Hello and welcome to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who
podcast with the subliminal centre you're trained to see.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm a Spangly fly curtain in a dry ice meat free, sir.
And that can only mean one thing that it is time for season 5 of
Doctor Who.
So, uh, with uh, I'm doing a muted hooray.
With mixed enthusiasm.
This whole season.
Should we go through?
what is this season?
We talk about season season five.
But if you're not a regular viewer, what does season 5 mean on the
list of Doctor Who stories?
What were they?
Well, it is constantly described as the monster season, isn't it?
Six out of the 7 stories have a definable monster menace.
In 2 cases, they are a returning monster, and we even have another
2 stories with the same monster in the same season.
And interestingly, we'll talk about this more next episode.
But the one story that doesn't have a monster was for years
derided as the most terrible story in Patrick Trown's era.
And yet now that it's turned up, that would be the enemy of the
world.
Now that it's turned up, people are reassessing it, which is very
interesting.
So there's been a lot of reassessing with this season.
We're headed into the classic or is it 2 of the side men.
Two of the side of them was very famously lost for some period of
time before a copy of all 4 episodes were discovered in the
basement of a Mormon church in Hong Kong, I believe, much to
Deborah Watling's surprise.
I think we're all surprised.
What would the Mormons be doing with...
Why are they in Hong Kong?
It had this mythic status. of how wonderful it was because it
didn't exist.
And then when it turned up, it's still regarded very highly, but a
lot of that kind of went away because you get things like the
dummy cyber controller.
You can see the Kirby wires when Togerman's being thrown across
the room.
You know, it...
But really, all it's done is it's only a fence, if you like, was
coming down to the same level as the rest of 1960s Doctor Who, when
everyone else had elevated it to being like the mummy movies that
so clearly inspired.
Or in fact, it's like every other series of 1966, 67 TV that is
about doing one thing and doing it very, very well to get those
overseas sales.
We've talked before about how the colour Diana Riggs season of the
Avengers is the same plot, slightly different face costume
slightly different comedy accents for whatever villain it is each
week.
We've got Batman directly opposite Paddy on the ITV network
swamping this show, doing the same plot each season, which will
actually end up being the death of that show.
As it kind of was for the Avengers as well.
Doctor Who seems to be, we talked about this being a very very
programmed and received idea of how to do Doctor Who.
I think this is actually the most radical season of Doctor Who
since the beginning, because it's actually looking, maybe for the
1st time, although I think with Patrick, it was always doing this
at what the TV show doctor who is actually about, and being
terribly self-conscious, and very much about going right back to
being the TV set inside the TV set inside the TV, it's kind of
interesting.
Okay, a lot of people have said, it's the same story, each with a
different head on it.
But there's a lot of variation and interest within that.
What did you think of abominable sermon?
It's your story.
Fairwell living too.
Oh, did I get those too confused?
I do, but that must be...
This is...
I mean, if we're talking about the season as a whole.
I have to completely confess that I haven't quite reached the end
of it and that I have no idea what happens in Fury from the D. Oh
you're gonna love it.
Really?
But it's, is it 5 out of 7 that feature the yeti, the cybermen or
the ice warriors in some form?
Yes.
Yeah, so you've got 2 sidemen, 2 yeti, and an ice warriors.
And they're interchangeable.
They sort of vaguely robot shaped people in stupid costumes
menacing a bunch of people on a base.
And I have to say that I found this a bit of a slog really, like I
actually kind of found this sort of hard to get through.
Well, unfortunately, Jennifer, I'm actually going to have to be
the one who disagrees with you. as we go forward.
That's going to be very interesting.
So looking at Tomb of the Sidemen, it picks up from the end of
evil of the Daleks.
So we leave Scarrow, we've got the new companion in the shape of
Victoria, so Victoria's replaced Polly.
Ben has been replaced by the BBC foam machine, which makes its 1st
of many appearances in this story.
And the weird thing is, this story, it is so derivative.
Two of the side minutes, so derivative.
So many other works.
Yeah, so many other shows.
Absolutely.
But it is confidently so.
It's deliberately derivative.
It's like what we would eventually get in the field of Hingecliff
era about 8 years later.
You know, it's Doctor Who, being other shows, as you preferred to
it already, Richard, but very confidently doing so.
It's not trying to rip off other shows.
It's trying to pay homage.
The weird thing is, Tomb of the Sidemen is so successful, because
it is so derivative, and it's this weird tension of, it's actually
quite good, but it's only good because you've seen it all before.
Yeah, it's hard to make television in 66, 67 for and this is the
catch. for overseas sales.
Everyone was trying to jump on the Lou Gray, Jerry Anderson hit of
the Saint and the Thunderbirds and all those other shows of making
big money with overseas sales.
Doctor Who was always already doing actually quite well in
Australia.
You know, it didn't get immodest fees.
The Saudis liked it.
Really?
Yeah, they did.
It's sold to the South that they picked up on Billy very quickly.
I'm just segueing for a moment.
It's amazing how much overseas sales are still so important in
television.
Well, isn't it interesting that this season, I wanted to say, we
start with tomb of the side, and then we then go to abominable
snowmen.
We then have...
The Ice Warrior.
The ice Warriors and we then, and, you know, other than the James
Bond segue with Enemy of the World, we've pretty much got the same
story each time.
We haven't we seen that again with Impossible Astronaut, and
that's that season of Matt Smith's block that seems very much a
mirror of the way that they were making TV in this season, the way
you put ideas, as you were saying, from other shows that have been
successful, because that's how people are watching at the moment.
So this is a really interesting window into what was going on in
1967 on that little box in the room, and therefore maybe in a
wider way of just how people were responding to culture at the
time.
So 2 of the Cybermen is a beautiful show because of it, it's got
that internal dichotomy that it, as all the ones do, that there
are some really great things about it and some others are maybe
not so great, but it doesn't look iconic, isn't it?
Isn't it actually the Cyberman story?
Oh, the go to side of the main story?
Absolutely. sort of in that it's terrible. you know what I mean?
The sidemen are kind of disappointing at the best of times, really
because you kind of just wish it would be the Daleks, you know.
And, you know, since the 10th planet, we've had the moon base
which is sort of terribly generic.
And now we have this, and I just think this is a bit of a mess
really.
Like, you know, it's got a beautiful set piece.
It has some great stuff, shock films.
You've got a cyber leader that's actually kind of, I know what
they all say, it's Michael Kilgariff, but, you know, Stephen Fry's
quite a tall chat.
It does sound like he's Lord Melcher, doesn't it, with a boy
scotter?
But, you know, I just think it's just too much like everything
that is around it.
And maybe we can understand.
We can understand why that is and syndication and things, but it
just doesn't make for a terribly entertaining show.
Oh, what about the cast?
Well, except for the cast.
So you've got a bunch of people trying to do American accents, I
suppose they're American and one of them's Clive Merrison, who
will go on to be the deputy chief caretaker in Paradise Towers.
He was too, wasn't he?
And they're considered the greatest Sherlock Holmes radio version
of all time, along with Michael Williams, who was doing Judy
Dench's husband as Watson.
And they're on BBC.
And on, um, the one that you quote all the time audible. to
download?
Yeah, I've just listened to them a lot on the radio.
They are superb.
So, yeah, Cladmer isn't a fantastic in later career.
But then he's also in this.
That's right.
And then you've got, and then what have you got?
Your Professor Harry, who is yet another sort of slight, you know
middle-aged white guy in charge of the...
No, we're getting to see.
Oh, Cyril Chapley's gone China.
And he is fantastic, obviously.
That's not a reference to his leg of alcoholism, is it?
He's a little bit.
It should be a great cast, but it's really making Thunderbirds
sound fantastic, isn't it?
And then you put the villains.
You know what I mean?
And this is this is the famous thing, you know, so you've got Eric
Cle, you've got Betty Cathay.
And then you've got our 2nd mute black strongman in a row.
So in as many stories.
Just in case you missed the idea the 1st time, right?
Oh, it's not the idea, is it?
It's more of a trope.
But it's a trope, but it's really sort of lazy, insulting, and
kind of racist.
Yeah.
Now, what I'm going to say about the characters, yes.
First of all, I am just going to say that Toberman's
characterisation is unforgivable.
And a lot of people cite that, oh, well, the thing is he was meant
to be deaf and that's why he didn't speak.
So it's like, right, so not only was it meant to be a racist
caricature, he was also meant to make fun of the sable.
Yeah, that doesn't make it better.
And, you know, at the end, when spoiler alert, Toberman has been
semi-converting into a cyberman, Betty Kaftan is dead, the doctor
has to explain to him that killing people is bad.
He's also treated like he's got no basic morality, no intelligence
whatsoever.
Is that because of his colour or is it just, you know, that that's
look, again, this is going back, and you talked about this being a
lot of other shows and other films.
It really, Doctor Who does go back to the heyday of British
fantasy fiction, which is late Victorian Edwardian writing, and
you've always got a big blokey black fellow who's a bit of a
thickie, and when they haven't hung up propensity to hitting.
I'm not saying it's good, but it's almost, it's nostalgic racism.
This is the same kind of thing that we criticise the arc for
because it's one thing to say that this is like a past text, but
really, most of the time when Doctor Who takes a past text and
reimagines it, it will try to make the shortcomings of that text
better and that just doesn't happen here.
However, Something I do like about the characters in these
stories.
And there is a great deal of discussion as well around the fact
that the 2 villains, Betty, Captain, and Eric Kleeg, are both non
British with comedy accents.
With comedy.
Well, apart from George Pastel, who's probably using his own
name.
Yes, that is his own act.
You know, they are non-British characters.
They are the other, whereas everyone else is British or American
in terms of the and actually equally offensive in both.
Is it?
But that's the thing.
The 2 villains are the only guest characters with any
intelligence.
Or motivation. or motivation.
Everyone indeed.
Yeah, actually doing that.
What is the doctor doing in this adventure?
Again, that's not horrible.
He does explain his behaviour, I think, sometime in episode 3
where he says, you know, I was trying to work out what you were
doing, Cleave, and see, you know, you know, find out what your
plan was.
But it's completely strange in episode one.
So their plan is because they learned on this planet.
But it's just like a lovely big density quarry type affair, which
is still surprising and a bit exalting when we see it in this
story.
I haven't really seen it that many times before.
I think just the savages, really?
That was it.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, it's stunning.
Gorgeous use of library music.
Visually, I think this thing is just great.
There's that lovely opening moment where, again, you've got HR
right at HR, or you've got King Solomon's Minds, and they have to
open the great doors of this tomb, which we, the viewers already
know something's up because there's a logo on those doors and it
is a very happy smiley friendly face, isn't it?
It's got junkies.
Yeah, and of course, the 1st bodies already get the floor before
the door is open.
Before the door's even open.
Yeah, it's got a nicer pace to it.
So, if people are saying they don't like it, and the racism thing
is the most clacksam like thing in it, because, yeah, it's pretty
awful to look at for that.
It's just the inherent dumbness of the character's reactions.
And something that we all know.
We've seen this story many times before.
We know what they should be doing to get it right.
They don't internally know themselves.
They're making shocking mistakes all the way through it, aren't
they?
You know, I think this too, and discovering this lost race of side
of it.
It's the doctor's behaviour, though.
That's the weirdest, right?
Because they get in there and they actually can't get in.
You know, they can't work out how to do the levers to open the
match or anything like that.
And a doctor can't resist showing them all and showing off and, you
know, doing the logic puzzles and all of that.
And it is this very strange thing where, um, you know, people go
oh, it's the dark and manipulative trout and he's, you know
anticipating Sylvester McCoy is really trying to.
Yeah, we see it now.
Yeah, yeah.
But really, in fact, it's just something that doesn't make a great
deal of sense.
It's more like the meddling monk in the story than he is, the
doctor that we've known.
It doesn't.
I just don't think there's a sensible in story reason for it.
And he's so propelling his own narrative.
Well, yeah, it's better about it.
Well, he doesn't want to see one episode.
We can't get in.
All right.
We'll go, have families to support.
See, when I actually think about this one is, you know, he's just
done the Daleks in, and I think his thought process is he can now
do the same to the Cyberman that he needs to get in there.
Are you getting lots of silver watching this, what, rewatching
these seasons?
I'm really seeing a lot of, not just Matt.
I'm surprised how much of Matt is in these, especially obviously
this story, because this is the one that Matt Smith saw, apparently
when was his defiant, how he played the doctor.
But the, yeah, the troublemaking hit.
There are many colours and shades to this doctor.
He's a much more interesting doctor than I found he'd previously
viewing.
And he even says at the end of the story.
You know, they were just asleep for centuries.
Now it must be forever.
It's the doctor just trying to, in this case, not destroy the
cybermen so much, but take them out of the equation and really it
doesn't matter who gets hurt in the pro.
He's really great on the collateral, isn't he?
This whole season.
Good luck.
It's the red shirt principle.
If you're wearing a Tommy, if you're carrying a Tommy gun and
looking a bit working class, you're not picking for a good story.
But that being said, we also have in their story that part of what
has happened previously with the collateral, with the death of
Edward Waterfield, that he has taken Victoria under his wing.
And of course, we get that lovely off-quoted scene of him
discussing the notion of family Victoria.
Oh, I can remember my family if I really want to, but the rest of
the time they sleep in my mind.
Or actually on a bomb site in deserted London in a 100 or
something years time.
But, you know, we might worry about that, will we?
Yeah, but I mean, and that leads me to something else.
I wanted to say about the story in that I think, and I'll be
discussing this more as the season goes on, the Victoria.
And especially Deborah Watley gets a really short shrift.
I think so too.
But I think that's turning around now with the recently discovered
episodes.
No, I think she gets a deservedly short shrift.
Oh, really?
But in this story, you know, for example, yes, there's that lovely
moment that we all talk about.
But it's only a few 10 seconds, 30 seconds under the rest of it.
She's as dumb as 6 coats of lead paint on a Victorian facade.
She's given nothing.
She moans, she squirrels, she does dumb things in cupboards.
She takes on, she takes it, she takes on capstan and wins.
She also has like a fun line in teasing the, um, Crimea, like
Americans.
Yeah, actually, thank you.
She does do that.
So you're willing to back off a bit on that position.
No, I'm not.
So it's a very sort of strange thing.
We introduced a sort of, you know, and she's the new companion.
She's from the Victorian era.
She's just lost her father.
You know, she's all.
And her entire world.
Yeah, that's interesting.
So the 1st thing she does is pull on a mini skirt for those sort
of redly discernable reasons and a very proper pointy bra.
An uplift, cobble, concord was being launched at the time.
You know?
Howard Hughes had already done it for Jane Russell, with the cues
on a cut shoving a couple of cues on our walks, done it.
You know, the story that Howard Hughes invented the great, the tip
up wired underwired suspension bra for Jane Russell's.
So, how we thing?
So how would Victoria even know what that was?
Well, the TARDIS has many rooms we've still not seen.
I mean, because that some of them are costume museums.
There must have been somewhere along the paths, there have been
doctors who have been all the aspects of the doctor we don't know
and one of them is that he's besties with.
Hell of a lot of people at Victoria and Albert. she's I think he's
a bit of a cosplay queen on the TV.
Well, he's certainly got a lot of outfits in that.
He was married to Marilyn Monroe, so she might have lectured in
bras, you know, fine for...
Thank you, Stephen Moffatt for doing that again.
You see, I actually think that this is perfectly in keeping with
Victoria's character.
She's had a massive shock.
Richard, you and I were discussing this earlier before the podcast
and people who do have massive shocks will kind of sort of change
everything.
You know, I must change.
I must renew myself. based behaviour and it does take on the
appearance of addiction and some of them can be.
Yeah, some can be those huge.
And she does have her moment of doubt, but don't you think this
skirt is too short?
She sort of says to the doctor, you know, she's obviously thrown
it on and kind of go, oh, okay, this is interesting.
Okay, I'll go out wearing this, but then it's caught up with her
and actually was just such a good idea.
Yeah, I like to think that there are like the big finish things.
There are stories in between the stories we see where we get
character development because it's the only way to explain the
quantum leaps that don't actually make a lot of sense of
characters development.
Somehow Jamie's able to read not only the console in later
episodes, but read London underground maps, even though he's never
seen an underground train before.
And there's a whole, yeah, we just have to read that as being
under the story.
You don't.
Well, no, I just think, I think, you know, it is this thing where
the characters kind of have an origin story because of the story
that they're introduced in, but we're not really particularly
interested in that.
And it is kind of, um, you know, essentially Victoria's role isn't
to be, you know, a well-rounded, interesting person.
It's to be menaced by monsters for a year.
And she does that very well.
She has lots of screaming and lots of, oh, Chaney, you know, sort
of little skirts.
And, and, you know, like this week she's wearing, you know, a shop
girl frog.
And then next week she's back in sort of Victorian attire, you
know, when she gets to London Underground, she's wearing a sort of
hippie frock, it just all doesn't really make any sense, you know
as far as I can see.
See, I disagree because even in evil of the dialects, we saw that
Victoria was quite rebellious and independent, especially for a
young girl of that time period.
You know, she talks back to the Daleks.
She is friends with a servant and a black servant.
Big black servant.
I think there's a lot of reasons she's wearing a push-up or a
little skirt.
You know, she's not a little girl.
No, I just think I think she's, you know, like again, we've met
Debbie Waddling at conventions and she's absolutely lovely.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, then the character is just, like, smug cigars and swirl beer
like a soda.
No, well, that's what I meant.
Probably, yeah.
She only a black eye once.
She did too, yeah.
Listen, she did.
Watch it.
Anyway, we meant to duck, you know, it was some playful journey.
Oh, yes, yes, I know.
We have to take the hit.
I secretly wanted to. punched me in the face.
It was flaws.
That's the type of my upcoming autobiography.
So there's lots unaddressed.
We have, but we kind of know it because you know what?
If we've missed the points of the plot, this story, we'll get you
within the next one.
And the one after that as well.
So, yeah, we're off on retreat in Tibet with the abominable
snowman.
What are those spots that sit out?
Unfortunately, we're now back to stories which are largely
missing.
But where we have the benefits of this one of the really good
loose cannon reconstruction complete with CGI yetis, which are one
of the greatest things.
How do they move?
I'll be the casual listener.
I have a Chambly sort of move..
They move sorted, as you might imagine, someone in that kind of
suit moving.
Like, the legs sort of have a circular motion as they they come
around. and yak skirts with kamboos.
Georgia State dances after a bit of champagne, I would imagine.
By the way, cheers, dear listen.
They actually got John Levine in to do motion capture like a whole
week.
He was in a sort of tracksuit covered in dots and that's how they
animated the Essie.
You're looking at me as if, uh, No, I had the same Tibetan primate
body movement by John Levine.
Is it John Levine?
Yeah, he is.
Oh, no.
He's in Webber Theatre. as we are getting ahead of ourselves.
He is also the yeti who turns up for a cameo in the war game.
He's the go- he's the go-to 2nd banana for full brigadier in all
the 70s series.
I forget that some of the friends listeners actually covered for
shows.
So we're getting ahead of us.
Is Martin Jarvis in one of his...
And Rosalind De Winter.
Rosal's doing to see what?
And several Shep.
Michael Sheen, Michael Sheen.
Michael Sheen plays the monastery.
Oddly enough as well.
But this is the American Jackie Lane.
I mean, that episode gets mustered.
Yeah, of course.
Just before we go on with this episode.
I'd like to introduce our baked good for this episode.
I have made a ginger and lime yeti cake, and the recipe will be on
the website, and as you will see on the website, it is topped with
a yeti made out of crystalised ginger.
And we've already whooped out.
Yeah, so we'd rather enjoying that.
Is it is it the is it the ECSE or the or the weather?
No, no, the well, it was pretty fat yet, although I couldn't
resist putting in eyes because I still had some couchos from my
teacher cushing treats.
Now, abominable snowmen.
It's quite an interesting story.
It sounds beautiful.
Love this show.
No music, is there?
It's like a tone of it, the voice joke, because yeah, it's a so
new.
I know this from the target novel.
Again, it's a ripper, and I think one of the reasons this season
is so well fondly remembered is that people of our generation, one
generation, grew up with these as target books, they didn't exist
in any other form.
This is a scorcher.
It's one of the novels I've read.
I read as child, along with leather fear, which is probably even
better, actually.
Yeah, absolutely.
The ending of that novel form was terrifying.
I mean, as you say, Richard, the soundscape in this one is
absolutely amazing.
One of the great things is each of the main locations, you pretty
much got the mountain, you've got the cave, and you've got the
monastery.
Each of those has its own soundscape, the monastery sort of has a
bit of an echo, usually has chanting in the background.
The mountain has that sort of ever-present wind and the cave has
the thrumming of the yeti spheres.
It is such a texturally rich story in that way.
It's also very rich in terms of character.
You know, after we had the cliche characters of Tomb of the
Cybermen.
We have a collection of very complex supporting characters.
For the 1st couple of episodes.
Uh, you know, Creissong and Travellers sort of seem to be uh
taking the role of the villain between them.
But as the story goes on, they're actually given a bit of depth
and a bit of motivation to their actions.
Can we can we say who they are?
So Krisong is Norman Jones, who is Major Baker from the Siberia
and also Auronymus. where his goose lays adult eggs.
Yes, from the mask.
He's cock froze 3 times before breakfast.
You get to see him do that.
And of course, Professor Travis, wonderful Professor Travis.
The famous Jack Watling.
Yes.
Also the father.
The grandson of Jeffrey Watling.
It's really good to see.
And it was actually she who suggested him for the part, you know
she was talking to some of the production stuff and there was this
role coming up for an explorer and adventurer and she said, well
you know, daddy's not doing anything at the moment.
How about you get him in?
And he was a big coop because he was a big film actor.
And I have to say he's very handsome and swarthy, you know, he
feels like the Indiana Jones of the 1960s.
This works because it's a stage production with stage act is
actually a lot of Welsh blokes and a few English ones pretending
to be Tibetan.
You got Jack doing that whole stagey, India, as you say, um, out
of quarter mate from Kicks on Spines.
This story, and I think this Doctor Who is doing that whole
thing.
I actually think this whole season of Doctor Who is tapping in in
a tiny whining way to Nathan's randomiser and just putting in 3 or
4 ideas, pressing the button, you get 3 or 4 ideas each story.
So we just had Mummy's tombs, cybermen, robots, um, big black
Strong eye and ooh, did you forget your phone last story?
Yes, yes, we got some phone shaving creeks.
That's right.
Oh, no, you get what we go machine.
It was cooked into the soup.
So this story we get default phone.
Yes, we do.
We get...
The abominable snowman, the monster assist, but we also get these
lovely things of, like, I like that you mentioned Indiana Jones
because we're going back to what's another great adventure story
we could lift off?
It's James Hilton's Lost Horizon from 1933.
Yeah, that's the famous Tibet fan.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Listen to a really nice radio version that had actually Stuart
Head in it.
Jurassic Dune show.
There's a, well, it's actually all based on a good show story, but
he saw it was a good show that works really well like that.
But again, this is this nice thing of I really like this period of
60s TV where you can just throw everything into the oven and see
what comes out.
Do you think this is a successful story?
I do actually think it's very successful and part of what makes it
successful for me is it manages to play with expected roles.
For various groups of people with really only a very small cast of
characters.
You do have a lot of supporting monks who get lines, but really
the only ones are croissant and songstand, the Abbot.
Oh, and Tommy.
Oh, and Tommy, of course, Tommy.
For us, I do want to mention, Tommy is the late David Spencer, who
passed away last year, life partner of one of the script editors
the Doctor of Time Victor Penderton.
I didn't know any of that.
I think he's terrific in this.
In the only episode we get to see.
This one's directed by Gerald Blake.
Beautifully lit, is directed again, like a great British cafe film
of the 30s.
It has a really lovely feel at that period.
And it has enough confidence to say, we can remake this era. reshow
you this era of great film tradition and get it and do it right
and do it even better.
It's okay to be borrowing.
It's okay to be throwing things in.
The audience didn't mind if they enjoyed it and recognised it.
I'm enjoying it for the same reason.
Well, I got shown a film by a friend of the podcast, Robert. called
The Abominable Snowman.
Oh, yeah, and it starts me to Cushing.
We own it.
Yeah, yeah.
And it is Yeti attacking a monastery in Tibet.
And it's from a few years earlier.
I think it's from the sort of late 50s of town.
And so it's clearly, do you know what I mean?
Like, again, it's Doctor Who's fantastic to see that one.
So it is another example of Doctor Who sort of pondering popular
culture and stuff and all that's very laudable.
That's exactly what we want the show to do.
But I have to say, again.
I can see the word tiresome heading inexorably towards this part
of the podcast.
Look, I mean, I sort of think it's okay.
I think it's laudable to do like a non-European thing for once.
Cree song actually looks like he might be Tibetan.
No one else looks like there's...
Yeah, that's okay.
Yeah, it's a...
You see it more as rep theatre.
Yeah exactly.
You know, thankfully they don't try to say do, if you like yellow
face, they put on, they put on a bit, a bit of makeup colour, but
you know, they don't try to approach it in a stereotypical.
Not Stan doesn't look like he's been anywhere sort of east of
except maybe Covent Garden, calling a couple of prize marrows.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
It could be like something that Doctor Who does later that's very
controversial and actually build up the brow and make narrower
eyes to make a Caucasian actor look Asian.
They wouldn't do that, sure.
No, no, no.
That's crazy.
And you see, that's actually why I quite like it because, you know
it does involve the suspension of disbelief.
But also you've got an inversion of gender roles, in my opinion.
Now 1st of all, just on the surface level.
Victoria is wandering around in really quite masculine
mountaineering gear, you know.
She's wearing a coat, she's wearing trousers.
Jamie's wearing a skirt and carrying a man bag.
I know, but she's cinched at the waist, you know what I mean?
She's got a little fluffy thing.
She looks very Victorian. like this outfit a lot more. like her in
this.
Yeah, she's so proactive.
Again, she is.
I'm strong.
I love this.
She's got that sort of entitled European thing and you get it with
Travis as well, where the monks kind of automatically defer to
Travers, because he's an Englishman.
Big Whitey.
He's an Englishman and he's trustworthy.
And she, like Victoria's kind of arrogates to herself the high
position that as a European, she sort of deserves.
And so like there is a sort of respect to the whole sort of
Buddhist thing.
No one, you know, openly makes fun of her or anything, but there
is, there is a kind of, a sort of inadvertent, not racism exactly
but sort of Euro-centrism or a Victorian attitude.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's it.
It's a Victorian attitude to the...
But it's also harking back to that stronger writing, that period
right?
This is a period, please, not from the 60s, but from the 30s.
Nathan, I know you're not convinced stressed by the fact that
Victoria's wearing trousers.
So I am just going to buy this.
Only you could see his face, listener.
He looks utterly convinced.
The other thing I want to talk about in terms of Victoria. is the
fact that she's such a strong driving force in the narrative.
It's Victoria, who is constantly trying to get in to see Pava
Samovar and find out what's going on.
Now, the thing is, it is padding because she drives about 3 times
it keeps being driven away.
But she's pushing it.
Yeah, she's pushing it.
But it's actually the monk's dedication to their faith that keeps
her out.
So in a way, even though she is trying to go against their
traditions.
She does respect them because when she's caught, she's like, okay
I'll back off.
When they think she's revived the yeti, they're ready to sacrifice
her.
You know, they're ready to put her out there with the yeti. let
them take her.
So, I mean, I don't think it's entirely there's a great white hope
colonial. is kind of pulling the rug out from under that because
yes, Victoria does kind of back what she owns the place and then
almost gets killed because of it.
Victoria does lose some of the initiative in the last 2 episodes
when she's hypnotised by Pamba Sambatore.
But the interest is... also quite interesting and threatening it
is. pretty good.
Yeah, it's very invasive.
And also, the doctor picks up that something is wrong with her
because she's panicking and screaming and the doctor's reaction is
like, that's not Victoria.
Well, no, I mean, she repeats the same sentence with the same
intonation over and over again.
It's a fairly characteristic sentence.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like, doctor, we must leave, whatever, but she's...
It's a great little note on what the season itself is doing, isn't
it?
And Patrick's actually not buying a bar.
I like that.
And the thing is when she sort of wakes up, she doesn't go, oh, it
was horrible enough.
She just kind of goes, oh, that was a bit weird.
I'm very tired.
Yeah, I, I am continuing to think Victoria is great here and she
has a great relationship with Tommy.
It's actually Jamie, who throughout the whole story, the doctor
feels needs supervision.
And he's absolutely Victoria on her own to her own devices, but he
has to take Jamie with him.
And it sums up in that line in the existing 2nd episode of Doctor
I've got an idea for dealing with the yeti.
The doctor's responses, come along, Victoria.
Discretion is the better part of ballot.
JB has an idea.
Isn't it a great?
And it's not the only one that I, it's like the complete nettle
break, breakdown joke in, to me. apologises.
Yeah.
We haven't mentioned the thing that's really great about this when
we talk about sound.
Adam Sandoval.
Oh yes, that voice.
And the way that's lit.
Both voices, of course, because he's always a pen in December, but
coming from the one actor, very subtle difference.
It's a beautiful.
It's really trippy.
And that's the other thing I wanted to say about this.
This is the whole Abby Hoffman, Alan Ginsberg.
Woo, woo.
She asked the beginning of Timothy Leary, LSD stuff that's hitting
Britain in popular culture.
Tibet was a big hot topic at the time.
Yes.
Not the history of, and because I'm really looking forward to what
you want to say about the history of at the time previously in
what was going on with Tibet politically.
But the English and the Yaks, and the Australians.
We're looking at this at Tibetan being, you know, the whole cock
counterculture period of what it is, consciousness, what it is to
be a person in the world, we were looking.
Towards Buddhism as a notion of transcendence.
How amazing is the great intelligence.
And we'll pick this up with web of fear.
It exists in, and it's referred to in the novel and again in the
audio, this in the script. it's in the scripts.
It exists in the astral plane.
Padma Samatha encountered the great intelligence on the astral
plane where he's meditating.
It's an ancient sage head of the lamasary, and that brings this
evil to earth, without realising the consequences, just by meeting
this guy, this great mind.
The TARDIS encounters it within the vortex.
The vortex in Doctor Who is the astral plane.
There's a whole lot of really wahippie woo woo great stuff.
Timothy Leary would have been watching this show and loving it.
And it goes back to something you said before about the time I
said, it can move through time space in different stages of matter
and consciousness.
What is the TARDIS?
Not that nervous song that we get when we start talking about what
the TARDIS actually is.
Guilty, not so guilty pleasure.
This is my favourite story of the season because of the sound of
lightscaping. from what we can see.
Again, I know it as a title book from that, but just the pace of
it, the feel of it, the antecedence of this story that I really
love.
I love the 1937 Frank Capra version of Lost Horizon that I would
be my pick of the of this podcast.
It's useful, everything that Capra does.
You might know him from, it's a wonderful life that everybody
watches every day at Christmas and so he should.
Because it actually makes Christmas sufferable if you're sitting
with your family at home.
It's that and it picks up on it beautifully.
And again, little moments.
So this isn't just a plot and characters.
It's lighting.
It sounds as we've said.
It does all those other things.
Thank you, Gerald Blake.
It does it beautifully.
It holds beautifully.
People have a part to play.
And those hats, the performance is so great.
Even those fantastic Mardi Gras, mango slice hats.
How great are the hats in this?
You don't need it, you don't need to get any.
Do you like a bit of an enemy of the world?
Look, I've known it longer.
I like them both.
I like them both for very different reasons.
It's Iamada who wrote Enemy of the World.
As an organisation, yes.
I love that as well.
But I was a little older.
So again, so much of Doctor Who is nostalgia when you 1st came to
it for me.
Yeah, actually, because of the antecedents, because of the Capra
film, because of what it does so well.
I would actually say it is my favourite of the season.
Is this the 1st pseudo-historical?
Oh I like that.
No, that would be time.
Yeah, yeah.
The time they like, I mean, the time they But yes, because it's
really playing with golf.
Well, I think the time it was special.
Do you know what I mean?
It is clearly like a historical that you drop another timeload
into and stuff.
But this is just, you know, the 1st time the past has been invaded
by aliens.
Normally if we've gone to the past.
We just have people.
But now it's the 1st time that the past is invaded by aliens.
And maybe that's another reason.
Thank you.
Because this is the template of how to do New Doctor Who.
I said, oh, just throwing Queen Victoria.
And you've got, honestly, actually, she would have been a bit long
in the tooth by now, wouldn't she?
She's going for...
She's going for... and Edward the 8th. and you've got, and George
the 6th.
So you've really, you've pretty much all, just, yeah, you've got
the werewolves in the...
Aren't they yeti just incredibly stupid looking?
Are they the worst northern?
Yes or no?
Oh yeah, I don't think that's stupid looking at all.
I think it's more a matter of appearance for line function.
Yeah.
They look cute, but then they do all 4 things.
And I like that it's the whole thing of the reason why in later
stories you get children's toys being quite threatening as we
really jump into the next level in Doctor Who.
We're still at the stage.
This is the 1st time we see something benign and cubby looking
actually being terrifying.
Is it of air shaped and featureless spaces and stuff?
I mean, I notice you're looking at me when you say it.
No, no, no.
I'm a bit pear shaped.
Anyway.
Yeah, it's all going a bit.
I think my big objection to this season as a whole is we just
cycle between 3 groups of terrible things.
Yeah, you know what?
I think that may be true, but I think the more important thing is
what is done with those ideas.
I just feel that even though we may have variations on a theme
this season, the important thing lies in the variations we get.
And that's something I'd like to discuss next, which is the whole
setting of this story.
The writers decided to set it into bet, but not to bet in the
modern day.
That is only to set it into better 30s.
Those of you don't know, depending on your perspective, Tibet is a
part of China or at the very least subject to Chinese rule and
jurisdiction.
However...
I don't even stick to the podcasts or whatever. yeah.
At the time.
At the time, this story was set.
We need to support them, though, don't we?
Tibet was in the middle of roughly 50 years of de facto
independence.
They weren't exactly a sovereign independence state, but the
Chinese government of the time didn't really bother with them.
However, In 1951 China said, no, you are a part of our country.
In 1966, the year before this story, the China underwent the
cultural revolution.
And as part of that, not so much Chinese forces into it, but more
Tibetan forces, sympathetic to the Chinese rule, started
ransacking and attacking the monasteries.
And especially lots of reports of Buddhist statues being walled
down.
And of course, what do we see in abominable snowmen, but when the
1st bottle snowman gains access to the monastery.
They pull down the Buddha statue, crushing one of the monks to
death.
That's a bit horrible.
It's terrific commentary on what is going on, yeah?
Yeah, I mean, are the writers?
I'm not showing the idea of Chinese communism in the great
intelligence.
There was a lot of fear of China mentioned Nigerian Canada before
as being the greater threat than Mother Russia at this period.
So yeah, why not?
I think that decision was probably very conscious.
Henry Lincoln, real name are Henry Soskin.
He was a huge researcher into mythologies of various types.
He's actually credited with being one of the authors of a book
which Dan Brown based the da Vinci code upon. interesting.
So we get another source of Joseph Campbell, an apotheosis in the
story as well.
So you can see a few of those.
That's true.
And just a little bit of trivia.
Henry Lincoln was also an actor as well as a writer, and getting 2
episodes of the Avengers.
He was in an episode called Defella Cunt as the leader of an Arab
country.
And he ate everyone else.
He had a wonderful rapport with her on a black moon in that
episode.
It's quite a favourite of mine.
So there we are.
So at the very end, it turns out that Padma Sandovar, under the
control of great intelligence, has built a giant 60s style, like a
science fiction control room.
And this is something that the great intelligence inspires people
to do.
And so, you know, the whole end of it is inexplicably, you know
we've been in 1935 in Tibet and then suddenly we jump into this
sort of ludicrous modern sort of control.
I mean, the whole thing just seems, but yet he is so thin.
Like, why, why are they robot?
yes It's a great intelligence that can possess, you know, Padma
Sambova, um, and there are actual yeti available in, as we
discover.
Thank you, though.
The spheres, the yeti control spheres, as we're totally against us
they're about to become and reduced in the next yearly story.
They seem to be containing nothing more than chi, but they don't
actually have any things in a mechanism.
Yeah, they're so light.
There can't be anything in it.
I see them as a really interesting link between this corporeality
and the vortex and the astral plane.
Because the science-y stuff behind it is totally...
Hey, Ashbury, essay.
I must say, said, I mean, San Francisco.
But I do think it backs off from that.
I think that I think that it doesn't want to be too kind of
spiritual and too kind of, like it's it's Doctor Who, so they have
to be crap robots.
I think it comes in though.
And I think the control room's the same thing.
Do you know what I mean?
A little, we flirt with pyramids, we flirt with, you know, the
control things, but essentially, like it turns into a sort of
tiresome science fiction.
James Bondigoo.
Yeah, absolutely.
And like the tube of the cybermen sets were very 10 Adam.
And this is Ken Adam as well.
You know, you've got to have a giant control room to blow up at
the end.
And yes, maybe that is tiresome tropes coming into action.
It's also 1967.
I really love 1967.
That's the thing.
It's also a matter of, yeah, you know, it's happiness cliche, but
you still enjoy it.
It's a bit like, yeah, I know pizza's bad for me, but I still
enjoy it.
An area is doing even more so.
It just that we're too close to it to look at it.
Well, absolutely.
Absolutely You know, everyone kind of said, why aren't there why
aren't there commentaries for every episode on the new Doctor Who
box sets?
Because the ones they release in 20 years' time when Christopher
Eccleston can actually say why he left are going to be far more
interesting than anything he would record right now.
You know?
I want to hear Russell say by Christopher Eagleston there.
There are several versions. picked it already.
Just before we move on, there's also something I noticed in this
which is just me being cheating.
We have an insidious and duclicitous abbot turning good people
cynical and violent by the use of self manufactured threats.
This really is a story for all times, including our own.
And there's only one woman in the cast.
She sits comfortably on a front bench.
Listen, I would like point out that this is very hollow.
The wailing of the ice there, rather than over us than being in
the ice and going whaling can only be, it's time for the ice
warriors.
Please do not adjust your sense. right Anyone who has an axolotle
with a tank, right?
sitting around on its back right now, wouldn't it?
I'm sorry, we're all just 5 years old.
How good is that opening?
Again, this thing.
Yeah, we're back on a base under siege, a cottage under siege, and
it's just that you change the slides and it's going to look
completely different and have different plays, but that's the
point.
When you get to the details, how whacked is this story?
And thank you, Dudley Simpson.
We just had, oh, it's his play on Vaughan Williams and Antarctic
isn't it, that we just heard then with the sound of the ice, isn't
it?
this is the opening, like all the time, but in the opening crest.
Yes, yes. you get you get that.
And Dully's really letting everything out for this again.
There's so much in this, it's like, I like, I like costumes, I
like, the look of it.
I love the sound.
Um, actually, the characterisations.
What's going on between the characters and this is amazing.
So what we've got is TARDIS appears, the 1st, is it the 1st time
on the side?
Yes.
On that side.
Bang, there you go.
That deal was a was a cider-man falling onto a cake plate.
Because I'm deciding more ginger cake.
So we're playing around with what it does and we're doing it
really well.
We're in, um, what appears to be an ice globe.
Turns out to be the far future.
When is it 3000?
Oh, it's always the year two, three, or something, something
something, something, something, something, something, something
that, isn't it?
Yeah.
Actually, no, it's not the U 5,000.
Yes, it is.
I think it's 3000.
Yep, yeah, 30th century.
Well, we know we're in the 30th century, not just the sound, but
because of the sound.
Not of the frocks.
Look at what everyone's wearing.
Oh, really?
We haven't even got there yet.
We're still on the ice flows and we've got that beautiful sound.
We find a lovely big bubble.
We've got an interesting Georgian house. sitting under a dome and
then we realised, hang on, they wouldn't be building those in the
Antarctic, will we?
But it's actually more like we haven't got to Zardors yet.
That's Sean Connery's rock in a in a jockstrap.
That's 1972.
That was amazing. that.
That's a go-to.
But we're actually, why are we in a Georgian house?
And why suddenly everybody dressed as, and not even the girls from
the moon base in Jerry Anderson's UFO because that's still 3 years
off.
We're 9067.
We're in a disco in Paris.
But the costumes apparently, um, Based on printed circuits, is the
same. reason that the when we finally get into the ice warrior
ship, they've got those little groovy printed circuit layouts
simply because they're using G-claps instead of hand.
So it's all they can play with.
But we're actually hanging out in a Georgian house, as the rock
starts at the time did, with Mick Jagger and George Harrison, they
both just bought one.
We're good to see Mix House in Pyramid of Mars in years. time.
It's not just this thing is not just Sonic power.
It's supersonic.
This season we get Sonic.
We get Sonic disrupted weapons in this one, don't we?
How fantastic.
And then we get a lovely little fanboy that it's actually, do you
know how they made the guns work for the ice Warriors?
It's Miralong.
Yes, it is Miron, which is thin Myla.
The stuff that Warhol had just wrapped his factory in that is and
made all those big helium silver balloons for his PC walls, I was
like his favourite colour is silver because everything's reflected
in it.
It's meaningless and it's completely thin.
You might want to say that's the plotline of each story we're
getting this season, but I think that would be unfair.
Well, potentially unfair.
But yeah, a stage hand would gently, very gently stand behind.
The little silver mirror thing and gently brush against the
artist's reflection.
No, distorted the list.
Yes, there's a metaphor.
Yeah, it's almost like mercury.
And I actually think, you know, the set that you've alluded to, the
reason that we're in a Georgian house and it has like a fantastic
sort of candelabra chandelier thing on the on the roof.
And then immediately under it is...
Royce Elson was a giant computer.
It is true.
Roy Skelton's.
And the computer is hugely, hugely important thematically here
because and so maybe the contrast between the Georgian house and
the computer is sort of thematically important in that.
We're about, you know, the past versus scientific progress.
And so the 3 main characters who are leader clans in a sort of
ludicrous outfit of Miss Garrett, in a glamorously ludicrous
outfit, and then Penley do is Wallace and Gromis, or just maybe
one umbrellas.
And store.
Angus Lenny.
Yeah, to turn up as Angus.
But the even in terror of the cycles, yeah.
And but the 3 characters, you know, those 3 characters were bass
personnel and they and yeah, Angus, they all represent sort of
different attitudes towards that.
So Miss Garrett and Lita Clinton are will do whatever the computer
says.
Poor old Angus is terrified of everything that's got to do with
anything to do with technology and all those scientific things.
Um, and then you've got penley who's rejected the computer thing
wants to live like a person, isn't quite as crazy as, as store, uh
and, and it's those people and they, well, acted.
I mean, it's Peter...
Peter Barkworth, Peter Salis.
Peter Salis, a coup on podcast.
They didn't expect to be able to get Buckworth for this.
They asked him and he just turned up.
They didn't expect to be able to get Bernard Breslaw as Varga, but
he was able to turn up and do it.
Well, he was a big film star.
He was actually to carry on.
He was in the middle of carry-on doctor while he was doing this
which is the one where he drags up as the nurse.
Have you seen it?
It's also got Peter Gilmour, whom we own.
But Peter Gilmore and Barber Windsor also commit the abominable
joke of the century.
I've seen over in that film.
What number of wins are we own?
Have I said that before?
Well, we do.
Yeah, Mark Paul.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
This, to me, is just Christmas I am 67 all over. really is.
Peter Bark was just hams and caps it up.
This story, honestly, I love it, but I really do like it because
it's not just about blokes in a suit, Bernard Breslaw's costume is
equally way out and hoopy.
And instead of being sent off to see Sandra Reed or Daphne Dare in
their cupboard.
He sent off to a shipyard.
Did you know that?
The costume is actually built by boat builders out of timber
framing and fibreglass and he's standing in his outfit, fibreglass
and leathery, leathery, fluffy bits around his joints, dripping
out.
I swear to you, a pint of sweat, an owl.
Can you imagine?
how much that would go for now, though?
searching a Toby job. to show hand, it was coloured lovely and
more emerald green.
There were only just a couple of months too early for St.
Patrick's Day.
He's the one who in the in rehearsals came up with the voice and
came up with the other mannerisms of them and making them to be
like the space lizards.
And the love, that's... which we don't get ever again.
We don't get the weak whacko head turning.
But this thing for me, the reason I like it is he also, with the
bloke who was playing Zondal, developed more of genuine characters
and genuine identities for these players, this is a show about
love triangles, pause for reflection.
These songs, we talk about Russell having introduced the soaps of
the ideas of Romance in Doctor Who.
This is it.
You've got Zwaga and Zondal having, I think, kind of difficult
post-frozen relationship and sorting that out.
You think I've got the extraordinary love story, love triangle
story between Penley, leader clans, or come on, and and when do
you give it?
I thought you were going to say Henley leader cleans on the
computer.
Well, that's all your aspects of the same thing and the reason the
relationships don't work.
But you know, this is the 1st time it's actually hinted at, that
when they give this part and so Clint had the past, they did have
a relationship.
Yeah.
No, I thought it was Penley and No, no, no, it's a claim to her
because she she goes to see Penley.
Remember when he's in the botanical museum and begs him to come
back?
Because of her affection and relationship.
Gareth and Clint, Gareth and Clint did have a relationship.
And it's in the script notes.
The normalisation.
Yeah.
And then you've got Penley is the discarded trying to create a
whole new life with this.
Oh, no, I'm trying to find someone who's completely different from
you, Clint. going to find someone who's natural and real and into
the outdoors and needs to start swingy, whiney things.
If he made an old thing, he's smelling of the chewing oil, and of
course, he's completely gone off him and comes home in the end.
Yeah, the friend is a dysfunctional gay couple since Bert
learning.
Exactly.
In store. you know, it's a rebound relationship.
That's the thing.
It should have been, it should have stuck to what they knew.
I'm sorry.
When do you give it?
I really feel so more sorry for Miss Garrett, because she's the
one, but she's the too hot trophy wife in all of these, when you
get boys of this level, like Lita Clans, who's completely
emotionally unavailable.
I'm sorry, it was her thought for marrying into careers.
Too hot trophy wise left to look long, you know, just looking
warmly spectacular where I'm wearing a plastic clipboard over a
face.
That is weird.
That's the clickboard over. if dropped You probably feeling a
bit...
It was the only thing that's doing the glass.
Yeah, why not?
That's what she's wearing.
See, why not?
See, I actually, I actually think, you know, she had a thing for
him, but she's just so over it now because they're both so
ridiculous.
You know, both Clint and Penley are just so ridiculous.
She's like the gray spy in the spy versus spy on it.
You know, while the boys are fighting, she'll make off with the
plans.
Yeah, she is.
What else can we say about?
Look, you're talking about casual races?
They're good to stick out boxes.
I think instead of anti-Martian?
I think it's really appalling in this one.
No, because Victoria doesn't have much to do and I think I think
it's Victoria is a character, probably her weakest story.
Well, and he's wobbled.
She does a lot of being dragged along by this.
Although she drove, although, because Burna Bristol is actually
quite short-sighted and couldn't see or hear anything.
She drags him alive, you know, but she's absolutely desperate not
to go to Africa, the racist.
Oh, she's not.
Africa. becauses cannibals and do know?
Tipsy flies.
The words we can't say on the BBC.
And it's...
No, we can save them on the BBC.
We don't use, we can't say boys.
She kind of written 1984 unless she's got a copy of it in the
TARDIS.
Um, you know, she's just, it's just pretty awful.
And what does Jamie do?
It's not about them.
That's why that's why it's good.
At the time, TV shows that were really hot and successful.
And the reason I think this one is so well remembered and yet
looking at it now, it's a bit flat is because at the time this
sparkled.
And really good TV drama was people being shouting at each other
over high tech banks, in control rooms, doing serious space.
This was, wow, this is real life.
We're getting, we move beyond the entire style of Billy's
naturalism, which to us is very stagey, to this new level of
compact door, the, you know, the hot slopes of the time.
Oddly enough, you've just described 24 as well.
People shouting over high tech.
Yeah.
Can I just say that one of the things that sets this apart, though
from, say, modern Doctor Who, apart from the fact that it's 400
hours, is, yeah, it is, um, that you've got such a strong theme, uh
among the human beings and with the computer in the middle of the
room.
And the characters are really well drawn.
Do you know what I mean?
They're not, like, everyone says, you know, Clint has a printed
circuit where his art should be, but he doesn't really.
He's actually, you know, quite human things.
He's very emotional.
Very much afraid of what's going on and playing it by the book
because he fears he doesn't have the imagination.
And that's why his relationship with Miss Garrett didn't work
out.
I notice it's never, it's always miscarrett.
They really isolate her sexuality in this.
So we've got this strong sort of thematic thing going.
But the monsters and the threat have nothing at all to do with
it.
No, it's only it's only who's going through a divorce at the
time.
No, no, it doesn't matter what they look like.
I mean, what I mean is that if you've got this thing about sort of
computers and you've got this thing about sort of natural life and
you've got, you've got, um, yeah, is it the 1st environmentalist
Doctor Who story?
No, no, that environmentalism thing is absolute rubbish.
I mean, look at it.
It's like they cut down all the trees, fields, to build, you know
living units for the human beings and mysteriously because we all
know that plants produce carbon dioxide.
There's no more carbon dioxide in the thing, so we all...
So they get rid of all the plants.
Instead of that releasing a whole lot of carbon dioxide into the
air and causing global warming, It stops there being carbon
dioxide and it causes a nice space science.
The monsters need to be cybermen.
Do you know what I mean?
Well, they kind of are.
But do you because it's all about logic versus human instinct?
That the human beings win when they start to ignore the computer
and take risks?
Do you know what I mean?
So thematically, it's all about, it's all about sort of logic
versus instinct.
It's all about science versus sort of nature.
But then, So the side men are kind of a natural, fit thematically
for the story.
And originally in sort of earlier drafts, the Martians were more
explicitly sideboard.
And they said, well, that's too much like cybermen, we need to put
them in a different sort of stupid fibreglass outfit.
And so we'll put them in sort of lizard things.
But that does seem to sort of destroy the kind of thematic unity
of the story.
I still can't help thinking, this is a very well performed and
well characterised one.
It's got a sterling cast. an A gray TV cast for the time.
But it's just another base under siege and it is exhausting and
the monsters are stupid.
Forgive me, that's kind of beside the point because that's the
that's the ruin the headlight scene of this season.
We know that's what it is.
It's what they then do to play around that. and actually make it
more interesting within that steady concrete structure that makes
it interesting and diverting to watch.
And that's why I find this one interesting.
I would have thought because you're our heart and all guy.
Do you know what I mean?
That you would be, by this point, hugely missing the variety of
things that Doctor Who can do, that we saw it do in its 1st 2
years.
And it's like, oh, you know, here's another room full of white
people being threatened by aliens in stupid outfits.
But we know that's what it's doing.
What, Brendan, what are you?
See, I've got to agree with Richard, Nathan, because these price
the other thing is not what the threat is.
The important thing is that human reaction to it.
Now, yeah, we could have had a start moving the story and the
whole thing would have been about man versus machine, you know
logic versus emotion.
But that is just instead part of the story.
The bigger story here is do we need an alien threat to wipe this
out or are we just going to wipe ourselves out?
Because there's 2 threats to overcome in this story.
The 1st threat to overcome is humanity wiping itself out through
action or inaction and not knowing what the right thing is, but
following your instincts.
And then the other threat is, okay, how do we deal from an
external threat?
It's continuing the idea of self-actualisation from the previous
story.
Humanity has to grow up in itself and accept its own differences
and stop trying to homogenise everything.
Otherwise, we're going to become like these homogenised lizard
monsters on the mountain.
Are they homogenised?
They have 2 different sorts of outfits.
Then they have 2 different sorts of outfits, but they acted
exactly the same now.
Yeah, it's only...
As the same as men in the Yesi.
I said for Varga and Zondel, and watching it again, I am getting
sort of subtleties there, but maybe I'm reading a bit, but there's
a nice little mirror of what's going on with the humans between
those two.
Yeah, the whole, the whole Viking idea that is on paper.
Which is what, which, yeah, which is what Burna Bristol thought
he'd be playing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The thing is, I think it still comes across in the script.
You know, comes crossing his performance, yeah.
Yeah, they are still very sort of pillage based.
They don't...
They have a pillage based economy.
Well, look, you know, they're not like the side.
They don't invade by self and then kind of say you'll be like us.
They just say, we're gonna smash your stuff and take your left.
And that's a very...
Even though the Simon were doing in Moonbase?
But myself.
Yeah.
Whereas the ice you can, you can see. ice worries are up and back
in their shit, it's just like, no, we're going to zap it.
You can see Cleans HR team saying, well, you know, look, we
managed to get rid of the rape part.
It's great.
We just got the pillage.
And well, as far as being put to the sword, at least to the
supersonic woo-woo gun, well, we've kind of not been able to get
that, but we have got flea.
So you're actually allowed to flee, flee for your lives.
Now, I do it right now.
Press them up, please.
That's it.
They're great.
There's a reason people love this.
I would like to have seen what Brian hails, and indeed, what
Douglas Canfield was pushing at the time.
Did you know the other stories this was going to be?
This was going to be Doctor Who meets Hitler.
That's what Brian Hale's 1st script synopsis was.
Jim Masoon, as the...
Yeah, but the team.
Amazingly, Innis, Lloyd, we've kind of not been very generous to
him, have we?
so far on this, but he rejected it because it's, um, he said it's
complete.
Well, he said, paraphrasing, completely indulgent, and it odds
with the production codes.
Is this the operation werewolf script?
No, that's another one again.
Thank you.
Yeah, Dougie Canfield submitted a World War 2 synopsis, which
sounds really interestingly, curse of Fenrick, that was Nazi
scientists and teleports.
So hello, seeds of death just a couple of years later.
But also there was some vampire thing underneath it as well.
I hope Big Finish gets around to finding it or doing a right of
it.
Yes, so I cannot download it.
I just might say, I love the big finish, love stories, although I
am quite the same way the Queen of Time, also by Brian Hales, was
lost.
Oh.
Yeah, so apart from that and just how beautiful it sounds.
I should really mention that orally.
It's really great.
Did you watch it or listen?
I did watch it this time, but I have it as an audio.
Again, it's I'm 1st known from the Target book, which I think is
actually the best version of this.
Those episodes weren't discovered till like 88 or something.
There used to be none of it existence.
Yeah, quite late.
Yeah, yeah.
I actually did a book report on the novelisation when I was in
year 8 at school.
Yeah, it's quite that.
So I, obviously, caught Quasi Homer, a lot in love triangles, got
a big mention.
Well, as you can see, it's maybe the mouse.
And Wendy, if it helps...
Did you notice that there's a victorious theme reprised?
Remember when Evil of the Daleks, she's got a theme.
I really like Dudley Simpson.
He does it here with a Hammond organ.
I think it's in episode three.
I've written here episode 3 and he does a surrounder sound.
This is Shagpile mood lounge.
Hugh Hefner. as close as we get to being in the would-be Concorde
lounge.
Yeah, the little sound mounts.
These are beautiful.
Yeah.
And I don't think we can finish before we mention the new
animation on the DVD. by the Kuros team.
Yes, it's all...
Oh, that one's not Australia.
Australian was Moonbase, 10th Planet, and Rain of Terror.
This was done by a different group.
Hence, the different side of the show was better at then.
But all good.
I like this one a lot.
I like this one a lot too.
I would have, you know, I'd be quite happy to see either style.
Now this one did look simpler.
I don't know if it was cheaper. or not, but the odd thing is, start
looking simpler for animators.
Yeah, despite looking simpler.
I feel this one actually got a lot more detail into the facial
expression.
There's a few times where Patrick just rolls his eyes and it looks
like Patrick rolling his eyes, but as a cartoon character.
It's very well described.
I think I think, I mean, we'll get to the invasion sort of fairly
soon as well.
But I think this one and the invasion actually are the most
successful ones.
And they are simpler.
You know, like they don't try and reproduce 3D movement.
They're much more flat and much more sort of 2 day.
But I think that's using the medium of animation much more
effectively.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like archer or something like that.
It was a relief anyway.
So have a full 6 episode story to watch.
Absolutely.
Yeah, these 2 of them were just animated.
Well, that release is going to continue, Nathan, because in our
next podcast, We have 2 full stories to watch that just 14 months
ago.
We could only see 2 episodes off.
How amazing is that?
I just, you know, I still can't believe it.
And I think I think also next time we have to have a little bit of
a discussion about what's happening or not with all the missing
episodes.
Oh, no, let's not do that at all.
It's not provoked to Philip the god of Philip Morris, like out
there.
Now, also before we go stay, I would like to mention our 1st
flight through entirety competition.
Gosh.
Yes.
I didn.
Friend of the podcast, Tony Galuzo, who is also the president of
my wrestling club.
How often?
Really, you're asking yourself. people as wrestler.
I just thought the Turkish wrestling mask you were wearing was
interesting not to say Andrew Reed in a career.
It's actually filled with yeti cake and crumbs.
No, he came across a box of 1970s target novelisations when he was
renovating his house and he sort of said, Brendan, you like Doctor
Who.
Would you like these?
And I've had a look at them and to be honest, I've got all of
them.
So what we're going to do, every podcast, we're going to give away
3 target novelisations.
In order to be in the running to win one of these 3
novelisations.
What we'd like you to do is this.
First of all, like us on Facebook, if you already have. wonderful
are so glad to have you.
Secondly, we would like you to share the link to this episode of
the podcast.
And finally, we'd like you to follow that link, go to our website
and just leave a comment, tell us what you think.
Tell us what you would like us to discuss in future episodes as we
make our way through.
Now, for those of you who aren't following us on a flight through
entirety on Facebook, if just say you prefer Twitter, you can also
find us at FTE podcast.
So if you follow us on there and retweet the tweet about this
podcast, that will count as an entry as well.
We'll keep track of everyone and we'll announce the winner on our
3rd season 5 episode.
Now we'll be recording that on the 23rd of November, Doctor Who's
anniversary.
So make sure you are in before then.
So you'll have a week pretty much from today in order to do that.
So, to recap, Like, share comment.
Or on Twitter, follow, retweet, comment.
If you are one of the winners, we'll let you know what books we
have, and you can choose your own, we'll post it out to you.
Okay.
Alright.
So that's all time we have for this episode of flight through
entirety, but we will be back next week with the enemy of the
world.
And the web of fear.
So do come back for that.
Thank you very much.
Good night.
We've been listening to Flight to Entirety with Nathan Bottomley
Brendan Jones, and Richard Stone.
This episode, hauling a couple of prize marrows, was recorded on
Sunday, the 9th of November.
The next episode will be released on Sunday the 23rd.
You can find us online at flatthroughentirety.com, flat your
entirety on Facebook and iTunes or FTE podcast on Twitter.
I noticed what those young ladies were wearing too, Jamie.
I wonder if they have one in my size.
Let's see.
I think that's what she's really like.
Yeah, well, my friend Farrah says that she's like that in green
wing that she's...
Yeah, no, that is her.
So she's she's classwegian.
Of course that's who she is.
Should I keep the accent?
Are you doing that now?
Is that what you're doing?
Are you doing that?
You're doing this?
Hello.
Hello, are you?