Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast to enjoy Capacayle's in brandy sauce
with a stuffing of black pudding made with live pig bloods, herbs
pepper, and, of course, padding.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd, and Patrick Troughton's back.
It's the 2 doctors.
This story came about because of how thrilled John Nathan Turner
was watching Patrick Troughton, Fraser Hines, and Wendy Padbury, in
the 5 doctors, and sort of said to them on the spot while they
were recording, hey, we're planning this 3 part, well, equivalent
of a 6 part story in America next year.
Would you like to come in on it?
And Patrick and Fraser said, yeah, please.
I think Wendy was pregnant with Charlie, which is part of the
reason she's not back.
Her daughter Charlie.
Needless to say, this story is not set in America for a variety of
reasons.
We'll go into a bit later, but it's this strange equivalent of a
six-parter.
John Nathan Doner hated 6 partters.
This is the only 6 part equivalent story we get in his run.
And he had Eric Saywood phone, Robert Holmes, recently writer of
the Caves of Andrazani and said, okay, we want you to write a big
story.
And Robert Holmes said, okay.
And Eric Saywood said, it's set in America.
It's got Patrick Troughton, Fraser Heinz, and Santarons, and the
new doctor, and Perry, and Robert Holmes just went, oh, God.
He always reacted really badly to being given a big kitchen sink
script.
I mean, the last time, I guess, was Power of Kroll, where he was
told to include the biggest monster ever and really, really got
annoyed and kind of left immediately afterwards.
But I think that Robert Holmes is obviously one of the great
writers that the series ever had.
And I think it was kind of a strange decision of JNT to kind of
veto older writers.
And so it was a coup to get him back for Caves of Andrazani.
And I actually think that this is a reasonably good Bob Holmes
script.
And it has some clever things in it, which I don't know, go sort
of generally recognised.
And I think it's a good fit for this season in that this season is
all about kind of black comedies and and they don't always come
off.
I've said that before, but Holmes is skilled.
His instinct is to kind of go nasty, but he does it well and there
are scenes here that are genuinely funny.
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
What do you think, Todd?
I love this.
It's epic.
You know, it's, um, the 1st 6 episode story since, um, again
factor.
Yeah, it's the longest story between sort of Armageddon factor and
utopia sound of drums last of the time lords, and I don't even
think that's one story, really.
So it is, it is properly epic.
And I think, you know, like, I think Holmes manages to get enough
to happen in this to kind of justify 345 minute episodes.
I think there is some padding and there are some longers and stuff
in it.
But I think it generally works.
Patrick Chowton or the 2nd doctor and Jamie Turnup and uh, Yeah
he's on a mission from the time lords.
Yeah.
Bit of a continuity problem.
Now, I'm not sure what that's about, whether or not Holmes just
misremembers, you know, the history of the doctor around then.
He just knows the doctor was exiled to earth.
I don't know why Eric Saywood may not pick up on it, or Ian Levine
the so-called continuity fan expert, to say, well, look, the
doctor's on a run from his own people.
He's not going to reveal this information, you know?
I think there's a problem with regarding Doctor Who as a
consistent series of stories. that chronicle the adventures of a
particular individual.
And so what's really happening here is that we get guest stars
from the 60s.
And now that the show is about a time lord from the planet
Galafray in the constellation of Kosturbus, who occasionally does
go on missions to the time lords, that's just how we conceive of
the doctor, even though none of that stuff had actually happened.
And I kind of find it off-putting, to see Patrick Trouton's doctor
referred to as a timelord, even, and to have him talk about
galafray.
And I hate the conception that Gallifrey is a political force, and
there's the 3rd zone governments, and all of that just seems sort
of, you know, tiresome and and sort of Star Trek, you know, as if
we're in a consistent universe rather than just a sort of series
of stories.
I dislike that a lot.
And just the thought that the doctor, like our doctor, Patrick
Troughton, would go on a mission for the time, Lord, seems so
wrong.
You know, none of those things ever got mentioned during his, you
know, maybe the last 2 episodes of his, uh, time as the doctor
those things come up.
Yeah, I gather Robert Holmes has sort of, when he was still alive
he didn't live much longer after this about 2 years.
But someone raised it to him at a convention and he kind of put
forward 2 different ideas at 2 different times.
And one of the ideas he put forward was just saying, oh, you know
I realised after I wrote it and after we shot it, that it was
actually John who went, who went on missions, et cetera, et
cetera.
And, you know, I just got confused because I hadn't been involved
with the show for that long when John got involved, so I thought
it was just always the case.
The other thing he's actually put forward is what is now known as
the season 6 B theory, which we've discussed before, but dear
listeners, for those of you who are not aware, the season 6 B
theory is that at the end of the war games, the celestial
intervention agency who were mentioned in the deadly assassin as
having intervened in the doctor's trial, pretty much rescue the
doctor and send him on clandestine missions.
And this is not even the origin of it.
There was a series of comics published between the war games and
Spearhead from Space, where the doctor is an agent for the Time
Lords.
Exiled to earth, but still in the form of Patrick Troughton, and
is then lured into the Tartars by a bunch of time-look controlled
scarecrows and forced to regenerate and land in a field.
With the final panel, a reproduction of the 1st shot that John
Pertley appears in falling out of the TARDIS.
So we may never know what was actually going through John Nathan
Turner's head, Ian Levine has, I believe, said that he did raise
it with the production team, and because the pre-production of
this story had been so troubled.
They just kind of said, look, it's too late to do anything about
it now.
As I mentioned earlier, this story was meant to be set in New
Orleans.
JNT had gone on holiday there in 1980 and thought that the French
quarter with its vibrancy would make a fantastic location.
Um, he tried to secure extra funding from BBC Enterprises, kind of
saying, Doctor Who's propping up BBC overseas sales.
Can we see some more of that money, please?
That didn't happen.
So he made a deal with a production company called Lionheart, hired
an American writer who wrote a treatment called Way Down Yonder.
Didn't involve androgums, did involve Santarins, and was set in
New Orleans, and one of the big payoffs it would have of the
season. was after 3 stories of the doctor constantly berating
Perry for her poor English.
The doctor would have no idea what anyone was saying in America in
New Orleans and it would be up to Perry to sort of liaise and
translate.
The co-funding deal fell through.
Right.
And that was after Bob Holmes had written a New Orleans-based
story and he's like, French quarter, New Orleans food.
I'll create these gastronomic aliens, an anagram of gourmand, the
androgums, and then when it switched to Spain, as he said, I
didn't have time to come up with anything else.
So they just stayed.
Well, you know, continuity is something that I always like to try
and get out of that 6B theory.
I just going to go, I roll my eyes, listeners.
I roll my eyes.
I don't know Maybe the doctor met the precursor of the CIA and
they said you have to go on this mission.
So he mentions it to Jamie and all that's happening, and then just
by pure luck, the 6th doctor, the current doctor, they meet, and
as you know, when a previous incarnation meets the current
incarnation, when they go back into their timeline, the web of
time, it raises works to erase that from their history.
So all of that just, he forgets about it, Jamie thickets about
it.
And, you know, part of the CIA deal is not telling the timelines
that he's out there and they've found him.
You know, there is actually a line of dialogue where Holmes tries
to deal with the fact that Colin can't remember this story, which
is that when Pat is strapped to a table and being operated on by
Dastari, he's given a drug which he recognises and says has an
effect on the memory.
So I think that he was trying to deal with it.
Look, I think the 6B theory just doesn't work.
They've just dropped Victoria off to study graphology.
You know, Jamie remembers the doctor, Jamie knows what time lords
are.
It's just a mistake, you know, I think it is a shame because
unlike the 3 doctors and the 5 doctors, I think we get Pat's best
performance as the doctor since he left the show.
He's so much more like the actual doctor than he is, he's kind of
like an elder statesman when he comes back in the 3 doctors, and
he doesn't do that sort of panicky, panting pat, which I really
really love, which I think that Pete kind of references a little
bit in his performance.
And that's terrific.
I think he's really funny.
His his sort of mercurial.
He's, you know, he's the old pat rather than, uh, I'm here doing a
guest star turn for this very special anniversary occasion.
So I think that's really good.
I think he's having terrific fun as um Andragum Pat as well.
I think he's really really enjoying himself.
That is, that is a whole weird sequence, especially when Shockeye
played wonderfully by John Stratton wakes up and gets, gets to do
that whole wonderful speech about how he's been betrayed.
And, you know, for the 1st time shows what we would consider real
sort of human emotion and vulnerability.
You know, he cannot believe that Cecini has done this to him.
But then, 2 hours later when they come back from their beal, all
is forgiven. not even thinking about it.
Yeah, no, he's distracted by food.
Namely, on Tarin's leg, but we'll come back to that.
I think Shockeye is extremely good in this.
And I think that the Androgums are a really amazing monster.
And people criticise this story because of Peter Moffatt's
direction, and I don't think Peter Moffatt's direction is
particularly good.
But the big critique is that when the Santarans 1st appear, they
aren't given a sort of close-up or anything like that.
There's really no sort of fanfare about it.
And I think that that's because this isn't a story where the
Santarans are monsters.
Stike and Varlet just characters.
Holmes is not interested really in monsters.
And the Androgums are, I think, a critique of the idea of
monsters.
And this is a point that Sandifer has made as well.
But I think it's, it's really clear that what he's created is a
monster that looks essentially like human.
I mean, Shockeye is like a sort of camp, you know, dissolute old
queen, you know, um, who's dressed for a pantomime, uh, and just
looks like uh, a kind of old guy with sort of giant eyebrows.
But whenever any of the characters describe the Androgums, they're
like super strong and powerful, you know, shockeye can drink 6
bottles of wine and eat an entire suckling pig and half a family
paella at lunch with no ill effects, you know, he's superhuman and
terrifying.
So he's described as a monster, but he just looks like a person.
And so everyone who talks about Androgums all throughout this
story just seems like a horrific racist, you know, because they're
essentially just people.
And even to the point where, where Colin, you know, ends up
gassing shockeye with Oscar's cyanide, and that seems terrible
because it's just Colin killing a person.
But the person is spoken of as being a monster all the way
through.
And it kind of serves as a critique of the idea of monsters, that
monsters are a kind of basically xenophobic or racist idea that, uh
that the androgums evil because they're androgums and you can't
genetically engineer them.
Pat compares Cecini to a monkey in like a really horrifically
racist line.
And so I think that's intentional.
I don't think that the material is getting away from homes here.
I think he's setting out to deliberately critique the idea of
monsters in Doctor Who.
There seems to be a scene in every story of this season where the
doctor gets to be violent and that's become a focal point of what
people talk about.
I have no problem with the gassing scene because we have seen that
shockeye does not have what we would consider a sense of reason.
So the doctor saying, hold on, can't we discuss this?
Well, the doctor has just had to rescue both Perry and Jamie from
being literally butchered by this man.
And the doctor has a massive gash in his leg.
It is bleeding profusely from that enough to leave a blood trail.
So the doctor's just in the situation of, I've got no choice
here.
And The thing is, it's very different to the situation of the
doctor going and pointing a gun in Davros's face, as I know you
objected to last year, Nathan, because it's the doctor being
pursued rather than the doctor doing the pursuing.
Even the just desserts line, I don't see that as a gloating line
that is an expression of relief like this situation is over.
He doesn't really take any pleasure in the killing.
Like when he comes back, he he sort of just obliquely refers to
what he's done.
Just like Shockeye's been mockballed and let's move on and let's
not discuss it.
I actually object more strongly to other things this season, like
the doctor gunning, the cyber controller in the face and the
doctor shooting Daleks with a big gun in Revelation.
I don't like very much, but I'm not that worried about this, partly
because it's sold by the kind of desperation that the doctor's in
and the chase and all of that sort of thing.
And partly because I think it intends to be problematic.
It is the doctor gassing a guy in the face, but the guy's a
monster and the doctor kills monsters, you know.
So I don't think that that's bad at all.
And in fact, that chase is wonderfully well directed.
I'm laughing my head off because I came in here thinking that I
would have to have a battle on my hands to justify that sequence
with actually with Nathan. been in my head all week.
So I've been very silent listening to you both, and I agree, and
that chase is brilliant, and I think Peter Moffatt's direction on
location.
I really love it.
Yeah, I think I think he does one or 2 good shots in the studio as
well.
I don't think it's that interesting, but there are one or 2 shots
which I think are good.
The direction's a bit flat and a bit unremarkable, um, but it's
not terrible.
And certainly, you know, the big complaint about the reveal of the
Sonterans.
I think is a problem at all.
The music helps too.
The chase.
The music in the chases one.
I can't do the music.
Yeah, with the guitar.
Oh, great.
No, no, no, no.
That's fantastic.
And I also love the Santara and like the battle, you know, music.
This on Taran music is great.
Yeah, it's wonderful.
Something I love about the Santara and reveal is actually the
reveal in dialogue when their ships are coming towards it and the
computer tells the fabulous Jacqueline Pierce, Santara, and Battle
Cruises approaching.
I think that's a great touch because fans who've been watching
since 1978 or had the Doctor Who Monster book will go, oh my god
the Santarans are back.
And people who don't know the Santarans will just go, what was
that word?
What does that mean?
And it creates, it creates intrigue.
I actually have a note here, which is, I think this is the worst
Colin Baker story.
I think it might be the best.
But, I think part of the reason for that is when they lose the
American location and they have to lose all the word play that was
going to be in there because instead of having our core cast of
characters who speak British English and another core cast of
characters who speak American English, we have our core cast of
characters who speak English, and then if we have a core cast of
Spanish characters, they have to speak Spanish or they have to
speak English as well, like Anita.
So you lose that language play.
And I just feel there are long bits where not a lot happens and I
kind of feel that maybe they should have looked at the script and
gone, I know we wanted to make this a six.
Let's look at what we can do with this other episode somewhere in
the season and make it a 2 parter.
Certainly, the stuff in the ducting at the end of episode one and
the beginning of episode 2 is a bit boring.
In the 6 part version.
Yeah, right, so we've got episode one.
Oh, yes.
With Pat getting there, the doctor's off fishing.
Don't do that.
You'll frighten the fish is one of my all-time favourite lines
ever.
Like I just burst out laughing every time.
Like I've been fishing and I've been bored and throwing things
going, when are we going to catch you?
Catch some fish.
I can understand Paul Perry's predicament.
The doctor being incompetent in a rather sweet way as well
catchers.
And we've got the most valuable fish in the universe at this time
is the home script.
And Gumble Jack is such a Bob Holmes word. is, isn't it?
But then, of course, they, at the end of that, episode one of the
six-part version, of course, Perry and the doctor have arrived on
the station and they're assessing the situation and we've got that
wonderful cliffhanger, you know, the doctor says it threatened no
one and then the computer says, it threatened the time lords, Q
Sting, which I just think it's a fantastic.
But then we've got 25 minutes, another 20 minutes of this, the 2nd
half of this, this um, 45 minute episode, where basically it's the
Dr. Perry bitching at each other through the ducting and all
around the station.
And I think it's, in terms of the season.
And in terms of this story, I think it's the 25 minutes that I
like the least.
The moment that they meet Jamie, again, having that 3rd person in
with them just improves everything, you know?
And then there's that wonderful scene where it actually, you know
finds the fake deaths of Perry and that is really concerned and
everything, that's at the beginning of the next episode, I think
or...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And everything just picks up from there.
But all that ducting stuff.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
And then Jamie attacking Perry, like, yeah, I don't know why it
becomes a strange monster from the trauma of seeing the doctor
killed or whatever.
Something I found watching that 1st episode, and it was when I was
watching that scene with the doctor and Perry in Destari's
office.
And on the commentary, you have Colin Nicola, Peter Moffatt, Fraser
and Jackie Pierce, and they slightly, they slightly vary.
But that's a 7 minute scene.
And Colin and Nicola are praising Peter Moffat and, you know
nobody was doing that on television anymore.
Yeah, because you get bored.
But what I was thinking when I was watching that was, imagine if
the story started with the doctor and Perry fishing.
Yeah.
Then you go into the TARDIS, the doctor collapses and you flash
back to Pat and you tell the 2 stories on the station
simultaneously with each other.
So when the doctor and Perry are into Starry's office, you then
cut back to Patrick and Jamie in Dastari's office having a go at
him.
When the doctor and Perry are going through the ducks, you then
have Jamie seeing the doctor.
Because the problem with Collins, Dr. and Perry exploring the
station is that the plot is now happening with Patrick elsewhere
and we have to delay them getting to that plot in order for
Patrick's plot to sort of move on a bit.
I really like the doctor and Perry relationship in this story.
And when they're going through the ducting, I think the bitching
is actually at the perfect level.
For instance, the doctor's being pompous, but he's not being nasty
and Perry's being fed up, but she's not traumatised, you know what
I mean?
There's that bit where Perry has something really important to say
like, I think there's a creature following us.
And the doctor tells her off for interrupting him, but she should
feel privileged.
I can't tell you how privileged.
I feel.
She's great.
There's that whole bit with, hold your arms up and slide down.
What if I get stuck?
Well, I shouldn't have buyed that.
Be right behind you.
Colin in this is amazing.
He's got these wonderful speeches.
He's got that speech about death and decay, which is horrifying
but it's so well delivered.
He's got that speech about the possible death of the universe and
he brings it all down to there'll be no more butterflies.
No more gumblejacks.
No more gumblejack.
That is the worst kind of word peril though, isn't it?
And we throw it away quite quickly.
For a little while, we think the universe is going to be destroyed
but we're just told that in a speech by Colin and then it goes
away.
See, this is why having a nonlinear story would work because if we
didn't know whether Patrick was still alive at that point or not
it would actually raise the barrel.
We don't actually know that.
Have we seen Pat being carried by the Santarians in episode one?
Yeah, that happened.
Backup of episode one.
Okay.
Because it's a long time that we don't see him, isn't it?
It's strangely paced and it does suffer from that 45 minute
thing.
It's 10 minutes before Colin and Nicola are even in it.
That's okay because the stuff with the doctor and Jamie is kind of
exactly.
You know, the doctor has arrived in the story.
Yeah, a doctor has, but Colin doesn't get to be in the story until
well into episode two.
And so that is a bit of a problem.
I love your idea of running all that parallel.
Brendan, I think one of the listeners out there needs to do a re
edit and post it up to YouTube because that would be very, very
interesting.
Obviously, in this 1st episode, we introduced to other
characters.
Do you know, I'd forgotten that Jacqueline Pierce was in this.
But it's not Serverland.
It's pitched so perfectly between being just to camp and just the
right sort of, you know, villainous sort of thing.
I don't know.
It's just something that's delicious.
I think everybody in this story pictures their performance. very
similarly, like within a range that works, and I think we've seen
in other stories this season, certainly one coming up, where
you've suddenly got a huge range, who you can see who's over the
top and who's really crap.
Whereas in this, I think everybody's universally very good.
Justari, I think, is one of the performances of the year.
He was in the gunfighters, wasn't he?
Yes.
And he just manages to have that warmth and you can see the whole
character journey and it just holds everything together.
It's so believable.
He's Morix in episode one of the leisure hive as well.
Oh, the original, who I really liked too, is the original...
He's got a great thing in episode 3 where he gradually becomes
more and more sort of disgusted and disappointed with Cassini
which I think he sells quite well.
And I think also disappointed in himself because Cassini is his
achievement.
She is a possession to him.
Then he's got this realisation that actually she's got her own
personality and her own thoughts, which kind of intrigues him, and
then I think it's when she orders the conversion of the doctor
into an androgum.
Yeah.
Oh, she kills people as well.
Oh yeah, well, yeah, she kills people on the base.
But that's part, you know, he's part of the plan.
Yeah. in that.
But when she breaks free in, she starts doing her own thing.
And then when she starts to regress, Jackie Pearce in that scene
where she just lays down on the ground and rubs blood in her
face.
You know, for years, we, as genre fans, of course, Todd, you refer
to Serverland, Jacqueline Pierce's famous role for 4 years in
Blake 7.
That's how we know Jacqueline Pierce.
She is utterly sophisticated and utterly ruthless.
To see her playing a character here, who is also sophisticated and
also ruthless, but then regresses into savagery, and she sells it
completely.
You know, there are actors who they've got their niche and they
play their niche and they're very good at.
And Jacqueline Pierce, for the 1st 2 episodes of the story, you'd
say, okay, it's this niche where she's the strangely sexy and
alluring intelligent villainess, but then you get that scene and
you're just like, wow, you know, she can she can play what we
would see a savage character as well.
Peter Moffatt may not be a great visual director, but reflecting
on his stories.
He gets good performances out of people.
So maybe he's one of these people you would call an actor's
director, you know.
Can I ask the question?
When you watch this, Brendan, did you know Jacqueline as
Servoland?
Because as a kid, I hadn't really watched Blake Seven.
I might have seen an episode.
I thought, what is this?
I never going to watch it.
This is Sub Doctor Who.
Like I was very anti-anything but Doctor Who.
So I didn't really recognise her from that and I just loved
Cassini, right?
So that was my journey.
I don't think I did know her because I vividly remember.
I remember knowing what Blake 7 was, probably from the Doctor Who
special effects book by Matt Irvine.
But I distinctly remember when I was about 12 watching Blake 7 for
what I believe is the 1st time.
And it was the edited movie compilation of the 1st 3 episodes.
So, yeah, I remember being terrified by the sequence where Nova
gets killed in Space Fall, you know, with the perforated walls.
And the BBC foam machine.
Yeah, but you know, when you're 12, you didn't really know her as
Superland.
No, absolutely not.
I mean, it's the dialogue in this story.
I mean, it's homes, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And she get, you know, I'm going back to episode one of the 3
parter.
She gets that moment.
What does it say?
That noble history lies behind us.
But ahead lies a vision.
And somebody somewhere has done an edit of that shot, goes
straight into the Blake 7 and credits.
It's hilarious.
It's just wonderful.
But there's other things like, you know, Shockeye will talk about
Tulurians, you know?
Yeah, yes.
Which was Holmes's word for Earth people in Carnival of Monsters.
Yeah, things like that that I just love.
I love shock eye catching the ration bite to get to it and saying
smoke dried, it might just be tolerable.
In fact, that scene is incredibly funny, and people say, oh, you
know, it's terribly totally inappropriate, and it is kind of
totally inappropriate.
And in the context of the season, maybe it's a bit too much, but
gee, it's funny.
Like, he twists its neck and takes a bite out of it.
And then this, like, a rat with a big cartoon bite taken out of
the side of it that he's waving around.
The other thing, which is really horrible, is the way that he's
clearly eaten the donya.
That is so fantastic.
Like, oh, I detect great age. and then she hobbles in.
What does she say something about your English, nor care, or
whatever?
That's the other thing too.
So it's it's Dastari who's from the 3rd zone and this sort of
stupid space station, some Santarans and some Andrigams.
Walk into a bath.
Walk into a bar.
And the Dona Arana hears them speak.
I think it's Shockey says it cannot see.
And she goes, you are English?
So clearly in the Doctor Who universe. everyone speaks English
except for non-English speaking people on earth.
But again, and it has that hilarious thing where she goes away
from an altar, like she's been praying and you get, you get that
line of dialogue from Shockey where he says, I'm not interested in
the beliefs of primitives only in what they taste like.
And then a few scenes later when Chasidi's talking about the
knowledge he's getting from the Dona Arada.
Shockeye says something like, oh, can we find another one?
There was not much meat on the boat.
It's fantastic. laughing my head off now.
Just, just, just...
I just had this black sins of humour.
It just tickles my fancy.
But the great thing is too.
Where I said that the Androgums are coded as monsters and that's
what's so weird about them is that he's also really, really
human.
I mean, there is this implication that human beings are monsters.
And, you know, this season has a lot of cannibalism in it, which
is not anything we've had to say about Doctor Who before, but, you
know, as human beings, we're basically sort of chewing our way
through entire ecosystems and seeing 1000000s and 1000000s of
animals every year killed in order to feed us.
And You know, that's not that different from shockeye.
The implication is that Shockey is going to eat a lot of people.
Remember, this planet is grossly overpopulated.
And he says that by the time he leaves the planet, that may no
longer be a problem.
And of course, when he's tenderising Jamie, he's saying that the
writhing and the screaming, oh no, that's just a reflex action.
These animals don't feel pain the way you or I do.
Yeah, yeah, all of those justifications that we make for our
treatment of animals.
And like I'm not a vegetarian, I'm not going to be a vegetarian
anytime soon, but the moral argument for vegetarianism is pretty
strong and it's not hard to imagine that if we all survive the
climate change crisis, which seems increasingly unlikely.
Our descendants will look back on us and think, what on earth were
we doing, eating all of these animals.
It is a real kind of moral blind spot that we have.
And home satirises it, I think, in a sensible way, they're like us
only worse.
Yeah, because Holmes, of course, was vegetarian himself.
Nicola Bryant is vegetarian and it was actually Nicola Bryant who
walked up to him with the script and said, are you a vegetarian?
And he said, yeah, and she said, I thought so.
She was kind of like one of the few people who got that aspect of
the script, that it was an indictment on our practises, and it's
why the last line of the story is from now on, it's a healthy
vegetarian diet for both of us, as the discontinuity guide points
out, having the 2 doctors, as a message for vegetarianism, is like
having a Peter Greenaway film tried to criticise pornography. or
Sam Peckon Park criticising a slasher film.
Speaking of slasher films, of course, we've had a slasher film
influence earlier this year with vengeance on Baros, which was not
only a sort of reaction to the growing horror film market, but a
satire of it.
A lot of people have compared, especially the location scenes
especially the chase scenes involving shockeye.
So when he's chasing down Perry when he's chasing down the doctor
to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Which was about made about 10 years before this, but was still a
horror icon, and especially with the resurgence in slasher films
towards the end of the 70s beginning of the 80s and right through
till now.
Friday the 13th was still going, Nightmare on Elm Street, I think
premiered 1984.
So, It's Doctor Who doing what other shows do, as Richard would
always point out.
And that, I think, is part of the reason I don't have a big
problem with the violence in this story.
You know, I've said, I considered this the worst Colin Baker
story.
It's still very watchable.
It's just the long pauses sometimes between anything happening, but
thankfully, those long pauses are filled with excellent
performances.
So when I say it's the worst Colin Baker story, I don't think it's
bad.
I just think.
A 70 minute edit would be lovely.
There's 2 cliffhangers that I want to talk about.
The end of the 45 minute part 2 where Perry is being pursued by
Shockeye.
I think it's more evidence that he's the monster.
He gets the big final.
Yeah, DMI pretty one. and the music and her running away
fantastic.
But in the 6 part story in the middle of that episode, of course
we get, I think, one of the best cliffhangers of all time, where I
think the doctor or someone says, like, where is this hacienda?
And Anita goes, it is this way.
They walk off.
I just laughed my head off.
I think it's a fantastic little.
And the very next scene is the 2nd doctor freaking out because he
thinks Jamie's dead.
It's like, well, that's a better cliffhanger, even though we know
Jamie's alive, at least it shows some distress.
But yeah, the hacienda is this way.
I love Anita and Oscar.
Yeah.
That actor is 27 years old, I think.
At that time.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't think this is with us any longer.
I think he's I think he's really good.
I think he's really funny and he helps to reinforce that theme of
human beings being evil because when we 1st see him, he's gassing
moths.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, you know, it's it's telling that that cyanide is used to kill
Shockeye later, but is using poison to kill animals for his
pleasure.
And Anita critiques that a little bit.
But he's that kind of typical homesian, you know, huge
performance.
And we've got 2 of them here.
We've got Shockeye as well.
In fact, we get Shockeye and Pat as a fantastic Holmesey and
double act.
Yeah.
I think Oscar's really funny and sort of terribly sweet.
And one of the criticisms that gets levelled against this story is
the way that he's killed in episode three.
And, you know, he doesn't need to be killed, the Spanish truck
driver who gets killed, doesn't need to be killed either.
But Shockeye is a monster.
And in order to make him not just be a comedy panto character, he
does need to kill people.
And I think, you know, the scene where Oscar is killed is funny
and kind of touching.
You know, he's sort of pompous, he's ludicrous belief that he
could ever do a definitive Hamlet. is like terribly sweet.
And a very cruel reference to Matthew Waterhouse, if I say.
But the doctor gets to do a little bit of good acting there and
Perry reacts to it.
It works really well and he's safe.
You know, those comedy characters.
Those Christopher Benjamin style characters in a Bob Holmes story
don't get killed.
And so it is homes being cynical and it is homes being nasty.
But I think it's intentional and I don't think it fails.
I think that scene works.
I think so too And it's got to be upsetting.
You know, killing Adrigoff, who cares?
But killing Oscar Botchubi.
You know, we care about that.
That's what drama's supposed to do.
Um, look, I am... going to dissent on a point.
I think the death of Oscar is one of the biggest tone deaf moments
of this entire era. simply because it's a massive missed
opportunity.
His character has been painted and built up as this camp, Hammy ex
actor who's done something in his old theatre group and is in self
imposed exile.
Yeah, like Anita says, maybe the consulate will forgive you or you
on a forthcoming tour.
So we don't know what he's done or to whom he's done it.
Is this around the time Richard Marson was having to fend Gary
Downey off with a scripted time flight?
I wonder if that's a reference.
But every time I watch that scene as a kid, I expect at the end
when Anita's sobbing into his shirt for her to get up, slap him
and say, you're still breathing. and walk off, you know, it feels
to me like that is him doing his hammy death scene because he
thinks he's going to die, but then actually he'll be okay.
But I mean, I think that would work.
Holmes is, well, we've said this before.
Holmes is really cynical and he needs reining in.
And Terrence Dix was able to rein him in during the Pertuy era, and
his scripts, I think, for Pertuy are the best scripts of that
era.
I think Eric Saywood is disinclined probably even to edit him very
much because Eric Saywood has the good taste to realise that he's
an extremely good Doctor Who writer.
But he does tend towards the cynical, and there is a feeling to
botch of his death, which is, I'm going to get the Doctor Who fans
here, you know, because Botchubi is a comedy character who should
be safe.
He's going to shock us.
And he actually writes the novelisation for this.
Do you remember this, Todd?
It's the 100th target novelisation.
It's the only one he writes.
It's specially released.
I listen to it reasonably recently because Colin actually reads
it.
Oh, wow.
And he does a great job.
You know, he's got a terrific voice.
He does a terrific 6 doctor impression.
It's really something.
And there is an extremely revoltingly nasty scene where Shockeye
imagines in detail, what it would be like for Perry to be cooked
in an oven.
And it's really, really revolting.
And so Holmes is always tending in that direction and he probably
does need to be reined in.
He's not being reined in here.
And the next script that he does for the program, because a lot of
history's happened between now and then, he's super careful and
actually ends up writing something completely anodyne and fairly
uninteresting.
Here when he's kind of given his head.
Yeah, you know, maybe he goes too far, but it's still, it's Bob
Holmes going too far and that's so much better than, you know
Glenn McCoy going too far.
See, on the one hand, I kind of object because The only other
function that Anita and Oscar have in the plot is showing them
where the hacienda is, and it's not like they're that far away
from it anyway.
So, you know, they probably would have found it themselves without
them.
So it becomes the only function of them in the plot is cannon
fodder.
Right.
But on the other hand, If this is a satire of slasher films.
Anita's the final girl.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because, you know, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, too.
There's always a young girl left alive at the end.
The other thing I love about their characters, and because I've
watched this recently, one of Rod's Christmas presents was also
the complete enterprise on Blu-ray, so we've been watching season
one of that, and there's a subplot in season one of a young female
crew member developing a crush on Dr. Flox.
And as the actress says in an interview, she's like, oh, you know
yeah, I could have had a crush on the chief engineer who's a hunk
but Dr. Flox, he's kind of like the comforting older man, uncle
kind of figure, and that's much more interesting to play.
And it's like, you can see that Anita fancies Oscar a little bit
for some reason, like when they're out moth hunting and he doesn't
notice because he's after his boss.
And there's something very sweet and probably gay.
There's something very sweet about those 2 characters together and
when she's bossing him around in the restaurant and whatnot.
But I like how she likes the 6th doctor and gives him kisses and
poor Jamie's left, you know, waiting for his.
I like those little comedy moments.
Yeah, he does get a kiss from Perry, but he kind of, he inflicts
himself on for a bit.
He's always played for comic purposes, really.
Apart from, you know, when he's discovered in his nest in episode
two.
He gets a lot of position coma. yeah An expedition comrade
forgotten about expedition coma.
So we have exposition code, but we have word peril.
We have the most valuable fish in the universe.
The moment this moves from the space station, onto location, around
the hacienda, in the hacienda, all the runarounds down in
Seville.
I just love it.
I just love all that location work, all the bits of dialogue, you
know, double cross Centaurans and, and, oh, I'm just sitting here
listening to you guys loving it.
And I, and I, and as I said earlier in this podcast, I was, I
thought you weren't going to.
And so I'm just so thrilled that is the case.
I think that there's a bit of a problem with the location work in
in that, I think it is a big shame that it's, it's like 17 minutes
into episode 3 before we get to Seville, we've been talking about
it.
The scenes in Seville look beautiful, like they look amazing.
All of those scenes in alleyways and stuff.
We've got everyone on location.
I think it's bizarre that Stike and Val get to be on location and
discussing things that they could equally have done in that sort
of giant seller, you know, studio, but instead they're outside the
hacienda having a chat.
I think that's terribly good.
I love seeing Dastari walking through the streets of Seville and
no one really kind of noticing.
I think all of that's really great.
Friends of the podcast, Brian Lindsay and Summermore, have been
there, and they actually said Seville is even more beautiful, and
the locations that they use are literally like little back alleys
and things that don't really show off the city, like, and we think
that's beautiful.
They said you should see the rest of it.
Yeah, they probably did that to avoid avoid tourists and get clean
shots.
I think it takes too long for the 2 doctors to meet.
Like, you really are wanting them to get together.
I would have liked to have seen them.
Perhaps a bit like the 3 doctors where they meet earlier and then
get separated and then come back together.
I mean, it's not until part 3 of the 45 minute thing that we get.
You know that little scene where they sort of they meet briefly
and then you're just going, I want them to talk to each other, you
know?
Yeah, yeah, they get snap wrong.
You know, they look at each other and go snack, which is actually
quite a funny line, but they miss timer.
You can see the actors watching each other to try and get the
timing right and they don't, but we don't go again because it's
Pete them off.
Yeah, exactly.
That's the thing. blame them for that.
I blame Peter more.
I love the explosion of the Santaran spaceship.
It was twice the size that it needed it to be.
If you watch the documentary on the actual DVD, they explain that
they had to buy pyrotechnics in, they didn't, they couldn't get it
into the country and then it was all, it was too big to exploit.
You know, the typical thing where it's like, oh, yes, it's only
going to be, like, yay big, and then it's suddenly 3 times the
size and people down the road thought there was some massive
problem, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
I think I think it's because surprisingly enough, even then they
didn't like explosives going on planes.
But I gather it's also they had a certain budget for it based on
what they would pay in England, but for some reason, explosives
are much cheaper in Spain at the time with the exchange rate.
So instead of going, okay, well, you know, we were going to buy X
amount or buy X amount. like, oh, we can buy 3 X. Okay, let's
let's do that.
What's the end of episode 5 in the six-part version?
Is that the doctor putting his head in that fountain?
So the doctor starts fantasising about eating cats.
And then he, uh, and then he sort of douses his head in a fountain
and says something about how it's only going to get worse and that
was our kind of cliffhanger.
I think all of that stuff is fine.
You know, it doesn't really go anywhere, but it puts an extra bit
of pressure on the 6th doctor.
You know, there's something about Colin's performance here in this
story, which I really like, and I really like him on location, and
it turns out when he's not in a garish studio set trying to
outshout the studio lighting.
Uh, and when he's just on location in a normal place, he plays it
down.
And initially, I had thought it was because it was really hot and
he didn't have the energy to kind of do his normal kind of
overacting.
But he'll do it again in Revelation of the Daleks, where he gets
an entire episode where he's only on location, and it's really
cold there.
So it's not the temperature.
I think it is something to do with just, it's easier to act on
location because you're in a real situation, and there's a
temptation, when you're in a kind of crummy light entertainment
set, to go big.
And Colin is still recognisably the 6th doctor in those scenes, but
there's just something underplayed about it, and I do wish he'd
underplayed it more because he is charming and he is funny.
And even when he's being a little bit obnoxious, he's not
unlikeable, and I guess it goes back to my idea that making the
doctor unlikeable was always a terrible idea, particularly when
it's clear that JNT casts Colin because Colin is charming, you
know, and witty, you know, and clever.
Do you think it also helps the fact that he's not wearing the coat
on location?
I really like the waistcoat.
It's a good one.
Yeah.
It's better than Pete's horrible woolly one on Lanzarote.
There's a big finish Doctor Who box set called The Six Doctor, The
Last Adventure, which is a story arc of 4 stories at different
points in the Six Doctor's Life leading up to his regeneration.
The one with India Fisher as Charlie Pollard.
A fan did a fan cover of that.
And because it's referred to, I believe in the script, it's been a
while since I listened to it, the doctor actually loses coaching
it, in the cover, the artist has put him on in that waistcoat.
And it's like, yeah, we need more of that as well.
There exists a customised action figure of him in that waistcoat.
Wonderful customiser called Selky.
It is such a nice costume touch and yeah, wouldn't wouldn't it
have been great to actually just have a doctor without a coat for
a little while.
You know, we've got another 2 stories this season.
Let's just keep him in that And it would have been an in universe
explanation as to why we're getting rid of the coat.
In fact, it is kind of boring, isn't it, that all of JNT's doctors
until Sylvester McCoy all have knee length coats, as if that's
what the doctor has to wear.
He has to wear knee length of coats, but they're all sort of
different colours, and that's how we tell the doctors apart.
And I think there are problems with Sylvester McCoy's costume, but
I was so relieved to get rid of the knee length code.
And here, I really think that Collins costume works here.
I love the tie that he's got jammed in his pocket that sort of
trails around behind him when he's running, that looks really
good.
There's some common criticisms of this story we haven't mentioned
so I thought I might mention some of them now.
Nathan, you did touch upon briefly earlier, the possibility of, you
know, kind of racist to androgums, and people often cite that bit
at the beginning where the 2nd doctor is saying, you know, I don't
care about the pedigree of an androgum.
I'm a timelord, and people are like, oh no, the 2nd doctor
wouldn't do that.
It's like, well, he would slam a lawyer's head into a desk.
He would gun ice warriors down with a big gun.
I mean, that's part of the point.
It's about monsters.
Yeah, he would certainly throw his weight back.
Look, he does exactly the same thing in the war games when he's
pretending to be someone from the War office.
You know, I have no problem with that scene.
And later on the 6th doctor says, we've got no time to worry about
dead Andrew comes Perry.
It's like, you might think, oh, that's cruel and that's harsh.
It's like, what else is he going to do?
I think it's deliberate.
I think it is deliberate that Holmes has created a race of
monsters that just look like people and is now critiquing a
problematic attitude towards monsters that the show's always had.
And finally, the tall Santarans that people criticise.
I think that Son Tarans are pretty terrible.
They look terrible and the, I don't think they've got the mask
right since, well, essentially since the Santarin experiment
because it always seemed like Kevin Lindsay's head was kind of
encased in a big fibreglass thing, which is because it was.
Whereas here, when Cassini's throwing caronic acid on... like Val
kind of deflates because he's killed.
But Styke puts his hand on his head and inadvertently like
squashes the mask, he presses too hard.
And so I don't think the masks look very good.
And they're tall, you know, we never go back to that, and I don't
think that matters all that much.
And they're funny and pompous and silly military characters of the
kind that Holmes creates all the time.
I love stokes scenes with the 2nd doctor.
Like when he's saying the loneliness of command.
And the doctor's like, why don't you retire?
I may have made a miscalculation.
He scratches his head.
But the tall thing, way back when?
In the Time Warrior, the doctor does refer to them as being from a
high gravity planet, which is why they're so short.
So if they're coming, if they know they're coming to a planet.
With lower gravity, they might breed a special tallest on Tarin.
I mean why not?
And also, this is the 1st time where we haven't just gone, oh
they've got a probic event.
Let's stick something in it.
Yeah, it's because they're not the monsters here.
They're just characters.
And there's some cars...
Yeah, I do too.
I think that's great.
When was the last time they were in the show, the invasion of
time?
Look at how great they were in that.
Yeah, terrible masks, again.
Yeah, at least here they've got they've got character again.
Because store didn't really have a character, you know, he just
got to say doctor.
Going back to your point you made.
I love the interaction with both the 2nd doctor and the 6th
doctor.
I think there's some really witty lines.
I love the fact that the 6 doctor fools them into thinking that
that, the module is working, you know?
And even as a kid, I was fooled by that.
I thought, oh, oh, okay, it's all primed and ready to go, but of
course, yeah, it's not.
It's another thing of Holmes just helping himself to continuity.
So the time lords have symbiotic nuclei in their heads that helps
them operate the TARDIS, which is something that we will never
refer to again, and have never referred to before.
But it is his usual habit.
I mean, he invents timelords having 2 hearts.
He invents the 12 regeneration limit.
He invents the planet Galafray.
So here he's inventing something else.
This one doesn't take, but it is just another example of that.
Can I talk about the ratings?
Episode one got 660000000 viewers, which is down by .7 from the
previous week.
And it placed 92nd.
Episode two, 6000000 viewers, which is the lowest rating of the
season, and it came 90th.
And it's after that episode that Michael Grade axed the show.
Episode three.
6.9 million, 66th on the chart. 25 places higher.
So weird, it's all over the place, because timelash actually gets
higher ratings, but its placings are all over the place as well.
The big criticisms of Doctor Who that lead to the cancellation are
happening as early as season 21, aren't they?
Things like Warriors of the D, which I didn't like very much.
But I didn't think was hugely terrible, but it does have some
pretty bad production problems, like the marker.
But, you know, grades come in and, you know, he doesn't like the
show.
I mean, if you look at the ratings, if you purely, you know
8.900000 for the 1st episode, we're now down to 6000000 with 2
doctors, you know, he's looking for ammunition, fans are already
criticising it for violence, et cetera.
And, you know, so he pulls the pin.
Even though it's 10 weeks away from next season and they've
already lined up scripts and even location work for the 1st
story.
And I believe even contracted Michael Goff.
Oh, really?
Wow.
What can I say?
That's where we're at.
If the pin hadn't been pulled, Would the ratings have continued to
slide?
Because actually from this point in, there's this gradual increase
to the end of the season.
Yeah, because people realise, 0 my god, it's going.
You know.
One of the criticisms Michael Gray raised. was shortly after
becoming controller of BBC one.
He just switched on the TV one night, didn't actually know what
was on, and it was Doctor Who.
You know, he's never gone into detail about what story it was, but
he's like, Return of the Jedi has just come out.
And we're putting out this with cardboard sets and right angles
everywhere and bright flood studio lighting.
We can't afford to compete.
And that's why I cancelled it.
That's what he says.
There are more scurrilous rumours as to the reason.
I mean, I do think that there's a general tiredness due to the
fact that John Nathan Turner's been on the show since 1977.
Well, since...
Tallens of Wing China.
Dang, yeah.
76.
And so he's been doing it for a really long time, like getting on
for 10 years at this point.
And he's not someone with much vision about how the show should
work as television.
And no one's really thinking about why we're still doing it.
I think we've made this point before, yeah. that we're doing an
out of habit.
And it really, really did need by this point a new...
Producer and script editor.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I know possibly not on this podcast.
I can't remember, but I know speaking with you guys, that I have
at times compared the Matt Smith era to the Colin Baker era in
that it seems to me at times you have a great actor in the role.
But, They're not being given great material.
But I will say that one thing I could never accuse Stephen Moffatt
of, is not having a clear vision of what he wants to do.
Oh, look, we're getting ahead of ourselves.
I don't think I would agree with that.
I think you can see Moffatt flailing and not sure of what to do.
But that's the thing.
JNT never seems to have a creative vision.
He leaves that up to the script editor, which, with Christopher
Hamilton Bidmeade, was absolutely fine.
I'm currently reading Totally Tasteless, the Life of John Nathan
Turner by Richard Marson.
And there's a bit in that where Christopher Bidman talks about why
he left the show and basically it was because, you know, he had
this great vision.
He had plans for the show beyond his season that he did, but he
viewed his role and sort of his role on paper was just to
technically edit the scripts.
The Doctor Who script editor is never that.
And he quite rightly said, look, I'm doing far more work than
that.
Can I have a rise?
And the head of cereals just said, look, It's the BBC, you know
you get paid for your bracket and he kind of said, okay, look, that
is perfectly fair, but I'm going to go.
Eric Saywood, as I've said before, if he had only been script
editor for 2 years, I think he would be remembered far more fondly
than he is.
And I'm not saying that's a universal thing.
I know there are people who appreciate his work greatly, just as
there are people who don't rate Stephen Moffatt highly, and there
are people who think he's the greatest producer of the show ever
had, and there's people in between.
Eric Saywood's vision, like anyone's vision, is limited to a set
amount of time.
And I think with this season, we've kind of gone, even further
than the furthest we can go with it and the show is starting to
repeat itself, unfortunately.
And that's a big shame for Colin, because Colin is bringing
something new, but he's bringing something new to stay on
material.
Yeah, I'm going to disagree with you about, say, but I'm going to
save it for 2 episodes time.
I think say it's vision for the show is changing visibly during
the Colin Baker era.
And I think it's changing a bit for the better, but I do think all
of the things, all of the horrible, horrible things I've been
saying about him over the last few episodes are true.
He wasn't experienced enough.
He's not quite talented enough.
He has some good instincts, like recognising that Bob Holmes is a
great Doctor Who scriptwriter.
But he's a problem and I'd like to blame him for everything.
It's going wrong in the whole world.
Moffatt, Delta and the Bannerman.
Yeah, global warming.
Eric Roberts.
Well, while we go off to, um, whip up a batch of nut roast rolls
don't forget to come back to ask next week as we explore that
anagrammical Doctor Who story, Shamelit.
Until then, we will be opening a poll with this episode.
Now, quick update.
We haven't forgotten, we've promised you a commentary on enemy of
the world.
The reason we haven't recorded that yet is a couple of weeks ago
Richard actually had an injury which has left it difficult for him
to attend recording.
So we will be releasing that Patrick Trouton commentary at the end
of this season.
We will also be releasing shortly after that Our John Pertwee
commentary.
So you know how it works by now.
We've all nominated a story, and we would like you to go ahead and
vote for those.
So I have nominated Spearhead from space.
I have nominated Death to the Daleks.
I'm going to nominate the 3 doctors.
And Richard has nominated the mutants.
So those are our 4 stories.
No, I thought we had an agreement. 4 episodes stories only.
You do realise that now that you've done that, everyone's going to
vote for the mutants.
I think you should cut this whole bit out.
Yes, yes, this gets cut.
I almost nominated Inferno, but I didn't.
However, we've also thought about the fact that there's not enough
Colin Baker to discuss on the podcast.
So at some point in the future.
We haven't decided exactly when this is gonna go out.
We are going to have a 6 doctor big finish special.
So we're going to be reminding you every episode until then which
6 doctor stories we'll be discussing.
So we recommend you go along to the big finish website, bigfinish
com to download these.
So Todd has nominated.
The one doctor.
Nathan has nominated?
Jubilee.
Richard has nominated Chris Cross, which is one of the newer
stories, featuring Miranda Raisin.
And I have nominated Doctor Who and the Pirates, and we will have
links to all of those on the website as well.
To stay up to date with all of that.
Don't forget to check out flightthrough entirety.sexy, flight
through entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast on Twitter
over on Bondfinger.
We have recently finished the Roger Moore era of James Bond.
So we have all the Roger Moores, all the Sean Connery, including
Never Say Never Again, and on a Majesty's Secret Service and
Casino Royale, 1967.
So do check that out, Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and
iTunes and Bondfinger cast on Twitter.
Until we see you next week, may no one deny you your red
eyebrows.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
That was Flight Through Entirety with Todd BLB, Nathan Bottomley
Brendan Jones, theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, let's stick something in it, was recorded on the
11th of February 2017.
The next episode will be released on February 26th.
I taught him earwig nuclear for 6 months, and it still knows more
about uranium than Donald Trump.
Serverland is actually the only person I've ever cosplaying.
And I had like black press on nails and everything.
It was really something.
You fool.