Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast who will make your bones rot for
enjoying us.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd.
I found zanium on the floor so it's looking serious.
Are you thinking about you are us?
the twin dilemma.
I'm finding both to be a dilemma right now.
Oh, my.
Now, look.
We, we, we, we.
I would like to open this by saying that recently this year some
people on Reddit discovered that Romulus and Remus' equations in
the 1st episode are written in a special kind of computer code.
Most of it's gibberish, but there are 2 lines which read, mon-nom
bog off, you twit arse face.
Doctor Who rules okay, so does Dave's program.
So that's apparently been done by a BBC graphics employee Dave
Chapman.
And it took them.
It took people 32 years to discover it.
Discover that because that's how much attention this program has
been paid.
Yes.
So it's the twin dilemma.
It is the debut proper of Colin Baker.
Let's start with some background information into this episode.
It is written by 1st and only time Doctor Who author Anthony
Stephen, whom John Nathan Turner knew from his time on All
Creatures great and small.
Yes, who've done a lot of interesting things for the beep, beep
seep.
Yes.
Now, he had all sorts of problems with the script, and some fan
legends have emerged, including, apparently one of his excuses for
late delivery was that his typewriter exploded.
I wish.
I don't know how much truth there is in that.
But he was very ill during the scripting period.
After right, beginning right.
Yes, right.
And there was going to be a lot more playing with notions of time
travel, which I think presented him with a lot of scripting
problems, which is why there's not much at all in the finished
program.
What there is, is confusing and self-contradictory.
There's a lot more timey whimey stuff.
Yeah, exactly.
Originally, the story was called a stitch in time or a stitch with
time.
Stitch in time.
Yeah.
JMT's concept in getting an inexperienced writer with the program
was to get someone coming in with no preconceived notions of what
the program was going to be about, but he still wanted to choose
somebody he'd worked with before that he knew to be reliable.
And he also set down the edict that there should be a central
monster, the doctor faces, and that twins should somehow be
involved. but didn't specify the gender of the twins.
So in the script, the twins are not gendered.
Well, actually, did you know what Steven said in his original
vision for the script?
He was a big fan of Stanley Kubrick, as is this podcast. who was
in turn a fan of German expressionism.
In The Shining, have we all seen The Shining, the 1972 film with
It's extraordinary and it's Kubrick, so it's horribly disturbing.
Even doing things, it's set in a hotel.
There's that whole timey, whimey thing of going on.
Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duval.
I've seen the Simpsons episode.
It's the same thing.
Shelley Duval didn't know the axe was going to come. next to him.
No, yes.
She was tortured in the same way that Freak and was torturing the
crew on the exorcist, and it's very much that same period of high
concept horror.
And Jack was totally coked out the whole, there are a lot of
similarities.
But the point is that the twins were meant to be little midwitch
cuckoo girls, just like the twin girls in the shining, who stand
in the corridors, say almost nothing, and be identical, and very
disturbing, and playing with the things of, so there was meant to
be a point of around which time stops working linearly around the
twins, and their functions and their mathematical functions were
actually twisting events around them.
Imagine trying to write that, but imagine how interesting and
chalky like Windham like that would have been if the closer you
got to the twins, the more you felt incredibly ill.
So maybe some things were achieved in the script.
Yeah, Peter Moffatt actually wanted to cast.
He actually found a boy and a girl to play the twins who thought
could act.
John Nathan Turner said no.
They must be boys.
Have you read the rewriting that they must be, they had to be
preternaturally beautiful and disturbingly seductive.
Well, that's a note.
Well, that was in Anthony Stevens original script that they are
darkly attractive almost sexually so, but he also specifies in
their description.
Gary Downey should not be involved in the casting. all went
horribly wrong.
As you say, Todd, he also specified in the description that they
don't have to be identical.
They don't and they don't have to be the same gender.
Yeah.
I'd heard that John Nathan Turner actually vetoes female twins
that he...
Yeah, he sent the head...
Yeah, yeah, amen.
And chose... and chose the Conrads instead, um, Paul and Gavin
Conrad.
Gavin and Andrew.
Andrew had to change his name to Paul because there was already an
Andrew Conrad on equity something like that.
With their blank expressionless faces.
Their bowl haircuts.
They're appalling costumes, and friend of the podcast, Peter
Griffiths. actually interviewed both of them for DWM.
In a Jacuzzi, yes.
And he could not use the interview.
Because when he got back to transcribe the interview, he realised
he could not tell them apart.
So as to who was saying what about the production.
So it's... so yeah.
And they were wearing this jumpsuit, so you think that would have
helped?
I don't know why you cast as Romulus and Remus 2 boys who can't
actually pronounce the letter R properly.
Or is it L?
Lumulus and lemurs.
They couldn't tell their arses from their elbows.
No, I am Romulus, I am Wemus.
But John Nathan Turner.
First mistake.
Peter Moffatt in charge of this production.
He just wants it to be lovey, lovey, lovey at the end of the
season.
Now, they've already made this decision to make the doctor
unlikeable.
That is the decision that they've made as a reaction against
Peter's doctor in terms of the casting, which in the long term is
the wrong decision.
But now we're going to be giving the show over to this director
who we all agree, has retired from directing.
If you're going to do this, you need to ensure that one, you've
got a brilliant script.
Two, you've got a director that can direct it sympathetically, none
of this is happening.
Yeah.
Okay, so Colin's being brought in as the doctor.
They've asked for a four-year contract with him.
Okay?
decisions have been made based on what they've delivered in season
20 in terms of, because that's all they've got to go on, right?
Peter's performance been too bland.
This is, you know.
And so John Nathan Turner is now making decisions based on
reaction against what has gone before, like literally going, well
it's all too bland, so we're going to go colour.
Like, and we're going, and it's all too nice.
So we're going to go, you know, horrible.
Now, of course, Colin has come in with an idea that he wanted the
doctor to be less likeable than his predecessor and much more like
perhaps Hartnell and that sort of thing, which is not necessarily
a bad decision.
Right?
And he wanted to be dressed all in black.
Which I would agree would be a wrong decision.
I mean, if you look at the, again, that 20th anniversary special
from the BBC and what he's wearing near, that blues pinstripe soup
and what, and what Nicholas wearing.
That looks great.
And a sensible haircut.
Yeah, looks great.
They both look really great.
Okay.
John Nathan Turner has then decided, well, we're going to now put
the doctor in at the end of this season.
Which is a terrible idea.
That's another thing that compounds it.
If you're going to make the doctor unlikeable.
Why leave us at the end of the year with a doctor that we don't
like, who has openly said, I'm the doctor, whether you like it or
not.
Well, that was to Brian Bliss.
Because he wouldn't shut up that he wanted the part.
It's inexplicable.
It's a huge, a huge, huge, huge giant mistake.
And it comes from the fact that I think that he believes that the
show is safe.
Yeah, he believes it's unassailable.
At the end of the twin dilemma.
That's the last time in the 20th century that Doctor Who knows it
has another season at the end of the season.
Because the following seasons were not commissioned until after
the broadcast of the last episode in each case.
Well, I think what the big problem is, Colin Baker, when he
describes his vision of the doctor was that, you know, he had his
four-year contract.
So he thought he'd go on for years.
I think it was 3 years and an option, which is how they get rid of
him in the end, spoiler alert.
But he had this conception that he would start off unlikeable.
And then as you go through with the character, the character
gradually softens and you gradually get to the heart of the
character, he was envisioning that his doctor would actually be
the most emotional and the most approachable by the time you get
to the end of his tenure, which that's an incredibly...
Okay, it's hubristic.
But at the same time, it is ahead of its time in storytelling.
But the problem here is he likens him to Mr. Darcy, right?
Mr. Darcy is a character in one novel, and by the end of that
novel, By the end of that one story.
He has his redemptive moment.
We needed a glimmer of that redemption in this story.
Instead, we got Mr. RC.
Increasingly so as the scones kept coming.
Yes, go on.
I don't think that that is unprecedented or before its time.
I think that's the heart and arc.
He starts off as unlikeable and becomes a cuddly grandfather.
And I know that's in a good caveman, doesn't he?
But that was not a conscious decision.
No.
And the same thing with pertwi.
You know, Pertwee starts off unlikeable.
Joe comes along and he ends up your sort of touchy-theely...
Well, he ends up your sort of moralising grandma, I think, as we
said before.
Margaret Rotherford.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, we're seeing it with Capaldi.
And Tom Baker, you know, as the doctor is arrogant and dismissive
and conceited.
Well, exactly.
So it's not definitely the wrong way to go.
But they also had a great deal of range in their performances
didn't they?
Whereas Colin's not given much time to do all of that.
And he's also asked to do things that no hero should ever do.
Yeah, yeah.
There are some really, really bad moments here.
And the, there are a whole series of things that come together to
make Collins performance in this story a problem.
One is that Eric Saywood has such a teeny ear for dialogue.
And so, Pete, I think, is able to get round that by just the sheer
strength of his acting performance.
But Colin doesn't.
What Colin, I think, chooses to do is to be theatrical and
artificial so that the artificial and unrealistic dialogue works
in that context.
And I think that that makes him become alienating.
And as we do see, like it's, the original vision for the character
if that was the original vision, and I'm by no means convinced
that it is, was that he softens and becomes more likeable.
And in fact, that is what we see on screen.
He is vastly more likeable by the end of the show than he is here
or in Attack of the Cyberman.
And he is actually able to do sweet and silly as well.
But we don't get any of that here because he's so busy wrestling
with the horrific dialogue that he's given.
And then I think it's a giant mistake to give Colin so early on
these fits where the symptoms are overacting horribly.
So that thing where he's cowering in the wardrobe room, doing
maniacal laughter, is perhaps the worst performance from a lead
actor in the role to date, in the history of television, in the
history of television.
It's really, really terrible.
The only way I think that you could possibly play it.
I don't think that's down to Colin.
I think it is down to the decision.
One, let's make him unlikeable in the 1st story.
To, let's have this regeneration, this traumatic regeneration
which makes the doctor behave, you know, like strangle his
companion, be cowardly, want people to die.
All of these awful things.
He's suddenly massively unlikeable.
And that nerd explanation that we have, which is post-regeneration
trauma.
Who cares?
What we see on screen is someone, like we had Pete last week
running and running and striving and sacrificing himself to save
Perry's life.
And now he's just horrible, a horrible person.
Yeah, how can they think it would work?
And it's not where the character ends up.
It isn't where the character ends up and it's not Colin's fault
but it is a massive giant misstamp.
And just unforgivable.
It's as if no one involved in making this program knows why we're
doing Doctor Who are what makes it entertaining.
This is the point at which I think we're now doing Doctor Who just
out of habit.
And we've never really thought about what it is about Doctor Who
that appeals to the audience, what role it has in the televisual
landscape.
We just making it because we've always made it.
That's my 1st of many rants, this kind. hope the next few
podcasts.
Everybody is looking at me.
But you don't really disagree about twin dilemma, do you, I
think?
Originally, when I was asked to do these podcast listeners, I was
going to come in for just a common baker era, and the idea was to
defend.
Yeah.
Of course, I turned up a lot sooner than that.
And I will defend some things in this show.
I'm going to defend Colin Baker's performances, the doctor.
I'm just gonna be completely opposite to you.
He has to deal with some of the worst dialogue and situations in
the history of the show.
He has to turn on a dime, on a dime, from ranting to overacting to
whatever you want to say, but also there is compassion in there.
There is humour. especially in the latter 2 episodes where I
actually think the latter 2 episodes are much better than
certainly the 1st episode, which is a complete train wreck.
And I actually think it's an extraordinary performance from a
leading man and his companion, given this situation.
And the situation really comes down to this.
John Petrie took over the role in 1970.
He's in a bed for an episode or two.
There are 2 other people. 2 new other stars of the show carrying
the show during that time.
He's coming in with a new script, and ultimately a new producer
and they're working together.
Cut to 4 years later, 5 years later.
Okay, Tom Baker is coming in with a new script editor, new
producer, but in that 1st story, It's a Sarah Jane show for the
1st episode and a half, and he is with a team of people.
Cut to Peter Davidson's beginning.
He's in a box for 2 episodes.
And the 2 female companions are leading the show, right?
Yeah, and they've constructed a show for him to come into.
And a box.
He's coming in with a producer that he knows and the script editor
will be new.
Right?
cut to this.
John Nathan Turner has been there for 4 years.
Trust me.
Yeah, right?
Eric Saywood has been there for 2 years.
Trust me.
Colin doesn't know that Eric doesn't like him, right?
And so, okay, yes, trust me.
He's going to lose out on the coat to begin with, right?
In the costume.
He's lost that battle to begin with.
It's now the end of season.
Now let's just examine some of these end of season stuff.
Last year.
I lost entire story because of strikes and budgets.
The previous year, well, is the train wreck that is time flight.
The previous year works because it's the final one of that doctor
and I'll give them that. previous year, what happens?
Charter, gone, because of the strikes, because John Nathan Turner
is the production unit manager.
Previous year, he's still a production unit manager, and Anthony
Reid and him have to try and, well, the Armageddon factor.
Dear God.
And the previous year, John Nathan Turner is the production unit
manager.
And what have we got?
We've got invasion of time, which is all such a problem.
So the end of season is not a big success, right?
Often in the pertu year, it's a bit of a mess as well.
But I'm going with John Nathan.
Not as bad.
And it really is never as bad.
So here is a precedent.
Here is a precedent, right?
The last rate of season is always under budget.
Under budget, out of time.
Exhausted crew.
Exhausted.
And then you've got this script edited.
Now, I don't know what I don't know what Eric Sabre was doing
right?
Because, yes, he had to rewrite The Awakening.
Then he's got his own story, which he has revised from the
previous year, but Grimwade story, and I assume Bob Holmes's stuff
came in pretty good.
What?
And this other script is an absolute shambles.
As you were saying, it's called a stitch in time or whatever it
was called.
And I think the only thing that's left from that is that stupid
teleportation thing at the end of episode two.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which makes no sense whatsoever.
Absolutely don't blame. right?
And I believe in the original stage directions.
Perry's supposed to be screaming at the screen like that the
doctor's dying.
Instead, Nicola has to do this sobbing, which is just so pathetic
but...
Oh, it's just so pathetic.
But the fact is, this script is so undercooked in episode one.
Getting the doctor to attack Perry is just the wrong thing.
I'm extraordinary.
It is just, it's the wrong decision.
And it's say would.
Ive got to think it's say would.
It's like, say would inherits Pete and Pete is good. and now say
would hated the doctor and has been keeping him out of the show
and now he's remaking the doctor in his own cynical image and
you've got Nathan Turner casting his 2nd doctor and the only idea
he has is B different from the previous doctor, which, let's face
it, was his previous idea as well.
And, you know, cast someone reasonably famous from television
which again, he's doing again.
You know, I think that Colin is really the victim of some pretty
bad circumstances.
And I will agree with you on that.
I mean, my my point was trying to say is that, you know, he's
coming into the situation with with a producer and a script editor
wants to make it more gritty and that sort of thing, right?
And the producer wants to make it a contrast to the previous
doctor.
And so he's wanting to do a good job, but, you know, in terms of
you know, you're getting the script, you've got to make the best
of it.
You know, I know I've been in work situations where I've come into
new work situations.
I've had to implement things in classroom, which I have not
believed in, but I've done my best, right?
And then, 3 or 4 months down the track.
Like, I'm questioning what we did, and the people will turn around
who gave me the job and say to me, well, you didn't have to do it
like that.
I'm going, are you kidding me?
And then I will argue my case for change and everything like
that.
Colin's not given that opportunity.
He's just going to come in at the end of the season.
Everybody's tired, and it's like, you've just got to do this
right?
And even if you had objections to that strangling scene.
You know, it's just like we're just going to get on with and do
it.
That 1st episode is so appallingly written.
I just cannot, I cannot.
I cannot get over.
Every single asset on earth.
Can I just have my rant?
I need to do this.
I've got to keep disconnected.
So we've got May my bones rot for a baby.
Her pathetic offsider, Helena, right?
She's really bad.
And you just want to scream at their performance.
The set from acorn antiques.
This is the thing.
In winter smocks.
We talk of the arc and the security kitchen.
Here is her security.
God knows what.
It's as cheap as chips, right?
And there's one point where Hugo actually asked a question of that
may my bones rot for obeying it.
She turns to Elena, asks a question, and what seems like 20
seconds later.
She then says, oh, yes, those fighters have been modified, and I'm
just there going, oh, my goodness, can I just stab myself right
now?
Come back, Jack May, or Liz forgive her.
But then, like the whole decision.
Like there's no world building here.
If these twins are so important, surely they should be with, not
locked away in their house.
Oh my goodness.
We're going to pay equations.
Really?
The father then has apoplexy.
Like, it's just the most pathetic performance.
Okay, his is the most pathetic one.
It was cinary too.
Turns out Davros was right, TLM.
The 1st performance in the history of Doctor Who.
I'm sorry.
Like he has a breakdown over equations.
Alex Saywood, I can do that too.
X plus Y equals seven.
If Y equals 2, what is the value of eggs?
I mean, my God, I'm going to have a breakdown over that, you know
the equations come up on the screen, like, as you've mentioned
Brendan, this stupid frigging space invaders thing.
And then, and then, when they get taken away, and I do like
Edgeworth, whatever his name is, Harry.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Then, you know, when they get their little discs put on their
hands.
Like, the efforts of their acting is basically to turn 45 degrees
because that's all they can do because their faces are as plastic
and as emotionless as God knows what.
At this point, you know, I'm just ready to just throttle
somebody.
Like, I could write this crap on the back of a napkin, you know?
And then the father comes in and what was the, what's the stuff he
finds on the floor?
Oh, well, it must be an extraterrestrial kidnapping.
I mean, my god, how pathetic is this?
And then they end up saying, well, we're not going to go after
them.
You know, she's got to report back to the parents and say, well
sorry, your sons have been taken away and they could be, you know
some news for all sorts of horrors on, God knows what, you know
we've had budget cuts this week, so you know, we're not going to
do it.
By slugs played by Gary Downey.
This is and this from Garmin.
This from the guy Rod had the hots for?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I'm sorry this time round.
His performance as the father is the worst thing in his...
What else could he have done?
I do not care about the twins.
I do not care about me, I don't rot for obeying it.
He, Dennis Chenery, you and director Peter Moffatt, I'm going to
kill you.
And Eric, say with this script, anything on Earth is... absolutely
totally, utterly crap.
Todd is now knee deep in bodies in the console.
I'm sorry, bodies fluid.
That combined with the fact that Colin and Nicola have to do this
strangulation sense.
I hope this is as exciting for you, dear listeners, because this
is pretty hot.
In this episode, right?
And it comes out of nowhere.
And I will give Colin credit, like, and her credit for when it
happens, but the moment that happens, it is shocking and I
actually think that whole lead up to it as he turns on a dime and
talks to me about the peri thing.
Yeah, that's great.
I don't have a problem with that.
Like, really what needed to happen, she needed to run cowering
into the corner. and not be attacked and him to realise and go, and
actually apologise.
That's what this needs.
It needs an apology, Perry, I am so sorry.
No point in this script.
Does it actually give that?
In fact, his apology takes the form of, I have to atone on this
craggy rock and you're going to be my disciple and minister to it
my every knee. actually find that absolutely hilarious.
I mean, you know, like he can be funny, but in the context where
he's attacked her violently, and we've already said that she's a
companion that men manhandle, and now the doctor's doing it to
her.
It's just, it's fractals of wrong.
It's wrong.
It's wrong turtles. descending it wrong all the way down.
At the start when he's in the other costume.
He looks great in Pete's costume.
He looks hot in Pete's.
He looks like a rugby linebacker.
Yeah, there was a confidence in his performance.
There's a confidence.
Okay, when I look at this now.
Okay, right.
That a 6 doctor.
That's a 6 doctor on crack, that's like, like, he's taken ice and
God knows what that is.
That's what I see.
I can actually see where the 6 doctor is and where things are.
This is part of the problem with script, is that there's only
Perry.
There's no other there's no other person to break what's going on
in here. 3rd person, like a Turlo to stay on.
And it goes back to what I was saying, like all these other
supporting in the previous regenerations.
There's other people to take the lead.
They are forced into the situation where they have.
It's just the 2 of them, right?
There's no, I'm going to lie down for 2 episodes whilst I sort of
recover and get my balance.
It's like, boom.
Ultimately, it doesn't work, right?
Do you know, Moffatt pulls it off, but Russell is very careful to
do the same thing to surround us with Jackie and Mickey and
Harriet Jones and all of those people that we know from the
previous year in order to buffer it a bit and to give us a chance
for the doctor to emerge properly.
Moffatt is incredibly skilful and super careful in the
introduction of Matt Smith where he doesn't have any of that
staff.
But I remember agreeing with you at the, at the time.
I remember thinking that this is lonely, this regeneration, and
it's kind of sad that it only has one witness, and it really
doesn't work properly.
It just had been some sort of American cop show, for example, and
they the doctor would have been on drugs or whatever and be put
into ER or something and like he would have attacked people around
him.
Like, do you know what I mean?
Like the attendants trying to help him, right?
But here, because it's the companion.
It's just, it's a wrong decision.
It's like the costume ultimately is the wrong decision.
Keeping the same opening titles with the few tweaks is the wrong
decision.
Having this at the end of the year is the wrong decision, having
Eric say would write this is the wrong decision.
They should have said, Bob Holmes, keep on writing.
And having Moffatt directed, Peter Moffatt director is the wrong
decision.
Yeah, it is the wrong decision.
And up to this point, we've had lots of wrong decisions, but
through serendipity or whatever.
It's worked out here.
Everything is just a cataclysm in that 1st episode.
And, you know, I came in here to defend this story, people, you
won't believe this, and I will try and defend the rest of it.
But episode one.
I will defend I will defend Colin Baker's performance in this
story to the art.
I believe what he has to do compared to his predecessors in the
1st story and he gets in it and he does it.
I'll go to that scene where the outside stuff's quite good.
He goes outside and talking about heroes or whatever, and then
they have a little nice little moment before they enter into the
hatch into the tunnels, right?
And then they're talking about heroes and then there's this whole
sequence where he just turns like cowardly before.
I hated that as a kid, but it's the only sequence of these entire
fits that I actually like because I actually see the whole
progression.
But the ending again when he walks back through that door, it's
just dismissive, right?
It's just like, oh, yes, I'm all okay.
No, what needed to happen was the doctor needed to put his arm
around Perry and St.
Perry, I'm so sorry.
Yes, right?
And Colin has said this, right?
But Jane, he did not want to put his arm around the companion and
that sort of thing.
But he does eventually do that in the mysterious planet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I will also say that in episode four, like the 1st
episodes...
But once you get onto Jakonda, and yes, there's still some fits
and stars and I can cope with them in these, enough in these later
episodes, but there's not as much.
But the weakness of Eric Seybert as a writer.
Shines through when the doctor grabs Perry again in episode four
right?
and says, and this is, oh, promise, I won't, I won't hurt you
right?
That's his, that's his way of trying to do the opposite of what
happened in episode one, right?
Yeah.
Does it work?
I don't know.
Well, you get the, you get his cliffhanger in episode 3 where he
hears that Perry has been caught by Mestor and he calls out
Perry's name in reverse resting cliffhanger face. you know, it's
Colin's 1st proper cliffhanger face and he does it pretty well.
And I think that is meant to be an arc where he starts off
attacking Perry and ends up really concerned for her.
You know, there is some attempt to have some character
progression.
Can I just mention, though, I think that watching this, it is
possible to disentangle the fits from Colin Baker's eventual
performance.
And I have said before, I think Colin's capable of great charm.
I'm not sure that we're going to agree on the quality of Collins
eventual performance, but I think that there is a massive distance
in quality levels of quality between the fits and Collins
performance.
And I think it is really obvious to us watching it now, what is
Collins eventual performance and what's the fits.
The problem is that the audience watching it for the 1st time have
no idea what he's going to end up being live.
Yeah, and it's really hard to keep up with the changes.
And the way Colin seems to approach it.
All of the emotions he shows, I think, show on his face.
And as soon as he turns, you can see in his face that he's
turned.
I'm just speculating here that the kind of the only way for him to
get through this performance is to treat every scene like a
different production because it's, it must be very hard to get
inside the head of someone having these massive mood swings, and
Perry brings up terms like manic depression and bipolar, and that
was the media's view of these conditions at the time that your
moods can swing, you know, 5 times in 20 seconds.
Now, I came to look at Colin's face in this, because of a piece of
advice from Richard.
Richard advised me to watch this program in a special way.
I did.
I haven't seen this since 1984, and Dallas, friend of the podcast
Jones came over to a friend's place when we were all at school, and
we saw Andrazani and Twin Dilemma back to back before it was
broadcast on Australian TV, and Katie Manning was meant to come
over for lunch, but she couldn't come.
So it would have been an amazing day.
But anyway, we were all about 14 or 15.
Well, she knows Colin.
She knows everyone.
Yeah, she's got the range.
But anyway, so we sat there and Andrew's only blew us away in
every direction and at 1415.
We really, we got it.
We got all the subtleties and all the levels.
Sensitive boys of any, you know, it worked perfectly.
Then we saw twin dilemma, and my 1st word, halfway through episode
one was yuck, and then Perry, a 2nd later said, yuck. and
everybody both start laughing.
This time I watched Twin Dilemma before I watched Caves
Avengersani.
I watched it in black and white, and I watched it backwards.
And then and then I watched it frontwards to get Happy Annie.
But no, I agree completely with Todd.
I hadn't, I stopped watching Doctor Who at this and went back to
it in the 80s when Sylvester came on.
But looking at it now, I can see what a glimmer of what Colin
might have been allowed to do.
Yes, he's a very different kind of performer.
He's very theatrical.
He's more of a Henry Gordon Jago type.
But when we stop and consider that the BBC wanted Brian Blessed as
well, and Blessed was very happy to be telling everyone the BBC of
approach for me to play Doctor Who, I have the part.
He thought he did.
Well, at least, you know, Brian Bless, it's cray cray as a bucket
of...
Yeah, and then Cray lived down the sun to go crazy.
And then Colin Hurdy was saying that and called him JNT and said
why have you given away my part?
Exactly.
Because of that because folk higher up?
We're saying that to bless it as the fan law goes.
And then maybe he was taking cues from that as well.
I think Colin has been so misaligned, misjudged, and so
misappropriated for this.
He had no bloody chance.
No, no.
I mean, you know, if they had, and of course, this was a show, as
we discussed with Kays of Andrazani that was pushed back in the
schedule.
The filming work happened between the 2 studio days.
So it was massively disrupted.
Peter Moffatt, being a very old-fashioned director, filmed as much
as possible in story order, rather than getting everything done on
one set and then moving on.
Well, the only difference was the Tardis scenes, which were all
filmed on the final day.
And, you know, that's your important stuff, like the strangulation
scene, and like I'm the doctor, whether you like it or not, they
lost a beautiful line from the last scene where Perry reproaches
the doctor for being so rude to Hugo when they leave, to which the
doctor's response is.
Well, Perry, what is the point in saying goodbye to a man I intend
to visit because he will be a wise and noble leader.
And that would...
We don't get that.
And that would be that would be a moment that shows his different
perspective on the universe.
And it was cut for whatever reason.
Um, you know, this was a, this was an incredibly troubled
production that needed, it needed the time and care put into it
that went into Lagopolis.
Let's talk about David Tennant again.
Do you know what I mean?
It's the 1st time the show has a regeneration.
There's a real danger that the audience are not going to accept
the new doctor because they've never seen a regeneration before.
And yeah, and Russell really goes out of his way to ensure that
the transition is smooth and that we given the chance to recognise
Tenet as the doctor.
And so, you know, very early on we get him, he gets a hero moment
without fully recovering and without stealing the thunder of the
final hero moment.
And then we have to wait a long time for him even to come into
it.
And when he comes in, he solves the problem.
Colin is given nothing comparable to do.
He's given lots of kind of manic behaviour and cowardice and
thoughtlessness and lack of compassion.
What's his big hero moment?
He's going to stride into the villain's lair and throw a vial of
acid at him.
You know, I mean, it's so ill judged.
And it's, it is say would, say would cynicism, his inability to
regard the doctor as a hero.
We saw it in Resurrection of the Daleks, where, you know, Pete
refuses to shoot Davros in the face, uh, and that's regarded as
some kind of weakness, uh, by Seyward, that's regarded as some
kind of weakness in his character.
And so, say it's completely the wrong person to be doing this.
And anything.
Well, no one knows why we're making the show anymore.
And the code tells that story as well.
Yeah, I think the code is actually beautifully designed and I
think it's very much of its time if you look at...
It is very 80s.
If you look at Cindy Lauper or Spender Ballet.
I actually think it's perfectly 80s and I agree with you.
It's beautifully constructed. actually have come to admire the
code.
And I can see...
It's Andrew Lloyd Webber.
It's Joseph's coat.
I can see where it works in the following season.
And I think it could have worked in the season that never was, but
it does not work.
It does not work in Trial Time Lord.
I'm not getting ahead of myself, but it fails to work whenever
it's on Earth.
Yeah, that's the problem.
So the doctor can't ever appear in public on earth, you know, from
now on and he doesn't.
So he can't do something like Pete does in time flight, for
instance, and turn up at Heathrow Airport because he dresses a
clown.
Yeah.
It also has this effect on the design of the program as a whole.
Because the costume is so saturated and colourful in order to not
be drowned out completely buy it, every set from here on in has to
be colourful and giant as well.
Or has to be incredibly drab.
Well, or just be washed out.
But when does that happen?
Everything else is, there's bright colours in every set.
You know, Perry has to suddenly wear this silly outfit as well
which to match what he's wearing.
Otherwise, you're just going to...
Yeah, Hugo, like...
Yeah, awful.
Well, Perry's costume in this was originally a trouser suit, wasn't
it?
Kind of a trouser. yeah.
The way Nicola describes it was I had a polo style shirt with a
polo collar, I had trousers on, Pat Godfrey and I had discussed it
I said, well, look, I'm an American student, as you mentioned
previously, Richard, her partner at the time was American, so she
had an insight into the fashions that were popular in America.
So they had that discussion.
Nicola came on in her costume.
And during the producer's run, John Nathan Turner comes over the
PA and says, could Nicola please get into costume?
The costume we see on screen is the remnants of that costume.
Pat Godfrey apparently ran in with a sewing machine and scissors
and cut it up on the studio floor, which is why it has that weird
ribbon around the collar and why it's got the sash around the
middle to try and join it, and Nicola actually heard John say, we
cannot have the doctor showing more flesh than the companion.
The way Nicola chose to play it and why she comes into the console
and says, ta-da, is she's trying to say, I look horrible.
Can't you see how horrible you look?
My big problem with the coat has always been the yellow lapel and
the green panel on the back.
I find them incredibly distracting.
If they were hues of red instead, the predominant thing of the
coat would be red with flashes of yellow, it would be eccentric
but it would be tasteful.
And that's why, Richard, I eventually took your advice when I was
watching this.
I watched the 1st 2 episodes in colour with commentary and the
commentary is Hugo Nicola and Kevin McNally, and I kind of
switched the commentary off a little bit after the strangulation
scene because they all go, oh, isn't this wonderful and daring and
brave?
And I'm just thinking, no, this is, this, I'm just like, this is
horrible, but they wouldn't have known this.
It's horrible because the last 3 years the TARDIS has become a
domestic environment and this is now domestic violence.
This is a father figure as Nicola viewed the doctor.
This is a father figure.
Beating their child.
It really is.
And it is wrong.
It is completely wrong.
So, at beginning of episode three.
I turn the colour all the way down.
I turn the contrast all the way up.
Suddenly, it's Flash Gordon.
It's Dan Dare.
It's a 1940 serial and it looks amazing.
It works as a 50s show, yeah.
Once they get it to Jakonda.
I actually like all the performances of the Jakondans, and I think
the actual, the makeup is extraordinary.
And I like that.
I like the good guy and the bad one and then the Chamberlain, who
is from Seeds of Doom.
Seymour Green.
That's Emma Green Harrison.
That's Harrison Chase's butler.
He's too violent.
And, you know, I've, I've, is it Maurice, what's his name?
Look, you know that other old fool back in Arc of Infinity who had
lost it?
Leonard Sachs, right?
Here, he's almost losing it, but he's good enough.
I really like, I really think it's a very sympathetic
performance.
Denim is a brilliant actor.
And, you know, when the doctor holds him in his arms where he dies
at the end.
I mean I really love that stuff.
I actually really like episode four, and I know you don't like
whether I'm the doctor or I like it or not.
There, a danger thing there, which I really like.
I really, really think I really do like episode four.
And at the end, I think people forget that she's smiling at him
he's smiling at her.
They keep smiling at each other.
So for me, it's sort of like, well, okay, things haven't been
great, but yeah, we can, we can touch.
That's how I feel.
I know that you've got a face of grimace and you're going to
disagree with me on this. possibly.
No, no, it's Stockholm syndrome.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
We haven't earned the smile.
No, that's the thing.
No, you don't get to abuse a woman and then she keeps staying with
you without any recompense without any statement. is appalling.
I do love Nicola's internal explanation because as we've discussed
before, she is a very considerate and thoughtful actress.
She thinks about why she's doing things.
She has this story, she tells about her 1st theatre role.
Although she had one action and one line.
In one scene, she's scrubbing potatoes.
Are you frozen?
No, no.
And she sat down and she wrote down why the potatoes are so
important to this family.
You know, this is a World War one drama, I believe.
And then she has one line in the latest scene.
She has to run in and explain the Russians are coming and she
wrote another 2 pages on why she's so afraid of the Russians.
You know, this is the thought that Nicola puts in to one action
and one scene.
Like, if you directors hated her forever.
After she had to throw out the folder of notes she made on the
fact that the 5th doctor looked like her father, et cetera, et
cetera.
She read the script to the twin dilemma and said to herself, why
would Perry stay with this man?
And her rationale was this?
The doctor saved her life at the cost of his own.
And during the course of the 1st story, she still sees moments
where he is kind and he is sympathetic and she says, I am going to
save his life.
He is losing his life.
He is losing his mind.
I am going to stay with him and repay that debt.
And if only that had come out.
And that last...
That last scene would have been perfect to do it.
And I'm not blaming Nicola.
There was no prep time for this story.
And indeed, we know that the actors were not always listened to
under this regime.
But you know, if the doctor had said, I'm the doctor, whether you
like it or not, she will say, if she could have said, I don't like
it.
But I'm going to make sure that I do.
And then walk off.
And if we could have had the doctor's face off on that, like, what
the hell does that mean?
And that would have been...
It would have been hope?
says Kank St.
Carrie Fisher, yes.
It would have been...
St.
Digital Carrie Fisher.
It would have been hope.
It would have been uncertainty, which we already have.
And it would have been, while it's a slightly negative note, it
also would have been a positive note that Perry's like, I have not
forgotten how you've been acting, and I'm not going to put up with
it, it would have turned it to the doctor saying you're stuck with
me, and she would have said, no, you're stuck with me.
I think in the context, though, there is a 4th wall thing where it
is a challenge to the audience.
Which is a bad idea.
Yeah, which I just think is a bad idea.
And what ends up happening is they tune in next year for an
episode to see how things turn out and then decide, all right
we're not back and the and the viewing figures crater.
And I think that that's a delayed reaction to what goes on here.
Can I say a few things I like?
I think possibly there's a moment of respite?
Ranium.
And especially this comes more from my black and white viewing of
it, because I didn't realise how distracting I found Colin's coat
until I turned the colour down and I could focus on his face.
That bit where they 1st arrive on jacondar and he steps out of the
Tardis narrating about the giant slugs, the speech is terrible.
The dialogue is terrible.
It's a horrific info dump.
But after a while, I stopped listening to the words and I started
listening to the voice.
Oh, he's got a great voice.
He's got a great voice and his face during that performance, he is
heartbroken and appalled by what has happened, not only to this
planet, but to the people, and it's all on his face, and it's all
in his voice.
And then he very sensibly goes, I'm going to go back in the TARDIS
and think about this.
He doesn't go, we're going to go charging off.
And his little tantrum in the TARDIS.
He has this moment of self-awareness where he's like, I am in no
condition to save a planet.
Yeah, yeah.
And unfortunately, it's solved by Eric Saywood's favourite thing
about someone pointing a gun at his face.
You know, it would have been better for Perry to say, I'll look
after you.
I'll make sure we solve this together.
That's what we do.
Because Perry starts to persuade him.
And then Hugo shoves a gun in his face and it's just like, oh, for
goodness sake, Eric.
I almost needed you to bleed me again.
So, you know, that's a good thing.
Um, The doctor gives Mestor a chance before he throws the acid in
his face.
He says, I don't tolerate this plan.
It's going to stop.
If it doesn't, I'm going to have I'm going to have to do
something.
But the thing is, as he points out, I didn't threaten him.
I didn't say I was going to do anything to you, I said, I'm not
going to put up with this.
There's the bit where he's cradling Asmail in his arms, as you say
Todd, that is a beautiful moment, and both Colin and Maurice
Denham, who Colin respected greatly.
He couldn't believe they got Morris Denim for his 1st story.
They both bring it right down low.
It's a really lovely character moment.
My problem with that scene is it robs, like the rest of the script
has been doing.
It robs the doctor of his redemptive chance in this story.
Yeah, he doesn't get a proper hero moment and it's a mistake.
I have one other Colin acting moment that I really like, which is
when he inadvertently calls Perry Tegan, where he says Braveheart
Tegan.
And then you get the music, the leaving music, is it from
Resurrection?
The Daleks, the Tegan, leaving music, and the doctor just sort of
thinks back for a second.
Like, I think that's really nice.
It is a moment where he drops the bluster for a 2nd like he does
in Asmael's death scene.
There's another moment that I actually like, and it's the worst
some of the worst dialogue in the history of Doctor Who.
Thank you, Eric Saywood.
Well, he actually has to say regenerate yet...
Ungenerate.
And my memory cheated.
And I actually thought it was season 23 common where everything is
like overemphasised stage acting.
But he actually drops it completely down.
And I actually, and it was in that moment when I was watching this
I said, I'm going to watch this story, not for all the pathetic
dialogue and things that I don't like.
I'm going to watch it for your performance because you've just
done something now that has surprised me that I had forgotten
about it.
And I want to see how you navigate yourself with no direction
through all these twists and turns, and having to not say sorry
and what can you give to me?
And Brendan, you've mentioned the whole facial stuff.
And I can sit through 3 and 4 quite happily.
I think it actually does come together towards the end more so
than something like, I'm just going to say time flight, which I
think just falls apart.
But it's coming from such a low base.
Episode one is seriously.
So, but if I just say to listeners out there, you can Not like the
character.
Not like the story.
Not like the dialogue, not like what happens.
But if you are ever going to sit down and watch this, just watch
Collins performance throughout and what he has to navigate as a
lead actor that I don't think any other lead actor has actually
had to navigate in history for sure.
And so when he says those final things with period the TARDIS, I
felt that I'd earned it as a kid, I had no problems with it
right?
I mentioned previously that I could not see the difference between
the previous story and this as a child.
Obviously, I can see the difference there.
But as a child, there was a confident doctor in charge who was
prepared to take charge.
And that was, that's what I was used to with Tom and John, not
used to with Peter.
Right?
And so for me, to have 3 years of Peter, that thing around and
losing, at a time when I was at school, I was getting really
harassed and picked on.
And my hero wasn't there for me.
Yeah, yeah.
And in this one story, my hero came back.
He might have been erratic, he might have done some horrible
things, but by the end of this story, my hero was back.
He was in charge, and you know, he was going to tell the
Chamberlain, well, bad luck, baby, you've been a collaborator, you
deal with it.
Well, Hugo, I think you're a fool.
I don't care.
He's telling them what for.
He's not going, oh, oh, I'm going to hurt your feelings if I say
what I really think.
And so for me, I have such, the guys here, I think, can see that
I'm getting very emotional.
And so for me, the doctor was back.
I think that's what Todd says so beautifully is why Doctor Who is
so important to us, and hopefully, you know, people who are
listening to this as well, is because it touches that part of you
that can't express itself when you're a child.
He is our voice.
And for some of us, he was a father figure.
You know, I didn't grow up with a father, so for me, it was Tom
Baker and Patrick McNeve.
It shows.
But no, that's exactly true, Todd.
I was thinking that watching not just this one, but the Peter
Davidson's era and Todd touched on something really beautiful
there was that Peter, we didn't feel, and I don't think it's
Peter's fault. scripted today.
He didn't come up to the part of the doctor.
Peter never felt confident that he'd be able to pull it off.
And the production stuff and crew instead of coming to his rescue
played along with that, and underwrote the part or made him the
prat falling doctor.
He really didn't succeed.
He only has that moment at the end where he does all his prep
falls because I'm doing this for a purpose.
I'm doing it for the person who trusted me.
And more importantly, I don't know her.
We don't really have a relationship, but that's not the point.
The point is she's put her trust in me.
I must therefore come up to that and do the same with her and he's
thoroughly redeemed.
And actually, Colin, and it's nothing to do with the script, and
it's nothing to do with anyone else on the crew, but Colin and
Nicola, just in their acting, just in their performance, just in
their presence, after that appalling scene, that I can never
forgive, because no doctor should ever attack a companion on any
level.
But they still have that moment where you sort of think, I think
these 2 might actually manage to save this.
Yeah, I do often wonder, because the copy of this I had as a kid
the strangulation scene was massively cut down.
What happens is this is from the 93 repeat season?
The doctor lunges at Perry, we cut straight to the mirror shot and
he recoils.
So I knew there was the full strangulation because I'd read the
novelisation.
And he really throws her around.
Yeah, I mean, that is...
But the thing is, it works just as a lunge.
Look at yourself in the mirror after.
Which is all it should have been.
Yeah.
And for that reason, as a kid, when I saw this when I was about 10
or 11 years old, it bothered me a lot less than it does as an
adult seeing the full thing because it was a violent moment along
the lines of the illusory Tom at the end of Stones of Blood.
You know, it was a flash and it's gone.
Whereas, as it is in the program, it's horrible and it lingers.
But I do wonder, if, if we did cut it down to the point that he
kind of goes for her and then recoils, as we kind of mentioned
earlier, Could we, as fans and viewers, be able to overlook that
and look at more, find more positives in the story because it
doesn't help that the story itself is not that strong anyway.
It's full of logical inconsistencies and it's got at its heart.
And literally, at the heart of the narrative, You have these 2
twins who, through no fault of their own, have been hired for a
role they're not ready for.
One of them acting, yeah.
I mean, for instance, there's the whole thing about the transmat
you mentioned earlier, Todd, that it'll send you about 10 seconds
in time.
In the original script, it was an hour back in time, but still the
base exploded, and it was actually Eric Saywood, who said, um
Anthony, this doesn't make any sense.
Why would it still explode?
So we made it 10 seconds.
Whereas finally, when Eric Saywood wrote the novelisation, he just
wrote it as the doctor turned into a trans mat, which makes
sense.
Makes sense, but it doesn't make sense as it airs because it's
still talking about 10 seconds when it just transmits.
What's really bizarre, in terms of logical inconsistency, in
episode three, Asmail says that the 2 outer planets will be
brought into orbit around Jakonda.
In episode four, Asmail says that the 2 planets will be brought
into the same orbiters to Jakonda, but one Jakondan day ahead of
each other because of time travel.
But it's like, no, I wouldn't they be one day ahead in terms of
distance?
And then, of course, the doctor says, oh, but that close to the
sun, they'll burn up, but it's like, well, but no, Mercury and
Venus are smaller than Earth. you know what are you talking
about?
And it's, it never would have happened under Christopher Hamilton
bid me, and I don't mean that as a joke.
I mean, he would have liked it.
Because he was scrupulous in his care for, you know, the facts of
as far as they could go.
You know, you can easily rewrite that to work.
You can say, if you bring those into orbit, look at this sum, look
at that sum, they'll actually crash into the planet and send the
eggs off anyway.
I actually don't care at all about that.
You know what I mean?
Like whatever.
You know, there's a whole heap of magic nonsense.
But what doesn't work is that you've got Mestor, who is a villain
who can apparently bring down a whole fleet of ships, which we
don't see happening.
There's really no action in those 1st 2 episodes at all, and we
get this sort of word peril description of what happens to the
spaceships, but we don't see it.
And he can mind control everyone and he can do embolisms and all
of that sort of thing.
And it's kind of like, well, why?
He's just a sort of stupid high concept villain, we've kind of no
rationale.
Do you know who he's cashing on of?
don't you?
You know who they were trying to do?
Jabber the heart.
Which is why he lost after Perry.
Oh, and that's what it was going to be.
Again, let's watch more men lust after Perry.
But it's, it's, Miss Doors, like jazz hand.
It's a jazz...
Oh, as may I?
this is happening or whatever, but it's like, Eric, haven't you
already given this to us with the pterodeptils and didn't, didn't
earlier this season?
didn't we have like the gravis and them also having the same
little pathetic little jazz hands?
It was nice to see John Barram and even in a mask, in a role, you
know, only in his early 40s.
But do you know who it really is?
It's Captain Hart from the Sea Devils.
It really is.
It's Professor... the famous five.
Edwin Richfield.
Yes, it is.
Why?
I know.
I was so sorry for him the whole time.
It's great and sea devil.
And to top and to top it all off, he's massively claustrophobic.
And they knew when they cast him what the costume was going to be
like.
Because they're that bastardy.
It's a stupid looking costume as well.
And then you get scenes of a bunch of gastropods or 2 gastropods
shuffle along the corridor depositing kind of quickset concrete.
Farty substances.
Yeah, yeah.
And they just look ridiculous.
I mean, they really are a truly terrible monster.
He's a threat which has no kind of origin, no particular point to
it.
He's like the swarm, isn't he?
is obsessed with breeding and spreading his DNA all over the place
like a, you know, horny teenager.
It's really just a truly, truly undercooked, thin, absurd
premise.
And when you compare it to the sophistication of last week's story
it's just inexplicable that they would give Colin as his 1st story
a story where he doesn't get to be the doctor.
You know, he doesn't get to solve the problem.
He doesn't get a hero moment.
It really, really, fatally flaws the character.
It's a big problem.
It's a big problem because the writers of next season will just
look at this and go, this is what we base things on. and that will
influence how they write the Dr. Perry relationship.
Obviously, it's never as bad as this.
I don't believe.
Again, but we'll discuss those pros and cons next season.
But, you know, gives everybody 9 months to cogitate over this, you
know?
I feel like you can choose to stay in that moment where he attacks
her or you can choose to be in the moment at the end where they're
smiling at each other and there is hope for the future.
And that's a moment that I choose to stay in.
If you choose to be in the 1st, you're never going to find
anything you like over the next 2 years.
I find it fascinating in science fiction.
There is this.
There is this troop that people have to do at least once per
series. say trope with characters acting wildly out of character.
They do, don't they?
And there's a not a good example, I should say, but there is a
cogent example, a few years later in the 1st season of Star Trek
the Next Generation.
The naked now.
Now, it was filmed as the 1st regular episode of the series after
the pilot film.
And um, the cast members, I believe it's Lavar Burton, who went on
to become a prolific director of the series.
LeVar Burton said, I think the problem with the naked now, wasn't
that it was using an idea borrowed from the original series.
It was that they were getting us to act out of character before we
knew who our characters was.
I think Russell makes the same mistake with David Tennant in whose
1st regular episode he gets taken over by Cassandra.
And, you know, like he's terribly funny, but I do think it's too
early in his run to see him, again, behaving out of character.
Something's not quite right.
I know when you watch that, you kind of...
I mean, he's funny and we know him now and it's all alright, but
because imagine in this story, if you had Colin, essentially being
his more bombastic, but more settled self we come to know later
on.
And there were just, but there were just a little flashes of
darkness that he would kind of shake off.
And then maybe in 2 or 3 stories, we have the story where he runs
amok and he's worried about unregenerating.
You know, rather than do that in his very 1st appearance, seed it
but then do it later when we've gotten to know him and it means
something, all it means to us at this point is that...
We don't know who he is.
And we didn't know who didn't really know who Davison's doctor was
at the end of his story, but it was an intriguing mystery because
we weren't given any contradictory information.
We were just given little snippets.
I said at the time, actually, with Pete's 1st story, that he
likewise doesn't get a proper hero moment, you know, that he's up
against, you know, the master, but it's not really that great.
Whereas you compare, you know, Tom's 1st story and he's up against
a giant robot. you know, that's kind of exciting and I just think
more thought needed to be given.
Especially since it's the end of the season.
I doesn't have a whole year. to sort of win people over.
Yeah, that's right.
It's not like we can tune in next week and see that he's settled
down.
We've got 9 months to wait now.
Yeah, I do think probably the star performer in this story who
comes out looking the best, if you like, is Kevin McNally as
Hugo.
I think he has a nice clear character from beginning to end.
His ending is a bit weird when he decides to stay on the planet
but we don't have anything that contradicts what he says about not
having anyone back home.
I do like the doctor's line about that.
Yeah, that I can believe.
Again, again, the way it's delivered, I think is perfect.
He's got good comic timing, colon, I think.
Yeah, it's it's not a cruelly delivered line.
It's like this is what I genuinely think.
And to be fair, Hugo has been pointing a gun at him the whole
time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, it's Eric Saywood's inability to write characters that are
not horrible.
Yeah, that being said, Hugo maintains his character all the way
through.
I think Nicola is the person that holds this story together as
much as it is held together because she's the one having the human
reaction to things.
Her human reaction is generally believable and understandable.
And even though she is manhandled, pushed from place to place, she
very rarely loses her sense of agency and there's some great
moments where she gives back to Colin and that bit where they land
on Titan 3 and he does this bit about, except this weary
penitent.
Don't you just says, I think I'm gonna be sick.
She rolls her eyes at my moment, one of those features, and I just
burst out laughing every single time.
Like, I find humour.
I've got a very dark sense of humour and some of the stuff like we
he believes that he's doing the right thing by making her his
hermit and everything like that.
And I just burst out laughing because like she's done nothing
wrong.
And she's just the butt of all these things and now she's going to
be this hermit because this will be good for you.
I just I just laugh my head off.
I mean, I'm sorry.
I just...
And what I love about those moments is she's pointing out the
logical inconsistencies in what he's doing.
And again, it's not in a mean way. you haven't checked the
atmosphere.
You haven't done this.
You haven't done.
Are you insane?
It's what I really liked the other day, dear listeners, we went to
see the Return of Dr. Mysterio.
Matt Lucas. much like Perry in this story. is the one when the
doctor says something that doesn't quite make sense.
He'll point out what Well, hold on.
New York's not a capital city.
Hold on, you haven't thought about this.
And my favourite line in the whole special when the doctor does
the unpredictable, like Colin Baker does here, is Matt Lucas being
strangled, saying, I know you miss her, but couldn't you just
write a poem?
You know, that is brilliant.
That is brilliant.
Okay, we should get on to our Jenny Laird awards for most puzzling
creative choice for this season.
God, who wants to make a start on this?
I've got several nominations.
Yes, go on.
Could we maybe we could recuse the twin dilemma from this from
this Jenny Ladd Award.
It is part of it, though.
I guess so.
Yeah, I think we need to, I mean, we've got the coat, but I really
like the coat, so I'm not going to go with that.
The strangulation is completely wrong.
It's certainly up there.
We've got, like, the Merka is something, but I actually think that
stupid door that falls on Tegan.
That's worse than the movie.
We've got the karate kick, which I love to death.
It is funny.
I don't know.
I think I'm going to go with, if you're going to do a flashback
sequence, you need to include every single companion in it.
And the fact that in Resurrection, the Daleks, Leila is not in
that flashback sequence.
And you've got a so-called advisor to the producer and the script
editor.
It's unforgivable Yep.
Well, I think it has to be introducing Colin at the end of the
season when everyone's sick of everything.
We've rehashed that this episode, but I think it's a disastrous
decision.
Yes.
I'm going to avoid the twin dilemma simply because I sometimes
like to pick my Jenny Leds based on what the hell was happening.
Like twin dilemma, we can very easily point out what's wrong with
it.
But I do not understand how an actor of Tom Adams calibre can give
that performance in Warriors of the Deep.
So it's Tom Adams.
Golly golly gosh.
I need to actually remember that there was another doctor before
Colin Bacon. so much time looking at this thing on the end of
the.
Yeah.
I mean, if it was a sheep, you'd go and have a put down rather
than just shave it off.
Um, what have we seen this season?
Sorry, I really need to go...
The awakening.
Frontie arse.
Um...
Resurrection to Darks, you'd love that.
Yeah, thank you, Todd.
Resurrection of the Dikes, my puzzling creative choice would
simply be Eric's same.
Beautiful direction and lovely lighting and actually very good
casting, but yeah, my posting creative choice is what was what was
Eric thinking, really?
Guns are great.
I can't think of anything more fresh to say.
There was so much that should have almost worked and there was so
much that almost worked and is, in fact, rescued by the collective
goodwill of everyone involved.
And then by the end of the season, it's not just one
circumstance.
It's the Christmas tree toppling over because everything that was
you know, surrounded by goodwill.
It's Trumpian in its scale.
It's all kind of, it's like, sorry, that Goodwill is just gone.
This is what happened.
I think I said during season 20.
It's kind of like you can fly by the seat of your pants for one
story a season.
Yep.
But to do it all the time, you're gonna end up with the Christmas
tree falling over, yeah.
Yeah, I like that.
Picks of the week, picks of the season.
I'm going to jump in with, as we have alluded to before.
Big Finish have inserted a, um, a great range of audio dramas
with...
Intercom Baker's career.
But before we get there, into Peter Davidson's era.
So there are 3 audios with the 5th doctor in Turlough between
Resurrection of Daleks and Planet of Fire.
There are so few because of Mark Strickson's limited
availability.
He's a producer of wildlife documentaries now.
But I'm going to choose an audio from the range with Nicola Bryant
and Peter Davidson are given an extended series of adventures
between Planet of Fire and CaveSpan resigning.
They work beautifully together with his sort of English
sensibility and politeness and her bluntness.
They're also given another companion who is a forgotten pharaoh
played by Carolyn Morris.
That's Eramem.
And I'm actually going to choose, I believe this is available for
free from Big Finish.
There's a two-part story called The Veiled Leopard.
There is indeed.
In which Perry and Eramm are sent by the doctor to prevent the
theft of a diamond from a society party.
So Peter Davidson's not actually in it.
But little do they know that the thieves of the diamond are
companions of the 7th doctor, Ace and Hex.
So it's a two-part story.
The 1st part is told from Perry and RMM's perspective and the 2nd
part is told from Ace and Hex's perspective.
It is a lovely, lovely little two-parter.
And yeah, we will find a link for it.
It was free on the cover of Doctor magazine, and all those free
audios have now been released for free by Big Finish.
Just in case anyone else is going to recommend any other titles
from that range.
I won't mention them, but yeah, the Vale leopard.
I'm going to give a very self-serving recommendation. something
that you alluded to, Brendan, in your closing remarks in a recent
episode.
And that is, I've spent a little while rewriting the randomiser
which is a website at the randomiser.net, which I launched, I
think, in 2014, uh, and it lets you choose a Doctor Who story at
random, so that you just don't always cycle around your usual
favourites, and uh, you maybe take yourself out of your comfort
zone.
But if you're not keen to be taken out of your comfort zone, you
can always just pick particular doctors or stories of a certain
length or stories that don't have missing episodes, and you can
also set it to record its history, and to not go back and offer
you a story that you've seen before.
It's been improved and re-architected and deployed.
And I'd love you all at home, dear listener, to um, go and have a
look at it and um, let me know what you think.
It's lovely.
It won't clean your teeth but it will tuck you in.
Yes.
Nice like that.
I haven't been around a lot for this season.
It's only been the last couple of podcasts.
I haven't really thought about this Warriors of the Deep is one of
my underrated stories, and I quite like it.
So I'm going to recommend a prequel.
To that.
It's called the Doctor Who in the Sunurians.
And I'm going to recommend a sequel.
It's an audio.
Big finish audio with Colin Baker, maybe stadium.
And a baby merka.
It's fantastic.
It's called blood time.
I love blood tide. was going to be one of mine.
Fantastic.
I've got a copy of it here, yeah.
Friend of the podcast, Dan Hogarth.
It does.
Who gets a rather wonderful line that he uses at Doctor Who
conventions to get free champagne.
Just give me a shampoo.
I was just like, I was a silo reading, but I'm tired.
Now bring me a bottle of champagne before I have you busted down
to excrement shovel up.
That's right.
He was he was the dawn French all the time in that skirt. going on
his tea break.
We're talking Pete, aren't we?
Because we're doing...
But something relate.
I'm not a fan of them. missing adventure novels, any of them.
Goth opera disappointed me.
Sorry, Mr. Coon.
Cornell, when it 1st came out, and I'm not really a fan.
Cold fusion, though.
I really like.
So that's probably my pick.
That's come out finally as an audio.
It's a really good missing adventure novel with Pete Anderson
surprises.
Todd's nodding as well.
I'm not going to give any of it away.
But, um, big finish have just brought it out.
It's really terrific.
I really enjoy that one.
And I love Pete in the audios.
I love him with, I love Red Dawn and Church and the Crown, which
are the, I think, the 1st 2 with, but there's another RMM one in
between them, I think, but...
I, the Scorpions, the 1st one.
I have the Scorpions, the 1st one.
It's so good.
Those 3 actually.
Red Dawn Eye, the Scorpion and Church in the Crown.
I've got them here if anyone wants to come over and listen to
them.
You're more than welcome.
Yeah, that's what I'll be doing this afternoon.
No, they're really, really lovely.
I got a bit mucky after that.
They made a few mistakes in timing and everything else.
I think there's only one really poor one.
But...
Whatever it's called.
Yeah, necroment, yeah.
Yeah, awful.
But I once recorded a 10 minute rant about how long.
Did you good?
It's very nice.
It's dark.
Well, it's too dark.
But yeah, yeah, but those 1st 3 are just lovely, just charming.
We're leaving behind Season 21.
We're heading into the uncertain future, where slightly mixing up
the format of flight through entirety for the next few seasons.
So Todd will join us for the whole of the Column Baker era, with
Richard occasionally popping in for guest appearances, for then
the Soulvest McCoy era, Richard will join us for all of that, and
Todd will pop in for the occasional guest appearance rather than
loves that era.
Yes.
We're going to make him do a commentary on Delta and the
Bannerman.
You're going to put it on, aren't you?
when we do these.
No, no.
I've actually watched you enjoying Delta and the Man of Man Todd.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Do stay tuned to flight through entirety.sexy, flight through
entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast on Twitter over on
Bondfinger.com.
We recently finished the Roger Moore era of James Bond films with
a view to a kill.
We also have all preceding official bond films as well as casino
rail 1967 and never say never again.
Next month we'll be starting on my personal favourite bond.
Timothy Wrestleon Dalton.
What a coincidence.
That was his middle name.
That's on Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and iTunes and
Bondfinger cast on Twitter.
Until next time, may none of the bubbles in your champagne end up
in your bloodstream.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
And I'll see you soon.
Whether you like it or not.
That was Flightthrough Entirety with Todd Bealby, Nathan Bottomley
Brendan Jones, Richard Stone and his Kenneth Williams Doll.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Y, was recorded on the 28th of December 2016.
The next episode will be released on January 29th.
It's a shame to see Dennis Chinnery in such a thankless role.
One might almost say his genesis has been abused.
And it's what I really liked about Matt Smith's character, because
in the new series...
I really liked Matt Smith in that as well.
Yeah, he was great.
In the new series, most Doctor Who companions have been, oh, Doctor
you're so wonderful, and you're so clever, and you're so... one of
ma...
No, no, let him go.
I said Matt Smith instead of Matt Lucas didn't...
You know why, though?
Because, no, because...
Matt Smith is really good.
Yes, it's the same person in the rubber.
Sorry, can I ask this?
I We've gone one hour and 6 minutes.
Okay.
I'll wrap.
But you know, they would listen to this if we went 13 hours.
I'll wait until you're back from the...
I don't think you should change that.
No, I think we'll leave it in, but I'll just correct myself.
I think that's really sweet.
And we should say, you know, that Matt Smith, Matt Smith
telescopes beautifully into a Gibbs suit.
I did the doctor's written, Max Smith would do this much, it's
much better for a younger doctor. like this whole thing.
Like this is a Met Smith energy that Peter Capelli.
That's where I thought you were coming from too.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, in terms of colon, and we probably won't use this because
Nathan's in there.
Oh, I don't know.
I think the costume ages him about 10 years because he looks young
and vital in Peter's costume, and inside his patchwork costume
it's weird.
It kind, it reduces his size and his physical presence.
I think because the costume takes over.
You can no longer see that he's there.
It also lampoons his performance.
Every extremity, every, every, every high note he hits is taken by
the coat.
Yeah.
Okay, that how can you compete with your own costume?
Whereas put him in a sensible costume.
And his mood swings suddenly become far more effective because you
don't expect them to happen.
Okay.
I'll resume what I was saying about that.
You could tie it tag, though.
Okay, so get my weeber.
Okay, very definitely.
Right.
So, as I meant to say,