WEBVTT

NOTE
This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 16:08:41

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And there we are.

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There's our theme music, which means it's time for another episode of Flight Through Entirety.

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I'm Brendan.

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I'm Nathan.

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And I'm Richard. everything to you.

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Yes, well, we don't know what time you're listening.

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And we have actually fully laid out the table this time.

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There will be a photo on the website, but we have all the season 2 action figures currently released, which consist of a William Hartnell and Dalek, and a Dalek, and a Dalek Supreme, and another Dalek Supreme, and a source of commander Dalek, and a mechanoid.

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Standing in for Carol Anne Ford.

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And would you like to tell us about the one of our 1st baked good for this season of podcasts?

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Oh, yes, so we have the walnut and chocolate question mark pod cake made by a friend of the podcast, Robert.

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We haven't actually solicited any cakes from everyone, but I I think if anyone wants to email us a cake.

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For, you know, a subsequent recording, that would be good.

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Egan, bacon, oblong, cake flavoured thing.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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That would be perfect.

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From the food machine.

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So thanks very much to Robert for that.

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Maybe that's what we should call the recipe section of the website, the food machine food machine, actually.

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That's not a bad idea.

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Yeah, so by the time you listen to this, that is what that segment of the website is going to be called, it's going to be called the food machine.

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So I don't know if people go to the website very much, but we do have recipes for every cake and every biscuit and every baked good ever.

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Well, not ever.

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But anyone that we've actually sort of consumed prior to, you know, babbling on about Doctor Who in the podcast.

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Yeah, so I think at the moment there we've got the recipes for the macaroons, which we had with the pilot podcast.

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And also the recipe for the pecan slice we had with season one.

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The recipe for this chocolate walnut question mark pod cake.

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I think I got that name right.

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It's probably all be up. to mention at this point that we are all dressed as John Pertwee from the Green Death at this very present time in pinnies and little headscarves with rolling pins in our hands.

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And a big bucket.

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That's right.

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Vera Similitude is number one on this podcast.

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We did we did really underplay the cake, I think, in the last 2 episodes.

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I'm glad that we're giving this. not going to do that again.

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Thank you, Robert. you, Robert.

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And especially, it's very difficult for you, listener, to appreciate this.

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But when you look at the chocolate icing topping.

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That's not icing.

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That's actually chocolate gnash.

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Solid, solid chocolate gnash.

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It's a robo man's helmet of chocolate.

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It's like eating gold.

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It was marvellous.

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That's that's one cake out of the way, but we will have another baked good in a later podcast for this season.

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The ever expanding podcast.

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And now for a little bit of housekeeping.

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You may have noticed last season we had 145 minute podcast and won one. 5 hour podcast.

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So I've taken the decision that this podcast will be broken up into 3 episodes.

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So we'll discuss 3 stories, 3 stories, and 3 stories along with the Jenny Laird award for most puzzling creative choice, and our recommendations for other extended areas to look into at the end.

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So we start today with the story that was meant to start the series and it was a story that just wouldn't die.

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It went through so many different drafts before it finally got on the air, and that is Planet of Giants by Louis Marx.

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Do we get a noise?

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Oh, yeah, there it is.

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Planet of Giants was originally meant to be the very 1st Doctor Who story.

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Wasn't it the Doctor Who story that Newman had in mind when he broached the series?

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Exactly, because Newman's concept was backwards in time, forwards in time, and sideways in time, and different states of matter.

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And his 1st thought with different states of matter was changing size.

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So you were going to get the 1st episode of our earthly child much the same as we saw it with 2 teachers investigating their mysterious student, at which point the TARDIS would actually shrink them down and they'd have to make their way through cliffs laboratory.

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Remember, Cliff?

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That's a really terrible idea.

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Yes it is.

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It's an interesting point maybe at this point to Terese where Newman was coming from and maybe why this show had so much electricity, static electricity, and mercury and alchemy behind it.

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Thank you, David Whittaker, was because Newman had come from a northern, um, and very Eastern.

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Mysticism, i.e. the United States and Canadian.

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And he'd grown up on, whereas the Brits had grown up on, say, Dandair and British weeklies and boys own, that kind of thing.

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He'd grown up with the likes of Hugo Goernsbeck and the pulp fiction, the wonder stories, that the thrilling adventures, which came out every week and there were myriads of them.

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It was the golden age of science fiction was not actually novel and certainly not film.

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It was these pulp magazines.

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So many ideas came from them when we get to the web planet.

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We'll see exactly where that idea comes from.

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It isn't just a boy getting bitten on the in the outback, so to speak.

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It's, it's, um, it's these tropes and one of them.

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And you see them also in 50s sci-fi films, but they all come from the same route to these pulp fiction.

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The thing of having the hero shrunk down is absolutely a trope in so many of those stories along the scantily clad maidens being hazard, hazarded in vacuums.

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The thing the thing I find really fascinating about Planet of Giants as well because as you say, it's because it's influenced from so many other places.

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Yeah.

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But a big influence for me seems to be, especially considering Sidney Newman's involvement, is that it feels like a videotape era episode of the Avengers, like the main plot with this whole idea of...

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Mission highly improbable.

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But this whole idea of technology affording this pesticide, which will make a man very rich, but kill people, but that's okay because it'll make the man very rich, and that's very much the kind of thing that was in the early seasons of the Avengers.

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And there was, there was a whole, It's interesting that we think about green politics as being, you know, a relatively new thing or, you know, when when they were talking about shows like the Green Death in the 70s, they thought they were groundbreaking, but there's a book if either of you read it called the Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.

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I much heard of it.

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I've not read it.

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Okay.

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It was at school.

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I remember reading it in the school library. was one of the things that was there, you know, so if it was in our school library would have been quite a few of them.

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It was pretty groundbreaking.

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And the way that um, Robert, um, Early.

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The population bomb, which came out in 68.

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But yeah, after this one, but it's another one of those groundbreaking dystopian pieces of work by a science writer that says, you know, this is happening and you should be really worried and pretty much talking about the nitrates and pesticides, which ended up feeding the world after Second World War.

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They allowed the agrarian expansion.

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They allowed what we saw to expansion of Europe and the building up of Europe after World War II.

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But these chemicals as Carson Wrights in the book side spring, also, may affect the food chain and the whole biological network of Earth.

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So what's happening here is that they arrive and they come across all these sort of dead insects and things and it's because, is it Forrester?

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Yes, the ironically named Forrester, yes. has invented like DN 6 or something or DN.

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DN6, not D84.

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D84 comes later.

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But yeah, DN6. which is going to sort of wipe insects out of the food chain and kill the bees and all of that sort of thing and prevent.

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But not only that is dangerous to larger animals if ingested directly, say offgrains because something that's glossed over in the televised version, but is present in the reconstructive version, which you can find on the DVD, a very good reconstruction of the excised material from Ian Levine.

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And I'll explain more about that excise material in a moment.

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The cat is exposed to DN6 and dies.

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Oh, I didn't know that.

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That's terrible.

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And that's when Forrester's assistant, Smithers, realises, hold on.

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Smithers.

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Yes.

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It's the 1st cat death joke in Doctor Who and Simpsons reference.

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My God, it really is twisty turning.

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It is, isn't it?

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Very prescient.

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But yeah, so there is that sort of direct danger.

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But I suppose, um, But those of you who don't realise planet of Giants, which is a three-part story, was made as a four-part story, and um, Verity Lambert, the producer, and I think also um, the head of serials, wasn't happy with the pace of the four-part and edited episodes 3 and 4 down to one episode.

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So for instance, that's something we lose a bit of.

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It's still referred to.

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But I think they thought that with Barbara being sick, the point had already been made that larger organisms can be affected.

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Not that she's a larger organism. the larger organism at the time, but something I find very interesting.

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Now that we know what some of the original concepts of the show were about, which we discussed in previous episodes, this one interestingly ties in a lot to that concept, which was vetoed by Sidney Newman, of the doctor being a radical anti-scientific anti-progress character.

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As you say, Richard, people were concerned that these new pesticides would kill when in fact they allowed more crops to grow and more people to have food.

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And so this story could have gone very much in another direction because here we see that original concept of the doctor would have been going, oh, yes, well, we must destroy this pesticide because we can't have pesticides on foods, whereas the doctor in this case goes, well, pesticides are a very good idea, but not if they kill people.

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You know, so he's not...

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But he's fair enough.

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He's not standing in the way of progress for the sake of standing the way of progress.

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He's standing in the way of this form of progress because it's like, well, you're thinking on the right lines, but what you're doing is going, it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater, you're going to cause more harm than good, and that's why he stands up against it.

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A bit like Keith of Marinus is sort of a defining trait for his doctor to be able to step up and go, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but this is not the way to do it.

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In fact, this is a, this is another kind of step towards him becoming the hero that he actually ends up being because, um, and we have to talk about Barbara in this as well.

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Because, you know, they stay and try and put a stop to it despite the fact that they're miniaturised, despite the fact there's very little that they can actually do.

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And so they do something heroic.

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They not just scampering back to the TARDS to readjust their heights or anything like that.

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And to say, Barbara, you know, they know that Barbara is sick and dying, but she still says, no, we have to do something.

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And can I just say that I absolutely adore Barbara in this?

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So, I mean, I adore her.

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Yeah, she goes without saying, but but here, like she touches the grain and then is pretty quickly told by Ian that that's a bad idea and it's horribly poisonous.

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And she's sort of embarrassed about having done it.

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Do you know what I mean?

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And she's starting to feel ill effects and things.

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But partly because she doesn't really want to admit it to herself, but also just because she's embarrassed, but, you know, about being so silly.

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She just doesn't bring it up.

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And she doesn't let her own sort of sickness and things distract from their task of putting a stop to the pesticide.

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And I just think it's wonderfully human and I think it's a really, you know, it's, it's that instinct that prevents you from going to the doctor when something is clearly wrong.

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You know, she doesn't quite want to admit it, she doesn't want to look silly in front of Ian.

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I think it's just terribly sweet and terribly real and she's, she's just tremendous in it.

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It's, it's a very heroic trope and especially in the 1960s, a very masculine trope to go.

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I am injured, I am hurt, but I am going to cover the wound and not let anyone see, so it doesn't get in the way of our mission.

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Because Barbara gets ill, there's that simultaneous realisation that, oh, Barbara's going to die if we don't do it, everyone's going to die, if we don't do something, and I think that is Barbara's conflict in this story of, you know, I need I need to survive, but at the same time, how can I survive if nobody else survives?

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Everyone else needs to survive and then I can survive because then we'll know what to do.

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Um, But I also rather love that the solution is to blow up a can of aerosol into the villain's face.

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There's a certain borrowers aspect to that, like a mischievousness.

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Yeah, it's like, oh, we're tiny, so we can't stop the factory.

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Well, we don't need to stop the factory.

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You don't need to stop the manufacturer.

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We need to get the police here and stop them at.

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It really, really benefits enormously from the editing of episodes 3 and four.

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Like it would have been very boring, I think, towards the end.

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And given that we know some of the scenes that were kind, you know, like I'm really grateful not to have to sit through those scenes, to be quite honest.

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So the whole thing's sort of out of the way in 3 episodes.

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And it doesn't drag. doesn't get tiresome.

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And can we just talk about the sets for a 2nd as well?

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Well, in the props?

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Spectacular.

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Well, it's very much that world's fair, uh, symbolism, you know, super big, supersized me, big props.

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It's very much, again, the graphic, we would now call them graphic novels, but those pulp fiction comics.

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Batman in the 50s was always climbing over enormous phones and all those props.

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Everybody else, everyone, everyone in a cape has done it.

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It's just, again, one of those tropes that comes from, comes from America with a, you know, the big worldfare thing.

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The big one was, I think, 39.

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That was the Futurama show. wasn't it?

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Oh, look, possibly.

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I'm actually thinking back to the things I've seen over the books of those images.

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But yeah, building supersized things for our supersized super big world that's coming up.

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So this is a really interesting take on the borrowers go to dystopia.

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The borrowers end up on, in the, in the next chapter of Thomas Moore where that we're all held, breaks loose.

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Arietti meets Flyspray.

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Yeah, okay.

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It's true.

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And it is a pretty dark thing for them to have done.

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And I think really kind of surprising and forward thinking.

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And it looks really fresh to me today. terribly overlooked and terribly underrated, I think.

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It is really good.

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It doesn't have any ribbed for her pleasure, rubber faced aliens.

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No.

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We can sometimes do without them.

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Oh, every so long.

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Scandalous words.

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Oh, yes, it doesn't have rubber face.

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I think it does have a giant ant and a giant.

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The 1st of many this year.

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Yes.

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Yes, indeed.

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Answer a thing this year, aren't they?

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And something that we've commented on and off as we watch series one in the use of Susan.

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Susan is very proactive in this story as well.

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It's Susan who realises before Ian that they've been shrunk down and the implications about and how it happened.

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And with Barbara sick in the last episode, Susan sort of becomes the female lead and she's coming up with ideas and jumping in where Barbara, you know, there's none of these sort of, oh, we're shrunk.

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We never going to get out of here as we might have expected in the reign of terror.

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Doesn't she do that in episode one?

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Doesn't she have a big giant screaming panic about ants or something?

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Well, she just in case you think we shouldn't get rid of her next story.

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The thing is she does see the ant, but she doesn't freak out.

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She just kind of goes...

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The only time she freaks out is when the TARVIS doors open, which is kind of understandable.

200
00:16:38.340 --> 00:16:41.460
It's like if you're in a plane and the door opens, you'd freak out a little.

201
00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:46.740
Yeah, I suppose, but it's still, you know, like, can we get rid of her soon?

202
00:16:46.799 --> 00:16:48.779
The damage has already been done to her character.

203
00:16:48.840 --> 00:16:54.899
I just wanted to say that she is a bit better served by this story than she was in the reign of terror or the Aztecs.

204
00:16:55.019 --> 00:16:56.220
Yeah.

205
00:16:56.399 --> 00:16:58.320
She's pretty good in this.

206
00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:02.639
I mean, the only problem in this is she is dressed like she's 12.

207
00:17:02.879 --> 00:17:05.160
They were doing that to her a lot and she complained about it.

208
00:17:05.220 --> 00:17:11.279
She was meant to have Avengers Girls rig and actually hidden flack about as an Avengers girl was supposed to.

209
00:17:11.339 --> 00:17:13.380
You know, just get much chance to do that, does she?

210
00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:22.859
Yeah, I mean, even if they just let her wear her own casual gear occasionally because that that iconic stripe jumper she has that she wears in the next story was hers and the jeans were hers.

211
00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:25.920
And they kind of veto that, no, you have to dress younger.

212
00:17:25.980 --> 00:17:29.279
It's like, well, no, that's how a teenage girl would dress at home.

213
00:17:29.339 --> 00:17:32.400
Yeah, if she, you know, well-to-do and had the clothes.

214
00:17:32.460 --> 00:17:32.880
What had they?

215
00:17:32.940 --> 00:17:33.359
Yeah, exactly.

216
00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:36.299
But if you wanted to be a... not from roundeer.

217
00:17:36.359 --> 00:17:36.720
Yeah.

218
00:17:36.779 --> 00:17:41.519
If you wanted to be a teenager, let her dress like a teenager, not like Alice in Wonderland.

219
00:17:41.579 --> 00:17:51.420
It's the whole thing of this show is straining against the norms and you know, pulling against the leash and trying to do and doing really extraordinarily new things.

220
00:17:51.480 --> 00:17:56.099
And even with a woman producer who was only, what, 26 at the time when she was doing this.

221
00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:09.299
It still is really protracted in its treatment of the 1st companion and really who should have been, not just a cypher to the doctor, but the, um, Oh, it's get a bit Yungi in here, the anima of the doctor.

222
00:18:09.539 --> 00:18:12.779
An animus will come up later in the season, won't it?

223
00:18:12.839 --> 00:18:15.420
Because there is a bit of young in Whittaker's script editing.

224
00:18:16.079 --> 00:18:20.700
She really is that should be the female foil to Billy.

225
00:18:20.759 --> 00:18:30.359
And I think that Jackie took that role on very quickly because A, she's 10, 13 years older than Caroline Ford at the time when they started and was until the end of her run.

226
00:18:30.420 --> 00:18:31.140
Still 13?

227
00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:31.319
Really?

228
00:18:31.740 --> 00:18:32.220
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

229
00:18:32.279 --> 00:18:35.339
It's strange, relative dimensions, weren't they relative?

230
00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:37.980
But she...

231
00:18:38.039 --> 00:18:43.799
Yeah, it's kind of a shame that they couldn't just allow a bit more fluidity between the female leads.

232
00:18:43.859 --> 00:18:54.119
It had to be so rigid, is really a very 50s way of writing, and you would have thought that it had been allowed that kind of progression that they had in the rest of the show, but sadly not, it doesn't seem to have been that way.

233
00:18:54.180 --> 00:19:01.799
I do wonder if they were allowed, well, there's a language, if they were allowed to have certain degrees of progression.

234
00:19:01.859 --> 00:19:18.119
So, for instance, they could have a progressive script with a female villain in Carla in the Keys of Mariners, and that, okay, yes, you can have the aliens that are little tanks, but then you get to the point of having 2 strong female leads and someone upstairs puts their foot down.

235
00:19:18.180 --> 00:19:22.920
And if Verity Lambert and David Whitaker just had to say, okay, well, look, we've got 90% of what we wanted.

236
00:19:22.980 --> 00:19:25.980
And we have to film tomorrow.

237
00:19:26.039 --> 00:19:32.039
So should we, you know, should we fight for Susan now or should we just get on and film it the best way we can?

238
00:19:32.099 --> 00:19:36.059
Because there would have been so much resistance to almost everything they were doing.

239
00:19:36.119 --> 00:19:40.200
You have to wonder if occasionally they didn't just go, look, we've got most of what we want.

240
00:19:40.259 --> 00:19:42.359
Yeah, I have to think though.

241
00:19:42.420 --> 00:19:49.680
I mean, the clear counterixample to that, we're going to discover in a little while is that they do eventually get it right.

242
00:19:49.680 --> 00:20:08.819
And in just a very few episodes from now, they managed to introduce a young female character who contrasts with Barbara, but actually works on her own terms in a way that Susan really never does, who isn't the sort of panicky idiot that we've learned to...

243
00:20:09.299 --> 00:20:15.299
But this is where I see the cleaver having come down or Madame Guillotine having swiped down.

244
00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:19.259
And no wonder she was panicking and whinging about being mauled and having a rat's act going at her.

245
00:20:19.259 --> 00:20:37.500
Because that to me is the end of one possibility and the finite progression, even though so far it's had no end of the type of a companion who is in a neat little box and will play a particular kind of young female and always tick these sorts of roles and play this thing and I'm looking at.

246
00:20:37.500 --> 00:20:45.059
Joe Grant, and I'm looking at no matter how far, even to the point, okay, the only one who may be further on broke that mould was Leila.

247
00:20:45.119 --> 00:20:48.960
But look how hard she had to try and how quickly she was pushed back a lot.

248
00:20:49.019 --> 00:20:49.619
They did with her.

249
00:20:49.680 --> 00:20:53.700
How interesting that what they did with her, about to see, you know, kind of similar way.

250
00:20:53.759 --> 00:20:55.980
It's no, no, back in your box.

251
00:20:56.640 --> 00:21:00.480
Don't get too uppity or we'll marry off to someone.

252
00:21:00.539 --> 00:21:01.500
We get to that next story.

253
00:21:01.559 --> 00:21:09.539
The one thing I did like if I can give you super nerdy here, if you'll allow only a moment of indulgence, if we can start talk about the TARDIS as a thingy.

254
00:21:09.599 --> 00:21:10.200
Yes.

255
00:21:10.200 --> 00:21:11.819
Love the time as a thingy.

256
00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:14.220
The time and relative dimension space.

257
00:21:14.279 --> 00:21:23.400
When I 1st saw this, which was back in the 80s on some bootleg copy, all graining and hissy at Stephen Roberts Theatre, thank you, Doctor Who Club of Australia for putting that on.

258
00:21:23.460 --> 00:21:31.380
My 1st take was, oh, the relative dimensions mean the TARDIS will materialise in context of scale.

259
00:21:31.500 --> 00:21:34.680
So we could have an adventure with microbes.

260
00:21:34.740 --> 00:21:39.599
And then, of course, we get a couple of stories onto adventures in entomology.

261
00:21:39.660 --> 00:21:46.680
And of course, that the wasps and the termites and the butterflies, a human skull, because the TARDIS is adapted to suit the environment.

262
00:21:46.799 --> 00:21:48.539
That's clever.

263
00:21:48.599 --> 00:21:50.700
So I didn't really see this.

264
00:21:50.759 --> 00:21:55.559
I know the Tartar stores open and everything, but did you ever have that take on it as well?

265
00:21:55.619 --> 00:21:56.640
I have...

266
00:21:57.299 --> 00:21:57.660
You know what?

267
00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:02.640
I've always thought the TARDIS can shrink or grow to any size.

268
00:22:02.759 --> 00:22:03.480
It's relative.

269
00:22:03.539 --> 00:22:04.259
It's relative.

270
00:22:04.259 --> 00:22:08.460
And, you know, you get things happening in the books like the doctor materialising around planets and stuff.

271
00:22:08.579 --> 00:22:08.819
Exactly.

272
00:22:08.880 --> 00:22:09.900
But it never happens.

273
00:22:09.960 --> 00:22:10.140
Where?

274
00:22:10.140 --> 00:22:10.380
when?

275
00:22:10.440 --> 00:22:10.740
What?

276
00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:12.960
I'm sure that happens in an 8th doctor novel.

277
00:22:12.960 --> 00:22:15.839
It's definitely, you know, everything happens in 8th doctor's.

278
00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:16.740
I think he's pregnant.

279
00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:18.720
Not that he remembers.

280
00:22:19.859 --> 00:22:25.740
But it never occurred to me to relate that back to Planet of Giants, and that's a brilliant explanation.

281
00:22:26.099 --> 00:22:32.339
The doctor gets something out of the TARDIS to shrink the Leela and Dr. Clones invisible.

282
00:22:32.400 --> 00:22:33.779
Invisible Enemy, which...

283
00:22:33.779 --> 00:22:34.740
The TARDS photocopier.

284
00:22:34.799 --> 00:22:35.460
Yeah, yeah.

285
00:22:35.519 --> 00:22:36.539
No, no, no, no.

286
00:22:36.599 --> 00:22:37.859
He doesn't climb them. shrinks them.

287
00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:38.400
No, it isn't.

288
00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:39.539
It's the tallest photocopier.

289
00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:40.740
Isn't that the same thing?

290
00:22:40.740 --> 00:22:41.400
Oh, no, no.

291
00:22:42.420 --> 00:22:45.240
Professor Marius clones them.

292
00:22:45.960 --> 00:22:48.180
And then they shrink the clones, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

293
00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:50.099
And wrap up.

294
00:22:50.099 --> 00:22:54.900
Actually, and wrapper Welsh is about to do it one year on in Fantastic Voyage and my bubber witch suit.

295
00:22:54.960 --> 00:22:55.200
Yes.

296
00:22:55.200 --> 00:22:55.980
That's for later.

297
00:22:56.579 --> 00:23:12.779
Now, just before we move on, the thing I do want to say about Planet of Giants, because you've got this commentary of an ecological thriller and concerns about the use of pesticides in foods and the effect on people.

298
00:23:12.839 --> 00:23:26.640
And then you have This whole other weird, strange subplot with Burton Hilda, the postmistress and her policeman husband.

299
00:23:26.700 --> 00:23:27.720
I think they're married.

300
00:23:27.779 --> 00:23:28.619
I'm not quite sure.

301
00:23:28.680 --> 00:23:30.240
I thought they were just gone together.

302
00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:43.799
But it's just so very strange that, um, well, I suppose they have to be introduced very early on in the story in a sort of Chekhov's gun effect, but would you like to go on more about Chekhov's gun?

303
00:23:43.859 --> 00:23:49.019
Oh, well, Chekhov's gun, for those of you who don't know, is the concept by the playwright Anton Chekhov.

304
00:23:49.079 --> 00:24:04.740
He made a comment about writing drama for stage in that if you have a gun which someone fires at the end of the play to kill someone, you have to have had the gun featured earlier on in the play, say as a decoration on the wall.

305
00:24:04.799 --> 00:24:06.960
It's kind of the other way around, isn't it?

306
00:24:07.019 --> 00:24:10.920
If you have someone preparing a gun in act one, you have to have a goal.

307
00:24:10.980 --> 00:24:12.900
Hitchcock trope as well, this movie.

308
00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:13.380
Yeah.

309
00:24:13.740 --> 00:24:14.700
But that's the concept.

310
00:24:14.759 --> 00:24:17.279
You know, it at the very least has to be seen prominently.

311
00:24:17.339 --> 00:24:21.960
And that's the thing with Bert and Hilda because Bert bursts in at the end.

312
00:24:22.019 --> 00:24:27.240
They have to be seen towards the beginning as being somehow involved in the plot.

313
00:24:27.299 --> 00:24:41.339
But the strange thing is, and sort of the wonderful thing, again, giving a woman a prominent role in this 60s science fiction series, is it's actually Hilda, who is more suspicious of what's going on at the farmhouse and keeps having to say to Bert. you should go up there.

314
00:24:41.400 --> 00:24:45.000
Oh no, well, I have to go investigate Mr. Malaprop's thingy over here.

315
00:24:45.059 --> 00:24:46.200
No, you should go up there.

316
00:24:46.259 --> 00:24:48.599
They're straight and I don't like that, Mr. Forrester, you know.

317
00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:58.740
And they're these 2 wonderful comedy characters in the middle of this story of animals being killed by pesticide.

318
00:24:58.799 --> 00:25:04.740
It's it's a wonderful Doctor Who-ish, but also, and I know I keep coming back to this, especially with this story.

319
00:25:04.799 --> 00:25:13.019
It's a very Avengers kind of juxtaposition of the macabre and the deadly and the humourous village life.

320
00:25:13.079 --> 00:25:21.180
And I think Hilda is a bit of an unsung hero in this because Bert makes his arrest, but never sort of says, oh, I'm glad I listened to Hilda.

321
00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:23.039
Because if it weren't for Hilda.

322
00:25:23.099 --> 00:25:26.700
You know, he would have never come along and made the arrest. of us would be here.

323
00:25:26.759 --> 00:25:28.500
None of us have been here now.

324
00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:31.259
Barbara would have died and the show would have died with her.

325
00:25:31.319 --> 00:25:33.000
The 1st George and Mildred of Doctor.

326
00:25:33.059 --> 00:25:36.240
And it's funny you should say that because we have, you know, coming up soon.

327
00:25:36.299 --> 00:25:53.460
A whole decade of poachers and tramps and blokes and cottages, putting glowing modular, 1960s desk lights into their shared box and having their wives get cross about it or, you know, just disappearing up a upper fundament of spookiness. saying, oh.

328
00:25:53.519 --> 00:25:54.420
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

329
00:25:54.480 --> 00:25:58.559
So again, it's another, it's another 1st for Doctor Who.

330
00:25:58.619 --> 00:26:02.579
Lots of great things established this year that will just go on being great.

331
00:26:05.640 --> 00:26:14.460
Ah, and that means, yes, it's time to move on from Planet of Giants and talk about the Dalek invasion of Earth instead.

332
00:26:14.519 --> 00:26:20.819
And what was the end of the 1st production block of Doctor Who?

333
00:26:20.940 --> 00:26:26.400
The end of the era and when Doctor Who becomes a show that knows what it's about.

334
00:26:26.700 --> 00:26:35.160
The 1st time that we're actually got a show that responds to audience, interest and audience demands.

335
00:26:35.220 --> 00:26:43.740
This is the show that had to happen and apparently, according to the show notes, the reason We've got another season of it and the reason it's probably still here today.

336
00:26:43.799 --> 00:26:45.059
So whether you like them or not.

337
00:26:45.119 --> 00:26:48.299
We've got a lot to thank the blokes in the dustbins for.

338
00:26:48.359 --> 00:26:50.880
This is, I mean, this is the hugest thing ever, isn't it?

339
00:26:50.940 --> 00:26:52.319
It is the biggest thing ever.

340
00:26:52.380 --> 00:27:09.000
It's actually, you know, just as Butler's holiday camps were starting to get bored because Marvella and the Spanish coast was opening up and the British tourists were actually starting to get a little bit of spending money, you know, the war, you know, the war was something that was in the past and rationing it ended a few years ago.

341
00:27:09.059 --> 00:27:16.440
We've actually got the Daleks doing their own thing coming to London and taking holiday snaps and all for selfies with each other.

342
00:27:16.500 --> 00:27:18.839
And tagging the little buggers.

343
00:27:18.900 --> 00:27:21.779
They even go around and tell you... vetoed.

344
00:27:21.839 --> 00:27:28.619
Yes, yes, but that lettering on, um, on Lancey's, um, Lions in Trafalgar Square.

345
00:27:28.680 --> 00:27:28.920
Yes.

346
00:27:28.980 --> 00:27:37.619
And of course, they've got their own groupies who wear that as a t-shirt and start putting on, you know, years before Bjork, start putting all gaga.

347
00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:43.380
They're putting on really groovy, safe hair dry things and just saying that, you know, we want to be part of this set.

348
00:27:43.440 --> 00:27:45.059
That's how big the Daleks really work.

349
00:27:45.119 --> 00:27:48.660
Yeah, I suppose the Robermen are like they're fans.

350
00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:50.759
They're imitating the Daleks.

351
00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:55.200
And just as annoying as fanboys really are, as you'll know by this episode of the podcast.

352
00:27:56.339 --> 00:28:00.839
Suddenly, too, things just look amazing, don't they?

353
00:28:00.900 --> 00:28:03.059
I mean, we've had location scale, aren't they?

354
00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:04.920
We've had location footage before.

355
00:28:04.980 --> 00:28:11.759
Like we had the doctor ambling sort of uninterestingly along a country lane in Paris, you know, late last year.

356
00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:13.740
Like a daguerreotype.

357
00:28:13.799 --> 00:28:23.339
We felt like the 1st moment of cinema when you record a chain pulling in or a very simple little one point perspective static camera shop.

358
00:28:23.400 --> 00:28:31.500
It's as if Doctor Who has been reflecting the beginning of cinema in its own little tiny TV world and it'll do that further on in the season as well.

359
00:28:31.559 --> 00:28:37.079
But this, you know, suddenly, for the very 1st time, our regular cast on location.

360
00:28:37.140 --> 00:28:37.740
Am I wrong about that?

361
00:28:37.799 --> 00:28:38.759
No, you're quite right.

362
00:28:38.759 --> 00:28:41.640
And episode one, I don't think episode 2 has any location footage.

363
00:28:41.700 --> 00:28:42.599
I think we have to wait.

364
00:28:42.660 --> 00:28:49.440
And the location footage is a bit sparing, but episode one is just massive, you know, all of them are running around.

365
00:28:49.500 --> 00:29:05.099
It looks really suddenly very spectacular, especially Jacqueline Hill running around all the collapsed buildings and she just does that very subtle thing with her face that that's when she sort of starts to figure out there's something wrong and they're not in 1963.

366
00:29:05.279 --> 00:29:06.000
Definitely.

367
00:29:06.059 --> 00:29:10.079
By this stage, they'd realise that it's Billy and Jackie running the narrative.

368
00:29:10.140 --> 00:29:16.559
Ian is there as the action pivot points and the one that will actually push the plot along.

369
00:29:16.559 --> 00:29:20.339
We've seen previously when he's not in an episode, nothing happens.

370
00:29:20.400 --> 00:29:26.400
So he's definitely there as the as the answer to the antagonism of the plot.

371
00:29:26.460 --> 00:29:34.140
He's the one that proacts, but Billy and Jackie are the cerebral. members of the cast and the ones that reactive.

372
00:29:34.200 --> 00:29:36.119
And again, this is the story where you can really see.

373
00:29:36.480 --> 00:29:39.539
Susan will get to Susan.

374
00:29:39.599 --> 00:29:40.859
What does she have to do?

375
00:29:40.920 --> 00:29:41.819
What does she have to say?

376
00:29:41.880 --> 00:29:47.039
It's really just there as a series of scenes of telling her that her time has come.

377
00:29:47.099 --> 00:29:49.619
I don't think she has much to say in this at all.

378
00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:53.339
Yeah, David says to Barbara, like, can you cook?

379
00:29:53.400 --> 00:29:54.059
And she says, yes.

380
00:29:54.119 --> 00:29:55.380
Oh, good, we need good cooks.

381
00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:56.819
And says, what can you do?

382
00:29:56.880 --> 00:29:57.480
I eat.

383
00:29:57.839 --> 00:30:04.559
And that's where things start to get a bit irritating, I think, because it does sort of work.

384
00:30:04.619 --> 00:30:14.099
And it is a massive spectacle and obviously all that iconic footage of, you know, Westminster Bridge and Trafalda Square and all of that sort of thing is really spectacular.

385
00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:21.119
But there is that thing, that terry nation thing where he thinks he's being sort of terrifically gone and grim and macho.

386
00:30:21.180 --> 00:30:25.079
And so he just creates these incredibly tiresome characters.

387
00:30:25.079 --> 00:30:32.700
And everyone's very jaded and very, um, you know, uh, just sort of unpleasant.

388
00:30:32.759 --> 00:30:39.240
You've got Jenny, who's just not a very nice character and and not Dortmund.

389
00:30:39.299 --> 00:30:41.700
Everyone's called Dortmund in...

390
00:30:41.759 --> 00:30:53.940
So the other guy, you know, like he's just really sort of grim, and then there is something sort of bizarrely racist about the, uh, about the plague that kills everyone except for Europeans, which is...

391
00:30:53.940 --> 00:30:55.259
It's the 1st time we have plagues.

392
00:30:55.319 --> 00:30:57.000
They do, it does.

393
00:30:57.000 --> 00:30:57.779
And the E-word.

394
00:30:57.839 --> 00:30:59.039
First time we get the E word.

395
00:30:59.099 --> 00:31:00.240
Yeah, extermination.

396
00:31:00.299 --> 00:31:03.180
Ah, but you know, singer rather than plural, yeah.

397
00:31:03.240 --> 00:31:04.559
Oh, yeah, yeah, experiment age.

398
00:31:04.619 --> 00:31:10.019
The plague that kills everyone except for white middle class people is something that...

399
00:31:10.500 --> 00:31:10.859
What is that?

400
00:31:10.920 --> 00:31:12.900
It's so imperial, but we've kept India.

401
00:31:12.960 --> 00:31:13.980
Oh, India is still there.

402
00:31:14.039 --> 00:31:15.359
No, that's referred to.

403
00:31:15.420 --> 00:31:18.420
Yeah, well, yeah, the Daleks say they're masters of India.

404
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:20.819
So there must be people there for them to be masters.

405
00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:23.819
They seem to have got rid of every other coloured race.

406
00:31:23.880 --> 00:31:25.140
There's a lot.

407
00:31:25.380 --> 00:31:27.000
He does reuse that for survivors.

408
00:31:27.059 --> 00:31:28.319
That's the premise of survivors.

409
00:31:28.380 --> 00:31:31.140
He's a giant plague that kills everyone except for middle class.

410
00:31:31.200 --> 00:31:32.160
White people.

411
00:31:32.220 --> 00:31:32.940
This os a lot.

412
00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:37.680
And it's funny you're talking about Barbara running through those deconstructed ruins.

413
00:31:37.740 --> 00:31:46.140
It owes a lot, I think, to other British SF, because, you know, it's Terry Nation, so he's not going to let any good idea go, even if it's somebody else's, especially if it's somebody else's.

414
00:31:46.259 --> 00:31:47.940
So there's a lot of John Wyndham in this.

415
00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:49.200
You get that as well.

416
00:31:49.259 --> 00:31:50.700
Oh, that just...

417
00:31:50.759 --> 00:31:54.000
British SF was severely dystopian after the war.

418
00:31:54.059 --> 00:31:55.799
It was the darkest writing.

419
00:31:56.279 --> 00:31:58.319
When is Day La Trifford's?

420
00:31:58.319 --> 00:31:59.220
50s.

421
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:00.180
Is it?

422
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:00.779
Yes, yeah.

423
00:32:00.839 --> 00:32:01.440
Okay.

424
00:32:01.500 --> 00:32:03.000
So is Midwitch cuckoos.

425
00:32:03.059 --> 00:32:04.140
Is it about again?

426
00:32:04.200 --> 00:32:08.400
And we've also seen a bit of quite a bit of equator mess in this story too, aren't we?

427
00:32:08.460 --> 00:32:10.740
So, you know, we've seen things that we've already seen on BBC.

428
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:13.019
The day of the Triffords thing is exactly it, though.

429
00:32:13.079 --> 00:32:16.319
And it is that sort of, you know, the world has gone to hell.

430
00:32:16.319 --> 00:32:18.119
And there is something about the day of the trip.

431
00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:21.960
You get meteorites coming in 6 months before the story or whenever it was.

432
00:32:22.019 --> 00:32:24.720
Well, that's how the plague comes, is it, by meteorites?

433
00:32:24.779 --> 00:32:25.559
And so...

434
00:32:25.559 --> 00:32:36.480
I really hate Day of the Tricians, because it is entertaining, but it annoys the hell out of me in that the Triffords are the author's agents.

435
00:32:36.539 --> 00:32:41.700
So you get this sort of picture of, of, we can edit all this out.

436
00:32:41.759 --> 00:32:43.140
Do you get this?

437
00:32:43.259 --> 00:32:45.359
because the Daleks are really just the author's agent.

438
00:32:45.420 --> 00:32:52.680
They're nothing. other than to be a beautiful, bluscious piece of pop art, like a Margaret, even doing a bathing beauty shop coming out of the game.

439
00:32:53.279 --> 00:32:55.740
Ursula, I just did it a year before and doctor.

440
00:32:55.859 --> 00:32:57.240
Dalek doing it in this.

441
00:33:00.299 --> 00:33:03.059
Does Rod mention that?

442
00:33:03.119 --> 00:33:04.140
No, no, no.

443
00:33:04.200 --> 00:33:07.140
It's not that homeowned. unless you're another girl.

444
00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:09.599
Support your back to your dustbin.

445
00:33:09.660 --> 00:33:14.460
Before we get to your comment, I can throw in what Rod did say about Darlic Invasion of Earth.

446
00:33:14.519 --> 00:33:15.240
I think you might like it.

447
00:33:15.299 --> 00:33:20.220
It's quite good, but I prefer the film version, better sets, more action, and it had burden cribbons.

448
00:33:20.579 --> 00:33:22.380
Eileen Way.

449
00:33:22.440 --> 00:33:24.420
I like Bernard Cribbons in vinyl.

450
00:33:24.660 --> 00:33:26.640
I don't think anybody.

451
00:33:26.700 --> 00:33:27.720
He did record on vinyl.

452
00:33:27.779 --> 00:33:28.380
We'll clean this up.

453
00:33:28.559 --> 00:33:30.839
Has anyone ever said that before?

454
00:33:30.900 --> 00:33:34.079
Well, he was he was quite handsome in his youth.

455
00:33:34.140 --> 00:33:37.259
I think he was too. a bit of a matinee idol.

456
00:33:37.319 --> 00:33:48.000
So the thing about the thing about this and day of the truth is, they're both about examining how society works under stress and about different ways of constituting society.

457
00:33:48.059 --> 00:33:55.740
So when Susan and Barbara turn up at the underground based thing, they're given jobs to do, you know, no one can be kind of useless.

458
00:33:55.799 --> 00:33:58.980
That's why Susan's thing is confronting.

459
00:33:59.099 --> 00:34:02.339
You know, she admits to being of no sort of practical value.

460
00:34:02.400 --> 00:34:03.779
Within the narrative.

461
00:34:03.900 --> 00:34:06.900
Well, as anyone who's watched the show up to now would realise.

462
00:34:07.559 --> 00:34:10.980
And so it's about different ways of constituting society.

463
00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:17.460
And the thing about Day of the Triffords is, there are lots of different ways of constituting society that come into conflict.

464
00:34:17.460 --> 00:34:19.199
And he sets these up.

465
00:34:19.260 --> 00:34:23.880
There are, you know, different groups who operate under different rules and laws.

466
00:34:23.940 --> 00:34:29.820
And Wyndham just sends the Triffords in to kill any group that he disapproves of.

467
00:34:29.880 --> 00:34:34.619
So, you know, there's those Christians who sort of set things up and they're all sort of marrying and stuff.

468
00:34:34.679 --> 00:34:37.079
And then later we come back and the trippards have killed them all.

469
00:34:37.139 --> 00:34:46.380
So he uses them as a sort of authorial bully property to express his own political opinions, I think.

470
00:34:46.500 --> 00:34:51.599
That's a very good point because thinking about that in terms of Dalek Invasion of Earth.

471
00:34:51.659 --> 00:35:05.340
You've got the character Ashton, the black marketeer at the labour cap, who comes in, and when we see him, he sells someone some food, demands more money from them, gives them less food because they can't give him enough money, and is immediately killed by the slither.

472
00:35:05.460 --> 00:35:07.380
The slither.

473
00:35:07.440 --> 00:35:08.880
The wicked liver.

474
00:35:08.940 --> 00:35:12.420
We will get to talk about this as well, but this is the 1st of Terry's.

475
00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:13.019
Is it the 1st?

476
00:35:13.139 --> 00:35:15.840
No, I guess there are sort of stupid monsters in...

477
00:35:15.960 --> 00:35:20.099
Well, he did have the sort of inflatable octopus in the Daleks.

478
00:35:20.159 --> 00:35:23.699
The thing that comes up out of the spot, and then we need...

479
00:35:23.820 --> 00:35:25.559
A sporadic pseudopology.

480
00:35:25.619 --> 00:35:32.880
But he will, you know, in complete defiance of any knowledge of what the production team is actually able to put on the screen.

481
00:35:32.940 --> 00:35:35.760
He will say, let's have a big scary monster.

482
00:35:35.820 --> 00:35:39.420
And I mean, the slither really is like truly, truly dismal, isn't it?

483
00:35:39.480 --> 00:35:40.559
It's filmed, though.

484
00:35:40.619 --> 00:35:47.699
I like the idea of it being part, um, green bugeye thing and part vegetable and part two.

485
00:35:47.760 --> 00:35:50.219
It's actually kind of crinoid. and look how good that was.

486
00:35:50.340 --> 00:35:51.119
Yeah.

487
00:35:51.179 --> 00:35:51.719
Yeah.

488
00:35:52.739 --> 00:36:06.719
I think it's also that the suit lacks the sort of texture that the crinoid would later have because the crinoid and the axle, I suppose, had a sort of base level, which was then covered in tendril.

489
00:36:06.780 --> 00:36:15.480
So if the tendrils move, you can see the skin beneath it, whereas the slither just has the skin and actor wobbling inside it.

490
00:36:15.539 --> 00:36:17.760
And was it Nick Evans?

491
00:36:17.820 --> 00:36:19.920
I think was the actor inside it going?

492
00:36:20.699 --> 00:36:21.539
This is the point.

493
00:36:21.599 --> 00:36:30.000
And again, we've got a, because he's considered, you know, reliable, but this is another Richard Martin directed story and not a Duggee Canfield directed story.

494
00:36:30.059 --> 00:36:30.599
That's true.

495
00:36:30.659 --> 00:36:32.400
I think you would have seen something kind of different.

496
00:36:32.519 --> 00:36:36.239
But he would have kept it off the screen as much as possible, perhaps.

497
00:36:36.300 --> 00:36:47.519
I know you guys aren't the biggest fans of Richard Martin's work, but I think he sort of falls between the stalls of, you know, he's he is no Dougie Canfield, but his film work is very, very good.

498
00:36:47.639 --> 00:36:50.159
Yeah, he's got no time to do it.

499
00:36:50.219 --> 00:36:51.239
When he's got time to do it.

500
00:36:51.300 --> 00:36:55.440
And his studio work is It is technically proficient.

501
00:36:55.500 --> 00:36:57.000
You don't tend to say.

502
00:36:57.119 --> 00:36:58.860
Are you sure you want to say that so soon?

503
00:36:58.920 --> 00:37:05.159
We're going to discuss the chase with its many cameras in shot and studio noise in the background.

504
00:37:05.219 --> 00:37:07.199
I will say it for this story.

505
00:37:07.320 --> 00:37:11.820
You know, you don't tend to have as many cameras running into things.

506
00:37:11.820 --> 00:37:12.659
You don't.

507
00:37:13.199 --> 00:37:15.119
I am just talking about this story for now.

508
00:37:15.539 --> 00:37:24.239
And also, whenever he's got a crowd scene, he makes sure there is something happening in the background, somebody happening in the midground and something happening in the foreground.

509
00:37:24.300 --> 00:37:25.679
And a zombie running into the camera.

510
00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:27.000
And a zombie running into the camera.

511
00:37:27.059 --> 00:37:28.920
I am just talking about this story.

512
00:37:28.980 --> 00:37:32.340
He does wear a fantastic...

513
00:37:32.460 --> 00:37:33.420
He does though, doesn't he?

514
00:37:33.960 --> 00:37:35.400
It's got a full points with that.

515
00:37:35.460 --> 00:37:36.480
And is he still around?

516
00:37:36.539 --> 00:37:37.260
Yeah, yeah.

517
00:37:37.320 --> 00:37:38.099
So there you go.

518
00:37:38.159 --> 00:37:38.940
So we've got to love him.

519
00:37:38.940 --> 00:37:40.139
He's lovely. really nice.

520
00:37:40.199 --> 00:37:41.280
I think that's the problem.

521
00:37:41.340 --> 00:37:44.400
He's obviously a genuine gentleman of the old school.

522
00:37:44.460 --> 00:37:52.260
Hence the flirtatious neck where he's also, for that reason, I think, just too sweet and people took advantage of it.

523
00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:56.579
It's like, this is why Dougie Canfield stuff is so tight and regimented because he cracked a whip.

524
00:37:56.639 --> 00:37:59.099
And if you bug it up, that was it.

525
00:37:59.159 --> 00:38:00.840
You were off the set. you were, no, that's it.

526
00:38:00.900 --> 00:38:01.980
You don't work with me ever again.

527
00:38:02.039 --> 00:38:04.500
And he worked with very, it was a very tight military crew.

528
00:38:04.559 --> 00:38:06.179
We should mutter. hello, darling, hello, lovely.

529
00:38:06.239 --> 00:38:07.079
It's lovely to see you.

530
00:38:07.139 --> 00:38:09.239
So, of course, they're all standing around having a smoke.

531
00:38:09.300 --> 00:38:11.280
And if that door bangs or if that prop falls over.

532
00:38:11.340 --> 00:38:12.900
Well, it's videotape you can't edit it.

533
00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:15.000
Yeah, but who got better results?

534
00:38:15.059 --> 00:38:16.079
Yeah, yeah.

535
00:38:16.139 --> 00:38:18.599
Yeah, that's what you got to watch. interesting point, isn't it?

536
00:38:18.659 --> 00:38:21.599
Because there's different textural effects that you get.

537
00:38:21.659 --> 00:38:30.840
The cast may actually be giving more or be sharing more between each other, the regular cost in Martin's stories.

538
00:38:30.900 --> 00:38:34.019
There's some lovely close shots between them that you may not get, say.

539
00:38:34.079 --> 00:38:36.480
Because they're so comfortable with research.

540
00:38:36.599 --> 00:38:36.780
Exactly.

541
00:38:36.840 --> 00:38:37.260
Exactly.

542
00:38:37.320 --> 00:38:39.840
We haven't discussed World War II.

543
00:38:39.900 --> 00:38:42.719
Oh, there's a lot to say about.

544
00:38:42.719 --> 00:38:44.820
Oh, look, the problem is Susan.

545
00:38:44.880 --> 00:38:46.079
Should we finish with season, though?

546
00:38:46.139 --> 00:38:46.860
I think we should do.

547
00:38:46.920 --> 00:38:48.179
Yeah, so we not too World War II.

548
00:38:48.239 --> 00:38:53.099
I mean, this is, again, you know, the famous science fiction trope of what if the Nazis had won.

549
00:38:53.159 --> 00:38:53.880
Yes.

550
00:38:53.880 --> 00:39:02.579
And so you get them, you know, goose stepping, they don't really have legs, but they're sort of rolling into Trafalda Square and doing a...

551
00:39:02.579 --> 00:39:04.199
They are doing a...

552
00:39:04.199 --> 00:39:13.079
Yeah, with their plunges and the black marketeer thing and those the collaborator women who make clothes for the for the prison camp.

553
00:39:13.139 --> 00:39:14.159
Do you know what I mean?

554
00:39:14.219 --> 00:39:16.739
And there's clearly food rationing and things going on.

555
00:39:16.860 --> 00:39:25.500
And so Richard, in when we talked about the dialects, you talked about them as a sort of analogue of communism.

556
00:39:25.559 --> 00:39:26.940
And we've lost that with this one.

557
00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:30.000
This is very much the blitz reformed.

558
00:39:30.119 --> 00:39:41.219
This is really, and there were other novels at the time talking about this, what's going to happen, what would have happened if Robert Harrison was.

559
00:39:41.460 --> 00:39:43.079
Yeah, it lost.

560
00:39:43.079 --> 00:39:46.440
You know, 19441, that was so close to happening.

561
00:39:46.500 --> 00:39:48.599
It was really only the Yanks stepping in.

562
00:39:48.659 --> 00:39:52.980
Which is funny when you see American actors in this in this series.

563
00:39:53.039 --> 00:40:00.000
They're always seen in that kind of duality of being rescuing heroes, but also if they're a little bit clotsy, aren't they?

564
00:40:00.059 --> 00:40:02.519
And you see that the Americans portrayed in this.

565
00:40:02.579 --> 00:40:11.280
Um, we've got the wonderful Bernard Kay, of course, is Tyler being the I think the real centre of the narrative of this story outside of the TARDIS crew.

566
00:40:11.340 --> 00:40:14.820
Dortmund is just kind of there to be Dortmund and utterly futile thing.

567
00:40:14.880 --> 00:40:17.280
This is a show that looks and should be wonderful.

568
00:40:17.340 --> 00:40:25.920
We've got great ratings, but he's actually a bit pants when it comes down to plotting and can we just get to what the hell were they doing here in the 1st place?

569
00:40:25.980 --> 00:40:28.739
You've, okay, you've got space technology.

570
00:40:28.800 --> 00:40:43.619
Yes, you're finally flying, we could shoot, this is the original Daleks just moved on a little bit, but you're going to hollow out the magnetic core of a planet and put a motor in it and drive it around the solar system very, very slowly.

571
00:40:43.739 --> 00:40:48.719
No, no, um, Philip Sanders says that it's he's driving it around the galaxy to pick up girls.

572
00:40:49.920 --> 00:40:54.059
Do you think they saw mom desk and thought, I've got a bit jealous.

573
00:40:54.119 --> 00:40:58.739
Well, no, it's all right now because Russell T. Navy's explained everything in the stolen earth.

574
00:40:58.860 --> 00:41:04.860
Oh, they were creating a big thing out of 26 planets in the lost mood of Pooh. to do a thing to destroy everything.

575
00:41:04.920 --> 00:41:05.579
Yeah.

576
00:41:05.639 --> 00:41:07.440
It takes more sex than this time.

577
00:41:07.500 --> 00:41:13.500
Well, okay, that was a sound of a result who said that perhaps these Daleks are actually genuinely insane.

578
00:41:13.559 --> 00:41:15.719
That's it from the past, by the way.

579
00:41:15.780 --> 00:41:18.360
The doctor says Renny says it's a 1000000 years.

580
00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:21.179
Yeah, yeah, that was...

581
00:41:21.239 --> 00:41:34.739
Well, I think I think the fan sort of retcorn of it is that they left Scaro long before the Daleks we see on Scaro, which is why they're also more advanced because they had to come up with a way to leave their ship.

582
00:41:35.159 --> 00:41:40.679
But I mean, there is a sense in which the why they're there is the McGuffin.

583
00:41:40.739 --> 00:41:52.619
I mean, the reason that they're there is because they were hugely successful last time and the reason they're in London is because, you know, that's where all these viewers are and it makes it really sort of present and exciting.

584
00:41:52.679 --> 00:41:57.480
And it really, that really works in episodes one and three, I keep thinking it's three.

585
00:41:57.599 --> 00:42:02.219
You know, that is the season, the episodes, the story's biggest success.

586
00:42:02.340 --> 00:42:03.900
I guess that's the point, isn't it?

587
00:42:03.960 --> 00:42:17.519
Daleks are not driven by logic, but by really human, um, dark, uh, you know, such as racial impulses such as, you know, racial racial purity.

588
00:42:17.579 --> 00:42:19.199
Mars doesn't have a magnetosphere.

589
00:42:19.260 --> 00:42:20.039
They could have just used that.

590
00:42:20.099 --> 00:42:21.960
But it makes so much easier.

591
00:42:22.019 --> 00:42:24.239
Well, the no population.

592
00:42:24.300 --> 00:42:27.179
They're driven by the needs of the narrative, I think.

593
00:42:27.239 --> 00:42:38.159
The Daleks are there to give the audience what they want and we'll see them, you know, featuring really prominently for the next couple of years just because just out of narrative necessity, you know.

594
00:42:38.280 --> 00:42:39.659
Yeah.

595
00:42:39.659 --> 00:42:46.079
I wonder if we could retcon, um, Darlic Convasion of Earth, enlighten the latest story, the Pirate Planet.

596
00:42:46.079 --> 00:42:47.820
In the chase.

597
00:42:47.880 --> 00:42:51.000
They have dematerialisation rematerialization technology.

598
00:42:51.059 --> 00:42:59.159
So could they have been hollowing out Earth to rematerialize around the other planets in the solar system because I believe Earth is the largest terrestrial planet in the solar system.

599
00:42:59.280 --> 00:43:01.860
The larger sort of non-gas giant.

600
00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:02.579
Yes, exactly.

601
00:43:02.639 --> 00:43:04.679
I know Venus is around the same size.

602
00:43:04.739 --> 00:43:09.420
I'm not sure if Venus is larger than Earth or not, but it could then materialise around Mercury.

603
00:43:09.480 --> 00:43:13.500
Mars, um, Pluto and asteroids at the very least.

604
00:43:13.500 --> 00:43:17.579
And mine, mine resources from it.

605
00:43:17.639 --> 00:43:24.599
Well, I think that just ternation isn't remotely interested in anything like that and it really is just as silly as possible.

606
00:43:24.659 --> 00:43:28.019
And, you know, let's have some minds and all that sort of thing, I guess.

607
00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:35.099
And, you know, um, so it really is just sort of a pulp B grade science fiction reason for them to be there.

608
00:43:35.159 --> 00:43:36.659
But that's not what we're interested in.

609
00:43:36.719 --> 00:43:42.599
We are interested in the Dalek emerging from the Thames and Daleks, you know, going down Westminster Bridge and things.

610
00:43:42.659 --> 00:43:50.940
It's about Britain finding its identity in that period of the 60s because the Daleks do represent the Nazis, but they kind of also represent the Yanks.

611
00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:52.800
Don't forget it, it's George Orler.

612
00:43:52.860 --> 00:43:55.380
We talked about Britain being airship one.

613
00:43:55.440 --> 00:43:57.659
And there was a whole lot of...

614
00:43:57.719 --> 00:43:58.619
Yeah, that is it.

615
00:43:58.679 --> 00:43:59.340
Thank you.

616
00:43:59.400 --> 00:44:09.659
Looking at how Britain had just become a base for the Yanks and their military tech and nuclear tech and that this was something that the Brits should be very angry about.

617
00:44:09.719 --> 00:44:14.159
Not that dissimilar from Australia and Pine Gap and the bases were allowing to be built in the north.

618
00:44:14.639 --> 00:44:30.599
So they're seen as they're seen as the very neat cookie cutter for everything that's not us and everything that is of us that we would wish not to be or that we haven't properly acknowledged, so we'll put it in a tin suit.

619
00:44:30.659 --> 00:44:32.039
They're the perfect villain, actually.

620
00:44:32.099 --> 00:44:38.880
It's it's our hate and our shadow and, you know, neatly...

621
00:44:38.880 --> 00:44:40.860
Compact...

622
00:44:40.860 --> 00:44:42.599
In a symbol, we can hate.

623
00:44:42.659 --> 00:44:43.260
Exactly.

624
00:44:43.320 --> 00:44:43.860
Perfect.

625
00:44:43.920 --> 00:44:45.360
And we and we can hate it.

626
00:44:45.420 --> 00:44:47.639
But be righteous in our hatred.

627
00:44:47.699 --> 00:44:48.360
Exactly.

628
00:44:48.420 --> 00:44:55.739
Because they've denied the humanity and they do all the naughty things that we also do, but we like to pretend that we also capable of good.

629
00:44:55.800 --> 00:45:00.059
Dialects don't appear to be capable of any good at all, except by haphazard.

630
00:45:00.119 --> 00:45:02.699
And don't wish to be... don't wish to be.

631
00:45:02.880 --> 00:45:03.539
Got no design.

632
00:45:03.599 --> 00:45:10.139
No, which is precisely why Billy leaves his granddaughter right in the middle of their mess after they bugged him off.

633
00:45:10.199 --> 00:45:11.639
We need to come to that, don't we?

634
00:45:11.880 --> 00:45:19.380
because it really bothers me because we've mentioned in the 1st podcast that the day before Doctor Who's 1st episode went out.

635
00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:23.639
Both C.S. Lewis and all this Huxley passed away, so that's correct, isn't it?

636
00:45:23.699 --> 00:45:36.599
Do you remember in the end of Liner Witch and the Wardrobe and before the saga moved on, the only member of the original cast of children who went through the wardrobe that were left behind was Susan?

637
00:45:36.659 --> 00:45:38.400
That's not quite right.

638
00:45:38.460 --> 00:45:39.239
That's not quite right.

639
00:45:39.300 --> 00:45:45.780
The problem from Susan comes from the last battle, which is the very last of the series.

640
00:45:45.840 --> 00:46:06.840
Um, and uh, the last battle sees all of the children and probably their parents and things go to an idealised version of Narnia that represents heaven because they've all died in a horrific train accident, which is exactly how you want your child heroes of, you know, like a long running series to uh, to end up.

641
00:46:06.900 --> 00:46:13.019
And it's one of the reasons, like the last battle, I've grown to really dislike Lewis over the years.

642
00:46:13.079 --> 00:46:15.360
I think he's a sort of pompous conservative.

643
00:46:15.900 --> 00:46:18.480
It's really old Anglican theology, isn't it?

644
00:46:18.539 --> 00:46:21.119
quite horrible from really steadfast.

645
00:46:21.179 --> 00:46:24.239
Aslan is really appalling.

646
00:46:24.300 --> 00:46:26.460
Not very progressive New Testament, is he?

647
00:46:27.059 --> 00:46:28.679
He's just not very much like Jesus.

648
00:46:28.739 --> 00:46:30.059
He's like a horrible.

649
00:46:30.119 --> 00:46:33.480
He's a lot of Old Testament in Asland's Isaacs as well, yeah.

650
00:46:33.539 --> 00:46:34.260
He's a bully.

651
00:46:34.320 --> 00:46:42.059
And so and so at the end, they all go to heaven, but the only person who has been to Narnia who doesn't go is Susan.

652
00:46:42.119 --> 00:46:51.360
The reason that she doesn't go to heaven is that she now says that the Narnia stuff was stuff that they did as kids, but they that it never really happened.

653
00:46:51.420 --> 00:46:59.159
And I think Lucy says that she's more interested in nylons and lipsticks and boys.

654
00:46:59.219 --> 00:47:00.179
Thank you.

655
00:47:00.239 --> 00:47:02.039
And that's my memory of it as well.

656
00:47:02.099 --> 00:47:03.780
It's hazy because I hadn't read them since school.

657
00:47:03.840 --> 00:47:09.059
But my memory of Sarah Lewis is Susan is denied because she's achieved womanhood.

658
00:47:09.119 --> 00:47:11.940
Yeah, she's discovered her sexuality.

659
00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:14.099
And I'm sorry, we don't have room for you anymore.

660
00:47:14.159 --> 00:47:16.800
Isn't that exactly what we're seeing here?

661
00:47:16.860 --> 00:47:35.820
And when I say the problem with Susan, it's not just Carol Anne's performance that I think was sadly neglected, there are many levels on which this character could have really opened up something in the way that, not just British science fiction writing, but very much so, was so much more profound and deep than anything we got on TV with a few sparse choices here and there.

662
00:47:36.119 --> 00:47:41.579
So much more involved with character and real consternation and real conflict.

663
00:47:41.579 --> 00:47:55.320
And we get little hints of that, but we brought back to toe the line in each story, stories like the sensory rights, we've seen previously where we get her being able to step out of her mould and actually start being the progressive force in the narrative and certain the thing that's pulling it along.

664
00:47:55.380 --> 00:47:57.599
No, no, back in back in the darkest.

665
00:47:57.659 --> 00:47:59.159
There we have it.

666
00:47:59.219 --> 00:48:01.920
Lewis's voice is still very loud in this.

667
00:48:02.039 --> 00:48:20.340
So Sandra brings the problem of Susan, terminology to bear on Susan, and says that if you've got a character like Susan, who is the doctor's granddaughter, he can never really properly go adventuring because he's always being pulled back, buys a protective.

668
00:48:20.400 --> 00:48:21.420
Yeah, that's right.

669
00:48:21.480 --> 00:48:27.719
And so, so he can't, and this is something that they fix when Vicky comes along, as we'll see quite soon.

670
00:48:27.900 --> 00:48:37.619
He's fond of Vicki, but he's not related to her and doesn't have to protect her in quite the same way, and so Vicki's allowed to do things that Susan isn't allowed to do.

671
00:48:37.679 --> 00:48:43.619
Within such a rigid formulaic construct of what a little girl character...

672
00:48:43.679 --> 00:48:48.840
No, I disagree with you completely about Vicky I'm going to be constantly contradicting you.

673
00:48:48.900 --> 00:48:50.820
I think she's absolutely superb.

674
00:48:50.880 --> 00:48:52.139
And one of the...

675
00:48:52.139 --> 00:48:52.980
She's a love...

676
00:48:53.039 --> 00:48:56.699
I think she's a very good actress and possibly, you know, whatever, how you're the one.

677
00:48:56.760 --> 00:48:58.079
You see it, but you want to see it.

678
00:48:58.139 --> 00:49:06.480
But she was, of course, she was able to do more because the character itself was so rigidly structured and finite and it was there with which you could do so much.

679
00:49:06.539 --> 00:49:12.239
Susan could have been anything and because of that, nobody knew what to do with her other than bring her back in line.

680
00:49:12.300 --> 00:49:25.440
Well, but I mean, in practice, what you have is, you know, as I've said before, a panicky idiot who's really not very pleasant to watch, as opposed to someone who's really having fun, who the doctor is really fond of.

681
00:49:25.500 --> 00:49:28.559
I think Vicki is them getting it right.

682
00:49:28.619 --> 00:49:31.739
They don't jettison the sort of star child thing.

683
00:49:31.800 --> 00:49:32.820
She's still from the future.

684
00:49:32.880 --> 00:49:33.840
She's still unearthly.

685
00:49:33.900 --> 00:49:38.340
But she's enjoying herself rather than being terrified by everything.

686
00:49:38.340 --> 00:49:41.340
And she's just much more fun to watch.

687
00:49:41.400 --> 00:49:46.860
She still leaves, you know, the relationships with Ian and Barbara intact.

688
00:49:46.920 --> 00:49:47.579
Do you know what I mean?

689
00:49:47.639 --> 00:49:49.019
They still get to be a bit parental.

690
00:49:49.079 --> 00:49:54.539
But she's just not tiresome in a way that Susan was.

691
00:49:54.599 --> 00:49:58.139
And I don't know why Susan couldn't have been like that from the outset.

692
00:49:58.260 --> 00:50:00.719
They didn't have that pocketed.

693
00:50:00.780 --> 00:50:02.639
They didn't have that structure in place.

694
00:50:02.699 --> 00:50:07.079
The thing with Vicki is that she's written out of the future.

695
00:50:07.139 --> 00:50:08.940
She's the most contemporary of all the characters.

696
00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:19.619
She's absolutely Mersey beat, ready, steady, go. kid on a Saturday night, um, jukebox jury, absolutely of the time.

697
00:50:19.679 --> 00:50:21.599
She's so, it's 1964.

698
00:50:21.780 --> 00:50:24.300
She's the most dated character to watch when you're looking at it now.

699
00:50:24.360 --> 00:50:25.320
Dodo?

700
00:50:25.380 --> 00:50:27.119
We haven't got this.

701
00:50:27.179 --> 00:50:29.340
I don't know her time in her place.

702
00:50:29.400 --> 00:50:48.300
The interesting thing I find, Richard, were you talking about the fact that Susan and Vicky fit in the same in the same structure, in the same mould, but that structure was actually very broad and Susan only was only utilised in a little bit of that structure and Vicky was allowed to expand a bit more.

703
00:50:48.360 --> 00:50:52.199
I think also there's there's an aspect of semiotics in there.

704
00:50:52.260 --> 00:50:58.079
Because spoiler alert, Susan and Vicky leave in much the same way.

705
00:50:58.139 --> 00:51:01.619
They meet a young man, they'd rather take him with him and go off with him.

706
00:51:01.679 --> 00:51:07.139
I skipped over the word beside because one goes by choice. one goes by choice.

707
00:51:07.199 --> 00:51:09.960
Susan is the doctor's granddaughter.

708
00:51:10.019 --> 00:51:11.699
He gives her away.

709
00:51:11.760 --> 00:51:14.340
Vicki is autonomous.

710
00:51:14.400 --> 00:51:17.519
She is not, she is the granddaughter figure, but she is not the granddaughter.

711
00:51:17.579 --> 00:51:25.500
She chooses to leave, and the doctor actually seems more heartbroken about that than he does about Susan going a lot.

712
00:51:25.500 --> 00:51:28.019
Because with Susan, it's his choice.

713
00:51:28.139 --> 00:51:38.460
But I think possibly that's why Susan was never used to the full capacity of that mould because the 1st thing she was was a dutiful granddaughter.

714
00:51:38.519 --> 00:51:48.059
And writers had in their mind what a dutiful granddaughter was in 1963, long white socks and a bit whingy.

715
00:51:48.119 --> 00:51:48.599
Yeah.

716
00:51:48.659 --> 00:52:00.300
But I actually think that I actually think that they made a mistake and what they thought she needed to be was someone to get into peril and someone to take on that sort of traditional panicky female role.

717
00:52:00.420 --> 00:52:02.280
Exactly, because she was the granddaughter.

718
00:52:02.400 --> 00:52:07.380
Yeah, I think so, but Barbara is the one that's always getting nicked him.

719
00:52:07.440 --> 00:52:22.380
Yeah, maybe it's because she's the granddaughter or maybe it's just a horrible, horrible mistake because, um, you know, I think I think that once she starts panicking in episode two, she, that's really her done, you know, she's she's useless.

720
00:52:22.440 --> 00:52:23.760
She's hamstrungen by that, I think.

721
00:52:23.880 --> 00:52:34.500
And I don't know whether the granddaughter, whether she had to be like that because she was the granddaughter or because, uh, you know, that's how they thought the juvenile female lead should behave.

722
00:52:34.619 --> 00:52:40.920
But clearly they discover it's a mistake and they do get the chance to rectify it with Vicky.

723
00:52:42.480 --> 00:52:45.960
So her introduction has preceded her.

724
00:52:46.019 --> 00:52:46.739
So now...

725
00:52:46.739 --> 00:52:52.079
Ah, yes, time for the rescue, Doctor Who's 1st?

726
00:52:52.139 --> 00:52:54.119
Oh, I was going to say Doctor Who's 1st 2 parts, sorry.

727
00:52:54.179 --> 00:52:56.159
Doctor's 1st two-part story that works.

728
00:52:56.219 --> 00:52:58.199
I think I'll say.

729
00:52:58.619 --> 00:53:00.480
The rescue.

730
00:53:00.539 --> 00:53:01.019
So.

731
00:53:01.320 --> 00:53:03.719
Well, I just think this is terrific, isn't it?

732
00:53:03.780 --> 00:53:05.639
I mean it is really, really tremendous.

733
00:53:05.699 --> 00:53:08.820
We're going to quote Sandra for again.

734
00:53:08.880 --> 00:53:27.300
But we've left London in ruins and we've left David Campbell and Susan to fix it and this next story is set in the future after that and there is an English spaceship with the Union Jack on the side of it.

735
00:53:27.360 --> 00:53:31.079
So clearly it has been rebuilt. and there's hope for the future.

736
00:53:31.380 --> 00:53:35.699
And inside the spaceship is Vicky.

737
00:53:35.820 --> 00:53:37.079
And as we've said before.

738
00:53:37.139 --> 00:53:45.780
Oh, as we've just been saying, she's, um, she's a terrific character and this, this story is really structured around introducing her.

739
00:53:45.840 --> 00:53:48.179
So we had an episode to introduce Susan.

740
00:53:48.239 --> 00:53:58.260
We get a two-part story to introduce uh, Vicky, and the, and the two-part story, it's very definitely designed to, to give Maureen a chance to do a whole bunch of things.

741
00:53:58.320 --> 00:54:01.019
So she gets to be sort of scared and desperate.

742
00:54:01.079 --> 00:54:02.579
She gets to be kind of plucky.

743
00:54:02.639 --> 00:54:04.320
She gets to be a bit funny.

744
00:54:04.380 --> 00:54:06.420
She gets to be won over by the doctor.

745
00:54:06.420 --> 00:54:13.139
And it's so clear right from the get go that, um, that Billy really likes her.

746
00:54:13.139 --> 00:54:17.039
And the relationship between them is is so warm.

747
00:54:17.099 --> 00:54:19.559
It's really, it's, it's really tremendous.

748
00:54:19.619 --> 00:54:22.980
But it is a big acting tour de force.

749
00:54:23.039 --> 00:54:27.960
It is, it is something that's just designed to give the companion something to do.

750
00:54:28.019 --> 00:54:38.579
And I think at this stage, it's still important to the program that the regulars all have a reason to be there and are all very clearly defined.

751
00:54:38.699 --> 00:55:00.840
So Ian and Barbara and now Vicky are all kind of well-defined characters, and that's something that we're going to lose very quickly next year in season 3 where the characters are all kind of just brought in and dumped and no one really thinks about them very carefully at all or, you know, their accents change halfway through their run or whatever.

752
00:55:00.900 --> 00:55:08.159
Whereas, whereas here, you know, David Whittaker's really, you know, uh, taking the opportunity to, am I right?

753
00:55:08.219 --> 00:55:13.860
Yeah, David Whitaker, taking the opportunity to really... his 1st go now that he's not grouped editor.

754
00:55:13.920 --> 00:55:14.880
Spooner has come in.

755
00:55:14.940 --> 00:55:24.179
Yeah, it started the tradition, which carried on through to really the 80s of the outgoing script editor writing the 1st script for the new script editor.

756
00:55:24.239 --> 00:55:25.260
Yeah.

757
00:55:25.320 --> 00:55:30.420
Although Terrence Dix, I think, said that he made up that tradition in order to believe...

758
00:55:31.500 --> 00:55:32.579
There's a lot of that.

759
00:55:32.820 --> 00:55:33.900
Yeah, but he invented it.

760
00:55:33.900 --> 00:55:34.920
He happened to be in the room.

761
00:55:35.039 --> 00:55:38.579
Including saying all you need is an original idea.

762
00:55:38.639 --> 00:55:39.480
It doesn't have to be yours.

763
00:55:39.539 --> 00:55:41.460
So I think he covers...

764
00:55:41.820 --> 00:55:44.699
Because that's exactly what Doctor Who is still doing well and why.

765
00:55:44.760 --> 00:55:57.239
Even though, you know, we've got other friends who listen to this, who have said, hi, Greg Miller, have said that they feel that this is the weakest story of the season because it's so simplistic, I would add, I'm into caps.

766
00:55:57.300 --> 00:56:04.860
I believe it works because it does what the BBC very much did at the time was, it's not just a piece of science fiction, there are other layers as well.

767
00:56:04.920 --> 00:56:10.440
And what the BBC did terrifically was historical fiction and cod Shakespeare.

768
00:56:10.500 --> 00:56:11.880
This is the tempest.

769
00:56:11.940 --> 00:56:16.019
And interestingly, you've got Prospero and Caliban as the same character.

770
00:56:16.019 --> 00:56:20.219
And the spoiler alert, but you're not...

771
00:56:20.280 --> 00:56:21.599
And that is...

772
00:56:21.599 --> 00:56:22.860
I mean, that's tremendous as well.

773
00:56:22.920 --> 00:56:35.699
And again, Sandafar, the idea that the big reveal is that the guy in a rubber suit is actually playing a guy in a rubber suit rather than a monster. isn't it?

774
00:56:35.699 --> 00:56:36.239
Yeah.

775
00:56:36.300 --> 00:56:39.119
And so, you know, that's a that's a sort of great gag.

776
00:56:39.179 --> 00:56:59.400
And it's simple, you know, like Greg might complain that it's too simple, but, you know, the given that the show in long stories will complicate things by trudging through a swamp for 3 episodes or having us go back to prison for no reason, you know, just to pad the whole thing out.

777
00:56:59.460 --> 00:57:01.500
I think this is really refreshing.

778
00:57:01.559 --> 00:57:15.900
And I think that as we discovered this millennium, that a story roughly sort of 45 minutes long actually quite works as a doctor story because it cuts out all of the sort of being captured and escaping that we are.

779
00:57:15.960 --> 00:57:17.519
I like a 3 parter.

780
00:57:17.579 --> 00:57:20.880
I like a bit of exposition just for character development in the middle.

781
00:57:20.940 --> 00:57:26.699
It's the reason that Thunderbirds is such a great piece of geriaterson and everything else isn't because it's half the length.

782
00:57:26.760 --> 00:57:30.960
I was actually thinking about the story in terms of the new series, so I'm glad you brought that up.

783
00:57:31.019 --> 00:57:41.039
Something I sort of realised last year, I was watching a new episode of Doctor Who, and I thought, in terms of structure, and stakes.

784
00:57:41.099 --> 00:57:44.039
This is very similar to the Bells of St.

785
00:57:44.039 --> 00:57:44.280
John.

786
00:57:44.820 --> 00:57:53.880
Because you've got the doctor arriving and discovering, um, okay, in the rescue, an orphan in Bells of St.

787
00:57:53.880 --> 00:58:07.079
John, a girl who's lost her mother, and instead of going on and living her own dream, she's looking after some children, looking after an old man, the great intelligence was to take Clara's personhood and make her a husk.

788
00:58:07.139 --> 00:58:10.800
Bennett wants Vicky to be his mouthpiece.

789
00:58:10.920 --> 00:58:18.420
And sort of the confrontation at the end with Billy just sort of sitting there saying, I was waiting for you.

790
00:58:18.480 --> 00:58:20.460
And then suddenly this click moment when...

791
00:58:20.460 --> 00:58:25.320
My favourite scene and the reason this really works for me, that in the Hall of Judgement, they call it...

792
00:58:25.380 --> 00:58:36.900
Not only is it a beautiful set, we should just say the lighting in this is superb, but when you get 2 really good actors together and someone who can be a fall for Billy and the person Ray Barrett, who is just perfect. and also did a lot of honeyloops.

793
00:58:36.960 --> 00:58:39.599
It's it's just such a gorgeous thing, isn't it?

794
00:58:39.659 --> 00:58:42.900
There's a great moment and it's the kind of thing that Matt Smith does so well as well.

795
00:58:42.960 --> 00:58:46.079
Like after Billy's confronted Bennett and got the conversion.

796
00:58:46.139 --> 00:58:55.619
There's this slight flicker on Billy's face on the doctor's face of, and I'm in a room with one exit and someone who's killed 50 people.

797
00:58:56.159 --> 00:58:58.079
I'm going to throw a chair.

798
00:58:58.139 --> 00:58:59.460
Very much so.

799
00:58:59.519 --> 00:59:03.719
But yeah, this lovely gilded spanner that I happened to have alien spanner happened to have find it.

800
00:59:03.780 --> 00:59:09.000
I wonder how much of Matt's performance, even though he watched Paddy, um, is based on Billio, isn't that?

801
00:59:09.059 --> 00:59:13.139
Matt is just such a cognisant and natural actor that he manages to get it right.

802
00:59:13.199 --> 00:59:22.139
It's really good So I will just say out there because we have we have a lot more people listening to us than we personally know, which is lovely.

803
00:59:22.199 --> 00:59:29.219
If you found us off the back of a new series and you haven't seen much Hartnell, if you like Matt Smith's doctrine, especially the Bells of St.

804
00:59:29.219 --> 00:59:30.599
John, you'll really love the rescue.

805
00:59:30.659 --> 00:59:31.739
Very good point, yeah.

806
00:59:31.800 --> 00:59:45.119
And I think I'll just go on to say Vicky, from the moment she steps in, is just such a wonderful character for the audience because her 1st scene is going, oh, we're going to be rescued.

807
00:59:45.179 --> 00:59:51.480
Oh, how wonderful, and she just gets shot down, like, nowhere, not you, a stupid girl, and you kind of go, no, actually, I really like you.

808
00:59:51.539 --> 00:59:57.780
You're in a desperate situation and instead of crying that, 0 my god, there's rats and there's dirty water.

809
00:59:58.199 --> 01:00:02.880
Sorry, that the comparison to Susan is unavoidable.

810
01:00:02.940 --> 01:00:10.920
Instead of that, you had this character who Is, well, she is downtrodden because she's constantly being told.

811
01:00:10.980 --> 01:00:20.280
No, it's not like this, but she never loses her spirit and her hope in the situation. made the structure in the mould for her, written for her in exactly the right way.

812
01:00:20.340 --> 01:00:29.699
They had looked at the faults and errors of the previous season and said, no, we're not going to give a young female companion to be the same because we've recognised our mistakes.

813
01:00:29.760 --> 01:00:31.500
I think that's a kind of a tragedy.

814
01:00:31.559 --> 01:00:34.500
When you look at what they should have done with Susan.

815
01:00:34.559 --> 01:00:36.719
We can just see here again what they could have got right.

816
01:00:36.840 --> 01:00:42.719
Yeah, they didn't need to have someone like Susan as the juvenile league female.

817
01:00:42.780 --> 01:00:44.400
She could have met someone.

818
01:00:44.460 --> 01:00:44.699
Good.

819
01:00:44.760 --> 01:00:51.420
But I think as Susan, she would have been great had she been allowed, had they actually allowed the narrative, just like Wyndham's chocky, if you like.

820
01:00:51.480 --> 01:01:05.280
It would have gone to his interesting fantasy levels and supernatural writing, but Robert Aikman's another terrific British writer we haven't mentioned yet, who turns out to be Mark Gaitis and Sheer Smith's.

821
01:01:05.400 --> 01:01:05.940
Reish Smith.

822
01:01:05.940 --> 01:01:09.900
Reish Smith's favourite writers, and Neil Gaiman cites him as well.

823
01:01:09.960 --> 01:01:25.500
He's practically out of print, but he's up there with Poe and, again, with Wyndham, there's really great left of field, frog brain, back of the head, scary stuff, writing this whole take you out of your safety zone.

824
01:01:25.559 --> 01:01:28.559
Pro characters into places you don't and just see what they do.

825
01:01:28.679 --> 01:01:35.940
I'll put some notes on his writing at the end of this because there are some that have recently been republished for his stories.

826
01:01:36.000 --> 01:01:36.840
Oh, excellent.

827
01:01:36.900 --> 01:01:37.500
Excellent.

828
01:01:37.559 --> 01:01:42.599
Just before we move on, a couple more words about Ray Barrett's performance.

829
01:01:42.659 --> 01:01:48.179
We've already said that he's a really, as you said, Richard, a really good foil for Billy.

830
01:01:48.239 --> 01:01:53.579
But also, it turns out he remembers working on the show quite fondly.

831
01:01:53.699 --> 01:02:16.980
He appears on the DVD, giving an interview and talks about not only working on the show, but how he came to the character, and his thoughts on the character, which for an actor who was so busy in the 1960s, especially with voice work on Jerry Anderson productions, and very often in those productions, playing heroic characters.

832
01:02:17.039 --> 01:02:18.539
And ladies occasionally.

833
01:02:18.599 --> 01:02:19.800
And ladies, occasionally.

834
01:02:19.860 --> 01:02:20.760
Well, didn't.

835
01:02:20.820 --> 01:02:22.860
Well, he plays Edith Evans.

836
01:02:23.039 --> 01:02:25.440
Does he read it as a handbag?

837
01:02:25.500 --> 01:02:27.179
The Duchess of Royston.

838
01:02:27.239 --> 01:02:27.539
Yeah, yeah.

839
01:02:27.599 --> 01:02:29.280
Well, weren't we all?

840
01:02:29.579 --> 01:02:37.320
But for him to, you know, remember 2 weeks of work he did on Doctor Who.

841
01:02:38.460 --> 01:02:45.659
On a 2 episode story straight after a Dalek story and straight before the Romans, which we'll get onto in the next episode.

842
01:02:45.719 --> 01:02:57.420
Yeah, for him to remember all that and speak so fondly about it, just speaks not only of his professionalism, but of that old phrase, there's no such thing as small parts, only small actors.

843
01:02:57.420 --> 01:03:02.159
And I think from that and from his performance here, he's definitely not a small actor.

844
01:03:02.280 --> 01:03:04.260
Well, he's no longer with us, Paul Ray.

845
01:03:04.320 --> 01:03:04.800
Sally, yeah.

846
01:03:04.860 --> 01:03:06.300
Yes, he passed away last year, I think.

847
01:03:06.360 --> 01:03:07.199
It was fairly recently.

848
01:03:07.260 --> 01:03:12.539
Not many clips of him in the Coquillian outfit on Channel 7 news, though, when they announced it.

849
01:03:12.599 --> 01:03:14.639
Funny that. lost opportunity.

850
01:03:15.119 --> 01:03:18.900
Well, I think that's all we have time for this episode.

851
01:03:18.960 --> 01:03:20.039
Yep.

852
01:03:20.099 --> 01:03:30.059
The engines are going, so it's time for us to head off, but we will be back next week, looking at the Romans, the web planet, and the crusade.

853
01:03:30.119 --> 01:03:31.619
So do come back.

854
01:03:31.679 --> 01:03:34.079
Push up your swords and togers for that.

855
01:03:34.139 --> 01:03:35.159
Yes, indeed.

856
01:03:35.340 --> 01:03:37.920
Gentlemen, anything you'd like to say?

857
01:03:39.659 --> 01:03:45.239
Before I Before I cast us into the hall of judgement.

858
01:03:45.300 --> 01:03:46.800
No, I have nothing.

859
01:03:46.860 --> 01:03:55.079
I'm going to see you in about 5 minutes, my time, in a week's your time. step sideways in time and see you via another piece of code.

860
01:03:55.139 --> 01:04:00.900
And I'm going to be miniaturised, although at 5 foot four. very difficult for anyone to notice.

861
01:04:00.960 --> 01:04:02.400
Good night, everybody.

862
01:04:02.460 --> 01:04:03.300
Night, everyone.

863
01:04:07.920 --> 01:04:12.960
You have been listening to quite your entire team, Nathan Bottomley, Brendan Jones, and Richard Stone.

864
01:04:13.019 --> 01:04:17.820
This episode, Donan Cribbons and Vinyl, was recorded on Sunday, the 4th of July in Sydney, Australia.

865
01:04:17.880 --> 01:04:21.119
The next episode will be released on Sunday the 27th of July.

866
01:04:21.179 --> 01:04:27.420
You can find us online at flights your entirety.com, flights your entirety on Facebook and iTunes or FTE podcast on Twitter.

867
01:04:27.480 --> 01:04:28.860
One day we shall come back.

868
01:04:28.920 --> 01:04:30.780
Next Sunday as it happens.

869
01:04:33.840 --> 01:04:34.980
Anything else?

870
01:04:35.039 --> 01:04:36.539
Anything else people want to say about the rescue?

871
01:04:36.599 --> 01:04:37.559
Let me look for my notes.

872
01:04:38.280 --> 01:04:40.019
And cough.

873
01:04:40.079 --> 01:04:45.420
All the Didoians we seem seem to be men, they do.

874
01:04:45.480 --> 01:04:47.099
Did Rod find that homoerotic?

875
01:04:47.159 --> 01:04:48.239
No, he didn't even mention it.