Hello and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor
Who podcast populated entirely by narrow hipped vixens and long
shanked rascals with mighty noses.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Elizabeth Slyn's Thorax for this episode.
And that can mean only one thing.
We are discussing season 11 of Doctor Who.
The final season of John Pertwey's Doctor, but the 1st season of
Dame Saint Elizabeth Slayton.
Yes.
DSSL.
What an E in, this is an E in this song.
O-B-E. So without any further ado, I think we shall head, yea, and
verily, to the Middle Ages for the time warrior.
Hey, we're here, bunk.
That was the sound of a special effect by Alan Bromley.
Did you miss it?
Because you don't need special effects.
You can really just flash a light on and off outside a cardboard
window and that'll do.
Is this everybody's favourite all time story, possibly?
It's my favourite of the season, I think.
I think Carnival of Monsters is a better homes per 2 story, but
this is pretty good and for similar reasons, I think.
I think we should start at the very beginning being the very best
place to start.
Nathan, you I believe you were just saying that this season holds
your very 1st memorable moment of watching who.
This is my 1st, all the boys at school were saying, oh, you know
getting frightened of Doctor Who, and, you know, Doctor Who's
terribly frightened.
I said, it's not.
There's nothing frightening and I wanted to be frightened.
And then at the end of episode one of Time Warrior.
There's the reveal.
Kevin Lindsay shows this big ugly Australian bonce. you know, in a
big brown rubber condom, and it's, um, with the greatest joke of
civilisation that the helmet perfectly fits the shape of the
head.
That was like the real design.
And then he does that thing with his tongue and you realise it's
new Doctor Who, and it will never be the same again.
And it was frightening. the only moment I've ever been afraid of
this story.
And I saw links that they put at my bed that night in 1975.
Yes, I had Kevin Lindsay the front of my bed.
It's my favourite title sequence in the history of everything.
I think me too.
Really?
It's just, have we talked about the occult effect and stimulus of
that was going around at the time in popular music and popular
film in England.
They call it Black Aquarius.
It now has the Black Aquarian movement.
Mark Gatis has blogged about it and been interviewed about this
period in British folklore, if you like, for the end of the 60s
with the time of light aquarian.
They even mention, when they talk about this era, the demons, and
that that was picking up on this really satanic movement in, I
guess, pop culture.
I mean, it all dribbles down to you get Hammer horror films.
You get a lot of Carolyn Monroe.
But the Doctor Who title sequence itself under the pertly era, the
early, the 1st 4 seasons, is very much picking up on that.
There was the right of weight tarot where everybody, every party
you went to, someone pulled out a deck of the right of weight
tarot that everybody's seen.
So that kind of neo-Arthurian thing, that it goes back to Alistair
Crowley and his golden dawn.
Alistair Crowley's face was actually used for the character of
Blowfeld.
His appearance is based on that.
So in the 67 film, you only live twice.
Donald Pleasant's appearance is based very much on Alistair
Crowley's face.
Without that.
We didn't have a beard as such, but he had, nor did he have a cat
but just that very round face and no earlobes that Blowfeld is
famous about.
But Crowley was a famous mountaineer, just like Brian Blessed.
Lots of thing to do with Brian Blessard.
And, and, you know, and the whole cult of magic, but they were
dark satanic rituals going on at, um, and the, several commons and
and heaths around England, people were reporting odd goings on.
Carolyn Monroe talked about doing a shoot of a film where they
were conducting a satanic rite and suddenly all the props, curtains
started moving, but there was no air in the studio.
Mark Gaters loves telling that story.
That's actually been picked up on by a big Finnish play as well by
John Dorney called Special Features.
It's part of their 4 stories in single episodes, releases that
they do from time to time, and this is Peter Davidson.
This is the 5th doctor pretty much giving a hammer horror
commentary.
And it's talking about all these spooky things that happen.
And being a Doctor Who story, it's all down to an alien influence
but it very cleverly evokes that whole Hammer horror period.
It reminds me a few weeks ago, a very good friend of the podcast
John Edwards Davies, shared on our page, a very rare interview
with Peter Cushing. in which Peter talks about his work on Hammer
and offers the very interesting perspective that Frankenstein
doesn't believe that he's evil.
Frankenstein is trying to save lives.
Through his experiments, you know, and all these pesky villages
keep turning up with pitchforks.
So it kind of...
Morris dancing about...
Morris dancing about the place.
I mean, Morris was very popular.
He was, wasn't he?
We're actually in season 11 and we've kind of moved on, I guess
from all of that, but we've still got a taste of it in what's left
what's left of that cult in British culture, if you like, that's
kind of disappearing by 74, 75 when everyone's having to face the
darker realities of economic crisis and on the end of a folk era.
But the title sequence still has a taste of that.
This one, of course, this season now, I kind of feel like it's the
greatest hits of Pertwe, isn't it?
And if we're jumping further ahead.
But for all of that, this is the 1st time time meddler doesn't
count.
This is the 1st time we actually have how we now see pretty much
once a season in Doctor Who, we got an historic story with a
monster.
Do you know, I was actually thinking that as well.
So is this the birth of, we call them the pseudo-historicals now.
But do you think abominable snowmen is pseudo-historical?
Because they're robo wants to try. about 30, 40, 40 years before
the present day.
I think this is the 1st proper one.
Do you know what I mean?
It's the one that's held up as being, you know, where the writers
go to when you want to do it.
Because it was surprisingly more successful, maybe not so much in
the ratings where I think it was pretty much the same as
everything else.
They started too early.
Remember they started in December rather than in January.
So a lot of the audience members didn't actually know that Doctor
Who was on for some reason.
So it only picked up. a week and a half before Christmas on the
15th of December.
Yeah.
And Barry Letts was, you know, a lot of this season, you're
getting terrific writers coming in, you know, the all the old
stalwarts because Barry and Terry going off and doing their
spectacular new show called Moonbase 3 Don't we all remember
that?
Well?
Golly.
They really, they really were.
They really were trying, weren't they?
Well, I can't wait till we get to invasion of the dinosaurs and we
can talk more about Mendes 3 and just whatever happened to that
one.
But yeah, this is a fave story. apparently. all I can, all I can
think of is just, you know, so much of it that's in the glaring
strobe lighting of history where, okay, we've got a new
companion.
The utterly adorable Elizabeth Sladden, who apparently, well
according to the production team, oh, it's time we had a character
who, you know, was interested in women's libs.
So didn't you have that actually in 1970?
Oh yeah, but no, this one, this time, you know, it will be, she'll
be really, really strongly a woman's liver.
And we'll make sure by making every single character in this story
utterly sexist in their remarks, up to and including than a deer
of Pertweese comments, you know, when they 1st meet.
Oh, it is just, it's pretty appalling.
I mean, even Professor Rubish. my favourite line actually from
Professor Ruby, she'll say the show has never done before or
since.
Remember when he looks at pertly and says, I should have thought
he was a bit old for that sort of thing by now.
Yes, yes.
I thought I thought that was wonderful.
I mean, I think this is the 1st time that someone has mistaken the
doctor companion relationship for a romantic or sexual one.
Yeah, aside from the viewers, obviously going, oh, Billy just
wants to cuddle up with Barbara.
Yeah, well, you know, didn't we all?
Yeah, I think I think it's they's kind of throw it for us as the
audience as well.
To, um, just wonder where this new companion fits in and how she's
going to fit.
Do you know the origins of Sarah?
There was going to be a girl companion plus another companion
called Smith who would be allied to unit on a kind of pro rata
sort of basis, just floating about and being a spy on the ground
and filtering stories to them.
So somehow involved in the modern press, you know, new media.
And if odd goings on were happening, a bit department S, really
that there would be, or, you know, so she was a girly Jason King
if you like, and she was a writer who was a journalist who was
also going to be, you know, able to tell them if odd things were
happening. outside their usual means of investigation.
The way that Mickey Smith calls, um, in school reunion calls the
doctor and Rosebank to investigate Strange.
No, it's funny you say that because, yes, someone else has picked
up on that as well on one of the blogs.
I don't think it was at the Sand if I...
We haven't mentioned Santa Fe at this broadcast, have we?
And what he, do you know what, Sandy?
will.
Take a drink, dear, listen.
Well, it's interesting.
I mean, does everyone know the story of the Time Warrior?
Do you think the listener knows them?
I think it is worth...
I think it is worth talking about because they hadn't been back in
time. like there's a bit in time, Monster, but essentially we
haven't travelled back in time. doesn't really count. does it?
No.
Holmes was given the job of writing something mediaeval by
Terrence Dix, the script editor.
And as usual, if you give home something to do that he doesn't
want to do, he will, he'll do it for you in a way that you don't
really want.
And so, and so he actually actively subverts and makes fun of the
whole mediaeval setting.
So the mediaeval setting is as thin as humanly possible.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it's got King Richard's off at the Crusades, but that's
really basically it.
It's 2 castles in an isolated forest with nothing, no other world
building of any sort of kind.
And then when Sarah turns up.
She actually massively undermines the whole thing.
Exactly.
He points it all out, yeah.
She says, you know, is it a themed restaurant?
Do you know what I mean?
film set.
Is it a, and then there's a fantastic moment where she accuses
Iron Gronen Blood Axe, more of him later.
I think because they're the loveliest romantic couple should ever
appear in Doctor Who up to this point.
She accuses them of overdoing the sordid realism.
And Holmes has got to be writing that line aware of the fact that
it's just going to be a studio with a bit of straw on the floor
and sort of painted walls and there's going to be no sordid
realism sort of anywhere near it.
You know, he deliberately subverts it.
And then he will take his revenge on Terrence by making him write
a lighthouse story in a couple of years time.
What's also amazing about that whole scene with Sarah saying
you're overdoing the sort of realism a bit.
I know the tourists expect a bit of grot or whatever, is that
Sarah is perfectly fine in in her element and thinks she knows
what's going on until she sees an alien, not the TARDIS, which is
bigger on the inside than the outside.
Not a bunch of people running around like it's the Middle Ages.
Oh, maybe it really is.
No, it takes a bloody alien to flap Sarah Jane Smith.
She is fabulous and she's hitting, like, she gets caught by
someone and she's just slapping him repeatedly as he drags her
off.
It's quite a bit of Bugs Money Looney tunes in this merry, you
know, in this...
I don't know, and some nice little nods again to, um, not
mentioning Gatis again, and my favourite Robin Hood version is the
1938 one with Basel Rathbone and Errol Flynn.
There's some little lovely moments of this, but I don't think
we've ever had a character like Iron Grown before.
I don't even know if we've had one since.
David Dacre.
Well, you know it was actually going to who it was going to be
don't you?
No.
I was a Bob Hoskins.
Brilliant.
It's so clever, isn't it?
Well done.
Linda, you're...
Yeah, it was Bob Hoskins, but he got sadly involved with something
else, but I'm really glad we have David Dacre.
And John Carney, I think it is, who plays Blood Ox, was actually
cast for his looks because they said that he would be sort of the
internet twilated and kind of an gaman compared to the stocky
ruddy David Daker.
So just a lovely coupling.
And the adoration in his eyes when he's looking at it.
But I'm reminded again of that of that Looney Tunes character, of
the bulldog and the little puppy running around, doing the same
thing. you can just sort of think, oh, look, you two.
I don't know.
Well, they only have wenches to, you know, stir the oatmeal and
lusty enough they are on that too.
The dialogue is so, again, you know, because Holmes, the dialogue
is really funny.
And because he's making fun of the mediaeval thing.
He has, he has them say things like beshroomy.
You know, chicken-hearted knaves and way-faced poltroons and stuff
like that. dialogue is...
And it's sad that it's only a 4 parter and yet Monster of Peladon
will get 6 episodes.
Again, that was a cost saving measure because they already had the
sets and they thought it would be cheaper for them.
But you know what?
Even the production crew at the time were sitting there saying
bloody hell, we've got Dot Cotton and that old Nance, Sir Edward
who later turns up as another old man, Doctor Who later on.
Funnily enough.
So Edward Wessex in the Time Warrior played by Alan Rowe.
So he's in this story that Robert Holmes didn't want to write, and
Terence Sticks forced him to write.
And where does he turn up again, Nathan?
Is he skin sale?
Skin sale in Horror of Fang Rock here?
Which is the story?
He's skin sale, and he turns up in the horror of Fang Rock, which
is the story Terrence Dix had to write for Robert Holmes.
It's the revenge.
It's the revenge story and even features the same actor.
And of course, he was a longtime partner to Jeffrey Balden.
He was.
He was, our very own, our very own Jeffrey Berlin.
And almost the doctor, I think, 3 times.
Yeah, I think so.
Billy Pertwee and Baker.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That Fred each time.
And finally, of course, became the doctor on Big Finish opposite.
Carol Anne Fool.
He's a bit good in that too, isn't he?
We always knew he would be a bit good in that.
Speaking of, you know who it was meant to be, I think at this
point we have to talk about the original Sarah Jane Smith.
April Walker.
And did you know that Barry Lett's up until his dying breath would
not reveal who that was?
We had a fan out a year or two ago.
Yeah, after he passed, yeah.
And it was slipped in very quietly to the production subtitles of
an invasion of the dinosaurs.
And so she was cast and paid for an entire episode. the entire
season.
The reason that she was replaced is that pertly felt that someone
of her stature, because she was tall, I think she was as tall as
him and very solid.
He's like, my doctor is protective and I won't be able to protect
her and she's very overtly sexy and we shouldn't have an overtly
sexy character was his was his view.
And I think that's very churlish considering he chose to leave 3
months later.
Yeah.
She was devastated.
Yeah.
If you don't know who she is.
She is in a Faulty Towers episode.
And she plays Gene in the episode, the wedding party.
Yeah, that's right.
So, yeah, not the Australian that Basil, you know, bondles
inadvertently.
Yeah, looking for the light switch.
No, no.
But the woman who's going to the wedding and she is very tall and
very confident and she would have been great.
But we get Liz.
Liz is amazing.
She is really, really good.
Like, I love Joe. Like, I think Joe's a great character.
She's been terrific for these 3 years.
Her leaving was devastating.
But Liz is, she's sort of snarky and oppositional without being
unlikeable.
Yes.
And she does scared and brave at the same time.
And that's what they said she was so good at, no one else had
been.
And she is.
She carries that off in stories further along the season.
She really rescues key scenes in Death to the Daleks and Monster
Peladon, just by being able to do that.
But in this one, she's just sublimely perfect.
And as Liz herself said, never again do you get Sarah Jane in such
concentrated cordial flavour as you do in this one?
It's really astringent SJS.
You don't you don't ever get her being quite like this ever
again.
Do you know the 1st day of shooting, though?
She was so nervous.
It was when she's being carted into the, and some of her finest
moments in there, so actually ad-libs or mistakes that they kept
in because they found it so charming.
She slips into Scouse.
She a Liverpoolian lass, you know, and of course, when she gets
cranky, Her line of I could murder a cup of tea, as she was
getting more confident, was an ad lib.
But also when the 2 lusty lads on it, he'll pick her up and she
says, she's out, shout, shouts out, gear off.
Yeah, girl.
Yeah, that's ugly. a mistake.
She wanted it.
She pleaded to get it cut.
He said, no love, it's perfect.
Yeah, because it's so sad that so many regional actors at that
time worked to get rid of their accents and it would only come out
in extremists.
The other great thing about that 1st scene she shot is John
Pertwee grabbed...
He had this little fold up chair and he grabbed it and he sat next
to the director watching her scene and she was terrified.
That's right.
With his hand in his chin and his great, long, shaky nose staring
down at her.
You know, she said to him, apparently, he was like, John, I was
terrified.
He said, oh, no, darling, that's me saying, I, I, I was, I was
being there to support you.
I was saying, look, you're going to be wonderful.
You're so wonderful.
I don't have to be here and I am, which is...
It's like, I'm blessing you with my And also your bum will be up
on you shoulders.
So I'll be like, I can't miss a scene like that.
But isn't it, isn't she notoriously have this sort of, this
interesting state with with pertwe that behind the scenes is that
didn't he chat her up and she said, no, thanks, sir.
I'm a working girl, but not in that way.
Well, I don't know that.
That's certainly true of Patrick McNe and Diana Rigg on the
Avengers.
Yeah, that was Pat and everybody on the Avengers.
He tried that when they were girls.
Apparently Patrick McNee took Diana Rigg out to dinner after their
1st days filming.
And as Patrick McNee puts it, we were absolutely outrageous.
And as the night wore on, the topic moved to workplace
relationships, Diana apologised and said that she only made
exceptions for men of intellect.
I really hope a similar scene had happened here that I somehow
died. gotten rid of that ruddy humobile before I even look at you
twice.
It could have been one of the lines.
But we're all jumping ahead because there's so much in this season
isn't there?
Why do we love this story so much?
At base, it's pretty simple story, isn't it?
Well, in fact, it just becomes a series of silly capers, actually.
With some brilliant actors.
Yeah, yeah.
But once it's sort of set up, basically it's lots of cunning plans
to try and be deep.
And they're, you know, like silly plants like the doctor and Sarah
dressing as friars and...
In his Wurzel postman voice.
Did you know that's his favourite scene?
That was Pert's favourite moment in this whole story.
And actually, when he's at his most relaxed, You can see this is
really probably the point where those 2 really gel together as an
acting couple and they're...
Unlike the guards they get past, who are...
With the worst accents comedy ever...
You will find him a kind and charitable.
I mean, he obviously thinks he's doing an episode of Monty
Python's flying circus with that.
It's not even good enough to be black at her, is it?
But then Pertwee trumps them all with his Wurzel voice.
It's really appalling There's lots.
There's so much to love. tends to do quite a few voices in this
because he gets to do the Wurzel Boys.
He gets to be the robot.
You will damage my circus.
Is that the weakest point in the story, actually?
The whole notion of the Mickey Mouse robot thing?
That feels like Padding.
You know, I quite like it.
I quite like because it's kind of like what Robert Slyman does
which is play on variations of an idea.
And in terms of the Santara, okay, what can he give them?
He can give them flintlocks, but that's not so exciting.
That's something we have.
What's something he can give them that we in the 20th century
don't have, but every little boy loves will give him a robot.
Yeah.
And we do see in the next Santaran story, we're getting ahead of
ourselves, I know, but Santarans do seem to have a skill with
robotics.
With terrible, terrible, unconvincing, terrible...
Do you know what Santa says?
Yes, sir.
He makes points.
That links is the scientific advisor to a military organisation.
No, but he is. the miniature organisation being iron grown and
he's bumbly chums.
No, I think he's onto a good point.
I think Holmes is actually lampooning because Holmes is so meta
clever, but he's actually going right back to the beginning of
Barry Lett's tenure and saying, well, okay, let's just make
another show within a show, which he always does if you want to
look for it.
And Santa has taught us to see that and to find it. this, yeah
you're right.
This is a reboot of season 7 inside the story of this season 11.
Or it's like the introduction of the master.
What Xander says is, you know, these days we think of some Torrens
is, you know, like the 5th most popular Doctor Who monster or
something, but Holmes is just inventing a single character links.
And it's one actor pulling it off in the Mr. Potato head and
silvery spacey quilting.
And it's the lovely Kevin Lindsay.
Hands on hips, everyone.
Kevin Lindsay.
I am a Sontaran.
I think it's pronounced on Terran. from the bloody place.
That's right.
Saunterrant, the director wanted it.
Yeah, except he didn't say bloody.
It's so good.
And the little silly flag popping up, which again is very duck
dodgers in the 24th and a half.
Well, yes, he doesn't he conquer the earth and its associated
moons and satellites with his little flag.
But a little flag.
It's like the Eddie Isard thing. you know, do you have a flag?
But again, David Dacre and Bloodax coring, though, it's just, it's
really the 3 of them.
And Alan Roe and the fabulous dot cotton.
We got to get to Lady Eleanor.
There's even lines cut...
There are lines cut out in this, that even the production team
even Terence thought, oh, we're probably being a bit too sexist
because it's a bit hand fisted in the way they say, you know, a
liberated character.
Let's make everyone, as we were going to say earlier.
Professor Rubich has a line that was cut out about female brains
not being the right form to carry thoughts about science
proficiently.
And there are a couple of lines on Lady Eleanor.
But we were saying before, the production team would have liked
another 2 episodes, to give the Wessex characters, to give how the
Boba Fett archer type guy, another go and, well, we know what was
going to happen with Halle Archer, don't we?
Potential companion.
Exactly.
He was another Jamie.
He was there because they were still not cast.
It's still not Cast Baker, and they hadn't actually got to it
until Invasion of the Dinosaurs was filming.
So it was really getting to be a panic.
So they thought, we might need this bloke.
And it was, can you imagine how well that would have worked
because they'll never do that in a show, would they?
meet a companion and then the next story just oddly go back and
pick them up again and say that, you know, for no good reason at
all.
Yes, exactly.
I've never seen Lagopolis either.
I wouldn't know what we're talking about.
I think at this stage, I think at this stage, they were worried
that John would leave because John had asked for his rise, which
had been...
His yearly rise.
And yeah, his yearly rise had been turned down.
But we, like, he was making noises about leaving.
Barry and Terence apparently decided to leave during production of
The Time Warrior, which happened immediately after the Green
Death.
John, because this is still actually a shoot part of season 10
isn't it?
John apparently didn't finally decide to leave until production of
Death to the Daleks.
And we'll have fun splotting which scene it is where we think I
think I think it's when he's calling out Hamlet lines to the
root.
I do actually have a, I do actually have a theory on why that is
but we'll wait until we get to this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because we're jumping around twisty-turny here.
That's an interesting point when they were saying, you know, he
asked for more money and Sean Sutton, the controller.
And old Chandler Pertwee, actually.
They went back to the radio days together in the 50s.
Barry Letts, before he passed, was quite adamant that knows, is
one of those stories that John has it being a raconteur, had a
certain way of telling stories to the point that he ended up
believing them himself.
So Barry Letts, almost 10 years after John Pertwee's own passing
in 96.
So in the early 2000s, was saying, um, that's not the case at
all.
I was the executive producer.
I was in charge of budget.
If my leading man had wanted a rise, I would have handled it
through the budget of the show.
Sutton would not have told that to Pertley.
There were a whole lot of other things going on.
But we're still a bit hazy about it.
I like, maybe when we get to the end of the season, we can we can
look at what's going on here because it's a bit like season 18.
There's a certain sadness.
There's a certain languidness in Pertley's performance and I
actually like him a lot in this season.
I really came.
This is the season I knew when I 1st came to Doctor Who as a
child's, and that's why I love Perby so much, because you get all
of that, uh, hubristic acting isn't kind of here so much. certainly
not in this story.
He's a little bit more comical.
I had, like, I've made cracks on the podcast before about pertly
retiring from acting.
It's fair, actually.
Well, but when I watch season 11, I actually, he was the doctor
that I remember both we being when I 1st started watching the show
and he's, he's not obnoxious.
He's a little bit more amused.
He's charming in this one.
Yeah, and I think maybe the departure has more to do with Katie
leaving and Roger dying.
Yeah, I think that's important.
And Barry and Terrence being on the way out as well.
And unit being only...
I mean, unit's just a curtain party, isn't it?
peekaboo from the brigadier and that's it.
It had actually been that for the last couple of seasons.
That was the other thing that struck me is that season 11
basically has a sort of fairly similar structure to the previous
few seasons where we top and tail with a story with unit, unit
gets the big finale is kind of vaguely in the 1st story, but we
don't see it for the rest of the season.
And we've done that for a couple of years now.
Well, I think pert we, possibly because he's considering living
and then decides to leave, does become more relaxed in the role.
He doesn't have to worry about how he is perceived because he's on
the way out anyway.
It, it, take him to an, taken to an extreme.
I mean on the way out of the role.
But he was very big on his own perception.
Paddy Russell would go on to talk about an invasion of the
dinosaurs.
Russell was complaining that and most of the cast and crew, that
his entire attitude was kind of apathetic, except to his costume.
Every, every, in every story in this one, his, his interest in
wardrobe was paramount, and he would spend most of the time
fussing about with wardrobe, or indeed answering the door as he
does in Time, Warrior, to, um, to Adjournal in, in curlers and a
corset.
Do you know that story?
No.
Yeah.
Oh really?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, because he got drenched.
So they had to perm his hair.
Yeah.
Don't you wish that had made the cover of the radio times?
Getting back to the time worry, though.
Of course, this is before all this has come to pass and the
arguable apathy takes hold. is so strange to consider that this is
produced before everything else.
He has, by the time of invasion of dinosaurs, he has noticeably
aged.
Hmm, his hair, his hair is more bouffant than in time warrior.
He has a few more lines on his face.
And also Time Warrior would have been shot just a few weeks after
you know, his best friend left the show.
And yet he is so full of verve and vigour and just gels with
Elizabeth Sladen immediately.
Yeah, what makes this story work?
And really, there's not that much going on.
It's got some pretty scenery.
You can see that the budget on this is tiny compared to Planet of
the Daleks. you realise that?
But it does what BBC does so well, is they put on a few bits of
old green felt and, you know, and forsooth your way through the
new forest. through your way.
And they do it beautifully.
And it's really down to wonderful Kevin Lindsay, who does so much
with really not that much to work with and pertly allowing
everyone else, including Liz, to take centre stage.
That's a new thing for this doctor.
Yeah, I mean, the relationship between the doctor and Sarah is so
different to the doctor and Katie, and I think it's, I think it's
a great testament to Pertwee and to Barry and Terence, that they
didn't just try and replicate it.
They realised that the that Sarah's character wouldn't respond to
the doctor's paternal instinct in the same way that Casey did.
So they have fun with that instead.
The whole you could make us a cup of coffee line.
Now, between the doctor and Joe, that would just be a bit of
playful banter.
But from the doctor to Sarah, yeah, it gets her back right up and
you kind of go, actually, yeah, there's no reason that she has to
go off and make his coffee.
And it makes you question that dynamic.
Also, it makes the doctor take her more seriously.
He doesn't try any of that again.
And then later on...
He slapped into place, isn't he?
When she's helping him out with the sewing and the stink bombs and
whatnot, he talks to her as an equal straight away.
There's none of this ham fisted bun bender.
Dont worry, Joe, you're a bit cloth headed kind of thing.
He does actually say bum bender, doesn't he?
I watch I watch Terror of the Ordons again.
Yeah, there's all those lovely moments in the forest when he's
taking saltpetre, which, by the way, takes 6 months to make.
So, we're just as educational as the actual program we...
I need to look up the details of that.
It's in my notes.
What else can we say about this show?
So potatoes.
So there is a terrific scene, and it is a great counterpoint to
all the modern day stuff about, you know, relationships between
men and women.
Sarah, as one of the sort of hilarious japes and schemes that
characterise the last couple of episodes of this story, is dressed
as a lady initially and ends up in Meg's kitchen, but ends up
working as a serving wench, and she's peeling potatoes, probably
which, of course, didn't arrive in England until...
But let's don't make a big deal of it, and it could be a Swede or
a turn.
It could be.
A turnip of their very own.
I like to think it's a tiny, whimey sort of potato.
But there is a conversation with Meg the serving woman.
So Sarah does her kind of feminist speech and it really is the
only overtly feminist thing that she kind of says.
She objects to being patronised, which I guess is something that
you get feminists to say on television at this time they get Ruth
Ingram to do it in time monster.
So she objects to being patronised early, but the 1st time that
she says, you know, men don't own us.
You know, they don't tell us what to do.
And Meg says, well, you know, yes, they kind of do.
And she says, oh, you're living in the Middle Ages, but then she
patches herself and realises it's a stupid thing to say and sort
of doesn't say anymore.
But just before that, Meg has said that men were always like
children, you know, with their brawling and like she has a
contempt for the men in the castle as well.
So, you know, there is a sort of bit of proto-medieval feminism
there.
It's a kind of cowser point, Sarah.
Sheila Faye.
I think there should be in a Sheila Faye appreciation society.
She has been another Doctor Who stories, hasn't she?
But Meg, the kitchen, Uber, Meister.
She's got a great accent.
She's so good.
And that hair.
It does take a lot of effort to get your hair like that.
Nathan, I see that your eyes are wandering.
Would you care to comment on?
Because I'm not that I'm pushing the liberation point here, but I
believe that you may well be...
So, when I was a kid, you may well be looking at my thorax.
When I was a kid, I thought the famous line about your thorax
being of a different construction, Richard was about Sarah's lack
of an Adam's apple.
I thought it was a thinner neck.
Yeah, and and Lynx actually grabs her chin.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And Russell reuses the joke in the poisoned sky when the
Sontarians are reintroduced.
Again, it seems to be about the neck, but your thorax isn't your
neck, it's your chest.
It is.
And so it's that she has breasts.
Must be substances.
As we say in the BBC.
It's a Bob Holmes breastroke.
There you go.
That's not the only one.
You know, and considering how top heavy Santarians are, it's like
easy there, Ty.
So it was that, and of course, one thing that we haven't mentioned
is this is the 1st mention of the planet, Gallon.
Yeah.
It certainly is, thank you.
It's a lovely Irish vineyard somewhere, isn't it?
It's just dropped without much ceremony.
It's just, I am from Gallifrey.
It's almost as if, the same to the audience, you know that.
You've heard it before.
Actually, I think by that point the name had been published in the
Radio Times 10th anniversary special.
Oh, okay.
I, you know, because this had already been shot by that point.
The only other name it had been given is in TV comic, and it was
called the Planet Jewel, as in JEWE, as in Jimmy, not as in...
Hitty-hitty.
Yes, yes.
Yeah, that would have been boring.
Yeah.
Well, a bit spangly, although we've seen 3 doctors and it wasn't
entirely inappropriate.
Of course, the planet game show.
It's a game show sense.
Grant Denya's there.
So what jobs can a time lady do?
You know, Berlitz was going to direct this one that Bromley was
brought in at the last minute, and Bromley was renowned.
We haven't talked about direction on this one.
It's seen as a bit ploddy, isn't it?
It's all right.
But he's actually seen, apparently, the heads and nodders.
So all this is terrific.
Bromley was really good old school BBC. which is why you don't get
a lot of camera movement in this.
His old school fixed cameras, 3 on a set.
Did you notice how the scenes are really elongated as they were in
the 50s when he was, you know, at his prime, working full-time for
the BBC, on historical dramas.
So you've got a lot of these static shots with the folk moving
around.
I actually think the elongated scenes work a lot better for this
to give the more of the banter between the characters.
Something that I don't think we get so much these days in Modern
Doctor Who.
I like that a naturalistic conversation can play out or Sarah's
whole thing about the dinginess is a very long scene.
You wouldn't really get in a 45 minute story nowadays, and I'd
really love it for that.
Yeah, his performances that he directs are good.
The set design's very good as well.
That's a great idea, except for the special effects, especially...
And Barry hated this, the destruction of the castle at the end
which is just a quarry wall falling down.
We could do a model, Barry said, you know, we do models.
He said, oh, you don't need to spend the money on that, you know
and yeah, it was old school BBCs to save every cent.
Yeah, yeah.
So and that's why for DVD, this was a candidate for digital
effects, most of which are very good.
Really?
I actually...
The castle is a bit ropey, unfortunately, but as the animator
later came out and defended himself, he said, you know what?
In the time frame I had and the software I had, that is the best
work you can do with flames and do tell me that it's worse than a
quarry falling on you.
Actually, as a child, I thought the quarry thing was fine.
You know, I've never even noticed that there's a digital effects
option on everything.
No, the lasers, like the lasers are really good.
The crushing Santaran ship is much, much better.
Um, I mean, given that the original crashings on tar and shit was
a front tax, your projected tennis ball on a stick.
Which was cut out.
You just get the flashing light.
Even they said, no, you can't use that.
You know, when you get that white thing, they did, that was
actually done as an optical.
But the tennis ball wasn't used because it was so bad.
Right?
Okay.
I thought that was the tennis. white thing and you just see the
glow from under the window.
Remember that?
Again, it's all fine.
I don't mind that it's ropey.
It has a certain sense of being, it almost feels like a television
drama from the 50s.
It's not very affects heavy in any case.
Not at all.
You know, it links sort of appearing as a blue, ethereal
apparition, the stairs in episode one.
That's very good.
That scared me as a kid.
Yes.
Lighting and roll back and mix, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. and yet it's very effective.
So, you know, it's certainly special effects wise, it's not all
bad.
I think for Barry, it hurt the most because Doctor Who's special
effects had improved so much under his tenure because he pushed
and pushed and pushed for the latest technology.
And yeah, you know what?
didn't always work, but it did always look interesting at the very
least.
Speaking of special effects on the up, we're heading back to
London now.
For some sort of invasion by dinosaur.
Guess where we are.
London, right next door to Wimbleton Common.
Yes, filming illegally, filming illegally.
Gorilla style stunt filming.
It's amazing.
And the 1st 6 minutes of episode one of Invasion.
Invasible dinosaurs all on film.
It's so good.
And it feels like Amiga Man or Saul and Green or any of those
dystopian pictures that are coming out around this time of a
deserted lunch and you think, this is great.
It's eerie, it's darker.
And isn't it lovely that, as we've noticed later on in the season
when we start to see the doctors' hairdressing equipment, the
Cyril Shaps, that he's got one in the TARDIS?
Because Sarah steps out with an entirely new bob.
Lovely Bob, little Bob.
And the doctor's hair again has become somewhat more than it was
in the previous story.
So obviously they've had more than just a couple of hours in the
Tardis getting back here.
And Barry was not impressed with Sarah's haircut.
So they tried to style it to look as close.
I thought that was the entire explanation for the equipment you
see in Spelanet, the spiders later on.
But look, this really does start off so well and all guns are
blazing and raise your pints too.
Dame Paddy Russell because she's bloody gorgeous in this, isn't
she?
She's such a good director.
Do you know what the last thing she directed was?
Tell us.
The massacre.
That's very interesting.
You know why those shots look so good at the London thing?
She went out and got a guy called Tony Lego.
Now, Tony Lego was renowned in the BBC for his documentary
handheld camera work, the Doco work, and he was really hard to
get.
She had to book in months ahead.
As soon as she knew she had this show.
She booked Tony Lego, but the BBC were very respectful of his
camera work knowing how good he'd been on the massacre. they are
the notes.
They are the show notes.
So yes, the massacre was still widely held as being a terrific
point in Doctor Who.
Within the BBC.
Even if it wasn't held itself.
But yeah, it starts off looking so so gorgeous.
So let's just get it out of the way now.
Do you know?
However, the dinosaurs.
They're not there yet.
What about the imperfectly colorised nature of London?
They return to an imperfectly colorised version.
Okay, of course, because the same colour recovery technology that
worked so well on Planet Daleks did work.
Invasion of the Dinosaurs, episode one simply called Invasion
to...
Yeah, on Paddy Russell's request, even though, as everyone
including Barry, let's point it out, hang on, they've actually
been in the radio times and everybody knows that dinosaur.
Yeah.
Malcolm Hook.
First of all, he wasn't impressed that he had to do a story with
dinosaurs.
His original story didn't have dinosaurs.
No, it didn't.
It was actually more of an alien invasion, alien alien.
As aliens brought back Hitler.
It was Danger Five.
It was and deserted London again, but it would have been much more
like an episode of Department S, which is what they were actually
pitching forward this one with a really uncanny opening scene.
Kind of like late Diner Rig Avengers or Tyra King Avengers
something very odd going on in a terri nation mould.
And then clicking in with the rest of it.
So you're saying that Malcolm Hulk is objecting to writing a story
about giant lizards.
It's like, it's kind of time cast, he doesn't want to do any more
giant lizards.
They're played.
Do you know what I mean?
So it is politics and giant lizards, and that's always his his
obsession every every gear.
They wheeling back in to do some giant lizards and politics.
And I think he does a great job.
Do you know what I mean?
The politics in this story is amazing.
And that's what's left over from the original story and the
character of Professor Whittaker.
It's a lovely homage, isn't it?
That's Whittaker in the novel.
One of the great things about this story.
The story is the novel.
You've gone to my go-to for this, because I, of course, in the 70s
I should mention to Brendan, this is one of the pert ways, even
though we had pertly stories all throughout in the early 80s.
This was one of the many that we just never got to see.
Yeah, and then in the 80s, when I was watching Doctor Who, It was
always sold as a five-part story with part 2 retitled episode one
and so on.
And so for me as a kid.
It was actually quite amazing coming into this story and the
doctor and Sarah are already chained up in the, what the hell has
gone on?
And yeah, I don't think I actually saw the 1st episode until it
came out on DVD.
And on the DVD, you actually have to specially select the colour
version. and it's not very good.
And yeah, well, it's okay.
It's not, I was expecting it to be quite bad when they said that
they didn't put it on as the default because they weren't 100
happy with it.
So when I put it on, I'm like, okay, yeah, I can see, especially
most of the problems seem to be in the 1st 5 minutes and then it
settles down a bit.
Or you get used to it.
We're talking about the story or are we trying?
So what happens is the version, oh, you won't remember this, but
it was 1st broadcast in that five-part version in Australia, I
think, in...
Well, that's the version I had as a child.
Yeah.
It was shown in the 70s, but we were very, very young.
I don't remember.
Well, episode one wasn't returned to the archives until 83
apparently.
You know the story with this one?
I don't think that's true.
I think it's a myth.
Do you mean the story where they thought...
There are 2 stories, yeah.
That it was one of the 1st to be shelved.
It was actually, this one was scheduled to be scrapped, as it
turns out by Mr. Litz himself.
He was the one who put the rubber stamp on it in late 74 before
the perpi season had even, you know, where they were do Pamela and
Ash was doing the scrapping of a lot of 60s stories.
And the myth has got about that, oh, it was called invasion, and
that's why, no, it's actually a mistake.
The reason the later episodes, episode 2 and on, in the archive is
because they'd made a mistake and just scrapped the 1st episode
they were meant to scrap all of them, and it was under Barry Letts
the hest, because he couldn't bear it, and it's because of the
dinosaur stuff.
You know, I think that is a bit more believable.
And I think Malcolm Hawke is very clever in that Barry Letts was
so confident they could do dinosaurs because the people behind the
drash eggs recommended this puppeteer who said, oh yeah, I can do
you dinosaurs.
I think Malcolm Hawk was a lot cleverer and thought, you know what
I don't think they can do dinosaurs and doctors budget.
So he pushes them right to the background with the unfortunate
exception of, I think, 3 out of 5 cliffhangers involving the T-Rex
jump in for no reason, including the famous snogging scene when
the T-Rex has a passion of brontosaurus.
It's John Molineau has beautifully done with Serge Gainsborough's
Jeturn, the background being sung.
Have you seen that one?
on YouTube.
I have that I can imagine. pretty fantastic.
But that being said, you know, I think like most kids, I loved
dinosaurs when I was a young boy watching this.
And I have to say the only dinosaur that leaves me really
disappointed is the T-Rex.
I think the brontosaurus is actually really good.
I really like the stegosaurus and the triceratops.
What about the pterodactyl?
The pterodactyl.
No, it's plantently that.
It's a Muppet.
It's literally a Muppet.
When it's flying at them in the warehouse in episode one.
What everyone says is that this is, you know, quite a good, good
story letdown by woeful special effects.
But I actually found myself just smiling my face off every time
the dinosaurs came on screen this time.
I had such fun watching it.
They are really terrible.
And like the miniatures are also terrible.
Like, it's not just the dinosaurs, but the backgrounds against
which they appear.
It's always overcast in the location shoot, but the sky is
brilliantly blue in all of the model scenes.
You know, they look really, really terrible, but it's such fun.
It's so enjoyable.
Yeah, it really is.
And in fact, the hand puppet that they do, the T-Rex close-ups orb
the one with the opening and closing eye. it's completely
different It doesn't the mouth doesn't open, does it?
The mouth opens slightly, but also, like, the full size version
has this sort of weird pan our chocolat kind of shaped nostrils
whereas whereas the hand puppet doesn't.
The hand puppet looks great.
And in fact, when Toho Studios in Japan brought back Godzilla 10
years later in 1984.
That's how, for the 1st time, they decided to do Godzilla's
spatial expressions.
Rather than just do a close-up of the suit, they developed a
puppet, in this case, an animatronic.
So, you know, Dr. Moon wasn't into the game.
Clifford Cully, who was in charge of, was it Westbury design and
optical, and they were franchised to do the effects, and they'd
actually done film effects.
Not on that Harry, Harry House online, but that's what it was
pitched at stop motion.
But the production team gave them no time.
They only had a couple of weeks to do these models.
And you know how long it takes us to make these things, let alone
animate them.
He said, that's it.
There's got to be rod and string.
And everyone was starting to get very nervous when they realised
that.
So when they're lying down in the street shots, they don't look
okay.
But 973, 74.
They don't look all that bad.
It's when they have to move.
The problem is also.
They look like they're being dragged by the tail.
Well, because they are.
But also the problem is there was they used a really senior and
quite well known in the industry.
Our model makers, Rodney Fuller.
He'd led design before on these sorts of pictures. and he went on
to do, one of our dinosaurs is missing, if you remember that, as a
period.
It's got pretty much everyone, including pertwheat in it.
And it was only made a few months after this.
So Pertz went straight from Planet of the Spiders to form one of
our dinosaurs is missing.
I think I had the gaff view master version of it.
Let's hunt that out on YouTube at the end of the week and they're
all up there.
So look, the problems with actually, if you want to get really
techy and fabby about this is the cables that Rod Fuller put in
went up through the feet, so you couldn't get them to walk.
He didn't do it properly.
He thought it was going to be done as a stop motion.
So they were made to be stop motion puppets, not to be rotten
strings.
So you're not getting exactly.
I just have to defend the special effects, boys, because it's my
place.
They had done lots of rod and string puppets during the purchase.
Yes, and they're also successful, weren't they?
It's time.
Yeah, I love the manga.
The spiders later this year. are beautiful.
Some of my favourite puppets of all time on Doctor Who, that one.
I think you're right, Richard.
We've said about enough about the monsters.
Let's go.
Do you know what the point is?
Everyone blames the monsters.
It's actually not the monsters in this.
It's the bloody flat doll narrative.
There's not a lot in this to sustain 6 episodes.
I think this is a wonderful stroke.
Maybe because runabout rescue get lost, right?
But the whole it's using every... have we used trope here?
Every time, including the unit turning against the doctor.
It's kind of like an episode of Callen with, you know, shiny suit
5 is so boring where it hurts me. like he's in the middle of
London, but in a forest in the middle of London, I don't quite
know what's going on there.
Like he's hiding from unit Jeeps and things and it just goes on
forever.
I mean, it really does.
Yeah, but I think this comes back to something you were saying
earlier, Richard, which is...
Last year was a year long 10th anniversary party for Doctor
Who's.
Every story had some kind of throwback.
Yeah.
This year is, it's all about Pertwee's greatest hits.
So we get a monster invasion.
We get unit versus the regular army.
We get universe as the doctor.
We get along car chase.
We get a mad scientist.
And we also get the beginning of every story this season has
multiple guest cast members from earlier in the pert.
Yeah, the teams should be trying to make it comfortable for
Pertz.
We haven't talked about that yet by using actors he's worked with
before.
So of course, we've got Peter Miles back as Professor David
Whittaker, possibly.
Yes.
We all, we additionally have another guest cast member who was in
a previous per week. hoping it's Carmen Silvera.
And Carmen Silvera was in a Hartnell story, but there's actually
some...
What was she in name?
Yeah, she was in celestial twin.
Our favourite.
So yeah, we've all forgotten it.
But there's actually someone, there's actually someone in this
story who was in the Siburians.
Apart from Professor.
Apart from Professor Whitaker.
In episode one, one of the guards at the temporary prism, the
doctor and Sarah are taken to, is Dave Carter, who played the old
Silurian.
Really?
So we have 2 not only today.
I know.
He moisturised.
We have not only 2 returning pertly guest actors, we have 2
returning guest actors from the same story. wonderful.
We have Helio as Butler.
Yes, that's right.
Yeah, we do.
We have Martin Jarvis, who it turns out only took the role for his
children because by this time he was actually quite a big name
actor.
He was doing just William.
He was doing lots of television.
Actually, was he here ago?
Did I?
Yes, he was Captain Hilliard.
So it was someone famous as Zabi in that story?
Well, he wasn't famous at that point.
Oh, okay.
He had since become quite a big name, and he agreed to do it
because his children love Doctor Who, and he felt that, you know
he couldn't turn it down even if it was a small part.
But, you know, he did enjoy himself, but usually he wouldn't have
been playing such a small part.
He actually reads the novelisation and he does a hilarious Martin
Jarvis impersonation.
He's reading Butler's lines.
It's really good.
He does it very gruff.
Can I just throw some praise out there for the scene with Pertwi
at the military tribunal?
Now 1st of all, it's being silly.
He's being silly.
It's Malcolm Hook reusing a scene he wrote for the war games with
the military tribunal, but turning it into a comedy, rather than
something dramatic.
And what I love here is it is showing the evolution of the
character of Pertwee's doctor.
He actually tries to go along and play by the rules and be nice to
them and respect the military for what they're doing.
And then when they won't listen to him, he's like, right, now
we'll get out of here.
Well, he does the, how shall I stand?
Is this my better side?
Like, he does lots of things.
How about one of the 2 of us?
They're very cruel to him, though.
I think by this time everyone was having a bit of sport with Pertz
and I think Pertz was far too aware of it, which is why you're
going to appear to be so languid as to actually be doing a
different television show during this one.
Have you noticed some of the lines they're thrown in?
It's a stegosaurus, a splendid specimen.
You're trying saying that as John Pertweed.
There are plenty of others. down here too.
Keep going.
And oh, I forgot to mention last story with Walsh Watch, of course
Terry Walsh swung across the room on the chandelier in Time
Warrior in this.
He not only appears occasionally, it's pert we stunt double.
But in the 1st episode, the 2 looters who attacked John Pertwee
when they attacked John Pertwee, both of them are Terry Walsh.
Wow.
One after the other at all. spectacular.
And yet, driving through the door when the doctor and Sarah drive
through the door in the truck.
Frame by frame, it's pertly.
Kurt, we is driving through that door himself and Liz Slayton is
holding on for dinner.
It's like, okay, then. 3 weeks ago.
As you would expect from a Malcolm Hawkes group. just lots of
lovely character moments.
Benton in the 1st episode is using his brain by suggesting there's
some connection between power and the dinosaurs, which the brig
kind of dismisses and says, oh, it doesn't really matter.
Yeah, it gets a lot of dismissal on this one.
Did you notice that is it in that scene when pertly looks
supposedly at the brigadier, but he's actually staring right at
John Levine when he says, don't be ridiculous, but brigadier, the
brontosaurus is large, placid, and stupid.
Yes, to a bit more of that in.
And John Levine complained about it to the production folk, in a
jokey way at the end of that shot.
He was looking at me.
You'll notice it turns up in robot. not too far off.
You know, it's a wonderful story for both the unit supporting
cast.
It's not such a great story for Nick.
I mean, Nick just he just gets to be the brig.
But it's a great story for Richard Franklin. come back to that in
a moment.
It's a good one for Richard, and what a shock it must have been
for the young folk at the time to see a turncoat within the
ranks.
Our Mike. 4 years or something.
That Katie going off with a mushroom fancier must have really done
his head in, don't you think?
Yeah, seems to have just lost his way.
Who knows what he'll end up doing next?
But what's great about it is, again, being a Malcolm Folks
script.
He presents his argument in a sympathetic way where you might
think, you know, I don't agree with him there, but I understand
why the character has done this.
Because there's nothing worse in shows where characters betray
everyone and they don't have a good in character reason.
What's his good in character reason for it?
The last time we saw him, he got brainwashed by an organisation
trying to destroy the planet.
And the doctor brainwashes him back.
So he's been brainwashed twice, and then he's exposed to this idea
of not only will we not destroy the planet.
We'll make it so the planet has never been destroyed and damaged.
Even the doctor says, you know, it's a tempting idea, Mike.
I like the idea, but it does make him a fanatic.
Yeah, he's he's gone slightly mad, but he has also preserved his
models.
Whereas the other 4 people in this conspiracy are prepared to
kill.
Mike stands by the morals. you know, we can't kill people.
I don't think he's really thought head to the fact that they're
going to wipe out the 4000000000 people currently living on Earth
or whatever.
But for a series like Doctor Who to A, give a minor character, a
character arc like that, and B, to have it reasonably well thought
out is very, very impressive.
At this time, I think. you're right.
And even John Levine gets that great bit in episode 5 where the
doctor's been betrayed and he's been arrested and whatnot ad, the
doctors pick it out that it's Mike.
Benton doesn't want to believe it, but just believes it anyway and
says to the doctor, right, you better knock me out, Ben, hadn't
you?
And, you know, I actually, I actually get a bit of a lump in my
throat of that moment because it's such a beautifully loyal
moment.
Because Benton is such a quiet character in the background, but
he's always sort of stalwart and reliable.
And, you know, he's, you know, that old phrase of a good friend
will stand by you no matter what you do, a great friend will help
you hide the body.
Yeah, and that's that's the definition of Benton here.
He is a great friend.
And then the brig gets to do his bit of place yourself under
arrest.
Yeah, he's a great little piece.
He gets that great moment in episode 6 too, where he punches
General Finch, he knocks him out and sort of saves the world.
And then at the very end he says that sort of hilarious thing, oh
it's not every day that you get to punch a general on the nose and
everyone laughs.
And the brigadier turns to him and just goes, yes, well, don't
make a habit of it.
And that's even more funny when you consider the, when you
consider that a brigadier is a general.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Can we talk about the conspiracy?
Yes.
Sandra for dings the conspiracy for a very good reason, which is
every single minor character introduced in the conspiracy.
Yeah, it really doesn't hold together well, does it when you're
watching it?
So there's no uncertainty, like for a political thriller, it
really doesn't quite work.
I mean, the other problem with it is, of course, it makes our
heroes look stupid because they're constantly explaining what they
intend to do next to someone who unbeknownst to them is in the
conspiracy.
Do you know what I mean?
Who then goes and thwarts them.
So I think that's a big problem with the conspiracy plot.
And then there's something else as well.
And I think it sort of bears close to analysis.
So, What we normally say when we're discussing this story is the
end of last year, the last time we had a political thriller, it
was the environmentalists were the good guys and big business were
the bad guys.
And here ostensibly it looks like we've got some crazy
environmentalists on our hands who are going to kill a whole bunch
of people and that's really interesting and why is Hulk doing
that?
But when we go to the spaceship and we meet Carmen Sylvia, it
becomes pretty clear that the conspirators, like that the people
on the spaceship aren't sort of left-wing environmentalists, but
they're conservative and moralistic.
And awfully reductive and they are the worst kind of
conservatives.
So they're almost religious in the sense that the things that Ruth
lives.
There's a cult.
Yeah, yeah.
She's against usury, which is just the Old Testament term for
charging money at interest.
And also a little bit. anti-Semitic.
The usury term was also a bit of a veiled term like celestial for
Asian usury, you know, point.
You know, we're not going to have any of those long-nosed, beak
nosed, long-shanked, orknosed people. hanging about.
She also talks about moral degradation and permissiveness and
stuff. as well.
Yeah, you know, looking going to be...
Yeah, you can't imagine she'd approve of Sarah. their trousers.
Yes, exactly.
And she's, because they, they'll lend so much more protection than
an easy access skirt.
I never quite got my head around back then.
No, it's crazy.
But she is a fascist.
You know, she's an out and out totalitarian and she will kill
Sarah.
Like, that's what Mark says to Sarah, you know, that Ruth will get
rid of her if she starts to spread dissent and things.
We can't have new ideas.
No.
She's talking, spoken of as contaminating other members of the
spaceship.
If you look back at the time period.
This is when, of course, the green movement was taking off in the
UK.
The green movement was originally a bunch of conservative
landowners who didn't want bad things to happen to their land.
So the green movement in the 70s in the United Kingdom was
actually very conservative and what we would today call right
wing.
Yeah, there's a documentary on the DVD hosted by Matthew Suite, the
British TV presenter and Doctor Who fan.
It's perhaps unsurprising.
And also Malcolm Hook has given all the colonists' biblical
names.
Yeah, yeah.
Rose and Adam.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I noticed it wasn't Adam and Eve.
Adam's kind of handsome isn't he?
You think he'd have been in Doctor before, but he never had.
He seems like he's in every 2nd or 3rd heart or he's just that
kind of actor, but no, he really hadn't been.
Sarah's great on the spaceship, isn't she?
She's really terrific.
She, like, while Pertwee's riding around in the wretched homobile
in episode 5 and boring...
It's Brian Badcoe, who was, I didn't mention who was Adam.
No, he hadn't been in Doctor Who before.
The wretched Homobile.
Do you know it was the Black Widow and Pertz Shaw saw it on show
at a Seaside Pier, the guy who built it?
I shall have that.
And, uh...
She called it the alien, but they painted out their tag.
I loved the Homobile. was the biggest thing for me as a child.
Oh, I think it's wonderful.
Corgi did a tooling of it, but it was never released.
Can you imagine how exciting that would have been?
Day pole did.
Day pole, too.
It wouldn't have looked half as good.
I have seen the corgi model. looks amazingly.
The day Paul version made it into their catalogue, like coming up
soon.
I've got a picture of it, donated by a friend of the podcast, Tony
Bird.
I'll give it to you back.
I started carving one.
I actually started building a one to 43 of it.
But it's a lot of work.
I've never got it finished, but it's quite fiddly, but I've done
the main body and wings.
No, no, it's an important thing for us, young man.
Have you seen the blue pizza?
talked about cars.
Yeah, the Blue Peter clip. of it?
Have you seen that when they're pretending it's a hovercraft?
It's hilarious.
And Peter Purvis in it?
Yeah, Peter Purpose is interviewing John Purey.
Peter Purpose appears to genuinely believe the thing can fly.
He gets a bit confused.
I'm sure he's just doing it for us at home.
He was after all, you know, not unfamiliar with the Doctor Who
ethos.
Don't you get the impression that Pertz, at this, at the earlier
part of this story at least, was thinking, you know, I can milk a
lot of cash out of this one, turning up at any pavilion and school
show and whatever else and charging for appearances as Mr. BBC
Future Man.
But Bowie was still in the charts just.
So, yeah, yeah, with his with his spacey car thing.
And yeah, that's kind of, I think that's actually where he was
coming from.
But there is a moment during this where it went from.
He was going to stay to negotiations were going pretty foul.
And then in the next story, we'll see.
You can actually, I think you can you can judge in death to the
Daleks, where he decides that or whatever reason that you can
actually see where he says, that's it.
But in this one, he was pulling all the plugs.
Although again, as they said, he was apparently terribly apathetic
about the whole role during the shoot of this, maybe because of
those negotiations.
And Liz said, Liz Sladden later said, you know, she was kind of
floundering around on her own because she wasn't getting anything
much more pertly on in the performance.
I think that actually helps.
He's the sense of isolated from him for quite a bit.
Yeah, yeah.
She is great in the scenes that she's here.
Really?
She's, we haven't seen, we see, you know, do anything.
Okay, we're 2 stories in.
Have we seen Miss Slowden do anything that we're not comfortable
or happy with?
against the character?
I haven't seen one moment yet.
She led a commando raid in the time.
She did?
Warrior.
She leads everyone out of the spaceship.
She's really terrific.
Yeah, she's got that wonderful mannerism where if she's
contemplating something, She bites her thumb.
And you know, I've only noticed that watching these in order
again.
But, you know, when she has a look at the spaceship controls for
the 1st time, she stands back and bites her thumb for a 2nd and
then...
And then I noticed it again in Planet of the Spiders and Death to
the Daleks.
Yeah, no, she's she's great.
She's amazing.
Barry was very canny and Barry knew John very well.
I think Barry knew John better than John knew himself.
Because John's been pretty great, hasn't it?
Yeah, John was not a self- reflective person at all.
Yeah.
Whereas Barry was very self-reflected.
Barry and Terence did instruct writers to write Sarah Jane as an
independent character who had her own story thread.
So if she was away from the doctor, she was doing her own thing
which led to the conclusion of the story, even if she made a
mistake, that was okay, but she had to be proactive.
And I think they were very aware that John was petering out, if
not, was definitely going to leave at the same time they did.
So I think they've deliberately written her as a co-lead.
And stronger than the original casting of the Smith character
which was neither gender.
It was just the character Smith.
They hadn't decided.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I think, though, that because she's so good, it does reinvigorate
John a little bit.
Yeah, I think so too.
Yeah, he definitely he'll come up to the mark when he's got other
people around him who are, you know, putting the work in.
I mean, there's that wonderful Hanna-Barbera bit when the doctor
is working on his working on his dinosaur stun gun and people keep
disturbing him.
And then eventually at the end of the scene, he just does a double
face parment.
Oh, no.
And that seems really funny in the novelisation as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. it's great And oh, another great chemistry
thing.
And it's probably down to Elizabeth Sladen more than anyone else.
Sarah and Mike hit it off straight away. like their very 1st scene
together.
There's more character between them.
There's more relationship between them than in 3 years of Mike and
Joe Grant.
Well, maybe 2 years.
He does really stop appearing in season 10.
Yeah, they only get like, Yeah, he only gets one season with Joe
in season 10, doesn't he?
Sarah and Mike.
Yeah, that great scene early on when they're discussing silent
London and they're both sort of gently pushing their own ideas and
agenda.
And then Sarah leaves and says, I might go chat up that nice
Captain Yates.
And you know what?
While I could never believe in a 1000000 years, Joe and Mike going
on a date together, I could believe Mike and Sarah going on a date
together.
You know, she's way out of his league, but I know, I think...
Yeah, I can see them both hitting the kind of bars that Sarah
would be quite happy to hang out with, you know, so I can see her
hagging and, you know, in Double X early in London.
We didn't mention Sir Charles Grover.
He was the king of Atlantis in underwater menace.
Oh, God, yes.
But no one remembers that story.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You've had so much slap on and sequence, you could.
Noel Coleman.
And he turns up again as the high priest of the cats in Red Dwarf
season one.
He does too.
Oh, and General Smythe in the war games.
I think we're mixing people up.
No, no Coleman.
It is no, no, it's no Johnson.
No Johnson place.
I'm mixing people up.
Please ignore me.
Don't cut it out because it's worth having a look at.
But no, Noel Johnson.
It's not really a glowing performance. an underwater menace, but
what is in that one?
But yeah, we've done, go back, dear listener, and have a listen to
that fabulous podcast if you missed it.
The cast loved working with Julia Smith, as we well know.
Gosh, it seems so long since the 60s, doesn't it?
Well, not just for the poor listener who's having to charge
through all this.
But it might as well be a decade or more, even though we're only
1974.
There's nothing left.
Yeah, there's nothing left of, it doesn't even feel like that era
of Doctor Who.
And yet we're heading towards the end of this one as well.
Things move so quickly.
They do, they do.
Much more rapidly than this lovely podcast.
It might be said.
Where are we up to?
Invasion of the dinosaurs.
How are we going with that one?
Are we done?
Where are we?
Right, right.
Your answer's on the back of a postcard and we'll ignore them.
If anyone, you know, hasn't seen this yet.
It's not unlikely that you haven't came out very late. as a DVD.
If I had a pick of the week, it would be to read the paper book
back version of Invasion of the Dinosaurs because it was how I
came to this.
And it was one of me fave perts of the 70s.
I read this in about 77, 78.
It just came out?
I read and reread it.
I don't think you can get it.
Do you know what I mean?
Is it not our theme?
Maybe if we have a spare and someone loves us, we can send one off
don't know.
I might have a spare. can buy the audiobook.
Oh can you?
Yeah.
I just like reading them.
I can remember reading it on a very cold day on a bus, that
opening chapter, even though it's so long ago because Malcolm Holt
with Shuey McPherson.
It?
It's wonderful.
And then the epilogue with them walking through the busted up
bookstore and finding a Bible and saying that perhaps apparitions
in the Bible are actually aliens.
God, that's amazing.
And that seems that's his 2nd vinyl.
That's all kind of novelisation.
Remember, Ash is...
Ash had a...
A book about himself.
After David Whitaker himself in an adventure with the Daleks
Malcolm Hulk is by far my favourite Doctor Who writer of all time
in the novelisation.
In any novel, in any book form.
And that's all the new ones as well.
He's so good As iconic as that 1st cover is with the sunset over
London and the clock.
I like the 2nd one.
The addition I have.
The T-Rex in front of the Whitehall.
It's subtle and beautifully done and really atmospherically lit
and is it a Jeff?
Who did the Jeff down?
Who did the painting for that one?
It's the same guy who did the talons of Wing Cheyenne cover with a
beautiful portrait of Tom Baker.
I do love the targets.
Actually, I think it's not Whitehall.
I think at St.
Paul's.
I think it's cool, yeah.
A few more things before we move on to the end of the story.
Corporal Bell.
Sorry, Corporal Bryson.
I wish Corporal Girl was burned.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Why wasn't she there?
There's another RT operator, but then we get another private in
the last episode who is the one telling Sarah.
Everyone's gone.
No one's here.
I mean, no, no.
The actor playing him is 51.
Really?
John Bennett at this point was 46.
Wow.
You know, wow, wow.
Obviously, some people moisturise.
Now, with the whole thing about power shortages and having your
own power and whatnot, at this point, Britain was on the 3 day
week.
We were.
With the power strikes and what have you, which will give us tones
in the next 2 stories as well.
And also was one of the key things to get rid of the conservative
government that was in the UK at this time.
Yeah, just a few more memory, just a few more memories of this for
me.
The time sound effect, that sort of screeching sound effect
whenever there is a terrified me as a child.
It's good. really good.
But where the sound effects do fall down a bit is the dinosaur
rules, which is, um, it's it's a cat's played backwards.
Did you know that?
Well, I think that...
My friend, my friend Peter McTyre used to say that it was a guy
actually saying the word raw. into a microphone.
It was Dick Mills.
It was Dick Mills saying, I think in...
We don't encourage this at home.
I think in terms of the stegosaurus.
They were a bit more animalistic because that sounded a bit more
natural with all those growths.
Yeah, the Segosaurus, yeah, Lett said, oh, surely they're more
feline, so they, yeah, they put a cat noise backwards.
It doesn't sound that bad, actually.
But yeah, the T-Rex goes roar.
And the, and the Brontosaurus slash Apatosaurus goes...
So good.
Outrageous.
I have a question before we move on because when Sarah finally
does convince the colonists they're actually on a spaceship, one
of the background colonists says, this can't be a fake.
I went into everything very carefully.
I sold my house.
How exactly did you research this?
Such a great line?
I sold my house.
I was such...
He actually ends up as a member of the scientific reform society, I
think, actually.
Yes, he actually hands up his own.
All adds up, doesn't he?
Hands up as a receptionist.
One of the things that I really, really like about this, and it's
not in the novelisation, which we said ended up in the bookshop, is
that the doctor tries to persuade Sarah to get him the TARDIS
again with him.
And he sort of does this to Joe, doesn't he, at the beginning of
the Green Death.
He sort of says, I'm offering you all of time and space, you know
she decides to stay on earth.
But he does what the doctor does now in the new series all the
time, which is to describe somewhere beautiful and alienating and
exotic.
Which we then never see.
It's the planet Florana.
They are heading towards the planet Florana at the beginning of
the next story, like, and it is mentioned in dialogue a bit.
But just the best thing about it is the way that it's done is, of
course, Sarah's adamant that she's not going to go and the doctor
keeps explaining it.
And then she starts smiling and putting her hands over her ears
because even she realises that she's going to be persuaded and
then we're out.
Like, we don't see it.
That's when the credits come in.
I think it's lovely.
I think it's really delightful.
Yeah, and then she gets to do her swimswear shot.
Straight from 1942 in the next story coming up.
Todd in his previous appearance has some questions for us.
We've already had.
There are some new opening credits, and I think they're my
favourite of the 1970s.
Are they yours?
Oh, yes, they do.
Todd's question for Invasion of the Dinosaurs is this.
Can the storyline, the characters and the acting overcome the
Jenning Laird award nominated special effects?
I thought it could, but now at times, I'm not so sure.
No.
I think we've answered that one.
I think it's actually a great distraction that the effects kind of
muffle that there's a lot of plodding.
It's a very thin premise, the deserted London.
I think it would have worked better as an alien invasion.
There were going to be eggs 5 years before alien, huge shaped egg
things all over London that would be going to start hatching in
the Tower of London.
And then you'd start to pull back and you'd see them. giant
lizards.
I can only hope.
I think the story does overcome the special effects, but clearly
I'm outvoted.
Well, look, I mean, it's that usual pertry thing where terrible
pertry is still pretty entertaining.
It's not terrible.
I don't think there's anything this, well, so far in this season's
overcalled terrible.
But we are coming up on something which pertly considered rather
terrible.
Oh, what's that?
I think I think we're I think we're dropping out.
We're losing power.
It's an oboe.
It's a mediaeval over.
Okay, don't panic, guys.
I've hand cranked the recording apparatus, so we've landed on
Excelon with depth to the Daleks.
Oh, let me say something.
Is this your story?
I don't think we can stop it.
This is the 1st Doctor Who story that I ever saw.
And what happened was I was in 4th class, year four.
So primary school and my friend Luke Dwelley brought in the Doctor
Who Monster book.
And I think my research tells me that it's the 2nd edition of the
monster book.
We talked about Doctor Who.
I looked at the Doctor Who Monster book.
I knew who the 4 doctors to date where I knew about Daleks inside
and end.
And on the 19th of June, 1978.
He told me that into nights, Doctor Who, the Daleks were going to
be in it, and I should actually watch it instead of just talking
about it at school.
Oh, isn't that lovely?
Because Harry Blyton's back with the London saxophone quartet and
that's why everyone had to watch it.
Do you know, in fact, I think that the music for this story, and
particularly for episode one, is spectacularly good.
Is it just us that thinks that?
do you know what?
As an as a boy, it was this rift, the 3 blind mice rift for the
Daleks plotting plonking about, and the we're running through
Paris, running through Paris, from city of Paris?
Are the only 2 bits that I really, really used to hear in my head
as a child?
That theme for the Daleks doesn't turn up until episode two, of
course, and the Daleks appear at the end of episode.
Lovely atmospherics when you get to the, and how good, thankfully
we're back in quarries. and doesn't it look a terrific, beautifully
leaves proper dark, shaking, cold, fog lit?
Sarah, Liz again carries it off beautifully herself.
There's a spectacular scene where Liz is running away from
something and there's all this mist blowing up, you know, across
the heels in the quarry and things and it looks completely
otherworldly.
It's so frightening.
Carrie Blyton has got some kind of terrifying, terrifying
atmosphere thing going all the way through the Excelon attack.
He develops a theme for the city and the excellence as well as a
theme for the Daleks and the chanting, the sort of Gregorian
chants that the Exxons doing episode 2 later goes on to become the
city's theme.
I think the music is really great.
It's perfect, and it owes a lot more to the, again, we've
mentioned H.
Ryder, Haggard and She, but all the backstory of the primitive
city. lost, you know, the lost civilisation stuff is very much
Edgar Rice Burrows and Henry Wright, Sir Henry Writer Haggart.
I love that novel sheet.
And Sarah's the perfect companion to be in this.
How beautiful is that city when we finally see it.
How lovely are the sound effects and the...
Yeah the sound effects are great for it.
It's really true.
I really, really love it.
You say that it has its roots in H, right, haggard, but it does
very much have its roots in planet of the Daleks, doesn't it?
Well, which is also right a hagard.
I wasn't on that. which is also, but it's actually the same book
whatever's left over.
They been using that. thrown into this.
So last time when we did Planet of the Dialects, I gave a list of
things and we worked out a big list of things that were from
previous Dialect stories.
So let's do that again.
The Daleks encounter a humanoid expedition on an alien planet.
They subjugate the native population.
At least one of the natives is a sympathetic guy who's on our
side.
Glad in dark, chick.
The Daleks use plague bombs.
Check.
People carry bombs around a great deal.
Somebody's called Tarrant.
Yes.
Someone's called Taran Orton.
No, someone is called Tarrant.
Jill Tarrant is too. cast himself as a laird in.
The Daleks appear at the end of episode one for the 1st time.
Yep.
The Daleks have no power.
So he's stealing from David Whittaker now.
Power.
And Sarah's sidelined for a grade deal of it.
She's a girl and it's attack.
It's a terry nations group.
But you know what, though?
I love all of that because this is no longer just Niken.
This is homage.
This is the very last story in the history of everything where
we'll have proper Whitaker 60s Daleks.
Because the very next story coming up, a whole new universe next
year, the D word comes up and Daleks will never be the same
again.
That's right.
That bloke in a bath chair.
Smoken under his mask.
From a purely aesthetic point of view, This colour scheme is
actually my favourite classic darlic colour scheme is silver and
black.
I haven't seen it before.
Also because it's the 1st time that the rank and file Daleks have
been metallic in full colour and they actually look...
I know the props themselves are a bit broken and a bit ratty, but
the silver paint job really makes them look smart and professional
and like they could be deadly.
Yeah, you know, a little boy, because they look mechanical.
They look like metal, yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And they are back to the Whittaker style of cunning and
subterfuge.
They have to, we can see why they're conquering heroes.
It's not that they're ungainly because...
Yeah, yeah, they're talking about it.
Because one of them has a nervous breakdown and explodes because
they hit by steep...
But we're talking about the 1st episode where they have to use
their cunning.
They're no longer, you see how much they panic when they can't
shoot anyone.
And so they have to be horribly clever.
When we get a point of the Daleks were conquering heroes in the
comics at least, because they had to use their heads.
You know, I actually, I actually think one of the least
interesting things about this story is that the Daleks are without
power because it gives us a resolution to the episode one
cliffhanger and then 5 minutes later they've been fitted with
different guns and they just go on being unpleasant and mean to
everyone and threatening to kill them anyway.
It's almost as if everyone's so excited by the thought that Terry
Nations had an actual new idea at some point since the Daleks in
1964 that they failed to notice that it's really only 5 minutes of
the actual running time. all you need those.
The thing is, though, I think this is a really interesting story
from a plot point of view.
I think it's got a really great plot.
I don't actually think it's that good a Dalek story.
Well, again, it works because they're not really the centre of the
action.
The city and the excellence themselves.
Exactly. take it all up.
That does help slightly because every other time we've had the
Daleks, it's been, oh, the Daleks are up to something nasty and
the doctor stumbles onto it.
Whereas this story is the doctor has been trying to get somewhere
and ends up somewhere and the Daleks stumble upon him.
You know, so it is turning that on its head slightly.
I'd like to, um, we'll certainly get back to the Daleks as more to
say about them.
But since we're on episode one, I'd like to talk about the humans
whom the doctor meets.
So we've got this space crew who are looking for a mineral and...
They're meant to be Marines and they're in Thunderbirds uniforms
blue rompers.
I know, I know.
And we're speaking RP, except for the slightly northern one who
knows the bad one.
Scottish.
Oh, it's very normal.
So he's very good.
I love how posh they are and how they all call each other Jill and
Peter.
Yeah, they've just come from one of Margot Ledbetter's gone
parts.
Well, the 1st one we see is played by Terry Walsh.
Yes, Spaceman Jack.
Filled with arrows.
In a scene that was cut out of the Australian terrestrial
broadcast in the 80s.
I don't know about the 70s. my recorded off the telecopy, didn't
have that.
We also didn't have the last 10 minutes of episode four.
Thanks dad, trying to fit 8 episodes on one tape.
So the 1st time I saw that scene, it's like, what the hell is
this?
I don't remember it either.
You could be right because the census was still active in the
early 70s.
Yeah, because in the novelisation.
It's a very welsh beginning.
Yeah, yeah, Terry Welsh, that's what the chapter is called.
So he's Spaceman Jack.
That's what he's actually called.
There's Commander Stewart. who's laid up in bed with a head
wound.
There is Railton, the 2nd in command, played by John Abeneary, in
a wig. in a wig.
There is...
Swampy wig.
There is Hamilton, the navigator, played by Julian Fox. and he's
he's very famous 5 sort of, get out of there.
Get out of it now.
There is Galloway.
The aforementioned Scottish weapons officer.
And there's Jill Tarrant, the civilian geologist, where everything
she says is on this one level, no matter how upset she is.
That is what I've made earlier.
She's so bad.
Is she though?
Well, at the end of... very fond of her is important.
You know, you know what?
She...
She looks very striking on screen.
And I'm not, I'm not saying that as reducing her to her looks.
I mean, she's a bit fantastic for her, though, isn't she?
It's how gills were cast in these shows back in the day.
You know, it should be slightly sort of helpless.
And you know she's going to sprain her ankle as the goodies would
say any 2nd noun and ruin it for everybody.
And you know what?
I'm sure that John got on quite well with her because we still we
still have behind the scenes footage from one of the studio
recordings in existence and the bit with the cliffhanger between
takes.
You know how she cuddles up to him as the Daleks Open Fire?
They're still cuddled up and just quietly.
I think she had little choice in that matter.
No, she is actually sort of leaning into him with, you know, I
think they got on quite well, is what I'm saying.
But, you know, even the funny thing is, um, Rod's comments, we
haven't had one of these for, um, Joy Harrison is one of the worst
actors so far.
Did she know someone on the production and is this nepotism?
Now, when I was watching it again for the podcast last week, Rod
said, oh, I'll watch it with you.
And I'm like, we're up to Eccleston.
Okay, fine.
And about halfway through episode one, I just laughed at something
she said, I think it was that bit where she says, if we don't get
it, 1000000s of women and children and people are going to die.
And I said, God, she's awful.
And Rod said, no, no, she's really good.
And during episode three, she's like, no, no, sorry, she is, she's
I remember her now.
She terrible.
Why does that dialect kill itself just because she is scared.
I know, I know.
In the original script, it doesn't.
It has a bit of a panic.
And then goes off to a report that it has failed and rejoins the
others.
I think there was consideration that another Dalek would then
destroy it for failing, which I think is far more in keeping.
That's what happens in the final...
Yeah, someone on the floor, I doubt it could have been the
director actually just said.
This is really wild directed.
I love the external shots.
Yeah, it's Michael Lee Bryant again.
Yeah, the stuff...
Again, like Smoke and Billows and Hessian in the category is
perfect.
And even though the Exxons are just sort of crappy guys with
rubber heads and kind of cows.
Do you think so?
they look really menacing.
Wonderful.
And I get a, you know, they're meant to feel like the silicon
another silicon-based life form.
We're actually meant to believe that they're rock based.
The colour of their of their cloaks is exactly the same as the
colour of the surrounding ground.
It's incredibly effective because you do get those shots where
they're just on the edge of shot and you don't realise until the
end because they move and they start following the doctor or
Sarah.
It's so well done.
Did you know, did you read in the notes that there were 2 blokes
when they were doing the outside shop?
They were left alone, left behind for their tea break because they
had to be got down off this cliff face and they were left up there
while everyone went off fatigue because I couldn't see him because
they just looked like...
And there was another 2 who didn't turn up for their shot and then
couldn't be found and it took 20 minutes to find them.
And all that had happened was they'd laid down 20 metres away.
And people couldn't see them.
They just might, I think, sang 2 blokes.
Sneaking off.
I think it's actually Jennifer French and Dawnsaw.
I think so.
What?
I think it was too.
We were Silurians.
I know.
And we mentioned when we were talking about antecedents, we
mentioned, but we haven't mentioned Von Daniken for at least a
season because I haven't been here for a year, so we mentioned
Chariot of the gods.
Yes, episode.
Well, this was very big.
That was very big.
Oh, so big running up.
It actually came out in 68, but was still being talked about load
of old nonsense that it was.
But, you know, the hieroglyphs looking exactly like that Peruvian
city.
Well, we decided we decided that that becomes an influence in the
demons, obviously, because, you know, some aspect of human
mythology is tottered up to aliens.
And then the same thing happens again in the time monster.
And it is something that will happen as late as the Black Aquarium
movement, as we've talked about as well.
Sorry I wasn't here.
So here it is, you know, it's all vaguely Mesoamerican and stuff
like that.
But you know what it really looks like?
It's not the Lost Horizon ones, but the she, there were several
versions of the film She, including one with Ursula Andrus, She
which I barely knew to hunt down because it is as camp, as a field
of udters on milking day.
It is just oh, well, here we are.
But this one, I was also Edward Bulmer, Bulmer Litten.
You know the man who said, beneath the rule of men, entirely great
the pen is mighty and the sword.
Well, he was another writer haggard kind of writer and he was
writing all these, you know, jolly empire goes off and discovers
on, you know, Is he the man responsible for it was a dark and
stormy night?
I hope so.
No.
I think that was Charles Schultz.
But the land of the centre of the earth is the stuff he did, which
is very much the Solarians.
But the bloke I was thinking of, the RKO version from the 30s was
designed by a bloke called Van Nest Poglasse.
Now, is that B. Arthur's Drag Knight?
How good is that?
But yeah, he did a beautiful white ivory Art Deco city, which
looks just like this one and is also very gorgeous.
No, I love this city and I love, we didn't even know what
Jabberite was.
Did we, Brendan?
We didn't actually know that you could pour your mum's nail polish
remover onto it.
Well, we found out very quickly onto the packing, your fridge came
in and do a wonderful resurrectly, excellent city design.
Don't try it at home because of the Nox.
The gas was terrible.
No, I did it.
I built one and melted it and yeah, yeah, I had my little...
It just goes to show that how effective like radio phonic
treatment of voices can be because this, in this case, instead of
having Dick Mills, We have Michael Lee Bryant.
Oh really?
Julian Fox, who plays Hamilton and Joy Harrison are the voices of
the Excellon City dying.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, all those screams and those screams are terrifying.
Well, she just discovered she's never going to work again.
You know, I really want to like her.
How can you not, though?
Yeah, I, in a way, I do.
I think, you know, I think she's fun and bubbly, and I think she's
a girl.
I think she's just being a girly girl and I wonder if we're all
being a bit too post-feminist and criticising her for having
sprained ankles constantly.
No, it's not the sprained ankles because she's written as a very
strong character.
It's just that every line she utters is always in the same tone.
You know, she's kind, she's either calm or panicked.
There's very little nuanced to the performance and that's what I
don't like about it.
I've got no problem with her role in the story because I actually
think she's getting quite a strong role.
And when she is prisoner of the Dalek, she doesn't fall to pieces
she's still resourceful.
My problem is with the performance, and especially because when
she gets those scenes opposite Liz, you can just see the massive
difference in acting quality.
Yeah, but also it's different characters.
Okay.
I mean, just to provide balance.
So I never noticed it as a boy and I certainly didn't notice it.
I've watched this story a couple of times because I just did the
per wee season myself a couple of years ago.
I like her very much.
The strongest supporting character for me, though, we've only just
touched on them, and that's Bilal.
Love that.
I love the costume.
Did you know?
I don't know how long they spent the time on, but it's in Barry
Litz's notes.
They also thought a continuing companion, at least for one more
story, would be Belal.
Well, since they didn't go with Jeremy Bullock from Time Warrior.
Well, Todd actually has a question about that in this regard.
Does he know?
There's something called...
It's like he's with us, even when he's spooky, isn't it?
In a huge hairdressing salon with a huge collar that he's got, and
all those plastic pipes everywhere. on that game show unit on
gallery gone.
There's something called a Bellau.
It's a shy, timid creature, but then gets a lot of plucky courage
and becomes a trusted and valued friend.
Everyone should have one.
But can Doctor Who ever do a truly alien companion full time in
the Tartars, experiencing adventures in the modern day?
I would have loved it.
And I was thinking the same thing.
Belal could have then the next story, we're almost up to that, he
would have fitted in perfectly.
Yes, very true.
I think that would have been fine and imagine him.
Oh, come on.
Please, let's not have an alien companion.
Like, look, Louise Jamieson, all apologies, although you're not
really proper. alien.
She a person.
And an apologies to Mary Tan.
That was a bit racist, wasn't it, racialist?
And Mary Term and Lala Wood apologies to you as well.
And Matthew Waterhouse.
Okay, that's right.
He was a Marchman.
And you haven't even mentioned...
Yeah, but I mean, someone in sort of a stupid costume.
You know what I mean?
They're shining front tanks.
Oh, I think that's what trod.
I think with Sarah...
Was Sarah Sutton's costume that bird?
I think that's what Todd means by someone truly alien.
I think it would have been beautiful and really interesting
because the actor who plays him.
What's his name, Alan?
Arnold Yarrow.
Arnold Yarrows, thank you, is so good again, these lovely little
gestures.
He's like a twig.
An animated twig.
Yeah, with opossum eyes.
Something you go and see at the zoo in the nocturnal house.
A BBC app.
Maybe 3 episodes is about...
I'd love to have seen him in Monster Paladon, and goodness knows
we needed him.
He's really just Wester with no clothes on.
I mean, Western...
Western... he sometimes wears clothes.
Not when he's hugging Lady companions.
Yeah, what is it with Terry and sort of name?
Well, maybe maybe Terry was a nudist at home.
You never know.
No, maybe he thought that...
No, he got arrays of wearing clothes were outdated and outmoted.
Well, his house was a very big, beautiful house, but it was in
Wales. would have gone a bit cold.
I like to think he was knocking around in those... in his dharma
in those...
I mean, another great thing about having Bilal in the plot is how
he interacts with Sarah James.
He's so lovely with Sarah and she's so good with her.
That whole kind of covering her mouth.
You look like a big talking twig.
I'm coping with.
Yeah, you know, no, he would have been a terrific companion.
I wish he'd stayed all the way through to survival.
It's one of the most natural...
That would have lifted vengeance on Barros.
It'll actually be our new thing.
We used to have what would...
We'll now just have what we'll do.
In every story, I'm now going to pop Balow in and see how...
He would have tried to hit the fuck up.
It merged with the wrong time.
Come on, Brenton.
But doctor, you must have the right to destroy the Daleks.
I'm doing hand gestures, deal with this. beautifully too.
I'd like to see cosplay.
Speaking of cosplay, Bonnie Langford is currently doing a
convention in the UK and I've asked my UK friends to show her my
Bonnie Langford cosplay to see what she thinks.
Oh, please give me a copy of it and I'll put it on the website.
I will.
But what I really love about Sarah J. meeting Balal. is it's one
of the most naturalistic reactions we've had from a Doctor Who
character, a human Doctor Who character, meeting an alien.
You know, she's she's scared of him and she is a little bit
repulsed by him, but eventually sort of gets to know him and
outlives her prejudice.
And we see it again the next story.
You know, Sarah is still adjusting to meeting aliens and what have
you.
Joe kind of took aliens in a stride a bit.
Joe didn't meet that many nice aliens.
Yeah.
Whereas Sarah Jane like meets 2 nice aliens in a row.
Very good.
We're fiddling with action figures.
Do this now while.
Yeah, we're multitasking.
Richard took my Idris action figure off the shelf and it's figured
out her hair comes off and it makes a sort of root and triple
high...
Because actually, I was actually thinking of something...
Britain hybrid.
Oh, look, there's so much fun you can have with this podcast, isn't
there?
What do we reckon about this story then, gents?
When are we going to start talking about Moonbase 3?
So much better.
I'm sure you will.
See, the 1st 2 episodes are rather sweetly, Planet of the Daleks
condensed to like a 3rd of its length.
And that's actually quite good. you know what I mean?
Like if we don't have all the interminable running around that we
got in Planet of the Daleks.
And then we throw that away. running around Paris.
Then we throw that away in order to do the visit to the Excelon
city.
And that is deplorably bad.
It's per twee, being impressed by touch screens, it's per twee, you
know, standing in front of front axial projection things.
He solves a very simple maze.
He gets terrified to the point of having a personal cliffhanger
when he comes across like a bath mat on the floor.
You know, like, is that the most spectacular moment in all of
Doctor Who?
That a line, oh, red light floor?
Well, you know why?
They lost, they were overrunning, and the actual...
So 3 underruns?
Yeah, it was going to be an antibody.
It was going to be one of the excellent antibodies.
I thought it was going to be the Dalek sneaking up behind them
with the door opening.
But I could be wrong.
I don't even know.
Like, how are the Daleks tracing their way through that maze on
the wall anyway when they've only got some...
They shoot it.
They shoot it through the water.
I mean, it's just crummy.
Oh, please.
What you don't see, you don't have to worry about. terrific.
No, I just mean this bit of the story.
I love this bit of the story.
Yeah, me too.
I love this story.
I think it could have something to do with the fact that I didn't
have the ending of it as a boy.
So it had this mythical status in my head.
But as an adult, from a purely aesthetic point of view. got my
favourite pertly suit.
You know, the suit with the red piping and the blue shirt and
what.
It has that wonderful moment that sets the tone for the whole
story at the beginning when the doctor and Sarah step outside and
Sarah's like, oh, it's a bit cold.
I'll go back and get a coat And she says to the doctor, don't
wander off.
And he immediately goes, no, of course I won't.
Look straight at the camera, a huge grin on his face and wanders
off. bugger.
The story's so good, we get it back exactly in Pyramid of Mars.
Yeah, and again in...
Is it 91?
Anyway, we see.
Yeah, yeah.
She actually lampshades that they're redoing the excellent thing
because she mentions the city of Diego.
Even though she didn't see that, she didn't solve any of the
puzzles.
She didn't solve any of the puzzles, but she saw the hieroglyphs
on the outside wall.
Yeah, okay.
It's got that incredibly tense point of view sequence with Sarah
beating up the excellent.
When the music stops and you're just left with the noises of
exertion, it's quite...
Is this the thing with the, with the, the, the Bessie hand
starter?
Yeah, the Bessie hand star.
She doesn't have a lot of lines in this either, does she?
Bessie doesn't say very much at all.
And you know what?
I think that sort of bully atmosphere is maintained throughout the
story.
I love that's it.
That's why the story is.
I love the subterranean stuff and the doctor and Sarah wander
around.
And you know what?
Yes, it's padding, but you get such great things as like they hear
the roar again and the doctor says, oh, I think that's just the
wind.
Who are you kidding?
Myself, Gina.
I think that's one because, again, the doctor would never have
admitted that to Joe, that he was kidding himself because that
would have scared Joe, but he knows it won't scare Sarah.
Yeah, Kurt Wee is, despite the fact that he's getting a bit bored
and he does decide in this story to leave, he is still caring
about the character and presenting a different side to the
character.
It is in this story that he has decided.
Yes, I reckon it's the same where he's quoting Hamlet to the flex
hose off the vacuum cleaner.
With a sting pop of his.
Yeah, to do that.
Well, Xander reckons it's when he's just about through the maze on
the wall of that 1st thing that just sort of appallingly easy, um
maze where he's doing his touchscreen way through it.
I think that's... with the tinting comic skeletons everywhere.
I would say a big part of why he decided to leave was actually the
change in production schedule for this story.
Do you know about this?
No, if it was the 1st one, there'd be shot set for set, like a
proper film.
Like a proper, right?
Like a, but he wanted that. talked about that originally.
He did want that.
But I also believe that rehearsal period was truncated.
So rather than having enough time to get the story clear in his
head, he was having to jump around.
And we know he liked to be line perfect.
Or was he listening up by this stage?
Because we know how difficult he was, apparently, with Paddy. with
Pat Troughton on 3 Delches.
Pat would always, you know, in inferences lines and Purley was
winning this.
That's not scripted.
But again, it was just a lack of confidence perhaps.
He did like to be line perfect.
I mean, I think something that might have helped with filming it
like this was there was time then to say, oh, no, I'm sorry, I
messed up that line.
I go back.
And the DVD has about half an hour behind the scenes footage.
And there are several moments where Pertby's halfway through a
line and just says, look, no, I'm sorry, Michael, that was
terrible.
I'll give you another one.
Oh, I can't wait to spend half an hour watching those ones.
That would be terrific.
It's really crispiest.
You get to see, you get to see him working with Liz.
No, you don't get to see him square.
Dumb botherers.
We get that wonderfully touching scene in episode three.
With him and Joy, yeah.
Well, with him and... with... episode two.
With him and Liz, where Sarah's shown into the city and then he
turns around and says, no, you're not coming in and she and she
does the whole thing of, I can still come in and he's like, no, no
no, I need you to help the humans.
They need your help.
And then he and then she's like, oh, okay, well, you're giving me
something important to do.
You know, just getting rid of me.
And he then turns, but then turns back and says, and if I don't
come back, you must go with that.
I just reached out. absolutely miserable life in a plague ridden
cold, barren picture. having your perennium every day.
Excuse me.
Yeah, apparently that correct pronunciation.
Or is that Bob Holmes having a bit of sport?
I gather it.
I think it was in the original script and Vorp Holmes just pointed
out until it was too late.
By this point, um, Terrence Sticks...
For the listener at home, Terrence Sticks was...
Terrence Stix was eyeballs deep in editing in rewriting the
monster of Paladin.
Oh, yes, yes, he was.
Invasion of the dinosaurs, and this were essentially...
Well, let's find out. essentially invasion of the dinosaurs and
Death to the Daleks were entirely scripted by Robert Holmes.
Yeah.
It's darker, actually.
Yeah, it's darker.
They are a bit better.
They're a bit the wit is sharper, I think.
Yeah.
I think I remember.
There's so much in this story for me to love.
There's so much, isn't there?
Can we talk about Galloway quickly?
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
So, because Ferry Nation always has this sort of very gun morality
and people are very, you know, ends justify the means and things
and all the way back in Dalek Invasion of Earth.
You had sort of Jenny and she was very tough and hard and
practical and pragmatic.
And he have Galloway, and Galloway is prepared to, you know, let
the Daleks kill off Bel Isle and Bel Isle's people and kill the
doctor and Sarah and all of that sort of thing.
Is that when he says the only alternative to living is dying?
Is that when he...
Is that the doctor says that?
Oh, God, it's awful.
In a wet and claggy quarry.
I think that's probably that's where he says, this is it.
The only alternative to living is an exposition coma.
One knees up, mother brown.
One knee anyway.
So that sort of morality thing that you get and you get it in
Blake 7 and things.
And here it's kind of vindicated.
Do you know what I mean?
Like Galloway, Galloway is single-mindedly pursuing the whole idea
of making sure the mission succeeds and he's prepared to sacrifice
Bellow on the doctor and Sarah and all of these people.
But eventually it turns out that he's prepared to sacrifice
himself as well.
Yeah.
And it is a surprise to everyone to Peter and Jill and all those
lovely people that Galloway is going to blow himself up.
I don't realise it's going to happen until it actually does.
I remember being horribly, horribly shocked position when the
commander says to Galloway, you're not fit to lead.
John, is that's John Ebonett?
No, John Ebonieri's just sort of suddenly killed by an arrow after
15 lives, yeah.
It's really surprising.
Yeah, it's kind of like about 10 years ago. 15 years ago there. was
this film called Deep Blue Sea, horror film.
And Samuel L. Jackson's in that.
And Samuel L. Jackson got the script for it and turns sort of to
page 50 of 100 or whatever and is suddenly eaten by a shark and he
called the producer outraged and he said, no, I have worked too
hard to be given a role where I'm killed off.
I'm Samuel Ljack.
Like the 1st 10 films I did.
I'm dead before page 10.
No, I built up my career.
I'm not doing that.
And the producer said exactly.
No one expects you to die.
I think that's the same thing with John Abeneri. such a familiar
face that we think, 0 yeah, John Abenira. hes going to be the hero
he's got narrow and he's back and he's dead.
You know, it's genuinely shocking.
But it's when Commander Stewart tells Galloway he's not fit to
lead because he hears Galloway being sort of terribly ruthless and
pragmatic and stuff.
And Galloway says, oh, I'm sorry, Captain, I couldn't hear you.
Yes.
And just goes off and takes command.
I remember thinking that was terribly, terribly immoral when I was
a kid.
But that kind of hardheaded, horrible gum kind of morality is a
thing that Terry Nation seems to advocate for over and over
again.
Interestingly, the people whom Galloway didn't care, lived or died
the doctor, Sarah, and Balal.
If they had died, Galloway would never have got off the planet and
the like the mission would never have succeeded.
Well, in fact, Sarah saves the mission by swapping the perineum
with the sand.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The doctor sends her off, as you said, to save the day and she
does that.
Because you don't want to get sand in your perineum.
No, very, very uncomfortable.
Yeah.
A couple of loose ends.
First of all, the Daleks threatened to fire a plague nestle at the
planet and nobody seems to put 2 and 2 together that there's
plague affecting the outer worlds. could have been caused by
plague missiles.
I love playing.
They do.
Typhoid Mary.
Also, not only is every Dalek voice in this story done by Michael
Wisher.
He does a good job.
I think he's better than the Skelton.
I like the way he Well, yeah, he is, but no one's as good as you
said it before, is David Gray and Peter Hawker.
I like the way that he stretches out certain vale sounds.
Yeah, so you get that.
Nick Briggs does that, does that all the time now.
And isn't it great that they finally got the settings right on the
ring modulator?
Yeah, yeah, they sound like modern dialects.
Except for the fact that Michael Wisher isn't using a ring
modulator.
Really?
That's just Michael Wisher.
Are you kidding?
That's just Michael Wisher.
He amazed Elizabeth Sladen because 1st of all, Elizabeth Sladen
did the whole Catherine Tate thing of going, what, there's people
inside these days.
She did not.
Apparently she thought they were about control.
But then she saw Michael Wisher with his microphone just leading
directly off and she said, what does that microphone connect to?
Oh, it doesn't connect to anything.
I can just do this.
You know, he's really that talented.
I like garlic, yeah, it's really good.
I love garlic.
We have had darlic can before.
We had it in power of the Daleks.
We saw the Dalek looking at Patrick Trout, but here they look down
that long shiny tube.
Alfoil tube.
Yeah, it makes them seem more trapped in a machine.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
Because they've got a very tiny field.
It's real claustrophobic, is the point of view, isn't it?
I really liked it as a kid.
And also that you get the distortion in the field, which is kind
of like the Bernard Lodge opening titles.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, echoed that.
You've got the rubbery excellence...
I think it would be terrifying being a Dalek.
Pay's good though.
Holidays are shit.
Though with our power restored, Unfortunately, that's all the time
we have for this episode.
However, special treat for you all, next week, Nathan and I will
be guest starring on the Trust Your Doctor podcast, where we will
be discussing the Mark Gatis, 3rd doctor novel Last of the
Gadarene.
So keep an eye out for that on the Trust Your Doctor podcast on
decorativevegetable.com.
We'll be back in 2 weeks discussing John Purby's last 2 stories
The Monster of Paladin.
Hooray.
And Planet of the Spiders.
In the interim, however, my body aches, what?
And next episode, we will also have a Berry special announcement.
So make sure you come back. somebody's pregnant.
Then they'll have to leave the show. just putting on a little.
Have another bit of cake, love.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Cheers for your forebearance.
You've been listening to Flatly and Charity with Nathan Buttonney
Brain Girls, and Richard Stone.
This episode, Sand and Your Brilliant, is recorded on Sunday, 10th
of May.
The next episode will be released on Sunday the 31st.
This episode is dedicated to the memory of Nathan's dog, Jackie
who sadly passed away on the 4th of May, 2015.
Let's pour some water.
What?
I'll say bottle of beer at the same time while you do that.
Got like a... girl.
Oh, girl.
Bottle of girl.