Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast with perfectly adequate Seawater
Defences.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
And I'm Todd Hamilton Dead Meet.
Oh, I mean Todd Andrew Bealby.
What am I thinking?
I think we'll be asking that question a lot over the next few
weeks.
We are back after taking a month off.
And we're heading down to Brighton Beach for the leisure hive.
This is actually the second time, a new incoming producer has had
the doctor try to get to Brighton Beach for the opening of the
pavilion.
The Great Williams era starts with the doctor ending up on Fang
Rock after trying to get to Brighton Beach.
So it becomes a bit of a tradition.
I was a little bit disappointed that Paul McGand didn't start on
Brighton Beach or Christopher Nicholson, but so it's not a pattern
but it is he's a bit of a callback, I think.
This is mine and I actually begged to get this one.
This is my massacre, as it were.
Yes, yes.
And the reason is not, I think, because it's my favourite story
but it is up there, but because it really represents like a
massive kind of watershed, I think, in the history of Doctor Who.
We've been on a bit of an upward trajectory, then things have gone
a little bit a little bit pear shaped during the Williams era
although...
Yeah, yeah, we came to the conclusion, certainly, that we enjoyed
the Williams era, but at the same time, we weren't blind to its
faults, and especially to, shall we say, the puzzling creative
choices they're in.
Yeah, that was it.
They were production problems, weren't there?
And they were really evident on the screen in what went to a
hand.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, more times than not, like over the last 3
years.
The production values. haven't always been what we would hope them
to be because of inflation and here we are, 1980.
And uh, It's all change.
In fact, I don't think I go back to my childhood experiences of
watching Doctor Who very much, but I actually remember this coming
on, and thinking that it must have been a show about Doctor Who
rather than actual Doctor Who, because I think my only experience
and I may be remembering it wrong, was of the Bernard Lodge slit
scan title sequence.
That was the only thing. you know, suddenly there's this new music
there's this Starfield, and I thought, oh, you know, maybe it's a
promo for Doctor Who.
I knew there was a new season starting, but we didn't have the
internet back then and our televisions were driven by steam and
that kind of thing.
So I had no idea to expect anything different.
I didn't know about producers or anything like that.
Did we have any repeats going into this?
Did we have season 17 and then this just started or was it
announced in like the TV week magazine that it was a new series?
Can you remember?
I think they held it back.
It is actually possible to look up these air dates and things, and
I've done that in the past.
I've, you know, went back and found out what day I must have 1st
watched Doctor Who on.
So those repeats are available on the internet.
My memory is that they held season 18 back because they wanted to
go more or less straight into season 19 in order to ease the
transition.
So, my memory is that we waited a long time before they showed
this season and that it went pretty much straight into the 1st
Davison season.
It's interesting.
I have a similar sort of experience like you.
Like, I knew this was new.
I knew it was going to be new, but I was expecting those
traditional title sequences.
And then, The Starfield thing just burst onto the screen.
And to this day, I can still remember going, what the hell is
this?
Then my brain went, oh my goodness, it's Doctor Who, they cannot
change their opening credits.
Oh, no, Tom Baker is going to leave the show.
These things literally went in my mind, boom, boom, boom, boom
boom.
So I didn't really process the opening credits very much, because
I was, like, devastated that they changed it.
And I didn't know Tom was going to leave, but that went through my
head because my only other experience was the fact that during the
repeats, I worked out that John's last sequence of stories, they
changed his in credits.
And so it was like, 0 my goodness, Tom is going to leave and I was
just like, you know, mortified.
Of course, you know, several stories later, I'd forgotten about
the whole thing.
But all of that was going through my mind, so I didn't really take
into opening credits until episode two.
So do we know this 1st season, and this is going to be a theme of
our next few episodes, I think.
This 1st season looks amazing.
It doesn't look vastly more expensive.
There are still, you know, plenty of ropey effects, even in this
story.
There are things that look cheap or don't quite work.
But there's... a real flair to the design and a real concern about
making the show look better. like an awareness that it had looked
tired.
But I think that might come from John Nathan Turner.
And what he wants to do with the show and getting different people
into design, different directors.
There's an energy there, and I think having a different script
editor, again, been on the same page, maybe having Barry Letts
around as executive producer initially to try and bring things
into the 80s.
You know, maybe it's just a culmination of all those factors that
they're really trying to to take things in a different direction.
Yeah, Barry Letts was on record as not having liked the more
comedic direction the show had gone.
And actually, I use comedic in sort of, as much as I hate to say
it, air quotes there, because really, it's not like the Williams
era is a comedy.
It just has moments of comedy in it.
So yeah, Barry Letts was certainly a big influence.
I think visually something I've noticed in season 18 compared to
season 17 is... sort of layering in the sets.
There's different levels.
So, you know, you look at it as a flat image and something we
discussed with Nightmare of Eden, for instance, was that the
corridors were all flats.
There was no relief into the walls, like nothing was pressed in.
Whereas, you know, in leisure hive, we get all these shots and you
have something in the foreground, then you have the actors, then
you have the background.
And you see that in other stories as well, full circle, which
we'll discuss in a few weeks.
There's corridors leading off in different directions, you know
there's one going upstage and one going sideways and that sort of
thing.
So I think that immediately makes it feel like a more real place.
Like, we're sitting in mine and Rod's flat at the moment.
And, you know, the table over there is not pushed up against the
wall.
It's in the middle of the room and you have to, you have to walk
around it.
The sofa here is not pushed up against the wall either.
So, it's a real space, things aren't just 3 walls in a prosenium
arch.
And I think that's something the series does so well, and
especially the leisure height, but that did lead to problems, as
we'll discuss.
So the leisure heights directed by loved Bigford, who never comes
back to direct again.
He does a massive overspend and can't be invited back.
And he does, I think, you know, the best job of directing a Doctor
Who serial to date.
And I think this is one of the most visually striking Doctor Who
serials ever.
I don't think the show ever gets quite as good looking as this
again.
I think maybe Graham Harper later on.
But goodness, this looks great.
And what he's done is, instead of the usual studio thing of having
three cameras, which you can't, between live, he's directing its
single camera, the way that they direct it now, and that's
obviously slower, and more expensive.
But it really shows on screen.
And what he successfully does is exactly what you identified
Brendan, is he creates a real sense of space.
So, the leisure hive corridors are not hugely lavish, but they
have ceilings, the sound design is done in such a way that you can
hear the voices echoing off the walls.
It doesn't just fall into a dead studio set, and there are things
in the foreground.
There's shots with a really sort of narrow depth of fields, so
there are things out of focus in the background, so our eyes are
drawn into particular places.
There are beautifully composed shots.
Like my notes are just, 0 my god, now there's this shot.
And like one of them is the doctor Romana and Mina discussing the
war and the 3 of them are the shot side on, the 3 of the faces are
all sort of visible, the, you know, one behind the other, and the
light from outside, which is the result of the devastation of the
war is playing on their faces.
And it's just beautifully framed and composed.
Another shot where we're outside the hive.
And the camera comes in through the window into the boardroom.
You know, like the model is not great, but the camera moves slowly
as the model's in shot and we move up on it.
The music, like the music is just unbelievably spectacularly
good.
You talk about the music Dudley Simpson is no longer gone.
And I don't think he could have ever fit into this season with all
of his woodwinds in that.
It has to be this straight away, this electronic 1980s music that
I don't know, it just has this impact.
I even get shivers now, just thinking about it, like this whole
season.
It just has this feel and this texture that adds this where
suddenly in 1980.
And Peter Howell is so, so clever.
On the DVD, there's a documentary where Peter Howe talks about his
incidental music and also how he came up with the theme.
And the fact that the theme includes a vocoda, to try and get an
organic sound into this technological music.
And also he talks about how holsts the planets influenced the
music of the leisure hive, especially when you get Pangol's March
at the end. brilliant piece of music.
So over the next 9 years, we're going to get a lot of electronic
music in Doctor Who, almost exclusively electronic music.
I think Marquez brings in an acoustic guitar at one point much
later.
And it's all going to be to varying, varying success levels, but I
think for the next 5 series, while we have the Peter Howell theme
it's the Peter Howell scores that always sound the best, just
because it's so seamless.
How much does he do?
I know it's him and Patty Kingsland this year.
Yeah, it's him and Patty Kingsland.
So he does, he does the leisure hive.
Of course, he started off on Revenge of the Cybermen.
Oh, really?
Enhancing Kerry Blyton's score.
I think we said at the time.
Yeah.
Meglos, Warrior's Gate.
Kinder, Snake Dance, the King's Demons, the 5 Doctors, the
Awakening, Planet of Fire, and the 2 Doctors.
So he does like 2 or 3 stories a year for the next 5 years.
I've just listened to Sylvan Nemesis.
I listened to, watched it.
And its music is just horrifically bad.
And that's Kev McCulloch, who will also go on to arrange the
theme.
And so the electronic music doesn't have to be good.
I mean, it can be terrible.
Yeah, yeah.
This year.
All this year, the music is spectacularly great.
And here in particular, because you've got these establishing
shots or the shots of the earth shuttle arriving, where it's all
just told by the music in this sort of fabulously operatic way
these little interludes, musical interludes between parts of the
story.
That's exactly, yeah, that's exactly what it feels like.
You just get the impression that everyone working on this.
And some people have read this as, you know, they hated what had
come before, so they wanted to change everything, and I don't
think it's that.
I think it's that the people coming in.
John Nathan Turner, Barry Letts, Christopher Bidmead, Peter Howell
all had a love for the show, and wanted to do the best they could
buy it.
So, I mean, when people say, oh, you know, they get rid of the
humour.
The thing is, they really don't.
There are still jokes in this.
But if you actually watch the making of, their meat in cell says
we rip too much of the humour out of this one.
There wasn't the right balance.
It was too serious.
And I think you have a couple of humourous moments, but it's sort
of like, where is the humour I feel in this story at times when I
think it needs it.
I mean, there's that wonderful joke about, well, arrest the scar
that Tom says.
I mean, that I just burst out laughing, but it's sort of like, I
need a bit more in this.
And they do address that.
I think they then swing it back and buy full circle.
Bid Means worked out how to sort of keep the humour and that sort
of thing.
Yeah, there's one really strange scene where the doctor renders a
guide unconscious by exposing him to chalk equations on on the
TARDIS. the guides overcome and his faint.
That is a bit weird, yeah.
It's a David Fisher script, and those scripts are always
hilariously funny, and this one doesn't really have that much
humour in it at all.
No.
And I think one of the best comebacks I've heard against Bid Meads
approach, and I'm quite a fan of Bid Meads work.
But on the commentary for this, when canine gets blown up in the
1st episode.
Chris Bid Means starts talking.
Sorry, Christopher Hamilton bit me. starts, if you're listening.
So I was talking about how they wanted to get rid of magical
objects like Kano, you know, things could get you out in a single
band, and la, la, with all this wonderful restrained venom, says
well, the TARDIS is magical, Chris.
Why not just get rid of the TARDIS?
You know, you kind of do appreciate her point.
And being a David Fisher's group.
This started out in a very different place.
As, you know, it was going to be more comedic.
It was going to be more of a, it was going to be a send up of the
mafia.
Yeah, so Marsi is an anagram of mafiosi famously.
It's not really about their giant squashy bottoms at all.
I just thought that would be something Richard would say.
And it was originally going to be called the Fomasi, I think.
Yes, that's right.
At some point.
The Westlodger are giving the argument an offer they can't
refuse.
Can we talk about Christopher Bidmead?
I do want to spend another 20 minutes just talking about how
fabulously directed this is.
Oh, before we do bidmead, can I just say that earth shuttle
arriving, I think on the commentary, Bidmead and maybe Lala
complain about the earth shuttle arriving sequences because they
don't really look like anything.
It's something like descending into a hole and they might say
that.
I would agree with them.
I find them after a while.
I kind of go, oh, not another not another Earth shuttle arriving
sequence.
But it could have been like a crappy spaceship dangling on some
fishing wire.
Yes, it could have.
Yes, yes, it's very stylised and, you know, yeah.
And it's those musical interludes as well because it's always
accompanied by Peter Howe just going crazy over the soundtrack.
And so that's really wonderful and it sort of punctuates the
action.
So I do quite like that.
Were Rod and I the only ones to sort of get a double entendre out
of those scenes?
Yeah, sort of thing.
Yeah Okay, fair enough.
Can we talk bit, mate?
I really, really like Bidme as group editor here, even though he
rips out all the jokes, but I do think he's a terrible critic, and
anything that he says about his time on the show tends to be
wrong.
His interview in DWM about the new series just made him look like
a fool, you know, like he's the one who said, oh, you know, the
Sonic Screwdriver is terrible in the new series because it's
magical and it can get the doctor out of anything, and everyone
knows that Doctor Who fans enjoy episode 3 where the doctor's
locked up, you know, and can't get out because that's terribly
interesting.
No, it's not.
It enables us to have long scenes of the doctor unable to deal
with walls and locks and things, which are really super
entertaining.
Please see snake dance.
Yeah, yes, yes.
That's right I've just watched Black Orchid.
So, you know, that sort of thing is stupid.
And like he thinks that the soap opera stuff in the new series
isn't great, even though that's precisely what he introduces in
his own series.
He says he's getting rid of the magic, but season 18 is full of
magic.
You know, there's lots of talk about science and stuff, but it's
full of magic.
See, Warrior's Gate.
See, Legopolis.
Yeah.
It's really interesting that a lot of the DVDs have got makings of
and he's obviously interviewed.
And Hearing what he has to say about how the story is developed is
really intriguing.
I'm not gonna sort of spoil it.
But it's also very interesting to see his take, and the writers
take, and some writers who he obviously gets on with, and others
that he doesn't.
For example, in this one, he mentions that, oh, David Fisher will
probably try and claim credit for the tachyonics being
introduced.
You cut to David Fisher saying, well, no, is really interested in
that and I, you know, put that into the script. sort of they
contradict each other.
Maybe that's why David never came back to the program again, which
is a shame, really, because I think he's delivered 4.5 really
wonderful scripts, you know, for the show.
And I think it's a shame that he, after this, he is no mortal.
I think Bidmead, in a way, is a lot like George Lucas.
In that, you know, George Lucas created Star Wars and gave us the
three really great first films.
And he was the right person for those films at the time.
You know, flash forward 30 years, we start getting the prequels
for Star Wars.
And, you know, they're not all terrible, but they don't live up
to...
They don't live up to the first three.
And it's kind of like, you know, George Lucas still has very good
ideas, but he's not the person to make these films now.
Bidmead's ideas for Doctor Who were revolutionary in 1980.
And even, you know, in 1984, when he turns in the script for
Frontios.
And then in 1986, where he turns in The Hollows of Time, which has
since been made by Big Finish.
You know, he's still coming up with great ideas for classic Doctor
Who.
Yeah.
He's not the right person for Doctor Who now.
Yeah.
And I say that with the greatest of love, because saying that
doesn't invalidate what was done at the time, you know, you could
say H.G. Wells wouldn't be able to write a good Doctor Who script
if he was still alive today, writing in the same way he did then.
Bob Baker and Dave Martin wouldn't be able to write it a good
Doctor Who story.
Ever they, ever?
Sorry.
Oh dear.
Can I say a few words about K9?
Yeah, go on.
4 K9.
So John Leeson's back.
I think David Breeley actually didn't want to do it anymore.
You know, he kind of went, oh, you know, I've done it for you.
And JNT said, look, John Leason, do you want to come back?
And John's like, well, no, I am starting to get other work.
And I da da.
And he said, we're going to kill the dog.
Right.
When can I start?
since John leaves it.
So, yeah, they blow him up straight away in this.
So he's not in the rest of this story.
Plus, the scene on Brighton Beach.
It's quite amazing because, you know, when we when we last see the
doctor in Romana in the horns of Nymon, they're sort of having a
joke about how Romana's in great condition.
Not you, the TARDIS and, you know, they have that Scooby-Doo
ending.
And then the 1st time we see them here, they're just ratting at
each other and Romana's ratty with canine and canines pernickety
and the doctor doesn't care, the canines just blown up.
It kind of sets up the tone of the season.
Do you know, I love that. love that scene.
I'm really...
So do I, but it's just amazing how the relationships have
changed.
The scene on Brighton Beach, when everyone's grumpy with each
other.
Even the 90 seconds of slow panning across the beach, I think is
spectacular.
And I'll tell you why.
Because on the commentary, both Bidmead and Lala Ward say, why is
this scene here?
And it's very, very clear that this scene is a response or a
reaction against the previous year.
And we spent the previous year complaining about how we never go
on location, we're in like constant brown claustrophobic sets that
are dull.
And so we start with a scene where it's really, really directed in
a, in an artistic way, and in a way that isn't about furthering
the narrative, it's about creating just pretty pictures and
soundscapes.
The sound design on that scene is terrific, the music is fantastic
the seagulls, you get Tom snoring gradually coming up.
You get the beautiful Brighton pavilion thing out of focus in the
background.
When canine explodes, there's a massive reaction from the
seagulls.
You know, you get Romana coming up from the beach behind sand
that's out of focus in the foreground.
The whole thing.
Ursula Andros movie.
Ursula Andrews moment.
The whole thing just looks great.
It looks so great and it's really just saying this is going to be
new.
This is something great.
And given that it is, you know, leading into a story that is just
in a studio set.
It's like a spectacularly well shot and what the science studio
said.
This is saying we're not last used Doctor Who.
This is something going to be really, really new.
And maybe it goes on for maybe 5 seconds too long.
But it is...
It looks so great.
I could just watch it over and over again.
I agree with you artistically.
I think the length of it is far too long.
Um, so it's it's a criticism that's been levelled at it before.
I'd much prefer it to come in and the snoring to snark much
sooner.
There's no logic behind canine and going to get the ball in the
sea.
I just think it's stupid.
Like he's not that dumb, but he's made to seem that dumb.
Lala has her worst moment in this story where she screams canine.
It's so over the top and it's utterly awful.
That's my opinion.
I know that you're shaking your head.
I'm just going to express my opinion.
Everything that we say is our opinion, though.
This is a safe place.
Okay.
So other than that, Falala, I think the rest of this story is an
absolute tour de force for her. absolutely.
I think it's possibly her best performance is Romana.
Obviously I haven't been around last season.
It took me a long time to get used to her as Romana after Mary and
I personally feel that she doesn't really hit the mark until the
nightmare of Eden.
I think she's fantastic in the horns and I'm on and mean this, I
just, every other choice.
Besides that one sequence, and I think it's just the fact that I
think it's silly that canine blows up.
But I agree that it's beautifully shot and all the visuals are
great, but I just think it's dumb.
But every other choice that she makes in this story is just
phenomenal.
Phenomenal.
She's amazing.
Look, I would, you know how much I love Mary Tam, but in this, in
this story, I know you said that Mary took a year off acting, in
this story, she outacts Mary 100,000%.
Because especially her various reactions to like the doctor being
pulled, oh, and then her reaction to the doctor being an old man.
It's not that over the top reaction from the 1st scene, it's it's
horror and it's concern and it's affection and it's all these
different emotions rolled up into one and she does it so well.
I'd like to talk about Tom's costume, which is a good idea.
Which is John Nathan Turner wanted the whole look of the doctor
redesigned by Jen Hudson.
Really interesting that June in the documentary says that he was
quite happy for the scarf to go as well, but she actually put her
foot down and said, no, it had to remain.
I think there's a number of decisions in this season that what
John wants to do and what John actually gets are 2 different
things, and thank goodness for serendipity, where some people say
no, that's not the right way to go or it doesn't quite work out.
Um, the way he wants it to, but it ends up what's on screen
actually works.
I mean, she also was violently against having the question marks
in the colons, but, you know, put them in suckling, and I think
that's okay.
They're not subtle enough.
Okay, they're not, but, you know, I'm just going to say this, the
colour of the costume and the shape of the hat and all that
absolutely and totally, utterly hate it.
Oh, really?
In this story.
I absolutely hate it.
Ask me the same question in our next podcast.
Let's see what I'm feeling.
But I really, throughout all of this, it's sort of like the doctor
looks older and then is older.
Yeah, yeah.
I just don't like the colour of the costume.
It's just this uniform thing.
I don't know perhaps because the doctor's age so much.
Like Tom always used to be so vital and young.
I mean, in this, he's not and he's not humourous and he's not
quite, there's a change.
Yeah.
And.
Something I discovered when I was researching the story is, Tom
and Lala had actually broken up for the 1st time, after Shada, and
they were still broken up during this.
Tom suddenly realised, hold on, this is a terrible mistake. you
know, I'd like us to, I'd like us to be together again, and Lala
didn't at this stage.
And, you can actually track the progress of this relationship from
story to story. season 18.
What fun on the set?
exactly.
But the amazing thing is, you would never know watching their
performances.
You know, they are still so, so good together in terms of
performance.
But I do, I do have to wonder because when we see, when we see Tom
now, you know, of course, sometimes when you see Tom being
interviewed, it's hard to tell if he's being Tom or if he's being
Tom Baker, but...
He always seems to be a very emotional person, but not, he tries
not to let his emotions rule him.
So, I would imagine, you know, that if he'd fallen head over heels
for Lala.
And then, sort of, one of them said, I don't think this is working
then they both agreed, but then, six months later, You know, that
could, in terms of visibly, in terms of the face, that could age a
person, that stress.
And it does seem to have happened, because, you know, it's like
his first six years as a doctor, he kind of changes a little in
the face, but not very much, and then all of a sudden, in this
season.
You know, he does look so different, and then you've got the very
different costume and what have you.
Years ago, we had Dudley for a convention.
And I had the pleasure of interviewing him.
And someone, during the Q&A, asked, you know, Dudley, how did it
feel to, you know, stop working on the program after so long?
And that's where Dudley told the story of, look, you know, John
Nathan Turner's very nice man.
He'd worked on the show almost as long as I had in one capacity or
another, he actually took me out to dinner and explained the whole
thing.
And I said to him, okay, John, you might be getting rid of me, and
I completely understand that you have this new direction.
But you have to keep something of the old show.
If you change the costume, and the music, and the theme and the
titles, and the way it looks, how are people going to know they're
watching the same show?
And Dudley Zeddy even said in that dinner.
Out of all those, I'm the obvious one to get rid of, because I'm
not visual, but you've got to keep something.
And, I mean, it seems to have shown, because the ratings in the UK
sorry to steal your usual thing, Tom.
Oh, I'm sitting here.
I know where you're going.
They were 6000000 for the 1st episode.
The low.
Oh, no, was it lower?
5.9, 5.9.
Now, this is the 1st time Doctor Who has hit these levels since
Inferno, and they will go lower, as low as 3.7 in a few weeks time
which is like this whole season is a ratings disaster, disaster.
Sorry, Brendan.
That all right.
No, I was just going to say, it's the lowest rating season opener
since the smugglers, where, you know, Doctor Who was on the verge
of cancellation.
It also didn't help that it was up against Buck Rogers.
The first 20 episodes of this season are up against Buck Rogers
and Doctor Who drops out of the top 100 shows.
By the end of this story, I think.
Episode two.
Do you remember Bach Rogers?
I've never seen it.
It's so poor.
I remember the buzz for it and we watched it like initially, the
1st episode or 2 and then my father said, I can't stand that robot
thing.
We're never watching this again.
It makes original Battlestar Galactica look like Chekhov.
So bad.
If you want something really terrible from around the same time.
Jason of Star Command.
Oh, I've never even heard of that.
Um, so it's kind of film like Doctor Who in the, it's a very
prosini march, but it's usually just filmed on one film camera and
they just don't move, the camera is just static.
And then they do one or 2 close-ups later.
It was a spinoff of, I think, a show called Star Command, featuring
Jonathan Harris, but as the sort of head of this Starfleet Academy
thing.
And they were going to sort of reboot it and bring in this young
hero, and Jonathan Harris refused to share the screen with a young
hero.
So it was retooled, and the Jonathan Harris character was replaced
by James Dewan.
Oh, God.
Sounds shocking like that.
You know, it's it's like space 1999 and Star Wars and Battlestar
Galactica made on half of Doctor Who's budget.
Jason of Star Command. you'll find it in the notes. try and find
it.
But back to what you're saying about ratings.
I think looking at the ratings for this whole season. saddest
things is the fact that, you know, it is such a disaster.
Not one episode is inside the top 50 and up to this point, Tom has
barely been outside the top 50 in terms of placings.
There's so many episodes like 145th, 170th.
The show is on life support, you know, if the BBC wanted to end it
now, they could have.
I think Tom going is actually a really good thing because it means
that they've got another shot shot at things.
But we digress.
Normally, you know, the ratings of a story reflect the reaction to
the previous story.
You know, you it's not people switching off halfway. people
deciding not to tune in because last week was so terrible.
I mean, is it because season 17 was sort of so exhausted that no
one tuned in for the beginning of season 18?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, I've talked about this before, how Doctor Who was pitching
to different audiences, and I don't think, I think that the kids
who were with the show in the early 70s are now teenagers, and
they're going out on the town.
It's 1980, it's a new decade.
I don't think that the young ones over the last few years have
been fostered to come into the show and keep on watching it.
And I think it's a combination of those things, that there's just
we've still got the diehard fans, but that, Next generation
there's just this, this, this point where the ones who are
teenagers and the ones who are younger, the teenagers are moving
on, they're not coming back to Doctor Who, and we haven't fostered
the younger ones over the last few years.
I just think there's this horrible turning point.
Yeah, that's an excellent point, because as much as lots of people
are critical of various aspects of the new series, and both
executives, the Russell era and the and the Stephen Moffatt era.
But both of them did a really good job of balancing the adult and
the child elements in the audience.
And as much as I love season 18, and season 17, for completely
different reasons.
I think you're right, Todd, in that there's not, there's not a
great deal to bring in the younger audience in them.
It's very intelligent television, it's great for, say, teens and
older, but is there anything there for the 8 year olds?
I think too, this season we're going to see the seeds of the shows
demise being sown.
And here, like one of the things that finally ends the show is the
idea that it's a cult science fiction program for dedicated fans
and not something for the general family audience to watch at a
Saturday tea time.
Do you think having the Starfield effect sort of reinforces that?
I think it does.
And I also think, and much as I love it, I love all of the
scientific, you know, the fact that the doctor and Romana are
scientists, that they're using sort of technical terminology about
sort of unreal transfer and things that we don't understand and
that we don't really need to know, there's a long scene in which I
actually think some of Layla's best acting work is done and that's
her and hard and yeah, and those are beautiful shots.
Oh, just wonderful, you know, those plastic frames in the
foreground of the shot, those pyramid things.
It's just visually spectacular she's acting her socks off.
But the dialogue about what being a scientist is like, you know
pressures on scientists for funding, all of that stuff.
The science stuff is huge this season.
Absolutely huge.
And that is a sort of nerd science fiction, niche interest, I
think.
But the fact is that the ratings are down to begin with. you know
before we even get to that point, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
So is it last year?
Is it people not tuning in because last year was a bit of a train
wreck.
Perhaps, but I still think it's a reflection of the previous
couple of years where, you know, the last couple of stories, the
production, people are tuning into the episodes that have really
ropey production values.
So they're getting to see shaky corridors or big monsters that are
bad to you.
So that's now getting engrained into people's...
Yeah, that's a bit of a joke.
That's right.
Audiences will come back for Warrior's Gate.
That's when it picks up, but then it sort of drops off again.
I mean, it is a shame.
It is a great shame because season 17 is clever and terrific fun
and season 18 is smart and has this amazing thematic unity, looks
spectacularly good.
Eventually, it gets quite witty.
You know, the comedy is far more subtle than last series.
But also it continues something Richard brought up last series
which is the idea of the individual against the conglomerate.
However, I think this season explores it in a very different way
and comes to very different conclusions by the end of it, and
Harden is representative of that, because Harden is a scientist
who's falsifying his results in order to get more funding, but we
also find out, and I think it's absolutely beautiful.
He's falsifying his results to stay close to the woman he loves.
And, you know, it's never, it's never explicitly stated.
It's all in, it's all in the action described in the script in the
performances.
But he and Adrian Corey, as Mina, play that relationship so
beautifully.
And when the world's going to pieces and there's an army advancing
on him, his 1st instinct is to go save the woman he loves.
It's so beautiful.
It is really great.
And it is weird.
Like I was going, are they on to get what's happening?
But her husband's just died.
That was her husband, wasn't it?
Yeah, an episode's having an affair with part.
Yeah, well, an intellectual.
But at the same time, you know, after he's dead, she kind of comes
in and there's not much reaction from her.
But she's a force of nature when she comes in and she actually
like, controls, she almost directs the story in the scenes that
she's in.
The cameras all over her and she deteriorates gradually and that's
reflected in the way she's shot as well.
Now, when this was first on.
Rod found and still finds their head globes dropping off as one of
the scariest things in Doctor Who.
He said, it's like this tiny physical representation of death
except they don't die, they get back up again, but then they die
again, and it's quite freaky, and you get the extreme closer, and
you know, that's to show the audience that one of their, one of
their bits is dropping off.
But at the same time, you know, it's it's this sudden crash close
up and then back out again.
Like it's very, it's almost subliminal.
It's got great sound as well.
Isn't there a sting, there's a little sting, isn't there?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I really think that Lawrence Payne, who plays Morix in episode one
and his husband does a fantastic job.
I think he is phenomenal and is often overlooked because she is so
good.
I personally don't like her performance to begin with.
It's so cold and so stilted and I can understand why.
I mean, you know, her husband's dead.
She's got to take control.
She's got to have that icy sort of exterior being in control.
But as she thaws and gets weaker and also then goes up against her
son.
Yeah.
You know?
The performance just gets better and better throughout the story.
I mean, she has to pitch it so there's a deterioration and a
change.
And so, and that opening scene where, you know, she walks straight
into the camera and then she's walking away from the camera and
her backs to the camera and the camera stays there.
She's like, she's frozen the camera and she walks off in an
instant and she's having to shout her dialogue from the end of the
corridor at the end.
She's she's she is a force of nature.
She's like terrifyingly competent in things.
And so sweet.
Like when the doctor gets aged in the generator and all she feels
is sympathy for him and sympathy for hard and even as she's, you
know, degenerating physically.
She's so warm and so sweet.
You know, it's one of the best performances in Doctor Whoever, I
think.
And how good is old Tom?
Yes.
He fought against it.
Like when he got the script, he's like, no.
No, we're rewriting this and I'm changing I'm changing back after
the Cliffhanger.
And I think it was John Nathan Turner, whom he had a much better
relationship with at this stage than he had with Graham Williams
who said to him, no, no, Tom.
No, we're not going to change you back until the last episode, but
your reaction to that becomes the story and we show how
resourceful the doctor is even in this condition.
And it gives you a chance to play a different side of the
character.
Oh, it gives him a chance to act, and he hasn't done that for so
long.
Correct.
It is just, you know, it's just Tom being Tom and it has been for
ages, but he's great.
Yeah, he'll do it next episode next story as well.
He'll get to do some acting too.
Yeah, I think it's so wonderful, but he doesn't just care.
You know, he doesn't turn it into a caricature.
He kind of goes, my brain hasn't aged.
It's my body.
And it's, he just plays it so subtly different, but it's so
effective and the makeup's amazing.
And I think that's, it's an effect of the new costume, which, sorry
Todd, I have to say I love.
But the effects in your costume, because it's so huge, when Tom's
got all this aged makeup on is sort of stooped, he looks even
smaller because of the big costume.
And then, of course, we have David Haig.
Yeah, so he goes on to be quite famous and does movies and all
sorts of things as Pangol, and I think he is tremendous.
He is great, and he's the bad boy of this story, and I remember
that as a kid.
Like, you know, I kind of think he's a bit Colin Farrell-ish in
his looks and that sort of thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Of course, you know, time, perhaps has not been so kind, please
watch the documentaries, but his performance in this, I think, is
amazing.
I just, you know, it really is incredible.
It's really interesting, I think, then at the end.
And I'm sort of jumping around here is that when Pangol actually
gets turned back into a baby and Mina says, well, you know, this
time I...
I must try and bring him up properly.
Is that nature?
Is it nurture?
Will he still come up?
Will he still come back to that same point?
will it be different?
It's such a funny line.
Yeah, it's a that's maybe the best joke of the...
One of my favourite Pangal lines is just the reveal of who he is.
But it's instead of, you know, later on he says, I'm a child of
the generator, but his reveal is, how old do you think I am, Mr
Brock?
It's wonderful.
And it's wonderfully delivered and a great shot.
And it's trusting the audience.
Yeah.
And that is something this season does really well.
Sometimes it's confusing.
I think I had to watch Warriors Gate 3 times before the 1st time I
watched it before I got it.
But yeah, it's trusting your audience to fill in, to fill in the
gaps.
We should have been asking ourselves, given that we knew that the
war was 40 years ago, why Pangol was so young.
But you don't think about that.
No, the story is going on, you don't, it doesn't click to a
certain point.
Suddenly you do realise you get that input and that sort of
thing.
I think a big comedy fail in this story, though, is that at the
end of episode through beginning of episode 4, when the Formasia
unmasked, which is hilarious.
Nobody kind of, nobody kind of reacts with any sort of, not
exactly disbelief, but surprise.
The doctor just kind of goes, of course they're fomal seat, but
nobody says, they're 3 times the signs.
Well, they've got those Slovene compression things.
I'm sure that Russell is to some degree actually Red Conninger in
aliens of London.
Look, I just thought they were just sucking in the fat. all do
it.
We all, yeah, I'm doing it now.
Well, the thing is, Russell does kind of steal something from the
story that we mentioned a moment ago, which is, of course, Blonde
Felfotch, Passimir Day Slavine, is regressed back to an egg.
Ah, she is too. and put in the hatchery to get a new start, just
like hanging out. to get brought up properly this time.
I really like that scene and I like the fact that no remark is
actually made about the, about the Fomasi sort of squashing into
the, I mean, we didn't complain that Julian Glover had a big
tentacle head that was much bigger than Julian Glover's own head.
You know, like, presumably he had to squash into that mask as
well.
But there's something so sort of stylised about it, and that
particular scene with all of its quick cutting and extreme close
ups and comedy reaction shots is really, really amazing looking
and something that a show hadn't done before.
Phil Sandafar does one of his rare video blogs where he compares
the direction of some scenes from last year's creature from the
pier, which is a David Fisher script, with scenes, including that
scene from the leisure hive, and talks about how just the show's
whole visual language has changed.
And so I'll put a reference to that in the show notes.
George Sandra has an amazing beard.
He does.
He really does.
Going back to the direction.
There are so many wonderful little moments, and I really like the
way in which Brock and...
So who is it clout his offsider who gets no lines at all, but he
gets the close-up shots and all the establishing shots.
It's really interesting.
I keep expecting him to talk.
And then there's, who's the other one that gets killed off for...
Stimson.
Oh, Stimson, sorry. as well.
And, you know, I forgot about those 2 characters, but the way in
which they're brought into the action.
I just think is so clever and interesting and, you know, ultimately
you know, they're good and evil and going to be killed off.
The thing I like about cloud is that we see the 1st indication
that that's a disguise that Brocken cloud aren't real people is
that Stimson finds the clout suit in the wardrobe.
And it actually looks really good.
Well, the thing is, because it's a low list.
It's very funny, but the actor never opens his mouth.
Not only does he never say anything.
He never opens his mouth and his facial expression matches that
mask.
So he's acting so that he looks like the rubber mask in the
wardrobe.
That's terrific.
I do think that this story and the design and the directorial
touch is actually informs Babylon 5 because Joe Michael Strazinski
your career Babylon 5 has gone on record as saying Doctor Who was
an influence.
The Argolan crystal technology looks a lot like the Minbari
technology, and even some of the shots, such as Simpson finding
the skin suit.
It's actually almost matched with a shot from the Babylon 5 pilot
where they find someone drowned in essentially a fish tank and
they're on the left side of the screen and the security officers
are looking at them.
I'll see if I can get a screen grab to put up so we can compare
them.
Is the idea that the leisure hive is this facility which is
designed for alien species to meet and develop sympathy for each
other by experiencing what it's like to be?
Yeah.
You know, and that's, that's certainly, that's certainly not that
I know anything.
Nothing at all about Babylon 5.
And in fact, I've never heard of it before you just...
I mean, you know, you can also argue the cursive paladin, so...
I'm going to criticise a few aspects of the story.
Okay, I'm going to preemptively tell you that all of these things
are going to be wrong.
I think Amina gets ill too quickly and it's very convenient that
her husband dies and then she starts to die straight away.
I think I think the ending is extremely rushed.
It's sort of like, if that's it, goodbye.
I do not like the scene, although I like the joke about then
arrest the scarf, but when the doctor is looking over the controls
of the generator and then everybody else is like only like 2
metres away looking at the body with the scarf, like it's very
staged and it doesn't really work.
I understand what they were going for, but it doesn't really
work.
All the Pangol masks for the generator should have been like
people of the same height and size and they're not and it's just
like, okay.
It's Doctor Who.
There do seem to be a lot of them.
I mean, I know they're just sort of circling around behind the
camera and coming back in front of her, but they do seem to be
quite a large number of them.
But the way you can tell, because usually, you know, when they do
that sort of thing.
There a gap, but they manage not to have a gap.
One of them has his helmet on about 20 degrees off kilter. every
time that guy.
Walkie-Heller guy.
I think it's Stuart Fell, because he's very short.
I don't particularly like Romana's costume.
I think it makes it look like she's got chicken legs, the bottom
half of the costume.
So I've got a minor's marks for that on this.
I'm really stretching here, people.
It's great to see female attendance.
That's the other thing that I liked. to be with Mina and that sort
of thing.
I really thought, okay, they've thought about that.
That's positive.
Obviously, the Marsi costume just doesn't work, but Lovett is
trying to shoot it in such a way to minimise it.
When they're 1st introduced and you just get, you know, close-ups
of an eye or close-up of the hands or just the shadow against the
wall.
Like that's quite effective.
And, you know, I think it is telling that the costume is kind of
ropey.
And not all of the effects come off at all, you know, but it still
just looks visually great.
Like the way the head of the Fomasi move and their little budgy
beak and budgy language is great and something we haven't seen
before.
But yeah, I agree.
It doesn't really work.
The model shots you were saying, how they come in really slow on
the hive, and it's sort of, they're really trying, but they still
you still, I still sit there going.
Yeah, it's a model.
It's a terrible model.
It's not much better than the Naimon power complex was in the
previous story, but it is so well directed that I don't care.
You get the matching with the music and also the studio sets built
to match the model of such a good match.
Yeah, you know, you get that shot with the window we talked about
earlier, for instance.
My big problem with the Fomasi, and I think it's a hangover
because when they were 1st playing the Fomasi, of course, there
were going to be, you know, fat blokes in business suits.
And then JNT's like lose the suit, but they never quite lost the
fact that, you know, they look like Rover from the prisoner
painted green with a head on it.
And it's kind of like, well, yeah, if you had have made them a bit
more slender, they might have looked a bit less ridiculous.
But at the same time, looking ridiculous, kind of helps, because
they're not evil, and they're not aggressive invaders, and you get
that wonderful bit at the end, which the line isn't funny in
itself, but just the delivery and the fact that it's coming from
this roly poly formasi.
You're mentioned for Marcy.
I like I like when he's pointing at the other naughty FOMA. with
his finger and says, you're going to stand trial.
That does remind me.
It is rather convenient that they managed to get out of their web
thing on the ship and so it's the evil ones that can blown up
that's a bit of a, you know.
Well, the thing is, because there's no emotion in his translator
unit, you know, he says something like, um, they managed to get
away and overpower us.
It's like, yeah, we kind of thought the ship might have been blown
up, so we let them go, you know, it's less paperwork.
I want to talk about the visual effects.
They use the Quantel.
Is that image?
which I think it's great that in this season that they're really
trying to use new technologies. something I think that, you know
Barry Letts pioneered back in the early 70s, um, to varying
degrees of success.
And I think it's important that a show like Doctor Who, if they
didn't use these things, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The commentaries or the documentaries talk about the fact that it
takes all of 2 days to film these things.
Now you could do it like, you know, in an hour or whatever.
On your smartphone.
Correct.
But I think the squash playing is absolutely pathetic.
And with the Dr. Romana going across the screen, it just reminded
me that hideous lift back in underworld that just never worked.
It's a terrible shot.
I think everyone's arms and legs being pulled off looks stupid, you
know, your old Billy Loman.
Is it a Billy Loman who gets who gets cut up?
And there's one scene too, when the Fomasia are burning their way
into the um, into the corridor.
There's one thing which is a video still for a start.
It's not like, it's not like a shot.
It's a video still.
And a green circle is forming to show where they're burning into
create a hole.
But you can actually see someone pulling a piece of paper off.
Uh, you know, and that's how the uh, that's how the circle is
closed.
If you look at it, you can't unsee it. you watch it.
I've got to pulling a piece of paper off the thing.
So there are terrible terrible effects all the way through.
There's a there's that wonderful quantal effect.
They use sort of when they're zooming out of Brighton Beach to our
goalus and on the commentary, love at Bigfoot says, you know, this
is what we were trying to do was this, but we couldn't.
And what it's meant to be is you're meant to zoom up and you're
meant to see Brighton, and then the British coastline and then the
British Isles, and then Europe, and then the Earth, and then keep
zooming out.
That's what it was meant to be.
And so I think it's very, it's wonderful that, you know, 11 years
ago now, the very 1st shot of Rose, we finally got that shot, you
know, going, going down through space through the planet down to
down to England.
That's the shot that the opening credits come back in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then, and then you get the sunburst, which is meant to be
going past Argolus's sun.
And then to our But it's like, well, we don't have the budget for
a planet model and we can't, we don't have Google Earth, whatever
that might be.
So we can't quite do that.
But it's still, instead of them becoming a very impressive literal
special effect.
It's this wonderful representative thing which scared me as a kid
you know, the doctor, Dr. Romana going into space like this.
Didn't scare me in the same way as Romana falling off the cliff in
Stones of Blood, which I mentioned, was one of my most terrifying
Doctor Who moments.
But to be honest, I didn't mention this earlier with the theme, but
this theme scared me as a kid.
People report that the original theme used to scare them, you
know.
As a kid, the heart law theme scared me a little because it was so
sparse, but this one really terrified me.
It really blasts that at you.
I just love the way it starts.
Yeah, that's new, isn't it?
Like starting with a sting.
Like we talked about the introduction of the sting back in
ambassadors of death or something like that when it 1st occurs.
But this is where the where it starts with a sting and that's
something that doesn't go away either.
That's uh...
Yeah, yeah, we still got that.
I love the performance of Harriet Reynolds in this story.
Who is that you may ask?
Yes.
The voice of the tannery.
Oh, she's wonderful, isn't she?
I think the female turnover voice actually occurs a number of
times during the whole John Nathan Turner era.
It's not necessarily her, but it's something that instantly I just
kind of go, this is 1980, John Nathan Turner.
Give it a Welsh accent and it's the RTD era.
You know, there's how heaps of female Tanoy voices in RTDs, Doctor
Who.
Sun filter?
Descending.
Yes, I was thinking about that, you know, the quarantine thing
about Earth being quarantined, which is about by a Welsh computer
in Last of the Time Lords.
Is that what that's called?
Yeah.
So as you're saying, like, you know, this isn't perfect, but the
intent is there and it looks generally, you know, wonderful
spectacular.
You know, for me, I just go back to my figures and numbers.
You know, I give this personally, like a solid 8 out of 10.
Like, I enjoyed it.
I think it's a solid and it's a good step.
Yeah.
I just think the visual thing is so striking and so wonderful that
this is one of my all-time favourites.
Yeah.
I'd go as far to say that if by the end of watching this, you
haven't got a big smile on your face.
It's not Christopher H.
Bidmead who's gotten rid of the phone.
It you.
Well, it's time to repair K9 as we leave Angolus.
We'll be back next week for the doppelganger story Megloss.
In the meantime, please find us online at flightsthroughentirety
com, flight through entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTE
podcast on Twitter.
Feel free to retweet, share, or review us.
Don't forget about bond finger over at bondfinger.com, where we
now have the 1st 7 James Bond films recorded as commentaries and
also the unofficial film Casino Royale.
You can also find that at Bondfinger Cast on Twitter and
Bondfinger on Facebook and iTunes.
Until then, may none of your age or regressing machines actually
be video fakery.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
That was Flight to Entirety with Todd B, Nathan Bottomley, and
Brendan Jones.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Giant Squashy Bottoms, was recorded on the 20th of
February, 2016.
The next episode will be released on April 10th.
We dedicate this episode to the memory of Adrian Corey who played
Mina in the leisure hive.
It's the Peter Howell scores that always sound the best, just
because it's so seamless.
How much does he do?
I know it's him and Patty Kingsland this year.
Yeah, it's him and Patty Kingsland.
So he does, he does the leisure hive, the big ones, he does the 5
doctors.
Yeah, we should look it up.
Yeah, I'm gonna pause and look that up.