Hello, everyone, and welcome to the latest episode of Flight
Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast with a slightly
chumbly motion.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
Richard.
And we're back for Doctor Who season three.
The longest series of Doctor Who ever produced.
You're about to find her out. 45 episodes.
So, look, we're just going to jump straight in with Galaxy 4.
Galaxy 4.
So the 1st story of series three, like Planet of Giants, it was
produced with the previous season and held over, and it was the
last production block to feature Verity Lambert, because the next
story was made back to back with it.
It's the 2nd story featuring the team of the Dr. Vicki and
Steven.
And sort of on the surface, at least, plays with the whole theme
and idea of beauty and the beast.
Yeah, because you've got the Dravans, who are evil space dusty
Springfields. very topical at the time. and you've got the rills
who are giant sort of warthog seal creatures and the anti-wizard
of Oz seen through the same screen effect that the wizard was seen
in the eponymous film.
Yes, yeah.
Ms. Garland.
This starts a trend this season of stories which are based on a
central idea.
So the central idea here is fair is foul and foul is fair.
But the real question then becomes, does it evolve beyond that
into its own story?
It becomes very 60s in this season.
It stops looking at being entirely modern and fresh and new and
starts finally, not finally, but I think more strongly looking at
what's going on around it culturally, what's going on in England
what's popular, in other words, and really starting to just be a
part of that.
And you might argue that it becomes a little less of what it is
itself and a little more of just what's going on around it.
You, I mean, you say that happens with the introduction of Vicky
really.
That's the 1st bit, but that's all.
That's in isolation.
So that's quite interesting, a thing to happen, and more in
O'Brien's just so good that, you know, the only thing I've said
before about the introduction of the Vicki character is that it's
just a shame that the notions of the character behind Susan were
not explored or were just truncated.
But Vicky's terrific.
She's just a very received construction of a character.
Whereas Susan was a totally different thing that could have been
anything if we'd allowed it to go in whatever direction.
It was alien.
We didn't know what was going to happen.
We know exactly what Vicky is.
Vicky is entirely contemporaneous and entirely outside.
She's from another TV station, another TV show that's been dropped
into Doctor Who's TV show.
Rather than being sort of very alien or very futury sort of thing
they make her, say, futury things, like we've said before, but, um
yeah, can feel the word tropes, moving, somewhere, sort of
inexorably towards this conversation. away behind my ears.
This season for me, I might just jump in quickly, see what you all
think, is the one where you get that clash.
I was gonna say it later, but you brought it up early on.
It's the season where, to me, camp, which had a slightly different
definition to the one we use for camp now.
It's, um, they didn't have a term but such for post-modernism in
the way that we use it.
So camp actually meant an analysis or a subjective look of the
text or a subjective look of the world and of life, turn it
halfway on its head and how to laugh at it.
Pretty much what this season is doing is bringing that kind of
sensibility, which was very much at the forefront of drama and
film and writing at the mid 60s for reasons that we'll go into. was
what was happening in the world at the time.
But that notion of camp comes straight into what straight
narrative would be.
So, whereas Doctor Who was looking at itself and what it can
develop and be as a modernist drama and really be freaky and
subversive and surprising.
It's now kind of starting to look back in and onto itself.
I guess that just happens with a new producer.
I'd like to throw in here the seminal essay where this is coming
from with Susan Sontag's notes on camp, which came out in 1964.
And he's really funny and kind of also a bit, oh, I mean, she was
a queer writer, although she didn't come out for years.
She was only, I mean, Liebovitz is the famous photographer's
partner for many, many years.
So her view is very much New York centric, cool, removed.
I think Warhol's factory, but with an amazing amount of
intellectualism thrown onto it, and she was very much big on the
French theorists. anyway.
The whole thing of culture turning itself around kind of like a
snake biting its own tail and looking at itself is exactly what
Doctor Who does this season and very much starting with this story
with the dravers.
So you're saying a story full of women with blonde beehives and
sequined eyebrows.
Well, look, you could stretch it that far if you really have to
push it.
But the drivers were written as male characters.
And it was actually verity who was who made 2 suggestions right at
the end with her with her line of notes was that how about you
turn them into girls?
And they were dusty Springfield Cindy dolls.
Cindy was British answer to Barbie, but she had exactly that
haircut when she came out and she was wearing almost that little
outfit.
It's quite weird with the white lace up boots and the little green
smock.
That's a Cindy doll.
So, yeah, look, we'll find a picture and stick it out.
It's hard to imagine how it could have worked with with men.
Well, I think if it was with men, it would just sort of be a very
standard runaround.
And having them as female characters, but not rewriting them as
stereotypical females as we keep coming back to it, like Kathy
Gale and the Avengers. was just a male part with David crossed out
and Kathy written in, but no other concessions made to the female
stereotype.
And that's what's happened here as well.
That's a beautiful point, because you know that the other reversal
was that the Barbara part was written in, and the lines were just
given to Stephen, which is why he's in the airlock, pulling at his
cardigan with the girls watching.
He keeps mingling.
He's wearing Barbara's wing.
He's pushing...
He is backcoming, I think.
And there's a lovely piece of speed racer, Virgil Tracy back
combing there.
Thunderbirds was on.
Do you reckon John Wiles was because John Wiles was one following
Barity around on the ship?
Very much so.
Do you think he was hanging around off screen, taking notes of
Stephen in an airlock as a neat way of getting rid of a companion
you might want to get rid of in a future episode?
Spoiler.
It's possible because it's some pretty dark moments in this.
It's also the 1st time that and the concept of an airlock has been
used in Doctor Who.
Because we don't see the airlock in the sensor, right?
It's a whole new whole episode, just...
And Peter Purpose sort of complains and says, you know, I played
an astronaut.
So you would think that Stephen would know about the dangers of an
airlock, but now that we actually have the episode back and we can
see it.
It's not so much that he doesn't know the dangers of the airlock
but it's a matter of he's backing away from a room full of people
with guns.
He goes for the only door he can get to.
On the other side of the door is something that'll kill him.
And the reason he becomes trapped is because of a change in
pressure.
So it's not so much Stephen being stupid, which would have been
quite problematic because, you know, it was written for Barbara.
I think Barbara would understand the concept of an airlock as well
and wouldn't get into it unless she had no other choice.
But yeah, it's the raw reversal. so interesting.
The females are the protagonists.
And Stephen is impotent in this because he's playing the girly
part.
So thank you, verity for, you know, just making that nice little
twist because I think this story would have been completely
cindied all just in its pants without that.
It would have been immensely dull.
You know, can I say that?
Sandafar.
When Sandifer talks about this, he says it's not really trying, but
it's, you know, just essentially boring sort of science fiction
things that are retreaded and that the central conceit is really
fairly obvious and all of that sort of thing.
But personally, like, this is one of the ones where I'd listen to
the audio a lot of times, and I really, really liked it.
And there's, you know, sweet things like Vicky cutting Stephen's
hair at the beginning or is that?
No, that, that, that's further off.
We're not there yet.
Oh, okay.
You sure?
Yes, I'm sure.
Yeah, that's mythmakers.
It is.
Anyway, um, but it's sort of fun and there's lots of interaction
and, you know, we get out onto the, onto the planet and um, and
wander around and things that's that usual sort of exploring
thing.
And I just sort of always really enjoyed it and thought it was
sort of fun and camp.
But then that, I'm right, aren't I?
You are.
This is where she shows us.
She knows all about ammonia and hairdressing shit.
She really is a girl of 1964, and she's about to do a big hell of
Shapiro to him.
I think it's a bloody big boof all.
Ah, so she does the backcoming.
She's really...
She misses Barbara.
She's probably been doing Barbara's hair, you know.
Because I can't imagine what she would do, Ian.
So she's been doing Barbara's hair and that's why Stephen has the
backbone.
This is a really interesting thing that in fact, this is the 1st
one where we're talking about the camp thing.
Maybe this is exactly what's going on here.
Role reversal is integral to camp, to camp sensibilities, swapping
roles, swapping expectancies.
You know, he is a she, she is he.
Get hurt.
But I guess what I was about to say is, of course, we had the
discovery of that episode that we mentioned.
I was just astounded by how great it is.
I mean, you know, I enjoyed it.
I didn't think it was, you know, particularly earth shattering, but
when you actually get to see it, There's just wonderful things, the
design of the hilarious garden centre design of the real
spaceship.
Blop, blop.
Yes. and they've got the vomp vomp machine that they've borrowed
from the Dale.
But it just looks terrific.
It looks excellent.
And you know, when you're imagining it in your head, you know, with
the real looking through the window and all of that sort of
thing.
The pictures that you come up with in your head are nowhere near
as clever as just this those amazing scaffolding things and all of
that.
And then the Chumbleys, which look a bit crummy in, bit cakey, a
bit cakey, actually.
But I'll explain later.
Yeah, we didn't really talk about the cake.
We should get back to it.
We will get there.
But the Chumblies are sort of wobbly and, you know, they've got
little lights under the surface of the thing and they look, they
look really...
They're active and twitchy, which you don't see in a photo.
The scene that sticks in my mind is when the rills agree to send
the Chumblies to rescue Stephen and Billy is Billy's alone in the
room with just the Chumblies and the reels.
So pretty much it's like, right, Billy's alone in a room with a
puppet and some robots.
And so when the Chumblies are going out, Billy sort of stands like
a general and points to the door several times.
Go, go. and then runs off himself and it's, you just kind of go.
He has such clout now, and this is, of course, where he starts to
become disenchanted with the program, because all his friends are
going or gone, but he's still so commanding in that scene and so
much going, I'm in a room full of full of tiny robots and a
puppet.
I am going to play this like Hamlet.
God damn it.
And he really sells it.
It is equal parts camp and stirring drama.
Maybe not equal parts for me.
We should mention Brian Hodgson because although, yeah, visually
this is really surprising.
We didn't expect to see how lovely this is in all those so many
ways.
But it's the soundscape. you listening to it on audio, you just
get how odd this was.
Never forget, they're looking at tiny screens on a 405 lime TV.
So what you're actually getting is the intimacy through the sound
as much.
And BBC is really, you know, cutting edge at this time on
electronic curtain.
Yeah, no, I mean, it does sound spectacular.
And we kind of knew that for ages, but what was surprising was how
good it looked.
And, you know, there's other things like Stephanie Bid Me does
that fabulous 2 camera model.
We have a name, Stephanie Big Beat.
Oh she's amazing.
So that's Maga, the leader of the alien drama.
You haven't mentioned racism yet, have what you... slimy claws to
close around your necks.
Really?
Straight to camera.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, to make the lesser drama.
She's right.
Is that the plural?
Yeah, well, they do have a sort of Dalek style xenophobia of, it's
another race. therefore it is out to kill us.
Yeah, which is really the ethos that Doctor Who adopts as a whole
in the year's time or so.
That brings me back to something I was going to say earlier in
that, you know, it's this whole beauty in the beast story.
But where it sort of turns that around a bit is in the very 1st
scene where the Dravins actually talk to the doctor after they're
back at their ship, we're pretty much told in that 1st scene
actually, they're not very nice people.
You know, they're kind of like, men, what?
Oh, yes, sort of work units.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, well, we we, we keep some for labour and for other things
presumably.
And then we kill the rest because they just eat our food, you know
and the doctor's just like, oh, this is terribly interesting.
And Stephen just sort of looks around uncomfortably.
But it already introduces the idea that despite the fact that they
look beautiful.
They do not have a beautiful culture and they do not have a
culture that we would agree with.
So already by midway through episode one, it's not just your
standard beauty and the beast story.
So it does start to transcend that idea early on.
The doctor is reluctant, right, from the beginning to take the
dravins at their word about the reels being evil, you know, like
and I think one of them says, oh, but, you know, aren't the reels
murderers or something?
And he says, no, no, we've only got their word for that.
So he straight away.
And I think when the real says to the doctor, you know, you
wouldn't find our appearance pleasing or something like that.
And he says, we're not, you know, like I'm not a child, you know
so he's kind of turning into the moral centre of the narrative, you
know, from being the guy who might bash a caveman's brains out
with a rock.
If he needs to, he's now turned into kind of the moral centre of
the narrative.
And so we can't judge the rules because the doctor's already kind
of refuse to do that.
This is the season where the doctor becomes more and more external
to the narratives?
He just dropped into it.
Well, I, you know, there's, there's this thing where with Barbara
and Ian, they're the main characters.
You know, and the doctors are kind of strange, high concept
character off to the site and he exists to get them into trouble
and kind of get them out of trouble, but essentially, it's the
story of Ian and Barbara.
And then they go away.
So it's kind of got to be the story of the doctor, except that, um
and we're probably getting ahead of ourselves a bit here, they're
going to start putting the doctor into stories that he's really
not suited to, and then they're going to give him sort of weeks
off and then they're going to kind of ease him out altogether.
And so that's one of the reasons why I think this season's a bit
of a problem is that the show really needs the doctor to be the
central character now because he's the only member of the original
cast who's still there.
But they kind of want to, they're sick of him and they want to
ease him out.
I like that he takes a step back and becomes more of an observer
in within his own story.
I think it becomes more interesting for that.
This is the 1st time too, I should jump in, where you get the idea
that he's so concomitant with different visages and different
aspects.
There's that lovely line, is it David Tennant that says, you know
we could regenerate into anything.
We don't know that time lords look like us.
It might just be a perceptive field.
It might just be the way we see.
There might actually be a whole other level of being that simply
appears in this dimension as humanoids because most of this
universe appeal or these few several galaxies that we know appear
to be largely humanoid.
Well, they have to cast humans to play him. to help as well.
But this is also within the narrative.
I'd like to think that Billy recognises at this point the doctor
recognises that the continuance is the energy of life, not merely
the appearance of it.
So, no, I like, I like, was it tenant or was it...
No, don't you remember when Christopher Eckleston's about to
regenerate?
He says he might have no head.
Thank you.
It was it was it was Chris, yeah.
Because I just love that idea that, of course, he's going, this is
all about perception. which is a neat way of seeing this story.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's not, you know, I think I think that once you sort of
deal, do that.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I think it's dealt with sort of fairly quickly and then it
just ends up being, we're in peril because the planet's going to
explode and Margas being mean.
Do you know what I mean?
How soon?
It must be episode 2 that it's pretty clearly established that the
rills are not the villains, the rills are the good guys.
Yeah, it becomes a it becomes a race to get off.
But as we were discussing, last time when we were looking at the
Space Museum. and as you said, Nathan, a lot of Hartnell stories
are sort of a conceptual 1st episode and then dealing with the
fallout of that concept for the next 3 or 5 episodes.
So, for instance, even the Keys of Mariners, which you're a big
fan of, episodes 2 through six, all link back to that central
concept in episode one of free will and law and the concept of
society and how to relate to it.
So we'd see different types of society.
We see different types of people.
So in this, we get that idea in the 1st episode of the doctor
saying very early on.
We only have these people's word that the rills are these evil
vile creatures, and Vicky says, yes, and I don't like.
Well, I don't like them.
I don't trust them at all.
So how can we know if we trust them?
And so the next 3 episodes are about proving that idea and then
what do you do next?
You know how can you help people?
And even right up to the end of the story, the rills are willing
to take the drive-ins with them. until the drive-ins go under the
loud attack and the rules are just like, okay.
Right?
That's your choice.
Bye bye now.
Can I talk very quickly about the recons?
Yes.
There's there's no telly snaps for this.
And for ages, it was thought that there was just one picture, one
sort of crummy picture of the rills in existence, so we really
didn't properly know what they look like. close for their face.
And so the loose cannon people have had to go to extraordinary
lengths to produce visuals for the story.
And it includes, I think, one of them dressing up as a Dravan with
a Dravan gun and having photos.
They make their own Chumbly.
They make their own TARDIS.
It's really terrific.
And there's these endless shots.
You know how the drone women, like Margas 2nd and 3rd in command
you know, they're just sort of clones or something, and they eat
leaves.
Like, I don't know, marker gets to eat truffles and foie gras and
something and they eat leaves.
And so these endless shots of like bowls full of leaves.
Just so that we have something to look at during the dialogue.
And it really is just an absolutely heroic effort.
And of course, the same team who made that made the condensed
reconstruction that goes around the existing episode on the Aztec
special edition DVD.
So what you have is you have a 15 minute reconstruction of the
other 3 episodes and the now found episode is dropped into the
middle of that in its entirety.
And it works pretty well.
I will say they cut out some of my favourite lines, but I will
actually talk more about that later, if that makes sense, in a
later episode.
Lots to say about this story.
A lot of things began and ended with this story, as we'll see as
the season progresses.
This is true indeed.
But before we move on, I will mention the cake as has been
referred to.
See, I've wanted each time to make a cake that somehow relates to
a story we're discussing.
I was going to make butterfly cakes for the web planet that fell
through and Rod made the larvae scrolls instead.
So I was determined this time.
So I've actually made a chocolate and butter tiered sponge Chumbly
cake.
It's a cake in the shape of a chumbly.
Before we ate its head, I'd say it was about 10 inches tall.
And there will be photos and a full recipe on the website.
So you can make your own Chumbli cake at home.
I was very Blue Peter and I actually have already planned what my
season four, 5 and 6 baked goods are going to be.
So stay tuned for that.
Anything else to say on the...
There's a lot to be...
The other points of this story is you were just saying, will be
developed later in the season.
It's just the beginning of the trajectory.
It really is, yeah.
So let's let's continue on that trajectory to the final piece of
Doctor Who produced by Verity Lambert.
Mission to the unknown.
So I'm hoping it's a space rocket with Batman controls.
Yeah, not quite yet.
Had Batman started on ITV?
This is that's a interesting point.
So, yeah, this is 1965.
But we are starting to get to the point where ratings do become of
concern, which I guess is what we were touching on earlier when
the show starts looking at what's going on around it because some
ITV had launched a game show. your lucky stars, your lucky stars
on the other at the same time slot and it was really starting to
pull in ratings.
So just the 1st bit of reality TV comes and sniffs at us and
starts to snarl.
Yeah, it was starting to actually have something to counter it.
So they were looking at ways to make it more popular.
You know about ratings and things, Brandon?
For this particular season?
Well, after the season.
Well, it started, generally speaking, it started strongly, and did
peak around Dalek's Master Plan, which will be coming up, but
started to drop off later on, but we should discuss that in
later.
So when it comes to the end, I mean, is this just going to be a
crushing tale of defeat and mere cancellation?
Well, we'll have to see.
We'll have to see that.
So we just had over 11000000 for Galaxy 4 and this one pulled in
8.3.
Exactly. 60s, Britain must have been depressed.
Oh, we've got, I think we've got one of the best, most interesting
anti-Doctor Who stories so far made.
This is the 1st one.
Can we jump in?
This is the very 1st story.
The most important thing for me is the bad guys win.
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely, because spoiler work, by the end, the 3 heroic
characters introduced in the story are dead.
They are.
And the doctor and who's the doctor travelling with these days?
The Dr. Stephen and Vicky?
Don't turn up.
No, he's credited, but he doesn't appear.
Is he credited?
He's credited.
Yeah.
And and and like would the radio times have had them in it?
Do you know what I mean?
Like other people at home.
No one at home knows that this is the Dr. Light episode.
Do you know what I mean?
Like everyone presumably is looking at the clock going, when's the
doctor showing up?
Yeah, so that would have been very shocking, especially with that
ending. where the bad guys win and the tape that Mark Corey's
recorded his message onto Warn Earth is just lying there in the
mud.
There's a little segue at the end of Galaxy 4.
Vicky looks up at the scanner and says, I wonder what's happening
on that planet and we cut to that planet and Barry Jackson gets up
and says, I must kill.
And, you know, I know how he feels.
That then leads on from there.
But I think it's such an interesting thing born out of necessity.
For those of you who don't know, I mean, we've already mentioned
this is some, uh, the 1st Doctor Who episode where the doctor
doesn't appear.
I don't even think the new series has done an episode without the
doctor entirely.
The closest is probably turn left, where David Tennant's only in 2
sees.
But in this one, it goes back to Planet of Giants, which, of
course, was made as four-part story, but edited down to three.
So Verity still owed the BBC one more episode of Doctor Who to
fulfil the episode order, but the contracts for the regulars
stipulated also how many episodes they could work on.
Now, Billy had made That episode for the BBC already.
So rather than have to draw up a new contract, and knowing they
had that 12 part dialect story to come, Verity decided to give it
a prologue to help set up the world and the Dalek scheme.
So that's the sort of nuts and bolts of why it happened.
But what's interesting is how well I feel.
It does work as a sort of 25 minute out of the unknown, outer
limit style story onto its own right.
I think I think it's really really enjoyable and it is that
thing.
I mean, where, because it's only 25 minutes, you can't get bored
of it, but, and it's, it's sort of reasonably tense and, and that
sort of thing and it is.
I also think it's very much more what Terry Nation wants to do.
I mean, you know, in uh, you know, in 1978, Blake 7 comes on the
air and that sorts of posturing and people with guns and future
people and ray guns and spaceships.
It's space opera.
And that's what this is.
And this is where Terry Nation's most comfortable.
And it's not really a great fit for Doctor Who.
I have to say that the Doctor Who isn't sort of science fiction in
the sense, or hitherto hasn't been that.
Like we've been on a spaceship, I think, by now.
But Doctor Who isn't about spaceships and ray guns, particularly.
But that's what Terry Nation wants to write about.
And so here I think he does it sort of quite confidently and it is
that sort of pulpish thing that Richard is almost certainly going
to talk to us about in a minute.
That sort of, you know, the Dan Dare thing that you were showing
me earlier on and you have the Dalek annual there.
We must show Rod that picture, actually.
But, you know, nipples, dearly.
Let's just put it that way.
There are nipples in the goal, okay?
So this is like he's got six.
This is what he, this is what nation wants to be writing.
And the doctor's not in it, so you don't have that sort of weird
the weird situation where the hero in your space opera is a sort
of doddering old man in sort of Edwardian clothes and things.
And I'm not sure that really quite works when we get back to
Darlic master plan.
But here, because you don't have that, I think it just works
terribly well as a sort of thrilling space adventure.
It is a thrilling space adventure, but it's a thrilling space
adventure with reference before the pulps.
This is where, again, we're looking at how Doctor Who is now about
what Doctor Who is out in the media.
This is an acknowledgement of the TV21s and the Dalek comic strips
and it pretty much, well, you've got a special agent with a
license to kill.
So we're also looking at what's popular in media and film at the
time.
You've got Mark Corey with his Edward DeSouza plays him, doesn't
he?
as a kind of matinee idol.
You've also got from that accent. with that accent.
There's lots of things about the external world in this one.
The thing that I really took away from it because we can't see it
but we can't be sure.
But the notion of the Daleks in a dense jungle with flamethrowers
is coming straight off the 630 news because we were seeing these
things for the 1st time being used in Jungle War in Vietnam.
So the image is straight off the violence that people are seeing
in the media, as well as you've just thrown that into the mix of
Whitaker's Dalek comic strip on the back of TV21.
Some of the very same characters, special agents, and we're about
to go into the whole other world that, um, nation was wanting to
set another revenue razor for him, you know, for his own writing
and get the Daleks to be produced in the US as their own TV show
with their own other characters.
This is why we're not going to have Daleks, you know, after the 2
tracks, ones will be like 5 blokes. in silver wetsuits. motorcycle
helmets on the motorcycle handlebars on their heads, I should
say.
Oh, I didn't know you saw me last night.
But this is nations, no, yeah, nation spinoff was called the
Destructors, and it's full of Coreys and Garveys, and an I Android
called Seven.
Or Mark 7, yeah, in this ones.
But in the TV21 comic, there's Special Agent 2K, who is one of the
greatest Doctor Who spinoffs of all time. his head opened up and
he turned into a helicopter, amongst other things.
Suck that up, Astro boy.
We have even better in Doctor Who.
Yeah, all of that is going on in the Dalek strips at this time and
the kids who would be watching us would absolutely be referencing
what they're looking at in TV 21.
I can't imagine that an American TV show starring the Daleks would
be anything other than just absolutely horrendously awful.
Well, Big Finish have recorded the script for the Destroyers.
Instructors.
Oh, they got a dictionary, though, and decided... the destroyer is
actually... the space security.
The Space Security Service, the SSS with the heroes.
Yeah, yeah, as well.
Nation, what you're trying to tell us here.
But the funny thing is, the destroyers or destructors, whichever
you like.
It had a very, at least the way Big Finish produced it.
Hello, Su Tech.
It had a very sort of ITC adventure series feel, and in actual
fact, a lot of the set pieces from the script are recycled in an
episode of the Avengers called Invasion of the Earth now.
So it was.
There's a train, there's a training ground for astronauts that has
the same kind of perils that Sarah Kingdom and Mark 7 face in the
jungle as they're trying to rescue Sarah's brother.
This is not the same Sarah Kingdom as in Dalek Masterplan.
It is a slightly retold character.
Her family history is different and she's written differently as
well.
That's just very nation in drag, though, isn't it?
This has been pointed out, Sarah, Terry, Nation, Kingdom.
Do you know what I mean?
like Sarah Kingdom.
It's like Tarrant. everyone's called Tarrant in the Terry verse.
Yeah, so I...
I'm a soap opera that isn't very nation Street.
I, I, I, I do kind of love terriation in a way.
Sorry.
Terry Nation Street.
I love Terry Nation for his whole kind of Stephen King attitude to
writing because Stephen King is famously someone who, when he
stuck for an idea, He'll just look around and the 1st thing he
sees, right, that's that's his monster.
As I think it's Family Guy joke towards, you know, Stephen King
looking around his agent's office for an idea and saying, I'm
writing a scary story about a possessed lamp.
And that's the kind of thing Terry does, you know.
He looks out into his garden and sees a funny looking plant and
right, I'm going to have the Varga plants.
You know that...
No one said that is exactly what happened, but it's probably...
I think of the visions.
He looked out of his window and did, like, see anything.
Invisible things.
They're cheap to realise.
Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Yes we are.
Well, on the planet in the era for a good reason.
It is impossible to talk about mission to the unknown in isolation
because, of course, it is the prelude to the Dalek's master plan.
But coming back to...
We do have about 6 hours, though, don't we set aside to talk
about?
So I think you're right, we should get back to Mission to the
Unknown.
What I, and what I've seen of Mission to the Unknown, and I can't
really comment as to how I got it, but I have seen the Ian Levine
commissioned animation of Mission to the Owners. think it's on
YouTube. you can just see it on YouTube.
Yeah.
Well, it's some, and you know, it's very good.
And again, it's taking its skews, as you were saying, Richard, from
animation design in the 60s, and particularly the 70s, it looks
like those 60s, 70s filmation series.
It looks like it looks like Ghostbusters, the series from before
the Ghostbusters films.
It looks like Scooby-Doo.
And it's animated very faithfully.
I am very surprised because it was offered to 2 entertained to
release in some fashion and they turned it down.
I think it's a wonderful piece of work and I do recommend anyone.
No, we can.
You can find it.
But I actually, I actually like the um, the recon just because the
seeing the shots of the, the, the spaceship set, you know, in the
jungle and stuff.
I, you know, this is another one where I've listened to it a lot
on audio, um, I really like it in Dalek Masterplan.
I think it's just phenomenally entertaining.
But this time for the 1st time seeing those sets and things.
I think it looks spectacular.
The jungle looks great, you know.
So watching the, um, uh, the animation, you know, would be fun, but
I was surprised by how, how, how accessible the uh, the recon
was.
Yeah, yeah, it's very good.
And also the benefit of loose kind of reconstruction is they do
get together the 3 main human actors.
Edward DeSouza, who was Mark Corey, Barry Jackson, who was Jeff
Garvey, and Jeremy Young, who was Gordon Lowry.
And they actually have really vivid memories of working on the
story and it's quite interesting to listen to those.
There's like an interview that they've done with them.
Yeah.
The 3 of them together?
Did they get David Graham as well?
The voice of Parker from Thunder?
Did they get...
He was a darling.
Did they get Malpha back?
They didn't?
Is Malpha is in this, isn't he?
Yeah, but I believe he's no, I believe Robert Carl Lund is no
longer with us.
I could be wrong, but I believe that would be the case.
I hope he's not a listener then, you know, that'd be a shock.
Robert Cartland, if you're out there and listening, please let us
know you're all right.
Just before we move on, there is also the controversy around the
story as to what is it called?
Well, it's called Dalek Caraway.
Yeah.
Because there's the theory that, um, yeah, it's Mission to the
Unknown is the episode title of the story Dalek Cutaway because it
is officially referred to as Dalek Cutaway on BBC.
Production notes, but taking that, of course, it does have an
alternate title on BBC production notes as well.
What's the alternate title?
Dear verity, so sorry to hear you're moving on.
Here's that extra thing with Doug.
We call it that.
I think we can.
Right, so Verity Lambert's gone.
John Wildes, the new producer, is now fully entrenched and in
charge.
However, we still have a few stories which verity commissioned
before she left.
So there's a bit of a hand over here, and the 1st of those stories
is Nathan.
Yes, it's the myth makers.
So it's another historical for me, which I'm you know, hugely
thrilled about, obviously.
But I have to say that this is another one that I think works very
well.
And I think it works for the same reason that the Romans works in
that.
Yeah, I really want to use the word tropes, but I'm all self
conscious about it now.
What the hell?
No, no.
It uses stories that are known to people in the audience.
And again, uh, things like the Iliad and the Aeneid are perhaps
not quite so widely known as they once were, but they were quite
well known to, you know, have plenty of the audience members in
the, uh, uh, in the 19th.
Yeah.
And so you have all of these sort of very familiar characters, and
then you drop the doctor, and to a lesser degree, Stephen and
Vicki, in that story.
And with the added sort of idea that it's the myth makers, you
know?
So we're kind of admitting that we're being historically ropey, you
know, we have a historical Achilles and an Odysseus and a Hector
and these are all sort of real people in this version of things.
And so we get to play with the idea that the doctor knows what the
myth is and how it plays out, just as the sort of members of the
audience do.
And then also you get, you know, all of these epic characters.
I mean, you know, the Iliad, you know, is one of the earliest
stories of Western literature that we have.
And, you know, it's hugely spectacular and terrific.
And so the story gets to undermine these old characters and to
have fun with them.
And so, right from the, right from the get go, Richard's just
handed, handed me Robert Fagel's translation of the Elliad, which
is absolutely beautiful.
It really is great.
The pages stick together at almost every chapter.
Well, it is wonderful.
It is just wonderful.
Yeah, that could be my pick of the week.
But of course, the Mythmakers actually starts with Iliad
finishes.
So the big climactic battle between Achilles and Hector takes
place in book 22, of the Iliad right towards the end, and the
stuff that we get, the Trojan whore stuff is basically from Aeneid
book 2 and the Troitos and Cressida stuff is from the Middle Ages
really.
It's, you know, all sort of a lot later.
But it's all things that are familiar to the people at home and
there's a wonderful way in which she subverts all those
characters.
So just Menelaus is spectacular.
He's a drunk, you know, and he's bored with the war and he's kind
of quite keen to be shot of hell and he doesn't mind that she's
gone.
She's not done it before.
This is one of the, and then you've got Cassandra, who in this is
fine, is the villain rather than Homer's, where she is the high
priestess and prophetess and really the voice of the, the super
narrative, the book that looking onto the narrative.
She's the darkest thing in it.
But the thing that you remember about Cassandra too.
And you read this elsewhere.
I've just been reading one of Ovid's love allergies that mentions
Cassandra.
And the thing that, the thing that you remember about her is that
she's dragged out of the temple, you know, when Troy is finally
sacked, she sort of dragged out by the hair by a middle land, sort
of thinking.
Yeah, we read that...
It's a comedy for like the 1st 3.5 episodes.
And everyone is brutally murdered.
This is what I've been talking about earlier when I was alluding
to how this season plays with camp tropes and throws and throws
narrative sideways.
Camp nose doesn't always mean queer and silly and funny.
It also means turning things on its head.
So, yeah, the roles are all reversed and we go from three.
I think this is one of my all-time top 5 favourite Doctor Who
stories.
It is intensely jealous when the randomiser.
Interestingly gave it to its creator.
Nothing else to say. right now.
I just, I really love this story.
I only knew it in audio.
I read the target book that Donald Cotton penned and came out
about 15 years ago.
It's really expensive to get on, um, to get on eBay if you can
hunt it down.
The audiobook is available.
Read by Stephen Thorn.
So the actual novel. you've listened to that, haven't you?
Yes, so have I. And I haven't because I just, you know, I prefer
to read them or listen to the audio.
But it's a really nicely written just as his copy of the Romans, if
we didn't mention it last time, is really worth reading.
You know, I actually haven't listened to it, but it is narrated by
Homer, isn't it?
Is that the is that the conceit?
Yeah, it's look, it's just great.
Even if you're not a fan of this story.
I would start with Stephen, as you say, Stephen Thorne's narration
of that, if you can. shout all the way through the movie.
No, he's got beautiful balance.
Should we mention whom Stephen Thorne has played?
So he's in the series of Doctor Who, if no one knows who he is.
He's a Zaar.
He's a...
He's an Ogron.
Yeah, he's a what?
He's an Ogron.
Is he?
Yes, he is.
He's everything behind a plaquey mask with his leg.
Big finish upbringing back his omega as well.
Ah, good.
They've had they've had Ian Collier. as Omega, of course. about 10
years ago. and now they're bringing back the Stephen Thorne
version too.
Well, who wouldn't?
Because, you know, I think he's 19 out and still going strong.
He's like William Russell.
Yes.
Fabulous.
I love this story.
I really do.
That's not a Sutic.
That thing with the Trojan horse, the fun, like, interaction of
narrative and history and things.
So, you know, the doctor's not going to build the Trojan. like the
doctor has to get some, get them.
He's being threatened by Odysseus and he has to get them over the
walls and like he toys with the idea of the horse, but he says, no
no, Homer made that up. that's ridiculous So instead, his idea is
to get a big catapult and use it to fire a paper airplane with a
soldier sitting in it over the wall.
And that's all really good until Odysseus says yes, but you're
going to the one who tests it out.
And so he goes, yes, no, well, maybe I won't do that, then we'll
do the horse thing after all.
Yeah, it's it's the giant, it's the giant wooden rabbit scene from
Monty Python's Holy Grail. 15 years before it happened.
You know, because it's hard to tell without the visuals, because
it's an entirely missing story, except for a few snippets that
were taken off the TV screen with someone's 8 millimetre camera.
It's entirely impossible to tell if the doctor's joking or not
when you're suggesting the paper plain idea, but you are led to
believe that when it suggested that he could do that.
He says, okay, I'll build your horse.
It is really funny.
And the interaction with him and Odysseus is hilarious.
Like Odysseus is funny.
Everyone's great.
Odysseus is funny.
Paris is screamingly funny.
Like he's just terribly posh and, you know, not very interested in
fighting, inept, easily fooled and all of that sort of thing.
It's a sitcom set up with a with a family sitcom with Max Adrian
as far as Brian's father and then Cassandra and Paris as the
squabbling siblings.
And then, of course, Vicky appears amongst them as, what is she?
She's they immediately conflated with a narrative, then she
becomes Cressida.
Which ought to have tipped her off, but you said before, and
history's not as strong.
Yes, right.
But I mean, you should have got a bit nervous when they called it
out.
Precedent isn't really a thing until the Middle Ages anyway.
No, that's right.
She not actually in home, actually.
He does have a character called Crisis.
No, well, even that's not really a name.
As in Norme, is that?
She's called the No, no, a crisis.
But, but the point, I mean, the idea is that she's just completely
invented for the sake of a, like, it becomes a thing in the Middle
Ages and in the Renaissance to tell the story of Troy and
Cressida.
Yeah, that's right.
But the thing that, I mean, the thing that strikes me, you know
the way that we talk about it is it's 3 episodes of comedy and
then brutal murder at the end.
But like everyone watching knows that there's brutal murder coming
surely.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, you know that you know that Prime's going to be killed, you
know, that Cassandra's going to be dragged out by a hair.
You know that Paris is going to be killed.
And then the strange choice of having Troilus, who, in the
classical version of the story, the thing he's most famous for is
being killed, like Troilus isn't in the Iliad, he gets mentioned
by Priam and Priam says, you know, it's such a shame that he's
dead.
And so Troyos is sort of famous for being dead.
Achilles kills him and in some stories, he beheads him in front of
the altar after Troilus rebuffs his sexual advances.
Yes, well, there is that.
That's not in this.
Well, it's certainly in the portrayal of Troilus. as you see, Troy
is here in the audio.
Well, yeah, he's famously pretty.
But the Troilith and Cressetor relationship is doomed.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, so it's doomed.
And the fact that at the end of it, they do go off together.
Like in the, in the, in the Shakespeare play, like she ends up
going back to the Greeks and she falls in love with Diomede, which
is the name that Steven's actually using, or she flirts with him
or something and Troilus gets really annoyed and he goes out to
kill him some Greeks and gets killed.
Well, Troilus does initially think that Vicky is with Stephen in
that way and does get a bit jealous.
I'm talking, he's like, oh, no, God, that's my brother, you know
words to that effect.
So like it is sort of strange that like we kind of led to think
that that might be doomed.
But because we've already had this idea that the myth and the
history, like the story isn't isn't the same as what's happening
here.
Do you know what I mean?
Like maybe there will be a horse, maybe there'll be a giant
catapult firing, you know, people over the wall.
So there's a secret history, in a sense, of Troilus and Cressida
that never makes its way into Shakespeare and never makes its way
into Chaucer.
And that secret history has, has Troilus and Cressida heading out
to help Aeneas found Rome.
So, so they escape the slaughter.
And, you know, even though Troilus is famous in Greek mythology
for nothing more than being killed, he actually avoids that fate
and goes off with Vicky.
Donald Cotton.
Sorry, Donald Cotton's target novel has an epilogue with Vicky and
Troilus being happily middle-aged and middle-aged.
Yeah, it's a nice Are they living in Rome?
No, not Rome.
Lavinium.
Oh, look, it's been a while since I've read it.
But the...
Okay, that's nice though.
There's a big Finnish companion chronicle that follows on from
that as well. an older Vicky.
It's one of the very early ones.
It's called Frostfire.
It's written by Mark Platt, so it's beautiful.
I can't say too much without spoiling the plot.
But Vicky has...
A little Chumbly...
Vicky has a prisoner.
Oh, she calls him Zombo.
To whom she tells a story and the story relates who the prisoner
is, but the framing material.
She and Troilus are safe and she is living as Cressida and they're
very, very happy, et cetera, et cetera.
That's lovely.
And I just say buggery needed to be seen because is this another
point where we just get rid of the Yunker companion in the most
arseway.
It's terrible.
Really awful.
I think there are some good things about it.
I do like the fact that we don't see it again.
Do you know what I mean?
That the doctor's quite upset by it.
We don't see their final scene. another one going Titanas.
And according to the, according to the recon, when Vicky comes
Vicky sort of bustles the doctor into the Tartar, something else
happens and then Vicky steps out of the TARDIS, hugs it.
She hugged she walks around the side of the ship and throws her
arms around it and presses herself against it and walks off and
the doctor sort of pokes his head out and watches her go.
And then it takes off and with Stephen still expects her to be
there.
Yeah, yeah, Stephen's unconscious and got blood poisoning from the
sword.
But you see, I said this last time, and I'll say it again, unlike
Susan's departure, this feels more appropriate because it's
Vicky's choice.
It just seems like a choice that she would never make. though.
Like, because she's, you know, this modern future girl.
Like, why does she want to go and live among the kind of...
Yeah.
Yeah, doesn't she remember?
Let's touch again on dental hygiene.
That's right.
And to some hilarious.
Well, there's a lot of things we, come on, would you really take
for granted, modern medicine?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that seems, that does, that seems strange and it does seem
like, it's like Mel going off with Sabalong glitz for no reason or
you know, like it is just one of those things where, uh, well, this
is her last story, but we're in ancient, uh, you know, Troy, what
are we going to do?
We'll marry her off.
And they try and give her a hopeful ending at which all the big
finish things have been hung upon.
But it is a little bit crummy.
So ad hoc and quick.
Well we know the real reason, don't we?
Yeah, it's and it's so the real reason is so bizarre.
And both sides tell the exact same story.
Her contract ended at the end of the Mythmakers, which was the 1st
story in production for this block.
So they'd had a 2 or 4 week breaker, whatever.
Donald Tosh and John Wiles had been trailing for a few months.
Donald Tosh had been there longer and Maureen O'Brien was saying
to the production team, look, I don't think the part is stretching
my talents enough.
My end of my contract's coming up.
I'm probably going to look for more work and that was her that was
her final word on the matter before she went on holiday.
So when John Miles and Donald Tosh were working on their plan
going forward.
They sort of said, oh, well, do we still have Maureen?
And it's actually Donald Tosher said in interviews, he said to
John Welles, oh, no, no, she's not happy.
She doesn't want to be renewed for a contract, slightly da- da.
And then when she came back and got the script, she called up the
production office and Donald, you know, I've been written out.
We hadn't, we hadn't discussed, we hadn't decided.
So, you know, she wasn't exactly pushed out because as far as the
production team knew, she wasn't happy, but at the same time, she's
kind of like, if I knew I was definitely going.
I wouldn't have gone off for a 4 week holiday.
I would have gone off for a week's holiday and looked for work for
3 weeks.
But what I find really funny about it is.
Maureen O'Brien has actually, up to this point, had a really
strong run of stories for Vicki.
She's a very strong character in Galaxy 4.
She's a very strong character in the time meddler.
She's very strong in the chase.
She's very strong in the space museum.
And her character had just been getting stronger and stronger.
So I do find it odd that she wasn't, for instance, as strong as
Barbara, but she was starting.
Oh, who was, but you know, she got the Ian part in Galaxy 4, you
know, she got the part of actually going to the alien spaceship to
look for help and, you know, she does, of course, get trapped in
things.
But it's just so odd because she was far stronger written as a
character than Susan, but still wasn't satisfied with them.
She was strongly written for, but the lines were not.
You know, the other sources, right on the production, have been
far more explicit as to what really happened.
No, do you want it?
No, I just wanted to say that I didn't think being superb and
truly fabulous was likely to stretch Maureen O'Brien as an actress
at all.
She's just awesome, you know, but she's still not enough.
Hugely skilled.
It's a good writer. a really good writer on her own bench if you
look at the novels that she's written.
She writes crime fiction?
Yeah, yeah.
And she does really well at it.
No, other sources have said, I won't bother naming them.
You can look them up if you want to go there, is that she was
fired.
And she was fired by John Wiles, which is pretty extraordinary
when you look at the 1st act of a new producer replacing the
youngest and 1st woman producer at her level on the BBC, is to
sack the young juvenile, the juvenile female lead for being, in
quotation marks, to upper tea.
She and Billy were both, um, a legend hazard, um, and it's
recorded.
It's not just fan hearsay, complaining about the lines in Galaxy 4
scripts like a lot of scripts go at this time were going through
many different variations before it got to the screen.
A lot of rewrites.
Tosh had to do a lot of rewriting on pretty much everything he
got.
It's the same thing that Russell and Davis and Moffatt have been
saying.
I guess that's just the process of a show like this.
A lot of writing goes on.
But the actual dialogue was taking 2nd or 3rd point to the plot
and Billy was becoming increasingly, um, some say erratic, I think
he was just getting more caring or more nervous about how his
character was being treated and starting to notice that perhaps
he's being being given less to do.
So he was very vocal about that.
But Maureen was backing up.
So we hear backing up Billy and then also saying, no, these lines
are absolute rubbish.
John Miles said, well, I don't want any conjecture.
I don't want any disagreement from the floor.
She's out.
Because she is like there, she tells the stories, like on DVD
extras and stuff about like her role, sometimes to sort of calm
Bill down and make it, yeah, like make it possible for him to go
on when he was in a sort of crummy mood.
And so like you have this, I mean, season 3 is the story of
Hartnell being eased out.
And, you know, in an adventures in an adventure in space and time
is that the right order?
Yes.
At adventure in space and time.
It's the story of all of his friends going away and Maureen's
going to be the last one there.
So Billy Support, the person who was able to wrangle Billy because
he genuinely liked her and that chemistry is so visible on the
screen.
Like, this is his last support going away.
Verity's gone.
You know, Jackie's gone.
William Russell's gone.
Peter Purvis was a good mate.
So, you know, they actually had this really nice fraternity
purpose of suit.
Yeah, yeah.
And their relationship, their relationship is quite good, but
essentially, we've now got sort of nothing left in the regular
cast that links us to the beginning of the program.
You know, like Bill and the police box.
Yeah, yeah. you know, Vicky's clearly just a sort of replacement
for Susan.
And as you said, you know, despite the fact that she's from future
England, she's sort of essentially a contemporary character.
Now we're going to go into this very strange run of episodes where
nothing has anything very much to do with present day earth and
it's all going to start to go horribly, horribly wrong. before?
horribly, horribly wrong.
And it is, you know, this is where Billy's, we're going to just
slowly watch him being eased out by the production team.
He gets a bit triumphant before he goes, though.
I think he's one of those people that really triumphs under
adversity and you get some of Bill's best acting when he's really
put under pressure, as we're probably going to see with the next
story.
Yes, indeed.
And the 1st the 1st pressure point.
So this will just be our little segue before we cut to the credits
I think.
Our 1st pressure point is going to be the new companion of
Catarina, our 1st historical companion.
Is your companion?
Well, I think we'll let's spend the next hour and a half talking
about whether she and Sarah Kingdom a companion.
Well, Lincoln, you're missing.
That's...
So I think that's going to be the topic of next episode, maybe.
I cut you off there.
So that's our 1st episode of season three.
We'll see you back here for next week, which is clearly going to
be a rather heated discussion.
Good night.
Good night. good everything.
You've been listening to Flight Through Entirety with Nathan
Bottomley, Brendan Jones, and Richard Stone.
This episode, Nichols, dear listener, was reported on Sunday, the
10th of August.
The next episode will be released on August 31st.
You can find us at FlightthroughEntirety.com, flight through
entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTV podcast on Twitter.
It's too late to say whoa to the podcast.
It's already over.
So, um, uh, Galaxy 4.
Now, that sound, that sound you hear, we've slightly changed
location for this episode, and we're actually recording at
Richard's place, and Richard has a beautiful Siamese Burmese
class.
Lots of blue point Siamese steadfast killer.
Novice Haim, is it called?
Yeah, sure.
Called Soutec, the Distroacher, I believe.
There's a reason there's a tile floor in this place. destroyed
everything else.
So if you do hear the occasional mewing or howling, do not adjust
your set.
Yeah, that'll be you, won't it?
Yes, exactly.
Or possibly Nathan, who's allergic to cats.
Go away.
We might just pause here.
I had comedic value, but just that bit too long. cutting this
out.
Come on, sweetheart, you guys.
She's a very beautiful cat.
Yeah.
I don't actually like hats, but I just don't think I'm going to
make it to the end of the year.
Don't need to...
Everyone would have lost interest to the podcast.
Okay, stop going on.
Okay, I'll be back in the list.