After the whimsy and quality of last week’s story, 1980s Doctor Who is back on form with a grim 90-minute slog, bristling with guns and clunky macho dialogue. And a bigger body count than the last three seasons combined! Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Resurrection of the Daleks.
Buy the story!
Resurrection of the Daleks has been released on DVD many times, for some reason. The Special Edition DVD was first released in the Revisitations 2 box set in 2011 (Amazon UK), which at least includes a new edition of Carnival of Monsters. As always, it was also released on its own in the US. (Amazon US)
And if this story hasn’t slaked your thirst for ultraviolence in London (and Newcastle), you should watch the 1971 Michael Hodges masterpiece, Get Carter, which stars Michael Caine and largely deleted Avengers alumnus Ian Hendry.
And if even that’s not enough for you, The Long Good Friday (1980), launched the career of the late Bob Hoskins and featured the delightful and somewhat terrifying Helen Mirren. Like Resurrection of the Daleks, it heavily features the London Docklands and people shooting each other with guns.
And now it’s time for Flight Through Entirety Entertainment Tonight: Parker Posey will be playing Dr Smith in the new Netflix remake of Lost in Space. Meanwhile, Michelle Yeoh, who pillioned with Pierce Brosnan in the 1997 Bond classic Tomorrow Never Dies, has reportedly signed on to play the captain of the upcoming new Star Trek seriesStar Trek Discovery. Nathan’s partner Calvin continues to deny that she’s his long-lost cousin from Ipoh. But none of us are convinced by that.
And in Separated at Birth?, we encourage you to consider how uncannily similar Eric Saward looks to Baron Silas Greenback from our childhood favourite Danger Mouse. (No, not the 2015 reboot. Or the music producer.)
Most of our listeners are longing for those other guys to shut the hell up, so that they can hear what Brendan has to say. And who can blame them?
Fans of the delightful Brendan can actually see him in person in his video series Doctor Who in Ten Seconds, in which he takes a leisurely 10 seconds to summarise individual stories of Doctor Who. Think how much time you’ll save watching the show by checking out the playlist on YouTube instead!
Bondfinger
Well, we’ve been overcome by a seasonal inability to be arsed enough to watch A View to a Kill, so our Rodg-a-thon will reach its final conclusion in the New Year, possibly under a Trump presidency.
Patron of the podcast, Christopher Hamilton Bidmead, returns for a victory lap in what might be the best story of Pete’s final season. Raid at the ready, chums, it’s time to defend the last of humanity against an onslaught of fibreglass woodlice, in Frontios.
In this story, Jeff Rawle plays Plantagenet, the colony’s young and inexperienced leader. Rawle is mostly famous for his role as George in the terrifically clever Channel 4 comedy Drop the Dead Donkey. He would go on to play the Mona Lisa’s gay sidekick in a Sarah Jane Adventures story called Mona Lisa’s Revenge.
Before author and former script editor Christopher Hamilton Bidmead became the patron of Flight Through Entirety, we may have had a somewhat fractious relationship. Here’s his tweet objecting to our discussion of Castrovalva, and here’s his tweet allowing us to quote his previous tweet on our website.
Fans of things that prove the non-existence of a merciful and beneficent God will enjoy The Human Centipede, which is not a million miles away from CHB’s original vision of the Tractators’ unconvincing excavation devices. Fans of things slightly less gruesome might enjoy South Park’s take on that film, HUMANCENTiPAD. Best not to Google either of them.
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s only full-length philosophical work was called Tractatus. Coincidence? We think not.
And now, insects. (Oh, and arachnids.) In the 1974 film Phase IV, colonies of ants develop intelligence and start to attack the human race. And these days, who can blame them? You might also enjoy Joan Collins being attacked by papier mâché ants in Empire of the Ants (1977), and spiders attacking William Shatner, probably, in Kingdom of the Spiders (1977).
Big Finish have recorded an improbably long series of Doctor Who audios set between Planet of Fire and The Caves of Androzani, starring Peter Davison as the Doctor and Nicola Bryant as Peri. These include Red Dawn and The Church and the Crown.
These days, it takes Flight Through Entirety more than 45 minutes to discuss a Doctor Who story. Fans with better things to do with their time will enjoy Brendan’s ten-second summaries of Doctor Who’s earliest stories in Doctor Who in 10 Seconds. So far, he has managed to summarise the first seven seasons of Doctor Who, starring William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and the first of five seasons of Jon Pertwee. To watch the show, check out the playlist on YouTube.
Bondfinger
Grace Jones has stolen all of our microphones and knocked us unconscious, and so we’ve actually been unable to finish our flight through the entirety of the Roger Moore canon in time for Christmas. We’ll be back in the new year for A View to a Kill.
We’re broadcasting live this week from Little Hodcombe, where there’s an ongoing battle between Eric Pringle and some long-time Doctor Who podcasters desperately trying to find anything at all to say about this story. It’s Roundheads versus Cavaliers, and somehow the Doctor finds himself caught in the middle. Welcome to The Awakening.
Buy the story!
The Awakening was released on DVD in 2011. In the US, it was released on its own, as usual (Amazon US), but in the UK, it was released as part of a completely inexplicable box set called Earth Story, which inadvisedly bundled this story along with the really rather wonderful The Gunfighters. (Amazon UK).
Notes and links
The ITV series Sapphire and Steel was essentially about weird anachronisms creating hugely upsetting time things. The Awakening owes a lot to this, but it’s vastly less slow-moving and intolerable. Watch it, or maybe don’t watch it.
Brendan’s back from Fiji, and he’s wearing a lovely sulu, but he’s still yet to find time in his exhausting schedule to acquire a stick-on BBC beard and record a new Master-centric episode of Doctor Who in 10 Seconds. While you’re waiting for that, feel free to enjoy the previous seven episodes, in which Brendan summarises the first seven seasons of Doctor Who. Check out the playlist on YouTube. You won’t regret it.
Bondfinger
We’ve all been totally rogered by the nightmare before Christmas, which has prevented us from recording our Bondfinger commentary episode on A View to a Kill, the final entry in Bondfinger’s flight through every Rodgefilm in the James Bond œuvre. We’ll be back on board early in the new year.
This week, Brendan, Nathan and Richard build a giant Seabase underwater. It’s going to be the best, most beautiful Seabase ever. And we’ll get the Silurians to pay for it!
Buy the story!
Warriors of the Deep was released on DVD in 2008. In the US, it was released on its own (Amazon US), but in the UK, it was released along with Doctor Who and the Silurians and The Sea-Devils in the surprisingly good Beneath the Surface box set. (Amazon UK).
Notes and links
This story’s writer, Johnny Byrne, wrote more episodes of the first season of Space: 1999 than anyone else ever. And, my God, can’t you tell from this story?
Cornell, Day and Topping theorise that this story’s continuity problems could be solved by positing a third encounter between Pertwee and the Silurians in this entry in their The Discontinuity Guide.
Gary Russell desperately attempts to wallpaper over these horrific continuity problems, with some success, in his Virgin Missing Adventure, The Scales of Injustice. It was republished as part of The Monster Collection in 2014. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
Brendan has spent the last few weeks in Fiji, basically living on drinks with umbrellas in them and not doing any work. So there are no new episodes of Doctor Who in 10 seconds right now. But that won’t prevent you from enjoying the previous 7 episodes, in which Brendan summarises the first 7 seasons of Doctor Who. Check out the playlist on YouTube.
Bondfinger
The Rodgeathon is reaching its ultimate conclusion: in a couple of weeks, we’ll be recording our final Rodgumentary, on the 1985 classic A View to a Kill.
This week, we’re taking a break from our relentless flight through the entirety of Doctor Who to go back and visit an old favourite. Fire up your VHS player and get ready to listen to all four of us slurring drunkenly throughout the incredible six-episode run of that 1964 Terry Nation classic The Keys of Marinus.
The Flight Through Entirety Troughton Commentary Poll
Thank you to everyone who voted in the Flight Through Entirety Troughton commentary poll, in which our listeners were asked to choose between The Power of the Daleks, The Enemy of the World, The Web of Fear and The Krotons. So who won? Listen to this episode to find out. (The announcement is finally made some time into the third hour of this episode. So you’ll probably never hear it.)
Buy the story!
The Keys of Marinus was released on DVD in 2010. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Notes and links
If you’re keen to hear a sober assessment of the literary qualities of The Keys of Marinus and its celebrated indebtedness to German expressionism, then you will undoubtedly enjoy the third ever episode of Flight Through Entirety, from way back in 2014: Episode 2: So Maudlin.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll all vote for the only six-part story in your podcast fan poll and force you to talk relentless nonsense about a largely forgotten 1960s Doctor Who story for more than two and a half hours.
Doctor Who in 10 Seconds
Doctor Who in 10 Seconds is Brendan’s brilliant video projet, in which he summarises every Doctor Who story in no more than ten seconds. You can see him take on the Keys of Marinus in his first ever episode. To see the rest of the series, which currently covers the first seven seasons of Doctor Who, just check out the playlist on YouTube.
Bondfinger
Our next James Bond commentary will be released next weekend, and in it we’re suprisingly positive about Connery’s weird return to the series in the ill-advised 1983 Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again.
Our back catalogue covers all of the previous James Bond films, from For Your Eyes Only to Dr. No. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.
We’ve now been recording Flight Through Entirety for exactly twenty years, and to celebrate this milestone, all four of us are back for our second ever commentary podcast. So grab your iPhone, fire up your Blu-ray player and settle down to a relaxing pineapple daquiri. It’s The Five Doctors!
The Flight Through Entirety Troughton Commentary Poll
In two weeks’ time, we’ll be releasing our increasingly drunken commentary podcast on The Keys of Marinus. Until then, why not vote in our latest poll: which Troughton story should be the subject of our next commentary podcast?
Voting in the FTE Troughton commentary poll has now closed. In this poll, our listeners made a choice between The Power of the Daleks, The Enemy of the World, The Web of Fear and The Krotons. The result will be announced at the very end of Episode 91 of Flight Through Entirety.
Buy the story!
The Five Doctors: Special Edition was the first Doctor Who DVD released, even before the main line got underway. The 25th Anniversary edition was released (obviously) in 2008. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Weird First-Doctor substitute Richard Hurndall played old man slave murder victim Neebrox in the ridiculously camp 1981 Blakes 7 episode Assassin, which also features a villain who changes into a special villain outfit when there’s some extra villainy to be done.
Brendan is currently working undercover in an undisclosed Pacific location, which probably means that we won’t get a new episode of Doctor Who in Ten Seconds for the next few weeks. While you’re waiting, you can watch the previous 7 episodes, in which Brendan summarises the first 7 years of Doctor Who stories. So check out the playlist on YouTube.
Bondfinger
In our latest Bondfinger commentary, Brendan, Nathan, Richard and James talk all over Octopussy, the best James Bond film to be released in 1983.
As is now well known, Season 20 trails off with a whimper, and so Brendan, Nathan and Todd take a week off to allow our discussion of The King’s Demons to be conducted by shapeshifting robot replicas. And they do a great job!
Buy the story!
The King’s Demons was released on DVD in 2010. As usual, it was released on its own In the US, (Amazon US). In the UK, it was released in yet another uninspiring DVD box set, called Kamelion Tales (Amazon UK).
Notes and links
Fans of obsessively flying through the entirety of Doctor Who will certainly enjoy subscribing to Doctor Who: The Complete History, which is a series of beautifully-produced books chronicling, in obsessive detail, every Doctor Who story in the programme’s fiftysomething year history. Seriously, check it out.
Kamelion (spoiler alert!) has a key role in Christopher Bulis’s BBC Past Doctor Adventure The Ultimate Treasure, first published in 1997.
Picks of the week
Brendan
Follow @WhoLabels on Twitter, for all your Doctor Who labels needs. He’s also on Facebook. And he’s brilliant. Unmissable.
Todd
Listen to Wang Chung’s fifth studio album The Warmer Side of Cool, and in particular, the tracks Praying to a New God and Snakedance (which, heartbreakingly, seems to have been removed from YouTube).
Nathan
Read The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter, a book which includes a years-long email exchange between Benjamin Cook and Russell T. Davies, in which they discuss the production of Series 4 and the 2009 Specials, as well as TV in general, RTD’s earlier (and later) TV series, and writing in general. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
While Brendan tries to source a convincing stick-on goatee for his Season 8 episode of Doctor Who in Ten Seconds, you can enjoy his previous 7 episodes, in which he summarises the first 7 years of Doctor Who stories. So check out the playlist on YouTube.
This week, we discuss the final story of Season 20’s Black Guardian Trilogy. Todd wants to know all the details, Nathan is busy admiring Captain Wrack’s décolletage, while Brendan waxes philosophical on the nature of Enlightenment.
Buy the story!
Enlightenment was released on DVD in 1992/1993. In the US, it was released on its own, I think, but it’s completely unavailable on Amazon. Still, you can just buy it as part of the Black Guardian Trilogy box set (Amazon US), which is how it was released in the UK and Australia (Amazon UK).
Notes and links
Barbara Clegg and Rona Munro (Survival) are the only women ever to write for the Classic Series, if we don’t count Lesley Scott’s co-credit on The Ark, and we don’t, apparently.
We’ve mentioned Sapphire and Steel before. It ran on ITV from 1979 to 1982 and starred Joanna Lumley and David McCallum, who played time-travelling agents (sort of), who tried to rectify strange and scary time things caused by anachronisms or paradoxes or something. It’s worth a look, even if it’s glacially slow by modern standards. You can read Den of Geek’s take on the story here; in this essay, Sandifer discusses the series, as well as just about every other genre thing from the same period.
Brendan has now recorded 7 episodes of Doctor Who in Ten Seconds, summarising 54 Doctor Who stories in at most 10 seconds each. If you’d like to see him performing this feat with your own eyes, visit the webpage. To keep up with future summaries, subscribe to his channel on YouTube.
Brendan, Nathan and Todd are all suffering from Lazar’s disease, or possibly withdrawing from hydromel, which might explain our somewhat listless approach to that critically acclaimed Doctor Who classic, Terminus.
Buy the story!
Terminus was released on DVD in 1992/1993. In the US, it was released on its own, as usual, (Amazon US), but it will cost you 70 US dollars, which would be crazy. You could also buy it as part of the Black Guardian Trilogy box set (Amazon US), which is how it was released in the UK and Australia (Amazon UK).
Notes and links
Liza Goddard plays Kari in this story. To Australian viewers, she is better known as Clancy in Skippy (1967–1969); Nathan has almost completely forgotten her role in the British sitcom Yes, Honestly (1976–1977).
Before Mawdryn Undead came along, Turlough was originally going to make his début in Song of the Space Whale by Pat Mills and John Wagner. This was finally recorded (as usual) as part of Big Finish‘s Lost Stories range range, as The Song of Megaptera, starring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant.
In his Big Finish story The Waters of Amsterdam, Jonathan Morris offers an explanation of why the Doctor has set up the scanner to check in on Tegan and Nyssa’s bedroom. (Bad Doctor!)
While we’ve been away, Brendan has roared into the 70s with a summary of Season 7 of Doctor Who, in which he confronts Autons, Silurians, John Abineri and a scary parallel version of himself. With hilarious results. If you want to find his summaries of the 1960s seasons of Doctor Who, check out the playlist on YouTube.
Our 20th anniversary season of Flight Through Entirety continues with a discussion of Mawdryn Undead — yet another story including delightful elements from the show’s past, such as the Brigadier, the Black Guardian and a crappy word peril cliffhanger for Episode Three.
Buy the story!
Mawdryn Undead was released on DVD in 2009. In the US, it was released on its own, as usual, (Amazon US), but also as part of a Black Guardian Trilogy box set (Amazon US). In the UK and Australia, it was only made available as part of the box set (Amazon UK).
Notes and links
A weirdly bleached version of Nyssa’s outfit from Snakedance features on the cover of Goth Opera by Paul Cornell, the first novel of the Virgin Missing Adventures series, published in 1994.
Ian Marter played the gorgeously sweet Harry Sullivan in Season 12 of Doctor Who, but also wrote 12 Doctor Who novels, including a Companions of Doctor Who novel called Harry Sullivan’s War.
While we’ve been away, Brendan has roared into the 70s with a summary of Season 7 of Doctor Who, in which he confronts Autons, Silurians, John Abineri and a scary parallel universe version of himself. If you want to find his summaries of the 1960s seasons of Doctor Who, checkout the playlist on YouTube.
This week, the Mara are back, threatening the ancient BBC Television studio Manussa in Snakedance. Roll your eyes at Nathan’s usual jejune insults, marvel at Brendan’s theories about good Science Fiction, and become increasingly concerned at Todd’s vociferous complaints that no one gets horribly murdered in Doctor Who any more.
Buy the story!
Snakedance was released on DVD in 2011. In the US, it was released on its own (Amazon US), but in the UK and Australia it was released along with Kinda in the Mara Tales box set (Amazon UK).
Notes and links
Richard’s not here this week, so there’s almost no German Expressionism, and very little intertextuality. Nathan mentions Sandifer’s take on this story, as usual, so perhaps you’ll want to go and read that.
Todd refers to the Flight Through EntiretyKinda lovefest, which is the pun-tastic Episode 79: Kinda Lingers.
Doctor Who squelches back onto our screens with the first story of Season 20 — Arc of Infinity. It’s a rollicking tale of quad magnetism, pulse loops, transduction barriers and impulse lasers, tastefully decorated with shiny plastic sofas.
Buy the story!
Arc of Infinity was released on DVD in 2007. In the US, it was released on its own (Amazon US), but in the UK and Australia it was released along with Time-Flight in a box set that would have been the worst Christmas present in human history (Amazon UK).
Notes and links
Johnny Byrne wrote 8 episodes of Season 1 of Space: 1999, and some of them were actually quite good. Sort of.
Leonard Sachs, this week’s President Borusa, wasn’t actually in The Pallisers (1974), but he had actually appeared in Doctor Who before as Admiral de Coligny in Nathan’s favourite story, The Massacre. The First and Fourth Borusas were in The Pallisers, along with other famous Doctor Who alumni, including Antony Ainley, Moray Watson, Donald Pickering, John Hallam, Derek Jacobi, Peter Sallis and June Whitfield.
The story about Ace encountering an Ergon while selling fried chicken was Anti-Matter with Fries by Gareth Roberts, which appeared in issue 199 of Doctor Who Magazine.
Tomorrow sees the release of Doctor Who in 10 Seconds Series 6, which will be every bit as delightful as all of the previous episodes. You can watch the entirety of the series by checking out the playlist on YouTube.
It’s the end of another season of Flight Through Entirety, we’ve run out of money and no one really gives a crap anymore. So join us as we listlessly discuss the worst story of the 1980s: it’s Time-Flight.
Don’t buy the story!
Time-Flight was released on DVD in 2007. In the US, it was released on its own (Amazon US), but in the UK and Australia it was released along with Arc of Infinity in an unspeakably horrid box set (Amazon UK).
Cornell, Day and Topping are the authors of The Discontinuity Guide, a repository of hilarious facts about the classic series. Here’s their take on Time-Flight.
This French & Saunders sketch tells you everything you need to know about what went wrong with Doctor Who in the 1980s. Sorry about the crappy quality though.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll beset you with bipedal fibreglass turds and bubbles of Fairy Liquid until you agree to watch Time-Flight again. This side of madness or the other.
Doctor Who in 10 Seconds
While Brendan edits the next episode of Doctor Who in 10 Seconds, in which he speedily summarises the delightfully strange and groundbreaking Doctor Who Series 5, why not take the opportunity to watch all of the previous videos in the series by checking out the playlist on YouTube?
All you hippy losers who thought Doctor Who was whimsical family entertainment can leave now: Eric Saward is back, and he’s brought enough guns with him to make Charlton Heston feel insecure about his masculinity. Only Beryl Reid can save us! It’s Earthshock.
Buy the story!
Earthshock was released on DVD in 2004 in the US (Amazon US), and in 2003 in the UK and Australia (Amazon UK).
When we first see the crudely-realised dinosaur fossils in the cave wall in Part 1, Malcolm Clarke treats us to a little musical reference to the Fossils movement in The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns.
Sometimes beloved Doctor Who cast members wrangle upsettingly on Twitter, and when that happens, it’s the duty of a Doctor Who podcaster to put on a velvet fairy costume and call them out. Which is what Nathan does here.
Whatever his qualities as a writer and script editor (and they are few), Eric Saward was amazingly able to draw inspiration for this story from films that hadn’t even been written yet, including Aliens (1986), and the prescient and criminally underrated Starship Troopers (1997).
Fans of Beryl Reid will also enjoy knowing that Joe Orton was one of their number: it was for her that he wrote the part of Kathy in Entertaining Mr Sloane.
This story recklessly replaced a script called The Enemy Within by acclaimed English novelist Christopher Priest, who had previously had a script rejected for Season 17. Surprisingly, it has never been dramatised by Big Finish.
Eighties Cyberleader and Darth Vader impersonator David Banks wrote a horrific coffee table book called Cybermen (1989), in which he makes a futile and deeply inadvisable attempt to turn three decades of appalling Cybernonsense into a coherent narrative. Best avoided.
Spoiler alert: Adric snuffs it at the end of this story, so this is our last chance to plug Matthew Waterhouse’s elegiac and entertaining autobiography Blue Box Boy. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
Today Brendan released the fifth (sixth?) video in his ongoing series Doctor Who in 10 Seconds, in which he dextrously summarises all that endless base-under-siege nonsense from Doctor Who Series 5. To watch all of videos in the series, check out the playlist on YouTube.
In this convention-busting episode of Flight Through Entirety, Brendan (Jamie Lee Curtis) really hates this week’s Doctor Who story, while Nathan (Lindsay Lohan) quite enjoys it. And Richard (Mark Harmon) splits the difference by being witty and charming as always. Welcome to Cranleigh Hall: it’s Black Orchid.
We all love Moray Watson, who plays Sir Robert in this story. He’s still with us, after a career spanning 6 decades. Richard remembers him fondly from Catweazle, a children’s TV programme about an 11th-century wizard (The Creature from the Pit’s Geoffrey Bayldon), who finds himself trapped in the present day. The producers of The Avengers considered Watson as a possible replacement for Patrick Macnee had Macnee been unwilling to return for the show’s final season. Watson also played George Frobisher, Rumpole’s hapless old friend in George Frobisher in Rumpole of the Bailey.
The second worst lawn party in human history is depicted in the Monty Python sketch Sam Peckinpah’s Salad Days.
Terence Dudley produced Terry Nation’s Survivors, a post-apocalyptic story set in a world where a global pandemic has wiped out everyone except a small number of lovely middle-class white people.
Once again, here’s Bonnie Langford’s reaction to seeing Brendan dressed as Bonnie Langford from Time and the Rani.
Fans of things that are insanely entertaining will enjoy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a 1953 comedy starring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe.
Brendan’s work on Doctor Who in 10 Seconds continues unabated. So far he’s summarised the first four seasons of Doctor Who and created a hilarious blooper reel for the first three episodes. You can watch all five videos by checking out the playlist on YouTube.
Bondfinger
Over at Bondfinger, Sean Connery is now a distant memory, and we’re heading into Rodge’s highly acclaimed Blue Period. Our most recent commentary covers The Spy Who Loved Me: previous commentaries include The Man with the Golden Gun and Live and Let Die. You can find all of our commentaries on our website, and you can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.
A lot going on this week: Brendan wanders from the manor house to the mill and then back to the TARDIS, oh, and then back to the manor house again; Nathan is moving test tubes from one box to another; and Richard is, oh, I don’t know, assembling a vibrating meccano set or something. Hold onto your hats: It’s The Visitation.
Buy the story!
The Visitation was first released on DVD in 2006. A special two-disc edition with extra things was released in 2013. (Amazon US) (Amazon K)
Fans of slightly terrible films in which Samuel L. Jackson is unexpectedly killed mid-speech by genetically-modified sharks will enjoy Deep Blue Sea (1999). Fans of Richard Chamberlain and Fred MacMurray being killed by a swarm of bees will enjoy The Swarm, a 1978 horror film directed by Irwin Allen.
Richard riffs on Alexei Sayle’s surreal 1982 hit “’Ullo John, Gotta New Motor”, which includes such immortal lyrics as “Your goat’s made a mess of the carpet”, and “He stuck his head in a dustbin, and then ran through the laundrette”.
On the Buses was an inexplicably successful British sitcom which ran on ITV from 1969 to 1973, and spawned a stage play, a board game and three horrifically forgettable films in three successive years. The first film was the second most popular movie at the British box office in 1971, beating out Diamonds Are Forever.
Clive Swift played Jobel in the massively overrated Revelation of the Daleks and Mr Copper in the rightfully beloved Voyage of the Damned. He is, of course, most famous for his role as Richard (“RICHARD!”) in Keeping Up Appearances. In 2008, he gave a hilariously dyspeptic interview to Benjamin Cook from DWM.
TARDIS Eruditorum’s Elizabeth Sandifer hasn’t appeared here in the show notes for a while. Here’s her take on this story.
Perhaps, despite its marginal relevance to this story, the Terileptil android inspired Siimon Reynolds to create this 1987 ad campaign warning the people of Australia to use condoms to protect themselves from HIV.
Yesterday Brendan released the long-awaited Season 4 episode of Doctor Who in Ten Seconds. It’s sweet and hilarious, as always, and Brendan is wearing a particularly lovely shirt. You can see it here. To see all the previous episodes, as well as the blooper reel, just check out the playlist on YouTube.
Bondfinger
Our commentary podcast on The Spy Who Loved Me was released yesterday, probably. So, off you go! And once you’re done, you can also enjoy our commentaries on all of the preceding Bond films, from Dr. No to The Man with the Golden Gun. You can find these commentaries on our website, and you can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.
As usual, this week, Brendan, Nathan and Richard are condemned to an unending cycle of suffering and futility, relieved only temporarily by ruminations on the existence of Nerys Hughes. So, hold off on the fire and acid for just forty minutes or so: enough time to hear us discussing Kinda.
Buy the story!
Kinda was released on DVD in 2001. It’s available by itself in the US, but in the UK and Australia it was released alongside next year’s Snakedance in a box set called Mara Tales. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Notes and links
Almost immediately, Richard identifies some books which might have inspired this story, including Ursula LeGuin’s 1989 Novel The Word for World is Forest, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and, most importantly, Chinua Achebe’s 1994 novel Things Fall Apart.
If you are in any way sceptical of the claim that Tegan’s entire dream sequence is reminiscent of an 80s pop video, you might be convinced by the 1980 video of Visage’s “Fade to Grey”.
Mary Morris plays (another) Number Two in the eighth episode of The Prisoner episode Dance of the Dead. She’s dead posh in it. Take a look.
Blue Box Boy (yes, we’re linking to it again) tells the story of Matthew Waterhouse coaching Richard Todd. Matthew does claim that he was joking when he told him “Of course, the secret to TV acting is not to look at the camera!” (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
There’s a notable omission from Will Brooks’s photographic cover for one of Paul Cornell’s upcoming Titan comics featuring the Third Doctor. Remind me, why are we talking about Richard Franklin again?
Aris wrestling with the snake on the studio floor at the climax reminds Richard of Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders in Lucky Bitches. But even if that wasn’t true, I’d be tempted to link to it anyway.
Doctor Who in 10 seconds continues to be a thing, and so while you wait for Brendan’s groundbreaking Season 4 episode, why not revisit the spectacle of Brendan hilariously summarising each Doctor Who story of the first three seasons in no more than 10 seconds? Just check out the playlist on YouTube.
Bondfinger
Well, we’ve recorded our latest commentary podcast on The Spy Who Loved Me for release next week. Exciting, what?
The world will be destroyed in four days, apparently, and to prepare for this, Brendan is wearing a stylish green velour suit, Richard has gathered his hair in a delightful side ponytail, and Nathan has just really let himself go. It’s Four to Doomsday.
Buy the story!
Four to Doomsday was released on DVD in 2008 in the UK and Australia, and in 2009 in the US. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK).
Notes and links
Fans of Philip Locke, who plays Bigon in this story, will enjoy his performances in three episodes of The Avengers: From Venus with Love, Mandrake and The Frighteners, which also featured Stratford Johns, who plays Monarch in this story. Horrifyingly, Philip Locke also plays creepy sexless henchmen Vargas in Thunderball.
Much like the Urbankans, cane toads were introduced into Australia to control the grey-backed cane beetle. As usual, this didn’t go well.
This YouTube video includes every utterance of the words “some kind of”, “some sort of” or “some type of” in Star Trek: Voyager. There are 393, for God’s sake.
We’re tremendously proud of Brendan’s latest video project, Doctor Who in 10 seconds, in which he flies through entire seasons of Doctor Who, hilariously summarising each story in no more than 10 seconds. Enjoy the spectacle by checking out the playlist on YouTube.
Bondfinger
While you wait for next weekend’s commentary podcast on The Spy Who Loved Me, why not enjoy our previous commentary podcasts on all of the preceding Bond films, including The Man with the Golden Gun, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Dr. No? You can find these commentaries on our website, and you can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.
We said goodbye to Tom last week, and so this week all four of us are here to discuss Pete’s first story, set on a delightfully bucolic planet in the Phylox series. Time to dress up like a cricketer and lock yourself in a small cupboard — it’s Castrovalva.
Buy the story!
Castrovalva was released on DVD in 2007. In the US, it was available on its own (Amazon US), but, again, in the UK and Australia, it was part of the New Beginnings box set, which also included The Keeper of Traken and Logopolis (Amazon UK).
We first mentioned the Bechdel Test in Episode 27. Does this story feature a scene where two named women have a discussion that isn’t about a man?
We’ve mentioned it a couple of times before, and it’s just excellent, so we’ll mention it again: Blue Box Boy, in which Matthew Waterhouse tells the story of his childhood as a Doctor Who fan, his time on the show, and his subsequent life on the convention circuit. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU)
Like Todd, you can impress your friends with an encyclopedic knowledge of Doctor Who’s ratings throughout history by consulting this handy guide on the Doctor Who News website.
Fans of lightning-fast summaries of the stories of the William Hartnell Era will enjoy Doctor Who in 10 Seconds, in which the lovely Brendan summarises Doctor Who stories with considerable wit, verve and rhythm. And you even get to see him dance in the outtakes. Enjoy the spectacle by subscribing on YouTube.
Bondfinger
Our tenth commentary track on the Bond films is now up: it’s The Man with the Golden Gun. Okay, it’s not the best Bond film (be quiet, Nathan), but it’s quite a Rogertaining episode of Bondfinger. Other commentaries are also available, starting with Dr. No and even including the inexplicable 1967 film Casino Royale. You can find these commentaries on our website, and you can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.
This week Bondfinger meets Flight Through Entirety, as we attempt our first ever Doctor Who-related commentary podcast. DVD remotes on standby: it’s the lump of coal in all of our 1981 Christmas stockings — the first and worst Doctor Who spinoff: K9 and Company: A Girl’s Best Friend. (Other Doctor Who spinoffs are also available.)
Buy the story
K9 and Company was released on DVD in 2008 as part of the K9 Tales box set, which also includes the execrable Season 15 story The Invisible Enemy. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK).
The K9 and Company Annual is included in the K9 Tales box set, so if you’re as sad as we are, you probably own it already.
Acorn Antiques was a hilarious series of sketches on Victoria Wood as Seen on TV, which parodies the conventions of badly made television programmes. You can see it all here, and you really, really must.
Hilary Briss, played by Doctor Who’s very own Mark Gatiss, secretly sold special stuff to the inhabitants of Royston Vasey in the horrific and superlatively clever League of Gentlemen TV series.
The Travelling Salesman problem is a giant thing in computer science, which posits that it’s really, really hard to work out the shortest route to take to cover a whole bunch of known locations. So no wonder K9 was so incredibly unhelpful.
Doctor Who in 10 Seconds is Brendan’s vanity video project, which is basically a lot better than this podcast. Fans of things that are just superb will enjoy Brendan summarising every Doctor Who story in less than 10 seconds.
