Famous Miserable Bastard

[00:31]

Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast who's very often forced to come in through the side door.

I'm Brendan.

I'm Nathan.

I'm not the great healer.

And we're finishing off season 22 with Revelation of the Daleks.

Well, this is my story, and I'm gonna say something surprising.

I think this is Eric Saywood's best script for the program.

And I think the reason is that he has taken inspiration from 2 good previous texts.

When, say, would 1st write for the program, he did a sort of substandard ripoff of the Time Warrior with all of the fun bits taken out.

Here, what he's doing is he's recreating last year's Caves of Andrazani, and you can see right from the 1st shot, where we're zooming into a photograph of a planet, and then the TARDIS immediately materialises on location, where we have a whole heap of different people with different interests, plotting against one another.

[01:40]

There's a big sort of conflagration at the end.

A lot of people are killed.

It is very, very like caves of and Rosani.

But, Cleverly, it takes inspiration from one of my favourite books, which is the loved one by Evelyn Waugh.

And when I 1st saw this, I had already read it because we actually did it at school when I was in year 9.

And, you know, there's a lot of that book that I didn't understand at the time, but I've since reread it, and it's a really, really vicious satirical black comedy.

I really, really recommend that everyone listening to this podcast read it.

It's not very long and it's really, really funny.

It's, uh, set in California. around a big kind of necropolis called Whispering Glades and it's a satire of sort of horrific American bad taste around death.

It's unbelievably funny and vastly, vastly darker and nastier than anything that we've seen in season 22.

[02:49]

But it is wonderful, and say what has chosen the right things to be inspired by here, and added to that, you've got Graham Harper, who directed Andrazani last year.

I don't think this is Colin Baker's best story or maybe it is.

It's either his best or his 2nd best story for me, along with the 2 doctors.

I thought this was good.

I think this is beautifully directed, superbly acted by 99% of the cast.

I adore Colin and Nicola in this.

I draw the fact that he's wearing a blue coat over the costume in episode one.

And I can see why people regard this as the best of the era.

I'm completely biased because I adore Attack of Assault so much and always love that.

And I love the 2 doctors and I love Vintage Embarrass and I love this.

And so that's 4 big hits for me this season.

I also feel like I've had 4 big hits, so it's, for me, attack Baros, Mark of the Rani, and this, and even the last 2 stories.

[03:57]

Aren't complete misses for me.

There's still things I enjoy in them.

So, handle my heart.

I came into season 22.

Expecting I would enjoy it.

I've enjoyed it even more than I expected, I would.

And I thought that our dear listeners have probably already noticed that something I do is I try and look for the good in almost every story.

I didn't have to reach very far in most of these to find not just good moments, but a good thread through each story that I could follow.

And I do think, even though I would say 2 doctors is the worst story for pacing issues and scripting issues which I mentioned.

I think the hardest one that sort of hangs together with a cohesion is time lash.

Getting back to your comment on 99% good performances.

I take it the other one% is Jenny Thomasson.

I think she's fantastic.

Thank you.

So do I. I don't know where this is coming from.

She plays Tessanika to absolute perfection.

She's supposed to be this fawning little thing and, you know, frustrated and whatever.

[05:00]

I think it's one of the most brilliant performances.

And I've been wondering why people don't like her.

And the only conclusion I can come to is, in Doctor Who, very often, you'll divide your characters into goodies and baddies and baddies will have certain qualities and goodies all have certain qualities.

And ostensibly, she's not a baddie.

And yet.

She kills in the course of the story and she has some negative emotions, like there's there's a lot of jealousy and envy in her character and she's prone to very quick anger.

And I think it's because her character is very hard to define and pin down that people may not be comfortable watching her because she's unpredictable.

And there's so many good performances in this.

She's the standout for me because as good as everyone else is, you can predict their actions.

You can never quite predict what Tasambika's going to do.

And I'm going to jump straight to her ending here.

Of course, growing up watching the ABC version.

[06:01]

When she stabs Jobel.

It's incredibly cut down.

You kind of see her arm go down and then suddenly she's running down a corridor.

You don't see him collapse.

You don't see that wonderful bit with the toupee falling off, which was the suggestion of wardrobe and makeup.

They suggested it to Clive Swift, who suggested it to Graham Harper, and he's like, yes, that's brilliant.

Let's do that on a crane, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And as someone who has been losing his hair since he was 18, someone served it to me very early on when I was at uni, you know, why don't you just get a toupee, it's like...

What?

Well, I said, look.

I'm sure there are good toupees out there that are indistinguishable from the original, but one, they probably cost 1000s of dollars.

And two, Everyone who currently knows me knows I'm losing my hair.

Anyone I then meet afterwards.

I can never see them without the toupee.

What is the, what is the point of a toupee?

and the point is to highlight this character's vanity?

[07:02]

I agree with you, Nathan.

This is his best script.

For once he nails characterisations and he gives us interesting characters that aren't just cyphers.

And in each of his stories, he has managed to provide characters who aren't just cyphers, but also characters who are just cyphers.

Yeah, well, think about his 1st story about the visitation, which essentially hangs the entire story on one guest star.

And that's a reasonably good guest star, and it's a sort of Bob Holmes style, big, larger than live character.

Whereas here you've got a whole heap of people, all of whom are quite well characterised.

There are some wonderful people, like Kara, Eleanor Bronze, Kara is amazing, vogel is wonderful.

Clive Swift is just phenomenal.

The mutant.

So John Gilgood.

There was some story that they were going to offer the mutant to Sir John Gilgood.

And to Sir Lawrence.

I believe that wrong.

I believe they even went as far as determining Lawrence's dates and he simply wasn't available.

So they didn't actually get round to offering him the part, but they did say to him, look, it's a small part.

[08:05]

You'd only be needed for 2 days because we understand you're very busy and he just wasn't available for the days.

He wouldn't have gone on in that cup, though.

Please, he wouldn't have like, no.

No, he probably looked like that by 1984.

Eleanor Brom as Kara and her offside of Ogle. are just so delicious.

I just love the way she talks about, oh, the great healer and she's so sucky up and and their little, you know, just their relationship with each other and their little looks whenever they're dealing with people.

I remember being in the playground and doing her whole, we did a whole death thing, like, you know, where she goes, it's a bomb. great big bomb.

I love that line.

I adore it. like we would literally do.

It's a bomb.

It a great big bomb.

You fool.

Now we both die and then it's you before me.

Well, I think her great moment is where she declares that she's going to have control of the food supply of the entire galaxy and she stands up and the music goes...

That feels like a cliffhanger.

It's not, but it feels like it should be.

No, she's tremendous and you're right.

[09:07]

The politeness with which she treats the great healer while she's sending an assassin to kill him, you know, is just tremendous.

I think the one thread of the story that doesn't quite work is Natasha and Gregorian, I think the his character is too nasty. like he comes in with an actual hip flask dangling around his neck.

And I do think that some of that stuff is a little bit too over the top.

I think that's a kind of a misstep tonally.

But everything else is terrific.

We haven't mentioned Alexi Sales DJ who I think is lovely, just lovely.

That's my .one%.

You don't quite like that.

I don't like him during when he's the DJ.

Like a number of those characters.

I kind of go, oh, please just get off my screen.

When he drops the persona and is himself, he's beautiful.

And I recognise the fact that to appreciate that, I've got to not appreciate the other.

Yeah, yeah.

So for me, that's the one thing that always jars when I watch this.

[10:09]

But if you think about what Saywood's been doing, those endless stories of people shooting guns in corridors at each other, it's hard to imagine, Eric, say, we're putting something like the DJ in.

And I think it's a real development.

I think he's moved from just wanting to do stories about Space Marines to wanting to do something a little bit more interesting.

And like maybe it doesn't all come off.

And in fact, it's a little bit hard to know what the DJ's for.

But do you think he's looking at what happened in Vincent and Paris, where you've got our 2 Google Box characters there and seen how that works and sort of, you know?

Yeah, he's explicitly in front of a television screen, isn't he?

And he switches channels, so he actually gets to see all of the different plots going on and he gets to narrate them to the audience.

And there's a particular moment too, where, do you remember, we get that shot of the corridors and various people walking through the corridors and there's a black line that goes up the screen?

[11:10]

And I can see that you don't think that's very successful.

I think it's good for what it is.

But what it is, is reminding us that this is television because it looks exactly like the black bars that used to go up the screen when the vertical hold would go off.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, no, no.

This is where I'm coming from too.

You thought it?

I thought the very hold.

And I actually thought it doesn't come off because if it was going up like that, you'd actually see the whole, the whole corridor, not part of it.

Yeah, but it's not like the camera's going up along different floors of the building.

But it's that's what I think it is.

But I can see what you're saying.

Yeah, so it's about it's about television.

And so one of the big flaws in this era is, of course, that the doctor doesn't get involved until too late in the story.

Here, I think, it almost works, and I don't know whether it's deliberate.

You go to great lengths to set up this really complicated world and then you crash the doctor and the Daleks into it to smash the place up at the end.

Well, of course, Colin and Nicola are off doing pantomime for John Nathan Turner, directed by Fiona Cumming.

[12:16]

I think it might have been Cinderella.

Thus, they were not available for certain recording blocks.

So they actually had to be written out of studio recordings so they could only be on location during that 1st episode.

Because they're not in the studio at all in episode one. right.

And I've said before that Collins performance benefits from not being in the studio and it's such a relief to have them in a real place interacting with each other for a period of time.

I know that's all really short on incident that stuff, but it's really entertaining.

What seems to be the problem?

The doctor says to that mutant?

Maybe a taxi?

It's a really clever line, of course, because it's what the doctor says when you see the doctor.

Yeah, and say what has proved.

He still can't write dialogue that's convincing, but he can actually write good jokes, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

And when they go up over that wall, you know, and you've broken it and all that sort of thing.

Like, even as a kid, I kind of, like, like, he talking about... talking about his penis in that scene.

But the way in which both Colin and Nicola play it, I personally think is perfect.

[13:18]

Like, you know, I really love that sequence.

In fact, he does a little bit of petty revenge because his strands are on the wall.

Yeah, yeah, get down herself very ungraceful.

They are so charming together in that and, you know, I think as far back as Mark of the Rani, they mostly get the bickering right.

And I just think in Mark the Rani 2 doctors and time lash, there's just a little bit of moment of nastiness that reminds you that.

Oh, no, they haven't quite got it right yet.

Whereas here, I think the bickering and the back and forth is actually well balanced and you have that charming moment where she finds the plant and sort of shows it to him and he reacts like it's harmful.

And she says, oh, is it dangerous?

He's like, oh, not really.

And it's just a nice cute little joke between them when the mutant's dying and the way the doctor comforts the mute, like...

Yeah, he's holding the mutant's hand.

Yeah, because the mutant says, would you believe I once looked like you?

So instead of a mutant saying, oh, you know, I miss looking like a normal person, it's subtext and the doctor realises what this person really needs right now is someone to hold his hand and Perry's reaction, like her horror at what she's done and the doctor's consoling of her, you know, it's not over the top and it's it's a situation of, you know, you had to make a split 2nd decision to save our lives.

[14:43]

You know, he understands that and he he didn't want to go on.

And it doesn't comfort Perry either.

I love her reaction to it.

And there's a wonderful shot in that sequence where Collins stands up into shot and he's clearly furious about the great healer.

Yeah.

It's so well directed.

It's so good.

Yeah.

There's not a single scene in the Tartars in this story.

And that's such a relief.

I love it when she throws that nut roast roll, whatever it is into the lake and everything.

Yeah, and that's just...

And it's well directed too.

Yeah, the direction is fantastic.

But Colin and Nicola are really hitting their stride, you know.

And, you know, even towards the end of the episode, you know, with the whole fake face falling down and I love that bit with the dalek behind her, which was done on location.

Like, that was, that was not on the original script. pulling the Dalek along with a string.

I love it when they meet Tess and Beaker and they sit down and they're having that conversation.

There's just that look they give each other when she's going off like this woman is completely insane.

[15:44]

I just love that moment.

I always just...

And there's a great bit with Tasambika that was cut just for time where after the doctor says, no, no, you don't understand.

I'm not interested in getting buried.

I'm interested in why there's this statue of me.

Tezembika's scripted to get really angry that I've gone through the whole sales pitch and you weren't even listening.

How dare you not listen to our services?

She does yell at the doctor.

Yes, when he asks her about Joe Bell and she says, what business is it of yours?

And Collins's reaction there is priceless as well.

What I find so sweet about Perry in this story is she finally meets a man who doesn't want to impregnate her or eat her or modify her body and is just utterly charmed that she can tell him about the culture he's so interested in, like her scenes with the DJ and her reaction to his death, which we only get with audio, really.

And then the doctor hears that and that affects him.

It's a wonderful touch that we don't, we don't see her screaming at the Daleks.

[16:47]

We see the doctor's reaction to the possibility that Perry's dead.

I think it's a good choice too, because we do like Alexi Sales character by that and seeing him die or it'd be unpleasant.

And I think that scene where we hear the audio of it's really effective.

And I'm a huge fan of Alexi Sale destroying 2 Daleks with a beam of concentrated rock and roll.

That's so Doctor Who.

It's very good.

In a way that we haven't had.

Can you imagine Dr. Styles?

with a beam of concentrated rock and roll?

It's hard to imagine.

Davros, the great healer.

I think that he is extremely good.

I think that this is his best performance as Stavros.

I think that having him in that tube, and there's something amazing about how quickly he can turn around in the head turning around.

Like, I mean, obviously in the last story, we saw that gunk coming out of him and the spaceship was going to explode.

So, you know, I was fooled as a kid thinking, somehow, it got away, but because of all that stuff, it's just the head.

[17:53]

To get himself around on that, he had these sort of 4 bars at the compass point so he could grab the bars and sort of twist his body around underneath it, Terry Malloy.

But the problem was, there were also these girders at knee level.

So the 1st time he did it he almost broke his knees.

So on the swivel chair, he is kneeling with his legs tucked and tied under himself.

So, you know, he couldn't stay in there for a long period of time because otherwise he would block off blood supply to his feet.

But yeah, he gets amazing speed on that.

And it's so effective and it does convince you that he is just ahead in a jar.

You know, we're in Futurama now, head of Nixon and headless body of Agnew kind of territory.

I love all of his scenes with Chess and Baker.

Yeah, that seduction scene is really amazing.

And he does the quiet thing that Michael Wisher used to do.

He does it so well.

Like he gets to rant.

He gets to be quiet, all of that stuff.

[18:54]

Even when he 1st talks about Tess and Baker and says, what a pleasing personality shit.

It's, it's, it's really effective.

That's a great bit of episode two, I think.

The surprising thing is you know how we do notes for this.

I've got, like, too busy watching it.

Yeah, there's very few rates.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's bizarre because this has a lot of the things we've criticised other stories for, namely the Dr. and Perry taking ages to get involved in the story.

But it's so strange because they have a warmer relationship and they're more fun to watch.

It doesn't bother you so much.

In fact, the whole situation is resolved by Tarkas and Lilt calling for the other Daleks. to arrive.

And really the doctor doesn't do anything very much materially and then Orsini, you know, blows up the thing.

Orseni and Boston.

Another great double act.

I love the way the 6 doctor attacks him and then comments only I could do such a thing, attack a grand knight at the odour of Auberon or whatever it is.

[20:01]

And not only that, I saw something new in Collins performance I hadn't seen before, when he attacks Orsini, as Orsini's sort of bringing his arm back up, there's this look on the doctor's face of, I have made a terrible mistake.

The idea that Boston stinks, you know, and does nothing about his personal dieting. is just a really fun idea.

It doesn't matter.

It's just a little bit of character colour.

And the 2 of them are really terrific together.

And, You know, Orsini is sort of pompous and self-important and a bit ridiculous and gets given a noble death and I think that's really terrific.

I don't know that there's a dud character in this.

Orcini, of course, is played by William Gaunt, who has a long career and I believe is still acting.

Most famous, possibly to you, dear listener, as one of the leads of the champions.

Les Champignon.

Les Champignon. right.

And the inspiration for his character actually came from Colin Baker.

[21:04]

And this is part 2 of a story I was telling last week because when Eric Saywood found out Colin Baker was going to be the doctor. didn't know much about him.

So he got a copy of City at the end of the world, the Blake 7 episode where Colin was the assassin, Babe and the Butcher, and he watched it with increasing horror, thinking he's not going to play the doctor like that, is he?

And actually went up to Colin and kind of said, oh, I've seen you in your Blake 7 episode, you did.

Um, Were you taking the Mick with your performance a bit there?

And Con's like, well, how would you have played it?

I, you know, I played it unstable, so you never know what this character's going to do, and Eric said, well, personally, I would have played it straight down the line and terrified everyone, and Colin's response was, well, that's your opinion.

That was his conception of Orsini.

He's like, well, I've said to Colin this is what I would do.

There's no point in saying something.

I'm not going to back it up with that.

So I'm going to write this assassin character who's not shouting at people.

He just, he always keeps a very level, calm voice except when he's in battle.

[22:07]

And I think it's really effective.

He's a charming character who you like, but you kind of left with the impression that, yeah, he could mess you up.

He does kind of come off as a bit of a pompous diluted idiot, though.

And I like that.

Like, I don't know whether that's intentional or not, but all of his stuff about mortality and his stupid leg and that ridiculous gun that doesn't work properly and all of that sort of thing.

He's a little bit silly.

And maybe that's why it's so shocking and so fabulously effective when he pulls out that knife and stabs Eleanor Brock at the end so quickly, like he turns on a dime.

And suddenly we see for the 1st time him actually being genuinely deadly.

I love a few other aspects as a fanboy.

I love the different Daleks.

I actually think those Daleks.

And remember, this is the 1st time we've seen them.

I mean, we will see them later on in a couple of years time, and they do look slightly better in that story, but they look fabulously deco, and they fit in wonderfully with the decor of tranquil repose.

[23:13]

I think they're terrific.

I actually love the gruesomeness and horror of the glass dalek as well.

Yeah, I think it really works.

So this is this is kind of the kill me virus scene, isn't it?

It's almost as if, you know, we were aware that we weren't allowed to do that in arc in space and so we try and do it again.

And I think that is really good.

It's a great performance and the perspex dalek looks amazing.

Like it really looks extraordinary.

They were going to do a flying dalek on location, actually.

The one that Orsini blows up was going to be flying.

Yeah, but they couldn't.

I think it was actually wind.

They had the they had the equipment on set, but on the DVD, you'll notice as part of the making of, they have, um, the film trims of that scene where they blow up the Dalek and immediately the smoke just blows over the camera.

Right.

So because of the wind, they couldn't really do the flying dial.

Like, it had to be a lightweight prop.

And if you had the wind, it would just be blowing in the wind like wind chimes.

So they just decided to make it static.

I think it worked. a huge explosion.

[24:13]

I think it's.

All the location stuff is terrific.

They're like the IBM building.

Yeah, yeah, it's great.

Yeah.

And we do get a levitating down Ross.

I think that quite works for me.

It's a bit too kind of video affecting that shot.

There's too many video effects because you've got his beams, you've got something coming out of the bottom of Davros's chair.

You've got the removal of William Gaunt's artificial leg, you know, and so there's just, it's just a little bit too ambitious.

It's beyond what they can actually convincingly pull off.

It's something I quite like and I don't know if you're going to like it.

Deveros's hand gets blown off and then goes to shake it.

See, that's my dark sense of humour and I actually like...

And I just, I just burst out laughing.

He does an armless pun too.

No arm in trying.

No, I'm in trying.

I mean, it's just my pathetic.

I thought all we could have done without the fingers on the floor, to be honest.

Okay, but I'm just saying like just going for that and I just love it.

[25:15]

To top it all off, the action figure comes with a changeable hand.

So you can have Davros's hand in there or you can have the stumpy green bandage.

You know, the funny thing is that when Russell brings Davros back, he obviously wants to bring classic Davros from Genesis of the Daleks back.

And so he gives him a robotic hand, with big long fingernails, just like that Rosso's hand, because if you've only got one hand, it's really hard to trim your fingernails.

And so that sort of works terribly well.

The next time we see Davros, we don't see his arms at all because he's in that sort of airball thing.

Spoiler it.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Clearly, this story is kind of important enough for it to be referenced the next time we see the Daleks and then to be referenced finally when Davros gets brought back in the new show.

And not much of the Colin Baker era kind of survives in fan memory in the sense that it doesn't get referenced very much in subsequent stories.

[26:18]

Yeah, I think the only other element that's really been referred to in the new series is some, The Valley Yard. was briefly referred to by the great intelligence department.

It's about it.

So ratings for this story.

7.400000 for the 1st episode, 7.7.

And in terms of chart placing, they were 2 of the top ones of the season.

So 65th and then 58th for the final episode of the year, which, you know, those chart placings compared to over the last 3 years are up there with the best of them.

And in fact, that's Collins's highest placed episode at 58.

And is that the Daleks, do you think?

It's a combination of the announcement of the cancellation and the fact that Daleks are in it this week.

Well, that's the last episode of the season.

So, yes, I think it's the cancellation.

It's the Daleks. people even liking the previous episode.

Who knows?

Of course, by this point, I think it took less than a week for the BBC to backtrack and say, oh, no, we're just resting the series for 18 months, which, you know, is unheard of these days, having to weigh 18 months for a new season.

[27:24]

Outrage.

I do have to wonder if them noticing the ratings picked up also helped the show a little bit, but then, okay, getting ahead of ourselves here, but next year the budget's going to be slashed, the episode count is going to be slashed, and there's going to be slashed, and there's going to be a lot of other bad decisions going on.

Um, Yeah, you know, I think even if the story had gotten 100 million, the writing was on the wall and we were going to be moving to 14, 25 minute episodes, even if the series came back.

No, the series, unless you're a soap is doing that in Britain.

It's because it's a weird hangover.

Yeah, it is.

We never sat down and thought, what are we doing here?

And, you know, one of the things a new series got right.

And I remember at the time thinking, like being a bit anxious about it, because it didn't seem like Doctor Who, but the one thing the new series got right was, if it's going to be 45 minute episodes, and if we can afford it, they should really be self-contained stories.

It's not that great to have a show where you tune in and you only get to see half or a quarter of a story.

[28:28]

But I mean, if you look at original who and the pacing.

I think a lot of time you can get 3 episodes into that 45 minutes.

Yeah, because if you consider it, especially with Russell T. Davies.

The incident that happens in part one of a classic Doctor Who 4 parter is the incident that happens in the pre-title sequence of a Russell T. Davies era, Doctor Who.

And quite often in the Stephen Moffat doctor, he loves condensed storytelling in his opening teasers.

And then you've got episodes.

Really, religious episodes 2 and 4 because classically speaking, 3 is padding, runaround, escape, think we've won, and then, oh, but Terminus is going to destroy the universe unless we get a giant dog robot thing to move this lever.

And that's how television is. changed.

You know, time lash could have been like a dream sequence.

Doctors knocked out a few flashes, boom, boom, boom.

That's it.

That's just reminded me.

There were these 2 rumours for Davidson's last season.

The 1st one was that Malcolm Hulk's, The Hidden Planet, which was an unmade Hartnell story, had in fact been partially filmed and they were going to film linking material with Davison to make it into a new story.

[29:39]

That was an April fool's thing.

But the other rumour was, and people associated this with Frontios for some reason, that there was going to be a story where the 5th doctor would hit his head and remember a 1st doctor adventure and they were going to make it with Richard Herndle and Carol Anne Ford.

And there's no indication that the production team ever actually thought of this.

And of course, famously Richard Herndle died before he got paid for the 5 doctors, but yeah, sorry, Todd, you just reminded me of that. never heard of this before in my life.

Do you know, it reminds me of Richard's idea of a whole season of story starring the doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan with the cast of an adventure in space and time.

What, refilming classic?

No, no, just new ones.

Yeah, it would have been awesome.

Yeah.

Although I think he did also suggest a telemovie of Marco Polo because, hey, why not?

Because that's brilliant.

That'd be great.

Um, we haven't mentioned um, very much. uh, the gay couple in this story.

Tarkas and Lt. I actually think they're a little bit too horrible in one of their scenes.

[30:44]

There's that scene.

It is weird, yeah.

So I already mentioned that I'm not a big fan maybe of Grigory, but when Natasha and Grigory are chained to the wall, like Tarkas and Lilt, you know, shove gun butts in their in their stomachs and they make Gregory drunk and they threaten to cut Natasha's face.

And I think that that is taking it a bit too far.

I think that's that's probably just unnecessarily nasty. a little bit too nasty.

Especially seeing as most of the time they're, they're not comedy characters, but they are comic characters and they have a sense of humour and they teased Hazenbika together and not that I'm saying that's necessarily a nice thing, but it's not holding a knife up to someone's eyeball and saying let me mark her.

Yeah, yeah.

And they survive at the end.

They're the people who actually survive to rebuild Necros.

So they're not in any way punished for that.

And I think that there's an attempt again to recreate K's of Andrazani by having no good characters.

Like no one is a good guy here, just as no one on Andrazani, major or minor. were good guys either.

[31:46]

Only the DJ.

Yeah, the DJ's a good guy, isn't he?

Yeah, who gets horribly murdered.

Now, something I realised watching this, of course, because there's a shot with all 3 of them together when they're conspiring.

This may be the classic doctor story with the most actors who've returned in the new series.

Because, um, Colin Spall, who plays lilt, was in the Age of Steel and Rise of the Cyberman.

Also directed by Graham Harper.

Also directed by Graham Harper, Clive Swift, of course, is back in Voyage of the Damned.

And he's a famous miserable bastard, and we'll be linking to that interview again.

Fabulous.

Is he?

There's this wonderful interview of him in Doctor Who magazine, just for one page interview where, you know, he gets those questions like, yeah, what's it like being in such a legendary program twice.

Oh, is it legendary?

Very dry.

He's really rude, actually.

It's kind of like I did this work.

I don't care.

Why the hell are you still doing a magazine about this nonsense?

He's really, he's really horrible.

It's really funny.

Richard loves it.

There are some, including Richard, who've expressed the thought that he's actually sending up the whole interview process and that the interviewer is in on it as well.

[32:52]

And you can read it either way and still enjoy it.

So they're 2 of the people.

Harper, is that the other one?

No, no.

Tarkas.

Tarkas, is he the bear one?

Yeah, yeah, he's the big bear.

He's Friar Tuck in Robot of Sherwood.

No.

Yes.

Yeah, that's him.

That's crazy.

I've got a sea robot.

I've got to watch it.

Like, is he really old in robot of Sherwood?

He's aged surprisingly well.

I think he's probably younger than he is.

Yes, I think you're right.

He must be only in his 20s.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think Eric Saywood actually gets the balance of violence right here for the 1st time.

You know, he's always said that thing about if you're going to show violence, you have to show its consequences.

I agree, the interrogation of Natasha and Gregory.

It's not quite right.

It needs to be pulled back a little.

But, you know, considering we've got a story with Dalek Mutants begging to be shot, a hand being shot off, a woman being stabbed through the heart, a man being stabbed through the heart with a syringe, But it still doesn't feel like the violence is excessive.

[34:00]

And it's not just that tiresome gun violence.

There's sort of fantasy violence and there's sort of.

There's laser guns and stuff.

I just feel that having explored this season.

This is just for me and last season was a lot of gun violence.

This season it's more pointed and I don't know.

Violence is not necessarily the word I would use.

I think there's a lot of gruesome moments.

That's the thing I feel.

Well, it's very gruesome at times.

And I said last week that I liked Shockeye eating the rat.

I think that's terribly funny.

So I'm not opposed to the gruesomeness.

I think fingers on the floor is something that I would prefer that they had decided not to do.

Yeah, I think that what I objected to in the violence isn't just the violence, but the kind of, the way it's just monochromatic, it's just people with guns shooting each other, resurrection of the Daleks devalues the Daleks because it just turns them into people with guns shooting each other.

Here, because it's more grotesque, it's a fantasy environment.

It isn't just endless guns.

[35:01]

I object to the violence much less.

I think this is much more inventive and interesting.

Doctor Who's always been violent and has always contained death.

And that's not a problem.

And I also think protracted depictions of people suffering are a problem and I think that the show shouldn't do that.

Yeah, here when people die, they get shot or they get stabbed and they fall over dead.

You know, it's not, it's not lit in getting his hands crushed.

It's not the guy reaching up out of the acid bath.

One thing that confused me about the violence though, and this is just a bit of a frivolous point, really.

But it's like Natasha has this really sleek laser gun.

And everyone else has submachine guns and there's a bit where Natasha and Grigory attack their 1st guard and kill their 1st guard and they find the laser and the machine gun at them and that alerts the Daleks.

It's like, maybe if you just find the laser, which just goes, people might not have heard you.

Why bring a bloody submachine gun to a stealth mission?

It's such a stealth mission, actually, that at the very beginning where you get Mr. Joe Bell being introduced and talking to the staff at Tranquil Repose.

[36:12]

That scene finishes and Natasha and Gregory walk through the same shot with machine guns and nobody notices them.

I think that's terrifically stylish.

I love all the blue palace that they all wear.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. and all that, which goes with the cold and the snow and everything like that.

It's beautifully designed and compared to last week, which was so boring.

This is so lovely.

And something I noticed this time around that I hadn't noticed before, or rather than I thought was a mistake.

There's that bit where Joe Bell's addressing his complete staff and telling them, you know, don't speak unless you're spoken to and treat the president's wife with respect, et cetera, et cetera.

And I was watching it, this time going, oh, yeah, they haven't quite dyed the tunics the right colour.

But then I realised it's different shades for male and female stars.

And then I thought it was also different shades for the bandoleers, but the bandoleers are translucent plastic.

So they look like different colours when they're over the top of that.

And I thought it could have been so easy to just have the same colour for everyone.

But either the designer pack Godfrey or Graham Harper's gone.

[37:16]

No, we're gonna, we're gonna do it this way.

The design of the um, Alec Linstead, Dalek Mutant.

So it's Mr. Jellicoe inside that Dalek from Robot.

Yes.

What?

Oh my goodness. was done by Dorkan Radzik, the makeup designer. sort of Graham Williams caper can't blanch, and she read the script, and she thought, well, if this mutant's growing, and if you look if you look at it, she's like, I'm going to put the kidneys and the liver on the outside of the head.

Because there's blood filtration.

Best place for blood filtration is next to the brain because that way the brain stays clear.

It's like, what an amazing idea.

There's an interview with her in one of the Doctor Who annuals where she talks about the time she's assigned to Doctor Who and she's like, it's so great because, you know, other shows you get to do basic makeup.

Doctor Who, I'm designing monsters.

This is great.

This is amazing.

Hugh Walters, who's Vogel, and had been Runcible, the fatuous in Deadly Assassin.

Oh, my goodness.

[38:18]

I've made that link.

I didn't.

He put so much thought into his character.

Like on the making of he talks about it and he's like, you know, it's, I know it's not a big role, but with this role, I had to decide who this person was.

So, and then I had to be shot by a Dalek, and I had this death scene, and it decided in the death scene, you know, I, I said to Graham, what's it like, oh, it's like being electrocuted.

So I threw my arms about and screamed.

But then just before I fall, he looks at Kara.

And as the viewer, you're like, is there something there?

Are they in love?

And then he falls on the ground and you're not in love?

He's gay.

She's a gay icon.

But it's just one little brief moment where he drinks in her fabulosity for one last time before dying.

Correct.

Who wouldn't do that?

It's very sweet.

I love how in that scene, they're drinking a lovely cocktail with their arms linked around each other before the Daleks come in.

It's so incongruous.

It's wonderful And I mean, getting back to her, we discussed it earlier, but I've gone through the full journey with Jenny Thomas and as Tassen Baker.

[39:24]

As a kid, I loved her, and then as a teenager, I read some fan wisdom that she was terrible, and so for a few years, I thought she was terrible.

But the last couple of times I've watched it, I'm like, no, like you are a complex character.

And it's it's kind of like, it's kind of like a high school drama where you've got the geek who is transformed at the end to reveal her inner beauty, which makes her look like all the other outer beauty kind of people, you know?

But no, it's a subversion of that.

It's like just because she's not the quote unquote popular girl or cool girl.

She still has emotions and feelings.

She still needs love.

She still needs affection and like all of us.

There are going to be times where she shows that love and affection to the wrong people, but love makes her blind.

And then when she discovers that Joe Bell won't give her the time of day, but he's quite happy to flirt with other people, but won't just give her a straight answer and kind of strings are along a little.

[40:34]

Even then, She tries to help him and then kind of says, you've got to get away.

And then when she kills him, she shows immediate remorse and is then horribly killed herself.

She's incredibly tragic character.

It's Shakespearean again, Nathan.

She, I mean, she gets killed because while she does kill him, she does warn him about the great healer, and I think that that's why he has her killed.

I love all of his little, the gray healers like looking at him and Clive Swift looking at the camera and, oh, no, you know.

That's a brilliant piece of direction as well.

We never once see a camera in tranquil repose, but we know that there are cameras everywhere, not because anyone actually mentions them.

But because from time to time, the characters will just regard the pretend camera and Colin does one and he does a terrific reaction.

But Joe Bell is making sure that his best side is the camera.

It's really well done.

Something else I absolutely love in terms of the cameras.

[41:35]

You know, we talked about earlier on.

The DJ is kind of watching what's going on, but so's Davros.

So for the 1st episode, control of the episode is being fought over by the DJ and Davros.

They're controlling what we see.

And it alternates between them and that you got that great bit where Dapro says, suddenly everyone sees and knows too much.

Well, maybe if you weren't vision switching to everything, Davros.

It's such a clever conceit.

Made even cleverer by the fact that this is the 1st time I've noticed that it's a storytelling conceit to get us from one location to the other because a complaint about this story is there are so many characters.

So you have 2 hubs.

You have Danveross and you have the DJ.

The DJ has minimal interaction with anyone.

He only interacts with Perry.

Yeah.

Davros interacts with Tasambika, Kara, Orsini, and the doctor, pretty much that's it.

So they're kind of apart from the plot, but they are then the linking element.

[42:40]

We come back to them.

We see what their reaction is to what's going on and then we cut to somewhere else at their bidding.

Like the DJ goes, hey, we've got a lady approaching, you know, and we'd go see what the doctor and Perry are doing.

It actually helps.

You make sure that you don't kind of get plot whiplash from going from plot to plot to plot plot because you've got a moment to breathe and go, okay, we were there.

This is what we're meant to think about that, and now we're going here.

Now, of course, the ending is freeze frame.

Because the doctor was going to say, Blackpool.

I'll take you to Blackpool, but never gets to say the word Blackpool, because that was going to be the next story, the 1st of season 23.

I actually think it's very effective that it ends on a sort of cliffhanger.

Where's he going to take her?

Yeah, who knows?

Okinos, Florana.

But it comes back to this thing, the fact that there wasn't going to be a cliffhanger, and it was just a given that they were going on.

Yeah, yeah, they just thought they were going on.

[43:41]

And of course, we'll discuss this more in our in our missing season podcast.

Yeah, so the 1st story was going to be the Nightmare Fair by Graham Williams with the Return of the Celestial Toy Maker at Blackpool Pier.

It has been made by Big Finish now, and we'll be discussing the big finish recordings of the missing stories as well as talking about the missing stories themselves.

But yeah, there's a good 10 or 12 scripts that were in various stages of development.

Like, A lot of the things we've criticised, John Nathan Turner and Eric Saywood 4.

For season 23, they were actually trying to address.

There was already going to be less violence, more humour.

They had, as I say, about 12 stories in various stages of development.

So if something fell through, it could be pulled, Eric Sayward didn't want to do time lash, but John Nathan Turner was like, well, we don't have anything else.

We're going to have to do it.

And no, you don't have the time or money to commission someone new and you're working on your own script.

[44:43]

So they were trying to avoid that problem in future.

So it's so frustrating that really, while the ratings had dipped slightly.

It wasn't that bad that the show had to be cancelled, and they were already addressing the criticisms.

Which were the reasons they were given for being cancelled.

And it was demonstrable.

They could have turned up at a meeting and said, look, these are our new stories.

Their heads at the BBC, not Michael Gray, obviously, as controller, but head of serials had read the Nightmare Fair and Mission to Magnus and liked the scripts and commented on the improved amount of humour.

I don't think Mission to Magnus was actually at a script level at that point because it was only commissioned 10 days before the show was axed, right?

Nightmare fair existed, right?

As a full script.

And the others, we mentioned in a previous podcast, but mission to magnus and the ultimate evil was still getting written or just about to be written.

But that's the 1st time I've actually heard that sort of thing.

Colin has said, you know, they were going to make it a better relationship and maybe they were going to adjust certain things.

[45:47]

But in my mind, it's still like if they'd received no criticism from their BBC and just said you're getting another series and we're going ahead, would Eric have taken it?

As a fater complete that he can keep ongoing in this direction?

That's right.

But, in examination, this story, I think a lot of the so-called issues, I think he's addressed, whether or not other writers have that ability to do so, I don't know.

We at least know when it does come back after the hiatus, the relationship between the doctor and Perry is completely addressed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or it gets one story.

Well, it's horribly wrong, but it is like in mysterious planet.

They're good together.

And I think here they're good together.

And I think they're good together a lot earlier than here.

That's just me.

Time for our Jenny Laird awards for most puzzling creative choice.

For me, it's.

It's got to be Pennant Roberts.

Because...

He chooses 3 really great cast members.

Like, I still think Paul Darrow, George Chandler, and Robert Ashby give excellent performances in Time Lash.

[46:52]

Also, Dean Hollingsworth is the Android.

I love the Android.

I think that's really well done.

And then the rest of the cast, he just kind of fills with pretty nondescript people who, there's even moments in episode 2 where you can't hear what cats is saying.

You know, she's just kind of mumbling her way through.

So yeah, my puzzling creative choice has to go to Pennant Roberts for his supporting cast.

I just, I don't understand because he's usually done a pretty good job of casting up until now.

I think my surprising creative choice is the heavy reliance on cannibalism as a story element. this season, 3 of the stories feature some form of cannibalism.

Oh, that's true. discuss that with Revelation.

And also, Eric Saywood claims he's never seen Silent Green.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, so in Revelation, they're mulching the bodies of the near dead in order to feed the galaxy, which is kind of fun. delicious.

No, apparently it doesn't taste very good.

They say it in dialogue. a little bit disappointing.

[47:53]

It would have been great. is delicious.

Yeah, the concept is pretty good.

We have shockeye, the corns and grig, of course.

And then we have those 2 charming gentlemen in nappies on vengeance on Varos.

So that is a strange creative choice.

And I guess, I guess it is, say, it's moved towards the grotesque, which is not quite skilled enough to pull off without being unnecessarily revolting, but which I do think eventually pays off in this story.

So cannibals.

Mine is the nappy men.

I just don't understand why.

They're hideous, aren't they?

Right.

Okay, pics of the week.

I haven't plugged the new book for a couple of weeks hating to love, so do buy that.

But my actual pick of this season is totally tasteless.

The life of John Nathan Turner by Richard Marson.

Now, this is essentially the same book as The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan Turner, the previous edition.

[48:57]

This new edition includes entries from Richard Masters diary and emails he sent and received in response to the surprising and controversial content of the 1st edition.

So this is only available in hardback because it has several sections of colour photos from the Nathan Turner and Downey estate as well as other sources.

I'm only about halfway through it at the moment, but it is a fascinating read, and it does offer a bit of an insight into the man.

I'm not up to where he's working on Doctor Who yet.

So I'm hoping to talk a bit more about that next season.

But yeah, totally tasteless.

The life of John Nathan Turner.

I've already recommended the loved one by Evelyn Warr.

I think it's utterly brilliant and anyone who enjoyed this story, I think, will enjoy that even more.

It's really clever and horrifically nasty.

The last sentence is one of the most appalling things that I've ever read in a book anywhere.

[50:00]

It's really funny and really, really deeply awful.

So I think that you should all go out and buy that.

But I want to recommend just so that I can put it in the show notes because I forgot about it last week.

There's a review of the DVD release of the 2 doctors, which is vastly more negative about the story than we were, but is really funny and really insightful.

And it's by Dr. Graham Nelson, who also wrote a terrific review for another online publication of the Blake 7 DVD release of series 3.

But he's the inventor of a computer programming language called Inform, which allows you to write text adventures, he's a poet and a mathematician.

He's a very, very clever man who really shouldn't be slumming, uh, slumming it, writing reviews of Doctor Who, but his review of the 2 doctors is is spectacularly good, and brutally negative, if you thought that our love in about the 2 doctors was altogether too complimentary.

[51:02]

It was rather surprising.

You can make up for it by reading this review.

It's really good Well, 1st of all, I'm not going to just go straight to my pick of the week.

I do want to thank the team here. for inviting me onto the podcast because I was asked to do the Colin Baker era and Watching this season again is reinforced.

What?

I love him, and I love the 6th doctor, and I love adore this season.

I adore Tom's 1st season adore John's and this season is why he became my favourite doctor.

I just can't express my gratitude to you and to Colin.

Because I just adore him. throughout all of this.

So my pick of the week goes like this.

Ignore fan wisdom.

Come back and watch season 22.

That's my pick of the week.

Ignore, Violence, arguments, pacing.

Because I think, for me, we've discovered a whole lot more to Colin, to Nicola, and to other elements in this season, and maybe they didn't get it all right.

[52:07]

But Doctor Who is not perfect, and I love those imperfections, and I love what this season is delivered for me.

Season 22 is my pick of the week.

Well, dear listeners, we take off for an uncertain future, as, for the next few weeks, we will be having a number of special episodes, including our long awaited commentary track on the enemy of the world, and you still have a little bit of time to vote on your John Pertwee story for commentary choice.

Your choices are, Spearhead from Space, the Mutants, the 3 Doctors, and Death to the Daleks.

Also, don't forget our upcoming Big Finnish special, for which you will probably want to listen to, Jubilee, the one doctor, Doctor Who, and the Pirates, and in a slight change, Richard has decided he would rather us look at the last adventure rather than crisscross.

[53:16]

Now, uh, the last adventure is a box set of 4 stories, so we'll be mainly focussing on the last story in that, the brink of death.

If you have already bought crisscross, I do apologise, I do hope you enjoy it.

I certainly picked it up last week and it's still very good, but we'll be discussing the last adventure instead.

All of which are available from bigfinish.com.

You can keep up to date with everything related to flight through entirety on our website, flight through entirety.sexy, flight through entirety on Facebook and iTunes and at FTE podcast on Twitter.

Over on Bondfinger.

You can also find all of our Roger Moore, David Niven, George Lazenby, and Sean Connery, commentaries there as well.

Until next time, may none of you feel consumer resistance from eating your own relatives.

Thank you very much for listening good night.

Good night.

See you soon.

That was Fight Through Entirety with Todd BLB, Nathan Bottomley and Brendan Jones.

Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.

This episode, famous miserable bastard, was recorded on February the 11th, 2017.

[54:20]

The next episode will be released on March 12th.

If Davrox did make everyone a supreme Dalek, but that finally answered the question of whether pineapple belongs at a pizza.

How old's Olivia Coleman?

She's in her 40s.

So she's not too old to play the doctor.

I know these people are doing all this speculation online and saying, no, no woman, no woman, but I reckon, to get headlines and to get everybody back interested, they should, he should cast her at least for one season.

She's so good She's so good.