Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Your Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast for whom the Second Law of
Thermodynamics is taking its toll on us.
Entropy increases.
The more you put things together, the more they fall apart and
never a truer word was spoken about Australian politics in the
last 10 years.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
My name is Todd.
And I beg's not the Edric.
Since there's 4 of us.
Hello.
Well, you do look good in a tule skirt.
Anissa reference, dear.
All 4 of us are here together to bid a very fond, possibly overdue
farewell for Tom Baker in his...
He's still alive.
He won't eat.
In his swamp song, logo polis, according to the ABC.
Now, as this is such a big story in the history of Doctor Who, and
all four of us are here, decided to format this episode slightly
differently.
So I'll be asking you questions about your reaction.
And there's also another reason for this, which I'll elaborate on
in a few minutes, I'm in charge.
But I would like to, I would like to actually start with you
Todd.
Oh.
Yes, Brendan. feel like I'm at school.
Now, um, You wouldn't know, dear, this, no, this is a room full of
3 teachers and naughty me.
The great architect.
Emphasis on the art.
Can we talk about Archer?
Are we doing phrases?
Todd, on first broadcast.
What was your emotional reaction to this story?
Whilst it's been broadcast.
I've forgotten that the doctor, I've mentioned in previews, the
podcast that I sort of worked out that Tom was leaving, although I
didn't know and I've forgotten about it.
So with this, there's a lot of foreshadowing, a lot of lines that
sort of indicate that the end is nine.
But I was in denial of that.
So emotionally, I was okay, but with a sense of sort of dread, like
I was thinking, this is not going to end well.
Like, and of course that increases.
And I was obviously excited about Tegan, I think by, you know, by
the time she joins, having an Australian on board, I really, really
liked that.
But, um, I was devastated at the end, utterly internally
devastated.
I had tears.
Absolutely distort.
And I think that does influence my thoughts on the next doctor
because I don't think I ever really got over Tom Leeding for a
very long time.
Right.
Richard, how about you?
Same question.
It's really interesting.
When these 1st brand, they held us off for a year and we got the
adventures of Monkey and Tripper Tucker and Sandy and Pixie and
all of that, so it wasn't so bad, but we were really missing
Doctor Who.
And then bang wham in 1982, we had season 18 and 19 back to back.
So it was less than 24 hours between my 1st impression at the time
was one of gross impatience.
Really wanted them to hurry up because I wanted to see what the
new the new guy was like.
It felt pretty much exactly as it felt this time.
It was a terrific 1st opener and just like Aunt Vanessa's saggy
inner tube.
It just plodded along for the next three.
It felt pretty interminable.
But what a zinger of an episode one.
It really had me.
I'd never seen anything like it before on Doctor Who.
And yet, every little meanie thing in it, right from the copper in
front of the police box, as the very first shot, you know, and
then the Farris project is, ooh, I wonder if the master's going to
be...
I getting all my bits in first, listener.
No, that's actually what I was thinking.
And what surprised, well, I guess the biggest thing, like for Todd
because, you know, I'm the eldest at the table.
I know you wouldn't know to look at us, but I am.
Um, it's because this is radio, yeah.
You get it?
What can I say?
Working in TV's age, like an old vibe or?
Yeah, but I think I was her daughter.
It's a really good question. to go back because this is how much
is of this of Doctor Who is nostalgia, I would say more than 90% of
it.
I wonder how I'm going to feel about the new series and what
you're going to say, because it's so recent.
But for this one, what was amazing is that it's felt exactly the
same.
I had exactly the same reactions.
I wonder if you did too talk.
It brings back all those feelings and foreshadowing and sort of
not quite to the same extent, obviously, as the 1st time round.
But it's still there.
I was still, you know, I was a bit more excited at the end of this
I think, because I wanted to see what, um, beautifully done. what
Davidson's going to do.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, at Momey in London in 1991, the Museum of the Mutant
Moving, in which they had a Doctor Who display, you know?
Do you remember any of this?
And hey, this was on a loop.
If you'd gone there, and there were middle-aged women in tears
looking at Tom Baker.
Tom would probably say it's not an uncommon.
But yeah, yeah, people were crying standing around it and there's
a little fan, but I thought, yeah, I'm with you.
Yeah, yeah, it was good drama.
Nathan, what was your reaction?
Because, of course, you got to meet Tom Baker.
Whereas Richard didn't.
That's right.
I was the watcher all the time.
I have no memory of recording last week's episode, so I can't
remember. and watching that at all.
So I don't know what my what my reaction was.
I really liked season 18 on 1st broadcast a lot.
And I still like it now for the same reasons.
Am I, I liked your podcast more than the scene, actually walks
challenging, and I've got to say, this season you've made it a lot
of it more fun.
I remember it.
The thing that I identified in our leisure hive episode was that
there's a real attempt to be visually interesting.
And by this time of the season, there's, um, it's a big connected
story ever since, um, I guess, full circle, we've been telling one
story and Doctor Who hasn't done that since the 60s.
I think.
It doesn't even really do that in the 60s, but, you know, the 60s
you've got one story bleeding into another.
So, I think that I found that culmination pretty satisfying.
And I knew that Tom was leaving and I, we knew that Pete was
coming because, you know, it was so many years later that we, that
we actually got it.
Part of the reason I asked this was quite often when we're
planning a podcast, and I say to Rod, oh, this weekend we'll be
recording a podcast, even though he doesn't listen to the podcast
he says to me, oh, which stories are you doing?
And I said Megopolis.
And he said, oh, okay.
Because he moved to the UK for a few years of 1984.
So this was shortly before he stopped watching for a while because
he was going out partying and things.
But I, I just kind of said, what was your reaction to Megopolis?
Because, you know, he was about 22 at the time and he's like, But
he didn't know that Tom was leaving.
For a start.
But he said something very interesting because he he's not a fan
in the way that we are fans, you know.
He also doesn't listen to the podcast.
Yes, indeed.
Well, he's just a very visual person.
Like, he can't do the audios, but he loves the recons, which I
know you're the complete opposite, Richard, but we won't change
that right now.
But what he said was...
He wasn't sad at all because and this is possibly because he's not
a huge fan.
He never views the regeneration as a death of the character.
He just views it as we're getting a new version of the character.
Like he doesn't understand people getting upset about the doctor
leaving.
Yeah, but that's a standard casual viewers reference though, isn't
it?
They're not going to get feelings emotional.
I think that we've talked about this because I always get upset
when the companions leave, but not when the doctor regenerates.
Like, of course, you've got a black heart.
I was I'm still inconsolable about Martha and don't get me started
about Barbara and...
No, I'm sure she's still in the target.
There's some notty tendrils in a bit recording. be played by
Stephanie Cole.
Oh, wish.
The only regeneration that I really got upset at.
I agree.
I mean, always so sad at John's and was quite being younger. but I
don't know whether I was as teary. was sort of like, because I
think I'd seen Tom already.
Like, I think I've discussed this.
I could never remember which one I'd seen first, but I know that
Tom was coming, so I wasn't quite the same, whereas with this, I
didn't know who was coming.
I didn't know the certainty was leaving.
It's like, you know, Sarah leaving or whatever, like that.
I mean, this is our 1st proper regeneration, really, isn't it?
It is for me.
I started watching Doctor Who in 1978.
Um, you know, I saw repeats of per twee stories.
So, but they were the only 2 doctors I'd seen, but all the time
I'd been watching it had been Tom.
So it's the 1st regeneration I experienced.
Was it your 1st brand?
Well, that's that's the other reason I asked this question because
I came to Doctor Who in, Well, no, before 1988, because that had
all these off-air recordings, but that means it's kind of like
that scene at the end of Star Trek 2 where they say of Spock, he's
not dead so long as we remember him.
Because that's the thing.
I would just dip in and out of Doctor Who.
You know, I could watch the mind of evil, then robot, then
Legopolis, but then double back to the robot operation.
Regenerations have never quite had that same effect on me.
They don't upset me.
I get caught up in the emotion and, you know, yes, I cry during
John's regeneration, during Tom's regeneration and the new series
ones.
It's it's more...
The reaction to an emotional performance and direction, especially
music.
The music in this one.
Nicely pointed out.
Patty Kingsland really pulls it off.
Well, we're on episode 4 with that before we've gone to episode
one.
Oh, no, but I just wanted to...
I just wanted to start with a bang.
Well, to finish off your bang for you.
I don't have to say, I'm the only one at the table that this is my
2nd life too.
Well, 1st generation, because I started watching in 74, 75
properly.
So yeah, I did see the perfectly on the 1st broadcast.
And it was extraordinary.
But for a child of 7 or 8.
What was, and that's the perfect age to start watching Doctor Who
you ask any of the, be it big name fans?
say, you know, seven, eight, nine.
They all got into it.
And I think it's because you're most emotionally open and, I mean
if you want to say vulnerable of these kinds of characters and
driven stories.
That's another thing.
This is a character driven story because you can't find a plot in
this one.
But it was the moodiness of the story that was actually more
powerful for me in spiders than the actual regeneration.
Or you could say they, or you could say they dovetailed
beautifully.
And the moodiness and the atmosphere and John Durth's performance
and all the rest of it.
And I really want Liz's performance in that final scene.
And Liz is extraordinary.
In fact, everyone's pretty damn good in that.
There's maybe one or two, but, you know, and I and I reckon that
maybe Lett's had a bigger hand in this than the law states because
it had a very similar feeling.
There's the windswept use of a lot of outside broadcast.
There's a lot of long distance shots.
There's a lot of bleakness, there's a lot of overexposure in the
camera, and maybe that's just England on a bright day, but that
white gray sky is everywhere, the white gray face of Tom perfectly
reflects it, white gray hair, he's white gray, disinterested in
what's going on.
He's kind of a walking cadaver from episode one.
Really?
I really feel, yeah, and it felt, and it felt like a pain into
mourning.
It was very, that Lala's words keep coming back.
Romana's words, do you have a death wish?
It's a great line back in state of decay, is it?
Warriors Gate.
Well, yeah, she should know because, you know, they just got
married.
But yeah, that's that. isn't there?
I really felt this was as as poignant as spiders was.
Okay, so my next question, I'll start with you, Nathan.
In terms of changing of the guard and changing of the doctor.
John Nathan Turner was very sensitive to the fact that with so
much having changed in the program, this other massive change
could have driven away long-term viewers.
So he was determined that there would be as much continuity as
possible going over the regeneration.
So he did approach Elizabeth Sladen to return as Sarah Jane Smith
and also Louise Jameson to return as Leila, possibly just for the
3 stories bridging the regeneration, both of them said, no, we're
not coming back.
So he had Matthew Waterhouse, the new character of Tegan or Joe
Vanka, who Christopher Bidney misunderstood who named her Tegan
Joe Vanka.
And...
Such a wanker.
Sorry.
I'm channelling Janet.
And that was also part of the reason he decided to bring back
Sarah Sutton, which meant that they had to keep paying Johnny
Byrne for the use of her character.
He thought, if I can't have a recognisable face from a few years
ago that long-term fans will note, I will have more characters for
the audience to get familiar with.
So my question to you, Nathan is.
We have the return of NISA, the continuation of Adric, and Tegan
coming in as well.
What do you think of this dynamic of these 3 young companions?
Well, I just think they're terrible, actually.
Like, I don't think anyone of them puts in a good performance.
Maybe Sarah Sutton's all right in this story, but, um, But, you
know, our drink is Andrew, and those scenes with Andrew and Tom
are actually quite nice, you know, they're interminable.
I mean, there's lots of sort of standing around in the TARDIS.
This approach to the regeneration where you give people familiar
things in order to ease the transition, I think, is a really good
one.
And when John leaves and Tom comes, Tom gets to do a John Pertuy
story, you know, as his 1st story and he's the new thing in it.
And I think we said that that kind of backfired a bit because he's
so much more interesting than anyone else in it than the premise
and everything.
So he kind of makes having John Pertuis style stories sort of more
or less completely impossible just from the 1st story.
Here, what happens is happening in reverse, where the Peter
Davison era is being assembled around Tom and Tom is being frozen
out.
And, you know, your comment, Richard, about him being cadaverous.
I actually quite like this sort of lugubrious, distant Tom.
I think that's a good take on the character.
So I think it works for him in that his time on the show is over
and his whole era is just being deconstructed around him.
He's lost Romana, he's lost canine.
There's all these why are all these young people in my TARDIS, you
know?
But I think the era that replaces this isn't a great one and and
so we are losing something that is... don't know that when we're
watching.
No, that's true.
Well, what did you feel?
Well, it's memory cheats, but we were, no one had bubble memory in
1980.
Bubble memory.
It's just flash.
It's like it's like flash memory.
It was such an exciting thing.
It had to be, it had to be mentioned.
Was it really a real term?
It was a massive, massive problem.
Computers didn't have backup, at least home computers didn't, so
you had to put it on a cassette.
You have to give the cathedral on the cassette to remember what
you'd worked on that, though.
But it's just it's just the memory that the storage in our iPhones
are now, MacBooks and our USB drives.
Other phones are.
I just saw another...
I just thought it was another big mean little one.
Well, it is that too. magical term that's going to make it sound
more scientific.
When science is more fun than plot.
Allegedly.
But you were what were we on about this?
We're about the companions and what you think of that dynamic and
that sort of thing. should be fabulous. 12, don't you think?
I mean, we're back to 1960 and we've got a full crew.
We aren't.
I don't think we are.
And the reason is that Barbara and Ian are recognisable characters
and then Susan for the doctor's granddaughter.
We have sort of 3 high concept people who have no particular
relationship.
Yeah, who are wearing the same clothes every week.
Um, you know, and who aren't putting in good performances, really.
The best performer is Sarah Sutton, and she's the one most
frequently sidelined.
And yeah, I agree, and she shouldn't be because she's the best
actor, mostly.
I guess I have a slightly different take on it than what you guys
have.
I think this is Matthew Waterhouse's best performance adopt 2.
And I also think that the character of Patrick is written the best
in this story.
And it's just so, I mentioned last week that, you know, I thought
that Adrick was good in keeper of Truck, and Matthew was improving
it.
And I think here his whole dynamic with Truck was really, really
good.
And you have had him in for 20 episodes.
Therefore, he's an identifiable figure.
Mister, of course, I always think that Sarah Sutton does a pretty
good job.
I mean, her experience as an actress, but she's often sidelined.
At this point, you know, she comes halfway in the story.
But it is a case, I think, of Don Nathan Turner's said we're
bringing back the master, Bid Meats, put him in truck, and so
therefore, you know, because the master is suddenly her dead
father, you to up the emotional stakes, he needs to bring her into
the story without missa.
If you take this around the plot of what there is, there's
suddenly a lot less, like if you just get rid of that stuff, what's
going to replace it, you know?
I do think, though, that her reaction to the death of her father
and then the destruction of her planet.
You know, she gets a line and she gets a little acting moment, but
then she's sort of quite jolly after that.
That's that's the crap thing about the 80s is that it Bidmead said
when Loud Award said this is a terrible write-off, both for John
Leeson.
And myself.
And he said, it's not a soap opera, my dear.
And it's wishing your career is dead, mate.
And I, and you noticed that he didn't have much.
I don't cross slower.
I mean, I take the plan.
The same thing's happening here.
It should be more of a soap.
I want to see human reaction and it felt awful and weird at the
time.
We just didn't really get the words for it.
Were you feeling it back then when you were watching it?
The tracking thing is really hard because I was absolutely
devastated by that.
That really, really set me after Lubic became keeper and I really
wanted to see that world survive.
And it just, that was just devastating, right?
And to see all that happen as a plot device, just to, yeah, as a
as a clique. yeah.
You know, I think Sarah sells it as much as she can, but she can
only do with what's written in front of her because there's so
much going on.
I mean, it really should be about, I really should be about Tom
but in fact, you're trying to introduce her into the cast full
time. then you've got the whole tank and thing.
You got to introduce a whole new companion.
I'm our story of a doctor.
And I think it does sum up the 80s, really, where you suddenly
have this huge cast changeover, like within, I mean, it'll happen
with Peter as well.
Like, within, like, all the stories ramping up to the end of the
doctor and it's sort of like, we need stability, not this constant
quickly, we've got to write people out.
I think it takes away from the time that should be Tom's time
although I think, you know, I think his performance is fantastic.
It's subtle isn't it?
Yeah.
I guess the thing with Tegan, I was really excited, the fact that
it was going to be an Australian on board and I thought she was
like gun ho and dynamic.
Looking back at it now and certainly I'm watching a bit ahead.
I think that Janet's performance is very broad.
Yeah, it's really panto.
It's not good.
And I like her a lot and I like Tegan, by the way.
She works it out.
She works it out next season, I think after.
Actually, I think it's when Tegans would be drunk in Black Awkward
and she's...
No, she's really funny enlightened and everything.
And after that, I think Janet works out how to balance being, you
know, mouth on legs, angry, not wanting to do things, wanting to
leave much better when she's presented this within a script.
But, you know, here she's having to deal with the fact that Tom is
leaving, right?
Who's coming in to replace him?
And all the others. whether, you know, it's much of an impact or
not, have worked with each other in the previous story.
I don't know.
So there is some sort of chemistry.
She's got a lot to deal with.
Yeah, one I found so interesting about these, these multiple
characters is the 1st episode is kind of all about Tom and Adrick
together and they do have their lovely little scenes and Matthew
Waterhouse.
I think I agree with you, Tom.
This is certainly one of his best performances.
The 2nd episode is all about Tegan.
Because, you know, she wanders into the TARDIS in the 1st episode
but doesn't then interact with the plot until episode two.
Then the 3rd episode is all about Nissa, and Nissa discovering
what's happened to her father, and it's, oh, it's so short-sighted
the spoiler alert deal listeners, Anthony Ainley and Sarah Sutton
gets so few scenes together after this story, because they...
They were really great together as Tree Mass and Nissa.
Yes, yes.
And they're completely different together as the master and
Nissa.
And there's a change in his performance, of course.
But there is a change in her performance too.
And for me, those 2 in episode 3 are the highlight of the
episode.
And I agree with you, Nathan, that the whole thing of, you know, my
planet's dead now.
It's a great moment at the time, but nothing really happens
afterwards.
But the scene where she walks up to him saying, you killed my
father.
I think Sarah Sutton has really cottoned onto the fact that, you
know, she comes from a culture where there is no, there is no
violence and there is no avarice and greed.
All frog and no gun.
All frog and no guns. might have said, yeah.
I see on her face that she's trying to process this strange
emotion, this rage and grief and fear.
And then we get this wonderful moment from Tom where he's agreeing
to work with the master.
And I think this is a conscious thing.
You've got the 3 young companions saying, oh, but you can't do
that.
You know, so they're like the new guards saying, you can't do
that.
He just turns around and rips them all, a new one.
You don't tell me what to do.
I'm going to go save the universe.
Shut up.
So true.
But that being said, I think...
The 3 companions here are better balanced and are each given
something to do a bit more than will happen next year.
I think that I think that's the thing.
I think in this script they have that balance.
And I do think that they really struggle next year to get that and
I think that is, you know, people get put to sleep for 4
episodes.
You know?
You know what I'm saying.
It's just a viewer.
Exactly.
You really don't want to...
But Sarah's something I think is really good in the fact that she
hangs on to that finger, even in Kestravalba in time flight.
Like she, she, there's this little subtle things when she's with
Anthony Ainley or the milker or whatever, where it just comes to
the floor.
Because you don't get that from Tegan, and Tegan loses her.
Auntie Vanessa. you know, in at the end of the 1st episode and she
has a bit of a reaction to it, but then she's wandering around
doing sort of ludicrous panto recriminations.
Were you just doing the accent?
It's interesting because as this is the 1st time that we were
saying that a companion has ever discovered, what she thought was
a police box and turns out to be the time since Dodo chat was.
Yes.
And that's not the only parallel with this story.
I really do think that Janet is played by Jackie Lane for this
episode.
The voice accents the whole...
Why are you promoting?
is the JNT thing.
Doctor Who is not, sorry, a socialist principle, it's not a
democracy, talent will up.
You've got someone who's, does anyone else remember the Moon
Stallion or Alice, the other Sarah's other things?
I've never ever seen them.
I think I was just too young.
I saw them.
I remember them and they were amazing.
Sarah was extraordinary, sudden.
It was extraordinary in these stallions.
Well, my all time.
Gary Russell, so it says the same thing.
Children of the Stones, he really likes, and Moonstone.
We both really like it.
Also had David Hague, Pango from the leisure hide in it.
It was beautifully done.
She's extraordinary.
And she's had a lot of experience, but she's at the back, and
you've got someone who's done drama school and got a few little
bits and pieces.
Janet gets a hell of a lot better, and I agree with Todd.
It's when she discovers alcoholism.
Just as it ate in terms before.
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
She does get better, but gee, we've got to really sog it out
before she gets there.
And Sarah's, if you're saying, this has been given very little
given a huge amount to do in, and you're done.
You try and do it.
I think it was impossible.
Yeah, it's like a whole new relaunch.
It is, though, series, yeah.
So, Richard is.
Does the plot make sense?
What plot?
I mean, I was a techie science nerd.
My cousin's in Canberra, my uncle by marriage, was one of the guys
in the 50s who built the 1st computer in Australia, which was
called Univac or something.
I think it's a Dyson now, but, you know, it was a whole room full
of valves, you know, wheeze like Billy Hartnell used to say.
Yeah, yeah.
So we had all this stuff to play with right at the time.
Those boys, my cousins 18 months older than me, absolutely adored
this story because of all the techie stuff and bubble memory.
Every nerd in the room was a little gasm when you got immediate
tech mentioned.
So Bitney did know his audience, but it wasn't the whole
audience.
It was his middle mates.
And it's, that's not just bid me.
That is something that is going to happen to the show.
It's going to turn into cult TV for a niche.
Isn't that a terrible expression to cult to you?
Yeah, yeah.
Whereas it used to be, and when Russell brings it back, it will be
again a family program that everyone sits in.
Good, well-made television.
See, I've always had an objection to the term cult TV.
The label of cult TV.
It's not applied by fans of the show.
It's applied from the outside and it's a way to say, this is a TV
show that people care too much about.
It's terrible, but people like it inexplicably.
Yeah, yeah.
And it just reminds me of something Simon Pegg said, which he was
talking about being a geek and being bullied for it.
And I won't get the exact words, but the thing is, the reason that
people bully geeks and nerds is that geeks and nerds have a
passion and a drive and a love for something, and people who bully
them can't understand what that love is and they're jealous of
it.
But they have sport ball.
Yeah. sports ball.
They do.
And they don't see that that's this is just a higher functioning
form of the same thing.
Or to get a bit to get a bit sweary.
Someone at a convention with John Barrowman got up and said, oh
I'd like to ask a question.
I'm sorry, it's a bit nerdy.
And John said, before you ask you a question, I'm going to stop
you.
Do not apologise for being nerdy.
People who aren't nerds don't apologise for being assholes.
That's part that's part of the tension.
Because I'm not sure that Doctor Who gets inaccessible at this
point, but I think what happened...
I think what happens is that In some respects, Doctor Who gets a
bit more mature and a bit more highbrow and people who expect it
just to be men in rubber suits and egg cartons kind of go, oh, yes
you just get back down in your box.
I think certainly partially the shift in the show, the
scientification as bid meat puts it, is responsible, but I think
it's also people thinking that it shouldn't get ideas, quote
unquote, above its station.
But when I say that the show turns into cult TV from this point
what I need is, and I'm probably being too cynical, that it's just
not very good, but the people making it think that there is a
built-in audience who will watch it anyway, and that's the
audience that they're aiming for.
They're not looking beyond.
They're not looking at creating a show with broad appeal.
Um, You know, like Doctor Who is nerdy when it comes back in
2005.
It's terribly geeky.
It's but it's aware that it isn't entitled to a big audience.
People aren't going to tune into it just because it's on.
And so they go out of their way to make something that's appealing
and interesting and well made.
But I don't see that happening in the 80s.
And whether that's kind of cynicism or just incompetence, I'm not
sure.
But I think that's what I mean by cult TV.
Yeah, these people will just watch it because it's got the diamond
logo on it.
It doesn't have a diamond logo on it, but, you know, you're both
saying the same thing though.
This is, and I think Doctor Who is always, we've talked about this
as well, always spoken of, the wider realm of what's going on.
At the moment, it's talking about acadine, what's going on at the
universities with post-modern theory.
You can just sum it up as in, it looks back at itself.
It's self-referential.
And it's not reconing, it's just, although it is in this story, but
it's, it's just, it's very self-conscious, or it's begin to get
that sense of looking back at its own beginnings and analysing
itself in a very academic, You know, it's as if we've all gone
from primary school.
We've gone through high school and now we're at 1st year
undergrad.
It feels like an undergrad thing.
I think the influence of Douglas Adams is still quite strong there
but just moved on.
I mean, you said something, Todd, about the show, not having
anything for new kids who are coming along to watch it.
Yeah, like I've mentioned that before.
Like, it's getting very self-referential, like even in this, like
with Romana and all that sort of stuff.
But I know where you're going with this.
The young audience, the 789s aren't, this is we're going to stick
with the show.
Like we're aiming at it, you know, the 19, 20 year olds at this
point.
And that's a problem.
You know, you're not getting the next generation coming through
and this season has reaped the rewards of that.
Yeah.
I mean, I still think it's good in season 18.
And I still think that Doctor Who can help itself to entropy as a
theme.
You know what I mean?
It might be a new word to some people, but the idea is just well
explained.
And it's well explained, actually, by having Episode one where 2
vehicles are malfunctioning.
So you've got Tegan and Auntie Vanessa in the car, that's what
you're going to say, Tegan and Auntie Vanessa.
And the doctor and Adrik. and the doctor explains it beautifully
in that scene in the cloister. room.
So that's not making it inaccessible.
And it's, okay, it's sort of science fiction, it should sort of
have ideas.
So I don't think the rot set in yet, but it is going to.
I think, uh, did mean to exit from the show... is not a good
thing.
No, I really think that's too fast.
He needed to do another season, like to see in a new doctor. you
know, all these characters that he's been forced to introduce to
sort of craft them and guide them and steer them and that, well
he's not there to do it.
Quite frankly, it does fall apart.
I think it also gets less visually ambitious as well.
Now this is the show that we're making.
You know, they're not making a statement about how the show can
look interesting.
And I think here, I think there are bits of Lagopolos that look
just terrible.
Like really, really bad, worse than the 60s.
That planet, you know, like you can virtually see, you know, stage
hands fingerprints all over the kind of backdrop and stuff.
The sky is like 2 metres away.
You know, the web planet?
It is actually Doctor Who's version of Barbarilla's Labyrinth.
Even with the way that the look of, a little bit of logopolitans
logo police, as my iPhone transcribes, the wiggles.
The way they fade out is just the same way that the ground
grotesques die in the labyrinth.
They just go invisible.
And they look, it's actually the same costume.
But there's also that wonderful shot of when the master goes
through those doors and everything's just painted.
I'm just thinking, are you for real?
Like how cheap is this?
But on the pip side is you've got all that stuff inside the tarnis
when they go inside each of the tarnis with the light.
It feels really dark.
And I really love that.
I love that inside the last TARDIS is the outside world.
Like Tom goes into the TARDIS and he's outside.
So the whole world is in the in the in the middle one.
It was terrifically good.
I will make it like that.
I mean, what I find amazing about the story is it's full of
sequences of events that deconstruct the Tom Baker era.
So, for instance, in the doctor's whole thing here is, you know, he
suspects the master's atlas again.
So he wants to get the TARDIS fixed.
So we're gonna be getting rid of the police box, which would
become a common JNT thing when he wanted a bit of publicity.
You know, he'd say we're going to change the police box.
So 1st of all, there's that threat, which actually arose because
there was still a police box standing on this area of highway.
But by the time they got there to film, it had fallen into
disrepair and been removed.
So they had to use the season 17 police box sitting by the side of
the road instead that doesn't explain, however, why there's a sign
saying, please take your litter with you with a bin sitting under
it.
Anyway, what's with that?
A man is the sum of his memories. also, and I think with this
story, like the whole thing as a whole, well, doesn't make a lot
of sense, but there's some really nice little set pieces, but even
some of them are really quite ridiculous.
Let's flush the master out of the TARDIS by dropping out of the
sky into a river and just then having the whole TARDIS fill with
water so that he can just be trapped in his TARDIS.
I don't know.
Like at the time I thought, this is wonderful.
Yeah, it was a startling thing, but I also thought that the
doctor's gone mad.
And when he says it's, we share the same mind in many ways.
It's the same mind.
Ah, yeah, be careful who your friends are.
Yes, it's...
That whole time monster thing was lovely too.
Is that, is it?
No, no, no, no.
It's the way the tartars are inside tartars, which is the most
exciting thing.
I'd forgotten at the time.
Yeah, we've had this in the time monster.
I mean, then again, we've got Kronos the Kronavore playing Janet
Fielding. really exciting.
Friend of the podcast, Blaine William Traynor, who's a friend of
ours in Edinburgh Sculpts, one, Scotland, Scotland, yes.
He's a graphic designer.
And once on Twitter, he took some screen grabs of Christopher H
bid me, being interviewed on documentaries and gave them captions
like, science, yes, we're sciencing up the show.
Lots of science-y stuff, like materialising guitars and opening it
underwater.
My middle name is Hamilton.
Make sure that gets on the title card.
And put it out on Twitter.
Christopher Hamilton did me responded.
Oh, with pictures.
Pick pictures.
And the thing is, though, Christopher's response. to that
criticism about materialising times underwater.
He didn't attempt to justify it.
What he said was, and again, accompanied as captions with
pictures.
The thing about people criticising Legopolis is that people are
assuming they're much smarter than the doctor, which is not a very
smart thing indeed.
I kind of looked at that and thought, okay, Chris, you're picking
yourself up there a bit, but at the same time, it's hard to
argue.
Well, but what he really means is people are assuming they're
smarter than me.
Yes, he's doing that.
Yes.
That's the thing, like, Blade put that out on Twitter and I
retweeted it, and about 2 hours later, he sort of sent me a direct
message saying, oh, expleted.
Check out Bit means Twitter.
And you should follow Chris forbid me on Twitter at CHB.
Sorry, at CHB, I should say.
Going back to what I was saying and that's because there's all
these little set pieces.
Like, but you have things like, for example, Nisa, the doctor
receives a message from Tron.
Like he's never been beamed a messaged by other people before.
Like it just suddenly, in this story, it happens.
I'm getting much better at these short stops.
Well, that's another convenient little thing that's happening.
Then he has to obviously talk to the watcher and the watcher has
to mysteriously never explain how he gets to track and does he
have his own TARDIS?
Why does this foreshadowing creature have his own space time
transport and then, you know, and then so Nissa just turns up and
says with a line explanation that she came with him.
But, you know, it felt pretty flat at the time.
Do you know, I love that.
I absolutely adore that.
I don't want an explanation.
It's magic.
Yeah, because this is so important to the story, weird narrative
things are happening around it.
You don't want Bid Beans explanation?
No, really?
I want to see, see it.
But the fact that bit means always going about like, you know
getting rid of the magic, but that is magic.
Well, but he doesn't get rid of the magic.
I said to you before that I think of Bidmead is a terrible
critic.
In fact, the way that Legopolis works is magic, like saying words
and intoning things and having physical objects created as a
result, that's magic.
And Legopolis works because it's a symbolic analogue of a
computer.
You know, it has registers, it has a monitor, it has memory
blocks.
I think it's an 8 bit computer, so it's not very advanced.
It plays chip tunes.
But it's literally a computer.
It's an analogue of a computer and magic is symbols of things
having effects on the things themselves, you know, and all
throughout the season.
Warriors gay, it works this way.
Time we've been Meglos works this way.
Season 18 is absolutely full of magic, fuller than it's ever
been.
And because it's scientific things that are being symbolised or
modelled, you know, Bidmead makes the mistake of thinking that
he's bringing science into the program, but he's just bringing a
sort of science flavoured magic into it.
And I have absolutely no objection to that.
I think it's wonderful.
I'd like to share my favourite bit of techno babble from this
story.
I mean, there's a lot to choose from.
There's sonic projectors which create a temporary zone of stasis.
The doctor asks Adrik to fold back the Omiger configurations.
But my favourite piece, and because it comes from Anthony Ainley
and because the way he reads it, it's very clear he has no idea
what he's saying, but he's going to make it sound as important as
possible.
We should reconfigure our 2 TARTuses into time cone inverters.
That way we can create a stable, safe zone by applying temporal
inversion isometry to have much of space time as we can isolate.
Because the time monster was just so good.
But the thing is, he's kind of got the whole barrel read thing
that we'll see next year in Earth Shock. in the, yeah, it's clear
he doesn't have a clue what he's saying, but he understands the
energy of the scene.
And, you know, I think something we said last week is that Anthony
only starts very strong and most of his performances just go
downhill after keeper of Trunk.
And he's, I think he's still quite strong here.
What do you chaps think?
I'm with Todd on this.
Go on.
Well, I mean, this is what you've been saying this season.
Go on.
My feeling is that it's still a good performance.
I think I just hate the costume, because she just really gets to
me.
I'm with you on that.
And it's one of these things that the more you see of him. da, da
da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
Yes, the more you see it, yes.
Like as he goes along, then you look back at those 1st
performances and you see the more dodgier bits, all the more
hemier bits.
And that affects my judgement of it.
I still actually think he's, I don't have a problem with his
brother.
As Trimus, he's superb.
And yeah, no, he is.
And as the early master seems, he's terrific.
I think maybe it's just a case of too much fraud.
I'm not saying he's great.
I think the whole character is misconceived.
And it's wrong and Russell gets it wrong.
Maybe that's why Ching Mess is good in the Masters.
So the master is a guy in a black suit with a goatee as far as JNT
is concerned.
That's the character concept and his evil.
Agreed.
I wish it had been Beryl Reed.
That would have been great.
The mask tends to be the doctor's opposite, you know, and that's
how he was conceived.
And so he's brought in with Pertwee and Delgado is designed to
complement Pertwee.
He's a patrician.
He's very clever.
He's arrogant.
He's pertly only foreign.
I said this before.
So, when the Masters brought back by Russell, the threat that he
poses is that he will take over as star of the show.
And he does. exactly right.
He's much more, it's more interesting to look at.
And like what Delgado almost became like the star of the show.
Whereas at no point do you actually feel like Anthony Anthony...
No, it's never going to be started.
I don't think he's a threat.
I mean, everyone feels comfortable in this position, and I think
that's not the actor's fault.
No, you have to know who the doctor is and cast the master to play
opposite the doctor.
You know.
And I think that is eventually, and getting way ahead of
ourselves.
He works best with Sylvester because Sylvester is this kind of
small, quiet figure.
Anthony Ainley is at his best when he's very quiet. menacing.
Like when he's with Nissa in the scene, saying, look, Apolis is a
cold, high place overlooking the universe.
He and Tom work okay together.
He and Peter, there's no, there's no frisal between them.
It doesn't help the fact that in this episode every time it cuts
to a police box or a pillar of whatever it is, you just get that
laugh.
Is that all I can do for 3 episodes?
I actually quite like that.
Because Brendan was talking about deconstructing the series and
this turns the TARDIS into a terrifying place and, you know, where
people get killed. and both the outside and the inside.
Like having the TARDIS exterior inside the interior really
deconstructs the idea of the TARDIS as well.
Yeah, it's a bit like the new adventures we'll do later when
they're constantly tearing the TARTAS apart and things.
He was asleep by then.
In terms of Anthony, I'd like to turn now to Jan, Vincent, Runsky
where has the magic of Doctor Who gone?
Um, who puzzled over the fact that, and this is back in 1981.
Anthony Anley seems a good choice for the master in a Delgado
mould, but I think it would have been better to give him a more
definitive variation of the master's character like the doctor
does when he regenerates.
Likewise, if this was the Delgado version reborn, then why did he
wear that silly suit that makes him look like a penguin?
Hey, you said it, you know?
I think you're right, Nathan.
It should not have been, we're going to just do a carbon copy of
Delgado and he's got the beard and he's got this costume from back
then and a really bad wig.
That's right.
He needed to be his own man.
And that doesn't thank you.
Yes, yes.
And it's the same thing that will be said, a future doctor. too
distantly. that's getting ahead of ourselves. again.
I mean, the 2 masters that we've had in the new series.
And you know, they've been great. you know because they do that.
Yeah, I have to say even Eric Roberts.
Because the 8th doctor, when we get to him, is painted as, you
know, the bastion of Britishness.
So Eric Roberts plays it as a Dolph Lungren style American
villain.
And it's like, you know what?
If you watch it as an adult, that scene where he's coming down the
stairs, I always dress.
He's magnificent.
He is pretty good. everyone I ever know.
I'm wearing it now.
I'm doing the accent.
He actually does Carol Burnett in her sketch of gone with the wind
when she walks down the stairs in a huge draped in velvet with a
curtain rail across her back and she says, I saw it in the window
and I just had to have it.
I do have to say, I've seen Anthony only in other things, and he's
very good.
Yeah, he's excellent in a...
Is he the palaces or Forsyth?
He was in one of those things.
I think it was the palaces.
Take him way back.
But also for fans of the podcast who know we enjoy the Avengers.
Gasp.
He is in a latter-day Avengers episode called Noon Doomsday, which
is a Western.
And pretty much long story short, Steed has a broken leg, so he's
convalescing in this home for injured agents. and there's someone
coming to kill him.
So Tara King tries to rally the other spies who are there to aid
Steed and all of them are like, no, I don't want to do anything
except for Anthony Ainley, who is bedridden and can't speak beyond
a whisper.
So his whole job is just to be a lookout, but he's just this
incredibly brave, incredibly dignified performance.
He's really good in that.
So noon doomsday in season 6 of the Avengers. our gunfighters.
You know what?
I think his best scene is besides his stuff with Miss, which I
think is actually really good.
It is, yeah. is that moment when he's peering out of the Barris
Project Tower as Tom is swinging, we're about to just a
photograph.
Correct. a cardboard card.
I never saw that as a kid.
No, but then the 2nd time I watched it, I went, that's not.
Yes.
Yeah, because, you know, you're looking you're looking at Tom.
That's what that scene.
That scene caused a fair...
Hell, you know.
Oh, another thing that deconstructs what's going before is I'm
jetticing Romana's room.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's actually it.
In my opinion, that's a brilliant scene between Tom and Adrick
like the way Tom snaps.
And the way that Matthew actually snaps back, I'm sorry.
Because I thought I was the Romana now.
You made me wear...
But yeah, some consternation that was caused during that drop from
the Pharaohs Tower.
Okay, chaps, I think we're all going to come up with the same
answer.
When the doctor drops off the Pharaoh's Tower, what is the shot
that's burned into your memory?
The single shot?
Tegan sees him dropping faster than everyone else. reaction where
they're all watching him fall.
But Tegan, he, as far as Tegan's concerned, he's already hit the
ground while he's still in the air for the other two.
Oh, okay.
For me, it's like, isn't there a little dolly swimming?
Ah, yes, yes.
But also too, the other thing that I'll criticise is the fact that
you know, he's hanging on to that girder or whatever, right?
And, like, he's actually hanging on to it.
Like that could be fine.
And then he does this thing with his hands that it's sort of like
well, I really have just given up.
I don't give a shame.
I'm just trying to kill myself.
Like, even as a kid, I remember thinking for a moment, oh, that's
a bit, like, clearly hang on.
It is a great shot though, isn't it?
Where his hand just lets go.
That is the bit that caused a stand-up row between him and Peter
Grimwade and John Nathan Turner because they wanted him to
scream.
That would have been ridiculous.
And Tom's version of what the scene is.
He's like, no, all through the story.
I've been seeing this figure who is my death.
And I've just saved the universe.
I'm being heroic.
And I think he said, I don't know what I was thinking at the time
but what I think looking at that now when the hand goes, that's
the doctor going, it's okay, I can let go. you know, and he's like
that's my heroic act.
I've saved the universe.
I don't have to save myself and I'm not screaming on the way
down.
And he got his way.
And I think it's all the more effective, but you just have that
musical beat from Patty Kingsland as the hang goes down.
And yet, unfortunately, you have Janet beginning how gravity
works.
It's different in Brisbane.
It's the outback.
Interesting, like, we're talking about death and entropy and all
that sort of thing.
And like, so Andrew's brother was killed.
Yep.
Mrs. father was killed, and now Tegan's aunts killed, all of them
have got one dead relative because of this, you know?
because of the master.
Well, is it because of the master?
Is this moment to jump in that none of this would have happened?
The doctor knowingly knew that knowingly knew?
Can I say that?
knew that the master was in the TARDIS and he still went to Frick
and Legopolis and took him there?
I think that thing letting go is actually Mia Culpa. when he falls
off the light, the light says, all impacting with me all the
time.
I should probably go before anyone notices.
You know, in some alternative universe, Tegan will wander into the
master's tart as an auntie, but yes, we will wander into the
doctor's.
I would watch that.
That would be really interesting.
I think Vanessa is wonderful, isn't she?
she not wonderful?
This spaceship is hardly the starship enterprise, my dear.
God, she would have been great.
She wrote her.
I just realised that Tagan, and all the original series companion
she's got her aunt, her cousin, and her grandfather.
That's the most relatives of any other companions seen in the
history of the original series.
Absolutely.
What I find astonishing about the 80s, and it starts with Adric
pretty much with the exception of Mel.
Yeah.
All the companions from the 80s are treated as orphans.
You know, Perry's mother is still alive, but we never see her.
We see her stepfather, you know?
Ace has disowned her parents.
Turlo, we find out his dad's dead, you know, and presumably his
mother, we never hear of his mother.
And I kind of thought to myself, oh, that's a bit of a throwback
to the 60s, but in the 60s, really, that was just Vicky and
Victoria.
Isn't Dodo an orphan?
Oh, well, yeah.
Yeah, Dodo lives with her aunt.
So, oh, yeah, and her, um, she says in Celestial Toymaker, it's
the day my mother died.
Oh, okay.
You know?
Really?
Did she say that?
Yeah, she's been hanging about.
No, she's leaping about in a frock and grinning when she says it.
Ah, so completely.
Day my mother died.
It took 3 spoons of arsenic.
Sorry. 3 spins of arsenic.
No, she was doing BBC. by that point.
Why do we think that is?
Why is the 80s full of orphans?
Do we have, you can't go off on the adventure with a doctor unless
you have a tragic backstory and nothing to go back to?
You don't have those ties that the new series has to family and
all that sort of thing.
It stops it from being real, I guess.
Sarah is an orphan as well.
I don't think it's specifically mentioned, but she only even
mentions her aunt.
Yeah, actually, especially on the way back.
They only establish her as an orphan in the new series.
Or possibly that's in the books and they've brought that in with
the temptation of Sarah Jane Smith.
And we hear about Joe's uncle as well.
It's a bit past, isn't it?
There's that mediaeval story if you have to go through a great
loss to achieve whatever plane of higher transcendence this is.
Hello Spider-Man.
You know, they had to go there, didn't you?
Are they subconsciously thinking that all the people now watching
the show are all these loners and losers that have no friends and
are just like individuals that are isolated from socially?
Everyone has experienced that at some level, even us just sitting
there and hating your whole family for whatever period of a Sunday
it is, that you, you know, everyone goes through that.
So everyone's spelled isolated.
Maybe that's what Doctor Who has always been.
I think it's because they're not interested in doing what Russell
will do when he comes back and...
Yeah, so the characters aren't worrying about anyone missing them
while they're on board the TARDAS.
And so I think I think that that's either they've got no ties.
You know, no one has a partner at home, no one's worried about
their dog.
Yeah, I mean, I suppose sort of in the 60s.
They did sometimes talk about going home and of course they
couldn't because it was random and erratic in the pertly era.
You know, they were earth-based as much as they were travelling in
space, if not more so.
And then, you know, with Leila and Romana, Leila has no interest
in going back to her tribe.
And Romana, we find out, has no interest in going back.
So yeah, maybe that's the only way to kind of do it with human
characters.
But at the same time, you know, this story kind of establishes
that, well, we know Adrik can't get back to where he comes from
and...
No, no.
And Tegan's desperate to get back, but she gets back a year later
and surely the police would come knocking because you've been
missing for a year and your aunt is reduced to yay high, and you
were last seen with her in the bloody car.
Why does the copper take those corpses so serious?
Is he from units?
don't know.
But yeah, I mean, it's a great cliffhanger where the doctor looks
into the car and so we do skip from the truck.
Then there's the whole thing of I'm going to arrest you because of
these dolls in an illegally parked car.
They should have done it the way that they did it in Terror of the
Autons where it's a CSO shot. because that's good in the lunchbox
is so terrific.
Yeah, it's just aren't Vanessa played by an action man.
Yeah.
Did anybody have the Doctor Who patent book, which came out a few
years after this?
It was a book full of sewing patterns, and you could knit Doctor
Who cosplayer for your action man figures.
And which one did you name, Brendan?
I can't I can't knit.
I tried knitting once, and someone gave me like a few rows of 10
stitches, and within half an hour I had a few rows of 21 stitches
and that's not how it's meant to work, apparently.
Could you, did it have the pattern of Auntie Vanessa's outfit?
Because I would make that in a heartbeat.
No, but you could sew together Tegan's boob tube.
Oh, you could too.
And it was actually called the boob tube.
And they had these they had these great teenagers modelling the
outfits against a gray wall with paper plates stuck to it.
That's right.
The white paper plates.
Of course, now with modern technology with all these things swap
apps.
Okay, okay, boob swap, and you can actually stop right next to
Janet, and transformed yourself into it. as we will be doing on
let's post those.
Sharing those in a moment.
Sounds like it would turn you into a right tit, quite frankly.
Aren't you glad you're listening?
Go on then.
Good old Christopher does have a bit of a sense of humour.
Like, this is, you know how he ripped out of the humour from a
leisure high.
But here it's in evidence.
You know, you know, when the look just says, I've seen a little of
her.
But I mean, it's a horrible black sort of pun.
I just had to pause for, as Richard has handed me some sort of
space swap live.
It's very interesting.
I can't really describe it.
That's what they're trying. to me and Elizabeth Taylor.
I was going to say, who was what terrible woman?
It was that terrible, that's what they're trying to do.
I didn't mean to stop you.
I thought you'd get a laugh while you were ready.
I think that's what, is that what they're trying to do to with the
female characters because it's like, it's all, they're almost
interchangeable and it's only the loudness of NISA or the
diminution of, sorry, the loudness of Tegan or the diminution of, I
can't even say Tegan.
I mean, so that, yeah, it's the swapsy thing is it's like, you
know, you've got these labels and that's who you are, but what's
underneath?
Well, I mean, you've never had anything underneath with the
doctorly companions, have you?
Like, you know, not since Barbara and Ian, obviously.
Yeah, that's true actually.
They do become Sarah.
They become sort of one sentence, high concept, things, you know
they're from such and such a planet, and they are a mathematician
or they, as usual, know very little about telebion genesis.
Oh, God, in 3 weeks, you weren't going to be like, pig in, Mark.
You know, it's funny what you say there about comedy, Todd, because
bit mean scripts are always quite witty.
Yeah.
You know, we'll get some jokes in Castro Valva, and one of my
favourite ever Doctor Who jokes is coming up in front of us when
Mr. Range is talking about, um, Oh, you know, the ship was
amazing.
It had failproof technology and the doctor says what happened.
It fails.
You know, big thing's actually quite witty.
It does make me wonder.
Has he ripped out everyone else's comedy so he can book funnier?
Oh, no, I think he's just reacting against season 17.
Right.
And, you know, leisure hide is about saying we're here and it's
going to be different.
Wasn't that his brief though?
Oh, I think that's perfectly fine.
I have no problem with that.
That's why I love the leisure high.
You mentioned Fermarsi?
At last, I've cut you down to side, but the master says that and
the doctor has shrunk inside.
I really like that mini Tartis model.
And I actually like Tom looking out up at the faces of Adric
Nisser and Tegan, or if it's just Mr. and Tegan, and just the
horror that's in his face is lying in there, just as a moment that
they didn't quite plan for, that he's not sort of like horrified
that he's that small, but it's the people looking at him outside
that he's actually horrific, don't they?
And that's why I'll stay here, thanks. that shock, like, however
it's done where he's looking up in that angle. another great
another great directorial moment.
Yeah, and what I discovered recently.
And, you know, it's a great thing when you can come back to
stories you're obviously so familiar with and discover new
things.
There's that in that scene where the doctor shrunk in the TARDIS
and he misquotes Huxley.
The cheeseboard is the world.
Thomas Huxley, yes. 1825 to 1892 or something.
And of course, Huxley was a huge proponent of Charles Darwin's
theory.
Now, privately...
He wore a lot of ladies underwear, but that's over here.
Well, they were a lot more secure than men's back then, but
privately, he didn't always agree with everything Darwin said, but
publicly he supported him.
And Huxley is credited with the definition and coining of
agnosticism.
The idea that in Huxley's words, or paraphrasing Huxley's words
that you should believe what you can in science up until the point
that there is no information and then extrapolate from there.
Now, what we take agnosticism to me now is not having a strong
opinion either way, whether there is a god or not.
Well, you're going back to Aristotelian, aren't you?
You're actually going back to Socratic dialogue and the concepts
of that sort of aporhea concept, the idea that you can't have that
there are some things that can't have satisfactory definitions.
Yeah.
I mean, agnosticism also is the belief that it's not possible to
know whether there's a god.
Or to get a laugh out of a script.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's possible within this. with what we know again.
But when I had that knowledge, And I considered the story again.
I thought, you know what, this story is quite agnostic, because
the logopolitans are holding the universe together through
mathematics.
Wizards with abacuses, aren't they?
Exactly.
They're holding it together through science, but it's also magic
but it's science, but it's magic, and backcoming.
Isn't that another Russell T. Davies series, something about
science versus magic?
Oh, the 2nd coming.
No, wizards versus aliens.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry.
But that's the thing.
I thought, hang on, this script is quite agnostic as well, because
you have these metaphysical quasi-religious themes.
I mean, even the way the watcher is treated, and you know
everything the watcher says is reported.
Yeah, you never hear him.
When Adric comes back from talking with the watcher, he doesn't
say what the watcher told him.
He says, it seems like he knows what is going to happen.
Well, you know where this is coming from, don't you?
And you're mentioning Huxley.
You haven't mentioned Kabbala yet, have you?
No, I haven't.
You haven't mentioned the 1492 expulsion.
We can go back to the massacre again.
How exciting.
However, in this case, it's Spain, and the unification of Spain
meant we get rid of the Gs, and we get rid of who else did we get
rid of when we did that?
Anyway, we got rid of our amours in Spain, anyone who wasn't us.
And they went off to Venice and started something called, you know
an empire.
And they just did very nicely.
Thank you.
But they also brought to the west the concept of Kabbala, or that
you can build the world, or the world is built by the words of God
the word, in other words.
And that is also mathematical.
So that is, if you can, it's always in Hebrew, of course.
But if you can construct, Obviously, Clark wrote the 9000000000
names of God, a short story. anyone read that once, spoiler
alert.
Yeah, the stars go out at the end.
I calculated the name.
Yes, the name of God, because they put a program in, then the
universe stops because, hey, the whole reason for existence has
now stopped.
So Doctor Who is looking at all these beautiful historical
antecedenty things, which is what Doctor Who does really well
except does it make it to screen?
Is that intensity of interest that you're seeing now for anyone
here?
Is that you getting that in this story?
I think it's more prosaic than that.
And I think that bidmead is foreseeing what our computers do now
which is they model 3 dimensional objects and space-time events we
see seeing of that happening on the screen on the Tata screen when
the doctor shows us how a pyramid is created, but you have a
computer creating an image of a pyramid, and it's pretty
primitive.
But nowadays our computers and Legopolis is a computer. create
detail of 3D worlds routinely, including Doctor Who, in fact.
That question you just asked me, Richard, off, is that something I
picked up on as a child?
No, no.
No, but I mean, even as a viewer now.
But the thing is, as a child, I always watch this story, and at
the end, I was left going, there's something I'm not seeing.
I always felt there was there were ideas behind it.
And the thing is, the conceptual horror of the story.
The conceptual horror of the end of the universe always got
through to me as a kid.
I found this story terrifying, but not really because of the
visuals.
I mean, the monitor dying.
Um, you know, death by CSO static did terrify me as a child, you
know.
But the greater terror to me was the idea of the end of the
universe.
Although, interestingly, as a child, I'd be interested to know if
you guys felt the same way, is I didn't understand the CVE-space
connection until I was in my teens and sort of watched the story
in situ because I suppose it is just to throw away.
Like, Todd, is that something you picked up on that it was a
culmination of these plots strands from earlier?
No, not with the CVE stuff.
But I was only 8 or 9 or whatever.
So I didn't really pick it up at that time.
But it's only been, it's a line, you know?
And if you missed that line or don't hear it properly, then that's
the difference.
Because you're not, you know, and so it was only years later that
I went, oh, that is a throne, that is tying all that stuff back
in.
I think one of the reasons the story, things that can get away
with having no plot is that it is the capstone of all of this
stuff that's been happening all season and so you get, you know
mentions of Romani, you get mentions of the CVA, you get mentions
of track, and you get all of these things.
It has been telling a continuous story.
And so this is Doctor Who's 1st real proper season finale in the
sense that we have them now.
And so, you know, Big Mead thinks we can just sort of faff around
and stuff and maybe have 2 episodes worth of story because he's
you know, telling a bigger, he's telling a bigger story here.
I mean, does that affect people tuning in?
I mean, that again, I'm going to go on my little rating.
Well, I'm curious to know because there was there was a lot of
press and Tom Baker was interviewed 3 or 4 times about leaving the
series.
So what were the ratings like, top?
Episode one got 7.one million.
Episode 2 got 7.7 and place 57.
Now that's the highest placing for the season.
Right?
Now, of course, these are just like terrible compared to like his
previous 6 years.
We've talked about how awful the early parts of the season.
Yeah, they weren't doing.
Episode three, 5.8 Came 102nd or 3rd in the chart and his last
episode, 6.one million.
Ooh.
Thud.
Yeah, and it's...
I don't know.
When I 1st saw those figures whenever it was in the mid 80s, I was
actually really astounded.
And now I'm sort of heartbroken by them, really.
To think that.
Does it make sense though?
Well, we've talked about the fact that the show was eroding its
renewal fan base, you know, over most of the John Baker Eva
really.
And is that because they're not including, I love what you said
earlier, the age or 9 year olds, because I was thinking when you
were all talking, I was 14 when this 1st broadcast and it felt
great to be smarty smug and going to school and being able to look
up CVs and stuff and talk about that.
And that's great for a nerdy 14 year old boy who hasn't discovered
anything beyond, you know, onanism and self-discovery through
encyclopaedias.
But for, as you say, the fan base is actually everyone else, which
is the 4 other or 5 other members of the family, you've just
diminished your audience by 3 quarters.
How does Castro Valver go, do you know?
Eights and nine million?
Right.
Yeah, right.
There's immediate bup at the beginning of next season.
I've mentioned this before, that next year, half the episodes will
be inside the top 50, right?
The lowest rating for next season will be 8.1 million.
And when does it move to a weeknight?
Next year.
Next year. next year.
This season is possibly because of Buck Rogers, but has indicated
that that family audience on Saturday afternoon is not there
anymore for Doctor Who.
Yes.
You know, I think if Tom had decided not to leave, I think the
show could have quite easily been taxed at this point based on
ratings and saying, look, we're not going to continue.
It needed to have something new.
And, you know, Davidson coming in and the bump that is next season
which averages around 9 million, right?
Then, you know, you get through season 19.
Well, you're going to do a 20th season because it's 20 years of
Doctor Who.
Yeah, yes.
So I think that brings us squarely to the regeneration.
All those flashbacks.
I mean, is this the 1st time that we've had?
Yeah, these splashbacks.
I think it's the 1st time we've had flashbacks.
And that music.
I think the music is spectacularly good.
Oh, throughout all the little themes throughout the entire thing
but also at that and the emotions that it just stirs up and just
seeing all of those old characters, and even now, even when I
watch it, it still tears well in my eyes at that point.
Yeah, JNT was very keen to have those montages and Ian Levine was
acting as unofficial family liaison.
So it was Ian Levine going through and finding the appropriate
clips, like you just said to him, I want as many villains and
companions just saying doctor, just saying his name.
He didn't really actually manage that, did he?
Because there's at least one of the villains who's saying
something else, but the word doctor is kind of dubbed over it.
Yeah, well, the pirate captain isn't even speaking.
I think he found that every time the pirate captain said doctor, it
was like in long shot or whatever.
The weirdest one for me is Louise Jamieson, who's it's when she's
looking down at the yo-yo in the robots of death. it's a really
terrible shot of her.
Whereas all the other companions, it's quite a good close-up of
them.
I never liked the ceremony.
Because it is a good close-up, but she says doctor's so quiet, it's
just this.
But you probably can't even hear what I just said to him.
No, no, it struck me at the time because I was just so in love
with Sarah.
I wanted a better clip.
Got it.
Damn it, you know.
The thing that always gets me about this.
And it's the end of this deconstruction.
But...
What those clips highlight, like, you know, you get Sarah, Harry
the brig, canine, Leila, Romana, Romana, it's like, and then all
of a sudden it's Adric, and it's like he's dying and he's
surrounded by people.
He's only just next.
And, but at the same time, I kind, I kind of think dramatically
that's very good because it's like they have tenants for
generation when he's completely alone and it makes it all the more
palpable.
Of course, that great line that everyone quotes at the end, but
the moment has been prepared for.
Okay, it ends on a preposition, but who cares?
That's all right.
But also, and I don't, no, but it seems like they've put Tom in a
slight ditch because it looks like he's just too flat into the
ground of legs at a weird angle.
Do you think it started burying?
Have you seen the art takes when he's absolutely savaging
everyone?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. and they just just dial.
Yeah, he's really horrible.
He's a vile old queen.
There's a great bit in that footage, which I love, where they're
discussing whether he's going to reach out to the watcher.
And the thing is, he's like, yeah, I'm going to reach out.
Oh, you want me to beckon?
I don't like a beckon.
I'm not calling him over.
You know, I'm not having a beckon.
And then a few seconds, a few seconds later, and you're sure that
Peter Grim might have been talking to the 4 assistant saying, oh
just give him what he thing wants.
It's 915.
And you hear the floor manager say, I'm sorry, total
misunderstanding on my part.
And to Tom's great credit.
He says, oh, darling.
That's even worse.
No, seeing that, I thought, yeah, you had to go.
Yeah.
Because you've been, you have become your own grand Guinole, grand
grotesque, horrible thing.
Yes.
But you know, what is great?
And I say, I say now, I think this was released on DVD over 10
years ago.
On the commentary, you have Christopher Hamilton bit made, Tom
Baker and Janet Fielding.
And Chris and Tom had this discussion about, you know, wondering
who that is.
Well, what was it hard for you to leave?
And Tom says, you know, I don't remember, I don't remember the
production of much of this because, yeah, I was so angry and I was
so bereft and Janet just says, well, you were horrible to me.
And he's like, to Matthew. was I?
I'm simple.
Take this scene.
This is what you did.
And to his great credit, he just goes, Darling, I'm so
incredible.
That must have been terrifying for you because you just started on
the show.
You can't have known how angry and tight I was.
I'm really very sorry.
Sure, it's easy to say that in hindsight.
What does Jen say?
Well, Janet is a bit taken aback.
Janet is a bit taken aback by how contrite he is immediately, but
kind of goes, oh, you know, we knew that.
And if we were kind of doing it now, I'd be able to say that, but
you know, I was 20 and I just, I didn't think about your position
but thank you, Tom.
I really appreciate that.
And it, you know, it has the capacity to be this huge argument, but
it's actually diffused by 2 people being adults.
Yeah, I actually spoke to Janet and said how impressed I was that
she managed to get Tom to apologise in that commentary track.
Brilliant. one of her great merits.
I mean, we're coming up on an era of pretty terrible stories, but
great commentary tracks with Jonathan Peterson.
Love him to death.
Well, when things are terrible, the commentary tracks are all the
more interesting.
Yeah, so true.
But yeah, I will say just the loneliness of this regeneration is
what gets to me.
But the loneliness, but also the fact that it opened up to his
last moment of acting.
Tom suddenly smiles, you know.
And in a way, it's kind of like John going, no, don't cry, Sarah
Jane, you know, Tia Sarah Jane.
It's it's Tom. it's Tom saying, no, no, you know, it's okay.
It's all right.
And then you get Peter sitting up at 10 seconds to 10 o'clock.
And Peter says, you know, people love that look I gave, that look
of slight bewilderment.
That look was, no one told me what to do.
They just said sit up and look around.
You know, they just scraped the makeup off me.
He looks like a deer in headlights, but I do like the fact that as
that is going through, you get that little question mark on his
face.
Not by design, nothing in the JNT era is ever by design.
It's all just a happy accident when it works.
And I really just love that little question mark that appears.
With the stars.
No, no, no, no.
When he's regenerating from Tom into...
Oh, the collar.
No, no, in his face, in his cocoon, as they dissolve, is like, it
looks like it's not really a question mark, but it looks like a
question mark in me, just fine.
Happy accident.
And I could be wrong, but I believe someone said that in
dimensions in time, they've given Tom a question mark shaped
bruise on one cheek to employees been beaten about by the Rani.
Are we given to a dimensions in time episode?
We should do a one hour episode on dimensions in time.
Yeah, that's right.
One hour.
How long did it run for?
13 minutes or 26 minutes?
13 minutes too long.
Oh, as much as I, I think there's plot that doesn't exist in
this.
There are just so many moments and words and feelings that I love
about.
It's all my favourite of the season, but I always enjoy watching
it.
Could I ask Todd, what do you think of Tom's costume now?
Oh, yes, I've been waiting for this.
I really love it by the end of this.
You know, yeah, by the end of the season, it is, it is him.
It is his character now.
It symbolises where we've come to.
I think for a long time this is my favourite season.
I think Legopolis is slightly disappointing as an end to it
because it's not altering to have much of a plot.
But, um, you know, I've said all sorts of things about, uh, crispy
made, but he does a tremendous job, and the show is interesting
and it builds a world and it tells a coherent story all the way
from full circle, and just visually, it's really, you know
inventive.
And it challenges Tom, and I really like Tom's performance in this
season a lot. that muted, like I love season 17 Tom, he's
hilarious.
You know, I love the Williams era.
You know, I'm quite happy to watch Tom Larking about, but this
more sombre muted restrained Tom is also really good too.
So I like this a lot.
However, after that.
Richard.
It's interesting to hear that it's so cadenced because that's very
true.
I haven't had a chance to talk about this season.
Other than to say, yes, I loved Tom's costume from day one.
It was patrician, and it was, it was almost, oh, gosh, it almost
felt like an Hungarian prince, didn't it?
I'm reminded of those terrible films that were coming out of
Hungary in the 70s of great coats and strapping 18th century
heroes.
And anyway, Tom fits into that mould perfectly well.
What is Dracula?
Yeah, maybe.
But there's, yeah, I'd love the look of this season and I still
very much love the Williams era, but he made it his own.
And there's a sense of loss throughout all of this with the, the
jangling and jeering cheerfulness of the visuals and how, I guess
you can say, and for the time, this did look very sophisticated.
This was absolutely on par with everything else on TV in 1980,81.
We forget that all that TREC stuff wasn't around.
There were films that looked gorgeous, but TV, no, no, this was as
good as it got.
But all through this season, there was a sense of... a sense of, um
it wasn't just on we.
It's actually diminution, again, as a sense of loss, as it just
gradually fades through, just as an old person fades away, you
know, an oldly relative, and that sadness was there, and it was
the perfect age.
A many great flowers, a young adolescent when I saw it.
But I have to say, if I was a very young person, I can see why the
ratings dropped.
For me, as a child, I think I mentioned way back in Planet of the
Spiders, that regeneration stories are always something I came
back to again and again and again.
I think as a child.
This story was very much a visual one for me.
Watching this as a 5 year old.
So picking up on what you just said, Richard, I didn't understand
it.
But I enjoy, well, the bits of it I did understand I enjoyed.
But I enjoyed the visuals of it, and I enjoyed the what I would
now term the direction of it, but the look and the feel.
To me as a child flushing out the master makes perfect sense, but
you know, I appreciate as an adult, it doesn't.
But, you know, all the imagery with the watcher, the doctor
standing on the bridge with his head in his hands and, you know, we
can't hear it.
Maybe you can do it, yes.
The scenes with the doctor and Adrik.
Tegan burst again and saying, I demand to speak to him and
whoever's in charge of this shit.
The logopolitans themselves and their gentleness.
Yeah, there was there was just so much as a child that has kept
this in my affections and it's only grown in my estimation.
I'm not blind to its faults, of course.
And you've got the radio technician who's listening to classical
music and the doctor the doctor has to knock him out to stop the
master killing him.
The master's just like, well, that saves an awkward conversation.
It's really great.
Todd.
You wrote to say something.
I think you, is it taken?
fantasy who's ever in charge.
That's right.
Should that be who, Matt?
You know, when she says, my name, my name is Tika Javanka.
Yeah.
Like, that's just...
And then saying, oh, that looks just so real.
We're gonna keep it in.
I'm glad you did that for your intro because I was going to steal
it for mine, so I'm glad I didn't.
Ah, right.
I think it's time for...
Pix of the week.
Pix of the week, pix of the week first.
I might jump in first.
This is a bit of self-pomotion.
A couple of months ago, a book came out called Avenger World, The
Avengers in Our Lives. which is a charity anthology.
I submitted an essay too.
And it also features friends of the podcast, Alan and Alice Hayes
and Robert Fairclough, as well as it's got the son of Avengers
writer Roger Marshall, Rodney Marshall.
He written for it.
Dick Fitty from the BFI has written it for it, as well as Avengers
Research and writer Dave Rogers.
There's quite a few names in here.
And what it is, it's um, various writers talking about their
personal experience with the Avengers.
It's all about Dr. Who.
Well worth reading just for that alone.
Doctor Who's surprisingly mentioned a few times.
It's available in hardback and paperback.
It's not available to an e-book because it is for charity.
All proceeds go towards champion Chanzige, which is a charity who
works with schools in Tanzania.
And we've actually already bought primary school a freshwater pump
for their school.
We've raised almost £700 to date buying those books.
So we'll include the links for that, but it's a, the hardcover is
lovely.
The cover design looks like an old 70s annual.
This is lovely artwork cover that's been drawn by one of the
writers.
Please do check that out.
And also, if you buy it through Lulu, the publisher. sign up to
their mailing list first, wait about half an hour, the Lulu.
Is that what she's doing now?
That's what she's doing.
They'll usually send you some sort of discount voucher.
But yes, that's my recommendation.
Avenger World, the Avengers in our lives.
It's got stories from the UK, various parts of Europe, so Russia
Italy, France, Spain, Australia, America, you know, Avengers fans
all over the world.
I was going to pick Doctor Who in 10 seconds, but I reckon that
guy's getting far too much exposure.
So I'm instead going to choose another podcast on a cult TV
favourite, which is called The Greatest Generation, and it's 2
guys who have a Star Trek podcast and they're a bit embarrassed
about having a Star Trek podcast.
Are there Americans, they're TV professionals.
I think they're really funny.
As we record, they've just started season 2 of Star Trek, the next
generation, they're putting it out really regularly.
If you like this, then you'll probably enjoy that more.
Well, if it's not who related.
And since we've talked about season 18, I'm currently reading Dr
Jule Lepore's true history of Wonder Woman, and the story behind
William Moulton Mast, and I'm actually reading three books on
this.
The other one is the Golden Thread by our very own Dr. Philip
Sandy neck beard fur, sound of fur.
And he, it's really interesting on the beginning of feminism.
And since, I suppose, Doctor Who is going to be about whatever the
voice of feminism was at this point, as we've had Romana.
We've had Lita, Sarah, Lita, both Romanas, and now we have Tegan.
So we do have somewhat of a parallel of that.
It's really interesting.
I thoroughly recommend it to a laport.
It talks about the invention of the lie detector.
It talks about a whole lot of other deviant subjects that were
also included in that, but it, if you're up for that kind of thing
but it does, it does actually talk about the beginnings of
feminism in the 20th century in a literary vein.
And comics.
Hmm.
I'm going to suggest that people check out an album called
Heartthrob, which was released in 2013, by Canadian twin sisters
and their names are Tegan and Sarah.
No H on the Sarah, but anyway, I think somebody's parents were
Doctor Who fans at this point.
I reckon.
So, um, yeah, I love the album and particularly the song, I was a
fool, who will be one of my favourite words.
A link of this.
So, yes, Tegan and Sarah check them out.
They've actually got a new album coming out soon too.
So look out for that one.
Springboarding off that when I was a tour guide at Sydney Tower
Restaurants.
We had a couple of sisters working for us, Tegan and Sarah.
And their parents were Doctor Who fans.
And then one day when we were taking a group of school children up
in the lift to the restaurant about 14 years old.
There was a bit of a commotion in the back of the lift and one of
the girls said, Adrix, stop poking me.
No.
And I just I just sort of whipped my head around and he said, yes.
I said, did she call you Adrick?
My parents are Doctor Who fans.
I don't think he was.
Okay.
That could be my puzzling creative choice for this season, but
it's not. level of cruelty.
So my puzzling creative choice.
And I apologise if I'm stealing anyone else's.
But it's got to be Edward Underdown.
Way back in the day, way back in the day, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Because he's not a terrible actor, but for God's sake.
He's a radio actor.
What is he doing?
He's reading it as if he's immerging his lines.
He's doing the accent.
Yeah, especially when you're on screen with bloody Jackie Hill.
She's going to act you off the bloody planet.
So yeah, Edward underdown.
I don't like to speak ill of it, but you were so good in the
Avengers.
What happened?
He was dead in this.
There you go.
So I think my puzzling creative choice.
We said it when we were doing Megloss and I don't know whether I
want to stick by it, but this is as close as I've gone to a Jenny
Land Award candidate.
So I'm going to go with it.
It is casting Jacqueline Hill as Lexa, because it just makes me
sad to watch Meg Gloss.
It does.
But, see, the difficulty is, that I don't think I wanted Barbara
to come back and meet Tom and stuff.
Like, I just think that would be terrible.
And as we said, in the podcast, she lifts that part and makes Lexa
so charismatic and so smart and so likeable, which are all playing
against the tired, you know, concept of the character from the
script, but in fact, I think she does improve it.
So, yeah, so it's an initially puzzling creative choice.
I haven't been doing this season, so only just watching it from
sidelines with you.
I certainly agree with the Jackie Hill one.
That would have been mine.
So, from that, I just say the way they've wound it up.
It didn't quite feel, it went in the right direction, although we
were, like, Regopolis as a story, actually, we, like, keeper of
track and the state of decay, the best of this season just had so
much imagery and redolence, and really worked.
Doctor Who stories work when they work on atmosphere and how they
make you feel, not so much what they say or what they do, although
they are integral to that.
And Magopolis succeeds then in episode one to do that.
But I think my puzzling creative choice is that Bidmead just
thought that humour didn't belong in Doctor Who anymore.
Because I think that actually would have helped the ratings sailed
through, and I think there are reasons which we'll get to next
year of why he left.
And we'll talk about that, and yeah, you can't...
My problem with my puzzling grave choice in the end, I'm sorry to
take so long to get there, is Bidmeat himself. and that he didn't
line his trajectory up.
He missed the shot.
He didn't quite get.
I don't know that he even does now.
Lala's quite strong on what she thinks about Bidmead's opinions
and directions, so I let her speak, say it instead.
But you know, it's quite accessible.
She'll say it to anyone.
We'll have to have the explicit tag.
Well, maybe.
I love her. a strong woman.
But it's just along the lines of, yeah, we need a bit of light
here, guys.
You need a bit of fun.
It's great to be clever. but clever without humour.
Clever with humour is the top end of the Avengers.
Clever without humour is where we got to in this season.
And the audience figures agree.
Wow, this is, this is tough.
I had a few, but I was considering.
One is putting all the companions in costumes, but I don't think
we're aware of that yet.
No.
The casting of Matthew Waterhouse is another.
Yeah, you know, I think that's...
I don't mean to be horrible to Matthew or anything like that, but
I think we've had better younger actors this season and last
season than him and why is that?
But I guess I'm going to go with the visual thing and it's those
bloody blonde wigs in megans. are palling beyond all belief.
That's my creative puzzle.
I think that's the 1st time one story has received 3 Gen.
It's not such a terrible story.
No, no, no, just No, we defended it?
Just very puzzling.
Next week, dear listeners, we will be back with our Tom Baker
retrospective.
And also, to give you an idea of a few things that are coming up
after the Tom Baker perspective, we'll be releasing flight through
entirety's first commentary track, that classic Christmas special
canine and company.
Oh my goodness.
Are we actually going to be, I actually have to watch it. again?
Yes.
Oh, I wrote notes.
Oh this is terrible.
And before we head into Peter Davidson with Castra Valva.
Until then, you can find us online at flatthroughentirety.com
flight through entirety on Facebook and iTunes and at FTE podcast
on Twitter.
Don't forget about our new video series, Doctor Who in 10
seconds.
And also over on Bondfinger, we have just started the Roger Moore
era with Live and Let Die, and we also have all the Sean Connery's
films, George Lathamby and David Neven and Casino Royale as
commentary tracks.
So you can find those on Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook
and iTunes and Bondfinger cast on Twitter.
Until next week, may none of your radio telescopes cause the
sudden collapse of the universe.
Thank you very much for listening.
Good night.
See you soon.
Good night.
That was Flight Through Entirety with Todd Beelby, Nathan
Bottomley, Brendan Jones, and Richard Stone.
This episode, full of orphans, was recorded on May 1st, 2016.
The next episode will be released on May 29th.
We dedicate this episode to the memory of senior cameraman and
camera supervisor Alec Wheel, who worked on 148 episodes of Doctor
Who throughout the 1980s.
Legopolis, May the 1st.
I really think we should have recorded Keeper of Triathon first
though.
Shut up, Nathan.
Jesus.
Actually, I'm just thinking, when we get into, when we get into
Davidson, should we record Ford of Doomsday first, then the
visitation, then Kinder?
Yes.
Yeah, then release them.
Yes, in that order, yeah.