Baleful Gaze

Hello, Delissa, and welcome back to 500 Year Diary, the only Doctor Who podcast that exists as a latent mental force coming out of your AirPods. I'm Nathan. I'm Kate. I'm Peter, and I'm Simon. It's the 17th of January, 1983. It's been just short of a year since the doctor captured the bottom half of the Mara in a circle of mirrors, and tonight 6700000 people have tuned in to see what it's been up to in the meantime. But does the Mara have an afterlife away from the Edenic forests of Diva Loca? Let's find out as we discuss snake dance. All right, so we're here really to talk about the Mara in their second appearance on Doctor Who, but I don't think we can really do that properly without spending a little bit of time doing kinder versus snake dance, not necessarily ranking them, but just talking about how different they are. They are different in that I think Kinder is a really great script mounted really successfully. And this may be the acme of all Doctor Who, in its interesting ideas, married to extremely pedestrian execution. Yeah, I think that's probably fair. Fiona Cumming seems to do a great job with actors. She casts well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. cast extremely well. The guest cast here are really quite extraordinary. We had a great guest cast on Kinder, but we have an extraordinary guest cast here. But even sort of the fairly basic low level action here tends to be pretty shoddily mounted. Yeah, I was going to say, it's not nearly as well executed as Kinder, and I'm not just saying that from the production point of view, I actually think that the idea is not as well executed in the script either. And I think right from the get go, the way the story starts with so many scenes in the Tartar. Yeah. And so many sort of static scenes with Lon and his mother, it really takes a while to crank up and it never really gets there. So I think it's not just the fact that it feels very flat visually from a directorial point of view, but it's also very flat from a script point of view. It has no rhythm of storytelling. It just sort of plops you under. No shape, cuts between the TARDIS and what's going on on menusa and there's no buildup. There's no directorial flair and kind of dropping you into the story. You're just watching things happening in the corner of DC one. Yeah, you're almost like starting halfway through episode one. Like we haven't had that interesting setup shot where something's you know, okay, where someone's dies. A character has 3 lines and then dies or something. There's no, it's a very, very slow start. And that's the lack of imagination of the script and also the lack of imagination of how it's executed because where Tegan is talking about her dreams. It's just her lying on a bed. Like, you get that one level... Yes. And you got that lovely shot of her, like, close-up coming up to the cave, you know, in her dream. Where are the rest of her dreams? We don't even have to sort of like an interesting half wipe on the screen. We don't have a dimly lit. We don't have flashing lights or anything. you know what I mean? It's just people in the Tartars. This is exactly what I was saying. It's such pedestrian execution, and it's not fair to the script. The script has more interesting and colourful imagery going on in it, but for some reason, it's not translating to the screen very often. And I think this is becoming a recurring story of 1980s Doctor Who where it's basically hit and miss, whether you'll get a good story. Mostly you'll get either a good script, which has been executed fairly poorly, or a fairly poor script, which has had some panache added to it in the execution, but rarely do you get the alchemy that we had so often during the 60s and the 70s, where you would just have a good story well told. I think there are parallels between Kinder and snake dance. There's the elderly wise figure who's crucial to defeating Namara. And, um, I'm not sure whether Corunna and Shayla are the 2 characters that I should compare, or whether the doctor is the young learning character that acts as an agent, if you like, for the elderly wise character in snake dance. So I thought that was interesting. I think both of them have this really very, very strong set of secondary characters. I mean, both of them are very talky, and Kinder has some rough moments in the production as well. I think Grim Wades, a better director of Doctor Who than Fiona Cumming is, perhaps. He's better visual director. Yeah, but, you know, it's still like bringing the Aspadistras out of the production office and setting them up around television centre one. But there's some exciting visuals and some really weird visuals as well. This sort of kind of manages some weird visuals, and it has sort of good use of film, and having that character Dojan on film in are we in Ealing for that? It is, actually, I would actually say it's fairly poor use of film. If I'd had that film allocation, I would have been putting a market on film. Okay. Or the entrance to the cave. The entrance to the cave, which is one of the most egregious late examples, which falls away in production at this time. You used to be able to get away with it in the 70s, but you can't now of having a big open air set just erected in the corner of the studio. The audience is... With a white cycling. Yeah. One of the things that struck me watching it is how many different sets there are. And there is quite a big set in the episode 3 Prison Cell, which is actually quite well designed. I think it looks pretty good. But the most interesting sell. We've seen in... which is great because we've spent the whole episode. The whole damn episode. But everyone is standing so close together everywhere else and that scene in the bedroom that you mentioned, Simon. It's like a tiny corner of the bedroom. We don't have a whole room. They're obviously having got the dressing table set up on the other side. No, no. We haven't got another flat of tartar rondles. We just don't have room for it. Tegan's bed is extending off between camera one and camera two. And it just everything is very small. Everything is very cramped. I think there are good elements in the set. I don't think that the designer is doing a terrible job generally. He does mention in the making of video that he's not very happy about the cave mouth set, which is the cave mouth thing, which is kind of... Yeah, the cave itself. It's kind of terrible. And look at the caves that we had 3 stories ago in Earthshock which was really great. Or the following year in Caves of Andrazani. The eponymous caves. Here, they're very small, and it's really funny actually to have Martin Cloons wandering into them and going, hmm, it's very big isn't it? Hello. Actually, do you know what the thing is with those caves is that I don't get a sense that they're surrounding me? I get a sense that they are a flat wall. And that's like what it is. Production, procedure march. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's all preceding March. You don't feel like you need cable on either side of you, not just behind you. Yes, walk through caves, not a long cave. Yes, exactly. I was thinking watching it, how few people there are in this allegedly big cave during the actual ritual. And I was thinking, well, this must be the only people who could get tickets. We're about select routine people. Yes, exactly. Because, I mean, there are quite a few extras in the market scenes. Like, I think the market scenes are reasonable. The sets are bad. I can't think of Doctor Who attempting to do that sort of thing. Market eating. It's been a while. No, the very 1st thing they should have done when they read the script. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yes. And, you know, 6 more successfully. The 1st thing I thought when they read the scripts is they should have made it in indoor market, you can never pull off that kind of thing because they haven't done anything with the lighting to make it look like daylight. They've just turned up the studio light. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They needed some yellow or so, they still can't really do that, I think. To imitate daylight. It's partly a colour temperature thing, which they just don't worry about. But it's also having light coming from basically one place. Because on a sunny day, the light is coming from a particular source. And so you need more kind of actually harsher shadows. Yeah. That gives you the effect of that. But obviously it's a terribly overcast day on menusa. I mean, you can tell because when you look out the cave mouth when they're walking to the cave mouth, it's just white from the cycle arama. So obviously there's a lot of haze, a lot of industry on Menusa. And there has been a lot of commentary in the past about the fact that a lot of 80s Doctor Who's production problems come from the fact that the lighting, for some reason, is turned up to 100% on most productions, and this, I think, is a fairly potent example of that. Yes, they turn down the lights when they go into the caves. That's pretty much it everywhere else is floodlit. It's all too laid back. If Doctor Who is about talking urgently in corridors in the... needed some urgency. The only person talking urgently is Pete Davidson throughout, and sometimes he's talking too urgently compared to, especially compared to everybody else. that he's trying to give some energy. Yes, because everybody, because basically Lon and his mother are very laid back. But that is obviously what they're trying to present. They're trying to prepare this, you know, the idol rich basically. Yeah, he's bored and so on and she's just dressing up to go out to parties and things like that. They've got nothing to do. But there's no sense of momentum. There's no sense of energy in any of those scenes. And that's why it's just not a good way to start a story. I have to say, though, that I really like those scenes and I really like those two. Yes, but I just don't think it's well placed. There needed to be another scene. That's right. Like if we are regarding this as kind of fiercer or whatever, or we're cutting it slack because of the type of production it is. I think having those 2 who are extraordinary. I think the woman who plays Tanha has a good claim to be one of the very, very best guest actors of the 1980s. And Martin Cloons is amazing. Great. He's so good. He's very unfairly lampooned because they're always showing that clip where he comes in in his regalia in episode 4 on kind of humourous shows in Britain. When he was on a panel show. That's right. Look where men behaving badly, Star Martin Clunes started. And it's really unfair because he is so good in the production. And the costume that he wears for the rest of the thing is just astoundingly great, isn't it? Let me look at you. He's so good. And just the look of him as well, because he's got those lips. He's wearing makeup, like he's wearing lipstick of some kind as well. Well, but I think and partly that's period and it's the 80s and stuff like that. And later on he's wearing red eyeliner as the Mara starts to take over him a little bit. But there's just something about appetite. He's also got sort of shark teeth as well. And because Tahnha's name means thirst. right? Or desire or something like that. And both of them, like they want something, they're bored because there's something that they're not getting they want. Yeah. And so and so their boredom is all about sort of frustrated want. And so, you know, the lips are sensual, the teeth are hungry. You know, it's a really really good look, I think. And he's got a baleful gaze in the newest that's on things, that scene in episode 2 where he's lured by Dugdale to go to his little shotty little... I lose those words far too me. And it's clearly on the pretext of a woman being there for him. And when he sees Tegan, he walks towards her and says, well, why not? And you think like, that's quite strong for Doctor Who in the 80s extraordinary. It's brilliantly written and underplayed so that it will get past a lot of people. But we all know what's going on. Well, I didn't when I was 10. sure didn't. No, she gives him the snake, not the other way around. I love the mirrors in there, how Tegan is looking at herself in the distorting mirrors and they're suggesting the distortion of the self, but her reflection is being distorted. But then she sees the skull version of the Mara looking back at her and herself is being distorted and this is what it's being distorted into. But because they're using a talking skull, it means they can get out of using a rubber snake, which is probably the best given the one that they use at the end, it's got rubber fangs. They should have made the fangs stiff because their fangs wobbling around in the mouth don't help to sell it. Yeah, it's the great tradition of rubber teeth from invasion of the dinosaurs. Therein lies a lot of the problem with the production of the story because I agree that the script is actually working overtime to deliver some really potent images and some of them are achieved on screen. to provide the potential to provide potential. But some of them are also achieved. Like, I think Tegan looking into the mirror and seeing the skull on her own form looking back at her and the skull appearing in the crystal ball at the end of part one, which is a very good cliffhanger just because of how weird and unsettling it is. They are great images, but there's so much more scope for the production to deliver that, which it doesn't. So that scene, in the Hall of Mirrors, it's just Tegan wandering around in MCU from mirror to mirror. It should have been something altogether, more unsettling and weird, cast into this nether place where there's just mirrors and darkness. And if there'd been someone like Peter Groomade, he would have delivered a scene like the end of Kinder Part 3, that dream sequence of wheel turns and the clocks, which is something magnificent on Doctor Who. And it's lacking the kind of imagery that we're getting Kinder with the black void. We get it for a second, don't you? for a moment. And even the language, like I think it's only once or twice that we hear that wonderful phrase, the dark places of the inside, which is so evocative in kinder, especially the way it's delivered, where it's kind of thrown away here. If I may sort of say, snake dance is one of the stories that annoys me. not because I think it's bad because I think there is much good in it. You can see it trying to achieve... Exactly. And it is so much wasted potential. And that's, I think, what makes me cross. As opposed to something like arc of affinity, which is basically doing the best that it possibly could with the material, it'll give it. Let's not go nuts. Paulette O'Neill is Tanha. I think she is a great actress, the way she's performing the role with one exception. Her voice is very quiet. there's not very much sound coming out of her voice so much. So the microphone levels are turned up such that I can hear the roomy sound of the studio. It's not like you hear the ambiance. It's not like you're hearing props be dropped or something or people moving about behind the camera. It's that sense of space where someone's just that little bit too far away from the microphone and you had to crank the levels up. It's almost like Menusa has a background hiss. Yes. And that's how it manifests itself is like... And that and it just sort of becomes annoying. especially those scenes where she's, oh, do you be quiet. And she is. So it's a very subtle performance. She just needed a bit more declamatory with her delivery. And that adds to the staginess of the production as well, because it feels like you are in a room. Yes, you feel like you're in. I get a sense. I in a studio. This is a set. Do you know, I think the story in some ways actually kind of flags that for us and says, by the way, this is a story and you're watching it. It's full of audiences. We've got the kids, you've got the kids watching Punch and Judy. The Mar itself seems to want an audience. It keeps Paul Duggan around just to be forced to look at what it's doing. That's its catchphrase, isn't it? Look at me, look at me. and that's how we defeat it. My catchphrase. I mean, the ritual itself requires all these people to be in attendance so that it can suck out their evil. And it's full of puppet snakes as well, which Christopher Bailey admits was his kind of, no, he's kind of exorcising the experience of making kinder. But there's lots and lots of puppet snakes, which means that when the actual snake comes along and it glistens and stuff like that it's much more effective because we've just had sort of, you know the puppet snake in the Punch and Judy show and we've had the puppet snake going through the streets and stuff and the little puppet snakes that scare Tegan off in episode one. on One of the worst extras. There's a wonderful moment in when the big snake is being moved to the streets, where it nearly hits one of the extras, and she does this one little, That's living the moment. Stayed in character. Well done. But talking about the snakes and the back to the Kinder V snake dance thing is how effective for me, the tattoos snake is on the arms and Kinder and how ineffective this kind of vinyl transfers they can. It's like dance. You know what I mean? It's it's it's just cheaper. Yes. I mean, what it is, is a poor choice from the director. Yeah. Or the designer. Well, makeup artist. Where's that? Who's making that decision? Where's the director saying, no, not that, that. Yeah. I do think that the snake inflating on Tegan's arm and then turning into the big snake. probably what it was for. I wonder whether that's why it's a vinyl transfer is so that they could, it's a, it's like a pump it up with you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, most of the time, I don't think it would have been pump upable. It is just a... But I do think that that is particularly effective. But yes, I think, you know, there's audiences and show and stuff like that. And there's a sense in which what has happened is a real thing that happened in the past where this society encountered a Doctor Who monster has now been turned into just falsehood. And, you know, Dugdale and the fortune teller both say that what they're doing is just for show. It's not real. That's a really good scene from Dugdale, where you're saying, you know, I used to be a searcher of life's mysteries, and then I realised that when the lights come up, basically it's all rubbish and there's someone waiting with their handout to take payment. I mean, that's great, Doctor Who dialogue. But even the woman, the fortune teller is really wonderful as well because she says, I just say whatever comes into my head and then she says, mind you, it's surprising what does come into your head. And I think that that's actually really quite terrifying when she's actually being kind of sweet and homey and kind of finally telling the truth. But also, the Federation obviously lives in this sort of post religion. Yes. But they allow the natives to practice their religion. So in some respects, the aspect of allowing the natives to practice whatever religion they like is almost like the Roman Empire, and you'd have the governor overseeing it. But they don't really believe the Maa from a religious point of view. They just, it's a myth. It's a legend. And so all of the ceremony involved with that is it's just words. It's just nonsense. Yeah, and that's what the doctor has to do. I mean, that's what's fun about the doctor is he's here saying all the religion is real. He's running up to devil's end. Yes, I suppose that's what it is. Stop that deer. Okay, dear, yes, yes. And he's really interesting for that reason. That's why I think he's slightly manic because he has to look really mad. You know, like he has to seem unreliable. Have we hardly ever get this outside of you of the doctor, yes everyone else sees him sort of bursting into dinner parties. going blah, blah. The with Amber. where he says, oh yes, no, I'll put a stop to it. That's fine. Anything else? You know, like I'm sorry. That's all right, you know, like just absolutely dismissive of him. I think he's... Well, it's because he's had so many endless cranks. Yeah, yeah. I adore Amber. I love it when he comes back all dusty, like he's a dusty old book on the shelf. He is extremely knowledgable and he won't stop being knowledgable. He's knowledgable at Tanha until she can't help herself, but you're. But she says, that is wrong. She says, oh, do be quiet. I'm getting bored into tiny bits. So he has all this knowledge and it's all around the Sumarian Empire and so forth. But it's the wrong kind of knowledge to actually deal with the Mar That kind of knowledge. He just he just dismisses. And it's wonderful too how that gets turned into desire as well. Like the way that he is caught is because of his greed, his desire. He's thirst, and that's how he can be manipulated. He's like the doctor in plunder of the spiders, greed for knowledge. I mean, he's like a fanboy, isn't he? He's got all of the minutiae at his fingertips, but he's focussed on appreciating the show wrong. You know, it has the sea devils come back, not do we have a good story this week. And so, what are you talking about? And so that scene where he is taken by Lon into the secret cavern and there's all of the artefacts there. For some reason, it just puts me in mind of Ian Levine, who was still turning up film prints at this point in the show's history maybe being led into sort of the basement of a Mormon church and seeing all of these film cans there and having someone holding up the smugglers part 2 with a cigarette lighter and exporting him yeah. Do what they needed. It's a very good analogy, actually. Yeah, yeah, because that's exactly what it's like. It's hard to describe. It's a substance of the legend. He cares about the trappings around it. Yes, yes. Because it is a real legend, it's true. This legend is true, unlike the legends that archeologists deal with here. And so he's talking about science and he's talking about all of those sorts of things. The big misunderstanding, that big misunderstanding about the 6 faces of delusion. Whenever I hear that, I always think the 5 faces of Doctor Who. But, you know, in a sense that's really obvious. Like, it's not super clever. And you think anyone with their wits about them is kind of working that out as they watch it. Like no one's surprised by how Pete resolves that. But can I say if it had been better directed that would have had more of a rhythm to it? It's on screen in shot for far too long. The audience has already got there before the script has. But in a way, that just shows how ill equipped Amberley is to deal with what's really going on. So he sees it as an artefact. He talks about its artistic merit, all of that sort of thing. What period of the smart empire? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The middle period or something like that, a perfect... The inner Smoid era. But he doesn't think of it as an actual thing that someone would wear. And it's an artefact for him. not a mask. It's an artefact to sit on a thing, a pole. That's right. And so he never thinks of someone actually putting it on. And perhaps it's never occurred to him to put it on before. So like, I think that that is a good character moment, even if it is less clever than people give it credit for, I think. And actually, that's what Chella is there for, because Chella does see the entirety of everything, and that's why he's open to the doctor's supposedly weird interjections. I adore trailer as well. He's fantastic. He's beamed in from a boy band. Yeah, it's a very early 80s war, but and I never appreciated him at the time, but I sort of, when I'm watching it for this, I went oh, he's actually rather nice. Yeah, I thing between him and Nissa. Yeah. Poor Nissa has got nothing to do in the story. She might as well hang around with child. Have you met Nessa? I was also thinking I'm not entirely sure where the trailer is that way inclined. No, I think he probably is. I seem to remember us thinking he was cute at the time and then watching it this time in an era where everyone on television is very attractive, he doesn't quite make the grade, I think. He has some nice period kind of floppy hair, but he does have that nice moment where the doctor helps Nissa down and Nissa gives him a bit of a serve and says, you know, that's nice. Thank you, but I didn't need that. And he just he just gives the doctor this, oh, women. Why are we talking about odd pacing and stuff? Why is that scene there? And why is the scene where we distract the guard there at all? We have got to keep the doctor and Nesso and Shayla from interfering with the ceremony until it's climax. That's purely it. They could be on a bus that broke down. It would have the same effect. Yeah. They could have been caught in a busy marketplace because of all of the festivities or something had to. could have ended up in a fist fight. attendant demons, almost anything. Yeah. Well, exactly. anything to liven things up a little bit. I mean, I think, and that's the problem as well, because we're doing four-part stories at this point without really thinking about that, and it's only a few years before we actually decide let's make that a special thing and have three-part stories as well. But yeah, that's a way to deciding that 3 parts is actually the natural format for Doctor Who storytelling. Because that is just stalling. And it's an entire episode of the doctor doing exposition and stuff, which could have been done more subtly more quickly. I do slightly take issue with that because I think that there are plenty of other stories which use the 4 episodes effectively. It's just that I think in the 80s, it's almost like they forget how to do that. I mean, I know that it's a jigsaw puzzle. you know, there are only so many sets. You can have, there are only so many different parts. you can have that shapes, the amount of story you can tell. And as we were saying earlier, you're stalling so that you can get your characters in place for the climax. Exactly. And so you need to just come up with something else to happen another diversion, something, they need to have gone somewhere to do something and then come back or there needs to be a kind of even if it's just a kind of a going around in a circle kind of effect, which at least creates the appearance of activity rather than sitting in a cell. It almost felt to me like we shouldn't have spent episode 3 in the cell and then spent 10 minutes of episode 4 going up into the hills. Episode 3 should have been the going up into the hills. was just about to say that. There's enough stuff there. Exactly. and then those sequences can be a bit more meaningful. Because, I mean, there is a lack of imagination, I think, about why we're doing Doctor Who the way that we're doing it. And, you know, this thing is an odd hangover. And given that TV is faster in the 80s than it was in the 60s, I think that a four-part episode seems languorous, the way that a 6 part one does in the Pertuy era. And I think that we needed more incidents for these 4 parts. I think you need, yes, you need more incident. You're going to do four-part stories. Like if you're going to do a 6 part story, you need to fill it. You don't just stop because you run out of ideas because Kinder does not feel too long. No, no, absolutely. And for whatever flaws there are with something like Forge of Doomsday or the visitation, earth shock. Because Earthshock goes from PlayState to Place B. Yeah, yeah that. Correct. There are plenty of examples of the four-part format work. just the fact that they don't have enough content. No. somewhere between a 2 and a four-part story. The other thing you have to remember, you had, to be fair, it's not just the way all this is, the way it's always done. There are ways that studio bookings work. There are ways that, you know, because remember, JNT creates the two, three passes for the McCoy era by having, okay, we're basically filming it like a six-part story and having the location bit with as one story and the studio bit is another story. And he makes the restrictions of how the studios and locations stuff work to his advantage to create the 23 part stories. That may not have been available at this point because there wasn't enough location filming. Who knows? Yeah, remember he was stymied in season 18, where the story goes that he actually wanted it to be three-part stories, which is why the leisure hive and Meglos underrun, so chronically that the initial idea was that they would be three-part stories. Yes, because you can see what he would have experienced in the latter Graham Williams years, I would suggest that a good example of where four-part stories don't make the length. Ah, creature from the bit nightmare of eaten horns of 9. They are 3 Destiny of the Daleks and City of Death 2, but those other 3 just do not. There's just not enough. And the charter's too long as well. Let's talk about the return of the Mara. I think that this is a very, very rare occasion where we actually give the Mara a science fiction backstory without ruining them. And I think it's incredible. But when something weird and supernatural happens in Doctor Who, it benefits from not being explained. Well, not just Doctor Who, everything, I mean, well, that's right. Yeah. I mean really? Yeah. Whereas here, the Mara actually become an artefact created by the people of Manusa before the Samaran Empire. The Mar is created, it's rayified, it's made real through the crystals which they've made in 0 gravity. Their artefacts. The realisation of that is actually really quite well done, as Pete discovers all of that stuff. I think that's really good. And then it's called into existence from the greed and thirst and evil in their minds and then it's banished to the dark places of the inside where Tegan 1st encounters it on Diva Loca. And all of that is so well done and it absolutely doesn't ruin it. It doesn't ruin it. No, I used to imagine a final scene of any Sapphire and Steel episode where it was revealed that they were from the planet Zog and they had a spaceship and like all of that. Yeah, completely ruining it. This manages not to do that. I agree. I think it's because it addresses the same. The Mara means the same thing in snake dancers, it did in Kinder. It's still about the negative parts of the mind, the restless parts of the mind, but it's using a science fiction idea to say well, take those restless parts that are in everybody's minds and bring them across into reality, into something that can directly affect reality, not just people's minds doing evil, but a whacking great monster that can actually affect everybody. And I do wonder if Chris Bailey got the idea of the blue crystals from something like planet of spiders, where we have a blue crystal, which can interact with the human mind. I mean, they're both based on Buddhist style principles, aren't they? Both Planet of the Spiders and Mar stories. Yeah, I don't I don't know that either story is especially Buddhist. I think if you put them in front of a Buddhist who knew their stuff. They might be a bit well. They've picked and chosen. Well, I'm talking about someone who's went 3 paragraphs on the equivalent of Wikipedia. A bit of that. I think that there's probably more Buddhist stuff going on in Kinder than there is in Snake Dance. But it's still, it's still a powerful influence. See, I actually wondered whether the part of the problem with Kinder is that it has a snake in a garden, and so there's inevitably all of this sort of Christian imagery. And even though it has things like the Bhavachakra and all of those sorts of things in it. It's muddied a little bit. Whereas I do think that this is more clearly attempting to deal with Buddhist ideas and the idea, you know, the idea of thirst, the idea of desire being the thing that leads to dissatisfaction, to suffering and so on, is sort of very definitely there. And the fact that the defeat of it is by going within, by finding a still point at the centre of, you know, your consciousness and refusing to look at it, refusing to engage with. Or looking at it, but not being moved by it, not being terrified by it, by just being able to look at it clearly. I think that's a good idea. Dotan says about the snake to the doctor is like you just have to put your fear aside. You haven't been scared up until now. are you scared now? In fact, what's great is the moment where the still point gets mentioned. The doctor actually wonders where it is in the cave. And then he's told, no, no, it's inside you. He might not have watched Doctor Who before. But in some respects, it's selling the moral of the story of snake dance, and to a lesser extent, Kinder is about discipline and self discipline, and that's what a lot of world religions are about especially Buddhism, isn't it? It's about finding the centre point. It's about self-discipline. And it's when the society's become greedy and all that. That's when they fall apart. And you almost might say that that's an implicit criticism of other religions, because a lot of, like you say, it's about finding the still point within you, a lot of what kinder and snake dance talk about is the kind of ephemeral nature of performance like, you know, the snake going through the streets and this whole this whole industry of performance that's built up around themara. And really, it's all for nothing. The ceremony is for nothing. It's all about finding the still point. And I think Chris Bailey is interested in that idea of everything else being performance apart from the realisation inside you. He's also interested, I think, in the nature of storytelling and particularly through the character of the jester. And it's interesting that in Kinder, we have an actual jester. In Snake Dance, we have an actual jester in Dugdale, but also the doctor is put into the role of being a jester. He is the crazy person who comes in spouting truths and no one believes them and sidelines them. It's almost like 2 actually. 2 points I want to make about the sequel thing. So 1st of all, is that the bad version of SnackDance, and despite my criticisms of it, I don't think it's actively bad. I just think it could be much better. Yeah, no, I actually think it's really rather good. It's just so frustrating. So frustrating, not well to living. It's sort of, yeah, but it's always going to be kind of a middling story for me, but it could be so much better. Because the bad version, the properly bad version of Snake Dance is where the Mara is just this great big snake that possesses people and all the other stuff, because that's what usually happens with a sequel, is all the interesting parts of an enemy or a villain are kind of extracted and it just becomes actually more generic. In fact, it almost looks like it's going to be that. Yes, doesn't it? Because the, what, what does the Mara do? Well, it possesses Tegan, obviously. And so we're doing that again. We're having Tegan's dreams. Dream again, yes. You know, we're doing all your favourite bits again. Yeah, your favourite lines again. And we get all so well done. Yes, yes. This time we'll have the Dale coming out of sand, rather than the sand. But it does make it more interesting and it gives it a completely different place. Yes. The link between Menusa and Diva Loca is absolutely not clear at all. But that's because it's at the dark places of the inside. It's kind of throughout all space. That's the impression I get is that once it's been brought into being, it kind of can exist everywhere. Yeah, I would have loved to have seen a 2nd sequel set on earth the with the Mara manifesting on earth. I think that could have been a really interesting, perhaps in an English village. That would have been fantastic. Or awfully tedious. But yeah, you understand what I'm saying. And that's where it just becomes a generic monster. I do understand. We're the underground. Yeah, we've looked at, yes, we looked at the Daleks syndaleic invasion. You know, we didn't look at these Warriors. because I think they're terribly boring. One of the ways that you sidestep that just becoming generic, like say, the ice war is in the scenes of death, is by making an origin story, that mitigates against making it generic, because you are looking at... That right. And it kills them off. Like they don't retreat to the dark places of the inside and they're not an elemental force. They are a thing that was created in a particular place and in a particular way. And so we can kill them off at the end. They don't retreat to the dark places of the inside. Obviously, if we did a 3rd story, guess what? They retreated to the dark place. But I think that actually that's quite good. So you have the monster. It's very successful except in the season 19 TWM poll. Comes last. came a lot. God, there are a lot of things that could have come behind. Behind 4 to Doomsday and 3 slots behind Time Flight. Oh my god. Fans know nothing. Yeah. Which is why we're here talking. See, also my earlier comments about fans being fixated on the sea devils coming back, whether it's an actually good story. There was one thing I wanted, the 2nd thing I wanted to say about the sequel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is almost a bit meta because the sequel, merchandise is available. Suddenly we've arrived on a planet where the Mara, we all, the Mara is this thing that we will experience and now we can buy little snakes and we can have that there's little stores. And you know what I mean? Like we're suddenly in the world where, you know, we've had Mara Mania and there's all this merchandise available. Yeah, I think they could have extended that to Doctor Who conventions. Can you imagine someone going around with pails of water and you'll get sloshed unless you can name the story code for the ice water? Oh, in case... Said no one who brought in the warriors ever. But I think that what's happened is we bring them back. We get it to do its party pieces. Then we do something different with it and then we give it... Without destroying it. without destroying the concept. Exactly. We give it an origin story that makes sense that somehow doesn't ruin anything. And then we kill it off and we don't go back there again. And I think that might be perfect. What about the realisation of Menusa and so on, in terms of it being a, you know, this planet which has been not so much taken over, but adopted by the Federation? It's kind of what do we feel about that? I don't think that that's actually what's happening if you look at what's said about the history. And part of the thing is that we're kind of reading it like India under the Raj. Do you know what I mean? And you've got the federator who's basically the governor and then you've got the governor's son and everyone's sort of deferential to them and stuff. But when Tana talks about the culture of the planet. She talks about our culture and our history. And so the federation. I don't think is like the Galactic Federation or something external. It's something that the Menusians have developed. So I don't see... I think it's the manusens of development. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I thought they were wrestling. I thought, no, I thought they were rescued from the Mara by the Federation. They developed years ago. So the Federator comes and destroys it, but there's no indication the Federator is from another planet. No, I just thought it was a fairly benevolent one. not saying it's kind of a, yeah, without a colonisation, more like an EU slash type thing. I think that we're inclined to read it that way just because of the way that, you know, all of the colonialism aesthetics and stuff that we have, but I don't think that that's there in the script. And I do think, like, the odd thing for Tarn had to say is it's our customs and our history and all of that kind of thing. And the federator is their ancestor, but they're not alien. I don't know. But they are visiting. She clearly doesn't live where they live because he doesn't have day-to-day contact with Amber or with his predecessor, Doja. She met him once. And the Federator is somewhere else. So he's representing the Federation. The sun is representing the Federator. And remember, she's being taken to the museums and so on. She's being introduced to all these people. Because he's really old. He's really old. Isn't that the impression you get? Yes. Yeah. He's incredibly old. She's much younger than him. They've married. She doesn't really care for him all that much. She's like the perfect 1st lady and that she's the power behind the throne. But I think that also she's transferred her affection from her horrible old husband to her son. Yes. in a way that you see with sort of horrifically rich old people. See, perhaps Trump and Murdoch. You know, that they have much younger wives who are kind of more obsessed with their sons and stuff. And there's that wonderful moment. There's one scene where she's got her back to Lon and isn't talking to him because he's been rude to her. And then in the next scene, their friends get and she's back and he goes, oh, am I forgiven? And she just says, aren't you always? That's a wonderful scene where she stalks out because he won't accompany her to the dinner with Amber. And within 10 seconds, she's back exhausting him to come again. Yes. It was really funny. We go to another scene, I think, with a doctor and this or something. And then she comes back. It's like, has she come back? Oh, no, no, she's only been gone for like a minute. Yes, yes, I've gone to get a scarf or something. This is a JNT thing, and it, again, is one of the creative processes that JNT was not a master of. He apparently insisted for reasons of providing momentum, although it never does because it doesn't work in a storytelling way. Chopping up longer scenes into bite-sized shorter scenes and they're just cutting between them. And this is the problem at the start of the story, where you have a 10 seconds in the TARDIS. 10 seconds of long coming down the stairs. 10 seconds back in the Tartars. 10 seconds. Well, not quite. O'Neill's. Well, some of them are. Well, it's funny because that's the editing they've tried to put into the colourisation of the Daleks and the war games. Yes, indeed. It's trying to provide impetus to the storytelling. It doesn't work because all it means is that you're losing that rhythm of a longer, more interesting scene between Tana and her son by just cutting away to the top. I think it depends. It depends on the contents of the scenes. For that to work, in some respects, you need the 2 scenes to be much more interesting than either of them are. think that's right. You're going to be running in tandem in some way. Yeah, I know. running in tandem. Exactly. They're feeding you different parts of the same story as opposed to just being stuff that's happening on screen. I wasn't necessarily suggesting before they were trying to make any commentary on colonialism because I don't think that's what it thought. And I take on board your points, but I think they are definitely from somewhere else. It's more a kind of a flavour of like the Middle East or something that we're in. We're not in India. We're in even Morocco or Tunisia or something. mentions Morocco. I think maybe the designer mentions having been to Morocco. It's very, yes, and I think it's Marrakech. I think the market is inspired by Marakesh. Even with all the hucksters and so on like that, where, you know we Westerners often go to these, all these countries for tourism to gorp and gape and take photos for Instagram and so on like that. And one of the things we do is we go to something like the Great Wall of China, and we come out of the Great Wall of China, or in this case, the snake's mouth, and all these people rush up to you wanting to sell their trinkets to you. Because all of the people, basically, there's a sense that there is tourism here, like off-world tourism coming. And, you know, you start at the top of the Great Wall of China and they're trying to sell you t-shirts for $5 and by the time you get to the bottom of the Great Wall, they try to sell you 3 t-shirts for a dollar. And that's the sort of the effect that I got from the market and from the snakes, particularly coming out of the snake's mouth. That could have been a bit more effective. It's almost like the snake's mouth is not the natural formation of the cave and it wasn't carved that way out of some kind of fealty to the Mara. It's done for tourism purposes. Yes exactly. But I think that that's partly a function of it looking crap. Like, I mean, do you know what I mean? Like, there are incredibly beautifully sculpted rock formations and stone buildings and things, which it could easily have looked more like instead of a shiny plastic thing. Well, you know, yeah. But the thing is that both stories, like both kinder and snake dance have things to say about colonialism, and I think kinder is more clearly about colonialism. Sanders wears a pith helmet, for God's sake. So it's very... And they're very much about civilising the natives. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Maybe about men and women as well, about the ways that men and women look at things differently too, which seems to be absent from this, I think. It just looks too appallingly cheap. Even to the early 80s. just looks cheap. And it probably wasn't as cheap as all that, but it looks like it was the budget saving story. I think there are so many sets and each set looks tiny. And the market set, which is meant to be impressive, looks like an amateur theatrical production, sort of made out of plywood. And it doesn't always look like that in the 80s. And you think about, say, Frontios the following year, which is not particularly well mounted, but it looks better. And that trick with the white cycloramas on, you know, representing the sky works, I think, quite well when they're on top of the colony ship in Frontios. That actually kind of, it's better than it is here, I think. Look, I think the show has not moved with this audience. It's making sort of small moves forward with effects and things like that. But the way that you make television, the way that Doctor Who is being made and presenting alien environments and, you know, putting fantasy onto the screen. The audience has moved ahead of it. It's no longer viable to do it that way. And I think the breaking point was the prehistoric Heath in time flights last year, which anyone should have looked at that and said that is absolutely no way we are going to be able to mount that on screen so we shouldn't try. And I think this is probably, they shouldn't have tried to have done this. They should have found other ways around. They should have made it an indoor market. They should have found ways of bringing that indoors and down to earth and mounting it successfully rather than trying something that will look silly on screen, and which I think starts to give Doctor Who its reputation for looking ropey. It was always lampooned for having shaking walls and things like that. But people never really thought it looked terrible. In the 1980s it sometimes starts to look terrible. where we'll see more of that next week in Warriors of the Deep. There's no quality control. You'll have things which look fantastic and things which look awful. There's none of this Hinchcliff, what can we achieve and we'll do that? I agree with you, but only to a point. Story of our lives. I think that the crappy lookingness of Doctor Who had already well and truly started by that. It starts very much in the graham when he was era with invisible enemy and then underworld. Yeah, failed productions. Actually, things that failed. And it's either because they're too ambitious, budget cuts whatever it is, inflation, et cetera. You're right. They should have thought, what can we realistically achieve? So I agree with that. I think you're being a little bit, the memory cheats, there I suggest a little bit. And I think that you're still getting this kind of inside studio representing an outdoor thing in regular television at this point quite commonly across all genres, including premium prestigious genres. Something like iCloud is maybe 1975, but there are other examples which are later, where you've got things that are supposed to be outside, but they're actually obviously inside the studio. And remember, several years later in happiness patrol. They're trying to still do that. They're trying to have an outside city all within the studio. So I think Doctor Who starts to lag and starts to fall behind those kind of production standards because they just think that that's how we have to do it. But I think saying it's happening already in late 82, which is when this is shot, is probably a little early. See, I remember very strongly tuning into the leisure hive and then all of season 18, which I don't think has like an appreciable increase in budget, but it just spends the money better. And I spoke to you about this. I think, Peter, and it was the sets, the quality of the sets in that season. So every shot that you're looking at has impressive looking sets. Now, the money runs out by Lagopolis and the sets are not impressive. But, you know, things like full circle, for instance. Keeper of Trunk. Well, your leisure hive, but even even the sort of the lasher aggressive vegetation of the planet Tigella looks pretty gray. Even if Zulf Thura doesn't look safe. No. Yeah, yeah. And it's trying something different, but there's a real attempt to do something visually impressive. And it's astounding that the following year already. It starts to fall to weird, isn't it? And, you know, there are other reasons you don't have bid meat anymore and stuff, but just on the production side of what things look like. But I think, as you said, we don't have been made anymore. I think maybe that implies to me that Christopher Bidmeat is the one saying to the writer, no, we can't afford that loser set, lose a character, whatever it is. Yeah, we can achieve. I think what the problem by the time you get to Snake Dance is that I think the production team, uh, Eric Saywood and JNT are starting to get a little bit too ambitious about what they think they can achieve, possibly from the success of things like Earthshock and the successive aspects of season 18. Richard Martin said to me in an interview once, disparagingly. He was talking about Dave Whittaker. were you disparaging back to him? Richard Martin disparaged everybody. But he was particularly disparaging of David Whittaker. He said he was the script editor, and he said it was his job to say, I've gone through, and I've edited this script, and of course you can't film in King's Cross Station, so I've set it in a corner of the lavatory. Now, Christopher H. Bidmead was probably making sure they weren't going to be able to film in King's Cross Station, and so they had to set it in a corner of the lavatory, and that worked. But look at what he does with Warriors Gate. You haven't got as many sets, do you? Because you got all white void. And look how good, therefore, the ship looks. And also the fabulousness of the gate. Yes, the gate and also the Gothic dining table and so on like that. The notion of what the script territory is doing is correct. Okay, ideally you want to see King's Cross station, but you can't afford that. You can't make the alien planet look great in the studio. So set it in a room. So we're blaming Eric Saywood. that acceptable? As always. I mean, a lot of people are taking their eyes off the ball here and one of the problems of 1980s stock 2, and it becomes more pronounced as it goes along, and then gets pulled back. So again, that might be an argument for the script editor because you have Andrew Cartmel looking after the script later on. One of the problems is quality control. So I mentioned earlier that you would rarely get great scripts with great production. You would have a good script, which some have been married to adequate or poor production and vice versa. Even from scene to scene and episode to episode, the quality control is not there. And in this story, you will have one of the really great cliffhangers of the 1980s, which is the Mara skull coming out of the Crystal Fall, which is the worst one. One of the most uninspired ones. How did anyone know? Oh look, is that the time? Yes, exactly. Okay, kill them. No weight. I mean, that has become amazing. Not the only time that's happened. It's such an egregiously poor example of the drama. Can I say, though, that that's actually quite well directed? No, no, she runs to what? no, no. They run towards this figure that they don't even properly see that absolutely looms over them. Then they run back and there's someone there. And then there's that shot that's really nice and symmetrical that has the 2 swords coming at them from either side and like there's some attempt at composing the shot. Che gives a really piercing. No, hang on, that was Nissa. screen Snake dance is trying to tell 2 stories at once, and it doesn't quite pull it off. One is the backstory, the history of Manusa, where the Mara came from, how it was created, what you can do to destroy it. And the doctor is assigned to that branch of the story. And then there's what Teen is doing and what she's doing with Lon. And so this is the presence. This is what's the threat is right now. This is happening and leading up to the climax. The 2 things have got to come together at the climax of the story obviously, but they have to be kept apart as much as possible until then. And so there's a bit of locking up and a bit of stuffing around to stop the doctor walking in at the wrong moment. So he can be there just in the nick of time. And I do think it suffers from that. Mm. Well, that's all time we have this week. We'll be back next week to watch the Silurians encounter Chekhov's hexachromite gas in Warriors of the Deep. 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 great and bountiful Human Empire. Until next time, do not take up serpents, and if you drink any deadly thing, it shall hurt you. So snap out of it. Thank you very much for listening and good night. Good night. Good night. Bye for now That was 500 Year Diary, starring Nathan Bottomley Peter Griffiths, Simon Moore and Kate Orman. The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb. This episode, Baleful Gaze, was recorded on the 6th of April 2025 and released on the 25th of May. This series of Doctor Who is nearing its end, so make sure you're subscribed to our Doctor Who Flashcast, the 2nd great and bountiful human empire. Our hot take on Wishworld will be released tomorrow, and our take on the reality war will be out a week after that. Head on over to our website at greatandbountiful.com for more details. Can I just talk about the Australian experience for a moment? Yeah. And this can be in the tag. It's interesting that this, like Arc of Infinity, were not repeated, at least not for many years, unusually, after having seasons 18 and 19 premiere back-to-back for us in 1982, we then had, they tried to kind of expand season 20 by having a repeat of Black Orchard shock. The reason they did this was that Peter Davison was visiting Australia ahead of the new season and they wanted to have his Doctor Who on while he was here. And they didn't quite probably have the new... episodes, yeah. Right. didn't realise that was the reason. I always assumed mentally that because I didn't... So they started the season 2 weeks early with Black Orchard. I had a sent. Okay. But anyway, so that means that we saw, as we all saw as children Black Hawk are shocking time, like, again in the leader. And then later, for reasons which is for another podcast episode because of season 2 issues with season 21 with the censorship, they then have to go off back and do all these repeats in the middle of the 1st transmission of season 21. And those repeats include Morden and Dead onwards of season 20, but not Arc of Infinity and Snakedowns. So these, this anarch of Infinity are to me almost like missing stories of the 80s, because after I saw them way back in my childhood when I was 10, I think I didn't see them again until I was practically 20. And even then, if you recall, the source we had, Peter, of these of these tapes was missing, episode 3 or part of episode 3 of Snake Downs. And so episode 3 of Snake Dance was for us, this weird missing episode that we only saw half of, and we have a dim memory of having watched it in 1983. So my experiences, and I think I said this on flights for entirety that I was so annoyed at the doctor for leaving Tegan behind at the end of time flight that I didn't tune in to Arc of Infinity. I said, I'm done, and I may be getting obsessed with this show in a way that's unhealthy and I'm not going to... What happened? These days it seems like quite a good idea that you might have... And then, and then I tried to tape episode one of Snake Dance and set the timer to 12 hours late and it never... Yeah, that's right. And so obviously, I thought I would never see it again. And you almost didn't. I think I have 3 copies of that. Season 20, I think, is one of the most underwhelming runs of Doctor Who ever. There just seems to be very little aspiration for it beyond let's pretend that there's something from the series history and every story. I mean, there always was anyway. Exactly. That was a retcon. Yeah. Someone realising it was. Yeah. There doesn't seem to be any aspirations for the storytelling. I think it's stymied a little bit by the fact that they lose the Dalek story at the end. I think that distorts the shape of the season a little bit. They would have improved it, but you would have still your takeaway would have been better. I mean, I like there is there look, I like enlightenment. There are things, but there's nothing great. There is nothing even, it's not great in season 20. It's vanilla. Vanilla is the word. beige. Absolutely. Modern undead is and the beijest of them all, you know. terminus as well. I mean, I like a lot of these stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do too I remember on flight through entirety, Todd spending like 6 weeks complaining that no one was getting killed and he was getting really annoyed. I think just as Todd's down the pub conversation. Quite seriously, quite seriously, that is a thing. tedious that no one's dying around here. Well, no, no, no spoken characters. No speaking parts. And look, there's so there's so much of interest in this script in particular. I think it's head and shoulders above some of its contemporaries which have been previously named and shamed after Infinity Terminus, Kings, Demons. There's a lot more to it. And yet the telling of it, the the, the delivery of it on screen is so curiously muted. Yes, muted. Pedestrian. I feel like it is in season 20, the show is, which is going back to what you were saying before, I think, but less about the fact that we've got a cyclorama for the outside world. It is behind the times. I feel like it is rather than pushing boundaries forward of television production. It's lagging at this point. That's right. It's suddenly a tired series. Tied in the way it's doing things, tied in its aspirations for the audience. It's become backward looking with that whole let's have something from the past in every show and it will become more backward looking rather than forward looking. Something is going wrong and it's going wrong at this point. And actually, it's an interesting point, Nathan, that you said, you know, oh, there's always something coming back. And it's true. The fact that only at the end when they've kind of basically got all the season planned, that Ian Levine, I think it is, points out to changing, oh, look, there's something coming back in every story. We can say that that's part of the 20th anniversary. But the fact that that was going to happen anyway is a very poor indictment. We also suffer in season 20 from basically static direction, which comes back to the same point again. And even the better directors are only small G good, they're not outstanding. And there are too many of the Peter Moffatts and the Ron Joneses and all those sorts of people. Absolutely. And the whole misreading of what fandom wanted from the show. Fandom wanted a show, like the Hinchcliffe era, like the Graham Williams era, that was forward looking and... No, no, I'm talking about in sort of concepts and sort of ploughing new material, not consistently looking backwards. If they were going to do that, then what they needed to do was cater to the general public. And story one is a Dalek story. And story 2 is a cyberman story. We finally had the ice Warriors back, yeah. Or the yeti, the things that sit in the public consciousness, not who the hell is Omega from that one story 10 years ago. Not who are the black and white guardians? I think actually the black and white Guardians. I think, to be fair, is that and the Mara are probably the 2 best most interesting things because at least with the black and white guardian, you're doing something different. You're doing terlo. Well, that's why I was going to say, well, that's why they have birds on the head. And they have birds on the heads. yeah is better because the Mara is ripe for more exploration, as not merely bringing something back for the sake of it. Do we have anything more? No.