Hello, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only
Doctor Who podcast who's actually asking you to poke us with a
Stick and Make us Jump.
Please.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
And I'm back wearing my specially constructed podcast mask, which
protects my head from the slightly corrosive effects of doing
these recordings.
Or at least I hope it does.
I thought you were looking a bit pale toddle.
Well, that means that can mean only one thing.
It's time to disappear down a black hole into a universe of
antimatter.
No, we're not heading to Parliament House.
It's the 3 doctors.
Now, um, this one was assigned to me, and, God, it's a cracker, you
know, 10 years on television.
There were very few British programs who could make a similar
claim and no science fiction programs.
You know, British science fiction programs at this stage would run
for two, maybe 3 series.
You had Quator Mass. you'd had out of the unknown, the anthology
series.
You had the Pathfinders series and Target Lunar, its predecessor.
So it was really a huge celebration that this was happening.
Can I spoil our fun for a second?
Yes.
Nine years and 2 months.
The story aired until the 10th year.
Well, that's the thing.
Everyone sort of says 3 doctors is for 10th anniversary special
but for the production team, the whole year was the anniversary
year.
It wasn't just one story.
They considered the whole year to be a celebration of the last 10
years of Doctor, and we'll look at that as we go through, as we go
through the stories.
It's also the 1st time, possibly that the idea for a story, the
central concept has come from fan feedback.
Really?
Well, people said they wanted to see Pat and Billy again.
Exactly, yeah.
Barry Letts, who, sadly, is no longer with us. said in many
interviews that fans would ask and other people at the BBC would
ask, why don't you do a story with all 3 doctors?
And initially he and Terence said, oh, no, you know, we want to, we
want to go forward and we want to tell our own stories.
And when they were planning the 10th season, they said, well, if
we're not going to do it now, when are we going to do it?
And that's what started the whole ball rolling.
And as a story, it works surprisingly well, especially when you
consider that the planning stages were just a mess.
Is this because of Billy's health or what?
It's partially because of that.
It's also because Blessed.
It's written by the Bristol boys.
It actually seems like an incredibly bad choice, doesn't it?
Like, why don't you give this to Bob Holmes?
Because Baker and Martin have done such a kind of slipshod job of
their previous couple of stories.
But I actually found, as I watched it, that I appreciated that
they were the ones who'd been given it because they're the kind of
high concept writers.
Yeah, exactly.
And their initial pitch was even a greater hike concept.
You know, the domain of OM, as the villain originally was, which
is who, upside down and backwards.
Did you know that?
Well, I do now.
They vetoed it.
I think very little. said no, that's too knowing.
Oh, goodness.
But the domain of Om was essentially hell.
It wasn't an antimatic universe with any kind of scientific
basis.
And the doctor, and the 2nd doctor, and the 1st doctor would go
into Om's domain owns underworld to face him in a series of games
and trials.
Pretty much there.
But 10 years later, who would come to write that in a Doctor Who
story, but they're script editor Terrence Sticks in the 5
doctors.
He vetoed their original idea and then nicked it 10 years later.
So you think he said I'm going to be around for 1983 and I want
that one for them.
More than 10 years later he went, oh, what a brilliant idea.
Why has nobody thought of this before?
Because as Terence has often said itself, all you need is a good
idea.
It doesn't have to be yours.
But instead, we actually get a much better story and this feels
like the 1st time that Barry and Terrence has sat down with the
Bristol boys and said, no, really, you need to focus on this
because this is certainly their most focussed story so far.
Yeah, it is most disciplined.
And because it has a fairly small number of guest characters.
It doesn't suffer from the blinds of the other stories, which is
these sort of loud, bombastic, overdrawn kind of stupid
characters.
Like, Omega needs to be big and he needs to be kind of a giant
menace.
And, you know, Tyler and Hollis and the time lords and things.
They're the only other characters and they're fairly sort of low
key, aren't they?
They not.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's it's another example of the musing stock characters like
we discussed with the mutants last month.
But in this case, that's a good thing because you've already got
so many ideas in this story, you've got an ancient time lord who
gave them the power of time travel.
You've got the 3 doctors.
So, for your supporting characters.
You need to be able to understand who they are very quickly.
So, you know, Tyler is a scientist, therefore, he wears brainy
specs and tweed.
Hollis runs bird sanctuary.
He a man of the land, therefore, he's been an anorak with a
shotgun.
Do you think his name's John Hollis?
And the reason that they give him such a giant hair is making fun
of John Hollis from the Mutants last year.
That is...
That's, that's a, that, that, that's an, that's an idea.
That's the best fan theory I've ever heard.
That beat season 6B, I think, hands down.
Um, Yeah.
Okay.
So, Brendan, as part of the planning of this, was it always going
to be designed to, as part of their grand plan to get the doctor
finally to give him back his time travel and all that sort of
thing?
That was actually part of Barry Lett's stipulation because Barry
always planned to get the doctor back into space and getting
forgiven, but he didn't want to throw away the unit thing straight
away.
So that's why in season 8 we get one story off of in season nine
we get 2 stories off Earth and a bit of travel in the Time Monster
as well.
And a unit free story on Earth in the middle.
And a unit free story on Earth in the Middle.
Yeah.
Pretty much Barrylitz has been very clever here because he's
weaning the audience off what they have become used to to get the
show back to what it was in the 60s.
Which it's very strange, but it's very well done.
And Bob Baker and Dave Martin.
I think sort of they really earn their keep with this story.
Look, I mean, they'll go back to doing crappy stories in future.
This isn't a giant, you know, character development for them
really.
I have to disagree because I feel their stories from here on in. do
have a lot more narrative focus on a central idea.
There are other ideas leading off from it.
But this is where they kind of learn to write a proper Doctor Who
story.
And I really have a great deal of respect for them for the other
issue, which Todd you alluded to earlier, which was, of course
William Hartle's involvement.
There are 2 conflicting stories as to how William Hartnell came to
be involved.
Barry Lett says he phoned Hartnell. and said, look, 10th
anniversary is coming up.
Do you want to be a part of it?
And William said, wow, it's still running.
Yeah, he wasn't aware it was still running. apparently.
But he said, oh, that's wonderful.
I didn't know.
And the other version of the story is that Hartnell was in at the
BBC looking for work, saw the Doctor Who production office and
popped his head, popped his head round Terence Dix's door and said
I didn't know this was still running.
And Terence said, well, funny you should say that.
We've been considering getting you back.
I think the 1st story is more likely seeing as he was essentially
housebound.
Yes, I think so.
And is the, do we still believe the story where Heather Hartner
rings up and says, no, he's too sick.
He can't really do it.
Both Barry and Terence have said that.
So I think I think that's I think that's a very strong
possibility.
Plus, as we saw from an adventure in space and time.
Or adventure in space and time, time and space.
Time and space time. of those.
Time in Spain.
We've done that joke.
Over and over again.
Anyway, as we saw in that docudrama, when Bill was having a
problem with the show, it was actually Heather who went in to see
Verity.
Oh, okay, I'd forgotten that, actually.
And that's when Verity says, well, actually, I'm leaving.
Right, right.
And um, yeah, so it, you know, it doesn't surprise me at all that
his wife, as much as she knew he loved the show, would have been
considering his best interests, even if he was incapable of
considering them himself, because of course he had very severe
arteriosclerosis affecting the memory and affecting the
reasoning.
It is, I mean, I don't want to sort of leap ahead too much, but
watching him is not that fun an experience, I have to say.
Like, I love Billy.
Of course, I love Billy.
I think he's spectacular and watching him all the way through for
the podcast has given me just an absolute sort of newfound
appreciation for him.
And he is, it's a bit sad, isn't it?
Like he's reading off the auto cue.
There are little moments.
There are little moments where he gets it back.
You know, little moments where it seems like he's the doctor
again.
But he is visibly sick, isn't he?
Yeah, I mean, there are glimpses of that magic and you can just
see that twinkle in his eye and, you know, they've really made a
really good effort to integrate him into the footage.
I was really quite surprised at how much he has to do in the 4th
episode, you know, and all the way through considering how hilly
he is.
And I actually sat there going, oh, couldn't they have put him
into a car dressed him up in the doctor's costume and got him onto
set, you know, just for 5 minutes so that right at the end when he
says goodbye, he'd pop into reality with Pat there, you know, this
is the last time that the 3 of them, like it's a moment.
And it makes you realise perhaps how incredibly ill he actually
was.
But at the same time, just having the 3 of them in that story and
interacting together, I just found was magic.
I was so happy when Pat was back.
It's like, 0 my god, it's the doctor.
The doctor's back in the show.
I can't believe it.
And I've had this growing appreciation of perts we over the past
few episodes, but Pat is so different, isn't he?
He's so lively and active.
You know, he's funny.
He's a little bit panicked at times, you know, all of those sorts
of things.
Whereas as Pertry is so his contained, you know, and very low key
and all of that sort of thing and not sort of openly sort of funny
or anything and a bit a bit more pompous.
And so it's so nice seeing Pat sort of run around the set and
pairing him with Benton is a great idea.
Yeah, I mean, what is so amazing about Pat.
And it just very deliberately draws a contrast between the 2
doctors, is that Joe and Benjamin, they're our audience
identification characters, they're your big brother and your big
sister.
And straight away, they actually have an easier, more fun
chemistry with Pat than with John.
Yeah.
Pat sort of arriving and taking Joe under his arm and trying to
explain to her what's going on and he's just so utterly charming.
It's just yeah, it's amazing to see him back.
There's a different energy about it, and there's a different
energy about him.
I actually, I didn't think it was quite, he was quite nailing the
characterisation, and maybe that's because he's not paired with
Jamie, who I'm so used to.
And I just, and it took me a while to sort of adjust.
And by episodes 3 and four, he's just so him. you know, and so I
kind of, I was thinking, yeah, he's not quite there.
William's not quite there and John's very different.
You know, this is the 3rd story that's been recorded for this
season and he's, I think it's a more relaxed performance.
You know, the character and the actor emerging together much
more.
And so there's quite a bit of a link between the time monster and
this.
And so as I was watching it and enjoying it.
In those early parts of it, I'm thinking, well, they're all there
but the characters are all just slightly not quite what I was
thinking that they should be.
I think you're right with Pat.
Lots of people say that Pat comes back and plays a sort of parody
of the 2nd doctor.
But I actually think you nail it, Todd, when you say that it's the
absence of Jamie.
You know, that it's Pat with his companions.
Do you know what I mean?
There's so much sort of part of performance.
And there had been a plan to get Jamie and Zoe back.
Yeah, yeah.
Fraser couldn't come back because he was doing Emmerdale and
Pertuy vetoed it anyway because...
Well, apparently.
Why do I know?
But he was on, he thought there were too many characters, but I
suspect he just thought it would be less about him if other people
were in it.
See, there were so many versions of the script.
There was the version of the plot line with Om in the underworld.
And then there was a version of the script with Billy fully
involved and Pat there with Jamie.
I don't think they had intended to bring back any of Billy's
companions, though.
And then they found out...
Could have brought back Dodo.
Oh, yeah.
We found out what happened to do.
We found out what happened.
Dodo could have been married too, Mr. Olis.
Perfect.
Living in a bird sanctuary.
Oh, gee, you're elevating this story to high up.
We never find out his wife's 1st name.
There's nothing to say she isn't Dorothea.
And just because the accent's different.
Well, it's bloody dodo.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
She changed accents once a week.
And then there was the version of the script where they found out
that Billy couldn't do as much action.
So he was going to be on a screen for the 1st 3 episodes and then
he was going to be physically there in the 4th episode and then
they found out he couldn't be physically there in the 4th
episode.
So there's a 3rd version of the script.
And then finally, Fraser drops out because Fraser had agreed in
principle, but as you say, couldn't get out of doing Emmerdale.
They wouldn't release him.
And so we get Benton in Fraser's role and the corporal who sees
unit HQ disappear was originally meant to be Benton.
So Benton was going to disappear halfway through the story.
Well, I'm really glad that in a way that happened because it's
absolutely fantastic to see the Benton character expanded.
I remember watching it as a kid going, I didn't realise that he
knew the 2nd doctor.
Like, it's one of those moments, you know?
And then to be inside the Tartars, finally.
And he's so accepting of it, like, you know, and this is not the
1st time that Benton has demonstrated an openness to the ideas of
time travel and everything like that.
We've said it in the time monster and the demons.
And unfortunately, it does go to show up, I think, one of the
flaws of the story, and that is the characterisation of the
brigadier in the middle episode.
It was the worst thing ever.
And it's not going to last. you know what I mean?
And there was a bit of it in the time monster.
He was a bit of an idiot in the time monster, but he's just a
massive idiot here.
And I think it is Bob Baker and Dave Martin doing their sort of
stock characters thing.
And so the brigadier gets to be a big buffoon and he doesn't
believe the 2nd doctor about what's happened to Joe and the 3rd
doctor and he believes we're in Cromer, you know, and he sort of
stomps around just being a giant idiot.
He's really terrible.
It is it's the nadir of his character, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
It's so bizarre that with all the things he's seen, he can't
accept the idea of the doctor being in 2 places at once
essentially, because that's what's happening.
Or rather, there are 2 doctors in the one place.
You know, as a child, you watch that and you laugh along with the
brigadier.
But as an adult, you kind of look at it and go, wow, you know
they're really giving Nick some shoddy material here.
The last time I watched this, which was completely out of sequence
I really just disliked this story so intensely because of that
fact.
The brigadier, I thought was so poorly served.
So when I went in to watch it this time, I was really hoping that
I would find some positives within the story.
I think it's nice that in the 1st episode he actually is quite
involved, not having Yates there, I think, gives him a bit of a
chance to sort of breathe.
Where is Yates?
He's off directing a play, I believe.
Really?
He's telling other actors how to act.
Yes.
Great. grief.
Oh sorry.
Well, yeah, okay.
He's only in he's only in 3 episodes this season.
Thank, though.
He does some hilarious falling over in those episodes too.
We'll get to that.
We'll get to that, all right.
Richard Franklin, if you're listening, just be aware we're not all
against you.
Oh, I really like you, Richard.
What more can I say?
But in episode one, you know, the brigadier's t-sharing on the
brink of this horrible foolishness, then, of course, in episodes 2
and 3, it's just galling.
It's his 1st trip off Earth and he just can't handle it.
Oh, when he sees the 3rd doctor again in episode four.
He begins to fall back into place.
It suddenly does improve because he's got something concrete in
front of him.
It's really nice then at the end of the story.
There's a couple of moments that I really like.
I love the fact that Nick's and the TARDIS and Billy's on the
screen and it's sort of like.
So everyone's in it.
Brent Vyon.
Yeah, Brett Vine.
It's harking back to that sort of game.
And then there's that nice moment where they're having to go back
through this singularity and Joe doesn't want to go and he says
come along, Miss Grant.
And then he says, Joe. And I just love that moment.
And it echos the previous story where Yates is under attack from
the bombs and he's going, Yates, Yates, get out of the man, and
then he says, mine.
And they change, they just change the 1st name.
It just humanises him.
I got absolute goosebumps when the time wants to win, he does that
with mine.
That's nice, isn't it?
And there's those nice little moments.
It doesn't redeem the rest of it, but, you know, Nick gives his
all and does such a, you know, wonderful job.
And even when he does that double take looking out the unit door
at the CSA sand.
She does it really well, but you know, it's like...
I'm fairly sure that's chroma key.
Oh boy.
It's the...
Todd, Todd, Todd, just...
I think it's the opposite of what makes the brigadier work as a
character because what makes him work as a character is that he
has this sort of wry amusement to the doctor.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, he's not meant to be phased by him.
No, he's not inferior to the doctor or stupider than the doctor.
In fact, he's able to be a little bit sort of Ryan condescending
with him.
And the same with Liz, you know, and like he's a bit warmer
towards Joe. But he's not flawed by the fact that things are
ridiculous around him and that's really fun.
And so to have him be such a massive idiot here is a giant shame.
And he will be back on form at the end of the season. very much
back on form.
Yeah, this is the last time we see him until the end of the
season.
Like, he's got a massive gap.
I suppose it's the same as last season, though, because we had Day
of the Daleks followed by the Time Monster.
He does have a lot.
Well, obviously at this point in time, you know, the production
crew 4 years in, and they're following their same formula, you
know, unit's going to be in the 1st and last stories book ending
the season.
We've got the master in the middle.
The Daleks are thrown into the mix as well.
Can we talk about the timelines?
Yes.
We have Clyde Pollock back, who was actually one of the people who
tried Troughton and sentenced him to regenerate.
And he was the nice time lord who let Jamie and Zoe see the doctor
for one last time.
So he's sort of terribly sweet.
That's a nice bit of continuity.
Yeah, yeah.
And he's the he's the chancellor, so he's the one who opposes the
giant haired president's plan.
Oh, can I just say I don't like the president is pretty crap as an
actor?
He's got huge hair, massive hair.
He makes Pertuey look like John Hollis.
The weird thing is, and I always felt this as a child, and I'm not
convinced I'm wrong, is that it seems like the chancellor is
actually superior in rank to the president.
Yeah, that is weird.
I thought that too.
He is great.
But, you know, maybe that's an attempt to say even though they
have our words, human words for their officers, they might be
slightly different.
Yeah.
Well, it's just a strange way of playing it, maybe.
I mean, later on when we see the chancellor and the lord president
in future time world stories, it's the other way around as we
might expect.
Yeah, yeah.
In our own republics and what have you.
But I suppose on the other hand, in some republics, you've got a
prime minister and a president.
The president is largely ceremonial with the prime minister making
actual decisions.
So maybe that was the thinking.
That's why the chancellor is so brought out because usually the
chancellor makes the decisions.
The president has the power to, but doesn't.
But on this occasion the president's saying, no, we're doing this
thing.
We are breaking all of our laws and draining all of our energy to
try and save ourselves.
Could be a thing.
Respect the thing.
We haven't actually talked much about the plot.
The story itself.
That's not very interesting though, is it?
I mean, that's the thing.
It's pretty lightweight, which I think is another clever decision
because when you have so many other elements, and especially when
you have John Pertley and Patrick Troughton fighting for screen
time, and notice I didn't say the 2nd and 3rd doctor because it's
not them fighting for screen time.
It's the actors fighting the screen time.
You don't want to have a complex plot.
It's a very simple good versus evil, but with a slightly complex
villain.
Oh my god.
Stephen Thorn is really good.
He's much better here than he was as a zaal.
Yes, yeah.
Like Azar was sort of growly, growly voice, you know, absurd
tights, you know, and serious manscaping issues, whereas this is a
little bit more sort of subtle and nuanced.
And he does get one spectacular moment and there's this almost
sort of fairy tale moment.
It's being reenacted here by the omega figure in front of me.
The 2 doctors take his mask off and discover that he no longer
exist.
And Tom?
No, no, continue, please.
I just think there's something weirdly fairy tale about it and it
works because we're in this sort of magical realm sort of thing.
And it does make him a sort of tragic figure, you know, that in
fact, his escape is impossible.
His revenge can't mean anything because he's just a force of pure
will and he's physically completely non-existent.
Look, I don't disagree with you on this, you know, I can see the
comic book style there, you know, on one page, it's like Omega
says, help me take my mask off.
The doctors move in and then you turn the page and gasp.
There's nothing there.
And as a kid, that was just incredible.
Yeah, yeah.
When I, of course, sit down as indult and I think about this, I
kind of go, okay, so by my force of will, I have to create my
whole universe and therefore I can get no sleep.
Thus, I know what it's like for me after 24 hours and no sleep, I'm
going crazy, therefore I'm utterly insane.
You're ranty and wanting to destroy the universe after.
Correct.
And then I sort of notice after some time that my head's slightly
corroding.
Thus I've got to go and I'm going to construct rather than going
to get, you know, like a facial with a face mask.
I'm actually going to get a literal face mask, put it over my head
and not look at it ever to see what's going on underneath.
Just so, at that particular moment in time, we can then flip it up
and I've completely corroded away.
Now, I'm overanalysing it.
He's like the Time Lord version of Guy Crayford.
Yes, yes, yes.
Now, the, I mean, the only thing is...
Omega has no one to talk to.
So, yeah, it's perhaps unsurprising he hasn't like looked in a
mirror or tried to brush his teeth.
Yeah, like if you'd had a date, you know. last few years, maybe
you would have noticed.
Nothing but gel guards for company on those long, lonely nights.
Can we talk about the universe?
creates for a second.
So in the novelisation, which I think is really pretty good.
It's explained that initially he created like a really fun
interesting, fabulous world, but then he kind of just got sick of
that and let it all sort of degenerate.
But even in the novelisation, like he's got this big brass, like
bronze castle thing and they go in and it's this massive space and
he's on a sort of spotlit dais, you know, and that's where he's
revealed.
Again, it needs to be fairy tale.
It needs to be this sort of strange castle and it's got minarets
and stuff.
It's really well described by Terence.
But what we get is really the cheapest possible set.
The money's run out.
It's Aladdin's cave, but it's Panto Aladdin's cave.
It's really poor.
I'd be I would be disappointed if I went to a panto and that's
what the set looked like.
Apparently the sets were delivered unfinished.
The paint job wasn't done on them.
They weren't actually tall enough as specified.
They were about a foot shorter, which is why they sort of go up
and get jagged and then you have garbage bags over the top.
Yeah, Lenny Maine wasn't happy about that either.
Yeah, no, were they really terrible?
And again, so is the exterior as well.
The fact that instead of this beautiful bronze castle, you get
that sort of crappy Blake 7 kind of door set into a wall kind of
thing, which, you know, Doctor Who is guilty of over and over
again.
But I mean, even the Daleks get a better door setting to a wall
you know, later on in the year.
And then we get the gel guards.
Which, I mean, holy Moses.
What's that?
They've got the they've got the core of axles, right?
Isn't it the cause of axis, that claw thing that they have to miss
every single...
It is very similar.
I'm looking at the action figure now, dear listener.
There is an action figure of a jail guard.
It does one thing and I'll see if you can hear it.
That's the claw moving.
That's the one thing this action figure does.
There's the prawn from invisible enemy borrower.
I think so.
If not the same, it's very similar.
They need to keep using it contractually.
It's very expensive.
It reminds me.
They remind me of Sigmund the Sea Monster, who's Sid and Marty
Croft creation from the 1970s.
Yeah, Puff and stuff, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They make a good noise.
Look, I think it's better than just having like generic soldier
cyphers, which he could have done like, you know, like the Bardens
or something like that.
You know, at least they're different, but they can barely get
through their own corridors.
No, they're criminal.
Well, they can't see because they've got a gigantic bicycle
reflector attached to their foreheads, the actors inside.
So imagine having a plate hanging down in front of your face and
trying to navigate through doorways, which are about an inch too
narrow for you.
So they have sort of, they didn't really think it through on the
design front.
They have sort of moving eyes, don't they?
Like that to make the eye move.
Yeah, it's a giant mirror.
So when they when they move visually, it's very effective.
But yeah, poor John Scott Martin, Etal just couldn't see out of
those.
And John Scott Martin was inside one.
Coming back to the novelisation.
I have the original cover for the novelisation here, which we're
all familiar with, it's Omega, extending his energy hands across
the 3 doctors.
Do we know what that is a ripoff of?
Oh, I've seen this before.
It's a comic book.
It's Fantastic 4, issue 49. which has galactus in the place of
Omega reaching out his energy tendrils over the Fantastic 4.
So we'll put up a comparison of that on the website.
But Chris Akellos, you naughty, naughty man.
He is really good.
I had the one which had a different cover.
Did you have that one?
I've got the maroon cover.
Yeah, I had the Maroon cover.
With the 3 doctors on the space game.
I loved that.
I loved it.
And I remember reading it as a kid and I may have actually even
read it before I actually saw the story on the screen and I kept
saying to myself, I didn't realise the doctor had 2 companions
like 2 female companions.
There's Joe and this Bessie and Bessie doesn't say very much.
So I was completely confused.
You know, I must have been 5 or 6 at the time.
I didn't realise that a yellow roadster was actually a car
tremendous.
I do seem to recall as well.
That 2nd edition with the sort of Marone Burgundy cover is called
Doctor Who and the Three Doctors, implying that there's 4 of
them.
Yes.
So can I say something where I think that this show, this story is
where the rot sets in for the entire show?
Oh, hello.
Yeah.
For the entire show, it's like, particularly the 80s.
You're saying everything is ruined forever.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, go on.
So this is actually the 1st time we hear the phrase, the 2nd
doctor, and it's said by one of the Timelords.
So what happens here?
inadvertently is that each of the doctors becomes a different
character.
So we actually have the first, 2nd and 3rd doctor and they're
defined against each other in some ways.
Do you know what I mean?
So Hartnell's become a dandy and a clown, the 2nd and 3rd doctor
fight each other because they're so different.
And I think that a tendency sneaks in by the 80s to start to cast
doctors, not to play the doctor, but to play the nth doctor.
Do you know what I mean?
So I...
So they have to be different from what's gone before.
They have to be if they have to have a 2 or 3 word description.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And they have to be different from what's immediately before.
And they start creating a version of the doctor that if you were
just starting the show, you would never have that.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, you would never have, like, if we were to pitch the show in
the 1980s, we'll have, well, there's an eccentric time traveller
who dresses like a big giant clown, you know, and he travels
around the universe.
Do you know what I mean?
You would just never do that.
The only reason that that happens is because they're defining
they're creating a series of characters.
And I think the new show has largely avoided this.
But it does become a problem in the 80s and I think the rot sets
in here.
So naughty Barry, Dave, and Bob.
Yeah, it's an interesting point.
I never really thought of it like that.
I mean, one of the things that I noticed was that Harton's
supposed to be the elder statesmen, where, in fact, technically
he's the youngest of the three, if you think about it, in terms of
that age journey.
And we have to have conflict between the doctors, that irritated
me a bit in the story, especially in episode four.
I thought by then maybe we can get on a bit better.
It does give Joe a few nice moments to interact and pull him into
line and there's heart there and that sort of thing, but it's sort
of like, well, you know, anytime we have a special, have any sort
of interaction.
We have to have all this conflict and it's like, you know?
See, I actually quite like that.
And I think it goes back to, we wouldn't have had that if it
wasn't John Perley and Patrick Droughton being such different
actors.
Because on paper, those lines where they're having a pop at each
other, could be performed completely differently to be
affectionate barbs of, oh, you're really me, but I'm going to tell
you off, you rascal.
But instead, because John and Pat initially didn't get on very
well because of their different acting methods, it brings
something to the performance that as the 2 actors work together.
They started to appreciate each other more, and by the end, they
were quite good friends, and that's what you see in the story as
well.
They do come to respect each other as characters.
And certainly, yeah, it informs every multi doctor meeting after
that.
Interestingly, it's usually the incumbent doctor who's the
grouchiest one.
But when we say in time crash, for instance, much later on, the
10th doctor is so happy to see the 5th doctor and it's Davison
being the grouty one, which was quite fun.
And then in Day of the Doctor, it's hard to tell who's the
grumpiest out of the lot.
Captain Grumpy is pretty grumpy.
Captain Grumpy is pretty grumpy, but at the same time, he's the
funniest of philosophy.
I think they don't nail Hartnell's character here too, and I think
that they don't nail it in the 5 doctors either.
He's a bit of an exposition machine in this, which is kind of
necessitated.
But he's also the grumpy one and the 1st doctor is cuddly. you
know what I mean?
Everyone sort of forgets that.
And whenever when he gets brought back for the 3rd and the 5th
doctors, he's the grumpy one.
Yes.
I think that's completely wrong.
I was quite surprised to see his 1st shot is actually in the
garden, his garden, which mirrors the 5 doctors.
And I never realised that.
I love the idea that it's actually the same day for him.
And that's why he's running away from the obelisk so fast because
he's like, oh, not a bloody guy.
That's why he's so annoyed all the way through the 5 doctors
because he's already he's already had this today.
He's just trying to relax in Sir Charles's garden while he's
trying to visit Dodo, and that's why he leaves without saying
goodbye.
There are so many links to Dodo in this story.
It's it's dodo matic.
Dodo tastic.
Well, I never thought I'd be hearing that.
Ever.
It's really great that as a script editor.
Terrence Sticks sees the necessity to ensure that John Pertwee in
this anniversary story gets to pull a face, a gurning face when
he's wriving around on the ground, attacked by that creature thing
comedy gold.
Thank you, Terence, you knew we wanted it.
It had to be there.
That was actually in my notes.
I'm keeping a special eye out for per twig earning after your
definitive per twig earn list.
So, yeah, it says a terrific one, isn't it?
It's happening less, but for the anniversary story here. sure it
was in there.
And I just want to say about that fight.
Pertwee is a very poor wrestler.
He goes to his back about 3 times and that's why he ends up being
choked.
You know, he's just really terrible at it.
It's interesting that this is the 1st story of the season.
They could have put it, you know, last or something.
Obviously, the production team want to start the 10th series with
a bang. previous year, they wanted the Daleks in it to launch that
season with the bang.
And of course, we saw last year with the Dalek story, it was the
1st story, since Galaxy 4, to have every single episode rating
above 9000000 and the 1st time since the Daleks Master plan that
you've got an episode above 10000000 in this story, what I really
love is the fact that Patrick Trouton finally gets 3 episodes of
Doctor Who, that are rated above 9000000 viewers.
Episode 2 is the 1st time that he gets an episode rated above
10000000 and in the top 25, and then finally, in episode 4
11.900000 people tune in, and it's number 17 for the week.
The only episode of Doctor Who that Patrick Trout actually gets in
the top 20.
Fantastic.
I mean, it has it has that amazing radio times thing, which comes
out.
You know, the 10th anniversary special of the Radio Times is
released on the day that the 1st episode is broadcast and it's got
like articles about the history of Doctor Who.
I think it's still possible to get us a PDF and I did search the
internet for a long time, but it wasn't successful.
So everyone knew it was a big event.
Everyone knew that all of the doctors were coming, which is why
all 3 of them carefully appear in that 1st episode because
everyone's waiting for them.
And like there's interviews with Carol Anne and stuff in it.
It's a big deal.
I think they reissued it for the 20th and I think maybe Doctor Who
magazine has issued it at some point.
I'm not sure.
Yes, and also about 8 or 9 years ago, I think in the wake of
Christopher Eccleston's 1st series, the ABC reprinted it as a
magazine in Australia.
I was working at the ABC shop at the time and it just flew off the
shelves.
We had to order extra copies in from other shops.
And the great thing was, because it's filled with things like the
5th Hartle story being called the Sea of Death.
Oh, really?
Instead of the piece of mariners.
Yeah they don't correct it.
All of the Hartnell stories are just called after their 1st
episode.
Oh, so it's like the dead planet.
The dead.
Dead planet, world's end for...
Yeah, yeah, it was great.
That was insanely popular.
And it just goes to kind of show how iconic this story.
It's.
I mean, pert we is probably the 1st of the truly iconic doctors
for the public rather than just for fans.
People sort of recognise him with a shock of white hair and the
cloak and what have you.
And that's the image he has in that photo shoot.
Yeah.
And also another public idea is they know there are different
doctors and they know they meet occasionally.
So rather than the ABC commissioning a new magazine about
Christopher Eccleston or David Tennant who'd been cast by then.
They decide to go back to the 10th anniversary special, not the
20th anniversary Twim special, not the 30th anniversary Twim
special.
They go back to this story.
So maybe this is another reason why this story is the beginning of
the end as well because suddenly suddenly it's a big fan reference
work with or, you know, a list of stories and all of that sort of
thing and it just, you know, starts to make possible because we
don't have repeats really.
We can't watch it at home, but we do have the radio times, you
know.
So, you know, it enabled us to all get our anorax on and memorise
lists of production codes and things to a degree that would
eventually, you know, kill the show in the 90s.
Yeah, and then people go and record themselves talking about it
and force it into people's iPhones.
So maybe it's just the beginning.
Well, all aboard the SS Bernice, it's time to visit the Carnival
of Monsters.
Todd, this was yours.
It was, and as you may recall, I was a little bit less than
impressed that I'd actually then given this one.
Well, it's terrible, isn't it?
Well, of course, yes.
No, it's funny.
As a kid, when you were watching Doctor Who, there were certain
stories, especially here in Australia with the repeats, that some
you connect with and some you never did, you know?
And I can probably count 4 or 5 on the one hand that I always used
to think, oh, I don't like this one.
Can we just get to the next one?
The invisible enemy?
Underworld.
The Sunmakers, Reposs operation, and this story.
Goodness.
That's 3 Bob Holmes. story.
So I'm going to take away your Blue Peter badge, for God's sake.
We'll discuss those ones later on.
Obviously, I have revised my opinion on a couple of those.
But as a kid, I didn't connect with those particular adventures
and this was one of them.
And so I've always voted this like, you know, in the Dwin surveys
like 2 out of 10, right?
And it's like me, you know, like literally I really disliked it
that much.
Is there some other podcast you'd like to work on?
So coming into this, you know, I always knew that it was good
right, in my heart of hearts.
And so it begins with 2 blue aliens talking about aliens coming to
their world to take over their jobs, et cetera.
And it's very clever.
I really love the performances of Michael Wisher.
Terrence Lodge.
And the superb Peter Halliday.
And of course, wow, ambassadors.
They, that, the whole plotline, that is set literally within one
set and a half is just phenomenal, and I never appreciate it as a
kid.
It is so clever, and I was just totally engrossed by their
performances, especially, although they're all really, really good
but I really like Terrence Lodge as oral.
Do you know, I think Michael Wisher is absolutely hilarious.
It is unbelievably funny.
He's having such a wonderful time.
He's really sarcastic and laid back and he says that like, what
happens?
I think they fail to destroy the miniscope with the eradicator and
he just goes, bravo.
You want to know who it is.
And before they were even created, Michael Wisher as Karlic is Sir
Humphrey Appleby.
Peter Halliday's player track is Jim Hacker.
And that leaves poor Terrence Lodge. as Orum in the role of
Bernard.
You know, it's yes minister in space.
Well, I mean, they are British civil servants, which is why
they're gray and gray haired and bald.
Yes, you know what I mean?
they're and they're called they're called the officials.
I mean, that's actually the name of their race.
So they're the officials and they have the functionaries.
And so there's this very sort of class-based thing.
And it's really sort of hilarious, traditional class-based
things.
The most telling moment, I think, is Orum says that the
functionaries that if you give them a hygiene chamber, they store
fossil fuel in it.
If you go to George Orwell in the road to Wigan Pier, which was
published in 1937, he speculates that old ladies in Brighton
boarding houses are saying that if you give those minors baths
they only use them to store coal in.
So it is like this sort of famous thing that you said about the
working classes.
So there's this whole sort of big class-based thing.
Is it also about the fact that Britain has joined the ECC, is that
right?
And there might be people from the continent coming over to work
or anything like that. like Vorg and Sherman turning up.
Like, is it a commentary on that?
Well, I think that I think that there's something in the Pertz we
era generally, and we've said this before, where the Pertu era
sees like supernational action, things like diplomacy and
interactions between countries as inherently progressive.
And so in Mind of Evil and Day of the Daleks, it's seen as a wave
of averting war, uh, in Curse of Paladon, it's seen as a great
good.
You know, unit is a United Nations thing.
And so one way that the Pertuera has of coding people as
conservative is to have them as isolationist.
And all of that is happening at the same time as the European
economic community sort of happening and all of that sort of
thing.
So, yeah, I think there are sort of links to it, but it just makes
them sort of stuffy and conservative, I think.
Yeah, and in the case of Borg and Scherner.
I think possibly not an overt reference, but I think they are a
reference to the traveller or gypsy, as they would have been known
then, and Roma cultures in the UK.
Hence the speaking of polari.
So when Vorg finally meets the dot, he tries to speak to him in
that sort of carnival code language, Polari, and the doctor
doesn't know it.
But there's a parallel between the politics here.
And of course, when we get onto the SS Bernice, Major Daly and his
daughter are travelling to India, which is, you know, part of the
British Empire at the time, and they're still calling them
Bombay.
That's right.
And they have, you know, there are Indian servants on board the
ship and Major Daily has a plantation and he won't have people
from Southern India working on the plantation because they're too
idle and all of that sort of thing.
So the same kind of conservatism and racism is evident on the SS
Bernice, as is evident on interminor.
But what is really funny.
And I think that this is the key to this story is that it's a
commentary on Doctor Who.
Right, okay. and on television, the nature of television.
And so at one point, Vorgen Scherner, who I think of other doctor
and his companion.
So they're disreputable, they wear silly clothes.
They have a magical device that lets you experience things from
all throughout time and space.
And they say that they're just purely to entertain nothing serious
nothing political, but it's in a story with all of this politics
and stuff in it.
And so the mini scope is very definitely a television, isn't it?
And just like the word television, it's made up of a Greek word
and a Latin word.
Like television really should be teleopsis, shouldn't it, really?
If it's going to be all Greek, but mini scoped, you know what I
mean?
Mini's Latin and scope is Greek.
And it's a screen, but you look on.
And what do you see when you look in there?
You see Doctor Who monsters.
Do you know what I mean?
You see overons.
And so, so it's a carnival of monsters, much like Doctor Who, the
miniscope is a carnival of monsters.
And the very 1st story that we see is a sort of crap story where
people from Great Britain are attacked by dinosaurs.
Do you know what I mean?
And they're needlessly aggressive towards one another and stuff
because you turn up the aggression knob so that they can be
entertaining.
You know, the trashings are great favourites with the kiddies
because they attack one other and stuff.
And so the whole thing is about Doctor Who.
And then when finally we get off the SS Bernice, we're wandering
around in the back of a television.
And so all of those dials and panels and stuff, it's like a big
giant television.
You've seen that, haven't you?
This is everything you were going to say, isn't it?
Oh, evidently.
Well, no, it wasn't.
You know, this is why I think you've really hit the name of the
head why this story works on so many levels and why it is so
clever and actually so, so good. despite all the 70s production
values.
And I want to talk about and I want to talk about them in a
moment.
I never thought about some of those things, Nathan.
I think that's very, very clever.
I mean, I'm not the 1st person, I think, to kind of observe it.
Do you know what I mean?
And sort of say, and if it talks about it, and about time talks
about them crawling around in the back of television and stuff.
I think it's really interesting then.
The doctor's commentary that he tried to have miniscopes banned
because there were actual living creatures inside who were being
who were being tortured and exploited.
So is, you know, is that a commentary on the life of an actor?
I reckon the best thing, and it people mention it over and over
again. where it suggested to Joe that there are people outside
watching her being menaced by drashings for entertainment.
And she says, they must be evil and horrible.
I have to give it to Bob Holmes.
He's brilliant, isn't he?
He is so clever.
But when I dressed up with it, that's exactly what Katie said to
me.
So you must be evil enough.
To take it back to the production values.
Like I was, as it began and they're standing against a blue CSO
sky and I went, it's really early to introduce CSO, I wonder who
directed this story and I grabbed the DVD and it was like, it's
Barry, let's, at least I'm prepared for it, you know, over the
next 4 episodes.
And then we see the functionaries with their full on head masks
which I'm going to have to nominate for the Jenny Laird Award.
Spoiler alert.
And at the same time, they're then offloading, some wonderful
space Christmas presents, which I'm also going to be nominating
for the Jenny Maird Award.
This is the beginning of my nominations for this season.
And of course, they offload Vorg and Schurner.
And can I just say Leslie Dwyer as Vogue?
Just pies that role to perfection.
Is really funny?
He isn't.
He just makes it, you know?
I do have a problem in episode four.
The character just becomes more and more, well, I think buffoonish
and I just wanted him to stop and actually say no, there are
people in there.
I'm going to do something.
And I know that's part of the script and it's part of the anxiety
and it reminded me of why I disliked part of this story as a kid.
It just really got to me and it got to me again watching this.
I just wanted to whack him in the face.
Um, But it's, Scherner, that I have to talk about, Shell Hall.
I think she is just fantastic.
The character is unbelievable.
It builds on the 2 strong female characters from or 2 or 3 strong
female characters from last season.
Jane in the Sea Devils. and then the secretary back in Day of the
Daleks.
Miss Paget.
I always forget their names.
Third Officer Blythe.
Third officer Blythe, who are these female characters who are in
these more subservient roles, but who are completely more
competent than the people who are above them.
And here, she understands machine.
She's got heart, she's the, she's the one who's driving everything
forward.
When the doctor turns up, he treats her with such respect.
And I just think it's the performance of the Pertuy era.
I've now watched every single perjury story, and I just think she
is phenomenal, and the last shot of the story, where she sees the
tan is dematerialised, and then she has that, it comes to her with
the smile on her face.
Oh, I'm getting goosebumps now just talking about.
Yeah, yeah.
It's the similar moment to the end of Colony in space when the
doctor says to Joe, don't tell him he'll never believe you.
Another thing about Schurner is that friend of the podcast, Charles
Christopher, actually, a few years ago when we 1st met on an
online forum, he was asking if people could take a screen grab of
Schurner, full-length shot of Schurner in her outfit.
So I sent him a screen grab of her after she's done a little
dance.
And it turns out he is, he was getting a friend to make a Schoner
costume for a Barbie doll.
Really?
And now I'm not sure if that ever materialised.
So, Chris, I'm going to be asking you about that later.
We want a photo?
I was hoping it was going to end that he was going to have a Shona
costume.
Yeah, that's what I thought this was going.
Yeah, that would have been much better.
He would look amazing in a show no costume.
Well, who has she got her own action figure?
Because she does.
Yeah, with all those flanian pobblebeeds coming off.
So, Chris, we either need to see your Shona Barbie. we need to see
you as Sherna, one of the two.
You'll put it on the website.
It'll be in the show notes.
What about you, Brendan?
Vorgen, Shoner, they are a version of the Doctor and Joe. As you
were saying earlier, and yeah, it just serves to emphasise that as
good as pertly has become as the doctor, and, you know, I think he
started very strongly anyway.
And as well as his character has developed.
Joe's kind of the reason you watch the show and she's where you
derive most of enjoyment from the show from Katie's performance
and Katie's joy for it.
So to have that effectively duplicated in this story.
Yeah, even with the doctor and Joe separated, he's got Scherner.
And she is the magical component of the story.
She is the magic of the viewer, and she's the one who shows
concern for the creatures inside the scope.
But you also understands the workings of the scope, whereas he's
had it for years and has absolutely no idea whatsoever.
Yeah, which, again, the doctor with the Tartars.
It's funny when he pops out of the shoot or whatever at the
beginning and he's got his colourful costume on and all those
circles.
I kind of, I sort of squinted my eyes and I kind of thought, yeah
it sort of, if you squint, it sort of becomes like a patchwork
sort of like the 6 doctors costume.
And so I'm sort of thinking, you know, maybe somebody's looked at
this for referencing years too.
One of the fan fiction anthologies in the late 90s or early 2000s
the ones done for charity.
And if you're listening, I can't remember your name.
I'm very sorry, but someone wrote a short story, say a 100 words
or so, which had Joe looking through an old photo album of unit
and the 3rd doctor is holding this vulgarly coloured coat that
Vorg had given him to say thank you for helping them with the
drashings.
And Joe always remembered that the doctor said, I will never wear
this.
They're explicitly parallelled when they're 1st introduced because
the moment that something goes wrong with the machine and Vorg
notices, I think almost in the next scene, Pert, we realises he's
steered the TARDIS in the wrong place as well.
So it is, I mean, it is sort of pretty explicit, I think.
I find the, the, the dialogue really clever in the 1st couple of
episodes when the doctor and Joe have, of course, landed on ship
and the repetition of those scenes is really, it's really fun and
you know it's going to happen, but it's slightly different and I'm
really enjoying it.
By the time you get to episode 4 where, you know, the heat's
happening and the creatures are there and they're, you know
Claire's failing around and she's almost just remembering.
I'm just there going, I'm over this dialogue.
I'm over it.
I mean, even Joe says, you know, here we go again.
Yeah, I like how Joe's sick of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I was sick of that.
Parallel to Borg's ineptitude.
I was sick of that.
And then just before that, they're menished by the jazz eggs and
Joe's getting more and more and more hysterical and I just wanted
to slap her and I'm going, Bob, you've dropped the ball on this
you know, I this is not the Joe that I know, you know?
But wait, just as I was ready to write it down, then they pause.
They have a conversation, right?
And the doctor is explaining something to Joe, and it's about
lateral thinking, and the doctor explains what it is, but Joe
doesn't quite get the right meaning in terms of her interpretation
but the outcome that she gets at the end is right.
She suddenly says, right, they're going back for the rope and you
can get out of here and you can help us.
And it's just this wonderful moment of, I think, what would you
call it?
serendipity.
Yes, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, the doctor's talking about lateral thinking being sideways
thinking instead of approaching the problem head on.
And Joe takes it literally and says, well, if we go sideways, we're
back in the ship, where there's root.
And the look on the doctor's faces, but that's not what I, but it
but you, okay, fine.
It's a lovely moment.
She is still hypercompetent in this.
Like she's got her talent for bluffing, which she showed in curse
of peladon.
Like she's the one who comes up with the story about it being her
uncle.
And in fact, it's Pertuy who spoils it by sort of proudly
insisting, no, on the contrary, I'm a very good traveller.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
And she's got skeleton keys and all of that sort of thing.
Like she's still, she's still vastly more competent than people
give her credit for, I think.
Yeah, and the place where she's so good.
And I think this is part of the evidence that Robert Holmes is
writing so much better for women now is her conversation with
Claire, played wonderfully by Jenny McCracken, where she almost
convinces Claire that there's something weird going on.
And there's that great blog which has tested every store, every
Doctor Who story against the Beckadell test.
And it singles out this story in particular because Joe and Claire
are having this conversation about big concepts, about the quality
of memory.
And Joe isn't talking down to this girl from 50 years in her past
you know, she's talking to her as an equal and trying to get her
to understand.
She doesn't try to get any of the men to understand.
You know, she goes for someone young, whose mind is flexible, and
who is obviously intelligent because she's been commenting that
things are strange before anyway.
I think it's a really powerful scene.
It's a great scene for Katie because it's not often that Katie
gets to act opposite someone her own age.
And it's a great scene for that guest cast member as well.
So we have 2 really strong female characters in this, who even
though they are coded into subservient roles. are both very
intelligent characters with their own motivations and their own
thoughts.
Joe's growth, you know, since the beginning is just so evident.
No, she lets the doctor escape when, you know, she's seen staying
away and he's into that sort of thing later on in the story as
well.
I think I think she's actually like that from the beginning
though.
Remember Tariff the Ordon, she ignores the doctor's instructions
and goes to rescue him.
You know, like, I'm not entirely convinced of a character to
development, and we'll talk about that maybe when we come to
frontier in space.
But I just think that she's been terribly competent and terribly
plucky and just really, really fun to watch all the way through.
Yeah, I think what's really increased has been her confidence.
I think when she starts in terror of the oil tons, she thinks that
she can do these things.
And the difference this season is now she knows that she can do
these things.
And I'll talk about that more when we get to Planet of the Daleks
as well, which I know you're looking forward to, Todd.
Like a hole in the head. but anyway.
So I want to talk about one of the guest stars in this particular
story, which you haven't mentioned yet, and he's on the ship, and
he's an actor by the name of Ian Marta.
Hooray.
His 1st role in Doctor Who, and of course, he's going to turn up
in a couple of seasons as the wonderful Harry Sullivan.
That's unthinkable that someone in a guest role in Doctor Who
should later turn up as a regular character.
Yeah.
And you know, I, it should be banned.
You can talk to Peter.
He's not allowed to do it.
Yeah, yeah.
Colin Baker.
Peter Capaldi.
Karen Gillan.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
It happens all the time.
Hey, I love...
I like Karen.
And of course, Ian Marta auditioned for the role of Captain Yates
and had to turn the role down because he had other commitments.
Yeah, he was the 1st choice for the role, yeah.
And I'm glad that he turned it down.
So that we forget him as Harry, really.
He's spectacular.
And he's great in this.
He really is, you know, he's angry and he needs to be angry and
then, you know, oh, I've forgotten about everything and who are
you and that sort of thing.
Isn't it funny though?
regular cast having played someone else earlier on?
He tries to punch the doctor.
Colin Baker shoots the doctor.
Karen Gillan is part of a cult that tries to sacrifice Donna and
the doctor.
Freeman Adjuman is working for Torture and becomes a cyberslave.
And they're trying to get at the doctor.
So I think the only, possibly the only person who's appeared prior
to getting a regular role, who hasn't tried to kill the doctor is
Peter Purvis, because even Lala Ward was in the thrall of the
shadow and tried to kill the doctor.
Yeah, Lala Ward, gee, it happens all the time.
Oh, yeah, this show's lazy, isn't it?
Open spotlight, for God's sake. not that hard.
You know what you find someone else.
You'd think the doctor would see a new companion and go, actually
you look like someone who tried to kill me.
No, we're not doing this.
We're not doing this thing.
It's really good in the miniscope that you get to see a cyberman.
Like that's, you know, for the only time really in the perch.
A blob in a snowstorm.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, we get a still frame in mind of evil, but this is the only
one that's moving and its head's not on properly.
It would have been quite nice to have gone into that particular, um
the German doctor have gone through that door into, to meet the
Sardan.
But instead they go through another door into some marshes and
they meet the terrifying drashics.
Well, I think the drastics are really well realised when they're
in the marshes, you know, how the head pops up and everything.
And it sort of does this turn and like, and water comes off it and
stuff.
I think they're really good.
And then when it bursts...
Yeah, and when they burst through the wall in to the back of the
workings of the machine.
That's really good.
Regrettably, of course, we then get the CSO moments on the ship
where they burst through walls and up through the middle of the
ship.
They're still better than the Pleicius or...
Poke's little head through the...
Peekaboo.
I want to talk about puppets later.
Puppets as Doctor Who monsters, because, you know, it always it
always ends well.
Oh, there is a great special effect, of course, when Vorg puts his
finger into the workings of the miniscope.
And if you look at his fingernail, it's completely full of grind.
Yeah, yeah, filthy.
It's just disgusting.
I'm nominating it for Jenny Leaderboard.
I mean, guys don't think about, you know.
Is he picking up the TARDS then or is that where you're going?
No, no, this is where he's trying to distract the drashigs when
they're chasing.
I'm not sure, but it's...
Actually, yeah, they're filthy when he picks up the title.
Oh, it's revolting.
Like when you see it, you can never unsee a deal.
Go back, watch it and you'll see it there.
On my nominations list.
I love that because that cliffhanger to episode 3 where they're
being menaced by the drash eggs.
Episode 2 is where they're being...
Oh, episode 3 is the doctor appears.
Yes, which is...
That cliffhanger.
Sorry to interrupt, but that cliffhanger to episode three, the
doctor stumbling out and falling on the ground.
That is my first memory of Doctor Who.
Oh, wow.
Well, the episode 2 Cliffhanger is so fabulous because they're all
watching it on the miniscope.
Do you know what I mean?
It's actually sure that it intervenes to solve the cliffhanger.
Yeah, but they're watching it when we're watching it.
We're watching...
Schernavorg and the Interminorians watching the Dr. and Joe
watching the drashings.
It's wonderful.
Just proofing.
And, you know, we'll be screaming at the screen.
Do something, do something, and then Shona does something.
Do you like the set of the inner workings that Joe and I?
crawl around in.
It's not great, but it does look, I mean, it looks like the
insides of a television, I think, and that's, you know...
Yeah, I think it's really good.
And I think the use of the black backdrop is really good and the
fact that they make all the little bits of it look so different, so
they can shoot it from different angles and you are convinced that
they've travelled a few miles.
We haven't really talked about, like this looks cheap.
Do you know what I mean?
But it is deliberately the cheap episode.
And the way that lets does it is he can employ the SS Bernice
characters for 2 weeks and he can employ the people on into minor
for 2 weeks because they never meet one another.
They're the only people you have to pay for 4 episodes of the
doctor and show.
And so it's deliberately their cheap episode.
And Sandifer points out, look, it's the cheap episode, but who do
they get to direct?
They get Barry Letz?
You know, who do they get to write it?
They get Bob Holmes.
Yeah.
And so they do get this really good story, but it's their money
saving story after they blew the budget on Omega's fantastic
grotto.
And of course, Frontier in Space, where it's considerable London
location filming had been shot at this point as well.
It's really quite effective because if we count it out, you've got
the interminor set, which is really one. 5 rooms, as you said
earlier, Todd.
And crummy, isn't it?
Yeah.
You've got, I think, 4 sets on the SS Bernice.
But the cabin, the corridor, the crew room and the hold.
Yeah.
And all the location shooting is on that boat.
Or in the marshes.
Oh, in the marshes.
And the captain's only on location, like only in one scene.
Exactly.
And the boat itself was a great economical measure.
What Barry Letsey was, he found an appropriate boat that was being
towed up the coast for scraps, so it was going anyway.
And the company towing it or the owner said, oh, yeah, sure.
Yeah, you can come in and film with us and you don't have to pay
us a fee or you only have to pay us a nominal fee.
And then, of course, pert we nicked the ship's compass, which is
the one part that the owner wanted to keep and had to give it
back.
Like you do, man.
To be fair, he thought, it's going to be junked.
I'll just take this, but apparently, and well, I think pert we
knew this having been an old Navy man.
It's traditional for the owner or a captain of a ship. to keep the
compass when it's junk.
Part of the plotline.
I just want clarified in my own head.
Well, there's actually two.
So the doctor has been part of the team that bans these many
scopes.
When does that happen?
Does it happen when he's like, Hartnell is a young man when the
Time Lords were still going out there and interfering a bit and
then something goes wrong and they stop doing that and therefore
after 150 years, he then decides to leave.
Or does when does it happen?
Yeah, I'd say it must happen before he leaves Gallifroy.
Yeah, I think it has to happen before he leaves Galafre because he
hasn't been he's not in contact with the Time Lords until War
Games.
Because in their very next story.
He's met the Draconians before and helped them with the
situation.
But again, I also feel like that is also set way back. they don't
recognise his countenance.
That story about the Medusoids and stuff in frontier in space too
where he's like an emissary on his way to a some kind of
conference.
That must be that as well.
The issue is that the time lords change every time they're
introduced, like the conception of what they are like changes all
the time.
And so it sounds like they don't interfere in the sense that, you
know, what the doctor does, like, turn up. somewhere and change
things, but they have some kind of political presence.
You know, like in um, the 2 doctors where the time lords and the
ninth zone governments or whatever the hell it is.
Do you know what I mean?
They're known and you know, there's some kind of negotiations and
stuff going on.
So I'm imagining that's the conception of the time lords there, but
it is slightly more boring a conception than the one we had even
the previous story and certainly vastly vastly more boring than
the conception that we had in the war games where they were huge
terrifying, sort of omnipotent entities.
Yeah, I quite like the idea that some of these things, such as
going to the peace conference with the Medusoids, happened during
season 6B. No, there's no season 6B. No, there isn't.
But it's borne out by the comics of the time with the scarecrows.
Nope, crazy.
No, there's no John and Gillian either, all right.
The other thing is this, okay, so the doctor knows that the SS
Denise disappeared.
The end of the story, the SNS Bernice has returned, right?
And they go to the next day.
But the doctor still remembers back at the beginning that it
disappeared.
Therefore, the reason why it just it still disappeared.
Everybody's still never, they never made it to Bombay.
And, no, they made it to Bombay.
No, they didn't because at the beginning of the story, he
remembers it disappearing.
And therefore, the only thing that's changed is the reason.
No, time can be rewritten.
Okay, this is what does my heating.
Back to day of the Darling. back in the day of the Daleks, right?
They come back in time to destroy this man who started World War
whatever, but then they realised that he's not part of it and he
doesn't die.
Therefore, in the future, that future never happened.
Therefore, they should never come back.
So day of the Delix never appeared.
Ah, but in the case of the SS Bernice, the doctor and Joe don't
destroy the miniscope and send everyone back because the SS
Bernice disappeared.
If they were investigating the disappearance of the SS Bernice, and
that was their motivation, that would create a paradox.
But because it's a side effect, it doesn't create a paradox.
I'm not saying it's a paradox, but I'm still saying the SS Bernice
never gets to its destination.
No, no, doctor.
No, because the doctor does remember that it disappeared and
that's part of his dialogue, right?
Doesn't he say he changes it or something?
Does he say something in the dialogue?
They don't mention it one way or the other.
I mean, she marries Lieutenant Andrews and she goes to India and
patronises some Indian people.
This is one of my internal workings of my head just going, you
know, that's really nasty.
I would just try not to think about it too much.
That's why that's why I don't think about it for Day of the Darks
and that's why I'm trying not to think about it for this.
You know what, it's entirely possible. that it does sink.
No, I won't have it.
Yeah, like, you know, the R101 had to crash and Charlie had to be
dealt with and et cetera, et cetera.
No, none of that's real.
Well, look, I'm really, really pleased.
I love you, India.
We do love India.
She is fabulous.
I don't know who she is.
No, no, I do.
I'm really, really pleased that I had the opportunity to sit down
and really watch this properly again, and, you know, now I'd
easily give it 8.5 attitude.
I'm not going Doctor Who.
But what I'm saying is that it's a really, really good story and
its reputation is well deserved.
It also is, well, actually one of only 2 stories in the entire
poetry era, that all the episodes, 9000000 viewers or more.
Right.
Even the 3 doctors doesn't get that.
Episode 3 drops below 9 million.
It's quality and the audience recognises it.
And I do think it's a great continuation of the 10th anniversary
being a show that references monsters and references the fact that
it's Doctor Who.
It gives us another doctor and companion character, and it's the
1st proper adventure out into space where the doctor's not being
manipulated by the Time Lords anymore.
They mentioned they mentioned the Ogrens and the Daleks as well in
their dialogue too.
You see an Ogron, I think, on the screen.
Yeah, you do.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, they've got no gron in there.
So yeah, they're foreshadowing the Daleks as well, who may or may
not turn up. as we head even further out to find a frontier in
space.
So, this is my one, and I think it's a fabulous remake of the
space pirates, actually.
I was pretty excited.
Well, it couldn't be a worse remake of the Space Pirates, could
it?
Listener, if we're going to do the space pirates again, I'm going
to go home and given that I am home, if you mention the space
pirates again, I'm going to kick you out.
Go on.
Actually, I actually remember the space pirates very fondly.
I think we are very critical on the ground that it's pretty
terrible, but I do have fond memories of it.
In particular, all that sort of space model work and all of the
you know, people in astronaut costumes on Kirby Wise and all of
that.
We do get a lot of that.
And it's been, you know, space opera.
I mean, I guess if you watch Doctor Who in the 1970s, you think
it's always sort of ray guns and spaceships, but it wasn't much
that at all during its 1st 10 years.
And I think if we're not allowed to mention the space pirates, I
guess the best previous analogue is the Dalek master plan.
I've forgotten how to say that.
Is it Dalek or Dale X master plan?
The Dalex masterplan.
Oh, it's Daleks, right?
Yes, plural.
It's genitive.
So the idea is that everyone remembers the Dalek's master plan
sort of fondly it's a big 12 part epic, they look into the idea of
doing it again, apparently.
Yes, yeah.
And well, that was part of the 10th anniversary.
Again, it was, well, we're going to have a dialect story anyway.
Terry Nation's going to have to write it.
Oh, Terry Nation once wrote, sorry, wrote inverted commas, a 12
part dalek story.
Let's do that again.
And so they go to Dougie Campfield, apparently.
And this is both in about time and in Xander.
They go to Dougie Canfield and say, you know, how's that going to
work?
And he says, don't do it.
It's too long.
And so what they decide to do instead is this sort of 2 incredibly
tenuously linked 6 parters.
So frontier in space, which we're talking about now, and then
after an unexpected and completely inexplicable cliffhanger, which
we'll come back to. will get Planet of the Daleks, which we'll
talk about next episode.
So Terry Nation also just contractually.
He got the right for 1st refusal, doesn't he?
with document stories.
Yes, after Day of the Daleks, when they didn't realise that the
Dalek copyright rested with Terry Nation.
Terry Nation said, oh, you know, now that you know, I'm quite
happy for you to go ahead with this story, but you should ask me
in future.
I'm not sure if it was a written agreement or a gentleman's
agreement, but it certainly stayed in force for the next, really
the next 6 years.
Yeah, 1979 is his last dialect story.
And actually, in fact, I think in the 80s, he still had 1st
refusal, but by that time he was working in America, by the time
of Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, certainly, he was script
editing on MacGyver. crazy.
Yeah indeed.
Yeah.
So Nathan.
So what have you discovered?
Well, look, I'm not entirely sure.
I'm a bit ambivalent about it.
Okay.
So I don't think that this really works as a story in one way.
It's really very linear.
Do you know what I mean?
And people have observed over and over again that it's just the
doctor and Joe being shoved into a series of prison cells and sort
of dragged around the galaxy.
So there's a way in which it's just sort of 5 episodes of stuff
happening while we faff around waiting for the Daleks to show up.
But then in other ways, I think it works really tremendously
well.
And I think a lot of the incidents that happen are really good.
There's some great characters and great locations.
It's got a bit of a scale to it, and it starts off really, really
small and turns into, you know, the brink of an intergalactic
war.
And fairly organically over the, over the uh, 6 episodes.
So we arrive as usual in a cupboard, um, uh, and we do that, of
course, of course, in the mutants and in, well, carnival of
monsters, frankly.
So we're constantly turning up and cupboard.
So we do that again.
And in this cupboard, we're storing grain.
It's not grain that would upset the band rules.
It's flour.
So it's a big it's a big hoo-ha over someone stealing flour.
And we're in the year 2540.
So we're 80 years after colony in space and we're, what, 500 years
or so before the mutants?
Yes.
So it's the Earth Empire at its height and we get a little bit of
a history lesson from Pertwee.
So it's the height of the sort of very 1st Earth Empire.
And our author is our resident, communist, lizard sympathiser
Malcolm Hulk.
Yes, hooray.
He's back again.
And that, along with that comes the wonderful characterisation he
always offers.
I always keep the cast lists for whatever stories we're discussing
in front of us.
And if we look at Carnival of Monsters, which we were just
discussing, It's about 10 speaking parts.
Looking down the castle list of frontier in space, I think there's
at least 30 actors here with speaking parts and actual dialogue.
Because it goes from place to place, doesn't it?
And so we get different people.
So in the 1st two, I guess it's the 1st episode is just the 2 guys
flying the cargo ship.
You know, like it's all very sort of small scale.
There's a bit of a sort of Star Trek vibe to it. they're in
hyperspace, aren't they?
When they encounter the TARDIS, and you can see that the
production crew by now has seen Star Trek. and so they sort of
Star Trek, absolutely. sort of elements to it.
And then we're moving back to Earth with the Earth president and
General Williams and the Draconian Prince.
He's great.
Isn't this great?
And this is the 1st time that we've seen Earth in the Pearl era as
well.
Ah, because we've always been off world, like we're on solos when
we were on Xaria.
So this is Earth.
Yeah, this is the 1st time we've been to the future of Earth since
the Seeds of Death in 1969.
I love the future of Earth.
We have a president.
She's fabulous.
She is great.
Yeah, she's got her secretary and then isn't there some other
woman doing a makeup?
Sheila. massages are.
She has lovely massage from Sheila at some point.
She's got like an orange frock and then like matching orange
lipstick and a sort of fabulous South African accent.
And, you know, then there's General Williams, who's sort of very
saturnine, has a big sort of collar and a sort of spock hair
cart.
And then there's the prints.
This is, I think, hitherto unscaled heights for Lizard Man in
Doctor Who, because he's a real character.
And we talked in the Silurians.
I thought that the Silurians were undermined by the fact that they
were just sort of rubberheads or voiced by Peter Halliday.
Do you know what I mean?
Whereas here you've got this prince guy.
Now he's never been Doctor Who before or since, but he has great
teeth.
I think he'd be handsome.
I can't tell exactly, but so...
All of the costume and all the makeup, the one thing that you have
noticed is...
You can see his teeth.
Because they've, for the 1st time, they've hit upon this genius
idea and they'll, it'll become standard where you let the actor's
eyes and mouth be visible through holes in the rubber mask and you
make up the eyes and mouth to kind of match the rubber mask.
Now, they never quite manage that, the colours sort of slightly
different.
And poor old John Woodnuts, who is the emperor.
He has previously been...
Hibbert.
Yes, he's Hibbot.
Channing's thrall in the orders.
Yeah, yeah, in Spearhead from Space, and he'll, he'll later turn
up, obviously, as Broton, and, um, and, uh, um, and... and the
Duke, the Duke of whatever, for Gil.
Yeah.
Yeah, it says on. right.
With a press on beard in that terrible story.
And he's got a particularly bad upper lip, doesn't he, poor old
emperor?
You know, they don't get it completely right with the draconians
makeup, but there's a reason that poetry says that they're a
beautiful piece of work and I think that his favourite.
Yes, yes.
He does say they're his favourite because you can, because per we
as we've discussed before, he was much better when the ideas
behind his script were grounded in reality.
Now, the thing is, you might think this is a strange story to
refer as being grounded in reality, but if you take away, if you
take away the science fiction elements such as aliens and
spaceship, what you've basically got is a story about diplomacy
and day taunt and brinkmanship.
Yeah, yeah, that's very true.
Yeah, this is a story that could very easily have been told
without a science fiction setting, and I think those were the
stories that Pert we liked, and also because he could interact
with his fellow actors.
He gets a scene with the Draconian prince, where the Draconian
prince is trying to interrogate him for information he doesn't
have.
And again, it shows how far pert we's evolved because instead of
being all blustering, how dare you, how dare you imprison me like
this, he's very gentlemanly and just sort of sighs and says, look
I'm not a spy for anyone.
I don't know anything, but thank you very much.
This is a very comfortable chair.
Could you undo my handcuffs, please?
He is very respectful, respectful throughout this entire story.
You know, the whole performance is very different from 2 seasons
ago and it just would not have worked.
Yeah, he doesn't blust.
General Williams or anything.
Because he's got the keys to his car.
He get.'s happy.
It's really interesting.
He doesn't. lost it.
The Ogons come and take it in episode one.
I found it really interesting watching this story again.
The previous time I'd watched it. completely out of sequence.
And I try to watch it in one setting.
I didn't follow the pertree rule of like, you know, one episode
within the 6th party.
Yeah, and and you spoke about earlier, you know, on the
superficial level.
It's just, you know, capture escape, capture escape continually.
But it, you know, works on all these other levels. the diplomacy
element, the frustration of, you know, not being able to
communicate because of past histories and that sort of thing.
And I think the major strength in this story is all the scenes
with Joe and the doctor, or Joe, the doctor, and the master, the
regular crew in all of their situations throughout all the
episodes.
And yes, the capture escape things good because then you get, you
have to have the action at the end of the episode in the beginning
of the certain sort of in the middle episode is there, is there
either carted off to Earth or Dracurnia or to the moon or where to
ever it is this week.
The scenes with Katie and John are just beautiful, but I have to
say, it's the sequences with Roger and Katie in this story that
just blow my mind.
And it's so good because this is the 1st time they've really had a
lot of scenes together since her 1st story.
Like the 1st meeting, like when he comes to get her out of the
cell.
Any for them, Miss Grant?
Yeah, yeah.
I found myself just writing down hilarious quotable quotes from
the master.
My favourite thing is, Pertry's been sucked out the airlock much
to our relief and he's floating about in space.
And Joe's doing this sort of long improvised speech about how he
you know, how he should be more careful and stuff and he's richer
dying a bit. amazing.
It's wonderful.
And then Delcano comes in, he goes, thank you, Miss Grant. we'll
let you know It's so funny.
And there's a sense, look.
You know, in in a previous Hulk story, in colony in space, the
masters kind of wheeled on in episode 4 or something to kind of
prop up something that's sagging a little bit.
And he was foreshadowed in episode one.
We knew he was turning up, but we'd kind of forgotten by then.
Here he's a complete surprise.
But unfortunately, he's been tamed a little bit by now.
Perhaps those scenes, I agree with you, the scenes between Manning
and Delgado are such fun and so fantastic, but the master has been
defanged a little bit by this point.
See, I don't think that's a huge problem here because his plan is
so huge that he needs to be a bit more diplomatic and a bit
calmer.
And unlike pretty much every other story where he's kind of
expecting to run into the doctor, like all the earth-based stuff
he knows the doctor's going to turn up at some point, even colony
in space.
He's not that surprised that the time lords have sent the doctor
after him.
On this occasion, he's actually trying to do something by
himself.
And I think he's genuinely amused that the doctor and Joe just
happened to have turned up in the same time zone.
That scene though, where he picks her up.
Joe is just so wonderful and this is one of the 1st big scenes
where we see her development as a character because there is just
no fear in her at all that she is showing.
You know, I think it's under the surface and she knows that the
master is dangerous, but she is just so annoyed and so fed up that
she's just like, right, here is something from my world.
You know, when a mass murdering psychopath, alien is from your
world.
That's that's questionable enough.
But here is something from my world.
I'm gonna take out my frustration now on you, mate.
But she's not scared the 1st time she meets the master.
That's the wonderful thing about it.
You know what I mean?
Like the 1st time she meets him in tear of the autumn.
She knocks the crate over and stands up really guiltily and goes
oops, you know, and like, so she's never really phased by the
master.
But by now he's he's sort of cartoonish and and we've probably
just about had enough of him.
And so having him sort of order the Ogons around and stuff.
You know, it's all just a little bit silly.
I think he's just having fun.
I think he's having fun and I love the Ogons.
I think they're so funny.
You know, I came into this going, oh, 6 more episodes of Roger.
And then it was like 5 more episodes of Roger.
And I was like, well, there's only 4 more episodes of Roger.
I actually had to take a break to deal with the fact that I didn't
want to not see him on screen.
The last episode with him and Katie, where Joe, where she resists
on 2 occasions, his attempts at hypnosis.
It's not quite that because she resists them in episode five.
Do you remember by going, he's hypnotising her and she does the
nursery rhymes and she says it doesn't work on me anymore.
And then there's that brilliant cliffhanger to episode 5 where he
holds up the hypno sound thing and says, it works directly on the
fear centres deep in your mind and the camera pulls focus and
that's the cliffhanger.
It's so effective and so wonderful.
And the 2 of them, when they're on the ogre on planet, are
terrific together, aren't they?
Look, that was the joy for me in this story, their performances
and his performance.
You know, that's what kept it going.
You know, the shots of John outside the spaceship in that
spacesuit with the string cord line.
They're in hyperspace.
It's like, are you for real?
It is really, it's, they're not Kirby Wise is actually attached to
the spaceship by a string.
It's a thing, it's space protocol.
Right.
And the space music goes with that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's actually mandatory, so you know there's someone outside the
spaceship.
It is a callback to the space pirates where they just do that over
and over again, the same footage, you know.
Can I talk?
We need your costume and the costumes of the Earth guards.
They have these sort of like, it's like they're going to go out
and do rollerblading or go, you know, before they're padding and
on their hands and the arms and that.
It's a nomination for the Jenny Lairder world.
I actually really, really like that.
They're stupid.
Well, the thing is, the helmets seem to be based on wrestling head
covers.
The idea being you wear one of those and no one can no one can
accidentally grab your ear.
Oh, I had forgotten that you actually do wrestling.
This is why you are so enamoured of them.
Well, but what's happening?
Like, you're flying a spaceship through hyperspace and you've got
to just keep your ears kind of... people grabbing your ears.
Most of the people who wear them are guards, and this is a world
where we're having riots because of food shortages.
Oh, we should talk politics.
I do like the fact that they're involving the whole world and you
see broadcasts on the screen and that sort of thing.
The leader of the opposition is sort of a southern American
redneck who's yelling about going to war against foreigners and
stuff.
Well, you know, they go up to the moon.
And it's great to see that you've got political prisoners that are
women and not, it's not all, you know, Anglo-Saxon white.
Yeah, you know, like that too.
Patel, who's the young Indian guy.
And again, you know how we've said that Pertuis starts off seeming
like a bit of a Tory, but pretty soon in his sympathising
automatically with progressive causes, and he gives the peace
party sign to Patel as he sort of walks off.
And he sort of instantly allies with them and Patel recognises him
and Professor Dale as well, like he falls in with them straight
away.
And it is the Hulk thing that we saw in colony in space where
despite the fact that they have a fabulous president.
They have a totalitarian kind of government, you know, where
political prisoners are shipped off to the moon without trial for
the rest of their lives and that kind of thing.
So the government is still kind of scary.
It's great to see John also out of his doctor costume when he's up
in the moon.
He has to, you know, change into a political prisoner robe, which
I always like seeing the doctor, you know, not just in their
costume.
Katie, of course, gets to change into that wonderful black sort of
karate outfit.
And what does John say when she turns up?
Who are you fighting tonight?
Is that her best outfit?
I love it.
I love that costume.
It could well be my favourite.
I mean, hey, you know, when she was all dollied up back in Curse
of Peloton, that's, you know, that frog's pretty good too.
And I like, and I like, you know, the 3 doctors won and I like, I
like what she's wearing in the next story.
Yeah, yeah.
That's a really nice suit, but we're getting ahead of ourselves, of
course.
Can we talk about the end?
Well, I want to talk about the Draconia Society.
Something that slightly irritated me was that we're in the
Draconian Great Hall or whatever.
And of course, females are not permitted to speak, and I just
wanted to throw something at the television at that and I thought
oh, look, we've seen this before in curse of peladin.
The positive of it is that Joe comes up with a lot of good
observations, which makes the men think.
So that's a really good positive.
I guess you don't see any women draconians, but I'm thinking that
to do the costumes for those, you might be looking at, like, doing
something like Lurstrom Bay tour from Star Trek, the Next
Generation, or Ingrid Pitt, and her sort of bosom-y bosom is from
the previous season.
And I don't think they could possibly afford that.
And of course, remember all the fasts, cold blood and the hungry
earth, when you had Niamh McIntosh play Silurians for the 1st time
and what was one of the main topics of discussion on Doctor Who
Message boards?
She is a lizard, why does she have breasts?
Because guess what?
There's an actress in there.
It's Nieve.
She a mammal.
I'd just like to talk about the influence this story has had
moving forward.
This is possibly Malcolm Hawke's best political story because he
creates a whole political system and he creates a whole political
climate that's recognisable as based in our world and the ideas of
Dayton diplomacy, but manages to be a big space opera as well.
Moving forward into the um, into the early 90s, but even before
that, Joe Michael Strazinsky, uh, developed a series called
Babylon 5.
I've never heard of it I refuse to watch it.
Before it came to air on television.
He'd spent about 15 years developing it And in his commentaries on
the DVDs, he does talk about the influences on his series.
And one of the influences it particularly mentions is Doctor Who.
And he discusses, I was strongly influenced by a particular story
for the background between 2 of the races in Babylon 5.
Babylon 5 starts off.
There are 5 major races and a lot of minor races, and they are
working together towards a peace and a sort of federation, if you
like.
The 2 major races who have bankrolled this space station as a
negotiation area, the humans and the Minbari, have just come out
of a long interstellar war.
Which was started because.
The Minbari tradition was to arrive at negotiations with gun ports
open and weapons at the Ready as a show of strength at saying we
have an open hand, which is exactly how the war starts here.
It's not a great tradition, is it?
It is a tradition that is fairly open to kind of
misinterpretation.
And in this, like episode five, suddenly the prince and the
general have this conversation about, you know, 20 years ago, why
did you turn up with, you know, your gunship and, you know, they
finally have a conversation about why everything is happening and
why they mistrust each other.
You know, if they'd had that conversation 20 years ago, well we
wouldn't be having this story now, would we?
Yeah, I think I actually think that that does hit upon a floor in
the story, which is that we all know in episode one what's going
on.
The 2 parties are accusing each other of the same thing, but
neither of them kind of twigs or anything, and it takes us to
episode 5 before everyone is sort of on the same page as us.
Well, I think it's because going back to that, going back to the
catalyst for the war, both sides think the other side is lying
right from the start, right from their 1st negotiation with each
other.
So why shouldn't they think they're lying now?
It's really a great comment on racism and prejudice from Malcolm
Hawk?
And he does it without a lot of soap boxing?
By this point in Doctor Who, I think he is the most thoughtful
writer Doctor Who has, and he really thinks about what he's
putting into his stories.
I think it's great that a story he wrote in 1973, 20 years later
influences the science fiction series, which Major Barrett
Roddenbury, then widow of Gene Roddenbury, creator of Star Trek
with DS9 and Voyager on the air as well, said that Babylon 5 is
the most intelligent science fiction series on television.
No, the woman, obviously, has got...
She was losing it because I would say with Deep Space 9 and, you
know, I'm a Deep Space 9 fan.
So, you know, we go with that.
I wanna talk about General Williams. how dishy he is.
You've taken the word side, Adam.
Look, they've had they've tried it with Bill Filer.
They tried it with Captain Yates.
They tried it with Hippias.
General Williams, it's getting better.
That's the same people.
When we get to the end of the Pertuy era, they really score 2
episodes from the end and I'm not saying anything more.
There's a fairly handsome kind of cargo captain guy in the 1st
episode.
Yeah, the one who looks like George Layton.
I don't know who that is Never mind.
And of course, Frontier in Space is one of 2 stories, which was
accidentally shipped to Australia with the attempted new version
of the theme, known as the Delaware theme, the sort of...
I actually can't remember it.
And none of my copies have it.
I think it's an optional extra on the DVD.
It's an optional extra on the DVD.
It was included on the VHS release of Carnival of Monsters.
Australia got the original extended edit of episode two, which has
about 5 minutes more footage, so it's roughly a 30 minute
episode.
But it is a special feature on the DVD.
It was the 1st attempt really to completely redo the thing.
Until now the theme had been added to, but it was still the same
basic track as had been created for Hartnell at the very start.
So this was 10th anniversary.
Let's do a new version of the theme.
We've got this great new synthesiser that creates strange and
wonderful sounds.
Well use that.
Oh, it can only do one track at a time.
So to do a multi-tracked version.
They did a stereo version of this theme, even though, you know, I
don't think any television was being broadcast in stereo at the
time in the UK, possibly BBC 2.
No, come on, not in 1973.
No.
I think stereo even comes to actual Doctor Who until McCoy or
something.
Yeah, season 25 is the 1st Doctor Who in stereo.
I just think it's it's just awful.
And, you know, Barry went with it.
You know, he wanted it.
And it was other people who said, no, this cannot be.
Thank goodness.
Oh, I have to listen to it again.
When we stop recording, I'm going to listen.
It makes Dominic Glynn's version of 1986 look like a Grammy Award
winner.
I can watch Dominic wins.
I do, but you know where I'm going with this.
I'm nominating it for Johnny Laird.
What a nomination.
You're nominating every creative choice this season for a Jenny
Land Award.
It's a really good season, Todd.
I think it is a very enjoyable fun season. puzzling creative
choices.
But there are puzzling creative choices all the way through, the
1970s.
There's a few other things in this story.
Joe mentions women's lib.
I think it's the 1st time she actually mentions that in episode
five.
Well, she says, haven't they heard of women's leave in the
Draconian...
Yeah, it's interesting.
I mean, obviously women's be with in the Time Monster doesn't...
Yeah, yeah, that it gets named...
So, you know, there's certainly this thought process going on with
Terence and Barry and, of course, influence, you know, next year.
Stephen Thorne and Michael Kilgara are both Ogrons in this story?
Yes.
Yes, yeah.
Do they go, we are following them.
We are on this course.
Which one of the one is the, which one of them is the Ogron in the
worst cliffhanger in the entire Purtle year?
I think that's Michael Kilgariff.
So he's sitting in a chair, a cliffhanger, cut two, Ogron sitting
in a chair watching the television, crash bang into the credits.
Yes.
My name is just before that because I remember thinking...
The master sets off a homing beacon so the Ogrons can follow him.
So I've got in my notes here.
So the Ogons are on the way.
Cliffhanger.
But I mean, it's so undramatic.
Cotton, I think, saying we're all done for is probably worse.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that one has bad acting.
This one doesn't even have acting.
No, it's just got sitting in a chair.
You know, I don't I don't think he even knew they were filming.
I get the impression that Michael could kill Garof did a fair
amount of sitting in a chair if his appearance in Attack of the
Sidemen is any indication.
But I do like at the end how that world is left and General
Williams and the Prince have to go back and deal with everything.
It's open-ended.
That story continues.
And you don't actually see like a nice little bow tied up.
And that follows that sort of fairly open structure where it is
just a bunch of things that have happened.
And so we do bow out before a resolution.
And we know that a resolution's set up.
We know that it's possible.
We know that the Prince and General Williams are going back to
present evidence, God knows what evidence.
What are they taking anyway?
It doesn't matter. taking that creature.
The creature.
Scroto the magnificent.
It's called a scrotoid.
Really?
Yeah, that's the official sort of Linnaean classification of it.
And it's the thing that really ruins the whole ending of the
entire story.
So in dialogue, I think it's a large and savage reptile is the
dominant life form on this planet.
And Doctor Who, this is a Mac Hulk story, of course, it has large
and savage reptiles in it.
And we can be in no doubt at this stage that the Doctor Who
production team would be a wizard creating a large and savage
reptile convincingly for the screen, wouldn't they?
That would be awesome.
Oh, yes.
Certainly next year, they do a bang.
Oh, magnificent.
But instead they had this sort of wobbling scrotoid slug thing.
And we 1st see we see Ogron worshipping it.
There's a painting on the wall.
And then it comes and wobbles on the top of a cliff.
I quite like that and they all go, oh, the creature and run away.
I was laughing my head off and said, oh, that's great.
This was used in that little bit.
It's the monster.
Oh, the monster, sorry.
But it's there for like the briefest number of seconds because the
director really hates it.
Yeah.
And then when we go into the sort of bass, there's Joe and the
doctor there, they talk a little bit about the painting.
And so you think, well, that's clearly setting it up for a big
final appearance.
The big final appearance is the doctor turns on the hypno sound
ray thing to scare the ogons off.
And the Ogons go, ooh, the monster.
And then there's this sudden inexplicable and you go, what the
hell has happened?
Yeah, something sets off the master's blaster, which hits the
doctor in the head and he's unconscious.
And then every everyone's gone in about 2 seconds.
It's very strange and it's clearly the director has just edited
out, is he edited out the final appearance of the scroto?
No, he didn't actually film it.
I think he refused to and just did it as a shot of them running
away from an unseen monster.
And I think Barry and Terence said, this is not dramatic enough to
Cliffhanger into the Dalek story.
So they got David Maloney back.
Well, he's going forward because he's going to do the next...
When the story starts, they restaged that sequence so that because
the doctor could stumble into the Tartar and send a message and
collapse, which is then tagged onto the end.
But what the hell happens to the master?
Yes, yeah.
The novelisation does a much better job where, you know, the Ogons
aren't there.
It doesn't have the attack of the scrotoid, the imagined attack of
the scrotoid.
What it has is the master realises that General Williams and the
prince had escaped and he just kind of says, well, I guess this
plan may not work.
I've got what I want.
I can't remember what he wanted, but he's like, I've got what I
want.
You know, I've created a bit of chaos.
I'm gonna go off and do my own thing now.
And he kind of lets the doctor and Joe go and it means that Roger
Delgado's master.
And I think this is because the book was written after the fact of
this very untimely death.
It gives the master an ending where he just sort of packs away his
things and moves on to his next plan, you know, and it's a far
more, it's a far more fitting end.
Yeah, of course, at the time they didn't know this would be the
end of the master.
They were planning one more appearance for him, where they would
have written out the character.
Yeah, it's just a shame that his final appearance is such a, you
know, it starts off as a, oh, my dear doctor, I'm going to
confront you scene and then just descends into madness.
He dies just after episode 5 of the green death airs. is when the
accident happens.
So they would have just finished filming the time warrior, wouldn't
they?
Because that was filmed at the end of this season.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it was it was between the production blocks.
So they had a plan to bring him back for the Pertui finale.
Did they know Pertwee was leaving already?
They didn't know Pertwe was leaving.
They had a plan to bring him back for the finale of the next
season.
Right.
Pert, we had was considering leaving during production of The Time
Warrior, but he didn't decide to until the Monster of Peladin.
Yeah, well, I'm not surprised.
So, you know, it is such, it is such a bizarre ending.
It's not just a shame because it's the last scene we get with
Roger Delgado.
You know, why couldn't they have had the Daleks appear.
The Ogons are afraid of the Daleks.
They had the Daleks there.
Why not shoot it that way?
And it just leaves me wondering, how are we going to end our
episode?
That was Flight Through Entirety with Todd Beeley, Nathan
Bottomley, Brendan Jones.
This episode, Messi doesn't say very much.
That's recorded on the 3rd of April.
The next episode will be released on Sunday, April 26th.
When the doctor sees a purple horse with yellow spots.
It's a diplomatic conference.
When I see one, I'm wasting the court's time.
So the idea is that everyone remembers the 12 part Dalek mask.
Damn it.
Everyone remembers, it's just like Frogo all over again.