Hello and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor
Who podcast, which is likely to explode like glissal trinitrate.
I am Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm a soggy mess on the floor.
We're in we're actually in Richard's home, and that's why he's
like that.
But it's also because today we have to discuss the space pirates.
And the Wargames.
So we're going to head towards Alpha Beacon now.
There are lots of space Rs with the space pirates.
Now, Nathan, I believe this was yours.
I think this one is, and this you're welcome to it.
This is a bit of a historic one because it's actually the last
Doctor Who story to be completely broadcast in the UK before I was
born.
Oh.
So this is really my episode.
It's an episode that much like Christmas celebrates the birth of
Jesus, this episode celebrates my own birth.
Our Doctor Who got good after you were born.
Or cancelled, perhaps.
So I've done a missing episode update before.
And gosh, this is a missing story, isn't it?
This is the last story where any of the episodes are missing.
Five out of the 6 are gone from the archives.
And the only one we have is episode 2 and episode 2 is shot in the
studio on 35 millimetre film.
Is that a thing?
believe that's correct.
And so that it's thought that that's why that episode was retained
for kind of historic sort of purposes.
Yeah.
Another couple of interesting factoids about the missing status of
this episode.
First of all, a copy of the episode was recovered from a private
collector actually recorded off the television on an early video
recorder.
It's the earliest known example of a terrestrial video recording
of Doctor Who, this episode, episode 2, and the other thing is the
current rumour on the whole Philip Morris missing episode search
is the reason that we haven't had any more episodes returned and
released is because they're actually trying to lose episodes one
and 3 through 6 of the Space Pirates.
Yeah, well, fair enough.
But so what we do have, and everyone knows this, I think, that we
have full soundtracks of all of the missing episodes, thanks to
dedicated geeks who used to sit in front of the telly with a, you
know, like a, a cassette recording, family denying children.
Yes.
They would send that everyone...
They would said everyone from the room, close all the doors and
windows.
Do you remember doing that thought?
I was doing that on pyramid of Mars.
Actually, there's only one.
And yesterday, everyone, shut up, be quiet. to be quiet, it's very
important that I understand exactly how much of a plaything.
So tech Tom is intended to be in this.
I remember I remember once... recording one of the Tom Bakers we
didn't already have during the 80s repeats.
My nan was visiting and we set the VCR to record.
And that wasn't Queen Zangxia, that would be a bit.
I think it might have been hons of normal.
But as we were recording, um, I turned to my nan and said
something, it was such, you can't talk while it's recording and I
had to explain that no nan video recorders don't work that way.
But no, but that's the thing.
She, because it was important to me.
She just didn't say a word.
Yeah, which was absolutely good.
Also that she was in apoplexy trying to work out what the hell you
had on TV.
Cause of Nimon?
I only just remember that.
That's really nice because she passed away about a year ago.
So that's a really nice memory.
Yay.
Thank you, space pirates.
Wow, you did something nice.
Yeah, well, I think we're done then, really.
Yeah, we are.
The rest of us.
So I actually found that the surviving soundtrack is actually not
very good.
It seems sort of muddy and poor and everyone's doing a sort of
crummy accent and so it makes the dialogue very hard to
understand.
And there are no telly snaps.
So John Cure, who was responsible for the tele snaps, wasn't
engaged.
And there's a whole character.
Madeline Isigri's father who is rediscovered spoiler alert in sort
of episode 5 or something.
There are no photographs of him at all.
I really hope he's wearing that aluminium bakolite wig that she's
wearing as well.
He's got his own... version.
It's an organised.
From the boat, from the Argos, from the boat, from Jason's ship.
No, no, it's model from the same wood.
Oh, it's the same.
From the UK mail order chain.
It's 2 shows, isn't it?
And I like reading like the one of the shows, which is what would
happen if all of Kubrick fanboys just had 2001 come out and just
said, that's it.
SF is about spaceships moving inexorably, i.e. bloody slowly
across the screen, harshly lit from one point because that's what
the Apollo shots we were getting Apollo 8 has just gone off, hasn't
it, to do?
We'll be talking about the last week doing its rectation around
it.
So it's really just for fanboys who love models.
It's a straight boys show, this one.
It's all guns and no frocks, as you might have said.
In spite of that, I actually really liked episode one, and I think
that the model work is amazingly strong.
Yeah, I love it.
For the model work.
And we still have those clips, of course, we have all the film
trims of the model work and people crawling out outside Alpha Bean
under tumble dries in space.
And loose cannon does a great job.
There's some CG and all of that sort of thing.
Like they have to go to a lot of work.
And so the pirates, so the pirates are raiding these space beacon
things that are made of argonite. which is the most valuable
substance in the universe.
I'd like to get back to that because I'm interested in exploring
the question of how many most valuable substances in the universe
there are.
Well, it's all a matter of time period, isn't it?
That's so amazing that this is so Star Trek, but they really
hadn't seen Trek yet.
No, Star Trek did not premiere in the UK until after the war
games.
It took, I think I mentioned last podcast.
It took Doctor Who slot.
Yeah, 1970.
It was on on a Christmas break and it was there because colour was
being premiered by BBC.
Yeah, not many people.
Oh, yeah, exactly, not me.
So you know what?
It's quite possible that Derek Sherwin may have known it was
coming up and kind of went, oh, let's do space first.
Although I like Richard's idea that it is very like 2001.
Yeah, I think it's jumping on Kubrick.
But that's only visually.
The pitch was pirates in space.
We haven't done that yet.
But visually these models are great.
So there's no stars in the background, so it looks a little bit
less fake.
The pirates who are raiding these space satellite things have
something that looks like very predatory and black.
It's a really, really cool model.
And then the space core people who are following them have this
fantastically sort of flat model thing, which I've never seen
anything quite like, and all of that stuff looks really good.
And in the 1st episode.
The 1st episode just has 3 sequences where they raid one of these
space stations and it's basically the same footage over and over
again.
But I still found it sort of reasonably gripping and entertaining
and you want to do it 3 times because the 3rd time it subverted
some change in the pattern, you know, the doctrine and things are
finally on board.
But I actually thought that that was quite good.
And I, you know, this is the last story that I'd never seen.
I hadn't seen it before the podcast.
Now that I've seen it, I've seen every Doctor Who story, even the
ones that don't exist.
You know, if you'd like to touch the hem of my robe, you could
email the podcast.
It is a very petching shape of shot.
Yes, that's all.
Yeah, so that 1st episode, I think, is quite entertaining.
But the big striking thing is, and what I'd like to explore, in
this sort of part of the podcast, is why does everyone hate this?
You know, this is one of the most loathed Doctor Who stories.
And part of it might be, it takes 15 minutes for the TARDIS to
appear.
See, for me, it's not just that it takes 15 minutes for the TARDIS
to appear.
It's that the doctor, Jamie and Zoe then spend the next 6 episodes
running into a room where the door is then locked behind them and
they stay there for a little while.
So the 1st 2 episodes, they're locked on the beacon.
And then they're locked on the lids.
And then they're locked in a room and discovered Dana Secri.
And then they're locked in the office with Madeline and then
they're locked here and then they're locked underneath the
spaceship and it's going to burn the doctor to death.
You know, it's all about them getting locked up somewhere while
the plot is happening in the next room.
Yeah.
And that's, that's really my thing about this.
So there's a production reason for it isn't there?
I mean, we're talking about the last episode, yes, but so the
production, in the last episode, they're not, they are actually in
it surprisingly a lot, but they're not in the studio.
They're all pre-recorded because they're off doing location work
for war games during episode 6 on Brighton Tip.
But there's a surprising amount of them still in it.
But I mean, basically the production issue here is that Pat is
complaining about the workload.
And he set the odd episode off unconscious sort of over the years
but, you know, we saw that the mind robber episodes were all sort
of 20 minutes long rather than sort of 25 minutes to reduce his
workload.
He'd been complaining a lot.
And so he is really peripheral to the plot.
And I just think, you know, this isn't the last time it will
happen and it's not the last time it'll happen in a Bob Holmes
script.
But the rest of the cast aren't really strong or interesting
enough to, um, to hold, you know, to make the rest of it
entertaining, I think. absolutely.
I mean, some of them are not.
Lisa Danielli, as Madalena see Greek, is very strong.
Dudley Foster as Cavot.
I mean, Dudley Foster strong in everything.
But 2 strong characters who only meet towards the back end of the
story don't really add to that.
And you certainly have memorable characters in this.
But when I say memorable.
I'm talking about Milo Clancy.
Kevin is a genuine sadist.
And the thing is, we're the only surviving episodes, you don't get
to see him.
So we forget that there's that menace, the unspoken and unpresent
character all the way through.
He's a monster villain.
Oh, he's great.
And, um, our show, we always come back to, and I will be talking
about more later this podcast, The Avengers.
He had just played a very good villain in that, in the very
memorable episode, something nasty in the nursery, in which he
ran...
He was running a school for nannies. and his name was goat.
So he was nanny goat.
But he was very menacing in that.
He was so, so stupid.
There would be coats in that one too.
Woo-hoo.
Yeah, yes.
Well, on the cutting real floor, though, so there's a little bit
of it, yeah.
And then she turns up and take me to your leader, but we're not
only getting ahead of us.
I'm getting completely...
But that's how boring this episode.
No, well, it sort of isn't a decent, though. boring because we
don't get to see a lot of it.
I think that, you know, they say, oh, the acting is totally acting
as dull. one of those great stories where you don't get long
tracks of info dump.
You get 2 tracks, but keeping the doctor out of it for episode one
means that the exposition's all done for us.
So he doesn't have to find out.
It's a nicely, a nicely done way of it.
The people writing this behind it, and Terrence, especially, knew
the tricks.
Actually, this is the thing.
Terence is seen as kind of, well, he's not elevated, maybe even
you know, to the ranks of Bob Holmes and such like, and you both
had the pleasure of meeting him this last week, didn't you?
Well, seeing it. you know, looking at him.
But hearing at you.
You met me while I was dressed as Katie Manning and was just
completely speechless.
Yes.
And it prompted you.
It prompted Gary Russell to say, well, Terrence, welcome to
Australia.
With a Sid Jones laugh, yeah.
But you see, Terence is a bit of a genius because just because
he's so quick and he's so adroid at what he does, it kinds of gets
him alive.
But he knows what he's doing.
So this thing, yes, sure, it's a space western space pirate thing
but it's not poor in a way that it could have been.
We got a lot more pace than gunfighters, and we really love
gunfighters.
I think it's slow.
It's Bob Holmes, though.
I mean, Terrence is scripted at it, but it is a Bob Holmes
script.
And it does have a lot of hallmarks of the Bob Holmes script.
I mean, it is quite similar to Power of Kroll, and very, very
similar to the case of Andrazani.
Yeah, yeah, I've got this theory that he pretty much does every, he
had this, this story is one he wanted to write and one he was
passionate about.
So he rewrote it about every 10 years, in my opinion.
So case of Andrazani has like 2 main planets, like Andrazani
Matron Minor, like Delta Magna and the 5th moon of Delta Magnet
you know, in Power of Kroll.
The 2 planets are called Lobos and Tar, and I never actually
managed to work out on which one we were.
No, it's very different time. isn't it?
It's Coast Avengers.
Yeah, no, this is what this is what, thank you for joining us.
So then there's Spectrox and Argonite, the most valuable substance
in the universe.
And of course, meat bane.
Yes, meat.
My mind was just wondering, because I was thinking, honestly, it's
actually just the adventures of General Chilek, isn't it?
Coast Adventures aren't, but that is, if you think, I'm trying to
remember what the name is.
Her Mac.
Hermac is seen as, you know, really a dull blunderer, but actually
he's the worst kind of villain, because he's a stupid man and a
bureaucratic stupid man who thinks he's clever. and has other
people agreeing with him. is quite remarkable, and I say that in a
way, as in, he is to be remarked on because, as of course, played
by legend Jack May, he's got that wonderful voice and is possibly
most famous to listeners as Igor in Count Duckular.
And also Gark bit the head waiter in the TV adaptation of
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
What I find so remarkable about his performance is he plays it
completely straight.
And the problem is when you're doing that with Jack May's voice
sir.
It comes off as unintentionally comedic.
And the thing is, this could have been quite a darkly comedic role
if you had have had an actor who was playing Hermac, as if Hermac
takes himself seriously, but no one else takes him seriously.
But Jack May takes it entirely seriously.
And it's really jarring with Donald G, who gives a more
naturalistic performance.
Except for his accent.
Oh, but you can't really blame him for that.
Yeah, I think it's the accents that let this.
It's not Michael Heart's direction and it's just, that's kind of
how that British actors in the late 60s, which is the greatest
distance we have.
It's interesting watching these things.
There's still a sense of a media seat for us, isn't there?
Because it's the familiar.
But if we watch anything else from that period.
It's so dated.
Anything, any film you watch from this time, all of which were 3
hours long with 2 intermissions.
Everybody was doing long, long, long pictures at this stage in
cinema.
Yeah, well, Doctor Who was yet to really have a good American
accent that I can think of off top of my head.
You know, you had Captain Hopper.
Yeah.
I think it's written accents, you have the gunfighters, but as you
say, Richard, that was just part of...
Did you watch him another show?
Other than Dennis Spooner's things for ITC, like the champions
which hadn't premiered yet, only if you're watching BBC or
standard ITV shows, you were hearing these kinds of American
accents.
It's what they thought Americans sounded like.
Yeah.
As far as the British year went.
And the Australians were the same.
Have you seen any Australian shows from like 60s?
The Skippy comes to mind, but there are a lot of other spy shows.
All those American plant smugglers.
Yeah, the ones.
Didn't General Putler was an American or Canadian.
But he wasn't actually an American.
Yeah, I don't know.
That sounds terrible.
So why do we hate this?
I mean, is it just forgotten?
Because we can't see it.
It's like the smugglers where no one cares about it because no
one's really seen it and it's not that exciting or is there an
actual reason to really not like it?
I think it is just the reasons we mentioned, but the doctor is not
really involved in the plot.
The plot itself is quite repetitive and the characters are
memorable.
But not necessarily good.
It's certainly the beginning of Robert Holmes writing wonderful
strong, memorable characters, which in just 2 stories time, he's
going to really crystalise into writing a killer script, but on
this occasion, It just doesn't quite work, and that could be the
rushed commissioning of it because much like the crotons, his 1st
script, this replaced a script which fell through at the last
minute called the Dream Spinners.
Yeah, and that's right, because the Impersonators was Mac Hogg's 4
part of for the, for what was going to come up as Paddy's last
story, wasn't it?
Yes, that's right So things were falling through there, which is
why we get a 10 part finale for Pat.
Yeah, 2 stories were meant to be there, which fell through
invaders from Mars, which ended up being ambassadors of death
Whittaker's last script.
Right.
And also something which fell through in either the Space Pirate
slot or more likely the 1st 6 episodes of the War Games was the
Laird of the Crimin, which was...
Mervin Hazman and Henry Lincoln.
And were they still speaking to anyone at that moment?
You see, that that actually fell through quite early.
But that had been intended as the way to write Phraser out was
going to be a six-part story set at the McQrimon Castle with the
Yeti attacking and Jamie would have to then stay behind and become
the laird of the McCrimon.
So he would go back and he would succeed his father. love to see
that.
Don't you think it would have been an allegory about why war and
hatefulness are really good?
If it was by then.
Well, it's not...
This is more about civil war.
Actually, yeah, and I think in a in a pressing way, it would have
been about Scottish referendum.
Yeah.
I don't think that would have been too bad.
I really like the 2 yeti stories they did.
Yeah, it's a shame we even get this.
I believe they were going to be cows who turned into yetis in that
story.
Oh my god.
So they would have...
It would have been bovine yetis because, of course, the Macrimons
had pastures and had casual and they were going to arrive in
episode one and people will be saying, oh, the cows are actually
very strange.
And, you know, end of episode one would have been the cows
storming the castle.
That would have been great.
I mean, played by Tim Brooke Taylor and Bill Oddie in the same
Heffelump. pantomime dromedary skin, they weren't a goodies.
They did start to make the outfit, which was later remade into the
market.
So there he was.
Really?
You see, already this sounds more entertaining than a space pirate
why are we talking militant cows?
Why aren't we talking about the space pirates?
So, I mean, I think you just asked the right question.
Yeah.
What do you think, Richard?
I mean, why do you think we hate this?
You don't.
I don't.
And I've got average viewings of 5.5, 5.7 all the rest of it.
So it did a lot better than, you know, things around.
I think that's because it had space shots that might have been, you
know, that premiered.
The show did get publicity.
So you were looking at little picks and bits on BBC.
Oh, space.
It was a big thing.
It's got space in the title.
So we'll watch that.
I just think it's Bob Holmes.
And he got a lot of work from them because he had great fresh
ideas and all the rest of it.
But basically he does piss stakes and usually they work really
brilliantly because the humour is concerted within the story.
It works within the, but here, when he kind of sends up what he's
doing, I don't think it ever works as well.
And he's done that a few times.
He did it with the 2 doctors.
When he sits above and beyond the narrative and makes fun of what
he's doing.
I don't think it's ever entirely successful.
And my gut feeling is that's what he was doing with this one.
Sandifer kind of has that theory as well.
He sort of thinks that occasionally what Bob Holmes will do is
give the audience what they want. you know, in order to show them
choke on it.
Yeah, that's right.
In order to show them that and, you know, power of Kroll again
which is pretty widely hated.
I love to.
I like it too.
And again, I think it's a remake of this.
It's all of that sort of thing where, you know, the evil
corporation is in league with the people who look like they're
going to undermine the evil corporation and you get that in all 3
of these stories.
And like even sidelining the doctor is common to all 3 of them.
They are really so similar.
Absolutely.
And that's the thing.
I do think that when he revisits this story for Power Kroll in
1978 or almost 10 years after, and then again for Caves Van Rosani
6 years after that, it improves each time he does it.
And it is, of course, such a shame that he passed away when he did
in 1986.
It would have been wonderful.
He was a contemporary, I think, slightly older than Terence
Sticks.
He could still be with us today.
It's such a shame that he did pass away.
But I also think it's a shame that he couldn't revisit this story
again.
Another story I compare it to is Kevin McClory constantly wanting
to revisit Thunderball, the James Bond film.
So he revisits us, never seen ever again.
She's only got the rights to one story.
He was going to try again with Warhead 2000 featuring Timothy
Dalton, which never got off the ground.
And I don't think that's too successful because he Kevin McClory
was so fixated on I have the rights to this story.
It was more about having the rights than had in the story, whereas
Bob Holmes.
Space Pirates, Power of Kroll may not be the best stories.
And I would argue Caves of Andrazani is not a great Doctor Who
story, controversial, but will get there.
But...
Great story though.
It's just a great Blake sentence story.
But that's the thing.
Robert Holmes passion for storytelling comes through in this
despite all, it's many, many, many, many, many, many flaws.
You can tell Robert Holmes is having great fun writing the space
pirates, even if he's just saying, right, you've given me a
shopping list.
I don't want to shop for this.
You want chocolate?
Fine.
I'm going to get you chocolate with chillies and eggshells
embedded in it.
That's what that's what I get from the story.
And on that level, I can enjoy it because it's Robert Holmes
saying, you want to give me 2 weeks to writers?
Fine here.
Yeah, it's the rushing at the end of the season.
I think we just had too much of the same thing for too long.
Well, I mean, I actually think season 6 has been more varied and
interesting than season 5 and you're going to talk about...
I'm reminding you.
Yes.
Foreshadowing.
Because I, I mean, I've, I didn't like season 5 until the very
end.
I thought the very end of season 5 is where they get the base
under siege formula, right?
This season...
Yeah, like in Fury and Wheel.
But this season, I think, has at least tried to do some of the
crazy things that we got in the heart and all era.
And I kind of like that.
I don't think this comes off.
I didn't find it very entertaining.
Can I venture to use the word tiresome to describe it?
I would have never thought you'd describe it.
I think it would have really worked as a Tom story.
Well, I sort of had a lot of fun with this.
Yeah, I would have, and it would have been nice to have someone
who wasn't just eye-gougingly terrible playing Milo Clancy.
I mean, I really think he is just appallingly bad.
I think that's a genuine piece of actual human hair on his face.
Everything looks like it's been thrown across the room.
Yeah, awful.
Just awful, shockingly bad.
And that accent and all of that.
And it's not a misconceived character.
You know, we'll see Firefly takes the well worn tropes of the
Western and applies them to a sort of space opera in a way that
this attempts to, but it does it in a way that doesn't make you
want to sort of, you know, beat your head against the wall while
it's on, you know?
So it's not that the characters misconceived at all.
It is that sort of corn pone down home, crummy accent that he does
and the stupid moustache.
And it's not helped by the fact, you know, again, there's like one
photo of him.
You know, so it's the endless looking stupid, you know, over and
over again in the recon that we have to put up with.
You know, I realise I haven't really said much positive about this
story.
So I will say my big positive for this story, and it's something
we commented on in the protons.
We have a far stronger female character written by Robert Holmes
in the shape of Madeline Siegrie.
She's a complex character.
She has her own motivations.
She is not truly good and virtuous.
She is not truly evil and horrible.
And I think she is easily the most interesting part in this.
And once again, she has a slightly flirtatious relationship with
the doctor.
And it's always...
It's a different thing, isn't it?
I'm assuming she's blonde, even though we can't tell.
But it's always blonde women of a certain age.
You know, that you throw them in.
Yeah.
So, you know, if nothing else, that's a really good thing to come
out of the story.
Robert Holmes is writing best for women.
Yeah.
She reminded me a bit of Kraut Tim and...
I was just going to say, yeah.
She's left standing at the end of it.
You know, she's a lady in an office.
She's not quite as fabulous.
Keeps the desk, good. to keep the desk, to own the furniture, which
in any divorce is okay. should get the house as well.
I think.
Well, I think she gets the planet, so that's something.
No, no, she goes to prison, don't they?
taking her off for trial.
She gets a big house.
She gets to be in the beach.
Look, I'm sure that'd be nice to her.
Yeah, I'm sure they'd be lenient.
Well, she'd break off bits of her argonite hair.
That ignite hair.
What the hell is that?
Do we know it?
A secretary has it as well.
I don't know.
I think it's just a status symbol, like, works on a Troy's wigs in
Star Trek, the next generation.
Yeah maybe that's it.
It is very strange.
I think Cornell has a theory.
Yeah, sorry, so it's the status thing I was thinking of, Nigel
Baron in next generation.
So it stays simple to look like a washed up Vegas showgirl. science
fiction troops.
No, it's either about time or the discontinuity guide that
suggests that she's using a head as a kind of showroom for the
company's main product. time.
She's a mutual, isn't she?
She is.
She's a proto-mutoid.
Golden mutoid.
Yeah.
When you get to the other side of the board and you get king
there's a mutoid.
That what happens.
Okay, you lose your black fibreglass head thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Now you just beat on the blood of script editors.
Well, we've spent a lot of time talking about things that aren't
the space pirates.
Look, it's the one I usually give a miss to just because it's a
thing.
It's a thing at the end of the series and has whizzy spaceships.
And as a boy, I would have loved it had I been watching this
season for all the things.
It's for kids.
If you'd been able to see it too, I think.
It doesn't help that you can't see it.
It's totally good for kids.
And it does some clever things.
And but I think what it is, and we're feeling the ennui that
Trouton himself was feeling is it's kind of, it's kind of hard to
watch these last few stories.
I think getting a sense of drudgery that the actor himself is
going through is really doing his best and pushing against it and
that's never a comfortable thing to watch.
Now, I have heard from a few of you at home, dear listeners, that
you actually like to listen to the podcast while you are watching
these stories and what we're saying might be putting you off.
Something I am going to recommend is a website called Hooflicks
who do cutdown versions of stories.
Flex.
Sorry, who flicks with an I, not who flexes in that top shot of
Matt Smith doing the routes.
I was thinking was it, yes, listen, Hamish, what's his face and
Fraser Heinz auditioning self for selfies.
No.
No, but I think we need to span the future.
No, but Hooflix has actually done a 50 minute audio edit of the
space pirates to try and tighten it up a bit.
So those of you who don't want to sit through off 6 episodes like
we've had to.
I do hardly recommend that and we'll put that in the show notes.
So see, when you said while, I actually thought you meant it the
same time that people were watching it and what listening to the
podcast.
I have had 2 people say that to me.
Jamie Bave.
Hello, Jamie.
So Brent Wilkins.
So I recommend that you get 2 iPod touches.
You know what I mean?
And just play, like, press start at the same time on the who flex
version of the park.
And I can't believe that we're not going to go on about the space
pirates for another 20 minutes in this episode.
So you could just listen to them at exactly the same time in one
in each year.
Well, I suppose what you could do is you could slow us down to
about one.4.
Oh, I always listen to the podcast.
I like to savour it.
Yeah, I actually sound like Barry White, the way I listen to the
podcast.
That's terrible.
Space Pirates.
I really I've never bothered with it, to be honest with you.
That's why they might have been quieter.
I watched bits of it.
I've sat through sort of, but it's just never grabbed me.
If I was 10, I would have just loved it.
Oh, here we are.
This is, this is a hard one.
It is, it is.
It's hard because it's absurd.
Do you know what we're saying with this one, boys and girls
sitting amongst me?
This isn't just about the end of Patrick Troughton's reign of
Doctor Who, and I think Nathan, you have something to say about
what it actually also is about the end, maybe or...
Oh, it's about the end of the show, isn't it?
Yeah, I cancelled.
I was really wanting to oppose you on that one and say, no, it's
about the beginning of a show called Doctor Who's spelt fully
Doctor Who.
It's last time we see DR dot on the credits.
But I actually think it's about the death of the 60s, and the
death of the revolution, and Patrick being the sinequanon, the 5th
element of the revolution of what it is to be a 60s
revolutionary.
The doctor has always been expect, except perhaps with Billy, has
always been the zeitgeist of the time.
And he will be from now on.
He's of the period that it's actually filmed in whatever you want
to say about him being timeless.
He's of even down to his clothes, his what he is in the period
that it's made.
I think even Billy is, you know, in the war machines, he fits into
the Inferno.
He loves Vicki, who's, you know, that symbol of youth revolution.
Yeah, he's very youthful.
But Billy's an anti-hero and he belongs out of time.
He is a grandfather, because we mentioned before, grandparents in
the 60s did look like that.
They were rewarding children.
This one's about how this the revolution didn't work.
It didn't come across.
It didn't happen.
San Francisco fell apart.
We'll talk about what Ronald Reagan as governor of California was
doing with riot squads and bullets, firing into the crowd.
I don't know why it doesn't get a mention now.
We talk about how harsh the some police are now with student
uprisings.
This is when it was actually going on in the US and in the UK as
well there were.
There were difficulties at the beginnings of race violence.
But yeah, we've got this right here.
And it does it against a backdrop of various wars and wars are
about revolution.
Wars are about wanting to take what one country or one community
has and change it to what you have.
You know, so the big one we've got here.
You would hope so, except that this one's about a war that
everyone agreed by this stage was the most awful time.
It was to this point, it was the most carnage the most lives lost
in the most horrendous way.
Up until this point, I suspect still now. unless we're including
Afghanistan.
No, no, I mean, you're talking this is it.
Yeah, this is it.
You weren't allowed.
The British censors.
I was only up until the 50s and then up until the 30s, only poetry
was allowed to be published about this war.
Plays only started and comment was in the 50s and dad's army
hadn't appeared on TV yet.
The only humourous response, if you can like it, the only ironic
response as were to the Second World War, this was still seen as
too awful.
I think it's really extraordinary and brave to be setting the end
of Doctor Who, if you like. at a point where there's no
compromise.
What does Paddy say?
Let's get out of here.
Yeah, he doesn't attempt to come in and save anything.
I think it's very interesting that this season starts with one
producer who commissioned a story about how wonderful war is and
we must find everyone and it ends with another producer. having
this 10 episode story talk about how horrible war is.
So can we can we talk about how it starts?
Like we arrive in the middle of World War one.
We see barbed wire in just about the 1st shot and there's bombs
and gunfire and a period ambulance, we're very, very quickly in
the 1st World War.
But it's actually the 1st time that the TARDIS has ever landed in
20th century. history.
I right about that?
Yes.
So we've never been...
Oh, with one exception.
The Feast of Stephen, but it's the 1st time we've had a proper
story, said in 20th century history, where knowledge of huge
throwaway gags.
Yes.
Okay.
But it's clear sort of straight away that we actually aren't
really sure where we are.
So like the gorgeously, fabulously posh lady Jennifer who's
driving the ambulance.
She isn't sure where we are.
You know, the doctor says that we're apparently on earth.
And there are just these quiet hints that we might not be in on
earth at all.
And they're just in the dialogue, but basically, this is just
World War one.
And it's a period of time where the doctor can't cope.
So he can cope with Daleks and Cyberman.
He can talk his way out of things here.
Here is sort of subjected to a court martial and sentenced to
death by firing squad.
And at the end of the episode, he's apparently shot.
Like the episode ends with him tied to a post and you hear the
gunfight, gunfire going straight at him.
And it is this thing where faced with real human evil and real
proper history rather than stupid science fiction monsters, he's
completely out of his dad.
Can we just take a pause there?
Nathan, did you just say that you therefore feel that the
historicals are far more engaging for a viewer than perhaps the
shooter historicals?
Thank you for the vindication.
It really is the end of it.
Brilliantly the doctor.
I was going to add, Brendan, what do you think?
I was going to add that this story is so much stronger until the
spaciness comes in.
And it's not just the folk that BBC getting everything down to the
King's Regulations issue being the right font and that, yes, I was
nerdy enough to look it up.
The tin mugs are accurate for the period that they're drinking
from, the stuff on the walls, the paper that they're holding
everything looks exactly right.
So when he goes, when General Smythe goes in and looks at the woo
woo screen. the 1st shutter, it feels so right, and that's as a
period piece, which is why you get that friction.
It's a real thing happening.
And the doctor is out of his depth.
General Smythe as a character is much more disturbing until he
goes spacey.
He's much more, he's much more dangerous as a mad journal.
In a way, I actually think it makes him even more dangerous
because, like you say, Richard, people weren't discussing the
First World War at this point.
And so...
Well, not in media in TV shows.
For entertainment. now, Yeah, it was.
But something that does come up in entertainment based on that
Gallipoli, breaking around.
Much later, yeah, yeah.
It's all about how mad and insane and stupid the generals are.
General, so Anthony Cecil Hog, but they melt it. is completely
insane.
And that matter.
And both he and Smythe are based on General Hay of this period, who
was literally sitting sitting way back in chateaux, sending
soldiers off to their deaths and being drunk on the fantastic.
Yeah, absolutely.
So what we have with Noel Coleman as General Smythe finding that
screen and being controlled or speaking to someone in another
place in another time, we have what at the time was quite possibly
a controversial explanation as to why the generals were nuts.
The generals were nuts because they are not us.
You're lettering, aren't you?
No, and I think that that's right.
And I have to think that this is Malcolm Hulk, and I have to think
that it's intentional.
I'm not a historian and I'm sort of lamentably ignorant about 20th
century history.
And when it comes to an explanation of the causes for World War II
that always seems to be sort of comprehensible and fairly
straightforward.
But World War one seems to be this sort of bizarre, complex, tawdry
sort of colonial thing.
And clearly, it wasn't in the interests of any of the people
fighting at any of the actual soldiers fighting it that it should
go on.
I mean, there were 1000000s of people killed for King and Empire
which are just kind of crazy things, you know, that are used to
inspire the troops. you know, people who are conscientious
objectors.
They would male, you know, white feathers to them and stuff.
There was all this strong moral pressure about participating
because it was felt to be a moral obligation to participate.
And somehow the ruling classes.
And like I could be just giantly off beam here and if I've said
anything massively offensive or historically inaccurate, just
email Richard.
So they have the power to compel these people, the rulers, the
generals have the power to compel these people to obey, okay?
And that power is, you know, the power of the chain of command, you
know, the power of the officer, all of those sorts of things.
But it's, it's, it's specious, it's made up that power.
And so it's represented here as this magical hypnotic power, which
enables the general to force people to do whatever he wants.
And then later on, we'll meet Von Weich, who is on the German side
who has the same power and has a lot in common.
In fact, we see them together, don't we?
Spoiler alert.
So they have more in common than the people who are fighting than
they do with the people who are fighting on the different sides.
And so we do have, we do have just sort of science fictionalise
the way you said, this commentary on the power of people to trick
or compel other people into fighting for things that aren't in
their interests.
And very importantly, they're tricking good people.
Lady Jennifer, Lieutenant Carstairs, look, the German officer
Captain Ransom, you know, they're all good sympathetic characters
and well-rounded within a few lines of dialogue, which is Malcolm
Hawk's trick, but they are made to do.
Evil, terrible things, you know, saying that the doctor is a spy
et cetera, et cetera, by orders from their general.
And yes, they're induced orders, but it's just carrying that
carrying that metaphor, carrying that allegory forward.
It's terrible because it's shown again as a mirror of 1st door
hall and the 60s revolution, which is really what this is about.
It's not about the 1st World War. about what we've been seeing in
the media for the last 4 or 5 years through Vietnam, that genuine
decent people are manipulated, like puppets, like actors with a
script, by those, Illuminati, like, again, we mentioned the
prisoner, the upper echelons don't really belong to any side.
They're their own side.
So we see, as you say, we see the 2 so-called generals from
opposite sides actually meeting together, just like some
Illuminati pyramid, which, by the way, was getting a lot of
attention at the time from California, that was the 1st time we
were hearing the stuff of that there's actually a powerful elite
that's running the world, and Patrick McGoon's prisoner really
encapsulates that. this is a very strong reflection of the mood of
that as well.
This is about how we were supposed to change the world and it
hasn't happened because we haven't been able to get at the
isolated minority who are still in control.
That's why this is so dark.
So what we have is this situation where there's a giant base and
various zones in which all of the world's wars are being fought.
And although it doesn't say that in the story, thematically what
it seems like is what you've said.
These base is full of people, the people who run things, and those
people are making those wars happen because they have a plan of
their own, which we learn, but that has nothing to do.
It's not told to any of the people participating in the world.
You can't read it from where you are.
No, you're too small on the map. right.
Do you think it's then possible that the reason that Malcolm Hawk
and Terrence Sticks didn't include the Second World War is
actually because unlike the 1st World War, it is difficult to
criticise the purpose of Britain getting involved in the Second
World War?
It was seen as the Good War and the Just War, whereas this was
still...
I think very interesting, and I'm glad you raised that.
The reason this was, you know, partly made might have been that
Richard Attenborough's, oh, what a lovely war had only just been
on cinema.
And in fact, the locations of this are the very same locations
Brighton tip, that Dickie Attenborough's thing, filmed by Charles
Crichton, who wrote the inestimably brilliant journey, Journey
into Space, Journey into Space.
And I just listened to it again on BBC 4 internet radio.
It's the 50s Dandair kind of radio show about British astronauts
that was the last program on radio.
The same here in Australia too, because I've asked my old rellos
ancient rellos, who that it beat TV ratings, more people would
turn off the TV to listen to Charles Crichton's journey into
space.
He later did The Goons.
He did a lot of directing of the Goons.
He directed a fair hitch of the 1st season of Space 1999.
Did you do a fish called Wanda?
You know what?
He did.
That's right.
Thank you.
Charles Croydon.
That's that famous line of lions led by donkeys, which was
actually spoke on the Crimea, that it was used to define what
happened in the 1st World War, and it's what the Australian
writers were later saying, you know, happened to us at Gallipoli
all the rest of it.
This is, as you were saying, this is about a really sympathetic
reviewing of how awfully wrong we got it, and there is no way to
rescue it or redeem it.
It's other than to say that people on a small human level acted
heroically against odds where they could never have succeeded.
And there are lots of bits of that, aren't there?
There's lots of individual, heroic things, which I think is sort
of is lovely to watch and people like Carstairs and, you know
David Troughton's character and all of that sort of thing.
Just for the moments, private more.
It's great to see David Trouton, isn't it?
Apparently that scene was added in and written as an audition
piece for him just to see if he was okay.
And I think it was just done as a thank you to Patrick for
sticking through it for so long.
And he's terrific in that scene, I guess.
Absolutely.
That's the naughty German journal.
I'd also like to single out a particular parade, David Garfield
who plays Captain Born Reich. who just manages to be very, very
menacing.
And as mentioned by Jane Sherwin, whose Lady Jennifer in the
making of somehow manages to be incredibly sexy, despite the fact
he's 5 foot 6.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, that kind of both... playing a horrible officer.
I'm not prescribing myself at all.
We should also say this is, did you ever read Fred and Jeffrey
Hoyle's SF when you were kids?
They were, they were kind of, but beginners of hardest, Seth, and
Fred Hoyle was a proper scientist, but he wrote a book that
everyone was reading at the time, apparently called October the
1st is too late.
I had it as a kid.
It's atomic blasts, caused disjunctions in the timelines.
And people are brought together just as happens in the beginning
of this story.
So it's worth having a look at, if you like, SF from the period as
well.
So we, Brendan and I were at Lords of Time 3 last weekend, just so
for a week ago, and Terrence Dix was in attendance, and Terrence
is a sort of famous raconteur, and I had spent the day before
reading the Doctor Who magazine archive of interviews with
Terrence, and Terrence pretty much word for word replicated those
things in his session in loads of time.
Not that I'm complaining.
It was all pretty entertaining.
But he did talk about this story.
And he did sort of express the opinion that it was a little bit of
a runaround, that episode one was very strong, that episode 10 was
very strong, but the rest of it was all marking time and it was
all sort of repetitive escape battles, you know, that sort of
thing.
But I have to say that that's not how I see this at all.
No, no.
And Terrence did acknowledge in the interview that when it came
out on DVD, the 1st line of the review in Doctor Who magazine was
something like lines of Terrence Dix has been calling this a
runaround for 40 years and he's completely wrong.
And at that point of the interview, Terence just sort of threw his
hands up and, oh, what do I know?
But I think part of what makes his story so strong. is that, yeah
faced with having to write 10 episodes because Led and McCrimon
Dream Spinners, the impersonators, whatever you like, episodes
fell through.
And they needed something to go into a 10 episode slot.
They didn't have time to try to work with 2 writing teams.
So it's like, right, we'll have 110 episode thing.
Terrence Sticks, you have to write it.
Terrence turned to his, then landlord, Malcolm Hook.
They'd already written together for the Avengers and Malcolm Hawk
had written previously for Doctor Who.
James was a kept boy.
No, no, no.
When I say land, Lord.
I mean, literally, Malcolm Hawke owned his own house in the house
around the corner.
The cottage around the corner. all making sense.
Anyway.
And so they wrote it together at a rate of, I think, Terrence said
about 10 days per episode.
And when I say 10 days per episode.
It wasn't day one to 10 was episode one.
It was like day one to 5 was episode one, days 5 to 10 was one and
two, and so I think what makes it work is really, it's full
stories, which overlap.
So you've got the 1st story is they're in a war zone.
The 2nd story is, ah, they're in a war zone and someone else is
controlling it.
The 3rd story is we're going to go to the people controlling it
and we're going to mash them up and the 4th story is the now
famous episode 10 where the doctor's past catches up with him and
those stories all overlap.
And I think that really is part of success.
It's part of the reason that much further down the line, the
attempts to do something similar with trial of a time lord is less
successful because those stories are compartmentalised instead of
overlapping.
And plus they're terrible.
They're not terrible anywhere.
But the war games.
The war games kind of does what Doctor Who now does, which has a
series of self-contained stories, but also they have connections
weaving through them.
So, okay, we might have bits in this where people get locked up
and then escape.
But before they escape, they learn something new.
Well, I mean, I think I think that they do a great job of sort of
foreshadowing what's what's coming in episode 10.
And I think we should talk perhaps about episode 10 at the end
because I think it is quite different.
I think the story ends in episode 9 and then we go off to another
story in episode 10.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, episode two, we see Smythe going into something that
dematerialises with the Tartar sound, you know, in episode two, we
start to see the control room that's controlling everything by
episode three.
What about that control?
I know. we talk about that?
Someone said something brilliant.
It was Toby Toby Hadoke and Rob Shearman in running through
corridors.
And they say, because by now, viewers at home, listeners at home
will know that the war zones are all fake.
They've all been created on this planet and there's a base in the
middle of it. which is real.
But as you said before, the war zones are meticulously creative
like all BBC popping, we really know their job.
And this one, once you get into the actual reality.
The real part is crazy psychedelic, talk to us.
Sergeant, Sergeant Stripes, silver and bread that you walk through
Negro. wibbly wobbly table tops that look like something straight
out of Casino Royale and under the 68 version.
There's lovely...
Yeah, you have those lovely tiles on the thing, the lighting.
These sort of clear plastic strips.
It's a panto game show to Ronnie's musical comedy, Sean Connery
but it all ends up lair.
It all looks so desperately hit, and we've not talked about any of
the characters who inhabit this strange psychedelic space. some
bitchy triumvirate.
But they all look like they're just hip cats, you know, who've
come from a jazz club or something.
Well, they're the exaggers, aren't they?
What, the 60s should have been, the rich hippies that took over.
So they modelled themselves on what the revolution was about, but
was all just superficial.
They just modelled themselves on the Nehrus, which was symbolic of
the Indian consciousness uprising there by Gandhi, of course. and
that there was there was supposed to be a collective consciousness
rising that would change the way governments are formed.
But of course, the ruling elite simply take the iconography and
change nothing at all underneath.
Yes, I really like that actually.
There is that sort of fabulous tension between how heap and up to
the minute and fabulous they all are in their day poor is and
how...
They see it as nothing but another consumer item.
There's no content in their thinking.
They're grindingly evil establishment, people.
It's unthinking, as you've seen on those last things.
It was great year for internet rivalry politically when those
bindings were published on the IQs of Republicans and Democrats in
the US.
The Democrats just sailed forward with much higher education
standards and more functional responses.
Yeah.
Now, I'm not sure where I'm going to go with what I'm actually
saying next.
It's just occurred to me.
But the clothing designs seem to be so important this year in
Doctor Who.
So we start off with the Dolcians who are weak, so let's put them
in dresses and the dominators with their huge shoulders, so they
are strong because they have a huge profile.
In the invasion, we have all the military uniform, so you can
trust the military, but you can't trust the man without the
collar.
And again, we have the villains who don't have collars in this.
You know, they don't have a traditional suit.
So like you're saying, Richard, they're taking the design of the
revolution, which is getting out of the suit and getting into
something more free flowing, but turning it into something
something evil.
In the future, we have the seeds of death, where they have all
their very high stiff collars and rubber outfits and they're all
very contained and what have you.
It depends on garments.
It depends on the garments.
Well, you've also got that friction within the writings writers
themselves.
I mean, Terence Dix has said to us.
He comes from a colonial family.
His family were prominent in India.
He's told us and that he believes that colonialism was a very good
thing for people under the empire.
It taught them the political structure that kept their country
going after the British moved out. whether or not you agree.
But you kind of got that here as well.
They're saying, sure.
I think it's also just a tick box, but it's futury.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I think it is, but I do think it is striking and certainly, um, you
know, the show's done futury before, but it's never really done
anything like this.
And if you've never seen this story.
That is just the most remarkable thing.
They're beautiful.
The sets are stunningly beautiful and stunningly late 60s.
It's very game show.
And they're very musical into it.
The guillotine half-cut door is the security chief's office with
the psychedelic pattern on the wall.
Yeah.
And but the security chief himself is so square.
And, you know, what is super, you are, you know, God Shakespeare
as Lawrence Olivier doing, Richard. you know what?
Lots of fans make fun of James Bree.
I think he's great when everyone appears.
He plays it as cold and stylised. shut down as the person would
actually be and afraid.
He's very fearful.
That's his major motivation.
So in, in, in, can we talk about the transcript, the war chief, the
warlord, and the security chief?
Well, I was just going to say, security chief.
Yes, it is often people who are in charge of armed forces who are
very afraid and let that fear make their decisions.
They do.
We never get to see a security kitchen, but I bet he did a
terrific omelet of fina. coming in from the front.
So you've got the security chief and you've got the war chief.
And they're the main guys, you know, for a while.
So the war chief, he's like a sort of hipster Klingon, really
isn't he?
From the 1960s.
Fabulous fair.
What are those mutton burns?
I know.
And the moustache and things.
You only see them again in the mid 90s as arm tattoos.
Both Celtic swirls.
Yeah, not only did we have Le Metra a few stories ago.
We now have Leon Colbert back as the war chief from the reign of
terror.
Oh, is he?
It's the old Colbert.
It's the traitor who Ian killed.
I've completely forgotten Reign of Terror.
Yes, remember, Barbara's quite taken with him, which is
understandable.
He's very handsome.
Oh, amazing, handsome.
Yep.
Colbert.
I remember that.
So, so, um, he is from another race, the war chief, than the war.
Yeah, so he's kind of in charge of it and it looks like he's
supplying the mysterious time capsules that disappear with Tartar
sounds.
And then it's quite early on.
Is it episode 3 that we hear him, his people refer to.
It is, we hear about warlord constantly and then there'll be a
little adjunct.
One of the characters with his back, I might be James Perry.
No, it's not.
One of the characters has his back to the camera when you 1st hear
the term.
Time law.
That's it.
But it means nothing to the audience.
I think, okay, says there are lords of war.
Yeah, there must be Lords of their time travel thing as well.
We hadn't actually heard the real nerdgasm here.
Hadn't heard the Tardis traditional takeoff or landing sound for
18 months.
Have you noticed he's had the handbrake off for the last 18
months?
He's been making woo woo?
Go back and have a listen.
Yeah, we don't hear it.
We haven't heard it.
We hadn't heard it for 18 months.
Yeah, we haven't.
Go back and have a listen.
It's really noticeable in crotons when it's all...
So we have so we have him and it's gradually revealed that he's
like a consultant to this whole experiment.
And then he and the security chief don't get on and they sort of
bicker and all of that sort of thing.
And he thinks that the security chief's competence. marriage mate
in him.
Yes, I think that something's stopped or arranged marriage never
worked out.
He doesn't buy bring her flowers anymore.
Put the garbage out.
And we learn that there's a warlord as well, who's one of the
security cheeks people, and who they both report to.
But we don't actually see him.
We hear that he's coming for a few episodes.
And so a lot of the central thing, a lot of the central part of
the story, sort of centres around those.
And we actually get the doctor and Zoe, you know, wandering
through that base and attending lectures there and helping out the
scientists with the conditioning machine.
And we get a whole, the wonderful Vernon Dopcheff.
Yes, he's terrific.
I think he's the one who actually mentions Time Lords for the 1st
time.
Am I right?
I think you might be wrong.
So, and that's that sort of throwaway line when they close to it
yeah.
And then, and then we do get a scene and it might be...
I can't remember whether it's episode 5 or so.
No, episode four. scene in episode 4 where the war chief and the
doctor see each other and the war chief clearly recognises the
doctor. a chilling moment.
It's unbelievable and it's really, it's absolutely coquettish.
He flirts with the god.
And he continues to do so for every single scene.
He circles around him and it's all raised eyebrows and mues and
honestly, he leaves James Carecross for dead.
It's really full.
I believe we were talking about this earlier.
I believe that the war chief was the war witch in a past story and
that he and Billy had a little fling.
Or at least had a little, yeah, well, he recognises the doctor
instantly, even though it's made clear they haven't seen each
other since the doctors left the homeworld.
Gallifrey's not being named.
Yeah.
Oh, no, no, absolutely.
That's so he reserves atocious.
I think he has an only very recently because he's kept some of the
accoutrements.
It's very rare in Mama Cass's outfit just taken in a bit of that
hair.
Come on.
So they actually speak properly in episode eight.
And by episode eight, the war, lords, arrives, and we'll talk
about that.
They have a sympathetic understanding between them two, don't
they?
They have a, and we get all of this stuff that we've never had
before.
So we know that the time lords are the doctor's people.
We know that they've left their home planet.
We're here for the 1st time that the doctor stole the TARDIS, but
the doctor won't tell us why he left in episode eight.
So we still don't know what the thing is.
But they're huge revelations and they actually change, you know
like I think they substantially change the premise of the show.
And you can get, you really, really get this sense and, and, you
know, presumably people watching knew that this was Pat Trouton's
last story.
It had been heavily publicised in the paper.
So, but you do get the sense that what's happening here is what
again, Philip Xander calls a narrative collapse, where the threat
is that Doctor Who will end as a TV program.
And that's a real threat to the audience because they tune in
because they like watching Doctor Who.
So it's the only threat that can actually affect you as a viewer.
And you really do get the sense slowly that the nature of the show
is changing around you, that the show is being dismantled.
And that will happen completely in episode 10.
I think when the show is finally dismantled and the doctor loses
in what is really striking.
We watched it just now, didn't we?
It's really sadly done.
It's not just the end of Patrick Charton character, but it's the
end of all of those hopes for the 60s of overthrowing. of what
we've seen already. of it's worked out.
And he's really destroyed.
He's one of the last lines he has is she won't really remember me
will she, about Zoe?
Everything's taken away from him.
And that's foreshadowed in the previous episode, and this is
something a lot of people have criticised about the story.
I think episode 5 is the last episode that Lady Jennifer
Buckingham appears.
Yes.
And of course, when the doctor is saying to everyone, look, my
people will get you home, but I have to go.
The only person he lets come with him is Carstairs because Kyasco
says I want to find Lady Jennifer and the doctor just sort of
sighs and says, oh, that's, you know, sighs to go, oh, of course
yes, please come.
And then casting sort of just fades away.
And I've spoken to people who say, oh, that's such a betrayal. such
a travesty. like, no, that's war.
That's war, you meet people and fleetingly, and then they're dead
or you never see them again.
They fade away and then they reappear together in a World War I
end. live happily ever after.
Maybe they do.
But that's the thing.
It's that uncertainty.
It's the same uncertainty the doctor faces.
Last time he sees Jamie.
Jamie is running after a red coat waving his sword about.
Jamie could be shot the very next second.
Is it the same red coat that he's locked up with in episode two?
I know you want it to be.
Yes, because I thought they were very sweet together.
I'm sure that they would settle down.
They would sort out their political differences and settle down
somewhere and have quite a happy life together, make lovely little
bannock burns together.
On a completely unrelated note.
I think we should share that lovely story we heard from Jeffrey
Beaver's last week.
Oh yes, please.
Jeffrey Beavers, who we're getting warehead of ourselves, played
the master in 1981's keeper of Trarkan, and was married to the
sadly late Carolyn John.
And someone asked him because he'd already spoken in his interview
about Carrie's passing and someone asked him about Carrie
recording.
And there's Beslayton's autobiography and, you know, how she must
have felt given that she knew that she wasn't wrong for this
world.
And Jeffrey Bigger said, I think it was the last or 2nd last thing
she did and she did it because she loved Liz so much.
But if that was the 2nd last thing she did, the last thing she did
was she recorded the gospels, and I produced those, because Carrie
was very religious, and I'm not religious at all, I'm a complete
atheist, but we made it work somehow for 40 years, are they?
You know, it's just...
There is a spirit of romanticism in Doctor Who, I think, is what
triggered me to think of that because we like to think that
Carstairs and Lady Jennifer ended up together.
I think that it is in the text. you know what I mean?
Like it is one of those just gentle, slowly developing love
stories like Leo and Tanya in Wheeling Space.
And there's one in, is there one in Fury?
No.
Well, there's already a couple in Fury.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Harris was in Fury.
Yeah.
So, you know, that sort of thing, which is kind of sweet, I
think.
And certainly, I think that's definitely there.
It's not just us reading into it.
It's just possible that I might be, you know, overinterpreting the
text when I suggest that red coat and and Jamie get together.
Exactly.
Do you think everyone was watching it?
I think it's in there.
Mac put it in there.
So the only scene shot in colour, wasn't it?
I remember.
Jamie Seidling up to him and saying the red really brings out your
arm?
Is that why he said eyes?
It was the accent.
So episode 10?
Episode 10.
Although 9 is pretty amazing, isn't it?
Because it is the doctor completely defeated.
And they have defeated the war thing and the war other guy and, you
know, everyone's like the security chief's been killed by the war
chief, which is sort of hilarious.
That's a hilarious death.
James Bre, God knows what he's doing.
B does wonderful death scene.
That's really surprising this did not feel like a slog.
No, no, no, that's it.
I think that there's enough things going on, that there's enough
plot development.
So I watched 9 episodes in a day because I'm crazy and I wanted to
get it done and I wasn't bored.
I didn't make the mistake of just sitting there motionless, you
know, growing bed sores on the couch while I watched them all.
Do you know what I mean?
I would get up and make myself a cup of tea and things between
episodes.
But, um, journey flipped to your brazen graven image of Lulla Ward
and the other one.
Well, yeah, I would do that, light a little candle and things, but
you know, like I didn't find it hard going and it is because
enough different things are going on.
And episode eight, you know, like, sorry, episode 9 is really a
sort of fantastic climax.
Everyone's been defeated, but what the doctor can't do is get
everyone home.
Yeah, so the Sidrats, side rats, side rats, side rats, bizarrely.
So those the special space capsule.
Are you being served changing cupboards?
They look exactly the same?
No, it's No, it's like what the goodies used to.
Yeah, that door.
Goodies changing all that comes out.
It's grain.
Because you can't eat mice.
So, you know, they can't get everyone home because the space
capsules are all running out of juice.
The doctor can't control the TARDIS and there's 1000s of people
you know, that are affected by this scheme and so he has to call
the time laws in.
Not to save the day, he's done that, but to help all of these
people.
Yeah, you can't delete them there.
No, he can't be camping himself.
And and their arrivals really terrible. terrifying.
Do you know what I mean?
There's this sort of howling, scary noise as if something's
descending. when the doctor, you know, they all run off in order
to escape them and Philip Maddock, whom we haven't talked about
yet.
That's just amazing.
Done. says that Philip Maddock says that, you know, the doctor
will wish that Arturo VR had killed him when the time lords get to
him.
So we made to be scared of the time lords and the doctor is scared
of them as well.
And we know that the doctor was exiled, right, from the very 1st
episode, don't we?
But we don't know what from or why.
And the idea that his people, that he's scared of his people and
that his people are, you know, incredibly terrifying and
powerful.
You know, I don't think that's anything that we would have
predicted, you know, not from the monk or from the doctor or
anything.
Other than that, he said, we can't return.
Yeah, we get back and it's not necessarily just the steering
column that's gone. wrong.
It's nicely done, though.
Brendan, you were saying, that threat, that ontological threat
that isn't diminished in this.
You were saying, you don't even get to see the capital.
This is all the trial is in the customs base.
Pretty much, is it?
Yeah, it is.
They hadn't even passed bag check.
It's 5 minutes away from where the TARDIS land.
Yeah, the TARDIS, the cradles are right.
So, no, no, no, no.
This is they're just the blokes at customs.
They're not even the really scary guys.
They're just the ones who wear the kitty uniforms.
We see the master.
So this final episode, we just said on Galafray.
So it's just like we see the master wearing the same frock that
they're wearing in...
And the master when the master looks into the untempered
schism...
He's wearing the same outfit that the time lords are wearing.
Yeah, so it seems to be something that only novitiates wear before
they get their big collars.
These guys are just customs officials.
They making how powerful the real ones are.
Before we move on to Gallifrey fully.
Next, something you were talking about is how this is starting to
take apart what Doctor Who is and deconstruct it.
That really starts even earlier in the story because towards the
end, we have based on the siege, but it's the humans laying siege
to the base of this type.
The humans are finally fighting back and they're not just sitting
there.
They're not they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it
anymore.
The last purge of what a revolution should be about.
Yeah.
But yeah, it's the failure of the revolution because they take
over the base, but like, what now?
We don't need this space.
We don't want this space.
We want to go home, but home don't home's not real.
Home is a construct.
It's this mind blowing inversion of last year's doctor.
But then as you do say that, then we end up on galafray.
This whole, let's not call it galafray.
Let's call it the doctor's home plan.
Yes, that's right So we end up on the we end up on the doctor's
home planet and we see, you know, it's it's fairly insubstantial
plot-wise, isn't it?
Yeah, really.
We're not eating the pth row, are we?
We're just...
Yeah, we're just outline.
Stats.
And so it is pretty thin as far as plot goes.
There's a little bit of peril, isn't there?
Like the warlord arrives and his guys with guns shoot a couple of
technicians who are dismantling the TARDIS and stuff.
And then, you know, then he's captured and put on trial.
And maybe this is the time to talk about how magnificent Philip
Maddock is.
Yes, yeah, because, you know, he's just static.
Philip Meddock's character in this, the warlord, he's always so
still.
You know, unlike Edward Brayshaw's war chief who wanders around
talking about we are masters of an entire galaxy.
Philip Maddock will walk into a scene with someone talking to him
and then stop and stare at them.
Oh, very well, you may proceed.
But there's no mannered response at all.
It's done totally straight.
Yes, absolutely.
It's the least actually part that we've seen all year.
Well, Maddock, I mean, Maddock was in the crotons, and I think
when we were talking...
Is that pretty straight, too?
Yeah, well, I think he has this ability to be terrifying while not
going big.
Be real.
Well, no, I still think it's a bit camp and a bit mannered.
But that's not a criticism.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it's presentational, you know, he's, he's, it's not a real
performance.
He's conveying to the audience, he's conveying to us that he's a
frightening person.
But he manages to do it.
Like he'll scream and shout and stuff when he needs to, but it's a
really contained and really still perform and it's really, really
menacing.
And he's terrific on trial.
Like he refuses to acknowledge the time lords authority over him.
You know, he won't respond to the questions until the time Lords
of the time.
Yeah.
It's exactly what Eichmann was doing.
And then the same lines.
I do not recognise the authority of this court.
Right, yeah, yep.
Yeah, that's interesting then that the element they bring in from
World War 2 is hammering home how evil this villain is and how
self-serving and how how he has such a lack of empathy.
Well, I mean, we've had.
We haven't been to World War 2 before.
No, but that's what I'm saying.
This is the one element of World War 2 that's thrown in and it's
thrown in to show how evil this person is.
Well, we've been we've been happy to use echos of Nazism to make
villains and aliens more evil.
That is that is something that show has taken from World War 2
even if it won't actually go to World War 2 until, you know, its
2nd last season, unless I'm probably the last season.
Last season, last season.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, gosh. 25 years ago.
Feeling old.
And so we get that.
He's terrific and then he gets disintegrated.
He never existed or something.
It will be as if you would never existed.
And I'm sure I remember that from my reading of the target
novels.
Which is pretty good.
Yeah, it's thin.
Well, it's a very time lord. you know, their time lords, so they
can do timey things to...
They let you play out your own heart.
Did you notice they didn't step in?
They let the war, Lord, and his evil, gimpy suited, get smart
minions with welder glasses because that's how you dress as an
evil minion and do that little thing and even kill 2 of their own
people.
It's a bit surprising.
At the time, I know how missing it are there.
There's a nasty part that makes me think that they let the time
once have always, you know, they have prescience.
They would know, could see that this would be an eventuality.
Let them play it out to curse themselves. you know, let the
villain dig his own grave.
But they're not worried about any casualties in the meantime.
Well, they weren't lords where they were probably they were
customers officials. that's right.
And then we get, what we get is this sort of amazing thing in this
episode where it references an unprecedented number of previous
Patrick Troughton episodes.
So we see the footage from fury of the deep as the TARDIS lands in
the water.
We see the TARDIS in, uh, sort of enveloped by uh, uh, when the
doctor appears in his trial.
He mentions a whole heap of monsters and describes their, you know
main characteristics and things, starting absolutely inexplicably
with the quarks.
Yes, but, you know, yes.
And here's the Maya bistro, right?
That's Meridius.
Oh, wouldn't that have been correct?
The slither.
And he so he mentions we see little clips from all of his previous
adventures with these other monsters. newly filmed.
Were they mostly filmed?
newly filmed.
John Levine was 2 of them, I believe.
Wow.
I didn't know that.
The yeti, yeah.
Yeah.
So, this is, you know, in a way, uh, in a low-key way, uh, a sort
of unprecedented celebration of of what the show's been doing in
the past 3 years under Patrick.
And of course, when Zoe and Jamie leave, we get little specially
shot, bits from Wheeling, Space and Highlanders describing their
final date as well.
And so it is a huge celebration of the Trout and era, and we
haven't had anything like that.
No, no.
And certainly Hartnell didn't have one because Hartnell's
departure story wasn't really about his departure.
No.
And we were kind of trying not to bring it up too much.
In fact, it's afterpower of the Daleks, it's never mentioned that
the doctor changes his appearance until this story, and this story
it's clearly foreshadowing because he'll change his appearance at
the end, but do you remember the war chief says to the doctor, I
recognise you?
I know you've changed your appearance, but I still know who you
are.
Yeah, yeah, it's reminding me.
Yeah, so it reminds us, and that's what's going to happen at the
end of the story.
My favourite thing, though, I think, in that final episode is the
little mini adventure where Jamie Zoe in the Doctor Escape from
the Time Lords, for just a little moment across that very strange
set, and then they're recaptured almost instantly.
And the doctor knows from the very beginning they're not going to
get away because when Zoe says, oh, you know, we've got to at
least try and kind of turns away and sighs and rolls his eyes and
it's just like, no, I'll do this for them.
Yeah, you know, this is one last adventure for them.
It's tiny mini adventure and the most spectacular set with all
this dry ice and stepping stones and things like God knows what
function that serves on the planet gala on the doctor's home
planet.
Sorry.
I don't know what that room is.
But it is lovely, isn't it?
It's very sweet.
And I guess the departure of Jamie and Zoe, to people think.
I think it's very interesting that as soon as they're gone, that's
when the doctor says they won't remember me, he doesn't say it
before they leave because he doesn't want to upset them because
they won't know that they don't remember it.
But even that 30 seconds, that horrible realisation that you're
going to lose the most amazing time of your life.
The doctor kind of goes, no, it's better if they don't know.
And we get it years, years later with Donna when the doctor wipes
home every, she knows what's going to happen.
That's terrifying. you know, when she's screaming.
I burst into tears.
It's a mental rape.
I was really angry with Russell for riding it that way because it
felt like this is just...
Yeah, violating her.
Yeah, violation.
But, you know, he feminist and all the rest of it was.
You know, he the doctor knows this terrible thing is going to
happen to Jeremy and Zoe.
So he saves them the emotional horror of it.
It's still a horrible thing, but it's kind of like they mean so
much to him that he will carry the pain instead of them.
And I'm welling up now just thinking of it.
It's really awful ending.
That moment, it's that thing where it's the thing they reshoot in
wheeling space and they get Tanya back.
They can rebuild some of the set. and Zoe can kind of nearly
remember something.
And she looks back, but she looks back towards the camera.
It's directed in such a way that she's on the screen looking back
at the doctor who's in the courtroom just as it fades out.
And like we've been, we've talked about companion departures and
things and I think, you know, Barbara and Ian, obviously, like
anything to do with companions, you know, anything involving
Barbara.
She's the best companion.
They get the best departure ever.
But I've got to think that this is the 2nd best so far.
I'd agree with that.
I think I voted for another 2nd best previously.
What would that have been?
I think it would have been Victoria.
Because again, it's actually built up.
The producers of Patrick's era sort of start to realise that they
need to take more care with the companion departures because as
hurried as it is with Ben and Polly's departure, at least the
story is about their absence.
Yeah.
And they get home.
And yeah, it's a lovely scene because the doctor's actually quite
clipped and, well, here you are then.
You're home.
Are you going to leave?
Oh, okay, fine, you are.
They're sweet and Polly sweet.
I think it's a good scene.
Oh it's absolutely a good scene.
Yeah, actually, yeah, all the 2nd doctor's departures are quite
well written and especially quite well played by Patrick.
Yeah.
But this is heartbreaking.
I agree.
It is, sir.
And I think there's a, there's that reference to it at the
beginning of, in one of the pertween novels.
I just remember, you know, the doctor thinking about the faces of
Jamie and Zoe, as they said goodbye, you know, and that was one of
his sort of heartbreaking memories, and it's really, like, it's
really easy to believe.
I think it's, uh, uh, it is a great uh, departure, see in a
terribly sad moment.
So what about the dismantling of the show?
We see people dismantling the TARDIS?
We see the doctor unable to escape.
We see it now his adventures are over.
The humans are laying siege to the aliens.
Yeah, he's robbed of his face at the end.
He's headless there's...
Interesting.
I've really never noticed that before.
I must have seen this a bunch of...
You know, the production reason being pert we hadn't been cast
when they were filming this, but yeah, it's quite disturbing and
especially the Doctor Who has been very anarchic up until now.
His departure is, as he received, into the distance, just
screaming, no, over and over again. which we don't see into again
until...
Episode 4 of the next story.
Well, I was going to say...
I was going to I was going to say Silvan, Paul McGann, but or
really Eccleston every time he tries to smile.
But no, you're right.
It is all about the dismantling of the show, but it's because they
know that the show is going to be very different.
The show at this stage is on its last legs.
Season 5 of Doctor Who was averaging 8000000 viewers per week, this
season is down to less than 4000000 during the war games.
The writing's on the wall for Doctor Who.
And pretty much Derek Sherwin and Barry Letts were told they'll
have one more season because Sherwin knew that he wouldn't stay
for all of the next season.
So Barry Letz was already there in the background and they were
talking, look, you've got one more season.
And at the end of that season, what we want is we want an outline
for what you will do with the following season, i.e. season 8 of
Doctor Who, but we also want an outline of a new series because we
may just cancel Doctor Who.
That's why they were allowed to change the format as much as they
did for John Pertley, because the BBC were going, we're taking you
off the air anyway, do what you like.
Right.
And, um, This is where I'm going to talk about Season 5 versus
season 6 of Doctor Who, because many podcasts ago, I said that I
thought season 5 was more successful.
I'm going to clarify that now by saying I prefer season six.
But season 5 was more successful.
For the reason that Rich and I keep coming back to the
homogenisation of the series, A la the Avengers.
Now, just a few comparisons here, because season 5 and 6 of Doctor
Who, and season 5 and 6 of the Avengers were roughly
contemporaneous.
So season 5 of The Avengers, like season 5 of Doctor Who, was the
season that followed a formula for international sales.
Now, the Avengers had already sold internationally, Doctor Who was
trying but failed.
See, which episode, which season is season 5 of Avengers?
It's the colour M appeal season.
Okay.
So pretty much, especially about the 1st 16 episodes, probably the
formula of reclusive scientist slash politician is killed and
another one and another one and another one.
Ooh, big bass. lets have a fight.
Like the hidden tiger?
Like the hidden tiger.
Exactly.
People are the I know one.
In the hidden tiger.
People are being killed by insert menace in this case.
Cats controlled by insert base.
Yeah, control by insert celebrity Ronnie Barker.
Yeah, Ronnie Barker controls cats to kill politicians.
Was it Ronnie Barker?
It was Ronnie Barker.
I've forgotten that.
Perchway's in it though, isn't it?
Bert was in from Venus with Lob.
Which is really good.
Now, Doctor Who, in the same season, of course, is following.
It's based on the siege formula.
And as such was incredibly popular.
Season 6 of Doctor Who, they start doing more interesting and
varied things.
There's still the base under siege elements in there, but they're
going off to other planets.
The side men are invading Earth, where we're going into a land of
fiction, that kind of thing.
Season 6 of the Avengers, of course, Diana Rigg had left. replaced
by Linda Thawson, as in my opinion, the much maligned Tara King.
She was a Cardassian.
She was a card.
Not at the time.
She was a Cardassian in Star Trek, the Next Generation, the Chase
of her own line of underwear or Saint, and her father didn't
defend O.J.
Simpson.
But again, the Avengers... broke away from the formula that
established with Diana Rick and did some really great and
imaginative stories.
There are some terrible ones in there too, but they did some
really inventive things like all done with mirrors.
Pandora, who was that man I saw you with?
Take me to your leader, which is all about a talking briefcase
leading them to a criminal mastermind game.
Fame is my favourite all-time episode too.
Now, what happened with that is the ratings in the UK stayed the
same.
But because the formula had changed, in America, the ratings
plummeted, it was also up against Rowan and Marty's laughing.
Doctor Who, the ratings dropped because people had loved all these
monsters coming in and the doctor, Jamie, and Victoria standing in
a basement saying, aha, you shan't get in.
Oh, no, they're in.
Oh, Jamie, oh, the smoker, the home.
Um, Doctor Who season 6 tries to do something more inventive
people start switching off because I think partially because it
was multipart with the previous Doctor Who, with season five, you
could miss a couple and come in and you can still pick up the
story.
Whereas I don't think that was as easy in season six.
You don't think it might have just been the temperature and
thinking at the time, though.
Everything in the 60s was ending now.
It was a real point of we've seen it.
We've had enough.
The Avengers, Doctor Who, every single series we've talked about
even Bond.
Okay, that was doing well, but it had to reboot itself.
There's a point people were just seeing this is the end of an era
and looking for what's coming up next, there might have been that
whole declension of that zeitkeist of feeling that we failed.
Everything's that we've hoped before.
Okay, Apollo's going ahead and that's terrific.
I just think viewers are getting tired of the product and wanting
the next thing.
We're moving out of the home counties and we know we're moving out
into a bigger world.
Now, opportunities are there.
We've got technology, we've got space, we've got new ideas.
We're tired of the same thing.
I think just the audiences wanted a change of everything.
And I think the unfortunate thing there is if that's the case, the
audiences aren't actually looking at the program.
They're looking at what do they think the program is because of
the homogenisation the year before.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but that's also, yes, the period itself was, we won't
change.
But what's interesting is the reason the Avengers was cancelled
was not because the Tyra King year was poor, it is popularly
considered.
Because I did really well in France, didn't it?
Did very well in France.
No, their international sales were at their peak at the time.
Some of the highest rated episodes of the Avengers, I think 2 or 3
out of the top 10 come from the Tariq King in the UK.
What killed it was because it went poorly in America, half the
money was coming from America.
They didn't order more.
So if Innas Lloyd had been successful in selling Doctor Who to
America, there probably would have been American production money
and it would have ended with Patrick Troughton because the last
year wouldn't have done well.
So when you when you say that season 5 is more successful in
season six, but fortunately not too successful, you know, otherwise
we would have had the death of the program, as you said, do you
like season 5 more than season six?
No, I like season 6 more.
But when I say successful, I'm talking about commercially and
critically successful.
It was more successful in what it did because it did the same
thing again and again and again.
Whereas season 6 does fall down and it does have its stumbles.
You know, it's got things like the dominators.
It's got the space pirates, but both of those at least attempted
to do something new.
Yeah.
The same as true of the Tara King New and the event.
In a different way, a really different way.
And same with Tara King, they were experimenting with new camera
techniques.
Yeah, it was, some of it was pretty much very, like, awesome
wills.
I'm thinking of those shots in game, with the close-ups and the
sets moving around.
It's very much experimental TV.
For those of you out there who are Avengers fans, and there's a
lot of people, because Channel 9 still constantly repeat the
colour.
They only show the colour rigs, don't they?
They don't show any Thorson or...
If you can track it down, Amazon UK, I think, still has the
complete series 6 of the Avengers, which is all the Tara King
episodes, including the handover from Diana Rigg, 2 end of course
and it's well worth getting because it is even better than you
remember, and I say that as someone who watched them 1st about 10
years ago and thought these aren't as bad as everyone says.
When I got them on DVD, I went, actually, most of these are really
good, and even when they're not, Linda Thorson, who was, I think
about 20, is just acting her socks off because unlike a lot of
other actors in other things at the time, she recognised what a
great opportunity this was pretty young actress, I'm not going to
say she was as good as Diana Rick.
She wasn't.
But Diana Rigg was a classically trained actress, whereas Linda
Thorson was a small town girl who'd moved from Canada to London
and suddenly landed the biggest job in the country.
Yeah, and she, aside from the Queen, obviously.
She definitely gets better as the season goes on.
Maybe that's time for an alternate podcast.
But yeah, to the bond cast.
I mean, really, this is the last chance we're going to have to
compare Doctor Who to the Avengers. interesting that they end the
60s in the same way and that what allow Doctor Who to keep on
going, arguably, was that it remained a British institution rather
than an international co-production.
We're almost at the end of the '60s, gentlemen, so it's time for
our last Jenny Laird awards of the '60s.
And my, you know what?
Because I do love season 6 so much, I had a hard time picking one
and because I knew I was going to be kicking the space pirates a
lot, I decided not to pick something from that.
So my Jenny Laird, award her most puzzling creative choice, goes
to the ice worry, who does a little dance when he gets out of the
team at cubicle on earth because he smashes through the thing.
And I think it's a directorial touch because what happens is some
soldiers run across.
So he smatches through, he steps out, he turns to the right.
And it cuts to the other camera looking at him there.
He turns back to the left to Commander Radna, who sort of flinches
for a 2nd and then he turns back to the right again, to the other
camera, and then back to Commander Radna, and then walks out.
And it's just, because, you know, you've got to keep moving in a
nice Warriors costume or you're going to crush certain things at
the top of your waiters, let's say.
It just comes off as this bizarre little dance.
And then he wanders off.
Yeah, yeah.
Watch it again when the ice warrior arrives on earth before he
goes to the weather control bureau.
So it's episode 4 or episode five.
I'm not sure exactly.
Watch them both.
Watch them both. fabulous.
But yeah, it's when he stumbles out and does a little dance.
It's just the way the world ends up with a bang, little whimper.
I was thinking of Tia Seliot's hollow men when you were talking
about how Doctor Who ends and how the Avengers ends and how the
60s ends and that's how I would say the same thing.
I don't think I have a journey laird award for any particular
player this season round.
I think people were trying very hard, but there was just forces
against them.
It's the end of an era and that doesn't always go well.
I think it's really good to see Patrick at the end of this do so
well and finally be given something to work with because he's just
been so, you know, neglected.
They really, they really wasted an opportunity with so much.
It's the pressure of production and the timing there.
I think my Jimmy Laird probably goes to the BBC in the way they
structured the production.
Not being able to give everyone there.
They were just so close to getting something amazingly good.
And we see, we've talked to the last 10,000 years, I think, about
how good the little moments, little brilliantine diamond moments
are in this, but we don't get a field.
You don't get a perfect field.
Maybe we get to feel the poppies at the end of this, but we don't
get anything that lasts longer than that because they're hamstrung
by so many other factors.
Maybe that's what good British production, like good Australian
films is working against such tight parameters.
You get great coal like, you know, under pressure, you get the
diamond in the coal.
So yeah, mine goes to the BBC.
Well, I was going to mention Fraser and Pat's increasingly pubic
side, but I kind of think like...
I think it'd be lowering the tone after Richard's one.
Can I just sit this one out?
No, no, I think we should definitely go back to Edward Brayshawson
whatever he's doing with his mum face.
This can shoot a verse.
Yeah, yeah, yes.
Oh, thank you.
That's it.
Edward, yeah, the war chief is can she reverse.
There's the title.
Yeah, anyway.
Okay.
So recommendations.
I'm actually going to recommend.
I often do this.
I'm going to recommend Big Fish.
And specifically, I'm going to recommend the Companion Chronicles
featuring Wendy Padbury, which detail what happens to Zoe after
she gets back.
And all I'm going to say for now is Zoe works for this company.
This company who runs the wheel and this company discovered that
she has time travelled and they're very, very interested in that
but of course, Zoe can't remember.
Does she have Ultron energy?
Is that how they know?
I can't quite remember exactly how they tell, but the scripts are
written in a very 60 style.
So things aren't nailed down.
And I think 2 of the big contributors to the range are John Dorney
and Johnny Morris, who, between them, houndeled a lot of the big
finish 60s lost stories.
So they really developed their voice for the 60s characters very
well.
And in a lot of these, because the companion chronicles have the
companion actor and one other.
In quite a few of them, the other person who is Zoe's interrogator
is actually played by her daughter Charlie Hayes.
Oh, lovely.
And then.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, she's great.
And they have a very good relationship.
And the great thing is it's not really played on that it's a
mother-daughter relationship.
It's a bit like when we saw Diana Rigg and Rachel Sterling, even
though they were mother and daughter, it didn't have a bearing
from their real life. in the Crimson horror. in the Crimson
horror.
This is just 2 actresses playing really interesting parts.
And if I need if I was going to pick one, because to be honest, I
haven't heard the last one yet. savouring it.
I haven't heard 2nd chances yet.
If I was going to pick one, I would say the memory cheats.
Memory cheat.
The memory cheats it's called.
So it's not about her having been a coke call for the last 2 years
and it's my Chester wear all that one.
Oh, I hope dealers do the last podcast.
Otherwise, that is just cruel.
No, in this one, what happens is Zoe recalls a tale with the
doctor and it's about whether you should interfere or not.
So she does.
She does start to get more.
I want to hear them just to find out how they do that.
Yeah.
But what's interesting is memory is not only cheating in the story
she's relating.
Memory is cheating during the interrogation as well.
And that's all I'm gonna say.
Yeah, the story the story title works on 2 levels.
So Zoe's companion chronicles in general, the memory cheats in
particular is my recommendation.
And can I just remind you that if you're riding a bicycle while
you're listening to this or mountaineering or something?
What the hell are you doing?
I write a bunch of work.
Don't use your headphones.
I hate people like it.
And you can't write down these recommendations.
You can find them on our website or in your podcatcher of choice.
We'll put them in the show notes for it.
Yes that is true.
So my pick of the week is related to last weekend's Lords of Time
3, actually, which we all went and saw.
I saw like Matthew Warhouse was there and I'd never seen him
before, you know, in real life and he was interviewed by a friend
of the podcast, Todd, very expertly, I thought, and told some
stories that I'd never really heard.
And I was really, really impressed.
And he's recently published, like in the last year or so, he's
published his autobiography, and it's called Blue Box Boy, and
it's available as a book and as an e-book, and I think it's on
Audible as well, read by Matthew, which I think would be really
interesting, and I've run out of audible credits at the moment, but
as soon as I get when I will download it.
But I've been reading it, and I amount 3 quarters of the way
through, and it's really, really terrifically interesting.
And it's very well written.
It's very well told.
It's, um, uh, unusually it's told in the 3rd person.
So it's like Matthew did this.
And, you know, that sounds silly and I think I remember people
smirking when they 1st heard about it.
But it's a great alternative to having him, you know, go on like a
lovely about his career and say, oh, I did this starling and I met
John Woodmount and I met, you know, these people and all these
things happened.
And it gives him an ironic distance from the material and allows
him to mock himself a little bit.
And I had never really realised what a giant giant fan of this
program he was before he was on it.
And his account of that is terribly, terribly interesting.
So Blue Box Boy is my recommendation.
Oh, I've been enjoying my own summer of 69, and I should clarify
that, while we've been going through this by, which is what I do
in Christmas holidays, watch other things from our childhood.
So I just watched the 1st season of Cat Weasel again, which was
just filmed over the hill, um, with Jeffrey Balden.
Oh, it was filmed in 69.
So around the same time and the champions, which was sort of
between season 5 and season 6 of Doctor Who.
Dennis Spooner.
Well, we've got Jeffrey Balden and Kat Weasel and and who else?
Pretty much everyone we own. or Katie Jakes is in it, of course. in
one in a one off.
Just those lovely little microcosms of British loveliness of that
Indian summer that will that point of childhood that will never
come back, but held in that little crystal ball.
And I think we've got a sense of that in the last season of trout
and that this is a very special thing that will never be quite the
same again.
And definitely got the poignancy of that in the war games.
So I've been, yeah, my recommendations.
So go and have a look at Alexandra Bustedo in the Champions, which
is a Dennis Spooner masterclass in how to do home county spy drama
and make it all quaint and lovely, because they are still quaint
and lovely, even though it's meant to be big budget.
Um, and but really, 1st season cat weasel, which is out there and
bits of it are on YouTube.
It's just beautiful.
Lovely school.
I've just gone sideways.
And then you get a better feeling, really, of what this is by
seeing what else was around at the time.
And another interesting thing about Jeffrey Valden is, of course
he's played the 1st doctor for Big Finish, and also he had the
same, he's still around, and he had the same boyfriend for almost
40 years.
Yes, Alan Rowe.
Was Dr. Evans in the moon base?
He was.
And we'll go on to reappear in one John Pertley story and 2 Tom
Baker stories.
But yes, they were they were together.
Well, in the 60s and forward from there.
Alan is sadly no longer with us, but Jeffrey Balden is still
about.
Thank for that.
It's lovely.
We also have prizes to announce.
Yay.
We only had one winner for last season.
The Hand of Fear, who won a copy of The Abominable Snowman, and
didn't want to mention this at the time, but it is actually signed
by Darren Sticks, because...
So, yeah, you never know what you're going to get with us, although
probably not another Terence Dick's signature because he's back in
the UK.
But our current winners are, I've decided to pick four.
Oh good on you.
First one.
So our winners for this podcast are John Davies, president of the
Dock 2 Club of Victoria from 1981 to 1982.
Before you were born, before I was born.
Chris DeLuca.
Someone called Ash, and also we've decided longtime podcast
supporter there with us from the very beginning, Greg Miller.
So we'll be in touch with...
He is the most prolific commentator.
Yeah, absolutely.
So it seems only fair that he get a target novelisation of his
choice.
So, Perks, we're going to be sending you out a list of
novelisations you can choose from and we will post those to you in
the new year.
So we are about to go, but we have a very exciting new episode
coming up.
I've just confirmed with the aforementioned Todd Bilby.
Sir Todd Bilby, podcast listener and convention organiser and
interviewer extraordinaire.
We are going to have, very early on in the new year, a special
episode with us conducting a 60s retrospective about the last 6
years of Doctor Who.
Todd is actually going to interview us.
So we are not going to have any control over this gentleman.
I'll just talk over him.
That's what they want. always do.
So, Nathan, about the massacre.
Terrific. a piece of drama.
We have no idea whether this is going to work on op.
And after that, in the new year.
We are also moving to a fortnightly release schedule.
We'll still be releasing 2 episodes per month.
Each 2 episodes will cover a season of Doctor Who, and we may
occasionally throw in some special extras, like if we have an
extra sundae in a month or something we might just record, a
little something special about something related to Doctor Who.
Who knows?
That wasn't even intense.
Polygamy.
There you go.
He's never mentioned this to me.
I only know about Doctor Who.
What am I going to do?
So all that's left to say is great jumping gobstoppers, where at
the end of the 60s.
Wow.
We've done it where 19 episodes to the wind.
And we've covered every piece of televised televisual Doctor Who
in that time.
God, gentlemen, well done.
Couldn't have done it without you.
It was amazing, wasn't it?
And there was heaps of it that I'd never watched before.
So like I said, I'm now a Doctor Who expert.
I've watched more Doctor Who than anyone except Sue Perryman.
And Ian Levine.
Andy Levine, obviously.
It doesn't feel like it's been as long as it has been, but my
goodness, it's been a long time.
Well, look, it can't always, it can't always be Doctor Who season
3 podcast recording where we all almost quit.
And some people wish we had, dear listener.
But of course, thank you to all of you out there listening.
And, I mean, to those of you who know me personally, who come up
to me and complimented me on the show and complimented the 2 of
you on the show as well.
Thank you so much, just those of you.
So thank you.
For those of you commenting on the website, and the majority of
commentators on the website are people we haven't met. which is
fascinating.
So thank you very much.
Do tell your friends.
We're going to be moving into colour.
Yes.
Not many podcasts are recorded in colour, are they?
Yes, that's right.
And yeah, we may just be cosplaying for some both podcasts, quite
frankly.
But also keep an eye out for our website, which will be being
regenerated for next month as well to get with the times and step
into 1970.
Until then, thank you very much and good evening.
Good night.
Thank you.
You've been listening from Fletcher and Tarrakee with Nathan
Botany, Brandon Jones, and Richard Stone.
This episode, Hipster Clue, on Sunday, 21st of December.
The next episode will be released on January 4th.
You can buy us online, right to entirety.com.
Thank you entirely on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast on
Twitter.
If you want to find out how relative time is, tri-sitting through
all 76 episodes of the space pirates.
Also, we do have 3 new target novelisations to go out to...
Insert name here.
And congratulations in certain name here.
If you could just say you're just ruining the illusion.
Actually, hold on.
We can look we can look at the bloody website.
Yes, I can do it properly.
I just didn't watch. to our podcast.
Oh, well, there's a lot of floppies.
One a bit.