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

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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.

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I'm Nathan.

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I'm Kate.

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I'm Peter, and I'm Simon.

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It's the 17th of January, 1983.

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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.

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But does the Mara have an afterlife away from the Edenic forests of Diva Loca?

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Let's find out as we discuss snake dance.

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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.

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They are different in that I think Kinder is a really great script mounted really successfully.

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And this may be the acme of all Doctor Who, in its interesting ideas, married to extremely pedestrian execution.

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Yeah, I think that's probably fair.

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Fiona Cumming seems to do a great job with actors.

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She casts well.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. cast extremely well.

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The guest cast here are really quite extraordinary.

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We had a great guest cast on Kinder, but we have an extraordinary guest cast here.

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But even sort of the fairly basic low level action here tends to be pretty shoddily mounted.

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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.

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And I think right from the get go, the way the story starts with so many scenes in the Tartar.

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Yeah.

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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.

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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.

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It has no rhythm of storytelling.

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It just sort of plops you under.

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No shape, cuts between the TARDIS and what's going on on menusa and there's no buildup.

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There's no directorial flair and kind of dropping you into the story.

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You're just watching things happening in the corner of DC one.

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Yeah, you're almost like starting halfway through episode one.

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Like we haven't had that interesting setup shot where something's, you know, okay, where someone's dies.

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A character has 3 lines and then dies or something.

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There's no, it's a very, very slow start.

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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.

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It's just her lying on a bed.

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Like, you get that one level...

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Yes.

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And you got that lovely shot of her, like, close-up coming up to the cave, you know, in her dream.

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Where are the rest of her dreams?

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We don't even have to sort of like an interesting half wipe on the screen.

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We don't have a dimly lit.

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We don't have flashing lights or anything. you know what I mean?

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It's just people in the Tartars.

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This is exactly what I was saying.

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It's such pedestrian execution, and it's not fair to the script.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I think there are parallels between Kinder and snake dance.

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There's the elderly wise figure who's crucial to defeating Namara.

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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.

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So I thought that was interesting.

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I think both of them have this really very, very strong set of secondary characters.

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I mean, both of them are very talky, and Kinder has some rough moments in the production as well.

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I think Grim Wades, a better director of Doctor Who than Fiona Cumming is, perhaps.

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He's better visual director.

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Yeah, but, you know, it's still like bringing the Aspadistras out of the production office and setting them up around television centre one.

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But there's some exciting visuals and some really weird visuals as well.

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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?

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It is, actually, I would actually say it's fairly poor use of film.

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If I'd had that film allocation, I would have been putting a market on film.

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Okay.

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Or the entrance to the cave.

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The entrance to the cave, which is one of the most egregious late examples, which falls away in production at this time.

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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.

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The audience is...

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With a white cycling.

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Yeah.

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One of the things that struck me watching it is how many different sets there are.

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And there is quite a big set in the episode 3 Prison Cell, which is actually quite well designed.

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I think it looks pretty good.

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But the most interesting sell.

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We've seen in... which is great because we've spent the whole episode.

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The whole damn episode.

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But everyone is standing so close together everywhere else and that scene in the bedroom that you mentioned, Simon.

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It's like a tiny corner of the bedroom.

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We don't have a whole room.

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They're obviously having got the dressing table set up on the other side.

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No, no.

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We haven't got another flat of tartar rondles.

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We just don't have room for it.

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Tegan's bed is extending off between camera one and camera two.

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And it just everything is very small.

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Everything is very cramped.

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I think there are good elements in the set.

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I don't think that the designer is doing a terrible job generally.

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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...

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Yeah, the cave itself.

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It's kind of terrible.

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And look at the caves that we had 3 stories ago in Earthshock, which was really great.

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Or the following year in Caves of Andrazani.

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The eponymous caves.

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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?

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Hello.

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Actually, do you know what the thing is with those caves is that I don't get a sense that they're surrounding me?

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I get a sense that they are a flat wall.

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And that's like what it is.

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Production, procedure march.

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Yeah, yeah, exactly.

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It's all preceding March.

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You don't feel like you need cable on either side of you, not just behind you.

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Yes, walk through caves, not a long cave.

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Yes, exactly.

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I was thinking watching it, how few people there are in this allegedly big cave during the actual ritual.

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And I was thinking, well, this must be the only people who could get tickets.

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We're about select routine people.

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Yes, exactly.

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Because, I mean, there are quite a few extras in the market scenes.

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Like, I think the market scenes are reasonable.

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The sets are bad.

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I can't think of Doctor Who attempting to do that sort of thing.

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Market eating.

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It's been a while.

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No, the very 1st thing they should have done when they read the script.

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Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

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Yes.

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And, you know, 6 more successfully.

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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.

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They've just turned up the studio light.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Yeah.

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They needed some yellow or so, they still can't really do that, I think.

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To imitate daylight.

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It's partly a colour temperature thing, which they just don't worry about.

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But it's also having light coming from basically one place.

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Because on a sunny day, the light is coming from a particular source.

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And so you need more kind of actually harsher shadows.

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Yeah.

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That gives you the effect of that.

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But obviously it's a terribly overcast day on menusa.

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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.

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So obviously there's a lot of haze, a lot of industry on Menusa.

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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.

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Yes, they turn down the lights when they go into the caves.

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That's pretty much it everywhere else is floodlit.

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It's all too laid back.

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If Doctor Who is about talking urgently in corridors in the... needed some urgency.

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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.

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Yes, because everybody, because basically Lon and his mother are very laid back.

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But that is obviously what they're trying to present.

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They're trying to prepare this, you know, the idol rich, basically.

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Yeah, he's bored and so on and she's just dressing up to go out to parties and things like that.

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They've got nothing to do.

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But there's no sense of momentum.

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There's no sense of energy in any of those scenes.

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And that's why it's just not a good way to start a story.

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I have to say, though, that I really like those scenes and I really like those two.

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Yes, but I just don't think it's well placed.

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There needed to be another scene.

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That's right.

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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.

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I think having those 2 who are extraordinary.

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I think the woman who plays Tanha has a good claim to be one of the very, very best guest actors of the 1980s.

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And Martin Cloons is amazing.

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Great.

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He's so good.

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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.

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When he was on a panel show.

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That's right.

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Look where men behaving badly, Star Martin Clunes started.

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And it's really unfair because he is so good in the production.

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And the costume that he wears for the rest of the thing is just astoundingly great, isn't it?

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Let me look at you.

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He's so good.

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And just the look of him as well, because he's got those lips.

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He's wearing makeup, like he's wearing lipstick of some kind as well.

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Well, but I think and partly that's period and it's the 80s and stuff like that.

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And later on he's wearing red eyeliner as the Mara starts to take over him a little bit.

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But there's just something about appetite.

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He's also got sort of shark teeth as well.

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And because Tahnha's name means thirst. right?

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Or desire or something like that.

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And both of them, like they want something, they're bored because there's something that they're not getting they want.

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Yeah.

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And so and so their boredom is all about sort of frustrated want.

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And so, you know, the lips are sensual, the teeth are hungry.

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You know, it's a really really good look, I think.

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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...

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I lose those words far too me.

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And it's clearly on the pretext of a woman being there for him.

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And when he sees Tegan, he walks towards her and says, well, why not?

181
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And you think like, that's quite strong for Doctor Who in the 80s. extraordinary.

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It's brilliantly written and underplayed so that it will get past a lot of people.

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But we all know what's going on.

184
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Well, I didn't when I was 10. sure didn't.

185
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No, she gives him the snake, not the other way around.

186
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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.

187
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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.

188
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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.

189
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They should have made the fangs stiff because their fangs wobbling around in the mouth don't help to sell it.

190
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Yeah, it's the great tradition of rubber teeth from invasion of the dinosaurs.

191
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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.

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But some of them are also achieved.

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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.

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They are great images, but there's so much more scope for the production to deliver that, which it doesn't.

195
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So that scene, in the Hall of Mirrors, it's just Tegan wandering around in MCU from mirror to mirror.

196
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It should have been something altogether, more unsettling and weird, cast into this nether place where there's just mirrors and darkness.

197
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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.

198
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And it's lacking the kind of imagery that we're getting Kinder with the black void.

199
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We get it for a second, don't you?

200
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for a moment.

201
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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.

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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.

203
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You can see it trying to achieve...

204
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Exactly.

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And it is so much wasted potential.

206
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And that's, I think, what makes me cross.

207
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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.

208
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Let's not go nuts.

209
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Paulette O'Neill is Tanha.

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I think she is a great actress, the way she's performing the role, with one exception.

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Her voice is very quiet. there's not very much sound coming out of her voice so much.

212
00:15:54.539 --> 00:16:00.240
So the microphone levels are turned up such that I can hear the roomy sound of the studio.

213
00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:02.399
It's not like you hear the ambiance.

214
00:16:02.460 --> 00:16:06.179
It's not like you're hearing props be dropped or something or people moving about behind the camera.

215
00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:12.000
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.

216
00:16:12.059 --> 00:16:14.340
It's almost like Menusa has a background hiss.

217
00:16:14.399 --> 00:16:15.000
Yes.

218
00:16:15.059 --> 00:16:18.779
And that's how it manifests itself is like...

219
00:16:18.779 --> 00:16:24.120
And that and it just sort of becomes annoying. especially those scenes where she's, oh, do you be quiet.

220
00:16:24.179 --> 00:16:24.720
And she is.

221
00:16:24.779 --> 00:16:26.159
So it's a very subtle performance.

222
00:16:26.220 --> 00:16:29.820
She just needed a bit more declamatory with her delivery.

223
00:16:29.879 --> 00:16:34.259
And that adds to the staginess of the production as well, because it feels like you are in a room.

224
00:16:34.259 --> 00:16:35.940
Yes, you feel like you're in.

225
00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:36.480
I get a sense.

226
00:16:36.539 --> 00:16:37.200
I in a studio.

227
00:16:37.259 --> 00:16:37.799
This is a set.

228
00:16:37.919 --> 00:16:44.940
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.

229
00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:46.200
It's full of audiences.

230
00:16:46.259 --> 00:16:49.139
We've got the kids, you've got the kids watching Punch and Judy.

231
00:16:49.200 --> 00:16:52.379
The Mar itself seems to want an audience.

232
00:16:52.440 --> 00:16:56.159
It keeps Paul Duggan around just to be forced to look at what it's doing.

233
00:16:56.220 --> 00:16:58.620
That's its catchphrase, isn't it?

234
00:16:58.679 --> 00:17:01.620
Look at me, look at me. and that's how we defeat it.

235
00:17:01.679 --> 00:17:02.519
My catchphrase.

236
00:17:02.700 --> 00:17:08.519
I mean, the ritual itself requires all these people to be in attendance so that it can suck out their evil.

237
00:17:08.579 --> 00:17:21.599
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.

238
00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:48.660
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.

239
00:17:48.720 --> 00:17:59.400
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.

240
00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:01.559
Stayed in character.

241
00:18:01.619 --> 00:18:01.920
Well done.

242
00:18:02.039 --> 00:18:14.099
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.

243
00:18:14.700 --> 00:18:16.079
It's like dance.

244
00:18:16.140 --> 00:18:16.680
You know what I mean?

245
00:18:16.740 --> 00:18:19.500
It's it's it's just cheaper.

246
00:18:19.559 --> 00:18:20.099
Yes.

247
00:18:20.099 --> 00:18:22.799
I mean, what it is, is a poor choice from the director.

248
00:18:22.859 --> 00:18:23.400
Yeah.

249
00:18:23.400 --> 00:18:24.359
Or the designer.

250
00:18:24.420 --> 00:18:25.859
Well, makeup artist.

251
00:18:25.859 --> 00:18:26.519
Where's that?

252
00:18:26.519 --> 00:18:27.480
Who's making that decision?

253
00:18:27.539 --> 00:18:28.980
Where's the director saying, no, not that, that.

254
00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:29.579
Yeah.

255
00:18:29.579 --> 00:18:36.900
I do think that the snake inflating on Tegan's arm and then turning into the big snake. probably what it was for.

256
00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:42.359
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.

257
00:18:42.420 --> 00:18:42.779
Yeah, yeah.

258
00:18:42.839 --> 00:18:45.359
I mean, most of the time, I don't think it would have been pump upable.

259
00:18:45.420 --> 00:18:47.099
It is just a...

260
00:18:47.160 --> 00:18:50.039
But I do think that that is particularly effective.

261
00:18:50.099 --> 00:18:55.019
But yes, I think, you know, there's audiences and show and stuff like that.

262
00:18:55.079 --> 00:19:07.500
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.

263
00:19:07.559 --> 00:19:13.319
And, you know, Dugdale and the fortune teller both say that what they're doing is just for show.

264
00:19:13.380 --> 00:19:14.039
It's not real.

265
00:19:14.099 --> 00:19:26.160
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.

266
00:19:26.279 --> 00:19:28.680
I mean, that's great, Doctor Who dialogue.

267
00:19:28.740 --> 00:19:41.940
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.

268
00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:49.859
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.

269
00:19:49.920 --> 00:19:54.299
But also, the Federation obviously lives in this sort of post-religion.

270
00:19:54.359 --> 00:19:54.900
Yes.

271
00:19:54.900 --> 00:19:58.319
But they allow the natives to practice their religion.

272
00:19:58.380 --> 00:20:05.099
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.

273
00:20:05.160 --> 00:20:08.460
But they don't really believe the Maa from a religious point of view.

274
00:20:08.519 --> 00:20:09.720
They just, it's a myth.

275
00:20:09.839 --> 00:20:10.559
It's a legend.

276
00:20:10.619 --> 00:20:13.500
And so all of the ceremony involved with that is it's just words.

277
00:20:13.559 --> 00:20:14.700
It's just nonsense.

278
00:20:14.759 --> 00:20:16.859
Yeah, and that's what the doctor has to do.

279
00:20:16.920 --> 00:20:22.079
I mean, that's what's fun about the doctor is he's here saying all the religion is real.

280
00:20:22.380 --> 00:20:25.440
He's running up to devil's end.

281
00:20:25.500 --> 00:20:27.599
Yes, I suppose that's what it is.

282
00:20:27.599 --> 00:20:28.259
Stop that deer.

283
00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:29.880
Okay, dear, yes, yes.

284
00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:33.779
And he's really interesting for that reason.

285
00:20:33.839 --> 00:20:37.079
That's why I think he's slightly manic because he has to look really mad.

286
00:20:37.140 --> 00:20:40.680
You know, like he has to seem unreliable.

287
00:20:40.740 --> 00:20:47.819
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.

288
00:20:49.319 --> 00:20:53.759
The with Amber. where he says, oh yes, no, I'll put a stop to it.

289
00:20:53.819 --> 00:20:54.240
That's fine.

290
00:20:54.299 --> 00:20:54.839
Anything else?

291
00:20:54.900 --> 00:20:56.700
You know, like I'm sorry.

292
00:20:56.759 --> 00:21:00.539
That's all right, you know, like just absolutely dismissive of him.

293
00:21:00.599 --> 00:21:01.920
I think he's...

294
00:21:01.920 --> 00:21:03.900
Well, it's because he's had so many endless cranks.

295
00:21:03.960 --> 00:21:04.799
Yeah, yeah.

296
00:21:04.859 --> 00:21:06.240
I adore Amber.

297
00:21:06.299 --> 00:21:09.420
I love it when he comes back all dusty, like he's a dusty old book on the shelf.

298
00:21:10.140 --> 00:21:15.240
He is extremely knowledgable and he won't stop being knowledgable.

299
00:21:15.299 --> 00:21:18.779
He's knowledgable at Tanha until she can't help herself, but you're.

300
00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:20.700
But she says, that is wrong.

301
00:21:20.759 --> 00:21:22.200
She says, oh, do be quiet.

302
00:21:22.859 --> 00:21:25.619
I'm getting bored into tiny bits.

303
00:21:26.700 --> 00:21:32.160
So he has all this knowledge and it's all around the Sumarian Empire and so forth.

304
00:21:32.220 --> 00:21:36.720
But it's the wrong kind of knowledge to actually deal with the Mar. That kind of knowledge.

305
00:21:36.839 --> 00:21:38.279
He just he just dismisses.

306
00:21:38.339 --> 00:21:42.900
And it's wonderful too how that gets turned into desire as well.

307
00:21:42.960 --> 00:21:49.319
Like the way that he is caught is because of his greed, his desire.

308
00:21:49.559 --> 00:21:52.440
He's thirst, and that's how he can be manipulated.

309
00:21:52.500 --> 00:21:56.099
He's like the doctor in plunder of the spiders, greed for knowledge.

310
00:21:56.160 --> 00:21:58.859
I mean, he's like a fanboy, isn't he?

311
00:21:58.920 --> 00:22:03.960
He's got all of the minutiae at his fingertips, but he's focussed on appreciating the show wrong.

312
00:22:04.019 --> 00:22:07.619
You know, it has the sea devils come back, not do we have a good story this week.

313
00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:09.779
And so, what are you talking about?

314
00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:19.319
And so that scene where he is taken by Lon into the secret cavern and there's all of the artefacts there.

315
00:22:19.380 --> 00:22:40.980
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.

316
00:22:41.160 --> 00:22:43.440
Do what they needed.

317
00:22:44.519 --> 00:22:46.680
It's a very good analogy, actually.

318
00:22:46.740 --> 00:22:48.420
Yeah, yeah, because that's exactly what it's like.

319
00:22:48.480 --> 00:22:50.160
It's hard to describe.

320
00:22:50.220 --> 00:22:52.680
It's a substance of the legend.

321
00:22:52.740 --> 00:22:54.299
He cares about the trappings around it.

322
00:22:54.359 --> 00:22:54.900
Yes, yes.

323
00:22:54.960 --> 00:22:57.180
Because it is a real legend, it's true.

324
00:22:57.240 --> 00:23:03.180
This legend is true, unlike the legends that archeologists deal with here.

325
00:23:03.240 --> 00:23:07.319
And so he's talking about science and he's talking about all of those sorts of things.

326
00:23:07.380 --> 00:23:12.420
The big misunderstanding, that big misunderstanding about the 6 faces of delusion.

327
00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:15.599
Whenever I hear that, I always think the 5 faces of Doctor Who.

328
00:23:16.019 --> 00:23:20.700
But, you know, in a sense that's really obvious.

329
00:23:20.759 --> 00:23:23.220
Like, it's not super clever.

330
00:23:23.279 --> 00:23:28.079
And you think anyone with their wits about them is kind of working that out as they watch it.

331
00:23:28.140 --> 00:23:31.799
Like no one's surprised by how Pete resolves that.

332
00:23:31.859 --> 00:23:36.720
But can I say if it had been better directed that would have had more of a rhythm to it?

333
00:23:36.779 --> 00:23:39.180
It's on screen in shot for far too long.

334
00:23:39.240 --> 00:23:41.519
The audience has already got there before the script has.

335
00:23:41.579 --> 00:23:47.039
But in a way, that just shows how ill equipped Amberley is to deal with what's really going on.

336
00:23:47.099 --> 00:23:50.400
So he sees it as an artefact.

337
00:23:50.460 --> 00:23:53.819
He talks about its artistic merit, all of that sort of thing.

338
00:23:53.880 --> 00:23:55.980
What period of the smart empire?

339
00:23:56.039 --> 00:23:56.880
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

340
00:23:56.940 --> 00:23:59.039
The middle period or something like that, a perfect...

341
00:23:59.099 --> 00:24:00.000
The inner Smoid era.

342
00:24:00.359 --> 00:24:05.460
But he doesn't think of it as an actual thing that someone would wear.

343
00:24:05.519 --> 00:24:07.859
And it's an artefact for him. not a mask.

344
00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:10.019
It's an artefact to sit on a thing, a pole.

345
00:24:10.079 --> 00:24:10.559
That's right.

346
00:24:10.619 --> 00:24:12.720
And so he never thinks of someone actually putting it on.

347
00:24:12.839 --> 00:24:15.480
And perhaps it's never occurred to him to put it on before.

348
00:24:15.539 --> 00:24:21.720
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.

349
00:24:21.779 --> 00:24:31.259
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.

350
00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:33.660
I adore trailer as well.

351
00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:35.099
He's fantastic.

352
00:24:35.160 --> 00:24:36.960
He's beamed in from a boy band.

353
00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:43.740
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.

354
00:24:43.799 --> 00:24:45.839
Yeah, I thing between him and Nissa.

355
00:24:45.900 --> 00:24:46.500
Yeah.

356
00:24:46.559 --> 00:24:48.900
Poor Nissa has got nothing to do in the story.

357
00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:50.640
She might as well hang around with child.

358
00:24:50.700 --> 00:24:51.839
Have you met Nessa?

359
00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:55.140
I was also thinking I'm not entirely sure where the trailer is that way inclined.

360
00:24:55.200 --> 00:24:56.460
No, I think he probably is.

361
00:24:56.880 --> 00:25:08.759
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.

362
00:25:08.759 --> 00:25:19.559
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.

363
00:25:19.619 --> 00:25:20.819
Thank you, but I didn't need that.

364
00:25:20.880 --> 00:25:23.759
And he just he just gives the doctor this, oh, women.

365
00:25:27.119 --> 00:25:30.359
Why are we talking about odd pacing and stuff?

366
00:25:30.420 --> 00:25:32.099
Why is that scene there?

367
00:25:32.279 --> 00:25:35.339
And why is the scene where we distract the guard there at all?

368
00:25:35.400 --> 00:25:42.900
We have got to keep the doctor and Nesso and Shayla from interfering with the ceremony until it's climax.

369
00:25:43.019 --> 00:25:44.400
That's purely it.

370
00:25:44.519 --> 00:25:45.960
They could be on a bus that broke down.

371
00:25:46.019 --> 00:25:47.039
It would have the same effect.

372
00:25:47.099 --> 00:25:47.940
Yeah.

373
00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:55.559
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.

374
00:25:55.619 --> 00:25:56.099
Yeah.

375
00:25:56.160 --> 00:25:58.619
Well, exactly. anything to liven things up a little bit.

376
00:25:58.680 --> 00:26:12.359
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.

377
00:26:12.420 --> 00:26:18.599
But yeah, that's a way to deciding that 3 parts is actually the natural format for Doctor Who storytelling.

378
00:26:18.660 --> 00:26:20.759
Because that is just stalling.

379
00:26:20.819 --> 00:26:29.700
And it's an entire episode of the doctor doing exposition and stuff, which could have been done more subtly more quickly.

380
00:26:29.759 --> 00:26:35.940
I do slightly take issue with that because I think that there are plenty of other stories which use the 4 episodes effectively.

381
00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:39.960
It's just that I think in the 80s, it's almost like they forget how to do that.

382
00:26:40.019 --> 00:26:45.420
I mean, I know that it's a jigsaw puzzle. you know, there are only so many sets.

383
00:26:45.480 --> 00:26:49.859
You can have, there are only so many different parts. you can have that shapes, the amount of story you can tell.

384
00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:54.720
And as we were saying earlier, you're stalling so that you can get your characters in place for the climax.

385
00:26:54.779 --> 00:26:55.619
Exactly.

386
00:26:55.680 --> 00:27:12.359
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.

387
00:27:12.420 --> 00:27:19.140
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.

388
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:22.799
Episode 3 should have been the going up into the hills. was just about to say that.

389
00:27:22.859 --> 00:27:24.240
There's enough stuff there.

390
00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:27.599
Exactly. and then those sequences can be a bit more meaningful.

391
00:27:27.660 --> 00:27:32.940
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.

392
00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:37.200
And, you know, this thing is an odd hangover.

393
00:27:37.259 --> 00:27:49.019
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.

394
00:27:49.079 --> 00:27:52.440
And I think that we needed more incidents for these 4 parts.

395
00:27:52.500 --> 00:27:53.880
I think you need, yes, you need more incident.

396
00:27:54.240 --> 00:27:55.680
You're going to do four-part stories.

397
00:27:55.740 --> 00:27:58.319
Like if you're going to do a 6 part story, you need to fill it.

398
00:27:58.380 --> 00:28:03.480
You don't just stop because you run out of ideas because Kinder does not feel too long.

399
00:28:03.539 --> 00:28:04.619
No, no, absolutely.

400
00:28:04.619 --> 00:28:09.900
And for whatever flaws there are with something like Forge of Doomsday or the visitation, earth shock.

401
00:28:10.019 --> 00:28:12.960
Because Earthshock goes from PlayState to Place B. Yeah, yeah, that.

402
00:28:13.019 --> 00:28:13.380
Correct.

403
00:28:13.440 --> 00:28:18.000
There are plenty of examples of the four-part format work. just the fact that they don't have enough content.

404
00:28:18.059 --> 00:28:20.400
No. somewhere between a 2 and a four-part story.

405
00:28:20.460 --> 00:28:26.220
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.

406
00:28:26.279 --> 00:28:28.259
There are ways that studio bookings work.

407
00:28:28.319 --> 00:28:40.740
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.

408
00:28:40.799 --> 00:28:47.519
And he makes the restrictions of how the studios and locations stuff work to his advantage to create the 23 part stories.

409
00:28:47.579 --> 00:28:51.059
That may not have been available at this point because there wasn't enough location filming.

410
00:28:51.119 --> 00:28:51.420
Who knows?

411
00:28:51.539 --> 00:29:06.660
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.

412
00:29:06.660 --> 00:29:15.059
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.

413
00:29:15.059 --> 00:29:17.700
Ah, creature from the bit nightmare of eaten horns of 9.

414
00:29:17.759 --> 00:29:21.900
They are 3 Destiny of the Daleks and City of Death 2, but those other 3 just do not.

415
00:29:21.960 --> 00:29:24.240
There's just not enough.

416
00:29:24.299 --> 00:29:25.680
And the charter's too long as well.

417
00:29:31.799 --> 00:29:34.799
Let's talk about the return of the Mara.

418
00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:49.859
I think that this is a very, very rare occasion where we actually give the Mara a science fiction backstory without ruining them.

419
00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:51.960
And I think it's incredible.

420
00:29:52.019 --> 00:29:57.900
But when something weird and supernatural happens in Doctor Who, it benefits from not being explained.

421
00:29:59.099 --> 00:30:01.019
Well, not just Doctor Who, everything, I mean, well, that's right.

422
00:30:01.019 --> 00:30:03.240
Yeah.

423
00:30:03.299 --> 00:30:03.839
I mean really?

424
00:30:03.900 --> 00:30:04.440
Yeah.

425
00:30:04.500 --> 00:30:15.000
Whereas here, the Mara actually become an artefact created by the people of Manusa before the Samaran Empire.

426
00:30:15.059 --> 00:30:23.400
The Mar is created, it's rayified, it's made real through the crystals which they've made in 0 gravity.

427
00:30:23.460 --> 00:30:24.420
Their artefacts.

428
00:30:24.480 --> 00:30:29.220
The realisation of that is actually really quite well done, as Pete discovers all of that stuff.

429
00:30:29.279 --> 00:30:30.180
I think that's really good.

430
00:30:30.240 --> 00:30:45.720
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.

431
00:30:45.720 --> 00:30:51.299
And all of that is so well done and it absolutely doesn't ruin it.

432
00:30:51.359 --> 00:30:52.500
It doesn't ruin it.

433
00:30:52.559 --> 00:31:04.200
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.

434
00:31:04.259 --> 00:31:05.400
Yeah, completely ruining it.

435
00:31:05.460 --> 00:31:07.140
This manages not to do that.

436
00:31:07.200 --> 00:31:07.920
I agree.

437
00:31:07.980 --> 00:31:11.339
I think it's because it addresses the same.

438
00:31:11.400 --> 00:31:14.819
The Mara means the same thing in snake dancers, it did in Kinder.

439
00:31:14.880 --> 00:31:37.019
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.

440
00:31:37.079 --> 00:31:48.299
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.

441
00:31:48.299 --> 00:31:51.240
I mean, they're both based on Buddhist style principles, aren't they?

442
00:31:51.299 --> 00:31:53.519
Both Planet of the Spiders and Mar stories.

443
00:31:53.579 --> 00:31:57.299
Yeah, I don't I don't know that either story is especially Buddhist.

444
00:31:57.359 --> 00:31:59.640
I think if you put them in front of a Buddhist who knew their stuff.

445
00:31:59.700 --> 00:32:00.599
They might be a bit well.

446
00:32:00.660 --> 00:32:01.500
They've picked and chosen.

447
00:32:02.039 --> 00:32:05.460
Well, I'm talking about someone who's went 3 paragraphs on the equivalent of Wikipedia.

448
00:32:07.500 --> 00:32:08.039
A bit of that.

449
00:32:08.099 --> 00:32:12.180
I think that there's probably more Buddhist stuff going on in Kinder than there is in Snake Dance.

450
00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:14.339
But it's still, it's still a powerful influence.

451
00:32:14.460 --> 00:32:23.279
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.

452
00:32:23.339 --> 00:32:28.380
And even though it has things like the Bhavachakra and all of those sorts of things in it.

453
00:32:28.440 --> 00:32:30.960
It's muddied a little bit.

454
00:32:31.019 --> 00:32:52.500
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.

455
00:32:52.559 --> 00:33:07.019
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.

456
00:33:07.019 --> 00:33:13.319
Or looking at it, but not being moved by it, not being terrified by it, by just being able to look at it clearly.

457
00:33:13.380 --> 00:33:14.339
I think that's a good idea.

458
00:33:14.400 --> 00:33:18.960
Dotan says about the snake to the doctor is like you just have to put your fear aside.

459
00:33:19.019 --> 00:33:20.940
You haven't been scared up until now. are you scared now?

460
00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:24.960
In fact, what's great is the moment where the still point gets mentioned.

461
00:33:25.019 --> 00:33:27.720
The doctor actually wonders where it is in the cave.

462
00:33:27.839 --> 00:33:30.240
And then he's told, no, no, it's inside you.

463
00:33:33.480 --> 00:33:36.240
He might not have watched Doctor Who before.

464
00:33:37.559 --> 00:33:50.400
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?

465
00:33:50.400 --> 00:33:51.660
It's about finding the centre point.

466
00:33:51.720 --> 00:33:53.220
It's about self-discipline.

467
00:33:53.279 --> 00:33:57.960
And it's when the society's become greedy and all that.

468
00:33:58.019 --> 00:33:59.579
That's when they fall apart.

469
00:33:59.640 --> 00:34:23.400
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.

470
00:34:23.460 --> 00:34:25.079
And really, it's all for nothing.

471
00:34:25.139 --> 00:34:27.059
The ceremony is for nothing.

472
00:34:27.179 --> 00:34:28.860
It's all about finding the still point.

473
00:34:28.920 --> 00:34:36.420
And I think Chris Bailey is interested in that idea of everything else being performance apart from the realisation inside you.

474
00:34:36.480 --> 00:34:44.219
He's also interested, I think, in the nature of storytelling and particularly through the character of the jester.

475
00:34:44.280 --> 00:34:47.639
And it's interesting that in Kinder, we have an actual jester.

476
00:34:47.639 --> 00:34:55.440
In Snake Dance, we have an actual jester in Dugdale, but also the doctor is put into the role of being a jester.

477
00:34:55.500 --> 00:35:00.780
He is the crazy person who comes in spouting truths and no one believes them and sidelines them.

478
00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:05.099
It's almost like 2 actually. 2 points I want to make about the sequel thing.

479
00:35:05.159 --> 00:35:10.440
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.

480
00:35:10.559 --> 00:35:12.059
I just think it could be much better.

481
00:35:12.119 --> 00:35:14.219
Yeah, no, I actually think it's really rather good.

482
00:35:14.280 --> 00:35:15.420
It's just so frustrating.

483
00:35:15.480 --> 00:35:16.739
So frustrating, not well to living.

484
00:35:16.800 --> 00:35:20.400
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.

485
00:35:20.460 --> 00:35:33.539
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.

486
00:35:33.659 --> 00:35:37.079
In fact, it almost looks like it's going to be that.

487
00:35:37.139 --> 00:35:37.920
Yes, doesn't it?

488
00:35:37.980 --> 00:35:40.739
Because the, what, what does the Mara do?

489
00:35:40.800 --> 00:35:42.780
Well, it possesses Tegan, obviously.

490
00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:44.099
And so we're doing that again.

491
00:35:44.159 --> 00:35:46.199
We're having Tegan's dreams.

492
00:35:46.260 --> 00:35:47.099
Dream again, yes.

493
00:35:47.159 --> 00:35:49.139
You know, we're doing all your favourite bits again.

494
00:35:49.199 --> 00:35:50.519
Yeah, your favourite lines again.

495
00:35:50.579 --> 00:35:52.139
And we get all so well done.

496
00:35:52.199 --> 00:35:53.039
Yes, yes.

497
00:35:53.159 --> 00:35:56.219
This time we'll have the Dale coming out of sand, rather than the sand.

498
00:35:56.280 --> 00:36:02.219
But it does make it more interesting and it gives it a completely different place.

499
00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:02.639
Yes.

500
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:09.059
The link between Menusa and Diva Loca is absolutely not clear at all.

501
00:36:09.119 --> 00:36:11.159
But that's because it's at the dark places of the inside.

502
00:36:11.219 --> 00:36:13.260
It's kind of throughout all space.

503
00:36:13.320 --> 00:36:17.699
That's the impression I get is that once it's been brought into being, it kind of can exist everywhere.

504
00:36:17.760 --> 00:36:24.059
Yeah, I would have loved to have seen a 2nd sequel set on earth, the with the Mara manifesting on earth.

505
00:36:24.119 --> 00:36:27.480
I think that could have been a really interesting, perhaps in an English village.

506
00:36:27.719 --> 00:36:29.880
That would have been fantastic.

507
00:36:29.940 --> 00:36:31.559
Or awfully tedious.

508
00:36:33.599 --> 00:36:35.940
But yeah, you understand what I'm saying.

509
00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:38.699
And that's where it just becomes a generic monster.

510
00:36:38.820 --> 00:36:39.420
I do understand.

511
00:36:39.420 --> 00:36:40.380
We're the underground.

512
00:36:40.440 --> 00:36:43.199
Yeah, we've looked at, yes, we looked at the Daleks syndaleic invasion.

513
00:36:43.260 --> 00:36:46.380
You know, we didn't look at these Warriors. because I think they're terribly boring.

514
00:36:49.260 --> 00:37:02.940
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...

515
00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:03.300
That right.

516
00:37:03.360 --> 00:37:04.800
And it kills them off.

517
00:37:04.860 --> 00:37:10.079
Like they don't retreat to the dark places of the inside and they're not an elemental force.

518
00:37:10.139 --> 00:37:15.179
They are a thing that was created in a particular place and in a particular way.

519
00:37:15.239 --> 00:37:17.880
And so we can kill them off at the end.

520
00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:20.519
They don't retreat to the dark places of the inside.

521
00:37:20.579 --> 00:37:23.340
Obviously, if we did a 3rd story, guess what?

522
00:37:23.400 --> 00:37:25.619
They retreated to the dark place.

523
00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:29.880
But I think that actually that's quite good.

524
00:37:29.940 --> 00:37:32.219
So you have the monster.

525
00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:37.980
It's very successful except in the season 19 TWM poll.

526
00:37:38.219 --> 00:37:40.980
Comes last. came a lot.

527
00:37:41.280 --> 00:37:43.920
God, there are a lot of things that could have come behind.

528
00:37:44.820 --> 00:37:48.900
Behind 4 to Doomsday and 3 slots behind Time Flight.

529
00:37:49.019 --> 00:37:49.980
Oh my god.

530
00:37:50.039 --> 00:37:51.179
Fans know nothing.

531
00:37:51.239 --> 00:37:51.840
Yeah.

532
00:37:51.900 --> 00:37:54.239
Which is why we're here talking.

533
00:37:56.400 --> 00:38:03.960
See, also my earlier comments about fans being fixated on the sea devils coming back, whether it's an actually good story.

534
00:38:04.019 --> 00:38:06.960
There was one thing I wanted, the 2nd thing I wanted to say about the sequel.

535
00:38:07.019 --> 00:38:07.559
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

536
00:38:07.619 --> 00:38:12.119
This is almost a bit meta because the sequel, merchandise is available.

537
00:38:12.179 --> 00:38:20.039
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.

538
00:38:20.099 --> 00:38:21.000
And you know what I mean?

539
00:38:21.059 --> 00:38:26.460
Like we're suddenly in the world where, you know, we've had Mara Mania and there's all this merchandise available.

540
00:38:26.519 --> 00:38:29.099
Yeah, I think they could have extended that to Doctor Who conventions.

541
00:38:29.159 --> 00:38:34.199
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?

542
00:38:35.940 --> 00:38:40.079
Oh, in case...

543
00:38:40.500 --> 00:38:44.039
Said no one who brought in the warriors ever.

544
00:38:47.280 --> 00:38:51.059
But I think that what's happened is we bring them back.

545
00:38:51.119 --> 00:38:52.679
We get it to do its party pieces.

546
00:38:52.739 --> 00:38:56.340
Then we do something different with it and then we give it...

547
00:38:56.340 --> 00:38:58.440
Without destroying it. without destroying the concept.

548
00:38:58.739 --> 00:38:58.920
Exactly.

549
00:38:58.980 --> 00:39:03.719
We give it an origin story that makes sense that somehow doesn't ruin anything.

550
00:39:03.780 --> 00:39:07.079
And then we kill it off and we don't go back there again.

551
00:39:07.139 --> 00:39:09.420
And I think that might be perfect.

552
00:39:24.300 --> 00:39:33.659
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?

553
00:39:33.719 --> 00:39:34.980
It's kind of what do we feel about that?

554
00:39:35.039 --> 00:39:39.179
I don't think that that's actually what's happening if you look at what's said about the history.

555
00:39:39.239 --> 00:39:45.000
And part of the thing is that we're kind of reading it like India under the Raj.

556
00:39:45.059 --> 00:39:45.840
Do you know what I mean?

557
00:39:45.900 --> 00:39:53.400
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.

558
00:39:53.460 --> 00:39:57.539
But when Tana talks about the culture of the planet.

559
00:39:57.599 --> 00:40:01.320
She talks about our culture and our history.

560
00:40:01.380 --> 00:40:03.179
And so the federation.

561
00:40:03.239 --> 00:40:09.300
I don't think is like the Galactic Federation or something external.

562
00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:12.539
It's something that the Menusians have developed.

563
00:40:12.599 --> 00:40:14.699
So I don't see...

564
00:40:14.820 --> 00:40:16.019
I think it's the manusens of development.

565
00:40:16.079 --> 00:40:16.800
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

566
00:40:16.860 --> 00:40:18.420
Oh, I thought they were wrestling.

567
00:40:18.480 --> 00:40:21.659
I thought, no, I thought they were rescued from the Mara by the Federation.

568
00:40:21.719 --> 00:40:22.500
They developed years ago.

569
00:40:22.559 --> 00:40:27.239
So the Federator comes and destroys it, but there's no indication the Federator is from another planet.

570
00:40:27.300 --> 00:40:34.320
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.

571
00:40:34.380 --> 00:40:43.500
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.

572
00:40:43.500 --> 00:40:51.780
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.

573
00:40:51.840 --> 00:40:56.159
And the federator is their ancestor, but they're not alien.

574
00:40:56.219 --> 00:40:56.880
I don't know.

575
00:40:56.940 --> 00:40:57.900
But they are visiting.

576
00:40:57.960 --> 00:41:05.400
She clearly doesn't live where they live because he doesn't have day-to-day contact with Amber or with his predecessor, Doja.

577
00:41:05.460 --> 00:41:05.880
She met him once.

578
00:41:05.940 --> 00:41:08.760
And the Federator is somewhere else.

579
00:41:08.880 --> 00:41:11.159
So he's representing the Federation.

580
00:41:11.219 --> 00:41:12.900
The sun is representing the Federator.

581
00:41:12.960 --> 00:41:15.059
And remember, she's being taken to the museums and so on.

582
00:41:15.059 --> 00:41:17.039
She's being introduced to all these people.

583
00:41:17.099 --> 00:41:17.820
Because he's really old.

584
00:41:17.880 --> 00:41:19.619
He's really old.

585
00:41:19.679 --> 00:41:21.480
Isn't that the impression you get?

586
00:41:21.539 --> 00:41:21.960
Yes.

587
00:41:21.960 --> 00:41:22.260
Yeah.

588
00:41:22.320 --> 00:41:23.219
He's incredibly old.

589
00:41:23.280 --> 00:41:24.840
She's much younger than him.

590
00:41:24.900 --> 00:41:25.679
They've married.

591
00:41:25.739 --> 00:41:28.679
She doesn't really care for him all that much.

592
00:41:28.739 --> 00:41:32.519
She's like the perfect 1st lady and that she's the power behind the throne.

593
00:41:32.639 --> 00:41:38.940
But I think that also she's transferred her affection from her horrible old husband to her son.

594
00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:43.739
Yes. in a way that you see with sort of horrifically rich old people.

595
00:41:43.800 --> 00:41:47.039
See, perhaps Trump and Murdoch.

596
00:41:47.099 --> 00:41:53.340
You know, that they have much younger wives who are kind of more obsessed with their sons and stuff.

597
00:41:53.400 --> 00:41:54.900
And there's that wonderful moment.

598
00:41:54.960 --> 00:42:01.440
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.

599
00:42:01.500 --> 00:42:06.780
And then in the next scene, their friends get and she's back and he goes, oh, am I forgiven?

600
00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:08.579
And she just says, aren't you always?

601
00:42:08.639 --> 00:42:14.400
That's a wonderful scene where she stalks out because he won't accompany her to the dinner with Amber.

602
00:42:14.460 --> 00:42:17.760
And within 10 seconds, she's back exhausting him to come again.

603
00:42:17.820 --> 00:42:18.239
Yes.

604
00:42:18.239 --> 00:42:19.559
It was really funny.

605
00:42:19.619 --> 00:42:22.440
We go to another scene, I think, with a doctor and this or something.

606
00:42:22.500 --> 00:42:23.400
And then she comes back.

607
00:42:23.460 --> 00:42:24.719
It's like, has she come back?

608
00:42:24.840 --> 00:42:26.760
Oh, no, no, she's only been gone for like a minute.

609
00:42:26.820 --> 00:42:28.619
Yes, yes, I've gone to get a scarf or something.

610
00:42:28.679 --> 00:42:35.219
This is a JNT thing, and it, again, is one of the creative processes that JNT was not a master of.

611
00:42:35.280 --> 00:42:42.179
He apparently insisted for reasons of providing momentum, although it never does because it doesn't work in a storytelling way.

612
00:42:42.239 --> 00:42:46.920
Chopping up longer scenes into bite-sized shorter scenes and they're just cutting between them.

613
00:42:46.980 --> 00:42:56.340
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.

614
00:42:56.400 --> 00:42:57.059
Well, not quite.

615
00:42:57.059 --> 00:42:58.019
O'Neill's.

616
00:42:58.079 --> 00:42:58.920
Well, some of them are.

617
00:42:58.980 --> 00:43:03.780
Well, it's funny because that's the editing they've tried to put into the colourisation of the Daleks and the war games.

618
00:43:03.840 --> 00:43:05.039
Yes, indeed.

619
00:43:05.280 --> 00:43:09.420
It's trying to provide impetus to the storytelling.

620
00:43:09.719 --> 00:43:20.099
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.

621
00:43:20.159 --> 00:43:20.760
I think it depends.

622
00:43:20.820 --> 00:43:22.079
It depends on the contents of the scenes.

623
00:43:22.139 --> 00:43:28.980
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.

624
00:43:29.099 --> 00:43:32.039
You're going to be running in tandem in some way.

625
00:43:32.099 --> 00:43:33.659
Yeah, I know. running in tandem.

626
00:43:33.719 --> 00:43:33.960
Exactly.

627
00:43:34.019 --> 00:43:38.940
They're feeding you different parts of the same story as opposed to just being stuff that's happening on screen.

628
00:43:39.059 --> 00:43:44.820
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.

629
00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:48.119
And I take on board your points, but I think they are definitely from somewhere else.

630
00:43:48.179 --> 00:43:51.539
It's more a kind of a flavour of like the Middle East or something that we're in.

631
00:43:51.599 --> 00:43:52.679
We're not in India.

632
00:43:52.739 --> 00:43:57.480
We're in even Morocco or Tunisia or something. mentions Morocco.

633
00:43:57.539 --> 00:44:00.840
I think maybe the designer mentions having been to Morocco.

634
00:44:00.900 --> 00:44:02.699
It's very, yes, and I think it's Marrakech.

635
00:44:03.059 --> 00:44:05.340
I think the market is inspired by Marakesh.

636
00:44:05.400 --> 00:44:14.400
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.

637
00:44:14.460 --> 00:44:25.920
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.

638
00:44:25.980 --> 00:44:32.099
Because all of the people, basically, there's a sense that there is tourism here, like off-world tourism coming.

639
00:44:32.099 --> 00:44:40.260
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.

640
00:44:40.260 --> 00:44:46.619
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.

641
00:44:46.679 --> 00:44:48.239
That could have been a bit more effective.

642
00:44:48.300 --> 00:44:54.659
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.

643
00:44:54.719 --> 00:44:56.760
It's done for tourism purposes.

644
00:44:56.880 --> 00:44:57.539
Yes exactly.

645
00:44:57.599 --> 00:45:00.659
But I think that that's partly a function of it looking crap.

646
00:45:00.719 --> 00:45:03.000
Like, I mean, do you know what I mean?

647
00:45:03.059 --> 00:45:14.519
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.

648
00:45:14.639 --> 00:45:15.900
Well, you know, yeah.

649
00:45:16.260 --> 00:45:26.460
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.

650
00:45:26.519 --> 00:45:29.280
Sanders wears a pith helmet, for God's sake.

651
00:45:29.400 --> 00:45:30.900
So it's very...

652
00:45:30.900 --> 00:45:32.519
And they're very much about civilising the natives.

653
00:45:32.579 --> 00:45:34.019
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

654
00:45:34.079 --> 00:45:34.739
That's right.

655
00:45:34.800 --> 00:45:44.579
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.

656
00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:47.760
It just looks too appallingly cheap.

657
00:45:47.820 --> 00:45:50.159
Even to the early 80s. just looks cheap.

658
00:45:50.219 --> 00:45:53.880
And it probably wasn't as cheap as all that, but it looks like it was the budget saving story.

659
00:45:53.940 --> 00:45:57.780
I think there are so many sets and each set looks tiny.

660
00:45:57.840 --> 00:46:06.719
And the market set, which is meant to be impressive, looks like an amateur theatrical production, sort of made out of plywood.

661
00:46:06.780 --> 00:46:10.260
And it doesn't always look like that in the 80s.

662
00:46:10.320 --> 00:46:18.239
And you think about, say, Frontios the following year, which is not particularly well mounted, but it looks better.

663
00:46:18.239 --> 00:46:27.599
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.

664
00:46:27.659 --> 00:46:31.800
That actually kind of, it's better than it is here, I think.

665
00:46:31.860 --> 00:46:35.039
Look, I think the show has not moved with this audience.

666
00:46:35.099 --> 00:46:39.420
It's making sort of small moves forward with effects and things like that.

667
00:46:39.480 --> 00:46:48.179
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.

668
00:46:48.239 --> 00:46:50.639
The audience has moved ahead of it.

669
00:46:50.699 --> 00:46:52.920
It's no longer viable to do it that way.

670
00:46:52.980 --> 00:47:07.320
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.

671
00:47:07.380 --> 00:47:11.099
And I think this is probably, they shouldn't have tried to have done this.

672
00:47:11.159 --> 00:47:12.599
They should have found other ways around.

673
00:47:12.659 --> 00:47:14.280
They should have made it an indoor market.

674
00:47:14.340 --> 00:47:26.579
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.

675
00:47:26.639 --> 00:47:30.179
It was always lampooned for having shaking walls and things like that.

676
00:47:30.239 --> 00:47:33.179
But people never really thought it looked terrible.

677
00:47:33.239 --> 00:47:38.880
In the 1980s it sometimes starts to look terrible. where we'll see more of that next week in Warriors of the Deep.

678
00:47:38.940 --> 00:47:41.039
There's no quality control.

679
00:47:41.099 --> 00:47:45.300
You'll have things which look fantastic and things which look awful.

680
00:47:45.360 --> 00:47:49.199
There's none of this Hinchcliff, what can we achieve and we'll do that?

681
00:47:49.260 --> 00:47:51.539
I agree with you, but only to a point.

682
00:47:51.599 --> 00:47:53.159
Story of our lives.

683
00:47:55.440 --> 00:48:01.380
I think that the crappy lookingness of Doctor Who had already well and truly started by that.

684
00:48:01.440 --> 00:48:05.880
It starts very much in the graham when he was era with invisible enemy and then underworld.

685
00:48:05.880 --> 00:48:06.719
Yeah, failed productions.

686
00:48:06.719 --> 00:48:08.280
Actually, things that failed.

687
00:48:08.340 --> 00:48:12.480
And it's either because they're too ambitious, budget cuts, whatever it is, inflation, et cetera.

688
00:48:12.539 --> 00:48:13.139
You're right.

689
00:48:13.199 --> 00:48:15.659
They should have thought, what can we realistically achieve?

690
00:48:15.719 --> 00:48:16.679
So I agree with that.

691
00:48:16.739 --> 00:48:21.300
I think you're being a little bit, the memory cheats, there I suggest a little bit.

692
00:48:21.360 --> 00:48:34.980
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.

693
00:48:35.039 --> 00:48:42.719
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.

694
00:48:42.780 --> 00:48:45.000
And remember, several years later in happiness patrol.

695
00:48:45.059 --> 00:48:46.139
They're trying to still do that.

696
00:48:46.199 --> 00:48:49.860
They're trying to have an outside city all within the studio.

697
00:48:49.920 --> 00:48:56.699
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.

698
00:48:56.760 --> 00:49:02.579
But I think saying it's happening already in late 82, which is when this is shot, is probably a little early.

699
00:49:02.639 --> 00:49:20.400
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.

700
00:49:20.460 --> 00:49:22.440
And I spoke to you about this.

701
00:49:22.500 --> 00:49:28.860
I think, Peter, and it was the sets, the quality of the sets in that season.

702
00:49:28.920 --> 00:49:33.840
So every shot that you're looking at has impressive looking sets.

703
00:49:33.900 --> 00:49:37.440
Now, the money runs out by Lagopolis and the sets are not impressive.

704
00:49:37.500 --> 00:49:41.460
But, you know, things like full circle, for instance.

705
00:49:42.059 --> 00:49:43.920
Keeper of Trunk.

706
00:49:44.639 --> 00:49:50.519
Well, your leisure hive, but even even the sort of the lasher aggressive vegetation of the planet Tigella looks pretty gray.

707
00:49:50.579 --> 00:49:52.500
Even if Zulf Thura doesn't look safe.

708
00:49:52.559 --> 00:49:53.639
No.

709
00:49:53.699 --> 00:49:54.179
Yeah, yeah.

710
00:49:54.239 --> 00:50:00.599
And it's trying something different, but there's a real attempt to do something visually impressive.

711
00:50:00.599 --> 00:50:04.739
And it's astounding that the following year already.

712
00:50:05.219 --> 00:50:08.039
It starts to fall to weird, isn't it?

713
00:50:08.099 --> 00:50:14.099
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.

714
00:50:14.159 --> 00:50:17.159
But I think, as you said, we don't have been made anymore.

715
00:50:17.219 --> 00:50:24.420
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.

716
00:50:24.480 --> 00:50:26.159
Yeah, we can achieve.

717
00:50:26.219 --> 00:50:41.519
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.

718
00:50:41.639 --> 00:50:45.179
Richard Martin said to me in an interview once, disparagingly.

719
00:50:45.239 --> 00:50:47.880
He was talking about Dave Whittaker. were you disparaging back to him?

720
00:50:48.539 --> 00:50:51.059
Richard Martin disparaged everybody.

721
00:50:51.119 --> 00:50:53.579
But he was particularly disparaging of David Whittaker.

722
00:50:53.639 --> 00:51:03.000
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.

723
00:51:03.059 --> 00:51:04.440
Now, Christopher H.

724
00:51:04.440 --> 00:51:10.559
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.

725
00:51:10.619 --> 00:51:12.780
But look at what he does with Warriors Gate.

726
00:51:12.840 --> 00:51:14.099
You haven't got as many sets, do you?

727
00:51:14.219 --> 00:51:15.179
Because you got all white void.

728
00:51:15.239 --> 00:51:17.400
And look how good, therefore, the ship looks.

729
00:51:17.460 --> 00:51:19.920
And also the fabulousness of the gate.

730
00:51:20.519 --> 00:51:23.039
Yes, the gate and also the Gothic dining table and so on like that.

731
00:51:23.099 --> 00:51:25.980
The notion of what the script territory is doing is correct.

732
00:51:26.039 --> 00:51:29.760
Okay, ideally you want to see King's Cross station, but you can't afford that.

733
00:51:29.820 --> 00:51:32.280
You can't make the alien planet look great in the studio.

734
00:51:32.340 --> 00:51:34.079
So set it in a room.

735
00:51:34.139 --> 00:51:36.360
So we're blaming Eric Saywood. that acceptable?

736
00:51:36.420 --> 00:51:37.199
As always.

737
00:51:38.519 --> 00:51:48.119
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.

738
00:51:48.179 --> 00:51:53.159
So again, that might be an argument for the script editor because you have Andrew Cartmel looking after the script later on.

739
00:51:53.219 --> 00:51:55.079
One of the problems is quality control.

740
00:51:55.139 --> 00:52:00.420
So I mentioned earlier that you would rarely get great scripts with great production.

741
00:52:00.480 --> 00:52:06.119
You would have a good script, which some have been married to adequate or poor production and vice versa.

742
00:52:06.179 --> 00:52:10.559
Even from scene to scene and episode to episode, the quality control is not there.

743
00:52:10.619 --> 00:52:20.400
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.

744
00:52:21.300 --> 00:52:24.300
One of the most uninspired ones.

745
00:52:24.300 --> 00:52:25.679
How did anyone know?

746
00:52:25.739 --> 00:52:26.940
Oh look, is that the time?

747
00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:28.199
Yes, exactly.

748
00:52:28.260 --> 00:52:29.820
Okay, kill them.

749
00:52:29.880 --> 00:52:30.420
No weight.

750
00:52:30.480 --> 00:52:31.860
I mean, that has become amazing.

751
00:52:31.920 --> 00:52:33.000
Not the only time that's happened.

752
00:52:33.059 --> 00:52:38.519
It's such an egregiously poor example of the drama.

753
00:52:38.579 --> 00:52:41.820
Can I say, though, that that's actually quite well directed?

754
00:52:41.940 --> 00:52:44.699
No, no, she runs to what?

755
00:52:44.760 --> 00:52:45.179
no, no.

756
00:52:45.239 --> 00:52:50.639
They run towards this figure that they don't even properly see that absolutely looms over them.

757
00:52:50.699 --> 00:52:53.280
Then they run back and there's someone there.

758
00:52:53.340 --> 00:53:01.739
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.

759
00:53:01.800 --> 00:53:02.880
Che gives a really piercing.

760
00:53:02.940 --> 00:53:17.760
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.

761
00:53:17.820 --> 00:53:25.019
One is the backstory, the history of Manusa, where the Mara came from, how it was created, what you can do to destroy it.

762
00:53:25.079 --> 00:53:28.139
And the doctor is assigned to that branch of the story.

763
00:53:28.199 --> 00:53:31.679
And then there's what Teen is doing and what she's doing with Lon.

764
00:53:31.739 --> 00:53:33.059
And so this is the presence.

765
00:53:33.119 --> 00:53:35.039
This is what's the threat is right now.

766
00:53:35.099 --> 00:53:37.619
This is happening and leading up to the climax.

767
00:53:37.679 --> 00:53:44.340
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.

768
00:53:44.400 --> 00:53:48.900
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.

769
00:53:48.960 --> 00:53:51.239
So he can be there just in the nick of time.

770
00:53:51.300 --> 00:53:53.099
And I do think it suffers from that.

771
00:53:53.099 --> 00:53:54.000
Mm.

772
00:54:19.500 --> 00:54:22.500
Well, that's all time we have this week.

773
00:54:22.559 --> 00:54:28.980
We'll be back next week to watch the Silurians encounter Chekhov's hexachromite gas in Warriors of the Deep.

774
00:54:29.039 --> 00:54:45.840
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.

775
00:54:46.559 --> 00:54:53.340
Until next time, do not take up serpents, and if you drink any deadly thing, it shall hurt you.

776
00:54:53.400 --> 00:54:54.960
So snap out of it.

777
00:54:55.019 --> 00:54:57.300
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

778
00:54:57.360 --> 00:54:58.739
Good night.

779
00:54:58.800 --> 00:54:59.639
Good night.

780
00:54:59.699 --> 00:55:17.820
Bye for now That was 500 Year Diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffiths, Simon Moore and Kate Orman.

781
00:55:17.880 --> 00:55:20.159
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.

782
00:55:20.219 --> 00:55:26.639
This episode, Baleful Gaze, was recorded on the 6th of April 2025, and released on the 25th of May.

783
00:55:26.699 --> 00:55:34.079
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.

784
00:55:34.139 --> 00:55:40.440
Our hot take on Wishworld will be released tomorrow, and our take on the reality war will be out a week after that.

785
00:55:40.500 --> 00:55:44.880
Head on over to our website at greatandbountiful.com for more details.

786
00:55:55.260 --> 00:55:58.199
Can I just talk about the Australian experience for a moment?

787
00:55:58.260 --> 00:55:58.739
Yeah.

788
00:55:59.639 --> 00:56:00.659
And this can be in the tag.

789
00:56:01.199 --> 00:56:20.820
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.

790
00:56:20.880 --> 00:56:27.780
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.

791
00:56:27.840 --> 00:56:30.480
And they didn't quite probably have the new... episodes, yeah.

792
00:56:30.539 --> 00:56:31.619
Right. didn't realise that was the reason.

793
00:56:31.739 --> 00:56:33.539
I always assumed mentally that because I didn't...

794
00:56:33.539 --> 00:56:35.519
So they started the season 2 weeks early with Black Orchard.

795
00:56:35.579 --> 00:56:36.179
I had a sent.

796
00:56:36.239 --> 00:56:36.480
Okay.

797
00:56:36.539 --> 00:56:43.739
But anyway, so that means that we saw, as we all saw as children, Black Hawk are shocking time, like, again in the leader.

798
00:56:43.800 --> 00:56:57.059
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.

799
00:56:57.239 --> 00:57:03.480
And those repeats include Morden and Dead onwards of season 20, but not Arc of Infinity and Snakedowns.

800
00:57:03.539 --> 00:57:16.860
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.

801
00:57:17.099 --> 00:57:28.079
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.

802
00:57:28.139 --> 00:57:37.559
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.

803
00:57:37.739 --> 00:57:48.599
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.

804
00:57:48.659 --> 00:57:56.460
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...

805
00:57:56.519 --> 00:57:57.480
What happened?

806
00:57:59.280 --> 00:58:04.380
These days it seems like quite a good idea that you might have...

807
00:58:04.380 --> 00:58:18.000
And then, and then I tried to tape episode one of Snake Dance and set the timer to 12 hours late and it never...

808
00:58:18.059 --> 00:58:18.659
Yeah, that's right.

809
00:58:18.719 --> 00:58:20.519
And so obviously, I thought I would never see it again.

810
00:58:20.579 --> 00:58:22.380
And you almost didn't.

811
00:58:22.440 --> 00:58:24.119
I think I have 3 copies of that.

812
00:58:25.860 --> 00:58:32.820
Season 20, I think, is one of the most underwhelming runs of Doctor Who ever.

813
00:58:32.880 --> 00:58:41.519
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.

814
00:58:41.639 --> 00:58:44.099
I mean, there always was anyway.

815
00:58:44.159 --> 00:58:45.539
Exactly.

816
00:58:45.780 --> 00:58:47.699
That was a retcon.

817
00:58:47.760 --> 00:58:48.179
Yeah.

818
00:58:48.179 --> 00:58:49.800
Someone realising it was.

819
00:58:49.860 --> 00:58:50.280
Yeah.

820
00:58:50.340 --> 00:58:53.340
There doesn't seem to be any aspirations for the storytelling.

821
00:58:53.400 --> 00:58:56.400
I think it's stymied a little bit by the fact that they lose the Dalek story at the end.

822
00:58:56.460 --> 00:58:59.760
I think that distorts the shape of the season a little bit.

823
00:58:59.820 --> 00:59:03.539
They would have improved it, but you would have still your takeaway would have been better.

824
00:59:03.599 --> 00:59:06.300
I mean, I like there is there look, I like enlightenment.

825
00:59:06.360 --> 00:59:07.619
There are things, but there's nothing great.

826
00:59:07.679 --> 00:59:11.340
There is nothing even, it's not great in season 20.

827
00:59:11.639 --> 00:59:12.420
It's vanilla.

828
00:59:12.480 --> 00:59:14.880
Vanilla is the word. beige.

829
00:59:15.480 --> 00:59:15.780
Absolutely.

830
00:59:15.900 --> 00:59:20.639
Modern undead is and the beijest of them all, you know. terminus as well.

831
00:59:20.699 --> 00:59:22.619
I mean, I like a lot of these stories.

832
00:59:22.739 --> 00:59:23.400
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

833
00:59:23.460 --> 00:59:31.619
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.

834
00:59:31.679 --> 00:59:35.159
I think just as Todd's down the pub conversation.

835
00:59:35.219 --> 00:59:39.659
Quite seriously, quite seriously, that is a thing. tedious that no one's dying around here.

836
00:59:39.960 --> 00:59:42.900
Well, no, no, no spoken characters.

837
00:59:42.960 --> 00:59:44.099
No speaking parts.

838
00:59:44.159 --> 00:59:47.639
And look, there's so there's so much of interest in this script in particular.

839
00:59:47.699 --> 00:59:55.260
I think it's head and shoulders above some of its contemporaries, which have been previously named and shamed after Infinity Terminus, Kings, Demons.

840
00:59:55.320 --> 00:59:56.940
There's a lot more to it.

841
00:59:57.000 --> 01:00:02.880
And yet the telling of it, the the, the delivery of it on screen is so curiously muted.

842
01:00:02.940 --> 01:00:04.199
Yes, muted.

843
01:00:04.260 --> 01:00:05.820
Pedestrian.

844
01:00:05.880 --> 01:00:16.559
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.

845
01:00:16.619 --> 01:00:18.000
It is behind the times.

846
01:00:18.059 --> 01:00:22.079
I feel like it is rather than pushing boundaries forward of television production.

847
01:00:22.139 --> 01:00:23.219
It's lagging at this point.

848
01:00:23.280 --> 01:00:24.119
That's right.

849
01:00:24.179 --> 01:00:25.679
It's suddenly a tired series.

850
01:00:26.400 --> 01:00:31.440
Tied in the way it's doing things, tied in its aspirations for the audience.

851
01:00:31.500 --> 01:00:40.260
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.

852
01:00:40.260 --> 01:00:44.340
Something is going wrong and it's going wrong at this point.

853
01:00:44.400 --> 01:00:48.000
And actually, it's an interesting point, Nathan, that you said, you know, oh, there's always something coming back.

854
01:00:48.119 --> 01:00:48.780
And it's true.

855
01:00:48.840 --> 01:00:55.980
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.

856
01:00:56.039 --> 01:00:57.659
We can say that that's part of the 20th anniversary.

857
01:00:57.719 --> 01:01:03.420
But the fact that that was going to happen anyway is a very poor indictment.

858
01:01:03.480 --> 01:01:10.019
We also suffer in season 20 from basically static direction, which comes back to the same point again.

859
01:01:10.079 --> 01:01:15.780
And even the better directors are only small G good, they're not outstanding.

860
01:01:15.840 --> 01:01:19.679
And there are too many of the Peter Moffatts and the Ron Joneses and all those sorts of people.

861
01:01:19.739 --> 01:01:20.639
Absolutely.

862
01:01:20.699 --> 01:01:24.360
And the whole misreading of what fandom wanted from the show.

863
01:01:24.420 --> 01:01:32.159
Fandom wanted a show, like the Hinchcliffe era, like the Graham Williams era, that was forward looking and...

864
01:01:32.219 --> 01:01:37.320
No, no, I'm talking about in sort of concepts and sort of ploughing new material, not consistently looking backwards.

865
01:01:37.320 --> 01:01:42.539
If they were going to do that, then what they needed to do was cater to the general public.

866
01:01:42.539 --> 01:01:44.340
And story one is a Dalek story.

867
01:01:44.400 --> 01:01:46.079
And story 2 is a cyberman story.

868
01:01:46.139 --> 01:01:47.699
We finally had the ice Warriors back, yeah.

869
01:01:47.760 --> 01:01:55.739
Or the yeti, the things that sit in the public consciousness, not who the hell is Omega from that one story 10 years ago.

870
01:01:55.800 --> 01:01:58.139
Not who are the black and white guardians?

871
01:01:58.260 --> 01:02:00.420
I think actually the black and white Guardians.

872
01:02:00.480 --> 01:02:08.159
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.

873
01:02:08.219 --> 01:02:09.179
You're doing terlo.

874
01:02:09.239 --> 01:02:11.579
Well, that's why I was going to say, well, that's why they have birds on the head.

875
01:02:11.639 --> 01:02:19.679
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.

876
01:02:19.800 --> 01:02:21.059
Do we have anything more?

877
01:02:21.119 --> 01:02:21.599
No.