Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Fly Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast whose will is not weak.
How dare?
Oh, Will.
Sorry, okay.
I'm Brendan.
Ah, je m'appelle Nathan Estram.
And the doctor is our loyal demon.
Gum, golly, gum, gum, gum, gum.
I don't know the words to this song.
Gung, Gully, Gully, Gung, Gung, Gung, Gung.
I hope you all will hum along.
Gung, gung, gung, gung, gung.
It's the king's demons.
I'm so sorry, everybody.
That's what I remember.
From this story, as a kid, my sisters and I didn't know the lyrics
to that, but we just remembered.
The doctor was out lower D mine and like we're so not musically
inclined in my family.
So it was like this, that's the strumming of the, whatever they
play.
I was singing this really quite loudly around the house this
morning, and I do know the words, and then I realised that they
were really kind of insulting to my Muslim neighbours, so I
stopped.
Yeah, yeah, against the Saracen who we abhor.
Yeah, terrible.
So it's great that Terrence Dudley is back.
With racism.
Didn't he write Black Orchid?
Yeah.
So that was a lot of horrible people doing to somebody who's been
incapacitated in some way.
Yeah, so it was Abelism last time.
At least this time, the racism is historically accurate.
There's not really that much of it.
Yeah.
Terence Dudley is back or T Duds, as I've taken to calling him, for
his final script for the program.
Hooray.
Oh, God.
And you discovered this week, I think, Brendan, that his 1st
script for the program could have been.
Oh my god.
I've subscribed to Doctor Who, the Complete History, which is like
getting 2 Peter Haning books in your post once a month, roughly
128 to 176 page book covers between 2 and 4 Doctor Who stories.
So the 1st book covers an unearthly child or the Daleks, or
because this is from the Makers of Doctor Who magazine.
It covers 100,000 BC and the Mutants, a.k.a. the Daleks.
Thank you very much. monsters, aren't they?
They do at least include a full page discussion as to why these
are the correct titles.
No.
But they've got, of course, a very lengthy origin section of
Doctor Who.
So obviously very to them, but did go on record of saying, look, if
we'd had another script, we wouldn't have started with cavemen.
Not that it was bad or anything, but it just wasn't showing what
we wanted to do with the show.
At one point, they did actually try to ditch that script and just
keep Anthony Coburn's unmade script Doctor Who and the robots
later made by Big Finisher's Masters of Luxor.
And they approached Terence Dudley to write the 1st Doctor Who
story.
And he declined.
And aren't we all grateful?
Yeah that's why we're here.
Because I think if anything is obvious after Terrence Dudley's 3
scripts for the program and also directing Meg Loss, he has no
interest in science fiction.
You can tell from that 2nd series of survivors, which I think he
has a big hand in where they all just sort of settle down and grow
cabbages and nothing really very interesting happens.
So, you know, he's not very good.
None of his scripts are very good and this is no exception.
It's really terrible.
This is mine, apparently.
But I just can't remember anything about it. without looking at my
notes and even then, oh, well, look, no, that's not quite true.
I can remember some things.
There's some, there's some of the lines.
Like when, I really like, is it Gerald Flood as, as, as the king.
I love like our champion, our demons.
Like, those are things that actually stick with me, and I think he
actually does a great performance.
Possibly the highlight of this whole thing.
And then he's got his champion who talks about the blue engine.
I love that line, the blue engine.
A friend of Nathan and mine used to have a blue engine car.
That's right.
His car was called the blue engine.
Glenn Langford, former Doctor Who fan.
He got better.
Yeah, so those little things, I like those little, those little
lines.
But, um, honestly, a frigging master.
I was watching one of the documentaries in a future story.
And it mentions that Anthony Ainley had a contract to appear in 2
Doctor 2 stories a year.
Up until 1984.
Now, I don't know who he had it over, right?
But it was contractly contracted that he would be paid for 2
appearances, even if he did not appear.
So we had Keeper of Trachan and Megopolis.
Castravalva and Time Flight.
And so this year, it's the king's demons and the 5 doctors.
And then his contract runs out with Planet of Fire.
That, you know, they don't get the 2 in.
But he still got, he still gets paid.
Yeah absolutely.
He must have had photos of someone.
And I, you know, I'm pretty sure in a few years time he gets paid
for the unmade season 23 at all.
He does because he had a new contract.
He had a new contract where he was then for 3 years, at least one
story a year.
So he got paid for that.
Colin got paid for that season as well.
So did Nicola.
So to Nicolas.
So it's like, whatever.
But, you know, we have to use the master.
I'm a bit conflicted about him in this one because, um, so Gille
is just unforgivable.
Terrible French accent, much worse than mine was, just like really
really bad.
Like yeah, comically bad.
But once he reveals himself.
I quite like Anthony Ainley in this story.
Like when he when he takes his Tartas down to the dungeon and he's
ingratiating himself with Lady Isabel.
I think that's, he's actually quite charming in that scene.
You know, there's a there's a touch of Delgado with Ingrid Pitt.
Yeah, okay.
I mean, we've got Ilsa Blair, who was cinaphar in Blake 7 duel.
It was totally bugging me.
I knew I knew her from somewhere.
And you know, she's one of those people who she was regularly
doing TV guest appearances.
She's still acting now.
She has this quietness about her performance.
With the quietness, she has that wonderful Shakespearean quality
which a lot of stage actors have, where no matter how quiet they
are.
You are still listening to them, like Judy Dench or Derek Jack.
I don't think she ever raises her voice in this story except maybe
when Sir Jeffrey's killed.
But all the time, whenever she's talking, you're not listening to
anyone else.
You've got Frank Windsor as her husband, he's very good.
He'll come back in ghost light.
You've got Christopher Villiers, I think, is her son.
And this was very early on in his career and he went on to be
quite successful.
He's cast really for one reason, isn't he?
He's quite hot.
He's really pretty.
But he seems to have found some peroxide that's fallen banquets
through a crack in time because he does have lovely blonded hair
doesn't he?
Much like peace, I guess.
He actually agreed not to cut his hair in the lead up to this.
It was written into his contract, whereas all the other blokes had
hairpieces.
Except for Gerald Flood.
It's quite interesting.
The one thing I do like the fact is that the monaster does
manipulate these people against the doctor, like in that episode
and I find it quite frustrating.
But I like that as a view of the fact that, you know, he's
manipulating them and and, and do you remember the 1st time you
watched it, whether you recognise that Sergille was the master?
That's the question I was going to ask you.
So you beat me to it.
I think I did.
Initially, because he doesn't speak, I kind of went, do I know
you?
Then when he started to speak his, you know, a blue engine, I, then
I worked out that I'm pretty sure I worked out before the reveal.
Like, yeah, like, it was like fairly obvious, I think. think
that's what I do remember.
Yeah, it's not like the portrayable car lead where you can imagine
on 1st broadcast you might have been fooled.
I mean, the thing is coming me coming to those stories.
I always knew.
Yeah.
Car lead.
Like for God's sake.
Oh, you'd never know.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And, you know, the poor tree.
He's really good in his whispery voice.
But yeah, it's mainly the voice that gives him away.
I think the beard is stupid.
But it does effectively disguise his face.
I think there are a few shots where it is really, really visibly
anley, in a way that you could probably have picked up at home.
But, you know, he's trying to disguise his voice again with his
really atrocious accent.
Like he is trying to do something, you know, to try and make
it...
He's still no professor for Scalis, though, is he?
I, yeah, but at the same time, even Roger Delgado had that scene
in, um, in Claws of Axos, where he's fooling Benton into giving
him the TARDIS, and just sort of turns around and rips the rubber
mask off, and his, his only attempt to disguise his voice is like
the difference between my voice now, and doing this, Sergeant.
Oh, I'm in the army.
See, I like, see, Duggada used to rip off the rubber mask or
whatever.
In Castravalva, he just stands up and flashes between the 2
characters.
And I think the same thing happens here as well.
Like it just flashes between the two.
It's not like he rips off the beard and here he is.
The rubber mask was never particularly convincing, but it was at
least kind of a really visceral way of showing that he had been
masked.
And he had figured out a way to disguise himself as someone half
foot short of that incident.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, masks can do that, can they?
absolutely.
I think that there's a big problem structurally here too, which is
that the doctor and Sejila having a fight for no reason. doctor.
The doctor sort of checks his watch, goes, oh, we're 23 minutes
in.
I'd better do something dangerous, you know, and he just gets up
and fights to Jille for no reason at all.
It is a pretty decent fight though.
And it's and it's well shot.
We got Tony Virgo directing.
The only time he'll direct Doctor Who.
You know, he went on to direct throughout the 80s.
Lots of high-end stuff for British television at the time.
So EastEnders, the bill.
He went on to become a producer, including peak practice later
on.
I believe he did come out and work for the ABC for a while as
well.
We had it for a convention at some point, didn't we to it?
Yeah, I'm sure he was.
Yeah.
Sorry.
A distant memory.
Sorry, sorry if you're listening, Tony.
But this was his 2nd show that he'd worked on.
He'd done 3 episodes of Angels.
And then was asked to do Doctor Who, and he really seems to be
going, right, this is my chance to prove myself because we get
interesting camera angles.
Great set design, really good lighting as well.
And, you know, for the mediaeval banquet set, they ordered all
this practical food so people could actually be eating and there's
the Irish hounds there who...
Oh, there's doggies on set.
They're sort of historically accurate that Heddy got them in for
both studio sessions.
You know, he's he's actually really trying hard.
I found myself constantly distracted by that suckling pig, like it
was all I could look at, so I don't know what anyone was saying
when that was on screen.
And I also think where that sword fight differs from the fantastic
sword fight in the sea devils is that it's set during a historical
period before the invention of the sandwich.
I think that really means they're slightly inferior.
Yes, indeed.
Well, I like the line, like, you know, best sawman in France
fortunately, we are in England.
I thought that was nice, but...
You know, you're quite right.
I mean, why are we having this sword fight?
And then it goes, and then just for no reason, the master just
stops and reveals himself, oh my, it's the master.
Like, why even reveal yourself?
And then Tegan gets to throw a knife at the master?
In a most pathetic way, ever.
Even if he plucks it out of the air.
He just grabs it.
He catches it.
I just wanted her to get it and go, ah, you know, like real
venom.
But, oh, yeah.
It's stupid but it's cool.
The knife moment.
I think that is cool.
I really love the Dr. and Tegan relationship in the 1st episode.
She's so cold out by location.
They had just, they just had this lovely relationship.
There's a real warmth to it and it's progressed.
It's just so evident.
Yeah, it's great.
You do get the impression and big finish up now, I think
slaughtered some stories in here.
You do get the impression that some time has passed since
Enlightenment.
Tegan is still slightly suspicious of Turbo.
Like when he's off he's off by himself.
She's kind of constantly saying, where's Turlo?
What's he up to?
But I, I, you know, she has accepted what has happened
previously.
Although we did end the last story, didn't we?
I think Todd pointed this out between recordings that Turlo's like
let's go back to my home planet and at the beginning of the story
and at the end of the story, we were meant to be going to my home
planet.
So maybe no stories can fit in here.
Yeah.
Bad luck.
No picking up Nissa on this podcast watch.
I've been complaining all season about lack of character deaths
right?
But we do get one here in episode...
And it's actually very I'm very affected by it, you know?
The master doesn't pull the trigger, but he gets somebody else to
shoot him in the back with the arrow.
He's kind of good looking and he's a good guy and he's got a
relationship with, you know, our 2 main characters and they react
to his death that he's actually a death that kind of lands.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. and it's not resolved It's not like the
killer is brought to justice.
We never see the crossbower, whoever it was, did the master
hypnotise him.
We don't know, but he never seems to be caught.
Turlo just cops the blame for it, and they run off at the end.
A lot of people in terms of the 5th doctor and Tegan have pointed
to that scene where Tegan says, look at that huge bed at the dog's
side, another way of keeping warm.
Oh really?
How did that slip under the radar?
It's not that huge either, really, is it?
No, no.
Yeah, well, it's huge, you know, it's huge for the BBC.
But there was an interesting aside in the production subtitles.
The production subtitles don't raise the Dubel entende.
They just mentioned chairs were only for luxury and nobility at
this time.
So it would be quite understandable for beds to be so big because
it would be the only piece of furniture to sit on in most rooms in
most bedrooms.
But you will notice that this room has 2 chairs.
And the doctor and Tegan don't sit in either.
They don't sit at all.
They just wander around going, I'm cold, I'm cold too.
Here's a blanket.
Oh, thank you.
I'm cold.
But somebody does sit in it.
And that's the king, who's not really the king.
But the newest member of the TARDIS crew.
Chameleon.
This would have been just an utterly terrible idea as it actually
proved to be.
I think the chameleon prop looks terrible.
And I think it's actually not very well directed, particularly in
that scene where he's being welcomed on board the TARDIS, where
he's shot in such a way that you can't actually see his eyes.
He's delivering dialogue, but his eyes aren't visible because he's
looking away.
I think there's a huge problem with the prop.
I think it looks off putting.
I think the mouth movements are horrific.
It shares with canine a really loud motor.
You can actually hear it moving.
The neck, the crinkly neck is awful.
It's, it's, it's an ugly prop, and it would have been a terrible
idea to actually have it again.
And just as they've got the TARDAS crew to be 2 people who are
reasonably interesting and identifiable, you're going to put a
space robot from the planet Zeraphas in the show.
Like, why do that?
What's wrong with you?
What was John Nathan Turner thinking?
Like they went and saw this thing in action.
And it really even wasn't working properly quite then, but lots of
promises.
And it's just appalling.
Like, we don't see it now after this until it's final story.
And it's like, if you're going to introduce it.
You'd think you'd be using it in every story in some aspect.
That's my opinion. if you're going to be part of the crew.
Like in the 5 doctors.
Why can't you?
Why can't you set it up to be a fake doctor, for example?
Or in the awakening that's coming up, the malice is taking over
things, why can't it take over chameleon and have it turn into
some sort of person that walks out of the times?
You know, there's just nothing.
You do know there's a big production reason why this happens.
So they had wanted to have a scene with Chameleon in the Awakening
voiced by Mark Strickson, but it was cut for time.
Yeah, it was filmed.
It is on the DVD.
Right.
But they had problems getting the prop to work.
Am I wrong about this?
Because the guy who was originally meant to program it died
tragically in a car accident.
And so they couldn't get it to work properly or quickly.
I know that he died.
All right?
And the hardware guy was still around.
And if you watch the documentary, I think it's on Planet of the
Fire, he actually is like, oh, you know, we did such a great job
with it and you know, he's so proud of what they managed to do.
And everybody else's interview says that it's the biggest load of
crap ever.
But even so, even in like Planet of Fire.
I know I'm jumping ahead.
But even if you had him just standing there and then, you know
somebody to transition into a real person, do you know what I
mean?
Well, and then using it that way and not really seeing the robot.
But I, I mean, I hate, I would hate there to be a shape shifting
character on, in the TARDIS.
I just hate, it's so stupid and so science fiction-y an idea.
Yeah, it's been like early Deep Space 9.
It took them a while to figure out what to do with Odo, who ended
up being a magnificent character.
But very early on, he's just there occasionally to shimmer into a
pile of goo or to turn into something to be smuggled on board a
ship, you know.
For the 1st season, Odo's a McGuffin.
But then they figure out his backstory and his relationship with
Kira and he's probably my favourite character on that series.
Great performance too.
Yeah, Renee Aub- Jean-ois.
In terms of Chameleon, I've tried to research what happened
exactly to the programmer, because at 1st I heard he died in a car
accident just before the King's Demons, but the guy who built the
model who's still with us and still owns Chameleon, says he died
shortly after Planet of Fire in a sailing accident.
So I don't I don't know.
You know, he was his mate, so I probably side with him.
But the thing that just baffles me about chameleon is.
Why not just have an actor?
He's a shape shifting robot.
You know, the prop can appear for 5 minutes at the beginning of
episode one for which you need 4 weeks programming time.
And then he then he can turn into Christopher Brown.
Get him to look into Tegan's mind and pull out the image of
Mariner because, oh, wouldn't Christopher Brown, a Mariner, have
made a good companion?
Yeah.
And Chameleon can have the whole thing about discovering humanity
and discovering emotion because you do get glimpses of Chameleon's
character here and he's an he's arrogant.
You know, he and who knows where to show end.
I I'm in the charges now.
A ha ha.
Yeah, there's a bit of character there in the last 5 minutes.
Is that the ending line?
Who knows where it shall end?
No, the ending the ending line is the doctor saying, we're going
there already.
Oh, the eye of Orion.
That's a very strange bit too, where he's mean to Tegan, sort of
suddenly and threatens to put her off the ship like at the
beginning of the reign of terror.
Bitch scene.
I think there, I think there is a bit of cleverness there because
of course, you know, we've noted that, and that Nissa was the
Peacekeeper. and now Nissa has been gone for 2 stories.
And, you know, back in season 19, Tegan was pushing the doctor
out.
It's like, you got to get me home and the broken clock keeps
better.
Time and diet.
So I think at this point the doctor's just going, right, okay, you
want to have a temper tantrum?
fine, I'm putting you off.
And immediately Tegan's like, well, I don't want to leave, and the
doctor says, oh, okay, then.
I, I, I think that's actually a subtle reversal of, Yeah, we did
last season, kind of say, why did Tegan and the doctor keep
hanging out together.
But here we kind of get the answers to that because they've got
each other's measure now.
They know they know how to push each other's buttons and they also
know how to react.
And it's nowhere near as as bad as the next female companion will
be treated in the TARDIS because you never seriously believe that
the doctor's doing a billy and saying, right, next stop off the
ship, Chesterman.
You know, you know that the doctor is winding Tegan up, just the
way that Tegan winds the doctor up.
It's quite a cute moment, but Richard did point out during the
week that Pete at the end going, oh, no, that's where we're going
anyway.
It's a Scooby-Doo ending.
You know, thankfully we cut before Mark Strixen goes, oh, You know
you should have cut to a chameleon laughing.
I was annoyed at the time that Chameleon spends like a year in a
cupboard.
Like it just annoyed me that he was never mentioned or brought up
again.
What happens to it in frontios?
Is he the hat stand?
Does he transmogrophone?
In reality, it's, thank goodness, really.
Yeah, well, that's right.
I can't think of a bad Doctor Who story that couldn't be made much
much worse by the edition of Chameleon.
Do you know that when I originally saw this as a kid, because we
got the stories like one episode a night, 5 nights a week, I
actually wanted chameleon.
You know, when it turns into Tegan, I thought they might turn it
into Missa, grows really warning.
And I really wanted it to be missa, like to have a little cameo
like what um atrocan. he turns her into Tegan.
And does he, they walk into the Tartars and, yeah, yeah.
And doesn't he say something to Turlo?
Like, yes, I'm afraid so or something.
It's really funny too, because doesn't Tegan say, can anyone else
see this or something?
Yeah, there's another bee in here.
And Turlo says something that?
Yes, unfortunately.
I will say as a kid, because this is another one I came to during
the 1990s repeat season.
So around 11 or 12.
As a kid, chameleons are great.
I loved Chameleon as a kid and there was a BBC book, The Ultimate
Treasure by Christopher Buellus, which uses Chameleon in a very
interesting way.
And I won't spoil anything else because he comes up in there, but
you kind of read that and go, actually, the TV show could have
done this.
In the end, he just represents not seeing the forest for the
trees.
They kind of go, hey, we can have this robot and hey, you can be a
shapeshifter and they get hung up on the robot bit.
It's like, I, you know, I agree with you, Nathan.
Shapeshifting characters can be an easy out.
Like, sometimes they used well, like Space 1999 season two.
Not that it's a great TV show anyway, but the conceit that Maya
can turn into an animal, opens the plot up.
Or they can see that she can turn into a guy in a kind of shaggy
nylon suit at will.
Yeah, yeah.
See, I think that's always awful.
You know, the scene where Maya realises that turning into an eagle
or something will solve our problems is just sort of cringeworthy
and embarrassing.
And to have that all the time in Doctor Who, the Doctor Who is now
a program about, you know, the Doctor and some friends and a crazy
shape shifting robot.
That's awful.
And particularly when the robot is so, so off-putting.
I mean, canine, you know, is a box, you know, joined to another
box with a tube and he's so loveable and relatable, you know, and
he wags his tail and all of that and he's got a couple of great
actors doing the performance.
You know, this is awful.
Yeah, I think the only way chameleons, shape shifting abilities
could have worked.
And as I mentioned early, we get a glimpse of his character and
he's like glib and, you know, what have you.
I think it really would work.
He'd chosen a human form and then when, you know, people say to
him, but why don't you change what?
Well why should I?
I'm perfectly happy as I am.
Why should I change for you?
Basically, he should have been Quentin Crisp in space.
I'm kind of thinking that maybe he is in all of the subsequent
stories.
Turlo's having a nap during this year.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Why not?
Or, like, he's Chancellor Flavia this week.
He's skip us, you know, next week and stuff like that.
Why couldn't that be happening?
Yeah, during the Awakening Turbo, I was like, I'm not visiting
Tegan's bloody grandad.
Chameleon, you go do it.
Oh, maybe the doctor does that sometimes.
It could be the Merka.
He was the Merka all the time.
Look, it's just...
Oh, God. okay.
So next season, the drinking game, dear listeners, is chameleon
watch.
Yeah, who is chameleon in this story.
I think we make it a regular theme.
Look, it's just so ill conceived and, you know, he could have been
a, yeah, come aboard the TARDIS will take you home and take him
home and never mention me again.
Or even if he then turns up and planning a fire, just have the
doctor say, oh, yeah, we put a bit of cupboard.
We didn't have a USBC port, so he ran out of battery.
I did that with 2 teachers ages ago.
Just kept forgetting to take him home.
Had it written down and felt tip and everything, fast return.
And they talk, anyhow, back to this scintillating story.
Story in inverted comments.
The doctor leaves a nasty surprise for the master at the end of
this story, doesn't he, with the tissue compression eliminator set
to something so that it will cause problems with the master's
TARDIS.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Is it what shrinks him for Planet of Fire?
Is that why he ends up in a little box?
No, because we've got the 5 doctors.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
Maybe he goes back in time or something.
So nothing happens to the master then because he's in the 5
doctors.
He's just fine.
Yeah, well that's the thing.
The last time we see the master, he's just shouting at the
charters fading away.
Mediaeval misfits.
Great bit of dialogue, isn't it?
Yeah.
But I have read a fan theory.
I'll probably bring this up again when we get to Planet of Fire.
The, for the master, the 5 doctors takes place after Planet of
Fire and the time lords pick him out of the flames.
Oh, okay.
I'm going with that I'm canonating that.
Right.
Shall we say something about the actual script for this story?
Because we've given Terence Dudley a hard time for canine and
Company and Black Orchid, but...
The script works.
It's a really boring premise though.
I think it's been observed over and over again that Magna Carta
doesn't actually have the big historic impact that this story
claims it has.
There's something kind of colonialist about, you know, disrupting
England is going to be a huge sort of disaster for the human
race.
Yeah.
And even the story lamp shades it by saying it's small time
villainy even for his standards.
It's boring.
And why does the doctor turn up there?
Is it just a coincidence?
Why is the master in disguise before the doctor turns up?
Well, he just dresses up to relax, though. doesn't he?
I mean, that's what the whole Khalid outfit was all about, too.
Oh dear.
I kind of want to see him missing in like a common Miranda fruit
hat and the doctor turns up and says, oh, I don't know if your
cunning disguise is, no doubt. didn't know you were coming.
This is just thirsty. something I threw on.
This other things that, like, I don't find the horse jousting
thing.
I never find that exciting myself.
I kind of go, whatever.
And I really hate court gesters.
I just want to just punch him in the face.
No, not even Terry Walsh.
I will say, like, the location shooting, they only got about half
the shots they wanted, that all the shots they missed.
They did then plan to do in the studio.
It wasn't a matter of running out of time.
It was just the weather was so horrible.
Yeah, you can tell.
So the jousting was meant to run the same amount of, but have
twice the amount of shots it was meant to be fast paced and action
y and you were meant to see Chris Villiers stunt double fall off
his horse and do a tumble and what have you.
And just because of the weather, they couldn't do the stunts.
I'm okay with that.
Like, I'm okay that it's as short as it is because it does nothing
for me and I wouldn't do anything more.
I think my biggest disappointment with this is the fact that
there's just not enough doors.
Yeah, where were the doors?
There's the door.
Well, I don't know.
There is a door going into the king's chamber and I don't know.
Maybe Dudley's grown as a writer.
He feels that his mind, the people going through doors trope
really enough, and he'd like to move on and try more exciting
things like closing people in Iron Maiden.
Yes, yes.
Well, I suppose that's a door.
Although the Iron Maiden, as we understand it, And as we see it in
the story is, I believe, a Victorian invention or 17, the 17th or
18th century or sorry, 18th or 19th.
Is it something the Victorians said that people did in the Middle
Ages?
Yeah, but they actually happened.
I mean, I think where the confusion comes from were they were kind
of... cylinders where people were being incarcerated, but they
weren't spiked or anything like that.
Um, I love the mentions of boiling in oil.
I think that's always delightful for a sort of family, you know
entertainment program.
And again, the production subtitles on the DVD are a wealth
because they detail the 3 methods of boiling in oil that people
would use.
Delightful.
I love the way that when it's announced that the doctor and Turlo
are to be boiled in oil.
Turlo looks at the doctor is really cross.
See?
See what you did.
This is why I wanted to go home and we're here.
So this wasn't supposed to be the final story of the season.
We're supposed to cliffhanger into a Dalek story.
Is that right?
That's right. right.
And the cliffhanger will survive and we'll see that at the end of
Frontios, where they get caught in the Dalek's time tunnel.
And so that story was going to be called the return.
It is made next year with very minor changes as Resurrection of
the Daleks.
So it was going to be called the return, presumably, so they could
do an earth shock again.
Yeah.
And they wouldn't call it...
And then they decided not to do that.
But it was just going to be called the return.
But the other part of the return was going to be the Daleks
getting Davros back.
And in the original production, it was to be directed by Peter
Grimwade.
And Michael Wisher was to be back as Davros.
Wow.
But he then couldn't make the dates the following year, but he had
agreed to come back.
And this actually led to Peter Grimway not directing for the
program again.
Because it fell through because of all the strikes and having to
reschedule enlightenment into these slots and that sort of thing.
That's part of it.
But what also happened was, of course, everyone was very
disappointed to lose the story.
So Peter Grimway decided he would take Eric Saywood and the cast
out to lunch one day and he'd take JNT out to lunch the next day
and he booked 2 lunches.
But JNT heard about the 1st lunch first.
And had a giant hiszy.
And kind of went, why am I not invited?
First of all, when Peter Grimway turned up to take Eric Saywood
out to lunch, that was a surprise.
And it was going to be a surprise for John and John came into
Eric's office and, oh, where's Eric?
Oh, he's going out to lunch with Peter Grimwaite.
What?
But that's why he still writes for the show because he still had a
good relationship with Eric Saywood.
Well, this story really suffers because as I say, you know, the
script, it's like, yes, it's boring and Magna Carta's not that, you
know, it becomes important for other things.
Magna Carta leads to other things, but in itself, it's not that
important.
And it doesn't help that the doctor at no point explains why we
should care about Magna Carta.
Like he says to Tegan at one point, don't you know your history?
And she says, yes, I know my history and that's it.
What it really feels like, though.
This feels like part one and 2 of a 3 part story.
It feels like the master should now go to London and do something
with the real king and pose a bigger threat because, you know, even
without the Android, the master's resourceful.
He should still be able to do something, he should disguise
himself as the king.
Yeah he's good at that.
But that's the thing.
It feels like there's more of this story to be told. or there
should be anyway.
But yeah, compared to Terence Dudley's other contributions.
This is bloody City of Death.
I do think it also suffers from not leading into the Dalek story.
So it's just this sort of rather limp ending to the season.
Yeah, I always think of enlightenment as the end of the season.
Then I suddenly go, oh yeah, this exists.
So I haven't done a ratings update forever.
So yeah, how did the back end of the season perform?
So, um, 5.800000 viewers tuned into episode one, 107th on the
chart.
So I think this is the worst placed and rated episode of the
season.
And then, um, episode 2 was 7.2, 6.6.
Um, you know, this season, as I mentioned before, the average is
just over 7 million. 66th is a good chart position for this year.
I think there's only 3 episodes inside the top 70 and most of the
rest are between 70 and 100.
So the show, as I mentioned, has slid down, you know, a good 30, 40
places down the charts.
And we've lost a couple of 1000000 viewers all season.
Most of the episodes are between about 6.5 and 7.5 million.
We're on air less.
Like last year they're only on air for 13 weeks this year, 11
weeks.
Yeah.
You know, losing 2000000 viewers. there has to be something.
I think there's someone once said, I can't remember whether it was
friend of the podcast, Peter Griffiths or not, that Doctor Who
used to be on kind of all the time, and then it turns into
something that's on for a couple of months a year.
And when it's on all the time, or, you know, even half the year
it's something that people are going to watch.
Yeah, I know that the Saturday night thing wasn't working out for
it necessarily.
But now that it's just one of the many things that's on during the
week.
Is that the reason?
Well, it could well be because it's, you know, it's shunted around
the Monday to Friday slot over the 3 Peter Davidson years.
It's not consistent.
John Nathan Turner did actually try to get it moved back to
Saturday nights for this season and Saturday night turn and once a
week because his idea was started a bit later in the year and have
it run through till November to have 5 doctors screen right at the
end of the season.
Now, of course, you know, obviously with the return being
scuppered, that wouldn't have worked anyway.
But it seems a bit odd to me that his 1st season on Saturday
nights performed so poorly, his 2nd season, weeknights, performed
much better, literally double the ratings in some cases.
It seems an odd choice for him to make, but at the same time, the
BBC had been getting letters saying, look, Doctor Who has moved
from 530 or 6 o'clock on a Saturday night to 730 Monday and
Tuesday.
My children are usually in bed by them, but they want to stay up
and watch Doctor Who, and then they're excited about it and they
don't get to bed for another hour.
So I think actually maybe he was being sensitive to that viewer
thing.
I know it sounds funny, but if you look at interviews, Peter
Davidson gives on like BBC Breakfast or News at one and that kind
of thing, quite often, they will talk to him about the
scheduling.
And there's an interview, I think it's on nationwide for the 5
doctors and you've got, uh, You've got Peter, uh, Pat and John and
Pat says something lines up.
Oh, you know, we were on all year, not like this guy, and the host
actually says, well, yes, it's tears before bedtime for me, because
I won't let them stay up and watch it.
So you got to wonder if that has an effect on the ratings.
I think also at this time, the BBC was having money taken out of
it.
And also, uh, department started to be farmed out because remember
by the end of the decade, Doctor Who's the only drama they're
making in-house.
So the drama departments at the BBC are becoming less and less and
less, you've got more American imports over on ITV.
So I think that affects it.
I think yeah, the presence of it.
If they have maybe kept it weeknights but done one a week, it
feels bigger.
It's in people's minds.
Yes for longer.
I mean, that might be a reflection too, on the amount of publicity
that J and T does and all the little hooks he does to try and get
publicity.
Maybe last year was a spike caused by Pete's casting.
Well, I, well, he certainly had a present, so he would have
brought over fans from all creatures great and small.
Yeah, and the other things.
That's right.
So, you know, they've come in to sample it, but, you know, even if
you have, take that 2000000 off, if you compare like the 7000000
this year to the 5000000 for Toms last season, there's still a
differential then.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, it's not quite circling the drain yet.
No.
No, but, you know, the less it's on, the less it's in people's
minds, the less there's that renewal of the younger audience.
And yeah, it's it's never going to be on, even today.
It's never going to be on now for more than 14 weeks of the year.
So it's time for our Jenny Laird awards for most puzzling creative
choice.
And um, for me, it's a pretty easy one this time.
My puzzling creative choice goes to John Nathan Turner for cutting
the extra hour out of the terminus recording.
You know, you've got the director offside.
You've got the cast off side because something you always say told
about when cast members are leaving and they bring their A game
you know.
Sarah Sutton knows she's leaving and then all of a sudden she
knows she has to come back in 6 weeks to record more scenes and
she's, you know, I look at those scenes and I can't tell that it's
2 months later for her.
She a very good actress.
I'm not criticising her.
But it's a matter of, there doesn't seem to have been any
explanation forthcoming as to why the extra hour was yanked away
so late.
You know, if you had a set, if John Nathan Turner had a said to
Mary Ridge. 2 days before, look, I'm really sorry.
I cannot get that extra hour for you.
Let's sit down with the shooting script and see what we can figure
out.
That would have been fine.
And that is a part of the job that the directors have to deal
with.
But she'd already lost 2 days of shooting.
Something I didn't mention last week.
The Kari and all their costumes had to be remade because they were
in blue, even though they were in no blue screen scenes.
Mary Ridge didn't want to get into the position where all of a
sudden.
Oh, crap.
I can't blue screen, blue screen.
And so the costumes had to be entirely remade in white.
You know, and Mary Ridge had said no blue.
You know, it kind of sounds like the Julia Smith on the underwater
menace situation in that no one was helping her on her 1st time
around to make the show she wanted to make because we see in Blake
7 series 4.
She's an incredibly talented director.
She cares about making the show look good.
And as she put it, part of the reason she never went on the show
again.
She was so outraged because she never finishes late.
That was that was her thing.
She does complex things and she gets them done on time, but she
was just treated completely unfairly.
And I'm not someone to bash John Nathan Turner.
I'm not even really someone to bash Eric Saywood. criticise him.
But I'm also able to acknowledge when he does things well, but
John Nathan Turner, what the hell were you thinking cutting an
hour out of a show that had already lost 2 days?
I want to bash Eric, say it, actually.
I thought you might.
Yeah.
We've already spoken a lot about the decision to make Chameleon a
regular, so I'm going to disallow that for my journey to their
nomination this time, although I think it's perhaps the worst
creative decision of the entire.
Oh no.
That is my, that is my choice.
I can't think of anything worse.
I mean, this is a season that had Arc of Infinity with all of its
puzzling creative choices, including bringing Omega back as some
guy who's called Omega, but seems to bear no relationship with our
Omega, who we loved all these years.
That was puzzling and we talked about it quite a lot on our Arc of
Infinity episode, but that could be my my 2nd ranking one.
I don't think it can possibly eclipse, whoever's decision, J and
T's decision, presumably, to bring Chameleon on board as a full
time companion.
Terrible idea.
Right.
Well, I've got a number of nominations for my Jenny Laird and one
of my nominations is the chameleon.
Another nomination.
I think it's for Eric Sayward, looking at these scripts and just
having these corridors and corridors and no deaths and no deaths
and I just, it's just a creative puzzling choice to me that we
didn't break it up with something that wasn't that, and that was
doing my head in for 4 stories, and I think that's a really big
one for me.
What was my other one?
Oh.
The casting?
Of the Lord President.
In Arc of Infinity is one of the worst decisions in the history of
the show, and really, that is like, I think I'm just going to have
to put that in.
As much as I don't like that other, I hate him so much, so much.
I'd even care who his name was.
That's sack, still, listen.
I should have been sacked as far as I'm concerned.
The creative puzzling choice is also from John Nathan Turner, or
grasping onto this thing about the publicity for the season, about
all these returning 20th anniversary, you know, concepts, like
they're just, just nothingness there, really, like it's just a big
fizzle.
So there's a lot of things here that I can nominate for this
season, but I think Leonard Sachs is it.
You see, I feel the same way.
I feel there's so many things in this season that go wrong, but at
the same time, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, but
I have to agree with you there, Todd.
I think a big problem is when they got up and said, we're having
something returning in every story.
It's like if they hadn't have said that, the anticipation wouldn't
have been there.
And the whole season would have been more favourably received.
Matt Smith runs into the same problem with Series 6 where Stephen
Moffatt built up all this anticipation.
Oh, everything changes this season.
You will notice that season seven, season eight, season nine, the
upcoming season 10.
Stephen Moffatt says very little about what to expect now.
Because this isn't necessarily the producers being disingenuous
but any kind of show.
If you big it up to, the more you big it up, the more people will
be disappointed because your words telling us how amazing it's
going to be, they're going to be interpreted differently by
different people.
If you come to this season.
As I originally did, not being aware that it's meant to be this
big celebratory season.
You get some thoughtful sci-fi stories, most of which don't really
hang together.
So this is only kind of like a back ported intention.
Like they didn't set out to have something recurring.
I think that's the other part.
Well, because I mean in season 21, there are a number of returning
elements as well.
Yeah.
And it does become something the show does until Carmel takes over
and puts a stop to it with Paradise Towers.
So it probably would have happened anyway.
This was just a publicity thing.
Yeah, yeah.
But I think the problem isn't bringing stuff back. the problem is
putting up a big billboard saying we're bringing stuff back.
I think bringing stuff back is a problem.
Okay, pics of the week.
I actually have a Twitter account, I think everyone should
follow.
It's called at who labels.
And it's a Twitter account posting pictures of the various labels
and signs that appear in Doctor Who.
I don't think they've done vacuum shield off yet, but they have
specifically said in sort of their raison d'asre.
They're avoiding all the big signs for now.
So they're putting up little signs and seeing if people get them
like Bessie's anti-theft device and the fast return switch.
It's just this joyful Twitter account.
So that is at who labels.
Alright, I'm following them now.
Todd?
My pick of the week. is not Dr. Who.
It's an album by the band Wang Chung. who are very big in the
1980s having such hits as dance hall days.
Let's go, and probably the most famous one. everybody had fun
tonight.
Off their 3rd album, Warmer Side of Cool.
There are 2 tracks.
The 1st one is called Praying to a New God, which I think relates
rather nicely to Snake Dance.
And the 3rd track is called Snake Dance.
Oh, wow.
But it relates to a different sort of snake dancing, and I'll just
leave it at that, and that's my pick of the week.
Go and check it out on iTunes.
Cool.
Mine isn't sort of particularly sort of relevant or contemporary
but over the last school holiday, when I was on the plane, I read
The Writer's Tale again by Russell Davies and Benjamin Cook.
And I love the Russell T. Davies era of Doctor Who.
I really do.
He's my obviously, you know, my favourite of the 2 producers.
And those 1st 4 seasons of Doctor Who, I think, are terrific.
They're really great.
And I also sort of feel that we got to know the production because
we had confidential and we had them all on commentaries and, you
know, we knew David and Julie and Catherine and all of those
people and and so there's something really nice about reminiscing
about that era.
And this is a email correspondence between Doctor Who magazine's
Benjamin Cook and Russell T. Davis about basically the production
of season 4 and the specials.
And it's illustrated with cartoons by Russell T. Davis, who ends
up being a really talented cartoonist, and he draws cartoons of
the characters and scenes that he imagines and things, and he also
talks about what writing is like, and he reflects on his previous
shows and stuff.
It's really, really good.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's amazing.
And I know there are a few of our listeners who are not huge new
series fans.
I would also recommend this book to them because, as you say
Russell goes into quite a bit of detail and quite a bit of self
analysis as to the positives and the negatives of the new series.
And in particular, his analysis of the next doctor and the
solution at the end of the next doctor and how he would have done
it differently and why he kind of says, why did I not think of
this new plot ending before?
It's so it's so obvious and I've made a terrible mistake.
He's he's an incredibly humble writer.
From these emails.
So it is an amazing book.
And I would also say, um, to anyone who enjoys the book, you can
follow Benjamin Cook on Twitter at Benjamin underscore Cook, and
he's very entertaining on Twitter as well.
Right, well, that's all the time we have for season 20, and for
the King's demons, unless that missing third episode turns up.
Do come back next week.
However, we are back with a commentary on the 5 doctors.
And that is for all 4 of us.
Anything can happen in those 90 minutes.
Until then, you can find us online at flightthroughentirety.com
flight through entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast.
Twitter over on Bondfinger, where continuing through the Roger
Moore era with Moonraker on bondfinger.com, on finger on Facebook
and iTunes and Bondfinger cast on Twitter, and I have the complete
60s rundown seasons one to 6 done on Doctor Who in 10 seconds over
on YouTube.
So check that out as well.
Until next time, may no one mind control your robots and turn them
into Jenna Fielding.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Au revoir.
See you soon.
Backwards, flight through entire team.
Todd B will be, Nathan Bottomley and Brendan Jones.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, fairly obvious, was recorded on the 31st of July
2016.
Next episode will be released on October 15.
Fans of ill-conceived shapeshifters can enjoy the series Manimal
from 1983, now available on DVD for some reason.
Do you need cough?
No, but I'm having weird breathing issues.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, it's all right.
I should still live to the end of the recording session.