We’ve reached the end of the Graham Williams Era, and before we go off to have a relaxing one-month break in a nearby parallel universe, we have just enough time to discuss Shada, the sadly uncompleted keystone of the last three years of Doctor Who. Tea, anyone?
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Odd and unsatisfactory versions of this story were released on DVD in 2013. In the US, as usual, it was released on its own (Amazon US), whereas in the UK it was one of two discs in the Legacy Collection box set, along with the 1993 documentary More than Thirty Years in the TARDIS. (Amazon UK)
Gödel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter was published in 1979, and was wildly loved by just the sort of people who might stumble upon an ancient book of Gallifreyan lore in the study of some old Cambridge professor. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
The Star Wars Holiday Special first screened around Christmas 1978, and is perhaps the most horrific thing ever to screen on television. Despite George Lucas’s relentless attempts to suppress it, it can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube. But, really, just don’t.
The Somebody Else’s Problem field is “a cheap, easy, and staggeringly useful way of safely protecting something from unwanted eyes”, by exploiting our natural tendency to ignore things that we just don’t want to think about.
Fans of ruthlessly mocking pompous homophobic lackwits will enjoy these Amazon reviews of Cory Bernardi’s absurdly jejune magnum opus The Conservative Revolution.
Picks of the Week
Nathan
Nathan just picked a whole heap of stuff that we’ve mentioned in the last few episodes of the podcast. There are links to Gareth Roberts’s novelisation of Shada above; James Goss’s novelisation of City of Death was released by BBC Books in 2015. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Paul Cornell’s collection of fanzine articles, Licence Denied, is out of print.
Douglas Adams’s novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency shamelessly recycles many of the ideas in both City of Death and Shada. It’s great. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Episode 66 · The Horns of Nimon · Monday 22 February 2016
Our flight finally reaches the end of the 1970s, only to run out of hymetusite and crash ignominiously into The Horns of Nimon.
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The Horns of Nimon was released on DVD in 2010. It was released by itself in the US (Amazon US), but in the UK it was released along with The Time Monster and Underworld in the rightfully unloved Myths and Legends box set (Amazon UK).
Fans of the Nimon (and who isn’t?) will enjoy the Big Finish Eighth Doctor audio Seasons of Fear by Paul Cornell.
Once again, we mention Licence Denied, which was a collection of fan writing edited by Paul Cornell first published in 1997. Notable essays include Tom the Second, Gareth Roberts’s defence of the Williams Era, and Why the Nimon Should Be Our Friends, by Phillip J. Gray.
Episode 65 · Nightmare of Eden · Sunday 14 February 2016
So, we’ve all taken several hits of vraxoin, which means that we really enjoyed this week’s story, in spite of the sets, the script, most of the performances and the ham-fisted anti-drugs message. It’s Nightmare of Eden!
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Nightmare of Eden was released on DVD as recently as 2012. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Notes and links
In 1983, First Lady Nancy Reagan was in the throes of her Just Say No campaign, in which she made numerous television appearances warning the American people about the dangers of drugs. Horrifically, she guested on an episode of Diff’rent Strokes in order to patronise Gary Coleman’s entire class.
Fans of the fabulous model work in this story, along with everyone else, will enjoy the Blakes 7 episode Gold. (It’s worth mentioning at this point that Blakes 7 is now available on YouTube in its entirety. So why are you wasting your time on this podcast, for God’s sake?)
In 1980, Lalla Ward played Ophelia in the BBC Season of Shakespeare’s version of Hamlet. Hamlet himself was played by Derek Jacobi, Doctor Who’s very own Professor Yana. (We love Lalla, but she’s really terrible in this.)
Episode 64 · The Creature from the Pit · Sunday 7 February 2016
This week, Brendan, Richard and Nathan are just simply too mature to make fun of the ludicrously phallic monster in The Creature from the Pit. Aren’t we? Aren’t we?
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The Creature from the Pit was released on DVD in 2010. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Notes and links
Orac is, of course, the computer in TV’s Blakes 7.
Fagin is the appalling Jewish stereotype from Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist. We own Charles Dickens! He’s in Doctor Who.
Episode 63 · City of Death · Monday 25 January 2016
This week, Brendan, Richard and Nathan tackle City of Death, by Douglas Adams and Graham Williams. How many superlatives can fit in a single 40-minute podcast episode?
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City of Death was released on DVD in 2005. Seriously, if you don’t have a copy, just buy it. At once. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Notes and links
We’ve uploaded some photos from Brendan’s Facebook album Toys on Tour, which is the best place to go to see a plastic Tom Baker crawling up the gate to the Galerie Denise René in Paris.
When she wasn’t busy helping her husband to steal the Mona Lisa, Catherine Schell appeared in the second season of Space: 1999 as Maya, a shape-changing alien from the planet Psychon. It’s really much worse than you could possibly imagine.
For two years, from 1911 to 1913, the Mona Lisa was no longer in the Louvre: it was hidden in a trunk in Vincenzo Peruggia’s apartment after he entered the Louvre, hid it under his smock and made off with it. See, we’re educational as well as entertaining.
Captain Tancredi’s bodyguard is played by Peter Halliday, who won our hearts in his role as Packer in The Invasion.
Romana’s naughty schoolgirl outfit seems to be inspired by the St Trinian’s film series in the 50s and 60s. Another inspiration might be Madeline, the heroine of a series of children’s books written by Austrian author Ludwig Bemelmans in the 1950s and 60s.
Licence Denied was a collection of fan writing edited by Paul Cornell and first published in 1997. It is, sadly, out of print. Notable essays include Tom the Second, Gareth Roberts’s defence of the Williams Era, and Why the Nimon Should Be Our Friends, by Phillip J. Gray. And no, you can’t borrow my copy.
James Goss’s novelisation of City of Death was released by BBC Books in 2015. It’s good. Buy it. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Comic Book Guy kidnaps Lucy Lawless in The Simpsons Halloween episode Treehouse of Horror X. Hilariously, the Simpsons Wikia page warns that “this episode is considered non-canon and the events featured do not relate to the series and therefore may not have actually happened/existed”. Which is nice to know.
Episode 62 · Destiny of the Daleks · Sunday 17 January 2016
It’s the start of an exciting new season of Doctor Who. Terry Nation’s back and Mary Tamm isn’t, but we still manage to pull ourselves together long enough to discuss Destiny of the Daleks.
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Destiny of the Daleks was released on DVD in 2007/2008. That was simple. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)
Notes and links
In 1980, Tom and Lalla recorded a series of Australian ads for minicomputer company Prime Computer. These are available as a DVD extra on the Destiny DVD, but you can also see them on YouTube.
In 1979, Tom recorded a series of three ads for conservation group Keep Australia Beautiful. You can see a terrible videotape copy of two of these on YouTube as well.
The nightmarish scenario of wars run by computer will later be taken up by Matthew Broderick in War Games (1983), which you are all too young to remember. Damn you.
Star Trek’s Wil Wheaton interviews Doctor Who’s Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi on the Series 9 DVD and Blu-ray releases. You can watch some short excerpts from that interview here and here.
Chaos on the Bridge is a 2014 documentary written and produced by William Shatner, chronicling the first few difficult years of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s available on Netflix. (Not any longer, apparently.)
Mark Michalowski’s short story The Lying Old Witch in the Wardrobe was published in 2003 as part of Big Finish’s anthology Short Trips: Companions. It explains — whimsically — why Romana regenerates at the start of this story, and suggests that the Romana we see here is not exactly who we expect her to be.
The impasse faced by two perfectly logical computer opponents is an outworking of game theory, used by mathematician John von Neumann to model, among other things, the interactions between the US and the USSR in the Cold War.
The same impasse is also the basis of the short story Fool’s Mate, first published in Astounding Science Fiction in March 1953. In this story, two computerised battle fleets are frozen, unable to attack one another, until one decides to put its attack strategy under the control of a complete madman. Which just goes to show, really.
Episode 61 · The Armageddon Factor · Saturday 9 January 2016
It’s the final story of the Key to Time season, whose story wheezes and groans to a halt in The Armageddon Factor. Meanwhile, Brendan, Nathan and Todd have a lovely time praising Mary, dissing everything else, and answering that pressing question: what did we think of Doctor Who’s first ever season-long arc?
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And now, for the last time: In the US, you can buy The Armageddon Factor by itself (Amazon US), or as part of the Key to Time box set (Amazon US). In the UK, it’s only available as part of the Key to Time box set. (Amazon UK)
Notes and links
We’ve referred to Cornell, Day and Topping’s The Discontinuity Guide before. It’s out of print, buy you can still buy for your Kindle (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU). The text of the book is reproduced on the old BBC Cult Doctor Who website, which is pretty hard to get to these days, but I have at least managed to find their take on The Armageddon Factor (“the whole thing is very uninvolving”).
Davyd Harries, who plays posh idiot sidekick Shapp, is also fairly horrifying as Vila’s hilarious bluebeard pal Doran in the horrifying Blakes 7 episode Moloch, written by Blakes 7’s resident horrifying misogynist Ben Steed.
Fans of the entire contents of the Bristol Boys’ kitchen drawers will enjoy Dave Martin’s entry in the Make Your Own Adventure series, Search for the Doctor, which features the Sixth Doctor, K9, Drax and Omega.
Picks of the Week
Brendan
This week, Brendan has decided not to pick the Big FinishThe Key 2 Time series, which consists of The Judgement of Isskar, The Destroyer of Delights and The Chaos Pool, and stars Peter Davison as the Doctor. He has also decided not to pick Graceless, an entire Big Finish series which serves as a sequel to The Key 2 Time, and which has now run for three whole series.
Instead, he’s picked The Auntie Matter, a Big Finish full-cast audio drama starring Tom Baker and Mary Tamm.
Nathan has picked The AV Club, which is a sister site to satirical newspaper The Onion, and is the home of some of the best writing on pop culture on the internet. He particularly recommends the reviews of the Classic Series written by Christopher Bahn.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. And please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, because if you’re not rating or reviewing us on iTunes, we can make you rate or review us on iTunes, because we can do anything! As from this moment there’s no such thing as free will in the entire universe! For we possess the Key to Time!
Episode 60 · The Power of Kroll · Sunday 3 January 2016
In this fart-astic episode of Flight Through Entirety, our search for the fifth segment of the Key to Time takes us to the third moon of Delta Magna where we confront The Power of Kroll.
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Same as last time, really: In the US, you can buy The Power of Kroll by itself (Amazon US), or as part of the Key to Time box set (Amazon US). In the UK, it’s only available as part of the Key to Time box set. (Amazon UK)
Notes and links
Not many links this week. (There’s an appalling dearth of references to German Expressionism in our discussion.) So to pass the time while listening to this episode, why not read a review of The Power of Kroll from the AV Club website? And for once, there’s no need to avoid the comments thread.
This is Philip Madoc’s last performance in Doctor Who. He passed away in 2012. You can read his obituary in The Guardian.
Todd is puzzled by the idea of feeding Krollfarts to the hapless population of Delta Magna. What he didn’t know was that bacteria actually can be used to convert methane to proteins. Fact fans will enjoy this article on the topic.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. And please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll send you a hundred tons of compressed protein a day — a fifth of your protein requirements. And you know were we’ll be getting it from!
Episode 59 · The Androids of Tara · Sunday 27 December 2015
If there was ever any doubt that Brendan is a young man of exceptional taste and discernment, this episode finally lays it to rest with the revelation that his favourite Doctor Who story ever is The Androids of Tara!
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You know the drill by now: In the US, you can buy The Androids of Tara by itself (Amazon US), or as part of the Key to Time box set (Amazon US). In the UK, it’s only available as part of the Key to Time box set. (Amazon UK)
Notes and links
Famously, The Androids of Tara is shamelessly ripped off a loving tribute to Anthony Hope’s popular 1894 novel The Prisoner of Zenda. You can read it here.
We’ve mentioned the fanzine Cottage Under Siege before: it was edited by Neil Corry and Gareth Roberts and published in 1993–1994. Again, please, please, please contact us if you know where we can get copies of it.
You can read the summery and charming discussion of The Androids of Tara from Cornell, Day and Topping’s The Discontinuity Guide at the old BBC Cult website.
Cousins to the Taran wood beast, the Links in the Blakes 7 episode Terminal held a terrible secret to the future of all of mankind. While looking amazingly silly.
Fans of Peter Jeffrey’s Count Grendel of Gracht will also enjoy his turn as a villain in the Avengers episode, Game.
Declan Mulholland, who plays Till in The Androids of Tara played a humanoid Jabba the Hutt in a deleted scene from the original Star Wars (1977).
Episode 58 · The Stones of Blood · Sunday 20 December 2015
This week, we’re back on Earth, being menaced by giant glowing fibreglass rocks. Incidentally, we’re also discussing the third story in the Key to Time season, The Stones of Blood.
Buy the story!
In the US, you can buy The Stones of Blood by itself (Amazon US), or as part of the Key to Time box set (Amazon US). In the UK, it’s only available as part of the Key to Time box set. (Amazon UK)
Notes and links
For the first time ever, Brendan was wrong about something. When auditioning to replace the divine Miss Rigg in The Avengers, Susan Engel didn’t act against Moray Laing, the current editor of Doctor Who Adventures magazine. It was actually Moray Watson, who played Sir Robert Muir in Black Orchid.
Evelyn Smythe was one of the Sixth Doctor’s companions in the main Big Finish series of Doctor Who audios.
And in other things that Nathan is wrong about, Gareth Roberts’s comic strip about sentient sand that attacks people was actually written by Paul Cornell and called Seaside Rendezvous, published in DWM’s 1991 Summer Special.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. And please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or, like typical males, we’ll strand you here in the middle of nowhere with two complete strangers while we go off somewhere enjoying ourselves.
