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This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 09:02:16

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Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 year diary.

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The only Doctor Who podcast that can't bring itself to be a little less astringent, thank you very much.

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I'm Nathan.

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I'm Todd.

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I'm Peter.

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And I'm Simon.

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It's the 3rd of January, 1970.

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About 8 months ago, Doctor Who got cancelled, and today something strange and different is taking its place.

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The TARDIS is here.

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The brigadier is here, and someone who claims to be the doctor is somehow walking around as if he owns the place.

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But does he?

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Let's find out as we discuss spearhead from space.

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Naturally, last week, we spent a lot of time talking about the introduction of Patrick Troughton as the doctor, let's talk a little bit about how they go about introducing this new 3rd doctor to us.

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I'm quite fascinated that they fall into the same trap that I think they later fall into with Castra Valva in that the doctor is basically effectively absent from episode one, which is a big call.

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I mean, I think he's only line of dialogue is shoes or possibly on hand to me, madam, or something.

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But there's no, there's very, very little dialogue from the doctor.

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You don't see him.

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He just basically commentates into bed for most of the time.

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Whereas with Troughton, you had he's still driving the show. in that 1st episode.

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And in Tom with robot.

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There's a little bit of eccentricity, but then they kind of get on with it pretty quickly.

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I mean, if you compare it to, say, the Christmas invasion and the church on Ruby Road, both of them give the doctor a thing to do before their big entry.

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Yes.

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And because it's only one episode, you know, you're tuning in that night to see the new doctor.

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I mean that's really why you're there.

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In the classic series, I think, making your weight more than 25 minutes is a bad idea.

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In the new series, you just give us a taste, but still make us wait for them.

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So they can get their big hero moment.

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Church on Ruby Road is a bit different too, though, because it is kind of also a soft relaunch for the entire series. anyway.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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So you're kind of trying to, in that, you're kind of trying to introduce the doctor as a character anyway, rather than this is the new doctor.

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Yes, and we did see 20 minutes of him, the previous episode.

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I'm not sure that I would characterise it as a trap.

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I think it's quite brave to set up the new format and then put the doctor in it rather than leading with the doctor and the show follows.

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I suppose it's like unethly child one then.

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It sort of is, yeah.

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But also thinking of the Christmas invasion.

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It follows that same format.

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The Christmas invasion.

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They added in the scene where David Tennant wakes up and fights the Santas for that scene, and that was added in at the behest of, I think, Lorraine Heggesi, the controller of BBC One, who said you can't keep the doctor out of the action for so long.

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Now, here, what they do is you just get, you write, Simon, the doctor has very little dialogue in the 1st 2 episodes, very little, but there is the one scene, which is the really important scene in episode one where the brigadier comes to the hospital and the doctor wakes up and recognises him and the brigadier starts to realise that this might be the doctor.

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And so apart from those startlingly brief shots at the start where the TARDIS materialises on model work, the doctor falls out, and then you get the reverse shot.

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The entire front half of the episode is reintroducing unit in the brigadier and introducing Liz Shaw.

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I think that's intentional.

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And I think it works.

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It brands it as this is a new program.

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Yeah, I have to agree.

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You have got that scene with the doctor in the bed, right?

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And that's really important.

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But up to that point, you really don't see him, they don't really show his face.

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It's almost this softly, softly approach and this show is about unit and investigating strange new objects or whatever and and introducing this show and setting up the brigadier Liz Dynamic, which is very prickly.

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And I actually found the very 1st scene with them very stilted and quite, um, they looked uncomfortable.

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You know how actors like have worked together before or whatever and they have a have a chemistry or there's certain ease.

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They looked quite uncomfortable throughout that entire 1st sequence.

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I felt.

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Do we know anything about the shooting order, Peter?

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So they did all the stuff that was meant to be on location first, so anything that you would reasonably expect was a location outdoors was shot on film.

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They then paused and they were going to go into their usual kind of rehearse record.

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They had about 2 weeks off and Derek Sherwin had already seen that there might be problems with strikes.

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And so he'd put in place a backup plan earlier than any other production to say, look, we can shoot all of this on film.

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And it actually happened.

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There was the strike and they already had the plan and the facilities ready to go.

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So they came back 3 weeks later and just started shooting everything on film on BBC property.

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So let's talk about the effect of that on how the show lands a little bit later on.

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I am still interested in the fact that, as Todd said, we seem to be introducing a new show.

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It's the unit show.

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It's like a spinoff in some ways, isn't it?

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And then the doctor drops into the spinoff.

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And once we hear about the doctor.

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Like once the brigadier hears about the doctor, the thing becomes largely about the doctor, maybe more than anything else.

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And so there's the mystery of who the doctor is, there's all the stuff at the cottage hospital, about, you know, his strange physiology, which is absolutely kind of new, isn't it, to the show?

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I don't think we've had 2 hearts before, have we?

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Yeah, Bob Holmes World building.

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Well, is it world building or is it just Bob Holmes saying we need to find a way to get the brigadier here?

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I don't know.

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Let's say he has 2 hearts.

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You know what I mean?

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there's a way in which that's made available to the show now because we've had the doctor's origin revealed, but it is absolutely arbitrary.

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Like, he's not intending to, you know, I think the thing that has a bigger impact on the Pertuy era is the coma that we get the 2nd episode after he's been shot, where he goes into a sort of one knee for perch twin.

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You know, self-induced coma.

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But it just feels like a different show.

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It doesn't even feel like 1970.

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Like, I think this feels like 1969, the Avengers or the prisoner or carry on films.

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And it's something that you could stumble across, like, on PBS or Channel 7 in the afternoon and it's some sort of movie that was filmed at that time and you didn't have to know anything about Doctor Who.

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And it's just this strange man's turned up and I found it quite interesting rewatching it like last week, just to see how, like, we don't even get the Tartis interior.

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Like, it's just, like, that's all just pushed to one side and it just feels so different.

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And the production team's new, isn't it?

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Like Derek Sherman's only done one...

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Well, he did the war games.

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Well, one story and Terrence Sticks is now script editor.

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I just felt like it's finding their feet.

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I think some things work really well and there's other sequences or shots or performances where I kind of think, oh, that's a bit rushed and a bit, you know, how's your mother, really?

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That's how I feel.

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I think its newness is underscored by the way that we watched it in Australia.

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It's impossible to divorce Spearhead from space from its repeat screenings in Australia. fans of a certain age, and that would include all of us, I think.

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It was the earliest Doctor Who story shown.

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So we never saw any of the black and white stories on their 1st transmission.

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And in 1978 and 79, it heralded a small repeat run of the existing 625 line Pertweis.

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So they were spearhead, and then it would jump today off the Daleks.

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You'd have a couple of season 10 stories and then most of season 11.

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So everything that existed on 625 line at the time.

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And so this to us was the beginning of Doctor Who.

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We would watch Tom Baker stories, you know, sometimes going up to the Keats time and sometimes up to seasons 18 and 19 later on.

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And then it would come back to this and this always served as a cold open to unit and the brigadier.

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We had no knowledge of the invasion.

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We didn't see it.

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We didn't get the book until like 1984 or whenever that came out.

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And so this felt like the start of the show.

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This felt like an opening episode.

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My experience is a little different.

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Similar but different in that when I picked up Doctor Who, it was at the end of one of those 65 line pert we repeat runs, the Planet of the Spiders.

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And Spearhead was shown at the beginning of that block.

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That was the last time they showed Pertwiz.

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So I think that would have been 78 or 79.

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That was the last time 79.

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That was the last time they showed the per weeks for a few years.

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They didn't go back to them until 1983.

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Late 1974.

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Well, late 1984. late 1983, they went back to...

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Without Spearhead.

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Now, 4 years, of course, is not very long in the modern era, but 4 years when your sort of 7 is an eternity.

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But point being that that was my 1st proper experience of but they didn't show Spearhead.

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Then after our season 21 broadcast sometime after, they then went back and they showed Spearhead from Space, and that was the 1st time I'd seen it.

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It actually completely alienated me in a very strange way.

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I thought, just to echo what Todd, what you were saying.

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It feels different not just to what's immediately before it, like it's a relaunch of the show, but it feels different to also everything that comes after it.

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And I'm including from solurians on.

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It's like this standalone, like what Todd's saying. like a standalone, mini feature film, like B grade feature film that was made.

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And I didn't like it when I saw it in 984, I didn't like it.

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The fact that it was all on film, was very off-putting.

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I love it now.

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When I was sort of, whenever I was then 12.

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I found it very off putting.

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And I will say that a lot of the interiors, particularly the scenes in the brigadier's office and that early scene that you're talking about, Todd, that you said you felt was stilted, is so echoey.

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Yeah.

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It's so echoey.

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It like the microphone is miles away and pointed in the wrong direction or something.

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It's like in a school gym or something.

139
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Yes, exactly.

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Scient spaces that they're...

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Yeah, and even the, I mean, the hospital sounds a bit better, but all the unit, the lab, the doctor's lab and the brigadier's office, just terrible from that point of view, but also it's just something about that image quality as well as film on film.

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I mean, it looks so good on the restored Blu-ray.

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It looks spectacular.

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At the time when we were watching it.

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You know, it was a 2nd generation print that had been doing the rounds by then.

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So it was a little bit faded in comparison.

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So it looked, it looked like a 60s piece of television.

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I agree with you, Simon.

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Like, I think my experience was the same as yours.

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I think that was the 1st time I saw spearhead as well.

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Like I'd seen the perch wee repeats, but not that.

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But I can't remember what I really thought of it.

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It was just like, 0 my goodness, they're going back to, I knew...

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It was so exciting to go back to that, but I can't remember my initial reaction.

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It was like getting to see Lee Shaw and just something very different.

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So I didn't form an opinion of it one way or the other.

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But it is so different from the next story as well, like in Silurian.

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For me, of course.

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And I think you as well, probably Peter, the fact that you would just see Spearhead and then suddenly it would be Joe means that it is unusual and stands out more even more than it does in the context of series 7.

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And I think what complicated it for me as a kid was that the auton-invasion novelisation was one that I read and so was the doomsday weapon.

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And the doomsday weapon has Joe arriving for the 1st time as well.

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And so that's super strange.

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And all of that just made that whole thing kind of muddy and weird and unknowable.

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But when we did fly through entirety, and we'd watched our way through the 60s, and I'd done that myself for the 1st time, watching it all in order, I mean, there's a reason why our episode on this story for Flight through Entirety is called they've cancelled my show, because suddenly just nothing is left of not only the, you know, the TARDIS, as we said, we don't see the interior, we see it very briefly from the outside.

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We do get a mention of the time lords, don't we?

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But they weren't even part of the 60s anyway.

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And they disappear from series 7 completely, I think, more or less.

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And so there's nothing left of the show.

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And you think that they're making something really completely different.

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And even though this is unusual for series 7, I still think that series 7 is unusual for the show as a whole.

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And is it just the budgetary thing?

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Is that why we've retooled the show like this?

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I'm going to say that actually, I don't think this is as much of a reformat as people say that it is.

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I think that invasion is the reformat, and this is the invasion with the colour turned up.

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This and the invasion are of a pair.

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It's impossible, I think, to separate them when you talk about how the series was evolving.

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The invasion scene at the end of episode 4 in this story is pretty much the invasion scene from episode 6 of the invasion.

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They even shoot in the same location when the autons come out to see the unit troops and the...

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It's shot in the same alleyway in the same location.

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And I think what they were trying to do was they'd seen what Douglas Camfield had done on the web of fear and the invasion and they thought, that's what we should be doing on Doc 2.

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And I think it was a very specific iteration of what Dr. 2 was.

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And they went, that works.

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Let's do that.

184
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And Spearhead is the 3rd in a trio of stories that does it.

185
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Yeah, I mean, they get the idea from Webber Fear, perhaps they refine it in the invasion and then they decide from Spearhead, yes, this is the format of the show that we're going with now.

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And I think it's budget, not from the point of view that they've had a budget cut or anything. don't think.

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I think it's just budgetary in terms of the fact that we feel we can make a better show and the show will be more engaging if it's set on earth and you have Sidemen coming down the steps of St.

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Paul's and Auton's breaking out of shop glass windows, et cetera, et cetera.

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I think is what the decision is.

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I think the fact that it's now suddenly in colour.

191
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We've got suddenly there's colour opening credits.

192
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There are certain other stylistic differences too that are created, which is effectively what the show becomes from then until 1989, if I can say, in terms of the way we understand our understanding of how opening and closing credits work actually starts with spearhead from space, even though there's a bit of faffing around with things like inferno, in a massive of death and so on.

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But that's when we get that format.

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It's also Simon, the 1st time that you get end credits rather than just captions. even though the proper sting doesn't arrive until ambassadors of death.

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It's evolving during season seven, but I suppose my point being that there are all those peripheral things that make it feel like a greater relaunch than perhaps it actually was.

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Remembering, of course, that the vast bulk of people in Britain and certainly in Australia. are watching it on a black and white television.

197
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I think it's telling that Russell goes back to that opening credits with those colours and Futura and all of that sort of thing.

198
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Like he just goes back and makes it 3D and essentially does the same thing.

199
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So much of what makes Spearhead feel like reformat is by accident, I think.

200
00:16:11.639 --> 00:16:27.419
So there was very nearly a version of Doctor Who, where Spearhead in season 7 had Patrick Troughton and Wendy Padbury in it, it would have been just a different version of Doctor Who, but with the same leads, and that would not have felt so much for relaunch as just a soft reboot of the show.

201
00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:30.720
It would have felt like the invasion with the colour turned up.

202
00:16:30.840 --> 00:16:33.539
So it's those cosmetic changes that mark it out.

203
00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:36.840
It's the fact of John Pertwey's casting, it's the new credits.

204
00:16:36.899 --> 00:16:40.679
It's the fact that it's in colour. and the shortened season which give it an aura.

205
00:16:40.740 --> 00:16:52.740
So if this hadn't been a shortened season, if this had been a 1960s style season, then colour would have come in in about the 3rd story slot because it was introduced in November of 1969 on BBC One.

206
00:16:52.799 --> 00:16:58.860
But all of those things came together to mark this as something new and fresh and a lot of it was actually by accident.

207
00:16:59.340 --> 00:17:11.039
Is it a mistake for the show to just say this is one thing that we believe that we can do well and then just concentrate on that one thing?

208
00:17:11.099 --> 00:17:13.920
I don't think it's a mistake necessarily.

209
00:17:13.980 --> 00:17:16.019
And I think it's demonstrated in season six.

210
00:17:16.079 --> 00:17:22.140
I think they start to grow tight or they start to run out of ideas for sort of funny and funky planets that they want to go to.

211
00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:24.000
It's season five, isn't it?

212
00:17:24.059 --> 00:17:32.819
We can go anywhere in time and space and we just go to a series of roughly identical, sort of completely fungible bases under siege where the same thing is happening.

213
00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:35.700
Yeah, it was season 6 is more imaginative.

214
00:17:35.759 --> 00:17:37.440
Yeah, to many more places.

215
00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:39.000
Simon, what's wrong with you?

216
00:17:39.059 --> 00:17:41.400
Is the planet of the Gon's not fun and funky enough for you?

217
00:17:41.460 --> 00:17:43.140
No, I love the Crown.

218
00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:44.339
I love credos.

219
00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:55.799
But I think I think there's a lot of, like if you look at the seeds of death, which I love, and you look at the war games, which I love, there are some costuming choices in both of those which make it all look a bit silly.

220
00:17:55.859 --> 00:18:02.039
Now, I think one of the reasons why season seven, season eight, and so on looks so much better is because there's none of that.

221
00:18:02.099 --> 00:18:07.740
The worst thing about them is the fact that the brigadies in a strange jumpsuit as opposed to a proper army uniform.

222
00:18:07.799 --> 00:18:09.480
Yeah, it's the future.

223
00:18:09.539 --> 00:18:10.859
It's the future.

224
00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:17.579
Oh, but Liz, can I just say Liz's jacket with the strange. brain, the plastic, this plastic brain thing on this.

225
00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:18.720
I've always hated that.

226
00:18:18.779 --> 00:18:20.400
I hated it when I 1st started.

227
00:18:20.460 --> 00:18:21.240
The crotons.

228
00:18:21.299 --> 00:18:23.220
It's not a 1000000 miles away from Zoe's.

229
00:18:23.279 --> 00:18:24.240
Well exactly.

230
00:18:24.299 --> 00:18:31.079
The costume designer obviously said, no, damn it, I'm going to, you know, design a funky out of space costume, regardless of where we're set.

231
00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:34.259
Do you think there were any people who thought it might come alive and attack her?

232
00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:36.779
Oh, I see.

233
00:18:36.839 --> 00:18:40.859
Well, it's either that or her enormous eyelashes.

234
00:18:40.920 --> 00:18:41.339
Yeah.

235
00:18:41.400 --> 00:18:43.380
The eye makeup and the hair.

236
00:18:43.440 --> 00:18:46.680
Oh, the camp friend Janeway hair, bun head.

237
00:18:46.740 --> 00:18:54.240
I told you, you're just pointing out her enormous eyelashes because of that one shot in episode one where she says to the brigadier, invisible ink.

238
00:18:54.299 --> 00:18:55.980
That sort of thing.

239
00:18:56.880 --> 00:19:00.839
Oh, but she's so good with the brigadier.

240
00:19:00.900 --> 00:19:04.619
She's so consistently belittling of him throughout the entire thing.

241
00:19:04.680 --> 00:19:07.140
I was actually laughing at what he's saying.

242
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:08.279
It's like icy.

243
00:19:08.339 --> 00:19:23.700
I was actually a little bit shocked by it because, you know, from next year onwards, we'll have the dynamic where Pertwee is grumpy and kind of obnoxious and is humanised by Joe. Here it's the other way around where Liz Shaw.

244
00:19:23.700 --> 00:19:30.240
And she's annoyed because she's kind of been virtually drafted, you know, from her job at Cambridge.

245
00:19:30.299 --> 00:19:32.339
Exactly. kidnapped, actually.

246
00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:35.099
And so she's basically annoyed the whole episode.

247
00:19:35.160 --> 00:19:36.299
She was even searched.

248
00:19:36.359 --> 00:19:37.319
Yes.

249
00:19:37.319 --> 00:19:40.440
That look on her face that would just says, I was even searched.

250
00:19:40.500 --> 00:19:43.500
It's almost like I'd searched in places that I'm not going to mention.

251
00:19:44.039 --> 00:19:48.180
No wonder she had to wear plastic. of death, actually the doctor's being grumpy.

252
00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:51.180
Uh, and maybe it's something to do with post-soliorine install.

253
00:19:51.180 --> 00:19:52.380
Just a coincidence.

254
00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:57.299
I like how warm the doctor is when he 1st meets her.

255
00:19:57.359 --> 00:19:59.519
Like, it's really lovely.

256
00:19:59.579 --> 00:20:06.839
Like, I was really quite shocked by that because the perch we I have in my head is really quite grumpy, like, at this point.

257
00:20:06.900 --> 00:20:11.160
But I really, really like that scene with them together.

258
00:20:11.220 --> 00:20:24.000
But just that dynamic with the brigadier, like throughout the entire thing where they're not really friendly until perhaps General Scorbi says that really sexist thing and then the brigadier says, well, she's got degrees and all that sort of stuff.

259
00:20:24.059 --> 00:20:27.180
You know, maybe there's a bit of breaking down.

260
00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:28.619
I was about to say, that's doctor sure to you.

261
00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:30.359
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

262
00:20:30.420 --> 00:20:34.500
When Scobie says, no, I should have a pretty pierced around the players.

263
00:20:34.559 --> 00:20:39.960
This is actually looking mad and smiling and it's when it's when the brigadier says, she's not just a pretty face, sir.

264
00:20:40.019 --> 00:20:41.400
And that's when she kind of scowls.

265
00:20:42.420 --> 00:20:51.779
I mean, I think that's one of the things that marks out Spearhead from Space and makes it feel like more of a reformat than it is because we could easily have had Wendy Padbury.

266
00:20:51.839 --> 00:20:52.559
This could have been Zoe.

267
00:20:52.619 --> 00:20:54.059
She was asked to stay.

268
00:20:54.119 --> 00:20:54.839
She said no.

269
00:20:54.900 --> 00:20:55.920
It could have been Zoe.

270
00:20:55.980 --> 00:20:59.700
Carrie John is the oldest companion we've had since Jacqueline Hill.

271
00:20:59.759 --> 00:21:01.740
So she's, I think, 29 or 30.

272
00:21:01.980 --> 00:21:03.359
So she's a proper adult.

273
00:21:03.420 --> 00:21:04.079
You can believe that.

274
00:21:04.140 --> 00:21:05.220
She's a woman, not a girl.

275
00:21:05.279 --> 00:21:07.619
She's a woman, not a girl. absolutely.

276
00:21:07.680 --> 00:21:08.940
She's 29 or 30.

277
00:21:09.180 --> 00:21:10.440
Nick Courtney is 40.

278
00:21:10.740 --> 00:21:12.660
Troughton's companions were children.

279
00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:17.220
And so that's a market change in the way that the series is presented to the audience.

280
00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:20.279
Do you know how old pert we is when he's filming this?

281
00:21:20.339 --> 00:21:21.059
He's 50.

282
00:21:21.299 --> 00:21:24.420
He's 50. younger than he's younger than we are.

283
00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:26.400
Isn't that extraordinary though?

284
00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:29.579
How do you feel about Pertu's performance here?

285
00:21:29.640 --> 00:21:31.740
Because this I don't think is where he lands.

286
00:21:31.859 --> 00:21:33.599
How do you feel about being older?

287
00:21:33.599 --> 00:21:34.440
How do you feel about me?

288
00:21:34.500 --> 00:21:35.160
Not good.

289
00:21:35.220 --> 00:21:36.900
I'm older than Capaldi.

290
00:21:36.960 --> 00:21:38.099
You can all just shut up.

291
00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:40.740
No, you're older than John Pertwee when he leaves the show.

292
00:21:42.539 --> 00:21:51.960
How do you feel about his performance because I actually think that he's a little bit more trout-ish in this story that he eventually lands on.

293
00:21:52.019 --> 00:21:53.400
I would say so too.

294
00:21:53.519 --> 00:22:05.759
Can I just say that 1st scene we were talking about the one where the important scene in the 1st episode where he meets the brigadier, I had never noticed before what a passable impersonation he's doing a Trouton in that entire scene.

295
00:22:05.819 --> 00:22:06.599
Right.

296
00:22:06.599 --> 00:22:09.180
When he's looking in the mirror and saying, that's not me at all.

297
00:22:09.240 --> 00:22:11.400
And he's even got Troughton's inflections.

298
00:22:11.460 --> 00:22:12.539
Go back and watch it.

299
00:22:12.599 --> 00:22:14.220
Every line is delivered as Troughton.

300
00:22:14.279 --> 00:22:15.359
That's an interesting observation.

301
00:22:15.420 --> 00:22:17.039
I'm full of them, Simon.

302
00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:28.740
No, I agree with you, because when I was watching it, I was going, this is not perchway, and it was kind of going, this is written more like Trouton, but obviously he's playing it more like that.

303
00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:33.299
He's finding his feet because, you know, of his comedic background.

304
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:34.140
Yeah, yeah.

305
00:22:34.140 --> 00:22:41.339
So there's times where I think a few little, you know, the eyebrow things and a few other things are perhaps overplayed a bit, but in terms...

306
00:22:41.400 --> 00:22:46.140
But in terms of actually playing it straight, he's actually doing, I think, a really good job.

307
00:22:46.200 --> 00:22:57.720
I think what's interesting is that he's still an outsider, and we will get him reanalysed as a kind of member of the ruling class, and I think that happens next year.

308
00:22:57.779 --> 00:22:59.039
I don't think that happens yet.

309
00:22:59.099 --> 00:23:03.599
And so here he's still doing crime and stuff, he's still...

310
00:23:03.660 --> 00:23:04.980
You know?

311
00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:13.799
And so, so he is a little bit of that sort of outsider, and the show doesn't centre around him all that much.

312
00:23:14.039 --> 00:23:29.579
And I think because we're doing an Avengers episode and because we're retooling the show, I think people don't realise just how little the doctor has to do with anything that goes on in the story.

313
00:23:29.640 --> 00:23:36.059
And so I think it's telling that 2 of the 3 cliffhangers are guest stars in peril.

314
00:23:36.119 --> 00:23:37.019
Yes.

315
00:23:37.079 --> 00:23:40.259
Yeah, but it's not about the guest star in peril. the advancement of the plot.

316
00:23:40.380 --> 00:23:40.920
Yes, of course.

317
00:23:40.980 --> 00:23:42.900
Oh my god, this is happening. you know, Scoby's being replaced.

318
00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:44.279
Yeah Oh my god, this is happening.

319
00:23:44.339 --> 00:23:48.000
You know, the dummies are coming alive in the workshop.

320
00:23:48.059 --> 00:23:48.900
As we knew, they were going to.

321
00:23:48.960 --> 00:23:54.660
Yeah, it's about as far as you can get from the JNT edict that every cliffhanger crashes a zoom on the doctor.

322
00:23:54.720 --> 00:23:55.440
Yeah.

323
00:23:55.500 --> 00:23:56.279
Yeah.

324
00:23:56.279 --> 00:23:58.140
But that's an Avengers thing.

325
00:23:58.259 --> 00:23:59.279
If you think about it.

326
00:23:59.339 --> 00:24:17.640
Like, you know, Richard and Brendan aren't here and there are real experts, but it's quite common, I think, for there to be a threat that kills off a guest character and then Steve and Mrs. Peel arrive later and sort of see that happen and that they don't themselves get put into peril until the very end of the episode.

327
00:24:17.700 --> 00:24:19.500
And that's what happens in this story.

328
00:24:19.559 --> 00:24:23.759
Like Liz and the doctor are not in peril, except, you know, being shot.

329
00:24:23.819 --> 00:24:25.559
He's shot by.

330
00:24:25.619 --> 00:24:26.339
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

331
00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:31.380
But that's as close as he gets to involvement in the plot and he doesn't advance the plot or anything like that.

332
00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:37.259
They're just around kind of investigating things and then they resolve the plot at the end.

333
00:24:37.319 --> 00:24:38.819
The director.

334
00:24:38.880 --> 00:24:40.200
Derek Martinez.

335
00:24:40.259 --> 00:24:41.160
Derek Martinez.

336
00:24:41.220 --> 00:24:42.420
Does he do any other?

337
00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:46.380
Oh, yes. who's one of the best directors to ever work on the show?

338
00:24:46.440 --> 00:24:55.680
So he started off with Galaxy 4 and Mission to the Unknown, but then came into his own with things like the 10th planet, Evil of the Daleks and the Ice Warriors.

339
00:24:55.740 --> 00:24:58.079
The Ice War is not very good, but it's very, very well directed.

340
00:24:58.140 --> 00:24:59.099
It's usually shot, yes.

341
00:24:59.160 --> 00:25:00.599
Does he do anything after this?

342
00:25:00.660 --> 00:25:02.640
No, it's his last one.

343
00:25:02.700 --> 00:25:04.799
I interviewed him in 1996.

344
00:25:05.099 --> 00:25:10.980
And it is absolutely clear that he was a man with ideas ahead of his time in how to shoot television.

345
00:25:11.039 --> 00:25:13.559
You can watch the existing episode of Evil of the Daleks.

346
00:25:13.619 --> 00:25:18.720
And the stuff that he does in the studio is just beautiful, the way that he's moving the camera around.

347
00:25:18.779 --> 00:25:21.720
And when you speak to people who worked with him, they didn't like him.

348
00:25:21.779 --> 00:25:26.339
They called him deadly Derek Martinez because he was so slow and methodical, but look at the results.

349
00:25:26.519 --> 00:25:39.900
Only reason why I say this is because, you know, there's certain directors and writers for us that stick in your mind from the classic series, and when his name came up, I just kind of went, oh, I don't know what he's done.

350
00:25:39.960 --> 00:25:41.400
Like, so there's all those black and white.

351
00:25:41.519 --> 00:25:43.259
It's the only complete story that he says.

352
00:25:43.319 --> 00:25:43.980
Yeah.

353
00:25:44.039 --> 00:25:44.460
Okay.

354
00:25:44.519 --> 00:25:48.839
So you wouldn't have, it's not like, it's not engrained in my...

355
00:25:48.900 --> 00:25:49.740
It's only great in my mind.

356
00:25:49.799 --> 00:26:15.839
But, you know, there's certain things from John being in the wheelchair and that chase sequence to the way in which even the reporters seen from the, with the brigadier and Liz in the hospital where he's from, where it's from the media point of view, and then the car crash and the window store dummies where you don't actually see those crashes, but just the way in which all that is shot is so different to other Doctor Who's.

357
00:26:15.900 --> 00:26:22.140
I can only, going back to that media scrum in the hospital foyer, I can only imagine that that would have been a studio scene.

358
00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:28.859
Oh, absolutely. yeah There is no way they'd been able to do that handheld thing in the studio.

359
00:26:28.920 --> 00:26:30.119
We are so blessed by.

360
00:26:30.180 --> 00:26:31.680
We are so blessed that this is on film.

361
00:26:31.740 --> 00:26:36.839
And imagine what the show would have been like. with sequences like that had this been the template moving forward.

362
00:26:36.900 --> 00:26:42.359
Had Doctor Who just been shot on film, it would have been, well, for a start, you'd have all of the per year in the original colour format.

363
00:26:42.420 --> 00:26:46.440
But it was just completely changed, the feel and flavour of the show.

364
00:26:46.500 --> 00:26:56.039
Because, I mean, we've been talking about this when we've done startling Barbara Bain when we've done Space 1999, which is also shot on film.

365
00:26:56.099 --> 00:27:03.960
And so a lot of the special effects actually just need to be able to be done in camera and you don't have videotape to do video effects.

366
00:27:04.019 --> 00:27:08.880
And so here, everything looks just a lot less crap.

367
00:27:09.059 --> 00:27:19.920
Not just because film looks better and more expensive, not just because we're on location, but because we don't attempt any laser beams and stuff.

368
00:27:19.980 --> 00:27:20.460
Yes.

369
00:27:20.460 --> 00:27:21.839
And so it's...

370
00:27:21.900 --> 00:27:27.180
Yeah, and when ransom gets killed, you've got the film going backwards and the smoke going.

371
00:27:27.240 --> 00:27:27.960
Oh brilliant.

372
00:27:28.019 --> 00:27:30.000
That's another...

373
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:32.039
So many people get exploded.

374
00:27:32.099 --> 00:27:35.640
Like so many actors have little charges in their costumes that explode.

375
00:27:35.700 --> 00:27:37.619
Which makes it feel so much more gritty.

376
00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:39.480
Yeah, it feels really visceral.

377
00:27:39.539 --> 00:27:44.160
But the Avengers is also like on film at the time, I think.

378
00:27:44.579 --> 00:27:54.480
And there's lots of stuff where you get close-ups of people's faces and stuff and their reactions and people who are hypnotised and all of that sort of thing.

379
00:27:54.539 --> 00:28:00.059
All of the autons who have that slightly shiny face thing that comes...

380
00:28:00.059 --> 00:28:03.660
Especially the secretary of the secretary...

381
00:28:03.660 --> 00:28:04.680
She's never commented on.

382
00:28:04.740 --> 00:28:06.359
It's so good.

383
00:28:06.420 --> 00:28:07.799
Like all of that is really good.

384
00:28:07.859 --> 00:28:12.660
Just that one line from the captain, where there's something odd about the faces.

385
00:28:12.779 --> 00:28:17.160
And that's the only reference you actually get to it, but it's all you need with the photograph of Channing.

386
00:28:17.220 --> 00:28:27.119
But it's like having the general open the door to the general and like it's so obvious that the natural face and the auton face and then Channing's face, like he is wonderful.

387
00:28:27.180 --> 00:28:28.859
Like, he's just brilliant.

388
00:28:28.920 --> 00:28:33.359
But it's that subtlety in the makeup and that, which is just brilliant.

389
00:28:36.420 --> 00:28:39.240
I just want to reiterate this thing about the film thing.

390
00:28:39.299 --> 00:28:40.559
It's not just a look.

391
00:28:40.619 --> 00:28:43.619
It's also the manner in which film is shocked. right?

392
00:28:43.680 --> 00:28:53.640
You've got the opportunity to shoot each angle of the sequence incompletely or mainly, and then cut when you want to afterwards, cut between the various things.

393
00:28:53.700 --> 00:28:58.980
And you can do complete reverses, like some of those very powerful things, you know, where the doctor does say, shoes, and then you get the closer of the doctor.

394
00:28:59.039 --> 00:28:59.819
I beg your pardon?

395
00:28:59.880 --> 00:29:00.900
And it's these incredible things.

396
00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:07.859
You would never have been able to achieve that in a studio with enormous, huge cameras that need to be wheeled around. as quietly as possible.

397
00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:11.279
And the vision mixer, relying on the vision mixer to press the button at the right moment.

398
00:29:11.339 --> 00:29:13.799
You don't get that amount of finesse.

399
00:29:13.859 --> 00:29:15.359
Absolutely right, Simon.

400
00:29:15.420 --> 00:29:16.140
And let me add to that.

401
00:29:16.200 --> 00:29:20.819
This is why Spearhead from Space is not so much a relaunch of the show, but a bit of a cul-de-sac.

402
00:29:20.880 --> 00:29:26.579
I think Dog 2 and the Silurians is closer to the war games than Spearhead for the Spaces.

403
00:29:26.819 --> 00:29:31.319
Spearhead from Space is like the location footage on the invasion.

404
00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:37.980
That's the only analogue that I can think of, which is why I think they looked at what Douglas Canfield did on Webber Fair and the invasion and went, let's go that way.

405
00:29:38.039 --> 00:29:46.019
Spearhead from Space had 33 days of shooing. which is just ridiculous for any Doctor Who story.

406
00:29:46.079 --> 00:29:49.920
So they were shooting a tiny amount of film every day, 3 minutes of film a day.

407
00:29:49.980 --> 00:29:56.519
They then were able to take all of that, and edit it as a film, which is why it moves like an action film.

408
00:29:56.579 --> 00:30:00.599
No other Doctor Who can do that because it's physically impossible to do it in the studio.

409
00:30:00.660 --> 00:30:03.059
You can't cut together a multicamera sequence like that.

410
00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:07.079
So Spearhead from Space is not a relaunch for the show in that respect.

411
00:30:07.140 --> 00:30:09.480
It's its own individual and unique thing.

412
00:30:09.539 --> 00:30:10.380
Yeah.

413
00:30:10.440 --> 00:30:11.160
Yeah.

414
00:30:11.339 --> 00:30:16.680
The only disadvantages I sort of highlighted before about the film thing is the soundtrack.

415
00:30:16.740 --> 00:30:21.539
I mean, 16 mil film has a tiny, tiny magnetic stripe of sound.

416
00:30:21.539 --> 00:30:28.319
And I think that that's how the sound was being recorded, which is when the way they normally record it.

417
00:30:28.380 --> 00:30:32.220
It'd be like using a, probably what would have been a news camera, like for news footage.

418
00:30:32.279 --> 00:30:41.220
Because as I said, the only disadvantage is that the sound is very thin and echo-y. very tinny and that's just the nature of how it was recorded.

419
00:30:41.279 --> 00:30:43.920
I think if the show was being filmed on film properly.

420
00:30:44.099 --> 00:30:46.019
There would have been a separate.

421
00:30:46.079 --> 00:30:50.220
I mean, I don't I don't want to say that that's definitely the way it was done, but that's what my guard instinct says.

422
00:30:50.279 --> 00:31:02.460
And just to contrast to space 1999, not that I really watched it all that much, but this has a sharpness to it in terms of the cutting and the direction that I don't think space 1999 really has, but the Avengers does have.

423
00:31:02.519 --> 00:31:03.660
But you know why that is, Simon?

424
00:31:03.720 --> 00:31:06.299
It's because it's not set up to be filmed.

425
00:31:06.359 --> 00:31:07.920
It is not meant to be filmed, this script.

426
00:31:07.980 --> 00:31:12.720
And so it's structured like a television drama, whereas Space 1999 is not.

427
00:31:12.779 --> 00:31:14.160
It's structured as a film drama.

428
00:31:14.220 --> 00:31:17.400
So you have lots of languid scenes with no dialogue in them.

429
00:31:17.460 --> 00:31:22.319
This is just a Doctor Who story that's meant to be shot in the studio that's actually being shot on film.

430
00:31:22.380 --> 00:31:26.039
And so it moves much quicker than any Space 1999 episode.

431
00:31:26.099 --> 00:31:27.420
Languid is the word.

432
00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:30.000
Just a quick note on directors.

433
00:31:30.059 --> 00:31:33.180
You said Derek Martinez didn't have a very good reputation.

434
00:31:33.240 --> 00:31:34.200
People didn't like to work with him.

435
00:31:34.259 --> 00:31:37.559
So many of the better directors on Doctor Who had their reputation.

436
00:31:37.619 --> 00:31:42.180
Douglas Camfield was apparently like running it like a military operation, like everyone hated it.

437
00:31:42.299 --> 00:31:45.180
Graham Harper was seen as chaotic in the 80s.

438
00:31:45.240 --> 00:31:45.779
Do you know what I mean?

439
00:31:45.839 --> 00:31:48.180
It's just, and who are the directors that people love to work with?

440
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:50.279
People like Penn and Roberts and Peter Moffatt.

441
00:31:50.339 --> 00:31:50.819
Yes, exactly.

442
00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:51.779
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

443
00:31:51.839 --> 00:31:52.799
That'll do, love.

444
00:31:53.940 --> 00:31:56.220
That'll do attitude.

445
00:31:56.279 --> 00:31:58.319
Well, that'll do is that was 90%.

446
00:31:58.380 --> 00:31:58.740
That's enough.

447
00:31:59.519 --> 00:32:05.640
Let's not forget as well that Douglas Canfield was offered the producership of the show before Barry Letts.

448
00:32:05.700 --> 00:32:11.579
So clearly there was something to the fact that they wanted to ape that style that he'd brought to the show.

449
00:32:11.640 --> 00:32:13.920
And Simon, also what you were saying about the soundtrack.

450
00:32:13.980 --> 00:32:14.940
I noticed that as well.

451
00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:20.759
Part of it's to do with the 16 mil magstripe, but also Doctor Who had no ADR budget.

452
00:32:20.819 --> 00:32:23.700
And so they never ADR stuff that was on location.

453
00:32:23.759 --> 00:32:28.500
If it was meant to be made on film, like the Avengers, they ADR it.

454
00:32:28.619 --> 00:32:29.579
And so it sounded like that.

455
00:32:29.640 --> 00:32:31.200
They got rid of all of the echo.

456
00:32:31.259 --> 00:32:34.019
They put in dialogue in place, whereas this just can't do it.

457
00:32:34.079 --> 00:32:39.779
There is a line that I saw was ADR in the brigadier's office, the doctor, when Ransom's in the office.

458
00:32:39.839 --> 00:32:46.500
I thought that's been, obviously there was, there must have been a terrible set, but basically it was only when they really had to, that they, that's right.

459
00:32:46.559 --> 00:32:48.059
They do it very occasionally throughout the show.

460
00:32:48.119 --> 00:32:50.519
I mean, there's a scene in Lagopolis, which is ADR.

461
00:32:50.579 --> 00:32:54.660
It's the scene in the TARDIS with the doctor and address, where everything is overdubbed.

462
00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:55.920
But that's absolutely...

463
00:32:55.980 --> 00:32:57.180
We disposed of the master.

464
00:32:57.240 --> 00:33:00.839
That's exactly the one See, I know exactly what you're talking about.

465
00:33:11.940 --> 00:33:15.420
So, let's talk about the world that this creates.

466
00:33:15.480 --> 00:33:21.059
We say that this is set on Earth, but in what sense...

467
00:33:21.059 --> 00:33:23.099
How do you mean?

468
00:33:23.160 --> 00:33:24.779
So what do we see?

469
00:33:24.839 --> 00:33:31.259
One of the one of my biggest complaints, for instance, about the hand of fear is that it's one of them.

470
00:33:31.319 --> 00:33:32.759
Nominally set on earth.

471
00:33:32.880 --> 00:33:40.859
It's set on earth, but it's set in a quarry, in a nuclear power station and in a very, very cheaply realised hospital.

472
00:33:42.059 --> 00:33:45.480
That's Bob Baker and Dave Martin work. world.

473
00:33:46.079 --> 00:33:49.920
There's no sense that it's actually said in the real world.

474
00:33:50.039 --> 00:34:06.420
But here, you do get that sense because you've got, you know, people with old-fashioned vacuum cleaners and phones and beepers and then all the different fashions than out in the street with the window shop and the cars.

475
00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:09.360
You really do get that sense that it's set at a particular time.

476
00:34:09.420 --> 00:34:11.940
All those old ladies with head scarves.

477
00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:19.260
Yes, not to mention that the Auton dummies in episode 4 breaking out of the shops, they've got some pre-decimal currency price tags on them.

478
00:34:19.320 --> 00:34:21.300
I only noticed that last day.

479
00:34:21.360 --> 00:34:25.679
Like I said, £17, one shilling. absolutely extraordinary.

480
00:34:25.739 --> 00:34:37.679
I actually think that this story is one of the few in Doctor Who at all, particularly around this time, which does really feel like it is set in the real world, because it feels like a cottage hospital, you've got the Seelies, you've got the high street.

481
00:34:37.739 --> 00:34:41.820
Whereas, as you said, with hand to fear, but also things like, you know, claws of axles and so on.

482
00:34:41.880 --> 00:34:46.079
They're set in nuclear power stations and research facilities, and they're not set anywhere near the real world.

483
00:34:46.199 --> 00:34:49.079
And it's so refreshing to see the high street.

484
00:34:49.139 --> 00:34:49.679
Yes.

485
00:34:49.679 --> 00:34:53.400
To see the ladies with hairnets in the bus stop and the cop and the thing.

486
00:34:53.460 --> 00:34:59.340
I think the auton kind of smashing up the Sealey's house and there's a piano in there.

487
00:34:59.400 --> 00:35:01.440
Yes, and there's, yes, an old...

488
00:35:01.500 --> 00:35:09.420
All I could think of was all of these little things, these little kind of ornaments and stuff that they'd accumulated over...

489
00:35:09.480 --> 00:35:12.719
Yeah, yeah, yeah. it all just seemed really quite real.

490
00:35:12.780 --> 00:35:14.940
Yes, and horrible.

491
00:35:14.940 --> 00:35:18.780
And just the miserable English factory.

492
00:35:18.840 --> 00:35:19.739
Do you know what I mean?

493
00:35:19.800 --> 00:35:26.099
That mid-20th century horrible English factory. like they were still making those dolls on ration books.

494
00:35:26.280 --> 00:35:31.320
But it was that the, the, the women, you know, sewing their hair on.

495
00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:32.340
And the eyelashes.

496
00:35:32.460 --> 00:35:33.300
Yeah, yeah.

497
00:35:33.360 --> 00:35:34.199
All of that stuff.

498
00:35:34.260 --> 00:35:42.300
Like that is something, you know, Doctor Who has been to contemporary earth a few times by this point, but not very many.

499
00:35:42.360 --> 00:35:43.500
It's not as grim as this.

500
00:35:43.559 --> 00:35:45.059
Yeah, but it's proper England.

501
00:35:45.119 --> 00:35:47.940
Like, that's proper mid-20, like, that's England in 1970.

502
00:35:48.059 --> 00:35:49.500
It really, really captures it.

503
00:35:49.559 --> 00:35:51.119
And the life that the Celies have.

504
00:35:51.179 --> 00:35:52.679
I mean, we forget.

505
00:35:52.739 --> 00:36:01.320
And of course, this was the case here, but people who lived in rural areas, you know, at that time, it's actually practically indistinguishable from the 3rd world.

506
00:36:01.380 --> 00:36:03.360
Like he's going out to poach for rabbits.

507
00:36:03.420 --> 00:36:05.219
He's hunting his own food.

508
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:12.179
They've got they've got their stuff, they've got their trinkets and stuff, but, you know, I'm almost sceptical that there's electricity in that house, for instance.

509
00:36:12.239 --> 00:36:13.739
You know what I mean?

510
00:36:13.800 --> 00:36:15.360
I mean, obviously miles from anywhere.

511
00:36:15.480 --> 00:36:16.559
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

512
00:36:16.619 --> 00:36:19.679
I think they're probably better off, you know, the TV poor people.

513
00:36:19.739 --> 00:36:21.059
Yes, you know what I mean?

514
00:36:21.119 --> 00:36:23.880
But, but like that seems really real.

515
00:36:23.940 --> 00:36:26.099
The hospital, all of that sort of stuff.

516
00:36:26.699 --> 00:36:30.780
It also shows in the social mores, I think, in the way that people deal with each other.

517
00:36:30.840 --> 00:36:37.800
So when you have Dr. Henderson and he needs the porter to turn off the vacuum cleaner, he doesn't say, could you turn it off?

518
00:36:37.860 --> 00:36:40.139
He gets irritated and snaps his fingers at him.

519
00:36:40.199 --> 00:36:41.760
How'd you see I'm on the phone?

520
00:36:41.820 --> 00:36:42.360
Exactly.

521
00:36:42.420 --> 00:36:44.940
Yeah, he's a doctor where he's just a worker.

522
00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:48.059
And you see the way that Sam Seely deals with his wife.

523
00:36:48.119 --> 00:36:48.960
It's not 70s.

524
00:36:49.019 --> 00:36:52.500
It's very 50s and 60s. the way, you know, fetch me some grub woman.

525
00:36:52.559 --> 00:36:53.760
What you're looking at?

526
00:36:53.820 --> 00:36:54.179
hungry.

527
00:36:54.239 --> 00:36:55.320
Yeah, what you looking at, woman?

528
00:36:55.380 --> 00:36:57.960
Although she, of course, does give it back to him.

529
00:36:58.019 --> 00:36:58.860
Yeah, 0 yeah.

530
00:36:58.920 --> 00:37:01.019
I don't think I'm having that old box in my house.

531
00:37:01.079 --> 00:37:03.179
It's so nice.

532
00:37:03.239 --> 00:37:04.500
You haven't been thieving again.

533
00:37:04.559 --> 00:37:06.900
As we record, Todd's getting married next week.

534
00:37:06.960 --> 00:37:11.099
So he has all of this to look forward to.

535
00:37:11.340 --> 00:37:15.300
Todd, don't think Ash is going to have that old trunk in your apartment.

536
00:37:15.420 --> 00:37:29.699
I just need to point out a bit of the wonderful Mrs. Seely performance, though, which is sort of foreshadowing what we see in the old hag in Talons of Wing Chiang. where she said, where she says, no, no, no, no.

537
00:37:29.760 --> 00:37:33.119
Something must have frightened him dreadful before he died.

538
00:37:34.559 --> 00:37:42.960
All I could think of was the woman from the Silurians coming up next who was found in the park. paralysed by fear.

539
00:37:43.019 --> 00:37:44.280
She may have seen something.

540
00:37:47.340 --> 00:37:53.760
It's good though, she's alive, because you think that when you see her body on the floor with your life, that she's been killed.

541
00:37:53.760 --> 00:37:55.739
No, I'm being knocked unconscious. so glad that she wasn't sure.

542
00:37:55.860 --> 00:38:10.380
And it's kind of, it is sort of a penalty, you know, like it's Mr. Sealey pays a terrible price for his poor person kind of trying to get money out of the lovely middle class people in the tent.

543
00:38:10.440 --> 00:38:12.239
They're selling the Thunderball.

544
00:38:12.360 --> 00:38:16.619
So equating being poor with being stupid and being cunning.

545
00:38:16.739 --> 00:38:17.940
Exactly.

546
00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:19.139
And being a bit dishonest.

547
00:38:19.199 --> 00:38:19.800
That's right.

548
00:38:19.860 --> 00:38:21.179
He's the working class character.

549
00:38:21.239 --> 00:38:22.199
He's a bit thieving.

550
00:38:22.260 --> 00:38:26.820
He's also stupid and that he doesn't realise the importance of these things and the danger that he could be in.

551
00:38:26.880 --> 00:38:30.659
It's a very interesting representation of British society.

552
00:38:30.719 --> 00:38:33.059
And likewise, the porter is portrayed as stupid.

553
00:38:33.119 --> 00:38:33.900
You know, he sells that.

554
00:38:33.900 --> 00:38:35.039
And he sells the story.

555
00:38:35.039 --> 00:38:36.599
And he sells the story to the media.

556
00:38:36.659 --> 00:38:38.280
It's tell from Thomas.

557
00:38:38.400 --> 00:38:40.980
He's legally required to be evil in everything.

558
00:38:41.039 --> 00:38:42.900
He's not evil. evil in the grand death.

559
00:38:42.960 --> 00:38:45.599
No, that's true, but he's super evil in survivors.

560
00:38:45.719 --> 00:38:47.159
Oh.

561
00:38:47.219 --> 00:38:49.199
And then we get Madame Tussaud.

562
00:38:49.260 --> 00:38:50.519
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

563
00:38:50.579 --> 00:38:52.199
Again, just miserable as hell.

564
00:38:53.219 --> 00:38:56.760
Well, those fashions, for God's sake.

565
00:38:56.760 --> 00:38:58.139
They were spectacular.

566
00:38:58.199 --> 00:39:03.480
Talking about the fashions, the thing I loved was there, and you get it in tear of the autumns, which you'll talk about next week.

567
00:39:03.539 --> 00:39:10.320
The glasses of that era where this very heavy top with the thing, if they're very kind of... sort of NHS glass.

568
00:39:10.380 --> 00:39:11.699
Yes, they're very Henry Kissinger.

569
00:39:11.760 --> 00:39:14.039
Simon, Simon, Mary Whitehouse.

570
00:39:14.099 --> 00:39:16.860
Yes, yes, exactly. exactly what they are.

571
00:39:16.920 --> 00:39:18.960
It's just so one unit.

572
00:39:19.079 --> 00:39:21.840
It's like what Todd's saying before about it being a film.

573
00:39:22.079 --> 00:39:24.539
It all just comes together as one consistent unit.

574
00:39:30.599 --> 00:39:37.679
So, I want to talk just briefly about the nestings because this is not the nestings as they end up being.

575
00:39:37.739 --> 00:39:41.219
And this is a very kind of Bob Holmes approached the program.

576
00:39:41.280 --> 00:39:45.719
So this is not a show where rubber aliens invade the earth.

577
00:39:45.780 --> 00:39:53.159
The nestings have been colonising planets for a 10000000 years.

578
00:39:53.219 --> 00:39:58.800
They have evolved beyond any kind of physical presence.

579
00:39:58.860 --> 00:40:04.019
Like there is just something strange and kind of Eldritch about them.

580
00:40:04.079 --> 00:40:11.880
And when Holmes takes over the program, you know, he does these evils from the dawn of history and the nestings are that.

581
00:40:11.940 --> 00:40:13.860
But do you know what they are as well?

582
00:40:13.920 --> 00:40:15.059
They're the great intelligence.

583
00:40:15.179 --> 00:40:17.400
The great intelligence is the same thing.

584
00:40:17.460 --> 00:40:20.579
It crafts itself bodies to do its bidding.

585
00:40:20.639 --> 00:40:23.099
It doesn't actually put its intelligence into them.

586
00:40:23.159 --> 00:40:28.380
It maintains the uncorporeality of itself, but the idea is the same.

587
00:40:28.440 --> 00:40:34.860
And yet it's more evidence of how the reformat of the show or the new direction of the show steals from the web of fear and the invasion.

588
00:40:34.920 --> 00:40:35.639
Yeah.

589
00:40:35.699 --> 00:40:39.000
But unlike something like the web of fear, and perhaps more like the invasion.

590
00:40:39.059 --> 00:40:46.860
The threat he's building, like when the doctor arrives and when the story starts, there isn't an alien invasion underway, there isn't already a disturbance.

591
00:40:46.920 --> 00:40:48.119
Life is normal.

592
00:40:48.179 --> 00:40:48.840
Life is fine.

593
00:40:48.900 --> 00:40:52.380
And then gradually as they collect the nestine spheres.

594
00:40:52.440 --> 00:40:58.860
And it's that thing back, like in Power of the Darks, they're not ready to take over yet, they're still building up their strength.

595
00:40:58.920 --> 00:41:07.800
There's a bit of a war of the world's thing with the sort of bombardment and what's all this and we don't know what this is, but we should be, we're not as nearly concerned as we should be.

596
00:41:07.860 --> 00:41:16.440
It's funny how quick it all is too, because, you know, they arrive. things arrive at the same time as the doctor very exciting.

597
00:41:16.500 --> 00:41:18.059
Very, very soon.

598
00:41:18.119 --> 00:41:27.420
Like, in a couple of days, they've replaced all of the most boring civil servants in the entire government musicians and frozen them somehow and put them in Madam 2.

599
00:41:27.719 --> 00:41:30.420
But that's already the second, that's already the 2nd bombardment, though.

600
00:41:30.480 --> 00:41:33.239
Because remember, it was another fleet of meteorites.

601
00:41:33.239 --> 00:41:35.460
Swarm leaders in the 2nd lead.

602
00:41:35.460 --> 00:41:37.980
Yes, and they haven't frozen them and put them in Madame 2 swords.

603
00:41:38.039 --> 00:41:41.219
They don't actually replace them until they come to life until they come to life.

604
00:41:41.280 --> 00:41:48.539
And there were probably a couple because I assume Channing comes down, the Channing one comes down and I assume there was there was a real Channing that he's replaced or something.

605
00:41:48.599 --> 00:41:49.019
Maybe.

606
00:41:49.079 --> 00:41:58.800
That's what I was going to say, like Channing is his own special entity that has to be the 1st one there as a whole creature.

607
00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:00.659
Yeah, in a whole body.

608
00:42:00.719 --> 00:42:06.360
Yeah, they make extinction, don't they, between the facsimiles, which are Channing and the facsimile of Scobi.

609
00:42:06.420 --> 00:42:09.360
And the regular autons, which kind of don't pass as people.

610
00:42:09.420 --> 00:42:10.320
Yeah.

611
00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:20.340
I think it's interesting how they talk about nestines and autons just as, you know, different terms and that the autons just appear to be the faceless gun shooting.

612
00:42:21.059 --> 00:42:22.260
Yeah, like the mannequins.

613
00:42:22.260 --> 00:42:24.059
The mannequins, the facsimiles of people.

614
00:42:24.119 --> 00:42:24.960
Yeah.

615
00:42:24.960 --> 00:42:27.539
Are they autons because it's the factory's autoplastics?

616
00:42:27.599 --> 00:42:29.820
So it's the author.

617
00:42:29.880 --> 00:42:30.119
Yes.

618
00:42:30.179 --> 00:42:32.219
And then we certainly forget it from now and forever.

619
00:42:32.579 --> 00:42:35.699
Isn't it just a shortened version of automaton?

620
00:42:35.760 --> 00:42:36.599
Oh, yeah.

621
00:42:36.599 --> 00:42:37.500
Yes, that too.

622
00:42:37.559 --> 00:42:37.860
Yeah, yeah.

623
00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:38.280
Yeah, yeah.

624
00:42:38.340 --> 00:42:40.199
But I think they get the name from autoplastics.

625
00:42:40.260 --> 00:42:45.000
Don't forget that in Terror of the Autons, they call the Daffodils, the AutoJet.

626
00:42:45.059 --> 00:42:46.739
Oh there you go.

627
00:42:46.800 --> 00:42:52.860
It's interesting how they're replacing all the civil servants, much like the Silovine do.

628
00:42:52.920 --> 00:42:55.860
Yeah, all the fattest civil servants get a place.

629
00:42:55.920 --> 00:43:02.940
It's actually really funny because it just means that the Madame Tussords thing is much, much more boring than you would kind of think.

630
00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:04.019
It's like the.

631
00:43:04.079 --> 00:43:05.760
But don't you sort of walk the cabinet secretary?

632
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:08.280
You do walk past the Kennedy and the Nixon gun.

633
00:43:08.280 --> 00:43:09.719
And then there's the cabinet secretary.

634
00:43:10.559 --> 00:43:12.599
I keep on looking.

635
00:43:12.599 --> 00:43:16.380
Every time I watch that sequence, I'm looking at, well, what are the actual dummies?

636
00:43:16.380 --> 00:43:19.739
and then I'm looking at the actual real people standing still and saying, are they going to blink?

637
00:43:19.800 --> 00:43:20.280
Are they going to move?

638
00:43:20.340 --> 00:43:21.179
It's really great.

639
00:43:21.239 --> 00:43:22.199
It's actually really well shot.

640
00:43:22.260 --> 00:43:26.219
Like trying to, it's the one moment where Liz gets scared as well.

641
00:43:26.280 --> 00:43:27.780
It's a little bit of a shame.

642
00:43:27.840 --> 00:43:29.579
She recovers quickly.

643
00:43:29.639 --> 00:43:30.900
And I think it's really good.

644
00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:31.800
She. see the doctor.

645
00:43:31.860 --> 00:43:32.699
She goes, oh, doctor.

646
00:43:32.760 --> 00:43:36.539
But it's just a little bit of a rare moment for Liz to kind of be discombobulated.

647
00:43:36.599 --> 00:43:48.539
And particularly if we're doing the Avengers where Mrs. Peel doesn't even react to, you know, slowly advancing towards a circular saw on a conveyor belt, she can't even kind of raise a flicker of interest.

648
00:43:48.599 --> 00:43:52.980
I just thought that was just a little bit of a shame.

649
00:43:53.099 --> 00:44:10.019
I have to say, when I was watching Spearhead years ago on a, you know, 43 centimetre colour television, it looked like all the actors were completely still, but watching the restored Blu-ray on a 55 inch OLED screen, they're all swaying side to side.

650
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:15.599
So, I mean, you would think that on 16 millimetre film, they would be slightly swaying from side to side with the image anyway.

651
00:44:15.659 --> 00:44:17.519
Yes, exactly, yes. yes.

652
00:44:23.579 --> 00:44:51.900
So this, I think, has such an effect on the show that it is repeatedly referenced when we're relaunching the show again, and that will happen next season, when we relaunch the show for series 8, we go straight back here and do the autons again, but it obviously also happens in the TV movie and in the 11th hour.

653
00:44:51.960 --> 00:44:53.340
Have I missed any more?

654
00:44:53.400 --> 00:44:54.840
Maybe Rose?

655
00:44:54.900 --> 00:44:56.099
Yeah, yes.

656
00:44:56.099 --> 00:44:57.360
Stro's sake.

657
00:44:57.420 --> 00:44:58.139
Maybe.

658
00:44:58.500 --> 00:45:05.820
But what specifically, what aspect specifically, what aspect specifically are you referring to there?

659
00:45:05.880 --> 00:45:08.219
I think, you know, doctor being in hospital.

660
00:45:08.280 --> 00:45:12.360
The doctor being in hospital, but also the doctor gets his costume while he's in hospital.

661
00:45:12.360 --> 00:45:29.460
And in fact, you know, the cottage hospital, I think, in the 11th hour is just so definitely a reference to it, even in the look, the look of it from the outside, the fact that it has a very kind of mid-20th century vibe, sort of generally, and it is very much going back to what works.

662
00:45:29.519 --> 00:45:45.780
And what Moffat does is he takes that scene where the doctor gets his costume and turns it into the kind of Aristaea for the doctor, the big giant hero moment, is where he rejects the tie and puts the bow tie on and that suddenly he's the doctor.

663
00:45:45.840 --> 00:46:01.739
Yeah, I think certainly the aspect of it sort of touched on before about, you know, things like Castra Valve is that it certainly becomes a template for how you introduce a U doctor, where they are unconscious, incapacitated, deranged, whatever it is, for at least a good part of the story.

664
00:46:01.800 --> 00:46:09.059
The only one that's not like that really is robot, like after the after he's changed all his outfits and never said one, he's basically the doctor from then on in robot.

665
00:46:09.119 --> 00:46:19.679
Whereas in cash revolver in twin dilemma in Time the Rani, even in the telly movie and so on like that, and certainly in the 11th hour, he's still discombobulated through at least sort of 60 or 70% of it, certainly in the Christmas invasion.

666
00:46:19.739 --> 00:46:27.480
Well, I mean, I think I think what we do with the doctor in the 11th hour is that he's actually always with it, but he doesn't have the TARDIS or the Sonic screwdriver.

667
00:46:27.539 --> 00:46:31.260
He doesn't have a bit of sort of weird post-regeneration thing.

668
00:46:31.320 --> 00:46:33.599
Because it actually turns out that's a bad idea.

669
00:46:33.659 --> 00:46:36.840
And Russell abandoned it for Shooty, didn't he?

670
00:46:36.900 --> 00:46:38.340
He just went, actually, we're not doing that.

671
00:46:38.400 --> 00:46:40.800
And he abandoned it for David Tennant.

672
00:46:40.920 --> 00:46:43.679
Yeah, as he should, it should have been abandoned a long time ago.

673
00:46:43.739 --> 00:46:44.219
Yeah, really.

674
00:46:44.280 --> 00:46:46.199
You had maybe 5 minutes, but then...

675
00:46:46.199 --> 00:46:50.460
I mean, I think you could do that when the doctor was changing every 7 years, but not every 3 seasons.

676
00:46:50.579 --> 00:46:51.960
Exactly, exactly.

677
00:46:52.019 --> 00:46:52.980
It becomes tiresome.

678
00:46:53.039 --> 00:46:55.199
Well, and it's just sort of slightly dumb.

679
00:46:55.260 --> 00:46:56.880
I mean, you want to see the new doctor.

680
00:46:56.940 --> 00:46:59.699
And so what exactly is the purpose of this?

681
00:46:59.760 --> 00:47:03.780
And the 1st time they do it, they don't do it with Troughton at all.

682
00:47:03.840 --> 00:47:11.219
He gets up and he's obnoxious and kind of off putting and things, but he's not deranged in any way.

683
00:47:11.280 --> 00:47:21.300
I think it's a difference when you build a regeneration story or the 1st story of a new doctor around the fact that the doctor has changed or else just change him and parachute him into a story.

684
00:47:21.360 --> 00:47:22.920
That's your 2 viable models.

685
00:47:22.980 --> 00:47:26.579
Power of the Daleks, they change him and parachutes him in, robot the same thing.

686
00:47:26.639 --> 00:47:35.159
Whereas Castravalva, Spearhead, I think the Christmas invasion, deep breath, certainly is built around the changing doctor.

687
00:47:35.219 --> 00:47:51.599
I have to say, though, that we kind of decided last week that this is a very definite relaunch for the doctor in Power of the Daleks and a relaunch for the Daleks, that there's a real sense in which we're now doing a new show and we're self-consciously doing that.

688
00:47:51.599 --> 00:48:05.880
And the way that the doctor talks about Hartnell's doctor in the 3rd person, the way that he becomes a collection of artefacts in the chest, the 500-year diary, all of those things serve to distance us from the previous doctor.

689
00:48:05.940 --> 00:48:09.119
Absolutely, but all of that happens in basically 2 scenes.

690
00:48:09.179 --> 00:48:10.860
And then you're on with the story.

691
00:48:11.340 --> 00:48:13.860
The other aspect of the relaunch, though.

692
00:48:13.920 --> 00:48:16.739
I mean, it's easy to sort of just pick up on the launches of new doctors.

693
00:48:16.800 --> 00:48:23.219
But other relaunches, things like leisure hive, even though script wise, it is still a kind of a 7 season 17 script.

694
00:48:23.280 --> 00:48:31.679
There are other aspects of it that after you get that long Brighton Beach scene where the doctor reminded it really get involved in the story for a while that you get and you get that in spearhead and rose as well.

695
00:48:31.739 --> 00:48:34.079
You know, all this stuff is happening before the doctor arrives.

696
00:48:34.139 --> 00:48:37.920
Church on Ruby Row, all this stuff is happening before the doctor actually arrives.

697
00:48:37.980 --> 00:48:49.380
So the relaunches, in some respects, make the doctor absent, or at least not as engaged in the story for a bit longer, like you're introduced to all these other people, and then, I suppose, through their eyes that you're introduced to the doctor.

698
00:48:49.440 --> 00:48:55.860
And that tried and true method of making the show reassuringly familiar when the doctor changes.

699
00:48:55.920 --> 00:48:59.699
People always talk about it in reference to robot, and it happens in deep breath as well.

700
00:48:59.760 --> 00:49:03.539
I think this is the most potent example of it.

701
00:49:03.599 --> 00:49:12.719
Like you are reassured that this is the same program, even though it's gone to colour, even though it's a shorter season, even though there's a new companion, even though many other things.

702
00:49:12.780 --> 00:49:19.619
Even though it's now made on film for some reason, rather than on videotape, you're reassured by the fact that the brigadier is there.

703
00:49:19.679 --> 00:49:21.659
And that is a key thing about it.

704
00:49:21.719 --> 00:49:30.719
And the thing that's really interesting is how close we might have come to not even having the brigadier, which would have made this a vastly different relaunch for the show.

705
00:49:30.780 --> 00:49:34.800
That's interesting because like if he hadn't been there.

706
00:49:34.860 --> 00:49:38.699
This would have been like Rose, everybody's new.

707
00:49:38.760 --> 00:49:47.039
And in this season, it's the only season, in terms of enemies, there's no recurring villains, right?

708
00:49:47.099 --> 00:49:49.139
Series one, series seven.

709
00:49:49.199 --> 00:49:55.139
Series 13 has it as well, but you still got the same leads and you still got unit in the background and all that sort of thing.

710
00:49:55.320 --> 00:49:56.760
The key to time has it.

711
00:49:56.820 --> 00:49:59.880
But again, you've still got Tom Baker and you've got canine.

712
00:49:59.940 --> 00:50:06.960
So this is as close as it gets to being like Rose or even like the 11th hour where everybody's new.

713
00:50:07.079 --> 00:50:10.679
It's also, as you said before, I think Nathan, it was you.

714
00:50:10.739 --> 00:50:12.059
It's an ensemble show now.

715
00:50:12.119 --> 00:50:15.900
There are more characters and I think it becomes even more an ensemble in season eight.

716
00:50:15.960 --> 00:50:28.619
The other thing that makes it better and it's one of the reasons why I love the classic series, but I think you particularly start to get from the per we era onwards is interesting and meaningful scenes that don't involve the doctor or any of his immediate friends.

717
00:50:28.679 --> 00:50:32.760
Yes, I'm thinking of Saudi rians and things like that, but there's loads of scenes in this.

718
00:50:32.820 --> 00:50:36.599
And not just not just with Channing and Hibbet and so on.

719
00:50:36.659 --> 00:50:38.820
But, you know, with the doctor in the hospital and so on.

720
00:50:38.880 --> 00:50:42.059
And the media pack in the lobby talking about what's going on.

721
00:50:42.119 --> 00:50:44.280
Ransom going to visit.

722
00:50:44.280 --> 00:50:45.480
Ransom going to visit.

723
00:50:45.539 --> 00:50:46.079
Yeah, exactly.

724
00:50:46.139 --> 00:50:47.519
You don't get that.

725
00:50:47.579 --> 00:50:49.559
You don't get the model format.

726
00:50:49.619 --> 00:50:49.980
Yeah, exactly.

727
00:50:50.039 --> 00:50:50.639
The Celies.

728
00:50:50.699 --> 00:50:53.760
There's no allowance for that in the modern form of the show, very little allowance for that.

729
00:50:53.820 --> 00:50:57.719
And there's not really that much of that happening up to this point either, really.

730
00:50:57.780 --> 00:51:16.440
It's also the way that the show usually starts in the black and white years, you will invariably open with the TARDIS materialising or the doctor and his companions inside the TARDIS, whereas what Bob Holmes does is he starts off in the world in the crotons, and then he advances that in the space pirates, you go for 9 minutes without the doctor in the show.

731
00:51:16.440 --> 00:51:18.239
And he does the same thing here.

732
00:51:18.300 --> 00:51:27.719
And I think it's taking it away from children's drama where you're focussing on the protagonist and taking it towards adult drama where you're focussing on the world that the protagonists are in.

733
00:51:27.780 --> 00:51:30.300
And in fact, if I can expand on that.

734
00:51:30.360 --> 00:51:37.559
That is the language, the dramatic language that I was learning from the show when I was watching it because all the stuff we were watching started in that way.

735
00:51:37.619 --> 00:51:43.019
The 1st scene would almost always, not always, would almost always be where the story is going to be set.

736
00:51:43.139 --> 00:51:59.039
And I was, that's one of the reasons why I love the unquiet dead, because suddenly in the new season, this new version of the show, an episode was starting, the way I felt it should start, which is here we are in 18, whatever it is, Cardiff, rather than, you know, the doctor and Rose in the Tartars.

737
00:52:12.239 --> 00:52:14.880
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.

738
00:52:14.940 --> 00:52:23.940
We'll be back again next week, or in just short of a year's time, to watch everyone scramble to relaunch the show again in Terror of the Autons?

739
00:52:24.059 --> 00:52:42.539
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can keep up with us on our website, 500yearDiary.com, where you'll find our social media links as well as links to all of our other podcasts, including our other Doctor Who podcasts, flights through entirety, and the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire.

740
00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:51.239
Until next time, remember that it's not an effective guard dog, if it's just a guy in the next room saying arf a bunch of times.

741
00:52:51.360 --> 00:52:53.820
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

742
00:52:53.880 --> 00:52:55.139
See you soon.

743
00:52:55.199 --> 00:52:55.800
Good night.

744
00:52:55.860 --> 00:52:56.579
Bye for now.

745
00:53:07.019 --> 00:53:13.320
That was 500 Year Diary, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffith, and Simon Moore.

746
00:53:13.380 --> 00:53:15.900
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.

747
00:53:15.960 --> 00:53:23.340
This episode, The Pertwee I have in my head, was recorded on the 17th of March 2024 and released on the 21st of April.

748
00:53:23.400 --> 00:53:38.940
Listeners will be pleased to learn that about a week after this recording, Todd Bealby and Ash Urquhart were successfully married, and more than a month later, Todd has, as far as we know, not attempted to bring any mysterious alien artefacts into the house.

749
00:53:51.960 --> 00:53:53.699
I think that's good.

750
00:53:53.699 --> 00:53:54.179
I think that's good.

751
00:53:54.599 --> 00:53:55.559
What do you think?

752
00:53:55.679 --> 00:53:56.219
Yep.

753
00:53:56.699 --> 00:54:02.940
All right, tune in next week for us to throw all of this away and become terribly silly.

754
00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:04.500
That's not terribly serious.

755
00:54:04.500 --> 00:54:06.539
I love Terra Vior.

756
00:54:06.599 --> 00:54:08.400
I think it's good, but I love what it does to the show.

757
00:54:08.460 --> 00:54:12.000
But also, I think I think I don't think season 7 is as serious as all that.

758
00:54:12.059 --> 00:54:17.519
I just think of the fact that the concepts which underline all the stories are more are a bit more hardcore.

759
00:54:17.579 --> 00:54:20.460
Well, I think we'll talk about that.

760
00:54:20.519 --> 00:54:22.920
Peter, why don't you hang up and stop your recording?

761
00:54:22.980 --> 00:54:26.340
We'll go and do a prisoner exchange.

762
00:54:26.340 --> 00:54:30.420
And a quick wee, a patented quick wee.

763
00:54:30.480 --> 00:54:32.340
And I'll see you all.

764
00:54:32.340 --> 00:54:34.860
On Saturday. on Saturday.

765
00:54:38.280 --> 00:54:39.900
All right, okay.

766
00:54:39.960 --> 00:54:40.559
We'll hang up.

767
00:54:40.619 --> 00:54:41.400
We'll call you in a sec.

768
00:54:41.519 --> 00:54:43.079
Press stop.