Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who commentary podcast who is half heterosexual on
our grandmother's sides.
That's not Canon.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Chad.
Richard for this one.
And after 3.5 years we have finished the classic series and we
jump forward 7 years in time, we're not subjecting you to
dimensions in time, although in the show notes for this one, we're
going to give you the link for the wonderful Andrew Auton's
production notes version of dimensions in time, which has to be
read to be believed.
But today we are giving you a commentary on the telemovie starring
Paul McGann, starring Paul McGann being the on-screen title for
this movie.
That comes up immediately after the word.
So one of the other ones of whom there are many, many.
Yes.
Yes, the Magan is the smallest.
They are actually a babushka doll set, aren't they?
They're a Russian gossip, but McGain is the one that you opened
last.
Right.
So we do have our copy of the Telemovie DVD in our DVD player.
Now, this is the copy from the revisitations box set rather than
the original edition, but as I understand, they run at the same
speed, so everything should be fine.
And we will be going slightly longer than the movie as just sort
of having a postmortem and anything we didn't get a chance to say
during it.
But yeah.
Billings, he's got filling.
Grace was very busy on that operating table.
We're just watching the little, you know, Did Clayton Hickman do
the cards for these?
No, no, but he did do the cover for this one, which is gorgeous.
Yeah, yeah, we're just sitting on the menu watching Paul's
fillings.
Less fillings than Pete, though.
Yeah.
Mind you, Richard raises an interesting point that he's got
fillings immediately after his regeneration, whereas Davison had
them in Resurrection of the Dialects after Tegan had been punching
him in the face for 3 years.
Which really hurt.
It was awesome.
So your code word, of course, for this film, to press play is is
clock.
Oh, clock.
Is that going to be my word?
Don't don't drink.
Don't do it when Tom says it.
There are doors and phones in this film, Botox, so you're fine.
Okay, so are you ready to, listener?
clock.
And we're away.
The planet Scaro, which has lost its rings since, remember, it's
the Daleks.
There's no marbled beef.
Skyro.
Yeah, the faster.
The final frontier.
Is the 3rd of, he really is TNTNG, isn't it?
Is this the 3rd or 4th time we've had the doctor?
Oh, hello?
No, it's the pet shop.
The doctor.
The Time Lord.
Hang on.
We're still in survival.
Gallifrant.
No, it is the old tenant. was right.
Yeah, it's like in 11 seconds, they introduced up...
It took 11 years to introduce this stuff in the classic series.
Now, that was Gordon Tipple who just exploded, who is credited at
the end of the Old Master because he was originally doing the
opening monologue. the film.
Oh, Lord, it's Jerry Goldsmith light.
I hate... just awful.
I hope.
Well, you can see exactly what they're up to. can't you?
This is TNG for the box set viewers at home and, oh, look, it's
just like the X-Files only.
It's not.
It's a little bit like trick.
It's a little bit like, hang on, we've already had.
Oh, yes, it is.
Starring poem again.
It really is.
Can I just say how much I hate the typography here?
It's truly, truly awesome. is a special guest star.
Yeah, because he won't be back.
I was going to be his glittering future career, but I decided
that.
Who's that?
Which is exactly, which is what every kid sitting at home watching
this was saying, yeah.
But this actually did quite well.
It was up against, wasn't it a really big episode of Roseanne?
The finale.
The final episode of Roseanne.
We didn't do well at all.
9.08 million. in the UK, but not in the US.
Well, to give an idea, the premiere of Enterprise, which was 6
years after this, got 4000000 and that was seen as a great
success.
So this got actually quite a good rating for a TV show, but a very
poor rating for a film.
Or as Fox put it, the lower to average end.
No, harsh to refer to Sylvester like that when he's spending
over.
That toolbox that we just saw was full of things from the Doctor
Who Technical Manual.
So that just goes to show exactly what sort of fanboy we're
looking at here.
And I think...
Well, we are.
And all of that stuff about nearing the end of my 7th life and
Galifrey and Daleks and time lords and things, which is all
horrifically boring.
Can I just say, he's a time loan.
Get it?
Sorry. don't even need to know that.
The word does the word timelord appear in in rose?
No, um, the nesting kind of says it, but it's not front and
centre.
No, you don't need any of that.
No.
I mean, that's the problem with this, is that it is for the X
Files, Star Trek, the Next Generation audience, both of which
shows by this stage have a sort of massive, Actually, I don't know
what point the X-Files is at, but year three.
Okay, they eventually have this huge mythology, don't they?
But it's just so wrong.
Like in the 1st 20 seconds, all this stuff just thrown at the
casual viewer.
I mean, who the hell's going to engage with that?
And who's this guy?
Well, exactly.
He's horrendous.
I hate that.
Oh, no. so thrilled at the time.
Oh, so was I. We had Sylvester, but now I see it as a mistake.
Yeah, see, at the time. casting my mind back, guys, I'm not going
to labour this point too much, but you know how you talk about
when you were sort of 10, 11, 12, and watching Doctor Who.
Just getting a drink for this one.
This came on when I was 12.
Okay.
And Doctor Who had been off the air and my family wanted to watch
Adam's family value.
So I had to tape it.
That's outrageous.
I can't believe that that's even true.
I know, right?
I know which one I'd choose to watch.
That was a video easy. have gone up the road and got that.
Video easy being a video higher store, a video, dear listener. is
something.
But anyway, it is a mad loop box. comes to you in tiny individual
plastic boxes.
Ew.
Bruce.
Right in front of my console.
But I sat up after Adam's family values and rewound the tape and
pulled out the sofa bed and watched it by myself.
And when the credits rolled, I rewound the tape and watched it by
myself again, for a fan at the time, this was so exciting.
But I totally agree that for a casual audience, what the hell is
going on?
Look, where is he?
Yeah, yeah.
That is even in a, in, in what's that police box in that?
Yeah, exactly.
Like, you've got no idea.
I don't think what's going on.
They've totally thrown the major reveal, which they could build an
entire...
Yeah, what's this?
Where's the junkyard?
Where's the surprise?
Well, that's the surprise in the box.
And it's for a 12-year-old boy watching this.
That would actually be quite a lot of impact right now, wouldn't
it?
Ew, Brendan, clean your room.
Your poor mother.
No wonder she insisted you get some family values.
Oh, I love this shot.
This should be where the movie starts.
Yes.
Right up the fishhead.
Oh, all that stuff really has had.
All that stuff we've just had can be a flashback. explaining how
he got there.
So the 1st time we see the doctor is when in a moment the TARDIS
arrives and he just steps out.
Well, except that he steps out to be like completely gunned down.
Exactly.
It's just ridiculous.
Because he never checks the scanner.
Like, we can get a screen just then saying scanner malfunction.
Yeah, yeah.
You should have said warning, you're in America. everyone has a
big gun.
Arch manipulator.
They're in the flat part of San Francisco.
Vancouver.
Yes, the little moon.
It's Vancouver, they call it.
Oh, okay.
It's the Canadian quarter.
Now, Yiji So is absolutely lovely and he's worth following on
Twitter, isn't he?
He's terribly sweet.
He's liked some of our stuff before.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he also has a wonderful book out which is sort of his photo
diary of working on the film.
I don't know if he was a fan but he understood that this was
something with a big history.
So he was just thrilled to be involved.
He's done conventions ever since.
He gets kicked in the hand, you know.
It's freezing cold.
Certainly Vancouver, isn't it?
Okay, so we just chase them over a fence so that we've got other
people just waiting to get them.
You remember that when this went out on the BBC, a lot of this
sort of gunfire was cut because we'd had the Dunblane massacre
just...
Well, and Pertley's passing.
So it's really referring to, that's what the plastic bags were so
contentious, so there's body bags everywhere, which are also a
feature of this film.
That's actually, there was a week of national mourning in the UK
when pert we died in 96. you remember?
Oh, no, it was actually, it was quite intense in the media.
And of course, you know, people were seeing another way for
British nostalgia.
Whooshing.
So this is something that's new.
Normally the TARDIS just appears via rollback and mix, but this is
something that sticks, isn't it?
We do get wind.
Yeah, we often.
We do.
And the TARDIS materialising around?
Or is it in front of us?
In front of us. a bit of a shame. apologies.
That's quite good with all them.
It's gorgeous.
Yeah, yeah.
Gunshots.
But now, yeah, like, you know, you don't even check.
He didn't hear that.
Oh, that's, please.
That's awful.
Oh, so you don't do that.
He said like a line of dialogue, you know?
and then boom.
Well, we didn't even get the he didn't even get the opening
monologue.
And of course he shouldn't because no one will understand.
It was on the planet Skaro, yes.
And they're not too subtle like promotion of visiting London
behind the TARDIS as well.
Well, that's okay though.
I think that's, you know, thoughtful.
See, one thing I always praise this film for is the direction and
the visual design.
It does, yes.
Everything's blue and orange, just like everything else in the
90s.
Blue and orange.
Class was all...
That's true, but Lois and Clark was shot like this.
So were X-Files.
So it's actually quite a lot of Deep Space 9.
Oh, Bruce, really.
Stop it.
Yes.
It was a British writer, a British director, both of whom living
in America, but Jeffrey Sachs, the director, was one of the few
elements that both the BBC and Fox universally agreed on.
They had a list of directors.
Philip Siegel, the executive producer, had a list of directors, and
he showed it to Joe Wright, who was the producer for the BBC, and
she said, oh, Jeff Sachs, I like him.
And then the executive, they were working with for Fox, was in
their office and he came out and said, oh, guys, I've got to go to
a meeting, looked at the list, and said, oh, Jeff Sachs, I like
him.
So it was pretty much decided then and there.
And here's Eric Roberts.
Hello, Eric.
It's like before we leave, Jeff, because there'll be a lot more of
Eric.
Here's the reason that we get these uncanny, um, awesome worlds
like shots, like the fish eye dissolving from the, which is
actually all coming from the legally Bible, which we'll touch on
I'm sure.
But yeah, the quirkiness of this and the jump cuts and the things
that are actually surprising and odd for American audiences is
down to Jeffrey Sachs.
And really lovely editing.
Every little moment here.
It's just like watching an episode of the New Avengers, isn't it
Brendan?
And I really like the fact that there's a nod there to John Smith
like that substitute little subtle things like that I think are
good.
Well, I mean, I do remember at the time, I think I saw this for
the 1st time at a sort of day event or something, you know
Erskineville in the church hall and, uh, and, you know, obviously
we're sort of hugely excited and we wanted it to be good.
We so wanted it to be good.
And it does look good, I think.
I mean, you know, it looks like 90s television, but because Doctor
Who had looked like sort of 80s videotape kind of, you know, in
the studio for so long, this does look really good, the direction
does things that the show's never done before, just a pity about
the story.
Now, and I just noticed something as the doctor was being wheeled
through the reception that I don't think any censorship department
has ever noticed.
You looked up your skirt.
I did.
But they say that his heart is going wild, he must have taken
something.
I've never picked up.
It's a bloody drug reference in a Doctor Who.
And this was after damaged goods, I believe.
I think the CGI is quite good in this.
For 96 is actually really...
Far off as Odo.
No, Odo is happening.
Yeah, Odo's happening right now from...
Okay.
Yeah.
Same year as the X-Files.
So you can you can really see that Fox is just going through its
own.
Yeah, very on top.
And but the thing is, there's so much about this that we're
actually seeing on screen that meant it could have actually
worked.
I think, is it, we're not going to get there yet, but is it
actually the interference of Siegel's fanboyishness and so many
nods to the past and also maybe just that Joe Wright had no idea
what she was doing.
Well, this is my...
This is the 3rd script, weren't there other scripts with like... the
master and the Dr. Beanhart Brothers and all this sort of stuff.
Like, I mean, I think we get out of it pretty good.
It could have been vastly worse.
And it could have been vastly worse if it had gone to series and
continued.
Could you imagine some of the mythology stuff?
I don't think it would have necessarily had the new series if this
had gone...
Well, you know why Legally wasn't involved in this script.
He was rewriting the gunfighters for the further episodes.
So they were bringing back Dodo.
I actually have I actually have here Leakley's 1st series pitch of
the stories he would have written.
Can I just comment about this shot?
wonderful.
Can I just say, hey, we need more frock in it.
I have met Daphne Ashbrook cosplayed in a male version of that
outfit in Turkish trousers.
She was not terribly amused, but Paul McGann told me I looked
fabulous.
Or the saucy minxy book too.
Well, and also that was when Debbie Watling said to me, I thought
you were one of the normal ones.
But, um, so...
The 1st series was going to consist of the pirates, which was a
reworking of the smugglers.
A new version of the Talons of Wang Chiang in present-day New
York.
With Chinese actors.
Earth Shock.
Horror of Fang Rock set in Nantucket in 1906.
That could have worked.
The Celestial Toy Maker.
No, that's a disaster.
There's not so many Mr. as hits here, are they?
The Gunfighters was going to be retitled Don't Shoot.
I' the doctor.
That just looks like the opening credits of survivors there for a
second.
Yeah, I was thinking shit elsewhere.
We're really, in fact, it's fair game because we're not doing
we're not necessarily doing our, whereas this come from thing for
this story because it's come from everywhere.
Old Sylv, isn't he lovely?
Clock.
But yeah, this film is all about clocks and eyes.
So, Brendan, those stories.
Are they like part of like telly movies or like 45 minute episodes
or what?
The plan was to do 13 one hour episodes.
And how this came about was essentially through a series of
misadventures and particularly Spielberg, who was very heavily
involved until the legally script turned up and was basically an
Indiana Jones ripoff.
And Spielberg went, well, if we're not doing something new, I
don't see the point of being involved.
After various attempts, it went to the Fox movie, um, telemovies
department.
And the guy there was really keen, but Philip C.
Gle said, look, I want to make a series.
So one of the financiers said, I will finance this as a backdoor
pilot.
The guy at Fox agreed, it's a backdoor pilot.
So Fox didn't know that it might have gone to a series.
But that's what this guy would have presented.
He would have said, hey, the ratings were 12 million.
How about we do a series of this?
Oh, here's some treatments we've got.
So it was the idea was 13 one hour episodes after this.
And getting back to something you asked earlier, Richard, I think
really the only reason it didn't go to that was the Roseanne
finale, because the rating it got was, as I said earlier, the
lower end of average, say without Roseanne's audience, which I
believe was in the double digits, if a few more 1000000 watched
this, say up to, I think they were looking for 8 to 9000000 to go
to a series.
I reckon we could have had a series of American Doctor Who, with
what we got with Russell and Stephen Moffatt.
I glad we didn't.
But at the time, I remember I was really sad and devastated
especially with how well it did in the UK.
Yeah, no, you know what?
Yeah, same here.
I wanted to go to series.
But I mean, but again, I think there's fundamental mistakes with
guest starring Grace, you know, but we'll talk about that.
Well, the chemistry.
I mean, look, there's actually more on the shelf and in the tubes
than there is between the 2 leads, isn't there?
I can't help thinking that Anita Sarkesian is up there watching
this. one of those people looks very much like her.
Do you know we're all there?
lets kill him.
Yeah.
Oh, this.
No, we've only paid for him for another 3 minutes.
He's got to go.
You know that everyone looks like Eric Roberts.
You know, the continuing saga was all about the search for
Ulysses.
Bendon's just perked up a bit because he thinks he's in Ulysses 31
again.
But, oh, but yeah, bye, bye, Silver.
This is really horrific.
But that final moment where he sits up and goes, That as a
classic.
That made this scene not so sad for me because that's classic
silve, exactly.
And that's Brendan's safe word now.
It's a very subtle difference.
But yeah, you're right, Richard.
The series was going to be about the doctor and his half-brother
the master, who were grandsons of Barusa, who's now, who was
almost Peter Toole and the console.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. was a hologram inside the console after he was
killed by the master and he and the doctor go off searching for
the doctor's father, Ulysses.
Yes.
Who was also K-ops?
He was also Keops. was one of the pharaohs.
And his mother was his mother was humans.
I'm just getting more and more despondent.
The more you talk about that.
Every single story was about his father was also going to be a
brigand pirate.
And in one script treatment, Bluebeard.
Yes.
So dad, it's really just, there's a whole lot of that damn bloody
awful Joseph Campbell.
Hero has a 1000 faces thing.
And if you want to understand where this is really coming from
every bloody journey treatment in a profiling Oprah Winfrey guest
convo is about, is where this script was coming from.
There's got to be a journey.
And there's got to be a parental thing. you know, Star Wars did it
really well.
Campbell was right to keep it to that and not get involved with
other treatments afterwards, but not after Lucas's success.
The next 20 years was all this same story.
Was Grace going to be in any of this series?
No, the chemistry, they already decided by the time they finished
shooting, that there was actually, you can have more fun putting
bicarbon lemon juice on it, in a beak and then you'll get from
having McGan and grace on stage.
Really, I like their chemistry and I still do.
I think the problem is that it's told from her point of view, and
I've heard this said before, and I can't remember whether it was
Gary Russell, or who, um, disturbingly little Gary Russell, that
that this looks like the pilot for a show about, it might even
have been Paul Cornell, friend of someone.
Paul Cornell, the musical?
No, no, the idea is that, you know, Grace is a surgeon in San
Francisco and every week a new alien sort of appears, you know
hospital and she has an adventure with them.
And you know what?
It's kind of surprising they didn't do that show.
He's a poor woman.
I love her.
Now hang on.
Eric Roberts wife is in this.
That's her.
That's the one.
And he's in her and all.
Yes.
We go.
She's lovely, isn't she?
Not only does she have to be married to Bruce, she has to be
married to Eric Roberts.
Yeah, contract.
See, again, another interesting shot.
Yeah.
Yeah, really artful, an expensive camera.
We know how hard that was to get on happiness patrol and how they
had to book.
I wonder how many times she's told him not to put his uniform just
on the bloody chair when he gets home.
You hang it up.
As many times as Rod has told me, I imagine.
Now, these 2 have lovely chemistry.
I mean, the snake and Bruce, but none of the...
Oh, look at that. pretty cool.
Now, I remember one of the earliest pieces of news about this was
that the doctor was going to be bitten by a snake that was
possessed by the master, stumble back into the TARDIS, pilot his
way to earth, and that somehow became this.
Now, the chap in the back here, who is the main mortician is Will
Sasso, who has gone on to have a very good career.
So after this, he joined the cast of Mad TV, sketch comedy show.
Um, and uh, yeah, he's a really famous comedian.
Most recently, his biggest role was in the Three Stooges movie
with Sean Hayes and he played Curly, the new Curly.
I was about to say that I'd seen him in a number of things.
Like he did a number of, like, television stuff at this time he
was doing these sort of little parts.
But what's his character here?
Pete or something?
Pete?
We need to get some foot rot ointment for silver.
I mean, that's starting to get quite...
No, he just needs to have a pedicure.
People are eating at home, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a, you know, it's okay to be a cadaver, but, you know, you
still have to groom.
Many moons ago, I did, I knew a lovely, a lovely mortician. and
funeral home director.
And he is this going to go?
He's gonna have a little problem in a moment.
Oh, Bruce. pause to reflect.
What is your safety word?
Open wide.
Oh dear.
Richard.
Deep throat the misery.
Oh, she's so impressed.
No, the thing is...
It's working for me.
How about you?
I have to say, if I hear Rod stop breathing in the night and can't
listen out for his breathing, my 1st reaction is not, oh, that's
better, I can get some sleep.
Oh, I can usually hear him breathing.
Is this something to worry about?
Miranda, you horrible woman.
Is that the character's name?
That's the character's name.
Miranda the horrible woman.
Miranda horror.
Oh, horrible.
James Whale, just in case we missed it the 1st time now.
Which is also, you know, been borrowed before by Doctor Who.
I think this is a bit on the nose, actually.
Yeah, having watched it now.
Like at the time I thought, oh, how clever and, you know, the
parallels, but now it's like, yeah, really?
Terribly terribly obvious.
Well, also, this is 1996.
I think this is also somewhat distasteful considering that could
well be John Pertwee on the content.
Okay, yeah, we're now 21 minutes into this.
And 21 years, we still have Sylvester McCoy.
And 21 years, yes, yeah.
And that unbalances it.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, it's a, it was just a really terrible idea.
So they don't and what is Sylvester doing?
No, no CG here.
That's just Sylvester.
Yeah.
Clayton Hickman raises a good point about this in one of the DVD
special features of, you know, Silver's doing full gurning and
Paul's kind of doing, oh, do I have to?
So the vision doesn't quite match.
An old friend of mine, Peter Beckett, did say about this scene at
the time.
He's like, I get what they were going for, but you do not equate
the rebirth of the hero with a rebirth of a monster.
Because the Frank Whale Frankensteins monster, despite the fact
you know, he's kind to the little girl.
He does throw her in the pond and he is classically seen as
monstrous rather than pitiful.
But I mean, I guess what we want to do is a sort of comedy scare
thing with Pete, where Pete's been watching a monster come alive
and then, you know, so, you know, Paul McGann's playing the role
of the pig, you're in aliens.
Yeah, that is true.
Which is a much better story than this.
Oh, but again, this is so nicely directed.
It feels a lot like a reboot of Spearhead from Space.
Well, I think we've said this.
Haven't we said this before?
Both like this reboot Spearhead from Space, and we'll get the
scene where he gets his costume, which is a direct ripoff of
Spearhead from Space.
And then, of course, Moffatt does that when he relaunches the
program with Matt Smith.
He completely rips off, rips off spear.
Shroud.
And you could say Russell does. his Jesus.
Yeah, there's a lot of that.
No, well, I think I think Spearhead from Space is the classic
reboot.
And whenever we want to reboot the show, we go back and redo some
aspect of Sphere.
And right, Rose does as well.
That wig is horrendous.
It is.
Now, the wig came about because when Paul auditioned and his
audition footage does exist and you can see it.
When Paul auditioned, he had long hair and then he had to cut it
off for another role and the production team didn't realise.
It wasn't aliens, alien three.
I think it was Alien 3.
I mean, he did that before this.
Well, Alien 3 was 1993.
So I think I think it had been, you know, this was already in its
second reboot in 92, that Siegel had joined ambulance, had left
coast to coast or green light or whatever they were damn calling
themselves this week, gone to someone else, and then gone to
ambulance.
That's right.
He was originally with Columbia, which is why the BBC was...
But once he had Spielberg on.
Well, Echo, this was never explained, but apparently cunning
fucks.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And yeah, I never I never understood as well.
But in a later scene, Grace's boss says, I have to keep this
hospital open because of course, this is the American healthcare
system.
Oh, that'd be it.
I thought maybe it had been taken to the moon by the Jadoon.
Yeah, like yeah, totally.
Like, it's like, why are we walking into this dilapidated part of
the hospital?
Like, you know?
Yeah, I mean, I'm already loving McGann. my doctor.
No, I really love it. horrifically here.
He manages to save the execrable.
So imagine how good he'd be with good scripts.
There were 7 mirrors there.
That was a deliberate, that was a deliberate choice.
The peak of humulus?
Castravalva.
It's also the fly.
Yeah, you're right.
And now he's Jesus.
Why hast thou forsaken me on this...
I'm sorry that Hoover film set.
That is so painful.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, well, it's it's hokey.
And it's also the 90s.
Oh, Bruce.
Do you need a tearing?
You've got to, you've got to, oh, bruise.
You need an apple, something on your face.
Yeah.
But yeah, um, Siegel had 1st approached the BBC.
A week before Ghostlight aired.
That is how long Siegel had been developing this ever since Doctor
Who went off the air.
Do you know he'd actually been writing test scripts in the 70s as
a child, he admits?
Do you know who one of the other people who auditioned?
Have we done this yet?
We thought about listening to the other folk audition for the
part.
Peter Capel.aldi?
Yes.
John Sessions, who I would have loved, Tony Slattery.
John Sessions has been in Doctor Who, of course.
He was Gus in Mummy on the Island Express.
Oh, please.
I love John Sessions.
Philip Siegel described that as a kiss to the past.
Sorry, go on.
She's to the part, well, more a belch, really.
Yeah, yeah.
Capaldi has been hovering around just like Segal has for years.
Is it my guy yet?
And a few years.
Oh, nod.
A few years before this, of course, Capaldi auditioned for Captain
Cisco we discovered recently.
It didn't go very far.
He was always getting into drag, wasn't he?
Oh, one of the big names that I think when it was at Amblem that
they wanted, and apparently was interested, was Donald
Sutherland.
Oh, yeah, that was good for.
Yeah, I think I remember that too.
I liked the movie.
And Caroline Monroe.
Before Paul McGann, because as soon as someone suggested Paul
McGann, Philip Siegel said, I watched with Nail and I decided, yes
he was perfect.
But before that, um, Philip Siegel, who insisted it had to be a
British actor, uh, his favourite...
That was the main BBC thing, yeah.
His favourite for the role was Michael Crawford.
Yes, they did actually try Michael Crawford.
Yeah, he completely shot.
No, he was going it was going to happen, but he completely
destroyed his entire career.
It's a reason you haven't seen him for years.
He was very, very naughty and mouthy.
I thought you were going to say like he fell into the set and it
all collapsed.
He kind of fell on top of him.
He had a Kevin Rudd meltdown period on Broadway and off and just
being, well, there are many others.
Teresa May's leaders falling off the wall, you know.
Amanda's going to be in for a little bit of a shock.
Yeah.
This was another one of the cuts in the UK, not vision, but the
audio coming up was heavily muted.
Oh, is there a sort of crunching noise?
crunching noise, yeah.
Oh, he's expertly billed, isn't he, old Eric?
And I would like to say also they're still together and they do
lots of charity work together, these two actors.
Lovely.
Well, is that what they call their acting now, charity?
I have to say, the chemistry between these 2 is fantastic and I
want to be married, but really, if the 2 leads, already, one of
them is actually, although I love Paul is capturing more attention
for me, I think Eric Roberts gets this exactly right for an
American audience.
There's lots of homage to the 70s, but he's like a lot of the
actors who were living in the UK at the time and had watched it
he's not slavishly trying to follow it, and neither is McGann.
Well, I gather that Eric, he was cast very late.
Oh, this is one of my favourite lines in the film.
And Will Sasso has talked about this film and said, you know, it
was my big break.
Casting agent saw me.
I got some jokes.
I got to do slapstick.
We should say for that, we should say... drug reference, we should
say...
We should say for the listeners listening to this on the train.
Oh, sorry, the line was Grace says, I don't think the 2nd coming
happens here to which Pete replies, do you think he's going to go
to a better hospital?
Okay, can we talk the costume?
Oh, it's shockingly bad.
I mean, yeah, it's neo-romantic poets.
Actually, although where was pop music going to go at this time?
But I failed to register the costume as terrifically bad because
all I see is the hair.
It is bad.
And they justify the costume in the plot because we found out in
an earlier scene, there's a costume party coming up at the
hospital, which we'll see later.
It's not like pert we just stealing a particularly camp surgeons
sort of cape.
Well, he's actually stolen.
The other...
He's stolen the other morgue attendance costume.
Because the other morgue attendant said earlier on, I'm going as
Wild Bill Hickock.
It's the Wild Bill Hickock costume.
I got a local costume shop to remake this costume for my year 10
formal.
It wasn't made out of velvet.
That's gorgeous.
It is...
I was going to say that's sad.
But anyway, it's both.
It's yes.
Do you still have it?
No. no, no, no.
They made it on the proviso that they would then be able to rent
it out as a riverboat gambler costume.
Okay, okay.
Yeah.
So it didn't cost any more than a normal rental because they got
to keep it.
So is this the same night?
So she's gone in the next morning?
It's the next morning, but she's been there all night.
She hasn't been home.
Yeah.
So when she gets home, Bruce has already cleared all of her stuff
out of the apartment.
Brian has taken all his Brian and Simon have both. cleared it
out.
Oh, dear.
Well, I think that he's probably having an affair behind her back
with a removalist or even a whole bunch of removalists.
I picked that up as well.
I think he's the one that keeps insisting on frocking up and going
to Paccini.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. for the ride.
Can we go back to that?
I really found that irritating that the Paccini playing in the
surgeon scene this time around when I watched it recently.
Again, it's very ER St.
Elsewhere.
I liked it at the time, but again, it's like, I just kind of
rolled my eyes.
They're very heavy handed with the, aren't we gorgeous stuff?
Yeah, yeah, they're right. as you might say.
But I think I think it is wonderful to have a production team who
clearly care, not just about wanting to make a good show, but they
want, they want to bring it back and they want it.
Hey, stop being a creep.
Yeah, they want it not to be the doctor's searching for his father
with the ghost of his grandfather in the crystals of the Tartars
appearing like Jorrell to give him his mission at the start of
every hour.
No, no.
I mean, it is it could have been much worse, but it's still bad.
It's still too much.
It's actually a comic strip presents remake of an American
classic.
Do you remember that one they did the strike with Arthur Skargill
as Al Pacino and Jennifer Saunders as Meryl Streep?
That's what we're seeing right.
I've got to get onto a Harley Davidson and rescue and compound it
or imploding mindful shaft full of orphan children before I get
into the Land Rover.
I'm glad she's got a Land Rover, like Bambera and all of them.
I'm not back to...
That's also said in 1999.
Oh, okay.
I like this.
I do like this.
Is she the Caroline John of this story that we would have had.
I mean, I'm still feeling we're in a unit car park.
I really wanted her to go with him.
Yeah, I think the only reason she didn't was they didn't know
whether it would go to a series and...
That's the other end of Cheryl and Finn, isn't it?
After she does that thing with a cherry stork.
I don't know what that means.
Twin Peaks.
Yeah, the twin peaks, mate.
Oh, 2 hearts. here we go.
More information.
Another great line.
You have to get me out of here before they kill me again.
And the thing is, he just delivers it like, you have to get me out
of here before they they stub my toe. really inconvenient.
It's a good moment from Paul, then.
Yeah, yeah.
I find that he has like, for me, it's like Nicole Kidman.
She has these moments of like nothing and then he's Nicole Kidman
acting moment, and I find that with Paul, he's the Paul McGann
acting moment, but whereas I hate her acting moments, I really
like his really...
Well, if you've met Nicole, you might want to expand your
opinion.
I've had the displeasure of several times.
Lots of stories which aren't for the podcast.
What's her name?
She's good, isn't she?
The character is called Wheeler.
Now this scene...
She's the Joan Sims of this film, isn't she?
Yeah, she is.
This scene, there was in, there was intended to be a cameo from
Silv in this scene when...
Oh, yeah.
I never got this as a kid.
Because in the script and in Gary Russell's novelisation, It
explains that the human body cannot contain the time lord energy.
So he is a walking corpse and he is rapidly decaying, which is why
he's got this urge that I have to steal the doctor's body.
Is that Anthony Amy's career?
Yes, that's right.
But in this scene, um, the Asian child.
I mean, I'm going to lie. love the way he delivers it.
I also like that he's getting used to the idea of talking through
this body.
Yeah, yeah, they're cameos.
That's like the brigadier and Joe Grant and flew them all to
Vancouver.
It's pretty confident, isn't it?
But yeah, Bruce was going to be stalking this guy through the
corridors of the hospital who looked like Sylv and it was, I
gather going to be Sylv in a little bit of makeup, but the idea
was it wasn't him, but it was to establish that he, this is the
doctor's enemy.
But they dropped it because it would have been an extra scene for
Sil.
They already had days cut out of the production.
It was meant to be a 30 day production.
It ended up being 28, but they had cut it back to 24, which.
Jeffrey Sax only agreed to do it because it had longer than the
usual telly movie to shoot and then they kept cutting gays and he
wasn't impressed.
He liked that sofa. didn't like the telemark.
I like everything about this scene together.
This is one of the doctory moments that made me realise I really
like him.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, just because he's actually getting to do stuff just straight
to camera without lots of idiot effects going off all around him.
But yeah, he has great charm.
Have you noticed how clever the shooting is to make him.
Oh my lord, you know who that is?
Just in case you missed it.
That's St.
Anne.
That's Leonardo's sketch of Mary's mother.
Just in case you're missing the immaculate conception motif.
Oh, my goodness.
They just beat me around the head with a fricken brick.
In especially this scene where she's trying to come up with all
sorts of justifications, but eventually has to accept that he does
have 2 hearts.
Scully.
It's quite good in this show, even though she's intensely non, but
it's a nice thing to have the doctor meeting people who are just
not English.
And also independently intelligent.
Yes, yes.
Which is why she's reminding me of Liz Shaw.
And not just that, yeah. in any ways over.
I'm with Todd.
I actually really like these 2 together.
And what's on the mantlepiece?
I think this is great.
And they're getting to exposition.
Oh, Mr. Clark.
Take 2 drinks.
I'm just misemerized by them.
I have 13 lights.
Another bit of information too much for us.
We need that, and we need that episode's down the track, not now.
Well, the 1st season of Doctor Who, and obviously this wasn't
planned, the 1st series, rather, of Doctor Who, has a regeneration
at the end, but doesn't mention it.
And I think Russell's Bible says let's not mention regeneration.
Let's not have any of that.
Yeah, let's not throw everything in a garden.
I mean Gallifrey's not even mentioned until when.
The Christmas special with Catherine Tann.
The date.
Yeah, so that mentioned the planet's name.
I mean, that sense.
Yeah.
Now, here where he seems to see into Grace's past, that was a
conception of the writer, Matthew Jacobs, son of the gunfighters
actor Anthony Jacobs.
I like this.
I like it, the fact that he has these moments.
Yeah, it really worked, didn't it?
That's better than Sylvester McCoy's Malapropisms in time of the
Rani anyway.
Well, anything's better than that.
Again, I would recommend to anyone seek out a copy of Gary
Russell's novelisation because as Gary put it once, you know, I
was adapting a very fast paced 100 minute script.
So I included stuff from the character sketches.
And the character sketch for Grace is the reason she became a
doctor is her mother passed away from cancer.
So the whole, and that's the doctor looking into her past, saying
it's a childish dream.
Yeah, holding back, holding back.
So he gets the companion moment of discovering the Tartars.
Which is fantastic.
I do see Chang Li as a companion in the mould of Turlo.
And if it had gone to a series, it would have been great if he had
gone back and picked up Grayson Chang.
Better Turlo than Adrick.
Okay, how are we feeling about this set?
Now we hear, oh, I should say this TARDIS.
I like it.
I actually really liked it at the time.
You know, like, I think it's pretty good.
It's just not a TARDIS.
Well, it's got a kind of steampunk...
I mean, it is, you know, and the time machine, obviously, you know
like Welles's time machine, which he was obviously pictured
reading.
Just in case you missed it.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, well, in fact, it was the only way of knowing that you were
in a time machine, as Todd pointed out.
Yeah, I like the fact that here you've got, like, you says, the
TARDIS really likes you, like making the TARDIS sort of a lie.
But do we really need this?
The audiences don't know what the tartis is.
No, exactly.
Everything is inverted in the wrong in a way that isn't
pleasurable.
And this would have been a great moment to have the master do the
whole time and relative dimension in space.
It's bigger on the inside than the outside, which would have
explained to the audience and been a nice thing for fans to have
the master do that.
I just want to say earlier on in this scene, Chang Li immediately
recognises Bruce by name, he's got a fantastic memory for a
paramedic.
Paramedic guy.
He just he just rode with for like 10 minutes.
And I like, I like, the fact that he's sort of mesmerised by the
eyes, a nice nod back to hypnotism.
Yeah.
But you have to really know that, really.
Like, well, I think I think, though, with the popularity of the X
Files, people are used to the ideas of hypnotism, he's got funny
eyes now, so he can hypnotise people.
Um, So is the best thing about this. this whole thing is that it's
an object lesson to Russell T. Davies, about how not to launch the
series.
Well, that's how he describes it.
Do any of these things?
Yeah, he actually... listen to the opposite.
Doctor Who, what not today?
Yeah, I think what I think, though, what saves it is, there are
lots of lovely scenes and lots of lovely moments.
And the character work is good.
The direction is good.
It's just, they needed to show the script to someone outside the
organisation.
They needed to show the script to someone who had no idea what
Doctor Who was.
Yes.
This is a great indication of why Baron Putnam, as he is now.
David Putman left Columbia and went on to, you know, he's now
because he simply said that, you know, he made lovely films like
local hero starring Peter Capaldi and all of, you know, and was
mates with everyone.
He said, there were too many suits writing the scripts behind us.
We just couldn't get over what we wanted.
We're right in the middle of the heat of that.
But you know that Siegel said that this was his least favourite of
the 3 scripts.
He wanted the legally script.
Gosh, did he?
And he's the one that insisted keeping the stuff with the eyes, the
mother who's, you know, half human.
Oh, so we have, oh, actually, does anyone else notice that?
We have a time travelling half human who's landed back from the
future into San Francisco and where are the whales?
Voyage home, isn't it?
Well, and Leonard Nemoy has another connection to this film
process, which I'll talk about in a moment.
That's when that's when you know.
That's a really good moment when he...
How you find him as a doctor, Todd?
Sorry, Brendan.
No, that's all right.
But he's not one of my favourites.
Really?
You haven't had a lot to see for him, have you?
No, a human audio, and so I stopped I stopped listening.
Really?
He was my favourite big finish audio doctor for a long time.
I think his voice is not good for audio.
And so I got to the end of the Charlie audios, if you know the
audios.
And then I just went, okay, I will now retire.
Wow, I kind of agree.
I get the impression that he's got so little to work with and no
one knows how to rise him.
And the new the new adventures obviously only have one 8th doctor
novel, don't they?
Like the very last...
Yeah, the dying dying dying days.
And then BBC...
I got no idea what to do.
Like they don't know what to do with him.
I think that their idea is that he kind of flies by the seat of
the pants would be there's a reaction against Sylvester. and he's
cheerful or something.
There are some good BBC novels.
Lance Parkins ones, Lloyd Rose's books, I would highly recommend.
Yeah.
There's one thing I would have liked to have seen 13 episodes with
him to see.
Like, because he's only got, like, how many minutes in this?
It's what 70 odd minutes?
He's not in it very much either.
And then you've got all this taken up with these guys who, I think
are great together.
Yeah, yeah, that would have been a spinoff.
I would have liked to have seen, yeah.
Paul given the chance to delve more into the character.
There's nice little moments in this.
But you've got a much clearer idea of the ninth doctor by the end
of Rose, which is, you know, half the length, a much, much better
idea of what he's like.
This stuff here in the Taras Tataras is so big, they'd have to be
doing bottle shows inside the TARDIS is part of the series
wouldn't they?
Well, here's I think standing set, just, yeah.
So, um, Matthew Jacobs wrote in the Cloister Room as the place
where the eye of Harmony is, right?
Great.
Now, he didn't he didn't he didn't describe it.
He didn't describe it much because in a lot of American film
scripts apparently, you don't describe the set unless you have
to.
That's the job of the set designer.
I think that's actually all going back to Terry Nation's big white
room.
But don't we have, don't we sort of have the eye of harmony-esque
thing in journey to the centre of the Tatars or something like
that?
Isn't there some energy source down the bottom?
I've forgotten.
I blanked that one out.
It was terrible.
But it's a not to this.
They sort of link it to this.
Matthew Jacobs did write this as it's a link to the Eye of Harmony
not the original and in script editing.
They just simplified it.
But the other thing was, he wrote it as the small kind of room we
see in Lagopolis because a cloister room is a small room.
Well, it's a room that has a colonnade around it.
Exactly.
Yeah, because the cloister's just your veranda, right?
Yeah, and apparently, I don't know what his original scripted
ending was, but the new ending, but his original scripted ending
didn't involve the fight we get in the cloister room later.
But I love a slap. didn't you want to see Teagan go full on
handbags with Tom in that one, I did.
But that's the thing.
They called him and said, right, we need a fight, a big action
fight in the console in the cloister room at the end of the show.
And he said, but how do you have a big action fight in the
cloister room, but close to room's tiny, and apparently Jeffrey
Sachs just said to him, it's not anymore.
Because they couldn't afford to fly the writer up to Vancouver.
Does this make any sense?
Only if it is Janet Fielding inside that big stone bubble.
Thankfully, um...
As you know, Jenna, was Paul's agent and advised him against doing
this wrong.
Exactly where I'm coming from.
Thank you, Todd.
Yeah, good honour.
Oh, a kiss, a kiss, fan voice, a...
After we've seen what's coming out of Bruce's mouth.
And now she's ecstatic.
Obviously Brian didn't do it for her.
Brian was busy with Simon the whole time.
Hi guys.
Now, the thing is, I, okay, you know, as a 12-year-old boy, I had
absolutely no problem with those 2 kisses, because the 1st one, the
1st one is he's overcome with emotion.
They were going to talk about the outfit.
Yeah, it's fabulous.
Are they going to do all the doctors in that thing?
Like all of them?
They were going to.
And they could they just couldn't make it work with archive
footage to get the 3D effects.
And that's why that's why they didn't do it.
But yeah, Silv's out 1st in this is so much better.
And when Silv agreed to come back, he said to Philip Siegel.
Look, about the costume and Philip Siegel said, look, can we get
rid of the question mark, pull over?
I hate.
Okay, here it is.
Yeah.
How does it, why, this doesn't, what?
Why, where, what?
Okay, I have a reconning fan theory about this.
Please do it now. doctor is half human.
The 8th doctor is half human because before he went in for the
operation, he was given a blood transfusion. right.
But that's exactly right.
There's a reference to it in the series finale for series one
where someone accuses the Daleks of being half human and they
reply that is blasphemy and that's a reference to fan reaction to
this revelation.
But, but, but Russell also covered that when he said when Chris
Eccleston said, I can turn into, you know, there was that line
that I can become anything.
I might have 2 eds or no ed or another species.
But the meta crisis at the end of series 4 says that there's never
been a half human, the human time Lord hybrid and that makes no
sense.
Just have another go.
The German military.
What was Todd going to say?
No, no, no.
We just had a whole lot of info dump in this scene.
Nonfancy be going, what the hell is this?
Yeah, I mean, he's finally exterminated by the Daleks. casual if
you're right.
I just keep going back.
This kind of works for the UK because it's a continuation.
Yeah, I don't think it does after sort of 7 years.
You know, like, I don't see why that works in the UK.
It looks pretty.
Well, there's enough fans to know that it knows.
The thing is, though, 1993, we had dimensions in time, which, even
though it was only 15 minutes, was very heavily publicised, also
1992 to 1994, Alan Yentob pushed and pushed and pushed and got
reruns happening on the ACC 2.
You've got to remember that's now 1987 because of Brendan's...
My unit dating period.
Right.
Because of Su Tech leaving the back door open and all everything
rushing back.
A bit of laughter.
There was horrible interlacing in that shot of grace running
inside.
I don't know how that happened.
Sorry.
Clock.
It's getting my shit now.
Nothing left, listeners, nothing left.
Stick we've seen before, big, big trouble, little China.
Terminator.
Lordy, here we go.
Oh, but as you've always said, Richard, Doctor Who is at its best
when it's doing other things.
Also, yes, but it still needs to have a heart of knowing word and
who it is itself.
This isn't Doctor Who.
This is just a lot of other things with the X-Files, and I would
also say Scarecrow, Mrs. King. rather than the Avengers, which was
a big show.
But it's also borrowing just as the Avengers did, borrowing from
Nick and Nora Charles and the Thin Man series.
It's just a lovely the pairing thing, but there's nothing really
in this that tells me it's Doctor Who other than slapping me in
the face with a wet-eyed fish.
Yeah, yeah.
Why did not Gallifrey, Time Lords, 13 live sort of stuff?
Why midnight?
Yeah, midnight.
Yeah, because it gets saucy then.
Well, dramatic plot purposes.
Not many people know that midnight happens at the same time all
around the world.
Hang on, when did Greenwich mean move to San Francisco?
Slash ramp.
Yeah.
We loved that at the time, didn't we?
What about other people are experiencing?
This, for me, this is the moment when I was a 12 years old, where
I just went, yep, here's the doctor now. this line coming up that
he just delivers it with such utter sincerity.
Brendan does grace his eyebrow beautifully too. still do that.
Doctor, I love you, and we only have 3 hours left to save the
earth.
I think that it's a nod to the time scanner in image of the fender
which will destroy the planet in exactly 100 hours after they
start operating.
Lip.
Oh wait, no.
That's what I weigh.
Again, is very small.
It's got...
That was the other thing I was going to say.
Have you noticed how much time they're spending trying to shoot
him to make him look taller?
In every shot.
He's the same height as silve, if not a little shorter.
He, I believe he is 3 foot two. 5 foot eight.
No, he's not.
No.
No?
Like, here's a nod to Russell does as well.
Like, you know, he has the American news readers, you know?
Trinity Wells.
Yeah, love her.
See, you know, in when we get Doctor Who coming back for the new
series, in the UK, they use real British newsreaders.
They look too similar in the face.
Oh my God, their brother and sister.
No, well, Star Wars again.
But...
Here's Reba McIntyre.
Because America has so many local and regionalised TV networks
you'd never know if they were real news readers.
There it is.
Oh, hang on.
I was right.
It is meantime in San Francisco.
No, they're switching meantime to San Francisco tonight.
Because it's the America.
Most accurate atomic clock, atomic clock, atomic clock in the
world.
And so the doctor has to steal it to make the TARDIS work.
Wasn't it working before?
Well, remember there was the critical timing malfunction because
Bruce...
Splooshed all over the console.
Yeah, fair enough.
I guess that's why the doctor hasn't had a teenage male
companion.
He's suitably mincy, isn't he?
Our master.
Oh my god.
Our Bruce.
There's a hell of a lot of pork mince in his performance.
He kind of nails it without having really seen the... without
having seen the show before, but I mean, the mask is such a thin
character.
Yeah, well, yeah.
Yeah, in the in the electronic crest kit interviews for this, Eric
Roberts says, I don't know much about the character, but...
I know a lot about Tilly Biogenesis.
But he said, you know, he's the archetypal villain.
He's the bad guy.
He's the guy in the black hat.
So you've just got to play it totally evil.
And keep it.
Yeah, keep it thin and keep it light.
And there's a line coming up here that he suggested, which showed
that, you know, that he was taking the script seriously.
His response here tells you.
That was Eric Roberts and his rationale was, this is a British
character.
He would correct an American's grammar, even though I'm American.
He's also ended 3 sentences with a preposition before that
moment.
Nothing wrongly counting.
Chicken's chicken.
Hang on.
The chickens?
It was a chicken truck that overtook Jagarov.
I'm having to eat the chicken. having a Gary Gillett moment now.
Oh my god.
Oh, that's just not good.
Well we know the answer for that question.
What is it?
Alien blood from, well, aliens.
Blood is a word.
Oh, I've always wondered.
I can't be injured.
I've always wondered what that line was.
I thought he said I was just beginning to like it.
Get it off me, get it off me.
Ah, so what he's saying is because his body's deteriorating, he
has to recover quickly.
That makes sense by eating paper towels, it seems.
Wow.
And this seems...
There's a moment that's about to come up here.
Well, I actually think Paul McGinn becomes the doctor and I...
Yeah, I have... though.
No, I like what he threatens to shoot himself in the hair.
He's just trying to think, oh, please, no, come on.
I know we're in America, but it doesn't have to all be gum.
No, but for an American audience, they would expect the hero to
take the take the gun and turn it on the cops.
So it tells the American audience.
No, this is a different kind of hero.
But I agree with you, Todd.
I think it's a very doctor-ish moment and especially also coming
up right now where Grace is arguing with him. excuse me.
This is a lovely one.
Importantly, while the gun is producing any of the cop now, which
I don't like.
His finger is off the trigger.
It's hard to see, but yeah..
I was just unexpected that he would pull it on himself.
Like, and I just thought there's a very doctorary thing to do and
have this argument with the companion and I felt it was a bit
doctor-ish.
Yeah.
And there's a cut moment coming up right here where after she
shoots it and says, give him the keys, the cop starts arguing
again, and the whole crowd goes, give him the keys.
Oh, yeah, it doesn't work.
It's totally stupid, but it's very Doctor Who, but it's totally
stupid.
Chickens.
Yep.
Delicious chickens.
There is a line they thankfully cut out here where Changli goes up
on the sidewalk.
I can say that because it's American.
He says, don't mess with an Asian driver.
Oh, please.
And I don't I don't even think that made it to the set.
Good.
Yeah.
And now we have the obligatory chase.
And look, I mean, Doctor Who has had car chases before.
They've obviously not been as good as this. just a budget leap
from the wheelchair, isn't it?
Yeah, exactly.
And the trike and the Ogrons.
Run a private road now.
Is that how they do it?
No, I don't well, I don't know.
Because there's no one else here.
I believe it is a closed loop that was built in Vancouver to use
for TV shows.
I think I say breathe in when things like that happen.
I think that's another one of the, you know, lines from Doctor Who
that...
Yeah, yeah.
Probably.
Oh, dear.
It does look better than Doctor Who's.
It's gorgeous.
It's just not Doctor Who.
No.
It's sweet.
I'm having a lot of nostalgia for my slim what was then remainder
of my youth in the 90s because everything in the 90s looked like
this.
Every American show.
That's that's Frasier and Niles.
I always call it like Dr. Queen Medicine Woman.
So I go with Doctor Who Magic Man or whatever it happens to be.
They're the credits that I want for this.
I don't know.
Of course, Philip...
That's so grainy.
Is that because of the...
It is shot or shot on film.
It is all shot on film, but mastered and edited on Digibita, which
is why the Blu-ray of this is not a true film conversion.
It's an upscale.
And there has been a campaign for years to go back to the original
film negatives which do exist, but much like DS9 and Voyager, Blue
Room.
Well, it would just be too expensive to do the digital effects.
Yeah, not that many people like this.
Yeah, it's it's and you know, is that dim?
No.
It's Terry Walsh.
I wish.
And apparently, Grace saying not again was designed as a tribute
to Douglas Adams.
As is the later line from the master, life is wasted on the
living.
I need the right guy and he's from another planet.
But still, you'll make the choice not to go with him, you silly
one.
He's not the right guy.
Oh, that is really grainy, isn't it?
Terrible.
Yeah, it's not really, yeah.
And that's cribbed from a Sarah Jane line.
I sure.
Sarah at one point says, well, I don't, yeah, I've only got one
life.
So you try and remember that.
No, that was it.
I've only got one life and I've had enough already.
Is it Victor?
Sorry, Victor.
Excellent work, Grace.
Where are the chocolate fame?
No, only in the 1st minute.
I want them.
Only they are again as hats.
But like there's no monsters.
You relaunch the series and you decide we're not going to do
monsters.
Grace's jawlines shot at a certain angle.
It's terrifying, me.
Oh, the Gareth joke.
We need to cover over the character of Gareth and why the Gareth
joke is so hilarious.
We're just about to meet Gareth, that ain't Gareth right there.
Do we all remember in a fix with Santarans?
Oh, yes, of course.
Yes.
Oh, that little Doctor Who skit.
Yeah, that's Gareth Jenkins, the child.
This is meant to be Gareth Jenkins coming up right now.
Really?
Yep, that's why he's called Gareth.
And harsh but fair.
Yeah, on, if, if you haven't already bought the 2 doctors on DVD
you will not find interfix with Santaris on any future editions of
it.
It has been reissued because of Jimmy Savile, yeah.
Because of John Fielding, she's been completely excised from
humanity.
Yeah, I know her hair.
I believe that one.
I believe that...
Oh, it's very dynasty on a...
Colby's is very cold.
Is it worth pointing out that the year 2000 on the thing looks
like a coiled snake?
Oh, the nicely mean there.
There's the monster.
Philip Segal famously said at conventions.
The reason we're not doing monsters is because we would only have
the budget to do 2 monster suits and I don't think that's
effective.
Well, that never worked in Doctor Who before, did it?
That's why in the dying days, which is the only Virgin New
Adventures, 8th doctor novel, Lance Parkin, wrote it that only 2
Itharias ever appear in any scene any time.
Just to prove that it could have worked.
Is this guy in the opening credits?
I don't believe so.
Then who are those last 2 names in the opening credits?
They were the cardiologists who assist Grace and the head of the
hospital, I believe.
Oh, okay.
I always thought he got a credit and I thought, why?
But anyway.
So...
Oh, Lord.
Yeah, Professor Wag, just then, was.
Dave, um, Hertebees.
So, yeah, John Novak was Salinger, who was the assistant
cardiologist and Michael David Sims was Dr. Swift.
Was that the head of the hospital?
The head of the hospital.
Yeah, nice to see me. seen him do other things before in his TV
shows.
I mean, I can't tell you how incredible this seemed at the time
where we're on in an actual building, like, you know, which we did
you know, maybe twice in the classic series, you know, you know
inside the house in Silver Nemesis or inside the church, in Curse
of Fenrich, but basically, if we were in a building, we used to be
in a BBC studio.
And here it's a huge massive building that they've spent stacks of
money redressing and it looks great and it looks fabulously
futury.
So here's Gareth Jenkins.
I do think it looks gorgeous.
Because, of course, in in a Fix with Son Torrance, we're told that
in about 15 years from when this film is set, the Gareth Jenkins
will repel us on Tara an invasion.
I never realised he was meant to be Gareth Jenkins.
But yeah, the idea is he meets the doctor and goes on to predict
earthquake.
I like his, like, answer the 2nd question, not the 3rd thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That is cute.
Yeah.
Jelly babies, do we really have to keep bringing them up?
But gobstoppers.
Plus, Patrick Trout in love.
In America, they don't have jelly babies.
He likes other men's wives.
They do now, of course, but yeah.
But, you know, they've mentioned jelly babies a few times in the
new series, but it's not really been the thing it is here.
Now, earlier on, I mentioned an involvement from Leonard Nemoy.
Now, when...
How much goo?
That's I know.
He must have been saving up for weeks.
That's a lot of life.
A lot of love in one moment, isn't it?
Pretty much, don't touch it, Grace.
Stop it, Grace.
One of the things that held up getting this film, getting a new TV
series made was a company called Coast Coast, otherwise known as
Dawn Trees and Greenlight, had the rights to the film from the
BBC.
They'd paid £750,000 for the rides, but had lots of trouble
getting...
With a crap script about the doctor being the last time lord and
there having been a time, well, who'd ever run with that?
Three scripts written by Johnny Byrne.
Yeah, TV's Johnny Burns.
TV Johnny Byrne of the Keeper of Trunk and an Arc of Infinity and
Warriors of the Deep.
Although, the, the, the, the, the, already said, actually as a
script idea, really quite clever.
Yeah, yeah.
But what happened was, pretty much, Cigar was negotiating for the
TV rights, and the BBC's concern was we can't have a separate film
and TV series happening at one time.
Star Trek.
Who could imagine that?
Yeah.
So they had 40 days to go on their contract.
And their contract merely stated that by the end of that 40 days
they had to have started filming.
So they engaged Leonard Nemoy to start filming 2nd unit.
Basically, he was going to come up to wherever they were shooting
and just shoot location shots and that would count as having
started production.
Philip Segal got wind of this and called Leonard and said, look
this is what they're doing.
It's purely to keep the contract.
It's not actually anything creative.
They don't even have a script.
And Leonard said, okay, well, I won't do it then because I
actually care about, you know, this is a respected property.
He knew about it.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't think he, like, watched loads of it, but he's like, okay
no, I don't want to treat it like that.
If I'm making a movie, I make a movie.
And that's how, um, Segal managed to get the rights.
Cloaking device.
Yeah.
Yeah, that no, I lost a layer of enamel to that line.
No, but I mean, it's reconed in Boomtown.
Russell addresses it.
He would, wouldn't he?
Any effect, Boomtown has a lot in common.
Like the big climax of Boomtown has a lot in common with the big
climax of this.
I mean, as funny as that can be.
And it was once.
Like, you know, there is, there is like all the stuff that we've
seen in the title.
Surely he just goes careering into one of the objects, expect on
the steps.
Actually, the Tartars turned it into a ramp while he was in
there.
This is amazing.
I don't want to love the set, but I really do.
I believe too.
It's fabulous.
It just needs a hooka.
Is that related to Beryl Reed?
It's named after Beryl.
But the problem is because of all the humidity changes.
Her hair, his wig just go from go completely different volumes and
friziness.
Do you know that they...
They may have decay all over again.
Not on it after Silla Black.
Did you know that?
Ixnay on the illusate.
I love how she's just completely unfa- Like once she has the
explanation of how it's bigger inside than out.
She's like, oh, okay.
Which is really what you would do.
Yeah, just batanas need a beroleum clock anyway.
No, because he'd have a critical timing malfunction.
Oh, thank you for explaining that.
Well, it was just explained to me by Brendan a little bit
earlier.
Yeah, it's it's the it's the bit of the film that I was really
disappointed with.
It's repaired the Tartars with a microcassette. 11 minutes. stole
it. was so mean.
I didn't mind that.
I did like that.
Yeah, yeah.
And this is, and it's quite similar to the shot we get in, um
remembrance of the Daleks, except, you know, except 1996.
It's cheap, isn't it, to have the scanner on the ceiling because
then you don't have to, like, compose it around the actors.
It is rather fabulous, though.
He's never opened the eye before.
That's so boring.
I mean, all of this stuff about the TARDIS as well.
I mean, Big Finish had to wreck on this, a few years later, in the
apocalypse element, where they explained, the eye being opened by
a human is a security measure.
So a timelord can't open it.
So you would have to go to earth, kidnap like an earthling and
then, you know, force him to look into the thing.
Exactly.
Another of Gary's character moments.
Tell him to some gas tags after that, probably.
Yeah.
I reckon they should have come to Lakersian.
Another of Gary's character moments is when the doctor asks Grace
if she can reset an alarm clock, Gary's got a paragraph of how
Grace could never reset an alarm clock and she and Brian were
always late for work because she couldn't set, she could do heart
surgery, but she couldn't set an alarm clock.
At that point, I'm reading it and Gary had already said to me, I
had to put in so much character stuff.
I'm like, okay, Gaz, yeah, you're just trying to finish off this
page, aren't you?
Okay, here we go.
Oh, that really hurt.
I got funny eyes now.
And that's not even the neutron ram.
No, it's not.
Do we know what that is?
It's Paul Darrow's door prop.
He used to play with it as well in Blake 7.
I believe that's the moog drone club.
It is, yes.
If you've got a moog synthesiser.
You need one of those drone clips.
All of those things appeared. early on in Earth shock.
That's right, yes.
And also appeared very slightly in vengeance on Varos and the twin
dilemma.
Oh, really?
The props were still lying around.
Well, the technical manual was.
Which no one ever took seriously anyway.
No, no.
It was a very weird fanboy.
Very weird blue and white thing.
That perspective shot.
Interested me as a child because, you know, it's quite it's quite
blown out.
So it's like, is that how the doctor sees everything because he's
an alien and his eyes are slightly different?
Oh, but his eyes are meant to be human.
As a kid, I didn't see that as a mistake.
I saw that as something intriguing.
Oh, she keeps doing that, Nathan.
Yeah, it really hurt.
Yeah.
Oh.
It's as if Brendan was writing the entire script.
You still got the cowboy boots on, right?
And the tie back is that the the undersuit of that, the black
undersuit is a Nehru suit and what is being worn by Gordon Tipple
at the beginning of the film.
So it is.
There's some really subtle things in here, listeners, that, you
know.
And the cloak ain't one of them.
Yeah, just too subtle.
They don't make it anymore entertaining. or anything.
No, no, no.
It's either sledgehammer tactics or it's just too soft.
Yeah.
But are we all getting a lot of Timothy Dalton in this
performance?
My, my body, my TARDIS.
Oh, can I say how much I adore Timothy Dalton this wrestle on?
He's so superb. is maybe the only really very good thing about the
end of time.
I love that shot.
It's more Jesus stuff, though. just in case, yeah, that's right.
And I've never counted them, but apparently there's 13 on there
but I think that's a lie.
Boom, boom.
So here's that costume party.
It's really going off, isn't it?
And I love this girl who's about to turn around.
What an amazing mask.
The moon is fantastic.
I think that that McGann should have taken the Nixon Mask.
And nothing else.
Yeah, no, I was really disappointed that Pertwee stopped wearing
that piece of last over his mouth.
When he says it's getting hard.
I just think of like planet of the spiders.
You know, it's probably a tribute to Barry.
Apparently after the press screening of Rose, Barry did come up to
Russell and Z. Now, that's how you do it, and that was so much
better than what we got in 1996.
Well, I mean, they did borrow from Barry's first.
Well, it's not his first, is it?
Yeah.
But as much as, you know, Russell took this as a guide what not to
do, I do think there's elements here that inform...
Yeah, they inform what Russell did beyond just don't do that.
No, no, no.
There's nods to this and in things like, you know, that mystical
energy that heals them and all that sort of thing is like the
regeneration energy, that sort of thing. magic eye lighting.
There is a kind of through line from survival through this.
And and and Philip Segal, when he was asked, you know, you've got
the set of the doctor in it, is Ace in it.
He said, no, I think Ace's story has been very well dealt with
with the new adventures novels.
Oh, yeah.
And again, I don't know if you read them, but he at least, there
are early documents when he's planning this.
There are letters going back and forth of, okay, we've got Silv.
What about Ace?
And I think that's how he's informed all.
She been written out in the novels, but he's like, nope, that
works.
I get really cheased off with this with the half of the face on
the screen and half not.
I don't know why.
It's too much.
Yeah, it's too on the nose.
Well, it's a little too artfully produced.
There's just a bit too much gorgy.
Are they trying to inject things into it?
Try to inject depth, breadth, and interest or sideways interest to
something that has no depth in itself.
The script is meaningless.
Carter-product, dude.
In railroads itself.
It's that loop road in Vancouver.
Yeah, unlike his performance.
Which one?
Yeah.
I think he does a really good job.
Eric Roberts or both of them.
Both of them.
Yeah.
Yeah, in fact, really, that's the most romantic moment in the...
Oh, I don't know.
We've all been there.
And I mean, love goes wrong, you know.
You know, you, you, um, yeah, you, Chang Li.
That's the thing. not an innocent. you know, he's shooting people
at the beginning of the film.
But at the same time, he's not an evil character.
And, you know, the master does have a line there where basically
he's a victim of circumstance.
Yeah, yuck.
Yeah, see that's as creepy as anything.
When the lights come on at palms.
You never know what's working around the corner.
That makes XL for our UK listeners.
Okay, now we're in the eye.
We have lots of lights, flashing lights.
I don't know what's going on.
Yeah, so he's shaking.
Pretty much from this point, this is where they went.
I wish we were too, honey.
The original ending, which I don't know what it was, isn't
working.
We need a new ending.
And that's why the ending of the film really is just sound and
light to punching people in the face.
It's like the par wraiths plot at the end of day, Space nine, which
just ends up people firing special effects at one another and
stops being interesting.
The original, the original concept of this is, and it was kind of
dropped, is that when Changli realises this is a time machine, He
realises that his father who was killed by the gangs and why
Changli got involved with the gangs, maybe he can see him again.
And I gather, from what I've been able to find out, the original
conclusion actually involved them going inside the eye of harmony
which is a bit like the nexus in Star Trek generations.
So that's possibly why they dropped that idea because that had
just been out the year before.
But the idea was you can go inside and yeah, you can see everyone
who's passed away, but you can never come back out and you can
never have a real life.
So the ending was the doctor, Grace and Chang escaping by choosing
to be alive and, you know, deal with the pain of their past rather
than get mired.
Whereas the master just wants to extend his past and his misery
and whatnot, which I think would have been better than this ending
but I think cost was a factor as well, because it's very expensive
to do that.
But I mean, this is just classic word peril.
Is it like what the hell is going on?
Like, you couldn't look at it.
It's like Peter Davidson is still alive.
It's not like people attacking people and stuff.
It's just a whole bunch of special effects on this set and people
shouting about things that are happening.
Grace getting a sudden purr.
How does she know how to do this?
Well, and but also also, you know, the doctor calling out these
things, like the rules.
No, she can't look in the thing because she doesn't have human
eyes, no, the thing's pinning him there so he can't move.
Like none of that's obvious.
It's all just... no, it was in the last script.
And, you know, no wonder no wonder Grace is bad at setting alarm
clocks.
If her idea of setting an alarm clock is to rip out all the
wires.
Yeah she does that every morning.
Brian buys another one on the way home.
I just said it was a nod back to like Tom Baker doing a lot of
ripping.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the real Power of Crawl episode four.
Yeah, it just makes no sense of your analogy.
You know, they've just written an alarm clock because an alarm
clock is a clock.
Why is that there?
The last time this happened, we were in Cardiff.
Actually, you know what?
I think I figured out why it seems to be midnight everywhere in
the world in a moment.
Like they cut to...
Because the screenwriters are not aware of other countries or
indeed other time zones.
No, because it's all the replicas in Vegas.
Oh, and I believe Vegas is in the same time zone as San
Francisco.
So it's not real different countries.
No, it's surprised there isn't a shining ancient Egypt. you know
what I mean?
What the hell?
Meanwhile, Cumanian era.
Fireworks.
What is happening?
I don't know what's happening Some energy thing whooshing.
Yeah, the ending makes no sense whatsoever.
What?
Humanian era, please.
The other things, the other things on the turney thing said
Menusen era and sensorian era.
I think there's a Wrestleon and a Wrestleonian era, Wrestleon era
yeah.
Now she's thinking alarm clock after you see...
But yeah, something...
Manusa is just the word.
I think it's the Pali word for humanity.
Oh right.
There you go.
Kids at home.
And of course, what's a temporal orbit became a thing in fandom
for a while?
Because, yes, indeed, what is a temporal orbit?
A friend of the podcast, Matthew Rayner, had a fans ink called
Temporal Orbit, for about 18 issues that I was a regular writer
for when, you know, fanzines were put together by hand and more
happy.
So everyone's dead now.
Yeah, yeah, everyone's dead and the time vortex isn't happy, which
is why we've got this digital shaking effect.
Oh dear.
So I imagine here's how I think it's going to go.
There'll be a lot of talking and then everything will be all right
again.
Everyone's going to sit down to tea and biscuits because we're all
British.
Okay, so the subtitle there for the no was N-O dash 0 dash 0 dash
O. Oh, my name's got the idea from.
The camera's shaking and then it's not shaking.
Yeah.
He's going to a lot of effort to get a new hairdo.
He can literally just take it off his head.
Watch out, Grace.
Shaky bannister.com.
Oh, Lord.
Oh, we have to do that.
I could be wrong, but I believe that that stopped was done by Pat
Tallman.
And who's Pat Torman?
Pat Tallman was a regular stunt actor and background artist on
Star Trek the Next Generation, but most famous, I think, to genre
fans as Lita Alexander from Babylon 5.
The Telepack.
I've never heard of that There you are.
Neither have I. Watch out.
But yeah, she's a great actress as well as a great starwoman.
Now, this, I remember as a kid, I'm like, wow, that is, you know
the master has never punched the doctor.
Sorry, kicked the doctor in the stomach.
I think it's appropriate for the film, but, you know, it really
got my attention.
Well, maybe he's compatible with a little of Bruce and maybe there
was a bit of tree mass in him previously.
The master is maybe the worst idea possible for bringing the show
back, don't you think?
It's definitely throwing a whole lot of really, what?
Yeah, well, I mean, like we had what?
Seven years of Doctor Who before the Master came in it.
If the master's the doctor's opposite, we need to know who the
doctor is.
Yeah, and we don't.
It's like introducing Sherlock with the Reichenbuck for...
So it should be an unknown alien threat.
It should be.
Yeah, it should be the autons in bridal gown.
Always.
Actually, you know what it could be?
Grace's boss. could actually be covering up the doctor being an
alien because he's in league with aliens.
Now, I've got a confession to make.
I saw a version of this before it actually got released with the
green screen of that.
Oh, really?
And all the other dialogue, like a few days it got it got leaked.
The slash print.
I remember.
So I saw the slash print.
And so they had to talk about that.
Had had him just going rotating around on some green.
That's how you'll always see it.
That's how I always see it.
I've never seen that.
And I wish I hadn't.
There's also there's also a bit where when Paul was doing the
green screen to appear in the Eye of Harmony, there's a lovely
outtake where he's holding his son Joe. Is it Joe, his son?
Or one of it?
But his son who later plays Alex in the Alex foreman in the audios
you know, when he's like 2 or 3 years old, he's holding him on the
green screen.
And so in the slash print, that is put in when the doctor appears
in the thing, just as a placeholder.
Yeah.
See, they had fun making this, but didn't, um, again, say or one
of them, con that no one actually knew what was going.
Where did all those leads come from?
Like with the nervoids there or something?
Where did the bats come from?
Actually, I like to think that Harrison Chase survived and is now
just doing pottaging and botanical supervision in the Tartar
bowels.
And what's this?
Well, that's the...
Regenerative energy.
Yeah, actually, I think that's probably why in the new series. the
1st time we've seen it look like that.
That's right Oh, dear, it comes from this.
I thought of that before.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Yeah.
And the thing is, I like that the doctor looks surprised by this.
He's not expecting it to happen.
He's not a magician making it happen.
Yeah, exactly.
I believe also in, it's either Gary Russell's novelisation or the
original script.
Chang Li does have his neck broken and the TARDIS heals him, but
Grace is just stunned from the fall.
I mean, I mean, it doesn't quite work.
I mean, she doesn't hold back, yeah, if she gets killed and then
she gets better.
She can actually do anything.
Or he's talking about her holding back his death.
Maybe.
Yeah.
That's how I always took it.
And I love this shot and this shot convinces me they would have
been a great team.
I think they would have been too.
And I think if we just dropped the background.
I think there's nothing wrong with keeping them together at the
end because then if they went to series and didn't want them, you
can just say, well, I returned to Earth.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
My boyfriend's gone.
She's lost a job, she's lost a sofa, and yet she's still going to
choose not to dress.
Oh, yes, yes, dress sense as well.
But it's like, really, like, that's the script.
See, I think the reason they didn't was, they were so conscious of
the fact that the Fox movie department knew this was a backdoor
pilot, but the Fox television department didn't.
So they were very sensitive of not treading on their toes at the
risk of the television department, losing it and saying, no, no
where, you know, it's, it's like the original thing of Doctor Who
in the 1960s when nobody wanted to take control of it.
So Lambert said, no, we're a cereal, where part of the drama
department, deal with it.
We can see that really well.
I...
There you go.
250?
Oh, it's further away now.
It's just so funny now.
Blow it up.
Come on, Russell. get rid of it Oh, actually, Todd, we should
mention, of course, that Daphne Ashbrook was a guest star on your
favourite Star Trek.
Oh, Deep Space Nine.
Deep Space 9, yeah.
Yeah, she played Men Laura.
The character from a low gravity planet that in our gravity had to
be in a wheelchair.
I think she did a great job in that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not a well liked episode, but I think she actually thought it
wasn't bad.
And what particular latex disfunction did she have on her
forehead?
She had ridges and then she had this blonde wig. wig.
Yeah.
And she had to kiss Alexander Saddig.
Oh dear.
It's hard life.
In a harness.
Oh, no, we're flying around. that's right.
But as Melora, she has had a post-life in the Star Trek novels, I
believe she's currently on the USS Titan under Captain Riker.
Oh, if you'll pardon the expression.
Yeah, frequently under Captain Roger.
Oh, yes, New Year.
I love that guy.
He gets to have a party.
That seems unfair.
I think if he wanted to, I think he's perfectly happy not having a
party.
Okay fair enough.
And and that that young lady gets a gets a whole subplot in the
novel.
She is Professor Wag's daughter and has been eyeing off Gareth all
night and just wishes he'd come over and talk to her and the end
just goes stuff it.
The novel just seems better than this.
Well, the novel was done on the last but one draft.
Yeah, I haven't seen seen them.
Yeah.
And Gary tries to redress the ending a bit and explain it a bit
more, which you can do in prose in a way that you can't do in
dialogue without even more word peril.
So had Gary seen the sets or...
I don't think so.
I don't think he flew out there.
I think he saw lots of photographs, but I'm not sure whether they
flew him out there or not.
Mind you, the BBC wanted this to be a big success and did a
merchandise bonanza.
So they may have sent it out there.
You know, and here we go.
I can be horrible.
I can say with the bad guy, but I'm still going to get my reward
which is pots of gold.
But I think here what's what's happened is that the doctor
recognises the good in him.
Yeah, right?
Yeah, I think so.
He's not going to have to be in a gun toting gang if he's got lots
of money.
He'll...
I'd like him to be in a gun.
Start up a business and exploit the workers.
I think...
Okay, okay.
Oh, yes.
And she's had a, she's really learned something today.
Yeah.
Yes, but I'm not going to go with you.
They both have our hair looks so similar right now.
We can't tell one of them from the back.
And do you come with me?
There's no through line with that at all.
Well, the thing is, I'm sorry, I just really hate this.
What I got as a key because I wanted her to go with him, but I
kind of got her rationale in that, you know, at the beginning of
the film.
She's worrying about what Brian will think.
And when she's saying, I realised, I realised now who I am, and
she says, no, you come with me, she's saying, no, my life is just
as important as yours.
I don't have to sacrifice my life.
How about you sacrifice you?
Yes, we've never heard...
No.
You really are defending this well, Brendan. you really must love
it Um, you know, it's the nostalgia fact.
I recognise the failings, and I certainly get what you say, Todd.
Why wouldn't she go with him, but I see that there is an intent to
explain why she wouldn't go with him.
It's not 100% convincing.
I guess I just get annoyed when I see so many different American
movies or telly movies or shows where they have this happy ending
with people laughing and, you know, you know, that sort of thing
and that's what I get here and it just irritates me a bit.
But I personally really like her in this and I wish she had
continued with him.
Yeah.
It's such a shame that Universal won't hardly released the rights
for the characters and that's why we've never had Grace in the
audios.
She only comes up in the comics once.
Panini made a special arrangement for her to appear. for Grace to
appear rather.
But yeah, that's why Daphne has done audios, but not as great.
And Yi, but not as Chang.
So this is Lee, I should say.
This is the doctor hasn't learnt anything at all from his
adventure.
I need to go and sit back in the same chair and read exactly the
same book and listen to exactly the same record.
Reboot once more.
Yeah, yes.
But, I mean, they're saying he's the same man, you know.
I know, I know.
This is what I was doing this morning, damn it.
I'm going to finish this book if it kills me.
Like last time.
And he's in Tim's chair from the goodies.
All is right with the...
No, quite.
So I guess we'll see him again for the 50th anniversary.
That tune was written for this.
It's not an old jazz piece.
And there was a different tune in the slash print, which was a
classic, but I don't think they I don't think they ever intended
on using it while it's just a placeholder.
So if anyone wants to know why I haven't redesigned the website to
match these credits.
I have in the past is because they're bloody horrible.
So we'd have to look at them for months and months.
And we're not doing a theme team?
No, no, no.
This is a comment.
I can't afford to. right.
Love you, Cameron.
Oh dear.
Look at the old BBC worldwide logo and universal.
Yeah, that just shows you how well this really is, doesn't it?
So do we have closing statements?
Well, is there anything anyone wanted to say that they didn't get
a chance to?
Surprisingly, this is much, much thinner.
I feel very thin.
I feel glum.
Glum.
Glum, good word.
Well, in fact, like this, maybe more than not renewing the show
after season 26, this killed it.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I think immediately after this, it seemed much, much less
likely that Doctor Who would ever come back because they tried
once.
It didn't work.
And, you know, like it was a real kind of failure.
Like, you know, they tried to reinvent it as a cult TV show from
the 90s in America and it was exactly the wrong approach to take
on every level.
Yeah, I at the time.
Oh, in between years, I'm really wanted them to do like 3 tilli
movies, like if they were going to do 3 and then make a decision
on the series to see how it performed over a few weeks.
If they did with a previous series in America, the $6000000 man
had three telemovies before it went.
But like, you know, one in the present, one in the past, one in
the futures type of thing.
So you get a feel and don't have all this crap about regeneration
just, you know, she discovers the doctor, right?
Like what, you know, has gone down.
You don't need a backstory to be interested in a character.
Then you can bring the backstory in slowly if you want to go
there.
But, you know, in a way, it's a blessing and a curse.
Like I'm glad that it's there in some aspects because I, you know
as much as I'm not a big fan of Paul McGann.
I think there's some lovely moments in there, but I'm also glad
that we didn't get the series because I just don't think we would
have got what we've had in the last 10 years.
Yeah, I think had we had a series of this, it would have been
mediocre.
Because despite the fact that the 90s was kind of a Renaissance
for TV sci-fi, a lot of it you look back on and Most of it is good
but there's very, there's only a few series that stand out as
really amazing stuff.
You know, even the X-Files, which was so massive at the time, and
you know, which they'd recently brought back for some reason.
Doesn't seem to have, doesn't seem to have had the lasting impact
that you might have expected.
Don't you think it was huge.
It was enormous.
And even towards the end, you know, when David Dakovney was
appearing less and less.
It really lost its impact and it lost its cultural capital.
I think I stopped watching.
I mean, they kept making it out of habit, I think.
The only sort of comparable thing I've seen since something that
had such a massive impact and then just faded away was Avatar, the
James Cameron film.
Because in the middle of making no less than 25 sequels to that
right now.
But, you know, for the year after its release, it was everywhere
and people were getting in blue makeup to get married and all this
crazy stuff and just kept saying...
He kept, you know, Cameron kept saying that, yeah, I'm going to
make a sequel. going make a sequel.
And now, you know, everyone knows what it was, like with the
Matrix, but it doesn't have the lasting impact.
It didn't work because most dates that start like this don't
actually work.
This was actually so much of its time and that it's a gay dart
date.
Or wet or kind of like inbound in a wheelchair.
I do think that it was, it was prescient casting to put Daphne
Ashbrook having her last SF role being a person in a wheelchair.
Because that whole thing of someone who just hasn't met that many
people in their life, lives mostly through the keyboard, is that
I'm going to tell you everything about myself in the 1st 5 minutes
because then you'll really like me and we'll have a really
meaningful relationship because you're only the 3rd person I've
ever gone out on a date with.
That's what this film is and that's why it was doomed to.
It's not even going to get into the 2nd cider.
Yeah, yeah.
Because you're terrifying the bejesus out of me, Bruce.
So stop marrying a boy.
Jeffrey Sachs, Matthew Jacob.
Oh, harsh.
Philip Segolf.
No, I'm avoiding them all.
No, I think sex is excellent and I want to also say that is it
Lissa, Patrick Lucia, the editor.
Oh, yes, they're both.
I would snog and marry both of them.
And I think Jacobs did an amazing thing because, you know, Jacobs
script actually stops. about a 3rd of the way through, and then
the suits take over and start dumping stuff in.
So a lot of the info dumping was Siegel.
It needs to be noted.
That bloody seagull crappy jet.
I think that was Philip Siegel who was leaving all that Zhuji
stuff all over all the guards and everyone because he's been
crapping from a great hide on this script all the way through.
I will agree with you that the editing and the direction say save
a lot. everything.
It makes it watchable, something that is actually, I haven't, I've
got to admit, I haven't read Gary Russell's novel because when I
even at the time seeing this, I thought, yeah, the script is the
least interesting thing about this.
Patrick Lossier has gone on to be an editor in his own writer, very
very respected editor.
In answer to Todd's question, I would snog Jeffrey Sachs because
he's just incredibly talented.
I haven't said his teeth though.
I would marry Matthew Jacobs because watching the um, watching the
documentary, the 7-year hitch, which is very good.
Well, it's just that of everyone and everyone's very enthusiastic
in the documentary, but his enthusiasm seems kind of the most pure
and the most lovely and he's just like, you know, they asked me to
write the script and I was so thrilled and I wanted to do a good
job and I think in the end we did.
It wasn't everything I wanted, but et cetera.
And just his his enthusiasm and his honesty really appealed to
me.
So I would be avoiding Philip Segel.
It's it's not a hard avoid.
It's a default avoid.
We haven't mentioned Seagull DSV, have we?
Or what's the other thing he did?
Well, that's how he wooed Alan Yentor.
What did he do?
He didn't do... did see Quest yesterday.
Sequest, yeah.
Oh my goodness. just thinking about that series.
But yeah, but everyone who's sort of young enough, wasn't it?
It was like Star Trek, but in a submarine.
In a submarine.
Oh, yeah.
In a scene with Trek and a whole lot of woo-woo. dolphin kissing
thrown in because it was that period.
Yeah.
It had some really meaningful, great ideas, but...
But yeah, Alan Yen...
Alan Yentob, then controller of BBC 2.
Okay, came over to America to see the new shows that the UK might
buy.
It was, I believe, Alan Yentob, who brought Star Trek, the Next
Generation to the UK in a popular nightly time slot.
But as Siegel was giving him the tour of the Sequest DSV sets.
He would just occasionally say, oh, I understand you're doing lots
of Doctor Who reruns.
Which would you talk about?
Yeah.
Yeah, I've been thinking about Dr. and the way Alan Yadtop
described it is, you know, he was pitching to me all the way
through the tour and but he says that is... in my eyes, people.
I want vomit.
But yeah, Ali Antorp was like, that enthusiasm. gave me the clout
to go back to the BBC and say, we've got someone who wants to do a
co-production.
Let's do this because Alan Yenthob had wanted to bring Doctor Who
back, but knew he couldn't do it in general.
And they needed the guns because, you know, you can't just do it
with frock, can you?
I have got another snob, Mary avoid.
Yes.
If you'd like to.
All right.
Bruce, Brian, Chang Li.
Oh, I'd marry Chang Li.
Yeah, me too. rich.
But also small window into...
I was going to say just because Year Year is lovely.
I'd marry, he's very sweet.
You know, I'd snog Bruce, obviously, because he's snacked and I'd
avoid Brian because he's super absent anyway as a boyfriend, isn't
he?
Yeah, well, the thing is, I would actually snonk Brian because I
know he's going to leave anyway, so it's fine. stay on the sofa
with him.
And we'd rather say that dating in the 90s, isn't it?
And yeah, I, yeah, I'd avoid Bruce because... the, you know, neck
cracking thing.
Well, I was just going to say goop is fine, but not mind control
goop, thank you.
And when I said Patrick Lossier is a respected director.
He did do Terminator Genesis.
So...
His cache is just gone down.
Actually, though, editing...
I did have an inflation...
He did the screen films, which are amazing.
Sorry, Richard, go on.
No, I was just going to say, editor, right?
This is there's so many nods to our favourite periods of cinema in
this.
I'm not going to feed you, Nathan.
In this, that, yeah, I mean, it's not...
There's lots of things in this I really, really like.
And yes, there is even my Lena Dietrich lighting on Paul in these
in these, you can see them on the title cards here, just the
moment before that when he takes his hands away from his eyes and
he's pure Joseph on Sternberg.
These boys know their cinema history and were aiming for the
absolute height.
They were trying to do the absolute best job they could.
Some people just aren't very good at knowing what to put in and
what to leave out and some of them just tried too hard, Mr
Siegel.
Yeah.
And your fat, fidgety little fingers that just kept pushing into
the dough.
If you're trying to make a lovely cake as this podcast, because
we're almost at the end, we should go back to our roots, shouldn't
we, as this show was trying to do.
If you're trying to make a lobby scone, for example, don't be
pummelling the dough too much, because your gluten intolerance is
going to go through the atmospheric scanner ceiling in it.
Just too many cooks.
Yeah.
I saw what you just did there.
I'm not using the same episode name twice.
It's one of our glorious Todd rant episodes, I believe.
We haven't had a Todd rant yet.
Oh, there was a pretty serious one, what, a week ago?
And you all enjoyed it and love me for it?
I'm editing all that out.
I'm editing that WhatsApp, but I'm going to cut myself some more
cake now that Richard mentioned.
Yeah, I was just talking about the cake.
Oh, who would I stock?
I just like to party with Bruce like it's 1996.
Six slash nine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I agree with you.
At the time I was very disappointed.
It didn't go ahead, but it would have gone ahead on the wrong
premise.
I would have liked McGann.
I did keep thinking, even, even at the last shot is, oh, couldn't
we have just had McGam for a season?
So that's always been there for me.
And a lot of my friends who I take very seriously in fandom
because they also write, I'm not necessarily going to name them
but you know, folk that some of them listen to the podcast and
others don't, but and quite women as well, actually, probably
mostly women, now I think about it, really wanted McGain to have a
shot.
And he's the reason that this thing is still given any regard or
any light and love.
Well, obviously he's done the time of the doctor 15th anniversary
thing.
And I think he looks really good in that and does a great job.
And really nicely.
And also his dark eyes, quadro lodgy, which is now into, I think
it's 8th series.
How many?
Because you said it 3 times, Nathan.
Yeah, but he's aged very well.
Like, he looks very... really well too.
He really gets it.
He's just enough and not too much.
And Eric Roberts is the same.
I would have liked a lot of just them.
That would have been fine, but without all the shtick.
Just Eric Roberts playing it as he'd like to play it.
Well, I would have I would have nixed Derek Robinson replaced him
with a bunch of Tereleptils, actually.
Well, I mean, you know, that's always on. always, isn't it?
Sorry, I'm having some...
No, you've got a mouthful.
I think we're...
Yeah, so I think it's time to move on.
So we will be back next week, new listeners, for a special
retrospective episode on the whole damn thing, what we've done in
the last 3 years.
So do come back for that.
We will be just to telegraph it early, we will be taking a break
after that into early next year before we start the new series.
We um but I'll talk more about that.
Next episode.
Sorry, I will edit this because I just want to do that again
because it was very disjointed.
Um, So that's all the time we have for the telly movie, but do
come back.
Fuck, what is wrong with me?
Okay. think you should leave all this in.
Well, that's all the time we have for the telly movie, but we will
be back next week for one last very special episode on the whole
classic series on what we've done over the last 3 years.
All your fault, Frank.
I know, right?
After that, we will be taking a break of a couple of months before
we start the new series, but as previously mentioned, we will have
a couple of commentaries dotted here and there, the fan choice
commentaries that you, as our dear listeners, have chosen.
So we haven't forgotten those, are it's just that heading into the
end of the year, we have availability issues with ourselves.
We have Nathan going on galavanting off for months on end and well
deserved.
So, yeah, that's why those will be a bit later.
But in the meantime, check out our website on flight through
entirety.sexy, flight through entirety on Facebook and Apple
Podcasts and at FTE podcasts on Twitter.
I would like to take this opportunity.
You may have noticed, dear listeners, that we have moved website
hosts.
Nathan did a very good job in keeping everything looking the
same.
So it wasn't a jarring move.
But that means for the 1st time we have proper analytics because
until about 3 weeks ago, we had no concrete idea of how many
people were listening.
So, you know, generally speaking, in terms of people we interact
with on social media on a regular basis, you know, we kind of knew
definitely that we had 20 people listening a week.
And Nathan has been sending us figures that we've got a thousand
1200, 1300 individual listens or downloads.
And that's not just about new episodes, but people going back and
listening to our old episodes, and that is so immensely
gratifying.
So before I go on to the next bit of housekeeping, I just want to
thank everyone out there who is listening.
It is, it's wonderful to know that something that is a passion
project for the 4 of us. is being enjoyed by people and people are
coming back and listening to more of it.
So, yeah, just thank you very, very much.
Thank you.
I don't know how you managed it.
Over on Bondfinger.
We have finally returned from a long hiatus.
I would like to apologise because I just haven't been sending days
on the recordings.
I've just been really, really busy.
But we have some special bond fingers coming up in the next couple
of months once we finish Pierce Brosnan's era.
So do listen out for those.
So check out Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and Apple
Podcasts on Twitter.
Look, Bondfinger doesn't have as many listeners as Flight through
Entirety.
It is more of a...
Drunkenfest.
It's commentaries.
So people watch them with the film.
Some people watch them without.
But again, if you listen to both of our podcasts, thank you
especially, if you want to give Bondfinger a go, we've got about
20 up there at the moment, we've got a huge bag catalogue to look
through, and you can just look for your favourite Bond film.
Just start with mine.
Yeah, it's the worst.
Yeah, actually, I think if you want to get a taste of what
Bondfinger is actually like, go for Moonbreaker.
Take a sedative first.
But until next time, May, none of your special guest stars cover
you in goo.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
Good night.