Hello, dear listeners, and welcome to Flightthrow Entirety, the
only Doctor Who podcast to have worked with Professor Stein before
he died, and then we stopped.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I was going to say I'm the faceless ones in a 3D sauna that I'm
really just stunned.
And I think we're all going to be stunned as we head into some
wonderful CSO video model work in Nightmare of Eden.
It's, um, it's Bob Baker solo after the great divorce.
That's a video I never, ever want to see.
It's like 1979's worst album release ever.
But it turns out... for cleaning that up.
Yeah.
It does turn out that Dave Martin was to blame for everything.
Yeah, but they can actually write.
This isn't surprisingly good.
There was a lot of reworking on the studio floor.
Lewis Fianders brilliant interpretation of our Brendan.
And he threw that in, as you know, on the floor to lighten up the
mood.
There's some great.
It's terrible.
Yeah, really.
He's nearly wrecked.
And yet some of the best model effects shot in one of the worst
manners you could possibly do that blew the budget.
It has... a nice, tight, and an, interesting script.
It has some terrific.
Hello, David Dacre.
It has some terrific actors, a guest artist, and we can thank Alan
Bromley for the casting.
Yeah, and we can also thank Conor Bromley for a lot of other
things, can't we?
Alan Bromley being for the listener at home who's never bothered
to watch this and you don't need to if we'll talk to us talking
about it.
The director.
And he also directed one of my all-time favies.
The time was a potato man meets mediaeval beak noises. which also
featured David Dacre.
Alan Bromley have a, he had the tendency to just kind of down
tools and walk off the set.
Not exactly.
It's strange.
He was sort of this contradiction in that he was a very old school
director and by this point he was semi-retired. was in his 60s.
We're talking Ali Pali era.
Right, directing, yeah.
But at the same time, he was very dynamic in the sense that he was
changing things after a week's rehearsal on the studio floor.
And that was the main thing that caused tension between himself
and the other actors, and particularly Tom.
It didn't make sense that an old TV director who cut his teeth in
the early days of BBC and therefore knew that everything is
immobile except the upper 3rd of the actor's face because that's
all you can move.
No, it's true.
That's why Billy used to wave the hands is because I can't move
from my shot.
Your mark is your mark.
And we'll get to that a bit later, weren't we, when a certain
thing happened on the studio floor?
Indeed.
About marks?
But it makes no sense to me why he was at cross purposes with his
own intentions.
And you get that.
Do you think that's why this story should be good and isn't good?
We've got to that already.
The odd thing is, I've Surprise, surprise, deal, listen, I've
always rather enjoyed this one.
And when I was learning about the directorial problems, which you
can see in the info text on the DVD, I was quite amazed because I
don't see say that much wrong with the direction as we sometimes
get in the 1980s where it's just a matter of, okay, Peter, Janet
Mark, you've got one minute to do this 3 minute scene, go, we'll
cut as we go.
I don't get that same sense here, but maybe that's down to the
cast kind of going.
We can't allow these problems behind the scenes to come across on
screen.
And I'm just going to go on record as saying I actually really
like Trist's accent.
Gosh, it's terrible.
It's this sort of some Peter Sellers thing that he's got going
deliberately thinks that's funny.
But do you know why he did it?
Yeah, because they were all having such miserable time in
rehearsal because Bromley was really cantankerous and angry and he
shouldn't have been brought back.
It was kind of a favour from Williams, wasn't it, too?
Keep getting moving.
So what he was...
Yeah.
So Fiander was doing it to make the rest of the class.
Just make everyone laugh because Brombie was just being a
monster.
And yes, as you say, notes coming down from the control room
constantly.
Yeah, you know, can you change this?
But another reason Lewis founder did that accent or what he said
in later years was that he read the script and found out, spoiler
alert, dear listeners, he's one of the villains at the end.
And he thought, you know what, if I make myself ridiculous, it
will be a surprise to the viewer when I'm revealed as a villain.
Yeah, but he...
It's extremely terrible.
I don't know whether we've mentioned this before, but Douglas
Adams has this thing that he says about the problem with the way
that actors respond to a script that's funny.
And he thinks comedy should be played straight. that makes it more
effective.
In the pirate planet, for instance.
There's all these jokes and things.
And then we discovered that this massive atrocity is happening and
all of these worlds are being destroyed and the jokes and the
horror of that kind of work really well together.
And it's a very Adams way of writing, actually.
Yeah, it's an interesting that they held it over for the next
season.
But that you create you make jokes to increase the dichotomy and
therefore the tension when it's released.
But what he, what Adams always says is that when actors see that
then they come in and do funny voices and funny walks and that
kind of thing and just undermine it completely.
And I just think that Fi Anders thing is the absolute canonical
example of that.
It really, really a shame, and it just renders every scene that
he's in sort of distractingly kind of ridiculous.
Wow.
Yeah, no, I'm very cross about it.
Because like you, I actually think that this is really good.
And I think it displays some of the Baker and Martin problems, but
it doesn't fall into the trap that they usually fall into.
So I think the problem is the characters are all sort of rather
broadly drawn and sort of fairly terrible.
But the Baker and Martin problem of coming up with, you know, an
idea and then abandoning it after 5 to 7 minutes only to run after
a new shiny idea, which was really, really evident in, say
Armageddon factor.
Here, I think there's three main ideas, and they're all linked, and
they're all kind of involved in the plot, and they all resolve
themselves at more or less the same time.
And I don't know whether that's just because Bob Baker's having a
good day or whether it's the influence of Douglas Adams, because
Douglas Adams is someone who plots things.
You know, you kind of think of him as a fairly shambolic writer
and you've got hitchhikers, which is famous for being made up
while the actors are in the other room, you know, waiting for
their lines to appear.
But his books are really tightly plus. ploss You can see the way
the man's mind worked and what it was was over.
And again, everyone gives Joss Whedon the credits for story arcing
in the meeting, but it's actually atoms with hitchhikers and now
with Doctor Who.
This whole season has a thread we touched on last time.
And the individual against order, if you like, against boredom
capitalism, whatever you want to call it.
It's all dovetotals, beautifully.
This one, again, is really nicely arcing Adam's feel, and you can
follow those threads you're talking about through how this flows.
And there's a very dark and real, not say dark, it's just truthful
concept of how drugs are bad.
They are.
And just, and it shows me how things fall apart.
The David Dacre character is the linchpin of that.
And he plays it for real.
Yeah, it's it's, it doesn't.
Well, he doesn't...
The rule one of drugs on TV is everyone on TV has much better
drugs than you because like no one ever behaves on drugs like they
behave on drugs on television.
We haven't seen what drugs or zip as it was called.
We haven't seen what Redstone actually can do that.
And if you've seen, you know, television or crystal method.
That's actually over.
Yeah, I think he underplays a high.
Well, that's the thing is what, you know, he plays what we would
see, someone as having been on very hard drugs for a very long
time coming down.
Well, we don't have time to do that in Doctor Who.
So we have this space drug which gives you 150000 hits all at once
and then the and then the resulting withdrawal.
Not the internet, really.
Popularity on the internet.
So, you know, it's not necessarily a gritty, realistic portrayal
of drugs, but it's as realistic portrayal of drugs as Doctor Who
can do.
And that scene where he attacks Romana.
It is harrowing and both actors are playing it incredibly well.
A few weeks ago, I criticised Lala's reaction to the Daleks as
being a bit too scared, but I think Romana plays the fear in that
scene very well.
She's kind of doing the thing that we credit Elizabeth Sladen a
lot for, you know, being scared and being brave at the same time
because she knows that she has to do this scientific gobbledygook
thing.
And that's her that's her driving force in the scene and this is
her obstacle.
But for once, you know, as we've come to expect Romana just sort
of brushing aside anything that's far too dull and uninteresting
for her.
She's like, no, I actually have to deal with this real world thing
that's happening.
And it's it's quite interesting that Romona, with all her power as
a time lord, that she's demonstrated in all of her stories up and
down to this point, she doesn't get herself out of that
situation.
And it's kind of sending the message that there are dangerous
situations in the real world, which you may get yourself into
trouble too, if you approach.
You know, if she hadn't, say, just karate chopped him in the neck
you could see that as irresponsible, because that's kind of saying
to children, well, if someone's acting manic, you know, just
karate chopped them in the neck, whereas actually Romana's like
I'm trying to avoid this terrible situation and gets rescued by
Jeffrey Hinsliff as Fisk, who at one point calls Trist Fisk.
And it's, it is this kind of strange, very real danger in the
middle of this story about polycyrene monsters who crumble and
turn into analylicit substance.
So terrifying they couldn't be seen on the photo shoot.
That's right.
Yes.
Before we go to that, we're talking about verisimilitude within
performances, aren't we?
within the narrative.
And look, I'm sort of in the middle, literally at this table as
well, but thinking that, yeah, I can see where they're going with
this, and certainly when I was young, thinking again, 1st time
watching this, which is always the freshest interpretation.
I got that too.
But in the end, it was really about Cantel, mostly, that's
actually what the drug shoot.
And it was originally going to be called zip, the episode, but
Lala and Williams thought that that was actually making drugs to
his too cool.
I think this narrative, like you're saying, Brendan, really, really
achieves its end far greater than Nancy Reagan ever could, because
it makes drugs look not just utterly uncle, but kind of something
you just don't really want to get involved with because it just
looks a little bit messy.
What did you think?
I think it's a strange place for Doctor Who to go.
And it's something that it doesn't really do again.
And I think it is a bit heavy handed.
And I'm not sure that element of the plot really works.
I'm not quite sure who offscreen is drunking people's drinks and
why.
So...
I always assumed it was Trist.
Yeah, so David Dacre gets a dose intended for Romana.
Yes.
And the co-pilot or the navigator in episode one.
Oh, he's being drunk, so they cause the crash.
No, no, he hasn't been drugged.
He is taking the drug.
Like he has his own supply.
Oh okay.
Which he possibly got from Trist.
It's never confirmed one way or the other.
Yeah, see, there is some slack slackness to that part.
And we shouldn't be having to sit here and puzzle that out.
That stuff should be obvious.
I mean, it's not as entertaining as funny.
Felicity Kendall's, you know, entomological love child is actually
the one slipping them everything, don't you think?
It's not really about that.
It's not it's not the unicorn the wasp.
It's just, that was fun.
You're looking for a mystery thing going on, okay.
What was the drug in that tea?
Well, I want to know why it's called Raxoan instead of Raxoan as
well, because clearly it's like space heroin, isn't it?
But it was it.
Yeah, I know, but they call it Rexuan.
There is a reference to zip.
Like XYP is the fungus that it comes from.
That was how it was sort of going to be referred to.
I just realised that means the mandrals are fungal creatures.
They are.
They had those huge moustaches.
I actually thought it was a statement, a really prescient
statement on the drug culture coming up in the 80s because they
all look like Freddie Mercury plush toys.
I actually think it's just really damp on Eden and they're not
very careful with their personal hygiene that would be.
Well, they were originally scripted as mud monsters.
You know, and then that was changed.
What do you think of them?
I think they're terribly cute.
They are very...
You do want to hug them, don't you?
Yeah, they're terribly sweet Which is good in a way because
they're not evil.
No.
You know, they're just beasts.
I think a big problem with that.
Like mini moustachioed tall things were in the late 70s.
Including, yeah, most of the crew on their ship.
There is that flavour.
But Alan Bromley has no hint of being theatrically minded in other
ways.
I think that's just the look at the time.
I think a big problem with the mandrels is in episodes 2 and 3
when we're wandering about the Eden projection or we see them in
the matter interfaces.
We get the Terrence Dix, Robert Holmes approach of, you know, we
see a claw or we see a close-up of an eye or we see this or we see
that.
It's rather undermined by the fact that the end of episode one, we
see one leaning through a hole going, waving its arms.
Yes.
In fact, that's a terrible episode one. monster a bit. the round
window.
No, no, because they cut the hole in the thing for no readily
apparent reason.
It comes out in roars.
Then next week we have the reprise and they go, oh, we'll seal
that hole up again and so they just seal it up immediately.
And I don't think we've seen them before.
You know, we've heard them growl before, but we haven't had the
whole bit by bit by bit like you do in, say, terror of the
zygobs.
It's just, and a monster cave.
Well, I think they're sweet.
I love it when the doctor uses his little sonic whistle and they
do little groaning sweet groaning.
Pine pipes them, yeah.
And there's lots of underplays.
Some of the best lines were cut out, probably as they will be from
most of our podcasts, gentle listener.
You know, when Romana's chomping on an Apple in that scene, you
know, and Tom looks at her and says best not to look what happened
last time.
Well, fuff that line. why they cut it out.
Don't you find that Della and Stott, who is what, Jennifer
Lonsdale and a bloke?
Barry Andrews?
That Q?
Barry Andrew.
We're actually pretty good.
I used to love the best the best.
This is the problem.
You're pitching for realism.
And then you're kind of pitching for Panto Doctor Who, Quantil.
You've got them in the same frame, though.
Yeah, it's it's going to end, it's always going to end up with the
same squeaking sound that deck chairs on the Titanic make, don't
you?
So yeah, can we talk about the Quantel paint box theme?
Please.
Ter exciting.
I actually think that it's some of the most successful bits in the
episode.
Like the opening scene with those models.
I think the models look quite good.
They were beautiful and they cost a lot.
It looks like gold.
Do you remember the Blake 7 episode gold, which has sort of
similar sort of model work. wonderful.
Is that your pick of the week?
And like the video effects are really great and then the unstable
matter interfaces look really good.
There's that fantastic cliffhanger to episode three.
When they walk through...
When Tom gets dissolved.
Yeah, when he disappeared.
That's another course. great.
It's those 2 big things.
So we look at that now and go, oh, yeah, that's, you know, it's
nicely done, but that was a massive wow back in the day.
We hadn't seen it, and it took them forever to shoot that.
So kudos, I guess, to Bromley for getting that right.
No, particularly the aversion that he showed to proper effects of
any kind in the previous way.
I think, yeah, I think there was a whole lot.
Well, you know that some of this direction we're praising was
actually Graham Williams when you came down onto the studio.
Yes, indeed.
Just another word on that Quantel.
It's kind of what goes around, comes around because the Quantel
machine they were using was designed for picture and picture and
news broadcast.
Amy Stewart was designed for Amy Stewart wearing a carnival
pretzel.
It came out just a few months before from Berlin.
But how they achieved the effects we see in Nightmare of Eden is
similar to how Bernard Lodge achieved the 1st 3 Doctor Who title
sequences.
They fed the input back in on the machine and it then degraded and
degraded and degraded as with the Hartnell Trout and Pertwee
opening titles.
I thought you were going to say as the quality of the narrative
also.
Bernard Lodge is not actually a person, it's a place.
It's just a drug fuelled ghetto where Delia Derbyshire would sit
and chew away on bits of piano wire, and that's why her teeth were
so awful.
And all those other young people just get up there and that's what
this story is about, this story is about young creatives getting
into Bernard Lodge and ruining their future careers.
By taking zip, by by by chewing on a zip.
That's right.
Speaking of which, the mandrills, I think the zip is actually
named after that extraordinary feature on the back of the mandrill
costume, which is constantly invisible.
Thank you for raising that.
There's a bit of a theme of hilariously and non-metaphorically
splitting your trousers this season.
As we get it in this one.
Well, there's a whole lot of, what's Mr. Adams trying to tell us?
What's Duggo?
I'm trying to tell us about bum flashing in this season.
I think he's forum.
Yeah, generally.
I wonder if it's a subtle comment on state of play, BBC
generally.
Well, in just 2 years time, of course, he will flash his own bum
in Hitchhiker's Guy into the Galaxy.
Bad, actually.
Yeah, you know, I think he was this big chap.
He had been a bouncer.
He had been terribly fit before the before the fun of the 70s got
to him.
He never stopped having fun and that's why we had him for such
little time.
It's great sadness, isn't it?
Well, a great deal of alcohol and cigarettes.
Yeah, but we say fun. combined with just a chronic inability to
get anything finished.
It just means that all we have are the 5 hitchhikers novels and
2.5 dirk gently, well, 2 and a quarter, 2 and a 8.
And they rise.
But, you know, on paper, you're right.
But I actually think he got more finished than we generally give
credit and you can see it in the way this season unfolds.
And the fact that the last episodes invisible, last story is
invisible.
It's very Douglas Adams in itself, isn't it?
Douglas Adams did actually have an overarching set of themes.
And I'm not saying it was conscious, and I'm certainly not saying
it was even worked out.
What I am saying is he's so clever. that unconsciously, if you
like, he's spinning this out and it does come together because
truly, truly clever creative people are doing this on many levels
at once.
And I think that's in the end why we love him.
He's giving us more that we can even coming back 30 something
years later.
We can still find these new threads, these new surprises.
You know who in the modern era reminds me a bit of Douglas, and
certainly not in terms of the content he produces?
Quentin Tarantino?
Because Quentin Tarantino has really quite a small repertoire.
Yes.
And, you know, he does have his constant themes and I'm not saying
I'm necessarily a fan of all his work.
But like Douglas, he has his own vision and he sticks to that
vision.
This is where it could get violent.
Yes, indeed. speaking Tarantino, he's like, I find Tarantino
monstrously violent, and he is Asperge, and he's kind of, he's
pretty much admitted his mother talked about it, that he would
just sit and stare at films and write them down.
He just refilms other films, but I find his violence
indigestible.
And that's exactly what Douglas is against.
Sono thematically, you're talking about threads.
I see what you're saying, but it's an interesting person to bring
up because they are diametrically opposed. absolutely.
Yeah, I'm, I am not...
It's like saying the Black Guardian's a little more, actually
Black Guardian is probably more fun than the white Guardian, as
often the case.
Can we talk about the CET machine?
An interesting idea.
So, oh, yes, I love going to space 1979 land.
Yeah.
So I think...
Look, it's the it's a sort of the miniscope's non-Mexican Union
equivalent, isn't it?
Like it was a great idea back when Bob Holmes had it in the mid
70s.
But I think that there are moments where it threatens to derail it
as well.
I think it's really incompetently done.
And I think there are scenes that would have been just
spectacular.
Like the Cliffhanger to episode two, had it been well realised.
So the CET machine is basically, you know, like a bit of a picture
frame surrounding half of the studio.
And as Richard points out, it's just they drop in sort of film
insets of planets from Space Night.
Yes.
Except for Eden, which is just... like really shockingly bad.
And not for a 2nd does it look like a screen and there's no sort
of video effects over it.
And so it's absolutely no surprise at all when they leap over that
tiny bit of wall and end up in Eden.
And it's quite a well acted cliffhanger.
You've got Roman going, we'll be torn apart, doing like more
acting in one line than Mary did in...
And all of that, you know, like the sting comes in before we cut
to the credits, all of that sort of thing. really, really good.
But it just never convinces for a second.
And there's that other scene.
And I was mystified by this for years.
She's standing in front of the projection.
She's idly playing with the machine.
She stands in front of the Eden projection, and a little video
blip thing, comes out and hits her on the neck and she falls down
and I had no idea what that was meant to be until I read the
novelisation.
It's an insect lying out of the projection.
Yeah, and it's meant to inform the audience that things can get
out.
But it's incomprehensible.
Yeah, exactly.
And even Bob Baker on the DVD says, you know, that's what I wrote
into the script and they had to make it into a video effect.
And I understand why they did that, but you lose the meaning.
The other thing with that cliffhanger.
In the script, when they jump across the threshold, they don't
just land in Eden.
They are torn apart.
And that is the cliffhanger that they vanish the way Tom vanishes
at the end of M3.
That would have been good.
And then at the top of the episode three, they just reappear in
Eden and the sort of falling action of the tension is that that's
just how you get into the projection.
You know, it dissolves you like a transporter, but with the viewer
don't know that.
I still like the idea that if it had been a convincing screen.
If we'd thought for a 2nd it was a screen.
Yeah, having the doctor and Omana jump into a television screen
and end up on television would have been just terrific.
You know what I think would have been a wonderful way to do it
would be at some point to have filmed that screen from the side.
And so when they jump in, they just don't, you don't see them come
out the other side.
So it's the ultimate flat screen.
The original idea was, you know, they would disappear in a
maelstrom and you'd hear them screaming and that would be the
cliffhanger and unfortunately, you know, we would have just had
Tom saying, oh, my arms, my legs, my everything.
Oh I quite like that.
So do I. It's totally stupid.
It is sort of preempted by the fact that he's wearing a different
jacket this episode and it's his stunt being torn apart on Eden
jacket so that he still has the nice jacket for subsequent
stories.
Romana's costume on the other hand, isn't it dreadful?
The most horrific thing she ever wears.
It's like a maternity file.
It is a monster game.
I am a child of the 70s, and I have to say she's right up to the
thumping minute in fashionability there.
No, actually it's rather lovely.
It's look at Carly Simon's album covers around the time.
Look at...
I will say it looks wonderful when she's running because of course
in Doctor Who...
Yeah, in Doctor Who for running, you have to run very slowly.
So the dress gives an indication of extra movement, you know.
I've come to regard Lala as, if you could say, symbiotically
associated with her frock.
Yeah, no, and there's the hair does some slightly odd things and
creature, but that was her 1st crack, wasn't it?
It's doing a little bit, sort of.
I am going to play Ophelia, you know.
I am, because we know you are, and she hadn't done it.
Oh, she didn't.
I thought she did it towards the end.
Maybe you're right, because by the time we get to Naimon, she was
certainly in charge of the BBC. dressing for the coast.
But in this one, I just look, all the fox are lovely.
I think what hurts this is the same reason that hurts a trip to
Europe for Australians when you go anywhere further than the UK.
Or anyway, north is where if you go to any of the clean countries
the Scandalwegians or the Dutch, and you go to any H and M sale or
just any anything really.
You find everybody's wearing mustard, mustard seems to be.
I mean, it's not really, it's just a way to cover up food you
don't really eat in the 1st place.
And why did they paint this rather beautiful spaceship mustard?
Well, I've got 4 episodes of looking at baby poo coloured walls.
It does hurt.
It's apparently the Art Deco influence, and I believe the colour
is called Colonial Cream.
It's very nice of them.
There was a colour they call tobacco, which I can pull out for
your listeners at home. love that one.
Show you pictures on the interweb radio, I mean.
No, yeah, yeah.
No, it's flat.
And Lewis Fianders are just a naughty, naughty man for doing the
accent.
It would have been nicer to have some sort of relief on the walls
you know, even just have light relief.
But my old theatre group.
There was a time when the director had 2 had 2 colours.
He want paint, he want, he would want painted into every set
because, you know, we were doing shows like are you being served
in classic comedies like that, and they were heritage red and
colonial cream.
Everything was heritage, red, and colonial cream.
We did a Doctor Who send-up.
The Daleks were heritage, red and colonial cream.
David, I hope you're listening.
Did you think some mid-Bunswick green and mission brown?
Yeah, did he force you to go to the London Zoo quite often because
they are the colours of a baboon's bottom?
That's why they called mandrills.
That's right. we're back in the room.
So I'd like to talk a bit, if I may, about the directorial
problems.
Oh, I think we're well beyond not talking about that.
So as we know, there was no film work conducted for this. much to
the chagrin of Colin Mapson, the model designer.
Because he did design those ship models to be seen on film and
then they were shot on video and he said, you know, usually we had
5 days to shoot on film, but there was a budget cut and we had 4
hours.
And you get a lot of grain, we should say, with video that you
don't get in those days with film.
You can really up the quality and film very slowly on celluloid, so
you get detail on a model.
Thank you, Ian Scones, and the lovely opening to invasion of...
Tinny or whatever, it's called invasion of time.
But it...
Yeah.
I actually don't think they look that terrible.
You know, they're not they're not terrible, but studio cameras
were not designed to move in that way because much like model work
a lot of model work for spaceships are still done now, the cameras
were moving, not the models, which is why we get some very jittery
model scenes.
And Richard is now moving a model.
His home-built Tyson he made when he was 12?
32 years old. 32 years.
Just as old as long as the listeners been listening to this
podcast.
I don't imagine their feeling.
Let's get to Alan Bromley.
We love the monsters, don't we?
The reason that the budget was slashed so much is Graham Williams
said, I will not produce a season finale on a shoestring again.
I'll take some money earlier in the year when inflation means that
money is made.
That money goes further.
Yeah, because inflation was really, really ripping away.
Exactly.
No, that makes no sense.
If you're saving money that's worth more now and inflation's
rising, later, it'll be worth less.
Yes, but he has more of it to play.
Oh, no, it doesn't make sense.
If you could only sort of jump forward in time. use that money and
then bring that back to now. bring that money back.
The cost of your meal is incredibly paid for.
So we have 6 studio days. was perfect.
We have 6 studio days to cover these 4 episodes.
And as we discussed earlier, Bromley constantly changing things
not communicating well with the cast wasn't going down well.
Do we know why he was such a cranky back bottom on this?
No.
No, we really don't.
Anyone?
There's no sort of indication.
Well, we know what happened and why.
He would ticked Lala off. the old thing, but she wasn't on her
mark, which he'd only just moved and she didn't know about, and he
really tore strips of it from the booth.
According to, I think it's the makeup designer, Joan Stripling
gave an interview where she said it was a full-blown verbal
assault, which lasted minutes in front of the entire cast and
crew.
And that was actually the final straw for Tom.
And then spent the day muttering...
Not so sutter, but so back so the control room could hear about
you know, I'm going to get, I think, it's City Carter from that
chap up there, being a disease that you get from parrots.
Yes.
Because, as he also commented, do we have a director up there in
commentator?
Wow.
Oh, that is...
Tom at his worst best.
And the thing is, that is what he actually screamed into the
microphone.
And production broke for dinner and everyone went off for dinner
and came back to the last came back to do the last half day's
filming and Graham Williams was in the gallery saying, right, I'm
calling the shots now.
And...
So Bromley was replaying.
Oh, yeah.
And there is there is no consensus on whether Graham Williams
fired him or Graham Williams pulled him to one side and said, Alan
do you think maybe you should go home?
And some people say that Alan said, you're right.
I've had enough of this.
I've wanted to say this for weeks.
But yeah, I think it speaks a lot to Tom's professionalism that he
was willing to...
Praises he rarely hear.
Oh, hear me out.
That, as disenchanted as he was and disenfranchised by Alan
Bromley's working method, it was only when Bromley did the
ultimate professional sin of personally attacking, not just a cast
member, but at this stage, Tom's partner, really.
I believe they were dating at this stage.
But I would like to think if he'd done it to any cast member, Tom
would have probably done the same thing.
You know, Tom...
But Tom, you know, put up with a lot until the director had lost
control, basically.
And considering that Thomas put up with Norman Stewart on
underworld.
Not that Norman Stewart was necessarily a problem, but Norman
Stewart was a technical directory, didn't know how to direct
actors, but Tom was sympathetic to that, you know.
Tom could only take so much before he just said, look, enough is
enough.
I need to take care of this as the star of the show.
And we sort of, we hear so much this year about, oh, Tom's out of
control, this, that, the other.
I think if Tom was out of control, he probably would have attacked
Bromley far sooner.
Bromley was away up in the control room.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, they did actually have a screening match before this.
But both of them said that actually cleared the air, you know, and
they were able to work well for a day or so after that.
And speaking of directorial commands coming from on high, we've
got an obelisk coming in, gentlemen.
So here we are with the nightmare of Eden, listeners.
You know, I maintain that Bob Baker and Dave Martin write two good
episodes of Doctor Who the Year.
But this is just Bob Baker by himself.
And you know what?
I actually really like this script, but I don't think it should
have ever been attempted in 1979, or even 1989.
I actually think that it could have been rewritten for the new
series as a 45 minute episode, and produced with great special
effects for the new series.
What do you think?
Anyway, I'm now off to the next story.
Surely the monsters can't get any sillier.
It's a good point.
I hate drug things on television, drug message stories on
television.
I think that, uh, it's just, well, I think it's just disingenuous
to say that there's a problem with drugs separate from the problem
caused by the way we treat them in the criminal justice system.
So.
Stories about how drugs are bad just annoy the hell out of me.
And I also think that they tend to be directed against young
people.
They tend to be middle aged people writing about how terrible
young people are.
So it's ever since...
Of course, of fun.
Two young people and the fun what you want.
Like, I don't want Nancy Reagan to waltz on set and start
lecturing me in Doctor Who, frankly.
And she and Capaldi have similar hair.
Increasingly so.
I don't like the drug thing at all.
I do like the unstable matter interfaces thing, you know, creating
weird spaces.
Don't muck around with unstable matters.
Exactly.
Don't get started with them.
They'll ruin your life.
And the fact that the space has created a weird television spaces
you know, that consist of video effects and stuff.
I think all of that stuff is great.
You know, there's a lot of good things to say about this, but the
drug thing just annoys the hell out of me.
If I'd had my time over, I would have talked about the era of
prohibition in the US and how it was one man trying to protect his
anti-alcohol department, and the, oh, the levels of corruption, as
you know, and increasing crime.
And he just didn't want to lose, and Hoover was with him, of
course, but he didn't want to lose his money in his department.
So they just transferred their interest from alcohol to drugs.
Really where it's all come from.
It was readily available.
My grandmother used to buy heroin in distilled, which you could
buy at the pharmacist.
Drunk in those.
Drunks don't start to become a lady's pains.
Yes.
Drugs don't start to become illegal in Australia until 1905, I
think.
And then it's a racist thing directed against the Chinese, banning
opium for smoking, but you could still...
That would have been a more fun episode actually.
We can still get, you know, opium for drinking at the chemist, you
know.
In Newtown, right now.
And of course, in America, around the time of the Great Depression
the actual reason that marijuana was banned, it was nothing to do
with Roof or Madness, it was everything to do with the cotton
industry.
Yes, of course, because hemp is a much better, far lower water
using product and much stronger, but of course, the industry is
already there.
Why do you think Americans still have pennies because of the zinc
lobby?
It costs more to make a penny than it does to mint one.
But of course, Well, it now costs more to make a ¢5 piece than to
mint one.
So we may see the back of those. ¢5 pieces.
Can I just say how much I hate them?
And if I ever have like ¢25 pieces, I'm really, really anxious and
angry until I can get rid of at least one of them.
That's why we have Boy Scouts.
Just insert them in a Boy Scout.
Oh, right.
I wonder if really, it's the same with Nightmare of Eden and that
it costs more to watch this than it did to produce.
Yes, that's almost certainly true.
This podcast had a higher budget, I think, probably.
Can I draw attention to one performance that I think is truly
dire?
Really, just the one?
You know what?
Just one, because as I've said, I don't have a problem with Lewis
Fiander.
I think Jeffrey Inslip is awful in this.
He's Fisk.
Yeah, he's shockingly bad isn't he?
Which is amazing because he's so good in Image of the Fender.
Yeah, he's lovely in that.
Peter Craze is okay, you know?
Which one's Peter Crane?
Peter Craze is Darko and he's also Michael Craze's brother.
So Peter Craze is the other customs officer.
Oh okay.
Yeah, everyone was having a rotten time during the shoot, and
actors, sensitive actors, and Hinsliff is one of them can't do
their best if they don't feel loved.
Just as we feel loved by you, do listen and why we're still here
doing this, because we love you.
And five, not ¢5 pieces.
No.
I want to find some way of shoehorning a reference to demon's evil
villain to do list.
Because I love a good evil villain to do this.
Just cut all of my silliness out and just put that in.
We haven't we haven't had an evil villain to do this since Peter
Butterworth, really.
I remember that.
And it's very, it's very pressing because I think the next story
we do owes in a timey, whimey kind of reverse causality sort of
way owes a lot to Marge versus the monorail.
And Lyle Landley has a very, very fantastic, illustrated evil-to
do list as well.
So I like to encourage people to keep to-do lists.
I think it's an important productivity thing.
And if you're a villain, I think it's particularly important to
keep track of your next actions and your long-term project.
I like that, yeah.
I let it go.
That's why I'm not the villain I should have been.
There you go, kids, just don't do lists.
Dear listeners, we're departing the orbit of the planet, Azure, to
put the residence of the planet, ridge back where they belong.
Until next week, when we'll be back with the horns of Naimon
please check us out online at FlightthroughEntirety.com, flight
through Entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast on
Twitter.
We also have, finally, Bondfinger is up to date with Casino Royale
and the 1st 5 Sean Connery Bond films.
Casino Royale, of course, being 1967.
You can find that on Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and
iTunes and Bondfinger cast on Twitter.
Until next week, may you never feel comfortable in an electronic
zoo.
Thank you very much and good night.
Good night.
Good then.
That was fled through entirety with Nathan Bottomley, Brenda Jones
and Richard Storm.
This episode, I don't want Nancy Reagan, was recorded on the 6th
of February.
The next episode will be released on February 21st.
I hope that this accent is considered that I am actually the
million of the...
Damn.
The nightmare of Eden, February the 6th.
I think it's just Nightmare of Eden.
Yes, that's right.
There's no definite article.
Bear role nominal.
There you go, kids.
Just don't do list.
Don't transcribe every other composer for piano.
Don't do list.
How funny was that?
Apologies to Leslie Howard.
How funny was that?
So you keep Chopin changing that line every time you move in.
You're barks worse than you buy.