Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 Year Diary, the only
Doctor Who podcast broadcasting from over 250 kilometres away from
the nearest T-Mat reception centre.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Jeremy.
I'm pizza, and I'm Simon.
It's the 25th of January 1969.
It's been just over a year since the doctor 1st met the ice
warriors and tonight 66000000 people have tuned in to see him do
it again.
But can this story turn a one off race of sequined fibreglass
Martian warrior lizards into an exciting new mortal enemy for the
doctor?
Let's find out as we discuss the seeds of death.
Before we really get going, when I watched this last night, it was
substantially better visually than the moon base was.
We have a much better copy.
Well, for start, Moonbase is 405 line and um, so you'd get a 625
line.
I don't know whether we have the negatives of this story.
I don't think we do.
No, I don't think we do. which would always help.
Episode 5 is a 35 mil print.
He's not pristine prints returned from the BFI as well.
Oh, they may have been, yes, but I think the BF5 names.
Anyway, that kind of details are a discussion for a different kind
of podcast, I think. don't know.
But I actually thought, I saw your, I saw your comment about that
and I wondered whether, uh, because the thing that struck me is
how huge everything seemed.
Everything feels quite large to set, but it is still studio D at
lime growth.
Both of them are shot in the same studio.
Um, I think it's the direction.
The director is just so much better at creating space.
Maurice Barry, I think is a good jobbing director.
He covers everything.
It's all sort of quite tight, whereas I think you've got a lot
more imagination from Michael Ferguson here, and it really makes
it incredibly punchy.
Yeah, Michael Ferguson is the absolute MVP of this story.
We've talked about before that the director is the indispensable
person, the sole indispensable person on a doctor who production
and he just proves that because I think the script, we'll talk
about this later, is sluggish and quite childish.
But what Michael Ferguson brings to it.
He's fantastic visual storytelling.
There's lots of big close-ups and focus pools.
There are point of view shots.
I don't know if this is the 1st time we've had a point of view
shot from the point of view of the enemy entering the base. one of
the Daleks, I do.
Oh, up on the points.
Simon, I stand, correct?
You've just, I want your fan card back now.
I can't have my fan card.
I earned it.
And there's also, you know, it's sustained for long periods as
well in the storytelling.
He shoots through things and around things, issues.
High establishing shots of that corner of the studio where they
keep ambushing ice warriors with the 2 laser things.
Oh, that's such a great shot.
It's so nice And then low shots as well.
There's a shot early on, like in episode 2 where he shooting
fuchsion from a low angle.
It's the 1st shuttle of scene between the legs of the ice warriors
and it just, it makes the sets look huge.
To do that, though, everyone's obviously hitting their mark in a
way that going back to what we were talking about 2 episodes ago
in a way that people weren't hitting their marks in something like
Darlic Invasions of Earth.
And so that allows you to have those kind of compositions and it
is all stagey and contrived the way kind of everyone moves around
each other and stands and someone's in the background and
someone's in the foreground and people is one of those things
where people aren't talking directly at each other.
It's like, you know, turn around so I can hear you.
But that all increases it.
And I love all of the, the, the shots direct camera, especially
during the spaceship launch.
Yeah, he does so much stuff that's really incredible. like um
quick cutting, which is something that they weren't still, they
were still experimenting in.
So lots of quick, which is odd for the for the studio stuff.
I love the choice he makes to shoot ice warriors in close-up and
not to do as many full body shots of them or if he's going to do a
full body shot.
Like you say, he's doing it from low or high to make them look
bigger or smaller and more imposing.
And so you get less of the stuff that happens in the ice warriors
cereal where they're just kind of standing there, you know, looking
like a guy in a costume, right?
And so all these shots and the print is beautiful of like the ice
lord's face and you see how really quite good the makeup is, like
they, their lips and stuff can really move.
Um, and then the location work when he gets into film, like, I
love, he shot chasing with, like, one hallway, Patrick Chowton
running through the moon base, the, and he inserts stuff he shot
on film with the mirrors and the, and the reflective surfaces to
make that space look much, much bigger and, like, they have way
more than one corridor.
Yeah, Tony, what could be a really boring corridor sequence
inside?
really dynamic.
It's so exciting.
And then, especially the late story location work with the ice
warrior kind of rampaging over the countryside with all the
sunlight and everything.
Ferguson, unfortunately, I think didn't direct enough.
Like, he should have been directing that show into the 80s because
he really just knows what pace is and knows how to open up a story
in a way that's difficult to do.
That shot that you just mentioned with the Ice Warrior with the
sunlight behind it is the same shot that he will then use in the
ambassadors of Dad.
Yeah, the clause of Axis.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think, frankly, it's Douglas Canfield level direction.
Absolutely.
He only does the 4 stories.
The war machines is the other one, but I also think it's no
coincidence that he was very young.
He's only 30 when he shoots this story.
And so he's got a huge career ahead of him.
He's a dynamic director on both single camera on location and
multicam in the studio and that is the gold for Doctor Who, someone
who can pull off the location work and the studio work on
multicam.
It's rarer than you'd think.
And what he does is he works within the system.
He pushes the boundaries without breaking them.
We talked a couple of weeks ago about Richard Martin.
He pushes the boundaries, he breaks it.
It doesn't work.
This works beautifully in the same way that Douglas Canfield's
direction on the web of fear does.
And also, I have to say, Derek Martinez.
I think he does direct the Ice Warriors very well, but what
Michael Ferguson is just a more dynamic director.
He's always moving the cameras.
So that scene in episode one, where the regulars leave the Tartars
and then wander into Eldred's Museum, the camera goes with them
all the way into the set.
It would have been very easy for that not to work, but he's just
got control of his studio.
Well, same with all the tunnel stuff, too.
I always love tunnel stuff.
Like they've got that part where they're hiding behind a wall
that's like right next to the scene where all the bad guys are and
it kind of doesn't work.
But here, they really, he really oversaw with the set designer, the
design of the set.
So there's that wonderful part where Phipps and Zoe are trying to
sneak in through that great that's on the floor.
So they built the rost, like he's basically taken advantage of the
rostrum and built the little gateway right where they can crouch
in and come in.
So it gives a sense of dimensionality to the space.
It's not just another room that's got a wall.
It feels like a tunnel.
So it's really well done.
It's, I was blown away this time watching it, how, how good the
direction was.
It's really just the MVP of the of the show.
And speaking of that, this I do have right, Simon.
This is the 1st instance of someone using maintenance shafts to
get covertly from place to place.
I would have sworn.
Tearingly should introduce that, but no.
He does use it later.
But it's interesting.
The other thing, I mean, Nathan, you commented that how much
better this looks than the moonbase, which is, you know, obviously
the previous episode in this podcast series.
For me, when I 1st saw Seeds of Death, it was, you know, the
omnibus on the VHS, which I bought at great expense, at some point
and our only other experience of trouting stories had been mind
robbing crotons.
As you say, of course, their only experience had been the repeat
of the crotons.
So basically what I was stunned by.
I mean, I almost did, especially because of the expense, I almost
didn't buy it because I was so disappointed by how primitive those
stories felt and how, I mean, I love the crotons now, but how dull
it seemed and how cheap and old-fashioned.
The seeds of death is only one story after an extra...
No it's the next story after the coffee.
Because it's me.
I have to have it in my family.
I'll take it.
It's next.
I have lifetime days.
The enormous leap between the crotons in this is just stunning.
We talked a little bit about this last week, about the way that
the quality of productions just sort of goes up and down.
There's an overall trend, but from week to week, things, you know
some things are just extraordinarily brilliant and some things are
kind of less so.
Yeah.
We also talked about the fact there's never really a definitive
point.
Things happen in fits and bursts.
So yes, this is a massive step up from the crotons, but the
crotons was a massive step down from the invasion.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a thing about this story.
I just want to touch on what Simon was saying there about the
video release.
This is an important story in the narrative of Doctor Who on Home
Video because not only was it the 1st black and white and Trouton
story released in 1985.
It was also one of the 1st black and white releases on DVD. in
2003.
I think what came before it was Tomas Sidemen and the Aztecs.
Yes, but that's because they never got round to re-releasing it on
video episodic format, which they had done to many of the other
ones that they released only as omnibuses.
That's right Omnibi.
It was.
No.
Omnipus.
It was a revelation. when it came out on DVD because comparing it
to that very washed out video release taken from a terrible
print.
Suddenly you had contrast and you had the motion and the clarity
was restored to the studio sequences because it was the 1st
edition to be vid fired, that process.
Yep.
And it totally changed my idea of what 60s Doctor Who must have
looked like when it was transmitted.
But the great thing about that omnibus VHS release was because the
quality of each of the episodes was so different.
So you knew where the edit in the episode was.
And the jump, like literally, because episode one was really bad.
And then, of course, you know, by the time you get to episode five
which is a 35 mil print, it's pristine.
It was extraordinary that release.
I interviewed Michael Ferguson.
Of course I did.
In Klang.
She dropped this.
What can I say on ubiquitous?
In 1998, Sansfield, and immediately just knew that you were in the
company of someone who had a really far-ranging and correct view
of Doctor Who for him.
It was just kind of, you know, something that he did and it was
weekly television, but he just knew how to approach it and how to
create magic within those limitations.
And I think it's no surprise that he went on.
A lot of people who worked on Doctor Who sort of peaked in sort of
a 10 year period and then were never heard of again.
Michael Ferguson went on to have a long and storied history in
television.
The key things he went onto was sort of one off dramas and series
in sort of the 1970s and 80s.
But then he became producer of a series of high volume quality
soap, like casualty, and the bill, and EastEnders, which played
perfectly to his skill set because he knew how to turn out good
material under the limitations that were placed on him.
And I think that's so evident here.
This is clearly just Doctor Who that is made extremely well with
what they've got.
Yes.
He goes on and does ambassadors after this.
Right.
And I know ambassadors is not a story that is highly rated by mini
but I think one of the reasons I love it so much is because it's
directed by Michael Ferguson, because it's got punch.
And the clause of Axos clearly would have been a much worse story
without his mature flair.
Just because I'll never get to say this because I won't be on the
ambassador's one, but when John Pertis, you know, says with all
that intensity and that urgency, cut it open, you know, and
there's that great cliffhanger about just cutting it an astronaut
out of a spaceship, right?
And there really hasn't been much that's happened weirdly enough
but he puts so much just vim and energy into it.
It just works perfectly.
Exactly.
And one of the things that people like to critique about classic
Doctor Who particularly, including, I think, the people who have
made it in the 21st century, is the whole thing, they deride it as
talking urgently in corridors.
No, that is why it's brilliant.
And that's what you've got an awful lot of here.
You've got heightened performances that are all basically on the
same level and that's the director doing that in the rehearsals.
They're making sure that everyone's on the same page and they are
talking, talking with urgency and they're, they're following up
each line with another line and they're, and even if it's just, you
know, oh my god, someone dropped a tissue over there, it heightens
the excitement level and that's like your cut it open thing.
It's urgent.
There's something at stake. something to do with the cutting as
well.
Like you're talking about Jeremy there. like that cliffhanger and
ambassadors cuts at exactly the right moment.
Here, I mean, if you go back to the Dalek extermination effects
under Richard Martin and something like the chase, you cut away to
a language shot and then it takes 2 seconds for the studio footage
to turn -and then you linger too long on the shot.
Whereas here, what you have is the wide shot.
You have the big close-up of the person in terror that they're
about to be blasted.
And then a very quick shot of the Mirlon, which is the reflective
surface, which they're using to do the ice horror effect, and a
burst of the sound effect, and then straight back out to the
scene.
Exactly.
It stuns me that they were able to do that, you know, with the
same vision mixing technology.
You know, this is not has not been put together shot by shot.
This is all someone operating vision mixer, isn't it?
Mostly, yeah.
And I also think he cuts in an interesting way, like in lesser
things they say, kill him, and then it's like a super like you
were saying, Simon, a super long time.
But like here, he makes the iceware seem really scary because the
Lord comes in in the beginning when the 2 workers are in this moon
base and he says, kill them, and they are dead in seconds, right?
And then there's just fuchsium standing there.
He takes all the air out of everything, which, as a directoral
choice, always makes everything have more impact.
And so, yeah, he decilifies it in a way. like he takes the silly
out of it.
And why?
Why is it so hard?
Why does he do it when others can't in the, you know, going back
to the previously mentioned crotons?
You know, there are sequences where, and Crotons is by a good
director.
Or previous worth later on?
There are sequences where actors are waiting to be cued for like
half a 2nd before they like, before, you know, Jamie's standing at
the top of a set of stairs and then has to suddenly urgently start
moving down the stairs.
It's like it just is sloppy in comparison.
I mean, it could be something to do.
Less time in the BBC bar.
Yeah, I think that could well be.
Could well be have something to do.
But I mean, these are things that can just go well or go badly on
a particular day and you have a bit less control.
Absolutely.
But I, it surely.
It's not, you know, that that shot I mentioned of Jamie.
It's not the only incident in the crater.
Yes, and it's no coincidence that Douglas Canfield and Michael
Ferguson always have good days.
Yeah. usually has a bad day.
That's not a coincidence.
It's not just because, you know, there was a virus going around or
something, you know?
It's something about the director being in control of the
production and orchestrating it.
Well, Simon, you talked about all of the performances being on the
same page.
That's the director doing that in rehearsals.
But it's also that everything...
And in their casting choices, probably.
Absolutely.
It's also the director being responsible for all elements of the
production.
So the ice warrior guns, the sound effects work, the vision works
the cutting works, and it's all just a small part of the episode.
It's not a feature piece of the episode.
It's just there for a moment, and then you're moving on to
something else, but it's pulled off tightly, and that's the
director being in control of what he's doing.
He's not in control in the sequence, and I think it's part 2 where
there's a shot in the control room, and someone's obviously
dropped something on the set, and there's a great big clang, and
one of the experts in the background looks across, and it looks
like what they're doing.
It really happened.
Just someone elsewhere in the control room dropping.
But that actually works.
So then actually someone's reacted to something.
And we talked earlier about the visual storytelling.
So it's no surprise that this episode starts with the shot of the
sun, then moving behind the moon and seeing the earth, and every
time in that initial episode that you're changing location.
He does an establishing shot to show you where you are.
He's telling the story.
Exactly.
This control room is now on the moon.
This is remarkably similar control, really.
And the soundtrack, the soundtrack works in tandem.
And that's the other thing that I think, which I responded to when
I saw this back in the late 80s, having just seen cratons in mind
rubber, was the fact that Dudley, much as I think he doesn't get
it right in his very latest stuff.
He is getting it right in this earlier stuff.
Really good, isn't it?
And of course, it's you feel like it's like, you know, it may be
1969, but we've already arrived in the 70s.
Yeah, it's funny.
Dudley kind of settles on, you know, just the a small suite of
instruments that he uses all the time and a particular sound, but
he hasn't done that yet.
And there's a lot of really just sort of percussive stuff.
You know, we talked.
I talked positively about the weird music in Darlic Invasion of
Earth a couple of weeks ago.
But here, I think this is every bit as good as that.
I think the music is really great.
And I actually didn't notice that it was Dudley and I'm surprised
to learn that.
It's actually a very modern score, like next week's score for the
Space Pirates and the war game.
So there's been some kind of, um, some kind of sea change in the
way, um, maybe it's something as simple as he could now score a
screen.
Who knows?
It could be that.
Are aren't, aren't they so like hugely behind at this point.
Like, I wonder if he's scoring the screen because the, Aren't they
just barely ahead of transmission date starting right now or
something?
I don't know, I can't remember. an hour a week ahead at this at
this point.
I mean, maybe it hasn't happened yet because this is still a sweet
of music, which is sort of used interchangeably throughout the
story, whereas it feels like to me, I may be wrong.
I'm just postulating here that Spearhead from Space feels like the
music is scored to the action.
Well, it would be because it's a film. going forward.
But they're going forward.
But then they change, by the time you get to study urins and
they're doing 2 episodes every fortnight rather than one episode a
week, cafe.
So that changes the nature of the program and they're not doing it
as Jeremy, as you're saying, not doing it the week before.
Because I know that a lot of music was fed in, like the sound
effects was fed in live into the recording.
I don't know whether that's still happening here, but it does feel
like we've moved forward.
Can I just go on about the sort of the moving forward thing?
It struck me not just in visual style, but also in storytelling
style, in so many ways, this is a pertly story.
Now, I know people love to talk about web of fear and invasion
being, you know, oh, they're prototype unit stories, and obviously
they are because they've got the brigadier and soldiers and stuff
in it.
That's a kind of a fairly obvious take, which is not wrong.
Whereas I think the invasion is far less similar to a lot of
penalty stories in terms of the way the story is structured, and
but the seat of debt is much more similar to a per story in the
way the story is structured.
You can imagine in an ambassador's their style, reminded evil
style, story structure.
Okay, maybe we're not 100 years in the future, and, you know, the
purple year is supposed to be like 70 quote unquote, not too
distant future.
So rather than going to Mars in their ambassadors of death, maybe
they've developed teleport technology in 1975 or whatever it is.
It's a per- we scientific base rather than a trout and based under
siege.
You should probably imagine the 3rd doctrine, Liz Shaw, turning up
at T-Mac control in Bessie.
Absolutely, yeah.
I mean, it even is just the question of going from place to place
to play.
So, yeah, you know, you've got the museum, you've got T-Mat base
in London, you've got the moon base, and you've got the weather
control centre.
Anybody control setting?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's, I mean, that sort of very pertu-ish, not at all based
on the beach.
Exactly.
And I think the other thing other than the direction that's being
felt in the back half of this season and in particularly starting
here is who's doing the writing.
So it's credited at Brian Hales, but it's pretty much known that
from episode 3 to 6.
It's a page one rewrite by Terrence Dix, and Terrence Dix, being
one of the great, you know, I mean, as we all know, remarkably
consistent, can take bog standard formulaic plot stuff and he just
knows how to put enough interesting details into it.
And one of the things I noticed this time around is in episodes
one and 2 where our characters that were introduced are fairly
flat, little static.
Commander Ratner feels very much like the commander of the moon
base, whose name I can't even remember. but helps them.
But starting in episode three, everybody starts to get more
interesting.
Kelly becomes more interesting.
Fuchsium becomes way more interesting and becomes like a star
character, this thing.
Even Radner becomes a more compelling character.
And it's just Terrence Sticks doing little tiny moments of unusual
character stuff.
I think it's a great companion story.
At Terrence Dix knows how to make Zoe work, which is really
weird.
He really knows how to use her.
She's great in the story.
Jamie's great.
I mean, they're all, everybody's really much more likeable and
engaging moving on.
And I think that's just his desire to be consistent all
throughout.
I think some of that is there already, though, because I had the
experience of watching the moon base immediately before this, and
I said last week that there's only 2 people to guest characters on
the moon base who have any personality and one personality is in
transigent base commander, and the other one is French.
Here, immediately you've got Miss Kelly, who is a magnificent
character, and we have Harry Taub's character comes in and sort of
banters.
And even though she, he's only in that 1st episode. he's so three
dimensional.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There is no interaction between the characters or among the
characters on the moon base to speak of that isn't to do with
telling people to go into the graviton control room or whatever.
Whereas these.
Yeah, this has banter.
It's really fun, you know, like, and was fun immediately from
episode one, I think.
But I think you're right, particularly where you have Jamie and
Zoe as the only regulars involved in episode four, and you don't
really miss the doctor that March.
I think it's pretty good.
And while it does have the stock trout and amazing female guest
character for him to work with in the same vein as Astrid Ferrier
or Anne Travers.
Miss Garrett. absolutely.
That's not at the expense of the companions because all through
Web of Fear, Jamie and Victoria are completely sidelined while the
doctor works with a much more interesting character in and
Travis.
Whereas here, they're not, as you said earlier.
Phips as well becomes...
Phips is really good, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
Just sidebar on the doctor's absence from episode four. when I was
just looking things up about the story.
A bit of trivia is that that is the final time that a regular
member of the cast is not in an episode.
Oh wow, okay.
How about episode 2 of Kinder?
Okay, fair enough.
Handbag.
I blame the site I was reading.
Yeah, I think Terrence Dix really does make a silk purse out of
out of some some dodgy premises in this one.
It kind of reminds you how amazing he could be at just at spinning
plates, at really keeping them all moving.
It's the fact that in that episode where Trouton's not there.
There is a threat to the doctor's life that the others have to
foil.
It's not just we're not going to talk about him for 25 minutes.
He is kind of the focus of that plot.
You know, fusion's being asked to disintegrate him or send him, you
know, teleport him into space and things.
And there is that wonderful idea where they sort of tunnel in the
back of the team that capsule, like, pull his body out.
And Fusion assumes that he's actually killed.
I mean, it's a bit it's a bit of a cheese.
Have you met Dr.?
No, no chief meaning in terms of that's probably where, you know
Michael Ferguson just can't coverage in a way in the studio, which
is going to be convincing of them dragging the body of the doctor
out while fusion's looking away, blah, blah, blah.
So it happens off screen.
Yeah, but it has to, like it kind of works.
We know what they're trying to do.
Yeah, Fuchsia looks at the thing and it's kind of like, oh, they
succeeded.
And that's really when we need to find that out.
I'm having...
Oh, yes, no.
And as ever with Doctor Who, there is always a production reality
behind it.
So, yes, apparently Terrence thought that the last few episodes of
Sea Death were low on incident, which, you know, we know Brian
Haley's often low on incidents.
But what Terry does is turning into a virtue.
So apparently, Fraser Heinz contract was up halfway through the
seeds of death and he was going to leave and be replaced by a new
character called Nick.
Now, when Troughton decided to hand in his notice and encouraged
um, Fraser Heinz to stay on until the end, there was a production
reason that the back half of the story needed to be rewritten by
the story editor. and so Terrence just stepped in and did it.
So all of these things which work out well are often because there
is a real life imperative behind them.
That's one of the things that I always say that I love about
television, you know, that it's not purely, um, television of this
year.
Well, television generally, the real world intervenes, contracts
and actors and production things happen.
And so you don't get to follow your five-year plan, exactly.
Something happens that gets in the way of it.
So it gets pregnant.
Yeah, yeah, it's cancelled at the end of year four.
For instance, someone may buy a very expensive foam machine and
all of a sudden, we need to centre several episodes around having
a very expensive foam machine, which is wonderful.
But then it gets packed up in the cupboard you've never seen
again.
I think maybe it pumps a little bit of foam out of the brain in
mind of evil and that's it.
Maybe it doesn't look as good in colour.
Oh, that could be nice with many.
Yes, the colour of monsters is green, but one's in their story.
Monochrome.
Let's talk a little bit about the Ice Warriors.
I think they are just lamentably terrible.
Oh that's a bit cruel.
No, I don't think it's cruel enough.
So I think there's no premise here at all.
This could have been the cybermen.
It could equally have been the side men this week.
Well, no.
For the 3rd yeti story.
I don't, I don't think the dynamic works with this, because
assignment in the 60s aren't the sidement of the 80s.
Okay, yes, it would work as an 80s cyberman story where you can
imagine the ice lord as David Bangs, but don't think it works.
I don't think it works with 60 Cyberman who would basically mute
most of the time.
That's true.
But, but, I mean, you know, it's basically lizard men from Mars.
Yeah, it could be nothing.
And they look dreadful.
Oh my god, they look awful.
I do think that the ice Lord, when you see those close-ups that
Jeremy mentioned of, you know, his chin, his and his teeth, that
he looks great.
His cost is ridiculous.
He's got the floppy hat that goes all halfway down his back.
It's really bad.
Like, like, there's that thing where, like, it's just this big
fibreglass thing with all this sort of pubic hair, fringing it.
Like it's, and one of them is Todd's pumpkin head.
So yeah, yeah, yeah.
We did get rid of the pumpkin head ones, didn't we?
Yeah, from the ice Warriors.
But then they come back in the monster...
Absolutely, they do.
So clearly they found it in a cupboard.
I mean, the main reason that we have Ice Warriors in this is that
those big fibreglass things were expensive to store.
We'd better use them again.
Do we know the same costumes?
Look, I think that they suffer in the same way that some other
monster costumes and things suffer the 2nd time round because they
have been shoved in a cupboard and they never come out looking the
same as they went.
They looked terrible in the ice warriors.
I think they are, from the point of view of the thing.
Maybe it's the lighting.
There's a lot of that ice stuff in the ice Warriors that's, is
that on film?
There is a lot of that ice stuff in the ice.
No, a lot of those eye sequences in the Ice Warriors.
Is it on film or is it on studio?
I think that helps it.
I think also maybe the fact that the ice Warriors there are on
that icy background for a lot of a tediously lot of the time.
And here they're in kind of a dark control room, so they're sort
of out of thing.
I mean, they are the typical lumbering Doctor Who monster.
Yeah.
You're right.
They completely interchangeable.
And they've got like these massive arms.
And like when the ice warrior talks, not sla, but when the other
ones talk.
Like they're kind of talking through this rubber thing that moves
weirdly.
They look so amateurish. like they really are quite dreadful.
I think they look great until they...
You see them.
Until they turn up.
No, till they move.
No.
They look great in the Doctor Who technical matter.
He's the Doctor Who technical manual as well, you know.
Sorry, here's my fan card.
That's three, two.
Look, I agree with you, but at the same time, I think for a 1968
slash 9 audience, I think they do look many times better than the
crotons.
They look a little bit better than roses.
Sorry?
They don't have skirts.
No.
And their heads don't right take, but no, they are, as the
fibreglass chest thing, I think they look much, much better, the
hair coming out of orifices and things.
I think that they look much better than the quarks, the crotons.
Yeah, no, generally Doctor Who monsters look bad in this era, but
the cybermen last week in the moon base. pretty great.
And in the invasion, the Daleks have always looked really good.
There was the slither, obviously, who we were all very impressed
by.
In 12 months' time. going to have the autons, which look
incredible.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Look, I think the key takeaway from this is it's the Davros factor
the Daleks are difficult to shoot.
They're, you know, they're sort of clumsy props and that.
You introduced Davros to give the doctor, yeah, someone to talk to
a character who can articulate what the monster wants to do.
So here is Alan Banyan in his 1st of 3 appearances as the Ice
Lord.
He's always the ice Lord.
Whenever there's an ice Lord, it's Alan Benyon.
And he moves elegantly and he's able to converse with the doctor.
He's menacing in the way that ice warriors aren't generally.
And I think he takes them away from being those lumbering
monsters.
It turns into that Doctor Who thing of being the leader who is the
villain and then his henchman, which I'm fine with.
Exactly.
Okay, I'm going to say something that may be controversial.
When I look at the cyberman.
I think the cybermen are an incredible central concept and premise
that falls short every time after its 1st appearance.
So they're never to me is effective and they never quite reach
their potential.
And I think the ice warriors are a bog standard premise that
occasionally surpasses its limitations.
And I think it does so in the next 2 stories much better.
I think there's, and I think also in the modern era much better.
I think there's an argument to be made that it's not executed well
but they're tried to make this into like the Klingons of Doctor
Who, a race with a culture in some frame of honour that was
villains and can be friends.
And so that's interesting to me in a way that like the cybermen
become, to me by the 80s, just they, even by the rules of their
own premise, they're like smug and emotional, and they don't seem
to really care about adapting people or, you know, any of that
stuff anymore, and they've sort of lost everything that's freaky.
So I do have a soft spot in my heart for the ice Warriors.
And when they when they came back in the new series, I was
genuinely thrilled because I'm like, yes, it's a 1950s bog
standard monster, but let's see what they do and and there's
things about I like.
I don't know why they're lizards.
I don't know why they're like the cold so much.
None of that sense, but I still love them.
Well, Maz is colder than this, so that happens.
Yes, that's fun.
But like, I guess.
But their ice warriors, not because they come from Mars.
Ice Warriors because they were dug out of a block of ice in the
previous year. by somebody as an ice warrior.
Yeah.
A classic Doctor Who thing.
It's like they're called the sea devils in the Silurians, because
that's what we called them one time, you know?
Yeah, loving Warriors of the Deep, says you're sea devil
Warriors.
I do call them that.
You're one of them.
Yes, it's a slur.
Yeah, exactly.
It does make me wonder why it takes until the Curse of Paladon to
make the Ice Warriors interesting characters.
And I know that because... in the middle.
I mean, that's true, but the Ice Warriors are given very little
background and very little to make them distinctive.
I think it's why Nathan says they're interchangeable with the yeti
and the sidemen of this era.
They are just lizard forms of that, that we don't actually go into
their culture and their hierarchy and what makes them interesting
until the curse of peladon.
Yes.
And because the Trouton era is doing a series of bases under siege
where the villains are just interchangeable bad guys.
And here, I think...
Well, it is.
And this is breaking out of that.
There's sort of elements of a base under siege because part of the
story involves a base under siege, but it's not quite the base of
the siege that no.
And it's better.
I think it is better for that reason.
But it's not doing anything subtle or interesting with the
monsters and the monsters that are, no.
And the cybermen and the Daleks are both introduced in a way that
is more interesting than what we eventually land on, or at least
as far as, you know, their 2nd appearance is concerned.
Here, you know, like I just think that the ice warriors, land
boringly, and are kind of boring here, and it's the 70s, you know
just giving them the brilliant idea of them not being the villains
you know, that they're aliens, but they're not the villains, and
that that blindsides the doctor, is that's a stroke of genius, I
think, in Cursive Paladon, which they quickly reverse in the
sequel.
Well, and then...
They're also good in monster appellant.
Yeah, but I also think too that there's all of that sort of
spinoff staff and Gary's novels and all of that sort of thing that
does turn them into the Klingons, that's when they get turned into
that.
I do think the form is interesting.
Like one of the things I respect about Peladon so much is that
rather than doing what we, Doctor Who always does, which is we
have this story going on with this theme, and we're going to chuck
monsters in, and if they work with the theme, great, if they don't
they're still the monsters.
But writing that, Terrence, and I have to assume this is Terrence
Sticks, is smart enough to know, no, we're doing a thing about
about a geopolitical question about entering the common market and
that's our theme.
So the ice warriors have to change to fit into this story.
They have to become more complicated in order to be part of the
narrative we're building.
And that's how you organically refresh something as opposed to, I
don't think they were setting out to make, like, think they were
doing some big new revision of the ice warriors.
I think they were like, well, this will be interesting and it fits
into this idea.
And that's why it works.
Yeah, and the costumes in recovery.
Yeah, I think the costumes are in the cupboard. yeah Can I make
the observation that we're almost coming to the conclusion that
the use of monsters on the 2nd go round, turned them quite a bit
into a just a generic thing.
I'd almost posit, although the chase is, the exception proves the
rule.
Yeah, we might pretend that it's the 4th one, in that case, because
of the rapid fire nature that the chase is so soon after Dalek
Bay.
It's the 3rd time that they actually do something interesting with
them.
Third time on Paladon, where the ice warriors have got like a bit
of a culture.
The 3rd time with a sideman, we go to the tomb of the sideman
which is a different thing because the moon base is just basically
a rerun of the 10th planet.
Yeah, I see your shum of the side, man, and race you in invasion
of time.
As I said, maybe maybe it's not always the 3rd because I would
suggest that the 2 doctors are actually much better.
And it's kind of like, it's that kind of thing where I don't know
whether this is the way it went with 2 doctors, but it's that kind
of thing where maybe aliens were written.
And then James, he's going, oh, we could swap those out and make
them Santarans.
And like what you're saying with the ice Warriors in, because
Paladon, Jeremy, It's like the suddenly an old monster is
reintroduced but modified and made more interesting to suit the
new story that's being told rather than, oh, let's do another
story with the ice water, which is basically kind of what this
is.
Or maybe this is just the monster of the week.
Exactly.
It's not, let's just do another story with the eyesores.
It like, let's do another story with a race of monsters, and this
week we'll make it the ice Warriors.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And actually, I think one of the reasons why I find this story so
entertaining, apart from all the many reasons we've already stayed
is because the ice warriors could be anything.
It's not about the ice Warriors, for me, it's basically about
everything else that's going on.
It's all of the humans interacting and the guest cast, which makes
it so brilliant.
You know, the fact that they come from Mars is the reason that
they're here.
Because they're trying to terraform the earth in the ice warriors
and then they're trying to do it again here.
So they're trying to reduce the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere
so that they can breathe it so that it's more aligned with a
Martian atmosphere.
And of course, there's the red weed, isn't there, in the... that
wholesale, yeah.
Yeah, and so they've just taken that as well.
And, you know, that's fine.
I'm not criticising that.
But I think that that's probably why they're chosen to fit in with
this story, given that there's not a lot of ice around.
They work as Martians rather than ice.
But there is that one aspect of the story where the ice thing or
the cold thing becomes relevant and that's turning the heating
up.
The giant ship's wheel on the front.
Really terrible.
Wow, that's the worst.
The 2 settings are cold.
I just say, it's just a demonstration that people in Britain in
the 60s didn't actually know what centigrade was.
No, okay, well, because at one point.
So we watched the temperature go up, but I think at the highest
point, it's over 60 degrees centigrade.
Everyone would be dead.
It is that thing.
We said last week, you know, how somehow the cybermen are uniquely
unlike literally every physical object of any kind, vulnerable to
gravity.
Here, turning up, turning up the temperature to 60 degrees
centigrade, which would kill everyone on the base. seems to affect
seems to affect the ice warriors much worse.
I always think about that scene in Thunderball, where they lock
James Bond into that rowing machine and crank it up.
And I'm like, why would this go this fast?
Like, why would it?
tear him apart.
Why would this fuck?
Why would this have this function?
You know?
Well, that's it's not just that, but in fact, the thermometer on
the wall goes up to a 100.
Oh, what's the temperature?
I was 92.
I mean, although, you know, my Audi says it, you know, might, yeah
speedometer on my Audi goes up to like 280 now.
I don't think the car is going to go. to impress you.
It's also, it's that...
Just in case, just in case Fuchsian wants to cook a turkey in
the...
I think you'll find fuchsium is the term.
He is the turkey.
Oh, I love fusion.
It's also that Doctor Who thing of, you know, whenever you have a
countdown and you cut away, the bleeps or the counting these never
go to match actual seconds.
Yeah, the thermometer does go back.
It goes up to 60, then it drops going to come back.
Yeah.
People are looking at dials and saying, it's going up.
You cut to the dial, which then starts to go up.
Yeah, that's the thing that Janet Fielding always says in the
behind the sofa.
She always hates, but she goes, look.
And then the thing happens.
Can we talk a little bit about Brian Hales and the fact that he's
just not very good?
Oh yeah, let's do that. think that's a little unfair.
Okay.
Well, I take your uncle...
I take your unfair and I raise you a celestial toy maker.
Oh, God, I forgot about that one.
Okay, yes, you're completely right.
I also put more steaks on the monster of Paladon, even though I
kind of...
No, I think Monster Paladon has the advantage of being scripted by
Terrence Dix like this.
And also, I'm in the ice war is not very good.
Not a very good script at all.
I think we're the Ice Warriors doesn't have, apart from that, that
nothing actually really happens, is, and I think this is probably
mirroring your criticism of the moon base as well, Nathan, is that
the fundamental thing that they both have in common is that
they're very dry.
I think that we said last week that the great thing about the Ice
Warriors is that little polycule of store and Clint and, um, Penley
and...
The computer, Miss Garrett, you know, like the, like the thing, the
interactions between all of those characters is actually quite
interesting, but the story itself is super boring.
Yeah, I mean, the Ice Warriors and Monster of Peloton actually
which I know we all have a soft spot full.
Except me.
It's really boring But it's the, well, I'm going to sort of agree
with you. in that with both of them.
I confess I've watched neither of them that many times, but I can
have just finished watching the Ice Warriors or Monster of Peloton
and I can't really tell you what's happened.
I can't, I just forget.
There's never enough story development.
There's not enough story development, and they could be so much
more, especially in Monster Pelleton.
But look, the ice war is it's got the high concept and then, yeah
he doesn't kind of then push it anywhere.
Like, it's not helped by the fact that the extant episodes are one
four, 5, and six.
I think if it was one, two, three, six, we'd have a better view of
it.
And in many ways, he's covered by the fact that on his 2 Charlton
stories.
He's got really good directors working from it.
So it covers the fact that these are really boring, okay?
And it looks, I swear it looks like it's got some money.
I just think that Ice Warriors is very weird in that there's a ton
of premises in there that he doesn't run with that nobody runs
with at all.
So, and there's some stuff that's really weird.
I love the weird mansion in the middle of the snowstorm. which is
a nice image, but they don't really, doesn't really do anything
with that.
Same with the Luddite, like the anti-technology, technology
things.
It's a little bit explored, but like there's a bunch of stuff that
is just kind of vomited out there and it doesn't really go
anywhere.
And I think that's what leads it to be dry.
And I'm not surprised that once he gets a really solid script
editor who really like knows how to take an idea and push it, um
that the scripts feel much more robust.
Because I think he's got good concepts, but I don't know that he
knows how to make it work throughout the entire length of a 4 or 6
part story.
That's what it feels like to me.
I think that's definitely true of the, isn't it?
Because I think the tame ad is a really strong concept.
And that opening scene with all that activity and stuff.
And it's sort of unusual for Doctor Who, where we sort of create a
future where this very odd technological thing has happened and
kind of defines the way the world works.
Yeah.
And that's really great, but it doesn't actually end up being
super important.
I mean, it's what enables the seeds to come to earth, but we
basically stop using it at some point in the story.
But it's interesting.
I mean, the idea of a teleport has already been I mean, we haven't
actually had it in Doctor Who yet, have we?
A teleporter?
I don't think we have.
Correct me.
I don't think so.
Scarlic master plan.
Oh, done, it must have been.
Handed your fan, huh?
Oh, shush.
It's a big deal.
Like they have to invent this massive machine for it. not just
like a phone cabinet.
But nevertheless, it's not that imaginative an idea.
Like teleport, yeah, it's just something that is a sort of a
science fiction thing.
But what I find interesting about it is that rather than just say
oh, we live in the future and we've got these teleportation
devices, they've actually tried to think of, well, how might that
actually change the way we live, how will it change the world?
And I think that's interesting.
Because so infrequently, you get that.
It might be a rip off of Star Trek, I don't know how influential
Star Trek is at this point.
It wasn't Ireland in the UK until after the war games ended.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
But they knew about it.
Because, I mean, the teleport there, the transporter in Star Trek
is merely there so that we don't have to land the ship.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's the TARDIS and Doctor Who just appears out of nowhere.
And they never really take it very far until, you know, later on
in Star Trek's run.
Like, it's never the focus of an episode in original.
There are no transport or accidents, which can buy 2 characters
and buffers and things in.
That all comes.
I will say this, not to get too far off track, but James Blish, who
wrote the novelisations of all the Star Trek episodes, his 1st or
2nd Star Trek novel right around the time the series was going on
was called Spock Must Die.
And it's a really great book where Spock gets duplicated in a
transporter accident and they have to decide which one to get rid
of because there can't be 2 Spocks running around.
You know, one of them's got to be legitimate and one must not. 2nd
chances on TNC.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it is that idea where it's like a Black Mirror episode or
something.
It's like we've got this technological thing.
How does it change the world?
And I think all of that's super interesting and having Eldred as a
character who's who pines for a time when there was a, you know
like a space program and stuff.
Which is what's going on as this is going on?
Yeah, well, in fact, that's one of the things that Sandifer
mentions is how kind of thrilling it is that Doctor Who produces a
story where we're all sick of the space program.
Yeah, we'll follow the space program even really gets going.
Yeah.
And I'd love to, like, to take that idea and be like, well, it's
very prophetic.
If we have convenience, then we lose a spirit of adventure, right?
And the idea that it's because everything becomes easier.
And that's sort of what Eldrin is bemoaning, not just that they
don't go in space, but just like we used to do things.
And you look around the world today and it's like, oh, yeah, I
kind of see how convenience can really sap us of that
industriousness and that ingenuity.
And the point I ordered to make too, was that I listened, went
back and listened to the FTE when you were talking about seat of
death and this is 2014, right?
You all kind of think how silly it is that T-Mats out of action
for a couple of days.
Everything goes to hell and everyone's starving and it's like how
ridiculous.
Remember COVID.
Remember how supermarkets shelves are cleared when there's no
deliveries?
Suddenly they're empty.
We live just in time.
It's the just in time, isn't it?
freighter being stuck in the Suez Canal and how that had knock on
effects for years after.
It's amazing.
So imagine how much worse that would be when you can just teleport
everything everywhere.
Yeah.
I was actually thinking that this time.
I was thinking why is everyone starving within sort of 24 hours
and stuff?
And it is absolutely the fact that having stock in a warehouse is
a liability.
And so we don't do it anymore and you absolutely wouldn't do it. if
you were just able to transport things from place to place
immediately.
I mean, imagine if Amazon stopped working for 6 weeks, right?
I mean, if it just completely shut down.
People would go crazy.
Remember in COVID, we were all locked in our homes, but the people
at the Amazon fulfilment thing in Chalora still had to go to
work.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's what I was going to say.
We live in that world now where, you know, you get your food
delivered half an hour later by Uber Eats because that's the way
that you feed yourself.
You know, you have to go out to a supermarket and buy food and
cook it or someone just brings it to you instantaneously.
So, basically, if you had team ads and you go, I'm going to order
a curry tonight, you press a button, they cook the curry and the
curry, you know, there's not even a knock at the door.
There's that sound, it goes, bling, and they're on the floor in
the telephone room.
T-Mat, Earl Grey, hot.
Well, they're interesting.
Interestingly though, there's no suggestion that you have the team
at booth in your own home.
Like you have to go to the street corner like it's a phone.
There are there are personal, like local ones.
But no, it's not a residential thing.
Yes, yes.
I enjoy the fact that it is setting up this world, which is a bit
of a cul-de-sac for Doc 2 and never really revisit.
No.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It has an impact on the storytelling because in common with a lot
of late Trouton, There's world building, which is done before the
doctor and his companions turn up.
It's 8 minutes before they turn off.
And in the space pirates, It's 11 minutes.
Yeah.
Whereas for a lot of time, up until this point, the doctor leads
you into the story.
Whereas now it's setting up the story and dropping the doctor into
it.
And I think that is a more sophisticated approach and something
flies under the radar a little bit.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, it's that for me is traditional Doctor Who, where the 1st
sequence.
Sometimes it's a long sequence.
I mean, Attack of Assignment sort of does that as well, for
instance.
Um, and in fact, I didn't mention at the time, I don't think, but
in Dalek Amazed Birth, that's a rare example way back then where
you have this whole scene with the Roman drowning in the river.
Yeah, yeah. before the task even appear on screen.
You feel like you get to know the world that they're about to
arrive in.
In fact, in Dalek Invasion of Earth, then the doctor leaves and
the story continues.
So it's absolutely being told from the point of view of that
world.
Whereas here we get what is a very standard trout and thing of
them all just sort of racking off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I do find a little bit talking of tea, Matt, a little bit baffling
the choices of the cities on the wall.
Well, yes, but there's Ismir, which is a 3rd rate Turkish city.
So it's not even anchor.
Exactly.
And tellingly, nowhere in Asia or Africa is very Europe centre. and
both Calcutta and Bombay.
Well, I was going to say, here's the thing that's very strange if
you're a Canadian.
They do Toronto and Ottawa.
Now Canada's pretty freaking big.
These are the 2 cities that are like right next to each other
basically in Ontario.
Vancouver.
It's like Vancouver, Vancouver gets no food.
Halifax gets no food. you know, everybody has to live in Toronto.
I mean, come on.
Maybe they operate a spoke system.
One can only imagine.
That's what I would think. like the hub cities.
I was kind of wondering whether Canberra was a little bit more of
a big deal, like in the 60s, because, you know, we're building
lovely public buildings and it's kind of...
Well, I think in 198, it's still apartment house with a paddock.
I don't think there's much there still.
And a high court, I think.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
It's still basically that now.
But you can, you can imagine if we needed a great big greenfield
site near a decent population centred to build the team that's
hub.
You could do it in Canberra Rama.
Cobar.
I wish I could.
Let's not go that far.
I said near population.
I wish I could believe that Brian Hale saw anyone working in
Britain at that point knew enough about Canberra to have put that
much thought into it.
Well, remember, I think when the Sydney overtake Melbourne again
as the larger city in Australia, and now Melbourne's probably
about to overtake Sydney again.
It's not inconceivable that even though it was a parliament house
in a paddock in 1968, you can imagine that 100 years from there
being the larger city in Australia.
I don't think you can.
I don't think I don't think that much thought went into it, but it
was just...
It's just, I think it's a shame that Brian Hales can have these
big concepts.
And like you said earlier, Jeremy, you know, not to a whole lot
with them.
Like he has the concepts, then it doesn't develop them.
And so the storytelling is so childish on some level.
And a lot of it is covered by the direction.
Like we said, you know, you get carried along by it.
But to have set up this world and then have Eldred as someone
who's basically built a rocket in his backyard with a launch pad
and everything, which is ready to go the following day, and then
these 3 people turn up and they're like, you know rockets, you can
pilot it for us, and then they go up to the moon without
spacesuits and things.
There's so many levels removed there which just takes it away from
being a good production.
Isn't that ambassadors of death, though?
The doctor at least is in the space suit.
Thank you very much.
Also, they are at the space centre.
And he's also a member of unit and everything.
Exactly.
The funny thing, I love that when Miss Kelly just turns to Radner
and goes, who are these people?
And like, what?
And he's like, and he's just like, no, they're, Rather's just like
they're perfect, you know?
Also, by the way, I laugh every single time they mention Radner's
1st name when Eldrin goes, but listen, Julian, I'm like, Julian
that's not a Julian.
That guy's many things, but he is not, his name is Julian Radnor.
No, no, no, no, no.
Well, Eldred's Daniel.
Daniel and Julie.
The funny thing is with Miss Kelly saying that, it's almost like
she said the quiet part out loud.
It's sort of the part that we're not supposed to point.
Yeah, we're not... not supposed to bring that up.
But also it's a little bit like, well, you know, the doctor's
passed his exams and Zoe's very smart.
Why are they sending the dumb scots?
They do actually...
He makes his way onto the thing.
You know, he isn't initially going to be included.
Yeah.
And the other childish aspect.
I find is there's way too much hiding behind filing cabinets and
doors and walls in full view of the ice warriors, but that's a
bit.
Have you seen Doctor Who?
No, I just saying that despite, yes, despite the brilliant
direction, otherwise, that is the one area where it's not as
successful. basically that scene when the ice warrior comes into
the blasting room with the laces and there's people hiding behind
filing cabinets within full view.
And the iceware, yeah, it looks straight at him.
There's a pretty great one, though, where Jamie and Zoe are hiding
behind a really sort of excitingly designed one.
Yes, that was, you know, where the ice warrior sort of comes in.
But it genuinely can't see them because they're properly
occluded.
A little bit more shadow.
I mean, it's difficult in monochrome because it's a little bit
more shadow and so on.
Just to reclaim everything, how great is that launch sequence
early on where the letters and the patterns are projected on
Kelly's face, the numbers and the computer is really weird.
Like that talking computer is really strange.
Just so many nice touches that, you know, I can forgive the fact
that ice warriors are in those little tiny helmets and it's
probably all steamed.
Their breath is steaming up.
They're little goggles.
They can't see.
They can't see a thing.
Every time we're not seeing them, they're pulling off the helmet
going, Neville, can you see anything in this?
put it back on.
You've got to redesign these helmets.
Isn't that where they say I'm dying for a fag?
Is that an adventurous face?
Yes, yes.
Do they have your family?
I just, I think it's a shame because there's so much that is good
about this story and there's so much that's interesting and the
concepts.
Brian Hales, for some reason, seems to default to childish
storytelling, and I think that could have been very easily fixed.
So, I think we sort of mentioned before that the ice worries when
they first arrive are very, very much a base under siege monster.
And here, while this story does feature a base under siege, it's
not really a base under siege story.
No, I agree with that.
They invert it, which is really interesting.
So, I think when the base under sieges get gruelling is because
it's all about what happens if they get in, right?
And that's and take over.
And I think this is not about that.
This is about initially what happens if they get in, but then it
becomes more about what happens if they get out and spread from
here.
Yeah, yeah.
And that broadens out the canvas a lot.
Um, so it becomes about these sort of reversals of fortune.
How do we keep them on there?
Okay, now they've escaped.
How do we find out what they're doing?
And then how do we push them back to the moon base and how do we
limit them?
And it means that there's reversals of fortune and reversals of
territory within the moon base and earth.
And I can only assume that's a Terrence Dix thing.
Because that is exactly what he does in war games when he has to
stretch.
He moves the pieces around in an interesting way on the chessboard
that's unexpected.
But that's what I really noticed this time.
I'm like, oh, it's the base is important because it's an airport
because it's a hub because it's a way to get to more dangerous
vulnerable places, and that makes it a lot more interesting than
some remote location.
There's the sequence in episode four, I think, where the ice
warrior, T-Mats down into Commander Radna's face, and it's
actually quite a confronting sequence because it blasts all of
these soldiers, and, you know, Radna looks out the door, you know
fabulous Ronald Lee hummed being amazing as ever.
In his adult diapers.
Oh my god.
What were they thinking?
When poor answer to George or something, turns on.
It's just what, who, what, that is a what, that is a kind of a
curious creative choice.
Well, I think it depends on which one.
Oh my god.
I mean, it literally is the we have to wear space clothes there.
Yeah, yeah.
You would never do it in the new series.
You would have him wear a suit because he's a...
With a different colour.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It was Toby Hadoke, who sat on our Bleak 7 podcast, maximum power
that Ronald Lee Hunt always gives a performance where you can
believe there's a briefcase nearby.
He's actually got a briefcase.
It does.
Why do you need a briefcase where you have team match?
you know, you have a computer network computer.
They don't understand.
Well, they didn't have networks.
And that was a big deal, wasn't it?
Because cycling back to what I was saying.
You have that great sequence.
And then like you were saying, Jeremy, It's when they get out on
location, that they become a real menace because now it's stomping
through the English countryside.
And it's like the Salurians where the virus gets out and suddenly
for the 1st time, the rest of the world is at stake. as opposed to
just us in this base.
It's no longer the base under siege. the world under siege.
Exactly.
It's wonderful how that's done by just increasingly urgent
narration from the fantastic computer.
It's so wonderful.
People talking urgently in corridors.
That's what makes Dr. Who.
You don't need to see the people dying all around the world
starving.
Although that is pretty great.
Oh, yeah.
And you don't use the wall, like 24 hour news.
Oh, yeah, but you just get to Paddington Station, isn't it?
Commander Rad not going to the corridor, looking out stage left
and sewing, it's killed all the guards.
Oh, we don't need to give them any fees.
Any actors fees we have?
Speaking of which, Phips.
Yeah, Phipps.
Yeah, he disappears.
It doesn't disappear.
He gets killed in the little hole in the little ventilator hole.
He seems Zoe.
Do we see it?
No, we don't.
Yes, the ice where he turns to him and he goes, look up, Zoe.
And it's the whole thing.
But you don't see him crumple and goes, No, cut quickly, Nathan.
It was cut too quickly.
I thought he ducked in time.
He's terrific, by the way.
Like, do you know what I mean?
That whole sequence early on when he's, it's so cool.
He's like, he goes into that little room and you see him figure
out, okay, I need to shut down this because he, and then I need to
build that and he's building the solar thing and it's just like
he's great.
And then he gets that little great scene with Zoe where he gets
scared.
Moving things out of the way to find the plug.
But just the thing about the, not the big, big, big, um, liberator
gun ones that go into the wall, but the plugs on the floor.
Of course, you know...
You little powerboard, that is just UK plugs.
Because when I was watching, they said 19, they were space plugs.
Yes, because it looked like these heavy duty things.
Because of course our plugs in Australia and like yours in North
America are much smaller than these great big British things that
were obviously designed, you know, when electricity was new.
And they haven't bothered to upgrade themselves.
And I thought, oh, they're weird space plugs.
It was built by Winston Churchill. change it.
It was built by Churchill.
One of the things I love too is other 60s Doctor Who would have a
tedious, tedious scene where some man says like, you're just a
computer.
You don't care about, you know, and it would be some, but she's
never liked that.
She's seen as tremendously important and respectful.
And even when she goes to go do things, she's taking action and
being in charge and saying to command Radner, like, listen, you
may have these concerns, but I'm the only one who can do this.
Now, we can argue how silly it is that she's the only person on
earth that can fix team at that's a bit insane.
Yeah, I guess, but I do love that she's never like, she's never
really put down and she's never really infantilized or criticised
in the way that so many of the arguably like positive
representations of women in Doctor Who during this time invariably
get made fun of in a scene or two.
And she doesn't really, which is great.
Everyone is reliably in awe of her, which is exactly how I feel
about her as well.
Yeah, and we never...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the performance is coming to the party.
The performance is absolutely occupying that.
Otherwise, I actually have to go above your head.
Like, all that.
Yeah, brilliant.
And she's really good.
She does loosen up slightly, you know, when she's on the moon base
with the others, but she never loses the edge.
She's really good.
Fantastic.
And you did that, you need that moment at the end where she has
her viral moment where she tossed some jelly babies and breaks
into a smile.
But it's extraordinary that even 5 years later.
I mean, I know Harry Sullivan's a different character, but even 5
years of production, later, you've got Harry making a point that
the chief minister is a woman, fancier woman being top of the
totem pole.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Whereas you don't have Jamie saying, why is this?
How can she be?
in command, yes.
It's interesting.
Like, it's not even mentioned.
Which is the most refreshing thing.
It's not the Anne Travers moment of when, you know, what's a
pretty little girl like you're doing in a place like this.
And she basically has to sort of say, well, I wanted to become a
scientist to, I became a scientist.
And she's contemptuous of the soldier.
And we're meant to feel contemptuous of the soldier.
But nevertheless, there's someone asking that question.
Although it is supposed to be the 60s, not the distant future, not
100 years hence.
Well, I mean, we have the president of earth in front or in
space.
We do too.
Yeah, and that's not mentioned as being unusual.
Just going back to the base under siege thing, I just want to
redirect that point I made earlier about this being a more of a
pertly story in that regard, because it's not, it's not a straight
back to season five.
It's like Green Death.
You've got the kind of the bass, which is like the nut touch.
Then you've got global chemicals, which is effectively the
moonbase, which is where the villains are all that. then you've
got the then you've got the mind.
You've got that kind of dynamic setup that exists in lots of other
pertly stories as well. in space, same sort of deal, you know.
Well, I mean, the other thing is too, that the base is normally
isolated, which is a feature of it and it has been in the bases so
far and this base is just that close.
You know, you can walk...
Well, not with team actors, not when you, but, you know, just the
surprise of having Miss Kelly just walk onto the moon base. and
Fuchsium agreeing to just send them back with no problem at all
and they're just immediately back.
It's a function of the premise, isn't it?
Yeah, you're based under siege to lock out the monsters who are
besieging you.
You have to lock yourselves in.
Yes.
It has its cake and it eats it too, right?
So it does that it's remote.
It's so remote, it's on the moon.
But it also means that the threat can get right into your living
room in 2 seconds.
So it gets to be both, which is really, I think, a novel idea, a
way of dealing with it.
Well, that's all time we have this week.
We'll be back next week for a new year of teatime Dr. Mengala for
tots in the Soltarian experiment.
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, flight
through entirety, and the 2nd grade and bountiful Human Empire.
Until next time, can you all stop stealing Professor Eldred's
stuff?
It's really mean.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye bye.
That was 500 year diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter
Griffiths, Simon Moore, and Jeremy Radick.
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, the costumes are in the cupboard, was recorded on
the 23rd of March 2025 and released on the 11th of May.
There are just 4 more episodes left of the 2nd great and bountiful
human Empire, probably.
So head on over to greatandbountiful.com tomorrow to hear our hot
take on this week's new Doctor Who episode.
The story and the engine.
What do we think?
I think that might be it.
I think I think that's...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was really good.
I actually thought...
Yeah, no, no.
It's the other thing is, mentioning like the solar power, which is
an interesting thing rather than nuclear.
Weather control. is such a thing in the 60s and it doesn't really
come up in the 21st.
So we just had Adam here recording last week's episode.
And he said, it's an English thing.
I bet we've been Spanish.
Sunny days and all that.
Wasn't that a thing?
I think that what he said was, it's colonialism because it's like
they would go to these other countries where there was much nicer
weather.
And obviously they would bring all the good stuff back to
England.
Can we bring the weather back in some way?
Do you think?
And I think...
If I only even could stop it from rain during the... during the
test at Lords.
And of course, you know, like the Martians are invading England
with a thing that dissolves on contact with water.
So maybe there was methods.
Maybe there was method to Brian Hale's dry storytelling after
all.
But it's funny how weather's like, I mean, even the cloud seating
thing, that was something that they stopped doing trying to do in
the 80s.
Yeah, yeah, it was a thing.
I seem to remember that too.
But you've got that little device because this is the other
thing.
Like last night when I'm watching this, Jeremy, I'm sending
everyone little screen grams of all of the stupid, like there's
that wonderful light, the light that just has the word delay.
Isn't it wonderful?
I want that lies in my life somewhere.
And the, and the, you know, the scent graping that goes up to a
100 and that lamentable...
And the weather control...
We just have the series of 4 switches.
Well we can't see Scotland and Wales.
But presumably it's wet, like on the other side.
Yes, we're switching it from wet.
And there's also that terrific moment as well, which is a really
doctory moment and might be happening for the 1st time, Peter.
Let's see if this is right, where you've got Trouton on the floor
pulled a whole heap of wires out of the desk because the controls
are fused and he's trying to join them together to make the the
rain happen and he's just randomly joining bits of wine.
Oh, that doesn't that doesn't spark their point, right?
That's so Doctor Who.
It must be happening for the 1st time.
And it happens.
Yes.
So it's obviously Terrence, because that's the kind of thing that
happens a lot.
Yeah, it's carnival of monsters. touched this out.
But but he's got that wonderful moment too, where he pulls out
this gigantic rat's nest of wires and he goes, he says something
like chart and says, like, wow, this doesn't look too complicated
or something.
He says something funny. which is just so funny.
I mean, that's, yeah, it's so delightful.
Can we can we say that the water resolution is pretty lame and I
wish it was better than that?
It's pretty lame, right?
Oh, I think it's fun.
What kills the story?
What happens to the?
No, no, because the Martians, the Martians have originally just
all get the cold, get the common...
Yeah, common cold and war of the world.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, it's a weakness that they that they hang a lantern
on.
Do you know what I mean?
Like there's a clear weakness and that's why they said, do we know
who the ice warrior is who gets sent to earth?
Sunny Caldin is?
Oh no doubt.
Yeah, because he's the one that makes the heroes. that makes the
woman crash her car.
He's taking a wheel.
What?
Yeah, he's having a smoke or something.
He goes off because he can't he can't obviously undress.
And it's during one of the pauses and things.
And he's on Hampstead Heath.
Yes, or wherever it is.
It has it is, right?
Oh, that's delightful.
Ferguson says that that's...
I wouldn't have been the 1st person to pull out his Willy on
Hamstead.
Oh, I should think not.
I don't know whether it was a wee mate.
That's one of those stories that enters fan mythology because it's
recounted in Doctor Who a Celebration.
Oh, actually, yes, yes.
That's the most important tone to Paul.
That's right.
All right.
Well, I think we might wind that up.
That was really fun.
That was that was excellent.