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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.