Welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who
podcast where we really dig your fab gear.
We're still in season 3 of Doctor Who, and we're up to our...
We're up to our final part.
Thankfully, says Richard, who I think is never going to agree to
host one of these again.
It is like one o'clock in the morning now, is it?
crazy.
We really love these guys, these listeners.
We love you.
And the people who love you are, Brendan.
Oh, and Nathan and Richard.
Hello.
And we've just got 3 more stories to talk about.
We have...
We got dried again.
What's the next one called?
We have, we have the gunfighters.
We had the pistolers.
Les Savageors and Le Machine de Guerre.
And we've just lost our only French listener.
We have the gunfighters, the savages and the war machines.
So, girl, let's just get to it. it's your last chance.
Up your glasses and join in the song.
The Lord's right behind you and it won't take long.
So come.
Call the gunfighters.
Oh, hooray.
Woo hoo.
Is this what we do actually all get to be Linda Baron?
No, no, we'll edit that in later.
I think Linda Baron is a part of all of us.
So this is actually my story, which is a bit of a shame because
although I watch it over and over again.
I haven't really got anything at all to say.
No, no, that's not at all true.
I've talked before, I think, about the gunfighters, and I think
people already know what I'm going to say about it.
I have a history of not liking the historical stories very much.
Is this the point at which I should go on a 15 year?
It's about how much I hate the massacre.
No, all right.
And but there are some stories that I really like. essentially the
stories that I like are the Romans, the myth makers and the
gunfighters.
And I've said why before.
Donald Cotton.
Some Donald or Dennis or something.
And it is to do with getting the doctor and his friends and
dumping them in into a story, an existing story with very strong
tropes.
Yeah, well, this one's just all tropes, tropes.
Tropes, tropes, tropes.
Isn't it?
you know, this is the mythmakers again.
This is where Par, Prime, and the old one realises his sons have
got him into a war he shouldn't be getting into.
This one could so easily have been Shane gunfight at the okay.
Well, high noon.
All those Westerns.
You know what?
The Peter Hanning review, Agore, the Jeremy Ben...
No, and you did a beautiful reading last time.
This is so this is outrageous.
This is something that wasn't, can I just say, can we guess that
maybe this wasn't loved by the fans of the, look, it's been said a
lot of times before.
The gunfighters had a really poor reputation among fandom.
But then when we had the opportunity to actually see it.
And I don't know when it got a VHS release.
It was very late on.
It came out as one of the final William Hartnell stories.
There was a box set of 3 videotapes and it was...
It was a leftover, no one gives a crap collection.
Well, almost.
It was the sensor rights and the gunfighters, but it was also the
time meddler because the print of the time medal was so rough it
took them ages to release it.
Yeah, okay, yeah.
But with the other 2 it was these 2 stories are unloved.
Well, and I read, I read wife in space talking about gunfighters
and they were watching a VHS version, and Neil says that the DVD
version was, you know, yet to be released, that they might watch
it again.
And so, you know, it's kind of unloved.
And part of the reason it's unloved is because people didn't
really get the chance to see it.
And, again, we've quoted this before.
This is Peter Haning's book, Doctor Who Celebration, published in
1983, and really the only source that any of us had at the time to
know what this was about.
And here's the final paragraph.
And can you do a...
Oh, okay, and echo effect on.
It was not good.
It was bad and it was ugly.
That's really all I'm doing.
That's so terrible, isn't it?
But the egg effect does...
Does make it sound like the voice of God.
Oh, no, he just says, you know, the serial is poor.
It was massacre of the okay chorale.
You know, the British can't do Westerns, blah, blah, blah, blah
blah.
But I mean, the fact of the matter is, this is an extraordinarily
strong story, a really, really entertaining one right from the get
go.
So suddenly.
Yeah, exactly.
It's really funny.
Suddenly, in fact, he's completely wrong about the production.
It looks amazing.
When are they shooting this?
Like that opening scene.
You know, you're under a cart or something and there's a horse
trough and the camera moves up and you get Linda Barron's song and
it's a street and there's like shop fronts and stuff.
It's this massive set that they're riding horses around.
So it looks spectacular.
You can certainly see why Rex Tucker was the caretaker producer
possibly the really the producer of Doctor Who before Verity
Lambert came into the picture and he sort of departed for various
reasons.
So this it becomes his only official involvement in the program.
But you can see that he is a very competent director.
Both of the vision of the episode.
And there's lots of experimental shots.
He shoots through mirrors to get certain shots in the bar.
There's actually a panel in behind the bar that folds open so we
can shoot a mirror so we can get a certain angle.
Right.
And, you know, he shoots the death of Charlie from a mirror
suspended above so you can see him sprawled across the bottom.
And it's an awful scene, isn't it?
Like that's a terrible shot.
But also, and I am going to say that Mr. Haning is right on one
thing in that the accents are of variable quality, but the actual
performance...
Unlike dodo's accent, you know.
And she's actually from that country.
That was leading to a compliment.
The performances.
The actors' performances and intention are very good.
Absolute.
There, you know, there is not a single character that I would
point to and say, you're, you know, you're not giving this your
all.
Everyone.
And, you know, one of the, um, the lesser Clanton brothers decides
yeah, I don't have very much to do.
So I'm going to give my character a stutter.
And it really, it really elevates him and makes him a memorable
character.
So when he does get locked up later in the story, those scenes are
actually interesting because, you know, he's...
No, I can't keep the Clanton straight in my head.
No, no, no.
But, um, it's Ike and Phineas Clanton and Billy Clanton and...
Warren is...
Warren Earp is...
Well, there's Warren.
Well, he's going to Warren against who gets shot.
It is hard to keep track of all the characters.
If they does stick to the history as far as we know.
Yeah.
Well, it's divergent.
There's divergent history.
It is to me.
But, but the, and the fun thing, I think, too, is like we're
having fun because we recognise the, the, um, tropes.
So we're kind of having fun.
But they're having fun as well.
And so the moment, you know, they come out of the TARDIS.
They get old Dodo and Stephen rush back in.
They realise where they are.
They rush back in and they put on cowboy outfits and cowgirl
outfits, but sort of preposterous camp.
That's right.
And in a sense, that actually works quite well because, by
contrast, the cowboys, who are sort of slightly fake and not sort
of massively convincing.
They also want accents from one episode to another.
Yeah, that's kind of fun.
That's sporting.
But it's like, oh, that's what Shane River's doing. next week.
Meanwhile, Shane Rimmer's going, oh, that's what William Handel's
doing. that next week.
So it points up that they don't really belong in this world.
They're not kind of fitted to it.
And it makes the cowboys, who could have been slightly crummy
actually appear a bit more real and dangerous because they go into
this world.
They've got guns and they're sort of being silly and, you know
terribly excited and Steven's wearing sort of satin and tassels
and all sorts of stuff.
So it is sort of, you know, he's camping it up.
And what they don't realise is that they're in a situation where
there's very real danger.
And this is a world where guns, you know, we've talked about guns
before and it's going to come up again, but this whole thing ends
in a giant gunfight.
We promised it by the song, you know, very early on.
Um, this is, uh, you know, this isn't the kind of world that
they're sort of suited for.
But the whole thing is sort of played for comic effects and it
is...
This is the 1st time since 1st season that Billy really gets into
it.
He's really entered one of Hartnell's things.
He wanted to do a cowboy, an Indian.
And the thing we forget, just like Patrick Magoon when he made the
prisoner a couple of years later, wanted to do a Western trope, I
could believe is the word you used, in that it was a big thing
just as for us, I guess, post-Star Wars. sci-fi stuff is a big
thing.
It was for them.
It was the go to default.
External drama.
Yeah, yeah.
No, no, no.
I mean it was huge.
I mean, it was massive in Star Trek, this one and all of that sort
of thing.
But it's the thing that you go and see, you know, on, you know, at
the movies and that sort of thing, that's the action adventure
genre that people go to.
So it is huge and it is the 1st time the BBC ever attempts.
And they were a bit nervous about it.
Because, you know, the bar was set by John Houston and films like
The Searchers and we've mentioned high noon.
We've mentioned that.
Actually, does that make Dodo the Grace Kelly part in this?
Only their mothers could tell them a part.
Yeah, so anyway.
So, and we go, we go from, we go from that incredible comedy to
that fantastic scene between the doctor and Doc Holiday, because
what we haven't mentioned is that the celestial toymaker.
I'm trying to expunge that from my memory.
Did Billy Bunter give him some poison toffee or something?
Yeah, yeah.
He had these sweets, which he gave the whole bag to dodo, but she
didn't have any.
So she offered them to the doctor.
And the doctor breaks his twos.
And so the doctor has to go to a dentist.
And so he goes to Doc Holiday and, you know, Doc, there's all that
business with the drink, you know, the doctor's like, oh, I never
touch the stuff.
And Doc Holiday says, oh, I do, and he starts getting drunk
because it's like his first.
And Billy just gives him the whole sort of Llana from Archer side
eye.
Like, are you really doing that?
Yeah, I mean, it's, and getting back to something we've been
talking about for the last 3 podcasts, Doctor Who stops being so
nasty.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
People kind of go, you know, why why do Stephen and Dodo rush off
into this dangerous environment is because compared to what
they've had over the last few weeks with Stephen being chased by
Daleks and everyone he meets on the course of that being killed
and them releasing a plague upon the human race and the massacre
of Saint Bartholomew's Eve named after the event at which it
didn't take place?
Shush.
And, and, you know, the celestial toymaker and electrical laws.
They're finally, it's this environment.
It's like a watery oasis in the middle of a desert.
Of course they're going to just jump in and go, yeah, this is
brilliant.
And then of course, by the end of episode one, go, oh, actually
we're in hideous danger.
Well, they're actually fans of Westerns themselves too.
I always wanted to be a cowboy.
I always wanted to be a cowgirl.
Like, they've clearly watched them at the movies or whatever.
So, or what do you have in the future where Stephen comes from
holographic brain implants or something.
But they're watching Western ones of those.
So they're excited by this.
And then we have the scene with the doctor and Doc Holiday, and
there we have like just about my favourite cliffhanger ever, which
is the doctor walking along.
But like we've got Stephen and Dodo, they're in the thing, they're
being forced by the Clantons to play Linda Baron song and they're
doing that and like Dodo's discovered how to play the piano shit.
Vicki probably left some pills, you know, the how to play the
piano course that she did at nursery school, you know.
So they've been left in the town.
She can suddenly play the piano.
Stephen singing the song, which is just sort of spectacular and
wonderful.
The Clantons are all waiting for Doc Holiday to come along because
they're going to kill him.
Dog holiday has tricked the doctor into taking on his identity.
He's clutching his face because he said his tooth out, and he's
got a gun, which is kind of going, why do I have a gun?
and he's kind of walking along.
And then it sort of bades out.
It's kind of low key, but there's danger and comedy and just
everything in it.
I think it's I think it's a real, real high point.
I think at this point we should talk about the song.
Which permeates the entire story.
I'm going to go out there and start off by saying, I think it's a
very good idea because again, it's one of the tropes of the
Western.
And it's used to pretty good effects.
Occasionally it doesn't work.
There's a bit in, I think, it's episode 3 or 4 where Johnny Ringo
finds Kate and the verse actually goes, Johnny Ringo has found
her.
Johnny Ringo's found Kate.
Johnny Ringo has seen her.
Right, so the last 3 lines. exactly the same thing.
And it happens a couple of times.
Other times it's very witty.
Like, he's gone kind of mental from Earth's heavy blow.
You know, that's that's quite good.
And the verse about Charlie the Barman dying.
But yeah, I think that just seems like some sometimes Tristram
Carey is just sitting at his kitchen table at one AM going, I just
want to finish this.
It is, but that's terrific too.
And Charlie gets killed by Johnny Ringo. when does Johnny Ringo
come in?
Episode 3 or four.
It must be episode three.
Yes.
And it's slightly like the myth makers in that it's all sort of
fun and frolics.
And then someone's killed.
And then it all ends in a sort of giant.
This is the thing.
We've got another story.
Just as the Westerns, you know, in 1960, you had 35 different TV
American made TV series of Westerns around the world.
Australian Britain can get all of them, but we certainly got the
best of the best of them.
But by the mid 60s.
There were shows like the Wild, Wild West.
Do you know about that one?
which was a spoof.
They made an awful film version of the year, Will Smith.
But it was kind of a send-up of Westerns.
Well, you were getting things like Sergio Leone making his
spaghetti Westerns with those beautiful Enio Morricone scores, but
they were looking at it a bit sideways, as in a kind of true grist
probably the best one of them.
It was starting to be seen as something tawdry and sad and lost.
It was looking at ancient history.
It was the Middle Ages already.
So something that's not just a 100 years ago.
Yeah, 5 years, it was all now spies in space.
Yeah, right.
So doing a Western was a kind of tongue in cheek thing.
Again, this is almost another mythmakers where it starts off
really jolly.
You kind of know, again, with the people we've got on screen.
It's Dodo and Stephen.
Something horrible is going to happen to just about bloody
everyone.
And it is also because we kind of know that the okay Corral and
the gunfight, but it is also because Linda Barron is singing about
it right from the get-go, we know that it's sort of leading up to
that.
And then Johnny Ringo comes in and shoots Charlie the barman and
then it sort of starts to get a bit nasty.
And all of those deaths, the deaths that all happen all get
commemorated in her song as well.
Yeah, we don't we don't just get to, and and we, you know, Charlie
the Barman is lying dead on the bar while we get a whole verse of
it, you know, and he's been kind of sweet and he's sort of
starstruck when he meets Johnny Ringo and, you know, like kind of
excited and stuff.
And that's all sort of really quite horrible.
So there's sort of darkness to it.
But I just don't feel like grindingly, you know, it's not so...
The tone is far better balanced than in the myth makers.
Yeah.
And I think the Mythmakers is a better script, but I think
gunfighters balances its excesses better.
I think, I mean, it's hard to tell and maybe I would like the myth
makers more if it existed and it wasn't just a slide show.
But the production of this is so great and everyone's so funny.
Stephen is hilarious.
Dodo gets some great bits like that.
I've always finally been playing exactly in the right space, you
know, outside of any expectations.
You don't need a back character to do this.
Just like Stephen doesn't.
Jackie Lane is actually really, really good.
They're all having fun.
I would say she's got better comic timing than Peter Purpose.
She is really funny in it.
She is terrific.
She was well respected before she got into Doctor Who, so...
She's got that wonderful bit where she pulls the gun on Doc
Holiday.
Yeah, and then she faints.
Yeah, well, she faints when she realises he had a gun and could
have killed her at any moment.
So, you know, it's it's still allowing her to be a vulnerable
character.
But giving her strength, like they used to do with Vicky and like
has really hasn't happened to Dodo until this point.
She's also the only one of the 3 leads involved in the gunfight at
the end.
That's true actually.
Yeah, where does Billy go?
He kind of.
Well, Billy's out at the Clanton farm.
He goes there to try and stop them.
But they've already left.
Weirdly.
Yeah.
And he, he was filmed arriving at the, at the aftermath of the
gunfight with Park Lantern, and Park Lantern tries to attack Wyatt
Earp, and Kate, the song, the songstress saves him, and stops him
and says, look, it's pointless, your sons are dead, et cetera.
But they cut that bit.
They decided we'll end on the feet.
You know, the famous feet standing together of Doc Holiday and
White Earp and what have you.
And it is, I mean, it does have the, it does commit the sin that
other historicals commit, which is to make the doctor peripheral
to the action.
And so the doctor kind of has to escape at the end, really, rather
than doing anything to resolve anything, so, you know, as the
story, as the show moves into something where it's about the
doctor as a hero and the doctor sort of doing things, you know
like historicals become increasingly problematic.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, he does learn how to solve incidents, you know, after
being mistaken for Doc Holiday through it, he does finally
continue Doc's habit of smacking dodo on the bum.
Yeah, because they give them a they give them a wanted poster at
the end.
Like, here's a superior in the old West and Dodo says something
and he just smacks her on the bomb to give her into the TARDIS
with the thing, not with his hand.
Not with his hand.
No.
He doesn't give her a good, jolly good smack.
But, you know, it's...
It's the kind of thing you can imagine one of the modern doctors.
Carrying on in the time.
Perhaps not Peter Capaldi. you know, by the time this podcast goes
out, we will have had 3 or 4 Peter Capaldi episodes.
We will have.
We'll be old hands.
We'll be sick of him When's the next guy coming?
We'll have to get t-shirts.
Come back, Matt Smith.
That's in the next podcast.
Yeah, so what else do we have?
It's much, much better than people give it credit for.
So long as so long as you kind of accept that as much as it is the
Western in itself, it's also sending up the Western side.
And look who's making it.
Donald Coughman's writing and Rex Tucker.
Rex Tucker for an hour was the producer of the 1st six.
Yeah, you know.
Oh no, I think it's, I really think it's spectacular.
It's one of my absolute favourite heart andals. seeing it again in
context.
It was so nice to see a story where the doctor wasn't in some way
sidelined or wasn't horribly uncomfortable.
And where he's enjoying himself, like he's doing some great comedy
acting.
He's, you know, fun and funny and all sorts of things.
I really like him.
I think I've just read what Rod had to say about the gunfighters
hated it today. hated it.
So what did he say?
He agreed with me that the song was everything that just
happened.
I just saw that, you stupid woman.
He also, he also...
Nurse Gladys Emanuel, he's saying.
He also he also said, I have nothing against Linda Baron, but why
did she, why did she not lose her voice and Julie Andrews did?
However, there was one really good scene for Dodo.
It was very nice to see Stephen in chaps.
He does that.
You know what that means.
He does fancy Stephen quite quite a bit.
So past comments about Steve and I hadn't mentioned until now.
Rod said that he actually had the striped top that Stephen had, but
he had it in the 1970s and he said he looked much better in it
than Stephen did.
And Stephen didn't look too bad in it either.
And also, apparently, way, way back in the massacre.
And this is something you may want to watch it for again.
Stephen's showy outfit left nothing to the imagination.
I'm quite impressed.
Yeah, even that is not going to make me rewatch that, I can tell
you that.
But I think I think it's time to leave Tombstone.
Goodbye.
Yes, and a jolly good smack bottom to everyone.
It's really worth watching.
It's thoroughly enjoyable and funny.
Just like those little segue stories in Star Trek next generation
where they do a fistful of data.
Well, a rain, exactly.
I was going to say, or a Raymond Chandler with one when they do
the... the royale.
Yeah, exactly.
The big goodbye, the long...
Yes.
But whenever they go into standard Arza styles of storytelling.
Yeah, exactly.
And you can just see the whole cast having a whole lot of fun and
everyone, in fact, feeling like they're on holiday.
This one does that.
It's got a sterling cast.
It's got David Graham and Shane Rimmer straight from finishing
their final voice recordings for Thunderbirds and then 2 weeks
later.
Dalek, isn't he?
also a dark.
So we own him many times.
And then you've got Lawrence...
Lawrence Payne, Lawrence Payne, who's Johnny Bingo, who's
fabulous.
Do you know who was actually originally cast for that role, but
they couldn't get him?
And he turns up in Doctor Who later on.
Oh, a little old actor called Patrick Troughton.
Oh, really?
Really?
Yes, that would have been amazing.
Yeah, 1st cast.
And interestingly about Lawrence Payne, because by the time
Lawrence Payne reappears in Doctor Who in the 80s, he'd retired
from acting.
He did play in Westerns legitimately.
Yeah, absolutely.
With an accent.
He's actually good.
Well, that's the thing.
He doesn't try to put on an accent.
Well, he sort of does.
No, he's compared compared to the other, he sort of puts... not as
terrible as anyone else's, but it's not good.
It's like someone once showed him that if I'm wrong, but I think
he's a yank.
Oh, I don't know.
But you see, I had heard he'd retired because he had an eye injury
and lost most of the vision in one eye, but that had already
happened at this point.
Oh really?
It was during a sword fight.
Wow.
I think he much took a sword to the eye.
And yeah, lost most of the vision in one eye.
I think that's why Dastari wears those glasses.
Yeah, as he as he got older, I believe he needed the glasses in
the Spanish sunshine.
So they retroactively applied it.
But yeah, I mean, he...
And he's, we should mention, we should mention that Lot mentioned
that Lawrence Payne had also played Athos in Rex Tucker's 1950s
version of the 3 Musketeers.
That's where he got his injury, believe.
Yeah, and Portos was Paul Whitson Jones.
Do you think Peter Capaldi was in that version as well?
All with son Jones.
Imagine seeing him with a sabre, you know?
The Brian Blessed of his day.
Did you know who Aramis was in that one?
Nope, Roger Delgado.
We've got to find it somewhere.
I don't think exists.
You know, I think some real luminary talents in this.
Yeah, it's probably done on film.
If anyone knows, please, let us know.
I mean, we may find it before we find it.
I actually think Lawrence Payne is possibly he's probably equal
with Anthony Jacobs in terms of the best guest performance in this
story.
Yeah, he is really good.
And it is, I'm not sure that it's because he gets the accent
right.
I think it is because he's playing it in a different way.
So the Clantons and Doc Holiday are playing it big, do you know
what I mean?
And he comes in and sort of plays against that, in order to be
more menacing.
Yeah, yeah.
And so like his accent is still not great.
But his performance is really striking.
He makes me think of a classic from my childhood, which is who
framed Roger Rabbit?
Oh, God.
Why is that from your childhood, Brendan?
But the villain, the villain who turns up in that. sort of
everyone's playing it at one level, and then Christopher Lloyd is
a villain comes in and he is just completely, he's still cartoony
but he's just completely dark and evil.
And that's what Johnny Ringo's like. sort of the Clantons and
versus holiday.
There's a bit of jovial fun in there and, you know, they want to
kill him, but they want to have a laugh along with it, whereas
Johnny Ringo is just, no, you've called me here to kill someone.
Don't muck about.
We're gonna do this.
And as you say, that's so effective because both styles are still
utterly believable in this context.
And I think just before we move on, it's worth mentioning, of
course, Anthony Jacob's other connection to Doctor Who.
His son, Matthew Jacobs, wrote the script for the Paul McGain.
Yeah, yeah, and he was on the set.
And I've seen an interview with him.
And what's the 8th doctor where his costume does he wear?
Well, Bill Hickock.
Yeah.
Spoiler alert, I really hate that.
Okay, well, we'll tell you more about it in 2016 or...
Oh, by the way, did I mention that?
Well, moving on to something that I think spoiler alert, we're all
going to enjoy.
It's the savages.
I think we are.
Like the score.
Yeah, isn't the score weird?
It's got all these strings.
It's like, do you remember it, Brendan?
It's really extraordinary.
It's like nothing.
Who is it, Richard, do you know?
It's very, very strange and very different from whatever we've
heard before.
And so, I mean, there are some things here that we've never seen
before.
Well, I mean, let's talk about this. the status of the story
first.
It doesn't exist.
It doesn't exist. right towards the end of series three.
Nearly no one's seen it.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it's really forgotten.
I had I had not seen the recon or heard the audio until I washed
it with God.
It was the 1st story that he had seen for the 1st time that I had
also seen for the 1st time.
So it's very interesting in that regard.
Well, I mean, I've had that experience just sort of recently with
a few things I'd never seen the Myth Makers before.
I had never seen Marco Polo before.
You know, there's heaps of stuff that I'm now seeing for the 1st
time.
But the savages was one that where I didn't really have any idea
of what I was supposed to think about it.
You know, I didn't really know what the opinion was meant to be.
And certainly I'd heard the plot described and it didn't seem all
that interesting.
But in fact, it actually ends up being really surprisingly
strong.
I liked it a great deal.
And it's kind of a bit of a tonic after the arc to have a story
that is about colonialism or really about any form of oppression.
Do you know what I mean?
It doesn't have to be about colonely colonialism, although the
race thing, because, you know, we've got blackface.
Well, although he's not actually black, it's sort of orangey
bronze.
It's a sort of gold major.
Yeah, yeah, but it's darker. you know, like Frederick.
Look, you know, it's the received BBC way of any guy playing
Othello.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, that's sort of problematic in modern terms and
stuff.
But not everyone is sort of consistently blackface.
Like, Avon, isn't there a character called Avon and his
girlfriend?
Like they....
I just looked it up.
Raymond Jones did the music, who also did the music for the
Romans.
Okay.
This is really different from the Romans, though.
It's really, really strong.
It's not what this feels to me like, and again, because BBC didn't
get Star Trek until a very late 60s.
This feels like an episode of Trek.
It does have a Star Trek sort of feel to it.
Flower children, not withstanding as being obvious, but it does.
That allegorical high concept thing.
Ian Stuart Black will do it again.
I've just watched Macrterra, which I've heard before.
And I think macrater is like a satire of, like it's an attack on
capitalism.
And I think that this is attack on colonialism, but it's blackface
and stuff aside, it's unspecific enough for it to be an attack on
oppression generally.
And so what you have is the elders and they live off the life
energy of the savages.
And whether you interpret that as an allegory for, you know, coming
to their country and enslaving and exploiting them and taking
their resources.
Well, it's old guys sucking the vital juices out of young local
primitives.
Have we mentioned Peter Capelli?
But do you know what I mean?
Like it could be that or it could just be capitalism, you know
like wage slavery or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. works with any form of oppression.
And like it's, it's, it's done so strongly.
So, so the very 1st episode has Exhaws hunting.
Oh, I want to say Nanina or something.
Uh...
Anyway, pretty gorgeous young woman.
Yeah, she's called Nanina.
It's very...
George Powell again.
She's blonde.
Oh, yeah.
She's very blonde, pretty, and, you know, she gets captured and
put in a special machine that takes out her life essence, and
we're all vague about that because that's what the allegory is
about.
But she's so horribly traumatised by it. it's like she's begging
not to be... really, really kind of, you know, a bit awful.
And all the elders live in sort of luxury and happiness and, you
know, they've achieved a great deal and they're massively leisured
and massively educated and they live in great comfort and they're
super pleased with themselves, you know.
And even the doctor is sort of impressed by their society until he
discovers, you know, in fact, what it's built on.
And we don't see this from Billy enough or very much, but it
becomes Trout and standard operating thing, which is why I think
Macrater is slightly more successful than this at doing the same
job.
It's revolution and he wants to overthrow the society sort of
thing.
But before he can do that, of course, he's putting the machine.
And his life essence gets taken out by Jane O. he's left in there
for quite a while.
Does he get a day a week off?
Well, not quite.
There is one episode where he doesn't do much, but he is still
there because there's a little bit of existing footage.
It's this whole thing of it's a story that not only manages to
give the doctor a really strong moral role to do, but it gives him
time to actually be endangered and that gives the narrative a
sense of, okay, no, the doctor's really in danger here and he's
having his life has been sucked out and we've seen what that's
done to Nanina.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, of course, that leads to a brilliant performance by Frederick
Yeager, impersonating the doctor, well, impersonating William
Hartnold.
Yeah, so Frederick Yeager will...
He'll go on to be in Doctor Who again.
He'll be Sorenson and he'll be Professor Marius, who created K 9.
And he, like, I'm not sure that he's that terrific.
Do you think they were tipping him to actually like it's a
recording to see how he would have gone?
Yeah, it is.
It is possibly, you know, because...
Don't forget this is Inis Lloyd's story.
And yeah, and they're really trying to get rid of experimenting
with things they can do.
So, you know, look, I'm not sure it's a great heart and all that
he does.
But it's sort of passable.
And now that I think about it, it is that thing.
He doesn't get a week off, does he?
Hartnell gets dragged through tunnel.
He's still watching Freddie Yoga as well.
And but he gets he gets dragged through tunnels and he's kind of
incapacitated and he can't act.
He can't do anything.
So he's completely kind of like they really, really suck out his
life essence. sort of a zombie for an episode.
And the thing that happens to Jaino is, of course.
Hello, Su Tech.
Uh, Su Tech.
J She agrees yes.
No, sweetheart.
So what happens to Janeo is a science fiction thing.
Do you know what I mean?
Like he feeds on the doctor's life energy.
And he gains a conscience.
He realises that their exploitation of the savages is immoral, all
right?
But I think what's really clever is that there's a parallel story
going on as well.
Because Exorce gets captured by the savages and they're going to
kill him and Nanina, whom he had captured and mistreated earlier
intercedes on his behalf.
And because she does something kind.
Do you know what I mean?
Even though she had every right to take revenge on him.
He's won over.
Like he's convinced that these are people.
And so while there's a kind of slightly stupid science fiction
thing going on to convince Jano to switch sides.
What convinces Exhorce to switch science is the realisation that
the savages are people just like him, that they're not outside the
boundaries of his moral concern?
And that's, you know, in order to exploit people in order to
mistreat them.
We have to regard, we have to kind of say, well, we have no
responsibility to treat them morally.
And that's what the elders do conspicuously.
They regard the savages as animals.
They say that the savages can be exploited.
And it's an act of kindness that, you know, that turns things
around.
And I think it's, I think that's terribly clever.
I think had it just been, you know, the magical life essence thing
that would have been slightly more crap.
It's just, as you say, it's so the difference, a production team
makes, because by now you've got Innis Lloyd as producer, and
Innis Lloyd comes in even quicker than John Wiles came in and just
takes the reins far quicker, and you've got Jerry Davis as well.
John Wiles, ideal sci-fi story, if you like, was the arc.
Yeah.
And Innis Lloyd, this isn't even necessarily his ideal sci-fi
story, but his 1st sci-fi story he manages to pull out is this
complex moral allegory about exploitation and about it, so it can
be about racism.
It can be about sexism.
It can be about all these things and it gives each the regulars
something interesting to do.
It gives the guest cast something interesting to do.
And it's just all of all of a sudden Doctor Who's adult again and
dark and hopeful at the same time rather than suddenly veering
violently between the two.
It's s This is really poignant, isn't it?
This is poignant for how Australia is being seen, but not so much
by, I guess, by ourselves, by some of us, but by the rest of the
world, because the allegory of how the elders live in a free state
and see themselves as morally justified is how, can I say it, is
how we're treating the asylum seekers coming to Australia by
boat.
But it's and look at the way the rest of the world are seeing us
right now.
This is absolutely of the time.
But it does work for any kind of oppression that you identify.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, the starting point is clearly race just because of, uh, yeah
yeah, you know, in Jano, Frederick Jager.
I wanted to say both at the same time, but because he's, because
he's in blackface, you know, there's a race thing, but it does
work with anything.
And I think, like, as I said, I've just watched the macraterra, I
think Ian Stewart Black is writing very, very much about
capitalism in the macraterra.
And so you've had a program that has been kind of racist and kind
of opposed to Vicky and opposed to strong women and like just
slightly politically nasty for a while and now it's Doctor Who
again. you know, he incites revolution against oppressive people.
But more than that, he convinces the oppressive people that
they've done the wrong thing, and the whole thing ends with them
taking machines, and smashing up the room, the preparation room
thing, and talking about how much they enjoy it.
Like there's dialogue in there about how much fun it is to smash
smash the system. the system.
So I just think, I think it's a real unsung gem.
Yeah.
And and also that feeds into the departure of Stephen.
Can we talk about Stephen?
I think we should.
And arguably, it's the most telegraphed leaving of a Hartnell
companion because all the way through.
I mean, because of course, the doctor's incapacitated early on.
So Stephen takes the lead once again.
And Stephen is talking to people on both sides and saying, but
look, this is wrong and I don't trust this and you shouldn't, what
about this?
What about that?
Stephen's actually coming into this status quo and saying, okay, so
you've got this system of plenty.
Where's the plenty coming from?
You know, and to, for your comparison, Richard, he's actually a
kind of politician who's saying, okay, but you need to understand
your environment and what you're getting out of your environment.
Okay, so you're saying the people out there are evil.
Why are they evil?
Okay, they look funny?
What?
No, that's not that's not good.
What?
That's not good enough.
So, I mean, not only is Stephen the sort of moral compass for the
allegory.
Of course, the doctor's very moral as well, and Dodo, when she
finds out what's going on is appalled.
There's this great line about Dodo, where Dodo wanders off, doesn't
she?
And like those, the horrible upperclass people who are, you know
Avon and Samira or something.
What's she called?
Oh, I can't remember.
Avon and what's a face.
And she wanders off and they go, oh, you know, she can't possibly
have gone anywhere.
And she's sort of wandering through the tunnels and stuff.
And I think Stephen follows her and says, you know, even Dodo
wouldn't have been that stupid. out.
But Dodo discovers it and he's horrified.
And so she actually has a sort of decent role to play here.
Yeah, once again, you know, get a decent writer and a producer who
cares about women.
You start getting that decent part there.
But yeah, Stephen shows sort of how much he has learned from the
doctor.
And in the end, he, you know, he even said, you know, doctor.
Okay, yeah, if you think I'm ready for this, then I will then I
will do this thing.
It's heartrending.
But once again, it actually feels kind of appropriate that Stephen
would go off and do this thing.
It's a real high note.
Yeah. that the companion finally leaves on a point of strength.
And by his own volition, and maybe because it's a boy.
Actually gets to call his own shot.
Yeah, you know, Ian and Barbara leave in a sort of good way.
But it is a bit different, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
They're grown-ups and they're kind of people and they need to go
back to Earth for like no other solution would work.
Do you know what I mean?
Like imagine the doctor had pushed them out somewhere, you know, in
ruined London or ancient Troy or something?
It just would be terrible.
It couldn't have worked.
But we're at the point we're past the point now where the
companions are anything resembling real people and who cares.
And so, Stephen, given that, Stephen gets a really good sendoff.
And given that he has de facto been the lead of the show for a
while.
Do you know what I mean?
He deserves, he deserves to be the leader of something.
And so I think that works terribly well.
And something that's really nice about it is Peter Purpose's own
reaction to that because he, you know, he knew his contract was up
and he said, no, I don't want to do anymore.
And when he got it, he's like, yeah, that's actually a good way to
go out.
And he's always said that if they ever came back to Stephen, he
would actually like to see that Stephen had become corrupted by
power, because he still felt that even though Stephen was a good
and noble character, whenever you had someone in a position of
power, because he's like, Stephen wasn't elected, he was just put
in this position.
So who's to say he won't still be there in 50 years?
And he said, I'd like to see Stephen comeback. and be a despot, be
reminded how to be good by meeting the doctor again.
Ah, yeah.
And, you know, I'm sure he would have just retired and, you know
maybe.
Yeah, spent more time with his hair, perhaps.
But, you know, it just goes to show that I think I said earlier
but the mic wasn't on. when we were just setting up, Stephen is
like Mel, you know, he's not much of a character, but an actor
going, okay, I haven't got much to work with, but I'm going to
give a very good, very morally centred performance.
And just do the best I can.
Is that the Jenna Coleman?
Yeah, well, yeah, Jenna Coleman now.
Again, she's a fantastic actress.
I really enjoy watching her, but she's given very little character
to work.
Interchangeable parents.
Yeah, no, I never really understood that.
But, you know, Stephen has been more important to the show than
either of them.
Do you know what I mean?
in that it's really early on and you virtually like you have a
production team trying to ease Hartnell out.
And so they rely on Stephen and, you know, like the massacre is
the Stevens show and and, you know, Stephen and Dodo are doing the
celestial toy maker and like again and again, Stephen is the
person who has kept the show going.
And he is good.
He's fun to watch, isn't he?
He's got some charisma and things.
I mean, I suppose that's why he's got so little, you know, when
when you talk about Stephen, you go, oh, he's a space pirate and
he's very brave, but he doesn't have a very complex character
because the doctor at this point is not a complex character.
The doctor is, uh, no, no, he's played in a very complex way, but
you can't define him.
Because so little is known about him.
And that's because he needs to be so many things.
And so when, so much of the moment.
The doctor is always the, that's why he's the centre of the
narrative, he's kind of exists slightly outside it.
Exactly.
And that's the case with Stephen in those stories.
I mean, if you look at Ian, you know, you can describe Ian as very
brave, but in a situation, you know how Ian will act.
You know that Ian will grab a gun or a sword and say, right, we'll
take it to them.
You know that Barbara will turn around and say, no, we've got to
think of a logical way out of this.
You know that Vicki will be a bit quirky and a bit witty and a bit
charming.
And revolutionary.
But with Stephen, you know, he can do the fighting.
He can do the biff.
He can do the, I'm so angry.
I'm so frustrated.
I am going to do something silly and he can do the whole standing
up to racism and oppression.
He can do the muling in an airlock.
I think, yeah, I think you're onto something there, Nathan. because
he takes over the lead.
That is when he loses some of the definition in his character
because he has to be all things to all men.
I think even, you know, Richard, were you talking earlier about
the, about the scene with the, um, with the, no, no, or was it
you?
It was the Stephen is trying to charge the fake terranium for...
Oh, yeah, that was me.
That was you.
Stephen's trying to charge the fake geranium core and he
electrocutes himself and there's a plot point based on the fact
that he's from further back in time than...
But in fact, you know, after that, it doesn't matter where he's
from or what his background is, nothing is ever mentioned about
what year he's from or what his job was or anything about his
background at all, it becomes completely irrelevant.
He's merely a plot contrived.
So he's a, uh, you know, like he's a charismatic, um, and, you
know, well-acted plot contrivance, but essentially that's really
all he is.
But we love him and we're sorry for his goal.
He just acts above me on that.
Yeah, he's been the strongest centre in the stories this year.
Rod really enjoyed this one as well.
And he picked up on something you mentioned earlier, the whole
George Powell time machine.
Because in that, you know, you had a civilised perfect society, but
it was controlled by the Morlocks.
In this version.
If you look at the savages as being the Morlocks.
This is the civilised controlled society, controlling the
Morlocks.
It's like, no, this is far, far worse.
Yeah.
But Rod's other reaction to this story in terms of Stephen going
was, what?
Because he really was upsetting the cat.
Rob was horrified to hear he upsets the cat.
My boyfriend is the cat whisperer.
I'm sorry, Su Tech. didn't mean to upset you.
And again. reaction.
Oh dear.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Oh, dear.
Don do that.
She'll scratch her eyes out.
Do we have anything more to say on the savages?
Oh, she does.
It's a terrific thing.
I only know it as an audio, but I really like it as that, you know
although apparently the visuals look great.
It was Christopher Barry again, wasn't it?
The more caves.
It's our first quarry.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, he doesn't make a lot of what he uses from what we can
tell.
The biggest location shoots in some Dale Conversion of Earth, I
believe.
Lots of quarry stuff.
Okay, so that can mean only one thing.
Have we just gone groovy and fab all of a sudden?
We've just got groovy and fabulous.
Is that why we've all changed into these PVCA-line coats and train
drivers caps?
Yes, Brandon, we've got our clothes on.
Well, I should hope so.
Mine's orange PDC, by the way.
It just looks gray in the black and white footage.
Despite what anyone else may hear, that's the creaking you may
hear.
No, we're coming back down to Earth.
Tannas is coming back to 1966.
For the war machines.
Another story by Ian Stuart Black, who we just praised and adored
for his work on the savages.
And also, this comes from an idea by Kit Peddler, who had, recently
come on board as Doctor Who's unofficial scientific advisor.
He's actually where the whole title of scientific advisor would
later come from as an homage to him.
But he was a scientist.
I believe he worked in optics, optic science.
Ophthalmology, I think, is the official term for that.
And so what was he advising them about here?
Was he telling them how computers were?
Well, what he was doing was he was coming up with current
scientific ideas that could be used in dramatic situations.
So yeah, his 1st idea was, you know, computers beginning to
network themselves and what would happen if the computers decided
they were better at running things after they networked
themselves.
So, you know, it's, um, it's uh, 80s concerns, really, such as
Skynet in the, um, it's such a Skynet in the Terminator film. films
but done in the 1960s because the 1st email was sent in the 1950s
I believe.
And so he was working from that principle that computers were
starting to become more common, the post office tower had just
opened and had a giant computer relaying all the telephone calls.
So he, I think, had the idea of what happens in this computer
develops intelligence and goes rogue and that's how concept here.
It's Doctor Who's 1st mad computer.
It really is.
There's a whole lot of, you know, we forget how fearful culture in
the world was about computers in the 60s.
We were seeing them as things that could actually take over our
world and maybe through Facebook's instant messenger, we're about
to find out if you've adopted that, that it might actually start
to be happening.
Well, in fact, you had, we mentioned this in a previous podcast
that we had Dr. Stephen Hawking, who recently saying the thing
you've got to most fear is not a virus or climate change.
It's AI.
Is that someone else?
Who was that?
Yeah, Stephen Hawking just said it in this year in a press.
Yeah.
It's all getting horribly Nazi.
Okay, Votan is the leader of the Nieverlong, and we've got
Wagner's d- d- d-, which is going to be Nazi.
But don't forget, IBM started out with the Fortran card.
Process, the whole beginning of modern computer and how it's able
to organise information.
It was designed for the National Socialist Party and organising
all the persons who were going to be taken away to the camps.
Every single person had a card.
That's where the tech has come from.
But it also comes.
You knew this in the 60s.
Yeah, it also comes, you know, like the whole computer thing as
well. the enigma machine and all of that.
So like so many developments in the modern world that is propelled
by the Second World War.
Yes.
And but through the filters of Nazism and now communism, Don't
forget, when Polly starts to be taken over, she sounds exactly
like Madame Mao again in her pronouncements, from now on China
whereas Dodo just turns into I don't know what, when she's taken
over, this is written.
No, I really do think, well, this is about the thread of
computers.
This is the 1st time that we've actually seen the doctor have a
truly somatic reaction to an ongoing or an entological... evil...
He gets a skin rash from it.
He says my skin is and and you can just see.
There's genuine, you haven't seen genuine fear in the doctor very
often, which then, of course, triumphs in that fan, my favourite
cliffhanger, maybe so far is when he does that whole fantastic pre
capaldi standoff with...
At the end of episode three.
Is this my I mean, is this our favourite villain monster machine
since the Daleks themselves?
Although I can remember.
Do you remember them in Blue Peter?
It must be a DVD extra.
Where they come onto Blue Peter and stuff?
And there's some cardboard.
There's special cardboard boxes.
And they're clearly made of sort of painted wood.
And bizarrely, they're built in one night.
Do you know what I mean?
It's kind of like, we invent the plans for the thing.
We send it out.
The next morning they're sort of out smashing things up.
It takes no time at all.
Because all they have to be is a relay.
Botan's the intelligence running them.
And once again, such a nerdy moment there.
We're seeing Doctor Who move into the territory of the Avengers
where things can happen overnight, like a bit of will come up with
the plan, and then the plan will happen, or the plan will already
be in motion when the story starts.
In fact, it is a bigger deal than that because this is actually
the 1st contemporary Earth story.
It's very Quaitamus, though, we should throw in, nods to Nigel
Neal.
Yes, yeah, computer doctor.
The doctor is Professor Quader Max.
Well, because instantly he comes back to Earth.
We've never seen him on Earth before. except in Planet of Giants
where he doesn't interact with anyone.
No, because he's all action figure scale at that point.
But here he and like he has a backstory.
He knows people.
He knows people, his friends with Sir Charles.
You know, like he's a bit more 3rd doctor than we expect.
You can see him having whiny, cheesy chat-offs with his
authorities, mates, and you can see him starting to name drop.
Actually, I don't know that we would have loved him so much had he
been around in contemporary London.
He's much more of a rebel when we see him.
Yeah.
In a way, you know, it's taken them 3 years, but they've actually
done the idea that Sidney Newman hated.
This is the troubleshooters.
Yeah, we're back to episode zero.
Although the difference is, it's a troubleshooting team of one
like Dodo, Bantam, Polly, none of them have scientific training
like the proposed troubleshooters was.
So it's just the Doctor Who Societist.
But Polly and Ben are very intelligent and very resourceful.
And Dodo, unfortunately, she's just had two, three, two, two
really strong stories.
And yeah, it's the end of her contract midstory.
And in a way, understandably, Inis Lloyd wants to make his own
mark on the program, Dodo is just sort of shipped off very
unceremoniously, you know, and she was on location.
They could have filmed a leaving scene for her for episode four.
And the only thing, literally the only thing I can think of that
they didn't do it is they would have had to pay her for an extra.
What did they do?
They just say Dodo says she's in the country and she'll be fine.
She'll be fine.
We never see her again.
Oh, it's okay.
But this, I think, is where we actually start to get things
right.
This is the show starting to reboot itself.
And we're going to see that early next year.
Because spoiler alert, they're going to replace Bill Hartnall.
But they start doing it here.
So you've got dodo.
Right.
We come back to, we've come back to Earth and Earth is very
different from when we left it, okay?
London, contemporary London, isn't full of sort of Tweedy sort of
1950s school teachers. mod rocking Adam Faith characters like the
brand new boy Ben.
Yeah, yeah.
You've never had anyone more contemporary than that.
No, exactly.
Both Ben and Polly, like they're attractive young people, they're
kind of, you know, relatable.
We see them at the hilarious Inferno nightclub, which is...
It is.
Everyone's.
Just so you know, you're still on the BBC.
And everyone's sort of dancing and Ben beats someone up who's
trying to hit on Polly and Polly knows everyone and she's sort of
fabbed and they're on the phone.
Yeah, you look beautiful and they're startling.
They just don't fit, but this is a lovely thing when as soon as
Billy walks in and he's told his gear is fab, I think that gear in
the 60s, didn't mean what it means, right?
Not for any children who might be listening, it's not a drug
reference, but although...
No, no, but he actually does fit into this really well. and you
don't expect it.
I sort of say...
Oh, we've mentioned Adam Adamant.
I've never heard that said aloud before.
I actually pronounce it wrong.
It is adamant.
Adam Adamant lives out, which apparently didn't work so well for
her, but that was the spinoff.
She wanted to make Sexton Blake, starring Lawrence Payne, as it
later now, ITV did it instead.
And so she made this thing.
Well, I haven't seen Adam Adamant, but I'm told it's terrific.
The Edwardian Maud thing that goes together, so, well, the
Avengers were doing it.
Look, Steed is Trad to Emma's Maud.
That's the 1967 annual, so adroitly put it.
Yeah, Billy fits perfectly into the 60s, never more so than now.
Oh, can I just say that again, in perfect ultimate universe.
I would have liked a year, much as we love what's going to come
up.
Just a year of Ben and Polly and Billy being looked after by those
2 instead of maybe we know what was going on behind the scenes and
that Billy knew that his days were there and he wasn't that happy
with these kids.
And certainly Anaka doesn't say nice things about her.
She doesn't.
And maybe this is the point to say that I kind of side with maybe
it's Sandoval who says that, you know, actually she's still around
and all do deference to her.
She's not perhaps as sympathetic to Billy as a young person as she
was then as maybe we would be now.
I know that I, how I would have liked to have seen this play out.
A whole year of those 3 could have been terrific.
I mean, it would have been great.
And the year that we get it, Ben and Polly is terrific.
They're both really good characters.
And it is getting back to where we started, which is 2
contemporary people.
You know, a man and a woman who join the doctor on his adventures
so that we have someone that we can relate to.
It's not space people with no background, you know, it's not even
people from the future.
It's people from now, and it's people from a version of now that's
a little bit more contemporary, a little bit less dated than Ian
and Barbara.
However much we love Ian and Barbara and God, we love them. you
know they're fantastic.
Ben and Polly are, or they almost seem like a generation later
rather than just 2 years later.
And so I think that they're really terrific.
And Richard, your point where the doctor fits in, I think, is
absolutely right.
The person who doesn't fit in is Dodo, who just looks massively
incongruous in the nightclub.
Like, what is she wearing?
You know, she just doesn't seem like she comes from the same world
at all as these other people.
And it is that thing where she also is barely a person.
You know, she came in.
She had like 2 lines about a background.
Oh, me mum's dead and now I'm going to suddenly change my accent
for no reason.
You know, like she's just really not being great.
I think she's, I have absolutely no doubt that it has nothing at
all to do with Jackie Lane as an actor.
I really think that she's the victim of them not knowing what to
do with the program and them essentially flailing for all of this
time.
It's the new girl.
What does she do?
Oh, she'll have to change accent because this is terrible.
You know, like all of that's just.
But I have to say, look how good Jenna Coleman is with pretty much
the same level of backstory.
But I think I think more...
That leaf does not count for an entire narrative.
I think, though, more care is taken with direction of her, an
overall treatment of her. true. definitely treated better.
They can't get away with doing the same.
No, no.
And, you know, we're now at the tail end of a paradigm where
Doctor Who is a man and a woman, you know, essentially there's 2
leads, whereas here it's still Bill Hartnell and some people who
we might or might not care about, you know, now that Ian and
Barbara have left.
So it was all just a bit of an undistinguished run of episodes.
But, you know, bless Jackie.
I'm sure it had nothing to do with her.
Yeah.
She's great in the gunfighters.
And in terms of the show itself in these last 3 stories, it's
really starting to get back on its feet.
Like, you know, it had just been slowly put down to the ground in
a chokehold and it's gotten up swinging.
In more ways than what?
It is just a shame with Jackie Lane.
And now it's time for my exciting Jackie Lane story.
It may not actually be exciting. disclaimer.
Is it the worst goodbye of a companion we've seen so far?
It's the worst goodbye we've seen to date.
It's worse than Donna Noble's virtual mind rape when everything's
taken away from her.
Is that not a word?
That makes me so sad.
Yeah, but I felt really distraught at the end of that.
That's the thing. makes you sad, but it makes you feel something.
Dodo's one of all you...
No, Liz Shaw, that's a paw.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll get it.
But I'm like Dodo, that's not that's not the actress being treated
poorly.
Well, not on screen, no.
Well, she didn't want to come back anyway, either.
Anyway.
Anyway, so funny, possibly not funny Jackie Lane story.
In the lead up to recording this podcast, I decided I would look
around for more stuff that Jackie Lane did because like you
Richard, I'd heard reviews that she was good in other things.
She'd done a lot of the soaps of the day.
She'd been irregular on some of them.
And then her only acting credit after Doctor Who, because of
course she did become an actor's agent and a voice artist agent
and very successful in that line of work.
Her only credit after Doctor Who, I discovered on IMDb, was an
episode of Get Smart about 3 years later.
And I thought, that's not out of the question because John Levine
went over to America and did a fair bit of work in America after
he finished on Doctor Who.
And I thought 3 years, that's enough time for her to go over, just
be getting bit parts and finally get a speaking part.
And so I watched this particular episode of Get Smart.
It's called the day they turned out the Knights, Nights with a K
And premise is there's budget cutbacks at control 99 is forced
to...
Well, no, no, she's actually fired. and has to take a job in a
shop.
And so I thought, oh, great, Jackie Lane's going to be either
Jackie Lane's going to be the girl in the shop.
And no, she wasn't the girl in the shop.
It's like, oh, oh, there are customers.
Jackie Lane's going to be a customer.
So there's a few customers.
And, you know, being America in the 60s, there was a customer who
was an older woman and I thought, is that Jackie lady makeup?
No, no, it's not Jackie lady makeup.
There was a black man, customer wearing funky threads.
No, that's not that's not Jackie Lane.
There were, you know, there were businessman and what have you.
Bardi-gada-gada.
So it gets to the end of the episode, and I still haven't seen
Jackie Lane.
But I'm like, oh, this is really weird.
Get to the cast list and like 5 credited cast, aside from Jackie
Lane.
And so I paused it.
And I'm like, okay, so we've got, um, the leader of chaos in this
episode is such and such, the other shopgirl is such and such
warehouse man, such and such, Larrabee, such and such, hippie
Jackie Lane.
No.
And I'm just like, but, and I was about to rewind it when I
suddenly realised.
That I had seen a hippie. as one of the customers.
And, you know, bunky threads, headband, corduroy waistcoat.
IMDB's messed it up.
This is a black American male actor called Jack Lay.
She's got the range.
She does have a range.
She goes north.
She goes up and down the M4.
She goes to Bradford.
I look a lot of Jamaicans...
It looks like we finally seen someone who didn't do any work on
television after Doctor Who.
Even Carol Anne Ford and Maureen O'Brien, whose careers did take
an unfortunate turn after Doctor Who got work after Doctor Who.
It appears Jackie Lane did not, and that's really sad.
I think she probably decided against it.
More about her a bit later.
Yes.
How we...
There's a lot of backstory stuff, you know, that Innis Lloyd was
wanting to push this to the contemporary fab mod show.
I think you can see that it's doing it, but Doctor Who can't just
be one thing.
The reason it works is you've got to let it go and do something
different next week.
That's its strength.
And to be fair, they do do that.
Like they bring the hip mod, fabulous, attractive young characters
in and then they put them in the smugglers on the 10th planet and
stuff like that.
So they do.
Yeah, so they do do that.
And I, it is a return to the lovely Ian and Barbara.
There's even that fan rumour that Polly's last name is right.
We never hear it.
That's right.
We do hear that.
We never hear it, but that's the thing.
Are we going to get another historical soon, I hope?
I believe we are.
But that's going to make everyone in this room happy.
I can tell.
But that's for another podcast.
I always look forward to it.
I, I, um, I have to get home for a roast.
You've got a roast in the oven.
I think we very quickly have to do our Jenny Laird awards for most
puzzling creative choice.
Well I'll let you start.
I'll go Yes, you go first, please.
Well, I want Daphne Dare.
Do you know what I mean?
I'm sure she's very nice person.
In fact, I think Dougie Camfield and Daphne Dare can share this
one.
And it is for just the absolutely astonishing and remarkable look
and behaviour and characteristics of the delegates in Russian, to
the unknown and dark masterplan.
They're white with sort of black balls all over their face or
their, their, what did you say, like a bunch of kale in a hoodie?
You know?
Conehead?
Yeah, cone head, you know, they walk into the thing, sort of, as
if they're kind of floating.
It's very, very strange.
Everyone pulls out their sort of funniest, silly voice. you know
like the whole thing is just absolutely bizarre.
And we've seen, you know, shows like Rings of Atkerson or the
spectacular end of the world, which put lots of aliens on screen.
But we've never really seen anything like this before and we
really will never see anything like it again.
So, in fact, she's not credited for episode one, but quick cursory
check of IMDb tells me Daphne Dare is to blame.
So Daphne Dale, Dougie Canfield.
I think I have to make my choice, John Wiles.
And, you know, we've been batching on him a lot, so I'm not going
to say everything, but I'm going to say for John Wiles, my choice
has to be his and I suppose Donald Tosh's creation of Dodo, because
it's so strange that they did have very definite ideas of what
they wanted the series to be.
But they just seem to have cipher-like ideas for what they wanted
the characters to be, and they were on a hiding to nothing.
That's kind of lazy, right?
It's kind of lazy writing because it's Biddy.
It's Sue.
She's pretty much on paper, the original before they all looked at
it and said, that's too thin.
We better build it up and put something interesting in there.
Bitty, bitty, bitty.
What would she call?
Yes, yes.
So yeah, that it's it's John Welles for me.
And I suppose it's just his sort of very broad strokes and not
coming back to do the fine detail later approach to the show.
And it borders on contempt.
I think there was a lot of contempt.
Why did he want, you know, why did he want the job?
It's a bit like if you're buying a house and you want to
renovate.
You buy something that's roughly in the right shape to begin with
you don't, unless it's completely falling apart in shambolic, which
doctor who wasn't.
You don't buy the thing and then completely try and rip it down
and put up something new.
But wasn't he pushed into the role he his 1st love was writing and
he went back to writing after this.
This was his 1st and only production role.
I took him off the line.
Well, yeah, there was a lot of antagonism between those 2 and an
ego thing and he just didn't have the lightness of touch or charm
to deal with someone like Billy, which I can imagine being your
1st production job would have been pretty hard shakes because, you
know, he, I don't think he, he put up from with much.
It was short shrift if you didn't agree with it.
Yeah.
We've been very sympathetic to him because he's...
He's our main character, but yeah, you know, there are 2 sides to
everything, and he was clearly very difficult to work with, and
we've certainly heard that from other people.
Yeah.
Okay, so Richard...
Oh, well, again, this is the things where you could see what the
series had started to do and how interesting it had set out to be
anything and everything and very experimental.
And I think while it's actually managed that.
I love Dalek Master Plan and some of the stories that followed
after that, again, really uncompromising in what they were setting
up for and how they just allow them to be that, both the massacre
and master plan sit really well together.
For those reasons.
But I think we're actually getting into the state of, um, we'll
just do it because this is what you do, and that, I think, is more
of Innes Lloyd, actually.
And then his new his new script editor, Jerry Davis, were about to
discover more of that.
Yeah.
Some more fun things to come up.
But good and not so good.
Yeah.
In terms of recommendations for this series, I would like to
recommend a trilogy of Big Finnish Companion Chronicles, and those
are the ones featuring Peter Purvis's Stephen, and Tom Allen as
the new companion for the audio's Oliver Harper. who is a
companion from contemporary earth with a secret, which I won't
reveal because it becomes integral to the 3 stories.
The 1st story in disguise.
Back to revenge.
The 1st story is called The Perpetual Bond.
The 2nd story is called the Cold Equations, and the 3rd story is
called the 1st wave.
I shan't say too much about them, but very good performances from
both Leeds.
Of course, Peter Purvis, very good actor.
And Tom Allen is a comedian, stand-up comedian.
He is most famous for the radio series Bleak Expectations.
Which I listen to and I love bleak expectations. hilarious.
It's sadly short-lived TV spinoff.
The bleak old shop of stuff.
Yeah, it only ran for one season. and that's got lots of Doctor
Who...
Stewart Head.
It's got Anthony Stewart head, Celia Imry pops into some of them.
Both of them.
We own them.
That is correct.
We've just lost another Chumbley eye.
Has anyone else got a recommendation?
Yes, I do.
This is an unusual one because I've done, you know, sort of Doctor
Who books and things before, but there is a sort of 6 minute video
of Jackie Lane visiting Paris in November of 2011.
Now, I can't remember who authored it.
But I will put a link to it in the show notes when this episode
goes up.
And it's delightful.
It's done to the music of Edith Pierre. a.k.a.
Dudley Simpson.
You can actually play running through Paris running through Paris
in the background.
And it's really true. lovely.
Jackie has, you know, never come back, although she did do the
Doctor Who night thing for the 15th anniversary.
Yeah, she did she did a live cross or a pre-recorded message for
the Doctor Who after party.
But she's never done a DVD commentary or a DVD extra.
She's never participated in a big finish thing.
You know, she's kind of walked away and...
Well, John, what fans have also been saying over the years, which
is unfair, I think.
But this is spectacular and lovely and it will make you just love
her again.
So click on the link.
You know, it'll be on the website and on the show notes on your
podcast app.
We should do more little happy link things because it doesn't take
much of your time away.
Greg Miller put some terrific things up for the last episode.
I'm almost willing to just segue to him for his choices.
But if you're going to, or wanting to put some extra time in, from
what you've heard of this season, I'd really recommend going back
to my, my pre-vote and loves of print media.
Donald Cotton's books.
We mentioned them during the podcasts, but his novelisations of
both myth makers and gunfighters.
Just fantastic and funny.
And they're quick reads as well.
There are audio versions, if you prefer to listen to them, but
it's just nice to sit up in bed for an hour before you go to bed
and you'll get through them in 3 or 4 nights.
They're really good fun.
Really good I really, I have had the Stephen Thorn version on my
code.
Strangers.
I just haven't had, you know, the time.
I did follow your last recommendations.
I enjoyed crusades.
Yeah, yeah.
I have listened to the myth makers and it's magical.
Excellent, isn't it?
Yeah.
Right, well, I think that's about it from us.
We will be back next month with another 3 podcasts, where...
And some shiny things in colour.
Yes.
Oh, spoiler alert.
Yes, indeed.
Um, but uh, as we end this season, uh, I just would like to end
this season with a little bit of verse that I came up with, if you
don't mind, gentlemen, because, um, there's something over snow
cap and.
It's not the moon.
Next month.
It's goodbye, Hartnell, and Hello, Troutoon.
Good night, everyone.
Good everything.
You have been listening to Flight Through Entirety with Nathan
Bottomley, Brendan Jones, and Richard Stone.
This episode, Tropes, Tropes, Tropes, Tropes, Tropes, who was
recorded on Sunday, the 10th of August.
The next episode will be released on October 12th.
You can find us at FlightthroughEntirety.com, flight your entirety
on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast on Twitter.
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