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This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 09:09:42

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

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The only Doctor Who podcast that, given how unstable the current political situation is, is not to be unexpected.

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I'm Nathan.

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I'm Ikta.

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I'm Skibers, and I'm Tarpok.

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It's the 5th of January 1984.

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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.

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And this evening, they've been plucked from the pages of the Doctor Who Monster book and sent out to attack Seabase 4.

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And the only question is, why?

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Let's see if we can work out the answer as we discuss Warriors of the Deep.

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So, I have to lay my card on the table.

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I really thought that this was astoundingly boring, and I don't think I thought that when I watched it for flight through entirety.

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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.

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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.

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Am I being unnecessarily cruel?

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There is no unnecessarily cruel.

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Only unnecessarily kind.

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I don't think it's boring.

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And I don't think it's as embarrassing as, say, time flight is.

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Again, I really liked it on its 1st transmission.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I thought it looked fantastic.

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The sets were all clangy and metallic.

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They were big with 2 levels.

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Everyone looked fabulous with great hair and makeup, and there were sea devils and salurians in it.

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I was completely on board with this.

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I was even on board with this in the 86, 87 omnibus repeat on a Saturday afternoon where I...

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When a whole 5 years, I felt like 50 years old then when I'd 1st seen it.

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But no, I really enjoyed it.

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And I actually was really surprised watching it now.

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It's not a story that I return to very often.

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How much I actually enjoyed it.

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I'm going to say that I think there's actually, it's important to note there's a lot to recommend this story.

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I don't think it succeeds.

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I don't think it's a very good story at all, really, but there is a lot that is actually good about it.

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James had sought more money from BBC Enterprises.

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He'd sought a budget injection from them because Doctor Who was selling so well overseas.

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And I think this 1st story where he gets that budget injection and I think it shows on screen.

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I think the set for this story might be the best realised set in all of classic Doctor Who.

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Mattress doors, notwithstanding. execution, but actually the backdrop and how they put the set together looks incredibly impressive.

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I liked this at the time.

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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.

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It is too.

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And so it actually... form a Silurian triad.

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I think there were more than 2 Doctor Who fans.

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Thank you, Peter.

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So this whole season, and that means a lot to me.

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And so I carried that emotion when I watched this story.

51
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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.

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You know, if he had this season and this performance.

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If I just judge him on that alone, he'd be up there as one of my favourite doctors based on that.

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I do think that his performance is really great this season, yeah.

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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.

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The slow moving villains and they're talking.

57
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It was just...

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Let's get on to that.

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It was just...

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I think Davidson knows when a script is poor.

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He's, you know, he's instinctively, he knows when things are going wrong in the production.

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He seems to step it up when he thinks that he has to, just kind of plug the gaps.

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And so there's an extra urgency and kind of grimness to his performance here that the script doesn't really merit.

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I agree with you about the look.

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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.

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Words never heard before.

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Really?

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I mean, space 1999 has a much more expensive and lavish and huge set than this, but it did have the 2 levels.

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And so I was kind of reminded of Maine Mission a little bit by the bridge.

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Of course, the Johnny Byrne connection being the script.

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I destroyed the 1st season of Space 1999.

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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.

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Yeah, it doesn't.

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But, I mean, it does...

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I think it helps it on films.

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Yeah, but it is a much bigger and much more beautiful and expensive set.

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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.

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I think the set looks great.

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I particularly like all the labels everywhere.

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You know, like there's just a little label saying, you know, keep this door closed, stuff like that.

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Lakelord Nilson that says villain.

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That's tattooed on his forehead.

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So it seems very real.

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I really like that a great deal. and I don't even object so much to the fact that it's well lit.

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I do think there is a problem with it not looking at all in any way, like it's underwater.

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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.

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But can I just say, I don't think that that's because of the sets or the lighting.

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I think it's because of the soundscape.

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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.

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You can argue that it's no different to a space station.

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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.

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But I think that if it's underwater, let's sell it as being underwater.

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Make that visible in all of the scenes.

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I think that's a problem.

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And yet on the Silurian craft, I buy that.

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Yes.

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That's underwater.

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Absolutely.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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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.

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So I do buy that.

102
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I think that that is better.

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I think that's a bad set, but I still think that it does seem underwater.

104
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But why do the cellarines need to be underwater?

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Like, that's my big question.

106
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It's sort of like they were not underwater the 1st time.

107
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They were just in the caves.

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Would you know 1st Silurians that don't bathe?

109
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But if tiles tend not to.

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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.

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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...

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They have to be underwater to wake the sea devils up.

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But where do they come?

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Why are they suddenly awake?

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Well, exactly.

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Let's unpick this.

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Originally, it was only meant to be the sea devils.

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But for some reason, they insisted, let's bring back the Silurians as well and make them the sea devils leaders and commanders.

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And so it doesn't really make sense in the plot.

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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.

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Like, that's a problem.

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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.

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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.

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Yeah.

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So where's our episode one reveal?

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Like, that's essentially it.

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Where's our giant end of episode one reveal?

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We're in a base under siege.

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Why are we not concentrating on their experience as things like their probe gets destroyed.

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There's something going on outside in the water.

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And then we learn about the cellular integration.

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Which all gets kind of halfway there.

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It's kind of tense.

134
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It's just taking it from the wrong angle.

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Yeah.

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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.

137
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No, I think it's full steam right.

138
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It's full steam right now.

139
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And much as I love this season and season 22.

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I recognise that the show is starting to eat its own young in relying too heavily on past things.

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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.

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I think the history of Doctor Who has gone to their head.

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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.

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Can I just suggest what a much better version of Warriors of the Deep would be?

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And I...

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One not directed by Pennant Roberts.

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Yes.

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That, who you praise in the FTE.

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Exactly what you're saying.

150
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Yeah, yeah. what you were all thinking.

151
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One develops with age, honestly.

152
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Revenge of the Sidement, which I know is a maligned story, does it so much better.

153
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As you're saying, where's this reveal?

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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.

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You know, the Dr. Quinn figure, the master in the sea devils.

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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.

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Or even better at the end of episode two, Dr. Solo rips off her mask.

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Salvix.

159
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But I want to touch.

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I want to go back to what you're saying about JNT and Eric Saywood.

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There is a pattern occurring here.

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Like in season 19, we had the master back in the 1st story, reimagined as a literal master of disguise.

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In season 20, suddenly we've got Omega in there and he's not quite as he was.

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He's now got a TARDIS, he's got the ergon here.

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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.

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Next year, we're going to have redesigns of the cyber control of the cyber tombs.

167
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We going to throw in the crayons.

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And there's this pattern that just keeps going on.

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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.

170
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But you see, I don't mind having like the murka or adding the crimes word.

171
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That is trying to do something, can build on the monster that you have.

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The problem is that JNT, I think, takes the wrong lessons from Earthshock.

173
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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.

174
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The wrong model is the Arc of Infinity, which is, you know, bringing Omega back.

175
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Okay, it's the 20th anniversary, and he was in the 10th anniversary.

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Okay, that's a line that you feed to the doctoral appreciation society.

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That's a headline for the Duas newsletter.

178
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It's not for the general public who go, who's Omega?

179
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Yeah.

180
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I mean, they might have seen a repeat 18 months ago, who knows?

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6000000 people did, but still.

182
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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.

183
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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.

184
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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.

185
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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.

186
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I mean, this starts, doesn't it?

187
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Perhaps with the sea devils.

188
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There's sort of 2 years, isn't there, between the Siderians and the sea devils?

189
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And when the sea devils are brought back, they are suddenly much more generic than the Silurians were.

190
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So they have the same backstory as the Silurians.

191
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They're a race of people who have as much claim to the planet as we do.

192
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And the Silurians does all of those things.

193
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Maybe even halfway through the Silurians, it probably goes down.

194
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You know, the Sillyrians have interesting things to say about colonialism and immigration and indigenity.

195
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They produce a new type of Doctor Who story, which isn't just aliens invade or weird things happen on another planet.

196
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Like it's a properly interesting premise.

197
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It's Malcolm Holk, isn't it?

198
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invaders or homegrown menace.

199
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Yeah, that's it.

200
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That's it.

201
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But they've got characters.

202
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There's different Silurians arguing about what's going on.

203
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Yes.

204
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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.

205
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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.

206
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So already in their sort of 2nd appearance, they're a bit more generic and a bit less interesting here.

207
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I mean, they're very much here for revenge.

208
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It's almost like the moon base.

209
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You know, the cybermen come back to eliminate threats or something the next time round.

210
00:15:21.960 --> 00:15:24.059
They're here to eliminate threats or something.

211
00:15:24.120 --> 00:15:33.179
But nothing really very much about them as having a valid and competing claim to the planet is here.

212
00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:44.879
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.

213
00:15:44.940 --> 00:15:45.419
Yes.

214
00:15:45.419 --> 00:15:48.779
Whereas here it's just like, and they can't even fire, like just at the wall.

215
00:15:48.840 --> 00:15:51.600
Like, I mean, it's just those battle sequences.

216
00:15:51.659 --> 00:15:52.799
I just...

217
00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:53.940
But even in the sea devils.

218
00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:56.519
The idea of them being, once the rulers are here.

219
00:15:56.580 --> 00:15:57.840
Yes, it's kind of fine.

220
00:15:57.899 --> 00:16:04.620
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?

221
00:16:04.679 --> 00:16:10.740
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?

222
00:16:10.799 --> 00:16:13.440
And so they said, let's make it an aquatic cousin of the Silurians.

223
00:16:13.500 --> 00:16:13.980
I think that's good.

224
00:16:14.039 --> 00:16:14.460
That's fine.

225
00:16:14.519 --> 00:16:17.820
You know, it's introducing a new race which is basically telling the same story.

226
00:16:17.879 --> 00:16:27.000
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.

227
00:16:27.059 --> 00:16:28.080
It's not just the 80s, though.

228
00:16:28.139 --> 00:16:28.799
It's all the way through.

229
00:16:28.860 --> 00:16:29.820
No, not really.

230
00:16:29.879 --> 00:16:33.179
The 80s is the problem because, okay, let's bring back the brigadier.

231
00:16:33.240 --> 00:16:36.600
You can't just bring that the brigadier and pop him in an 80s story.

232
00:16:36.659 --> 00:16:37.500
It doesn't really work.

233
00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:44.940
You need to bring back the brigadier surrounded by the trappings of units in a 70s style story that makes that nostalgia reel.

234
00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:48.659
Which is what Modern Undead gets wrong and Battlefield gets right.

235
00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:49.320
Correct.

236
00:16:49.379 --> 00:16:50.159
Absolutely.

237
00:16:50.220 --> 00:16:54.659
And so here you needed a Silurian slash sea devil's style story.

238
00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:57.899
You needed them coming out of the waves or out of the caves.

239
00:16:57.960 --> 00:17:02.399
You didn't need them walking slowly down a white futuristic corridor.

240
00:17:02.460 --> 00:17:04.559
That's taking them away from anything that made them work.

241
00:17:04.680 --> 00:17:21.119
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.

242
00:17:21.180 --> 00:17:25.200
It shows them reviving, it gives us a sense of their society.

243
00:17:25.259 --> 00:17:32.579
And then it makes the whole story B about how we're going to respond to their competing claims to the planet.

244
00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:40.079
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.

245
00:17:40.140 --> 00:17:45.839
But on the way there, I think it creates great characters among the Silurians.

246
00:17:45.900 --> 00:17:50.519
You get to see them living underground in the spaces that they live in.

247
00:17:50.579 --> 00:17:56.039
They're all introduced to us properly and gradually as well.

248
00:17:56.099 --> 00:18:00.299
Whereas here, they're just introduced in kind of broad daylight.

249
00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:03.059
We're all somehow expected to know and care who they are.

250
00:18:03.119 --> 00:18:07.140
And they are given the names, but that's all they're given.

251
00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:08.099
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

252
00:18:18.180 --> 00:18:22.140
Just expanding what you were saying, Peter, about, you know, taking the trappings away.

253
00:18:22.200 --> 00:18:23.339
I actually think it's right.

254
00:18:23.400 --> 00:18:32.279
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.

255
00:18:32.339 --> 00:18:34.259
Seeds of Death, they could be anything but Curse of Peladon.

256
00:18:34.319 --> 00:18:36.059
You do something different with the ice Warriors, for instance.

257
00:18:36.119 --> 00:18:42.059
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.

258
00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:44.700
What I will say is what's missing from this.

259
00:18:44.759 --> 00:18:50.400
It's not a matter of them coming out of in caves or having, you know, stepping out out of the surf.

260
00:18:50.460 --> 00:19:01.980
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.

261
00:19:02.039 --> 00:19:05.819
And there's absolutely no discussion of that at all in Warriors of the Deep.

262
00:19:05.880 --> 00:19:07.140
I mean, there is a little bit actually.

263
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:09.960
No, there's no, no, it's just the fact that the doctor says it.

264
00:19:10.019 --> 00:19:10.799
Well yes.

265
00:19:10.859 --> 00:19:12.420
Yes, but the point is there's no discussion of it.

266
00:19:12.480 --> 00:19:17.400
There's no, you know, the Siderians are presented as, as basically, they're just villains.

267
00:19:17.460 --> 00:19:21.720
They're here to annihilate the human population of the earth by creating a nuclear war.

268
00:19:21.779 --> 00:19:26.880
There's no sympathetic character on the cellular inside, which there is in the animal stories.

269
00:19:26.940 --> 00:19:32.940
So you need to have differences between what you do in the Gypnol 2 parts or in series five.

270
00:19:33.059 --> 00:19:34.559
That's what's missing from this.

271
00:19:34.619 --> 00:19:36.180
And that's what I was wanting.

272
00:19:36.299 --> 00:19:43.619
I was wanting the Dr. Quinn type figure to be already in contact with the cellurians in advance of the story.

273
00:19:43.619 --> 00:19:47.279
And that sort of is what leads the side of your engine.

274
00:19:47.339 --> 00:19:49.859
Almost like having Dr. Sol hours a double- double agent.

275
00:19:49.920 --> 00:19:52.859
I think she's helping Nilson, but he's actually on the Silurian side.

276
00:19:52.920 --> 00:19:53.519
Exactly.

277
00:19:53.579 --> 00:19:54.539
Well, that kind of thing.

278
00:19:54.599 --> 00:19:55.859
Maybe that maybe it's...

279
00:19:55.859 --> 00:19:56.940
She could have been a marine biologist.

280
00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:00.119
Maybe it's what she's faced from Mission to Destiny who has that role. don't know.

281
00:20:03.359 --> 00:20:05.220
But you know what I mean?

282
00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:06.119
That's what's missing.

283
00:20:06.180 --> 00:20:08.220
And that's why the unfortunate thing.

284
00:20:08.279 --> 00:20:12.240
One of the unfortunate things about this story is it's one dimensionality.

285
00:20:12.299 --> 00:20:14.759
Yes, I think that's that's its biggest crime.

286
00:20:14.819 --> 00:20:18.240
And there's something also in the presentation as well.

287
00:20:18.299 --> 00:20:24.119
There was kind of a cheap and cheerfulness to the Silurian and the sea devil costumes the 1st time round.

288
00:20:24.180 --> 00:20:26.039
It's like they didn't look very good in the sea devils.

289
00:20:26.099 --> 00:20:27.779
Let's just wrap some fish netting around them.

290
00:20:27.779 --> 00:20:29.400
And suddenly that's an iconic image.

291
00:20:29.460 --> 00:20:40.559
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.

292
00:20:40.619 --> 00:20:46.619
And yet that is hamstrung what we're seeing on screen because now they have to move very slowly.

293
00:20:46.680 --> 00:20:53.640
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.

294
00:20:53.700 --> 00:21:00.900
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.

295
00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:09.359
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?

296
00:21:09.420 --> 00:21:11.099
Like, it's so shoddy.

297
00:21:11.099 --> 00:21:13.980
And the Silurians, like, they've done all that fibreglass stuff.

298
00:21:14.039 --> 00:21:19.259
But when they're walking down that corridor, you see every join around like, and you can hear them creaking.

299
00:21:19.259 --> 00:21:26.039
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.

300
00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:34.380
I think that the Silurian costumes are well thought out.

301
00:21:34.440 --> 00:21:40.079
They look good in a photo, say, on the cover of Matt Irvine's book.

302
00:21:40.140 --> 00:21:42.240
So in 1985.

303
00:21:42.420 --> 00:22:00.119
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.

304
00:22:00.180 --> 00:22:07.380
But what this has done is it's retained that sort of iconic 5 ridges with the central thing.

305
00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:09.000
I think it looks really good.

306
00:22:09.059 --> 00:22:10.319
The scales look really good.

307
00:22:10.440 --> 00:22:10.980
All of that.

308
00:22:11.039 --> 00:22:12.720
I don't know why it's not green.

309
00:22:12.779 --> 00:22:18.779
I don't know why it has to be this pale tan colour, but I think that that actually looks good.

310
00:22:18.839 --> 00:22:20.819
I think giving them clothes works as well.

311
00:22:20.940 --> 00:22:28.799
Remember the original silureans had that long thing that goes down the front that's designed to hide the zipper in the costume.

312
00:22:28.859 --> 00:22:31.380
Like they've got a, they've got a sort of thing around their neck.

313
00:22:31.440 --> 00:22:35.099
All of the sort of joins and stuff in the original salurines don't really work.

314
00:22:35.099 --> 00:22:39.240
So I think it's an iconic design that doesn't work in the 70s.

315
00:22:39.420 --> 00:22:45.960
And I think the redesign here is quite good, except that they do it so ham fistedly.

316
00:22:46.019 --> 00:22:49.980
So they don't tuck their necks into the costume. what I was saying.

317
00:22:50.039 --> 00:22:51.779
They don't take necks in like, no.

318
00:22:51.779 --> 00:22:53.759
Like, all of that stuff individually looks great.

319
00:22:53.819 --> 00:23:02.819
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.

320
00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:03.779
That one here.

321
00:23:03.839 --> 00:23:06.059
It's like, do we only have 5 minutes to prepare?

322
00:23:06.119 --> 00:23:06.720
for this episode.

323
00:23:06.779 --> 00:23:07.559
Apparently so.

324
00:23:07.619 --> 00:23:09.539
Yeah, it's really ham feasted.

325
00:23:09.599 --> 00:23:21.119
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.

326
00:23:21.180 --> 00:23:22.140
Do you know what I mean?

327
00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:23.099
Like, you're never in any doubt.

328
00:23:23.339 --> 00:23:29.640
But you're never in any doubt where the actors' heads are and there's turtle heads on top of them, you know.

329
00:23:29.700 --> 00:23:32.099
And they loll about a little bit as well.

330
00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:33.180
I have to say.

331
00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:35.880
But there are whole seats, and they move quickly.

332
00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:38.819
So you can kind of buy them as real creatures.

333
00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:41.099
It helps with kind of the credibility as a whole.

334
00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:47.519
Whereas here when they're just moving so slowly and sort of turning slowly to each other.

335
00:23:47.579 --> 00:23:49.319
It drags everything to a full stop.

336
00:23:49.380 --> 00:23:51.539
There are heads falling off.

337
00:23:51.599 --> 00:23:57.539
There's one scene towards the end where the main guy, Ikta, is there.

338
00:23:59.339 --> 00:24:08.279
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.

339
00:24:08.339 --> 00:24:19.259
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.

340
00:24:19.319 --> 00:24:20.160
And, like, the whole...

341
00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:23.640
Pendent up in the gallery, saying camera 5 to the left...

342
00:24:23.700 --> 00:24:25.680
Like, they're really bad.

343
00:24:25.740 --> 00:24:34.259
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.

344
00:24:34.380 --> 00:24:36.359
So they can see and breathe.

345
00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:37.319
Yeah, yeah.

346
00:24:37.319 --> 00:24:40.799
Like they're really, really astoundingly inept.

347
00:24:40.859 --> 00:24:42.660
Okay, but we know why, don't we?

348
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:46.559
We were rushed for time for some reason and Pennant Roberts.

349
00:24:46.619 --> 00:24:47.880
Wasn't the general election or something?

350
00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:50.400
They didn't have enough studio. a little bit of background on this.

351
00:24:50.460 --> 00:24:52.380
The general election was called from 1983.

352
00:24:52.500 --> 00:24:55.319
It was snap election, and so they needed to free up studio space.

353
00:24:55.380 --> 00:25:02.220
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.

354
00:25:02.279 --> 00:25:10.140
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.

355
00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:14.039
So that contracted the amount of time that they had to work on things like the murker.

356
00:25:14.099 --> 00:25:18.240
I don't necessarily think that's a problem when you're in the studio recording it.

357
00:25:18.299 --> 00:25:21.119
So you didn't have less time than they would have for any other Doctor Who.

358
00:25:21.180 --> 00:25:22.259
But this is a big thing.

359
00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:28.380
This is where the wheel starts to come off Doctor Who because JNT is aiming too big with the productions.

360
00:25:28.500 --> 00:25:33.779
Famously, Philip Hinchcliffe would rule things in and out depending on what could be achieved on screen.

361
00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:42.539
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.

362
00:25:42.599 --> 00:25:47.579
Let's not have a robot in Brain of Morbius because that's not going to work on screen.

363
00:25:47.640 --> 00:25:48.240
Yeah.

364
00:25:48.359 --> 00:25:50.460
Oh, that's one element too many to pay for.

365
00:25:50.519 --> 00:25:58.680
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.

366
00:25:58.740 --> 00:26:00.359
And so we're just going to rewrite it.

367
00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:03.299
JNT doesn't have that inhibition.

368
00:26:03.359 --> 00:26:05.160
And so I think...

369
00:26:05.220 --> 00:26:06.839
The issue's becoming too overconfident is the problem.

370
00:26:06.900 --> 00:26:08.339
Well, it shouldn't be overconfident.

371
00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:10.500
It should be a clear-eyed assessment of what can be achieved.

372
00:26:10.559 --> 00:26:14.759
And he's had plenty of experience with that given productions like earth shock and time flies.

373
00:26:14.819 --> 00:26:21.900
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.

374
00:26:21.960 --> 00:26:27.059
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.

375
00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:29.940
No, it shouldn't have been trying to compete with Star Wars.

376
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:37.619
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.

377
00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:40.200
We can't achieve what we're trying to do.

378
00:26:40.259 --> 00:26:42.900
But instead, he's trying to do Warriors of the Deep.

379
00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:53.220
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.

380
00:26:53.279 --> 00:26:59.400
You simply don't have time to put all of these monster costumes together, make sure they're fisted right for the take.

381
00:26:59.460 --> 00:27:06.660
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.

382
00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:30.660
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.

383
00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:32.880
It's kind of like going back to Dalek Invasion of Earth.

384
00:27:32.940 --> 00:27:41.460
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.

385
00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:46.740
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?

386
00:27:46.799 --> 00:27:52.980
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.

387
00:27:53.039 --> 00:27:54.420
She was just basically going through the motions.

388
00:27:54.480 --> 00:28:02.279
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.

389
00:28:02.339 --> 00:28:07.680
That, I think, is the scene chance talking about, where she just sort of turns around in sort of shock and looks at Preston.

390
00:28:07.740 --> 00:28:10.140
You think, well, that's weirdly underplayed and overplayed.

391
00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:12.299
Yes, exactly. love that scene.

392
00:28:12.359 --> 00:28:14.880
And what you're saying earlier too.

393
00:28:14.880 --> 00:28:15.480
I love it.

394
00:28:15.539 --> 00:28:21.180
And what you're saying earlier too, Nathan, about the sea devil head falling off and the camera's trying to hide it.

395
00:28:21.240 --> 00:28:24.059
They don't have time to say, cut, let's start that.

396
00:28:24.119 --> 00:28:26.519
It's the kind of thing they've got less time than normal. fix the costume.

397
00:28:26.579 --> 00:28:32.039
They have the same time as normal, but you can't mount sequences like that in the studio and make them work.

398
00:28:32.099 --> 00:28:33.539
Maybe Graham Harper could have done it.

399
00:28:33.599 --> 00:28:37.980
Maybe being the genius that he is on multicam, he could have made a sequence like that work.

400
00:28:38.039 --> 00:28:43.680
But when you get a director of Pennant Roberts standard, a typical multi-camera drama director.

401
00:28:43.740 --> 00:28:46.920
You have absolutely no hope of pulling together a sequence like that.

402
00:28:46.980 --> 00:28:50.099
It makes many characters, this many monsters and this many costumes.

403
00:28:50.160 --> 00:28:56.039
Well, you know, having 12 sea devils come through the door and having 12 base people firing at them on the other side.

404
00:28:56.099 --> 00:28:58.259
It's all covered far too broadly.

405
00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:01.680
It makes the story look laughable in those instances.

406
00:29:01.740 --> 00:29:04.680
And this is the problem with 1980s Doctor Who.

407
00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:06.000
There's no quality control.

408
00:29:06.059 --> 00:29:08.759
So we know JNT can produce Great Doctor Who.

409
00:29:08.819 --> 00:29:09.960
He does frequently.

410
00:29:10.019 --> 00:29:14.279
He also produces terrible Doctor Who, and that's from story to story.

411
00:29:14.339 --> 00:29:21.180
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.

412
00:29:21.240 --> 00:29:24.059
You then get a tight little production like The Awakening following it.

413
00:29:24.119 --> 00:29:27.779
You get time lash, followed by Revelation of the Daleks.

414
00:29:27.839 --> 00:29:31.619
You get the caves around Dzani, followed by between the...

415
00:29:31.680 --> 00:29:34.380
There is no quality control, and I think they are aiming too big.

416
00:29:34.440 --> 00:29:35.460
It's the director, though.

417
00:29:35.519 --> 00:29:36.539
We've always said it's the director.

418
00:29:36.599 --> 00:29:37.980
That's a different show, even.

419
00:29:37.980 --> 00:29:39.000
Harper and Peter Moffatt.

420
00:29:39.059 --> 00:29:39.599
Absolutely.

421
00:29:39.660 --> 00:29:40.140
I'm not sure.

422
00:29:40.259 --> 00:29:42.660
Even Graham Harper could have pulled this off, though, although he might have...

423
00:29:42.660 --> 00:29:44.880
Oh, he would have been rushing around the studio floor making things happen.

424
00:29:44.940 --> 00:29:46.019
Yeah, well, that's about that.

425
00:29:46.079 --> 00:29:47.940
I'm not sure that you could pull this together.

426
00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:53.339
And so the problem with 80s Doctor Who is the fact that they are aiming too big.

427
00:29:53.400 --> 00:29:55.920
There are productions which don't work and become laughable.

428
00:29:55.980 --> 00:29:59.519
And I think this is where the general public starts to see a problem.

429
00:29:59.579 --> 00:30:01.920
No, it can't hold a candle to Star Wars.

430
00:30:01.980 --> 00:30:02.700
So why is it trying?

431
00:30:02.759 --> 00:30:09.839
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.

432
00:30:09.900 --> 00:30:11.819
Another series, like, you know, it's not just Star Wars.

433
00:30:11.880 --> 00:30:15.119
You know, you've got Buck Rogers in the 25th century was on. you've got other things like that.

434
00:30:15.180 --> 00:30:19.980
And, you know, Michael Grade points to this story and says that this is rubbish.

435
00:30:19.980 --> 00:30:25.559
When he was on room 101, they showed a clip, which was Dr. Solau, karate chopping the murka.

436
00:30:25.619 --> 00:30:29.940
And of course, the audience laughed like a drain, and he sat there saying, this was absolute rubbish.

437
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:31.200
I don't know why we're making it.

438
00:30:31.259 --> 00:30:37.259
And it's because he wasn't watching the Kazer and Azani, which clearly was a great example of Doctor Who production.

439
00:30:37.319 --> 00:30:43.259
Yeah, okay, there's bits and pieces, but there always will be, but it's a tight, well told, well shot production.

440
00:30:43.319 --> 00:30:44.220
He's not thinking that.

441
00:30:44.279 --> 00:30:51.660
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.

442
00:30:51.720 --> 00:31:08.700
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.

443
00:31:08.759 --> 00:31:11.099
Do you think maybe that flag's something in his head?

444
00:31:17.579 --> 00:31:21.480
I love Dr. Solau kicking the Merka.

445
00:31:21.539 --> 00:31:23.339
What is she trying to do, though?

446
00:31:23.400 --> 00:31:24.480
Die.

447
00:31:25.680 --> 00:31:27.480
I just love it.

448
00:31:27.539 --> 00:31:31.920
It's it's just it's something that was just emblazoned on my memory as a kid.

449
00:31:31.980 --> 00:31:37.380
Like, I really thought this is so ridiculous, but she's still going to do that, you know?

450
00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:57.180
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.

451
00:31:57.240 --> 00:32:02.579
I would have loved if Dr. Solo had survived and been taken by the other block and put on trial for war crimes.

452
00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:05.940
One of the charges was, why did you kick the murker?

453
00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:08.519
But isn't it interesting, like, she never meets the doctor.

454
00:32:08.579 --> 00:32:16.740
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?

455
00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:22.140
these strong women or villainouses or heroes just don't meet the doctor in these stories.

456
00:32:22.200 --> 00:32:27.059
It's very interesting That whole thing, I think, is also really kind of undercooked too.

457
00:32:27.119 --> 00:32:41.880
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.

458
00:32:41.940 --> 00:32:43.380
The power block opposed to this one.

459
00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:46.140
Yes, I love that phrase.

460
00:32:46.440 --> 00:32:48.599
But there's only 2 of them.

461
00:32:48.660 --> 00:32:52.859
No, because it could mean that we're actually on the USSR power block.

462
00:32:52.920 --> 00:32:53.759
Yeah, you know?

463
00:32:53.819 --> 00:32:54.180
Yeah.

464
00:32:54.180 --> 00:32:57.180
Notwithstanding the accents, but, you know, that's a BBC thing.

465
00:32:57.299 --> 00:33:06.779
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.

466
00:33:06.839 --> 00:33:16.440
And by setting it exactly 100 years into the future, you are inviting us to read it as the present day.

467
00:33:16.500 --> 00:33:18.660
But there's none of that.

468
00:33:18.720 --> 00:33:20.279
Like, there is none of that.

469
00:33:20.339 --> 00:33:23.880
It's just eating up running time, that plot.

470
00:33:23.940 --> 00:33:25.740
It doesn't mean anything.

471
00:33:25.799 --> 00:33:29.099
No, for me, it's not eating up enough running time.

472
00:33:29.160 --> 00:33:30.359
It's my problem.

473
00:33:30.420 --> 00:33:32.279
It's neither one thing nor the other.

474
00:33:32.339 --> 00:33:33.359
It's sort of a half pregnant.

475
00:33:33.420 --> 00:33:37.559
They've had this idea that we're going to do a Cold War analogy and it is timely.

476
00:33:37.619 --> 00:33:40.859
The Cold War was picking up at that time. you know, Reagan.

477
00:33:40.920 --> 00:33:42.299
Yeah, it's the same year that threads were shown.

478
00:33:42.299 --> 00:33:44.579
Threads day after. those things were shown.

479
00:33:44.640 --> 00:33:52.319
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.

480
00:33:52.380 --> 00:33:54.119
It is so of the time.

481
00:33:54.180 --> 00:33:57.660
And yet they then choose not to really do anything interesting with it.

482
00:33:57.720 --> 00:34:00.240
Do you remember the thing about the neutron bombs?

483
00:34:00.299 --> 00:34:03.720
You know, how kind of horrible the neutron bombs were?

484
00:34:03.779 --> 00:34:15.059
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.

485
00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:18.300
And these ones are proton bombs.

486
00:34:18.360 --> 00:34:20.099
They get mentioned, though, in the story.

487
00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:29.579
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.

488
00:34:29.639 --> 00:34:31.139
That was what the neutron bomb was.

489
00:34:31.199 --> 00:34:31.739
Yeah, that's right.

490
00:34:31.800 --> 00:34:32.880
That's still pretty distractive.

491
00:34:32.940 --> 00:34:46.619
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.

492
00:34:46.679 --> 00:34:48.840
So it becomes not worth your while.

493
00:34:48.900 --> 00:34:51.119
And then the neutron bomb solves that problem.

494
00:34:51.179 --> 00:35:01.920
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.

495
00:35:01.980 --> 00:35:03.780
And that gets mentioned here.

496
00:35:03.840 --> 00:35:09.539
So the actual stuff about the Cold War is actually, absolutely, as you said, completely relevant.

497
00:35:09.599 --> 00:35:11.340
But what do we do with it?

498
00:35:11.400 --> 00:35:12.900
How do we comment on it?

499
00:35:12.960 --> 00:35:24.480
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.

500
00:35:24.539 --> 00:35:31.860
And when the doctor says at the end of it, there should have been another way, Johnny Byrne should have thought of another way.

501
00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:33.539
That's where the problem lies.

502
00:35:33.599 --> 00:35:36.659
It's almost like the threat of the sea devils and the Silurians.

503
00:35:36.719 --> 00:35:38.219
They should have had their own agenda, obviously.

504
00:35:38.280 --> 00:35:41.099
But the threat of them should have been what brought the 2 blocks together.

505
00:35:41.159 --> 00:35:42.179
Yes, exactly.

506
00:35:42.239 --> 00:35:46.920
But you see, the thing with the, you know, the hexacromite gas and everything.

507
00:35:46.920 --> 00:35:52.079
And really, there is no choice but to use it to destroy the sea devils and cellurians.

508
00:35:52.139 --> 00:35:59.639
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.

509
00:35:59.699 --> 00:36:07.380
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.

510
00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:11.039
So in some respects, it's not an interesting thing to happen anyway.

511
00:36:11.099 --> 00:36:11.820
Exactly.

512
00:36:11.880 --> 00:36:14.219
Johnny Burns making up this situation.

513
00:36:14.280 --> 00:36:20.340
If there's no alternative, but to kill them all, that's because of the situation that we've decided to make up.

514
00:36:20.400 --> 00:36:37.199
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.

515
00:36:37.320 --> 00:36:43.139
You know, you don't have a heroic doctor at this point because no one is really behind that as an idea.

516
00:36:43.199 --> 00:36:51.900
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.

517
00:36:51.960 --> 00:36:55.739
The doctors persuaded the Silurians not to set off all of the missiles.

518
00:36:55.800 --> 00:36:57.119
And so there they are facing each other.

519
00:36:57.179 --> 00:36:59.099
How are they going to make this agreement work?

520
00:36:59.159 --> 00:36:59.880
Yeah.

521
00:36:59.880 --> 00:37:11.579
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.

522
00:37:11.639 --> 00:37:17.639
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.

523
00:37:17.699 --> 00:37:22.260
I mean, I think either is a more interesting proposition than what we got, even though I do kind of like the ending.

524
00:37:22.320 --> 00:37:25.739
Like you said, Nathan, as resolutions go, it just stops.

525
00:37:25.860 --> 00:37:26.639
Yeah.

526
00:37:26.639 --> 00:37:28.860
There's no denouement at all. extraordinary.

527
00:37:28.980 --> 00:37:29.280
No.

528
00:37:29.340 --> 00:37:34.920
And just the kind of killing everyone, like there's a nastiness to it, and I think...

529
00:37:34.980 --> 00:37:35.159
Yeah.

530
00:37:35.159 --> 00:37:41.760
I think you and I disagree about what should be the permissible level of nastiness. 100% is my upper limit.

531
00:37:42.179 --> 00:37:44.820
Isn't the Todd's 120%?

532
00:37:44.880 --> 00:37:46.500
not commenting on that.

533
00:37:46.559 --> 00:37:49.559
No, but look at some of the great stories in history.

534
00:37:49.619 --> 00:37:51.059
The Ark and Space, you've only got via left.

535
00:37:51.119 --> 00:37:53.219
Okay, the rest of, in terms of speaking characters.

536
00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:54.659
In Pyramids of Mars, they're all dead.

537
00:37:54.719 --> 00:37:57.360
In Robots of Death, you've only got 2 cinema.

538
00:37:57.360 --> 00:37:58.079
Horror Fang Rock.

539
00:37:58.139 --> 00:37:58.920
They're all gone.

540
00:37:58.980 --> 00:37:59.280
Exactly.

541
00:37:59.340 --> 00:38:00.300
And they're all great.

542
00:38:00.360 --> 00:38:10.139
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...

543
00:38:10.199 --> 00:38:11.460
Yeah, don't move the story on it all.

544
00:38:11.519 --> 00:38:15.119
I just happen for a bit of drama, whereas in something like horror Fang Rock.

545
00:38:15.179 --> 00:38:16.619
Every death moves the story forward.

546
00:38:16.679 --> 00:38:20.340
That's right. that's right The commander and Preston could have easily survived. right?

547
00:38:20.400 --> 00:38:21.840
It was just...

548
00:38:21.900 --> 00:38:22.860
I think it's just lazy writing.

549
00:38:22.920 --> 00:38:24.480
I think they were meant to. originally.

550
00:38:24.539 --> 00:38:24.960
Yeah.

551
00:38:24.960 --> 00:38:26.400
The commander in Buick.

552
00:38:26.460 --> 00:38:29.039
I just think Eric Seywood is good.

553
00:38:29.099 --> 00:38:32.519
You have to lay a lot of blame at his feet.

554
00:38:32.579 --> 00:38:37.139
And bringing Johnny Byrne back after the huge success of Arc of Infinity.

555
00:38:37.199 --> 00:38:37.920
Like it's like...

556
00:38:37.920 --> 00:38:40.380
No, I'm serious.

557
00:38:40.380 --> 00:38:43.380
I'm actually surprised how much I enjoyed it on the Blu-ray box.

558
00:38:43.440 --> 00:38:43.679
What?

559
00:38:43.679 --> 00:38:44.880
Archive Infinity.

560
00:38:44.940 --> 00:38:47.400
Well, I was going in.

561
00:38:47.519 --> 00:38:48.840
I was going with very low expectations.

562
00:38:48.900 --> 00:38:50.400
Often that's a good thing.

563
00:38:50.460 --> 00:38:55.019
I am also surprised by how much. true.

564
00:38:55.079 --> 00:38:59.039
Yes, I think basically he's dined out far too long on Keeper of Trarkan is the problem.

565
00:38:59.099 --> 00:39:03.960
Yes, after that, you know, he's only as half as good and half as good again.

566
00:39:04.019 --> 00:39:04.920
Yeah, yeah.

567
00:39:11.219 --> 00:39:15.599
Back to what you were saying, like, about the nobility of the Silurians.

568
00:39:15.659 --> 00:39:20.219
Like the doctor mentions their honourable and that, but you don't get that at any point.

569
00:39:20.280 --> 00:39:21.780
Yeah, they're not in the story, are they?

570
00:39:21.840 --> 00:39:27.719
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?

571
00:39:27.780 --> 00:39:36.719
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.

572
00:39:36.840 --> 00:39:38.579
There are actually too many characters.

573
00:39:38.639 --> 00:39:40.260
And that's another problem with the 80s.

574
00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:41.820
There's far too many supporting carriages.

575
00:39:41.880 --> 00:39:45.179
You could easily have combined Preston and Buick into the same character.

576
00:39:45.239 --> 00:39:54.300
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?

577
00:39:54.420 --> 00:39:54.840
That guy.

578
00:39:54.900 --> 00:39:56.400
Oh, yes, exactly.

579
00:39:56.400 --> 00:39:58.679
That's got to be a Peter Davis rehearsal joke.

580
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:03.239
And again, I really quite like that.

581
00:40:03.300 --> 00:40:07.739
It adds a bit of colour to incidental thing.

582
00:40:07.800 --> 00:40:08.760
What have you been eating?

583
00:40:08.820 --> 00:40:19.139
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.

584
00:40:19.320 --> 00:40:24.239
So having just a kind of a couple of throwaway lines is a relief.

585
00:40:24.300 --> 00:40:27.059
It's coming from Peter Davison's coming from the doctor.

586
00:40:27.119 --> 00:40:32.639
And this is a doctor, as people who listen to the podcast, know that I don't really have didn't gel with.

587
00:40:32.699 --> 00:40:39.480
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.

588
00:40:39.539 --> 00:40:40.679
It's funny.

589
00:40:40.739 --> 00:40:54.179
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.

590
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:58.559
It's also that weird thing of the doctor going around for 3 quarters of the story out of his normal costume.

591
00:40:58.619 --> 00:41:00.179
It pokes me in the eye every time.

592
00:41:00.239 --> 00:41:01.679
I like that.

593
00:41:01.739 --> 00:41:02.400
Yeah okay.

594
00:41:02.460 --> 00:41:06.300
It motivates the change of costume. from here on in.

595
00:41:06.420 --> 00:41:09.059
Yeah, he has a different costume from here.

596
00:41:09.119 --> 00:41:13.500
The green shirt comes to red shirt and yeah, trousers are different.

597
00:41:13.559 --> 00:41:14.519
Yeah, yeah.

598
00:41:14.579 --> 00:41:15.780
Windows are the wrong size.

599
00:41:19.440 --> 00:41:21.300
There was 2 doors.

600
00:41:22.320 --> 00:41:24.059
No, that's true.

601
00:41:24.119 --> 00:41:28.679
Look, going back to what we were saying at the start, there is actually quite a lot about this story that is good.

602
00:41:28.739 --> 00:41:29.820
The sets are good.

603
00:41:29.880 --> 00:41:33.659
The lighting, I think, going against the received wisdom is sometimes quite good.

604
00:41:33.719 --> 00:41:36.179
Some of those corridors are really quite well lit.

605
00:41:36.239 --> 00:41:37.019
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

606
00:41:37.079 --> 00:41:38.400
The model work looks fantastic.

607
00:41:38.460 --> 00:41:41.039
I think the money is there on the screen.

608
00:41:41.099 --> 00:41:45.360
The problem is being able to execute what the script is asking of it.

609
00:41:45.420 --> 00:41:55.739
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.

610
00:41:55.800 --> 00:41:56.639
The merka.

611
00:41:56.699 --> 00:41:59.820
So, the murket, they should have gone back to basics.

612
00:41:59.880 --> 00:42:04.019
They knew a couple of days in advance that the costume wasn't going to be ready and they made the decision.

613
00:42:04.079 --> 00:42:04.920
Let's just go with it.

614
00:42:04.980 --> 00:42:06.840
No, you can't do that.

615
00:42:06.900 --> 00:42:09.300
That's why there was a report saying it was unfit for transmission.

616
00:42:09.360 --> 00:42:13.199
That should have prompted a wholesale rethink of what they were going to do.

617
00:42:13.260 --> 00:42:17.039
And, you know, these professionals do it a couple of days for the studio and then make it work.

618
00:42:17.099 --> 00:42:18.960
There should have been more point of view shots.

619
00:42:19.019 --> 00:42:23.280
There should have been more glimpses of it rather than just plopping it wide.

620
00:42:23.340 --> 00:42:27.179
They should have turned down the lights for any scene that it was in, shambling down the corridors.

621
00:42:27.239 --> 00:42:31.019
They could have made the soundscape, more bestille and terrifying.

622
00:42:31.079 --> 00:42:38.760
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.

623
00:42:38.760 --> 00:42:40.320
Okay, when you say they, terrible.

624
00:42:40.380 --> 00:42:41.099
It's pennant.

625
00:42:41.219 --> 00:42:42.659
No, quite seriously.

626
00:42:42.780 --> 00:42:44.159
I also have been JNT.

627
00:42:44.219 --> 00:42:50.699
Well, yes, but nevertheless, it's up to Pennant to adapt to the camera script because you say, okay, you're still painting it.

628
00:42:50.760 --> 00:42:52.199
Right, forget the back half.

629
00:42:52.260 --> 00:42:53.039
Just give me the head.

630
00:42:53.159 --> 00:43:01.320
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.

631
00:43:01.380 --> 00:43:01.860
You know what I mean?

632
00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:02.460
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

633
00:43:02.460 --> 00:43:03.780
It's it's so easy to add.

634
00:43:03.780 --> 00:43:06.059
Failure of execution and a failure of conception.

635
00:43:06.119 --> 00:43:07.079
Failure of imagination.

636
00:43:07.139 --> 00:43:07.440
Yes.

637
00:43:07.440 --> 00:43:08.699
It is woeful.

638
00:43:08.760 --> 00:43:09.599
Oh, shocking.

639
00:43:09.659 --> 00:43:14.460
And so are the electrocutions of the extras that go with it.

640
00:43:14.519 --> 00:43:15.420
How are the extras?

641
00:43:15.480 --> 00:43:16.320
Sorry, sorry, sorry.

642
00:43:16.380 --> 00:43:23.039
The extras, that woman that places itself down on the floor, like she doesn't want to hurt her knees or anything.

643
00:43:23.039 --> 00:43:24.539
She just goes to sleep.

644
00:43:24.599 --> 00:43:28.800
It makes the ones in Destiny, the Daleks look positively rather animated.

645
00:43:28.860 --> 00:43:30.840
It's not in any form.

646
00:43:30.900 --> 00:43:32.639
We should not be getting that Exactly.

647
00:43:32.699 --> 00:43:34.679
It is a bit of a tradition though, isn't it?

648
00:43:34.739 --> 00:43:38.519
The aliens kill you in a way that makes you gently lower yourself to the floor.

649
00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:41.699
Except it's not that much of a tradition.

650
00:43:41.760 --> 00:43:44.820
Doctor Who before this time, before the 1980s.

651
00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:49.440
Let's say before season 20 onwards does not tend to do this.

652
00:43:49.500 --> 00:43:52.860
It doesn't invite ridicule with scenes like that.

653
00:43:52.920 --> 00:43:54.719
It's cheap, but it's not nasty.

654
00:43:54.780 --> 00:43:58.679
This looks cheap and nasty as much as it looks great.

655
00:43:58.679 --> 00:44:01.500
And you can't have that in a product that's going to screen.

656
00:44:01.559 --> 00:44:05.039
I mean, the murka is shockingly shockingly bad.

657
00:44:05.099 --> 00:44:07.019
Like unbelievably terrible.

658
00:44:07.079 --> 00:44:09.780
And we did have... feelings.

659
00:44:11.219 --> 00:44:12.599
The slither was shocking.

660
00:44:12.659 --> 00:44:15.780
No, don't go back there.

661
00:44:15.840 --> 00:44:22.139
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...

662
00:44:26.460 --> 00:44:28.980
It doesn't have a mouth.

663
00:44:29.039 --> 00:44:30.900
Like, it doesn't have a mouth.

664
00:44:30.960 --> 00:44:32.880
It's just got a ridge.

665
00:44:32.940 --> 00:44:34.139
Like, it doesn't have teeth.

666
00:44:34.199 --> 00:44:36.539
Like, it's so bad.

667
00:44:36.599 --> 00:44:37.739
But when it gets blinded.

668
00:44:37.800 --> 00:44:39.599
Oh my god.

669
00:44:39.659 --> 00:44:43.920
It doesn't have a mouth because tarpok feeds and my lactic.

670
00:44:44.519 --> 00:44:48.239
I mean, it's it's shockingly shockingly bad.

671
00:44:48.300 --> 00:44:51.000
And like the little hands that it has.

672
00:44:51.119 --> 00:44:51.840
Actually, they're quite good.

673
00:44:52.139 --> 00:44:54.420
The soundscape is terrible.

674
00:44:54.480 --> 00:44:57.719
It goes, It sounds ridiculous.

675
00:44:57.780 --> 00:44:59.639
It needs to sound bestial.

676
00:44:59.699 --> 00:45:00.119
Yes, exactly.

677
00:45:00.179 --> 00:45:03.420
But I mean, maybe we just didn't need it.

678
00:45:03.480 --> 00:45:07.920
If you'd had 2 phalanxes of sea devils coming through. phalanxes of cervix.

679
00:45:07.980 --> 00:45:08.699
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

680
00:45:08.760 --> 00:45:10.980
Merka has been destroyed.

681
00:45:11.159 --> 00:45:13.619
With that, and that's the other thing too.

682
00:45:13.679 --> 00:45:29.340
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.

683
00:45:29.400 --> 00:45:37.980
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.

684
00:45:38.039 --> 00:45:42.300
But they still sound sort of roughly different and they don't sound mechanical.

685
00:45:42.360 --> 00:45:44.820
Here, they sound like they're robots.

686
00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:46.500
Like no one seems to know what they are.

687
00:45:46.559 --> 00:45:54.780
And because we've got the lights flashing like their daleks and because they speak slowly. like the Silurians in the Silurians.

688
00:45:56.099 --> 00:46:03.900
Yeah, yeah, yeah. and they have proper discussions and stuff Something to do with beyond the range of the sensor.

689
00:46:03.960 --> 00:46:07.139
He's so slow and plodding.

690
00:46:07.199 --> 00:46:09.420
Oh, it's really boring.

691
00:46:09.539 --> 00:46:13.139
And what biological reason makes a part of your body flash when you speak.

692
00:46:13.199 --> 00:46:15.420
Well, maybe you're an anglerfish.

693
00:46:15.480 --> 00:46:17.460
Maybe...

694
00:46:17.460 --> 00:46:20.340
But again, okay, we're going to spring back Silurians.

695
00:46:20.400 --> 00:46:24.179
Let's bring them back without a central feature that they were known for.

696
00:46:24.239 --> 00:46:24.780
Why?

697
00:46:24.900 --> 00:46:26.579
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

698
00:46:26.639 --> 00:46:30.239
Oh, they don't even open the doors with their...

699
00:46:30.300 --> 00:46:34.019
Or burn through corridors or rock.

700
00:46:34.079 --> 00:46:37.199
I suspect somebody watched Solarians and thought they looked silly.

701
00:46:37.260 --> 00:46:39.300
And so therefore, let's make them look less silly.

702
00:46:39.360 --> 00:46:41.159
Therefore on screen, they look worse.

703
00:46:41.280 --> 00:46:44.699
Well, I think there's always been a resistance or at least there was resistance at this time.

704
00:46:44.760 --> 00:46:47.400
They have to have the body shake when a monster was talking.

705
00:46:47.460 --> 00:46:48.719
Like the cybermen tend to do.

706
00:46:48.780 --> 00:46:58.679
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.

707
00:46:58.739 --> 00:47:00.300
They manipulate with their tongue.

708
00:47:00.420 --> 00:47:05.400
So their actual mouths kind of move, not properly, not fully not in sync. story.

709
00:47:05.460 --> 00:47:06.599
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

710
00:47:06.659 --> 00:47:07.920
Yeah, they're not just wobbling.

711
00:47:07.980 --> 00:47:09.179
They're faces.

712
00:47:09.179 --> 00:47:11.219
They fight their lips. yeah Yeah.

713
00:47:11.280 --> 00:47:12.539
So they do look like they're talking.

714
00:47:12.599 --> 00:47:21.659
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.

715
00:47:21.719 --> 00:47:29.340
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.

716
00:47:29.400 --> 00:47:37.260
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.

717
00:47:37.380 --> 00:47:40.860
So it's understandable in the 80s they can't achieve that.

718
00:47:40.920 --> 00:47:48.780
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...

719
00:47:48.780 --> 00:47:57.059
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.

720
00:47:57.119 --> 00:48:00.059
But then failing to be able to animate them properly.

721
00:48:00.119 --> 00:48:02.579
So the whole production looks like Solurians.

722
00:48:02.639 --> 00:48:03.239
It's static.

723
00:48:03.300 --> 00:48:15.599
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.

724
00:48:15.659 --> 00:48:21.659
It's a good piece of television, it's just ruined by these terrible set pieces and moments that don't work.

725
00:48:21.719 --> 00:48:29.340
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.

726
00:48:29.400 --> 00:48:30.900
I mean, you may not.

727
00:48:31.019 --> 00:48:33.900
But I still liked watching it.

728
00:48:33.900 --> 00:48:37.079
And despite these, and I still like watching it.

729
00:48:37.139 --> 00:48:40.079
And despite its failings and certain things, I still enjoy it.

730
00:48:40.139 --> 00:48:43.079
But it could have been so much better, as I think, what we're talking about.

731
00:48:43.139 --> 00:48:43.980
Well, I agree with you, sir.

732
00:48:43.980 --> 00:48:50.280
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.

733
00:48:50.340 --> 00:48:53.940
No, it's definitely got lots to recommend it, which time flight does not.

734
00:48:54.000 --> 00:49:01.980
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.

735
00:49:02.039 --> 00:49:09.420
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.

736
00:49:09.480 --> 00:49:20.340
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.

737
00:49:20.400 --> 00:49:22.980
But I don't think they've got much to go on with.

738
00:49:23.039 --> 00:49:36.360
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.

739
00:49:36.420 --> 00:49:40.199
It's attempting to do something that the show could never do in a 1000000 years.

740
00:49:40.260 --> 00:49:43.380
Again, it's a problem of scale trying to achieve too much.

741
00:49:43.440 --> 00:49:56.760
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.

742
00:49:56.820 --> 00:50:03.059
Whereas this, everyone just declaims everyone's talking about their job.

743
00:50:03.119 --> 00:50:09.480
It is just basically the story of a bunch of people invade the base.

744
00:50:09.539 --> 00:50:13.860
They all shoot each other until we poison one side of them and then it ends.

745
00:50:13.920 --> 00:50:17.099
There's nothing imaginative about this.

746
00:50:17.159 --> 00:50:21.420
There's nothing that we didn't do better 2 years ago in earth shock.

747
00:50:21.480 --> 00:50:25.980
Earthshock had characters, you know, like Earthshock had characters in it.

748
00:50:26.039 --> 00:50:34.619
Who can say anything about Vorsak as a person or Buick or Preston apart from the fact that she has incredible hair?

749
00:50:34.679 --> 00:50:36.599
That's my line.

750
00:50:36.659 --> 00:50:38.099
I'm going to say stop.

751
00:50:38.159 --> 00:50:41.099
She's got incredible hair and makeup and she looks good.

752
00:50:41.159 --> 00:50:41.760
She does look great.

753
00:50:41.820 --> 00:50:44.159
That's why, when Nathan said that, he looked very pointed.

754
00:50:45.360 --> 00:50:53.340
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.

755
00:50:53.400 --> 00:50:54.420
No, I will.

756
00:50:54.480 --> 00:50:57.300
Warriors of the Deep is by far a better production than Timeline.

757
00:50:57.360 --> 00:51:02.579
But I think there are some dimensions along which time flight is better.

758
00:51:02.639 --> 00:51:04.559
Of course, it does succeed better in some way.

759
00:51:04.619 --> 00:51:06.719
There are some dimensions on which underworld is better than this.

760
00:51:06.840 --> 00:51:12.360
Going back to what I was saying about scale, time flight is another failed production for Doctor Who.

761
00:51:12.420 --> 00:51:15.300
It's one of the earliest ones in the 1980s that just doesn't work.

762
00:51:15.360 --> 00:51:18.059
And the problem, again, was failure of imagination.

763
00:51:18.119 --> 00:51:25.980
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.

764
00:51:25.980 --> 00:51:28.199
Let's find the money to go to Ealing.

765
00:51:28.260 --> 00:51:31.800
If we can't do that, let's turn the lights down, let's turn up the wind machine.

766
00:51:31.860 --> 00:51:35.460
Let's just imagine, add a soundscape.

767
00:51:35.519 --> 00:51:37.199
We needed to imagine it differently.

768
00:51:37.260 --> 00:51:41.400
As it is, it's all there. floodlit in a corner of TC6 or whatever.

769
00:51:41.460 --> 00:51:52.199
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.

770
00:51:52.260 --> 00:51:53.280
Yeah, right.

771
00:51:53.280 --> 00:51:55.679
And all of the monster costumes.

772
00:51:55.739 --> 00:52:10.980
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.

773
00:52:11.039 --> 00:52:15.539
It's because Graham Harper is faced with having to use this creature and it's not very successful.

774
00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:19.860
And so he does everything he can to not put in centre stage.

775
00:52:19.920 --> 00:52:20.280
Yeah.

776
00:52:20.280 --> 00:52:26.519
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.

777
00:52:53.579 --> 00:52:56.159
Well, that's all the time we had for this week.

778
00:52:56.219 --> 00:53:04.019
We'll be back next week to watch the Dodger encountering Sill in an exciting new set of space corridors in Mind Wharp.

779
00:53:04.199 --> 00:53:23.099
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.

780
00:53:23.460 --> 00:53:29.699
Until next time, can you please let the paint dry on the pantomime horse before sending it into battle?

781
00:53:29.760 --> 00:53:32.099
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

782
00:53:32.159 --> 00:53:33.599
See you soon.

783
00:53:34.980 --> 00:53:37.260
They really should have been another way.

784
00:53:49.320 --> 00:53:54.719
That was 500-year diary, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffiths, and Simon Moore.

785
00:53:54.780 --> 00:53:57.420
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.

786
00:53:57.480 --> 00:54:04.920
This episode, a full front on shot, was recorded on the 18th of May, 2025, and released on the 1st of June.

787
00:54:04.980 --> 00:54:12.719
We're just over halfway through this season of 500 year diary, but Doctor Who season 2 has now reached its end.

788
00:54:12.780 --> 00:54:20.039
If you want to hear what we thought of the reality war, tune in to the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire on Monday.

789
00:54:20.159 --> 00:54:21.239
We'll see you there.

790
00:54:33.300 --> 00:54:36.780
Did you see the zipper in the bottom of the solarine as it collapsed?

791
00:54:37.019 --> 00:54:39.780
I wasn't looking at the Solurian's bottom.

792
00:54:40.380 --> 00:54:42.840
I was looking at their shoes.

793
00:54:43.260 --> 00:54:47.340
I was looking at that too, but I just went, are you kidding me?

794
00:54:47.400 --> 00:54:48.780
Are you actually kidding me?

795
00:54:48.840 --> 00:54:50.940
I've actually picked that up for the 1st time.

796
00:54:51.000 --> 00:55:00.179
One of the reasons that the sea devils move so slowly is that they have comedy novelty slippers on. like giant bare feet slippers.

797
00:55:00.239 --> 00:55:05.699
Aren't the Salarians, are they on like the Haunted Nyman platform boots?

798
00:55:05.760 --> 00:55:11.820
No, no, they've kind of got like rubber flares that obscure their plim soles, you know.

799
00:55:12.539 --> 00:55:15.119
But I mean, again, you just don't shoot their feet.

800
00:55:15.239 --> 00:55:17.039
Like, you don't have to shoot their feet.

801
00:55:17.099 --> 00:55:31.260
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.

802
00:55:33.119 --> 00:55:35.699
They are actually men in rubber.

803
00:55:36.360 --> 00:55:37.920
Dear.

804
00:55:37.920 --> 00:55:44.880
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.

805
00:55:45.840 --> 00:55:47.760
So you agree with me?

806
00:55:47.820 --> 00:55:49.380
No, no, no, no, no.

807
00:55:49.380 --> 00:55:51.420
I don't entirely disagree with you.

808
00:55:51.420 --> 00:55:56.699
That's where it all begins to fall apart in terms of all the action sequences and seeing all of the problems on screen.

809
00:55:56.820 --> 00:55:58.320
The 1st trip.

810
00:55:58.380 --> 00:56:01.380
Why don't humans guns do anything?

811
00:56:01.920 --> 00:56:04.019
It's the traditional...

812
00:56:04.139 --> 00:56:05.219
Again, it's the way it's being shot.

813
00:56:05.280 --> 00:56:14.940
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.

814
00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:16.019
It just looks ridiculous.

815
00:56:16.079 --> 00:56:17.579
This bits the tag.

816
00:56:17.639 --> 00:56:19.619
I've already thought of the out.

817
00:56:19.679 --> 00:56:30.059
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.

818
00:56:30.119 --> 00:56:31.619
Like, no one holds them like these one.

819
00:56:31.679 --> 00:56:33.179
CDs on the front.

820
00:56:33.239 --> 00:56:34.079
No, no.

821
00:56:34.139 --> 00:56:35.699
So the ones with the CDs on the front.

822
00:56:35.760 --> 00:56:43.199
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.

823
00:56:43.260 --> 00:56:46.320
Yeah, like they're in close up in cliffhangers.

824
00:56:46.380 --> 00:56:47.699
They live crusting forwards.

825
00:56:47.760 --> 00:56:48.179
That's awesome.

826
00:56:48.239 --> 00:56:52.800
But now they're all holding them because they're like these little dinky hands. scrub the floor.

827
00:56:52.860 --> 00:56:54.659
That's what they look like.

828
00:56:54.840 --> 00:56:56.699
They're so cute.

829
00:56:56.699 --> 00:56:58.260
I think they got it looking so white.

830
00:56:58.980 --> 00:57:04.139
And then, and then, but the humans guns do literally nothing.

831
00:57:04.199 --> 00:57:07.079
They have no recoil, no beam comes out of them.

832
00:57:07.139 --> 00:57:08.940
There's no explosions, there's nothing.

833
00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:10.679
They're just pointing them at people.

834
00:57:10.739 --> 00:57:14.760
Turlo has suddenly become a more accurate shot than any of the...

835
00:57:15.599 --> 00:57:17.219
Oh my god.

836
00:57:17.340 --> 00:57:22.559
And that's the other thing that really struck me is I don't understand why these 3 people are travelling together at all.

837
00:57:23.159 --> 00:57:25.500
Yeah, why are they all travelling together?

838
00:57:25.559 --> 00:57:26.519
Because they are.

839
00:57:26.579 --> 00:57:28.500
They don't like one another.

840
00:57:28.559 --> 00:57:30.420
No, I think Tegan.

841
00:57:30.480 --> 00:57:31.500
No, no, that's not true.

842
00:57:31.559 --> 00:57:34.079
I think it's quite clear that the doctor and Tegan are fond of each other.

843
00:57:34.139 --> 00:57:36.420
It's quite clear that Turlo has a great respect for the doctor.

844
00:57:36.420 --> 00:57:39.420
And Tegan and Turlo have like a brother-sister relationship.

845
00:57:39.480 --> 00:57:41.280
Like a sort of a bickering brother and sister-in-law.

846
00:57:41.340 --> 00:57:43.739
And in the actual thing.

847
00:57:43.800 --> 00:57:45.960
Where does any of that sort of appear?

848
00:57:46.019 --> 00:57:47.099
Do you know what I mean?

849
00:57:47.159 --> 00:57:54.000
Because you've got Janet doing her sort of Janet face when, hey, wish me luck and she just goes, oh, yes, you.

850
00:57:54.059 --> 00:57:58.860
You know, like, like, it's absolutely Janet reaction rather than a Tegan reaction, I think.

851
00:57:58.980 --> 00:58:03.119
Like, they're just all kind of angry at each other all the time.

852
00:58:03.179 --> 00:58:04.320
Face it, Tegan.

853
00:58:04.380 --> 00:58:05.099
He's dead.

854
00:58:05.159 --> 00:58:06.300
He's drowned.

855
00:58:06.420 --> 00:58:08.099
I love that.

856
00:58:08.159 --> 00:58:09.539
Ratcliffhanger.

857
00:58:09.599 --> 00:58:11.099
The doctor's falling into some water.

858
00:58:11.159 --> 00:58:12.179
Face it, Tigger.

859
00:58:12.239 --> 00:58:13.139
He's drowned.

860
00:58:13.260 --> 00:58:15.239
Yeah, it takes 3 seconds to drown.

861
00:58:15.360 --> 00:58:23.639
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.

862
00:58:23.699 --> 00:58:25.260
When that was on in 1984.

863
00:58:25.440 --> 00:58:25.920
Yeah, yeah.

864
00:58:25.920 --> 00:58:28.920
I thought that was, I thought, we've arrived in the future.

865
00:58:28.980 --> 00:58:31.260
You know, You didn't notice the wall.

866
00:58:32.280 --> 00:58:35.579
No, no, no, not on a 43 cm.

867
00:58:35.639 --> 00:58:40.679
It's something that could be achieved because not only do they have great flats.

868
00:58:40.739 --> 00:58:44.400
So the set looks good over that BBC swimming pool at Shepparton or whatever.

869
00:58:44.460 --> 00:58:45.420
Yeah, what is it?

870
00:58:45.420 --> 00:58:46.440
It's a Shepparton, is it?

871
00:58:46.500 --> 00:58:50.820
Shepperson, yeah, because they couldn't use the BBC internal one for some election related reason.

872
00:58:50.940 --> 00:58:53.159
Do you think it's any election?

873
00:58:53.280 --> 00:58:55.139
Yeah, they were dunking Margaret Thatcher in there.

874
00:58:55.619 --> 00:58:58.079
Labour was CSD.

875
00:58:58.260 --> 00:59:01.019
It's because it's shot on single camera.

876
00:59:01.079 --> 00:59:03.059
And so you can pull it apart.

877
00:59:03.119 --> 00:59:04.800
It's something which can be achieved.

878
00:59:04.860 --> 00:59:05.820
And so it looks good.

879
00:59:05.880 --> 00:59:10.380
And can I just say that bit where the doctor kicks the guard in the face is quite confronted.

880
00:59:10.440 --> 00:59:10.860
Yes.

881
00:59:10.920 --> 00:59:11.579
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

882
00:59:11.639 --> 00:59:12.360
Yeah.

883
00:59:12.420 --> 00:59:14.039
I mean, again, that's stupid as well.

884
00:59:14.099 --> 00:59:15.119
Like, why does he do that?

885
00:59:15.179 --> 00:59:17.039
But I do think there is affection there.

886
00:59:17.099 --> 00:59:29.940
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.

887
00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:32.519
No, she is...

888
00:59:32.579 --> 00:59:36.300
Hobbling, but it's... slightly... slightly cool star.

889
00:59:36.360 --> 00:59:38.280
When the door falls, does it break Tegan's legal?

890
00:59:38.340 --> 00:59:39.059
break the door?

891
00:59:40.500 --> 00:59:45.000
It's soft and kind of, you know, bouncy.

892
00:59:45.059 --> 00:59:47.340
Yeah, it's like a koala mattress.

893
00:59:47.400 --> 00:59:47.760
Yeah.

894
00:59:47.820 --> 00:59:48.539
Memory foam.

895
00:59:48.599 --> 00:59:49.380
Memory fan.

896
00:59:49.440 --> 00:59:51.119
Gosh, this story looked good on paper.

897
00:59:51.780 --> 00:59:54.000
I'm not convinced it did.

898
00:59:54.119 --> 00:59:55.619
J&T's whiteboard.

899
00:59:55.679 --> 00:59:57.239
Let's say doctor's wife at the bottom.

900
00:59:57.300 --> 00:59:59.940
Thank God Johnny Byrne didn't come back.

901
01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:00.960
Well.

902
01:00:00.960 --> 01:00:02.340
He nearly did, didn't he?

903
01:00:02.400 --> 01:00:04.619
No, I think this was this Guardians of prophecy.

904
01:00:04.679 --> 01:00:06.179
Oh, that was amazing, was it?

905
01:00:06.239 --> 01:00:07.980
No, 20, wasn't it?

906
01:00:07.980 --> 01:00:08.400
23?

907
01:00:08.400 --> 01:00:08.760
23?

908
01:00:09.539 --> 01:00:16.380
All I will say is a final word is that the base commander is no Ronald Lehunt.

909
01:00:16.440 --> 01:00:18.179
No, so few people are.

910
01:00:18.239 --> 01:00:20.039
The briefcases.

911
01:00:20.039 --> 01:00:20.400
Yes.

912
01:00:21.119 --> 01:00:23.460
The costumes, they were a little better.

913
01:00:23.519 --> 01:00:25.019
But he's not very good.

914
01:00:25.079 --> 01:00:30.119
Well, it's the thing we were saying about the cast They seem to be straitjacketed by those ridiculous futuristic costumes.

915
01:00:30.179 --> 01:00:33.179
They're so buttoned up.

916
01:00:33.239 --> 01:00:34.739
No, they don't look too buttoned up.

917
01:00:34.800 --> 01:00:38.219
They look more like, they kind of look more like shell suits, don't they?

918
01:00:38.280 --> 01:00:40.199
Oh, yeah, they just like, it's a good thing.

919
01:00:40.260 --> 01:00:41.280
Yes, they say in a good way.

920
01:00:41.820 --> 01:00:44.219
They all about to board a bus to Hull or something.

921
01:00:44.280 --> 01:00:45.239
Exactly.

922
01:00:45.300 --> 01:00:50.340
And also the fact that Maddox in 2084, he doesn't even have a USBC plug on his head.

923
01:00:50.400 --> 01:00:52.019
He's got some great big sort of...

924
01:00:52.079 --> 01:00:53.639
That's so good as well, sorry.

925
01:00:54.960 --> 01:00:57.239
I'll just bleep that out.

926
01:00:57.300 --> 01:00:59.940
You say fuck in this. the most reason one.

927
01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:01.260
Yes, but that was deliberate.

928
01:01:01.320 --> 01:01:01.980
No, no, no.

929
01:01:02.039 --> 01:01:03.960
I put the robot over it.

930
01:01:04.019 --> 01:01:06.960
He doesn't even have he doesn't even have a USBC plug on his head.

931
01:01:07.019 --> 01:01:08.460
But it's not just that.

932
01:01:08.519 --> 01:01:15.900
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.

933
01:01:15.960 --> 01:01:23.579
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.

934
01:01:23.639 --> 01:01:28.260
But he said the plugs are sort of just stuck to the outside of his head because you can't. it looks reasonably okay.

935
01:01:28.320 --> 01:01:29.820
Yeah, no, I think it's...

936
01:01:29.820 --> 01:01:32.460
Along the cops and what we need... look marvellous and bespoke.

937
01:01:32.519 --> 01:01:32.940
They really do.

938
01:01:32.940 --> 01:01:38.280
With a little the little the drive, the the disk drive that goes down, around bit of jutters.

939
01:01:38.280 --> 01:01:40.500
Yeah, all along with tech, Dr. Solar use.

940
01:01:40.559 --> 01:01:41.159
This looks really great.

941
01:01:41.940 --> 01:01:47.400
The thing that the light beam thing looks good.

942
01:01:47.460 --> 01:01:49.619
And that's the other reference we haven't made.

943
01:01:49.679 --> 01:01:52.380
The thing that they blind Ian McCulloch with.

944
01:01:52.440 --> 01:01:58.619
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.

945
01:01:58.679 --> 01:02:05.280
So, I mean, which is interesting because Mangerian candidate is either well before or well after the main condition.

946
01:02:05.340 --> 01:02:07.440
But nevertheless, it's that idea.

947
01:02:07.500 --> 01:02:09.539
It adds into the Cold War thing.

948
01:02:09.599 --> 01:02:11.820
So there are little bits that they are trying to do with the Cold War.

949
01:02:11.880 --> 01:02:30.719
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.

950
01:02:30.780 --> 01:02:36.300
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.

951
01:02:36.360 --> 01:02:37.800
Okay, even episode one.

952
01:02:37.860 --> 01:02:42.719
But the point, my point being, not seeing one, because they're basically there...

953
01:02:42.719 --> 01:02:43.440
Exactly, 2 minutes here.

954
01:02:43.500 --> 01:02:47.579
Because it's so promising in that early sequence where the satellite's going to attack the TARDIS.

955
01:02:47.639 --> 01:02:52.139
I mean, it's quite jazzy and interesting and all this is this is...

956
01:02:52.199 --> 01:02:57.480
And the earth has gone horrible or bad in some way, but we never follow up. knocked off course is always exciting.

957
01:02:57.539 --> 01:02:58.320
It's always exciting.

958
01:02:58.380 --> 01:02:59.639
Yeah, no, no, there's problems.

959
01:02:59.699 --> 01:03:01.800
Just in general, there should have been another way.

960
01:03:01.860 --> 01:03:03.000
Yes, exactly.

961
01:03:03.119 --> 01:03:03.539
All of this.

962
01:03:03.599 --> 01:03:08.460
There just should have been another way and any other way they would have chosen would have made it better.

963
01:03:08.519 --> 01:03:12.599
As it is, it is quite good in places, but it's just not good enough.

964
01:03:12.659 --> 01:03:15.000
And in some places it's actively terrible.

965
01:03:15.059 --> 01:03:21.900
And the note that I had here is, as you've said earlier, it is the beginning of the 1985 cancellation of the show.

966
01:03:21.960 --> 01:03:22.500
Absolutely.

967
01:03:23.460 --> 01:03:25.679
Happy note. let's end it there