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This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 09:10:10

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

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The only Doctor Who podcast that can still remember having tariff free access to the alms markets of the warlords of Thorden.

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I'm Nathan.

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I'm Kate.

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I'm Peter, and I'm Simon.

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It's the 4th of October, 1986.

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There's been a whole 18 month hiatus since the doctor was on the planet Varos, throwing a couple of cutting quips in Sill's direction, and tonight, 4.800000 people have tuned in to watch The Trial of a Time Lord, part five, possibly hoping to see that happen again.

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But can still work as a villain in a completely different set of space corridors?

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Let's find out as we discuss Mind Warp.

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All right, so we're here in trial of a time law.

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Right in the middle.

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Right in the middle of trial of a time, Lord.

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How are we feeling about it so far?

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Disappointed.

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I was so, oh, goodness me.

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I was loving season 22 and the tone of the show and the way it was being made and for some reason during the hiatus, they completely forgot how to make Doctor Who.

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I liked it at the time because I needed to like it at the time.

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But seasons 23 and 24 are basically for me, one of the deers of the show, I'm afraid.

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Yeah, I'll have to agree with that.

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I think this was an important season in my fan evolution, not this story, which I'm really quite fond of, but the season as a whole was the 1st time as a 14 year old, I realised the Doctor Who was not as good as it used to be.

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And it was a frightening feeling.

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I remember mostly being puzzled by it.

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I kind of knew what season 22 was like because by that point the VCR had been invented and so I watched season 22 to death.

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And then season 23 came along and I was sort of watching it, now kind of enjoying it, and I'm kind of sharing the doctor on, but, you know, I would rewatch an episode and I would think, what's wrong?

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What's missing?

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I don't understand because I'm too young.

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That thing of like coming home from school or university or whatever and, you know, frantically rewatching Attack of the Cyberman part one, 5 or 6 times. part of that could be explained by the fact that we were a year older, but I don't think so.

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There was something missing from the series.

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See, I had the opposite experience and I'm slightly older than you and I wonder whether there's something developmental happening here.

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Well, you're the same age as Kate.

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Well, that's true.

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That is true.

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So for me, season 22 was the moment where I think I started to see through Doctor Who.

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And for me, season 22 is a series of episodes set in various space corridors all over the place, in which unpleasant things happen, and there's a lot of running around and getting captured and escaping and that kind of thing.

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Yeah, hear, hear.

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And for me, what I felt was that we found a new type of space corridor for each story.

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But we never really kind of developed a story in any kind of different way.

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So we would just find new settings for the doctor to do quips and for capturing and escaping to happen.

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And on some level, Doctor Who has always been like that, and maybe 22 happens to coincide with the moment where I kind of realised...

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Had an awakening.

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But I do have to say that there are things about season 22 that I really, really seriously dislike, and that I think that despite the fact that I like season 23 a lot better, and I'm not claiming it's good or that it's coherent, any of those things.

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That's okay.

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We can still be free.

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But I think Mind Warp is where it reaches its Nadir.

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And I think that a lot of it has to do with Perry. and it's not Nicola, and it's not the character of Perry, but it's the treatment of Perry.

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Yes. which I just think is the worst stain on 80s Doctor Who.

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And during the Hinchcliffe era, we talked a little bit on flight through entirety about how Sarah Jane stops being a credible character, because she's constantly having these terrible things happen to her, and yet she hops in the TARDIS at the end of Terror of the Zycons rather than kind of running a mile.

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And what happens to Perry, is that not only is she mistreated, but she's sexualised in a way that really hadn't happened since the 60s and certainly had never happened to the degree that it happens with Perry.

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And so mind warp opens with a scene in which the actual mind warp, not the not the trial.

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But a scene in which, uh, Perry and the doctor talk about the handsy warlord of Thornton, who sent the dirty warlord.

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Yeah.

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And like that's a funny throwaway line, except that that's what happens to her all the time.

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And that she's constantly being leered at and physically manhandled by man.

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And this is the point where her body is taken over and taken off her and she's experimented on it, mistreated.

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And I just think it's awful.

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I'm going to say that I do agree with you on an intellectual level, and yet that's not the takeaway I had as child, not the takeaway I have now.

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Episode 8 or part four, whichever way you want to look at it, is clearly the most important part of this story.

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And I remember the way that I felt when I watched it.

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I think maybe Simon and I watched Doctor Who in a slightly different way because of our reactions to season 22 and how positively we reacted to it.

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Episode 8 puts me back in mind of season 22.

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It's really unsettling and a bit brutal.

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And the fact that, you know, Perry Nicola Bryant is one of the most generically attractive Doctor Who companions, like, you know, you would sort of put her on screen and people would agree that's a beautiful woman.

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So the fact that they shave her head to make her into this creature at the end, I found so confronting and so dramatic that it still works for me now.

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I get a thrill when I watch it and I don't feel any of that kind of dispossession that you're talking about.

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So let me just say that I think that that final episode is as terrifying as Doctor Who has ever been, and the only thing that I can compare it to, I think, is Dark Water, where I spent the entire episode just with this feeling of incredible dread.

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We've talked before about when a story feels like a regeneration story because things are careening out of control and you're thinking, hang on, it's reached the 3 quarter mark of episode 4 and things aren't being resolved.

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In this story, you have the doctor for the one and only time maybe apart from turn left, which examines it, of you remove the hero from the action.

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This is what happened.

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He goes to hell.

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The thing that you mention about shaving Perry's head is the moment that you know the doctor's not going to save her.

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Like, you're, he's already asked, where's Perry, hasn't he, in episode one of Trial of a Time Lord, and we don't know where Perry is.

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And we don't know exactly when he was taken out of time.

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That's right.

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Because we're never going to have Nicola Bride in a bald wig playing Perry and the doctor rescuing her.

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The moment that Matrona Carly starts cutting her hair, either the doctor has to turn up immediately and put a stop to it.

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Or we already know by then that she's done for.

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And all of those delays, even just scenes of colony and corridors with people getting in his way.

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Yeah.

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Do you know what I mean?

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Oh, unquestionably. and echoing what you said, Peter, about episode 4 is a bit of season 22, which has been dropped into season 23, and that's the one, the foreboding music.

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It is that terrible sense of foreboding.

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And I think that's the episode, the only episode of the story, which properly works and then I enjoy.

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I think the rest of it is basically the worst parts of the trial.

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And it's the only episode of the season that has that dramatic weight. kind of anodyne, lightweight, jokey, everything that I don't really want from Doctor.

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With the treatment of Perry, though.

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I think we're forgetting what the mid-80s was like to attractive women.

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The only thing they can be is a sex symbol, whether it's the hostesses on game shows to spinning around things for the for the guy in a suit because someone's chosen the letter N or whether it's other people.

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Basically, they are sexualised in a way.

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It is all it is doing.

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I'm not saying it's right. saying all it's doing is exactly what's happening at the time.

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In all those American shows too.

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But you've got Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton.

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There are other ways of being a woman that are available.

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You've got Tegan.

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Tegan is not being pulled by aliens.

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No, it's actually wonderful, isn't it?

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And she's obnoxious and she's difficult and all of those things and she's never, ever once sexualised.

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Yeah, but so we'd had that character and now they're doing a different character.

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So that's what you do.

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It's not just another Tegan that's been put in.

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No, no.

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I don't think we need another Tegan, but I do think that Doctor Who has, like it's always, you know, had obviously sort of problematic things with its representation of women, but I think here it falls down a hole where it's worse than it used to be.

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It regresses.

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And I think it's a proper problem.

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And I think it's really, really deeply unpleasant and it stops at this and doesn't come back. disagree with you.

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I think it's probably a symptom of the kind of nihilist world that Eric Seywood occupies and the stories that he wants to deliver, that bad things will happen to the doctor and his companion in a variety of ways, and Perry happens to be in the middle of that.

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One of the things I do like is that Perry, I don't think, ever really loses her agency.

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She's always forthright and fighting back.

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She never just becomes a victim.

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She's never just tied to a railway track, except in time lash.

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Colin gets tied to a right way.

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Exactly.

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Even then, the train came off worse.

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But because it's bad sex things that happen to Perry is the problem.

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Do you know what I mean?

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It's not the peril.

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It's not like she gets blinded or pushed down the stairs like happens to Sarah and Brain of Morbius.

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It is specifically around people leering at her and pawing at her and stuff in a way that.

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You have to physically fight Joe Bell off.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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And, you know, even the goddamn Borad has the hots for us.

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Even Sill, in vengeance on Varos, is like when she's changing, you say, oh, she's almost attractive now, or as a pet.

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Yes, someone is obsessed with her appearance.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Yeah.

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Like, I think that that's unpleasant, and I can't kind of, like, I don't know how much of my dislike of this era stems from, that.

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I think definitely now.

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I doubt when I was a kid.

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It loomed very large in my consciousness and I think what I was worried about was just the usual genre staff.

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But because she is basically the most beautiful companion we've ever had before or since. don't think that's true.

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Or it's not in any way an objective thing.

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Yeah, it's not a clearly...

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Barbara, aren't you?

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I am thinking of Barbara.

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Look, but she is an incredibly beautiful woman.

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It's not surprising that the writing goes in this direction.

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And also the fact that that didn't, it didn't bother me then and it doesn't bother me now because the fact that an incredibly attractive woman is being poured at by villains.

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People we are supposed to despise.

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Is that sending a bad message?

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Because we're not saying it's okay for Perry.

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No.

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No, no.

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But I think what we're saying is that it's entertaining to watch Perry being poor.

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No, it's supposed to be crying.

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It supposed to be awful.

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If it didn't happen quite so often, then you could look at it that way, I think, but it's this absolute consistent.

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It's in story after story that Perry is pursued.

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It would be like if guest characters were falling in love with Tegan constantly.

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You'd be like, what's going on here?

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But when it happens in enlightenment.

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It's a fascinating subport.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yes.

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I think it's a, they just go back to it too often, and I think it's become an obsession that say what has for some reason, and I think there's a real genuine nastiness to it.

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And so while I think that that final episode that episode 8 is an amazing, you know, like amazingly paced, amazingly told, really quite terrifying.

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I think it's really kind of horrible.

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Like, I think it's got a great scene with Brian Blessed and her.

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It's one of the few good brands.

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A really, really good scene.

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Oh, I really like when he comes off the doorfers died.

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I think that's a really, I actually...

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We can cherry pick.

165
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Yeah, yeah. cherry pick one or 2 moments when he's not shouting from the ceiling. actually quite good.

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Yeah.

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Way too much.

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A problem for the story is that it's building inexorably to this horrendous climax, which is going to shock the heck out of all of us. you know, I remember my jaw hanging open.

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But a lot of the story is being played as a parody, as a comedy, by the people who are in it, and it's not necessarily written as humorously as they are playing it.

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But Crozier seems to think he's in the rocky horror picture show.

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And Ryan Brassett is playing.

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Right, bless it.

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Well, he's playing Voltan, whatever his name is from Flash Gordon.

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You know, he's playing what's written on the page, basically.

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And he does more than just shout.

176
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He does those lovely moments, but you've got this problem where a lot of the cast just seem to be in a different production that is not a horror story, but to joke.

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And the doctor is not immune to that.

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Like the dreadful business after he's been zapped in his brain.

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And he comes out and he's just a clown.

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He's just ridiculous and I hate it when anybody does that to the doctor and they make him look like just a jackass.

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And then worse, he turns into a complete asshole.

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And again, I hate it when people do that with the doctor, and of course, it's never resolved.

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Was it a clever ploy?

184
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Was he affected by the brain machine?

185
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Is it a matrix?

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We don't, we don't know.

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He just a toll.

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They needed to have a tone meeting or something to decide, okay, look, are we doing a parody Frankenstein story here with a warlord in it, or are we doing a serious story about brain alteration, which is going to end up with this terrible climax?

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I mean, they've done stories in Dog 2 before, which start off with a different tone then.

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So I'm thinking of the myth makers, which is a comedy for 3 quarters of its run, and then becomes high drama for its last episode.

191
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Well, you know, I say high drama.

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Mind warp is like that, I think.

193
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And I still call it mind warp.

194
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Trial of Time.

195
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But for that.

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Series 7B. It might even be Planet of Silver.

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For 3 quarters, it's run.

198
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It's a black comedy and really quite an effective one.

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And then it pitches over into its last episode, the comedy gets stripped away and it's just dark.

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I'm fine with that.

201
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I'm on board with that.

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In fact, one of the best gags, I think, is the moment that Sill looks at the new Kiev in Perry's body and says, if only we could have found a more attractive one, which is not a great joke, but the fact that we're doing a joke at that moment. you know, and that's.

203
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But isn't it great as well?

204
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Because it's silent apart from his life, which is one of the very few moments of silence before or since.

205
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What are we doing with making the doctor into an unlikeable, unsympathetic villain for half of the story, when we have the experience of the twin dilemma, and how badly that went down with a big chunk of fandom, and it may be one of the turning points in the public consciousness of the show, maybe.

206
00:16:57.899 --> 00:16:59.519
Why are we doing that again?

207
00:16:59.519 --> 00:17:05.519
When the show is under scrutiny by the public, by the BBC bosses, why are we going there?

208
00:17:05.579 --> 00:17:07.259
The answer is we shouldn't be.

209
00:17:07.319 --> 00:17:10.319
The doctor should be the doctor throughout the season.

210
00:17:10.380 --> 00:17:16.859
But if we are going to go there, We have to work out why we're going there and what we're going to do.

211
00:17:16.920 --> 00:17:18.599
And as you said, it's not worked out.

212
00:17:18.660 --> 00:17:23.819
We don't know if the doctor is being manipulated by the Matrix, if it was the brain pulse.

213
00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:26.700
I thought that weird brain transference pulse had made you crazy.

214
00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:30.660
I mean, I actually said this in the flight through entirety episode.

215
00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:34.200
I think it's clear what the script wants to be happening. afterwards, yes.

216
00:17:34.259 --> 00:17:35.220
Yeah, it's Matrix.

217
00:17:35.279 --> 00:17:35.940
Yes, that's right.

218
00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:49.619
And I think there's the bit that Kate objected to, which is the immediate consequence of the brain pulse, but then after that we see the doctor much as he is, although the doctor complains that the emphasis is slightly wrong and that's kind of fine.

219
00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:59.460
And then I think that the moment where the Matrix is tampered with is that, again, that horrific scene where they chain Nicola to rocks.

220
00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:09.599
They really chain her to rocks and the tide is coming in and she's anxious about the battery pack on her microphone giving her a shock.

221
00:18:09.660 --> 00:18:13.500
And we try to get the scene as quickly as possible.

222
00:18:13.559 --> 00:18:16.200
She's really, really unhappy about it.

223
00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:18.299
And you've got Colin torturing her.

224
00:18:18.359 --> 00:18:26.160
And there's one moment where he says, oh, look, we can talk and then he says, tell me the names of your conspirators and stuff.

225
00:18:26.220 --> 00:18:33.779
And that's the bit, which is the moment where that scene turns because it turns it's like, oh, all right, it's our Dr. Pack.

226
00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:37.380
Everything's fine, and then it turns out he's not, and that's the Matrix being interviewed with.

227
00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:40.140
The problem with this is there's 2 problems, I think.

228
00:18:40.200 --> 00:18:46.680
One is that it's an uncomfortable spilling over of the production mayhem into what we get on screen.

229
00:18:46.740 --> 00:18:53.220
We should have had a clear idea. people involved should have had a clear idea of what was here and why they're playing.

230
00:18:53.279 --> 00:18:54.420
Colin doesn't have any idea.

231
00:18:54.480 --> 00:18:56.940
And so it leans into his worst impulses.

232
00:18:57.000 --> 00:18:58.500
He just goes over the top.

233
00:18:58.559 --> 00:19:04.440
I don't think it helps that he's got Brian Blessed in the scenes with him and he's trying to match that height and that energy.

234
00:19:04.500 --> 00:19:08.819
But also, I don't know why it probably goes back to what you were saying.

235
00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:17.940
But the 6th doctor in particular, who I really like a lot more than some other people do, leans into misogyny when he becomes that character.

236
00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:20.759
And so he's always talking about, why would I listen to this?

237
00:19:20.759 --> 00:19:22.140
and a stupid girl.

238
00:19:22.200 --> 00:19:23.460
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

239
00:19:23.700 --> 00:19:25.140
It's Liberty Gibbet. hopeless.

240
00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:32.819
Yes, all that. and he's pushing Perry along the corridors when they come back from the scene at the rocks and all of that.

241
00:19:32.880 --> 00:19:34.740
And that makes me slightly uncomfortable.

242
00:19:34.799 --> 00:19:40.079
I think if they'd been clarity in the production of what was happening, Colin would have had more to have latched onto.

243
00:19:40.140 --> 00:19:47.880
Yeah, I was thinking about that because everyone says that Colin asked the writer and they said, oh, ask the script editor and then ask the director and nobody knew.

244
00:19:47.940 --> 00:19:52.920
Apparently he couldn't speak to Philip Martin because why would he be able to read Philip Martin?

245
00:19:52.980 --> 00:19:53.880
That's right.

246
00:19:53.940 --> 00:19:59.519
And so he asks the director and he asks say word and say would say speak to Philip Martin.

247
00:19:59.579 --> 00:20:00.720
He goes, well, I can't do that.

248
00:20:00.779 --> 00:20:02.099
We're done.

249
00:20:02.160 --> 00:20:04.559
But I mean, you know, I think I, again, I made this point.

250
00:20:04.619 --> 00:20:06.900
It's Eric Sayward's job tonight.

251
00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:18.119
It's a director's job to decide, even if the director has not received any input from the writer or the script editor or the producer, it's the director's job to go through the script with a highlighter and go, okay, this is this, this is that.

252
00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:20.039
What do we have 10 days of rehearsal?

253
00:20:20.339 --> 00:20:23.339
on Monday going, okay, we've got these scenes.

254
00:20:23.400 --> 00:20:24.720
How are we playing this?

255
00:20:24.839 --> 00:20:25.619
How are we doing this?

256
00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:27.240
And I think that's what you're saying.

257
00:20:27.299 --> 00:20:43.019
Having said that, I wonder if they'd have worked out what was what, it would have actually been even Hamier because it would have had it would have had that terrible thing of actors pretending they're acting within the story, which always looks embarrassing.

258
00:20:43.079 --> 00:20:44.579
Do you know what I mean?

259
00:20:44.640 --> 00:20:47.220
So maybe we've just maybe we have to be thankful for small mercies.

260
00:20:47.279 --> 00:20:58.740
And also, the other thing is, I don't necessarily mind the fact that even to this day, we don't really know, because we all have a different idea, and every time you watch it, you go, because I don't think it needs to be a bounce.

261
00:20:58.740 --> 00:21:11.160
And this is maybe what Philip Martin might have actually said, had he been contacted, is maybe he would have said, you're never actually supposed to know, you shouldn't know what he's real and what's the matrix, and what might have been the doctor just being if I'm not by the brain thing.

262
00:21:11.220 --> 00:21:12.539
I absolutely don't mind that.

263
00:21:12.660 --> 00:21:15.359
I just think it's indicative of the mayhem of the series.

264
00:21:15.480 --> 00:21:16.980
It's an indictment of that.

265
00:21:17.039 --> 00:21:22.259
In fact, it's the 1st time that the doctor's experiences stop being what we see on screen.

266
00:21:22.319 --> 00:21:32.940
This is the 1st time that we have a thoroughly unreliable narrator where we as the audience can't trust that what we're seeing is what really happened, right?

267
00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:38.880
And that's kind of interesting, I think, and inadvertent.

268
00:21:38.940 --> 00:21:43.200
And we never really go anywhere with it, but I think it is a thing.

269
00:21:43.259 --> 00:21:53.339
Whereas, you know, modern Doctor Who, we very frequently see things told in a particular way or from a person's point of view or things are not meant to be naturalistic or things happen.

270
00:21:53.400 --> 00:21:54.839
But this is the 1st time it happens.

271
00:21:54.900 --> 00:21:55.619
Yeah exactly.

272
00:21:55.740 --> 00:22:05.220
See, a lot of people's problems, the people who don't like mind warp, and they are numerous, but it's usually about this issue about, oh, which is the matrix and which is the...

273
00:22:05.220 --> 00:22:06.900
I don't...

274
00:22:06.900 --> 00:22:07.259
Exactly.

275
00:22:07.319 --> 00:22:08.339
I don't care.

276
00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:10.920
I'm happy for the bizarre ambiguity, right?

277
00:22:10.980 --> 00:22:16.380
It's almost everything else apart from episode 4 that I think is wrong with the story.

278
00:22:16.440 --> 00:22:17.400
Do you know what I mean?

279
00:22:17.460 --> 00:22:28.380
Like, like, I think there are so many bad things about it from the way the production is made from, to the way it's performed, all of these things, and we can go through them one by one if you.

280
00:22:28.440 --> 00:22:31.259
Well, itemise them for us, Simon.

281
00:22:34.619 --> 00:22:43.859
I mean, let's talk a little bit about the predecessor of the story, Vengeance on Varus, which is where we 1st meet still.

282
00:22:43.920 --> 00:22:45.960
And it's very highly regarded.

283
00:22:46.019 --> 00:22:52.500
I think a lot of people think it's the best story of that season or the era.

284
00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:59.460
And I think it does some pretty amazing things with, you know, the way it's told and all of that sort of thing.

285
00:22:59.519 --> 00:23:03.539
But I think it's the story at which I just went. actually I'm done here.

286
00:23:03.599 --> 00:23:06.539
And I don't like it at all.

287
00:23:06.599 --> 00:23:11.039
And I think it's, it's not as good as this.

288
00:23:11.160 --> 00:23:18.779
And I think part of the reason is that the baddies are just horrifically woefully generic and uninteresting.

289
00:23:18.839 --> 00:23:20.700
Inventions of virus.

290
00:23:20.759 --> 00:23:22.259
Yeah, like silly.

291
00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:24.839
Chief and Quillum are terrible.

292
00:23:24.900 --> 00:23:31.319
Quillem is, you know, like a, like just, oh, he wears a mask.

293
00:23:31.380 --> 00:23:33.779
He's poundland Shara's jerk.

294
00:23:33.900 --> 00:23:36.180
You know, like here.

295
00:23:37.140 --> 00:23:38.759
That's right.

296
00:23:38.819 --> 00:23:39.960
He's terrible.

297
00:23:40.019 --> 00:23:42.299
And even...

298
00:23:42.359 --> 00:23:44.160
Terribly gorgeous greys.

299
00:23:44.220 --> 00:23:47.160
But but slimy performance is wonderful.

300
00:23:47.220 --> 00:23:52.680
The thing is, it's a show about how terrible Doctor Who is.

301
00:23:52.740 --> 00:24:05.099
Like at Philip Martin sees Doctor Who as a thing where people are just going through space corridors, confronted by random things that they solve in random ways. special effects.

302
00:24:05.160 --> 00:24:06.539
Do you know what I mean?

303
00:24:06.599 --> 00:24:08.460
Like with the fly, it's all right.

304
00:24:08.519 --> 00:24:11.220
We'll just pretend it's an illusion, so it won't affect us.

305
00:24:11.279 --> 00:24:14.579
The sand, however, that's an illusion, but it will affect us.

306
00:24:14.640 --> 00:24:16.440
Who could predict which thing would happen?

307
00:24:16.920 --> 00:24:18.900
And it's exciting.

308
00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:20.819
Do you know what, Wayne's this not wonderful?

309
00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:21.660
Exactly.

310
00:24:21.720 --> 00:24:22.740
I don't understand.

311
00:24:22.799 --> 00:24:29.339
Because, basically, it's a satire of Doctor Who that basically says that Doctor Who is bad.

312
00:24:29.400 --> 00:24:32.700
And that's one way of dealing with the fact that Doctor Who is bad.

313
00:24:32.759 --> 00:24:35.700
But another way would be making it good.

314
00:24:35.759 --> 00:24:36.599
Okay.

315
00:24:36.599 --> 00:24:41.460
I, I, I don't accept the premise of my, by the way.

316
00:24:41.460 --> 00:24:42.539
And I'll explain why.

317
00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:44.640
I think, I think, I mean, it's a great...

318
00:24:44.700 --> 00:24:47.279
I think what you've come up with there is a wonderful meta reading of it.

319
00:24:47.339 --> 00:24:49.980
But I think that's what it's doing, isn't it?

320
00:24:50.039 --> 00:24:52.619
Like, no, that's how the cliffhanger works.

321
00:24:52.740 --> 00:24:58.980
Like the real cliffhanger and the meta cliffhanger are the same and the fact that the doctor's yes and cut it now and all that sort of stuff.

322
00:24:59.039 --> 00:25:02.039
Yeah. but and it suits using elements of television.

323
00:25:02.099 --> 00:25:03.720
What it's about, it's video narsis.

324
00:25:03.779 --> 00:25:10.799
It's about the fact that television, not just Doctor Who, but television generally has become a very violent place at this time.

325
00:25:10.859 --> 00:25:15.240
Like all of those American dramas that people are consuming, whether it's the A team and all that sort of stuff.

326
00:25:15.299 --> 00:25:19.019
Have horrific things happen to people, and then they all go, ha, ha, and then they move on.

327
00:25:19.079 --> 00:25:24.000
You know, it's the era of television and that's the story it's telling, not just Doctor Who.

328
00:25:24.059 --> 00:25:32.160
But it's, it's, it does it by creating a TV show that involves the doctor and his companions and the guest starts going through corridors.

329
00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:34.920
It's literally a doctor actually watching it.

330
00:25:34.980 --> 00:25:36.720
Yeah, but that's also not what parody is.

331
00:25:36.779 --> 00:25:47.940
You know, parody is taking sort of, you know, the most laughable or the most generic aspects of something and writing them large, which is what vengeance. not an accurate reflection of what Doctor Who does all the time.

332
00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:48.480
No.

333
00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:56.279
A big difference between vengeance on Varos and Mindwarp is that Varos has a very, very clear theme, a very, very clear point.

334
00:25:56.339 --> 00:25:57.180
Yes.

335
00:25:57.180 --> 00:25:58.319
How well it's done.

336
00:25:58.380 --> 00:26:00.779
You can argue, but it's got something to say.

337
00:26:00.839 --> 00:26:02.759
What the hell is mind warp about?

338
00:26:02.819 --> 00:26:03.900
such a hodgepodge.

339
00:26:03.960 --> 00:26:05.579
Brain alteration is bad.

340
00:26:05.700 --> 00:26:09.059
Perry says, no one likes brain alter-ish.

341
00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:11.640
That seems like...

342
00:26:12.299 --> 00:26:14.519
She's not talking for me.

343
00:26:14.579 --> 00:26:18.420
And that's what I picking up that it's exactly the point.

344
00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:25.079
Varos has a clear thing for me of what it's doing and what it is.

345
00:26:25.140 --> 00:26:32.279
You can think that, well, that's a bit rubbish, or you don't think it should be doing that, but it knows what it's doing, and I actually think it does it really, really well.

346
00:26:32.339 --> 00:26:34.859
Even if you have someone chewing the scenery like Quilla, right?

347
00:26:34.920 --> 00:26:41.940
But you have so much good in it, like the Martin Jarvis's characters, the governor, that is just elegance personified for me.

348
00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:46.740
You have the meta nature of Eric and Etta watching it from the sidelines and they're watching television.

349
00:26:46.799 --> 00:26:48.180
They're watching Doctor Who from there.

350
00:26:48.240 --> 00:26:50.339
And that works as well because they do.

351
00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:53.880
And it is the wider story of Dog 2 in season 22 and C23.

352
00:26:54.059 --> 00:26:57.480
You can disagree with what season 22 is going for. going for something.

353
00:26:57.539 --> 00:26:59.700
Season 23 feels at sea.

354
00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:01.140
It doesn't know what it wants.

355
00:27:01.200 --> 00:27:03.960
It's like they suddenly went, 0 my god, is that the time?

356
00:27:04.019 --> 00:27:07.980
We have a season to write, and we've only got a week to write it, and this is what they come up with.

357
00:27:08.039 --> 00:27:09.660
We've 18 months, for goodness sake.

358
00:27:09.900 --> 00:27:12.359
I think it's a function of the real world.

359
00:27:12.420 --> 00:27:15.240
I think it's being told, no, you're making Doctor Who wrong.

360
00:27:15.299 --> 00:27:16.440
But not being told why.

361
00:27:16.440 --> 00:27:19.079
Not being told how to fix it and what people want.

362
00:27:19.859 --> 00:27:24.839
I mean, that's baffling to me that they need to be told what's wrong. would agree.

363
00:27:24.900 --> 00:27:26.039
A bereft of ideas.

364
00:27:26.099 --> 00:27:33.660
And look at how vengeance on Varus resolves itself because it is a bad story for the doctor because he doesn't actually do anything.

365
00:27:33.720 --> 00:27:37.920
And had he not turned up, the same thing would have taken place.

366
00:27:39.180 --> 00:27:45.480
Because the Galatron Mining Corporation or something reduces the price of Zeiton Zebnerin creases it all.

367
00:27:45.539 --> 00:27:49.859
Some god thing implies it applies a tariff, does something.

368
00:27:49.859 --> 00:27:55.019
And everything's fine again, and the doctor turns out, didn't need to do anything.

369
00:27:55.079 --> 00:28:02.279
I mean, what the doctor does is ensure the survival of the good governor to make sure going forward.

370
00:28:02.339 --> 00:28:07.259
He does actually cause, because I think without that, maybe the price of Zeiton 7 is improved.

371
00:28:07.319 --> 00:28:09.900
But even so, you still have a corrupt regime running.

372
00:28:09.960 --> 00:28:12.720
But what you don't get is the doctor being a proper hero.

373
00:28:12.779 --> 00:28:14.640
Like he wanders through this sort of miserable thing.

374
00:28:15.660 --> 00:28:16.920
I think he is from a hero in it.

375
00:28:16.980 --> 00:28:18.839
Anyway, but that's Varos, and that's what we're here to talk about.

376
00:28:18.900 --> 00:28:21.539
So what about Sill on Varos?

377
00:28:21.599 --> 00:28:29.759
And that's one of the things that I dislike Mindwalk for and love Varos for is because Sill is so much better in vengeance on Varos.

378
00:28:29.819 --> 00:28:41.880
The performance is so much more subtle and interesting and measured, whereas in mind warp, he just turns into a comic, not even villain, just a comedy relief character.

379
00:28:41.940 --> 00:28:43.740
He's stripped of his villainy.

380
00:28:43.799 --> 00:28:47.220
He's stripped of that dark villainy that he has in Varos.

381
00:28:47.279 --> 00:28:49.680
In Varos, the costume is so much better.

382
00:28:49.740 --> 00:28:57.359
It's a murkier green, like he's come out of the shore, the murky bits of the shore, rather than this fluorescent green colour.

383
00:28:57.420 --> 00:29:00.480
It's wet and oozy and shiny in barrass.

384
00:29:00.539 --> 00:29:03.599
It's got a proper headpiece rather than this kind of flat thing.

385
00:29:03.660 --> 00:29:05.400
The mask in mind warp.

386
00:29:05.460 --> 00:29:12.900
Sometimes he's coming down and starting to cover the top of his eyebrows in his eyes. that you can see the makeup painted on in a completely different way.

387
00:29:12.960 --> 00:29:13.680
It is...

388
00:29:13.680 --> 00:29:14.039
No, no.

389
00:29:14.099 --> 00:29:15.240
We've seen Carnival of Monsters.

390
00:29:15.299 --> 00:29:19.740
No, but his still and his costume and his portrayal is chalk and cheese between the two.

391
00:29:19.799 --> 00:29:25.259
So I actually think that the costume is better in mind warp.

392
00:29:25.319 --> 00:29:29.700
And the reason is, I think it's like, it looks like a costume.

393
00:29:29.819 --> 00:29:31.799
No, it looks like a costume.

394
00:29:31.859 --> 00:29:32.279
I'm sorry.

395
00:29:32.279 --> 00:29:33.900
Mind warp, mind warp.

396
00:29:33.960 --> 00:29:39.599
It looks like you've got a man dressed as a green thing, whereas inventions of virus, you go, wow, that looks so good.

397
00:29:39.660 --> 00:29:40.980
I'm so impressed.

398
00:29:40.980 --> 00:29:41.700
Don't go like that.

399
00:29:41.759 --> 00:29:44.339
So he's kind of brown and glistening.

400
00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:46.319
And he's got a pinched off end.

401
00:29:46.380 --> 00:29:49.200
And so he just looks like a turd.

402
00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:52.680
And do you know what I mean?

403
00:29:52.740 --> 00:29:54.000
Like, it's the pinch float.

404
00:29:54.059 --> 00:29:58.259
When he walked in, do you know what my uncle said when I was watching Bear Angel Barrows for the Upteenth time.

405
00:29:58.259 --> 00:29:59.940
Chris, why are you watching this again?

406
00:30:00.180 --> 00:30:02.700
No, no, he better than that.

407
00:30:02.759 --> 00:30:05.160
He said, oh, he's got a big donga.

408
00:30:09.420 --> 00:30:12.720
And still had enough poison to be able to.

409
00:30:13.559 --> 00:30:16.440
So I think that's a problem.

410
00:30:16.500 --> 00:30:21.299
I also think that the fin flap things around his head don't work quite as well.

411
00:30:21.359 --> 00:30:34.559
And I think that the new costume at least has some attempt to kind of hide the terrible because there's a very, very clear hole for Nabil's face to, you know, go through the headpiece.

412
00:30:34.619 --> 00:30:37.380
Well, see, I find I don't see it in embarrassed, but I do see it in mine.

413
00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:39.059
All I'm seeing is a man in a mask.

414
00:30:39.119 --> 00:30:40.380
A man with a head covering.

415
00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:45.480
Yeah, no, I mean, I think that they've gone back to the drawing board and tried to address some of the problems.

416
00:30:45.539 --> 00:30:50.700
No, I think they've just lost all the designs from the previous, like all that's been shredded and they have to...

417
00:30:50.759 --> 00:30:51.839
That seems like it, though.

418
00:30:52.079 --> 00:30:54.480
Yeah, they destroy the episodes.

419
00:30:54.539 --> 00:30:55.559
They keep all the paperwork.

420
00:30:55.559 --> 00:31:03.839
Talking about silly in general, I think it is, again, indicative of the unfavourable shift in the series.

421
00:31:03.900 --> 00:31:13.980
He's gone from being this dark character, you know, villainous character who sort of was a bit repulsive and said these weird... and he's become comic relief.

422
00:31:14.339 --> 00:31:16.680
Because they've said, we don't want elements like that.

423
00:31:16.740 --> 00:31:21.660
We don't want sort of hard hitting or brutal or nasty characters.

424
00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:24.539
And so they said, okay, let's add comedy to the villain.

425
00:31:24.599 --> 00:31:26.640
It works for Crozier.

426
00:31:26.700 --> 00:31:27.839
I am not sure it works for still.

427
00:31:27.900 --> 00:31:30.599
He's funny in the moment, but he actually contributes nothing to the story.

428
00:31:30.720 --> 00:31:34.799
But he is funny in Vengeance and the virus because it's done, but yeah.

429
00:31:34.799 --> 00:31:36.420
Yeah, he's got the governor.

430
00:31:36.420 --> 00:31:38.759
And the malfunctioning translator.

431
00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:51.779
But that's what makes it all those slight eccentricities for me is what is what makes, like, I know people keep saying that stories like Varos are just relentless, but they're not because there are so many lovely moments, like, you know, There's a lot of humours.

432
00:31:51.900 --> 00:31:53.700
Like, you know, the governor's saying, you know, you know, don't tell.

433
00:31:53.700 --> 00:31:59.099
It's my only amusement, you know, in terms of, there are lovely moments throughout there, I was like that.

434
00:31:59.099 --> 00:32:04.019
And still, it's just such, still, for me, feels like an actual villainous character in Varrels.

435
00:32:04.079 --> 00:32:06.000
I just play...

436
00:32:06.059 --> 00:32:11.039
And in mind warp, he's just there to feed lions to feed comedy lines and everything else I've said about the costume.

437
00:32:11.099 --> 00:32:17.339
You see, I actually really like the comedy duo of Christopher Ryan and Nabil Shaban in Mind Warp.

438
00:32:17.400 --> 00:32:19.319
I think Christopher Ryan is great.

439
00:32:19.380 --> 00:32:21.480
Like, I think he's really, really terrific.

440
00:32:21.480 --> 00:32:31.500
And I kind of like seeing Seal panicky and on the back foot, which he does at the end, doesn't he, of vengeance on Varos?

441
00:32:31.559 --> 00:32:35.279
But that's his default mode all the way through the...

442
00:32:35.400 --> 00:32:35.819
Yeah, yeah.

443
00:32:35.880 --> 00:32:39.539
I mean, it's, yeah, I like the comedy duo between Kiv and Sil.

444
00:32:39.599 --> 00:32:41.220
It's different, but there's still, it's not silly.

445
00:32:41.279 --> 00:32:42.900
It's like it's a different thing to me.

446
00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:45.480
It's a different creature. a different person, a different character.

447
00:32:45.539 --> 00:32:51.539
I've just had the astonishing idea of what if they didn't have kids and it was still who wanted his brain transplanted into Perry.

448
00:32:51.660 --> 00:32:54.779
It would change the ending of the episode quite, quite markedly.

449
00:32:54.839 --> 00:32:55.740
I missed that punchline.

450
00:32:55.799 --> 00:32:56.519
Oh, ew.

451
00:32:59.579 --> 00:33:04.079
And he doesn't do that nearly as well or as sinisterly as he does in Barros.

452
00:33:04.619 --> 00:33:06.299
It's pretty great.

453
00:33:06.299 --> 00:33:09.960
He's brilliant in Barros. especially the way it comes in on that cliffhanger.

454
00:33:10.019 --> 00:33:11.220
Oh my god, that story is so good.

455
00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:16.980
That's one of the many things I don't like about Mind Warp is still.

456
00:33:17.099 --> 00:33:17.579
Yeah.

457
00:33:17.579 --> 00:33:20.700
You know, like, I think Crozier is incredibly great.

458
00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:24.119
And Matrona Carney's really...

459
00:33:24.119 --> 00:33:25.500
I remember Carney's really good.

460
00:33:25.559 --> 00:33:29.519
I disagree about Crozier and the acting, I think... terrible performance.

461
00:33:29.579 --> 00:33:34.259
I think his the way he delivers the lines is like, I am going to be a villain.

462
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:35.339
It's like...

463
00:33:35.460 --> 00:33:36.839
But he only becomes like that at the very end.

464
00:33:36.900 --> 00:33:39.480
Otherwise, he's remarkably underplayed the whole time.

465
00:33:39.539 --> 00:33:41.339
No, I think he's not under played. he's a terrible threat.

466
00:33:41.400 --> 00:33:44.700
It's that it's the monotone way in which he delivers all of his lines.

467
00:33:44.759 --> 00:33:46.559
I just think is just magnificent.

468
00:33:46.680 --> 00:33:55.980
And it was the discontinuity guy that mentions the bit where he goes into cardiac arrest and then Crozier has a sip of his tea.

469
00:33:56.099 --> 00:33:57.119
I love that.

470
00:33:57.180 --> 00:33:58.920
That's a great comedy moment.

471
00:33:58.980 --> 00:34:00.420
No, that's a one of them come here.

472
00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:01.680
But he doesn't do a very good CPR.

473
00:34:01.740 --> 00:34:03.599
He's just what he spread all over.

474
00:34:03.660 --> 00:34:04.619
He can't...

475
00:34:04.619 --> 00:34:05.640
He can't...

476
00:34:05.640 --> 00:34:06.779
He can't...

477
00:34:08.400 --> 00:34:11.639
I think Patrick Rikart's been in rehearsals.

478
00:34:11.699 --> 00:34:13.079
He's looked at what Collin's doing.

479
00:34:13.139 --> 00:34:15.239
Yes, looks at what Brian's doing.

480
00:34:15.300 --> 00:34:16.380
What can I do differently?

481
00:34:16.440 --> 00:34:24.179
And he thought, if I go similarly over the top, it's just going to be a full on panto production, I'm going to pull it right back and I agree with that decision.

482
00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:28.380
I actually think he is over the top throughout.

483
00:34:28.440 --> 00:34:31.619
It's just a very different kind of... that's probably fair.

484
00:34:31.679 --> 00:34:32.519
Yeah.

485
00:34:32.579 --> 00:34:37.739
But again, there's a cartoonishness to this story that I actually really quite enjoy.

486
00:34:37.800 --> 00:34:39.659
It's the cartoonishness which I don't like.

487
00:34:39.719 --> 00:34:42.719
Yeah, that's what I annoyed me back in 1986.

488
00:34:42.900 --> 00:34:45.659
Yeah, the cartoonishness, which I 5050 don't mind.

489
00:34:45.719 --> 00:34:46.199
Yeah.

490
00:34:46.199 --> 00:34:47.340
Yeah.

491
00:34:47.400 --> 00:34:52.079
I mean, there are terrible moments, but generally too, I think that the production looks better.

492
00:34:52.139 --> 00:34:54.179
Like, I think the caves look better.

493
00:34:54.239 --> 00:34:57.239
I think that, you know, you've got that incredible. outdoors.

494
00:34:57.300 --> 00:34:58.079
Yep, yeah.

495
00:34:58.139 --> 00:35:00.539
The space corridors look better generally, I think.

496
00:35:00.599 --> 00:35:05.519
Okay, I'm going to say, I know you said earlier, Simon, that you think that the production is bad on all kinds of levels.

497
00:35:05.579 --> 00:35:12.239
It is poor on one or 2 levels, but I think this is one of the very few stories of the 1980s that looks like it's had a tone meeting.

498
00:35:12.300 --> 00:35:12.900
Yeah, yeah.

499
00:35:12.900 --> 00:35:13.739
I think the set.

500
00:35:13.860 --> 00:35:14.940
A design tone meeting.

501
00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:15.719
No, fair enough.

502
00:35:15.780 --> 00:35:16.860
I'd agree with that.

503
00:35:16.920 --> 00:35:25.920
Yeah, the set's the costume and in particular. the lighting, which is so much better than any production around it in Doctor Who.

504
00:35:25.980 --> 00:35:34.199
It all looks like it's created, even if you don't believe in the alien world, and even if it's still in a bunch of subterranean tunnels.

505
00:35:34.260 --> 00:35:40.380
It creates this cohesive world that the characters wander around in, which I think is quite an achievement.

506
00:35:40.380 --> 00:35:43.380
It just goes to show all it needs is a little thought.

507
00:35:43.440 --> 00:35:44.639
It didn't need more budget.

508
00:35:44.699 --> 00:35:50.639
It just needed some thought, some talking between departments, and the lights turned down, and all of a sudden it's a different show.

509
00:35:50.699 --> 00:35:52.920
Okay, so there are good things about the production.

510
00:35:53.039 --> 00:35:58.260
And when I'm talking about the production being flawed, I'm kind of talking about it in a global sense, not because it looks bad.

511
00:35:58.320 --> 00:35:59.820
I think there are things that look really good.

512
00:35:59.880 --> 00:36:05.340
I think the paint box work they do on when they're on location whilst on the Blu-rays.

513
00:36:05.400 --> 00:36:10.860
Like, I've always found that, I mean, when watching a rubbish VHS copy that was recorded on long play, so it was all a bit fuzzy.

514
00:36:10.980 --> 00:36:13.380
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

515
00:36:13.440 --> 00:36:15.719
And nowhere on, do you speak very square?

516
00:36:15.780 --> 00:36:17.760
Do you explain for the benefit of our child audience?

517
00:36:17.820 --> 00:36:18.840
What is long play?

518
00:36:18.900 --> 00:36:21.300
It was being recorded.

519
00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:24.360
It was being able to record 15, 25 minute episodes on a three-hour take.

520
00:36:24.420 --> 00:36:25.800
That's what long play was.

521
00:36:25.860 --> 00:36:26.460
Thank you very much.

522
00:36:26.579 --> 00:36:29.940
But, but that, it's great. using new technology.

523
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:30.420
Great.

524
00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:31.559
Top marks.

525
00:36:31.619 --> 00:36:34.800
I agree and I love all the costumes being brighter.

526
00:36:34.860 --> 00:36:39.239
I love the fact that we've decided to finally have an alien planet with very racially diverse.

527
00:36:39.300 --> 00:36:46.079
People are at least trying to have a racial feel to the planet with having people of South Asian and you don't think that's good.

528
00:36:46.139 --> 00:36:48.599
Well, I just think, yeah, yeah.

529
00:36:48.659 --> 00:36:57.119
I think that's, you know, like it's very obvious why John Nathan Turner's happy to have lots and lots of shirtless black men in harnesses around the set as decoration.

530
00:36:57.179 --> 00:36:57.719
Yes.

531
00:36:57.719 --> 00:36:59.820
I think it's more from his house in Bryce.

532
00:36:59.880 --> 00:37:04.440
It's pretty hard Like, I think that is pretty hard to watch because it's not a racially diverse planet.

533
00:37:04.559 --> 00:37:07.619
It's Planet of the Black people, and I think that that's probably a problem.

534
00:37:07.800 --> 00:37:10.139
Well, no, because...

535
00:37:10.199 --> 00:37:10.920
I know. right.

536
00:37:11.039 --> 00:37:11.880
You've got twos up.

537
00:37:11.940 --> 00:37:12.719
But it depends.

538
00:37:12.780 --> 00:37:14.519
Okay, depends how you do the racially diverse casting.

539
00:37:14.579 --> 00:37:19.559
Do you just have everyone sort of mixed together or do you say here is a culture which is, you know, of this look?

540
00:37:19.619 --> 00:37:21.360
You can, look, it's a problem.

541
00:37:21.420 --> 00:37:27.300
Okay, when we've had 22.5 years of basically white faces, surely it's at least something.

542
00:37:27.360 --> 00:37:29.579
What, we get some black slaves in.

543
00:37:29.639 --> 00:37:30.420
Do you know what I mean?

544
00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:35.519
It's like saying that Toberman is finally much needed representation of black people in Doctor Who.

545
00:37:35.579 --> 00:37:38.340
Well, you've got lots of favours, whereas in fact, it's career.

546
00:37:38.400 --> 00:37:39.780
It's career.

547
00:37:39.780 --> 00:37:42.900
But of course, and she, but that's not quite what we get here.

548
00:37:42.960 --> 00:37:51.539
But my point being, okay, but at time, it would have been, it's quite a statement to make at the time, okay, even if they are effectively playing slave, conquered people.

549
00:37:51.599 --> 00:37:55.019
But my point being, and I love the pink and the bright colours.

550
00:37:55.079 --> 00:38:03.000
Yes, and can I just say that I would agree with you, Nathan, on that apart from the fact that Matrona Carney is so great.

551
00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:03.719
Exactly.

552
00:38:03.780 --> 00:38:05.639
But she's a head slave.

553
00:38:05.639 --> 00:38:11.940
But chooser, even though I don't think he's very well played, which is very unusual because Gordon Warnecki was in my beautiful dress.

554
00:38:11.940 --> 00:38:15.300
That was very good. is also a very sympathetic character.

555
00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:16.800
Yeah, yeah, I see the story.

556
00:38:16.800 --> 00:38:21.420
I see I see what you're I do recognise what you're saying, but okay, let's just not cast anyone like that.

557
00:38:21.480 --> 00:38:22.199
Do you know what I mean?

558
00:38:22.260 --> 00:38:23.460
No, no, no, but that's not it.

559
00:38:23.519 --> 00:38:29.340
You can cast... you can cast a Leby Parsons in a story that's not Planet of the Black people.

560
00:38:29.400 --> 00:38:31.679
Like, that's available to us, is it?

561
00:38:31.679 --> 00:38:33.300
He's available to us as an option.

562
00:38:33.360 --> 00:38:35.460
It wasn't thought to be available in 1986 in the same way.

563
00:38:35.519 --> 00:38:36.239
That's the problem.

564
00:38:36.300 --> 00:38:37.800
You can quite imagine that's the problem.

565
00:38:37.800 --> 00:38:40.619
So, you know, you can't, so doing, doing this anyway, that's...

566
00:38:40.619 --> 00:38:45.599
You can really imagine a Leapy Parsons playing, like, um, on a black man's role in terror of the verb.

567
00:38:45.659 --> 00:38:47.519
Yes, for instance, yes, exactly.

568
00:38:47.579 --> 00:38:49.440
And that's where it could you could have had that kind of cussing.

569
00:38:49.500 --> 00:38:49.860
Absolutely.

570
00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:52.739
But the point is, at least they've tried to sort of flavour the planet that way.

571
00:38:52.800 --> 00:38:59.699
Where the production is failing for me is all sorts of other things, I don't agree with what everyone says about the lighting.

572
00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:07.679
Yes, we've got to get away from the game show talk show lighting that we often get and we have in Snake Downs and Warriors of the Deep.

573
00:39:07.739 --> 00:39:10.559
Most egregiously last episode in Mysterious Planet.

574
00:39:10.619 --> 00:39:11.579
Exactly.

575
00:39:11.639 --> 00:39:18.179
We don't want that, but this does a different mistake because you can't actually see what's going on sometimes.

576
00:39:18.239 --> 00:39:20.940
People aren't in, if you're going to create pools of light.

577
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:22.619
You need to make sure people step into them.

578
00:39:24.420 --> 00:39:26.159
Do you know what I mean?

579
00:39:26.219 --> 00:39:29.159
And that so from that point of view, I think it's too dimly lit.

580
00:39:29.219 --> 00:39:32.579
I was cheering the fact that they'd finally turn down the lights.

581
00:39:32.760 --> 00:39:38.340
And then I realised that all the cave walls are painted black and I simply cannot make out any details.

582
00:39:38.400 --> 00:39:40.139
So they just look like a black back door.

583
00:39:40.199 --> 00:39:40.619
Exactly.

584
00:39:40.619 --> 00:39:41.099
Yeah.

585
00:39:41.159 --> 00:39:43.139
Might as well be playing against curtains.

586
00:39:43.199 --> 00:39:44.340
Yeah, exactly.

587
00:39:44.400 --> 00:39:48.539
It's quite a weird thing to be sitting there saying, thank you for turning down the lights.

588
00:39:48.599 --> 00:39:49.440
Oh god I can't see anything.

589
00:39:49.500 --> 00:39:51.960
And interestingly, just at the risk of talking about Varos again.

590
00:39:52.019 --> 00:39:56.940
I actually think the lighting in Barros is actually very, very good because I think it is dimly lit in a way that you can still see what's going on.

591
00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:00.360
And does the same thing that this story does where you have strobes.

592
00:40:00.420 --> 00:40:01.019
Exactly.

593
00:40:01.079 --> 00:40:03.360
Yes, the strobing. like you've got that strobe lighting.

594
00:40:03.420 --> 00:40:04.019
It's great.

595
00:40:04.079 --> 00:40:09.179
And I know it flashes on the doctor's face on one of the cliffhangers and that might affect you. which is a really nice effect.

596
00:40:09.239 --> 00:40:12.360
But if it wasn't for the strobe lighting, you wouldn't have actually seen Collins' reaction.

597
00:40:12.420 --> 00:40:13.920
Maybe that would have been a better thing.

598
00:40:13.980 --> 00:40:14.460
I don't know.

599
00:40:14.519 --> 00:40:16.380
But you know what I'm saying?

600
00:40:16.380 --> 00:40:20.699
I'm certain that even with the studio lights turned off, you would have seen...

601
00:40:22.440 --> 00:40:29.880
My point being that turning down the lights in it of itself is only phase one of what has to be done.

602
00:40:30.300 --> 00:40:33.360
Now we actually have to block the cards.

603
00:40:33.480 --> 00:40:39.179
There is something wrong with the audio in this story and I think it's to do with how it's recorded.

604
00:40:39.239 --> 00:40:46.980
Like, um, you know, 2 weeks ago I talked about the way they almost had to turn the microphone levels up in snake dance, to catch Collette O'Neill's dialogue, so you've got all this roomy noise.

605
00:40:47.039 --> 00:40:48.300
I actually think they've done the opposite here.

606
00:40:48.360 --> 00:40:55.079
They've either turned the audio down when they've recorded in the studio to avoid that kind of roomy studio noise.

607
00:40:55.199 --> 00:41:00.840
And I'm finding that quiet moments of syllables and lines of dialogue, almost actually just sink and disappear.

608
00:41:00.900 --> 00:41:08.099
And then there are other moments where musical cues overwhelm the dialogue to such an extent that you just can't make out what people are saying.

609
00:41:08.159 --> 00:41:16.559
There are various things that are muttered that act as mutter to each other that are just probably meant to be throwaway lines, but sometimes I think, was I supposed to actually understand what was just said there?

610
00:41:16.619 --> 00:41:19.800
I think it's when Perry, you know, die well, my lady, and Perry leaves.

611
00:41:19.860 --> 00:41:23.639
And I thought, Brian Blessed then says something remarkably quietly in the cell.

612
00:41:23.699 --> 00:41:27.239
And there are these there are all these moments where I just can't hear what's going on.

613
00:41:27.300 --> 00:41:31.380
This isn't young people mumbling a lot these days, is it?

614
00:41:31.440 --> 00:41:34.139
No, there's definitely a problem with the quality.

615
00:41:34.139 --> 00:41:37.739
This is, this is, well, this is me when I'm, I thought this in 1997.

616
00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:42.420
I know you say, oh, it's because, you know, young people mumble these days because we're all getting deaf.

617
00:41:42.480 --> 00:41:45.300
Why don't I find that with Mysterious Planet?

618
00:41:45.300 --> 00:41:45.840
No, fair enough.

619
00:41:45.900 --> 00:41:47.639
You know, if you have to compare it with everything around.

620
00:41:47.760 --> 00:41:55.980
And that's what I say about, like, the Jody audio as well is why can I not understand what's being said in the Jody series, but I can, in what we've got now, the sheeter series.

621
00:41:56.159 --> 00:42:05.699
I think it's a symptom of the confluence of a couple of things, one is bad studio sound recording, which is endemic in this era and becomes worse in the Sylvester McCoy era.

622
00:42:05.760 --> 00:42:06.239
Okay.

623
00:42:06.239 --> 00:42:10.619
Also, the sometimes tortured dialogue that Eric's saying.

624
00:42:10.679 --> 00:42:13.440
You're trying to work out what they've actually just been talking about.

625
00:42:13.500 --> 00:42:16.019
And Nicola Bryant's accent.

626
00:42:16.079 --> 00:42:18.960
So a lot of what's...

627
00:42:19.019 --> 00:42:19.500
It is.

628
00:42:19.559 --> 00:42:23.519
And a lot of what Perry says gets a bit lost because I'm trying to work out what she just actually said.

629
00:42:23.579 --> 00:42:25.079
Because she's fitting it out sometimes.

630
00:42:25.139 --> 00:42:25.800
That's right.

631
00:42:25.860 --> 00:42:30.360
And so there's a scene early on where the doctor and Perry are outside Crozier's laboratory and everyone leaves.

632
00:42:30.360 --> 00:42:32.400
And the doctor says they weren't hanging about.

633
00:42:32.400 --> 00:42:37.679
And Perry says, neither did they look very pleased, which is just a bit...

634
00:42:37.739 --> 00:42:40.619
Oh, that's that's surely that's Eric saying.

635
00:42:40.679 --> 00:42:42.000
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

636
00:42:42.000 --> 00:42:43.739
Absolutely needed.

637
00:42:43.739 --> 00:42:47.699
Exactly. bad recording and the bad line and Perry's accent.

638
00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:56.699
I have never once been able to work out what she was saying until this time probably the 20th time I've watched Michael when I went to the transcripts and looked it up.

639
00:42:56.760 --> 00:43:00.539
Yeah And there's numerous moments like that throughout the story.

640
00:43:00.599 --> 00:43:01.019
You're right.

641
00:43:01.079 --> 00:43:03.900
There is something wrong with the quality of the sound recording.

642
00:43:03.960 --> 00:43:09.960
Can I say that the music, however, is unbelievably good.

643
00:43:10.079 --> 00:43:11.039
Yeah.

644
00:43:11.099 --> 00:43:17.340
So he only does this story, I think, is a real composer that gets other words.

645
00:43:17.400 --> 00:43:18.659
It is a real composer, I think.

646
00:43:18.719 --> 00:43:20.400
And it is terrific.

647
00:43:20.460 --> 00:43:22.019
I mean just absolutely splendid.

648
00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:24.420
And it's part of J&T's change.

649
00:43:24.480 --> 00:43:37.260
I mean, one of the cosmetic changes that JNT made in the hiatus was stopping using the radiophonic workshop and going back to freelance composers, which is why you have Dominic Glynn on serious Planets and the final 2 pass.

650
00:43:37.320 --> 00:43:44.280
My only observation about the music from this point on in the series, including the theme music and most egregiously on this arrangement of the theme music.

651
00:43:44.340 --> 00:43:45.119
Oh, God.

652
00:43:45.119 --> 00:43:46.199
It's too treble.

653
00:43:46.260 --> 00:43:47.460
Like what we miss.

654
00:43:47.519 --> 00:43:50.579
I so missed that base sound.

655
00:43:50.639 --> 00:43:53.340
What do you think of the music next week on Terror of the Fluffoids?

656
00:43:53.400 --> 00:43:55.440
I can't remember it, but it's pretty bad too.

657
00:43:55.500 --> 00:43:57.059
It's a bit tinny.

658
00:43:57.119 --> 00:44:01.500
I think, you know, but he hasn't the nice, like, regal sounds when the mentors are coming in.

659
00:44:01.559 --> 00:44:04.619
There are all these sorts of loving touches and the music in episode four, particularly.

660
00:44:04.679 --> 00:44:05.460
Yes, wonderful.

661
00:44:05.460 --> 00:44:07.440
Absolutely sells the foreboding thing.

662
00:44:07.500 --> 00:44:11.039
So yeah, so the music is one aspect, which I'm happy too. say is a positive.

663
00:44:11.099 --> 00:44:21.239
And I hesitate to use the word exotic in light of what we were talking about earlier, but I feel like the culture is being presented in an exotic way on screen.

664
00:44:21.300 --> 00:44:23.519
And the music really helps to sell that.

665
00:44:23.579 --> 00:44:29.940
It feels like it's sort of otherworldly. without putting bongs in for, you know, yeah, yeah. you know what I mean?

666
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:30.900
Like that's the thing, you know.

667
00:44:30.960 --> 00:44:31.739
Well, you know what I mean?

668
00:44:41.280 --> 00:44:50.099
So, one thing about cell, and I'm glad that the series is doing this, is the series has become too backward looking at the moment.

669
00:44:50.159 --> 00:44:56.159
It's too much looking at its past glories, which is, you know, maybe one of those. trying to relive and recreate its past.

670
00:44:56.219 --> 00:44:56.639
Well, exactly.

671
00:44:56.699 --> 00:44:57.539
Never reliving them well.

672
00:44:57.599 --> 00:45:03.599
We talked last week in Warriors deep about the fact that it's never good enough just to have a returning element.

673
00:45:03.659 --> 00:45:07.260
You have to actually bring with them what made them special.

674
00:45:07.380 --> 00:45:16.980
So bringing the brigadier back for Modern Undead is a hiding to nothing unless you've surrounded him with unit and are having an alien invasion because that's what people are remembering. what he's for.

675
00:45:17.039 --> 00:45:18.420
That's right.

676
00:45:18.480 --> 00:45:29.159
So you can't just have, like we spoke about last week, a bunch of sea devils and Silurians ripped out of their natural Malcolm Hulkian habitat and just put in some white space corridors.

677
00:45:29.219 --> 00:45:29.880
It doesn't work.

678
00:45:29.940 --> 00:45:35.039
It's what we said about bringing the ice warriors back. you know it's just a costume at that point.

679
00:45:35.099 --> 00:45:37.980
Like all you're doing is bringing back a used costume.

680
00:45:38.039 --> 00:45:42.000
It doesn't matter who's invading the sea base at that point, really.

681
00:45:42.059 --> 00:45:51.900
And so the only the only examples that we've had in recent times of a new, interesting menace being revisited are the Mara and Sill.

682
00:45:51.960 --> 00:45:53.039
And that's great.

683
00:45:53.099 --> 00:45:55.019
That's the show creating new law.

684
00:45:55.139 --> 00:45:55.800
New Legends.

685
00:45:55.920 --> 00:45:56.340
That's right.

686
00:45:56.400 --> 00:46:01.139
It's children watching the show now and I think children are dropping away as an audience by this point.

687
00:46:01.139 --> 00:46:01.800
Yes, they are.

688
00:46:01.860 --> 00:46:06.119
Watching the show and going, I remember that from last year and getting a thrill about that.

689
00:46:06.179 --> 00:46:08.280
I put a lolly snake on my arm kind of thing.

690
00:46:08.340 --> 00:46:10.199
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

691
00:46:10.260 --> 00:46:23.400
And I think that actually probably has a lot to say about the paucity of ideas coming from the production team slash Eric Seywood, really, that they're not coming up with these endless new threats that they can then revisit.

692
00:46:23.460 --> 00:46:25.320
And so they've got to look back at the classics.

693
00:46:25.380 --> 00:46:30.360
I think it's good that we are taking a recent monster and expanding upon them.

694
00:46:30.420 --> 00:46:31.320
Definitely.

695
00:46:31.380 --> 00:46:32.340
I entirely agree with that.

696
00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:37.380
Because, I mean, we talk about origin stories with snake dance, and in a sense, that's what we have here.

697
00:46:37.440 --> 00:46:42.420
We did mention Thoros Peter in Vengeance on Clara.

698
00:46:42.480 --> 00:46:43.019
Oh, Peter.

699
00:46:43.079 --> 00:46:43.500
Yeah.

700
00:46:43.559 --> 00:46:44.340
So here we are.

701
00:46:44.400 --> 00:46:48.840
Can I say something that's a bit odd, though, from a frequently?

702
00:46:53.880 --> 00:47:00.599
He knows on the beach, he knows that this is Thoros beat that they are because that's the twin planet Thoros Alpha.

703
00:47:00.659 --> 00:47:00.960
Yeah.

704
00:47:00.960 --> 00:47:04.739
But he says, and yet this was manufactured here about the weapon.

705
00:47:04.739 --> 00:47:08.219
And then he knows the raw speeder is still his home planet.

706
00:47:08.280 --> 00:47:11.880
And so why is it so strange that that weapon was manufactured on Taurus Beta?

707
00:47:11.940 --> 00:47:12.480
Do you know what I mean?

708
00:47:12.539 --> 00:47:13.320
There's weird things here.

709
00:47:13.380 --> 00:47:21.960
And also the fact that Perry, who was also in the room when Sill is calling in the cavalry in Vengeance on Varos, from Thoros, from my home planet from Thoros Beta.

710
00:47:22.019 --> 00:47:25.139
And yet, she doesn't know that Thorosby here is still his home planet.

711
00:47:25.199 --> 00:47:27.719
Well, it's just annoying. just space name.

712
00:47:27.780 --> 00:47:28.619
Do you know what I mean?

713
00:47:28.679 --> 00:47:29.639
The planet's space name.

714
00:47:29.639 --> 00:47:31.440
Nevertheless, there are...

715
00:47:31.500 --> 00:47:33.059
It's less that.

716
00:47:33.119 --> 00:47:37.019
It's more the fact that the doctor's sceptical that this weapon was manufactured here.

717
00:47:37.079 --> 00:47:39.539
Yet he knows that this is where Sill's race comes from.

718
00:47:39.599 --> 00:47:42.179
And other mentors are called the mentors.

719
00:47:42.239 --> 00:47:44.039
Mentors are just saying our overlords, basically.

720
00:47:44.039 --> 00:47:44.820
Yeah, yeah.

721
00:47:44.880 --> 00:47:45.659
They're not called anything.

722
00:47:45.719 --> 00:47:46.139
They not cool.

723
00:47:46.199 --> 00:47:46.739
They not cool anything.

724
00:47:46.860 --> 00:47:47.639
Thorus beatens.

725
00:47:47.699 --> 00:48:06.840
Yeah So for me, I think perhaps the biggest flaw in the production is the rock, which is rarely the return of the Slither, isn't it?

726
00:48:07.679 --> 00:48:12.119
Except, I never thought I would say this about Ron Jones.

727
00:48:12.119 --> 00:48:12.719
Shot better.

728
00:48:12.780 --> 00:48:14.099
Yeah, well, he hides it.

729
00:48:14.340 --> 00:48:16.079
And it's dark.

730
00:48:16.139 --> 00:48:18.780
We've turned the lights off, but it is really terrible.

731
00:48:18.840 --> 00:48:25.079
I can't have had the impression that the rock is basically the prop that we see lying on the stretcher once it's dead.

732
00:48:25.139 --> 00:48:27.059
It's just the front of this creature.

733
00:48:27.119 --> 00:48:36.480
And then some Colin has to fight with some poor prop guy sort of holding up the front of this creature and wiggling it up and down violently.

734
00:48:36.599 --> 00:48:39.480
It's like a pansomime horse, but it's just the top half.

735
00:48:39.539 --> 00:48:42.719
But no, someone's got green rubber gloves on or something.

736
00:48:43.139 --> 00:48:44.940
Well, doesn't it?

737
00:48:45.179 --> 00:48:49.440
Oh, I would love to see like a photograph or footage javant.

738
00:48:49.500 --> 00:48:50.159
Gosh.

739
00:48:50.219 --> 00:48:52.559
I wonder if there's like studio footage of that.

740
00:48:52.619 --> 00:48:53.400
Oh I want to see it.

741
00:48:53.460 --> 00:48:54.960
God.

742
00:48:54.960 --> 00:48:59.699
I've been very unkind about Ron Jones in my own head.

743
00:49:00.719 --> 00:49:09.239
He does deliver 3 execrable productions. for his 1st three, which is Black Orchard, Time Flight and Arc of Infinity.

744
00:49:09.300 --> 00:49:12.000
But with Frontios, he seems to suddenly...

745
00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:17.159
God, that's 10 episodes of Ron Jo 14. 8 in a row.

746
00:49:17.219 --> 00:49:20.340
Who looked at time flight and went, I know, let's get him.

747
00:49:20.460 --> 00:49:21.420
Let's get him.

748
00:49:21.480 --> 00:49:25.619
With Frontios, he suddenly seemed to find out what makes Dr. 2 work.

749
00:49:25.679 --> 00:49:32.639
And I actually think vengeance on Varos and Milder... are actually very accomplished studio productions.

750
00:49:32.699 --> 00:49:37.320
I think Frontios looks good, but he's obviously terribly done in all sorts of ways.

751
00:49:37.380 --> 00:49:39.000
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

752
00:49:39.059 --> 00:49:43.139
There's a lot of problems in Frontios, and it's also shot a little bit in a pedestrian way.

753
00:49:43.199 --> 00:49:49.559
But I think Varos and Mindwarp are whole productions in that he's actually got the atmosphere, right?

754
00:49:49.619 --> 00:49:51.239
He's covered the action properly.

755
00:49:51.420 --> 00:49:52.199
And I was surprised.

756
00:49:52.260 --> 00:49:55.260
There's moments in mind warp.

757
00:49:55.320 --> 00:50:00.960
Like that glass painting where they pull back on Crozier's laboratory and you can see the caves all around.

758
00:50:01.019 --> 00:50:02.940
And the induction centre as well.

759
00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:04.019
Yeah, that's one of those two.

760
00:50:04.079 --> 00:50:05.219
Yes, they're a wonderful.

761
00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:07.079
But that's the sort of thing they're starting to be able to do.

762
00:50:07.079 --> 00:50:08.699
Eat more easily now.

763
00:50:08.760 --> 00:50:11.219
Yeah, but it requires the thought to do it.

764
00:50:11.219 --> 00:50:14.940
And he has thought, Cherie. that'll do in the studio.

765
00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:18.300
And talking about the lights being turned off.

766
00:50:18.360 --> 00:50:21.900
I like the fact there's some thought game that when you're in Crozier's laboratory.

767
00:50:21.960 --> 00:50:26.699
And suddenly it's very bright and you've got those white sales with the negative space behind them.

768
00:50:26.760 --> 00:50:38.940
It just seems to me that this is the kind of thing that you can do in the Doctor Who studio, which adds so much production value and doesn't require anything more than F Pennant Roberts was at the helm doing timelash.

769
00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:42.300
Well, I mean, we talked a couple of weeks ago about the importance of sets, you know.

770
00:50:42.360 --> 00:50:44.340
And this gets it, I think.

771
00:50:44.400 --> 00:50:47.099
Because it is just space corridors.

772
00:50:47.159 --> 00:50:55.079
And as I've said, at this point, I'm utterly, utterly sick of space corridors, but I think the laboratory set looks fantastic, like properly good.

773
00:50:55.139 --> 00:50:56.099
Yeah, it does look good.

774
00:50:56.159 --> 00:50:56.340
Yeah.

775
00:50:56.400 --> 00:50:59.099
No, there's definitely they know how to build those sorts of sets.

776
00:50:59.159 --> 00:51:02.579
The cage don't look too bad, although, again, it's sort of featureless.

777
00:51:02.639 --> 00:51:04.559
Maybe could have had a bit more interest in them.

778
00:51:04.619 --> 00:51:09.539
It refreshing when you go to the induction centre and the other mentor in the episode for the comedy relief one.

779
00:51:09.599 --> 00:51:10.920
Just go.

780
00:51:10.920 --> 00:51:12.239
He is great.

781
00:51:12.300 --> 00:51:14.940
He is such nauseating things.

782
00:51:15.960 --> 00:51:19.860
Pure padding, but he's such a delight that I don't mind.

783
00:51:19.920 --> 00:51:21.480
That's what you do with padding.

784
00:51:21.539 --> 00:51:23.760
You padding can be good. see.

785
00:51:23.820 --> 00:51:24.300
Yes.

786
00:51:24.360 --> 00:51:25.139
I love his life.

787
00:51:25.139 --> 00:51:26.280
Padding need not be a dirty word.

788
00:51:26.340 --> 00:51:30.420
I love his line where he says, I will, of course, have to check your carte blanche.

789
00:51:30.420 --> 00:51:32.940
And the way he turns.

790
00:51:33.599 --> 00:51:38.219
And the fact that Yakanos doesn't kill him because he's an amusing comedy character.

791
00:51:38.699 --> 00:51:45.300
But it's also just the fact that he's so posh and so English, but he's covered in green makeup and dressed as a slug.

792
00:51:45.360 --> 00:51:47.519
He's just absolutely surprised.

793
00:51:47.639 --> 00:51:49.440
I can't imagine it being a minister.

794
00:51:49.559 --> 00:51:50.280
Yes, minister.

795
00:51:50.340 --> 00:51:51.239
Absolutely.

796
00:51:51.300 --> 00:51:53.400
I had to look I didn't look him up.

797
00:51:53.460 --> 00:51:54.300
He may very well have been.

798
00:51:54.360 --> 00:51:56.940
Been berated by Sir Humphrey...

799
00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:09.659
Yeah, no, what I was saying about Ron Jones is I think he's one of the vanishingly few directors of the 1980s who has a holistic view of production.

800
00:52:09.719 --> 00:52:11.340
His last 2 stories gets it right.

801
00:52:11.400 --> 00:52:16.500
Varos and Mind Warp feel like solid productions where everything has been thought about.

802
00:52:16.619 --> 00:52:22.139
I think maybe you're also wanting to say there is that he's one of the few examples of people who seem to learn from previous mistakes.

803
00:52:22.199 --> 00:52:25.019
I mean, how you could not learn from Timefly.

804
00:52:25.079 --> 00:52:25.619
But...

805
00:52:25.679 --> 00:52:27.059
But I mean, he does get better.

806
00:52:27.119 --> 00:52:28.440
Like, there is a...

807
00:52:28.440 --> 00:52:29.400
I'll put trajectory.

808
00:52:29.460 --> 00:52:30.840
That's not what you always say.

809
00:52:30.900 --> 00:52:33.599
You sometimes see a flat or downward trajectory.

810
00:52:33.659 --> 00:52:34.260
Oh, yeah.

811
00:52:34.320 --> 00:52:36.780
Let's call it the reverse penet Roberts.

812
00:52:36.840 --> 00:52:37.800
Yes, there is.

813
00:52:52.920 --> 00:53:01.500
One thing we haven't talked about yet is the trial, and how the trial itself, because all we've talked about is mind warp as the story of mine, rather than how it fits in with the trial.

814
00:53:01.559 --> 00:53:04.860
I actually prefer the trial, but to the actual story.

815
00:53:04.920 --> 00:53:13.380
And that's what I was going to say apart from the fact that in the beginning, I think in the 1st episode, the trial completely interrupts you getting into the story.

816
00:53:13.440 --> 00:53:15.179
That's because you cut back too often.

817
00:53:15.179 --> 00:53:21.119
It's cut back too often and all the sagacity stuff, it's all just tediously... to say anything.

818
00:53:21.179 --> 00:53:24.119
Either it just cuts back to argue about what we're seeing on screen.

819
00:53:24.179 --> 00:53:26.039
But from, yes.

820
00:53:26.099 --> 00:53:27.599
From the 2nd episode on.

821
00:53:27.659 --> 00:53:36.000
I think the trial sequences are some of the strongest stuff in the story, and I think that it's actually some of Collins' best performances in his entire era.

822
00:53:36.119 --> 00:53:39.599
I love Colin in episodes 23 and 4 in the track.

823
00:53:39.719 --> 00:53:40.860
Then tell it.

824
00:53:40.920 --> 00:53:42.480
Yeah, that's really good.

825
00:53:42.539 --> 00:53:49.260
But like, I'm not a big fan of the episode three, Cliffhanger, which is like in the trial rather than in the store.

826
00:53:50.820 --> 00:53:51.659
And it's a fake hour.

827
00:53:51.719 --> 00:54:01.320
And I don't know why suddenly the Oxo lady knows what happened to Perry and stuff and is delivering all of that dialogue in episode four.

828
00:54:01.320 --> 00:54:02.039
I have a theory about that.

829
00:54:02.099 --> 00:54:04.980
I think the valleyard was supposed to deliver all of that dialogue.

830
00:54:05.039 --> 00:54:06.840
And they said, give it to Linda.

831
00:54:06.900 --> 00:54:07.559
Give it to Linda.

832
00:54:07.619 --> 00:54:09.659
Or was he ill that afternoon?

833
00:54:09.780 --> 00:54:10.320
Or something.

834
00:54:10.380 --> 00:54:11.519
It's all tone.

835
00:54:11.579 --> 00:54:13.619
It all sounds like Michael Jason.

836
00:54:13.679 --> 00:54:13.920
It does.

837
00:54:13.920 --> 00:54:15.780
It's as basic as they thought.

838
00:54:15.840 --> 00:54:21.480
Well, Linda Bellingham hasn't had many lines, we'll give some to her without any thought of the character and who should be delivering it.

839
00:54:21.539 --> 00:54:24.780
Yeah, because suddenly the judge of the tribe.

840
00:54:24.840 --> 00:54:28.619
He's basically providing evidence, saying we had to act.

841
00:54:28.679 --> 00:54:30.599
It's like, so this is a setup.

842
00:54:30.659 --> 00:54:31.440
You know what I mean?

843
00:54:32.880 --> 00:54:36.780
Also, I think it's very dangerous, Saint Colin, we had to act.

844
00:54:38.219 --> 00:54:39.960
Do you know what?

845
00:54:40.019 --> 00:54:45.239
I think that actually the direction of the trial scenes is better than it is in the previous story.

846
00:54:45.300 --> 00:54:52.500
And one of the reasons is that sometimes we cut to the trial sound before we cut to the video.

847
00:54:52.619 --> 00:54:56.940
So we hear like Michael Jason talk over something.

848
00:54:57.000 --> 00:54:57.900
Or I don't remember that.

849
00:54:58.019 --> 00:54:59.280
Yes, exactly.

850
00:54:59.280 --> 00:55:00.780
I'm saying it over the over the...

851
00:55:00.840 --> 00:55:18.420
And the trial continues playing on the screen sometimes. whereas it's all very much, let's turn and look at the tally, you know, in Mysterious Planet, here there's a little bit more kind of playing with the boundaries between the trial and the and the style.

852
00:55:18.539 --> 00:55:25.860
The main floor, though, the only flaw that with the trial sequences in this segment of the trial is in episode one.

853
00:55:25.920 --> 00:55:31.320
For some reason, we see the black floor between the 3 of them, which you don't see.

854
00:55:31.440 --> 00:55:38.460
Usually it's, it's disappears to a black, like it's, it's a black void going to nothing, which is kind of the effect you want, rather than there is a black floor between us.

855
00:55:38.519 --> 00:55:40.320
That's just a lighting era, I think.

856
00:55:40.380 --> 00:55:41.880
They turn the lights up for that, obviously.

857
00:55:41.940 --> 00:55:45.179
There's all kinds of stuff to unpick with the trial sequences.

858
00:55:45.239 --> 00:55:47.699
You know, most of all, should they have done this at all.

859
00:55:47.760 --> 00:55:49.739
You know, okay, they made the choice to do it.

860
00:55:49.800 --> 00:55:55.019
I think it was extremely, you know, what Doctor Who needed was a reboot.

861
00:55:55.079 --> 00:55:57.960
It needs to be something which, again, like I said earlier, it was forward looking.

862
00:55:58.019 --> 00:55:59.159
Yeah.

863
00:55:59.159 --> 00:56:00.300
More time lords.

864
00:56:00.360 --> 00:56:01.260
That's what we should do.

865
00:56:01.320 --> 00:56:03.119
More time lords in it.

866
00:56:03.239 --> 00:56:07.739
Yeah, we need to talk about the doctor being on trial like he was in 1969.

867
00:56:07.860 --> 00:56:10.679
You know, that was come up within a bar on the back of a napkin.

868
00:56:10.739 --> 00:56:12.000
You know what I mean?

869
00:56:12.059 --> 00:56:13.860
But if they'd made that decision.

870
00:56:13.920 --> 00:56:27.119
There was a way of making the trial, an interesting critique of both Doctor Who and the way that television is watched, like vengeance on Varos was, and it could have been much more interesting and had something to say.

871
00:56:27.179 --> 00:56:35.340
And you get glimpses of that like where they cut back to the trial for a short scene where basically the inquisitor says, this is a really boring opening.

872
00:56:35.400 --> 00:56:36.780
Can we cut later?

873
00:56:36.840 --> 00:56:38.159
They do that.

874
00:56:38.639 --> 00:56:48.840
I could have done that all the way through and it would have had this interesting kind of meta idea of the doctor watching his own adventures and what that could have been really fun.

875
00:56:48.900 --> 00:56:55.739
But instead, so many of the scenes are just the doctor and the valiard bickering overnight. childishly.

876
00:56:55.800 --> 00:56:57.780
And again, it comes back to...

877
00:56:57.840 --> 00:56:59.400
Did they have an idea for this series?

878
00:56:59.460 --> 00:57:00.960
What were they looking to do?

879
00:57:01.079 --> 00:57:18.420
I think what the problem was is that, okay, we've decided we're going to go with this idea for the trial, the whole season's going to be framed as a trial, but they're still production wise, they're still locked into this idea of you have 7A shot by Nicholas Mallett, 7B shot by Ron Jones, 7 C shot by Chris Clough, right?

880
00:57:18.480 --> 00:57:22.739
And so you've got these production box and so they feel the need to do the stories in the same way.

881
00:57:22.800 --> 00:57:29.460
And so you end up with this weird hybrid where it's not like the key to time where you've just got stories which have a kind of a season arc.

882
00:57:29.519 --> 00:57:36.119
But also it's not, even though they've got the on same on-screen story title, it's not really the same story in other ways.

883
00:57:36.179 --> 00:57:39.300
I think what you might have been able to do with a bit more imagination.

884
00:57:39.360 --> 00:57:42.480
And I'm surely this would have been possible given the fact that you've got the trial set.

885
00:57:42.539 --> 00:57:52.559
So, okay, let's spend an entire block, but entire block doing all 14 episodes worth of trial scenes, which means that the stories itself don't need to be neatly 4 episodes.

886
00:57:52.619 --> 00:57:58.440
And imagine what it would have been like if mysterious planet, the mysterious planet plot had ended halfway through part four.

887
00:57:58.500 --> 00:58:00.960
And then the mindwalk part starts.

888
00:58:01.019 --> 00:58:07.980
And so the cliffhanger at the end of episode 4 of the Trial of Time Lord is the beginnings of like them being mindful, do you know what I mean?

889
00:58:08.039 --> 00:58:09.480
And that's where you end up with your three-part stories again.

890
00:58:09.539 --> 00:58:17.340
What if they did a big epic story, like the Dalek master plan, where, you know, we go from place to place.

891
00:58:17.400 --> 00:58:21.360
It clearly does sort of go from story to story, but not in any predictable way.

892
00:58:21.420 --> 00:58:25.019
And they're just not imaginative enough to do it.

893
00:58:25.079 --> 00:58:30.599
And the way that they try and rope the 3 stories into the trial literally makes no sense at all.

894
00:58:30.659 --> 00:58:35.159
And it's absolutely clear that they have no idea what they're heading towards because.

895
00:58:35.340 --> 00:58:37.500
It also makes no sense from illegal.

896
00:58:37.559 --> 00:58:38.880
No, no, no, that's right.

897
00:58:38.940 --> 00:58:42.659
Like, you know, there's so many procedurals on TV, which sort of do this clever stuff.

898
00:58:42.719 --> 00:58:47.280
Whereas now it's like, really doctor, is it to be your defence that you get better?

899
00:58:47.400 --> 00:58:47.940
Better.

900
00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:49.079
Like, what even is that?

901
00:58:49.139 --> 00:58:50.159
Well, that's fine.

902
00:58:50.159 --> 00:58:51.480
I promise.

903
00:58:51.480 --> 00:58:52.920
I promise I vote murder again.

904
00:58:52.980 --> 00:58:53.460
Let me off.

905
00:58:53.519 --> 00:58:55.380
Yeah, it's tiny wine, but you can do that.

906
00:58:55.440 --> 00:59:02.159
But all that makes that relevant evidence is when he tells Mel not to wander off or tries to stop her going off and getting involved.

907
00:59:02.219 --> 00:59:03.119
And that's it.

908
00:59:03.179 --> 00:59:06.000
Ergo, I'm not interfering.

909
00:59:06.059 --> 00:59:08.400
I was asked by the person, yeah, yeah, yeah.

910
00:59:08.460 --> 00:59:13.920
Okay, another parallel universe from the one I just mentioned is what if Mysterious Planet is just a story?

911
00:59:13.980 --> 00:59:16.199
And then Mind Warp is just a story.

912
00:59:16.260 --> 00:59:25.440
And then 10 minutes from the end, 5 minutes from the end of the story, 10 minutes from the end, when it's all going to hell in a handbasket, that's when the doctor's something taken out of time and we're transported to this thing and he comes out.

913
00:59:25.500 --> 00:59:26.880
Oh, I like this.

914
00:59:26.880 --> 00:59:31.380
And then and then it's like you're on trial for your life and we see the end of mind whop on the screen.

915
00:59:31.440 --> 00:59:33.780
He's absolutely horrified and he says, you took me away.

916
00:59:33.840 --> 00:59:35.760
I was going to save her, etc.

917
00:59:35.820 --> 00:59:39.179
And then you, I don't know, then 2 of them avoid something else entirely, I guess.

918
00:59:39.840 --> 00:59:42.119
That can't happen anywhere.

919
00:59:42.179 --> 00:59:42.840
But then they...

920
00:59:43.199 --> 00:59:46.980
And then the trial becomes part of the narrative rather than this kind of weird bean out.

921
00:59:47.460 --> 00:59:48.179
You had some weird stuff.

922
00:59:48.239 --> 00:59:54.719
You'd still have some weird stuff happening in Mysterious Planet to think that there's like something coming that you're not sure what it is.

923
00:59:54.780 --> 00:59:58.019
I mean, you have to rewrite half of it and you should rewrite half of it anyway.

924
00:59:58.079 --> 00:59:59.940
But that's a different way of framing it.

925
01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:03.119
And then you have, maybe you have effectively for the vervoid slot.

926
01:00:03.179 --> 01:00:09.059
You have what is effectively like a clip show, not a clip show of, like a made up story, made up stories.

927
01:00:09.119 --> 01:00:14.280
And then you just get all the exciting bits of all of the bits of season 20, the original season 23 or something.

928
01:00:14.340 --> 01:00:15.659
And I don't know how you do it.

929
01:00:15.719 --> 01:00:16.860
Obviously, that's probably not.

930
01:00:16.860 --> 01:00:20.760
And again, that's a way of delivering more stories in a 14 episode run.

931
01:00:20.820 --> 01:00:21.599
Exactly.

932
01:00:21.659 --> 01:00:23.039
Thinking outside the box.

933
01:00:23.039 --> 01:00:23.699
Exactly.

934
01:00:23.760 --> 01:00:27.659
And this is what the production team seemed incapable of doing at this point.

935
01:00:27.719 --> 01:00:30.900
I don't know if they were paralysed by the criticism from above.

936
01:00:30.960 --> 01:00:33.480
I don't know if they were ever able to do this kind of thing.

937
01:00:33.659 --> 01:00:37.920
But what they needed to do if they had a trial framing sequence.

938
01:00:37.980 --> 01:00:40.380
That's not a bad idea in itself.

939
01:00:40.440 --> 01:00:44.340
But the way it's delivered is appallingly mundane.

940
01:00:44.400 --> 01:00:52.320
They needed to sit down, watch some legal thrillers and say, okay, what's an interesting legal story that we can tell at the same time?

941
01:00:52.380 --> 01:00:57.119
Not just every time we cut back, there'll be a bit of an argument and then we'll cut back.

942
01:00:57.179 --> 01:01:02.760
Yeah, so basically what they do, what they use the trial sequences for is they just don't know, like they're just not...

943
01:01:02.820 --> 01:01:04.500
You needed brilliant reveals and rehearses.

944
01:01:04.559 --> 01:01:12.719
But that's why, yes, but that's why I think the trial sequences, which we've had in Mysterious Planet, and they are the worst parts of it, of something that's not very good.

945
01:01:12.780 --> 01:01:15.239
And then you move to mind warp.

946
01:01:15.360 --> 01:01:24.059
And I think when you, in the 2nd half of the story, the trial sequence is, after you stop that bickering, then you start getting, wow, this is actually gripping.

947
01:01:24.119 --> 01:01:28.260
The trial sequences are actually suddenly gripping now, whereas they weren't for the last the previous 6 episodes.

948
01:01:28.320 --> 01:01:35.280
Yeah, and the cliffhangers are like episode 12, which I think is absolutely superb, which is the charge must now be genocide.

949
01:01:35.340 --> 01:01:41.099
Yeah, which again, you know, just ups the stakes and, you know, we were all congratulating ourselves because the doctor solves the problem.

950
01:01:41.099 --> 01:01:42.599
And then suddenly...

951
01:01:42.599 --> 01:01:50.340
Because we do regress in the trial scenes do regress then in terms of the verboids, because terror verboids is the story that least needs the trial sequences to make sense.

952
01:01:50.400 --> 01:01:56.159
And that's why that edited on the Blu-ray box set is so perfect because you do not need the trial sequences at all.

953
01:01:56.219 --> 01:01:57.960
That's interesting.

954
01:01:58.019 --> 01:02:04.860
So what they actually needed to do was sit down and plot out the narrative of the trial by itself beforehand.

955
01:02:04.920 --> 01:02:12.900
And even though it seems counterintuitive, I think maybe Pip and Jane Baker might have been the best place to do this because for all their faults.

956
01:02:12.960 --> 01:02:13.980
For all of their faults.

957
01:02:14.039 --> 01:02:20.519
Absolutely, because, yeah, the episode 14 that Saywood walks off with is dreadful.

958
01:02:20.579 --> 01:02:21.179
Yes.

959
01:02:21.179 --> 01:02:25.260
See, Flight through Entirety episode. whatever, where we perform it for you.

960
01:02:25.500 --> 01:02:27.840
Like, it's terrible.

961
01:02:27.900 --> 01:02:31.559
And what Pip and Jane do is absolutely incoherent makes no sense at all.

962
01:02:31.619 --> 01:02:37.440
It's clearly not being built up to in any way, but it's so much more entertaining anyway than what we were doing.

963
01:02:37.500 --> 01:02:43.199
Well, they're doing the best what they can with what they hand, which is a cliffhanger from, you know, from nowhere.

964
01:02:43.260 --> 01:02:55.260
But you're right, but that's why it baffles me because again, I think they're still making, mentally, they are still making three, because remember, tariff of always an ultimate foe is effectively one story, for the purposes of production point of view.

965
01:02:55.800 --> 01:02:59.579
They are making 3 stories and then deciding to call it all the same thing.

966
01:02:59.639 --> 01:03:02.579
They haven't gotten to the mindset that this is one continuous thing.

967
01:03:02.639 --> 01:03:04.079
It's like being half pregnant.

968
01:03:04.139 --> 01:03:05.940
It's kind of not one thing nor the other.

969
01:03:06.000 --> 01:03:07.320
But it's worse than that.

970
01:03:07.380 --> 01:03:09.840
They're writing for their lives.

971
01:03:10.019 --> 01:03:13.920
But they're not showing any sign that they're doing that.

972
01:03:13.980 --> 01:03:15.539
They were cancelled.

973
01:03:15.599 --> 01:03:17.460
They were given.

974
01:03:17.519 --> 01:03:18.300
They were actually cancelled.

975
01:03:18.360 --> 01:03:19.860
Yeah, they were actually cancelled.

976
01:03:19.920 --> 01:03:21.119
They were given instructions.

977
01:03:21.179 --> 01:03:32.159
There's the trial and tribulations documentary on the thing, where you see John McDonald's stuff about how none of that stuff in Mysterious Planet makes sense.

978
01:03:32.219 --> 01:03:35.340
You just pause the Blu-ray and you can read the demo.

979
01:03:35.400 --> 01:03:37.679
And all of it is very clearly right.

980
01:03:37.739 --> 01:03:40.320
And Eric Saban says, ah, we had no idea what he was talking about.

981
01:03:40.860 --> 01:03:43.739
He wasn't reading the memos coming down from the 6th floor.

982
01:03:43.800 --> 01:03:47.880
Jonathan Palace memo on this story says good narrative, engaging characters.

983
01:03:47.940 --> 01:03:49.019
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

984
01:03:49.380 --> 01:03:49.860
Yep.

985
01:03:49.920 --> 01:03:53.219
Because, of course, he would have worked with Philip Martin on things like gangsters.

986
01:03:53.280 --> 01:03:54.599
He knew he was a good writer.

987
01:03:54.659 --> 01:03:56.039
He liked vengeance of virus.

988
01:03:56.099 --> 01:03:57.420
I think his instincts are correct.

989
01:03:57.480 --> 01:04:01.199
The instincts that are not correct are J&T and Eric Saywood's.

990
01:04:01.260 --> 01:04:16.019
I mean, 1st time we've ever heard that because when confronted with this, when confronted with their bosses saying Doctor Who's got too silly and too violent and it's a bit outlandish, they obviously don't understand the spaciness.

991
01:04:16.079 --> 01:04:25.079
They think it's ridiculous. their instinct should have been to, okay, how can we make the series more what they want and obviously what they should have done was bring it back down to earth.

992
01:04:25.139 --> 01:04:28.860
Bring it down to Earth, change Collins, costume, et cetera, et cetera.

993
01:04:28.980 --> 01:04:30.480
And literally bring it back down to earth.

994
01:04:30.539 --> 01:04:33.420
Set it in the present day so that you don't have...

995
01:04:33.420 --> 01:04:35.820
Pizarro costumes and these huge performances.

996
01:04:35.880 --> 01:04:40.860
They should have gone, this is what they want from Dodger, but they lacked any of that kind of introspection.

997
01:04:40.920 --> 01:04:45.719
But remember, the show was cancelled halfway through season 22 going out.

998
01:04:45.780 --> 01:04:46.559
Okay?

999
01:04:46.619 --> 01:04:55.079
It was not actually cancelled. because the high-ups thought that season 22 was absolutely terrible.

1000
01:04:55.139 --> 01:04:59.039
They probably just thought that anyway because they thought Doctor Who was terrible.

1001
01:04:59.159 --> 01:04:59.699
Okay.

1002
01:04:59.760 --> 01:05:03.300
Michael Gray cancels it is because he wants to use the money for something else.

1003
01:05:03.360 --> 01:05:05.820
He wants different shows, right?

1004
01:05:05.880 --> 01:05:11.579
And so they retrospectively proclaims that it had gone off the rails, it had lost its way, right?

1005
01:05:11.639 --> 01:05:15.300
Now he probably never thought it had its way, to be fair.

1006
01:05:15.360 --> 01:05:28.440
And so you get this kind of retcon that there was something wrong with the show that went off the air, and I know one can argue that there are issues with season 22 and there are issues with the show and there are issues with what they're doing and they need to be less backward looking and more forward looking at all the rest of it.

1007
01:05:28.559 --> 01:05:32.280
But it wasn't really why the show was cancelled in 85.

1008
01:05:32.519 --> 01:05:38.280
And when they get the reprieve that, okay, you can come back the following year, but we'll have the season, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1009
01:05:38.340 --> 01:05:42.059
They're given absolutely no direction as to what was actually wrong with it.

1010
01:05:42.119 --> 01:05:43.739
And this is my big question.

1011
01:05:43.800 --> 01:05:45.719
Okay, so they thought the show had gone off the rails.

1012
01:05:45.780 --> 01:05:53.219
Where were they a year earlier when they were seeing playback copies of the Awakening or the twin dilemma going, we don't want this.

1013
01:05:53.280 --> 01:05:56.400
This is what we want. to their program makers.

1014
01:05:56.460 --> 01:05:59.099
When it's put on hiatus and it comes back.

1015
01:05:59.159 --> 01:06:05.880
Why does J&T come away with a nebulous idea that they want more comedy rather than a detailed 3 hours long meeting?

1016
01:06:05.940 --> 01:06:07.260
Because they didn't give a damn.

1017
01:06:07.320 --> 01:06:11.099
Yeah, but that's professional malpractice.

1018
01:06:11.159 --> 01:06:15.960
But the reason they didn't give a damn was it was past its use by date.

1019
01:06:16.019 --> 01:06:18.539
You know, like it wasn't important.

1020
01:06:18.599 --> 01:06:24.119
If it was well loved, then they wouldn't have pulled the plug, I think.

1021
01:06:24.179 --> 01:06:29.699
Because they bring it back to get media and fans in some respects, media off their back.

1022
01:06:30.239 --> 01:06:34.199
Really, because they've realised they've created a public relations disaster by cancelling the show.

1023
01:06:34.260 --> 01:06:35.639
And they brought it back as 14 episodes.

1024
01:06:35.699 --> 01:06:45.719
It's a drop in the ocean of their budget. to drop in the ocean of their budget because it may be 14 episodes, but it's not like it's basically, I think, still getting the same amount of money per episode, which I think does improve in the back end of the McCoy era, does it?

1025
01:06:45.780 --> 01:06:46.199
A little bit.

1026
01:06:46.260 --> 01:06:52.199
But point being, it doesn't receive, it's just a tokenistic presence.

1027
01:06:52.260 --> 01:06:55.679
In fact, the show would have been so much better if it had come back on BBC 2 or something.

1028
01:06:55.739 --> 01:06:56.219
You know what I mean?

1029
01:06:56.280 --> 01:07:00.119
Like, and then it could have just lived there, probably, and it may have run through the 90s like that.

1030
01:07:22.380 --> 01:07:25.199
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.

1031
01:07:25.260 --> 01:07:33.119
We'll be back next week for another bimonthly meeting of the Cato Mara Appreciation Society with Time and the Rani.

1032
01:07:33.179 --> 01:07:50.699
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can keep up with us on our website, 500yearDiary.com, where you'll find our social media links, as well as links to all of our other podcasts, including our other Doctor Who podcasts, Flight through Entirety, and the 2nd grade and Bountiful Human Empire.

1033
01:07:51.119 --> 01:07:59.820
Until next time, could the mentor guiding the induction centre please tuck in his neck flaps before HR gets involved?

1034
01:07:59.880 --> 01:08:02.460
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

1035
01:08:02.519 --> 01:08:03.659
Good night.

1036
01:08:03.719 --> 01:08:04.380
Good night.

1037
01:08:04.440 --> 01:08:04.920
Bye bye.

1038
01:08:15.480 --> 01:08:21.539
That was 500 year diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffith, Simon Moore, and Kate Orman.

1039
01:08:21.600 --> 01:08:23.939
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamm.

1040
01:08:24.000 --> 01:08:30.659
This episode, capturing and escaping, was recorded on the 6th of April 2025, and released on the 8th of June.

1041
01:08:30.960 --> 01:08:38.220
With the current season of Doctor Who over, the flight through entirety team has now discussed every episode of Doctor Who.

1042
01:08:38.340 --> 01:08:52.140
Doctors one to 12 on Flight Through Entirety, Dr. 13 on Jody Interterterra, and doctors 14 and 15 on the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire, more than 13 days of Doctor Who content.

1043
01:08:52.260 --> 01:08:54.300
So you'd better get started right away.

1044
01:09:00.779 --> 01:09:03.720
I find it sort of curious, that's disappointing.

1045
01:09:03.779 --> 01:09:08.399
I mean, has it been established that they always intended to kill Perry, and then they chickened out at the end?

1046
01:09:08.460 --> 01:09:09.119
Is that what happened?

1047
01:09:10.079 --> 01:09:12.479
Chickened out in ultimate foe.

1048
01:09:12.539 --> 01:09:23.100
From what I understand, J and T told Nicola at her leaving party, which was after the location of MindWarp, which was done after the studio work, that Perry wasn't going to die.

1049
01:09:23.220 --> 01:09:25.859
So they'd already decided basically when they chot it.

1050
01:09:25.920 --> 01:09:34.739
Oh, that's an odd decision because if they're, it's, I mean, back in the day when you had contract roulette, that's where people get left on strange planets strangely.

1051
01:09:34.800 --> 01:09:35.460
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1052
01:09:35.460 --> 01:09:39.000
Whereas, it's weird, whereas Perry is not a five-minute companion.

1053
01:09:39.060 --> 01:09:44.939
You know, Jane, he goes to the effort of creating an end story for Turlow.

1054
01:09:45.000 --> 01:09:47.579
Adric at least gets a sort of proper death.

1055
01:09:47.640 --> 01:09:55.800
Nissa is sort of contract roulette, but at least it makes sense in the context of her character that she can find out more about telebiogenesis or whatever.

1056
01:09:56.039 --> 01:09:59.279
Bonnie is contract roulette roulette.

1057
01:09:59.399 --> 01:10:00.239
At the end of Dragon Fire.

1058
01:10:00.300 --> 01:10:01.380
Yes, that's true.

1059
01:10:01.439 --> 01:10:03.539
And so we've always regressed is what I'm saying.

1060
01:10:03.600 --> 01:10:05.819
Well, no, I think that this is contract roulette.

1061
01:10:05.880 --> 01:10:14.520
I think they, and I think too, it's super cynical because I don't think you should kill the companions.

1062
01:10:14.579 --> 01:10:16.380
I don't think it ever works.

1063
01:10:16.439 --> 01:10:21.659
I think it's a bad idea for characters that we have grown to love, to be killed.

1064
01:10:21.720 --> 01:10:25.079
I don't think that it helps the drama because it's Doctor Who.

1065
01:10:25.140 --> 01:10:28.500
It's not like, ooh, maybe Perry or be killed this week.

1066
01:10:28.560 --> 01:10:30.239
Like, that's not how you're watching it.

1067
01:10:30.300 --> 01:10:31.199
You know.

1068
01:10:31.260 --> 01:10:33.899
So it doesn't add to the sort of precarity.

1069
01:10:33.960 --> 01:10:35.579
It doesn't make the doctor.

1070
01:10:35.640 --> 01:10:37.800
It's just cheap, you know.

1071
01:10:37.859 --> 01:10:39.359
And so you do this.

1072
01:10:39.479 --> 01:10:42.539
Like, you do it to Adric, and what happens?

1073
01:10:42.539 --> 01:10:43.199
As a one-off.

1074
01:10:43.260 --> 01:10:46.439
Yeah, 5 minutes later, Adric wouldn't want us to mourn.

1075
01:10:46.500 --> 01:10:48.720
Let's all go to the great exhibition.

1076
01:10:49.260 --> 01:10:52.319
But imagine if Ershock was the last episode of the season.

1077
01:10:52.380 --> 01:10:53.460
That would have been something.

1078
01:10:53.520 --> 01:10:55.979
Yeah, but then here, do you know what I mean?

1079
01:10:56.039 --> 01:11:00.899
Like we then have a recess so that we don't have to see the doctor deal with the news at all.

1080
01:11:00.960 --> 01:11:06.899
He comes back and says something and now we have a new companion as the valleyard.

1081
01:11:07.979 --> 01:11:09.359
That's right.

1082
01:11:09.420 --> 01:11:10.560
Yes, a bit better, isn't it?

1083
01:11:10.619 --> 01:11:13.140
And then we and then we walk it back anyway.

1084
01:11:13.199 --> 01:11:14.100
Do you know what I mean?

1085
01:11:14.159 --> 01:11:21.840
And give her a dumb ending, a dumb contract roulette ending, rather than the kind of impressively terrifying ending that we got on screen.

1086
01:11:21.899 --> 01:11:26.460
It just shows a whole lack of bravery on the part of the production team and they want to deliver.

1087
01:11:26.520 --> 01:11:27.239
Yes, that's right.

1088
01:11:27.300 --> 01:11:33.539
They wanted to deliver this big shock and they do, but they also want to walk it back and you think, oh, have the courage.

1089
01:11:33.600 --> 01:11:34.319
But how do you walk it back?

1090
01:11:34.380 --> 01:11:38.760
just because Linda Bellingham says it in one line at the very end that this half of the people...

1091
01:11:38.760 --> 01:11:39.420
There's a flashback.

1092
01:11:39.479 --> 01:11:40.859
That's true.

1093
01:11:41.819 --> 01:11:43.199
Yeah.

1094
01:11:43.260 --> 01:11:46.800
No, I, like, I think it's terrible, but I think the whole idea is misconceived.

1095
01:11:46.859 --> 01:11:47.520
You know what I mean?

1096
01:11:47.579 --> 01:11:57.420
And the way that you do it properly is when you have proper actors and stuff and then you kill Clara and then you give Peter Capaldi a whole episode in which to process that.

1097
01:11:57.479 --> 01:11:58.920
And that show.

1098
01:11:58.920 --> 01:12:00.659
That version of Doctor Who.

1099
01:12:00.720 --> 01:12:01.979
I haven't actually killed.

1100
01:12:02.039 --> 01:12:03.000
Exactly.

1101
01:12:03.000 --> 01:12:04.140
But we have.

1102
01:12:04.199 --> 01:12:04.800
She's dead.

1103
01:12:04.920 --> 01:12:06.060
We just go back and fast.

1104
01:12:06.119 --> 01:12:06.779
Well that's okay.

1105
01:12:06.840 --> 01:12:14.340
I get what you're saying, but actually that's what annoys me about that thing is because it's Doctor Who's not about that sort of thing.

1106
01:12:14.399 --> 01:12:20.819
Doctor Who's not about that sort of grieving and that sort of processing of people's deaths because, you know, people get killed all the time.

1107
01:12:20.880 --> 01:12:26.220
Like, I prefer the Pyramids of Mars thing where Sarah is grieving the death of whoever it was.

1108
01:12:26.220 --> 01:12:28.560
And, um, and...

1109
01:12:28.560 --> 01:12:30.720
Oh, Dr. Lawrence. it's Lawrence Garman.

1110
01:12:30.779 --> 01:12:34.800
And she says, a man's just been killed and the doctor says 5 men or whatever the number is.

1111
01:12:34.859 --> 01:12:35.640
Do you know what I mean?

1112
01:12:35.699 --> 01:12:36.720
That's kind of what you want.

1113
01:12:36.779 --> 01:12:39.899
So just think about instillary character, not the companion.

1114
01:12:39.960 --> 01:12:43.199
Think about the death of Scooty Minister in the...

1115
01:12:43.199 --> 01:12:46.380
We're probably well past what I'm going to broadcast.

1116
01:12:46.500 --> 01:12:55.439
Think about the death of Scooty Minister in the Impossible Planet, where she is just the 1st person to die and it's properly affecting and everyone cares about it.

1117
01:12:55.560 --> 01:12:58.859
And I think that Doctor Who can do that and should do that.

1118
01:12:58.920 --> 01:13:17.159
And one of the things that it can do in the new series is because generally speaking, we've got time, we're more character focussed and let's say some of the actors are better, we can deal with that grief.

1119
01:13:17.220 --> 01:13:22.380
But in this era, in the 80s, we're killing companions off and we, like, what's the point?

1120
01:13:22.439 --> 01:13:24.180
Well, it's a TV show.

1121
01:13:24.239 --> 01:13:28.560
Yeah, but it's like a cheap shock that doesn't really go anywhere.

1122
01:13:28.619 --> 01:13:32.159
I think, well, look, I don't mind the cheap shock.

1123
01:13:32.279 --> 01:13:37.140
I think that's part of this genre of television as it existed in this era.

1124
01:13:37.199 --> 01:13:47.760
And basically what you want is you want the that big moment where, like, I mean, the reason why the end credits run silently at the end of the shock is because what it was Corey, that something like that happened on crossroads, maybe?

1125
01:13:47.819 --> 01:13:49.680
Crossroads, something rubbish like that.

1126
01:13:49.739 --> 01:13:52.619
I mean, but the point is that it's it's what...

1127
01:13:52.619 --> 01:13:54.180
Doctor Who being that rubbish.

1128
01:13:54.239 --> 01:13:54.840
Exactly.

1129
01:13:54.899 --> 01:13:56.100
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1130
01:13:56.159 --> 01:13:58.560
And that's what that's what it kind of is.

1131
01:13:58.619 --> 01:13:59.279
Yes.

1132
01:14:00.420 --> 01:14:02.220
Let's end on that.

1133
01:14:02.279 --> 01:14:04.680
Doctor Who is kind of rubbish.