Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast which never suffers from scringes, no
matter how cold it may be.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
And I'm Romana Voltana.
Or Todd.
We might just have to call you Fred.
We are heading into the key to time season now.
Robert Holmes is back on writing duties for the Rebos operation.
Are you sure you pronounce that correctly, Brendan?
No, so I went for both in one.
I started saying ribos, and then I switched to Reebos.
Shall we just call it rhubois?
Like the tea?
Is that how you pronounce that?
We have Graham Williams' 1st full season that he's commissioned
from start to finish.
And straight away, it's very different from other seasons because
the doctor is sent on a mission by the White Guardian.
So, it's been observed before that the doctor gradually outgrows
his bosses.
So, you know, he works for unit and he's outgrown unit, and he has
that speech at the beginning of Pyramids of Mars, where he
declares that he's not interested in sort of running around after
them anymore.
And then the time lords, and he's now been to the time lords
planet, and they've been completely shorn of mystery, and so he's
outgrown them.
And so he's got a new set of bosses, the Guardians.
What do you think of them?
I've got to say, the 1st scene with Cyril Luckam sort of sitting
in the city in the wicker chair on the kind of top of the pops
bush landscape.
Uh, he's great.
I really, really like him.
And the wonderful thing is, he has so much menace. just in his
performance, like that whole thing of, you know, what will happen
to me if I refuse nothing at all.
Ever.
No, he's just the right mix of camp and threatening.
What I find most interesting is the whole genesis of the idea of
the Guardians.
Graham Williams, coming into Doctor Who was a producer, felt that
it was very irresponsible to have a hero who did not have some
kind of heroic mission to accomplish and had no responsibility.
You know, could just run around doing whatever they liked and
weren't answerable to anyone.
So he was actually going to try to have some sort of overarching
responsibility for the doctor in his 1st season, but they were so
up against it as we discussed a few weeks ago with a horror of
fang rock being a replacement script and underworld and the
invasion of time.
Oh, God, that he didn't have time to implement it for that, but he
decided to implement it for this season.
So this is part of his pitch to become producer.
Yeah, yeah.
Give the doctor a mission.
But it's interesting, like you've got these guardians and the key
to time, and I always think about, well, then, well, who created
the key to time, and is it just some little game that they like to
play between themselves, or is there somebody above them?
Yeah, the whole I think the whole thing's a bit stupid.
I mean, the Armageddon factor calls it Guardian technology, the
key to time.
So it's something that the Guardians created.
But to keep themselves in check.
Well, I suppose.
It is very strange.
And certainly the fake out in that beginning scene is that it's
God. don't you think?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's meant to be God.
God, and God is now calling on the doctor to do a mission for him
and there's, you know, the heavenly light flooding in and organ
music and that kind of thing.
It's the scene that Holmes has now done twice before, where the
doctor is briefed on his mission.
Previously, it's been the Time Lord.
So in Terror of the Autons, and then again, in Genesis of the
Daleks, which, you know, Holmes was script editing.
You know, we get a big info dump.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the doctor gets sent on a mission.
And the mission is kind of crummy, I think.
Really?
We will talk about it as we go along, I think.
And the whole thing is sort of brought up horribly short by, you
know, a disastrous final story to the season.
And a massive rejection of the whole idea of going on a mission
the very, very last scene of the season is the doctor.
Well, we're getting ahead of ourselves.
We are getting ahead of ourselves.
But there is a very, very definite rejection of the whole idea of
going on a mission.
And fortunately, the mission doesn't particularly impact the
stories all that much.
No, no, it really doesn't.
And I want to come back to that as well when we get to season 18.
So if I forget, please remind me.
Also worth mentioning at this point is Ian Marty's novelisation.
I listened to it read by John Leeson, I believe. read by John
Leeson, that's right.
I'll do anything for the podcast and it's really good.
Yeah, yeah.
I particularly love, because, of course, the TV story just starts
with the doctors built canine Mark 2, who, contrary to
expectations, looks exactly the same as the original one, because
that's why we just saw a box at the end of the last story, because
Matt Irvin and Ian Scoon said, oh, we'll redesign it, and Graham
Williams thought they meant the outside, but they just meant the
innards.
It is much quieter.
It is much quieter, much, much quieter, and a bit nimbler.
Although there are lots of scenes where the doctor and Oman are
running and there's no way that...
Yeah.
There's a lot of scenes where they'll start with canine in front
of the group and they'll stop and have their conversation and then
they'll have to run.
So canine only has to go about a metre and they still outrun him.
But Ian Marty's version of that is the doctor's built canine sort
of far away from the Godsole room and then comes to the Godzilla
Room to test the dog whistle, but he doesn't realise the dog
whistles ultrasonic.
So he almost passes out blowing into the dog whistle for 5 minutes
straight, trying to get it to make a noise and canine comes in and
essentially says, I can hear you.
And of course then...
Mary Tam turns up.
What do we think of Mary?
We've actually met Mary, which is kind of exciting, and that will
play into the podcast from time to time, particularly when we talk
about her outfits, I think.
I did allude to that in my introduction, calling her Romana
Voltana.
That's a little convention anecdote, which I'll probably drop in
at some point.
But, you know, she turns up with this bun hedge, which always
reminds me of Dana Troy in season one of Star Trek, The Next
Generation, and I think looks absolutely awful.
But then in the very next scene, the hair's down, and she's got
the brush and doing it.
It's just so glamorous and wonderful.
So she's a reaction to Leila, isn't she?
Yeah, Sand.
So, Leila was, there was a kind of sort of patronising subtext to
Leila, where she was being civilised by the doctor, which was sort
of slightly offensive, really.
But here, she's the doctor's equal, and he's better than him in
some respects.
Yeah, absolutely.
Initially, they did consider bringing Rodan back.
Which is, you know, not surprising since, you know, there's some
of those scenes, of course, have already discussed, that there's a
rapport there when she's inside the Tartars, but in the invasion
of time, yeah.
You can see that she's a prototype remark.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
In a way, I'm glad they didn't because I think Mary's much better
but there was nothing wrong. with the performance in that I think
it is significant, and I have a lot of respect to Anthony Reid in
scripted, bringing back Robert Holmes to introduce a brand new
companion.
He's been there for every major introduction for the 1970s, whether
scripting it, or whether it be script editor for all the
companions.
All of the companions had been introduced in the first story of
the season except for Leila, but that was even billed as the first
story of the season.
And I think it is something that's significant.
You know, in the 1970s, beginning of the season, new companion
people end, the new series does the same thing.
The '80s breaks that, you know?
And that might have some sort of impact, which we discussed later
on.
And this is the last major time that a brand new companion is
introduced by homes.
Next year, we do get a new actress playing Romana, but it's still
Romana, you know?
And she was introduced in the previous series. this is really the
last time that this sort of happens.
And, I mean, what's especially amazing about Robert Holmes writing
for this season is you have Robert Holmes writing for this
season.
You have Douglas Adams, who is new to professional writing at the
point he writes the Pirate Planet.
You've got David Fisher and you've got...
Oh, God.
Bob Baker and Dave Martin.
That's right.
So, really?
In terms of writers, because Bob Baker and Dave Martin, they're
essentially one writer. producing one piece.
There's 2 experienced writers this season and 2 writers completely
new to Doctor One completely new to television.
You know, it's quite, it's quite a bold season in that regard.
So it is very important to get homes in to kick off the whole
thing, because we have this very new structure of the doctor
having a mission.
We got a new companion, and we've got a whole bunch of
inexperienced people coming in.
We've got Tom, who's becoming increasingly disenfranchised with
the role, and we'll talk more during the Armageddon factor about
the fact that this was almost Tom's last season.
Was?
It was.
He was really not happy with the way things were underground
Williams, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Let's get back to Rebos.
Can we talk more about Mary?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, we can.
I think we just need to rename this podcast, the Mary Tam half
hour. frankly.
You know, Louise was a really actorly performance.
Do you know what I mean?
And I thought that like her quality as a companion varied
according to who was writing, and she was very frequently written
for very badly.
But it was a very, very, sort of strong actorly performance, and
sunmakers in particular, I think, you know, she really shines and
horrifying rock, and there are a few others.
Mary's performance isn't really an acting performance, particularly
I think.
And, and, you know, it's long being said that Tom is a performer
rather than an actor, and he's compelling.
Like there's that's no slight to Tom.
He's, you know, he lights up the screen, you know, and
relentlessly plays everyone else off the screen when he's there.
I think Mary's kind of responding to that.
I gather she is actually a good actor, but there's not really much
evidence of that in the stories themselves.
And so what she tends to bring is a sort of ironic distance to the
whole proceeding.
Yeah, yeah.
I've always viewed it as, and unlike the 2 of you, I never had the
pleasure of meeting Mary Tam, but I've always felt like seeing her
in interviews and whatnot.
Mary Tam is not playing Romana.
Mary Tam is playing Mary Tam and Romana becomes Mary Tam because
of Mary Tam's force of will.
You know, she's always reminded me a bit of Mary Tyler Moore in
that way, who brought a lot of herself to her characters.
Yeah, I think we're just seeing Mary Tam on screen, but I don't
have a problem with that.
No, no, because she's so fun to watch.
She's wonderful and that's something that this season has, is that
it is just incredibly fun up until nearly the last moment.
Well, even so, I think, I think Mary and Tom are the 2 who keep it
kicking along.
Yeah, even when it's struggling, you know, their rapport is just
wonderful.
I just I just love her throughout this entire thing.
I was really, really surprised at how much I actually adore the
performance that she gives.
It is really enjoyable, isn't it?
She's a bit stilted in the 1st few Tartar scenes, but then once
she gets out into reboss itself.
I think she, or the next recording block, she begins to loosen up
and I think has a bit more fun with it.
But I just love some of the stuff that Romana comes out with, it
just tickles my fancy, especially when she said she was willing to
be impressed with a doctor.
And Tom's reaction is this indeed.
And the way he says it's like, he's never said that word or
anything like that ever before.
I just think it's Tom Baker shining through.
Like we talked about ages ago about, you know, the doctor becoming
poetry and pertury becoming the doctor, and I kind of feel that
there's moments certainly now during this season, and it was
coming through last year, that that's happening to Tom a lot
more.
And that one moment in the times when she says that and he
reacts.
I just crack up every single time.
Well, I suppose from a character point of view, you know, Sarah
obviously looked up to the doctor greatly.
Perhaps not idolised him, but certainly would sort of stand back
and bask.
And she would also make apologies and concessions for him.
Like, oh, sometimes he talks to himself because he's the only one
who knows what he's talking about.
Leila, of course, was in awe of him because he was God to her
tribe, you know, and eventually she got round to the fact that
okay, he's not a god, but he's still very impressive.
You are a timelord.
Yeah, she does start to take the Mick out of a bit, but still
she's really, really impressed by him.
So for Romana to say, I was almost ready to be impressed.
This is the 1st time in this incarnation where someone's just gone
yeah, I'm not buying it.
I'm not buying it.
Sorry, love.
All of that hilarious sort of psychoanalysis that she's subjective
to, which is, you know, very homes, you know, Whitty Holmes
dialogue is really, really fun and turns the tables.
It doesn't really last.
You know what I mean?
They do become like a great team together and they get to share
exposition and they get to work together and things and all of
that really works.
But I like the fact that it doesn't become nasty or narky.
Yes, yes.
When it could potentially have gone down that road.
Yeah.
No, they're not oppositional.
They do get on quite well.
I mean, there's no real warmth or anything like that between them
in the way that there was with Tom and Lear's.
But that doesn't matter.
You know, I think they're all just a little bit too detached at
this point in the program.
Yeah, there's there's a mutual, a mutual respect, I suppose.
The comparison that Tom and Mary always made was Spencer Tracy and
Catherine Hepburn.
And there's a there's a little bit of that.
You know, I think we're back to one of our pert we episodes, which
is you're not Catherine Hepburn.
But you can still see where they are getting that idea.
I don't think they're trying to emulate it.
I think they're just trying to go for the same pitch it at the
same kind of level.
Yeah, something sophisticated, a little bit oppositional.
Do you know what I mean?
funny.
Can I ask a question?
What did you think of this story as a kid when you 1st saw it?
I wasn't a huge fan, actually. that's your experience as well
isn't it?
It's totally my experience.
I was like with the previous season.
There's stories that I just would forget about.
And in this, I just remembered Romana in the big white fluffy
thing, the shrivenzal, and that pit that it's in that they have to
escape from.
I remember that shrieking woman making predictions and everything
else.
I remember that boring guy, what's his name, Binroe, and some guy
who looked like somebody off play school.
And that's all I really remembered.
And I just was underwhelmed by it.
It was a story that I never really thought much about and it just
sort of washed over me and whenever I saw it.
But now I think it's spectacular and maybe the best one of the
season.
And I can see why why it's not very kid friendly because it is
that Bob Holmes thing where you have one kind of crummy monster
just to remind you that it's Doctor Who. you know, this week, the
role of the giant rat will be played by the Shrivenzaal.
But mostly it's about interactions between people.
Yeah, yeah.
But the people are all great.
See, I always loved this one as a child.
This was one of my go tos. as a kid.
He's got better taste than us, I think, clearly.
You see, for me, the key to time season is very strange, because
as a kid, I only had the reboss operation, the Pirate Planet, and
Stones of Blood.
They're the best three.
The last three, I didn't see until I was about 19.
Right. which will become significant when we get to those.
But yeah, this was one that I constantly loved watching.
And the Shrivenzar didn't particularly scare me, but I didn't
think it was particularly crap.
I think it's much better than the giant rat.
Oh, yeah, it is.
You know, it helps that there's 2 operators inside it, so it
doesn't just look like someone on all 4s.
It's cute.
I think it's cute.
And I love a pet chew.
I think Stuart Fell was the back end, right?
And he says...
He was always losing the task, wasn't he?
He says that there were no air holes in it.
So the only way you could get oxygen was when the mouth opened.
So not only is he on some guy's rear end, he's getting no air. as
well.
And when he does get the air, it has to go past the other guy.
Oh, dear.
But yeah, it was the characters in this.
And especially Unstorf and Garron, who were the 2 I really, really
enjoyed watching.
So I've got Nigel Plaskett, who's Anstoffen, Ian Cuthbertson as
Garrett.
I think we were required by law to call this Holmesey and Double
Act. Yes, right.
Even though I'm not.
There's 2 homes and double X in this.
Because we've got the Grafin Decay and Sholac as well.
Do you know incredibly homoerotic double act?
Rod didn't even notice that.
The graph in decay, I think, is an absolutely spectacular
performance.
I think he is incredible.
This is Paul Seed, who will go on to direct the 1st 2 series of
House of Cards, the British House of Cards.
And it's his dog that bites Tom in the face.
So can we talk about that just very briefly and then circle back
round to Paul Seed?
Tom has these horrible wounds on his face that are really, really
visible in a lot of scenes.
And they look terrible, don't they?
And I think they're probably trying to cover them up with makeup.
Yeah they are.
And there are some publicity pictures where he's got a big black
sticking plaster.
And what happened was, they're at the pub, and Paul Seed has a dog
and someone tells Tom that don't do this particular thing, 'cause
the dog reacts, and it'll bite you.
And so, of course, Tom does that thing, that reacts and bites his
face.
Yeah, I think what it was is Paul Seed said, oh, he's got this
trick, watch, and picked up a little sausage and put the sausage
in his mouth, and the dog jumped up and bites the other half of
the sausage.
And now, of course, that's okay when you own the dog, you know
where to put the sausage and what have you.
But Tom go...
Stop it.
But Tom then does it, and I don't know if he positioned the
sausage wrongly, but yeah, the dog jumped up and bit his lip as
well as the sausage.
I don't think it's as obvious in this story that the lips bit.
It's actually Pirate Planet because he bumps the doctor bumps his
face at the beginning of the pirate planet and then it sort of
like, well, it was still healing then.
That's the thing.
I think I'd heard that the covering it up with makeup was
upsetting Tom, that it was hurting and things.
And so they wrote that into pirate planets so that they didn't
have to cover it up with makeup.
Yeah. which is, you know, it's understandable.
You might as well, if it's an open wound, you might as well cover
it with dirt if you're covering it in makeup.
Not pleasant.
Paul scene is phenomenal, right?
This is one of the discoveries that I've made watching this story
many years later.
This is my equal 2nd favourite of the season.
And I think it is extremely well crafted.
I have to give it to anybody who can go, for a cliffhanger, go
Sherlock.
No one makes a fool of the gruff binder key and lives.
I just love that ending.
There's not a moment of humour or self awareness in the
performance at all.
It's played completely straight.
The graph indicate is clearly an absolute idiot.
He's been deposed from the Lavivian throne because his people
absolutely hated him.
But he has...
Even though he is by right.
That's right. has no self-awareness.
He's constantly he's constant obsession is that he's being made a
fool of.
And the narrative makes a fool of him the entire way.
And he just plays it.
There's not a hint of camp or anything.
Even at the very end when he's, you know, we bring up the
background noise of battles that he's imagining as he goes off to
get blowed up.
It's actually quite moving.
You feel for him in those last few minutes, like from when
Sherlock dies and his reaction to that, you, you, you kind of, you
almost sympathise with him.
You know, you don't agree with what he was doing, but you think, my
God, you actually think that you are right and just in what you're
doing.
It's terrific, and I don't think we've ever seen anything quite
like it in Doctor Who before.
Yeah, I mean, especially not because, of course, by this stage
Graham Williams has seen Star Wars.
Yeah.
As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, Star Wars came out in the
gap between the Sunmakers and Underworld.
Underworld was the 1st Doctor Who that people saw after Star
Wars.
And lots of people saw it too.
I mean, that story's got the highest rated episode of that
season.
So yeah, Graham Williams, for this season, deliberately decided we
need to focus on character because we can't match the special
effects.
And with last season, there were lots of spaceship special
effects.
You know, you had the Titan shuttle, you had the R1 city, uh, you
had the Varden ship, uh, over Gallifrey, and they weren't terrible
models.
No, no, they were quite good models.
But even now with Reebos operation, despite the fact that you have
2 spaceships landing, you have Garon spaceship, and you have the
graph indicated spaceship, they've elected, we're not going to
show those.
Instead, we're going to build really great sets, have really great
costumes and really good performances and a cracking script.
And it's like, okay, you know, this is what Doctor Who does well.
And that's what I really like about this.
It's the fact that it's very homes in that he sets it in a few
different locations, right?
But you don't necessarily see the outside of things.
And as a kid, I used to kind of visualise this whole season as a
series of movies.
So you would see this, the ships coming into the north that you
would see this decaying city with the catacombs and all that sort
of thing, which we don't get to see, obviously, in this for
budgetary reasons.
And I like the fact that it is outdoors, but it's set indoors and
they can do that.
It gives this season the 1st 5 stories because there's so much
location work in the next four.
It feels like it's outside and it's bigger and they're using the
budget really well.
Yeah, so I really like, you know, the use of the sets and that
sort of thing.
Although when Romana and the doctor are in the relic room and the
graft indicays outside, like literally like 2 seconds away from
them and they're having to hide and they're having like a 5 minute
conversation.
Like there's, you know, there's those...
It's a bit stagey.
Yes, it's staged that way.
They hide behind those 2 little screens that could hide nobody in
a 1000000 years.
But, you know, that's minor little things.
And like, you know, I always used to imagine that the concourse
where they find Binro would have been much bigger, you know, had
they done a big movie version of this and the whole relic room and
getting into it would have been a much bigger sort of drama to get
into, not as it seems to be.
It's also weird because it's, I think, the only time that classic
Doctor Who does a heist movie.
It's a really unusual heist too, in our sense, because the very
1st scenes are putting a precious object into the relic room.
Yeah, they're not stealing something.
It's an anti-heist. an anti-heist.
It's really clever in that way.
So we should talk about Unstuff and Darren, and I absolutely
loathed his performance as a child.
I just hated it.
It was so over the top.
I just really just was turned off by the same way I really hated
Jago, the same way I don't like the pirate captain.
Like, I just hate these big overdrop performances.
Now I think it's absolutely brilliant.
They're really funny together, right?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And Unstroft reminds me, the guy who plays him reminds me of a guy
from Play School here in Australia on ABC TV.
We used to have like Noni Hazelhurst and there was this other
guy.
I never remember his name, who was with her throughout a lot of
the stuff as a kid.
And I think he did it for about 20 years.
Was he the one who ended up on neighbours?
No.
They all ended up on neighbours sooner or later.
But he's just got that open, honest face, and I always used to get
confused as a kid.
I thought it was the guy from Play School, but of course it's
not.
And his performance, who plays and stuff?
Nigel Plaskett.
I think it's just a beautiful performance.
Absolutely divine.
And his scenes with Binroe, which as I said, as a kid, I found
really boring.
Now I just think they're the heart and soul of the 2nd part of the
story.
Yeah, I think so too. just amazing stuff.
Yeah, it's amazing when you consider that at the end of this
year.
Bob Holmes disappears from the show for about five years.
And yet, in this story, he writes a few really beautiful emotional
scenes.
You've got unstopping Ben Rowe talking, and especially the moment
Unstoft tells Ben Rowe, you're actually right.
And Unstock gains nothing from that.
You know, there is honour amongst thieves.
You've got unstopped reaction when Binro is killed, which is sort
of one of the most human and real reactions we've had to death
especially Bob Holmes, who's quite, you know, known for just as
Stephen Moffatt would put it, creating interesting characters and
then melting them.
You've got the aforementioned scene with the gruff Vindicay
reacting to Sholak's death.
You know, this is a story where death happens, like in all Doctor
Who, but unlike a lot of Doctor Who, it doesn't go unremarked, you
know, a couple a couple of guards are killed.
Oh, can we talk about the guard captain?
Prentice Hancock is back, ladies and gentlemen.
I think giving him a really minor role with hardly any lines is
the perfect thing to do.
If you get a cast, apprentice Hancock.
Put him in a fluffy hat, give him about 6 lines and then get on
with your life, I think.
And he's supposed to be like, the guard captain, it seems, that
the whole city.
Like, it's supposed to be quite a, like, that's what I get from
the script is very subtle, but of course, it's a character with no
character compared to the others, and he plays that to
perfection.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, poor Prentice, how the mighty have fallen, because last
time he was in Doctor Who.
He was almost playing the lead villain in Planet of Evil.
Yeah.
And that was when his style was rising and, you know, he was in
space 1999.
Now by this time, space 1999 is not only off the air, but he
didn't get brought back for the 2nd season.
Yeah, and he's back down to playing guard captain.
I quite liked him in space 1999.
But I must admit, I haven't watched for many years.
Oh, you should. hilarious.
I actually find this script a bit Star Trek, in the fact that
these guys are visiting a world that has lesser technology than
their own.
And level 3 society?
Yeah, level 3 society.
They all fly into the north, they've come from the north and they
have to have their passes and that sort of thing.
It's just something that I kind of noted.
Like, it tickles my fancy when, oh, yes, you're from the north.
There's a reasonable attempt to build a world and you always get
that from Bob Holmes.
You get the feeling that there are things and places beyond what
you see on screen.
So you've got the greatest Serenic Empire and the Magellanic
Mining Corporation, and you've got the city of Sher and the tundra
and merchants from the north and all of that kind of thing.
He always creates a world, and there's lots of place names, and
things like that, which I think works terribly well, and he does
it sort of every year.
It just feels really desolate and isolated, and it looks great.
It just looks spectacular.
Now, we must talk about the seeker.
The seeker, played by Anne Turand.
I mean, it's great that there's another, there's a female
character who in the 2nd half of the story, thanks, Bob.
Yeah, he doesn't do a good job of that this year, does he?
This is his only female guest character. character in 8 episodes
this year.
Thankfully, the rest of the stories have very strong parts for
women and very strong actresses playing them.
She's weird to see her in that she actually can predict the future
and can find things. like she's always correct.
Yes, yeah. when people don't believe her.
And, you know, the new series, in the end of time, where that
seeker woman, and I'm just there going, have they just ripped that
off?
You know what?
The reboss operation?
It's Russell.
So I'm sure they have.
I mean, this is Russell who, in his 1st year went, oh, we're not
going to have loads of continuity.
We're not going to have loads of continuity.
My father would have fed me to the venom.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The face of Beau from the iceop galaxy.
Yeah, that was deliberate.
Thanks, Russell.
Yeah, I think she's wonderful.
And it is so interesting, Todd.
You're right.
That, despite the fact that, yes, she is this superstitious bone
shaker, as she's called.
All of her predictions are absolutely right.
And I quite like, she never really meets the doctor.
So he doesn't have a chance like he did with Mark Tyler last
season to kind of say, oh yes, you were born.
You're a time fisher, and that's why you can have visions.
I like that there's no explanation for it and it's not really
remarked upon.
Because on the one hand, you've got the discussion between Onstop
and Binroe about science versus religion, really. you know, because
Ben Rose Galileo, basically.
But on the other hand, you have this religious slash magical
ceremony that works and yields results.
Do you know, I actually think there's more to that conversation
than science versus religion?
And this is something that Xander talks about as well.
I think it's Bob Holmes attacking the premise of the season long
arc.
So we go from this big introduction, and there's a huge galactic
problem, and there's 2 opposing forces, these two warring gods, you
know, the white and black guardian, who, you know, are in conflict
and they're both searching for the key to time.
And for a second, the doctor suspects that maybe Garin is an agent
of the Black Guardian, although that's dropped pretty quickly.
But the other group of people who believe that their world is a
battleground over which, you know, warring gods are fighting, the
people of Rebos, who believe that there are gods, you know, the
ice gods and the sun gods are fighting over Rebos.
And that view, the view, the warring god's view is associated with
superstition and is roundly rejected by the story.
So when you get Binro saying he doesn't believe in the ice gods
and the sun gods, you get unstuff explaining that the reality is
you know, just a physical reality, there are no gods.
But the whole premise of the arc is that there are gods.
And even by telling a story, you know, there's this huge war in
heaven, but we go to Rebos for a story about two con men trying to
sell a planet to an idiot, kind of dictator.
The scale is incredibly small.
Nothing's under threat, nothing very much as at stake.
I think it's a rejection of the idea of the epic basis of the
story.
Hmm.
There's a couple of things that Garan talks about this instrument
being Japanese, because it doesn't work, which is a bit racist in
itself.
It's also kind of weirdly out of date because, you know, those
people who are our age think of the Japanese as being incredibly
great at consumer electronics.
Yeah, yeah.
But people of homes as vintage thought that they're, you know, the
made in Japan was a sign of sort of shoddy manufacturer.
And then, of course, he sells the Sydney Harbour Bridge. and the
Opera House.
Well, no, he refused to sell the opera house.
He couldn't let that part of our cultural heritage.
It makes you an Arab.
Yeah, yeah.
Came after me with a machine gun.
Well, that's that's a line.
Oh, line. the line.
More interesting in that.
The reason he's selling the Sydney Harbour Bridge is because in
the original script, he's Australian.
So he's a massive Australian racist, which is a little close to
home.
It's fun accents with both unstopping, Karen.
Like, its accents all the way.
Karen's got his incredibly ludicrously fake posh accent, which he
uses with a graph and with a doctor. and then he's got his sort of
ridiculous cockney accent that he uses with unstov.
And that's sort of terribly funny.
But I would have loved to have heard him do an Australian accent.
That would have been terrific.
Yeah, yeah.
I like the use of canine in this story.
Especially when he destroys rocks.
It's not that pathetic little like laser beans.
You actually get a wide beam and it just disappears and that sort
of thing.
Yeah, I actually quite like his use in this story.
Yeah, it's quite effective.
And he gets a fair bit of character in it as well.
Like, when Garren disappears and Romana's like, why didn't you
tell me?
Because you didn't.
You're very irritating. start sulking.
She actually says you're a very irritating computer.
And I get the impression that Romana doesn't know what a dog is.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, and she just is responding to it as if it's as if he's a
computer.
Yeah, and of course, one last thing about Mary before we go on
because Rod loves Mary Tam as well.
You know, in a way, it took him about 2 or 3 stories to accept
that lower ward was even on the screen next season because she's
not Mary Tam.
His description of Mary Tam in the story is Romana's eyebrows
could raise the Titanic.
I love the fact that she's is a bit clueless about the key to time
like the actual segments, like she assumed that it was the crown
not the scringe stone, or the Jethrick, and this happens for a few
stories, but she doesn't quite work out what it actually is.
Yeah, because she's thinking it'll be the obvious thing.
When, you know, if you're going to disguise something, don't make
it the obvious thing.
Indiana Jones in the last crusade, you know, that's the cup of a
carpenter.
Now, the doctor blows up the graft in decay or Robert Holmes
allows that to happen within the script.
Do you think that's a problem?
No.
See, yeah, I don't think it's a problem because it juxtaposes
really well with the sort of fun jolly adventure we've been
having.
Yet we're having this fun, jolly adventure, but we then have this
really villainous psychopathic character in there.
And it's something I wrote about in you and who contact has been
made because in the 90s, when I was just getting into fandom, of
course, that's when the new adventures were about.
And I hadn't read many of them, but I really objected to the sort
of coldness and the callousness of the doctor in some of them.
John Anderson, I think, was running a panel at a convention and
had this role play.
So I was the doctor, Alex Gibbs and Bruce Greenwood, where my 2
companions who were tied to a nuclear bomb.
And as the doctor I had the option to let them die or kill the
villain.
And that's You let them die?
You know what?
I can't, all I can remember about it was every time I tried to
speak, Alex or Bruce would just go, help, help, help.
But no, it raises the point that sometimes the doctor has to do
really quite. questionable things to get out of this situation.
And in this situation, Yeah, it's not like he's brought the bomb
with him.
It's not like he's gone, oh, I've got a grenade in my pocket.
I love that at you.
It's a matter of, the graph has put the bomb on the doctor.
It's like, well I've got 2 options here.
Blow myself up or switch, blow him up.
And the thing is, the graph vindicate is going to go back out on
the surface and start killing people and wage, wage further war.
So it's like, what do I do?
Yeah.
After he's done it, the doctor doesn't sort of smile into the
camera or anything.
You see, it's not like he stabs him in the head either.
Do you know what I mean?
Like he does a comedy bit of sleight of hand, which is, you know
happens again.
There's a callback to it, right, at the very end when they're
swapping the Jethric, which is one of the most valuable substances
in the universe.
Yes.
Take a drink.
The many.
This year's Argonite.
It's not quite the doctor killing someone.
It's a doctor doing a sort of comedy magic trick that just ends up
causing the villain to fall into his own trap.
That's what the doctor does.
Yeah, you know, it's trapping the Daleks in mirrors in the 5
doctors.
It's reflecting the Borad's power being back at him.
You know, it's giving the villain a chance to just leave and the
villain dozens.
I was like, okay, this is what I got to do.
I think there are far more objectionable things that the doctor
does coming up and even in the new series.
Well, it's four of the Croquenols well, so that's all the time we
have for the Ryeboss operation.
Or the reboss operation, whatever, Nathan.
Please come back and join us next week for the Pirate Planet.
Don't forget, you can find us online at Flightthrough Entirety.com
flight through Entirety on Facebook and iTunes or FTE podcast on
Twitter.
Currently available on Bondfinger at our 1st 5 commentaries
covering up two.
You only live twice.
You can also find that Bondfinger cast on Twitter, Bondfinger on
Facebook and iTunes.
Until we see you next week, May, all your shrivenzals be able to
breathe out their back end.
Thank you very much and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
That was Flatter Entirety with Todd BLB, Nathan Bottomley and
Brendan Jones.
This episode, he positioned the sausage wrongly, was recorded on
Sunday the 4th of October.
The next episode will be released on December 13th.
I'll bet that before you heard this podcast, you were even willing
to be impressed.
I quite like them in space 1999, but I must admit, I haven't
watched it for many years.
Oh, you should.
It's hilarious.
I'll edit this part out.
But um, network on air until the end of today, uh, so the UK
company releasing it, it's £10 for the 1st series on Blu-ray.
Okay, I'm not going to come by.
Okay.