WEBVTT

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This transcript was created on 2026-05-04 at 12:14:41

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Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety

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the only Doctor Who podcast who's bumped our heads on the console

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and now I'm Bonnie Langford.

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I'm Michael Jason.

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

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trousers.

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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...

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That long, dude, when we had our Colin Baker retrospective, Todd

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spent a few minutes just commenting on his general thoughts of the

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Sylvester McCoy era because he's not joining us again until

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survival.

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Do you have any...

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He's not allowed to market.

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Do you have any comments, general comments on the Colin Baker era

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before we start serving?

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I did manage.

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Thank you so much, Brendan, for lending me your intimate box set

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of season 22.

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

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I don't really have anything constructive to say.

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I have noticed that Mr. Saywood has disappeared, and indeed, it's

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only a mere echo for this story, and that a lot of our dear loved

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ones are about to depart, including Pip and Jane, a lot of other, a

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lot of, and a lot of other people who we thought were going to

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depart.

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I hear whether they like it or not.

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And actually, I don't think some of them, some significant ones

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anyway, come to prove to us that there's a good reason they're

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there in the 1st place.

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This is my Indian summer.

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Very glad we're here.

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Yeah, me too.

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I've said many times before that Time and the Rani was the 1st

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story I watched on broadcast as opposed to on VHS recording, and I

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vividly remember the day of episode one.

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Being sick and he's happy.

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No, go on.

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

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Who.

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

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It was a select.

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Kids were kids were in.

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No, God, it wasn't.

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No, it wasn't selective.

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But I vividly remember the TV guide said it was a new season of

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Doctor Who.

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My parents had pointed it out to me.

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And my memory of that day was explaining to my friend Andrew

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Stevens, why this was so exciting.

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

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which was nice.

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And you remember the strangest things being a kid.

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I had Forster there, isn't it?

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I had these mittens.

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So there were fingerless gloves with a mitten top you could put

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over the top.

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

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We were recording it, Richards today.

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I'm wondering where this is going, too.

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This is just the memory of my childhood and being so excited that

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you know, that feeling where you can't wait to get home.

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You're at school all day.

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You can't get it.

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I know what happened.

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He was standing in the in the school loo, all those mirrors, and

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you rub them together, static electricity, and you were whirled

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off in a time storm to this very podcast.

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Indeed.

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Well, I remember putting the videotape into the top loading silver

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VCR.

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Oh, pushing down and pressing record and just sitting there

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transfixed.

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I adore this story.

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I can see why this would appeal to a very young person.

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That was actually how I felt about it, because remember, Richard

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the previous season had gone out on a Saturday night, 2 episodes

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at a time, and we'd been used to Doctor Who being sort of stripped

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Monday to Thursday or Monday to Friday at sort of 6.30 PM before

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the ABC news.

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

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afternoon.

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I think it was 5.30 in the afternoon when children's programming

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normally happened.

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

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time.

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In fact, we'll get to it.

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They did show the entire season and then they showed remembrance

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immediately afterwards.

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We all thought, oh, this is an oddly truncated season for those of

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us who couldn't or didn't watch child of a time mode.

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Yeah, I was at 1st year uni when Child of the Time Lord's Blade

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getting to see it.

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

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I actually remember ringing friend of the podcast, Matthew Farrow

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immediately afterwards, and I may have told this story, and saying

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yeah, you know, the new doctor's good, but it's turned into a

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kid's program, and I think I'm going to be watching it out of

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habit from now on.

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And I think that was an incredibly, incredibly obtuse 1st

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impression of this story because like you, Brendan, I really

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really like this.

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I love it too, and for wildly different reasons, which I guess

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we'll go to.

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

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season.

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I think this is not only a rebirth for the series, and it's not

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just Kant, well, we have to thank, or Sylvester, we have to

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think.

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

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And I was very much involved in reading fandom, occasional

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jotting.

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

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well.

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Is the birth of all of the people that we look at now who are

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working on the show, Nathan himself, who was involved becoming

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involved with fandom.

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I was certainly being interested in it.

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This is the time when it became incredibly interesting and I'm

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going to come back to that thing.

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It's just like the 60s.

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Doctor Who is most interesting when it's talking about what's

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going on outside of itself and not referencing itself.

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And we get 2 whole stories this season, which have not had

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anything to do with anything Doctor Who's done before.

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

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This one itself, even though it's still about the past, is

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actually more about the whole thing of what's going on in the

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media and in fact, at universities and how we're seeing how we're

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seeing the constructs around us.

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This is a really interesting program.

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And it looks good too.

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Yeah, I think there's a huge leap in the in the quality of the

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production and Phil Sandifer, take a drink, dear listeners, has a

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video blog, which I mentioned during our live tweet a few weeks

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ago, and in the video blog, he compares the way that this is shot

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with, no, I can't remember.

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Maybe some scenes from Creature from the Pier, and just how much

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more innovative, how much more careful it is about creating a

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sense of space.

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And if you look at the location work, it is just a quarry, but

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it's so much.

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I know we're actually in the IMC mining quarry in Slagchester

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again, aren't we?

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But we've reached another dimension.

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We're post-Kitty over at video show where the titles themselves

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take us out of the 2nd dimension and into the third.

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

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McCulloch yet.

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But Mr. Elms and Mr. Gareth, Gareth Edwards from Cal Video, who

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put this extraordinary thing together with state of the art, and

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it was.

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It was extraordinary.

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And yes, it was like a video game, and that's also a very

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important thing.

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It felt like watching a comic in 3D. Well, that happening shot of

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the TARDIS being strafed by those sort of lightning coloured

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beams.

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

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terrible.

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But in retrospect, it's something that I really like and it is

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something we haven't seen before.

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

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this is amazing.

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Of course.

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

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We had 2000 AD. We had Ian Moore.

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We had Neil Gaiman Sandman coming up.

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Fandom was responding.

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The kids who were fans in the early 80s and late 70s were now

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starting to write and be involved themselves.

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The whole world will never be the same again.

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And this just happens to be right at the point of the zeitgeist

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when things are getting exciting and interesting.

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

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We should say goodbye to the past as well.

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They apparently wrote for space 1979, Brendan.

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Have you seen their episodes?

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Because...

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Yeah.

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Bugger me with an Netflix catalogue.

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If I can remember which ones they were.

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Oh, I think they just wrote the one.

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Rod and I have recently finished watching space 1999 and my God, it

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gets awful.

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

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It is a season 2 story.

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Their Space 1999 story was a matter of balance.

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Oh my god, I remember that one.

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Which concerns a man in his gold underwear.

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

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alpha technician.

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I eat so young, she must have been bloody 13 when they got blasted

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out of orbit in order to swap matter with her because he's from an

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anti-matter university.

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He needs to trade places with someone from a matter universe and

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they're going to do it to the whole of alpha.

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

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I can see why they were banned from writing ever again, except

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they weren't.

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Can I just point out that the Pippin Jane Baker stories during the

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Colin Baker era were Brendan's favourites, and I can kind of see

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why, because they were a little oasis of normal, fun family tea

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time entertainment with very little cannibalism in them, you

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know?

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And that was...

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But they were straightforward and fun.

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And, you know, they were pitched very young, but that's not an

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absolute crime when you're writing for Doctor Who.

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They were straightforward and simplistic, but they weren't

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horrible.

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

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writing?

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I'm thinking now of what they wanted to do with King Solomon and

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the baby in the opening credits of this story.

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You know what was going to happen?

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They were going to cut San in half.

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It wasn't Einstein.

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That was Carmel's idea.

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The Rani was going to appear just at the point of Solomon's dictum

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when the mothers were presenting the little child and saying his

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mind, no, he's mine.

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And Solomon, of course, declares, well, I'll cut him in, and this

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big swarthy, dark fella comes in full of Eastern promise, a

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mystery and smelling of musk, and he comes in with his massive

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scabbard and waves it about.

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So, you know, oh, cutting enough, then, and that's when the Rani

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was going to appear and she was going to kidnap him for his

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wisdom.

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

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No one even knows who that is.

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And Carmel said, thank buggery bollocks for that.

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Let's make it Iinstone.

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

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as well.

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Well, I think by then they had pretty much taken over all of the

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Scoopbride. of television everywhere, yes.

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Yeah, yeah, the episodes of Tenko are 2nd to none.

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Have you seen pictures of they did not write.

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Have you seen pictures of Seth McCallum?

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He gets to appear in Delta in the Bannerman spoiler, so you get to

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see him with his ludicrous ponytail, an acronistic ponytail.

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He looks exactly like Pick Baker.

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I think it's one and the same person.

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

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Kev.

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Oh, yeah.

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I don't think he's listening.

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Death. as he was many years ago Something during the writing of

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score for these stories.

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Go on.

252
00:12:12.899 --> 00:12:14.220
Something you alluded to, Richard.

253
00:12:14.279 --> 00:12:16.139
Pip and Jane Baker.

254
00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:18.899
They appear on the DVDs for all 3 of their stories.

255
00:12:18.960 --> 00:12:21.000
They appear on the commentary for this.

256
00:12:21.539 --> 00:12:25.080
Sludging through forests, turning people into trees.

257
00:12:25.139 --> 00:12:27.179
Yes, that's right Where was the witch finder general?

258
00:12:28.019 --> 00:12:33.779
But they they talk about how they found it, um, they enjoyed

259
00:12:33.779 --> 00:12:36.179
working with Andrew Cartwell less than they enjoyed working with

260
00:12:36.179 --> 00:12:36.600
it.

261
00:12:36.659 --> 00:12:39.840
And yeah, they don't...

262
00:12:39.899 --> 00:12:42.419
I mean, it being Pip and Jane, they're not saying that from a

263
00:12:42.419 --> 00:12:45.059
personal standpoint, they're saying from a professional standpoint

264
00:12:45.059 --> 00:12:47.759
I think maybe it was because Eric led a few more of their things

265
00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:50.700
slide, whereas Andrew Cartmel was like, no, we need to have

266
00:12:50.700 --> 00:12:54.600
Einstein because this is a story about science, ostensibly, not

267
00:12:54.600 --> 00:12:55.440
King Solomon.

268
00:12:55.500 --> 00:12:57.720
We need to have Hypatia, we need to have Louis Pasteur.

269
00:12:57.840 --> 00:12:59.580
Oh, she said.

270
00:12:59.639 --> 00:13:03.659
And, you know, they're cutting up babies is what we do.

271
00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:07.440
I mean, Sam would said, you know, we could he promised us that

272
00:13:07.440 --> 00:13:08.639
we'd be able to eat a child.

273
00:13:09.539 --> 00:13:13.620
But, you know, one thing they wanted, which was undermined, I

274
00:13:13.620 --> 00:13:19.320
think it's a mistake, is they planned for Luchersh to be a forest

275
00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:19.679
planet.

276
00:13:19.740 --> 00:13:22.500
Yeah, and isn't this telling?

277
00:13:22.500 --> 00:13:22.980
Yeah, think about this.

278
00:13:23.039 --> 00:13:24.419
Because they didn't want a quarry.

279
00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:27.299
They're like, Doctor Who's not another African IMC query.

280
00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:28.799
Andrew Morgan was the one who pushed it.

281
00:13:28.860 --> 00:13:32.220
Andrew Morgan directed this one and I think did a fine job

282
00:13:32.220 --> 00:13:32.639
actually.

283
00:13:32.700 --> 00:13:33.779
Yeah, I do too.

284
00:13:33.840 --> 00:13:35.580
I think it looks looks really good.

285
00:13:35.700 --> 00:13:40.139
Did you know Bonnie was written as being scintillating in this

286
00:13:40.139 --> 00:13:40.320
one?

287
00:13:40.440 --> 00:13:43.679
JNT's direction was, she shall be scintillating.

288
00:13:43.740 --> 00:13:47.879
This is reflected in the audience appreciation index of 41, which

289
00:13:47.879 --> 00:13:53.159
is 6 points lower than the previous season, which only Todd won.

290
00:13:53.279 --> 00:13:56.519
It's about 10 points lower than Salmonella.

291
00:13:57.419 --> 00:14:00.720
There are some lovely directions in the scripts, though, and I

292
00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:01.200
have to think.

293
00:14:01.259 --> 00:14:02.580
Did you did you see some of the notes?

294
00:14:02.639 --> 00:14:04.200
Pip and Jane are fabulous for their notes.

295
00:14:04.259 --> 00:14:06.360
Icona is humping Mel.

296
00:14:06.419 --> 00:14:10.559
He's actually one of the... one of the little points that I think

297
00:14:10.559 --> 00:14:11.519
we have many things to treasure.

298
00:14:11.580 --> 00:14:13.379
I love the sewers.

299
00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:14.759
I do.

300
00:14:14.820 --> 00:14:16.440
There's the title for the episode.

301
00:14:16.500 --> 00:14:19.200
Don't you notice they didn't have any concrete pipes in that

302
00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:19.740
quarry?

303
00:14:19.799 --> 00:14:23.639
This could be so the BBC brought one in and just to make it look a

304
00:14:23.639 --> 00:14:24.299
bit more alien.

305
00:14:24.360 --> 00:14:28.860
They stuck some blue Christmas tea, so...

306
00:14:28.919 --> 00:14:31.320
Up his freaking chop.

307
00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:33.419
Put a chinsel.

308
00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:36.720
And there's this, I know, cut, but there's this blues tensely

309
00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:37.080
rocks.

310
00:14:37.139 --> 00:14:38.100
And have you noticed why?

311
00:14:38.159 --> 00:14:40.980
There is actually Jermaine plot driven reasons for this.

312
00:14:41.039 --> 00:14:43.679
Tet traps are terrified of tinsel.

313
00:14:43.740 --> 00:14:44.879
The spray guns.

314
00:14:44.940 --> 00:14:46.019
Tinsel, tinsel, tinsel.

315
00:14:46.139 --> 00:14:48.659
Well, this is the gayest thing ever, and we'll get more to this

316
00:14:48.659 --> 00:14:49.080
later.

317
00:14:49.139 --> 00:14:51.299
This is the gayest episode of Doctor Who so far.

318
00:14:51.360 --> 00:14:54.840
The Tetraps were, in fact, conquered by the people of Car felt

319
00:14:54.840 --> 00:14:56.460
famous for their tinsel-based technology.

320
00:14:56.519 --> 00:14:58.200
Oh, they were too.

321
00:14:58.740 --> 00:15:03.659
Um, yeah, I think it is a mistake not having it in the forest

322
00:15:03.659 --> 00:15:06.539
because Pippin Jane's whole rationale with having it in the forest

323
00:15:06.539 --> 00:15:09.539
is that the recursions are indolent because they don't they don't

324
00:15:09.539 --> 00:15:10.200
want for anything.

325
00:15:10.259 --> 00:15:12.299
Nature provides everything for them.

326
00:15:12.360 --> 00:15:13.139
There's no need to strive.

327
00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:17.820
They were a Goganesque landscape of, yes, South Pacific maidens

328
00:15:17.820 --> 00:15:20.580
and young gentlemen with, you know, scaly horrify.

329
00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:22.440
But if you're in a quarry...

330
00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:25.799
You definitely want to improve your lot.

331
00:15:25.860 --> 00:15:27.179
They eat rocks.

332
00:15:27.240 --> 00:15:28.799
Very easily sold.

333
00:15:28.860 --> 00:15:32.519
They're Gorons from the legend of Zelda, some video game stuff for

334
00:15:32.519 --> 00:15:33.299
you kids out there.

335
00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:34.799
It means nothing to me.

336
00:15:34.980 --> 00:15:37.080
You'd like Gorons.

337
00:15:37.139 --> 00:15:39.299
I'll show you a picture later Webs.

338
00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:40.860
But really?

339
00:15:40.919 --> 00:15:41.460
Does it work?

340
00:15:41.580 --> 00:15:43.320
We do have Mother Cumberbatch.

341
00:15:43.379 --> 00:15:46.080
And we do have Donald Pickering.

342
00:15:46.139 --> 00:15:48.000
I know reunited.

343
00:15:48.059 --> 00:15:51.000
It's a faceless ones reunion, of course.

344
00:15:51.179 --> 00:15:54.960
Yeah, they were going to get Colin Gordon as Icona, but yeah, just

345
00:15:54.960 --> 00:15:55.259
no.

346
00:15:57.960 --> 00:16:00.539
I have to say, Mark Greenstreet.

347
00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:04.440
Mark Greenstreet, I think he's quite, he is quite, and he's a good

348
00:16:04.440 --> 00:16:05.159
actor as well.

349
00:16:05.220 --> 00:16:07.919
Yeah, he actually is because he hasn't got a lot to work with.

350
00:16:07.980 --> 00:16:09.840
He pounce at Mel very nicely.

351
00:16:09.899 --> 00:16:12.480
I've got to say, Bonnie pouts back very nicely too.

352
00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:16.799
In that outfit. which I have worn.

353
00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:19.799
Did you keep your bum nice as well?

354
00:16:19.860 --> 00:16:22.799
How does she manage to keep a white arse the entire way through?

355
00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:26.639
Well, yeah, the I think the pants are made of unstable molecules.

356
00:16:26.700 --> 00:16:28.320
Like the X-Men fantastic 4 uniforms.

357
00:16:28.379 --> 00:16:30.360
I don't think the mud would dare.

358
00:16:30.419 --> 00:16:32.580
Bonnie Langford's clothing.

359
00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:35.279
Well, the mug, you see, doesn't know if it's Bonnie Langford or

360
00:16:35.279 --> 00:16:35.879
Cato Mara.

361
00:16:35.940 --> 00:16:38.580
Bonnie Langford it might get away with. would not stand for that.

362
00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:40.440
Can we touch upon our coat?

363
00:16:40.559 --> 00:16:44.399
Well, Todd doesn't like this version of the Rani because I think

364
00:16:44.399 --> 00:16:49.980
he thinks that she's a little bit over the top.

365
00:16:50.039 --> 00:16:52.559
But I think lightly.

366
00:16:52.620 --> 00:16:55.620
But I do think if you're going to cars, Kate O'Mara is a villain

367
00:16:55.620 --> 00:16:58.259
like get her to chew the scenery, it's a waste of time for her

368
00:16:58.259 --> 00:16:58.919
to...

369
00:16:58.919 --> 00:16:59.700
What is she going to do?

370
00:16:59.759 --> 00:17:02.519
You know, she wrote that editor JNT's rescue me from this

371
00:17:02.519 --> 00:17:06.480
Hollywood miasma of palm trees and swimming pools and get me back

372
00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:07.380
into some mud.

373
00:17:07.559 --> 00:17:09.420
Yes, indeed.

374
00:17:09.480 --> 00:17:10.740
And that's exactly what she said.

375
00:17:10.799 --> 00:17:14.640
She did say she didn't enjoy this one as much, but...

376
00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:18.299
I think part of that was, of course, she had a pre-existing

377
00:17:18.299 --> 00:17:20.339
relationship with Colin, they worked together before.

378
00:17:20.759 --> 00:17:23.640
She, you know, had worked with Silv and Bonnie before as well.

379
00:17:23.700 --> 00:17:26.819
She was also very self-conscious about having to impersonate

380
00:17:26.819 --> 00:17:30.119
Bonnie Langford while Bonnie was on the set because she kind of

381
00:17:30.119 --> 00:17:33.599
went, I need to impersonate her without totally taking the Mick.

382
00:17:33.660 --> 00:17:37.259
And she achieves that Disney, yes.

383
00:17:37.319 --> 00:17:41.759
It is a complete mixturational performance from one point to

384
00:17:41.759 --> 00:17:42.180
another.

385
00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:43.680
And I kind of like it.

386
00:17:43.740 --> 00:17:47.099
It's brilliant. absolutely brilliant. silencing the critics.

387
00:17:47.160 --> 00:17:49.980
This is what I think about the whole meta thing of this.

388
00:17:50.039 --> 00:17:52.740
This is actually making the mockeries of the fans that are

389
00:17:52.740 --> 00:17:55.680
bitching about the last season. in a really clever way.

390
00:17:55.740 --> 00:17:58.019
You know, a few months before this, it hadn't been seen on the

391
00:17:58.019 --> 00:17:58.380
UK.

392
00:17:58.440 --> 00:18:00.240
But a few months before this, Star Trek, the Next Generation

393
00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:02.099
premiered in the US.

394
00:18:02.099 --> 00:18:03.960
And Blackadder.

395
00:18:04.019 --> 00:18:05.700
Yeah, black adder two.

396
00:18:05.759 --> 00:18:09.299
The mid-premiere cliffhanger for when encounter at Far Point was

397
00:18:09.299 --> 00:18:13.319
divided up into 2 episodes was Patrick Stewart turning to the

398
00:18:13.319 --> 00:18:15.900
viewscreen and saying, if we're going to be damned, let's be

399
00:18:15.900 --> 00:18:16.980
damned for what we really are.

400
00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:18.660
And I think that's what Doctor Who is doing here.

401
00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:19.140
Yes.

402
00:18:19.140 --> 00:18:22.380
I think the last, the last 2 years, Doctor Who has been slightly

403
00:18:22.380 --> 00:18:26.339
ashamed to be a rather silly, rather cheap sci-fi series.

404
00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:29.940
Whereas time in the run, he says, we're going to put Kater Mara in

405
00:18:29.940 --> 00:18:34.380
a red wig and dresser up as Bonnie Langford in a set surrounded by

406
00:18:34.380 --> 00:18:36.599
Tinsel, and you're going to damn enjoy yourself.

407
00:18:36.660 --> 00:18:40.859
Let us look at, for the 1st time in a long time, in fact, ever.

408
00:18:41.339 --> 00:18:46.319
Jonathan Powell, and, you know, the gods that they said to JNT, we

409
00:18:46.319 --> 00:18:49.859
actually need to see an audition tape. of whoever you want to

410
00:18:49.859 --> 00:18:50.819
cast.

411
00:18:50.880 --> 00:18:54.359
And weren't they interesting and doesn't self shine and look who

412
00:18:54.359 --> 00:18:55.079
is put against?

413
00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:57.960
Dermot Crowley and Janet Fielding.

414
00:18:58.019 --> 00:19:00.240
Oh, yeah, sorry, he's put against Janet Fielding.

415
00:19:00.299 --> 00:19:01.859
And look who she plays.

416
00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:03.839
She's Space iron lady.

417
00:19:03.900 --> 00:19:05.099
Yeah, she plays Thatcher.

418
00:19:05.160 --> 00:19:06.059
It's Thatcher in that scene.

419
00:19:06.180 --> 00:19:08.700
This is who the Rani is in this.

420
00:19:08.759 --> 00:19:10.740
My take on this.

421
00:19:10.799 --> 00:19:13.319
Can I tell you why I think this show is interesting?

422
00:19:13.380 --> 00:19:14.460
Are we up to this place?

423
00:19:14.819 --> 00:19:19.019
If you're at university in the 80s or early 90s, the word

424
00:19:19.019 --> 00:19:23.099
semiotics was something you was said about as often as I'll have a

425
00:19:23.099 --> 00:19:25.019
half a pint, thanks, only make it a triple.

426
00:19:25.079 --> 00:19:28.140
It was, you know, and I, you know, can I nick a fag?

427
00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:30.420
Everything was post-modern.

428
00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:33.059
Now, postmodernism, as we've touched on before, we're actually

429
00:19:33.059 --> 00:19:35.220
going back to, do you remember when we were talking about this

430
00:19:35.220 --> 00:19:37.740
sort of stuff in the early 70s before we lost a great many

431
00:19:37.740 --> 00:19:39.299
listeners and you had to bring Tom in?

432
00:19:39.420 --> 00:19:40.559
Yeah, that time.

433
00:19:41.940 --> 00:19:46.380
But why I think this era of Doctor Who is interesting and why I

434
00:19:46.380 --> 00:19:49.019
think we're actually at a turning point and why it probably

435
00:19:49.019 --> 00:19:53.940
couldn't live very much longer because it's so much of the now and

436
00:19:53.940 --> 00:19:55.440
it's jumped the shark.

437
00:19:55.500 --> 00:19:58.079
It's now, it's actually jumped the entire whale pod.

438
00:19:58.140 --> 00:20:02.160
We're now talking about critical theory at a university level.

439
00:20:02.220 --> 00:20:06.900
It's actually lampooning, not just itself, but the whole of media

440
00:20:06.900 --> 00:20:11.039
and TV and actually politics, because that's what post-mortemism

441
00:20:11.039 --> 00:20:11.339
does.

442
00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:13.559
All right, bear with me.

443
00:20:13.619 --> 00:20:16.980
Postmodernism, you see, as it works, with its resignation to

444
00:20:16.980 --> 00:20:19.680
bottomless fragmentation and ephemerality.

445
00:20:19.740 --> 00:20:23.819
It generally refuses to contemplate the question of how we can

446
00:20:23.819 --> 00:20:28.559
build or represent or attend to the surfaces of modern life with

447
00:20:28.559 --> 00:20:31.380
you know, with the requisite sympathy and seriousness that you

448
00:20:31.380 --> 00:20:35.339
need in order to get behind it and identify central meanings.

449
00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:38.579
In everything that's going on and how you fit into the world.

450
00:20:38.700 --> 00:20:42.960
And this is this post-Murdoch thing and this post-consumer TV

451
00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:46.319
thing of you just eat it and be happy.

452
00:20:46.380 --> 00:20:49.559
And this was all being questioned at this time.

453
00:20:49.619 --> 00:20:52.559
And we were even getting this thing, this sort of thing in, in the

454
00:20:52.559 --> 00:20:55.380
critical theory when you had academics, actually starting to write

455
00:20:55.380 --> 00:20:56.579
about Doctor Who itself.

456
00:20:56.640 --> 00:20:59.700
And you had kids at university who were reading this stuff and

457
00:20:59.700 --> 00:21:01.920
thinking, I think I'd like to get into TV one day.

458
00:21:01.980 --> 00:21:04.799
Most of those kids are now working on a show called Doctor Who.

459
00:21:04.859 --> 00:21:09.779
But I would also say what this is and what postmodernism is at the

460
00:21:09.779 --> 00:21:13.259
point in the mid 80s to late 80s is actually the study of the

461
00:21:13.259 --> 00:21:15.180
collapse of time horizons.

462
00:21:15.240 --> 00:21:16.200
Yeah, really?

463
00:21:16.259 --> 00:21:20.759
And these were terms we used. and the preoccupation with

464
00:21:20.759 --> 00:21:21.839
instantaneity.

465
00:21:21.900 --> 00:21:26.099
With the moment, if you don't think postmodernism is relevant past

466
00:21:26.099 --> 00:21:26.940
the 80s either.

467
00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:28.200
Look at how we live with our iPhones.

468
00:21:28.319 --> 00:21:29.880
This is who we are.

469
00:21:29.940 --> 00:21:34.380
But let me just say, what this means for Doctor Who now in 1987. is

470
00:21:34.380 --> 00:21:41.279
that as Mikhail, the erotician put it, it's a shift from the

471
00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:45.059
epistemological to the ontological, dominant aesthetic, which

472
00:21:45.059 --> 00:21:46.740
sounds like something you'd hear in Dragonfire.

473
00:21:47.700 --> 00:21:50.819
But what this means is there's a shift from the kind of

474
00:21:50.819 --> 00:21:54.240
perspective that allows the viewer to see Colin Baker's doctor

475
00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:57.359
having a bearing on the meaning of a complex, but nevertheless

476
00:21:57.359 --> 00:22:01.799
singular form of reality, a singular view of the world, a

477
00:22:01.799 --> 00:22:02.759
modernist view of the world.

478
00:22:02.819 --> 00:22:06.900
So now the viewing of McCoy's doctor as a foregrounding of

479
00:22:06.900 --> 00:22:07.380
questions.

480
00:22:07.740 --> 00:22:12.359
If you like, as to how to radically oppose these different

481
00:22:12.359 --> 00:22:16.019
realities and how they can collide and coexist and how we live in

482
00:22:16.019 --> 00:22:18.960
them and how we interpret this miasma, this confusion.

483
00:22:19.019 --> 00:22:21.900
But the boundary, if you like, between fiction and science fiction

484
00:22:21.900 --> 00:22:24.240
has as a consequence, resolved.

485
00:22:24.299 --> 00:22:26.579
And Doctor Who is right on the point of that.

486
00:22:26.640 --> 00:22:29.339
That is the very definition of postmodernism.

487
00:22:29.400 --> 00:22:32.700
And studying architecture, as I was doing in this year.

488
00:22:32.759 --> 00:22:37.559
We were also reading the linguistic theoretics of post-modernism.

489
00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:39.180
These are terms they actually used.

490
00:22:39.240 --> 00:22:40.859
I'm quoting straight from my old text books.

491
00:22:40.920 --> 00:22:42.779
Watching Doctor Who at this point.

492
00:22:42.839 --> 00:22:46.319
I guess I would say postmodernist characters often seem confused

493
00:22:46.319 --> 00:22:50.460
as to what and which will be around them and how they should act

494
00:22:50.460 --> 00:22:51.480
with respect to it.

495
00:22:51.599 --> 00:22:52.920
So what's going on in the world?

496
00:22:52.980 --> 00:22:56.819
There's a line from Jorge Louis Borges labyrinths that we've

497
00:22:56.819 --> 00:22:59.099
talked about before from the 60s Doctor Who.

498
00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:00.240
It's really tenable now.

499
00:23:00.299 --> 00:23:02.279
It goes, who was I?

500
00:23:02.400 --> 00:23:07.619
Today, self-bewildered, yesterday's forgotten, and tomorrow's

501
00:23:07.619 --> 00:23:08.519
unpredictable.

502
00:23:08.579 --> 00:23:10.619
That's Sylvester McCoy in Doctor Who.

503
00:23:10.740 --> 00:23:11.880
The question mark tells it all.

504
00:23:11.940 --> 00:23:15.299
And that was a symbol in itself of post-modemism, question mark.

505
00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:18.779
Yeah, well, something we discussed during the colon era was how

506
00:23:18.779 --> 00:23:24.420
much it relies on the past without really doing anything new.

507
00:23:24.420 --> 00:23:27.059
And Nathan, you use the word predictable.

508
00:23:27.420 --> 00:23:30.000
I thought you were going to say cannibalism.

509
00:23:30.059 --> 00:23:31.680
You use cannibalism as well.

510
00:23:31.740 --> 00:23:33.180
I mean, it kind of is cannibalism.

511
00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:37.140
It is just remaking Doctor Who out of habit and doing the beats

512
00:23:37.140 --> 00:23:38.099
that we're just used to.

513
00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:42.359
Whereas this story, as Richard you were saying, is on the cusp.

514
00:23:42.420 --> 00:23:44.700
We do have something old in the form of the Rani.

515
00:23:44.759 --> 00:23:49.680
But so much of this story feels so new, even though it's doing

516
00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:52.380
things that other texts have done.

517
00:23:52.440 --> 00:23:55.799
It's kind of doing things that Doctor Who hasn't really done

518
00:23:55.799 --> 00:23:56.400
before.

519
00:23:56.460 --> 00:23:59.519
The closest we've got to the running impersonating Mel is, you

520
00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:01.259
know, a couple of robot Doctor Who's in the past.

521
00:24:01.319 --> 00:24:05.039
But to me as a kid, that's like, 0 my god, that's so exciting.

522
00:24:05.099 --> 00:24:10.920
But yeah, I think because this takes earlier ideas and reinvents

523
00:24:10.920 --> 00:24:14.759
them in that postmodern way, not just regurgitating what there's

524
00:24:14.759 --> 00:24:17.160
been before, but taking the pieces and going, hey, here's

525
00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:17.640
something new.

526
00:24:17.940 --> 00:24:22.319
That makes it exciting You know what this show felt like in 1987

527
00:24:22.319 --> 00:24:26.099
watching this as a student and starting to just to go to bars and

528
00:24:26.099 --> 00:24:30.839
having friends who, both at university and outside of that, who

529
00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:32.700
actually weren't here 2 years from now.

530
00:24:32.759 --> 00:24:37.140
I had lost quite a few friends by 18990. and it's, you know, it's

531
00:24:37.140 --> 00:24:39.420
just, yeah, pause to reflect.

532
00:24:39.480 --> 00:24:44.339
But this show feels, at this point, we're starting to look at

533
00:24:44.339 --> 00:24:47.819
Turning, turning the, can we say tropes?

534
00:24:47.880 --> 00:24:51.720
Turning the women, the gays, the blacks, the colonised peoples, and

535
00:24:51.720 --> 00:24:54.480
their repatriations of their own histories, and turning it around

536
00:24:54.480 --> 00:24:59.640
and celebrating the, the nonsense of it all, and the shortness of

537
00:24:59.640 --> 00:25:00.000
it all.

538
00:25:00.059 --> 00:25:04.920
Here we've got disparate tribes, of post-HIV queer Britain

539
00:25:04.920 --> 00:25:08.579
colourful outcasts, if you like, and scaly in their self

540
00:25:08.579 --> 00:25:13.079
disregarding infirmity, lolling about, but kind of not willing to

541
00:25:13.079 --> 00:25:13.319
change.

542
00:25:13.380 --> 00:25:18.720
Proud of who they are, if you like, ruled by an iron lady or an

543
00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:19.440
iron lady.

544
00:25:19.500 --> 00:25:23.700
You know, who is a vulgar idea of what ruling class is, you know

545
00:25:23.700 --> 00:25:26.640
or a camp dominatrix, or, you know, a thatcherist trope.

546
00:25:26.700 --> 00:25:31.859
And at the end, right at the end of this story, they pour away the

547
00:25:31.859 --> 00:25:35.579
cure that could have that could have completely changed them into

548
00:25:35.579 --> 00:25:37.619
you know, I guess what everybody else thinks they should be

549
00:25:37.619 --> 00:25:40.319
because their dissonance is now their strength.

550
00:25:40.380 --> 00:25:42.359
This is a, this to.

551
00:25:42.420 --> 00:25:44.400
Yeah, this that's why I love this story.

552
00:25:44.460 --> 00:25:48.900
This to me is actually about queer England dealing with HIV and

553
00:25:48.900 --> 00:25:49.319
AIDS.

554
00:25:49.380 --> 00:25:51.299
You know, I'd never thought of it like that.

555
00:25:51.359 --> 00:25:53.339
And I wonder if people...

556
00:25:53.339 --> 00:25:54.000
Jay knew it.

557
00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:58.859
You know, it wouldn't surprise me if that was part of Cartmel's

558
00:25:58.859 --> 00:26:01.500
influence because he was incredibly politically aware.

559
00:26:01.559 --> 00:26:04.740
He famously said during the job interview, what do you want to

560
00:26:04.740 --> 00:26:05.160
achieve?

561
00:26:05.220 --> 00:26:07.440
As the script editor of Doctor Who, he says, I want to bring down

562
00:26:07.440 --> 00:26:07.920
the government.

563
00:26:07.980 --> 00:26:10.019
That's right, he did too.

564
00:26:10.079 --> 00:26:13.019
And Alan Moore, who did Watchmen and all those other terrific

565
00:26:13.019 --> 00:26:16.259
things, and he's as mad as a cat weasel fan can be.

566
00:26:16.319 --> 00:26:17.640
He looks exactly the same.

567
00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.299
Um, Vale, Jeffrey Bell.

568
00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:25.140
Um, is, is, all of those things have come together.

569
00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:27.000
Thank you for indulging me on that spiel.

570
00:26:27.059 --> 00:26:31.019
But yeah, no, I felt that strongly about this show and I actually

571
00:26:31.019 --> 00:26:32.640
still feel it now.

572
00:26:32.700 --> 00:26:34.019
And you know what?

573
00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:37.500
Queerness and queer ideas are something which is going to come to

574
00:26:37.500 --> 00:26:38.519
the fore in this era.

575
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:39.839
Very much so.

576
00:26:39.839 --> 00:26:40.859
Yeah.

577
00:26:40.920 --> 00:26:45.059
Even the last season, which has several instances of exploring

578
00:26:45.059 --> 00:26:48.900
asisexuality has instances of queerness.

579
00:26:48.900 --> 00:26:50.519
That's right.

580
00:26:50.579 --> 00:26:54.059
But, I mean, the one that will really come to in a couple of

581
00:26:54.059 --> 00:26:55.980
months is, of course, the happiness patrol.

582
00:26:56.039 --> 00:26:58.019
But I'm going to keep my power dry on that one.

583
00:26:58.440 --> 00:26:59.940
Frozen.

584
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:01.319
Yeah, that's my point.

585
00:27:01.380 --> 00:27:05.279
That was not the big 1st quiz story in New Doctor Who.

586
00:27:05.339 --> 00:27:06.000
I think this one is.

587
00:27:06.059 --> 00:27:09.119
And it's not just that we've got a change of doctor who's now

588
00:27:09.119 --> 00:27:11.940
silly and lyrical and not informed.

589
00:27:12.180 --> 00:27:15.539
Sixth doctor was all modernism and knowledge.

590
00:27:15.539 --> 00:27:16.980
And I know everything, yeah.

591
00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:20.519
Oh, you know, brash modernity, if you like, but the 7th is

592
00:27:20.519 --> 00:27:22.019
actually Roland Bartian.

593
00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:23.819
Can we say those things?

594
00:27:23.880 --> 00:27:25.559
It's post-rational playfulness.

595
00:27:25.619 --> 00:27:27.539
That's what that guy is for his writing about.

596
00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:30.420
Did you know recently in Doctor Who magazine?

597
00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:31.259
Johnny Morris.

598
00:27:31.319 --> 00:27:32.519
Oh, love him.

599
00:27:32.579 --> 00:27:38.099
Yeah, he wrote a queer reading of the Macroterra and how Ben's...

600
00:27:38.220 --> 00:27:39.900
Actually, they're only in little shorts, aren't they?

601
00:27:40.019 --> 00:27:41.220
Yeah, exactly.

602
00:27:41.279 --> 00:27:42.599
They're all in little shorts.

603
00:27:42.660 --> 00:27:45.900
Women keep throwing themselves at Jamie and he's just like, no, no

604
00:27:45.900 --> 00:27:47.220
bug away from me. so to speak.

605
00:27:47.279 --> 00:27:50.519
And Ben, of course, has a huge struggle with his identity in the

606
00:27:50.519 --> 00:27:50.640
story.

607
00:27:50.759 --> 00:27:52.500
But then he goes topless, doesn't he?

608
00:27:53.519 --> 00:27:56.400
He has a huge struggle with his identity in the story.

609
00:27:56.519 --> 00:27:59.579
Does he conform and betray his friends or does he stick by his

610
00:27:59.579 --> 00:27:59.880
friends?

611
00:28:00.180 --> 00:28:04.680
And as Johnny Boris puts it, and of course, Ben saves the day by

612
00:28:04.680 --> 00:28:07.380
virtue of being the only one not locked in the closet at the end.

613
00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:09.059
Oh my goodness.

614
00:28:09.180 --> 00:28:10.799
It's fantastic.

615
00:28:10.799 --> 00:28:14.279
It's so right that the macro were the 1st to be brought back from

616
00:28:14.279 --> 00:28:16.140
am I correct, in the new series in Gridlock?

617
00:28:16.200 --> 00:28:20.160
They were the 1st dog monster other than Khalid mutant thing.

618
00:28:20.160 --> 00:28:23.400
No, they were absolutely the 1st and we'll put that up on FTE.

619
00:28:23.460 --> 00:28:23.940
That was right.

620
00:28:24.779 --> 00:28:29.460
The only monster from the old series ever come back in the new

621
00:28:29.460 --> 00:28:30.180
series, in fact.

622
00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:31.799
So how do you feel about all of that?

623
00:28:31.859 --> 00:28:35.759
Well, I think that there's something really very much to be said

624
00:28:35.759 --> 00:28:36.420
for that.

625
00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:38.880
But on a much simpler level too.

626
00:28:38.940 --> 00:28:44.400
I think the show is rediscovering being fun and doing things that

627
00:28:44.400 --> 00:28:47.519
science fiction fans are appalled by.

628
00:28:47.579 --> 00:28:51.539
I think the dress up thing is something that serious science

629
00:28:51.539 --> 00:28:53.099
fiction fans think is ridiculous.

630
00:28:53.400 --> 00:28:55.440
It's no place in the program.

631
00:28:55.500 --> 00:28:56.160
Absolutely.

632
00:28:56.220 --> 00:28:57.900
And should never have been there.

633
00:28:58.019 --> 00:29:00.539
I should say at this point, 1987, did listener, this was the

634
00:29:00.539 --> 00:29:01.920
flowering of young Nathan.

635
00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:05.519
Asian Phantom blossoming, if you like.

636
00:29:05.579 --> 00:29:07.559
And now that we're touching on dress ups.

637
00:29:07.619 --> 00:29:12.480
No, no, I've already I have already confessed to dressing up as

638
00:29:12.480 --> 00:29:13.319
Jacqueline Pierce.

639
00:29:13.380 --> 00:29:14.880
That's the 1st time I saw you.

640
00:29:15.779 --> 00:29:20.940
You can imagine a crisis. semiotic.

641
00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:24.720
I think it was a little bit later than that deal. had a chronic

642
00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:25.380
history.

643
00:29:25.440 --> 00:29:28.200
It's us on infinite Surferlands.

644
00:29:28.319 --> 00:29:33.420
But I think generally speaking, you've gone from Doctor Who being

645
00:29:33.420 --> 00:29:37.980
a slog, this duty that we have to a program with a 20-year

646
00:29:37.980 --> 00:29:38.339
history.

647
00:29:38.339 --> 00:29:39.059
Yes.

648
00:29:39.119 --> 00:29:43.559
So kind of throwing all that away, and the Rani is back, but she's

649
00:29:43.559 --> 00:29:46.380
only been in it once before, and she's not really very much like

650
00:29:46.380 --> 00:29:50.759
she was, and we only have to reach back in our memories 2 years to

651
00:29:50.759 --> 00:29:51.599
know who she is.

652
00:29:51.660 --> 00:29:53.819
But it doesn't really matter.

653
00:29:53.880 --> 00:29:58.740
Like she's someone with huge hair and, you know, fabulous arm

654
00:29:58.740 --> 00:29:59.700
gestures and things.

655
00:29:59.759 --> 00:30:04.859
She still wields out death from the death wielding mirrored ball

656
00:30:04.859 --> 00:30:09.180
in the disco, another HIV reference. that, yeah, the mirror ball

657
00:30:09.180 --> 00:30:10.140
now causes death.

658
00:30:10.200 --> 00:30:15.420
But the point is that she is to be made fun of, and she is to be

659
00:30:15.420 --> 00:30:19.380
mocked, like all figures in authority, who actually can wield out

660
00:30:19.380 --> 00:30:24.720
death by set clause 28 or section 28 by withholding money for

661
00:30:24.720 --> 00:30:28.680
research into drugs that could actually save people's lives.

662
00:30:28.740 --> 00:30:30.059
And finally, they did in 96.

663
00:30:30.299 --> 00:30:34.319
But we still had to wait those 9 years, those 10 years for me.

664
00:30:34.380 --> 00:30:37.500
And for everyone else around us, of course, it was what, watching

665
00:30:37.500 --> 00:30:39.839
our community be doing more than decimated.

666
00:30:39.900 --> 00:30:43.799
Yeah, she is that, so she is the powers that be, but the point is

667
00:30:43.799 --> 00:30:45.539
we're not to be threatened by them.

668
00:30:45.599 --> 00:30:47.339
We are supposed to find them funny.

669
00:30:47.400 --> 00:30:51.539
We're supposed to lampoon and mock and not take on their idea of

670
00:30:51.539 --> 00:30:54.779
how we should be, even when they give us the cure, throw it back

671
00:30:54.779 --> 00:30:55.380
in their faces.

672
00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:56.160
We don't need them.

673
00:30:56.220 --> 00:31:00.480
Well, she gets very much a cartoon ending, doesn't she?

674
00:31:00.539 --> 00:31:06.359
Where she's sort of tied up by her, her, her, her, her, her

675
00:31:06.359 --> 00:31:06.660
servant.

676
00:31:06.660 --> 00:31:08.279
In a Berlin club.

677
00:31:09.359 --> 00:31:11.400
A double XL?

678
00:31:11.460 --> 00:31:13.440
Actually, no, it's just forecastle.

679
00:31:14.220 --> 00:31:18.240
Or indeed Fitzroy Tavern, if you're kind of... around in the

680
00:31:18.240 --> 00:31:19.559
London in the 80s, yes.

681
00:31:19.619 --> 00:31:20.039
Oh, dear.

682
00:31:20.099 --> 00:31:22.019
They're all fan boys.

683
00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:25.200
Tet trips are fanboys saying that the Tet trips are actually Gary

684
00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:27.900
Lee and everyone else on Doctor Who Bulletins.

685
00:31:27.960 --> 00:31:31.019
That one's all dreadful, no, it's thankful. and none of you are as

686
00:31:31.019 --> 00:31:31.680
good as you should be.

687
00:31:32.279 --> 00:31:36.299
Yeah, your race, your base is so inferior to ours.

688
00:31:36.359 --> 00:31:40.079
That's that wonderful line when Tubby Tetrop says that too.

689
00:31:40.140 --> 00:31:43.799
Live and lovely Mark Greenslip or whatever his name is.

690
00:31:43.920 --> 00:31:48.180
I can't remember who it was, but many years ago when Richard and I

691
00:31:48.180 --> 00:31:50.940
used to frequent Galafray Base, then outpost Galafray.

692
00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:52.559
Oh, we had a time to listener.

693
00:31:52.619 --> 00:31:52.920
Yeah.

694
00:31:52.980 --> 00:31:54.599
You had four, I believe.

695
00:31:54.960 --> 00:31:59.099
But there was a, there was a young man with, in America with whom

696
00:31:59.099 --> 00:32:00.839
I was rather in Abbott. who it was.

697
00:32:00.900 --> 00:32:02.579
No, no, no.

698
00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:05.220
But I remember Richard says, oh no, you don't want to go with

699
00:32:05.220 --> 00:32:05.400
him.

700
00:32:05.460 --> 00:32:08.039
He's got a belly not unlike Yurek the Tetra.

701
00:32:08.099 --> 00:32:10.740
I'm so sorry for everyone.

702
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:12.180
Sorry of that.

703
00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:13.619
I was Mary Whitehouse.

704
00:32:15.299 --> 00:32:16.859
You were also at the trousers of doom.

705
00:32:16.920 --> 00:32:17.339
I was?

706
00:32:17.339 --> 00:32:19.079
And cellulose wallpaper paste?

707
00:32:20.519 --> 00:32:22.859
And Richard Stone.

708
00:32:22.920 --> 00:32:24.359
Folly of Youth, come on.

709
00:32:24.660 --> 00:32:27.720
I think that's actually how we met now, haven't we?

710
00:32:27.779 --> 00:32:30.779
We met on the forum before we met in real life.

711
00:32:30.839 --> 00:32:31.799
Yeah, no, we didn't.

712
00:32:31.859 --> 00:32:35.099
And when we met, I said, oh, you must be Richard Stone on the

713
00:32:35.099 --> 00:32:35.279
thing.

714
00:32:35.400 --> 00:32:36.720
He said, yes, amongst others.

715
00:32:36.900 --> 00:32:38.940
And this is very wide.

716
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:39.900
I said, this is very white.

717
00:32:39.960 --> 00:32:41.160
You didn't think it was the real one.

718
00:32:41.220 --> 00:32:42.180
Did you?

719
00:32:42.420 --> 00:32:44.160
This is the point.

720
00:32:44.220 --> 00:32:47.039
All of that came about because of McCoy's era.

721
00:32:47.099 --> 00:32:48.420
Oh no, that's not fair.

722
00:32:48.480 --> 00:32:52.980
Colin polarised us in ways, but I don't necessarily think in ways

723
00:32:52.980 --> 00:32:57.720
that were for the positive, in that they coalesced rather than

724
00:32:57.720 --> 00:32:58.380
bringing together.

725
00:32:58.440 --> 00:33:04.380
Whereas McCoy's era, thanks to cartmal and McCoy and JNT. gets it

726
00:33:04.380 --> 00:33:08.640
gets that things can be disparate, unalloyed, and possibly

727
00:33:08.640 --> 00:33:11.880
unremarkable and yet be celebrated and wonderful when you mix them

728
00:33:11.880 --> 00:33:12.599
all up together.

729
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:16.980
We can actually be all of many colours and still get along and

730
00:33:16.980 --> 00:33:18.180
actually have some fun doing it.

731
00:33:18.240 --> 00:33:20.759
This feels fun.

732
00:33:20.819 --> 00:33:21.420
Exactly.

733
00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:25.619
One of the sometimes criticism, sometimes just comments laid at

734
00:33:25.619 --> 00:33:28.559
this season is that every story feels so different from each

735
00:33:28.559 --> 00:33:28.859
other.

736
00:33:28.920 --> 00:33:30.660
So there's a completely disparate tone.

737
00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:34.200
I actually think that's one of its strengths, and I think one of

738
00:33:34.200 --> 00:33:36.720
the reasons it's so pronounced, though, is there's only 4

739
00:33:36.720 --> 00:33:37.079
stories.

740
00:33:37.140 --> 00:33:39.359
I think it's what Doctor Who is for as well.

741
00:33:39.420 --> 00:33:42.480
I mean, we had, I thought season 22 was a whole lot of space

742
00:33:42.480 --> 00:33:45.119
corridors and cannibalism.

743
00:33:45.119 --> 00:33:48.720
And I'm not going to let that go.

744
00:33:49.980 --> 00:33:54.420
I can't, I, look, okay, if we're going to go on about the queer

745
00:33:54.420 --> 00:33:58.619
theory thing, I'm sorry, if you asked me earlier, why I didn't

746
00:33:58.619 --> 00:34:01.980
wasn't a fan of Colin's era, and just to put a shadow moment on

747
00:34:01.980 --> 00:34:02.160
this.

748
00:34:02.220 --> 00:34:06.119
I can't get past and neither can my women friends or my queer

749
00:34:06.119 --> 00:34:08.039
women friends who are in theory and politics now.

750
00:34:08.099 --> 00:34:16.260
The act of the doctor strangling the girl who is his, you know, the

751
00:34:16.260 --> 00:34:19.139
if you, if you like the adumbrant of his granddaughter, but the

752
00:34:19.139 --> 00:34:22.019
person in his charge and physically attacking her.

753
00:34:22.199 --> 00:34:26.880
And it simply is not something this show should have ever done and

754
00:34:26.880 --> 00:34:28.199
I've never been able to get past it.

755
00:34:28.260 --> 00:34:30.960
And they don't walk back from an either because that happens to

756
00:34:30.960 --> 00:34:32.579
her the entire time she's on the show.

757
00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:35.579
That's actually the reason I can't watch Colin Zero.

758
00:34:35.639 --> 00:34:38.519
I think I think that you should see what it is.

759
00:34:38.579 --> 00:34:39.179
I like his audio.

760
00:34:39.239 --> 00:34:40.260
I like his audio.

761
00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:42.539
I think you should see what it's like when Mel takes over because

762
00:34:42.539 --> 00:34:44.280
that departs with Perry.

763
00:34:44.340 --> 00:34:47.940
And so here, because they show they get killer.

764
00:34:48.719 --> 00:34:52.019
So Mario de Bryan Blessed, which is worse.

765
00:34:52.079 --> 00:34:54.000
I don't know which could...

766
00:34:55.019 --> 00:35:00.539
And so Mel is really perky and really likeable.

767
00:35:00.599 --> 00:35:02.579
She has no kind of discernable character.

768
00:35:02.639 --> 00:35:04.559
It is she's Bonnie.

769
00:35:04.619 --> 00:35:06.840
Have you noticed how good she gets when they actually just writing

770
00:35:06.840 --> 00:35:10.139
start writing for her as generic doctor girl?

771
00:35:10.199 --> 00:35:13.079
Yeah, but they just later on this season. the staff.

772
00:35:13.139 --> 00:35:14.519
And look at how good she is.

773
00:35:14.579 --> 00:35:16.619
I've been blitzing for the last 3 weeks.

774
00:35:16.679 --> 00:35:20.699
Every Bonnie Langford, Sylvester McCoy and Colin Baker audio.

775
00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:21.539
I could get my hands on.

776
00:35:21.539 --> 00:35:24.719
And thanks to James Selwood, friend of the podcast.

777
00:35:24.780 --> 00:35:27.059
He's always here in spirit.

778
00:35:27.119 --> 00:35:31.260
I've listened to almost all of them now and she's fantastic.

779
00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:36.420
She is so... and sensitive and a little bit pansy.

780
00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:37.380
Yeah, yeah.

781
00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:41.760
What I love about her in this story is that for the 1st 3 quarters

782
00:35:41.760 --> 00:35:43.619
of it, Mel is basically the doctor.

783
00:35:43.679 --> 00:35:47.460
It's Mel, it's Mel who makes contacts, start stirring up the

784
00:35:47.460 --> 00:35:50.639
resistance, finds out what's going on in the culture of this

785
00:35:50.639 --> 00:35:50.940
planet.

786
00:35:51.059 --> 00:35:56.579
While the doctor is unknowingly, a collaborator with the villain.

787
00:35:56.639 --> 00:35:58.260
Very much so.

788
00:35:58.320 --> 00:36:03.360
And also completely emasculated.

789
00:36:03.420 --> 00:36:07.440
Yes, absolutely, because he is totally under the thrall of the

790
00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:07.980
Rani.

791
00:36:08.039 --> 00:36:10.679
And anytime he asks a question, she just kind of throws a head

792
00:36:10.679 --> 00:36:13.019
from side to side and says, oh no, doctor, it's fine.

793
00:36:13.079 --> 00:36:13.559
Credit.

794
00:36:13.619 --> 00:36:15.900
And she beats him up quite a bit.

795
00:36:15.960 --> 00:36:18.539
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

796
00:36:18.599 --> 00:36:22.559
Could you have seen if they said this was written for Colin?

797
00:36:22.559 --> 00:36:25.019
I can't see how that could have...

798
00:36:25.019 --> 00:36:27.000
I don't think it would have been better with Colin.

799
00:36:27.059 --> 00:36:30.179
And I think part of the problem with that is that Collins doctor

800
00:36:30.179 --> 00:36:34.079
was already kind of the universe is whipping boy in a way that

801
00:36:34.079 --> 00:36:34.980
Peter was as well.

802
00:36:35.039 --> 00:36:38.579
You know, his doctor gets mistreated and locked in cells and blah

803
00:36:38.579 --> 00:36:39.000
blah, blah.

804
00:36:39.059 --> 00:36:44.219
And the way Colin plays it, I could never really accept him being

805
00:36:44.219 --> 00:36:47.820
duped in that way, whereas I can explain.

806
00:36:47.880 --> 00:36:50.760
I can accept it from Sylvester because, A, he's just regenerated.

807
00:36:50.820 --> 00:36:56.039
And the, he has this unpredictable quality that Colin doesn't

808
00:36:56.039 --> 00:36:56.219
have.

809
00:36:56.280 --> 00:36:57.900
And malapropisms.

810
00:36:57.960 --> 00:37:01.980
It's a perfect, he even cites, um, Malaprop, even.

811
00:37:01.980 --> 00:37:02.579
Yeah.

812
00:37:02.579 --> 00:37:08.639
In the way that Colin was always, so if you see, and articulate

813
00:37:08.639 --> 00:37:10.739
always with the perfect phrase, the bomb Mo.

814
00:37:10.800 --> 00:37:14.159
Whereas I really wish Sylvester had kept going with this as much

815
00:37:14.159 --> 00:37:15.659
as I wish he'd kept going with the spoons.

816
00:37:15.719 --> 00:37:17.699
Of all the amount of props and mixing things up.

817
00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:18.059
I love it.

818
00:37:18.119 --> 00:37:21.900
I mean, Colin can be silly and Colin can be wrong and all of those

819
00:37:21.900 --> 00:37:23.280
sorts of things and I think...

820
00:37:23.280 --> 00:37:25.139
Yeah, he proves it on the audio and vulnerable.

821
00:37:25.199 --> 00:37:26.699
Yeah, I like that.

822
00:37:26.760 --> 00:37:30.719
But here, I think they deal with the sort of regeneration thing.

823
00:37:30.780 --> 00:37:33.960
I mean, the post-regeneration trauma thing is just a terrible

824
00:37:33.960 --> 00:37:34.320
idea.

825
00:37:34.380 --> 00:37:35.820
Is it though?

826
00:37:35.820 --> 00:37:36.119
Yes.

827
00:37:36.179 --> 00:37:36.360
Yeah.

828
00:37:36.420 --> 00:37:39.239
Well, because you want to see what the new doctors like and you

829
00:37:39.239 --> 00:37:43.199
don't get to, you get to see sort of bumbling.

830
00:37:43.260 --> 00:37:46.199
It's as close as he ever gets to foreplay.

831
00:37:46.679 --> 00:37:50.340
The Christmas invasion gets it right. gives us a...

832
00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:52.199
Puts him in his jam, is his saucy mix, yeah.

833
00:37:52.559 --> 00:37:56.400
You get a bit of an idea of what he's going to be like when he

834
00:37:56.400 --> 00:38:02.519
confronts the Santas with the Sonic screwdriver, but we basically

835
00:38:02.519 --> 00:38:05.340
have to wait an hour and then he has his hero moment and he sort

836
00:38:05.340 --> 00:38:07.019
of does work on and saves the day.

837
00:38:07.079 --> 00:38:08.880
What's that tree made of?

838
00:38:08.940 --> 00:38:09.780
Yes.

839
00:38:09.780 --> 00:38:11.460
But here?

840
00:38:11.519 --> 00:38:15.360
They really throw away the regeneration thing.

841
00:38:15.420 --> 00:38:18.719
Sylvester's working at pretty well, you know, as close to full

842
00:38:18.719 --> 00:38:20.400
capacity as he ever cares.

843
00:38:20.460 --> 00:38:24.840
And the only thing is that he's confused about who the Rani is.

844
00:38:24.900 --> 00:38:26.400
You think he's messy in this?

845
00:38:26.460 --> 00:38:27.960
How do you feel about that?

846
00:38:28.019 --> 00:38:30.840
I think Sylvester is really, really fun to watch.

847
00:38:30.900 --> 00:38:32.760
I don't know.

848
00:38:32.820 --> 00:38:34.199
I think he does.

849
00:38:34.260 --> 00:38:38.159
I think he does sort of resignation and sadness very well.

850
00:38:38.219 --> 00:38:39.659
This is the thing.

851
00:38:39.719 --> 00:38:40.860
He really doesn't.

852
00:38:40.920 --> 00:38:44.340
You don't expect it, but again, if you go back to my spiel earlier

853
00:38:44.340 --> 00:38:47.579
it's all about putting things together that are disparate and

854
00:38:47.579 --> 00:38:49.199
dissonant and actually making them work.

855
00:38:49.260 --> 00:38:54.300
So he's he does this, I feel better than probably seen cinch trout

856
00:38:54.300 --> 00:38:55.860
and for me.

857
00:38:55.920 --> 00:38:59.099
Well, look, I mean, I think Trouton sort of outclasses him as an

858
00:38:59.099 --> 00:39:01.920
actor, but Trouton does that to just about everyone else.

859
00:39:01.980 --> 00:39:03.179
Sure.

860
00:39:03.300 --> 00:39:05.880
I will take that, but that's not too, in any way, to integrate.

861
00:39:05.940 --> 00:39:06.480
So.

862
00:39:06.599 --> 00:39:08.940
No, I think he's really a compelling performer.

863
00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:10.619
He's physically, really interesting.

864
00:39:10.679 --> 00:39:15.119
He's sort of sweet and funny and he does vulnerable very well.

865
00:39:15.179 --> 00:39:20.159
And just comparing his relationship with Mel in this story to

866
00:39:20.159 --> 00:39:23.340
Collins relationship with Perry in his 1st story.

867
00:39:23.400 --> 00:39:25.860
It's almost an apology.

868
00:39:25.920 --> 00:39:29.820
And remember the final line of the twin dilemma is, you know, I'm

869
00:39:29.820 --> 00:39:31.019
the doctor whether you like it or not.

870
00:39:31.079 --> 00:39:36.780
And here, Sylvester goes, I'll grow on you now. grow on you and

871
00:39:36.780 --> 00:39:38.039
he's terribly sweet about it.

872
00:39:38.099 --> 00:39:43.739
And so it is them doing this right and trying, I think, in some

873
00:39:43.739 --> 00:39:48.900
way to heal the horrific wound inflicted on the program in the

874
00:39:48.900 --> 00:39:49.619
twin dilemma.

875
00:39:49.679 --> 00:39:52.679
What I find interesting about that comparison to the twin dilemma

876
00:39:52.679 --> 00:39:56.940
is, like in the twin dilemma, you get a fight scene. in this story

877
00:39:56.940 --> 00:39:58.619
between the doctor and the companion.

878
00:39:58.679 --> 00:40:03.780
But the difference is this is a comic wrestling match that Bonnie

879
00:40:03.780 --> 00:40:04.739
and Silv get into.

880
00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:06.900
And Bonnie makes the first...

881
00:40:06.960 --> 00:40:09.780
Yeah, she was like she throws him over her shoulder.

882
00:40:09.780 --> 00:40:11.760
And it's Bonnie doing that.

883
00:40:11.820 --> 00:40:13.980
I mean, they're the same height, so it's pretty easy.

884
00:40:14.039 --> 00:40:15.239
Brendan does it.

885
00:40:15.780 --> 00:40:17.699
He's doing it now.

886
00:40:17.760 --> 00:40:20.880
But what I what I have...

887
00:40:20.880 --> 00:40:22.260
What I absolutely adore about that.

888
00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:23.280
Oh, yeah.

889
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:29.039
What I absolutely adore about that scene is when they realise who

890
00:40:29.039 --> 00:40:31.739
each other up because she doesn't know it's the doctor and he

891
00:40:31.739 --> 00:40:32.880
doesn't think it's Mel.

892
00:40:32.940 --> 00:40:36.480
And when they realise there's a genuine warmth between them and it

893
00:40:36.480 --> 00:40:39.000
sells the fact that he is the same character.

894
00:40:39.539 --> 00:40:43.619
But the reason I think it wouldn't have worked with Colin is, of

895
00:40:43.619 --> 00:40:46.380
course, when the script was written for Colin, he took part of

896
00:40:46.380 --> 00:40:49.800
Bayes in the final scene and gets blown up and that was going to

897
00:40:49.800 --> 00:40:50.820
be the end of the 6th doctor.

898
00:40:50.940 --> 00:40:53.219
He was going to get blown up saving the recursions instead of

899
00:40:53.219 --> 00:40:53.699
bass.

900
00:40:53.880 --> 00:40:55.139
And I think...

901
00:40:55.139 --> 00:40:59.880
The reason this scene works better is because it's the 1st meeting

902
00:40:59.880 --> 00:41:02.519
between the doctor and his companion rather than this

903
00:41:02.519 --> 00:41:03.360
bittersweet.

904
00:41:03.420 --> 00:41:06.119
We've, you know, we've remembered each other just before you die.

905
00:41:06.179 --> 00:41:11.940
And it's kind of the 1st place we see that melancholy from

906
00:41:11.940 --> 00:41:13.019
Sylvester.

907
00:41:13.079 --> 00:41:16.019
He cites his influences as Patrick Troughton, because that was the

908
00:41:16.019 --> 00:41:18.179
last time he really watched Shocked her because he became an actor

909
00:41:18.179 --> 00:41:19.679
after that and wasn't in on Saturdays.

910
00:41:19.739 --> 00:41:22.440
Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, which is all where the physical

911
00:41:22.440 --> 00:41:22.860
stuff comes.

912
00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:24.179
JNT wanted that as well.

913
00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:25.320
That was part of the instruction.

914
00:41:25.440 --> 00:41:28.800
But his other influence is one of his grandmothers.

915
00:41:29.039 --> 00:41:33.239
And he says she lived to 100 or close to it.

916
00:41:33.300 --> 00:41:38.219
And all of her friends had died, and she just, as still says it

917
00:41:38.219 --> 00:41:41.820
she just had this wonderful sadness of having had a great life, but

918
00:41:41.820 --> 00:41:44.039
no one she shared it with was there anymore.

919
00:41:44.099 --> 00:41:48.659
And he's like, when I, when I was told the doctor is 900 years old

920
00:41:48.659 --> 00:41:50.519
I thought, how many times has that happened to him?

921
00:41:50.880 --> 00:41:55.739
And when he goes sort of, it doesn't bode well for my 7th persona

922
00:41:55.739 --> 00:41:59.820
you feel that weight of, oh, no, I'm getting it wrong again.

923
00:41:59.880 --> 00:42:03.000
And how many times has he gotten stuff like this wrong?

924
00:42:03.059 --> 00:42:07.320
And we will touch on that even in this very brief Indian summer of

925
00:42:07.320 --> 00:42:08.639
Sylvester McCoy's career.

926
00:42:08.699 --> 00:42:11.039
There's a lot of other stuff, though, isn't there?

927
00:42:11.099 --> 00:42:12.960
There's a lot of books, there's a lot of audios.

928
00:42:13.019 --> 00:42:15.119
There's a lot to be discovered and continue with.

929
00:42:15.179 --> 00:42:17.159
Well, I've recently started.

930
00:42:17.219 --> 00:42:21.239
Um, reading every single Doctor Who fiction book.

931
00:42:21.300 --> 00:42:23.099
I remember we warned you.

932
00:42:23.159 --> 00:42:24.960
Do you remember when you were young, Nathan?

933
00:42:25.019 --> 00:42:26.159
like this?

934
00:42:26.219 --> 00:42:26.639
No.

935
00:42:26.820 --> 00:42:28.440
I did too.

936
00:42:28.500 --> 00:42:29.400
I didn't get very far.

937
00:42:29.400 --> 00:42:34.500
Because, you see, I drew up a spreadsheet with page counts of

938
00:42:34.500 --> 00:42:37.920
pretty much every kind of fan is pretty much every Doctor Who

939
00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:40.679
fiction novel and figured out reading 40 pages a day.

940
00:42:40.739 --> 00:42:42.719
It's gonna take me about 9.5 years.

941
00:42:42.780 --> 00:42:46.559
So I'm up to typeworm apocalypse, which is the 3rd new adventure.

942
00:42:46.619 --> 00:42:48.059
And the difference.

943
00:42:48.119 --> 00:42:52.199
Okay, the difference when Terrence Dixon, Nigel Robinson, right

944
00:42:52.199 --> 00:42:52.980
for Silv.

945
00:42:53.039 --> 00:42:55.440
And when John Peel writes for Silver, makes him really grumpy and

946
00:42:55.440 --> 00:42:55.739
angry.

947
00:42:55.800 --> 00:42:57.420
It just jars.

948
00:42:57.480 --> 00:43:01.500
Terence Dix, who never writes for silver on television, never

949
00:43:01.500 --> 00:43:03.659
writes any of his novelisations, gets the character.

950
00:43:03.780 --> 00:43:04.920
I loved Exodus.

951
00:43:04.980 --> 00:43:06.300
Did I give you a whole pile of those?

952
00:43:07.019 --> 00:43:08.639
You sold some of your inos, yeah.

953
00:43:08.699 --> 00:43:09.119
That's right.

954
00:43:09.239 --> 00:43:11.519
I didn't I didn't give I sold for a reason.

955
00:43:11.579 --> 00:43:14.639
And let me tell you that the shelf has been amply filled by

956
00:43:14.639 --> 00:43:14.940
things.

957
00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:18.000
I'd rather read, but I'm glad you're enjoying them.

958
00:43:18.059 --> 00:43:20.820
I remember Exodus is being very good as well and very much

959
00:43:20.820 --> 00:43:23.699
continuing on the time of the Rani feel of that 1st season.

960
00:43:23.760 --> 00:43:28.139
But I think the reason that Terrence is able to get Silv, so right

961
00:43:28.139 --> 00:43:34.079
is that Silv kind of instinctively gets the core of the doctor

962
00:43:34.079 --> 00:43:34.380
right?

963
00:43:34.380 --> 00:43:38.579
Whereas I think Colin at the beginning, didn't have a chance to

964
00:43:38.579 --> 00:43:40.920
because he's being told, be nasty, be nasty, be nasty.

965
00:43:40.980 --> 00:43:42.480
I think he gets it towards the end of trial.

966
00:43:42.659 --> 00:43:45.480
And I said this a couple of weeks ago that, you know, he's just

967
00:43:45.480 --> 00:43:46.860
hitting his stride and then they fire him.

968
00:43:46.920 --> 00:43:52.559
Whereas Sylvester, because he has so little knowledge of the show

969
00:43:52.559 --> 00:43:55.139
and because his memory of the show is the 60s, when the character

970
00:43:55.139 --> 00:43:59.280
was very bare bones, and that was his perception.

971
00:43:59.340 --> 00:44:02.159
He's like, I don't want the doctor to be constantly going on about

972
00:44:02.159 --> 00:44:03.599
being the president of Gallifrey.

973
00:44:03.659 --> 00:44:04.800
I don't want him to be...

974
00:44:04.860 --> 00:44:07.860
Which is in the constellation of Kostuba's spinary location, blah

975
00:44:07.860 --> 00:44:08.820
blah, blah.

976
00:44:08.880 --> 00:44:11.460
So yeah, his whole thing is trim it back to basics.

977
00:44:11.579 --> 00:44:14.639
He's funny, he's silly, but deep down he's really sad.

978
00:44:14.699 --> 00:44:17.039
And we get all of that in this verse.

979
00:44:17.159 --> 00:44:18.960
So would you be with 2 wives to support?

980
00:44:19.320 --> 00:44:21.599
Sylvester, not Patrick.

981
00:44:23.400 --> 00:44:25.800
It's a lovely interview.

982
00:44:25.860 --> 00:44:28.320
Actually, it might go over a couple of issues of Doctor Who

983
00:44:28.320 --> 00:44:29.159
magazine.

984
00:44:29.219 --> 00:44:30.900
Do you remember this one a couple of years ago?

985
00:44:30.960 --> 00:44:31.679
I've got it in there.

986
00:44:31.739 --> 00:44:32.579
I pull it out.

987
00:44:32.699 --> 00:44:36.239
Just talking about his early childhood and really how difficult it

988
00:44:36.239 --> 00:44:36.719
was.

989
00:44:36.780 --> 00:44:40.440
And I think he brings that pathos and bathos, not necessarily a

990
00:44:40.440 --> 00:44:42.420
lesser thing, into his performance.

991
00:44:42.480 --> 00:44:45.239
I can't say how much I love this doctor, but I think I've probably

992
00:44:45.239 --> 00:44:46.260
given it a fair whack.

993
00:44:46.320 --> 00:44:48.300
I like him a great deal as well.

994
00:44:48.360 --> 00:44:51.000
I think he's, I think he's really, really great.

995
00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:55.380
And it is, it's nice to have someone who will kind of lurk on the

996
00:44:55.380 --> 00:44:56.639
periphery of scenes.

997
00:44:56.699 --> 00:44:57.780
It's not all about him.

998
00:44:57.840 --> 00:45:00.239
Not in the way that Bert Wheat did.

999
00:45:03.300 --> 00:45:07.500
I just imagining pertly like Betty Davis in hush hush, sweet

1000
00:45:07.500 --> 00:45:10.440
Charlotte, saying, oh, Joan, you don't need all these lines, do

1001
00:45:10.440 --> 00:45:10.800
you?

1002
00:45:10.860 --> 00:45:14.940
And that's why we need to cast that Welsh washerwoman. very

1003
00:45:14.940 --> 00:45:15.480
versatile.

1004
00:45:15.539 --> 00:45:17.880
That's why we got Olivia de Haviland instead.

1005
00:45:19.079 --> 00:45:22.139
Oh, no, Olivia de Haviland in this, of course.

1006
00:45:22.199 --> 00:45:26.880
But, um, I think also the reason we have such a strong cast is

1007
00:45:26.880 --> 00:45:31.139
possibly because Andrew Morgan, Andrew Cartmel and JNT kind of

1008
00:45:31.139 --> 00:45:34.380
went, uh, you know, this isn't a bad script, but it's perhaps not

1009
00:45:34.380 --> 00:45:35.099
the strongest script.

1010
00:45:35.159 --> 00:45:36.960
So we're gonna get an incredibly strong car.

1011
00:45:37.019 --> 00:45:39.780
So you got Kate, you've got Wanda, you've got Donald, you've got

1012
00:45:39.780 --> 00:45:40.559
Mark Greenstreet.

1013
00:45:40.619 --> 00:45:42.300
They put the effort and the money into this.

1014
00:45:42.360 --> 00:45:42.840
Yeah, yeah.

1015
00:45:42.900 --> 00:45:46.199
And what seems strange to me is this year.

1016
00:45:46.260 --> 00:45:52.139
Um, The design and the direction just seems so much better, but I

1017
00:45:52.139 --> 00:45:54.000
can't imagine they have any more money than last year.

1018
00:45:54.059 --> 00:45:55.679
Yeah, I agree.

1019
00:45:55.739 --> 00:45:58.260
There is something more inventive about it.

1020
00:45:58.320 --> 00:46:01.079
It's only budgeted for 3 stories this season.

1021
00:46:01.139 --> 00:46:05.340
Of course, and the two, three parters are always made in the same

1022
00:46:05.340 --> 00:46:08.880
production block, which is how the new series saves money as

1023
00:46:08.880 --> 00:46:09.000
well.

1024
00:46:09.059 --> 00:46:09.900
Yeah, yeah.

1025
00:46:09.960 --> 00:46:12.840
Yeah, so we'll be touching on that later in the season.

1026
00:46:12.900 --> 00:46:14.219
I think it looks extraordinary.

1027
00:46:14.280 --> 00:46:15.960
They're the best model effects.

1028
00:46:16.019 --> 00:46:16.860
Thank you, Mike Tucker.

1029
00:46:16.920 --> 00:46:17.940
Ive ever seen in Doctor Who.

1030
00:46:18.059 --> 00:46:20.400
I'm a bit of a fan of the shiny things.

1031
00:46:20.519 --> 00:46:21.480
Yeah, it is.

1032
00:46:21.539 --> 00:46:22.980
It's right up there, isn't it?

1033
00:46:23.039 --> 00:46:25.980
Well, it's Terrahawks was only a couple of years before, and we're

1034
00:46:25.980 --> 00:46:26.820
owing a lot to that.

1035
00:46:26.880 --> 00:46:30.059
Sue Moore did the Tetraps who also designed Zelda.

1036
00:46:30.059 --> 00:46:33.719
This is state of the art TV in 1997.

1037
00:46:33.960 --> 00:46:35.280
In England.

1038
00:46:35.400 --> 00:46:37.860
I have tried to find it, but I'm afraid I can't.

1039
00:46:37.920 --> 00:46:41.579
So I do apologise if this is you, but a friend of the podcast when

1040
00:46:41.579 --> 00:46:45.300
I was live tweeting. said that they didn't really like the Rani's

1041
00:46:45.300 --> 00:46:49.500
lab set, and I really can't understand that because there's depth

1042
00:46:49.500 --> 00:46:49.980
of field.

1043
00:46:50.039 --> 00:46:51.960
There's things in the foreground, there's things in the midground

1044
00:46:51.960 --> 00:46:53.219
there's things in the background.

1045
00:46:53.280 --> 00:46:54.960
They've never been to a basement disco?

1046
00:46:55.199 --> 00:46:56.940
There's a roof.

1047
00:46:57.059 --> 00:46:58.199
It has a roof.

1048
00:46:59.699 --> 00:47:03.179
You know, that is actually a very special thing for this show.

1049
00:47:03.239 --> 00:47:07.559
Remember back in Marco Polo where Barry Newbury couldn't have a

1050
00:47:07.559 --> 00:47:10.019
roof because the sound guy kept saying, oh, can't get me mic in

1051
00:47:10.019 --> 00:47:10.440
there, mate.

1052
00:47:10.619 --> 00:47:14.460
I do think it is a little bit of a light entertainment set, and

1053
00:47:14.460 --> 00:47:18.300
particularly when she starts the machine.

1054
00:47:18.360 --> 00:47:19.679
It does look like sale of the century.

1055
00:47:19.739 --> 00:47:20.579
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1056
00:47:20.639 --> 00:47:22.380
But, you know, it's it's Doctor Who.

1057
00:47:22.500 --> 00:47:24.960
It's got lots of lovely triangles in it, you know?

1058
00:47:24.960 --> 00:47:26.460
It's what they, yeah, thank you.

1059
00:47:26.519 --> 00:47:27.659
Another game motif.

1060
00:47:27.719 --> 00:47:28.800
The sky is pink.

1061
00:47:28.860 --> 00:47:30.900
Everyone's wearing rainbow colours.

1062
00:47:30.960 --> 00:47:32.820
The triangles are everywhere.

1063
00:47:32.880 --> 00:47:33.239
Yeah.

1064
00:47:33.300 --> 00:47:36.179
The pyramid motif, of course, all of that.

1065
00:47:36.239 --> 00:47:39.900
I think it's deliberate that it looks like a Bruce Forsyth or our

1066
00:47:39.900 --> 00:47:41.099
own Nicholas Parsons.

1067
00:47:41.159 --> 00:47:41.579
We own him.

1068
00:47:41.639 --> 00:47:43.860
Yes, because he's been Doctor Who very soon.

1069
00:47:43.920 --> 00:47:46.920
It looks like a game show because that's again part of this

1070
00:47:46.920 --> 00:47:48.840
terrifically clever meta.

1071
00:47:48.900 --> 00:47:52.860
I want to believe this was done deliberately to completely take

1072
00:47:52.860 --> 00:47:56.400
the Mick duration out of the entirety of British TV this year.

1073
00:47:56.460 --> 00:48:00.480
Well, think about when John Nathan Turner 1st comes along, and we

1074
00:48:00.480 --> 00:48:05.340
get after season 17, which did look cheap and drab and had lots of

1075
00:48:05.340 --> 00:48:09.300
brown cardboard corridors in it, and then we get the leisure hive

1076
00:48:09.300 --> 00:48:14.400
which is just a studio bound production like season 17, but done

1077
00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:16.619
with a bit of flair and inventiveness.

1078
00:48:16.739 --> 00:48:19.679
So powerful that there are goalons still in this episode.

1079
00:48:19.739 --> 00:48:21.300
That's right.

1080
00:48:22.079 --> 00:48:23.460
Yeah, yeah, there's no goal in it.

1081
00:48:23.519 --> 00:48:27.780
But here I think it's the same thing and I don't think it's like

1082
00:48:27.780 --> 00:48:31.500
super successful because it is a bit shiny and game showy.

1083
00:48:31.619 --> 00:48:34.440
And if we were going for realism, which, let's face it, the moment

1084
00:48:34.440 --> 00:48:37.199
you put Kate Omar in a Bonnie Langford wig, you're not.

1085
00:48:37.260 --> 00:48:38.880
That's not what this is meant.

1086
00:48:39.179 --> 00:48:43.619
See, I think the reason they don't go for realism is because they

1087
00:48:43.619 --> 00:48:44.519
don't have the money.

1088
00:48:44.579 --> 00:48:46.559
So they go for the comic book aesthetic.

1089
00:48:46.619 --> 00:48:49.739
They go for the bright colours and the solid shapes.

1090
00:48:50.099 --> 00:48:55.260
As a kid, the pyramid and triangular motif, you know, like most

1091
00:48:55.260 --> 00:48:58.619
kids, I was intrigued by the pyramids and the legends of Egypt.

1092
00:48:58.679 --> 00:49:00.900
So immediately there's something recognisable for kids there.

1093
00:49:00.960 --> 00:49:04.860
I wanted keypads that were triangular with little circular buttons

1094
00:49:04.860 --> 00:49:05.400
on them.

1095
00:49:05.460 --> 00:49:08.219
I remember watching the story over and over again, trying to

1096
00:49:08.219 --> 00:49:09.840
figure out the interface.

1097
00:49:09.900 --> 00:49:11.519
Like, okay, he's pressing in 953.

1098
00:49:11.699 --> 00:49:14.400
What signifies nine, what signifies five, what signifies three?

1099
00:49:14.699 --> 00:49:18.059
It fires the imagination on that level.

1100
00:49:18.119 --> 00:49:22.619
And then, The people who are older looking at it are able to

1101
00:49:22.619 --> 00:49:25.559
appreciate the critical theory behind it and the post-modernism

1102
00:49:25.559 --> 00:49:25.980
behind it.

1103
00:49:26.039 --> 00:49:29.400
It's Doctor Who working on multiple age levels again.

1104
00:49:29.579 --> 00:49:34.440
Just, you know, and really, I don't think we've had that since

1105
00:49:34.440 --> 00:49:36.239
early Pete.

1106
00:49:36.360 --> 00:49:39.719
I don't think we've had it in such purity since the 60s.

1107
00:49:39.780 --> 00:49:44.400
It takes the everyday and subverts it and turns it on its head and

1108
00:49:44.400 --> 00:49:47.039
makes of it something much bigger and it's been very different.

1109
00:49:47.099 --> 00:49:49.920
Doctor Who has always been about this period.

1110
00:49:50.519 --> 00:49:55.260
In the late 80s, early 90s, it actually has always been about this

1111
00:49:55.260 --> 00:49:55.440
time.

1112
00:49:55.500 --> 00:49:57.780
It's just reached its apotheosis.

1113
00:49:57.840 --> 00:49:58.800
Have a drink, dealers.

1114
00:49:58.860 --> 00:50:02.699
And, you know, I wonder why this is so successful because of

1115
00:50:02.699 --> 00:50:05.400
course, you know, we're on the planet Zog, with the people of the

1116
00:50:05.400 --> 00:50:09.659
Zogs being threatened by an alien overlord.

1117
00:50:09.719 --> 00:50:11.159
It's the dominators again.

1118
00:50:11.219 --> 00:50:13.920
I mean, it really is.

1119
00:50:13.980 --> 00:50:15.719
Why is it so good in comparison?

1120
00:50:15.780 --> 00:50:18.420
It's not just the design work and it's not just Cato Mara.

1121
00:50:18.480 --> 00:50:19.860
No, it's we're having fun.

1122
00:50:19.920 --> 00:50:24.000
I mean, the story is simplistic because it is Pip and Jane, and it

1123
00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:26.340
is something that we've seen a lot of times before where you've

1124
00:50:26.340 --> 00:50:30.960
got, you know, a rebel who wants to go to population into

1125
00:50:30.960 --> 00:50:33.659
overthrowing the oppressors.

1126
00:50:33.719 --> 00:50:36.780
And then you've got Bayers who's saying, no, no, take it easy.

1127
00:50:36.840 --> 00:50:37.739
We're not going to do that.

1128
00:50:37.800 --> 00:50:40.500
I was actually thinking of death to the Daleks.

1129
00:50:40.559 --> 00:50:45.659
And Galloway, remember, who, uh, who looks like he's collaborating

1130
00:50:45.659 --> 00:50:52.860
the entire time and then uh, is brave enough to overthrow the

1131
00:50:52.860 --> 00:50:54.780
Daleks, just like Bayos does here.

1132
00:50:54.840 --> 00:50:58.619
And so even though Bayos is politically wrong, I think, in his

1133
00:50:58.619 --> 00:51:02.699
approach, and that's how he's supposed to see it, he's not a bad

1134
00:51:02.699 --> 00:51:06.420
guy, he's still brave and he still cares about his people.

1135
00:51:06.480 --> 00:51:11.219
And I think, you know, that is a story that's been told over and

1136
00:51:11.219 --> 00:51:12.599
over again in Doctor Who.

1137
00:51:12.659 --> 00:51:18.119
So it's a simple kind of template that we've seen before, but it's

1138
00:51:18.119 --> 00:51:20.099
kind of a bit of a relief to get that.

1139
00:51:20.159 --> 00:51:22.800
And even during the Colin Baker era.

1140
00:51:22.860 --> 00:51:27.840
I think, Brendan, you found that that sort of straightforwardness

1141
00:51:27.840 --> 00:51:32.639
and just the sort of fun in the Pippin Jane stories, neither of

1142
00:51:32.639 --> 00:51:36.000
which I think were particularly good, but, you know, that there

1143
00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:37.260
was something really enjoyable there.

1144
00:51:37.320 --> 00:51:41.519
And I think I grudgingly gave terror of the vervoids, the bronze

1145
00:51:41.519 --> 00:51:44.699
medal in the Colin Bay hero, not because it's a great story, but

1146
00:51:44.699 --> 00:51:46.860
because it's just terrifically fun.

1147
00:51:46.980 --> 00:51:49.739
And I think the same is true here.

1148
00:51:49.800 --> 00:51:52.199
I don't think time and the Rani's a great script.

1149
00:51:52.260 --> 00:51:55.260
But gosh, it's enjoyable to watch.

1150
00:51:55.739 --> 00:51:59.820
I think another reason it succeeds so well is what you said

1151
00:51:59.820 --> 00:52:02.219
Richard, there is actually a lot of theory and a lot of thought

1152
00:52:02.219 --> 00:52:05.219
behind it, which even if you don't get it.

1153
00:52:05.280 --> 00:52:07.800
You can sense that there's something deeper going on.

1154
00:52:07.980 --> 00:52:12.000
You know, and I've, I've said this many times before about Doctor

1155
00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:14.099
Who stories that we've discussed on the podcast, things like

1156
00:52:14.099 --> 00:52:17.760
Frontier and Space, which, you know, as a kid, I would never have

1157
00:52:17.760 --> 00:52:22.679
realised the political dimension of it as related to the real

1158
00:52:22.679 --> 00:52:23.039
world.

1159
00:52:23.099 --> 00:52:26.099
But as an adult, it makes me appreciate it all the more.

1160
00:52:26.159 --> 00:52:30.360
Whereas something like time lash, which I did say during the colon

1161
00:52:30.360 --> 00:52:33.119
era, I enjoy time lash because it's a straightforward story

1162
00:52:33.119 --> 00:52:36.599
there's not really a lot behind it.

1163
00:52:36.659 --> 00:52:39.059
It's just a narrative, and that's fine.

1164
00:52:39.119 --> 00:52:44.820
Whereas this has that extra queer dimension and the rebel

1165
00:52:44.820 --> 00:52:48.300
dimension and fighting against corrupt authority.

1166
00:52:48.539 --> 00:52:51.000
Uh, can I talk a bit about the science?

1167
00:52:51.119 --> 00:52:53.219
Hey, talk matter.

1168
00:52:53.280 --> 00:52:58.860
Okay, so we have an asteroid composed of strange matter in this

1169
00:52:58.860 --> 00:52:59.400
story.

1170
00:52:59.460 --> 00:53:04.500
Now, in fact, that was so important that that was what Pip and

1171
00:53:04.500 --> 00:53:06.420
Jane wanted to call.

1172
00:53:07.019 --> 00:53:09.360
It was going to be called Strange Matter, and I do think I

1173
00:53:09.360 --> 00:53:12.059
remember reading that one of the reasons that they never wrote for

1174
00:53:12.059 --> 00:53:15.780
the program has nothing to do with Andrew Cartwell not inviting

1175
00:53:15.780 --> 00:53:20.639
them back at all. because they were annoyed at the time in the

1176
00:53:20.639 --> 00:53:22.920
Rani rename of this story.

1177
00:53:22.980 --> 00:53:26.579
I think at one point as well, they considered calling it the

1178
00:53:26.579 --> 00:53:29.039
strange matter when they knew that Colin wasn't coming back

1179
00:53:29.039 --> 00:53:32.039
because they thought anything could happen.

1180
00:53:32.099 --> 00:53:34.139
So we'll call it the strange matter.

1181
00:53:34.199 --> 00:53:35.579
Of the firing of the dog.

1182
00:53:36.119 --> 00:53:41.940
Strange matter itself is a theoretical substance, which is made

1183
00:53:41.940 --> 00:53:44.699
when atoms are put under very high pressure.

1184
00:53:44.760 --> 00:53:48.480
So an example I've read is if you take an iron atom which has 26

1185
00:53:48.480 --> 00:53:52.800
protons on 30 neutrons and you crush it, you apply energy to the

1186
00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:53.940
protons and the neutrons.

1187
00:53:54.000 --> 00:53:56.639
If you crush it enough, there's so much energy applied that the

1188
00:53:56.639 --> 00:54:00.539
protons and neutrons break down into their requisite quarks, and

1189
00:54:00.539 --> 00:54:03.659
there's up clocks, and there's down clocks, positive quarks.

1190
00:54:04.139 --> 00:54:07.320
If you apply even more pressure to these quarks.

1191
00:54:07.380 --> 00:54:08.039
Some of them.

1192
00:54:08.099 --> 00:54:09.539
Flip.

1193
00:54:09.599 --> 00:54:12.360
So they go from being up to down or down to up and some of them

1194
00:54:12.360 --> 00:54:15.659
stay in an intermediate state called strange quarks, which are

1195
00:54:15.659 --> 00:54:16.500
super dense.

1196
00:54:16.739 --> 00:54:20.699
And that's where strange matter being incredibly heavy comes

1197
00:54:20.699 --> 00:54:21.000
from.

1198
00:54:21.059 --> 00:54:22.739
They have colours and flavours as well.

1199
00:54:22.800 --> 00:54:23.460
Yes.

1200
00:54:23.579 --> 00:54:25.139
It's very sad.

1201
00:54:25.139 --> 00:54:26.699
I think they're making it up.

1202
00:54:26.760 --> 00:54:27.360
Yeah, they are.

1203
00:54:27.360 --> 00:54:30.059
What's wrong with the theory that, you know, little sprites

1204
00:54:30.059 --> 00:54:30.780
inhabit everything?

1205
00:54:31.320 --> 00:54:33.480
Works for Conan Door.

1206
00:54:33.539 --> 00:54:34.920
God sustains it all.

1207
00:54:34.980 --> 00:54:35.940
Very simple.

1208
00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:40.079
Now, we haven't been able to create strange matter on earth.

1209
00:54:40.260 --> 00:54:45.119
But the theory is that it could form at the hearts of neutron

1210
00:54:45.119 --> 00:54:47.400
stars because of the immense pressures they're in.

1211
00:54:47.460 --> 00:54:51.179
And if strange matter is negatively charged.

1212
00:54:51.539 --> 00:54:55.500
It'll consume the rest of the star around it.

1213
00:54:55.619 --> 00:54:58.260
And then shoot off into the universe.

1214
00:54:58.860 --> 00:55:02.699
If it comes into a contact with a planetary body while it is

1215
00:55:02.699 --> 00:55:05.880
negatively charged, anything it touches is converted to strange

1216
00:55:05.880 --> 00:55:09.420
matter, and joins itself like a snowball.

1217
00:55:09.480 --> 00:55:13.619
Now, the thing is, theoretically, all strange matter will be

1218
00:55:13.619 --> 00:55:15.659
positively charged, which means we could actually just have it

1219
00:55:15.659 --> 00:55:17.159
sitting here on the table and we'd be fine.

1220
00:55:17.219 --> 00:55:20.639
So that's...

1221
00:55:20.639 --> 00:55:24.239
So that's why the Rani is trying to come up with a lightweight

1222
00:55:24.239 --> 00:55:24.960
substitute.

1223
00:55:25.019 --> 00:55:28.199
Now, from what I can tell, from what I've read, it doesn't seem

1224
00:55:28.199 --> 00:55:32.940
that strange matter combined with strange matter will make the

1225
00:55:32.940 --> 00:55:36.719
strange matter explode, as is implied in the story.

1226
00:55:36.719 --> 00:55:39.719
But that's just the 1st part of their plan.

1227
00:55:39.780 --> 00:55:41.820
The 2nd part, of course, is that.

1228
00:55:42.119 --> 00:55:46.500
A shell of Cronons will form in the upper atmosphere of Lucersia

1229
00:55:46.500 --> 00:55:50.039
which will cause the creation of helium 2, which will cause the

1230
00:55:50.039 --> 00:55:56.219
matter of the brain, her giant brain, to expand until the space

1231
00:55:56.219 --> 00:55:58.980
between the surface and the space between the Cronon shell is

1232
00:55:58.980 --> 00:56:00.059
full.

1233
00:56:00.119 --> 00:56:03.539
The doctor tells us that this will create a time manipulator.

1234
00:56:04.500 --> 00:56:10.380
And I think that there is actually a purpose behind this.

1235
00:56:10.440 --> 00:56:12.059
I don't think it's just a bunch of random words.

1236
00:56:12.119 --> 00:56:15.300
Well, no, I'm fairly sure it is.

1237
00:56:15.599 --> 00:56:17.880
So empirical thinking.

1238
00:56:18.719 --> 00:56:21.360
Understanding time manipulation.

1239
00:56:21.420 --> 00:56:21.960
What's the line?

1240
00:56:22.440 --> 00:56:24.179
Pip and Jones.

1241
00:56:24.179 --> 00:56:24.960
Yeah.

1242
00:56:25.019 --> 00:56:27.360
We're going to have this giant planet size brain.

1243
00:56:27.780 --> 00:56:31.559
Surrounding the brain is going to be a shell of chronons, discrete

1244
00:56:31.559 --> 00:56:34.320
particles of time, which do not interact with universe in the same

1245
00:56:34.320 --> 00:56:35.699
way that normal space time does.

1246
00:56:35.760 --> 00:56:37.980
It doesn't go forward at 12nd per second.

1247
00:56:38.099 --> 00:56:38.820
It doesn't go backwards.

1248
00:56:38.880 --> 00:56:40.320
It's kind of static time, if you like.

1249
00:56:40.380 --> 00:56:45.960
And using this, the Rani hopes to manipulate evolution throughout

1250
00:56:45.960 --> 00:56:46.500
the universe.

1251
00:56:46.559 --> 00:56:50.159
What I suggest is the brain would actually compute alternative

1252
00:56:50.159 --> 00:56:53.280
timelines, which the Rani would then enact, and because it's

1253
00:56:53.280 --> 00:56:56.579
surrounded by the Cronon shell, the brain will never change.

1254
00:56:56.639 --> 00:57:00.239
So it will always be aware of what the universe was like before.

1255
00:57:00.300 --> 00:57:03.420
So it's like the control in a time change experiment.

1256
00:57:04.139 --> 00:57:08.579
So Brendan, if she's able to come up with such a clever plan.

1257
00:57:08.699 --> 00:57:12.179
Why is she unable to put a hinge on the rocket launcher thing?

1258
00:57:12.900 --> 00:57:17.519
that she can launch the rocket, you know, at any time she rock, or

1259
00:57:17.519 --> 00:57:20.699
indeed have steering rockets on the bloody rocket itself.

1260
00:57:20.760 --> 00:57:24.059
So you can actually, you know, hit your target.

1261
00:57:24.119 --> 00:57:25.320
Yeah, guided missile.

1262
00:57:25.380 --> 00:57:27.360
Yeah, like, you know, that's a goodness thing.

1263
00:57:27.420 --> 00:57:28.440
That thing.

1264
00:57:28.500 --> 00:57:31.440
You know, I think somewhere in the novelisation of time of the

1265
00:57:31.440 --> 00:57:31.980
Ronnie.

1266
00:57:33.000 --> 00:57:36.360
Pip and Jane actually mentioned that the Tetraps and all the

1267
00:57:36.360 --> 00:57:38.280
Kursians haven't found the principle of hinges.

1268
00:57:38.340 --> 00:57:40.559
He could have mentioned it.

1269
00:57:40.619 --> 00:57:42.960
They have doors on Gala.

1270
00:57:42.960 --> 00:57:45.719
Well, they are all...

1271
00:57:45.719 --> 00:57:47.519
Oh, no, they are swinging doors on California.

1272
00:57:47.579 --> 00:57:48.059
Yeah, yeah.

1273
00:57:48.119 --> 00:57:49.079
So I don't know that.

1274
00:57:49.139 --> 00:57:51.900
But the thing is, this is a story and the science of it did

1275
00:57:51.900 --> 00:57:54.239
actually make me look into the science of it as a kid.

1276
00:57:54.300 --> 00:57:56.880
Now, I didn't look into it with any great depth, but I looked up

1277
00:57:56.880 --> 00:57:57.960
what's helium 2.

1278
00:57:58.079 --> 00:58:00.659
Oh, it was something that theoretically existed at the beginning

1279
00:58:00.659 --> 00:58:02.280
of the universe and is highly unstable.

1280
00:58:02.340 --> 00:58:03.360
What's a crronon?

1281
00:58:03.420 --> 00:58:04.679
Oh, it's a discrete particle of time.

1282
00:58:04.739 --> 00:58:06.179
You know what I mean?

1283
00:58:06.239 --> 00:58:08.280
It's very 60s educative, Doctor Who.

1284
00:58:08.340 --> 00:58:09.119
Exactly right.

1285
00:58:09.179 --> 00:58:10.619
I think that's exactly right.

1286
00:58:10.679 --> 00:58:12.239
And they do it in all of their stories.

1287
00:58:12.300 --> 00:58:13.139
Yeah.

1288
00:58:13.199 --> 00:58:17.639
Yeah, that's how I know what Vionesium is. something they made

1289
00:58:17.639 --> 00:58:17.880
up.

1290
00:58:17.940 --> 00:58:18.960
That's the thing.

1291
00:58:19.019 --> 00:58:21.239
I think in terms of scientific instruction.

1292
00:58:21.300 --> 00:58:25.199
This is way below Mark of the Rani but way ahead of the megabyte

1293
00:58:25.199 --> 00:58:25.559
modem.

1294
00:58:27.360 --> 00:58:29.099
Oh, but...

1295
00:58:29.099 --> 00:58:32.219
I know we said it several times before, but isn't Doctor Who fun

1296
00:58:32.219 --> 00:58:32.579
again?

1297
00:58:33.480 --> 00:58:36.179
Hope the podcast is...

1298
00:58:52.260 --> 00:58:56.340
Dear listeners, we're taking off for the pink skies of Lecertia

1299
00:58:56.340 --> 00:59:00.000
and I feel like a dip, so do come back for Paradise Towers next

1300
00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:00.480
week.

1301
00:59:00.539 --> 00:59:03.360
Until then, you can find us online at flightthroughentirety.sexy.

1302
00:59:03.420 --> 00:59:07.500
Flight through entirety on Facebook and Apple Podcasts and FTE

1303
00:59:07.500 --> 00:59:08.460
podcast on Twitter.

1304
00:59:08.519 --> 00:59:10.139
Over on Bondfinger.

1305
00:59:10.199 --> 00:59:14.400
We are currently enjoying the Pierce Brosnan era of the program.

1306
00:59:14.639 --> 00:59:19.500
Much as you can enjoy reusing a teabag. squeezed it out

1307
00:59:19.500 --> 00:59:20.280
sufficiently.

1308
00:59:20.340 --> 00:59:23.699
That's at bottomfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and Apple

1309
00:59:23.699 --> 00:59:26.519
Podcasts and at FTE podcast on Twitter.

1310
00:59:26.579 --> 00:59:27.360
Tbagging.

1311
00:59:27.420 --> 00:59:27.840
There you go.

1312
00:59:28.980 --> 00:59:36.360
So, um, we are now nominating for our Peter Davison commentary.

1313
00:59:36.420 --> 00:59:38.400
Todd has nominated 4 to Doomsday.

1314
00:59:38.460 --> 00:59:40.079
I have nominated Arc of Infinity.

1315
00:59:40.139 --> 00:59:43.800
Richard has nominated Enlightenment, and Nathan has nominated

1316
00:59:43.800 --> 00:59:46.619
Resurrection of the Daleks, which just a reminder, D-listener, he

1317
00:59:46.619 --> 00:59:47.039
hates.

1318
00:59:47.099 --> 00:59:51.840
So you can find the poll for that in our show notes and we will be

1319
00:59:51.840 --> 00:59:53.519
posting that elsewhere as well.

1320
00:59:53.579 --> 00:59:57.480
Until next week, may all your lightheartgles be lightweight

1321
00:59:57.480 --> 00:59:58.139
substitutes.

1322
00:59:58.199 --> 00:59:59.519
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

1323
00:59:59.579 --> 01:00:00.360
Good night.

1324
01:00:00.420 --> 01:00:01.679
Thank you for bearing with us.

1325
01:00:01.860 --> 01:00:02.280
Good night.

1326
01:00:18.480 --> 01:00:22.199
That was Flight Through Entirety with Nathan Bottomley, Brendan

1327
01:00:22.199 --> 01:00:23.280
Jones, and Richard Stone.

1328
01:00:23.340 --> 01:00:26.340
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, logo designed by Anthony

1329
01:00:26.340 --> 01:00:27.059
Wells.

1330
01:00:27.119 --> 01:00:30.599
This episode, terrified of Tinsel, was recorded on the 12th of

1331
01:00:30.599 --> 01:00:31.440
June 2017.

1332
01:00:31.619 --> 01:00:34.679
The next episode will be released on the 2nd of July.

1333
01:00:40.739 --> 01:00:44.340
Do come back next week when Richard Briars will impersonate Mel

1334
01:00:44.340 --> 01:00:48.059
using only a goat, a prize-winning marrow, and Felicity Kendall's

1335
01:00:48.059 --> 01:00:48.719
last Boshrock.

1336
01:00:55.260 --> 01:00:59.579
It's kind of doing things that Doctor Who hasn't really done

1337
01:00:59.579 --> 01:00:59.880
before.

1338
01:00:59.940 --> 01:01:03.780
The closest we've got to Mel impersonating the Rani is a couple of

1339
01:01:03.780 --> 01:01:05.099
robot Doctor Who's in the past.

1340
01:01:05.219 --> 01:01:07.860
You just said male impersonating Rani.

1341
01:01:07.920 --> 01:01:08.159
Thank you.

1342
01:01:08.219 --> 01:01:09.300
Works both ways.