One Knee Up For Pertwee

[00:28]

Hello and welcome back to Flight Who Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast that knows that when there's sandwiches, there's hope.

I'm Brendan.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Todd.

Lovely lace doily for this performance with a little bit of watercress on the side.

Hello, everyone.

We're here today to pay tribute to the entire pertwi era, which is why all 4 of us have gathered, which is usually forbidden by the Blinabich limitation effect.

And because it's, we do have a spread in front of us, we have BLTs, so we've got our sandwiches, we have banana muffins kindly provided by Calvin, and we have some scones which Richard has made as well.

High protein scones, yeah.

High protein scones, yeah.

Oh, so without any further ado, we're going to raise a quick glass to John Purby, of this lovely sardonic vaudividello.

Yes, but not cynical, but not cynical.

One me up, not me.

Just the one knee up.

Yeah, just the one knee up for third week.

And John.

Todd, I'm gonna hand off to you.

Thanks Brendan.

Well, it's, of course, time for the pertry retrospective.

[01:30]

So here's my 1st question.

I love it when he does this.

Like, I just go straight into a sort of...

Oh, I should mention that I am in honour of what's coming next time wearing my Tom Baker scarf.

One size fits all, apparently according to the little tank here.

I have a giant spider on my back.

And Brendan and I are wearing freely fronted knickers.

Yes.

Well, it goes nicely with my Joe Grant in Day of the Dalek shirt.

Will he ever stop talking about it?

I've never stopped wearing it.

Coming into this era again.

What was your current opinion of John?

of the era and had that changed since you were a kid.

So when you say the current era, what you thought of the pertwee era, just before you started rewatching it this time round?

I wasn't, I don't think I was a big fan and I think the main reason is I don't think I was a big fan of Pertwiz, the doctor.

[02:30]

But with that in mind, I think we've used the phrase comfort food before a whole bunch of times.

If, you know, I had a few hours to kill and had to do the ironing or something like that, then the go to thing would be a perchway story because they're not very demanding, but they are, you know, diverting and entertaining and there are fun things about all of them, even the terrible ones are kind of good.

But I have to say that I wasn't really looking forward to it.

When you watched him as a child.

Had you enjoyed it then?

Yeah, he was my 1st doctor.

I've said this before, and the 1st thing that I ever saw was Death to the Daleks, and, you know, it's a superbly great 1st episode, isn't it?

So that helped.

But, you know, the way that they showed it in the 70s, um, When Rich and I were the only ones of the panel alive.

Um, they would just sort of rotate Pertwee and Baker and I enjoyed all of it, I think, equally at the time.

[03:32]

I really liked the juxtaposition too.

I really liked that Katie would show up one week and then next month it'd be a couple of months later it'd be news slaters.

And or the mysterious Carrie John, who only ever did one story as far as we...

You do forget that I actually was alive also.

No, I don't look like that.

You look fantastic.

But, you know, I would agree with you.

Like, as a kid, I remember we would have conversations at primary school about who was a better doctor?

Was it?

John, was it Tom?

Was it Joe, was it Sarah?

You know, and I remember, like, you know, watching like the 3 doctors and the Green Gate and kind of the Spies, and these were classic stories.

So it was a kid.

You know, I had, because of the repeats that we got.

I had this view of how good everything was and how wonderful it all was.

And that did change for me after I got into fandom, and I sort of, I feel that I brought him to the perceived fan wisdom, and I'm using inverted quotes here in the 1990s.

Yeah.

Of, of what the pertury Europe became.

And I do think there is a point where television dates, and I certainly think in my viewing of things, the poetry year are dated.

[04:38]

And when I watched a number of shows back, I was just, oh my goodness, like it was just, and I just bought into this sort of mentality that it wasn't as good as what I thought it was.

You see, they, I mean, they changed the premise pretty substantially, uh, by having the doctor exile to earth.

But it's not as substantial as you, as you think, because they do a couple of stories apart from season seven.

Oh, yeah, apart from season 7, they do a couple of stories, uh, you know, on alien planets.

A year.

So we're not just sort of confined to Earth.

And in fact, there's lots of stuff about the Earth premise that actually really work, which is why I think Russell takes it back there at the beginning of the reboot.

You've got a bigger cast, and that's nice.

You've got people to be invested in.

And it only brings it back home every few episodes.

I don't know if Russell was actually taking on one of Lett's notes because, you know, when Barry Letts took over from Derek Shoe, and one of the things he said he wanted to do was have 2 on, 3 off.

Hello?

[05:39]

No, he met one on earth, 3 up there, one back here.

So, and kind of the way you sandwiched to season 11 when you just get the brigadier, you getting popping up in the middle, but really it's a, you know, you get unit at the beginning, you know, the unit, a unit sandwich filling in the middle.

Yeah, it was pretty much 9, 10, 11, are all like that, aren't they?

And so it is less earthbound than you think.

But they're the exegencies of it.

Well, how did you feel actually about the show itself or the Putwi Europe?

Because we've come from a generation where in the 90s, you suddenly had videos available, and so they seem to all come at once.

And the whole thing of venerating John Burtley, changed really considerably to some pretty, you know, it ranged in temperature, that you had DWB and Gary Lee, Gary Levy.

So it's some appalling things about Pooh.

He said appalling things about everything, really, didn't he?

I guess that was part of the fun, that fandom back then.

But yeah, when Pertwee was reevaluated, Pertwee's era, he really didn't come up well.

[06:41]

And then when we were younger, that was that was kind of, you know, we loved him in the 70s and 80s and then there was this whole period of time, which was sad because it was just about the time, you know, he died in 96 and the last 5 years he'd been around.

It was copying a lot of flex.

I think it was just that memory cheats.

And when you watch them, there's so much repetition.

We've said that, haven't we, in the era, so much repetition of formula each, and some of those mid-seasons, get a bit plotting, really.

And it is that thing too, where we were terribly familiar with the novelisations.

Yeah.

And they were often vastly superior to the televised stories.

But I actually think the big floor, like I just don't think that per tweet is as entertaining to watch as the actors on either side.

As the book.

Yeah, the bookings.

Is that your biggest revelation from watching?

My actual biggest revelation from watching this time?

Is that it's better than I expected it to be?

It is better than I expected him to be?

And I agree.

And there are great things about the era.

There's Katie for all of his overuse.

[07:42]

There's Roger Delgado, who's spectacular, you know, the unit family.

That's a really nice thing.

You know, like I like Doctor Who.

Again, the reason that I like, you know, early Russell T. Davis stuff is that there's a bigger semi-regular cast than just 2 people.

You know, the show is too lonely and can't create a coherent world.

If it's just 2 people off, somewhere completely different, you know, encountering people they've never met before.

And so there never seem to be a through line earlier.

But here there's a kind of world and, you know, like it's not expertly created.

It's not subtle or anything like that.

But it's, it's like home.

It's nice, you know?

And Pertry, who does start off obnoxious, actually does become quite loveable and has a bit of a sense of humour about himself, and you certainly see him smiling much more often as he goes on and delivering lines with a smile.

Think about Planet of the Spiders where he bows down to the noble queen and smiles and says, oh, greetings almost, noble queen.

[08:47]

It's a very sardonic smile.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But let's not forget, we're calling him pert, we shouldn't really be saying the doctor because we've all noted pertly.

John Pertley didn't like to vary from his lines, one iota.

He was a radio. very carefully planned.

He was a radio actor and he really, he hadn't done much of the rep.

He was really uncomfortable with improvisation. whereas most of the people he was working with.

And you've seen you've all covered 3 doctors.

That's how they did it.

You know, he was really uncomfortable working with Pat.

He liked his comfort zone very well defined.

So when you were looking at the 3rd doctor's prickliness in that 1st season, that's not John Perkley, that's the script.

Also, I think something which pert we really brings out in his performance, which isn't really in the text until towards the end, is the loneliness of the character and the isolation of the character.

You certainly get that in 11 after Joe lives, yeah.

But also in 7 and 8, when he is still a bit prickly, especially say in Mind of Evil, when no one can understand his depth of experience, he sort of withdraws his opinion, not because he's been chastised, but simply because he understands that no one else can possibly relate to him.

[09:59]

And it actually makes him sort of sort of sullen.

It's something that would very much become a trademark of David Tennant's character when everyone goes on about him being the lonely god and this and that the other.

This is very much subtext.

And of course, John Pertwee's perception of the character was that he was several 1000 years old, which is what sneaks into lines such as in the Mind of Evil, where he says, I've been a scientist for several 1000 and cuts himself off.

And yeah, I mean, the only doctors I've really heard talk about the loneliness of the character are him and Sylvester McCoy, the only classic doctors, I should say.

And that is something I think he plays really well.

I think sort of his middle seasons when he's really comfortable with Katie Manning. doesn't come out so much.

But yeah, then again, when Katie's gone.

Even though the doctor and Sarah do bond, that feeling of loneliness never quite...

A slight distance there, isn't it?

It's an interesting book into Tom's final years.

Season 18, doctor is quite similar to a season 11 doctor.

[11:03]

He just didn't get...

Yeah, and and kind of, although, although pertway's doctor actually softened.

And maybe that's why I liked him as a boy because I was more familiar with his tail ends.

Yeah, yeah.

I really, really like him in season 11.

That's something that's one of my biggest revelations is the fact that I was used to pigeonhole things like season 7 and then the, you know, the 3 years with Katie and then, obviously, Sarah at the end, like very distinct.

But, but now I kind of think there's, there's early pertway, which, which goes up to the cause of axis, where, where the character is very prickly, and then suddenly there's a dramatic change in colony and space, where it's sort of mid pertway, where there's a softening, and that sort of runs through the, to the time monster, and then there's another definite change with the 3 doctors onwards, where he's much more relaxed and much more, otherwise, so, you know, that's something for me, that, you know, I can see that sort of layer to, to, to the way things play it out.

And funnily enough, I actually watched season 7 last, which I actually really like doing to see like the difference between the beginning and the end, you know, how he was playing the character.

[12:13]

And Nathan might actually, like what I'm about to say is that I actually discovered in season 7, and he's nowhere near as obnoxious as he is in those 1st 3 stories of season 8, despite me defending it all the way back, back when, he said, that character's actually more obnoxious in those 1st 3 stories of season 8 than I think in, than season 7 and perhaps with Solurian's been the exception.

That was actually a bit of a... for the listener, what are those 1st three?

Terror of the all.

The mind of evil and the cause of axis.

But they're 3 of the best, aren't we?

No, no.

No, no, we love them.

Mind of evil.

According for that one.

I love mine.

No, no, no, I liked them.

I like that Axos is being in a bowie concert peeling yourself off the cherry picker because he was the 1st guy to bring cherry pickers on stage because.

I think Claus' Axos gets that.

It's a real psychedelic British.

It is, but the characters are really terrible, I think.

That's the problem.

I thought they were landing. much worse.

I thought that whole point of all of those things was sending itself up.

Did you get a sense that pertly was maybe taking a bit of the pith as well?

[13:16]

No.

In a pithy manner?

No?

No, I just, I just, it was just interesting because as I was watching things, I realised how well he got on with the brigadier, perhaps in spirit from space and very much in ambassadors of death.

And even the 1st couple of episodes in Inferno, they're not too bad.

And then it starts to change in various parts of Inferno.

And then it's sort of almost this reaction that we have to make Joe so loveable.

So the doctor has to swing back the other way just so, you know, was a sort of reactionary thing.

I was actually quite surprised.

I think it's kind of the other way around because he starts terror of the autons really annoyed by the fact that Liz is gone and he doesn't have a proper assistant anymore.

Joe proves herself to us the audience in the 1st story straight away by heading into danger.

But she has to prove herself to the doctor and he won't accept her until cause of access.

And in a way, he's kind of punished by the story because he tries to escape Earth and can't.

So he's kind of being punished there for his attitude in the 1st few stories.

And I think that's the turning point where he says, I'm some sort of intergalactic yo-yo and everyone sort of smiles and grins at him and he kind of smiles despite himself and it's kind of like actually these these people do kind of sympathise with me in understanding.

[14:28]

They're not angry that I tried to run away.

They feel sorry for me.

A big part of the character being reevaluated in the 90s, perhaps less favourably.

I think there's 2 reasons.

One reason is in the 90s we had novels, which were able to go a lot, a great deal, deeper into characterisation, whereas in the classic series, there wasn't the time, as there is in the new series, for characters, motivations, and why not to be spelled out explicitly on screen.

We'd also had the fan wink doctor.

So McCoy doctor was a completely different character in the Virgin New Adventures, and that was the doctor we wanted because we were all at university now, you know, and we drank and we, and, you know, we looked at people who smoked almost next to us.

I know, we were quite radical.

We think dark, dark, and...

So this home county sitcom era poetry doctor didn't just didn't sit comfortably.

I do think another reason, perhaps, that he was evaluated so badly in the 90s is Doctor Who Fandom sort of started becoming organised in the late 70s.

[15:29]

And from the late 70s. it seems that some circles in fandom.

And because fandom has broadened so much in the last 10 years, there isn't as much of this now.

Do you know there are girls in fandom now?

I was at an event last weekend, believe you me?

I know there are girls.

Are there lots of girls now?

There are lots of fabulous. lots and lots.

You know what?

You know what?

Women who cosplay are my inspiration for dressing up as Doctor Who girls.

Yes, but he does that at work.

That's the flimsiest excuse I've ever done.

But the thing is, that sets wobbling.

In that early era of fandom.

It seemed like fandom always needed someone to rally behind and blame for the shortcomings of the program.

So in the early days...

In the early days of it was Graham Williams, followed by JNT.

Now the wisdom is more, okay, yeah, JNT made some questionable decisions, but really it was Eric Saywood, who was causing more problems.

But I think in the 90s with no new Doctor Who being made, sort of JMT went off the boil a bit and it became...

[16:33]

It became pertly.

It became the perl era because the rest of Doctor Who was about going off into space and having adventures and not having any ties to home.

Whereas in the perply area, you've got these ties to home and I think some people zoned in on that is different.

And also picked up on Verity Lambert's comments in the 90s that she felt that it was too much of a change to the format and she wouldn't have done it.

She wasn't as critical of it as a lot of people quote her as being.

She just said, it's not a decision I would have made.

Let's not forget she was also talking about before the telling movie in 96.

The BBC was seriously addressing Verity Lambert as being the new producer and the doctor she wanted to bring in with her was John.

She liked his performance.

She just wasn't a huge fan of that. would have loved to have seen that.

Have you noticed how the doctors go A, B, A, B, in the classic series?

Except for Billy, because he's his own beautiful quotient, but we get surprising, received, if you want to say that, or expected performance.

We got Tom Baker being just as quirky, as Nathan pointed out, as the wonderful Paddy.

[17:33]

And then we get Peter Davidson, who isn't much commented on, but actually his performance really is quite, maybe it's not pertly, but you certainly know what he's going to do next.

And then a bit more staid, isn't it?

It's British.

I've been watching robots and Tom spends a lot of time.

Birth refreshing.

Tom spends a lot of time horizontal in robot.

No knee, though.

No evident knee work.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's it's to contrast with perjury, who's very contained and very versatile.

And don't you think that Hinchcliffe?

Oh no, actually, don't you think that even Barry Letts, because Barry Letts, whatever you want to say about him?

I think he's a brilliant casting.

He does. and he cast and he didn't cast Mr. Purdley, but he did cast Liz Sladden and he did cast Katie Manning. and I think, you know, Roger...

Yeah, and Roger...

Roger Olgutter.

We've got a lot to thank Barry Lance for.

Uh, maybe, you know, well, thank him for everything he did, and we'll get to that, I guess, could on, but it is so shocking and surprising to see Tom do things that you just don't expect to see on screen.

[18:35]

And I find my eye wandering not at all from watching robot where with the pert we stories.

It was quite easy to go and make a sandwich, for example, or a nice wine and a bit of cheese.

Brendan, you weren't alive in the 1970s.

So what was the time?

Okay.

No, I wasn't.

The rest of us.

So you've got this perception of, you know, why the stories went under reevaluation.

What was your experience like compared to ours?

Like, did you love the Perth we were before?

Did you like all the time or?

I did already love the Pertly era.

When I was a child, it was my favourite until I discovered Patrick.

Um...

I think I think I found him very, very sort of, I was drawn to the paternal protective side of the character.

I never really got that from him, but okay.

Now, as for sort of what I have discovered this time around is the evolution of his character, starting off very gruff and angry and growing into this warm character.

[19:36]

Who is the character I liked as a child?

That being said, I also quite like the gruff character, sort of the smartest man in the room surrounded by people who can't understand what...

That's never really varied, has it?

Look at Tom.

But, you know, it just varies in how the different doctors react to it.

In a way, it's made me enjoy his performance even more finding that out because it sort of harks back to the evolution of Hartnell's doctor over the course of the 1st year and his relationship with Ian and Barbara, although the evolution of the 3rd doctor is certainly informed by the people around him, it's not, it's not as tied into the people around him.

It's coming a lot more from pertly adjusting his performance.

Probably, yes, as the actor becomes more comfortable, but he also did put a lot of thought into it, right down to the fact that there are directors who tell the same story about him that they talked about William Hartnell in that he'd be told, oh, and just go over to that panel and press that and pert we would also say, no, I can't do that because that's not that control.

[20:38]

That's not the door control.

This is the door control, so I need to come to this side.

He was very protective of other actors on set when he saw that happening too, didn't he?

And this is the thing, I think, where people really, who worked on the show at the time, have such ability, such abuliance to talk about it now.

It's not just Katie.

Do you feel that when you're watching it?

Because there are also others who say, like, you know, there's on the centre of 3 doctors that Patrick Outton was really sidelined.

He just didn't feel comfortable having to share the...

The other example.

The other example that I think of is Sandifer mentions, a scene in Terror of the Autons, where Pertuy just completely ungraciously treads on and steals, you know, one of Richard Franklin's lines, Katie speaks very highly of him, but, you know, he might not always have been terribly gracious, I think.

I think you're getting a lot of the doctor in Kirkley and vice versa, and that's the point of this. certainly in the classic series.

As the um, the actor and the persona are pretty much one on one.

You don't really get actively performances until Russell.

[21:40]

Yeah.

So now that we've watched Hart nor Trouton and Pertwee, I guess.

My question to you is, um, Snog, marry, avoid.

Okay, so what, of the three?

Of the 3 doctors.

Yeah.

He's got the worst teeth.

Billy.

Yeah.

Okay, so I think it had to...

So remember, remember, listener, like snorg here means go out, have a party with.

Yeah.

It means no, no, no, no, it's not beat around the bush.

I think for me, it would be I'd snob Patty.

God would you?

I don't want to be the 3rd person.

You're not the first.

I'd marry I'd marry John.

Because he gives amazing parties and he's got a beach house in Ibiza. and I'm afraid I'd have to avoid Billy.

Ah, that's outrageous.

Next.

Next.

Oh, really?

It's my turn.

You know, I'd marry Patty, I think.

He's busy.

[22:41]

He wouldn't take up a whole heap of my time.

Do you know what I mean?

He wouldn't be around.

You know, all the time getting in the way.

Are you saying you'd be a hovercraft like vehicle with a bond bug, 3 wheel chaise, and you'd be the 3rd time?

So I'm going to marry Pat.

Um...

Really?

You can you can party with Billy and John.

Oh, I can party with Billy in the Inferno nightclub.

Yeah, okay, I'll snug Billy.

And avoid and avoid perfectly.

I'd avoid poetry.

Yeah.

I suppose you'd have it.

You're better, Dean, before you do.

I suppose pert would steal all your wine and cheese, wouldn't you?

You'd never get a sandwich in his house.

No monstrous.

It's funny though. right, Todd.

You don't think, oh, wait.

I do avoided the question.

I did slightly, didn't I?

You know what?

I think I'll just do a parallel universe thing and I can see myself living in Miami on the set of the Golden Girls with all 3 of them.

[23:41]

I think that's actually how I would have done.

So it's a kind of Les Boydesque from 70s relationship.

Well, you're not quite sure who's married to whom and who's snocking whom and it could actually be an enormous four way.

But what a sharehouse that would be.

And who would you cast?

Per we obviously be Arthur. got the hair for it.

Billy has to be Sofia.

And Patty with his profligacy in his marriage.

Marriage is obviously black.

There you go.

Perfect.

Which one does that make me?

Rose.

I get to be Rose.

Fantastic.

I'd actually cast Billy as Rose with all the ditziness.

And I would cast Paddy as Sophia, meaning you can be Blanche.

Oh, I don't have the reputation, unfortunately.

I could share.

I could share. with the other dog.

I think I would have to, um, snog pertry, marry Trout and avoid harm.

But you know, this is the worst question ever.

It could be Scarman.

Sorry, it could be Scarman, Sir Edward of Wessex and Cat Weasel.

[24:42]

I get the impression of those.

So Edward would have had a snog on anything, guy.

So, but in all seriousness, like, you know, up to Pan of the Spiders.

Are all the doctors equal in your eye?

Oh, they were not before.

It's very close, though.

They were not before, but right now, I am loving them all for their for their disparate parts.

I'm having to say that unsurprisingly, I'm going 213 in that order.

Gracious.

Pad is tremendous.

I think Billy is wonderful.

I think poetry is solid, but he's just not as interesting.

But he's playing an Edwardian hero and that is what you're meant to be.

You know, I've been picking on those Henry Ryder haggard and John Buchan novels and that's where he's a Richard Hanney. where his character is.

Yeah, well, that might be true, but I just don't think that's as interesting a conception of the character as the other two.

I'd have to agree.

I'd have to agree The doctor in by his own nature is bohemian.

He's not ruling class and he certainly isn't, which is even worse, an adherent to, you know, a partner who's sticking onto the ruling class, like a barnacle on the side of a ship.

[25:46]

When he when he drops the line about Sir Toby or whatever it is and seeing him at the club the other day.

The only thing that saves that is for me is when Todd mentioned in that podcast, and he said, you know he made that up?

He never met Sir Toby's.

It just hadn't occurred to me.

Oh, no, he wouldn't have.

He's still being the, you know, the flyby night.

He still being the unexpected doctor, but he's doing it, but he's lying and you don't need to do that.

Brendan, I'd still put Patrick first, but I'd actually put Pertwee second over Billy.

And it's like, you know, you know, Billy, Billy...

But I think it's also because, yeah, you know, with the ABC rerubs and whatnot, it was my favourite as a boy.

So I think that I think that certainly counts for a lot.

But you know what?

As I say, I'm not a little boy anymore, professor.

It's a close run thing.

I don't want that to, I don't want that comment to be a detriment to Billy who's absolutely wonderful.

It's a matter, it's like, do I like milk chocolate, dark chocolate or white chocolate better?

You like to stop it all in a gob at once, don't you?

[26:47]

And you're even on that note.

Did you know that Lego are bringing out, not the other building block sets are available?

I'm bringing out both a Doctor Who set at the beginning of the year.

We don't know which doctor is going to be, and a golden girl's house.

So I know I think there'll be a little bit of cross-lego playing in my room.

Not only that, but our worlds, Richard, are colliding because the Doctor Who Lego is going to be downloadable into the Lego video game along with other toys.

So you will be able to have a game where you can pick Doctor Who characters against back to the future characters and dinosaurs from Jurassic Park all from Lego figures that you put on top of your console and it downloads them inside.

We can finally redo invasion of the dinosaurs.

You want to see it.

And Lego, and it'll look even better. would work.

Yeah.

I want, oh, God, if they bring out a pertwee, that's it. getting it.

I don't care.

That's the thing.

I'm actually going to buy the toys 1st and wait for the game to get cheaper. lovely.

Welcome to our tiny, tragic little world.

Well, I agree with you, Brendan, that I find it really hard to rank them because I really think Pat's performance is tremendous.

[27:49]

But a number of his stories I'm not enamoured with.

Yeah, I have to agree.

I find Billy really interesting because I'm always finding new things because I'm not as familiar with that era, whereas John I am more familiar with, but I'm really glad that watching this through, I've appreciated him so much more.

So I'm not going to try and put one of them ahead of me.

You've raised a really good point, they're taught.

It's that it's not just the actor and it's not just the doctor. it's the entire crew Imagine putting pertwi within us Lloyd.

How would he have been in that season?

I think I think we would have...

I think we would have found Michael Goff is the new doctor very quickly.

And how would Paddy have been, how amazing would that have been?

Have we all read the Dark Path?

David McKinty's missing adventures with the with the 2nd doctor and the master.

Ah, I haven't read it, but I do know. an interesting idea.

David McKinty is such a brilliant writer.

Because he also wrote Face of the Enemy.

Yeah, which is just wonderful.

But coming back to something you said a moment ago, Todd.

I think in the purple era, we also have, since the show began, we have the most consistent run of high quality stories of the entire poetry era.

[28:58]

The only 2 I would pick out as being less than 5 out of 10 would be Monster of Paladin and the Mutants.

Yeah, about Time Monster.

Well, Time Monster, as we discussed for...

It's at least a solid vibe because of the good fun performances.

It's a comedy, as you've said before.

So on that point, what are your bottom three, John Pertway story?

I just didn't.

No, well, our personal, our personal boss, our personal boss, I disagree.

Yeah, can this episode be called Personal Bottles?

Well, Time Monster isn't in my bottom three, but I'll let Nathan go first.

Well, yeah, I mean, I would have to say those three.

I would have to say Monster of Paladon, I think, is just plangently boring.

Didn't I revive your love of it in our last podcast?

at all.

You know, like Time Monster is sort of watchable.

See, I'm toying with putting the demons in there.

Even though I don't dislike the demons, I think it's just kind of terrible.

It's kind of not what it, what it's, it's just sort of poorly paced and full of uninteresting.

[30:01]

No, time monster, it's really terrible.

And what was the other one?

So what are your bottom throws?

So time monster, Paladon, and what was the other one that we just mentioned?

The mutants?

The mutants?

No, that's not that I quite like the mute.

Well, I know what my bottom 3 are.

Coming in 3rd last is The Time Monster. 2nd last is the Monster of Heladen, and the worst poetry, which I just cannot face is Planet of the Dale.

Oh, I hate and like that.

Now, I really, like, if you actually ask me tomorrow, to sit down and watch any poetry.

I could watch any, but if you said that, I would refuse to, and that says something.

Oh, I think you should listen to Mark Gaitis read the novelisation because that's really good.

It's not the same thing No, I agree.

Okay.

Well, I think my bottom three.

Coming in 3rd is the mutant switch, I think, is very worthy and has a lot of very good things to say but doesn't say them very well.

Probably fair.

Yeah.

Coming in 2nd last is colony in space.

Because it's the 1st time we've gone back into space for almost 2 years and it's just, ugh.

[31:05]

And I'm sorry.

I love that story.

That was our favourite of the season, I think, Todd.

I'm about to ask for your top 3 favourites.

So keep going.

Yeah, yeah. 10 listeners, did listeners.

I just looked at Todd's eyes and I saw more white than I did colour when I said colony in space.

And yeah, I'm sorry, I have to put Monster of Peladin at the bottom of my list just because, you know, no one gets out of it too favourably.

Rex Robinson is a fantastic actor, again, sadly, no longer with us, and they put him in a badger wig.

I mean, honestly, you know, I mean, it features Vega next, Australia.

Yeah, how soon he's dead?

Then he's dead by the end of episode one.

It's like the main redeeming feature of the mutants is Jeffrey Palmer and he's dead by the end of episode one.

Does anyone die in the 1st episode of Colony and Space was particularly good.

The Leasons.

Yeah, all right.

Yeah, she was a bit fab.

There we go.

Richard.

You've covered it all for me.

I'd like to talk about, you know what I really love.

Is that going to be an X point?

Well, let's move on into the top three.

[32:07]

So let's move on.

Stories would be in contention. for your top three.

I'm not asking you to say one, 2, or 3 because sometimes that's very difficult, but what would you consider?

Okay, for radically, well, radically.

How can you be radical about a activities TV show?

It was radical in this term?

And for different reasons, I love spearhead from space.

I love the mutants.

And I love, um, Green Death.

But then, sorry, Planet of the Spiders is my all-time favourite, but we story, so that gets its own non-laired award.

Nathan?

Carnival of Monsters, I think, is the best poetry.

I think it's just terribly clever and so vastly different from what he normally does.

I think it's really, really very good.

And then I struggle a little bit. you know what I mean?

Like, um...

Yeah, Time Warrior is very, very good and very funny and I liked it a lot more this time around.

I thought it was really, really... always been, brilliant. home scripting.

Yeah, yeah. that's right Spearhead from Space is spectacular.

I think Terror of the Autumn is actually really good as well.

[33:09]

So I don't know.

You don't have to give me...

I'm just saying everything by Robert Holmes.

I think I've just seen him. covers it.

Carnival of Monsters was, from what I can recall, my 1st Doctor Who story.

I'm not going to put that on my top three, but it does hold a very special place.

Starting off my top 3 Inferno.

Because I see Inferno as the beginning of the humanisation of the doctor.

That's, I think, when he actually sort of takes responsibility until now he's only been working with unit because what else am I going to do?

Next, I would put mind of evil?

I think it's a real I think it's where Joe starts really building her independence and the doctor really begins to respect Joe as well.

What does Joe even do in that?

I'm struggling to remember.

She does she does bash a few of the prisoners.

Oh, yeah, she thwarts an entire Princeton right.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

[34:10]

I'm thinking I'm crazy.

Well, the last one, I mean, there are a lot, there are a lot I could pick.

Frontier in space is almost in there because it's so epic, but I would actually say the Time Warrior, which, it sort of, restarts the pertwi era, because a lot of people write off pertwiz last year because Joe's gone, but that really gives it a kick in the pants start.

Excellent chemistry between John and Liz.

Really great script from Robert Holmes, and it sort of says, you know, even though Katie Manning is Joe Grant is the glue that holds the pertly era together, even with her gone, we can still continue.

We can still have jolly adventures and look, we've got this fabulous new character.

So yeah, Inferno, Mind of Evil, and Time Warrior.

I'm really surprised you didn't put the green Death in there.

The Green Death, the story itself, you know, it's very solid. very good.

But I can't put a story in my top 3 just because of the last 10 minutes.

[35:14]

And it's still Sloman and he's still terrible.

And for myself, I will be putting Colin in space.

I just can't believe how much I really love it.

It is great.

I just really...

You did just hear me choke on my wine.

Novel's great.

I'm going to have to say the Silurians.

I just think we sure looks absolutely gorgeous in that.

And I really just enjoyed the whole thing when I watched it.

And the 3rd one's, it's really hard.

I think there's a number that are in contention, I certainly consider Inferno because I also really, really enjoyed that.

I thought it was the worst of the season.

And I can understand, you know, the fatigue setting in, but I actually really enjoyed it.

There's a lot going for it.

The beginning of the exposition.

And that 3rd one is tough because there's so many poetries that I would give like an eight, an 8.5 out of 10 to.

The green death or spearhead from space would be the other ones that I would have.

Yeah.

So on that note, what is your favourite season?

[36:15]

I reckon this is actually a bit interesting because going in, I would have thought it was season 7 because the received wisdom is, you know, season 7's good and proper and gritty and interesting and then it all turns into panto in season 8.

But in fact, that wasn't my experience at all.

And so I actually found season 7.

A bit tiresome, you know, times.

I'm just drinkless.

Just because it's those long stories all set in scientific basis and things.

I thought 8 was really refreshing despite the fact that the masters in it, like I thought it was a really fun reboot, I thought that 9 was a bit less successful than 8.

It was kind of like their difficult 2nd album, I think I said at the time. 10 has some amazingly good stuff in it, you know, like some really terrific things in it.

And 11, I had always thought they were all sick of it and no one was really caring anymore.

But I actually had the experience that we described earlier where Liz comes along and really lifts things and and makes pertry up his game and the whole thing is kind of spoiled by monster Peladon in the middle of it, taking up 6 episodes.

[37:27]

So I'd have to say it's a toss-up between 8 and 10.

How hilarious, because I went through this, and I said to myself, right, I really enjoyed season 7, and I thought Lee Shaw was phenomenal.

She's so good, Ambassador Death, which lifted that story for me.

Yeah, she's the only one you're watching, yeah.

And I really loved Inferno, unlike your experience, ate on reflection.

Master fatigue in the demons, really.

Very much so.

So eight, I eliminated.

Nine, I really love the 1st 4 stories because I really like the mutants, unlike other people.

And although the time monster falls away, I really liked those 1st four.

10, I have problems with the 3 doctors, Frontier in Space, and obviously Planet, Dialects.

So that was ruled out, and 11 I really like.

A lot of those stories are 8 out of 10, 8 out of 10, 8 out of 10.

And I actually like the monster pellet and more than the other, but on the average, when I work to sort of, sort of my number system out, actually season 7 comes out in front just ahead of season nine.

[38:27]

So I actually like the odd-numbered seasons more than they even numbered seasons. the opposite to you, Nathan.

The years for me it was. season 7 before I sat down, watched everything in order. and as good as season 7 is, I can't really put it at the top because Perby's character hasn't fully evolved yet.

And that's the only reason it's out of the running, all the stories are still really good.

I think maybe Todd, that's why it has topped your list because every other season you can kind of almost look at and say that one's a bit NAF.

Whereas season 7, I think, is solid from beginning to end.

Season 8?

Almost makes it for me.

But Colin in Space really does drag it down.

For me.

Season nine.

Again, I kind of agree with you there, Nathan.

I like all the stories individually, but it's just not as good as the previous season as a whole.

Season 11.

Sarah, Liz Layden really reinvigorates it.

But for me, I think my favourite season is season 10. there's a few reasons.

Like these favourite.

I know.

There's a few reasons.

One, I find...

[39:28]

Yeah.

I find all the stories in it really, really good.

It's the one season where I don't look at it and go, there's an F1 and I understand that some people might consider Planet of Daleks is an F1.

But for me, it's that popcorn factor.

I think it's great fun.

Yeah.

The other...

It's dire...

It's dire.

No, it can be 2 things.

The other thing I really like about it is, if for whatever reason, you couldn't watch the whole Pearl era.

If you could only watch one season.

Like if you're on a desert island.

If you're on a desert island.

And you could only take 5 DVDs.

Okay, yeah.

Or in this case, 10 DVDs because all of this season has been released as double disc sets.

Have you noticed?

It's the only season of Doctor Who where every single story gets a double disc release.

Really?

Yeah.

This season, as well as the individual stories, it has for the characters, a story throughout as well, because the 3 doctors ends with Joe afraid that the doctor's going to go away and leave her because he's got his freedom back now.

[40:30]

And then the season ends.

With Joe leaving the doctor instead.

And it just makes everything they go through together in that season, because Joe's character has now evolved to the point where she is a co-lead, and she is going out and getting herself in trouble and getting herself out of trouble, it makes everything the 2 characters go through, all reach other, so much more poignant when, 1st of all, Joe thought the doctor was going to leave, and he does say, oh, no, I can't go yet.

I need to build this piece of equipment.

It's not, I can't go yet because you haven't packed a bag or whatever.

You know, then in Carnival of Monsters when she gives herself up so he can get out of the machine and save them in frontier in space when they're separated on different planets and different spaceships and Planet of the Daleks when he's dying and she goes out to find help and almost gets killed in the process and then he thinks she has been killed.

And finally, in the green death, where she says, no, I can't just go off travelling while my world's in danger, I have to stay here and say that.

And he only goes down there because she is down there.

It's just such a wonderful story for both characters.

[41:36]

And that commentary with Russell T. Davis and Katie Manning, where he says, you know, the Joe's development and relationship was an inspiration to him when he was writing Rose and Martha and Donna.

We've said before, Katie is the beginning of the archetypal Doctor Who companion.

She's an elf.

Alpha and...

Yes.

Season 10 is where it's most evident.

So it's season 10 for me.

Richard, I think we've all said it before, that Pertley's on his at his best when he's on his back foot, not on his back with one knee in the ear, but when he really doesn't know what he's doing, he has to use his intelligence and yes, I'm going to say it, he's innate talent.

He's a very talented man.

I know he probably these days more for his radio colony because that's what I listen to.

And he's terrific in that. you know.

And we should also say that.

You know his favourite performance?

He said, you know, quite a few years before he died, he was quite open about it.

It wasn't Doctor Who.

Do you know what it was?

Wasn't the Navy like it was worse or coming.

He really loved the character.

[42:37]

So the more he could not be himself, the more comfortable.

He was, the more he had a part to play, but I think he also became a lot less interesting when he assumed a part.

And the stentorian received doctor of those middle seasons, honestly, doesn't bite for me.

I liked the 1st season when he's finding his way.

There are some amazingly wonderful moments there.

And I love the his last season when you can get that sense of the wintry ennui and the sense of departing and the same reason that I love Tom's last season.

So for me, it's season 11, because of the presence of Liz, Robert Holmes, and for Pertwee's fragility, makes him a lot more interesting to watch.

And for me, season 11 is the, I know what you're going to say, is the season of terrific openers.

Each even Monster of Paladon.

I really like the surprise opening of each one.

Because when you 1st seen Monster Pellet on, you think, fantastic.

They're going to finally explore.

We've got 6 episodes, we're going to finally explore all the things, concepts of a world within world, that we never got to see.

We'll get to see the hierarchy.

We get to see all this fantastic exposition of a truly alien culture.

[43:40]

Did we get it?

Well, no, we didn't really.

But we thought we were going to for that 1st episode.

What I'm really liking out of this, is how much everybody's loving season 11 and I always had this position in my head that it really wasn't liked very much.

And, um, yeah, I'm really glad.

Like, I mean, I wasn't here for the last podcast, so it's really nice to hear the love of this season, that John doesn't, you know, give up acting.

He's, you know, he's conveying this loneliness.

Liz is great and there is so much in them. really, really good.

So on that note, the snug, marry, avoid.

Joe Grant, Liz Shaw, Sarah Jane Smith.

Oh gosh, that's really hard, isn't it?

It's like the opposite problem that we have.

I am going to...

I'm going to Snog Katie.

I mean, I'm going to smell Joe Grant.

Yes.

Yes.

Because I just think she's gorgeous and lovely and fantastic and I think she's perfect fun.

[44:40]

I am going to Mary Liz.

Sure.

Absolutely.

Oh yeah, that's complicated, isn't it?

I'm going to marry section leader Elizabeth Shaw.

Section leader, I think, too, although her prospects of retirement aren't very good, are they?

Nice army pensions.

That's right.

And great hair.

Pity there's nowhere to spend the army page.

Um, and and I'm avoiding uh, I'm avoiding Sarah because she's got a giant spider on a bag.

Nice responses, Nathan.

Right.

I think I would also snog Joe. Get her all dolled up for a nice now, a night out. meets you, my girl.

Hell, yeah.

Hello.

I think I would actually marry Sarah Jane Smith.

I don't think Liz would have me.

I don't think Liz would put up with me.

So I'd have to marry Sarah Jane Smith because, you know, I'm I'm quite an independent person.

I like my time to myself and I have a feeling Sarah is that way as well.

[45:41]

So we'd be quite compatible in that regard.

You know, we go off and have our own adventures and come back and say, you're not going to believe what I saw dinosaurs.

Yeah, well, I've been to a philaterally convention.

Hi.

In this ladies.

So you're avoiding I'm avoiding Liz just because of the ultimate rejection.

I'm going to save myself that heartbreak and just love her from afar.

Oh.

Probably wise.

Well, bearing in mind, this is very parallel universe question.

I think we'd move into a parallel universe TV and I'd be downstairs and it'll be upstairs in the flat for a man about the house and it would be, again, the 3 girls living up there and I'd be Mrs. Roper downstairs.

I'd be with the jaws coming up and you know, getting into the gills.

No, because I, because again, it's, I want to see the dynamic.

I want to see a sitcom with those 3 sharing a flat.

I think that would be terrifically fun and that, you know, you could get a few little moments, you know, a few little words about the doctor and I suppose he could appear.

[46:42]

You know, at the end in the last episode.

It'd be a bit like birds of prey, but enjoyable.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I'm Mrs. Roger for this one.

Oh, so it comes back to me now.

Who am I going to snob?

I think I'm going to have to go with Elizabeth Shaw, especially if she's dogged up like in the Sunurians.

I think she's got a wicked sense of humour and let's her hair down and we have a great time.

It up in a hat too.

Yes.

I'm going to marry Joe Grant.

Oh, Cliff.

I didn't think about that.

Thanks.

Which means I have to avoid Sarah Jane Smith.

I think I'm so in awe of her that I just couldn't really go up to her and talk to her in a coherent manner.

I think if I did, I'd be walking down a corridor and there'd be some sort of pole in the way and I might sort of bang into it and go, oh, sorry about that.

[47:43]

And then we'd start talking again and then we'd walk down the corridor a bit further and there'd be a 2nd pole and I'd also do the same thing twice over.

You've thought about this a lot more than I have thought about with Lou Shaw.

Well, you know, maybe I'm just relaying a bit of a story about something that happened in real life.

Oh, goodness, okay.

Is this you talking to Elizabeth Slade and smacking into a succession of polls because you're so absolutely in awe of her?

This is correct.

The very 1st time I met her, which was in a convention, I think, in 1995.

The lovely Andrew Beach introduced me to her and we had a nice conversation.

I was just so band boy about the whole thing and then she had to go off and do something.

She said, well, walk with me and we're walking down this hotel corridor and there were these.

It wasn't just a straight corridor.

There was these little pylon things and so I walked in.

Like in Mathal city.

Yeah, and so I walked into one and then it was like, 0 my goodness, you know, and then we kept walking and I did it a second.

[48:45]

So, yeah, you know, there's my little story there.

So I just think I have to avoid Sarah James because I just would do silly things.

I seem to recall, dear listener, and told me not want to tell the story, but I'm going to tell it now.

No, I'm just remembering back to who ventioned three.

Todd and the now late Elizabeth Sladen conspired with Roadshow video as it was then and the Canberra Dalek Builders to do a special launch scene for Paradise Towers on VHS.

So Todd, who at the time did a, how did this splendid John Pertwe outfit. ran in running away from these daleks and then Liz Slayton ran in, to which Todd says to her, it's you, but no, it's you, you.

And they did, they did this whole scene with the Daleks arriving and eventually they scare off the Daleks with a copy of Paradise Towers because as, and this is Todd and Liz Sladen back and forth, oh, it's got the Red Canes and the Blue Kangs.

[49:48]

Oh, and it's got the caretakers.

Oh, and the Rezis, and it's got, and then both in unison, Mel.

Retreat.

Retreat.

And that was my 1st convention dog.

Oh wow.

Oh, actually, I told her, I wasn't who mentioned one, but I was bearing that.

I was tiny.

I don't remember much of it except breaking my Sylvester McCoy action figure. very annoying..

So no, that was the that was the 1st convention I was at under my own steam and that's my abiding memory of that.

Just you and Liz up there having fun and launching the video and especially Liz Sladen being willing to sort of send herself up a bit to launch that.

I do seem to recall.

I may be wrong, but these things recall as sort of people with disbanding afterwards.

I think she turned to you and said, I'm not even in this one am I?

She was a really, really good sport with that whole thing.

You know, it's interesting hearing a different perspective of that because, you know, when you're doing it, you go, you're up there acting the bit and I'm going, oh my goodness, it's Elizabeth Slater and we're sending up, you know, Paradise Towers, you must think I'm an absolute idiot, you know?

And so, you know, it was a lot of fun.

[50:49]

She seemed to enjoy herself.

Look, she was an absolute delight.

And she loved John.

She loved John.

We did that convention at the end of the year after John's passing and she found it very hard to talk about John and what he meant to her, but the love that she had for that man was incredible.

I think people tend to forget they think of, you know, her time with Tom and Ella chemistry, but it was so evident to me. in the conversations that we had either on stage or behind the scenes that, you know, he meant so much to her.

It's easy to forget they spent more time together on a convention circuit working on those than they did in the studios.

So they actually got to know each other when they were all much more mature and more themselves.

So we were really lucky to have had all of those moments.

I can't wait in future seasons to hear some of Todd's other wonderful anecdotes about conventions.

So, you know, the one with Liz Sladden and the telegraph cucumber is one I'm particularly excited to.

[51:49]

Isn't that a Sherlock Holmes story?

I can tell it when he was sent out to, you know.

Oh, I know.

I now know what you're saying.

Some things are better left off the podcast.

It was very important to being earnest, wasn't it, when you have to come back. not for love nor money. and be obtained.

All right.

This is actually a true story listener. to it another time.

Maybe.

And that's the thing.

Todd's not here to tell it, Richard Mill.

I hope it tells it accurate.

She was always a very, very generous person.

And, you know, I met her a number of times after the convention.

She loved you.

She actually did.

She was very fond of talk.

I do, we're going off track.

We need to get back on track.

No, we're not.

This is all.

This is how we do our podcast.

I don't forget, I'll never forget.

I'm meeting her one time for lunch in London, and it was a rainy day, and I was with a friend of the podcast, Sarah Gronovagan, and this fiddle figure came out on the tube or whatever.

And you know that outfit that Sarah wears in in the 5 doctors.

[52:53]

You know that?

Oh, in God.

The pink the pink.

Is that exactly the same thing?

No, no, no, no, the raincoat.

Oh, the raincoat, yeah.

And we just, Sarah and I just looked at each other.

My brain ceremony to each other and went, oh, my God.

It's probably looking from the 5 doctors.

So, of course, for the 1st 5 minutes, we're just there going, she's wearing the same thing on the 5 doctors.

It was great.

Yeah, she was always very generous and we met up a number of times.

But that's, we'll talk about that, Pat, some other point, you know, maybe a few things.

Now, to change type completely.

Your favourite guest star in the post where you are or guest role?

Not Roger Delgado, who was part of the red one.

We need to talk about him very soon, but I know your answer.

Tell me It's Scherner from Carnival of Monsters.

It is.

I said it a time and it still is.

Hooray.

Yeah, no, I think she's really true.

She was just wonderful. you know?

Although there are a few people in season 7 at the end there.

I quite liked Petra and Greg in.

[53:53]

We were getting his proper sitcom stuff there.

Actually, it was love story.

They were the Allie McGraw and Ryan O'Neill of Doctor Who.

Does anyone know that the love story film was the biggest film of its era?

Love was never having to say you're sorry because she died horribly in the end.

Spoiler.

I know, she did.

Whereas in this one, they seem to have got away, didn't they?

Or did they all die horribly?

Well, they died horribly and they got away.

That's the beauty of Inferno.

That is the lovely thing, isn't it?

You can have your cake and set fire to it in lava as well.

Gold's good and good too, actually. why I like that story.

Christina Benjamin is good in every Yeah, every time he turns up, doesn't he?

And Jeffrey Palmer, we've got a whole host of lovies that we loved. don't we?

Guys?

I'm not even thinking.

I'm still thinking about it.

There are so many good guest cast, then you go ahead.

That's too simple.

Well, if it's guest villain, it's links because he really, just anything Kevin Lindsay does is gold.

And for me though, it's Lady Eleanor.

It's Dot cotton.

Snoggin, Mary.

[54:55]

She's great.

Just imagine a whole episode of the George and Mildred, repartee we would have got with Duke of West 6, who's queer as a coup. and it's true.

It really is.

And Lady Eleanor, who's, you know, just making things do, and then there's that young, we don't quite know how how the archer fits into that scenario, but it would have been fun finding out.

I really, it's my greatest disappointment.

If we're going to jump ahead and say, what's the greatest tragedy is that we get 6 parts of Monster Peladon and only 4 of Time Warrior for season 11.

I don't think there'd be any doubts of which is the best season if those 2 things had happened.

Mine's a bit left field.

I thought, you know, I could say Jeffrey Palmer or Paul Whitson Jones or, you know, one of the real big name guest actors we had.

Still shaps.

Cyril Shaps is always one of them.

Twice.

Yes.

Dying horribly.

I think I'm going to go for Anna Barriers Annat in Day of the Daleks.

Oh, shit.

Oh, yeah.

I am.

I thought she was a wonderfully, realistically played character in a very fantastic, fantastical situation.

[55:58]

I think she's played really well because she is 1st introduced as a villain and we slowly gain sympathy for her.

But her performance never changes.

It's just our understanding of her character.

She makes that work very different.

She really makes those scenes work.

I'm going to choose Anna Barry.

If you ask me tomorrow, I might give a different answer, but my answer is my whole wisher as karlick in... in Carnival of Monsters.

Hang on.

Carlick.

There's one moment where they fire the eradicator at the, at the mini scope and it doesn't work.

And Karlik's response is just bravo.

He's so funny and so bitchy.

And, you know, like he's the centre of all of the scheming because it's quite small scale, isn't it?

Yeah, that planet's basically those 3 people, all of whom are great.

There's Packer.

You know, there's some the guy from Planet of the Spiders.

There's just...

Terrence Lodge.

There's just 3 people sort of scheming and stuff. it up.

[57:01]

I think, don't you think they're meant to be?

Don't you think they're meant to be the backroom boys of the BBC?

Oh, I think it's, I think it's, they're called officials.

I think it's with the gray shows.

Yeah, official them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

But Wisha is brilliantly funny and cussing and acerbic, I think, in it.

And he's saying Bob Holmes is live.

Yeah, excellent.

So Snog Mario Void.

Vega Nexus, Alpha Centauri, or the great one.

Oh, my.

Oh, too easy.

Oh, Snog, Veganexis.

Marry Vegan Axis.

Is that how this game works?

What was the middle one?

Alpha Centura.

I think I don't know that you'd come out well.

What would you snog?

Alpha Century doesn't seem to have a mouth of any kind. stretching a point of it.

We're not eating a monoid.

You end up with conjunctivitis of the tunnel.

I think I have to marry Alpha Centauri.

Okay.

Yeah, and avoid... spider, obviously.

[58:02]

Yeah, I'd agree with Nathan for much the same reason.

So, yeah, it'd be Snog Veganexus, Mary Alpha Centauri.

Oh, I hit the great one.

Oh, praise the great one.

And of course, the great one does reappear in a South Park episode.

What?

There's a South Park giant spider.

Yeah, the giant spider of the church.

Pretty much the...

Father Mulcahy or whatever his name is in South Park, goes to the Vatican to sort of say, you know, we've got to stop child abuse and it's like, yeah, but child abuse is part of the culture of the Griganak people and you come to these giant alien jellies.

He's like, what?

And when they finally reach a consensus with the giant alien jollies.

Right, we must consult with the Spider queen.

What?

I do not approve of this change to Christianity.

And it's the same, it's not, you're saying, churchman or...

But Kisman Delgado, obviously.

But it's the same timber. the queen of the fantastic.

I will, I will find, we'll try to find a clip if Comedy Central will let us.

Richard, Snog Barrier, Void, Veganexus, the Centaurium, the great one.

[59:04]

I don't think it would be safe to snog for Centro.

I think should be the easiest one for the easiest one to marry because again, it would be perfect sitcom.

I really have ended up in the 70s in this one, haven't I?

Because you'd be the one dropping, oh, I've dropped 6 plates at once.

Doing the washing up and...

Exactly, you know?

We've got Jenny Laird coming for tea.

You're horribly wrong.

And I think if you try to snog Alpha Centauri.

Well, I mean, it's just one enormous phallus, isn't it?

I think you'd be overstretching yourself.

Vegan X is certainly to party with.

But I don't want to avoid the great one because I just think, I think she'd know a lot.

She'd be very interesting.

You've just got her off herself for a minute.

That's the trick.

That's the truth, though.

I think, you know, should be, oh, shit, you don't need Google, do you, with her?

She knows everything.

She'd be great, fine.

We should have her as a guest of the podcast.

Perhaps it's a shame we didn't have her for Planet of the Spiders.

I think we'd all have to arm wrestle over who would get to do her because we can all do the voice.

I'm just imagining her doing an infomercial now.

[1:00:05]

No, we have these excessive crystals.

So, ask you, crystal.

Yes.

Just like that, was it that many?

Different sizes.

Yes, yes, the French and Saunders thing where they're looking at that jewellery that's so tiny that you show on the hand.

Yes, yours to keep and enjoy forever. think she'd be great.

Dominique.

Yeah, that's it.

But you cannot buy this one.

I needed to complete my great whip of crystal to overhold the human race.

Oh, I shouldn't have said that we live.

He's lost it.

We lost, Brendan, but...

Yes.

Sorry, the same answer as me.

Oh, okay.

I'm just, you know.

Obviously, I'm avoiding the great one because I am the great one.

Posing like Serverland.

These are actually my top 4 arms I'm raising into the air, inside a skin suit.

I can last of a gallery.

The performance.

The performance that you'd like to avoid seeing again.

[1:01:07]

It has to be cotton.

Oh, such a shame.

Yeah, and it is such a shame because, you know, I loved I love the idea of Doctor Who, after such long time, opening up to speaking roles for non-white actors.

I just think he was the wrong actor for the role.

I think even if they hadn't swapped his and Christopher Cole's parts around.

Who were?

Because Christopher Cole actually has sort of less dialogue and less to do in that in that double end.

He gets killed.

It doesn't help, really.

I don't think you want the black guy to be the one who gets killed.

No, no, but at the same time, Christopher Cole's character is a lot more sort of dubs is a lot more sort of down to earth and straight talking, which I think would have suited James acting style because Rick James got a lot of comedy lines, which fell very flat because he wasn't delivering them as jokes, whereas we know Christopher Cole can do that from his earlier appearances.

So for me, it's the character of cotton.

[1:02:08]

I don't necessarily blame Rick James.

I think he was miscast and possibly badly directed because it wasn't a terribly well-directed story anyway.

Can I say Jenny Ladd?

You can.

Then we could just get on with our lives.

I would have picked her, but it's like, oh, she's only in 3 seats.

It's okay.

Yeah, but she elevates, you know, bad acting to a high art in those 3 scenes.

She hates punctuation.

I believe it's a pathological fear of punctuation.

No, Sabo, I love my husband.

Why did you do it?

Why, why?

No, I shan't that you're taking my chant. shan't.

Richard.

I don't want to see again.

Season 10?

What the whole season?

John wouldn't... and it's kind of unfair because these things are sort of couched between things that are very good.

So, I think there's actually whole scenarios.

There's whole villages or whole themes that are happening along.

I mean, you know, there are quite a few performances in Mine of Evil that I think are really execrable and yet I really love the story.

[1:03:12]

I don't know that I want to pick on an actor as such.

There is always Prentice Hancock if you're struggling.

It's kind of, I know, but it's kind of like shooting eagles on a launch pad, isn't it?

He's always there.

He's always there.

I don't really have anyone that I particularly dislike, to be honest with you.

I think there are just moments that it's not quite as wonderful as it could be.

But this is one of those things that's a mosaic.

It comes together. as something that's definitely more than some of its little parts.

And if there is a faulty performance.

Yes, I could, I think we'd have to say misled doesn't kind of stand out.

Isn't she wonderful because of it and don't we love?

We look forward to that.

It's the mother superior's line in sound of music.

We all know what it is.

She can't face and it's generally her audience for that one.

But no, there's no one in particular.

I'm really happy to have come out of this and see that it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. true.

I like to talk about the unit family.

And we've got the brigadier, Benton Yates, and obviously Roger Delgado is the master, I'm just going to throw him in there.

[1:04:20]

Were there any big revelations, positive negative about the characters, the performances that stand out for you?

I wanted more corporal Bell.

Yeah.

Because, you know, all we really got from her as a sense of character was that, you know, she's she's reliable and redoubtable and gets on with her job and no nonsense.

And I would have liked to see a bit of character development for her along the lines of, along the lines of the character development we got for Benton.

Because I don't think we got a lot of character development for Richard Franklin until that last year, uh, for Captain Yates until about last year, but I think, I think for John Levine, there was a lot of character in there from from the get go.

He was so much better.

I didn't realise they were all his ad-lib lines.

The thing about the doctor taking up hairdressing...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, and I think he's I do keep coming back to Pertley's booth.

I feel that like he proved himself.

I think he was proving himself to be a reliable actress, and they gave him more and more and more.

[1:05:22]

Whereas I'm not having a go at Richard Franklin, but I do think his 1st story performance isn't rough. pretty lacklustre.

And he does get better for whatever reasons, right?

And I think they do a lot with that character during that 1st season, they try and make a man of action, but it often doesn't end up the best.

Yeah.

And then he's sort of sidelighted for such a long time.

He's by far my least favourite of the three.

The brigadier is the one that surprised me the most.

How perhaps Stadia is in his approach to early invasions.

Like it's always we're going to shoot him, or he's got the troops ready.

And also, I think, Benton's, often proving himself and pointing situations where he's very open-minded, like when he gets into the TARDIS and other conversations, but the doctor, whereas the brigade is like, no, no, no, make it simple for me and that sort of thing.

So it actually at times shows up the brigadier.

Not in the greatest life.

I mean, as a kid, you get, we got all those stories where he's working against authority where I think he works really well, like, you know, in spearhead or in the green death or whatever happens to be, but there's that run in like the 3 doctors and certain things around there.

[1:06:30]

When he's written like an idiot.

And Benton comes out better. you know?

And so I was actually quite surprised.

I mean, I really like Nick, but there was this slight glow taken off some of the brigadier's stories, but I really love him in the season.

Do you get the impression that they poorly served, Nick Courtney quite often?

They just neglected the script editor, which just lists on Terence, just kind of thought, oh, you know, Oh, I mean, I think there was a change.

I mean, he was like sort of this major co-lead for the 1st 7 or 8 stories and then then units pushed into the background and it sort of comes he comes back with the green death to, you know, and invasion of dinosaurs and that sort of thing.

I think he's great in invasion of the dinosaurs.

I think he's great.

I think he's superb in the Sarah Jane eventually.

It's great in like ambassadors and in spearhead.

All these ones where you got military figures that he's having to work against.

Like, yeah.

I think it becomes problematic.

And this is this is a common feature of narratives, especially science fiction narratives.

You make your hero look smarter by making other characters look less intelligent.

[1:07:34]

It's a very lazy way to write.

It's pretty poor, yeah.

And that's what happens.

And you'll notice the biggest story it happens in with Nick is the 3 doctors where he's got Patrick and John to bounce off.

So to make Patrick and John look immediately intelligent, you make the brigadier look like a buffoon.

And I actually think it works the other way.

So I was listening to the novelisation of Planet of the Spiders run by Liz.

At the very beginning of that, the brigadier picks up that Professor Clegg is not really psychic because he's just using a word code with his assistant.

We kind of think, well, that's a clever thing.

You know, the brigadier is clever.

And even in robot, you know, he knows immediately that the robots next target, the focussing generators, you know, and doesn't need to be told, knows where everything is.

And when the doctor is surrounded by clever, competent people, that makes him seem better.

I think that that's why Joe works immediately in terror of the autons because she's terribly competent and can get things done.

[1:08:34]

And so when the brigade is an idiot, it actually makes the doctor look stupid.

It's your story about lives in the caves. lives in the caves.

I mean, where I 1st sort of picked up on this whole narrative device or trope of having a stupid character, having a stupid character to make the rest of your characters look good, was actually in Star Trek in the next generation when the character of Lieutenant Barclay starts appearing.

Because when they introduced Barclay, they have all these comedy scenes about how awkward he is around everyone.

It backfires because it makes the regulars look like really horrible people that instead of realising, oh, this man is very nervous with human contacts, let's help him and coax him.

They're really snobbish and elitist.

Picard even says at one point, how did he get on my ship?

And someone says, well, he's very technically competent.

Oh, that's it.

Yeah.

So it's like, oh, so he shouldn't be on your ship because he's, he might now, if he were written today, might be written as an Asperges or autistic character.

[1:09:35]

He certainly has...

It still stands out.

Terrible writing, doesn't it?

The thing is, when they brought the character back, I think they realised that because in future, when Barclay is awkward, the comedy is actually in the reactions to him and they make him awkward about things that the viewers might feel awkward about, like they make him fearful of transporters and he explains it is, no, you're breaking me down and viewers go, actually, yeah, this is a bit like, I have a fear of flying.

It's a bit like that and they discuss phobias.

And so I think they realise that whole thing of writing a stupid characters make your other characters look good, can actually turn you against the other characters because why would they be hanging out with super people?

They're not hanging out with people, but they're making fun of people because they're not as intelligent as them.

I think, yeah, the brigadier was poorly served.

But yeah, only in the middle.

He sort of recovers towards the end of the Purley era.

He's lovely in spiders.

Yeah.

And especially his reactions during pertly his death.

Nick is great in that because you can see the brig is feeling emotion, but he's being strong, I think, for his own sake, and also for Sarah's sake.

[1:10:40]

After the doctors collapsed on the floor.

Sarah, won't you introduce me to your friend who's hovering over there?

Well, it's the app.

Well, it's it's...

No, it's, it's, it's the, it looks like Choji, but and the brigade is like, thank you, Miss Smith.

That makes everything quite clear.

Yeah, quite real, isn't it?

part of the fun of the brigadier is that he's not thrown by something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

And so when he's thrown by the TARDIS, that kind of undermines his real strength, which is that he wanders through these stories. with a kind of raised eyebrow and a slight curl of a smile.

And I like the brigadier best when he actually thinks he's a bit superior to per tweet and like when he finds per tweets a bit amusing, you know, like I think that's that's when he's at his strongest.

It's really just the 3 doctors and maybe a little bit of the end of time monster where they write him as really stupid.

Yeah, yeah.

Even by the Green Death, he's got that wonderful line of, I'm not the dunderhead you all see to think.

And everyone kind of looks at him. of course I've sent my kid to spy.

[1:11:44]

What do you think I am?

So on that note, Snog, marry, of course.

The brigadier.

Sergeant Bitton.

Captain Yates.

Well, it wouldn't be legal to marry Captain.

Yeah, it's obviously in this country at the moment.

You'll be able to get your leg over, I expect.

I'm going to marry the brigadier.

Yeah, same game.

Hello. and you'll always be Doris to us.

I'm going to snorg Gates.

Oh, and I'm going to avoid Benton because he's the one that takes all the orders and just carries them out, right?

And so at home, I think he would just be barking the orders all the time and I just don't think I would hack that taking it out on the poor wife, so I'm not going to...

Yeah, I mean, he doesn't look so good in a gimp suit either.

He's a very attractive yeti.

A fairy gimpsie.

No need for don't talk boss.

So I'd snog Sergeant Benton.

[1:12:44]

We'll do, darling.

I'd avoid Captain Yates.

And I've heard he's terribly fond of you.

That's a big revelation for me. because before recording these podcasts, I actually preferred Yates to Benton, but now I think I'm a conversation to Yates.

You know, having now got to the end of the year, especially that beautiful moment in invasion of the dinosaurs when Benton sort of says, 0 yeah, just knock me out, doctor, whatever.

So Snog, Sergeant Benton.

Avoid...

Like you do with your French girls.

And marry the brig.

Oh, dear Mr, my job is dark.

Um, Brendan, um, should yourself and Richard Franklin get on quite well?

I did actually get on.

Yeah, I got on the question was not about Richard Franklin.

No, it's not.

I think there might be an A priority.

It's a very nice man.

Yes, he is.

Yeah.

He's very fond of Duncan, especially in your...

David Dyks?

So you're...

I haven't answered yet.

What did I say?

I think I was going to marry Benton because he's good at taking orders.

[1:13:45]

I'm going to...

Well, you know, like I actually think Mike Yates ends up quite good in quite good plays. terrific.

And he gets a lot of meaty material and he's really likeable inspired. said no to that.

Yeah, I really like him in...

He's fantastic in Spiders.

So I am going to snog him, which means you're avoiding...

I'm avoiding the brigadier.

Wow. weirdly, I'm almost with Nathan.

I'd have to avoid the brigadier just because I never know what I'm going to get next.

Well, he's so good in some.

I said compremise.

I thought we were going to dance.

We are.

I am going to a sitcom, but I'm going to...

He's always coming back.

Like, you know, all these units soldiers are dying and he's having to organise funerals, as I mentioned before, but you know, he comes home at the end of the day.

So you'd avoid the brig?

No, I was saying that.

I'm just saying I don't know that I'd marry him because I don't think it would, it would kind of work out quite as well as we all think it would.

[1:14:47]

I think it's more of this one.

The cast of friends.

And you're sitting around just thinking, oh, which one's going to die 1st because the only reason you're all together sitting in that idiot cafe is because no one else could possibly stand you.

It's why you're together every single bloody episode in the same room.

No, they don't have any other friends, do they?

Who would I be in that one?

I think I'd be Phoebe's smelly cat in that one.

Sitting on the edge.

No, that, that, I don't really want any of them.

Thank you.

Okay.

Avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid.

Okay, we haven't discussed Roger Delgado.

Well, you'd marry the master?

I think he's just amazing.

Yeah, he is, even though he is given the full gamut of wonderful scripts right through to absolute Drek.

He never adjusts his performance to match the material.

It is always the same excellent performance all the way through his day stories.

I think there's, you know, that hilarious moment in Clause of Axos when you realise he's actually much more polite and likeable than the doctor.

[1:15:51]

Because, you know, he really is, isn't he?

He's wonderful.

He's so charming and suave.

I think, you know, There's a sense in which the character's a bit of a lazy plot device and the same things constantly happen.

He teams up with aliens and then it all goes horribly wrong and, you know, the doctor has to help him out or whatever.

And you don't need a complex motivation for anyone because it's the master, he's evil and, you know.

And the big, the big telltale thing, and again, this is probably a sander for thing, where there's a sort of attempt at moral complexity in Doctor Who and the Silurians.

But once you bring the master in a couple of years later for the sea devils, that all just goes out the window because of the Masters E Vol and we, you know, know why he's behaving the way he does.

So he's he's a lazy plot device.

And of course, I think he's been great in the new series.

I'm not a fan of Ainley at all.

Do you know what I mean?

I think that there's no point in bringing him back in 98?

Has it ever worked bringing him back?

[1:16:53]

I think John Sims master is terrific.

I was going to talk about Michelle.

And I think Michelle Gomez is fantastic as the master as well.

And of course, Derek Jacoby. and Derek Jacoby, yeah. twice.

But like bringing him back after Delgado in the classic series...

I love Jeffrey Beavers, though.

Yeah, Jeffrey Beavers is very good.

I love him in the audio.

Yeah, he's back playing it.

Great voice.

Yeah.

Well, he's really excellent in the audio.

He's especially excellent opposite Tom Louise James.

I've just had him read because he reads a lot.

To you personally.

Nathan knows everyone.

He comes around and just sits on the end of my bed and reads Dr. in the doomsday way.

In the latex drippy mask.

Yeah, mostly.

Yeah, yeah.

But what are you wearing?

Sometimes you just climb inside a grandfather clock, don't you?

Sometimes get him to dress like Michelle Gomez.

I thought you might dress up as a council casio.

Worship flu.

I'm Luvic.

So, no, because he reads, he reads a lot of the audiobooks of the target normalisations. and he's got a lovely voice and he does a great job.

[1:17:59]

So smooth.

Yeah, yeah.

But thanks to Delgado, it is, it's Delgado's performance.

He charming.

He's really funny.

He just is, you know, compelling to watch in a way that Pertwe himself often isn't.

You know, I do think he's a great character with all of those caveats. caveats, rather than cravat soup.

He might be dressed simply, but actually, that's the problem for me under the classic series master, the Delgado master.

I agree there is only one other than Mr. Beaver's.

And it's nice that they, when they did bring him back, firstly, they brought him back emaciated and kept.

I would like 2 of him to have stayed that way, actually.

Um, we didn't we didn't really need good old Tony Ainley, and I love him as dreamist, but I don't think we needed his master.

It's a sad thing, or it's a disappointing thing, which is probably the worst criticism you can make about anyone in life, the D word.

I don't think he's given material mostly to match what he can do.

I really like him in terror of the autons.

[1:19:00]

He's terrific and he's funny.

I actually really like him in the demons, but again, we've got that sense, Todd said, of this master fatigue.

So by the end of his time, there we go again.

Um, I mean, you can see that Roger was also feeling a little bit awkward with it.

I felt that there was a certain sense of him thinking, well, how do I make this work?

It's kind of a bit difficult to just do.

Shall I just ramp it up a little bit more?

That's really the only place I can go.

But as far as threatening.

He's about as threatening as a flaming Frangelico with a toasting marshmallow in the middle of it.

It's not, I never feel really bothered by him.

And yes, you're right.

I actually came to like him more than the doctor in these last days.

Well, that's the danger you see.

I think that that's the danger that the master poses, and it's explicitly the danger that John Sims master poses in sound of drums, is what do we know about Time Lords?

Well, what we know is they are the star of Doctor Who.

And so the thread is that he becomes the star of Doctor Who.

And it's explicitly there later.

But here, you know, in season 8 and season 9, he does sort of threatened to take over the show because he's so fun and so compelling to watch.

[1:20:09]

And there are stories.

But there are stories of Pertuid being annoyed at all of the billing that Delgado's getting in the pre-publicity for season eight.

So there is a real sense in which he threatens to take over the show.

Would you be annoyed?

Well, maybe, maybe, but Pertwe's vulnerability kind of, you know, speaks in and of itself and it's kind of well known now, so...

But it's kind of what happened to a lot of a lot of the Doctor Who companion actresses, especially, say, Carolyn Ford, and yeah, Carolyn John, who were promised these really interesting complex characters, but then that doesn't actually happen in the series.

I do understand pertly getting a bit annoyed about that.

I think what mitigated that for him was that Roger Delgado was already a friend of his and, of course, Roger Delgado, the man by all reports was just this amazingly warm, giving, friendly actor.

It's a bit like later on we're getting ahead of ourselves, but Tom Baker hated working with K9 because it ate into studio production time.

[1:21:17]

It was hard to do 2 shots, et cetera, et cetera.

But he loved John Leeson.

And so he put up with the aggravation of the tin dog because he really liked his costar.

And I think that's possibly the case for Pertwe as well.

He may not have liked sharing the screen, but if he was going to share the screen.

He's this lovely actor whom I've worked with before and whom I think is absolutely wonderful.

You should have played him like Muffy, shouldn't he?

In Battlestog, Galactica, obviously, is.

Who was a man in a dog in a furry dog suit with a metal dog collar?

remember that?

There was actually some talk of bringing Muffy back in some way, shape, or form in the reboot of Galactica.

Actually, I think you do see a dog in the background of a shot, a proper dog in the Battlestar Galactica pilot with the with the child, because there's a child in there as well who has a minor role in the Battlestar pilot which didn't make it to the series and that was going to be the new boxy.

So Snob Mary avoids.

Oh god.

The master.

Omega.

[1:22:18]

Zar.

Azal is so terrible.

And those legs, you know, like I said it before.

They're not as good as they should be, are they?

But they're kind of, they've got like, I think he's not meant to be wearing tights, but his his legs are all sort of crinkled and...

Yeah, exactly.

It's a question of grooming and deportment.

He'd put a cut like a knife through the bedsheets of those hools.

I have to say that the omega thing is all terribly underrated.

Like he gets to be king of a universe where he can create whatever he wants through the power of thought.

And all he can do is bitch about it.

Just shut up.

Enjoy yourself.

You know what?

I'd avoid a Zarve for the obvious cloven hoof. 17 metre tall reasons.

I'd snog Roger, because look, you can't you can't trust the master to marry him.

You just can't.

So I'd marry Omega because what he really, really needs is an interior decorator to say, look, okay, you can come drop anything.

Give me an ottoman over here.

Give me a give me a storage chest over there, put an office here.

[1:23:21]

Look, you've got so much space you can do with this stuff.

It should be mentioned that my reality TV guilty pleasure is home renovation programs.

Um, so maybe that's where I'm coming from.

But yeah, I think I'd marry Omega because obviously he needs a brain to use his powers to build a nice place.

Yeah, you know, if you're saying, forget this domination.

Let's have a lovely mansion.

Lovely things.

Lovely things.

Just surround yourself with lovely things, Omega, and you'll forget about this emptiness of existence.

That's it, a giant Olympic pool full of vodka.

Just whip it up, Omega darling.

So speaking of lovely things.

Oh, have I done my strog?

You're just going to avoid it, so honestly.

I just haven't asked.

I think the rest of us avoided it actually. click it in.

Yeah, I think we'd end up on the set of to the manor born. and try to be married to a...

Who are you married?

Well, Omega is Penelope Keith. he's having to, you know, having to reinvent the palace that he's lost.

And the master would then have to be Richard DeVere, who's the new kid on the block with all the money, but he can't quite seem to make it work.

[1:24:26]

Can he really?

And Azar is...

It's a mother.

Azal is Mrs. Pulovuski, you know, who buries her fruitcake up in the backyard for 3 weeks, but and keeps and keeps seeing fetches. doesn't she?

Because she's also mother, what's her name?

Not Mother Shipton.

Who was she again?

And the classic series.

She's an image of the Fendal.

Oh, yeah, she's Mar Tyler.

She's Mart Tyler.

She's Mark Tyler, yes. in the back in the back.

Oh, look, you know, probably Snogger, just because, no, I marry Omiger.

Definitely.

Definitely.

I wouldn't, wouldn't kiss Roger, because again, I was thinking of 70s dental hygiene.

I'm just imagining now, you know, that scene of to the manor born where Audrey goes to a supermarket for the...

I'm just imagining Oh my God.

Who shall serve me now?

If no one is coming to remove my helmet, I shall do it myself.

See, it really works, doesn't it?

It really works.

I'm Marjorie in that scenario.

I mean, you're Marjorie in this scenario.

[1:25:28]

We're heading towards Exxon, Spiriton, Helladon.

Okay, are we talking Pell Minor or Pell Royal?

You can chew.

You're looking expectantly at me, Nathan.

Well, I think I'm going to marry Spiriton because, you know, they're invisible and if I just let myself go.

Do you know what I mean?

After a few decades?

Like what are they going to complain about?

Do you know what I mean?

Like West is not even visible and by the way, why aren't you wearing some clones?

So that's what I would marry.

Paladon, I think a quick snog with David Troughton.

Not the first.

Well, no, and I can think worse things.

And Excellon will obviously avoid because like my laptop's not going to work and the Apple Watch isn't going to work and like the whole place is just a complete washout.

I think I'd marry King Peladin.

Or a peloton.

I'd even marry Queens Valeria.

The lira.

[1:26:29]

Lira?

Lira?

I'm watching it for her.

If she wants the money back.

So I think I'd have to Snogwester.

Just because, you know, it'd be fun to try and find it on an invisible being.

And so I'd avoid an excellent because I am, when it comes to my hands, I don't like my hands, you know, if I'm if I'm working on something that makes my hands dirty, that's fine at the time, but I have to clean them against right away.

So if I'm living in a China clay quarry, that's never going to work.

So yeah, I'd have, I'd have to, as much as I love Bala, I think he's wonderful.

I think we need to stay as just friends.

Well, I'm going to excellent to snorg, wow, and just just to be shown the ruins of the great city and everything and get his personal story about the events that what happened and who he met.

I will be marrying Peladon.

Well, one of the royals anyway, because I'm not going to be one of the minors.

And I'm a boarding spirit.

Well, you know exactly what.

Because they drag you away when you're knocked out and pull goo on your arm.

[1:27:33]

So there's poisonous plants, there's ice fishes.

There's invisible people and I hate that story, therefore I'm avoiding it.

And there's the BBC sound record as well.

I just keep going round and around and around.

I want that to be the soundtrack to my life.

I don't know that it isn't, really.

Well, I'm sitting here in the backyard of a house in Surbiton up to my knees in Chookpoo, digging away with my lovely wife, King Peladon. and next door and our lovely and our lovely agador that we keep in the back pin because we've turned it.

We've turned our lovely suburban house into a make as you go farm and next door we have Penelope Keith as played by...

Jenny Laird. yes Yes, she is.

Yeah, yeah, she is.

She is.

And she's married to that invisible guy because Paul Eddington had almost nothing to do.

Yeah, you can.

Your favourite writer.

[1:28:34]

Pop Holmes.

Bob Holmes.

Oh, Mac Hulk.

Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

Actually, that's a good show. is really good.

But I think I have to choose Michael, big holes, with the exception of a couple of earlier sort of pre-goes before he was at his peak.

His peak is in the hurt we era.

He's there every year, always reliable.

Giant listens every year.

Giant lizards everywhere.

Yeah, yeah.

I like that he gave us pre-gos as well.

It's huge.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, even the Pre-Gos are good. faceless one's good.

Wargame is very good.

And he even wrote half Ambassadors of Death, really.

Yeah, after Whittaker was moving to Australia.

And like so much of the legacy of the Pertsu era is in the novels for us.

That's why we liked it.

That's why we liked it because they're great.

And the reason that... is Malcolm Hulk's novelisations are all just...

Terrence's early ones are really good, and Terrence's very last novel, is it?

Terrence's last novelisations was ambassadors of death. you ever read?

[1:29:36]

It's really good.

They probably had time.

Yeah, exactly.

He's got reinventions. turn out 3 a week anymore.

Yeah, he'd been doing conventions and the kids had been saying how good he was and there's nothing like a bit of praise to get an artist.

Whatever kind of art they do. to put some work in.

He deserves a great deal of praise for that entire line.

You know, he's, you know, he's the heart and soul of it, I think.

But I think that Malcolm Hulk brought something really just extra to the table and wasn't afraid to sort of junk the structure of the story as we saw it on the screen in order to produce something a bit more interesting and just think about Shuey McPherson that we talked about at the beginning of the invasion of the dinosaurs, which is just such a spectacularly interesting and economical way of telling the story of what happened to London that caused it to become evacuated.

It's so well done, just told from the point of view of a single person who doesn't get a mention on the screen.

He's not even in it.

Yeah, yeah.

So he's he's great.

[1:30:37]

I think he's great.

He also the one who tells that whole chapter of the green death from the maggot's point of view, which is, again, just so well done.

Yeah, they're the 2 writers, Bob Holmes and Med Hog. who would be the ones I would choose from.

I'm not going to pick one or the other.

Is there any overrated writer?

Well, no, there isn't.

I mean, I know that Nathan might throw something in just for, you know, alacrity and amusement, but we all know that actually he really loves everyone.

Robert Sloman.

Sloan has a totally undeserved reputation for not being crap.

Marlena Dietrich sitting here.

He's not as...

He's not as good as...

Oh, come on, Planet of the Spider.

Yeah, Planet of the Spider is good.

And then there's Bob Baker and Dave Martin, who are terrible as well.

I don't think that's great ideas.

They just have a dozen ideas every 3 minutes.

You want to know who I'm going to say is overrated in the per we era?

Very nation.

Ouch.

How could you say that?

That's tarantulas, isn't it?

[1:31:37]

But, you know, he, he, the main reason we got planet is because, well, is because quite understandably, he said, you're not allowed to use my creations without permission.

It took 2 years for Barry and Terrence, turn around and say, you're just feeding us the same stuff as everyone before.

Prepare a new story and when we'll see in a few weeks, when he does prepare a brand new story, it's a bloody corker.

How much of that is here?

Is he?

Let's wait and find out, dear listen.

That'll be an interesting podcast.

We know things, don't we?

Jenny Leaderward.

I mean, normally so many things in season two.

Yes, I know.

We tried to stop you.

One thing does spring to mind and I think that's the way in which Ms. Shore is written out.

Yeah, it's a way in which she's written out and I think that's a creative puzzling choice.

Um, and I would have liked to have seen some conclusion to that character.

I think that's a good one and I think...

It is, it's one thing that they go on and get right and that they get right for the 1st time because the one thing that you don't realise is that up until now for the 1st 6 years of Doctor Who, the cast changed once a year or more.

[1:32:45]

And now we've had this regular cast, you know, from seasons 8, 9, and 10.

You've got the same regular cast all the way through.

You've got the longest chronologically, I guess, apart from phrase, perhaps the longest companion, but certainly the longer serving creative team and all of that sort of thing.

The show's remarkably consistent.

And so they're getting rid of Liz is a big misstep, but she's a bit of a casualty of the retooling that they do at the beginning of season 8. the right word, yeah.

It's not entirely puzzling.

No, it's misogynist.

Well, I don't know that it's misogynist.

Well, maybe.

Like Terrence always likes to tell the story that in a way that makes him sound like a sexist idiot, not a huge stretch.

No, I know.

But Katie comes in and kind of and rescues that.

Yeah, that's because she's so charming herself.

It's something that I recognise as a problem that they fix straight away and we go from maybe the worst companion departure with Liz to the best companion comparture up till now with the green. they might from their mistakes, didn't they?

[1:33:47]

So definitely say that at that team.

I think the puzzling creative choice is the end of season finale for eight, nine, 10, and some degree 11, getting Sloman to do it, ensuring, you know, like you have the Slow man.

Giving them 6 episodes to kind of fap around in.

And so every single season ends on this sort of badly paced, badly conceived, kind of mess of a story, with, I think, the exception of Green Death, which is spectacular, and to some degree, Planet of the Spider, which is lifted by Liz and by the whole departure thing.

But I just don't know why they structured the seasons like that every year.

I think mine has to be.

It's a combination of factors rather than any one decision.

So in season nine, um, they invited the Bristol boys to write again, Bob Baker and Dave Martin.

[1:34:47]

Now, the previous season with Bob Baker and Dave Martin, they got in Michael Ferguson to direct that one because they've got an inexperienced writer, they get an experienced director.

Next time around.

They give them the 3 doctors because they're capable of writing quite quickly and adapting to certain situations.

They get Delenny Maine to direct that, who directed the acclaimed cursor peladon, the previous year.

The mutants is really an oddity because they get Christopher Barry back, who hasn't directed Doctor Who for many years.

And so we have a combination of an inexperienced scriptwriting team with a very ambitious script and a director who hasn't worked under the current Doctor Who production machine before.

It's a really silly idea to do that.

I think if they were going to get Christopher Barry, they should have given him even something like Dave the Daleks or the Time Monster, especially he directed Daleks before.

And, you know, we did comment that Paul Bernard's direction of the Daleks themselves fell a bit flat, whereas his direction of people was quite good.

[1:35:49]

So swap those around.

I mean, even if Paul Bernard comes into there, he had a lot of visual flair and style.

And yeah, the mutants doesn't really translate for that.

And yeah, I think that maybe that's what the problem with the mutants boils down to, there's too much inexperience going, oh, you've got like an inexperienced actor playing a major supporting role.

You've got inexperienced writers, writing a much longer story than they'd previously written, and you've got A very experienced director, but not experienced under the current ages of Doctor Who.

So that's my puzzling creative choice is the creative, the whole creative team for the mutants.

And perhaps it could have been arranged better.

Even the ones that don't come across as being wholly successful.

And it's actually those damaged goods that we get, isn't it?

Not entirely working, but there is, that just seems to reveal the parts that do work and that you get to see when the oil isn't quite clicking in with the cogs, that you see how well people are performing in the machinery itself, which is probably why I like the Robert Sloman stories.

[1:36:52]

Because the individual performances stand out, if the whole thing is maybe lumbering.

People put that much extra work.

I really like time Monster.

There is many people who do.

Again, terrible pertry is never that terrible.

It's enjoying time, monster.

If we were to take anything away from today's podcasts, it's probably it.

If the listener was thinking, oh, you know, what would I watch of these?

I think you can jump into any of our best or worst and you'll find something to enjoy in them.

Hmm I'm incredibly irritating on these on these yeses or no, these binary divisions.

Because again, if I had to think of something that I thought was truly, truly awful, for whatever unsuccessful reason in the per wheat era, it would probably be one of the ones that doesn't quite float.

And there's a few to choose from, but I haven't got any off the top of my head.

How about the cravat he chooses to wear in the paladon?

Yes, no, it's a monstrous thing.

I agree.

Monstrous thing.

It's a cravat.

Thank you, Nathan.

[1:37:53]

Always.

Although it's a good choice, me think.

It's a bit Jason King.

Love that.

Be negative about something.

We're about to go into the Hall of Fame board, but I realised that perhaps there's one other question I should ask.

What is the most overrated?

Inferno.

The 5 doctors.

Yeah, oh, the demons. between the demons and the infam.

I'm serious about the 5 doctors too.

I'd agree with the demons.

Really?

Yeah.

Gosh, it's such atmosphere.

You know, again, I like it, but I don't think it's any better.

You know what?

I don't, I don't, it's the best season 8 story, let alone the best...

You are watching it at the end of the season.

Do what I did and just watch it out of seats.

That's not the point.

That's kind of our shtick.

See, I see, I think that's the whole point about that story is that if you were trying to get somebody to watch the poetry year and say this is a bit representative, you've got the master, you've got unit, you've got good friend writing it, it works quite well by itself, but when you start to see it in context, you can see all of its flaws.

[1:38:54]

So, in isolation.

I think it comes across benefit and it does.

What if we swapped terror of the autons and demons as to 1st and last of that season and just changed the introductory moments, I think, you know, different opinions.

Maybe.

Maybe, maybe.

Okay, Hall of Fame.

Who are you going to nominate for the Hall of Fame Award?

Katie Manning.

Absolutely.

I just think she's unbelievably good.

I love watching her.

You know, there are times when I'm bored by poetry, but whenever she's on the screen, I'm just riveted by her, I think the performance is lovely and human and funny.

She goes from being competent to being vulnerable very quickly.

She's frightened and upset sometimes, but never massively distressed or anything, and she's just sort of plucky and funny and loveable, and then she's just gone on to be so, so tremendous, and, and when she comes back in the death of the doctor for Sarah Jane adventures.

You know, just the idea that she's gone on to have a lovely life and be an activist and continue to be married to Cliff and all of those things, be a lovely grandmother and mother and stuff.

[1:40:02]

I just think she is an absolute breakout companion.

Do you know what I mean?

Maybe the best since Barbara, a terrific, terrific performance.

Uh, you know, I love her to death.

I think she rescues the poetry era.

Well, I'm going to nominate behind the scenes, and it has to be baronets and turn sticks, who, Baronets, obviously, with his casting of Katie, of Roger, of Liz, of Tom, and the fact that, you know, he Richard Franklin.

And Richard Franklin.

And Richard Frank.

The fact that, you know, he recognises the show needs to change tack in season 8 and and Terrence is the one who, of course, is in charge of, you know, the whole writing team and the reboot, the 2nd reboot and and, you know, making the show familiar to the audiences with all of his little continuity touches with the time lodge and the TARDIS and going back a few stories.

And I don't think there's any other television shows in the 70s, whether it be British or American, that do that sort of little continuity, which gets the audience in and the familiarity, that it breeds, and people become fans of the show.

[1:41:10]

And I think without their vision and his writing team, you know, he cultivates all these writers who can at least deliver stories of a good standard, the show would have folded at the end of season 8.

And so for me, you know, what those 2 deliver behind the scenes allows people like Katie Manning to come in and do what she does with Joe. So they're my nomination.

Dixon lets.

Isn't that a detective show?

Yeah, the detective show on the holiday?

on the...

I'm going to go a bit out on that field here.

And Jenny Ladd.

I previously criticised them, but I'm gonna put them in the Hall of Fame.

Bob Baker and Dave Martin.

Wow.

Because despite certainly problems with their scripts, despite sometimes their stories don't quite make sense or aren't made very well.

They represent the new blood that's coming into Doctor Who at this time.

[1:42:13]

They had never worked on the show before, they'd never worked in TV before.

They were exactly what Barry and Terence were looking for in that their ideas were unfettered by notions of what was even possible. advisable.

And sometimes those things didn't make it a screen.

And sometimes they did.

So contemporaneous, aren't they?

They are so 1970.

Yeah, 5 when they're actually writing 72.

Yeah.

So, yeah, despite the fact that they are not, I, you know, I would say they've got a hit rate of about 60% with their ideas, which isn't a terribly high hit rate.

They really represent the spirit of endeavour, which Doctor Who needed at this point.

Because it needed to constantly be inventing and changing.

And for whatever else they did, those two, I think, other writers who represent that ideal the most.

The Bob Baker and Dave Martin.

I mean, you know, my 1st thoughts jump to the secondary players or tertiary players who really make the story shine.

[1:43:14]

So again, because it's season 11.

It's Arnold Yarrow and Kevin Lindsay.

I wouldn't you love to see a reboot of the odd couple with those two?

in the principal roles, says Balal and Chocha, the odd couple.

But there has to be...

I love Billell, and I really wish he'd been a companion, Hal, as well.

I would have loved to have seen Holly Archer and Bilao, maybe just one or 2 stories.

I'm serious about that.

But as companions go, I'm re, my greatest regret of this era is that I didn't get more of Carolyn John or that she wasn't, even when she wasn't really well served, she sparkled on screen and you could see that she raised pertway up and he responded to that.

He was always better and at his most sublime and at his most compassionate and approachable in the little scenes with her.

So, yeah, I love Caroline John, always to have.

Well, dear, mister, I think we've reached the end of our discussion of the Pertoy era.

We've eaten all the sandwiches.

The sandwiches are gone, scones, muffins, wine, cheese.

So Toby's cellar.

[1:44:15]

We're about to embark on the longest saving doctor.

Your thoughts, gentlemen, going into this era of Tom Baker.

My biggest finger is that if they're going to live up to my expectations and that it will go through what the John Pertwe era went through for me 10 or 15 years ago where it aged quite badly and I'm hoping that doesn't happen.

We're none of us have.

That's true. ages remarkably well.

You know what?

I think I agree with you.

And something I am really interested to look at.

There is a debate about whether Sarah's character is weakened with the new doctor if her feminist sensibilities are weakened.

And I look forward to examining that because I think it's a very interesting debate and discussion.

Yes.

Well, the skirt pulled down, yes.

That's what Ian Miner does properly for.

Well, I'm very excited to see that the whole team is in this 1st story and I can't wait to see what they do with the unit era in this whole new series.

[1:45:15]

I wonder how they're going to develop that one.

It's kind of really interesting.

So I can't wait.

I'll go and get the tissues now for you.

Well, isn't that good?

I'm excited by more Bob Holmes.

He's going to be scripted at us.

Oh, is he really awkward?

can't wait to see this.

Plus, Harry.

Yes.

Who's Harry?

He hasn't occurred yet, has he?

You know, I mean, the brigadier spoke to him on the phone.

Yeah, he's been foreshadowed.

Well, I'm looking for it because, you know, I'm taking this as I've never seen it before.

So I'll be receiving.

I'll be reviewing these. as a new viewer because, you know, this is he is my solid 1st doctor.

We will be back next week, in fact, dear listener.

That's right.

We are going weekly.

What?

Yes, we're going to a weekly release schedule.

So that means, Richard, you're not to leave this room until next Wednesday.

[1:46:17]

We're going to finish recording.

Delights, right?

Can we mention the massacre again?

Oh, I think we have to.

So we're going weekly and every week is going to be a re-recording of the massacre until Nathan agrees he likes it.

No.

So... for Todd. or space pirates for me.

We will be back weekly doing one story per week and as a special treat for Tom's 1st year.

You are getting not just one commentator, nor to nor three.

All 4 of us will be commenting on Tom Baker's 1st year as the doctor.

So do stay tuned for that.

Will we all be alive by the end of it?

Who knows?

We'll have to wait and see.

But until then, thank you very much for listening.

We will see you next week.

Good night.

Good night.

See you soon. ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, I'm trying to find online, but it doesn't seem to be, um, I think it was Paul Cornell, the, the, um, the multiple choice constructor pertly story.

[1:47:50]

Oh, really?

Like, um, you know, a poacher finds, A, an alien body, B, a crash spacecraft.

C, a glowing sandwich.

The doctor, A, reverses the new polarity of the neutron flow.

B blows them all up.

C, bores them to death with a moralistic speech.