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Don’t You Feel Every Single Centimetre?

This week, we head off into the far future of the distant planet Pluto (yes, we know, shut up), to liberate humanity from the Company, in The Sun Makers. Hey Cordo, don’t bogart the pentocyleinicmethylhydrane, man.

Buy the story!

The Sun Makers was released on DVD in 2009. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

William Simons, who plays sub-Blakean rebel leader Mandrell in this story, is more famous for his role in ITV period police drama series Heartbeat, playing Alf Ventress.

The Company takes Marx’s phrase “opiate of the masses” quite literally, drugging its oppressed population to keep them compliant. The Federation will adopt a similar tactic in Season 4 of Blakes 7, using the drug Pylene 50.

Hooray! It’s the long-awaited return of German Expressionism.

Richard points out the similarities between this story and The Space Merchants, a 1952 novel by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth. It’s still in print. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Richard also points out the story’s many visual references to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927).

How long since we last referenced Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay Notes on Camp? Far too long, if you ask me.

Henry Woolf, the Collector in this story, had already appeared in Eric Idle’s sketch comedy show Rutland Weekend Television. You can see him with Idle in this sketch, called Gibberish. He also appeared in BBC children’s programme Words and Pictures. Watch him here, he’s delightful.

After the credits, we chat briefly about the Big Finish Blakes 7 audio series, The Liberator Chronicles.

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Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. And please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll feed an index-linked two percent growth tax into your computers and blow the economy.

Bondfinger

The Bondfinger team are off to watch SPECTRE this afternoon, in preparation for our commentary track on it, expected some time in late 2017. In the meantime, you can enjoy our previous commentaries: Thunderball (1965), Goldfinger (1964), From Russia With Love (1963), and Dr. No (1962). You can keep up with the Bondfinger news on our website, as well as on Twitter and Facebook.

Episode 53: Don’t You Feel Every Single Centimetre? · Download (51.0 MB)

Season 15 The Fourth Doctor

Transcript

Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flightthrough Entirety the only Doctor Who podcast produced exclusively for work units. Praise the company. I'm Brandon. I'm Nathan. I'm a sever team steamed dumpling for this. And 17 steamed dumplings are only served in Macropolis 6 in the Sunmakers. Or is it McGroppos one? I'd love to say I love this story. Do you all love this story? Yeah, I do. If Nathan's not gonna find it tiresome, I'll have to jump in. It should be great. It's Louise's favourite story, but, you know, as a boy. There are lovely moments and beautiful lions, but this is the kind of the point for me that some shows are better done by Nick Briggs on Big Finish and this is one of them. When they don't have a budget, you've got to sit and look at it. And I'm sorry, you've also got to look at people standing in a car park with a few machines going blink, blink. The arguments between Manfred, if that's what his name, Manfred Mann and everybody else, about who's going to be the most vicious underling in a, no, my dad's bigger than yours and I'm going to get you first. Oh, do you mean, do you mean Ventris from heartbeat? Oh, God. It's interminable. So yes, I get to be Nathan today. I think it's just because the costumes look like a blue Peter puppet theatre reimagining a Fritzlang's metropolis, but with bumblebees. Like the, I know that the, um, the gatherer, how it is meant to be an Aztec thing in their very Aztec moments. Okay, let's talk about why this is great. Isn't it good? I thought I might take the opportunity to leap in and agree with you on some of these things. This is the story I like. That might be my favourite story of the season. But the production is lamentably bad. And it's it's something that they seem to get right next season. I think next season has more hits. You know, they can't have any more money, but it just generally looks better. But here the production fails. Those white corridors are terrible. And I've got lots to say about the longest white corridor in Doctor Who history before or after. That is the longest corridor shot you'll ever see and don't you feel every single centimetre of it? You wonder why they do. shoot that on videotape too, so that it looks like, you know, it's an interior. They've done that before. You're right about next season. I think that there'll be a big change, the big difference now that those budget blowouts from Hinchcliffe and his epicanthic folds. How much do latex epicanthic folds actually cost? Very, very expensive and they will cost you your soul as well. Well, and they did. Well, plus every time John Bennett blinked, he'd tear the mask in too. So, you know. Yeah, well, apparently, yeah, you're probably covered with Todd that Weng Chung, that terrific 80s group, just paying them for the rights, for the name, talents, chewed up so much of the budget for the future. Isn't Hinchcliffe a monster if we haven't even covered that yet. This is the 3rd companion who was going to be killed. Leila was going to be absolutely minced in this one. Were they going to steam? Yep. She was actually going, I don't know about the final thing. We'll have to look up the notes again to check, but she was going to die. The brig was going to die in the original hand of fear, writing. And of course, Sarah was going to be killed in Seeds of Doom in the compost mincer. Yeah. Although, this was actually Graham Williams, considering killing Leila. So they were considering killing her in the steam sequence. So they were going to subvert the usual cliffhanger by having the companion die instead, and then Robert Holmes objected, because he was still around, and he wrote this script on his way out. This year, this is actually, even though it's noted as Tony Reed as Anthony Reed, it's actually Holmes's last full job of doing everything, apparently. And also, they were considering killing Leila in the collector's office. You know, when they Leila runs through that door when the doctor tells her not to when she gets zapped. Yeah, that is strange. I'm not surprised to hear that actually. Yeah, yeah, they were considering killing her. How do you both feel that would have worked out on screen considering the tone of the rest of the season and the impact of Leela herself as a character? That would have, it would have just been a terrible idea. In my opinion. It sounds like an episode of Blake 7. Yes, yeah. We'll get to that because... This is almost an episode of Blake 7. I'm kind of loading that statement. It's even got Villa in it. He's great. Marvocating his gallantry. It's got the woman who plays Vit is in a blanket. Which is a hair removal cream. Yeah, yeah. It's Australia. Yes, if I wanted, it's a dilipatory cream and a new series of Julia Louis Dreyfus. I think it might be V. Yeah, same difference. It's also got Tom Kelly in it, who we've mentioned before. So he was killed over the face of evil. He is Nova. So he gets stuck in a wall by Leila in the face of evil. He gets stuck in a wall in the 1st episode of Blake 7. He gets stuck in barbed wire in the 2nd sapphire and steel story and here he gets stuck under a mound of work units, revolting work units, right? I can't complain about variation of career prospects. Is this his very last performance? No, he appeared. He appears in the invasion of time, and his appearance are... Under a sand dune, under a piece of moulded fibreglass furniture. Well, it gets trapped in some tin foil in the invasion. Todd would... Can't wait for that one. Richard, we have a rare occurrency. Todd agrees with you. And he's about the flying in and he can comment. It's very common. Well, come, there's no surprise to you that as a child, I really dislike this story as much as the other Robert Holmes classic, The Carnival of the Monsters. And I would have given this one two out of 10 as well. I really, really disliked all the stuff underground, and I really thought it looked really cheap. But I did quite like mine. In my mature, well, in my old age, well, in my middle age, I actually think this is a really funny script, and I think there's some wonderful performances, especially by those underground. But I ask you, what audience is Bob Holmes actually directing this story too? Because I actually don't think it's the traditional Doctor Who audience. All right, well, look, I've got some cooking to do. I've gotta go and put a turkey in the oven. I have to let it baste in its own juices. and I don't want it to overcook and get too dry. Well, it doesn't really matter, because next week, I'm going to be serving up turkey, whether it's dry or moist, a turkey is still a turkey. Todd nailed it twice. Thank you, Todd. We have to thank Pennant Roberts. He got a lot of the director of the story. Got a lot of, you know, slack later on in fan circles, for, I think, mostly for his '80s stories, which didn't quite hold up so well, and there's a reason for that, and I don't think it's pennant robbers. He's good here. Well I don't know that he's terribly bad. I just think there's no budget and no time, but there is one line he makes, which is gorgeous, but, um, Pennant Roberts, the character of man was written for a man, and Pennant Robinson, every story he's done has replaced the major secondary character with a female actor, and full points for that. It is a... She's not a great actor that she's the secretary, though. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, but she's also called... Look, I agree. Um, you know, I like her a lot. I think she's terrific, and there's a moment where the collector is getting very excited about the prospect of steaming Leila. There's a website for that. She's kind of horrified by him and scared of him and she sells that really well. And her final scene where she's deciding to join the rebels. She's also really funny in that scene. I think she's good No, look, she's superb. I can see why Louise loves loves this so much. Pennant Roberts, the other line. We go back to the corridors, is he said, you know, this was filmed at the big old tobacco factory outside of London. It was called, what was it called? the Hartcliffe whiffy or something, but it was trying to tell the actors how to stomp about under PCH, you know, the pentosylenic methyl hydrine gas, which invests an experiment with its school. It's the, you know, it's the dental thing. But anyway, wandering about with, with that. He said, and they said, well, you know, how do you want us to do it? one of the, you know, fortunate extras. he was trying to make his mark. Just look around at all the workers here in this factory. And I doubt that they're just smoking tobacco. They were looking so bored and wondering for their jobs to die. Pileen 50 actually. Exactly. If we can just throw back to why Todd, the 2nd point of Todd's question is that he doesn't like this as a boy. I did like this as a boy, but it was also instantly forgettable and I think the 2 reasons it really works is the backup cast are so strong because Roberts cares about his actors. It's a great audio script. It should exist in the mind or have you got your drink ready? Or as directed by Lang or Manao as a German expressionist film. Those. Thank you. Those white so long away. It's been so long away. Those white corridors would have been beautiful with some projections on them and just cut the lighting and make everything. You've got beautiful long white corridors are brilliant for projecting shadows onto. And all the great directors of the silent era and the early black and white know the same thing. Cut all the lights, throw some things in. You didn't need to spend half the budget on the go-go gadget mobile. Mystery van thing that they're all trundling around in at .3 K an hour trying to look terrible.ied. Independent Roberts can direct. It's so stupid. But it's great because you can recreate it in Legos, as Brendan's already done for us with our dimensions game. gone on the table. Yeah, so lighting really lets it down. Pennant Roberts, I think, is a great actor and theatre director. He's not a great visual director, and it's so unwatchable because I've always said Doctor Who, it's not what it looks like, but I was wrong. I was wrong. If this was a relationship, we'd all be in counselling now. I was wrong. It's almost unwatchable. See, I agree with you to a point, certainly with the film sequences. But in the studio, I do think Pennant is trying to get that expressionistic side. Like, if you look at Gatherer Hayes' office, It's sort of a bunch of freestanding shapes in a black volume. On a negative space. Lots of negative space. same in the steaming room and similar in the collector's office, which is a bit lighter, but you've got all those wonderful panels, which, again, are evoking that sun symbol. Yeah, and it works that kind of that kind of idea of just using flats and drapes works so well in celestial toy maker. It's obvious that it should have worked as well again. I'm absolutely giving no shrift on this. I mean, can we talk about this because this is a very, very angry Bob Holmes. It's a great story. And it's part of a big tradition, which I think does start with say, the savages or the macraterra, the happiness patrol, gridlock where the doctor overthrows like a tyrannous regime in one day. He arrives and tears down a an evil political system. And all of these stories are really allegorical. All of these stories have just wafer thin premises. Do you know what I mean? Like, if you were, if you were sort of a crazy obsessive Doctor Who fan, Richard, would you be able to fit this into the sort of continuity of Earth's Empire? You know, at some point we all go to Pluto and then we all come back. You know we don't care. The premise. So far. Well, the point is, yeah, it's so far in the future, they don't even acknowledge an earth all that. Well, they do mention it and talk about going back to it, I think as if it's a lost icon. But I like where you're going. And so what we have here, and the story goes that Holmes got a big tax bill, and he was really irritated. He's, you know, kind of politically conservative homes and we've been crossed in for various things in the past. But this doesn't read as a satire of the tax system. This reads as an attack on capitalism. And the doctor overthrows a vicious capitalist regime just in one day. So the company gets spoken of. It's not the government, it's the company, the collector talks sort of presciently like a, like an 80s Gordon gecko, an ongoing insurrectionary situation wouldn't be, you know, good for, you know, seen as positive for the company and stuff. He talks like a corporate drone. All of that sort of stuff, makes it read as an attack on capitalism. And it's really funny. It is just terrifically funny. It's packed full of hilarious lines. It gives Leila something to do. The reason Louise likes it is those scenes at the beginning of episode two, where she's trying to encourage people to go and rescue the doctor, and, you know, everyone's a coward and stuff and she's speaking in thundering, Shakespearean, iambic pentameters. Go on, Brendan, chime in. Revolution. Revolution. Yeah, hooray for Vicky. But no, I do I do love that scene as well. And I especially love it for when Cordo volunteers and she says you're the bravest person here. Yeah, no, there's some beautiful lines. I love Cordo. The reason this is such a great script, and as you say, it's interesting to talk about presidents. But the reason this story works, and the other ones you've talked about working as well. It's always been a terrific story. It was a terrific story 25 years before when it was written. by Frederick Paul and Cyril Kornbluth in 1953. I had this, as I read a lot of SF as a teenager locked in my room. It was called the Space Merchants. And it was, it's a really stand up book. You can still get it in print, and you can certainly download it on whatever device you care to use. The reason it's so well known is that Kingsley Amos, the father of Martin Amos, the great literary critic and poet, and huge James Bond fan, we may well have mentioned him on Bondfinger, and I will so again. He called this book, The Space Merchants, the greatest SF novel in English, when it came out, and everybody else agreed, the Prime Minister agreed. It's about the basis of this. If you hadn't read it, is the advertisers running the world, and the consees, or conscious people, who are the consumables, the consumers, I should say, underneath. And it's almost plot line for, it is this story. And it's well recognised that it's, you know, by the folk at the BBC, and they thought, Oh, how witty of you to rewrite this. And, of course, this whole period in Doctor Who was about rebooting. It's also the 1st revolution. I'll come back to it. It's the 1st revolution I think we've had since Reign of Terror of the Tellurians. I think the savages. It reminds me of the savages, where they smashed the system in episode four. That's true. And kind of the crotons, but I get the gons aren't human. And really, the gods wouldn't have done it themselves. It is like the Croton, though, isn't it? Because it is, it is mixing up. Homes is supposed to think. Yeah, exactly. Let's make us. Holmes has always been for an ex-cop. He's always been surprisingly really red flag. socialist. I think like Gene Roddenbury in a way, because Gene Roddenbury creator of Star Trek, was an ex-police officer as well. No, there's something about having been on the street, isn't there? I think that's where that cynicism comes from that Holmes writes with. But he's taking it somewhere positive, like he does actually have a sort of proper message. And then next year he'll do an anti-colonialism thing. Like, we do think of him as a conservative, but these are surprisingly progressive stories for him. Yeah, I think he's perhaps a conservative in the way that some people now are trying to distance, some conservatives now, I should say, are trying to distance themselves from the very right wing conservatism we see, where they say, I'm a conservative in the sense that I want people to have a family. I don't care the makeup of that family, but I want people to have a family and people who love and support them, and I want people to be able to succeed on their own success. We've got Whigs and Tories again, as Thatcher wanted 19th century politics. Weve got it. Yeah. Something I want to say to illustrate Todd's question of who is the audience for this. It's a... The novelisation of this story was, of course, written by Terrence Dix. And it's kind of blow by blow what happens in the script, but there is a bit that Terence Sticks ads, which is towards the end when the work units, sorry, people, Cordo, throw the gatherer off the roof. I really like that. Because... It is pretty astounding to see as a child, yeah. In the TV version, it ends with V saying, and we'll do the same to the collector when we see him. You know, gets a little bit Oliver. And his little dog. But in the novel, after they throw him off, they kind of laugh. And when they finish laughing, everyone kind of looks at each other, with the sense that this has perhaps gone a little bit far but a 1000 metres is a long way down. Oh, but that's just Terry being a bit conservative as well. Let's see. I like how we enjoy the revolution, in fact, in the story. I really like his sentiment and trying to teach morality to children, but I honestly think there'd been so much adrenaline they would have found, what can we chuck next? Yeah, it's also, it, Cordo was going to throw himself off the roof in episode one and they throw gatherer made off the roof. And that's the right thing to do. Oh, but this is my point. We can look at that as adults and understand the allegory and we can understand the link between those. But at this point, the show is still ostensibly being made for, as Tom Baker puts it, several levels. You know, you've got the six year old child who's scared of the monsters. You got the 10 year old child who's being brave because the 60 year old child is scared of the monsters. You've got the 15 year old laughing at them and you've got the parents saying, isn't that enjoyable? Really, I would say this story would more appeal just to the 15 year old and the adults. There's no monsters. God, now I'm Nathan. homes very frequently, doesn't do monsters. Yeah, we will talk about, we've talked about that before, but, you know, his 2 stories next year feature one monster. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's the magma creature. But that's the thing. I think design wise, this story is very much for children. People are in colourful outfits. Well, they're dressed as Lego mini figures presaging before they're ever invented. And it's canines first. Canine's actually... We should talk about canine. Canine's actually pretty enjoyable in this. I really like this. I really like his cynicism and his pithiness. We discover he runs on batteries. I didn't actually know that before. I love the tail wagging and the tail drooping thing. I think it's so cute and then Leila goes completely out of character and says, you know, canine announces that he's done something. What do you want, canine? A biscuit? But it's still it's still very, very witty. No, they you can see the actors. This is an actor's piece and it really works for actors. It's just such a sad thing. It's honestly, it's a minor point, but it just shows us what the medium is of Doctor Who and that there are lines you can't cross. It's a perfect theatre piece. And with black drops and simple lighting. It would have worked really well on stage. It requires an intimacy between the screen and the audience, and it doesn't achieve that. It actually pulls us away from the drama. We care little. The only person we really care about is Leila. Cordo, again, not necessarily. It's the way he's framed. It's interesting that, and the reason I mention metropolis and German expressionism is actually a reason. It's not called Megropolis for no other reason. There's lots of little motifs. The steam chamber that Leila is in is an exact copy of the sarcophagus that Maria the robot is in in Metropolis. There are lots. The way the controller, whoever it was, is holding the controls is exactly the same way that it's figured in Metropolis, if we look at that again. He's holding these big controls and spinning the things around. There's a way that lighting and direction can either stimulate intimacy or produce an intimacy, or it can actually pull you away and that's it. It's only one thing about this story, but it's such a big thing that I have to agree with Todd on this. I actually felt more of a separation. And it annoys me, because it shouldn't. And I remember, as a boy, thinking the novelisation, I like this story because of that. And latest performance is terrific. If Louise wasn't in this, I just don't know if it would go anywhere. I just think the script. I think the script is so clever that it. I mean, you know, this is Doctor Who, we used to ignoring kind of terrible sets and things. They're not always a separation. They're usually an integrative thing. We were talking about this earlier, that, you know, you often feel as if you're dressing up with your mates, or you're planting with your mates when you're watching it, when things go slightly wrong it encourages a kind of sympathy for the, in the audience, for what's happening on screen, because we're laughing along with them. But I don't think that achieves it in this case. I mean, part of the Williams thing is that it is pitching itself older and it is, it doesn't have the budget and it doesn't really have the design ability and it's had a few spectacular fails already this season. Well, won. And so far this season. Yeah, so far this season. And it will sort of default to a mode that requires a little bit of irony, uh, and, you know, like an audience that it is in some way detach from it and aware of its tropes and all of that sort of thing. And so you're no longer really sympathising with the characters but you're enjoying, you know, the story and the kind of raised eyebrow and just generally the attitude. And so here, there's all kinds of really terrifically funny lines but you're not in a world that you can really believe, you know you don't have any characters and so on to engage with, but I think it still works. I think it's still funny and entertaining. I think you've just hit on 2 things there. We're very much of an era of the postmodern theatre or the postmodern doctrine of theatre, and that we're critiquing while we're watching. You've just mentioned 2 very interesting things. The supercilious, ironic view, viewing back into it. I guess we're both actually saying the same thing. There's dissonance. Sontag writes about this. Susan Sontag, the SAist, in 70s in postmodern theatre. It came from the French and from other people. Beckett, of course, as an English writer, is probably the best one to raise Samuel Beckett. But there's a point of the distancing, or an awareness of the void between the performance and the audience, which is meant to create drama and heightened level of tension in the audience member and discomfort. That shouldn't happen in doctor. Well, I don't think that does happen. I think, look, it's exemplified by Mary Tam next year who just sort of strolls through the thing raising her eyebrows and just enjoying... But we've very much part of Mary's view and we are, we're her silent, invisible companion next to her. I felt to presage what's going to be coming up with you and Todd and Brendan next year is that I'm always right there with Mary Tam as Romana. I don't feel it all separated or distanced by her ironic glance. I, I, I find it humourous and I'm encouraged to take that view within the drama. So because here there's no one quite like that. Is that the problem? I just honestly think there's a lot of cerebral attention, but there's not a lot of love if we can bring it back to what would Oprah do? There's not a lot of, There's love for the ideas and there's skill and there's wit, but I don't think there's a great deal of love for the audience. Everyone's realising how clever they all are. A sort of that old phrase of everyone's obviously having a good time. It'd be nice for us to have it too. That's how I felt, and I'd like to hear Todd's response, because I suspect that's how he was feeling, as well. But his obelisk has disappeared. I can't get him back. What did you think, Brendan? Well, the funny thing, I see exactly all of what you're talking about, but like Nathan, for me, the script still brings it through. Is it enough to hold you? It's so funny. Yeah, I think you know what? think it is. But I will also admit, those scenes in the long white featureless corridors, it's only the close-ups that really hold my attention at the moment. It's like, great, Zoanna, and I said forward. Which you know were all dumb in rehearsals. Yeah, yeah. If you, obviously, if you watch this and go and make scones in the kitchen or something, just have this on in the other room, it's a great story. Yeah, you know what? It's never gonna be on my top 10 list, but it's a great... It should be, though. I'm not disagreeing with an athenist. This is a very interesting triumvirate today, isn't it? We're all sort of both disagree. all disagreeing and agreeing. I'd like to know what the listener thinks. What does our friend Greg Miller think about this? I'm sure you're writing. An old family friend of mine, who's sadly no longer with us introduced me to a great term. when I was staying at her house one school holidays. She described Star Trek 4, The Voyage Home, as her ironing movie. You know, she'd put it on and she'd do the iron. And I think this is one of those Doctor Who stories as well. You can make the scones where you're doing, or you can do the ironing. And the thing is, every time you do sort of tune into it, You're going to get a witty line anyway. That is a great... I've got an ironing era. Oh, yes? It's the pertwee era. You've actually mentioned that before too, and I think I remember going, hmm, yeah. Because the outfits are so gorgeous. There's all that money and attention. I just, on Pertley's part, is being spent on his costumes, and we know that his last season, he's just worried about his outfits. Yes, yes. The nice thing here is that, look, Louise is fabulous in this. I really like the supporting cast. It's actually up there amongst my top 25 Doctor Who stories of all time. Let's go through that and give the listener great fun being able to read that on our book. We'll do that for Christmas. in reverse alphabetical order. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because it is there, we all do that individually. It's a home story. So it can never be it can never really be wrong. But there's also that fine line of when he takes the piss and he does out of everyone and everything, including his performers. There's a little bit of distance. And at this point, for me, it's just grown that much too far. I would like to add, though, that I'm really surprised at the amount of compassion we're getting from homes, because we don't always get that. I don't think we're ever going to get it again in the future from him. But the 2 points. The one that you say that he was the one that was dead against, or was it Williams, the one that was dead against writing off Louise in this story. It's just a complete vault face. I'm really surprised to hear Holmes. Maybe he's learnt from the recent very recent lessons that you just don't do that to an audience of children. You can do it with Matthew Waterhouse. I'm really looking forward to seeing how we review that one because I know. Because he doesn't matter. Well, I don't think anyone can. Well, and also he's one of us. He was a 15 year old boy. And even teenagers don't like other teenagers. It's funny. It's funny you're saying that no one cares because when we get there, I have 2 stories about that of 2 people who cared a great deal about the... One of the one of whom is Matthew Waterhouse. Well, 3 then in that case. Okay, but back to this one. You know, I mean, we talked about this being a revolutionary thing but the Usurians who obviously get their name. Yeah, yeah, from the practice of charging interest. When the collector looks the doctor up in his database. He learns that the doctor has a long history of violence and economic subversion. And that the time lords are not bankable to deal with. What the hell were they ever considering dealing with the time laws? And how do they know this information? Did the time laws actually have some kind of congress with these seaweed? Because they're actually a fungus, aren't they? They're a fungus with eyeballs. very Kenny Everett. Well, yeah, no, I think I think it's just homes being rude about the time once again. and smashed them up in the deadly assassin he's just going to be brutal about how ineffectual they are. And of course, it does spoiler alert and kind of prefigure what we get at the end of the season. It does. And I'd actually like to go backwards as well. Have you realised that it's the only other race that uses the term Tulurians, other Lermans and Carnival of Monsters? Yeah. So I would really like to think that the Urians and the Lermans are somehow related, and that, you know, free collective bargaining is the greatest sin in the galaxy. The TGP, the transgalactic pact. Sure, we know more of that. Well, we never heard anything about it. It's a secret. Something I love about the end of this story, of course, is that you know, you've had the science fiction trope in Doctor Who before, of Doctor Talks a computer to death. So, you know, we had that in the green death. Yeah, I blame Zoe for that. She started it, didn't she? We kind of had that in the face of evil, although he also zapped it to death with some buttons. Here, the doctor doesn't talk the computer to death. The computer talks, the villain to death. Yeah, what does he do? He feeds a small, you know, negative growth rate into or something. Yeah, yeah. He makes him buy a house in Sydney and then undercharge for the rent. It is, it's that crazy thing making fun of economics and it is something that will become standard in the 1980s. It's a bit early for it here. But, you know, there's too many economists in the government. You know, my dear, what you need is a wily accountant. All of that sort of terribly funny stuff about economics which Doctor Who has never gone to before. And here it is just a few years too early. That point you raised about sympathy. You feel sympathy for every character, except the collector. You even feel sympathy for the gatherer. And how good is Henry Wolf? We've really got to throw in. It is that thing, you know, we've had this thing. It's going to come up because it's a Williams era theme where they'll write a funny script and then the actors will come in and mug and do big voices and be terribly silly. But here it really works. Like both gather a hate and the collector are huge comedy performances, but they work. And I think it works so well because Marn is played so straight. And she's just got all those reactions in the background of... Oh God, are you really doing? Okay. And she's perfect Hitchcock's sitcom society blonde. She's the budget Grace Kelly in this. her role is to be impassive and lovely. It's almost Felicity Kendall, Penelope Keith era, sitcom stuff isn't it? Henry Wolfe, who's the collector, you know? I mean, he's just terrific in all of those sort of huge, pompous homes-y and things that gather, hey, does like calling him your enormity and your corpulence and stuff like that. It's just terrific, just terribly funny, and it doesn't undermine the satire. He's still with us, you know, Henry Wolf. What about who's Gatherer Hay? No, Gatherer Hade, Richard Beach has passed on, sadly. But no, Henry Wolf is still with us. and still acting. Yeah, Henry Wolf was appearing in a show called Words and Pictures as the librarian helping children to read, and in Rutland weekend television, which was kind of like an early version of the far show or something, a faux review show, as various con men and transvestite continuity announcers. Right while this was all. It was like frocking up as Joyce Grenfell or something. I can only wish. It's been a while. Well, we're taking off from Pluto now. That's all the time we have for the Sunmakers. We will be back next week to take on Doctor Who's biggest adventure in CSO ever, underworld. I'm very excited. Yeah, I can feel the excitement from here. Please do check us out at flightthroughentirety.com, flight through entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast on Twitter. You can also check us out on Bondfinger, where we have a variety of comedy and drunkenness. About the 1st few Sean Connery James Bond films, you can find that at bondfinger.com, bondfinger on Facebook and iTunes and bondfinger cast on Twitter. We were never as drunk as Connery was. I think between us though, we've got enough hair. Just. Don't leave it in too long ago, frizzy. Until next week, may none of your steam balds be controlled by a bunch of CK with eyes. Thank you very much and good night. Good night. Good, everyone. That was Flight Your Entirety with Nathan Buttonley, Brendan Jones and Richard Stone. This episode, Don't You Feel Every single centimetre was recorded on the 11th of October, 2015. The next episode will be released on November 22nd. I can sympathise with the collector. I get a real feeling of job satisfaction when my broccoli is perfectly steamed. I think it's the phones interfering with... It could be, yeah. Okay, it seems to be all right. I won't be able to teleport up in an emergency if my Apple Watch is on airplane mode. County, counterport. I love how when Backfinish started doing Liberated Chronicles everyone complained, you've recreated the teleport sound, and they had to be very diplomatic and say, that's because it comes under the auspices of a piece of music. It doesn't exist as a clean recording, and we would have to pay the original composer for its use, and that's all sorts of legal trouble where we could. So do they... They remade the sound of it. They remade the sound and sound different. Very slightly. You know, it sounds like a really clean version of the recording. I don't remember it sounding that different. I've heard the whole 1st season. It's a bit like their... love them. Yeah, they're better. But look at what you're comparing to. They give everyone better work. Cali is a much more interestingly written character. Yeah, so they got Jan Chappell. It's everybody. Yeah, that everyone who's alive, except... Is that Simon? Because she's not in that season. She is coming up though. Yeah, well, season two. They've done a season 3 set as well. Forget Angela Bruce back again. Well, no, the whole thing is Dana has taken an escateboard and no one knows where she's gone. So it's the search for Dana and she's replaced by Tom Shadbon as Dell Grant. Really? Wow. That's so crap. I'm actually really positive about everything. leave it in.