Sophisticated Psychological Realism
Underworld just might be the worst Doctor Who story of the 1970s, which is why we spend this episode discussing Hellenistic epic, orgies in Diana Dors’s house, and the reason why you might choose to wear a bag on your head. Enjoy!
Buy the story!
Underworld was released on DVD in 2010. In the US, it was released on its own (Amazon US), while in the UK and Australia it was part of the rightfully unloved Myths and Legends box set. (Amazon UK)
Notes and links
Fans of things with real literary merit — unlike Underworld — will enjoy the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, which tells the story of the quest for the Golden Fleece and the romance between Jason and Medea.
Fans of things that are interesting — unlike Underworld — will enjoy this lurid account in the Daily Mail of the orgies that went on in the home of British film star Diana Dors, as told by her son Jason Dors-Lake.
Fans of things that are crap but enjoyable — unlike Underworld — will enjoy these high-concept traditional SF series: the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, and the Lensman series by E. E. “Doc” Smith. (The Foundation series is discussed in a recent episode of the brilliant nerd-culture podcast The Incomparable.)
Fans of amusing and inventive science fiction — you know what I’m going to say next — will enjoy Bea Arthur as the fem-puter in the 2001 Futurama episode Amazon Women in the Mood.
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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 completely run out of money and ruin your favourite TV show for four weeks.
Bondfinger
We’ve recorded our commentary on You Only Live Twice (1967), and it will be released in two weeks’ time. In the meantime, you can listen to our commentaries on 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 54: Sophisticated Psychological Realism · Download (53.1 MB)
Transcript
Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety the only Doctor Who podcast which has made in Minot stamped on its bottom. I'm Brendan. I'm Nathan I'm a lovely golden sheepskin somewhere. Let's hope you find me. And we're getting a bit allegorical as we dive into Doctor Who's greatest CSO adventure ever, underworld. Well, this is my story, and it's just absolute... Really, really, truly terrible. Oh, I don't know. actually kind of like this. I like this a lot more than the last one. That's extraordinary. I like the 1st episode more. Yeah, can we start at the beginning? The 1st episode has amazing model work. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. It does have really good model work, and in fact, the model work this season's good. The invasion of time will have quite good. Yeah, yeah, too. They've set the benchmark, believe it or not, with Invisible Enemy. And this story, again, to get a whole day of model shooting and up to the level of, we keep talking about Star Wars, but it is actually going back to the Andersons. It's Space 1979 and they're trying to compete with ITV for that or ITC, I should say for that one. And I think they do it really well in this. And I think the high concept kind of idea that we're on the edge of the universe and planets and star systems and things are being created. I think all of that stuff's really great. And I think it's quite memorable. I think the set for the R1C. The R1C? The set is really good and it's. a tax form, isn't it, really? It'll be, it'll be. Set is gorgeous as we discover it chewed up most of the budget they did reuse it later on, as they said, a P78. And they, it is in itself a reuse of the Titan shuttle bridge. Oh, it is too. Yes. and that was deliberately planned. because Graham Williams was aware, 1st of all, that his budget was going to be slashed. Thank you, Philip, Epicanthic folds, Hinchcliffe. And secondly, that he had 2 spaceships in 2 stories, well, let's try and use that a bit more. From a season progression point of view. We started out on Earth. Then we went to the asteroid belt. Back to Earth again, and out to the asteroid belt again in image of Vendal. Then we went out to Pluto, and now we're on the very edge of the universe. So the idea of the doctor teaching Leela. Although it seems to have been lost this season. He is taking her to places, sort of, to do with the exploration of humanity. Now, we don't have humans in this. We have minions. Not little yellow people with single eyes and overalls. Although, once you get the helmets off, not far off. Oh, my God. God, they're minions. They're minions. What the hell are they, by the way? They say they've evolved if they evolved from minions and now they've got metal cylindrical hands? I mean, what the hell are they? Cylindrical heads with a bit of a seam around the top, shall we? ridiculous. Angry red eyes. Angry red stop lights, yeah. Stop the script. It's really. I mean, it's really, truly awful. And I think the really telling point is that one of the main characters tries to kill herself out of sheer boredom in episode one. So she's she's on a set that seems to be as large as anything we've ever seen and Doctor Who. It looks gorgeous. That regeneration chamber is one of Rod's paintings, the one just... I mean, so they regenerate because, you know, they're known to the time or they've been on this quest for 100,000 years. But Tala doesn't, she's like in old lady makeup and sort of 20s wig, you know, 20s slap of wig and then she's going to die and she tries not to regenerate because she just wants to kill her. She wants Maggie Smith's career, so she's looking so much like her right now. Yeah. No, I just want, look, and Jackson, the character, Jason Jackson in this one, kind of sums it up as well. You know what? I think it actually comes down to performances. We've got some really good actors in this. I'd like to signpost Alan Lake and get to him later on as Herrick. He's extraordinary. It's scary in a Blake 7 episode when he kills Mike Yates, doesn't he? a seriously good actor and a serious monster, which is why you don't see him in more things. He's kind of the Peter Finch, Oliver Reed, of TV, of 70s TV. We'll get to him later, but, you know, James Maxwell, who's playing Jackson, the captain. It should be there should be some impetus from him, but when he says it's been 100,000 years going on and on and on. All you get is the sense of utter fatigue and ennui. And we've taken back to Hebrews 138, aren't we? As you would know. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, forever. They're born. I mean, they're bored. We land on a spaceship where everyone is utterly bored and no one is... No one is interesting. Do you know what I mean? everyone is just sort of terrifically dull. I have to agree. Look, aside from Alan Lake, I don't think there's a decent guest performance in this. Oh, the extras, though, are the best worst extras. Mercy for my dead baby. Jenny is like the Jenny led company true. pilings and they're all superb. Oh, but, you know, Imogen Bickford Smith. That's Tala. Her agent was billing her as, oh, she's going to replace Leila and Graham Williams apparently said, who told you this? Oh, my agent thought it would look very good. You're not even very good, dad. Oh, yeah. She was a bit posh and a new Princess Diana. I mean, you say Jackson's sort of delivery about, it's been 100,000 years presents ennui. I think he's acting like, have I left the iron on? I've been out for 3 hours. Is that enough time to burn down the house or just the carpet? You know, he looks like he's doing some very complex mathematics. I don't get any sense that he's been on this long journey. It's relying far too heavily on our snow, which we probably did. School kids and certainly you, Nathan, would have known, the Homer. So. No, it's not Homer so much. I mean, there's sort of references to the Argo and things all throughout Greek and Latin literature, but the big sources, the Argonautica buy Apollonius of Rhodes. And I have to say I haven't read it, but it's a Hellenistic epic and what it's really famous for. So Jason is sent by Hera, possibly, by Athena. Some bint in a toga, yeah. Yeah, it's a horrible, self-centred goddess, and sent off to get the Golden Fleece, but it's really to get Madea, whom he'll fall into. Diana Rigg, who will, yes, obviously played by Diana Rigg, who he'll fall in love with, and then he brings her back, and then he will trick the daughters of King Pelias into boiling him alive because he's a terrible tyrant, sort of thing. But the, like, Apollonius version is famous for kind of what people now are gone as a sort of sophisticated psychological realism in the way that the characters of Jason and Medea are treated. Well we certainly get that in this show. Well, Medea's not even in it, unless it's, it's a normal Tipton's character, perhaps. No, all of the characters that we meet in episode one have analogues in crew members of the Argo. And there's different lists of crew members of the Argo. and the Argonauts are a sort of Avengers assemble things, you know, where a lot of heroes from other stories all come together. So you've got Jason, is Jackson, Herrick, Herrick, Herrick. Tala is Atalanta. She doesn't travel on board the Argo in Apollonius because Jason won't let there be a woman on board, but she's in it in some ways. They only sprain their ankles. Orphus Orpheus? Could that be a metaphor for Williams taking over from Philip Hinchcliffe, because Williams will let there be a woman on board. Yes, for change. So, and okay, so it's terrible, but, you know. Sorry, Authors Orpheus, which is why he has a ray which placidizes people. Exactly. that's right He famously calms warlike people like Leila. That is a lovely, lovely scene at the beginning with... His name is Or, and the doctor snaps Leila out of it by telling her what a horrible person she is. I hate that scene and then she turns into a petulant child who's sulking and wants to attack someone because like her dignity's been taken away or something. It goes absolutely nowhere. We don't see that. It's more Baker and Martin stuff. And we're talking Tom Baker. It's actually Tom is, you know, I used to said it the other week for someone who hasn't been in the show this long. He's really become a petulant oligarch, like so many of our Tory leaders on both sides of, you know, both Britain and Australia. He's really awful to his companion. And I really wish someone had had enough backbone to just pull him up and say, Tom, this is going to look terrible. Yeah, be nice. It doesn't work. See, I don't think he treats Lever too badly in this one. Because when he's giving her that speech or if, you know, you're grumpy in this and bad temper too. He's not doing it in a mean sort of way. He's actually doing it to counteract the effect someone else has had on it to change a personality. You know, he's saying, yes, you're grumpy and this and bad tempered too. I'm giving, you know, I'm giving that back to you because it's just been taken away. Yeah, he doesn't try and snap Herrick out of it. Who cares about Herrick? No, it's like, hold on, you've just done something to my friend. What's the point of that? Is it just a chew up running time? Oh, of course. It's a Bob Baker, Dave Marks. I think it's a joke about I'm glad you mentioned Herrick. I think it's a joke about Alan Lake. Alan Lake, as I've mentioned before, it wasn't getting work, even though he's considered such a brilliant actor. People thought he was great. Graham Williams has talked about him as being a brilliant. Tom loved him. They got on very well together, even. He fights with absolutely everyone on set. He was a terrible alcoholic. He was married to Diana Dawes. Still at this point. They called her the answer to Marilyn Monroe in Britain, but she was actually before Monroe. And nobody had asked the question. Yeah, and she and a really big star, probably Britain's biggest paid platinum blonde, certainly biggest paid star of the 50s and 60s. They were also notorious for their, I can't put it in any other wave except in the Greek orgies at home. Alan Lake would organise them. There was a room with huge circular bedroom they had with, this is all documented with a mirror ceiling that was a two-way mirror, and they'd all sit above, and Bob Monkhouse was a victim to this. A comedian. It's actually where they filmed that scene from Russia with love with the camera behind it. That's exactly that. The camera behind the bed. That's right. If only they'd had the same cast. And it got to the point, though. She became a big woman and I love her for that as well. And she would just go around making scones for people while they'd be enjoying these orgies. So, son, Jason, um... Very Roman. The son Jason had a terrible time with alcohol and drug dependency. He's our age, and he's only really just come out of it in the last few years and written a book about growing up with these abominable parents, but he also said they're immensely talented and very clever, but they just had absolutely no link to other people. And I think now we're back to the script of underworld. Well... Funny you should say that because we have a circling obelisk above us. You've got to do something about the see-through finish on the underside of that thing. It's a two way mirror. All right, I came into disguise wanting to defend the script against the special effects. Or I wanted to defend the acting against the script against something. I don't know. But as this went on, I just got more and more despondent. I don't think there is a script there. I think the script is the last thing in the bottom cupboard that Robert Holmes left, and Anthony Reed has just got it and gone, We have to put something on. I just would rather watch Planet of the Daleks twice in a row nonstop, than ever have to watch this again. I actually think this is one of the worst stories in the history of Doctor Who, and it's really galling that this story has the highest rated episode of the season. I mean, no wonder Doctor Who's had such a bad reputation in the late 1970s for crap special effects and performances. I've just been texted by my dear friend, Rodan. She's having a problem with her induction barriers. Oh, the poor woman. I will have to go and give her some help. Yeah, Todd's right. It's the usual bricolage effect of the Baker Martin thing. All these ideas. Let's throw every idea we can, and, oh, look how they've fallen out on the floor. It's like going through your Lego box and putting something new together. But it's also, you know, this thing where you do a sci fi take on a legend. And, you know, in a way... My concept legend. Star Wars does that as well. Well, Foundation does it. It actually, sorry, when you were talking about high concept stuff the 1st episode really works, because it touches on Doc Smith and the Lensman, and it touches on foundation, and kids were reading more in those days, we didn't have as much to watch. So the big concept, SF novels, this is integrating with that and throwing up a lot of expectation because of that. But what I mean is like taking a myth and allegorising it, you know, we get it in Horns of Nimon in a couple of years time. And so what do you do, what do you have? And it becomes a bit of a thing in science fiction of this time. Star Wars is a sort of example where you take mythic elements or even just whole myths. and then reinterpret them wholesale as science fiction. And so this is, as we said, taking the journey of the Argo. But what it takes is really fun, romantic, mythic ideas. So you've got a golden fleece hanging from a tree at the end of the world, guarded by a dragon, and you turn the golden fleece into... A couple of plumbing rolls. cylinders. You turn the tree into some crummy CSO corridors, and you turn the dragon into, you know, a few sparks that, you know, delay the doctor and Leila for about maybe 15 seconds of screen time. And so the whole thing is just vastly, vastly less interesting than the source material. Again, we come down to the transposition from the really interesting ideas and not, oh, okay, it's not the script we just had, but it shouldn't be that bad to a visual. Oh, hang on. No, it's the opposite. Visually, it looked really good to start with. What's going horribly wrong here? You talked about Doc Smith, you know, Lens Smith, that sort of thing, as example. Yeah, big stories. and they're terrible. I mean, Doc Smith is shockingly bad. Okay, they're not that well written, I've got to admit. when you're 12, 13. One love one. And the concept of gorgeous foundation is fun. Yeah, but compared to this, do you know what I mean? This has no stakes, no action. I've got my notes here. And I've just written the words dull, dull, dull, dull, dull for part. for part two. I've just got sex comedy romp. Rod has. When the R1C went into the pile of crap, I felt that was an analogy. No, he's right. He really is... I mean, this is just really terribly boring and terribly dull. And, like, you've got villains, and the villains used to wear bags on their heads. Do you know what I mean? Oh, and yes, all of the episodes are underrunning. And so... By an enormous... And so I'm starting to notice the baghead villains wandering through the corridors. In the same short time over and over again. And like I'm taking audio notes as I'm watching it and I hear myself like, oh, my God, it's another scene of that surveillance camera. You know, it's it's slow. It's got nothing going for it. impoverished, isn't it? I mean, Tom, the thing that it sustains it is that Tom is so cranky about all of that, that the energy that he's just got battered up, and this is why the scenes with he and Alan Lake are great for me. There's not enough of them. It should have been the Herrick and Tom show. It's funny that we keep talking about Star Wars because Star Wars in the UK was released between the Sunmakers and Underworld being broadcast because Sunmakers was broadcast just before Christmas this was broadcast just after Christmas. So, you know, there's no sort of Star Wars influence here, as you were saying earlier, Richard, it's more of a Jerry Anderson influence. But it's interesting that Doctor Who is kind of copying. what other sci-fi is doing, and that is the filmation and animated sci fi series from America, which were constantly recycling shots of people running along and having outlines of what happened. I am thinking Star Trek, the animated series. I'm thinking Planet of the Apes, the most boring cartoon series ever. It's so unfortunate, and I think the big problem is... No disagreement to you. I'm not even going to say problematic. It's just really terrible Tyresome. It's tiresome. problematic. It doesn't work very well with us tropes. But I think I'm getting drunk on all of them. The biggest problem is you can't even lay it at the feet of Baker and Martin. It's a decision made by the production team. The production team decide to have all the caves on CSO, so they don't have to go out on location and shoot caves. They don't have to build full-size cage sets. They can save some budget that way. And it's kind of like, you know what? If you're gonna do that, okay, but accept the fact that the CSO is limited. And what you do is you have a bloody cracker script, so the CSO doesn't matter. And this script, And the invisible enemy are indicative of that thing Todd has been saying all the way through season 14, which is Bob Baker and Dave Martin write 2 good episodes of Doctor Who a year, and in this year they write eight. I don't think they managed 2 good episodes. What are you talking about? I mean, this is, you know, and the CSO is bad. So you'll have characters running through shot with, you know, bits of them don't... Well, they run up the side of a wall. Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, they seem to be turning a corner into a corridor, but it just looks like they're walking out through the wall. It's a brave choice. It's a brave choice, but it's not the worst thing. stupid choice. It is bad. It's really, really bad. It's not the great pop art comic books there, so we got in Terror of the Autons, which was really fun, or even the mutants. And you know, I'm no fan of that story, but I would much prefer to watch the mutants over this. They were arresting visuals, though, CSOs. They were the colourful... They were gorgeous. And they were very much of the idiom of the time. It felt like the top of the pops. It felt like very glam. But there was also that sense of transcendence. And that sense of genuine other reality. Whereas this is shoddy and dull and everything's brown and there's really... Everything's brown. I think we've got a title. Come to think of it, why isn't it psychedelic? Why does it have to be brown? If it's going to be brown. Just put it in a real cage. I would have loved. Thank you. I would have loved a glittering. This is the fact we're talking about last time of Doctor Who has always was always, and the reason we loved it in the early days was that it thought, like, in fact, the Avengers stories that Brendan's talked about, it thought beyond and above itself, and it thought to the future. It was never in and of its time. It was kind of just at the fringe of now and then what else? I'm always promulgating. Now, it seems to be recidivist. It's actually looking... What do you reckon? Yeah, the where's the imagination? There's some great ideas. But I'm not getting them conceived into visual. This should have been a glittering space. The only thing that's kind of engaging and even as a child is the null gravity point where they're floating down. And I like that because that's so bad. I like it because Tom looks completely disinterested in the actual area, which says, yeah, of course. This is just a normal effect effect of being at a null point scientifically, it almost works. You know, you are actually at the centre, it's the centre. No, it's another, it's another planet Voga where we've got no idea what gravity is and how it works. But the dismissal of Tom and the, yes, but it's kind of bloody in general. What can I tell you? And as a child, we loved those moments of other. Yeah, yeah. That is this stories. We're heading into the land of dreams and fantasies, Leila. you know, it's it's kind of the redeeming thing. Like you say, it's lack of imagination. We're having a cave. Let's make it brown. Yeah, that would be great if you didn't have almost everyone else in the story wearing brown. The doctor's wearing brown. Leila's wearing brown. The miners are wearing brown. It's minors again. The overseas? It's 1977, if you remember, there was a lot of chocolate focarti and velveteen on your mum's modular sofa. There was. Yeah, yeah. We haven't even got to the quarry tiles yet, have we? We've got characters in spacesuits. So the spacesuits have to be reflective. Not the best idea. When you're doing CSO. It's really just. You can feel that it's rushed and you can feel that Williams is kind of just holding on there. But all points to him because we know this was not going to get produced. The directive was, it's okay. you can have this time off the season because you don't have the money to do it. But then they would have lost that same, because this is how the BBC would. They would have lost that budget for the next year. So they had to do it. Well, we'll talk more about that next week as well with the invasion of time because it continued to press on and push in there. Look, I know they were up against it in terms of time, but I think a few extra hours at the pre-production stage of just if someone had said, is that the best we can do? Is that the best we can do within the fact that we need to do this all within the studio, within the fact that we need to do this all against green screen? Still think about... Brown caves. Okay, how about blue caves? Because we're keying them in. How about green caves? Because we're keying them in against green and that'll keep the lighting right. You seem to have forgotten that minerals can also be highly colourful. Yeah. You know, I didn't think I was so angry about the story, but I really am because it could have been mindless and passable, but instead it's just mindless. But I really, really think that the production problems, although they're terrible. They're not the worst thing about it. The worst thing is the script. And it's this just continual blind spot when it comes to hiring Bob Baker and Dave Martin. Instead of getting them to serve the tea. You know, they're really, really, really terrible. And they'll continue next year to be utterly terrible until they break up. Do you know what I mean? That was an acrimonious divorce, wasn't it? But the levels of sort of self-hatred in that writer's room. you know what I mean? We're responsible for the hand of fear. Oh, darling, it's fine. do it, you know. Let's talk villains. We have mentioned that the villains just are guys with bags on their heads. They have names, apparently, but I can't remember any of them. What are they trying to do? don't know. They're trying to protect the shiny things. The race banks. I don't even know if they're race banks now. Yeah. It's just, you've got Oracle who I'm pretty sure was lifted for an episode of Futurama, as the Femputer, as played by BR. No, no, the Arthur. Yes, that's right. Sigourney Weaver plays the pron of the expression, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, you've got this. Admittedly, you know, female computer, female sentient computer. You don't see that very often in sci-fi. Well, not since last year. Not since last year when it was Pamela Sailor. Yeah, and let's just think of what a just pathetic, dismal retread that computer is of the wonderful computer the previous year. And does everything sort of on one level? in the face of evil. Yeah, no, it's terrible. And then what's its plan? It duplicates, so we're here to get the race banks. you know, as if we care and and you know, I think you get a sword and you kind of prize the race banks out of the computer and and head off with them, but really they're bombs or something. Yeah. And then when they give them the bombs back. The baghead guys are such obtuse idiots that they refuse. Why are they wearing bags on their head? Like, it's crazy. You can't tell who's talking? You don't care. They all have names, I think, in the script, but you can't tell them apart and they have no characters. It's not like Rego. They're Daleks, isn't it? There's Rask. Tarn, Klimpt, Unk, and Luck. Didn't they? Weren't they all drivers in the wacky roses? Nathan, I have waited. over 50 episodes to say this to you. I don't know who any of those people are. And there is, of course, also Norman Tipton. As Arctics. As an Edas. He's Arctics in Blake 7, although they're essentially the same character. Well, I actually think he's much worse in this than he's in Blake's. Junior Eric Idol. Yeah, he's got something going for him in the Blake 7 episodes, is it? on 2 very early Blake 7 episodes. But here he's just utterly wet and pathetic and then his father who, you know, they're going to sacrifice and it's just, I think that the sacrifice scene is something that's always really terrible in Doctor Who. It's just lazy and kind of something that we've done a 100000000000 times before. But here, who should be at stake, but Edas' old father, just to up the stakes and make everyone at home, not give a toss about what's going on. We wouldn't see such care for the audience again until the scene in the twin dilemma where someone's stolen some vegetables. Oh, God. Why are we watching this show? Oh, it's lovely. Can we just do Blake 7 now, please? I'm just going to make a cup of tea, listener, if you're wondering. I'm thinking of drinking myself to death. You can do that on tea too if you watch this. There are some great moments in this, and I've got to say, thinking back to my 12-year-old self. really enjoyed it. Episode one. Sorry, I really enjoyed episode one and episode four. You know, I think it's got almost nothing at all going forward at all. It's gone to a point where you've got, if you have to ask your inner child what he thinks. Yeah. There was one good bit. Okay. One good bit. It's when the uh, one C is full of the, are they called trogs? Yeah, they actually are called. Yeah, troglodytes, trogs. So they're called... They're the descendants of the original minions, and they're all you know, kind of... They're very, very sensitively acted. They're all cluttering up the pilots. They all get to get shouted at by unloads. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a very highlight for all of them, really. So they're all cluttering up the place and Jackson wants to get rid of them. And the doctor makes the point that, you know, the stupid cylinder things are, you know, the minion race banks. But these, these are the actual descendants of the minions, you know, these, you're here to get people not to get a stupid science fiction thing. And that nearly, nearly qualifies as a worthwhile thing to do in the story. But it is all over quite quickly. Yeah, they scrub over typically. And it's not Tom's fault that it's scrubbed over too quickly. For me, the best thing about this story is episode one. I think episode one is actually perfectly possible. So I find it really fun. I've been to a Lego version of it the year it came out. It's for bored people, one of whom is trying to kill themselves. Do you know what I mean? Like it's... They were all doped out anyway. But it's also, it's also Tom and Louise realising they've got 3 pretty crap weeks up ahead. But still acting and giving performances. You know, Tom's not bored in those scenes. which would become a thing he would do later when he didn't like a script. It all just goes rapidly downhill. And amazingly, I'm going to be Todd here. Part 4 gets the highest rating of any episode this season with 11.70000 viewers, over 20000000 more than episode three. What was happening that week? It was raining a lot. It was 28th of January. So it was miserable. Yeah, miserable. All the pubs and clothes. So is this the worst Doctor Who story since the celestial toy maker? I just want to say, though, as we've, if you ignore the CSO, if you make it beautiful, if you really like it gorgeously and you've got it. Then it would be the worst story of all time. Yeah, at least of the 70s. I think it's the worst story of the 70s. It really proves my point that great design will propel a story to the forefront and make it work, but without a story. Yeah, it's not like Sunmakers last week. It was a lattish and, you know, expensive looking production, but it was at least written by someone who had the slightest clue of what might be entertaining to watch on television. But this, you know, there's not that much CSO in it. It really... well yeah, there is. But it just really is truly terrible by 2 writers who long since should have retired to raise begonias, I think. Well, we've napped the Golden Fleece, and we're popping back off to paint the rest of the TARDIS now as we leave Underworld behind us with a very bad taste in our mouth. We will be back next week to discuss Graham Williams' first end of season extravaganza, the invasion of time. Please find us online at FlightthroughEntirety.com, flight through entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast on Twitter. Those of you who are fans of Skyfalls and we don't mean rocks falling on your head. Please don't forget we have several James Bond commentaries available on Bondfinger.com covering now most of the Sean Connery era. So that's Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and iTunes and at Bondfingercast on Twitter. Until next time, may all your Skyfalls not include Daniel Craig saying he'd rather kill himself than play James Bond again. Thank you very much and good night. Good night. Duck your heads. That works. Like your entirety with Nathan Brockenry, Brendan Jones, and Richard Stone. This episode, sophisticated psychological realism was reported on Sunday, the 11th of October. The next episode will be released on November 29th. Stay tuned for some of Nathan's live reactions as he was watching Underworld. Oh, God, here goes. Underworld episode one. Leo is operating the TARDIS controls for some reason. How is that working? Model shots are good, and so is the nebula effect. It's the set's all right. You know, everyone's very boring though. All right, after all. For once, there's a woman on board the ship, but everyone's so boring, no one cares. So you're going. Well, that was really just a massively uninteresting episode. Like really nothing at all happened. It's underworld part two. Oh, here's these people running through the crappy CSO corridors. This is dismal. So who's Idmon? These people with their bags on their heads are very boring. What the hell? Are they the seers? They just delivery is terrible. The door massively slow. Just they're just reusing shots. It's so crap. Another shot of that surveillance camera. What's going on? We're just wandering around. Do something. God, it's also undramatic. Whatever blows can be sucked. Just a massively undramatic and uninteresting playhanger to a really uninteresting episode. What's the point of this? It's really not the CSO, that's the most offensive thing, although that's often terrible. It's just that this is so boring. What the hell is the point of it? There doesn't seem to be anything interesting going on at all now. That was a very dull episode. All right, it's underworld episode three. I've waited a week or more between watching because I couldn't bear to look at it, but here it goes. Horribly undramatic cliffhanger and here it is reversed. But just by reversing the video, it's very easy. And the villains don't even seem to have names or any characteristics at all. They're just incredibly boring. I must say these 32nd scenes of canine going down CSO tunnels are very boring. It's hard to know why they're included. One of the seers, the main guy has an incredible voice, but those hats, the facemasks are just ridiculous. What's the point of them? This fight scene with the escaping slaves is just incredibly pointless and boring. People running around shooting one another. is just not very interesting. And Herrick just sacrifices himself for absolutely no reason. There's nothing. Oh, there's a speaking woman. Oh, now we're doing the Trojan horse. Blah, blah, blah. What are they? The seers. They've just got metal heads. What are they? They've evolved? What is that? Oh, and apparently the doctor and leader are about to be crushed because he fell by accident or something, but it's all shot very undramatically and it's not quite clear what's going on. The woman who speaks is called Naya for some reason. All right, now it's underworld, part four, which means that there's not very much left to go, and I'm anticipating a massively long reprise, which will be nice. The more shooting with guns. Oh my god, I've got nothing to say about this. This is so incredibly dull. And you can just prize the race banks out of their box with a sword, can you? That's amazing. Oh, look, there's a child, that rarely happens. I mean, it is good that the minions are people, like what they actually get is people rather than gold cylinders. Like that's something. Oh, dear. The modern work isn't good. Yeah, it took the Oracle a while to realise they were bombs. Oh, there's some decent model work there. Like episode one. They're not so bad. Oh, dear. Well, that was terrible. So, Norman Stewart. Wait, he never directed again or before, I think.
