in this story and be, you know,
19:45
sacrificing herself in instead of Katerina I don't know, I
19:51
didn't stop that in this particular book, I have to say
19:55
but Oh, the magnetic chair. Sorry, bit of a tangent.
20:00
The magnetic chair. A very sci-fi silly idea, in
20:04
some respects. It's got a chair that has a
20:06
false to build on it. But in my head, in my head after
20:11
this story, when he was exiled to Earth, in his third
20:13
Incarnation, he dismantled that magnetic chair and used it to
20:17
make the anti-theft device on Bessie and ambassadors of death.
20:20
Hmm Jackson similar principle I think I love your theories.
20:27
Here we go. With the you Youyou and City
20:29
Science and Doctor Who the fall. I'll probably find that somebody
20:34
else has already written that into a new adventure, or past
20:36
doctor Adventure, or something somewhere.
20:38
But that's that's where I think those two pieces of Technology
20:41
seem very similar to me - okay. It's a quickly.
20:46
Go back to Katerina. Do you think the little that we
20:50
saw of her was successful? Yes, I think so.
20:57
Yeah, she does have she tries to understand what's going on.
21:01
She tries to fit into what she, what she knows.
21:07
Well, I'm cool. The big question is then, you
21:10
know, this was coming. Is Katerina a companion?
21:16
Yes. Oh no.
21:18
No. People would argue that, you
21:20
know people come at you. Well, they're wrong.
21:26
I think it took to me, she's a companion for a number of
21:29
reasons, I used to say before the new series came along and
21:34
muddy the waters. Some what I used to say that you
21:38
they were a companion if not if they went into the Tardis and
21:43
travel in the Tardis because lots of people do that.
21:47
Let's see if they don't, you think targets and went somewhere
21:49
that wasn't related to the situation that they initially
21:52
boarded the targets on? So the Katarina, it works
21:57
because she boards the tie this in ancient Troy and then she
22:00
goes to Kemble and gets in a spaceship.
22:01
So yeah, she's a companion for Sarah Kingdom.
22:04
It only works because of episode 7 of the story, which has
22:08
nothing to do with the rest of the garlic clock.
22:10
So they go off and have other adventures and then get back to
22:12
the Dalek business. So you know that's that was my
22:15
that's in my head. That's why they're a companion.
22:20
Other opinions are available, and I'm sure that lots of people
22:23
have different opinions that, which is fair enough.
22:25
Well, it's my life has been debated for many years now,
22:28
isn't it? It has.
22:30
But what I now look at is, I think the producers intent as to
22:36
whether they're a companion or not Katarina and Sarah were put
22:39
in to replace Vicki as a companion.
22:42
So then they had publicity photographs of Catarina and
22:47
Sarah Kingdom. I'm sorry I've got a cat
22:50
climbing up my back. Well, moments that you've
22:54
ignored me for ages is comatose on the bed over here.
22:58
So don't worry. Yeah.
23:03
So the producers intended Katarina and Sarah to be the
23:06
doctors traveling Companions and they publicized them as such.
23:09
So as far as I'm concerned, yes their companions, but if people
23:12
want to disagree and argue with that then fair enough, you know?
23:18
I just I just can't imagine how this season like as as written
23:23
would have continued at the arc, you know.
23:27
Like I thought she could have played the what's the girl's
23:31
name in? Is it an Chaplet in the
23:35
massacre? Yeah they kind of bumped her off
23:38
at the end of that one, as well as bikes.
23:41
They could have done. I do, I do enjoy the Little
23:46
trivia that Adrienne Hills. First work for Doctor, Who was
23:49
her death scene, but or the pre-filming for her floating
23:53
through space, but that's one of the few.
23:55
Anecdotes are great for married interview.
23:57
Yeah, but thankfully she being written out as where she
24:00
started. Yeah.
24:02
Okay. So I ask you the question in
24:04
mission to the unknown about that being written on the back
24:08
of a fag packet by Terry Nation. So is is this where that begins?
24:14
Because there's I know there's actor.
24:15
Perfect story. That's told about Terry Nation
24:18
turning up with like, oh yeah, I'll give you a high level 6
24:22
scripts. Don't worry.
24:23
He turns up with basically this very slim envelope and puts it
24:27
through the door and then that is off to a car and flies off to
24:30
America and leave them to it. But is there any truth in that?
24:34
Because I hear that. Why that?
24:35
That's from the production team saying that.
24:38
I think, I don't know, so don't quote me on this, but I think
24:45
that probably applies to the second half of this story more
24:48
than the first because you were supposed to write a six episode
24:52
story and it was expanded. He couldn't write 12 episode, so
24:55
Dennis Spooner got involved. So the second half is by Dennis
24:59
Spooner from an idea by Terry nation.
25:02
And so I suspect that what happened there is that the notes
25:05
the very thin notes were for the second half of the story.
25:08
Any spoon has to do a lot of writing basically on his own for
25:12
those ones but I can imagine these ones for your very Terry
25:16
Nation do, don't lay the absolutely do feel very gung-ho,
25:20
Terry Nation action adventure and we've just reached the end
25:24
of episode 1 already. These are flying by these
25:27
episodes. They are they are indeed we
25:30
barely watching them. How do you find that as a scene
25:36
Setter there? I think that's great.
25:39
I think that's a really good episode 1.
25:44
It's done quite a fair bit of world-building.
25:46
We've had, we've got the space Security Service, which we met
25:49
admission to the unknown. Now, we know there's a Central
25:51
Communications based on Earth and that sequence with mavic
25:55
Chen, being interviewed at the beginning, allow for a bit of
25:58
exposition of where we are. And when, but in a sort of
26:05
believable way, I mean it's not, you know some of these Some of
26:11
these expositions you get way they, they talk to people who
26:15
know the thing that they're saying.
26:17
Anyways like as you know, you know what?
26:20
All 15 of us and things like that.
26:22
Hey, I always pull time lash out the bag when I'm talking about
26:25
that as well. But here, you've got a
26:27
politician being interviewed on a television.
26:30
And it's quite normal for them to say things like in this year
26:34
of 4,000, because it's a special year.
26:36
And we had quite a few people in this year of 2011 IAM before.
26:39
So, you know, it's quite normal. Normal quite believable.
26:43
That's the way the characters that have opposing views about
26:46
that, doesn't it? So it sets up kind of the
26:49
universe or the world really really well.
26:54
Yeah, I think Frontier in space does a similar thing at the
26:57
beginning with the the two guys with the spaceship full of flour
27:02
that have like opposing political viewpoints.
27:06
Well okay that was yeah and I'm going to introduce you to a
27:10
revolutionary concept Kept in episode 2.
27:13
A revolutionary concept. Moving pictures.
27:17
No. Hold on to your hat.
27:21
This is gonna be a thrill.