Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast whose bile has been weaponized.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm a pop out turkey baster with a prick on the end out of a
wheelchair for this episode.
Why was that not in destiny of the dialects?
He could have done Tom instantly.
So to speak.
Are we still doing phrasing?
Yes, sir.
Eric Saywood is back in the writing chair?
Arguably for the 1st time in 2 years with resurrection of the
Daleks.
Yay.
We have mentioned the history of this before, but I'll just
recap.
This story was meant to close out season 20, but due to industrial
action and problems with terminus and the king's demons.
The whole story was shelved, led to Peter Grimwade, never
directing for the program again because he annoyed John Nathan
Turner.
Dogs and cats living together, and instead we get it in season 21
with changes made that Eric Sable was very happy with.
He wasn't actually that happy with his original version of the
script.
So what's different?
First of all, director, instead of Peter Grimwade, who, as I
mentioned, I know John Nathan Turner, and thus was not rehired, we
have Matthew Robinson directing the 1st of his 2 Doctor Who
stories.
Also, we have a new Davros spoiler alert.
Davros is back in this.
Yes, Michael Wisher wanted to do it, but he was busy smoking in a
paper bag somewhere, so he couldn't. had work.
Yes, yes, he had theatrical work.
He had been contracted for the original amount of the return
thought it was called Warhead.
Warhead was another working title for it, but unfortunately, as
Richard says, he wasn't available for these days.
So Matthew Robinson chose Terry Malloy, who was famous for his
voice work and still performs in The Archers.
And in cabaret and on most bar tops, give me all the jeans.
I think Robinson also, is he also the writer rest of um, edge of
legal destruction and and impermanent oligarchies within the
TARDIS.
That's Nigel Robinson.
So that's his live in flatmate and no other, and the fact that the
beds get pulled apart when the parents come and visit has nothing
to do with anything.
Right.
Gee, I'm informed.
As an aside, with Nigel Robinson's novelisations, because
recently...
Well, they are good.
When I was overseas, I recently reread the 1st season of Heart
Novelisations.
I think those 2 of them, and I've also read Underwater Menace
which he does.
I haven't read Planet of Giants, but it seems like in every single
one, there's a slight misogynist undercurrent.
I quoted ages ago in the underwater I remember.
There's a bit where Polly is screaming hysterically.
So Jamie slapped her.
That shut her up.
Yes, that one being televised.
There is a lot of rapey inferences we've discussed, the rapey
effect on Barbara and the problem with Susan in the 1st and 2nd
seasons, but but yes, it's not exactly to the point of bidding.
Billy backslaps any of them, does he?
No, that's right.
Well, he nearly gives Susan a jolly good smacked awesome.
And tries to hit Greg Newark with a rock.
But we're getting... much nicer.
Yes, he'll just lock you out or kill you.
Yes, we're getting behind ourselves.
So, yeah, the Daleks are back for the 1st time since 1979.
So it's been it's been 5 years almost.
About 4.5 five.
They have been making other television appearances in the
meantime.
And they have been kept fresh in the public's mind because of, you
know, things like the Doctor Who, non-Christmas, Christmas special
the 5 doctors and it.
And also, um, Spike Milligan's Q series.
It was the only time Dykes were ever allowed to be in a comedy
sketch or lampooners because it was by Saint.
Spike Milligan.
Has anyone seen Pakistani Daleks?
It's probably not broadcasting now because it's effing racist, and
I'm sorry there is no other way to describe it.
I believe, though, that network DVD is bringing out the entire
existing queue series because, of course, some of the early ones
don't exist anymore because British television.
But yeah, so you will soon be able to buy that.
And there are snippets of the Pakistani Dalek sketch in the
documentary more than 30 years in the Tartars.
Yeah, we won't quote any of it here because it is quite horribly
racist.
It is quite horribly racist.
And it has a really, really bad animatronic dog.
So I haven't mentioned.
Janet's before.
So Resurrection of the Daleks.
I've been avoiding asking this question.
We've got the legs right yet.
We haven't got the walk right yet.
I have been avoiding this question.
Chaps, what do we think?
I actually think at the moment, and my mind may change that this
is the worst Doctor Who story.
And just to play, just you would call advocate.
This is the only one that's took me 2 solid months to get through
because I found it almost unwatchable.
I did actually find it unwatchable.
Having finished it however.
The accepted fan opinion against Seward and the ultraviolence and
all the rest of it, when we actually look at how the doctor
behaves and how the companions behave.
I think we'll find that there is actually a case for the defence.
I think there is a case for the defence and I don't want to get
too far ahead. the story does critique itself in towards the end
just in that very last scene.
But essentially it's a tale of people in corridors with guns
shooting other people with guns and it goes on quite a lot.
It's horribly unimaginative.
And I think it misuses and misconceives the Daleks in a really
serious way as well.
Both of those points can be counted with the thing that I'm always
coming back with that it's Doctor Who is always about.
What's contemporary in media and what's contemporary. always about
what's going on around it.
So when you say it's horribly unimaginative.
Do you mean that it's just a borrowing from the other things that
are going on at the time?
Well, it's our second remake of Earthshock.
Yes.
And the idea that, say it is fascinated with telling stories about
mercenaries shooting people and he sidelines the doctor.
And so rather than sort of imaginative tea time, whimsy or
interesting juxtapositions of things or playing with genres or
scaring the crap out of little children or having fun and being
funny and witty, all of those things that Doctor Who can do, he
just has a lot of gray, unlikeable people in corridors blurting
out this appallingly matcho dialogue at each other.
People whose names you can't even remember when you've reached the
end of it.
And people die constantly and do it in a really repulsive way.
Like, you know, Todd spent all of season 20 complaining that no
one was dying.
He actually texted us this morning.
He's a really terrifying person when you get to know him, dear
listeners.
But here, lots and lots of people die.
Their faces and hands melt off, you know, or they scream, like
they shriek in terror and agony as they die.
The 2 women who are killed, uh, the the woman on the space station
the glamorous one with a cigar on the space station, and, uh, I
want to say Chloe Ashcroft on earth.
They scream in terror.
It's just unpleasant and unenjoyable, and really the only way that
Saywood knows of creating drama or anything is just to increase
the guns and have more people killed.
It's, it's poor.
I hate it.
You know, I really hate it.
I would have killed to have a pteroreptil in this or a mandrel, you
know, or a medusoid or, you know, something fun, something
whimsical, something that wasn't leaden and horrifying.
Something from the keys of Mariners.
Yeah.
See, I have to disagree on a lot of your points because I agree, in
a way, this is a remake of Earthjock, but also it's a very
different story because Earthjock, even though it was dressed up
was essentially a 60s based under siege story, the base being the
bridge of the freighter, whereas this you've got multiple
locations.
We also avoid a problem we mentioned in worries of the deep a few
weeks ago, where in Warriors are deep, you've got all these
characters being killed, but as we said, we don't really care
about any of them.
Like the only one we kind of care about is Maddox and maybe Karina
in that.
Whereas.
The opening scenes on the space station, Are quite masterful
because you've got Mercer and Dr. Styles played by the wonderful
ruler Lenska, spouting dialogue off at each other, that fills in
what this world is like, but also tells you what their characters
are like.
So he is very upright and duty bounded.
This is the way we do things by the book.
She obviously has been there for years.
She knows how this place actually works.
She knows how the real world works.
She actually calls him our green eyed new boy, I think, at one
point.
It sets the scene in a way that Warriors of the Deep just
doesn't.
So when these characters do start dying and are killed horribly.
It's, it's affecting the fabulous woman smoking a cigar you
mentioned earlier.
Osborne, played by the wonderful Snei Gupta.
She has, again, those wonderful character moments where she's
teasing Mercer on the bridge because he's complained to the
captain and suddenly he's on night shift.
Oh, she's like, oh, someone should have warned you.
You're fearing attack.
I think she's really great.
And then.
She is killed at the end of the four-part version of episode one
because this has weird broadcast issues.
She is killed at the end of that episode and she goes down
fighting and her death scream.
It's not a pantomime theatrical scream.
It's this, it's begging for a life in this shriek.
And yes, it is uncomfortable.
But it's not just uncomfortable. it's grotesque Brendan.
So what's happened is she's with that guy, the terrible, terrible
actor.
Oh, Bridge.
Who makes one of Doctor Who's few fart jokes before the new
series.
The smell.
Yeah, what's that smell?
Obviously, it's not the prisoner.
So the Pakistani dialect.
So his face and hands have melted off.
He's horrified.
She shoots him dead because that's the sort of macho thing that
Eric Sey would enjoy putting on television.
And then the sound of her shooting alerts the Dalek troopers who
come in, she shoots one of them, and then they shoot her dead.
I mean, that's horrible.
It is horrible, but this is the reality of a Dalek attack.
It's not all like destiny of the Daleks where people just lower
themselves gently to the ground without a sound.
When has the Dalek attack been portrayed like that?
We went and saw Power of the Daleks, and Power of the Daleks has a
big culmination in which the Daleks go through the base killing a
bunch of people.
And we do see dead bodies and all of that sort of thing.
But what we don't get is this just sort of relishing the
gratuitous violence and suffering and stuff that we get here.
I think you've hit it on the head and it's all about the timing.
Everything's about timing.
Doctor Who and the exciting adventure in the power room of the
Daleks was 66.
We are now in 80 what three?
Um, There's, the audiences have changed and the expectations
pretty much because of newsreel footage, pretty much because of
popular press and what we saw with Vietnam, and then what we saw
in Cambodia, also the way that we see violence enacted on
television, policemen, for example, shooting people in 1971 in
terror of the autons or in, and of the other early pertly things
that got questions in parliament.
Now, people are watching it saying, Why are they not policemen?
That what policemen do.
I put it all, I blame Michael Kane for almost all of this stuff
you're talking about.
We've cited we've cited Mike Hodges, who made get Carter, EU get
Carter, in 1970, which pretty much rebooted the way you shot truth
and griminess with the, and that, you know, that everyone's
actually a little bit truthy and baddy at the same time.
We then got Mike Hodges doing Flash Gordon in 1979.
With, of course, the fabulous Peter Wingard.
More of him next week, more to him next week.
But the point is that the public won't accept a drama like power
of the Daleks now, we expect to see the violence, we expect to see
and it's not actually bought.
We've had alien.
We're about to get aliens, which I actually think if you want to
talk about Doctor Who feeding back to the genre.
This actually predicates, the way those films are shot.
We expect this level of violence.
I want to touch on Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirror in a film, The
Long Good Friday, but I'll get back to that, which is set in the
same area in Wapping.
It was definitely the precursor for this story.
And I, I actually want to be the critic in defence of say what for
this story.
Only because I've had to sit through it and I force myself to sit
through it and in the end, I can see where he's coming from.
I'm not saying I'm a hero for him, but I think I can see why he
did what he did.
He makes an interesting point about his presentation of violence
and it's not necessarily a point I agree with. in all of his
execution, but his point about people saying your scripts are too
violent, is to say, well, when you have the opportunity to present
violence, you can either present it in a realistic way where it is
horrible and you show that violence is horrible, or you can try
and paper over it and show it in shadow, which is responsible
which is irresponsible.
And he doesn't necessarily draw a conclusion to that.
Richard, you were talking about the context, of course, we are in
the grip of the slasher film genre at this point, Friday the 13th
nightmare on Elm Street.
Terminator came out 6 months after this.
We also have a public that's expecting to be decimated with the
AIDS crisis because we didn't have a cure and we didn't even know
what it was and it was now named.
So we've got the ontological theatres, we like to say.
Well, I mean, in public as well.
I just think that saying that I think he's responsive. rather than
culpably transgressing.
I think he's he's actually just picking he's giving us back what
we already have.
Well, I just think he doesn't know what Doctor Who is or what it's
for.
But Doctor's always just really been a reflective me.
Yeah, no, of course, of course it has.
But the stories now are just increasingly like this. going to be
what Doctor Who is like.
And look on either side, look at either Frontios or Planet of
Fire.
They have their flaws or whatever.
But there's more imagination in 5 minutes of either one of those
stories than in this.
Yeah, I think the big problem is not the way this story presents
itself.
If this story was, okay, like earth shock, earth shock was like
nothing else around it.
Everything else, even even time flight.
Almost everything else in that season, not Black Orchard, but Time
Flight had these interesting central ideas.
For to doomsday, interesting central idea, Kinder, fascinating.
Even the visitation was a twist on the old historical.
We hadn't really had a historical in ages.
But definitely, I take your point, Nathan, that the program is
steadily becoming more violent.
I think with resurrection, I really enjoyed it as a kid not
because of the violence, but I would watch it in isolation.
I wouldn't watch it as part of a marathon. watching it as part of
a marathon.
The violence is far more affecting, I find.
Sayer does repeat himself far too often. becomes dyspeptic.
I find it hard to say, why I'm, if you're like okay with this
violent story, beyond just saying, far better, far more than earth
shock and far more than worries of the deep, just the characters
being so well drawn makes the death, the deaths more affecting.
But I think there's also structural problems with it that stand in
the way of it really working.
So take the Mercer and Styles plot.
I do think the scene you described with that exposition, I think
it's very good, you know, and I think he's very likeable and she's
ruler Lenska, so she's fabulous.
But it goes nowhere.
Do you know what I mean?
Like they, uh, there's the Daleks invade, everyone except them and
2 other guys gets killed.
Then we're making our way towards this, um, self-destruct thing
and then we all get killed.
Uh, we never actually achieve anything.
We barely interact with the plot at all.
And it's hard to know what that exposition is for.
What's the point of setting up this world when it has no bearing
on any other characters or the plot or anything.
I mean, I think it's a giant mess.
I don't know what the Daleks are doing here.
I don't know why Davros insists on staying on the station except
to, you know, be annoying or something, you know, like what are
the dalek duplicates for?
I do, I do have to agree that the plot is really weird.
When I watched it as a kid.
I thought Daleks had this plan to get Davros back.
But suddenly the doctor turns up and so they decide, oh, we can go
after the doctor at the same time.
But there's dialogue in there that implies that they've
deliberately captured the doctor in the time corridor.
So it's like, right, you're trying to free your creator.
Cure this virus.
Make all these duplicates and exterminate the high council all on
one day.
It's like, take a rest, guys, you know?
Pick one Yeah, pick one thing and do it well.
It's a typical so good thing that, perhaps it's just a question of
time and the time that he had, but the rewrites end up, you know
conflating into themselves.
They don't actually add for greater explanation.
They just compound the difficulties, and you see that again and
again, over the last season and a half 2 seasons.
Well, I think he's just barely competent.
I mean, he's had this is his 2nd go at it and he can't produce a
script that hangs together in any way.
I kind of think that Eric Saywood is very filmmic in his writing
thinking because we're coming into the age now of home videos.
So television starts to be written to be watched several times.
Whereas I think a lot of films in this era are still being written
as ephemeral.
They're being written to watch once.
And the 1st time you watch Earthshock, or the 1st time you watch
Resurrection of the Daleks, you kind of leave it going, you know
wow, that was, that felt big budget and action-packed.
And you start watching it and going, why does the Dalek Supreme
blame Lytton when anything goes wrong when Lytton just told him 5
minutes ago that that wouldn't work?
Exactly.
And why hasn't the Dalek supreme told any of the trooper Daleks
what the ultimate plan is?
So it's very likely that they will shoot the doctor and to learn
whomever else they see rather than, or I'm going to get you into
the cupboard with the steam room.
Production info about the supreme Dalek itself.
You only just see it, but it's got what is known as the oddball
dalek skirt.
So if you imagine a Dalek skirt.
Oh, yeah.
If you imagine a Dalek skirt and the front half is more pointed
than the back half.
Yeah.
The bottom part of the Supreme Dalek is 2 front halves joined
together.
So it's pointy at the back end at the front, but there's only one
or 2 shots where you could notice it.
Yes.
They didn't pick that up in the character options.
No, the action picker is not accurate.
Friend of the podcast, Aaron J.
Climis is not happy about that.
I demand your money back.
But yes, I just thought I'd throw that in there as a bit of
production information.
I've actually been to Shad Thames.
It's quite nice now and it's all, um, they've blasted the brick
back to its some sort of sandstone like cover.
It's been developed. been developed.
It's shops and pie shops and flats and shops and Thai shops and
bunting.
Rubbish.
It's exactly all the stuff that they were fearing at the time and
you know, went under Mrs. Thatcher that working class jobs were
disappearing.
Manufacturing was moving out of the area.
The film, The Long Good Friday, that came out in 1980 that
launched Hoskins's career and had Helen Mirren as, you know
Guardian Supreme of the Galaxy, it was just part of your west
place.
But it was, it was, it was about exactly this.
Rupert Murdoch had moved the times and his other presses into the
area and the working class were getting moved out and it was
actually about a cockney bloke wanting to build a casino on an
sofa, unused and um, area of derelict, um, it doesn't reflect
modern society at all, does it?
But, um, it ends very violently, but there are scenes in that that
look very much like that at the moments, especially on the, along
the, um, the corridors with it.
I don't think they actually push a Dalek out of a top story
loading bay, but I'm sure that Helen Mirren has done that.
She's certainly got evident bumps, and she certainly doesn't mind
showing them off, so there could well be some of that in there as
well.
She didn't even know there was a camera running.
That's just...
Don't give me siders.
The violence in this because that's really what this is all about
isn't it?
I don't think the violence in this is misplaced.
And I would like to believe that, say, word is using it.
You have to show the truth of it to get your message across if you
pedal backwards, if you soften the message, your message never
gets out there.
The point is, the doctor goes to shoot Davros and holds the garnet
point blank.
Deveros even jeers at him and he doesn't do it.
Yeah, you see, I hate that.
And I'll tell you why I hate that.
Here's the moral dilemma.
The moral dilemma is, should the doctor go up to the guy in the
wheelchair and shoot him in the face or should he not do that?
Now, I think that's a fairly easily soluble moral delay.
Just a guy in a wheelchair, no matter how you feel about DDA
applications and the requirements and constraints to under the
building code of Australia for having to deal with wheelchair
people.
Stavros.
But they have history.
When he doesn't do it, and obviously he doesn't do it, it's made
to look like a weakness.
I think Seuid thinks that that's a weakness of the character.
Yeah, I do, that he doesn't have the guts to do what really needs
to be done in this brutal gun sort of situation.
Close.
Thatcher reading.
I didn't get it though.
So my doctor. wouldn't be involved in this gun stuff.
Pete has stacks of guns in this.
He shoots a dalek mutant with a gun.
Yeah, well, that's the thing. doesn't have any problem shooting a
blob, but as soon as something with a face.
Yeah, that's right.
He's blobbist.
So Sylvester McCoy wouldn't do this.
You know, there's a lot of guns and a lot of shooting.
People get killed in remembrance of the dance.
There's a lot of violence and silver nemesis too.
But Sylvester's not directly involved in it.
Sylvester actually force them to rewrite the script, so he didn't
have to use a gun on 2 occasions.
I agree with you.
And as I mentioned, that's my big problem with it.
It's like the doctor is perfectly happy to empty a clip into a
dialect mutant. but can't then shoot Davros.
And it was nearly a kitten, wasn't it?
It could have been a kitten that he shot in the face.
You know, and the thing is, the scene where he shoots the Dalek
Mutant. didn't have to have a gun there.
He's got a soldier with him.
You know, that's what units for.
But isn't that just abrogation of responsibility?
But that would actually make the point at the end of the episode
better, because the doctor's already picked up a gun and been
happy to use it in this story, and now he won't shoot Davros in
the face, whereas if he had refused to pick up that gun, picking
up the gun to shoot Davros and then refusing to do so would have
been more character defining, because he's already refused to do
it once.
I think what really sells it there.
I mean, Davison, as we've mentioned several times this season, he's
really come into his own this season.
He's really great.
But I think the best reaction to that is Tegan.
Because Tegan doesn't know who Davros is.
Tegan just knows Davros as a name.
All she knows is the doctor saying, I am going to go kill a
person.
And her reaction.
I think is actually what presages the end of the story.
It's that her doctor... was going to kill someone.
And hey, as far as she knows, he did.
He never he never says that he didn't.
Mm.
The moral dilemma isn't real.
I mean, Saywood's made it up.
He's put the doctor in that position.
And in the same way, the doctor was put in the position of gassing
all of the reptiles on the sea base a few weeks ago, you know, and
we then gleefully do the same thing to all of the Daleks at the
end of this story.
There's no obligation on, say, it's part to create these
particular moral dilemmas. and put the doctor in them.
Whereas if we look at the awakening, um, the doctor's solution is
to try to break the psychic link with Sir George.
He keeps telling Sir George, you know, think free your mind, et
cetera, et cetera.
In frontios, he doesn't kill any of the tractators.
He just separates them, so they're no longer a danger to the
humans.
If there'd been terreleptils, however.
Do you remember Paul Cornell speech about the doctor in human
nature, you know, that he makes the villains fall into their own
traps and things.
Yeah, he doesn't really do that.
No, no, he just, and that's Saywood's thing.
It's just the good guys and the bad guys are indistinguishable
because they both have guns and they shoot people.
The Daleks instead of being this mythic force, you know, that
represents human evil or that threatens the galaxy on a grand
scale.
They just become another set of people with guns.
There's nothing interesting about them.
Look at how their 1st appearance is thrown away, like 14 minutes
into episode one.
There they are.
We do get the end of episode one. in the 4 part version, reveal of
some Daleks, but we've had them already shooting people.
They're trying to do Star Wars actually. actually It's the
Stormtroopers bursting onto layers ship.
Yeah, yeah.
But remember Star Wars is a romantic story about a farm boy and a
pirate saving a princess from a castle.
Whereas this is about Britain now and troopers and uniforms that
are almost recognisable.
They've just been through the Falklands.
I think, say what is saying, I think he's very blanch, and I'm not
going to backpedal and say that he's not heavy-handed in the way
he sends his message, but I do think this is an anti-violent
story.
We're all missing the point that at the end, the doctor says
there's been too much.
I have to mend my ways, whether or not he does is another
question.
But I don't think that Tegan's response is anything to do with
Davros.
It's actually just looking around at the corpses and realising
this is not the brick I want to live in.
Yeah, and Tegan has literally seen 2 characters shot in the back
one of whom she spent most of the story with, and Chloe Ashcroft
who I believe was a children's TV presenter.
Yes, she was in Play School. comes in for a lot of criticism based
on that.
But once again, like Beryl Reed.
I find her completely believable in the role.
She is a scientist and sort of the character of Osgood in the new
series seems to have been made in the same mulch.
She's this kind of geeky character.
She's a bit awkward.
But she's sensitive and very cautious and mannered.
And the way that you deal with a very naughty child who holds a
gun is the same way she speaks to the soldiers.
And no, I think that's actually the most dramatic moments in the
story.
I think it's a terrible idea.
It would be like in Australia, you know, having a Doctor Who story
where Noni Hazlehurst gets shot in the head.
You know, it's just terrible.
I don't think the 90 would take that long.
Yeah.
It's hard to say good things about this, isn't it?
But it's well directed.
It's the pace of it is frenetically good.
Lighting's great.
I like the score.
I had very fond memories of this as being a good, tight story.
I do think on reflection, it's very messy.
And again, there aren't many stories of this season, I can't say
that about, I know time was against the production team, and
perhaps if they'd been able to have the luxury they have nowadays
of having a year off in between, we would have had possibly a
better season.
But we get to see what happens in the classic series when they get
that too, don't we?
They're not too distant.
Can we talk about Terry Malloy?
Yeah, I think he's great.
Me too. extraordinary.
He's so different.
And yet the essence of the character is still there.
Do you know, I don't think he is particularly different.
He's got that sort of, you know, pursed lips mouth.
Like the mask is read.
I really dislike the new mask.
Do you?
I think it's better.
Really?
Yeah, well, the issue one was terrifying.
Yeah, in that it looked like Michael Wish.
That's it.
But once you've lost Michael Wisher, but what do you get is what
Michael Wisher does, there's a slight camp crispness to the
delivery.
Peter Winker.
I require living darlic tissors.
But he has...
He has 2 registers, doesn't he?
Where he can do that sort of quiet, calm, reasonable thing and
he's going to get better at doing that.
Yes, I think.
Certainly in his next appearance.
He's really got that down to a T. And then he can do the
terrifying rant and he does get an end of episode 3 terrifying
rant in the four-part story, which is wonderful.
It's so good.
It's a pity the dialogue isn't better.
I would love to have heard him deliver.
The rivers of blunt speech.
Yes.
Although Enoch Powell, Davros, it's not that different.
I would have liked to hear him get some dialogue the quality of
the dialogue that he got from Holmes in Genesis of the Daleks.
It would have been great to hear him.
We get to hear him in Big Finish, do some pretty clever things.
Yeah that's true.
And it's no surprise that he's now really well loved by fans, you
know, and highly regarded because it is a great speech and I think
he's a, he is the best thing about this story.
Yeah, yeah.
As I said earlier, I think the guest cast are uniformly
excellent.
We've talked about Jim Finley and Rulolenska.
And that guy who says, we are defenceless.
Yes, he's great.
You're the one we haven't talked about, Stein.
Yes, Rodney Bews.
Now we know he's terrible too.
Well, you know who he was actually written as in the original
draft before Saywood's rewritings.
That was Chameleon, according to the family at the time, which is
why he keeps changing sides, which is why he gets confused, and
which is why there's that battle of rules between the doctor and
Stein.
And then they could have avoided the whole thing of having this
thing locked in a cupboard if he's dead in the very next story
after he appears.
Yeah.
Actually, they could have just written him out like that.
Stein is the point, I guess, we're coming too of why this story is
not pro-Britain and not pro-violence and very much about 1983 and
that we shouldn't be gleeful about the Falklands.
I can't push enough, just how much military chic was in.
Even in that club, what was it called, Blitz?
In London, in the early 80s, of course, we were too young to be
there, but we've read about it.
Where neuromanticism started and where Bowie's look actually, you
know, was took off 5 years before. everyone was wearing military
this year.
Instead of Britain being ashamed of what was going on on the
Falklands.
It was just like, that was the reason Thatcher came to power, those
elections, and when she called it right in the middle of Warriors
of the Deep, just to ruin the season opening.
That's how much of a monster she really was, Nathan.
But yeah, this is, this was really riding high, this nationalism.
I think he's he's making a very valid point against it.
I don't think he does it with great finesse.
Or skill.
I mean, I think the point's almost completely, you know
indiscernible.
No, I just think it's a lot of people shooting each other on
television.
And certainly, as Sandra says, take a drink.
Earthshock sort of valorizes the military on the very eve of the
Falklands War.
Yeah.
We've covered that before.
Yeah, I don't know that it does.
I think it actually just shows how the military is made up of
people and people have individual choices and decisions that they
make at turning points.
And that the colour of humanity is fractal and we get it even, you
know, on the microlevel of the military.
A military person is still a person who has an individual
thinking.
I'm not getting.
Oh, we get that with Stein here.
I also like that Lytton, um, Uh, listen, isn't even in himself
completely unrelenting.
I just don't know what he's for, you know, like it's an appealing
performance.
He's there because Eric Seywood doesn't doesn't believe that
Daleks can deliver lengthy extracts of dialogue and he's he's gone
on record of saying that that and that's that's why, for instance
he brings Dabros back in both of his Dalek stories.
Also, Terry Nation insisted on it.
Yeah, no, and they were going to, and say what wanted to kill off
Davros.
Yeah, story, you remember, and Nation vetoed it.
That's right.
The character of lesson.
I find interesting because he is presented as sort of an out and
out villain at the beginning, but then we start getting these
things where he keeps suggesting all these really quite good ideas
that will actually help and the Daleks, because the Daleks believe
they are the superior beings, just don't listen.
But, you know, it opens up, as you say, Nathan, the point of if
the Daleks are superior things, why are they using these humans?
Okay, the humans are more mobile, but mobility doesn't matter that
much to adult.
Like, it doesn't matter if it takes Dalek 2 extra minutes to get
to.
It's still gonna shoot you.
I actually think it's probably just because, say, would likes to
see lots of scenes of people shooting at each other with guns, you
know, and that's cheaper to do with people in funny hats than it
is to do with daleks.
Oh, yeah.
Maurice Cobb famously refused to wear the Dalek helmet unless
absolutely necessary because as he points out, it looks like it.
It looks like, yes, it looks like a very naughty Darth Vader
convention, doesn't it?
that's right.
Yeah, well, you know, Nathan Turner saw them and said, no, get
them off. get him off and everyone misunderstood his intention.
Well, they thought he was just looking forward to Planet of Fire.
I really like Maurice Colbin's performance.
I like Rodney Boo's performance. think the cast is very strong in
this.
Um, they get they get, I think, 2 lines together, those 2, and
it's, there's a rather brilliant moment where Rodney Boos turns to
wait and says, well, what, what about when it's your turn?
And that kind of starts his rebellious thinking and he escapes at
the end.
And we see him escape at the end.
It's going to create a continuity problem next time because he has
not shared a single word with the doctor.
They never speak.
The doctor just gives inside eye at one and then Lytton tries to
shoot him, just as he's getting away, just because he sees
movement, not for any particular reason, but we're getting ahead
of ourselves.
One of the cast member who we haven't mentioned is Les Grantham
who was mentored by Louise Jameson.
Yes, when he started after, while he was in presume.
Well, he was, and while he was knocked up, so to speak.
He was offered Galloway as well, but he wanted the character that
was on screen more often.
I think he's suitably menacing.
Yes, absolutely.
He's no nider, though, is he?
No, no, but the thing is, he's not meant to, because Nider had his
own intelligence.
I had the whole world.
Kiston Kiston is taken over a few minutes after we meet him, you
know, and until then he just seems like, you know, a bit of a
job's worth mechanic.
That's all he is.
Bit of rough.
He is, of course, famous for being Dirty Dan on EastEnders.
Brilliant in it too.
I haven't seen that since the 90s, but he's, he really did capture
that whole Houston film.
Yeah. style.
That's Verdi Lambert, actually, the, you know, the Sweeney and
special branch and minder.
And as Richard mentioned earlier, he was in prison.
And this is something we...
By Louise Jamison, yeah.
Um, he, um...
He was in Germany and whilst he was drunk, he killed a taxi driver
and was in prison for murder.
Louise Jameson was teaching acting in the prison.
And and saw his talent and sort of worked with him when he got
out.
She actually suggested him to John Nathan Turner.
I know this, I know this young actor.
I think he'd be really good for this role.
And he's talked about some the murder quite openly in interviews
and how how stupid he was and how much he regrets it, and of
course, as you would.
Well, we've all taken an Uber.
I think we can...
Yeah, that's right.
But yeah, so that is for anyone who didn't know Les Grantham's
story that this was his 1st TV role.
He's, he's, I think he's great, super menacing, and also he's got
that cringing, shoulder shrugging nation, Decensian character of
you know, of the 2nd lieutenant of the 2nd baddie.
There's always there's always, he knows he's going to cop a
smack.
Who was sick?
Yeah, so Ian Roberts inhabited a similar role in Superman Returns
if we remember that film.
Oh, he was the Les Grantham all the time.
Yeah, I have never seen it.
The Man of Returns.
I'm not a shot at Wynyard Station at Martin Place.
This entire film.
It has Parker Posey, whom we now own.
Yes.
Many times over.
Should we spoil alert?
Yeah, go on.
Lost in space.
She's going to be Dr. Smith.
The reboot Netflix lost in space. can't wait.
Oh, and Moffat did it first. you're right Apparently it's been
confirmed that Michelle Yeo is going to be the captain of Star
Trek Discovery.
Yeah, yeah, so I'm expecting cousin Michelle to invite me, you
know, on board the bridge and let me sit in the captain's chair
and press some buttons.
It's not a chair anymore.
It's a motorbike and she sits on it backwards.
With Pierce Bros.
Oh, God, no, no.
Pierce Brosnan's just wearing a rubber latix.
He is just... ripped for his pleasure face mask.
We don't actually see that it's, he's, yeah.
I don't know why we're so harsh on Eric Seyward when there's
always Pierce Brosnan.
I don't know, maybe Eric Saywood could have sung in Mamma Mia.
One thing we've happened...
Or Wind and the Willows is toad. just those lips.
Can you imagine kissing Eric?
Stiletto.
I've just had a picture of he and John Nathan Turner exercising
control conflict in the closed doors of Nathan Turner's office.
I think that would have been very interesting.
Gary Downey.
Creative use of a script of worries of the deep episode for...
One thing we've only sort of briefly touched upon and we should
dedicate a bit more time to is, of course, this is Tegan's final
story.
Yeah, exactly.
I think we need to Yeah, um, I believe Peter, Janet and Mark were
actually contracted for the full year, but it was decided rather
than everyone leave it once.
They'd stagger it so everyone actually got a decent leaving
scene.
She apparently quit before Pete.
She was the 1st one to hand in the resignation.
I just think they're all standing around on terminus thing because
she's right, isn't she?
Really?
I think, and I think actually that was the point, wasn't it?
Yeah, well, then they decided, yeah.
That was the point.
I believe it was the production alternatus where Peter had to
decide, are you doing year 4?
And he said, No.
I mean, Janet is a bloody tour de force in this, which is amazing
because she's in bed for 2 episodes.
I actually don't think she gets anywhere near enough to do.
And...
Well, even even towards the end, in sort of episode four, she does
her sort of usual I'm annoyed with Pete kind of eye rolling thing
which I really love.
It's one of my favourite things about her.
But it doesn't look like she's being affected by what she's seen
even after, you know, Chloe Ashcroft gets killed.
She gets to react to that.
But I think that that final scene, which I think is beautifully
acted and brilliant and it does do what you say, it does reach
it.
It critiques the previous production.
I think it comes out of nowhere a bit.
Well, I mean, you've got that scene with the metal detecting guy
on the river as well. and she's she's really, really distraught
about that.
I kind of think after she's drove back.
She's being strong for Professor Laird.
And she's like...
Jenny to her mate.
She's...
Do you think she was?
Jenny Laird?
She, yeah.
It's weird when she goes up to the Dalek ship.
Mercer's suddenly pointing a gun in her face and I think she's
just like the reason she doesn't scream is she's just exhausted.
It's 5 over years.
Right now.
It's the point of she's just like, this is it.
I am literally out, like, with...
Just bit.
And you get that wonderful bit with the continuing growth of the
character of Turlow when he says it's Tegan, you idiot.
She's a friend and just his voice lowers.
And again, he's unlike, say last year, he's not trying to impress
anyone.
That is a genuine comment.
There's actually a deleted bit to that scene, which I'm so glad
they cut out.
It's on the DVD when when Tegan says, oh, the doctor must be here
look behind you on points at the TARDIS.
The scene cuts there.
The extended version, Turlo, tries to go into the time corridor
and Tegan says, Turlo.
And I'm so glad they cut that because that's Turlo running away
after he's just done something really quite nice and heroic.
Yes, yes, yes.
No, end the scene there. and then he continues.
Yeah, it was a really good choice of the director to cut that.
But I always cry when I watch Tegan's departure.
And I know I've said, I think it's a reaction to the doctor trying
to kill Davros.
But at the same time, she says she's not blaming the doctor and I
believe in Janet's performance that Tegan, you know, doctor, it's
not your fault, but this is what happens.
It's the same reason Victoria left.
Yeah.
And it's it's similarly played.
And you also have, in this doctor and in Turlow, you have 2
incredibly emotionally reserved characters who are just, They just
shut down when Tegan.
English.
Yeah.
They just shut down when Tegan says she's leaving, like Turlo
almost falls over to say goodbye to her.
Like he makes his way forward and runs into something.
I like his awkwardness, actually.
Yeah, he's physical awkwardness.
It's really good.
The Roger Moore school of life.
You know, you counteract that with Tegan starts running off and it
takes the doctor about 5 seconds to suddenly snap out of it and
call out to her and she's like, no, no, I can't.
Not in these hales.
Yeah, Brendan knows what she's suffering.
It's like...
He's wearing them now.
It's like a, it's kind of like a really bad breakup where she kind
of wants to go back, but she knows it's the wrong thing.
Well, she does.
I mean it does look like she's turning back.
That's you do sort of read it.
She's only just decided to leave.
But when she says it's no fun anymore. just think she's right.
This is a character who doesn't want to risk being in another Eric
Saywood story and so she's off and who could blame him?
Again, I'm fully on her side, but I think that it's too easier
reading.
It's, it's kind of too solubstic a reason reading to just say that
this is a violent show that's about violence.
I don't even say Wod was not that heavy hand.
I think he might become that heavy-handed in future though.
There will be another season that I won't be here to talk about, so
I'll leave that to my good friend Todd.
Todd and I have a similar take and it'll be interesting to hear
his opinions when we get to the final of this season on what we
think of Davison's pulling away.
If you're looking at how he reacts to Chameleon, who, even though
we don't see him, he's, I thought it's supposed to be a
companion.
He's certainly treated like that.
So I think that he's his dealings with with companions and and the
loss of them. has not, I think, been a great scoring point in his
favour so far.
Nathan is breathing a sign of relief, dear listeners, as that's
all the time we have for Eric Saywood's murder spree this week.
I know, we ate cake, but we didn't talk about it because it just
sounded too fun.
Richard did bring us some lovely cakes from the Black Star bakery
so thanks. you, Richard.
Yes, from the David Bowie Memorial Baker.
He's dead too.
Like Florence Henderson.
The entire cast of remembrance.
No, hang on.
What was this one we just did?
We will be back next week to talk about a bunch of knickers in
Lanzarote for Planet of Fire, so do come back for that.
Nicholas for Christmas.
Oh, over on Bondfinger.
Sadly, due to Christmas, we haven't been able to release our view
to a kill. just don't think we want Roger to leave.
I can't do it.
Because inevitably we'll have to get to beer.
But we do have all of our...
We do have all of our Sean Connery commentaries up there, including
Never Say Never Again, the David Neven Classic Casino Royale, and
the 1st 6 Rogimore films on Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook
and iTunes, and Bondfinger cast on Twitter.
Until next time, may none of your megalomaniac farts melt your
face off.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
I just dropped the mic.
Good night.
That was Flight Through Entirety with Nathan Bottomley, Brendan
Jones, and Richard Stone.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Pointy at the Back, was recorded on the 26th of
November 2016.
The next episode will be released on December 18th.
Do you like wearing rubber uniforms and phallic helmets, then join
the bipedal Dalek Defence Force, and see really tiny cramped parts
of the universe.
Have you watched any more of class?
I watched the 1st episode.
And it's kind of the whole torture thing of, oh, I can see this is
very competently made.
What of what?
I really like it.
What did you think?
Um, it was a lot better than I was expecting it to be.
And it's certainly, it's certainly not as, say, smug as Buffy
because one thing that always put me off with Buffy was, everyone's
so smart.
It's like, no, no teenagers actually act like this.
They're not that cool.
No, they were TV writer versions of teenagers, you know, like they
were.
It was very guilful.
One thing I'm on the fence about is Charlie, who is the alien
being the gay character.
It's like, okay, I really like that we have a gay character in a
primetime TV series and he doesn't make a big deal out of it, but
actually that doesn't represent our struggle at all.
Make the seat character game.
Well, I kind of, I like the fact that, well, Matusa's is...
Yeah, true.
And the delicious table wine. much beloved by teenagers, I hear.
Yes, and I, I, actually, I think he was probably my favourite
character in the 1st episode.
They gave him a lot of funny lines, like...
You watch Rambino.
Everyone's very attractive.
It is true.
I like the idea that Charlie chooses Mateo's, not because
Charlie's gay, but because he doesn't realise that most people
choose someone of the opposite gender to take to the prom and he
just doesn't kind of, because he's, he's an alien.
But that's what I mean by it's not really too aggressive because
he doesn't have to struggle. and it's safe and the parents go, oh
it's...
But it does mean at least you do get, you know, gay kissing and
other things on telling.
Actually, no, naming gays?
No, that's now.
And I'm a huge fan of both Tanya and Ram.
I think they're great characters.
And April is getting good as well.
Actually, yeah.
Everyone's really well skipped.
It's a class podcast.
Well, it's going to be ages before we ever talk about...
It's going to be called everyone's very attractive. everyone's
very attractive.
Hello and welcome to everyone's very attractive.
That's the other thing. and Rod Ray is this with me.
It's like, oh, look, it's a primetime drama and everyone has a 26
to 28 inch waste.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's exactly why I keep watching.
Everything I'm watching sort of was made before 97 at the moment.