This Neocon World

Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flightthrough Entirety the only Doctor Who podcast to When We're On For Make Programs that the Human Physiology is not equipped to bear the pleasure of. I'm Brandon. I'm Nathan I'm a half sucked all sort for this one. We're learning all about population control from Helen A. It's the happiness patrol. Well, she realises this isn't completely the wrong podcast order. It's meant to be the fourth of the series. I know. You know what? The badge. If any of you want to argue, the badge. Well, I actually suggested that there was a big finish spinoff series called The Earring Chronicles that explains how flower child's earring gets on on Sophie's thing and silver nemesis. I say that, because there'll be 4 series of 4 stories each. Yeah, yeah. You just need to say it 3 times. The earring Chronicles, the earring Chronicles, the earring Chronicles. Wow, it exists. Check out bigfinish.com. With Jacqueline Pierce as the earring. So, yeah. Actually, this seems like a good time as any to discuss the proposed order, a story. So remembrance of the Daleks was meant to start the season followed by Greater Show in the Galaxy. followed by Silver Nemesis followed by this, and what scuppered that was, coverage of the Olympics, which pushed... Yep, which pushed, which pushed Doctor Who's broadcast back by one week. JNT still wanted Silver Nemesis to start on the 23rd of November meaning with remembrance going first, and Silver Nemesis having to start on that date, there was only a 3 week slot available. So Happiness Patrol had to go in there. Greatest Show had to go last, which we'll discuss that continuity terror later in the season. But yes, here we have a three-part story, the studio-based three parter, again directed by Chris Clough. Chris Timbleclough. I really love the Australian broadcast, if we can all just talk about our youth again when we 1st saw this. What's his name? Sorry, we had a... We were name checking Andrew Hodson all through this. Not Stephen Watts's face because he almost gets on the radio. Even though we've been doing this before you were even fetally engaged. We love you. Richard may not, but we love you. It's not going on the cut my own floor. Yeah, it was a really lovely order for the show because we haven't got there yet, but the wandabee, the almost been final scene of this story, would have been an extraordinary going out. Happiness was... No, Helen A and Fifi. Oh, yes, God. Yeah, let's jump ahead. Imagine that as the very final moment of this season. would have said a lot. It's actually just about my favourite scene of the classic era. It really, really is extraordinary. and I was tearing up watching it when we'd live. We've had personal experience because you're savage marauding hounds. That's it. Like, I, you know, does the dog die.com, which is a website you can go to to check whether the dog in a film dies so that you can... They've already covered the reboot of canine voice by John Leason haven't they? Not to give any way anything away. It's dead by the 1st episode. And obviously Mark of the Rani. And obviously Marley and me just comes with, no, why are you even considering this? A dog's a dog's purpose where a whole bunch of dogs die one after the other spoiler alert. canine company. But I just think it's amazingly brilliantly beautiful. And a story that had been really political. Really, yeah, becomes really personal. It becomes about this one woman's, uh, you know, inability to properly understand about the relationship between love and grief that, um, that you can't love someone without paying for it, that every relationship ends and grief is part of the process of loving anything. You know, it's a stupid puppet. The puppet is hilarious, like fabulously funny. No, no, no, I know, but it's a really good little point. It is a good pub. It's good for the time, you know. Oh, it's still good. It's just not well lit, but we've been they've still got this thing quite dark, considering. You know, I would not say that the puppetry in the never-ending story, which had multimillions of dollars poured into it, was that much better. more working on that as well. There are some great snarls where Fifi bears, it's teeth at the end of a scene and growls. And like, I think it's really super funny and having her, you know Fifi's been eating far too many jockeys lately. Basically, Nigel Lawson. I mean, I wonder his daughter is obsessed with sweetie things after this, yeah. But it really is extremely beautiful, I think. And the music, like Dominic Glynn's music just sells it and then the, yeah, can we go with a pulls up from, it's a beautiful shock composition with her crying and Sylvester and Sophie Watch. And what's wonderful about that music. Again, it's Dominic Glynn, and I'm gonna say this every time we mention Dominic Glynn, Dominic. Thank you for allowing us to use your music and Time Incorporated. What a zinger of a story. But the thing is, that sort of crescendo of music has been fed all the way through the story. It's the tunes Earl is playing. There's little tiny bits of it throughout and then it just becomes this big thing. I love Sophie's reaction, or rather, Ace's reaction to Helen A crying. She genuinely looks sorry for her. Like, Professor, can't we do anything for this horrible dictator who's murdered? over half a 1000000 people. Yeah, if the census is to be believed. Exactly. We have Pinoche and Chatesque doing exactly the same thing at the time. And Thatcher, in fact, why? selling, you know, at the beginning of the arms. The reason that Britain's money went up was not because she fired every single minor in every working class man. Of course, she was nicely flirting with every Saudi prince she could find and flogging him every bit of tech she could get a hands on. Not only that, but the suppression of public grief from a certain sector of the community. Ah, and we will be touching on that later on before. Before we get to that, can we stay with exposition and construction of this story and the major influence of this little film? Because it actually is a film in 3 parts. Dominic Glynn is a big fan of Sir Carol Reed and Austin Wells. And Carol Reed's a big fan of a certain period of German filmmaking. And there's an extraordinary film called The Third Man. With awesome Wells, right at the very end. It's mostly Joseph Cotton wandering around trying to find. Or some laws. Have you watched it? It's on Stan. You can see it for nothing. Um, it's a gorgeous film. It's film wire at, at, at Britain's greatest, um, with his, um zither music. So it's got that lovely Hungarian kind of beautiful. It's all filmed around Budapest, but both Chris Koff and Dominic and everyone else said, we want to do this as a remake of the 3rd man. We want to shoot it in black and white. Have a look. There's an image that we'll put up. The very 1st moment when you get, um, the actress who's been in everything. Daphne Oxenbold. That's the one as, um, it's a cool joy, and it's, it's almost the it's beautiful, but it's, it is almost a frame from the, the use of the, of the crane, so it does come from a certain period of German filmmaking. And yeah, we don't often see crane shots for dramatic scenes in Doctor Who. There was a lot... Yeah, because, yeah, there was a lot in the early 80s Doctor Who season 18, um, Peter's seasons where the crane would be used to sort of show off the the main set the 1st time we see it. And cleavage. But here, you know, here, you know, we do we do get that a few times and there is lots of what are known as Dutch tilts or Batman angles with the frame being tilted. What I noticed when I was last watching it is, yeah, they weren't allowed to shoot it in black and white as they'd hoped. But the set design is still very monochrome. But did you notice they've actually painted the sets in honey greys? So the only things that are colour to the characters and the items. Yeah, and just occasional bits of pink and yellow. Everything's pink and yellow with the exception of things in the candy kitchen. And the planet. Well, the planet's pink and yellow. Exactly. and yellow. Um, but it's incredibly effective and it sort of shows what Frank Miller was doing in comic books for us. Yeah, with Batman new one. Yeah, exactly. Killing Batman killing joke at the same time, yeah. Yeah, sort of not and, you know, not exactly monochrome, but strong use of individual colours to draw the eye within the frame. And that's what happens here. And I think it really helps that Sophie's costume is mostly black. And Sylvester's costume is mostly yellows or shades of yellow. There are reds in there, but you know, he's got a cream jacket he's got his yellow pullover and his brown check trousers. So they fit in as well. Imagine if this had been Perry and 60. And we can say 60 because you know who coined that term? Colin Bay. No, not in my presence. Did he really did? He calls himself that every bloody interview he does. Deal with it, Nathan. I can't see how this story would have worked with the previous. No, they would have shot Perry on the spot, the happiness patrol. But it wouldn't work. That's massive strontium 90 of whining right there, isn't it? He's too big. He attracts too much attention to himself. And this is a story where the doctor lurks like Trout and quietly working to overthrow the government. And there is a lot of him just going from place to place and setting things. actually in motion. in the 3rd man. Yeah, and something else this reminds me of in terms of Doctor Who is actually the sun makers. Well, it's funny that, because Sunmakers influenced a lot of comics. certainly Judge Dredd and the writers, you know, nodded to Doctor Who with that era. Sunmakers Judge Dred, 2000 AD, this lot, cart melt. It's just, it's comfortably full circle. I think I think it's a tradition, um, which is started by the savages, actually, where the doctor comes to a society that is set up to illustrate political oppression in some way, a society that that's characteristics work on a sort of allegorical level, and he overthrows it in one night. And that's very definitely his mission when he arrives. It's the beginning of a night. It all takes place over the course of one single night. And by the end of the story, he's overthrown the government. I think the savages does it beautifully. beautifully, that's another one we were going to talk about as being an antecedent of this. yes Yeah, well, I think so. and it's a society where, you know, allegorically a group of people are sucking the life out of another group of people in order to prosper. So it's about imperialism or the convention circuit. And um, and this one, the happiness thing where, where unhappiness is a code for political dissent, the idea of disagreeing, of being unhappy with the status quo is criminalised. Right at the point of section 28. Yeah, yeah. No, exactly. So this is Andrew Cartmel attempting to fulfil his initial aim which is to overthrow Thatcher's government by having Helen A, who is clearly Thatcher. She's practised media kind of performance. Some of the lines. of the ones they cut out. And how about Sheila Hancock, who's since gone on to completely bault face, but at the time, was so with it with this narrative and the idea of it. She's wonderful. I think she's superb and perfectly cast and really bites the part doesn't she? She really, my favourite. She really gets in there. I think we spent months and months just quoting lines from each other all the time. Strawberry, madam. You know, it's it's really, really tremendous. It does have some other antecedents in things like there's a Monty Python story about Happy Valley where wise King Otto had had all of the unhappy people put to death many years earlier along with the trade union leaders. Anyone with any personal problems would be prosecuted under the Happiness Act. Doctor Who hasn't been this of the now, this with it and down with kids since the 60s. This is really happening. Okay, Pertwiz era did visually and with with Joe Grant, but that we himself was always establishment, however much you want to say the opposite. He was kindly, noblesse oblige Tory. We've now got a proper working class Trouton, as you say, Doctor Who's getting underneath. How could this not have been happening all the time? I sort of wonder, this is what Doctor Who is supposed to do. It's surprising because neither say would gnaw John Nathan Turner wanted to be political in Doctor Who. Well, we know that JNT was actively apolitical because he was terrified, not for his own job. He wanted to get out, as we know, in fact, already announced that this was his last ever, but that they knew that the program would be stopped because just like the current Australian broadcasting Commissariat that we've got right now. It's it's so loaded with Tory thinking that anything you've voice is going to bring wrath. Yeah, and it's constantly under pressure because it's publicly funded and you've got a conservative government that doesn't agree with providing services. It's interesting tax money. What this show is talking about is we've got a dogmatic, repressive government that's elected by half-hearted people, who simply want a quiet life and want a stern teacher, looking at Nathan when I say this, to sort things out for them. And look where that, look what that gets you, world. Yeah, death squads. This was a Britain that's actually turned against itself, knowingly and willingly. And I think that's what this story is all about. Yeah, this is a Britain that's actually said, including the working classes. It's every class. I think we've got to get rid of that word and just start using people or we're never going to get anywhere. It's turned against itself and proportionately. It's middle classes as well, so that Tory voters could pay less income tax themselves. It was it was a real US thinking. We talk about this as being a post-Harvard School of Economics rationalisation in this neo-Cong world that we're in now, but it was actually very English. That should develop this and took this along. This, what we used to call Reaganomics at the time went out. But it became a very British thing and it was really about, we forget this now, and Brendan, you were too young. It was actually about lowering personal income tax. Look what happens. You get women walking around with toilet roll doily covers on their heads and massive choo-choo toy guns. kind of like the guns. You can have frocks and guns together because... It's super frog, isn't it? It's wonderfully, wonderfully frock. And in fact, I think part of the frocks and guns thing actually comes from this because... No, you did, because it's our podcast. Yes, okay. invented the internet as well. Human nature, that was one of yours. was mine. Dropped a piano on me. did it with brutal. This is kind of the frogs and guns thing because you've got that incredibly great scene, which will be referenced in next year's season where Sylvester goes up and just talks to gun wielding man out of shooting and he does it by showing them that being a gun wielding sniper isn't a particularly brave or macho thing. In fact, it's an expression of cowardice and they can't look him in the eye and and shoot him. And there's the other thing here too, where no one is happy. The happiness patrol is enforcing happiness across, you know, the entire society, but literally no one at all in the entire society is happy, and you've got political discontent. Maybe Joseph C. I made quite personal noise then. I think the Candyman might be reasonably confused. No, he's always angry. He is very grumpy. I haven't even got to him yet. My favourite thing in one, you know, possibly this whole era as a villain. Yeah, oh, I think he's terrific. You know, there was there was that whole thing when he was conceived that he was a normal looking person, but all of us... All of a sudden he would take off his glasses and start chewing them and then, you know, he'd accidentally chop off a finger and pick it up and eat it and that would reveal he may look human bees actually made of candy. And it's like, I think it was John Nathan Turner who insisted, no I would like a literal impression. And I think it's a great idea because it's giving us the Doctor Who monster thing. And it's giving us something... But something normal sweets becomes something sinister. You know this has an antecedent, though, because this is... Oh, of course. There's umpty candy in 2000 AD. Is it Judge Dredd? Umpty candy is the product that they use that's so sweet that many humans can't digest it and live. It's their take on drugs and... Yeah, directly from that. But that's okay because it's of the now. And it's Doctor Who being stupid. There must have been lots of fanboys who are utterly horrified by the scenes where the doctor sticks the candyman's marshmallow feet to the floor by pouring lemonade on it because it's silly. And we've had years and years of space corridors and aliens and Doctor Who is proper serious science fiction. And thank God, our long national nightmare of that is over. But look, as a seven-year-old, I thought that was so clever and I understood it because, and this is going to sound stupid, but the things you remember as a kid. Something I remember as a kid is every time I got in the bath, the soap would be stuck to the bloody dish again. That's gorgeous. And clean. And clean. But I would have to, you know, there was a certain amount of water you had to use to get the soap off the thing. So the idea that lemon, it's not quite so lemonade would stick the candyman to the floor. Is that your word? That's my word. Plus, of course, my mum was a chemist. Mine's haberdashi. My dad was a histologist. So, you know, there was a lot of science in the house, a lot of science books. So I understood I understood chemical reactions. But that also taught me that idea. and and not to press your little self against the enamel bathtub for too long. Right. That a mental picture for every listener. It's getting back to like the heart and all thing. where he discusses how light refraction works, how phosphorescence works. But it's just done in a really simple way that is relevant to the story. And quite frankly, if people think that it is silly. Don't get me wrong, a man made of sweets, a robot made of sweets is silly. Susan would be the Scarovian conjure again, I bet. Tardis, why am I channelling Alpha Centauri? Actually. I'm stuck in the bath again. That hexapod could have had some real moments as well. couldn't she eat it? But, you know, it's a question of is something too silly for Doctor Who, and very little is too silly for Doctor Who. Not if it's really, really plum dark at the same time. This is the darkest doctor who's ever done. And the savages comes very close. Well, I don't think that we've ever had a villain that has literally killed half a 1000000 people. She's controlled the population down by 17%. And Trevor Sigma, which is, again, another great character has been counting the people who've disappeared and it comes in. It's just below half a 1000000 at the start of the story and just above it by the end. And he's there every 6 months. It's not 6 years. No, they actually say that. You think 6 quarters, 6 is, oh, okay, it's 6 years. No, 6 months. So yeah, she's really getting in there. And you get that amazing moment where Trevor Signal says to the doctor, this is the name of the list of the people who've disappeared and the doctor takes it and throws it across the square. You know, it's not on it's not on an iPad and we're not scrolling through it. We get that very visual representation of this is how many people are dead. Do you know that the title of this was Crooked Smile, but as everybody in Cardinal says, it was always going to be happiness patrol, because you know that what, that was a take on, Joy Division. No, we all know Joy Division as being the Ian Curtis Northern band that was actually frickin' miserable. And then after Curtis took his own life, it became new order. You know where they got the title of Joy Division and indeed New Order? Joy Division, if you translate directly to the German, was the name. of the officers given to the female internees in Nazi concentration camps, who were used as sex slaves by the officers. That's how dark this show is. Yeah. And, and, you know, you get that line from, we've got Leslie Dunlop back. You get that line from Susan. Mrs. Bellboy. She's married to Bilbo at the time. Lovely couple. And he, um, yes, and he, um, and he, no, he encouraged her to come back to Doctor Who because he'd had such a lot of fun on greatest show. And yeah, well, she gets that wonderful line about how she, you know, how she's happy that she's going to die because she's been smiling and it doesn't mean anything. And once you add in that dimension of the women who were used in that way. Yeah, okay. It's a, it's a leap, but... Well, it's, it's, it's antecedents. You know what I mean? And something else about the story. It's the planet of women, again. Ladyland. Ladyland. I think England was obviously right all the time. How it's going to end up. That's it. Put women in charge. Yes, bras and guns. that's where I think the snipers are so good. And I've mentioned this, the boys have the crap guns, don't they? Very small and gray things, they are. the guns. Something I've mentioned many times on the podcast before, and I'll keep this brief. The legend of Zelda series. In that series of games, the villain comes from a race called the Jirudo. And the story with the Jirudo is they are all women, except one man is born every 7 generations who will lead them and in the... Exhaustively, I can. Or bugger. Well, that's the thing. You kind of look, mind you, we die happy. You kind of look at the try and look at the logic of this, and it's like, if you have a humanoid species, which presumably involve sexual reproduction... And parthenogenesis, much as they cast show leaders for Doctor Who. You know, how does Ladyland work? So here, even... That's the new name for this podcast. So here, even though it is, quote unquote, ladyland. You do see male characters, and you see, if you like, the sexism inherent in this culture, and it holds a mirror up to the sexism of our culture, you know, and... This is also about masks. No, you get to do Zelda. I get to do Oscar one. Because this is also about the false face and exactly what, um Helena and Thatcher was doing at the same time. You know, in his essays, decay of lying, when he talks about masks being the obsession of image over underlying truth. So, and, and, um, I won't go into the quote again. But, you know, the mystery of the world is invisible, not the invisible only, a fool does not judge by appearances as well. But, uh, that was also picked up by Franz Kafka, in the castle and the trial, with the hero being Joseph K. Do you remember? Has anyone actually read those? Something fandom talked about a lot of the time when this came out? I read Metamorphosis years ago. That's amazingly good. But the trial and the, it's what the prisoner, the Patrick McGuin show was directly influenced by. But it's also very much this show. And that's where the sigma characters in the, and the, the, the the, KSP is directly from Kafka, yeah. Yeah, and I like that the initials are explicitly ranks because just in case you missed it. isn't that? I think we should, you have that at school though, don't you? Yes, we just called people by their initials. But yeah, you've got Harold F. being bumped down to... being bumped down to Harold V. I think my favourite member of the Happiness Patrol is some Priscilla P, who's guarding the waiting zone, but she's my principal. I captured her myself. She's so fascinated. These girls are all babes and it's wonderful that they were all dolly birds in the 60s and 70s themselves in lots of shows and that whole thing of the fuller's earth makeup. You know the story? Only Leslie Dunlop was allowed to be pretty. And the makeup artist who was... I think it was Dorkers. I could never say her name because it's like and the best round of Scrabble you've ever had. We can finally get all those letters onto the board and still win. Yeah, but she was using Fuller's Earth. Only, um, Georgina Hales make, um, she got a terrible rash because they couldn't get to talk to Chippitov. And I think with Georgina Hale. I have to mention for myself and James, she was a massive part of our childhoods in a show called teabag. Is anyone else seen that? It's not a term you can really use in polite company these days. No, I wouldn't Google it. Blossom's another one you shouldn't Google children. Blossom. Google that. It was an educational program with a sub Bonnie Langford child called Kelly Bryant. Sub-Bonnie Lang. Don't Google right. Running around and collecting artefacts from poorly constructed studio sets to make sure that the evil witch tea bag, who was obsessed with tea. She could make a cup of tea and see the future in it. We didn't get her hands on it. Georgina Hale played the 2nd tea bag. Elizabeth Estenson played the 1st one. and Elizabeth Estenson was very, was incredibly sinister. you know, when... Did you get a little tear in her corner and then, you know, she just leaked everywhere and they had to replace her? right. Whereas Georgina Hale brought a bit more comedy to it, but was still quite scary. And so terrifies the bugger. And so she was teabag at the same time as she was on this show. So I recognised her. You know, it was like, it was like kids in the early 80s being able to switch on the TV any night of the week and there's Peter Bloody Davidson on 5 shows, none of which are headed by women. Thank you, Peter. ask Janet Fielding about that. Yeah, so that was where I recognised Georgia, you know, Hale, who plays Daisy K, and essentially she plays teabag in the same manner as Helen A, really. So imagine Helen A chasing after a young child who's trying to collect the 7 silver spoons of Atarak. It was that kind of show. Say it 3 times it's a big finish podcast. You'd love it, Nathan. It's basically the keys of marinace every single day. with a different artefact. What I love about these characters is, as you say, they are just you can tell they are actually desperately unhappy. All of them are incredibly unhappy. Priscilla's unhappy because she used to be really good at her job and now she's manning the waiting zone. Daisy Kay is unhappy because no one takes her seriously. Susan Q, Susie Q. Susan Q is unhappy because her friends have been disappearing and she can't say anything about it. Silas P is unhappy because he's only in the 1st episode. Yeah. And and again, you know, he... Because he's a man. His achievements aren't recognised because Helen A says, oh, you know, you found this many killjoys and he corrects her and she's like, no, I do the counting. And, you know, it mirrors what happens to women in our own. He wants to rise to the top. Not the very top, I hate. Yeah, exactly. Now, Richard, you alluded to this last season and it's something I only know secondhand. So I may start off, but please feel free to jump in and correct me because you're much older. But, you know, old. Okay, so long story short, for those of you who are to, for those of you who want to wear late 70s, early 80s, gay men in America and in other places, started dying from a mysterious new cancer that was affecting the homosexual community later discovered to be HOV AIDS. And part of the response to this by the Reagan and Thatcher administration's was to essentially do nothing. And the public line was pretty much these people have no one to blame but themselves. Well, righteous indignation, and let's just throw in a little bit of Old Testament one upmanship here as well. The churchy folk were quite behind doing nothing. So it was Nancy Reagan, her best mate in the whole world. You would think, they certainly behave that way. Rob Hudson. I've got to tell you a lot of people at the time, um, had held very little flame for Rob Hudson because he was in the closet till the day he died, um, almost the day he died. But he also brought it to prominence and became quite vocal, or at least his friends did, that he was personally, you know, calling Nancy and writing her letters and saying, please intervene, please get these drug trials going. Please let us hand me a coach. She just never responded to any of them. And Reagan was famous for just simply not mentioning it. Yeah. never bringing it up. And then you have, you know, the government being forbidden from promoting homosexuality. Like, was it local authorities in Britain were forbidden from spending any money on the promotion of homosexuality at all. Yeah, and promotion being safe sex, promotion being, mentioning it exists, promotion being, presenting it in any way other than a moral deviancy. But it was also, it's very telling for the next catastrophe that we get and how far away is that they had no cure and they knew not how it passed. The 1st people to actually publicly touch an HIV AIDS patient was not a member of any political organisation. They were both people in the entertainment, industry, and indeed near royalty. Elizabeth Taylor and Princess Diana was actually the 1st people to touch and kiss HIV on camera. on camera. Because we really didn't know how it would, how it would transmit. And there was a very real fear, as with other viruses, that it could become airborne. And it was Australia, of all places. We had no idea, but friends of mine, poor kid, was one of them. He was at uni with me in 1st year, architecture and then ran away. They talked about this and he's been pause since, gosh, we were you know, late teenagers and still with us, thank goodness. Australia was the 1st place to trial with condoms and actually issue them and saying this is the only way. We didn't know it wouldn't pass because the virus is so small and it was so very on it at the time that we assume we didn't know whether it would pass through a membrane, but as it turns out, it worked. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that was only Australia doing that, not the UK and not the US. So here, like, why is this story talking about that? Because of Thatcher's clause 28. No, I mean, what is it about this story that makes it about HIV denialism, do you think? Well, the moment in particular for me is, um, the execution of the man by Fondant Suprise in episode one, who is Sai Town, who is an openly gay actor, and, yes, occasional Dalek. So he's not wearing a pink triangle badges is famously... No, he's wearing a pink shirt. Underneath a black chevron, which makes a triangle. And that pink goo, it's telling, isn't it? Yeah. And I think it is also because because of the campness of the story. Yeah, because he's emitted out of a giant tubular sphink. But for me, the moment is when he is executed for public grief because nothing was being done in the States or the UK about HIV which meant if your boyfriend died from AIDS, Well, you shouldn't be sad about that. It's exactly what he deserved. Grief in the gay community was seen by the authority as, well, that that's not a legitimate emotion. Your love wasn't legitimate to begin with. So why should we acknowledge your grief and as much as the fight was on to get actual medical treatment happening. There was also the fight for that recognition of these are people who are dying. And that is part of what this story is about because people in the story aren't allowed to mourn the dead, smiling while my friends were dying. Yeah. You know. And it is, in fact, when Helen A loses someone and actually does her own ostentatious display of public grief that, you know, the story comes round. And Fifi only had life by having a fist up its backside. So I think there's something in it for all of us. Oh, I mean, what also brings that round and makes this story superior to the savages and the sun makers is that it shows its villain to be human. Even though the villain is Thatcher, and we should feel no sympathy for her whatsoever. It's just no sympathy for herself nor anyone else. Exactly. Fictionism, actually. That's the drug of choice that will bring down democracy perfectionism. Whereas here, the doctor evokes feeling and sympathy for the devil. Because he has such a good character and a positive influence. He's not just saving the planet. He's saving. He's trying to say... I think he and A standby quite impassively while... This is the point. They're a mirror. So they are quite devilish. I'm with you on that. Because they nearly reflect back, but you could also say is a very Aristotelian and then Marcus Aurelian, and then it comes in with some New Testament writers as well that Nathan knows better than I such as Paul, uh, that, to teach others to do good. One cannot educate or enforce because that kind of incaucation is just met with animosity. What you do is show. Show don't tell. I think the really telling thing is in episode one A says she wants to make them very, very unhappy and that's what they end up doing. And in fact, Helena's obsession with happiness actually makes her completely unable to deal with the revolution that takes place because she can't even accept that it's happening. An affectionist pursuit of an ideal that can never be... Yeah, it was her scene with Daisy Kay, where she's packing a case and she cannot admit that the whole thing has gone to hell because that would be being unhappy. That you was saying that of Pinochet at the time, a Chilean dictator who'd killed 1000000s of his own people, and she was offering him sanctum. Yeah, and the scene that leads up to Helena's broke down, where she's walking along and Sylvester steps out of the shadows, and you know, it's conducted with depth of field, and the shock on her face, the incomprehension of what went wrong. She's one of the most evil characters in Doctor Whoever because she genuinely believes she's doing the right thing. If you look at who we probably held up as the best villain from the Colin Baker era still. Still knows he's causing suffering and doesn't care, whereas Helen A genuinely thinks she is doing right by the people. She's not, of course, but the... She's pursuing the ideal that she's pursuing. with Justice Thatcher's father was a martinet that, you know, imposed strict discipline on her, on her little, oh, it's so Jack and John Collins, isn't it? Really, above the shop. So she grew up, yeah. Yeah, but okay, I get I get what you're saying about, like, the doctor and A standby and force her to be unhappy, but at the same time, I think they stand by and allow her to be unhappy. She needs to go through that emotion herself. Unlike this podcast. And the point there is, of course, that Ace actually wants to step in and help. Ace says, can we do something? And it's the doctor who says, we've done it. This is what we've done. And I think it's also important because there are there are a few Doctor Who stories where the villain sort of gets their comeuppance and the doctor's not there. You know, the doctor sends them off with a bomb or something, graph indicate. This is a story where the doctor stays to watch the consequence of his actions upon the villain. He does it with Davros in remembrance of the Daleks as well. He will do it in Silver Nemesis, and he will do it in the greatest show in the galaxy. And I think that's a theme emerging here. Yeah, well, I think he's, I think he's teaching Ace, the importance of, you know, if you're going to take an action, you have to stand by and see the result of that, you have to accept responsibility for that. I wanted to say that this story has my favourite cliffhanger in the entire classic series and that's the 0 dear. doesn't look like Daphne S went down too well now, does it, Cliffhanger, which I just think is brilliant. It's so clever. It's got, I think Priscilla P comes in and paints RIP over Daphne's painting. And then you get the music, of course, sells it. The framing of the shot. You've got Sylvester standing there. You've got Ace helplessly just trapped in a photograph, you know in peril. It's just word peril, like the Dr. Mabus or M, as it was remade by Fritz Slang, which was an example of... Weimar film. I thought you were going to say that. No, it actually is. It's a similar scene. And yes, very much so. And they're very Weimar, dark, dark, dark humour because we've just gone through a wall with soldiers returned with missing limbs and such like, and that's kind of what this all felt like every era is like this, if we just acknowledge it. Speaking of episode endings, I really like the final scene, but so of course we have the emotional ending, which is Helene with Fifi but then we have the scene with Daisy K and Priscilla P repainting the TARDIS. And suddenly the pipe people, who, again, we haven't really talked about this, but there's an imperialism as well, that this society is built on excluding a whole class of people and taking their staff, the pipe people. Can we can we name check them? Alpidi. LPD, if you want to put it that way. ALP-I-D-A-E. That what they're called in the book. Oh, okay. They're, you know, an indigenous population that's being oppressed. Children with gruff voices. I think they were really cool. by little kitties. Gordon. But they get brought in. And so you've got this sort of motley group of people who are... Tiny rodent like Adrian Edmondson. But a group of people, a strange group of people who are now going to go off and try and build a proper society. I think it's it's nice. Yeah, and Susan Q and Earl Sigma, who we haven't really mentioned another black character in Doctor Who, who is a medical student. And not with a trumpet. I think we all have been relieved. was written. And actually plays the harmonica very well, you know, although they don't actually use it, he can actually play it, but he wasn't used. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, it's not him playing it. God, it's gorgeous, isn't it? It's beautiful. And it's also very New Orleans, the set design reflects the... And he and the doctor communicate with each other across town using jazz, which massages, massages next week as well. But yeah, he and Susie Q walk off arm in arm at the end. They do that fabulous film noir scene when they're standing over Priscilla P tied up in the waiting zone. Remember? Yes. Helena's switches on the screen and it's fabulously noirage. Yeah, absolutely. And that last scene really embraces the doctor's concept of you cannot have happiness without sadness because Priscilla and Daisy K are making jokes. I'm glad you are happy, Daisy. The doctor and Ace are happy and they're repainting the TARDIS and Susie Q wanders off with Earl. So even though there has been all this sadness, there is, then happiness. When the drones come into Forum Square and start partying. They are genuinely happy because they've been told, actually, there is a revolution happening and they're like, finally. You know, even though they've come there out of a place of sadness it becomes happy, and of course, the doctor points out, hey twisted logic, you're the killjoy is now Happiness Patrol, because you're trying to stop a party. It's again a very British thing we touched on that in the last podcast. Yes, it's by not saying what you intend. Yeah. A nod and a smile. I mean, at the end of the last story as well in that funeral scene Ace says, did we do good? and the doctor doesn't say yes or no. He just says, look, well, we just have to see how the situation bears out. And they do leave after that, but, you know, you kind of think off camera, they had to have talked to Mike's mum and they've spoken to Mike's friends and they've gotten to know Mike's friends. They have stayed in the aftermath, but when they leave is the personal and private moment where his family are mourning, they allow them their space to mourn because they are outside of that. They are outsiders and that's what the doctor and companion always are. This is why I don't get about the show at the time and in fact fandom now and the actors now. I'll just say it here because we're in the podcast and we're talking about this being the queer story. And, you know, we've got that arc in this season, is that Desley McClendon, who was a secondary star in Follies, the Sondheim Follies at the time and plays Mike and Mike Smith in this one, was POS, and did die not that long afterwards. And, you know, and pretty roughly, obviously, as well, because there weren't the drugs to treat him. No one references it. They just say, oh, they, even on, you know, on the disk interviews even stuff, conventions and everything else that I've looked at it's never mentioned that he died of HIV AIDS. It's not even mentioned that he was queer because, oh, he's dead we can't talk about that. Yeah, we bloody should be talking about that. And I don't think he would appreciate that you're not talking about that because there seems to be the whole shame thing. You die because of a sexually transmitted disease. No, you died because you are a certain type of person who've had a certain type of life. And it isn't exactly like yours, but you know what? You're next in line. So I wonder how much of you're not agreeing to discuss me. I'm speaking now as McClindon and my passion for having lost friends at this age at this time when this was going out actually. I'm really not happy about the fact that when as fandom, and indeed as show people who are in the show. Don't mention this and don't discuss this. Well, that's all we've got, all we've got is podcast now to talk about. Well, that's why even though, as I said earlier, I didn't live through this, you know, I was I was born at the height of it, but when I was at university and I was going to queer student conferences. Where I learned so much about this, there was a documentary screened at one of these conferences. I can't remember it and, you know... So we had an auditorium full of uni students, and about half of them left during the course of documentary because they didn't see how it related to them. And it was about the AIDS crisis. And I remember at the end, I haven't seen him for many years. A young man who was big in the Sydney leather scene at the time got up and he just said, I want to say to all the people who've stayed, thank you. I accept that a lot of people our age don't know much about this. This is my address book. So this was before smartphones. He said, this is my address book. This is my 3rd address book in 10 years because I keep having to throw them away. That was happening, yeah. Yeah, and that's why whenever I talk about this story, I am so passionate about bringing this up, even though I didn't experience it, it makes me so angry. And also, you know, I know, I have friends who go through. I have a partner who went through it. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I know that finding out about it after the fact I'm being angry about it after the fact is not the same as having lived through it. But I think it is so important that we don't forget what it was like then, the way the people who walked out of the documentary they had the opportunity to learn what it was like then. And they've kind of gone. I'm 18, I'm 19. as I was at the time as well. It's not simply an age thing. This doesn't apply to me. And it's like, yeah, okay, maybe it doesn't apply to you now, but be grateful it doesn't apply to you now, because all these people had to suffer to make sure it doesn't apply to you now. But yeah, that's why I am so passionate about the story. That's why I would probably say it is my favourite Sylvester story because not only is it a good narrative in itself. It is social commentary. It is telling us to make our world a better place without punishing people who are not necessarily like, quote unquote, us. And because it shows us what we do and who we are. And do you know the, and the other reason that I really love it is because it isn't just about an internal or internalised grief which is always should be, and what the AIDS crisis was also about showing us, that this is also happening under every regime. We're having it happening right now. We don't talk about Rwanda, we don't talk, you know. We don't, Bosnia and and sorry, Nova at the time was exactly this kind of thing. So I really, really love, I think the thing, the pinnacle that they've achieved is talking about personal grief within the UK and within Commonwealth at the time. is a mirror of what we were also sanctioning. Indeed, allowing in these other nations. Which is simply a dismissal of suffering and dismissal of death. And that's the great cultural point that we need to start owning. And this show, a kids show that no one was watching is being more of the moral arbiter and the greatest voice for consciousness that we were getting. God, is Doctor Who really this good? Maybe it actually is. Well, dear listeners, paradise is a bit too pink for us, so we're taking off for a nice, a nice summer concert with Courtney Pine, do come back next week for Silver Nemesis. In the meantime, don't forget, check our show notes for a link to vote for our Colin Baker commentary. Your choices are Mark of the Rani. Revelation of the Daleks, the Mysterious Planet, or Terror of the Vervoids, so do make sure you vote for one of those. Meanwhile, over on Bond Finger. We are about to get 3 quarters of the way through the Pierce Brosnan era of James Bond. Next week, we'll be releasing our commentary for the world is not enough. With Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marso, Denise Richards and Robert Carlo, and Robbie Coltrane is actually quite a good one, in my opinion. That's over on bondfinger.com. Bondfinger on Facebook and Apple Podcasts and at Bondfinger cast on Twitter. We, of course, are flight through entirety.sexy, flight through entirety on Apple Podcasts and Facebook and at FTE podcast on Twitter. Until next week, may your husband not run away with your chief confectioner. Thank you very much for listening. Good night. Good night. It's a sticky end, isn't it? Good night. That was fight their entirety with Nathan B, Brendan J, and Richard S. Theme arrangement by Cameron L, logo designed by Anthony W. This episode, this neocon world, was recorded on the 22nd of July 2017. The next episode will be released on August 13. If you want to make us very, very unhappy, just hold a $120 million optional vote on whether this story exists or not. Okay, so I think that's done. Hate the cars. Chris Clough can direct traffic. I think we've said that before about Ron Jones. They said slow moving vehicles in a tiny studio. Sophie was only allowed half a litre a day.