Hello, and welcome to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who
podcast. whom you can't confine to one place in one time.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
And by Richard.
Hello.
Who you are.
That's who I am.
That's the reason I'm doing that today.
Not the only one.
Yes, because Richard is not the last person to introduce.
We have joining us, friend of the podcast and convention
interviewer and organiser extraordinaire Sir Todd Bealby and Todd
I'm now handing over to you and going to drink this very nice
champagne.
Cheers.
Thank you, Brenda.
Thank you, everybody, for having me here today.
We feel special.
Yes, I'm quite excited.
I'm 600 and just stere at each other.
I don't have to control these 2 when someone brings up the
massacre.
That's all you today Did somebody mention the message?
No, please don't go.
No, I'm really excited.
Listeners, it's in this inner sanctum with the 3 who will.
Okay, speak Canilla.
I don't think there was a contest.
Or yes, well, of course, we're here to reflect on your journey so
far.
I just want to thank you on half of everybody. the wonderful
insights that you've given us along the way and all your
discussions and arguments and affirmations and making us think
about things that we never thought about before or dismissed, you
know, offhand.
I think there's been a lot of dismissal.
Oh, no, no, it certainly made me, you know, go back and look at
the sense rights again and reevaluate a few different characters
and performances, but we might get to that.
All right, let's start with something deep and meaningful.
You've just reached the end of the 1960s.
This journey that you've undertaken.
What have you discovered about yourselves?
As Doctor Who fans?
I wonder what the youngest person thinks about that.
Um, In a way, I have discovered that I can actually do this
project because I don't talk about this much on the podcast itself
but the podcast was my idea initially I do the editing.
I posted most of the episodes.
Richard has also hosted about... about a 3rd of them.
The cat has helped as well.
Yeah, yeah, Richard's cat.
Yeah, it's just the fact that I... have been able to put my mind
to it and edit it and cut it all down and it's it's very Zen.
It, like darkening for me.
Which is, sorry, what do you mean you cut it down?
I mean, they're actually longer than that.
They're actually longer.
Dear listener, you know, sometimes lifting the veil here.
Very often, especially if you hear us mention an actor's name, we
usually have to rush to Wikipedia.
No, rubbish, it's all it's all in our rotary file effects.
Toby Haydock, if you're listening, I apologise that just throwing
your iPod across the room in disgust that we don't know Doctor Who
actors.
But, um, I mean, that's what I've discovered about myself, I
suppose, in this.
It hasn't really changed any of my my views of Doctor Who.
I have sort of come to realise more how the actors develop their
portrayals.
Because if we just watch, say, a solitary story featuring, say
Deborah Watling, Victoria is much maligned by the fan community
but if you watch...
Yeah, they can shape, they're mistaking his head.
We've been quite strong on that, haven't we?
So-called secondary characters and how, you know, right from the
beginning, the female lead was really the lead.
It was actually called that, just as Russell called, his search
show rose, and Russell recognised that it was there from the
start.
I was interested to know what you thought, Brendan, on just a view
of the time in the 60s and that's what I've been getting out of
this.
There's a whole lot of other windows into what was going on
because I didn't catch the black and whites the 1st time round, but
we were certainly aware of them.
And there were this great mysterious bolt of the unknown that were
half remembered by fans 10 years old and then I was, you know, way
too much older and cool when you're in your early teens to
actually, you know, part with anything, but little snips of
knowledge.
So it was it was so difficult to find anything, even just for
colour pictures, you have to go to university libraries and become
a nerdy spot to find old issues of TV week or whatever it was that
we used to look up.
So I actually learned research skills as an 11, 12 year old.
Yeah, going into Fisher library.
God, isn't that nerdy?
I'm trying to find the old images, but and now, of course, it's a
completely different take.
So I was wondering for someone like you who's grown up with with
all of this information available.
How is this taken?
This has taken a different check for you.
And I love that you said it's actually about the actors.
Yeah, so you can see ongoing characterisation.
Before I comment on that, I just want to put out that, Richard
puts in out the 3 of us.
You put in the biggest amount of research.
Well, that's my homework.
Because, but then as I just said, you do an enormous amount of
work on the IT in the background.
And that's really staggers me is still a Luddite.
I just tell them how much work there is in putting something like
this together.
Well, mostly just editing out, I swear, and probably a lot of Mac
and I'll say that.
Yeah, I never swear.
Yeah, no, the leather, never swears.
It's always in our coat.
It's always in archaic languages, so the rest of us can't
understand.
It's great.
But it's great that you're still finding it fun and enjoyable and
not a labour.
The surprising thing is...
Most Can I can I just can I do an anecdote?
Opening the kimono and...
We recorded the 4 the 4 episodes of season 3 all in one sitting
one mammoth sitting.
And I think probably, you know, those 4 episodes would have to add
up to, you know, 5 hours.
Yeah, the recording was something like 6.5 hours.
The overall recording time.
And it was murderous.
Richard was going to kill either one of us.
Because also Richard had volunteered to host that recording
and...
I was starting a new job the next day.
You didn't know when you volunteer that.
And Rod was sick as well, so it couldn't be at my place and I was
going to America.
So we got double banking or something like that trying to get
through all of it.
And I think our tolerance, our tolerance for that has gotten laid
out.
The last few times we've just recorded one.
Yeah, we recorded one.
I think going forward now the seasons are mercifully much
shorter.
We'll be able to, um, you know, we'll be able to do just sort of 2
at a time and release 2 a month.
Okay, 26 episodes to watch.
See, for me, the big thing going back to your question, Todd, is
that for me, the thing has been just how much fun it is and like
how happy with the product, the finished product I've been.
I've really, really enjoyed it and I tragically, occasionally re
listened to it.
You know, I have my favourites.
I love that.
The season 3 once, actually, despite the production process.
That'll be cool 1st ones.
I think we get I think we got very raw with season 3 and there's a
lot in season 3 that's controversial.
We talked about the racism in the arc.
I was going to say YouTube is centred, but we dissented with you
Nathan, over the massacre because we think it's wonderful and
you're wrong.
It's my favourite, yeah.
I think it was more fun to listen to than it was to record.
But I hope so.
But it's certainly that's what a lot of these seasons are like.
And if you do try and watch them in a hit.
I really recommend no one does that because you do end up feeling
it's not, again, it's, is it Sandoval?
and all Toby Haddock says it as well.
You're not into watch these things on the block.
And that's right.
And that's the other thing too. is that I didn't really know the
60s of Doctor Who very well.
And I'd already decided that I was going to watch the Barbara
era.
Um, as I like to call it, just all the way through.
I was just going to watch the 1st 2 seasons, I was probably going
to end the chase.
And then Brendan brought up the idea of the podcast and so it
ended up being watching the 60s all the way through.
And I've mentioned on the podcast before heaps of these things
things like Marco Polo and the Massacre and the highlanders and
the savages and the space pirates.
There's lots of them that I just never ever seen before.
And so now, you know, as I mentioned in the last episode, I've
seen all of Doctor Who.
And that's like I'm really happy about that.
I've loved the show since I was 10, you know, now to have a better
idea of how it went in the 60s and also to discover just how great
it was in the 60s.
So someone at a party over Christmas said that they got the
impression that I only really liked about 6 classic series stories
and that everything else was tiresome.
But, um, well, you do want to put a rootin or a bandrum in
everything you lost.
But, um...
Why did I never think of that?
I think going back in series nine.
Awesome.
They're giant 50 foot high cyborgs, apparently.
Yes.
Yeah.
No, just to discover how much I loved 60s Doctor Who, and
particularly the Heartnol era, you know, and for all of its
terrible faults.
Even season three, it has been a really fun, a fun ride.
And I think that's what I appreciate.
I do the website and that kind of thing.
And that's sort of something that I've done before and something
that was well within my wheelhouse sort of thing, but that has
also been fun, I think, and the interactions on the website and
more specifically the Facebook page, which is where most people
you know, tend to engage with us.
And I should mention, dear listener, that shortly after this
podcast, in time for our 1st release for the John Pert era, we
will be debuting a redesigned website.
So stay tuned for that.
Does it look alright?
I think it looks great.
Okay.
Oh, it's a car. excited.
Do you think that heading into the 70s that because as Australian
fans we've seen or they show so many times that's going to
influence your journey?
Are you are you looking at going in and saying, well, I want
something to be proven different than they want my perceptions, I
would say, you know, a performance or a story or you're just going
in there and just taking it as an accountant.
I'm still like watching and making notes.
Do you know what I mean?
And I, last night I finished watching the Siberians and and I
discovered things that I thought about that, that I hadn't thought
before.
So I think you watch it sort of a bit more intentionally and a
little bit more deliberately if you have to say something about
it.
But I do expect it at least to be easier.
You know, these are things that I know so well, you know, um, that
it will be easy to say, sort of fun things about it.
I think the challenge will be saying things that are surprising
about it.
Like, I think people know the 60s a bit less well.
You know, even among our audience.
That's true.
It is more familiar, but there's also surprises.
And this is the thing with watching them again.
I'd only just watch them the year before.
Um, as part of the great cultural journey of life. is that there's
something different each time, even to the point that I really
didn't enjoy pets tenure watching them again series.
I think I got up to just sort of the middle of Tom before we
started the podcast a bit. back to the beginning.
Imagine that.
Um, and then this time around I did, and I can see how good Pat is
even when he's laboured with you, he could say less than lustrous
squid material, less than less than ideal plot thread, 3% of one.
For the Christmas season.
Um, that, yeah, there are surprises or even just seeing how the
women players have really been fully served and they finally got
it partly mostly partly right with Wendy Abri, but even then, she
they kind of forgot about it.
And yeah, there'll be lots to talk about on all the different
cultural levels of it.
And the 70s being more familiar.
I think might actually be more surprising because we think we
already know about it and then we go back.
We were terribly young or even not there, deep listeners.
So that's an issue.
I never bring up my age.
I don't think it's... to the rest of us.
Maybe because the last 70s are great, though.
No, they were really the best.
They actually were.
You could be a nine-year-old still know about Studio 54 and Bianca
Jago, because Kenny Everett and the Goodies were constantly
referencing that.
We, yeah, there was, growing up without an internet didn't mean we
didn't know the thing.
You were just more attentive to the little than the focussed on
the camera obscure.
The light was narrower, but it was a lot sharper.
Well, I do get a bit of an eye into that because, as you know, but
I'm not sure if I mentioned a podcast before.
My partner, Roddy, is older than myself. closer to you guys in age
than me.
So he does talk about that time and he...
He's digitised most of his record collections.
So I've heard I've heard such classics as disco wedding.
Oh. by Nigo.
You haven't heard that, it is gloriously bad.
Yeah, why not?
But I think something that's always interesting for me, looking
back on these stories, is I have a nostalgia for an age in which I
never lived.
But so do we.
Just have been immediately before our time.
I find that quite relevant, that early 60s thing, yeah.
I mean, the other thing I'm quite looking forward to.
Like we did in the 60s, is rehabilitation of certain characters
because I still talk to people who insist that Joe Grant had no
character development.
Oh, God, she's brilliant.
She's the best thing ever.
Richard can't stanza.
Spoiler alert.
Although, I should point out, we all look cated. and that's
unfair.
It's a bit more.
I idolise.
I idolise, Katie, because people have seen it, but...
You and Jim Stuart Thurlow.
Well, I only said I was doing Stuart Phil when Annelise was there
as Katie as well.
So, you know, but I want to embarrass her.
No, exactly.
I don't want to show her up.
Some people might have thought that one of you carried off a
little more convincing.
Well, Katie, I'm not going to say.
Katie said that I was the most screen accurate.
I had the hair.
Actually, But...
But this is also the era of Doctor Who, the early 1970s, it was my
favourite as Charles.
It's not my favourite now.
My favourite now is Patsyera, mainly for Pat, because it's your
favourite, Richard. scripts aren't always great.
But he's wonderful, which has been parallelled recently by Matt
Smith, in my opinion.
You know, his scripts aren't always great, but he is never
anything less than ripped.
And we're learning just how quickly they were having to run those
things off, the period of it, pretty much like Pat's era.
So there are lots of mirrors to that as well.
Which doctor?
Is better.
Ooh.
Which area?
You see that?
Okay.
Can you scale that, though, one to the other?
Is that a fair question?
Like, you know, of course it is, yeah.
Can you get an answer?
Pat's a better actor or he's more convincing or compelling to
watch.
He's certainly playing a part.
Pat's extraordinary.
He's a different actor.
Yeah, he's a great actor.
I really like Hartner as the doctor, though, an enormous amount.
I love that conception of the character.
And I have an affection for heart in a way that I don't quite for
Pat.
I think Pat is better and Pat is the template from which everyone
else, everyone says this, but the template from which everyone
else derives their performance of who the doctor is.
But aren't always so lovely and so kind of whimsical and funny and
yeah, Anna Kirk would agree with everything.
Yes, yeah, no, well, I got this one.
And I think his era is better.
I think that, you know, it's technically worse.
You know what I mean?
The show looks better in the trout near up.
You know, production, how use a better, all of that sort of
thing.
It's a truism to say that production values get a better year over
year.
And I've said this before, the Huntl era is more experimental.
It does more interesting things and and and especially under
verity.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I think really that's the reason it's still going, it's very.
Yeah I agree.
Yeah, because Verity did so many different things in 2 years.
There was never really an opportunity in those 1st 2 years to sum
up the program in one sentence.
No.
It had a sense of mystery, didn't it?
And it kept supplying that when you thought you knew what it was
or when the production team had made a decision and the doctor is
this sort of person.
They would jump again.
It was a risk taking thing every, every, really every story.
That's why that's why watching them in isolation or seeing them as
we've seen them compared to, as you were saying, in isolation
through the wonderful gift of the randomiser.
So... is a very different thing because the beauty of it is that
when you see the time meddler is actually really startling and
extraordinary in between the stories that says, coming at the end
of a season.
Wow.
I didn't expect that.
I didn't expect this.
I didn't expect you. expect a week before.
There's a freshness that we still get in our jaded, oversaturated
commercially concentrated times.
We just get that this is, it may be simpler, but there's a lot of
you know, a lot of complexity in that simplicity.
I just want to shoot myself for saying that.
But there is.
There's a, and I actually find that something that's, I, we get
that they were on a knife edge and that they were taking a risk
every time and that I think makes it slightly more compelling to
watch.
That's compared to the later 60s when they were working towards
overseas sales and making it more formulaic.
And it just becomes a bit, it's the way of doing TV.
Back then.
What I think is so interesting is that I've really got, and it's
probably come across just a whole flavour of the times and how
quickly they were a changing Mr. Dylan at the time.
Every few months. totally different.
And the pop music reflects it and the the politics reflects that
the empire was falling apart. technology was coming in.
We had a space program.
We had a cold war that was spinning apparently out of control.
Lots of different things all happening at once.
And the show miraculously somehow.
For me reflects it better than anything else.
Perhaps because of its consistency that it was there for so long.
But I just think it was responsive and maybe unconsciously, but it
really, it really does show as a shadow mirror of the time.
I get out of it.
Did you expect that going into this journey?
I really didn't know.
Is that your greatest revelation in terms of what you've
discovered about Doctor Who?
My greatest surprise is that there's more to discover.
I really didn't think there'd be anything else in it.
I remember you saying that when we started it. like behind the
scenes.
I remember you saying, no, I remember you saying to me, you know
this is going to be fun, but do you think we're going to turn up
stuff that people don't know or haven't thought about?
Yeah.
And I think you've turned up most of it because you do all the
research in historic.
Yeah, it's also just I'm surprised to find that these things are
triggered in my re-listening or reviewing. or rereading.
I like to sort of come to it as I did, like at the time, as I did
as a child, which is through the target books.
So I'll have a quick look at the TV that's the target books of the
go to for me.
Do you still have a collection?
everything.
Gary Russell's collection of every known language in Christendom
but and beyond.
But heathen languages too, doesn't he?
And have the target...
Do you know how?
I'm missing 2 of them.
Really?
Yeah, I'm missing the arc and I'm missing a celestial time maker.
I thought I could go.
Well, my father.
Well, we know that one of them people will remain missing.
So what's your greatest revelation?
For me, the revelation is just learning the shape of the show, and
it is that thing which you'll get anyone would get if you were to
watch it in order rather than watch it as, you know, using the
randomiser, as Richard said.
And so seeing how, sort of, it's tentative in season one, but kind
of brilliant and then in season 2 it's really confident and it
really hits its stride.
It's, you know, just tremendous.
And then series 3 is, you know, full of production problems and
it's flailing and it's kind of going nasty and it's not sure what
it's doing.
And then season 4 is sort of trying to get back on track.
Season 5 is settling into a sort of terrible formula and season 6
is sort of breaking free from that.
I didn't really know that narrative before.
And that's terribly oversimplified, obviously, but learning that
and just getting to know what all the characters were like.
You know, I'd seen Vicki in, you know, a handful of things, I'd
seen Dodo in the ark and that's about it, old war machines, half
of war machines, poor old Sow.
And I really think that's going to still be in it.
Well, there's, I was listening.
There's no there's no there's no point for me to cut that.
That's all right. talking about Jackie Lane.
I'll ejaculate.
I'm just gorgeous.
I'm talking about, I'm talking about Dodo.
Do you know what might be fresh and wonderful?
Not at all changing the point.
You know, I'd like to, you know, because I think everyone's
probably hurt us to the point of every family Christmas that
they've ever experienced all that again.
Yes, we're recording your sister after Christmas.
I'd like to know what toys got out of it.
How fantastic to hear a fresh voice. normally my job.
I think it's just that the wonder of the discovery of all these
different aspects, especially to the hardcore era and the
different characters and the different viewpoints that you've...
I love.
I really, really love him.
I just think he's glorious.
I do not to, yeah.
I mean, I think Pat's tremendous, but I think The freshness of the
storms in our area and the fact that you're going historical and
then they're trying some sort of different sci-fi that's not
embedded into a Doctor Who pattern. is just wondrous.
And you know, sometimes it doesn't succeed, but they're in there
giving it their rule.
I mean, you suddenly get into Patrick's era and the moon-based
macro terror suddenly hears the formula that we're now going
through and for me, I find that like Nathan in season 5 very
tiresome at times.
I'm going to take a drink.
Patrick's mesmerising watch, you know, he is, isn't he?
That you've challenged me on different things to go back and look
at things like sense rights.
And I will go back now and look at Victoria and her Jack to see
what.
She's like...
How poor is she's served by the script?
She's terrible.
I've seen those stories out of sequence, different ones out of
sequences, and I just loathe the character.
But when any of the world turned up and there's that moment where
she almost slaps the doctor, I suddenly jumped out of my skins and
went, hang on, what's this?
She is my least favourite companion of the trout era.
That's a fair call, too, that she's so poor.
I'm sorry.
If I might jump off from there.
I'm getting back to a place where you asked earlier, sort of what
have we discovered about the 60s.
What I've really taken away from this is, you know, for years
we've heard Carol Anne Ford, talking about how poorly served Susan
was, and that's why she left, because she was promised she'd be
like an Avengers girl with fabulous psychic powers...
I thought more like chocky or more like one of the, yeah
surprise.
Cuckoo.
Yeah exactly.
And in between a person and something we don't know anything
about.
She actually references Kathy Gale was said to her as, this will
be a touchstone of your character.
You'll be like Kathy Gale.
And of course, what he got is very different.
Now, the thing is, the mould, which is. you say that too, because
the dramatist, you know, that, that, on a black one puts the drama
that Anna Blackman puts into her character.
It's not that she's just cool.
She's a little bit edgy and if you watch those black and white
avengers and she kind of, it's always pitched.
Now you say that, I can actually see something where Carol I
thought it was coming from because it's always a little bit over
the, you know, I mean, it looks kind of over the top and a Doctor
Who situation, but in the Avengers.
Kathy's always pushing against what she sees as Steve's complete
effrontery and disinteresting humanity.
And yeah, that's an interesting take.
Now, the thing is, Susan is say far weaker than the Mickey as a
character.
You know, don't we don't really see as much of dodo to comment.
But Susan is...
She's terrible.
In terms of the power of the character. both in narrative and in
what they're given to do.
Susan is the weakest, but really it's not, it's not the role of
the companion who changes.
So what I've really discovered, is the strength, particularly of
the female characters comes from the performance of the artist.
And that is in itself imbued directly by the interest and
attention paid by the director and the strength of the producers
in backing up the original intent.
Absolutely.
Because with Victoria, for instance.
A lot of what I said about Victorian, you picked up on this
Nathan.
What I was reading was not the script, it was not the text, it was
the subtext that Deborah Watley put into the performance, because
Deborah Watley... seemed to look at what was on the page and find
a way to play it where she could be scared, but she could be
determined and intelligent at the same time.
And we forget she'd had more onscreen experience and theatre
experience than any of the other younger actors up to that point.
As you say, she was a prestige.
Yeah, apparently.
Prestige casting.
And really why this is so important to me is outside of Doctor
Who's Science Fiction, my other passion is video gaming.
And there has recently been a scandal in video gaming known as
Gamer Gate, which some people claim, oh, it's about ethics in
video gaming.
Yeah, you may not hope about this.
But what it's really about is Women in video game journalism, video
game, development, being treated horribly.
We are talking.
There's one called Anita Sakesian, who does this amazing series of
videos about the role of women in video games as characters.
I'll put them in the show notes.
I've actually watched a bunch of them.
I think they're fascinating.
I'm not a gamer, but I think they're pretty good media criticism
and they're she's fabulous.
I really like it.
I love to read that.
And what is great about her videos is that...
While she is criticising and judging.
She is very objective in her judgement.
And she says of herself, you know, I love video games.
I love Mario Games, but they have very questionable sexual
politics and it's apparent that she loves them too, that she comes
at it from a sort of game's perspective.
And you know, what she gets out of this.
As well as lots of people liking her.
She gets a small selection of people, Tweeting her death threats
posting her address and contact details online and asking people
to go around and sort her out.
And this is for excitement.
Oh, but, you know, this is quite serious.
And even though it is a small amount, Once someone posts your
address online, says where your partner works, says where your
child goes to school, has happened to some women in the gaming
industry.
This is why.
Representation of female characters is so important to me and why
I've been looking at it because this other world that I love.
People are trying to keep women down and I'm always, I'm always
very self-conscious about talking about how women are represented
in doctor because I'm worried it'll come off as mansplaining.
You know, I'm a man talking about women's issues.
It's extraordinary we should even have to raise it.
Yeah, I think that's it.
I'll let alone that.
I raise it because I have to.
I hate having to raise it. isn't she, isn't it?
I mean, and let alone the queer politics, which of course only
exists because and feminism, which only exists because of black
politics, you know, as we talked about this, It's actually the
equality, right, Super Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King and those
fantastic riots in Chicago in the early 60s that created feminism
and are on the back of that queer politic dynamics.
So, yeah, there's a great causal loop, I'm up between them all.
So do we think that it gets better over the 60s?
The representation of women in Doctor Who?
I do think it does.
I mean, I think it gets better from when Susan is right now, and I
don't quite not because of Susan, but I do think Vicki is treated
better in the story, but I also think Maureen O'Brien realises the
part is limited and puts in the strength where she can.
Whereas I think Carol Anne Ford was perhaps more expecting the
strength to be given to her from the script.
That's a really great way of looking at it, maybe Carol Anne's own
take on it, and within the production crew, was more complaintive
and combative and disappointed.
Whereas most you're saying, Lauren O'Brien is seeing it as a
jobbing thing and she didn't see this as a great opportunity.
She just saw this as something I'll do and do and get on with it.
And as she said, most of her time I spent nursemaid in Billy and
he's constant states of, of, you know, discomfort with the, with
the production team once there at the left.
Plus, you know, we saw the 60s with Barbara, who can who can
baffle Daleks with historical techno battle.
Thank you for bringing her on.
And we end up with Zoe, who can blow up a computer by talking to
it and take out an entire cyberfleet without 3 missiles. beat up
the carcass.
And beat up the carcass.
That is a fabulous spicy.
You know, every move she does, she throws it back over her
shoulder, a little quip off, lesson 72.
All right, so we're moving on talking about companions.
I'm going to ask the obvious question.
Who was the best companion of the series?
Barbara, Barbara.
And it comes right back to what you were just saying.
Maybe the setup of the character of reinstating the lost
granddaughter every time, which is why it's wrong to snog them.
She's not, she's there as a representative, as an Adam Brant of
your lost granddaughter.
Stop it.
I didn't have a few lots of fine doctors the other week and you
should see how Carol Anne Thorn and Peter Davidson look each other
up and now.
That's all I'm saying.
That's that movie story along.
That's the greatest loss of the 60s that they got rid of the mum
character.
They got rid of the middle theme, the middle-aged, I don't know
what to say that term, but the older female companion, who lent
purpose and humanity, David Hume levels of humanity to the whole
thing.
The little girl is fine, but you want the balance.
We've actually lost a whole portion of representation of women in
this by losing any woman over just post pubescent. that must
inform in some way the revival, the 2005 revival, because I think
that one of the best things about seasons, your series one and two
is Camille Kaburi's character Jackie.
And and she, she's mumsy.
And literally, I mean, the companion's mother, which we've never
had before, and the 1st flirtation on New Who is not between the
companion and the doctor.
I'm in my dressing gown.
Sorry, I wasn't quoting that.
Not only that, but if you look at the new series, the most popular
series, critically, and in terms of ratings.
Series 4 with Catherine Tate, who is the most popular big Finnish
companion, Dr. Evelyn is played by the very sad, late Maggie
Sage.
I was just going to say, isn't Collins fantastic in those?
I've really come to admire and respect Colin Baker because of
those and how poorly he was served.
And what do you think, Billy, again?
I can see where Colin was trying to come from, which I didn't get
in the 80s because I hadn't seen a Billy one.
It is also that Billy is actually really rather sweet and silly
and funny and childlike as well.
Col is funny.
I think he's probably the, as long of all the actors, the wittiest
and most, most numerous in their offs, right?
It's that lovely monologue in the 2 doctors when he thinks the
universe is going to end and all he can think about is there won't
be any more butterflies.
You know, he does get lovely little moments.
The man himself is great.
I come back too with you.
You've got to have directors and production stuff and script
editors that like you and care about your character because
otherwise there's not much an actor can do to read the lines.
All right, it's time for a snog, Mario, void question.
This is Nathan.
Don't know Susan Victoria.
Dodo, Susan Victoria.
So very avoid.
Well...
I think I'd have to marry Victoria because...
She's rich.
Well.
She's got that big house, servants, they make those puddings, you
know, like...
So I'd avoid dodo, obviously.
All costs.
And so I would have to close my eyes, think of think of morphism
and snob, snob, Susan, I'm afraid.
Close your eyes, think of Barbara, really?
Yes, that's what I do.
Maybe if I could get Susan to wear a cardigan.
Yeah there you go.
Yeah, okay.
No problem.
Red shit.
Sog marry, avoid.
John Wiles, Ennis Lloyd or Peter Bryant.
Good God.
Well, I think you'd actually have to snob Peter Bryant because he
had the biggest drinks cabinet.
And there'd just be he'd be a great party.
And it's interesting that Brian, well, you know, Bryant's the
reason Pat left.
We've talked about that.
It's open knowledge now, so it's okay to speak about it.
Anyway, that's a sad thing, but he also is, it was incredibly
sensitive and when Witty and the reason he got those jobs and what
we can see of other people talking about his work, he's really
good, but, you know, a lot of creative people are also pretty
destructive.
So you'd be great to party with.
Um, I don't know.
Does that mean kiss?
I think it does John Miles, I just look at what he did and the
decisions he made and when we go to, you know, admirant racism.
He's our go to.
And we blame him for being, you know, this is the South African
thing at the time.
That was all changing and what.
But he also did a theatre for the deaf children and actually did a
lot for people.
As it turns out, you know, that we're less fortunate, but he's
actually more more interesting and there's more side stream like
everybody, I guess, but then you've got, but I'm certainly not
going to marry.
We're heading towards a boy.
I'm not going to marry him.
And the other one you said was in as Lloyd.
I see of the of the 3 wonderful choices you've handed over.
Such a God, a smoggish build, that one would make that star that
day.
Um, Innes Lloyd seems to have less excuse than any of the others
but the decisions that were made.
And his treatment of senior cast from what we know now.
I'm really...
See, my heart goes to Billy.
So anyone who treated Billy Pauly gets short shrift from me.
Maybe you could marry Innes Lloyd and just make his life a
mission.
No, I actually think I think Enos, I'm sorry, but like wage level
psychological.
That's been engulfing.
That's it.
The trash compact is coming closer. and you're sitting in the
Buick. it's, you know, Cheers.
Thanks for the memories, but see you.
John Wiles, I think, is actually a better and more interesting
person than he was.
And he, I think he later said, it's an indeed WN.
But yeah, he felt he was pushing against, you know, she'll, you
know, she'll wait with the BBC and the things he wanted to do.
Wasn't his classic story, the one he wanted to make the arc?
Wasn't that his favourite?
Yeah, John Wales, wasn't that?
was his fantasy story.
And it's actually a great, you know, it goes back to the Halcyon
days of SS.
Yeah, I think I think Wales was a lot more interesting than he was
able to get across.
I probably end up marrying him.
I'm not saying it's good. more of a Tom and Lala marriage than
Lala and Richmond marriage.
So you're marrying you're marrying...
Oh, marry wise.
I think he's more interesting.
Lloyd has to die.
Sorry, sorry.
Who's avoided?
I don't definitely have a party with Peter Bryant.
Wow, I'm surprised by those.
Brandon.
Oh, dear.
So, Mari avoid, heart or Trouton or Cushing?
Wow.
Oh, I'm sorry.
It's just pull the gravy overboard.
This is going.
Actually, I mean, this is surprisingly simple for me.
I'd married Peter Cushion because he's got such a wonderful voice
and by all accounts had a very gentle nature.
A really fristly moustache.
I thought I was an Edmond Warwick.
We're getting it.
We're all adopters.
So we're getting ahead of ourselves with that silver fox.
So, right.
Snog, it would have to be Patrick.
So I would snog Patty.
Because he's kind of really well practised sort of thing.
I expect he's got mad skills.
Bet teeth and bits. the criteria Richard was going for, he'd be
the most fun to party with.
I'll play all accounts.
So it'll be Snow Patrick.
Mary Cushing, avoid Hartnall, but only by the...
Only by the whole.
If, you know, if it was strong married, take out for a nice
lunch.
That part was to be taken out for a nice lunch.
Okay, Nathan, you ready?
The singing sands, the screaming jungle or the bell of doom.
Wow.
Oh, God, what's the bell do?
Is that from the smugglers?
No.
Which one?
Oh, my God.
The same sense that's from Marco Molo.
The screaming jungle is, well, that's that married.
Toby Hader has just thrown his iPod across the room in disgust
again because you didn't know.
I didn't know the episode titles.
So, Jeremy Motion.
I think it's awesome.
So Snog, in the sense that it would be fun.
I think it has to be the screaming jungle, I hope it's not because
I just love it today.
It's so fun.
It is so fun, but I kind of recognise that it's a bit cramp and
perhaps not the basis for a long-term relationship.
Okay.
Marco Polo is the 1st doctor who story that I watched exclusively
for the podcast that I'd never seen before.
And I was astounded by how much I liked it.
You know, I think it is really good and it's sort of worthy and
stuff.
So I'd marry that.
And then the bell of doom.
I mean, I have to say that, and I was speaking to friend of the
podcast, Peter Griffiths, and he concurs with me.
I just think the message is a low Voltosh, and I will die before I
ever see it again, I think.
Richard.
Stop marrying a boy.
Ian?
Ben.
Jamie.
It's not a real contest. is it?
Where's Stephen in that?
Well, what are the name?
Well, I've been.
The most pneumatic of the...
He's the only one who gets his knocks out as well.
I think it's a win.
Smugglers.
Yeah.
He gets...
That's a very blurry.
A couple of very blurry toes now, but do carry on...
She's, I'll toss him up to you when I'm done.
I think he's the best actor.
And I know I tend to like to find the pearls in the grit.
We don't get to see a lot of Michael Crace's performance in it, but
what he does do, he's really good.
He's the kind of he's the Australian pilot on the moon base, isn't
he?
He's the he's the nictate of early Doctor Who.
He's just, you know, his performance keeps getting cut back.
Ben's gorgeous.
Who wouldn't song him?
I think he's, I think he's interesting and I probably end up
probably sogging him then.
Marrying him.
Can I have 2 on the side?
Can I have a Polly?
Why not?
Ian is amazing. and interesting.
I think, I don't know that I don't know political.
Yeah, look, he's certainly old schooler.
I don't have any sort of interest on Ian other than a great deal
of respect, which is probably a perfect marriage, really, because
you get the sex outside of marriage, can't you?
Very more than no.
Um, so, Jamie, that's a that's a snog.
Somebody.
Can you snug them and kill them?
It's not an option.
Yeah, look, I love it. you've only got married in a family.
Well, I'm sorry.
Okay, Fraser, I think's terrific, but then I've heard his politics
and what he says about climate change and how he's in denial about
that.
I'm sorry. has to die.
Thank you.
Brendan.
I entered his one.
Well, go for it.
Actually, it'd be the same.
I would snog them, Ben would be good for a torrid affair, but
Ian's more stable, so I'd marry Ian.
And again, I'm only avoiding Jamie by default, but I still
wouldn't marry Jamie.
Who is the most underrated companion of the 1960s?
Polly for me?
Because there's a there's the joke a few times so Polly put the
kettle on.
It's in at least 2 stories.
In the smugglers, it's directly Polly put the kettle on and in the
moon base, it's go and make them some coffee lighting or
something.
But old Polly and Ben, she's actually the stronger, more proactive
character.
Yeah.
That is something that really surprised me.
She's amazing in the Highlanders.
She runs that show.
With algae.
She's really good.
Yeah, no, she's the central companion. yeah.
Yeah, and she does all the science-y brain box stuff with the
doctor in the macro terra while Jamie is off in a cave being
terrorised by monsters.
So yeah, I would say Polly's the most underrated.
I think she's only underrated because sadly, there is so much of
her stuff missing.
And I think, again, it comes from the actress because if you've
read Anika Will's autobiography, she's an immensely strong person
with just such an amazing life.
She's so...
I mean, I did meet her, like, thanks to Todd.
We talked about our past lives or her past life.
She's just gorgeous.
Absolutely.
She's a warm, generous woman.
Yeah, yeah.
She certainly passes to the left. true.
And for you, who's the most underrated?
Can I say Polly too?
Wow.
Yeah, would you, is that what you would expect?
I can't I don't know.
I think Barbara's underrated.
I don't even worship Barbara, to be honest.
I was gonna say that.
No, that's because she's the go-to for me.
And the reason I, I mean, I love Billy, but the reason I watched
the 60s ones again and started to was because of Jackie Hill.
And just she makes the whole thing.
When she and Billy are together, you could have just had those 2
for 4 years and everything would have run smoothly.
Okay, and that beautiful scene in the chase where they're lying
out in sunbaking.
That awful noise.
It's almost cocoital, isn't it?
They're just having a siggy...
They're so in love with Bob.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because Billy really was with Jack again.
Narratively, that's why we don't get another older female
companion for so long because no one can replace Bob.
So I'm actually thinking that we don't go ahead with the purse we
are in episode 21 and we're just going to get to the beginning.
The listener would love that.
They would.
He would.
Richard, the science, Jack.
Oh, that was mine.
No, that was mine.
Jacqulyn Hill.
I think Jacqueline, the reason the show did so well is because
Jacqueline Hill really made that cast cohesive and brought them
together because, you know, Carol Anne was obviously discontented
with what was going on and it showed.
Billy was very nervous and that made it really interesting to
watch him, but you could feel it.
Ian is very much the male league is always the dullest. every
writer, the gorbidala said that the most boring person on screen
is the hero.
They're not that interesting.
They needed, but and he did a great job, but I don't find him at
all interesting.
But Jackie is just so exciting to watch.
In fact, when Ian is good.
It's in scenes with Jackie.
Exactly.
But when everybody's cooked.
Billy's had his best with Jacqueline Hill.
Yeah, I'm quite serious.
The reason you can see Billy's performance.
I'm not decaying, but getting more fractious is because he does
his support net pulling away.
He's a very sensitive man in the times when that could not be
articulated.
He didn't have a language I'm suspecting for being able to talk to
the producers about how he was feeling.
He just got cross from what we know.
And I just think it's so sad.
You're talking about Anaca and how terrific she is and she is.
But I just wish it would, that everyone involved in the show would
have been able to have a bit more sympathy for his condition and
how he's been, he felt, you know, how he'd been let down.
Because he took it so personally, Carol Ann said, when they left
he really felt that he was being personally betrayed.
This was his family.
His 2nd family.
Gaitis brings that out really well, like in adventure, in space
and time.
Am I getting that in the right order?
Yeah, yes.
And that was shown here in Australia and boxing day.
Great to see it.
And it is, you know, it is really sensitive to Hartnall, who was
difficult and all of that.
But I have to sort of believe that the sweetness and the
childlikeness and all of those characteristics of the doctor has
when his Bill Hartnell, you know, come from somewhere in
Hartnell's character.
Yeah.
Anyway, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Barbara.
So you're taking Polly back.
Yeah, no.
Okay, see, that was crazy.
I think it was a moment of bad.
I'd say it's speaking.
Oh, that's interesting.
We do adore Vicky. think she's open.
I think Barbara is fantastic and Pauline is great.
I mean, I think and Zoe, but Vicki's the one for me throughout
what you've discovered and realised where I've totally gone back.
I mean, I used to think that her and Stephen were just these clone
scipers that we just got them copies of the original crew, which
you know, you can get from any 1970s, 80s Doctor Who encyclopedia
of knowledge, but they're not.
You know, I think Maureen and Brian, Vicky just, she just brings
it.
You know, she's fantastic.
And I think that Peter Purvis, even when he's served up, The
massacre as a script.
I think his that's his whole story.
Yeah, he's there with conviction.
He's great.
He holds all together.
He supports Billy, and the reason it kept going and doing well in
those stories is because he's, yeah, he's giving Billy a... isn't
it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's terrific.
Do you think that there's any companion that stayed too long?
Or, and conversely, should have stayed longer.
We change cars quite regularly in Doctor Who in a sort of an
unusual way.
Like it pretty much changes at the end of every year, doesn't it?
So the only person who really stays for a very long time.
Is Stephen in it longer than Barbara Neo?
No, not any longer.
Yeah.
Um, the, I mean, the only companion longer than Barbara is.
Jamie.
Oh, Jamie stayed too long.
God.
Well, I would argue the problem isn't so much that you stay too
long. is it's that the writers didn't write very well for him in
his 2nd year.
No, they didn't.
Do you think he was introduced too soon?
Do you think there should have been longer we've just spent in
Poly?
Yes, definitely.
Yeah, because it's dunk away from Ben.
It does take away from Ben.
And as we see in the macroterra, and as you've said, Richard
Michael Craze was such a brilliant actor.
So I think if anyone should have stayed longer, Ben and Polly
should have stayed longer.
Well, you have that thing, don't you, where you would have loved
Ben and Polly for a year with Hartnall?
Yeah, that's great.
And with maybe Verity Back, just to give him support.
And he was ill, but he wasn't that ill.
Yeah.
It was yeah, it was just his frustration.
Yeah, if they had written the stories like the smugglers, which
divided up the action between the 3 leads rather than it just
being mostly hard on you cut to the companions occasionally.
Yeah, we could have had another year with Billy, I think.
So you think cartonal, if you hadn't been or whatever, could have
stayed till the end of season four?
Can you imagine what that would have been like with the mod young
couple?
It would have really enlivened him.
Can you imagine Billy and the Macro Terror?
Yeah.
Well, the moon bath.
Oh, interesting.
I think Billy's out of place in the 10th planet, and I don't, much
as I love Hart and I, I'm not sorry that the change happens when
it does after 3 and a bit years and I certainly think Troughton
enlivens it, even though the material is much worse.
I mean, it's very quickly.
Obviously, the moment of his performance.
Well, that experience.
So you've got the longest run of missing episodes, which is from
10th planet 4 to Underwater Menace one.
And suddenly try out and appears in Underwater Menace 2 and he's
which of course we haven't seen.
Spectac, no, because that would be illegal.
He's just he's just spectacular.
He's so compelling.
Yeah, so male as well.
Okay, Patrick, could Patrick have stayed on America?
Well, as Patrick and Fraser have both said, you know, if it wasn't
for their agents, you know, you've been in the show for 3 years
that's enough.
And from a career point of view, they're quite right.
But they both said they would have stayed forever.
So Patrick could have easily stayed longer.
You know, I think Jamie is a character and rights course, but
Patrick was so...
Probably by the end of about season four, by the end of the
highlanders.
But Patrick, I think, certainly could have done more.
Richard, I think you've actually got like what you would have had
as Patrick.
Yeah, it's one of my pets. isn't it?
Well, you know that of all of them, it was actually padders.
It was Wendy who was offered to stay the season seven.
Yes, and I believe Brian and Sherwin, but really did want her to
stay.
And I believe she said there's no way you could get me in a 2 shot
with John Pert, you know, any shot with my face would be Pertley's
crotch.
I really have to go back and watch that game.
I don't know that keeping a companion over to the next season
would have worked, but I think there's very little you would need
to change.
And personally, I just would love to have a whole season of pets
that like we can watch and see his character development because
even within stories, he allows changes to the doctor.
He's subtle and brilliant enough with the shift to a slightly
older audience.
My problem with Pat originally was that it felt too simplistic
when I saw them for the 1st time.
But he was deliberately told, the whole team was told, play it
down.
It's for a kids show, for a kiddie audience.
When you go to the colour series, that isn't happening in season 7
and only starts to happen again in season 8 when they review it
and ask Katie to play it.
Katie's admitted she's always been playing it for the under
teams.
That's how she saw the program or how they were kind of steering
it back towards that, that the colour season to see Pat subtly
morph the character and deal with all of these long scenes.
I think you were saying how would he have dealt with...
Yeah, I just watched the Silurians in episode five.
Sorry, Doctor Who and the Siberians, and episode 5 is just sort of
you know, per between a room with a bunch of, you know, drugs
testing things under a microscope.
That sounds like a great weekend.
It goes on forever and ever.
Like, look at the Hall of the Gods and what he and Wendy worked
out with the physical comedy with the headsets and playing
around.
You know that would have been done.
He would have done some fun with it.
Because the script was so dull.
He would have done something amazing.
I'd love to have seen Pat with Carrie. with the character of Lee
Shaw.
You saw because you saw how Whittaker always set him up with a
slightly more mature woman and just how outrageously plantation he
is.
Exactly.
We talked about it so much.
Yeah, yeah, and especially...
I'm no nonsense, Liz.
Yeah She would have really been slapping it down and he could have
been a bit flirty.
I'd just like to set play it more for the adults.
He's such a great actor and he can do so much of it.
It would have given him a fresh thing and, you know, a bit more, a
thank you to him for putting the hard work in.
Yeah, in a nice short 25 episodes. short-skirted companion, I
thought you would say, yeah.
The big problem he had was making so many shows a year.
Imagine, you know, Pat, we're going to put you on in colour.
Oh, that's great.
And you only have to do two-thirds of the year work.
Oh, that's brilliant.
And your salary stays the same.
Where do I sign?
Well, I should have doing more money.
And then I could have had my dream casting of Billy in macraterra
and Billy is...
Billy for an extra year and Pat for the same amount of time.
For the same reason.
It's a thank you to Billy Free's hard work.
These young people are going to support you and love you and you
are safe and we really respect what you've done.
Please just have fun with this.
We're here to look after you.
If someone had just said that to him, he would have relaxed like
he did with his original cast and we could have had some fun.
So you're talking about stories?
I thought we might get from you, what you consider to be your
favourite or the best story from each of the 2 here is that you've
watched.
Do you know, I mean, I said before, the chase is the is the hard
one that I watch over and over again, and I'm totally aware of all
of its flaws.
It's the most filmic though, isn't it?
You can see of all of the films.
I wish we'd got that as a movie because it would work so long.
It's so fun and so silly.
And like, do you see?
It's nonsense.
There's terrible production gaps and all sorts of things.
Like it really is kind of shareable.
I must be overlooking something much more worthy in the.
It's the most... you know, it's the most translatable into musical
format, isn't it?
Just like the Simpsons did Blanche DuBois.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've heard street cars. right.
So it chased to you, the chase, the musical.
Check all the 1st one.
And for Pat, like on quite different lines, and again, it's a
Dalek Street.
It has to be power of the Daleks.
I think it's so, uh, it's so clever.
You know, it's so clever and so ominous.
And it's the one time Whittaker's kind of terrible delaying
tactics really properly pay off.
And it's got the doctor being really weird and off putting and
it's got the dream team of, you know, Ben and Polly.
So I think it would have to be that.
Okay, Brendan.
I'm going to go backwards on this because I'm actually still
trying to think of a heart no one.
Pat, it's easy for me.
It's the invasion.
Oh, good job.
I just think it is so good and it's amazing that it's such a long
story, but it's still so good.
Yeah, you mentioned that too.
Yeah, yeah.
You've got Pat on top form.
You got a great villain.
You've got stuff for both companions to do.
You've got great supporting guards, each of whom have their own
character and their own motivations.
You've got very strong female guest characters, particularly in
the shape of Isabel, who is very proactive.
Um, It's just more fun as well.
It is really fun.
It's just terribly modern.
I think a bit cool, actually, on his blow up, it's got the girls
playing poke, you know, photography.
It's got some other references to more culture.
I mean, the great thing is as well, is it's full of characters
making mistakes.
Like, you know, Vaughan makes mistake in making a deal with the
Superman.
Packers always make mistakes against God.
You're not changing his surname.
Zoe and Isabel, you know, make the mistake of going into space.
Villain, but none of the mistakes feel like people being stupid
like so often in any TV show.
People will occasionally do things seemingly just for the reason
of plot expediency.
That doesn't happen here.
These feel like real people.
Conversely, my heart no story, I think I'm going to pick the
Romans, which is... which is, you know, I have 2 favourites right
now.
It is high fast.
And so that means that people do do things for plot expediency and
things happen for blood expediency, you know, like Ian phones his
way to Rome and Barbara just happens to have been sold there.
But that's the point...
Yeah, this is so...
It's what, yeah, and you've got the interweaving plots where the
crew don't realise they're all in Rome together.
They're all in the palace together.
You've got Derek Francis's Nero, which, even though, you know
that's historically inaccurate.
He's 20 years older than Nero would have been, who the hell
cares?
He gives a great performance.
And again, you've got strong parts for women as well.
Papaya and Lacusta.
Even the fellow slave who is imprisoned with Barbara, who doesn't
get a huge amount of character, but just in the few scenes she's
in.
We have this great tension between the comedy of Dennis Spooner
and the horrible reality of what it would be like here.
So, you know, they're my favourites for 2 very different reasons
but they just highlight how varied Doctor Who is and how Doctor
Who can have the comedy and the drama and balance.
Fantastic answer.
That's can't be taught.
So good.
You can disagree.
That's true.
I can try and say something that we haven't said in the podcast.
So I agree with you.
My go to is Whitaker and everything he does is fresh and
interesting.
It was really great seeing Wheel in Space again or just reading
through that, listening to parts of it, I bison to the audience.
Just how interestingly it's played and against type and Pat is
surprising and cheeky and flirtatious.
I plating.
There's just so much in it and everything that Whittaker does, I
simply just say it's such a hard choice.
The massacre is very interesting for being someone like other
Doctor Who stories.
And because Billy is given a chance to play it.
As if for an adult audience.
He really, I know he's on screen for a very long time.
Yeah, very little time.
That actually makes it more potent.
It's when you see less of the monster, it's more scary.
Why is he hitting the last word on the map?
That's how it works.
Do we get a worse story, choice?
Which was right.
It's a question.
This is my question.
You can get the last word, Nathan.
Which story would you like to lose all eternity?
The space pirates, celestial time.
Yeah, we've still got.
I actually, I disagree.
I don't think the space pirates is quite as terrible as that.
It is incredible and it's not great.
If you're 10 years old and you make spaceship models.
That is spectacular.
And it's funny.
It's funny.
One of the things that one of the things that I didn't talk about
very much the time was that Bob Holmes gets the doctor right.
And even when he's just faxing it in.
Yeah, doesn't it?
Yeah, and so, you know how when Holmes becomes the script editor
the doctor suddenly has pockets that are full of whole bunches of
themes.
That starts in the space fire.
And so the doctor is kind of fun.
I know he's sidelined.
I know it's, you know, it's flawed and we were bored and all that
sort of thing.
But I wouldn't lose the space pirates.
I would I'd rush straight to the furnace with the remaining
episode of the celestial toy maker.
It's more interesting to imagine and think about, which is why
fandom loved it so much until they got to see it again.
Some things work better in the memory, yeah.
Actually, I'm going to recant on the space part.
It was just the 1st thing that came into my head because I
couldn't think of anything else that bored me more.
The dominator.
Because not only is the dominator boring, it's offensive.
It's offensive to pacifism.
I'm with you on that one.
It's offensive to women.
It's just...
Is it the most offensive moment?
It's offensive to any frock maker in the history.
I think the...
I like the most...
I'm asking the most offensive moment.
I think the arc is the worst.
Did that surprise you?
Going back to the arc.
I mean, have you seen it not thought about its racism and you get
to it and you go, 0 my goodness.
I never thought about it until Nathan brought it up in the
podcast.
That's what our argument was at the time, wasn't it?
As little children.
This is a lizard, not a black person or not a coloured person.
Yeah, we take on board what you're saying, but...
Anyway, the most offensive moment.
Is it the use of the N word in the celestial time maker?
No, I think it has to be the arc.
I think the arc is the most sustained racist allegory that shows
produced.
The character of camel leaves.
Yeah.
But camel, I know it's been how he's treated.
But he does get to be quite heroic.
I'd say Toberman is more plot problematic than Kemble.
Well, they're both a problem though, aren't they?
strong man.
Is it okay to say I just see that he's playing a strong man and he
happens to be a coloured actor?
I didn't see it.
I know.
No, that's the point.
He's a coloured person playing a role.
But I just saw him as a big guy.
He just happens to be, you know, really hell.
But these colour of the skills to me doesn't imbue that that was
the character was required to be coloured.
He was just playing this big bloke.
But the fact is that the only time...
My turn is the black person is when it's a big dumb strong.
That starts really great, doesn't it?
Not era.
Not only that, what really highlights it for Tobin and Tupacite?
The other 2 villains.
The other 2 villains are portrayed as Intelligent. not English.
No, they're foreign. from Shifty Sand.
But they're intelligent.
He's not.
Yeah, but we're, you know, we're just...
I'm not actually judging.
They're most stupid lumps of putty, you're going to throw me to a
capdown and chuck down too.
But, you know, it's something it's something that Nathan said
about.
It's something that Nathan said about season five.
It's something I don't entirely agree with, but is in this story
that instead of, you know, going out to meet other cultures.
Other cultures are scary and they are coming to get you.
So that's a big problem. most offensive Um, Dodo.
Dodo unsimitized.
No, I don't think that's that bad.
She doesn't make good time to see that.
That's the game, displaced performance, because Jackie is playing
it for the 4 year olds, and no one else around her is.
Yeah.
I mean, that, coming back to something 12 after earlier, I would
have liked to see more Ejaculate, because when we see her in the
gunfighters and a sadly great story.
Awesome machines.
She is really coming into her giving it a better go.
But that being said, as soon as she'd put up against Ben and Polly
it becomes how clear, how artificial.
Yeah, her home count his 50s muff and the milk.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm not referring to her ankles.
No, that's exactly it.
And she looks utterly out of place in the inferno.
These cool kids are hanging.
Yeah, actually, that's the amazing thing.
Billy fits in really well with the whole mod speed scene.
You can actually see him hanging out with John Liman.
What is she wearing?
It's like a smock or something.
I think it's it was something left human.
There's something left over from a hand me down from the refusals
and, you know, like you can actually now see it, just shows you
why they all decided to give up on visibility as a culture.
I would still say for me that the dominators is the most
offensive...
I mean, it doesn't have the racist part of it, but I mean, even in
the arc, the doctor does say that perhaps you shouldn't be
treating the monoids so badly, perhaps they are intelligent beings
just as yourself.
I think you're more intelligent than the other people are big.
He does say it to the humans, but he acknowledges their
intelligence and respects the modern weeds as individual beings.
Thank you, because that is my point with the monoids of that story
as well.
I don't see it as, you know, I want to say black and white.
I think there are moments where they try and sort of wallpaper
over the racism and the refuse scenes telling them to live
together in peace and harmony, but I don't think it, you know, the
main problem, as you highlight it, stuff is happening with the
dissolution of the empire.
Yeah, no, I know, but I think this is on the wrong side of
history.
Yeah, because the main problem, as you've said before, Nathan
isn't so much in episodes one or 2 where they're slaves.
It's episodes 3 and 4 where they've taken over and they're making
a hash of it and they're making a hash of it because they're not
the great white.
French isn't it?
Well, they're just getting it all wrong, kissing everybody off.
They can't rule themselves, you know?
There was no, I am face calming.
Okay, well, if we're talking about the converse of that, the most
beautiful moment that you think the series has.
Oh, there's so many.
Okay, I'm going to throw a few out there so we can discuss them.
Victoria's departure and her last scene with Jamie.
The doctor and Barbara's blazing row in the Aztecs turning into
them, comforting each other about the horror of Aztec civilisation
and how to save it.
And that brilliant moment where he says he's met an older woman
and she says, you all in rogue and stuff. rewatch the X. Barbara
with Nero when he says, I've got a surprise for you.
And just adjust her racing with the eyes when I was.
The one scene in 60s shock 2 that just reliably brings me to tears
is Ian and Barbara's departure.
And I really think that nothing that nothing approaches that for
like emotional.
Like we're used to it in Doctor Who now, you know, the how the
characters feel and stuff is foregrounded, and it's a bit less
about being captured and escaping and stuff.
But I think that that's just spectacularly beautiful.
And then the other one is the one that we talked about last week.
That moment where Zoe leaves and she's on the screen.
And she thinks she can remember something.
She looks back at the camera, but the way it's shot is that she's
looking back into the courtroom and she's looking at it.
It's already been removed.
I have come up with what will be mine because I thought to myself
I want to avoid companion departures because they're obvious.
But for me, it's actually just before a companion departure.
It's the penultimate scene of the dynamic invasion of earth.
And it's just this series of little beautiful moments where
they're back on the shore of the Thames and they hear Big Ben in
the distance and the doctor says that's just the beginning.
And then he has that conversation with Susan about her shoe and
you both know they're not talking about the shoe.
And then Susan breaks down and says, David, I do love you, but I
can't say.
I, yeah, it's it's just all building and it's it's it's beautiful
and heartbreaking at the same time.
And I think that's the thing.
For a beautiful moment, it has to break your heart a little
because it puts it back together again.
It's like it's it's like it's like a really good hug when you're
really upset about something.
It doesn't stop you being upset, but it starts to put you back
together.
Yeah, I really like them.
It has to be one day, shock on that.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I think, you know, I think because that also ties, of course, into
the 5 doctors, like you know that sequence from it, but whenever I
get to that sequence, you can't help that guest going is a
moment.
You just have that dinkling sort of.
It's one of it's beautiful.
Yeah, beautiful.
Monsters and violence.
Right?
Which one off monster villain should have recurred?
One off monster.
I would have actually quite like to see the board come back and be
expanded upon in terms of their character.
They're cybermen, aren't they?
Well, they appeared to be a sort of political movement and they
were a political movement with some degree of sympathy because
like the doctor says in the end, you know.
That's not.
But like the doctor said in the end, man is not made to be judged
by machines and controlled by machines.
And really, that's what the board are saying.
We don't want to be controlled by machines.
And as we speak, big finish have released a new board audio
story.
Oh, wow.
The power of costumes.
They're fantastic.
The new board leader actually has a crystal on his head because
he's on the cover.
I haven't heard it yet.
I'm way behind on my big finish, but it'll be interesting to hear
how they've fleshed out monsters because that's something Big Fish
do so well, bringing back one of them.
It's like the Nelly Morn.
They brought back the name on it.
It's a fairy tonight.
I love seasons of Shield.
They have great voices, though.
They do have great.
Okay, so the forward track.
That's a great story anyway.
Paul Cornell, isn't it?
So of course it's good.
And Carolyn Zimcox.
I want to say Magic Mavic Chen, but they did bring him back in the
invite.
So, is that like a song?
Yeah, he just re-emerged.
Um, I don't know.
The macra...
Dramas?
The dramans.
That would be really something.
I was Dominators.
Couldn't we have had that story where the dominators meet the
celestial toy maker on the arm?
And then they crash into 15th century frogs.
To get organised.
It would be all my dreams come true.
Give me Russell, right?
That is a normal one. pretty sure we did, sir.
Richard.
Sorry, Pip and Jane Blake.
Where were we?
For me, the most mesmeric.
And interestingly for non-fans, it's the go to, and it really was
in the 80s when it 1st came out on video, it's an early one that
came out earlier.
Ones that students getting around on a Saturday night, you know, as
in no money, we've got nothing but a bottle of hootch and a spliff
everybody watched the web planet.
And it's amazing.
It's really amazing.
I don't know if I quite like the audio return to the web planet
that Peter, you're talking about, big finish.
It's a fun little one thing story.
I don't think it would have worked so much as a returning
character, but I'd just love to see them.
I did some little drawings for our page when we were talking about
Wet Planet because I'm just so fascinated by them.
It's showing Todd, but it's on the revisioning of what they'd be.
I just think it'd be amazing as in CG.
I did see G animation for a few years there.
I just think it would be a beautiful thing.
And just to take Doctor Who, you know, Vernian, this show can do
everything and that's why we love it.
I want to see it do pure esotericusF again.
I'm not saying it'll be a quality...
I don't know that it would work, but hey, for an hour format.
Just give us pure Edwardian fantasy of the a Lewis Carroll kind of
nutsy thing.
I think it would work really well.
That's amazing picture.
Oh, thanks.
Yeah, well, I think they're they'd be amazing creatures to have.
You throw us into a truly alien environment, not just a rich for
her pleasure rubber for it, started Voyager kind of.
Yeah, no, I like we're playing a lot, and that's something that I
was kind of surprised by because it was something that we used to
scoff at, really, wasn't it?
But it really is.
And there's not been enough corks.
I mean, come on.
Oh, yes, have they come back?
They're actually quite they are quite odd and threatening with the
little kitty boys.
You could have done something with them.
It's the top of the thing on a shoe box.
Remember I said at the time?
No, no, no, no, they kind of come back as the top of the thing.
Yeah, they really do, don't they?
But without the with a board crystal on there.
Let's talk about some of the recurring monsters.
Resting the Dalks.
Was that a positive?
Absolutely.
Yes, I agree.
No.
No, we are.
Because they were replaced with the, basically, the cybermen, who
look careful, essentially.
But look how fresh and interesting it was.
For the cast.
It was more interesting.
The blokes can move around a bit more.
The Daleks are a brilliant concept that occasionally when we
reboot, we get it right, Genesis, lovely Robbie Shuman, Stylek
story, power.
I would say, beautiful.
When you've got a good writer and you hold back on them, but my
goodness, it's so easy to get them wrong.
Yeah, well, I mean, look at look at the Dalek stories we're
getting coming up in the 70s where they were doing one a year.
You can't have power of the dialects and evil of the dialects
every year.
In the 70s, we get Day of the Daleks, which is great.
We get Plan of the Daleks, which is a bit of a runaround.
We get Deaths of the Daleks, which is okay.
But then we get Genesis because we have a new producer coming in.
And you got Bob Holmes, both telling Terry Nation.
And the Daleks are hardly in it, which is fine.
I mean, I think you should keep them as the ontological threat.
Yeah, yeah.
That's right.
And I think that that's where Terry Nation misunderstands the
Daleks.
She just thinks they're sort of, you know, shrill robots and
things, but we think it gets them and I think, I think, you know
Bob Holmes gets got them like much under under estimated victory
of the dialects, but then all the stuff that was cut out.
It would have been an amazing 2 part.
We were talking about that just before you arrived because we
actually have a new dialect supreme... new paradigm, Diana
Rothstarlik.
What's Diana Roster?
It's a supreme job.
Oh, I thought you made it...
That's the content.
Anyway, the Darlic in question is an alarm clock, which does
this.
It operates the teleport and the grader.
That's so interesting.
So what is that achieve?
Why is that getting kicked in?
Is it Cameron?
Is it doing the accent?
Let's...
There you go.
So I actually say we're tired of Daleks already.
Okay, but if we if we just look at the different recurring
monsters like Dalek, Simon, Yeti, Great Intelligence, Ice Foyers
and the Methling Monk.
Who were the most effective who released the SG?
I mean, I do I do want to properly address the idea that resting
the Daleks was unfortunate because I think the Daleks and the
doctor, by power of Daleks, they become opposites and they become
like proper modelling.
And they're really, really so associated with the program.
And I have to kind of suspect that that part of the dropping
interest in the late 60s had to do with the Daleks not being in it
anymore.
Do you know what I mean?
And I think the cybermen always...
I think Xander says these things, they always have the kind of the
whiff of disappointment about them.
You know, they're always like not the daleks, you know, so are
they invasions?
Well, have worked with them.
But that's right, but they're barely in it.
You know, 10th planet's obviously an exception because the, the
the premise of the, the sidemen is established there and they're
they're not just old, the cybermen again, they're something really
frightening and weird and different.
But I think they just become sort of dull robots.
It's like pretty... as did the Daleks.
Just don't use any of them too often.
They were overused in the same way that the dialects happened.
Unlike a lot of people.
I think having the dialects back every year in the new program is
great, essentially, even as a cameo, just to remind us that
they're the.
Can they win sometimes?
That's another reason why I love Michael is a story.
Just don't let them be able to pushed down a flight of stairs.
It's just ridiculous.
See, yeah, I agree.
I agree with that.
You know, the Dalek should be allowed to have a at least a partial
win occasionally.
I mean, really, they get that in Genesis because even though
they're in tune, they survive.
I actually have always preferred cybermen to Daleks. simply
because...
Well, until the 80s, You couldn't become a Dalek, there is no
threat to you as a human being that you can become a Dalek, and
then of course they start doing that.
But with the side of the men, it's stated right from their 1st
scene that they are human.
They are human underneath all that and it strips that away from
me.
And that's why I find them so much more interesting.
And I would argue that really in the 60s, the only story that
doesn't really work for the side meant in that it could have been
anyone is the wheel in space.
But I think they're very effectively used in all the other stories
they appear in the 60s.
I love them in wheeling sports.
Yeah, I kind of do as well.
But I do agree with you.
I think they could be anyone.
But I think they could just foul be anyone in the moon base as
well.
And, you know, there's enough similarity, I guess, between the war
machines and the invasion where, you know, it didn't need to be
the side of them, particularly, uh, do you know what I mean?
Maybe it could have just been robot guys or any kind of alien
really.
But with the invasion, it has the thing off the cybermen are
coming home.
They're coming home in force this time because last time they came
home, they just took over a couple of offices.
Yeah.
This is the previous time.
Yeah, but for us, it's this time.
Well, you see, I actually think that they've so kind of forgotten
the premise of the side meant, you know what I mean?
That they just don't really care.
Um, and I guess, I guess it has to be the same because it's
international electromatics and taking the world over using, you
know, transistor radios and stuff like that.
So maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe it does need to be assignment.
But the Simon don't need to be, you know, humans that have been
brutally changed and things.
It's not most true, is it?
That what's coming out of this between you, listening to YouTube.
What do you think, Todd?
It's not the monster.
It's the way you divest the monster within the narrative.
It's how the monster addresses and comes up against the main
characters and where the story goes with them.
Is that the basis of how is the writer?
That's the writer, the producer, the director.
And you can enter behind that.
And you've kept coming back to that type of Whittaker or Veryton
Lambert and that sort of thing.
So, I think, I'd like to ask the best production team, in terms of
producers.
You can't, like, well, you always got 2 things, haven't you?
In art theory in architecture, in fact, as it's now, you know, the
classical model of art movements, is you have the establishing
period, which is the classical period where you have fresh ideas
that are then strengthened and commodified and put into a
protocol.
You have the mannerist period coming right after that and you
start to become a bit more playful and perhaps a bit of joy comes
in.
Um, there's recognition of the stale, but then you go to the
baroque, which you would might say for us is the Colin Baker era.
In that things are just thrown up and let's be as amazing and
creative as possible.
You could say with the 80s, the mannerrest period followed the
baroque because Sylvester's one had a lot of that, but it also
looked at where they got it wrong, perhaps, and jumping forward.
In the 60s, for me, the classical period, which is the early
Hartnell, is the strongest because it's refresh and creative and
they're scared.
And you do some brilliant creative work when you're scared.
And you're running with those appearances every single week.
So yeah, my dream team is verity.
But then I also look at, there were great ideas, even with wilds.
They were interesting ideas.
Things weren't working together.
Then you get something like the war games, which is just this
gorgeous black pearl we just talked about.
And it's so fresh.
And there's something you talked about when Caroline Ford was
leaving.
There's something about knowing you're going to leave, whether it
be a job or once you've decided to end a relationship.
Well, there's a sense of peace and perhaps the unconscious kicks
in, but you're actually able to say what you'd always wanted to
say without any fear of threat or just put it out there.
And you get amazing performances from people, not just the actors
but the whole production team when they know something's about to
end, which is why these stories are so poignant.
As Brendan was saying, it's the scenes leading up to the
departure.
It's not just that moment.
Of course that's the article.
But I think that people are actually putting a bit more in and
forgetting how stressed they are.
You know how great you feel on the last day of work, even if
you're still busy.
You just know because it's over for now. can relax.
So those points for me.
Are the great moments.
So maybe the last few stories of pet and that really, you know, was
that really early period of 60s person last.
Yeah, I would have to say it has to be, you know, Barry Lambert
and David Whitaker, a scoop later.
I'm going to say something slightly different, which is Veritini
Lambert and Dennis Spooner.
Oh, okay.
And the reason I'm saying that is, you know, Verity, Lambert and
David Wicker, you know, set up this universe, we know and love.
But it was when Dennis Spooner came on board that it really
introduced the sort of sense of anarchy and reverence.
You know, in the romance.
It was fun again, wasn't it?
I mean, the 1st series was still fun.
It had moments, but it's only in the Romans where you start
catching the doctor and Vicky throwing people out of windows.
And, you know, I just love Dennis Spooner's work in everything he
touches.
But for me, that run of stories in that 2nd season, it's so well
crystalised and you can tell everyone on the show is having an
immense amount of fun, whereas in the 1st season, for instance, we
know Carol Anne Ford wasn't having fun by the end of it.
But that part, everyone's having fun.
And it is after that, that everyone involved said, you know, after
verity left and after Dennis left it kind of fell apart.
I'm not blaming Miles and Tosh for that.
I'm just saying that for me is the best of the 60s.
It became a job. rather than it became a production thing. you
know, so I'm not something that had to be produced and made rather
than, yeah, exactly rather than this thing of wonder.
I love how Sherwin pumps heart blood back into it.
Oh, yeah.
And he's another person, Sherman, I think, that really does get it
really puts the effort in.
I mean, I said last podcast that even though season 5 is more
successful than season 6, like 1st season 6 because it's
imaginative again.
Yeah, yeah, I think so too.
Yeah, I think it's time for some salt Mary avoid.
Magic magic chen.
A monoid or the morpho brains?
Right.
Um...
I think I'd have to avoid the more for brains.
I think possibly because I, possibly because I am a Doctor Who
fan.
I had this thing about not wanting to be controlled and confined
because everyone in Doctor Who Stories is controlled and confined
by the alien matter.
So I couldn't deal with an morpho brain at all.
I think I'd have to snog the monoid.
How can you solve the monitor?
They don't have mouths.
Oh, they're like big pongols in their mouth.
Oh, they eat chicken through their necks.
Oh, well.
How unfortunate, then it has to marry Mavic Chan.
Just put everyone to death who annoyed me.
So yeah, marry mamic Chen, snogger monoids somehow.
It'd be interesting finding out, as Captain Jack would say, and
avoid the morpho brain.
All right, wretched.
Marga.
Oh yeah.
Which one?
Cara?
Theoda War.
This is going to be tough one, isn't it?
Cafe.
Betty cat cat.
Betty Cafe.
Is that a name?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It always comes down to who's eliminate by Lease Resistance.
Who's the best one party with?
Fiona Walker, I think we all decided it was a bit drainy when we
were doing...
So, in those courtrooms.
I just like her in everything, so I'd probably want to snob going
to walkers or something wrong with them.
I think she'd be dangerous if you kept her around for too long.
She'd probably have you killed, actually.
But only if you blurt it out all your plans.
And Kaftan was another one. was she?
Yes. really No, no, it's the problem.
Who are you going to get along with?
Actually, you know what?
I'll probably have to marry if you want to walk or just pushing
you the most woods.
I think should be the most fun to hang out with because Benny's a
little bit single-minded.
I don't know that she might be, she might be fine.
Yeah, maybe I'll have to redress that.
She might be fine to party with Marga. actually.
Yeah, I just don't know that we're going to get on that well in
the end of it.
She'll just put me in an airlock. in a cardigan.
Barbara's cardigan.
Yeah, and we'll all just be, you know, sort of like, don't we see
relationships spent in a fridge?
So, yeah, she's probably sorry, Mark, I love you to death, but
death is where we're going to end up.
Okay.
Nathan.
It's not marry a void.
Sandy the Sandbanks.
Voltan and the carcass.
Or too easy.
I think the sand beast, Botan and the carcass. robbing that rubber
jumpsuit.
It's so awful, that costume, and it's clearly that he's not.
He's gorgeous.
Are you seeing him out of it?
No, I've only seen him as a Cyberman.
Hands on hips, everyone. like 2 of the worst performances in
Doctor Who history.
So I guess he would have to be endlessly entertaining.
So I'm heading towards marrying the carcass, actually, which would
have to make...
Could I slow botan without being electrocuted?
How would I do?
Yeah, I think I think it's a given that you'd survive any of
these.
Okay.
I buy computers.. yeah.
You could do them on the side.
I mean you don't need to talk.
Sandy does have tusks.
Yeah, unfortunate problem with Barbara's...
But you just shoot.
Baby or a firework.
I think I would have to...
I could marry Wotan and then just talk to him in our goal when I
got sick of him when he would explode.
It's actually true as well, who do you want to spend least time
with your mistress or your partner?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, so...
Oh, marry Votan.
Yeah, and avoid Sandy.
Who would win in a showdown between Tobias Bourne and Magic Magic
Magic Jane?
Vaughan.
Yeah, easily.
Check is too kind of crazy.
Yeah, Thorn has a sense of humour.
Well, it's also it's just more higher functioning narcissist.
They're actually essentially the same person in many ways, aren't
they?
But yeah, yeah, he's there's definitely more of the street wise in
Vaughan than there is in.
I think Vaughn is a much.
There's still some punch below the bell.
There's still cam overacting Doctor Who villain performances, but
Vaughan is much more complex and interesting, I think.
Plus, I'm just a completely physical, no, born.
I just realised has a cyber body.
He could just He's got incredible strength.
And those fingernails that really do my mischief.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, look at how he has to write.
That mid-career, Barbara Streisand, where she could never hold a
mic without cutting herself.
So is Kevin's journey your favourite guest or is it filmmatic or
who is your favourite guest?
favourite guest star.
You know what?
Because he's so underplayed and because he very rarely got any
lines, I'm going to go for Peter Diamond, who was the stuntman
many times, he did Kenton Moore's stunt walking into the River
Thames in Dire Convasion of Earth, but he's probably most
recognised for his role as Delos, Ian's little friend in the
Romans.
And of course, you know, one more time for the 60s, that was one
of the ones that Rod read a homerotic relationship.
Yes.
I think, and they...
Sheet before she wrote back the Mountain.
Yeah, entertaining both of them.
No, she doesn't.
She'd never written that.
No, what any person about Brokeback Mountain just recently saw is
very tired that people see this about a homerotic cowboy story and
nothing else.
And she gets bam sick every bloody day.
About saying, you know, one of them died and the other one, sorry
if you haven't seen it.
Read it to me. is that, you know, they keep going on and having
affairs.
She said, it's about homophobia.
It's about the perception of homophobia between men who are
ostensibly straight, and then thrown into a situation.
Love is love, companionship is companionship and sexuality.
It will a river finds its own course. needs need to be met.
And the home of, she, she even sees needing this to be maintained
as a sensibly and over and above, a queer relationship is not
getting the point.
Oh, well, if you're listening, E any proof.
She's a great friend of the podcast.
I actually read this when I was 17.
I read it for my HSE English and I got that at the time.
And of course, I was, yeah, very deep in the closet at that time.
But yeah, I, I, I, and it really helps.
Oh, well, the closet is closed.
And how did you get a lot of them?
Yes.
Have I got a lot of Doctor Who girls?
Yeah.
But...
I have actually never watched the film because for me it can't
live up.
Yeah, it's a different text.
It's different actually.
It is a bit beautiful.
The cinematography is spectacular.
But it can't live up to the personal effects.
That's right.
And I think that's a, that's a bit like Richard, your reluctance
to watch some of the recons because for you, those stories are the
novels.
Yeah, and the audios, and I get a purity with that that I don't
get with those.
I find that visual, if it's not the original visual, really
interrupts the flow of the story.
And I noticed that you 2 have said on some stories that I really
like.
Oh, this is interminable or that team word again.
And yet I really enjoy them.
You don't get that when you're imagination for me.
It's like I hate 3D films, can't go to see them, David and
Margaret.
I can't because it's interrupting the flow.
I don't I have my own imagination.
I don't need extra stuff being thrown on.
I can picture it myself.
So I don't need the visual interruptions.
I do actually prefer most 60s stories as audios.
A lot of them I'd listen to audios before.
Like Dalek Master Plan, I've grown.
Great audio.
Thank you, because Victoria, you're going to say, would we
recommend something that doesn't exist?
I listen to master plan many times.
It's wonderful, is it?
It is great.
I enjoy it more each time.
But I did I did want to be able to develop an opinion about the
design and, you know, what you could determine from the clinical
pervert.
And so I was a little bit I was a little bit OCD about making sure
that everything I watched, you know, in whatever form.
It was available.
What was the question?
It doesn't really matter.
My question was, who was your favourite gift starter?
I'm just going to say again, Peter Diamond.
I just couldn't get my picture away from just how the usual Peter
down what a little diamond in the rough he was.
There are so many.
I think I probably answered that by answering another question.
I mean, I, I guess, is pretty remarkable, you know, in the 2 roles
that he has in season six.
Not to mention broccoli, cubby broccoli in cubby broccoli
obviously, in the in that dalek film.
Um, he is he's pretty spectacular and he will come back a couple
of times before the show's finished.
We have to mention Roberta Toby.
Every, again, you go to.
Oh, no, no, terrible.
She actually great in the 2nd film.
She runs the story.
She's the plucky young heroine.
Yeah, Roberto Tone.
If I had picked someone...
You know what?
If I had to pick an artist from the films to come into the
series.
I love the idea of a younger Susan.
How amazing.
And then we would have avoided all those problems of the sexuality
of the younger person and, you know, just because we talked about
the rapiness and all of that or that she always needs to be
rescued.
If Susan had been a little girl, totally different.
And I will also... like Amelia Pond.
How amazing that would have been.
I will also say that by pushing forward Roberta Toby in that.
I could take a lead Peter Cushing being in Doctor Who, the main
series proper.
I thought he'd do a great job in the films, but I would love to
see more of Reverse Hovey in anything.
Oh wow.
Best Billy Floss.
I think it's the ones that were trying it out.
Maybe I should say like the best comedy moments that's not meant
to be comedy, but it could be Billy, it could be somebody else, you
know.
That's the great thing.
We don't know, do we?
How much of it was in covering up?
Sentimental value for me goes to, um, if you had had your shoes
you could have lent her hers because I adapted that for the 1st
introduction to the podcast where I say we're the only Doctor Who
podcast where...
And I did...
Yeah.
And I didn't know if that would work and you 2 guys laughed.
I'm like, right, that'll work.
So that's that's got to be mine.
Like, if you had her shoes, you could have lent her hers because
and I think also because It could have been a fluff, but at the
same time it works for the character.
So I think it was some, is it one of the sense, right, who uh, he's
someone over talking?
Yes.
I think it is.
So they're desperately desperate about how to finish that line
kind of losing their way.
But sentimentally, I think my favourite Billy Fluff is the lost in
Spain one where he just says you'll end up as a pair of burnt out
cinders floating about in Spain, space.
I think partly the reason that I like it.
And again, I've talked about this scene already, this episode. is
the scene is so emotional and the doctor is so upset that it kind
of is understandable that he gets blustered and can't complete his
line properly.
So while it's sort of hilarious and we're constantly talking about
adventures in Spain and time and all of that sort of thing.
I think it has a little emotional content as well.
So that's my favourite Billy Club, frankly.
Richard?
How can you go past the mountain goat?
Yeah And besides, I prefer walking any day.
That's right.
Or indeed prizing Chatterton off the fornicator.
I should say, which didn't get kept in although it's in the
adventures in Spain and time, isn't it?
I've also been quite fond of in the Space Museum of some
phosphorus and substance in the walls, mainly because it's a 2
shot of Billy and Jackie's faces and Jackie doesn't even blink.
Jackie just sort of keeps nodding like, yes, doctor, what you're
saying is perfect sense.
So that's mostly for Jackie Rob, the Billy.
All right.
I've only got a couple of questions remaining.
Your dream team.
You had to take a doctor.
And a set of companions who is your dream.
It can be for me that, you know, I don't know.
It's hard to just thrown up, isn't it?
It's really easy.
It's just the 1st doctor, Barbara, Ian and Vicky, just about my
favourite companion group.
So I don't have to go do anachronism or anything like that.
She's my favourite.
I only have to do a slight anachronym because I would say the 2nd
doctor in Barbara and Vicki.
Oh, that would be something.
But you wouldn't get Hartnell and Jackie together.
And I think that that's one of the kind of key elements of that
TARS crew.
You see, I think you would get Paddy flirting with Jackie and
Jackie just completely going, nah, nah.
So don't again, you get to choose one that is established.
I would actually go for Pat Jamie and Zoe, possibly because they
were my 1st black and white team.
We're staying within the 60s, aren't we?
That's correct Well, more of Billy and Billy getting support, I'd
like to see Billy and Barbara going for the 4 years, so to speak
and I'd like curse to you.
I'd like Hannah Gordon as the companion. if we go into the 60s.
And maybe Jamie can stay on the Battle of Cologne chasing that red
coat and to a beautiful relationship somewhere over there, though.
And we've got that Kirsty into a war game.
Can I just have more women, please?
That would be good too.
That is a great response and it does trigger my mind as to my
question I was going to ask, which one character should have been
a companion, wasn't it?
And you just that for me.
You guys, anybody that you think should have been picked up and?
Oh, Samantha Briggs.
Really?
Yeah.
Is she that?
Great though.
I mean, wouldn't it get a bit great in Sicily?
turned out she would have had an RP accent probably.
Yeah, it started spraying and whinge. that's right No, no, well, I
mean, you know, she's a great actress and she had real chemistry
with Jamie.
It was...
She actually made him a lot more interesting, not offence to the
actor, but the characters, well, Jamie was more interesting with
her.
Yeah.
She's the one who's most obviously being groomed to be a companion
I think.
Yeah.
Well, she was off it.
Yeah.
For me, Jim McCallen.
It's a very not the reanimated course of just.
No, no, no, no, sorry, I am going to take that back.
She still would have been great, but...
Maria.
Oh, Maria. let me say this.
Hang on now.
Gemma Cole, we're talking...
What did you about Gia Kelly?
I mean, she's and she's great.
Travis.
And Travis. you know, she was meant to be.
She's not only the least short character in the 70s, that was
envisioned, but she was actually meant to be back for invasion.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you said Korean.
Korea.
Korea is my 1st one.
Yes, yes, thank you for everything.
Because Korea would have been so me.
First, she would be, she's a strong female character. written
intelligently.
She has a very similar backstory to Victoria in that she's an
orphan, but you know, she is angry about it.
And, yeah, she she is out to destroy the world.
She's actually the ace character, but more but more mature and
more intelligently written in the 1st part than yeah.
And she is a non-Caucasian actor.
Which was...
It's okay to say black, I think.
Well, I'm just saying in general, non-Caucasian actors were very
uncommon in 60s, Dr. who continued to do.
They're not, actually.
They're much more common than they are in the 70s, I think.
Maybe that's something we will discover very soon.
Yeah, actually.
Okay, final... final question.
Your nomination to the whole same.
The horn of fame.
Hall of Fame.
Who gets the horn?
Snigger.
Go back to that game.
I'm going to rustle on the thing.
Like, it has to be either trout.
Do you know what I mean?
who rescues the program where when it's doing something massively
desperate and risky and crazy by recasting the lead with no
explanation.
And because, as you said, yeah, a few people could have done what
throughout.
And he's the template for all subsequent doctors, people don't
base their performances of heart and all, and even the idea of
what the doctor is like is largely established by Trouton.
But maybe it has to be his mother verity.
Yes.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, um, yeah.
Um, Sydney Newman.
But not, you know, not really for dreaming up the concept of the
program, because it's arguable how much of it he came up with.
Very little apparently.
You just skirted them off, yeah.
But what several people have said he did do was when Patrick
Troughton was coming into it and wanted to black up and put a
turban on or put on a false beard or pretty much to pretty much
turn it into a caricature.
Sydney Newman came in and said, no, no, no, we want simple.
What about what about the cosmic hobo ID you had?
And Patrick took that and ran with it?
I think...
Yeah, Patrick saved the show, but without that simple idea of, no
no, no, you're not playing a caricature, you are playing a
character. keep it simple.
I think without that, the show would have died before we even got
the yeti.
So there would have been that to a big separate.
We wouldn't be here.
Yes, he is so stupid.
I like the I like the context thing, though, that they throw A
into Amos to enter B scenario and you can really literally throw
anything for the tooting beck, but Lou could have been a monster
itself. by the end of it.
I feel like we talk about the dream team and we've talked about
Mark Davis's adventures in space and time.
And for the obvious omission of that is something we talk about
all the time, Whittaker wasn't talked about.
Wasn't nothing in the in the space and time.
Yeah, he sort of took on the Whittaker.
Yeah, interesting.
And I just think that that's such an omission.
Um, We took a script, everything is one of, is the major reason it
had the sense of mystery and oddness, verity was holding it all
together and visionary that she allowed people to do wondrous
things, but I don't know how much creative role she had.
I don't think she had the time.
No.
I think Whitaker creates the TARDIS properly understands the
dialect.
And it's Whitaker that allows the doctor to be all of these spiky
fracture things that are uncomfortable, but still bring back his
humanity.
And then it's the performances of Jacqueline Hill and the other
cast that bring that all together.
But yeah, I think Whittaker is a really important part of that
chemistry.
Well, dear listeners, I don't want to thank the gentleman for the
air romance today.
It's been...
I've been changing years.
It has been for me, you know, asking.
And of course, you know, we're heading into the 70s and there's
some burning questions that, you know, we will need ants, Rodan or
Romana.
Gala free or gala free.
Sarah Jane or Sarah?
The Eocenes or Siurians.
Which unit captain is the best?
Turner, Monroe, Hawkins, or Yates.
How large was Lee Shaw's expense account for those glamorous props
of hairs?
Our 7 episode stories worth their weight in gold, and will we get
a funky 70s remix of the podcast theme too?
Can only know.
Thank you.
Thanks for everyone.
Thank you all for listening.
You've been listening to Flat Mentality with Nathan Botany, Roman
James, Richard Sodan, special guest star, Todd Bielby.
This episode, how can you snog a monoid was recorded on the 30th
of December, 2014?
The next episode would be released on January 17th.
We wish to dedicate this episode to the memory of Bernard Kay, who
appeared in several 1960s Doctor Who stories, and it still has one
more coming up.
I'm wondering if you're going to start incorporating snob barrier
void into your classes.
Oh, awesome.
So, boys, in the LA.
Stop merry boys.
I'm a chocolates.
I think I think we have to do it for the...
In Oedipus the King.
Oh, it takes on a hole.