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.
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.
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.
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
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We, of course, are flight through entirety.sexy, flight through
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Until next week, may your husband not run away with your chief
confectioner.
Thank you very much for listening.
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.