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NOTE
This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 13:50:11

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Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast who's bumped our heads on the console, and now I'm Bonnie Langford.

2
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I'm Michael Jason.

3
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And I've noticed that all occursions are wearing Colin Baker's trousers.

4
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We are back with season 24 and it's time for time in the Rani.

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Now, uh, before we make a start, Richard, two weeks ago, when...

6
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That long, dude, when we had our Colin Baker retrospective, Todd spent a few minutes just commenting on his general thoughts of the Sylvester McCoy era because he's not joining us again until survival.

7
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Do you have any...

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He's not allowed to market.

9
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Do you have any comments, general comments on the Colin Baker era before we start serving?

10
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I did manage.

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Thank you so much, Brendan, for lending me your intimate box set of season 22.

12
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I did manage to get through almost half. the entire thing.

13
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I don't really have anything constructive to say.

14
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I have noticed that Mr. Saywood has disappeared, and indeed, it's only a mere echo for this story, and that a lot of our dear loved ones are about to depart, including Pip and Jane, a lot of other, a lot of, and a lot of other people who we thought were going to depart.

15
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I hear whether they like it or not.

16
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And actually, I don't think some of them, some significant ones anyway, come to prove to us that there's a good reason they're there in the 1st place.

17
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This is my Indian summer.

18
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Very glad we're here.

19
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Yeah, me too.

20
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I've said many times before that Time and the Rani was the 1st story I watched on broadcast as opposed to on VHS recording, and I vividly remember the day of episode one.

21
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Being sick and he's happy.

22
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No, go on.

23
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So I was at school and none of my other friends were into Doctor Who.

24
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At school, you know, it wasn't it wasn't a thing.

25
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It was a select.

26
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Kids were kids were in.

27
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No, God, it wasn't.

28
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No, it wasn't selective.

29
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But I vividly remember the TV guide said it was a new season of Doctor Who.

30
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My parents had pointed it out to me.

31
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And my memory of that day was explaining to my friend Andrew Stevens, why this was so exciting.

32
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And as I recall, he didn't get it, but he was quite excited for me, which was nice.

33
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And you remember the strangest things being a kid.

34
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I had Forster there, isn't it?

35
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I had these mittens.

36
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So there were fingerless gloves with a mitten top you could put over the top.

37
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And they looked like a brown catch, not unlike Su Tech, in fact.

38
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We were recording it, Richards today.

39
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I'm wondering where this is going, too.

40
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This is just the memory of my childhood and being so excited that, you know, that feeling where you can't wait to get home.

41
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You're at school all day.

42
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You can't get it.

43
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I know what happened.

44
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He was standing in the in the school loo, all those mirrors, and you rub them together, static electricity, and you were whirled off in a time storm to this very podcast.

45
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Indeed.

46
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Well, I remember putting the videotape into the top loading silver VCR.

47
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Oh, pushing down and pressing record and just sitting there transfixed.

48
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I adore this story.

49
00:04:13.979 --> 00:04:17.639
I can see why this would appeal to a very young person.

50
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That was actually how I felt about it, because remember, Richard, the previous season had gone out on a Saturday night, 2 episodes at a time, and we'd been used to Doctor Who being sort of stripped Monday to Thursday or Monday to Friday at sort of 6.30 PM before the ABC news.

51
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This time it was on in the middle of a sort of segment of the afternoon.

52
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I think it was 5.30 in the afternoon when children's programming normally happened.

53
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Yeah, and treated with much love as it hadn't been for a long time.

54
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In fact, we'll get to it.

55
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They did show the entire season and then they showed remembrance immediately afterwards.

56
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We all thought, oh, this is an oddly truncated season for those of us who couldn't or didn't watch child of a time mode.

57
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Yeah, I was at 1st year uni when Child of the Time Lord's Blade. getting to see it.

58
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But I saw one or 2 episodes and then I think I died.

59
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I actually remember ringing friend of the podcast, Matthew Farrow, immediately afterwards, and I may have told this story, and saying, yeah, you know, the new doctor's good, but it's turned into a kid's program, and I think I'm going to be watching it out of habit from now on.

60
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And I think that was an incredibly, incredibly obtuse 1st impression of this story because like you, Brendan, I really, really like this.

61
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I love it too, and for wildly different reasons, which I guess we'll go to.

62
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This comes at you from an oblique angle, like much of this entire season.

63
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I think this is not only a rebirth for the series, and it's not just Kant, well, we have to thank, or Sylvester, we have to think.

64
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We actually have to thank JNT for this as well, interestingly.

65
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And I was very much involved in reading fandom, occasional jotting.

66
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But honestly, this time, this era, and we have Colin to thank as well.

67
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Is the birth of all of the people that we look at now who are working on the show, Nathan himself, who was involved becoming involved with fandom.

68
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I was certainly being interested in it.

69
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This is the time when it became incredibly interesting and I'm going to come back to that thing.

70
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It's just like the 60s.

71
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Doctor Who is most interesting when it's talking about what's going on outside of itself and not referencing itself.

72
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And we get 2 whole stories this season, which have not had anything to do with anything Doctor Who's done before.

73
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And they don't, and I'm not just talking narrative.

74
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This one itself, even though it's still about the past, is actually more about the whole thing of what's going on in the media and in fact, at universities and how we're seeing how we're seeing the constructs around us.

75
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This is a really interesting program.

76
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And it looks good too.

77
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Yeah, I think there's a huge leap in the in the quality of the production and Phil Sandifer, take a drink, dear listeners, has a video blog, which I mentioned during our live tweet a few weeks ago, and in the video blog, he compares the way that this is shot with, no, I can't remember.

78
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Maybe some scenes from Creature from the Pier, and just how much more innovative, how much more careful it is about creating a sense of space.

79
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And if you look at the location work, it is just a quarry, but it's so much.

80
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I know we're actually in the IMC mining quarry in Slagchester again, aren't we?

81
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But we've reached another dimension.

82
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We're post-Kitty over at video show where the titles themselves take us out of the 2nd dimension and into the third.

83
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Whatever we think of Oliver Elms, and I haven't even got to Keff McCulloch yet.

84
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But Mr. Elms and Mr. Gareth, Gareth Edwards from Cal Video, who put this extraordinary thing together with state of the art, and it was.

85
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It was extraordinary.

86
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And yes, it was like a video game, and that's also a very important thing.

87
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It felt like watching a comic in 3D. Well, that happening shot of the TARDIS being strafed by those sort of lightning coloured beams.

88
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I just thought, 0 my god, you know, this is a cartoon, this is terrible.

89
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But in retrospect, it's something that I really like and it is something we haven't seen before.

90
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Whereas I at age 6 looked at that and thought, this is a cartoon, this is amazing.

91
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Of course.

92
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And let's not forget what cartoons were. back then.

93
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We had 2000 AD. We had Ian Moore.

94
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We had Neil Gaiman Sandman coming up.

95
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Fandom was responding.

96
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The kids who were fans in the early 80s and late 70s were now starting to write and be involved themselves.

97
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The whole world will never be the same again.

98
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And this just happens to be right at the point of the zeitgeist. when things are getting exciting and interesting.

99
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It's funny that Pip and Jane Baker should be heralding into that.

100
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We should say goodbye to the past as well.

101
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They apparently wrote for space 1979, Brendan.

102
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Have you seen their episodes?

103
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Because...

104
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Yeah.

105
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Bugger me with an Netflix catalogue.

106
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If I can remember which ones they were.

107
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Oh, I think they just wrote the one.

108
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Rod and I have recently finished watching space 1999 and my God, it gets awful.

109
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I'm betting it's a season 2 story Oh, it is.

110
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It is a season 2 story.

111
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Their Space 1999 story was a matter of balance.

112
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Oh my god, I remember that one.

113
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Which concerns a man in his gold underwear.

114
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Um, luring, it's really topical. luring luring a young moon base alpha technician.

115
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I eat so young, she must have been bloody 13 when they got blasted out of orbit in order to swap matter with her because he's from an anti-matter university.

116
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He needs to trade places with someone from a matter universe and they're going to do it to the whole of alpha.

117
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It's a bit Roman Polanski, isn't it, really?

118
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I can see why they were banned from writing ever again, except they weren't.

119
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Can I just point out that the Pippin Jane Baker stories during the Colin Baker era were Brendan's favourites, and I can kind of see why, because they were a little oasis of normal, fun family tea time entertainment with very little cannibalism in them, you know?

120
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And that was...

121
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But they were straightforward and fun.

122
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And, you know, they were pitched very young, but that's not an absolute crime when you're writing for Doctor Who.

123
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They were straightforward and simplistic, but they weren't horrible.

124
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Do you think there was a great respect for young people in their writing?

125
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I'm thinking now of what they wanted to do with King Solomon and the baby in the opening credits of this story.

126
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You know what was going to happen?

127
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They were going to cut San in half.

128
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It wasn't Einstein.

129
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That was Carmel's idea.

130
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The Rani was going to appear just at the point of Solomon's dictum when the mothers were presenting the little child and saying his mind, no, he's mine.

131
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And Solomon, of course, declares, well, I'll cut him in, and this big swarthy, dark fella comes in full of Eastern promise, a mystery and smelling of musk, and he comes in with his massive scabbard and waves it about.

132
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So, you know, oh, cutting enough, then, and that's when the Rani was going to appear and she was going to kidnap him for his wisdom.

133
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And JNT said, well, no one's ever heard that story.

134
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No one even knows who that is.

135
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And Carmel said, thank buggery bollocks for that.

136
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Let's make it Iinstone.

137
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Oh, and by the way, I've got a few other things I want to change as well.

138
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Well, I think by then they had pretty much taken over all of the Scoopbride. of television everywhere, yes.

139
00:11:36.779 --> 00:11:39.720
Yeah, yeah, the episodes of Tenko are 2nd to none.

140
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Have you seen pictures of they did not write.

141
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Have you seen pictures of Seth McCallum?

142
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He gets to appear in Delta in the Bannerman spoiler, so you get to see him with his ludicrous ponytail, an acronistic ponytail.

143
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He looks exactly like Pick Baker.

144
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I think it's one and the same person.

145
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He's still with us and still working in Sydney.

146
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Kev.

147
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Oh, yeah.

148
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I don't think he's listening.

149
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Death. as he was many years ago Something during the writing of score for these stories.

150
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Go on.

151
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Something you alluded to, Richard.

152
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Pip and Jane Baker.

153
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They appear on the DVDs for all 3 of their stories.

154
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They appear on the commentary for this.

155
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Sludging through forests, turning people into trees.

156
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Yes, that's right Where was the witch finder general?

157
00:12:28.019 --> 00:12:36.600
But they they talk about how they found it, um, they enjoyed working with Andrew Cartwell less than they enjoyed working with it.

158
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And yeah, they don't...

159
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I mean, it being Pip and Jane, they're not saying that from a personal standpoint, they're saying from a professional standpoint, I think maybe it was because Eric led a few more of their things slide, whereas Andrew Cartmel was like, no, we need to have Einstein because this is a story about science, ostensibly, not King Solomon.

160
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We need to have Hypatia, we need to have Louis Pasteur.

161
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Oh, she said.

162
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And, you know, they're cutting up babies is what we do.

163
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I mean, Sam would said, you know, we could he promised us that we'd be able to eat a child.

164
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But, you know, one thing they wanted, which was undermined, I think it's a mistake, is they planned for Luchersh to be a forest planet.

165
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Yeah, and isn't this telling?

166
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Yeah, think about this.

167
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Because they didn't want a quarry.

168
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They're like, Doctor Who's not another African IMC query.

169
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Andrew Morgan was the one who pushed it.

170
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Andrew Morgan directed this one and I think did a fine job actually.

171
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Yeah, I do too.

172
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I think it looks looks really good.

173
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Did you know Bonnie was written as being scintillating in this one?

174
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JNT's direction was, she shall be scintillating.

175
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This is reflected in the audience appreciation index of 41, which is 6 points lower than the previous season, which only Todd won.

176
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It's about 10 points lower than Salmonella.

177
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There are some lovely directions in the scripts, though, and I have to think.

178
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Did you did you see some of the notes?

179
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Pip and Jane are fabulous for their notes.

180
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Icona is humping Mel.

181
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He's actually one of the... one of the little points that I think we have many things to treasure.

182
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I love the sewers.

183
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I do.

184
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There's the title for the episode.

185
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Don't you notice they didn't have any concrete pipes in that quarry?

186
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This could be so the BBC brought one in and just to make it look a bit more alien.

187
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They stuck some blue Christmas tea, so...

188
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Up his freaking chop.

189
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Put a chinsel.

190
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And there's this, I know, cut, but there's this blues tensely rocks.

191
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And have you noticed why?

192
00:14:38.159 --> 00:14:40.980
There is actually Jermaine plot driven reasons for this.

193
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Tet traps are terrified of tinsel.

194
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The spray guns.

195
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Tinsel, tinsel, tinsel.

196
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Well, this is the gayest thing ever, and we'll get more to this later.

197
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This is the gayest episode of Doctor Who so far.

198
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The Tetraps were, in fact, conquered by the people of Car felt famous for their tinsel-based technology.

199
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Oh, they were too.

200
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Um, yeah, I think it is a mistake not having it in the forest because Pippin Jane's whole rationale with having it in the forest is that the recursions are indolent because they don't they don't want for anything.

201
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Nature provides everything for them.

202
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There's no need to strive.

203
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They were a Goganesque landscape of, yes, South Pacific maidens and young gentlemen with, you know, scaly horrify.

204
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But if you're in a quarry...

205
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You definitely want to improve your lot.

206
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They eat rocks.

207
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Very easily sold.

208
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They're Gorons from the legend of Zelda, some video game stuff for you kids out there.

209
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It means nothing to me.

210
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You'd like Gorons.

211
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I'll show you a picture later Webs.

212
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But really?

213
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Does it work?

214
00:15:41.580 --> 00:15:43.320
We do have Mother Cumberbatch.

215
00:15:43.379 --> 00:15:46.080
And we do have Donald Pickering.

216
00:15:46.139 --> 00:15:48.000
I know reunited.

217
00:15:48.059 --> 00:15:51.000
It's a faceless ones reunion, of course.

218
00:15:51.179 --> 00:15:55.259
Yeah, they were going to get Colin Gordon as Icona, but yeah, just no.

219
00:15:57.960 --> 00:16:00.539
I have to say, Mark Greenstreet.

220
00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:05.159
Mark Greenstreet, I think he's quite, he is quite, and he's a good actor as well.

221
00:16:05.220 --> 00:16:07.919
Yeah, he actually is because he hasn't got a lot to work with.

222
00:16:07.980 --> 00:16:09.840
He pounce at Mel very nicely.

223
00:16:09.899 --> 00:16:12.480
I've got to say, Bonnie pouts back very nicely too.

224
00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:16.799
In that outfit. which I have worn.

225
00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:19.799
Did you keep your bum nice as well?

226
00:16:19.860 --> 00:16:22.799
How does she manage to keep a white arse the entire way through?

227
00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:26.639
Well, yeah, the I think the pants are made of unstable molecules.

228
00:16:26.700 --> 00:16:28.320
Like the X-Men fantastic 4 uniforms.

229
00:16:28.379 --> 00:16:30.360
I don't think the mud would dare.

230
00:16:30.419 --> 00:16:32.580
Bonnie Langford's clothing.

231
00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:35.879
Well, the mug, you see, doesn't know if it's Bonnie Langford or Cato Mara.

232
00:16:35.940 --> 00:16:38.580
Bonnie Langford it might get away with. would not stand for that.

233
00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:40.440
Can we touch upon our coat?

234
00:16:40.559 --> 00:16:49.980
Well, Todd doesn't like this version of the Rani because I think he thinks that she's a little bit over the top.

235
00:16:50.039 --> 00:16:52.559
But I think lightly.

236
00:16:52.620 --> 00:16:58.919
But I do think if you're going to cars, Kate O'Mara is a villain, like get her to chew the scenery, it's a waste of time for her to...

237
00:16:58.919 --> 00:16:59.700
What is she going to do?

238
00:16:59.759 --> 00:17:07.380
You know, she wrote that editor JNT's rescue me from this Hollywood miasma of palm trees and swimming pools and get me back into some mud.

239
00:17:07.559 --> 00:17:09.420
Yes, indeed.

240
00:17:09.480 --> 00:17:10.740
And that's exactly what she said.

241
00:17:10.799 --> 00:17:14.640
She did say she didn't enjoy this one as much, but...

242
00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:20.339
I think part of that was, of course, she had a pre-existing relationship with Colin, they worked together before.

243
00:17:20.759 --> 00:17:23.640
She, you know, had worked with Silv and Bonnie before as well.

244
00:17:23.700 --> 00:17:33.599
She was also very self-conscious about having to impersonate Bonnie Langford while Bonnie was on the set because she kind of went, I need to impersonate her without totally taking the Mick.

245
00:17:33.660 --> 00:17:37.259
And she achieves that Disney, yes.

246
00:17:37.319 --> 00:17:42.180
It is a complete mixturational performance from one point to another.

247
00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:43.680
And I kind of like it.

248
00:17:43.740 --> 00:17:47.099
It's brilliant. absolutely brilliant. silencing the critics.

249
00:17:47.160 --> 00:17:49.980
This is what I think about the whole meta thing of this.

250
00:17:50.039 --> 00:17:55.680
This is actually making the mockeries of the fans that are bitching about the last season. in a really clever way.

251
00:17:55.740 --> 00:17:58.380
You know, a few months before this, it hadn't been seen on the UK.

252
00:17:58.440 --> 00:18:02.099
But a few months before this, Star Trek, the Next Generation premiered in the US.

253
00:18:02.099 --> 00:18:03.960
And Blackadder.

254
00:18:04.019 --> 00:18:05.700
Yeah, black adder two.

255
00:18:05.759 --> 00:18:16.980
The mid-premiere cliffhanger for when encounter at Far Point was divided up into 2 episodes was Patrick Stewart turning to the viewscreen and saying, if we're going to be damned, let's be damned for what we really are.

256
00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:18.660
And I think that's what Doctor Who is doing here.

257
00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:19.140
Yes.

258
00:18:19.140 --> 00:18:26.339
I think the last, the last 2 years, Doctor Who has been slightly ashamed to be a rather silly, rather cheap sci-fi series.

259
00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:36.599
Whereas time in the run, he says, we're going to put Kater Mara in a red wig and dresser up as Bonnie Langford in a set surrounded by Tinsel, and you're going to damn enjoy yourself.

260
00:18:36.660 --> 00:18:40.859
Let us look at, for the 1st time in a long time, in fact, ever.

261
00:18:41.339 --> 00:18:50.819
Jonathan Powell, and, you know, the gods that they said to JNT, we actually need to see an audition tape. of whoever you want to cast.

262
00:18:50.880 --> 00:18:55.079
And weren't they interesting and doesn't self shine and look who is put against?

263
00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:57.960
Dermot Crowley and Janet Fielding.

264
00:18:58.019 --> 00:19:00.240
Oh, yeah, sorry, he's put against Janet Fielding.

265
00:19:00.299 --> 00:19:01.859
And look who she plays.

266
00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:03.839
She's Space iron lady.

267
00:19:03.900 --> 00:19:05.099
Yeah, she plays Thatcher.

268
00:19:05.160 --> 00:19:06.059
It's Thatcher in that scene.

269
00:19:06.180 --> 00:19:08.700
This is who the Rani is in this.

270
00:19:08.759 --> 00:19:10.740
My take on this.

271
00:19:10.799 --> 00:19:13.319
Can I tell you why I think this show is interesting?

272
00:19:13.380 --> 00:19:14.460
Are we up to this place?

273
00:19:14.819 --> 00:19:25.019
If you're at university in the 80s or early 90s, the word semiotics was something you was said about as often as I'll have a half a pint, thanks, only make it a triple.

274
00:19:25.079 --> 00:19:28.140
It was, you know, and I, you know, can I nick a fag?

275
00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:30.420
Everything was post-modern.

276
00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:39.299
Now, postmodernism, as we've touched on before, we're actually going back to, do you remember when we were talking about this sort of stuff in the early 70s before we lost a great many listeners and you had to bring Tom in?

277
00:19:39.420 --> 00:19:40.559
Yeah, that time.

278
00:19:41.940 --> 00:19:55.440
But why I think this era of Doctor Who is interesting and why I think we're actually at a turning point and why it probably couldn't live very much longer because it's so much of the now and it's jumped the shark.

279
00:19:55.500 --> 00:19:58.079
It's now, it's actually jumped the entire whale pod.

280
00:19:58.140 --> 00:20:02.160
We're now talking about critical theory at a university level.

281
00:20:02.220 --> 00:20:11.339
It's actually lampooning, not just itself, but the whole of media and TV and actually politics, because that's what post-mortemism does.

282
00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:13.559
All right, bear with me.

283
00:20:13.619 --> 00:20:19.680
Postmodernism, you see, as it works, with its resignation to bottomless fragmentation and ephemerality.

284
00:20:19.740 --> 00:20:35.339
It generally refuses to contemplate the question of how we can build or represent or attend to the surfaces of modern life with, you know, with the requisite sympathy and seriousness that you need in order to get behind it and identify central meanings.

285
00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:38.579
In everything that's going on and how you fit into the world.

286
00:20:38.700 --> 00:20:46.319
And this is this post-Murdoch thing and this post-consumer TV thing of you just eat it and be happy.

287
00:20:46.380 --> 00:20:49.559
And this was all being questioned at this time.

288
00:20:49.619 --> 00:20:56.579
And we were even getting this thing, this sort of thing in, in the critical theory when you had academics, actually starting to write about Doctor Who itself.

289
00:20:56.640 --> 00:21:01.920
And you had kids at university who were reading this stuff and thinking, I think I'd like to get into TV one day.

290
00:21:01.980 --> 00:21:04.799
Most of those kids are now working on a show called Doctor Who.

291
00:21:04.859 --> 00:21:15.180
But I would also say what this is and what postmodernism is at the point in the mid 80s to late 80s is actually the study of the collapse of time horizons.

292
00:21:15.240 --> 00:21:16.200
Yeah, really?

293
00:21:16.259 --> 00:21:21.839
And these were terms we used. and the preoccupation with instantaneity.

294
00:21:21.900 --> 00:21:26.940
With the moment, if you don't think postmodernism is relevant past the 80s either.

295
00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:28.200
Look at how we live with our iPhones.

296
00:21:28.319 --> 00:21:29.880
This is who we are.

297
00:21:29.940 --> 00:21:46.740
But let me just say, what this means for Doctor Who now in 1987. is that as Mikhail, the erotician put it, it's a shift from the epistemological to the ontological, dominant aesthetic, which sounds like something you'd hear in Dragonfire.

298
00:21:47.700 --> 00:22:02.759
But what this means is there's a shift from the kind of perspective that allows the viewer to see Colin Baker's doctor having a bearing on the meaning of a complex, but nevertheless singular form of reality, a singular view of the world, a modernist view of the world.

299
00:22:02.819 --> 00:22:07.380
So now the viewing of McCoy's doctor as a foregrounding of questions.

300
00:22:07.740 --> 00:22:18.960
If you like, as to how to radically oppose these different realities and how they can collide and coexist and how we live in them and how we interpret this miasma, this confusion.

301
00:22:19.019 --> 00:22:24.240
But the boundary, if you like, between fiction and science fiction, has as a consequence, resolved.

302
00:22:24.299 --> 00:22:26.579
And Doctor Who is right on the point of that.

303
00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:29.339
That is the very definition of postmodernism.

304
00:22:29.400 --> 00:22:32.700
And studying architecture, as I was doing in this year.

305
00:22:32.759 --> 00:22:37.559
We were also reading the linguistic theoretics of post-modernism.

306
00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:39.180
These are terms they actually used.

307
00:22:39.240 --> 00:22:40.859
I'm quoting straight from my old text books.

308
00:22:40.920 --> 00:22:42.779
Watching Doctor Who at this point.

309
00:22:42.839 --> 00:22:51.480
I guess I would say postmodernist characters often seem confused as to what and which will be around them and how they should act with respect to it.

310
00:22:51.599 --> 00:22:52.920
So what's going on in the world?

311
00:22:52.980 --> 00:22:59.099
There's a line from Jorge Louis Borges labyrinths that we've talked about before from the 60s Doctor Who.

312
00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:00.240
It's really tenable now.

313
00:23:00.299 --> 00:23:02.279
It goes, who was I?

314
00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:08.519
Today, self-bewildered, yesterday's forgotten, and tomorrow's unpredictable.

315
00:23:08.579 --> 00:23:10.619
That's Sylvester McCoy in Doctor Who.

316
00:23:10.740 --> 00:23:11.880
The question mark tells it all.

317
00:23:11.940 --> 00:23:15.299
And that was a symbol in itself of post-modemism, question mark.

318
00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:24.420
Yeah, well, something we discussed during the colon era was how much it relies on the past without really doing anything new.

319
00:23:24.420 --> 00:23:27.059
And Nathan, you use the word predictable.

320
00:23:27.420 --> 00:23:30.000
I thought you were going to say cannibalism.

321
00:23:30.059 --> 00:23:31.680
You use cannibalism as well.

322
00:23:31.740 --> 00:23:33.180
I mean, it kind of is cannibalism.

323
00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:38.099
It is just remaking Doctor Who out of habit and doing the beats that we're just used to.

324
00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:42.359
Whereas this story, as Richard you were saying, is on the cusp.

325
00:23:42.420 --> 00:23:44.700
We do have something old in the form of the Rani.

326
00:23:44.759 --> 00:23:52.380
But so much of this story feels so new, even though it's doing things that other texts have done.

327
00:23:52.440 --> 00:23:56.400
It's kind of doing things that Doctor Who hasn't really done before.

328
00:23:56.460 --> 00:24:01.259
The closest we've got to the running impersonating Mel is, you know, a couple of robot Doctor Who's in the past.

329
00:24:01.319 --> 00:24:05.039
But to me as a kid, that's like, 0 my god, that's so exciting.

330
00:24:05.099 --> 00:24:17.640
But yeah, I think because this takes earlier ideas and reinvents them in that postmodern way, not just regurgitating what there's been before, but taking the pieces and going, hey, here's something new.

331
00:24:17.940 --> 00:24:32.700
That makes it exciting You know what this show felt like in 1987 watching this as a student and starting to just to go to bars and having friends who, both at university and outside of that, who actually weren't here 2 years from now.

332
00:24:32.759 --> 00:24:39.420
I had lost quite a few friends by 18990. and it's, you know, it's just, yeah, pause to reflect.

333
00:24:39.480 --> 00:24:47.819
But this show feels, at this point, we're starting to look at, Turning, turning the, can we say tropes?

334
00:24:47.880 --> 00:25:00.000
Turning the women, the gays, the blacks, the colonised peoples, and their repatriations of their own histories, and turning it around, and celebrating the, the nonsense of it all, and the shortness of it all.

335
00:25:00.059 --> 00:25:13.319
Here we've got disparate tribes, of post-HIV queer Britain, colourful outcasts, if you like, and scaly in their self disregarding infirmity, lolling about, but kind of not willing to change.

336
00:25:13.380 --> 00:25:19.440
Proud of who they are, if you like, ruled by an iron lady or an iron lady.

337
00:25:19.500 --> 00:25:26.640
You know, who is a vulgar idea of what ruling class is, you know, or a camp dominatrix, or, you know, a thatcherist trope.

338
00:25:26.700 --> 00:25:40.319
And at the end, right at the end of this story, they pour away the cure that could have that could have completely changed them into, you know, I guess what everybody else thinks they should be because their dissonance is now their strength.

339
00:25:40.380 --> 00:25:42.359
This is a, this to.

340
00:25:42.420 --> 00:25:44.400
Yeah, this that's why I love this story.

341
00:25:44.460 --> 00:25:49.319
This to me is actually about queer England dealing with HIV and AIDS.

342
00:25:49.380 --> 00:25:51.299
You know, I'd never thought of it like that.

343
00:25:51.359 --> 00:25:53.339
And I wonder if people...

344
00:25:53.339 --> 00:25:54.000
Jay knew it.

345
00:25:54.240 --> 00:26:01.500
You know, it wouldn't surprise me if that was part of Cartmel's influence because he was incredibly politically aware.

346
00:26:01.559 --> 00:26:05.160
He famously said during the job interview, what do you want to achieve?

347
00:26:05.220 --> 00:26:07.920
As the script editor of Doctor Who, he says, I want to bring down the government.

348
00:26:07.980 --> 00:26:10.019
That's right, he did too.

349
00:26:10.079 --> 00:26:16.259
And Alan Moore, who did Watchmen and all those other terrific things, and he's as mad as a cat weasel fan can be.

350
00:26:16.319 --> 00:26:17.640
He looks exactly the same.

351
00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.299
Um, Vale, Jeffrey Bell.

352
00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:25.140
Um, is, is, all of those things have come together.

353
00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:27.000
Thank you for indulging me on that spiel.

354
00:26:27.059 --> 00:26:32.640
But yeah, no, I felt that strongly about this show and I actually still feel it now.

355
00:26:32.700 --> 00:26:34.019
And you know what?

356
00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:38.519
Queerness and queer ideas are something which is going to come to the fore in this era.

357
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:39.839
Very much so.

358
00:26:39.839 --> 00:26:40.859
Yeah.

359
00:26:40.920 --> 00:26:48.900
Even the last season, which has several instances of exploring asisexuality has instances of queerness.

360
00:26:48.900 --> 00:26:50.519
That's right.

361
00:26:50.579 --> 00:26:55.980
But, I mean, the one that will really come to in a couple of months is, of course, the happiness patrol.

362
00:26:56.039 --> 00:26:58.019
But I'm going to keep my power dry on that one.

363
00:26:58.440 --> 00:26:59.940
Frozen.

364
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:01.319
Yeah, that's my point.

365
00:27:01.380 --> 00:27:05.279
That was not the big 1st quiz story in New Doctor Who.

366
00:27:05.339 --> 00:27:06.000
I think this one is.

367
00:27:06.059 --> 00:27:11.940
And it's not just that we've got a change of doctor who's now silly and lyrical and not informed.

368
00:27:12.180 --> 00:27:15.539
Sixth doctor was all modernism and knowledge.

369
00:27:15.539 --> 00:27:16.980
And I know everything, yeah.

370
00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:22.019
Oh, you know, brash modernity, if you like, but the 7th is actually Roland Bartian.

371
00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:23.819
Can we say those things?

372
00:27:23.880 --> 00:27:25.559
It's post-rational playfulness.

373
00:27:25.619 --> 00:27:27.539
That's what that guy is for his writing about.

374
00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:30.420
Did you know recently in Doctor Who magazine?

375
00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:31.259
Johnny Morris.

376
00:27:31.319 --> 00:27:32.519
Oh, love him.

377
00:27:32.579 --> 00:27:38.099
Yeah, he wrote a queer reading of the Macroterra and how Ben's...

378
00:27:38.220 --> 00:27:39.900
Actually, they're only in little shorts, aren't they?

379
00:27:40.019 --> 00:27:41.220
Yeah, exactly.

380
00:27:41.279 --> 00:27:42.599
They're all in little shorts.

381
00:27:42.660 --> 00:27:47.220
Women keep throwing themselves at Jamie and he's just like, no, no, bug away from me. so to speak.

382
00:27:47.279 --> 00:27:50.640
And Ben, of course, has a huge struggle with his identity in the story.

383
00:27:50.759 --> 00:27:52.500
But then he goes topless, doesn't he?

384
00:27:53.519 --> 00:27:56.400
He has a huge struggle with his identity in the story.

385
00:27:56.519 --> 00:27:59.880
Does he conform and betray his friends or does he stick by his friends?

386
00:28:00.180 --> 00:28:07.380
And as Johnny Boris puts it, and of course, Ben saves the day by virtue of being the only one not locked in the closet at the end.

387
00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:09.059
Oh my goodness.

388
00:28:09.180 --> 00:28:10.799
It's fantastic.

389
00:28:10.799 --> 00:28:16.140
It's so right that the macro were the 1st to be brought back from, am I correct, in the new series in Gridlock?

390
00:28:16.200 --> 00:28:20.160
They were the 1st dog monster other than Khalid mutant thing.

391
00:28:20.160 --> 00:28:23.400
No, they were absolutely the 1st and we'll put that up on FTE.

392
00:28:23.460 --> 00:28:23.940
That was right.

393
00:28:24.779 --> 00:28:30.180
The only monster from the old series ever come back in the new series, in fact.

394
00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:31.799
So how do you feel about all of that?

395
00:28:31.859 --> 00:28:36.420
Well, I think that there's something really very much to be said for that.

396
00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:38.880
But on a much simpler level too.

397
00:28:38.940 --> 00:28:47.519
I think the show is rediscovering being fun and doing things that science fiction fans are appalled by.

398
00:28:47.579 --> 00:28:53.099
I think the dress up thing is something that serious science fiction fans think is ridiculous.

399
00:28:53.400 --> 00:28:55.440
It's no place in the program.

400
00:28:55.500 --> 00:28:56.160
Absolutely.

401
00:28:56.220 --> 00:28:57.900
And should never have been there.

402
00:28:58.019 --> 00:29:01.920
I should say at this point, 1987, did listener, this was the flowering of young Nathan.

403
00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:05.519
Asian Phantom blossoming, if you like.

404
00:29:05.579 --> 00:29:07.559
And now that we're touching on dress ups.

405
00:29:07.619 --> 00:29:13.319
No, no, I've already I have already confessed to dressing up as Jacqueline Pierce.

406
00:29:13.380 --> 00:29:14.880
That's the 1st time I saw you.

407
00:29:15.779 --> 00:29:20.940
You can imagine a crisis. semiotic.

408
00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:25.380
I think it was a little bit later than that deal. had a chronic history.

409
00:29:25.440 --> 00:29:28.200
It's us on infinite Surferlands.

410
00:29:28.319 --> 00:29:38.339
But I think generally speaking, you've gone from Doctor Who being a slog, this duty that we have to a program with a 20-year history.

411
00:29:38.339 --> 00:29:39.059
Yes.

412
00:29:39.119 --> 00:29:51.599
So kind of throwing all that away, and the Rani is back, but she's only been in it once before, and she's not really very much like she was, and we only have to reach back in our memories 2 years to know who she is.

413
00:29:51.660 --> 00:29:53.819
But it doesn't really matter.

414
00:29:53.880 --> 00:29:59.700
Like she's someone with huge hair and, you know, fabulous arm gestures and things.

415
00:29:59.759 --> 00:30:10.140
She still wields out death from the death wielding mirrored ball in the disco, another HIV reference. that, yeah, the mirror ball now causes death.

416
00:30:10.200 --> 00:30:28.680
But the point is that she is to be made fun of, and she is to be mocked, like all figures in authority, who actually can wield out death by set clause 28 or section 28 by withholding money for research into drugs that could actually save people's lives.

417
00:30:28.740 --> 00:30:30.059
And finally, they did in 96.

418
00:30:30.299 --> 00:30:34.319
But we still had to wait those 9 years, those 10 years for me.

419
00:30:34.380 --> 00:30:39.839
And for everyone else around us, of course, it was what, watching our community be doing more than decimated.

420
00:30:39.900 --> 00:30:45.539
Yeah, she is that, so she is the powers that be, but the point is, we're not to be threatened by them.

421
00:30:45.599 --> 00:30:47.339
We are supposed to find them funny.

422
00:30:47.400 --> 00:30:55.380
We're supposed to lampoon and mock and not take on their idea of how we should be, even when they give us the cure, throw it back in their faces.

423
00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:56.160
We don't need them.

424
00:30:56.220 --> 00:31:00.480
Well, she gets very much a cartoon ending, doesn't she?

425
00:31:00.539 --> 00:31:06.660
Where she's sort of tied up by her, her, her, her, her, her, servant.

426
00:31:06.660 --> 00:31:08.279
In a Berlin club.

427
00:31:09.359 --> 00:31:11.400
A double XL?

428
00:31:11.460 --> 00:31:13.440
Actually, no, it's just forecastle.

429
00:31:14.220 --> 00:31:19.559
Or indeed Fitzroy Tavern, if you're kind of... around in the London in the 80s, yes.

430
00:31:19.619 --> 00:31:20.039
Oh, dear.

431
00:31:20.099 --> 00:31:22.019
They're all fan boys.

432
00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:27.900
Tet trips are fanboys saying that the Tet trips are actually Gary Lee and everyone else on Doctor Who Bulletins.

433
00:31:27.960 --> 00:31:31.680
That one's all dreadful, no, it's thankful. and none of you are as good as you should be.

434
00:31:32.279 --> 00:31:36.299
Yeah, your race, your base is so inferior to ours.

435
00:31:36.359 --> 00:31:40.079
That's that wonderful line when Tubby Tetrop says that too.

436
00:31:40.140 --> 00:31:43.799
Live and lovely Mark Greenslip or whatever his name is.

437
00:31:43.920 --> 00:31:50.940
I can't remember who it was, but many years ago when Richard and I used to frequent Galafray Base, then outpost Galafray.

438
00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:52.559
Oh, we had a time to listener.

439
00:31:52.619 --> 00:31:52.920
Yeah.

440
00:31:52.980 --> 00:31:54.599
You had four, I believe.

441
00:31:54.960 --> 00:32:00.839
But there was a, there was a young man with, in America with whom I was rather in Abbott. who it was.

442
00:32:00.900 --> 00:32:02.579
No, no, no.

443
00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:05.400
But I remember Richard says, oh no, you don't want to go with him.

444
00:32:05.460 --> 00:32:08.039
He's got a belly not unlike Yurek the Tetra.

445
00:32:08.099 --> 00:32:10.740
I'm so sorry for everyone.

446
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:12.180
Sorry of that.

447
00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:13.619
I was Mary Whitehouse.

448
00:32:15.299 --> 00:32:16.859
You were also at the trousers of doom.

449
00:32:16.920 --> 00:32:17.339
I was?

450
00:32:17.339 --> 00:32:19.079
And cellulose wallpaper paste?

451
00:32:20.519 --> 00:32:22.859
And Richard Stone.

452
00:32:22.920 --> 00:32:24.359
Folly of Youth, come on.

453
00:32:24.660 --> 00:32:27.720
I think that's actually how we met now, haven't we?

454
00:32:27.779 --> 00:32:30.779
We met on the forum before we met in real life.

455
00:32:30.839 --> 00:32:31.799
Yeah, no, we didn't.

456
00:32:31.859 --> 00:32:35.279
And when we met, I said, oh, you must be Richard Stone on the thing.

457
00:32:35.400 --> 00:32:36.720
He said, yes, amongst others.

458
00:32:36.900 --> 00:32:38.940
And this is very wide.

459
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:39.900
I said, this is very white.

460
00:32:39.960 --> 00:32:41.160
You didn't think it was the real one.

461
00:32:41.220 --> 00:32:42.180
Did you?

462
00:32:42.420 --> 00:32:44.160
This is the point.

463
00:32:44.220 --> 00:32:47.039
All of that came about because of McCoy's era.

464
00:32:47.099 --> 00:32:48.420
Oh no, that's not fair.

465
00:32:48.480 --> 00:32:58.380
Colin polarised us in ways, but I don't necessarily think in ways that were for the positive, in that they coalesced rather than bringing together.

466
00:32:58.440 --> 00:33:12.599
Whereas McCoy's era, thanks to cartmal and McCoy and JNT. gets it, gets that things can be disparate, unalloyed, and possibly unremarkable and yet be celebrated and wonderful when you mix them all up together.

467
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:18.180
We can actually be all of many colours and still get along and actually have some fun doing it.

468
00:33:18.240 --> 00:33:20.759
This feels fun.

469
00:33:20.819 --> 00:33:21.420
Exactly.

470
00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:28.859
One of the sometimes criticism, sometimes just comments laid at this season is that every story feels so different from each other.

471
00:33:28.920 --> 00:33:30.660
So there's a completely disparate tone.

472
00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:37.079
I actually think that's one of its strengths, and I think one of the reasons it's so pronounced, though, is there's only 4 stories.

473
00:33:37.140 --> 00:33:39.359
I think it's what Doctor Who is for as well.

474
00:33:39.420 --> 00:33:45.119
I mean, we had, I thought season 22 was a whole lot of space corridors and cannibalism.

475
00:33:45.119 --> 00:33:48.720
And I'm not going to let that go.

476
00:33:49.980 --> 00:34:02.160
I can't, I, look, okay, if we're going to go on about the queer theory thing, I'm sorry, if you asked me earlier, why I didn't, wasn't a fan of Colin's era, and just to put a shadow moment on this.

477
00:34:02.220 --> 00:34:08.039
I can't get past and neither can my women friends or my queer women friends who are in theory and politics now.

478
00:34:08.099 --> 00:34:22.019
The act of the doctor strangling the girl who is his, you know, the, if you, if you like the adumbrant of his granddaughter, but the person in his charge and physically attacking her.

479
00:34:22.199 --> 00:34:28.199
And it simply is not something this show should have ever done and I've never been able to get past it.

480
00:34:28.260 --> 00:34:32.579
And they don't walk back from an either because that happens to her the entire time she's on the show.

481
00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:35.579
That's actually the reason I can't watch Colin Zero.

482
00:34:35.639 --> 00:34:38.519
I think I think that you should see what it is.

483
00:34:38.579 --> 00:34:39.179
I like his audio.

484
00:34:39.239 --> 00:34:40.260
I like his audio.

485
00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:44.280
I think you should see what it's like when Mel takes over because that departs with Perry.

486
00:34:44.340 --> 00:34:47.940
And so here, because they show they get killer.

487
00:34:48.719 --> 00:34:52.019
So Mario de Bryan Blessed, which is worse.

488
00:34:52.079 --> 00:34:54.000
I don't know which could...

489
00:34:55.019 --> 00:35:00.539
And so Mel is really perky and really likeable.

490
00:35:00.599 --> 00:35:02.579
She has no kind of discernable character.

491
00:35:02.639 --> 00:35:04.559
It is she's Bonnie.

492
00:35:04.619 --> 00:35:10.139
Have you noticed how good she gets when they actually just writing start writing for her as generic doctor girl?

493
00:35:10.199 --> 00:35:13.079
Yeah, but they just later on this season. the staff.

494
00:35:13.139 --> 00:35:14.519
And look at how good she is.

495
00:35:14.579 --> 00:35:16.619
I've been blitzing for the last 3 weeks.

496
00:35:16.679 --> 00:35:20.699
Every Bonnie Langford, Sylvester McCoy and Colin Baker audio.

497
00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:21.539
I could get my hands on.

498
00:35:21.539 --> 00:35:24.719
And thanks to James Selwood, friend of the podcast.

499
00:35:24.780 --> 00:35:27.059
He's always here in spirit.

500
00:35:27.119 --> 00:35:31.260
I've listened to almost all of them now and she's fantastic.

501
00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:36.420
She is so... and sensitive and a little bit pansy.

502
00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:37.380
Yeah, yeah.

503
00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:43.619
What I love about her in this story is that for the 1st 3 quarters of it, Mel is basically the doctor.

504
00:35:43.679 --> 00:35:50.940
It's Mel, it's Mel who makes contacts, start stirring up the resistance, finds out what's going on in the culture of this planet.

505
00:35:51.059 --> 00:35:56.579
While the doctor is unknowingly, a collaborator with the villain.

506
00:35:56.639 --> 00:35:58.260
Very much so.

507
00:35:58.320 --> 00:36:03.360
And also completely emasculated.

508
00:36:03.420 --> 00:36:07.980
Yes, absolutely, because he is totally under the thrall of the Rani.

509
00:36:08.039 --> 00:36:13.019
And anytime he asks a question, she just kind of throws a head from side to side and says, oh no, doctor, it's fine.

510
00:36:13.079 --> 00:36:13.559
Credit.

511
00:36:13.619 --> 00:36:15.900
And she beats him up quite a bit.

512
00:36:15.960 --> 00:36:18.539
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

513
00:36:18.599 --> 00:36:22.559
Could you have seen if they said this was written for Colin?

514
00:36:22.559 --> 00:36:25.019
I can't see how that could have...

515
00:36:25.019 --> 00:36:27.000
I don't think it would have been better with Colin.

516
00:36:27.059 --> 00:36:34.980
And I think part of the problem with that is that Collins doctor was already kind of the universe is whipping boy in a way that Peter was as well.

517
00:36:35.039 --> 00:36:39.000
You know, his doctor gets mistreated and locked in cells and blah, blah, blah.

518
00:36:39.059 --> 00:36:47.820
And the way Colin plays it, I could never really accept him being duped in that way, whereas I can explain.

519
00:36:47.880 --> 00:36:50.760
I can accept it from Sylvester because, A, he's just regenerated.

520
00:36:50.820 --> 00:36:56.219
And the, he has this unpredictable quality that Colin doesn't have.

521
00:36:56.280 --> 00:36:57.900
And malapropisms.

522
00:36:57.960 --> 00:37:01.980
It's a perfect, he even cites, um, Malaprop, even.

523
00:37:01.980 --> 00:37:02.579
Yeah.

524
00:37:02.579 --> 00:37:10.739
In the way that Colin was always, so if you see, and articulate, always with the perfect phrase, the bomb Mo.

525
00:37:10.800 --> 00:37:15.659
Whereas I really wish Sylvester had kept going with this as much as I wish he'd kept going with the spoons.

526
00:37:15.719 --> 00:37:17.699
Of all the amount of props and mixing things up.

527
00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:18.059
I love it.

528
00:37:18.119 --> 00:37:23.280
I mean, Colin can be silly and Colin can be wrong and all of those sorts of things and I think...

529
00:37:23.280 --> 00:37:25.139
Yeah, he proves it on the audio and vulnerable.

530
00:37:25.199 --> 00:37:26.699
Yeah, I like that.

531
00:37:26.760 --> 00:37:30.719
But here, I think they deal with the sort of regeneration thing.

532
00:37:30.780 --> 00:37:34.320
I mean, the post-regeneration trauma thing is just a terrible idea.

533
00:37:34.380 --> 00:37:35.820
Is it though?

534
00:37:35.820 --> 00:37:36.119
Yes.

535
00:37:36.179 --> 00:37:36.360
Yeah.

536
00:37:36.420 --> 00:37:43.199
Well, because you want to see what the new doctors like and you don't get to, you get to see sort of bumbling.

537
00:37:43.260 --> 00:37:46.199
It's as close as he ever gets to foreplay.

538
00:37:46.679 --> 00:37:50.340
The Christmas invasion gets it right. gives us a...

539
00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:52.199
Puts him in his jam, is his saucy mix, yeah.

540
00:37:52.559 --> 00:38:07.019
You get a bit of an idea of what he's going to be like when he confronts the Santas with the Sonic screwdriver, but we basically have to wait an hour and then he has his hero moment and he sort of does work on and saves the day.

541
00:38:07.079 --> 00:38:08.880
What's that tree made of?

542
00:38:08.940 --> 00:38:09.780
Yes.

543
00:38:09.780 --> 00:38:11.460
But here?

544
00:38:11.519 --> 00:38:15.360
They really throw away the regeneration thing.

545
00:38:15.420 --> 00:38:20.400
Sylvester's working at pretty well, you know, as close to full capacity as he ever cares.

546
00:38:20.460 --> 00:38:24.840
And the only thing is that he's confused about who the Rani is.

547
00:38:24.900 --> 00:38:26.400
You think he's messy in this?

548
00:38:26.460 --> 00:38:27.960
How do you feel about that?

549
00:38:28.019 --> 00:38:30.840
I think Sylvester is really, really fun to watch.

550
00:38:30.900 --> 00:38:32.760
I don't know.

551
00:38:32.820 --> 00:38:34.199
I think he does.

552
00:38:34.260 --> 00:38:38.159
I think he does sort of resignation and sadness very well.

553
00:38:38.219 --> 00:38:39.659
This is the thing.

554
00:38:39.719 --> 00:38:40.860
He really doesn't.

555
00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:49.199
You don't expect it, but again, if you go back to my spiel earlier, it's all about putting things together that are disparate and dissonant and actually making them work.

556
00:38:49.260 --> 00:38:55.860
So he's he does this, I feel better than probably seen cinch trout and for me.

557
00:38:55.920 --> 00:39:01.920
Well, look, I mean, I think Trouton sort of outclasses him as an actor, but Trouton does that to just about everyone else.

558
00:39:01.980 --> 00:39:03.179
Sure.

559
00:39:03.300 --> 00:39:05.880
I will take that, but that's not too, in any way, to integrate.

560
00:39:05.940 --> 00:39:06.480
So.

561
00:39:06.599 --> 00:39:08.940
No, I think he's really a compelling performer.

562
00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:10.619
He's physically, really interesting.

563
00:39:10.679 --> 00:39:15.119
He's sort of sweet and funny and he does vulnerable very well.

564
00:39:15.179 --> 00:39:23.340
And just comparing his relationship with Mel in this story to Collins relationship with Perry in his 1st story.

565
00:39:23.400 --> 00:39:25.860
It's almost an apology.

566
00:39:25.920 --> 00:39:31.019
And remember the final line of the twin dilemma is, you know, I'm the doctor whether you like it or not.

567
00:39:31.079 --> 00:39:38.039
And here, Sylvester goes, I'll grow on you now. grow on you and he's terribly sweet about it.

568
00:39:38.099 --> 00:39:49.619
And so it is them doing this right and trying, I think, in some way to heal the horrific wound inflicted on the program in the twin dilemma.

569
00:39:49.679 --> 00:39:58.619
What I find interesting about that comparison to the twin dilemma is, like in the twin dilemma, you get a fight scene. in this story between the doctor and the companion.

570
00:39:58.679 --> 00:40:04.739
But the difference is this is a comic wrestling match that Bonnie and Silv get into.

571
00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:06.900
And Bonnie makes the first...

572
00:40:06.960 --> 00:40:09.780
Yeah, she was like she throws him over her shoulder.

573
00:40:09.780 --> 00:40:11.760
And it's Bonnie doing that.

574
00:40:11.820 --> 00:40:13.980
I mean, they're the same height, so it's pretty easy.

575
00:40:14.039 --> 00:40:15.239
Brendan does it.

576
00:40:15.780 --> 00:40:17.699
He's doing it now.

577
00:40:17.760 --> 00:40:20.880
But what I what I have...

578
00:40:20.880 --> 00:40:22.260
What I absolutely adore about that.

579
00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:23.280
Oh, yeah.

580
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:32.880
What I absolutely adore about that scene is when they realise who each other up because she doesn't know it's the doctor and he doesn't think it's Mel.

581
00:40:32.940 --> 00:40:39.000
And when they realise there's a genuine warmth between them and it sells the fact that he is the same character.

582
00:40:39.539 --> 00:40:50.820
But the reason I think it wouldn't have worked with Colin is, of course, when the script was written for Colin, he took part of Bayes in the final scene and gets blown up and that was going to be the end of the 6th doctor.

583
00:40:50.940 --> 00:40:53.699
He was going to get blown up saving the recursions instead of bass.

584
00:40:53.880 --> 00:40:55.139
And I think...

585
00:40:55.139 --> 00:41:03.360
The reason this scene works better is because it's the 1st meeting between the doctor and his companion rather than this bittersweet.

586
00:41:03.420 --> 00:41:06.119
We've, you know, we've remembered each other just before you die.

587
00:41:06.179 --> 00:41:13.019
And it's kind of the 1st place we see that melancholy from Sylvester.

588
00:41:13.079 --> 00:41:19.679
He cites his influences as Patrick Troughton, because that was the last time he really watched Shocked her because he became an actor after that and wasn't in on Saturdays.

589
00:41:19.739 --> 00:41:22.860
Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, which is all where the physical stuff comes.

590
00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:24.179
JNT wanted that as well.

591
00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:25.320
That was part of the instruction.

592
00:41:25.440 --> 00:41:28.800
But his other influence is one of his grandmothers.

593
00:41:29.039 --> 00:41:33.239
And he says she lived to 100 or close to it.

594
00:41:33.300 --> 00:41:44.039
And all of her friends had died, and she just, as still says it, she just had this wonderful sadness of having had a great life, but no one she shared it with was there anymore.

595
00:41:44.099 --> 00:41:50.519
And he's like, when I, when I was told the doctor is 900 years old, I thought, how many times has that happened to him?

596
00:41:50.880 --> 00:41:59.820
And when he goes sort of, it doesn't bode well for my 7th persona, you feel that weight of, oh, no, I'm getting it wrong again.

597
00:41:59.880 --> 00:42:03.000
And how many times has he gotten stuff like this wrong?

598
00:42:03.059 --> 00:42:08.639
And we will touch on that even in this very brief Indian summer of Sylvester McCoy's career.

599
00:42:08.699 --> 00:42:11.039
There's a lot of other stuff, though, isn't there?

600
00:42:11.099 --> 00:42:12.960
There's a lot of books, there's a lot of audios.

601
00:42:13.019 --> 00:42:15.119
There's a lot to be discovered and continue with.

602
00:42:15.179 --> 00:42:17.159
Well, I've recently started.

603
00:42:17.219 --> 00:42:21.239
Um, reading every single Doctor Who fiction book.

604
00:42:21.300 --> 00:42:23.099
I remember we warned you.

605
00:42:23.159 --> 00:42:24.960
Do you remember when you were young, Nathan?

606
00:42:25.019 --> 00:42:26.159
like this?

607
00:42:26.219 --> 00:42:26.639
No.

608
00:42:26.820 --> 00:42:28.440
I did too.

609
00:42:28.500 --> 00:42:29.400
I didn't get very far.

610
00:42:29.400 --> 00:42:40.679
Because, you see, I drew up a spreadsheet with page counts of pretty much every kind of fan is pretty much every Doctor Who fiction novel and figured out reading 40 pages a day.

611
00:42:40.739 --> 00:42:42.719
It's gonna take me about 9.5 years.

612
00:42:42.780 --> 00:42:46.559
So I'm up to typeworm apocalypse, which is the 3rd new adventure.

613
00:42:46.619 --> 00:42:48.059
And the difference.

614
00:42:48.119 --> 00:42:52.980
Okay, the difference when Terrence Dixon, Nigel Robinson, right for Silv.

615
00:42:53.039 --> 00:42:55.739
And when John Peel writes for Silver, makes him really grumpy and angry.

616
00:42:55.800 --> 00:42:57.420
It just jars.

617
00:42:57.480 --> 00:43:03.659
Terence Dix, who never writes for silver on television, never writes any of his novelisations, gets the character.

618
00:43:03.780 --> 00:43:04.920
I loved Exodus.

619
00:43:04.980 --> 00:43:06.300
Did I give you a whole pile of those?

620
00:43:07.019 --> 00:43:08.639
You sold some of your inos, yeah.

621
00:43:08.699 --> 00:43:09.119
That's right.

622
00:43:09.239 --> 00:43:11.519
I didn't I didn't give I sold for a reason.

623
00:43:11.579 --> 00:43:14.940
And let me tell you that the shelf has been amply filled by things.

624
00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:18.000
I'd rather read, but I'm glad you're enjoying them.

625
00:43:18.059 --> 00:43:23.699
I remember Exodus is being very good as well and very much continuing on the time of the Rani feel of that 1st season.

626
00:43:23.760 --> 00:43:34.380
But I think the reason that Terrence is able to get Silv, so right, is that Silv kind of instinctively gets the core of the doctor, right?

627
00:43:34.380 --> 00:43:40.920
Whereas I think Colin at the beginning, didn't have a chance to, because he's being told, be nasty, be nasty, be nasty.

628
00:43:40.980 --> 00:43:42.480
I think he gets it towards the end of trial.

629
00:43:42.659 --> 00:43:46.860
And I said this a couple of weeks ago that, you know, he's just hitting his stride and then they fire him.

630
00:43:46.920 --> 00:43:59.280
Whereas Sylvester, because he has so little knowledge of the show and because his memory of the show is the 60s, when the character was very bare bones, and that was his perception.

631
00:43:59.340 --> 00:44:03.599
He's like, I don't want the doctor to be constantly going on about being the president of Gallifrey.

632
00:44:03.659 --> 00:44:04.800
I don't want him to be...

633
00:44:04.860 --> 00:44:08.820
Which is in the constellation of Kostuba's spinary location, blah, blah, blah.

634
00:44:08.880 --> 00:44:11.460
So yeah, his whole thing is trim it back to basics.

635
00:44:11.579 --> 00:44:14.639
He's funny, he's silly, but deep down he's really sad.

636
00:44:14.699 --> 00:44:17.039
And we get all of that in this verse.

637
00:44:17.159 --> 00:44:18.960
So would you be with 2 wives to support?

638
00:44:19.320 --> 00:44:21.599
Sylvester, not Patrick.

639
00:44:23.400 --> 00:44:25.800
It's a lovely interview.

640
00:44:25.860 --> 00:44:29.159
Actually, it might go over a couple of issues of Doctor Who magazine.

641
00:44:29.219 --> 00:44:30.900
Do you remember this one a couple of years ago?

642
00:44:30.960 --> 00:44:31.679
I've got it in there.

643
00:44:31.739 --> 00:44:32.579
I pull it out.

644
00:44:32.699 --> 00:44:36.719
Just talking about his early childhood and really how difficult it was.

645
00:44:36.780 --> 00:44:42.420
And I think he brings that pathos and bathos, not necessarily a lesser thing, into his performance.

646
00:44:42.480 --> 00:44:46.260
I can't say how much I love this doctor, but I think I've probably given it a fair whack.

647
00:44:46.320 --> 00:44:48.300
I like him a great deal as well.

648
00:44:48.360 --> 00:44:51.000
I think he's, I think he's really, really great.

649
00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:56.639
And it is, it's nice to have someone who will kind of lurk on the periphery of scenes.

650
00:44:56.699 --> 00:44:57.780
It's not all about him.

651
00:44:57.840 --> 00:45:00.239
Not in the way that Bert Wheat did.

652
00:45:03.300 --> 00:45:10.800
I just imagining pertly like Betty Davis in hush hush, sweet Charlotte, saying, oh, Joan, you don't need all these lines, do you?

653
00:45:10.860 --> 00:45:15.480
And that's why we need to cast that Welsh washerwoman. very versatile.

654
00:45:15.539 --> 00:45:17.880
That's why we got Olivia de Haviland instead.

655
00:45:19.079 --> 00:45:22.139
Oh, no, Olivia de Haviland in this, of course.

656
00:45:22.199 --> 00:45:35.099
But, um, I think also the reason we have such a strong cast is possibly because Andrew Morgan, Andrew Cartmel and JNT kind of went, uh, you know, this isn't a bad script, but it's perhaps not the strongest script.

657
00:45:35.159 --> 00:45:36.960
So we're gonna get an incredibly strong car.

658
00:45:37.019 --> 00:45:40.559
So you got Kate, you've got Wanda, you've got Donald, you've got Mark Greenstreet.

659
00:45:40.619 --> 00:45:42.300
They put the effort and the money into this.

660
00:45:42.360 --> 00:45:42.840
Yeah, yeah.

661
00:45:42.900 --> 00:45:46.199
And what seems strange to me is this year.

662
00:45:46.260 --> 00:45:54.000
Um, The design and the direction just seems so much better, but I can't imagine they have any more money than last year.

663
00:45:54.059 --> 00:45:55.679
Yeah, I agree.

664
00:45:55.739 --> 00:45:58.260
There is something more inventive about it.

665
00:45:58.320 --> 00:46:01.079
It's only budgeted for 3 stories this season.

666
00:46:01.139 --> 00:46:09.000
Of course, and the two, three parters are always made in the same production block, which is how the new series saves money as well.

667
00:46:09.059 --> 00:46:09.900
Yeah, yeah.

668
00:46:09.960 --> 00:46:12.840
Yeah, so we'll be touching on that later in the season.

669
00:46:12.900 --> 00:46:14.219
I think it looks extraordinary.

670
00:46:14.280 --> 00:46:15.960
They're the best model effects.

671
00:46:16.019 --> 00:46:16.860
Thank you, Mike Tucker.

672
00:46:16.920 --> 00:46:17.940
Ive ever seen in Doctor Who.

673
00:46:18.059 --> 00:46:20.400
I'm a bit of a fan of the shiny things.

674
00:46:20.519 --> 00:46:21.480
Yeah, it is.

675
00:46:21.539 --> 00:46:22.980
It's right up there, isn't it?

676
00:46:23.039 --> 00:46:26.820
Well, it's Terrahawks was only a couple of years before, and we're owing a lot to that.

677
00:46:26.880 --> 00:46:30.059
Sue Moore did the Tetraps who also designed Zelda.

678
00:46:30.059 --> 00:46:33.719
This is state of the art TV in 1997.

679
00:46:33.960 --> 00:46:35.280
In England.

680
00:46:35.400 --> 00:46:37.860
I have tried to find it, but I'm afraid I can't.

681
00:46:37.920 --> 00:46:49.980
So I do apologise if this is you, but a friend of the podcast when I was live tweeting. said that they didn't really like the Rani's lab set, and I really can't understand that because there's depth of field.

682
00:46:50.039 --> 00:46:53.219
There's things in the foreground, there's things in the midground, there's things in the background.

683
00:46:53.280 --> 00:46:54.960
They've never been to a basement disco?

684
00:46:55.199 --> 00:46:56.940
There's a roof.

685
00:46:57.059 --> 00:46:58.199
It has a roof.

686
00:46:59.699 --> 00:47:03.179
You know, that is actually a very special thing for this show.

687
00:47:03.239 --> 00:47:10.440
Remember back in Marco Polo where Barry Newbury couldn't have a roof because the sound guy kept saying, oh, can't get me mic in there, mate.

688
00:47:10.619 --> 00:47:18.300
I do think it is a little bit of a light entertainment set, and particularly when she starts the machine.

689
00:47:18.360 --> 00:47:19.679
It does look like sale of the century.

690
00:47:19.739 --> 00:47:20.579
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

691
00:47:20.639 --> 00:47:22.380
But, you know, it's it's Doctor Who.

692
00:47:22.500 --> 00:47:24.960
It's got lots of lovely triangles in it, you know?

693
00:47:24.960 --> 00:47:26.460
It's what they, yeah, thank you.

694
00:47:26.519 --> 00:47:27.659
Another game motif.

695
00:47:27.719 --> 00:47:28.800
The sky is pink.

696
00:47:28.860 --> 00:47:30.900
Everyone's wearing rainbow colours.

697
00:47:30.960 --> 00:47:32.820
The triangles are everywhere.

698
00:47:32.880 --> 00:47:33.239
Yeah.

699
00:47:33.300 --> 00:47:36.179
The pyramid motif, of course, all of that.

700
00:47:36.239 --> 00:47:41.099
I think it's deliberate that it looks like a Bruce Forsyth or our own Nicholas Parsons.

701
00:47:41.159 --> 00:47:41.579
We own him.

702
00:47:41.639 --> 00:47:43.860
Yes, because he's been Doctor Who very soon.

703
00:47:43.920 --> 00:47:48.840
It looks like a game show because that's again part of this terrifically clever meta.

704
00:47:48.900 --> 00:47:56.400
I want to believe this was done deliberately to completely take the Mick duration out of the entirety of British TV this year.

705
00:47:56.460 --> 00:48:16.619
Well, think about when John Nathan Turner 1st comes along, and we get after season 17, which did look cheap and drab and had lots of brown cardboard corridors in it, and then we get the leisure hive, which is just a studio bound production like season 17, but done with a bit of flair and inventiveness.

706
00:48:16.739 --> 00:48:19.679
So powerful that there are goalons still in this episode.

707
00:48:19.739 --> 00:48:21.300
That's right.

708
00:48:22.079 --> 00:48:23.460
Yeah, yeah, there's no goal in it.

709
00:48:23.519 --> 00:48:31.500
But here I think it's the same thing and I don't think it's like super successful because it is a bit shiny and game showy.

710
00:48:31.619 --> 00:48:37.199
And if we were going for realism, which, let's face it, the moment you put Kate Omar in a Bonnie Langford wig, you're not.

711
00:48:37.260 --> 00:48:38.880
That's not what this is meant.

712
00:48:39.179 --> 00:48:44.519
See, I think the reason they don't go for realism is because they don't have the money.

713
00:48:44.579 --> 00:48:46.559
So they go for the comic book aesthetic.

714
00:48:46.619 --> 00:48:49.739
They go for the bright colours and the solid shapes.

715
00:48:50.099 --> 00:48:58.619
As a kid, the pyramid and triangular motif, you know, like most kids, I was intrigued by the pyramids and the legends of Egypt.

716
00:48:58.679 --> 00:49:00.900
So immediately there's something recognisable for kids there.

717
00:49:00.960 --> 00:49:05.400
I wanted keypads that were triangular with little circular buttons on them.

718
00:49:05.460 --> 00:49:09.840
I remember watching the story over and over again, trying to figure out the interface.

719
00:49:09.900 --> 00:49:11.519
Like, okay, he's pressing in 953.

720
00:49:11.699 --> 00:49:14.400
What signifies nine, what signifies five, what signifies three?

721
00:49:14.699 --> 00:49:18.059
It fires the imagination on that level.

722
00:49:18.119 --> 00:49:25.980
And then, The people who are older looking at it are able to appreciate the critical theory behind it and the post-modernism behind it.

723
00:49:26.039 --> 00:49:29.400
It's Doctor Who working on multiple age levels again.

724
00:49:29.579 --> 00:49:36.239
Just, you know, and really, I don't think we've had that since early Pete.

725
00:49:36.360 --> 00:49:39.719
I don't think we've had it in such purity since the 60s.

726
00:49:39.780 --> 00:49:47.039
It takes the everyday and subverts it and turns it on its head and makes of it something much bigger and it's been very different.

727
00:49:47.099 --> 00:49:49.920
Doctor Who has always been about this period.

728
00:49:50.519 --> 00:49:55.440
In the late 80s, early 90s, it actually has always been about this time.

729
00:49:55.500 --> 00:49:57.780
It's just reached its apotheosis.

730
00:49:57.840 --> 00:49:58.800
Have a drink, dealers.

731
00:49:58.860 --> 00:50:09.659
And, you know, I wonder why this is so successful because of course, you know, we're on the planet Zog, with the people of the Zogs being threatened by an alien overlord.

732
00:50:09.719 --> 00:50:11.159
It's the dominators again.

733
00:50:11.219 --> 00:50:13.920
I mean, it really is.

734
00:50:13.980 --> 00:50:15.719
Why is it so good in comparison?

735
00:50:15.780 --> 00:50:18.420
It's not just the design work and it's not just Cato Mara.

736
00:50:18.480 --> 00:50:19.860
No, it's we're having fun.

737
00:50:19.920 --> 00:50:33.659
I mean, the story is simplistic because it is Pip and Jane, and it is something that we've seen a lot of times before where you've got, you know, a rebel who wants to go to population into overthrowing the oppressors.

738
00:50:33.719 --> 00:50:36.780
And then you've got Bayers who's saying, no, no, take it easy.

739
00:50:36.840 --> 00:50:37.739
We're not going to do that.

740
00:50:37.800 --> 00:50:40.500
I was actually thinking of death to the Daleks.

741
00:50:40.559 --> 00:50:54.780
And Galloway, remember, who, uh, who looks like he's collaborating the entire time and then uh, is brave enough to overthrow the Daleks, just like Bayos does here.

742
00:50:54.840 --> 00:51:06.420
And so even though Bayos is politically wrong, I think, in his approach, and that's how he's supposed to see it, he's not a bad guy, he's still brave and he still cares about his people.

743
00:51:06.480 --> 00:51:12.599
And I think, you know, that is a story that's been told over and over again in Doctor Who.

744
00:51:12.659 --> 00:51:20.099
So it's a simple kind of template that we've seen before, but it's kind of a bit of a relief to get that.

745
00:51:20.159 --> 00:51:22.800
And even during the Colin Baker era.

746
00:51:22.860 --> 00:51:37.260
I think, Brendan, you found that that sort of straightforwardness and just the sort of fun in the Pippin Jane stories, neither of which I think were particularly good, but, you know, that there was something really enjoyable there.

747
00:51:37.320 --> 00:51:46.860
And I think I grudgingly gave terror of the vervoids, the bronze medal in the Colin Bay hero, not because it's a great story, but because it's just terrifically fun.

748
00:51:46.980 --> 00:51:49.739
And I think the same is true here.

749
00:51:49.800 --> 00:51:52.199
I don't think time and the Rani's a great script.

750
00:51:52.260 --> 00:51:55.260
But gosh, it's enjoyable to watch.

751
00:51:55.739 --> 00:52:05.219
I think another reason it succeeds so well is what you said, Richard, there is actually a lot of theory and a lot of thought behind it, which even if you don't get it.

752
00:52:05.280 --> 00:52:07.800
You can sense that there's something deeper going on.

753
00:52:07.980 --> 00:52:23.039
You know, and I've, I've said this many times before about Doctor Who stories that we've discussed on the podcast, things like Frontier and Space, which, you know, as a kid, I would never have realised the political dimension of it as related to the real world.

754
00:52:23.099 --> 00:52:26.099
But as an adult, it makes me appreciate it all the more.

755
00:52:26.159 --> 00:52:36.599
Whereas something like time lash, which I did say during the colon era, I enjoy time lash because it's a straightforward story, there's not really a lot behind it.

756
00:52:36.659 --> 00:52:39.059
It's just a narrative, and that's fine.

757
00:52:39.119 --> 00:52:48.300
Whereas this has that extra queer dimension and the rebel dimension and fighting against corrupt authority.

758
00:52:48.539 --> 00:52:51.000
Uh, can I talk a bit about the science?

759
00:52:51.119 --> 00:52:53.219
Hey, talk matter.

760
00:52:53.280 --> 00:52:59.400
Okay, so we have an asteroid composed of strange matter in this story.

761
00:52:59.460 --> 00:53:06.420
Now, in fact, that was so important that that was what Pip and Jane wanted to call.

762
00:53:07.019 --> 00:53:22.920
It was going to be called Strange Matter, and I do think I remember reading that one of the reasons that they never wrote for the program has nothing to do with Andrew Cartwell not inviting them back at all. because they were annoyed at the time in the Rani rename of this story.

763
00:53:22.980 --> 00:53:32.039
I think at one point as well, they considered calling it the strange matter when they knew that Colin wasn't coming back because they thought anything could happen.

764
00:53:32.099 --> 00:53:34.139
So we'll call it the strange matter.

765
00:53:34.199 --> 00:53:35.579
Of the firing of the dog.

766
00:53:36.119 --> 00:53:44.699
Strange matter itself is a theoretical substance, which is made when atoms are put under very high pressure.

767
00:53:44.760 --> 00:53:53.940
So an example I've read is if you take an iron atom which has 26 protons on 30 neutrons and you crush it, you apply energy to the protons and the neutrons.

768
00:53:54.000 --> 00:54:03.659
If you crush it enough, there's so much energy applied that the protons and neutrons break down into their requisite quarks, and there's up clocks, and there's down clocks, positive quarks.

769
00:54:04.139 --> 00:54:07.320
If you apply even more pressure to these quarks.

770
00:54:07.380 --> 00:54:08.039
Some of them.

771
00:54:08.099 --> 00:54:09.539
Flip.

772
00:54:09.599 --> 00:54:16.500
So they go from being up to down or down to up and some of them stay in an intermediate state called strange quarks, which are super dense.

773
00:54:16.739 --> 00:54:21.000
And that's where strange matter being incredibly heavy comes from.

774
00:54:21.059 --> 00:54:22.739
They have colours and flavours as well.

775
00:54:22.800 --> 00:54:23.460
Yes.

776
00:54:23.579 --> 00:54:25.139
It's very sad.

777
00:54:25.139 --> 00:54:26.699
I think they're making it up.

778
00:54:26.760 --> 00:54:27.360
Yeah, they are.

779
00:54:27.360 --> 00:54:30.780
What's wrong with the theory that, you know, little sprites inhabit everything?

780
00:54:31.320 --> 00:54:33.480
Works for Conan Door.

781
00:54:33.539 --> 00:54:34.920
God sustains it all.

782
00:54:34.980 --> 00:54:35.940
Very simple.

783
00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:40.079
Now, we haven't been able to create strange matter on earth.

784
00:54:40.260 --> 00:54:47.400
But the theory is that it could form at the hearts of neutron stars because of the immense pressures they're in.

785
00:54:47.460 --> 00:54:51.179
And if strange matter is negatively charged.

786
00:54:51.539 --> 00:54:55.500
It'll consume the rest of the star around it.

787
00:54:55.619 --> 00:54:58.260
And then shoot off into the universe.

788
00:54:58.860 --> 00:55:09.420
If it comes into a contact with a planetary body while it is negatively charged, anything it touches is converted to strange matter, and joins itself like a snowball.

789
00:55:09.480 --> 00:55:17.159
Now, the thing is, theoretically, all strange matter will be positively charged, which means we could actually just have it sitting here on the table and we'd be fine.

790
00:55:17.219 --> 00:55:20.639
So that's...

791
00:55:20.639 --> 00:55:24.960
So that's why the Rani is trying to come up with a lightweight substitute.

792
00:55:25.019 --> 00:55:36.719
Now, from what I can tell, from what I've read, it doesn't seem that strange matter combined with strange matter will make the strange matter explode, as is implied in the story.

793
00:55:36.719 --> 00:55:39.719
But that's just the 1st part of their plan.

794
00:55:39.780 --> 00:55:41.820
The 2nd part, of course, is that.

795
00:55:42.119 --> 00:56:00.059
A shell of Cronons will form in the upper atmosphere of Lucersia, which will cause the creation of helium 2, which will cause the matter of the brain, her giant brain, to expand until the space between the surface and the space between the Cronon shell is full.

796
00:56:00.119 --> 00:56:03.539
The doctor tells us that this will create a time manipulator.

797
00:56:04.500 --> 00:56:10.380
And I think that there is actually a purpose behind this.

798
00:56:10.440 --> 00:56:12.059
I don't think it's just a bunch of random words.

799
00:56:12.119 --> 00:56:15.300
Well, no, I'm fairly sure it is.

800
00:56:15.599 --> 00:56:17.880
So empirical thinking.

801
00:56:18.719 --> 00:56:21.360
Understanding time manipulation.

802
00:56:21.420 --> 00:56:21.960
What's the line?

803
00:56:22.440 --> 00:56:24.179
Pip and Jones.

804
00:56:24.179 --> 00:56:24.960
Yeah.

805
00:56:25.019 --> 00:56:27.360
We're going to have this giant planet size brain.

806
00:56:27.780 --> 00:56:35.699
Surrounding the brain is going to be a shell of chronons, discrete particles of time, which do not interact with universe in the same way that normal space time does.

807
00:56:35.760 --> 00:56:37.980
It doesn't go forward at 12nd per second.

808
00:56:38.099 --> 00:56:38.820
It doesn't go backwards.

809
00:56:38.880 --> 00:56:40.320
It's kind of static time, if you like.

810
00:56:40.380 --> 00:56:46.500
And using this, the Rani hopes to manipulate evolution throughout the universe.

811
00:56:46.559 --> 00:56:56.579
What I suggest is the brain would actually compute alternative timelines, which the Rani would then enact, and because it's surrounded by the Cronon shell, the brain will never change.

812
00:56:56.639 --> 00:57:00.239
So it will always be aware of what the universe was like before.

813
00:57:00.300 --> 00:57:03.420
So it's like the control in a time change experiment.

814
00:57:04.139 --> 00:57:08.579
So Brendan, if she's able to come up with such a clever plan.

815
00:57:08.699 --> 00:57:12.179
Why is she unable to put a hinge on the rocket launcher thing?

816
00:57:12.900 --> 00:57:20.699
that she can launch the rocket, you know, at any time she rock, or indeed have steering rockets on the bloody rocket itself.

817
00:57:20.760 --> 00:57:24.059
So you can actually, you know, hit your target.

818
00:57:24.119 --> 00:57:25.320
Yeah, guided missile.

819
00:57:25.380 --> 00:57:27.360
Yeah, like, you know, that's a goodness thing.

820
00:57:27.420 --> 00:57:28.440
That thing.

821
00:57:28.500 --> 00:57:31.980
You know, I think somewhere in the novelisation of time of the Ronnie.

822
00:57:33.000 --> 00:57:38.280
Pip and Jane actually mentioned that the Tetraps and all the Kursians haven't found the principle of hinges.

823
00:57:38.340 --> 00:57:40.559
He could have mentioned it.

824
00:57:40.619 --> 00:57:42.960
They have doors on Gala.

825
00:57:42.960 --> 00:57:45.719
Well, they are all...

826
00:57:45.719 --> 00:57:47.519
Oh, no, they are swinging doors on California.

827
00:57:47.579 --> 00:57:48.059
Yeah, yeah.

828
00:57:48.119 --> 00:57:49.079
So I don't know that.

829
00:57:49.139 --> 00:57:54.239
But the thing is, this is a story and the science of it did actually make me look into the science of it as a kid.

830
00:57:54.300 --> 00:57:57.960
Now, I didn't look into it with any great depth, but I looked up what's helium 2.

831
00:57:58.079 --> 00:58:02.280
Oh, it was something that theoretically existed at the beginning of the universe and is highly unstable.

832
00:58:02.340 --> 00:58:03.360
What's a crronon?

833
00:58:03.420 --> 00:58:04.679
Oh, it's a discrete particle of time.

834
00:58:04.739 --> 00:58:06.179
You know what I mean?

835
00:58:06.239 --> 00:58:08.280
It's very 60s educative, Doctor Who.

836
00:58:08.340 --> 00:58:09.119
Exactly right.

837
00:58:09.179 --> 00:58:10.619
I think that's exactly right.

838
00:58:10.679 --> 00:58:12.239
And they do it in all of their stories.

839
00:58:12.300 --> 00:58:13.139
Yeah.

840
00:58:13.199 --> 00:58:17.880
Yeah, that's how I know what Vionesium is. something they made up.

841
00:58:17.940 --> 00:58:18.960
That's the thing.

842
00:58:19.019 --> 00:58:21.239
I think in terms of scientific instruction.

843
00:58:21.300 --> 00:58:25.559
This is way below Mark of the Rani but way ahead of the megabyte modem.

844
00:58:27.360 --> 00:58:29.099
Oh, but...

845
00:58:29.099 --> 00:58:32.579
I know we said it several times before, but isn't Doctor Who fun again?

846
00:58:33.480 --> 00:58:36.179
Hope the podcast is...

847
00:58:52.260 --> 00:59:00.480
Dear listeners, we're taking off for the pink skies of Lecertia, and I feel like a dip, so do come back for Paradise Towers next week.

848
00:59:00.539 --> 00:59:03.360
Until then, you can find us online at flightthroughentirety.sexy.

849
00:59:03.420 --> 00:59:08.460
Flight through entirety on Facebook and Apple Podcasts and FTE podcast on Twitter.

850
00:59:08.519 --> 00:59:10.139
Over on Bondfinger.

851
00:59:10.199 --> 00:59:14.400
We are currently enjoying the Pierce Brosnan era of the program.

852
00:59:14.639 --> 00:59:20.280
Much as you can enjoy reusing a teabag. squeezed it out sufficiently.

853
00:59:20.340 --> 00:59:26.519
That's at bottomfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and Apple Podcasts and at FTE podcast on Twitter.

854
00:59:26.579 --> 00:59:27.360
Tbagging.

855
00:59:27.420 --> 00:59:27.840
There you go.

856
00:59:28.980 --> 00:59:36.360
So, um, we are now nominating for our Peter Davison commentary.

857
00:59:36.420 --> 00:59:38.400
Todd has nominated 4 to Doomsday.

858
00:59:38.460 --> 00:59:40.079
I have nominated Arc of Infinity.

859
00:59:40.139 --> 00:59:47.039
Richard has nominated Enlightenment, and Nathan has nominated Resurrection of the Daleks, which just a reminder, D-listener, he hates.

860
00:59:47.099 --> 00:59:53.519
So you can find the poll for that in our show notes and we will be posting that elsewhere as well.

861
00:59:53.579 --> 00:59:58.139
Until next week, may all your lightheartgles be lightweight substitutes.

862
00:59:58.199 --> 00:59:59.519
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

863
00:59:59.579 --> 01:00:00.360
Good night.

864
01:00:00.420 --> 01:00:01.679
Thank you for bearing with us.

865
01:00:01.860 --> 01:00:02.280
Good night.

866
01:00:18.480 --> 01:00:23.280
That was Flight Through Entirety with Nathan Bottomley, Brendan Jones, and Richard Stone.

867
01:00:23.340 --> 01:00:27.059
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, logo designed by Anthony Wells.

868
01:00:27.119 --> 01:00:31.440
This episode, terrified of Tinsel, was recorded on the 12th of June 2017.

869
01:00:31.619 --> 01:00:34.679
The next episode will be released on the 2nd of July.

870
01:00:40.739 --> 01:00:48.719
Do come back next week when Richard Briars will impersonate Mel using only a goat, a prize-winning marrow, and Felicity Kendall's last Boshrock.

871
01:00:55.260 --> 01:00:59.880
It's kind of doing things that Doctor Who hasn't really done before.

872
01:00:59.940 --> 01:01:05.099
The closest we've got to Mel impersonating the Rani is a couple of robot Doctor Who's in the past.

873
01:01:05.219 --> 01:01:07.860
You just said male impersonating Rani.

874
01:01:07.920 --> 01:01:08.159
Thank you.

875
01:01:08.219 --> 01:01:09.300
Works both ways.