Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through
Entirety.
The only Doctor Who podcast who spend a lot of time talking about
somewhere called Merrylands.
To get that joke, just remember we live in Sydney and work
backwards.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan I'm a mutant non-ninja space terrapin for this one.
What story are we doing?
The visitors.
Richard is correct.
We do have some business coming in for the visitation.
And I'm disgusted in myself as a child of the late '80s, early '90s
never picking up the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles connection.
It's the other '80s comic romp about subterranean turtles.
They even live underground.
And they're not aliens, Michael Bay.
Sorry, really, really bitter about the new Turtles movies in case
you couldn't tell.
Even if they do have Stephen Aymer in them.
Actually, I should release my my blooper reel where I make fun of
Michael Bay, although he might sue.
Boom.
Well, this is terrible, isn't it?
It's like the Time Warrior with all the fun and wit taken out.
And all the characters.
Well, it's actually just for to doomsday with shellfish, isn't
it?
Or it's horror of Fang Rock.
I actually literally mean it is the Time Warrior.
So we even get the opening scene where people in a sort of ill
defined period of the past, look out of window, see a special
effect, and some kind of thing is landing.
It emerges.
There are sort of villages and all sorts of things, you know, it's
a threat to the future.
But it's just really not very interesting.
And the fact that there is literally a guest cast of one, plus a
turtle, whom the writer criticised ad nauseam for years later, Mr
Seward.
He's very 1st script, and we'll get to him a sec, because
apparently this one's mine.
I know.
In a sec, for saying that I hadn't watched Doctor Who since the
60s, and he thought he'd invented the historical SF crossover with
this story.
But he is clearly creeping on Bob Holmes, and he goes on to be a
great admirer of Bob Holmes, and he does try to be funny.
There are one or 2 funny lines, but Bob Holmes creates a really
rich world.
I mean, you know, like the Time Warrior, Bob Holmes sets it in the
most sort of generic mediaeval setting possible.
Like he doesn't do any research.
There are castles and there are monks and stuff and I'm sure all
that happened at some point in English history.
But here, you know, it's a pretty thin historical Glenda Jackson's
still queen here, though.
You can feel it.
Yeah, you know, you know where you are in the BBC when this romps
home.
I just think the great killer is that quite terrific guest
supporting cast is killed off in the 1st 4 minutes.
Count it, kids, 4 minutes.
It's evident.
And he's great.
And this press was saying, Chris, no, he had equal standing. in
the popular lovingness at the time with Davis Synonyms.
Oh, this great guy, apparently he was trenchant and funny and dry
on set and had the whole cast laughing and Janet was saying, we
were all looking forward to this shoot.
It was terrific.
We had Michael Robman's been really dry with all his theatre
stories.
And then we had John being hilarious.
Didn't turn up the next day because he was killed.
Yeah, he was shocked too.
He thought his character had to get a longer contract, yeah.
See, I think that's actually brilliant.
It's what's become known now in certain circles as the deep blue
sea principle.
And I say that because a film about, oh, probably 15 years ago, now
Deep Blue Sea, about killer sharks.
Genetically modified.
Genetically modified killer sharks.
Trying to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease.
Yeah, that's actually the plot.
With Samuel L. Jackson.
And there's...
Yeah, it's actually quite a good killer animal film.
You know, it's up there with the swarm by Irwin Allen.
So Samuel L. Jackson is in there and he has this big speech at one
point after everything's gone to hell about how everyone's going
to get out and everyone's going to be fine and then a shark eats
him.
In the middle of the speed, in the middle of the...
Now, the thing is...
Samuel Jackson had agreed to do the film on principle and then got
the script and he was outraged and he called his agent and he said
no, I don't do this anymore.
You know, I got killed in Jurassic Park, but I'm a big name actor
now.
I don't get killed halfway through and he said it's also about
representation.
You know, it's just me and LL Cool J, we're the only black
characters in the film.
And I'm getting killed and his agent said, let me stop you
Samuel.
You top billing in the film.
Yeah, but it's not about the money.
No, Samuel, listen, you're top building in the film.
So everyone is going to expect you to survive.
And then you die and suddenly anyone can die.
And he went, oh, okay.
Yeah, all right, I'll do it.
And that's what you get here.
You're introduced to these people and you do get them chatting and
having a lovely time and having a sweet relationship.
I feel a definite chill about my shoulders.
And then, yeah, they're all they're all horribly murdered.
And so you get horribly murdered.
You know, as Russell T. Davis says about Stephen Moffatt, Stephen's
specialty is creating interesting characters and they're melting
them.
So as much as we have paid out on Eric Seywood already, despite
the fact this is where he officially arrives, and we're going to
continue paying out on him.
I actually think this opening gambit is incredibly effective and
incredibly well done on his part.
So kudos.
Okay.
I couldn't agree more.
Where would he want to say about the script, clot, blah.
Look there isn't one.
And this is one of those stories that is remembered so fondly, and
does look very stylish.
Well, certainly made well and everyone was working terrifically
hard, ordeal.
Dies, Morel, did a lovely thing with tropical fish.
She keeps tropical fish, she keeps tropical fish, not in her
underpans.
If anyone remembers Alexis Sal.
But, but, you know, and we've got wonderful Michael Amelia, whose
socks turned black from the heat, you know, as the chiefy terrelet
pool, but looking at it again, the memory cheats, it plods along.
It's not as well scripted or as well thought out.
It's a say word story.
And as much as I love it as a, it feels like a trout and romp.
It just, you know, it should be.
Peter's doing a great job and trying to bring lightness to it.
I think the rest of the cost.
Poor old bloody Nissa.
I God, you know, at least she's, you know, stuck inside again in a
room.
We need to say it.
It's not just that too.
There's scenes of Janet, like some really absorbing scenes of
Janet transferring test tubes from one box to another.
While this is, again, why she's over that thing.
Well, this is sort of plugging a Mercano set together.
I mean, those scenes are boring and they're going to become more
and more frequent. doing that kind of thing and we still found it
boring.
Yeah, and we ran into the same problem as we had last week in that
the principal guest cast member who spends the most time with the
doctor is far more interesting than any of the other companions
even if he is rather terribly played.
Do you know, there's that hilarious anecdote in the commentary
where Matthew Waterhouse complains that Michael Robbins spent the
entire shoot saying how terrible Doctor Who was and how he was
slumming it and how this was awful and really horrific.
And Matthew says, he was in on the buses.
Which Weedley has been really successful in the US in the last
well, I don't know, 15 years long.
PBS comedy channel.
So there you go.
British stuff will always be timeless.
It was the Golden Age of television broadcast.
Well, I think it wasn't on the bus as the movie, like the highest
grossing film in Britain in 1972 or something.
It was... with Regvani and some people.
Yeah, awful.
And we wonder why they elected David Cameron clearly.
Michael Robbins does a terrific job and he gets a lot of shtick
for, you know, overplaying it or underplaying it or siding playing
it, whatever it is, but he is the entire population of the 16th
century, as far as we can tell.
Although you do get William Hartnell wandering in at one point, you
know, the village Gelda, who I was sure was Richard Herndel when I
was a child.
That seems awful, isn't it?
Where the villagers who appear in no other scene...
I had no names other than what they do.
No, they're really miller.
You better go and mill something now because there's a mill over
there.
It's looking empty.
I'm the 1st headman, you know.
The character of Richard Mace. we know where he originates?
Yes, we do.
It's from the voluminous cupboardy type thing of Eric Saywatt.
It was on the radiogram.
In the 19 blar, late 60s, played by a man.
A white wig.
And given it was for radio, you know, the wig was just his.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was a swashbug me.
Oh, it was his go at Adam Adamant, but...
Yeah, it didn't actually work out that well for him, did it as a
career move?
But then again, neither did Doctor Who in the end, did it?
Sorry, Eric.
He's trying to do, he's trying to do a big Holmes character.
He's trying to do Garren.
Yeah, the big fat fib, but say, you know, it was just the 1st tie
I've ever seen, Doctor Who, you know, since the Shipps.
I've had a career.
Yeah, you know, writing playthings that people go in.
Sometimes they.
You never leave, Eric.
I always think then of what Stephen Moffat said about theatre
once.
He said, I went to see a play with my wife and said, so what
television show is this?
No, no, it's a play.
Oh, so it's not on television?
No, Steve, it's not on television.
Really?
What did they do wrong?
Which is horribly unfair because, yeah, I love the theatre I used
to be in theatre things.
I think I've got some voice work coming up in an amateur theatre
thing soon.
I'm doing it now.
I'm sending them this.
They're going to play this over Gilligan's Island spoof.
Okay, let's just say how fantastic the visitors really is because
it really is.
It looks gorgeous.
It's got lots of things happening.
It's got tin clavic, and it's got pintaric, and it's got polygrite
and I think they did actually win Eurovision this year.
They did.
And it's also the planet Raga?
New Romantic Skiffle Band, yes.
It's got a new romantic Android.
Yeah.
Android based on that.
I'm sorry, no.
Got cricket gloves.
Yeah, and it's got and it's also got a silly head.
Why are they making anthropomorphic androids when they look like
turtles?
It's just racism gone mad.
Actually, I actually think that the pteroreptils are a post-racial
society, because one of them's blue, one of them's red, and one of
them's green. tropical.
They all live together in peace and harmony.
And they're able, like many other aliens before them, to pronounce
labial consonants, even though their lips never make one another.
So glad you brought them.
It's my new job on the podcast.
Yeah, well, one of our friends of the podcast, Matt Hounsel, was
very glad of that lesson.
She's a big fan of such things.
I do like that they've discovered dimensional transcendentalism.
Well, they're speaking from the lips to the teeth.
Well, there is a note.
Pete just, I have to be a little nerd about this.
There is a note when the doctor says that, you know, it's not just
partly buried underneath that the escape pod does actually seem to
be bigger on the inside.
There's a little reference to that.
So there, and he does mention that this society is far more
advanced than he even he thought.
Look, I'm gonna have to jump in here.
This is Todd's favourite story of the season.
And to be honest, it's not far off mine.
I actually really enjoy this.
Yeah, I had such fond memories of this, and I certainly did enjoy
watching your lovely DVD copy.
Thank you, Brandon.
It's the only one I don't own an interesting, isn't it?
It is.
It's still fun, but I think maybe it's just being our certain
age.
We have such high expectations of it.
It's remembered as being it's almost the invasion of the 80s, isn't
it?
We just see it as being the way to do a show.
And that's why it sort of hits you.
Things like Kinder, you don't expect to remember so well.
You just remember it being kind of flat and overlit and they're
just having the 2 sets.
So there's a blandness in the representation that you expect to be
reflected in the story and that isn't the case.
I think in this one, there is less to this than your expectations
and memory provides.
I think as much as I enjoy it, a big problem is the lack of
humour.
Thank you.
It's really just Richard Mace throwing gags out and just watching
them clatter to the studio floor.
And because the actor's not having a good time either, his
delivery of the gags.
Obviously not having a housemaid's knee.
Well, no, as Nathan was saying, you know, he felt that Doctor Who
was slumming it.
Yeah, according to the rest of the cast.
I've never heard of an actor actually saying that, though, on a
shoot.
It's always like, I'm getting seen.
People are looking at me.
This is wonderful.
Well, Clyde Swift.
You remember that interview with Clyde Swift from Doctor Who
magazine?
Which is, I think, one of the greatest interviews of all time.
I've put that up on the Holy Book of Face and my great friend, some
of them have never even watched Doctor Who said, I love this man.
Because they all help it from the other thing.
The other thing. inside Patricia Rutledge.
That's the one.
I do actually think that Eric Say would have put together a
perfectly competent script.
I don't think it necessarily proves his competency as script
editor.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, maybe Anthony Root didn't have to do that much
work on it and maybe that was the proviso, but, you know, there's
no indication, for instance, that they asked Christopher Bailey to
be script editor, which can you...
He would have said no, surely.
Oh, you would think, but yeah, if they're going to be asking
people, I'm glad they didn't ask Terence Dudley.
Oh, he's terrible.
They could have asked Peter Grimway.
Well, he's terrible as well.
Although he then goes and writes for us. in the next few weeks
doesn't he?
Well, I'm gonna argue that the script's not the problem there, but
we're getting ahead of ourselves.
I think it's not necessarily the problem here either.
For me, it's lack of time and development.
I think this is one of those stories if the cast had been allowed
to spend 2 weeks.
Look at the 60s and why we got time to rehearse and build a
rapport together and work up.
It'll fun things that seem very natural when we saw them on
screen.
We're not getting that here and they just not give them the time
to rehearse.
I'm finding this season that there's just a lot of people walking
around from place to place.
There's no real forward momentum.
I read Sandifer's review of this and he thinks that it moves along
at a sort of, you know, some sort of clip, but I can't see that
myself.
And certainly there's just lots and lots of scenes, as we said
before, of Nisa assembling a machine of Tegan, you know, machine
of Tegan.
You've already got one.
It's called tea.
The walk's not quite wrong.
Coming up, kids.
There's just not a lot happening here.
And, and, you know, it finally picks up, I think, once we move to
London in episode four, but before that, there's a lot of, and
here goes to the Tardisan, we go to this house and they go to the
other house and without characters to motivate it, without really
anything very much interesting going on by means of action
sequences, it's just a bit tedious.
And very little that the characters actually do influence the
plot.
Something I said a couple of weeks ago is across the course of
season 19, something it does try to do with arguably the too many
regular characters it has of the total number of four, is it
splits them up into different combinations.
So in Florida Doomsday, We had Adracanissa spent most of the story
together.
Here, Adrick and Tegan spent a lot of time together.
And contrary to the bickering at the end of last story.
They actually work reasonably well together to get out of that
cell.
But it becomes a bit of a loop story.
You know, Tegan gets captured, but Adrick gets away, but all
Adrick does is just say, oh, Tegan's been captured and then gets
stuck in the TARDIS for a bit.
And nobody wants to make a reincarnated high priest out of her, do
they?
That's the big failing here.
What's missing in the room?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They didn't have trouble managing for regulars when...
No, they jolly well did.
When it was Barbara, Ian and Susan or Barbara, Ian and Vicky.
They didn't when it was Ben Polly and Jamie.
However briefly.
You know, I don't think it's 4 characters.
I think it's these 4 cats. when it was Billy and Dodo and her
accent.
So, yeah, I suppose what we're really missing is an older
companion figure and preferably an older cast member would be
nice.
But also like Neris.
We joked about a month ago that wouldn't Auntie Vanessa have been
great as a companion.
And the thing is...
She would have been.
Yeah, it would have been great.
Even in, like, if you just look at those 1st few scenes she has
with Tegan, her character is more readily defined than Tegan.
Or if we had Todd from last week, Nerris Hughes, stick around.
You know, when I say she's older, she's in her 30s rather than in
her 20s.
But that gulf of age gap.
Like, if I think to myself in my early 20s compared to my age now
it doesn't seem like a huge span of time, but it's a huge span of
maturity.
We've got 2 companions who are what, 18, 19 the actors, Matthew
Waterhouse and Sarah Sutton, even though Sarah Sutton, I think
plays it older.
She doesn't look older, so there's that weird tension there.
But then you've got Janet Fielding, who's not quite sure what
she's doing yet.
So sometimes she's playing it like she's 12 and sometimes she's
playing it like she's 25.
And I don't necessarily think that's Janet's fault because she
will prove herself to be very, very capable as her time goes on.
Yeah, Barbara, we're missing we're missing a Barbara.
We're missing a voice of reason.
I think we're just missing someone with theatrical experience in
this, but we do have that in Peter, and we do actually have that
in Sarah Sutton as well.
She'd been working since the early 70s.
Yeah, she's good, but she's just constantly sidelined. constantly
in her room.
Plugged in.
That's it.
Well, I think the reason for that might be...
Well, let let sexual frustration.
Well, funnily enough, I was going to say, let's just say that John
Nathan Turner seemed to have a personal interest in Matthew
Waterhouse.
We have heard those rumours.
From Matthew Waterhouse.
I'd like to think that it was just too hurried and that they
didn't have the scripts prepared, but I'm sorry, that's just
laziness.
A good theatrical troupe can actually work on the run and create
characterisation.
You don't put a companion in a box for 4 episodes.
It's very silly.
Even Barber would just come back with a space tan. look amazing
and catch up straight away.
Yeah, I'm really getting tired of Nissa getting locked away
because she's the most interesting of the 3 and she's played the
best as well.
I think the lack of understanding of teleobiogenesis is probably a
big part of it, would you not say that?
I would say almost certainly.
They just have to sideline her because she can't come.
Well, how many cheese and wine parties have you seen her at?
I mean, you know, those sorts of people just don't get invited.
It's crap.
It should be great and it's not.
Why isn't it?
Actually, I was just going to say, you know, I've criticised it
for lack of humour, but there is one joke that I think works
really well.
What does that taste like?
Can we say that?
Nectar.
Oh, what does that taste like?
Oh, you stupid...
That little exchange between Mason Adrick is actually...
But it's because both Matthew Waterhouse and Sarah Sutner are
occasionally given these culture clash moments, and generally
Sarah plays them much better, but that one Matthew actually plays
perfectly. and has really good comic timing and then unfortunately
everything gets blown up by the Android.
I really like.
Is it, does the, um, does the pteroreptil say that, um, Tegan is a
very stupid woman or something and she, it's, that's not a very
original observation.
I think it's actually Janet's finest moment in this one.
When she does the whole fatigued declass, A, Lauren Bacall, raised
eyebrow thing.
They're all capable actors and that's the thing that I'm kicking
myself over this season is the wasted opportunities.
Yeah, and also in that scene, thank you for not writing in Adrik
tells them everything.
They want to know because that's getting very tired.
Oh it is though, isn't it?
And thankfully it doesn't happen again.
It's the Zoe paradox, isn't it?
You've got a likeable flighty Peter Pan character.
He's actually the 1st Peter Pan played by a man.
Did you know that?
But it worked for them and it's just not working for me here.
And I don't necessarily think it's Matthews.
Matthew, as I've said before, is the only one actually playing it
to truth.
He's doing the Steneslevsky method.
He's playing at like the New York theatre group as an irritating
teenage boy.
That's what he is.
He's not perfect, waddle, waddle.
When he's running up to the TARDS, and then he runs back to
thinking, oh, just bloody all get him.
And you see all the villagers start to beat him up and who doesn't
sit at home?
and wrestle a nurturing cheer, just slightly repressed.
And I love that she's the point that even this is so bored with it
all.
It just grabs a big red knob, doesn't even bother looking at this
ganner screen to see who's outside.
I'm just bricking over it.
Bang, whoop.
You know, that so enraged me as a child and I still remember
shouting at the screen.
Why doesn't Nissa help him?
She's got a death wish, but Adric.
And my mother's saying, what is she meant to do?
How is she meant to fight off that many people?
I mean, she vibrates something at them.
I mean, she told Adric not to go.
She did though, didn't she?
And she does consider going and then she remembers that she's
supposed to be doing something for the doctor.
But it seems to me that that Android exists simply to give Anissa
and Adrix something to do in episode three.
Yeah, it plays no other role in the plot.
They did some other things for us.
Do you remember the 80s?
The Grim Reaper from those Australian age?
Oh, you know, that said, if you go bowling, you'll get A. We were
terrified.
Honestly, not so much money.
You had to be there.
It was an ad campaign, gentle listener, the 1st anti-HIV
campaign.
It was actually Australia that came up with a programmed use of
prophylactics, of putting condoms in doctor surgeries and pretty
much anywhere else, not in schools, but we were the 1st ones to, we
didn't know that condoms would stop the HOV virus, but it was a
theory and they just went ahead and did it and spent a huge amount
of money on it and it turned out to work.
What strikes me about those ads now because, of course, I saw them
and I was about five.
My parents were both scientists, which meant when I asked, what is
that about?
They told me.
Not going bowling because it's common.
That's what you'll die of shame.
I recently found it on YouTube and watched it again.
And the thing that struck me.
And this being the 1980s is that it's not full of homosexual
stereotypes.
It's full of people from all walks of life to make it clear that
this is not a disease that just affects the time.
Yeah, which is amazing.
I mean, we're getting...
I think my five-year-old mine did make that visual link as well
with the Grim Reaper.
It had resonance for us at school in a way, but none of us, maybe
it's about being, I was a 14 year old viewer by then, and none of
it was as frightening as perhaps it was trying to be.
I actually think that's also incidental music.
Ding, dong, dong, dong. doesn't really capture me so much as the
music concrete, you know, electroplasmic things.
There is an attempt to be a bit period with the music and that
does kind of work, I think.
I don't think the music is that terrible and it is, well, wait
until give us a couple of weeks.
It's going to be shockingly foreshadowing.
Yeah, as much as I love Patty Kingsland, he does get rather
excitable sometimes.
It's always melodic and it's always enjoyable to listen to, but
it's just like, Patty, Patty, no, this is a sinister chase seat.
Give us Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Not the chairs.
I actually like to hear a spinach.
I'd actually like to hear, you know, an early harpsichord in this
of some time or another.
And since it's all electronic, that does get to me to be a bit
jarring, it's like watching the entire production that's done in
CG now, any cartoon, anything.
I was just like, I just want to see the work of someone's hand
here and here. give me a bit of analogue.
Yeah.
No, this one's not oddly enough for something that I loved at the
time.
This show's just not working for me.
I'm having a hard time articulating why I like it so much and
certainly it has its flaws.
And certainly with the scares you were talking about.
When the Android does don the cape and just grab the scythe
randomly. you know, it's meant to be terrifying, it's actually
funny to me and not funny in the way of that's ridiculous, but oh
I see what you did there.
I think maybe, maybe that's the flaw of this story in the end, it's
not as clever as it thinks it is.
It's a straightforward action adventure.
I can't. without much action. without much action.
But it is adventure.
It does have some great concepts.
I think it's the, is it the episode 3 cliffhanger where Tegan's
going to let the rat out. yeah.
And I think that's very effective, mainly because of Peter
Davidson's performance.
And he's off camera. you know that's really well done there.
The episode 2 Cliffhanger, on the other hand, is really terrible.
Is that decapitation?
Yeah, yeah. so he lampshades it by saying, oh, no, not again.
But then...
We get the same, we get the 1st of the same with tropes.
Are you listening to this deal, isn't it?
someone holds his hand up, but wait.
Wait, that's it.
That's a resolution of the cliffhanger.
And how many times we're going to see that?
Every freaking day.
No, no, no.
Nisa fight.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, Nissa fights them off in for to do...
This is literally just the guy comes in and says, wait. terrible.
Petticoating the oncoming, but isn't that just at the end of every
single Colin Baker story in my dim memory?
Speaking of endings.
Yes.
Oh, the whole of episode 4 actually does lift it a little bit.
I was gonna talk about the Sonic screwdriver.
Oh, that's episode three, is it?
See, to us, fans that just is a little blip.
That's just a little moment.
But for the non-fans, that's all everybody at school talked about
for the next day.
It was, oh, my God.
My music teacher came up to me and said, did you see the song?
It's CrewDriver.
And I said, yes.
It was very important to me too, probably.
So we didn't have the Sonic Screwdriver last week because Nissa
was having a private moment with it in the TARDIS.
And so that just meant that Pete could be locked up in a cage for
an episode.
Here, he manages to be locked up in a room for a while as well.
And that's going to be a big thing for the Peter Davidson year.
He's going to spend episode 3 locked up really, pretty much every
story because he has no Sonic screwdriver.
And I think that that's terrible.
So true.
It's been observed before that Bidmead didn't like the Sonic
Screwdriver because he thought it made the doctor too powerful and
it meant that he could defeat things.
But what it meant he could defeat was being locked up.
Yeah, and like unless you think him being locked up or unless you
think him trying to open a door, which we get an extensive
sequence of as well in what episode four, unless you think those
things are fun to watch, then maybe the Sonic Screwdriver isn't
such a bad idea.
The only reason it's great is that you get the best line for me in
this whole story is when the lead terror leptor just before says
to the doctor, drop the sonic device.
The most dissonic, just as if again, he's reading out the
Eurovision figures for Britain that year.
I'd like to hear Brendan do that.
Drop the sonic device.
He does replace it with a safety pin later, which is quite... and
a bit of string.
They get rid of the Sonic screwdriver because it's a magical
device, and then how does the doctor open a door by magically
shooting it?
Yeah, yeah.
What the hell?
Yes, it's a cool moment.
Don't get me wrong, you know.
It's one of those moments where on cinema scenes, they're like
I'll take 3 sins off for that because that's just awesome.
But as cool as it is, you're like, why couldn't you use a magnet?
Oh, ridiculous.
You know why?
We're trapped in the postmodern idiom, aren't we, Lana?
We're trapped we're trapped in this thing of the 80s.
Doctor was always about the time it's made.
Every other show at the time was jumping into this postmodern
thing and for those of us who didn't bother doing any liberal art
subjects at uni.
It was all about the analysis of itself.
Wait till we get to Dragon Fire.
But, you know, the text is just a text within a text and can
reference any other text that's written and we can just pull
things out of everything else.
So we get to the point that nothing really matters.
It's just how it's all thrown together and it's all terrific.
It's a melange.
It's a salad, not a story.
So this is suffering from that as much as anything else, in that
it's a moment followed by a moment, followed by a moment.
Where's the dressing?
I just think it's ineptitude rather than postmodern.
Really?
But there was boring.
There was a hell of a lot of this kind of writing at the time.
Yeah, like moonlighting and stuff like that.
Yeah, oh, but moonlighting was Carol Lombard and Clark Gable.
Moonlight, moonlighting was directly from the scribble comedies of
the 30s.
No, the whole post-modernism thing.
So it kind of sounds like what Matthew Waterhouse was saying when
making 4 to Doomsday.
Like I can't figure out where my character is in reference to the
other stories.
I will just play it as if this is the only story that's
happening.
Yeah, and yeah.
It's an interesting thing, isn't it?
That they wanted to link all the stories together, but it seems
they didn't want to develop them from one to the other.
They really didn't, because as we remember from Dragonfire, the
simiotic thickness of a performed text does vary according to the
redundancy of its auxiliary performance codes, doesn't it?
Or what?
I don't know why we didn't mention that last. why it didn't come
to me back then.
Thank you, Andrew Farmore, but it gets to the point that they
start to send they send it up for itself, and of course that's a
few years down the track.
But I think that's actually what's going to start wearing Pete out
and what's going to be a real ruination for Colin as well.
We can blame scriptedters and all the rest of it.
No, I think we can just blame scripted.
We've had bad script editors before.
We've had John Wildes as producers.
We've had some awful things happening, but we still found a lot of
love for what we were watching.
Yeah, so maybe it is a sort of confluence of terrible things, but
I do want to, uh, I do totally want to play Marex Award for
everything that I'm going to say.
Well, there's no Nerus in this one.
Yeah, there's no one interesting to look at.
Oh, I don't know.
Richard Mason's lovely here.
Including when we get to fear her.
We're going to blame Eric Saywood for that.
I still find a lot to love.
And I'm on record with a few people as saying that there's only
one Doctor Who story.
I hate and we're not up to that yet.
But having said that...
Can't wait for that one.
Having said that, rewatching season 19.
There may be a second one now, but it's not this.
This is exciting.
And we're not up to it yet.
So there's 3 other possibilities.
Yes, I know which one it is.
Can we talk episode four?
Yes, I think we should.
The pteraleptal throws on a cloak and he has a bit of camel toe?
Tick on location, I seem to notice.
I think probably has a cloacre rather than external genitals
though, as a terrible.
So, yes, as an other positive...
He could have been a lady terrelaptor.
Shape. shaped like the Android.
That's where that shape comes from.
Ah, exactly.
It's a cloacal extension.
But we...
We head off into, into, are we at Ealing?
Like, where are we shooting London?
Yes, yes.
Suddenly it all looks grainy and be perfectly lit and a lot more
fun. doesn't it?
It doesn't look like convincing.
It does look like a set, but it looks like a big set that looks
really great.
It's the Mary Morris principle.
You know they only had one day to do this whole thing.
It was pretty impressive for what they were trying to do.
And I reckon probably those terreleptils spent 3 or 4 hours just
huffing soliton before the shot.
You know that fireball thing?
When they when Pete's standing out to a doctor that Pete's the
same thing, isn't it?
They're standing outside and then you go, bloke who was doing the
effect, said, that murdered 5 cars completely school did them.
It was ruined.
The whole thing was ruined.
Cops had the fire brigade.
That was the most exciting day on Doctor Who, that is.
What happened to the little rats?
Did they get them out?
They were burned to a crisp.
Where do you get brown tame rats?
Lab rats are always white.
Did they just cover them in Michael Amelia's socks?
go dark.
They got them from the canteen at the television centre, I would
imagine.
I lost a pound, he said, on that, probably in a bet with Peters, to
see who, you know, which companion would be flawed for the longest
to turn out to be Nisser again.
So we have a giant climax, Dixie.
And my favourite part of that scene is that Tegan is listlessly
hitting Michael Melia with a.
Well, they're all hung over, aren't they?
stories.
Everyone was had horrible hangovers during the shoot of this
again.
It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. needed it to cope, I
think.
I'm a little bit worried by the fact that Pete decides to skim
vials of deadly virus into the, you know, like across the floor
into the farm.
Just like unwanted Kentucky fried chicken containers.
Yes.
Just throw your lunch in there, kids.
It does seem awfully dangerous.
It does.
Ruined 5 cars.
Oh, it's the last time Stuart fell in Alan Chunks. come out and do
stunts at us.
And Stuart Fell, what does he do?
Is he one of the tereleptils?
Rat, isn't he?
Is he a rat?
He's very small.
He's more perfectly full.
Actually, the blue terrolaptol is very small, so...
Yeah, I love how he's blue.
Look, the terreleptils are really well designed.
Well, I think the designs are beautiful, but even everyone on set
was saying, well, she obviously didn't think that an actor going
this, would they?
That they were all being quite hissy.
Well, that's always been a problem with Doctor Who Monsters, hasn't
it?
If you compare them with the Fomasi, you know, the previous year
with their drawstring necks and things.
Like I love the fomasi.
I think they look terrific, but they don't look convincing for a
second.
The pteroreptil doesn't look sort of particularly convince he's
got sort of wrinkly legs, but the mouth, there's animatronics.
Is this your 1st animatronic?
and the fact that he's got an eye torn out and all of that.
Yeah, it seems to have human teeth.
Did you know they were going to have steam coming out of the side
of his head as well?
It's meant to happen?
Didn't happen.
He does look good.
It is surprising they're not brought back.
He's nicely done and I like his voice intonations.
I can see Michael Milio, because you know, playing Lee Terreptol
and the director was saying, oh, it'd be so great, Michael.
We've even got this fabulous voice modulator.
So your voice will come up like an electronic strain.
He said, no, that's it.
You can get my bloody mother-in-law to do it because no one will
know the difference between me and her.
And it was a good choice.
It was a choice.
I mean, he's a big man and he has presence and even under all that
latex.
Yeah, I like him.
He's not a very memorable monster, but he...
He was great at the Fendal, wasn't he?
So I think one thing we can all agree on is that the lead terror
wept or Michael Media is pretty fabulous.
He doesn't put a foot wrong.
Yeah, I'm not that interested in him, I have to say.
He's not links.
Yeah, but you don't dislike him.
No, no, no. think it is a good performance.
And they at least give him a bit of depth by him talking about
look, you know, I was a prisoner.
I was tortured.
He was real...
I was a real.
I've lost all this weight to ask me how.
I think that's the thing that sort of lingers with me in this
story, is that we have in the pteroreptils and admittedly only one
of them, but they're given personality.
They're given motivation and a bit like last week.
We have a villain, but not an out and out evil villain.
You know, yes, he's going to massacre the entirety of the earth's
population.
He's going to massacre the entire the Earth's population, but he's
only as much of a real villain as the Solurians are.
The Silurians have a bit more of a claim to the planet.
Interesting to bring them up.
But yeah, he's sort of acting in his interpretation of self
preservation.
It's not just moustache twirling.
I'll tie you to the railroad tracks now.
It's like, okay, you have a motivation.
It is flawed.
You are an amoral character.
We must work to stop you, but it's more interesting than just, I'm
going to wipe out humanity.
Why?
Because I'm evil.
But that is why I'm in the doctor offers to take him somewhere
lovely where the other pteroreptils aren't going to be able to
find him.
And he says, no, no, I'll stay here and infect the entire
population with, you know, the plague.
I mean, as much as I admire what you're saying, it is quite
difficult to set up an argument for spatial genocide.
Others have tried.
Certainly not without going into politics.
This is our 1st character death with a lot of goo gushing from the
head and his eyeballs exploding and stuff.
It's a very season 19 trophy thing.
It is, isn't it?
Yeah, I think it might be, actually.
Yeah, it's a bit revolting.
I seem to remember my mother walking in on me when I was watching
Arc of England.
Yeah.
And all this stuff was gushing gushing out of Omega's head.
Alright, okay.
She was pretty horrified that this was what I was doing for
entertainment.
You know who I think started it all off?
Dorian in Blake 7. when he turned into a sea devil and dissolved
away. previously, isn't it?
Just the year before?
Yeah, 4 months before this.
Have you ever heard the theory that the reason that Doctor Who
gets an expanded cast of people who don't seem to like each other
very much and spend a lot of time finding is that Blake 7 had been
cancelled the year before and there was kind of an available slot
for that kind of science?
very interesting.
I thought you were going to say they invented the podcast.
Yeah, God.
Why couldn't we have Paul Darrow as Adrick?
Why couldn't we have Chris Boucher a scripted out?
That would have been interesting.
Can you imagine what Janet would have been like as a new Leela?
No, no, she could have been a new Jenner.
Because Stephen Boucher also invent the character of Lena.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But he's the one who's responsible, I think, in Blake 7 for
those.
Writing the whole bloody thing. why those fights between the
characters are so entertaining. because they have jokes in them.
Yeah, yeah.
Whereas Eric Say would writing, okay?
fighting with each other is just excruciating.
I think I think we actually just saw his persuasive romantic
technique in bars in the way that he writes.
That's not true, by the way.
Just thinking about Chris Boucher, though.
I'm just imagining the Blake 7 production office.
Hey, Chris, have you got the latest script from Terry?
Yeah, both pages.
Well, dear listener, as we pat down our singed coattails, I think
it might be time for a bit of a costume party.
Please join us next week for Black Orchard.
Until then, you can find us online at flightthroughentirety.com
flight through entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast on
Twitter.
I'm sure by now Roger Moore has gotten to some stupid costumes
over on Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and iTunes
Bondfinger Cast on Twitter, and I've definitely got into a stupid
costume by now on Doctor Who in 10 seconds over on YouTube.
Until next week, may none of your action figures be destroyed by
Nissa's industrial strength vibrate.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Vibrate softly on.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley
Brendan Jones and Richard Stone, theme arrangement by Cameron
Lamb.
This episode, a deaf wish, but for Antrik, was recorded on 28th of
May 2016.
The next episode will be released on the 10th July.
Listeners are warned that long-term exposure to soliton gas may
cause dizziness, hallucinations, and severely impaired judgement
as you'll already know if you've ever watched season 22.
Okay.
We've run out the timer.
Okay, cool.
It's so hard to find anything to say about this thing.
Nothing happens.
That's fine.
I think it's, you know, I like it, but I agree, it's kind of
nothing.
I like it because it's not absolutely terrible.
I like it in the absence of any other strong emotion.
They should put that on the DVD cover.
There's your tag.
Okay.