Hello and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety.
The only Doctor Who podcast, which doesn't exist.
It doesn't exist.
Doesn't exist.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm still here And we are back looking at the beginning of Patrick
Troughton's 3rd year as the doctor, season 6 of Doctor Who, and
the last Doctor Who season in black and white.
Also the last top 2 season with any missing episodes.
So we're going to go into a story, which, I think has the record
for missing episodes for Doctor, because it has a missing episode
even before it finished filming, the dominators.
It's kind of the one we kind of wish there were slightly more
missing episodes, actually.
I've just had it for a long time, haven't we?
Do you know, when we were kids, Richard?
before he was born.
Actually, soon after he was born, but his skull probably hadn't
hardened.
An interesting distinction?
In about 1986.
They showed St.
Patrick Trouton, and it was the 1st time I remembered them doing
it because they used to cycle through.
They used to show you all the poetries without the master in, and
then they would show you sort of Tom Baker up until the present
day, and then it would be back to sort of spearhead from space and
then, you know, skipping season 8 and all of that.
Do you remember this?
But they showed 2 trouts, I think, in 1986.
Protons.
Crotons and mind robbers.
And they're both from this season and they're both ones that we'll
be discussing in the next couple of podcasts.
Yes, and they're also both ones that my father taped on VHS.
They were part of the VHS collection.
I had to watch.
Oh, so you had early experiences with them as well.
But mysteriously, like other ones that did exist at the time, like
the dominators, did that exist in full at the time?
I believe it did.
Yeah, I think... has existed for a long time as well.
Yeah, that had a very early VHS omnibus release.
Right, right.
So the dominators mysteriously, why wouldn't they have shown it
then just because it's so terrible?
No, they wouldn't have thought like that.
It was probably just because it was a few episodes count out.
Yeah, because they would have the other 2 was...
Oh, my drop.
Oh, no, mine robbers. as well.
Yeah.
Mine Robin was written as 4 though. produced us for it. got an
extra episode because they cut one out of this story.
Thank God, just squeeze it.
This is the one where it's not written by a fellow called Norman
Ashley.
It's actually Merton Hazman of Henry Lincoln, who brought us the
Yeti sitting on our loos in Tutum.
And this is the story where the writers not only begged the BBC
not to show the story.
They threatened to sue the BBC, not to show the story, because
they thought it was so changed from their initial video.
Yeah, it's not exactly because it's a whole pile of yeti droppings
but...
Well, yeah, they were also being, what have we got here?
We've got look, this story is really interesting for what it's
about and what it's reflecting.
To understand this story.
I mean, we've got a peaceful planet where old blokes get around in
dresses and everyone, yeah, really awful high waisted skirty
dresses and the TARDIS going on holidays, so they drop Patty off
onto a beach again.
And it's a nice little holiday, but then it turns out to have been
an island that's a nuclear testing ground and then a really groovy
woo-woo spaceship, which is actually a jelly mould and is
admitted.
My Jack Kite's department to be of jelly.
Yeah, it was a jelly juicer.
Yeah, it was a jelly moult because they ran out because they
were...
BBC effects boys.
There were only a few of them and they were having to do every
single thing, you know, getting a bit cross.
But you will use a geling mould.
It was almost to the point of that.
But the interior said that the ship was really gorgeous.
Well, it's very new breeders.
Yes, and they're spectacular.
Well, they're they're certainly they're very bondy and they're
very kubricky and they're very kind of lattice-like and there's
lots going on in there, which is really useful because you can
look at the sets instead of paying attention to the to the plot
which is the same scripture, you know, each and every episode just
rebooted.
So that this journey mould lands on a deserted island, which turns
out to be radioactive, and their 1st act of consciousness and
kindness is actually to soak up all the radiation because their
ships are driven by this stuff.
So it's not really explicit in the story, is it?
But that's what they do.
And then they step out as Joan and Jackie Collins because they've
both got the same race that cut their juice and shoulder pads that
defy description unless you know the K1 giant robot from Tom
Baker's 1st story and you go, oh, okay, that's what that's.
Can we just go back to the beginning for a 2nd?
Because it's a season opener.
And so they start with this spectacular, spectacular special
effect sequence, which is a fleet of flying sources that look just
truly terrible.
And then the flying saucer lands with Joan and Jack.
And jacket teeth.
They've got jacket teeth.
Well, in fact, one of them is the guy who just, a year later, we'll
play Professor Cornish.
And he'll be spectacularly handsome in that.
But he's also in Inferno as, as a reader on, there's one of the
voices is the, yeah, the voice of the computer.
He's sitting around just reading stuff out.
Yeah, and he's, and he was later on, was it crossroads or one of
the soaps?
Crossroads, he was very bad.
Yeah, and he's got a phone still a bit dashing and super smart.
He's actually a really clever bloke.
Here he just looks like he's had a few really seriously late
nights and he's been...
I think Selena Nemoy approach.
The only way you can make it through the days to be completely
inebriated.
He said that on trek. his last season, he was drunk pretty much
for every shooting.
Well, that was just working with Shad.
Kind of the same thing.
They've also got, yeah, they've also got Jagged teeth.
So I think there's a nice thing that I think that's the paint
that's slightly jagged teeth.
So I think they're actually all related to what's his face off
darlic master plan.
This is the one...
Thank you.
And they've got 2 hearts.
They do have to. because they're really surprised that Jamie's
only got one heart. and I think the Dolchians, however, he's used
to that.
So in fact, they're probably all just like the minions.
They're probably all seeded from the early colonial days of time
mordiness.
Because the doctor actually has been here before and thinks
they're going to have a nice holiday on the beach.
So really, maybe this is all a bit of a payback and there's more
look, I'm desperately looking for things that are more interesting
than it's actually going on on this.
No, there's stuff underneath.
We're going give me their radiation. you know, Oh, yeah, and we're
going to drill out the world's core because that's what we've
might maybe done before.
They going to try and get at the magna and a radiator.
Have you noticed that this shop called the Dominators, and I hope
that that's actually the racial prescription of these guys, and
that's what they do.
They conquer 10 galaxies, which is are not bad.
So a lot of jelly moles.
I quite like that they seem to be bragging because in one episode
they talk about conquering 10 galaxies and then they say they're
the master of a galaxy for next episode.
And when they say 10 galaxies, they're talking to the Dolcians and
when they say one galaxy, they're talking to each other.
So it's like, obviously, yeah, we say this to impress people.
In the 60s galaxy, because nation is Terry Nations notorious for
this, but it seems that people were not so familiar with the
correct terminology.
And galaxy and solar system were kind of interchangeable.
Or constellation.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It's just, which is actually an arrangement seen from here of
stars in space.
Constellation is your interpretation.
But yeah, these boys are kind of, well, you know, one in 10, it's
just a decimal point, isn't it?
between friends?
What is it about the dominators that is slightly interesting?
Yeah, okay.
There's a race of blokes.
Do they have wives?
They never see any women.
And what would they be called?
Right, go.
Yeah, dominaterixes.
I think the 2 of them are married over and like...
I don't think there's any females in their room.
No, no, they think of like a married couple, you know, they fight
over things and stuff, you know, I think...
The women are either inside their robots that will get to, but I
actually think the females are their species of the dramas. that's
what's going on.
They've got dominators and drafts going, hate you.
No, I hate you.
I hate you.
Well, that would be why the Dragons kill their nails.
Yeah, they're no use at all.
And it's...
It's totally proven in this story.
And you see like all bitter and incriminating divorces.
The driver's got the crap spaceships.
And these boys got the whizzo.
Even the doctor says, this is terribly advanced, really quite good
and it is. really, really super duper space set thing.
They also have robots.
And these robots do us that were going to be the bigo wacko money
making thing after the Daleks that we don't know anymore.
That's all these bite off.
And what are they?
Okay, they're meant to be terribly terrifying.
Of course, like Chungli's, they're actually little schoolboys
inside robot suits so they could be small, but their voices are
also like small children and a Japanese ad.
Sheila Dunn.
I believe in Sheila Dunn. wife of Dr. Canfield provides them.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah, it was, it threw a Boko dot.
So Sheila Dunn will do, um, She'll be the receptionist next story
in the, uh, story after that.
Invasion, which she'll be Petra.
Again, directed by Dougie.
And she's great in Inferno.
She's fabulous.
So she does the voices.
But essentially, it's a toddler bane.
Oh, really?
Sheila Gill.
Yeah, I didn't have thought it was because she didn't do it.
But anyway, these things are 4 foot.
They're painted green, metallic.
Well, not metallic green, some British race and green.
It's chocophane nail to a shoot.
It is really.
With green macaroni on their heads.
Christmas decorator.
They are actually Minecraft designed Christmas decorations.
They've got sort of, they're meant to be like a battery box and
they're unbelievably powerful, but they're also largely pants.
Why don't they keep running out of power?
It's like, oh, we mustn't use the quiet to do anything.
I like the way they recharge by flapping their arms.
But they're going to run out of battery so we can't use them for
anything.
I mean, it really is just, look, however, I still signed with the
invaders because the dolkians, the dolkians.
So bloody pants.
Old blokes in frocks saying, you know what this is about?
Okay.
No, it is in this one.
It's like old folk being ineffectual. why this story is so
freaking embarrassing even at the time, is really interesting.
This is the only probably interesting thing for me about this
story.
Do you remember appeasement?
We've talked about Neville Chamberlain in the 30s who at this time
was seen as, you know, if Britain hadn't gone to war, you know, the
whole Europe would have fallen.
Yeah, but that's not how people saw it.
At the time, it was, if we have another war, we remember the last
one, it will destroy everything.
Now in 1938, when Chamberlain was still organising, was it the
Munich agreement?
Yeah, that actually allowed British sea power to build up, if
they'd gone to war a year before, when Germany was at its 1st
stage of expansionism in 38, they would have lost the war, America
would not have even noticed, and by 4041, Europe would have been a
completely different map.
So you're saying it's mocking appeasement.
Well, I'm just going to get to that because at this point, we've
got the same mirror with Vietnam.
We've got the Vietnam War, and the only reason that people are
opposing that, as we've discussed before, it's on the telly, you
can see it.
Now, Noman Hazman and Henry Lincoln.
I am not stretching a boat because they've been interviewed in Dr
Himanti back in the day.
They were actually against appeasement and they were they were for
the domino effect, which you remember is the Lyndon Bay Johnson
thing of if one place, if one city, one country falls to communism
the rest of the Pacific will fall, and then so shall we.
We've had the Bay of Pigs, we've got Cuba.
This is just going to escalate.
These boys were actually saying, haven't you noticed that the
hippies are all just drugged out and wearing a hideous, terrible
clothes?
have mismatched fibres.
Very lubiticum.
So the whole point of this is to say that we should actually
oppose what's happening in Europe is, you know, Czechoslovakia, you
know, have fallen to Russia though.
But then after that, between the writing of this story and the
stuff that we were getting on the news, this just looked really
embarrassing.
Yeah, it's a viciously right wing and it's actually Vietnam
thing.
And it, fortunately...
Yeah, yeah, anti-Vietnam.
So 1968 is the absolute hide of like anti-Vietnam.
Yeah, the term offensive, we'd see.
And so there's a few ways they try and twist it.
Firstly, like the Dulcians are pacifists and he presents them as
being completely decadent and completely worthless.
Their computers are designed so they don't even have to bother to
press the buttons on it.
They just sort of wave their hands effeatly about it.
The Dulcins have them, not the Dulcins.
The dominators have the Dulcians lifting Styrofoam rocks as part
of the mining effort.
It's going to be a major effect shop, that episode.
They're too they're too weak and ineffective to do that properly
and they all sort of collapse.
So everyone's completely decadent and worthless and everyone's
wearing a dress.
And, you know, so the idea of a society that has advanced beyond
the need for war or weapons.
That's sort of viciously lampooned by the writers and seen it in a
completely negative light.
But it's just done so incompetently.
And fortunately, it's been kind of eviscerated by the script
editor, which is why they pull their names off it.
So it doesn't end up being quite as offensive as it should be and
it's just sort of nearly bad.
But it is really nasty and mean-spirited, and it undermines itself
because the dominators who managed to defeat the Dulcians by using
violence are villains, you know, like it just stupidly fails to
work as an allegory because they're villains, but it is just it's
ridiculously nasty.
How it needed to be done. was we shouldn't have had a decadent
peaceful culture.
We should have had a peaceful culture and had that established for
a cool episode and actually been going, yeah, you know, we want to
live here.
This place looks great and then have it attacked and it should
have been about the morality of you must fight for what you
believe in when it's directed.
The Daleks has that scene where Ian goes the files into fighting.
And it is sort of slightly problematic and, you know, like it is a
little bit for worry, but, you know, the style's habiting them to
fight.
But the Dolcians are just awfully, horribly west.
And you know, like maybe they thought they were being funny or
subversive by having the hippies be old people and the rebellious
young Cully, who is young.
Well, he's in perfect comments.
He's 34.
So is that your one?
Well, I would say yes, you might not say that.
He, actually, Kali, who's played by Arthur Cox, will actually
appear 42 years later in the 11th hour.
Yes, and it will be... that Amy Pond slams the doctor's tie.
Adorable.
And so he does come back.
Interesting sort of point there.
Note that the doctor then goes for a bow tie, which can't be
slightly different.
But he's sort of the fat and balding sort of rebel without a cause
but he thinks that they should be fighting.
Zoe thinks they should be fighting.
Jamie thinks they should be fighting.
The doctor thinks they should be fighting.
Like, in every case, the Dulcians are being portrayed as as, you
know, unrealistic and ineffectual and, you know, like no match, but
instead of terrible, terrible threat posed by Mr. and Mrs. Rego
the 2 evil marinators.
Yeah, this is the one where Patty quit, don't you?
You remember the story, the huge blowup, the huge Barney on the
set.
He wasn't really coping with it.
And this is all from Derek Sherwin, who said that, you know, all
Patty did was moan, mo, moan.
This is Sherwin.
And he said, you know, I'm quoting directly, Sherman would say, you
know, he'd make complaints about scripts and dialogue.
And I'd say to him, look, Patrick, I'm an actor, you're an actor.
If I don't like dialogue, I change it, change it.
But, um, you know, that Patrick, you know, was exhausted, and as
we were saying, 40, you just didn't have the time to go through
the lovely rep experience of being able to have all of that
rehearsal.
Anyway, Sherman adds it got to the state where there was a huge
bus stop in the studio floor and they were recording when
recording stopped, which he just never did in those days.
And Patrick called out, Peter, come down here, come down here
now.
There was God awful confrontation between Bryant and Trouton.
Everybody in the studio could hear it and Patrick finally said, I'm
resigning, I'm going.
And Peter Bryant said, no, you're not. firing you.
And that was it.
That was the end.
But he said, this is enough. 42 bloody half hour shows and you're
killing me.
So that was it.
And they wrote off and it's this kind of, I can get why that would
have happened to this.
Look, I think I think by the end of it, it's it becomes fairly
generic and it's about stopping the dominators blowing up their
bomb and all of that.
And that's all right.
Do you know what I mean?
That's kind of okay.
But gee whiz, it's just long up to land.
And you know what?
It undoes a lot of the very careful work from the previous
season.
You know, in the previous season, we slowly had women's parts
being built up to be much, much stronger.
You know, you look at Betty Kaftan compared to and Travis...
But you compare her to Anne Travers or Tanya Lern of, who are sort
of shaded characters with different motivations, whereas Betty
Catan, as well as she was playing, was just written as an ethnic
villain.
Yeah.
You know?
And you compare that to this.
You've got one guest female character, Kando, who's a bit wet.
Which is virtually an Eloy, isn't she?
And also...
The Dolcians are presented as wet and defeat.
And what's the visual shorthand for that?
They're wearing dresses.
Yeah, and they were the hippies.
And the hippies were, you know, we've seen them as being all cute
and car culture and all the rest of it at the time they were
noisome and missing the point.
And interestingly enough.
As soon as Zoe needs to get changed into something.
Oh, well, you need to fit in so you must wear a dress as well.
You can't be wearing those space trousers.
This show's not just pro-colonial.
It's pro-imperial.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's bloody awful.
I've never said that before.
I mean, that's the thing.
The production offers have forgotten that, yeah, okay, they're
making really, they're making Doctor Who for the kids and they're
making Doctor Who for family.
But one of Doctor Whose biggest audiences was and remains.
You know, late teens, early 13 students.
Yeah, well, not in this one.
I think...
I didn't do all that well, do that?
I'm not surprised because, you know, all the students watching
would have gone, hold on.
They're taking the nick out of us.
Yeah, it's such a shame it's still in the archives.
It really is.
Oh, hang on.
I was getting around 6 million.
And gosh, 7.500000 for the 2nd last episode.
Really?
Yeah, people loved it.
Yeah, and just before we.
It does feel very trick, though, for something that came out
before you...
It's something like that.
It was like the savages. hang on, that was the opening.
That was the working title of this one.
But there were all those awful...
The same season, Trek episodes.
It is that thing where it's where the society or the whole
situation is set up to deliver a moral lesson. in the way that the
savages was.
And it did remind me of the savages accept it's not good.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
The savages, everyone learns that important lesson.
The dominators, no one learns anything.
Pretty much the doctor spends 3 or 4 episodes trying to convince
the Dolcians.
You must fight for yourselves and then says, oh, bloody, I'll do
it myself.
And then buckers off.
Now, can I give a Latin lesson at this point?
Because I've been longing to do this.
So the planet Dulcus, that's the word for sweet inland.
And so the yeah, like Dolshit in Italian.
And so the Dulcians, that's why it changes from a K's worth of C
because Latin didn't have K, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then the leader, Cully's father, is called Senex, which just
every schoolboy in the audience and schoolgirl would have known
men. old man.
And then his 2nd in command who's like sort of, you know, will do
anything that he's told and all of that sort of thing.
It's called Bovem, which means ox.
I hope that increases your enjoyment and appreciation of this
story.
It doesn't, but it was a valiant episode.
Doesn't Cully also have a Latin?
can we Let's let's just take off from Dolphins.
The volcano's exploding around us, so it's time to have our brains
drained as if they weren't already by this piece of drain, which
are mind drama.
So that starts with, like, a kind of a phrase where the volcanos
going off, and the most...
Which made of fun of it.
We have the BBC phone machine again.
We had seen that in 1986, but we had no idea, like what had
happened or anything like that?
Exactly.
And that's why for an Australian fan, the dominators is doubly
disappointing because it has this mythic status of how did we get
to this volcanic eruption by the most dull and insulting men than
possible.
That's the answer.
Richard, the mind robber.
Mind robbers, a whole other story in the whole other set of ways.
Well, okay.
We'll go back to Derek Sherman, who was saying, he hand chose
Peter Ling for his other writing work, Peter Ling being the
writing of the story, and said, and Peter said, look, I'm Ling
said, I'm not a science fiction writer.
I've seen Doctor Who.
That's what I do.
And he said, no, no, you're a good writer.
You write about fables and narrative of people.
You write about stories.
This Doctor Who is a children's show fundamentally and foremost
and we kind of forget that now, that's how it's still being
pitched in the 60s.
He said, I want you to write a story that you would write if you
were writing for children.
And I don't think about SF.
Think about Doctor Who as the opening up of children's imagination
as much as they open up a book.
And he took it literally.
So we went and referenced lots of other children's books and
children's characters and there's lots of Edith Nesty, the
children in this are, you know, I keep going back to Edith Nest
but they're the 5 kids from 5 children indeed.
So they end up in this space.
But what's the best thing about this story?
It was written for 4 episodes and produced for 4 episodes.
But you don't get that.
You get a beautiful point of an extra episode of the top of it
because they cut out one of the dominators because they just
couldn't add it any further.
So we got an extra story with no budget, no script, and no
supporting cast.
All you've got are the 3 leagues, the TARTA set, and whatever else
you can scround around.
So Sherman went home and he said in the space of 48 hours wrote it
and you can kind of believe it.
I wonder if George Lucas saw this before he made THX 1138.
Because what you end up with is something that's really hoopy and
post-Dovid Bowie.
You end up with a white cyclor armour on a void set.
Isn't really something, as far as I can tell that people did back
then.
It was just a pretty bold thing.
You might have got it in pop video stuff, but even then you'd have
something spangly hanging that, you know, dusty could swoon around
in front of.
You haven't, this is a super white set of a super void of, in the
same way that we had a universe that should have been like this
with celestial toy maker, the TARDIS has to jump outside of time
and space, and it's the only time in this incarnation that you see
the doctor really worried about doing something like this with the
TARDIS.
He's actually quite disturbed about having to flick this switch
and take us out of the known universe because he knows what
monsters be there.
So this is part of what eventually becomes a sort of occasional
tradition, isn't it, in Doctor Who.
And it does start with a celestial toy maker, but not very
auspiciously.
And you can see celestial toy maker does the sort of iconography
of the children's, like of Victorian children's games and
Victorian children's literature.
It has the, you know, the king and queen playing cards from Alice
in Wonderland and that sort of thing, you know.
So it's kind of like a rehearsal for that.
There's something smarter about this.
Smarter. levels in this one, yeah.
Yeah, and it does have a, it does have a proper plot.
Whereas celestial toymaker was sort of clearly marking time.
It is, you know, really remarkably similar.
And I guess, like, what would you say the analogues for it were?
It doesn't really come up again in per tweet.
But greater show in the galaxy.
Yeah, very much.
Which is also about fictionality and stuff.
There is.
It's great showing the Galaxy was going to say the 3 doctors.
Oh okay. when you've got the whole idea of the void universe and
that William Blaikian style of there being a fictional universe
beyond our universe.
It's very much remembrance of the daleks when we finally get to
the master of the land of fiction, who's actually turns that up
the bloke running this realm, turns out to be an old writer who
himself wrote comics based on the real person, the master.
It's lovely to think that if message is the real master, but
Paddy's reactions aren't exactly what you would expect at first.
Although he says master, the new question.
But no, it's an old bloke based on a man called Frank Richards, who
was actually Charles Hamilton, who wrote the magnet comic Billy
Buncher, who, of course, is...
Cyril, the fact that he's in...
Terrible, which I can't say...
Do you know the thing?
Oh, look, this lovely thing.
This lovely thing.
Okay, you've got 3 doctors.
I think he's actually Jasmine Brokes.
Justin, the same way, the remembrance of the Dalek, you've got
little blonde kid under the industrial motorcycle hairdryer.
You've got the mask.
You've got the master and his little skull cap in this one.
It's also, if you're interested in the Frank Richards thing, he
wrote, you remember the master says that he wrote like 5000 words
a week for like 20 years or something or, you know, and it's some
extraordinary announcement words that he wrote.
There is a really, really interesting and clever analysis of his
writing by George Orwell, like in an...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In an essay called Boys Weeklies from 1940, and Orwell assumes
that because these stories about Greyfrock, I, it's called Grey
Fries.
It's the name of the school or something like that.
I can't remember.
But the Billy Bunger stories.
He just thinks that the there are so many and the style is so sort
of generic and it's been going for so many decades.
He just assumes that it's a pseudonym for a whole bunch of
different writers who are writing in a particular style.
And he actually corrects himself in a footnote to say, no, this
guy just is just writing and writing and writing.
But like literally decades, he wrote in the magnet magazine from
1908 to 1940 and just a story every week.
And Peter Lee had a similar career.
And you can see this is a real little knot to how awful it is to
have to be a hack writer.
So in the same way.
But I want to talk also about the universe where this occurs
because this is actually interesting.
Have you noticed that it could actually be a construct either of
the eternals or the cause of Ragnarok?
Or it could actually be a tharyl construct because you've got the
same white void where imagination and ideas.
You've got the same white void where imagination and ideas
construct the world, just as you do in Warrior's Gate.
In fact, I think I think that there is something slightly 60s and
disappointing about this in that.
It's revealed to be a megalomaniacal computer in charge of it, and
the computer has control rooms.
It is, but it's like the great intelligence has to have a control
room as well.
But the thing is, it's playing with the 60s idea.
Yes, it has to be a computer because this is 60.
And because that's what 60s fiction is.
And that's what James Bond does.
Yeah, that's what big films do, yeah.
Yes, villains are German and muscle bound and have disintegrated
rays and costumes are like skeletons.
Yes, Rapunzels are flirt because she's waiting for a prince.
Yes, robots are ill defined and based on childhood fears.
This is one I absolutely love.
Rod hates into.
Really?
I think this is the point.
I want to say metalipsis.
It's one of those things.
It's one of those stories.
It's not so much about itself.
It's about what it's about.
It's a thing about other things and it's interesting.
But if you look at it just straight on, Yeah, probably isn't that
exciting or interesting.
But Doctor Who fans, it's really interesting.
I remember being shocked by how cheap it looked because it was the
1st 6 doctor who I ever saw.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I remember being horrified.
It was the 1st 60s, 1st black and white Doctor Who. because as a
child, I didn't like watching black and white television.
No, no, well...
I thought it was fantastic when I 1st saw it in 86 and...
And I liked it because it was tripping at all those other things.
Yeah, and it's got Christopher Robbie with his hands on his hips.
Absolutely.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Be outside the controller.
He's always doing the same kind of thing.
I'm looking pretty, pretty well smashing any sort of tight season
Robert, rippy up. and he gets thrown around by Freddie Padre and
the deal later on, which is, again, lampooning a whole other
thing.
It does every show and every story.
And Wendy actually does a really good job with it.
She had a weak strain.
Yeah, she said I was quite nervous, but Christopher threw himself
around.
It was wonderful.
So you it's so many stories in that one, aren't there?
Such a joyful experience after the dominators because even though
the plot may be scarce and repetitive, it's Doctor Who having
fun.
Yeah, and after the previous year. where it wasn't, it had stopped
adventuring and it had stopped doing things that it hadn't tried
before.
This is really an incredible breadth of fresh air.
We were weird.
Yeah.
Well, weird.
And the 1st story, you really don't know what's going on in the
title.
You know, it was originally shot as Jamie and Zoe and the console
just flicker out of existence from the console room and Patrick
was meant to be lying there in a comatose state, but they
considered that to be too frightening.
I think apparently they shot it, but they thought it was too
frightening for the children.
At home.
I don't see why it would have been amazing.
It's pretty amazing what we have.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Did the TARDIS appears to disappear?
What I like is that you can see this story is like an episode of
the prisoner, really, which by now had been seen, of all of this
is actually happening in the character's imaginations.
And really, very rarely, it is because the cockwork soldiers, Jamie
doesn't contribute much, but they're obviously red coats.
And they're obviously in another playoff side and then he's
constantly having to revisit that notion.
Zoe, obviously, with the Crocus, that's from her childhood, from
the year 2000.
But it's fair enough to say that that was an old comic being read
broadcasts.
Patrick doesn't know.
Yeah, the doc, where does the doctor's fantasies things slip in?
Well, of course, he knows Gulliver backwards to Franchi.
So...
Yeah, but those are things that kids are going to be aware.
Yeah, you know what I mean?
That like Gulliver.
Again, did I mention that Dean Swift is in my enemies list?
Yes, yes, you did.
Yeah.
Like Gulliver, you know, was a perennial kid's favourite, you know
Rapunzel.
So it's all, it's all, you know, there's reference to little
women.
Yes, yeah, there's an extract read from...
We've got all those stories, Greek mythology, stuff you do at
school, you know, the 1st bit of stop motion, proper animation.
Oh, it's the 1st John Friedlander spot in this one.
The Medusa head and the movie Wavy Snakes, the by John Friedland
who later gave us Darth Ross a whole lot of other groovy draconian
things.
Oh, really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's his 1st work.
And it looks great because, you know, Harry Howson was doing all
those super Voyage of Tom Baker stories.
So this thing.
It's great because it's what some of your toy maker should have
been.
And it's not, it doesn't totally get there, of course, but it's so
much better than what it could have been.
It's also the 1st appearance of Sir Bernard Horseball.
Yes.
He should be.
Well, he also points taken off for, um, he's in diamonds forever.
Yeah, everyone, everything awful as diamonds are forever.
No, it storms up forever.
Yeah, that's right.
It's friend of the podcast, Gary Russell, who's an octopus.
Yes, exactly.
No, he does get points off repearing in that.
But he is he's pretty good in this with his sort of northern
accent and he's weird way of saying it.
He's not...
It's really fun. really like him.
He's terrific.
And he appears several time lords and I think next, well, later
this year, in fact, well, he sentenced the doctors were exiled.
Spoiler alert. sentence you to be John Pertwee.
Yes, that is cruel, isn't it?
No, you should have something in their constitution.
John Kurt, where you can be chubby check.
Matt Smith.
We didn't see all the other drawers. they threw up, did we?
No, no.
Can we mention Hamish Wilson?
Oh, of course, yeah. those you don't know out there, dear
listeners.
Just before recording episode two, Fraser Hines on the Monday of
rehearsals was diagnosed with chicken pox.
Well, that's what he tells everyone.
Well, that's, you know, that's what Derek Sherwin says as well.
Of course, I was with other people.
But yeah, his doctor said, no, you can't be near anyone.
You have to put yourself in quarantine.
And this was getting towards the end of the production block.
This was actually the last thing recorded in the production block
so they couldn't delay recording.
The decision was made.
Hold on, we're in a story where things can just pop in and out of
existence.
Brilliant.
So you got a whole other actor doing it.
We'll have a whole...
Yeah, actually got it.
He's from Gl asking.
He's Glaswegian.
He describes on the making of, you know, one of the challenges was
I in Glaswegian, but Fraser does an Anbrax, and so I sounded
nothing like him, and I felt very bad about that.
It's like a Scotsman saying, yeah, my accent wasn't good enough
for the Englishman pretending to be Scottish.
There is a scene actually where he calls out and the doctor just
thinks it's Jamie, even though it sounds nothing.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm also quite amused by the fact that every time Wendy Patbury
talks about it, says, would have liked to keep Hamish, actually
you have to change him back.
We didn't need Fraser.
She's cruel, isn't she?
She also would have got to keep her pants.
They didn't pants Wendy.
I think I think this one...
I think this might have actually been the story where during
rehearsal, Wendy fell asleep and she was wearing a skirt that had
clasps on the side and they undid the clasps and said, wake up
patterns.
It's time for your scene.
And she jumped up and ran out of the waiting room, wearing only
own knickers and who should walk in, but the vicar.
Because they would rehearse in an old church hall and she
curtseyed and said, good morning, Vicar, and ran back to get her
skirt.
That's delightful.
That's why none of these people. 60s in a box, isn't it?
Really?
where it's always things.
It's worth watching for the things that it does.
I mean, even though it's playing with the, and it's the 1st time
I'm going to use this word, and I think about 5 podcasts, that's
playing with the trotes of Dr. Cat.
Even though it is, I do think, you know, at the end where it
suddenly and we're going to invade Earth.
Men will become like a string of sausages.
That was one of Rod's big problems and it is kind of a thing
that's what pissed me off with otherwise amazing power of three.
And I love that story with, you know, with Matt Smith and with the
father and son too.
Yeah, yeah.
Rory and Rory and...
Brian Martin playing his dad Brian.
It was such a big story and they ended up like finishing up every
bloody story of Voyager.
We just end up on an alien bridge and it's an invasion or some
sort of other plan.
He's a real...
Voyage alien.
Yeah, well, that's what I was saying before.
Like, I still think, you know, when it comes to greatest show in
the galaxy, it will be caused by gods and magic stones and that
kind of thing.
Much more fun.
Yeah, but here there has to be sort of some crummy science fiction
thing and there has to be some threat to earth.
And it's the same as the abominable snowman, which is abominable
snowman and the yesi, where it's a disembodied intelligence that
can possess people and do anything, but it feels compelled to make
them make sad 60s futuristic control rooms.
And it is, there is a kind of only narrow range within which
Doctor Who operates in this era.
And the mind robber does a far, far better job than most of
escaping from that range, but just the dead weight of science
fiction kind of pulls it back to be a particular sort of thing
towards the end.
Absolutely.
And it feels so strange, simply because Earth has not really been
involved until this point.
Except, you know, all the fiction comes from Earth, which is
understandable.
But, Yeah, Earth hasn't even been involved.
And then suddenly we're going to invade Earth.
So use the power of man's imagination.
It's like, well, that's completely in variance with what's
happened before.
Rod described it as we have 5 episodes of padding, followed by
only going to invade Earth because why not?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, no, I can see how that would, you know, and that's that's
pretty similar to my assessment of celestial toy maker, you know
that that is just wall to wall padding.
Yeah, even from the invasion of Earth.
But I think this one has a sort of structure and a quest structure
and stuff.
It does seem to be better structure.
Oh, yeah, I think it's actually got a plot, and it's got a
beginning, a middle, and an end, and it does repeat the sort of
constant.
Oh, a fictional character.
We have to say they don't exist, but it still has development.
Yeah.
You know, um, whereas the repetition of having to go through
various tasks as a less people toy maker just feels like we need
to fill 3 episodes.
You know, they.
I just had a memory of like a flashback of that stupid story and
the rhymes and everything.
Goodness, that's awful. never recover.
Never, I tell you.
Anything else on?
No, I've already passed on.
All right, so you go and read Five Children indeed.
If you want to get this story, go and read, and don't listen to
him, because Gol of Us Travels actually has really interesting
satire and political comedy.
But he's on the...
I like his pro style.
Yeah, look.
No, no, I enjoy the book enormously, but there's a middle bit
where it's a floating island full of scientists.
And Swift, who is a clergyman, mocks the scientists.
And, you know, all his satire is about science and you kind of
think, sweetheart, you are massively on the losing side of this
battle.
But scientists at the time are also jumping in on the whole.
In fact, David Whittaker's an 18th century scientist because it's
all alchemy and woo-woo.
Oh, my stuff.
But he also, the Yahoos.
You know, these primitive, appalling.
What's the quote?
I've written it down.
I looked it up.
The Yahoos were disgusting primitive criminals. ruled over by an
equine governance of horses.
It's the British royal family.
The youngest princess Anne.
No, no, no, they're terrible.
Okay, well, I mean, it's all one culture.
But we're the yahoos and the royal family are ruling us how
awful.
I think there's lots in Swift, just like there's lots in the story
but you've got to look.
So the way I like watching this show.
It's not what it is.
It's what it references and what you can find in it.
It's not linked to itself.
It's once you go under the surface.
Oh, no, no.
It's a good book.
I'll admit this show.
By my mind, Robert, it's been love.
Bye, bye, bye, bye.
And bug eye production block five.
We head on...
Let the door fit your arse on.
Into the last production block of the 1960s. with the baby.
Now, this is really good.
Isn't that nice?
Truth, this is good. and I love, I love this.
I love the animated version.
I love, um, there's a thing in Martin who wrote the Target novel.
Yes.
That's a Ripper, Boys and Girls.
And this is a river, and the animation versions of, I love every
version of this.
Yeah, absolutely.
I was so chuffed that I got this.
Yeah, I noticed that, yeah, you're going to talk over it.
Yeah, so...
He's getting a word in each word.
The weird thing is, of course, Doctor Who stories that go over 4
parts more often than not are hideously padded.
No, tiresome. tires.
The invasion managers to escape that, really by being two, 4
parters that are put together.
So episodes one to 4 are all about setting up the mystery of
Tobias Vaughan, reestablishing the brigadier, introducing unit, and
giving us the 1st modern day story in a city environment since the
baseless ones.
You know, we did have the modern day story of hearing from the
deep, but that could have been set a 100 years in the future.
I think it kind of was.
I mean, why do the oil guard people all have guns and sort of
space helmets?
Exactly.
But yeah, we do have this possibly slightly future environment.
There's nothing in the script to specify, but they have video
phones.
Coala shirts are quite common.
You know, you've got a military base inside a Hercules jet.
And the BBC continuity now, so I said it was 1975.
So, no, I think it's later than that.
I think, don't they say it's 4 years after the yeti.
And I think the yeti, and we aren't going to fight over this, is
Saturday 1975. visually.
Yeah, Well, as usual, it's always saving the actual year.
But Jamie says that it's only been a few weeks for him since the
yeti, but the brigandier says it's been 4 years.
So it is near future.
Like it's sort of 10 years in the future or something like that.
Yeah.
Now, the thing is, if you were to say that where the fear was set
in the year it was broadcast 1967, then 4 years later would be
1971.
And the implication later on in Spearhead is that not much time
certainly no longer than a year has passed since the invasion for
the brigadier.
So that's possible, but we're getting into unit dating later.
No, let's not.
I can't possibly put the energy into caring about that at all.
When I say later, and remember, I'm coming back to unit dating
with a certain Tom Baker story, foreshadowing the team listener
foreshadowing.
It's a game of 2 halves, very wisely because, you know, when
you've got this sort of huge 8 part iceberg in the middle of your
thing.
You can you can really sort of handle that in 2 ways.
You can do what John Wiles did with the Doic master plan and say, I
don't want to make this anyway, so let's get on with it, do it by
the numbers, or you can do what Derek Sherwin did and say, right
I'm developing an idea.
I'm giving it to some very talented writers, and we are going to
go for broke.
And I think a big reason that they go for broke.
Is this is the 5th anniversary special of Doctor.
Oh, really?
think so?
Episode 4 was broadcast on the 23rd of November, 1968.
Wow. isn't that lovely?
You know why, though?
This is a doggie Campfield director.
Oh, look at it.
It's Hysteric Sherwin writing it finally.
So we get we get Doctor Who as it's meant to be by this production
team.
So they pull out...
You've got Derek Sherwin, you've got doggie camp.
We've got a score.
What about this score?
You know, we've mentioned the 4 John Barry score for the Ipcris
Files.
Have you ever watched that movie again, great?
It's the same music.
It's as close as you can get without getting, you know, super.
It's, I love the sound of this thing.
They bring back a returning monster in the form of the side and
men who don't appear until the anniversary.
They're a little bit of rubbish, so they're staying boxes for the
1st 4 episodes because they're just, yeah, they're unfurry yetis.
They just cyphers for the real villain who is drumroll, the campus
thing of the 60s we've ever had.
It's magic, isn't it?
magic magic chair?
Yeah, and, you know, the best villain actress, Doctor Who, assigned
from Patrick Trouton, playing Tobias Vaughan.
Yeah, he's really.
So he's back, the brigadier. who is this guy?
It's Tobias Spawn.
What's his...
Tobias' motivation.
What's his motivation?
His motivation?
His family were killed in a car crash, just his initials are off.
And of course, he has his wonderful henchman packed. to his names
yeah.
He's actually...
Tobias Vaughan's motivation is the whole Rupert Murdoch thing.
He just wants power over media.
That's why he's such a great villain.
It's really just the whole narrative thing of his own narcissistic
will for control.
And he says, camp is a pair of others in a really crowded field
from episode one.
Oh gosh, she's wonderful.
Importantly, his camp, but still manages to be menacing.
He's saying not as menacing.
Well, the thing is, if you look at grown normally, if you look at
60s Batman, you get camp, but you don't really get menacing.
Yeah, we might segue actually. because the Blu-ray box set of Adam
West Batman's about to come out.
I watched a few by the time I'm getting it.
We'll watch a few.
Probably when we get to the end of the season.
Yeah, I'm actually, I've actually bought it for Rob for Christmas
and he doesn't use the podcast.
So, no, that's fine.
It really is an extraordinary performance and it does look in a
way like they're trying to remake Dalek master plan.
They don't have the daleks anymore, but they have the cybermen.
And they bring Tobias Vaughn because he's done such a tribase.
So on Kevin Stoney, as a great, because he's not escaped this
character. villain, like such a spectacularly great villain.
And the performance is really, really remarkable.
So there are times where he just seems absolutely powerful and in
control.
There's that fantastic scene early on where Isabel, who we just
have to talk about in America.
Because she's not out.
She's wonderful.
And we'll talk about this is another reason to hate Norman Ashby
like Hazman and Lincoln, who refused again to give the rights to
the Travers character.
Oh, is that why we don't have them?
So that's why they don't need it.
I mean, they did look into it and Jack Watling wasn't available
anyway.
But yeah, you're right that they couldn't use the characters even
if they wanted to.
They did manage to wrangle Lethbridge Stewart, though.
Yeah, that's true.
That's because Sherman actually, and maintains to this day, Derek
Sherman is quite vocal that is now resuming the BBC and has been
doing so for over 20 years because he says he invented units.
He's crazy.
Well, shoot.
Yeah, but he was a freelance writer when he wrote...
Hang on, was it Weather Fair?
Miss Freelance, Freelancer working.
I know he didn't like Webber Fear.
But he's still home.
He invented you.
No, I mean, he did.
He grabbed a unit on top of the original script.
Yeah.
Yeah, Vic Singerton isn't too happy about the fact that the Sonic
Screwdriver is so heavily marketed.
That's true So anyway, when they break into international
electromastics, which is his company, when they break in in sort
of episode 2, because Zoe speaks to a computer in our goal and
makes its brain explorer.
And then you can enjoy doing that too, Mac.
Yeah, yeah, but Mac isn't very good at our goal and neither am I
But I do at least know how to pronounce the word integer. unlike
Zoe.
And so he's laughing.
And like it's not sort of evil villain mark.
It's like genuinely abused and he does it quite a lot.
And there's one, one easily terrifying scene where Isabel
Watkins.
So Professor Watkins, um, who is being kept captive and he says
you know, you're an evil man and all of that sort of thing and I
would, you know, destroy you and and he gives him a gun.
Give him a gun.
And he's so amused and he's so...
I mean it's so wonderful.
And then he'll turn on a dime and he'll be screaming and stuff and
he's really terrifying and like really... with too much power.
He's wonderful though.
It is such an amazing performance.
Yeah, it almost feels like in the new series, in the Sontarian
strategm, they were kind to trying to go down a similar route with
the Luke Ratagan character.
You know, the smartest man in the room.
He doesn't quite pull it off because he doesn't have, I mean, I
suppose it's a matter of age.
You know, you couldn't believe a young man playing the Kevin Stony
part, playing Tobias Paul.
Well, he wouldn't get away with that.
No, I reckon you could.
Like, it could be like a young, because he just needs to be like a
tech startup kind of guy.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, but it is, it's just, it's just the variety of the
performance and things.
It's so wonderful And what's so worries as well is Kevin Stoney is
he's a tall man.
He's got that shock of white hair.
He's immaculately dressed and they piss him against Troughton, who
is small, clothe the 2 big forehead, dressed like a triumph, dark
hair, and it becomes a battle of the mines.
And right from the beginning.
At 1st Packer's like, 0 God, you know, who are those two?
Who are those 2 scrappy looking parent?
Bourne's just like, no, no, no, he's he's a danger.
Our allies, no him, packer.
Also, he's one of the most fun villains to do the boys for.
Oh, we're protected.
What about what about the cyber thing?
The side of thing behind the wall that has Peter Halliday doing
sort of like a funny, ridiculous wrecking fact.
What the hell is platform?
Who knows?
Well, according to Doctor Who magazine and their comic script
Planet 14 is Marinus.
Or the moon.
Yeah, there's a whole 6th doctor segue. to try and get like...
The board becomes cyber...
That was the world shape.
That was Scott Morrison of all people.
Oh, I think I feel like that Morrison.
This is actually the moment where they stop caring about the
Sidemen's origins in a way.
Maybe they've done that before that.
But, you know, like 1996, they arrive, 2070, it's the moon base
and everyone kind of remembers them.
God knows when Wheel of Space is set, like, who knows?
I believe it is the 21st century.
People say that, but it's not actually said anywhere.
And no one's heard its side and there.
And then there's the tomb of Simon, which is sort of the far
future, but there's a sense in which the Simon are from the
future.
They're from sort of...
Yeah, because chronologically, this is the earliest we've seen
inside there.
Yeah, yeah.
So somehow they're back in like and they've heard of the doctor.
So you must have had an earlier.
So I just don't think we care anymore.
And there is a sense in which the show has done that again.
When Russell reintroduces the sidemen, he does it in a great way
by having them from a parallel world rather than from like a
parallel universe rather than a mysterious twin planet.
And so they're invented in sort of 2006, essentially.
Yes.
And every subsequent reappearance in Russell's era, there is an
explanation for why they're there, even when they appear in the
past in the next doctor.
But since then we don't care and they can appear at any space or
time and they landed their spaceship, you know, centuries ago in
closing time and that shouldn't be possible, but we've stopped.
Yeah, exactly.
How they got there is less important than the fact they are
there.
And I think the cyberman sort of being strong, silent, heavies in
this is far more effective than it was in the wheel in space.
And I think again, that's partially due to the use of Tobias
Vaughan, because it gives them a human face, which means you can
put off seeing them in that great David Whitaker tradition of
prevaricating, revealing your monster without having a nebulous
threat.
You've got a tangible threat in the form of Tobias Vaughan.
So it doesn't matter that we don't see side memorators.
And then when we do see them.
Yeah, they don't speak very much because they don't have to.
I think they've got 2 lines of dialogue.
I don't use against Pete Halliday.
But they are just blunt instruments in this.
And there, despite the fact they don't speak, because you've got
the sign of a plan of evil treacherous and saying, right, we've
got what we want now, we can dispose of you.
The sidemen become terrifying, arguably for the 1st time since the
moveback.
Yeah, but in a sense, they're not really terrifying because
they're just a fleet of spaceship firing missiles at us.
And the whole end of it is all about that.
But all of that is so funny out of the sewers.
Oh, yeah.
It's iconic, but it's difficult when we start talking about, you
know, in terms of emotional reactions to this because we're not 5
and none of us listening to this are going to be 5 and we weren't
5 when we saw it.
I think I wonder if we kind of wanting it to be terrifying just
because we've got having an affair with this thing.
Because we are really.
I mean, you do kind of elevate your partner to the point of being
lovely, even for its sports that you don't really see.
I like to think it's frightening, but I think what makes it work
is actually the artfulness of the construct of it, that the way
they're articulated and the way they move and come out and the way
that they're held back for so long is and that, like all these
regulants, you could argue that maybe the Daleks really only reach
a popular core or get a 2nd loop when they've got Davros in front
of them.
Maybe the side of them only really work with because they've got
Tobias born in front of them.
You need someone to do the gestures to do the bases and do the
accent.
Yeah, I think it's a good idea to background the most scenes in
the moon base where the Simon go on and on in sort of episode
four.
No one wants to see that again, I think.
Whereas Tobias Mawn. listening to a printer going wrong.
Where's my form?
But, you know, Tobias Mawn just is fabulous every time he's on
screen.
You know, you said earlier that it was like a game of 2 parts.
But I actually wonder whether that's the case.
Like at the halfway point we get the cybermen, but they don't
really change the focus of the story.
And I was actually thinking, you know, other cybermen a mystery
sort of thing because in fact, I discovered the radio time says at
episode one that this is a new cyberman story.
So everyone's waiting for the side of the mentor arrived.
There's all this talk about emotions, you know, and Professor
Watkins, who will later go on to have giant hair and invent
Professor Kettlebell's robot.
Yeah, yeah.
Professor Watkins is inventing machine that creates emotions and
Vaughan says that out and, you know, like our associates or
whatever he calls them, you know, are particularly vulnerable to
emotion.
So I don't think it's a mystery that it's the cyberman.
So it's not a big game changer.
And then you get the sidemen.
Essentially, there's episode 5 when they're in the sewer, is that
right?
And then episode six.
I can't remember anymore, but it is very late in the game that we
get that very iconic cliffhanger.
And so I don't think they're all that important. to the story.
What I think is that this is told at a leisurely pace, but that's
tolerable because there's enough characters that we're interested
in to keep us going.
And so we've got Isabel, who I think is a wonderful creation.
Like Anne Travers was spectacular.
We have to be sorry that she didn't get a 2nd run here.
But Isabella is really funny.
She sort of, she hasn't got that much money.
She's super mod real.
Yeah, you can see her stepping out of any of the films that are
going on at the time.
She's kind of like a Junior Julie Christie, vulnerable, real.
Yeah, she's really like Paul Street, even though she's been to a
nice school.
Yeah, yeah.
But she falls in love with the very straight laced and sort of, you
know, very nerdy.
Not nerdy, but very concerned.
Jimmy.
It's Jimmy. yeah, that's right. struggling there.
So there's a Jimmy in it.
You always got a red shirt on that.
Have you noticed how the brick goes through his captains with a
line of regularity?
Well, according to the novel face of the enemy, Jimmy gets
syphilis and guy.
Stop it.
Sorry, according to the novel face of the enemy, Captain Jimmy
Turner and Captain Jimmy Monroe from Spearhead from Space are both
alive and well. in Doctor Who series 9 and the brigadier and that
goes out for drinks with them.
Oh, good.
That's lovely.
I just think that is really nice.
That little budding romance, which is quite sweet.
Hey, you stinking rich?
Yes, isn't that great?
All of that is so terrific like a smack on the back of the head
really.
It was just so you're really trying to be lingo here.
You're really trying to be street.
But yeah, at the time, it would have been fresh and surprising.
I like the 2 girls jumping around trying to do their own version
of Antonioni's blow up.
They're just missing David Hammings.
They're both trying to be, you know, the film blow up the same
year.
Oh, it's an amazing film.
It's got David Hemmings. as a photographer, unwittingly witnesses
a murderer.
It's put together from these long takes.
But there's a scene.
It's got an amazing soundtrack from the Yardbirds, and Herbie
Hancock, and it's, it's just the film of the year.
Vanessa Redgrave, David Hemmings, Penelope Tree, a whole lot of
groovy models of the 60s, and it's just this scene is meant to be
David Bailey.
But yeah, there's that there's that troping that thing where, ooh
have a drink where the girls are dressing up and doing that all
kind of lovely Modi 60s.
I'll put a little into the film.
I think you get an extra drink if trope becomes a verb, actually.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a new rule.
Troping the... frustration now and happening, doesn't it?
And of course it's got Dougie Campfield, so 8 episodes are still a
pleasure cruise.
Do you know, and I don't think we've talked that much about what
it is about Canfield's direction that's so good, but I do remember
here.
Yeah, all the shots are so well composed.
And you compare it to the kind of hazard stuff that was happening
in the studio in the early 60s.
Everything's really nicely composed.
People like stand up into the frame or move into the frame.
There's a wonderful thing where Tobias Vaughn has 3 round screens
on the wall of his office, and he'll go packer and packer will
like move into those screens from the left, like they'll move off
camera.
And then that's subverted at the very end when he calls a packer
and a cyberman.
He does exactly the same move.
We keep talking about how wonderful Kevin Stone is and how
wonderful Peter Halliday is.
But as he was saying, Nathan, all of the costs are just so good in
this.
Everyone is giving it their all.
Everyone has their own little story throughout.
Um, So much so that it wasn't until about the 3rd or 4th time I
watched this that I realised that Jamie and Professor Watkins just
kind of disappear in episode seven.
Jamie gets shot when, you know, they're trying to capture
Professor Walker.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So they adopt went into hospital. barely in the last 2 episodes at
all.
There's a filmed insert at the end where they're getting the
Tartars and go, but essentially he's absent.
But because all of the past are so good. don't really notice until
you're made aware of it.
I'm not saying that as a detriment to Fraser.
I'm saying that as The conclusion to the story is so fast moving
and there's so many things going on in different places that it's
a way to kind of go, okay, we are missing someone.
Let's make sure the audience doesn't notice.
Yeah.
It was this thing where at the end of it, I kind of felt like I
was glad that I'd spent that much time with these people.
And, you know, like it isn't, it's only a year, it's just over a
year before spearhead from space and we're going to have 37
partners in that season.
Yeah.
And like, again, I'm not sure how successful all of those are, but
there was something kind of nice.
If there's enough action and enough people, uh, like enough
worthwhile characters, staying with them for 8 episodes is
actually not uh, is not arduous.
And certainly many of the 6 parties last season are much harder to
see it through than this.
Yeah, absolutely.
And amongst those characters who are really fun to watch, we have
2 who will soon become regular allies, I suppose, as you might
call them, or regular supporting characters.
We've, of course, got Nicholas Courtney back, now promoted to
Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart.
That's a twist.
Did you see that note?
And yeah, it's rather wonderful. 1st time we, the 1st time we see
him at the story, he's climbing out of the cockpit.
So, you know, you get an eye full of Nicholas Court, his rear end
and then ta-da.
I'm wearing a moustache.
And of course, sitting on the cons unit and getting people on the
blow of the brigadier and spying on the doctor and Jamie in a
car.
Sergeant Benton, welcome John Levine in the flesh.
Well, so John Levine had been a yeti in the web of fear and he had
been a cyberman in the moon base, apparently, uncredited and he
was going to be a cyberman in this, but Donny Canfield sacked the
original Benton and kept turning up later recording and putting
their their schedule out and no one will tell us who the original
Benton was.
I don't think we know.
But then Benson gets promoted.
And Benton is in it all the way through until the Android invasion
is his last appearance last regular appearance and he gets
mentions in both Morden Undead and Battlefield years later.
So he does have a really long history of the pro with the program
and he is, it's just him and the brigadier from 60s units are the
only ones who survive.
And it's rather likely, you know, considering this is effectively
Doctor Who's 5th anniversary story, whether it was intended to be
a, I don't think, is that important.
It's rather lovely that this uses so much Doctor Who's past.
You know, the earth is under attack.
It's got cybermen.
They've brought back a villain from the art and era.
They brought back W.
Canfield, who directed part of the stories as well, but it has
something for the future as well.
Setting up units.
It's bringing in Sergeant Benton.
How conscious is that?
According to Derek Sherwin, it's quite conscious that.
The writing was already on the wall, even for this 1st pile of
production block, but the costs needed to be brought down for
Doctor Who.
But he was told very late in the day.
So it's like, right, you can only turn a cruise liner so fast.
We'll start turning around. the most expensive Dr. Moose story to
date though, apparently. makes sense.
You know, he also said he was sick of all this blundering about
space.
He thought it was...
So, yeah, he was pitching this idea of earthbound stories
political thrillers will have a regular cast.
So even though, you know, we'll have to spend money on us.
Yeah, we'll have to spend money on yeah, it's troubleshooters.
It's the concept that Sidney Newman rejected.
Even though we'll have to spend money on battle sequences and
whatnot will save money on standing sets and happy.
So it's the celebration of the last 5 years in the beginning of
something quite different.
Yeah, well, it is it could have fitted into season seven, I
think.
When the perjury era comes along quite soon.
I do have many, many critical things to say about it.
But one thing that I really like about it is an expanded regular
cast, and it's one of the things that both Russell and Moffatt, to
a lesser degree, have tried to do so that it's not just a story
about 2 people and everyone else is new every month, that you get
to know a bunch of people.
And like in the pertry era, you know, I'm not saying that Benton
and Yates are particularly well characterised or anything like
that.
But they are familiar faces and they do eventually become people
that you're invested in.
And it does, I think it helps the show enormously.
And so here where you have, you know, Jimmy and Benton and and
Isabel and, you know, Professor Watkins and, you know, like a
whole bunch of people who are sort of who you're reasonably
invested in, who are kind of interesting enough.
I think it makes the show quite you know, quite fun to watch.
Absolutely. absolutely.
And it's got units based in a flying converted Hercules.
Yeah, yeah.
Is that cool?
Well, they definitely haven't did have a good space on a plane.
Yeah, then we get the valiant later on.
Cloudface.
Well, I think that that is a, like, I think that Moffat must have
done a deliberate invasion reference.
And that's the other thing that we haven't mentioned is this is
the definitive Cyberman story.
Yeah, certainly when there's Cyberman...
Yeah, we're in rise of the sidemen and age of steel, which I think
are a bit underrated, having the cyberman a threat in contemporary
London, you know, like I think, and in international electromatic
so I actually get a shout out, they're actually mentioned in it.
And this, the sidemen marching down the steps of St.
Paul's has been redone twice, once for more than 30 years in the
TARDIS.
And then again, for Dark Water and Death in Heaven recently.
Well, you know where that comes from, though, don't you?
We've cited it before, and it's Canfield deliberately, you know
did it.
It's shot for shot, a tempkin, but ship the champion.
It's the same shop used in Gilliam's Brazil, and it's used in
Scorsese's Untouchables.
The soldiers marching down the yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's an iconic thing long before we got there.
And coming back to something you were saying earlier, Richard
about whether this is scary or not.
The reason I find that cliffhanger to episode six, so scary, when
they're all marching out, is you keep thinking the music's going
to cut in now.
The episode's going to end and I'm going to be safe.
But no, we cut to more cybermen and more cybermen and more
cybermen.
It's the equivalent of... the shot at the beginning of the 1st
Star Wars film where the ship passes over you and it just goes on
and on and on and on.
And then there's more and more and more, and then finally the
music cuts in and you're safe.
Well, the credits actually scroll up them.
I mean, there's sidemen walking along past that pub, but they're
while they're closing credits.
But earlier on, you've seen that they haven't even stopped with
the music.
Yeah.
But earlier on, you've seen that they have to revive one at a time
and I'm thinking, really, have they got the time to bring, you
know, there's not probably only that 8 of them.
They've got to do them by hand.
It doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?
That you could zip, zip, uh, Anyway.
Well, they're controlling the whole world through their iPods
anyway.
Yeah, that's right.
That's a nice thing.
I don't know.
I don't know why they're picking on London.
It would have been sort of more sensible.
They're actually coming from the side, so quieter communities, but
then you wouldn't have been able to do campfields, money shots.
So long as Vaughan is an egomaniac.
Yep, he really is.
To you, to buy us.
You were fabulous.
I was going to say much like most podcasts out there, but not like
ours, I'm sure.
I'm really glad we've ended this season, haven't we?
Yeah, because this just went out before Christmas, didn't it?
So it's nice that we're back at this point now.
I was really glad that the year ends on this high.
Yeah.
Did they take a break?
Like, are there a few weeks before the next story starts?
don't think so.
I think they just went straight into the Crotons.
Yeah, I don't think they really did mean season breaks until the
70s.
Right.
But they did do them in the 70s, didn't they?
Yes, they break over Christmas.
Yeah, they did.
Right, so before we go, remember, you can always enter our
competition.
Just comment on the page for this episode on the website and
you'll be in the running to win a target novelisation of your
choice from a selection we have available.
Our next episode will be out next week discussing the crotons and
the sea, top death.
Seeds of death, Seeds of Doom.
I always get them mixed up.
No, it's seeds of death.
Don't look at me confused.
I was going to do that here.
No, no, I was trying to work out whether to go.
But then I realised that Bernard Breslaw is not in seeds of
death.
No, that's right.
He doesn't do.
The phone machine is back.
Hooray.
And also, the anniversary theme continues with one of the guest
stars of the Crotons being quite famous for having played a role
in a Hartnell story, but we'll talk about that more next time.
Goodbye.
Oh, goodbye.
Why?
Thank you.
You have been listening to Flight Mentarity with Nathan Bottomley
Brennan Jones, and Richard Stone.
This episode, Surprise, I've got a moustache, was reported on
November the 30th.
The next episode will be released on December 21st.
You can find us online at Friday entirety.com, fly through
entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast on Twitter.
This episode is dedicated to Ian Fairband, who played Gregory in
the invasion.
I'm going to say the word tiresome over and over again.
Oh, we're recording.