Hello and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor
Who podcast, which leaves cupcakes and sparkling wines where we
tread.
We find that good.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens to
all the lovely characters in this story.
I'm so, so glad to meet them.
Well, I know it's going to end well.
I understand their surname was originally Stark, which means we're
off to, well, off to visit Mick Jagger, actually.
That's actually Mick Jagger's mum.
Yeah, he owned Stargrove, but it was his mum was living there.
I'd like to think that she and the butler, the little bloke who
later appeared as the bloke who owned Magpie as Ron Cook, the
bloke who owned. not, but I just think of the actor as being the
same as Ron Cuckoo played Parker in the Thunderbirds form and Mr
Magpie in the Idiot Plant is, in fact, just make him do for Mick
Jagger's mum. don't know what's going on.
It's Pyramids of Mars.
I like to do extensive research, obviously, so I checked out the
DWM 1st 50 years poll.
Do you remember that?
They ran a poll.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. where everyone had to sort of rank in order
all their favourite stories, and this story came 8 in that poll.
It's an absolute stone cold classic that everyone really likes.
And I actually just don't think it's very good.
And I wanted to really look into why that is.
Do you remember a 100 years ago when we did the Aztecs and you
actually managed to convince me that it actually might be quite
enjoyable?
historical without a sontara lurking.
Yeah, it can actually be good.
This is a historical, but it's a pseudo-historical.
It has a monster and all of that sort of thing.
And I'm just struggling to think, why is it, do you think that
this comes eight?
Why is it so perennially?
I can tell you, because it's not about Doctor Who and Doctor Who's
successful.
It's never about itself.
It's about things we're already familiar, ish.
And it just expounds upon it and reinforces.
I would actually say they're not prototypes that we admire.
They're actually visceral spinal cord things that we know and we
really love.
But isn't it just sort of rehashing the sort of fairly terrible
hammer horror film?
Absolutely.
On the surface, absolutely.
And no, no, not universal, because Universal was always set in
places like Bulgaria or Bulgaria, wherever they film Chitty Chitty
Bang Bang.
But this one, the reason it's said in England is, of course, Hammer
was always filmed on the offset at Pinewood, never in the major
studios in the cabin, the cabin in the woods. on the offset.
And so they had all that woodsy stuff around it.
But this, again, and yes, I'm going to hammer the same damn point
again.
Sorry, listener.
But this is Edwardian, spy fiction, shitters, and all the rest of
it, you know, the Riddle of the Sands, all those kids where it
always comes back to Edwardian home counties, and it really works
because the threat is in the backyard.
And they are trampling on the cabbages of Alice's parents.
This is Lewis Carroll, this is our children's stories.
They're stomping through the same gardens that Edith Nesbitt had
Tom and the Secret Garden just next door.
So, an arts back to that, thread of children's literature.
Yeah, and ontologically disturbing.
Why the hell do they ever come back to England?
Why?
And when did Sutic ever have a Bunnings set up?
And then his pyramid?
This is what I think he's been...
No, let's concentrate on the pros.
We can talk about the...
Can I have a tetrahedral garden shed just like?
Because that's all I want.
Just before we move on to that, Nathan, I'd like to answer your
question as well, as to why does this so perennial?
Yeah.
We discussed last week how Planet of Evil has various influences
Robert Louis Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde, Forbidden Planet, which
was itself influenced by The Tempest, and the thing from another
world, being the 3 big influencers.
And we also discussed how it doesn't really do anything new with
those ideas.
Where Pyramids of Mars really succeeds is, you know, it takes the
movie idea of the mummy and undead and what have you.
But arranges them in a new configuration.
And then gives us the original God that none of those films ever
had. that really ramps up.
This is the most powerful force the doctor has and indeed will
ever encounter.
Apart from as Ireland, Kronos.
Yes, because Sutik is more powerful than all of them.
Yeah, exactly.
Zal and Kronoffs are a bit crap, as you said yourself.
Sorry to quote.
But even the impossible planet, that monster whom we assume is
another splinter of the self of Soutek, also voiced by Gobriel
Wolf, it's intimated that Soutek is a pandimensional being in some
regards.
Yeah, absolutely.
And also at the end of this story, spoiler alert, he's sent to the
end of time, and we don't know how far in future, the impossible
planet Satan Pit is.
But I'm just going to say one more thing about influences.
I think an influence on this, a lot of people may not know about
but in Australia at least, they've recently been released on DVD
and Blu-ray, I believe, for the 1st time.
The abominable Dr. Fibes and Dr. Fibes rises again. 2 horror films
featuring Vincent Price, and especially the 2nd one is heavily
influenced by Egyptology.
Have either of you heard of these films?
I've heard of them Well, the Abominable Doctor...
I've seen the 2nd one, yeah.
The 1st one is the premise.
Vincent Price is a man who was in a car accident.
His wife died on the operating table.
So he sets about very poetically killing the rest of the surgery
team.
It's actually a black comedy and also features Peter Jeffries, who
we'll very famously appear on Doctor Who Later, appeared in the
Macraterra as well.
Dr. Fires rises again.
He's still trying to revive his dead wife and travels to Egypt.
He travels to Egypt to use the powers of the god of death.
And what?
Well, what will happen much later when we get the missing
adventures giving us a sequel to Pyramids of Mars.
We have Soutek trying to revive.
It's like the story of Rod Stewart, isn't it?
Just marrying younger women.
Yeah, yeah, and trying to revive his own face.
Anyway, Nathan, what were you going to say next?
Well, like, I don't know that it's really sufficient to have
plundered a whole heap of sort of crummy old B-grade films.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it needs to be a good story sort of by itself.
I think that the winner of that poll was Day of the Doctor, and
obviously it was, but, you know, nostalgia because it had been
very recently shown.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it'll fall, you know what I mean?
But it doesn't win the poll because it's got a sort of a huge
playlist of films that it's plundered particularly.
Like I did try and think because like I want to be sort of
reasonably sympathetic about it.
And so let's do a checklist.
Do you know what I mean?
Like I think the sets look spectacular, the Egypt set's not great
but if you're going to set something in the Edwardian era, the BBC
sets and costumes are just going to look great, you know, like I
think that they're going to look good, so the house looks great.
You know, everyone's outfit looks great, the pseudo-historical
thing in this era is something that we can do.
This is the 1st time we've travelled back.
I think the 20th century, earlier in the 20th century, at the end
of Dalek's master plan, you know, for an episode, we go to
Hollywood.
You know, we've got Michael Sheard, who I think is lovely.
Actually, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to contradict you.
Ooh.
It's the 1st time we've travelled back to 20th century...
Yes.
Anyway, back onto Michael Sheard, who is, as always, wonderful.
Yeah, so Michael Sheard...
He's had his best in this one.
Yeah, yeah, he's terribly good.
And you know what?
Michael Sheard, he sometimes comes in for a bit of ribbing in fan
circles.
But in this, he plays a very sympathetic, I think, well-rounded
character.
And, you know, the tragedy of the character is something we very
palpably feel, but I'll come back to that later.
I think that's really good.
You've got 2 great villains.
I think Marcus Scarman and Tom Boker.
He's always a feeling.
We always just take him as right.
But he's got like this sort of craggy face and terrible teeth and
like a terrific voice, you know, and the pale makeup and stuff.
Like, I think he's terribly good.
I think Soutec, you know, even though he sort of sits in a chair
for 3 episodes and doesn't actually do anything, he's got that
incredible crisp, terrifying, slightly camp voice, which, you know
Russell, obviously, as we've said, has as well.
Yes, we trust him.
It is like visiting a very elderly relative in the hospice, all
that power, but all repressed.
So you know, you know how powerful they have been.
How do you kill?
I can have you destitute.
The fact that it's... more powerful.
There are some great memorable moments.
Like, I think the Cliffhanger to episode one.
Do you remember the cliffhanger to episode one?
I am the servant of Su take, he needs no other Russell Reed?
And that wonderful scream from Ibrahim Namin.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I think that's great.
I think Tom and Sarah at the absolute top of their game, you know
just terrific, that opening scene where Tom just basically says
farewell to unit and Sarah mocks him and there's all that stuff
about, you know, so long as Albert didn't wear the dress and
things.
Like apparently all thrown in in rehearsals.
The script was actually much lighter, being by Lewis Gilbert.
You know, you know the backstory of the script, don't you?
Yeah, so it is it's credited as what?
Lewis?
Stephen Harris, yeah.
But it's actually Lewis Gilbert, who...
Sorry, Lewis Gilbert is a director of Bond films.
Have we mentioned James Bond before?
Oh, I don't know.
We have bondfinger.com.
Living on.
This is uncanny, isn't it?
Lewis Griefer had written the episode The General of the Prisoner
which was about mind control through machines.
He's a really good writer.
And he was doing really well in other shows. mostly cop
thrillers.
And he was quite ported by the BBC for these convoluted and
complex plots, which work really well in crime dramas.
But as Hinchcliffe in his notes quickly said, doesn't work so well
in Doctor Who.
The story was much more hammer.
It was set in the British Museum.
The mummies were taking over the British Museum, and there was a
vessel, there was one of those canopic jars, which held seeds
which were going to refloriate Mars itself.
Yes.
Which is kind of lovely and Irish, isn't it?
It sounds terribly camp, doesn't it?
Well, it just sounds a bit mad and silly, really.
But the only thing they kept of the original script was the
title.
There was nothing else that really applied.
But the idea was that they would reuse the story itself.
Grief is script is good, and they would use it another time
slightly differently.
Obviously, they just didn't get around to it, sadly.
Oh, hello, big finish.
Can we talk about the cons?
Can we talk about the reasons why I just think...
Perhaps before we do, I'd like to say, again, and I really like
what you were saying there, and it made me think of something else
of why this story...
Yeah, of why the story works.
You've got the thing with the 2 brothers. and how Marcus and
Lawrence.
There are archetypes here that go much, much further back and are
much stronger and more powerful than a script or 4 episodes can
give.
That's why this story is remembered.
For me, it's, there's so many levels of narrative within this that
are actually about our own lives and about the history of our
culture.
The repressive power of the already precarious Victorian Empire, in
its Edwardian Twilight, is mirrored in the impeccunity, and in the
impetence of Sutek himself.
Sutic is actually Queen Victoria, still alive.
Her puppet, which is her son, Edward, is Mark Scarman, mincing
about, and having it off with Lily Langtree, or, indeed, whoever
that be, Ibraham Amin, or whoever it is.
But there are actually lovely mirrors of the culture of England at
the time and the culture of Britain, in the '70s, with the power
strikes, and we've really lost the empire, and the whole thing is
crumbling.
British Leyland is in ruins, the coal miners are on strike.
We're on a three day power week.
OK, that's been resolved.
But Britain's been through a really awful, awful time in 1975.
Let's remember when we were great?
Actually, no, we weren't that great.
There's the sense of that imminent collapse of the Great War
that's just coming up.
So this is a perfect timing, 1911, 1912, that final Indian
summer.
And this script really nails it, and I don't even know if it's
conscious.
I'd like to think it is.
But there's also the restlessness, and the impetus to resume lost
power, but the guilt that comes with that, knowing that power was
built on the suffering and enslavement of others, in this case, of
native cultures.
And then there's, on top of the self confessed goodness of the
comfortably ignorant protagonists, everyone in this is a lovely
charming, fairy tale English person.
Jolly hockey sticks.
Thank you, right down to wearing their lovely three piece tweeds
or their lovely linens, if they're over in the tropical areas.
And also, for instance, Lawrence Scarman knows about Eddie the
Poacher or whatever his name is.
And Tom, yes, Clemence.
Sorry, do you know who plays Clemence, by the way?
Can I?
Yeah.
Is this a Tovi reference?
It's it's Roberta Toby's father.
It really is.
He'd do anything to get away from that daughter.
But that's the thing.
The Scarmans know about him.
They don't mind that he's on their land poaching because that's
part of the social structure.
And you're going to have a poacher.
And because he's white and English pig binge, Josh.
I mean, that's really.
But you know what confrounds or what co-ops all of that is this
confronting of the animus of their own colonial greed.
That animus is Sutic.
And I feel that that's why they all have to die.
There's actually the point of we need to take responsibility for
our colonialism, our racism, and our exploitation.
Sutech has to just take responsibility, and so does every white
character.
This is a very powerful story about Britain's empire.
And the colonialism is there from the very first scene where
Scarman breaks into the tomb and then tells off his Egyptian, his
Egyptian, superstitious sandwiches.
Superstitious savages, thank you.
Yeah, and they're speaking their own language, but he's shouting
after them in English.
If you shout it loudly and clearly, everyone will understand.
Yeah, exactly.
But what happens though?
What happens?
The, quote unquote, natives, quote unquote, superstitious savages
who run away don't get killed and have their bodies.
Are they actually the only other other than the doctor and Sarah
the only other people to survive?
Yeah, I think they might be, you know, because they very sensibly
go, oh, this is a bit of a dangerous situation.
I'm going to bugger off. how much you're paying me. quite
sensible.
Look, Holmes, I think we've observed this before.
Holmes has an interesting relationship with colonialism.
He likes satirising it, but mostly because he likes satirising
everything because he is really brutal and cynical.
And we talked about the satire that he does of colonialism in
Carnival of Monsters, where both on board the SS Bernice and in
Inter Minor, There's, you know, exploitation going on that he's
making fun of.
But he's making fun of it, not because he's like an angry young
man who wants to overthrow it.
He does make fun of it in a way that still.
That still appropriates it.
So, for instance, I think Namin is a racist portrayal, and I think
it's slightly uncomfortable.
Like, I think he's cool in lots of ways.
Holmes does satirise colonialism, but I don't think he does it
from an angry, let's burn it down kind of way.
And we're so going to see that at the end of next year, where I
think Holmes really makes it quite clear that however much he
might make fun of something. really loves it as well.
And here there is this sort of lazy boy zone stereotyping of
foreigners.
Do you think we're choking the piss out of Terrence sticks?
Because you look at how Terrence Dicks approaches colonialism, and
you know that, and he's also come out in interviews saying he's
all for it, and the British were the best thing to ever happen to
India.
But he's just doing that to be irritating.
No, he believes that his family were in the army in India.
Terristics is quite palpable on this point.
He feels that it wasn't just cricket.
British colonialism was a force for good entirely.
He's even, you can even look up some of his interviews on that.
I'm not getting this from anything other than the DVDs.
This is what Dick said.
And I think Holmes, because we know how smart Holmes is.
Just as Richard Dawkins invented the term meme.
I reckon that it's Robert Holmes, who invented the term meta
because Robert Holmes comes in onto every damn story he does and
critiques it from a really high place.
He's the queen of the spiders, and I'm sure he was called back
more than once when he was alive.
Truckling over his mountain and just giving all to everybody
else's spiel and showing them up for what they are. in as dark a
way as he can possibly do it.
And Terrence Dix did always talk about, and still always talks
about how much of an iconoclass that Robert Holmes was.
There's a documentary on the 2 Doctors DVD, which is all about
Robert Holmes, which, because of an appearance by Jimmy Savile on
the DVD is currently out of print, you can't buy it new anymore.
The final comment on the documentary on Rob Holmes comes from
Terence Dixon, he said, you know, when we work together in the 70s
you would go out for long lunches to discuss ideas.
But no one ever ate dessert.
The dessert menu would come around.
But, you know, no one who was cultured would ever eat dessert.
It was the thing.
They would put out the dessert menu but you wouldn't touch it.
So you go around the table, Philip Hinchcliffe, no, no dessert.
Barry, lets know, notice it.
Terrence Dix, no, no, dessert.
Robert Holmes, I'll have jam, Roly, Poly and custard.
You know, Chance to prove the point.
He's a monster. isn't he?
And wine and cheese.
Where's John Poo?
Can I talk about the cons then?
You know, like one of them?
Yes.
I think there are a lot of them.
So for instance, let's start.
You mentioned, you know, Bunnings.
So the giant giant plot hole. it is possible to watch it.
Look, I don't care about...
You could pass an a siren through it.
I don't care about plotholes. whatever.
But pretty much the 2nd time that you watch it, you realise that
Horrors has imprisoned his brother in the pyramid with a whole
bunch of servo robots, everything he needs to make a giant missile
a lovely garden share.
Some canopic jars full of force field things.
He's got a lovely widescreen thing from which to watch what's
going on sort of anywhere in the world.
And a friendly helper behind the chair.
We'll get to them.
So it's a giant, like that's, and that's ludicrous and that's been
observed many times, and maybe it doesn't matter, and this is
Doctor Who.
No, it's fantastically observed.
Also, if we can jump to the final episode, how come both sound and
vision can escape the spatial time vortex tunnel through which
Sutek passes, in the end, when he zips him up for 7000 years, but
not Sutek's thoughts themselves, we've seen that Sutek can crush
physically a mind from halfway around the planet.
But he can't do anything to the doctor when he's got when he's got
the meal or washing machine control.
Okay, so let's talk about that while we're talking about cons.
Sanford calls this.
Does it?
The doctor flicks the kill Soutec Lever.
Yeah. and Soo Tex Dead.
And it really is incredibly perfunctory and not very interesting.
The video effects are terrible.
Suddenly, so he takes wearing a dress and has the jackal head and
stuff.
And like he looks terribly...
We're back at the Golden Girls again.
There's a minuscule guest cast.
For the 2nd time in a row, they're all men.
No one is very interesting as a character apart from, apart
from...
Well, you don't even see Lawrence really young.
How good is Collins?
Oh, I would, oh, he's fabulous.
Collins is fabulous in there.
And Dr. Warlock.
I really like Dr. Warner.
I love Dr. Warlock.
Oh, he's so, he's so mean and when you, if Parker was not a puppet
and a real, he would be Colin.
But fortunately, he goes after work for Audrey Forbes, Hamilton.
Yeah, that's right.
It was just a flesh wound.
Yeah, yeah, he's fine.
So I don't think I actually don't think the characters are all
that interesting, but whatever, there aren't that many of them and
they're all killed.
So for instance, by episode four, everyone is dead except the
villains and the heroes.
In a few months we're going to have a similar situation where we
have, in this case, a mostly male guest cast who are all killed.
But don't you think they're more interesting?
No, I think that's more interesting.
I think your seeds of doom, but you're not talking...
No, we're talking about horror fang rock.
The one exception, though, the one character who is more
interesting in horror of Fang Rock is Adelaide.
But I like the bitchiness between skin sale and Parmadale.
I like Rico Thingo's character.
It's like you slip sideways in time.
Do you listen?
No, no, no. talk about this next time, but I actually think
they're better.
I think the relationship between the brothers, which because of
the nature of the script has to be carried entirely by Michael
Shears.
Yeah, because the other ones are dead.
And doesn't he do it?
well, it's his best role in that. that heartbreaking moment where
he's trying to remind him with the photograph.
That's that's proper drama.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, as much as I love the per era as much as I love Barry
Letts and Terence Dick's take on Doctor Who, the only time you get
that in their take on Doctor Who is when it's a regular cast
member, you don't get that with a guest cast member until this
point in colour Doctor Who.
I just think it's so close to being just one worthwhile guest cast
member and everyone else is kind of just there for plot reasons.
Clements is a complete waste of time.
He contributes nothing to the plot and just eats up whole...
Yeah.
Clemence is a unit grunt who gets blown up by an auton. yeah If
he'd been his own daughter, he'd have been able to compete.
Now he'd been in it.
That would have been completely entirely army by herself.
Episode 4 is terrible.
And Holmes openly admits to ripping Terry Nation off in the script
by having Sarah say, ooh, it reminds me of City of the Excelons.
She's so right.
Do you know what tribophysics actually is?
It's to do with the movement of the human body?
Even better than that.
It's the study of lubrication.
Oh, it's okay.
He said in his most sepulchral.
And can I say, dear listener, if you're keen, if you're keen, there
is a journal of tribe of physics from the University of Adelaide
to which you could subscribe right now.
I'll put something in the show notes.
I think this leads to a big con of most of this season in that
it's either got 3 episodes of buildup and then a really poor final
episode or it's got a poor 1st episode and builds to a really
strong finish.
That being said, I don't mind the last episode, but I think it is
really saved by Tom and Liz goofing about and doing the Marx
Brothers routine and what have you.
But at the same time, and this is coming back to something you
were talking about last episode, Nathan, so I suppose we could
lift it onto a con.
We do have that moment where Sarah sort of chastises the doctrine
says, look, a man's been murdered and you can just sit and the
doctor points out, look, 4 men have been murdered.
Five actually, if you're counted.
It's got that count wrong though, hasn't it?
It's actually six.
But the main problem I have then is sort of 2 scenes later, Sarah
dresses him up in the in the mummy outfit and says it must have
been a nasty accident.
I love that. such a funny joke.
It is a funny joke, but it's like, you know, a couple of minutes
ago you were distraught.
And now and now it's that lack of empathy.
I was talking about.
But isn't that also how humans deal with trauma?
I look at how I deal with work. the other way you can...
And it's the same thing. you know, an hour later, you know, you
might as well make a joke out of it because it's put in the past
now.
I like to think that Sarah is more real by the way she deals with
those traumas.
Well, I'm still alive, I might as well make a joke about it.
Yellow's humour is really big in Hitchcliffe seasons, yeah.
Can we put this in the in the pros column?
Because I think that this is the 1st instance of a trope that...
Sorry, what's that?
Of a thing.
This is the 1st instance of a thing that becomes a staple in
Doctor Who and in particular in the new series where the doctor is
sort of weird and alien because he sees the big picture.
Yes, yes, that's true.
And she, like the companion, whoever it is, is more emotional and
more empathetic and stuff.
And I think you get it in the new series right from the very
beginning.
And I think where in the unquiet dead, the doctor has an alien
kind of viewpoint and rose has a very human viewpoint and they get
into sort of conflict.
And I think that here is really terrific and it's really well
done.
You know, Sarah yells at him and says, but you're not even human
and then she catches herself.
Yeah, yeah.
And also that it's very interesting.
I think that's very conscious later on the part of Mark Gatas
because the 1st draft and the 1st quite a few drafts. of the
Unquiet Dead featured a scene where the doctor showed Rose what
the future would be like if it did change.
See, let's put that in the pros column, too.
That goes in the pros.
That's one of my favourite moments from this.
The universe.
And it's copped flat from people like Sandover, because logically
within the narrative, they say it's a lacuna, it makes no logical
sense.
It's a pause.
Like, it is a pause in the plot.
It's the time scanner.
It's the space-time visualiser.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
To me, it makes perfect sense.
And it's the 1st time we've seen how tenuous the doctor's life and
therefore our lives actually are because nothing is set in stone.
It completely obliterates Billy's argument that history must be
respected.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I think it also, it also supports Billy's argument that
history, if we look at underneath, because the first doctor sees
history of sacrosancts, but we now see, because of the fourth
doctor's action here, that history is actually as tenuous and
febrile and in calamitous danger, as the wings of a butterfly
under an Amazon rainfall.
It's so delicate that the merest action can destroy the point at
which you, my child, have come from.
Yes.
He's actually concerned for his companions, and in this case, his
concern for the entire universe.
But the first doctor genuinely understood that as other doctors
under the new series have said, the present, the future, the
past.
It's all timey whimey.
It's all in flux, and it can all be rewritten.
The first doctor never revealed that information.
It's only in his fourth incarnation that he feels confident enough
with the relationship with his companion to actually show her the
genuine threat of her own existence.
And I think that's why, 'cause we've touched on this in previous
broadcasts, why the hell, and it should be an inverted commas, why
the hell does Sarah Jane keep climbing back into the TARDAS?
She's, um, parsifile.
She's the knight errant, marching out knowing that the task is
almost insurmountable, but if she doesn't do it, the costs are
irrevocable.
You have to go out there to save the universe.
And that has become a primary feature of the new series
companion.
Yeah, it's the only reason Sarah would get back into the TARDIS
because she knows that if she's not there, everything could end.
We're going to talk about this quite soon in two weeks' time.
Fabulous.
But I actually think that why she's doing it is contractual
obligation and the writers haven't thought it through carefully.
And I think she's a bit into it. in a rather Midlands dirty sort
of way that she kind of, you know, she kind of likes a bit of the
spank, but it's like, oh, God, I hate Brain of Morbius.
Are we up to that yet?
No, not yet.
We've still got one more to get through.
Nathan, do you have any more cons for us?
You know, I mean, they're all just sort of stupid little things
but I do think that what I've said is enough to just make me
think.
Why on earth is this in the top 10 best Doctor Who stories ever.
I don't think it's even the best story of the season.
I think that's probably Brain of Morbius, actually, Richard.
Stay tuned.
But and it's all it's all confused by the fact that like you
Richard, I watch this show, you know, once a year during the 70s
if not more frequently, because they would just repeat this.
It was on all the time, listener.
Yeah.
So this is the stuff that I know really well and I actually find
myself watching through season 13 that I like it much, much less
than I expected.
And you know what?
I have to agree with you.
It's not as good as I remember season 13, although this story is
even better than I remember because of things I've already talked
about and something I want to allude to in a minute.
Go on.
See, I think with this one, because this is one of the most
horrific of the Hinchcliffe Holmes horror stories.
Horror films are always less effective the more you watch them
because you know where the scares are coming from.
You know where the surprises are coming from.
Like a joke.
What makes the story effective or what is then left that has to
make the story effective is the script and the acting and the
casting.
And I do get your point, Nathan, that the guest characters, a lot
of them are there just to sort of get killed off.
But they are still interesting characters.
They do still have relationships.
They come on, they play their part, they die beautifully.
The doctor and Sarah are very good together.
There's lots of witty moments in the script.
It's so well directed by Patty Russell, who, uh, that scene we
were talking about earlier with the future decimated Earth.
Philip Hinchcliffe wanted to show the Tahnest landing on the
Decimated Earth, and then the doors open and then we see it.
And Patty Russell said, no, it has to be seen the same time Sarah
sees it. because she's our audience.
Patty Russell. really understands this show.
How interesting that she and Tom did not get on.
Well, apparently they didn't to start with, but then when Tom
realised that she was there to do a job and she meant business and
damn well get on with it.
He actually developed a great deal of respect for her and called
her sir, which, of course, now that's very, that's very
uncomfortably safe.
Tom had to be corralled like an enormous bulk in these and what a
shame that's a soon to go.
We do know the story that Paddy made him dress up in one of those
terrible mummy costumes.
Because he was such an arse.
Yeah, it was.
And of course, you know, Liz Laden had a bit of a problem with her
because Liz Jenner Rad said, where would Sarah learn to fire a
rifle?
And she's like, it's in the script, darling.
You're from Liverpool.
It's really rough.
You know, you've spent a year and a half working on and off with
the military.
Yeah, exactly. where the hell are you going to learn mediaeval
Latin?
Oh no, that's Barry Letts.
But, you know, there's lots of things, Sarah.
I mean, we can go through and point out if you want to.
There's lots of things Sarah has obviously learned in the in
betweeny stories.
No I have no problem.
And here's someone who doesn't need a hand on his cushion.
It's Todd.
Brilliant.
Is he going to read these questions off the auto cue each time?
I bring Sutek's gift of questions to you all. 1980 or not 1980.
It's not a continuity problem yet.
Do you think people just need to build a bridge and get over it?
I remember as a kid that 1980, or coming into 1980 was a really
big deal, much like the year 2000.
Personally, I just think that Sarah has been overdramatic and
rounding up tonight, 1980.
Sure, she could have said almost 1980, but I don't have a problem
with it.
But then I always think that Doctor Who is set at the time it's
recorded not 2 or 3 years in the future, like the production
team.
Do you guys have a problem with it?
Oh, look, I've just got some chunk mail.
Sick if you're a time bubble.
Come try our new space shells.
They'll leave you feeling like a whole brand new U. Yours
sincerely, Mr Stigren.
Hmm, I must go and see what that's all about.
This is going to be a slightly longer than usual flight through
entirety because I have been hinting this for a long time.
You finally get treated to my unit dating theory.
Da da da da.
I love the music queue and there needs to have been the music
queue right there.
So, pretty much.
How did you just Up until now.
I know.
I'm so talented.
We get the confirmation that Sarah is from 1980.
Now, she's talking about the time she most recently left Earth.
So let's call that robot Tear of the Zygons.
Working backwards from there, that means...
I'd like to say it's actually Time Warrior.
She's from 1980.
She meets the doctor in 1980.
Well, I was going to put season 11 in 1979, so she travels off
with him full time in 1980, but saying that's 1980 as well still
works. 1978, we have season 10.
That's when Guy Crayford vanishes, who we will meet in the next
story because Sarah mentions I was here on a story 2 years ago.
So that would have been contemporaneous with Joe's last year. 1977
in season nine, 1976 is season eight, 1975, is season seven.
Now from here, I'm going to go back to the start of the unit
timeline.
Start of the unit timeline is 1935, the abominable snowman.
So we had the abominable snowmen.
When we next see Professor Travers in the web of fear, he says
that it's been...
Well, he says 40, but I make it 35 just because, yeah, he's
rounding up.
He's an archeologist, he's got no idea about maths.
Of course not.
Okay, so 1935 is the abominable snowman. 1970 is the web of fear
1974 is the invasion because the brigadier says it's been 4 years
since I last.
Isn't it cited that it's 75 somewhere, either in the novel or the
script.
It's a fabulous novel, by the way, by...
We are only getting what's on tally.
Again, not the series exercise.
Season 7 then therefore takes place in 1975 because the brigadier
in Robot says, and sorry, in Planet of the Spider says, last time
he went off missing, he was away for months.
And when he came back, he had a new face.
So I'm taking that as the year changeover.
So that gives us Sarah Janers from 1980.
The problem then becomes later on.
Morden undead.
The brigadier states that he left the army in 1977. and his mind
was wiped.
And hello.
Mrs. Thatcher was not Prime Minister when the Zygons were forming
their incursion on some quarry.
Ah, but they were.
She was because that's said in 1980.
In the original timeline.
1980. in the original timeline.
Okay, come on, come on. to deal with Morden, auntie.
I am about to.
Now, have another drink, listener.
The reason I am bringing this up.
I'm just passing Richard the Wang.
He's gonna need it.
The reason I'm bringing this up in Pyramid of Miles is because at
the end of the story, The doctor sends Sutek down a time corridor
to the end of the universe.
I wish you could do that with cats.
The doctor has already stated that it takes a being of Sutec's
unlimited power to destroy the future.
Completely, yes, yes.
Now, the thing is, he's not just saying there Soutech can change
timelines.
He's saying Soutec has an effect on timelines beyond... the time
space continuum itself, but certainly the reality of time as we
perceive it.
So if you're standing on a train platform, too close, you're over
the yellow line, you're right next to it and a train whizzes past
you, what happens?
There's this tug of air as you go past.
It is my conjecture that as Soutek is moving forward through time
he pulls time out of shape, he pulls time backwards 5 years.
He's travelling from 1911.
So that gives us abominable snowmen in 1930.
Weather fear in 1965.
The invasion in 1969.
The Pertwi era takes place from 1970 to 1974.
Robot tear up the zygons, android invasion and seeds of doom
android invasion seeds of doom are now in the new timeline, so
that's 1975, meaning the brig can retire in 1977, Benton can
retire in 1979.
And when Sarah returns home Finally, we learn in canine and
company that Lavinia hasn't seen her in years.
It's because she's lying low because she knows she's in the wrong
timeline.
Brilliant.
You heard it here first, listener.
I think that might have really happened actually.
That universe.
This podcast has rebooted timey wimey.
And there's one more piece of evidence, which I will mention in
the Android invasion next week.
Do you know what I reckon?
That's the only thing that's going to keep me listening.
Yeah it is.
Do you know what I reckon is the best thing about this story
again?
in the day call.
It's not just Sutex, Sutex's little outfit, which is up a Nile, by
the way.
And we won't, if we want to get into the whole hagiography.
Is it hagiography for the history of gods?
No, that's saints.
Anyway, Sutex headpiece does reflect up on aisle, but look, he's
sitting there.
It's been 6,300 years.
It's a disgrace.
I can hear him just sitting there in this place. is so mardy.
I am so over it.
Hang on, hang on about.
There's these new decorators.
What are they called again?
Boner organic crystallographers.
They've just moved in.
Because we were still 700 years ago.
This works with your timeline.
I'll get Broton and his lovely friend, the caper in.
It wasn't EYE does.
Anyway.
And you'll get these.
Anyway, if he comes in, you can hear, brother, go...
And we go, ooh, what you need, a bit of Dinachrom thrust all over
this place.
Bit of colour.
Because have you noticed that the walls of Sutek's tomb are
exactly the same?
as the walls of the Zygon spaceship, the actual effects, the
painting effects?
We notice these things, do, listener?
So you don't have to.
And you can hear, you can hear him, he's coming in with the cave
with all red beard and all glory, saying, oh, oh, isn't it
dreadful?
And he's like, oh, Mr...
Mr. Tutek, what are your needs?
What you need?
A triage of errands up your dado.
Or the cable could run up a nice flock for you.
Anyway, laying about and make suggestions.
We could do the whole place up as a pizza marinari, your luck and
calamari. anyway.
Because the city says, no, but I came a bit taken with the ginger
beard.
And that's why there's a hand behind 2 texture plump in his
cushion.
Because it's the cable from all those 100s of years ago going
staying on and doing the job. anyway, that's what I think
happened.
Dear listeners, after that trip up and down several timelines, we
just ran up a quick one for you.
That's all the time we have for Pyramids of Mars.
We'll be back next week to talk about, possibly the best story of
the season, according to Nathan, the Android invasion.
But until then, may all your cushions not stick to your bottom and
require a hand to remove them.
Please find us on Facebook and iTunes under Flightthrough Entirety
FTE podcast on Twitter and FlightthroughEntirety.com.
Thank you very much for listening.
Review us and good night.
Good night.
Oh, denials, not just a river in Egypt, is it?
Good night.
That was flight to entirety.
Nathan Beverly, Brendan Jones and Richard Stone.
This episode, he's always a villain, was recorded on July 5th.
The next episode will be released on August 16th.
I know how Su Tech feels.
The last time I had Sweaty Joe Knight, I woke up stuck to a chair
wearing a rubber dress in Egypt as well.
No, we've already done that.
That's the tag. already done.
That's great.
That's so good.
Even this at the end of the season.
Just leave that in.
If only someone had said that to Hinchcliffe and Holmes.
Doctor Fimes rises again.
He's still trying to...
Grow up, Richard.