A Full Front-On Shot

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 year diary. The only Doctor Who podcast that, given how unstable the current political situation is, is not to be unexpected. I'm Nathan. I'm Ikta. I'm Skibers, and I'm Tarpok. It's the 5th of January 1984. It's been just over 14 years since the doctor 1st ran into a Silurian in Derbyshire, and nearly 12 years since he 1st met a sea devil in BBC television centre Studio 8. And this evening, they've been plucked from the pages of the Doctor Who Monster book and sent out to attack Seabase 4. And the only question is, why? Let's see if we can work out the answer as we discuss Warriors of the Deep. So, I have to lay my card on the table. I really thought that this was astoundingly boring, and I don't think I thought that when I watched it for flight through entirety. And when I 1st watched it back in the day, I really, really liked it, but I'm afraid now, and particularly at this sort of point in recording this season of 500 year diary. There seems to me to be like a base under siege with anything interesting kind of accidentally omitted and enemies that are depressingly generic and horrifically poorly realised. Am I being unnecessarily cruel? There is no unnecessarily cruel. Only unnecessarily kind. I don't think it's boring. And I don't think it's as embarrassing as, say, time flight is. Again, I really liked it on its 1st transmission. And I think you touched on this in FTE, which is this was the 1st season that we knew the story titles in advance, thanks to the 20th anniversary Radio Time special. And so there was one paragraph summary saying that this was like a set in 100 years in the future, study ins and sea devils, and that was basically it, Cold War analogy and so on. And I remember at the time, having not long watched 5 doctors, that this was a step up from season 20 in terms of the look. I thought it looked fantastic. The sets were all clangy and metallic. They were big with 2 levels. Everyone looked fabulous with great hair and makeup, and there were sea devils and salurians in it. I was completely on board with this. I was even on board with this in the 86, 87 omnibus repeat on a Saturday afternoon where I... When a whole 5 years, I felt like 50 years old then when I'd 1st seen it. But no, I really enjoyed it. And I actually was really surprised watching it now. It's not a story that I return to very often. How much I actually enjoyed it. I'm going to say that I think there's actually, it's important to note there's a lot to recommend this story. I don't think it succeeds. I don't think it's a very good story at all, really, but there is a lot that is actually good about it. James had sought more money from BBC Enterprises. He'd sought a budget injection from them because Doctor Who was selling so well overseas. And I think this 1st story where he gets that budget injection and I think it shows on screen. I think the set for this story might be the best realised set in all of classic Doctor Who. Mattress doors, notwithstanding. execution, but actually the backdrop and how they put the set together looks incredibly impressive. I liked this at the time. Similar to Simon, the Radio Times 20th anniversary, getting that blurb in there knowing what was happening and so excited for it, as well as it's the year that Simon and I met at school. It is too. And so it actually... form a Silurian triad. I think there were more than 2 Doctor Who fans. Thank you, Peter. So this whole season, and that means a lot to me. And so I carried that emotion when I watched this story. And I actually, well, coming back to it, I think the urgency in Peter Davis's performance here, this is where he really steps up, I think is the doctor. You know, if he had this season and this performance. If I just judge him on that alone, he'd be up there as one of my favourite doctors based on that. I do think that his performance is really great this season, yeah. And that's what gets me through this story in particular, but just having the Silurians and Cedar was back, I thought, was magnificent, and I still really enjoy it now, except I do see its fault. The slow moving villains and they're talking. It was just... Let's get on to that. It was just... I think Davidson knows when a script is poor. He's, you know, he's instinctively, he knows when things are going wrong in the production. He seems to step it up when he thinks that he has to, just kind of plug the gaps. And so there's an extra urgency and kind of grimness to his performance here that the script doesn't really merit. I agree with you about the look. That was what struck me most of all the 1st time through, and I had enjoyed Space 1999, which also has a sort of fairly big set. Words never heard before. Really? I mean, space 1999 has a much more expensive and lavish and huge set than this, but it did have the 2 levels. And so I was kind of reminded of Maine Mission a little bit by the bridge. Of course, the Johnny Byrne connection being the script. I destroyed the 1st season of Space 1999. And I don't know if this story is apocryphal or not, but apparently he walked onto the set of Warriors in the deep and said this all looks much better than it did last time. meaning Space 1999. Yeah, it doesn't. But, I mean, it does... I think it helps it on films. Yeah, but it is a much bigger and much more beautiful and expensive set. This one does wobble from time to time, particularly whatever it is that they erect on location over the swimming pool, looks great and he's very consistent with the rest of the set, but it wobbles horribly during the action. I think the set looks great. I particularly like all the labels everywhere. You know, like there's just a little label saying, you know, keep this door closed, stuff like that. Lakelord Nilson that says villain. That's tattooed on his forehead. So it seems very real. I really like that a great deal. and I don't even object so much to the fact that it's well lit. I do think there is a problem with it not looking at all in any way, like it's underwater. And that's something, for instance, that under the lake before the flood gets right, that that's a building, you can't really see out the windows and stuff, but you're never in any doubt that it's anywhere other than underwater. But can I just say, I don't think that that's because of the sets or the lighting. I think it's because of the soundscape. They've done more at the soundscape to make it seem like it was in this metal clanging interior under the water than you would have bought it more. You can argue that it's no different to a space station. Sometimes they're gleaming white and beautiful like that, and other times they're dark and dingy and you worry that the oxygen's going to leak out. But I think that if it's underwater, let's sell it as being underwater. Make that visible in all of the scenes. I think that's a problem. And yet on the Silurian craft, I buy that. Yes. That's underwater. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's that sort of strange screen off in the distance that seems to have sort of odd water patterns projected onto it or something like that. So I do buy that. I think that that is better. I think that's a bad set, but I still think that it does seem underwater. But why do the cellarines need to be underwater? Like, that's my big question. It's sort of like they were not underwater the 1st time. They were just in the caves. Would you know 1st Silurians that don't bathe? But if tiles tend not to. But it's sort of like we've just latched onto the fact that the sea devils were, their base was underwater and they could come up. And so now the cellarians just suddenly are underwater and they have a craft that the doctor recognises and you're just going to go... They have to be underwater to wake the sea devils up. But where do they come? Why are they suddenly awake? Well, exactly. Let's unpick this. Originally, it was only meant to be the sea devils. But for some reason, they insisted, let's bring back the Silurians as well and make them the sea devils leaders and commanders. And so it doesn't really make sense in the plot. And in fact, you can see the hasty realisation that they've done something wrong in that line, which says that hexachromite is lethal to reptiles, who we're suddenly mentioning here for no reason and marine life, all marine life, but also reptiles, okay just so that the ending works. Like, that's a problem. But I think that there's a real problem in the Silurians and the sea devils seem to be here because they're recurring Doctor Who monsters, and they're not in any sense being reintroduced to a new audience at all. And the most visible sign of that is there they are in long shot at 2 minutes into the episode, having an incredibly boring conversation where they just stand around. Yeah. So where's our episode one reveal? Like, that's essentially it. Where's our giant end of episode one reveal? We're in a base under siege. Why are we not concentrating on their experience as things like their probe gets destroyed. There's something going on outside in the water. And then we learn about the cellular integration. Which all gets kind of halfway there. It's kind of tense. It's just taking it from the wrong angle. Yeah. I think that this is where JNT is suffering from the success of Earthshock, and there's a cyberman, but also the, I don't know whether it's faded by this point, but the influence of Ian Levine. No, I think it's full steam right. It's full steam right now. And much as I love this season and season 22. I recognise that the show is starting to eat its own young in relying too heavily on past things. Because of this, things like the 5 faces repeats and the monsters repeats and all the 1000000s of clips that they would have had on all the chat shows during the 20th anniversary. I think the history of Doctor Who has gone to their head. And so they've decided that the sea devils in Saudi Ureans, even though they only appeared in one story each a decade ago, that everyone will know who they are. Can I just suggest what a much better version of Warriors of the Deep would be? And I... One not directed by Pennant Roberts. Yes. That, who you praise in the FTE. Exactly what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. what you were all thinking. One develops with age, honestly. Revenge of the Sidement, which I know is a maligned story, does it so much better. As you're saying, where's this reveal? What you should have is you have all of the intrigue of the other power block opposed to this one on the base, and you think that's what it's going to be about, and there's spies, and maybe there is even another character who is working with this outside force. You know, the Dr. Quinn figure, the master in the sea devils. And then at the end of episode two, not one, but 2 is where suddenly out of nowhere, there's this submarine that arrives, docks and there they all are, the side of your ins and sea. Or even better at the end of episode two, Dr. Solo rips off her mask. Salvix. But I want to touch. I want to go back to what you're saying about JNT and Eric Saywood. There is a pattern occurring here. Like in season 19, we had the master back in the 1st story reimagined as a literal master of disguise. In season 20, suddenly we've got Omega in there and he's not quite as he was. He's now got a TARDIS, he's got the ergon here. We've got the sea devils and saloons redesigned, and we've now got the extra element of the murka without really thinking about it. Next year, we're going to have redesigns of the cyber control of the cyber tombs. We going to throw in the crayons. And there's this pattern that just keeps going on. And as you said, there doesn't seem to be any rhymeal reason for it, we're just going to use them because they were something from the past. But you see, I don't mind having like the murka or adding the crimes word. That is trying to do something, can build on the monster that you have. The problem is that JNT, I think, takes the wrong lessons from Earthshock. Earthshock does build the reveal of the cybermen very well. and makes it exciting for a general public audience because sidemen are front and centre. The wrong model is the Arc of Infinity, which is, you know bringing Omega back. Okay, it's the 20th anniversary, and he was in the 10th anniversary. Okay, that's a line that you feed to the doctoral appreciation society. That's a headline for the Duas newsletter. It's not for the general public who go, who's Omega? Yeah. I mean, they might have seen a repeat 18 months ago, who knows? 6000000 people did, but still. And the problem here is, you know, if we take the model of current Doctor Who, which brings back old monsters 2 or 3 times a season without any problem at all, it's quite fine. What you have to do is bring them back in an appropriate way and reveal them inappropriate way for an audience that may not know them. So, if you just bring back the Silurians and the sea devils and plot them on screen and say, oh, look, it's the Silurians and the sea devils, no one knows what you're talking about, and no one cares, particularly because you've stripped away anything that made them kind of special and stand in the 1st place. I think J and T needed to bring back old monsters and develop them and do something new with them rather than just say, look, we've brought them back. I mean, this starts, doesn't it? Perhaps with the sea devils. There's sort of 2 years, isn't there, between the Siderians and the sea devils? And when the sea devils are brought back, they are suddenly much more generic than the Silurians were. So they have the same backstory as the Silurians. They're a race of people who have as much claim to the planet as we do. And the Silurians does all of those things. Maybe even halfway through the Silurians, it probably goes down. You know, the Sillyrians have interesting things to say about colonialism and immigration and indigenity. They produce a new type of Doctor Who story, which isn't just aliens invade or weird things happen on another planet. Like it's a properly interesting premise. It's Malcolm Holk, isn't it? invaders or homegrown menace. Yeah, that's it. That's it. But they've got characters. There's different Silurians arguing about what's going on. Yes. Whereas the sea devils, you got the one leader and the rest of them just seem to be warriors, which we've just sort of taken on board here. Yeah, and in the sea devils, of course, the master is there manipulating them, and perhaps the most fun about the sea devils comes from, you know, enjoying the master after his few stories off. So already in their sort of 2nd appearance, they're a bit more generic and a bit less interesting here. I mean, they're very much here for revenge. It's almost like the moon base. You know, the cybermen come back to eliminate threats or something the next time round. They're here to eliminate threats or something. But nothing really very much about them as having a valid and competing claim to the planet is here. They could be interchanged with any sort of monster, I think, and we've talked about that before because like, even in the sea devils, there was action and they had their little guns, but they moved, not slowly. Yes. Whereas here it's just like, and they can't even fire, like just at the wall. Like, I mean, it's just those battle sequences. I just... But even in the sea devils. The idea of them being, once the rulers are here. Yes, it's kind of fine. It's given lip service, but that's about all, it's given even less lip service in this story, I think. can I just say in the sea devil? So really, you think they were probably aiming for a return for the Silurians, but then they decide they were going to set it in the sea? And so they said, let's make it an aquatic cousin of the Silurians. I think that's good. That's fine. You know, it's introducing a new race which is basically telling the same story. Another thing that they get wrong with bringing back monsters in the 80s is that they bring them back divorced from everything that made them special, divorced from all of their trappings. It's not just the 80s, though. It's all the way through. No, not really. The 80s is the problem because, okay, let's bring back the brigadier. You can't just bring that the brigadier and pop him in an 80s story. It doesn't really work. You need to bring back the brigadier surrounded by the trappings of units in a 70s style story that makes that nostalgia reel. Which is what Modern Undead gets wrong and Battlefield gets right. Correct. Absolutely. And so here you needed a Silurian slash sea devil's style story. You needed them coming out of the waves or out of the caves. You didn't need them walking slowly down a white futuristic corridor. That's taking them away from anything that made them work. And in fact, what does get it right is the two-parter in series five, which brings them back to an audience that's never seen them before and is aware that the audience has never seen them before that it shows them underground. It shows them reviving, it gives us a sense of their society. And then it makes the whole story B about how we're going to respond to their competing claims to the planet. And like, I think that has all sorts of flaws, and I think it flubs the ending in a really kind of depressingly unimaginative way. But on the way there, I think it creates great characters among the Silurians. You get to see them living underground in the spaces that they live in. They're all introduced to us properly and gradually as well. Whereas here, they're just introduced in kind of broad daylight. We're all somehow expected to know and care who they are. And they are given the names, but that's all they're given. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just expanding what you were saying, Peter, about, you know, taking the trappings away. I actually think it's right. I thought one of the things that we kind of settled on is that when the returning monster is more successful is you do something different with them, for instance, like Curse of Peladonio. Seeds of Death, they could be anything but Curse of Peladon. You do something different with the ice Warriors, for instance. So I actually don't have as much of a problem with the Brigadier and Morton and it as you do because I think that's interesting it's doing something different. What I will say is what's missing from this. It's not a matter of them coming out of in caves or having, you know, stepping out out of the surf. It's a matter of having what you're sort of saying, Nathan, more of a discussion and a sympathetic discussion of the fact that this race of beings are native to this planet and have a right to be here as well. And there's absolutely no discussion of that at all in Warriors of the Deep. I mean, there is a little bit actually. No, there's no, no, it's just the fact that the doctor says it. Well yes. Yes, but the point is there's no discussion of it. There's no, you know, the Siderians are presented as, as basically they're just villains. They're here to annihilate the human population of the earth by creating a nuclear war. There's no sympathetic character on the cellular inside, which there is in the animal stories. So you need to have differences between what you do in the Gypnol 2 parts or in series five. That's what's missing from this. And that's what I was wanting. I was wanting the Dr. Quinn type figure to be already in contact with the cellurians in advance of the story. And that sort of is what leads the side of your engine. Almost like having Dr. Sol hours a double- double agent. I think she's helping Nilson, but he's actually on the Silurian side. Exactly. Well, that kind of thing. Maybe that maybe it's... She could have been a marine biologist. Maybe it's what she's faced from Mission to Destiny who has that role. don't know. But you know what I mean? That's what's missing. And that's why the unfortunate thing. One of the unfortunate things about this story is it's one dimensionality. Yes, I think that's that's its biggest crime. And there's something also in the presentation as well. There was kind of a cheap and cheerfulness to the Silurian and the sea devil costumes the 1st time round. It's like they didn't look very good in the sea devils. Let's just wrap some fish netting around them. And suddenly that's an iconic image. Whereas now you seem to have this collision between reality and the fiction where they're trying to make the masks and the costumes more elaborate and more detailed. And yet that is hamstrung what we're seeing on screen because now they have to move very slowly. They can't get the costumes ready in studio and so you have, you know, the sea devil hats at angles and things, you know, off the heads. And so they've reached this wall where they can't actually make something that looked good in the 70s look good in the 80s. I agree with you because, like, I mean, when you actually see Salvex speaking, like, it's obvious that the actor's head is in the neck, you know what I mean? Like, it's so shoddy. And the Silurians, like, they've done all that fibreglass stuff. But when they're walking down that corridor, you see every join around like, and you can hear them creaking. And you're just there going, like, the original ones weren't great in their suits, but my goodness, like, they look worse every single episode. I think that the Silurian costumes are well thought out. They look good in a photo, say, on the cover of Matt Irvine's book. So in 1985. So the original ones, the original ones, which we love, obviously have a very real sense of being moulded out of 2 halves, and you can see the joy like that goes across their head, you know, at the midpoint. and the back of the heads are really undetailed and stuff. But what this has done is it's retained that sort of iconic 5 ridges with the central thing. I think it looks really good. The scales look really good. All of that. I don't know why it's not green. I don't know why it has to be this pale tan colour, but I think that that actually looks good. I think giving them clothes works as well. Remember the original silureans had that long thing that goes down the front that's designed to hide the zipper in the costume. Like they've got a, they've got a sort of thing around their neck. All of the sort of joins and stuff in the original salurines don't really work. So I think it's an iconic design that doesn't work in the 70s. And I think the redesign here is quite good, except that they do it so ham fistedly. So they don't tuck their necks into the costume. what I was saying. They don't take necks in like, no. Like, all of that stuff individually looks great. And you put it together and there's the gap between the chest plate and the neck and you see it walking down the corridor and you're going, 0 my goodness, that one's knocked tucked in. That one here. It's like, do we only have 5 minutes to prepare? for this episode. Apparently so. Yeah, it's really ham feasted. And you're right about the sea devils as well because, you know when the sea devils emerge from the sea in that iconic scene, It is very clearly a bunch of people with turtle heads on the tops of their hats. Do you know what I mean? Like, you're never in any doubt. But you're never in any doubt where the actors' heads are and there's turtle heads on top of them, you know. And they loll about a little bit as well. I have to say. But there are whole seats, and they move quickly. So you can kind of buy them as real creatures. It helps with kind of the credibility as a whole. Whereas here when they're just moving so slowly and sort of turning slowly to each other. It drags everything to a full stop. There are heads falling off. There's one scene towards the end where the main guy, Ikta, is there. Where Ignar is there and he's giving a big speech and behind him is a sea devil guard, whose head is virtually falling off. And I think the cameraman actually moves in order to make sure that Ictor is occluding our view of the sea devil whose head is falling off. And, like, the whole... Pendent up in the gallery, saying camera 5 to the left... Like, they're really bad. And, you know, the impression of the actors' heads being below the sea devil's heads is given by the fact that there's those dots and the little holes in the neck. So they can see and breathe. Yeah, yeah. Like they're really, really astoundingly inept. Okay, but we know why, don't we? We were rushed for time for some reason and Pennant Roberts. Wasn't the general election or something? They didn't have enough studio. a little bit of background on this. The general election was called from 1983. It was snap election, and so they needed to free up studio space. And so the only thing they could do rather than actually lose Warriors, the Deep's blocks and not have it filmed was to move it forward. Now, they were able to do that with everything else, but it was the visual effects, which were a problem, because the people who were going to work on visual effects, Warriors and Deep, were busy on another project. So that contracted the amount of time that they had to work on things like the murker. I don't necessarily think that's a problem when you're in the studio recording it. So you didn't have less time than they would have for any other Doctor Who. But this is a big thing. This is where the wheel starts to come off Doctor Who because JNT is aiming too big with the productions. Famously, Philip Hinchcliffe would rule things in and out depending on what could be achieved on screen. And so he would say, let's definitely have a jungle and planet of evil, because I know that we can reliably produce that and make it look good. Let's not have a robot in Brain of Morbius because that's not going to work on screen. Yeah. Oh, that's one element too many to pay for. Well, Robert Holmes says that Philip Hinchcliffe suddenly had doubts about it and said, I don't think we're going to be able to do a robot in Solon's place and make it look good. And so we're just going to rewrite it. JNT doesn't have that inhibition. And so I think... The issue's becoming too overconfident is the problem. Well, it shouldn't be overconfident. It should be a clear-eyed assessment of what can be achieved. And he's had plenty of experience with that given productions like earth shock and time flies. The problem is that he's producing Doctor Who to try to match things like Star Wars, which is the mistake that everyone else makes. It's the mistake that Michael Grade makes when he says, oh, you know, it should have been more like Star Wars, and it just looked like nonsense. No, it shouldn't have been trying to compete with Star Wars. A series of stories on the budget of, say, Planet of Fire and Caves around Zani, would have looked fine and not lent into this. We can't achieve what we're trying to do. But instead, he's trying to do Warriors of the Deep. He's trying to do, let's say, Resurrection of the Daleks later in the season, which, yeah, it does look, there are elements which look good, but the things which you need to film in the studio, you don't have time to film. You simply don't have time to put all of these monster costumes together, make sure they're fisted right for the take. You certainly don't have time, and this is one of the big problems of the story along with the Merka, to film those action sequences. You need to prize them apart and film them a couple of shots at a time to make them work and then knit it all together so that it looks like something instead what you've got is a whole bunch of monster costumes, shuffling across the set in wide shot, firing their guns at point blank range and never hitting anything, and it's all covered in wide shot and MCU, and it completely kills the story. It's kind of like going back to Dalek Invasion of Earth. I mean, it's the same kind of sins as that, but it's not just the lead up, which is why all the Mercer and light sort of stuff is having its paint dry minutes before it appears. Isn't it also the fact that they don't have or maybe it's because of that, that they don't have much time to actually do the shots? I mean, I'm sure Janet says at one point that there was one shot that she just thought was the camera rehearsal and she wasn't giving it her all. She was just basically going through the motions. Yes, that's that scene early in episode 2 where Tegan is hiding outside the command centre when the doctor's gone in to confront them and Preston comes across. That, I think, is the scene chance talking about, where she just sort of turns around in sort of shock and looks at Preston. You think, well, that's weirdly underplayed and overplayed. Yes, exactly. love that scene. And what you're saying earlier too. I love it. And what you're saying earlier too, Nathan, about the sea devil head falling off and the camera's trying to hide it. They don't have time to say, cut, let's start that. It's the kind of thing they've got less time than normal. fix the costume. They have the same time as normal, but you can't mount sequences like that in the studio and make them work. Maybe Graham Harper could have done it. Maybe being the genius that he is on multicam, he could have made a sequence like that work. But when you get a director of Pennant Roberts standard, a typical multi-camera drama director. You have absolutely no hope of pulling together a sequence like that. It makes many characters, this many monsters and this many costumes. Well, you know, having 12 sea devils come through the door and having 12 base people firing at them on the other side. It's all covered far too broadly. It makes the story look laughable in those instances. And this is the problem with 1980s Doctor Who. There's no quality control. So we know JNT can produce Great Doctor Who. He does frequently. He also produces terrible Doctor Who, and that's from story to story. You get Warriors of the Deep, which is a failed production in a lot of ways, notwithstanding some of the great things that we've said about the set and all of that. You then get a tight little production like The Awakening following it. You get time lash, followed by Revelation of the Daleks. You get the caves around Dzani, followed by between the... There is no quality control, and I think they are aiming too big. It's the director, though. We've always said it's the director. That's a different show, even. Harper and Peter Moffatt. Absolutely. I'm not sure. Even Graham Harper could have pulled this off, though, although he might have... Oh, he would have been rushing around the studio floor making things happen. Yeah, well, that's about that. I'm not sure that you could pull this together. And so the problem with 80s Doctor Who is the fact that they are aiming too big. There are productions which don't work and become laughable. And I think this is where the general public starts to see a problem. No, it can't hold a candle to Star Wars. So why is it trying? And it's pressured, but there's endless pressure to match Star Wars or any of the other sort of sci-fi type films that you're starting to get. Another series, like, you know, it's not just Star Wars. You know, you've got Buck Rogers in the 25th century was on. you've got other things like that. And, you know, Michael Grade points to this story and says that this is rubbish. When he was on room 101, they showed a clip, which was Dr. Solau karate chopping the murka. And of course, the audience laughed like a drain, and he sat there saying, this was absolute rubbish. I don't know why we're making it. And it's because he wasn't watching the Kazer and Azani, which clearly was a great example of Doctor Who production. Yeah, okay, there's bits and pieces, but there always will be, but it's a tight, well told, well shot production. He's not thinking that. The only thing he sees, the only thing which lingers in the general public's imagination, is Warriors the Deep, and the mattress store and the shuffling monsters. And so there is big claim to be made for as of the deep that it killed Doctor Who, I think, because he came in as controller of BBC one in summer of 1984 and the 1st thing on his desk that you would have seen was the internal BBC report saying that Warriors of the Deep was unfit for transmission. Do you think maybe that flag's something in his head? I love Dr. Solau kicking the Merka. What is she trying to do, though? Die. I just love it. It's it's just it's something that was just emblazoned on my memory as a kid. Like, I really thought this is so ridiculous, but she's still going to do that, you know? Yeah, I mean, one of the things is that this sort of nonsense to us doesn't matter all that much, because this is something that you don't go back to, Simon, that I was kind of bored during, but like, it's not a war crime, and like, there's lots of fun to be had in how sort of silly and crummy it is. I would have loved if Dr. Solo had survived and been taken by the other block and put on trial for war crimes. One of the charges was, why did you kick the murker? But isn't it interesting, like, she never meets the doctor. Like, she never doesn't have a single. she doesn't have a single line of dialogue with the doctor, like Rulolenska in a couple of stories time, like Cara in Revelation of the Daleks? these strong women or villainouses or heroes just don't meet the doctor in these stories. It's very interesting That whole thing, I think, is also really kind of undercooked too. And you gestured, Simon, I think, at a version of this story, where there is a proper parallel between the Cold War that's happening between the mysterious other block and us. The power block opposed to this one. Yes, I love that phrase. But there's only 2 of them. No, because it could mean that we're actually on the USSR power block. Yeah, you know? Yeah. Notwithstanding the accents, but, you know, that's a BBC thing. And then the Silurians come along and there, you know, a bigger more frightening power block that pushes us together or comments on what's been happening. And by setting it exactly 100 years into the future, you are inviting us to read it as the present day. But there's none of that. Like, there is none of that. It's just eating up running time, that plot. It doesn't mean anything. No, for me, it's not eating up enough running time. It's my problem. It's neither one thing nor the other. It's sort of a half pregnant. They've had this idea that we're going to do a Cold War analogy and it is timely. The Cold War was picking up at that time. you know, Reagan. Yeah, it's the same year that threads were shown. Threads day after. those things were shown. The whole missile run that they do at the beginning. reminiscent of war games, that wonderful film of Matthew Broderick, which was kind of quite important for me back in the day too. It is so of the time. And yet they then choose not to really do anything interesting with it. Do you remember the thing about the neutron bombs? You know, how kind of horrible the neutron bombs were? So neutron bombs are invented, you know, sometime before this, but they become a bit of a thing under Reagan and stuff like that and they're getting a lot of exposure and press at the time. And these ones are proton bombs. They get mentioned, though, in the story. And the idea is that they explode, but the actual physical explosion is quite limited, but they do kill all of the people while leaving the space intact. That was what the neutron bomb was. Yeah, that's right. That's still pretty distractive. Yeah, yeah, but the idea is because in previous wars and in both World War I and World War II, part of the thing that prevents you from invading and taking territory is that during the course of invasion, you destroy all the things that you want to acquire. So it becomes not worth your while. And then the neutron bomb solves that problem. And so at the time it was felt to be particularly inhumane and appalling because I think on some level because it sort of changed that calculus. And that gets mentioned here. So the actual stuff about the Cold War is actually, absolutely, as you said, completely relevant. But what do we do with it? How do we comment on it? And in fact, we create a situation where these people come onto the base and the only choice that we have is to poison them all and then the sort of story ends. And when the doctor says at the end of it, there should have been another way, Johnny Byrne should have thought of another way. That's where the problem lies. It's almost like the threat of the sea devils and the Silurians. They should have had their own agenda, obviously. But the threat of them should have been what brought the 2 blocks together. Yes, exactly. But you see, the thing with the, you know, the hexacromite gas and everything. And really, there is no choice but to use it to destroy the sea devils and cellurians. But also there's no choice story wise, not to use it anyway because of the fact that there is nothing sympathetic that is presented about the city levels and cellular. They're just evil invading creatures who we have to destroy otherwise we'll all die, and they'll destroy the all life on this planet. So in some respects, it's not an interesting thing to happen anyway. Exactly. Johnny Burns making up this situation. If there's no alternative, but to kill them all, that's because of the situation that we've decided to make up. So a story where the doctor does something like persuade the Silurians and sea devils that they're doing the wrong thing, the way that the doctor persuades more gain not to let nuclear weapons off and kill a whole bunch of people a few years later. You know, you don't have a heroic doctor at this point because no one is really behind that as an idea. You kind of need the ending to be like the ending of the channel to do part of from series 5, where you actually physically get both groups in a room. The doctors persuaded the Silurians not to set off all of the missiles. And so there they are facing each other. How are they going to make this agreement work? Yeah. No, I think what you can do is you can mimic the Syrians, the original story, and have the doctor persuading them to not launch the nuclear weapons, and then Walshack comes in, discusses them all. And so you still, you still need to have that resolution of, you can't just have them all, well, let's go off and talk about this. I mean, I think either is a more interesting proposition than what we got, even though I do kind of like the ending. Like you said, Nathan, as resolutions go, it just stops. Yeah. There's no denouement at all. extraordinary. No. And just the kind of killing everyone, like there's a nastiness to it, and I think... Yeah. I think you and I disagree about what should be the permissible level of nastiness. 100% is my upper limit. Isn't the Todd's 120%? not commenting on that. No, but look at some of the great stories in history. The Ark and Space, you've only got via left. Okay, the rest of, in terms of speaking characters. In Pyramids of Mars, they're all dead. In Robots of Death, you've only got 2 cinema. Horror Fang Rock. They're all gone. Exactly. And they're all great. But, but this has, you know, like people being blinded and, you know, like people strangling their friends and, and like, it's there's just a kind of, just a... Yeah, don't move the story on it all. I just happen for a bit of drama, whereas in something like horror Fang Rock. Every death moves the story forward. That's right. that's right The commander and Preston could have easily survived. right? It was just... I think it's just lazy writing. I think they were meant to. originally. Yeah. The commander in Buick. I just think Eric Seywood is good. You have to lay a lot of blame at his feet. And bringing Johnny Byrne back after the huge success of Arc of Infinity. Like it's like... No, I'm serious. I'm actually surprised how much I enjoyed it on the Blu-ray box. What? Archive Infinity. Well, I was going in. I was going with very low expectations. Often that's a good thing. I am also surprised by how much. true. Yes, I think basically he's dined out far too long on Keeper of Trarkan is the problem. Yes, after that, you know, he's only as half as good and half as good again. Yeah, yeah. Back to what you were saying, like, about the nobility of the Silurians. Like the doctor mentions their honourable and that, but you don't get that at any point. Yeah, they're not in the story, are they? Do we remember, like, in the other 2 stories, you've got a lot of characters that you actually spend a lot of time with that you actually like? I mean, I like Preston and Dr. Solo come to mind and perhaps Maddox, but everybody else could be like the commander and then his deputy and then the other evil guy. There are actually too many characters. And that's another problem with the 80s. There's far too many supporting carriages. You could easily have combined Preston and Buick into the same character. But then you do get kind of nice little side characters like Karina, Maddox's friend who has some nice scenes or that guy that you know, what did he have for lunch? That guy. Oh, yes, exactly. That's got to be a Peter Davis rehearsal joke. And again, I really quite like that. It adds a bit of colour to incidental thing. What have you been eating? I actually agree with you, Todd, because the whole thing is so po faced and so serious and no one says anything that isn't about the immediate plot and the situation that we find ourselves in. So having just a kind of a couple of throwaway lines is a relief. It's coming from Peter Davison's coming from the doctor. And this is a doctor, as people who listen to the podcast, know that I don't really have didn't gel with. And like when he's doing these little things, these little snarky things and commentary and that, it really shines how good he is in this story. It's funny. It's because it's so that's the only real incident of adding some lightness to the story that it makes it feel really weird for me and oh, and I think, oh, that's a bit dicky because it's so out of place with everything else that's at the style of the rest of the story. It's also that weird thing of the doctor going around for 3 quarters of the story out of his normal costume. It pokes me in the eye every time. I like that. Yeah okay. It motivates the change of costume. from here on in. Yeah, he has a different costume from here. The green shirt comes to red shirt and yeah, trousers are different. Yeah, yeah. Windows are the wrong size. There was 2 doors. No, that's true. Look, going back to what we were saying at the start, there is actually quite a lot about this story that is good. The sets are good. The lighting, I think, going against the received wisdom is sometimes quite good. Some of those corridors are really quite well lit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The model work looks fantastic. I think the money is there on the screen. The problem is being able to execute what the script is asking of it. And I don't think any director, be it Graham Harper or Pennant Roberts, would have been able to make those battle sequences or the sequences with the murka fighting off the extras, look any good. The merka. So, the murket, they should have gone back to basics. They knew a couple of days in advance that the costume wasn't going to be ready and they made the decision. Let's just go with it. No, you can't do that. That's why there was a report saying it was unfit for transmission. That should have prompted a wholesale rethink of what they were going to do. And, you know, these professionals do it a couple of days for the studio and then make it work. There should have been more point of view shots. There should have been more glimpses of it rather than just plopping it wide. They should have turned down the lights for any scene that it was in, shambling down the corridors. They could have made the soundscape, more bestille and terrifying. There is any number of ways that they could have hidden that costume more, except they just plop it in the middle of the studio and say, walk down the corridor. Okay, when you say they, terrible. It's pennant. No, quite seriously. I also have been JNT. Well, yes, but nevertheless, it's up to Pennant to adapt to the camera script because you say, okay, you're still painting it. Right, forget the back half. Just give me the head. I'll just hide the back of it in soft focus or something else because, you know, all it needs to do is whack its tail against a panel and there's and all the lights in the base go dim. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's so easy to add. Failure of execution and a failure of conception. Failure of imagination. Yes. It is woeful. Oh, shocking. And so are the electrocutions of the extras that go with it. How are the extras? Sorry, sorry, sorry. The extras, that woman that places itself down on the floor, like she doesn't want to hurt her knees or anything. She just goes to sleep. It makes the ones in Destiny, the Daleks look positively rather animated. It's not in any form. We should not be getting that Exactly. It is a bit of a tradition though, isn't it? The aliens kill you in a way that makes you gently lower yourself to the floor. Except it's not that much of a tradition. Doctor Who before this time, before the 1980s. Let's say before season 20 onwards does not tend to do this. It doesn't invite ridicule with scenes like that. It's cheap, but it's not nasty. This looks cheap and nasty as much as it looks great. And you can't have that in a product that's going to screen. I mean, the murka is shockingly shockingly bad. Like unbelievably terrible. And we did have... feelings. The slither was shocking. No, don't go back there. Well, the murker would have been improved if everyone's there waiting for it to come through a mattress store and all you hear is, ah... It doesn't have a mouth. Like, it doesn't have a mouth. It's just got a ridge. Like, it doesn't have teeth. Like, it's so bad. But when it gets blinded. Oh my god. It doesn't have a mouth because tarpok feeds and my lactic. I mean, it's it's shockingly shockingly bad. And like the little hands that it has. Actually, they're quite good. The soundscape is terrible. It goes, It sounds ridiculous. It needs to sound bestial. Yes, exactly. But I mean, maybe we just didn't need it. If you'd had 2 phalanxes of sea devils coming through. phalanxes of cervix. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Merka has been destroyed. With that, and that's the other thing too. Like, who, like, one of the big problems that we identified in flight through entirety, or probably that I went on about, was in the original Silurians that you just have everyone voiced by Peter Halliday, I think, is doing all of the Silurians. And because the Siurians need to be individual characters, it would have been better if they'd been actors doing their own voices and stuff. But they still sound sort of roughly different and they don't sound mechanical. Here, they sound like they're robots. Like no one seems to know what they are. And because we've got the lights flashing like their daleks and because they speak slowly. like the Silurians in the Silurians. Yeah, yeah, yeah. and they have proper discussions and stuff Something to do with beyond the range of the sensor. He's so slow and plodding. Oh, it's really boring. And what biological reason makes a part of your body flash when you speak. Well, maybe you're an anglerfish. Maybe... But again, okay, we're going to spring back Silurians. Let's bring them back without a central feature that they were known for. Why? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, they don't even open the doors with their... Or burn through corridors or rock. I suspect somebody watched Solarians and thought they looked silly. And so therefore, let's make them look less silly. Therefore on screen, they look worse. Well, I think there's always been a resistance or at least there was resistance at this time. They have to have the body shake when a monster was talking. Like the cybermen tend to do. So that is one of the things that happens with the Silurians, but also they have the rubber mouth that the actor is able to manipulate using a pair. They manipulate with their tongue. So their actual mouths kind of move, not properly, not fully not in sync. story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're not just wobbling. They're faces. They fight their lips. yeah Yeah. So they do look like they're talking. So clearly they're just there because like Doctor Who can't really do monsters at this point or sort of proper monsters whose mouths move. Even in Cold War in series 7, it's kind of shocking that you have the ice warrior whose lips move, like we have CGI, mouth movements. The reason the ud have the tentacles, you know, in the 21st century is so that they can talk without having to sort of synchronise their mouths. So it's understandable in the 80s they can't achieve that. But there was a solution to it in the 70s that was vastly better than everyone should just talk slowly while a flashing light goes... Well, I was saying earlier about the collision between wanting to make the masks and the costumes look more detailed and like look better on screen. But then failing to be able to animate them properly. So the whole production looks like Solurians. It's static. It's just there on screen and not moving and all the good things are swept up in that and the overall impression you take away is of a bad piece of television when actually for quite a lot of it. It's a good piece of television, it's just ruined by these terrible set pieces and moments that don't work. Yeah, I, like, we've been talking like forever long we've been talking now, and I think you leave the impression that we don't like this. I mean, you may not. But I still liked watching it. And despite these, and I still like watching it. And despite its failings and certain things, I still enjoy it. But it could have been so much better, as I think, what we're talking about. Well, I agree with you, sir. It's a subpar. it's a subpar story, but it's not, it's not the sort of the time flight that I think some people make it out to be. No, it's definitely got lots to recommend it, which time flight does not. It's just that it's another in the increasing list of Doctor Who's failed productions throughout the 1980s and you can't have that. The general public takes away from Doctor Who, that it is, as much as it's not, a failed production and that kills the series. The one thing we haven't talked about, which is, I think, also less successful about this story, are generally the performances which I think the guest cast, as a rule, give pretty bad performances with one or 2 exceptions. But I don't think they've got much to go on with. And I think, so I want to push back against the time flight thing because I think time flight is clearly bad in all sorts of ways and it fails as a production in a way that this doesn't, but it's not attempting to do something so dull. It's attempting to do something that the show could never do in a 1000000 years. Again, it's a problem of scale trying to achieve too much. But it's trying to do something weird and imaginative and something, you know, it's a show that includes characters from the present day who kind of interact in a recognisable way in all sorts of ways. Whereas this, everyone just declaims everyone's talking about their job. It is just basically the story of a bunch of people invade the base. They all shoot each other until we poison one side of them and then it ends. There's nothing imaginative about this. There's nothing that we didn't do better 2 years ago in earth shock. Earthshock had characters, you know, like Earthshock had characters in it. Who can say anything about Vorsak as a person or Buick or Preston apart from the fact that she has incredible hair? That's my line. I'm going to say stop. She's got incredible hair and makeup and she looks good. She does look great. That's why, when Nathan said that, he looked very pointed. I don't think we're going to argue the relative quality or lack thereof time flight and worries of the deep because it's a losing argument. No, I will. Warriors of the Deep is by far a better production than Timeline. But I think there are some dimensions along which time flight is better. Of course, it does succeed better in some way. There are some dimensions on which underworld is better than this. Going back to what I was saying about scale, time flight is another failed production for Doctor Who. It's one of the earliest ones in the 1980s that just doesn't work. And the problem, again, was failure of imagination. As you said, Simon, when faced with the fact that they had to do that heath on prehistoric earth in the corner of the studio, it needed a wholesale rethink. Let's find the money to go to Ealing. If we can't do that, let's turn the lights down, let's turn up the wind machine. Let's just imagine, add a soundscape. We needed to imagine it differently. As it is, it's all there. floodlit in a corner of TC6 or whatever. I've often said that the bad directors on Doctor Who are bad, not just for that kind of thing, but also just because they shoot everything as if all the sets and all the costumes are perfectly realised. Yeah, right. And all of the monster costumes. Whereas the good directors realise that they are not 100% realise and so they find every way they can to obscure them to hide them to... reason why people don't associate the caves around us aren't equality wise with its worst aspect, which is the magma creature. It's because Graham Harper is faced with having to use this creature and it's not very successful. And so he does everything he can to not put in centre stage. Yeah. And which pen and you just get a full front on shot, and you'd be seeing there going, uh, and it's half its head would probably be slightly to one side. Well, that's all the time we had for this week. We'll be back next week to watch the Dodger encountering Sill in an exciting new set of space corridors in Mind Wharp. In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts and you can keep up with us on our website, 500-year diary.com where you'll find our social media links, as well as links to all of our other podcasts, including our other Doctor Who podcasts Flight through Entirety, and the 2nd great and bountiful human empire. Until next time, can you please let the paint dry on the pantomime horse before sending it into battle? Thank you very much for listening and good night. See you soon. They really should have been another way. That was 500-year diary, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan Bottomley Peter Griffiths, and Simon Moore. The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb. This episode, a full front on shot, was recorded on the 18th of May, 2025, and released on the 1st of June. We're just over halfway through this season of 500 year diary, but Doctor Who season 2 has now reached its end. If you want to hear what we thought of the reality war, tune in to the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire on Monday. We'll see you there. Did you see the zipper in the bottom of the solarine as it collapsed? I wasn't looking at the Solurian's bottom. I was looking at their shoes. I was looking at that too, but I just went, are you kidding me? Are you actually kidding me? I've actually picked that up for the 1st time. One of the reasons that the sea devils move so slowly is that they have comedy novelty slippers on. like giant bare feet slippers. Aren't the Salarians, are they on like the Haunted Nyman platform boots? No, no, they've kind of got like rubber flares that obscure their plim soles, you know. But I mean, again, you just don't shoot their feet. Like, you don't have to shoot their feet. Because it should have been a thing like in the recent episode Lucky day where you get to the episode 4 and you're faced with the Silurians and the sea devils in the command. going to start the war and suddenly they unzip themselves and they're all operatives from the opposite. They are actually men in rubber. Dear. I mean, I've got the couple of notes that I have is episode 3 is when it starts to really become more properly tedious. So you agree with me? No, no, no, no, no. I don't entirely disagree with you. That's where it all begins to fall apart in terms of all the action sequences and seeing all of the problems on screen. The 1st trip. Why don't humans guns do anything? It's the traditional... Again, it's the way it's being shot. You have these giant groups of opposing forces in wide shot, all firing at each other and rarely making a hit, even though they have targets ranged in front of them. It just looks ridiculous. This bits the tag. I've already thought of the out. Yeah, I mean, but you've got, like, some of the guns light up and they've got their little plastic guns, you know, like the tiny little plastic guns that they all hold sort of rather camply. Like, no one holds them like these one. CDs on the front. No, no. So the ones with the CDs on the front. That's clearly an attempt to redo the C devils ones, which were great, I think, originally, you know, because they're, they, they hold them behind them. Yeah, like they're in close up in cliffhangers. They live crusting forwards. That's awesome. But now they're all holding them because they're like these little dinky hands. scrub the floor. That's what they look like. They're so cute. I think they got it looking so white. And then, and then, but the humans guns do literally nothing. They have no recoil, no beam comes out of them. There's no explosions, there's nothing. They're just pointing them at people. Turlo has suddenly become a more accurate shot than any of the... Oh my god. And that's the other thing that really struck me is I don't understand why these 3 people are travelling together at all. Yeah, why are they all travelling together? Because they are. They don't like one another. No, I think Tegan. No, no, that's not true. I think it's quite clear that the doctor and Tegan are fond of each other. It's quite clear that Turlo has a great respect for the doctor. And Tegan and Turlo have like a brother-sister relationship. Like a sort of a bickering brother and sister-in-law. And in the actual thing. Where does any of that sort of appear? Do you know what I mean? Because you've got Janet doing her sort of Janet face when, hey wish me luck and she just goes, oh, yes, you. You know, like, like, it's absolutely Janet reaction rather than a Tegan reaction, I think. Like, they're just all kind of angry at each other all the time. Face it, Tegan. He's dead. He's drowned. I love that. Ratcliffhanger. The doctor's falling into some water. Face it, Tigger. He's drowned. Yeah, it takes 3 seconds to drown. But can I just say, though, going back to our original comments how brilliant that sequence, he's been doing a backbook or a stunt doing a black over the thing. When that was on in 1984. Yeah, yeah. I thought that was, I thought, we've arrived in the future. You know, You didn't notice the wall. No, no, no, not on a 43 cm. It's something that could be achieved because not only do they have great flats. So the set looks good over that BBC swimming pool at Shepparton or whatever. Yeah, what is it? It's a Shepparton, is it? Shepperson, yeah, because they couldn't use the BBC internal one for some election related reason. Do you think it's any election? Yeah, they were dunking Margaret Thatcher in there. Labour was CSD. It's because it's shot on single camera. And so you can pull it apart. It's something which can be achieved. And so it looks good. And can I just say that bit where the doctor kicks the guard in the face is quite confronted. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, that's stupid as well. Like, why does he do that? But I do think there is affection there. The doctor does want Tegan, not, you know, to hide in that, and Turlow is desperate to get them out of the airlock and, you know and somehow Tegan walks away from having a huge door fall on a leg without it being broke. No, she is... Hobbling, but it's... slightly... slightly cool star. When the door falls, does it break Tegan's legal? break the door? It's soft and kind of, you know, bouncy. Yeah, it's like a koala mattress. Yeah. Memory foam. Memory fan. Gosh, this story looked good on paper. I'm not convinced it did. J&T's whiteboard. Let's say doctor's wife at the bottom. Thank God Johnny Byrne didn't come back. Well. He nearly did, didn't he? No, I think this was this Guardians of prophecy. Oh, that was amazing, was it? No, 20, wasn't it? 23? 23? All I will say is a final word is that the base commander is no Ronald Lehunt. No, so few people are. The briefcases. Yes. The costumes, they were a little better. But he's not very good. Well, it's the thing we were saying about the cast They seem to be straitjacketed by those ridiculous futuristic costumes. They're so buttoned up. No, they don't look too buttoned up. They look more like, they kind of look more like shell suits, don't they? Oh, yeah, they just like, it's a good thing. Yes, they say in a good way. They all about to board a bus to Hull or something. Exactly. And also the fact that Maddox in 2084, he doesn't even have a USBC plug on his head. He's got some great big sort of... That's so good as well, sorry. I'll just bleep that out. You say fuck in this. the most reason one. Yes, but that was deliberate. No, no, no. I put the robot over it. He doesn't even have he doesn't even have a USBC plug on his head. But it's not just that. I mean, the whole point of that is that it's got to feel like it goes into his head because that's kind of part of the horror of it. You know, like he's had this surgery, that links him to the computer in a way that's sort of really invasive and unnatural, and now he's got these plugs in his head. But he said the plugs are sort of just stuck to the outside of his head because you can't. it looks reasonably okay. Yeah, no, I think it's... Along the cops and what we need... look marvellous and bespoke. They really do. With a little the little the drive, the the disk drive that goes down, around bit of jutters. Yeah, all along with tech, Dr. Solar use. This looks really great. The thing that the light beam thing looks good. And that's the other reference we haven't made. The thing that they blind Ian McCulloch with. And that's the other thing that we haven't referenced yet, is that there is, with Maddox's programming, a reference to Manchurian candidate. So, I mean, which is interesting because Mangerian candidate is either well before or well after the main condition. But nevertheless, it's that idea. It adds into the Cold War thing. So there are little bits that they are trying to do with the Cold War. But if you cut out half the silurian rubbish in the 1st 2 episodes and just don't have them at all, and you make it a Cold War spy story, which then turns into the silurians and sea devils, I just think that might have been, might have been a better story and not have all of these endless dialogue sequences between the silurians in their underseen. Yeah, I don't think we could have lasted out until, like, I think they needed to come in at the end of episode one. Okay, even episode one. But the point, my point being, not seeing one, because they're basically there... Exactly, 2 minutes here. Because it's so promising in that early sequence where the satellite's going to attack the TARDIS. I mean, it's quite jazzy and interesting and all this is this is... And the earth has gone horrible or bad in some way, but we never follow up. knocked off course is always exciting. It's always exciting. Yeah, no, no, there's problems. Just in general, there should have been another way. Yes, exactly. All of this. There just should have been another way and any other way they would have chosen would have made it better. As it is, it is quite good in places, but it's just not good enough. And in some places it's actively terrible. And the note that I had here is, as you've said earlier, it is the beginning of the 1985 cancellation of the show. Absolutely. Happy note. let's end it there