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NOTE
This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 13:52:59

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Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast whose performative thickness is defined by auxiliary semiotic codes.

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I'm Brendan.

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I'm Nathan.

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And I'll be arguing that the semiotic thickness of a performed text does not, in fact, vary according to the redundancy of auxiliary performance codes.

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All that and more to look forward to in Dragonfire.

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Aren't you glad you're tuned in?

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So, um, yeah, we come to the story which for ages was lauded as the good one this season where everything else was crap, and we we have the return of a few things.

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We have the return of Dominic Glynn doing the music.

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Music is spectacular.

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Didn't hurt.

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And we also have the return of Tony Selby as Sabalong Glitz, but sadly not Glenn Murthy as Dibber.

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We have Patricia Queen.

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Oh my god.

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And I'm looking sober.

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Who doesn't do it with his Yorkshire accent?

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Do you know how space he is?

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He's not just your white skin tight onesies and Eurasters.

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He was in the last Charles Crichton journey into space series of the late 70s, early 80s playing an astronaut.

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Playing it straight.

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And he's also in Kill the Moon, playing an astronaut.

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I've seen his bum.

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Really?

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Yes.

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Well, not quite his full bum, but he's, I'll tell you what, it's worth voting for. sign, but I wouldn't mind doing 45 minutes on that one.

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I was going to say, can I touch you?

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Because I think he's really handsome.

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And he's very funny.

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But in Journey to Space, which is again, you know, the thing that we talked about in Billy's era, I really won't spend a lot of time on this.

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It was the last radio show to ever beat TV in the ratings.

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But yeah, this has got a stellar cast of it's got Edward Peel.

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It's got Edward Peel, who wasn't going to be in it.

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It was, you know, Peter Jeffreys was actually up.

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I don't know if he ever got there, but you know, those sorts.

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Can you imagine Karl Grendel in this?

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He would have been.

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But it was very much in the line.

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Do you remember who else was going to be up for this?

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Was it Beryl Reed?

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I wish it had been.

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Imagine Beryl Reed's face melting off in the final episode.

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Oh, we need to talk about it.

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How would you tell?

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Do you know that there was a little bit of chat?

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Oh no, you can't.

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It's 2 Raiders of the Lost Duck.

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Ronald Lacy was actually approached to play the part, who, in fact, played the melting Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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And that cost, that one effect on Raiders of the Lost Ark cost the entire William Hartnell era's budget in 1980, 81.

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Really did.

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They did this with wax and an adipose-inflatable lady person that you can buy in shops where you can't tell your mum you've been.

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Yeah, and that seriously is how they did it.

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And I think it looks extraordinary.

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Looks amazing.

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That moment with his face melting, I've mentioned this before in stones of blood.

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So Stones of Blood where Romana falls off the cliff was one of the moments as a kid that I couldn't stay in the room.

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I had to run into the other room and sort of peek around the corner.

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And in high heels. managed that.

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The other moment was Kane's face melting.

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I found it so terrifying as a kid.

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I had to sort of peek around the corner, not being quite able to see the screen, but I could see the white out moment and that's when I could come back in.

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It's so amazing because they screened it here like before 6 p.m. on the ABC.

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Yeah.

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I think it comes back to something I was saying a couple of weeks ago in that Doctor Who is pushing the envelope because they're like, no one's paying attention.

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Exactly it.

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It's like the 1st season of Rove when he was on Channel 9 doing ridiculous comedy sketches about the mysterious Tonya Todman sightings and things like that.

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Oh, you know, because he's like nobody's watching anyway.

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And sure enough, he got cancelled and Channel 10 picked him up.

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Did you know that Tonya Toldman did see herself as Australia's own Martha Stewart for anyone listening?

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Oh, yeah.

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She doesn't know who she is.

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That's who she was.

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She was doing crafty things.

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Anna Theresa May Helmet Monoidwig, which was in fact her own hair.

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She was a little bit motherly and nice.

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So it's no wonder that she died in a flaming inferno of her own egotism, just right as well.

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And I can't stand those people, can you?

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And as for Tonya Todman.

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Well, she was later cast as the dragon in this, wasn't she?

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I think that this is the least successful story of the season.

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And yet, yeah, I wonder why it is that this had the reputation of being the good one.

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I think it's because unlike the other 3 stories, there is a consistency of tone to script to design to performance.

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Even with Delta last week, I praised the fact that you have a really mean mercenary force coming into this jolly story and everything's destroyed by the power of love, not in a new series kind of way of someone remembering someone they really love and that power destroys them.

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Like, no, love brings these people together and they do fight them.

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But here, I think it is a lot more coherent and consistent.

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The problem then is that watching it down the years, and at this point, Doctor Who was being made for the video generation, it was being made to be watched more than once.

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You know, you can look at the 1st 3 stories of this season and peel it back and look at the different layers, like you've discussed, Richard, with the postmodernism of it.

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Whereas Dragonfire.

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I don't think is bad by any means, but I think there's less to peel back and less to discover.

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It wears it a lot closer to the surface.

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It seems a bit inessential.

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I mean, I think there are great things in it.

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I like the having a little adventure in the corridors and being back in time for tea.

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I think that's charming and that, um, that's the keys of marinace.

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Ice world episode.

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You're barely back in time for dinner next Wednesday, I think, in that one.

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It goes forever.

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But this, it has enough incident to fill out 3 episodes and we haven't talked about the new 3 episode stories, which is yet another thing that the show hasn't done. planet of and Giants.

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That's exactly right.

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And even then, that wasn't deliberate.

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That was Verity Lambert saying these last 2 episodes are terrible.

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So it's a really, really good length for a Doctor Who story, I think.

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And why didn't they think of doing it before?

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You know, just do 4 episode things because that's what we've always done.

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I think that's charming.

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I think the stuff about the seduction of Ace, you know, the way that you lose your free will when you follow Kane and the scene with the sovereign, which...

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Yeah, yeah, the market.

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Which, um, is so beautifully sold by Dominic Glynn's music.

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I think that's terrific.

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I'm so relieved he's on this one.

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Yeah, and I think also, the camera just stays on Sophie Eldred, and the sound mixing is amazing because the sounds in the background kind of get diminished, and we've just have Kane's voice with a very slight echo on it, and with Mel screaming to Ace, it's actually really quiet in the mix.

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And then you're just pretty much on Sophie's face for about 30 seconds.

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And she's playing it all behind the eyes.

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You know, Sophie Eldred hits the ground running as ace.

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What an extraordinary up and tumble to the present time.

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She's so contemporary.

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Well, it is that thing where, um, where they've created a story, and I don't know if this was originally intentional, but I guess the reason the story can get away with being so inessential is that its main job is to introduce Ace, you know, in the way that the rescue was designed to introduce Vicky.

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And so...

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I was going to say Dodo.

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That little trip to Wimbledon Common was designed to introduce Dodo.

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But and so I guess that works, doesn't it?

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We get to see what she's like.

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We get some time for her to interact with Mel so that we learn things about her, that the doctor doesn't even know.

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And also, her scenes with Mel bring out more character from Bonnie Langford as well as this sorororal maternal figure 4 ace. you know, and because we know so little about Mel anyway, it kind of falls a bit short, but I love their scenes together.

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I do too.

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Yeah, I love that bookending of Colin to Sylvester's regeneration when she deliberately bumps ahead without actually touching the raven cameras right on it, showing you.

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She never really did in the 1st place.

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And we get that, you know, that bit where she talks about the time storm whipping her up, and it's complete nonsense and it's going to be recon later as part of a story arc, spoiler alert.

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Well, it's not complete nonsense, is it?

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Because her name's Dorothy.

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She gets carried away to a magical land by a storm.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And that's only the beginning of the filmic references.

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But that's the thing.

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Her conversation with Mel, because it's too new friends talking, they make it seem like it's it's just normal for them to be talking about these kind of things.

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And you get Ace's speech about how she's always felt like an outsider and she felt like she was from space and somewhere her real parents were because she hates her mum and dad and then sort of admits to Mel that her real name is Dorothy.

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And it's this moment of...

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I've never told anyone, including the teachers at school or...

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My sister.

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As bo people.

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I mean, it makes no sense.

140
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But it's this moment of vulnerability and Mel to her great credit, you know, she thinks it's going to be this amazing secret and Mel doesn't laugh in her face or anything.

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And Ace just quickly turns it into a joke.

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Oh, you know, I knew they couldn't be my real mum and dad.

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It's just this really sweet moment of character development and we haven't had character development like this since episode one of Planet of Fire, for God's sake.

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This is true, actually.

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Oh, look what they did with Nicola, yeah, with Perry, I should say.

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But all those scenes together of Bonnie and Sophie are just gold, in my opinion.

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Big finish have obviously thought the same because now they've paired them up together.

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And I've just been listening to those as well.

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There's about 4 stories now, the TARDIS rescues Mel from the Nosferatu 3.

150
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There's so many filmic references.

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I think this is where you're saying this isn't the greatest story of the season.

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I possibly agree with you.

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It should have been fan culture will tell you at the time we thought it was.

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We definitely all did because we were students and it references everything visually and name checking.

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All the guards, everyone who works there are either in film criticism or are filmmakers.

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The ice worlds itself.

157
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Can we just have a little moment?

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Charger glasses, do listeners.

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But most of the names they've checked, certainly the German names, and the Russian names, Pudofkin, of course, and it was the other one.

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Siegfried Krakawa was, in fact, a German expressionist film.

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And he also wrote from Kalagari to Hitler, which is, you know, pretty much modern politics, but it also, well, yeah, it's also considered the best book on that period of interwar German cinema, which we're now calling German expressionism because Nathan keeps giving us looks if we use the term German expressionism.

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Yeah, but this is the problem.

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They do name check these things.

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You've got the ice world, which is, you know, with the caves of crystals and all the rest, which is actually kind of, again, citing the films of that era, German cinema at the time made a lot of films about mountains.

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Lini Reefenstyle started climbing up mountains.

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It was a big thing.

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I stuff.

168
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So a lot of early film criticism talks about outdoor filming nice things.

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There's all these...

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Oh my god, the levels of this stuff.

171
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But does it help?

172
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I don't think it does.

173
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I don't think it makes any of it stronger or wealthier.

174
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It's cute.

175
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Do you know what I mean?

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Like the person that Ace works for in the cafeteria is Eisenstein, I think, you know.

177
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Oh, he was going to be Anderson.

178
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Oh, he's Anderson, but he was actually written as Eisenstein.

179
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And in the novelette, he's still Eisenstein.

180
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Yeah, rather than Sylvia Anderson.

181
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But it is all sort of slightly like it's a bit of a veneer, you know?

182
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Yeah, very much so.

183
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They do reference with an aerial.

184
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They reference aliens, you know, way so much with the ant monster.

185
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Although I do like the way the little pig cracks open, just like a Kinder surprise.

186
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It's like a fluffy sort of plush alien, isn't it?

187
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They're sort of happy toys animal.

188
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Yeah, yeah.

189
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I loved the alien as a kid, though.

190
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And I think...

191
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I have to see him trying to tie up his shoelaces.

192
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You know, we questioned during our live tweet, what is the purpose of Stellar and her mother in the story?

193
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And they have 2 purposes.

194
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One is for the kid to be saved by the aliens, so we can see that the alien is not an evil creature.

195
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Just like Newton.

196
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Just like Newt?

197
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Yeah, yeah.

198
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And the other is for the closing shop.

199
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You know, it's a child looking up and seeing the TARDIS disappearing, which is cute, but it's it's a veneer, as you say.

200
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It doesn't quite work as well because the child is so terrible.

201
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But I thought she was a lampoon of all those child booty contests. and talent content.

202
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She sort of jumping a Ramsay in space.

203
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Quite possibly.

204
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I mean, her mother is the female camper who gets killed by the ogre in stone's blood.

205
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Justly.

206
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Yeah, and no, I get what you're saying about the veneer because it's kind of like, okay, we have these characters named after films and directors.

207
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So what?

208
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Yeah, it kind of is.

209
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So what?

210
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Because it doesn't lend itself to anything.

211
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It's just a nod and a tick.

212
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And you feel horribly clever at 18.

213
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No, 19 knowing any of this.

214
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Well, even the quote from the unfolding text, which you have around here, which, somewhere, the doctor, look out.

215
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The doctor has that conversation with the guard.

216
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And most of it is nonsensical.

217
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The whole thing doesn't make sense as a conversation about anything.

218
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It's flinging a whole bunch of sort of 1st year philosophy concepts and bringing them up and trying to make a conversation, but it doesn't really actually work.

219
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. you know, we liked hearing it name checked at the time.

220
00:16:01.679 --> 00:16:05.279
And then he comes out with that quote from the unfolding text.

221
00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:13.320
And it's a great comedy moment because of Sylvester's reaction, but it doesn't really go anywhere.

222
00:16:13.379 --> 00:16:16.980
The story itself isn't about any of that sort of thing.

223
00:16:17.039 --> 00:16:20.399
And, you know, there are other references.

224
00:16:20.460 --> 00:16:23.159
I mean, Peel is clearly Dracula.

225
00:16:23.220 --> 00:16:31.440
You know, he sleeps in a coffin behind an arrangement of ice crystals on the wall that look like a pipe organ, you know.

226
00:16:31.500 --> 00:16:38.879
The placement of the little girl is, again, Boris Kyloff, James Wales, Frankenstein when he meets the little girl in the in the woods.

227
00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:46.320
Yeah, so those things are nice, but it's hard to say that they even give the story any extra texture even.

228
00:16:46.379 --> 00:16:56.580
But that's because thinness of the polemics of postmodern theory is that everything's intertextualized and self-referential within and outside of itself.

229
00:16:56.639 --> 00:17:00.120
Maybe they're just redundant auxiliary performance codes.

230
00:17:00.179 --> 00:17:14.339
Well, if you talk about semiotic thickness, that's what you got in city of death, city of and death, which, you know, all of those things with Catherine Skell, you know, for example, when she appears, Dudley Simpson puts little riffs of the pink panther themes.

231
00:17:15.180 --> 00:17:18.240
Yeah, she was one of Clouseau's girls in the Pink Panther film.

232
00:17:18.299 --> 00:17:25.079
So there's all of that kind of thing or the bond villain, no one takes seriously threatening the doctor and it's so good.

233
00:17:25.140 --> 00:17:26.700
Can we do City City City?

234
00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:28.079
Just let's just sit into it. again.

235
00:17:28.140 --> 00:17:28.799
Let's just do it now.

236
00:17:28.859 --> 00:17:29.700
Well, we kind of are.

237
00:17:29.759 --> 00:17:37.920
Because that's probably the closest story in Doctor Who law to this one as far as textualizing.

238
00:17:38.099 --> 00:17:45.660
I just think maybe City of Death does it better because it's probably a more competent or well-rounded writer at the pen.

239
00:17:45.720 --> 00:17:47.940
And it's genuinely about that.

240
00:17:48.059 --> 00:17:56.099
I mean, it is about mass producing the Mona Lisa and the idea...

241
00:17:56.160 --> 00:17:58.559
Yeah, art to scarcity and all of that sort of stuff.

242
00:17:58.619 --> 00:18:01.799
And so there really is something terribly clever going on.

243
00:18:01.859 --> 00:18:07.380
Whereas Zana's sculptures, that's a little bit, I would have melted him before that.

244
00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:10.799
I wouldn't put her in a top shop window. would you?

245
00:18:11.160 --> 00:18:13.799
No, and so like, no.

246
00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:18.900
And so there's a sort of thinness to that whole thing.

247
00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:30.000
And just the discovery that really everything interesting happened 1000s of years ago, much like, yes, the film theoreticians that they're pulling up, yeah.

248
00:18:30.059 --> 00:18:38.339
I'm just not convinced that Edward Peel hasn't kind of looked out the window or checked a telescope to see whether there is planet still there or not.

249
00:18:38.400 --> 00:18:38.940
You know?

250
00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:42.299
Oh, yeah, we can touch on. the fairy tale nature of it, isn't it?

251
00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:43.019
suppose.

252
00:18:43.079 --> 00:18:50.099
Well, sometimes when it's one or 2 days before payday, I don't want to check my bank balance.

253
00:18:50.160 --> 00:18:52.859
I don't want to look at what I've spent.

254
00:18:52.920 --> 00:18:55.079
Or watch an Edward Peele performance.

255
00:18:55.140 --> 00:18:57.420
It's kind, it's kind of a...

256
00:18:57.480 --> 00:19:02.880
I think it's kind of a Schrodinger thing that he's so obsessed with getting home and having his revenge.

257
00:19:02.940 --> 00:19:04.019
That's all he focusses on.

258
00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:05.460
So he never stops to think.

259
00:19:05.519 --> 00:19:06.960
What if there's more?

260
00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:10.619
And I think... is that all there is?

261
00:19:10.680 --> 00:19:19.500
And that actually ties in with the conversation that the doctor has with the guard that you were just talking about, because the doctor talks to him about, basically, do you believe in God?

262
00:19:19.500 --> 00:19:23.460
And the guard's response is, well, no, I believe in what's here and now right in front of me.

263
00:19:23.579 --> 00:19:31.259
But I also think that you can dream of whatever could be and it can come into being.

264
00:19:31.319 --> 00:19:35.400
And that kind of triggers then the quote from the unfolding text.

265
00:19:35.460 --> 00:19:48.059
But the payoff for that scene, isn't Glitz a spaceship, where they're talking about the nature of Bellage and her service to Kane and whether she is her own person or not.

266
00:19:48.119 --> 00:19:53.400
And it starts off with a joke, which is her saying to doctor, what are you doing here?

267
00:19:53.460 --> 00:19:55.920
And he says, why is everyone so obsessed with metaphysics?

268
00:19:56.519 --> 00:19:58.500
Which is brilliant.

269
00:19:58.559 --> 00:20:00.480
But then there's that beautiful moment.

270
00:20:00.539 --> 00:20:08.039
You know how pertly used to get to have his moment of charm wants a story where he's very sweet and consoling. era.

271
00:20:08.400 --> 00:20:11.519
He's very sweet and consoling to someone.

272
00:20:11.579 --> 00:20:20.160
Silv gets to have his moment of sadness when he says to Bellage, I don't think you'll ever pay off your debt to Kane ever.

273
00:20:20.220 --> 00:20:21.599
And the way he looks at her.

274
00:20:22.740 --> 00:20:29.700
And, you know, you don't then see Bellage let them go, you don't see her leave the ship, but all of a sudden, she's somewhere and there somewhere.

275
00:20:29.700 --> 00:20:32.940
And yeah, she's just gone, okay, I'm not going to try and steal this.

276
00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:34.140
I have to go face my fear.

277
00:20:34.200 --> 00:20:38.460
And she's a future possible version of Ace, obviously.

278
00:20:38.519 --> 00:20:40.980
Very much what's at stake, isn't it?

279
00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:42.660
And the way...

280
00:20:42.660 --> 00:20:43.920
Colin Baker Freightwig.

281
00:20:44.339 --> 00:20:52.500
But the way that Edward Peel appeals to ace...

282
00:20:52.619 --> 00:20:53.519
I saw what you did there.

283
00:20:53.579 --> 00:20:54.660
Yeah, sorry about that.

284
00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:55.859
I was trying to avoid it.

285
00:20:56.519 --> 00:21:04.140
Appeals to Ace is the same way that the doctor later appeals to Ace, is very much so.

286
00:21:04.200 --> 00:21:06.839
You know, it's the Florana speech, isn't it?

287
00:21:06.900 --> 00:21:07.799
Yeah.

288
00:21:07.859 --> 00:21:11.819
Oh, actually, I was thinking ahead to the Fenrick. yes, you're right.

289
00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:13.259
The Anne Fenrick, yeah.

290
00:21:13.319 --> 00:21:16.079
Yeah, it's all those things that I'm going to show you.

291
00:21:16.140 --> 00:21:20.700
I can show you the universe and that's exactly what Kane says to Ace.

292
00:21:20.819 --> 00:21:23.700
Look what happened to Paul Sarah Jane.

293
00:21:23.759 --> 00:21:27.720
Just stuck on another mud quarry with a whole lot of rubber arrows.

294
00:21:27.720 --> 00:21:29.519
At her person.

295
00:21:29.940 --> 00:21:33.299
I think the big difference between those speeches though.

296
00:21:33.359 --> 00:21:39.960
And it's just, it's the line that rings in my head from when Kane is trying. it is a seduction scene.

297
00:21:40.019 --> 00:21:44.759
He's trying to seduce as and take advantage of her, is, I understand you.

298
00:21:45.240 --> 00:21:54.480
Because, you know, Ace is set up as his character who, much like many of us when we were teenagers, we feel no one understands us and no one has our back.

299
00:21:54.779 --> 00:22:00.900
So for him to say that to Ace, he is saying exactly what she wants to hear.

300
00:22:00.900 --> 00:22:06.720
Whereas when the doctor does it, all he's saying to her is, hey, do you want to have an adventure before you go home?

301
00:22:06.779 --> 00:22:17.940
He doesn't kind of say, oh, you should come with me because X, Y, Z, because I understand you because it's because that, because he doesn't have to because they have built this friendship tentatively.

302
00:22:17.940 --> 00:22:22.140
And, you know, he gives her 3 rules, which is basically just, do what I say.

303
00:22:22.200 --> 00:22:23.460
My name's the doctor.

304
00:22:23.519 --> 00:22:26.039
And what the hell, we'll figure out the 3rd rule later.

305
00:22:26.099 --> 00:22:32.160
You know, he's fun and he's quirky wearers, whereas Kane, he's sleazy.

306
00:22:32.819 --> 00:22:37.559
His modernist cinema is averse to postmodern media, which the doctor is.

307
00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:40.319
And, you know, that's why he's frozen.

308
00:22:40.440 --> 00:22:41.700
He's so still.

309
00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:55.619
And that's why all the critics and all the writers and sorry, all the filmmakers they were speaking of before belonged to the past eras of constructive cinema or indeed subjective or indeed structuralist thinking, which is what's being cited.

310
00:22:55.680 --> 00:22:59.460
When I'm not going to let these auxiliary redundant codes go, you know.

311
00:22:59.519 --> 00:23:04.680
You're going to worry these things like a huge piece of uncued ham, Don Henderson.

312
00:23:04.740 --> 00:23:05.099
I am.

313
00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:09.059
And time has flown by without them.

314
00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:11.039
And this is the beautiful thing.

315
00:23:11.099 --> 00:23:22.680
And so that makes sense of Nathan's exact point, which is how can he have sat in isolation and not noticed that his world is blown up, or indeed that a supernova cannot take 1000000s of years, but actually just a thousand.

316
00:23:22.740 --> 00:23:25.980
But, you know, between, if it blew up a 1000 years ago.

317
00:23:26.039 --> 00:23:27.180
Yes, souls.

318
00:23:27.240 --> 00:23:34.259
But that's the point because he lives in a sub-zero shopping mall.

319
00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:35.039
Yeah.

320
00:23:35.039 --> 00:23:36.779
He has all this power.

321
00:23:37.740 --> 00:23:41.700
All this power, all this ability, this frozen ice world that could be anything.

322
00:23:41.759 --> 00:23:44.519
He makes a frozen supermarket.

323
00:23:44.519 --> 00:23:46.619
Why?

324
00:23:46.680 --> 00:23:47.640
Why?

325
00:23:47.700 --> 00:23:54.359
Because it's ordinary and it's drossy and it's, again, the Paradise Towers thing and it's a bit pants and that kind of works as well.

326
00:23:54.420 --> 00:23:57.480
And it really does look crap, does it?

327
00:23:57.720 --> 00:24:03.539
Do you think it's a relic of what we talked about last week, how this was going to be the comedy one?

328
00:24:03.660 --> 00:24:12.180
And so Ice World is, again, another sort of comic conception of what a science fiction world is like.

329
00:24:12.240 --> 00:24:14.759
It's not a refuelling centre.

330
00:24:14.819 --> 00:24:16.680
It's not a space refinery.

331
00:24:16.740 --> 00:24:19.559
It's a shopping centre.

332
00:24:19.619 --> 00:24:23.160
And there's something fun about that.

333
00:24:23.279 --> 00:24:29.220
Like the scene in the cafe where, like we're just in a cafe with people, that's really funny.

334
00:24:29.279 --> 00:24:33.599
Sylvester goes to pat that, whatever the hell it is and it goes to Barton.

335
00:24:33.660 --> 00:24:34.259
I love that.

336
00:24:34.259 --> 00:24:34.799
Remember that?

337
00:24:35.339 --> 00:24:37.140
was still throwing that in, you know. really great.

338
00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:38.819
It's really funny.

339
00:24:38.880 --> 00:24:42.779
You know, the ice cream on the head, throwing the milkshake on the head is fun.

340
00:24:42.839 --> 00:24:47.759
That woman that we talked about. feeler and doing that Visconti, it still wouldn't have come off.

341
00:24:47.759 --> 00:25:05.880
But the wonderful woman that we talked about last week who plays the Tannoi voice. voice over the PA with her increasingly plaintive attempts to persuade someone from maintenance to go upstairs and clean the ice out of the docking bay and stuff.

342
00:25:05.940 --> 00:25:14.700
Like all of that stuff, I think, is really funny and light, and it does create, it creates an interesting world of a kind that we haven't seen in Doctor Who before.

343
00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:27.180
And it also picks up on that thing you mentioned a few weeks ago, Richard, with Paradise Towers, in that it takes something normal and subverts it with essentially a Nazi war criminal living underneath.

344
00:25:27.180 --> 00:25:42.000
Because, because, okay, the 1st conception of this story was called Absolute Zero, which was about a 14-year-old financial genius and his sidekick, Mr. Spewey, who were in this ice pyramid in space trying to find a treasure.

345
00:25:42.059 --> 00:25:45.900
And Andrew Cartmel said, well, actually, um...

346
00:25:45.960 --> 00:25:48.839
Well, Delta and the Bannerman is being a bit more comedic.

347
00:25:48.900 --> 00:25:49.740
Can you be a bit more serious?

348
00:25:49.799 --> 00:25:59.099
So Ian Briggs pretty much wrote Dragonfire as we see it now, but with the character of Hess as the villain.

349
00:25:59.160 --> 00:26:04.319
And of course, at that time, the Nazi war criminal Hesse was petitioning for release.

350
00:26:04.380 --> 00:26:07.019
And so he changed the name to Kane.

351
00:26:07.079 --> 00:26:19.559
But yeah, so Kane is definitely, he is a Nazi war criminal and he's presented as someone who killed 1000s of people, I believe, along with Zana in his gang and was exiled because of that.

352
00:26:19.619 --> 00:26:24.059
They really have escaped from season 3 of Blake 7, haven't they?

353
00:26:24.119 --> 00:26:25.799
Five times.

354
00:26:25.980 --> 00:26:30.059
I like that their little hats are upturned vanilla ice cream buckets.

355
00:26:30.119 --> 00:26:31.500
Yes, that is nice.

356
00:26:31.559 --> 00:26:32.339
Okay, she missed, yes.

357
00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:33.779
With a little frosty.

358
00:26:33.839 --> 00:26:36.119
Yes, yes, just sell the Nazi walk.

359
00:26:36.180 --> 00:26:36.900
Yes, och.

360
00:26:37.559 --> 00:26:39.960
This is my point about casting.

361
00:26:40.019 --> 00:26:42.539
I don't think I think the wallet sit down is actually Edward Peele.

362
00:26:42.599 --> 00:26:43.500
He underplays it all.

363
00:26:43.559 --> 00:26:48.779
If they'd cast Miriam Martin, surely pretty much had the art, Peters aren't white.

364
00:26:48.839 --> 00:26:51.599
But, you know, just something maybe a woman.

365
00:26:51.660 --> 00:26:54.900
Maybe actually make it a little bit, you know, a little bit lady loving.

366
00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:56.339
I think it would have been quite interesting.

367
00:26:56.400 --> 00:26:59.460
I actually quite like him because he underplays.

368
00:26:59.519 --> 00:26:59.880
Really?

369
00:26:59.880 --> 00:27:01.619
I would have liked Patricia Quinn in the park.

370
00:27:01.680 --> 00:27:03.180
That would have liked them reversed.

371
00:27:03.299 --> 00:27:03.720
Yeah.

372
00:27:03.720 --> 00:27:08.339
There's one moment where I really don't like him and that's in the reprise of the episode 2 Cliffhanger.

373
00:27:08.339 --> 00:27:13.740
No, because the scene continues on after the episode 2 Cliffhanger.

374
00:27:13.799 --> 00:27:16.619
So they shoot a version for the Cliffhanger and they shoot a version for the episode.

375
00:27:16.680 --> 00:27:21.539
And for the episode 31, he turns down the camera and says, the dragon fire will be mine.

376
00:27:21.539 --> 00:27:23.220
And he actually looks really pleased.

377
00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:24.180
He looks really chuffed.

378
00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:26.460
I was like, no, don't look, don't look happy.

379
00:27:26.519 --> 00:27:26.940
You're evil.

380
00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:32.579
I have to ask how much of the original comedy script, which was written as a comedy is still in there.

381
00:27:32.640 --> 00:27:34.200
I suspect that was one of the moments.

382
00:27:34.259 --> 00:27:43.619
I actually like that cliffhanger to episode two, though, because I'm not a big fan of the just peril.

383
00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:46.680
Are we talking about silve climbing over the railing for no good reason?

384
00:27:46.740 --> 00:27:48.180
That's episode one.

385
00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:49.440
We haven't touched on that, have we?

386
00:27:49.500 --> 00:27:50.579
Good reason.

387
00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:51.599
Yeah, no, it's terrible.

388
00:27:51.660 --> 00:27:52.920
I just don't understand it.

389
00:27:52.980 --> 00:27:55.259
Ian Briggs was the right pratt at all the conventions.

390
00:27:55.319 --> 00:27:55.859
Do you remember?

391
00:27:55.920 --> 00:27:57.480
He was asked this for something like 10.

392
00:27:57.720 --> 00:27:58.980
Go read the novel.

393
00:27:59.039 --> 00:28:00.960
Yeah, it's like, why?

394
00:28:02.819 --> 00:28:07.980
I think he was a bit annoyed because in the script, the doctor is meant to come to a dead end.

395
00:28:08.039 --> 00:28:10.559
So it's like, oh, no point in going back.

396
00:28:10.619 --> 00:28:11.279
I'll go over.

397
00:28:11.339 --> 00:28:12.960
Yeah, no, the map shows.

398
00:28:13.019 --> 00:28:14.579
Yeah, the way it shot.

399
00:28:14.579 --> 00:28:16.559
There's a big thing.

400
00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:17.579
The left or right?

401
00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:18.359
Yeah, yeah.

402
00:28:18.420 --> 00:28:18.839
Yeah.

403
00:28:18.900 --> 00:28:20.700
No, it's just poorly directed.

404
00:28:20.819 --> 00:28:24.059
But it's also a bit of Harold Lloyd silent era comedy.

405
00:28:24.180 --> 00:28:24.720
Yeah.

406
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:26.640
Proper Harold Lloyd Buster Keaton stuff.

407
00:28:26.700 --> 00:28:30.000
And it is supposed to be a joke, isn't it, on the word cliffhanger?

408
00:28:30.059 --> 00:28:32.039
Like, it's supposed to literally...

409
00:28:32.099 --> 00:28:34.440
Yeah, that's certainly how it was publicised.

410
00:28:34.500 --> 00:28:36.660
And it isn't well directed.

411
00:28:36.720 --> 00:28:37.859
Like there are 2 shots.

412
00:28:37.859 --> 00:28:39.000
Yeah, cut too early.

413
00:28:39.059 --> 00:28:40.680
Like, Sylvester, Chris Clough.

414
00:28:40.740 --> 00:28:43.259
Well, he did a great job on the location stuff last week.

415
00:28:43.319 --> 00:28:43.980
Yeah, of course.

416
00:28:44.039 --> 00:28:48.180
I think he's a much better location director as many are, and we've seen before.

417
00:28:48.240 --> 00:28:50.400
Some directors are good in sight.

418
00:28:50.460 --> 00:28:53.039
Some are good when they're let outside to play.

419
00:28:53.099 --> 00:28:54.539
I think we can see the difference here.

420
00:28:54.599 --> 00:28:55.440
Yeah.

421
00:28:55.440 --> 00:28:59.640
I quite like the ice cave set design.

422
00:28:59.759 --> 00:29:01.740
It's not bad for the money, is it?

423
00:29:01.799 --> 00:29:07.440
Yeah, and of course, again, it's exactly how they did 20 cinema.

424
00:29:07.500 --> 00:29:08.160
It is.

425
00:29:08.220 --> 00:29:08.819
Yeah, yeah.

426
00:29:08.880 --> 00:29:09.599
I'll show you pictures.

427
00:29:09.660 --> 00:29:11.160
It's because it's done with conviction.

428
00:29:11.220 --> 00:29:15.539
Instead of, you know, just giving us the brown corridors of varrel.

429
00:29:15.599 --> 00:29:20.160
Oh, and must we go down another of your brown...

430
00:29:20.339 --> 00:29:24.240
Or the palate crates of turbinus, you know?

431
00:29:24.299 --> 00:29:29.279
But it's also an early indication of how in tune with each other.

432
00:29:29.339 --> 00:29:35.640
Sylvester and Sophie are, because if you look at the scenes with Sylvester and Sophie together, they're the only 2 sliding on the ice.

433
00:29:35.700 --> 00:29:37.740
Bonnie and... putting any effort in.

434
00:29:37.799 --> 00:29:40.619
Yes, Donny and Tony just kind of clump around as normal.

435
00:29:40.680 --> 00:29:45.480
And the way Sophie tells it is, apparently, once they were on the set.

436
00:29:45.539 --> 00:29:49.799
So after rehearsals, Silv turned to everyone and said, hey, wouldn't it be great if we did this?

437
00:29:49.859 --> 00:29:51.660
And he and Sophie were the only ones who did.

438
00:29:51.720 --> 00:29:57.839
And so later told Sophie, you know, that's when I knew you and I were going to get on just fine.

439
00:29:58.319 --> 00:30:04.319
It is such a shame that Bonnie Langford decided she didn't want to stay on because they did offer her another year.

440
00:30:04.319 --> 00:30:12.059
Because, you know, JNT is a little bit similar to Stephen Moffatt in that way of if his actors are happy to stay on.

441
00:30:12.119 --> 00:30:13.619
He's happy to keep them on in most cases.

442
00:30:13.799 --> 00:30:17.519
Well, Bonnie was not only his 1st choice.

443
00:30:17.640 --> 00:30:18.779
He wrote the character.

444
00:30:18.839 --> 00:30:20.519
Yeah, that's right. for her.

445
00:30:20.579 --> 00:30:21.299
Yeah.

446
00:30:21.359 --> 00:30:31.740
But they also knew from a very early scripting stage that she probably wasn't going to stay on afterwards, which is why we get Ray.

447
00:30:33.240 --> 00:30:35.220
Yeah, and out.

448
00:30:35.940 --> 00:30:38.519
Ace's original name was Alf.

449
00:30:38.579 --> 00:30:41.400
Still to be still to be a female character, essentially the same.

450
00:30:41.400 --> 00:30:45.779
Because, yeah, Ian Briggs, I think, taught drama.

451
00:30:45.839 --> 00:30:52.380
As a sort of afternoon club for kids, and he based the character of Ace on these 3 girls.

452
00:30:53.339 --> 00:30:55.259
One of whom was it, apparently, a street child.

453
00:30:55.380 --> 00:30:59.640
I don't see how she can be living on the street and going to drama school, but anyway.

454
00:30:59.700 --> 00:31:01.740
I think it was sort of a community-based school.

455
00:31:01.799 --> 00:31:06.480
So occasionally there were kids who, okay, maybe they didn't pay their fees, but, yeah.

456
00:31:06.539 --> 00:31:07.740
But she's too posh for that.

457
00:31:07.799 --> 00:31:08.940
She's middle class.

458
00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:11.460
She's not playing at middle class.

459
00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:21.660
It is the grand Doctor Who tradition of an actress playing vastly younger and less posh.

460
00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:27.359
But, you know, I do have to wonder if that could be easily reckoned by, you know, we hear about her mum a lot in the show.

461
00:31:27.420 --> 00:31:28.500
We don't hear a lot about her dad.

462
00:31:28.559 --> 00:31:34.920
So if one was a bit posh and one was, you know, born in pair of vales, that could definitely explain it.

463
00:31:34.980 --> 00:31:36.960
That's what Dodo's excuse was.

464
00:31:37.319 --> 00:31:40.740
We're getting quite a bit of presaging of dodo.

465
00:31:40.859 --> 00:31:44.579
I think I think Dodo just had a cold and that changed her larynx or something, didn't it?

466
00:31:44.640 --> 00:31:46.380
No, the doctor told her to cut it out.

467
00:31:46.440 --> 00:31:47.579
That's right.

468
00:31:48.660 --> 00:31:50.819
Here's a book on diction.

469
00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:52.380
Sorry, I can give you the face with it.

470
00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:52.859
Yeah.

471
00:31:53.400 --> 00:32:00.480
She is possibly a bit too posh for the character as written, but aside from that, I think she plays it as well as humanly possible.

472
00:32:00.539 --> 00:32:04.200
She never quite convinces me as 16, but she does convince me as 18.

473
00:32:04.319 --> 00:32:07.319
There were over a 100 actresses going for this part.

474
00:32:07.380 --> 00:32:09.539
And they interviewed all of them.

475
00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:10.619
Yeah.

476
00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:13.859
So Doctor Who is still incredibly popular with the acting fraternity.

477
00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:14.460
Oh, yeah.

478
00:32:14.519 --> 00:32:17.640
And of course, the ratings have been going up since the beginning of the season.

479
00:32:17.700 --> 00:32:20.519
They're in the midfives now. pretty good.

480
00:32:20.579 --> 00:32:23.700
Yeah, you know, considering. and considering what they're up against.

481
00:32:23.759 --> 00:32:26.279
Wednesday night, Coronation Street hardly any adverts.

482
00:32:26.339 --> 00:32:29.519
We said a few weeks ago on the column retrospective.

483
00:32:29.759 --> 00:32:35.940
Is this just the BBC bringing it back with an excuse to run it into the ground so they can kill it off.

484
00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:38.759
They're not expecting it to do well, but it is.

485
00:32:38.819 --> 00:32:43.200
But Grade actually said Heath, because this is how little Grade understood the show.

486
00:32:43.259 --> 00:32:46.440
He thought that they were completely disparate and different audiences.

487
00:32:46.500 --> 00:32:58.319
But of course, it's not the case because the kids ended up going into their room while Mum and Gran watched Corey and writing smarmy, snotty, snippy letters to DWB and whoever else.

488
00:32:58.380 --> 00:33:00.299
Do you remember there's a scene...

489
00:33:00.359 --> 00:33:02.220
And now a lot of them were called Chris Chibles.

490
00:33:02.279 --> 00:33:30.240
Do you remember there's a scene in Queer as Folk, where Vince meets a young woman, and they talk about Doctor Who, and he says that he's a huge fan of Doctor Who, and she doesn't watch it anymore since they put it up against Coronation Street, and both of them commiserate about that because Vince, as a gay Doctor Who fan, is, of course, exactly someone who would have watched Coronation Street as well.

491
00:33:30.299 --> 00:33:39.960
And there is, of course, that overlap, but the show itself has been styling itself as something that doesn't have an overlap.

492
00:33:40.019 --> 00:33:49.980
It's designed for introverted 14 year olds who think they're clever and have no friends and have a copy of the Doctor Who Monster book.

493
00:33:50.039 --> 00:33:57.299
And now it's emerged blinking from that child's bedroom into the sunlight and is creating things.

494
00:33:57.359 --> 00:33:59.400
Shimmerong grub child.

495
00:33:59.460 --> 00:34:01.559
No wonder Bonnie's screaming.

496
00:34:01.619 --> 00:34:14.699
It's creating things like Delta and the Bannerman and Dragon Fire and Paradise Towers that increasingly normal people can sit down to watch without being able to tell the different types of cybermen apart.

497
00:34:14.760 --> 00:34:16.619
That's the point, isn't it?

498
00:34:16.739 --> 00:34:21.119
This belongs not so much to Doctor Who, but very much to the era it's made on.

499
00:34:21.179 --> 00:34:22.619
We touched on it earlier.

500
00:34:22.679 --> 00:34:25.260
This is the year that Black Adder 2 came out.

501
00:34:25.320 --> 00:34:36.840
This is a whole generation that's just seen the young ones. that grew up with Python that gets self-referential TV that makes fun of itself and other things within it.

502
00:34:36.900 --> 00:34:38.639
It's really of the youth moment.

503
00:34:38.880 --> 00:34:40.260
Yeah.

504
00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:44.579
Whereas it allowed itself to stall, I think, with its obsession with the past.

505
00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:48.780
There's no mention of Ian Levine this season at all, have we?

506
00:34:48.840 --> 00:34:49.800
We've not mentioned him once.

507
00:34:49.860 --> 00:34:50.699
There's a reason for that.

508
00:34:50.760 --> 00:34:56.880
I, yeah, I don't think he was really involved with the production card. made sure of that.

509
00:34:56.940 --> 00:34:57.360
Yeah.

510
00:34:57.420 --> 00:35:00.840
And I think JNT was really happy to see all of that lot go.

511
00:35:00.900 --> 00:35:05.760
I thought that he was so unhappy about the casting of Bonnie that...

512
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:07.079
Yeah, he wasn't happy about that.

513
00:35:07.139 --> 00:35:10.139
People will all say they're the same reasons and I don't know that I disagree with them, actually.

514
00:35:10.199 --> 00:35:11.579
But, yeah.

515
00:35:11.639 --> 00:35:14.760
No, it was it was just all new clean sheet.

516
00:35:14.820 --> 00:35:17.820
JNT had wanted to move on, decided he was moving on.

517
00:35:17.880 --> 00:35:23.159
Shocked and surprised, he thought, and he thought, you know, I'll never get another job producing the BBC.

518
00:35:23.219 --> 00:35:32.340
I can't just have one job on my CV and it being this and it being a failure, he could see the death and thought, okay, how am I going to make money pantos?

519
00:35:32.400 --> 00:35:37.860
Yeah, so he was actually going into looking at other ways of making a business for himself later on.

520
00:35:37.920 --> 00:35:43.440
And he was happy, I think, just to sit back and do his job that he does best, which is counting the beans.

521
00:35:43.800 --> 00:35:53.219
Yeah, and I think it kind of proves that what JNT really needed was someone, Christopher H.

522
00:35:53.219 --> 00:35:55.500
Bidmade, or in this case, Andrew Cartmel.

523
00:35:55.559 --> 00:35:56.940
Yeah, someone...

524
00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:02.159
Yeah, someone who gently says to him, no, I'll handle the story. do this.

525
00:36:02.219 --> 00:36:08.639
So this is the case where I'm going to criticise JNT over Eric Saywood.

526
00:36:08.699 --> 00:36:21.179
I find it very hard to believe that Eric Saywood wouldn't have said that to him at one point, but there must have been something in their relationship that made Eric Saywood not be able to stand up to John.

527
00:36:21.239 --> 00:36:23.219
And he shouldn't have to, as the script editor.

528
00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:25.980
Eric Saywood should just be able to say, no script is my responsibility.

529
00:36:26.039 --> 00:36:27.300
Pull your nose out, John.

530
00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:31.739
And I wonder if John being so tied with it, he actually enjoyed just going back to counting the beans.

531
00:36:31.860 --> 00:36:33.659
I think we've also not having to be created.

532
00:36:33.719 --> 00:36:34.860
We're not suspicious, haven't we?

533
00:36:34.860 --> 00:36:35.699
Or indeed feud.

534
00:36:35.820 --> 00:36:37.679
We know how that relationship would have played out.

535
00:36:37.739 --> 00:36:38.880
Ooh.

536
00:36:38.940 --> 00:36:46.380
Yeah, because, I mean, there is this thing where Seward complains about the difficulty of getting people who can write for Doctor Who.

537
00:36:46.440 --> 00:36:51.900
And of course, they're increasing numbers of people who won't come back and write for the program.

538
00:36:51.960 --> 00:36:58.019
And in comes Andrew Cartmel and manages to bring with him a whole heap of people who've never written for the...

539
00:36:58.139 --> 00:37:00.719
There are people he met at writing schools.

540
00:37:00.780 --> 00:37:03.360
Yeah, yeah, at the BBC writer's workshop.

541
00:37:03.420 --> 00:37:04.019
Yeah, exactly.

542
00:37:04.079 --> 00:37:09.840
Like, Pip and Jane Baker are the only people who write for the Sylvester McCoy era who have written for the show before.

543
00:37:09.960 --> 00:37:13.320
And they were just kind of commissioned already.

544
00:37:13.320 --> 00:37:14.820
Oh, yeah, already.

545
00:37:14.820 --> 00:37:19.739
Yeah, they were commissioned because, as you said, earlier, Richard JNT had about 2 months.

546
00:37:19.800 --> 00:37:21.480
He turns to the people he knows.

547
00:37:21.539 --> 00:37:29.099
He already had one in the pipeline just in case because he's a shrewd sly player and top marks to him.

548
00:37:29.159 --> 00:37:31.500
Yeah, and Pip and Jane are reliable.

549
00:37:31.559 --> 00:37:34.139
Like they can produce a script.

550
00:37:34.199 --> 00:37:35.880
We saw what Time Incorporated was like.

551
00:37:35.940 --> 00:37:38.940
I think we have to have a bit of a reappraisal for P and Jane.

552
00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:50.880
Well, that's what so many of our listeners have said, like, there's actually a comment on the website from someone called Ben, I believe, who says, wow, you know, I'd always heard of this script and I assumed it must be better than what we've got, but I have to apologise to Pip and Jane Baker.

553
00:37:51.480 --> 00:37:55.860
And thank you for your comment, friend of the podcast, Ben, because...

554
00:37:55.920 --> 00:37:57.300
No, that will.

555
00:37:57.300 --> 00:37:58.440
It's a terrible script.

556
00:37:58.500 --> 00:38:00.480
It's extraordinary.

557
00:38:00.539 --> 00:38:05.219
Like Andrew Cartmel just seems to come in and kind of go, oh, well, hold on.

558
00:38:05.280 --> 00:38:06.179
I've got all these new people.

559
00:38:06.239 --> 00:38:20.340
And something else I noticed when I was reading up on this season is that there's all these references. especially with Delta and the Bannermen and this story of Cartmel going to the writers' houses or flats and writing the script with them.

560
00:38:20.400 --> 00:38:21.300
Oh brilliant.

561
00:38:21.360 --> 00:38:25.139
And I can't confidently say that Eric Sayward didn't do that.

562
00:38:25.199 --> 00:38:28.019
But whenever we hear about Eric Saywood...

563
00:38:28.079 --> 00:38:33.719
But whenever we hear about Eric Saywood saying the script was having a problem or the script didn't come in.

564
00:38:33.780 --> 00:38:35.639
Like he's always talking about how he's in the office.

565
00:38:35.699 --> 00:38:36.840
Yes, yes.

566
00:38:36.840 --> 00:38:46.980
And I kind of think, okay, maybe it's not your job to go to the writer, but you've also got to consider that writing is or can be a very lonely job.

567
00:38:47.099 --> 00:38:52.260
So writers sometimes like working collaboratively.

568
00:38:52.320 --> 00:38:56.579
Nigel Fairs, writer, musician, actor, does Big Finish.

569
00:38:56.639 --> 00:38:58.860
Bon vivant, bon vivant.

570
00:38:58.920 --> 00:39:00.300
Lovely chat, very famous.

571
00:39:00.360 --> 00:39:01.739
Man, man, man, man about town.

572
00:39:01.800 --> 00:39:03.780
Friend of the podcast, probably.

573
00:39:03.900 --> 00:39:11.340
But once or twice a year, he runs a writer's retreat for writers who are friends of his.

574
00:39:11.400 --> 00:39:14.460
They hire a castle during the off-season and go up there and write for 5 days.

575
00:39:14.519 --> 00:39:17.400
He did actually invite me to one once.

576
00:39:17.460 --> 00:39:22.800
But it was just, but it was after I would have already been coming back to Australia.

577
00:39:22.860 --> 00:39:23.880
So that was nice.

578
00:39:23.940 --> 00:39:25.559
But, you know, he and Joe Lids to go on them.

579
00:39:25.679 --> 00:39:29.340
Louise Jameson goes with them, that kind of thing, and they just write for 5 days.

580
00:39:29.519 --> 00:39:34.679
And that's the thing, writing for a TV series is a collaborative process.

581
00:39:34.800 --> 00:39:37.800
You know, when we hear about the writers for the new series.

582
00:39:38.039 --> 00:39:51.539
Like the 1st season, Rob Shearman, Mark Gators, Paul Cornell, all talk about and Stephen Moffat, yes, all talk about how they went out to a pub after Russell 1st briefed them and said, what the hell are we going to do?

583
00:39:51.539 --> 00:39:56.639
And think Sherlock was born that way by the trade.

584
00:39:56.639 --> 00:39:57.300
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

585
00:39:57.300 --> 00:39:58.079
To and from Carter.

586
00:39:58.139 --> 00:40:00.300
You know, and they help each other hash out their stories.

587
00:40:00.360 --> 00:40:04.980
I can't readily think of examples now, but...

588
00:40:05.039 --> 00:40:15.659
I think for season 26, either Ben Aronovich or Ian Briggs mentions how the other helped them break the story for either battlefield or curse of Fenrich.

589
00:40:15.719 --> 00:40:17.519
We'll get more to that next season, won't we?

590
00:40:17.820 --> 00:40:20.219
Yeah, it becomes a collaborative process.

591
00:40:20.280 --> 00:40:27.780
Yes, it does. where it didn't sound like it was ever that under Christopher Hamilton, they'd made or Eric Saywood.

592
00:40:27.840 --> 00:40:31.380
It certainly was under sort of Graham Williams and Douglas.

593
00:40:31.440 --> 00:40:41.639
I was going to say, it's going back to more your traditional rep theatre. and how that runs and is produced. and in fact, how Doctor Who was in those good old days.

594
00:40:41.760 --> 00:40:45.480
Yeah, well, I think in the Pertu era, you have a bunch of people who will write something every year.

595
00:40:45.780 --> 00:40:49.320
Without choice, whether you want to or not.

596
00:40:49.320 --> 00:40:51.179
Bob Baker and Dave Martin.

597
00:40:52.320 --> 00:40:54.539
But what's happening?

598
00:40:54.659 --> 00:40:55.019
Barry?

599
00:40:55.079 --> 00:40:57.059
Oh, if I must, I'll buy one then.

600
00:40:57.119 --> 00:40:58.440
Who might be this week?

601
00:40:58.500 --> 00:41:00.599
Does it have to be about Buddhism?

602
00:41:00.659 --> 00:41:01.139
Oh, fine.

603
00:41:01.199 --> 00:41:03.780
I actually really love berry lit story.

604
00:41:03.840 --> 00:41:07.500
So I'm glad he was, you know, forced to do what he actually wanted to do every year.

605
00:41:07.559 --> 00:41:15.780
But I think that what's ended up happening is that all of those people who would have formed that group are alienated and dead.

606
00:41:15.840 --> 00:41:17.639
But mostly alienated.

607
00:41:17.699 --> 00:41:24.539
And so it takes someone new with new contacts and new ideas to come in and refresh the program.

608
00:41:24.599 --> 00:41:27.960
And look, I mean, this season has been uneven.

609
00:41:28.019 --> 00:41:30.420
There are people who really, genuinely dislike it.

610
00:41:30.480 --> 00:41:34.500
But I just think it's such a relief.

611
00:41:34.559 --> 00:41:36.360
It has energy.

612
00:41:36.420 --> 00:41:38.699
It has vivacity.

613
00:41:38.760 --> 00:41:41.340
It has, I mean, it has similes.

614
00:41:41.460 --> 00:41:44.159
It's all sorts of adjectives.

615
00:41:44.699 --> 00:41:47.579
It has strike nouns.

616
00:41:47.639 --> 00:42:01.860
It has wonderful moments that are perhaps sometimes a bit too on the nose that restate the purpose of the character of the doctor and the purpose of the companion, like in this story where Glitz tries to shoot the dragon and the doctor rips the gun out of his hand and says we have no right to kill.

617
00:42:01.920 --> 00:42:05.820
It's well performed, but it's also restating who the doctor is.

618
00:42:05.880 --> 00:42:10.139
And of course, Sylvester famously said, my doctor will not use a gun.

619
00:42:10.199 --> 00:42:11.460
My doctor will not use a weapon.

620
00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:14.159
And it wasn't a response to Colin because he hadn't watched what Colin had done.

621
00:42:14.219 --> 00:42:19.559
Some people have taken it as, yeah, it's, oh, that's a direct criticism of Attack of the Cybermen.

622
00:42:19.619 --> 00:42:20.519
It's like, actually, no.

623
00:42:20.579 --> 00:42:25.980
It's Sylvester reading in the script for remembrance of the Daleks, I think, was the 1st one that he's going to pick up a gun.

624
00:42:26.099 --> 00:42:28.079
And he just says, no, no, no, I'm not going to pick up a gun.

625
00:42:28.139 --> 00:42:28.920
She can pick up a gun.

626
00:42:28.980 --> 00:42:31.079
The human can pick up a gun, but the time law doesn't.

627
00:42:31.139 --> 00:42:46.619
You know, Cartmel said we want to get back to the mystery of the program, but also it's just saying, okay, if we get back to the mystery and we're not going to talk about how he's a timelord from the planet galaframe, the constellation of Custurbus, of the Pridonian house, if we're not going to talk about that, who is this person?

628
00:42:46.679 --> 00:42:53.400
Right, he comes in, he helps out, he tries to look for a nonviolent solution and he tries to make people lives better.

629
00:42:53.460 --> 00:42:55.440
Go. That's your starting point writers.

630
00:42:55.500 --> 00:42:59.880
And people have been talking about with Chris Chipnell taking over the show.

631
00:42:59.940 --> 00:43:05.039
There have been suggestions that he is going to go for a US writer's room approach.

632
00:43:05.099 --> 00:43:06.900
And I'm not sure where that came from in the 1st place.

633
00:43:06.960 --> 00:43:08.820
It might be the broadchurches written like that.

634
00:43:08.880 --> 00:43:09.420
I'm not sure.

635
00:43:09.480 --> 00:43:13.139
But he said, look, I'm not dismissing it.

636
00:43:13.199 --> 00:43:14.400
I am not even thinking about it at the moment.

637
00:43:14.460 --> 00:43:15.900
I'm finishing Broadchurch.

638
00:43:15.960 --> 00:43:23.519
And I'm kind of like, well, if collaborative writing is what gives us the Sylvester McCoy era, and it's what gave us Christopher Eccleston season.

639
00:43:23.639 --> 00:43:26.159
And it's something Doctor Who hasn't officially done before.

640
00:43:26.340 --> 00:43:28.320
Maybe it's a good idea.

641
00:43:28.380 --> 00:43:30.480
Maybe it can be a good idea.

642
00:43:31.199 --> 00:43:36.780
One thing we have briefly mentioned, but not really touched upon, is Tony Selby's back.

643
00:43:39.059 --> 00:43:41.099
Law of diminishing returns.

644
00:43:41.159 --> 00:43:43.440
He's not as interesting this time around.

645
00:43:43.500 --> 00:43:47.460
Yeah, he's a bit cuddly, even though he's just sold a bunch of people.

646
00:43:48.119 --> 00:43:51.000
I think it was another character.

647
00:43:51.960 --> 00:43:52.619
Yeah, Razorback.

648
00:43:52.679 --> 00:43:53.159
Right.

649
00:43:53.219 --> 00:44:02.099
And it was actually Andrew Cartmel, who had watched Colin's stuff, I believe, who said, well, we had a similar character last year.

650
00:44:02.159 --> 00:44:04.440
Let's see if he's available just for a bit of follow-through.

651
00:44:04.800 --> 00:44:08.280
So, yeah, it was Andrew Cartman, who brought back Glitz.

652
00:44:08.340 --> 00:44:15.599
I think it works in the sense that there is something nice about the ensemble again.

653
00:44:15.659 --> 00:44:19.739
We talked last week about building up an ensemble indulgent in the Bannerman.

654
00:44:19.800 --> 00:44:27.599
Here we have someone familiar who, you know, essentially was a bit cuddly by the time he appeared at the end of trial of a time lord anyway.

655
00:44:27.659 --> 00:44:31.440
Yeah, bit largely sort of defanged by then.

656
00:44:31.500 --> 00:44:34.679
And so that is kind of nice.

657
00:44:34.739 --> 00:44:38.579
I do think that he works terribly well in this story.

658
00:44:38.639 --> 00:44:40.980
Yeah, I think he's lovely with Silv.

659
00:44:41.039 --> 00:44:50.400
You know, I still think his most effective appearance is his 1st one, of course, but he is absolutely lovely with Silv, and they're traipsing around the ice caves, and yeah, he's the Cowardly Lion.

660
00:44:50.519 --> 00:44:58.440
So, you know, if we're going with the Wizard of Oz thing, the doctor's the scarecrow, glitz is the cow, which I suppose leaves Mell as the tin man.

661
00:44:58.500 --> 00:45:02.159
So maybe this metaphor doesn't work as well. as well as I thought.

662
00:45:03.059 --> 00:45:03.840
She's glitter.

663
00:45:03.960 --> 00:45:05.099
Actually yes, that works even better.

664
00:45:05.159 --> 00:45:07.260
Kane's the tin man. doesn't have a heart.

665
00:45:07.380 --> 00:45:13.559
They make a really lovely force amid the 1st episode where Ace is saying, you don't want to believe nothing he says, Professor.

666
00:45:13.619 --> 00:45:18.179
Sorry, you don't want to believe nothing he says, professor, apples and pears, apples and pears.

667
00:45:18.840 --> 00:45:22.260
And then, you know, the doctor and glitz go off together.

668
00:45:22.619 --> 00:45:29.820
And Melanese go off and have their own adventure together because contrary to what Glitz says, girls just want to have an adventure too.

669
00:45:29.880 --> 00:45:41.280
And that's really effect, like, I love the end of episode one, not so much the silve hanging off the umbrella thing, but the cliffhanger with Melanese where he says, there's no such thing as a dragon.

670
00:45:41.340 --> 00:45:44.519
So you just know that around the corner is going to come the dragon.

671
00:45:44.519 --> 00:45:46.679
And Mel, of course, does her scream.

672
00:45:46.679 --> 00:45:50.340
And Ace is just like, what the is happening?

673
00:45:50.400 --> 00:45:56.760
And it just tells you everything you need to know about those 2 characters. like Ace encountering danger doesn't scream.

674
00:45:56.820 --> 00:45:57.539
She just goes, what?

675
00:45:58.139 --> 00:46:00.420
No, that's not real.

676
00:46:00.480 --> 00:46:03.239
And then she's the one who realises hold on, those are lasers.

677
00:46:03.300 --> 00:46:05.699
Yeah, it's really resourceful.

678
00:46:05.760 --> 00:46:11.400
And then they come back together again in the ice caves and you have that hilarious ice spy scene.

679
00:46:11.460 --> 00:46:13.019
I really like it.

680
00:46:13.139 --> 00:46:17.699
I spy with my little eye something beginning with I. Your turn.

681
00:46:20.340 --> 00:46:26.219
Mel explains that the tarnus is transcendentally dimensional, which still works grammatically.

682
00:46:26.880 --> 00:46:31.019
But she wasn't paying attention when it was explained to her.

683
00:46:31.619 --> 00:46:32.820
She really wasn't.

684
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:36.420
But yeah, it shows how infectious the doctor is because now she's malapropping.

685
00:46:36.840 --> 00:46:38.940
Yeah, so she is.

686
00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:42.599
We forgot to mention last week, of course, the question mark umbrella is now with us.

687
00:46:42.659 --> 00:46:44.820
Yes, it is, but that's okay.

688
00:46:44.880 --> 00:46:45.780
Let's not mention.

689
00:46:45.840 --> 00:46:51.300
No, it's a postmodernist trope. suppose. umbrelled that in the 1st episode.

690
00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:51.900
Yes.

691
00:46:51.960 --> 00:46:56.280
As Silv points out, you know, it's a little bit subtler than the pullover.

692
00:46:56.340 --> 00:47:05.460
Mind you, I didn't mind the pullover, because the pullover kind of is, until you look at it properly, you don't realise it's question marks, it's just your brain just processes it as a pattern, and then you see the question marks.

693
00:47:05.519 --> 00:47:07.679
They're still silly, aren't they?

694
00:47:07.739 --> 00:47:10.860
I mean, the costume's an improvement, but, you know.

695
00:47:11.099 --> 00:47:22.320
Okay, I think we need to talk about the worst instance of Andrew Hodson's contract release, which is the departure of Mel.

696
00:47:22.380 --> 00:47:23.039
Yes.

697
00:47:23.039 --> 00:47:28.800
So this scene is, in fact, the scene that we have mentioned, I think, over the last few weeks.

698
00:47:28.860 --> 00:47:36.960
It's the scene that was written for the audition of Sylvester McCoy, by Janet Field, by Janet Field.

699
00:47:37.019 --> 00:47:38.940
She wrote it to decide everything.

700
00:47:39.659 --> 00:47:41.760
Still to this day.

701
00:47:41.820 --> 00:47:44.400
And it is inexplicable, isn't it?

702
00:47:44.460 --> 00:47:46.739
It is really very strange indeed.

703
00:47:46.800 --> 00:47:49.559
Yeah, like why is she going off with glitz?

704
00:47:49.619 --> 00:47:50.699
I don't really.

705
00:47:50.760 --> 00:47:53.820
And it's hard to understand why you can't...

706
00:47:53.880 --> 00:47:58.980
Well, I mean, the TARDIS can travel instantaneously, and it's the sort of thing that we do all the time now.

707
00:47:59.039 --> 00:48:16.260
Think about the end of the god complex where that set in a weird holodeck spaceship that looks like an 80s hotel, but we have time to shoot a scene in the London street at the end where the doctor drops Amy and Rory off. it would have just been very easy to do that.

708
00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:18.900
It is, it's stupid.

709
00:48:18.960 --> 00:48:25.019
And it is, well, look, I mean, Mel's the 2nd last companion in the classic series.

710
00:48:25.079 --> 00:48:28.800
This is the last companion departure that the classic series does.

711
00:48:28.860 --> 00:48:30.780
It's terrible.

712
00:48:30.840 --> 00:48:34.619
But think about the scene where the doctor 1st meets Mel.

713
00:48:34.679 --> 00:48:36.300
Actually, we don't see that.

714
00:48:36.360 --> 00:48:37.500
Do you know what I mean?

715
00:48:37.559 --> 00:48:40.559
So there's no 1st scene.

716
00:48:40.619 --> 00:48:42.300
There's no last scene.

717
00:48:42.360 --> 00:48:48.360
This has really just been an instance of let's get Bonnie in to play the Doctor Who girl for a few episodes.

718
00:48:48.480 --> 00:48:52.260
We don't really care about the character.

719
00:48:52.380 --> 00:48:53.460
Yeah.

720
00:48:53.519 --> 00:49:02.039
And it's really unfortunate when you consider there were a couple of Tartar scenes filmed during Dragonfire for use in Delta and the Bannermen.

721
00:49:02.099 --> 00:49:04.920
Only one makes it into the episode after editing.

722
00:49:04.920 --> 00:49:25.079
But, yeah, it's a shame that they couldn't have put up a sign for peas potage next to one of those Welsh roads and dumb Mel's leaving scene on location in Delta and the Bannermen, because you could still then have the doctor wander back into the TARDIS and there's ace and aces, and I suppose you've taken me back to Perivale then, and then we get the bit of, well, you know, we could go back to Perivale.

723
00:49:25.139 --> 00:49:30.360
It feels mean-spirited to do it because also how?

724
00:49:30.420 --> 00:49:33.360
Unless the Nosferado has time abilities.

725
00:49:33.420 --> 00:49:34.260
Yeah, yeah.

726
00:49:34.380 --> 00:49:36.300
She's never gonna get home, apparently.

727
00:49:36.360 --> 00:49:38.820
We don't know what period this is, but...

728
00:49:38.820 --> 00:49:40.440
Yeah, no, it's just, it makes no sense.

729
00:49:40.440 --> 00:49:41.400
It's definitely futury.

730
00:49:41.460 --> 00:49:47.579
Well, Glitz is contemporaneous with a couple of 1000000 years in Earth's future, you know.

731
00:49:47.639 --> 00:49:47.940
Exactly.

732
00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:48.360
Exactly.

733
00:49:48.360 --> 00:49:49.079
Yeah.

734
00:49:49.079 --> 00:49:51.179
What does he think it's Paraval's going to be like now?

735
00:49:51.239 --> 00:49:53.219
covered in Joan Sims.

736
00:49:54.780 --> 00:49:57.179
Yeah, I mean...

737
00:49:57.239 --> 00:50:09.239
It's really a sweet scene and it's played very sweetly by Bonnie and Sylvester. just a pity she's not walking back out on a lane in peas pottage instead of walking out with someone who we know as fans is a psychopath.

738
00:50:09.300 --> 00:50:14.760
Well, in fact, too, I mean, the whole scene, which isn't really very good.

739
00:50:14.820 --> 00:50:19.440
I mean, it is an audition piece, it's not a good scene in context of the story.

740
00:50:19.500 --> 00:50:25.800
And it's certainly because the doctor and Mel have essentially nothing to say to one another, because Mel's barely.

741
00:50:25.800 --> 00:50:26.219
Who are you?

742
00:50:26.340 --> 00:50:27.659
That's right.

743
00:50:27.719 --> 00:50:28.679
Which one are you?

744
00:50:28.739 --> 00:50:29.940
You're the one with the red hair.

745
00:50:30.360 --> 00:50:33.000
So it doesn't really work.

746
00:50:33.059 --> 00:50:40.079
But the whole point of the scene is you're going to go back and live a normal life while I'm the doctor.

747
00:50:40.139 --> 00:50:45.840
You know, think of me living my life while you're living your days one day at a time, you know.

748
00:50:46.019 --> 00:50:48.179
But she's not gonna do that.

749
00:50:48.239 --> 00:50:51.659
So it really just sort of makes no sense at all.

750
00:50:51.719 --> 00:50:53.159
And I think...

751
00:50:53.219 --> 00:50:54.599
Yeah, it's a big shame.

752
00:50:54.659 --> 00:51:06.480
So I think, you know, if you're at home, razor glass to all of those companions who had really deeply terrible or in some cases actively offensive leaving scenes because...

753
00:51:06.480 --> 00:51:12.599
She got the dodo award for this season, I might say predicating what you're about to award you a puzzling creative choice too.

754
00:51:12.659 --> 00:51:30.119
But it's, ah, she is almost being set up in the same way that Clara departs, the alternative doctor stories, whereas instead of going off with a lady companion, she's going off with glitz and she's sort of going to be the, you know, his moral compass.

755
00:51:30.179 --> 00:51:39.719
He's he's developing voice that she'll make good for the world and I suspect that there was something of that, but it really doesn't come across, does it?

756
00:51:39.780 --> 00:51:43.139
We're having to write this over. don't know why she's going.

757
00:51:43.199 --> 00:51:43.920
Why is she going?

758
00:51:43.980 --> 00:51:44.639
Yeah.

759
00:51:44.699 --> 00:51:45.719
Why is she going?

760
00:51:45.780 --> 00:51:51.119
There's not a single line of dialogue that points to why she's deciding to leave.

761
00:51:51.179 --> 00:51:56.760
Yeah, it's not like Tegan being tired of violence or, you know, terminal. a lot at the time.

762
00:51:56.820 --> 00:52:00.300
Turlow's found his family or Nissa can do some good here.

763
00:52:00.360 --> 00:52:02.880
You know, is literally no reason.

764
00:52:03.000 --> 00:52:06.179
It is simply because...

765
00:52:06.300 --> 00:52:09.239
No, it's because Bonnie's not getting paid next week.

766
00:52:09.300 --> 00:52:10.739
Yeah, and you spoon.

767
00:52:11.940 --> 00:52:14.159
About the stones.

768
00:52:14.340 --> 00:52:36.000
Yeah, you know, it's kind of like, at the time, we kind of lamented the lack of a leaving scene for Liz, but it would kind of be better if Silv, Bonnie, and Sophie fly off at the end of Dragonfire, and then at the beginning of remembrance, we just get a line of, you know, Mel decided to go back to university or Mel really shouldn't have pressed those buttons on the food machine.

769
00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:37.199
I did warn her.

770
00:52:37.860 --> 00:52:39.780
It's a shame, really.

771
00:52:39.840 --> 00:52:55.320
And it ties in with something, Clayton Hickman said, on one of the DVDs, which was, you know, back at the beginning of the season where we have this bizarre regeneration where spoiler alert, it's Sylvester McCoy in a wig playing Colin Baker before he turns into himself.

772
00:52:55.380 --> 00:52:57.360
And Clayton just said, you know what?

773
00:52:57.420 --> 00:53:02.400
The program was in such a headspace at the time that they would never consider not having a regeneration.

774
00:53:02.460 --> 00:53:05.579
But at the same time, they were in so much trouble.

775
00:53:05.639 --> 00:53:06.719
Why didn't they just try?

776
00:53:06.719 --> 00:53:10.199
Mel walking down the TARS corridor saying, doctor, doctor, where are you?

777
00:53:10.260 --> 00:53:12.659
And Sylvester McCoy pops his head out the door and says, yes.

778
00:53:13.019 --> 00:53:15.300
Cut to opening credits.

779
00:53:15.360 --> 00:53:20.340
The regeneration was last week and Mel just makes a comment to the effect of, you know, you've been really strange since you've changed.

780
00:53:20.400 --> 00:53:24.239
And that is a dynamic, interesting thing for the viewer.

781
00:53:24.300 --> 00:53:28.860
And I think here, an offscreen departure would have been better than this.

782
00:53:29.039 --> 00:53:38.099
I think that although the show is going new places, it's still tied to a fairly traditional type of storytelling.

783
00:53:38.159 --> 00:53:41.400
And this is something that we wouldn't blink at.

784
00:53:41.460 --> 00:53:47.820
I mean, I think it's a bad idea because you invest in the characters and it's not fair to just, like, take them away from you for no reason.

785
00:53:47.940 --> 00:53:51.599
I'm being punished for not knowing why.

786
00:53:51.659 --> 00:53:52.380
Yeah.

787
00:53:52.380 --> 00:54:00.119
But, you know, that sort of alighting events or having them happen off screen or jumps in time and stuff like that.

788
00:54:00.179 --> 00:54:02.159
We don't do that at the moment.

789
00:54:02.219 --> 00:54:08.940
You know, I said at the beginning that this at the time was sort of regarded as the best story of the season.

790
00:54:09.000 --> 00:54:18.719
I think maybe that's the earth shock effect of just, you know, on 1st viewing, it's it's dynamic and explosive and fun, and then as you watch it more, there's perhaps less under the surface.

791
00:54:18.780 --> 00:54:22.739
But I think by no means it's a bad story.

792
00:54:22.800 --> 00:54:29.099
I think it's just the weakest, most traditional, if you like story. in a really experimental season.

793
00:54:29.699 --> 00:54:41.099
I think it's giving us exactly what we expect Newhu to be, which none of the other stories have done yet, which is clever, self-referential, and then referencing everything else outside it.

794
00:54:41.159 --> 00:54:47.460
So maybe in a way it's actually giving us what we want and showing us that that's not the direction we're going to be taking.

795
00:54:47.519 --> 00:54:50.940
It's all easy to say in hindsight.

796
00:54:51.000 --> 00:54:52.199
The show is experimenting.

797
00:54:52.260 --> 00:54:54.119
It's giving something different each time.

798
00:54:54.179 --> 00:54:58.619
It had to do this story at some and I'm glad it did it in the 1st season.

799
00:54:58.679 --> 00:55:10.920
It is the most archly self-aware critical piece of film exposition and literary thinking of what the show is.

800
00:55:10.980 --> 00:55:34.559
And that's possibly why it's not that successful because writing a lot and thinking a lot is the opposite of spontaneous enjoyment, you might say the art is writing and poring over a script much like the way we prepare these podcasts, too, listener. that it just seems so fresh and original, yet we've spent months working out what we're going to say.

801
00:55:35.880 --> 00:55:37.920
That's a lie.

802
00:55:38.460 --> 00:55:41.159
At FTE who facts.

803
00:55:45.300 --> 00:55:47.400
So, puzzling creative choices.

804
00:55:47.460 --> 00:55:55.199
I have two, and I've mentioned them one this week, obviously, is Mel's departure and the way that was handled.

805
00:55:55.260 --> 00:56:08.340
And then the other one is the death of all of those people on the bus, which I think is vastly more objectionable than the death of all of the people in the shopping centre this week, which we haven't referenced yet.

806
00:56:08.400 --> 00:56:12.539
And I think it would have to go to Mel's departure for reasons that I've just explained.

807
00:56:13.320 --> 00:56:16.320
Mine goes to oral casting.

808
00:56:16.440 --> 00:56:26.400
And I would then suggest that of all the people we could have had, perhaps too much of a slight thing can be less of a slight thing.

809
00:56:26.400 --> 00:56:30.300
I don't know why Mr. McCulloch was given quite so much work as he was.

810
00:56:30.360 --> 00:56:33.780
Or indeed that it all sounded exactly the same from the other work.

811
00:56:33.840 --> 00:56:39.059
I know he might well make good next year and I'm looking forward to hearing that because I haven't heard it so far.

812
00:56:39.119 --> 00:56:39.599
Yeah.

813
00:56:39.659 --> 00:56:46.139
No, I think there are real moments, especially in Paradise Towers, where I've lost the intention.

814
00:56:46.139 --> 00:56:48.480
And really, for me, and it's probably saying a lot.

815
00:56:48.539 --> 00:56:50.519
He's the only thing that's really let me down this year.

816
00:56:50.639 --> 00:56:53.039
Apart from, obviously, the things that you've just said.

817
00:56:53.099 --> 00:57:02.219
But even that isn't as great as the wholeness or the, um, the congealing of all the parts, and it's McCulloch that has not been part of that process for me.

818
00:57:02.280 --> 00:57:07.860
As I've already said, I really like Keff McCulloch's music, but I can certainly understand why some people don't.

819
00:57:07.980 --> 00:57:09.900
Why, a lot of people don't, to be honest.

820
00:57:09.960 --> 00:57:10.860
I think I am...

821
00:57:10.860 --> 00:57:12.900
A lot of them in this room...

822
00:57:12.900 --> 00:57:16.500
Look, I am safely in the minority of fandom in liking Kev McCollough's music.

823
00:57:16.559 --> 00:57:17.099
I know that.

824
00:57:18.239 --> 00:57:19.920
And absolutely.

825
00:57:19.980 --> 00:57:23.460
I agree that the 2 massacres in the 2 stories.

826
00:57:23.519 --> 00:57:25.440
They're just completely tone deaf.

827
00:57:25.440 --> 00:57:27.179
We've name-checked the massacre.

828
00:57:27.239 --> 00:57:30.179
I think the Delta and the Bannerman wanted...

829
00:57:30.239 --> 00:57:41.159
Delta and the Bannerman is offensively toned F. The dragon, the dragonfire one just, it just feels like, we can't afford to pay the actors for the last studio session.

830
00:57:41.219 --> 00:57:41.880
You know?

831
00:57:42.000 --> 00:57:43.019
It does, doesn't it?

832
00:57:43.079 --> 00:57:48.719
And I think I tweeted at the time, Stella's mother is remarkably unaffected by this massacre.

833
00:57:48.780 --> 00:57:49.619
Is she a Tory?

834
00:57:51.420 --> 00:57:52.860
Yeah.

835
00:57:52.860 --> 00:57:55.559
This milkshake is an adequately shaken.

836
00:57:55.619 --> 00:57:56.460
Yeah, right.

837
00:57:56.519 --> 00:57:57.300
Okay, love.

838
00:57:57.360 --> 00:58:06.360
But if I wasn't going to go for one of those things, I would actually say my puzzling creative choice is not having Lakersia be a forest.

839
00:58:06.360 --> 00:58:08.460
I couldn't agree more.

840
00:58:08.519 --> 00:58:10.679
It really rubs, doesn't it?

841
00:58:10.739 --> 00:58:13.079
Like a bit of sandstone on your white pants.

842
00:58:13.139 --> 00:58:13.380
Yeah.

843
00:58:13.440 --> 00:58:21.900
Pippin Jane suggested locations that they knew had been used on Space 1999 for their story, a matter of balance. of Luxor or whatever it was called.

844
00:58:22.619 --> 00:58:23.460
The rules of Luton.

845
00:58:23.519 --> 00:58:23.940
Yeah.

846
00:58:24.719 --> 00:58:26.699
No, that's a real story.

847
00:58:26.760 --> 00:58:28.079
The rules of wood.

848
00:58:28.139 --> 00:58:34.019
But yeah, I can't understand why Andrew Morgan instead chose a quarry.

849
00:58:34.079 --> 00:58:37.679
I can't imagine significantly cheaper, you know.

850
00:58:37.739 --> 00:58:39.179
He was allergic to trees.

851
00:58:39.179 --> 00:58:42.599
It's a little bit insensitive for him to bring it up, actually.

852
00:58:42.719 --> 00:58:43.679
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

853
00:58:43.739 --> 00:58:45.000
Yeah.

854
00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:46.980
Helen Blatchiner osteoporosis, you know?

855
00:58:47.039 --> 00:58:49.019
But yeah, that would be my choice.

856
00:58:49.079 --> 00:58:50.880
I don't think this season sets many feet wrong.

857
00:58:50.940 --> 00:58:57.480
One thing we haven't discussed, which I think we should just have a short discussion of before our picks of the week is the new title sequence, a new title music.

858
00:58:57.539 --> 00:59:03.300
We touched a little on it in the 1st story when I said, this has brought us into the 3rd dimension.

859
00:59:03.360 --> 00:59:04.500
Oh, yeah, yeah.

860
00:59:04.500 --> 00:59:09.300
And then beyond that into the 4th and 5th as Susan might have told us.

861
00:59:09.360 --> 00:59:13.019
It's a three-dimensional Rawshack ink block, isn't it?

862
00:59:13.079 --> 00:59:14.159
Yeah, it's great.

863
00:59:14.280 --> 00:59:17.039
I mean, discussing doctor with my brother.

864
00:59:17.099 --> 00:59:19.380
He's not as big a fan as me, but he does enjoy it.

865
00:59:19.619 --> 00:59:22.260
He said he loved it.

866
00:59:22.320 --> 00:59:30.539
So when I was six, he would have been 15, he said he loved it at the time because it really felt like you were travelling.

867
00:59:30.599 --> 00:59:35.039
And it felt like a really high quality video game, which it did.

868
00:59:35.099 --> 00:59:36.239
In fact, that's exactly what they looked like.

869
00:59:36.300 --> 00:59:42.539
If you were paying enough, and then you'd get those few seconds of intro before you went back into the 2D world.

870
00:59:42.960 --> 00:59:47.639
It's very period, and particularly the typography is extremely period.

871
00:59:47.760 --> 01:00:01.980
I do like the closing credits where for ones you're not travelling down a time tunnel or something like that, it is static with a thing revolving underneath it, but it is spoiled by those stupid rocks that are two-dimensional.

872
01:00:02.039 --> 01:00:03.900
They don't even roll through the thing.

873
01:00:03.960 --> 01:00:07.019
Even Gareth, Edward says, you know, he's ashamed of his rocks.

874
01:00:07.079 --> 01:00:09.119
Well, it's the harsh thing for any man.

875
01:00:09.179 --> 01:00:10.559
That's true.

876
01:00:10.619 --> 01:00:14.519
Yeah, they were a last minute edition because JNT kind of said, nah, there needs to be more motion.

877
01:00:14.579 --> 01:00:18.480
And of course, you know, the sequence cost, what was it, £8000?

878
01:00:18.539 --> 01:00:20.039
It was very expensive.

879
01:00:20.099 --> 01:00:26.639
It was, it was somewhere in the region of the, um, the trial um, ship.

880
01:00:26.699 --> 01:00:28.380
Emotional controlled camera thing.

881
01:00:28.440 --> 01:00:29.519
The emotional control camera.

882
01:00:29.639 --> 01:00:35.460
You could only model in primitive polygons at this and we didn't even actually have polygons as we know them now.

883
01:00:35.519 --> 01:00:40.500
So I don't think we'll probably get into this for the non-animators out there on the non-modelers.

884
01:00:40.559 --> 01:00:44.699
But it was, I would have liked swirly little blurry star things, you know.

885
01:00:44.760 --> 01:00:48.960
Bonnie Langford's career, something like that, just sort of, you know, hurtling towards us.

886
01:00:49.019 --> 01:00:56.039
I'll put this in the show notes, but there is a version of the title sequence that was created by an animator like quite recently.

887
01:00:56.460 --> 01:00:58.440
In about 24 hours.

888
01:00:58.500 --> 01:01:08.699
Yeah, I think they created in 24 hours and it is a really faithful rendering of this particular title sequence only done with modern technology and it does look amazingly good.

889
01:01:08.760 --> 01:01:09.539
Okay.

890
01:01:09.539 --> 01:01:16.980
Yeah, so, you know, it was a great concept and I think in terms of the animation that was available, the time that was available, the money that was available.

891
01:01:17.039 --> 01:01:18.780
It was the best they could buy.

892
01:01:18.840 --> 01:01:24.599
At this time, of course, Pixar were forming and making short films, which you can find on their DVDs.

893
01:01:24.659 --> 01:01:33.539
And I believe it was around this time that they started doing the very early animatics for the 1st Toy Story film, which are also on the DVDs.

894
01:01:33.599 --> 01:01:38.699
And to be honest, the very early stuff is not much more sophisticated than what we see there.

895
01:01:38.760 --> 01:01:40.380
It really was cutting edge.

896
01:01:40.440 --> 01:01:45.179
I've heard people say, oh, you know, at the time it looked outdated 2 weeks later and I kind of think, really?

897
01:01:45.239 --> 01:01:56.280
You know, I was at home playing my Nintendo entertainment system where you can see the edges on Mario's hat, you know, and that was a mass, that was a mass consumer product which sold over 1000000 units.

898
01:01:56.340 --> 01:01:58.980
Yeah, it's really...

899
01:02:00.599 --> 01:02:03.179
What's your favourite title sequence?

900
01:02:03.239 --> 01:02:05.760
Oh, it's Pertley's last season.

901
01:02:05.820 --> 01:02:06.780
Yeah, me too.

902
01:02:06.840 --> 01:02:08.039
Yeah, actually me as well.

903
01:02:09.059 --> 01:02:12.119
It's not a lot of controversy.

904
01:02:12.119 --> 01:02:18.360
To be honest, though, I think my favourite music is Dominic Glynn's revised version.

905
01:02:18.420 --> 01:02:23.820
So not his televised version, but he's done some remixes of it where...

906
01:02:23.880 --> 01:02:25.320
Yeah, the trial point.

907
01:02:25.380 --> 01:02:27.659
Is that the one that's on the big finish audio?

908
01:02:27.719 --> 01:02:29.880
They used on the big finish audio?

909
01:02:29.940 --> 01:02:30.780
It's quite shimmery.

910
01:02:31.079 --> 01:02:31.559
Yeah.

911
01:02:31.619 --> 01:02:33.960
And he's done another version with a lot more bass.

912
01:02:34.019 --> 01:02:43.320
And he's done a great 8 minute remix of it where it's kind of just used as punctuation for other music and it does sound mysterious and it does sound scary.

913
01:02:43.380 --> 01:02:45.659
Kev's version of the theme.

914
01:02:45.719 --> 01:02:49.440
It feels like we're going on an adventure.

915
01:02:49.500 --> 01:02:51.539
To the arcade gallery.

916
01:02:51.960 --> 01:02:53.880
But that's the thing.

917
01:02:53.940 --> 01:03:01.019
I think one adjective I would use to describe Keff's music is unashamed.

918
01:03:01.679 --> 01:03:08.340
You know, he's he's like, I'm creating this and there it is accepted on its own terms.

919
01:03:08.400 --> 01:03:14.940
It never feels half assed in a way that sometimes say Malcolm Clark did. singular buttocked.

920
01:03:15.000 --> 01:03:16.559
I might also want to say.

921
01:03:16.559 --> 01:03:20.159
Delia Derbyshire still wins for me every time around.

922
01:03:20.219 --> 01:03:22.559
You've got people like Kraft for exciting her.

923
01:03:22.619 --> 01:03:24.599
She's she's it.

924
01:03:24.719 --> 01:03:26.460
Pix of the week?

925
01:03:26.519 --> 01:03:27.300
Pix of the week.

926
01:03:28.260 --> 01:03:36.059
Well, I'm going to go down the path of least resistance and suggest a big finish and that big finish is flip-flop.

927
01:03:36.179 --> 01:03:41.159
Which is a Sylvester McCoy and Bonnie Langford audio.

928
01:03:41.219 --> 01:03:46.619
It is 2 discs, but unlike other big finish stories where it's disc one and disc two.

929
01:03:46.679 --> 01:04:01.559
It's a black disc and a white disc, and you can listen to them in either order, and the story still makes sense because there is an event that happens at the end of both episode 2s on each disc, which then leads it into the episode one of the next disc.

930
01:04:01.619 --> 01:04:02.699
Wow.

931
01:04:02.760 --> 01:04:07.380
The story is set on the same planet and the discs are set 30 years apart.

932
01:04:07.440 --> 01:04:12.239
So either you're in the future and go into the past or you're in the past and you go into the future.

933
01:04:12.300 --> 01:04:13.980
It's incredibly cleverly done.

934
01:04:14.039 --> 01:04:18.119
Friend of the podcast and friend of ours, Richard Dan Hogarth.

935
01:04:18.179 --> 01:04:24.719
He is the slithergies who are poor blind aliens who cannot see.

936
01:04:24.780 --> 01:04:26.940
I am a slithergy who cannot see.

937
01:04:27.000 --> 01:04:30.960
And yeah, they're on this human colony world and the story unfolds like that.

938
01:04:31.019 --> 01:04:35.280
And there's also a very nice nod to Hartnell in one of the opening scenes.

939
01:04:35.579 --> 01:04:38.940
And Bonnie Langford gets to say the line.

940
01:04:39.000 --> 01:04:40.860
Well, now that we've quelled the quarks.

941
01:04:41.699 --> 01:04:48.780
So Doctor Who flip-flop available for $3 to download from Big Finish. brilliant.

942
01:04:49.559 --> 01:05:02.940
I want to recommend an idea. rather than a particular thing, or as well as a particular thing, and that is, we all grew up with the target novelisations, and I love them to death.

943
01:05:03.059 --> 01:05:09.119
I cannot understand why they're all not still in print or available from Amazon, although a whole bunch of them are.

944
01:05:09.239 --> 01:05:21.000
But very recently, they released an audio version of the Delta and the Bannerman novelisation, read by none other than Bonnie Langford.

945
01:05:21.119 --> 01:05:24.539
And so you've got Bonnie Langford reading you a book.

946
01:05:24.599 --> 01:05:27.960
So it's fantastic, as you would expect.

947
01:05:28.019 --> 01:05:30.239
She's absolutely gorgeous and fabulous.

948
01:05:30.300 --> 01:05:33.059
And so that's what I recommend.

949
01:05:33.119 --> 01:05:41.219
I recommend, say, getting an audible subscription and using the promo code FTE, which won't work.

950
01:05:41.280 --> 01:05:42.780
It won't get you anything at all.

951
01:05:44.400 --> 01:05:47.579
But there's heaps of them available.

952
01:05:47.639 --> 01:05:49.079
They release them month by month.

953
01:05:49.139 --> 01:05:51.480
We've got them from all over the place.

954
01:05:51.599 --> 01:05:58.980
You can choose Maureen O'Brien, reading the rescue, all the way to John Culshaw, reading the Santara and experiment.

955
01:05:59.159 --> 01:06:03.599
But Bonnie Langford and Delta and the Bannerman by Malcolm Cole.

956
01:06:04.320 --> 01:06:10.380
I haven't been able to get beyond what this season's been doing inside itself.

957
01:06:10.440 --> 01:06:15.420
So I don't have any Doctor Who recommendations, even though I've been listening to all of the big finish stuff like Brendan's been saying.

958
01:06:15.539 --> 01:06:17.219
So all of those have been terrific.

959
01:06:17.280 --> 01:06:21.000
But I just keep going back to the imagery and what they're playing with.

960
01:06:21.059 --> 01:06:33.659
So yeah, I'm going to be really intertextually auxiliary on this one and say, okay, any of Corosawa's films, especially Iran, or Mojimbo is Wonderful, Hidden Fortress.

961
01:06:33.719 --> 01:06:35.400
They're all playing on different Shakespeare stories.

962
01:06:35.460 --> 01:06:50.280
They're just beautiful, if you like Delta and the Bannerman, but I would also look at I would also look at Joseph von Sternberg's films with Marlena Dietrich when he got to Hollywood because there's a lot of visuals in this, especially the ice stuff when she does Scarlet Empress.

963
01:06:50.340 --> 01:06:53.880
Morocco is one of the most extraordinary films you've ever seen visually.

964
01:06:53.940 --> 01:06:57.480
If you just want to see something that style about style.

965
01:06:57.539 --> 01:07:00.239
And I think that's actually what this season has been about.

966
01:07:00.300 --> 01:07:10.260
It is no longer the divide between form and function, which was the 50s thinking, we're now in the, it's all the same thing.

967
01:07:10.320 --> 01:07:11.519
It doesn't matter which one it is.

968
01:07:11.579 --> 01:07:15.960
So yeah, I would go and see Morocco, Shanghai Express, is amazing and hilarious.

969
01:07:16.019 --> 01:07:18.360
And she really does play it like Billy Hartmore.

970
01:07:18.420 --> 01:07:19.619
Go and have a look.

971
01:07:20.400 --> 01:07:23.219
And if you don't want to, you don't have to.

972
01:07:53.880 --> 01:07:58.980
Well, dear listeners, we've come to the end of another season of Doctor Who.

973
01:07:59.039 --> 01:08:04.619
But we will be back next week with our Tom Baker commentary, which is The Stones of Blood.

974
01:08:04.739 --> 01:08:06.719
So do come back next week for that.

975
01:08:06.780 --> 01:08:19.800
Until then, you can also vote for our Peter Davison commentary to go out at the end of season 25 and the nominees for that are for to Doomsday, Arc of Infinity, Enlightenment, Resurrection of the Daleks.

976
01:08:19.920 --> 01:08:22.859
You can find the link to that in our show notes.

977
01:08:22.859 --> 01:08:30.779
And on our website, Flightthrough Entirety.sexy, Flight Through Entirety, on Facebook, and at FTE podcasts on Twitter.

978
01:08:30.840 --> 01:08:37.979
Don't forget to also follow at FTE who facts for all your very true and 100% accurate Doctor Who facts.

979
01:08:38.039 --> 01:08:40.380
Over on Bondfinger.

980
01:08:40.439 --> 01:08:44.220
We are in right in the middle of having a big Brosnan.

981
01:08:44.279 --> 01:08:46.680
So check that out at...

982
01:08:46.680 --> 01:08:52.260
Rosnan Brew Up. Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and Apple Podcasts.

983
01:08:52.319 --> 01:08:54.960
I think I need to get me bags out of the pot they've stewed.

984
01:08:55.020 --> 01:08:58.500
And at Bond Fingercast on Twitter.

985
01:08:58.859 --> 01:09:03.659
Until next week, may none of your experiences border on the existential.

986
01:09:03.720 --> 01:09:05.039
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

987
01:09:05.100 --> 01:09:05.699
Good night.

988
01:09:05.760 --> 01:09:06.659
Good thing is.

989
01:09:24.899 --> 01:09:28.859
That was Flight through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Brendan Jones, and Richard Stone.

990
01:09:28.920 --> 01:09:32.939
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, logo designed by Anthony Wells.

991
01:09:33.000 --> 01:09:38.220
This episode, a really, really good length, was recorded on the 12th of June 2017.

992
01:09:38.399 --> 01:09:41.640
The next episode will be released on the 23rd of July.

993
01:09:44.699 --> 01:09:57.359
Fans of this season will also enjoy several other seasons, including season six, season 17, season 48 of Law and Order SVU, and that season that comes after summer, the autumn, or something.

994
01:09:58.319 --> 01:10:01.619
Okay, I'm just going to think of something to end with.

995
01:10:04.260 --> 01:10:06.779
That 1st bond finger.

996
01:10:06.840 --> 01:10:13.020
You spend your entire time talking about how he's just been found like at the perfumes count.

997
01:10:13.140 --> 01:10:15.659
Oh, fridges.

998
01:10:15.779 --> 01:10:17.460
Oh, he's funny?

999
01:10:17.520 --> 01:10:19.260
Yeah, yes, it's really funny.

1000
01:10:19.260 --> 01:10:21.000
It's a constant reference.

1001
01:10:21.000 --> 01:10:21.840
Golden Eye.

1002
01:10:21.899 --> 01:10:22.500
Golden finger.

1003
01:10:22.560 --> 01:10:22.800
Okay.

1004
01:10:23.880 --> 01:10:25.560
Let's see.

1005
01:10:26.640 --> 01:10:28.380
He's awful.