Hello and welcome to Flight Your Entirety, the only Doctor Who
podcast who's down there in the darkness in the pipeline.
Wait.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
And I'm a pit of seaweed with hypnotic potential for this
episode.
I thought you'd done something.
I hope you liked it, yeah. might catch on.
And that means we are back with the last part of Season 5 and
Doctor Who, talking about 2 classic stories, uh, fury from the
deep and and the wheel in space.
So we'll start off by the seaside with here from the deep.
Bloody seagulls.
At it again.
So this is my one, I think.
But it is.
And can I just update us on the missing stories status?
We have 9 recons to go, I think.
This is the last completely missing story.
Hooray.
Doctor Who's history.
There are little bits and pieces of it still left.
It's a lot of violent excise, clips, excise from, you know, by the
ABC sensors and then rediscovered by Damien.
It's important to note that Damian Shanahan is obviously a schlock
horror collector and that his entire vault at home must be all of
the most horrendous thing.
Exactly.
He is the too many cooks or tour of...
Australian television.
We'll put that in showments, if you have no idea what we're
talking about.
So in our last episode, but one.
I think I went on and on and on about how much I dislike the
massacre.
Yes, yeah.
But also the base under siege is an idea.
And early on this season, you know, I was pretty convinced that
what we were essentially getting was, you know, a whole heap of
pretty interchangeable concept.
So you would have intransigent base commander, you would have a
base somewhere, you would have people in stupid costumes, you know
menacing the base.
A helicopter. helicopter, phone.
The BBC phone machine.
And so this is one where I had never seen it before, the podcast.
I don't think I'd listen beyond episode one of the soundtrack.
So this was quite a new experience and I was completely ready to
absolutely hate it.
You know, it had the foam machine and all of those sorts of things
and I just thought it was going to be completely terrible.
And it does start out like it might be terrible.
And I guess, I guess the worst thing about it is Robson, where you
now have, we've had a series of base commanders, haven't we, from
General Cutler to leader claims to...
So what's different about this one?
So it's a base under siege, but where is it?
What's happening with this?
So we in, we're in the present day, although it looks nothing like
the present day.
We're back on earth, we turn up by the beach.
There's oil refineries, a lot. strip off again and come and have a
swim.
I didn't have thought that would make up.
Well, they don't land on the beach. in the western water, which
thanks to the war games, we actually have that landing clip and
it's a fantastic piece of water.
So the TARDIS floats.
What happens in the time, Medler?
Do they all have to, do they all actually have to go and bungee
out to see to get back into the TARDS in that case?
I don't know, yeah, because the tide came in.
Yeah, tide came in, but it's still there.
Still where it was.
He engaged the time anchor.
I don't know if you just make that up, didn't you?
I did.
Yeah.
Hey, Stephen Moffat.
I could write for you.
I'm going to quote Derek Sherwin a lot today on what he took of
the 60s producer and what he says.
I may not mention exactly what he says about the current era.
But anyway.
Because we can't have the explicit tag.
Well, maybe we can just use acronyms.
But this is, I really like this story.
You've come to like it now.
So it's kind of like an oil rig thing, isn't it?
They're out on this before the Zygons.
They're out on this rig thing. and there's something going on.
They're refining.
So there's obviously a mutant spooky ooh, don't drill under there
because you know what will happen in Inferno.
It's actually making the whole part where you look a little bit
you know, are you getting the point now?
Brendan Nathan, at this point of the show that we didn't actually
ever need colour, because every story has been, you might say
nausea, but every story has been analysed and promulgated before
we even get to the 70s.
Everything, even the war machines is giving us stuff that Tom and
later Peter Davis and all the others are going to do really well.
I had always thought there was like a massively bright line
between the 60s and 70s and it was partly because the 60s are in
black and white and partly because we don't have it all.
And partly because, frankly, I was just not really particularly
familiar with it.
But now, and next year in season six, you can really, really see
how this is sort of working towards the Pertuy era.
And this could have been in season seven, quite honestly.
It's very like Inferno.
And a lot of that is Derek Sherman, who's now script editing and
taking over from there's some amazing behind the scenes stories of
what wasn't working out, which is why you get really interesting
ideas with really what ideas is we've about to discover.
No, I mean, he lasts into 1970, doesn't he?
absolutely.
He produces spearheads in space, Derek Sherwin.
Yeah.
BBC removed it.
It's a terrible acting performance.
He no lines.
Okay, because he fires a bloke.
Shockingly bad.
So, um, we haven't we have another base command.
He's called Robson, which is only really one letter different from
the base commander in the moon base.
And this base commander, he's going to be intransigent because we
need the base commander to kind of delay the resolution, you know
normally the base commander doesn't recognise what's going on
until the last possible moment.
This guy's just horrible though.
He's like really rude and mean to everyone.
I don't know, like, you know, what passes for kind of management
training in the in this sort of oil company, but he belittles
people and yells at them.
He refuses to slow down the machinery in the event of, you know
any kind of problem.
He's really just angry and abusive for no reason at all.
His character makes a very good point about capitalism in business
because whenever anyone challenges, Not necessarily him directly
but when Ben Lutchins is talking to Harris and they're talking
about, you know, can't we get him removed, get someone else in, the
response is always, oh, but he's been on the rig for ages and he
brings in results and that's why they haven't got rid of him.
So, you know, it's a very good point of, you know, people need
this gas for power and whatnot.
So the people getting the gas, they don't really matter just so
long as the little black rocks make the television work.
Yeah, yeah, so he could be like a hideous, abusive halfway.
And so by the end of episode two, I have to say that I wasn't, I
wasn't hopeful.
Like, I thought that this was essentially going to be what we've
been having all year.
But, I think that I think that I have to concede your point from a
little while ago, uh, I think it was 2 episodes ago, or maybe even
last episode where you, Brendan, said that although we had the
bass under siege template and it was happening over and over again
what mattered was the sort of variations in in the different
characters, uh, and even little details of the setting.
But we had different characters in these base under siege
stories.
And here I think the characters are really terrifically
successful.
So you mentioned Harris, who is just lovely.
He seems to be just a thoroughly nice man.
You know, he's very mild manner.
He contrasts really well with Robson.
He has a wife, which is like a weird, rare sort of human charge.
Yeah, we don't often see interpersonal relationships.
Well, it was a deliberate thing in this one to try and make it
more like Russell later did a 1000 years later.
It's a soap within a show.
You've got a real couple having real arguments.
So all the rest of it.
It's nicely done as a setup for what's going to happen with
Victoria.
Yeah, the whole kind of thing.
Victoria's probably at her winiest in this one too, isn't she?
You get the point when she keeps saying, you know, why do we
always end up in these awful place of the terrible things?
Do you think the TARDIS, the whole reason for this series and all
these repetitions are based on procedure, there's a pattern.
Do you think the TARDIS is trying to do her in?
Yeah, it's trying to get rid of that.
It really is.
The thing is, I do find Victoria quite whining this one, but I
feel that she earns it in this one because right from the very
beginning, you know, she gets she gets knocked out.
She holds it together.
She's picking locks with bobby pins.
She's something that has abilities of, you know, 70s spy girls who
are like going to come up and she's, she's signed to him.
She actually always was a little bit science.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's all these subtle references that she was getting up
to things that her father didn't know about, you know, she knew
how to make stink bombs, for instance.
She knows how she knows how to pick a lot.
And then when we look back at her 1st story, she gets along really
well with all the servants.
You have this wonderful image when you get to the end of Victoria
that actually she's never been really the Victorian nest.
She puts that she puts that on as a persona.
But actually, you know, she, instead of going to school, she was
running, running hooky with the with the servants.
Yeah, I mean, I wonder whether she's quite as carefully
characterised as that.
But at least I think is the 1st time properly that you've had the
departure of a companion seeded all the way through the story.
Thankful, yeah.
So, you know, normally what happens now is if someone's leaving in
Doctor Who in modern Doctor Who, the story becomes about that to a
large degree, or it's a giant event and then we get it sort of
properly dealt with at the end.
Hitherto, like in the 60s.
We've just had terrible companion departures where they've just
been sort of written out midstory or, you know, sort of wandered
off and never seen again.
And I guess the high point previously has been Ian and Barbra's
which wasn't seated.
I mean, they were already in the present day in their own time
earlier on in that story.
But, um, it's it's so heartfelt and it's so beautifully done that
it really is, and I think, um, uh, the best companion departure
today.
But this would have to be the 2nd best one.
And it is because the way that her discontent with her way of life
with the doctor is seated all the way through.
There are a few conversations she has also with Jamie and all of
that sort of thing about how scary and difficult all of these
faces under siege are.
Yes, and honestly, you'd think someone would have to.
How about right at the end that you get the whole apotheosis for a
reason she's there. scream, not to give anything away.
The scream is the thing that makes it just the monster.
It's not really a monstrous, but it's Adora, the Godzilla monster
isn't it?
This is a Godzilla movie.
If you look at the plotting and the way the whole thing's set up
bit by bit.
Just watch any of the 60s Godzillas and you know where this is
coming from.
And especially with what Reginald just mentioned, I do recommend
even if you haven't seen a Godzilla film, watch Godzilla versus
Hadora.
Godzilla versus Sidora is so different from every other Godzilla
film because it's got an environmental message.
Like a lot of the Godzilla films at the time we were getting into
the 70s now. just don't have any sort of message at all.
They did originally.
Oh, they did.
They had an anti-war message.
This was the 1st one with a with an anti-pollution message and
people these days really quite love it.
But at the time the director was told, do not darken the doors of
Toho, again, you have ruined Godzilla forever.
And, you know, this was after the giant lobster monster of the
Byra horror from the deep.
I think recruitment, like Doctor Who, you can't actually ruin the
brand. always reboot itself.
That brings me to the problem I have with fury from the deep.
And that is that it doesn't feel like a Doctor Who story to me
because of course it didn't start as a Doctor Who story.
It was a radio play that Victor Pemberton called The Slide and it
just feels like the Dr. Jamie and Victoria had been inserted into
this plot, especially in the 1st 4 episodes.
They're all doing their own thing away from the main pot.
They're investigating the problem.
But, um, the cliffhanger I referenced earlier.
It's down there in the darkness in the pipeline waiting.
The Dr. Victor Oratoria and Jamie are back in the TARDIS
conducting experiments on the sea week, they're nowhere near the
plot at that point.
That's why they go back to the Tartars, they go to, do they?
they...
Well, they go to some sort of lab and there's hardest hum is in
the background.
It's hard to tell being that it's reconstruction that I've always
envisioned that scene as being in the times.
I really like that they slide into it sideways.
That's what a real story should be.
They shouldn't be the centre of everything.
They are supposed to be being into.
In fact, position.
By episode 3 though, I think they should be perfectly entrenched
in the whole team, right?
I think they're always a bit sidelined. actually I actually, I
don't know whether it's me, but I watch these whole stories and
then kind of forget what Jamie and Victoria were doing in them. of
most of the time.
So Victoria resolves the plot.
And I think it's a cruel sort of writerly gag about her
character.
She's not actually quite as screamy as she's portrayed here.
She tries to scream at the drop of the hat. you know, she's
screaming at the ventilation shafts and various other things.
She might have read the da Vinci code.
There's a page and a half in that where Dan Brown talks about the
narrative he's actually driven by his description of the air
conditioning in the gallery.
So you know what?
This is a really great story compared to popular interest.
Oh, God, I'm now imagining Victoria and Jamie in Fifty Shades of
Grey, naked.
Why?
Who wears the skirting this couple?
And we haven't talked about oak and quill either.
Like there's a whole...
That's actually the main reasons it's good.
I mean, and they're kind of a such a weird thing, isn't it?
One of them doesn't talk.
The other ones, it's a lot of hearty kind of thing.
Superc.
Supercam.
And they open down and breathe out gas and kill people.
So, Supergat.
Did you know that Pemberton wanted them to have a spinoff series?
He'd actually written, yeah, he'd written a crazy, he'd written to
the BBC.
He thought that they were that interesting.
You've got to remember that.
You've got to remember that Batman was doing really well still on
ITV right opposite, so that kind of villain was a cool thing.
Can you imagine what that would have been like?
And well, just 3 years later.
Ah, Mr. Winston, Mr. Winston.
Yeah, actually, items are forever.
Yeah, pretty close.
Well, they're both sort of gay.
Are they a couple?
Well, Mr. Winter, Mr. can do walk up holding hands at one point.
It's hard to say with Mr. Oakman's quilt, but.
I don't think it's hard to say.
Of course, as we have discussed before, Victor Pemberton is gay.
Oh, okay, Supergate. is partner at the time and for the 40 years
following Worlds David Spencer, which made Tomney.
So it's quite possible that these 2 characters were envisioned as
a gay couple.
You know, they go everywhere together, they do everything
together.
But with the parenthetic evil couple, because go couples in 60s
but always. evil.
Okay.
Oh, my God.
So, what's this?
Like Miss Rogen is a kid.
Oh, yeah, rogue.
Marvellous film.
Leopold and Loeb, yeah, going back to the 20s.
Oh, in Cold Blood was a huge hit just the year before and the
everybody that Truman Capote's groundbreaking number one selling
novel about, well, yeah, based on it.
But anyway, hmm.
Gays like killing.
That's what I'm getting from this.
It's also the odd tension then that, okay, guys are like killing
but they're also the most interesting characters there.
The outsiders are always interesting.
Yeah, it's just Endora with a vengeance strategy, really.
That scene, though, I mean, and we should mention that, as we said
none of these episodes exist.
But one of the scenes that was cut from the Australian broadcast
on the grounds that it was too scary is the scene where Mrs. Harris
gets menaced by Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill, and it is, they're
repairing the stove, like it's so ordinary and so down to earth.
And it is the sort of thing that pertry will looks like it's going
to do over the next few years, but doesn't in fact do.
It's just a woman in her kitchen.
The repairmen come in. but then they open their mouths and it's
utterly terrifying.
Like the scene is really fantastic and they've got terrible
English teeth and so they're even more terrifying.
And it's really terrifically good.
Can we talk about the weed?
Oh, I knew we'd get to that.
Yes, yes, yes. 60s preferences.
All of these people are under the control of the weeds, you know.
But so Doctor Who does reap the madness exactly.
And the other sort of aspects of the weed aren't quite so well
realised, and and the script looks like the weed is, you know
going to be sort of puppet tentacle things, but clearly they can't
really afford that.
And so they just wheel out the foam machine again.
And they basically feel Mrs. Harris's entire kitchen and the patio
and stuff with phone.
Yeah, Jamie, that's the close skylight.
But they're all talking as if it's sort of full of weed and stuff
and it's really the climactic battle where we actually get like
weed creatures and they're clearly just some guy in a stupid
outfit with tentacle arms flailing his arms around while he's up
to his sort of neck in BBC foam.
It really is a fabulously surreal thing if you haven't actually
seen it.
It is in the recons, but if you've only heard the audio, you won't
really quite get how amazingly weird it looks.
It's one of the ones I really want to have come back because you
hear about, you know, people talking about it, who saw it at the
time and those that remember say that the camera and the dialogue
were completely at odds.
So what was going on that you saw was working against how the
dialogue is carrying the story and there was tension in that.
Okay, this is memory, but who directed it?
Hugh David.
Oh, the story goes that he was completely, you know, cranky about
the scripts and the actors worked out a hell of a lot of it on in
rehearsal, but that's what Derek Schoen was now saying and was
having constant for cars with Paddy on the set about, you know, I'm
an actor, you're an actor, just rewrite it if you don't like it.
It was very much a wreck way of working it through, but by this
stage, trout, it was apparently just so tight, and, you know, it
was supporting 2 families, and he was, oh, it was quite open.
And he's getting to the end of his 2nd production block.
See, in the next episode of our podcast, they actually started
shortening the episodes. was so tired and he just said, I can't
look, you.
Yeah, he was threatening to leave.
And, and, um, yeah, they're attractive to things about that.
But yeah, he just didn't have the patience for it anymore, who can
blame him 42 epis a year?
It was crazy, wasn't it?
I mean, that really is extraordinary.
That tension sort of adds to something I do like about the story
which is the Lovecraft insolence.
Um, you know, and the whole, one of the whole things about
Lovecraft is being unable to pin down a specific description of
what the sailor saw in the city that night.
So, you know, for them to be saying, oh, you know, it's a weed
monster and it's 10 foot time, this, that, the other.
And then the visuals don't quite match up to that.
You do begin to doubt your quality of memory, as you were saying
Richard.
And it's a weird tension for me for this story.
It's, yeah, it's good and it's scary, but I don't like it as a
Doctor Who story and it's got weird things like that comedy
helicopter chase in episode five.
So crazy.
Sorry, not even a chase.
It's just comedy helicopter flight. the doctor going, oh, I think
I can buy a helicopter.
Oh, oh, okay.
Oh, oh, there are lots of meta. 10 minutes.
Yeah, there were lots of men of stand-ups of themselves.
And it was actually written into the script after Pemberton's
thing, but that victorious screams would be the weapon of
destruction.
No, they actually want to.
And Patty called her old leather lungs because of it.
So yeah, she was, but I just like at the end of it, the final
episode.
They defeat the beastie and instead of doing this big mass
destruction just goes back into the water as it should.
Everything returns to normal.
And they have a lovely little sort of, um, to the manor born, good
life dinner party in Maggie's horrid kitchen.
I actually read it.
I'm a huge fan of that, I have to say.
Normally Trouton won't stay to say goodbye and will actually speak
off with the other characters is still wondering, you know, where
he's gone.
But here, and it's partly in order to sell Victoria's departure.
We get like a really quite affecting scene between Jamie and
Victoria.
I pride.
It's really nice.
And the 1st time I experienced this story, wasn't listening to the
audio.
Yeah.
And yeah, I cry.
I was actually sitting on the tube train in London on the way home
from work and I cried.
I really didn't.
And I wondered if that had something to do with the fact that you
were on the tube in detail.
That's fairly stressing. anyway isn't it?
So, and then we have the dinner and, you know, Victoria has to
make her decision and things and the dinner is lovely.
And they do a great thing with Robson as well, where he sort of
gets redeemed a little bit.
He's a little bit more relaxed and a little bit less of a sort of
an aggressive idiot.
But he's not completely redeemed.
He is still, you know, sort of annoying and dictatorial and
things.
So they sort of back away from, you know, making him the good
guy.
You know, it's a bit leisurely and things that works terrifically
well.
This, I think, at this point might be my favourite based under
siege story from season five, but I may revise that assessment by
the end of this podcast.
For me, it just it doesn't quite work.
It's oozing with atmosphere and the atmosphere is wonderful.
It's foaming with atmosphere.
But generally I just find it 6 episodes of people are not terribly
interested in shouting at each other and trying to avoid saying
the word shaft.
Do you know what we've avoided completely is your namesake?
No, it was my namesake.
My sister's namesake.
My sister was born Megan Jones, now Megan Regan.
Megan Regan Jones.
So she goes by Meg.
She's wonderful.
She is the best thing about story.
And so she comes in like sort of episode 3 and there's that weird
spooky scene between Robson, who has been possessed by the weed.
He's under the influence of the weed.
So many people in the 60s. and Mrs. Harrison there, she walks out
to sea in a cliffhaniel that really goes nowhere at all.
Yes, original parent. before original parent. before Douglas Adams
in the mood.
So Megan Jones comes along and she was the grandmother in the
Idiot's Lantern, the faceless grandmother.
Granny Connolly. much, much later.
And she also sentences Blake to exile on Cygnus Alpha.
She does too.
Yeah. but she's terrific.
She's really competent and sort of fabulous.
And you've had this idiot based commander and suddenly she's
replaced by a fantastically competent woman who, you know, is
incredulous initially, but fair enough, but yeah, you know, she's
not an obstacle.
She's quite sensible and it is so unusual again.
We've said this before, but maybe it is becoming normal from here
on in that you, it's not just all men and the female companion.
Here we have 2 female guest stars.
What you feed on with this is that it's not the concepts because
we've seen them all Romeo and many times over this season.
So what you do with them and how you interplay and put the stuff
into it and how you how you work out the pieces that work in
between.
And for all those reasons that you've said and characters and the
way they develop them and just what's going on in the sitcom level
which is just human. underneath it or a parallel to it, works
really well with this.
Uh, we didn't mention just parenthetically, no one dies.
All of those people come back and we're all okay.
Even Van Lutchins, who looks like he's going to die horribly, I
think, survives.
Yes, yes, yes.
He comes back.
That's John Abenarius.
Yes, it is.
Another thing I've noticed in how we're reviewing this.
We're actually reviewing 3 different versions of the same story.
That's the nice thing and the interesting thing about Doctor Who
up to mid 70s.
I'm probably reviewing, 1st of all, the audios, but before that
the target novels.
The target novel of this was written by Victor Pemberton.
It's a really thicky, I think it was the thickest one that they
ever did.
Yes, I think they blew out to 160.
They did.
How do you know what?
War and peace.
They did.
And it's pretty good.
I haven't read it since it came out, but I liked it at the time.
I thought this was interesting and the character development is
all there.
All the things you're talking about, Nathan Jones, are really
prevalent in the narrative.
And it's a really thin, late 60s piece of politics stuff happening
here and it's good.
It's a good book.
That's my memory of it and that's why I like it.
So she's spectacular.
Isn't it lovely that we've got a text that can be viewed on
several different media and have a completely different take on
it.
How many other how many other programs can offer that?
Not many.
So is that, is this Hammerton's last one?
It's his only one.
What about pescatons?
Well, his only TV, his only TV one.
He really recycles a lot of this, doesn't he?
I mean, I think it's the Tom Baker's inexplicable recorder that
puts paid to the pescatons, probably.
But this has also recycled itself many times, though, you know
you've got the, again, the zygons. ontological threat.
Yeah, I mean, in a way also this year's listen reminded me of a
little of this one because you don't really find out what the
monster was.
And I know I know the point of listen is meant to be. monsters you
were just imagining it. what was under the blanket?
Ugly and ugly child.
Children usually give it away after a while, I say, that went on
far too long to me, just unless it's a very sin switch.
Yeah, exactly.
So now for the first time in quite a while, we're back off
interspace onto a wheel of some kind.
The hubcap inspect.
Oh, good space.
The hubcap in space is mine. mine.
Oh, mine.
And Nathan, I believe you've got a status report on the
functionality of the wheel.
Okay.
So we are, we have episodes 3 and 6 of this. and I watch the loose
cannon reconstructions and they're spectacularly good.
They are wonderful.
They do a really good job.
So there's a sort of stupid robot in episode one and they animate
that just splendidly well.
They have CG cybermen and they have they have CG astronauts.
And CG Spears.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's really, it's really quite fun to watch.
And so this is, you know, our last story, but one with sort of
substantial amounts, missing episodes.
So everything pretty much exists next year.
They've animated to episodes of the invasion, which we'll talk
about in our next episode, and we've got space pirates, which is
sort of more or less completely missing.
But the horrors of season 4 with its no complete stories at all.
They're long behind us now.
Indeed.
I should just mention the animator of these sequences.
Her name is is Skinner.
And as well as animating these sequences, she has animated the
special web of fear trailer, the one with the doctor talking to
the camera and saying, you know, if mommy and daddy get scared
it's okay for you to hold their hand.
And she animated a trailer of the wheel in space in the style of
the 1st alien film.
So we'll put up links for both of those because she does fantastic
work.
And especially the server robot in F1.
And I do want to focus on E1 just for now because everyone is Pure
David Whittaker.
It's the isolationism of the edge of destruction.
The TARD is trying to communicate with the doctor and Jamie.
It's hard as being this mental force, having its own mentor
force.
That's very David Whittaker.
They find a food machine that puts out things in little silver
cubes, that's David Whitaker.
It's the doctor and Jamie wandering about the ship just by
themselves for 20 minutes.
You haven't mentioned mercury in the fluid list.
Oh, mercury in the fluid.
Of course.
Pure donate, winter.
And also just sort of playing for time.
David Whittaker.
It takes us a long while.
We expect an episode one cliffhanger with Cybermen in it.
Yes, but don't get that.
Well, I do I do have to wonder if the audience will read. was a
side man story because the sidemen don't turn up until the end of
episode two.
And even then, sort of only in silhouette when you see a hand, but
that sort of thing.
What I found very interesting rewatching at one for the podcast
was I thought, oh, you know, this is clearly an influence of 2001
a space Odyssey, but then I discovered that episode one was
broadcast a week before a space Odyssey was released in the UK.
And that shot of the of the Pan Am shuttle linking up with the
Hilton Space Station was really iconic at the time and everyone
was now obsessed with slow waltzing hardware. space.
So you get this whole, but at the same time you get the frisson or
you get the duality of it being something that was feared because
it was already seen as information overload back then, even before
they had apps and me pods and myself devices.
And people were genuinely concerned, you read the columns in the
press at the time of how much their children were going to be able
to cope with this kind of thing.
The robots were going to take their jobs and we're all going to
have to.
It's not necessarily, you know, an optimistic or utopian view that
they're all wearing groovy or part outfits.
Most of them get killed, especially if you're a bit slow and fat
in this.
You don't tend to survive very long.
Well, that was the other thing I thought was an obvious
influence.
Star Trek.
But I then discovered Star Trek in the UK phrase. right.
It's not trick, yeah.
I did have to wonder though.
Because David Whittaker, I believe, as well as freelancing, was
occasionally a Starfry for the BBC.
I do have to wonder if he maybe saw some screeners of some, but
this is really not about Trek.
Trek was actually not original in itself.
It stole a lot from Rompotrui Orion. from the Peter Thomas school
beautiful Bavarian TV, the go to 60s TV thing, 6465.
And it was also a lot more conquest space, the 1950 film.
This is Conquest in Space, a Willie Leigh, LEY book that came up
then.
It's pretty much meant to event the same thing, but without, like
things but the same kind of stuff.
And there's this whole thing with the progression and the mark, the
long march forward.
And any villain is a commie and the whole thing of the long march
forward is, yeah, we're getting that, you know, the future is not
altogether shiny and bright and new. that people weren't that
silly.
But it does, I mean, it does also just copy lots of previous
Doctor Who.
So if you think about the moon base, the moon base has, or even
the 10th planet, actually, both of those have like a multicultural
crew, you know, from all sorts of different places and this has
that. an intransigent base commander and we've got that again in
Jarvis Bennett.
But I think the thing that makes this stand out is that the
characters are just really good and really interesting. really
well written.
And the other thing that makes it stand out is Gemma Corwin.
Well, Gemma Corwin, Tanya learn of, and we'll come back to her...
The Zoe Heron...
Duggan is great.
Rico is great.
Leo is great.
Like all of those characters.
This is very much like Anderson's UFO, which wasn't out yet, but
the supporting cast, Anne Riddler, who plays Gemma Corman, is one
of my favourite actresses of this period.
She was in a show placed on a rumour golden book called The
Didacoy that came out in the 70s and she plays the same kind of
part several times over in a very short career.
And Riddler plays these.
And Whitaker loves doing this.
He throws the doctor in almost immediately with a mature and up
intelligent and independent, highly motivated woman and they start
flirting almost immediately.
Oh, very peach.
Yeah, yeah.
It's just really, really don't like that she doesn't make it to
the end.
It seems that if you've got the grooviest Chelsea boots and you
look really good in the outfit, you survive in this story.
If you've been on the putty side, who's the bloke who ends up
doing a really ill-advised rumber with a cybermats and dies about
it?
Yeah, Dugan doesn't make it.
Yeah, you see, Duck.
And he stands up and he doesn't look as good in the suit. die.
But I think I'm happy to report, Richard, that Andrew lived to the
live to the very, very experienced age of 89 years.
Oh, I'm so glad.
But she just has such manifest glory and understated warmth and
charm and intelligence in everything I've seen her do.
Guest cast always get killed in Doctor Who and I actually, the
wrong ones.
Yeah, no, but I think here having a really sympathetic, really
likeable character get killed up to the stakes, it upsets the
doctor, you know, like he's visibly shaken by it.
But couldn't we have had him go off with the woman who's obviously
flirting with and haven't really interesting you with a mature
woman like Gemma Corwin and Zoe can just stay there being kind of
you know, Romeo, proto-companion, tippy type.
I love Wendy Paprio.
I really love it, but I actually really like Zoe.
I mean, Zoe is a very high concept character when she's
introduced.
She's a pure SFI concept. back to Heinland now, yeah.
They do backpedal from that and she doesn't end up being like that
really particularly.
So she's never a screamer though, is she?
No.
She'll have a yell when she falls down at my shark.
A couple of screens, but she is not a screener.
No.
Yeah.
No, in fact, she's a deliberate contrast with Victoria.
So she's from the future instead of the past.
She's, uh, because you might know you love that when they're on
contranged.
Well, yeah, no, I just find that sort of slightly irritating, but
I think that I actually think that Zoe works really well.
Because she's sort of perky and healthy and kind of likeable.
And although, although, you know, she's been brainwashed by the
parapsychology unit and she has a head full of facts and she's
like a human computer and stuff and everyone's kind of slightly
rude to her for that reason.
And she's like, oh, aren't they?
There's a nice little fish on.
She's the Actually, you're right.
She's the fan girl in the way that Susan was originally the fan
girl.
She's too bright for the class and the kids will pick on it
because she's too, and that's where all the smart kids at home who
are watching this.
And you're right.
I like that it's a female character because there were fang girls
in the 60s.
We just didn't have names for ourselves.
And she's sitting there being a little fan and saying, I read
science fiction and I'm the only one in the universe who does it.
Well, in fact, she expresses dissatisfaction and says that she
doesn't want to be emotionless.
And of course, that works quite well thematically, doesn't it, with
the idea that there are Spider-Man.
You know, the emotional cybermen are lurking outside.
And on the other hand, you've got the incredibly emotional, but
pretending he's logical jobs.
Now, this is crazy.
So we're in the 10th planet.
We had the cybermen contrasted with General Cutler, who was
massively emotional, and we put everyone's lives.
Yeah, yeah.
Here.
Santa suggests that maybe it's a sort of Whittakercarian kind of
joke.
The base commander is just literally crazy.
Like he's intransigent, not because he can't accept reality or
anything, but just because he's just certified.
Yes, he's actually completely paranoid.
He has a lot of symptoms of something called borderline
personality disorder.
That's Robson.
He had that in spades.
Well, what I personality disorder, um, one of the things there is
you are paranoid, you think that everything is out to get you.
And you personally.
It can't affect anyone else.
It's just affecting you.
So whenever something presents itself that can't be explained
Jarvis takes it very, very personally, like, no, I can't I can't
be serious right now, therefore it's not happening.
And there's just this there's this wonderful rising panic about
him.
And I don't know, I do think, oh, you know, we've got another
We've got another mad, inflexible leader, but I think where this
succeeds where, say, General Cutler and Ted Planets didn't succeed
as well, is actually in the crew because as you said, they're a
multinational crew.
And by multinational, yeah, pretty much they're still all coming
from Europe and the colonies.
But at the same time, the grew is roughly half men and half
women.
And with the exception of Java's and possibly Bill Duggan, there
are all these bright young things whose eyes are open to new ideas
whereas Java's Bennett is the old guard.
He's like, no, I will run this station, how I've always run this
station because it's been working perfectly well for 50 years and
why should I change it now?
Whereas... very comfortable position with my arse really firmly
pressed into this rather cutting the leather red.
I'm just...
No, I just think he's an idiot.
Like, he's an idiot.
Yeah, and that's actually kind of boring.
Why do we still get 2D?
Oh, you know, it's K mutiny.
It's, I don't know, all this stuff right back too.
Maybe Dick, your commanders, and lots of folks.
Don't forget the mums and dads watching us, all the dads and
especially.
A lot of them are in the war at least in that effort when they
were young lads.
They all had controllers and commanders like this, they all had
you know, subalterns like this, and they remember that most things
go wrong because of bad decisions by people in leadership.
So it's just something that people took for granted as a dumbass
thing.
For me, it's a very political point because when I used to be a
teacher in the UK, One of the things that greatly frustrated me
was the education minister there at the time kept coming out and
saying things like, well, you know, the system's not working and
it, you know, it can't possibly be working because this is
happening and I don't like what's happening here.
And it just always amazed me.
It's not just him, but education medicine's the world over, say.
The system isn't working.
The system that educated me to the point where I could become a
government minister isn't working.
Yeah, because he went too late.
Yeah.
So, you know, Jarvis is like, we must maintain the system the way
I maintained it, despite the fact there's been all these other
advances and there's all these new people coming through, but they
can't possibly have any good ideas. this year wouldn't you?
Well, it's a timeless, really, yeah, conservative in its politics
yeah.
Good leaders, i.e. Gemma Cohen, who is in a position of power in
the station.
Don't try to shoe horn facts to fit their worldview.
She goes, she, for instance, accepts, okay, there are these 2
people who are obviously lying.
She says, I believe Jamie was lying, but reluctantly, and she
lifts all the things he's lying about.
And she's like, I don't think he's dangerous, but there's some
reason that he's lying.
Whereas Jarvis immediately goes, right, well, they must be so
always, and they must be here to sabotage us.
And Jenna's like, no, I don't think that's it.
But that's his that's the only thing that fixes wellview rather
than actually looking at what's going on around him.
And I think that's why the characters in this is so successful
because they've each got their own worldview and it informs their
actions.
I also think the pacing of it helps because you've got episode one
which is just, you know, 20 minutes of faffing about, as we said.
But then the doctor has a lovely holiday in episode 2 while he's
unconscious and Jamie gets introduced to the bass characters and
they have to carry it.
And so, yeah, Fraser carries the episode really well on his own.
But it's not really on his own because you have this strong
ensemble of characters that all get introduced.
And so by the time Gemma dies, we know her really well.
By the time Bill Duggan dies, we know him, he collects plants
everyone thinks he's slightly crazy, you know, like I think all of
that stuff is terrifically effective.
The worst person, though, and the most embarrassing moment is
Chang.
You said everyone was from Europe.
And there's a man called Chang.
There's a man called Peter Ladd, who plays Chang, and like the
accent is just absolutely like, oh, clenchingly, you know
embarrassing.
I think just, I think that's why I'd forgotten him. so bad.
It's so unbelievably awful, but fortunately he's killed quite
quickly.
So we don't have to put up with him for very, very long.
Yeah, I mean, Donald Sumpter being browned up to kind of look a
bit Mediterranean wasn't that great to start with. but yeah.
Who was that?
Rico.
But Rico is such a sweet character.
Well, I mean, it helps that he is not played as a stereotype.
No, no, he's not like Tito, whatever his name. in the 10th part of
the 10th.
I'm not telling you.
No, that was pretty bad.
He's lovely.
And the other thing we haven't mentioned is, is Leo and Tanya have
this sort of growing romance, which there are no scenes about the
romance, but just gradually, oh, maybe. just all in the
performance.
And when the actor's performance, by the end of it, he's sort of
they're draped all over each other and things, but it's really
warm and a little bit grown up in the sense that, you know, it's
not just a whole bunch of men, you know, it's people with with
relationships, like we saw in theory from the deep with Maggie and
Mr. Harris, we must have a 1st name, but I don't know what it is.
Did we get any arrangement power of the dark?
with the old... with John Shanway and...
Yeah, well, I think Wisha tries to flesh out his characters.
But I'm trying to think because Sherman was also really determined
to get this show, get the ratings back and actually get this to be
a popular thing again.
In Paradox, we also had Dr. Fane.
Because I was going to say the thing with generally what she's
painted as villainous because she uses her feminine wiles. to lure
men into stupid plans.
But Dr. Fenn is a far more balanced character, she's still
involved with the rebels, but she has a conscience about it.
And I did that.
Certainly, Whittaker has always been a master of
characterisation.
Korea, who we talked about last episode.
Well, all of those characters.
We should just have a whole podcast for Korea.
Let's just talk about it means the world, yeah.
And that's the good stuff.
Can we talk about the same?
I can see.
I can see you segueing towards the cyber plan.
So the cybermen, whether I really dislike wheel in space because
David Whittaker just suddenly has some contempt for astrophysical
concepts.
Or if I really love it because it very aggressively goes, who
needs science?
Screw that.
We're going to have fun.
We're going to blow up a star several light years away and it's
going to affect us instantly because screw you, that's why.
Yeah, no, it's crazy.
So the cybermen here, they don't actually get much dialogue and
they aren't very many or something.
And, you know, we've had so many.
There's loads of them when they do their stagewalk into the
mirror.
But they don't talk to us.
It's not like they take over the base and start moralising at us
is good.
Yeah.
So they lurk and they're sort of scary.
And they're under the control of the kind of light bulb in an
evening brock, aren't they?
The side of the controller.
So I look at the cyber planner, really?
Is that it?
Yeah.
Real name Pam Pooby.
Yes.
Yeah, so I can see that happening.
It's a very bizarre looking thing and there just seems to be one
shot of it.
Oh, it's a recon.
That's why I think that I'm sure it was directed very
thrillingly.
Yes, yes, yeah.
As thrillingly as you can direct a light bald inside a metal
frame.
Well, you know, it's it's an interesting idea because earlier this
year we had the cyber controller for the 1st time.
So that was a new concept. in tumour decipherment.
Oh, do you mean Michael Kilgara with me?
Transparent brain.
Yes, that's right.
And, you know, obviously at that point, they couldn't bring him
back because they destroyed him and he never, ever, ever comes
back again.
1985.
So instead, we have this new idea of the cyber planner.
It's also a total new design for the size of that. new helmets, new
suits.
They don't have the tape around there now.
They don't have and they've got the little sort of tear ducts.
Well, the teardrop, which is, you know, was actually one thing
that Russell insisted.
He said, look, you know, design the side, man, how you want, but
they must have the teardrop.
And in fact, I think it is the wheeling space Simon because
they're going to get stupidly redesigned for the invasion.
Yeah, we'll talk more about that next time.
But this is the version of the side amendment is familiar to us
now.
This is what the sidemen essentially look like in modern Doctor
Who.
And the 2nd redesign, starting with nightmare and silver, most
recently seen in dark water death in heaven, is based heavily on
this wheel in space, very slick.
So it's straight up and down, wetsuit.
Instead of the big hoses they had in the moon base and 2 of the
site, then it's now this little hydraulic tubes.
Yeah.
But I mean, even the even Russell's ones.
And rustling is good that the teardrop be there.
And that was because he wanted to emphasise that they were human
beings that had been sort of brutally robbed of their emotions and
things.
So that teardrop thing stays.
But their voices are almost incomprehensible.
I think they have like 2 different kinds of voices depending on
whether they're on film or on videotape. none of that's very very
good.
And so their plan is to blow up stars.
Many, many light years away to divert meteorites on...
In fact, their plan is just crazy, isn't it?
So they send CyberMat Suite, the banalium, which they need for the
laser.
And then they then they bring the silver carrier there and put
banalium on it.
Like I just, like, it's just...
So the sidemen can attack them in mind control.
The side and then hide in the in the crates with banalium, which
get brought across from the silver carrier.
The whole thing is just mental and then they're diverting
asteroids with explosions that wouldn't actually be visible from
Earth for several years.
You know I mean?
Yeah, you can get your calculator.
Hang on, 25,000 light years away.
Messio 13.
Yeah, yeah. 25,000, 30,000 light years away.
She's got the bestest telescope.
This is Carl and Zala, having it out and it exploded.
And I think we were saying he's put that light out.
Yeah, yeah, so, you know, it's crazy.
And, you know, then on top of that, the actual reason they're
doing or since to destroy W3 or Cripple W3.
So that way they can go down to Earth and take a drink, plunder it
for its mineral wealth.
W3.
The space wheel.
It's wheel three.
It's the 3rd wheel of I believe six.
So she called us a 5th wheel.
That would have been better.
But that just reminds me of 3W from Death in Heaven.
Is that coincidence?
Possibly.
I hadn't thought of that because...
Sure, we sort of don't know what the 3W mentioned, definitely.
Yes, you need 3 words.
No, no.
You've seen it.
It's been nice seeing the whole scene.
What about these people out here?
They've all seen it.
It's been on television.
By the time we're recording.
Don't cremate me.
Oh, yeah, the 3 words I don't create me.
And yeah, I mean, that all turns out to be Bananas Scheme by Mary
Poppins.
But, uh, Space Man, another banana, another banana.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's just...
It's a Rube Goldberg machine. of the scheme from the cyber bed.
You know, all these little bits have to work when, really, all
they had to do was go onto the window with their guns and kill a
bunch of people.
Even if they wanted to do all the other stuff.
They didn't need to explode the star and send the meteors in.
All they needed to do was go, okay, we'll set the sidements over
eat the banalion, then we'll ram the silver carrier into the space
station.
It's still just stupid.
It's still stupid, but at least that way it's less stupid.
And that's the thing.
You've got all this great characterisation, but you've got this
great characterisation, citing an utterly bizarre plot. is bonkers
isn't it?
But I think it's still, I think it still works. you know what I
mean?
I think it's still really entertaining and the characters are just
great and all of that.
I don't worry, you know, like I don't mind too much about how
silly the applaud is really.
I mean, if you're worried about that, then you probably really
want to watch another show.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it is highly enjoyable.
And I like it far more than I like Fury from the Deep because it
is enjoyable.
Um, I just feel it's just strange.
It could have been it could have been better.
I understand why people don't like this story.
But at the same time, I am someone who will always take a thumb
Doctor Who story with a stupid plot over a Doctor Who story with a
good plot, but no charm.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's weird.
Lots of charm.
Can I mention the massacre at this point?
No, it's human must.
Yeah, well, you see, that's a good Doctor Who story with Charm.
Richard, you were saying... thinking of the listener at this
point.
It's got expression, you know, it's got it's got character.
What I say, don't read the title novel because it was sort of a
later thing.
I don't think it really held up that well.
It was one of those ones done at a rush at the time of the 80s
when they were selling the show to the US and it was kind of, you
know, it's not done with the density and purpose that some of the
other target models were done.
Do we know who wrote it?
I think it was...
Yeah, it was Terrence.
Yeah, I don't remember a thing that looked great.
Yeah, so it was written by Uncle Terence.
Yeah, but it was one of these ones done in a rush.
It wasn't, it's nothing, it's not bad.
It just doesn't expand the story.
Only 23,000 copies of the paperbook edition was circulated
reportedly due to stocks being destroyed in a warehouse.
Oh, so I'm doing quite well with my issue.
Is actually quite a rare book.
Hurrah.
You know, so you can get...
You can get 10 bucks for it instead of 2 on...
I like the bit where the dogs have proposed us to give Jarvis
Bennett, ECT.
Yeah.
Yeah, we haven't mentioned the sexualist.
Sexual...
Yeah, he was looking at Dr. Coleman when he said that.
Something I found about the servo robot, and specifically the
animation done by his Skinner, it reminded me of Wally.
And not Wally in particular, the robot Wally from the film Wally.
The gopher robots of the ship have the little shoulder lights like
the servo robot does and have the sort of awkward notion.
So I don't know if Pixar saw a picture of the servo robot or if
his Skinner went, oh, I like Wally. bring some of that into there
but I do, I love any sort of intertextuality like that, even if it
is just imagined.
So, you know, folks, out there, if you like Wally, you will love
is Skinner's animation of the servo robot.
It is very cool Yeah.
She's even got a little blemish on the back of its head where
there's a blemish on the original prop.
It's so well done.
Wendy Patbury was offered this role for a year or a film role.
Um, and she took this one because apparently Paddy had been a
childhood hero of hers and the idea of working with him for a
whole year was really exciting, probably a bit more money.
The film would have been with Maggie Smith and it was the pride of
Miss Jean Brody.
She just turned 20.
She was going to be one of the students.
Can you imagine her doing the accent?
Are you doing it right now?
Well, she's just so charming from going to work with this, isn't
she?
I know we're so positive about everything.
And like I said, she was horrid and drunk all the time. just a
wheelbarrow for coke and he used to slide it down the stoop down
the white studio for the only reason the 1st episode of Mind
Robbery is painted white is that it covers up all the fricking
powder all the... when he's flaring mono nostril because she burnt
the rest of her face off.
Actually, she's really sweet.
So I can't say any of that.
She's really lovely.
It's that right.
I just want, I've just, you know, put a bit of chios hero into
this.
Yeah, actually everyone is bloody lovely.
Yeah, it makes you sick, doesn't it?
too much more icing off the Christmas cake.
But I mean, there's no one in this I dislike.
The cast is fantastic in this.
Yeah.
Do you think she's an improvement over over Victoria?
Not at all.
I think she's just fresh and new and different.
I say nothing wrong.
We should actually say cheers to Victoria and to Debbie and say
look, I actually don't think she's as bad as everybody likes to
maintain.
Repetition, repetition.
Lazy, lazy producers, lazy script editors.
She gets a great new rush when Derek Sherman comes in and she
actually sits there and says, I've been whining all this year
because it's been bloody awful and we keep getting dumped into the
same awful situation.
I'm only a little girl.
Still a little girl now, and it's nothing great's happening.
And I'm like her to say, and you did this to your granddaughter
and you're doing it to me and you know what?
You can bugger off.
It's a great way to end it.
Yeah, she does act really well in that.
She's fine.
There's nothing wrong with Debbie's performances at all.
She's a good little actress in all of these shows and she's been
given a bad truth by fandom, you know, in the intervening years.
And something that I think really becomes clear, in theory from
the deep.
Well, we're sort of saying goodbye to Victoria is really all the
way through all Victoria has been looking for has been a new
family.
Exactly.
And all the Dr. and Jamie did was to pull a bloody pants down
before they left the TARDIS every damn story.
That's outrageous, isn't it?
But they did.
No, no, they really did.
They really did.
Diskirted the poor woman every time, you know.
And you said you can all pick her off.
In most stories this season, she'd find...
That's not what nice brothers and fathers do.
No, no, no.
She finds a familiar relationship with someone.
Like, she's like a little sister with Tommy.
She will forget.
She watches the family relationship of the Travers in the weather
failure.
And then in this, you know, she sees an opportunity to have that
familiar relationship.
That was cruelly torn away from her when we 1st meet her and she's
been incredibly strong the rest of the time.
You know, yes, she does scream when she gets scared.
But it's a wonder she hasn't had a complete nervous breakdown by
those points.
It's a great testament to the character.
And unlike, say, the character of Nissa much later on, where due
to the nature of the program, they never really harped back to the
fact that she'd been through this massive trauma.
It's always just under the surface with Victoria.
You can see in Debbie Watling's performance that she's kind of
just holding it together, especially in enemy of the world, where
you know, she tries to be all happy and, oh, we had this pudding
and it was lovely.
She's utterly crushed when Griffin turns around and tells her what
a stupid idea that is.
Because because she's looking for that familial relationship and
you know, nice point.
She was friends with all the servants.
Griffin's a servant.
She tries to set up a friendship with him and just gets totally
rebuffed.
And here she meets 2 wonderful people who are like, actually, yeah
we could do with a daughter figure.
Please come and live with us.
I actually think that they look somewhat surprised and horrified
but she's decided...
It's like I'm pretty rudimentarily and horribly, horribly, isn't
it?
It does kind of just, oh, okay.
No, I think Maggie Harris is going to have a quiet word with her
husband later when Victoria leaves the room and says, you know
can't we put her out with a solo being this upcoming Wednesday?
I look, I think I think it's very nice of you.
It's very sweet if you say such nice things about Victoria.
I actually think that she's vastly thinner as a character than
we've had before and she's a bit forgettable.
And she does have moments of charm, but I was a bit sick of her by
the end.
And I have to say she is redeemed by being given some good
material in fury from the D, but it is a relief, I think, when
Wendy comes along.
I certainly think Wendy is far better cake and 4 months for it.
All this stuff I'm getting from Victoria's performance of
Victoria's characterisation is coming from Deborah Watley.
And I think Deborah Watling, possibly more than anyone else in
Doctor Who, takes a character who is very thin on paper and really
tries to flesh her out.
The success of Victoria is not in the scripting.
It is in the performance.
It just seems to me that the writers overall are really interested
in giving her a character very much.
Yeah.
And, and, you know, putting her in that stupid frock into the
sidemen, it tells you right away that we're only really very, very
vaguely invested in the premise of what she is.
She really just serves a plot function and she's there to be
menaced by monsters.
And she does that admirably well, but she's not very interesting
as a person, I think.
However, nowadays...
Waddling is immensely interesting.
Whenever you say you're recommended to talking because she's
really out there.
She's really hilarious.
Yeah, she's very she's open and funny about what happened during
her time on the show.
She's come back to do big finish.
Yes she does.
She's done an excellent big finish with Colin Baker, catching up
with Victoria in the 80s where she's an anti-nuclear energy
campaigner.
Really?
And yeah, she and Colin Baker actually bounced really well off
each other.
And of course, when she gets to meet Perry, Perry.
He's like, oh, so did you know Jamie?
It's really well done.
It's called Power Play.
Okay.
And yeah, it's part of the big finish lost stories range because
apparently they were going to bring her back in one of the
proposed stories of season 23.
Oh God.
Good season 23 have been any worse.
Stop that.
Yes.
Sorry.
Yes, it could.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
So back on Zoe, this is the shorter season of the show so far, I
think it's like 40 episodes and am I right?
I think, yes, yes.
No, it didn't feel that short. at all.
I think if more of them existed, it would feel longer.
Shorter.
Shorter. one of those.
I mean, all these sort of patterns, 6 parters and things.
But one of the things that they do to kind of make up the numbers
is they have a repeat of evil of the Daleks at the end of the
season.
So this season ends with the same story that the previous season
had ended on and they actually just in the most amazingly bizarre
twist.
They give it an inseason explanation.
And so the doctor, Zoe stows aboard the TARDIS and before the
doctor agrees to take her away, he says, well, I'll have to show
you the kind of thing that you're in for.
And then he mentally projects onto the Tartar scanner.
The evil of the Daleks, the absence of evil of the Daleks.
And we'll find next episode of the podcast and the 1st episode of
season six.
The doctor arrives on a Mysterious Planet, and he's exhausted from
the, the, uh, the adverts thing, all those... very strange.
Not only that, but when they showed episode one the following week
over the 1st scene.
There was a little voiceover by Patrick and Wendy.
Oh, really?
And sort of saying, oh, doctor, where are we?
Well, so, this is London in 1966.
And the tartness has just been stolen.
Let's watch.
Wow.
That's spectacular.
So it's not really a repeat, is it?
It actually does fit into the continuity at that point. diagetic.
As Carol would say.
Right, so I suppose it's time to get onto our Jenny Laird awards
for most puzzling creative choice.
My genetic letter awards always sort of really fairly obvious.
And I think I've laboured this year, what I think the most
puzzling creative choice is.
Richard said over and over again that, you know, the show's being
prepared for syndication in America and so everything gets sort of
homogenised. us the 60s way of doing that. this couple of years
for 60s, yeah.
Yeah, and but for me, it just, it really just makes a terrible
television and I think they finally get it right towards the end
and they, they do that by injecting more human elements.
But basically what I'm talking about is just the relentless parade
of bases under siege.
We've had one story that doesn't fit that mould this year and
essentially everything else has been the same.
And just the incredible laziness with which the monsters are
conceived.
So there's not really anything beyond the monsters, then it's a
different kind of outfit this week.
If you think about the way monsters work now, do you know what I
mean?
They tend to have a hawk or a special ability or some kind of
thematic resonance to them.
Whereas these are just, you know, scales fur or, you know, silver
vinyl.
And it is just incredibly lazy and I think it makes this season a
bit of a slog.
There you go. fair enough.
I think my Jenny would the most puzzling creative choice. would be
for Victor Pemberton.
Who I think is, he's a great asset to the show, but what it is for
me is the doctor, Jamie and Victoria's lack of involvement in the
plot of Fury from the Deep. and their reactionary nature in it.
Now, I haven't heard the slide, but I think it is highly likely
that it relates back to it was an external story brought in, but I
just think they could have been more involved with the plot.
Oh, look, I just think this season has progressively got better.
Oh, I'm putting it, but show and penitence feed equally. they've
taken stock.
They've looked at the things that there was nothing wrong with the
with the premise that in this lawyer was doing.
He was looking at marketing and trying to raise the ratings, but
it ain't working.
Because the ratings were not growing, whatever you want to say.
And it's only really now that you're getting shows that thank you
for getting back to David Wichica.
This was his last one.
He said, you can all bugger off.
I'm disappearing somewhere.
Well, except for essence of death.
Iish.
I-ish.
He doesn't complete it.
Yeah, because it was you on time, all the rest of it.
Hello, Mac Hulk.
Looking forward to you coming in.
Yeah, kind of the inheritor of Whittaker.
But I mean, maybe maybe we're biased, but I think consensus, you
know, how it goes along. goes along certain rails, doesn't it?
In the 80s, everyone thought that this was the season, the
preceding season, the season, because they've got lots of monsters
jumping about.
Last season 19 was good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. was one of the greatest stories of all time.
So he's the one with the greatest story.
They all tunnel.
That'll be an interesting if you have anywhere.
I like to hear us say it.
Yeah, so if you ask me, what do I think was a puzzling decision, I
think it was simply to try and do what other shows have done
before.
It's not really a thing Batman so much as I think it said it
before.
It is trying to do the Avengers this year.
You go, what?
It's totally different, but it's not in the way that it's
formulaic and procedural land.
It's the Avengers and they're going, I think that that's a
puzzling choice because the reason Doctor Who's great.
And I reckon we're kind of getting this now, the reason it's still
sort of going and it has, Sorry, folks out there, but it's still
getting publicity and still honoured by the press and by the
public is because of what Russell did in the 1st few years. to
quote Derek show and it's getting on my tips. the modern series.
It is because it's indulgent and it's a little bit messy and it's
a big vanglorious in the current writing.
And I think Doctor Who in this year is doing the same kind of
thing for different reasons.
It was amazing in the beginning because it had a gay Jewish 26
year old woman starting a show with a gay Asian.
Yeah, it already came out later in life.
Did she?
Yeah, yeah, she did.
Why did no one tell me?
Did you know?
No, she was really quite open by the time she was doing rock
follies in the 70s.
She was she was out.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
So, and then you've got, and you had a gay Asian director and an
Australian writer.
Right, for the 1st one.
Thank you, Anthony Copen.
So, you know, it was really progressive right in the day.
They've forgotten by this stage why it was amazing.
And Patty's going, come on, I liked it for the reasons that you
were doing things that we didn't expect.
BBC was inventive and seen as the go-to for new surprises.
And now it's just trying to do what other people do for the sake
of success.
It's like the suits are coming, just the same thing that happened
to Hollywood in the 70s and April 80s.
As you know, the suits take over until you had to make a show.
No, no, no, no, no.
You make a show.
It took someone of Sherwin's, you know.
I'm sure Sherman's guttural ability.
I wanted to go a little further down the anatomy there.
But to say, you know, and he's really offensive to a lot of people
and he was at the time when he's even more so now, and I love him
for it, but just saying, no, this is completely bollocks, you know
go with your gut instinct, have some taste and intelligence.
So it's getting there now.
So I'd say my my jinny leg was in as Lloyd's decisions back in the
day.
Don't, don't.
I think that's the same as mine, isn't it, really, essentially?
Well, that idea that Doctor Who went from being a show about
exploration of a show that could do anything at all, and a show
that, but missed, you know, nearly as frequently as it hit, you
know, like the, there are turkeys in the heart and all era on the
earth.
But they're trying to do something that has real ambition, whereas
this is settled into a groove and just a sort of depressing
xenophobic kind of groove as well.
I hate the show.
Let's do another podcast.
Well, we've been moving hastily onto our recommendations.
For me, I mentioned them earlier.
I'm going to recommend, is Skinner's animations, revolving around
the wheel in space and leather fear.
Yeah, she's done a few.
So we'll put those up on our website.
That's my recommendation related to this season.
Well, people might not know this about me, but I'm actually a
little bit of a Doctor Who geek and I know, you know, like I'm
interested in the minutiae of Doctor Who.
I have the podcast where I talk to some of my friends about it.
Shock and awe.
It is a bit of thing.
And one of the resources that I've used and, you know, ranging
from, oh, what else is that guy been in?
Or, you know, even, you know, preparing for the podcast, which
it's hard to believe from the finished product, but I actually
kind of do that.
Um, is wikia.com.
Do you know that?
It's like a, a group of websites that just sort of rapid fans
create a little subdomain and this one's hardest.wikia.com.
I think I've heard about that on the electric internet.
Yes, and it has.
It's a website on the internet.
And it has all of this sort of terrifying information about all of
the sort of history of Doctor Who and things and audios and books
and things that I'm just never going to bother to read.
Um, and it's it's really interesting.
It's got lots and lots of information and they have an app as
well.
There's an app for it, which is quite well designed and it will
send the pictures and texts from the website, your electric
telephone.
It's handy and can be used and all cerossover network device.
You can use it at the bus stop if you're, you know, uncertain of
Mel's last name, for instance, or Palister, isn't it?
Or how many episodes in the Massacre in 28?
So I can recommend that and I'll put links to it in the show
notes.
Yay.
Do you have a recommendation?
Uh, Penderton's 2 from the D. I keep saying just go back to the
target novels.
I know, click, click, same record, but yeah, again, we're watching
these things in these are different shows that we're actually
interpreting on this podcast.
My go to is still the target models and then the audio.
So my interpretation of the shows is actually radically different
from yours from both of you.
Yes.
So we are we're watching the same show in different ways.
I don't understand why they say that novels are not more widely
available.
There are quite a lot of them as e-books on, um, yes, on...
Greed, children and adults.
Don't listen, read.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, there are there are a lot of them available on Amazon. and
a lot of those audios.
No, as e-books.
And a lot as audios, but by no means all of them.
And I just don't understand why they're not up.
Thankfully, the audiobooks are getting a new start next year
because audio go, the arm of the BBC that we're releasing them
which was a separate company and then the BBC bought them, but it
went under and but there's a new arrangement and more Doctor Who
target novelisation audiobooks will be being released from
January.
In fact, just this month.
They release Carnival of Monsters read by Katie Manning.
Oh, God.
Does she do the chicken noises?
No, but she doesn't John impression, which is pretty good.
It's good.
A Joe impression is amazing.
You should hear it.
Yeah, yeah, she's she's incredible.
Well, it is a different voice.
It is a different voice.
It's terrific.
Anyway, that's my other pickup.
Can I have two?
No, okay, forget I said.
So before we finish up.
We had a competition.
Hooray.
Oh, that's right.
We've been swamped with entry. entry.
So many.
Yeah, okay, one.
And I take that on myself.
I take that as feedback that I made the entry process too
complex.
So all you had to do to enter.
We send some cyber mats to the wheel, to steal the banalium, and
then, you know, inspire the wheel people to use their laser, which
obviously relies on banana.
You had to blow up the star, credibly, preferably someone.
And then you then you had to tweet about it.
Then post it on Facebook, then post it on Bebo and then post it on
Tumblr.
Not forgetting Weebo.
Weebo.
So, you know, we wanted people to go to China.
So for our ongoing competition, all you have to do is comment on
this episode on the website.
Yep, flight to entirety.com.
That's all.
Just follow it through to the link, go down the bottom comment
even if you just say sponge, or splink.
And I mean, Splink is a very useful word.
If Danny Pink could remember to blink.
We wouldn't be in this problem today.
Shelby with us.
But as it is, we should say the winner of our episode 14
competition goes by the handle of fear.
And so we'll hand, we'll be getting in touch with you about how
you would like your target novel delivered, and which target novel
you'd like from the selection we have available.
If you'd like to win a target novel of your very own, please
comment on the website and we'll be giving up to a total of 3 away
each podcast.
And that will be announced on episode thing.
Thing, N +one.
That will be announced on the 2nd episode covering season 6 of
Doctor Who.
Speaking of season 6, as we're about to be going into that.
Gentlemen, your story allocations.
So Nathan, your season 6 stories are the seeds of death and the
space pirates.
I don't know what to think about that.
I've never seen it.
Now the only Doctor Who story that I have no idea.
Hooray.
Richard, you get 2 in a row.
You get the dominators.
And the mind robber.
Meanwhile, I will be discussing the invasion and the crotons.
And for the final story of the war games, because it's so big and
so influential, we're just going to have a massive free for all on
that one.
There's so much variation goes on in that story.
So we will be back next week. with our discussion of the
Dominators, the Mind Robber, and a story I can seem to be very
important in Doctor Who's History, the invasion.
So until then, good night.
Good night.
Nice, good night.
You've been listening to Flight 2 Entirety with Nathan Bottomill
Brendan Jones, and Richard Stone.
This episode, Tuningly Cooks, was recorded on Sunday, the 30th of
May.
The next episode will be released on December the 14th.
You can find us online.
Flight to entirely.com, quite new entirely on Facebook and iTunes
and FTE podcast on Twitter.
I tried activating the sexual rare supply once, but I was all out
of love.
Oh, wait, there's something we'll record up.
Now it's full of coke, as usual.
Cake plates.
Thank you.
No, it's just using that.
A coaster, like an animal.
That should be in the pot.