Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight from Entirety, the
only Doctor Who commentary podcast created for the sole purpose of
travelling back in time 27 years and bringing down Margaret
Thatcher's government.
I'm Nathan B. I'm James S. I'm Peter G. and I'm Todd B. Well, in
November 2017, when we released our Sylvester McCoy retrospective
which was episode 29 advocate for genocide, we actually had a
poll.
Sorry.
Yes, I remember that.
Yeah, yeah.
We had a poll.
It was 150 years ago now on which Sylvester McCoy story we should
do a commentary on, and we thought it was very urgent that we get
to it.
So we've left it 3 years before finally getting around to it.
Todd's choice was Battlefield.
Brendan wanted to do time in the Rani.
Richard chose silver nemesis.
All fine choices, I have to say.
What the hell were we thinking?
No, we knew what we were thinking because who chose this?
So Happiness Patrol was me.
I chose that, and it got exactly 50% of the vote.
I may have voted 3 times.
Well, we're never doing that again.
So this is the 2nd serial of season 25 and it was broadcast in
November 1988.
And we've all podcasted on this quite a bit already.
Our own episode, which you'll find in the show notes is episode
122, this neocon world.
And then James elbowed his way onto the real McCoy podcast with
Eric Stadnick and Adam Clegg.
And dragged you along.
And dragged me along.
That's right.
And we did that in December last year.
So you'll find that in the show notes.
And then there's a new to who Christmas special where James was
asked.
We were all asked, I think, what our favourite story was, and
James shows the Happiness Patrol and talked about that.
So this is a, we've run out of things to say.
Nevertheless, we'll sit here mutely for an hour and 15 minutes or
how long does this go for?
hour and 15 minutes and just kind of just drooling in admiration
probably.
All right, but we have our DVD ready to go.
We're on the main menu.
Gilbert M is walking down the stairs into the candy kitchen as we
speak, and I've got Peter here with the remote.
I do have to remote.
And I'm going to get everyone to press the play button together.
When I next say the code word and the code word will be walkies.
More of that later.
All right.
So we are ready to go.
Walkies.
And we're off.
Peak 80s.
The kids at the Doctor Who Club at school always laugh at this
title sequence.
Really?
Well, it's very period.
It's very purple.
I think the only thing that lets down this opening title sequence
is the asteroids.
Yeah, they're terrible.
And I wish they weren't in the, um, in the closing credits as
well.
Yeah.
That's hardest.
This is brilliant though.
It's the best the tardoise has ever looked in the opening time.
Well, maybe.
Up to this point.
Yeah, that's one hell of a z. least the light's not wrong.
No.
I actually think that logo is really good.
It's just the doctor on it is slightly light entertainment.
It's very light entertainment.
Yeah.
When I say slightly, I mean, very.
So last night I watched all of the deleted scenes.
As did I?
And so this scene is savagely topped and tailed.
And this is a bit of a problem in the in the era, isn't it?
Do you know that they wanted Silla Black for this role?
She reminds me of her.
It's a good thing they got her.
But the music here, the music here by Dominic Gling is just
outstanding.
Oh he's wonderful.
Yeah, yeah.
So Dominic Glean is just incredible, isn't he?
I think he's so underrated.
Everybody talks about Mark Ayres, but I think Dominic means just
stunning.
Whatever you think of his theme tune and I actually really like
it.
Yeah, I do too.
Like his incidental music for the show is fantastic.
So what did he do?
He did this.
He did survival.
Dragonfire and also the 1st 4 and last 2 episodes of Trial of a
Timeline.
Yeah, magnificent.
We actually asked him, could we use the music for our time
incorporated episode?
And he very generously said yes.
But the music is magnificent, isn't it?
Magnificent.
This is this is just wonderful.
Sorry, Peter.
I was going to say on the Dominic Glynn front.
I know Dominic, because when I did my final film for university
which was an hour long epic, which maybe should not have been
attempted, I went to Dominic and he did the score for me.
And so we were, you know, we went out for an afternoon, we talked
all about it.
He went away for a couple of weeks and came back with just an
amazing musical score.
It actually sounds quite like his Doctor Who score for maybe
survival, with a little bit of ultimate foe thrown in, and I'll
pay you a bit later.
It's amazing.
You missed have a nice, nice death.
She talks like this all the time, Daisy K. She was a bit.
Sean Connery, really.
She's great.
I love her.
I love the fact that she always just skating on the edge.
She's mental, isn't she?
She should have been the 1st female bond.
She, that scene actually ends in the extended scenes with her
looking just absolutely crazed.
And it's a perfect final shot for the 1st scene because it tells
you what the story's going to be about.
So we actually end on her face just grinning horribly.
So, you know, one of the working titles for this story?
Yeah, the crooked smile.
Yeah.
So this is the kind of wonderful continuity stuff that I love with
them coming out talking about how great invasion of the dinosaurs
is.
Because it absolutely is.
When are we doing the Embijing the dinosaurs podcast?
We never doing it again.
Can I say one of the things about having these 3 episode stories
and everything cut down?
Like this...
I find the dialogue here, to be quite still to like to get into
it.
Suddenly like she says the music's too happy.
We've got to do something about it.
It's just, it suffers in the editing.
It's like, I'd love to see this redone and it's a film noir thing
like now, given a little bit more time to sort of get into that.
But, you know, we've just got to get into this, you know?
And this is just well, I mean, she's absolutely incredible.
But what's happened here, you know, Andrew Cartwell can't get the
scripts to time, and it's an ongoing problem with his era, and
it's not just the three-part stories, because Fenrick and
Battlefield, both suffer from being, you know, Fenrick
particularly, episode one is cut to rim, I think.
Um, and what they tend to do is cut into the middle of a scene, um
and cut stuff out of the middle of the scene, and so you just go
backwards and forwards between to sort of plot through.
That was J and T's thing.
So to cut things down, you would basically cut a scene in half
remove a chunk, and then go back and you thought it had increased
pace, which it does, but in a case like this makes it a bit
unintelligible.
Well, here too, they're topping and tailing.
So you go into and out of the scenes really quickly.
We're about to see a scene where Ace goes down to the Candy
Kitchen.
She smells something and then wanders off and then we never find
out what that is.
You know, like there's things that don't make sense.
And what gets cut out is character and atmosphere.
And so there's all sorts of really fun things that we just don't
get to see.
But we get to see this, and I'm sure some people out there would
have been having apoplexy at the moment this started.
I love this so much.
It's so pretty.
I kind of wish they hadn't repainted it.
Imagine what had happened when the kid, the kid wipes Bad Wolf, the
kid who graffities the TARDIS with a bad wolf and starts rubbing
the paint off and gets to the pink layer.
That some missed opportunity.
There's this scene here where they were just checking the bullet
holes.
In the missing scenes, the doctor and ace have been everywhere.
They've been to the candy kitchen.
They've been to the execution area and then they've come back to
here.
And so there's huge reams of story missing.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's not story.
It's not super essential, but it just gets us discovering the
world at the same time as them.
I think the great thing here is how the doctor reacts to the
Tartish being painted pink and how much he likes it.
You expect him to be really angry about it, but he's totally on
board.
The thing is, it does look really good.
I would have been quite happy to have continued that way
throughout the class era until Philip Siegel came in and said
absolutely not.
I want to do a custom repainter of one of those character options
in the pig.
Look, she is amazing here, Georgina Hale.
I interviewed her in 1995, because Tapnestrol was one of my
favourite stories, and so I made admission to talk to as many
people as I could for Dog 2 magazine when I was doing the
interviews for them.
And some people had already been interviewed, but I got to speak
to Georgina and Rachel Bell, who pays Priscilla and John
Normington, who plays Trevor Sigma, Trevor Sigma, and also Chris
Clough.
And Georgina here was quite mad in real life as well, in a lovely
way.
And she said she decided to put on a slight American accent for it
and she couldn't remember why.
And you can shut off hair.
That's what I was sharing earlier.
She's just great.
She is in one of my favourite. kids TV programs from when I was a
child, tea bag.
Oh, yes.
Is teabagging still one of your favourites?
Thank you, Peter.
He, he's watching these disappearances like as, oh, I don't know
what this is, you know, just routine disappearance number, whatever
it was, and I just love it.
So delicious.
I think I think we go over 500,000 during the course of this
night.
Yeah.
So it's it's 487 or 987 or something like that at the end and
there's been like 20 something disappearances during the course of
the evening.
This is cut down as well.
Like this was much longer.
There's an extended scene of this speech, which, again, is
introduces the important theme, that she is unable to deal with
the fact that there is political dissent.
You know, she we'll see in episode 3 that she can't accept that
her regime is toppling, but it introduces the theme, that the
happiness thing is not really, um, about happiness.
It's about political descent.
And it's interesting as well that this is not a front for her.
She's not, she's not putting on this front for the population when
she's in private with her husband.
She's looking at him and saying, you should watch this.
You'll find this instructor.
She's an absolute true believer.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a front that she's completely self-deceived.
Yeah, yeah.
She's a zealot.
Yeah.
So appalling.
So great.
And then the canned laughter.
Yeah, she was married to, was it John Thor, is her husband?
And apparently she came onto the studio floor and said to John
Nathan Turner, my husband, who's, of course, got a lot of
experience with working in TV drama, has looked at the short list
you've got and said, you will never get this filmed and John
Nathan Turner said, watches.
Yeah, I think you'll just never get it aired though, sadly.
We'll get in the camera.
We just won't get half of it out again.
It's all the smaller parts in this that are unsung heroes, like
every single one.
You're only as strong as your weakest think.
She is incredible.
Oh, she's amazing.
The waiting zone.
And the smile, just the way, again, that she goes from this sort
of bland and she's she's like an usher rant, isn't she at a movie
theatre with that box?
But this, the music here and the sudden delivery of that line and
Sylvester moving his leg back with his umbrella is so great.
It's so stylised and so beautifully done.
You know, people seem to have a problem with the sets for this
story.
They say that they don't look realistic, that it should have been
shot on location, et cetera.
I think the world that's created for this story.
I mean, look at this set.
It is beautiful.
There's no attempt to sort of disguise the sound of the set.
And so whenever anyone walks on stairs or anything, you can hear
sort of echoing wood.
And like I do think that you can hear the sound of the studio set
in a way that undermines the realism.
But basically it's a theatre piece.
I think.
None of the, none of the action sequences come off at all.
And partly because they're sort of can't, but there aren't that
many action sequences anyway. adds to it.
Yeah, like, I mean, the theatricality, the the facade, and we said
this in the podcast we did with Eric and Adam, like, it, it shows
that this world is completely false, and, yeah, well, this is this
is the camp thing.
And it even says it on the DVD liner notes that there's an
inversion here where I've arrived.
Sorry, I just need Todd playing Gilbert M. John Normington said
that he and Harold Innocent were lifelong friends and they'd never
worked together until this, the only time they did.
And they have that one scene together that's cut out.
Well, no, it's still in there where, um, where Trevor Sigma comes
into the palace and talks to, um, Helen A and Harold Innocent.
Oh no, that's Joseph C.
Oh no, you're right.
No, there's a scene in the Candy Kitchen early on, which has a
great gag.
Again, if you've got the, if you've got the DVD, the extended and
deleted scenes are absolute must watches, I had never seen them
before last night.
And they're brilliant.
And that scene with Harold Innocent and John Norlington is so
funny and has one line that had me laughing out loud.
People said that Harold Innocent was absolutely hilarious.
And so he kept everyone in hysterics.
I mean, all of this, you know, the sort of, as James was saying
the camp theatricality, and then the people who are on the outside
are all wearing black, the drones and this political dissident
here, I mean, what Harold V is a political dissident, we don't
know what he's been caught for, an ostentatious display of public
grief could be some kind of political protest.
And I think I think that that's what's happening here.
I like her little her little tiny pink button.
He's got a little blue button.
It's like Serverland's Ginka kilt.
But the pink button kills you with pink stuff and then the blue
button kills you with blue lightning as well.
Like they're totally colour coordinated.
Now, apparently it looks like some British sweet.
Yeah, so Birdie Bassett, who was a logo for some kind of Bassett
sweets, yeah.
Well, look, I didn't know about it.
So I had no problem with it.
I think it's brilliant.
I just think it's absolutely brilliant.
And better masterpiece.
Yeah, better than the original conception, which had him as a sort
of pale figure.
You know, like I think he just finishes done repeatedly.
Of course.
What if they brought back the candy man?
They brought back the Candyman as...
Graham Curran.
Oh, God.
Look at that.
Imagine cleaning that up.
Yeah, they got his bones back together and reconstituted him.
So, so this, this scene here, he reaches his hand out at the end
and it's heart.
But what happens in the extended things is he wipes some of the
the syrup off the guy's face, licks it, and then smiles and says
strawberry.
And it's so black.
It's so wonderful and it's so heartbreaking that it's not in
there.
Todd thinks it goes too far.
I do.
I think sometimes I think sometimes scenes are cut for a reason.
But there's a number in here, all the introductory ones that
should could have been kept.
I think some of these 3 episode stories need 25 to 27 minutes as
opposed to 22.5 .
Oh my god, there he goes.
We see, the same thing could have befallen the last episode of
Trial of a Timelord.
That would have been cut to ribbons, except they got special
disagentation to make it 30 minutes. 30 minutes would have been
perfect.
And 30 minutes, I mean, there's 30 minutes of material for each of
these episodes, I think, or something close to that.
27,28.
I love this so...
She's really good.
But he's good in it as well.
That little smile, he does, is so great.
Sylvester is great throughout this story.
Yeah.
This is this is very much, you know, I've been reading Elle Sander
for stuff about the new adventures lately because the book has
just been released.
And that conception of the doctor is a sort of darker figure who
goes from place to place and, you know, has a plan and stuff.
I think that's really starting here.
Maybe remembrance.
Yeah, I mean, it's very Patrick Trouton as well.
The way that doctor would kind of, you know, just would nip into
situations and wander around a little bit, kind of gather
information and subverting.
It's so different from the previous season.
This too, where he overtalks her, where he just says yes while she
is finishing the waiting zone go-kart line.
Really well done.
It's menacing in a really, really interesting way.
And like he's super calm, you know, there's no anger, he's barely
moving, but he's incredibly threatening. in the way he delivers
his lives.
Remembrance and this.
You know, is the 1st 2 of this season.
So it's just worked out what he wants to do. running's worked out
what they want to do with him.
It's just a great marriage and he's so he's so much better than
the previous season.
Well, the character, it just works well.
So I want to give you Alfie's assessment of how realistic this
puppet puppet is.
So Alfie didn't react at all to that scene. you know, when I was
watching it 2 days ago.
But in a scene later on where you can see the whole puppet and
Helena is taking the bandages off it and it's growling, he did
growl at the screen then.
That part was more convincing. it was more convincing.
What isn't very captured?
Is the go-karts here, which, of course, the same people, I believe
were responsible for the vengeance on Barros go-karts as well.
And, you know, they just, you know, is a getaway vehicle.
They zip along, don't they?
That shot of it actually where it's not clear how big it is is a
problem because it looks a bit like a roller skate as well.
So when you 1st see the 1st shot of it, and no one is in the shot
with it.
You can't work out how big it is.
There is only 4 feet of corridors.
No, I know.
The set is so tight.
I mean, and look at this, though.
Doesn't this give the light to the fact that 1980s Doctor Who was
never well lit?
Yeah.
This is beautifully lit.
Well, there's a sort of noir-ish kind of thing going on, isn't
there?
Oh, look.
It's good King Winchesters.
The last time I watched this, I did watch it in black and white.
Didn't that take something away from me?
I love the pink. though.
Well, yes, the colour.
But in some ways, like some of it actually works better because
the stark contrast between... actually adds as a certain amount
of...
Here we have Susan Q, and you can tell that she's an important
character because she has a hero wig.
You can see.
Like she has a different wig from everyone else.
She has actually been introduced already by this point in episode
one. but that scenes can't.
So the scene where she comes in and Priscilla P says, you know, we
don't have any prisoners on Terra Alpha and she says, well, we
don't have any now because they've escaped from the waiting zone.
So she's already been introduced.
That's another scene.
And so, and all a whole heap of dialogue between her and Ace has
disappeared, which is really good, where she talks about how she
used to have a collection of blues albums and stuff.
It's, you know, like I think that stuff's super important.
I agree with you.
I mean, right here, we just, we see her for 12nd, then we cut to
this and, and straight away.
I mean, obviously you're straight into the point that, you know
she is tired of this life and all that it stands for.
But where is that backstory?
Yeah.
Like, why is she so trusting of this girl, she's only just met.
Yeah.
And look at that.
That is the same shot that's used at the end of episode three, but
looking the other way.
Again, I have a slight problem here is that like he's playing very
melancholy stuff and surely they would have heard it from 5 feet
away and then suddenly it's all, you know, lively and happy.
Now, that short that we just had on Earl Sigma there was on a tilt
on a Dutch angle.
So the story with that was Chris Clough said that he wanted to
shoot everything on tilts.
So you'd have the middle camera in the studio, which was just
normal, and then left-hand side camera was tilted one way, the
right hand side camera was the other way.
It's very noticeable in the opening scene.
But he said that they shot about 3 or 4 scenes, so you can tell
what was shot early, and he said, GNT in the gallery said, no, it's
making me giddy.
And so they took them off the angles and put them back onto the
normal plane.
What else has Chris directed?
So Nemesis, Delta and Dragonfire, and Tear of the Vervoids
ultimate foe.
See, I don't think he's very good.
And I think there are some really good camera work here, but I
think that there's some the action scenes, such as they are. are
super listless.
I might say this is probably his best story and it's to do with
casting.
Yep.
Yeah, I think so.
I think the script and the performances are so superb that the
fact that the direction is sort of a bit boring.
With exceptions, there are some great individual scenes and shots
and stuff.
Do you know, I think this could have been over eggs, though.
I mean we were talking about this last night.
It might have needed more of a directorial voice.
That could have made it better, but I think also having a director
who just kind of shows what's happening, because what's happening
is quite crazy, might actually make it a better story.
He allows it, the actors, space.
He allows them to breathe and do their thing.
And you see that in their performances, which is, Peter, I think
what you're saying, that actually works in its favour.
So have a look here.
I think we might get the tilts here if this was one of the early
scenes.
So that's the middle camera.
So he's got a, he's got an underground newspaper called the grief
that he's reading in that scene, the headline of it was briefly
visible.
And a lot of those restored scenes, if you know the novelisation
they're all in it.
This, I think, is making it very clear that the happiness stuff is
all about political descent because we're replaying the 1st scene
which is about being depressed.
But here it's about politics, isn't it?
Yes.
See, on a tilt?
Back to Sylvester on a different tilt.
Yeah.
But it works well for his scenes.
Yeah, because their close-ups of his face and it's conspiratorial
and stuff like that.
I guess I never quite got the political sort of tilt.
When I 1st watched it, like it was all about happiness and she
wanted everybody to be happy.
But I was clearly enough to understand that this was supposed to
be Margaret Thatcher, you know, and in the 1980s with Margaret
Thatcher and Ronald Reagan as a kid and all the news you got, you
just thought of them as being these loved leaders who had, you
know, who were standing up to communism and and whatever, but I
never realised, you know, how divisive they actually were in their
own countries.
And it was really, perhaps only after this, that I began to sort
of think about things like that.
But, you know, straight away.
I just thought, oh, this is, this is something to do with Margaret
Thatcher, it's so obvious.
I don't know how anybody could not ever.
There's the fakeness.
Remember, there was a well-known story that she had done vocal
coaching in order to, you know, as she became a sort of more
important political leader, she'd kind of done vocal coaching.
So there we go.
Yeah.
And, you know, having an idiot husband and all of that sort of
thing is all kind of part of it.
But the iconography is, is like a crumbling South American
dictatorship, isn't it?
Like with the paint peeling everywhere.
I would agree.
Absolutely.
I think that's hilarious.
Daisy Kay is just must just hate Silas P. so much.
She's just itching for him to make a mistake.
They've been doing this for years.
And then he just has this one moment where he's suddenly sitting
there like, oh, you know, something's gone wrong and then she's
he's blown away.
I also wonder too, whether, because Helen A thinks he's too
ambitious, they're not quite the very top, I hope, Silas B. You
know, an instrument.
I like that.
That's good Oh, these sets are so beautiful.
I absolutely love them.
Yeah, they're a very strange choice, aren't they?
The idea, like, you can imagine a designer deciding to go all out
with the pink and the pastel colours and stuff and then deciding
but here it's all black and white and it's all a bit shabby.
I just like to say that I have more hair and I am younger than
that man.
But I could in fact do that at all.
Definitely now.
Thanks, James.
Who invited you?
And this they're so married.
It's so wonderful. the what time do you call this line with the
with the rolling pin earlier on.
And this is absolutely sort of Hansel and Gretel.
Do you know what I mean?
Spinning eyes to it to me.
So they have constant marital tests, don't they?
Do you think that do you think that he's tasted the candy man's
cane?
Oh, this is a family.
Definitely our speech.
Definitely peppermint.
Oh, and oh, dear.
I can feel one of my moods coming on.
And also, not only does the Candyman look brilliant.
He sounds brilliant.
There's a brilliant performance going on.
Just so great.
And I love this, you know, its usual sort of cliffhanger phase, but
we've just had this line about smiles on their faces and then you
get this close-up of him grimacing. you know as he sort of moves
out of the way.
So it is, it's a perfect kind of cliffhanger face final shot
absolutely.
The thing, the thing that makes the canaman such a brilliant
character. is that he's psychotic, but he also has a weird sense
of fun.
He banters with the doctor quite often.
But they're the best Dr. Hoovillains when they've got a bit of a
sense of humour, like, whether it be Harrison Chase or whoever.
Like, they, they do make, they just make a...
And also, the best Doctor Who villains also have a henchman who is
sort of a lesser evil version of themselves.
So you've got like Tobias Warren and Packer.
He've got the Candyman and Harold.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's Harold really worse because he created him and he also
was on another planet with him or whatever.
Yeah, no, he's Gilbert.
Gilbert.
Oh, Gilbert, sorry.
Oh, Harold, in a Sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They all refused.
How could we forget?
This whole black...
I can't talk.
Backstory.
There's a whole backstory.
In the novelisation, which explains, you know, how they came to be
on the planet, which is...
Isn't the audiobook of the novelisation read by someone
interesting?
Yes, it's read by...
Resurrection of the Daleks.
Ruler Lenska.
Rulalenska.
Wow.
What an interesting choice.
Well, especially when she's doing Helena.
She just does Margaret Thatch.
She's already got that kind of plummy voice and Taylor Hancock's
just doing Margaret.
But, you know, he's just doing Margaret Thatcher's voice.
I could see Ruler Linska actually playing that character.
She's really good, ruler lens, because she was thrown away on
Resurrection of the Daleks, I think.
Well, those scenes would be much worse without her.
She's great in the...
Oh, Nathan, your bile would be better directed than the enemy.
She's getting the hitchhiker's...
Yeah, yeah, she is.
Yeah.
Yeah, she's Lynn Tilla.
Yeah, the thing about Helen A and Margaret Thatcher is the watch
Thatcher is often accused of is the destruction of society.
So, um, you know, she sold off loads of council housing and she
was responsible for the decimation of kind of northern mining
communities and things like that.
And that's really what Helen A is doing.
She's destroying her own society by trying to force them to be
happy.
How can you destroy something that doesn't exist?
Yeah, well, she's, I mean, it is that thing.
Yeah.
She says no such thing as society.
There are individuals and there are families and that's all that
matters.
And we see now what that approach, the effect that that approach
has.
Like it makes, you know, any kind of concerted, common sacrifice
impossible, you know, and we're finding ourselves in a situation
where that's absolutely kind of necessary to our survival.
These right wing governments can't cope with it.
And they've been pushing it ever since for exactly that reason.
Yeah, yeah.
So we called it...
We called this episode this neocon world.
But, I mean, it's it's, you know, kind of neo-liberalism that's
being attacked here.
I love all the other happiness patrol members.
Look at them. amazing.
They're all just convincing enough.
They're not quite good enough to be in the main cast, but they're
all just good enough, you know, to sell it.
There are some very, very ropey deleted scenes where they're
trying to run up and downstairs.
I'm sure, okay?
You know, we almost had a reversed version of this in season one
as in Series one?
Season one.
There was a script or not script necessary, but like a story
concept that was pitched during the early 60s where the TARDIS
would have landed an alternate version of the mid 40s in a society
where to laugh was a crime.
I hadn't heard.
And then we're going to call the story the Jokers.
They would have gotten into trouble by Susan being unable to
contain her peals of laughter.
Oh my god.
We were at university, Peter, when this came out and told as
well.
I was at uni.
I wasn't at uni.
I was at school.
You're a year younger than me.
Yeah.
Yeah we were at school.
You were at school.
I seem to remember, though, getting to university and maybe it was
sort of Kate Orman and various other people who had seen it and
everyone was just doing lines from this all the time.
Yeah, already it was iconic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We have the waitings.
And it moves to different places.
I love that.
The story that we treat is iconic is iconoclastic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
See, she's she is so good.
She was one of the people who I interviewed and she was so
charming.
She said, um, she'd been in a sitcom called Dear John, which was
um, quite popular, and she'd been in the Darling Buds of May.
And she leaned across the cafe table to me and she said, um, only
worked sporadically up until when I was 35.
She said, but when I hit 35, it all came together and I worked
absolutely solidly for 10 years.
And then she said, now, darling, you're not to do any sums.
She was charming.
There's that very final scene, which we'll talk about when we get
there, where both her and Daisy K kind of drop the performance a
bit and they're really funny.
Like they just have that little exchange at the end.
I'm glad you're happy, Daisy. is so great.
I think it's great.
I do question that the Candyman gets killed, but none of the
happiness patrol, hell, mate. none of them actually do, and you
normally would expect at least one of them up and coming because
Daisy K is actually like pretty terrible.
I think I think there's something sort of slightly grown up about
that though.
Do you know what I mean?
The job is to overthrow the government rather than kill the
villains.
You know, and I think that's probably okay, particularly if, like
you know, I didn't like Arachnids in the UK having a Donald Trump
analogue and then having him not eaten by a spider at the end.
That was the obvious thing to do, and it's absolutely
heartbreaking that it didn't happen and shameful and a moral
outrage.
Sorry to be laughing, but Candyman's just got stuck to the floor.
And it's just hilarious.
And it, um, so I don't think killing Margaret Thatcher.
I think that would have been kind of mean spirited sort of thing.
I just felt that one of her henchmen may have.
But I mean, obviously it is the Candyman that gets turned into...
You can lock up a transdimensional gene marsh.
Yeah, yeah.
We didn't kill Jean Marsh next year.
Gilbert.
Candyman has a huge, has a huge mixer in his kitchen just there.
It's all this sort of 50s.
Yes, yeah, it's amazing.
Well, look, that's on a tilt as well.
There's a look at the radio on top of the on top of the poker
machine there as well.
It's again, very 50s. you know, sort of baker light radio.
It's interesting, these characters, because I think that Priscilla
P is written and is specified later in the script as a fanatic.
Whereas because her performance is more subdued, maybe more
controlled, actually Daisy K comes off as the fanatic.
Yeah, she seems more mental, doesn't she?
But they're just a great combination. both of them People have
said, you know, there's a problem in that no one in the story is
happy, but clearly that's the point.
Like nobody is actually happy.
Yeah, they're all super miserable.
Like she's complaining.
Oh, poor old Susie Q. Can we talk about how great she is?
Phenomenally good.
I mean, she was great in front of yours.
I was in love with her in Frontios.
I thought she was spectacular.
Like I just adored her in Frontios and was so excited to see her
back.
Was she any other, like, long-term series or anything?
She was a mate December, wasn't she?
She was...
May.
Oh, okay.
Who was December?
Yeah, Leslie Donald. talking about Leslie Donald, I just thought
that she would have had a bigger star.
Because she's gray.
She's great.
How long did you made December go for it?
It was a long running zitcom.
Okay.
Sorry, I'm not familiar with it.
It's basically she's a woman in her... 20s and she's married to an
older gentleman and it's a whole sort of, is it a 90 sitcom or?
I think it was 90s or maybe late 80s.
Okay.
Um, it could have actually been later than that, but yeah, it was
quite enjoyable.
I just love this fact.
He's just going about, like, he's stuck to the floor and...
The scenes are gold.
Rant and rave.
Well, there's that thing too.
Remember where he says, oh, I thought of a way of unsticking you.
And but then I forgot, but I wrote it down on a note, but then I
lost the note.
That's one of the missing scenes.
So talking about Leslie Dunlop, she was actually married to
Christopher Guard, Bellboy in Greatest Show.
Oh wow.
He's an attractive couple.
Yeah, very much so.
Oh, wow.
And Todd, did you watch Emmerdale at some point?
Yes, I did.
Yeah, she's in Emmerdale.
Oh, I'm a fool, of course.
Yeah, she is in Emmerdale.
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
And you know who she's married to now?
You know who plays Pollard in Emmerdale in real life?
Eric Pollard.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
I would never have thought that.
Isn't that amazing?
I think there's quite an age difference.
Yes, I think so.
May to December.
Exactly.
Ah, she's so good.
It's so wonderful Don't those weeks look great in close-up?
Well, she's got a hero wig, as I said before.
She was also in a production of Phoenix and the Carpet, but not
the same one.
I just think of them as a nice bovo.
I don't know why I just do.
Yeah, no, purple and pink, absolutely.
And a bit of coconut.
These wonderful scenes.
I mean, they're obviously very cheap sets, but they've turned the
lighting so far down that you can barely see the actors' faces.
Wicked.
I've really struggled to understand what these guys said the 1st
time through and over the years, obviously, I've worked out what
they've said, but on initial broadcast, it's like, what are they
saying?
Yeah.
We spoke quite a bit about this when we were on the real McCoy?
Because why what are they for?
Like, why are they here?
So episode 2 makes it clear the political thing because the
depression, which is introduced at the beginning of episode 2, is
a political protest about factory conditions.
You know, it is very explicitly a labour protest.
And here there's something about colonialism.
You know, they've colonised this planet, but it has...
They're indigenous people.
Yeah, it has indigenous people there.
And they're oppressing them.
And it's kind of hard to fit that into a kind of English context.
But, but, and I think you said this when we were doing Real McCoy
They, it had to, they had to tick the monster box in a way.
And probably went a little too far.
I mean, that's something that we could probably have done without
but, you know, we get the fact is that they are involved in the
resolution of the story as well.
Um, and I guess, you know, being an evil colonialist is just
another thing that we can say makes Helena terrible.
Maybe she's connected to Power of Kroll in some way.
Is there an element of sort of tamping down the working classes as
well?
Yeah, I think so.
So the depression, the depression is, you know, the depression is
workers, isn't it?
The, the, the, could the pipe tests?
Yeah, it sounds like a weather condition, but it's actually
describing an emotional condition.
Well, no, a political decision.
But it is a political thing.
Like, again, she is characterising dissent as... yeah as
unhappiness.
And you get it all the time.
Like tone policing is a thing as well.
We've, you know, in this situation recently where people have been
saying that they object to being disagreed with on social media by
people who are angry at them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. all of this sort of stuff And the idea that
political debate has to be done from sort of this sort of Olympian
kind of, you know, in this sort of calm, detached sort of way
requiring people who are being oppressed to be calm and nice when
they engage with you.
You know, that behaviour, their existence.
That's it.
That's right.
And so that idea, and it's not, it's not, um, you know, invented
by Graham Curry, there's a, there's a hilarious faulty, uh, faulty
Towers, a Monty Python sketch, um, called Happy Valley, where
everyone who's miserable is put to death, along with the trade
union leaders.
You know, this is just about my favourite Fifi moment coming up.
Just at the very end of the scene, I just think is so, so superb.
Look at Fee Fee.
And then Fifi's Fifi's about to do a snarl, which I just think is
absolutely superb.
Here we go.
You know the waiting zones.
There it is Look at that, look at the teeth.
Look at the teeth.
He looks like he's about to fart.
You know, the waiting zones were actually a limitation of the
plot.
There was originally supposed to be a prison.
A prison set.
And they couldn't. afford it.
So they decided, well, well, we'll make that actually a feature of
the plot.
I mean, that's fantastic.
Can you imagine Eric Saywood coming up with anything half as
clever as that?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, like turning the limitations of your budget into a positive
thing.
Well, and getting them to, it's thematically about their refusal
to accept that they're an impressive regime.
We don't have prisons.
Everyone's happy on terra alpha.
There's no prisons there, praising.
Look at man pain.
It's one of those serendipity moments where everything's firing
again, in the show and so you get these moments where they take a
negative and they turn it into something that just adds to it.
Yeah.
The shot there of the 2 snipers who were just introduced.
It shows how much they were able to get out of these sets and that
the studio is extremely small and the sets are just reused
constantly and shot from different angles.
So that redressed.
Yeah, that balcony where the snipers are standing is actually part
of the execution chamber.
They've just turned down the lights on it.
It hung up black drape underneath.
Now, some of the scenes that get cut out in episodes 2 and 3 are
all about how much Helena loves Fifi, and obviously that's super
important to the resolution of the story.
Here, the scene where she's leafing through a photo album of
lovely pictures of her with Phoebe when everyone comes in
publicity shots from the...
It's that thing that they used to do in series all the time in the
70s, but when you'd have sort of a photo of someone.
In fact, it's like Aunt Vanessa, Tegan's Aunt Vanessa.
It's not a happy snap.
It's her spotlight, obviously.
But those photos, again, the artificiality of them, the fact that
they look like publicity shots, you know, they're not, they're not
spontaneous pictures or anything, but she does love Fifi and
that's super, super important.
She's, you know, she doesn't love Joseph C. you know there's no
sign of that.
He's gay.
I love this interview between the doctor and her.
Me too.
It's got one of my favourite lines in the whole story.
No more cues at the post office.
Yes.
Trevor Sigma is just brilliant.
I think John Warmington is so different from...
Morgas.
Recognisable instantly to a Doctor Who fan.
But he's just brilliant.
She didn't ask him to change his coat, though.
John Normington said that even though it was a very happy
production, there was a sense that the entire team was exhausted
by everything that had happened during the year with Greatest Show
having to go on to location and then having no time to make silver
nemesis, he said, they just got to this and you could tell that
the cast and crew were exhausted.
There you go.
This is where we've gone over 500,000 disappearances.
That weariness probably adds to it, though.
Oh, that's true.
So basically she'd controlled the population down by one-tenth of
the happiness patrol's average rating. 17% of the people have been
killed.
Like this is the other thing too, the scale, like the fact that
she has ordered half a 1000000 deaths puts her, you know, in the
same kind of realm as the Daleks.
I mean, you know, like it's it's crazy.
I love the way he just takes the, um, all those things with him to
go to the candy kitchen or the, the, the, like the, um, the, the
farm extinguisher.
Sorry.
It's, you know, the way that he kind of tricks John Normington's
character into just he's not allowed to ask him.
No one's allowed to ask him any questions.
Was that a question?
No, okay, then I'll say it.
Like, somehow he's just gained control of the situation just by
kind of bluster and stuff.
It's clever is what it is.
And Doctor Who hadn't actually been clever for a little while and
suddenly it is again.
They still lives.
The early archetype of the Matt Smith, doctor, you know, that sort
of angel that falls from the heavens destroys your world and then
disappears.
Yeah.
He falls out of the sky and tears down your world.
Yeah.
I mean, we've had it before.
I think the savages is the er text for this, isn't it?
The savages is the 1st time the doctor just comes in and smashes
an oppressive society and then leaves.
But remember, they were painted gold.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry.
But I guess the other one is the one that's most similar is
Sunmakers, isn't it?
Yeah.
And it's one night, which it is in the Sunmakers as well.
But he just comes here for a night and tears down a brutal
oppressive political ratio.
Originally, it was supposed to take place over 2 or 3 weeks. in
the original script and because of the limitations of the of the
budget, They decided to cut it down to one night.
But one night is so effective.
It works easily, but you still do have echos of that, such as
where Thifi gets injured in the pipes.
And then you have Helena taking off the wrappings later and going
oh, you're better now after what, an hour?
Well, he's an Alsarian dog.
I just said they were super effective bandages that super healed
that creature.
Yeah, those times from inside the spaceship.
Yes.
I borrowed them from Hartnell.
It's super cartoonish is the effect of it, isn't it?
Like you put the bandages on, like there's, it's funny that that
oh, here we go.
Now, this scene is wonderful, and the performances of these 2 in
very small parts are great.
In fact, the other guy gets most of his lines, you know, there is
another deleted scene with these guys earlier on.
And clearly the guy who isn't pointing the gun at the doctor is
already dissatisfied with the political regime.
Like, and you know, isn't as obsessed with guns as this guy.
I can't imagine a scene like this, which is um, just a superb
character scene, cropping up um, earlier in the 80s.
No, no.
They just weren't writing to this sort of standard.
It's so good.
Oh, also, because the scriptor did a thought that looking people
in the eye and pulling a trigger was a right thing to do and that
Pete should really have just blown Davros' head off and not doing
that was a moral failing.
I don't understand these people who say that McCoy can't do anger
in... sometimes he can't.
No, well, he can't he can't do shouty.
Yeah, I think. and that really is really reductive.
Like, I think he's actually great at doing quiet anger.
Well, that one in episode one where Ace, you know, where he's
grabbing Ace and trying to calm her down and assuring her that, yes
we will be making that.
It's the shouting that doesn't really well.
And that I think people just paint his entire era with that
brush.
Look, I don't think Sylvester McCoy is a very subtle actor and
certainly he's not as good as some of his predecessors.
Look, I'll say like in that sequence, he skates a very fine line
between not pulling it off and pulling it off.
I agree.
And so sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
There's some faces that work, sometimes not.
So, yeah.
I do think, though, he's an interesting performer.
You know, in the way that, say, Tom is.
Like he's he's interesting to watch.
He's not as big as Tom.
No one is.
But, well, maybe Colin is.
But, um, he, you know, he's, he's just interesting to watch.
And his take on the doctor is so good.
That's what Tom always said that the part was actor proof.
And I think Sylvester proves it.
I'm not getting to him because I think he's, you know, very good
in places, but it proves that if you're an idiosyncratic actor, you
can make the part your own, you don't have to be a brilliant actor
to do it.
I think they're also, we forget this is quite early in Sylvester's
acting career.
He done light entertainment.
He'd done a lot of, you know, stage comedy, but this is actually
in a lot of ways, his big break.
He's become a better actor since this.
This scene, which is going on now, I think, is superbly well
directed, you can follow exactly what's going on.
All the shots mean something.
The music really builds to a crescendo.
I think this is an example of what I was saying earlier, where I
think Chris Clough gets out of the way sometimes and lets it
happen.
That could have been shot in a more stylised way, but I think it
works brilliantly the way it is.
I do think it does, however, look like that, so Fildred is just
waiting to come down that.
Yeah, yeah, that's slide.
That's the one criticism, that's like one foot long.
Rules of the system.
I love his yellow tie. have that, thanks.
Yeah.
The whole outfit is brilliant.
Just the fact that he looks like a sort of mid-20th century man
who works in the civil service.
He looks like a timelord should show up to tell off John Pertway.
I'm a candyman of my word.
I think that's brilliant.
And you see, that's what's great about the Candyman, is that he
actually is a Candyman of his work.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
And then it's like, well, you know, here we go again.
Do you think we knew that he was going to do that when he stole
the lemonade or...?
I've never noticed that the thinking of the background is a giant
KitchenAid.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
We have one at home.
What colour?
sort of yellow.
I always adore these scenes where the companion and the villain
get their own confrontations.
It's brilliant.
Sarah used to get them all the time.
I love this too. again, there's an extended scene. where some just
random Terra Alphans walk past and Sylvester plays the spoons on
them.
That was definitely kind. cut for a reason.
It's actually quite fun.
I think, oh.
Now this is my favourite cliffhanger of the 1980s and one of my
favourite cliffhangers of the entire classic series and it's an
accident.
Yeah, it wasn't going to be the original Cliffhanger.
Really?
And it's much better than what the original Cliffhanger was.
And I tell you what I like.
You've got this guy who is the, like, the ticket seller who is
incredibly good.
Phenomenal.
And did we talk earlier about the fact that he has a missing scene
where he's equally good?
Yeah, his introduction scene is cut.
It's this music.
And the music, it is the music and that line, I don't think Daphne
S went down to, it doesn't look like Daphne S went down too well
now, does it?
Sorry, but it's just...
Brilliant.
Because she's dead and they're painting RIP in pink paint on her
on her poster.
And it's also the final shot as well.
This, I mean, for God's sake, because look at Paul Daphne S. bless
her.
And the camera work looks like an engine on Sylvester and version
of Fatty Toxic.
She's in the background there.
She's trapped because she's just a photograph.
There's, you know, it's so good.
It's so beautifully done.
That happiness before I remember, she's the go to one.
She's the best of the rest and she's often in a lot of shots
because she's just a little bit more in your face than the rest of
it. quite animated, isn't it?
That line as well.
I mean, we still use that line.
I can't do anything without my list now, can I?
Yeah, he's such an angry jobsworth, isn't he?
I think Cornell Day and topping point him out, perhaps, in the
discontinuity guide, as a particularly grumpy Terra Alf, and, but
you know, makes the point that that is really the point of the
story.
Correct.
Thank you, Don Babbage.
What a great job you did on this story.
Don did a lot of stories, didn't he?
He did. did a lot of the 80s, I think.
Yeah, yeah. his name comes up all the time And John Asbridge, who's
just amazing.
Excuse me.
Did he design anything else or was this his only one?
I think he did Silver Nemesis and Delter and Dragonfire.
I think he worked with Chris Cloth a lot.
Right.
And he may have done others.
Like the production crew on this are some of the better production
crew from the classic series.
I mean, you've got Dork and Radzik.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, and Richard Croft.
Like he did like Morden, didn't he?
Oh, are the costume designer?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, and Sylvan Nemesis, and Dulchant Dragon.
No, so there you go.
He got it. group of people that he works for.
You see, I think Delta is up there with Chris's best work, Chris
Clough.
I think this and Delta and the Bannerman have a cohesive feel to
them where it all comes together.
And in fact, this story, for many years after its original
broadcast was not very popular and was compared with the Paradise
Towers as being something where it had just kind of careened off
the rails and was something weird and oddball story.
Yeah, whereas this is actually completely different from Paradise
Towers in that Paradise Towers suffers from, I think, a lack of
directorial vision.
So you've got performances all over the place on the different
page.
You've got a production, which is sometimes working against the
script.
Why this works is that everything is on the same page and
everything's pulling together.
Yeah.
So Sylla B didn't go down very well.
Oh here she comes.
Yeah, so this is the original Cliffhanger, and you can see the
close-up Cliffhanger shot.
And it's stupid.
It's boring.
It's showtime.
I just don't think that's anywhere near.
Whoever made that decision.
Great decision.
I agree.
Oh, look, and it's the magic...
Magic healing tape.
Where are the red stripes?
Well, they've they've Disappeared.
Yeah, he's almost healed.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Why does Helena have commas and or apostrophes all over her
wallpaper?
No, very strange.
And she's watching a scene from episode 2 of the same story.
How post-modern.
But I mean, this is very Orwellian in a way, isn't it?
I mean, she is she's big brother.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Watching everything.
It's basically 1984.
This guy's amazing.
He may actually be one of the very best guest actors in a small
role ever in Doctor Who.
I agree with you, Peter 125%.
So there's a scene in part 2 where the doctor's escaping from
Helena's palace and he 1st meets him for the 1st time.
This is the bit that Alfie thought was particularly convincing.
And he's not a smart dog.
And the doctor's hiding behind a column or something like that.
And that guy gets to say, hey, or you need a permit to hide there
which is so great.
And look, she's acting her socks off in front of this stupid
puppet.
It's incredibly great.
Could you imagine doing that?
She's so good.
She absolutely sells it.
And the thing is, she looks a bit ridiculous with, you know, the
bright red wig and everything.
She totally sells it Yeah, absolutely sells it.
That's also the face paint.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
It's so strange.
They're great.
I think what was it that Chris said?
They were going for kind of a Venetian kind of end of days era, you
know, sort of a crumbling empire, and that came all the way down
to kind of, you know, the makeup was cracking on people's faces
and things like that.
Well, just the way that there's, you know, the paint, you know
even in this shot, the background, you can see that like the paint
is peeling.
It's not really peeling, but it's painted to kind of look rough.
I also think some of the sort of weird things where architectural
features are painted on, you know, which is a...
Yeah, yeah.
But I, you know, what occurred to me when I was sort of revisiting
this story is, This story is incredibly prescient, especially
given what's been happening in China in the last sort of 5 years
with the, you know, social rankings, like, you know, like the
letter denotes how high up in society you are.
It's like it's quite prescient.
So, I think this is us selling Priscilla P as a fanatic, you know
that she's, yeah.
It's interesting having those 2 on that.
Go-kart.
I didn't really pick that up very much until the last time I
watched it.
Yeah, why is he even there?
He has a brilliantly funny scene where when the doctor finally
sort of confronts them.
I love this so much.
Apparently, they put this in because someone heard Sylvester
singing in the bar one night and they thought, that's a good idea
lets incorporate that.
And having him sing as time goes by as well.
You know, is perfect.
He does.
Yeah.
Better than the Jason Donovan version, isn't it?
Yes, Peter, I totally agree.
That can be said about many.
Jason Donovan's wonderful vocal. contributions to society.
In the long-running sitcom featuring Jeffrey Palmer and Judy...
Yes, of course.
Oh, dear.
And again, the music at this point is so good.
So good.
It's funny.
He actually doesn't have very much dialogue, does he, Joseph C, but
he does everything with his expressions. so good.
Weren't those, weren't the pipe people actually pay by children?
That's what I'd heard as well.
Yeah.
Or teenagers.
Like quarks.
They're both as intelligible as each other.
Oh, look at the nimbus of the Happiness Patrol.
The one on the left is fantastic.
This is terribly silly.
It works in the warped logic of the story.
Of course.
And in fact, you know, what we've been saying all along is that
everyone on Terra Alpha is miserable and so the happiness patrols
start fighting each other because, of course, they're all sort of
horribly dissatisfied.
Look at the one in the middle, up the back there, pouting away.
No, the one on the left has got these pursed lips.
She looks superb.
This.
It's Gilbert M comes in with a line helping the doctor.
Like, he gets super excited.
And it's just terrifically funny. here we go They're all just
waiting for an excuse to revolt, basically.
Side town back in the middle of that shot or is it a different
person?
On the stairs.
Oh I don't know.
No, it's I like to think it's Prentice Hancock.
Grandpa Prince is that.
Should we talk about section 28.
What about this Veltschmert?
This where he supplies the word Velchmet?
And he's so excited to help the doctor.
Yeah, well, so section 28, I think we did talk about it at great
length in our, you know, actual episode.
An actual episode.
Well, no, no, no, like our actual episode.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Otherwise known as Maggie getting the claws out.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's, you know, the idea that no counts or money can be spent
on LGBT on the promotion of homosexuality.
That's right.
And so, and it's all happening at this sort of really difficult
time for the gay community.
A brutally nasty piece of legislation.
And, you know, clearly, this is about that as well.
I just love how they're going for a walk this evening just around
this table where everybody gets executed.
That's probably Helena's back garden.
That's right.
Take them she takes them out the back and kills them.
Do you think, do you think that that's from Tracan?
I kept kind of, you know...
It's probably from cold it.
Yeah, so just had it in the proper arm.
The story just repainted it a different sort of shade of metal.
It'll turn up in EastEnders in 1998.
Of course.
I also love the chandeliers.
But all over the set, for some reason, outdoors.
I think these sets are beautiful. absolutely beautiful.
It's got that brilliant thing in multi-camera studios where
whenever you have to go down somewhere.
You have to build up sort of the place where you go in off the
ground so that people have room to go down.
It's like, why is this sewer vent raised?
I love this story so much.
So much that like my 1st fanzine was called the Happiness Patrol.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I remember editing, didn't I edit Forum Square in...
Yeah, yeah, for some time.
And whenever it was a double feature, it was the forum rectangle.
I could watch these 3 all day long.
Oh, yeah.
And even this line.
You're in the waiting zone, wait.
Poor Priscilla.
Strictly speaking.
We actually don't get to see Priscilla captured, but we do in the
extended version.
Yes.
But, um, I love that shot.
We'll get to it.
But again, one of these incredible noir-ish shots.
That line I haven't I haven't met one of those since Birmingham
the 25th century.
That's right.
Not the planet Zog.
I want to see that adventure.
Where's Big Finish?
Birmingham in the 25th century and meets an annoyed rat.
You'd remember that too, because there's nothing else in Burnham.
Some ring roads.
And a very nice train station.
Like, the rebuilt new street train station is quite attractive.
But that's the only thing.
So this, I mean, this is it being a theatre piece, isn't it?
Where the collapse of the political system, as, you know, things
fall to the rebels, is all just done in dialogue. 1000s of them
out there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I built over a thousand.
They're revolting.
But I think it's more effective that you're just getting the
updates between the 2 of them and what's going on rather than
actually seeing it.
Yeah, yeah.
I think so too. you know, like it would only have been kind of
slightly terrible, I think, if we had seen it.
In 1988.
Yeah, so you could do it now, but yeah.
But I also think too, the important thing is her reaction to it
like her inability to realise that something has gone horribly
wrong.
Reminds me a bit of, I think, Power of the Daleks and their sort
of society.
Yeah.
Like, and the sort of the what's going on.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know, just has a bit of shades of that. everyone
having their own agendas and...
Yeah, yeah.
But then, like the Daleks go through the colony and murder
everyone and we just, we see it.
We see a scene of it, I think.
But there's different factions going on and different things
happening and the guards are, you know, there's a revolution going
on and all that sort of stuff.
It just reminds me a bit of that at times.
Oh, doesn't the dog die.com?
Oh.
Oh, poor Fifi.
So if you had not seen this story and went to that website, you'd
never have watched this story.
Probably not.
I still won't watch Mark of the Rani.
That's not true.
But the dog dies.
Is that the reason?
The master kills a dog.
Thank you, Eric, say what.
Ways to die.
I think being buried under crystalised sugar is not one of the
worst.
Delicious.
My favourite.
If you didn't die, you'd probably die of diabetes.
This, like I think these 2 together are really wonderful.
There's a, again, there's a deleted scene between the 2 of them
which I think is particularly brilliant one for some...
It's like Gorbian Chase.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. absolutely.
But seeing it on the telly.
Like we do actually see, you know, we do see Susie Q grab the gun
and and, you know, capture her in a deleted scene.
But that with the music and stuff.
It's so noir-ish, it's so good.
Get me the candy.
And this, you know, you're not unhappy about something.
Any admission that the government is not working is forbidden
and...
Hello?
Where's his ear?
It's wonderful.
He's got one of those old star telephones.
And when he answers, Candyman.
It so good.
Ah, dear, I love this scene. to them together.
Just so terrific.
The Candyman stands like Donald Trump.
You know how Donald Trump has that lean?
when he stands.
The candy man has the same lean in reverse.
He messed up the same scene.
Maybe Donald Trump is the candy man in a skin suit.
No, candy mats.
Only his lower half.
I would live for Mike Pence to turn around to Donald Trump and say
oh, hey, pimplehead.
And so this, of course, tiresome.
Thank you.
Oh, I love this.
That would be telling.
And then, woo.
It's not mentioned in the dialogue, but of course she gets the
doctor to catch a red hot poker and he just fortunately doesn't
catch the red hot end.
He's the doctor.
Isn't that the joy of Doctor Who?
And then, whoa, quickly, I must duck down this very small hole.
Very, very like...
How did he get his feet through?
It's fantastic.
One at a time. jiggling a lot.
That's another great line.
He'll keep.
He's full of colouring, flavouring and preservative.
In fact, there's a pity that Sylvester's face isn't in shot when
he delivers that.
He's behind us. a pipe.
And so, you know, you can imagine them wanting to reshoot it.
There's another deleted scene, another deleted line here, which I
think is absolutely superb and is a really good character moment
for the doctor.
So she says, he says wanton destruction of public property
certainly not.
And then there's a beat and then he says, oh, all right then.
And it's the same glee that Hartnell has with smashing the system
at the end of the savages.
You know, the doctor does want, you know, and does it hark back to
horror Fang Rock, where the doctor gets cross at Leila for
damaging the lighthouse.
You know, like for the quota government actor.
Yeah, yeah, saying it's against the law to damage sort of, you
know, it covers linehouses or whatever.
I love, look at a run.
It's just hilarious.
Don't run as fast as you can.
Can, you can't catch me.
I'm the candy man And again, that shot is really great, isn't it?
From the from the TV to her face.
Don't we need the controller from Day of the Daleks to crop up and
sing the Candyman?
I love how these guys actually worked out what controls to use in
the kitchen too.
And the music here too.
Yeah.
And a lovely lighting.
And some of that's practical lighting, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I had originally thought it was like CG or something, but
it's not.
Oh.
That's a little bit too quick.
I mean, obviously we can't afford to see him engulfed in
whatever.
What even happens to him?
I think he just... hot fudge, basically.
He came from Vasinet.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
So he's obviously done this once before.
He bought his bones with him.
Like, he's done something in Vaseline.
Well, killed half a 1000000 people, half of the population.
Look at his face when Joseph C says, oh, well, it wasn't your
fault. goes, no, no, it wasn't.
Oh, dear.
But give Big Finish another 30 years and they will.
There are candies next to Hellenese entry door. fantastic.
There's a little on, on the, on the table where they're sort of
sitting in, in episode one.
There's candies and they're in their rainbow colours, like they've
all been carefully arranged in the colour of a rainbow.
Just in case you're not sure what the allegory is.
Yeah, that's right.
Is Helen's suitcase a boom mic box?
I think it might be.
But she's got something fluffy in it that's still poking out the
sides.
A bit of thick, no choice.
One of the best scenes in the story coming up.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I think I know what you mean.
Uh, we do see them again, I think, here we go.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
I mean, this final scene where he's just going from place to place
inciting people, you know, it's just tremendous, isn't it?
Yeah.
Here we go.
We think Helena has escaped at this point, don't we?
And then we cut to her.
Yeah.
Like how the screen tells your information.
The shuttle's in the orbit and here comes some communication.
The deadpan quality is so amazing.
And just another unsatisfactory relationship that he's now
started.
Like he was married to the Candyman.
Now he's with Joseph C.
The captain let me in.
He's not at all happy.
When are the Hunters Hill players doing the happiness?
With me.
It's a bit niche.
Oh that's fantastic.
This shot, not so great.
But whatever. you know it does what it needs to do.
What a brilliant ending for those 2 characters.
Oh, hello.
I'm delighted to see.
That's a bit crap as well.
She was just waiting for the fishing line to be. exactly.
Aces line here. face ache.
She has called her face ache once before. in a deleted scene.
She is like the most anarchist of Doctor Who come back.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, fantastic.
Like the hints of the young ones and Alexi Sale.
Yeah, Dodo.
Vicky, actually.
Vicky's pretty anarchist.
Revolution.
I mean, Vicky basically brings the Morocc regime down in the space
museum, doesn't she?
wonderful.
Very underrated story.
What about Barbara and the morpho brains?
Dexterity.
Even though we're watching this with the subtitles on it, no
sound.
I can hear that.
Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.
I think this scene is absolutely stunning.
Like absolutely superb.
Wow, episode was supposed to end.
One of the best scenes in the history of Doctor Who.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And certainly confronting the villain, where it's all about, you
know, revealing to her the problems with her politics, you know
trying to convince her that she's doing the wrong thing.
And and just the way it's resolved, you know, like, I actually, you
know, she's an awful person and it would have been fine if she'd
been killed.
She's killed a half a 1000000 people.
You know, she's she's she's appalling.
And like it's, there's a, you know, it's not realistic or
whatever.
It's not real.
But the fact that, you know, that the happiness here, she admits
that it's all about control.
It is all about politics.
The happiness thing is about...
No, it's for the good of the majority.
Yeah, that's extremely thatcherite.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, there's, like, the coded language around families and yeah
yeah, it's very Thatcher.
If you're miserable in this regime.
It's your fault because you're not strong enough and you you are
weak, you know, and that's why you don't agree with this regime.
It's moral weakness.
And so it is absolutely political.
And then this thing where she, it's the moment that she says that
that love is overrated, that, you know, the doctor says, it's the
thing when you have dogs, right?
When you have a dog, you will outlive the dog.
And so what you're signing up for as well as years of sort of love
and loyalty is grief.
That's the deal and all relationships end, and they all end in
grief.
And like this stupid puppet, and, and, and, she is just absolutely
like, I can't watch this scene without crying, even though she's a
terrible person, she is just so, so brilliant.
Thank God she's not Jenny Laird.
Yeah, no, it wouldn't have worked, but she just acts herself.
And the fact that...
Yeah, yeah.
And and impassive, you know, because this is what taught her that
she's wrong.
This is how she gets overthrown.
She was wrong about all of this.
That's right.
This is the end of the episode.
I think it's a brilliant and music at this point.
What do you mean by as scripted?
Like that, like, they originally plan to end the episode there
without this coder at the end?
I think the coder is absolutely natural.
You need the coder.
Yep.
And look at the lighting, how everything's blue.
You get to see Daisy and Priscilla fixing, you know, like they're
being forced to do something to fix the society that they've been
terrorising and they get a sort of funny line.
The adulture in charge now.
And you've had no real hint of a romance between these two, but
right at the end you do and it's lovely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I also like in that last scene with Helen A. The doctor actually
doesn't convince her.
He fails at convincing her.
It's just the caprice of chance that Fifi is there.
Yeah, someone that she loved has died and like grief is the
appropriate thing, that being happy is not the right response, you
know, in every situation.
Yeah, that's a beautiful last shot.
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
Yeah. terrific.
Set off brilliantly by Dominic's music, as the whole story has
been.
Just tremendous.
What a wonderful way to spend Sunday morning watching this. which
is brilliant.
I could watch that every day of the week.
Yep, yep.
No, this is my 3rd time.
Twice on Sunday. watching that.
And you have?
Tim Scott.
Can we just have a cheer for Tim Scott, the forum doormat?
Fantastic.
So great.
I like to think that they open up into the forum and it's that big
cabinet thing from Star Wars episode one.
Is it episode one with all the Wolf Man 2?
No, episode two. all those little flying creatures in the big...
Oh, yes, geonosis.
The big arena.
Yes.
I kind of like how we don't get to see the forum.
That's good.
Yeah.
Because like that fits with the story.
The story is about the doctor fiddling around at the margins to
bring down a... like a regime.
Yeah, yeah.
So seeing, you know, being outside.
Well done, Chris.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Graham Curry for the story.
Yeah, absolutely.
So good.
And the novelisation, I think, is magnificent.
Like I read and reread the novelisation.
Find and download the audio book of it.
It's fantastic.
Okay.
I've never listened to it and I shouldn't.
Because I love Ruler Lenska.
Well, any closing remarks?
I think we might be done.
Shall we go again?
Yeah, all right.
Let's go.
And the code word is walkies.
No.
I can feel one of my moves coming on.
Good mood.
Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back later in the year for our coverage of the 2009
Doctor Who specials, starting with a trip to the Scorpion nebula
in a flying bus in Planet of the Dead.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at flights for entirety on Facebook, at
FT Podcast on Twitter, and on our website, FlightthroughEntirety
com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger, and
Jody IntoTara.
Until next time, remember that the only true source of happiness
in this whole benighted world is the love of a savage dog.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Good night. happiness will prevail.