Ladies and gentlemen, we're finally there, the end of season two.
All right.
No, we're not done yet.
What?
Well, this will be the end of summer.
Oh, okay.
So we can't go home or anything.
We can't go to the map now.
No, not yet.
We will be going to...
Well, Nathan, you won't be going to the pub because you don't go
to the pub, do you?
No, that would be very wrong.
No, that's right.
So I'm going to shut up and let you introduce the episode.
Sorry.
Right.
Yes, as I was saying before, I was so mildly, accurately
interrupting.
This is the last of our podcasts for Doctor Who season two, where
we are going to be discussing the Space Museum, the chase and the
time meddler.
Oh, 3 very important stories in the history of Doctor Who.
So I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Richard.
And we're going to start straight away by jumping a time track.
There it is.
And, uh, Richard doing some foreshadowing there and starting off
on the Space Museum, which, um, it's a very interesting story
because much like an unearthly child.
It's sort of 2 stories in one.
It's a 1st episode where lots of interesting and strange things
happen.
And then the next 3 episodes take on a far more traditional action
adventure approach.
Nathan is shaking his head violently, but as this is my story, I'm
going to keep talking now.
That doesn't really work on a podcast.
That's why I narrated it.
Okay, I could hold up a sign maybe.
Yeah, yeah.
I think a sign would be very well in a podcast.
I'm just going to talk about the 1st episode for now and then
we'll talk a bit more about that and then we'll talk about the
thing at a whole...
The 1st episode is absolutely marvellous.
You know, you've got that scene in the TARDIS where everyone's
frozen and suddenly that all their clothes end up back in the
wardrobe, which I just thought was brilliant. really naughty on
radio.
Not too real.
They do have other clothes.
Especially seeing as Barbara's observation is, Doctor, we've got
our clothes on.
Well, I should hope so, dear.
Does work on audio, yeah.
Well, funnily enough, one of the Planets Scara audios we did, and
the line that got cut was halfway through a scene, I mean, my
character actually declares, good God, I'm naked.
That was an ad lib, which got cut out, sadly.
We have that bit.
And we find out later that the reason that they're closed are back
in the wardrobe and they've got their regular clothes on is
because they've arrived out of sequence so they didn't get to see
you or remember putting their clothes on.
Yeah, it's the kind of thing that makes Mel's timeline in trial of
a time lord look perfectly straightforward.
That was a very Mervin Pinfield thing, wasn't it?
Oh, I'm not criticising it. the side jump thing.
I'm not criticising it.
It's a great way to straight away introduce that all is not
right.
But in a non-threatening way.
Well, it throws up a puzzle.
Yeah, acoustic kind of thing, but with...
It's curiously, completely unfazed by it.
Well, it saved us a lot of time.
I think he's still suffering oxygen starvation from the water, so
we just snorted all the way through that and the crusades. and now
he's like, woo, it's all the way.
Just asphyxia.
I do want, it's a little thing, but I really want to, and I'm
going to do this a lot more later on.
I'm going to praise Maureen O'Brien for her performance in that
opening scene where she drops a glass of water and just comes in
and I've never seen someone in the show up until this point, do
such a good job of silent acting where she just gives the water to
the doctor and just sort of stares at it.
Like she's waiting for something to happen.
You know, it's not fear.
It's genuine sort of is it going to break apart again, which when
you consider it's currently being held up to the doctor's face and
she's watching for it to shatter. slightly sinister.
Um, and then you get the very eerie 1st episode, which, um, has a
lot in common with Stephen King's later story, the Langolias, the
idea that of these people landing in a place which should be
crowded, but is deserted in this case a museum in the case of
Stephen King and Airport.
Um, and coming to the realisation that they are out of sync with
the time frame, which is also what happens in the Langoliers, which
I think Stephen King wrote in the late 70s and was adapted for
television in the 90s.
I remember that.
Did it have scary, creepy monsters that hate people?
It did.
Spoiler alert, sorry.
And I, um, Stephen King a lot like, um, Matt Grooning and another
writer I can't think of at the moment.
Joe Michael Strazinsky have all said that they did watch Doctor
Who.
And not necessarily that it was an influence on their writing, but
it did inform their writing.
So Stephen King may have seen this at some point or that it's a
bit more difficult with the black and white stories.
Uh, and so we have a very, very eerie 1st episode.
Very well punctuated by great use of stock music and also the fact
that we just follow the regulars around, you know, we see the
aliens on the planet, but we don't get an inkling into their world
until episode two.
I mean, that's not that uncommon in this period, is it?
The keys of mariner starts that way, sort of.
It takes a while to get to Arbitan anyway.
And the Daleks is just the regulars and that sort of thing.
Like starting in that, you know, where they're exploring and
working out where they are and it's just the regulars
interacting.
That's unlike that. you know, and that, that is one of the things
that we've lost in the, in the shortening of the...
And giving the time to do it.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, most episodes is often so strong in this season.
Yeah.
Where Planet does the same thing.
It's all just...
Yeah, they just wander around...
It gives them a lot of time to interact and chat and stuff.
Melt ties.
That's right.
And we get we get that wonderful subversive moment because of
course Dalek Mania was at its peak.
I think I think it was around this time that the 1st movie Doctor
Who and the Daleks came out. certainly was.
So they come around a corner and there's Dalek and Ian Barbara and
the doctor just sort of recoil in horror and Vicky's like, oh.
Oh, hello.
Oh, he's a bit cute, isn't he?
Oh, so cute.
Which has never seen one.
No, no, she's the supermod 60s girl, even though she's from the
future of 60s.
She just too cool for Dr. D. No, it's just that it's a great piece
of Popeye.
She has said several times that history is not her strong suit.
She focussed on sciences.
Because she says, you know, I learned astrophysics, so I learned
chemistry.
I learned biology.
She never mentioned...
Yeah, when she was five.
By taking a pill. 10 whole minutes a day.
But that kind of works that Vicky's heard of them, but she doesn't
know what they look like.
It's kind of like...
I've I've heard of Genghis Khan.
Yeah, they wouldn't be, didn't they?
Yes, I wouldn't know exactly what he would like.
Well, you should subscribe to his YouTube channel.
Oh, dear.
Well, I've seen the Monty Python version.
I think that's good enough for me.
So, yep, wonderful, uh, trippy, strange experimental 1st episode
uh, followed by a 3 a 3 episode adventure story, which I still
think is very good, but I'm going to throw it to you guys.
Well, I actually think that I think that, you know, that's the
standard way of discussing this story is that it's that it's one
really inventive episode followed by 3 rather plotting episodes.
But I do think that the issue introduced by the 1st episode is
like runs all the way through, the rest of it, and it is, it's
that deterministic thing.
It's to what degree do we have the ability to affect our own
future by our action.
So there's a kind of going to go all Richard here on this one.
There's a kind of sort of existential thing going on here.
And so it looks dramatic in its expression.
I was actually wondering when German expression.
I was determined not to kill the German expression. joke, the way
that I'm slowly killing the joke about monsters turning up in
historical story.
Okay, so you've got they've got a predetermined fate.
The episode, the story looks like it's going to head towards them
ending up in a case.
So all of their efforts for the rest of the story are about
avoiding that.
And so the 3 of them end up kind of separating and taking quite
different approaches in order to do that.
So Barbara gets locked in a room and gets to rescue someone, the
doctor actually fails and ends up looks like he's going to end up
in the case.
Ian what gets a gun and tries to rescue the doctor or something
sort of tiresome.
And then Vicky, you know, like you're obviously going to want to
talk about Vicky fomenting revolution because she's just truly
superb.
And those are 3 different approaches that look like they're going
to end up, you know, they all are sort of quite promising, but it
all goes horribly wrong and they all end up in the preparation
room together and it really looks like, you know, they've reached
the wall.
There is absolutely no way of escaping their fate.
So all of that determinism thing is set up in episode one in that
strange way.
It sort of sets up a puzzle.
Or, you know, in a way that we're kind of unused to Doctor Who
operating.
It's sort of a higher concept sort of thing, a sort of Star Trek
kind of thing in a way and not a Doctor Who thing.
And I think that all of that works very well.
And I think the whole thing is charmingly short circuited by the
fact that Barbara is wearing her cardigan in the museum case.
And then they unravel her cardigan in order to find their way
around the museum.
So clearly...
But doesn't that mean that they've changed history and they escape
from their fate of ending up inside the thing?
So I'm choosing to not see that as a production gap.
I'm deciding that that is, in fact, a deliberate precursor to the
fact that they do, in fact, escape spoiler alert and they don't
end up as exhibits in museum cases.
So, yeah.
I do think if it was made down, that would actually be made the
plot point.
Like at the end.
Well, I suppose it will be it will be Peter Capellio now, but if
it had been made in the Matt Smith story, Matt Smith would turn
around and say, no, you can't process us and put us in cases.
Why not?
Because I've just destroyed my bowtie.
The doctor, speaking of which, the doctor's really massively
doctor-ish in this. with the, you know, does not give a crap.
Yeah, yeah.
And he's dismissive of low boss is like in the chair sort of thing
being experimented on and ask questions.
He sees the penny farming, which as a fan of the prisoner.
The whole walruses?
That whole scene for me is actually much more cream Monty Python.
Richard Lester and the Beatles hard day's night.
That's showing how mod and funky the doctor is.
It really is the coolest thing that anyone could possibly be in
that situation.
And it is it is very doctor-ish. is very much how the doctor will
end up, you know.
And it's very swifty.
The doctor is a Jonathan Swift character.
He's a bit of Gulliver.
And then he goes to these odd places and has a rhyme
intellectual...
Can I have a loud thing?
I'm not going to talk about Jonathan Swift.
He annoys me.
He's on my enemies list with C.S. Lewis.
Really?
Well, in that case, I will circuit break here.
I also love that. that scene with Billy.
And the thing I really love about it is Billy in the Victorian
bathing suit.
Yes.
And the fact that the doctor sort of sees that and goes, oh, like
yes, I remember that that weekend in Brighton. fantastic.
And actually, having a look at my notes here, Rob noticed the
cardigan as well.
More cardigan stuff in the chase. in the chase coming up.
Yes.
But what you were saying there about everyone takes different
roots.
Everyone takes roots that we've already seen on the show.
Like someone, someone always gets captured, but it's turned on its
head this time because it's a doctor getting captured.
Yeah, yeah.
Barbara turns her usual thing on the head because it's like, okay
she's getting gas, but actually, it's the freedom fighter who
collapses and Barbara gets to rescue it.
She almost shrugs and rolls her eyes.
She picks him up, like, fine, I'll carry you out of here.
Ian actually just does the thing that Ian does, which is he grabs
a weapon and goes for the brute approach.
He is surprisingly dark in this one.
He actually wants to get even tastier than Billy was in Romans and
actually have a thwack at someone.
Doesn't he tell Lobos that even if killing the morod leader
doesn't change anything, he might well enjoy it.
Yeah, he's a bit Terry Nation.
He does.
But the thing is, I think it is still in character for Ian because
this is such a desperate situation.
He's never been Ian's been in plenty of dangerous situations, but
he's never like physically seen the result.
You know, in the Romans, yeah, he sees the lions, but he doesn't
actually see the lions eat someone.
In this, he's actually seeing himself as a wax dummy and I think
it actually really unnerves him because he kind of snaps at
Barbara at one point.
Yeah, they have a proper fight. actually about it. which is which
is really surprising.
He does apologise to him, say he's stressed out by the whole
possibility of bending up in a case thing.
And I think it's that.
It goes back to, um, sort of early season one where Ian is in
complete denial that they're travelling through time and Barbara
just goes, well, look, we have to accept the evidence of our own
eyes.
It's happened.
And again here, when Ian is confronted with something he can't
accept, he can't accept that he's going to go there.
His only method is brute force action and saying something which
may seem uncharacteristic, uncharacteristic, because Ian has
killed before in the show, but only in self-defence and only in
direst emergency, but in this situation, it's just like, no, I'm
going to kill you.
It'll just make me feel better.
He doesn't do it.
But yeah, he's kind of showing he's capable of that under duress.
But the most surprising character and it shows how far we've come
in the new granddaughter figure from Susan is Vicki, who falls in
with the rebels and sort of says, God, you're a bunch of wet
fish.
And uses her quirky future knowledge that she's been talking about
how she's into the sciences and what have you to go, well, hold on
all right, so we need to sell the computer the truth.
That's step one.
The computer needs to acknowledge us as official.
That step two.
We can definitely do the 1st one.
All I have to do is bypass one of them.
She's the one that saves the show.
Yeah, yeah, no, she, that is how they get out of it.
They get out of it because she inspires the revolution.
Some arms fall into their hands.
Yes.
And then and then and then the revolution takes off.
And so when they're in the preparation room, the thing that does
save them is what Vicky has done.
Yeah, exactly.
She's Madame Mao in this narrative.
She's just saying, oh, I want a whole cultural revolution right
here, right now.
I mean, that word revolution.
It's so brilliant in when Vicki does open the armoury because she
just stands up and she's like, what is your name?
Vicki.
What do you want?
Weapons.
What purpose?
Revolution.
The thing is, she's not bloodthirsty there.
She's just going, yeah, revolution.
Let's stick it to the man.
And again, it's that mod counterculture thing you were talking
about, Richard.
But, um, Vicki is just so much more so much more of a positive
character than Susan was.
And we keep comparing it to Susan.
She is a positive character in her own right.
Even if Susan hadn't been in the show before her, you know, and so
we didn't have anyone to compare to in that role.
Vicki would still be an incredibly strong character.
And if you like, this is the culmination of her travels up until
this point because she's still been under the doctor's arm for
most stories.
Even the web planet when they do get separated, the 2 of them are
put that together very quickly.
But in this, they are separated for most of the story.
And She shows herself to sort of go, well, what would the doctors
do in this situation, right?
He would help people.
And the funny thing is, she kind of does the thing that would
become very traditional for Tom Baker and Peter Davidson to do.
Billy doesn't so much fall in with the local rebels.
It does happen a few times, but it's not the regular thing he
does.
So Vicky is not only taking on the doctor's example, but she's
leading by her own example.
Showing the doctor what to do.
She's blazing a trail for him.
And manages to save everyone as a result.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I think this is much more about a generation gap than it is about
can we trop the C word in again, colonialism.
Well, you know, the writer, the writer Glenn Jones was actually
South African and there was all that business going on with a
British cricket team and apartheid, you know, South Africans not
being allowed to play cricket.
And you had Rhodesia, you had Ian Smith, you know, with that
extraordinary accent that came to be known as the voice of bigotry
in at this time on TV, you know, spouting this stuff about.
That's Ian Smith from prisoner and name.
Absolutely.
Yes, yes.
And also the prime minister of magician.
But, you know, he said ways.
He had a lot of his range.
But this is fundamentally, this is groovy.
Yeah, yeah.
So the, the, the, the, I'm morons, more, more, more.
The more...
You missed the info jump in the beginning of episode two.
Welcome to Mobos, a member of the Zoroch Empire.
I'm only here for another 2 minims and all looking at my watch.
That's this period of time.
That's another 24 months.
But your time.
But, um, they're sort of bored, middle-aged.
They are so bored, aren't they?
Yeah, yeah.
And it's very hard.
That's my problem. really hard not to be watching people who are
bored, not be bored myself.
But then Billy comes along and says, oh, pads, that, let's do a
Beatles movie.
Well, the thing is, as much as they're bored, I actually find them
quite amusing because they're not just bored with where they are
they're bored with the fact that the other guy's bored.
Yeah, they're getting frustrated with each other, but being bored
is like, can't you take this ball seriously?
Well, can't you?
Yeah, so we're back to Becca comedy, right?
And...
They have South African accents.
They do.
They're like the proponents of apartheid, whereas Tor and the
other Xeron rebels.
Oh, and that's why the gal set colonists in, um, so entire
experiment have, uh, South African accents.
No, the writer was Bob Baker and Dave Martin, but Glenn is an
actor in it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's an actor.
Yeah, the writer of this.
That was a big thing in 75 as well.
Yeah.
I mean, something else I love with the Morrox being like terribly
bored and blasé, is that at this point in the real world, we
haven't even reached the moon and the space race is hotting up.
So Doctor Who presents us with a world where space travel is so
last year and so blasé.
It's like...
It's as though someone in the production office seem to think, can
we do a like space epic where we land on the moon?
No, we can't.
Okay, can we say it's blasé and pointless?
Yes, we can.
And that is, it's postmodern in the most wonderful sense of, I
mean, postmodernism, usually pokes fun at something.
But quite often isn't fun in and of itself.
And you just sit there going, yeah, you're just being mean now.
Whereas this, you kind of you kind of laugh along with the joke of
oh, you're saying space travel's a bit old hat, but what it's more
saying is that putting too much stock in the technology is old hat
and we can't forget about the human element, because the human
element is the 0 on rebels, who are still excited about technology
and interested in technology and how it can improve their lives.
Whereas the morochs are just like, oh, we have technology quick
put it in a glass case. nobody can look at it.
Nobody can touch it, especially not those people in dark uniforms
as these zerons are.
And they have a lot of eyebrows, don't they?
Yeah, sort of vertical eyebrows.
No, no, I thought they had 2 sets of eyebrows, one above the eye.
Oh that's right.
It's like they've shaved these ones off.
No, no, they have two.
Yeah, they've got double eyebrows.
Don't forget, Stingray had been really big from Jerry Anderson and
Thunderbirds this year, so big bushy eyebrows are big.
They were the thing.
So 2 eyebrows.
If you can have Boba Fett with 2 eyebrows.
You kind of right to see this as comedic potential because, you
know, if you look at the history of the scripts of this, weirdly
enough, it goes against what you'd expect.
Whitaker really liked Jones's work from other stuff and really
liked his comedic work and there was apparently a lot of comedy in
this that get this Dennis Spooner cut out because he wanted it to
be taken more seriously.
Dennis Spooner.
Dennis Spooner, maybe there's only room for one comedian.
Maybe sure.
Maybe he knew the chase was coming up.
But yeah, apparently that's...
Of course, in this we have an early appearance of someone who
would later play quite a famous part, but beneath the mask.
We've got Jeremy Bullock. who would go on to be Boba Fett.
Yes.
And the Archer.
And so as we were watching that, as we're watching the Zeron
rebels running about, Rod said, oh, that blonde one's quite
familiar.
And I said, well, um, you probably wouldn't know his face or his
voice, but he's Boba Fett in Star Wars.
And Bro's like, oh, okay.
And then an episode later, Robert, Boba Fett's got quite nice
bottom, hasn't it?
He didn't say bottom, but we can't get an explicit attack.
So he's been digitally replaced by Tamuera Morrison under that.
Yes, indeed.
He's been digitally replaced by Tamor and Morrison and Lobos has
been digitally replaced by Jab of the Hut.
Okay, fair enough.
It's the last time we see a Dalek with Corseton.
Yes, it's the last time we've seen Dalek with the bands before
they get the solar song.
No, you're right before they get the course of your car.
But it's also the 1st time we see a doctor hiding inside a Dalek
and impersonating a dark.
And one does rather get the impression that Billy just climbed in
there for a laugh.
When he pops his head out.
He doesn't look like the 1st doctor.
He looks like Billy Arthur going, this is why the kids think it's
so much fun.
But it's a, you know, it's a lovely moment, but it does, does
begin to make the Daleks into figures of fun.
So I think that's a perfect tone to hear the Dalek vonk vonk
again.
And move on to the chase.
So the chase is obviously here to redress that potential problem
with making the Daleks into figures are fun, isn't it?
So they're really a terrifying force in this story.
Look, I mean, forces something.
The starting point, obviously, has to be, again, it has to be
Sandiff's sort of redemptive reading of this.
So, uh, those of you don't know, Philip Sandafar is, uh, you know
like an incredibly uh, in cycle, an interesting commentator on
Doctor Who, who's been covering its story by story on his blog for
years now.
He's put out several books and things.
And he, you know, he doesn't say the chase is a good story.
So he and I would, you know, have to agree to disagree on that
because I think it's really fantastic.
But he has a sort of redemptive reading as if all of the sort of
weird flaws and production problems and plot issues and stuff are
actually all intentional and leading towards a giant narrative
collapse in which the entire possibility of even being able to
tell Doctor Who stories is about to annihilate itself.
And it's really terribly funny and it's well and truly worth
reading.
And, you know, it starts with, you know, the episode one where
they've got the time and space visualiser from the space museum.
And instead of having adventures, they're just watching TV. do you
know what I mean?
And so it's a family unit watching TV and and seeing all these
sort of various adventures and stuff.
And suddenly the Daleks are sort of more exciting and more
proactive than the doctor because they're sort of about to, um, you
know, they're they're doing something.
They're actually going to come after the doctor and destroy him.
So, look, I'm not going to rehash the standard for reading, you
can all go onto the internet.
It'll be in the show notes, but what I'm going to say is that this
is something that Terry Nation has done before, I think, in Keys
of Mariners, which is to do a longer story, but split it into sort
of several discrete units.
And because each one is sort of quite short and because each one
is sort of fairly simple, it never really gets too tiresome.
Perhaps the worst defender is, the planet Aridius, where, you know
the Aridians are terribly kind of wet, I guess.
Why do they call the planet a radius if it used to be an ocean
planet?
I never really kind of understood that.
Deanna Troy named the planet perhaps?
No, they just changed the name by deed poll when all the Cs...
Maybe it was Maddus or something beforehand.
So, um, personally, I just can't understand why anyone would take
a long piece of text and break it up into several shorter pieces
to be listened to across the space for 3 weeks.
I just can't understand it.
That's crazy.
That'd be utterly crazy.
And so...
And so, you know, we've got a radius and then we've got the Empire
State Building and then we've got the Mary Celeste and then we've
got that stupid haunted house thing and then we've got the planet
Mechanus.
And so we have kind of 32 parters, don't we?
2 parts on a radius, then 2 parts where we go from place to place
and then 2 parts.
Mechanists, right?
And so it doesn't really get too tight.
And then, and it has changed the premise of the entire show
because the TARDIS had previously really just being a plot device
in order to get them into the story.
And very frequently, you know, they're separated from the TARDIS
and they have to get back to it in some way in order to get out
and onto the next story.
So it's a contrivance.
But here it's actually a vehicle that they're piloting through
time and space and there's someone else who can travel, travel
after them and whom they can detect and so on.
And so it really changes the character of the show in a way that
it's going to change even further, of course, next story.
So look, I mean, there are all sorts of things that, that, that
don't really work, aren't there?
But it sort of clips along, and it's got the Daleks in it, and it
sort of reads me.
You're saying, there's some fun dalek moments.
I love the recreation of the, um, invasion of earth cliffhanger
only this time instead of coming out of the Thames that's coming
out of sand.
Like, for no...
Redly, for certain reasons, and it's coughing or burping.
Yeah, and then there's the Dalek who does its sums, you know, it
gets asked a question and it sort of goes...
Wait for them.
I think they're just trying to outdo the mechanoids. very
competitive these days. line, line.
800.
English.
And we should actually be doing this whole discussion.
Oh, stop.
Enter enter 0 stop.
It would never happen again.
So, I mean, and it has all the sort of usual terri nation things.
It's going to be rubber monster, like, it's the Maya beast, isn't
it?
Which, um, are we allowed?
say testicle?
I think we probably ought to say this?
Because it looks like a pair of testimony.
No, I see, I think you're thinking of frontier in space.
Well, that looks like a conglomeration.
It is just like a...
Is this the moment in a radius when Vicky has this uncontrollable
feat of festival laughter for no power?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. something really crap has just happened off
camera.
Maybe that's it.
Maybe someone brought the Maya piece. behind the cameras.
No sense.
And then they open the lids in the desert and she screams with
laughter even more.
What it is.
I've read an interview with Maureen where she says...
I didn't want Vicky to scream unless she was absolutely terrified
if she's just startled by something.
She giggles.
Oh, giggles, yeah, yeah.
She soon becomes a slapping offence, though, doesn't it?
Yeah, it is.
I mean, most of the time she just sort of does But yeah, in that
one.
And it's just the door opening.
Yeah, she does giggle for about 10 seconds.
And William Russell's just kind of standing there furrowing his
brow like, you're really gonna do it like that.
Are you doing?
Are you doing the accent?
Oh, yeah.
So, so, like a radius is, like those 2, it's high Will Bennett and
someone else and they're just sort of really terrible and the My
Beast is sort of a bit terrible as well.
And we get them attacking a Dalek with Barbara's cardigan, which
is a bit of a...
So achieving says, no, not again.
You know, like Ian, Ian, takes her card, you know, can I have your
card again?
And it's like, this is the 2nd story in a row.
You're really going to take my card and then sort of dismember it
somehow.
And the doctor calls some Adelic auntie.
As well.
Archie.
No, no, but here, Auntie, over here, Auntie. nuts.
Does that go on the BBC?
Was it?
You weren't allowed to call the bee auntie.
Oh, maybe.
Because it was seen as a bit cosy and comforting and they wanted
it to be progressive.
Because, you know, everyone preferred to it because just like a
Jubiter ABC, so he might actually be even cheekier.
I thought he was channelling Matt Smith, you said. in a sort of
weird time thing.
Something I do love about that 1st segment on Aridius is just the
way that the Titus crew are all relaxing for most of the 1st
episode for about 20 minutes.
You know, 1st of all, they're relaxing inside the TARDIS and
watching telly.
And, you know, Vicky manages to tread the line between being an
annoying child and still being fabulous by sort of wandering
around and reading over Ian's shoulder. reading a book called, is
he reading monsters from Outer Space?
Well, Out of Space, which he says...
Yeah.
And William Hartnell possibly swearing and Vicky, depending on how
you, because he's got a mouthful of screwdrivers and it sounds
like he says something ending in all.
And then she, you know, spills a drink on the dress.
Barbara's making for it.
And it's all wonderfully domestic.
Perhaps.
But not only that, you then get when they land, you know, Ian and
Vicky go, go running across Canva Sands exploring, and you've got
that beautiful scene with the doctor and Barbara Sunbaby.
No.
That other awful noise.
Yeah, the doctor's singing.
So wonderful.
Isn't this original?
What's that awful noise?
I'm expecting Creeks.
Jolly wheels.
But yeah, like the doctor, there's some bathing.
The doctor's singing, Barbara can hear something inside the
Tartaran.
Doctor, what's that awful noise?
My singing?
No, the other awful door.
But then he says I could charm the knife.
He gets out of the trees.
It's wonderful.
That's so great.
Yeah, oh it is.
And, well, it just goes back to something I said last season, and
this is going to be the last chance I have to say.
The doctor is in love with Barbara.
Yeah, absolutely.
This is the very 1st story where the doctor goes to kiss someone.
Other than that.
He said the Aztecs.
It goes to Keisha's companion and it's not Barbara, it's Ian.
Oh, really?
I'm going to spoil.
No, I'm not going to spoil it for you.
You have to watch it again.
I have to watch the whole thing again, people.
Well, I'm excited by that.
Yes, sure.
I mean, I don't mind the chase.
I think the chase wouldn't come in for as much criticism if it
weren't not a dalek story.
I think people have a certain expectation for watching Dalek
stories.
If it had to been an original alien.
If it had been the Lord building a time machine and going after
the doctor in time space, I think it would be far more fondly
remembered.
It's because people think that it's sending the Daleks up.
But that's the problem.
Nation has actually completely blown.
He's done the absolutely fabulous thing of taking it seriously
even though within its own precepts in the 1st series, AdFab is
actually a very funny comedy where the characters themselves are
intrinsic and integral, but from series 2 on, they completely take
the Mickey out of each other and themselves and it stops being
kind of as honest or as you can't really get involved with it
anymore because they're doing their own meta narrative of it.
I'm just watching that.
It's with this one.
Daleks shouldn't come apart into 3 pieces when they're pushed off
things.
They're mentioned...
That's not Terry Nation.
Yeah, they're loveable Richard Martin. pushes them off the Mari
Celeste in the 1st place.
There's a kind of thing as they, I can do anything with these.
They're so popular. can now use them.
It's just a symbol for something else.
And whatever it is, a dalek is not what it was established.
It's just whatever it needs to be in the situation to get the
drama along.
We see, I think, but I do think that the premises are kind of
natural thing.
You've got the Daleks in their city and that's how they sort of
started and we didn't know that they were going to be that great.
Then when they're a breakout hit, you know, they invade the earth
and, you know, threaten the world of the actual viewer.
And then, you know, like, they're gone a lovely holiday and they
go to New York.
No, and then they, then they show. aggressive vegetation.
It's a knife.
It's funny though, me.
Lot of jungles.
Terry Nation things alive means animals that move.
No, really.
Next, again, next season.
The Varga plants.
So they need to be equals to the doctor.
This actually increases their kind of.
It is, it's the production that's a problem.
This turns them into a kind of mythic force.
I like that they keep up with him the time.
Yeah.
You know, and they're better at time travel than he is, in fact.
They know where they're going to go next.
They catch up with him sort of gradually.
But I mean, and then they're stupid, things like they can be
killed by robot Frankenstein's monsters in 1990s farm fair and
stuff.
Like they're stupid stuff.
But, but, you know, like if you're five, it would be great.
Yeah, that's...
Except with less blackface in this case.
Yeah, that's terrible.
And so do we have any moments of awkward racial stereotyping in
the chase?
Only Morton D. I'm one of these white American is therefore kind
of sorry to everyone, but, you know, there is a horrible moment
where, you know, I don't know if the audience knew at the time, but
when you see Morton deal on the top of the Empire State, you think
oh, no, he is the companion.
Oh, he's the new, he's actually going to come into the TARDIS and
we're stuck with that for at least a year.
He does...
So this is Peter Purvis, of course, for our friends at home who
will go on to play Stephen for... what seems like an eternity in
season three, although I think he is terribly good.
Actually, yeah, I really, really, they get on, really.
There's fraternity, which develops actually to the ultimate point
of the doctor and the companion, and it's... ends up having to run
the show towards the end of series 3 when the Cardinals being in.
And he will try that accent again in the gunfighters, which we'll
talk about sort of reasonably soon.
Yeah, you know, like all of that sort of reasonably fun.
It has been pointed out that Barbara and Ian could, of course, get
off at that and catch a plane home and they would be home, thus
not necessitate, but, of course, they're in a chase.
Yeah, they're interesting.
You know, they've got like 5 minutes to think about it.
I forgive them for not considering it.
But I think it, yeah.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's not 1st thing on your mind, though.
I don't think they ask Morton the date.
No.
So they don't know that they're back.
Although, they were willing to accept... up to the minute play.
Straight off the Beverly Hillbillies, and that's actually where
the characters come from.
This is a show about other TV shows.
Yes.
Very much so.
Maybe it's the 1st time Doctor Who has actually said we really not
only were within the TV, but we're running TV, we're every other
TV show.
So it's like series one of the new series being all about
television.
So there's the interlude about television.
I mean, the Iridius thing is a fairly standard, rather boring
Doctor Who sort of tale that fortunately the Daleks come and smash
it up.
And then they go into various other TV shows, which, again, is
sort of what they do in the in the Chase 2 or Dalek's master plan
you know, the sort of middle bit.
I can put it out there.
We'll talk about that at length.
Sorry, everyone.
And then and then the mechanist thing.
Oh, can we mention this beautiful city of mechanism?
It's lovely.
It's acoustic, isn't it?
Well, again, that's an absolutely perfect gaudy representative, you
know, if he's beautiful, amorphous metaphoric architecture.
It is spectacular.
It's a beautiful model.
It takes a magnificent design to look like it was made by chance.
You know, it looks like...
It's very organic, it waxed down something and just let it run, but
you just know with Ray Husek that, no, he's planned every single
one of those struts and supports and they're using...
And yet it's built by robots with vocabulary that's even worse
than concrete poetry.
It's built by every D&D player's worst nightmare, the giant Ds
point ticks.
I cuts of heatrons.
Yeah.
So it is.
Yes, yes.
So, um, and, you know, like again, they're really fun, you know
the big battle at the end with the, with the Daleks and the, and
the mechanoids is quite well shot, you know what I mean?
There's lots of fades and things it's really exciting.
They did it on film.
They did it in that biggest film studio at Ealing, didn't they?
The Vint Battles.
And then you get to see Barbara's Undies.
Don't you like?
Yeah, Ian almost grips her pants off.
They tie Vicky up, which you've all been waiting for at home, you
know, and lower down a thing.
But the thing is that when Vicky does sort of go to pieces, it
doesn't feel like it cheapens the character because it's like, you
know what?
She's gone to pieces once in everything she's experienced and it's
when she is, when she fears for her life and plummeting to the
ground and her gris...
When she's being written by Terry Nation.
It's also been written by Terry Nation, but it's kind of like, you
know what?
Everyone has their break.
And we, yeah, we can accept that this is something you can't do.
But at the same time, you know, she doesn't start lashing out and
stopping people, but she she almost she just seizes up and almost
goes catatonic and allows them to rescue her.
So I think it's a bit of a shame actually.
Actually, I would have been happier if she had been less of an
idiot.
But yeah, it doesn't fatally undermine the character because she
does it once.
And in the same story, you know, she stowed away on the Dalek ship
concealed herself, found out there's a robot duplicate of the
doctor and warned everyone else.
Which looks exactly like.
Looks exactly like the original.
Look, poor Edmund Warwick. do not blame him.
Apparently it was because Edmund Warwick had stepped in late in
the day to stand in for Billy when Billy was injured on Darlic
Invasion.
They had said to him, look, we'll give you a bigger part later in
the season.
For some reason.
For some reason, that bigger part had to be a robot duplicate of
Doctor Who, with full on mid-shots, face forward to the camera, and
a line of dialogue in his own voice.
No, no, he's dubbed by Billy.
Most of it, yes.
But at one point, I think when he's calling out to Barbara.
They don't dub him.
That being said, you know what, in long shot, when he's just
walking through, and from behind, he actually walks like Billy.
Like he's taken the time to get the physical mannerisms.
But I think the real disappointing thing there because, you know
you can forgive that kind of thing.
They didn't have time to reset cameras and do both sides.
The real disappointing thing is once they sort of deactivate the
robot, You would think that they would try to use it against the
dialects, like make the dialects think they caught the doctor when
actually they're caught the robot.
But did they do that?
No.
They just deactivate the robot and leave it in the forest.
Oh, no, the doctor goes out and pretends to be the robot.
Yeah, it doesn't work.
No, no, no.
It goes for about 5 seconds and they have to run.
That bit feels like, and this is before it, obviously, but that
bit feels like an episode of a scene from Red Dwarf.
It's fun.
Oh, it's really funny.
Like, Billy plays it perfectly, like, imagine work.
But then I think I think that we're missing the huge thing and
something that the biggest thing about the chase, which is, which
is going to just completely change the history of the show, and
that is the departure of Ian and Barbara.
And I say that, like, because Chase, the Chase is one of the
stories that exists in fallen, because I've got a reasonably early
DVD release, I've watched it a lot. over the years.
So it was sort of my go-to heart and all, you know what I mean?
And I know that's crazy, but it's fun and it's funny and all of
that sort of thing.
And so this time when I was actually watching it in context.
And, you know, I've been watching it in order.
I'm up to season 4 and it's all for the podcast.
I love all of you at home and I'll go through anything really, just
for your benefit, including the smugglers.
And that's your toy maker.
You texted me about the other day and you loved that one.
And so this time I'm watching the chase in context for the 1st
time.
And it was like it was like going back to 1978 or 79 when I 1st
saw like Sarah leave and she was the only sort of, you know
companion for the doctor that I'd ever known.
And, and um, I was really, really heartbroken by it.
It's so sad.
And like, I'm so glad that they spared us.
I know it's a bit of a cop out and they do it again with Vicky
where they spare us the actual scene of them saying goodbye for
the last time.
Um, And, you know, Vicky is spectacular in it, the way that she
wins the doctor over and, and then that whole montage, which is, is
that directed by Douglas Campfield?
The, the, the steel images?
In the steel images?
I think...
Yes, yes, Douglas Canfield went out with them and a stills camera
I believe.
And just took all those lovely photos of them all over London and
then they blow up the Dalek time machine in the warehouse and all
of that sort of thing and they, you know, they laugh and then the
whole thing comes back.
Full circle, we're watching the time space visualiser and the
doctor gets to see that they're okay.
And I just think it's perfect.
It's so beautifully low key.
And I think Barbara, Barbara, particularly, obviously, and Ian
what this show is about.
Do you know what I mean?
It's about 2 school teachers who stumble in, stumble out of our
world into a time machine and I put in these sort of strange
action adventure situations when they're just sort of rather
tweedy and cardigan wearing and things, and then they have to
function inside that sort of story.
And they both have so much charm and they're both so terrific that
the show, I think, you know, however good Peter Pervys is, I think
the show spends the next year flailing and wandering what to do
without them.
It's a good point.
I, I, do you, do you have a correction about the director of those
sequences or?
Because I thought that's what you want.
Look, no, I did notice that Barbara Joss is actually the one
running around on canvas sands instead of...
Yeah, instead of Maureen O'Brien in all of the reverse shots, since
we're citing people who... one's concerned.
We haven't really mentioned because not everyone knows the stuff
backwards, but the Beatles were actually really keen, especially
John Lennon, to be in it.
And it was Brian Epstein, their manager, who said, oh, no, we're
not happening.
Because, you know, you'll ruin the brand.
Do they actually say things like that in 1964?
But yeah, he didn't want to spoil the illusion of what the Beatles
were.
John was a gentleman.
Were they going to be made up as old man?
yeah Yes, old blokes.
It was going to be like... 1994 or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, with the in and
bob we're leaving.
And as you say, it took the show a while to recover from that long
while.
We've kind of seen that mirrored in the new series in that, and
I'm going to state, 1st of all, that I love Prima Arjumen, and I
love Martha Jones in the show.
But the show did take that year to figure out how to write a
companion after Billy Piper left.
And really it shouldn't, but there were there were missteps and
well, we'll get there in a couple of years on the podcast.
But I don't agree with you, by the way, just...
But also, when you were saying, you know, we don't see the actual
leaving conversation.
That's a very good point.
And all of Hartnell's companions lead very abruptly.
There is, there is a buildup to most of them. but they do leave
very abruptly.
But I think in the case of being in Barbara, certainly, Not seeing
the final conversation between them. is far more effective than
seeing that 2nd last conversation when they're actually arguing
and bickering with each other.
Because again, it goes back to the beginning of their
relationship.
And it sort of goes through the whole relationship in microcosm of
being saying, but I want to go home, I want a normal life and the
doctor finds the, Barbara, it's Barbara who convinces the doctor
just like it always has been.
No, it's Vicky.
Doesn't Vicki, like, he's refused this and Vicki... and just says
you know, let them go.
Yeah, let them, you know.
And he loves Vicky.
And, you know, she's not going anywhere.
She reassures him.
But I think the reason that it works without them actually in the
ship saying goodbye is that...
That sequence, that last five, 10 minutes.
It's not really about Anne and Barbara saying goodbye to the
doctor. about Ian and Barbara saying goodbye to us.
Yeah, 0 yeah.
I think so.
And I'm choking up about it now because the thing is, we didn't
really talk about the emotional reaction to Susan leaving.
I do cry when I see that, but I cry because it feels unfair. think
it's a waste.
I cry with me.
I cry with me in and Barbara because it feels so right.
Even though, even though this, I think, I agree with you, Nathan
the show is not as good without them next season.
No, no, no, I don't mean next season.
I mean, the next 48 years.
It's a describe.
I kind of go, you know what?
That is the perfect end for you two.
It's a bit, it's a bit like, and some people felt this was wrong
but when Donna leaves, Um, people went, oh, but she's just getting
married off, but the thing is, all Donna ever wanted was someone
to be here.
It's a bride.
Well, she wanted she wanted someone to be her companion and to
love her and she didn't have that with her with her 1st fiance, but
she does get it with the 2nd one.
And Berner Crippens even says, oh, you know, he's not making
mountains of money.
No, Donna doesn't care about that.
Donald wants it.
Donna wants a companion.
Like the doctor.
But that's not Susan.
The way in and Barbara go is so right because they just kind of go
you know what?
We could go we could go on travelling with you, but this is our
chance to get home.
We want to get home.
We have experienced so much.
And they're the adults in the drama.
Yeah, and you see, and adults do adult things that make adult
decisions.
Billy is not an adult. as a child.
And Maureen is very much the same.
So yes, the children are, it's kind of dangerous and precipitous
isn't it?
The children are left with the magic box.
That's what's going to happen next.
Um, I will also say interestingly, when Rod and I watched it, I
didn't point out that Stephen was Morton Dill.
Okay.
And Rod really didn't like Morton Dill.
Of course.
He didn't eat, he said, is he doing an Australian accent?
I can't tell.
Beverly Hillbirdies was a big rating thing on British TV that
year.
But after the Tartars like New York, Roger said, oh God, he's the
worst supporting character yet.
What a terrible actor.
And then at the end of episode 6 of The Chase, Rod says, Stephen
should have gone with him.
He was great.
So, you know.
And of course, everyone wishes that Stephen kept his beard.
Yeah, the beard is good.
Yeah, then.
So now back then.
Well, on that topic of Stephen's beard, it's time to it's time to
move on to the last story of the season, which is the time.
Time to polish up our space car.
Yes.
So, um, 11th century England.
TARDIS lands on a beach.
Stephen is discovered inside the time.
Ian, you nearly did that thing that the doctor does when Susan
leaves.
Susan opened the door.
Open the door.
No, wait, no, I abandoned you in a post apocalyptic wasteland.
Um, So, yeah, the time medlock.
What a great story.
This feels like Dennis Spooner in Apopheosis, you know, as good as
the Romans is, this is where he gets the perfect balance of drama
and comedy. in a story.
And it's also helped along by the fact that he's got Peter
Butterworth.
Fantastic.
I mean, a carry-on, a carry-on actor as the villain.
I think he'd been in carry on at this...
No, you're quite right.
Yeah, a lot of that's no, that's true.
We had done comedy.
Yeah.
But yeah, a lot of people said there was this myth that verify saw
him in carry on and it's like, no, actually...
Carrie was doing much more sporadically than we think now.
No, it only got...
It wasn't a criminal or something.
Well, it's just done a lot of times, yeah.
Yeah, I think I think it was something like he was making a carry
on or possibly his 1st carry on when he got the offer for the
role.
So there's no possible correlation.
Plus, he's his persona in carry on because most of the time in
carry on, they have the same persona in each field, even if it's
not the same character, is very different to the monk who, right
from his 1st scene, there's like, there's something not right
about it.
Is this where all the rules are broken and the show restarts
again?
Well, it is.
It's the 1st shooto historical.
Nathan is actually jumping up and down.
I am a signer.
I'm excited.
There's a terror lepel in this one.
So it's historical and it's sort of it's sort of reasonably
entertaining, but it does break the rules and it actually changes
the premise of the entire show. in a way that the chase are just
done.
So the chase makes the daleks are equal to the doctor and even
better than the doctorate travelling through time.
And now we get this sort of incredible reveal, which is just
absolutely exemplified by that cliffhanger at the end of episode
three, which is the best cliffhanger so far.
Because you would never expect it.
And it's almost impossible to watch this now, isn't it properly?
And really experience like, 0 my god, there's another TARD.
Oh.
Oh my god, here's someone from the doctor's planet.
Do you assume it's the TARDIS from another time that he's captured
because it's a time...
No, no, no, no, no.
But I think that's a bit too sort of subtle and moffetish for the
audience in the 60s.
I've seen the Moffat have done.
What happened to that sir?
Did we run out of things that Stephen Moffatt would do?
He killed everyone and made them.
And then their baby turned into goo.
But I did not, obviously, when I 1st saw this one, I had read the
book, or whatever it was, that I think that, yeah, the book had
the book come out before the DVD.
Anyway, the video I should say.
But I did think you could see this as it's possible that it's the
Tartar, and somehow he's got it from another time, American.
But I mean, when she goes in there, she says, it's eight.
Yes, very quickly.
But it's that nice, as you say, it's that nice dissembling of
we're just not quite sure what's happening here or this throwing
it all out.
And it's all very sort of cleverly done and like I really like the
fact that the technology and the lead up to that has all been sort
of contemporary 60s technology. very contemporary.
TARDIS has a horizontal hold.
Sheer poetry, dear boy.
TVs used to have those when we had valve TVs because the pictures
would jump and TV's had a horizontal hold that we would.
So maybe that's what we should talk about.
It is because Stephen has stowed a word.
Yeah, well, yeah, Stephen sort of found the TARDIS and just... while
the doctor was off showing Ian and Barbara how to use the Dale
capsule.
So they weren't expecting to see him.
So he comes in and actually gets introduced.
And the story is really aware, I think that this is a huge gamble
for the show, that our 2 main audience identification figures out
the 2 human beings from present-day earth aren't in the show
anymore.
And episode one really goes out of its way.
You know, the doctor's off on his own and Instead of the doctor
and Vicky, which you pointed out before, Brendan is the usual
pair.
And so it's Stephen and Vicky and they're the new status quo and
they're great together.
And instead of being mum, dad, and daughter.
It, now brother and sister.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And they have a little bit of conflict and stuff, but it is that
sort of brother sister conflict.
That's, I think that, that is sort of terrific and it does, it
does work.
And what I like is, um, do you get the impression that Vicki has
learned from Barbara in that?
Yeah, Stephen does actually try some chauvinistic crap on it.
Like, he don't, he, he, all that says, we're doing this because
I'm the man, but he kind of says, oh, we're doing this.
And Vicky said, Vicky actually just grabs him at one point.
Supposing you do as I say for once.
It's like that...
That's Barbara.
And that's the wonderful thing that the show is kind of saying
okay, we know our strong female lead has gone.
Even though this girl is only in her teens, she is still a strong
female character, and it's the kind of thing that Joss Whedon took
away from Doctor Who. because Josh Wheaton has cited Doctor Who as
an influence on his work.
Right.
Um, and Doctor Who is that because of story arcing?
It is the 1st show to do real story.
Story arcing, but I think he has also cited his female
characters.
And, you know, he doesn't he doesn't like being asked about why he
has strong female characters because his response is always
because you keep bloody asking like it's something unusual.
Yeah, right.
You know, I am aware for any of your listeners out there that it's
probably a bit odd for us to be going on.
It's constantly about female characters, but unfortunately it is
still something that's remarkable having a strong female
character.
I say remarkably in the sense of something to be remarked upon.
But I think it's, I think it's still important to remark upon it
until it is something that we don't talk about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's, it's, well, it's, it's a big thing for a 60s show and it's
great that, it shows some growth in the character of Vicky.
This is the one where Billy disappears for an episode again, isn't
it?
It's just that episode.
Yeah, he's locked up so...
Yes.
You know, this is actually the episode.
Oh, so it's just a story where the Cushion film came out. to the
70s in 65.
Um, and I wonder if we're looking at Billy's performance and
because he's pretty razor in this, even though there is some
fantastic Billy fluffs.
I wonder if he's starting to realise this is the 1st point of his
mortality.
He is replaceable.
Cushing is now a cinema doctor and that's the big thing.
Okay, didn't do that well at the cinemas.
But maybe it's just the 1st point that we're going to start seeing
where Billy has certain methods to try and get the production crew
to do what he wants to do.
I think characters, I mean, people had the had the week off, you
know, from time to time.
Yeah, he took a sickie apparently, doing this one.
I don't know, man, he was, I'm just sort of starting to see the
fragility because, you know, he's, he really took it very much to
heart when he fluffed his lines.
He did take it very seriously.
And of course, he knew that by the stage that Verity was leaving.
Exactly.
Yeah, okay, yeah, that's a big thing.
That was a major thing.
But, I mean, in our next set of podcasts, we'll really talk about
this because the production team just easy now.
Yeah, nothing to do.
So that's all I'm hinting at.
It's just the beginning of that, yeah.
Previously he's only had that episode of Dalek Invasion.
Well, that was because of the illness.
He did have 2 episodes off in the keys of Mariners.
I'm just trying to think this year...
Oh, he had an episode off in the Space Museum.
He had episode three.
Oh, that's right, because he's...
The search deep freeze.
Yeah.
Okay.
So he does have an episode off occasionally and it is sort of a
punishing thing.
There's 42 episodes or something in there this season. 45
something crazy. 45, they'd made 9 previously.
But they made another four.
So if you had so, yeah, 40 episodes.
He made he made on the run.
Okay.
It's interesting then to go back to the character of the doctor
that he's just his self-duplicity.
Maybe hypocrisy.
He's the one who calls the monk of time meddler.
What does he do?
Yeah, but what does Billy actually do?
I think the monk even says that.
It's like, well what about you?
Well, I don't compare with history except when it's not actually
recorded history in the present time, blah.
But there has been a rule.
You know what I mean?
Like a rule that has been fairly that has been fairly
consistently.
Um, uh, you know, that there is no danger that um, the doctor will
sort of assassinate Nero or, you know, um, he's not going to
change.
He's not going to change.
Yeah, that's right.
He don't.
He stops. getting Nero the poison.
Yeah, Vicky, Vicky tries to give Nero poison.
And so and that is a rule.
Do you know what I mean?
And he's one of the, the show doesn't have that many premises in
the sense that, you know, the doctor isn't from Gallifrey and the
constellation of Conservatus, you know, with the type 40 TARDS.
Conservatus.
The constellation.
None of that sort of stuff is in place yet.
But we do know this, that the doctor can't interfere with
history.
And, and, and the fun thing is, the stuff that, like, doesn't he
have, he's got hilarious Lionel Hutz.
No, no, he's got a hilarious, um, the guy who sells the monorail
to Springfield.
Oh, yes, I don't know his name.
Yeah, yeah, but it's...
He's got that long list.
You know who they find his to-do list?
Yeah, yeah.
Light beacon fires.
Set up later.
Yeah, it's like, give atomic weapons to the invading Vikings or
something.
You know, like he has changed history.
Yes.
Yeah.
And he changes history for his own material benefit.
And but also because it's funny, I think, as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, do you mean like he puts money in a bank account and then
leaps forward and collects the the compound?
And we do see like a few art treasures in the corner of his
console room.
Okay, fair.
That kind of thing.
But what I find absolutely lovely.
You've got you've got that thing of him changing time for his own
benefit and because he's having fun, but also it means that he can
live in a monastery and not be disturbed and have his little
electric flight fry pan. and his toaster and his coffee dripper
Asia or whatever.
But he doesn't have state of the art, like fancy futuristic
appliances, as you were saying, food machine.
It's all content.
Yeah, he doesn't have food machine.
It's all contemporary stuff and he's just squatting in a
monastery.
I also think that that just makes the anachronism more fun.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it is, it's the fact that it's a wristwatch like we would
have for an electric frying pan like we might just have bought, you
know, in the past.
That's much more fun and interesting than some futuristic bliz
bloss device.
You know what I mean?
It's being made by the production team.
It just makes the anachronism much more fun.
And, I mean, this is another case where the quality of the guest
star influences Billy's performance.
Because especially in episode 3, when he starts getting the upper
hand on the monk and getting into his own habit and making the
monk think that he's got a shotgun in his spinal column and he
even says like something like, I've got a 12 ball, double barrel
shotgun aimed at the bottom of your spinal column. a stick, isn't
it?
Yeah, it's a stick.
But, you know, it's the doctor going, I'm going to blow your spine
apart.
They're really fun together there.
Yeah, really terrifically fun.
No more monkery.
And the whole, you know, he's from my planet, but he's from 50
years in the future.
Oh, so is Hitard more advanced than you was?
Is his car newer than yours.
Nothing wrong with my car and I prefer walking to a mountain goat
any day.
Yes.
We never got to see the mountain goat.
We can get the space car helmet.
Now, isn't this, you mentioned earlier, the script editor gets the
go of doing the last story with the income.
Is this Wild's 1st John Wild's 1st shot as producer?
No.
No, John R.
This last got his initial. to the unknown.
Yeah, John Wiles was probably in the office following around.
Donald Tosh certainly was.
Tosh was definitely present on this show.
Yeah, Tosh was present and I think because Dennis had wrote it, he
sort of edited it with Donald Tosh.
I could be wrong on that, dear listener, if you'd like to write an
increase.
Tosh was walking around on it.
I think Tosh did most of the work on Galaxy 4 and then was...
It's kind of, it's kind of weird because Dennis Spooner was still
in the production office for the Daleks master plan.
But Verity did most of the pre-production work on the Dalek's
master plan, and it was John Welles who actually had it in the
studio.
But Donald Tosh was also, like, it was this, it was this weird
combination of all 4 of them.
A lot of hateful people who aren't Verity Lambert coming in and
start ruining my favourite show. don't we?
Yeah, something's being taken away.
But until that happens, we do have we do still have the lovely
lightness of the monk trying to blow up a fleet of ships. with AEO
an atomic laser can. an atomic laser can. actually destroy modern
Britain as we know, you're talking about the Battle of Hastings.
We're talking 1066.
Yeah, in fact, it's even more political a thing than Billy
interfering with Richard's campaign on the Crusade or...
If only he'd thought of setting fire to Magna Carta.
But what I'm really fascinating about it is he, the monk insists
that if he stops this war and this battle and the subsequent wars
that came from it, Earth will be more technologically advanced.
But when we look back at the 20th century, Humanity has had its
greatest technological advances through war technology that has
then been adapted for home use.
And I don't know if that wasn't a popular theory in the 60s or if
that was a theory at all, but it's very interesting.
I'm saying this military progression, the space race, it was the
thing that was giving us that, you know, JPL, which has been to
tang.
No, that's actually Teflon true, but Tang no.
Yeah, no, it was the product that bought into it.
They didn't actually use it.
What are the space food sticks?
Oh, no, again, okay.
Freeze dried ice cream was though.
They didn't they?
There wasn't being up there.
New Gar in other words.
But yeah, the military was seen as a whole equal thing still, that
it won our cell security and our safety.
It was Vietnam, however, and Korea before that, Vietnam was about
to change all of that in a really conspicuous way.
Because people were finally seeing the war as it happened on the
TV.
That's right. another world inside the TV.
And which leads us to another postmodern joke in Doctor Who, where
the monkey is saying, but, you know, we'll have all this
technology.
Hamlet will prep me air on television and the doctor just sneers
down his nose.
Yes, thank you. know the medium.
What a great place then.
It's kind of like, you know what?
You know, Billy... had more faith in film and stage than
television, but he still he still kind of slumber on television
because he likes the part.
No, he saw this is his greatest part.
I think that's just a really nice little nudge in the room.
Yes, a lantern, as they say.
Oh, and we've got Althea Charlton back again.
Um, her from um, The old woman.
No, no, the young one.
Oh, her.
That's, you know, using names.
And Spike Jones would say...
Poor Alethea Charlton.
She's, you know, pillaged, can I just say, to avoid the explicit
tag by Sven and Ulf and their Viking mates.
She's pillaged into Catatonia.
And then I think it might be the one area where Spooner doesn't
balance the drive.
At the moments later, she's up making them tea or something.
But the tea had been invented, but making them something.
There is a scene there where she's just sitting there and not
saying anything.
Yeah, staring off into space and that is that is quite harrowing.
But it was just horrible lapse of tone, really.
Yeah, we didn't need to have it.
But at the same time, I think children watching at the time may
not have picked up on it.
You know, they would have thought that they scared her or
something like that.
Yeah, but I mean, really, you know, they're Vikings.
Even if they're comedy vocals.
Yes.
It is a very odd moment and oh, to overanalyse it.
It's something that Barbara was threatened with constantly and
never happened.
And now that Barbara's gone, it's happened to someone.
You know, someone has been attacked in that way.
So the show's going to take a turn into nastiness because it's no
longer grounded by the need to have Ian and Barbara in it.
And this is going to be huge in season three.
Spoiler alert, that the show does things which I think that Doctor
Who probably ought not to be doing.
Oh, and Billy thought that as well.
And it is, I think it's freed up. by not having things resembling
real people in it anymore.
Yeah.
And like however good Peter Purvis is.
He has like a really thin backstory.
And like he's virtually just there to do whatever the plot
requires.
He's where...
He's a young and sporty combination of bulldog drama.
He conducts the Douglas Vader, who, you know, was the...
But in Galaxy 4, next year, he's going to be wearing Barbara's
cardigan and sort of... muelling in an airlock.
Could that be the title of that one?
But do you know what I mean?
Like he's gotten really no discernable characteristics at all. so
it does stop grounding the show, I think, in a way.
And so that, let's call that. foil to Billy, isn't he?
And he does a great job of that.
He compliments him perfectly.
But let's see the pillaging of Alethea as the harbinger of
terrible things to calm.
Yes, yes.
Well, on that, on that downbeat note, we move into our prize
giving art section.
The Jenny Laird Award for most puzzling creative choice.
Gentlemen, do we have any thoughts?
Well, I mean, we've touched on it already, but it really has to go
to Richard Martin, who is a lovely man, undoubtedly a lovely man
and he, you know, the cravat is great, and on the DVD extras, he's
just, he just seems gorgeous.
But why is Edmund Warwick cast when he looks absolutely nothing
like the doctor at all?
to be the doctor's robot replica?
And like the whole way that's directed is really confusing?
Because I think Edmund Warwick looking nothing like Bill Hartnell
is actually meant to be the doctor at one and, you know, like it's
it's not that story isn't really a triumph of the televisual art
to be honest, however much I adore it.
And that's really its huge downfall.
So Richard Martin, possibly Edmund Warwick, why not?
They could share it.
I had Richard Martin as well, but for other reasons, and I just, I
think that it shows how the 70s would come about to get it right
and that you had more than one voice on the floor more than one
face.
And I think when you saw how Barry Letts is going to work with
Terence Dix together.
Martin is we've touched on before, would have been terrific if
they could have afforded, say, a Dougie Campfield along with him
or if the gentleness of Richard Martin and the character were
Dougie Stan, Canfield stands by himself, he doesn't need anyone
else along.
But most of the other directors do, and having someone else there
maybe just more verity on the floor, who knows?
We just know how busy they all were and how really tightly these
things were produced.
This was live theatre.
So it's extraordinary that what we see is even watchable today.
Well, I mean they're not even directing from the floor, are they?
They're up in the control.
No, they're under control. chatting down, but you know, you look
at other shows at the time that are on that are available, such as
we've mentioned before the Avengers.
Long, that's actually pretty clunky.
And that was, if not, not actually such a big budget show, but
primetime viewing, it was absolutely right on the on the edge of
popularity, this being the biggest thing there.
Doctor Who looks better frequently.
Phrases you rarely hear.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think I think my award for most puzzling creative choice.
It's something we've already touched upon again.
But I think it has to, for me, be Dennis Spooner's treatment of
women in his scripts because he has some very strong roles, but
for him, the his ultimate threat for a woman is for a man to
attack her sexually.
And that has been a lot of that, hasn't it?
Yeah, but it just seems to come up a lot with Dennis Spooner
because he does it quote unquote comedically in the Romans and
then does it quite seriously in the time meddler.
And I just...
I understand the sexual politics of the time were different, but
in...
We also had a lot of that in season one as well with Barbara
so...
Pre-Dennis.
In so, yeah.
In so many other ways, though, his characterisation, and certainly
the way he writes Barbara and Vicki, is very strong.
You know, they're very strong characters.
So I'm using the word puzzling in that.
Why that weird tension?
of, you know, we've got these strong women who can push the plot
along by themselves.
They don't need a man to guide them through the plot, but at the
same time, that is a way to imperil them.
But, you know, that is a topic for a whole other podcast.
We could do a whole series on that topic.
Um, Recommendations, gentlemen.
Yeah, I have.
Further reading homework for you at home.
Oh, this is, again, maybe because these are sort of early
recommendations and things I'm sort of treading, you know, over
sort of rather obvious ones and, you know, last time it was about
time.
So I'm going to do the same thing.
It's also published by a mad Norwegian press and it's called
running through corridors.
And it is really, really spectacular.
It's Rob Shearman, who wrote Dalek and Toby Hadoke, who's famous
for stand-up comedy about life as a Doctor Who fan and is on a
100000000000 DVD extras at this point.
And just both of them seem like lovely people.
We had Rob Shearman out at that convention that Barbara Joss was
that actually.
So he did get to meet him and he is very nice.
Toby Hadoke's sort of public persona is that he's terrific as
well.
And the idea is that they're, they go through a year.
And they're watching all of 60s Doctor Who.
They threaten to put out a 70s and 80s volume, but there's no sign
of them so far.
So it's 60s Doctor Who. the stuff that we're talking about.
And each day they watch 2 episodes and then they write to each
other about them and their aim is to be really positive about
every episode and that doesn't mean that they overlook the floors
or their polyannarish or anything like that.
But it's a really, really fun read.
And, you know, they're actual television professionals, so they
have some idea what they're talking about, unlike, you know, some
podcasts.
And like I really recommend it.
And it is also available on Kindle, although other e-readers are
also available.
Well, for me?
Well, we mentioned David Whittaker last time in the passing of
David Whittaker from the production of something that I still feel
really sorely.
I think is terrific.
We mentioned his 2 target novels, novelisations.
But the loyal listener, Greg Miller, reminded me just today that
his other great work, maybe greatest of all of post-doctor Who, is
the TV 21 Dalek strip.
He wrote that.
So the whole original backstory, Golden Emperor, the weird and
Actually, look, it's complex.
It, brilliant, it's interesting.
It's in beautiful colour.
It was on the back page of the Jerry Anderson comic book that was
sold as if it were a newspaper, beautifully produced, really
graphic and gorgeous started in 1965.
Um, as I say, Whittaker had the back page.
It ran for about 104 issues.
It's been reprinted a couple of times.
I have seen PDFs on the net.
So it still is out there.
It's just got lovely stuff on, you'll see more of that when we get
to Dalek master plan of that backstory, but it's just really
nicely written, like everything David Rutaker does.
Oh, I mean, Whittaker does the 2 great trout and dialect stories
doesn't he?
Yes, please.
And he, I mean, he really creates the Daleks in a big way.
He understands them really well.
So this is very much a sideways and just as important part of the
Doctor Who Dalek universe.
It's all stupid.
Um, I'm just going to say now with the your 2 responses to the
Whitaker Travel stories, it's going to be interesting when we get
there.
With my opinion, let's see.
I was going to put that out there.
Okay, my recommendation is something that's been around for a
while, but I showed you guys recently and you hadn't seen it
before.
So we'll put it on the website as well.
It'll be in the show notes.
It'll be in the show notes. on the podcast app.
That's right.
Whatever podcast app you.
That'll be my show notes.
But when Milton Sabotsky acquired the rights to produce the 2
Dalek films that were made.
The documentation shows that he also require also acquired rights
to another Terry Nation script.
Yeah, and they were also looking at doing Marco Poland.
They were looking at doing Marco Polo.
Now, the 3rd terri nation script in the notes, I believe is
unnamed.
So a lot of people have assumed it was the chase.
There are other people who say that's unlikely because of how
quickly the Daleks was produced.
Because of marinus, wasn't it?
Apparently it was keys of marinus.
And hence they skipped keys of marinus to do Dalek Invasion
Universe because that had Dalek said.
However, a gentleman by the name of Andrew Alton has made a 4
minute trailer for what the 3rd Peter Cushing Doctor Who film
could have been called Daleks versus Mecons.
It's very, it's very well made.
So, in Eastman colour, that lovely irrogated faded red that you
get from every eastern print you look at now.
So it's a combination of clips from the 2 existing Cushing films
new animation, and also casts Jim Dale as the male supporting
leader, Angela Douglas, as the female lead, and still features
Peter Cushing and Roberta Toby, and some other surprise actors as
well, who I won't mention because when I showed it to Richard and
Nathan and they saw those actors, they just roared with laughter.
But yeah, it only takes 4 minutes out of your day.
So if you, hey, if you've already listened this far.
You've got plenty of time you can do with another 4 minutes of
Doctor Who.
Now, before we close for the date, we did have a little bit of
consternation when we were assigning stories for this podcast, not
everyone got what they wanted in terms of stories to discuss.
And so Richard came up with an idea, which was to use the website
that Nathan runs called the randomiser, which chooses Randomiser
net, which chooses a random Doctor Who story for you to watch.
Richard came up with the concept to use that to decide which
stories we're going to look at each season.
So following Richard's suggestion, I have actually used the
randomiser to decide which stories we're going to be doing next
season.
Nathan, your stories.
Should you choose to accept them or not?
And I really don't care whether you choose to accept them because
you've got them now, you have got the myth makers. the
gunfighters.
Well, hooray and the savages.
Which is really good.
And 3 for three.
Richard, meanwhile, you have the massacre.
Good, because I begged for that.
The celestial toy maker.
Am I ecopathy?
Oh, so trooping in expectation.
And the war machines.
Oh, goody.
So that leaves me, Galaxy 4.
Hooray.
Mission to the unknown.
And the Ark.
Now, eagle eared listeners, the Eagles have good hearing?
I don't know.
Yeah, they must do.
Eagle Ed listeners will notice I didn't mention the Dalek master
plan.
We decided that occasionally a story is sort of so big or so
iconic that it's not really fair to give it to one person to lead
the discussion on.
So the Dalek Master plan will be discussed by all of us.
I just plan to interrupt whoever. you know what I mean?
Yeah, say what I'm going to say.
I know you're gonna...
So yeah, we're going to be using the randomiser each month to
decide who's doing what story?
With one caveat in that Richard did also say that if we have an
absolute all-time favourite Doctor Who story. probably appropriate
for us to lead that.
So that's why Richard's doing the massacre.
There's a particular story I will be doing later during...
There's a particular story I will be doing later during the Tom
Baker era, which is my all-time favourite, and Nathan is yet to
decide. really have a favourite.
They're terrible.
What the hell is this show?
What are you young people doing outside my podcast?
Right, so...
That is it.
That's Doctor Who series two.
It only took us 15 hours to record.
For those of you at home, our recording apparatus currently
registers that we've been talking for 3 hours and 49 minutes.
So as it is, we're going to head off and grab a bite to eat.
So I'm going to sign off.
This is chugging in the corner.
I'm going to sign off and say good night.
Flight through entirety is.
We need to come up with another thing.
Flighters, flyers, flyers, flighty listeners.
Eternists.
No, that's eternity.
We didn't even mention that anyway, forget it.
Goodbye, everyone.
Thank you for your patience.
Talk to you next time.
If anybody has a name suggestion for what to call ourselves, write
it on the back of a postcard or just write it on our website.
Goodbye.
We'll see it.
You have been listening to Flight Through Entirety with Robot
Nathan Botomley, Robot Brendan Jones and Robot Richard Stone.
This episode, she's Madame Mao, was recorded on Sunday, July the
6th.
The next episode will be released on August 24th.
You can find us online at flightthroughentirety.com, flight
through entirety on Facebook and iTunes or no success, paramount
success.
I am completely indistinguishable from the original.
Uh, so...
Um, so we've got this idea.
Sorry, I'm just gonna wait for the siren to go.
Because it will it will pick up on that.
Yeah, no, I know.
We had sirens on it before.
Success.
Paramount success.
I'm completely indistinguishable from the original.