Hello and welcome to Quite Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who
podcast that's just taken off from Mars.
What the hell was that?
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm the ambassador of...
Oh, now I think I know that's good.
This is an amazing 1st for the program.
And I don't really want to sort of oversell it, but it's an
absolute turning point in history of Doctor Who.
And it is the introduction of the sting.
Yes.
And we get it twice an episode.
We get it, you know, a little moment, a little momenty moment at
the very beginning, which is usually the reprise for the kids.
Okay, now you're not talking about the group, the police, and
you're not talking about Robert Redford.
Paul Newman in the film of the same name.
Or possibly the best episode of Futurama.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, it's good.
However, so it sounds like this. did that very well. very, very
clever.
Without any sort of vocal treatment at all.
It starts to appear for the 1st time here.
At the beginning of the sort of 2nd half of the credits that
happen after a prize, and then at the end of each episode.
I think it's a wonderful directorial touch, having the reprise
within the opening granite.
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of what we do now, isn't it?
You have a teaser and then you have the...
It's literally what we did just then. the customer.
Yes.
Did we mention that we're talking about ambassadors of death at
all?
Well, Richard said the ambassadors are boy...
Oh, I guess so.
I think people got it.
And I used Dudley's, um, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
That's why we're all dressed as the swingle singers.
That's right.
We've all got sort of like yellow turtleneck, sweaters.
It's also quite warm, which explains the mini skirts.
Yeah, I'm draping one pieces, yeah.
Brendan, you've got all blue and spotty.
What's all this about?
We've got to get some clearer sauce.
This is terrible.
I'll turn off the microwave.
It's doing terrible to our complexions.
I actually think they're the best looking aliens we've had so
far.
CSO is really, really working.
But the 1st time this says so far this season.
It wasn't terribly great in the caves of dreaminess, was it?
What's happening now?
The sting.
It's one of these things that you imagine the Doctor Who actually
always had, you know, that it was a part and parcel of the show
from the beginning.
But in fact, it's it only day to use here.
It really livens up the cliffhangers.
There are plenty of times in the 60s where you get a sort of slow
and undramatic fade to black and then a couple of moments of
silence and then we go with the closing credits.
But this one, it really reinforces the cliffhanger.
And I think in about time.
They've got a whole essay on the sting.
I think they're the ones who say that it sounds like your TV is
surprised by the situation as well.
So it's a huge thing and it really works well and it's lasted up
until the present day.
But the show has sort of changed unrecognisably around it.
So this time last year, we were doing seeds of death and the space
part.
Seeds of death, you mentioned because this looks nothing like it
even though we've got the same lovely director in Michael
Ferguson.
It's absolutely nothing like it.
There are one or 2 directorial touches, though.
And then a year before that, we had Webber Fear and Fury from the
Deep.
And this show is now nothing at all like that.
This is a political thriller.
And Doctor Who doesn't do many political thrillers.
I could think of mind of evil and invasion of the dinosaurs, but
that'd be about it.
We had one previously, enemy of the world.
Enemy of the world.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's the thing that the show has done before, but it's not a
well that the show, you know, goes to very frequently.
And this one's a little bit more gone and a little bit more kind
of low key.
Certainly enemy of the world was sort of brand and camp and set in
the future and had, you know, trout and acting sort of
splendidly.
This one is a bit more gritty sort of along the lines of the TV
shows and things that you mentioned last episode, I think
Richard.
What is this story?
We've got this fantastic, this where Havik comes in and does a
whole lot of action straight out of the Ipcrest file.
And then we suddenly got Britty locations and extra, extra gritty
muddy shops and factories, and it's actually, like I mentioned
Mike Hodges would get Carter.
But then with John's fabulous flouncy Steady outfit, it's more
like Get Her Carter, isn't it, really?
We've got, there's always a bit of camp in between the grit.
Yeah, which is probably the best way to take your camp and take
your grit.
This is actually, this is the where it veers away from...
That sounds like someone's doing a weed.
Brendan's pouring champagne.
Champagne for everyone.
But yeah, the grit is...
I think the grits really welcome.
Well, it provides that Doctor-ish touch of something abnormal in
the normal.
I think what the production team have realised is if you have
Doctor Who filled with normality, doctor has to become even more
abnormal in order to have the tension that Doctor Who has always
had.
Yeah.
So you no longer have the TARDIS.
Although we do see the console and have a rather amusing sequence
between the doctor and Liz flitting off here and there, which
actually foreshadows the next story.
It does.
And some fans have conjectured the possibility that the doctor's
bachelor pad with all that lovely green clock wallpaper in Dive
Windows is actually the TARDIS interior because it has the hum.
And I love that idea.
It should be.
For one story only, the doctor's called Pure 70s.
It's a story though, Ambassadors of Death. is not really widely
known or seen even by long-term football, you know, unless you're
a really diehard fan because it was so late coming out on DVD and
it's kind of forgotten and not everybody.
It is, what is this story about?
Still not sure I know after having watched it several times.
We've strayed away from the real world, which is where we said the
Silurians was set.
British astronaut?
We have a British space program and they're travelling to Mars.
They're already landed on Mars at least twice.
And yet what year is this set in?
Oh, is that another discussion?
We've had this discussion and that's it.
It was something that happened on television in 1970s.
According to John Pertley, it was set in 1980 because he, when he
gives an interview after he's been cast, that interview where John
Levine was carrying him around in a yeti costume, why John Pertley
was wearing a yeti costume, I don't know.
But we said that my doctor will be a lot more modern, he will wear
a modern suit, which didn't happen.
And the stories will be set in 1980.
Which explains Liz's amazing hat.
And John Abaneri's outrageous Colonel Foster from UFO rug.
What is that week?
This is the this is the story of the Amazing Hats, isn't it?
Oh, the space helmets of the astronauts are actually from the
fabulous Hammer films, Moon 02, which was a Western inset in space
with Catherine's skill from Space 1979, not yet to be vocal. and a
lot of other folk we all love.
And of course, you've got the wonderful variable accent of Dr
Bruno Tatalian.
Oh, where we get an archer crossover for the 1st time in Doctor
Who.
Isn't he actually playing a character from Archer, would you?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, he's pretty much creaker, yeah.
So what's happening?
There are British astronauts who are trying who have been to Mars
and come back.
Well, they haven't come back.
They've taken off, but they haven't returned.
So we sent up another rocket to get them.
How good did that rocket look?
Did it look good?
The model, though, we've got to get...
It goes fresh from Jerry's 1st go at UFO and he's doing some
really lovely shots.
It's a 1st to him too, isn't it?
Yeah, it is for the 1st go.
We're actually getting some ITC level, Lou Great, Jerry Anderson
effect level model shots, which take up half the story, it seems.
Well, again, they're doing the slow moving model shot with the
sort of classical-ish.
I thought it was 2001 again.
I thought it was a bit barkish.
It actually sounds like...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that, you know, we've got... pale, all possibly bar.
We've got Dudley doing our own real score.
That most jarring thing for me in this story is all the stings and
boings throughout, just to let you know, a dramatic moments coming
up.
I find it very generic.
Although, a lot of it is very sort of 60s spy, actually.
Yeah, if you haven't seen any of Chris File, you'd swear you're
watching the same thing.
But the music for the just to get back.
What in fact happens is they lose contact with the 2 Mars
astronauts who are coming back.
And the 3rd astronaut who has come to rescue them.
They lose contact with them completely.
But they managed to bring down the capsule and before they can
open it, the 3 astronauts they think are taken out.
And it turns out the astronauts are aliens and they're being used
in this sort of vast conspiracy.
And there's conspiracies within conspiracies.
There's an original conspiracy that involves like a civil servant
and things, and a general, General Carrington, who's John Abenieri
who will later turn up in power of Kroll virtually naked and
painted green, and did his part enough.
And also an episode of Red Dwarf, and it's arguable which one has
more dignity.
So that conspiracy gets unmasked and the civil servant gets killed
and it turns out that behind that conspiracy is a conspiracy
exactly the same, involving all of the same people.
It is sort of very strange.
So I'm not sure that the conspiracy element sort of really worked
but what does work is the aliens, I think, and the aliens are very
undersold, aren't they?
We see them very briefly.
We see a sort of blueface thing.
There's a per tweak goes up in a rocket and season other alien
that is Peter Halliday again.
Cyberplanner.
But I really like the way that's done.
And you walk in with a very Orwellian thing of them all.
It's so Englishman in space.
They're not talking about the oxygen levels.
They're not talking about the political climate.
They're talking about England getting defeated by Portugal in the
football that they're watching on the woo-woo screen.
It's really, and of course, the alien appears through a Venetian
blind.
It's varying.
And I love the way that it's so understated, you know, it's kind
of a shame we didn't get a British space program.
That would have been so silly, yes.
But the other aliens are the other 3 spacesuited things.
And we originally think that they're the astronauts coming back
but we discovered that they're not. they're really, really
terrifying.
And there's Yeah, they're well paced, aren't they?
And they get great music.
Like there's this sort of weird distorted harp music that plays.
No, they're flutes, I think.
Something anyway.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It is sort of slightly odd and distorted.
And they sound really great.
And Michael Ferguson does the trick that he does in Seeds of
Death.
You remember when we did Seeds of Death.
You said that Rod's memory of watching it for the 1st time was the
Ice Warrior with looming up with the light of the sun behind him.
Yeah, I love the lens sperm.
He redoes that, doesn't he, for these?
And you have to think that those spacesuits, because they're blank
faced, you never really see, you do see one shot of the face of
one of the aliens and it's sort of blue and gruesome.
And very sort of quick cuts.
Yeah.
Like you cut back and forth to Liz's reaction.
Yeah, it's horror movie stuff.
That's what they do in horror movies.
Yeah, it's very Hammer, actually.
So that...
I mean, those spaces, those astronauts, menacing people look
really terrifying and you've got to think that Stephen Moffatt is
reusing that iconography in the Impossible Astronaut in series 6 a
lot later because they are really memorable looking.
It's an interesting thought.
We just read that as Scooby-Doo aliens, didn't we?
From the same way with the skull heads from silence and the
library, but I do remember a great comic I saw.
And on the top, you've got the Scooby gang and saying, let's see
who the alien really is.
It's old man Winters, and then you've, on the 2nd panel.
You've got the 11th doctor, Amy, Rory and River.
Let's see all old Man Winters really is.
He's a silence.
Yeah, the double reveal, yeah.
Something I love about this story is it would be easy to look at
this story and say General Carrington is a villain.
But really, the villain of this story is Regan, who is General
Carrington's hired help.
I think the least successful performance in this as well.
I find him I find him quite well plotting to watch, you know?
The interesting thing is if you look at the context.
Regan is Irish.
He doesn't, he sort of does the accent.
Yeah, just a little, but the name is clear.
You're right.
And he's the accent, is there, and it's about the troubles.
It's a real strong reference to Northern Ireland.
This is 6 months after the Battle of Bogside, which is sort of the
crystallising event that led to the provisional IRA. having an
Irish villain was very topical.
And I quite like reading because He's enjoying himself, isn't he?
Well, plus he feels dangerous.
He's, yeah, he is someone from the champions or later the
professionals, but he's someone from an ITC series.
I do feel I'm watching an episode of a lady 70s cop show in this
yeah.
But it does mean that he and his lackeys get some great material
with Carol and John, or rather, she gets some great material with
them.
The thing that really sticks into my mind and it just crystallises
Liz's character for me is when at one point Reagan's telling her
off for trying to escape and he sort of throws her to one of the
guards and the guard is grabbing her and she's looking up at him
you know, he's 6 foot 6 and she just says, don't worry, I won't
hurt you.
They're a nice one to see.
But it is quite jarring, and you know, you're not watching a kitty
show anymore, and the way that the doctor's companion is really
manhandled in this.
She's, she has a really rough time and she's running hard in those
ridiculous go-go boots and she's outside and it's cold and the bit
with the wear when she almost goes over and the actress was in
fact 3 months pregnant.
Exactly.
And a lot of that, you know, how much of that is her?
Quite a bit when she's running along.
Yeah, some of it's not.
Some of it's...
Stewart fell, but I believe the rest of it was her.
But the physicality in the way they manhandle her is hitting
unfortunate jars against the rest of the show.
Okay, we're making this for teenage boys, not for little kids
anymore.
But, How did you feel about it?
I think I think it cements how how villainous these villains are.
That we're in real danger.
It's very telling that when General Carrington threatens them.
He threatens them with a gun.
It doesn't threaten them with physical force and grabbing them and
punching people and what have you.
So what you've got is you've got 2 levels of violence.
You've got the violence of the street thug and you've got the
violence of the landed pentry, if you like.
And really, you know, it's all terrible.
But it's highlighting the double standard here that you have these
peaceful aliens, but they're seen as evil because they have this
unfortunate thing where if they touch you, they kill you.
But it's not an intentional thing.
Whereas you've got Carrington saying sort of the ends justify the
means it was my moral duty.
Yeah, it doesn't stop the fact that you're no better than these
dogs.
Yeah, I hate Carrington, and I hate the way that Pertui responds
to him at the end, and it's hard to read, I guess.
But you always get this sort of impression that Reagan's a sort of
terrible thug and a terrible person, but Carrington, and he says
you know, it's about his moral duty, and that's the cliffhanger to
episode 6, and he, you know, he's going to shoot the doctor in the
head because it's his moral duty, and you kind of think, well, he's
someone who dresses up a murderous conspiracy in which, like
people have been horribly killed.
You know, he's going to start an intergalactic war, but he's
dressing it up in moral language.
And like, I don't think that makes it any better.
And I don't think that he deserves a pass or needs to be sort of
regarded as somewhat somewhat more noble or worthwhile than
Regan.
And I think the big difference is exactly what you've been pointed
it's class, you know, like he's a proper general and Regan's just
a sort of thug.
You see, I don't think the doctor saying to him, look, I
understand, is a pass.
I think it's just the doctor saying, you know, you need help.
I understand that in your twisted mind, this makes sense.
He's placating the boing boing brain.
I think that I think that John Abaneri is the boring in
ambassadors are boring.
There is a fabulous moment where Carrington does his 1st kind of
moral duty speech and he has to sort of, you know, bomb the
aliens.
They all want to be killed.
They killed my friend Jimmy or whatever.
And the baby... very sort of quietly says, you know, I think the
general's a bit overraw.
And then you had that lovely thing of Cornish there.
Cornish without the huge steel shoulder pads from the dominator.
Yes, it says I think he's insane.
It's not a lovely treatment, the way they take the, is it Mike
Cornish?
Ralph, Ralph Cornish.
Everyone's called Mike and the 70s. or Jimmy.
Yeah, isn't the game?
Well, Ronald Allen, who we've just enjoyed so much in the
dominators, dominatrix is.
He's actually pretty good.
We never said, he's probably the best thing in the dominators.
He seems to try to give it some realism.
I think he's superb in this.
Oh, I think he's really perfect.
And the way that he pivots from complete antipathy towards Pertz
and towards the doctor's extraordinary arrogance.
The doctor's an absolute us in the 1st episode towards everyone.
Well, I said this in our last episode.
The doctor's instinct is to go in there and just be arrogant and
belittle everyone.
And the Cornish starts to react badly to this and the brigadier
kind of mates in calm down and per tweet backs down and
apologise.
So the 70s way of producing tension within the drama.
Well, I mean, it's only it's only in episode one.
It happens very quickly and it's kind of...
Charms it up and starts doing a Sylvester McCoy magic tricks with
the 4 inch tape, doesn't it?
Yeah, I think that's a, I think the important distinction here is
Cornish proves that he can do his job, whereas whereas Dr. Lawrence
really couldn't do his job.
And Cornish is intelligent and sympathetic and a rounded human
being.
I believe he's a real person that we're watching.
I don't ever sort of thought by myself critically...
Sorry, I don't even find myself critiquing his performance, the
luck I actually do with the lead in this.
Yeah And I think Pertwee's doctor actually respects when someone
butts heads back with him because that's the defining aspect of
his relationship.
It's a typical narcissist ploy too.
I won't know.
Well, it is.
The bully only respects you if you bully back.
I'm sure I'm not saying anything against the character of the
doctor so far.
Oh, he's a love story.
It does...
I don't know, what do you think?
I don't find I'm sitting comfortably with with how I loved the
doctor as a little boy that John Pertley's performance.
I thought he was superb and it was a lovely hangover from the
things we liked, like the Avengers.
But now I'm just getting a hangover.
I'm finding that, yeah, he's antagonistic out of, it just seems
arrogance.
I can't see any other reason for it I actually like it. because
the thing to consider with the 3rd doctor is at least for his 1st
3 years.
Of course he's annoyed.
He has had the entire university's disposal and now he's stuck
with these stupid apes.
How is his performance any different from Eccleston?
You could say that Billy was certainly arrogant.
And yes, indeed.
Eccles gets to be, but there's always causality.
There's always a good reason for it.
Whereas I think that pertly sense to jumping with it.
What do you think, though?
What about Capaldi, though?
Yeah, that's a whole new thing.
But don't you notice how they keep throwing in the sensitivity of
Capaldi and the fact that he's just so distanced from everybody
else around him.
He can't, he's not really seeing people as the rest of us see
people.
He's much more alien than person.
Yeah, but I think it's the most alien doctor we've had.
Because perjury is patrician, really.
But very, very, it's not even earthy.
He's very Surrey in Chelsea.
He's really never left the home penalty.
No, that's what I mean.
He's very contritious. very upperclass.
He sort of comes in and he...
Yeah, for a man who's seen the universe and seen the Del Fonds.
I think it was just on a video and a saucy video from France.
I don't think he's ever actually gone.
The thing is, so when the 3rd doctor realises that he's really
getting someone's go-top.
He will he will often back down and especially with female
characters such as Ms. Dawson.
He will actually go, okay, I've gone a bit too far.
I should try and be nice now. which again is something we see in
Capaldi when Clara tells him off for telling Courtney Wilkes
Courtney.
Courtney Love.
Yeah.
Courtney Act, yeah.
For telling for telling Courtney that, you know, she'll never have
out to anything.
Dr. Rachel Jones around says, oh, okay, fine, you know, I'll tell
her she's wonderful.
Perley's very much like that. like, you know, you might want to, he
might be able to help you, doctor.
He is in charge and straight away the charm comes on and look, I
can help you, old chap.
You know, I'm not saying he's a perfect character by any means.
I think he's the most flawed doctor we had but I do think it's
conscious.
But I wonder...
I'm sorry, you know, if I Capaldi charming with it and I'm not
finding charm with this so far.
I'm not a big fan.
He's my 1st doctor.
Mine too, yeah.
Yeah.
And mine.
Oh, good.
I remember my 1st Doctor Who was Carnival Monsters.
I think we've been here.
It's a great story. to his best, haven't we?
I've got such affection for Katie.
And why you're dressed as a mini scope, yes.
I actually think one of the things that will happen in the reboot
next season and the introduction of Katie is something that
we'll...
I'm sorry, is Katie Manning coming back for season 9 of with Peter
Capaldi?
There are those photos of her in the control room of Capaldi.
That's the best spoiler alert of this podcast.
He does seem to be having photos taken with Doctor Who Companions
from the past series.
And I like, I think he's just going, the fans are going to go
nuts.
He's going nuts.
He's the biggest fanboy of the lot.
I don't mind his jumping, timey, whimey thing we're doing here
because can I just have an indulgent moment?
You can cut it out.
I really want Katie Manny in season nine, please.
She's so good.
Can she just, even if it's just a guesty.
Can we just have?
She's great.
Have you seen her in the Sarah Jane Adventures episode?
Yeah, it's all my all-time fate.
That's wonderful, isn't it?
So you were 20 or 21 when I last saw you.
Now look at you.
It looks like someone's baked you.
Imagine what the Bounty will say.
Oh, what she'll say that?
Oh, I just hope she'll say, oh, God, again.
Well, I'm not the old, only old one now, dear.
Yes, yes, she'll be brilliant, yeah.
I mean, she humanises pertly.
But she's not here yet, is she?
Don't you think Carrie Human?
I'm sorry don't you think?
I should say Le sure humanises the doctor.
Is that cliffhanger where she hangs off the weir?
That's the cliffhanger to episode three?
Because I think that means that she spends 4 episodes basically
separated from him and sidelined in the plot.
So we don't actually see that much of them together in this
story.
We do see one very important scene of them together, though.
I think it's in episode 6 when they kidnap the doctor. and when
they bring him in and truck him on the floor.
When he wakes up, she's already kneeling.
It's a touching moment.
I hope they hurt you.
Yes.
Yeah, especially with doctor.
He is so loud and so ebullient.
When he's saying have a, it's a whisper.
Yeah.
You know?
And it's not, are we being listened to?
it's right now.
It's you and me.
That's it.
That really works for me too.
Just because it's such a change of weather from how you normally
has been.
And I think, you know, more than any other time in the classic
series, that, you know what, I'm going to say, more than Billy and
Barbara, that is a moment where I get, you know, the doctor loves
this woman.
Okay.
You know, or at the very least has a very strong emotion towards
her that he can't quite quantify because he is such a distant
character, emotionally distant and unavailable.
There are terrific, mutually respectful team, which I think she's
the most feminist character we've had in the series and possibly
we'll have for a while.
She's actually...
She doesn't make any noise about it.
She just does it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And she is...
She's Aunt Travis.
Thank you, because yeah, we were going to have her, weren't we?
You know, there are, there are 2, there are 2 moments in, I think
in, inside Urians where she tells the brigadier often than the
doctor undermines her, like the brigadier tells her to do
something, she says, no, don't be so silly.
I'm going to do that.
And the doctor says, no, Liz, do as you're told, you know.
And that's always a bit of a shame because she is, she's not, you
know, Sarah Jane in season 11 where she comes in telling everyone
what a big feminist she is.
She is just, you know, a terribly accomplished and self-assured
person with lots of degrees and lots of ability, and she's very no
nonsense, and she is very snarky and very funny, and she does, and
she, you know, in that in that cliffhanger to episode 3 where
she's dangling on the weird.
She does smack that one guy.
Pretty nicely, too.
She just compels people to respect her because she expects respect
and turn.
I want to refer you all to having another look if since we're
going out at this time of Benedict Cumberbatch's role of touring
because Kira Knightley plays the character of Joan Clarke.
I don't remember reading in any of the books about Alan Teering as
being there.
But anyway, the character is pewterly sure right down to the week
a very clever woman who's disregarded by the establishment, but
soon proves herself to be the equal of the doctor character in
Alan Turing.
So yeah, have a look at that.
But this character, this very smart woman has featured through
film and through TV for a long time, not so much previously, but
certainly very much in the future.
I think she's a character, not just from the 80s, but from now.
And it's one of the main reasons I really like Carol and John as
we sure, she's a timeless character.
She could be up with Capaldi next year and she wouldn't look dated
at all.
It's very telling that of all the companion characters.
The one who got the spinoff series from BBB wasn't really short.
The probe series, because she is so interesting, it has enough of
her own thing going on that, you know, you can have stories about
her.
And, you know, the series does also feature Louise Jameson in a
new role.
What sort of probes, were they mind, mind probes?
Well, in a couple of episodes, they probed Peter Davidson and Mark
Gaitis.
So there you go. like you do.
Should I kiss him now?
I'll kiss Peter Dobes.
God, I hope everyone's seen the kidnappers schedule on the DVD, you
know.
Send your own drawings and send them in, yeah.
I'm going to have a lot of work justifying this bit in the show
notes.
Probe's not that bad?
I've never even heard of it.
You okay.
That's good.
Right, spinoff series, preternatural observation.
That would be Pope.
Damn it.
Oh, could be prevent.
Okay.
Oh, um, rapey observation.
I think it stands for preternatural observation and examination
unit.
Oh, dear.
That actually makes it worse.
It's Lee Shaw doing the X-Files.
Yeah, yeah.
Or that lovely thing they do with Pamela Salem and the other and
the other characters from Remembrance of the Daleks.
Oh, countermeasures.
Oh, it's great.
Well, probe is, yeah, it's Lee Shaw and her friend who is a
detective inspector played by Louise Jameson.
And they're investigating supernatural events.
She's the Kathy Burke character from the French and Saunders alien
the movie.
Oh, excellent.
But what if she thinks she's scorny?
But what's really, what's really great.
And I think it's a wonderful addition to Liz's character is Liz
smokes a pipe.
Do you know she does in real life?
Her daughter.
Her daughter Daisy Ashford, certainly, a bit Doco on spearhead on
the spearhead Blu-ray that, you know, mum smoked a pipe.
She was really eccentric and terrific and much more like the
character of Lee Shaw than people realise.
Now, okay, Nathan, you're making a paint expression.
I should point out these were written by Mark Gates.
Oh, okay.
So the scripts are quite good.
Mark Gators appears and I think 2 of them.
Peter Davidson appears in 2 of them.
I've been lucky enough to hear one.
I loved it.
Yeah, I love who there is.
So yeah, there's there's 4 in total.
Are they audios?
They're video.
They're BBV, but I switched it.
So they're all available on...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, I think I've got copies.
I think they're well worth checking out.
I look quite well, actually, they look quite early 70s, Doctor Who
don't they?
Yeah, they're shot on, they're shot on video, handicam.
Yeah.
There you go.
So she went on to have a full rich and satisfying life despite
going back to Cambridge and never seeing the doctor again.
Oh, spoiler alert.
Let's find out why.
I'm very worried about security at Space Control given that Regan
breaks into the complex and sabotages the fuel for the doctor's
launch. filling it with extra badly spelled M3 variant.
And then the very next episode he breaks in again and poisons the
doctor's sexual air supply as he is in quarantine on the way
back.
But you've got to remember that he's got a general in his pocket
or vice versa.
And that's something I find really great about this story because
I mean, we should talk about the genesis of it.
It was, 1st of all, written by David Whitaker.
He wrote a full set of scripts, but he wrote them for Pat, Wendy
and Fraser.
Yeah.
And so the format changed.
It was originally set in the far future.
The format changed and so they had to change the characters and it
got to the point where he was just rewriting and rewriting it, but
it was actually getting worse.
You know, the way when sometimes you go over something and over
something and over something to the point that you had nothing
original to add to it.
It's like actors on a stage comedy.
A lot of actors on a stage comedy say they can't stay in the role
forever because eventually the jokes aren't funny anymore.
Terrence Dix demanded that David Whitter could be paid in full and
said, right, I'll write it with Mac Hawk and my assistant, Trevor
Ray.
He'd also moved to Australia.
Yeah, he was busy moving to Australia.
Yeah, it was totally difficult doing all of that.
And interestingly, this was actually Trevor Ray's last work on the
program.
Allegedly, he had a very low opinion of Mac Hulk.
Well, that's...
Yeah, exactly.
To the point that...
Thank you for that pertly... to the point that apparently Trevor
Ray in the hearing of Terrence Dix called Mac Hulk, Hack Mulk.
Brilliant.
And terrible witch.
Terence pretty much went on the whole, you'll work in this town
again.
How dare you insult my mentor?
is absolutely fantastic.
You know who else we get in this one, though?
We get civil shaps.
We do get serious. doing another fabulous cereal chefs.
First, before we move on to Silver Shaps.
What I wanted to say was, that's okay.
Malcolm Hawke said you can only have a mad sign to store an alien
invasion.
It looks like what's happened here is Malcolm Holt's inverted that
we don't have a mad scientist. a mad soldier.
Ah, we don't have an alien invasion.
We're keeping them prisoner, right?
We're the baddies in this story.
Nice, nice, nice.
But we also have Mr. Jeffrey Beaver's as Private Johnson.
Oh, yes, we've got Jeffrey Beavers.
Oh, I meant to notice him because he was at Lords of Time a couple
of weeks ago, yeah. mentions that he's in it.
Well, I think he's the one who gives Benton the Morse message.
The doctor's sending it.
He does, that's him.
And I'm thinking, where's the scene where Dr. Lee Shaw comes
across Private Johnson and Snigger Snigger?
There's a reason she can't come back next year, is it?
God, that'd be wonderful.
But yeah, Cyril Chaps.
Getting back to Cyril Shaps.
Everyone's favourite Archie man drive.
Without that.
And, you know, what about his death?
He's sitting there expecting a lovely lunch.
She lives...
And it's like an ice.
He's locked in the thing.
He does the face.
No wonder people thought they were watching the Avengers.
Yes, very Avengers.
Who did that?
Wait, because it's Benton's voice, though.
Yeah, Benton kills him.
Yeah, so...
Who actually killed him?
It actually looks like it is Benton.
That's what, they're rewatching just for that?
Because Benton has already said that exact same line.
Yes, sir, I'll lock the door.
So it sounds exactly the same.
So the only, you know, unless Benton is a cold-hearted killer...
Well, he just wants a bigger part.
Well, like a certain person in terror of the verboids, who we
won't mention for a while, but it's a very popular theory by Sir
Gary Russell.
Unless Benson is a mass murderer.
He's just brought up the tray from the kitchen, hasn't looked at
it.
But as we see from Benton later, he eats everything.
So it must be Benton.
Yeah, it's mentioned.
Don't you kill still sharps?
They'll get the recommend.
But it wasn't part of the conspiracy.
He ate Cyril Champs as lunch.
He was really embarrassed about it. and didn't want him telling
anyone.
So he just shoved a nearby isotope in there.
Yeah, because, you know, Benton just happens to keep those lying
around for his ballroom dancing lessons.
Yeah, well, he wouldn't.
So now into woozy woo places now.
This was originally called Invaders from Mars.
And then Carrie...
Yeah, it's Carrie.
They've made it to my, it's my, actually my favourite earlier on
Big Finnish audio, so Paul McGann, written by Mark Gatis.
People don't like it.
I know Gary Russell doesn't.
You don't like it?
I think it's fantastic.
It's wonderful.
That's my go-to.
You've got Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's in the 30s and it names awesome wells and it's just
superb.
It's got it's got George Caluras from Keys of Madness.
Oh, there you go, then.
I listen to it in France, but I can't really remember.
How exalted?
I was paying attention.
Probably a lot of apps.
Yeah, yeah.
What else could we say about this lovely?
Was this your story, but it was mine.
This was amazing.
But it's another example of having lots of overlapping plots.
And again, much like war games, you know, written in a hurry by by
Terence and Mac.
The overlapping plots here.
You've got the 1st rescue of the astronauts and they come back, but
then you've got the conspiracy of kidnapping the astronauts.
And then you've got the story about, well, the astronauts have
been horribly irradiated.
So the doctor has to go up and rescue the astronauts again, but
that doesn't work.
And then you get the quote unquote invasion plotline, which is
actually a forced invasion.
And then you get the whole idea of, no, they're exploiting these
aliens.
And then you get the climax is weird because it's somewhat
anticlimactic, but at the same time, you're like, well, I don't
really want to see a massive war and earth being bombed into
submission.
So an anticlimax is actually good on this occasion.
Maybe if you're sweet.
I love the way they end it, just walking off the huge stairs.
Cheerio, time to launch.
And, you know, that's very strange, isn't it?
It's very English space.
It could have been a finale for this, sure, because the doctor
says, oh, she's far more qualified?
You stay here, my dear.
Just warmed her off.
Yeah, no, it's kind of like that. a nice handover if you look at
it that way.
Well, they haven't quite got the message.
Gareth Roberts says.
They haven't quite got the message to the show's formats changed
and the doctor doesn't leave at the end of every story.
So we have a scene.
He just leaves at the end of this story because we kind of used it
go back to his lovely cottage in Betsy. to go back to TV comic
plan. fights the scarecrows of doom. like to think so.
Well, remember, they forced his regeneration.
Godwin nerds. don't know what you're talking about.
So what are you saying about Gareth Roberts?
I know not to labour it, but if you swap around Inferno and
Ambassador's Deck in the story or that, Liz Shaw gets a leaving
suit.
Because she gets to stay behind and interpret like a to liaise
would be and...
Which, you know, it's a pretty good job for a physicist.
Yeah, yeah.
Here we are passing through from warp point into warp 2 into the
world of the Mohole project, Inferno.
And this was mine again, and thank you, Randomiser, because this
is probably my favourite.
Is that why we're all in comedy beards?
It's really not very good.
I've lost all my depth perception because of this eye patch.
How could it not be good when you've got exactly the same
exposition to exactly the same character in 2 different universes
when the doctor explains the plot to the brigadier, not ones, but
twice?
the same story embedded inside itself twice.
Yeah, which is not an uncomfortable position.
I'm taken back to the Tadurkum.
This is kind of its own version of that scene in James Cameron's
Titanic when you've got...
When you've got Leonardo and Kate Winslet in a car in a boat. in a
studio on an ocean.
You've actually got a story within a story here.
I happen you're not like this story. terrific.
It's got the best cliffhanger of all time.
Oh, great.
Which one's your 1st one?
The one what Kate Orman said.
With the countdown.
That's it.
Where the countdown goes over the closing credit.
Yes.
Yeah, and and...
And the screening and the music rises after...
Yeah, and then you get the... so many good Kurfackers in this.
I mean you've got Benton threatening to shoot the doctor.
And it's so weird because in just a few shorter appearances, John
Levine has actually crafted a character you really like.
I mean, this is the 1st time you actually see Benton's character
when he's sort of giggling about the Brigadier's photo, but you
see enough of him in the last few stories to know that he's quite
an affable chap and whatnot.
So when he's...
Other than when he's murdering Cyril Shepps.
But when he is, um, not exactly transformed, but when there is
this other version of him who is callous and really sadistic.
And he plays it very well.
He sort of says in the making of that he was worried he was too
gentle, but no, he plays it really well, in my opinion.
It's actually quite shocking and he's really believably nasty and
therefore it is such a job and I think he's possibly the 1st
heroic character in Doctor to have a cliffhanger that he's turned
you know, aside from the doctor itself.
I think he's actually, I actually think he does a very good job in
very quickly selling the parallel world.
It's the most salient and that's the most controversial.
For someone who hasn't seen this show.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
It's another base.
It's another intransition base command.
It's the whole thing, another scientific establishment, another
source of unlimited cheap power.
So what happens?
and his grammarous assistant to called out there. visiting.
They're not called out, the doctors, pretending that he wants to
consult there so he can use the power from their nuclear
generation.
Which is great.
Because that's obviously Barry Letts going, you know, he wouldn't
just sit around and accept this meekly. trying to get off the
planet.
But he's also kind of a bit obnoxious and stuff and he is he
insists that the brigadier investigates, but it's all just a
cover.
So 2 episodes where we're in there, he has conflict with the base
commander.
He's, you know, obnoxious, but actually quite funny.
The line about Stalman's liver playing him up again.
Like, he's actually pretty funny.
And then he slips into in episode two.
End of episode two.
That's the clip.
He slips into a parallel world.
He actually spends 4 episodes in that parallel world.
Yeah, 3 through six.
He comes back for the resolution of the story in episode seven.
And the parallel world is a fascist parallel world.
It's, you know, there's elements of Big Brother in it.
There's that big poster that says unity is strength with a picture
of the smiling dictator on the wall at the heart when he 1st
appears.
The royal family we've learned have been massacred.
And it was in the mid 40s.
So the implication is definitely that either Germany or Russia or
possibly both took over Britain at that time.
The defence of the Republic Act, 1943 gets mentioned.
So it's in the mid 40s, you know, that seems to be established.
We're not working for unit anymore.
It's the Republican security forces and the Mohole project is in
fact a scientific labour camp.
So they're all working there under duress.
Did they call it the mohole project in this as well?
No, because you know where this goes back to in real life.
This was something that America talked about in 1957.
Um, there was, you know, you know, it was actually the 57
consumption. everyone who's listening would also know that it was
international geophysical year.
Oh, hold your nerdy badge up with pride.
Yeah, that are amazing.
They rocked you.
They were just insane.
First hats were just ridiculous.
Britain sent off Dr. Vivian Folks.
Vivian Fay, Dr. Vivian Fay.
Yes, off on another polar, lovely thing.
But America, America was drilling into the depths.
And this theory all came about 100 years previously with a
Croatian geologist, Andrea Mohorovachic.
But that was just called the moho project or the mohole project
for sure.
But they had envisaged that there would be the existence of
between the crust and the mantle, this magmari, Uzi, Captain
Kremen stuff that could be used as a source of energy.
I know.
How nuts is that?
1957.
Buga Sputnik, there was great stuff going on just onto the toast.
So yeah, this thing was still being talked about when the story
was put put on.
Yeah, Don Horton, the author, actually contacted both the Russian
and America embassies because Russia had also tried a drilling
project of similar nature and both projects stopped very
suddenly.
And when he tried to get information on them.
The embassy staff at 1st said, oh, yeah, sure, I'll go find that
out and then call him back and said, that's completely
classified.
Why are you asking?
Yep.
So they muttering things about werewolves and staff as well.
There was that werewolf thing.
Yeah, something like heemable, stuff.
So I will say that the werewolves, the Primords.
Well, they were the main sticking point for rock.
Like when he was giving me assaults on the episode.
He was like, you know, what a great sci-fi idea, and it's a really
different way to do an evil twin story, and it's great how the 2
plots evolve concurrently.
And then you've got bleeping werewolves.
Why is it always bleeping green??
It's actually after Kernan Doyle's 1928 story.
Did you realise he was still around and writing back then?
It's called when the world screamed and it's pretty much the same
thing that happens.
Hairy, great, thrusty beasts with clamorous claws and jump up
in...
And plastic.
Try and have their wolfy, hairy way with young geologists in pith
helmets. right?
It does, doesn't it?
So, so they cut out that you can get enough kind of door. think
you might be able to.
So the big question is what's the parallel universe for?
I mean, why do we have stretch?
Well, I think it's also from a story point of view and from a
character point of view, it's to allow the doctor to lose.
Oh, yeah, well said.
Because the problem here is because he's saving earth.
The earth can't be destroyed because the viewer at home.
That's too much of a suspension of disbelief.
But if you have a different earth, that can be destroyed and it
can also then threaten the earthware on and that's where the
threat comes from.
So the Primords are a threat, but the Primords are never really a
threat that they're going to overrun the world.
There's only 2 or 3 of them.
There's more in the parallel world than in our world.
But the threat is coming from the fact that not only has one
version verse been destroyed.
The other version of Earth could be destroyed, and it's a great
thing in the 5 episode where, you know what?
If you hadn't seen the doctor go through everything he's gone
through the parallel world, of course he's going to look
completely insane.
Yeah, I mean, he does come out and sort of start smashing things
up with a big wrench and stuff.
Like he doesn't really help his cause very much.
And he does know by this point that Stalman's been infected by the
goo that comes up the pipe.
Yes.
And he doesn't say, you know, by the way, have a look at Salmon
his palms are looking pretty hairy at the moment or anything like
that.
So he doesn't really help.
But look, I think that that allowing the doctor to lose is quite a
good reason for it, and certainly, I think episode 6 is
spectacularly good, where the world is, like they, penetration 0
happens, like there are, there are 2 episodes.
I know.
I want to say penetration 0 again.
I'm going to say mirror, mirror.
We're not back to Star Trek yet, are we?
No, so, um, oh, no, Star Trek had been on in 1970, but I mean, we
just haven't referenced it again.
It's the Har Avengers for the 70s, isn't it?
Because, you know, this is the mirror, mirror, episode.
Except except the baddies all shave off their beards.
Instead of having...
And we don't actually get the antidoctor.
You know how everyone wears white.
It's the villains and those fabulous green glasses that Starman
wears.
We don't actually get the opposite doctor in all black with a
black goatee and black gloves to.
Ooh, maybe next, but I don't want to ruin it for everyone.
So there's 2 episodes in the power universe before penetration 0
and then 2 episodes.
So the parallel universe is...
So Brandon has said that it's because it allows the doctor to
lose.
And I think there's a lot to be said for that because those 2
episodes after penetration 0 win the world's falling down around
them.
And there's that real fatal desperation about them and all of that
sort of thing.
And you get that incredible flary film work, you know, where it
looks really hot and stuff.
I think those are really, really good.
And I think the Cliffhanger to episode 6 is great, you know.
And so I think that that is perhaps the most convincing reason for
it.
I think other reasons might be to allow the actors to camp it up
and play something different.
Do you know what I mean?
Right.
The Mirror Universe episodes are that in Star Trek.
Rise of the Cyberman is very much that in...
Carry to put on a Tara King wig.
Yeah.
The weird thing is, though, section leader, Elizabeth Shaw, brigade
leader, Lethbridge Stewart, platoon under leader Benton.
They all play it really straight. and mean and nasty.
It is camping a way because it's not what we're used to.
But you don't doubt that these people could just mess you up.
So the real universe is the camp one.
No, no, the brigade leader is really camp.
He's really funny and he gets more and more panicked and crazy and
over the top.
Yeah, that's great.
And then the movement at the end, it gets beaten up by a
scientist.
And then Liz, Liz, you know, Liz, Elizabeth Shaw becomes a lot
more like our Liz towards the end and she eventually gets to kill
the brigadier and stuff like that.
All of that stuff's really fun.
That gives them something different to do.
You remember the famous some eye patch story that used to get told
at convention.
Oh, I never heard that one.
So the famous iPad story for those of you at home who have just
awoken.
Are we going to do the iPad story?
Are you going to do the accent?
Those of you who have awoken from Silurian hibernation and haven't
heard anything that's gone on in a Doctor Who convention forever.
Nick Courtney wears an eye patch and has no fake moustache, which
is a little bit of a relief, actually, when he's in the parallel
world in his 1st scene.
He doesn't have rounds.
He doesn't have lips like a slug.
We always wonder what the moustache was for.
Yeah.
So he swivels around in his chair for the very 1st time to reveal
he's got an eye patch and every all the other actors in the room
are wearing eye patches.
Oh, my...
Nick doesn't pat an eyelid because he's an old trooper.
Sorry, I just lost a lung from apoplexy there. hilarious.
Yeah.
No, they are... in the power.
They were naked apart from me, I patches.
Yeah, that's not normally mentioned, but it is an integral part of
the anecdote.
I've been a bit quiet because I've been looking something up.
Have you?
And that is that Inferno... in the UK, Inferno, in the UK, the
closing episode... went out in the same week as Star Trek Mirror
Mirror, premiered on the BBC.
Oh, there you go.
How's he bouncy that?
So they were ahead again.
Yeah, I mean a week.
Yeah, they were ahead again for British broadcast.
Yeah, but the episode was 3 years old.
Oh, doesn't mean to say they would have seen it because the aunts
of this as we've mentioned are a lot older.
Absolutely.
So yeah, but the other the other reason, and this is, Santa
forgets a bit cross with the with the parallel universe because he
calls it the most egregious bit of padding and delaying tactics
ever, to interrupt a story and tell exactly the same story again
and then go back to the original story.
And there are 2 objections here, and I think that they're both
really interesting.
One is that you've got the opportunity for some kind of thematic
resonance with the doctors working with the military and then he
goes into a parallel universe where the military are even more
military.
And so you could think that this could be a comment on the way the
doctor sees the brigadier.
Or the way the doctor sold out this year.
Yeah, I'm finding troublesome watching them.
But we don't get any of it.
That doesn't seem to go anywhere and it could have been really
interesting.
The other thing is that the doctor really should go to the
parallel universe to find the thing to save this universe.
Or there should be some reason why fascist parallel universe gets
destroyed, but our universe doesn't.
And that doesn't seem to be, they are not very careful about that
a 6 hour difference though, isn't it, at the end of the episode?
Don't think so ahead.
The moment he arrives in the power of universe, he knows that it
will be destroyed at penetration zero.
He doesn't seem to know that in our universe.
There's a sense in which it doesn't quite work.
It doesn't do the story job that it should do, that for it to
really work.
There needs to be a reason why we survive, and it would be a great
idea of perjury rather than just baffing around and being absent
in the parallel universe for 4 episodes was actually able to bring
something back that saves us in the real world.
See, I couldn't disagree more.
I'm sorry, Nathan, I'm sorry, Philip Sander.
Is this unforgivable padding?
And I would reply, really, is a Christmas carol unforgivable
padding when Scrooge is shown his past, his present, his future.
He knows his past, he knows his present.
Nice.
And really he knows what his future is going to bring.
So that's what this is for the doctor.
The doctor is trying to get away from Earth.
That's the doctor's sole motivation here.
As you've already said, Nathan, he doesn't care about the
project.
He's just trying to get his Titus operational.
If he got his Titus operational on left, the earth would be
destroyed.
And that's what the doctor learns here.
He's learned that, yes, the earth does need him.
And yes, not everything can be solved with military might.
That's what he learns.
That's what he brings back and that's how he saves the world.
But I think that you're kind of agreeing in the sense that he
needs to learn something in the parallel universe for it not to
just be patting.
Do you know what I mean?
It needs that.
Yeah, that then justifies it and it's not padding.
Yeah.
Well, and there is even a sort of party attempt as well.
You know, the number 2 output point thing that he bambles on about
when he's unconscious, which is something that he's learned about
in the previous in the previous universe, sort of thing.
But I have to say that by now I am getting a bit tired of the
scientific establishments, and I'm getting a bit tired of her and
getting homesick for the TARDIS prop.
And really silly scientists.
I'm really glad, though, that it's someone called Slocum, although
it's Harry Slocum, who touches the green bubbling goo to start off
with.
He's called Mrs. to his mates.
But, you know, you're a scientist and you're doing something
stupid, but then again, we've got Ridley Scott doing exactly the
same stupid thing in Prometheus and still managing to break
budgets and blockbuster.
And was it the heroin in Prometheus Dr. Elizabeth Shaw?
Yes.
It was actually her last name.
Rumi Repace was Dr. Elizabeth Shaw.
That's why it was so offensive when she did that whole abortion
scene on the...
Remember that on the laser card abortion and then goes up and
carries a gun and runs her up.
I really hate that film.
I'm really glad I haven't seen it.
She does major abdominal surgery on herself and then gets up and
wanders off carrying a gun.
Yeah, after having the thing aborted from her and it's just...
Yeah, that never happened to Al is a bit sure.
And isn't she amazing?
Because that's the other thing that the doctor going to the other
universe does.
Liz carries the plot in the main universe.
Yeah.
And a lot of it is her sort of saying the doctor's not here, but
then she does things like she inspires the palace revolution
against Stalman.
It's amazing how little of our universe is in those middle forest
episodes.
It tends to be one scene, an episode.
The closing credits.
Credit people as like brigade leader, Led Brit Stewart.
Yeah, because I believe it's episode 5 that the brigadier and Liz
don't appear, but the brigade leader and section leader shore do
it.
And Petra is some...
Yeah, it's...
Dougie Canfield's wife.
And in fact, this is really interesting.
It feels like a Ducky Canfield story, doesn't it?
Well, except that what happens is that Canfield stuff is a heart
attack during studio recording.
Yeah, he got all the pre-filming done and the studios for F1 and
2.
Yeah, and then and then Barry Letts takes over it.
He's working for the camera script that Canfield. prepared
initially, but then just has to go on his own.
So all of that film stuff is can filled and it's just a reason.
Why, so cool when they're all tumbling down the stairs on the oil
refinery thing.
Yeah, yeah.
All of that action stuff is really fantastically effective that
Canfield does.
But I just think the amazing thing is how Sheila Dunn just
soldiers on tremendously.
Do you feel as if she's almost a replacement for Lou Shaw in
apopheosis?
She plays pretty much the same kind of character.
Yeah, no, no, I mean, she soldiers on when her husband's just had
a major heart attack and being part of it.
Oh, yes, of course.
In hospital and she has to continue working over the next few
weeks.
Maybe that's why they're saying...
She's terrific in the parallel world. but she's really great.
I really like she and Greg Sutton.
I think it's the 1st romance for me.
There aren't many of them in Doctor Who anyway. actually is
convincing.
He's such a caveman in episode one.
I know, but he's got rid of the fleas by now.
We should mention he's also Zaro...
Zar in unearthly child way back in the beginning.
He's got very antiquated sexual politics.
Just as much.
And just gets slapped down.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the wonderful thing.
We had a beard.
We'd all have posters on them in our walls.
The wonderful thing about the characters in this is very often, and
science fiction has done lots of evil twin films before.
The evil twin is literally some split off from the original.
But these evil twins, if you want to call them that. are actually
individuals in their own right.
Exactly the same person, just grown up under different.
It's nature or nurture in this case.
What happens to a good person when they're brought up.
Yeah, yeah.
And yeah, you get fascinating insights to character, such as it's
sectionally Elizabeth Shaw, who can overcome her training and
become a decent human being, whereas the brigade leader just goes
to pieces.
You've got Greg and Petra are essentially the same characters in
both universes.
They're just a little bit more uptight because of their
surroundings, but as soon as things start going to hell in either
universe, they end up in each other's arms.
And what is great?
What is really great?
We've spoken about how Petro just sort of slaps Greg down the 1st
time he tries something and he sort of walks away with a bruised
ego.
When eventually, Yeah, it's not even a verbal thing of saying I
have feelings for you.
It's very much uh, it's, it's in the action that they perform with
each other. you know, sort of throwing your arms around him and
saying, I'm frightened, that sort of thing.
It doesn't weaken the intelligence of her character, which is
something you would so often see in 50s and 60s sci-fi films, you
know, the heroine would be great and resourceful until she falls
in love and then she's a mess.
You know, when Ultimate Universe, Petra, actually acknowledges her
feelings for Greg, it gives her a new window strength. because
when she says I'm frightened, you know, she's pretty much defeated
her entire world's fallen apart.
She and Greg share a hug and suddenly she is willing to risk
everything to get the reactor back on.
You know, she runs back out into a world which is literally
falling apart.
You know, there's a lava appearing everywhere just to get the
reactor back on to save someone else.
And I think that's where their love story is so powerful because
it's an inspiration for both of them.
And because the female character is the stronger character of the
two.
I love how she does that.
And I love how we just discover it's happened.
We don't see it.
But it's like, where's Petra?
Oh, she's gone off to restart the nuclear reactor?
She's really, really tremendous in those scenes.
And I think even if the parallel universe stuff is kind of padding
the fact that the stakes are high and the fact that you get such
fun episodes, like episodes 5 and 6 out of it, I think, make it
worth it.
What do you think about the doctor in this one?
Because you know it's the 1st one written by Doc Horton?
The 1st one. actually written for Pertwee, rather than some heart
and all trout and hybrid that they were all writing for since he's
since, you know, it's gone out and they've seen him work.
So I want to say, hey, can we just throw in the 1st time we get to
hear that?
I want to slap him right from the very 1st scene.
And the reason is that he's driving along in the car singing La
Donne Morbile, which means women are unreliable.
Women are immobile. mobile. mobile.
But he doesn't know any of the words.
So he's just going, la, la, la, and he's just appalling.
I hate him instantly.
He loves the royal family.
Do you know what I mean?
Oh, charming, charming family.
I'm not sure if he murdered him.
I'm not sure if he loves them more that he didn't want to see them
gummed down by a firing squad.
Yeah, I know.
There's a bit of a, there's a bit of a middle ground in there.
No, but he's so pompous about it.
And then he starts to, you know, anecdotalize.
He sort of pulls that out of chair and says, you know, I knew her
great, great, great grandfather in Paris one time. just really go
away, you know.
So he does get X. Yes, but it's an annoying character.
He does get extra points for the way he puts Stalman down and the
big grin that he gives at the end of it.
That's kind good.
Well, Stalin, Stalin, Stalin.
I mean, Stalman is actually playing Adolf von Science bastard
isn't he in this one?
Oh, can we talk about Stalin?
Stalin?
Oh, yeah.
He's still with us.
So Ola Pooley.
Yeah, exactly. 54 when this when this show is shot.
He's now approaching his 101st birthday and he's still with us.
Is he in, oh, just in California?
I think he's moved to California His wife, his former wife
Gabrielle Beaumont, used to direct Star Trek episodes and he
himself appeared in a Star Trek Voyager episode called Blink of an
Eye.
Oh, that was a bloody good one.
Yeah, it really is a good one. and you don't see that much in
Voyager a bloody good episode.
But there are one or two.
And he's very visibly him.
So he, I think he's the oldest living person to have been in
Doctor Who.
I think someone who was in Marco Polo who passed away last year.
Yeah, she died last year and she was 100.
So I think Olaf is holding the record.
So his liver can't have been quite as bad as that per twee
suggests it was.
We do get because this is the 1st group written for per week, we
get action per week for the 1st time.
You know, he's got his Venusian, Akido.
He's got the car chase and as the stuntmen say, we did all the
driving, pert we threw Alan Chunks over his shoulder.
Pert we left a gash in a stuntman's leg, that sort of thing.
See, it's a psychopath, is he?
As Terence Dix points out.
It's Aikido.
His moves are all like kido, and Aikido is a defensive martial art
where you use your opponent's strength against them.
And that is a very doctor-ish thing.
If you're going to have a doctor with a hand-to-hand form of
combat, it should be something like Akido or judo, which are more
defensive.
I would have liked to see Sylvester McCoy do a bit of my keto
during his time.
With the umbrella, yeah.
Well, very much later on, the ultimate adventure, which started as
a stage player with John Pertby.
Colin Baker then took over the role because John Pertley was too
ill to continue.
He had impacted discs in his back, I believe.
Which was always actually a problem.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But there was a scene with a sword fight, which, of course, is
very perfect, to get into a sword fight, maybe.
And when Colin Baker came in, he said, well, the thing is, I don't
think my doctor would do a sword fight.
You know, he might...
Well, he's just like, my, my, that's cruel.
My doctor, my doctor's not the dashing knight in shining armour
the doctor.
Yeah, he could have allowed himself to stretch a bit.
We didn't see that much of his doctor on screen after all.
The thing is, what his doctor would do was be cancelled after 2
years.
How Colin Baker did the fight scene was.
He started having a conversation with someone with his back to the
fight and was gesticulating with the sword in his hand and just so
happened to parry all the blows and then disarm the guy.
So it just goes to...
It's terrible.
If only we'd been there. to see it.
The thing is, I think this goes to show just how unique a doctor
John Pertwee was and really that no other doctor has that hand-to
hand form of combat because it suits his doctor so much because he
is this flamboyant figure.
So he's going to have a fighting style, which is quite flamboyant
but in the end is more about, okay, if you're going to use
violence, I'm going to use violence against you.
But is it slightly crap violence?
It's like Roger Moore's judo chop, you know, like Roger, clearly
as Bond.
Roger didn't want to spend a lot of time practising fight
sequences and stuff.
And so he also judo chopped people.
He also felt that bombs shouldn't be excessively violent.
There's a reason that Roger Moore is the worst James Bond.
No, that's an absolute I don't know that he is.
No, no, he's just perfect for his time.
I've heard we have bonds.
Well, I was actually just saying to say, is this the 1st doctor
okay, we've only got 3 so far?
Is this the 1st doctor who really just sits to be so far in this
season kind of troublingly undocterish?
He doesn't feel like the doctor anymore?
Certainly like this story?
someone completely different.
Trout wouldn't beat people up.
Do you know what I mean?
I don't think he'd be ostentatious about anything.
And even though Billy was, you know, it could be...
Sorry, that was fun.
Trapon did gram a lawyer's head into a desk.
But sorry, you were saying, but that was that was... 15 hours
afterwards.
The lawyer could have grown a new head.
But we did see Billy being grandiose, but we never kind of saw him
contextually as, as, I think so much as taking the horns of the
plot and actually riding that bull with his cape streaming in the
background.
Billy was always on the defensive because he knew he had very few
defences, a school teacher and a granddaughter and some bloke came
out of hanging about in a suit, had to get out of there as quickly
as possible.
Partly, okay, maybe by force of the plot is here and making the
best of it.
But he also seems to be saying, I'm not only going to be making
the best of it.
I'll be taking command of the whole thing.
And do you know, one of the things that I love about Trouton is
that he works really well when he's when he's slightly panicked.
Do you know what I mean?
And he often does that, the sort of breathing thing that he does
and the sort of that, the way that his voice goes when he's
panicked and stuff.
Like us in this podcast. like that.
And he's lovely.
He's really likeable because, you know, he doesn't seem like he's
got everything under control.
Whereas, and in photos of a sort of notable exception, per tweet
he never seems like he's in any particular danger.
He always just sort of strides in very calmly and commandingly.
And, you know, like for people who like Pertu, I can understand
how they would like that about his character.
Do you know what I mean?
I think that is an appealing kind of part of the character
certainly a change.
But it's a bit less interesting to watch, I think.
See, I'd agree that he's been like that for the 1st 3 stories of
this season. when General Carrington puts a gun in his face.
He doesn't panic at all.
But in this story, in the alternate universe.
He does become very panic in places.
And it's taken us 4 stories, but yeah, I think John Pertley was
putting a lot of thought into the character and sort of peeling
the layers back as the aforementioned Colin Baker intended to do.
But we rather wisely chose to peel all the layers back in the 1st
season rub than assume he was going to get that yet.
Yeah, so those scenes where he's panicked screaming.
No, that's enough.
Don't use any more orthotic thing, which that's the sound of this
planet screaming out its rage.
It's so much more effective than he has been so calm and
commanding up until now, but there's nothing he can do at this
point.
And as we'll find out later in his tenure.
His experiences here really did affect him in staying with him.
Yeah.
Even though I say this is my favourite story, there is one thing
and I'd like to throw it open to you guys because I'm undecided.
Is Stalman just Dr. Lawrence again from the Silurians?
He's a bit less panicked than Dr. Lawrence, but he is just one in
a long line of intransition base commanders, but he's pretty
appealingly played, I think, and we do see 2 versions of him.
I like him.
Do you know what I mean?
And I probably shouldn't at this point, just given all of the
crummy base commanders that we've had to sit through over the past
3 years.
But I think it's pretty good.
I really like Stalman.
I want to call him Carmen.
I don't know.
I want to call him want to call him a lot of other names.
I think he's probably the weakest because it's just so jarring
that his performance doesn't fit in.
But I think he's also the most realistic because of that.
He's kind of dodtery and not quite on the beat with the rest of
the cast and he's sort of out of sync in the accent.
You're doing that because it doesn't always really hold.
Therefore, he's the most realistic.
But real life is more like that.
Yeah, I actually find him very convincing.
And when I 1st saw this story, that was, again, on video, came out
in the 90s.
I thought it was spectacular.
Really surprising.
I like the duality.
It doesn't, okay, it's padding, but it does feel like you're
getting an extra story.
You know, we asked the question, I think, last week about 7 part
stories.
And I have to say that one of the things that I like about this
and always have, was this is perhaps the story in this season that
I've seen the most often is the way it does give you the chance to
get to know a bunch of characters.
And I don't think they're astoundingly well characterised or
anything like that, but we get to spend 3 hours with them, you
know, you're kind of, it's sweet when Greg and Petra go off
together because you know them sort of thing.
And I think those stories do at least allow us to do that.
And I'm not one of those people who thinks, oh, you know, I think
that the new series should be full of 4 part stories because
there's nothing more interesting than lots of people standing
around talking cheaply in corridors for long periods of time.
A close-up of Peter Capelli is shocked.
A slightly bemused face every 25 minutes.
Yeah, you know, like I'm glad that we're now watching a program
where you get a full story every week.
I don't think there's any way it could survive if you didn't do
that.
But there is something quite nice about the leisure of a 7 parter
and certainly all of them try and do something a bit different.
It's not just fury from the deep or, you know, it's such as one
setting.
You know, we're not just confined to a base.
Something different happens each time.
We also get a likeable civil servant in this story in the form of
Christopher Benjamin playing the ultimate enemy of the cybermen
Sir Keith Gold.
And a Jew.
Is he?
playing it as a Jew and gold is a Jewish... in England.
And it's a nicely, it's a nicely done thing.
Is he a Jewish Christopher Benjamin?
I'm not sure who the character is.
Yeah, characters.
So he comes back in the new series to be married to Felicity
Kendall.
The wasp, which is wonderful.
He's hilarious in it.
And of course, he's perhaps most famous in Doctor Who circles for
playing...
Henry Gordon Jago.
And he still is.
Big finish, I believe they're up to series 10 at that.
Shut up.
How good is that?
I've heard the 1st series, I really like it.
I recommend, yeah.
You know, with all with all these supporting characters.
So, you know, you've got Greg Sutton, Petra Williams, Professor
Stalman, Benton is given far more of a character in this
Christopher Benjamin, for how he's held in fan esteem now because
of Jago. essentially quite a small part, sir Keith, because sir
Keith is quite big in the 1st couple of episodes and then he's in
a road accident and we don't know.
He's dead in the parallel university.
We don't know if he's dead in this universe, and then he just
turns up again in episode 6 or seven.
With his ominously.
I mean, with his arm and it's like, yeah, oh, yes, I've been in a
horrible car accident that's kept me out half the story.
I've just sprained my elbow, that kind of thing.
But he does give the part such presence and such believability.
And what's nice after Jeffrey Palmer is Masters, whose only
interest really is the image of the project and his own image.
So Keith Gold actually does want the project to succeed.
He just wants it to succeed safely.
So, I think he may be unique in the per era of being a civil
servant who is not self-serving.
He's very warm and very likeable.
I mean, he really is.
He's a terrific character.
I think that's what makes this story work.
It's the ensemble cast and the characters interplay between it
from it, yeah.
And just before we move on to the Jenny Laird award and pick of
the week.
This story, I believe, is possibly the 1st one entirely
commissioned by Barry Letts and Terence Dix.
Derek Sherwin has well and truly moved on at this point and it
picks up on something that Barry Letts is very interested in.
This is a story about the earth fighting back.
Something is happening and we never find out the nature of the gas
or the ooze or what's causing the primords.
It is just this, as the name would suggest, is primal force from
the earth.
The earth doesn't want us dinging.
Yeah, there's that thing about Krakato, which isn't followed up
either.
Do you know what I mean?
It is kept inexplicable.
You know, the effect of the use is a bit stupid.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it inspires you to smash up the machines or, you know, kind
of, uh, I don't know, it just makes you behave very oddly.
Yeah, go absolutely mad and aggressively psychopathic.
But you get the impression that Stalman is so hell bent on
breaking the earth's crust because he's under the control of that
ooze thing.
Yeah, the earth is fighting back, but at the same time, the earth
wants to be broken open.
Yeah, yeah.
It doesn't really make a lot of sense.
But I like what you say.
The idea is that the threat is kept vague.
We don't really know what's going on and that's good, I think.
I think the reason that doesn't make a lot of sense is, you know
how can we understand the thought process for planet?
If that is what is going on?
And it's a question that not many people raise about the story, I
think because the story is circled on its own, but it's one of the
great unresolved questions of Doctor Who in that what is actually
happening underneath the mantle?
Spooky.
I think it's a little magma creatures.
It's a metaphor.
It is.
He's the lovely metaphor.
I just would like to posit an anti-Jemmy Laird award for someone
we don't get to see a lot of Wally Randall, who's, you know
dressed up and doing one of the blokes in the coats, but he always
in his place, Prime Ward, but he's famous, apparently, anecdotally
conventions for having the Prime Ward outfits and having to double
for Carrie when she's offset in rehearsal shops with John and the
establishing shots in the Prime Ward outfit.
And a white lab coat and carries black week and playing it totally
straight against John and John trying not to crack up.
The best trick he did was get a half crown coin on those really
fine invisible wires and drag it around the floor, so pertly would
see it each time and try and pick it up and it would disappear.
But he was apparently really cross at the end of the shoot with
Canfield and and the practical jokes.
The havoc were even naughtier.
Because they're all ex-army boys and a bit cheeky.
So, of course, there was a real team with Duggee Canfield playing
naughty buggers and, and, um, the castman and Pert we being
perhaps sidelight by the jokes.
So can I tell you my surprising fact about Inferno?
that Sheila Dunn was cast when Kate O'Mara was unavailable.
Yeah, according to the TARDIS databank thing on the internet.
So it's probably true.
But can you imagine?
Wouldn't that have been great?
I think I have actually heard that somewhere before.
I'd love that to be.
I know that Sheila wanted to play it because the tachycardia, it
wasn't a full heart attack, but the heart problems that Canfield
were having.
She was very concerned that, you know, she wasn't on set.
She wanted to be there.
Yeah, just to keep an eye on him and get him out of the way before
it got too bad.
Right.
I mean, he was okay.
He came back.
He came back later, but it was actually pretty, you know, a touch
and go and he was taken off set and didn't finish it.
I think it's a terrific story.
It's well worth watching if you've never seen it. absolutely.
This is actually probably my favourite season of the Purp Week.
I thought it was, and maybe as we continue our flights.
And I, uh, continue into season eight, maybe I'll still think it
is.
But I'm actually, I'm pining for the show to be more fun.
Do you know what I mean?
And I want my show back.
So perhaps you should tell us who your Jenny Laird Award is for?
Well, it has to be.
I mean, I guess it's Sherwin, although I just can't tell whether
it's Sherwin or Letts or Dix, but it is the decision.
Whoever makes the decision to cancel Doctor Who at the end of 1969
and replace it with this show, which lacks any of the iconography
of Doctor Who, we haven't had the TARDIS exterior in shot the 21
episodes.
It's, you know, a series of sort of greasy Quaker mass knockoffs
undermined by occasional moments of sort of Doctor Who silliness.
And, you know, the show gets renewed, but, but, I miss it and I'm
looking forward to season 8 starting.
And maybe I'll reevaluate it at the end of pertly, but to my
surprise, I found myself thinking that this was just a little bit
too tiresome to be the program I loved.
Well, my Jenny Way toward is for something a lot more specific.
And it's actually something we've mentioned already, so I won't go
on about it, but it's for Terrence Dix and Mac Hulk and Trevor Ray
who killed Dr. Lennox.
We needed affinity answer.
Richard.
Ah, ooh, minutiae.
I'm really perplexed with this one because I don't actually have
one.
I think that all I can say is praise where it's due.
They were trying to be as experimental as possible, really pushed
the boundaries of a show that had dropped in the ratings where it
had become terribly formulaic.
They said, we'll never do that again. lumbered, if you like, with
these very long stories.
Let's try and make each one as different within the same, you know
based under siege.
It would kind of do.
We have a world or at least a county under siege, don't we?
an island under siege this time round.
It's just a slightly bigger canvas, but there's a lot more variety
in it.
And I think well done, everyone, for having a go-at.
I'm sure there were flaws that we've talked about them and pert we
still trying to find his legs on and off.
But I find that very interesting.
This is actually a really laudable season and I'm really glad to
be able to enjoy it.
Yeah, that's just to annoy everyone.
Well, moving hastily along to our picks of the month.
Mine has to be, and Richard, you were talking about it earlier.
Carolyn John's reading of Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters.
It's an excellent, excellent reading of a novel.
Don't tell us this.
I'll be a triumvirate.
No it wasn't even mine.
That was mine too.
Yeah.
Let's just all recommend that because it's wonderful.
Nathan might have something new.
I do have something different, but that is really, really good.
Yeah, yeah.
The novelisation, like all of Mac Holt's novelisations, is really
terrific and I could recommend, you know, the dinosaur invasion
and the doomsday weapon and, you know, all of those ones, I think
are really terrifically good.
But having Caroline John read it and do the voices and stuff and
they do voice treatments, don't they?
Yes, they do.
It's a terrific book.
My pick was going to be actually the auton invasion.
My favourite story of the season needs to be had from space
because it is the most Doctor Who-ish of the story.
It's very fresh.
Yeah.
And it's the direction of the show with a bit of tweaking will
eventually decide to go. you know, in in subsequent years.
But it's a great book and a lot of people say that, um, that one
of the characteristics of the pertwe years is that the books are
better than the show.
And certainly my experience. encountering autumn invasion as a
book, you know, beautifully illustrated, really fun and readable.
I think it's better than the final story.
A lot of those books are inexplicably out of prints and
inexplicably impossible to buy as e-books.
Unless you join our competition, Brent.
No, but this one is actually in print.
Oh, is it actually re-released?
So both Cave Monsters is as well.
Friend of the podcast, Jeff Wellen, gave me a copy of Dr. Doom and
the Cave Monsters, which he bought last time.
I have a lovely original edition.
Of course you do.
They're collected.
Yeah, they're both good.
Terrence's. is it Terrence's 1st novelisation?
Yeah, yeah, and we talked about it last week.
And he really pulls all the stops out.
He's definitely showing what he's worth in this.
He's a terrific children's rider.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Those books, I mean, those books are so important to my
childhood.
Also, can I do another pick very quickly?
It's pretty hard to find, but there's a documentary by Mark Gaitis
called from the outside.
It looked like an old fashioned police box and it's a radio
documentary about the history of the Doctor Who novelisations.
It includes an interview with Terrence Dix.
Look, it's possible to find in shady corners of the internet, if
you can possibly get hold that is utterly utterly compelling.
And those novelisations did so much for sort of the literacy of
teenagers and so much to inspire a whole new generation of people
to, you know, take over Doctor Who.
And, you know, Russell T. Davis gets interviewed and Mark Gatis
runs it and all of that sort of thing.
So if you can get hold of that, that's why we're listening to as
well.
And my go-to's are always the target north as well.
Because it's such a short season, really, with only 4 stories.
It's not much else to mention other than, you said Quadomass.
I mean, if you want to look at other films at the time, we could
look at Jerry Anderson's UFO, which was being broadcast from
1970.
So at the same period, it's really nice to see as a counterpoint
to this.
I mean, it's streets ahead as far as special effects, but the
storylines are still with alien incursions.
It's nice to see how a truly fascist organisation deals with
this.
And it's got some Doctor Who crossover actors and it's lovely, you
know, it's just gorgeous and modern flesh.
And it's got more to dent them in it.
So how can you not watch it?
So, yeah, I'd have a look at that if you've never seen it.
Two novelisations we were talking about, the auton invasion in the
cave monsters, were 2 of 5 Doctor Who novelisations, the rights
for which were bought by Hawakaya publishing in Japan in 1980.
And I actually have all five.
So I'll be putting up some photos on the website because what they
have is they have amazing new artwork covers.
They have a 2 page colour frontis piece and illustrations
different from the target novelisations because the Japanese
artists doing them only had reference to the text.
They didn't have any visual reference.
So you end up...
They look great, don't they?
The Daleks are superb.
Yeah, so I'll be putting, at the very least, the covers up on the
website.
I'll see if I can scan the frontist pieces as well.
The other thing is, gentlemen, do you know what would have
happened if Doctor Who had been cancelled at the end of this
season?
Well, Barry Letts, if you like, was contracted to be a producer
for this time slot.
So if Doctor Who had been cancelled, Barry Letts had actually
developed that, the request for the BBC, a new drama series called
Snowy Black.
Oh, no.
Which one?
Which was about an Australian drover. who moves to London and the
resultant culture clash.
It's Crocodile Dundee 15 years early.
No, really, it is.
I've heard of this too.
Oh, gosh.
Apparently the reason it didn't go ahead.
It's terrible.
Yes, that would be a reason.
But it would have resulted in the heat depth of the universe.
Pretty much they couldn't get script writers willing to write for
it and they couldn't get an actor willing to play it and that's
why Doctor Who got mate season because Inferno was down to less
than 4000000 viewers by the end.
So it wasn't that successful.
It wasn't that this show was so successful. was just that all the
other ideas they had were really terrible.
It was moderately successful.
It was no, it was no worse than the previous year.
And indeed, when you average out the rating because there were
fewer episodes, the average rating was higher, the audience
appreciation index was higher.
But yeah, pretty much it got renewed for season 8 by default.
Not for the 1st time.
Not all the last indeed.
Now, as we expected, earlier, we still have a competition
running.
Please comment on our website for your chance to win a target
novelisation of your choice.
The newly revamped website.
Now, thank you, Nathan.
Now in colour.
What is the address of the website?
flight through entirety.com.
The flight through entirety.com.
Yeah, that is it.
Gosh.
Yeah, I can buy a domain name like the best of them.
To begin with a chance to win that, please just comment on our
website at flightthroughentirety.com.
Now, gentlemen, next month we are heading into season eight.
So here come your story allocations.
Now, in terms of pert we, he has a total of 24 stories.
So what I've done is I've actually divided up the whole era so we
get 8 stories each.
So occasionally you might be doing 2 stories, one, season, one
story, the next, et cetera, et cetera.
Nathan.
Your stories are the clause of Axos. and the Damons.
Ooh, the demons, one of those.
Depends on which episode you're in.
It does.
Richard.
Your stories are Terror of the Autons.
Golly. and the mind of evil.
They're the bestests too.
How exciting.
That's not worth taking a holiday in Cambridge for, is it?
That's great.
And you know what that leaves me with, don't you?
The luckiest of the lucky.
Colony in space, dear listener.
Just so you know, there is no favouritism in how these stories are
chosen.
They are chosen by the Randomiser.net, which gave me the colony in
space.
Thank you, Nathan, who plays...
It totally hates you.
You've also got a brilliant target novel. very true.
It's really good.
Japanese version.
Yeah, why don't you just do the whole podcast in Japanese the next
time we just do that?
I think I think any native Japanese speaker would shun me, disown
me, if I attempted to do that.
I know how to say about 5 words.
So, dear listener, until a fortnight's time.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Thank you.
Look, and listen to Flight 2 Entirety with Windsor Leader
Bottomley, editing leader of James, and a recent leader starting.
This episode, Chad Ducking, was recorded on Sunday, the 4th of
January.
The next episode will be released on February 15th.
You can find us online at flightthroughentirety.com, flight
through entirety on Facebook and iTunes, their FTE podcast and
Twitter.
If you're planning to wear an eye patch, it's best to wear it on
your eye.
Just one in a long line of intransition-based commanders.
But he's pretty appealingly played.
I think, and we do see 2 versions of him.
I like him.
Do you know what I mean?
And I probably shouldn't at this point, just given all of the
crummy base commanders that we've had to sit through over the past
3 years.
But I think it's pretty good.
Richard, do you like it?
Pertly?
No.
Stalman.
Cut.
I...